Echoes of Memories or Madness

Sirius Black was in the cellar.

It wasn't a very pleasant cellar - all dark and damp and, though he wouldn't admit it to anyone else, more than a little unnerving. It always feels like the wall are staring at him in that place, and Number Twelve Grimmauld Place was so imbued with dark magic, he couldn't really be sure that they weren't.

As such, he was sitting in roughly the middle of the room, away from the slimy edges of the enclosed space, knees drawn up to his chest.

He thoroughly deserved to be there, his mother insisted. It was for his own good. But then, Walburga had always believed that. Ever since that first time, when he was five, and his Aunt had visited with her daughters.

Sirius' father, Orion, had referred to the visit as a 'social call', a casual meeting to maintain the bonds of relation. Even at five, Sirius had doubted this. He had only met his cousins once before that, at his grandfathers Christmas Ball. He had later realised - and been outraged - that they had come to goggle at him. To view - to judge - the Black Family Heir like a piece of meat they were being forced to buy. At the time, though, he had only been annoyed at having his home suddenly full of girls.

He hadn't liked any of them.

His Aunt Druella was a thin, blonde and beautiful woman. Almost delicate. But her attitude was anything but, and she fit in to the family like she had been raised in it. She reminded Sirius of his Great Aunt Cassiopeia, a born and bred Black, who was a dominating woman, but trained in the art of subtlety and manipulation. She got what she wanted without having to demand it - A delicately raised eyebrow and pursed lips were as good as a bellowed order for these women.

And the sisters… Never have siblings been more different. Sirius wasn't particularly close to his brother anymore, but stand them side by side and you couldn't mistake the relation. The same could not be said for these girls.

Bellatrix was the eldest member of the fifth generation of Blacks, and she made sure everyone knew it. She was darkly beautiful, with heavy eyes and a strong jaw inherited entirely from her father. Her thin lips and small nose were her mothers contribution, and her eyes were a blue contrasting her dark complexion and hinting at the madness within. She hated Sirius with a passion, probably because - had she been born a boy - she would have everything he was going to inherit.

Andromeda had the same handsome features of her father, and his darker eyes. She was fairer than her sister, though, and decidedly more sane. Her long brown hair gave her an intrinsic look of intelligence, and she reminded Sirius of his old Matron. When she smiled at him though, it wasn't laced with spite and ill intention, but kindness. Sirius thought he liked her best.

And then Narcissa. She was entirely her mothers daughter - pale and blonde and delicate, and manipulative. She was ridiculously impressionable, near idolising her mother and sisters. She eyed Sirius and his brother, who was still only a toddler, very differently to the others. Sirius realised now that she had been all too aware, at nine years old, that she may very well have had to marry one of them eventually. It made him feel a little sick.

Sirius had thankfully been ignored for most of the visit. Kept upstairs with Regulus and Matron Kalista, while his mother paraded her sister-in-law around the house. Eventually, though, he was stuffed into an uncomfortable set of dress robes and forced into a chair at the table for the formal dinner.

All the best decorations were out - Solid silver serving plates and cutlery, the very best china, Goblin wrought goblets imprinted with the family crest and those bloody awful words of a motto. He was sat between his father and his brother, his mother sat stiffly to Regulus' right. His aunt and cousins were seated opposite, spines straightened equally unnaturally. It had felt to Sirius like a life-sized game of chess, all forced pleasantries and formal politeness with the underlying malicious intent. Every move seemed strategically planned out, and he half expected his father to tent his fingers as he smirked and declared 'checkmate'.

' He's the family Heir?' Narcissa had asked in a loud whisper.

Druella had nodded curtly, scowling down the table at Sirius. He supposed she was cursing her rotten luck at having three girls, when all she needed was one boy. But it was too late now.

' But he's so little!' Bellatrix had commented, without the courtesy to mumble. ' He's like Emil.'

' And who, may I ask, is Emil?' Walburga had asked, more kindly than she ever spoke to her sons.

' One of the pups,' Druella had explained. ' We had a litter recently. Mastiffs, you know, excellent creatures. Good breeding.'

' Emil was the runt,' Bella chimed in again, smiling in a sickeningly childish way. ' Me and Daddy drowned him.'

' Father and I,' Druella chided, apparently unfazed about her fourteen-year-old daughter murdering animals.

Sirius had gawped at her, receiving a clip around the head from his father for his troubles. He hadn't cared.

' You just killed him?' he yelled. ' But he didn't do anything!'

Another sharp cuff around the ear. His aunt frowned at him as though she had just scraped him off the bottom of her shoe.

' Hm,' she had said, looking distastefully down her nose, ' Best thing to do with the weak ones.'

' Being small doesn't make you weak!' Sirius had protested, receiving yet another blow to the head.

She sniffed once more at him, then turned to his father.

' Sometimes you can beat it out of them, but not usually.' Sirius got the impression they weren't discussing dogs anymore. ' I wouldn't worry, Orion. Even the best bloodlines get them.'

Sirius had been furious and hurt all at once, and it had made him dizzy. He knew he should have been angry because she had spoken to him like that, but really he was just angry at the rejection.

Honestly, the reason for his anger didn't matter. What was important was that his body - his livid, five-year-old, Magical body - had decided to channel that feeling by causing all the crockery on his Aunts side of the table to shatter, rather violently.

There had been screaming, he could remember. And blood. Lots of blood. But then, there would be, considering pretty blonde Narcissa decided to put her delicate little face in the firing line of splintered shards of china.

After sitting through a lecture he'd heard many times before about how those kind of outbursts were for Mudbloods, who were ignorant and undeserving of magic and therefore couldn't control it, Sirius had received a beating, which wasn't unusual, and been locked in the cellar for an hour, which was.

Back then, the darkness had been enormous. Hiding the walls, echoing every movement. When something scuttled about in the shadows, it sounded like it was miles away, sneaking up on you slowly. Now it was too small. In the back of his mind, Sirius knew he had grow significantly in eleven years, since than first time.

But sat there now, huddled in the cloying darkness, he could believe the walls were closing in on him, crushing him. He felt his breath growing erratic, and tried to calm it down.

He tried to think of James, who he'd be seeing in a few weeks, when his parents took Regulus to see the wonders of the world. They had long since given up on trying to imbue a sense of culture into their outcast son, but they still travelled for a full two months of the summer holidays, taking their youngest to many an exotic country.

Something echoed to the left, something moving. Sirius shivered despite himself, his heart hammering in his chest.

He focused on the Potters. Their Manor, just as big as Grimmauld Place, but significantly brighter. The walls their were all white, flowers growing in every spare space. The mood itself was always happy, loving. Mrs Potter, an older witch with rusty-grey hair and kind hazel eyes, would always greet him with a hug. She'd bake treats for him and James to get fat on, and then give them heavy-duty housework tasks to burn it off again. Mr Potter was tall and thin and his hair was still black even in his age, he was always interested in their antics, and he talked to Sirius like he talked to James - like family.

Something furry and cold brushed across Sirius' toes, which were bare and exposed. He shuddered and gasped in a breath as he felt his chest tighten. That was what bothered him down here, the anticipation. Waiting for something to happen.

That made him think of Moony. The full moon had been the night before. Maybe that was what put him on edge yesterday dinnertime, and he hadn't been able to resist the chance to argue with his mother about some triviality or other. And now he was here, trapped in a dark basement, just like Remus had been last night. Waiting.

He immediately felt terrible for comparing his self-inflicted confinement to Remus' necessary precautions. In fact, he felt terrible when ever he thought of Remus these days. It was getting a little tiresome, if he was honest. He had no reason to feel so bad about it.

' I liked someone, so I kissed them,' he said aloud. ' Nothing weird about that.'

No. A little voice in the back of his head replied. What makes it weird is that that someone is one of your best friends.

' Doesn't matter,' he mumbled.

What does, the voice drawled, is that he didn't want you. He stopped you.

Sirius didn't have an answer to that. He liked to believe that he was right, that Remus felt something too, that all those little gestures - like rubbing just right at that spot behind his ear - actually meant something. But he couldn't be sure.

Nobody wants you, the voice continued. And why would they. Why would he?

' I'll just have to talk to him about it,' Sirius decided, ignoring the voice - which he was starting to imagine looked like his Aunt Druella, glaring down her pointed little nose at him.

Rather suddenly, the door was flung open. Sirius shielded his eyes from the light assaulting his eyes and squinted up at the figure outlined in the doorframe. The movement aggravated the bruises on his ribs - his fathers reaction to the fight with his mother.

' Get up.'

Regulus' voice echoes off the stone walls, cold and detached.

' You're talking to yourself,' he drawls, ' and Mother would like to know if you've gone mad.'

' Only the same as the rest of the family, then,' Sirius muttered, dragging himself to his feet and stumbling towards the candle-lit corridor.

' I don't have any other brothers,' Regulus snarled, ' that are huddled in the basement mumbling about kissing boys.'

Bugger.

Okay, here we go.

Firstly, thank you everyone for the responses to the last chapter. I was a little worried about it, and I really appreciate your thoughts. Thank you very much!

Secondly, this is the first of a few Sirius-based chapters and they'll probably be a bit darker than of the others. What else could you expect, in Grimmauld Place! But, nevertheless, you have been warned.

And don't worry, Sirius hasn't gone mad. He's just talking to himself. I do it all the time… :D

Okay, maybe that doesn't help. Meh. Thank you for reading, reviews are appreciated very much. Danke shern!