Disclaimer: I don't own J.K. Rowling's universe, I just like to borrow her characters from time to time. I promise to put everything back the way it was, more or less.
Author's Note: This was inspired by lj's absolutely awesome celta_diabolica's 'Weight of a Constellation'. She writes the most awesome Narcissa ever, by the way, but this crack-bunny hatched in my head and wouldn't go away until I did something with it, so here it is. Kudos to SeraphimeRising and slasher454 for their support through the creative process, because it was much needed with this piece.
Ashes to Ashes
by Scribe Teradia
His father was dead.
No one expected him to be all that torn up about the news, least of all himself, but there was the bitter sting of regret, anyway. Regret for everything they'd said to each other, and everything that went unspoken. Regrets, too, that he hadn't gotten that last chance to spit in the old man's eye when Reg disappeared.
They tried to talk him out of going to the funeral. Tried in turns, first Remus, then James, then finally Lily, just barely starting to show signs of the baby they all knew she carried. Lily, who could always reach him when he'd gone to that dark place inside himself where no one else could follow. Looking up at him with those big green eyes misted with tears and asking him to stay with them, to stay away for his own good. It was, perhaps, the wrong argument to use, because Sirius had spent too much of his childhood being admonished for not doing this or that as he should have done for his own good and the good of the family.
When the individual pleas fell on deaf ears, they cornered him as a group, and James even had the audacity to take his keys. His keys! As if that would stop him. As if James didn't know that the one of the charms on the motorbike ensured it would start for its owner regardless of whether or not he had the bloody keys (one of the more practical things Sirius had ever done, in retrospect, but then he was forever misplacing things).
The day of, Sirius brooded. He paced. He padded about, both in human form and in dog form until Lily threatened to conjure a cage to keep him in if he didn't sit still. They watched him like hawks, tense and waiting for him to make a move, right up until the moment when the funeral started. Seconds ticked by silently, and he saw them all relax, breathing a collective sigh. An eyeblink later, Sirius was gone.
It was, he reflected, rather fitting to turn up late to the funeral. One more act of defiance in a lifetime of rebellion. He noted the gathering from the sky, saw them turn toward him as the roar of the motorbike became audible, and landed a good six feet away from the edge of a crowd that was frankly larger than it had any right to be. Orion Black had never been so well-loved in life; Sirius wondered how many of the mourners had been paid to attend. He dismounted from the bike and strode toward the coffin, beside its open grave; there were whispers, at first, and then louder voices, and he ignored all of this commotion in favor of focusing on his unsmiling mother, whose dark eyes glared at him accusingly. "Hello, Mother," he greeted, forcing his best disarming smile because he knew the cheerfulness would rile her more than anything else he could do.
"How dare you??" she hissed at him, her voice shrill with contempt but not yet loud enough for the whole gathering to hear her. "You are no son of mine, and you are not welcome here!"
Pacing through the gap conveniently left for him by the crowd, Sirius towered over his mother, his smile still fixed on his face. "I came to pay my respects to the dead," he replied jovially. Turning his head, he spat on the coffin, watching with some fascination as the glistening puddle of spittle pooled and then started to roll and spill toward one side.
There were cries of outrage, now, among the hisses and murmurs, and the spit disappeared. If he had to guess, he'd have said it was Narcissa's wand-work, she'd always been the fastidious one. Besides, if Bella had drawn, she wouldn't have been casting spells at the coffin.
Sirius turned back to his mother, his grin widening at her horrified expression, and then he looked around the gathering to see who else he could get a rise out of. "Hallo, Cissy. You're looking... fat." She went just a little more pale, and he knew he'd hit his mark; she'd always been sensitive about her weight. His gray eyes shifted to the left, and he added, "Malfoy. Still a swot, I see."
"Black," Lucius returned, the barest hint of a mocking note in his voice. That was all he said, though, much to Sirius' disappointment.
He moved on, his jaw tightening just a little as he caught sight of the Lestranges. "Bella. How's tricks?" The unsubtle wordplay on her name never failed to throw her into a temper... except today.
There was a crack from over where Sirius had left his bike, and in spite of himself he turned toward it, then rolled his eyes at the sight of Remus, with Auror Frank Longbottom in tow. Another murmur went up from those who knew what Remus was, but his werewolf friend ignored them in favor of hustling up to Sirius and taking hold of his arm.
"What in the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" he hissed.
"What's it look like I'm doing, Remus? Came to pay my respects to the dead, didn't I?" He turned back to the crowd and bellowed, "And good bloody riddance!"
"I think that's enough, Mr. Black," said Frank, coming up on Sirius' other side. "Let's leave these people in peace, shall we?" He was trying to remain professional, but he'd chosen the wrong words with which to attempt to calm Sirius down.
"Peace? Leave them in peace, you say?" Sirius' voice had risen, his manic grin still plastered on his face. "Why, whatever for, Auror Longbottom? It's not as if any of them have ever left me in peace!" He drew himelf up, looked around at the various expressions of horror and disgust and contempt, and took a breath to continue his rant.
Only, he never got the first syllable out, because someone said, "Stupefy," and everything went black.
* * *
There was much scolding, and finger-wagging (mostly on Lily's part), and nobody ever told him who it was that had knocked him out. Sirius had his suspicions, but after two hours of lecturing he simply walked out, to sit on the Potters' back step and brood. He couldn't have explained his irrational urge to go to the funeral even if he'd wanted to, knew that none of them could possibly understand.
It wasn't their fault, the lack of understanding, just as it wasn't necessarily always his fault when the darkness from somewhere so deep within him that he'd never be rid of it bubbled up to the surface and drove him to do reckless, dangerous, occasionally hurtful things. The madness he'd grown up with wasn't something he could simply take off the way James could shed his Invisibility Cloak, and however much he'd hoped to leave it behind him when he turned his back for good on his family, it kept rising to sink its claws into him. He'd known since he was four, when Uncle Cygnus made an offhand comment about Sirius' resemblance to Bellatrix; he'd known even then that his uncle wasn't just talking about their physical attributes.
The dark cloud that hung around Bella even at age twelve was repulsive to Sirius, although he'd often wondered if he was the only one who knew it was there. It was a sickness that could not be purged by any spell or potion, a wrongness of spirit and soul that he wanted no part of, even as he feared the likeness that he sensed within himself. As a child, he'd been prone to violent outbursts, and would often have to be restrained... Sirius shuddered, drawing his mind away from the darker memories of his childhood, looking for happier times. They were few and far between, in those years before Hogwarts.
He sighed and looked back at the house, knowing he ought to go back and apologize for his behavior. An apology meant accepting responsibility, however, and he wasn't quite ready to do that, just yet. However far he might run, he could never fully escape the Black legacy, the mercurial call that tethered him to the Ancient and Most Noble House that he so despised. It was a leash he would wear for however long he lived, which made his Animagus form all the more fitting, though his friends would never truly appreciate the collar their Padfoot wore. He resolved to do whatever it took to ensure they never would, even if it came down to sacrificing his life for theirs.
The End