Sirius buttoned up his coat to his chin and stuffed his fists in his pockets, and walked the beaches, gazing. And thinking.
The wind was steely and chilling. The light here was shifting with an even more tantalizing swiftness, veils of rain and cloud concealed the mountain peaks, shyly, then he saw bright spears of sunlight, lancing, and slanted, and golden.
It was a traumatizing yet beautiful landscape. Islands and the mountains were reflected in dark indigo waters to his left. Bow-backed moorland across the loch stooped down to an echoing shoreline. A boat was drifting, alone. A plantation of firs was divided by a road that seemed to go nowhere- disappearing into those dark, sombre regiments, then blackness.
It was harsh, and daunting. Bright lozenges of orange winter sunset blazed on the farther hills, like organized fires, moving silently and very fast. The wind rustled among the branches, and in his ears. He smelled the sea.
The Black Cuillins were like a row of dementors in black hoods. Their shark-toothed peaks ripped at the heavy passing clouds, gutting them of rain. Yet still the clouds built and fell, in their endless and anguished turmoil, apparently without pattern.
But there was a pattern here. And if he stared long enough at the Black Cuillins across the waters of Eisort, he would understand it.
His mother, pushing him into the hurling rain. He remembered her touch on the flats and then when he turned around, it was gone. Shewas gone. He remembered screaming. She was dead. His father was dead.
He wasn't supposed to be here. And somehow, he felt the feeling that he already had been, but something went badly wrong. But what?
A big black dog. A sallow-faced, screaming woman in a portrait. But how did they fit in? And then there were these names,Harry James Lily Remus Moony Padfoot.
There were others, but as he dreamt he forgot them.
It was like grasping at smoke, there was no use.
His brother was back at the cottage. They had moved out for a while; the muggles had taken over the Alphard's island more than a week ago. His uncle left them to it, shielding himself and Sirius and Regulus from the detectives and the aurors. They hid themselves instead inside the inn on the mainland at Broadford, staring at the shivering rowans beyond the big windows.
His mother's body had been found by a fisherman, floating at the beach near Camuscross. The police said that she must have fallen in the mud and the darkness, and drowned.
It was too easily done. Too easily done. It was an accident, they said.
But was it, truly? Why would she have done it? Gone out there when she knew it had to have been dangerous, even with a wand? Just to get rid of me, like she's tried so often before?
In reaction to these thoughts, he saw his own breath misting in the damp raw air. The rocky beach was bitterly cold, now that he'd stopped walking so aimlessly. It was so cold that even the lighthouse windows, high above his head were icing up.
He'd made it around the island, once or twice, it wasn't big and so it wasn't difficult to, by any means. But now, Sirius felt lost. The scene was just like it was out of his childhood- only why he kept thinking that he couldn't say. Hewas a child. He was Sirius Black and he was eight years old and-
The memories, though, the memories. If that was true, then where did they come from? The pattern, find the pattern...He took in a mouthful of cool air, his ribs inflating with ice. He might have had the idea to use a warming charm-
Where did that idea come from-
Sirius was going mad. His mother was dead and he was going mad.
He plodded on through his walk. His wellington boots were sinking into the thick mud around the shore, the feeling of the brown glop slowly seeping through to his socks, although it wasn't there.
I have to find out why.
He gazed at the smears of the rain. The harshness of the outdoors was beckoning, and it greatly appealed to him. He looked once again at the mountains- something in him wanted to be out there in the wind and the cold, scrambling the cruel ridges of the Black Cuillins, getting battered by the winds up by the peaks that overlooked the old castle of Hogwarts School-
He wanted to be out there surviving, for Harry. He remembered a time when he'd been doing that much. He'd never been the outdoor type before, but he supposed he had to have been, at least while on the run.
Only I don't remember. Sirius closed his eyes, breathing in the salt-bitten air. And then he opened them. I was on the run.
He stared at the thin crackles of rime. I was running from-
No... no...
And now the grief hit Sirius, like a blow to the back of his knees: as it often did. Like a Slytherin crashing into him while playing Quidditch, all at once. Making him crumple, and lean to the immovable fir for support, or the broom.
Harry, his Harry. The boy who looked just like his father. His young godson.
He'd loved him too,loved him just as much as James, as Lily. As Remus. But now Sirius was here, and alone, and so was Harry, in that other faraway world. I fell through the veil...
Across the room Sirius saw Tonks fall from halfway up the stone steps, her limp form toppling from stone seat to stone seat, and Bellatrix, triumphant, running back toward the fray...
Where are they?Sirius was despairing. Where are my friends?
He couldn't think. He remembered now, and again.
He met her in a dance, as they twisted and duelled above the dais, ducking and blocking spells just as often as they were throwing them.
But while he had originally felt despair, just now, it was just nowthat he felt anger. He wanted to hurt his cousin for what happened. Punish her. Hurt her badly. Maybe even himself. Bellatrix was responsible for him being here and now that he was, he was alone and afraid. He had fallen through the Veil and he was now seeing what was on the other side. Except, it was all wrong. Everything was wrong. James and Lily, if they were even here, were children. Like his little brother, they had no idea where he had come from, what awaited them.
God.
Sirius shut his eyes, and opened them.
They're not here. I'm not there.
Those who were, they had been Reggie and Alphard and his mum and his dad, for a while. Only now his mother was gone, drowned, and his dad was missing. Was there another place to go, when you ran out of time in the Veil? Or did you just fade, like a soul not to be made to stick around forever, like you had just run out of time?
Or maybe-
No, he was dead, he was sure of it. How else would he have gotten to this other world? How else would he be here, in 1966, or what he thought was 1966, because simply believing that time no longer ran here was terrifying, it was more than that, it was not what he wanted, he wanted to be back in London with Harry, not stuck on a horrible island with his tiny little brother and his uncle who he'd seen for a while when he was little but then he just seemed to disappear from Wizarding society- leaving him gold-
It was thanks to Alphard he'd been able to make it at seventeen, leaving the Potters, but they hadn't spoken for years before that and Sirius always thought Alphard had done it because he hated his sister.
The same sister who blasted them both off the tapestry. The same sister who was lying in a morgue,her lungs filled with fluid.
Who was left to disown him now?
Sirius almost wanted to laugh, but instead he strangled it.
He couldn't. Not here.
"Sirius?" The sound of little Reg's voice brought him to proper consciousness. Regulus was staring at him, head-tilted, eyes sad, and yet inquisitive. As if he could sense Sirius's absurd and terrible thoughts.
Sirius looked to his brother. Calmed himself. And spoke:
"Yes? Reg?"
His brother took his hand, a bit smaller than his own but they still fit together like they always did. Always had. "Alphie sent me to find you, s'almost time for supper," Reg's voice was subdued, but he finished speaking before he attempted a shy smile and started pulling Sirius back toward the direction of the cottage. They had to go.
Sirius stared back at the crashing, slurping waves, one last time. Despairing.
Sirius stepped inside the cottage and kicked off his boots. Regulus had gone over to the table to read, and Sirius watched as his brother put his little hands under his chin. Regulus was slouching, looking at the picture book that he must have already left there. Sirius would have stopped to think what that slouching would mean in the eyes of their mother, but he couldn't. Because she was dead-
He sat in the seat across from Regulus, to join him. He didn't have a book of his own, but he looked back out through the window, past his brother's head at the loch and its waves, lapping against the shore to a rhythm.
Alphard was preparing supper in the shadows of the kitchen, where he could see wire baskets, swinging overhead in the half-light, gently, as if someone had knocked them. Sirius could still hear the respiration of the sea from inside the cottage, it sounded like someone was doing exercises. There was a certain calmness, a stillness there.
The three of them ate, silently, after Alphard brought everything to the table. Alphard tugged Reg's book away from him gently, encouraging him to eat what he just cooked the muggle way- Alphard was never very good at cooking spells. Sirius knew why, it was the same reason he never learned: his mother expected him to have a house-elf, or at least a wife to do all that. Alphard's mother was the same woman as his mother's own mother- and if Sirius were to speculate he would guess that Alphard's mother- Alphard and Walburga's mother, had been just as bad as his own, as Walburga was. Because all children learn by example.
There was Cygnus, Alphard's younger brother by two years, who'd learned to survive in the pureblood world, marrying Druella Rosier even though Sirius knew that they'd hated each other, at twenty, creating three perfect daughters in quick succession- Bellatrix, born first, in December 1951, then Andromeda, the middle child, the next December, and then Narcissa, who may have been a last-ditch attempt at a boy, in July 1955. And even though they couldn't last because they couldn't stand each other, Cygnus had fulfilled his duty as the spare, ensuring enough children so that the family could flourish in the extended line.
Just like Irma Crabbe had done for her family, she had married Pollux and had three children- the first, Walburga, in May 1925, who had ultimately been an accident, a scandal,and was the largest reason for their rush into marriage. Sirius knew his grandparents never loved each other because they married during their seventh year of Hogwarts. Irma had to learn to stay at home with the baby she never really wanted. But then four years later their families expected a boy, and so they had Alphard, in July 1929. And then Cygnus in October 1931. And Irma had three children she never really wanted, but at least their families were happy. Except Alphard was his parents' heir, and he wanted nothing to do with the family.
Like Sirius.
Alphard hadn't married, hadn't wanted kids, because he was ill. Sirius would have maybe liked kids, in a different universe where he could marry someone he actually loved. Because love didn't come as easy to him as it came to James, and as it came to Lily.
It was hard to explain. He'd never felt nor received it from anyone in his own family until he met his friends at school, who tried to replace them. It was a foreign concept to him until he went to live with the Potters.
His uncle Cygnus, at least, was lucky enough, healthy enough. If Cygnus hadn't gone and married someone he hated, Alphard would have had to marry and produce a family. He knew that it wasn't just because he was ill, it was because Alphard never wanted children on principle, he had bigger dreams than settling down in the family manor in Tisbury. Or maybe it was just because he wasn't into witches. But Sirius never thought too hard about that, at least when he was still a part of the family, because he was so busy worrying about his own problems. Mainly surviving his own mother.
Sirius's own mother was responsible for Regulus's disease, just as her own mother was responsible for Alphard's. His own mother was the oldest out of all of them, and entered a loveless marriage the same way as Cygnus had; only this time it was vital that they have boys, because the man she married was her second cousin, Orion, who was the heir to the male line. As was Sirius. As he'd always been. As he always knew that he was. And then Regulus had been born as the spare, as the failsafe that their parents never expected that they would have to use.
Sirius was the boy who everyone had a thousand expectations. Regulus had been allowed to do anything, partially because hewas the spare and he was ill and Sirius was not.
His mother could never expect anything of him, now. Or anything of any of them at all. It was a breath of relief, it was a new normalcy, it made him want to cry.
But then- but then-there was still his father, hanging over his head. Part of Sirius just wished they would find his body already, as chaotic his feelings were. He wanted his father to be dead. If he was going to be in this world, still, he'd rather be with Alphard and Reggie. Just the three of them.
And maybe his friends if they ever came along.
"Something the matter, Sirius?" His uncle was just as good at detecting Sirius's foul moods as his little brother was. Right now, all Sirius wanted to do was lock himself in the bedroom upstairs and be by himself, but tonight he was, unfortunately, looking forward to sharing another night on the living room carpet with Reg.
Alphard didn't tell them much, but Sirius didknow his uncle was looking for something more permanent, a better solution. If both of their parents were really gone, that was. Alphard would be the one taking care of them, instead of their father's sister, their Aunt Lucretia, who lived in a big old house, also unmarried, in Somerset. He would be the one taking care of them instead of their divorced uncle Cygnus. Because he was already Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Cissy's father.
Sirius and Regulus hadn't exactly made it very clear who they wanted to live with, in their present situation, but Alphard had promised them that he would make sure that they could. He had promised.
When Sirius was a teenager he'd actually dreamed of this. Quite often. Coming to live with Alphard in the wilderness. Far away from his screeching mother and demeaning grandparents, aunts, and cousins. But it was different now, because- because no, that can't be right, wait. Your name is Sirius Black and you are eight years old,he wanted to bang his head against something hard.
He still hadn't answered Alphard.
"No," he quickly lied, but there was such a delay in that answer, Sirius was sure Alphard would press further. He wasn't entirely sure of what question he'd just answered.
Alphard had just asked him if he was okay.
He was not. He was exhausted and confused that he had the thought of jumping off an Astronomy Tower he'd never seen.
He blinked and looked at Alphard. His uncle was sitting across from them, across from Regulus, who hadn't touched much of his plate and kept reaching for his picture book but Alphard kept having to redirect him. Gently, not quite as impatient as their father would have.
"Sirius," Alphard's eyes were tired, all of a sudden calm, but with sharp edges. "Sirius, son, I really wish you would stop lying to me."
"I'm not lying," Sirius kept his gaze down but his eyes were watery. Damnit. He rubbed at them.
"Sirius," Alphard said gently. Regulus was watching him quietly from the side. His brother must have gotten up from his chair, or pushed his plate to the side, because he was suddenly wrapping his tiny arms around Sirius, and as small as he was they still fit around Sirius perfectly.
"It's alright to be sad, son," comforted Alphie, reaching across the table to rest his big hand on Sirius's arm, as he cried into his little brother's shoulder.
Stop stop stop.
Nothing was alright.
Alphard had called the Aurors and they were coming tomorrow, to collect his sister's body from the muggles in Broadford. They were going to ask Sirius and Regulus some more questions. They were coming tomorrow.
Sirius watched, his eyes empty, as his uncle cleared up the plates from the meal that none of them had really eaten. Regulus had gone back to reading his picture book, which was previously unrecognizable to Sirius but knew the book now as a little Scottish kid's version ofFairy Tales from the British Isles. It must have been a gift from Alphard, perhaps he'd found it in a shop in the muggle district of Portree. He had a faint shape memory of reading something like that to Harry, all those years ago, when Lily and James were in hiding. Some muggle book, anyway.
But Reg soon got bored of the book, or couldn't concentrate, whichever came first, and wandered into the kitchen to talk to Alphard. Sirius could hear his kidlike, warbling voice from the table.
"Alphie?" Reg was asking, wary. "Alphie, could I-"
There was a moment of silence where Sirius could imagine his brother frowning and swallowing, thinking of what to say because he was a bit slow sometimes.
"How come Mummy drowned?"
"What?" Alphard's voice had an unfamiliar edge to it, and it was far away, too.
"How come?" Reg asked again.
Alphard let out a small, tired sigh. "How d'you mean, Reg?"
"Well, witches always float," Reg's voice said, imploring. "It's what my book says. And you said something too, 'specially when we came up t'see you in the summertime. You said our magic would save us if we ever fell on the flats..."
At first, Alphard said nothing.
"Reggie, I..." His response was delayed. "When your...your mother said that, she must have only been talking about the magic that you do when you're frightened, the kind that you can't control. It doesn't always work for grown-ups like it does for children. She drowned, and that's what the police said. I'm sorry, Reg, but your mother is truly gone. Really truly." His uncle didn't sound very sad, like Sirius would have expected him to.
"Is that why Siri- is that why Siri-" Regulus just kept asking questions, but this time he fell silent. This time, there was no answer, and his little brother seemed less sure of himself.
Sirius had to be sure. He had an inkling of what Regulus was asking, he was asking whySirius survived and their mother fell walking back, why their father had probably been drowned too, if he hadn't killed Walburga first.
He had to be sure.
Sirius got up slowly, and followed the voices into the kitchen, but just to the doorway. He stared up at his uncle, next to his little brother. Their uncle's back was facing them as he methodically wiped off the dishes, one by one, all without magic; he was gazing at the dark kitchen window- the kitchen that faced landwards, over the tidal flats, towards the line of low bald hills behind the old pub, a horizon of deepest blue against the stars and darkness.
But Sirius could also see Alphard's face, reflected in the window glass by the kitchen lights. Alphard hadn't realized this. And Sirius saw intense anger on that chiselled face: a twisting, suppressed rage.
Why?
He caught Sirius looking at him, and the anger disappeared. It was hidden away very quickly. He then set a mug to dry on a rack and he turned, plucking a tea towel, carefully drying his fingers of the suds.
He spoke at last. "Boys," He said, his voice unexpectedly soft. "Boys, I've got to tell you something."
"What is it?" Sirius asked immediately, wary.
"I should have said something before," Alphard said, his eyes hard and distant. "The muggles... they, well- come back into the sitting room with me, will you?"
Sirius and Regulus shuffled after their uncle Alphard and into the room they'd been sleeping in for the last three weeks. They must have made a blanket fort on the floor, although Sirius didn't remember doing it, it must have been before the night of the storm.
Alphard sat them both down on the sofa. "Boys," Alphard's eyes were back to a gentle gaze, as he looked at them. "Boys, before I tell you this- I have something very important to ask you. Did your-"
Their uncle swallowed. "Did your mother ever- did she ever do anything to make you feel afraid? Or, or unsafe? Something that hurt, maybe? Or something scary?"
Sirius looked to Regulus and Regulus looked to Sirius. His little brother's expression was the same, nervous, with a flicker of embarrassment. Same as before, from the pub across the loch. Why is that?
Sirius looked down at the floor, not wanting to look at his uncle, but Regulus had already nodded and it was much too late.
Regulus had given yet another careful nod, just to be sure. The first had looked rather hesitant. Alphard nodded back the second time, but out of wariness. "Okay," he said, carefully, and faintly, "Boys, this is very important. You have to tell the truth." He was swallowing his fury, and his grief, and his anxiety, together. "Sirius, can you look at me?"
Sirius refused.
"Sirius," Alphard's voice had the slightest bit of warning to it.
Sirius didn't care. He looked to the side, entirely away from his uncle, at the fireplace, which held the tiniest of glowing embers. He felt as if Alphard was going to let it die, but they would need it tonight. At least, he'd like it tonight.
"Sirius-"
An uncomfortable sort of silence fell upon them. But Alphard still had something to say. He continued to talk and Sirius just wanted him to go away.
"Reg, then. Did your mother do something last week that made you feel upset? And scared?"
Regulus paused. Then nodded. "Yes, Alphie."
"You're sure?" Alphard's eyes flickered over to Sirius, who was looking at his shoes.
Sirius gave a small shrug, not wanting to look at him. He didn't want to see the anger in Alphard's face.
"Sirius?" Alphard leaned forward and had hold of both of his wrists, but it wasn't harsh or making him flinch away. "Sirius, this is important."
Sirius finally looked up, into his face, but found no intense anger there, no twisted, suppressed rage. Instead, Alphard was looking at them like he was about to cry.
Sirius's eyes flickered downward one last time before he swallowed and drew in a shaky breath.
He didn't know if he could say it.
He started with vague.
"She told me to come with her in the dark?" Sirius faltered, "I didn't, I didn't want to go but she said, she said it was okay because she had her wand..."
"Did she say where she was taking you?" His uncle asked.
Sirius looked up at him and shook his head. "No," he whispered.
His eyes flickered to Regulus. Maybe he shouldn't say what he was going to say in front of his little brother, but there wasn't much more he could do. Alphard deserved to know what his sister had done.
"She pushed me," Sirius swallowed, "She pushed me into the mud, and held me d-down... I couldn't, I couldn't scream... I think she must have fallen walking back...I t-tried- I'm sorry-"
It was the first time Alphard's eyes had come close to tears, regarding Sirius's mother. Sirius didn't want to look at him, he didn't want to see his uncle cry, he was always so strong. He had been so strong.
Sirius was crying, though, too.
That night, the floorboards were scratchy and cold on Sirius's socked feet. He walked to the window. The full moon was high over the Isles. It was a chilly night in early winter. It should have been beautiful. And it was beautiful.This place, this cottage, this island, was forever relentlessly beautiful, it never ever stopped. Whatever else was happening there, the beauty persisted, like a terrible nightmare.
Sirius walked out of the living room and into the kitchen, because he was hungry.
He made himself toast. And sat at the dining table. Munching mechanically, fuelling himself. Staring at the hearth. Thinking about Remus, because of the moon, and Harry, because he wasn't there.
Later, he was sitting in the living room. His little brother was sleeping on the floor, his favourite blanket tucked underneath his arm. Sirius was looking out at the rain. It was raining, it was always raining, here. He used to like the rain sweeping up the Sound from the Point of Sleat. It made everything, somehow, into a sad Gaelic song: liquid and soft, lyrical yet indecipherable; the landscape was like a beautiful, disappearing language.
Now the rain just irked him.
He looked farther and he could see a boat puttering up the way to Loch na Dal, towards the white-painted hunting lodge: Kinloch. Where the Macdonalds lived: the Macdonalds of Macdonald, Lords of the Isles since the year 1200, so Alphard said. He wondered if Mary was there, or if she was somewhere else, warm in her own bed. Her grandparents could have owned that place, or even her parents. But perhaps not. Although, the world was quite smaller than some would like it to be.
He needed to distract himself. Looking at the world outside, which had worked at Grimmauld Place, at least until Snape would say something asinine, busied him enough. Cleaning, too. But there was always that anger there.
He needed to forget, because he had just remembered.
Distraction, now.
He looked back at the living room. Regulus was asleep, tucked under the blanket canopy, with Scottish moonlight flooding the room. He looked relaxed and just as small, even in his sleep.
His black hair was tousled; Sirius preferred his brother's hair like this, slightly wild. He liked his own just the same. But seeing his brother again, like this, was more than just a gift, it was a blessing.
How many times had Sirius watched his brother sleep, when they were younger? When they grew apart, Sirius never saw him look so peaceful again. He remembered that sometime around Regulus's fifth year, he started to tie it up in a way that resembled their father's. Even though Regulus's face was too soft, and his features too gentle, so he couldn't resemble him much. Though as he tried.
His brother was a child, in this horrible world. He was everything Sirius remembered him to be, until he left him.
It could have almost been another chance. Another chance in another past. To nurture his brother, to save him, but Sirius couldn't figure out why the year 1966 was so important. Was it a diverging point? Had Sirius lost his brother, even this early on?
Or maybe nothing mattered. Perhaps he could convince himself, over time, that it was. But he didn't know the whole of it, and he didn't understand everything, but there was a strangeness, in this world. Everything seemed right but everything also seemed off.
And Sirius hadn't yet seen the world he'd stumbled across, when he fell through the veil. He knew that more was out there, more had to be out there, because the whole worldwas not the Isles, the whole world was not Scotland.
Maybe James and Lily were out there.
Maybe his task was to escape the island.
Maybe it was a test.
Maybe he'd have to choose between them and his family...
Was it really them or Regulus? Regulus or them? Maybe it was because he'd gone wrong the first time. Could he have gotten it wrong? Was he trapped here because he did?
He looked from his sleeping brother to the window and to the moon, high above the Cuillins.
This was stupid. He was getting lost in these reflections. A labyrinth of darkened glass. He should be focused on getting back, if that was even possible, Harry needed him-
But he had no idea how, or where he was, or if this was the past, or if this was another chance. He would have to wait this out, somehow.
He hated the waiting bit.
Another day passed. The aurors came and went. They had found nothing concrete, nothing to do with his brother-in-law or anything to do with his body. And his sister's body was released to him, but he had it sent off to Somerset.
And now he had another task in front of him. Alphard checked his watch: eleven a.m. In six hours, he would have to meet his estranged brother in Broadford, and then tell him that their sister likely tried to drown her eldest child out on the mudflats just a few days ago. How would he react? Would Cygnus even believe him?
Alphard stepped out of the kitchen onto the cracked paving stones and looked east, at the chalky pillar of the lighthouse, with the sea, and the snow-covered Black Cuillin mountains beyond. For some reason the sight- the mere existence- of the lighthouse always comforted him. A calming beacon, serene and aloof. Flickering every nine seconds at night.
He could see Regulus, he was solitary, playing down there in his new blue wellingtons, wading in the rock pools, looking for little fish and pulsing urchins. Regulus turned and looked at him, then he ran up the incline of salty grass to the kitchen, to show Alphard some shells he has collected.
"Hey, very nice."
"Can I show them to Siri?"
"Of course you can, Regulus. Of course."
The shells were wet and sandy and graciously freckled with blue striations, fading to yellow and cream. Alphard took out his wand and washed the grit from them, and then for good measure rinsed them under the uncertain spatter of the tap, and handed them back.
"Now go show Sirius," Alphard said, "I think he was upstairs."
Regulus handed him his boots and disappeared happily to the upstairs bedroom. In the silence, Alphard made lunch to dispel his thoughts.
The time passed without terrors. It was four-thirty p.m., and dusk was upon them when Alphard peered his head around the door to his own room, finding Sirius sitting on his own bed and Regulus on the floor with a book. They spent a lot of time up here, in the bedroom, having almost taken it over, when the aurors had been downstairs yesterday.
Although Sirius had hovered, gazing at the two men who had come to investigate any places the Black family owned that Orion might have gone, if he had run that night. While Alphard had been busy with them Sirius had been unusually quiet, appearing occasionally in the doorway and disappearing back upstairs as if he couldn't figure out what to do with himself.
After lunch, when Alphard asked them if they wanted to come get Cygnus from the pub at Broadford with him, they both sat there, silent. Regulus had shaken his head of couse, but neither of them said anything.
"But Uncle Cygnus wants to see you," Alphard said, lying, because he didn't know if their uncle cared to see them or not.
"No," said Sirius, at once. "Don't want to."
"Sirius. Why not?"
"Just not. Not now."
"Regulus, then? Do you want to come, Reg?"
Regulus shook his head and re-buried his head in his book. "No," he mumbled.
"But Regulus, you'll be alone on the island," pushed Alphard.
Regulus shook his head. "Don't mind! Siri'll be here, anyway..."
Alphard had no desire to fight his nephews that afternoon. He had too much to worry about confronting the rest of the family, the first of which being Cygnus. And there was no reason why either of them wouldn't be safe on the island, as long as neither of them strayed. It was an island. The tide was out. He'd only be gone for thirty minutes. Sirius was seven and he could sit safely in a house on his own, and watch his brother.
"Okay," nodded Alphard. "Come here, then. Just promise to stay in the bedroom, alright?"
Sirius got up and moved closer to him. Alphard caught him in a hug, and Sirius, surprised, hugged him back, but not as tightly. "Take care of Regulus," Alphard said. "I'll only be gone a half-hour, alright?"
Sirius nodded, obediently, and settled back on the bed with one of Alphard's old storybooks.
The darkness had gathered itself, and it surrounded the island. Alphard lit his wand and followed the path, down to the shingled beach by the lighthouse, where he dragged the boat off the grassy rocks. Unslipping the ropes, he hauled the deadweight of the anchor aboard, as if it was a small body he was hoping to jettison, into the concealing waters of the Sound.
The night was clear and calm and the light from his wand was unnecessary, the moon was ripe and bright, leftover from the full moon the day before last, giving the waters a luminescence.
And there he was: his brother waited on the Broadford pier, with the lights of the pub behind. Cygnus looked the perfect picture of an imposing Pureblood male, with his face cold and blank, giving nothing away.
But as he went down the stairs and stepped into the dinghy, he nodded, in acknowledgement. He smelled of whisky but not too much. Perhaps he'd had a quick warming glass in the pub.
"How's Regulus and Sirius?"
"They're..."
"What?"
"Nothing."
The muggle motor sliced the cold, black, moonlit waters, as Alphard steered them around Salmadair. The large house of the Macdonalds was dark and empty. The black fir trees defended it, in their legions.
"Alphard?"
The boat was hauled safe above the bladderwrack. The moonlight guided them to the cottage. Regulus must have heard them and ran out from the house to show Cygnus the shells he found, and his brother cupped them in his hands and said, "Hello, Reg. These are really lovely. Thank you."
Alphard watched him with Regulus and was pleasantly surprised. He knew that Cygnus had the tendency to be quite sharp with his girls, as Walburga was with her sons, but Alphard knew that Cygnus had always longed for a boy.
Regulus shifted on his two feet and then ran back up the stairs. Cygnus didn't ask after Sirius, and Alphard directed him to the dining room.
They sat at the dining table and Alphard made them both tea. His brother was very silent. As if he was expected something big. Did he already suspect? Surely not.
As calm as Alphard could, he pulled up a chair, and sat down opposite. And he said: "There's something I have to tell you."
"Okay."
Alphard's breathing was deep, but even. He continued, "You understand by now that our sister is dead?"
He waited for confirmation from his younger brother before continuing on, in a feverish sort of haze.
"That night- the night of the storm. She tried to- well. The reason that she went out on the mudflats that night was that she wanted to drown our nephew. Sirius," he added, when Cygnus opened his mouth to say as if, which one, "Never mind that Orion went out to stop her. I'm ignoring that until we are made aware of what happened to him. But that night of the storm, I found Sirius half-submerged in the mud. She'd taken him out there and left him. She tried to kill him, Cygnus."
Cygnus said nothing. He sipped his tea, his dark blue eyes fixed on Alphard's. Not blinking. But fierce. Like a predator, watching.
Alphard felt a sudden sense of peril. Of being menaced, as was so common in their younger years. Even though Cygnus had been younger, he had always been stronger.He remembered their childhood games almost too well. His childhood stammer momentarily returned.
"I sh- I sh-"
"Alphard. Slow down." He glared. Dark, and brooding. "Tell me everything."
"Regulus, he told me that Walburga had left the cottage with Sirius, the night of the storm, and it had already gotten so bad out. Orion had gone to look for her. Only I couldn't figure out why she would leave Regulus with me and take Sirius away, to the mainland. I thought she may have tried to apparate, in the storm, but Orion said that she must have attempted to walk across the flats, you know they're dangerously slippery, fatally so. That was the last time I saw him. The Aurors haven't found anything either, if he drowned the same way as her."
"And I- and the wind was howling and I panicked, I couldn't leave Regulus alone in the cottage while I went to look for Sirius, too," Alphard admitted. The guilt was getting to him. He hurried on, "So I took him with me, kept him on my back. And I heard someone screaming- it was Sirius. I followed the voice as best I could, and I found him out in the middle of the flats. I pulled him out, and if I hadn't gotten there, he would have drowned. Walburga did it, she must have taken him out there knowing he'd get stuck, and she must have drowned herself walking back. I never saw either of them."
Cygnus's frown had deepened.
Alphard continued on, "And so I went back to the cottage, with the boys, and we waited out the storm. When the skies cleared, I did my best to repair the cottage and then I brought them to the mainland to look for their parents."
Cygnus sipped hot tea again. Alphard wished he would have responded normally. Or in any way. Maybe cry. Shout. Do something. React badly.
But all Alphard got was that menacing stare. His brother swallowed more tea and said: "Your letter said that the muggles found her."
"Yes-" Alphard nodded. "I went down to Camuscross, like the bloke at the pub told me to do, they'd been working down there and I- I knew who she was the moment I saw her- th- th- she was there."
"Okay," Cygnus said. "Slow down, Alphard. What else?"
His brother had wrapped his hands around his mug. Tight. Alphard watched him take another gulp, his eyes never leaving his own.
"Tell me, Alphard. Tell me everything."
He was correct, he needed to know everything;and so, like someone purging a night of alcohol, Alphard chucked it all up. Voiding himself of lies and evasions, redeeming himself with the truth. He told his brother about Walburga, Orion, and all the boys' visits to Skye, and the weeks of strangeness, the way his nephews avoided human contact and flinched every time Alphard came up behind them unexpectedly. He told him about the way that Walburga had been acting, in the lead-up to the storm, perfectly calm on some days and on others, low arguments with Orion that Alphard could always hear while he was out with Sirius and Regulus on the beach, and how it convinced him, for a moment, that he was wrong, but then the doubts crept back. And how he'd let it slip past him, that Walburga had taken her son out onto the flats and left him there to die.
Cygnus still said nothing, while he spoke. But his grip on his mug was so hard that Alphard could see the straining whiteness of his knuckles. As if he was going to pick it up and smash it in Alphard's face. He was angry and he was going to be violent. He was scared yet not scared. Cygnus was going to hit him, or shake him, or curse him- Alphard was telling Cygnus that his own beloved sister was an abusive mother and that she tried to kill her son, that her drowning was no accident.
But Alphard didn't care, he had to say it.
"Orion tried to stop her, but she went out and she did it anyway. She tried to kill Sirius. She tried to kill her own son, our nephew-"
Here it comes. His reaction. Cygnus drained the last of his tea. He put the mug down on the dusty table. The moon was white and horrified outside. Alphard could see her through the windows. Gawping.
At last, he spoke.
"I knew Walburga was abusing them, but-"
Alphard gazed his way. Stunned into muteness.
Cygnus shrugged at his brother's bewilderment. Yet he was also tensed, and muscled. Then, he said, "The abuse, anyway. I've known for a while."
Alphard was dumbed. His brother sighed, loudly, and stood. And walked into the kitchen. Pans and plates were rattling in the sink.
From somewhere Alphard found the energy to respond. He went into the kitchen, where Cygnus had his wand out and was instructing the dishes to wash themselves, under the spatter water of the tap in the big ceramic sink. The sink's water coughed forth, belching and uncertain, like rain from a storm, overflowing. Cygnus's magic rinsed and cleaned the mugs. Obsessively.
In Alphard's own house.
He spoke at last.
"About six months ago..." His brother paused, and the dishes rearranged themselves as they flew into their cupboards. He looked up again. "Cissy's birthday party, you weren't there, obviously, even though you were invited. Sirius came to me and told me what he probably told you. That his mother frightened him, made him feel unsafe. And I asked him why but-"
Cygnus glanced at Alphard again. "He didn't say anything too specific. Only that he didn't like how she pushed Regulus around when he'd never done anything bad."
"Anything else?" Alphard said, quietly.
"No," said Cygnus. "Just- I askedSirius, what sort of way Walburga punished him when he disobeyed her. He wouldn't say anything at first. But then he brought up something about being hungry, probably to distract me, and then I remembered how he and Regulus were afraid to eat anything unless I madethem, when they came to stay in the spring, with me. It was like they were used to having food in front of them but not being allowed to eat it- so I didn't ask him anything else. I helped him get a snack and then he went off to play."
"She was starving them as well?" Alphard asked. "And you- you knew?"
Alphard's brother leaned back, his hands on the edge of the sink, as he faced him. Defiant, or maybe contemptuously.
"I didn't know for sure," Cygnus insisted, glowering. "She- well- I got her drunk that night just to ask her. The only thing she had to say about them was that they were so very disappointing, and that my daughters were so much more well-behaved. It sounds like she punishes them-"
Cygnus swallowed, correcting himself. "It sounded like she punished them a lot. But she didn't think it was abuse, you know Wally, sometimes she can just- she can go too far. She's got anger. She had anger. I- I didn't exactly know, but I suspected. I just- I feel sostupid."
His eyes were hard and he was speaking to the floor, not to Alphard himself.
Then there was silence.
"Why didn't you tell me then?" Came Alphard's voice, he'd managed to find it somewhere.
And then Cygnus mumbled.
"Didn't want to upset you. Wasn't sure."
"That's it? That's your reason?" And then it was Alphard's chance to raise his voice, to menace hislittle brother.
But then the tables turned right over, as they always did.
"What else? What did you want me to do, Alphard?" Cygnus was glaring at him, shouting before Alphard could quite blink- "Alphard, come on.She was oursister, our fucking sister. Was I really going to slope up to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and say, Oh, by the way, I think my sister abuses her sons and I think she should be locked up in Azkaban?Or St. Mungo's? Come on, Alphard. Really? Was I really going to do that? I could have helped them then, when I had that first suspicion, but I didn't. I'm sorry."
"They suffered," whispered Alphard.
Cygnus's angry expression had faded away to something else. "Just as we did," Cygnus said, keeping the distance wide between them.
"But Cygnus, they suffered..." Alphard had let go of everything. There was nothing holding his own tears back anymore. He dropped into a seat at the kitchen table, wiping them away."And it all had to end with her- with him- with them-" His own voice was hollow. He didn't recognise it.
"I thought that they'd survive," repeated Cygnus, "Just as we did."
Alphard couldn't say anything to him, not anymore. Not after that.
"Alphard, I'm sorry," He said.
Cygnus swallowed emotion. He didn't have a scowl on his face, but it wasn't quite a smile, either. Cygnus shook his head, and, as he did, Alphard could see a glisten in his eyes, the wetness of emotion. Not tears, but close.