Chapter 75: Sirius, Avenging
In the early hours of the morning, before he had entirely shaken off the vestiges of his troubled sleep, Sirius received half a dozen warnings almost simultaneously. The first was from Tonks, and the next from Andromeda. Then came a rather profane missive from Mad-Eye in tandem with a more polite message from Dumbledore. Last was a formal summons from the Auror Office, which Sirius naturally ignored.
He loved Tonks; he liked Mad-Eye. He thought he might like Kingsley, and he took Remus' respect for Scrimgeour under advisement. But he certainly wasn't going to give himself over to the Ministry at a time like this. They would probably hold him for questioning, and he didn't have the time to waste. None of them did.
He grabbed his mirror and shouted Harry's name. He and Harry usually spoke in the evening, when schedules relaxed and allowed the students to go about their sometimes-solitary pursuits. In the morning, no student had time for an interfering godfather. Harry was likely to be in lockstep with his roommates as they got dressed and scrambled down to breakfast moments before their first class. Sirius' own memories of that particular routine were among the happiest of his life.
Harry appeared in the mirror almost immediately. He was fully dressed; his face was clean and flushed; and his hair was as combed as it was ever likely to get. It was bizarre. No teenager had any business being so ready to start the day.
"You're awake," Sirius said stupidly, even though there was no time to waste. Not that time spent discovering Harry was ever truly wasted.
"Quidditch practice this morning," said Harry casually. "Gryffindor's playing Hufflepuff this month and I don't fancy losing to Cedric. He's not a bad winner, but his dad is."
Sirius laughed. "Are you alone?"
"Yeah." Harry nodded. "Seamus and Dean and Ron are all still at practice. Seamus and Dean are on the practice team and Ron… well, he needs more practice to be more confident. But I caught the Snitch and we didn't have time to let it go again, so I left."
Harry's voice was still casual; in fact, it was too casual. His voice wasn't the only thing that felt off. Harry had left Quidditch practice early? James would never have done that. Even before he'd been made captain, James would have stayed until the last possible moment supporting his teammates and relishing any time he was permitted to spend on a broom.
Harry wasn't James; Sirius knew that. But Harry was precisely as mad for Quidditch as his father had been. Sirius needed to look no further than Harry's fifteenth birthday party for the proof: every single guest had brought Harry a Quidditch-related present.
Was this Harry pulling away from the game he adored because, in light of what he would soon be asked to do, a game no longer held meaning? Was it something worse? Harry and Sirius had barely spoken since Sirius had admitted that Harry, like a locket or a ring, carried a Horcrux.
It bore further attention, but this wasn't the day for that.
"Where's Neville?" Sirius pressed, feeling sick at the thought of Frank and Alice's son.
"I don't know. Down at breakfast or having a shower or something. I just came back to the dormitory to pick up my books. What's going on, Sirius?"
There was a clatter in the background and Sirius heard a muffled curse and an oh sorry to interrupt Harry.
Sirius closed his eyes and wished he could become a dog, or at least drink half a bottle of firewhiskey. If there was such a thing as fate, this was it. "Call Neville over. He should hear this, too."
Harry pulled a face and gestured to Neville, who soon settled himself next to Harry. Neville's tie was undone and his hair was wet, and Sirius thought that that seemed a good bit more natural.
"There's no easy way to say this, and I don't know about Neville, but I know that Harry likes things just to be said."
"You missed your chance to do that five minutes ago," Harry pointed out helpfully.
Sirius ignored him. "Bellatrix Lestrange broke out of Azkaban last night."
Harry's and Neville's features melted into matching expressions of horror.
"As the only person either one of you knows who has broken out of Azkaban after spending more than a decade making conversation with the dementors, I want to remind you both that Azkaban escapees can be very dangerous and extremely fixated on their goals. When I broke out, nothing was going to keep me away from Peter Pettigrew. Mrs. Lestrange may have her eye on one of you."
As he said it, though, he knew that it wasn't so. Bellatrix wouldn't bother with Harry or Neville unless the moment happened to arise. She hadn't actively pursued either of them in Remus' memories.
The most important thing to him had been Wormtail because he had wanted to keep Harry safe.
The most important thing to Bellatrix was Voldemort, who had always been the most important thing to Bellatrix.
And if Bellatrix helped Voldemort regain his strength outside of anyone else's control, then everything Sirius and Remus had done might be for nothing.
"How— how did she do it?" asked Neville haltingly.
"She shattered the bars of her cell. They think she worked herself into a rage and performed accidental magic like a child. It wasn't an accident, of course. She made herself lose control. Barty Crouch is not my favorite person, but he told the investigators that she'd been asking the hit wizards about what they were going to do about patrols on the night of the full moon, and the fools told her they wouldn't be there."
"Why not?" asked Harry.
"Because no one wants to be around a transformed werewolf who doesn't have access to Wolfsbane Potion."
"Is Lupin all right?"
One more concern that couldn't be the most important concern right now. "As far as I know, he is. I haven't heard otherwise." He did his best to look Harry in the eye through the distortion of the old mirror. "This isn't Remus' first full moon alone and without a Healer or a potion. It's not ideal, but he's survived it before and he chose to stay on at Hogwarts knowing that this would be his punishment if Umbridge caught him. So I would like you to remember that if Remus can submit to Azkaban under the circumstances, the two of you can definitely refrain from sneaking off to Hogsmeade or wandering around the Forbidden Forest."
"I don't do those things anyway," said Neville.
"Good," said Sirius. "Perhaps you can be a positive influence on Harry, who does do those things. But for now, Harry's job is to stay safe and he needs to take that job very, very seriously."
"I understand," said Harry.
"Do you? I have it on good authority that when I was the mad mass murderer on the run, you wandered off to Hogsmeade without any sort of permission. And I believe it was last year that you and Ginny Weasley decided to run out into the night after a former Death Eater named Igor Karkaroff."
"I won't do anything you wouldn't do."
"You are better than I am and you will do better than I do!" Sirius snapped more harshly than he'd intended. He forced himself to calm down. "You are the most important thing in the world to me, Harry. When I was the one who broke out of Azkaban, nothing would have stopped me getting to you. My cousin Bellatrix and I are very much alike—"
"No. You're nothing alike." It was Neville, not Harry, who had interrupted him and Sirius thought that it was the kindest thing he had ever heard anyone say. He was reminded anew that while he was fighting for Harry, he was also fighting to prevent the loss of another generation. Harry's friends and classmates wouldn't be decimated that way Sirius' had. It was why Harry would sacrifice himself to Voldemort so soon.
There were things worth dying for.
He told Harry and Neville goodbye and kicked his chair back onto two legs, staring at the ceiling as he thought. He needed to work out what Bellatrix would do next. He hadn't lied to Neville and Harry; he had an advantage because what Bella might do was uncomfortably close to what he himself might do.
Tonks had occasionally mentioned being disturbed by the resemblance between Bella and Anna, but Sirius knew that the resemblance had never been more than superficial. Andromeda had always been more quietly, thoughtfully calculating than her sister— and rather less overtly powerful, too. It was Sirius and Bellatrix, the firstborns of their respective lines, who had been paired and praised for their magical prowess as children. They'd been rash, they'd been arrogant, they'd been brilliant, and they'd been guilty of the most extreme devotion to their causes and their people.
They'd been opposed only in determining which causes, and which people, were worthy of that devotion.
It was no wonder that they had been the two who had spent most of their adult lives in prison while Anna and Cissy lived their lives and Regulus lost his.
Sirius had always had the ability to break out of Azkaban. The dementors could not have detected the exit of a dog any better in 1981 than in 1993. He hadn't been properly motivated until the photograph of Wormtail had lit a fire in his brain.
Tonks must have lit the fire in Bellatrix's brain when she'd escorted Remus to Azkaban.
Peter had abandoned Sirius' family when he'd betrayed the Potters. Tonks was the living embodiment of the way Andromeda had abandoned Bellatrix's family. Bella had stormed and raged and cried good riddance, but Sirius knew that it had hurt.
He knew because it had hurt when Peter had decided that his own life mattered more than the Potters' lives, no matter that Sirius and James would certainly have given their lives for Peter.
Sirius had escaped Azkaban and gone straight to Harry. Bella would want to go straight to Voldemort. In Remus' memories, Voldemort had been in Albania and Peter had found him. Had Peter known Voldemort would be there or had it been a coincidence? Sirius doubted that Voldemort would have shared his emergency plans with his followers because Voldemort wouldn't have admitted to having emergency plans. Nonetheless, could they warn the Albanian Ministry to be on the lookout for Bellatrix?
He sent a message to Dumbledore.
In the blink of an eye, Dumbledore replied that it had already been done, and that furthermore:
I know the location of the eighth piece and am monitoring it. I will take steps if anyone approaches.
Well. Sirius supposed that Dumbledore hadn't gotten himself into the discussion for Greatest Wizard of All Time by being a moron.
It was a relief to know that Bellatrix wouldn't be able to resurrect Voldemort… today… without a fight… but she still needed stopping before the world became infinitely more complicated.
Where would Bellatrix go first on her quest to find Voldemort? She would seek out a wand and perhaps a broom or some other magical devices. She could go to Narcissa for help— Cissy would give it— but the problem was that Malfoy Manor would be the first place the Ministry would look. Scrimgeour probably had one Auror standing outside Lucius Malfoy's gate and another trailing after Narcissa at a not-so-discreet distance.
Where else might Bellatrix go? Narcissa aside, the family members on whom she might have relied were dead. Her friends, to the extent that she'd had them, were mostly in Azkaban. (It amused Sirius that Bella had apparently made no effort to bring Rodolphus with her when she'd fled the fortress.)
There was one place where Bella could go in search of useful supplies and be assured that the Ministry wouldn't chase her because they wouldn't be able to find her.
12 Grimmauld Place.
The doors opened to anyone born a Black. To anyone not born a Black, the building was Unplottable.
With a flick of his wand, he Apparated to the front step and let himself inside.
Sirius searched Grimmauld Place from top to bottom. He found no one. In the basement kitchen, though, he discovered a carefully preserved photograph of Bellatrix just inside Kreacher's den.
Kreacher.
Another "member of the family" who would be more than willing to help Bellatrix.
"Kreacher!" Sirius called, loathing as always the feeling of the bond, a hook somewhere in his chest like a Portkey gone wrong.
Kreacher appeared at his feet. "Yes, Master?" he croaked. It wasn't a friendly croak, exactly, but neither did it radiate with abject loathing the way it would have before he'd destroyed the locket.
Sirius picked up the photograph. It was an old one; Bella had only been about fifteen when she'd sat for it.
(The memory came again. He was nine and screaming with pain. Bella ran to him and rocked him in her arms. Everything will be all right, we can fix it, whatever it is. And I don't mind saying I'm impressed that you managed to do this much magic with that terrible wand.)
"Has Miss Bellatrix called you, Kreacher?" Sirius asked.
"No." The elf shook his head adamantly. "Miss Bellatrix cannot call Kreacher from Azkaban, and if she could, Kreacher could not go, there is magic there Kreacher cannot break."
"She is no longer in Azkaban." Kreacher's eyes widened with delight. "If Miss Bellatrix or her sister Miss Narcissa calls you or asks you to do anything, you must come to me immediately and tell me. That is an order, Kreacher. Do you understand?"
Kreacher scowled his familiar scowl. "Kreacher understands."
"For now, I'd like you stay in the house with me." Sirius grimaced. There was barely a being on the planet whose company he didn't prefer to Kreacher's. But he had made mistakes the last time he had confronted Bellatrix, and he had no intention of repeating those mistakes.
Sirius didn't want to stay in the massive basement kitchen beside Kreacher's pathetic tribute to fallen Voldemort sympathizers, so they climbed up the stairs to the ground floor. Sirius didn't want to be on the same floor as his mother's portrait, either, and so he made his way past the heads of Kreacher's relatives to the first floor.
As much as Sirius hated Grimmauld Place, he could admit that the drawing room had once been exquisite. Between the large windows overlooking the street and the massive fireplace, it was the brightest room in the house. Its beauty was, of course, marred by the collection of dark objects in the ornate glass-fronted cabinets; the horrendous tapestry featuring the Black family tree; and the filth that had escaped the hasty cleaning he'd given the place before Harry's party in July. They hadn't used this room for the party and so he had removed only immediate threats.
Sirius banished some cobwebs and a nest of dead puffskeins before eyeing the tapestry. He knew that he couldn't remove the tapestry; he'd tried. His mother's sticking charms had been the stuff of legend.
He stared at the burn mark where his name had once been, his wand warm and solid in his hand. No, he couldn't remove the tapestry, but he could make it less hateful. He could make it less hateful and keep Kreacher on his side at the same time.
"Kreacher, go to the library and fetch me my mother's book of decorative charms."
Kreacher obeyed without comment. Sirius found the spells he sought almost instantly; the book's spine had been cracked by many generations of Blacks using it for just this purpose. "Filo subtegminis aurum scribentes."
The gold thread connecting the names brightened immediately. Deeply aware of Kreacher sulking beside him—and even more aware of the image of Bellatrix knocking him through a ragged curtain in the Department of Mysteries— Sirius began by retracing Regulus' name.
Regulus Arcturus Black.
The words glowed and Kreacher fell prostrate beside Sirius.
The thread above Regulus' name glittered ever more brightly and Sirius traced over his parents' names. Walburga. Orion. Hadn't he done this with his finger as a small child, before he'd learned what his family meant and why he didn't belong here? Hadn't his mother indulgently said that the tapestry wasn't to be touched, but perhaps just this once, for it would after all belong to Sirius one day?
To his surprise, a line emerged from the scorch mark to the left of Regulus' name. Sirius hadn't thought that this would be quite so easy. "Reparo," he whispered instinctively. And his name reappeared before his eyes, bold as ever.
Sirius Orion Black.
"I win," he told no one in particular, even though he had no use for the prize. Kreacher didn't seem to notice; the elf was sobbing again.
Best not to blast off Bellatrix's name, then. He would blast only the real thing.
He traced the line back to his grandparents and then his cousins, smiling as he reached the place where Andromeda belonged. "Reparo."
Twenty years before, he had unwillingly, under a thousand threats, watched as his mother marked Bellatrix's marriage to Rodolphus. (Rodo who Bella had left behind when she'd fled the prison that morning…) He didn't know how he remembered the spell, but he did. He held his wand over Andromeda's name. "Connubium," he said, and carefully spelled out Ted's name.
Edward Tonks.
And then, with delight, a new name.
She was going to hate this.
It would be fun.
Nymphadora Vulpecula Tonks.
He was half-inclined to add Remus' name, too, but he supposed he would wait until after the wedding.
He retraced his steps and found the burn mark where Uncle Alphard belonged. "Reparo." Then, too, the relatives he hadn't known.
Marius Black, the squib.
Phineas Black, the supporter of Muggle rights.
Iola Black, who married a Muggle. Sirius didn't know if she'd ever had children, but he did remember her husband's name (it had featured periodically in his mother's lectures). Bob Hitchens, a new addition to the tree.
Cedrella Black, who married Septimus Weasley. He thought of adding their children, but he didn't remember the names of Arthur's brothers.
Eduardus Limette Black. Sirius wasn't even sure what he had ever done, so it must have been really bad. Or truly great, depending on where one stood.
All of the names glittered with gold, now, and the tapestry around them looked dingier than ever.
Kreacher seemed to think so, too. "Does Master wish Kreacher to remove the dust?"
"Yes, please, Kreacher," said Sirius, biting back the retort that he hadn't known Kreacher was capable of removing dust. Today, of all days, he had to keep Kreacher on his side.
With a snap of Kreacher's fingers, the fabric was clean and bright.
"I know how to fix the edges where it's fraying," Sirius said. "Will you clean the windows?"
"Yes, Master."
The room instantly flooded with light, but it still took Sirius the better part of an hour to mend the edges of the tapestry. It was difficult, close work and he had no plans to do any such thing ever again. But then, he hadn't had any plans to do it once.
His stomach growled as he stepped back, task complete. He hadn't eaten all day.
"Does Master wish for me to fetch his lunch?" asked Kreacher.
Sirius had never particularly trusted Kreacher to fetch food for him or anyone who was not a Death Eater, but he didn't want to leave the house in case Bellatrix arrived. He also didn't fancy eating anything that might have been in the kitchen for a decade.
"Yes," he decided. His orders to report any contact with Bella and Cissy would be sufficient protection.
Kreacher vanished with a pop.
Sirius averted his eyes from his morning's work and strode into the toilet to wash the dust from his face.
"Your hair is too long, Master Sirius," the mirror informed him.
He took a good look at his hair. He hadn't cut it in months and it had grown past his shoulders. He hadn't worn it so long since Azkaban.
The mirror wasn't entirely wrong. It was too long. But he was inclined to take time out from waiting for his godson's possible demise to cut his hair. He would cut it after Harry faced Voldemort, he decided. He would cut it into a flattering style as a celebration or he would shear it off in mourning.
He splashed water onto his fingers and combed it through his hair.
WHO ENTERS THE HOUSE OF MY FATHERS?
Walburga's portrait had awakened. Sirius took a dueling grip on his wand and crept to the head of the grand staircase that overlooked the entrance hall.
It was her.
The portrait was babbling that Bellatrix was beautiful and was always welcome in this home, unlike blood traitors and mudbloods and half-breeds.
Sirius didn't hesitate. By way of greeting, he sent a stunning spell at Bellatrix's chest.
Bellatrix saw him just in time and dodged. The spell bounced harmlessly off the front door and a retaliatory spell crackled against the bottom step.
Of course she already had a wand. She was resourceful. She was more than willing to steal or kill.
Three jets of red light soared up the stairs toward Sirius. Sirius deflected them and they hit the house-elf heads mounted on the wall. Several of the heads disintegrated.
Kreacher wasn't going to like this, Sirius mused as he tried again to stun Bellatrix. Her shield charm flashed brilliantly in response.
"Is this any way to greet your cousin?" she asked.
"You did come to my house, Bellatrix."
"It is not your house." More spells; more shields. "You are a blood traitor."
"I put myself back on the tapestry," said Sirius. He tried to slip a body bind underneath Bellatrix's defenses. It didn't work. "Drop your wand and you can sit in the drawing room and admire it while we wait for the Ministry to come for you."
"The Ministry." Bellatrix rolled her eyes. "Don't tell me you're a slave of the Ministry. Even you, Sirius, cannot believe that the Ministry is a proper steward of the magical world."
"Not really," Sirius admitted. He managed to hit her with a leg-locker jinx, but she was able to break it quickly.
"The Dark Lord will rise. He will rise again and I will be at his right hand. He will be more great, he will be more powerful, he will put the mudbloods in their place—"
Walburga's portrait began to scream in concert with Bellatrix. "There will be no more mudbloods—"
"We will reign as we were meant to reign—"
"They will not enter the house of my fathers—"
"They will bow before us—"
"My Regulus will be avenged—"
"Harry Potter's head will be mounted on a stake as a warning—"
Bellatrix aimed for a gap in Sirius' defenses, and she should have been successful. Her aim wasn't precise, though, and Sirius merely stumbled through the burning pain in his side as he descended the stairs. The dust of the house-elves ground beneath his feet. He held his wand above his head and reached for the curse he'd hoped never to cast.
"Avada Kedavra."
It hit Bellatrix in the chest.
She crumpled to the ground beside the troll's leg umbrella stand.
The whole house seemed to flicker with green light.
He'd felt the house flicker like that once before, when he'd been a child and he'd tried to turn his wall into a window. Bella had reached him long moments before his parents had.
Sirius sat on the lowest step and cried.
He didn't know whether seconds or minutes or hours had passed when Phineas Nigellus' aristocratic voice broke the silence. He had traveled from his portrait in the upstairs bedroom to one of the entryway portraits (all of which, save Walburga, were generally quiet).
"You are aware that I have an obligation, as a former Headmaster of Hogwarts, to report this to Dumbledore."
"Go ahead," said Sirius.
"Not that I agree with everything Dumbledore does, of course. The man is brilliant, but he is almost as insufferable as his students sometimes. Now you, Sirius, were especially insufferable as a teenager…"
The familiarity of the insult was comforting. He raised his head from his hands and wiped the tears from his cheeks. "And I suppose Bellatrix was the exception?" He pointed at her corpse, so much smaller in death than the woman had been in life.
"No, Bellatrix was as bad as the rest. Hot-headed, always certain she was right, making everyone around her as miserable as she was. The two of you were the real doppelgängers in the family, not Bellatrix and Andromeda."
"I know." He had seldom been more aware of anything.
"But you aren't her image any longer. You were calm and collected when you fought her. You did not succumb to her taunting."
Sirius was about to point out that he'd used the killing curse when she'd invoked Harry's name, and he wasn't at all certain that he hadn't been rash, when Kreacher returned carrying a bag of what smelled like chicken sandwiches.
The bag fell to the floor and Kreacher flung himself upon Bellatrix's body. He shook with ugly sobs.
"Return to Hogwarts, Kreacher," said Sirius. The elf looked at him mutinously before crawling to his feet and staring at him.
"Master has been crying for Miss Bellatrix, too."
Sirius didn't have the energy to correct him. "I am ordering you to return to Hogwarts. Your work here today is done. Thank you." It still felt unnatural to thank a house-elf.
Kreacher bowed wetly and vanished. All that remained was the damp imprint of his nose on the floor and the abandoned bag of food beside Bellatrix's corpse.
A throat cleared itself above Sirius' head. Phineas Nigellus was back. "Dumbledore says to stay where you are and that he has alerted the Ministry. He tells you that it was well done, Sirius, and that you may have averted a great tragedy with a smaller one. And for once I agree with him."
Sirius buried his face in his hands once more and waited for the Ministry to arrive.
To be continued.
Author's Note: I'm back to writing Coronavirus essays for work when I'd rather be writing this. So if you choose to review, go easy on me; if you don't feel like reviewing, don't. Either way, be safe and well.
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