clxii. the monster
Sirius thought the walk from the train station might be worse than the ride itself.
It had been mentioned at dinner the night before, while Harriet and Remus manned the cooker and Sirius and Elara pretended to be useful by setting the table, that the girls had visited the grave of his uncle, Cygnus, the summer before, and Elara held the miserable old bastard in some kind of esteem. In Sirius' memory, Cygnus had spent much of his time in and out of hospital or wrangling in his harridan daughters. Andy had turned out all right in the end, but the other two—.
Whatever Sirius' thoughts on the man, he'd looked at Elara's face when Remus mentioned Cygnus and saw the sadness flicker across it. Sirius had blurted out that he would take her if she wanted, and Elara had accepted. Begrudgingly and rudely, true, but she'd said yes, and now they were walking from the station to the graveyard without a single word being spoken between them. Harriet had been left behind in the house's safety for some much-needed Astronomy revision with Remus. Elara kept her eyes on the ground and her hands folded in front of herself.
Sometimes when Sirius studied her from the corner of his eye, when she wasn't scowling or sneering, she reminded him a lot of Regulus. They had a similar prettiness to their features; where Sirius had always been flushed from anger or laughter, they shared that pleasing contrast of dark hair and pale color. They also dressed like snobs; even in Muggle clothes, his daughter wore long skirts and buttoned shirts with the Black pin on her lapel. Regulus used to be like that, always wanting to impress their parents and always sneering at Sirius' style.
They'd reached the gate. Sirius passed through it first and held it open for Elara, and she muttered her thanks under her breath. Sirius shoved his hands into his pockets and sighed through his nose.
Sirius had visited the old Black tomb once or twice in his youth, what felt like a bloody lifetime ago. He remembered it being a dreary, boring affair where some distant cousins had been interred in the tomb itself, and he hadn't thought to pay much attention at the time. Now, he stood in the shade of the old, twisted elms next to his daughter, and he wondered what she thought about.
"He was always sick, from what I remember," Sirius commented, eyes trailing over the elms, the roofs of magical tombs. "I'm not sure what it was that he had, but I guess it's something they inoculate you for now."
He'd always wondered if that was why Walburga was such a beast; Cygnus suffered from a wasting body, whereas his sister had a wasting mind. Orion had been more level-headed; he was strict as they come, but he at least gave Sirius and Regulus breathing room when they needed it.
"Cygnus made sure I was emancipated before he died," Elara said out of the blue, staring down at the plot her great-uncle had been buried in next to his wife, Druella. "It was…the greatest gift anyone had ever given me because it meant no one could tell me where I had to live. No one…no one could send me back."
Sirius didn't respond. He took his hands from his pockets and let one hover as if to touch her shoulder, to offer comfort, but he'd have to be a blinking nutter to not realize how much Elara disliked being touched. The only person she tolerated was Harriet.
"I was at an orphanage before, from when I was a baby, I guess. Mably took me there to save me from the fire, and she doesn't know that they…they weren't good people, the Muggles." She gripped her gloved hands together. "They—hurt me. They thought I was a monster."
Sirius felt as if all the air had been sucked from his lungs. Merlin, what was he meant to say? Never in his darkest nightmares had he ever considered having this kind of conversation with his daughter. The images from the forest earlier in the year haunted him—that ghastly, raised scar on her skin that Sirius hadn't seen again. "You stand there and claim you never hurt anybody," she'd screamed. "And what? Expect me to embrace you? Expect me to—fucking forgive you?"
Yes, Sirius thought, because more than anything, he wanted her forgiveness, even if he didn't really deserve it. He'd been stumbling from one colossal fuck up to the next, and it'd cost his daughter more than he could ever hope to repay.
In the same breath, it made him angry. Angry she couldn't see all that he'd sacrificed just trying to keep her and Remus, Marlene, James, Lily, and Harriet safe. He would give his life in a second for any of them.
But maybe that was the point of Elara's frustrations. It was an easy choice to throw himself into danger; it was harder to deal with the rest of it.
"McGonagall says I have to talk about this because my anger is misplaced or whatever nonsense." Elara sniffed and then crouched, plucking small weeds from Cygnus' marker. She had yet to look at Sirius. "I didn't want to talk to her about it either, but it's part of the deal for Harriet to stay with me. With us. I got upset and broke a lamp, and it hit Harriet, so now I get to talk about things I'd rather not share."
"You'd do just about anything to help Harriet—even put up with me."
Sirius meant for his words to be teasing, but Elara's expression remained stoic. Serious. "Yes."
"And this rubbish about the dishes and the old trash in the house, arguing with me—is because you're angry? Because you think I left you there? It wasn't my choice to place you with Muggles; Morgana bless your mother's soul, but that was all Marlene's idea, and it saved your life."
"I'm angry about a lot of things," she admitted. "And I don't know how not to be. I'm angry about the orphanage. I'm angry about Harriet's relatives, and about Hermione's stupid parents. I'm mad at you and Remus and Dumbledore, and I get so furious when Professor Slytherin hexes Harriet, I want to curse him into the wall. I want to curse him until he's dead, and I know I could do it. It would be easy."
Sirius knelt next to Elara and touched her shoulder, just his fingertips barely putting pressure on her. Her eyes cut in his direction, dismissive. How in the hell was he meant to deal with this?
"I don't think I'm the right person to tell you not to get angry," he confessed, giving the back of his head an uneasy scratch. "I tried to murder Pettigrew, after all. Not a shining beacon for anger management."
Elara scoffed.
"Then again, maybe you can think of my example as something you're not supposed to do. I mean, shite, I spent twelve years in prison and lost everything, and a lot of that can be blamed on my anger. I thought—at the time, when everything was happening, it all made sense to me. Lying to Remus, giving you to Marlene, making Peter the Secret Keeper; it all sounded logical when I'm in that mood, brassed off and wanting to hex a blighter. It sounded bloody clever."
"It wasn't."
"Well, no, now it obviously isn't." He scratched at the hair on his chin, frustrated again. "Elara, everything I ever did was done because I was trying to protect the people I love. I can't claim any gift with Divinations or some kind of preternatural strategic ability; I did what I thought was best and made mistakes. We all make mistakes."
"That doesn't mean all mistakes must be forgiven."
"Elara, I'm your father."
"That doesn't mean much to an orphan." She shrugged her rigid shoulder out from under his touch. "It's just a word."
"Only because you think it is." Sirius forced himself to grab her shoulder again, leaving his hand there despite her glare and attempt to roll it off. "But it doesn't absolve me of my guilt, does it? I'm still your father—and you can be angry if you want, but I'm not going to let you be an idiot like me, all right?"
"No, it's not all right."
They sat in quiet contemplation of the grave, voices bobbing in the distance, the cars moving on the street farther beyond. Sirius grappled with something to say, something profound like Dumbledore would come up with that would make the whole world come together in perfect harmony, but reality had proven to Sirius that even wizards like the Headmaster couldn't always make the universe a comfortable, obliging place. James had always been the more charismatic one in their group; Sirius had been quick with a laugh, Remus the patient ear, and Peter—.
Fuck Peter. We should have dunked his head in a bloody loo instead of Snivellus'.
What had Remus told him? You have to get to know them. How in the hell was he meant to do that? Why didn't teenage daughters come with instruction manuals, for Merlin's sake?!
"How'd you and Harriet meet?"
Elara's brow furrowed, thrown by the change in topic, but she went with it, sounding a mite wary when she answered. "At the Magical Menagerie. She was talking to—a snake, and I didn't know that was possible." Elara shifted, her legs probably sore from kneeling in the dirt. Sirius knew his were. "She helped me choose my owl."
"And your other friend, Hermione? How'd you meet her?"
"At school. I wasn't terribly fond of her at first; she's…bossy at times. But she's the kind of person who'd help you even it's against her better judgment, and while she may stand there and say, 'I told you so,' she'll still help pick up the mess."
"She sounds like a good friend."
"She is." Elara rose, and Sirius followed, knocking bits of grass off his trousers. "That snake Harriet was talking to—it's Livius. Her familiar. He snuck out of the shop and found her that night, and she's had him ever since. The Menagerie still has a sign up offering a reward for the return of their stolen Horned Serpent." Her eyes cut sideways, her mouth compressed. "Don't tell anyone."
It really shouldn't have warmed Sirius' heart to know his goddaughter got into mischief just like her father—especially not when that mischief involved felony theft. The ill-used and frankly underdeveloped voice of responsibility in the back of his head said he should not be proud of her and should probably reprimand his daughter for keeping mum about it.
Fuck it. Sirius grinned and mimicked locking his mouth with a key. Elara rolled her eyes heavenward, not impressed, though Sirius thought it better than her usual stony, sullen glare.
"Do you know the spell for flowers?" he asked after a moment, clearing his throat. "So you can leave him some?"
Elara hesitated. "Yes."
"You can cast it while I'm here."
"I—. I'm not sure what I should leave."
Sirius gave it some thought. "Gladioli," he said, snapping his fingers. When Elara raised a brow, he explained, "Remembrance, integrity, sincerity, and strength." A laugh escaped, rough like a bark, and his daughter's incredulous staring intensified. "It's a pure-blood thing usually taught to younger kids ages before Hogwarts. Ol' mummy dearest had different flowers on the sideboard every morning depending on her mood. We'd wake up and find a vase of petunias and know we were in for it that day."
"I'd be inclined to feel more sympathy for grandmother if her portrait wasn't such a screeching, racist hag." She withdrew her wand—and Sirius felt a pang of loss, thinking of how no one had been there when she got it, not him or Remus or Marlene. Elara gave it a flick, incanting, "Orchideous Gladiolus."
A bouquet of blue gladioli appeared in his daughter's free hand, finished off with a black ribbon, and this was something Sirius thought he could be proud of—Elara's strong grasp of Transfiguration. It was lovely.
They left the flowers on the grave and departed, Sirius shoving his hands in his pockets again, deciding this outing hadn't been a total waste, not if it helped him find common ground with Elara.
Crossing through the gate, he glanced at her, fishing for something else to say. "Remus and Harriet are making hamburgers tonight."
"Ugh."
"What? Don't like hamburgers?"
"No, not especially."
"What?"
"I don't enjoy food I have to touch with my hands."
"That's half the fun of it."
Sirius and Elara walked through a group of Muggles heading in the other direction, neither thinking much of it while they bickered over their dinner choices until a man drew to a sudden halt and grabbed Elara by the arm.
"Miss—Miss Black? Elara Black?"
He was a Muggle by Sirius' estimate, dressed in a plain, boring black shirt and trousers, carrying fliers in one hand advertising a function of some sort. He spotted the white collar after everything else, and it took Sirius more than a second to place it. He'd grown up pagan as all obedient pure-blood boys and girls do, but he had a passing familiarity with other religions, though he couldn't really mark the different denominations of Christianity. Hogwarts once had a weekend seminar delving into the origins and cross-connection between Muggle religion, saints, and the magical world, and Sirius remembered Remus dragging him to it one Sunday.
He recognized that the man was a priest—and that he had a hand on his daughter.
"What do you think you're on about?" Sirius demanded, yanking the man's hand from Elara, who'd gone pale as if she'd discovered her bed curtains replaced by a Lethifold. The priest looked at him with shock and suspicion, his eyes capped by thick white eyebrows, his balding pate speckled with perspiration from the afternoon heat. When he spoke, the words came out in a deep Irish brogue.
"Who are you then to be with this girl?"
"I'm her father. Who the hell are you?"
The man answered in an angry rumble, managing to grab Elara's arm again while Sirius was distracted, the girl gasping and giving her wrist a hard, ineffectual yank. "Miss Black doesn't have a father and has been a runaway from our care for several years now. I'll be reporting you to the police—and you, Miss Black, what could you possibly be thinking, you reckless girl—?!"
Sirius froze.
He was an intelligent man; a decade in Azkaban might have knocked his wits about, but they were all there still, despite their apparent disarray. 'I was in an orphanage before,' Elara had said, not an hour passed. 'They thought I was a monster.'
England didn't have many orphanages anymore, the crown having done away with the practice, but in the private, religious sector—.
The Forbidden Forest loomed in his mind's eye—the smell of old leaves, Pettigrew's whimpering, Sirius staring down the end of his own child's wand.
'Ten years of the cane, and their exorcism—.'
Watery starlight splayed across pale skin, a cross emblazoned into flesh—.
'They hurt me. They thought—.'
Pink marks around narrow, scrawny wrists—.
'—I was a monster.'
Sirius' clenched fist flashed out before he gave it a second thought, and his fingers ached when they collided with the man's face. The gobsmacked priest released his grip on Elara as he toppled onto his arse, and he instead clutched his very broken nose. Blood trickled through his fingers and along his chin, staining that saintly white collar of his.
Sirius yanked Elara behind him as he bent at the waist, putting his face close to the man's. "You come near my daughter again," he hissed. "And I'll do more than break your fucking nose. You're afraid of what a little girl with a spot of magic might do? I'll show you, Muggle filth. I'll show you what a real monster looks like." The man's eyes widened in fright, and Sirius straightened. "You'll get yours in the end. I promise it."
People had started to stop in the street, staring, alarmed by the sudden assault, and Sirius knew they had to get out of there before he did something bloody stupid. He snatched Elara's hand up in his and stormed off, not stopping until they'd marched two streets over in the wrong direction from the station, and he pulled his daughter into someone's empty garden. Her fingers trembled against his, and she sucked in an aborted, wet breath, swallowing the urge to sob.
At a loss, Sirius tugged the girl into his arms, and she went without a fight, hiccuping against his shoulder as Sirius held her close. It was the first time since she'd been a toddler that he'd hugged her. It was the first time in over a decade that he'd hugged anyone, and Sirius felt tears build in his own eyes for an entirely different reason than the girl's.
"It's all right now," he said, patting Elara's back. "He's gone now—it's all gone. Remember what you said about Cygnus? He made it so you don't have to go back there. You don't ever have to see them again. You get to go home to Harriet and Remus and me. Mably's going to make you a nice cuppa, and it's going to be all right."
She calmed bit by bit and stopped crying, but she still trembled like the Whomping Willow on a bad day, and her breathing had yet to even out. It came in harsh, shallow bursts against by his ear, and her shoulders shook with the effort under his hands.
"I have to go—go home," she managed, taking a step back. Tears streaked her reddened, blotchy cheeks, the long eyelashes she'd inherited from him stuck in wet clumps. Sirius would rather have her mad and snarling at him than this. She suddenly looked her age, and his heart burned. "I need my—my potion."
"Potion? What potion?"
"Sn-Snape makes it. It's for my asthma."
"All right, all right. Off we go, then. I'll Apparate us."
"I didn't—I didn't take anything. I'll get sick."
Sirius held onto her hands and gave them a squeeze. He tried to smile, when what he really wished to do was find that man again and test his own extensive knowledge of the Black family's library. He couldn't. He shouldn't. "Well, what's a little vomit among family, yeah? On three, then. One, two, three—."
xXx
Sirius's headache had grown to mythic proportions by the time the old grandfather clock chimed the midnight hour, and he hid the nearly empty bottle under the couch.
He'd tried going to bed at a decent time, but he'd spent much of the evening tossing and turning in a huff, thinking about Elara and that bastard and how Sirius could possibly bring repercussions down on his daughter's childhood home without sparking a witchhunt that would end with a furious Ministry official banging on his door. Nothing he attempted stilled his violent thoughts, and so he finally gave up, found the parlor on the main floor, and tucked into the bourbon he had stashed under the sagging couch.
Remus would be annoyed with him for getting pissed when he staggered out of bed tomorrow sometime in the late afternoon. Apparently, it set a bad example for the girls. Sirius wanted to remind him that they couldn't all be professors who rose with the dawn and apparently never did anything wrong. Sirius loved the man, but Remus' unflinching moral compass and ideals could grate on his fucking nerves.
He drank until all the sharp, raw-edged thoughts misaligned in his head didn't hurt quite so much, and then he put the bottle away and slouched to his feet. Groaning, he stretched his back and muddled through the unlit room, pausing at the doorway when he thought about having to climb all those bloody stairs. The furniture in the parlor hadn't been updated in half a century, and if he kipped down here, he was fairly certain Kreacher would find a way to hex him in the night.
Need one of those—what do Muggles call them? Ele-waiters?
A single gas lamp remained lit in the foyer, and it provided enough light for Sirius to see the front door come open a crack and admit the dark, silent figure of Severus Snape. The bourbon curdled in Sirius' gut as he looked at the man, and it took Snape more than a handful of seconds before he realized the shadow lingering by the parlor entrance was actually Sirius watching him with barely restrained hatred.
"Just like you to come slinking in during the night," Sirius sneered. "Like some kind of cockroach."
"Drunk again, I see," Snape retorted after clearing his throat. Quick as a flash, he had a hand against the wall and then lowered it again, hiding it in his robes. Sirius questioned what he was doing. "Why you haven't bothered to simply drown yourself at a pub and spare us the odor of your self-indulgent pickling is beyond me."
"It's my fucking house," Sirius retorted—an argument that was getting old, even to him. No one seemed to respect that it was in fact Sirius' house and not a halfway home for Death Eater filth. "I can drink if I want. I have to wonder if you even have a house, Snivellus, or if you just gather like some kind of depraved mold in other people's front room."
"I could live on the streets and it'd still be better than this hovel."
Sirius took a step nearer the other man. "But you do have a house, don't you?" he said, a grin spreading at the wary slant of Snape's gaze. "Lily mentioned it once, didn't she? Said it was a sad little tip worthy of a weedy, greasy half-Muggle like you." Lily hadn't said any of that, of course. Had she been alive to hear Sirius say 'half-Muggle' in such a disparaging way, she'd probably punch him in the teeth. "It's somewhere called Spinner's End, innit—?"
"Shut up."
Snape made as if to step toward Sirius, or perhaps around him, and Sirius lashed out at the git, wanting a row, wanting to take his anger out on someone—but Snape suddenly faltered when the Animagus shoved him. He stumbled, and his shoulder hit the opposite wall with a thump and a grunt.
Sirius laughed. "And you call me drunk, you tosser!"
Furious, Snape straightened and continued past Sirius to the stairs, disappearing up the steps. Sirius considering sending a Tripping Jinx after him, but it'd probably wake his bloody mother, and truth be told, he was too tired to arse with Snape at the moment. He muttered, "Tosser," again under his breath.
Yawning, Sirius decided to go back into the parlor to sleep—but then spotted the stain on the far wall.
"The hell is that?"
Sirius had to get within a foot of the spot before his less-than-level brain could make sense of the mark, and only then did he realize it looked like blood, fresh blood left exactly where that arse Snape had stumbled.
"Merlin's bollocks," Sirius muttered, tossing a scowl toward the stairs. He didn't care if Snape's arm fell off, but he wasn't going to be blamed for it, especially since he hadn't done a thing to the arsehole.
He had only made it up six steps when he felt the tell-tale tug of someone coming through the kitchen Floo. Sirius decided he'd probably had too much to drink when it took him a full minute to realize someone had just come waltzing into his house unannounced for the second time in fifteen minutes.
"What now?" he hissed, stomping back down at the stairs toward the basement.
He vaguely recognized the blonde witch standing by his dining table, but he didn't recall her name until she turned toward the door, and the dying fire lit in the hearth sparkled on the Black crest pinned to her robes. Sirius let out a long, annoyed sigh. "What are you doing here, Narcissa?"
"Your manners are as impeccable as ever, cousin," she replied, but her posh voice lacked enthusiasm. Sirius couldn't be sure, but she seemed distracted.
"It's past bloody midnight. My manners have a bedtime."
Narcissa arched a perfectly unimpressed brow and took a seat at the table, gaze flicking toward the carriage clock, then away. "Kreacher."
The house-elf appeared without need for further prompting, the miserable creature bending himself almost in half as he approached the pure-blood woman. "What can Kreacher be doing for Miss Narcissa?"
"Tea," Narcissa said with an imperious tilt of her head, and the elf was off before Sirius could even scoff. As Kreacher clattered about setting up the kettle, Sirius jerked out one of the chairs and dropped into it, stretching his legs, staring down his cousin with open dislike. Tea was served—the elf skipping over his master with a derisive smirk—and Narcissa dismissed him with a curt command not to eavesdrop.
As soon as the door shut, the witch had her wand in hand, warding the entry, and Sirius felt a whisper of unease clench in his middle. "What is this about?" he demanded.
"Don't worry yourself; I don't relish this visit any more than you do, so I will be frank. First, tell me what you know of the MPA law."
Sirius blinked. "The what?"
"The Muggle-born Protection Act."
"I—." He had the impression someone had spoken to him about it before, but he was drunk and tired and had already spent much of the summer trying to catch up on twelve years of missed information. Sirius rubbed at his scruffy face. "It's that bullshit proposition pushed through by Gaunt when he first got elected, isn't it? Something about helping Muggle-borns by fostering them out so your lot can keep them under your thumb."
Narcissa's lips thinned as she took a sip of tea, finger extended, and gently returned the cup to its saucer. "Yes, well, that is the basics of it," she replied. "There is also an inherent merit system; the best children get placed in the most prestigious houses and are shuffled based on their performance in school. Should they fail any of their exams, it's possible they'll be exiled from the society altogether."
"Jesus Christ."
"Quite. I do not know how informed you are on the current political climate or how involved you are with Dumbledore's little gang of reprobates, but—." She fidgeted with the cup, a clear sign of agitation most pure-bloods got trained out of early in their youth if they had parents like Narcissa and Sirius. "You know I watch the children on occasion." Her pale eyes flicked upward toward the floors above and back to Sirius. "And as such, I am aware of their close friendship with Miss Granger."
Sirius didn't have a single inkling on where this strange conversation was going. Was he passed out on the sofa, dreaming? "Yeah, and?"
"Miss Granger has been a ward of the House of Malfoy since 1991."
"Poor girl. What does that have to do with anything?"
Narcissa gave him a look of evident impatience as if she'd laid out all the pieces of a puzzle and thought him an idiot for not putting it together. "Surely you know of Minister Gaunt's…well, let's call it what it is, shall we? His obsession with the Potter girl? We know Dumbledore is aware of it and has taken pains to keep her situation hazy and unapproachable to him."
Sirius leaned forward. "No more games, Narcissa. What do you want from me?"
"There was an incident this evening concerning Gaunt and Her—the Granger girl. He's taken to pressuring and—punishing her for her lack of information about Miss Potter." Narcissa took another steadying sip of tea, the cup clattering in the saucer when it returned to its place. "He took the initiative to test the children in our care, Miss Granger and a Mr. Ingham." She swallowed. "Allow me to skip the retelling and simply say it resulted in Mr. Ingham attempting to murder Miss Granger when his own placement in our home was rendered superfluous."
"What the fuck?"
Narcissa suddenly shoved her tea across the table toward Sirius, sloshing it over the rim. "Would you mind sobering yourself while I am telling you this? For Merlin's sake."
Sirius took the cup without question and downed it, summoning the pot to pour himself another. The tart heat of the leaves and caffeine helped perk his drowsy mind, though it didn't make what Narcissa had said anymore palatable. The Minister for Magic was inciting children to kill each other now? Nimue's bones.
"You need to take her from us."
He choked and almost coughed his tea back out. "Are you daft?"
"That is how the MPA works," Narcissa reiterated with a new sharpness to her tone. "The House of Black has always been above the House of Malfoy in terms of prestige. I am led to understand Miss Granger is at the very top of her class and is entitled to the most austere home in the eyes of the MPA." Her subtle glance about the kitchen proved her real thoughts about Sirius' home, but she said nothing against it. She was a Black, after all, before she became a Malfoy. "Were you to apply for the program and request a ward, she would be placed with you."
"Again, I have to ask; are you daft? I'm a recently acquitted felon, if you care to remember, and thoroughly disliked by the Ministry."
"It doesn't matter. That is not how the MPA works. It is not a social program as it is toted to be; the welfare of the children and the suitability of the homes into which they are placed is not as important as the name under which they are registered."
"That is vile," Sirius spat. "How can you sit back and be party to this?"
Narcissa shifted, folding her hands together in her lap. "I did not come to debate political views with you are this hour. You need to apply for the girl. Immediately."
"I already have two teenage daughters I have absolutely no idea how to care for. I can't take on another."
"Sirius." The witch spoke his name with harsh sincerity, not the dull, boring drawl or unctuous laugh her kind used in drawing rooms or exclusive functions. "I fear for Hermione's life if Gaunt returns for her again. It is imperative you do not underestimate the Minister." There was real fear in her eyes, in the tightening of her voice. "You must do this."
Before he could take a breath, she had paperwork on the table before him, skirting the spilled tea, great sheaves of parchment with official Ministry seals and a self-inking quill made from an eagle feather. Sirius stared at Narcissa, taken aback, as she appeared at his side and all but forced his loose fingers around the quill.
"You will fill out these forms without error and accompany me to the MPA office in the Ministry directly afterward. I have it on excellent authority that the clerk will be at his station throughout the night, and I will transfer wardship over to you. If you are asked about this at a later point, you will say your daughters encouraged you to take their friend into your care, or you were moved by sentiment to do your duty as a House Lord. You will say we were reticent to comply with your demands but bent in the face of the law." She held a finger to his face, and Sirius flinched as if it was a wand. "And if you breathe a single word to the otherwise, I will make you long for Azkaban again, dear cousin. Do you understand?"
Taking a shaky breath, Sirius could only nod.
"Good boy." She gave his head an affectionate pat. "Now sign."
Sirius picked up the quill, turned to the first page of the packet, and signed.
A/N:
Remus: "So, how was your day with Elara?"
Sirius: "I punched a priest."
Remus: "Why are you like this."
