A/N: Okay so I didn't realise until I had written it, just how dark this fic could get. Poor Siri. Sorry about the cliff hanger.

Warnings: Dark Themes, Insinuation of Abuse, Incest Rape.

Near enough everyone in the room fought with themselves to carry on walking, as if they hadn't heard anything.

Rodolphus stopped in his tracks, eyes wide. He turned to try and think of a way to keep Bellatrix by him but by the time he had turned, the door was closed in his face. He swallowed thickly and turned back to the others in the room, his fists clenching and unclenching in a menacing attempt to control his panic and rage.

Sirius watched him walk back over to the sofa, seating himself stiffly and staring unseeing into the fire. Sirius didn't think he'd ever seen Rodolphus' face so hard and for the first time, Rodolphus actually looked quite threatening. His eye liner and facial tattoos no longer looked flamboyant and charismatic but seemed to frame the danger in the man's eyes.

He looked around - and perhaps it was a new outlook that only came with being eleven – but he started to really see everyone for the first time.

He looked to Narcissa, sitting uncomfortably next to her mother and aunt. Her back was straight and her eyes were bright as she listened to Aunt Druella and Mother talk animatedly about whatever. Sirius always knew Cissy was smart but she acted as if she was a silly little girl. He'd always thought it was because she wanted to grab the attention of boys but perhaps she had to hide her intelligence. Cissy knew how to act. She knew when to look the other way and keep her mouth shut. She was smart because she needed to be. She was smart because that's what had kept her alive thus far. She was visibly different from the rest of the family. Platinum blonde hair to match her mother but her cerulean grey eyes weren't Cygnus' own. They belonged to Ebeus Selwyn, Druella's long ago affair. And although the Selwyns were of Chinese heritage rather than Vietnamese, ignorant white people could not see much of a difference. Narcissa was pretty just like Cygnus so Cygnus had written his name on the child's birth certificate and no one had questioned it. Not openly, at least.

He saw Druella too, her arms gesturing wildly as she talked. She was drunk. Not to the point of it being obvious or unbecoming but she was drunk. But Sirius supposed it must have been hard to tell when one drink was too many when your tolerance is constantly growing. It must have been hard to know how much is enough to forget that Daddy sold her off to a man she didn't love to raise heirs she didn't have. The woman lost her innocence at the tender age of 16 and has been bribing her Healer to keep quiet about her bruises ever since. The price for hiding the vaginal burn scars that Cygnus had given her after her dalliance with another man was high. Only Walburga, who had taken her to the Healer, knew of the now scarred initials 'CB' that branded either side of the apex of her thighs. Druella sipped back another half glass of wine as if it was water to forget that in just a few hours she would crawl back into a monster's bed.

Sirius' gaze shifted to his own mother. She listened to Druella's every word, her eyes cold and her mouth thin. There was a black, fiery hatred in her eyes. Her anger seemed omnipresent, always watching, waiting for something worthy of an explosion but it never came. Sirius had, of course, heard the rumours of what had happened to Walburga Black. About how she was just the near-insane, angry shell of the enigmatic woman she had been because of her brother. Because Cygnus Black is bigger and stronger than she is, and because Cygnus Black takes what he wants, and because Cygnus Black happened to have wanted his sister. Most had waved the rumours off as pureblood wife gossip but Sirius knew his family and thought them entirely true. Anger was how Walburga Black survived.

His father caught his pensive eye next. Orion Black; the ever-silent enigma. The ominous shadow that lurked in the back of Sirius' mind every time he thought he might get away with something. He watched the pained expression on his father's face and saw the effort it took the man to listen to his wife. But he did listen, despite everything, he listened because he always had and always would. He saw the empty look in his father's eye and the heavy sigh that lifted his chest. Orion looked like he was waiting, waiting for the morning when they could go home, waiting for Monday when he'd go back to work. No. He was waiting for it to end. All of it. He was waiting for the effort it took to listen to not be there any more. Both Sirius and Orion knew that that day would never come.

Sirius' focus shifted to Andromeda who laughed and talked and listened to Regulus. There was a smile on 'Meda's face and she looked happy. But she fidgeted where she sat. She moved constantly, tapping her foot or bouncing her knee or covering her smile with her hand. She was unconsciously covering the smile that didn't stretch to her eyes. Her eyes were wide and terrified. Terrified that if she were to stop moving for a second, someone would notice the lie she lived and that'd be it. She'd be dead, or worse, her love would. Sirius couldn't figure out her lie, but he knew there was one.

Finally his gaze shifted to his brother. Regulus. And for some reason, Regulus made Sirius sadder than any other person he'd watched. Regulus was happy and innocent and completely oblivious to everything around him. He was so unbelievably undeserving of the what was coming for him; a war and a murder and a guilty conscience and a death unworthy of a hero. Sirius vowed that he'd do everything in his power from stopping the inevitable from happening.

Andromeda seemed to notice Sirius' uncharacteristic quietness so she waved him over.

"Hey, you okay?" she asked when he walked over and sat with them.

He nodded, smiled and let everything he just saw melt from his head. "Yeah, 'course."

She smiled, satisfied. "So how has your birthday been so far?"

"Brilliant! Mother tells me my actual present will come tomorrow but this morning Father gave me a knife!" He said excitedly, a smile lighting up his face.

Andromeda raised her eyebrows but smiled anyway. "A.. a knife?"

Regulus nodded. "Yeah, she's a beautiful dagger, just like Bella's."

Andromeda seemed slightly startled but got over it quickly, "Well, I hope you're careful with it."

"Of course."

Andromeda nodded. "Oh, by the way, you should go put your new broom in your room. Jibsey hasn't been ordered to so he won't touch it."

Sirius brightened, remembering the broom. "Of course, I haven't shown Mother and Father yet! I'll get it now."

He hopped off of the sofa and walked over to the door, opening it quietly. He stepped into the hallway, expecting to interrupt his uncle and cousin but they weren't there so he carried on towards the staircase.

Out of the sight of a mother to tell him not to, he ran up the staircase and jogged up the left corridor. He walked up these stairs too and turned the corner. He halted.

His path was blocked by Cygnus and Bellatrix and he knew, instantly, that he shouldn't be there, he shouldn't see this. He stepped behind the shadow of a large house plant and watched.

Cygnus held Bellatrix's upper arms. "I'm warning you, girl. You speak out against your father again and I won't be happy."

Bellatrix seemed to be struggling against his grip. "Oh please, you were being rude! I'll speak out against anything I disagree with!" She was fuming. Eyes black, hair wild and her lip curled in loathing.

"I'll teach you manners." He lifted his hand away from her arm and brought it down, hard on her cheek, snapping her head to the side. Sirius cringed at the sound.

She gasped loudly and seemed to be biting back tears at the sting. "You can't. Not any more. I have Rodolphus. We're getting married." She seemed to just be spewing facts, hoping one of them would refute him.

Cygnus stepped back slightly, his voice suddenly calm despite the wildness in his eyes. "I can't? I think you're forgetting that you made me a promise." He suddenly stepped forward again, backing her into the wall completely. He pressed himself against her and dipped his head low against her neck, smelling that heady perfume. "You are mine until you marry, or it'll be your sisters."

Sirius eyes bulged at what was happening. He wanted to do something. He wanted to shout, scream, run – anything at all. But he didn't. He stood, stock still.

Cygnus was looking down at Bellatrix in a way no father should. He slid his hand down her waist, to her hip and reached round, squeezing her arse through her trousers. "You won't break your promise, now will you?" He said, menace dripping from his voice and a smile stretched across his face, knowing he'd won.

Her lip was trembling and Sirius saw a red welt starting to appear from where she had been slapped. She shook her head, defeated.

Cygnus chuckled, "There's my girl." He reached down to kiss her, his hands starting to mover her trousers further down his hips.