The next week passed in a long-drawn out haze for Sirius. He suspected no one apart from Remus or Harry would willingly visit him. As Harry was inaccessible and Remus had been kept busy with various missions for the Order, he had mostly been left to his own devices.
Without a purpose, he had fallen into a habit of drinking Firewhisky at night and sleeping late into the morning or early afternoon. Regardless of time, he occasionally began his day with breakfast.
He hadn't bothered with food at all yesterday, choosing instead to acquire his sustenance in liquid form entirely. As such, he had awoken earlier than usual this morning, compliments of a positively throbbing headache. He knew there were spells that could alleviate the pain, as well as potions, but his memory for how to obtain either was failing him at the moment.
Gazing indifferently at the poster above his bed of a blonde muggle, dressed in what could only scarcely be labeled a bikini for all it revealed, Sirius pondered the use of his time recently. Before now the alcohol had been good to him. It had given him something to look forward to, and allowed him to sleep soundly enough to prevent nightmares of his time in Azkaban. After this though, he realized he needed to scale back some. He could always transform and sleep as Padfoot if nightmares began to disrupt his natural sleep. Though, if he was being honest, he knew potential nightmares had never been his reason for drinking in the first place.
What he really needed was more to do throughout the day. Anything to break up the solitude and monotony of his existence. Peeling himself out of bed, he made his way into the bathroom. He determined the best thing he could do, after relieving himself, was find something to eat. He supposed after breakfast he should clean Buckbeak's room, which he should have already done days ago.
The room Buckbeak resided in had become quite foul. While the smell didn't offend Sirius as much as it would have before his stint in Azkaban, he suspected the other Order members might have less tolerance. He had been reluctant to clean before now as Buckbeak had chosen a rather fitting place to do his business. There was something oddly satisfying in allowing the hippogriff to excrete his bodily waste onto his mother's bed. He thought the best way to demonstrate his approval to Buckbeak was to allow the mess to percolate for as long as he could stand it.
Unfortunately, the stench was now beginning to permeate throughout the house, and it wouldn't be long before the next Order meeting was called. His fellow Order members likely believed him to be mad already. He didn't need to add cause to their suspicions.
As he washed his hands, he realized he had just fulfilled one of only three tasks he had successfully come up with for the day. If he ate breakfast and cleaned Buckbeak's room too quickly, he would have nothing left to occupy his day.
Looking around for inspiration, his eyes fell to the other side of the bathroom, to the door that led to Regulus' room. The fourth level of Grimmauld Place had been the Black brothers' domain in their youth. They had once freely romped from one another's bedroom without giving it a second thought.
Everything changed as they had gotten older, of course. The last time Sirius had seen the inside of Regulus' bedroom up close, his nose had nearly been broken from as fiercely as the door was slammed in his face.
Grimmauld Place was his now. There shouldn't be any part of the house where his presence felt intrusive. Yet, it did. He didn't want to make judgments about who his brother is based on the person he used to be. Since the shock that came with finding out that he is alive had passed, Sirius was more interested to know what sort of person he became after he left.
How unfortunate then, that he had sent Regulus away before he could find out.
As he was making his way down the stairs towards the kitchen, he heard a knock on the door, quiet enough, it did not disrupt his mother's portrait. He realized with chagrin that the smell of Buckbeak's… indiscretion was particularly strong in the entrance hall. He definitely should have cleaned the room by now, he thought morosely.
He pulled open the front door to find Dumbledore waiting for him.
"Ah Sirius," he greeted. Seemingly catching whiff of the unpleasantness as he walked in, the headmaster balked slightly.
"Sorry about that. Infestation of sorts," Sirius remarked blandly.
"I see," Dumbledore answered as he visibly scrutinized his physical appearance. Sirius tried to remember when he had last bathed, but found the recollection to be unworthy of the effort as it only worsened his headache.
"I cannot stay but for a moment. I simply wanted to mention an idea for you to ponder." Sirius nodded for him to go on. "When the time comes for Harry to leave his aunt and uncle's house, he will need a place to stay. Both you and Molly have expressed you want him to stay with you."
"James and Lily would have wanted him with me. That was made clear when they named me his godfather."
"Harry would not have to choose between you and the burrow at all if, and forgive me for being so bold, the Weasley's lodged here for the rest of the summer."
"All of them?" Sirius asked in surprise.
"Arthur, Molly and the children who are still in school. It would include Fred and George, Ron and Ginny. I understand if it is too much of an imposition, of course."
Sirius shrugged, "There is plenty of room if they actually want to stay."
"Splendid. I think their living here could prove beneficial for everyone."
"And how long before Harry can be with us?"
"I assure you, he will not have to stay with his aunt and uncle for any longer than is necessary," Dumbledore answered in a tone that indicated the matter was not open for discussion. "As for the Weasley's, we can pass along the invitation tonight - the next Order meeting will be this evening." From within his robes, he withdrew a pocket watch, which apparently told him the time despite its lack of numbers. "I must be going," he said, as he pulled open the front door. "I will see you tonight."
The moment Dumbledore was gone, Sirius forwent eating, and made his way back up the steps to his mother's old bedroom. Despite being magical, he had a feeling it would take longer than he had for Buckbeak's mess to air out entirely.
At least the Order meeting gave him something to halfway look forward to, though he was already second guessing the wisdom of allowing the Weasley's to move in. He found he had a love-hate relationship with his solitude. As lonely as Grimmauld Place was, he did like the option of being alone.
The beginning of the summer holiday was typically filled with an incessant amount of grading, end of year celebrations, commencement ceremonies for the seventh years and a banquet for the faculty. With all of that over, Regulus could enjoy some time off. At least, that should be the case. Apart from the absence of Madame Maxime, little had changed at Beauxbatons, and yet Regulus felt far from able to relax.
She had been anticipated to return two weeks ago. The directeur adjoint, Professeur Deschamps, who was the equivalent of Professor McGonagall at Hogwarts, had been filling in during her absence this year.
Once learning Madame Maxime's return had been delayed, Regulus questioned him regarding when she could be expected to return. He received a vague 'sometime before the start of next term' answer in response. Given Deschamps' general air of self-importance, Regulus took that to mean the headmistress hadn't given him a definite timeline, and he couldn't simply admit that he didn't know.
Being outside of Britain, they were unable to receive The Daily Prophet by owl every day. Years ago, he managed to arrange for a week's worth of the newspaper to be sent to them once per week. While much of it was old news by the time they received it, it didn't deter Maliah from thoroughly examining the pages every Sunday.
Regulus generally only glimpsed, The Daily Prophet, for anything interesting as he preferred wizarding France's daily newspaper, L'actualité. While reading about what happened a week ago in a different country apart from where they lived seemed a bit nonsensical, he could understand Maliah's reasons for doing it. For one thing, her siblings were frequently mentioned and it was a means to keep track of them since any correspondence between them was necessarily limited. Regretfully, since Voldemort's return, Regulus found himself perusing the British newspaper perhaps even more carefully than Maliah habitually did.
Aside from a small article stating that Harry Potter had won the Triwizard tournament, nothing else about him nor Voldemort had been written in his first deliveries of the paper since the end of term. The French newspaper had become far less interested in the tournament when it was discovered that Fleur wasn't favored to win. There hadn't even been an announcement when the tournament ended, much less any report of the final result.
Just because the newspapers weren't printing anything about the tournament didn't mean there was a shortage of rumors. According to some of the wilder ones going around Beauxbatons, the other Hogwarts champion aside from Harry Potter, had been killed in the last event of the tournament. It was the reason Madame Maxime had not yet returned to France. She nor Igor Karkaroff, the headmaster at Durmstrang, had been allowed to leave Britain until a thorough investigation could be completed on the incident.
Regulus privately thought it was unlikely Madame Maxime was being held against her will. Aside from it requiring abysmal judgment at best to suspect her of resorting to murder for her school to win a meaningless tournament, she rarely did anything that displeased her.
Karkaroff on the other hand, well there was no doubt he needed to be investigated. He didn't belong anywhere near children as far as Regulus was concerned.
He knew he shouldn't be so judgmental given his own history. But, as he had spent the last seven years cramming as much as he could into the Beauxbatons' Defense curriculum, a class Durmstrang no longer offered in lieu of teaching the dark arts themselves, he was inclined to think their situations were a bit different.
Karkaroff's position hardly mattered at this point. Voldemort's return undoubtedly meant the Durmstrang headmaster's life expectancy would be cut short. From what Regulus had read, Karkaroff had given up the names of quite a few of Voldemort's followers in exchange for keeping himself out of Azkaban.
Even if Voldemort forgave Karkaroff, it was unlikely the death eaters who spent the last thirteen years in prison on his information would. It was only a matter of time now before Voldemort would have his most loyal followers released from Azkaban. If Voldemort hadn't dealt with Karkaroff by then, there would be little hesitation before those currently imprisoned death eaters 'accidently' served him his comeuppance.
While Regulus' disloyalty had been intended solely for Voldemort, he wasn't naïve enough to think that would make a difference to his former fellow death eaters. Voldemort nor his followers would take kindly to his freedoms over the past fifteen years. He couldn't decide if Voldemort or Bellatrix's rage would be worse.
As he couldn't see anyone bothering to investigate Madame Maxime with the likes of Karkaroff running about, he did wonder what the holdup for her return really was. It was making it difficult for him to resign.
Naturally Maliah was happy about the setback, going so far as to say her absence was telling that he shouldn't resign at all. She much preferred the idea of making small adjustments, such as adding more security to their house and taking more precautions while in public, rather than uprooting the family and disrupting their lives entirely. In her mind, that included putting off the inevitable moment of telling their children of Voldemort's return for as long as possible. Why worry them before we have to?
Regulus understood her reasoning in regards to waiting, though at the same time, he felt more than a little conflicted over it. From a young age, they had been as honest and transparent with their children as they could reasonably be. For instance, they knew he came from a family of blood purists, and that he joined the death eaters at a young age. More importantly, they understood that it was wrong; that he came to regret the decision and that he left - and that there would always be an increased risk posed to them if any of Voldemort's followers learned who they were. The suggestion that Voldemort himself could return was met with amused skepticism at first, but in time, Carina and Caelum internalized their parents' fear as one of their own.
After making every effort to ensure their kids were as prepared for this situation (as prepared as any fourteen and eleven-year-old could be), it went against logic not to tell them. And yet, knowing it would permeate their thoughts and disrupt their happiness... he couldn't argue with putting it off for a bit longer.
As such, neither seemed to realize that anything was amiss. Carina had already started asking to have friends over as she did every summer. Maliah tried to convince Regulus to postpone his plans of strengthening the wards on their home until after her birthday.
To compromise, they were celebrating her birthday nearly a month early, with her friends set to come over that evening. Regulus intended to increase the security on their home as soon as they left.
"Dad, you aren't going to be mean to Andrae, are you?" Carina asked over breakfast.
"When have I ever been mean to him?" he asked innocently.
Carina gave him a piercing look that would not have left anyone with a doubt of who her mother was. Regulus couldn't help but crack a smile at the similarities between the ladies of the Black household. In effort to hide the real reason of his amusement though, he turned his expression into more of a smirk.
"How many people are coming to this birthday party of yours, anyway?"
Carina covered her face with her hands in exasperation, "Dad! This isn't a birthday party! Why would you call it that?"
"You're having friends over to swim- on the pretense of it being for your birthday?" he said with feigned confusion.
"Yes, but that in itself is not grounds to constitute it being a birthday party. If I was turning five then it would be okay to call it that. I am going to be fifteen! I do not have birthday parties anymore, nor did I last year or any other year since I was… I don't know. Seven?"
"But Kreacher is making a cake," Regulus answered drolly.
Her eyes widened, "No. No, he isn't. No cake. We can have cake on my birthday, just the four of us- not today. It's not even my birthday... and it is much too soon for cake."
"Kreacher will be disappointed," Regulus answered with a twinge of genuine sadness. Kreacher had actually already been informed that Carina didn't want a cake for today. That didn't make him any less unhappy that his daughter was growing up so quickly.
Seeing in his peripheral that an owl was headed towards the window, he walked over and raised the glass. After untying the letter and offering the owl some water, he returned to his seat across from Carina.
He recognized the handwriting as Madame Maxime's, and quickly tore it open.
The letter started out apologetic in that she was not able to speak to him in person. With expressions like an 'old foe has returned,' he thought she was trying to warn him of Voldemort's rebirth, though he wasn't sure he would have been able to decipher that from her message if he hadn't already heard the news.
She casually mentioned that Dumbledore was quite desperate to find a Defense professor for Hogwarts, and reminded him he could not resign from his position until after she returned - as if he would ever want to leave Beauxbatons in favor of Hogwarts.
She concluded by stating she would make contact when she returned from holiday in a few weeks. He expected the holiday aspect was a lie. He was re-reading the letter trying to decipher any other hidden meanings when Carina interrupted.
"May I be excused?" she asked in a bored tone.
"Sorry, but no," he answered as he folded the parchment and tucked it away in his pocket. "You have barely touched any of your breakfast. Though I can't say that I blame you," he amended as he looked over her plate distastefully. "In a country renowned for its cuisine, could you have chosen nothing better than stale bread to eat?"
Carina smirked as she reached for her hot chocolate and plunged her baguette into the drink, "You would think it delicious if you weren't so stubbornly British."
"Resist peer pressure, Carina. Don't conform to-" Regulus stopped when he realized his efforts were futile. Instead he watched with mild revulsion as his daughter took a bite of the soggy bread, and began chewing it with relish.
He could acknowledge that the people of France loved their bread. He had grown accustomed to seeing some of the most otherwise refined students of Beauxbatons enjoying said bread dipped in hot chocolate or coffee, and even using it to mop up the remnants of a particularly good dish on occasion.
None of that bothered him for he had long accepted that the French and British had their own unique customs. He believed these differences derived from one's upbringing though. Carina had certainly not been raised in a household where 'bread dunking' at meal time was considered normal practice.
"Mm, good," she said between bites. Leaning back in her seat with an expression of utmost satisfaction, she happily munched on the sopping bread.
If Regulus held any residual pride in the propriety of his own upbringing, he was certain it had just died. "I'll take your word for it," he said ruefully.
Carina in turn looked over the remnants of bacon, eggs, sausage, and toast in front of him. After swallowing her 'soggy' bread, she indicated his plate teasingly, "Maybe you should try cutting back to only bread for breakfast, bouboule. That's quite the feast for every day, isn't it?"
"Ah yes. Bread and hot chocolate… the epitome of health," he answered drolly.
Carina sniggered as she casually dipped more bread into her chocolate. "Where is everyone else, anyway?"
"Your mother took Caelum shopping for school supplies."
Her head snapped up instantly at that, "Why didn't she take me?"
"She wanted to get a head start on getting what he will need for Beauxbatons…" Because she thought if Caelum had his stuff already it would deter me from wanting to move, he added silently. "It was felt that if you had gone with them, you would have monopolized the day… You also have your friends coming over to get ready for."
Carina's disheartened look improved slightly at that, "Now, was that so hard to say?"
"Instead of referring to it as a birthday party, do you mean?" he asked with a smirk.
Carina closed her eyes and shook her head, "Call it whatever you want away from my friends, just please don't call it that in front of any of them. Actually, if you want to take Caelum when he gets back and leave for the rest of-" she began hopefully, though stopped when she saw his expression. "Please don't be intentionally embarrassing," she whined. "It's bad enough you are a teacher at my school."
Regulus raised an eyebrow, "I was of the impression I was well-liked amongst the students," he said mildly.
"Sure, when they only have to see you a few times a week in class. If you were their dad though…" She shook her head regretfully.
Regulus smirked, though his reply was forgotten as someone knocked on the front door.
Carina jumped up in alarm, "It's so early!"
Regulus glanced at his watch as he rose to his feet. "I doubt it's any of your friends as they generally arrive by Floo."
"Andrae isn't. Since he's never been here before, he said it would be rude for him to show up directly inside our house at an approximated time, rather than patiently awaiting an invitation to enter after first knocking on the front door."
Grudgingly, Regulus could appreciate the sentiment, but he certainly wasn't going to compliment him easily.
"Arriving by Floo at the time one is invited to do so would be far less imposing than turning up early outside," he answered half-heartedly as he went to answer the door.
He caught sight of her hastily grab for an unused spoon lying on the table and proceed to anxiously look herself over using the back of it. Regulus felt his heart soften slightly at the sight. She likely would have been sensible enough to ask him to conjure a decent mirror for her to use, had she not been so flustered.
"I'm sure it's not him, Carina," he told her gently. "But it won't hurt him to have to wait on you, if it is." When she made no effort to move, and was instead watching him warily, he prodded, "Go upstairs and get ready. He'll be fine with me for a few minutes."
"You will be nice… won't you?" Carina asked hesitantly.
"Only because it's for your birthday," he teased. He saw Carina smile briefly, before scurrying towards the stairs as he turned away.
