Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize. J.K. Rowling does.
Author's Note: I can hear the rousing chorus of 'It's about time!' This chapter was going to continue through Christmas, but it sounded finished, so I left it. That doesn't make much sense, but oh well...
Out of Our Hands
Chapter 10
----...Somewhere in Scotland…----
'This is not working at all the way I'd planned,' a man raged to himself silently. He was pacing his room, as he had done many times before. His feet knew the exact dimensions: eight steps down, turn right. Six strides over, turn right. Then repeat. Everything was conveniently placed against walls, and this man wasn't in the habit of leaving things lying around where they could get in the way - with the kind of work he sometimes did, he couldn't really afford to. 'They were supposed to hate each other, not bond. I guess giving them a common enemy made the hate they had for each other seem insignificant. It's perfectly true that, had they acted the way everyone expected them to, someone would be dead by now. But of course, things can't work how we want them to, can they? Oh no, they have to come up with a completely impossible series of events.' The portraits the man had collected over the years stared at him sadly, with varying degrees of disgust. One quietly slipped out of its frame, heading to the portrait of a friend, who could, of course, warn his relatives. As with all pureblood families, the twelve in question and this man were related somewhere. It was just a matter of finding the right relative.
The man stalked down the hall to his office, flung open the door, and glanced around at the portraits, trying to find the one that best suited his purpose.
----...and back to 12 Grimmauld Place.----
The days had become routine. Often the only times that James and Sirius would see Mr. or Mrs. Black would be at breakfast and dinner, the only meals they were required to attend. This system had been working well for them so far.
"Mother," Sirius asked one day right before Christmas. "May we go to Diagon Alley today?"
"Whatever for?" Mrs. Black asked, upset about being drawn out of her newest issue of Witch Weekly. If anyone asked, she'd deny reading it. After all, it wasn't a 'classy' magazine. However, it was quite interesting, when you were in the right mood.
"We need to finish our Christmas shopping," Sirius explained hesitatingly. This could go either way. Either he would get yelled at for leaving it until almost the last moment, or he and James would get to go, although with the possible stipulation of having to bring along Regulus.
Mrs. Black looked at the pair in front of her appraisingly for a moment. "I suppose," she replied slowly. When she didn't say any more, Sirius stood up, tugging James with him.
"Thank you! We'll just be going then," he said as the pair left the room.
Within minutes, they were both ready to leave. They would be flooing this time, as Mr. and Mrs. Black weren't going, and therefore didn't feel the need to provide another method of transportation. They tumbled out of the floo into the Leaky Cauldron, attracting more than a few odd looks. After all, even with the information that had been printed in the Daily Prophet, few people would have actually expected the Black heir and the Potter heir to get along so well. James and Sirius ignored this, however, as they hurried out of the pub and down the street. After all, they really did have shopping to finish.
"What do you still have to get?" Sirius asked James as they sat in front of Florean Fortescue's an hour later.
"Hmm," James said thoughtfully, gazing down at his ice cream and briefly wondering what had possessed them to eat ice cream in the dead of winter. Mentally shrugging, he decided it didn't really matter anyway, and dug in once more. "I'm not sure, actually. I've got presents for the people that I know I'm getting presents for, and I'm not sure if I'm going to give anyone else one." Sirius just kind of stared for a moment.
"I would hope you know you're getting presents for people if you've already got them…" he teased. James mock glared.
"You know what I mean."
"I know I know what you mean," Sirius replied, standing up. "However, it's more fun to pretend that I don't. Let's go, so you can decide what you're going to do."
The day finished too quickly after that. After a hushed discussion, James and Sirius decided to buy gifts for everyone stuck in the 'experiment.' It wasn't too painful of a decision, as they didn't really hate any of them any more, even if the main reasoning was to appease the Ministry.
Christmas morning soon dawned, bright and clear. In the Wizarding world, it was customary for families to spend Christmas morning alone, as most of the rest of the holiday season was occupied with parties of one kind or another. For James's family, that meant the three of them woke early to exchange gifts. However, the Blacks had never been capable of doing things on a small scale. All the extended family gathered at one house. It had started being all the extended family, back when there were only the 12 pureblood names. However, as more pureblood names started springing up, the gathering got more restricted. In fact, only relations with the last name Black were coming, with the exception of Sirius's cousin, Bellatrix, and her cousin. Mr. Black's sister (who had married a Prewett) wasn't even invited.
James woke groggily that Christmas morning, long before dawn, and rolled onto his side, expecting to see Sirius sleeping next to him. He wasn't. James frowned. Sirius's spot wasn't even warm, so he must have been up for quite a while. James's frown deepened. He didn't remember Sirius coming in last night. His father had requested to talk to him after dinner, as he had every night so far. Had Sirius even gone to bed at all?
James got out of bed, searching for clothes as he did. He had no idea where Sirius would be; he just knew that something had to be wrong.
Dressed in the clothes he had worn the day before, James quietly exited the room. He glanced around, trying to remember which rooms were which. He was pretty sure that the door nearest the one he had just come out of led to Regulus's room, and that the door farthest down the hall, on the left, led to the master bedroom. Setting off as quietly as he could (as a quick glance at his watch had told him no sane person should be awake at this hour, Christmas morning or not) he picked a door at random - and continued picking doors at random, until there were no doors left except those leading to the three bedrooms and the attic. Still not finding Sirius, he quickly descended to the first floor. Pausing, he listened.
Suddenly, he heard a soft noise, one that sounded halfway between a muffled groan and a whimper. Sirius was in pain. He didn't quite know how he knew, exactly, he just did. He turned towards the next sound; it was coming from the library. James cautiously opened the door, not at all sure about what he would find.
Sirius whimpered again as he heard the door open, instinctively curling into the fetal position, despite the fact that this movement opened several wounds on his back. He heard a gasp from the door. 'Well, that rules out my father,' his hazy, pain-filled mind realized. 'And most likely my mother and Regulus. So who?…James.'
James rushed forward, wanting nothing more than to comfort his friend, but knowing that if he so much as touched Sirius, he would probably be in even more pain. He did one of the few things he could do. He luckily knew some healing spells, as Madame Pomfrey had taught both he and Lily a few to help Remus after full moons, as, more often than not, they were the first at his side, although Madame Pomfrey wasn't usually too far behind. One morning in third year, however, one of the professors had broken up a duel around four in the morning that left both participants and one spectator in the hospital wing with various injuries, ranging from a cut finger, to one leg transfigured into an elephant leg. Needless to say, Madame Pomfrey was still busy when the sun finally rose. After that, she had taught both James and Lily some healing charms, should something like that happen again. So far, they had been lucky, and Madame Pomfrey had come fairly quickly, but he and Lily had still practiced religiously.
Concentrating on healing Sirius, James pointed his wand, saying a long incantation for a spell that healed shallow cuts, and helped deeper ones. For a moment, he thought it wouldn't work, that he was too out of practice. Then, however, the blood slowly stopped, and the majority of the cuts closed. There was still blood soaking through Sirius's shirt from somewhere on his side, however. James slowly pulled the material up, trying not to rip away the blood that had already clotted, but knowing it was most likely useless. Concentrating on that specific area, he said the spell once again, sighing in relief when the wound healed.
Sirius slowly stirred, uncurling from the ball he was rolled up in. He sat up just as slowly, refusing to look at James, except to mutter a quick thanks. James could see many emotions warring across Sirius's face, many closely related to self-loathing. James nearly sighed before deciding that probably wouldn't be the most reassuring sound to hear. He instead shifted closer, putting his arms around the boy.
They sat like that for a long while. It was so long, Sirius was almost certain James had fallen asleep. That is, until he asked the question Sirius was dreading to hear. "Does this happen every night when he wants to 'talk'?" James asked. Sirius sighed before nodding.
"Usually it's not this bad, and he puts a Concealment charm on me to hide it all, as I can't do magic outside of school just yet. Unfortunately, sometimes - like tonight - it's so bad that the charm doesn't work."
"You've got to get out of here!" Sirius shook his head, unconsciously shifting closer to James.
"I'm not seventeen yet. He could keep me home until I come of age, and what good would that do? There's only another week and a few days until we go back to Hogwarts, and tonight will be about the last he does, since we've been invited to the Malfoys' New Year's Eve party, and there's only a few days after that until we go back to school. After that, I'll never have to see him again! Or, at least, I won't have to live here anymore. Uncle Alphard and Andromeda have both already promised me a place to live, if I want."
As much as James didn't want to admit it, he knew Sirius had a point. They sat where they were for another few minutes, and probably could have stayed there for the rest of the night if Sirius hadn't started shivering.
"Crap," James muttered, mentally berating himself for not thinking about how cold Sirius must be, especially since his shirt was now a bunch of rags at best. "Come on. You need to get some sleep, anyway."
Sirius, who had been quite comfortable leaning against James except for being a bit cold, had almost nodded off, but quickly regained his senses, nodding his agreement and climbing to his feet with much less pain than he had been expecting, even after the healing charm. James quickly followed, and they set off up the stairs.
After about four more hours of rest, a house elf popped into Sirius's room to wake the pair. "Madame requests your presence at breakfast," the tiny elf announced before popping out, presumably to tell Regulus.
James, blinking sleepily, rose from the bed, glancing over at a still-soundly-sleeping Sirius. He was absolutely dreading the rest of the day.
It didn't start out as bad as he expected. Both boys sleepily made their way downstairs. At breakfast, all three boys received a lecture concerning "acceptable" behavior around certain family members, such as 'Don't talk to Andromeda or Marius any more than you must to be polite, nor to anyone either may bring,' and 'Don't you dare mention Lucius Malfoy around Narcissa, or anyone else in Cygnus's family,' and 'Don't ask about other family members unless they bring them up.'
The first to arrive were Cygnus and Druella, with their youngest, Narcissa. Next came Pollux (Mrs. Black's father) with his sister Cassiopeia. Arcturus and Melania, Mr. Black's parents, were next, followed by Rodolphus and Bellatrix Lestrange.
"Is that everyone?" Mrs. Black asked the semi-full drawing room, sounding as if she was half-hoping that it was, but dreading that it wasn't.
"No," Druella sighed. "Andromeda is coming yet. She insisted on bringing her muggle boyfriend, and even decided she'll help Marius get here."
Sirius couldn't help but grin to himself, although it was quite plain that James didn't really understand what was so funny.
"Marius is my mother's great-uncle," he whispered to James. "He was blasted off the tapestry when it was revealed he was a Squib. He's technically disowned, although he's invited to important family gatherings, both to prove to other purebloods that family is everything, and to rub it in his face that he can't do magic, as most gatherings are held somewhere where the wards read your magical signature, or something like that, which makes it nearly impossible to get in without using magic, and completely impossible unless you have someone with you that can. No idea how Andromeda's going to manage to bring two people through."
"Hello!" Andromeda called out cheerfully as she entered the house. Sirius grabbed James's arm, pulling him down the stairs to greet the new arrivals. As he had been ordered earlier to introduce James to all of his relatives, neither parent called him back, although they most certainly didn't approve of the enthusiasm in Sirius's voice as he went to greet a muggle, a Squib, and the witch who brought them.
Author's Note: The information towards the end came from Harry Potter Lexicon. That site is an awesome reference tool...especially if you can't remember where something was found in the books, or even if something was mentioned, like names of Order members or Death Eaters.
Thanks to all who reviewed. Thanks to all who are hopefully going to review.
If there is someone out there who wouldn't mind beta-ing this story, please tell me in a review. Grammer and spelling help aren't necessary, although would be appreciated. I mainly just want someone to read through to make sure I didn't say 'They slept late that Saturday' and then afew paragraphs later that they left for their first class, or something like that. I'd also like someone who could tell me if I didn't explain something enough, as I tend to have a problem with that if I know the background information well.