Author's Note: I don't own Harry Potter, or his lovely (and sometimes troubled) world.
Homecoming
Sirius couldn't believe he was back. It had been more than fifteen years since he'd last darkened the already-dark doorstep of his childhood home, and ten years since any human had been present there. But Dumbledore had needed a headquarters, and he'd needed a place to hide, so here he was, in Moody's Invisibility Cloak, in the dusty foyer.
He'd entered silently, not even waking the portrait of his mother. He hadn't thought to call for Kreacher; he just wanted to look through the empty rooms in solitude first. Could the place really be as awful as he'd remembered it? Somehow, it was. Malignant dark artifacts lying dormant, but ready to be used at any moment; the vile tapestry, a visible reminder that blood was not in fact thicker than water to his parents; the sliver-framed photos of the more suitable members of the family in places of pride on sideboards, mantles, and walls, the only items in the house that bore no sign of neglect, no particle of dust. Kreacher had obviously cared about these.
The carpets exhaled dust as he made his way up the stairs, peeking in one spare bedroom after another, until he reached his own, and his brother's. He stared at Regulus' door for a moment, despising his brother's choices, but despising more the younger self who'd abandoned him to them. Did he have the strength for this? But not for nothing was he the first and only Black to be a Gryffindor, so he opened the door and trudged inside. He looked at the green and silver decorations, the bed impeccably made. This room, it looked almost as though it was still inhabited, preserved as a shrine to his younger brother, excepting the layer of dust. A picture of the Slytherin Quidditch team rested on the dresser. Sirius looked at his brother's face gazing out, trying desperately to look as intimidating as the others on the team. "Innocent fool," Sirius whispered to himself. "Poor, stupid tosser." He placed the picture back in its place firmly and turned to look again at the room. Nothing Dark here. You'd never know it was the living space of a former Death Eater. Just the ordinary bedroom of an ordinary Hogwarts student with an almost-defensive sense of house pride. It was nearly enough to lift Sirius' heart, but instead it exacerbated his sense of guilt. He hadn't been able to save him, after all.
It was time to cross the hall. He pulled Regulus' door closed and looked at his own for a moment. He knew some of what would face him there—Permanent Sticking Charms weren't called "permanent" because it was catchy, after all. Maybe it'd even do him some good, to see the photos of happier times. And that was assuming anyone had gone in to reclaim the space at all once he'd left. Maybe his parents had preferred to pretend he'd never existed at all, pretend the door to his room was a blank stretch of wall, and just ignored it after he'd run away.
The door stuck a little and whined on its hinges, but Sirius was able to muscle it open. It was like looking at another life. The red and gold banners, all the defiance he'd been able to muster in his adolescence, before his friends had begun to die. Before there'd been anything bigger than house rivalries to think about. So he'd been a child, too, at one point. "Merlin, what a long time…" he muttered, as he shuffled to his bed and laid back, staring at the ceiling. It was then, resting in the silence, that he began to hear the noises in the rest of the house. Scuttling behind baseboards, the rustling of curtains, and a hesitant, muffled step ascending the stairs.
Sirius understood at once what it meant. "Kreacher," he said quietly, "You know an intruder couldn't have gotten past the wards." "Master Sirius has returned," hissed Kreacher. "He couldn't be bothered to reconcile with my mistress, and now he wishes to take possession of the house again? He's a nervy, ungrateful boy, he is. Not a proper Black at all. How long will he stay this time?"
"I don't know, you sniveling, venomous miscreant, I don't want to be here either!" snarled the last of the Blacks. "Just bring me something to eat, and make it fit for human consumption." Sirius sat up, listening to Kreacher's unhurried descent on the stairs and unhushed, insubordinate mutterings and gazed at the physical possessions he hadn't thought of in fifteen years. His eye fell upon James Potter's image in a picture from their school days. "I suppose nothing goes the way we expect it to, does it, mate? But I can do this, at least, for you."
And with a sigh, he got up from the bed, walked to a dust-marred window, and sent a Patronus to Dumbledore. Headquarters, accomplished.