Warning: because of references to how gross of a person Felix Mulciber was, some content may be triggering
"Albus, how did three teenagers manage to become animagi illegally at school without your becoming aware of it?"
"I blame the war. They took advantage of the adults' distraction."
"Ah. Same way Tom Riddle got away with murder back in 1943, then."
Albus winced. "Aye."
"You should take this as a lesson: you're not nearly so good at multitasking as you think you are."
"Why do you think I turned down the position of Minister every time it was offered me?"
"Why did you take up the position of Chief Warlock while still teaching full time, publishing regularly in Alchemical Frontiers, and also leading a resistance movement?"
"Well..."
Breakfast came with two doses of Pepperup, which Sirius did not question until it was too late. His mother ambushed him when he left the bedroom to go to the bathroom, silently summoning his wand right out of his pocket. She banished him into the bathroom and magically locked the door behind him before he could do more than set her robes on fire with wandless magic. He slammed against the wall and barely managed to keep from cracking his head against the side of the tub. A glass bottle toppled off the shelf above him and shattered on the floor, spattering him with some kind of bath oil smelling strongly of rosemary. A second bottle had tipped over onto its side and dribbled rose scent over his head before rolling off the shelf to join the first in smithereens.
Kreacher was waiting for him, crouching next to the toilet. "Young Master will be bathing today." He shuffled forwards and reached long fingers towards the buttons running down the front of Sirius' robes.
"You and Mum could have asked, rather than assaulting me," Sirius snarled, yanking his hem away and more tightly folding his robe around himself.
"Young Master has refused the bath yesterday, and the day before, and the day before. Mistress said today Kreacher is not being asking."
"I might have said yes this time."
Kreacher shot him a look of skeptical disdain. "Would Young Master be liking to take a bath today? Kreacher has it all ready for Young Master, nice and hot..." His voice was pitched higher than normal, his tone polite and tinged with excitement like a proper house elf. Sirius' eyes widened as he realized Kreacher was being snarky. He wondered if the elf had learned sarcasm purely as a means to get around Regulus' order for him to be polite to Sirius.
Unwilling to concede Kreacher's point, Sirius glared at him. "Well, I would now, since I'm doused in this stuff," he grumbled. He wasn't cruel enough to subject Peter to the nauseatingly strong perfume soaking his hair.
Kreacher grinned toothlessly at him. "Kreacher will assist Young Master. And then Kreacher will bring Young Master new dress robes and escort Young Master to the drawing room for the luncheon Mistress is hosting where Young Master is the guest of honor."
"Oh, hell no..."
"Master has ordered Kreacher to make sure Young Master attends."
"What are you going to do? Drown me again?"
Kreacher bobbed his head, and his grin widened without answering. He reached for Sirius' buttons again. Sirius sighed but decided to let the bath at least happen. He owed Pete that much, and he wouldn't put it past Walburga to gang up on him with Kreacher to strip him and force him into the tub the hard way.
Other than Sirius and Richard, all of the guests at this lunch party were young women from prominent families. Sirius only came downstairs for it because his mother still had his wand and told Kreacher she was planning to hide it from him if he didn't put in an appearance. Walburga did keep her end of the bargain, informing him she'd stowed his wand on the shelf by the brazier on the far side of the room, where he would of course have to pass through the throng to retrieve it. She even withdrew with Lady Caterina Flint after Sirius begrudgingly promised to stay put and behave, leaving Narcissa as the only chaperone in what was clearly, horribly, some kind of courtship gathering.
The event was not at all something Sirius wanted to participate in. He felt vaguely repulsed at the very idea of flirting at the moment, let alone being the target of Hypatia Gibbon's handsy advances. All he could think about was that the last time he had noticed a fit girl was while he was watching the Boat Race in London, right before he murdered the girls in question. He almost wished Walburga had stayed just to intimidate the young witches to keep the hell away from him. Luckily, he didn't have to say anything to Narcissa or Richard for them to come to his rescue. He ended up sitting in the chair closest to the warm brazier, with Narcissa in the chair facing him and Richard on his flank, a barrier between him and the girls. Hypatia was obviously put out at the seating arrangement at first, but the ladies fell to contented gossiping quickly enough at Narcissa's gentle prompting.
"Why this? Why today?" Sirius muttered to his cousin while everyone else was laughing over some joke he hadn't listened to.
Narcissa looked at him in amusement. "Because your parents have to bring you back into society as soon as they can manage it, and it's less of a problem if you blow up in this setting than it would be around all these ladies' parents and uncles. Plus, if they can get you paired up or even betrothed while you're still under the weather and less inclined to actively resist their schemes, so much the better for the purposes of tying you down."
Sirius slouched in his chair. "I regret asking."
Narcissa patted his hand sympathetically. "You would have figured it out yourself eventually."
Sirius shook his head and stared into the coals, basically ignoring the party. He wondered how long he would be forced to sit through this nonsense, until he was abruptly pulled back into the conversation. "Oh, Sirius, did you have to curse Felix Mulciber? He was handsome..." Hypatia said.
"He could look right through you," Ursula Flint agreed dreamily.
"Or at least through your robes," Hypatia finished with a giggle. "Not marriageable, but fit. Not as good as you, of course, Sirius, but so fit. And exciting. I mean, you could tell just from the way he carried himself he was Marked... really wished I'd snogged him when I had the chance. Maybe even...a bit more."
"Hypatia!" Ursula scolded, eyes sparkling.
"What? A little groping never hurt a lady's prospects!"
Narcissa rolled her eyes. Richard flushed. Sirius frowned at the girls. "You liked Felix, did you? Found him attractive?" he asked softly.
"Again, not so good as you, Sirius," Hypatia assured him innocently.
Sirius nodded and drew his wand. No one realized what he was about to do, or they surely would have tried to stop him. "Imperio." Hypatia's friendly expression vanished into blissful unawares.
"Merlin!" Ursula yelped. She dropped her tea cup and bolted up out of her chair, retreating back towards the buffet with several other girls.
"Sirius, whatever you're thinking, just don't," Narcissa said steadily.
"Go shag Richard, Hypatia. Right now," Sirius said, ignoring Narcissa.
Hypatia immediately got up and stalked towards Richard's chair, hiking her skirts up. Richard, speechless in shock, made a little whimpering noise and conjured an honest-to-Merlin wooden shield to hold her off. Undeterred, the young witch half-climbed into his lap and struggled to reach under the shield to tug at Richard's robes.
"Sirius, stop it!" Narcissa snapped.
Sirius snorted and dropped the curse. Hypatia blinked and, mortified, scrambled back off of Richard with face flaming. Ursula rushed back over and helped straighten her friend's robes. She shot a glare at Sirius. "You craven monster, how could you?"
Sirius raised an eyebrow. "I know. Did you know Felix Mulciber had a whole collection of pretty young muggle women that he Imperiused to service him? And his friends. And any wizard he was hoping to curry favor with. He tried it on me once. It was disgusting. That's why I cursed him." He looked around the room. His eyes fixated on Anita Selwyn, the oldest of the young women here, other than Narcissa. "I told Felix to find other men just as depraved as he was and curse them to go after my cousin Bella, that way she could kill them off one by one. Poetic, no? For such perverts to be killed or driven insane by a woman. That's what happened to your brother, Anita."
Anita flushed slightly, but she didn't leave her seat.
"That's also what happened to Felix' own father. Think about that for a moment. And yes, I'm perfectly aware of what that makes me: a monster. But you know what, so are most of the witches and wizards in our class. Including you, Hypatia, if you're still open to the idea of snogging a creep like Felix, or a monster like me."
Hypatia's lip trembled, and she fled the room, Ursula and several other nervous-looking witches on her heels.
Narcissa watched them go, then flicked a light stinging hex at him, which he dodged. "That was very rude, Sirius."
"But true."
"And very unnecessary."
"And bloody insane," Richard grumbled, vanishing his shield. His face was just as red as Hypatia's as he glared at Sirius.
"Sorry, Richard."
"I'm not the one you need to apologize to." He got up and followed after the girls without another word.
Once he had gone, Sirius looked back curiously at the remaining guests: Anita Selwyn, Lucinda Rowle, and Evita Bulstrode. "You really don't have to stay," Sirius said, thinking this might be his chance to escape back upstairs.
Anita sniffed. "You weren't wrong about Narses. Or Felix wasn't, I suppose. He once tried to... well, the night my father announced my betrothal to Lord Nott, Narses got drunk and came into my room, and he tried to get in my bed. He said he didn't want my first time to be with a dirty old man three times my age. I was lucky Father was still awake to help get him under control until he could sober up again. I warded my room against Narses after that. Blood wards. So no, I don't hold what happened to my little brother against you. Especially since if it weren't for you, I would be marrying Theodosius Nott in May."
There was a collective shudder. Narcissa reached over to pat Anita's knee. "I'm very glad you have been spared that fate. He had a terrible reputation according to my sister and mother-in-law. We were concerned for you."
Evita Bulstrode nodded curtly. "My mother won't let me be alone with half the wizards in the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Believe me, Heir Black, there are a lot of women silently applauding your taking Nott and some of the other creepy misogynists off the marriage market, no matter how you did it." Lucinda nodded fervently.
Well, this conversation was almost as uncomfortable as if they were all yelling at and condemning him. He shook his head. "Fucking Nott."
Anita grinned. Narcissa cocked her head to the side. "I thought you got along with him? Certainly, it sounded like he liked you."
Sirius scoffed. "He just wanted me to perform at the wedding."
"Perform?"
"Murder people with... nevermind. I really don't want to talk about it."
"Well. Hopefully, that's at least one Death Eater you can stop mourning," Narcissa said wryly.
"I'm not mourning him!"
"Good. You shouldn't be. None of them."
"None of them," Anita repeated. "You said it yourself. Everyone in our class is guilty, if not in deed then by association. Obviously you and your father won't be sending everyone to Azkaban who's ever done anything wrong, but... if you can do something about the... abuse ruining our families, I at least am behind you one hundred percent."
"SIRIUS BLACK HOW DARE YOU!?" Walburga shrieked from the doorway just then. Sirius ducked under the Transmogrifian Torture curse she flung his way.
"Speaking of abuse," he muttered.
"Oh, Merlin," Narcissa said, even as she scrambled out of her chair and conjured a shield around herself. Everyone scattered away from Sirius.
"How dare you try to farm me out like a fucking stallion?" Sirius yelled back.
"You insolent-"
"Bombarda!"
"Relashio! Scaldis!"
"Impetigo!"
"Sirius, no Unforgivables, and no blasting curses!" Narcissa was the last one out and slammed the door shut behind her.
Sirius and Walburga kept exchanging curses. Perhaps if he were not still in recovery, he might have overcome his mother more easily. As it was, though they wrecked the room and sliced and burned eachother, neither had the advantage. They kept fighting and flinging insults until they were both short of breath and shaking. Finally, Sirius got her with a silent bone-break curse, and she hit the ground with a shattered hip. She groaned and glared at him. There were tears in her eyes. "Why can't you just do as you're told?" she gasped bitterly.
Still panting for breath and becoming a little dizzy, Sirius didn't answer, just leaned heavily against the chair he had been crouching behind. The door opened again in the lull, and Richard cautiously came back in, followed by Uncle Alphard to Sirius' surprise. When neither duelist raised their wand again, Richard rushed over to Sirius and started checking him over, mending cuts and bruises and cooling burns as he found them. Alphard did much the same for Walburga.
"He just won't listen," Walburga mumbled to her brother.
"You might have to settle for having a living son, not an obedient one, Wally," Alphard said. "Hold still while I set your hip, and then we'll get you up to bed and cleaned up. Don't fret, Narcissa already explained and sent your guests away..."
"Sirius? Are you awake?"
Sirius grunted. He was now, though he felt dead tired still after passing out following the spat with Mum. He wondered what had awoken him. Not the afternoon light, since that had clearly been streaming through the windows for several hours already, the sun having sunk almost to the windowsill. Probably the movement of the mattress as Peter transformed from a cozy little rat curled against his back to a grown man spooning him.
"Did you mean what you said yesterday, to Euphemia?"
Sirius squirmed around until he was lying on his back and could turn his head to look at Peter. He yawned. "Probably. Which bit?" There hadn't been much of substance to the conversation with the Potters that he could recall. A lot of "are you okay" and "we miss you" and "don't feel bad about whatever-it-is," sort of like endless paraphrasing of James' letter.
"The bit after she was trying to apologize for making things awkward between the two of you back in December and saying that she didn't blame you and wanted you to come home, and then you said no, she was right all along, that you've turned evil and done terrible things and even enjoyed some of them and that really, Dumbledore should have, er, killed you back in January before things got... bad."
Sirius did vaguely recall saying something along those lines. He supposed it wasn't exactly surprising Pete and the Potters would latch onto that particular throwaway thought. He had told his school friends some things about the unpleasantness of growing up in Grimmauld, but he had always concealed the worst of his family and of himself in an effort to fit in. He considered his answer for a moment and decided to be honest. "Yeah, I probably meant it."
"Do you want to... hurt yourself now?"
Sirius shrugged. "Not really. Too much work. Not the end of the world if someone else decided to off me, though. It's not really undeserved if, say, Lord Selwyn comes after me."
Pete shivered against his side. "Why? What did you do to him?"
"Got his only son admitted to the long-term care ward in St. Mungo's for brain damage."
"Oh... okay, then."
"Although I'm not sure he knows it was me that cast the Imperius that indirectly set him on Bella." He couldn't say if Anita would tell her father about it or not. Of course, any of the other girls could if they were so inclined.
"Right... And what did you mean you enjoyed some of it?"
Peter slowly met Sirius' eyes. There was fear there, which was kind of depressing to see in the face of a friend, but also genuine curiosity, even a glimmer of excitement. Sirius' eyes hardened, and a prickle of irrational anger drowned any remaining desire to go back to sleep. "I wasn't forced into this, you know. I chose. I chose to fight for Dumbledore using Voldemort's tactics. For awhile, it was satisfying. I liked feeling like I was tricking the Death Eaters and the Dark Lord himself, pulling one over on them like some grand prank. And there is nothing that can make you feel powerful like letting loose with a blasting curse to take down a whole block of buildings or using blood rituals to..." he noted Pete's half-stricken and half-fascinated face... "nevermind. Anyway, no one else forced me to do anything. Not even Voldemort did. I never argued with him or told him 'no.' He fucking loved me because I actually did what I was told, so far as he knew. That's why I was successful. Like a fucking idiot, I put myself in the position where I knew he would assign me more violent jobs. When he decided I had joined up because I'm a sadistic murderer at heart, I chose to let him believe that and play it up in meetings and when I really did murder someone. I chose to make friends with the Death Eaters before I killed them. I chose to target the ones I knew and maybe even liked the best, against Dumbledore's directives, because I knew what they were worth to the cause." His voice was growing thicker as he ranted, until finally his throat closed around the lump growing in it. He swallowed and broke off eye contact, staring up at the ceiling.
"That's the worst thing, Pete. It all turned... sour. At first I had a strategy. I tried to spare as many innocents as I could. I focused on getting information and tried to get Death Eaters arrested. But then... there's so much mindless violence in the Death Eaters, I just... got sucked into it too. I started cursing them because I was angry, not because it was strategic. And then the killing and the Imperiuses became the strategy, because Voldemort started escalating things, and I had to do more. Even Dumbledore asked me to do more..." A tear slipped down his cheek. "I still don't know why I didn't stop when I had the chance, and I had so many chances. My head must have been so far up my own arse not to realize how... evil I'd become. The last few people I personally killed... I liked them, Pete. I really did. I mean, they weren't good people. I know that. But they were nice to me. They were there for me. They had my back, more than once, and I stabbed theirs."
Peter shivered again, but he shook his head slowly. "I can't imagine it, Sirius. But I have to believe you'll get through this. You're sick, and you've been forced to do bad things you didn't want to do, but you're not evil at heart. You're still our friend. We'll stand by you."
"You shouldn't have to deal with me and my troll shit right now, not after the things I've done."
"No, Sirius. I want to be here. I mean... I gotta admit, you're scary now, but... I sort of get some of what you said, too. I always liked hanging out with you and James because it made me feel... strong, powerful. I liked being in the Order for the same reason. I don't think it's wrong of you to admit to, er, enjoying that feeling too. And if it's not intrinsically wrong to be a spy in a war, then it's not wrong to ingratiate yourself with the enemy in order to get close enough to... defeat them, even though you feel bad about it now." His voice sank to a guilty whisper. "If I somehow ended up mixed with the Death Eaters, I don't think I'd have argued with You-Know-Who either. I always wanted to be brave. That's how I ended up in Gryffindor, but I don't think I'd have ever been brave enough to stand up to You-Know-Who if he told me I had to... do something bad and I couldn't just run away."
He fell quiet again, and Sirius looked back over at him. Peter was now the one staring determinedly at the ceiling. "And then I'd probably be too afraid to go back to you and James and Remus and Dumbledore and confess. I'd end up stuck with the Death Eaters for ever, but for real."
Sirius felt a spark in his chest at the heavy words. He fumbled under the blanket, grabbed Pete's hand and squeezed it. "You wouldn't have," he said vehemently.
"We're all human, Sirius. I wasn't put into the situation you were."
"You're in the Order, 'fighting without killing' and all that. You'd have balked when they told you to demonstrate the Avada."
"Did you?"
Sirius looked at the ceiling too. "Richard Avery did. He never cast a single Unforgivable on a mission. He never killed anyone except by accident when I miscalculated what we were doing. I was his boss, you see." His lips twisted. "I didn't even flinch when Bella brought me my first muggle to execute, because I thought I knew what I was doing and it was for some 'greater good.'" He snorted. "I thought being a spy was so important, I let myself become exactly as bad as we always said the Death Eaters were. Worse, because I knew it was wrong and decided to do it anyway because I thought I knew better. I decided to do it better than the others, in some ways. I..." he trailed off. He didn't want to recite the litany of the dead, not out loud, and he would if he kept talking. The names reverberated around his head plenty already, jostling to escape, to be acknowledged.
Peter was silent a moment. "I think even if you 'chose' what you did, you made those choices because you knew you were coming back to us eventually. You knew you had something to do that was bigger than your own life and even your own feelings."
"Guess I'm a narcissistic arse like the rest of my family, then."
"Maybe." Sirius looked at him again, startled by the admission. No one but Walburga, and to a limited extent Regulus, had been willing to criticize him since he'd woken up. Pete was staring at him already. He smiled. "But I think you're a damn hero, too."
Author's note: Peter has a hard time saying the word "kill" to describe Sirius' crimes. But he might actually be the most useful of the Marauders to Sirius right now, since James is Noble-with-a-capital-N with only minimal insight into his own character failings (*cough* Snape *cough*) and Remus' tormented "I'm dangerous and undeserving" inferiority complex is centered on having lycanthropy, something that is not even a little bit his fault. Peter on the other hand is full of insecurities, and in this AU has had to watch helplessly along with everyone else while Sirius is put through the wringer, perhaps taking some of the shine off his own dreams of glory. He might even realize he's lucky to be able to hide unnoticed in the shadows as a rat whenever he likes. Plus, he is actually being quite brave here, hanging out in the bedroom of an unstable murderer, even if only a few people will ever know about it.
And the awful (and uncomfortable-to-write) tea party: Sirius doesn't really do self-control or social norms at the moment, nor is he interested in romance in the slightest. Too traumatized and self-loathing to be open to the concept. Not that Walburga would have considered any of that before arranging the whole thing without consulting him.
Impetigo is actually the real word for a kind of skin infection, but it makes a great Harry Potter curse incantation too, lol.
Shoutout to the reviewer wondering why Moody and Dumbledore didn't open with "WTF animagi? Peter is where?" in the last chapter - they got there eventually, lol. Would've had to unnecessarily rehash a bunch of exposition to reach that part of the conversation, though.
I will most likely take the next week off because of holiday and family stuff, but will be back to Saturday updates after that.
