James and Sirius are away during the full moon, with Pureblood rituals and such so Remus spends the night in the cellar under his house where he always does when his friends aren't here.

Remus is perfectly, painfully aware when his body jerks and shudders, folding back into himself.

It was a bad night.

He's lying on the ground naked and the night is nice and warm with a gentle breeze just slipping past the cracks under the chained door. He lies there for a very long time.

He imagines Padfoot is snuffling around somewhere behind him for the blanket they bring. Prongs is already gone for a moment to bring a potion for the pain – and they'll all sarcastically pretend that James kissing it better works instead.

Remus gets up, scrubs dried blood off his face, holds his broken arm to his chest and starts the long process of unchaining the door. There are wards around the cellar but his dad is always wary. Remus is just happy the man stopped locking it from the outside so he doesn't have to wait in the dark and in pain for someone to come and get him.

Remus staggers out, limps back inside to an empty house because his parents are away, they're always away on full moons – dad says mum can't bare to watch anymore, that it's hurting her. Remus gets to his room, pulls a blanket around his shoulders and sits on a chair in front of the window for a while, stares out at a still dark early morning.

Remus imagines Harry will come down with their stuff and they'll get washed up quickly in the girl's bathroom just outside the Chamber of Secrets. Remus will still feel like shit but Sirius will make a plate for breakfast and shove it in front of him. James will write down two sets of notes for at least the first three classed that day while Remus gets his brain back online. Harry will meet them in breaks, slip Remus chocolate on the sly so the other two don't steal it from him.

Remus tips his head back against the chair and tells himself to get over it. This has been happening since before he could remember, why is he still being so fucking dramatic.

He gets up and takes the potions that never seems to work well enough. Has a shower, dresses himself and grabs the usual sling for his arm. He makes some food, doesn't feel hungry.

Remus says fuck it and goes to James' house because he wants a hug right now.

Voldemort sits cross-legged on the floor across from Tom, the other horcruxes scattered around them. The room is empty but inked over with ritual circles that glow and blaze as they pass their magic between each other, through the other pieces.

It builds and fractures off, more rings, concentric circles or bisecting lines. It's sums and products of sevens that are cyclical and they pour, flood past in carefully controlled rivers of budding lights.

Tom closes his eyes to concentrate, brow furrowed, but Voldemort watches the lights, watches it bleed and split into streams. They loop through sevens, blinding even in the brightness of the large windows letting in daylight.

They can feel it grow stronger, ever greater as they loop. Seven minds working in tandem, perfect magical matches.

Sirius stands in the carved wooden ritual circle, an afternoon sun barely slitting through the dirty coloured glass of the one small window. The family stand around him but he doesn't look up. He's past that now, past Andromeda's pitying gaze, Narcissa's cold eyes, Regulus' stares when he thinks Sirius can't see him.

Sirius wonders if his past self did this, if he completed the magical majority ritual as the heir. Maybe they disowned the other version before he could. Maybe he ran before they could force him into it, Sirius isn't sure.

Orion has been talking to Sirius more lately, hardly important but not empty nothings either when they pass each other in the cold, narrow halls. Short, awkward sentences which is so odd that sometimes Sirius just stares at him, looking for signs of Polyjuice potion.

Orion asked a question about glamour wards several days after Sirius arrived back from Hogwarts, seemed interested as Sirius explained in stilted sentences about a prank to turn everyone's uniform to Gryffindor. Orion came back a few days later, asked about what else Sirius has been doing with runic illusions. Sometimes they talk now.

Orion had never been a father, he had been a patriarch and those are two very different things. Sirius had never blamed him for keeping his distance because at least it was better than Walberga's furious violence, but neither did Sirius ever want a proper father so this, coming out of left field, is making him cautious.

Walberga is already putting pressure on Regulus to take over, she's not going to tolerate Sirius as the heir and Sirius would spit in her face anyway if she tried to make him. It's only a matter of time until he's disowned and he already moved most of his stuff into James' room, the only reason he's still here is for Regulus, to take the attention off his little brother as always.

But Orion said something last week to Walberga, there was shouting and screaming and Sirius just threw up a silencing charm without care. He probably should have listened because now he's here and he's not sure he wants to be. The ritual is just one more Black thing, Dark magic that they designed and it'll be a very pointed statement about Sirius belonging to the family.

But he would love to take the power, to be able to do more, be more, steal from this disgusting family and give it to James, use it for Remus, help Harry with whatever he needs.

So does he curse them and stand his ground, or does he suffer now for spiteful profit? Is this going to be him running, or will he dig deep and then tear his way out?

Walberga paces around and stops in front of him, Sirius' view blotted out by her dress. She holds the jewelled dagger like a threat, sneers down at him like she's waiting for him to fight it so they can stop this joke. Sirius doesn't want to be here, Walberga doesn't either.

And so Sirius smiles. He gracefully takes a knee. Stares up at her like it's a challenge and it is. Sirius isn't going to back down first, he's going to take all this magic from the Black family and she can fuck right off.

Walberga yanks his head back by a fistful of his hair and slits his throat.

Sirius gurgles out a laugh, gags on blood, spits it out onto her clothes. Never before has Sirius been so certain that he'll be the one to kill her.

He collapses onto his hands and knees, choking and drowning as the rest of the family files out of the ritual room. It'll take a while after all, and they have better things to do.