Hello Hello my darlings!
I've finished my exams, so expect some more updates from me more frequently now! I am just so excited by it all right now. Reviews weren't working properly until today, so I didn't get a chance to respond to any of the lovely ones you all left on the last chapter! I shall try to get to them as soon as I can!
This story is getting into all the fun bits now (or at least for me they're fun), and I know this chapter is a bit short. It was only meant to be a part of a bigger chapter, but I felt like it needed to be a stand alone chapter. So I hope you all like it!
Again, THANK YOU for all your lovely support, and for those of you that read FTT, I am probably going to post another chapter of it for Christmas on FFN, and then I'll decide where to go from there.
Please leave a review and let me know what you think ;)
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Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, and only the story line and any OC's belong to me.
The summer breezes cheerfully blow through the streets, the joyous sounds of children playing filled his ears, and, he couldn't ascend the stairs in front of him. It was stupid, he had done it countless times in his life, but somehow, even the idea of walking up the short flight of stairs in front of him seemed an impossible task. He took a deep breath, but all he could remember was the last time he had walked up these stairs, he had left bloody, bruised and battered. The last time he had been here was when his Mother had cursed him almost into oblivion for not agreeing to become a Death Eater.
She'd been smiling so brightly, her sharp angular face that had sunken into itself out of misery, the skin pulling tightly in all the wrong directions. She had been pretty once, his Mother, but she looked like some strange creature in that moment. She was convinced that he would have been happy to be one of Voldemort's henchmen, that it was a way to repent for being a Gryffindor and friends with Mudbloods.
She hadn't been happy with his response, which was akin to a polite "fuck no, and fuck you." Well, maybe not that polite. She hadn't liked it one bit, and he had swiftly learned that on the other end of her wand.
The remnants of the pain came from his subconscious, needling into his arms, legs, dancing along his spine and jabbing into his skull. It felt like his skeleton was on fire again, as if the cruciatus curse was still being gleefully thrown at him.
Sirius took a deep, shuddering breath, and closed his eyes, and a flash of pain cut nastily across his back, where his Mother had swung a cursed sword at him as he tried to get away-thankfully it hadn't been too deep a wound, but the reminder was still there. Hermione had asked about it once, but only once as his expression indicated that he didn't want to talk about it, and he told himself that if standing at the bottom of the bloody fucking stairs to the place that had been his prison-both physically and mentally-for years, didn't drive him mad, that he would tell her as soon as he could.
She'd been patient, Godric, even with her fiery temperament at times, and her stubborn and bossy disposition, when it came to the more sensitive matters she simply listened, and waited.
Sirius was drawn back into the memory, and shuddered violently.
"Blacks don't run," is all his Mother had whispered in his ear, her hot breath felt like ice at the time as it washed over the side of his face, and then she left him, twitching on the floor; where he stayed until he gathered enough energy to crawl to the floo.
Swallowing, he opened his eyes, he could do this. She was dead now, and he was still alive. All that remained inside the accursed house was memories and ghosts of his past.
Shakily, he took one step, then another, and he kept walking until he was standing in front of the dark door.
With Dumbledore dead the Fidelus charm was gone, but the blood wards still held firm, and only those the wards had been adjusted to accommodate in the past year or so would be able to enter. He felt the wards hum to life as he put his hand on the doorknob, as his eyes blurred from the proximity to the dark stained wood.
Taking one final, deep breath, he twisted the doorknob and stepped into the house.
That's all it is, a house, a stupid house, Sirius kept telling himself as he stepped inside and shut the door behind him.
A flood of emotions swirled in his chest before all assaulting him, and he took a desperate intake of breath as he tried to steady himself, falling back against the hard door, trying to ground himself, trying to think of anything that could cut through the sheer enormity of feeling that being back here caused.
"Blacks don't run," Sirius muttered to himself, using his Mother's once condescending words to push him to keep going. He had gotten in the darn place, he could do anything.
Suddenly, almost giving him a start, the wall lanterns flickered to life, emitting a warm yellow light, and even with them, the foyer looked dreary and dark.
Even though this had been an Order safe house, and the Order members had cleaned it best they could, the darkness was embedded in the walls, seeped into the very structure of the house.
"I fucking hate this place," Sirius grumbled, and pushed up off of the door, his footsteps more sure as he headed to the right. Then he called the one name he never anticipated falling from his lips again, "KREACHER!"
It was dead silent aside from his light footsteps across the dark hardwood floors, and then two things happened. A loud screeching sound erupted from the wall just in front of him, and he heard her voice, and a sharp pop sounded from in front of him.
Sirius knew his Mother's portrait was there, but knowing and experiencing something were entirely different things. The Older Sirius had warned him, and there was a haunted look in his eyes as he did. Nothing, however, prepared you for the onslaught of crude things that spewed from her dreadful mouth.
Kreacher was older now, his face more sallow, his skin more baggy, his knees turned in, his back more hunched, and he overall looked like a miserable and tortured version of his former self. It was quite a shock to the system, and then Sirius remembered how long Kreacher had been here by himself in this house, with its' darkness and only Portraits of dead Blacks to accompany him; a Portrait of his dead Mistress to feed hate to him for years.
"Kreacher heard there was a younger Master Sirius, Kreacher thought it was rubbish," Kreacher sniffed, shaking his head and causing his large ears to flop about, his huge watery eyes narrowed with disdain.
"I...I know you never liked me, Kreacher...but you loved Reggie...and I have to ask, does this look familiar?" Sirius asked, bending down onto one knee and fishing into his pocket for the piece of parchment.
Sirius held the folded parchment out to Kreacher, and the House Elf sent Sirius a glower before closing the distance and snatching the parchment from Sirius's hand.
Kreacher mumbled to himself as he unfolded it, but he stilled once he finished, and his bottom lip quivered as his large eyes filled with tears, "Kreacher failed Master!" Kreacher wailed, dropping the parchment in his distress-which Sirius quickly picked up and tucked back into his front right pocket of his black leather trousers.
"What do you mean, you failed Master, Kreacher?" Sirius pressed, putting a hand gently on Kreacher's thin and bony shoulder. The House Elf didn't even seem to feel it, didn't even seem to care.
"The...l-l-locket, Kreacher couldn't destroy it, no matter how he tried, no matter what he did," Kreacher cried.
Sirius's eyes widened, "I can destroy it, Kreacher. Please, let me help you destroy it...for Regulus." At that Kreacher stopped crying, and he looked at Sirius with tear-filled eyes. It felt like an eternity before Kreacher nodded an infinitesimal amount, and turned silently and walked away. Sirius didn't even hear his Mother's patronizing voice as he followed.
Hermione never liked Grimmauld Place, but her mind had been whirring and the gears had been turning ever since Dumbledore's Death. She had an idea with what to do about it, and she was going to bring it up as soon as possible.
Unbeknownst to all of the adults in their lives, they would be leaving Hogwarts a few days early, and there were many measures they needed to put in place as soon as possible. Well, Padfoot and Lupin knew, so technically some adults, but none of the Weasleys knew, and she hadn't even thought about how to tell her parents that she wasn't coming home this summer.
No, Hermione decided in that moment, my parents can't know, she thought with a sigh. That, however, was a problem for another day.
She would talk to the others about the plans she and Lily had briefly discussed at one point, and she would try to get the Weasleys in on it as well. If everything went according to plan then they would be prepared for anything Voldemort and his followers were going to try and throw at them.
The wards didn't want to give when she tried to open the door, but with a bit of magic flowing from her fingers and pure determination, they did. They recognized her magical signature, which helped significantly.
The only ones with her were Harry, Ron, Remus and James. They'd asked the others to stay behind for now, and that they would have a meeting tomorrow to further discuss everything. The school term was soon up, and they still had to sneak Draco out when they could.
The Slytherins would be the only ones to not leave early, Hermione mused as she walked through the dimly lit corridor to the right, letting her sense of smell guide her-Sirius's scent was fresh, and the others faded, not having been here for months. Yes, the Slytherins will leave as if nothing has changed, because that will be one of our greatest assets, for them to keep a low profile and go along as if nothing has changed, Hermione thought, cautiously stepping into the kitchen where Sirius's scent was strongest, blooming and blossoming, overshadowing all the gloom.
"Sirius? Baby?" Hermione called out softly, and she glanced back over her shoulder at her four boys that had come along, James frowned, Ron tightened the grip on his wand, Remus sniffed at the air, and Harry's eyes gleamed with worry.
They only had to round the corner to realise that Sirius was sitting, back against the cabinets, one knee propped up, and a hand fully extending and resting on it. From that hand, dangling from a fine linked gold chain, was an exact replica of the locket they had seen earlier in the Shrieking Shack.
Tears were silently running down Sirius's cheeks, and Kreacher was lying on the ground beside him, curled into a ball, weeping and muttering to himself.
"It's kind of funny, isn't it? I thought my little brother was joining the dark side, and then I learned he became a Death Eater when I came to this dimension. Shit, Padfoot is under the impression that he died being on his side...and it turns out Reggie fooled us all. How fucking typical, I guess neither of us was the son our Mother wanted…" Sirius trailed off, looking past Hermione then, and she couldn't stop the tears that were brimming in her eyes.
She cautiously approached Sirius, kneeling in the space between him and Kreacher, and touched his cheek.
Sirius slowly turned to look at her, fragile, like a tiny flick would shatter him, glassy, grey eyes were locked on sad brown ones, and she simply drew him into her.
The weak light from the outside poured in from the window above them, and the four boys moved forward and knelt around their friend, putting a comforting hand on him somewhere, and then that's when it happened. That's when he broke.
Heart wrenching sobs, and a shaking frame, the chain still tightly clutched in his hand. "He was a hero." Sirius sobbed, again and again, until his throat was raw and his eyes blurred with tears. Regulus Black was a hero.