SIRIUS BLACK
AND THE BIRD OF SCELERO

CHAPTER 1:
THE CAGE

Grimmauld Place, 1972:

The imposing, dark-eyed man led the way up a grand staircase. Centuries of noble upbringing were evident in his haughty expression, and in his hand was a small item obscured from view by a swath of velvet. Behind him, a twelve-year-old boy with globs of pudding in his black hair followed, wearing a rather triumphant expression.

Sirius hadn't planned to blow up the dessert. It had simply been a spur-of-the-moment decision upon spotting his mother's scowl at the Gryffindor rosette stuck to his lapel, where he had placed it for maximum visibility.

He smirked at the back of his father's robes, which were still stained with a few remnants of pudding that his cleaning spell had missed. Still, he couldn't help feeling slightly apprehensive at the thought of whatever it was his father was holding. Orion Black's collection of Dark objects was, as far as Sirius knew, unrivaled, and a new addition could hardly bode well for his troublemaking son.

Orion opened the door to Sirius's bedroom and glared down at him as he flopped onto the bed in what he hoped was a carefree, confident manner. Sirius weighed his odds. There was a chance that if he apologized now, he might be given a reprieve. He nearly laughed aloud at himself for even thinking such a thing. Sirius looked around the bedroom at the many Gryffindor banners he'd hung this summer, his first time home since being Sorted, and felt a glowing pride at the thought of how very much unlike his parents he was.

With a look of deepest disappointment at his son, Orion placed the velvet-covered object on a table beside the bed. He turned to leave, and Sirius found he couldn't help himself.

"What is it, then?"

Orion reached the door. "Something to assist you in reflecting upon your behavior."

The bedroom door snapped shut behind him, and Sirius heard the unpleasant click of the lock which meant he'd be exiled here until further notice.

He wasn't going near the mysterious object. Not because he was frightened of it, of course. He just knew that his father assumed that curiosity would get the better of him, and he'd open it up for himself. But Sirius was much too clever for that. He would let the stupid thing sit there indefinitely, and eventually when they let him out of the room they'd see that he hadn't been interested enough to look.

The only problem was that it was quite boring, just sitting here by himself. The prank preceding tonight's dessert debacle had already cost him his owl privileges, and Sirius would sooner shake hands with Snivellus Snape than peruse the pure-blood propaganda pamphlets his mother had left on his bed before dinner.

He hated being bored...

Maybe just a peek, then.

Sirius approached the veiled object with some caution. It was no larger than a tea kettle and seemed quite stationary. He slid the covering off and revealed, to his surprise, a small, antique birdcage. It looked entirely unremarkable, but then so did most of his father's trinkets. Although he knew better than to go prodding around Dark artifacts, there was something oddly compelling about the little cage. Without really knowing why, Sirius reached forward and opened its tiny iron door.

He jumped back in surprise, for, suddenly, he was no longer alone.

Grimmauld Place, Present Day:

Nearly a quarter of a century had passed, and Grimmauld Place was showing its age. The once-grand staircase groaned as it was scaled by Sirius, now fully grown and unrecognizable from the boy with pudding in his hair.

Much as it had done to the house, time had turned Sirius into barely an echo of himself. The last two years spent as a fugitive were evident in the dark shadows under his eyes and the way his robes hung from his bony frame. Although the couple of weeks he'd spent at Remus's had at least afforded him access to a shower and a haircut, he still bore the look of someone who'd been living in the shadows for far too long.

Sirius reached the landing and pushed open the door to his old bedroom. With a flick of his wand (a new one procured for him by Dumbledore, which felt slightly cold and unfamiliar), the lamps burst into light and the details of the room came into focus. The place looked just as he remembered it. In the intervening years between his first summer home from Hogwarts and the day he'd run away at sixteen, many more Gryffindor banners had made their way onto the walls, hiding nearly every inch of the fussy, regal wallpaper. This was helped by the addition of several large and stationary photographs of Muggle women in bikinis. Sirius grinned to himself as he remembered his mother's spluttering outrage on seeing them. As traditional and decorum-minded as she was, she'd been infinitely more outraged by the implication that her own son could have found filthy Muggles, of all things! attractive enough to ogle.

His eyes fell on a patch of wall unobscured by banners or pinups. Here, a small photograph hung unframed and unassuming. Its position on the wall and the way nothing else had been hung around it made it seem rather more important than the room's other decorations.

From inside their little paper universe, four teenage boys laughed and grinned, their arms around each other, looking for all the world like brothers. Sirius could barely recognize himself - that good-looking, confident boy was a stranger to him now. He smiled as he gazed into the image of James's beaming face. Unlike his own likeness, this was James as Sirius remembered him. He realized, with a familiar pain in his chest, that of course he remembered him like this. He had died just a few years after this photo had been taken.

And there was Remus. The sight of him smiling in his school robes reminded Sirius of the cautious, guarded way Remus had spoken to him this summer, the first time they'd spent together since that night in the Shrieking Shack when the truth had come out.

Sirius's pulse quickened as he moved on to the last boy in the photograph. Peter Pettigrew, with his arm around James, beaming and thrilled to be part of the group. Sirius felt the nausea, the rage, the recklessness that took him over every time he thought of Pettigrew, this time amplified by the image of him arm-in-arm with the friends he'd doomed to misery and death.

There was no question: he still wanted Pettigrew dead. At the very least, he wanted him to feel what he, Sirius, had felt every day in Azkaban. That unique blend of hopelessness and self-loathing, and bitter, agonizing remorse.

With a burst of rage, Sirius grabbed the edge of the photograph and attempted to rip it from the wall. It wouldn't budge. He had a brief memory of himself at sixteen, casting the Permanent Sticking Charm he'd learned to employ on all his bedroom decorations. He aimed his wand at the image of Pettigrew's face.

"Flagrate!"

A fiery burn appeared on the photo, disfiguring Pettigrew, but then the image reformed as good as new. His younger self had done the thing properly, it seemed.

Sirius turned his back on the photograph. Downstairs, the rest of the Order of the Phoenix was busy casting protective spells and preparing the house for its new role as headquarters. He'd been planning to stay in his old bedroom, but he knew he'd never rest with the traitor watching him from the wall.

The door slammed shut behind him, and the dusty bedroom was plunged into darkness.

"Harry, look out!"

Sirius turned in time to see his godson dodge the large, rusty bear trap zooming through the air in erratic spirals.

The bear trap turned on Molly Weasley, gnashing its metal spikes like horrible, rusty teeth, and Harry's friend Hermione raised her wand.

"Immobulus!"

The trap crashed motionless to the floor. Ron and Ginny Weasley cheered, causing Hermione to turn slightly pink.

"Excellent work, Hermione," said Remus.

Two of Molly's other sons, identical twins Fred and George, were looking at the bear trap with poorly concealed interest.

"What sort of charm was that, do you reckon?" asked Fred.

Sirius caught Remus's eye and grinned. They both knew that would-be casual tone far too well to be fooled.

"If it's in this house, you can bet it's a Dark one," Sirius replied.

They had begun in earnest the daunting task of clearing Grimmauld Place of all its Dark Magic and artifacts. As the house itself was practically evil, Sirius highly doubted whether this was a realistic mission. The fact that it was his only mission, however, was infinitely worse.

It had only been three months since the Order had set up shop here at Number 12, but for Sirius, the time had stretched on unbearably. Harry's arrival a few weeks prior had brightened his mood, but the feeling in the house was still tense as they all awaited the outcome of his upcoming hearing at the Ministry.

"If they do expel me, can I come back here and live with you?" Harry had asked.

Sirius had felt a rush of excitement at the thought. Surely his outcast status could only be improved by the presence of a friend.

And Harry was so very much like James.

"We'll see," he had replied. Definitely, he'd thought.

Molly straightened up from the large sack filled with objects they'd cleared from the study. She looked around the room appraisingly. "Well, that ought to be the last of it," she said. "I think you've all earned some lunch."

"Lunch?" said Ron, wiping his forehead. "We ought to've earned an Order of Merlin after that."

"It was a rather interesting room, wasn't it?" Remus said mildly.

The others filtered out, grateful for the reprieve from cleaning. Sirius, however, was not eager for a pause in activity. And he knew he wasn't alone. Several times, in moments like these when they weren't battling Black family heirlooms or chasing Kreacher back to his den, Sirius had caught Harry lapsing into an expression of deepest worry. He thought he quite understood how his godson was feeling. The busy moments were easier. The feeling of having something to do, even something very mundane, was perhaps the only thing preventing him from throwing caution to the wind and disregarding Dumbledore's orders to stay indoors.

"I have the strangest feeling there might be more lurking in here," Sirius said.
Harry stopped on the threshold and turned back with a small grin as Sirius wandered the newly-cleaned room, looking for an excuse not to join the lunch crowd. In the corner stood a massive walnut cabinet that none of them had been able to unlock. Sirius frowned at it. Surely it was filled with all manner of unseemly artifacts. This had, after all, been his father's study, and the objects they'd found in here had been significantly nastier than the ones confiscated from the rest of the house.

"What do you suppose is in there?" Harry asked as he joined Sirius in front of the cabinet.

"Only one way to find out. I suppose you know the spell?"

Harry grinned. "You're sure?"

"Positive. On three."

They backed away to the far side of the study, wands pointed at the handsome old cabinet.

"One... two... three—"

"Bombarda!"

With a great crash, the cabinet exploded into bits and sent clouds of dust and wood chips flying in all directions.

"Very nice," Sirius laughed. "Excellent form."

"Thanks," Harry replied. He waved aside the settling dust and peered into the remains of the cabinet. "It was empty after all."

"It can't have been," said Sirius, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice. He'd been vaguely hoping to encounter his father's old Vivisecting Vest, a brutish device that Orion Black had regarded as a collector's prize, and which would have surely helped them kill another half hour or so.

The sound of hurried footsteps interrupted Sirius's growing gloom, and he turned to see Remus in the doorway, wand raised and looking concerned.

"What happened?" he asked, taking in the wreckage of the cabinet.

Sirius shrugged. "Just cleaning."

Flicking his wand casually, Remus cleared the broken heap of wood into a neat pile in the corner.

"I think you've both cleaned enough. Lunch is ready."

Sirius heaved a sigh and followed Remus to the door.

"Wait — look at this!"

Harry was crouching on the floor near the spot where the cabinet had stood. In its place, miraculously undamaged by the force of the spell, was a small iron birdcage.

Sirius's eyes widened. He had forgotten about it — how had he forgotten about it? And here it was, after all this time.

As though it had been waiting for him.

He became aware of Remus watching him very closely, and hastily rearranged his face into what he hoped was a bored, only-vaguely-interested sort of expression.

"It doesn't seem dangerous," Harry said. "But I suppose the dangerous stuff never does, does it?"

"Quite right," said Remus. "I think we'd be best served to get rid of it. Don't you agree, Sirius?"
It was the strangest thing. For just a second, just one infinitesimal moment, Sirius felt like objecting. He opened his mouth to do so, but found his senses just in time.

"Of course," he said, running a hand through his hair with an effort at nonchalance. "It's the rubbish heap for you," he said to the empty cage.

Immediately, he regretted addressing it as though it could understand him, but neither Harry nor Remus seemed to have noticed. Remus simply raised the small cage into the air with his wand and deposited it into the sack of soon-to-be discarded objects.

The morning of Harry's hearing came more quickly than he, or Harry, he expected, could have prepared for. At daybreak Sirius found himself pacing the bedroom where he had been sleeping, which had once belonged to his mother, while Buckbeak the Hippogriff clicked his talons impatiently in the corner.

He knew, of course, that Harry belonged at Hogwarts, and that the threat of expulsion had been haunting his every moment since the night of the Dementor attack. He also knew that it was terrible to wish for companionship when it came at the expense of someone he cared about. But those thoughts came from the reasonable portion of his brain, which Sirius had never quite learned to balance with the side that whispered things like, when Harry leaves, you'll be alone again, or, it's just a prank, it won't hurt anyone, or, go after Pettigrew and get revenge.

Eventually, Sirius pulled himself from his thoughts and trudged downstairs to the kitchen. Remus, Molly and Arthur, Tonks, and Mad-Eye Moody were already seated at the table, each looking very grim.

Sirius dropped into the chair beside Remus and glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was still early. The hearing wouldn't begin for hours, and who knew how long it would last? He wasn't sure he wanted to know the outcome, but he was sure that waiting would be worse.

"Are you alright?" asked Remus quietly.

Sirius nodded.

"Well, what do we think?" Mad-Eye growled.

Molly, still in her dressing gown and fussing over the tea kettle, shot a glare in Mad-Eye's direction.

"I'm sure we all appreciate your pragmatism, Alastor, but this is not an appropriate setting for this conversation."

"Options need to be considered," Mad-Eye said, glaring back. "If Potter is expelled —"

"He will be absolutely heartbroken, which is why I'd prefer if you'd save your options until after he leaves the house."

Sirius sat up straighter.

"What options?" he asked, looking from Molly to Mad-Eye. "What are you talking about?"

Mad-Eye took a swig from his hip flask, apparently unconcerned that it was barely daylight.

"He's not going to last long in this war with only a fourth-year education. He'll need somebody to teach him, and a place to stay. From what I hear, those Muggles won't take him back on a year-round basis."'

"So who needs options?" Sirius asked defiantly. "He'll stay here with me, and Remus can teach him defense."

"Do you really think this is the best environment for him, Sirius?" Molly said. "He deserves a real home. A family."

"What am I, then?"

Remus cut in before Molly could reply. "As much as I'd be happy to continue Harry's Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons, I do agree that it would be preferable for him to have someone more consistent."

"You're synced up to the moon, for Merlin's sake. Who's more consistent than you?" But Sirius's attempt at levity did nothing to ease the dull weight that was sinking into his stomach. Why had he been stupid enough to let himself think that Dumbledore would allow Harry to live at Grimmauld Place?

An unbidden memory rose in Sirius's mind: a picture of himself at twenty-one years of age, standing outside the ruins of James and Lily's house, shaking with grief and pleading with Hagrid to let him take Harry. Dumbledore's orders, Hagrid had said.

Dumbledore's orders, which had left him to rot in Azkaban for twelve years.

Sirius realized with a jolt that all eyes were on him. The wand clutched in his hand had burned a small hole in the table.

He hastily repaired it and leaned back in his chair as though perfectly at ease.

At that moment the kitchen door creaked open and Harry entered, hunched over and looking as though he would very much like to sink into the stone floor and never resurface.

While Molly fretted over Harry's hair and clothes, Sirius slumped in his chair feeling glad the others were offering words of encouragement. He was having trouble summoning anything remotely positive or helpful to say.

"Don't lose your temper," he put in abruptly as the words popped into his head. "Be polite and stick to the facts."

The part of Sirius's mind that was responsible for mature thinking commended him for this very reasonable advice, even as he pushed aside the reality that he had never once taken heed of it himself.

"Brilliant! Really excellent. I knew you'd do fine." Sirius beamed at Harry, shaking his hand buoyantly.

"I didn't do anything, really," Harry said. He looked a bit dazed, but infinitely more relaxed than he had any other time this summer. Sirius could tell he was thrilled and trying to hide it.

"That must be quite a weight off, I'd imagine."

"Sirius —" Harry had the appearance of wanting to say something consoling, but at that moment there was a loud CRACK and the kitchen was filled with confetti.

As the Weasley twins and their sister broke into a triumphant chant, Sirius breathed a sigh of relief and slipped away across the room. He didn't think he could keep up this cheerful facade much longer.

"Maybe I can persuade Kreacher to get some drinks going," he called to no one in particular, and he hurried into the pantry and closed the door behind him.

The quiet was a relief. Sirius closed his eyes and leaned against the cool stone wall. So Harry would be returning to Hogwarts. He knew this was as it should be, that it was what James would have wanted. Even so, anger and frustration nearly overwhelmed him as he stood there, trying to sort out exactly who he was angry and frustrated with.

Figuring he ought to make a minimal effort to look for Kreacher, Sirius crossed the pantry and yanked open the small door that led to the house-elf's den. The disgusting little lair was dark and still, but with a flash of irritation, Sirius realized that it was littered once again with objects they had cleared from the drawing room and study. They lined the edge of Kreacher's bed like twigs in a bird's nest. Sirius spied an old shaving kit of his father's (fatal to anyone other than its owner), a Slytherin Prefect badge which he knew must have belonged to Regulus…

And the little iron birdcage.

The pantry door opened and Sirius spun around, slamming Kreacher's door shut as though he'd been caught in the act of something mischievous. It was only Remus. He closed the door behind him and surveyed Sirius with a thoughtful look.

"He's not in here, I take it?" Remus gestured at Kreacher's door.

"No. I expect he's creeping about somewhere, looking for more rubbish to steal," said Sirius, aiming for, but not quite achieving, a lighthearted tone. "Good news about Harry, isn't it?"

"Very good news. I know what it's like to think you'll never be able to go back. As do you."

"Yeah, well." Sirius shrugged uncomfortably. He wasn't sure where Remus was going with this, but it certainly wasn't making him feel any better. He tried for a change of subject. "I guess with all of them going back and Molly and Arthur leaving, it'll just be you and me staying here most of the time."

It was Remus's turn to shift in discomfort. "I meant to tell you. Dumbledore's given me another task."

Sirius stared at him. Remus had been such a fixture at Grimmauld Place this summer that he'd almost forgotten the dangerous job that waited for him with the werewolf tribes of the North.

"When?" Sirius asked.

"As soon as Harry and the others are safely on the train."

Sirius nodded. He wasn't sure what he was feeling, but it felt like a strange concoction of worry, loneliness, and resentment.

Remus seemed to sense the complexity of Sirius thoughts. He opened his mouth to speak, but then thought better of it and simply said, "Don't worry about finding Kreacher. I'll manage the drinks."

He gave Sirius a small, empty smile and left the pantry, letting in a burst of laughter and music that quickly died as the door swung closed again.

For a long moment, Sirius stood motionless in the small, cold room. Then a recognizable feeling came over him. It was a problem he'd had for as long as he could remember. You reckless lunatic, Lily had once chastised him jokingly. One day you're going to really hurt yourself, you know. You have absolutely no self-control.

As her voice echoed in his head, Sirius felt himself moving towards Kreacher's door and flinging it open. He stretched out a hand to retrieve the antique birdcage, and held it up to the flickering light of the pantry's solitary candle. There was a small mark on the base of the cage that at first glance might have been nothing more than a dent. But as Sirius ran his thumb across it, years of dust and grime were wiped away to reveal an engraving:

AVIS SCELERO

Sirius held the cage at eye level, a foolhardy glint in his eye. Then, having made up his mind, he stuffed it into the pocket of his robes and left the pantry. No one noticed as he made a silent escape from the boisterous festivities of the kitchen and headed upstairs to his mother's room.

Buckbeak greeted him with a bored squawk as he entered and quickly shut the door. Sirius placed the birdcage on a table near the bed and pulled up a chair so that he was sitting directly in front of it. He hesitated for a split second as the feeble voice of reason inside him issued a command to return to the party. Then, relegating the voice to the furthest corner of his mind, he unlatched the delicate door of the birdcage and opened it wide.

A blue glow emitted from the center of the cage. It grew brighter and sharper, like an old Muggle photograph coming into focus in its frame. Sirius sat back, watching as the shifting, formless light began to take on a shape.

And then it was there.

Perched on the bars of the cage sat a glimmering, transparent bird. It was ghostly and ethereal in the darkness of the bedroom, and as Sirius watched, it shook its tiny head as though clearing its thoughts, and stepped elegantly onto the table. The strange creature opened its wings and took flight around the room, swooping in graceful arcs before coming to rest on top of its cage. It peered at Sirius through black eyes, and then spoke.

"How long has it been, old friend?"

The voice was deep, full-throated, and smooth. It sounded too perfect to exist, too seductive and enticing to be real. And although it filled the room with crystal clarity, the Bird's beak did not open. It seemed to be transmitting its words through some other mysterious means.

Sirius raised an eyebrow at the Bird. "I don't know that friend would be my first choice."

"What else would you call me, Sirius Black?" the Bird asked silkily. "What other words exist for one who knows the deepest secrets of your mind?"

"A clever charm. A magic trick."

"Yes. But magic of this sort requires a willing participant. How touched I am, that you have remembered me after all this time."

Sirius glanced at the bedroom door.

"We will not be disturbed," the Bird said. "No one has noticed that you are gone."

"And how do you know that?"

"I know them as you know them, for I know what you know."

"Right," said Sirius tersely. "Now you mention it, I am starting to remember you quite well. Always full of insight, weren't you?"

The Bird spread its wings once more and glided closer to Sirius, landing on the post at the foot of the bed.

"Insight, yes. It's not something which holds a particular value for you, is it, Sirius?"

Sirius frowned. Now it came to it, he wasn't sure he'd made the best decision in removing the cage from Kreacher's lair. He knew what the Bird was doing, where this conversation was heading. He'd known it from the moment he saw the cage sitting unmarred in the midst of that old cabinet's wreckage. So why wasn't he leaving? Why wasn't he slamming the little iron door shut?

"Because you desire the truth," the Bird murmured as if responding to his thoughts. "And you know that I will happily oblige."

"Go right ahead, then. Tell me the truth, as if I don't know it already."

The Bird cocked its head in an expression eerily akin to concern.

"So much anger," it said contemplatively. "You tell yourself that it is justified, that it is directed at those who have wronged you. But you lie to yourself, old friend. All the anger in the world is simply that which you deserve."

The words were like a searing, satisfying pain. He hated them, and yet he yearned for more.

"How can you live, Sirius? With all the pain and ruin that you have brought to this world. How can you live?"

With a fluttering of its tiny, ghostly wings, the Bird alighted upon Sirius's shoulder.

"I ask these questions not to torment you, but to help you see the truth. I will guide you, if you will allow it. Do you believe me?"

How could he not? Pain, ruin… it was the truth.

"Yes," Sirius replied, his voice a whisper.

"Magnificent," said the Bird. It took off from his shoulder and flew through the air, leaving spectral paths of light in its wake. Sirius watched, hating himself, hating the Bird, but utterly entranced in every way.

Suddenly, a knock on the door tore him from his reverie.

"Sirius?" called Remus's voice. "Are you in there?"

Something snapped. It was as if he'd been woken from a trance. Without another glance at the Bird now floating above his head, Sirius lunged forward and slammed shut the door of the birdcage.

The Bird and all its spectral trails vanished immediately.

"Yes," Sirius called back, slightly breathless. "I'm coming."

With a fleeting look over his shoulder at the now-silent cage, Sirius left the room as quickly as he could.