Warning: this chapter is a bit distressing in places, also contains harsher language than usual.

Chapter 37

Standing in the hallway of number 12 Grimmauld place, having just witnessed my best friend being sucked into a wall by the ghosts of his family, was a tense experience. Had he been killed? Was he trapped somewhere in the house? I had no idea. And if he was trapped, I had no clue about how I might rescue him. All I knew was that it was my fault. He asked me not to let the house take him and that's exactly what I had done.

My wand light was fading so I shook it, but the light was still pathetic and the shadows that had been hanging from the ceiling and lurking in the corners started to grow. They crept across the dust laden floor like sakes. They shrouded the hallway so I could no longer see my exit and blanketed the upstairs landing so I couldn't see what horrors lurked there. Part of me wanted to run, but a much bigger part would rather die than leave Sirius trapped in this dark evil place. I held my wand high and made towards the grand staircase that led upstairs. The first step gave groan as I stepped on it, as if it knew who I was and wanted me out. I ignored it and took another step. As I progressed I lit the oil lamps which illuminated the grotesque shrunken heads of house elves that someone had decided to mount upon the wall.

"Sirius?" I called. Still there was nothing. I reached the first floor landing and was met with three doors, two to the south, one to the north. I approached the first door on the south side and reached towards the mahogany handle. Just as my fingers reached it I heard voices behind me. I turned around sharply and held my wand in the direction of the sound. My wand light fell on the single door on the north side so I walked quickly towards it. I listened to the voices coming from within. There were at least two different voices, and neither sounded like Sirius: they sounded like children's voices. Confusion and fear infused my racing heart, but with my wand held in front of me I opened the door.

On the other side was the drawing room. It was vast, with a high ceiling and large windows that overlooked the street. The room was dusty and old, with rips in the curtains and upholstery, that I suspected had been caused by doxies; but I could tell, despite it's uncared for state, that the room was once imposing and impressive. However, the appearance of the room wasn't what I first noticed. The drawing room was occupied by two children and one thin woman who had her back to me. The three people seemed to have the same ghostly unreal quality that the portraits had had when they came out of their frames. When they moved the edges of their bodies blurred and wisps of smoke drifted from their skin. I stared, open mouthed at the apparitions. I recognised one of the children as Sirius himself, though he was younger than I had ever seen him. He looked about eight or nine and very unhappy. He was standing close to one of the windows and kept rubbing his arms and his ribs, as if trying to comfort himself. The other child was a little boy, who would have looked exactly like Sirius had he not been so much smaller with shorter hair and a weaker jaw. I guessed this was Regulus. Regulus was crouched over a shoebox filled with small wriggling creatures. Just like Sirius he looked horribly unhappy and was staring at the woman who was standing in the middle of the room. I could hear a horrible squeaking coming from her. I cautiously walked towards her. The ghost-Sirius and the ghost-Regulus didn't pay any attention to me, so I assumed this was like walking through someone's memory in a Pensieve. As I got closer I saw that the animals in Regulus' shoebox were baby ferrets. Regulus was covering them with his hands as if he was trying to hide them and tears were streaming down his face.

"Stop it!" I heard the young Sirius cry. I walked past him and to the other side where I could see who the woman was and what was making the squeaking. The woman was a young Bellatrix Black. Her wild black hair fell over her pale face and her red lips were stretched into an ugly smile. She had to be at least seventeen because her wand was drawn and she was apparently performing the crutiatus curse on one of the baby ferrets, which twisted and writhed in the air in front of her.

"Stop it!" Sirius shouted at her, as he walked towards her and tried to grab the ferret. I was astounded at Sirius' bravery. He was only a child, he was untrained in magic and unarmed, and there he was standing up to the powerful and dangerous Bellatrix Black. Bellatrix just flicked her wand so that the ferret, still shrieking with agony, flew through the air away from Sirius' outstretched fingers. I glanced at Regulus. He was frantically stroking the other baby ferrets, which looked almost as frightened as Regulus did and were desperately trying to escape the shoebox. Sirius also looked and his younger brother with a kind of sympathy that made him seem so much older than he was. Sirius turned back to Bellatrix.

"Let it go!" He ordered bravely. Bellatrix looked at Sirius and grinned, baring her sharp slightly yellow teeth. She flicked her wand and the ferret stopped squealing, though it remained hovering in the air. Belletrix pointed her wand sharply at Sirius who backed away from his cousin, his grey eyes fixed on the wand.

"Shall I do it to you instead?" Bellatrix teased in a high pitched, malevolent voice. Sirius' face paled and he nervously shook his head. "It's more fun to do it to you than Regulus, he just passes out – little weakling!" Bellatrix looked towards Regulus who cowered in her gaze and cried even more. My breath hurt in my chest as I wondered how many times these two children had been subjugated to such torture from their own cousin.

I looked at the quivering Regulus, whose jet black hair had fallen into his eyes. I never really knew Regulus. I bumped into him every so often at Hogwarts. He was quite popular in his house, probably because he was good looking, though he was never as handsome or as popular as Sirius. Regulus was quiet and well-behaved. But I got the feeling whenever I saw him, that he was the one who came up with all the sinister ideas that the bolder Slytherins actually carried out; he was the mastermind. Hoever, he didn't seem that way as he tearfully tried to protect the baby ferrets. He just seemed like a frightened unhappy child. He was crying quite profusely, but silently, which suggested that he had long since given up on his cries ever being answered.

Sirius wasn't crying. He was trying very hard to hide his feelings from Bellatrix, to seem stronger than he was. I felt so sorry for him.

"You deserve it!" Bellatrix said to Sirius as she poked him hard in the chest. Sirius stepped backwards, his young face tense with fear. "Your mother says you like playing with the muggles up the road! You've got their stench on you! I should shock it out of you!"

"No don't." Sirius said quietly, wincing and taking another step away from the fearsome young woman.

"Morgana, it's not worth it." Bellatrix said with a groan as she turned back to the levitated ferret. "You're not going to change. I can tell." Sirius swallowed and his shoulders relaxed a little, perhaps thinking he had escaped Bellatrix's torture this time. But then Bellatrix pointed her wand back at the ferret and Sirius' body became tense once more. Regulus also gave a little gasp. Bellatrix's purple eyes flicked to me and I took a sharp breath inwards. I thought she couldn't see me? She looked back at the ferret, then with a swish of her wand she sent the animal hurtling towards me. It hit my chest, then went right through me and out the other side. I turned around and saw the ferret fly straight into the fire that was lit behind me. I gasped and stared horrified at the poor creature which made a ghastly high pitched shriek as it was burnt alive.

"No no!" Regulus cried. And Sirius ran towards the fire. Without any thought, he plunged his hands into the flames, screamed as they burnt him, and grabbed the ferret. I stared at Sirius whose eyes had filled with tears, and whose hands were both scarlet and horribly blistered. He was cradling the ferret in his charred hands which was probably dead. Bellatrix scowled and stormed towards Sirius.

"You idiot!" She screamed at him. "You'll pay for that!" She pointed her wand at Sirius' neck.

"Andy! Andy!" Sirius shouted at the top of his voice. "Andy help me!" Suddenly the drawing room door burst open and a girl I recognised burst through.

"Bellatrix get away from him!" She yelled, her long dark hair flicking around her attractive young face. Bellatrix lowered her wand and looked at her sister Andromeda. Andromeda's kind eyes turned to her young cousin's injured hands.

"Bellatrix what have you done?" She asked severely and I noticed that one of her hands was surreptitiously reaching for her wand that was sticking out of the pocket of her skirt. Then she began to fade. Andromeda's face became transparent and then she vanished. As did the young Sirius and Regulus and Bellatrix, so that the drawing room was left empty. Or at least I thought it was. A few seconds later I realised that I wasn't the only person in the room. Standing at the opposite end, staring vacantly at the place where the younger version of himself had been standing was the Sirius I knew. His face was white and his eyes looked hopeless.

"Sirius!" I yelled and he looked towards me as if he had only just noticed me. I rushed towards him. "What's going on?"

"We have to get out of here." Was all Sirius said, his voice so much deeper and more time-worn than the child's voice I had heard moments ago crying for Andromeda to protect him from Bellatrix, but it was just as afraid. I didn't argue with him, instead I handed him his wand and we hurried from the room. But on the other side were more ghosts of Sirius' past. It was Andromeda again, though this time she was a bit older, sixteen maybe. She was backed against the wall of the hallway, with Sirius' father leaning over her. She turned her face so that she didn't have to look at him, and instead looked in my direction, though of course she couldn't see me. Her eyes were the same shape as her daughter's, and I couldn't help but think about Nymphadora when I saw the ghost-version of her mother. Orion Black looked as terrifying as ever, with his black eyes and neatly clipped black beard.

"Don't be frightened." Orion said in his devilish voice as he ran the back of two of his fingers down Andromeda's face. Andromeda squirmed and her eyes shut tightly.

"Leave me alone." She said in a voice I'm sure she had hoped would sound stronger. Orion gave a soft laugh and forcefully turned her face towards him.

"Not until you give me what I want." He whispered and I trembled with anger and disgust at this incestuous sexual harassment.

"I never will." Andromeda insisted bravely. Then Orion kissed her. Andromeda squirmed and tried to push Orion off her. She hit his shoulders then reached for her wand. But he pulled away and grabbed her wrist, then took her wand from her and held it to her neck.

"Open your mouth this time." He said and I wished he was not just a phantom so I could curse the life out of him.

"Andy?" A small voice behind me said. Orion, Andromeda and I turned to look at an eleven year old Sirius. Orion stepped away from Andromeda slightly.

"Go to your room Sirius." Orion said severely.

"I..." Sirius began looking at Andromeda. "I need Andromeda's help, with some homework." Andromeda bit her lip at looked nervously at Orion.

"No you don't." Orion said. "Go to your room."

"I do! I've got a transfiguration essay to write." Sirius lied.

"I'm warning you Sirius." Orion said pointing Andromeda's wand at his son. Sirius glared back and pulled out his own wand.

"Put that away you ridiculous child." Orion told him. "You know you cannot use magic outside of school."

"I don't care." Sirius said in a quiet but firm voice.

"Expelliarmus." Orion said calmly and Sirius wand whipped out of his hand. I felt Sirius' humiliation as if it were my own.

"Go on. Leave. Before I make you." Orion warned. Sirius looked at Andromeda and bit his lip. He quickly stepped towards Andromeda, grabbed her hand and pulled her away from Orion. Orion gave a derisive laugh.

"Pretrificus totallus." Orion said pointing his wand at Sirius, except the spell didn't have the effect Orion intended. Instead the wand itself suddenly caught fire and Orion promptly dropped it. The wand ceased to burn as soon as it hit the ground, and Andromeda at once picked it up. She pointed it at Orion.

"You should have known better than to try and use my wand to curse your own son!" Andromeda snapped venomously. Orion pulled out his own wand and sent a hex towards Andromeda.

"Protego!" She cried and deflected the hex. But the next hex Orion sent hit Andromeda squarely in the chest and she fell backwards into the wall. Orion turned to his son and hit him with a potent stinging hex. Sirius cried out in pain and fell to the ground. He grabbed his wand and yelled 'protego' to try and protect himself from his father's next curse, but the young Sirius didn't know enough about magic, and his spell was ineffective. I held my wand in Sirius' direction, wanting to cast the spell for him. But there was nothing I could do. This was a memory. Something I couldn't change.

The real Sirius watched the scene with despondency, and looked as if the memory was sucking the life out of him. I pulled him away from the phantoms and back towards the stairs. But now there were more on the staircase. This time a young Sirius was being horribly cursed by his mother.

"You traitorous filthy child!" She screamed as she charmed a vase to fly towards Sirius and smash over his head. "It's bad enough you were sorted into Gryffindor! But associating with a half blood! That snotty pathetic mudblood!" My chest ached because she talking about me. This was my fault!

"Piss off you cow!" Sirius screamed back at the top of his voice, which only earned him another nasty curse.

"Oh God..." The real Sirius murmured as he witnessed the memory being enacted in front of him. I turned to my friend whose whole body looked like it was weakening, like it was dying.

"Expecto Patronum!" I yelled as I thought about the first time the Marauders broke into Honeydukes. It was the only other spell I could think of that might work. The huge silver Osprey that was my patronus swooped at the two smokey figures. It broke them apart, but as the bird flew back to my shoulder they reformed again and the memory started to replay.

"Upstairs!" Sirius hissed as my patronus faded and disappeared. I followed Sirius up to the second landing where were were confronted by yet another unhappy memory. This time of Sirius and Regulus screaming at each other.

"Why can't you see they're brain washing you?"

"You're just jealous! Jealous that they like me better than you!"

Sirius ran between the ghosts of his past and I followed. We got to another staircase, but no light came from the floor above, so Sirius lit his wand. He began to run up the stairs, but just as I was about to follow something grabbed my ankle. I yelled and looked down, but before I could even see what it was I was pulled off my feet and dragged towards a door that was slightly ajar. With one hand I dug my nails into the carpet and tried in vain to resist the force that was pulling me and with the other I shone my wand light towards the thing wrapped tightly around my ancle. It was a vine of Devil's Snare. I tried to cast a flame spell, but before I could the Devil's Snare whipped more vines around my wand arm paralysing it, then another whipped around my neck. I gasped, but was unable to call to Sirius for help. Luckily though, he had returned from the stairs and set the heart of the plant, that resided somewhere in the room it was trying to drag me into, alight. The plant immediately let me go. Sirius pulled me to my feet as I took a deep breath.

"You alright?" He asked quickly.

"Fine." I replied with equal haste. Sirius glanced fearfully back at ghosts that were still enacting Sirius' memories. I did too, and with distinct horror, I saw that the ghost of Regulus glance in my direction, his eyes seeming to glow slightly red. Could they see us now? What was going on? Sirius tugged me towards the stairs, and we ran up them.

On the top floor Sirius kicked open a door and ran inside. I followed. Sirius slammed the door shut and locked it with magic, though I wasn't sure exactly why: if the ghosts were going to follow us a locked door wouldn't hold them back. The room we were in was thankfully ghost free. We were in Sirius' room judging from the Gryffindor banners and posters of scantily clad woman posing with motorcycles. Sirius put his hands over his face and leant against his bedroom door. Then he groaned loudly as he slid down to the floor.

"What the fuck is going on?" He asked me eventually.

"I don't know." I replied. "What happened when they pulled you into the wall?"

"For a few minutes I felt like I was being crushed." Sirius said his eyebrows furrowed. "Then I felt like...Merlin, I felt like they were all in my head. My mother, my father...Bellatrix. I could see them all in there, prying through my mind like it was public property.

"Then I was suddenly in the drawing room, watching Bellatrix torture the ferrets..." Sirius scowled and looked at his hands that bore no traces of the severe burns he had received that day.

"That really happened then?" I asked.

"Yes. They were Regulus' ferrets, Walburga had got them for him as a birthday present." Sirius told me, then he put one hand over his eyes. "I was so afraid of Bellatrix." Sirius admitted after a few minutes silence and I bit my lip not really knowing what to say. These were memories that Sirius had never told me about, so it didn't feel right that I had seen them.

"I never knew what she was going to do." Sirius said, more to himself than to me. "Everyone was afraid of her. Even her own parents. Andromeda was the only one who seemed to have some control over her."

I took a deep breath.

"Did..." I started, but then I stopped as I wasn't sure I had a right to ask what I wanted to ask. "Did your father ever...with Andromeda?"

Sirius looked at me with sad eyes and shrugged.

"I don't know." He admitted, looking desperate with horror at his own family. "She never spoke about it. Whenever I asked her she told me not to worry. But...he could have done anything, and she wouldn't have been able to stop him, or even tell anybody! 'Cos who would help her? Her family would just turn a blind eye, they were those sorts of people. And I couldn't do anything. You saw how easily he overpowered me then." Sirius looked on the verge of tears and my heart ached for him.

"You were only a child." I said, keen to rid Sirius of the guilt he was obviously feeling. Sirius covered his face again and breathed deeply into his palms.

"I hate this place!" He suddenly yelled. "I hate them!" He slammed a fist against the floor then screamed.

"We have to leave." He said once he had calmed down a little. I didn't say anything so Sirius looked questioningly at me.

"What? I'm not staying here! Those things are bloody everywhere! I've tried so hard to forget all that, and there it is being acted out right in front of me. I'm not staying here." Sirius said angrily. I bit my lip. Walburga had said that the house would not welcome Sirius, that he would 'leave this house a shattered phantom or die here tonight'.

"I think this is all part of a curse, designed to make you leave." I concluded out loud.

"Or drive me mad." Sirius added and I couldn't help but agree with him.

"I've never seen anything like it," I said, which was true: I had heard of curses to ward people away from buildings, to prevent people from moving in, but those usually just involved splattering people with manure when they opened the front door, or turning the floor to butter when they stepped inside. This was so much more sinister. This was creative dark magic I was sure.

"But..." I added cautiously.

"But what?" Sirius asked me, his eyes steely and warning.

"But, if it's a curse, then they'll be a way of reversing it." I said. As I predicted Sirius glared at me.

"I don't care. I'm not going to sit here and work out a counter curse with you, like it's some Defence assignment!" Sirius blurted at me. "That's – that's my life! I can't stand the sight of it. I don't care if it can be reversed I want out!"

I paused again. I felt every sympathy for him. I knew how angry and distressed those memories made him, and I suspected it was made even worse by the fact that I now knew about these secrets of his. So I understood Sirius' compulsion to run away. But, Sirius was a Gryffindor...I knew he could stand up and fight this, I just had to convince him of that.

"But then you'd be letting it win." I said quietly.

"What?" Sirius jabbed angrily at me.

"The house is trying to frighten you away." I explained. "I think we shouldn't give it that satisfaction. Surely you agree? You don't want this house to beat you."

Sirius didn't say anything he just stared at me like I was mad, which I probably was.

"Come on Pads." I added. "We can take it."

I knew I had him then. I didn't often call Sirius 'Pads', that was something James did; I knew calling him Pads this time would stir his inner marauder. Sirius' silver eyes glinted very briefly. Then, after a long tense silence he said,

"What did you have in mind?"

Note: let me know if that chapter was a bit unclear in places...

(Also, I know Andromeda is called 'Dromeda' for short in the books, but I like Andy (mostly because it is my name :)) so maybe Andy is what Sirius called her.)