A/N: This is the sequel to The Many Mistakes of Gabriella McPeak, requested by EmeraldStorm7, and thus dedicated to her! There will be a third part, in about sixty chapters, when I've finished this story! I strongly encourage reading Gabriella's segment first, so you don't get spoilers in case you want to go back and read hers.

-C

Sirius could feel his whole body tensing as he stood on the steps in front of that accursed house. He thought he'd been done with the place when he left at sixteen. Never had he imagined he'd be back, not like this.

"All right," he sighed, touching the door. "All right."

He didn't want to open the door, but Albus needed Grimmauld Place, and Sirius needed to do something useful, even if it would be painful.

He deserved pain, he thought, recalling what happened to Gabriella. He bit the inside of his lip hard, unlocking the door with a tap of his wand and listening to the clicks until they stopped before going inside.

The first thing he saw was the troll foot umbrella stand just inside the front door.

"Bugger," he growled, fighting the urge to kick the thing over and looking up at the elf heads on the landing. If he hadn't seen it so many times, he was sure he'd feel the urge to vomit.

His childhood home.

At least he didn't have much in the way of things to move in, he mused. He decided he'd set up in his old room, and when Remus showed up with Buckbeak they could put him in the master bedroom.

The hippogriff, not Remus. Although maybe they could share it during the full moon, have a bit of company. That could be a bit of fun, Sirius mused, tearing apart his precious mother's things.

Sirius climbed the stairs, listening to the creak in the old stairs, thinking back to events held in the room on the top of the house when he was a child, trying to remember if Gabriella had been there, terrorizing James or something.

But he couldn't recall. Horrifically, when he was in prison he did have one very vivid memory of Gabriella, stabbing herself in the stomach with a butcher knife in the middle of his kitchen at the bidding of his psychotic cousin.

To relive that memory every day for twelve years, that along with losing Lily and James...

It wasn't a good time in Azkaban, but he supposed that was kind of the point. If he had been enjoying himself, it wouldn't have been much of a punishment.

He made it to the top to his own room, opening the door to his old bedroom, being struck by the pictures of scantily clad females on the walls, Muggle all, with Permanent Sticking Charms to defy his mother with. He laughed, running his fingers along one of the once-glossy photographs of a girl bent over a motorbike wearing practically nothing. What a strange thing, to think that he'd once thought this girl looked like Gabriella McPeak. Gabriella had been far more beautiful.

Sighing, Sirius dropped onto his dusty, dirty bed that desperately needed to be cleaned properly and he pulled out of the drawer of his bedside table some parchment and a quill. It took longer to find an inkwell that wasn't entirely dry, but when he did he began to make a list.

The start was to ensure that the place was cleaned up and made safe to live in. Sirius wasn't sure what all was lurking in the house, but he had a feeling none of it was friendly. There would be issues with air quality, perhaps, and they would need to catalogue any dark and dangerous things they found. Some of these things could be done with the help of the Weasley children, who were scheduled to come stay there soon to help him clean the place up. Others would need to be done before they arrived, by Sirius, Remus, Mad-Eye and the like. At least he could count on Mad-Eye and that magical eye to know what was in things before he opened them. There were plusses to Mad-Eye being a living meat puzzle.

The thought of meat brought back the image of Gabriella stabbing herself and he dropped the quill, pulling his legs up to his chest and burying his face in his knees, trying to calm himself.

It would hit him at the worst times, the thought of her bleeding all over him. Sometimes, when he was trying to hunt down Peter, he would be struck with the memories of the color going out of her pretty lips and he would cry himself to sleep on the spot, unable to calm himself, unable to think of anything else.

He had more memories now, of Gabriella, but none so strong as the ones he wanted desperately to forget. He clutched his hands into fists, trying to forget the way her blood smelled, metallic and sweet. And how sticky and warm it was in his hands, the look of shock she'd given him as she regained her own mind before she fainted in his arms.

It was the most terrifying moment of Sirius's life, easily. Losing Lily and James was heartbreaking, but nothing scared him more than thinking that Gabriella was going to die because he'd made her a target with his love for her.

He tried to compose himself. There was work to be done, and at least a bare minimum had to be accomplished before he could make himself sleep in this room at night. Pulling himself to his feet, Sirius began to wipe his eyes and take deep, calming breaths. He had nearly finished composing himself when he heard the doorbell, and then the shrieks he thought he'd left behind when he ran away from home.

"Who disturbs the House of Black!" screamed the voice of his mother, and Sirius rushed back down the stairs with no hesitation. He opened the door to find Remus standing there.

"Welcome to hell," Sirius said with a grin. "Help me with this portrait."

"Half-breeds!" Mrs. Walburga Black shrieked. "Scourge of my flesh!"

"Lovely to see you too, mother," Sirius said, raising an eyebrow at the large portrait of his mother that had apparently woken up at the sound of the doorbell.

"What is that?" Remus asked, horrified. She was still shrieking, practically foaming at the mouth with her fury.

"That is my late mother, Moony," Sirius said. "Here, you take that curtain, I'll take this one, and let's see if we can't shut her up."

It took the two men a few minutes to get the curtains closed over the portrait, but they managed it.

"Right, she's got to go, although I wouldn't put it past her to have done a Sticking Charm," Sirius groaned, exhausted, rubbing his eyes.

"You have a house-elf?" Remus asked, confusion and surprise in his voice.

Sirius turned and looked over his shoulder, and saw an aged, bowed old house-elf in rags.

"Kreacher?" Sirius said, laughing. "I would have thought he'd be dead by now, but I guess wonders never cease."

"Good-for-nothing blood traitor, back to disturb my poor mistress," Kreacher said, almost under his breath, as if he thought the two men couldn't hear him. Sirius raised his eyebrows. "Master has returned," Kreacher now said in an ironic tone, bowing even lower than he naturally did. "Kreacher is pleased."

Remus coughed, obviously not sure if he should laugh or if that would be inappropriate.

"Nasty half-breed, infecting mistresses house with his blood and his breath," Kreacher muttered quite audibly. Remus's eyes grew incredibly wide.

"Shut up, Kreacher," Sirius said firmly. The house-elf instantly silenced. Sirius grinned. "I've always wanted to do that. Well, if he's got to be here, maybe we can figure out how to get some use out of him. Did you bring your things, Moony?"

Remus raised a rucksack half-heartedly.

"I just wanted to check in for now," he admitted. Get things settled, maybe get the rest of my things before dinner, pick up some food while I'm out."

Sirius frowned. He hadn't thought about the fact that he wasn't really able to leave the house for anything now that he was in it.

"Right," he said with a nod. "Right, well, let me show you to a room."

He led him to one of the guest rooms on the floor below his, hoping against hope that it would be reasonably clean.

"I wouldn't open any drawers without someone else around," Sirius said. "Use a lot of caution. And that attached bath probably needs a miraculous clean before it's safe to use. We can get started on it right away, so you don't have to worry about it."

"What about your room?" Remus asked. Sirius shrugged.

"I don't think my mother went in at all after I ran away," he admitted. "Its' a bit dustier than how I left it, but it's pretty safe otherwise."

The two old friends spent the afternoon making sure that Remus's room and other spaces they would come in contact with most regularly were livable, and they found very few surprises, which they were grateful for.

"It looks like Kreature lives over here," Remus said as they were going through the kitchen and pantry. Sirius followed him and looked in, frowning at the little nest Kreature had made for himself.

"Well, at least we'll know where to find him if he causes trouble," Sirius muttered. "I was thinking about Buckbeak. We should have someone bring him in tomorrow, and put him in my mother's old room."

Remus snorted.

"Only you, Padfoot," he said. "I'll talk to Diggle about it. He'd be willing to do it, and I think Chara has some experiences with hippogriffs. He'll be in good hands."

At the mention of Chara Montgomery, Sirius swallowed, thinking once more of Gabriella, this time recalling the tale of her disappearance and death, as Chara had related it to him and Remus. He gripped at the kitchen table and felt as though he might collapse for a moment.

"Padfoot? Are you all right?"

He had to get it together.

"Fine," he said. "I just…. This isn't easy, living in this house again."

Remus obviously could tell he was lying, but he didn't press on the matter.

"I'm going to go get food for dinner," he said slowly. "And then I'll pick up my things. "Anything you particularly want?"

Sirius looked around the kitchen, wondering what he hadn't eaten in a while, what would taste especially good in his childhood home. What was so Muggle that it would scandalize the furniture?

His lips curled up at the corners into his signature smirk and he said, "Yeah, why don't you get cheeseburgers?"

They enjoyed their fast food that night with relish. Remus had always been fond of cheeseburgers, and Sirius was always fond of anything that would defy his family. It was maybe a bit childish, but childish in the most delicious of ways, and it was the only sort of thing, he knew, that would keep him sane while he had to live in this godforsaken place.

"We'll have to put out a warning about not ringing the doorbell until we can figure out what to do about my dear mother," Sirius mused, dipping a French fry into a little blob of ketchup Remus had put on his plate.

"I'll warn Dedalus," Remus said, nodding. "Actually, I'd better warn Chara too. She's the one who's likely to actually remember."

Sirius snorted. Diggle was a good man, a surprisingly good ally in a war, but he was also foolish and a bit…absentminded. He wished he could remember what it was Professor McGonagall had always said about him, but it had been so long ago….

Crawling into his old bed that night, Sirius felt a distinct sense of hatred toward the building that was already beginning to encase him like a cage.

Sirius woke up to the sound of his mother shrieking, and he rolled over.

"I thought I had left this behind at sixteen," I hissed into his pillow.

It wasn't so much that he was stuck in his childhood home that bothered him. It was more that it was almost a literal preservation of the place he had run away from, the place that held all of his worst memories.

All but one.

He shivered, and was instantly grateful that he was not, instead, living in the place he'd had during the war. Probably it was sold to someone else when he went to prison.

By the time Sirius got downstairs, Remus and Dedalus must have closed the curtains over his mother again, because she was quiet.

"I'm so sorry," Dedalus was saying. "Chara reminded me and I forgot and I-"

"It's fine, really," Sirius lied, rubbing his eyes. "Let's get Buckbeak up here."

"Where are you putting him?" Chara asked, amused.

"My mother's bedroom," Sirius replied wryly, and he relished the fact that she laughed at this.

Once Buckbeak was situated, the four of them sat down for tea in the kitchen.

"I would tell you it's a lovely house," Chara said with a shrug. "But it's really not, is it?"

"No, you're absolutely right," Sirius agreed, smirking. "It's a verifiable shit-hole."

"Sirius," Remus said sternly.

"Oh, come off it, Moony. This place is hell on earth. It's the unfortunate truth, since we have to live here. But it's the truth nonetheless. The fact that my mother has a demonic portrait of herself in the entrance only makes it that much worse."

"I took a look at it while you were getting Buckbeak situated, actually," Remus said, stirring sugar into his second cup of tea. "It's definitely a Permanent Sticking Charm. We'll see if anything can be done short of taking out the wall, but I don't think it's likely."

Sirius sighed. He had been afraid of this news, but he took it in stride. He was determined, while there were people visiting, to be a decent host, even if he didn't have a decent house to host in. After all, he was raised to be a proper host. That was really the only positive thing he could point to coming from his childhood. Lily had always commended him on his excellent manners.

Well, except where Gabriella was concerned. There he had been told off by everyone who knew the details of the thing, although he thought eventually even Lily and Remus took a kind of pity on him. Remus especially in a way, because he had known Gabriella in the way that Sirius had. He had loved her, he had possessed her, and she flatly turned him away. Perhaps she never hated Remus, but Sirius knew that the turning away when he actually got up the nerve to make a move and make himself feel like his need for her outweighed his thoughts of not being good enough for her.

Sirius became melancholy at these thoughts, and when Dedalus and Remus went off to see if there was anything they could do to make Buckbeak's food situation more viable, Sirius began picking at a spot on the table to avoid looking up at Chara, who was watching him closely.

After a long moment, she said, "You're thinking about her, aren't you?"

His head jerked up to look at her. He was stunned for a moment that she would realize this was what occupied his mind, but then, she knew and cared more about Gabriella than anyone else left in the Order except for him and Remus.

"Of course I am," he muttered, looking back down at the table. "There's not a day that goes by when I don't think of her."

Admitting it was almost a blow to his pride, because from everything he knew of her end, Gabriella died not only not loving him, but thinking him capable of unspeakable betrayal. And he loved her so completely, all those twelve years, and it just felt like he was the one being stabbed with that butcher knife to think of how his stupid, childish, selfishness had not only ruined any chance he'd had with her, but in the end ruined her as well.

"Was it my fault?" he asked, looking up at Chara's dark eyes and hoping she would tell him it wasn't, even though he knew such words could only be lies. "I killed her, didn't I? It's my fault they targeted her."

"She was targeted because she was close to members of the Order," Chara said slowly. "Your cousin's husband said as much in the trial. But…you were only a part of that. If it hadn't been because you loved her, it would have been because she was friends with the Potters. They didn't seem to know for certain what Remus's allegiances were."

Sirius could have laughed at this. He certainly knew that he'd had a hard time figuring out what Remus's allegiances were, as well.

"Tell you what," she said slowly. "Next time I come around, I'll bring my box. It's got news clippings, trial transcripts Dumbledore attained for me…. It's a veritable gold mine if anyone wants to study her."

"Why would they do that?" Sirius snorted.

Chara blinked at him.

"But they have. She was a mentally unstable pureblood who was tortured and killed by the Death Eaters, after Voldemort was defeated. She's famous. I get interviewed about her every time someone writes a book on the war."

This was such a strange concept that Sirius just stared at her, trying to wrap his brain around Gabriella, his Gabriella, becoming some sort of martyr symbol for the first war, a textbook trope, just another especially good war story.

She was so much more than that. She had always been so much more than that.

Sirius told Chara, as she and Dedalus were leaving not long after, that he would very much like to see her collection.

What harm could come in it?

And that was his first mistake.