Author's Note: I re-vamped the chapter structure on July 15, 2020, to go from 11 enormous chapters to 25 reasonably sized ones. I didn't change or add anything, except fixing some typos or grammatical things, so there is no need to re-read.

Apologies if you got a message and though there was an update to the sequel. There will be one in the next day or two!

Sirius was in Charms just a couple of weeks before the end of term when Lucius all but burst through the door. It would have been surprising under any circumstances, but it was even more shocking coming from Malfoy.

"Professor Slughorn sent me to fetch Black," he told Flitwick a bit breathlessly. "Urgent business."

Everyone was silent for several seconds, until Flitwick squeaked, "Well, then Mr. Black had better go."

Sirius could feel the eyes of his classmates on him as he gathered his things and followed Lucius out into the corridor. When they were alone, he grabbed the older boy's arm to halt his rapid steps. "What is it, Malfoy?"

Lucius yanked his arm away. "It's Narcissa. She's asking for you."

Sirius could only stare after him as he set off down the corridor again at a blistering pace. Malfoy had already reached the staircases by the time Sirius caught up with him.

"But why is she asking for me?"

He didn't answer, and Sirius figured that there wasn't any point in wasting his breath after that. They hurried down the stairs—fortunately none of them decided to move—and into the dungeons without speaking further. Professor Slughorn was waiting for them outside his office, but he only offered a brief "Terrible business; terrible business, indeed." as he opened the door and gestured for them to enter.

Narcissa was curled up on the sofa with her legs up and her face buried in her knees. When Sirius approached, she looked up to reveal red-rimmed eyes and wet cheeks. There was really no thinking involved; Sirius knelt on the floor next to the sofa and took her hand in both of his. She squeezed his fingers with hers, but she was looking over his head at Malfoy, who was hovering just inside the doorway.

"Dear Merlin, Cissy! What's wrong?" cried Sirius, with barely any thought to sensitivity.

She sniffed in quite an unladylike manner. "It's An—Andy…. She's run away with a—Oh, Sirius!—with a Mudblood!"

Sirius reared back in shock. "She what?"

"Oh, Sirius!" Narcissa repeated, as if saying his name was somehow comforting to her. "She wrote Mother and Father a letter saying that she was on her way to el—elope with a boy named Tonks."

"He was a Hufflepuff in her year," explained Malfoy rather abruptly. Both of the Blacks looked at him then, but he looked down at the floor before either of them could meet his eyes. "I—I'll just leave you alone," he said quietly. "I ought not intrude on such a private family matter."

As soon as he had closed the door behind him, Narcissa collapsed into Sirius's arms. She didn't seem to notice at all when he overbalanced and they fell backwards into a heap on the floor.

"Please, Cissy…" But Sirius really had no idea what to say to her.

She sobbed into his shirt. "He'll never marry me now! How could he ever want to?"

Sirius was shocked at this turn, as he had thought her tears were solely for her lost sister, but he rubbed her back as consolingly as he knew how. "He would be a fool if he lets Andromeda's actions keep him away from you, Cissy. Every family has bad eggs every once in a while, even the Malfoys…. And I've seen the way he looks at you."

"No, you don't understand," she sobbed. "I haven't told him—I couldn't bring myself to say it!—but when he finds out he won't have a choice. His father would never let him…."

"Haven't told him what?" he asked. By now he was more than just a bit uncomfortable with his role as her confidante.

"Oh…! She's p—pregnant!"

Sirius blinked several times before he found his voice. "What?"

"Pregnant!" wailed Narcissa. "At least five months along! Out of wedlock! With a Mudblood's baby!"

It suddenly made much more sense to him. "She left now because she couldn't hide it for much longer…." he mused aloud. His cousin's tears had soaked through his shirt by now. "Cissy, Malfoy loves you, I'm sure of it. Surely he won't think you're, you know, that way, just because you have a stupid sister."

She shook her head against his shoulder. "I am that way! I let him—let him…"

"Oh," was all he could say for several long heartbeats. Then, "Narcissa, please listen to me. This is nineteen seventy-three, not eighteen seventy-three! Malfoy can't be that old-fashioned if he even asked a nice pure-blood girl like you to… you know… in the first place. I know he won't think poorly of you for doing it with him."

Narcissa sniffed again. "Do—do you really think so?"

"Yes!" he declared emphatically, and he thought privately to himself that Malfoy had better not prove him wrong or he'd kill the older boy. "I'm sure he just feels uncomfortable intruding, like he said. And you did ask for me, so he probably thought you wanted to be alone with me. Trust me, he's really worried about you."

She managed to stop crying at some point after that, although Sirius was too afraid to try to move them off the floor lest any slight jostling set her off again.

Finally, he ventured, "Have they burnt her off the tapestry then?"

Narcissa pulled back from him. Though her face was still red and puffy, her expression was quite fierce. "Yes, and good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. How dare she! She didn't think about any of the rest of us at all, not about how she might drag her sisters down along with her, nor how it would injure the family name, nor how devastated Mother would be."

That, Sirius thought, summed up the weight of expectation quite thoroughly. He remembered how his thoughts upon being sorted into Gryffindor had been about what his family would think and how it would disappoint them, and he wondered how Andromeda had forgotten the importance of not only the members of her family but also of their name itself, their heritage and reputation. It was the ultimate betrayal, and he knew that it was his duty now to cut her out of his heart like Narcissa had done, for the sake of their family.

Summer at Grimmauld Place was decidedly awkward. It was even more awkward than Sirius's first Christmas back home after his sorting, although in an entirely different way. The whole family felt the weight of Andromeda's actions.

Grandfather Arcturus had become particularly surly in his criticisms of his daughter-in-law, because without her presence in their immediate family the taint of Andy's actions wouldn't have stretched quite so far. They would only be distant cousins otherwise, but unfortunately, as it stood, Walburga was Andromeda's aunt. He had become very fond of reminding Orion that his side of the family was pristine, whereas he had warned his son against marrying the daughter of a man who already had a Squib brother and a catamite son—and now a Mudblood-fucking granddaughter!

"Come now, Father," his son had replied with a small grin that did little to hide his annoyance. "Certainly Alphard is a sodomite, but he's got too much chest hair to qualify as a catamite."

Grandfather's scowl had been so impressive and Sirius's confusion so great that he'd refrained from asking for clarification just then, but later he'd looked up those words in the library. It was unclear whether his feeling had been more one of embarrassment or curiosity after he learned the truth, but then again his curiosity and the mental list of questions he had for his homosexual uncle had been so embarrassing and foreign to him that he had quickly done his best to shove the entire subject as far into the back of his mind as he could. Although he was sure he'd still been blushing at dinner that night.

Of course, eventually Sirius had taken great offense to his grandfather's proclamations about Walburga's side of the family, more for their poor reflection on himself than for any great worry about his mother's feelings.

"The blood will always out," declared Arcturus as the rest of the family picked listlessly at their desserts one evening. "My father always maintained that my uncle marrying that Bulstrode woman would be the downfall of his brother's line. The Bulstrodes already had two squibs and at least one blood traitor in recent history when Uncle Cygnus married her, and look what she's introduced into his line: a Squib, a homosexual, and a Mudblood's slut."

"And a Gryffindor." Sirius had been seething in his seat throughout dinner, and he found himself speaking now with a reckless abandon born of several days of pent up thoughts.

Everybody turned to look at him all at once, his father and brother with a sort of panicked shock he had last seen that dreadful Christmas when Regulus had called him a blood traitor, and his mother with wide eyes in her gray face.

Grandfather Arcturus blinked at him owlishly for a moment before he finally managed to ask, "What?"

"Me, Grandfather," informed Sirius, drawing himself up to his full height and producing his best mask of aristocratic hauteur. "Your daughter-in-law's blood runs through your grandchildren, or hadn't you thought of that?"

"Sirius, you know that I never meant—"

But his grandson had been stewing on these thoughts for too long now to want to hear whatever patchwork explanation his grandfather was able to produce in the heat of the moment. "I suppose you think that your blood will out in me, not my mother's, although I'm not sure how you reconcile my being in Gryffindor—"

"Now, Sirius, just calm down—"

"—so you must actually be insulting me when you insult my mother."

"—and we'll talk about this like rational people."

"Fuck you."

Sirius's declaration was met with absolute silence from around the table, even from the target of his words. Arcturus was staring at him as if he'd never seen him before, but Sirius suspected it was more that no one had ever dared to speak to him that way before. Well, thought Sirius, at least Rabastan, from whom he'd learned a good deal of his swear words, would be proud of him. Maybe when his grandfather kicked him out of Grimmauld Place, his friend could sneak him in to stay at the Lestrange manor and keep him fed on leftovers he managed to smuggle away from family meals. Like a blood traitor Gryffindor puppy.

Drawing himself up as much as possible, Sirius stalked out of the dining room with as much dignity as he could muster. He only started running after he'd attained the second landing and was sure that nobody could hear him.

Nobody followed him, and over the next several days no one mentioned what had happened. His grandfather avoided him like the plague, even going so far as to fail to call him for their usual lessons in the afternoons. Sirius didn't mind, however, partly because he was secretly terrified of facing the man again but mostly because that left him more time to devote to his renewed studies in the art of dueling.

It was after one of his morning sessions with Dolohov when he came across Regulus moping in the library. It occurred to Sirius only then that his little brother had probably been hit hardest by their cousin's actions, because he had often looked on Andy the same way Sirius had looked on Belley. Although Sirius's wounded pride warred viciously with his brotherly affection, after several seconds of internal struggle he reluctantly decided that their fights over the past couple of years shouldn't stop him from being a big brother when it really mattered. Even if Regulus had been a less than ideal little brother.

He approached the sofa with caution, sinking down into the cushions on the far side only after Regulus made no move to keep him away.

"Hey," he greeted inelegantly. "What are you doing in here? Don't you have lessons until lunch?"

Regulus shrugged and kept his eyes on the book in his lap, although Sirius could see that his eyes weren't moving over the page. "Grandfather hasn't called for me since the morning after you—er, after your… outburst. He kept staring at me as if he couldn't stand to look at me, then he dismissed me and I haven't had a lesson since."

Sirius sucked in a breath of surprise. "Oh… I had thought it was only me. I'm… I'm sorry."

"You are?" Regulus finally turned his head to stare at his brother, his dark eyes—their mother's eyes—piercing Sirius like shards of ice.

"Yeah, of course. I shouldn't have lost my temper, or at least not that way. I never meant for it to affect you, too."

They sat in companionable silence for several minutes, which was closer than they'd been with one another since the year before Sirius left for Hogwarts. He took the opportunity to study his brother, finding that Regulus had grown out of the short, chubby stage that had plagued him all throughout his young childhood. He looked now like someone had stretched him out, all of his excess baby fat transforming into long, lanky limbs and knobby joints. Regulus's features weren't as strong as Sirius's. His cheeks were a bit more rounded, his nose not quite as defined… but they were undeniably brothers.

Finally, Regulus ventured, "Do you think it's true that we have weak blood?"

"Nah," replied Sirius, "I'm brilliant and very talented at magic, not to mention athletic and good looking." This was said matter-of-factly, as if he were discussing the merits of one type of broom polish over another. "I'm sure we're similar."

The younger of the pair considered the elder's words quite seriously for a moment, as if he were contemplating some bit of sage ancient wisdom, then he nodded in acceptance of its truth. It would have perhaps seemed like the height of vanity and arrogance if anybody else had heard them, but that fact seemed happily absent from either of their minds.

After a few minutes, and in a smaller voice, Regulus asked, "But do you think that I'll, you know…?"

"Be sorted somewhere other than Slytherin?" filled in his brother. When a flush crept up on Regulus's face, he knew that he'd guessed correctly. "Look, Reg, it doesn't matter, all right? You'll still be the same person and have the same talents no matter where you end up."

"Well, yes, but I've always wanted—"

"To be in Slytherin." Sirius sighed and cracked his neck as if that would relieve his sudden tension. "I know, trust me."

And so it transpired that several days later it occurred to Sirius to invite his brother along when he met a group of his friends in Diagon Alley. "They're all Slytherins except one, and I figured you'd like to meet them before you get to school," he explained stiffly. "But you should know that we absolutely do not tell each other's secrets to the adults. No matter how much you might want to get me into trouble, if you tattle your reputation will be ruined."

If the way his mouth hung open was any indication, Regulus was undoubtedly shocked when his brother greeted the pretty young witch who was waiting for them with a vigorous kiss, his tongue finding a much better occupation than actually talking to her.

The rest of their group laughed at his reaction, and it was Will Avery who finally said, "I hope you didn't expect to actually spend any quality time with your brother. The rest of us have accepted that he rarely comes up for air."

"It seems to run in the family," added Nigel Mulciber. His words hung in the air for a couple of terrible seconds when both Sirius and Regulus thought that he was referring to Andromeda, but then he continued, "Malfoy has all the luck."

Janice finally pulled away with a bashful giggle, and Sirius turned his eyes towards his friends. Will was holding hands with a witch of his own, a quiet Slytherin girl who seemed unable to decide between watching Sirius and Janice avidly or tearing her eyes away in embarrassment. Nigel was standing next to a small boy with freckles and straw-colored hair styled carefully into place as if he were planning on meeting the Minister himself that afternoon.

"This is my cousin, Bartemius Crouch," supplied Mulciber with a little wave of his hand in the boy's general direction.

"Barty," the boy immediately corrected.

Regulus took to Barty immediately, as they were both about to enter their first year at Hogwarts and wanted to be Slytherins. Of course, Sirius knew that his brother probably would not have been nearly so nice if the boy's last name hadn't been Crouch, which was one of the names of the twenty-eight remaining families that were truly pure-blooded. He supposed that Mulciber, whose family was not among that number, must be the product of what the Crouch family considered a disadvantageous marriage. All in all, Sirius was rather glad that his brother had someone his own age to hang out with, as he'd been somewhat regretting saying he could tag along.

"He's so cute!" exclaimed Janice as the group was walking towards Fortescue's. She was looking at the pair of younger boys as if she were observing a pair of toddlers and not boys who were only a couple of years younger than she was. "He's not as handsome as you are, of course—I noticed you from that first boat ride together, you know. Oh, how I wish we could take the boats again. It would be so romantic!—but he's very cute."

Sirius, who was used to her girlish outbursts by now, merely smiled and refrained from rolling his eyes. "Thanks, Jan."

"It's so nice walking together like this," she chattered on. "I'm so glad we'll be allowed to visit Hogsmeade this year. You will take me, won't you?"

"Course, love," replied Sirius dutifully, if a bit off-handedly since he was distracted by the display in the Quality Quidditch Supplies window.

She made a sort of mewling sound, as if she had choked on a squeal, and he turned to look at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Are you okay?"

She offered him a brilliant smile and clung even tighter to his arm. "Oh, yes. I'm just perfect."

"Okay then," he said quizzically, not really understanding her at all. Not that he ever understood her particularly well. With a little shrug to himself, he rushed her along to catch up with the rest of the group.

A few weeks after the Incident—the one at the dinner table, not The Incident with Andromeda, which deserved at least two capital letters—Sirius's parents thought it would be best if he went away for a few days. The tension at Grimmauld Place was getting a bit too thick in the air to handle, but Orion was sure that he could talk his father down if he had a few days to work on him without Sirius constantly underfoot. Staying outside of the family was out of the question, because that would require some explanation for why he wanted to invite himself over. Likewise, staying with Uncle Cygnus and Aunt Druella was out of the question, because they'd recently had an unwed daughter become pregnant and elope with a Mudblood while under their roof. Sirius put his foot down and flatly refused to stay with Grandfather Pollux and Grandmother Irma.

Therefore he found himself stumbling out of the fireplace and straight into Rodolphus Lestrange's arms.

"I don't know what you and my brother get up to, but I despise hugging," the man informed him matter-of-factly. If it hadn't been for the humor in his eyes as he set Sirius onto his own feet, Sirius would have thought that he was being entirely serious.

"Really? Nobody must have told Bellatrix that," Sirius shot back, recalling the many times he'd had to sit uncomfortably by while they pawed at each other.

Rodolphus laughed, a sound that was similar to his brother's laugh but not quite as naturally full of malicious promise. "She's an exception. One day you'll understand."

"Oh, I understand," replied Sirius, thinking of how nice it felt to kiss Janice.

A vaguely worried look passed over Rodolphus's face, but before he had time to speak or Sirius had time to ask about it, his wife rushed into the room with her long hair wild around her shoulders.

"Siri!" she squealed excitedly, enfolding him in her embrace. "Rodolphus, why didn't you tell me immediately that he was here?"

Her husband shrugged entirely unapologetically. "I wanted to give him a moment of peace before you got ahold of him. Sorry, Sirius, but she's been like this since she learned you were coming."

The look Bellatrix shot him was full of promised retribution, but from the man's responding look Sirius could only conclude that he was looking forward to it. Sirius shuddered. Gross.

The young Lestrange couple lived in what Bellatrix had told him was a cottage on the southeast coast, but calling it a cottage was a bit like calling the ocean he could see beyond the windows a lake. Sirius saw a smallish library before he climbed the staircase, and he counted four bedrooms on the way to his own.

As soon as they'd closed the door behind them, Bellatrix tugged Sirius down to sit next to her on his bed. "Now, how are you?"

Sirius shrugged. "Fine. I was really more interested in asking you about your sister." When Bellatrix's face began to harden with disapproval and distaste, he clarified, "Narcissa."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, eyeing him curiously now. "She's taking it much harder than I had expected, now that you mention it. They were never close."

Sirius really had not wanted to bring it up with Bellatrix—or with anyone at all, ever. However, he had spent the weeks since finding out about Andromeda considering the problem of Narcissa and Malfoy, and he didn't really see how he could help at all if he kept it all to himself. He had considered asking his father, but that idea had been almost immediately rejected since he hadn't thought the adults in their family would like to know that more than one daughter had been… busy. He had thought about asking Rabastan, but that option was reluctantly rejected as Sirius had to acknowledge that he wasn't sure the older boy wouldn't take Lucius's side if it came down to it. That left him with Bellatrix.

"She, erm… told me some things," he began uncomfortably. "You know, right after we'd found out, when she was still crying about it. I… um… Well, you see, she's worried that Malfoy won't marry her."

"That's ridiculous!" exclaimed her sister immediately. "The Malfoys aren't so pristine that they can judge us!"

Sirius grimaced. "Yes… But she's worried he thinks she's the same as Andromeda because she, you know…"

Bellatrix glared at him, although he knew it wasn't directed strictly at him. "Know what?"

It was painful, truly it was, but Sirius had no choice except to spell it out. "Merlin's balls, Bellatrix! She shagged him, okay? Merlin…"

"Oh," she said flatly. Then, "Oh, Cissy…"

They sat in uncomfortable silence for several minutes, Bellatrix seemingly deep in thought and Sirius looking anywhere but at her in his embarrassment. Although he was getting quite used to talking about sex in front of his male friends, he had never imagined discussing any such thing in front of girls, especially not ones to whom he was related. He examined the elaborate embroidery that ran across the duvet, then the canopy. Next he painstakingly traced the carvings on the armoire with his eyes.

Finally, Bellatrix asked, "Why didn't she tell me?"

He was almost certain that she was just thinking aloud and didn't expect him to have any sort of answer. Nonetheless he scooted closer and wrapped his arm around her thin shoulders. "I'm sure she's just embarrassed, Belley. You know how everybody would react if they knew. She only told me because she was beside herself and not thinking clearly."

"Still, I could have helped her, made sure she knows how to be safe, so she doesn't end up like her. She might trust Malfoy to take care of her, but I'd feel better if she knew how to—"

"No, no, no," insisted Sirius, cutting her off with an emphatic shake of his head. "I do not want to know anything about that kind of… stuff. I already know too much."

He could feel her giggle against his shoulder, where she'd rested her head, but she obliged him and stopped thinking aloud about Narcissa's sex life.

"Do you think Rodolphus can do something about Malfoy?" asked Sirius, turning the conversation back to what he thought was the important thing. "I think he really loves Cissy, but she might be right about how Mr. Malfoy will react to… the situation."

Bellatrix nodded against his shoulder. "Mr. Malfoy's as old-fashioned as they come, but I don't think Lucius will cave in to him, especially not if he has the support of his friends. What can Mr. Malfoy really do against his only son, his only child?" She let out a frustrated sigh. "For all the progress we've made, I can't believe that we women are still subject to these ridiculous notions. You won't grow up to be like those men, will you, Siri?"

Sirius agreed that he would not. After all, Bellatrix was one of the most formidable people he knew, male or female. He could hardly argue that she deserved any less respect or that she needed to be protected just because she was a witch and not a wizard. He was sure that other women he knew—his mother, Narcissa, Mrs. Lestrange—would be just as formidable if they'd been raised with different expectations, or if they'd cared as little for expectations as Bellatrix.

It was unfortunate for Narcissa that she was probably the "best" of the Black sisters, by society's standards, yet it was the very society she cared so much about that was ready to tear her down.