((Author's Note: I have a lot of people to thank for helping me write this story. Emily the poet, for pages of commentary. Ding, for enthusiasm. Rowling and Noldo, for inspiration. Fresca, for staying up till 4AM, for succinct honesty ("Doesn't suck."), for everything I've ever looked for in a good editor, and for understanding that I could never compose a ballad worthy of her brilliance, because I was never really much at poetry. Enjoy the story.))

Chapter 1; Colour and Sound

Quantum suicide: A physicist points a loaded gun at his own head and pulls the trigger. He both lives and dies. How?

Vibrations: mechanical oscillations transpiring at an equilibrium point.

I remember vibrations, tremors lancing through the floor and the walls.

Sound. The colour grey.

I can summon up only strange fragments of that day – jagged puzzle pieces of a whole I never want to recall entirely.

Sound, in the form of screaming.

Grey, the colour of the curtains I hid my face in and the colour of the sky outside and the colour of my brother's eyes.

Who knew grey could be such a vibrant colour? Laughing, dancing, sparkling, smirking grey – those were the shades in Sirius's eyes most days. I loved grey; I always had.

Vibrations.

I sensed it from the moment my mother raised her wand at Sirius. Something about her face, the way it was warped by a strange refraction of the light, was dreadfully out of place.

Sirius turned fifteen that year, and like all teenagers, he messed up. He pulled horrible pranks, drank too much, never came home, argued with my father.

He messed up, and my mother punished him, hurling a curse here, a hex there – nothing too extreme. Once, he ended up with welts all across his back that looked like they had been inflicted with a whip; those took months to heal. That was the worst of it.

This time he had gone too far. He'd brought a Muggle-born girl to Grimmauld Place to meet my parents. I knew for a fact that he wasn't even seriously interested in the girl, just wished to show a flagrant disregard for whatever rules my mother happened to set down. My parents shooed the poor girl out of the house as if she were a dirty, stray animal, and then my mother rounded on Sirius, wand raised. What had he expected?

"How dare you . . . Mudblood . . . our house . . ."

Sirius merely scoffed and turned his back on her. "Oh, please, Mum. Maureen's much more tolerable than some of the filth in our family . . ."

I remember the way the light hit my brother's face as the Cruciatus Curse struck him. The grey laughter in his eyes didn't fade immediately, but remained superimposed there for a millisecond, like a bright, vibrant silhouette of what was to come. He was quiet for a moment, and then a massive convulsion racked his body, and his knees buckled.

Vibrations.

He screamed, eyes wide and oddly bright, transcendent in the strange light.

I just stood there and watched him convulse on the floor, screaming, writhing, begging. My big brother, reduced to a little boy with huge grey eyes.

Vibrations, the whole world shaking violently until I realised that it was only me, trembling like a leaf.

I just stood there, because my whole life had been just standing there, and sometimes I wasn't sure if I would ever be able to move again.

My mother released him from the spell, and he collapsed, heaving, unable to hold himself up.

"If you ever . . ." my mother started, but her voice shook and instead of continuing, she turned on her heel and left the room. Maybe she realised she'd gone too far. Maybe.

I contemplated slipping out of the room – perhaps Sirius hadn't noticed me. I actually thought about it, leaving my brother alone in that room, unable to walk. But I knew he had seen me. There was no hiding from my own cowardice.

"Sirius," I whispered, stumbling to the scene of the crime. That's what it is, I reminded myself. A crime – one punishable by law.

I dropped to my knees beside him. "Sirius, I . . ."

Were there words worse than coward?

" . . . are you okay?"

He gave two weak, half-hearted coughs, and managed to lift himself into a sitting position. He didn't answer my question or even look at me.

I waited for the insults to start pouring out of his mouth.

You bloody coward, he should have said, you're disgusting. How can you just stand there and watch as your own brother screams, begs, pleads for you to intervene? Do you know how many times I've protected you? Do you know how many times I've gotten hurt because of you, taken the blame for you? All my life, that's how long – because Mother loves you, doesn't she? And I'm the one who gets hurt because of it.

He opened his mouth and looked up at me, disappointment scrawled like a suicide note across his face. He took a breath, as if speak, and then let it out.

"I'm fine, Reg. Just give me a minute. I'll be fine."

I have a distant memory of light.

I remember being a year old – not clearly, but like a dream, or a painting. I remember watching my mother's jeweled bracelet catch and refract the light, shrugging rich pigment onto her silken robe. If I could have asked a question, it would have been about that bracelet, and about the nature of light. I was too young to know the words for nature and bracelet, but I knew the word for light, and it fascinated me.

At the age of three, I wondered where stars came from and why sunsets were coloured differently from sunrises. My early tutors claimed I was a genius, and I didn't bother to correct them. I could solve puzzles and ace exams easily enough, but the real power of my mind lay in its curiosity. Curiosity led me straight to Muggle books – any type I could get my hands on. I could read words at age two and could understand them by three.

I exhausted Wizarding books quickly, and soon discovered that Muggle books were far more interesting. Muggle scientists explained baffling phenomena clearly, concisely, and definitively. They utilized logic in a way that wizards had rarely bothered to learn.

Light, I discovered, was more complicated than stars and rainbows and sunrises. I immersed myself in photons, electromagnetics, and quantum mechanics.

I tried and failed to comprehend the duality of light. According to Muggle scientists, light served two purposes, manifested itself in two completely different ways – wave and particle. Light had a twofold nature; this was a fact. Yet this fact contradicted three thousand years of research and philosophy. Nothing could be two things at once.

Light itself was a contradiction, an impossibility. And yet it existed; it rose in the morning and set in the evening, without fail.

I tried to get my head around it but couldn't. Light.

"This is it," I told the fourteen year-old girl beside me. One of the butlers held open the door to the manor as we stepped inside.

She smiled, and I felt my heartbeat increase. Blonde hair, light blue eyes, an upturned nose; these features characterized Adele's face. She looked pretty, standing there in her light blue robes and pleated skirt. Her thin frame and pale skin lent her the look of sickliness, but to me she was beautiful.

We had known one another since childhood, but I had never dared to bring her home. I liked Adele more than almost anyone I knew. She had inherited a rare blood disease from her mother, a disease that caused her to bruise at the slightest provocation. The smallest flesh wound triggered profuse bleeding; even a paper cut could prove detrimental to her strength. Although her health was fragile, the openness about her face never failed to delight me. She was innocent, bright, and breakable. It was as if the world hadn't touched her – as if it didn't even want to try.

I'd run through the checklist over and over again in my head: she was smart, blonde, pureblooded, rich . . . she was perfect. My parents would approve. They had no excuse not to.

She stepped inside ahead of me, and I watched her eyes go wide, luminous in the burning shadows that always seemed to characterize the inside of the manor.

"This is . . . the foyer?" she asked slowly. "I'd heard that the Black manor was big, but this . . ."

"Is ridiculous?" I finished quickly, forcing a laugh. "I know. You just get used to it after a while."

Twenty minutes later, we sat in the drawing room, and I had never felt the formality of our manor more heavily. The housekeeper's daughter, Cecilia, quietly served tea, and her presence made the formality of the situation nearly unbearable to me. In other houses we might have watched television or played a game. In my house, we merely sat while entertaining our guests. Too young to drink, too old to play, stuck staring at the beheaded house-elves mounted all along the far wall. I wasn't good at entertaining people like Sirius was.

He seemed to materialize suddenly in the doorway as if on cue. For a moment he looked almost translucent, a ghost at best. Then he solidified.

"'Lo, Reg, I just got back from . . ."

He trailed off as he realised I wasn't alone. I could tell from the rosy flush in his cheeks that he'd been with his friends, possibly drinking.

"Hey, Celie," he greeted, shamelessly draping an arm around our maid's shoulder. Grinning, he asked, "How's my favorite girl?" Sirius had a way of instantly diffusing tension inherent in any situation.

Cecilia was about three years older than him, and had been a servant in our household for as long as I could remember. Sirius was particularly fond of her. She had told us bedtime stories when we were younger, inventing entire worlds solely for the entertainment of Misters Sirius and Regulus Black.

Presently she smiled and rolled her eyes, shrugging his arm off. "Stop that, Sirius, you know how your mother hates it."

"Yes, she suspects we're having a secret affair," he drawled lazily, throwing himself onto a couch on the other side of the room. "I'm due to run away with you any day now, did you know?"

She laughed, placing a teacup on the table in front of him. "I hadn't been informed."

"Well, now you have," Sirius replied solemnly. "So, have you written any more stories? Can I read them?"

"Yes, and no, respectively," she told him brusquely. "Now unlike you, I have work to do. So, if you'll excuse me."

She slipped out of the room, grinning, tray in hand.

"I know where you keep your stories, Celie," he called after her, trying and failing to keep the laughter out of his voice. "I'll read them sooner or later!"

Satisfied, he turned to Adele and me, taking notice of her for the first time.

"Who's this?" he asked lightly, sixteen and more self-assured than anyone I'd ever met. I shivered. Another reason I'd been reluctant to bring Adele home.

"She's a friend of mine," I muttered grudgingly, putting an emphasis on friend. "Sirius, Adele. Adele . . . my brother."

He crossed the room more quickly than I believed entirely necessary.

"Adele, is it?"

He stopped, smiling his best smile down at her. He lifted her hand and kissed it softly, almost as if he sensed her fragility. "It's a pleasure. Sirius Black."

"I know," Adele said softly. She gazed up at him uncertainly. Her innocent smile was beguiling, even when it wasn't directed at me. It must have enchanted Sirius. She seemed speechless – who wouldn't be, when the great Sirius Black cast his eyes in her direction? I rolled my eyes.

"You're Reg's age, a fourth year? You seem older."

That was a lie. She looked small and young for fourteen, eyes too big for her face, like a child's. She giggled, as if he'd paid her a compliment, and I suppose he had meant it as one.

I don't know why or how so many girls fell in love with my brother; he was immature, arrogant, and treated them all the same, but they still flocked to him with an intuitive sort of desperation.

There weren't many true things I could boldly say about my brother, because he seemed, in most instances, to elude description, or perhaps transcend it. The moment I wrote him off as angry rebel he seemed, inexplicably, to transform before my eyes into someone mild and full of laughter, more disposed toward serenading a Professor on Valentine's day than amassing a collection of motor bikes and leather jackets. The moment I pinned him arrogant, feckless berk, he surprised me by doing something astoundingly brave, or articulating truth like it was simple enough for everybody to know and understand. His personality persistently contradicted itself, almost as if it were confused, and perhaps it was. He seemed, always, a little less this and a little more that, like a recipe I could never quite get right.

The only way to understand Sirius was to comprehend him as he was in the moment, without pinning down pointless specifics. He was understood best as a blur, quick and coherent in the corner of the eye, but nonsensical when you looked at him full on, like a living, breathing optical illusion. You almost had to not think or see or hear Sirius to catch sight of what he really was. This wasn't as hard as you'd imagine, because Sirius was constantly, naturally, and vividly in motion. He moved and movement made him beautiful; he was better, brighter, sharper in motion, as some people inexplicably are. Once you looked at him, really looked at him, there was no going back.

People he met were in awe of him – they loved him without knowing why. Girls wanted to be with him, boys wanted to be him. And me? I grew up in his shadow, but there was nowhere else I would rather have been.

Sirius's most endearing trait, and perhaps his most astounding, was his ability to love with a reckless abandon, love with an intensity and ease that was wholly unnerving to me. He loved hopelessly, haplessly, without boundaries or conditions, and without fear of, or perhaps concern for, rejection. He had an uncanny ability to throw himself wholeheartedly into affection. Normal people, non-Blacks, craved the kind of effortless warmth he emitted.

He could have any girl he wanted – why this one? Why the only one that had ever meant anything to me? He wouldn't hurt her, but he would discard her once he got bored with her and move on to the next willing victim. I didn't want that to happen to Adele, and yet as he stood there, I didn't move to defend her or myself.

Sirius dappled her with a charming grin and said, "Yeah, you look much older. Have you ever been to . . .?"

Something stopped him from continuing, probably the so-called conscience that his friends insisted he possessed.

He looked over at me and must have read everything on my face like an open book. Maybe he honestly hadn't realised I liked her before that moment – maybe he had.

Sirius turned back to her, and allowed himself a warm, self-effacing smile that held none of the charm or carnal effect of a few moments ago.

"It's, erm, really nice to meet you," he corrected politely.

"You too," she replied, as the star-struck expression wore off little by little.

He stepped back from her, a small flush infused on his cheeks.

"Well. You kids have fun," Sirius said, by way of farewell, and emphasized 'kids' as if his life depended on it.

Sirius had always been highly flammable, reckless to an extreme degree, but it wasn't until I was fifteen, during the winter holidays, that I truly began to fear for his life.

For one, I thought my mother might kill him outright.

Christmas day arrived. We'd each been allowed to invite one person for Christmas dinner, which was set for three o'clock in the afternoon.

Sirius, of course, had chosen to invite James Potter. I had chosen Adele.

The day started off optimistically. Sirius and James entered the drawing room wearing green and red knit jumpers respectively. Sirius seemed happy to have James with him; they were planning to have Christmas pudding at James's house afterward.

"Hey, kid." Sirius greeted Adele warmly, with a large smile. They'd been on good terms for about six months now, although Sirius had scrupulously maintained his distance.

"Nice to see you, Sirius," she replied. She looked beautiful in silver robes, hair swept into a bun that made her look marginally taller. "Who's your friend?"

"James Potter," supplied the Gryffindor, and stuck out his hand with a cheeky smile. He nodded curtly at me in greeting; we had never gotten on well, but he seemed all too eager to be polite to my girlfriend. "Should I address you as 'kid' too or are you going to give me a name?"

She raised her eyebrows in pleasant surprise. "Adele."

Sirius poured himself a glass of wine (James pointedly declined) and the four of us spent the better part of an hour talking freely. James and I, who usually only traded sarcastic quips, tried to keep them to a minimum for the sake of Christmas cheer. The atmosphere in the drawing room hadn't been this relaxed in a long time. That, of course, was shattered by the arrival of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy.

Lucius strolled into the drawing room as if he undoubtedly owned the place. He surveyed the room casually, and his lips twisted in disdain as his eyes came to rest on James Potter.

Narcissa, on the other hand, seemed generally happy to see us, or as happy as a woman made of ice could ever be. The corner of her mouth twisted up; her eyes seemed a little brighter. That was all. It was enough.

"I see my two youngest cousins are doing as well as ever – growing taller and more obnoxious every time I see them," she commented wryly.

"You're not looking so bad yourself, Cissa," Sirius replied loudly. Lucius's eyes flashed at the ridiculous nickname. "Is your husband treating you all right, like he promised?"

Lucius's fingers were interlaced with Narcissa's and he shifted slightly, so that his body was in front of hers, in what could only be interpreted as a protective gesture. "It's a pleasure as always, Sirius," Lucius drawled sarcastically. Then, more gravely, "Remind me that we need to talk later. In private."

His steely grey eyes were so unlike my brother's that I had a hard time believing they were even the same colour.

"Somehow I have a feeling I know exactly what you're going to say. A big-brother type of speech, right? Upholding family values and all that rot? I'll pass, thanks," Sirius deferred with elaborate casualness.

I jumped up and jerked Sirius to the side; Lucius was smirking darkly, shooting occasional glances at James Potter, whom he disliked on principle.

"Jesus, Sirius," I snapped harshly, lowering my voice. "Can you go for one second without antagonizing five different family members? Just lay off, okay? It's Christmas."

"I just don't understand why Cissa married that bloody prat," Sirius grumbled. To his credit, he looked slightly repentant. "Alright, Mum, I'll be nicer. I promise."

The tension in the room mounted higher as Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange arrived.

"Regulus," Bellatrix crooned, ruffling my hair. "My baby cousin's all grown up." She grinned wickedly and I swatted her hand away, rolling my eyes. "And Sirius, you traitorous Gryffindor lout." She fondly ruffled his hair too, although he was taller than her. "I've heard about your antics lately. You are far too self-righteous for your own good; we're going to have to rectify that situation immediately. What am I going to have to do to corrupt you, little cous?"

Sirius, grinning despite himself, gave her a quick hug. "Aw, shut it, Bella. None of this recruiting stuff tonight, all right?"

Bellatrix and Rodolphus weren't so subtle in their disapproval of James Potter. They knew that his father was a key Ministry official deeply set against Lord Voldemort's regime. James himself had begun to display leanings in the same direction. Though neither he nor I knew it at the time, there was a price on his father's head. Needless to say, I was relieved when my mother called us all to the dining room for dinner.

The dining hall exuded not one bit of holiday cheer, despite the elaborate decorations. Somber holly leaves lined the mantles, while low embers burned in the two adjacent fireplaces. Red and green candles had replaced the brown ones, the chandelier draped in hideous red velvet that must have been at least five hundred years old.

Sirius took one look at the chandelier and whispered something to James that made him stifle a snort.

Dinner commenced, and the discussion ranged from Narcissa's upcoming New Year's Ball to troubles at the Ministry, but hovered mercifully away from controversial topics.

That was, until the wine started flowing. Admittedly, Sirius drank more than everyone. It had fast become a habit of his.

"Sirius," I muttered in an undertone, after he'd consumed his fifth glass. "Stop drinking, mate – I'm not kidding. Give it a rest, just this once."

James Potter, for the first time in recorded history, agreed with me.

Sirius laughed us off. "No worries, gentlemen – I can hold a lot more liquor than you think."

It troubled me that he was right. Five glasses of wine had barely affected his speech and actions. He only seemed to smile more easily and talk more freely.

"Have you heard about the newest round of ridiculous legislation they're trying to pass at the Ministry?" Rodolphus piped up. "Something about equal working wages for half-breeds. Can you imagine? Werewolves and giants receiving the same salary as pure-bloods? Next thing you know the filth will be allowed jobs at the Ministry, or, Merlin forbid, the schools!"

Sirius lowered his fork with deliberate control. It would have seemed like a casual gesture to anyone else, but I knew it meant he was furious. James's face darkened, but neither of them said a word. Adele, in an attempt to diffuse tension, smiled primly and opened her mouth in an effort to change the subject.

"Speaking of legislation at the Ministry, I was talking to Ted Tonks the other day about an internship at the Department of Education, perhaps to one of the school governors . . . he's, erm, your brother-in-law, correct?"

She had faltered because the guests had gone silent, staring at her with unabashed disbelief. Narcissa, in a semblance at cultured politeness, demurred, "So unfortunate that you should bring him up. Andromeda Tonks is no longer considered a –"

"We don't speak that name in this household," my mother cut her off savagely, puce in the face. My father put a calming arm on her shoulder but she shrugged him off, apoplectic with rage.

Adele flushed and looked down at her barely touched plate, trembling with embarrassment. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything. I had no idea–"

"Don't worry about it," Sirius injected, dappling her with a reassuring smile. Immediately, she seemed at ease. His smile could do that to people. "It's not a big deal, really. At least, it shouldn't be, since she is our cousin. I actually just got a letter–"

"Yeah," I exclaimed over him, before he dug himself a deeper hole. I squeezed Adele's shoulder lightly. "Point is, you didn't know, so no harm done, right?" I smiled tightly at Sirius. My mother was glaring openly, but Sirius firmly smiled down at his dinner plate, purposely avoiding her gaze.

The conversation only got worse, though – a tirade of Muggle bashing ensued, and my brother seemed to grow steadily more annoyed. Finally, very calmly, he said, "I don't agree, Lucius. I think Muggle-borns are just as capable of being magical anthropologists as Wizards. One of my best friends is a half-blood and he's more knowledgeable about wizarding culture than I'll ever be."

Everyone stopped eating. Their eyes flew to Sirius. There it was, out in the open, literally laid out on the table in front of some of the most dangerous pure-bloods in London. One of my best friends is half-blood . . .

Lucius made a sound of clear disgust, and my mother spoke up, apparently quite flustered.

"Please, excuse my son, you know how teenagers can be . . . confused about morals and the like. They always come around in the end . . ."

"I understand completely, Walburga," Lucius assured her, but his scathing glance at Sirius alleged otherwise.

"Sirius, you are forbidden from speaking for the rest of the meal," my mother dictated calmly, without so much as looking at him.

"What? You can't–"

"Sirius," my father cut him off. I was startled at hearing his voice at all; he was a man of very few words. "Listen to your mother or leave the table."

My brother's eyes widened at that. He dealt regularly with Mother's abuse, but coming from his father, it meant something else entirely. For a moment I thought he would get up, but he merely flushed and shoved his hands into the pockets of his robe. Lucius smirked.

The rest of the evening seemed designed to provoke Sirius out of his silence.

"And the fact that Anita Wilson's been fired from her post! One of the most prominent Muggle-borns in the community, blackmailed from the Ministry . . . what do you think, Regulus?"

Bellatrix turned on me with sharp eyes, and the rest of the table followed her lead. My mouth went dry. I chanced a glance at Sirius, the only person who wasn't looking at me, expectant for an answer.

"I . . . well . . ."

"Yes?"

"She was a good head of Muggle Relations, but I think that branch of the government is somewhat useless anyway."

Lucius reached over and squeezed my shoulder "Good man, Regulus. I agree wholeheartedly. Though, Mr. Potter, I believe your father was one of the few who voted against her removal from office?"

"That's right," James answered, a touch of defiance in his voice.

Lucius smirked slightly. "From what I hear, your father hasn't been performing . . . quite up to standard in his own department. His vote meant little to the outcome, possibly nothing."

Sirius's head snapped up, but he didn't speak.

"My father does his job just fine, thanks," James replied coldly. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't attack my family at the dinner table; it's rather impolite, don't you think?"

The older man's eyes flashed. "You'd do well to watch what you say, Mr. Potter, or you may find that a verbal attack is the least of your immediate concerns."

"Was that a threat?" James asked quietly.

"No. It was a warning," Lucius replied. "Consider this conversation a favor from one pure-blood family to another, Mr. Potter. I aim to save you and your family a lot of grief in the upcoming months."

"Do you?" James bit out sarcastically.

"Sincerely," Lucius assured him.

A few minutes later, a tipsy Bellatrix said, "Have you heard about the Ministry-approved study taking place right now? Some scientists have been observing Muggles in their natural habitats, and have documented both their human-like and animalistic characteristics."

My mother joined in primly, and commenced in speaking as if she were talking about what colours to paint the dining room walls. "I've heard about that. Fascinating, don't you think? The researchers have apparently amassed a large amount of evidence pointing toward animalistic tendencies in Muggles. Imagine that."

James lost grip on his dinner fork in shock at the crude assertion, and his glasses slipped down his nose as he bent to pick it up. Unlike my brother, who had years of practice, he lacked the ability to control his temperament. I could read his face like an open book. He was, however, too polite to speak up. Sirius kept his head down throughout the entire conversation, unruly hair obscuring his face. He toyed idly with the base of his wineglass, twirling it between his fingers.

"Imagine, a pure-blood mating with a Mudblood," Bellatrix slurred. "How must it feel to fuck a mutant? And the child, would it be half animal, half human? I'd like to see the–"

"Oh, shut up, Bella."

The table fell dead silent.

"Sirius?"

"Bugger it all. What's wrong with you lot? I've had enough of this!"

He brought the wineglass down on the table with undue force. It shattered, crimson glinting off of gold in the dim light. I flinched.

"Sirius," I started, "please be quiet . . ."

Sirius looked at me, eyes momentarily reflecting vulnerability, or perhaps disappointment.

"Pipe down, Reg," he spat simply, without malice, and then moved back into uncontrolled rage. That was that.

"Sirius Black, sit down!" my mother ordered, voice more dangerous than I'd ever heard it.

"I won't," he told her plainly. "I won't listen to any more of this rubbish. That's what it is, it's rubbish, every word it!"

James stood up abruptly. His chair scraped back and the sound pealed off of the walls, echoing throughout the hollow room. He turned to my mother, and I saw momentarily the tremor in his hands that he tried very hard to hide. "Thank you for the dinner and the invitation, Mrs. Black. I wish I could say it's been a pleasure." Then, much lower, "I'm sorry, Sirius," without even glancing at the future Black heir, and no one knew what he was apologizing for but clearly it shouldn't have been him.

Sirius's face transformed, anguish and indecision like I'd never seen from him. My brother was the most easy-going person I had ever met. He laughed his problems off most of the time, seldom succumbing to angst or foul temper. But when he got angry, it was bloodcurdling.

"Sirius Black, if you follow that boy out of this room, you're never allowed under this roof again."

James looked at Sirius, who wouldn't look back, and then turned on his heel and strode toward the door.

I was terrified, terrified that my brother would leave and never come back. Adele sat stiff, unmoving, at my side. Tension had always upset her. She looked even more fragile than usual, like she could barely hold herself up.

I saw the uncertainty on Sirius's face, the panic that flitted into his eyes at being presented with the one ultimatum he couldn't resolve. I saw the suspension, indecision held at its highest point, both choices holding exactly the same weight. For one moment, he was perfectly balanced between the two; the tug-of-war came to a standstill.

And then he tipped. He sat back down. Brought his hands up to his face, probably so that he wouldn't see the astonished look on James's face; no accusation, just outright surprise, and that was worse.

"Good day, Mr. Potter," Lucius Malfoy crowed triumphantly, and nodded cordially to the other man.

James disappeared around the corner, leaving only an imprint of disappointment and incredulity in his wake.

A few moments of silence passed.

"You did right, Sirius," Bellatrix commended finally, gracing him with a sharp smile.

Narcissa, in an epic effort to lighten the mood, raised her glass and said, "To Sirius, youngest heir of the Black family. May he continue to make us all proud."

Everyone could agree with this, at least, and they all shared a toast to my brother.

Sirius hastily repaired his wineglass and filled it to the brim.

After the guests had departed, my mother called him to her study.

Inappropriate. Inexcusable. Insolent. Embarrassment.

Those were the only words I could hear, shouted loudly as they were. And then, the unmistakable sound of my brother's voice sounding through the floorboards, just as angry and just as audible.

Then silence.

He emerged five minutes later, face so white I thought he might faint on the spot.

"Are you all right?"

It was a stupid question, a silly one; it needed to be asked.

"I'll be fine in a minute," was his simple, standard reply, which meant no, I'm not all right, I'm bleeding and I can't stop, though I didn't know he meant it literally until a few days later, when I saw the welts all across his back, red and angry even then.

To be perfectly fair, Sirius didn't exactly fit the mould of the helpless, abused child. Nearly seventeen, he towered over my stout mother and was probably the better duelist between the two of them. He could have hexed her, he could have outrun her, he could have picked her up and set her aside with one arm, but he never did.

"Why did you invite James here?"

The tiniest smile twisted his lips. "Because apparently I overestimated the courtesy of the Black family," which meant, because he's my best friend and I wanted you all to like him more than almost anything.

"I like him just fine," I lied, translated to I'm not like them, I swear.

"I know," which meant, I'm not sure, but I hope so.

He leaned against the wall for support and winced as his back touched the stone.

"Hey, you want to go flying tomorrow? Practice for Quidditch season?" I asked, which was, maybe I don't exactly know how to say it right now, but thank you for staying and I don't know what I'd do if you left.

He grinned in earnest this time. "If you don't mind getting your arse kicked."

"In your dreams," I retorted, which meant, no, I don't mind one bit.

Nothing in the universe can travel at the speed of light, they say, forgetful of the shadow's speed. –Howard Nemerov