Sirius felt a little tingly as he stood up and turned back towards the attic door. It was like he was about to take flight with the magic coursing through his body. He wondered headily whether the difference was merely because Bellatrix had been a witch, or whether her status as his first cousin was also a factor. He steadied himself and looked up. He immediately noticed he hadn't actually closed the door behind him, which was probably a mistake. James was sure to be squeamish about what he had just done. At least he and Bella had been speaking quietly. And at least the glowing spell barriers did a fair job blurring things; James probably didn't see much. Too late now if he did. Sirius strode to the barrier, only to find it now refused to let him back through, as if he had walked into a solid wall rather than what was supposed to merely be a selective encircling charm.
That was unexpected, and unfortunate. He prodded it with his wand and almost laughed when he figured it out: both he and Cissy had misinterpreted the wards before. They were meant to contain a prisoner. If Bella was dead, then for the wards' purposes, Sirius had just replaced her. Orion must have anticipated he might try to free or kill Bella, either himself or via an agent, and set the trap against him. It didn't matter, though. Sirius turned back to Bella and quickly added the enchantments that would instruct the Inferius to stay and guard this room. Then he leveled his wand and cast extremely overpowered Custodia Recantis, Clustrapartis, and Finite Incantatem rather than more sophisticated ward breaking. All the spells on the doorway shattered, including the one expanding it to fit under the eaves whilst presenting a comfortable passage for a tall wizard. Sirius had to duck back out.
James was still on the landing, but he was backed against the far wall, eyes widening in shock. "What the... you woke her up?"
Sirius glanced back to where Bella was crawling towards them on shaky, uncoordinated limbs, intent on protecting the entrance to her new lair. "Not exactly. She's dead. But she's harmless so long as you don't try to go in there, and she won't follow us. Come on. I imagine we've roused someone else in the house by now."
"She... what the fuck?! Did he turn her into an Inferius and just leave her as a- a trap?"
Sirius made a noncommittal noise that could have been agreement.
"That's disgusting."
"Better or worse than potions ingredients?"
"Your family..." James muttered, shivering. "Are you okay? There was this... I don't know, felt like a huge curse passing far too close, if you know what I mean. And you... seem off."
James, despite being a member of the Order of the Phoenix for almost a year, clearly didn't have much experience in recognizing an aura of Dark magic, but Sirius wasn't about to explain. "I'm fine. She didn't hurt me. Disillusion yourself and stay behind me. If anything happens, do me a favor and make sure Reggie stays out of it. His and my old bedrooms are both on the next floor down."
Rather than obeying and following, James suddenly seized his wrist. "If she's dead, and she didn't hurt you," he said slowly, "then where did the blood come from?" He looked up from Sirius' red left hand to his face. His eyes were pleading.
Sirius was a Black, though. Pleading didn't work on him. He had no pity. "I'll tell you, if you really want to know," he said softly. He watched James' face blanch from pale to white.
"Sirius? Potter?"
James startled like the deer he was. Sirius cursed and looked down the stairs. There was Regulus, peering up at them from the lower landing. "Go to your room and stay there, Reg," Sirius ordered harshly.
"Padfoot..." James whispered.
Sirius heard footsteps on the stairs below and yanked his hand free. "James, I am about to have a very unpleasant confrontation with my folks. Can you please panic later and look after Reg now?"
"Wha- what are you going to do?" James asked, grabbing him again.
"Whatever I need to do to make sure you get out of the house in one piece and Lord Orion-fucking-Black can't try to control me ever again."
"No, Sirius."
"Let go."
"Expelliarmus."
There was no time for Sirius to twist away from James' disarming charm, they were so close together, but he just summoned his wand right back to his hand with a thought. He was surprised, and he couldn't decide if he should be angry or not. Probably not, all things considered; James was pretty justified in whatever suspicions he'd formed. For now, he just grabbed his foolish friend and used a nonverbal Glisseo to convert the stairs to a slide for a faster descent. While James was taken unaware and sprawled on the carpet, Sirius landed on his feet. He shoved James at Regulus with his foot, and banished the both of them back down the hall towards Regulus' bedroom. Another flick of the wand made the walls slide shut behind the pair, leaving no door or gap or even a seam.
He cast an Impervious charm over the transfiguration just in time. Walburga rounded the corner of the stairs the next second, recognized him, and fired off three stunners in rapid succession. Sirius shielded against them and returned his own volley of stunners and curses. His mother ducked back around the corner, and he blasted the wall, pelting her with sharp fragments of wood and plaster. She coughed in the thick dust and swiped her wand up the stairs. A whip of fire snapped out and lashed the baseboard two steps below him. She released the spell before the house caught fire, fortunately. He fired off a nonverbal Incarcerous while she was still temporarily blinded, but she was too quick to conjure a shield of her own. He pointed his wand at the carpet instead, transfiguring it into a bed of thorny vines that shivered and writhed. The patch Walburga was standing on quickly twined around her ankles, trying to drag her down. She snarled and thrust her free hand downward. Some of the vines collapsed into a puddle of water, but more reached for her.
His mother's dueling style was rather similar to Bella's, he had found. They both hated to be on the defense. Ignoring the grasping vines for the moment, she planted her feet, deflected Sirius' incoming hexes, and sent a bonebreak curse roaring up the stairs at him. Sirius quickly broke off another piece of wall, transfiguring it into a skeleton to absorb the curse. The bones shattered into hundreds of fragments, still suspended in the air in front of him. He then flung the shards back down at her, followed closely by a whispered Cruciatus. While her hastily conjured heat shield charm reduced the bones to cinders, the dark red Cruciatus passed straight through it. She dodged, but too little and too late, feet still tangled in the vines. She shrieked and fell to hands and knees.
The vines would have dragged her the rest of the way down and buried her, but then Orion was there. With one hand, he wandlessly levitated his wife back out of the vines. With the other, he targeted Sirius with his own Cruciatus.
Sirius ducked under the spell. At the same time, the wall next to him cracked open again as James finally tore his way back through the barrier Sirius had erected. "Protego!" James shouted. Luckily, Orion's curse missed him too. "Sirius, don't hurt them! Let's just get past them!"
"Those are mutually exclusive ideas," Sirius said drily as he rained a couple more nonverbal curses down on his parents. He missed with the bonebreak and Transmogrifians. Orion's shields were basically paper in the face of Sirius' augmented potency, but he was remarkably quick and accurate to deflect Sirius' spells with simple stinging hexes, protecting both himself and Walburga who was still limp and panting in her husband's levitation spell even after Sirius had dropped the Cruciatus. Watching Orion reminded Sirius of training with Rodolphus. He scowled at that thought and slashed his wand for a Sectumsempra. Snape's charming cutting curse was pretty much invisible. It also traveled not like a single cutting edge but as a cluster of them if you put enough power into it, making it very difficult to dodge. Orion conjured a flock of birds to block the unfamiliar curse. This was clever in theory as an attempt to both parry the spell and discover what it did to living creatures. Two of the birds were hit, one after another, the curse neatly severing their wings. Orion's eyes widened, instantly realizing the curse was probably still traveling rather than absorbed. He conjured a shield and started to duck back around the corner, but he was too slow. Yet again, the curse blew straight through the shield. It missed his torso but connected with his trailing arm, scoring several deep cuts and taking the tips of three fingers.
"Shit! That... that's permanent, Sirius!" James shouted.
"Yep."
"You could have killed him!" Technically, yes, but there was a reason neither he nor his parents were using Avadas. "Expelliarmus!"
Sirius physically batted at James' wand arm to deflect the spell this time, grabbed his wrist, twisted around to aim his wand at James' face, and intoned, "Imperio. Stop fighting me. Protect Reg but keep him off my back too." He then turned right back to the main battle. "Duck!" He and James crouched in tandem under another Cruciatus curse and several stunners. James scuttled back towards Regulus' room, and he could hear the two of them start to scuffle as Reg demanded to be let out and James attempted to reason with him. Sirius conjured a flight of arrows and lobbed them down the stairs to buy a little time. He focused on the Imperius curse just long enough to make James cast a Petrificus on Regulus, finally silencing the whining boy. Satisfied, he returned his full attention to exchanging curses with both parents. He could still fend them off, but it was harder against two. He needed to disable Walburga soon. He landed another Cruciatus, but he only held it for a few seconds before he had to ward off Orion's scorching curse. He transfigured the carpet-vines again, this time into a swarm of wasps that immediately attacked both elder Blacks. Most of the wasps burnt up in hastily conjured heat shields, but there were plenty that were already within the shields' spheres and were able to land and sting. He tried summoning Walburga's wand, but she managed to keep hold of it and even turn the twitch of the wand into the initial movement of a Transmogrifian curse, which Sirius parried with a wandless stinging hex.
Suddenly, Sirius' ears started twitching madly. An instant later, he recognized the spiraling pink light of a tickling hex coming at him from the side. He leaned back out of the way and shot a stunning charm down the hallway. Perhaps he'd overdone the Imperius if James couldn't handle Regulus... Nope. James was resisting the Imperius, obediently standing guard over Regulus' rigid and prone form but also sending the minor prank hexes at Sirius in lieu of properly fighting him. Sirius was mildly impressed with James, but he was mostly annoyed as he dodged another Cruciatus from his father. Dueling three opponents at once was a bad idea, particularly from two different directions in such a cramped space.
Time to end this. With a twist of his hand, he wrenched the wall beside him temporarily closed again. He transfigured the banister into a huge snake that threw itself at Orion, forcing him to step back to deal with it. In the moments' grace, he then pointed his wand at Walburga. He ducked her stunners but let her leg-locker jinx hit him while he chained together six alternating nonverbal stinging hexes and cutting charms, a Reductor curse strong enough to bring down the shield he knew she would raise in response, followed immediately by a muttered incantation in Gobbledegook.
As he'd hoped, though she blocked or dodged everything else, the Curse of Ragnuk exploded in her face. It did no visible damage, but she howled and clutched a hand to her eyes, utterly blind. Sirius released the jinx holding him in place and finally started descending the stairs. Orion grabbed Walburga's night gown with his injured (now bandaged) hand and dragged her in front of him, probably to use as a human shield, not to get her to safety.
Sirius almost rolled his eyes. He flicked his wand, flinging an Incarcerous at the pair of them. Orion let go of his wife before he could be trapped in the ropes with her, and Sirius quickly transfigured the ropes into marble, ensuring she couldn't wriggle out of the bindings. Orion backed up further, and Sirius pursued. They passed the next landing, but at the one after, Orion ducked into the hallway leading to his bedroom. Sirius immediately followed, and he was immediately assailed by hundreds of wooden hands springing out of the walls and trying to grab him. A lattice of runework blazed out of the ceiling and floor, beams of light criss-crossing to form a kind of cage around him. Silver filaments started to spread along the light beams, making the cage solid.
Sirius read his name repeated multiple times in the runes and found himself grinning savagely. Although he was sure this was Orion's and Walburga's work, it was not something they had just cobbled together this evening. No, it was another carefully laid trap, like the one on Bella's room. His parents had planned for him to come attack them as they slept. There was probably a similar barrier outside his father's office.
He doubted they'd planned on him turning Bella into an Inferius first. He swept his wand in a wide circle around his head and incanted, "Reparifarge." The transfiguration broke. All the wooden hands on the walls stopped their scrabbling and retracted back into the woodwork. He aimed a Finite at the ceiling and shattered all the protections on the runes. The silver cage fell apart with a single Clustrapartis, and he leapt out of it. The next trap barely impeded him a second.
And then he was face-to-face with Orion at the end of the hallway, something Orion did not look fully prepared for. Still, Orion jabbed his wand in Sirius' belly and cast a nasty, nonverbal cutting charm that he could feel slice deep into the muscle. At the same time, though, Sirius had reached out with both hands and turned both of Orion's arms to mahogany to match his wand.
His feral grin widened as Orion's expression morphed to panic and his brow broke out in sweat. It was the only time Sirius had ever seen his father with a remotely fearful expression.
"Fright looks good on you, Father. Let's go to your room and have a little chat, shall we? Don't worry, I'm not going to kill you. But if I hear you trying to say any spells I don't like, I'll rip out your tongue." So saying, he reached around Orion and opened the bedroom door. He banished his father at the far wall and stuck him to it, feet dangling about a foot off the floor. Only then did he turn his wand to his own abdominal wound to stanch the bleeding, numb the area, and bandage it up. He'd need some Dittany later to actually close it, he was sure, but it was far from the worst injury he'd suffered in the last year.
"Sirius," Orion began cautiously.
"Save it. I'm not interested in any of your threats, or any 'logical arguments,' or any pleas for mercy. You are to be quiet and do as I say."
Orion let out a breath. "What do you want?"
"Not a lot. Nothing I'm not entitled to. Just my magical inheritance. I'm claiming it early."
"Excuse me?"
"Bella's idea." He tapped his fingers against his wand, turning the nail of his right index finger into the claw Bella had said he needed for the ritual. Apparently, one must use only their own bare hands in order to make theft into property, magically speaking. He crossed the room and reached up to slice open his father's night shirt, exposing his chest.
"What are you doing?"
"A blood ritual the Dark Lord invented. It's pretty straight-forwards; say what you will about the man but he knew his way around a ritual. So long as you cooperate, you have nothing to fear." So saying, he pressed his claw into Orion's chest and started carving runes. There were rather a lot to inscribe, but they were all linked to three main ones. There was Gebo for generosity and relationships over the left breast and heart, Othala for ancestry and heritage over the right breast, and Fehu for wealth and abundance situated over the stomach. Orion started jabbering while Sirius worked, desperately trying to talk him down, but Sirius just ignored him. Once he was done carving, he shook his right hand, willing the transfigured claw to revert to a human finger. He then rolled up his sleeves, dipped his fingers into the trickle of blood running down his father's front, and started painting more runes onto his own arms: Nauthiz for conflict and willpower on the right, Jera for cycles and change on the left, with Fehu, Gebo, and Othala trailing in subservience.
"We sacrifice the present for the future. As above, so below. As above, so below. As above, so below," he chanted. The runes marking him and his father began to glow. Orion grunted in new pain. Sirius looked up at him through hooded eyes. "The wounds will close when the bonds you control as Lord Black are transferred to me. You can give me what I want, Father, or I take it without your cooperation, in which case you might well bleed out and die right now. Since I inherit either way, I suggest you just go along with it."
White faced, Orion nodded. Sirius smiled.
"Good, now, here's what you need to say." He traced his finger in the air, spelling out the necessary words in red fire.
Orion grit his teeth and began to speak. "My inheritance do I abdicate. All heirs other than Sirius Orion Black the Fourth do I discard. Let my heir have full rights, live in my house, sing spells that I composed. The love of my friends, my enemies' rancor, the loyalty of my servants, the food of my table, the gold in my vault, the debts owed, the titles owned, all this I bestow upon you, beloved son. Even as I live, take the glory for which I was born. The falling of my star prophesies your power. Preserving my generous bequest, may you live long and worthily. Thus it will be. Thus I am content."
"Your gift I accept, Father. So mote it be." He licked the blood from his index finger, the only really icky symbolic aspect of this particular ritual, then placed his right hand against Orion's forehead and the left over his galloping heart.
Heat rose around them as a great flood of magic rushed out of his hand and into Orion. The runes shone brighter, and Orion screamed. It was an odd sound to hear from one's father, Sirius thought. So visceral and uncontrolled. A sound he rather liked. Sirius couldn't exactly focus on such a mundane thing, though, his mind fully caught up in the violent magic he had unleashed, as it had been the first time he performed the Inferi ritual. It felt like diving deep into Orion's mind with Legilimency, then going further to his very soul. The magic stripped every one of Orion's magical ties from him like a desert flood scouring the walls of a canyon, before depositing them into Sirius' waiting hand. Blood and magic alike spilled out to stain the floor, perhaps even losing some of the minor House debts, the price of their transaction. Smoke rose between the fingers of Sirius' left hand as the sluggishly bleeding Gebo was cauterized. The burn spread across Orion's chest and abdomen, slowly sealing over the tracery of runes. Finally, the dried runes Sirius had drawn on his own arms smoked and flaked off. The flow of magic between them sputtered and died. Orion's screaming faded to exhausted, shuddering moans.
Slowly, Sirius let go. He let out a breath. He noticed his hands were shaking now. Bella's magic had ebbed again, almost to nothing. He drew his wand back out of his sleeve. He looked up at Orion, debating whether to leave him on the wall for Walburga to sort out or to at least let him down.
Thundering feet behind him took the question out of his hands, for the moment.
"Expelliarmus! Sirius, stop! This isn't you!" James was pointing his wand at Sirius with one hand and leading Walburga around with the other. James must have let her loose. Funny, Sirius hadn't even noticed when he'd lost control of the Imperius curse. At least James hadn't brought Regulus down here too. Probably the sight of their father injured and pinned to the wall like this would scar Reggie for life.
"This isn't me? What the fuck do you know, James?" Sirius said, though it came out more a tired sigh. He didn't even bother summoning his wand back, since the action was officially over. "I'm a Death Eater, remember?"
"Did you get him, boy?" Walburga asked anxiously, staring around sightlessly. (She was permanently blind unless someone found the thought-to-be-lost manuscript with the countercurse somewhere.)
James didn't answer her, too busy glaring at him. "You're not a Death Eater."
"Pretty sure I know more about it than you do."
"The Death Eaters are all sycophantic blood purists bent on genocide. You never bought into the tripe!"
"And you think all the other Death Eaters did? They didn't, or the werewolves and vampires would never have been part of it, not to mention some halfbloods. They all heard different propaganda. No, it was a cult of personality. A Death Eater is someone who fought on Lord Voldemort's behalf. A Marked Death Eater is someone who killed for him. I'm Marked, James. Just because I didn't believe the bullshit justifications and had my own reasons doesn't make it better. Hell, Voldemort knew I didn't believe in... any of it. Not even in him."
"If he knew..." James sputtered.
"Why did he keep me on, keep me close?" Sirius finished the question. James nodded. "Because he thought I liked killing. And I never did anything to disabuse him of that opinion."
James' lip trembled. "But you don't." There might have been a question in there.
Sirius' lips twisted ruefully. "No. I don't. But... Dumbledore was right, you know. It's so hard to fight without violence. I think I've forgotten how along with everything else." He shook his head. "But don't worry. I'm not going to kill anyone else tonight."
"Else?" Walburga anxiously broke in. "Orion?"
"I'm here, Wally," Orion said thickly.
"Regulus?" Her voice reached her signature shriek.
"Merlin, Mum, why would I go for Reggie? He's fine. He's upstairs. It was Bella I killed. Not that Dad left me much choice..."
They were interrupted by two silver patronuses flying into the room. Moody's aardvark landed in front of Sirius. "Kid, Ministry detected a massive release of Dark magic somewhere in London. Where are you?"
The doe landed in front of James and spoke with Lily's voice. "Moody says something's going down in London. Please tell me you and Sirius are safe."
"You can tell your wife we're safe, but don't tell her where we are or what we're doing," Sirius instructed James as the silver creatures faded away. "Kreacher!"
The house elf arrived with a loud crack, and bowed to him immediately, without looking up at him or at Orion. His ears were shaking. "Master calls?" he muttered. Walburga stiffened at the elf's unusual tone of deference.
"Kreacher, put Dad in bed or something. Where's Cissy?"
"Mistress Cissy left with Mistress Lyra when the magic came down from the attic," the old elf answered while gently unsticking Orion from the wall and levitating him to the bed, where the wizard appeared to promptly pass out.
"Oh." Made sense she wouldn't have stuck around to find out what was going on if she was worried it might have affected Lyra. "Let her know the house is safe and that she should keep quiet until she's spoken to me. Then come back here and take care of these two. Mum can figure out what potions Dad needs for the cuts and burns. And blood loss. I'll fix the arms later." Walburga was quite a good amateur healer; she had to be, patching up the family every time their fights went a bit too far. But she probably shouldn't try to detransfigure living tissue without being able to see what she was doing. Even Sirius could admit it would cause problems if Orion showed up at the Ministry again visibly maimed.
"Yes, Master." The house elf vanished again.
"James, answer Lily."
"Sirius, I really think..."
"Just fucking tell her we're okay so she doesn't panic! We'll figure out the rest later. Merlin! You'd think you wanted her and your mum in hysterics. Do I need to use the Imperius again?" Glowering, James raised his wand and cast his own patronus. Sirius grabbed Walburga's arm roughly and dragged her to sit on the bed next to Orion.
She reached out to the side and felt her husband's wooden arm and charred chest "What did you do?" she whispered.
A huff of laughter escaped him. "Made myself head of the House of Black, for all intents and purposes," he answered. "He can keep the title publicly, but I won't let either of you work against me any more. Got it?"
She nodded, though her expression was bitter. "What are you going to do with Regulus? Don't hurt him."
He rolled his eyes. "Again, why would I hurt him?"
She sneered and swatted blindly at him, incidentally striking the cut across his stomach. He winced. "As you told your little friend, you're a Death Eater. You'll hurt anyone who gets in your way. You're too much like Bella, too much like me. Only you don't care for your family the way you should." Her sightless eyes actually started to water. Sirius stared. He couldn't remember if he'd seen her cry before. "You needed a father like Cygnus..."
Gross. Sirius dearly hoped she was enough in shock the incestuous implications just hadn't occurred to her. "Right. I'll be back." He dragged James from the room, closing and locking the door behind them. He exhaled. "Okay. We check on Reggie, and then we deal with Cissy and Moody and everything else."
"We'll check on Regulus," James conceded. "And then you'll explain what in Merlin's name happened tonight and why I shouldn't call the aurors to arrest you."
Sirius laughed humorlessly. "Oh, if I were anyone else, you definitely should, James. Most people think locking me up now will make things worse in the long run." Plus, he had free reign over all the Black wards now. He could shutter the place so thoroughly even Dumbledore would be hard-pressed to break in.
"You keep on like this, and you'll change their minds," James muttered darkly. His fingers were white-knuckled where they clenched his wand, but James showed no signs of trying to duel him again. Perhaps he just didn't feel the need now Sirius and his parents were no longer slinging Unforgivables up and down the stairs, or perhaps he was being cautious, no longer confident in his own ability to take Sirius in a duel.
Sirius shrugged. Privately, he thought James would have more luck teaming up with Snape to have him poisoned and admitted to St. Mungo's for long term care than he would convincing Sirius to change his ways, or to convince Crouch and Dumbledore that Sirius was crossing unacceptable lines, so long as his agenda still basically aligned with theirs.
He'd trapped himself in this shitty role. The only way out now, besides suicide, was through.
Author's note: This ritual basically relies on brute force to work, with the thief's magic overpowering the victim's regardless of whether the victim consents to the transfer of bonds. Voldemort wouldn't want to share a ritual that could later be used against him, after all. The "consent" is only in there to keep the ritual from being lethal to to the victim, in case Voldemort still had use for them alive. Unclear whether Sirius could have successfully carried out the ritual without the boost from Bella's magic. The words of the "consent" part of the ritual reference a lovely poem by Anna Akhmatova.
The Curse of Ragnuk is from a HP video game I've never actually played, and I'm sure the way I've used it here is not compliant with the way it worked in the game, but whatever.
Thanks for the reviews, look for the next update in two weeks again.