Sirius marched swiftly down the all but desolate street, the cobblestones making an eerie clicking beneath his heels.
No one in their right mind would want to be out today, not even for Eeylops Owl Emporium's five galleon clearance. The wind seemed to have picked up even more than earlier and the sun had slunk away behind the clouds.
Maybe it would rain.
A skinny little cat crept out of the doorway to test the air only to hiss menacingly at Sirius as he passed by and scatter as a gust brought down a loose board from a window next door.
There were a few of these, several shops that had closed down rather recently with no prior warning, shops whose business had been perfectly fine, even booming. Now the buildings were shut up from the outside, a demonstration of sorts of the fear people had adopted.
Something crunched under Sirius's foot and he stopped, bending to scoop it up. It was a missing person's poster, the smiling face of a man blinking up at him. The name was obscured beyond recognition from the rain and mud in the street, but from the looks of the page, it had been there quite a while.
Posters of another nature, the images of the men and women who were responsible for the missing person's, hung around every corner, their contorted faces possessed by anger and malice.
Sirius forced himself not to look at them. Many of them he already knew, the name Black attached somewhere to their names and ancestry. The noble and most ancient house of Black could have made their family tree out of fading wanted posters.
Finally he approached the stoop of the Daily Prophet. Stepping inside, happy to be out of the wind once more if only for a little while, he approached the little desk at the front.
Only one other was already inside, a short, stocky man with a black hooded cloak cinched tightly around his shoulders. He browsed through some of the books and old copies of newspapers that lined the shelves, hardly glancing up as Sirius entered.
"How can I help you?" the wizard behind the desk said when he noticed his customer.
"I'm here for the Improper Use of Magic Office," he said dully, setting his department pass on the table. "I need some schedules please."
"Name, please."
"Black," he said, sliding the pass over. "But the order is probably under Jerome."
The man ducked out into the back and Sirius slid the papers back into his pocket. He tapped his knuckles along the wood impatiently, rather being in the warmth of the Leaky Cauldron than here.
The clerk returned with a thick stack of papers, bundled together and knotted securely with rope. He placed the package in a thin-sided box and expertly laced the whole thing up, handing it off to Sirius with a smile and a "have a nice day."
Sirius sidled out the door again, bracing himself against the wind, and barely registered the sound of someone else sneaking out of the shop behind him.
"Black, you say?" It was the man with the hooded cloak.
Sirius turned, knowing he shouldn't and unable to resist.
The wizard had two extraordinarily bushy eyebrows, grey streaked and wild to match his patchy hair poking out beneath his hood. He bent slightly as he struggled with his sleeve, pulling it up with shaking hands to reveal a black tattoo scrawled on his forearm - the body of a snake around a screaming scull.
He held it out to Sirius as if it were a bag of gold, a sacrificial offering.
"Have you heard the news?" he continued, a crazed grin spreading across his fat little face. "Have you heard that the Prewett's, those despicable blood traitors are dead? Dolohov led the group; they say they tried to fight, the bloody fools."
Sirius fought the urge to shout. Why was he standing here listening to this? This idiot really thought he was actually a member of the Black family. He probably didn't even know who Dolohov was, or the Prewett's for that matter. "No, I hadn't heard," he said calmly. "Thank you for letting me know. I'll make sure to tell their family when I see them tomorrow." He let his gaze meet the Death Eaters' and watched as realization came to the little man.
"You - you mean you're not…"
"You really shouldn't stereotype." His voice was deadly quiet. He knew he was walking on thin ice here, speaking this way with someone he knew for a fact wanted him dead, but part of him didn't care. He didn't believe the wizard had it in him to kill him. And apparently neither did the wizard. His fear crept up into his eyes and he spluttered, covering his arm again and spinning right there on his heel. The loud pop of the disapparation echoed down the street and Sirius turned back to the Cauldron.
He remained straight-faced, unwilling to let his emotions get the better of him despite how few people were out to see him.
It was stupid and he knew it, letting the moronic assumptions of some wannabe Death Eater convince him yet again of the ties to his family that refused to desist.
He was not one of them. He had never been one of them. He would not become one of them. His name could not define him. He would bear it, yes. But he would bear it as a reminder that he could not be completely shut out in the cold. He would not allow them escape his existence if he could not escape theirs.