Discussions with Paintings

Sirius lifted his shirt, and gently prodded the swollen purple skin he found there. It was as tender as it looked and his body jerked in protest, which rattled his aching chest, making him grimace, which in turn agitated the stinging skin of his face.

' Bloody hell,' he gasped, trying stay still.

He hadn't felt this bad since he was much younger. Walburga didn't usually strike him herself, which made it all the more disturbing when he recalled her actions of the last hour. Maybe she really was going completely mad, just as her father had. It wasn't uncommon in this family. Sirius shuffled backwards until his back hit a solid surface, then he rested his head against it and closed his eyes.

' Sulking is not becoming of your heritage.'

To most sixteen-year-olds, in most houses, hearing a strange voice in an empty room would be a very peculiar occurrence. Sirius Black, however, was not like most sixteen-year-olds and number twelve Grimmauld Place was definitely not like most houses.

' Bugger off, Phineas,' he mumbled, not opening his eyes.

' That is no way to address your elders, and betters,' the pompous voice replied.

' If I was better at that, I probably wouldn't be here would I?'

' You deserve it, I'm sure.'

' Undoubtedly,' Sirius replied, tiredly.

' This is why I always hated teaching…'

' Not because you were the most unpopular headmaster that school had ever seen, then?'

' You young people are constantly striving to be misunderstood. You shout and fight and make a ridiculous fuss about nothing, just so you have a reason to feel sorry for yourself.'

' So leave, if I bother you so much.'

' Oh, no,' he said, sounding smug. ' Watching you suffer for your ineptitude is rather more entertaining than retreating back to an empty Headmaster's office.'

Sirius sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. His head was pounding now, and he was beginning to feel a bit nauseous. At any other time he would have argued and offended his ancestors portrait until the little man stormed back to his other frame. But not today. Phineas, however, had other ideas.

' So,' he said, slowly. ' What did you do this time?'

' What, the great Phineas Nigellus Black can't be arsed to go downstairs and ask his fellow Grimmauld portraits?'

' I was rather hoping for a first-hand account.'

' You can ask that fat little hag with the skulls then, in the Drawing Room. She was watching avidly, and I'm sure she'll delight in a little malicious gossiping.'

Phineas didn't respond to the standoffishness in Sirius' voice, but there was a breif silence. Sirius finally lifted his head, propped his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands, rubbing his eyes furiously in a bid to clear his head - which was growing rapidly more fuzzy.

' When I was young we never sulked.'

' That was a long time ago,' Sirius mumbled. He was ignored.

' We respected our elders, our parents. And we were happy to do so.'

Sirius snorted at that. He had never, in sixteen years of being showboated about to obscure relatives, met a member of the Black family who could qualify as happy. Single-minded, yes, and definitely determined. Maybe proud to a degree of contentment. Satisfied, even, was a good word for life as a Black. But never happy. Once again, Sirius' interruption was overlooked.

' Your namesake, you know, was my elder brother. He died aged eight. Terrible case of Scrofungulus. We were devastated, of course, as any decent brother would be. A perfectly good Pureblood boy dead before his time. Tragic. But did we sulk? No. Did I curl up in a corner and weep? No. Did he…?'

' I'm surmising not, being dead and all.'

The painted man humphed loudly then stormed out of his frame, leaving only a muddy brown backdrop. He would only wander down to the Drawing Room, though, then he'd be back with a pronounced sneer and more snide remarks.

Sirius rubbed the heels of his palms across his face once more, then decided to try standing up. It was a wobbly, painful attempt, but he managed to pull himself into a crouch. Another deep breath and a heave which took more effort than it had any right to demand, and he was up.

If only for a moment, before he collapsed onto the bed.

He was breathing heavier than he should have been, and wondered briefly if his ribs were broken. His lungs were burning and it seemed like they could take in enough air. He resolved to catch his breath before trying to move again. When Phineas returned five minutes later, he hadn't moved.

' Hmm,' the painting said, a note of morbid amusement in the noise. ' Like that is it. Cavorting about with…'

Sirius didn't let him finish. His head was spinning, his whole body aching, and he was sick of the patronisation in everybody's words.

' Why do you all say cavorting, like it something you've never done? KISSING! Is it that hard to say? How about Snogging? Is that better? Ooh, and SHAGGING!' He giggled a little manically, bordering on full on hysterics, and pointed accusingly at the painting. ' I mean you had, what, four - five kids, right? You telling me you managed that without having yourself a good, proper fuck?'

The portrait grimaced, but Sirius only half registered it. He had opened the floodgates of his frustration, and now he couldn't force them shut until the torrent had passed.

' All your bloody parents fault, I suppose. With their sodding obsession with blood purity, and the only goal in life to produce a shitting Heir! And what did you end up with, hmm? A bunch of bloody inbreeds with seriously fucked up minds! Is that what you wanted your descendants to achieve? Enter a marriage completely void of intimacy - spawn out a few unloved children - go round the fucking twist - then die way too sodding young. Well, you must be proud, 'cause that's exactly what you bloody got!'

Sirius finally stopped to catch his breath. He had been pacing the room, but he couldn't remember getting off the bed. Rather than making him feel better, the ranting had increased his headache and the nausea was becoming unbearable. The walls felt like they were closing in. By this point, Phineas had trained his expression to decidedly indifferent.

' Are you quite finished?' he enquired politely, raising a sardonic eyebrow.

' Hmm,' Sirius mumbled, closing his eyes and covering his mouth for fear he might vomit. ' Don't feel well. Wish Remus was here. He'd know what to do.'

' Remus?' the painted man exclaimed, though Sirius couldn't fathom the surprise in his voice. Or the sudden malignancy. ' Remus Lupin?'

' How many other Remuses are there in Gryffindor.'

' Hmm,' Phineas said, that horrid informed smugness back in his tone. ' I knew the situation was dire, bit I never imagined it would involve bestiality as well. I'd like to say I expected better of you but, if I'm honest, I've never been sure.'

Sirius didn't catch the last remark, having frozen at 'bestiality'. He spun to face the portrait so quickly he nearly pitched over, feeling the colour drain from his face.

' You know about…'

He hesitated. He didn't know how much to say in case he was mistaken. The snooty little man didn't leave him to dwell on that hope.

' Of course I do. As you so kindly pointed out earlier, I was a Headmaster of our Esteemed School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I was present when Professor Dumbledore wrote the letter to request the attendance of your filthy little Half-breed friend. I tried to dissuade him, in fact, but that man is nothing if not eccentric to a fault.'

' Oh,' Sirius breathed. Then the panic rose up in place of the nausea. ' You can't - they can't - tell them - can't know - mustn't… Oh God. Oh. God.'

' How very unbecoming,' Phineas replied. Then added, half heartedly, ' I'm not going to tell them anything.'

Taking a long, slow breath it felt like he had been waiting years for, Sirius whispered, ' Thank you.'

Phineas snorted. ' It is not for you, my pathetic relative. I am bound to serve the current Headmaster of Hogwarts and, as such, have been forbidden to divulge that information to anybody, family or no. But this knowledge shall serve as a source of infinite humour for myself for many years, I assure you.'

' You are a right insufferable little bastard, you know,' Sirius said, but he was feeling a little better after that instance of utter panic.

' What was it, you said. "So leave, if I bother you so much."'

Sirius paused for a moment, a rush of very sudden - and very brash - ideas in his head, before he said, ' You know what, Phineas. You are exactly right.'

' Why, yes. I do have a tendency to be,' he said, frowning. ' But… Might I ask what I am right about, in this instance?'

' Leaving,' Sirius said, simply.

The fog in his head was clearing somewhat now that he had something to focus on. His wand was in his bedroom, on the uppermost floor of the house, along with his trunk and all of his school things. If he could get up there, he could summon his broom from the basement. If only he could get out of this room.

He pressed his hand to the wood of the door, which he knew hadn't been silenced. More importantly he knew, as he hand made contact, that it wasn't Imperturbable Charmed.

' Well that's good,' he mumbled to himself.

' It is still locked, in case you had forgotten,' Phineas offered, helpfully. ' And you are wand-less.'

' So I am,' Sirius replied almost cheerfully, his mood improving by the minute.

Now he just had to hope he still had what he needed in his pockets. He rummaged about in his outer robes for a few minutes, finding only useless bits of rubbish - A few faulty dung bombs from the journey home, a handkerchief crusty with a questionable substance and a Muggle padlock with no key.

' What are you doing?' The painting asked, as Sirius tried his inside pockets instead, injecting as much disdain into the words as possible.

' Trying to find -' He threw some empty chocolate frog wrappers to the floor. '- know it's here somewhere -' he felt his eyebrows furrow as he switched pockets, then grinned and exclaimed, ' Ah! Here we go!'

' What, in the name of Salazar Slytherin, are you going to do with that tiny bit of metal?'

' This, my good man, is a bobby pin. Something Muggle girls use to pin their hair back, or some such rubbish.'

' I'm sure it is vitally important for you not to have hair in your eyes.'

' Oh, no. That isn't what I use them for.'

Without offering further explanation Sirius crouched by the door, ignoring the painful twinge of his ribs, and inserted the pin into the lock. He fiddled for a few moments, but it didn't feel right without James hurrying him along in the background, so he spoke.

' Wonderful thing about you supremacist purebloods. You always underestimate Muggles. As such, that banshee is have the misfortune of calling my mother has protected this lock against magical tampering - rather well, I have to say. If I had used Alohomora, I'd probably be unconscious on the floor.'

' And you think Muggle tricks will work?'

' This is a nice little Muggle trick Peter taught me, and if I just -' he gave the pin a final twist and the lock gave a satisfying click '- Oh yes, there we are.'

He tried the door, and it swung open without protest. Sirius raised his eyebrow in a way that clearly said I told you so before he left the disgruntled looking painting in the room alone.

Sirius slowly, and as quietly as he could, padded up the stairs to his bedroom. He could hear his mother shouting at a house-elf several floors down, and he knew his father wouldn't be back yet. Regulus was in his own room, with the door tightly closed, and Sirius held his breath as he passed it, just in case.

He eased the heavy door of his bedroom open, and stepped inside before closing it just as gently. Fortunately, he hadn't unpacked any of his school things and his trunk stood packed and ready by his bed. He closed his eyes and willed his head to stop pounding, while he thought.

' No,' he told himself. ' Bugger the thinking, just need to get out.'

He grabbed his wand from the bedside table, scanned the room one last time for anything he might need. He paused for a moment on the one magical photograph in the room - the Marauders. It was his only picture of them, but he had used a Permanent Sticking Charm to stop him family taking it down while he was at school.

' I'll just get another one,' he said, then raised his wand, ' accio broom.'

He vaguely registered an alarm beeping loudly from the kitchen. One of his Father's precautions, no doubt. Now he couldn't hesitate. He levitated his trunk to the window, which he flung open by hand. His broom, the latest Cleansweep, which had been sorely disused since his Quidditch ban, hovered obediently outside.

He clambered out of the window, ignoring the flaring pains as he moved quickly. As he righted himself into position he heard heavy footfalls in the hallway, then the bedroom door slammed open. He didn't turn to see who it was.

Not entirely sure where he was going, he just flew.

At first, the feeling of the air rushing by made him feel pretty good. He was free. It'd taken him five years to pluck up the courage to do it, but he'd gotten out. He'd be of age in a few months, and then he could do whatever he wanted.

Then the toll of flying began to weigh him down. His body was screaming in discomfort, his ribs aching painfully in protest. His fingers were numb in the cool wind, and his grip was slackening. At this rate, he wouldn't make it to seventeen.

Without really thinking about it, he descended. It was sloppy, and he fell off the broom a few feet before he touched the ground.

He was in a field. Or a garden. A big one. There was a house. Also big. And oddly familiar.

He tried to sit up, and get a better look. The security light by the door flickered to life, and the silhouettes of two people came out. He could hear voices. Someone asked him a question.

He opened his mouth to answer, but everything went black.

I am very sorry for the wait for this chapter. I wrote it out, but wasn't happy with it, so I've kept tweaking it. I'm still not sure, but it'll do. Hopefully it isn't too bad.

Yes, I love Phineas Nigellus. Brilliant character, with far to little book-time. Then again, I love most of the Blacks, twisted as they are.

I have the next chapter half written already, and I am a lot happier with it, so it should be up soon.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed, and thank you for reading. Feedback is always appreciated, let me know if this chapter wasn't a complete disappointment. Danke!