Sirius narrowed his eyes at the books on the desk. He hadn't lied to James when he said that Remus had been helping him classify the most illegal and dangerous spells, but he hadn't told James the whole truth either. It was a little more complicated than just a hyper fixation on Remus' part, and a secret to boot, a family secret at that.

Sirius sighed, pulling out his notebook and a quill. He couldn't be spending his time feeling guilty about lying to James and their argument, not when he had so much to do, and very little time left to complete it. James would get over it eventually, and if he didn't, well… Sirius knew better than to think that thought through.

He flicked through the pages of the first book, aptly called the Wasps Manuscript of Evil, to look over a nasty blood curse. Sirius was aware that even thinking about books containing such dark arts was illegal, but his family wasn't very happy with Hogwarts' rules or the Ministry's stance on the dark arts, so he had to make do with some liberal rule breaking. After all, if he failed at this ritual that every single Black before him had passed, he wouldn't just be the white sheep of the family, he'd be a world-known disgrace and a no-name at that.

He couldn't afford to be a no-name. It was worse than being a muggleborn and depending on how badly his family hated him (they hated him more than anyone else he had ever seen), he would be executed or banished from the wizarding world or maybe, if he was lucky, forced into magic-suppressing shackles and left to live out his life in a cell.

As it stood, none of those options was viable. A war was coming, and he couldn't just leave his friends to deal with it alone, nor could he leave Regulus to his death as the Black heir if he left, as much as he hated that fact.

Regulus is happy with them, after all, he thought bitterly, and well on his way to become one of those weird Death Eaters, under that warmonger.

It had led to this – him sitting and staring at a borderline banned book, definitely illegal to have in a school. He hadn't started dabbling in the Dark Arts yet, but that was only because he couldn't figure out which spell to use to create a unique, new one for his family to monopolize. Their wealth had to come from somewhere, as did their notoriety.

"You still haven't picked the spells," Remus noted, eyeing the two books with barely concealed disgust.

Sirius resisted the urge to slam the books close. The irrational anger coursing through his body was barely a tenth of the anger that would flow through any other person, if they were reading the book as he was. The curses placed by the dark arts never did affect his family the normal way, and at times like this he thought it was a blessing.

"It's not like it's easy to find two that are compatible enough to merge," Sirius said, giving in to the urge to lay his head on the table. "And when I do find some, it's a combination that some of my cousins have already used to create their own coming-of-age spell."

Remus hummed, as if he understood what Sirius was going through. He didn't though, and both of them knew it. Remus was just helping him because they both knew that Sirius needed help and James… well, James would condemn this whole thing. He would yell at Sirius, and ask him why, and try the whole moral speech, because as much as he like to think of himself as a rule-break, James was morally and ethically good in a way Sirius and Remus weren't.

Remus spoke again, what might have been a few minutes later. "Why don't you just pick the results you want and reverse engineer it to create a spell?"

Sirius' head whipped up and his eyes widened. That was something he hadn't thought of yet. Dark magic was finnicky, difficult to control and predict, because one spell could give five different results based on something as simple as inflection. But every result had only one spell that would work.

Pulling the parchment and quill closer, he started writing down his thought process. It was the 'scientific way' according to Remus. Sirius started with the basics, before his mind could spiral into something outlandish.

He wanted to create a spell, not a potion or a ritual. So, it would comprise of different portions – wand motion, inflection, focus, intention and channeling words. He would need to minimize the side-effects. There couldn't be any headaches or blood loss, nor could he make it a blood-locked spell, so everyone who wanted could use it. It had to have widespread uses, meaning combat or healing.

Satisfied with his list of parameters, Sirius flicked through the two books, trying to look for anything that was even slightly workable. He narrowed the possibilities down to three – a blood-locked Malfoy spell that allowed them to make blood vessels explode, a healing spell that transferred blood from one person to another and another blood-locked Lestrange spell to make the victim feel every sensation thousand-fold.

He knew which one he'd end up working on, even as he showed his options to Remus.

"You're going to pick the Malfoy's spell, aren't you?" Remus asked, narrowing his eyes at Sirius over the edge of his significantly less illegal book. "To spite your cousin and her fiancé."

Sirius smiled. "Am I really that predictable?"

"Of course not," Remus said, with one of his exasperated sighs. "You should tell James about all this, you know? Even if he's opposed to your family, he knows that no-name is a punishment not many survive."

Remus didn't mention that muggleborns were the only ones who didn't know and that was because the no-name punishment was one of the darkest parts of their world. No one would be involving new blood with something like that, mainly because it was a tradition that they knew would be rioted against by anyone not a pureblood.

"I'm not telling James anything," Sirius said, feeling a frown creep over his face. "He should learn to keep his nose out of other people's business."

"He was right to suspect though," Remus muttered.

Sirius could feel his tenuous control fraying, as his temper made an appearance. "We didn't do anything to those children, Remus! It was probably one of those Death Eater pricks, who decided that stealing kids is a good plan. Our presence was mere coincidence, and I can't believe you're taking his side in this."

Remus tilted his head, not meeting his eyes. "Was it a mere coincidence? Or was your arrogant yelling a tipping point that sent them to take their frustration out on the poor souls in Diagon? We know nothing of their plan, Sirius, we don't even know why those purebloods were in Borgin's because you kicked them out near immediately."

Sirius almost bared his teeth in response, but Remus was right. Neither of them knew what the plans had been, and they didn't know whether Borgin had sold them out or not. It wouldn't be the first time someone had been double-crossed, after all, especially not in Knockturn Alley.

"Your cousin and Malfoy were there as well," Remus added, even though James already knew that little tidbit. "And there are reputations to consider, political maneuvering and alliances that you can't know of because you haven't proven yourself to your grandfather."

"That's what this entire mess is for," Sirius hissed, waving his hand at the books open on his table. "Beyond the punishment, I should have had until the last day of my 17th year to submit this. Since I'm the Black heir, they might have shortened it to my 17th birthday. But they're being fussy about it being by my 16th birthday."

"Your 16th birthday passed last week," Remus said, deadpan.

Sirius scowled petulantly. "I know. They want it done by winter, so the presentation can be at the New Year festival as usual."

Remus rolled his eyes, turning back to his book with a muttered, "Your family and their problems."

Sirius knew that Remus wasn't done with whatever point he had been trying to make, merely annoyed enough that it wasn't getting across to Sirius that he was thinking of a different angle to get it across.

He turned back to the parchment spread across his desk and pulled a semi-empty one towards himself. Carefully, he wrote 2 at the top of the page, and then started working through the blood-locked spell's effect. He just had to find out how to undo the Malfoy family's frustrating blood-locks.

Easy enough.