Chapter Nine: Walking on Eggshells

Sirius startles when he hears the door open behind him. "Sorry," says Emmeline, sounding a little subdued. He's gotten used to Em's subdued voice because she's used it pretty much constantly every time she's come to visit him this summer at Grimmauld Place, and can he blame her? If the roles were reversed, and Sirius were from a normal family, and he were the one walking on eggshells around her nutter of a mum—

"It's okay," he says, hastily signing his name at the bottom of the letter and folding it up. "I was just finishing up here. I just need to send this off with Aries, and then I'll be good."

"Who are you writing to?"

He gets up from his desk and smiles at her; she pushes off from the doorjamb and backs up into the hallway so that he can pass her. "Remus," he says. Last night was a full moon, and since they probably won't see each other again until they go back to Hogwarts, Sirius wants to check in—not that he can tell that to Emmeline. "You can come with me, or you can wait here—I'll just be a minute."

"I'll join you," says Emmeline. "What's the point in coming to, uh… to keep you company if I'm not actually keeping you company?"

She's doing a damn sight more than just "keeping him company," and they both know it, but neither of them points this out. He'd have spent the entire summer at James's manor if he could have, but Mum and Dad never would have allowed him to be out of the house that much—so he's visited James twice a week, and to fill in the rest of the time, Em has come over here for a couple of hours every other day. They don't have a castle full of entertainment at their disposal they way they did when they'd hang out at Hogwarts, and Sirius always feels a little awkward trying to think of things they can do together while she's here—but Mum is usually on better behavior when there are guests around, and he can handle a little awkwardness if it means getting to head off some of Mum's fits.

On the way to grab Aries in the attic, they bump into Regulus. Sirius says hello as cheerfully as he can muster, but before he can so much as ask Regulus how his day is going, Regulus ducks around them and disappears altogether down the stairs. Sirius rolls his eyes, not that Em can see it from behind him, and tells her, "Sorry about him. He's just…"

"Purist," she supplies, and she sounds so resigned to it that Sirius feels a surge of guilt rush through him.

"Hey," he says. He turns around, stops walking, and takes both her hands in his. "I meant what I said—you really, really don't have to come here anymore if you don't want to. I know it's…"

She shakes her head, tucking loose ropes of hair behind her ear. "It's worth it. I can deal with it. Just don't let him tell your mum and dad that I'm a half-blood, and we're good, all right? It's just for one more week, and then we'll be back at Hogwarts."

"One more week," Sirius repeats back to her, one corner of his mouth turned up.

But as it happens, a lot can happen in a week—like Dad interrogating Emmeline about her blood status at the dinner table four days later.

In retrospect, Sirius should have expected this to happen much, much sooner—if anything, it should surprise him that Mum and Dad didn't go down this line of questioning when they first met Em. But when Dad says casually, "So what family is your mum from, Emmeline?" Sirius almost chokes on his chicken breast.

He and Emmeline exchange a panicked look as Sirius quickly debates how to react. Does he try to lie about her parentage? Find a way to change the subject until she's left the house? Get her out of here as quick as he can? But trying to cover up the truth will only make things uglier when his parents inevitably discover it for themselves, so Sirius braces for impact and says quietly, "Her mum isn't from a wizarding family, Dad. Em is half-blood."

He's expecting Dad to make some cutting remark or other—Mum to lose her temper right there at the dinner table in front of Em—but although Mum's face turns some interesting colors, neither of them says anything more on the subject. But Sirius isn't so naive as to think that they're going to get off easy, and sure enough, Emmeline has hardly put her fork down on her empty plate ten minutes later before Dad says, "Sirius, it's time to say goodbye—your mother and I need to speak with you alone."

Emmeline is totally frozen in her seat—it takes Sirius grabbing her elbow and urging her up for her to stand. "Sirius—"

He shakes his head minutely. "Let me walk you out," he says, and as Regulus scurries away (presumably for his bedroom), Sirius leads her into the living room, away from Mum and Dad.

"I didn't mean—" she tries to say as he's grabbing the pot of Floo powder, but he shakes his head again.

"It's not your fault. Honestly, I should be surprised they didn't ask sooner. We got lucky with your dad being a pureblood—they know the Vance family name."

"Are you going to be…?"

"I'll be fine," says Sirius a lot more calmly than he feels. "You shouldn't come back here again. I'll see you at school, okay? Find me on the train on Friday."

"But are you sure—?"

"It's three more days," he says very steadily. "I can get through three more days, and then I don't have to come back until June if I don't want to."

He passes her the pot, and Em stares at him for a long moment before taking a pinch and climbing into the fireplace. "I'm so sorry," she mutters, but by the time he tries to protest, she's already shouted her address and disappeared into the roaring green flames.

A few seconds pass where Sirius hovers in the living room, trying to drag out the few seconds before the coming confrontation until they stand forever between himself and what he knows is going to happen. But you can't stretch time longer than it's meant to last, and all too soon, he hears his father demanding his presence back in the dining room.

So he goes back in, trying to prepare himself for what's coming even while knowing that fights with his parents over blood status won't ever be anything that he can make easier through rehearsal. He stands in the doorway and waits for it.

He doesn't know where Dad sent her or how the hell she agreed to go, but Mum is gone from the room when he returns. This will be easier, he tells himself: Dad may be hateful, but at least he's rarely angry.

"You brought a half-blood here," says Dad slowly. "A half-blood."

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir."

"Do you have any idea the gravity of what you've done?"

"Yes, sir."

"Your mother and I pride ourselves on the sanctity of our home, and you've sullied it with tainted blood—and for what? This is exactly what we knew would happen when you landed yourself in Gryffindor. We've tried so hard to teach you discipline—respect—self-preservation—and lord knows how many Mudbloods you've associated yourself with."

"I apologize, sir."

"But I don't think you mean it," Dad says now, his voice starting to rise. "If you were sorry, you would have known better than to bring a half-blood round to the house—not just once, but repeatedly. You would have known better than to keep company with the filth with whom you share a common room. You wouldn't have dragged your mother or your brother or me into the lifestyle you keep."

And Sirius isn't going to defend himself—Sirius knows better than to defend himself—but all he can think about is how Emmeline and Peter and Mary would feel if they knew anybody was saying these kinds of things about them, and he can't stand to be complicit in it any longer. He can't stand it any more than he can withstand Mum's temper, and without thinking, before he can stop himself, he says levelly, "How do you cope with it, Dad?"

"Pardon me?"

"I'm sure you're surrounded by half-bloods and Muggle-borns when you go to work every day. If you can't stand to breathe in a house that a half-blood has set foot in, how do you manage to function for nine hours a day at the Ministry? I mean, who knows whose microdroplets of piss could be splattering you when you use the loo, right?"

It was the wrong thing to say, and Sirius knows it, but for the split second he's afforded, he relishes the way Dad's face turns purple and befuddled—he and Mum aren't used to Sirius talking back. "You ought to understand the importance of having a clean, sacred house to come home to at the end of each long day of—intermingling—and you ought to know better than to speak to your own father that way."

"You mean the same way you speak about people I care about? People I love? Because I love Emmeline, Dad, just like I love every other half-blood and Mudblood I've made friends with up at school, and I respect them a far sight more than I respect anyone who would—"

Crack.

Sirius doesn't dare wince or flinch or rub his cheek—doing so would be as good as admitting defeat, and he's not going to admit defeat. "You think you're clever, do you?" says Dad in a voice of forced calm. "One year with the Mudbloods buttering you up, and you think you can come into our house and treat your own flesh and blood—"

"Not everything is about blood," says Sirius calmly. "Not the purity of anyone's blood, and certainly not the fact that I share blood with the rest of this inbred family."

He pays dearly for this quip, but this time, instead of pretending he's away at Hogwarts, he closes his eyes and pictures the look on Dad's face when he said this. It helps, sort of.

xx

On Friday, when they get to King's Cross station, Regulus dodges all Sirius's attempts to invite him to sit with the Gryffindors, instead trailing Cissy closely as she makes a beeline for that Malfoy bloke she's dating. "So it's like that, then," mutters Sirius. He wishes Andy were here—even though she wouldn't sit with him on the train, at least that way he wouldn't feel like such an outcast in his own family, having somebody to accompany him up to that point.

It's been hard since Andy got married in July—he hasn't seen her or heard a word from her, not even in a letter, since Aunt Druella Flooed over to break the news and Mum burned her off the tapestry with the family tree. Next summer, without Andy or Emmeline—

But Sirius tries not to allow himself to think about next summer as he hauls his luggage onto the platform and starts searching the compartments for any familiar friendly faces. He's quickly rewarded with the sight of James, Peter, Marlene, and Alice and drags himself and his stuff over to meet them. "Hey, gang," he says, grinning.

"Sirius!" says Alice, smiling. As he settles into the booth, Peter claps him on the back, and James reaches over to slap hands with him.

"It feels like forever since I've seen you," says Marlene. "How was your summer?"

He doesn't know how to adequately describe the thrill of dread he faced every time he walked out of his bedroom or how long the hours felt as he waited every night for Regulus to come and find him under the bed, knowing that that phase of their relationship was over, that Regulus was never coming back. "It was fine, thanks," he says instead. "Has anyone seen Remus or Emmeline?"

"Remus isn't here yet, I don't think, but Emmeline's in the back with Mary and a couple of Hufflepuffs," Peter answers. "Veronica Smethley and Greta Catchlove, I think."

"Really?" Sirius has never known Em or Mary to spend any time with Smethley or Catchlove.

"Yeah, Mary says she's trying to turn over a new leaf and get out of her shell this year," Marlene says. "I'm actually really proud of her—I know how hard for her that must be. Probably easier now that she's had a year to get to know everyone in our year a little bit, though."

"Wait until you see her hair," James snickers.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Bright blonde."

Sirius tries to imagine light hair and an outgoing personality on Mary and finds that he can't picture either one.

"I think it's cute," says Alice diplomatically. "Anyway, where's your brother, Sirius? I had figured you two would be getting on board together."

That's right: given that Sirius has been avoiding talking to anybody about his problems with Regulus all summer, the only person who really knows what it's been like at home is Emmeline, since she'd been coming around so often. "He's… somewhere. I dunno. We walked over with our cousin Narcissa, and he's with her, I think."

No one comments on this, even though Sirius knows what they're all thinking—haughty Cissy isn't exactly popular among the Gryffindors who know her. Instead, Marlene adds, "I'm looking forward to meeting him after all the good things you've said."

Sirius isn't quite sure how to respond to this. Marlene's a pureblood, so Regulus would probably be friendlier to her than he has been to Emmeline, but she's still in Gryffindor—that's still a black mark in Regulus's book. He's been hoping against hope that Regulus will end up in Gryffindor or, heck, even Ravenclaw—anywhere but Slytherin, somewhere that he can open his eyes a little to the world outside of the insular and supremacist culture pervading the Slytherin purebloods—but Sirius knows he's probably getting his hopes up for nothing.

Fortunately, Alice spares him the trouble of having to think of a response when she spots somebody in the corridor behind Sirius and waves. "Hi, Remus!"

They're running out of room in the compartment, but Alice and Marlene squeeze in so that Moony has room to sit down next to them after securing his trunk. Sirius lets out a little whoosh of breath: he feels safer, somehow, with all three of his dormmates in the compartment with him. He's spent plenty of time this summer with all three of them—Emmeline, too—but has only seen Alice, Marlene, and Mary each once or twice since term let out. He vows to rectify that this year: he could use more people to be close to, now that he's sure Regulus is about to burn the last bridge between them.

Still, waiting for the train ride to end and the Sorting Ceremony to begin feels just like those short seconds after Emmeline left Grimmauld Place for the last time, when Sirius was waiting for the other shoe to drop with Mum and Dad: he tries to cling to the time in between, but it just slips out of his hands. Before he knows it, he's sitting between Peter and Mary (whose hair and stream of chatter he can't stop staring at) in the Great Hall, and Regulus is sitting on the stool in front of the High Table as McGonagall lowers the Sorting Hat onto his head.

Sirius is expecting it to scream Slytherin immediately—but it doesn't. He waits five, ten, fifteen seconds, hardly daring to allow himself to consider the possibility that maybe—?

"SLYTHERIN!"

There's still hope, he tells himself. People make friends across house lines sometimes—he and Andy made it work, and she was in Slytherin, wasn't she? Just because Regulus is a Slytherin now doesn't mean that they can't still be friends—best friends. Then again, they haven't really been best friends in a long time, have they? Not since before the summer—not since Sirius's disastrous visit home for Christmas—not since Sirius sent that letter telling his brother that he'd been Sorted into Gryffindor.

Peter rubs Sirius's back in a weak attempt at comfort as the other Gryffindors, all staring between Sirius and Regulus, clap halfheartedly. Sirius doesn't clap at all.

He'll track Regulus down after the feast, he promises himself—he'll ask him whether he made any friends on the train ride and which classes he's looking forward to attending the most. But when Sirius finds Regulus at the Slytherin table and tries to say hello, Regulus just stares blankly at Sirius like he doesn't even know him before scurrying away and losing himself in the throng of people departing the Great Hall.

"Hey!" Sirius shouts; he tries to follow him, but Regulus is too quick for him, and Sirius's eyes lose him in an instant.

"It's okay," says James behind him. Sirius starts—he hadn't even realized that James had followed him to the Slytherin table. "It doesn't mean—"

"Yes," says Sirius heavily, "it does. It does mean, James."

James squeezes his shoulder. "Come on. Let's just get up to the common room."

When they get there, they don't go straight up to the dormitory—instead, James leads Sirius to the corner where the other second years (minus Evans, of course) are sprawled across armchairs and the floor. "No luck with your brother?" Marlene asks, and Sirius shakes his head. "Tough break, Black. I'm sorry to hear that."

"It's okay," says Peter. "You've got us now."

He sounds just like James, both with their insistence that Sirius doesn't need Regulus because he's got new brothers at Hogwarts, and Sirius wishes it could be so simple—that potentially losing his real brother didn't affect him so strongly. No: he wishes he and Regulus were allies, that Regulus would listen to Sirius and actually make an effort to get to know Sirius's friends in Gryffindor.

He pictures another life, one where Regulus were crammed onto the floor of this common room with them, laughing at James's jokes and looking avidly from speaker to speaker—maybe sitting next to Emmeline, having gotten to know her when she kept coming round to Grimmauld Place all summer. But it's a fantasy life. In sour reality, Moony rubs Sirius's shoulder, and Sirius keeps his eyes wide open.