Disclaimer: I own nothing. It's all JKR's.

Author's Note: This is going to be the prologue to "Fixed Stars" a story from Sirius's POV, but it can also be read as a One-Shot. Thanks to my beta-readers Robin and Amy :)

The Bright Star

Diary of Andromeda Black Tonks - November 26th, 1981

We got home very late in the evening, but finally, really, everything's over. We decided that we shouldn't go to our own house yet, so we stayed with Ted's parents'. I don't want to see our home rummaged through in search for "body of evidence". As if such a thing was needed nowadays to put away people arbitrarily. Very likely no stone of our house was left unturned.

I've curled up with Nymphadora on the couch and left explaining the situation to Ted. She's asleep now, my little angel, so I levitated my diary here. I have to get everything off my chest. Everything that has happened still seems like a nightmare to me.

But I should start from the beginning. My last entry was more than three weeks ago, I see.

The day after Halloween, I was torn between exuberant joy because the deadly shadow that had covered our lives for so long had gone away and compassion for my cousin who had lost his best friends: James Potter, who had been more of a brother to Sirius, and his wife Lily. I thought that I could imagine how he felt and several times tried to reach him via the floo-network. I had no idea at all.

By noon we received the other message. My Sirius, my beloved star, the last member of my family that I still kept contact with, had brought about a bloodbath in muggle London, and killed not only his friend Peter Pettigrew, but twelve innocent bystanders as well with a single curse. Because Peter went after him to call him on account over his treachery against Lily and James Potter ... Sirius had been their secret keeper. The Dark Lord never ever would have found them without his help.

Of course, I didn't believe it. "That's a mistake!" I downright stuttered when I heard about it. "Sirius would never... They were his best friends..."

They brought him straight to Azkaban without a trial. And in the afternoon they came after us, his family. They arrested us and interrogated us and turned our houses upside down. For the first time in nine years I met my mother again. I begged her to take Nymphadora to Ted's parents; and she actually must have done so, for our darling was here to welcome her parents when we got here today.

In the end everything happened very fast. They took me out of my cell, guided me to the examination room and bid me to take place next to Ted. Weak hope stirred in me when I saw my husband. During the three weeks that we spent in this hell they kept us apart from each other. And now that they were convinced that we had nothing to hide and set us free, they did not even apologize. I don't know what I expected: Barty Crouch to humiliate himself and admit his mistake?

"What did you do to us?!" I wanted to cry out. But I don't know if I meant the Head of Magical Law Enforcement or Sirius. They referred to the liability of all the members of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black for the crimes of one member. Nobody was spared: not my brother-in-law Lucius Malfoy with his money and influence, nor my husband whom I had hoped to keep out of our difficulties, nor my youngest sister Bellatrix whose most important matter of concern seemed to be her patients in St. Mungo's department of spell-damage – I could infer as much from her tirades when she was summoned before Crouch. To me she spoke not a single word in the whole time.

I didn't do what crossed my mind when we were allowed to leave – I didn't ask if I could see Sirius for a moment. I wouldn't have known what to say anyway. After three weeks in Azkaban, my words deserted me. Here I'm sitting, tearing at my hair, thinking: Why, Sirius? Why my bright star, my handsome, brilliant, reckless cousin? He would stand by me what ever may come. The others would call us blood-traitors, but we knew better. We didn't need anything or anybody as long as we knew what was right. This I've said to him when he was a teenager, and this I've believed. Our youth, our dreams – everything's poisoned.

Did she get him there? He's always been in her shadow, ever since they were children. He never was a match for her, none of us was – but Sirius took it worse than we others did. I don't claim that I look through the weird bonds and entanglements within my family – or that I ever did, for that matter. I still remember Sirius sitting in our living room and talking to Ted about that he believed both my sisters to be followers of the Dark Lord. No impassive followers, that is. Was he already in his service himself by that time? What did he think, what did he want to prove and to whom?

My proud, vulnerable Sirius, who got burned by his own fire so often... He was the last person I would have thought likely to betray us, and it hurts more than I can bear. How did that ever happen? How on earth?