Chapter 15: A Black Christmas
Author's Note: I feel like disastrous annual xmas dinners would be a bit of a theme in the Black family.
As a child, Sirius' birthday always marked the beginning of dazzling lights in the streets, of a constantly open kitchen, of warm bellies – of a break in the numb, colourless coat of winter. A hum of harmony fell between the two worlds he walked between more freely; a universal hum of anticipation that something brilliant was about to happen.
Even if it only was a break in the grim green décor of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place.
Boughs of Holly decked the halls, ivy was tucked into pockets instead of satin squares, and sprigs of Mistletoe were charmed to sprout sporadically. The green of the walls and the red of the plants a combination representing fertility, something desperately sought by members of the family and something their ancient muggle ancestors welcomed after struggling though an oppressive bleak period.
Mistletoe had an ulterior purpose in the house of Black. If enemies were to meet each other under the plant, they were obliged to put down their weapons and form a truce until the following day.
Certain traditions, much to his parents' dismay, were mimicked in the windows they passed whenever they ventured out into muggle London to seek their disguised portals to their own world.
Sirius couldn't remember a Christmas without his little brother – a Christmas without Walburga tasking Kreacher with watching the two magical and mischievous boys while she prepared the food; untrusting of the creature with ancient family recipes.
In his childhood, Christmas was a time of freshly baked bread each and every day, steaming from the oven; new patchwork quilts from his aunts and Grandmothers; and new jumpers – always green.
The precipice of mid-winter's celebration was marked by the giving of the yule log to the Patriarch, who would then light it and covet its flame; it being most unlucky for it to be extinguished. Games of exploding snap were played and ghost stories were told around the log in the hearth. The first story Sirius remembered being told around the log was by his mother, and about the log itself.
"…as the fire grew brighter and burned hotter, and as the log turned into ashes, it symbolized the final and ultimate triumph over evil." Walburga had whispered to a four-year-old Sirius on her knee – cushioned by her tartan skirts as the fire warmed their skin and cider warmed their stomachs.
To Sirius, evil – at that age – meant creatures and monsters that hid under beds and in cupboards and would steal him away from his family, stew him in soups, and scoop out his eyeballs.
Christmas Eve supper would also be taken in the room the log inhabited, crackers containing toys, Wizarding Wireless', jokes, chess sets, and paper hats were pulled alongside the eating of the roast. Before dessert and night caps, the lighting of the candles would take place. Two large coloured candles – always a symbolic black in their family – would be lit by the youngest person present.
Sirius vaguely remembered when he was the one to light the candles. Narcissa had sulked, he recalled, like Molly, Fabian, Gideon, Andromeda and Bellatrix had done before her. Due to he, his brother, and his cousins being born so close together, the tradition was passed quickly on with parents holding toddlers on their knees and guiding stubby fingers.
The candles would be lit with the flame of the yule log and, once lit, all would be silent. While the candles were transported to the table, everyone would make a wish – one to be kept secret. In his childhood, Sirius would wish for the health, longevity, and prosperity of his family.
Once on the table, the silence would be broken, presents were allowed to be opened, and the candles would be allowed to burn themselves out. No other lights could be lit that night.
The Christmas traditions were a crutch for Sirius in the usually bleak atmosphere of his home, until his first year of Hogwarts.
After a tight hug with his teary brother on the platform and a pat on the shoulder from each of his parents, Sirius had wandered with disguised uncertainty onto the train. He couldn't have possibly of known about the boy with jet black hair he was about to meet, and stand by, in a knock-down drag-out with a boy boasting of Slytherin's prestige and belittling the boy with the last name 'Potter' at the same time.
The sorting hat put Sirius in Gryffindor that evening.
Boys he had played with while their fathers talked Ministry business avoided his eye in the hallways. Girls he had danced with at functions to discover compatibility for later betrothals watched him warily from a distance, always frowning at the colour of his tie before flouncing off should they ever need to speak. Bellatrix looked the other way when her betrothed sent jinxes and hexes the way of Sirius and his first-year friends.
Andromeda was the only one to talk to him that way she always had done, asking about their other cousins; Fabian and Gideon, two years above Sirius in Gryffindor.
He barely read the letter his parents sent him, carefully crafted, about his sorting on his first day of classes. He barely had time to think of them at all while learning new spells and that the use of the word 'mudblood' would get you throttled by Lily Evans no matter how often you held open doors for her.
Regulus' letters, however, Sirius always returned.
James Potter, Remus Lupin, Frank Longbottom, and Peter Pettigrew quickly became a source of never-ending laughs, back slaps, and company to run through the halls with for Sirius.
Regulus stopped writing, and when Sirius returned home for the summer, Regulus busied himself by trailing after their father. Sirius didn't follow, he knew of another world where dancing, speaking foreign tongues, and political policy didn't get you very far.
It was in Sirius' second year of Hogwarts that Regulus farewelled their parents with him on the platform, but ducked and weaved away from him to find Rodolphus Lestrange's younger brother his age on the train.
It was in Sirius' second year that he and James figured out, after an extra twelve full moons in Astronomy class, why Remus disappeared every month, and that his mother wasn't really ill.
Bellatrix and Rodolphus had graduated, married, and took most of animosity in Slytherin for Sirius with them before the summer. The imminent departure of his favourite cousin and new seventh year, Andromeda, weighed on Sirius though.
Andromeda had regaled Sirius and his friends with tales of Hogsmeade before she graduated in June – she detailed the secret passages a Hufflepuff Prefect, Ted Tonks, had shown her on their Prefect Patrols. Without her older sister around to snitch on her and a younger sister she had influence over, it seemed Andromeda had taken a trip to the town she spoke of with her purse and without her mother; her robes tighter, lower cut, and with shorter hems.
It was her descriptions of sweets that led Sirius and his friends to try and use the passages to Hogsmeade that Christmas. They had their fill, moaning and groaning in pain and fulfillment – and getting caught, as a result, by the pretty blonde barkeeper at the Three Broomsticks, Rosmerta. She turned them over to Hagrid who made them swear to not do it again, as he didn't want to see them get into trouble.
It was as they fled across the lawns; wide-eyed, grinning, and breathless under the night sky, that Sirius' mind wandered to a book on spells for magical maps in his family library – spells that could map people. Writing that same evening to his brother that had returned home that Christmas, Sirius asked him to find the book and bring it back to school with him.
Regulus refused.
His Christmas present that year had been a bicycle – only able to be used at home, as it would cause a ruckus at Hogwarts – a ploy, Sirius recognised, even in his youth.
He received a letter on Christmas Day from James – his father had given James a cloak of invisibility, as he proved to be responsible over the school year. It proved a better present than his bicycle, but still – to keep up pretences – Sirius assembled the bicycle and was preparing to take it out onto the street when he heard thunder – not from the sky, but from footsteps of the front stoop.
The blizzard blew around the house while a storm of pillbox hats and shopping bags blustered in through the front door.
Sirius looked up from his book as Andromeda pulled off her gloves, throwing them down on the end table.
"He's old, mother!"
A plethora of bundled herbs were ripped out of the paper bag; hemlock root, bezoars –
"He's a man of the world – and thirty is hardly –"
"He lives in deep country – I won't be able to step outside for fear of an animal attack –"
"That's what wards are for –"
"I'm seeing somebody else!"
Andromeda's eyes were equally as wide as Druella's, her hand dropping the newt's eyes and smacking across her mouth.
"Somebody else?" spluttered Druella, blinking, "You've been out of Hogwarts barely a year – you don't know anyone else!"
Not wanting to be a part of the ruckus, Sirius took his bicycle out and around the block to Claremont Square. Snow fell on his nose and eyelashes, wind blew against and his cheeks and through his hair – it was the closest he could get to riding his broom back at Hogwarts.
It was back at home, a few hours later, when Sirius sought out his cousin in the room she always picked when visiting to check on her – like she always did when the roles were reversed.
Instead of reading on her bed or brushing out her hair at the vanity, Andromeda was surrounded by floating articles of clothing and a cluster of random possessions as she dashed from one side of the room to the other – to her open trunk.
"Are you leaving?" asked Sirius.
His words melded into the symphony of sounds that was Andromeda's repetitive pacing between her dresser and her trunk.
Andromeda sighed, flicked her wand, and blinked at Sirius with a tired smile, "If you're not on the tapestry, you're not welcome at Christmas."
"They've blasted you off?" Sirius frowned and looked behind Andromeda instead, watching her socks fold themselves and plop neatly on top of a stack of clothes, "We're…we're not cousins anymore?"
Andromeda closed the lid of her trunk with a hollow THUNK.
"Don't buy into that pureblood mania, Sirius," said Andromeda, turning back and sitting on top of the initial end of her trunk, "We'll always be cousins."
Sirius fell onto the small space of mattress beside the trunk – beside Andromeda, "But…but your duty to the family –"
"They don't need me,"
Andromeda looked up, sensing his disbelief, and placed a hand over his wrist with a small smile.
"Not like they need you."
Andromeda patted his hand and stood, her powder pink embroidered dress-coat opening to reveal the reason her clothes had taken on a more billowing silhouette after graduating Hogwarts. And it had nothing to do with layering up against the winter winds, Sirius discovered.
"You…you're…"
"Pregnant," Andromeda smiled and lifted a hand, a diamond gold ring snug beneath the telling knuckle on her left hand, "And married."
"Which came first?"
For a moment, her likeness to her sisters – to Sirius was startling. But it dissolved; Andromeda's hair a light, soft brown, and her eyes wider – kinder.
"Watch it,"
Andromeda's lips tugged up, betraying her amusement.
"Ted's honourable."
Sirius nodded, blinking, "He always did look the other way when he stumbled across me after curfew…I approve, I guess…"
"I think he'd like to hear that one day…he was really cut up about not being able to ask my father's permission…"
Sirius caught himself partaking in a sappy smile of comradery with his cousin, and cleared his throat, looking to the door.
"They will have closed the floo,"
Sirius looked up to find that Andromeda didn't seem at all concerned.
"How are you getting out – you can't apparate when you're… er," Sirius' hands gestured of their own accord to where his thoughts had trailed, "with child."
Andromeda snorted, but smiled and blinked at the floor.
"Uncle Alphard kept his floo open in his room," said Andromeda, lifting her eyebrows and then her eyes to Sirius, "He also announced, quite loudly, that he was stepping out to the leaky cauldron to have a festive pint of Butterbeer with the Undersecretary to the Minister between eight and midnight."
"You'll be cut off – your vault will be emptied by morning."
Andromeda didn't blink, "There are more important things."
"Like what?"
"One day," said Andromeda, standing with one hand on the handle of her trunk and the other reaching to pat Sirius' knee, "You'll understand."
In the New Year, Sirius returned to school, striking the memory of his mother blasting Andromeda from the Tapestry to his Aunt Druella's pleas. He replaced it with the process of creating the map with the book he'd swiped from his family's library over the break.
Amongst the sneaking down to Hogsmeade to retrieve sweets and essentially residing in the kitchens to drink tankard after tankard of hot chocolate, Sirius almost missed the letter from his cousin alongside the annual one from his family. Andromeda was always an excellent story teller, and her letters read the same way as a book before bed.
Lured into a softer state of mind by her letter and the Christmas Card with a photograph of Andromeda, Ted, and an ever-hair-colour-changing Nymphadora on Ted's knee, Sirius opened a letter with all the fixings of his family's usual Christmas correspondence. Apart from a post script stolen in at the bottom – in his brother's handwriting; rushed.
It too turned out to be a tale and a half.
'Molly's elopement with Weasley has been discovered – three years ago now, apparently – and she has already produced two heirs before the Malfoy's could follow through with her betrothal to a newly-of-age Lucius. Aunt Lucretia and Uncle Ignatius were disinvited from Christmas this year. Don't be seen with Fabian or Gideon for a while.
Kind Regards,
R.A.B.'
Sirius had no intention of heeding Regulus' warning. He, in fact, flouted it; spending as much time with Fabian after Quidditch practices in sight of his relations as possible all the way through to his fifth year.
That all changed, though, because when Sirius returned home at Christmas in his fifth year – as his parents' letter requested of him – his Aunt Lucretia, Uncle Ignatius, and his cousins; Fabian, and Gideon, were welcomed with smiles and kisses on the cheek. The four even gifted the yule log to Orion – a false front of unity, Sirius knew.
Andromeda and Molly's absence was lurid despite the presence of both sets of his grandparents, the remaining four of his cousins, and his Great Aunt Cassiopeia.
The something that had changed, Sirius had discovered over the course of his fifth year, was the betrothal of Narcissa to Lucius Malfoy in place of Molly Prewett. Narcissa, it seemed, preferred – if she were to marry someone she was related to – someone a bit closer to home. She and Gideon did a poor job of masking their longing glances and pained sighs at the lighting of the yule log.
Sirius knew, though, that he may have only been aware to them because he had peered through Katherine Spencer's binoculars not a moment after she had done, after hearing his cousin's name mentioned on the Astronomy Tower, and seen them together on the lawns.
"Walburga – my wand, if you will."
Orion's words snapped Sirius out of his reminiscence, and directed his attention to where his father wiped his hands on his slacks in front of the newly-deposited log in the hearth.
With a complicated flick of his wand, a swirl of rainbow-coloured flames engulfed the log, sparking, and then taking off in the brilliant orange colour Sirius had come to expect.
"You seem unfazed, Rodolphus," asked Fabian from beside Sirius as they all watched on, "Seen your fair share of burning things in your time, hey?"
Bellatrix turned with a look that threatened retribution at her cousin and his blasé comment.
Rodolphus simply blinked his dark eyes and peered around his curly black hair to Gideon, "This isn't my first Christmas with your family."
"Your first Christmas with us shouldn't have technically been allowed," trembled Cassiopeia as Regulus wheeled her past the group, clicking her tongue, "Imagine if Lucius were to attend this year – only with aspirations to marry our Narcissa..."
"He gave me a ring." said Narcissa in pacification, trailing behind Regulus and Cassiopeia.
Fabian made a flurry of quiet smooching noises at Narcissa as she passed, "Was there kissing at this exchanging of the ring?"
"Grow up, there's isn't always kissing." muttered Narcissa, crossing her arms and marching through the doorway and almost up-seating Cassiopeia.
"Yeah," said Fabian, slinging an arm around Sirius' shoulder and grinning lasciviously, "Sometimes there's groping."
Alphard grinned before noticing his sister's eyes on him, and cleared his throat, "Enough of that – what's the time, son?"
Fabian jiggled his fog watch out of his waist coat.
"Four thirty-two." said Fabian, sighing and quickly pocketing the watch once more.
"Dinner's served!"
Sirius broke away to follow everyone into the kitchen to eat.
"What a time for our family," sighed Cassiopeia, smiling at the pot plant, "Narcissa graduating and wedding Malfoy…the patter of little feet will be soon be upon us…merlin, how I miss children…"
Sirius couldn't help but murmur beneath his breath as he turned from Gideon and took his seat in between Regulus and Alphard, "Yes, they don't know how to resist the imperious curse yet when they're in nappies..."
Regulus quietly choked on his piece of bread, smiling behind a handkerchief as he put the offending piece of food back of his plate.
"Gideon, you're graduating too," said Cygnus, swirling his glass over his plate, "What are your plans?"
"My aptitude test in fifth year showed a proclivity for authoritarian roles – especially in the justice system," said Gideon, sitting slowly across from Sirius, "Auror Moody offered me and Fabian places in his department if we pass the character tests and N.E.W.T requirements."
Regulus glanced up and around at the table as he cut into his potatoes, "Sirius' aptitude test returned the same."
Sirius was overcome with saliva to gulp and a dry mouth at the same time.
"No, it –"
"I heard you and Potter talking." said Regulus, raising his eyebrows and closing his mouth around a forkful of potatoes.
"You're not thinking of pursuing it, are you?" asked Cygnus, leaning forward – voice hushed.
Pushing aside the indignity of being the only one questioned out of he and Gideon, Sirius leant to his left surreptitiously.
"Do you ever wonder why no one cool wants to hang out with you?" said Sirius out of the corner of his mouth.
Regulus smiled around the rim of his goblet, "Just thankful."
"Sirius, people get jobs to make money," said Walburga, leaning forward with raised eyebrows and lips caught between a purse and a smile, "You already have money – it's like skipping a step."
"He'd double his vault if he invested more time in Quidditch," grumbled Arcturus, gripping his walking stick where it was leant against the arm of his chair, "Wasn't that Wisp fellow ranked in the top five earning wizards in the world in yesterday's issue of The Daily Prophet?"
Sirius blinked and set the beginnings of a smile on a wreath of mistletoe on the table, "There are more important things."
"Speaking of…" said Walburga, standing, "Regulus, would you go get the candles, dear?"
Sirius wished for something new that year; he wished for the safety of him and his friends. And he got, not another bicycle, but a broom – a Nimbus 1700.
"You didn't get a new bicycle this year, lad?" asked Ignatius, patting his waistcoat, "You must have done something positively heinous."
"A broomstick will serve him better than another muggle contraption." said Orion.
Fabian looked up from his plate in tandem with his twin.
Sirius preoccupied himself with his meal, "Yes, father."
"My, my…" said Cassiopeia, gazing blindly at the portrait behind Sirius, "You've never stuck around so long, my boy…"
Arcturus gave a huff and a goading grin, "Yes, I'm surprised Sirius hasn't already rode off to try and catch a glimpse of that muggle girl he's fancied since merlin knows when…"
Sirius leant back in his chair.
"There's always later."
Fabian snorted, gently elbowed by his mother who then proceeded to 'drop' her fork and request him to retrieve it.
"Ah, but aren't you in charge of stoking the yule log this year?" asked Cygnus.
Sirius' smile at Fabian's silent scolding slipped down his chin, neck, and settled like something cold in his chest.
Melania sat up beside Arcturus.
"It's quite the honour –"
Cassiopeia glowered at a candelabra, "Usually reserved for the Patriarch –"
Orion waved a hand, leaving it up.
"Mere technicality," said Orion, blinking, "And only a matter of time,"
Orion's hand lowered to rest alongside his plate, his gaze setting on his goblet while the gaze of the table was upon him.
"One day," said Orion, blinking at his goblet before lifting it, pausing at his chin, "This house will be yours, Sirius,"
Orion took a short sip, rested his goblet down beside his plate, and knitted his fingers together on the snake-swirled placemat.
"You will join a long line of patriarchs…"
Sirius felt the full weight of both his father and his grandfather's stares. He knew that, eventually, one day the duty would fall to him. His father, Orion, was still young by wizarding terms and would most likely hold the position until Sirius married; something of a far-off concept to the sixteen-year-old.
"…rear your children in the learned ways of our forefathers within these walls; steeped in history…"
The 'learned ways of their forefathers' entailed a strict upbringing. As soon as he could form words of English, words of French and German were sprinkled into his vernacular; for dignitary purposes when abroad, as they so commonly were; and Latin, to secure ease in learning spells.
As soon as he could walk, he was constantly pulled back at the shoulders, hit beneath the chin to lift it, and held back by scarves at the dinner table by his mother – all to promote impeccable posture.
As soon as he could tie his shoes, he was taught to dance; pushed together with his female cousins in the hazy sunlight of summer afternoons in the sitting room, after an already full day of instruction. The waltz and all other types of ballroom manoeuvres ensured grace in movement, marriage prospects and success in political endeavours; if you could sway someone side to side, you could sway their mind readily enough.
Before a wand was available, a quill was the weapon in which a young gentleman wielded. The intimidation of a neat hand could never be underestimated, better yet – near impossibly decipherable curls of ink taught in the learning of calligraphy.
Tagging along to sit in on sessions of the Wizengamot was only allowed after a sizable display of self-discipline. Mastering an instrument was a common precursor to parliamentary privileges. Sirius had sat at the piano in his mother's parlour for hours – days, of his youth.
The most interesting and disturbing compulsory part of his instruction had been using a pensieve and his ancestor's memories for the history component. Vivid witch burnings, revolutionary votes on the Wizengamot on the Statute of Secrecy, and discoveries of potions and spells were all interspersed with sneaking out into muggle London with his Uncle Alphard.
Something sweet, Alphard always said, to break up the bitter taste the memories left in Sirius' mouth. It was all to ready him, like a stallion for auction, for marriage – for producing an heir – to carry on the tradition and prestige of the Black family.
"…we have to draw up a betrothal contract by your seventeenth birthday –"
"I want to choose,"
His father paused, his fork just short of his mouth.
Sirius placed his hands down, flat, on the table, and fixed his eyes on the snake-swirled place mat beneath his silver plate, "Mother requested you, and I would like to exercise my right to do the same."
"Whatever is the matter with Griselda Greengrass?" asked Walburga, sitting up straighter in her seat and joining her hands together.
Sirius blinked at his mother, "Apart from the fact that I hex her on an almost daily basis?"
"The wizard's the head of the family, but the witch is the neck…" said Alphard, his elbow finding's Sirius', "You better choose an agreeable one."
"So, who is she?"
Sirius' eyes rose to find himself under grey fire; his mother peering across at him expectantly.
"I've got to ask her first," said Sirius, leaning back in his seat and throwing an amused, appeasing expression around the table, "I hardly think I could face you all if she rejected me."
Alphard, Fabian, Narcissa, and Regulus snorted.
Orion waved a long, listless hand, "Her consent doesn't matter."
"What's next?" asked Walburga in solidarity, laughing shortly, "Asking her father for her hand?"
Regulus' tongue swiping the inside of his cheeks prompted Sirius to put the imprint of his Italian-leathered-shoe into his younger brother's shin.
Walburga continued, "Any self-respecting pureblood would jump at the opportunity to join our family."
Orion picked up where his wife left off, lifting his napkin from his lap, and depositing it on his plate, "Once you have attained the young lady's permission –"
Alphard turned a lofty blink on his eldest nephew, "It is a young lady, isn't it?"
"– We will draft the marriage license, plan the wedding for the summer after you graduate, and you can take the mark on your seventeenth birthday –"
Despite his Uncle's goading, Sirius still caught the strange addition to what his parents' usual plans for him entailed.
"I beg your pardon, father, what was that last one?" asked Sirius.
There wasn't so much as a CLINK of silverware, but the stares thrown around the table were loud enough.
"Lord Voldemort is the light to guide us out of this muggle-loving epidemic – they used to burn us at the stake, for Merlin's sake," said Walburga, plainly, "You remember why Slytherin wanted to be selective from your preparatory lessons, don't you, boy?"
Sirius gave a short nod; strained by his disdain of the ideologies shoved down his throat before he could tie his own shoelaces.
"Times have changed, Wally," Alphard saved Sirius, leaning back in his chair, "Besides, they've just about killed themselves off with their silly wars."
"Alphard!" gasped Walburga, casting a hand across her chest as if she'd been stricken, "You can't be serious about this research you've been doing?"
Alphard inclined his head, amused, but stubborn, "Muggleborns are not to be hunted – they're the descendants of our out-casted squibs."
Orion stood, inclined his head as he finished chewing his dinner roll, and adjusted his satin cravat.
Sirius rose, Regulus after him, and they followed their father from the room at the silent cue.
"A muggleborn only occurs if two squibs come together –"
Orion closed the door on the conversation, the thud of the door on the other side of the dining room indicating that their aunts, uncles, and cousins had done the same; leaving the middle-aged siblings to their bickering.
Orion led the way across the entrance hall to the front sitting room, gazing out at the passing muggles who couldn't look back at him even if he wished them to.
Regulus loitered by an armchair just inside the door frame, not sitting.
Sirius too stood, watching his father, and trying to not clench his hands or sway from foot to foot.
"A regiment will be here tonight to assess you – but it's just a formality, Black's don't audition."
"I won't do it," said Sirius, shaking his own head and stepping back, "I'll spell myself purple and dance naked around the fireplace – chanting in mermish – to convince them that I've gone round the twist if I have to."
Regulus bowed his head in edgeways to the mounting argument, "I think he means to express his concern for being killed, or otherwise incapacitated in Azkaban, and unable to raise the next generation of Black –"
"No, Reg, I don't,"
Sirius was unable to stop the narrowing of his eyes at his younger brother, before he shifted them to his father.
"I won't get caught torturing muggleborns down by the brambles in Hogsmeade on my weekends – because I won't be scarring my arm up with that dead stupid skull and cross-bones tattoo."
Regulus' head fell back against the emerald wall panelling inside the door, and he closed his eyes.
"Snake and skull…it's a snake and skull…"
Orion just strolled through the channel between the table and the couch, to his decanter, "Please, the muggles named a plague after us and we still got away with it,"
One of Sirius' late Great Aunts, Araminta Meliflua Black, had indeed tried to pass a bill in the Wizengamot to legalise muggle hunting. When refused, she poisoned their wells village by village – the rats drinking from them as well as the muggles.
The poison was kept in a perfume bottle in the drawing room cabinet, a glittering amethyst threat – one that their mother; the one of more direct relation to Araminta, knew how to brew. Orion paused by the cauldron, repurposed into a pot plant, that the active ingredient of the potion grew in.
Sirius, unable to look at the deceptively pretty purple flowers he had been driven back from with hexes as a child, found his shoes pointing towards the door.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Sirius mounted a false, acidic smile on his lips that corroded any possible sincerity, "I'm expecting a letter from Andromeda."
He might as well have turned into a dog and urinated on the rug.
Ignoring Regulus' gentle groan and closed eyes, Sirius shouldered past his younger brother and into the hallway. Halfway down it, he passed the re-opened door to the kitchen and couldn't help but slow his stride and peer through.
Alphard and Walburga sat across from each other, teacups at their lips, hair a mess, and eyes of stone on each other. There was a shard of porcelain, matching the cups the two drank from, on the table; a giveaway of the physicality of the fight that had just transpired.
Passion was perfectly acceptable, promoted even, in the House of Black. It's what mending charms were for. 'Trust people's rage' his father had always told him, 'you can't fake that'.
It was not a moment after Sirius loosened his cravat, kicked off his shoes and socks, and threw himself across his bed, that Regulus haunted his doorway. Sirius wasn't sure when Regulus dipped down into the mattress beside Sirius' feet, but upon peeking over his chest at his little brother déjà vu ploughed through Sirius from his heart to his feet.
"I think you've gone too far this time, Sirius."
"They need me," said Sirius, willing his voice lower before continuing, "What's the worst that could happen – they take back my Christmas presents?"
Regulus' lips twitched and he shook his head at the carpet.
"So," said Regulus, lifting his eyes from where they dug into the carpet and planting them on his older brother, "You've taken interest in a witch?"
Sirius rearranged his arms behind his head, shrugging where he lay on his back, "I always craft a new fanciable witch when our dear old parents start in on me about marriage."
"Sirius," Regulus tilted his head, nodding once, "I know."
"You do?"
"I'm your brother."
Sirius, in smiling at the corner of his mattress, caught Regulus doing the same.
A beat of light silence was broken when Regulus dusted down the knees of his slacks.
"It's not so different you know." said Regulus, blinking at the Gryffindor flag on the wall.
Sirius lifted his head to peer at his brother, "What isn't?"
"What you do, from what we do…" said Regulus, lifting his eyebrows, "You and Potter come down around kids like a brick house of torment, when you want to."
Something cold trickled down Sirius' spine, "It's…it's not like that."
"Isn't it?" asked Regulus, looking Sirius straight in the eye, "Black's naturally assume the spot at the top of the food chain," "
Regulus turned back to watch the wall once more, shrugging.
"Potter's one too – a Black – no matter what his father's done."
Sirius barely heard it.
"We're not bullies." said Sirius, frowning as he watched his own memories flash across the ceiling before his eyes – trying to find an instance that proved his brother right.
"Snape reckons you are."
"Snape bullies you."
"Takes one to know one."
Sirius' head flopped to the side in pure incredulity.
"Really, Reg?" said Sirius, unable to help his parting lips, "How old are we?"
Regulus' knuckles found the outside of Sirius' leg in a playful hit, "I'll always be younger than you."
"I'm not going grey yet." said Sirius, leaning back against his arms.
Regulus hummed absently, "In our family, we rarely do."
"Son?"
Sirius and Regulus snapped to their feet, eyed each other, and then started for the door.
In the hallway they were met with Alphard, who staggered at the sight of them and cast a hand across his forehead.
"Don't do this to me," said Alphard, his gold signet ring flashing as his hand shot out to prop himself against the hallway wall, "I'm already seeing double."
Regulus cleared his throat, bowed his head, and strode around his uncle and closed himself into his own room.
Sirius, recognising that his uncle had climbed the stairs for him, swivelled on his heel and sighed all the way to his bed; throwing himself upon it.
Alphard followed; sitting himself upon the edge of the maroon sheet set and bracing his hand on his knee. He turned to regard his nephew and then turned to watch the fireplace at the foot of Sirius' bed.
"She didn't poison your tea, then?" asked Sirius, reaching for his mini Quaffle on his bedside table, "For poisoning our family with such progressive values?"
Sirius flicked his wrist, sending the Quaffle ceiling-wards.
"No," said Alphard lightly, his lips twisting and his eyes glinting; but still set on the fire, "She would never dare do something when I expected it."
The hexagonal ball landed in Sirius' palm, and his eyes landed again on his uncle, "Are you here to be a relatable figure to convince me to go against all my beliefs for the greater good of the family?"
In wait of a response, Sirius sent the ball up once more.
"You're sixteen, you don't have any beliefs,"
Sirius snatched the ball instead of waiting for it to reach his palm, snapping up at the waist.
Alphard held up a hand, his whiskey eyes sparkling and betraying his attempt for an apologetic smile.
"Alright, pipe down…pipe down…"
Down, didn't register with Sirius. He felt the undeniable need to stand.
A frustrated longing for an indescribable state of being pulled his Quaffle arm back, his ribs twinging as he threw the ball with the violence he felt thrumming against his spleen.
One of the posters he'd sourced from a muggle stall at Kings Cross Station in fourth year crinkled in, making a mess of a blonde lady's face.
"I wish this Voldemort sap had never been born,"
Sirius kicked his bed, one of the wooden slats bridging, snapping, and sending his Uncle into the sudden hole in his mattress.
"I wish my parents were different…"
Sirius's shoe found his bicycle next, it hurtling against the wall; wheels clicking and spinning.
"You're looking at the negatives – they're going to let you choose your own bride – that's something," Alphard pulled himself out of sinkhole of mattress, smoothing back his hair, "You'll pump out a dozen kids and you can change what it means to be a Black if you just stick it out a little longer."
Sirius fell back against his bed, "Maybe I might follow your example and not have any children at all."
"I would have plenty of children with the right person."
Sirius squinted at his ceiling, "I don't remember seeing any women on your arm – ever."
"I lost the only woman I could ever love before you were even born," Alphard sighed, "You wouldn't have."
"Who?" The word shot from his lips as quickly as the curiosity fired through his brain, his neck turning it to the source of its sudden excitement.
Alphard uncrossed his legs, leaning back with a downward tug of his lips, his cheeks laden with haggardness.
"Her name was Margaret," said Alphard, frowning as if he were having teeth pulled, "We were in Slytherin together."
Sirius was struck by an uncomfortable possibility, fighting his muscles' twitch to squirm.
"Did she… you know…die?"
There was a soft fall of air from Alphard's nose and brief twitch of his lips – but then they hardened, his lips seemingly being newly sewn together.
"A few years ago…" said Alphard, blinking and casting his eyes back into the fireplace, "Old age."
"Why didn't you marry her?" asked Sirius, his legs bowing to sit criss-cross and his hands finding his feet where they met in front of him.
Alphard's pupils flitted to the corners of his eyes – to Sirius, and, upon finding Sirius not as indifferent as the man seemed to have hoped, he sighed and bowed his head.
"She was scared of our family," said Alphard, his shoulders so slumped that Sirius thought they might touch together, "Margaret –"
Any of his usual gusto returned by the telling of a good story, evaporated at the name, leaving something hollow beneath Alphard's cheeks.
"– saw the possibility for darkness in our family."
Sirius didn't think people worrying about the inclination of their family's magic was anything new, and let himself be led where he was most curious.
"Did she love you?"
Alphard's head lifted and his eyes found Sirius, paused, and then fixed on the window.
"She asked me to run away with her to Australia – to hide with the muggles escaping their war." said Alphard, the tails of his eyebrows meeting the wrinkles running into his inky hair.
A space opened up between Sirius and the man he thought he knew, "And you didn't go?"
His Uncle Alphard, thought Sirius in disbelief; defiant, progressive, valiant, Alphard Black –
"I did,"
The two words struck Sirius somewhere deep in his stomach – or maybe the accompanying wry twist of Alphard's lips did.
"When I got to our meeting spot, she wasn't there," said Alphard, crescent shaped eyebrows mounted high on his forehead, "Your grandfather was,"
Pollux Black reserved a place in the recesses of Sirius' mind, always – as an example of the kind of man to never be. The kind of man whose presence came over a room like a dark, ceaseless winter; silent and gloomy, and all from his claimed chair in the corner.
"He'd intercepted our letters and crafted one on my behalf…" said Alphard, his lips twitching and the wrinkles around his eyes vanishing – thirty years seem to lift from him in a strange show of amusement, "Margaret was under the impression that I was a dutiful son that couldn't abandon his family in a time of war and urged her to move on to find a more suitable match."
It was all Sirius could do to not gawk, settling for a sympathetic squint, "And Grandfather lived to see me and Regulus born?"
Alphard glanced at Sirius, his ash gaze smouldering and stirring with mirth, before it vanished to the window.
"I was sixteen,"
Alphard's ash eyes set upon his graphite trousers, his hands lifting and lowering on his knees.
"I wasn't always this bitter and good with a wand," said Alphard, smile waning as his crescent eyebrows fell from his forehead, "Besides, there was a war on – it seemed…frivolous… after the severe dressing down from my parents, anyway..."
"The fact that there was a war on was all the better reason to have done it."
Alphard sighed, a long, widely-lived sound through Sirius' young ears, "I see so much of myself in you, Sirius,"
As a rare anomaly in his family, Sirius thought that there was no greater compliment –
"But I see even more of myself in your brother,"
Sirius couldn't stop the rumble of incredulity from sneaking up from his chest that his arms crossed against.
"You can scoff at my words now," said Alphard, pinching the fabric of his trousers, just above the knee, so that he could extend his leg comfortably, "But I've always held firm to the belief that the house sorting at Hogwarts takes place far too early."
Sirius felt the pull of gravity in his neck as he willed his muscles to let go of his sitting position, his back meeting his caved in mattress.
"So, Margaret moved on?" asked Sirius through a sigh, eyes on the ceiling above his bed; dented from hitting it so many times with his miniature quaffle.
A thick, catching sigh, began where Sirius' left off.
"She swore that her children and great-grandchildren would never marry into our family, cursed me to the heavens that we're all named after, and then; yes," Sirius felt his Uncle's gaze on him rather than saw it, "She moved on."
Sirius turned his head to find Alphard considering him with a daring glint in his unmoving eyes.
"What was her last name?" asked Sirius, endeavouring to keep his own stare as unmoving.
Alphard blinked, raised his eyebrows, and gently shook his head side to side, all the while gazing imploringly across at Sirius, "Is it important?"
Something settled behind Sirius' sternum, like a bramble that only his words might dislodge and only – only – if it got the right response from his Uncle.
"Did you love her?"
Alphard's tongue clicked as his mouth opened, his eyes turning – his shoulders following.
"Black's don't love," Alphard turned back, but kept his eyes trained on the mattress beside Sirius' shoulder as he spoke his next words, "They fulfill duty,"
Alphard blinked once, and turned half-lidded eyes on Sirius.
"And if they do love," said Alphard, pausing, "Well…"
Alphard's eyes flickered and his lips twitched.
"It never ends well."
Sirius sighed, raising his eyebrows, "That's cheerful."
"This isn't the noble and most ancient house of sunshine," said Alphard leaning back to straighten his lapels, dusting them, "Black stays – evermore still –"
"Always pure." chorused Sirius with his Uncle.
There was sardonic, shared look of discomfort at the family dogma, and a strange sense of unity.
And then Alphard went to stand.
"Uncle?"
"Yes, son?"
"Do I know any of her family?" asked Sirius.
Alphard smiled, tapped his hand on the doorframe, and shook his head at Sirius, "I wouldn't risk the curse applying to friends as well."
"Curse?" asked Sirius.
Alphard sighed, shifted his weight between his shoes that were already out the door, and frowned at the floorboards between the two.
"When Margaret… made her displeasure with me known," said Alphard, with a significant look at Sirius before returning to the floorboards; frowning, "from then on, anytime someone from either family tried to join the two…unfortunate events befell them."
Sirius felt no goose bumps or trepidation.
"Curses can be broken."
Sirius sat up in enough time to watch the man cling to the doorframe in uninhibited jollity.
"By what – true love's kiss?" Alphard laughed, squinting through mirthful eyes at Sirius, shaking his head, "You've been reading too much."
"Not enough obviously," said Sirius, falling back onto his bed, reaching for his miniature Quaffle again and a reaction from his Uncle with his next words, "If I don't know who this Margaret is."
Alphard left, and Sirius did everything he could to pass the time until he had to weasel his way out of deal with a man you could not refuse. He polished his new broom, he tried push ups, he read ahead in his school books.
Rivetingly enough, a brigade of motorcycles thundered down the street outside his window, and he sat fascinated; watching the men in tight jeans and leather vests emblazoned with 'Hell's Angels'; the paragon of coolness as they flickered their risks and hugged along the road like rolling predators…
None of them could mask the flurry of arrivals through the floo. Sirius felt the intruding on the house's wards in the veins of his forearms; throbbing with the blood keyed into the protection of the house.
And then it was silent, for too long of a stretch of time to mean anything good.
Unable to bear it, Sirius cast a notice-me-not charm on himself, and slipped downstairs to eavesdrop; wishing he could cast a disillusionment charm like Katherine had when he and James snuck her down to Hogsmeade.
Knowing that an accomplished wizard would not be fooled by his charm, Sirius slipped into the nook behind a tall vase; conveniently located directly outside the sitting room door.
"The campaign at the Department of Mysteries," asked a silvery voice, "How are we faring?"
"Our informant has found a gap in the Order's patrol," Sirius recognised the tones of Rodolphus Lestrange, "We will have acquired what you seek by Tuesday next."
"Good," said the silvery voice once more, "We will then launch the final phase of our plan,"
Sirius felt his ears peel open in desperate curiosity, in his oddity for more information he disregarded the strange silence in the room.
"We will acquire the girl."
A chair scraped; once out, once back in; footsteps rapping out with an unfailing rhythm on the floorboards.
"What are you going to do with her, my lord?"
A curly haired man, tall and with hollowed cheeks, grew larger in the space Sirius peered through.
Sirius went cold, though secure in his hiding place.
Voldemort paused, holding himself tall and wide in the doorway.
Sirius felt the air in the room sucked out.
But only he could see the narrowing of Voldemort's eyes, and the twist of his lips.
"I'm thinking a bite to eat and a film – I don't want to go too fast," said Voldemort caustically, turning his head over his shoulder briefly, before turning back, rolling his eyes, and stepping out of the doorway and into the hallway, "I've been hurt before."
Voldemort was opening the front door when furious whispers met Sirius' ear.
"How daft could you be –"
"One never speaks to him out of turn –"
Voldemort slipped into the night, closing the door. The unmistakeable POP of apparition let Sirius breathe again.
"Katherine Spencer," sighed a faceless man, "Count your breaths."
Sirius' heart flew out of his throat. Spencer. They were talking about Spencer.
While she was back at the castle, tangled tightly in Dumbledore's protection, Sirius was in the bowels of the plot to take her life.
The girl who sat across from him at meals in the Great Hall, who sat in front of him during every class...
She was just a girl – a plait-wearing girl. Sirius couldn't understand why Jasmine Copper and the Darkest Wizard of the Generation were so intent on making sure she met her undoing.
He couldn't dwell any further, the door swinging open and his parents and cousin huddling out and along the hallway.
"I don't think he –"
"Sirius will do the right thing." said Walburga, slowly and emphatically, a hand raising to quieten Orion.
Orion blinked at his wife, "It would be a first."
"In the new world order, the followers of this man will enjoy all the spoils of this war," whispered Walburga, grey eyes glittering in the moonlight streaming in, "As a son of this family – as the heir of this family – it is his duty to ensure that we remain the cream of the crop."
Orion sighed, ran a finger along the bridge of his nose delicately, and turned to Bellatrix – half-lidded.
"When will he be back?"
Bellatrix checked her nails, peering down her nose, "Two…maybe three in the morning..."
The same light that made Walburga's eyes glitter, illuminated her trembling alabaster flesh.
"Someone will fetch Sirius at one," Walburga pursed her lips, turning away as she lifted a pump onto the bottom step of the staircase, "Not a second later."
Sirius climbed the stairs to his room like a ghost – as quiet as he was despondent. His stealth owed only to years of hiding in and mapping out the house in his youth and boredom; his socked feet following the path with the least-squeakiest floorboards, least portraits to lure him into conversation, and the lowest risk for familial interaction.
"Whatever comes out of your mouth, Alphard –"
His mother's shrill tones sent Sirius to the shadows. The corner of a landscape portrait of their county manor poked into his spleen as anxiety poked hot needles through his lungs.
Sirius watched the ray of light illuminating the bottom of the door break, flicker, and settle with full force.
Walburga was pacing inside the room; undoubtedly seeking counsel from her brother – or, most likely, receiving it without much choice.
"– is a waste of breath," continued Walburga, "A toxic air-borne event –"
The customary words of chide sent sensation back to Sirius' feet and cheeks; something normal in the wish-wash of the night's events.
He kept on into the endlessness of the ever-pressing darkness.
The warmth of his bedroom was but a short, sweet reprieve from it – and the things he had heard. He had never entertained thoughts of leaving it before.
But he used also used to believe that muggles still burned witches and wizards at the stake.
The elbow of his winter coat, bent as he hauled his broom to the window, caught – there was a flash – and then a shattering, tinkling SMASH.
Mirror shards rained down on his floor and panic rained down upon his stomach.
No doors slammed open.
No feet came thundering along the hall.
Sirius crouched down to the shards, a thought coursed down out of nowhere, and his wand slipped down to his left hand. All of the shards floated through the air and into his trunk that he then tied to the middle of his broom with one of his belts, hovered out on the fire escape, and mounted to fly down onto the snow-covered street.
And that was as far as he could go, out of the protection of the house's wards that hid underage magic.
Sirius turned back, and saw Twelve Grimmauld Place between Eleven and Thirteen.
Christmas carols echoed down the white street from some far off place. Muggle, Sirius realised at the mention of 'Christ' in the tune as he gazed in through the windows of the townhouses on the block of Grimmauld Place.
Christmas lights twinkled against windowpanes; yellow, red, green, and blue; obscured by the shrubby branches of pine and fir. Lamps went out around children's beds as parents put down large books, seasonal programs on televisions flashed into the street, smoke swirled up where laughing people huddled down in their coats on fire escapes with embers flicking from between their fingers.
Number Twelve, however, had only one light on. And Sirius knew it wasn't a light at all, but the Yule log; burning in the hearth. It would continue to burn without him to stoke it.
Sirius lifted his left hand, the dark wood of his wand stark against the powdered street.
The laughs and carols continued despite the deafening BANG.
"Welcome aboard the Knight Bus, emergency transportation for the stranded witch or wizard…"
Sirius stepped aboard the purple triple decker, taking a cold seat. He watched out one of the back bus windows, feeling very lonesome, as Grimmauld place vanished from sight.
Author's Note: Thank you for reading! :)