Walburga debated with herself for a long while over how much to tell her youngest son. She was no fool; she knew Regulus would be furious. After all, in their anger and haste, she and Orion had told him he was their new heir, and he likely wouldn't take kindly to the news that Sirius would soon be reinstated.

It was more than that, though. Walburga would have to come up with a reason why she had seen fit to summon Sirius back home, and she would need to come up with a convincing reason why Sirius would want to come back. The rest of the world would believe that he had been working for the Dark Lord, but Regulus might not fall for that. Or worse, he would take it to heart and decide to do something equally as dangerous to gain his parents' attentions back.

In the end she only told him the bare minimum: that Sirius was coming home.

"What?" Regulus asked in disbelief when his mother sat him down in the parlor the next morning. His head was still pounding from the night before.

"Drink your coffee, Regulus," Walburga said shortly.

But Regulus refused. "You went to the Ministry yesterday? What's going on? Did something happen?"

Walburga refused to elaborate. "Nothing you need to know about in detail right now. Just know that the war is over. Things are how they were before."

"The Dark Lord is dead?" Regulus asked cautiously.

"He is gone," Walburga said. "Drink your coffee."

"But I don't want Sirius to come home!" Regulus yelled. "You're going to just give him his title back, aren't you! What about me?"

"Regulus Arcturus, you will be more than fine, and I suggest you lower your voice unless you want to be returning to class in a glamor."

Regulus was immediately cowed. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I just don't understand. I tried to do a good job."

"Despite what you clearly think, Regulus, my decision has nothing to do with you. Your brother has proven himself to be loyal to us after all. He will be here when you return for Christmas and that is final."

Regulus looked at her in confusion. "I won't be visiting before then? Sirius is coming back and I won't see him for two months?"

"There is no need for you to miss any more of your education. You're returning to school within the hour. Now drink your coffee before I have to force it down your throat. I've put painkillers in it."

Regulus gave her a terrified look.

"You touch your father's private stores again and you will be very sorry."

Regulus looked down and his face reddened, but he finally started in on the espresso his mother had handed him. It was cold and tasteless by that point, but it did make his headache recede.

"I just don't understand why you want him back," Regulus murmured.

"Would you have had me leave him to have his soul sucked out?" Walburga snapped. "Is that what you want, Regulus? For your brother to be as good as dead? Have you no thought for your own family?"

Regulus's breath caught. "No, I didn't say that...what...what was he doing in Azkaban? Mother, what happened?"

Walburga did not answer her son. She had let that last sentence slip in anger. Regulus did not need to think Sirius had been working for Voldemort. He would be terrified of his own brother.

Walburga sighed. "Some things have come up."

"What things?" Regulus demanded. "Who killed the Dark Lord?"

Walburga bristled. "I don't know," she admitted. "I'm not sure exactly what happened. Things will inevitably become clearer to everyone later."

Regulus bit down on the sleeve of his sweater, a nervous habit he'd had when he was younger, and one he'd not slipped back into in nearly six years. "What's going to happen to us?" he asked.

Walburga blinked. "Nothing, darling," she said earnestly.

"We're not in any trouble?" Regulus asked in disbelief. "For...anything?"

"Absolutely not," Walburga said firmly. What Regulus had asked troubled her slightly. A Black should be more confident than Regulus was. More sure of their place in the world. How truly lucky she was to be getting Sirius back, for as disappointing as he had been in most other areas, he had never lacked talent, ambition, or sheer iron will.

"But I...I was..." Regulus faltered. "They'll come for me, won't they?"

Walburga took ahold of Regulus's left forearm and twisted it around, rolling up his sleeve as she did. "Were you yet marked?" She asked him, raising an eyebrow.

Regulus shook his head. "N—no, because I was still at school and it was too much of a risk that someone would see..."

"And had you yet partaken in any assignments?" Walburga asked knowing. Regulus had been involved for less than a month, and he'd never been gone for more than a few hours, and moreover, he'd never come home a crying wreck. Walburga knew that if Regulus had been asked to do anything serious, he would have reacted poorly to it and she would have noticed.

Again Regulus shook his head. "But someone else might have recognized me. Someone might tell them about me!"

Walburga stroked her son's shaking face. "No one would dare, Regulus. And even if they did, do you think your father an I couldn't sort it out?"

Regulus looked unconvinced.

Walburga frowned at her son's lack of confidence in her. "I literally grabbed your bother out from underneath a Dementor," she deadpanned. "I promise you I can keep you out of harm's way as well."

Regulus nodded, still shaking a little. "Provided I'm worth the effort to you," he muttered.

His mother chose to ignore his comment, though it did set off an alarm in the back of her mind. "Your brother is coming home again, Regulus. Everything will soon be as it was," Walburga repeated, trying to calm Regulus.

Regulus shook his head numbly. "How can that be, though?" he marveled. "He broke us, Mum. He smashed us into a million little pieces. How can things ever be the same?"

"They will be because I said so," Walburga answered. "When Sirius returns, I'll not have you bringing up any of the past five years. Everything will be as it was."

"But—"

"No arguing, Regulus," Walburga insisted. "Sirius wants nothing more than to make up for everything. He's completely loyal to us. I don't want to hear of you trying to undermine him with talk of these last few years. It's all over now. As far as anyone is concerned, Sirius was and has always been a true Black."

"Won't you tell me what happened today?" Regulus begged.

Walburga shook her head. "If your father or I disclose anything else to you in the future then it will be at our discretion. You'll probably be hearing a lot at school, but I'm telling you right now to ignore what anyone but your father or I says. Just know that your brother got caught up in something and now is the perfect time to say he was with us all along."

Regulus shook his head. "Does Sirius even want to come home?" he asked in disbelief.

"Of course he does," said Walburga with a wide smile. "And he especially has missed you, Regulus. You were all he could talk about when I saw him."

"Really?" Regulus asked skeptically. Sirius hadn't even said goodbye to him the night he'd stormed out, and had made a mockery of him for the years they'd been in school together.

"Yes, sweetheart, your big brother loves you, and he'll see you at Christmas."

"Can't I see him sooner?" Regulus asked urgently, and Walburga couldn't help but smirk. Of course it took only the promise of Sirius's affections to melt Regulus's anger away. It came with a cost, though: by mid-December, Walburga would have to make sure Sirius truly was excited to see Regulus again. Her spellwork was good, but this was going to be complicated and she wasn't completely confident that she could make that deadline.

"No, Regulus, Sirius will need to get settled back in. So you need to go back to school and make sure you come home with marks that he'll be proud of."

Regulus bit his lip. It didn't seem to him that Sirius would care much about his grades, but he was too confused by this point to press the issue much further.

"You've class in half an hour, Regulus," Walburga mentioned. She stood from the couch and held her arm out to Regulus. "Now come with me, I'll Apparate you back to Hogsmeade. Your head of house will be waiting for you there."

Walburga spent the rest of the next two days detailing Sirius's room, deciding how much should be left untouched and what had to go. She could do little about the poster tacked up with permanent magic—at least nothing short of dismantling entire sections of Sirius's wall, however, most of the photographs were easily removed. James Potter and Lily Evans were dead, and Walburga could not risk removing them from Sirius's mind because the whole of the wizarding world had known how much he'd loved those disgusting creatures. She could, however, convince Sirius that he'd been faking it or that he'd had a change of heart somewhere along the line. For that to work, it was probably wise that Sirius not spend much time around any constant reminders of his connection to them, lest they stir latent emotions back up to the surface of his mind. So the pictures of James and Sirius messing around at Hogwarts went straight into the fire. So did various letters and notes she found in Sirius's drawers and in a lockbox under his bed.

The key to mind manipulation was leaving just enough of the truth in that the lines began to blur. Walburga spent several long evenings in her husband's study, drawing up spellwork plans and preparations. This was going to need to be precise. She needed people to believe that Sirius had been loyal to his family after all, but not to the degree that they would want to see him locked back up. Sirius had been cleared of all charges as Walburga had asked, but she couldn't have an heir who'd been drawn and quartered in the court of public opinion.

So it became a balancing act between coming up with a son who could simultaneously please his relatives and his fellow Gryffindor alumni. Oh, the red-robed little idiots would probably hate Sirius after this, but as long as they weren't out for his blood, everything should be okay.

And that of course meant she'd need to ensure that Sirius felt he had no culpability in his friends' deaths. Here Walburga paused in her work. She could go no further without Sirius in front of her because, to be honest, she didn't know how involved Sirius had been. A part of her truly believed him when he had yelled about being set up by his other friend, but it seemed so unlikely. What if he really had set James and Lily up to be killed?

Walburga shook her head. That was equally as unlikely.

"Really, though," she muttered to herself, letting her quill roll from her fingers. "Why'd you go down there to get him?"

Why had she gone? Walburga was uncertain of herself. She told herself that she believed Sirius had really betrayed his muggle-loving friends to the Dark Lord, and that he was truly her son after all. And if that didn't quite pan out, she'd also told herself, then the situation alone was the perfect opportunity to trick the world into thinking Sirius Black had been a proper Pureblood after all.

Either of those two options was okay. Either one was dignified...proud even.

...but what if neither were true? She asked herself. What if Walburga Black had jumped at this opportunity merely because she wanted her son back...because she wanted to try again, and this time things would turn out right?

Walburga shook her head fiercely and knocked that last thought out. She set her work aside and blew out the candle before heading up to bed. Tomorrow was Saturday. Orion was due back in the early morning. She'd need to brief him on what had happened and then go collect Sirius.

Orion wasn't someone that Walburga needed to convince, unlike Regulus. He was as he'd always been, her partner in crime. He'd have done exactly the same thing had he been in his wife's position—in every regard but one.

"Crouch?" he asked with distaste. "You couldn't get out of this without catering to that imbecile?"

"I know you don't like him, but he's in our pocket now," Walburga insisted. She and her husband were seated at the dinner table, staring at each other over a plate of biscuits their house elf had brought in. "The wizengamot meets on Thursday. You and I should both be there, I think."

She spoke with such conviction that the matter was effectively closed.

"I don't like this," Orion griped. He ran his hand absent-mindedly across his chin. "But it will be worth it, I suppose."

Walburga nodded. "Kreacher!" she called and the elf came scurrying. "Fetch my travel cloak and hat," she ordered. "I'll be leaving in ten minutes."

Orion glanced at his wife. "Going where?" he asked.

"To get Sirius, of course," she said immediately. "It has been three days and I did order them not to feed him."

Orion frowned at that remark. "Well I suppose he'll be willing to listen to us if nothing else."

Walburga rolled her eyes. "Would you honestly have me attempting to alter his mind and memories—his very soul—if he had the strength to fend me off. Trying that kind of work on someone who isn't near death could go horribly wrong. At the very least, he could potentially be strong enough to fool me, trick me into thinking he'd succumbed and then waiting until I let my guard down to strike out."

Orion nodded in agreement. "I trust you," he insisted. "I just wasn't aware is all. It's not as though I commonly commit Dark Magic on my children."

Walburga sat back in her chair, choosing not to call Orion out on his obvious lie. "That should work to my advantage, actually," she said idly. "My being Sirius's mother, I mean. These sorts of spells tend to have stronger effects if the caster is in a position of innate power compared to their victim."

" 'Victim?'" Orion asked in distaste.

Walburga smiled a little. "I know exactly what it is that I'm doing," she assured him. "I know it's...frowned upon."

"Right," said Orion. "I was thinking that I should be the one to go get him."

"Why's that?" Walburga asked. Kreacher had handed her her coat and hat and she was just standing up to put them on.

"Because I want one last go at him while he still remembers what a disappointment he was to us."

At first Walburga wanted to argue with him, or at the very least insist on accompanying him, but there was such a glint in his eye that she knew she wouldn't win this argument. A small pain sprung to her chest when she realized how very like Sirius her husband looked in that moment—eyes gleaming, a slight crooked smile that said he knew he had something wicked in mind...How disgusting it was that Sirius had taken after the both of them so closely and yet ended up such a failure to their family!

Walburga relented. "Fine," she said. She watched her husband slip back into his slender traveling coat and run his want briefly through his dark hair, straightening down what had been briefly fluffed by his flight back from Spain. "But remember that he has had a rough time of it this last week," Walburga added.

Orion twirled his wand loosely about his fingers. "In a few hours he's going to be looking back on the last few days with longing," he said seriously.

Then he left. Walburga watched him go in silence, and then made her way to the cellar, intent on replacing the bottle of alcohol that Regulus had stolen before her husband noticed it.