(Author Notes expanded, 9th August, 2016)

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Note: The following short sketch is set in an alternate universe, where Walburga Black kept her son, Regulus, away from the Death Eaters and ensured that he took a consort to her satisfaction, to ensure the continuation of the Black family name and line. In this piece, Regulus has taken his eldest child, Alcyone, to visit a relative...

Further Note: This piece was mostly written, before J.K. Rowling started producing material about the magical USA. As far as this piece is concerned, the magical USA's government is called 'The Covenant' and they're not too fussed about witch/wizard and muggle relationships (so long as the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy is kept to), although they have problems of their own with dark wizards who hate muggles.

Rating: This piece is rated 'M' due to references to adult nudity, and due to the hinted-at, underlying, dark, 'private matter' of the Black family.

"Does grandmother know that we're doing this?" nine year old Alcyone Black asked her father.

It was the spring of 1989, and Alcyone and her father, Regulus, had gone to America. Since part of their travelling was amongst muggles, they had dressed in a fashion muggles had called 'Sunday Best', with Alcyone in grey dress, grey jacket, and white blouse, and her father in a white shirt and in a grey what was known to muggles as a 'business suit'.

"She knows. She doesn't approve." her father answered Alcyone's question. "But your Uncle Sirius, no matter what your grandmother and all the others say, and no matter what he does, is still my brother anyway. Your grandmother doesn't like it, but she understands it."

Alcyone Black nervously surveyed the area which she and her father had travelled to by means of first an international portkey and then one of those muggle horseless carriage contraptions known as a 'taxi'. The place might, beneath the scattered crumpled and broken-looking muggle carriages, the piles of broken bottles, and the haphazardly strewn black bags from which all manner of unpleasant smells emerged, once have been some kind of park or formal garden. Now it was a wasteland, with only a few trees clinging on grimly in the midst of the desolation.

And in the centre of this was some sort of muggle-built contraption, standing on several wheels and metal props, shelled in gleaming metal, and with a number of (darkened glass) windows. It was some sort of dwelling Alcyone realised. A couple of not-quite-so wrecked muggle horseless carriages were arranged next to the entrance, and the hairs on the back of Alcyone's neck prickled as she and her father approached the door of the dwelling, at the sense of powerful magic.

"Your uncle has some odd habits." her father passed Alcyone a small glass vial (retrieved from one of his suit pockets) as they stopped in front of the door, and produced another one for himself. "Amongst others, he has taken at times to inhaling the fumes of various herbal mixtures. Whilst he's used to them and their effects, you and I need protecting from them. These potions should do that for the duration of our call here."

Her father unstoppered and knocked back the contents of his vial, grimacing slightly as he did so, and then looked expectantly at Alcyone.

Alcyone did the same, but the stuff tasted absolutely awful, and her father hugged her as the ghastly burning taste slid down her throat and she did her best to blink away the tears in silence. Grandmother said, after all, that Blacks did not cry.

Her father took the empty vial from her and tucked it back away in a pocket.

"Brave girl." her father said. "Now, let's go and see your big bad uncle in his lair, eh?"

Her father's knocking on the door of the residence was eventually answered by a young woman who Alcyone first mistakenly thought was trying to dress as if in a Roman toga. After a few moments, Alcyone amended that notion, with the realisation that the woman was simply wrapped in a bed-sheet, under which she was presumably wearing nothing at all.

This shocked her so much – that a person could answer a door to callers in such a fashion – that she had difficulty taking in details of what was going on around her, as they followed the woman through the first half-dozen rooms.

It was after that that she realised that this place where her uncle lived was apparently much much bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside – presumably there was a lot of magic involved.

It sort of looked like it was supposed to be a castle on the inside, with fake stone interior walls and 'arrow slit' windows, although the furnishings everywhere, bar the occasional suit of full-plate armour or heraldic shields and weapons on the walls, were blatantly muggle. There were muggle chairs, muggle tables with muggle magazines and muggle devices spread across them, muggle wall hangings created by what looked to have been very bad artists, and muggle imitation plants-in-pots.

They arrived at last in a room which had a huge pool, at least thirty feet long, sunk into the floor, and with large windows all along one wall that apparently looked out over a sea which certainly hadn't been anywhere near the door in the metal residence that Alcyone and her father had walked in through. There was a door out onto an open-air terrace.

"This man who says he's your brother's here, with a girl he says is your niece, Siri." the woman who'd met Alcyone and her father announced as they entered this last room, starting to unwind the sheet from about herself as she did so.

"Well if he hasn't gone mad yet, he must be who he said he was." a dark-haired man in a kimono replied. He was sitting up in the middle of a spread of cushions, pillows and duvets, arranged across the floor a short way back from the edge of the pool. He was equipped with some sort of muggle musical instrument which looked like it was related to a guitar – although a guitar, part of which had gone missing.

The woman giggled, and completed discarding the sheet, revealing that she was indeed wearing nothing underneath, and bent down to kiss the man in the kimono, before turning and taking a quick few steps to dive into the pool.

The three other women already in the pool and (Alcyone risked a glance) apparently not wearing very much either, shrieked as the newcomer splashed in to join them. Alcyone hurriedly turned her attention away from them, and concentrated on the man with the instrument instead.

"Reggie." the man acknowledged her father without moving from where he sat.

"Sirius." her father acknowledged the other man.

"You're going grey – and not just in what you're wearing. Well greyer than before, that is."

"And you're looking exactly like whatever it is a muggle rock-star is supposed to look like." Alcyone's father said. "Look, Sirius, can we skip the sneers? I brought Alcyone to see you."

The man, who apparently was Alcyone's uncle, seemed to think about this for a few moments, strumming his part-guitar as he did so, then nodded and put the instrument aside and got very slowly to his feet. He came forward and took Alcyone's left hand and raised it up and very slowly and deliberately lowered his head to kiss it. He took much longer doing it than etiquette said that he should, and Alcyone wasn't sure if she should feel insulted or very pleased.

"Miss Black." he said, in a slightly drawling, slightly formal, tone, which sounded both slightly mocking and very polite at the same time. "It is an honour to see you in my humble abode." He let fall her hand, straightened up, and glanced at her father. "See, Reggie: I can remember the rules still, of how to play-act."

Alcyone's father sighed.

The next hour or so was somewhat confusing for Alcyone. Her father and her uncle were clearly at odds on some things, and there was a sense of almost-bickering at times between them. At one point her uncle sent for a hookah, and spent five minutes doing nothing but using it and fiddling away with his part-guitar again, then spent several minutes frantically scribbling things on a piece of paper with a muggle writing device, whilst practically ignoring Alcyone and her father. Alcyone's uncle apparently didn't have any house-elves, but there seemed to be a lot of women around the place, none of them much older, Alcyone estimated, than thirty, and all of whom seemed to want very much to please her uncle. Most of them wore very little, two seemed to be 'getting big' in the way that women having babies did, one of them actually had a baby with her, and there were several toddlers at times wandering in and out of the room in which she and her father were talking with her uncle.

Alcyone's father at one point made a reference to them as her uncle's 'harem', which seemed to amuse her uncle, deeply, as he gave a short, sharp, barking laugh.

After a while, Alcyone was shocked to realise that at least several of the woman around the place were muggles.

"Should they be around here? Being muggles, I mean?" Alcyone blurted out once she realised this. Her uncle looked at her as if she'd gone crazy. She tried to clarify: "I mean isn't it illegal or something, them knowing?"

"This is America, and I'm a Black. Or ex-Black. The American 'covenant' are too relieved that I'm not running around burning down muggle settlements like some of their home-grown dark-wizards to bother me over a few incidences of possible near-breaches of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy." Alcyone's uncle responded. "And anyway, once I 'take one of them to bed' it makes them near-family, as far as the American law-nobs are concerned. So long as I had reason to believe that any non-magicals were 'above the age of muggle consent' and none of them make any kind of fuss in public, or go kiss-and-tell with the American muggle press the law-nobs don't care what I get up to."

Eventually, it became clear to Alcyone that this visit was coming to a close. Uncle Sirius again did a formal hand-kissing thing to her. He added something odd to it: "Adieu, Miss Black; it has been an honour to receive you in my humble halls. And whatever idiocies your father may have perpetrated, he and I remain brothers, and I will not count against you what wrongs he has done – nor count them against any of your brothers or sisters."

She wanted to ask her uncle what he meant by that, but her father gave her a warning look, which indicated that she should keep quiet about it, so she did for now.

Her father and her uncle exchanged much less formal leave-taking words.

Several minutes later, they were back outside the door of the metal thing where they had entered Alcyone's uncle's residence.

"What was that Uncle Sirius meant?" Alcyone asked, as they stood there, waiting for the arrival of the 'taxi' which her uncle had insisted (even though they could portkey back to Britain as easily from here as anywhere else) that he would send for to pick them up. "About what you'd done wrong?"

Her father was silent for a time, and she was actually starting to wonder if he'd heard, and she was about to repeat herself when he suddenly replied:

"He guesses some things, I think. Things which your grandma insisted were my duty to the family. Things which might be wrong – very wrong – and which I will one day have to stand to account for. You must understand that for all of us older Blacks – including grandma, and even your Uncle Sirius, although he wouldn't admit it – we were brought up to think that because we are Blacks, rules written by other people shouldn't apply to us if they get in the way of what we want. Nothing matters more than our duty to our selves, our children, and our elders – although your uncle has managed to break the habit of the 'duty to our elders' bit, which is why he went away. Your uncle guesses at some of the rules which I've ignored, but he means to let me answer for it in my own time, and he certainly wouldn't try to hurt you or make you suffer for it, because of what I've done. Don't ask me about those things or guess about them; I will name them, to those to whose business it is to sit in judgement, and to you, when the proper time for me to do so comes. And until then, they must remain unspoken, and secret."

Author Notes:

By the date of this piece, the (first) British Wizarding War is assumed to be some time over - it concluded with Lord Voldemort attacking the Longbottom family, in person, and being 'killed'. Neville Longbottom may or may not have a piece of Lord Voldemort's soul stuck in his forehead and be known as 'The Boy Who Lived'.

Once the Wizarding War was over, the Marauders broke up, and went their separate ways. Sirius (who as in canon was thrown out of the Black family by his mother) has ended up in the USA, where he enjoys a career in the muggle world as a rock star.

I'm not sure (at the time of these notes) on what date Walburga Black died in canon, but at the time of this piece she is still very much alive in this universe and (mostly) running her son Regulus' family for him. Regulus in this universe was never a Death Eater and (by the time of this piece) has never had any contact with (or gained knowledge of) any of Lord Voldemort's horcruxes. (Nor has Kreacher.)

Sirius' 'harem' are attracted to him entirely on the basis of his fame, his money (earned in the muggle world, where he is a moderately 'big' name in the rock music industry), and his natural charm. No coercion/spells/potions are involved at all.

The things which Regulus has done which 'might be wrong' came about as a result of a prophecy that his mother heard (in the late 1970's) about the future/destiny of the Black family, and which (although it might be distasteful) she insisted that he 'do his duty to the family' and assist her in bringing about. At the time Regulus was too dutiful a son and too weak-willed to say 'no' to her about it. He follows through with the consequences to this day, although he tries to act moderately, and intends (once his mother is dead, and at least the oldest of his children are of age and able to take over running family affairs and look after their younger siblings) to go to Magical Law Enforcement and explain what he has done. In the meantime, Regulus engages in occasional, low-level, acts of rebellion against his mother, such as keeping in occasional contact with the brother that his mother disowned and taking his eldest daughter to meet said brother.

Lily Evans disappeared on the day in 1978 that she concluded her school days at Hogwarts. She went to one of the onboard toilets, 'to freshen up', and that was the last that anyone ever saw of her in public. She is assumed a victim of a Death Eater attack. James Potter moped about her for six months, then married Lily's friend, Mary MacDonald. Remus Lupin is a frequent guest at their home.

If Peter Pettigrew betrayed his friends and the Order of the Phoenix in this universe, it was never exposed.

Severus Snape presented himself to Albus Dumbledore in mid-1980. He claimed that he had 'gone undercover' into the Death Eaters to try and find out what had happened to Lily Evans, but that he had had no luck on that count. Recently, however, the Dark Lord had developed a fixation on the Longbottom family which Severus found deeply disturbing (and indeed outright wrong). Severus wanted Albus' help. Albus said: 'Sure, if you stay where you are and now spy for me'.

This piece is a one-shot. The lack of mention of Regulus' wife in it is intentional, because nobody talks about her very much, and indeed it's a matter of some speculation in Wizarding Britain as to whether she actually exists (although obviously Regulus' children have come from somewhere.) Officially, Walburga has made it known that she is a pitiable and 'feeble minded' witch, who is not at all appropriate for public company.

(More on Sirius and the Black family: 9th August, 2016)

Sirius sees no connection between Lily disappearing and his brother, Regulus, acquiring a wife. Sirius has no idea how desperate his mother, Walburga, was, or that a prophecy was involved. As far as Sirius is concerned, his brother's wife is probably a half-blood or a technically 'pure-blood' squib who for some (probably deeply fishy) reason (a forced marriage maybe? a part non-human?) is such a social embarrassment that she's being kept out of sight.

Sirius, as with practically everyone else, assumes that Death Eaters were responsible for Lily's disappearance, with strong suspicions in his case that Severus Snape may have been involved. That, combined with the way that Albus spoke up for Severus at the end of the war, may have contributed in part to Sirius leaving Wizarding Britain (in disgust) after the Wizarding War concluded. From Sirius' perspective, 'Snivellus' must have known something about Lily's disappearance; why didn't Albus wring it out of him? (Albus in fact questioned Severus most thoroughly, in private, regarding Lily's disappearance, given it was partly why Severus admitted to Albus that he went into the Death Eaters, and Albus satisfied himself that Severus was as uninvolved in Lily's disappearance and as lacking in knowledge of what had actually happened to her, as Albus, himself was. Of course the fact that Severus' attempts to enquire about Lily Evans in the Death Eaters never discovered anything about her fate does not prove that the Death Eaters were not involved to Albus; merely that either the Death Eaters Severus asked knew nothing, or that Severus was not highly enough placed or charismatic enough to discover anything which those he asked did know.)

The Marauders are assumed to still occasionally all 'get back together' for an evening for a drink or two and to reminisce about old times and all that marvelous fun which they had at Hogwarts...

It's possible that not having the locket horcrux around the house may have contributed to Walburga having a better state of health and mind than in canon. Also still having a son alive and at home to 'manage' gives her more to 'live for'.

Alcyone currently believes her grandmother, Walburga, who is usually so nice to Alcyone, and buys her such wonderful birthday and Christmas presents, on anything which Walburga has to say about Alcyone's mother, who is kept shut away as practically a 'mad woman in the attic'. Alcyone knows her mother is alive, and is kept in seclusion, but she is only nine years old as of this piece. At some point, as she gets older, she's going to start to question if grandmother Walburga really does 'know best'.