Chapter 25: The right state of mind

It was pretty much obvious, when Sirius came back from work, that something had happened. The young wizard looked tired, his jaw tense, his eyes cold.

A simple look jumped from one face to another as he disappeared into the cloakroom. Arcturus, who'd noticed his grandson's arrival through the wards, shook his head at Lamia and Aldebaran – who had noticed their father-brother-something from the windows on the first floor and seemed like they had something to say – while the triplets took a step back, all too aware of what that face meant.

The three of them might not have known war before, but their father had been constantly on the run for many years, even if he'd managed to settle out of sight, and also pathologically unable not to get involved in situations in which someone might die – or at least be injured – if he didn't intervene, all that despite his own precarious situation. That he was generally able to intervene without taking too many unnecessary risks didn't change the fact that powerlessness was something Sirius Black did not like – or didn't let himself be stopped by.

Yes, Almaric might have been surprised by the other people, outside, and how the current war was affecting everyone's life, when they'd gone to fetch Juliet two days before – but no, Sirius' acquaintance with unpleasant situations was nothing new for the triplets.

That face? Something bad at happened at work, and the young auror trainee couldn't do anything about it for now.

Which, considering there were Death Eaters out and about, could go from a particularly gruesome murder or one of them getting away for lack of evidence, to the death of a colleague.

Both boys turned instinctively towards their sister.

"Hyades..."

The girl stared back, unimpressed.

"No."

"Come on...!"

She walked away without listening to Almaric's cajoling. Soon, both her brothers were following her, leaving their father-who-wasn't to rest from the obviously difficult day he'd had so far.

"Why not!?"

She didn't want to answer that – in many ways, Almaric was more blunt and open than their father, but it wasn't always a good thing – until Antares asked the same, his tone hinting that he did want to understand, him, and not just to argue and be proven right:

"Hyades... I know you could get what happened out of Sirius, and it could even be good for him to talk about it? Why won't you?"

The girl let herself fall into one of the armchairs, her eyes jumping between Almaric and Antares.

Now that the latter has spoken up, had actually asked a question and not demanded an answer, the former did look interested in listening. Ric still didn't agree with her, no, but with Ares' understanding he was more inclined to consider her reasons.

Her other brother often played that role, to derail the most headstrong of them three when he got stubborn with Hyades – and she did the same for Antares, when Almaric confronted him instead.

Hyades sighed.

"He... Sirius doesn't care about us yet. At least not like Dad did. I can't just go and needle him for intel when he's in that state and he doesn't trust me. We talked about that the other day already, do you remember, Ric?"

The boy scowled but didn't contradict her.

They had talked about it, when he'd been hurt by Sirius' clear statement about not knowing the children at all. Both Antares and Hyades understood that something like that would hurt, of course – it was yet another reminder that this man, who was almost their father... wasn't, actually – but the problem, most likely, was that Almaric wasn't used to being hurt in his feelings.

Wasn't used to not knowing the ins and outs of a situation, of having to readjust his expectations. It wasn't only that they didn't know everyone else here – that happened all the time, whenever Ric met someone new – but also that those they shouldn't have known weren't who they were used to.

Antares scratched the back of his neck.

"...Alright? I mean, I agree, but maybe we still should know what happened? If it was enough to get him in that state, then it's important, right? We aren't close yet, that's true, but... I don't know, it could be important enough that we should know regardless."

Ric added – a bit of a grudge evident in his tone:

"Yeah, and why should we trust him and respect his boundaries, uh? Technically we don't know him either."

Antares rolled his eyes by their brother's side, but Almaric didn't notice.

Hyades countered testily:

"Great idea, genius, let's antagonize the younger version of our dad while he's already in a bad mood, and definitely shoot our chances to build trust later. Besides, I get Ares' reasoning, but Dad was rarely against sharing what he knew if he thought it could be useful, and I doubt a younger him would be that different. If it's important for us all to know, he'll share it at dinner. If not..."

Almaric crossed his arms.

"Dad didn't make a face like that for nothing. It is important."

"Of course it is. There's a war going on. People are dying or being maimed or traumatized. Whatever happened is important, I'm sure, but that doesn't mean it's important to us personally, or that we could do anything if we knew about it, and Sirius still gets to be upset with whatever it is."

Their dad wasn't really someone who got upset, who let his emotions run wild and stop him from saying whatever he really thought, who lost his composure. Cold anger, yes – and, occasionally furious, which could devolve into cruelty and words, real in their meaning but also specifically chosen to wound rather than argue constructively – but not what Hyades would really call "upset".

Then again, Sirius hadn't looked about to cry or in a panic, back in the entrance hall. More like he wasn't in the right state of mind to tolerate needless bickering or baseless taunts. Like he wouldn't laugh at a joke, not even from his best friends, not right now.

Antares hesitated, but only for a moment:

"You think he'll calm down better alone?"

Hyades shrugged.

"Mom isn't here. He can't get into a fistfight with Diamondra or some of those guys from the Old Tower to let out steam. He never did any activities with us before, so it's not like it would remind him of good times. The ones who know him the best here are his grandparents, and that's a bag of thorns in itself, right?"

Ric winced, finally deflating.

"There's the Room of Ire in the basement, or maybe he could mirror-call James Potter, right?"

...Hyades hadn't thought of that. Dad's friends and... colleagues... may not be there, but Sirius' best friend was still alive, here and now. Just because the triplets didn't know that time of Sirius Black's life didn't mean it hadn't had positive points they'd never witnessed in their own times.

She nodded at her brother.

"Good points... Anyway, I think it's just better to let him cool down for now."

"Okay, alright... But what do we do until then?"

Antares had an answer for them:

"Procyon was looking for someone to play checkers with. We could go and see if he's still interested."

Wizard's checkers was usually played with two people, but there were variations for up to five players, and the board grew to accommodate the number of players – with four of them, it would be a bigger square, and they'd each start in a corner, using both black and white squares separately until someone got a king and managed to cross into the other color. The goal, when there were more than two players, was to crown your king with as many pieces from the other players as you had opponents. The rules weren't exactly the same as for the muggle version of the game – but that had never stopped their mother from winning every single match the triplets could remember.

More importantly, while the pieces did literally stack up to become colorful towers, they didn't talk back like in wizarding chess – and thus Almaric was willing to play the game.

The boy did stand up to look for the younger half-brother they didn't know very well yet.

"Eh, why not."

The triplets found Procyon on the first floor's sitting room. They spent a bit more than half an hour playing their first match – Antares narrowly got the win – attracting Juliet's attention about midway through. Almaric offered to show her how to play, both of them acting as player n°4 for the next game, then they moved on to a five-sided match.

Despite being new at the game, Juliet almost scared both Procyon and Hyades during that match, allowing Almaric to steal the win, which had him grinning widely as the activity devolved into small talk, Juliet and Antares being the only ones still interested in the board game.

Procyon, as they remembered vaguely from the day before, was a Gryffindor – he'd be a year lower than Almaric himself. The both of them liked playing quidditch enough to want in on the school team, unlike Hyades who wasn't against a casual game from time to time and didn't mind watching with her brothers.

Around five o'clock, their great-grandmother came in search of everyone to get them for the afternoon tea on a patch of lawn outside.

Sirius reappeared about halfway through, looking vaguely less intimidating than when he'd gotten there from work. He still wasn't smiling, but he didn't look at anyone – or at anything – like he'd try and gut them if he could get away with it.

Hyades went to sit closer to the young man before Almaric could elbow her. Nashira was there, too.

Hyades still wasn't going to ask – but she did want to see if Sirius might spend some time with her, now that he'd calmed down. He was, after all – not her father, but – the older brother figure the children had all decided upon earlier in the morning.

"Hi."

Sirius blinked at her from his half-conversation – his sentences were definitely shorter than usual, but not mere grunts either – with Melania. The old witch smiled a bit and handed Hyades a biscuit.

Sirius watched the snack for half a moment before he said anything.

"...Hyades, right."

It wasn't really a question, but the girl nodded anyway.

She could see Melania waiting for more, but obviously Sirius wasn't quite out of whatever had brought his bad mood earlier and didn't seem to know what kind of small talk to offer here.

The older witch shook her head quietly.

"Is there something, dear?"

Hyades didn't throw a look back at her brothers, but she might have if Ric wouldn't take that as a sign that she was going with whatever he wanted her to do. That wasn't the point. Her goal wasn't to pry out the latest bad experience in Sirius Black's life.

"I, hmm... Back in our bedroom, I have a grimoire. Dad's grimoire. He'd started working on it with me, and I thought... Maybe you'd want to take a look?"

Sirius stared at her for a moment, looking torn between questions – eventually he let out a simple:

"...A grimoire?"

Hyades knew her father had never considered going into academics or research before, that he'd only started writing that grimoire to keep track of the path he'd followed to get past his sudden inability to use a wand.

"Yes. Y... Dad couldn't use a wand, after... Uh, after something happened. He had to get used to another magical medium, and Monja, I mean, one of his friends had gone to Uagadou, so he focused more on wandless magic."

Sirius squinted at her for half a second – but before Hyades could start wondering why, he was already nodding.

"Let me finish this cup of tea, and then we'll go and take a look at your grimoire, alright?"

The girl almost responded that it was her father's.

In the end, she didn't. Her father wasn't here. The wizard who could claim that role wasn't yet him, and obviously not comfortable claiming her dad's grimoire as his own. She might not have written the research in it, but the reality was that no one here was more familiar with any of its content.

Almaric and Antares had been interested in learning a selection of wandless spells from their dad, but much less so in the theory behind those. They'd learned the basics, still – but wouldn't be able to explain why a specific spell required such or such hand gesture and internalization.

Hyades, like her mom, liked to understand why and how, even if it had no obvious practical use. During the summers since she'd come back from her first year at Hogwarts, going through the grimoire had been her special activity with her father, the one purely magical training he'd allowed out of school.

This Sirius... He might not be her father, and maybe he wouldn't develop the same interest in wandless magical theory – her dad's had been born out of necessity – but the knowledge and mastery could be useful to him nonetheless, and that was all that was needed to get Sirius Black's attention. You could get disarmed during a duel, you could be targeted as you went to bed.

Besides...

Hyades would like it, if she could share what her dad had taught her back with this younger version of him. Maybe this studying could become theirs, too.

Sirius chatted with his grandmother for a little while, including Hyades and Nashira in the matter of what they could all do together the next day, since it was his day off.

Then he stood up, passing a ghost of a hand over Hyades' dark locks.

"So, that grimoire?"

She jumped on her feet to follow.

"In our room. Do you want..."

He smiled a bit as she trailed off, suddenly aware that the bedroom she shared with her brother was hardly sized for comfortable studying.

"I'll wait for you in the library, is that alright?"

They headed back inside, and Hyades made a detour to get the grimoire while Sirius continued to the second floor. He barely had to wait before the girl joined him at the round table by the window wall – the balcony was right outside, and you could guess the greenery in the distance.

She delicately put a large book on the table – the one he'd seen her with during that first day, he'd been right about that, then – and sat at an angle with him, so that they could both read without being uncomfortably close.

"Dad needed to figure out what made wandless magic work, which gestures were the best for each spell and if the incantations had to be altered too, so he got his friend to tell him about the classes in Uagadou, and from there they compared both equivalent spells in wanded magic and wandless magic, and spells with the two options, to find out the exact mechanics. Through that work he was able to learn the African version of the summoning charm, 'edanee', for example, or, uh, he created a foolproof wandless 'protego' too..."

The large volume bore a leather cover, of course – grimoires held a researcher's thoughts over years and years, they were unique until publication happened and even then the final text was generally curated, so it was important to protect them from all sorts of damage with adequate enchantments – though the pages were thick paper instead of parchment – just enough to use some magic in the pages, but not to house complex tricks. The first pages revealed a table of contents and an inked spiderweb that spread towards the binding, disappearing between the papers. He'd guess that one allowed his older counterpart to manipulate the order of the pages and the table of contents itself – logical, since a grimoire was never quite finished.

Speaking of which.

Sirius put a hand on the grimoire before Hyades could continue.

"Can I ask you something first?"

The girl looked up from his splayed fingers cautiously.

"...Yes...?"

"You said this was your father's grimoire, but you and your siblings also said that you were raised by the muggle husband of your mother and not me, back at the Ministry."

Hyades didn't answer right away, obviously balancing the odds, wondering what she should do now. There was no point denying that she and her brothers had heavily edited the truth back then – but now she had to choose if keeping up with lies was worth it, or if the truth wasn't that much of a problem.

Maybe they'd kept it simple, back then, because of the situation. Because of the strangers interrogating them, because of the Sirius Black who wasn't their father waiting for an explanation. Because they were within the Ministry and they didn't want to cause problems.

Sirius couldn't know: he wasn't in their heads, he didn't know their past.

The girl winced, her eyes watching him carefully.

She was going to say something, that much was obvious – and Sirius thought she was also readying herself to watch out for his reaction, to adapt and take the path of least danger.

A lie was still on the table, then – but perhaps not her preferred outcome.

"...Sean Evans is... You chose that name. There was a... I..."

He'd seen that one coming, as he'd told Smith that day. The only glaring issue was: why?

The girl took a deep breath.

"You were framed. When you... When Dad realized that, he also found a letter that said Mom had had children from that one time they'd spent the night together, and in the end he managed to evade the aurors. Instead of going on the run for years, he decided to come and see if Mom needed anything. They stayed together, Dad posed as a muggle, after a while he got a job as a history professor. Many things happened in the following years, though, and he was about to be cleared when we ended up here."

Sirius stared at her for a moment, taking it all in.

"Damnit."

Same story as with Altair. A frame job. What had come after was different, yes, but this was already the second time, a second version of him that got framed – probably for the same thing, too.

Sirius hadn't asked for details – Altair hadn't seemed like he would say more quite yet – so he couldn't compare the two situations, but this was too much to be a coincidence.

The wizard passed both hands through his hair, pushing it back against his skull as he leaned against his seat.

"This frame job... I spoke with Altair yesterday, the one with the vivid blue eyes? He told me something similar happened to his father, that his Sirius Black had spent years in Azkaban."

He didn't know what he expected from Hyades, what she could even say to alleviate the cold feeling that had just settled in his innards. Details, maybe – but he didn't have any from Altair's story, so a comparison was meant to fail for now.

She deserved to know why he was reacting like that, though, so he didn't just keep quiet.

To his surprise, Hyades hesitated a moment – glanced towards the revolving staircase that led back to everyone else – but did answer the question he hadn't asked:

"I know. We... It came up this morning, while you were working. There's... Most of our fathers were framed for murder, though we didn't get into the details. Seems like me and Ares and Ric's was the only one who didn't get caught, though, the others just escaped from Azkaban. Oh, no, Adhara fled to another country for a while too, I forgot because Adrienne didn't say why..."

Just escaped from Azkaban. "Just".

Right.

Sirius closed his eyes for a moment.

"...How many of you kids?"

The question was a bit obscure, he had to admit, but right now he couldn't seem to do better.

Hyades still understood.

"Everyone except Harfang and Orion and Varsha and Shivansh?"

Sirius opened his eyes and sighed under his breath:

"...I should worry about getting framed for murder, got it."

Hyades gave him an unsure smile:

"Not before 1981, if that helps."

...He'd ask about why her father couldn't use a wand anymore another time.

"Let's change the subject. Let's see what is in that grimoire instead, Hyades, I count on you to guide me here."