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']

17. Chapter 17

'He was younger than me,' said Sirius, 'And a much better son, as I was constantly reminded.'

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

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CHAPTER 17

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"This is so pointless," Sirius said, to the ceiling. "We're not going to find anything."

Regulus looked up from the cracked parchment he'd been pouring over to the sofa, where his brother lay, legs dangling off the side in a dramatically indolent pose.

"We can at least try."

Regulus, cross-legged on the aging shag carpet, tossed another letter onto his 'read' pile. Since the departure of their aunt, the brothers had been hard at work sorting through the piles of documents and old books that Orion had left them to peruse.

Or, as it was in Sirius's case, avoiding work.

"He doesn't expect us to." Sirius flicked off the letter he'd let rest on his face for several minutes. "You know why he's doing this, don't you? Spite."

Regulus shuffled over a pile of shopping lists from the 1870s they'd unearthed. Nothing about an opal necklace there.

"Father doesn't do things out of spite," he remarked, idly. Sirius suppressed a snort.

"You're talking to the man currently being blackmailed by him, so—agree to disagree."

In a fit of pique he kicked over an already toppling pile of extremely formal love letters their great-great-great aunt had received and apparently never answered. His brother glanced up, then, and with an impatient huff, waved his wand to right them once more.

"….He's not doing that out of spite," Regulus said, quietly, squaring the edges of the stack.

Sirius looked up from the book he'd been half-inclined to use as a blanket, faintly surprised. His brother was buried in his own volume—whether Regulus was that keen on the contents of the mouldering leather tome, or just trying to avoid eye contact was difficult to say.

"Then why, pray tell—" He reached over and pulled the edge of the book down. "—Is he doing it?"

Regulus looked up into his face—his dark eyes frustratingly opaque.

"If you don't realize, there's no point in explaining."

Sirius made a disgruntled noise and pushed the book back at his brother.

"Last night you said something like that to me. Is speaking in riddles your thing now?" He flopped back down onto the sofa. "You're almost as cryptic as Dad."

Regulus didn't argue with him, instead letting the insult pass without comment—another move, Sirius thought, with disgust—that he'd pulled from their father's paltry bag of tricks.

"We're bound to find something in one of these."

"No, we aren't." He propped his chin on one palm and surveyed the sitting room floor and his brother's impenetrable system of organization. "This is all an exercise in futility. It's like that bloke from the Greek myth who had to roll the boulder up the hill."

"Sisyphus." Sirius ignored him, instead rolling onto his side and scattering the papers surrounding him on the sofa—being far less methodical and tidy in his approach to 'research' than his brother, the slightest movement was liable to send every letter flying onto the floor and directly into Regulus's hard work.

"This is a new strategy, Reg. Shouting didn't work to his satisfaction, so now he's trying to bore us into submission."

The younger brother tutted quietly as he pulled out an envelope curiously tucked into the slip cover of the oldest of the books—a letter fell out and directly into his lap. Frowning, the younger Black brother picked it up and and began to unfurl it.

"He's at least going to expect you to tell him something interesting you learned," he murmured, absently, as he smoothed out the parchment—no, it was a kind of cheap stationery, not parchment at all. "To prove you're trying."

"So, I'll make something interesting up." Regulus's eyes froze on the paper. "I mean, you'll have to, too. It's not as if anyone in this family has ever actually written something interesting. Offensive, maybe, but—"

"—Sirius, shut up."

A sharp rebuke, for Regulus—Sirius's babbling petered out at once. He tilted his head in the direction of the floor.

"What is it?"

Regulus held the letter out with trembling hands.

"I've—found something."

His brother sat up.

"Not—about the opals?" Sirius asked, incredulously.

He made a move to pluck the letter out of Regulus's hands, but the younger brother drew it back. His eyes skimmed the page, growing wider with each line.

"It's—what I thought. It's…a letter from Phineas."

Far from having the impact Regulus's tone suggested this revelation warranted, his elder brother looked crestfallen.

"Is that all?"

"Not Phineas Nigellus." Reggie lowered the letter, looking grave. "His—son. Grandfather's uncle. You remember."

It took a moment for Regulus's words to register, and another for him to remember. A map of the family tree—one that looked precisely like the tapestry in the drawing room of their parents' house—had to be drawn from the depths of his memory, first. Fifteen years since he'd been put to the task of memorizing it, and Sirius had not yet dislodged the information from his mind.

He doubted he ever would.

"Phineas…the one who was disowned? The champion for the muggleborn?" He cocked an eyebrow. "That Phineas?"

But Regulus was too busy reading, his frown growing more and more pronounced with every line, to answer this rhetorical line of questioning.

"This is—actually very interesting."

"Interesting how?"

Sirius stood up and idly sauntered over to the bit of carpet where his brother sat, hunched over the page with posture that would have made their mother scowl. He was curious—though hardly eager to show that to his little brother. He had always had a marginal interest in the disowned members of the Black family, and despite his mother's wishes—or perhaps, because of them—had even managed as a child to acquire snippets of information, usually from his Uncle Alphard.

Like anything forbidden, it had a certain allure.

It was only when he joined their ranks that he lost his appetite for wondering at the fates of the lost Black sheep.

"This was—written after he was disowned," Regulus said, quietly, and he handed it up to Sirius without protest. "They must've kept a correspondence. But I can't see how he's right."

"Right about what?"

Sirius plucked the letter out of his hand. It was a single page—and as Regulus had said, dated to long after the unfortunate young radical been blasted off the family tree. It took Sirius a moment to grasp what this lost great-great uncle was saying—as his brother had pointed out, it was clearly part of a longer correspondence, for previous conversations were referenced throughout.

"Well, now we at least know why he was disowned." He lifted his head and laughed, contemptuously. "He was barking mad. What a load of total rubbish!"

Regulus didn't return his smile.

"You don't think it's…possible?"

"What, that the family motto refers to anything but blood purity?" Sirius slapped the letter against his palm. "I don't care how many historical studies this bloke did of the twelfth century and the origins of wizard ideologies after the Statue of Secrecy went into effect, there's no way—" He scoffed, loudly. "—I mean, what else is 'Toujours Pur' supposed to be about?"

He thrust the letter back into Regulus's hands. His brother stared down at it—smoothed the crinkled edges that had come from Sirius's rough handling.

"Purity of heart, I suppose."

Sirius laughed—a single, hard 'ha!'

"'Always pure of heart'—" He sneered and stalked back over to the sofa. "The only family motto we deserve less than the one we have now."

Regulus frowned, expression thoughtful.

"I wonder—could it be true?"

Sirius turned his head sharply to give one of his patented 'are you daft' looks, but his brother, to his credit, didn't blush.

"Of course it isn't, Reg."

Regulus ran one thumb over the frayed edge of the envelope.

"He certainly wanted it to be."

The expression of distaste fell off Sirius's face—in its place, a look of resignation.

"If virtue was ever something this family valued, Regulus—" He sighed and ran his fingers through his dark fringe. "—It hasn't been for a very long time."

The hand holding the parchment dropped to his brother's side.

For the second time Regulus could offer no argument against his brother. Instead, he dutifully tucked the note back where he had found it and returned to his perusal of the letters, showing no sign that his Sirius's words had effected him besides a faint color on his furrowed brow.

Sirius, more restless than ever—though not yet driven to pacing—walked over to the dining room table, still empty, save the giant accounts book their father had left. He stared at the book, an object of idle curiosity since he'd first been called into his Orion's study as a schoolboy.

He had always associated it with the secret, inscrutable world of what being a man was—the family accounts.

Because there was nothing else to do (and he was bored, and it was there) Sirius opened the book and flipped to a random page. Something was wedged in between the heavy parchment pages—a letter, which looked as though it had been used as a bookmark once and forgotten. Sirius picked it up—read the postmark, the date, saw the childish handwriting—and his face split into a wide grin of delight.

"I think I've found a historical treasure of my own."

"What is it?" Regulus asked, not looking up.

He waggled it, tauntingly, in the direction of his brother—who, much to his annoyance, didn't notice.

"A letter," he said, voice sing-song. "From Regulus."

Sirius unfolded the parchment and tapped it out. He crept to the far end of the room—as far away from the younger Black as it was possible to be.

His brother furrowed his brow in annoyance. Like his father, inexactitude annoyed him.

"Which Regulus?" he asked, haughtily. "Regulus the first, Regulus Argos, Regulus Lepus—"

Sirius grinned, evilly.

"Regulus the Prat." He cleared his throat loudly. "'September the twelfth, 1972 —Dear Father—I am writing you from the new mahogany desk that you had grandfather send me from Noire House."

Regulus's head shot up—then realization, then the horror that inevitably followed. Realizing he had a captive audience, Sirius went on, in a pitched-up, childish voice.

"It is very fine, and I imagine I will spend many hours here in my studies and, of course, writing to you and Mother—' What a kiss-up you were, Reg—"

His brother let out a cry of protest and leapt to his feet.

"—Give it back—!"

"—Like hell! It's the most entertaining thing I've read all week—"

Prepared for the onslaught, he darted out of Regulus's way as his brother furiously crossed the room in three bounds and zig-zagged to the other side. Frustrated, the younger boy followed him—Sirius had barricaded himself behind the sofa.

"I mean it, Sirius, stop it—"

Regulus made another grab for the note, but his elder brother held it out of reach, laughing boyishly and continuing his recitation.

"—The Slytherin common room is just as beautiful as you described it, with just as many lovely furnishings—Professor Slughorn has been very good about getting me settled with the rest of the first-year Slytherins, and about my desk, which we had to move a four-poster for—"

Regulus swore fiercely at him. Sirius drowned out the protest by speaking louder and leaping onto the sofa.

"—I know you are very pleased about my sorting, but I still can't help wishing I was in the same dormitory as Sirius."

Sirius's voice—the childish falsetto—faltered. The free hand that had been warding off his brother fell to his side.

"I was—so excited to be in school with him, but now that I am here he hardly seems to notice me—" He read on, in a dazed voice. "Gryffindor Tower is—very far from the dungeons, and on weekends he's always off with his friends and doesn't talk to—"

Face burning with rage and embarrassment, Regulus snatched the letter from Sirus's slack grip and crumpled it in his fist.

"That's private," Regulus hissed, through gritted teeth. "You had no right."

Sirius slowly sank into the couch. He suddenly looked very shrunken, and when he turned to his younger brother, his only offering was a feeble smile.

"It's a—" Sirius grimaced. "It's a matter of family history."

"Ancient history," Regulus muttered, staring at the floor. The neat stacks of papers that had surrounded him—read, yet to read, peruse further—lay in a jumbled mess on Sirius's moldy carpet, scattered from the moment he had vaulted up, ready to tackle his brother to the ground rather than let him read the irrefutable proof that Sirius had once had the power to wound him.

But not even Regulus could bring himself to destroy a piece of family history—one his father would so obviously miss—and so he painstakingly smoothed out the letter again and tucked it into his pocket.

Still red-faced and trembling with anger, he began to rebuild his stacks. Sirius watched him painstakingly skim through each paper, trying to recall what category he had placed them in before the fruits of his labors—as they inevitably always were—had been upset by his brother.

"I never knew you felt that way," Sirius said, after awhile.

"Imagine that—" Regulus muttered, turning his back deliberately towards the sofa. "You not paying attention to anyone but yourself."

He flinched. There was no answer for it—no rejoinder he could give. He didn't have the energy to fight Regulus as he did their parents—maybe because he felt it a losing argument…or perhaps it was just that Reggie didn't bring out the plethora of excuses, grievances, the always shiftable blame, the way they did.

"I just figured—you had your friends in Slytherin, and I had mine." Sirius waved his arms about, vaguely. "We'd just, you know…"

His brother stared at him, blankly—his arms dropped to his sides, with that aura of defeat that lingered about dying plants. Regulus didn't know, evidently—and nor did he.

If Sirius were being honest with Regulus—or with himself—he would not pretend it had anything to do with 'his friends' and 'Reg's friends.' It had never been about that.

The two worlds were not Gryffindor and Slytherin, they were 'the Family' and 'Everyone Else.' Regulus had been the single intersection point that marred an experience that was otherwise entirely made up of the latter.

"Just forget it."

"I don't want to forget it." He sat up. "I want to—talk about it—to you."

"What's the point?" Regulus sneered—or tried. He'd never had much of a face for sneering. The best he could do was grimace. "It's all in the past."

"That's what I thought about Mum and Dad." He got up off the sofa and—to Regulus's surprise—sat down across from him on the floor. "The thing is—it's not, really, is it?"

The younger Black brother looked up, slowly, from the page he'd been pretending to read for upwards of a minute.

"It really doesn't matter to me."

"Right, which is why you're laughing all this off."

Regulus fell silent. He bit his lip and breathed in, shakily—wishing he still had one of Lucretia's awful cigarettes to steady his nerves.

"Look, Reg—I don't know what I was thinking, then. I'm not sure I was thinking much at all. Hogwarts wasn't home, that was all I knew." Regulus had the mask on, that impossible to read expression that reminded him irrepressibly of their father, and it made it difficult to look him straight in the eye. "I saw school as an—an excuse to get away from all that."

And you were part of 'all that.'

Regulus blinked—no sign of forgiveness, or understanding—but perhaps pity.

"I suppose it never occurred to you that there were things I wanted to get away from, too."

It was Sirius's turn to blink. The thought had never even crossed his mind.

"Like what?"

Regulus stared at him, unblinking—expression frozen, glacial.

"Always being compared to you," he admitted, coldly. "I thought school would level the playing field. I thought for once we'd be the same. But of course—being you—" He curled his lip. "—You can never be the same as everyone else."

Sirius sat, frozen, stock-still—immobile. Regulus had not lost his temper this time—he had far too much control now, was riding his emotions like a horse with the bit between its teeth.

But it was hard to swallow, not when he could remember with stinging clarity every comment, every jibe from his mother asking why he could not be better behaved (like Regulus) do as he was told (like Regulus) comport himself with dignity (as Regulus did)—

He laughed.

"To be fair, Regulus—most of those comparisons were in your favor."

"It was never about me being good—" Regulus scoffed. "Only about getting you to improve."

Sirius felt the blow—sharp, and then just as quickly, he found the anger roused in him.

"What do you think—that it would have been better if I'd been in Slytherin, with you?" He demanded, coldly. "I'm not going to apologize for who I am."

Regulus's laugh was almost as bitter as his own.

"I didn't ask you to."

Sirius and he stared at each other. He was struck by the thought that Reggie had grown in the past year—that the gauntness he had noticed in his brother was not from illness, but the inevitable shedding of baby fat—the product of growing older—of growing up. They looked more alike now than they had three years ago, when Sirius had been half a foot taller and pure muscle compared to his brother's lithe frame.

It was like looking in a mirror, in a way. One of those carnival trick mirrors—two people gazing into the same glass reflection, the image distorted, differently depending on a slight adjustment—fat round the middle, skinny in the head. That was them.

Or maybe they were like a telescope—each looking at the other through opposite ends.

He had thought for a long time that their mutual lack of understanding had been the one thing that really bound them together. That had been a comfort, in its way. If he didn't know Regulus, at least his brother didn't know him in return.

Now he was starting to wonder if this was yet another defect singularly his.

"Is this about…the inheritance?" Regulus's pale face flushed scarlet. "I can talk to him. I will get him to change his will—"

"I don't need you to talk to him about that—" He snapped, hotly. "Or anything else—on my behalf."

It was meant to be a peace offering—something to draw them together, solidarity over Orion's autocratic injustice, but the offer only seemed to agitate Reggie more.

Only the memory of Regulus's anger that kept him from blurting out the truth—too late! I already have!

He shrugged his shoulders, as if to say—suit yourself.

"Well, then—you should talk to him. Stand up for yourself. That's probably what he's waiting for—you to assert yourself, so he can make the decision he already wants to." His brother's lip trembled. "He all but told me yesterday that you're the good son and I'm the bad."

Regulus rolled his eyes—it took every ounce of Sirius's self-control not to shove him.

"Yeah, right. He would never say that."

"He did!"

"What were his exact words?" Regulus pressed. Sirius stared at him, caught off-guard by the question. What, was he planning on interpreting? Was he a soothsayer, now?

"Something about how—you know your place and I—don't know mine."

Regulus shut his book and looked up.

"That is not what he meant," he said, quietly. "Not at all."

"Well, are you going to explain?"

"Why don't you try asking him?"

He slouched down onto the floor like a football being deflated.

"That's the last thing I want to do," Sirius muttered. He watched his brother gather up the books, the papers—all his half of it, leaving the hurricane wreckage that was Sirius's hard work scattered all over the sofa and its immediate surroundings.

A total disaster—that sounded familiar.

Regulus stood up—and surveyed his elder brother, sprawled out on the floor in a pitiful pose. He smiled, with the kind of wry amusement that Sirius had never seen from him.

It made Sirius feel like the younger one.

"Then you already know his answer."

It was only Regulus's insufferably superior smile that kept him from throwing the nearest quill at his brother's forehead.

As Sirius watched him disappear through the door, to his sanctuary—the refuge of the room they shared—the suggestion remained stubbornly fixed in his mind.

Was he playing stupid with himself as well as his family? With some effort he turned his head.

The scarlet accounts book still lay open on the dining room table.

It's taunting me.

Sirius squeezed his eyes shut. Feeling the headache of this morning, along with the nausea produced by the lingering taste of pickled fish, he crawled back onto the sofa, still covered in crinkled papers of times and places long forgotten.

The image of the book as he had first known it, neatly perched on his father's desk—at eye height—stayed with him.

---

Orion's younger son was nowhere to be found when he arrived in the flat at the stroke—or just past it—of five o'clock in the evening.

His elder was present—dressed, mercifully, in robes—and curled up on the old armchair engrossed in what looked like a two-week old copy of the Prophet.

Sirius did not look even raise his eyes when his father opened the front door to the flat, though Mr. Black definitely detected a twitch of the head which indicated that his son was, at the very least, not pretending to be deaf.

"What's a six letter word for someone or something that's—a purveyor of confusion?" Sirius squinted at the page. "Starts with an 's.'"

"I think I'm looking at one," his father observed, dryly.

Sirius looked up, and when he opened his mouth to reply he caught sight of his father's expression—then seemed to think better of it.

The corners of Orion's mouth turned up.

"Try 'sphinx.'" His eyes lingered on the empty sofa. "Your brother's not still asleep, is he?"

"No—he's going through those letters in the bedroom."

Orion cleared his throat.

"I thought I made it clear," he said, sternly. "You were both to look them over."

Sirius fixed his face in the closest approximation of 'chastened' he could muster.

"We were both doing it—but he…decided to go in the other room. He says I distract him from the work and slow him down." Sirius shrugged and looked up from his paper—his expression unusually muted. "Anyway, I thought you wanted me out here at five, ready and waiting—unless I misunderstood the instructions in your letter, sir."

Orion raised both eyebrows. There was none of the usual sarcasm that would have normally accompanied that word.

"You didn't."

He walked over to the dining room table—bare save the gigantic red accounts book, lying in the exact spot where he'd placed it hours earlier.

"It's good that you were punctual." He pushed the book with his wand to Sirius's usual seat at the table and tapped it; the cover opened of its own accord. "I'm going to show you how to do the monthly accounts—"

"There's no need," Sirius interrupted, briskly. "I've already done them."

Orion's eyes darted up.

"You've already done—"

He flipped the pages in the ledger book until he reached the header, written in his own, neat handwriting: DECEMBER 1979 — JANUARY 1980. Beneath it was long list of names, figures and sums, tallied in equally neat columns.

He held the book out to his son, who had stopped pretending to do his crossword. Sirius tilted his head and gave his father an innocent look.

"Would you care to explain this?"

"I know you're very busy right now," Sirius replied, patiently. "So I figured I'd spare you the trouble and bother of teaching me and I'd just figure it out."

The boy stood up and stretched his arms, the picture of nonchalance. Mr. Black gave his son a hard look. Sirius had surprising control—he did not, in spite of all experience and evidence to the contrary, seem to be trying to wind his father up.

"You thought, rather than waiting for me to explain how it's done, you'd—what?" He raised an eyebrow. "Go through all the old months and work backwards?"

His son shrugged.

"It was straight-forward enough."

Orion considered the boy for a moment, then looked back down at the open page. Sirius had taken great care to write tidily—he had always had a tendency to favor quickness with the quill over deliberation.

"Well, I must say—" He looked back up. "This is…very impressively done."

"Glad you like it." Sirius stretched and tossed the paper back onto his armchair. "If that was everything you wanted, I'm just going to nip into the bedroom and catch a wink before Kreacher gets—"

"Wait a moment."

Sirius stopped at the doorway and turned, slowly.

Orion held up his hand, palm forward—a telltale sign.

"What is it?"

"I said it was impressively done—" His father's eyes gleamed. "I didn't say it was correct. There's a mistake—a rather large one, in fact."

He watched the play of emotions on his son's face—Sirius clenched his jaw, then curled his fists. Any check on his temper had clearly been temporary at best.

"What mistake?" Sirius demanded, a hint of churlishness creeping into his voice. "What's wrong with it?"

"Come over here and sit down at the table—" He tapped the spot again. "And I will show you."

Sirius lingered at the door, breathing in and out very slowly—before he stalked around and flung himself into his chair.

"Now. Explain to me how you did it and I'll show you where you went astray." Sirius let out a small noise that sounded like a sigh being smothered.

In a dull, flat tone of voice, Sirius explained how he had added up the monthly expenses of each of the estate's separate households and calculated the allowances, based on the previous months' allocations.

"Sound logic," Orion conceded, when Sirius was done with what he so clearly thought was a tedious speech. "And your arithmetic was certainly correct."

"So, what exactly is it I've done wrong?"

"If it had been any other month of the year, this—" He pointed at the fruits of Sirius's work. "—Would have been correct. The allowances are normally fixed, but in December, everyone is given something extra, based on the success of the tenancies and investments of the estate, scaled per household. Call it a—Christmas bonus."

Sirius pulled a face.

"You're making that up," he said, angrily. "I looked through every month for the last five years. There was no difference—"

"The investments have been stagnant for quite awhile—but they aren't anymore." Sirius nearly snapped his quill in half—Orion gently pulled it out of his hand. "I did specifically instruct you not to do anything until I arrived."

Sirius threw up his hands and gave his father an accusatory look.

"There's nothing wrong with this. I did the whole thing right, and you're just—you can't resist. You're so eager to catch me out in a mistake you had to make one up!"

He started to rise from his chair—but his father reached out and gently but firmly pressed his shoulder down. His son sank back into the seat.

"I haven't the time or energy for such foolishness," he said, gently but firmly. "Anyway, even if you had done this correctly, I'd still make you do it again. It's good practice."

He waved his wand at the sheet of sums and figures, and the ink vanished, leaving the page a smooth blank once more.

Over his son's mumbled protests, Orion set to explaining how the extra calculation factored into setting the allowances for each individual household. Sirius's fingers trembled with repressed anger—but when Orion made him repeat back what he said, it became obvious to Mr. Black that he was retaining the information.

Of course he was. He was a clever boy, after all.

"Now—you'll do each household, and I'll check your work after. That will prevent any errors from carrying over to the final totals."

"Are you planning on hovering above me the whole time, breathing down my neck, waiting to pounce on the first mistake I make?" Sirius asked, petulantly.

As he was bent over the page, he missed his father's smile.

"I don't imagine I'll have to." He sat down in the chair next to his son. "You have a real knack for this. It's almost—" Orion paused, significantly. "—As if you were born to do it."

He couldn't see his Sirius's expression—but the tips of his ears burned a telling scarlet.

Sirius busied himself with the work, painstakingly copying out the figures for each Black family member, the expenses from the previous month that were drawn from their coffers and what would be placed into it the following, based on their needs for the month. Each person had a unique set of circumstances attached to their station in life—there were arrangements made with in-laws, marriage contracts, expenditures outside of the family's purview.

Sirius didn't ask a single clarifying question.

"Mistake aside—that was an impressive first attempt," Orion remarked, idly, as he checked his wife's Aunt Cassiopeia's accounts for the month of November. "You really are far better at this than I was at your age."

Sirius dipped his quill with too much force and spattered ink on the table.

"I don't need you to patronize me, thank you." He sniffed. "It was completely bollocks."

Orion sighed and rolled his eyes.

"You always get so frustrated when anything you attempt doesn't go perfectly well the first time." He tilted his head. "Why is that?"

"Gee, I wonder," Sirius mumbled, voice sullen. "Could it possibly have something to do with having a pair of—"

He cut himself off, abruptly. Conscious of the burning, knowing look of Orion—Sirius returned to fiddling with the calculations of how much more gold his elderly grandmother would need in her dress budget for the first quarter of the new year.

Orion let out another, less audible sigh. He wondered if it occurred to Sirius how much easier this would have been if he'd waited to have it taught to him, rather than painstakingly working backwards from the end results.

He always has to do things the hard way.

He was too clever for his own good.

"There's nothing to be ashamed of, you know."

Sirius looked up from the page—the soft, gently upbraiding voice was so unlike Orion's usual mode that it clearly took the boy off-guard.

"What are you talking about?"

"You don't have to be ashamed of caring what your father thinks of you."

Orion's expression was calm—knowing. Sirius glared at him.

"I don't give a damn what you think of me."

Mr. Black ignored him.

"I don't know what you believe it accomplishes to pretend as if you don't." He spoke with maddening patience. "It's perfectly natural. It would be odd if you didn't care."

His son's face flushed with embarrassment—as if he was listening to his father explain how 'natural' it was, when a man and woman were married and had to produce a child—

"Anyway, it's in your blood," Orion continued, with some irony. "All Blacks want to please their fathers. You were bred for it."

Sirius buried his face in his hands.

"Can we declare a moratorium on all discussions of my 'breeding'?" he asked, voice muffled by his palms. "Or breeding in general?"

"You certainly aren't fooling me—and I would assume that's the object of this charade," Orion pointed out, archly. "I don't even think you're fooling yourself."

"I'm not trying to—"

"—You're very capable," he cut him off, tone intent. "I've always thought that of you."

Sirius looked up at his father, expression a mixture of confusion—and, Orion thought, stranger still—alarm.

"Why are you—where the hell is this coming from?"

Mr. Black surveyed him calmly but didn't reply.

Annoyed, Sirius twisted around his in his seat.

"I don't know what it is you're on about—but let me make things clear for you," he said, enunciating the words slowly. "I have never and will never care about your opinion of me or—or of anything else."

He ended his sentence with a dramatic flourish of his hands.

"Really?" Orion raised an eyebrow. "You've never cared?"

"Really."

"Funny—" His eyes narrowed. "That doesn't match what your friend said."

Sirius went pale.

"What are you talking about?" he demanded, and Orion was amused to hear the panic creep into his voice.

"That Lupin boy." He allowed himself the rare pleasure of a smile. "He told me you used to complain that your mother and I were the only ones you couldn't please."

Sirius pushed out his chair roughly and stood up. Orion's eyes followed him, lazily—though he was perfectly ready to reach out and catch the boy by the forearm if he attempted to storm off—he did not think he would.

That would be accepting defeat.

"What are you—how—" Sirius sputtered. "Are you interrogating my mates, now?"

Orion snorted.

"It was hardly an interrogation." He laughed, grimly. "He volunteered it."

Sirius's protests—his anger—were somewhat blunted by this. His father continued, wryly,

"In fact, if I'm not mistaken he came very close to admonishing me."

Orion's son's brow furrowed, he looked as though he wanted to ask what his father meant—but he thought better of it, and instead merely tossed his head and sat back down, rather primly in Mr. Black's estimation.

"There's no one in my life who can resist sticking their nose in my affairs," he muttered, darkly, pulling the accounts book back towards him. "Everyone's a bloody meddler."

"Perhaps you ought to consider why that is," Mr. Black remarked, dryly, as he watched his son pick up seamlessly from where he'd left off.

Sirius glared at him, hard—a stubborn look, but it was also one Orion recognized and found gratifying. It was the final heel being dug in, the last gasp of breath before capitulation.

"About…your friend," he continued, giving Sirius a careful, sideways look. The quill froze over the page, and came dangerously close to dripping onto the parchment. "He's a—quite an interesting young man."

Sirius bent his head.

"No, he isn't."

"I found him so," Orion drawled. "What does he do for a living?"

Sirius set the quill down on the flat surface of the highly polished wood.

"He's in the Order, like me."

"But surely that doesn't pay." Sirius's shoulders stiffened. "His father's the most respected man in his field, and quite in demand at the Ministry. You'd think he'd be able to get his only son a job better than dishwashing at the Leaky Cauldron."

He held the old copy of the Prophet out in front of Sirius's face. His son snatched it and—after seeing the circled advertisement and Remus's handwriting—crumpled it into a ball and flung it across the room.

"Just—don't worry about Remus," He said, picking up the quill again. "Don't worry about any of my friends, in fact. They're—none of your business."

"You're my son," Orion answered him, simply. "Who you associate with is my business."

He didn't need to say it softly, dangerously or angrily. It was a point of fact, and his banal statement of it seemed to annoy Sirius more than screaming would have.

"I think Regulus had a point about getting distracted," he finally said, in a haughty tone of voice. "All this conversation is—distracting me from my work. I'd prefer it if we—didn't speak for awhile."

"As you wish," Mr. Black agreed, sanguinely. An obvious concession, but as he'd handily won the bout—it made no difference to him.

Sirius could be just as revealing silent as he was speaking.

He was true to his word and allowed Sirius to work for nearly ten minutes without conversation. He could see—as had been the case, in the rare times in the past when he had troubled himself to examine in elder son closely—how aware Sirius was of the paternal scrutiny, and how much self-control his boy was exerting to hide that awareness.

He reached out and rested his hand on his shoulder. Sirius tensed, reflexively, almost as if he was going to try to jerk off the grip—but Orion merely squeezed. He felt his son squirm a little underneath his hand, noticed that telling way his ears reddened—but he remained, and eventually the shoulder underneath Mr. Black's hand relaxed again.

He kept it there—feeling as comforted by the gesture as he hoped his son did, and trying to put out of his head the idea that the light pressure was from any latent fear that if he went slack for just a moment, that young shoulder would slip out from under him.

"Has something changed from yesterday?" Orion remarked, as he—still resting his hand on Sirius's shoulder, glanced over it to check his son's work.

"What do you mean?"

"You're in a very conciliatory mood, that's all. I've never known you to shy away from an argument."

The gigantic one they'd had the day before was still looming between them like a specter. He'd have said that Sirius had no fight left in him—except he had after dinner, always had, in fact. Orion was sure he had it in him now—had felt the kick against the physical liberty he'd taken—but Sirius was holding back—restraining himself.

The question was—why?

"Yes, well—I've turned over a new leaf," Sirius said, blandly. "I've decided not to fight with you anymore."

"Oh?" Orion's eyes trailed down the perfect line of numbers. "And why's that?"

"My mother asked me not to."

Orion looked around.

"Is that what you spoke about when she came over here and breakfasted with you this morning?"

"Among other things," his son answered, shortly. Orion lowered his face to be level with Sirius's.

"What other things?"

"This and that. Mother-son…stuff." He glanced up. "She doesn't like us fighting and so—as a Christmas gift—I promised to behave myself. Keep the peace. This is me—peacekeeping."

Mr. Black suppressed a harsh laugh. What a different idea the two of them had of 'behaving.'

"Interesting to see how quick you are to obey when she's the one giving the order."

"Well, maybe she's more persuasive than you are."

Orion's nostrils flared.

"That was really all you talked about?"

"I never said that." He smiled, innocently. "Why don't you ask Mother?"

Orion slipped on the blank, impassive expression that he had used for his entire adult life to conceal his thoughts. He did not like the idea of those two plotting together—a volatile combination at best—but he knew Walburga and the mood she was in, and his wife would take any question he posed to her on the content of that conversation as an accusation.

He might still be able to coax it out of the boy, at any rate.

"Perhaps I will—over dinner."

"I'm surprised we're having it tonight," Sirius murmured, his voice oddly muted. "What with your—company."

"They're out for the evening. Don't worry," Orion assured, with barely concealed sarcasm. "You'll be rid of us soon enough. I don't imagine we'll be able to get out of hosting dinner for Narcissa at least one day she's with us."

His son made a noncommittal noise. He noticed Sirius—up until now so decisive with his quill strokes—fidgeting with the implement.

"By the way—" Orion cleared his throat. "I'm still waiting for you to 'take care of that.'"

"What do you mean?"

He drew himself up.

"Your 'solution to both our problems.'" He tilted his head. "I don't suppose that will be materializing any time soon."

"Oh. Right. Erm…that." Sirius drummed his fingers on the edge of the page. "Thing is—I decided upon further reflection that it be more prudent to just—let the situation be, for the present."

He said all this while staring at the woodgrain in the table.

"Oh, you did, did you? Well, that's all well and good for you, but it doesn't exactly leave me in a favorable position." Orion shook his head. "After all that boasting, I half expected she'd up and vanished in the middle of the night when I rose this morning. As it was—I found my otherwise peaceful breakfast interrupted by an—intruder."

"Was she—" He stopped himself.

"What?"

"Never mind."

Orion gave him a hard look—and Sirius fell silent again. There was nothing to be gained by going down that avenue with his father—and he must've realized, for he suddenly found the work highly interesting.

In truth, Orion didn't see much harm in the girl—at least, she gave no signs of being anything more than what she appeared, a silly schoolgirl his son had managed to attract the attention of through his near pathological need to draw attention to himself at any function.

Her presence would be one of the relatively minor trials to be endured this Christmas.

It was only when his son reached Cygnus's family expenses that Orion felt the need to speak again.

"You'll want to be careful with your uncle's estate." He twisted in his seat to look over the page. "There's been some recent changes in how he's given his portion."

Orion kept his voice placid—albeit a touch guarded. It was a talent he'd developed—what he lacked as a gamester he could more than make up for when discussing the financial affairs of his family.

"I noticed that," Sirius replied, flatly.

It was a skill Sirius would have to learn.

"Right. Well. It used to be that he got a lump sum which he distributed himself, but now I separate it out for him—Narcissa and Bellatrix's marriage allotments, as well as Druella's allowance from her parents, for the upkeep of the estate."

"Did they find out, or was it you?"

Another trick was to act as though you were hard of hearing.

"I'm sorry?"

Just a smidgen of warning—faint but distinct. Sirius crinkled his nose—the same childish action he would have given when he was a boy and a plate of asparagus was put before him.

"Or did she throw him over?"

Orion stood up. His son risked raising his head to follow him with his eyes, and found his father practically looming over the table, wearing a rather forbidding look.

"Knowing something," Mr. Black warned him, icily. "And understanding it are not the same thing."

Sirius's lip curled.

"What's there to understand?" He leaned back in his chair, carelessly. "He must've been keeping her in style and skimming quite a bit off the top to do so. I'm just curious who it was that put a stop to it—you or her."

"Your uncle's personal affairs—" The word caught in his throat, unfortunate double meaning all too clear. "—Are none of mine."

"They are when you're bankrolling them."

Orion studied him for a moment while considering how best to approach such a delicate topic. It had never occurred to him that he would have to.

When he was young, such things were never spoken of openly. But of course, Sirius was Sirius—brazen to the last.

"You're very young, still. In time you'll see the extent to which the world falls short of your youthful ideals." He heard the weariness in his own voice. "Perhaps you'll even learn to forgive it for its many failings."

Sirius tossed his quill aside.

"Are you making excuses for Cygnus?"

"Of course not." He frowned. "I am no more in the business of excusing the vices of other men—whether they be extraordinary or commonplace—than I am in judging them."

"You would never do that to Mum."

The utter certainty in his son's voice made Orion want to laugh—but he had long since learned to restrain that impulse—especially when it wouldn't be understood.

"No." He leaned his elbow on the table. "But I've failed her in innumerable other ways."

Sirius stared up at him.

"Given the choice," Orion continued, voice tinged with bitterness. "I think she'd just as soon take the mistress."

Sirius's mouth flattened into a thin line.

"I doubt that."

His father tapped the page, indicating that his son should return to the business at hand, rather than meddling into the affairs of other members of his family.

"Don't mention this in front of your mother," Orion said, suddenly, after a few minutes of quill scratching.

"You mean she doesn't know?"

"She sees what she wants to see," his father replied, enigmatically. "Your uncle is eagerly awaiting the birth of his first grandson. What is past is past—over and done with. It would only upset her to have it brought up now."

"Yeah, God forbid anyone in this family directly confront anyone else," Sirius muttered into the book. "Better we all pretend it never happened."

His oath to his mother must've been weighing heavily on his mind, Orion thought, if that was all the provocation he was to have on this point.

"It is possible to say too much," Mr. Black said, when his son's grumbling had ceased.

"Like when?" Sirius murmured. His handwriting, which had started so neat, had grown sloppy as the exercise neared its end.

"Like—say…when one is at the Ministry of Magic, encounters an important member of government, and decides to be cheeky."

Sirius winced and looked up…very slowly.

"You didn't happen to…run into Barty Crouch today, did you?"

"I saw him in the Atrium when I was waiting for your grandfather," Orion said, coldly. "He seemed very amused by his encounter with my son."

Sirius wrinkled his nose in disgust—at his rotten luck more than his indiscretion.

"Have you no sense of prudence? It was foolish of you in the extreme to speak to him at all—let alone about me."

"It's not my fault! He was the one who brought you up."

"That's nonsense. Why would he?"

"Because I look like you. I couldn't help that he recognized me." He slouched down on the table. "What was I supposed to do, pretend like I was someone else?"

"I had a very near miss." He wagged his finger in his son's face, taking pleasure in how well and truly trapped Sirius was. "Crouch was this close to bringing you up in front of my father. What was I to do then?"

Sirius sighed and ran his hands through his fringe, straightening up again.

"Easy—the same thing you've been doing the past three years—" He snorted. "Just pretend like you don't know me and I don't exist. I'm sure you're used to it, by now."

A spasm in his chest distracted Orion momentarily, prevented him from the violent exclamation that was hovering just below the surface. He had never gotten used to that, not in three years, not once had the words 'my only son' been wrenched from his lips.

Little more than a week, and he'd grown quite accustomed to having two again.

He had no intention of getting 'used' to anything else.

"I assume you weren't really there because you wish to be an Auror," he continued, changing his tact.

"Of course not. That was just a cover story—I needed an excuse to be at the Ministry, that's all."

"But you have applied for that position before."

"How do you know about—"

"Suffice it to say that I do, and leave it at that," Orion snapped. "Well? Did you?"

Sirius let out a long sigh.

"It was something I briefly considered after school, that's all." He lifted his shoulders. "But then I figured—why bother? I can do the same thing for the Order without having some Ministry toff like Crouch breathing down my neck."

And Dumbledore lets you run wild and do as you like, he thought, burning with resentment. Because it's useful to him.

"What were you talking to Alastor Moody about?"

Sirius fidgeted uncomfortably.

"Why do you think he wanted to talk?"

Mr. Black scowled. Not wishing to start the same argument they'd had the day before, his only response was to stiffly tell his son to 'get on with his work.'

Sirius finished the task of doing the family accounts for December very quickly, practically shoved the book in his father's direction, and retreated to his spot on the sofa chair.

Orion read through the numbers and figures very slowly and methodically, marking off each in his private diary.

"I see you factored in the Christmas purchases you made," Mr. Black remarked, idly. "Very proactive."

"It seemed the obvious thing to do." Sirius laughed and curled up onto the chair. "Did you know you and Regulus got each other the same gift?"

Orion lifted an eyebrow.

"Did we?" he asked, in a tone of mild surprise. "How odd."

"It's not, actually. He's imitating you in all things—even crap gift-giving." Sirius laughed. "Really, sir—an eagle feather quill?"

"It is a practical and appropriate present for a young man."

"It's boring. You should have gotten him Quidditch club tickets or—something he'd actually enjoy."

"What a frivolous idea—"

"I just think he'd like something indicative of a life outside this flat—a quill doesn't fit the bill. Writing letters is just about the only activity he does these days."

Orion turned the page of the accounts book to check a figure from a previous month.

"Has he given you anything to post today?"

"You mean, has he given me any more secret messages for Albus Dumbledore with Death Eater intel?"

Orion shut the book loudly.

"No, he didn't. I did offer. But he sadly declined." He ignored the glacial look his father gave him. "I was thinking, if this whole informant gig doesn't work out for him, we could start our own Resistance operation on the side. Sort of—Black brothers for hire. "

"For that to work, one of you would have to cease being a stupendous bungler where espionage is concerned."

His son went red and turned in the chair to face away from Orion.

"You had better master doing the family accounts first, at any rate. You made another error."

"No, I didn't," Sirius muttered, at the wall.

"Yes, you did." Orion's eyes narrowed. "You've left off the allowance of one of the accounts attached to the main estate."

"It's because I haven't taken anything out of that account since I came of age and I don't intend to, ever." He turned to face his father. "I'm trying to save you gold. All that money is just sitting there, when you could be putting it to good use—giving it to someone that wants it."

Orion surveyed him coolly.

"I will correct the error myself this time," he said, voice dangerously soft. "The next time you do this exercise, there will be no mistakes, deliberate or otherwise—do you understand me?"

Sirius didn't answer.

"I said, 'do you understand me'?"

A pair of stormy gray eyes blinked up at him over the knees.

"…Yes, sir," Sirius said, softly.

He looked tired—and impossibly young. Clearly the energy it took to 'keep the peace' with his father was wearing him out.

"Your mother will be here soon," he said, in a gentler tone, as he got up from the table and approached his son. He stopped above the chair. "You should go in the other room and have a rest in the meantime."

"Is that a suggestion, or an order?"

He had a trace of his old sullenness, though it was muted and dulled by exhaustion and—something else he didn't quite like. Was it resignation?

Orion gently tilted his chin up and made his son look him in the eye.

"It's both," he murmured, and then he grasped the boy's arm and gave it another squeeze before letting go. "Now—go on. I'll send the elf to wake you when it's time for dinner."

Sirius slowly got to his feet.

As Orion watched his son slink off through the kitchen door, he was reminded unaccountably of a certain flattened-eared black dog in the garden of Malfoy Manor.

In spite of himself, he smiled.

---

He was in the heart of the forest, the enormous trees forming a canopy above him that blocked all the sunlight. The jungle air was humid and thick—like England's never was.

Sirius slashed through a branch with his bowie knife—When did I get a bowie knife?—it was the sort of thing he'd fantasized about as kid, and the feeling of whacking trees and bushes and undergrowth, carving a path out of the jungle, was just as satisfying as his boyhood fantasy of it had been.

At his right ride was the cheery, familiar hum of machinery—he looked over. Elvira rolled up beside him all on her own, like a dog or the particularly intelligent horse of a telly Western.

Which…didn't make sense, but neither did him holding a shiv, or a motorbike being able to comfortably roll along the floor of a jungle.

He patted the motorbike on its seat. She let out a revving noise, almost like a purr.

"We're free, girl." He breathed in the air. It was peace itself. Quiet, seclusion—nothing but the sound of birds and insects and some distant river…

The Amazon. That's where he was. Away from civilization, away from everything.

"We made it…just you and me…"

That rush of relief flooded over him…no one could find him here. He was safe.

And then, just as the thought slipped through his mind—

There was a rustling in the bushes behind him.

He froze. Sirius had the sudden, irrational hope it was a jaguar, a Demiguise, anything but—

"So—this is where you've been hiding."

Holy shi—

"Master Sirius! Master Sirius!"

Sirius jolted out of bed with a cry. He blinked down at the figure who was tugging forcefully on his arm. Kreacher stood at the head of the bed, drooping ears level with the bedside table.

The fire had been lit, making the room unaccountably stuffy. Not humid like the Amazon, though.

"Wha…? What d'you want—?"

"You must wake up, Master Sirius." The elf pulled his arm up—Sirius had to wrench it out of his grip. "Mistress sent Kreacher to wake you."

"What time is—" He wiped drool off his chin and looked over at the carriage clock on the mantle—when he saw, he bolted out of bed. It was nearly eight. "Shit—"

How had he managed to sleep so late—why had no one woken him?

Sirius stood up, and smoothing out his wrinkled robes as best he could, hurried through the kitchen and out to the sitting room, only to find—

The entire family, halfway through dinner.

"Oh, Sirius Orion—" Walburga nodded at him. "You're up. Good."

Sirius stared at them all, looking, he imagined, very stupid as he did so.

"I don't understand," he said, in a weak voice, staring at the remains of the soup course being cleared away by the family servant, who had hurried out of the bedroom behind him to resume what he had presumably started before he came to stir Sirius from the bedroom.

His father cleared his throat—Sirius looked over at him.

"We sent the elf to check on you an hour ago, but you were in such a deep sleep your mother didn't want to wake you." He wiped his mouth elegantly, with two dabs. "She seemed to think you needed the rest."

"Erm…oh."

"—I didn't imagine you'd thank us if you missed the main course of your dinner, though," Mrs. Black added, placidly. "Do you feel better?"

"I…" He was overcome with an inability to speak coherently. At his spot across from Sirius's, Regulus watched him with that curious, closed-off expression. "…Much, thank you."

"I am very glad to hear it," his mother replied, in a clipped voice. "You looked peaked this morning. You should make it a point of having a lie-down every afternoon. It's good for you."

He sank slowly into his chair, and as the family was distracted by the process of Kreacher serving them the next course (duck à l'Orange) that any conversation beyond the mechanics of this operation ceased.

Sirius felt strange—incapable of believing his incredible fortune at having slept through half of this interminable meal, but strangely put-out that they hadn't waited for him.

They've been having dinner without you for years—they're used to that too, by now.

Walburga cleared her throat, delicately. His eyes turned to her—his mother's expression was cool and impassive, impossible to understand. Given their breakfast conversation, and the dangerous power she had over him now—power that he was even more uneasy about than Orion—he found her unsettlingly hard to read now.

He thought of his dream and shivered.

What a different atmosphere there was around this table today than there had been the previous night. Then there had been the pretense of normalcy, now the air was thick with a tension that he thought the silence might stretch on through after dinner port.

I know why we're quiet. Four people who can barely keep their lies straight.

"Did anything interesting happen to you today, Sirius Orion?"

The knife he'd been using to saw the leg of duck slipped from his hand. On instinct, he looked over at Regulus. His brother read his thoughts in his expression—a talent they didn't share and which Sirius was envious of, in this moment.

"I've already told them about Aunt Lucretia," Regulus supplied, a tinge of irony in his voice. "There didn't seem much point in concealing it."

He looked over to his parents, eager to gauge their reaction to the news of the afternoon's excitement. As he could have predicted, Orion seemed annoyed at the knowledge of his elder sister's meddling visit—though hardly surprised. His mother was more inscrutable.

Sirius sighed.

"Given her love of crowing and 'I told you sos', that's a fair point. She'd have told them herself if you or I didn't." He gave his brother a wry look, then turned to Mr. Black, looking expectant. "It certainly spiced up our afternoon having Lucretia here. I almost expected her to pop back in for dinner."

"Your brother seems to think she came out of mere curiosity," Orion said, voice more serious. "Do you agree with him?"

"Why else would she have come?" Sirius deflected. His father narrowed his eyes. A flicker of annoyance crossed his features.

"I don't know," he said, coolly. "That is why I'm asking you."

He'd always been able to intuit when Walburga had him in her sights, and he felt his mother's gaze now. Sirius tapped his fingers against the side of his chair.

'I think she's scheming something with Mum' was probably not the most prudent answer to this question.

No…no, he'd have to think of something else. He folded his hands on the front of the table and looked up into his father's eyes, expression unusually earnest.

"Have you considered speaking to her?"

Orion opened his mouth, no doubt to snap back a smart dismissive reply—but then, as his son's words hit him, he faltered.

"I…beg your pardon?"

"She's your sister. Instead of speculating about motives, nefarious or otherwise, with a nephew—a nephew, I'll remind you, to whom she has spoken once in three years—why not try asking her why she came by this flat?" He tilted his head, innocently. "She might even tell you the truth."

A lengthy pause followed this suggestion. From the way Sirius's parents were staring at him, you'd have thought he'd sprouted the head of a hippogriff.

"Believe it or not, in other peoples' families," he added, helpfully. "The default assumption is not that every individual is plotting against everyone else."

His mother cleared her throat—when he glanced over her and met her cool gaze, he picked up on the message. Don't forget your promise about provoking your father.

He let out a sigh—quieter than the first—and turned back to Orion, who was still staring at his elder son in bewilderment.

"I think she was just—pleased at herself for figuring it out. You've nothing to fear from Lucretia apart from a slip of the tongue, and in this case—" He glanced over at Regulus. "—She knows better."

That did little to assure Orion. He turned to his wife, looking for support—but found instead just as flippant a conversation partner as their son.

"He's right." She shrugged, profoundly unconcerned. "Your sister is nothing but a nosy and troublesome gossip and I daresay we will never hear the end of it—but that's where the story will end."

Orion was in no mood to argue the point—so he let the subject drop, with a 'hm' almost as dismissive as his wife's.

"Surely that wasn't the only thing you got up to today, Sirius Orion."

Whenever one parent spoke, he had to look over at the other one—a compulsion. He wondered how obvious it was for Regulus, sitting directly across from him, watching his eyes dart back and forth as if he were watching a tennis match.

There was nothing to read in Orion's expression. Not for the first time in his life, the thought struck him how exhausting it must be to be his father, the energy it must take to always wear that mask.

"My father showed me how to do the monthly accounts."

Walburga raised an eyebrow.

"Oh?" She laid her fork down daintily. "How was that?"

The question was not directed at anyone in particular, and if the silence was anything to go by, neither man was particularly eager to answer it. The only sound that punctuated the room was Kreacher clearing away the remains of the main course, while Regulus pushed around the food on his plate, before—

"Your son did very well," Mr. Black said, at last. "If he keeps it up, he'll be doing all the accounts by himself, before too long."

Sirius winced, though he managed to cover the face with a hasty bout of chewing.

"What about you, Sirius Orion?" His mother pressed. She was determined to facilitate conversation between her elder son and husband tonight, despite the overwhelming evidence that this venture would be fruitless. "How did you find the task?"

"Eye-opening—enlightening and instructive." Some of his father's irony creeped into his words. "Do you know how much your mother spends on her wardrobe per month?"

Walburga laughed, airily.

"Goodness, no."

"Well, I do—and it's insane." He snorted. "As is the monthly arithmetical nightmare my father puts himself through to facilitate her spending habits."

Sirius took care to keep his voice civil and polite, so as not to be seen as 'provoking'—and to his immense relief, Orion did not allow himself to be provoked. If he was surprised, it was only mildly—and he was more interested than offended.

"You didn't mention you felt this way earlier, when I was teaching you the accounts."

"You only asked me to learn the process—not give my opinion on if I thought it was well conceived."

A deft parry. Orion, who couldn't help but respect a verbal lancing, nodded thoughtfully and leaned back in his chair.

"And you don't think it is?"

"Not at all. It's needlessly complicated and barely succeeds in its supposed object."

"Which is?"

"Keeping the gold under control, of course!"

"How would you go about curbing your grandmother's—erm, spending habits?" Mr. Black cocked an eyebrow.

"That's easy—I'd give her and everyone else in her family a per annum allowance and call it a day."

Mr. Black's lip curled.

"You think you're the first Black to ever think of that?"

"Of course not. I'm sure you fantasize about it daily." Sirius grinned, enjoying himself. "The only reason you don't do it is because you know none of them can restrain themselves, and if you gave them the lot up front they'd be banging on your door in February, asking for their coffers to be refilled."

His father seemed somewhere between amused and irked at his firstborn's cheek. The first emotion won out, though—and the look Orion gave him was unusually indulgent.

"So…you'd give everyone their portion in January?"

"An equal portion," Sirius corrected, firmly. "Not exorbitant. Enough to live on—like everyone else."

His father tapped his chin and considered—really considered—the proposition. It was an odd feeling for Sirius, to feel as though something he'd said was actually worthy of his father's consideration.

As if he was actually a man, and not the insolent boy Orion still saw him as.

"It's an interesting idea—but I fear you may be a tad naive about how well it would work in practice."

"It would be hard at first, but they'd adjust—if they were forced to." He smiled. "You underestimate the degree to which they take advantage of your good nature."

Orion had never had the experience of that accusation, and it clearly amused him.

"A good nature, I take it, that you don't believe you share?" he asked, dryly, as he took another sip of wine from his goblet.

Sirius lifted both hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair, an exaggerated mirroring of his father's action.

"Oh, no. Not at all," his son's voice turned hard. "If it were me, I'd let them fend for themselves. I wouldn't coddle them. They're Blacks, after all. They should have the fortitude to adapt."

Orion studied him for a long time. Mrs. Black, for whom the matters of finance, trusts and allowances were wholly of the masculine realm, remained demurely silent during the exchange—though she, like her younger son, watched keenly. Both of them aware of the nearly imperceptible shift between Sirius and Orion.

Mr. Black suddenly turned to his wife to address her.

"Your son will be a very interesting head of this family, Walburga," he said, placidly turning to his salad. "I regret I won't live to see him take possession."

At this comment—and the tone of matter-of-fact satisfaction that went with it—Sirius's face turned red. He was keenly aware of having been drawn inadvertently into playing by his father's rules, on his father's terms.

"Regulus found something interesting today when we were going through those papers," Sirius blurted out, jerking his head towards his brother. "The ones you gave me yesterday."

"Oh…?" Orion turned his eyes towards Regulus, who had been playing with the salad Kreacher had set in front of him for upwards of a minute. "What was this, Regulus?"

Regulus colored and gave Sirius a fleeting look of irritation. He had never enjoyed being singled out at family dinners.

"It was a letter to Phineas Nigellus from…his son," Orion's younger son said, quietly.

"You know—the disowned one," Sirius supplied, seeing the look of identical confusion on their parents' face. "Looks like they kept up a clandestine correspondence—after the unfortunate political activities got him chucked. I would've never guessed your great-grandfather was so sentimental."

"He wasn't," Mr. Black said, dryly. "What were the contents of this letter?"

He and Regulus exchanged a silent look, but it was impossible to miss the slight shaking of his younger brother's head from side-to-side. Yeah, starting a fight over how offensive the family motto is—probably under the header of not 'keeping the peace.'

"A longstanding disagreement on a matter of…family history."

Neither parents asked for more than that—but the resident family historian, Orion, after expressing interest in seeing the document in question, extracted a promise from Regulus to fetch it after dinner. Regulus, who was even more eager than his mother to see the subject changed from this particular theme, actually made a few timid attempts to steer them to safer waters, but as usual, his brother had different ideas.

"I was really surprised Reg found that letter. Do you think there could be more of them?"

"Unlikely. It was very strange that he even found one. It must've gotten missed."

"You mean, when he burned all the correspondence from him and purged his son's very existence from the record?"

Walburga delicately cleared her throat, and Sirius, very aware of the tightly restrained scrutiny of his mother, hastily fell silent.

"Since you're both here now," Orion said, after the family had finished the salad course. "It's just as well we went over our plans for the Christmas holiday."

He explained, in flat, emotionless tones, how they would be entertaining the family for Christmas Eve at Grimmauld Place, as usual. After the outburst at Arcturus's party he had witnessed, Sirius expected Walburga to say something snide to this, but she remained calm, and if he noticed a slight tightening in her neck, it was only because he was looking for it. She did chime in that they would check in on their sons sometime in the afternoon of the 24th, to make sure 'all was well.'

What does she think, I'm going to skive off watching my own brother? Sirius thought, after the pointed remark made in his general direction about bringing over all the games that Regulus and he used to play when they were boys, so they had plenty to 'amuse themselves with.'

Then he remembered—she must've been thinking of Lily and James's party, and the invitation she had declined for him.

He felt a pang in his stomach that had nothing to do with the duck.

"Your cousin has a social engagement the 23rd, so there's no reason for us not to have dinner here." His father's words only vaguely registered for Sirius. "As for tomorrow, I expect we'll be dining with Narcissa at Grimmauld—we can't not see her for dinner at least one evening she's staying with us, so your mother will look in on you about tea time—"

"—I'm not sure I'll be able to check in on them tomorrow, Orion."

Mr. Black stopped mid-droning speech to stare at his wife.

"Why is that?"

"Because I'll be out all day," Mrs. Black answered him. "I'm going up to Scotland, to see Horace Slughorn."

The energy at the table immediately changed. Sirius, brain foggy from the wine, from waking up from his nap and strange dream, from the general surreality that surrounded the events of his life—felt a sudden jolt—a bolt from the blue.

"When did this plan come about?" her husband asked, vaguely annoyed.

Walburga took her time answering—choosing that moment, apparently with no strategy, to pour and take a lengthy sip of after-dinner port. Her sons and husband watched this on tenterhooks.

"Oh, I had an owl from him—you must've planted the idea in his head," she said, vaguely. "Anyway, I'm not sure how late we'll be out. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure there will be a 'we.'"

If Sirius had been in his animagus form, his ears would have perked up just then.

"I thought you were going to entertain Narcissa tomorrow," Orion said, accusatorially, as if by going on this excursion it followed that he was now being tasked to entertain his niece.

"Well—" She shrugged. "I did offer to take her, but her friend Ms. Battancourt wasn't sure she wanted to go, so I'm not sure if they will."

Sirius knocked his thankfully empty water goblet over.

"You—invited them to come with you?" he asked, righting the cup. "To—Hogsmeade?"

Butter couldn't melt in Mrs. Black's mouth, the look she gave her son was so innocent.

"I thought the girl might enjoy it." Her eyes narrowed on her son. "But for whatever reason she seemed dead set against the scheme."

Sirius's fingers curled around the stem of his wine goblet. If he'd gripped a crystal glass as hard it would've shattered in his hand.

"She…said she didn't want to go?" he asked, in a tight voice.

"She was emphatic," his mother replied, airily. "I thought it odd. We'll see. Perhaps Narcissa can persuade her to change her mind. I would so like the company, and after the shopping we could go up to the castle. It's very pretty this time of year, you know."

She's taunting me, just like that damn book.

Sirius directed his venom at the cheese plate that Regulus passed to him, practically mutilating the gigantic roll of camembert. Had she read his letter? What had she said to Colette?

What was her game?

"I thought you didn't like her."

"Pardon?"

"That girl. Narcissa's friend, what's-her-face—I thought you didn't like her." His lip curled. "Something about her reading too many books."

"There's nothing wrong with reading books," Mrs. Black replied, sanguinely. "It's excessive novel reading I object to. It puts all sorts of silly romantic ideas in girls' heads. Ideas—" She paused. "—Better left inside the covers."

"Ideas like right to self-determination and free will?"

Regulus kicked him under the table. Sirius ignored it, instead turning to his mother and fixing her with a challenging look.

She laughed—a false, stilted sort of affectation.

"Goodness, no! Nothing as lofty as that." Her eyes glinted dangerously over her silver cup. "I was thinking more that they encourage witches to seek out the company of unsuitable men."

Sirius was very aware of his father staring between the two of them, shrewdly. Unlike his wife, Orion was not one to overlook, willfully or otherwise, being spoken around.

"Young women get those ideas from more than novels," Mr. Black remarked, placidly, in an obvious attempt to broaden the subject so widely as to make it too dull to continue discussing. "That's why a girl's education and family matters so much."

"Undoubtedly," his wife agreed. "But novels do tend to exacerbate the problem and encourage otherwise sensible girls to go wild."

Orion raised an eyebrow, gave his wife a look that spoke to silent question—but she was obviously less than inclined to have a wordless exchange with him while their sons were present.

"Regulus," she said, as if just noticing her younger son was present at the table. "What do you think of her?"

He looked up from his plate—very aware that all sets of eyes in the room were on him.

"I'm sorry, Mother—do you mean Colette Battancourt?"

"Yes—you've met her. What do you think?"

"He told you yesterday he thought she was 'very nice'," Sirius cut in, annoyed.

"Yes. That's right." She tilted her chin and leaned on the table, looking thoughtful. "Would you like to see more of her?"

"What?"

Regulus suppressed the cry of surprise at the sudden, sharp jab to his toes under the table.

"Narcissa has talked of hardly anything else since she's been with us," his mother continued, casually—immune to the hard stare of Orion and the burning face of her elder son. "She's very eager to reacquaint you. I thought you might be eager as well. Perhaps when the weather's better we'll go to France."

This was too much.

"You'll go to Normandy?" Sirius asked, bluntly. "In the summer?"

Walburga waved the idea off.

"Oh, I'm sure she'll be in the South like everyone else. It's good for your brother to mix in different social circles. It will expand his horizons."

"Since when has 'expanding his horizons' ever been a priority for you?"

Walburga, who'd otherwise been very tolerant of her son's spirited answers, gave him a cold look.

"You seem to be very vexed this evening, Sirius Orion." Her words had a chilly aspect to them. "Perhaps we woke you up from your nap too soon."

It was only the maddeningly maternalistic expression that kept him from bursting out that it was none of her business how much he slept.

He rounded on his father, who was still watching the exchange with impassive interest.

"This trip to the South of France you're apparently planning—will I be invited?" he demanded, suddenly.

Orion let out a humorless laugh.

"When she hatched up the idea, I doubt your mother thought you'd consent to go."

Walburga cut her grape in two with dainty precision.

"If you'd like to join us in France," she said, innocently. "Then of course you are welcome. Is there something in particular that draws you there?"

Realization dawned on Regulus's face—but he quickly schooled the expression and looked down.

Sirius felt his face slowly redden the longer Mrs. Black stared at him, expectantly.

"Of—of course not," he mumbled. "Of course I don't want to come."

He expected this answer to annoy her, but—unsettlingly enough—it seemed more to amuse. She shrugged, carelessly.

"Well, then." Sirius's fingers in his lap trembled. "I suppose your brother will have to enjoy the social benefits of the place all on his own."

He opened his mouth to backtalk, but the realization that there was nothing he could say that wouldn't be disastrous on every level—he contented himself with noisily chewing a pear instead.

The family's silence was only broken by Mrs. Black demurely asking her husband what the time was. She frowned when he told her.

"We'll have to cut this evening short, I'm afraid," she told her sons, with real regret. "What time does curtain go up at the Orpheum, Orion?"

"Eight, I think," he said, off-handedly.

"That means the intermission will be in less than half an hour—I don't think it would be wise for us to arrive home later than the girls two nights in a row."

Sirius, who had already barely been able to believe his luck at missing the beginning of dinner, nudged his brother under the table. Regulus shook his head side-to-side and mouthed the word 'later' at him.

"What about dessert?"

"You do like your sweets." She smiled, indulgently. "I'll leave it here for you and your brother to enjoy."

"I meant—you aren't staying and having it with us?"

She rose from the table and began to directing Kreacher in the process of cleaning and clearing away, only replying to her son's query with a satisfied smile and the opaque promise that there would be plenty longer evenings for them to enjoy in the future.

When the table had been cleared, she wished her sons each a pleasant night and glided elegantly off to the bedroom to take the floo back to Grimmauld Place. Her younger son, having been tasked with retrieving Phineas Nigellus's letter, followed closely at her heels.

Sirius would have expected Orion to go with them both, but his father was still lingering over the port—he was never one to rush meals—and so the two of them were left alone together at the table.

Sirius's father watched him—he felt that careful, serpentine gaze—dangerously lazy—and was almost certain he was in for a grilling over the sparring—but the interrogation never came.

"Fetch me the accounts book, will you, Sirius?"

He stood up and walked over to the side-table, where it lay, innocently still open to the page he'd marked up hours earlier.

He shut it and walked it over to his father, but hesitated at the last moment.

"I—have something else…"

Sirius rooted around in his pocket and pulled out the crumpled letter, 7 years old—that he'd pick-pocketed from Reg and shoved there when his brother wasn't looking earlier in the afternoon, intending to read it by himself later. Regulus's first Hogwarts letter home…

As was so often the case where his relationship with Regulus was concerned, the vague sense of guilt attached had sucked any enjoyment he would have gotten from reading the rest of it, and so it had remained in his pocket.

"I found this inside. I think you were using it as a bookmark."

Orion's eyes widened in surprise.

"…Oh. Was I?" He examined the parchment detachedly. "How curious."

Orion took it, looked over the front, as if he didn't know precisely what it was—but Sirius could tell he recognized it, and had not marked the pages by accident.

"Well. Thank you." He hesitated—a rarity in and of itself. "I've—no idea how that got in there."

Sirius laughed, weakly.

"You're almost as sentimental as Phineas Nigellus."

He'd tried to play it off like a joke, but even Sirius could hear the pained note in his own voice. Certainly it was not lost on his father, who looked up from the creased parchment, a curious expression on his face.

Sirius felt a sudden wave of nausea—a feeling of being exposed. He sometimes liked it better when he didn't know what Orion was thinking.

"I'm sure that's not true." He raised an eyebrow. "I merely keep extensive family records—"

"—How extensive?"

His father considered him, carefully.

"Is that what has you worried?"

He folded the letter and returned it carefully to its spot in the book.

"Wha—"

"I did not burn your letters. Not—" He added, in a voice of infinite weariness. "—That you ever wrote us that many to begin with."

Sirius went crimson, but he was prevented from the need to respond by Regulus's returning with the letter from Phineas the younger to his father. Orion didn't open it in front of them.

"A matter of family history, eh?"

Sirius pursed his lips. He'd known Orion had suspected there was more to it during dinner—it was all too predictable that he'd waited until his wife was safely away before asking for the thorough details.

"It was about the origins of the family motto," Regulus explained. "Phineas—that is, the second son, he—he had very unusual ideas about the crest, and what the coat of arms meant when it was conceived."

"There seems to have been a fundamental disagreement between father and son about what it means to be a Black."

Regulus nudged his brother, but Sirius ignored it, instead giving his father one of his customary 'challenging surly looks'.

Orion didn't rise to the bait. He nodded and promised to look into the matter further to 'get to the bottom' of how such a document could have existed and gone unremarked upon in the records up until then. With a vaguely threatening promise that one of their parents would be in to see them in the afternoon 'so they had both better be here after three', he departed from them as well.

Sirius waited, counting silently the steps—the exact amount of time it would take Orion to reach the fireplace, to grab that pinch of powder, deliberately throw it into the green flame his mother would have left behind (one of her many specialties) and step through to the other side.

Three…two…one…

He vaulted over the sofa and straight for the bedroom, past the magnificent trifle that Kreacher had left for them in the kitchen, over the protests of his brother.

"Where are you—Sirius!"

Regulus ran after him, making it just in time for the door to be slammed shut in his face.

"Sirius—Sirius, what're you doing—?" He rummaged through his pockets—he'd left his wand in the bedroom. "Open the door, you—"

He banged on the door for over a minute, then pressed his ear against it—he could hear muffled voices through the wood—Sirius, and someone indistinct—was he talking to someone through the floo?

An ominous quiet followed, then, the door slowly opened. Regulus leaped back, fully ready to scold and interrogate.

"Why did you—"

A pair of striking emerald eyes peeped through the crack in the door.

"Hello."

Lily Potter, wearing a fuzzy green jumper and a sheepish smile, stepped into the hallway. Regulus craned his neck around her—his brother was nowhere in sight.

"Sirius just called me to come over and stay with you. He said he was sorry he couldn't say anything, but he was pressed for time. He said you would…you'd know why he had to run."

Her companion threw up his hands in disgust.

"Emergency?" He rolled his eyes. "He has a pressing engagement at the theatre."

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Only one more chapter and this day (in the story) will be done. As always, reviews appreciated.