Sirius spent the rest of Thursday and almost all of Friday in bed. By the time he had regained consciousness, the bones in his arm and leg had regrown enough that he could limp carefully to the bathroom or grab the water goblet off his bedside table, but the regrowing process wasn't fully complete. His limbs ached terribly, and, on top of that, whatever balm they'd given him for the bruising hardly seemed to have an effect. It seemed like the dark-blue-to-black splotches covering his body went bone deep. He felt like he'd been hit with a Bludger and fallen a hundred feet before splattering on the ground.

Or like he'd been tortured and tossed through the Floo system like a rag doll.

On the plus side, Uncle Alphard assured him that, even if he was a bit concussed, he wasn't going to be permanently brain damaged. Or at least not any more than kids who grew up in the Black family usually ended up being.

Dolohov and Uncle Alphard were mostly absent during his recovery. Dolohov coached several of the competitors in the All-England Wizarding Dueling Competition that was scheduled to begin on Boxing Day, so he had a full schedule. Alphard was preparing a case that he was going to argue in front of the Wizengamot after the New Year, and he assured Sirius that he couldn't take the day off to sit with him.

Sirius was okay with being left alone. It allowed him more time to feel sorry for himself without needing to constantly reassure his uncle and quasi-uncle that he wasn't going to fling himself off the nearest tower as soon as he had the opportunity.

On Friday night, Alphard came to drop off new clothes for Sirius, as he had left Grimmauld Place with only what he'd been wearing, and to eat dinner with him. His uncle told him that his mother had gotten increasingly desperate to find him, even going so far as to show back up at the Mayfair house to beg for her brother's help. The only reason she knew that Sirius was not dead in a ditch somewhere was that he did not have a death date on the family tapestry. However, she was becoming ever more convinced that he had run away from home for good and was not even going to return to Hogwarts. More importantly, Orion was scheduled to arrive home any day, and she was convinced that once he found out he would either kill her or, worse, divorce her.

Sirius thought either or both outcomes would serve her right.

Early Saturday afternoon, Dolohov showed up sans his usual utilitarian black robes. For the first time, Sirius got a good look at his biceps straining against his sleeves and the way his well-worn trousers clung to his legs, and he understood the attraction. Of course, it didn't hurt that Dolohov had relaxed the normally severe lines of his face into something as close to pleasant as he probably ever got. Sirius had always vaguely considered the man as having emerged fully formed in dueling robes with a wand in his hand and a cruel sneer twisting his mouth, so it was more than a little weird both to be in the man's childhood home (in his childhood bed) and to see him in informal clothes for the first time.

He realized that he had been staring for too long without saying anything when one of Dolohov's eyebrows rose in question.

"You were cute," Sirius said by way of deflection. He pointed towards the bedside table at a particularly hilarious picture of a young, grinning Dolohov, missing his two front teeth and clutching a wriggling Crup to his chest as it tried desperately to escape. "What happened?"

Dolohov glowered and looked like he might have taken a swipe at Sirius had he not been afraid that any sort of violence would cause Sirius to relapse into the numb, unresponsive state he had been in right after he had woken up. He settled for rolling his eyes and shrugged his shoulder off the doorjamb to push himself upright.

"Insufferable brat. Get up. I want to show you something."

Sirius barely had time to stuff his feet into his favorite pair of boots (which, thankfully, he had been wearing when he had flung himself into the fireplace at Grimmauld Place) and throw a robe on over his boxer shorts before Dolohov was ushering him through the small, shabby kitchen and out the back door. There was no garden to speak of; unmanicured grass sloped directly away from the house into rolling hills sprinkled with thickets of trees. Sirius could make out a tiny village situated in a valley perhaps two miles away.

"My father always hated that he could see the Muggle village from here," Dolohov told him.

From the way he was glaring at the distant roofs, Sirius figured his opinion wasn't too far off from his father's.

They set off across the lawn at a brisk pace. Dolohov led him past one copse of trees that seemed perfectly adequate to Sirius, whose barely healed leg ached from the knee down from the effort of trudging down the hill, and into a second wooded area that was a good fifty yards further from the house. Most of the trees weren't very large, but they had scraggly branches that seemed determined to snag Sirius's hair and clothing at every opportunity. Dolohov didn't seem to have that problem, although Sirius couldn't tell whether it was from experience traversing through them, some form of tree-repelling charm he wasn't aware of, or perhaps just that the clearly homicidal aura that permeated Dolohov's being made even the trees think twice.

Sirius finally stumbled over a fallen tree limb and into a largish clearing, where he found Dolohov glaring at the ground as if it had personally offended him.

"That's where I buried my father after I killed him," Dolohov announced abruptly, no emotion coloring his tone except for bitterness.

Sirius felt his eyebrows shoot up his forehead of their own accord, but he didn't say anything. Mostly because he had no idea what to say.

Dolohov uncrossed one arm from his burly chest and pointed to another patch of dirt a few feet away. "And that's where I buried my mother and sister after I went back to the house and they realized what I'd done and tried to call the Aurors on me. It's dreadful hard work, digging a grave the Muggle way, even a shallow one, but I couldn't use magic to get rid of the bodies. The Trace would have alerted the Ministry, because there were no adult wizards around. None living anyway."

He turned then to look at Sirius, and the expression on his face softened. By which Sirius meant that the gleam in his eyes toned down from murderous to merely enraged.

"I was sixteen. It was the middle of August. Another couple of weeks and I would have been back at Hogwarts, but I was young and thought it was impossible to wait two weeks. I arranged for my boyfriend to come visit, because I thought we would be able to hide out here without being found. So obviously my father caught us here, in this clearing. He waited until Oliver was gone before he confronted me, of course. He wouldn't have risked harming him or offending his family—one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, you see—even though he'd just witnessed Ollie getting fucked on all fours in the dirt. That part still disgusts me."

Sirius couldn't help the incredulous laugh that escaped his throat. "That you did it in the dirt?"

Dolohov shot him an exasperated glare. "No, brat, that my father hid in the trees watching us shag for Merlin knows how long. That he saw what Ollie looked like, heard what he sounded like... that he could probably hear the things we said to each other. All of that was private."

He fell silent and let his eyes linger on someplace behind Sirius, which Sirius could only presume must have been where he'd shagged this Oliver bloke. A shiver ran down Sirius's spine just thinking about how his grandfather had watched him kiss Rabastan and get sucked off by him. He didn't think that his grandfather witnessing it in person would have been quite as big a violation as breaking into his mind to see Sirius's memories of it, but it would have been bad enough.

At last, when he couldn't stand the silence or his bursting curiosity any longer, he said, "I thought you and Alphard had been together forever."

Dolohov drew in a breath and tore his eyes away from whatever he'd been looking at to meet Sirius's inquiring gaze. "No. What made you think that? We've only been together for five years, six next April."

"Oh," replied Sirius dumbly. He couldn't imagine the two of them apart. In his surprise he didn't think before adding, "But he said he'd been dreaming about getting into your bed since you were kids."

"Really?" A painful look passed across the dueling instructor's face but quickly melted back into his usual flinty expression. "We are getting off track. I brought you out here because I want you to know that I understand. My father tried to kill me for fucking boys. I barely got out of the way in time... I could feel the Killing Curse whiz right past me. If he hadn't wanted me to know why he was killing me, if he had just taken me by surprise without announcing himself. I'd have been dead. He always did talk too much."

"My grandfather didn't try to kill me."

"Oh, and does it make you feel better that he just Crucioed you instead?" asked Dolohov, bluntly but not exactly unkindly.

"I..." Sirius swallowed down the bile in his throat. "No."

"Nor should it," the other man stated. He approached Sirius cautiously, as if he were a newborn unicorn, and slowly reached out to wrap firm fingers around his shoulder. "I won't let them do anything to you if I can help it."

Sirius's lips parted, but he couldn't think of anything to say in response to that.

After a few moments, Dolohov told him, "Alphard wants me to kill Arcturus for what he did. He's sure that Orion is going to kill your mother himself when he finds out and spare me the trouble of doing it, but he won't kill his own father because there's old magic in place keeping the heir from murdering the lord."

"Would you kill him for me?" Sirius couldn't help but wonder. "If I asked?"

He found himself on the receiving end of a considering stare, those dark eyes seeming to search him for something, although Sirius had no idea what it might be.

Eventually, Dolohov said, "Yes, if you asked, but I think what you really want is to do it yourself."

Sirius inhaled deeply through his nose and closed his eyes against the onslaught of images. How would he do it? The Killing Curse seemed too easy, too fleeting and painless, to make up for the humiliation and emotional pain and physical agony his grandfather had put him through. And for the way the man had abandoned him and made him feel unworthy for over a year before he'd even found out about Sirius's love life. However, the thought of anything slow and lingering, of the crunch of Arcturus's bones or the spray of his blood, made Sirius almost physically ill. Damn it, he still loved his grandfather despite everything. And his mother... Oh Merlin, his chest ached to think of the way his mother had betrayed him, and of how much he still wanted to go crawling back and beg her to look at him again the way she used to before she found out.

"Besides," Dolohov broke into his reverie, sounding amused, "if anyone is going to do your dirty work for you, shouldn't it be Lestrange? I doubt anything would thrill him more than you asking him to murder someone for you."

Sirius's hand flashed out to grab the man's robes in an iron grip, as his eyes flew open and met Dolohov's confused look.

"Rabastan?" he croaked, his voice breaking on the name. "You didn't tell him, did you?"

Dolohov blinked at him, his thick eyebrows creasing in the middle. "No. We thought you'd tell him, and that if you haven't yet it's just because you know he really will kill your grandfather if he gets a look at you before those bruises have healed. I can't say whether his father told him anything."

Sirius let out the breath he'd been holding, and his body seemed to collapse in on itself along with it. They didn't know. Alphard and Dolohov had seen the aftermath, but Sirius had never told them what had happened with Bellatrix and Rabastan and the lot. Dolohov used his grip on Sirius's arm to keep him upright and to pull him forward, until Sirius found his face buried in the man's shoulder as he let his weight sag against him.

They didn't know.

"He broke up with me," he managed to choke out. His voice didn't sound like his own, and he almost stopped speaking when he felt Dolohov's body go tense. But Sirius found that saying the words aloud had opened the floodgates, and he had to keep going. "Bellatrix and Narcissa and Mrs. Lestrange, they threatened him, so he broke up with me because he needs their money and apparently I'm too young to know what I want anyway."

"You are too young for him," said Dolohov, but when Sirius's body jerked he wrapped his free arm around his back to keep him in place. Then his gruff voice rumbled right next to Sirius's ear, softer this time, "Still, you're old enough to know what you want—hell, you're old enough that you'd have been betrothed ten times over if your mother didn't know you're deadly serious about sabotaging any engagement she tries to set up.… If you tell Lestrange what happened, I'm sure he'll come running."

"Oh, what, so he can take me back because he feels sorry for me?" Sirius renewed his struggle against Dolohov's embrace. "Maybe he'll finally fuck me if I throw myself at him again. And a pity fuck would just be my dream come true."

Dolohov scoffed. "Trust me when I say that no one who fucks you will ever be doing it out of pity."

"Why, do you want to have a go?" Sirius accused before he thought better of it. "Is that why you're being so nice, because you want to trade up for a newer model?"

The Death Eater's arm tightened uncomfortably around Sirius's waist.

"I understand that you're just lashing out because you're upset, but if you ever repeat that shit I will wash your mouth out with soap. The Muggle way," he clarified. Sirius snuffled into his shoulder, highly embarrassed to get tears and snot on Dolohov's robes but far more ashamed of what he had said. He couldn't make himself pull away and look the man in the face. Dolohov let out another heavy breath. "You are too smart for your own good, more skilled with a wand than some wizards twice your age, and, on top of that, you're insanely good looking. You will never have to settle for pity, or have to settle at all."

Sirius let out a humorless laugh. "Yeah, well, apparently none of that is enough."

"Sirius... Lestrange is an idiot. Part self-sacrificing savior and part condescending asshole, as far as I can tell from what you said, but one hundred percent idiot. He is going to come crawling back on his hands and knees sooner rather than later, and not out of pity, I guarantee you."

With great effort, Sirius hoisted himself up and shoved away from Dolohov's supportive frame, bringing one hand up to banish any lingering tears that may have threatened to fall from his eyes. He still felt physically and emotionally battered, but for the first time since the attack he reconstructed his Occlumency shields and his cool demeanor through sheer force of will and with every shred of pride he had left. Dolohov watched the process intently, and as Sirius felt the last piece of his armor clink into place, he saw the man frown.

"What?" he demanded, tossing his hair out of his face.

He realized suddenly that he was the same as height as Dolohov now. He was nowhere near as broad or muscular yet, of course, but he was still surprised. Dolohov had always seemed so enormous.

"I just recognize that look," the man replied, tilting his head a bit as he studied Sirius's face. "The Lestrange boy is in love with you. He will realize his mistake sooner or later, but when he comes begging you to take him back, no matter what he says or how much you'll want to, you won't."

Sirius felt his stomach clench and his chest ache, but he banished those feelings to the blackest corner of his heart and let his mouth curl into a sneer. He couldn't bring himself to answer aloud.

The last streaks of sunlight were beginning to fade from the sky when Dolohov and Sirius Side-Aong Apparated onto the path outside Hogwarts' gates. As soon as he reappeared on solid ground, Sirius's boots sank into the thick mud with a squelch. As if that weren't unpleasant enough, almost the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was his mother glaring at him from a few feet away. Dolohov, Alphard, and Sirius had all predicted that she would be there, even though Arcturus had almost certainly forbidden her from coming, because she was pathologically unable to display either patience or subtlety. But it was still a bit of a jolt to Sirius's system to lay eyes on her.

"YOU!" she shrieked at Dolohov when she saw them appear, then turned a blazing glare onto Sirius. "You ran away to him?"

Sirius was doing his very best not to retch just at the sight of her and could not immediately think of how to answer.

Dolohov took a step closer to him and placed his arm around Sirius's shoulders, which was both an act of comfort to Sirius and a warning to his mother. "Who else would the boy have run to? You could have simply ordered any of his friends' parents to hand him over if he had gone to them."

Her face scrunched up into an even uglier expression, which Sirius thought was sort of impressive given how beautiful she was. "Why would you protect him? You haven't been his dueling instructor for well over a year!"

Dolohov shrugged nonchalantly and turned his shining black eyes onto the figure emerging out of the shadow of the trees behind her. Arcturus had presumably followed his daughter-in-law to Hogsmeade to make sure she didn't do anything too stupid.

"I'm sure he just hoped that I wouldn't take kindly to a grown witch and wizard torturing a teenager over liking other boys, seeing as I'm gay."

There was a sharp intake of breath, and almost as one the four of them looked over to see Professor McGonagall emerging from the small gatehouse next to the Hogwarts gates. Sirius sank even further into Dolohov's side at the abject humiliation of having his head of house witness this scene. And hear that. However, the professor's appearance did have the desirable effect of making his grandfather's mouth snap shut before he could respond and of forestalling whatever tirade Walburga was clearly prepared to go on.

Dolohov grinned menacingly but managed to keep all but a hint of sarcasm out of his voice. "McGonagall. What a treat."

"Dolohov. What a surprise to see you here," she said through a severe frown as she came to stop near him, glaring all the while at Arcturus and Walburga.

Walburga, for her part, seemed to have recovered sufficiently from the shock of being overheard.

"Sirius is not..." she paused, clearly struggling to find the words, until she managed to grit out, "a pervert. He will remember what is right. He will remember who he is."

"Oh, and did you think that violating his mind and torturing him would jog his memory?" asked Dolohov, his voice deceptively friendly.

Professor McGonagall's nostrils flared and her already pale face went alarmingly white.

Walburga managed to screech out a single syllable before Arcturus's hand came down so hard on her shoulder that even she was startled into silence. He straightened himself up to his full height and stared at them as if he were disappointed and more than a little offended that they would accuse him of doing exactly what he had done.

In what Sirius could only assume was his most supercilious tone, although it had never been directed at him personally before, Arcturus declared, "How we handle discipline in our own home does not concern you. You may not agree with how we choose to handle Sirius, but I assure you that we have not broken any laws."—He stared straight at Sirius as he said this, as if daring him to contradict that statement. Sirius did not.—"You, on the other hand, should have returned Sirius where he belongs the moment he appeared. In keeping him, you kidnapped the heir to a Noble and Most Ancient House."

Dolohov laughed, loudly. "He fell out of my fireplace and landed on his face in the middle of the lords of half a dozen Noble or Ancient Houses. I have each of their memories in both written and Pensieve form, as well as extensive notes on the healing Sirius received. Which, I may add, I paid for. So don't threaten me."

That was news to Sirius. He wondered if it were true. It wouldn't surprise him, given that Uncle Alphard was a law wizard and would have been keen to preserve such evidence. Dolohov, of course, would have been keen to persuade the others to hand over their memories.

Grandfather Arcturus reared back as if he had been punched square in the nose. "Now listen here—"

"No," snapped Dolohov, "you listen to me. As far as I'm concerned, you have no authority over the boy, as you aren't his parent, and his mother"—he spat out the word as if it angered him merely to say it—"barely deserves that title. From this point forward, I will only speak to Sirius's father about him. In fact, nothing would please me more than if I never saw you again," continued Dolohov, putting a peculiar emphasis on his last words. He glanced down significantly at his left forearm where both Sirius and Arcturus knew his Dark Mark was. "And others feel the same."

It was clear to Sirius from his grandfather's utter silence that he had understood the threat perfectly: Dolohov would have the full support of the Dark Lord and the other Death Eaters if he killed Arcturus, leaving Orion to take over House Black and their coveted seat on the Wizengamot and even more highly desirable vaults full of gold.

Professor McGonagall, who had been watching the confrontation with rapt attention and by that point had recovered most of her color, finally stepped between the two groups. If she had understood the darker meaning behind Dolohov's words, she gave no sign of it.

"Well, if you are all quite finished," she said in the most strident tone Sirius had ever heard her use, "I think it is past time for me to see Mr. Black back to the castle."

It was clear that both Arcturus and Walburga had a lot more to say and were not the least bit appreciative of being ordered around by a school mistress, of all people. Judging by the expression on her face, Walburga was fully prepared to tell McGonagall exactly where she could stick her suggestion and very possibly to drag Sirius away kicking and screaming, but Arcturus's cooler head prevailed. His long fingers visibly dug even deeper into the flesh of his daughter-in-law's shoulder as he turned a glacial stare on Dolohov, ignoring McGonagall and Sirius completely.

"Do not think this is the end of our… discussion," his cold voice sliced through the thick winter air, the strain and anger barely detectable even to his grandson.

Dolohov grinned a truly fearsome grin. "I look forward to it."

Sirius could imagine that the man really did look forward to Arcturus trying to confront him, especially if it were to happen in a slightly more private setting than a road in full view of a Hogwarts professor. He doubted his grandfather was stupid enough to meet with Dolohov in private, though. He closed his eyes and let himself lean into the unyielding planes of Dolohov's body, a sort of childish hope that if he didn't have to watch his family walk away then it wouldn't be real, and thought about the man's offer to kill his grandfather for him if he asked.

There were two cracks as his grandfather and mother Disapparated—both of them noticeably louder than usual, no doubt due to their heightened emotions—and then Sirius felt Dolohov's heavy arm lift from around him. He reluctantly opened his eyes and spent a moment surveying the empty road in front of him before he finally turned to meet the man's dark eyes, which were brimming with anger and some other emotion Sirius couldn't readily identify.

"You remember what I told you, brat," he ordered in the same gruff voice he used during their dueling lessons, which seemed wildly at odds with the sentiment behind his words. "You're one of mine now."

Sirius swallowed the lump in his throat but found himself still unable to speak. He settled for nodding and offering whatever weak imitation of a smile he could muster.

"Good lad." Dolohov clapped him hard on the shoulder and took a step back, not acknowledging Professor McGonagall at all before he spun on his heel and disappeared with a muted crack.

Sirius clenched his teeth and squared his shoulders, as if standing straight and proud at his full height could somehow shield him from the embarrassment or the way the professor was openly assessing him. Fortunately, she seemed to need time to decide what to say to him, just like Sirius needed time to steel himself to hear whatever it was she had to say, so they managed to make it through the gates and halfway back to the castle without speaking a word to each other.

When it finally came, McGonagall seemed to have decided that directness was better than beating around the bush. "Mr. Black," she began, only a barely noticeable waver in her voice, "I hope you understand that I will have to report what I heard to the Ministry."

Sirius let out a choking sound that may have been a laugh if the lump in his throat weren't so enormous. "To what end? We both know that no one is going to investigate my family."

"Be that as it may," she replied, her voice rising with indignation, "it is my duty to look after my students, and part of that duty includes reporting potential crimes or abuse against them to the proper authorities."

Sirius stopped walking. Professor McGonagall took two more steps before she realized he wasn't next to her anymore and turned to look at him. The expression on his face seemed to stop short whatever reprimand she'd been planning to give him.

"Mr. Black…"

Sirius narrowed his eyes at her, considering. "You never seemed to care all that much about looking after me when the rest of Gryffindor House were ostracizing me in first year, or when James was openly pranking me or stealing my things or calling me evil."

"Mr. Black—"

"Or last week when pretty much the whole school was whispering about me and making things up," he continued, heedless of her attempts to intervene.

Professor McGonagall's face had taken on a pinched, severe expression by that point. "Black, that's enough!"

"But now, when the only possible outcome of your intervention is to make things even worse for me, now you can't just let it go?"

Her nostrils flared and her forehead scrunched even further together in the middle, and for the space of five or six heartbeats it seemed like Sirius may have offended her too much for her to figure out how to respond. Then, eyes glittering with what may have been anger or sympathy or anything in between, she took a step closer to him.

"Mr. Black… Sirius… You must realize that the Department of Magical Law Enforcement could help you."

"No. No, I don't see that at all." Sirius took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down, but he failed spectacularly. "All I know is that if you drag the Aurors into this, then it's only a matter of time before the front page of the Prophet announces that Sirius Black likes to fuck men, and then I'll be disowned and penniless and the entire world will really have something to whisper about when I walk by."

There were any number of ways she could have responded to that, and Sirius was honestly not sure which way it would be. Maybe she would give him even more detention than he already had or kick him off the Quidditch team for so blatantly challenging her. In the end, though, he needn't have worried, because all she did was nod sharply, once, and turn to continue the trek up to the castle. Sirius could only hope that meant she had agreed not to say anything, but there wasn't anything else he could say to convince her, so he didn't bother asking.

It would be what it would be.

Sirius finally made his way back to the Gryffindor common room, after an uneventful meeting in Professor McGonagall's office where she reminded him of the remaining conditions of his punishment and neither of them mentioned what had happened at the Hogwarts gates. Sirius thought that he had relaxed once the massive wooden doors to the castle had closed behind him; his family couldn't touch him so long as he was at Hogwarts. But as it happened, he didn't fully shake off the tension in his body until he sank into the well-worn corner of the sofa in front of the fireplace that he had long since claimed as his own, with James wedged into the other corner with his legs crossed underneath him in a way that made Sirius's knees ache just to see, and with Remus and Peter in the mismatched chairs across from them.

He hadn't known exactly what sort of greeting to expect—it wasn't like he expected his friends to greet him at the portrait hole for a group hug—but he supposed he had expected more of a to-do than James's chirped hello and Remus's quick glance over the top of his Arithmancy textbook and Peter's immediate request for help with the Charms essay he was writing.

This felt right, though. Normal. Like nothing had changed.

He slouched back against the sagging back cushion and relaxed for the first time in a week, or for maybe even longer, and tossed a pillow at James's head.

"So, what did I miss?"

"Not much," replied James as he lobbed the pillow back in Sirius's direction. "I've been coming up with a strategy to win more points against Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff so that we can narrow the gap with Slytherin for the Quidditch Cup."

Remus and Peter both groaned in a way that suggested James must have been going on about this incessantly while Sirius was gone.

Sirius grinned. "Oh yeah?"

James immediately launched into an explanation of his ideas. Most were so overly complicated that Sirius thought a professional team would have trouble trying to implement them, but only one thing his friend said caught Sirius's attention.

"Of course, this all depends on Vance deciding to stay with the team. I haven't been able to get a straight answer from her."

Remus's head emerged from behind the relative safety of his textbook, his most disapproving frown on his face. "She just buried her parents, James. The last thing she needs is you pestering her about quidditch."

"I'm not trying to be insensitive," James defended himself, clearly offended at any implication otherwise. Then he promptly added, "But if she doesn't want to play anymore then we need to start preparing."

"Vance is back?" Sirius prodded them, though it was obvious from the conversation that she was.

"She got back just before classes on Monday," explained Remus, his amber eyes now focused on Sirius. "She's been in all of her classes, but we haven't seen much of her in the great hall or the common room."

Sirius could understand that. It was similar to how he'd behaved back in first year when he hadn't wanted to be around anyone. And, indeed, he saw neither hide nor hair of Vance the entire rest of Saturday night and all Sunday morning. Although, to be fair, he'd spent most of Sunday making out with Janice in the clock tower (or reluctantly doing his readings for classes between snogging sessions). He finally caught sight of her in History of Magic on Monday morning. She looked about as terrible as he might have predicted, with her hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail with scraggly tendrils framing her dull face and sad, puffy eyes.

He thought that she kept looking at him, but every time he glanced up from reading his potions textbook (since the best use of his time in History of Magic was to prepare for Double Potions directly after) she was staring determinedly ahead at Binns.

Finally, when the group of Gryffindors had walked all the way across the castle and down to the dungeons, Vance broke away from Evans and Macdonald, who were some ways ahead of Sirius and his friends, and waited by the door to the potions classroom until they were near enough for her to address him without raising her voice.

"Black, can we talk?"

Sirius was sorely tempted to respond with "I don't know, can we?" or some other smart-ass remark, but she looked so dreadful and Remus was glaring at him so intensely that he tamped down the urge.

"I guess," he said instead.

She walked across the narrow corridor and into an empty lab on the other side. Sirius offered James a shrug and a look that clearly expressed his equal confusion with his friend before he followed her, closing the door behind himself just in time to cut off James's voice, which he had found in time to remind Sirius to ask Vance about the quidditch team.

Vance was leaning back against a table, her book bag slung carelessly across it and one of her arms wrapped around her stomach and grasping her opposite elbow.

When she didn't seem inclined to start talking, Sirius took matters into his own hands and proclaimed, "Well, you wanted me, and now you've got me for two glorious minutes before Potions starts."

The girl's eyes flew up to his face, but she looked back down almost as quickly.

"Vance, come on," he said, not bothering to hide his mounting annoyance. "What do you want?"

"Remus told me that you were really upset about my—" she began quickly, then stumbled over saying the rest. She visibly swallowed. "About what happened. He said that you cursed that kid because he made fun of how upset you were."

Sirius narrowed his eyes at her. He did not want to have this conversation, especially because he was not prepared to closely examine his feelings about his Death Eater ex-boyfriend and friends (former friends, he seethed internally) being involved in killing witches and wizards who were not Mudbloods or blood traitors but who simply opposed them politically.

"Remus is my friend," he deflected. "He exaggerates my better qualities."

"Lily said so too," insisted Vance, finally looking at him head on, "and she hates you."

Sirius flapped his hand as if waving away her words. "Exactly. Evans probably thinks it's funny to accuse me of caring."

Vance unwound her arm from around herself and put both hands on her hips. "You kept me from falling. And you took care of my broom."

"Self preservation. You've met James."

"Edgecombe told me the same thing as all the others," Vance let a small, triumphant smile flit across her face.

"Funny, Janice never mentioned that she'd spoken to you."

Vance let out a sharp laugh. "That's not surprising. Edgecombe guards you from other girls like a dragon guards its eggs."

"Who can blame her?" Sirius gestured to himself and tossed his long, shining hair out of his face.

If he didn't know it was impossible, Sirius would have sworn that Vance was blushing. "Look, Sirius," she began, using his first name for the first time he could recall since their first year and evidently ignoring whatever had caused her bright red cheeks, "I don't know why you're so determined to act like an ass or to pretend like you don't care about anyone other than your little gang and your little girlfriend, but… thank you."

He blinked. "For what?"

"For caring. For catching me when I fell off my broom. For not treating me like I might break apart any second."

Well, that was just insane. Sirius had no idea how to respond to such a pronouncement. As if he had done something amazing instead of what seemed like the bare minimum of being surprised by the brutal murder of a classmate's parents, not letting her plummet to her death right in front of him, and more or less not changing a thing about how he acted around her.

In the end, he settled for pointing out, "Your standards are really low, Vance. I think the bar is actually on the floor."

She laughed again, which seemed to brighten her face despite the general exhaustion and grief exuding from her pores. "That may be true, Black. But on the bright side, the next time you annoy me, I can tell your girlfriend about the two glorious minutes we shared in an empty classroom."

"She'd never believe you," returned Sirius as he held the door open for her. "Janice knows that three minutes is my baseline."

They were still snickering when they met Professor Slughorn in the hall just about to enter the classroom.

"Ah, Mr. Black," called the jovial man when he saw Sirius, far too loudly to be addressing someone only a few feet away. "I'm glad to see that you're back at school. Nasty business, that."

"Yes, sir," Sirius responded dutifully.

"But I'm sure you had a good reason, eh?" continued Slughorn. His belly jiggled a bit when he chortled. Fortunately he didn't seem to require a response. "Are you coming to the Slug Club dinner this weekend?"

That did require a response. "Yes, sir," Sirius repeated. "I can bring a date, can't I?"

Maybe it would partially make it up to Janice that he was banned from Hogsmeade visits for the rest of the year.

"Well, I normally only allow plus ones to the Christmas party in December, you know. Who…?" the professor trailed off and glanced at Vance, who was standing next to Sirius but half a step behind.

Sirius caught the bubble of laughter before it could escape from his throat, but just barely. "No, sir. I'm seeing Janice Edgecombe."

"Ah, Miss Edgecombe. I see, I see!" Slughorn grinned at him. There was nothing overtly wrong with his expression, but something about it made Sirius uncomfortable. "Well, I don't see why not. Not as your date, mind you, or else I would have to allow everyone to bring one. But I will owl her an invitation this afternoon."

They trudged into the classroom behind the professor, Vance muttering things like "Unbelievable!" and "Obviously!" under her breath just loud enough for Sirius to hear her. She violently elbowed her way past him to take her seat—Sirius was too big and she too small for her to have actually moved him if he hadn't wanted to be moved, but he saw no benefit to himself in causing a scene so he just shot her a confused look (which she returned with a glare) and shrugged his shoulders as he took his own seat. Luckily there was no time before Slughorn launched into the lesson for his friends to pester him about what Vance had wanted before, or why she was acting like he'd personally offended her now.

Sirius still wasn't entirely sure himself, and he'd been there. Sirius had thought since first year that girls were impossible to understand, and he maintained that position.

The day didn't get much better after that. Sirius didn't honestly care all that much about the people who were still whispering as he walked by—if they weren't talking about him for one thing, it would have just been another—but the way the Slytherins were looking at him was something else altogether. Sirius had no doubts at all that his uncles had kept the reason behind his dramatic entrance to their ballroom strictly secret, but obviously they wouldn't have been able to stop all the Death Eaters from telling their children what they had seen. There was no hiding that Sirius had been, to put it mildly, punished so severely by his family for something that he had run away and the promptly passed out from his injuries.

Not that he was particularly close with many of the Slytherins at Hogwarts, but it was still unbearably humiliating for them to know anything about it.

Two Slytherins who did seem to know exactly what had happened were Evan Rosier and Lucilla Lestrange. Given their familial connections to the people involved, Sirius should not have been surprised when both of them started giving him knowing looks—Evan's clearly sympathetic and concerned, Lucilla's completely the opposite.

Their Arithmancy projects had been presented the week before when Sirius had been at home, so by the time he got back to class on Tuesday afternoon everybody had returned to their original seats. Sirius spent a lovely but frustrating class trying to pay attention while Janice caressed his thigh underneath their table, then he managed to scarper out of the classroom without Evan finding an opportunity to talk to him. After class on Wednesday morning, he wasn't so lucky. With a peck on Sirius's lips, so fast that he didn't even have time to react, and a chirped goodbye, Janice rushed off to meet her friends. Remus always headed straight to the library after Arithmancy on Wednesdays to take advantage of the break between their morning class and lunch, so Sirius barely caught a glimpse of the back of his head as he disappeared out the door. Peter was no deterrent to Evan (or any other Slytherin) approaching him, but they needn't have worried even if he was since Peter rarely missed an opportunity to go the great hall early.

"Hey, Black," said Mulciber. He glanced around as he approached Sirius's desk, seemingly to make sure the coast was clear and, most importantly, that Professor Farrah had left the classroom. "That Mudblood told Snape that you used a vomiting curse on a first year. Is that true?"

Sirius turned from gathering his things into his leather book bag and leaned back against the desk. "Yep."

"Wicked," declared the other boy. "Where did you learn it? The Viridian book?"

"No," replied Sirius, "it was this old handwritten thing I found in the library at home."

Mulciber scowled and turned to look at Evan, who was hovering silently next to him. "The library at home, he says. Handwritten spell books, he says. What an asshole."

"Fuck off," Sirius told him, perfectly pleasantly.

The other boy grinned and punched Sirius hard in the arm in what he supposed was meant to be a friendly gesture. "Fucking off now, your lordship," he said, performing an exaggerated bow before he trotted out of the room, leaving Sirius and Evan alone together.

Sirius eyed his friend (former friend? new friend?) with trepidation, although he was careful to keep his expression neutral, if not a little proud. He did not at all want to have the conversation he imagined they were going to have, but it was clear he could not escape it, so he took out his wand and sent a spell at the classroom door to close it and make sure they would not be overheard by anyone lingering in the corridor. Then he turned back to face Evan, steeling himself for whatever the other boy might say.

"Alright, go ahead and get it over with."

A little furrow formed between Evan's eyebrows. "What?"

"Whatever you're going to say," Sirius said tiredly. "I know that Bellatrix or someone told you exactly what happened. I can tell that you know from the way you've been staring at me since I got back."

"What exactly do you think I want to say?" asked Evan, now frowning. "You look like I'm about to call you a faggot and spit in your face."

Sirius swallowed a lump in his throat and scrutinized the other boy's expression. "Are you… are you not?"

"Of course not!" Evan responded immediately. Then he sighed and dropped heavily into a chair directly across the aisle from Sirius. "Salazar's sake, Sirius. I'm gay."

Sirius could not help the way his mouth popped open in surprise, but no words came out at first. He took in the slight pink hue tinging his friend's cheeks, which was rapidly getting brighter the longer Sirius stared at him, and the way his dark hair threatened to fall into his wide eyes. And then he laughed and fell back helplessly against the table he was sitting on.

"Is everyone I know gay?"

Evan offered a wry smile. "Besides me and Lestrange, I think just Wilkes and Barty."

"Barty?" Sirius echoed incredulously. "Crouch?"

"Yeah. He hasn't said so, but I get the vibe, you know?" Sirius did not, in fact, know, because apparently he was awful at detecting such things if these revelations were anything to go by. He didn't have to answer, though, because Evan continued, "And you know about Wilkes, of course."

Sirius shook his head.

Evan quirked an inquiring brow. "Rabastan's ex-boyfriend? Blond, average height, seventh year?" Sirius could almost feel his anger rising inside his body like a living thing. Even if he knew logically that he had no reason to be upset that Rabastan had dated someone before him, that didn't stop him from irrationally piling that on top of his already enormous mountain of reasons to be angry. Evan went on, seemingly oblivious to the impact is words were having. "Well, anyway, I don't know about any others, but that doesn't mean there aren't any who are a lot better at hiding it than those two were."

"What about you?" asked Sirius, who was suddenly overcome with curiosity. "Does everyone know?"

Evan let out a choked burst of laughter that Sirius might have generously described as cynical. "Of course not! I'm not a Black or a Lestrange or even a Crouch, so no one would overlook it or just say I'm eccentric if they found out."

Sirius might have gotten more upset at a statement like that, but instead he thought it was funny. He felt a smile curling up one side of his mouth, despite his best efforts to be stoic.

"I don't think that matters as much as you think it does, Evan. If you asked him, I'm pretty sure that your father would tell you the reason he and the other Death Eaters avoid insulting my uncle, for example, is not because he's a Black. It's because he holds Dolohov's leash."

"Dolohov!" cried Evan, his eyes widening almost comically, and Sirius realized that he hadn't known. Whoops! he thought with an internal shrug. "The Dolohov? Antonin Dolohov?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "How many other Dolohovs do you know?"

None, that's how many, because Dolohov had killed all of his family in England.

Evan ran his fingers through his hair to push it out of his eyes and shook his head in disbelief for a few moments, before he finally grinned. "That… makes a lot of sense, actually. I can't believe I didn't see it before."

"Yeah, so, you see," continued Sirius, reiterating his earlier point, "it's not about the name. It's about being feared. Sometimes that's because of a name, or at least the reputation of the family behind it, but for my part I think I'd rather rely on people being afraid to cross me. Myself. Just Sirius. I can't rely on my family."

Evan huffed out a sound that may have been a chuckle or a snort or something in between. "Well, Just Sirius, you're a fair way there already. Curse a few more people in plain view of everybody, maybe start a rumor about what really happened to your dueling instructor before Dolohov. In no time people will think you ought to have a room at the asylum next to Bellatrix."

Sirius had no idea who had told Evan about the dueling instructor…. Probably nobody, now that he thought it through. He was probably just present when Sirius's cousins were discussing it. They had always treated Rosier more or less like a piece of inconvenient furniture that no one really wanted but they couldn't get rid of, and thus was simply avoided until they could almost forget it was there. Sirius could remember feeling indignant about that when they'd been younger, back when Evan had been his best friend, but he hadn't thought about it for years. Or, rather, he had still noticed it but found it funny and very fitting while he'd still been furious with Evan for the way he'd acted in their first year.

Now, under different circumstances, he felt a bit, not guilty at his own actions exactly, but definitely sorry for the other boy's situation. He fought the urge to shake his head like a dog, as if he could shake off unwanted thoughts as easily as water droplets.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," he said drily.

"Always, always," declared Evan with a smile, though his eyes betrayed that he was being a lot more serious than he wanted to let on. "We outcasts have to stick together."

It didn't hurt as much to be put into that category as Sirius might have expected it would, if he had thought about it beforehand. He supposed he had always been an outcast of one sort or another. Sometimes for the good, such as being a member of an elite wizarding family and being treated differently by most everyone for that reason, and sometimes for the bad, such as being the first Black in a previously unbroken chain of Slytherins to be sorted into Gryffindor. This time it was bad. Awful. But, failing the ability to turn back time and never let Rabastan Lestrange kiss him in the first place, all Sirius could do now was move forward and accept his life for what it was. Whatever that meant.