General Disclaimer: Anything recognizable is owned by by JK Rowling... If I believed in a god then it would have her face. All other characters, plot lines and situations I will gladly claim.

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'I don't know if you've noticed Lily, but Sirius and Lyra are closer than your average pair of twins.'

Sirius couldn't stand still, he rattled the door handle ferociously. Dread, cold and heavy like wet cement, tightened his stomach, squeezed his heart. A fear gripped him, such as he'd never felt before. If he stopped, even for a moment, that dread would harden, setting his innards in concrete, and he'd be stuck, helpless forever.

He took a step back from the door, the handle not budging in the slightest. Throwing his fists against it he screwed his eyes shut tight, trying to think of anything else instead of the horrific pictures that kept forming in his head. He hadn't heard anything since he'd awoken, lying bruised and bloodied on his bedroom floor ten minutes earlier.

The only thing he had heard was the door across the hall being slammed shut. It was this noise that had him jolt awake and pulling at the door handle in the first place. The affinity his parents had for using silencing charms on closed doors always made him frantic beyond comprehension. But this, this time it was different. Frantic didn't do what he was feeling justice. Try as desperately as he might, he couldn't keep the memories of what had led to this from resurfacing.

'Enough with your excuses! Despite your most ardent beliefs, I am not oblivious to everything that goes on within my own house!'

Sirius knew it was dangerous. There were a great many things he could do within this house that could put him in potential danger, but listening to his parents engage in what could only be described as an intense argument (his parents – along with all other polite pureblood families – never argued, as Sirius had been reminded on multiple occasions), was even more reckless than usual, even for him.

And he had been intending on turning around and retreating to his room – he had sat down to write a letter to James that morning, but he didn't know how to write about how desperate he was to get out of the house – especially seeing as he was supposed to have left for the Potters two days ago – without worrying his best friend. James was a good friend, but he did tend to worry to the point of recklessness. Chances were that he'd mount a full-scale rescue mission as soon as he received Sirius' letter – but that was before he'd caught on to what it was exactly that his parents were talking about.

That damned dinner.

It had been weeks since it happened. He'd had weeks to think about it, to try and decipher, to figure out exactly what had taken place over the last course of that meal. Weeks of endless thinking and he was still just as confused, just as angry as he had been when it had happened. Maybe his parents would finally let it slip, they might finally be able to explain just what it was that Madam Rosier was talking about that night.

'Orion, I have no possible idea what runs through the minds of everyone who comes into this house.' Walburga's biting voice was rising with every word said. 'Our eldest son should be proof enough of that!'

Sirius gritted his teeth at this slight. There were more important things to focus on than the well-known hatred his parents had for him.

'It is not our eldest son that I was referring to … neither was Madam Rosier, that night, if my translation of the situation is to be relied upon.' Where Walburga's voice rose, Orion's voice was being drawn lower, like a bucket into the well of his formidable fury. 'Why is it that I always get the impression that everyone knows much more about my own blood than I?'

Sirius heard Walburga scoff. 'You've never taken an active interest in her before. Why now?'

Up till this moment Sirius had been merely curious, now his curiosity mixed with worry, water and oil starting to swirl in his chest.

'I am interested in the interests of others, I am simply attempting to uncover what the Rosier's find so interesting in something I have in the past dismissed.' There was a pregnant pause, Sirius wasn't sure if anyone on the other side of the door was breathing – he wasn't too sure he was breathing. 'What interests you about her, Walburga?'

'Other than the fact that she's my daughter?' Sirius was sure that Walburga had meant the question to be just as biting as her previous comments, but he could hear her waiver, even if it was the smallest possible amount.

'You really think I am a simpleton, don't you?' Orion asked, his voice full of venom. 'I have heard the rumours, ever since they were born I have heard them. I chose to ignore them thus far because I have reassured myself that my wife could never be that foolish. She knows better than that, I told myself when I caught them whispering. She would never associate with the people required to be able to carry out what they've said you did. You would not taint our bloodline, a bloodline that has remained pure and strong for so many centuries, on such an irrevocable level.'

Sirius heard the squeal of a chair leg being dragged across the wooden floor boards of his father's study and it took all his strength not to jump at the sudden noise. He took a half step closer to the door so that his cheek was almost pressed flush against it.

'Perhaps I have been wrong.' Orion's voice was almost at a whisper now. 'You've always been an ambitious woman, Walburga. At times so focussed are you on your goal that it flirts with the point of brutality. I have always admired this about you. But,' a short yelp was suddenly stifled and Sirius' hand instinctively flew to the door handle, 'if I have discovered that you have used this ability to turn this family into a magnet for ridicule and scandal, if that girl should be anything other than a disappointment, just like her brother, then …'

'Master Black should not be spying.'

Sirius whirled around so fast he was momentarily dizzy. Kreacher stood not two meters from him, his wide eyes glowering up at him.

Sirius moved toward him, 'Kreacher, wait …'

But he was too slow. Kreacher popped out of sight and the next second his scratchy voice was coming from the other side of the study door.

Sirius didn't have time to turn to run back to his room before the door opened. Orion Black, in all his towering, twisted rage, glaring daggers at his eldest son.

Sirius stood, head against his door, he could think about what happened next later. Right now, he had more pressing worries, much more pressing.

Looking at his bedroom door, he tried to focus his thoughts. He couldn't risk using magic to undo the lock Walburga had placed on it. He couldn't jeopardise his returning to Hogwarts, for both his and Lyra's sake. Suddenly his panting halted. Of course! How could he have forgotten! Running over to his trunk he tossed aside old books and clothes he hadn't bothered to give to Kreacher until he spotted a glint of silver. His heart felt lighter and heavier at the same time as he withdrew a small knife from the mess that was his trunk.

Running over to the door he stuck the knife in the key hole and twisted until it clicked and swung forward. With his wand in one hand and the knife in the other, Sirius crossed the narrow, dark hallway, not bothering to look if anyone was lurking in the shadows. Upon later recollection he would recall a shouting match being had from somewhere downstairs. His panic far outweighed his fear.

'Lyra!' He banged on the door. It didn't move an inch and there was nothing but silence on the other side. Sirius shoved the knife into the door's keyhole, rushing into the room as soon as it clicked open.

At first everything he saw as he entered the room seemed to mesh into one great blurred scene. A girl, lying on the brown floor, white skin, black hair and red… so much red. There was red on the floor around her, on her hands, soaking through the front of her shirt. But where there was a river of red, there was also far too much white when Sirius looked into her face.

Lyra's face was white, sleeked with sweat and unmoving, even when Sirius slapped her cheek. 'Lyra! Lyra, can you hear me?' She didn't even so much as flinch. He looked around the room quickly, some of Lyra's books lay open on her desk, her eagle feathered quill stood in an ink pot next to some parchment on her night stand, but most of her belongings and clothes were still in her trunk that was tucked in the far corner of the room.

'That's it,' Sirius said quickly to no one in particular, 'we're leaving.' He flicked his wand and looked back to Lyra as her belongings flew into her trunk. Sirius scanned his sister and stopped when he reached her stomach, where the blood was heaviest. He grabbed a scarf off the bed and tied it tightly around her middle. When he was satisfied he looked up, Lyra's trunk was closed, her room considerably more bare. Sirius flicked his wand again and the trunk shrunk and flew towards him. He caught it, stuffed it in his pocket and lifted his sister off the bloodied floor.

He was halfway to his own door when a figure emerged from a doorway further down the hall.

'Sirius! What's going,' Regulus stopped at the sight of his sister, his eyes widening, colour draining from his face. 'What's happened?'

Sirius ignored him as he entered his own room, he placed Lyra down on his bed as gently as he could before flicking his wand again, this time his belongings were flying around the room, placing themselves haphazardly into his trunk.

'She's hurt!' Regulus came to hover at Sirius' bedside, he looked around the room as one of Sirius' books hit his leg on its way to the trunk. 'What are you doing?'

'What does it look like?' Sirius growled as he went over to his desk, searching through it's drawers. After he'd extracted a small square mirror from the desk's middle drawer, he turned back into Regulus' ramblings which had remained a constant splutter.

'But – But you can't!'

The trunk in the corner clicked shut, shrank and flew into Sirius' open hand. He hastily shoved it into his pocket and went to his bedside but Regulus' voice was growing firmer and louder.

'Sirius you can't!' Regulus went to stand in front of his brother but Sirius grabbed onto the younger boy's shirt collar, pulling him in so that he could see the panic clearly in his eyes.

'What can't I do Regulus!?' Sirius growled, angry red sparks spat from his wand's tip. 'Because what I can't do any longer is to stay in this – this house and watch her get hurt anymore.' He pushed him away so roughly that Regulus' back hit the wall. Sirius turned and lifted his sister off the bed. 'We're leaving,' he grumbled as he made his way back into the hall.

The walk down to the ground floor was the longest two minutes of Sirius' life. He tried to keep to the shadows as much as he could and paused every time he heard so much as what could have been a creak of a floor board.

The shouting match was still being fought. He could only distinguish phrases, most of them in his mother's high-pitched shrill shrieking voice.

'Do you realise what you've done?!'

'Not meant for her!'

And to what would have been his surprise, had it not been for the shock he immersed in, Sirius heard his father shout back.

'Not even that strong!'

'Unnatural!'

Sirius started to breathe a little easier when he entered the entrance hallway and caught sight of the front door. The appearance of the thick wooden door was enough to drown out all other sights and sounds.

He was mere feet from it when a flash of purple light soared past his head catching the lantern hanging on the wall beside the door, it exploded.

Sirius ducked as another stream of light narrowly missed him.

'How dare you try to sneak out of this house!' Walburga Black's shrieking voice sounded slightly demonic as she hurled curse after curse at her son.

His back now to the door, Sirius had no choice but to avoid his mother's onslaught, both of his hands busy keeping Lyra close to him, his wand stuffed in his back pocket. He tried to shield his sisters face to his chest as a picture frame blew up next to them, he felt blood start to ooze from his already cut lip.

'How dare you try to smuggle her out with you!' Walburga's advances were coming dangerously fast now. 'Orion, he's taking her!'

Sirius, frantically ducking and swerving, felt his heart stumble when his back hit the door, the handle digging into his skin. His mind whirled at what he was about to do, but with his mother's infuriated cries in front of him, her curses flying around him and his freedom now firmly behind him, he had no other choice. Walburga was raising her wand, getting ready for another attack, when Sirius quickly turned around and fumbled with the door handle.

The air that hit his face almost made him let out a victory cry. He only caught a glimpse of the muggle world outside the Black family house before he let out a strangled cry, his legs almost gave way as he felt a ripping sort of pain jut along the back of his right leg.

The last things he recognised before he was sucked into the tunnel of apparition was his mother's voice, disinheriting her eldest children, the pain in his leg that had him close to tears and the small, fragile, white and red girl in his arms, who had the tears that had threatened to spill from before come streaming down his cheeks.

And then there was nothing … nothing but the sound of a family of birds in a close by tree and children laughing down the street. As soon as his head stopped spinning so violently he faced the modest two-storey house.

'James! James! James!' He screamed and screamed and screamed until the front door opened. James and Remus stood on the threshold.

They were by his side in a heartbeat, Remus taking Lyra as Sirius fell. James grabbed Sirius by the arms before he had a chance to hit the cement. The Black twins were ushered inside and had barely made it two feet into the house before Mr and Mrs Potter were upon them.

Dorea and Charlus were quickly to slip into their professional mindsets, they'd deal with the horror they both felt later. They ushered the teenagers into the lounge room, Sirius flung himself into the first chair he stumbled upon where Dorea quickly set to work stitching up his leg which was drenched in thick, dark blood.

Sirius fidgeted, trying to get a better look at Lyra, who Remus had placed on the lounge, Charlus hovering over her, removing the scarf from her middle and almost balking when fresh blood spilled out over her already soaked shirt.

'Hold still, dear,' Dorea told Sirius firmly, holding Sirius to the chair with surprising strength.

Sirius would've sat still like she asked if Charlus hadn't let out a strangled growl. 'That insidious bastard!'

Sirius went to stand but yelped, his leg instantly collapsing under the pressure. Charlus had exposed Lyra's stomach, it was riddled with long, thick, impossibly deep cuts.

'What's wrong?' Dorea's voice was no longer firm but urgent.

'He's used Dark Magic on his own daughter!'

Sirius caught James' eye. He had never seen his friend looking so scared, so unsure. He stood beside his kneeling mother looking from her, to Sirius, to his father, and back again. Remus however was fixed on one thing and one thing only. His grip on Lyra's hand visibly tightened as the young girl suddenly stirred and started screaming. A strangled cry that pierced Sirius like a twisting knife through the heart.

'Dorea! I need your help!' Charlus' yelled over Lyra's screaming. 'He's tricked it.' He told his wife as she appeared by his side, leaving Sirius stranded in the armchair. 'Every time I try to seal the wound it works itself deeper.'

It took hours, hours for Dorea and Charlus, two fully grown wizards, an ex-Auror and an ex- Healer, to stifle the bleeding coming from the wounds across Lyra's stomach. It was a crude patch up job but the Dark Magic used by an even darker man was not easily undone.

After every passing minute, Sirius felt the weight in his chest grow and grow and he was certain that if he just got to Lyra than it would go away. If he just got to his sister than this nightmare would be over, he'd wake up panting in his bed, slick with sweat, a pounding headache the only reminder of this nightmare.

There were a number of things Sirius took careful note of in that unearthly long afternoon.

He noticed every beat of his heart, how each one was like a warning that the next one would never come.

He watched every breath his sister took, fearing the same warning was true for her. He flinched through every one of her long screams and registered his long sigh after each one had ended.

He kept an eye on James who looked ready to faint at the sight of his bruised and bloodied and tortured friends, but whose eyes shone with undisguised admiration as he watched his parents work in complete harmony.

And Sirius watched on as Remus gripped Lyra's hand, muttering for her to hold on, to hold on just a little longer. Remus never looked at anyone else throughout the whole ordeal.

Later, when the candles of the house had been dimmed or doused, when James and Remus had retreated to the formers room, when Mr and Mrs Potter spoke in hushed voices behind closed doors, when Lyra's breathing had finally returned to deep, even inhales and exhales as she rested in a single bed in one of the Potter's guest bedrooms and when Sirius lay in the bed adjacent to hers, watching her chest rise and fall, he finally let out a long shuddering breath and cried himself into the silent black that he knew was only a brief respite from the harrowing future he and his sister were now destined to live.