Worth the Wait
Chapter Four: Mother
Summary: Sirius Black wishes he didn't have a mother at all, but instead he gets an offer for a second one.
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Over the course of the next few months, Sirius slowly started to get to know his new friend better. Every time he saw something new on his arm, it was like there was a pleasantly mild tickling charming humming beneath his skin. He found out that his soulmate lived in Wales (which after consulting a map he was disappointed to find out was too far away to visit), was younger than him by a few months (his birthday was in March!), and was a boy.
Sirius didn't know how he felt about the last one. On the one hand, he was kind of disappointed that he hadn't gotten a romantic soulmate, but on the other hand, he wasn't talking to an icky girl (because all the girls he knew—namely his cousins—were mean to him). At least he was spared that torture. In the end, he decided that he wasn't unhappy with the fact that R was a boy. He did wish he'd know his name though, but he supposed that could wait until later. Hopefully not too much later, but Sirius was trying to learn patience and he figured this was as good a lesson as any.
His soulmate didn't have a tutor like himself, which wasn't all that surprising to Sirius seeing as his soulmate hadn't yet learned how to read or write anywhere near his level. Most of their written communication was with his soulmate's mother (the idea of a nice and helpful mother was alien to Sirius) since his soulmate's primary language was Welsh. Sirius once tried to ask his tutor to teach him Welsh, but that was quickly shut down. It was also brought to his mother's attention, and Sirius learned quickly to never mention anything related to his new friend out loud again.
But that didn't stop him from writing. He wrote about little things he had always wanted to tell a friend (that he sometimes told his brother when he was allowed to see him). He wrote about his life and his childhood and while he wasn't miserable per se, he was definitely lonely. He wrote about how he was glad to have such a nice soulmate and how he couldn't wait till they met and how he already knew they'd be the best of friends. Sometimes he faltered when he thought about them being best friends. Doubts would creep up on him because, well, he had never really had a friend, had he? He didn't know everything about soulmates but surely not everyone was best friends with their soulmate?
He thought about his mother and her gray words and couldn't help but wonder if maybe she did meet her soulmate, but they still stayed gray. Maybe his parents were actually soulmates but they just didn't like each other. Nights when all he could think about were his mother's unhappy words were the worst. He would curl up underneath his blanket and couldn't stand to look at his arm in case there was a rejection there. He didn't want to end up like his mother. He wanted to be best friends with his soulmate. He wanted to love his soulmate.
Thankfully those nights never lasted long.
Once, after a particularly bad lesson and terrible dinner party where he misbehaved, his mother had him punished. Kreacher, of course, would take care of the punishment, and afterwards, his mother would lazily use magic to make sure there were no lasting physical damage on his body.
"We must rid you of this terrible behavior and disobedience soon, Sirius. You won't be fit for children's punishments much longer," she told him as she sent him off to bed.
Those words sent a chill down his spine and he immediately knew she was referring to the traditional family punishment. Bellatrix never let him forget that the Cruciatus Curse was the proper way to punish "terribly naughty boys" like him in the Black family. She was starting Hogwarts in the fall and had already gotten her wand early in June for "practice". Sirius did his best to avoid her whenever she had her wand. She was bad enough without it, he didn't want to find out how dreadful she could be with it.
That night, with tears and a stubbornly runny, snotty nose, Sirius grabbed his inkwell and quill and retreated to his bed. Uncapping it carefully and placing it on his nightstand he started writing to his soulmate about how horrible his family was and how he was sure his mother hated him. She was never cruel to Regulus, though part of him supposed it might be harder to be cruel to a toddler than to a child. He wrote about how alone and unloved he felt and how he wish he had a better mother. Or maybe no mother at all.
Sirius fell asleep with black ink scrawled all over his arm, smudging in some places with tears or from touching his sheets.
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Even though Remus couldn't completely read all of his soulmate's words, he tended to have a very good understanding when something was bad. And when he saw tonight's black ink messily and hastily written on his skin, he knew something Very Bad was happening.
"Mum!" he shouted, running to the kitchen where she was baking tomorrow night's dessert. "Mum! Mum!"
He could feel his chest constricting as he ran, and his eyes were starting to water.
"Remus!" Hope picked him up before he could run into anything dangerous and held him close, trying to soothe her son. "Calm down, love. What's wrong?"
In response, he showed her his arm, which was rapidly filling up with black in that there was scarcely any skin left. Frowning, Hope doubled checked that nothing in the kitchen needed her immediate attention and walked over to the kitchen counter and set Remus down. "Hey, it's alright, Remus," she shushed him, wiping gently at his tears.
"Something's wrong with him," Remus whispered. "He's not feeling good—I can tell." His bottom lip trembled and his bright brown eyes were filling up with tears again.
Hope kissed him tenderly on his forehead and angled his body so she could read what was written on his forearm, holding Remus close to her as she did so. She could feel him shaking and sniffling and trying his best not to cry even harder.
"He's…" Hope didn't know what to say. It was clear that the other boy (Star, Remus had referred to him as) was unhappy and miserable. Hope couldn't tell if he was in physical pain but judging by the content of his writing she wouldn't have doubted it. "He's not in a very good place right now," she said finally.
"How do we fix it?" Remus asked in a small voice, slumping against his mother's chest.
Hope's heart tugged and ached, both at her son's pain and the other boy's. I wish I didn't have a mother at all was written across her son's skin towards the end of his arm, and she couldn't stop from rereading that one sentence over and over again. She felt a fear wash over her, prickling across her skin and pulled Remus tighter against her. Unwanted memories of cold doctor's offices and metal instruments against her skin came over her. Multiple visits of hearing the same bad news over and over again until at last they'd gone to see a magical doctor ("They're called healers," Lyall had told her once) to get a potion for their problem. Hope could feel her throat starting to tighten as if there was a heavy hand on it, squeezing. She felt lightheaded, as if she wasn't breathing properly, and felt a sharp pain against the back of her right knee.
"Mum?" Gentle hands came up and dabbed at her wet cheeks, and Hope felt herself taking back her own body from phantom demons. "Are you sad too?"
"Yes," she whispered. "I'm sorry, Remus." She held him tighter and could feel that he was crying again. "I don't know how to fix this," she said. She couldn't remember when she had started crying, but she didn't how to stop. "I love you so, so much," she whispered. 'Please don't ever hate me,' remained unsaid and lodged in her throat.
"I know. I love you too," he mumbled. "And Dad," he added.
Hope gave a weak chuckle at that. "Dad too," she agreed. Hope pulled back and grabbed a nearby roll of paper towels. Tearing off a piece, she gently cleaned up Remus's face. "And Star?" she asked.
Remus nodded vigorously. "I love Star too."
"I know, sweetheart." She ran her fingers through his light brown hair, slightly wavy and curling at the ends—something he clearly got from Lyall. "We'll do something tomorrow, okay?"
"But—"
Hope gathered the four year old back into her arms, one hand still running through his hair in an attempt to soothe him. "It's late, Remus. And I think he fell asleep. See how your arm has more smudges now than five minutes ago?"
Remus nodded hesitantly. He knew Star tended to write very close to his bedtime, and that he'd leave the writing on his skin until it was washed off in the mornings. He almost always fell asleep before Remus.
"What are we going to do tomorrow?" he asked.
"We'll write to him and tell him how much we love him, okay?"
"Will that help?" Remus sniffed.
"Does it help you when you're feeling sad?" Remus nodded against his mother's chest. He couldn't think of a single time when he hadn't felt better after his parents told him how much they loved him. "Maybe it'll help him too, then." Remus hoped so.
Hope picked Remus up off the counter and started the walk to his bedroom. "Do you want a bedtime story tonight?" she asked.
"Yes, please," he mumbled, tired and boneless in her arms.
By the time he was changed into his pajamas and settled underneath his covers, Remus was barely conscious. Hope picked a random book of fairytales from his bookshelf and settled in on the bed next to him. She spoke in a soft, almost whisper, trying not to pull him back into consciousness, and by the time she finished the short book, there was a tiny droplet of water on the last page. She was crying again.
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Sirius Black awoke the next morning with a slight headache and black stained sheets. He went into his bathroom and quickly washed away the ink on his arm with a feeling of fear and shame. What if last night had ruined his relationship with his soulmate forever? There was nothing new on his skin, so clearly his soulmate hadn't written anything back. Sirius wasn't sure what exactly he was expecting, but a blank arm wasn't it, and it stung a little.
He got dressed wondering if maybe he was just a bit more behaved his mother would be kinder to him. Or at least, not as cruel. He wasn't sure if she was capable of kindness, but he knew she was at least able to lack cruelness. He gingerly poked at his blank arm before rolling down the sleeve and walking downstairs to breakfast. He wondered if his soulmate would ever talk to him again.
The day passed by in a blur, but it was punishment free. His mother rarely spoke to him, which he took as a blessing, and his tutor had nothing more to say than what his lessons required of him. He also hadn't seen Kreacher all day, and Sirius decided that he wouldn't willingly go looking for that wretched house elf if his life depended on it.
Dinner was a rare affair with both his parents present, though they sat on opposite ends and neither spoke to the other. He wondered if that was what his future dinners as an adult would be like. Long silences punctuated by moving silverware and chewing. Regulus wasn't deemed old enough to dine with them, and Sirius couldn't help but feel that if his brother was here, there'd at least be some noise. He ate dinner quietly and quickly and did his best not to fidget in hopes of getting dismissed early.
Thankfully, his father had the same idea and dismissed both himself and Sirius, leaving Walburga to sit alone, hand curled tightly around a glass of wine. Sirius walked quickly up the stairs before his mother had a chance to shout at either him or his father, resisting the temptation to run.
Once inside his room, he grabbed his writing utensils and jumped into bed, ready to pen out an apology to his soulmate and a promise to keep all his problems to himself in the future. If he didn't like his unpleasant family, what right did he have to subject his soulmate to them via his secondhand stories?
But as he pulled up his sleeve, he saw that there were lines that filled up his entire forearm in two distinct handwritings, separated even further by different colored ink. Sirius read through the entire thing multiple times in disbelief.
He hadn't realized he was crying until his nose started running and he was forced to continuous sniff. Two lines stood out to him the most, one from R and the other from R's mother (Hope! She had finally signed her name! He had a name!), and Sirius felt a warm hum start in his chest. He didn't realize this was what love would feel like.
'We can share my Mum' was what R had written in bright green, and Hope had written 'I'll be your loving mother, if you'd like' in a nice blue shade. Even amidst all the multiple 'I love you's, those two lines were his favorite. Sirius decided not to write anything tonight. He didn't want their words to be washed away or written over with black ink.
"Please don't be gone in the morning," he whispered before he fell asleep.
It was still there when he woke, not a single word smudged, and Sirius smiled.