Disclaimer: The world and the characters belong to JK Rowling.
Chapter 1.
"Hold still." He ordered.
The boy continued to shiver.
"Please?" He tried again, with what he hoped was a reassuring smile forming across his features.
Dark eyes tentatively looked up at him through a dirty fringe. His smile faltered at the look in those eyes. The boy immediately looked away, a shudder racking his small frame.
"I'm... I'm scared."
"Of me?" An unnecessary question, one he'd asked too many times.
The boy receded even further, a slight nod being his only answer.
"Why?"
"Y-You kill people..."
"I kill evil people." He corrected gently, pausing to lower himself to the kid's eyelevel. "Are you evil?"
The boy's head shook furiously, eyes alight with panic.
The man sighed; evidently he wasn't as good with kids as he thought.
"Then you have nothing to fear from me." He tried again, watching as the kid looked back, seemingly trying to weigh the truth of that statement with his all too innocent eyes.
The shaking didn't stop.
Gently the man took the boy's limp arm in hand and turned it over. The boy tensed, a strangled gasp escaping him as he took in the sight of his own diseased limb.
The man's eyes trailed down the puzzle work of purple veins and rotting fleshing to the shining golden bracelet at the base of it all; so tightly constricted into the flesh that it appeared buried. The magic laced within was shadowed and greedy; a necrosis curse that would kill the boy in mere hours if left unchecked.
The boy -in spite of his fear- tried to stop the man from touching it, from suffering as well; but the hand fell away as the man's lit up with a pure, almost sacred light.
The man chuckled, gently tracing his fingers over the runes laced in the bracelet, thoroughly purifying and then disintegrating the gold. It left nothing more than an indented, swollen mess of purpled flesh.
The trembling didn't stop.
He gently lowered the boy's arm, freeing one hand to fetch a potion while the other purified the curse residue in the boy's veins.
"Drink." He commanded, holding a small vial of orange liquid up to the kid's eye line.
Flinching, the boy did as ordered, swallowing the contents. The gagging came almost immediately.
The man smirked, briefly remembering his own first experience with potions.
Blinking, he drew his eyes back to the rotten flesh and began the slow process of regenerating new skin and sloshing off what remained of the old. Through it all the kid didn't complain once, an impressive feat even if it he was under a severe numbing hex.
It took a whole, but eventually the limb was back to a state that looked almost normal, if a little red and swollen. Releasing the limb, he couldn't help the sigh as the kid immediately pulled it back to himself; his entire posture receding in on itself like a wounded animal.
One that didn't dare meet the man's eyes.
He shook his head, not sure what he had been expecting; perhaps some small, naive part of him still thought he'd get a thank you one day. He hesitated but when the boy didn't so much as move, he stood, turned on his heels and walked out, boots sharply thumping on the bare concrete.
A snap of his fingers brought down the silencing ward on the room and he stepped out with a sense of resignation.
Outside he quickly found the woman that had pleaded with him to save her son cowering in a corner of the hovel; shielding her rapidly bruising face from the man who stood over her.
Both looked at him in shock and no small amount of fear.
A flick of his wrist and the wife beater's head slammed into the wall with a heavy thump, drawing a surprised and horrified shriek from the mother. A heavy groan rattled out of the man as he slumped to floor, bruised and unconscious.
"Your son will be fine." He grunted, already making his way to the door, ignoring her startled attempts to make him wait.
Without a look back he ducked out onto the sweltering streets of Cairo beneath the setting sun.
It wasn't an hour later that he found himself in the Governor-General's dimly lit office, the incident with the kid still on his mind.
Irrational fear was something he thought he had gotten used to; he had thought himself above it, uncaring. But life always has a fresh way of showing you how shit it is. Of showing you exactly what it must to get under your skin.
A sharp crack had his eyes cutting to his cup of cool tea, taking in the spider web of cracks originating from his grip.
He gently put the cup down.
It wasn't two minutes later that the Governor blustered into the room and formally bowed.
"L-Lord Black, I beg your forgiveness, I was not told of your coming." He intoned, respect laced in his tone. Yet he didn't meet Black's gaze, his eyes locked to the floor, his posture practically radiating fear.
The Black merely nodded, eyes narrowed as he waited for the Governor to take a seat. Taking in every tremble, every time his eyes flickered up a little before immediately being forced back to the ground.
"How may I be of service, my Lord?"
Reaching into his coat, Black pulled out a series of bounty notices, pushing them across the desk. A large drawstring bag was treated with marginally more care as it floated across the desk to land directly in front of the Governor.
"Is this...?" The Governor whispered, morbid curiosity pushing him into peaking in the bag. He paled rapidly at the sight, nodding jerkily as he muttered a prayer beneath his breath.
Drawing in a shaky breath, he rallied himself.
"The rewards will be in your account shortly Lord Black." He spoke stiffly, head bowed. "On behalf of this humble body, you have deepest gratitude. M-May you always be welcome here."
Black tipped his head, not deigning to treat the needless piece of formality with an answer. He could forgive fear in children who don't know more than what parents tell them of the world, but from a man like this?
He stood abruptly, giving the Governor one last nod before turning on his heel.
"W-Wait."
He stopped.
Facing the Governor once more, he watched the man quail further under his gaze; a dangerous glint having entered his eyes.
"Many apologies sir, but the British have been in touch." He spoke quickly, a vain attempt to appease Black's Ire. "I was told that if I were to see you, that I should show you this."
He pushed forward a newspaper -English- dated ten days ago. On the front in bold lettering it proclaimed:
Mass-Murderer Sirius Black Spotted at Hogwarts!
Minister Fudge's Worst Fears Realised!
Emerald eyes glowed in the dim light as Black thought over the title.
He left without a word.