Black Heart

Summary: It's only been a month since Sirius's death, and Harry is being plagued by dreams of his lost godfather. But when he starts seeing Sirius when he looks in the mirror, is it just his subconscious playing off his guilt, or is something else going on?

Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, do you really think I would be writing fanfiction?

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Sirius Black, Marauder and playboy extraordinaire, prided himself in being surprised by nothing. Lily's revelation, however, had been a little much for him to take, and he now found himself staring at his best mate's wife in dumbfounded horror. "Lily... You... you can't. How could you even consider keeping this a secret from James? This would destroy him."

The muggleborn witch shot him a sharp look, her unnaturally green eyes flashing."Which is exactly why he can't find out. Do you think I wanted this to happen? No! This was a fluke, something completely out of anyone's control, and I will not have our happiness destroyed by it. I know that if I explained everything to him, he would probably understand. But I don't want to force him into that situation. As long as he doesn't find out..."

"Lily! Please! There are things at stake here beyond your pride. You have no idea about pureblood traditions."

"And what do you care about antiquated customs, Sirius? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought you had denounced your family and all that narrow-minded ridiculousness about bloodlines?"

With a deep sigh, the dark haired wizard massaged his temples. "Listen, I might not approve of my family's obsession with blood purity or their insistence that I support the Dark Lord, but this has nothing to do with unfounded prejudices. You have to tell James."

"No."

"Well if you can't bring yourself to tell him, at least let me..."

"No means no, Sirius," the redhead growled, shooting him an even darker glare. "I don't want anybody to ever find out. That's why I made you swear a Wizards Oath to never reveal anything that I told you tonight."

With a pained look, Sirius glanced down at the child in his arms. "Why tell me? You don't want this information getting out, so why tell anyone, let alone someone who wants nothing to do with this lie?"

"It's not a lie! I'm just... hiding it. And as much as I hate to admit it, the reason I'm telling you is because I need your help."

"I can't do it. I won't be able to live with myself, knowing that I'm hiding who he really is, that I'm lying to him. It's like asking me to rip out a piece of his soul."

"You've made it very clear that you don't support my decision. But I also know that you would do anything in your power to protect him.."

Seeing the man's agonized expression, the woman's stern look faltered for a moment. Then, her determination appeared to deflate. "Look, I'm not asking you to help me with the actual concealing. Even before I talked to you, I guessed that you wouldn't exactly be overjoyed about that. What I need your help with is something a little bit different. In fact, it's got to do with some of those pureblood customs you and James aren't allowed to tell me about." Now she had caught his attention. With a small smile, Lily forged on. " I understand that purebloods have tons of traditions which they live and breathe by, and I won't pretend to support, understand, or even know about all of them. But one of the few I've heard about is the Right of Naming. I don't know what it does, but I know that it's important enough that Andromeda, who's shunned everything else related to your family, sought you out to complete the ritual. If she considers it that important, there must be a reason behind it, and I don't particularly want to find out the hard way what it is. From what Andromeda let slip, I understand that - circumstances being what they are - you have to be the one performing the ritual. This is the only reason why you're the one I asked to assist me and not somebody more... academically inclined."

Sirius was silent for a long, long minute. "What do you want me to do?"

Lily let out a relieved breath, and all the tension seemed to leave her. "I need you to perform the Right of Naming as... Well, as it's traditionally done. James has agreed, albeit extremely reluctantly, to forgo the ritual, to handle this the muggle way with just a birth certificate, so there should be no complication on that end. Just tell me what you need and I'll prepare it for you. I'll be handling the actual concealing alone because I know you want nothing to do with it. I'll need a drop of your blood, though, so that I can tie the charms to both your and my life forces."

Sirius's head snapped up at this. "You're doing blood magic?" he hissed incredulously.

"It's a last resort!" she snapped back. Taking a calming breath, she continued. "I could only find one concealment that would develop with him as he grew, and it just happened to be blood magic. I'm not thrilled about this, either, but I will do whatever it takes to see this to an end." Lily paused for a moment, as if she really didn't want to ask Sirius her next question. "I'll also need to know what you'll be naming him so that I can do the preparations correctly."

Sirius carefully studies the child, let his eyes caress the tufts of silky black hair and the already prominent cheekbones.

"Well?"

"Orion," the young man murmured, suddenly looking much more weary than his twenty-one years. "Orion Leonis Black."

Green eyes stared at him in blank disbelief before rolling. "Merlin, that sounds so pretentious. Fine. Whatever makes you happy. Make sure to get a list of whatever you need to me by the end of the day, okay? I want to start the preparations as quickly as possible." When the man didn't even seem to register that she has been speaking, the witch shook her head and strode purposefully out of the room.

Sirius, was too focused on staring into sleepy, half-lidded grey eyes to notice anything happening around him. "I'm sorry," he murmured, voice hitching, as he pressed a gentle kiss to a tiny forehead. "I'm so, so sorry."

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How could he have been so stupid? All the clues had been right in front of him - the visions throughout the year, the fact that they had all but disappeared before the one, how practically giddy Kreacher had been when he'd told him Sirius wasn't there. Why hadn't he at least tried on his occlomency lessons? Hell, why hadn't he ever opened Sirius's gift? That mirror could have been the one thing which ensured Sirius didn't die.

It was his fault Sirius was dead. It was his fault that the closest person he'd ever had to a father figure was dead. The man who had given everything he had to the Order was gone, and how were the other members reacting? By carrying on with their lives as if nothing had changed! Remus just seemed resigned, as if Sirius's passing had been a foregone conclusion. Some, such as Snape and Mrs. Weasley, seemed to have gained satisfied, superior looks whenever he was brought up. It was just wrong! When he'd been escorted off the platform, he'd tried to ask Tonks about the Order's attitudes, and the witch had literally waved off his questions.

"We all figured he'd snap sooner or later," she'd responded. "You just gave him an opportunity to do it sooner."

Even Ron and Hermione seemed rather blasé about the whole ordeal. He'd written them earlier in the summer about the dreams he'd been having, which no longer featured Voldemort, but instead bombarded him with repeating images of the regretful, almost pained looks Sirius would send him when he though no one was looking. They'd written back that he was just experiencing grief and not to worry, it would soon pass and he would be over it. Their joint letter had ended with a rather curt explanation that Dumbledore had requested they not write him very frequently, that it would encourage him to return to the wizarding world on his own, and that it just wasn't safe to do so.

With a groan, Harry rolled over to stare blankly up at the ceiling, careful to be gentle on his sore side. Even if the entire Order didn't feel that Sirius's death changed anything, the Dursley's attitude had certainly reverted now that the threat of a homicidal godfather no longer hung over their heads. His relatives were working him harder than ever. Each morning, he woke up to a list of hours worth of backbreaking chores and - if he were lucky - a piece of toast and a cup of juice. If he didn't finish his assigned tasks by dinner time, the consequences weren't pretty. When his uncle was in a good mood, he was sent to his room without dinner, and might not receive breakfast in the morning. If Vernon was annoyed or frustrated by a bad day at the office, Harry might be locked in his room for a few days without being given any food. And if he were truly angry...

Harry winced as he massaged his tender elbow. He really should be doing something instead of just lying there. The Dursleys had all gone into London for a family meeting with Dudley's nutritionist and had decided to, despite their most primal fears, leave him home alone. Number 4 Private Drive was, for the first time that he could remember, completely quiet. There was no yelling or booming laughter from Dudley and Uncle Vernon, no background buzz from multiple running televisions, no beeping of video games, and no shrill gossiping from Aunt Petunia on the telephone. There wasn't even any of the rumbling snoring which filled the house during the night. There was only unadulterated silence.

In other words, it was the perfect opportunity for him to get some food and do something about these bruises without being yelled at for wasting expensive medical supplies. Staggering across the hall to the bathroom, Harry had to catch himself on the counter to keep from collapsing. Glancing up into the mirror, Harry almost didn't recognize the person staring back at him. Despite the inordinate amount of him he spent outside weeding and planting, his complexion had, in fact, paled over the summer. The cutback in his food had also caused him to lose a significant amount of weight, and this had caused his face to narrow considerably. Although, looking at his increasingly prominent cheekbones and noticeably straighter nose, he somehow doubted his shifting facial features were solely a result of his decreased diet. His changing appearance and lighter complexion coupled to give him an aristocratic, if somewhat waiflike, look.

Yawning, his studied his uncovered eyes. A few weeks beforehand he had discovered that his prescription had changed enough that he could now see better without his glasses than with them. He had soon given up wearing them altogether, and his vision was actually improving by the day. Although, now that he studied his eyes, they looked different, too. Somehow they looked mossier, as if a bit of grey had been mixed in with the eerie killing curse hue he was so used to. Who knows, maybe it was just a trick of the light, or his mentally exhausted mind could be playing tricks on him.

The most surprising change, however, was his hair. For somebody who had faced dragons, werewolves and revenge hungry dark lords, something as mundane as hair growing shouldn't have been that astonishing. But Harry couldn't recall his hair having even grown an inch since he was seven. Not only had it now grown, but it had even calmed somewhat, and he could now drag a brush through it without the handle breaking. And the color... His hair had been dark before, but now it appeared to be almost pitch black.

All these changes on their own hardly made much of a difference. In fact, if it wasn't his own face he was studying, many of the changes would have barely been perceptible. But as they continued to build upon one another, Harry couldn't help but notice that he no longer looked like a carbon copy of the laughing teen in the photo album Hagrid had gifted him. In fact, he looked a bit more like...

Eyes widening in horror, Harry tore his gaze away from the mirror and grabbed the first aid kit out from under the sink. He could take care of this in his room. He didn't need a mirror. As he rushed back across the hall, Harry tried in vain to shake images of regret laden stares from his mind.

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Wow. Look what you can accomplish with a little elbow grease and a burning desire to do anything but study for AP tests.

Please, review and let me know what you think. This IS going to be a longer work, I just need to figure out where I'm going with it. So any feedback you give will definitely be taken into account. I can't wait to read your comments!

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