1. Outcasts

Sirius Black sat at the table in the grimy kitchen of 12 Grimmauld Place. The gloomy silence of the sleeping house enclosed him in isolation. He gazed unseeingly at the old Muggle radio on the table in front of him, Harry's words echoing round and round in his head. Harry's vision of the snake attacking Arthur Weasley and all that it implied disturbed him far more deeply that he could ever allow Harry to know. The thought that Voldemort, the murderer of his best friends, could possess his godson made him want to take to the street and run until he had hunted him down. Instead, he was imprisoned in this hated dark house, the cold despair of Azkaban poisoning his thoughts. Burying his head in his hands, he dragged at his long dark hair in frustration, savagely revelling in the sense of pain external to his soul.

'There you are, Sirius!' exclaimed Molly Weasley, bustling into the kitchen with an armload of laundry.

Sirius's eyes automatically masked the anger they had reflected when nobody was looking, and he fixed her with a blank, grey expression.

Tonks and Mad-Eye should be here soon,' she said briskly. 'Now, while, we're at St Mungo's, I wonder if you could...'

She was interrupted by a flash of smoky green light. A moment later, a slender, dark-haired young woman in black work robes emerged from the fireplace. Sirius recognised Jade Magellan. She had to be the least active member of the Order apart from himself, he thought resentfully, having some apparently demanding job, which prevented her from attending meetings and doing guard duty. Her face was pale and concerned, and there were dark circles under her eyes. 'Molly! Is Arthur...' she hesitated.

'He's going to be fine,' Mrs Weasley smiled. 'You are so good to come, Jade, sweetheart. I'm taking the children to see him this afternoon.'

'Thank God' Jade breathed. 'That damned reception witch held up Bill's owl until we got out of an editing meeting,' she frowned angrily. 'I came as soon as I could...'

Ron, Fred, George and Ginny trooped into the kitchen, followed by Harry, whose weary, haunted expression convinced Sirius that he had not slept either. Jade put her arms around Ginny, whose face was tearstained and pale.

Sirius sat at the table listening to their departing footsteps as they left for the hospital. Moodily, he poked at the old radio with his wand. He thought he would try to fix it before Arthur returned from St Mungo's. The radio did not seem to respond to magic, however, and there was not a screwdriver to be found in the house. He threw down his wand, which emitted angry black sparks in protest, and began pacing the stone kitchen floor, back and forth like a caged animal.

Just as the footsteps died away towards the front door, he heard voices raised, the door opened and then slammed shut again, a woman's voice raged louder in anger with an edge of tears. A moment later the familiar shrieks rent the dusty air. 'FILTHY MUDBLOOD, FOULING THE HOUSE OF MY FATHERS! WHY DOESN'T SHE LEAVE WITH THE REST OF THE BLOOD-TRAITORS?'

Sirius slammed his fist into the wall. Cursing their forgetfulness, he ran up the stairs to the entrance hall, and dragged the moth-eaten curtains over the livid image of his mother. 'DESPICABLE OFFSPRING, SPAWN OF DEMONS, ABOMINATION OF MY BLOOD!'

'Shut UP you evil hag!' he roared, cursing his hateful legacy to the depths of hell. He turned back, to see that he was not alone.

'Sorry,' whispered Jade. 'I forgot...'

'Of course, the rest of you have more important things to think about,' he snarled, striding back down the stairs. 'So did they leave you here to give me a lecture?' He affected a high pitched imitation of Mrs Weasley's voice, seared with bitterness. 'Sirius, can't you do something about that portrait? Sirius, why don't you clean up in here? Sirius, perhaps you should be a bit kinder to Kreacher. And you're drinking far too much; you should be a better example to Harry...'

Jade had followed him into the dank kitchen, away from the now silenced Mrs Black. The Floo Network was her only means of exit.

Sirius turned to face her. 'What is it then,' he spat, 'are you...?' He broke off in mid-tirade, stricken to see tears clouding her blue-grey eyes.

'No,' she said softly. 'Arthur Weasley is the closest thing to a father I've ever had. I just wanted to help. I'll go now.' She moved towards the fireplace.

'I'm sorry...Jade,' Sirius said, contrite now. 'Stay here if you want to.' He paused. 'Why didn't you go to see him?' he asked, gently this time. 'You don't like hospitals?'

She grimaced. 'They're not my favourite. But Mad-Eye thought it wasn't safe. He said I had to stay here. That's when I lost my temper and woke up...the portrait.'

'Not safe?' Sirius asked. 'Mad-Eye is really getting paranoid.'

'No,' she sighed. 'He's right. It would be a risk for me to be seen in London with anyone from the Order. If a Muggle recognised me...But I just wanted to see him.'

'If a Muggle recognised you?' Sirius was confused. 'I thought I was the one in hiding.'

'I thought you knew. It's a long story...'

'Do you need to go?' he asked awkwardly, feeling guilty for venting his anger on her.

Jade shrugged. 'I had to convince them I was practically dying to get off work, so it'll look a bit odd if I go back now.'

'Tell me then. I hardly need to be anywhere,' Sirius said, fixing her with his slate grey eyes, and gesturing towards a chair.

Slowly, Jade sat down opposite him. Folding her arms across herself and looking down, she began, 'my parents were Muggles – as your mother pointed out...'

Sirius gave a twisted smile.

' – they were really frightened when they started realising I was a witch. They thought I was a changeling, a demon child. When my letter came from Hogwarts, they panicked. They admitted me to a psychiatric hospital, and drove away. I haven't seen then since.' She paused. 'I've never told anyone this. As far as the Order knows, I have no family and Muggles think I'm an escaped lunatic, that's all.' She smiled bleakly.

Jade glanced at Sirius. It was as if her anger and loneliness, mirrored behind his fathomless steel eyes compelled her to tell her story. Inexorably, she continued speaking in a dull monotone. 'I hated it there. I was treated like someone mad and dangerous. I was locked in my room every night, after a nurse would check that I wasn't hiding any sharp objects. They would speak to me in one syllable words as if I was an imbecile. They gave me drugs. I felt like I was sleepwalking most of the time. Except when they wore off during the night and I woke up hearing people scream. Once I lost control and I made a glass smash while the doctor was in the room. They increased the drugs...'

'Eventually I couldn't take it any more. I used magic to unlock the door one night, and tried to escape. They brought me back. I overheard the doctors talking while they thought I was asleep. They wanted to start shock treatments. I knew I would be there for the rest of my life, and slowly I would lose my mind, my soul...It would be better to die.'

Sirius felt his mind fill with cold desolation, as he remembered a hundred Dementors surrounding him beside the lake. 'Nooooo' his own voice echoed in his head. Jade recognised the despair in his eyes. Self-conscious, she turned her hands a second after his eyes registered the scars on her wrists.

'I stole a razor from the nurses' bathroom. The meds stopped me feeling much pain. I remember sitting, watching the bleeding, wondering how long it would take. Then...it was a magic I didn't understand. I'm not sure what happened...I disapparated and when I woke up I was in the hospital wing at Hogwarts...I started school there, and Dumbledore told the Weasleys about me – Bill was in my year in Gryffindor – and they had me to stay every summer. Of course, the story hit the papers instantly and the hospital had the police searching for me, so I had to stay away from Muggle areas. After I graduated I came to London and got a job at Obscurus Books – you know, the publishers. And I live in a wizarding house, so I'm protected...'

That sat silent in the darkening kitchen for a long moment. 'So you were the black sheep too,' Sirius said softly. 'Another outcast. I thought no one's family despised them as much as mine.' He laughed bitterly.

'Really?' asked Jade, with the ghost of a smile. 'I thought your mum was just having an off day.'

Sirius grimaced. 'I still think it's worse to have everyone think you're a mass murderer. At least people might not blame you for being insane.'

Jade laughed wryly. 'Still, there's not much I can do for the Order either. I can't afford to lose my job, or I'll be living on the street – in plain view of all the suspicious Muggles out there. Dumbledore thinks it's useful to have spies wherever possible, put I have so much work to get through the Death Eaters could be having a convention in the next room and I wouldn't notice.'

'The only thing I want is to be able to protect Harry,' said Sirius fiercely. 'I'll never know if Lily and James died thinking I betrayed them. They made me his godfather thinking they could trust me more than anyone in the world. If anything happened to him...I could never forgive myself. This vision he had...the snake...'

'I know,' Jade replied. 'Ginny told me. I'm not sure if he understands.'

'He suspects,' affirmed Sirius wearily. 'And I can't warn him about the danger it might mean...Dumbledore made us swear...And I'm stuck hiding in this goddamn house like a goddamn deserter and there's nothing I can do to keep him safe. I might as well still be in prison...'

'No... Don't you see what a difference it makes...having you in his life? He's not alone any more, Sirius.'

Sirius shrugged, although his eyes acknowledged the raw emotion in her words. 'That's something, maybe. As Molly was kind enough to remind me last summer, I wasn't doing a very good job of looking after him those twelve years I was locked up in Azkaban,' he sneered bitterly.

Jade sighed. 'Molly gets like that. She can't see past keeping her own family safe. I reckon that's why they weren't in the Order last time. She thinks that if she can only take care of her own children, the rest of the world can't touch them. But it doesn't work like that.'

'She's right though,' said Sirius sadly. 'It's true, sometimes when I look at Harry, when I see him laughing, for a moment it's as if I do have my best friend back. As if the last fourteen years never happened. As if I had never trusted Peter enough to give him the chance to betray Lily and James. As if they hadn't died, died with their whole lives ahead of them, died believing that I had failed them, that I was the one who sold them...As if I had never stood in the ruins of their house, holding Harry as he howled for his mother. As if I had never given him to Hagrid and walked away. As if I had never been taken to Azkaban...being branded the foulest dark wizard, like this family, Lord Voldemort's servant, a Judas.'

Jade was quite still, listening intently, her eyes the colour of the sky before it rains, absorbing the pain in his words.

Sirius continued, slowly, as if each word was poisonous and he tasted its bitterness. 'As if I hadn't let Peter escape again. As if I hadn't seen Harry return from the graveyard, knowing what could have happened to him...' He fell silent, his eyes dark and haunted in his wasted face.

Jade stood up. Slowly, inevitably, as if the desolation that connected them drew her inexorably to his side, she walked around the table to Sirius. Standing behind his chair, she put her arms around his chest, and dropped her face to his shoulder. He took her hand in his, caressing her scarred wrist, and felt her tears on his neck, knowing that she shed them for his pain as well as her own. They held each for a long moment, as darkness fell, and muffled voices in the hallway told them that the others had returned.

'Stay,' said Sirius.