Author's note: I might as well milk the fact that this AU has Sirius alive and well in it (especially since I just offed him in another AU, whoops). Enjoy!

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns the canon, world, and characters portrayed below and you can tell I'm not J.K. Rowling because #transrights

Hogwarts: Assignment #11, Arithmancy Task #1: Write a fic where the number 7 has significance

Content Warnings: NA

Seven Years of Bad Luck

It was hard to hear that her mother's footsteps were slowing down over the sound of the rain, but she froze in her steps once she realized that they had.

"Come on, Mum," Dora said from underneath her umbrella. A stone's throw away, underneath her own umbrella, her mum chewed on her lip nervously. Her curls were pinned neatly on the back of her head and her dark pea coat, blouse, and pencil skirt were just as neat.

"I don't understand," Mum said, shifting uncomfortably. "Nymphadora, I thought you said you wanted me to meet a friend of yours. Where are we going?"

She'd suspected that her mother would crack it once she recognized this part of Muggle London, but she'd had to get her here somehow, hadn't she? Now that they were this close, her mother might be alright hearing the truth. Well, an approximation of it anyways.

"Grimmauld Place," Dora said. "We thought a neutral location might be best, some place that was familiar."

"A neutral location?" Mum repeated. Then she startled back to herself and frowned, freezing in place. "What do you mean, Grimmauld Place? How do you know about that house?"

"The Order of the Phoenix has been using it as a headquarters," Dora explained as patiently as she could. "We've been there essentially since the war started."

"What?" Mum asked. "I… I thought the house had collapsed on itself once there were no more Blacks to claim it. That's what it was charmed to do..."

"Well, there are still Blacks running around," Dora said. "They're just doing it as blood-traitors or incarcerated Death Eaters or women who changed their names or… Mum, can you trust me on this?"

Her mum's expression was hard to read, as it always was when her Pureblood heritage and education reared their heads. She'd changed so much over the years, since she'd fallen in love with dad and lived a happier and freer life and all, but those etiquette lessons had been stuck to some very deep place inside of her. Her mahogany eyes glossed over, every now and then, and became as hard and unmovable as a barricaded door.

"I have not been in that house in decades, Nymphadora," she said quietly. She was especially pale now, too. "Decades. I was told never to dare to return."

"I know," Tonks said. "But the house is cleaned out now—well, as much as it ever will be. And he really wants to meet you."

"He?" she repeated.

She looked around the mostly empty Muggle street. Mostly empty, but not quite totally. And who could be sure, nowadays? It still wasn't safe to talk about it. She closed the gap between her and her mother.

"I can't say it out in the open," she said quietly, under her breath. "But you know the rumours. You know that he was at the Battle of Hogwarts. You know they're going to offer him a new trial, now that the Pettigrew story is out in the open. You know he worked with the Order."

Her mum looked pale, which was how Tonks knew that she was catching on. Tonks took her mother's hand.

"Mum, please," she said. "You and I, we… we're running low on family. We always have, but it's especially true after Dad and I…"

She closed her eyes and swallowed back the shaking in her voice.

"I wouldn't bring you anywhere you weren't totally safe and… well, you two could use each other," she said.

Mum took a deep breath.

"I trust you," she said in that careful tone she'd used to tell Dora these words a thousand times—when she'd started going out on her own as a teenager, when she'd joined the Auror Department, when she'd told her parents about the Order of the Phoenix, when she'd married Remus… it wasn't so much a vote of confidence as a reminder that her mother expected her to take care of herself, no matter what she thought of her daughter's choices. It wasn't much, but Tonks had learned to take it and run over the years. She squeezed her mother's hand and they walked on.

Dora followed regular old procedure to enter headquarters and dismissed the Mad-Eye-shaped cloud of dust that guarded it now, even if it always broke her heart a little bit to do that. So many other people had died since Mad-Eye but it still felt as if the old man had died just yesterday. She still expected to get yelled at, whenever she tucked her wand in the back pocket of her jeans.

They shut their umbrellas and leaned them by the front door, letting the raindrops run off and vanish into the entrance hall's carpet.

"Try to be quiet," Dora said quietly—which was ironic, coming from her of all people. Now that she'd said it, she'd undoubtedly trip over thin air and smash through the floorboards or something equally embarrassing. "We can talk upstairs, but there's this portrait…"

"Of Aunt Walburga," Andromeda finished. "She shouts. Yes, I know."

It seemed particularly foolish and pretentious to her that that portrait had been up before the mistress of the house had even gone up and died—but then again, that also made it particularly and fittingly Black.

Dora guided her mother to the most comfortable sitting room in the house, which was also close enough to the exit that she hoped her mother wouldn't feel trapped in a Black family home. There was a fire roaring in the ironwork fireplace, casting shadows across the room and its velvet sofas, dark wooden panelings, and the twisted iron light fixtures that did an awful job of lighting it up. Still, Sirius's figure was clearly distinguishable on the sofa where he sat.

The staircases creaked as Andromeda froze and Tonks turned around.

"Mum," she said quietly. "Mum, he's my friend. He's Remus's friend. I trust him with my life. I'd trust him with Teddy."

Sirius had heard the creaking. He stood up and smoothed down the button-down shirt he must have stolen from Kingsley, since it was nicer than anything else Tonks had ever seen him in. He raised his hands in the air to show that he was unarmed. That's when she noticed that he'd even shaved recently—possibly for this occasion specifically. She knew her mum had that effect on people; she made you want to sit up straight and button your shirt properly.

"Hey Sirius," Tonks called out, trying to sound cool and casual to smooth down the introductions.

"Hey," Sirius said. His voice was raw and croaky, as if he'd gone a few days without talking to anybody else. Tonks knew that Remus had visited him every day since he'd gone back into hiding after the Battle of Hogwarts, sometimes bringing Teddy with him too, but then again Remus didn't always make Sirius talk. And with Kingsley and Harry tailed so ferociously by the press, they weren't coming either so… Well, maybe it had been a few days.

Sirius cleared his throat.

"Andromeda? Is… is that you?" he asked.

She turned to face her mum. Those old Pureblood manners came back to her again and she straightened up her spine, tilting her chin up and keeping her shoulders square as she took a deep breath.

"Sirius," she said evenly. Dora climbed the last few stairs and held her hand out for Mum to take and follow. She led her mother into the sitting room and Sirius wrung his hands together. The loudest thing in the room was the crackling of the fireplace. Now that she saw the two of them in the same room, she could see what Remus meant about their Black family resemblance—those elegant and effortless patrician features stood out at her now.

"Hello," Mum finally said.

"Hi," he said. "I… I wasn't sure you'd come. I'm hiding here until my trial, so they don't make me wait for it in Azkaban. I couldn't write, I know Tonks had to be cryptic too…"

"I came," Mum said quietly.

Sirius took a deep, relieved sigh. But then he looked at his shoes, trying to think of something to say. Tonks knew her mum only got like this when she was uncomfortable, but she wanted to shake her into saying something—anything.

"I… I found something, when I came back to the house at first," he said, holding his hand out in the direction of an ornate mirror, carefully placed on one of the bookcases next to a pile of motorcycle magazines that were most definitely not part of the house's original library. Its frame was silver, and in the curling vines and flowers that held the glass in place Tonks noticed pixies and bowtruckles hiding amongst the leaves. Sirius looked from the mirror to his cousin nervously. "Do you remember this one?"

"I do," she said with a smile. "What was it that they always told us about that mirror? That it had been imported from one of the finest magical blacksmiths in the Czech Republics by… oh, what was her name… Lizabetta Black, the first woman in the family to partner with the ministry and capitalize on her divination abilities during the Napoleonic War?"

"That sounds familiar," Sirius said. "I was thinking more about the time that I broke it."

"You weren't supposed to be running on the third floor," Mum said softly, with that voice that was so gentle you almost missed the fact that she was chiding you.

"Yeah," Sirius said. "But I was. I begged you not to tell anybody it was my fault, and you didn't. You even swore all of our siblings to secrecy. You picked out all the shards of glass from my hands one by one by one, by yourself, so nobody would know. You even fixed the mirror after; it was good as new."

Tonks looked from Sirius to her mum and back again. This wasn't a story she'd heard before, but both of them had the slightest of smiles on their lips.

"I did," Andromeda nodded. "You were so very scared of getting into trouble."

"I was already on thin ice with my father that week, no idea why," Sirius said. "And Regulus kept telling me that thing about breaking mirrors—about how you'd get seven years of bad luck and all."

"Mmm," Mum reminisced. She hesitated before going on. "It does seem to me that you had more than seven years of bad luck, Sirius."

Sirius bit down on his lip.

"I… it hasn't been good," Sirius admitted. Tonks thought that was an understatement, but she kept that to herself.

"I'm so sorry," Mum said quietly.

"Don't be sorry," Sirius said. His voice cracked a little bit. "I… nobody knew the truth for a long time."

"I know," Andromeda said quietly. "But I should have. I might have, if I had stayed in touch after leaving. But instead I thought… I thought you were like the rest of the family after all. That you had turned and…"

"It's okay," Sirius said.

"It really is not," Mum said—and that was when Tonks finally figured out what all this anxiety and hesitation really was: guilt. She'd heard from Remus how painful it had been, to realize that Sirius was innocent after all those years in Azkaban. She hadn't thought that her mother would have some of that too.

"We're here now," Sirius said.

"We are," Mum said. She held out her arms, wide-open but unassuming and undemanding. Sirius crossed the living room and wrapped his arms around her too.

WC: 1926