Black Mask

by Ieyre

Christmas 1979—danger, secrets, lies and their shared history loom large over the Blacks' first Yuletide season as a reunited family. While life as a fugitive proves bleaker—and more boring—than Regulus could have imagined, a botched espionage mission at Malfoy Manor draws Sirius deeper into the Black family web. [Sequel to 'In the Black']

10. Chapter 10

"It's ideal for headquarters, of course," Sirius said. "My father put every security measure known to Wizard-kind on it when he lived here. It's Unplottable, so Muggles could never come and call—as if they'd have wanted to…"

-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

CHAPTER 10

"When you said you got caught last night, you could've mentioned it was by Father!"

"Keep your effing voice down, Reg—I'm trying to concentrate, here." Sirius pressed his ear against the door to the kitchen. Their parents had disappeared through it thirty seconds earlier, after a customary stilted goodbye and an ominous promise from their father that he would return forthwith because he wished to "speak to his sons for a few minutes alone." No sooner had Orion and Walburga left had he crossed the room and begun placing every security spell he knew on the door, as if that could prevent them from ever coming back through it again. He was a man of action—and anyway, it gave him an excuse not to look at Regulus, in all likelihood going into quietly hyperventilating at the empty dinner table.

But there was no sound of witch or elf on the other side—their parents must already have made it back to Grimmauld Place and taken their servant with them.

He leaned heavily against the door and slid down onto the floor, sighing wearily.

"That should buy us a couple minutes." He chanced a look at his younger brother, who had gotten up from the walnut table and was stalking towards him. Regulus had his hands on his hips and was wearing an expression of displeasure that reminded Sirius of Kreacher—it very difficult for him to resist the urge to point out the resemblance. "Until he blasts it open, that is—"

"—Were you even going to tell me?" Regulus demanded, glowering down.

He forced himself to meet the brown eyes of his younger brother. From this angle he looked quite formidable.

"I would've…eventually…" Sirius felt a stab of unwanted guilt at the hurt that was mixed into Regulus's glare. "Look, it wasn't exactly my—finest hour—"

Regulus let out a laugh of hysteria.

"No, I bet it—it fucking wasn't!" Sirius's lip twitched, involuntarily—but his amusement at Regulus having to work himself up into a state to swear was short-lived. "How the hell did this happen, Sirius?"

"It's not like I wanted it to!" Sirius snapped, defensively. "I didn't even want to be there. I buggered off from this family three years ago for a reason—being dropped into a room with the entire clan was not my idea of a smashing good time." He pushed his palms against the floor and got to his feet, staring eye-to-eye with his younger brother. "I tried to bail as soon as I realized, but Frank had different ideas—and it was too late by then, anyway." His expression darkened. "Our father had already spotted me."

Regulus's hands dropped to his sides, all anger forgotten in the face of the horror of the mere idea.

"It's like he can could me from across the room, Reg." Sirius, always a natural storyteller, gesticulated with feeling. "I swear—as soon as he looked at me, I just knew. I knew in the pit of the stomach, no matter how many wankers were in that room, he was going to be the one to find me out." He turned back to the grained paneling of the kitchen door and traced his finger on it, glowering. "And sure enough—he did."

"How?"

The word—said in the awed, hushed tones of one discussing some terrible and catastrophic event—came out as no more than a strangled whisper.

Sirius stuck his hands in the pockets of his robes and turned around.

"Simple: they knew we were coming."

The color drained from Regulus's face.

"That's—that's not possible."

Sirius shrugged.

"Yeah, it is. It happened—hell, our father told me himself, this morning. He got it from Arcturus, who got it from the Malfoys." He leaned his elbow against the doorframe, oblivious to the flash of shock that had flitted across his brother's face at this news. "I've half a mind to speak to Dumbledore. I've been thinking about it—and the only explanation I can come up with is that his informant tipped them off."

"That is not possible, Sirius," Regulus repeated, voice expressionless. "You—must've told someone. Or Longbottom did—or someone followed you—"

"How stupid do you think I am?" Sirius asked, rounding on him impatiently. His brother laughed harshly.

"You got caught by Father, so—pretty damn stupid, actually."

Sirius rolled his eyes and leaned back against the door.

"Can you believe that load he fed Mum tonight about going to see Slughorn? I can't believe she bought it. If he was up there to see anyone, it was Dumbledore."

"You—you think so?" He nodded—Regulus swore under his breath, then looked up at his brother, suddenly angry. "Merlin, Sirius, I can't believe you. Do you know the trouble you've caused?"

Sirius frowned, annoyed at the lack of sympathy he was getting from this quarter. He'd been expecting Regulus, at least, to be understanding—him being angry on top of everyone else was so annoying.

"What does it matter to you? It's me he's mad at." Sirius gave his younger brother a curious look. "Unless you've done something to piss him off I don't know about—he didn't seem too pleased with you at dinner, either."

Regulus shook his head, slowly.

"Of—course I haven't."

Sirius laughed, unpleasantly.

"Yeah—he's probably angry at you for not ratting me out. Well, at least we're off the hook for Christmas Eve. Arcturus is making them host everyone, so Chinese is back on for us." Sirius's smile turned grim. "You know the real reason he's so pissed at me—it's because I overheard Mother chewing him out over it." He laughed at the memory, savoring it—one of the few moments from the previous day he could enjoy in retrospect. "You should have heard her, Reg, she went total harpy, I thought she was going to bite off his head—of course he just stood there and took it—"

"—What a balm it must be for the two of you, to have one another to confide in," a cold voice from the front doorway rang out. "Let it never be said that the spirit of brotherly affection is not alive and well in this family."

Both of Orion's sons froze.

Sirius was the first to move, looking around at the still—barricaded kitchen door and then at the front door, also locked tight—though their father was standing in front of it, looking supremely displeased.

Not that he ever looks anything else.

"How did you get in here?"

"Magic," Orion remarked, dryly, flicking an non-existent fleck of dust off his cloak. "The anti-apparition spells on this unfortunate flat do not apply to anyone already inside it. When Dumbledore set them in place, he must've thought it would be useful." Mr. Black's eyes flashed, unpleasantly. "I've certainly found it so."

"You can't just sneak up on people like that—"

"—I believe you were in the middle of telling Regulus a fascinating story," he interrupted, as briskly businesslike as he was deeply sarcastic. "Please, continue. I would hate to be accused of interrupting."

"What did I tell you?" Sirius made a big point of turning toward his still-frozen brother. He clapped Regulus on the shoulder and laughed. "Quite a tiff they were in—clearly they haven't kissed and made up."

He turned around on his father, and in a moment of recklessness that bordered on the suicidal, asked, in a loud voice, "Tell me, has your wife let you back in the bedroom, yet?"

Orion had crossed the length of the room in seconds. Sirius, shocked, reflexively pressed his back on the door.

"You should take care what you say, my boy," Orion said, in a deadly soft voice—face very close to his son's. "If you don't want to be muzzled again, that is."

Sirius's breath caught in his throat. He tried to swallow—but his mouth had grown very dry. Regulus was now hidden from view—all he could see was his father, looking almost as dangerous as he'd been in old Abraxas's study.

One day he would learn to resist the urge to needle and keep his stupid mouth shut—but not today.

"Robbed of speech—what a blessing!" Mr. Black leaned forward, relishing the fear in his son's eyes—fear that had been elicited without him even needing to pull out his wand. "Listen well—if I ever hear of you discussing what you overheard last night with anyone, I will put that muzzle and lead back on you and won't take them off for a week, do you understand me?"

His son gulped and nodded, letting out an infinitesimal sound in the back of his throat not unlike a whimper. Mr. Black took a step back and surveyed the pair of them. Sirius's brother was staring at him with a mixture of horror and abject terror.

Good, their father thought, savagely. Better late than never.

"Now, Regulus—" The younger brother stiffened at being addressed directly by his father. Orion surveyed him with a look that could only be understood as softened in relative terms. "I can only assume from the vacant expression you're wearing—" Regulus's cheeks colored. "—That you were not aware prior to this evening your brother regularly moonlights as a dog."

"N-no—no, sir."

"That's just as well. It would be unfortunate if you had known about this and kept it from me." He turned his narrowed eyes to the elder. "How lucky you are to have an elder brother so eager to exhibit idiotic behavior and its consequences to you. You can never say you don't know firsthand the extent to which crossing your father is unwise."

An ominous silence followed this observation. Regulus chanced a look at Sirius, who had recovered from the shock and fear of having the threat of muzzling thrown at him, and was now glowering at Mr. Black with abject loathing.

"So it's—true, then?" Regulus said, softly, to his brother. Sirius nodded—though his eyes were still fixed on his father in disgruntled anger. "How long have you been an Animagus?"

Sirius straightened up, the burning sting of humiliation still evident in his face and downcast pallor.

"Since fifth year," he shrugged, trying to play it off as if this was a minor detail of little interest. "It was a lark—piece of cake, really."

Regulus, for his part, wasn't fooled by this cavalier dismissal of the effort and considerable skill this illegal venture would have taken. He did some hard, fast thinking, and his eyes snapped with understanding.

"Wait, is that why you and Potter were always sneaking out of—"

"—Shut up, Reg." He trod on his brother's foot, forcefully. "And mind your own business, for once!"

Orion did not remark on the exchange—though his keen gaze made clear note of it, for later, no doubt.

"I want to speak to you both." He pulled out his wand in Sirius's direction. His eldest flinched, but the only thing that happened was that the kitchen door swung open. "Separately. You—" He gave his eldest a dismissive look and jerked his hand in the direction of the kitchen. "Go wait in the bedroom until I've called you."

As anyone who knew him could've predicted, Sirius didn't move.

"What do you want to talk to him, for?"

His eyes rested on his little brother, standing behind Orion and shifting his weight from one foot to the other nervously.

"If I wanted you to know, I wouldn't be ordering you into the next room, would I?" Orion asked, voice sardonic. Sirius made a 'tch' sound, and his father grabbed him by the arm and pushed him halfway out the door. "Oh, don't you worry—you'll have your chance soon enough."

He gave his brother a searching look—Regulus shook his head and mouthed 'just go', and he blinked and sighed. Their father was fast losing patience at both of them.

"Don't make me tell you again, boy."

Sirius slipped out of his grasp and took a step through the door, before turning around. He opened his mouth to make one last argument—then saw the look on Orion's face and slammed it shut again.

"Alright, alright—" He put up both hands in a 'don't curse me, I'm unarmed!' gesture. "But I'll be right next door, Reg, if you need me."

"I'm sure your brother appreciates those warm sentiments," Orion replied, sleekly. "Though I can't imagine what use you'd be to him or anyone. Unless you think he's in need of a guard dog."

Throwing the pair of them one last hostile look, he walked into the kitchen and slammed the door shut behind him. Orion waved a wand and resealed it, murmuring a spell to secure the key hole from any prying ears that might already be pressed against it, hoping to eavesdrop.

He had half a mind to send a curse straight through it.

Orion turned back around. Regulus had already sat back down at the dining room table—in anticipation of the order he had not even needed to make.

Mr. Black stalked back over to the table and took the spot across from Regulus—Sirius's seat. He studied his son, carefully. He had been expecting something like the fearful and timid little boy who, at the first sign his father was upset, had always cracked with a full and tearful confession of all wrongs committed.

The blank-faced teenager staring up at him bore no resemblance whatever to the picture in his mind.

He sank down into the chair. Regulus immediately sat up straighter. A single tallow candle remained lit, giving the teenaged boy—for that was all Orion could think of when he looked at him, in spite of what he knew—a ghostly glow.

He was very pale.

"He really didn't tell you anything?"

"About what?"

"Do not play stupid," Orion snapped. "It suits you even less than it does your brother. You know precisely what I am referring to, Regulus."

The ten-year-old Regulus would have crumbled at just his raised voice and utterly capitulated—this opaque young man merely nodded.

"No—he didn't tell me anything about that." Regulus's mouth twisted, and he continued, bitterly, "He never likes to tell me what he's up to."

"In that respect you're two of a kind," his father shot back, archly.

Regulus froze—but only for a moment.

"I don't know what you mean, sir," the teenager replied, in a calm voice. Orion had the faint and maddening realization that his younger son was playing this game rather like his father would've, if faced with the same situation.

He let the comment go with a mere eyebrow raised.

"You mentioned something about what he was 'up to' at school," Mr. Black continued, evenly. "Were there rumors about this floating around?"

"No—not this specifically." Regulus fiddled with a wine cork on the table. "Everyone knew he and Potter were getting away with something big, but no one knew what." He sighed. "Not even I imagined he was becoming an Animagus."

"And do you have any idea why he would embark upon such a venture?" Orion pressed, delicately. "In addition to being dangerous and illegal, I am told it is quite a tedious process and involves very precise potioneering. His audacious bragging aside, I find it difficult to imagine he didn't have a particular reason for becoming one."

"He probably just did it to show off for Potter."

That sullen and resentful tone Orion did recognize as coming from his younger son. He steepled his fingers on the table and watched him, thoughtfully, for a long moment. Regulus fidgeted only a little, especially compared to Sirius—he had always been far better at sitting still, and once he'd gotten out of babyhood and over his childish tendency towards easy tears, he'd become far better at controlling his emotions, as well.

For a very long time he had seen Regulus's self-possession as a great blessing, a reflection of the qualities that made a good Black son. Now he found, paradoxically, that he would rather by far have the boy yelling and carrying on like his elder brother than acting the part of the sphinx.

Regulus hardly blinked. Mr. Black cleared his throat—using the sound to cover how unsettling he found that look on the face of his child.

"I don't want to discuss your brother—or his friends," Orion said, voice a quiet drawl. "I didn't bring you in here alone to talk about either."

Regulus looked up from the carpet where his eyes had wandered.

"Then why—" He cut off his own question—a habit born from a childhood of hearing his elder brother admonished for asking far too many of his own.

Orion's eyes hardened as he watched his son from across the table. Regulus didn't move, didn't try to speak again—and though his features, so like his brother—so like all of them—bore the proud traces of the family, Mr. Black could no more have guessed what his son was thinking than he could've a stranger.

"Do you have anything you wish to tell me, Regulus?"

There was just enough leashed anger hiding below the surface of Mr. Black's words to warn Regulus of the danger, there. His expression became—Orion had not thought this possible—even more unreadable.

"No, sir."

Orion felt a stab of unexpected displeasure in his gut—it was so smooth, so guilelessly done.

"Really—is that so?" He pushed his chair out forcefully and got to his feet. Standing above Regulus gave him an all too illusory feeling of being in control. Regulus did not slouch down, or cower—merely continued to stare up at his father, utterly unashamed. "There is nothing you wish to confess? Not a single solitary action weighs on your conscience?"

"Nothing."

Orion let out a hard laugh and leaned against the table. Regulus didn't flinch.

"I do not tolerate falsehoods—not from my sons." He began pacing up and down the front of the table. He looked back around at his son—and his temper flared up again, to see that damned apologetic, hangdog look Regulus always wore when he was sorry for something he had nothing to do with. Orion laughed, without humor. "I suppose you think there's no punishment I can conceive of that's worse than being stuck in this flat, but believe me, my boy—twenty years with your brother has made me more than a little creative when it comes to discipline."

Regulus continued to watch him, attentively—and silently.

"And in my day," he added, silkily. "Liars got the strap."

Regulus's lip trembled—but that was the only outward sign he was bothered by Orion's words. Otherwise he was holding his ground admirably.

"I didn't lie—"

"—You intended to," Orion interrupted him, coldly. "If I had not caught Sirius red-handed last night, and known where he was—you'd have baldly lied to my face like you did your mother. Don't play the innocent with me—" Regulus stared back down at the table, flustered at the accusation. "—You have been telling fibs to get him out of trouble since you were in the nursery. Neither of you are children anymore—it is high time you stopped acting as though you were."

Regulus's face reddened with the childlike petulance that signified they were back on the uneven ground they should be.

"You will not cover for him again," Orion informed his son, bluntly. "If your brother so much as leaves this flat to go to the corner tobacconist, I want to know about it. I am your father and you owe your loyalty to me, not to him."

Regulus flinched—but he didn't dare argue.

"Yes, sir."

"And—" Orion paused, expression darkening. "No letters will leave this flat without me inspecting them first."

The boy went pale again—but he nodded, slowly. The candlelight, still flickering off his dark eyes, gave the effect that they were swimming with tears.

Orion knew better.

There was the sound of scuffling against the kitchen door. Scowling, Orion turned on his heel and marched over to it. He made a slashing motion with his wand and the door flew open.

"Is this your idea of waiting in the bedroom?"

The young wizard crouched in the doorway, eyes at the level of the doorknob, looked up at his father, a sarcastic smile plastered over his face.

Orion jerked a thumb at him—and then turned around and drew a line between Regulus (still seated) and the door.

"I'm done with you, for the present." Regulus scrambled to his feet, nearly tripping over the hem of his robes in his haste to get away from his father as quickly as possible. "Go to your bedchamber. We'll join you there momentarily. You—" Orion turned back towards Sirius, who by now had gotten up off the floor and was wiping the dust from his robes, not a trace shame on his face at being caught eavesdropping. "—In. Now."

The two brothers crossed paths on their respective journeys. Regulus, pale and by now sweating rather profusely, didn't meet Sirius's probing gaze when he pushed past him and through the door to the kitchen.

Sirius slowly sat down in Regulus's recently vacated seat. His father secured the door in the exact same manner that he had a few minutes earlier—though he was more confident that Regulus had actually obeyed his directive to wait in the bedroom—and walked over to the table where he sat across from his son.

Sirius wore a mulish look. His father took small comfort in the knowledge that, however difficult and high-strung his elder son was, at least he, like his mother, could be relied on for predictability.

"What the hell has he done?"

Sirius jerked his head at the door. Mr. Black smiled, unpleasantly.

"He knows what he's done," Orion muttered, darkly. His son raised both eyebrows in surprise, and Mr. Black continued, in his usual sardonic mode. "It's immaterial. What he won't do is admit to it. That I cannot abide—it's no matter, though." He shrugged his shoulders and sat back down in the chair across from Sirius. "I will get a confession out of him…sooner or later."

Sirius looked over at the door his brother had disappeared through, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"I wouldn't count on it. Reg's a tough nut to crack. And—" He looked back at his father, smirking. "—When it comes to stoic, silent treatments, well—" He waved his right hand sarcastically towards Orion. "—He learned at the foot of the master."

Mr. Black scoffed, quietly.

"I suppose you think the methods you learned at your mother's skirts are better," he pointed out, in a dry voice—Sirius flushed. "Histrionic fits and shouting at the top of one's lungs does not seem to me to be a prudent strategy when it comes to your brother, however."

"And least we say what we think every once in an while," Sirius muttered, scuffling the back legs of his chair against the floor. Orion let out a low sigh.

"I didn't think you enjoyed my candor much." Mr. Black raised an eyebrow. "You didn't seem to this morning."

Sirius dropped the chair legs back down with a clunk. His father watched him for a long moment, taking a slightly perverse pleasure in how his elder son, in contrast with Regulus, fidgeted under the scrutiny—clearly uncomfortable and unsettled by being watched by his sire. Of course, he'd had three years away from it, and surely must be out of practice.

Get used to it, my boy. He thought, eyes lingering with distastefully on the wrinkled cuffs of his son's robes. A week back with them, and Orion was fast starting to think that he could never in good conscience let the boy out of his sight again.

"Did you bring me in here just to stare at me?" Sirius demanded, at last. "Or did you have something to say?"

"How much does the girl know?"

Sirius started at the abrupt subject change.

"N-nothing." He fidgeted in his chair—a telling sign as far as his father was concerned. "Why would you even—"

"—You weren't at all surprised when your mother mentioned she'd accompanied Narcissa," Mr. Black cut him off, sharply—Sirius went very still, just then. "You knew she was coming to the house—I'm sure of it." He tilted his head. "How?"

Sirius considered his answer to the thinly-veiled accusation with rather more care than he might've, in other circumstances. He leaned his elbow on the edge of his chair, adopting a conversational pose—not doubt to give the effect of thinking of the conversation less as a repeat of the morning, and more a casual chat between men at the club who hardly knew each other, and whose social circles only occasionally overlapped.

"It was a lucky guess, that's all. She told me Narcissa has some stupid idea of trying to fix her up with Regulus, it wasn't difficult to connect the dots. What I can't figure out is why you were so surprised." He picked up the cork from the table and picked off pieces from it. "You didn't think Cissy was going to let herself be shipped off to London by her husband for a week without bringing something to keep her occupied, did you?"

"Who says that it was her husband's idea?" Mr. Black asked his son, dryly.

"Just a feeling I have."

His father only rolled his eyes. Sirius frowned—he gave Orion a sudden, canny look.

"Does she really not even suspect about Malfoy?"

"Who—Narcissa?"

"No—Mum!" Sirius said, impatient. "About him and—Lestrange. About all of it."

Orion merely blinked at him—the inscrutable look that lesser men—or those many people for whom he was a great enigma—would have mistaken for dull wits, or a certain obtuseness of mind. Sirius had abandoned the cork he'd been rolling back and forth on the table, and was now giving his father one of those looks of profound self-righteous disbelief that had been favorites of his teenaged years.

"Doesn't she wonder—who got Regulus in with that lot?" The frown lines in his father's forehead deepened. "At some point even she has to—I mean…what—does she think, Reg rolled out of bed one day and decided on a whim to go on a fetch and carry errand for You-Know-Who?"

At this flippancy, his father's grim look became more pronounced.

"Your mother—you know well that she doesn't think about political matters—" Sirius let out a laugh of strangled disbelief. "She has other priorities, and anyway—she leaves all that to me."

"It explains so much." Sirius leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. "Remind me next time I see her to wise Mum up about the state of the world. If she's been relying on you to keep her up to date—"

"—Your mother knows exactly as much as she needs to," Orion interrupted, forcefully. He snapped his wand against the table, and the sharp bang of sparks that blew out of the end made his son sit up to attention. "What I am more immediately concerned with is what the girl staying in my house knows."

"Don't worry about her." Sirius put his hands behind his head. "I'm taking care of it."

Black patriarch's obvious skepticism only grew—Orion gave him one of his patented probing looks. Sirius folded his arms in front of his chest and glared, defiantly.

"She doesn't know anything about me or why I was there, and she—won't be a problem for much longer." Sirius sat up straighter. "For either of us. Trust me."

The very idea made Orion laugh out loud. Trust him? Really?

"I'm finding it rather difficult to do that, at the present moment—"

"Well, you might have to!" Sirius shot back, exasperated. "Why would I be lying about this? You know I have as much reason to want to be rid of her as you do."

The two men looked at each other. Orion considered this point—it was difficult to argue with the rationality of it, on its face.

Of course, he also knew his son.

"Fine. I'll take you at your word—on this, and drop the subject for the moment."

"Miracles do happen," Sirius muttered, under his breath—though he bore every outward sign of great relief, and his father was left with the uncomfortable feeling that he'd let him off too easy, as far as this particular avenue.

But it was late—and he was tired.

"You seemed…agitated at dinner," Orion observed, after a moment.

"Who wouldn't be?" Sirius tapped his fingers against the table. "I could barely keep up, between keeping your massive lies to Mum straight, and Regulus having a fit every five seconds—"

"—I meant when your mother brought up the subject of Bellatrix."

In a flash he lost all appetite for sport.

"I wasn't anymore bothered by that than I am by anything she says," he mumbled, sinking down in his chair.

The falseness in his too-bright tone was very apparent.

"You made some interesting observations about her," the older man continued, leaning back in his own chair. "What exactly were you insinuating?"

Sirius snorted.

"You know—I all but said it outright. Your wife was the only one at that table that did not understand what I meant—and you'll notice Regulus wasn't piping up to argue with me." To Sirius's delight, at this—for the first time since this morning, his father was genuinely ruffled. "I know exactly why Bella didn't show her face last night."

Orion narrowed his eyes.

"Why?"

"She was with him."

Mr. Black stare at his son for upwards of thirty seconds, his mind not fully able to comprehend the meaning of his the words—and the sly insinuation Sirius was not even bothering to conceal.

"No—surely not."

Sirius laughed, sourly.

"You know why her husband was at that party—is it so difficult for you to believe she wasn't there for the same reason?"

Apparently—and given everything he must know by now, Sirius found that pretty laughable—the idea that his niece might also be a Death Eater was a bridge too far for Orion. He had not seen his father so shocked and disturbed since—well, he'd discovered his son in disguise the night before.

"That is—totally preposterous," Mr. Black muttered, standing up from the table again. "And I don't believe it for—for one minute."

Sirius did a double-take—he really meant it.

"Merlin, why not?" he demanded, incredulously.

His father hemmed and hawed for a moment—amused, Sirius watched him try to come up with an answer.

"Because—for God's sake, she's a woman."

It took only a moment for this entirely sincerely meant assertion to set in before Sirius laughed—a hearty guffaw that immediately put his father's back up.

"Well—I guess Lord Voldemort is an equal-opportunity murderer, then." Orion's face hardened. "That's the part of all this that shocks you—Lord, that's rich! Don't worry, sir—I'm sure she doesn't forget what she owes her family when she's slitting throats, and that she's very ladylike when she mops up the blood, makes sure it doesn't get on her petticoats—"

"—Is that supposed to be funny?" Orion snapped, harshly—Sirius started in surprise. "Do you think this is all a joke?"

Sirius felt a stab of something like guilt twist in his stomach.

"I wish it was," he said, and his voice held a cynicism that, whatever Sirius's other high-strung tendencies, Orion had never heard there before. The boy let out a weary sigh. "It's not funny at all, really—it's just…facing it every day, the reality of it—I get numb. Makes me—well, it was in poor taste, anyway." He laughed, humorlessly. "I'll admit—I shouldn't have said it."

His father, still glaring with stern reproof—softened just a little.

"Do you have any proof of this—outrageous claim?"

Sirius scrunched up his face.

"You've known her her entire life—that should be proof enough." His expression turned grim. "Bellatrix is not the type of woman to sit at home and let her husband have all the fun." He sighed and ran a hand absently through his hair. "She even recruited him to cover for her absence last night."

Sirius laughed—as cold and unhumorous a sound as he was capable of making. He had been thinking of Bella the night before—the moment he had realized where it was he'd found himself—the second the shock of seeing Arcturus and the rest of the family had worn off—he had been in dread at the thought of coming face-to-face with her. It was only when he realized she wasn't there that his heart had slowed back down.

She scared him—she always had.

He blinked and shook his head, forcibly banishing the thought. When he looked back into his father's eyes, Sirius saw something unexpected—beneath that tightly controlled exterior, a hint of—unsettled repulsion.

Orion really was rattled.

After another minute of silent probing stares—Legilimency or mind games, the younger man couldn't figure which—

"It's been a long day," he said at last, stiffly. "All that needed to be said, was." Orion quirked an eyebrow. "Probably a great deal more was said than need be."

Sirius unfolded his arms. Thank God for small miracles. He'd half been afraid Orion would keep him there all night. That would be a logistical problem for him—on a number of levels.

"At last, we agree."

Mr. Black flicked his wand at the door—it opened.

"Come." He pulled out Sirius's chair with his wand, jerking the young wizard up from where he was slouched over the table. "Your brother's waiting for us in the other room."

Sirius rose to his feet—too eager for the tantalizing promise of Orion shoving off to think too much about what that long look his father had given him meant.

They found Regulus sitting cross-legged on the bed, trying and failing to read through the book of family letters Sirius had abandoned there hours before. Orion's elder son flung himself down on the bed next to his brother, curling his legs up underneath himself.

"You'll be happy to hear that I am leaving you to your own devices," Mr. Black informed his two sons, wearily.

"Thank, God," Sirius muttered, not bothering to say it under his breath. Regulus nudged him.

"—But not before we settle a few things." Orion finished, briskly. "Sirius—you had an assignment from me."

At this unhappy reminder, his son flopped back down the bed. The father would not be deterred—he cleared his throat in the pompous manner that seemed to have been tailored to annoy his eldest.

"I want to see what you accomplished—and inspect it."

"It's all in the wardrobe."

Orion crossed his arms and tapped one foot impatiently on the floor. Realizing that his father was not going to pick up on his cue to help himself to the contents of the wardrobe (or the subtext, which was to leave him alone), Sirius vaulted off the bed and over to closet. He wrenched open the doors, pulling out the large sacks he'd haphazardly shoved in there a few hours earlier. He unceremoniously dumped the bags—which were still charmed to carry far more than they should be able to, so each poured forth packages like a deluge—onto the bed at Regulus's feet.

"There they are—it's all of it, everything on your list." He marched over to the bedside table and snatched up a sack and a stack of papers. Before Orion could protest, his son had shoved them into his free hand. "Here's your receipts and here's your gold—and before you ask, yes, every last knut that should be is there."

Mr. Black, eyes still fixed on Sirius, weighed the bag of gold in the hand to which it had been thrust.

"I can count that money in front of you, if you'd like."

Orion didn't even bother responding to this pert remark. He tucked the gold into his robes and carefully looked over the large pile of presents.

"This is—quite an accomplishment for a single afternoon." Sirius nodded—somehow managing to make even that simple action petulant. Both of Orion's eyebrows rose—he exchanged a look of surprise with his silent younger son, who was stoically watching them from the corner of the bed. The dark-haired boy still seemed a tad shell-shocked from their earlier exchange, but his dark eyes followed the path his father's took as he carefully inspected each and every package. "How efficient you are."

Sirius flung himself back on the bed next to Regulus.

"It's shopping, sir—not exactly alchemy."

"They're all already wrapped," Orion observed, dryly.

"I even put the names on the outside of each one, so you can write out the tags with your handwriting and everything." He blinked his large gray eyes up at Mr. Black, with faux innocence. "Is there something wrong?"

Mr. Black did not shower his son with the adulation he felt he deserved at this thoughtful gesture. Far from it—his father was now staring at him with a horribly knowing suspicion that suggested he knew exactly what his wayward firstborn was up to.

"Forgive me—did it not occur to you that I might want to inspect the contents of these boxes before I hand them over to my relations to be opened, willy-nilly?"

Sirius shrugged.

"Not really. You told you what you wanted me to get, I got it. What's the matter, Father…" Sirius looked away from the ceiling and back at his father, smirking. "Don't you trust me?"

Another quick perusal of the various packages and boxes—Orion's eyes lingered on the largest of the lot, upon which his son had affixed a label with the words "For Irma 'Crabapple' Black" derisively scribbled on it.

He pressed his mouth into a thin line.

"Naturally, I do," he answered, smoothly.

Orion waved his wand—in a flash, everything was neatly stacked. Another wave, they had returned to their bags, and after a third—vanished into thin air—presumably back to Grimmauld Place.

"The gold seems to be in order. I have no doubt that the receipts are as well. You are, after all, a very capable young wizard—when you put your minds to things." Orion studied his fingernails. "You seem to have done so this afternoon."

Sirius snorted—but then noticed the unpleasant smug smile on his father's face that always spelled trouble.

"Of course, it goes without saying that if a single person in this family questions the gift they receive from me this year—" Sirius sat up in bed. "—You will pay for all of them."

Sirius bolted upright, face stricken. Regulus at his right side had blanched, and his father—far from looking upset, had seen the reaction for what it was—a confirmation of his shrewd suspicion. His malicious smile widened.

"So, for your sake and the sake of your bank account," he continued, airily. "I hope you haven't included any surprises among your purchases meant to make me look the fool."

Sirius ground his teeth and glared at his father—Regulus rubbed his forehead, expressing without words more than any words could say about Orion's feelings on the entire evening.

"I wouldn't know how to do that even if I wanted to, sir," Sirius spat, through gritted teeth. "They'll love all their gifts—believe me."

"They had better," Mr. Black said—his tone promising that his threat of holding his son financially responsible was no idle threat. "What about the dress robes? Did you pick some up, like I told you to?"

"I got fitted for them—I still have to pick them up," Sirius muttered, peevishly. "I suppose you want to inspect them, too."

"It depends on whether you followed the spirit of my directive or not," Orion replied, sarcastically. "Are they in good taste, or are they garish and offensive to the eyes?"

Sirius rolled his eyes.

"They're perfectly fine," he said, tiredly. "Mother won't object to them, which I know is all that matters to you as far as what I wear on Christmas goes." He tugged on a tassel attached to a pillow. "If you really must see them, I'll—show you as soon as I pick them up."

Mr. Black nodded, curtly. If Sirius had gotten some idea in his head to try to shock Walburga, he was fairly confident he'd just knocked it out of his foolish son's head.

There was only one thing left to discuss, now. Orion's eyes fell on the pile of books stacked haphazardly on floor and around the bedside table.

"Regulus—" His youngest snapped to attention. "I gave Sirius some books of letters, with instruction that the two of you should begin reading them at once. Did he do so?"

"Yes, Father." Regulus gave Sirius a sideways look. His elder brother had retreated into the tried and tested pose of staring at the wall with his arm crossed, ignoring all family members in his immediate vicinity. "I took half of them when he—got back."

Orion folded his arms behind his back and studied his two sons sitting next to each other on the large bed. Regulus was, as usual, the one who sat upright, paying rapt attention—though his face looked a little pale, and he still had that curiously closed-off look that disquieted his father far more than any of Sirius's ravings did.

"As you both had the entire afternoon to peruse the collection, I'd like to hear what progress you've made. Regulus—what did you start with?"

"The 1820s. I got through all of them through January of '24." Regulus bit his lip. "I haven't found anything yet, but I will get through the decade by the end of tomorrow, I think, if I really but my nose to the grindstone—"

"—That would be a complete waste of time."

Both of them turned to look at Sirius.

"What are you talking about?" his younger brother asked, annoyed. There were few things that could rouse Regulus's temper, and being shown up by Sirius was top of the list. Sirius sat up in bed, wearing a look of annoying superiority over his brother.

"Because, Reg—the necklace wasn't even made until at least 1839." Orion and Regulus's faces flashed with identical expressions of surprise—which became even more pronounced when Sirius pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and began to read, verbatim. "By—let's see, probably a family of Swiss goblins named Virkander, judging by the exquisite hinge styling on the settings of the opals, which apparently only came into vogue with continental silver smithing in the late 1830s—"

"Accio letter!"

"Hey—!" Sirius yelped, as the heavy parchment flew out of his slack grip. "I was reading that!"

But it was too late—Mr. Black had already snatched the letter out of the air. His eyes tore across the wrinkled parchment. Sirius jumped off the bed and in three long strides was in front of his father—though one look told him all he needed to know about the likelihood of him getting it back.

"This is—" He looked up, genuinely shocked. "—This is a bill of appraisal of Elladora's necklace from—Borgin and Burke's. From 1904."

"Yeah, it is—" Sirius reached for it, and almost on instinct, his father pulled it up and out of his son's reach. "And I paid good money for it, so if you don't mind, I would like it back, now!"

"This is extremely detailed— " Mr. Black said, shaking the letter in front of Sirius's face. "Where on earth did you get it?"

He didn't need to wait for an answer from his son, for as quickly as he had demanded it, he realized. Understanding passed over Orion's face—and then, just as quickly, supreme displeasure.

"There is only one person I can think of who would be in possession of such a document—" He crunched the parchment in his fist. "—But I cannot think even you would be so supremely foolish as to alert him to your interest."

His son blinked up at him, innocently—which was all the confirmation Orion needed. He swore, loudly.

"Of all the hare-brained, ill-advised, stupid things to do—"

Regulus, meanwhile, had snapped somewhat out of his dazed stupor, and was looking at his brother with a similar expression of shocked disbelief.

"Oh, Sirius—you didn't go to Burke!"

Sirius looked between his thunderstruck brother and the father he had not imagined still had the energy left to be this angry with him.

"I only—sent him an owl last week, just—asking if he had anything on it and offering to pay if he did," Sirius invented, quickly. Orion's eyes flashed out a warning, and so he continued, hastily, "Look, I was doing what you asked me to. If you want to get that necklace on a legal pretext, you have to know everything about what you're dealing with. Who better to ask than the keeper of all the Burke family secrets—a man happy to sell to the highest bidder?"

"Do not give me some cock-and-bull story about acting in my interest," Mr. Black hissed, furiously. "You might've spoken to Belgravius Burke about the opals, but that is not the real reason you went to him."

The daring smile fell off his son's face—for that shrewd expression was unmistakable. Orion knew.

"If you think Burke will be the one to help you find a way out of your current legal predicament, you are in for a hard lesson, my boy." Sirius's lip twitched, but he said nothing—only glared up at his father. "He is your grandfather's man, through and through—a fact you should well know."

"Arcturus doesn't want me in the family," Sirius interrupted, quietly. There didn't seem much point in pretending he hadn't done it, at this point. "And Burke's not going to tell him about it, anyway."

"You do not know that," Orion hissed—raising his voice, but Regulus was the one who flinched, not Sirius. "Why do you think my father pays him so well? It isn't for his sparkling personality."

"Merlin—I'm paying him off, alight?" Sirius exclaimed, hotly. "And more importantly, I happen to have something on him." His father blanched. "You're not the only one in this family capable of doling out threats."

Far from comforting his father, Orion only grew more alarmed.

"You threatened him? You threatened Belgravius Burke?" He repeated, in the same tone of voice one might have asked the question of a garden vole or toddler. "With what, dare I ask?"

"That's my business," Sirius replied, evasively.

Orion rubbed his temples with both hands—his head pounded with a bad combination of liquor and aggravation. He was torn between the anger he barely had the strength to express and a new, more concerning feeling in the pit of his stomach—the notion that in the three years since he had run away, far from growing out of his adolescent recklessness, this rashness had become a fixed part of his elder son's personality.

Or worse, that he had moved onto self-destruction.

"By Salazar, you have a gift for getting in over your head," Orion said, wearily dropping his hands back to his sides. "He is a cunning man—and you are well out of your depth. Do you have a death-wish? Or is this just about doing the exact opposite of what I tell you?"

"If you're really so worried about it, why don't you go down there and bribe him yourself? He's probably sitting there waiting for you." Sirius glowered up at Orion, taking petty pleasure in the red around his father's collar. "Of course, if you do go storming into his office tomorrow, he's only going to know how desperate you are, and drive up the price."

"You haven't given me much of a choice in the matter," Orion observed, coldly. He glanced over at his younger son, who was currently trying to make himself as small and invisible as was possible without actually sliding off the bed and pressing himself against the wall. "Next time you have one of your brilliant notions to broadcast our situation to the whole country, you might give a thought to the rest of us." Sirius made a deliberately obnoxious sighing sound, but his father only raised his voice a decibel to speak over it. "Your actions may very well have put this entire family at risk—"

"—You aren't worried about the 'whole country' finding out—you're worried about Arcturus!" Sirius shot back, archly. "As far as him knowing goes—you can't blame me for that, because he already suspects, and has since before last night."

Orion froze.

"What are you talking about, boy?"

Sirius shrugged and narrowed his eyes, a hint of malice playing across his young face. His father, arms folded behind his back in a paternal pose, met the gaze with an equally steely one of his own.

"Granddad's onto you, that's all—he knows you're lying to him, and worse, he's got it in his head that your sister knows something about it." Mr. Black's eyes widened in shock. "So, I hope for your sake you haven't made the colossal error of confiding in Lucretia. Everyone knows she can keep a secret for about as long as she can keep her head, and when it comes to your father, the slightest bit of pressure and she blows up like a house of Exploding Snap cards."

"How—how do you—?" Orion sputtered—facing turning purple. He was hardly capable of even finishing the question. "How could you possibly know all that?"

Sirius looked up from the blankets he'd been fiddling with and smiled, archly.

"Maybe I'm a better spy than you give me credit for."

Orion set his jaw and, breathing long and hard out of his nose, with considerable effort schooled his completely natural desire to box his eldest son's ears.

"What you are is an overgrown child—one who has expended considerable effort this past week trying to find a way out of fulfilling his responsibilities. This is an utterly futile gesture, and my patience with it—and you—is waning." Orion said, his voice scathing. "I suggest that you give up your dreams of 'escape' and instead focus your attentions on becoming a productive member of this family. You will find it far less frustrating, I assure you."

Sirius curled his legs back up under him and flopped back on the bed. Regulus, at his left, stared down at his brother, looking rather forlorn. Their father cleared his throat.

"I wish you both goodnight," Mr. Black said, tersely. He looked between them, his displeasure at having such a pair of disappointing sons evident. "Sleep well—you'll need your strength for all the hard work I'm going to put you to tomorrow."

Between the two of them, only Regulus murmured a 'good night' back—and it was a feeble, distant sound. Without another word, Orion took a pinch from the Floo powder jar on the mantle and stepped into the fireplace, disappeared.

The two brothers both remained where they were on the bed, side-by-side, unmoving. Neither spoke for upwards of a minute—until Regulus broke the silence.

"Why would you go to Burke for help, of all people?"

"I don't know—it seemed like a good idea at the time." He picked up a pillow and shoved his face in it, despairingly—he had been asking himself the same damn question all afternoon. "It was a mistake—that seems to be all I'm capable of, at present." Sirius dropped the pillow onto the floor and blinked at his brother.

A thought had struck him.

"Did you know that Mum tried to dispute Uncle Alphard leaving me money in his will?"

"No," his brother answered—Sirius could see he was telling the truth—but also not surprised by this news.

"But you did know about her removing him from the tree."

Regulus's eyes narrowed.

"Of course."

"Why—" He sat up, considering his brother thoughtfully. "Why would she do that over—a bit of gold?"

A black cloud passed over Regulus's face.

"You mean you don't know?" he asked, his voice a quietly incredulous. "You don't—realize?"

"Obviously not," Sirius rejoined, sarcastically. "Or I wouldn't be asking you, would I?"

He didn't even get a smile out of Reggie. In fact, Sirius's younger brother seemed more angry than he had been since his outburst the morning an army of undead corpses had nearly killed him.

"You still don't get it." His voice was flat and pitiless. "You don't understand anything."

Sirius flopped back down on the bed.

"Apparently not."

There was another lengthy silence, before—

"Why do you always have to be like this?"

Sirius blinked up at the crack in the ceiling. Regulus's bitter words were ringing in his ears. He wished he had an answer.

"I don't know," he admitted at last, with a sigh. "I wish I—I really don't." Sirius rolled over and turned his head on the pillow to face his brother. "They just—they make me this way, Reg."

Regulus gave him a single disgusted look before standing up and walking out of the bedroom again. For the third time that day, he slammed the door shut behind him, leaving Sirius alone with his gloomy thoughts.

Sirius sighed and rolled back into the musty pillow.

He hadn't believed it either.

---

"I was beginning to wonder if you had gone back to Slughorn's to finish the barrel."

It would have been too much to ask for a moment's peace this evening, Orion thought, stepping out of the grate. As Mr. Black brushed off the light soot on his robes and looked up at his wife, standing with her arm's crossed in front of the basement kitchen fireplace and showing every sign of the impatient irritation that always came when he kept her waiting, he was struck by a curious thought. Despite his prodigious natural talent for vexation, Sirius was still not the person in Orion's family most capable of driving him mad. He eyed his wife, warily.

Out of the cauldron and into the flame.

"Where are Narcissa and—" He hesitated. "—The other one?"

Walburga helped him out of his cloak, briskly.

"Cissy just retired. She was waiting up for you, but was fatigued—and you took so long." She gave him a pointed look. "—The other one apparently went to bed ages ago." Mrs. Black sniffed, dismissively. "She must have a weak constitution."

Orion visibly relaxed. His wife folded his cloak neatly, to prevent creasing, and hung it up on a hook by the fire.

"You were with the boys for a long time," she remarked, trying to keep her tone casual—and failing dismally. "What were you talking about?"

He was reminded unpleasantly of her son with his ear pressed to the door. Curiosity was catching in this family.

"It's a Christmas surprise we're planning for you," Orion replied, sardonically. "I would hate to spoil it."

Mrs. Black rolled her eyes—but she let the subject drop, for she had a keen sense of when he was firm in his resolve and when she had room to exert her enormous will on him to great effect. This was a case of the former. He knew her moods no less well—after nearly a quarter-century of marriage, Orion could recognize when she was working herself up to saying what was really on her mind. It was a mark of her particular brand of feminine slight-of-hand that she never would just come out and admit it.

"I thought you were being rather hard on him at dinner tonight." Orion leaned leaned his hand against the mantle—of course. Of course that was what she wanted to talk about.

Her precious little hellhound.

"I don't know what you mean," he murmured, hoping she would let it drop but knowing her too well to count on it.

"Yes, you do. Don't think I didn't notice—you were snapping at him just about every five minutes."

"I am not going to coddle either of them."

Walburga frowned and fiddled with the broach at the base of her throat.

"Weren't you the one who said just last week that we couldn't push too hard?" she asked, quietly, and he noticed that there was the very rare note of uncertainty in her voice.

"I was talking about you, not me—and anyway, I was wrong!" He spun on his heel, startling Walburga. "He needs to be pushed, he needs to be put in his place. That requires discipline and order and—" He noticed the expression of intense amusement on her face and faltered. "—And…strictness."

It was a lame finish, and they both knew it.

"Well, I'd say you've left that about a decade late," his wife observed, dryly. Her husband had retreated to the fire and was now tending it with a poker, moodily.

"I'm making up for lost time," Orion shot back, irritably, looking over his shoulder. "It'd be a hell of a lot easier if I didn't have you undermining my orders all the time." She tutted audibly, which got his back up. "You know why he doesn't respect me—it's because he thinks you rule the roost."

Mrs. Black gave him a challenging look, as if to ask, 'well, why don't you prove him wrong?'

"I don't undermine you," she said, loftily. He scoffed under his breath, but Walburga had already clearly moved on from that battle, for she had come up behind him, stealthily. "And he respects you plenty. I can see it—you've got him well in hand." She batted her eyelashes and tilted her head at him. "I do wonder how you're doing it, of course…"

"Oh, I bet you do, madam…" He met her gaze, amused in spite of himself—if she thought he'd fall for one of her female tricks at this stage in the game, his wife had another thing coming. He frowned—under the light of the fire, Walburga seemed very careworn—and smaller, somehow, than she normally looked. Orion sighed and brushed his fingers gently on her shoulder. "Content yourself with the knowledge that it's being handled and don't worry about the rest."

She pursed her lips, but seeing the stubborn set of his jaw, decided not to push. There would of course be other opportunities to sate her curiosity on this point.

She dipped her head in a manner that was almost coquettish, and her voice went slightly sweet.

"I was wondering—who do you like better, Maria Selwyn or Gertrude Rowle?"

At the mention of these two persons—girls of whom Orion only had the vaguest notion, and apropos of nothing—the middle-aged man frowned. The back of his neck prickled, a warning bell went off in his head.

"For what?" he asked, slowly and with unmistakable suspicion.

She stared at him like he was an idiot.

"For a daughter-in-law, of course!" Walburga said, dropping the coquette act for the true impatience she felt.

Orion blinked—and then the full implication of this sentence hit him.

"For God's sake, woman—you cannot be in earnest."

Her nostrils flared dangerously. But of course, Orion knew—for his wife never joked about anything.

"We are going to have to find him a respectable girl to marry sometime!" she pointed out, brandishing her wand at the wire. The flames jumped up, and Mr. Black stepped backwards, on reflex. "I think it would be better, on the whole, if it were sooner, now that you are—taking a firmer hand."

Women! They never had their priorities in order.

"This is not the time for this, Walburga—you know full well this is the last thing either of us should—"

"—I asked you which girl you liked better, not for your opinions on anything else," she said, in a waspish voice. "If you don't intend to take an interest in who our son marries and in securing his position, that's fine. I'm perfectly capable of making decisions all on my own. I just thought you would appreciate being consulted."

Mr. Black stared hard at his wife of over twenty years. When it wasn't driving him up the wall, her amazing confidence left her beleaguered husband in awe. He could hardly see a way forward for them that didn't end in ruin—or worse, and here was she, a woman for whom the only life or death question at present was the identity of her son's future bride.

Astounding. She was amazing in every sense of the word. Aggrieved as he felt, he couldn't—he didn't want to be the one to drag her back to reality.

"This is an absurd conversation to be even entertaining, but as I see you can't be dissuaded," he said, with forced patience. "Let me give you the facts, Walburga. I must tell you, quite frankly, that neither the Rowles nor the Selwyns—or indeed any family with good sense—are going to allow their daughter to marry a wizard who is not only a pariah among his own people, but is also a political radical. And furthermore—" His wife pressed her mouth into a thin line.

"—I wouldn't foist that son of yours onto any girl, respectable or not, for all the world."

Mrs. Black's face flushed an angry purple at these aspersions being cast on her firstborn.

"You're almost as much use as your sister is," she said, tartly. "She was no help at all when I asked her if she could think of anyone who would suit. It's very vexing." She tilted her head. "I don't think Gertrude Rowle is nearly pretty enough, and I can't see her running a household well—her mother's is dreadful—and of course Maria Selwyn is as empty-headed as a bird, and she squints—" Her husband stared at her in amazement as she continued to methodically list the defects of these prospective daughters-in-laws. "—and none of the Greengrasses are old enough, yet. I can't think of any girl who's quite—right."

"The girl in question would have to be mad to take him. Compromised mental competency should be your starting place when looking for a candidate." His face flushed, unpleasantly, when he fully registered the meaning of what she had just said. "Wait a moment, what have you—you're not involving Lucretia with your ridiculous schemes, are you?"

Mrs. Black huffed and rolled her eyes—without her 'schemes', nothing would ever get done in their family. How like Orion to not see that.

"Why do you think she called me for tea this morning? She always did think our troubles with Sirius were a good joke—your sister is highly entertained by my great trials and sufferings." Upon uttering this statement of pure melodrama, Mrs. Black's expression turned resentful, and she added, significantly. "She wanted to hear about the flat where he lives. What it looks like—you know, I think she's of half a mind to drop in and visit, to see it herself! Can you imagine?"

His temple throbbed. Orion muttered a few curses, ending with a rather rude consignment of his sister to the devil.

"When we agreed to do this, Walburga—you do remember the conversation we had?" She withdrew from him, mouth as thin as a straight-rule. "The part in particular about absolute secrecy?"

"I'm not the one who told her in the first place," Walburga pointed out, dryly. He rolled his eyes and huffed—he could hardly argue with that. "Anyway, I gathered she doesn't know anything about Regulus, and that's what really matters."

"That's true—for now." He shook his head. "Of course, she'll realize pretty quickly he's not in France with his fiancée when she visits and discovers him in that filthy hovel."

He could have almost laughed, to picture it—Lucretia was no great favorite of Sirius's, for she had loved to tease him since he was old enough to walk, and he had never mastered the trick of not rising to his aunt's bait. If he wasn't there when she arrived, Lucy would surely lie in wait for him, staging an ambush and refusing to leave until she'd riled him up as much as possible.

"She doesn't know where it is, thank God." They exchanged a look of momentary solidarity—his sister in her most irksome moments had a way of bringing them together. "Not from want of trying, of course—but I wouldn't let her pry the secret from me for all the world."

"Oh, if she's determined, she'll find out his address and drop in, unannounced." He clenched one fist, reflectively, fingers curled around his wand. "Anyway, it's not her I'm worried about, really. It's my father. I have an idea he might—suspect she knows something."

Mrs. Black frowned, troubled and annoyed by this development.

"Why on earth would he?" she asked, perturbed. "How could he have found out so quickly?"

"It's just an—hunch I have," Orion said, evasively. His wife narrowed her eyes, suspicion piqued. "Oh, you know him—he's like a bloodhound when he gets the scent. He's not a fool, Walburga—and if he has a sense she knows something about Regulus and starts hammering Lucy over it, she'll likely let something slip—"

"Of course, Arcturus would be your primary concern," Walburga muttered, voice snide. Orion's eyes flashed. "As always, he's the first thing you think of—before your wife and children, even."

Mr. Black kept his composure, despite the ugly flush on his cheek at her stinging rebuke.

"That son of yours certainly has inherited his mother's instinct to go for my throat," Orion observed, wryly. "You should be proud of him, madam. He's a credit to you."

She refused to dignify what would be taken by almost any other woman as an insult—but what was, as far as she was concerned, a great badge of honor—with a reply. It was quite beneath her. She merely gave her husband of nearly a quarter century the cool stare that indicated she thought he was not living up to the family name—the hardest criticism she could level without words.

"Well, what do you suggest we should do?" she asked, after she was sure he understood the meaning of her expression. "Do you have a better idea of what's to be done with Sirius Orion?"

"Chaining him to the wall would be a good start," he replied, flatly.

She opened her mouth to protest—but Orion had already pushed past her, clearly finished with the conversation—and everything else.

"Where do you think you're going?" his wife squawked, as he glided past her and headed towards the stairs. "I am not done speaking to you—!"

But her husband was done listening—for he was already halfway up the stairs to the main foyer when he turned his head back around to address her, with an indifference meant to infuriate. It worked.

"I will be in my study for the rest of the evening—and I don't wish to be disturbed by anyone." Mrs. Black opened her mouth, but in anticipation of the question, he waved her off and said, almost as an afterthought, "Spare yourself the trouble of waiting up for me—I'll sleep in my dressing room again."

And before she had time to tell him that he had no choice in the matter, for she would bar him entry to the bedroom, he was up the stairs to the main landing and gone. Walburga stared at the empty stairwell, an expression of supreme disappointment on her face.

Fine. If he wasn't going to help her—she would just have to take things into her own hands. It wouldn't be the first time she had to, where her eldest son was concerned.

There was a solution to the problem—it was merely a matter of waiting for it to present itself to her. She could be patient.

Walburga only hoped it would present itself before it was too late.

---

As a rule, Remus was unfailingly polite and always knocked before entering any friend's domicile. On this occasion, however, the lateness of the hour coupled with his general skepticism regarding the reason he'd been called—as well as proximity to the next full moon—made him a tad abrupt in manner, and he only knocked twice on the door to Sirius's flat before bursting into the sitting room.

"Alright, Sirius, I'm back," Lupin called loudly, from the doorway. At the sight of the dark-haired figure on the floor in front of the blaring television set, he frowned and crossed the room, grabbing his friend's shoulder. "So, are you going to tell me what is all this about, or am I just supposed to—"

The figure on the floor spun his head around—face crimson. Remus did a double-take—the boy sitting cross-legged on carpet, face practically pressed up to a television set playing what appeared to Lupin to be some kind of night-soap—was not, in fact, Sirius.

"Why are you here?" Regulus demanded, crossly, shrugging off the other man's grasp.

Surprised, Lupin and let go took a step back. His eyes flicked from the blaring black-and-white television set and back to the younger Black brother's face. There was a haughty look of superiority there, as if he were challenging Remus to dare laugh.

"Sirius asked me to swing by," Remus said, faintly. His friend's younger brother was now making a half-hearted attempt at blocking the television set with his slight frame and was making a pretty poor showing of it. "…What are you watching, Regulus?"

Regulus reached behind his back and fumbled with the knob, eventually managing to switch the set off.

"Nothing," he said, evasively.

"Was—was that Coronation Street, or—?"

"Oi, Moony!" A voice from kitchen broke in, startling them both. "—Is that you?"

Remus's query on the television habits of a teenage fugitive ex-Death Eater were cut short by the entrance of Regulus's older brother. Sirius had cast off the proper—albeit still borrowed—garb of a pureblood wizard in favor of his preferred sartorial choice: dark jeans, a pair of black wing-tipped boots, and the leather motorcycle jacket he had just found to replace the one his mother had 'purged' that night a week before when she had gone through his dresser and wardrobe.

He strode into the room, a heavy black helmet under one arm. Regulus scrambled to his feet.

"Why're you dressed like a Muggle?" he demanded, goggling at his elder brother's attire.

Sirius ignored him and instead strutted over to the cracked mirror near the door and began adjusting his already-perfect hair.

"I'm glad you're here," He called over his shoulder, to Lupin. "With my luck today, I was afraid you'd be a no-show."

"Well, I wasn't. I did as you asked, and I came." Remus's sarcasm bounced off of Sirius like water off a duck—as he watched his impossibly good-looking friend preen, his irritation only grew. "Now do you mind explaining why I'm here?"

"Are you going out?"

Sirius blinked in the mirror. Regulus had pushed past Lupin, and was standing behind his brother, glaring hotly at his reflection—which made it impossible for Sirius to keep snubbing him. It seemed the younger Black brother, tonight at least, was not going to allow himself to be ignored.

"Yes," he answered, bluntly—Regulus instantly went red. "Look, I know the timing's not ideal—"

"After everything that's happened—

"—But I sort of, well, didn't have much of a choice—"

"—After everything Father said—Sirius, he's only been gone twenty minutes—"

"—My hands are tied, so to speak, so…it really can't be helped."

He pivoted on one heel and smiled in what he hoped was a winning fashion. Regulus, who had long since lost his taste for the charms of his elder brother, only glared more fiercely.

"Why?"

There was something so young about the question that Sirius was almost taken aback by it. He leaned over and winked, roguishly.

"Because…I have a date."

He gave Regulus a little pat on the cheek—which, if not successful in softening him, at least surprised the young Slytherin long enough that his brother was able to slip past him.

"So…who's the girl?"

Both Black brothers looked over at him in unison.

"You don't know her." A ghost of a grin flitted across his face as he looked at Regulus, still incensed by the door. He jerked a thumb towards his brother. "He does."

"Who is the girl, Padfoot?" Remus repeated, more firmly. Regulus had been momentarily stuck dumb, though that didn't stop him from opening and closing his mouth like a fish.

Sirius looked between them, savoring the identical expressions of expectation—and smirked.

"Colette Battancourt's her name."

Regulus let out a low moan of despair and sank into the sofa armchair. Lupin looked between them, his brow furrowed.

"Who's Colette Battancourt?" Remus asked, perplexed at the reaction the foreign name had elicited in Regulus, who had turned deathly pale and looked so shocked he might've stuck a fork in an electrical socket. Sirius tossed his head and shrugged.

"No one, really. She's French, she's visiting a great-aunt for a week, and—"

"—She is our cousin's friend who just happens to be staying with our parents in London at the moment—that's all!" A thought occurred to Regulus, and he threw an accusatory look and waved his wand in a poorly-conceived impression of their mother. "Wait—is that why you were asking all those questions about her at dinner—were you trying to ferret information from Mother and I?"

"Sure was." He clapped his horrified brother on the shoulder, jovially. "Thanks for giving me all those great talking points, Reg. You really painted a picture, there—budding novelist, thwarted would-be heiress—"

"—Ms. Battancourt is a nice girl!" Regulus interrupted, hotly. "How did you even—wait, did you meet her last night?"

Sirius rolled his eyes and glanced at the clock on the wall. A half an hour until the appointed meeting time—that should give him enough time for a quick spin around the neighborhood, if these two prats would stop asking questions.

"Obviously." He tossed the helmet onto the sofa. "I thought I gave her the slip then, but unfortunately we had another run-in today in Diagon Alley—that's how I find myself in the somewhat awkward predicament of having to take her out for a night on the town."

He spoke in the light, pleasant air of a man who, as far as women are concerned, is always willing to make the best of a bad situation. Regulus looked incensed—Lupin, however, who had been characteristically quiet (for he was thinking, hard) broke into the escalating argument between the two brothers.

"Wait a minute—which cousin does he mean?" Remus asked, vaguely alarmed. Sirius lowered the hand that had been fiddling with his jacket's collar.

"Narcissa," he admitted, with a wince.

"Malfoy's wife?"

Sirius grimaced and nodded—a single jerk of the head.

"Guess I didn't, erm—mention to you the little bit about me being on a mission at Malfoy Manor last night, did I?"

No amount of casual flippancy could keep Moony from acting like, well—Moony.

"God, Sirius—talk about burying the lead!" Sirius smiled without a hint of shame—always better to double-down, when it came to heading off a Lupin lecture. "This girl you're taking out tonight is Narcissa Malfoy's friend?"

"She's been her personal guest at the stately manor home of the Malfoy—and now they're staying for the week at my parents' place."

"And you're going out to meet her—by prearrangement?" Sirius nodded—Remus went pale. "This seems utterly insane, even for you."

Regulus nodded vigorously from where he still lay prone on the sofa chair. Sirius had not thought that either one of them could be more annoying in a fuss-budget state than they already were—apparently when together they magnified the qualities he found most irritating in each.

Luckily he was good at handling both.

"I told you, this is for the Order—it's business, not pleasure." Sirius turned back to the mirror and wrinkled his nose. "She's not my type, believe me—but after she threatened to tell tales about me to the world, I felt it was more prudent to take her out for a pint." He looked over his shoulder at Regulus. "Anyway, Reg—it's you she's after."

His brother peaked his head up.

"What do you mean?"

"She told me herself—Cissy thinks you'd 'do well' together, and she's trying to 'make a match'." He mimed retching. "Guess being married to old forked-tongue has given our cousin a taste for being a great society lady, and she wants to expand her net—"

"—Wait a moment," Regulus sat back up on the chair, a shrewd look suddenly coming over his face. "Ms. Battancourt was involved last night, wasn't she? With you getting caught?"

Sirius saw a flash of concern in Remus's eyes in the mirror.

"She—might've been," he admitted, voice silky. Regulus conveniently ignored the 'let it lie' tone and got up from the chair. "Merlin, Regulus, you're almost as nosy as she is. Maybe you would do well together."

"You got caught last night?"

"Yeah—by my father, not the Death Eaters." Remus's jaw dropped—Sirius held up a hand to stop the slew of inevitable follow-up questions. "And yes, before you ask, it was worse. At least they wouldn't have drawn out the torture like he intends to."

"And—and the girl?" Remus managed to choke out, when the shock of the other news had warn off. "What did she have to do with it?"

His friend ran a hand through his hair, messing up his own hard work. It couldn't be helped—he'd have to admit it.

"She's the one who tipped him off—she was there, she nicked my store of Polyjuice and gave it to him," Sirius said, very quickly. "Though that part was apparently by accident. It's a long and very boring story—"

"Doesn't sound like it to me!" Remus interjected, in wonder. "Sounds like a bloody bodice-ripper. Merlin, Padfoot, the scrapes you get into—"

"Well, can I tell you the rest later?" Sirius pointed at the clock. "I have a rendezvous with destiny."

About a hundred questions, beginning and ending with 'are you out of your mad mind?' buffeted around in Lupin's mind, jockeying for position. At last he settled on one, for no particular reason than that he thought he might get a straight answer.

"Does she know who you are?"

Sirius laughed.

"Oh, no. That's why she strong-armed me into this. She's gotten it into her head that I'm interesting." Sirius couldn't help smirking. Regulus let out another laugh of despair directed toward the ceiling. "To be honest, flattering though it may be—it's becoming a bit of a problem."

"For you or for her?" Remus asked, voice heavy with irony. Sirius ignored it—but his own smile flagged.

"I've managed to get her to stay quiet so far by keeping her intrigued." His brother and friend exchanged looks of severe disbelief. "But the trouble is unlike most of her kind, she's not a total twit. Ms. Battancourt may, in fact, be of the clever variety—rare indeed among they of the pureblood continental female set." He spoke with the grimness of one who sees an enemy worthy of respect. "She knows just enough about me to realize I don't want her telling Narcissa, so I have to play Quidditch—so to speak."

"So are you just planning on wooing her indefinitely in the hopes that she'll keep your secrets, or—?"

"For God's sake, will the two of you get a grip?" Sirius snapped, exasperated. "This is not a real date—it's all about getting rid of her!"

Regulus sat up ramrod straight on the armchair. Remus's perturbed frown only deepened.

"What do you mean?" he asked, cautiously. He was wary from nearly a decade of ill-conceived Sirius Black plans.

"Don't you get it? She's staying with my parents, Remus. My parents." He dragged the phrase out for emphasis. "And my mother is her chaperone while she's in London."

Regulus's eyes widened in understanding—Lupin seemed less convinced by what this point proved. He leaned his arm against the sofa, scratching his patched elbow and surveying his friend with a healthy level of skepticism.

"So what?"

"So—why do you think I asked her to meet me at eleven at night?" Sirius asked, smiling slyly. "My mother keeps wards and all kinds of security spells around that house. She has a sensor that goes off if you so much as touch the Floo powder jar without her permission. I gave the girl a tip about getting out of the house through the fireplace in the basement—if she takes the bait—"

"—You're trying to get her caught," Remus murmured. Sirius slapped his hands together and threw a thumbs-up sign in Moony's direction. "Alright—but what if it doesn't work?"

He blew air out of his lips and shrugged. Regulus, sitting very still, watched his brother surreptitiously. Remus glanced over at him—he thought that, beneath his rather placid exterior, Sirius's younger brother probably had far greater capacity for observation than was apparent at first glance.

As far as Sirius went, he certainly seemed good at knowing when to look and what to look for, if that shrewd suspicion on his thin face was anything to go by. Sirius waved one of his leather riding gloves in Lupin's direction, dismissively.

"If by some miracle she manages to get out of that house undetected—there's no way in hell she's getting back in." He stuck his hands in his pockets. He kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other—a sure sign he was itching for action. "No one could be that lucky twice. Either way—when Walburga finds her, when she catches her—it's not going to be pretty." He smiled, grimly, savoring the thought of his adversary bested. "Nice, respectable girl sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night—for God knows what reason—well, we can't have that, now, can we? I would not be surprised if she was sent packing tomorrow morning, back to France."

At the expression of shameless self-satisfaction, Remus felt a glimmer of conscience.

"Is this girl really that bad, that you'd trick her like this?"

Sirius frowned. That this might've appeared anything but a practical joke—and more importantly, for the victim's own good—had not crossed his mind once.

"Her—nah. She's alright. Just a case of rotten luck and too much curiosity—she's prim, when you get down to it. Very proper. " He clicked his tongue thoughtlessly. A black leather satchel which he often strapped to his bike lay on the floor by the mirror. He picked it up and hitched it on his shoulder. "Doesn't know what she's stumbled into, too risky letting her stick around—but she'll be out of my hair and safely back in Normandy soon enough. That's what's important."

It was the tone of voice that Sirius always used to try to convince himself a bit of bad mischief was a good idea—and Remus instantly recognized it as such. He had an odd feeling that the Order was third priority for Sirius—first and second being taken up with petty revenge and his love of living on the edge.

"You don't seem to feel all that guilty about cutting this Colette Battancourt's holiday short," he remarked, dryly, as he watched his friend collect various contraband items he'd stowed in nooks in his living room and shove them in his bag. A comb, a box of Winston lights and some flavored crisps all emerged from odd places, behind a picture frame, taped to the back of the TV set—everything he needed for the date that was supposedly not going to take place. "It seems, well, a bit callous of you, if she is so innocent—"

"Please—she knew what she was doing." He reached under the couch and pulled out a small bottle of liquor he'd concealed there. "Girls of that social strata understand the rules of the game—and the consequences of breaking them." He straightened up, slipping the bottle into the front pocket of his coat. "She wants to play with a dragon—she gets scorched."

Remus glanced over at Regulus, then back at his brother. He resisted the temptation to ask what—or who the dragon was in this metaphor.

"This is all a brilliant plan, Padfoot—ingenious, really." Sirius puffed out his chest with pride. "I only have one question."

Padfoot blinked.

"What?"

Remus cleared his throat, and asked, in a voice of pure innocence:

"Why do you have to go?"

Sirius froze mid-putting his leather riding gloves on.

"What d'you mean?" he asked, dumbly. Remus smiled.

"If this is all about her getting caught, either breaking in or out of the house—" He spoke in a very even, reasonable tone. "Well, you don't have to be there for any of it, do you? She'll get caught just as well without you as with, if the erm—bait—" He gestured at his friend, and allowed himself a rare smirk at Sirius's expense. "—Was as enticing to her as you seem to think."

Sirius cleared his throat and began to scratch the back of his neck. Remus glanced at the other side of the room. Regulus, evidently, also knew that was a tell that Lupin had touched a nerve.

"Well, you know—I just want to make sure—a quick pass on my bike to be certain—she's supposed to be on the Charing Cross side of the Leaky Cauldron." He waved a hand. "But she's not going to be—

"Well, she might be there." He crossed his arms. "What happens if she is?"

Sirius laughed and swung his motorcycle helmet onto his shoulder.

"In the unlikely event that she does make it to the rendezvous spot, well, you know my mantra—" A slow smile creeped over his face, and slipped the helmet over his head. "—Sirius Black doesn't stand up girls."

The helmet obscured his vision, but he could well picture the look on both their faces.

"It won't come to that, though—if anything, she's going to stand me up." He slapped Remus on the cheek with real affection and clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't worry! I'll be back in a half-hour—troubles behind me, Padfoot loose and fancy free. You'll see."

And after a single cheeky wave in the direction of his quietly fuming brother, and twirling the keys to his motorcycle around one finger, he bounded out the front door and was gone.

As he so often did in the face of Sirius on a manic spree, Remus could only stare forlornly at the metaphoric trail of dust his friend had left behind.

"Is this girl pretty, by any chance?" he asked, without fanfare or preamble. Regulus made a soft hissing noise of exasperation from the sofa seat.

"What do you think?" Regulus mumbled, sullenly.

Lupin sighed and ran a hand through his already graying hair. He felt a splitting headache coming on, and this time it was not because of his heightened senses.

"I hope he's right." He felt a little guilty about wishing the wrath of Mrs. Black on anyone, even a stranger—but it couldn't be helped. "About this plan. I hope it does work."

"I don't think he hopes he's right," the younger boy proclaimed, bitterly—and without so much as a backwards glance he got up and moodily skulked out of the living room, through the kitchen, and into the sanctuary of his bedroom.

Remus sighed and collapsed on the couch. He had a feeling that he was in for a long night of waiting up, either way.

I wonder what's on television?

He turned on the set—Coronation Street would have to do, he thought, wearily—and maybe the sound of the program would coax Regulus out of hiding.

He could use sane company.

---

The engine roared; Sirius pressed the accelerator and grinned as he zoomed through a yellow light. The irate lorry driver turning right made a rude gesture out the window as he zipped in front of the truck through a gap not even the most talented Muggle stunt-driver would have been able to make it through with his neck intact.

Sirius let out a a boisterous cheer as he mounted the pavement and weaved between a post box and lamppost before splashing down into a great puddle on the corner. He could not believe he had been away this long—to be on Elvira again was glorious.

You and I aren't meant to be shut up, he thought, squeezing the handlebars. I won't leave you in that garage again, girl.

Lily always teased for calling the bike a 'she' ("What do you think it is? A ship?") but Sirius felt no shame at his attachment, for it had been the first real thing he'd bought with gold all his own—the bike was his. Riding manically high on heels of the grief he felt over his Uncle Alphard's death and replete with the money which had seemed like a small fortune to him then—now, two years on, he realized all too well it was not enough to build a life on—he had sought out the object he had coveted in the secret depths of his heart since the first time he'd ever seen one, when he was just seven years old.

A Suzuki Bandit motorbike.

She was more than a bike. She meant freedom—and that was the one thing he wanted, above everything else.

Sirius was tempted to take the helmet off and let the stinging wind of a December night blow through his hair—but it wouldn't do to get in another police chase so soon, and driving without a helmet on top of the speed he was want to take his baby up to was sure to get him pulled over. He glanced at the empty sidecar, thinking that the only thing that would make this better would be if James were riding pillion at his side.

Then he remembered how he and James had left things, and he felt a wave of chill that had nothing to do with the weather.

It brought him back to reality by reminded him of the facts—he hadn't called Remus back to cover for him at the flat just to go on a mere joy ride.

I guess I better go see the fruit of my handiwork.

He turned the bike onto Charring Cross, weaving in and out of traffic as he made his way slowly towards the oldest pub in London—the Leaky Cauldron. The miserable sleet of the morning and afternoon had cleared off, at last, and though there was a chill in the air which kept the traffic, for a London evening at least, light, the fog had lifted, and there was a clear sky overhead.

Not a bad night to be out on the town, come to think of it—

I'm not going to get a chance, he reminded himself, forcing a kind of studied mental nonchalance on himself at the thought. She's not going to be there, remember?

As firmly as he believed it, Sirius could not control the odd twitch of anticipation in the pit of his stomach as he drew closer to the meeting spot. He didn't want her to be there, really—but when he reached the block before, he couldn't help but crane his neck, scanning the sidewalk. A large delivery van blocked his view the Leaky—and then it pulled up at the green light—and his view was clear.

A single hooded figure stood outside the tiny publican, invisible to everyone else on the street that night, save him.

Momentarily gobsmacked, the wizard turned his head, taking his eyes off the road for just a second—a blaring horn jolted him back to earth and he yanked the steering to the left, missing the bumper of the cab in front of him by mere inches and eliciting a series of angry honks as he cut in front of another lane and pulled the motorcycle up onto the curb of the block.

Not my best landing, Sirius thought, ruefully as he straightened up his crooked parking job. It looked like he'd—he had crashed onto the pavement. It's all that booze at dinner. I must be losing my touch.

Sirius's knees shook, and he stared down at the handlebars for a moment, to steady his nerves and recover from this near-miss. He was keenly aware his hands trembled, from adrenaline and something else—a nervous excitement he didn't want to examine too closely. After thirty seconds or so, he chanced a look up at the figure half a block away.

There was no mistaking her—not from this distance. That unassuming girl rocking back and forth lightly on her heels in front of the grimy pub was none-other than Ms. Colette Battancourt.

"Well, I'll be damned," Sirius muttered, into the helmet. He cut the lights and the engine, but made no motion towards getting off the bike—eyes remaining fixed on the girl. "Hello."

As he was still a good ten yards away, she took no apparent note of the motorcyclist—likely due to the row of automobiles which obscured him from view, though Sirius would not have been surprised if she'd been trained to ignore Muggles as a matter of course. It was the first occasion he'd had in their brief acquaintance to study her at his leisure without her knowing, and he decided to take advantage.

Sirius was amused—but not surprised—to see that in spite of the location of the meeting spot, Ms. Battancourt had not eschewed her robes and cloak for Muggle garb. She probably didn't even own Muggle clothing—lots of pureblood girls didn't. The parents knew that, in the unfortunate event that they were compelled to take them into town and "mix", they could always pass their daughters' robes off as an old-fashioned frock. It was always the boys who got the odd looks.

That had never stopped Walburga from dragging Regulus and he into the square of Grimmauld Place in full lace-to-the-throat absurdity, of course.

He flipped the visor of his helmet down to get a better look. Colette's eyebrows were drawn up in an expression of faint anxiety (had she been waiting long? Was she worried?) She looked unusually solemn and rather grave. Considering she was a young lady about to embark on a clandestine rendezvous with a mysterious and handsome stranger, the girl didn't seem all that excited, Sirius noted, mildly irked. She seemed—to him, at least—a strange and contradictory witch—sensible one moment, reckless the next. This Ms. Battancourt knew nothing of her acquaintance, and yet she had agreed to this madness with hardly a second thought. Under that buttoned-up exterior, the young mademoiselle was a secret thrill-seeker.

Sirius grinned—or perhaps she just thought she could handle him.

He raised his arm to wave at her and call out her name—but hesitated, the words of cheery greeting dying in his throat. He was suddenly struck by the wisdom of what Remus had said to him. Had Moony been right? What was he doing? The whole point of this had been to engineer her leaving the country and his orbit, not to draw her closer. She still hadn't spotted him—ought he to leave now? It was the sensible course—but as usual, the sensible course was not appealing to him.

Sirius had a stirring of conscience as he watched Colette Battancourt, unseen, shivering against the cold December air. There was something more callous in the idea of spending a night amusing himself before throwing her back to the wolves—he didn't like it. It made him feel dirty, caddish—someone who sounded suspiciously like Frank Longbottom murmured in his mind's ear, "You're better than that."

The image of his Walburga and Orion looking disapproving, stirred up in his mind—and on its heels, a wave of unexpected guilt. He blinked it away, furious at himself for the treacherous, weak moment.

The last thing he needed was to let the two of them worm their way into his head, again.

And, anyway—he wasn't better than that.

"Oi, love—whatchu waiting there, for?"

Sirius stiffened in his seat. Ms. Battancourt hardly blinked—she gave the two men who had wandered out of the Muggle watering hole and were stumbling down the block in her direction a contemptuous look. Sirius thought it must've been studied—it didn't come naturally to her, though for the two hard-nosed louts, it did the trick.

"I am meeting someone," Sirius heard her say, in a cool voice. Her uppity tone did nothing to dissuade the men from stopping to converse.

"I'll say you are—you just did!" The taller of the two chortled, slapping his friend on the back. "Fancy a pint, missy? On Barney, here, mind—"

"I said I am meeting someone," she cut him off, bluntly. "You will move along, n'est-ce pas?"

The men laughed.

"Or what?"

"Or I shall have to do something unpleasant to you," she informed him, promptly. Sirius flung his leg over the bike—then noticed the girl was gripping her wand rather tightly in her right hand. He let out a soft 'ha!' under his breath. "You would not like it, believe me."

"Ah, missy—I'm not so sure about that," the first man said, elbowing his friend and leering. "Why don't you show us what you have in mind—"

"I'll take it from here, gents."

All three of them turned their heads in unison.

"Nose out, laddie," Barney said, through a thick Welsh accent. Colette, still grasping her wand underneath the folds of her cloak, looked annoyed at the intrusion. Her eyes flicked from the helmeted head down the torso—black leather jacket and gloves, denim jeans and boots, and back to the motorcycle behind him. This was the only thing she took note of—her eyes lingering on it a fraction longer than the rest. "Unless you want to lose it."

Sirius pulled his helmet off and shook out his hair, smirking. Under the light of the streetlamp, he noticed her cheeks pinked when she recognized him.

"You are late," she told him, with no less coolness than she'd employed against the Muggles—but Sirius wasn't fooled. He knew a blush when he saw one. "So late that I was—about to go, you know."

No you weren't, he thought, wryly—but he refrained from voicing the thought. She seemed to read his expression, anyway, for her blush deepened, and she turned her head stiffly in the other direction—the two men completely forgotten. Evidently her annoyance at him was far more irksome than any perceived threat from the two louts.

"You heard the lady, friends—we are about to go." He turned to address the men, with as much cheerful contempt as he could muster. "So do us all a favor, and kindly shove off."

"Cheeky little bugger!" The shorter man sneered. "You got quite the mouth on you—"

They let out a series of colorful curses—and then Sirius reached for his back pocket and employed the trick he'd perfected with James—making the act of reaching for a wand look like pulling a gun. From his clothes all thought he was a punk, anyway—might as well act the part, as dress it.

"I have something else on me, as well," Sirius remarked, calmly, making the squeezing motion that signaled taking the safety off. Thank God for Starsky and Hutch. "Want to see it?"

Barney and his friend gave Sirius and the bike a once-over, and deciding that an altercation was not worth it at this stage in the evening, the two men shuffled off to the next watering hole, muttering about "posh little uppity gits" and a more feminine insult he was tempted to hex them for, keeping a low profile be damned.

The voices faded away, and Sirius turned back to Colette, grinning like a monkey. She was far less amused.

"I had them well in hand," the French girl informed him, coldly. "I did not need your assistance."

"I know." Sirius tossed his helmet back on the seat of the motorbike. "If you did I'd have intervened much sooner." She pulled her cloak around her shoulders tighter and shivered. "Sorry I'm late, by the way. Been waiting long?"

"Long enough." She took a step towards him. "I was beginning to wonder if you—"

"—Had pulled a trick on you? A fast one?" He leaned on the lamppost and crossed his arms, smiling. "Now, does that seem like something I'd do, Ms. Battancourt?"

She laughed, airily—making it quite obvious she thought that was exactly the sort of thing he'd do.

"My slight tardiness is due to the fact that I lost my watch last night—it wasn't running right before then, anyway."

"Why are you dressed like a Muggle?" Ms. Battancourt gave him a skeptical once-over. He bristled just a smidgen—what, she didn't like his leather jacket? He stepped back from her and, in a gently mocking spirit, imitated the critical examination of clothing she'd just given him.

"You're the one who is dressed oddly, mademoiselle," he tutted, disapprovingly. "You might as well have a sign over your head that says 'I'm a witch'. We are trying to be inconspicuous, here—"

"—I do not believe you have ever tried to be inconspicuous in your life, monsieur," she cut over him, flatly. He laughed—several rejoinders were on his lips, but before he could decide which one to employ, Colette had sidestepped him to get a closer look at Elvira.

"Does that—contraption belong to you?"

He frowned, surprised by that abrupt turn. He slapped the seat of it like one would a much-loved horse.

"Is there some reason why it shouldn't, mademoiselle?"

She looked up from the headlight and gave him an odd look.

"Non, I was just—" She hesitated, showing that flash of shyness he occasionally saw on her face. "Never mind. It is—nothing."

There was a story there, clearly. He let it pass for now. There'd be time enough—the night was young.

"Ever ridden one before?"

She let out an unladylike laugh.

"What do you think I am? Absolutely not."

He shrugged.

"Well, there's a first time for everything, as they say." Sirius asked, innocently, circle back around to his bike. "I hope you're not afraid of heights."

Colette looked at him, momentarily confused, before—

"Vous voulez rire!" she exclaimed, when it occurred to her what he meant. "Of course I am not, but you cannot mean that this—thing—"

"I enchanted it myself," he said proudly, making a great soaring arc with his arms. "Anyway, I want to take you someplace special—and this'll be faster, not to mention more expedient."

"Where is it?"

"A place Narcissa Malfoy would never take you. You'll enjoy it, trust me." He picked the helmet up—but didn't put it on. "Now, you've got two choices. You can ride pillion—" He gestured to the sidecar, which she examined with the proper amount of well-bred distaste, though he could see she was also curious about it. "Or you can ride behind me and, erm—" He smirked. "Hold on real tight."

He made a gesture to his chest. She blushed—but only for a moment before turning her nose up and saying, in a very dignified and superior tone of voice.

"I shall ride in this—sidecar," Colette told him, a tad missish. Sirius was confident that she wasn't really angry with him—that she only felt she should be, for the sparkle in her blue eyes spoke to being intrigued and interested, in spite of all better instincts.

She only spotted a glimpse of his cheeky grin before he slipped the helmet over his head.

"Then hop in."

---

I know, I'm awful to leave it there. The chapter was getting too long, though. I swear, for real, we will actually catch up with the prologue in the next one. Cross my heart.

Also, in the spirit of the holidays...be on the lookout at my profile for a special Christmas-themed surprise.