Chapter 9: A few seconds of hatred
Sirius woke up in a bed. A large, dark, and incredibly comfortable bed.
Opening his eyes, he took in the room the bed was in. At the top of the black walls, a silver line caught scarce rays of light. He stared at the deep green of the ceiling, thinking that if he were to change one thing in the room, it was this. His eyes fell on the furthest wall, black as well, where heavy black and silver curtains hid a large bay window.
With mild eagerness, Sirius got out of bed, and soon he felt sorry for this decision, as the bed had been really, really comfortable, and he totally felt like he could have slept for several more days in it if he had had the time to do so.
The wizard could have taken his wand and spelled the curtains open, but since he had gotten his wand back, he felt strange with it. No bad, but strange. He'd have to go to Ollivanders and see if something was wrong with his wand – or worse, with him. He shuddered at the idea.
So he walked to the windows, drew the curtains, and finaly felt the morning sun on his skin. He closed his eyes. At Grimmauld Place, there was never a ray of light – at least, there hadn't been one since he had gone back there.
After a while, Sirius opened his eyes and looked beyond the glass, outside, and though Black Manor was, by definition, black, it didn't look gloomy at all. Sterhn had done a good job in keeping the manor in its original state, for sure, and the return of the Lord of the House of Black had somehow livened up the place. The grim look from the day before was long gone.
He opened the windows, and walked onto the balcony.
The Lord's room was the sole room on the third floor. Room, of course, wasn't the right word. There was also a bathroom, a study and something that was supposed to be a closet, but looked much more like a rather large room to store the lord's clothes. It was situated above the library on the second floor, and the entrance hall on the ground floor. The second and third floors balconies were right above the entrance double doors.
From above, the silk bridge over the pond was easily visible. Sterhn would have to take care of the trees and the lawn, but overall, the place was still great. Sirius extended his hand towards a raven that was perched on the balcony, and the bird croaked before perching on his arm. Not long after that, a crow joined it and cawed.
No wonder the raven was the House of Black's animal emblem. Difficult to tell them apart from afar, and really, it wasn't common for those birds to be so friendly with wizards or muggles. The Blacks had always had a thing with them though, and Sirius' eyes wandered on the proprierty, looking for the other animals in the manor's park, that weren't usually friendly. One of his ancestors had a strange obsession with those, and a very disturbing gift with animals, magical or not. A gift that Sirius had obviously inherited.
The crow and the raven, seeing that they weren't paid much attention anymore, flew away.
Sirius went back inside and picked up some clothes, not even bothering with robes, only black pants and a white shirt, not in the mood to dress up. It was summer, it was hot, and he had nothing important to do before ten o'clock.
After... Well, that was another story.
The man passed by the kitchen and grabbed something quick to eat, and he heard Sterhn mumbling about the breakfast as he left. Turning on his heels, he spotted the house-elf and asked him where the two aurors had slept.
"Sterhn prepared the crow and the thestral guest rooms. Will the guests take breakfast?"
"Make something quick for them, Sterhn, but don't bother waking them up. Once they're awake, they can eat either here or in their rooms. They are aurors, so be polite, but don't be too obliging if one of them is rude towards you or any member of the House of Black."
Sterhn nodded, suddenly wary as he understood that his master was still being annoyed by the Ministry. Sirius smirked, thinking of Dawlish's reaction when the house-elf would eventually snap at him. Then he remembered Bella, who had certainly been waiting at 12, Grimmauld Place, supposing she had been able to go there. He hadn't thought about the Fidelius when he had ordered her to go. But since he had been able to talk to her of Grimmauld Place, maybe she had been let in the secret, as she was linked to him?
The house-elf was already going back to his work, but Sirius took advantage that for once there was no auror in sight and house-elf magic was a lot different from wizard's magic.
"Sterhn, go to the London House, and bring back Kreacher and the ghost that must be waiting there. Then, tell them to meet me at the foutain."
The house-elf nodded eagerly and disapparated with a crack.
Sirius ate his bread as he walked to the back of the manor, left the building and went in the woods at the back of the property. He looked back one last time, checking that neither Dawlish nor Moody Jr. had woken up and taken upon them to tail him because he was certainly going to do something evil and illegal. Well, that was more Dawlish's style to think somethink like than Julius', but still.
The grand form of Black Manor, bathed in the morning light, greeted him like never before. Sirius stopped dead in his tracks, remembering the summers he had spent here before everything had gone aloof between him and his family.
Besides Andromeda, Regulus, uncle Alphard, his grandfather Arcturus and his father Orion, Sirius had never gotten along with the other family members. At a time, Narcissa and Bellatrix were alright, but it hadn't lasted. His Sorting in Gryffindor had estranged him from Narcissa, and Bellatrix was already too engrossed with the Dark Arts by the time he had gone to Hogwarts. Druella and Cygnus Black, the sisters' parents, had always been cold to him, because he was a boy, because he was the heir, when they only had daughters. Maybe if they had loved their daughters a bit more, Bellatrix wouldn't have gone bonkers. His grandfather Pollux had been in too bad terms with his own daughter to be present in Sirius' and Regulus' lives. The young lord couldn't hold it against him – after all, said daughter was his mother, and Merlin knew if Walburga Black was easy to live with. The day he had run away to the Potters, Sirius had stated that his father should have been awarded a third class Order of Merlin just for being her husband. That had earned him a nasty stinging hex on his left shoulder.
The back of the manor was majestic, and if he squinted his eyes enough, he could see the gigantic library on the second floor quite well. It was a dark building, but who cared? Malfoy Manor was a lot more white, but it was cold as hell. And well, some could say that a manor built with black stones, mostly decorated with black furnitures, and which name was Black Manor, was completely logical.
And anyway, Sirius liked the color black. He liked black, silver and gold more than anything else. Black and silver were the family colors, and gold had kicked in with his Sorting in Gryffindor.
If someone had in mind to say that black was a dark wizards' color, he'd gladly redirect them to Snivellus, but would make a comment about black being one of the two Hufflepuff colors.
Sirius shook his head, and made his way into the woods until he reached a small clearing with a beautiful round fountain in its center.
A house-elf and a ghost were already there, waiting for him. Bella looked disgruntled, and Kreacher looked Kreacherish. Nothing strange there, considering. After all, he had forgotten Bella the day before.
"Glad to see that my Lord remembered us."
The tone Bellatrix used to make this snide comment was as disgruntled as she looked, but Sirius didn't appreciate it as he would have if she had used another expression than "my Lord".
"Could you please not call me that, Bella?"
The ghost gruntled, hovering a bit above him and decidedly not looking at him.
"And why is that?"
"The last person I believe you called 'my Lord' caused my brother's death and many others', and look a bit too much like a snake-faced monster to my liking."
Bella said nothing, visibly shocked when she understood who he was talking about.
"I'm Sirius, and Voldemort is Voldepants or the Dark Bastard as far as I'm concerned. But that aside, did you make any progress with Kreacher?"
The fact that said elf was right next to them didn't seem to disturb Sirius, even when the house-elf was growling at him almost like a beast. On second thought, Sirius dismissed him, ordering the elf to go and really clean up Grimmauld Place, for such filth wasn't befitting of a property of the House of Black. Kreacher snorted but complied. Apparently, the greatness of the Blacks was the keyword to get him to work.
As soon as they were alone, Bella sighed, sitting just above the ground, next to her cousin.
"I got him not to insult anyone anymore, it's already something. As you said, he likes me a lot better than he does like you, but my sudden change of allegiance and personality made him suspiscious. For him to actually behave like a house-elf around you, I fear we'll need to ask Sterhn to talk to him, or even Regulus."
Sirius paled, and he didn't seem to be joking when he looked his cousin's ghost in the eyes.
"Take that back. I won't appreciate any joke made about my brother."
"So you haven't noticed?"
The man's upper lip was quivering, between anger and incertitude.
But Bella looked like she was really serious, and not at all playing with his feelings. Her gaze was peering into her cousin's soul with an unusual steadiness, and suddenly she saw the young lord Black running back to the manor, running, racing to the dining room, to the family tree.
Bellatrix sighed, unsure of her actions and words. Had she done that the right way, or had she simply worsened Sirius' trust in her? A pang of guilt crushed her non-existing heart as she remembered that this faltering trust existed only because he knew she was bound to obey him, and he had taken precautions.
What had she done with her life?
Her younger sister despised her, her youngest sister shared her views but was afraid of her. Her husband didn't love her, she didn't love him, and she had wasted years in love with a man who would never even look at anyone that way, least of all her. She had had no children – fortunately for those children she mused, and that wasn't comforting at all, even if she didn't particularly want any.
Why had she supported Andromeda's disownment? Always, they had said, Blacks before anything else. Family before blood purity. A Black is a Black, regardless of their blood status. pureblood is better, but a Black stays a Black. Andromeda and her daughter were Blacks. Even the mudblood husband and father was a Black by extension.
But no, Bellatrix had been blinded by everything the Dark Lord was saying, his ideals, his standards. Not even the Blacks standards were as terrible as the Dark Lord's. Aside from Walburga – who was mad – no one in the family wanted the muggles to die and disappear, as well as the muggleborns, the squibs, and eventually, the halfbloods. The Blacks weren't crazy. They knew it would have been their downfall if such a thing had happened, even if they would never have admitted it. The occasional murder, why not, genocide, no.
The ghost shook those thoughts out of her head, and discreetly headed to the dining room. Sterhn had told her about the aurors, and she didn't want to be a problem for Sirius.
Her newly sane self was rediscovering that while she still believed purebloods to be the best, and Sirius was a pureblood, she also realized that the others weren't vermin for all that. And evidently, Blacks, being pureblooded, halfblooded or even of muggle parentage, were the best of the best.
Sirius, herself, Narcissa, Regulus, Andromeda, Nymphadora, even Edward Tonks as Andie's husband, were better. They all were good wizards and witches, they all were part of the House of Black since Sirius had decided so, and none of them were a shame for their blood. Others, related to the Blacks by blood, but part of other Houses – such as Draco as Narcissa's son, Dorea's grandson, if he had outlived the first war – were good enough to equal any pureblood whether or not they were purebloods themselves, because they had Black blood still thick enough.
That wasn't yet believing in the same equality as her cousin did, but that'd have to do. Bella didn't think she could truly believe that mudbloods and halfbloods were just as good as purebloods if they weren't related to the House of Black in some way. Yes, she was prejudiced, she knew it, and she couldn't do anything about that.
When she passed through one of the dining room's window, she found Sirius kneeling next to the Family Tree Wall. His fingers, brushing over his brother's name, were pale in the dim light coming in the room. The light orbs weren't lit, and the sun was on the other side of the manor.
Bella observed her cousin under a new light. He was as handsome as ever, but now that he wasn't in the hospital's light, she could notice how pale he was.
Sirius had always been of a pale complexion, a true Black, with the family ink-black hair, and the rare but gorgeous silver eyes he shared with his brother and mother. Not all the Blacks looked like that, of course, but the eyes, the hair, the complexion, they came back every generation, not always on one single person, but there nonetheless. Sirius had all, Regulus had the eyes and the hair, Bellatrix had the hair and the complexion, Narcissa and Andromeda had the complexion. Walburga had had the eyes, like Alphard, Orion the hair and the complexion like Cygnus and Lucretia.
They were always like that, the Blacks. They took features from the wifes' and husbands' families, but all in all, they stayed true to the name of Black. Same thing for their ease with dark magic.
Maybe there was some kind of enchantment or curse on the family name.
Whatever, it wasn't the matter. The matter was, Sirius looked, not sick, not bad as he had post-Azkaban – he looked really good, healthy and all – but he looked different. It was the same man, the same features, but in a way, he was as handsome as before, as enthralling, but a bit more dark, dangerous, even...
He reminded her of the Dark Lord, she quickly realized. The ghost squinted her eyes, surprised by such a realization.
Well, Sirius was nowhere as bad as the Dark Lord, that she could swear. But there was something, in his behavior, his stance, in this new and yet similar pallor, that definitely reminded her of the old Tom Marvolo Riddle, the one who was still a bit human. The hollow temples, the dark circles under his eyes, the pallor, it didn't make him look like he was ill, surprisingly, no, it...
Those were the marks of the use of the darkest magics.
Bella hadn't understood before, because to cause real changes in one's physiognomy, the Dark Arts had to be used a lot. Her, the dozens of killing curses, all the Cruciatus curses, the Imperius curses, and the lesser dark spells she had performed, had not touched her. The dants in her beauty had been due to Azkaban, and nothing else. The Dark Lord, on the other hand, when he still had his first body, had sunk willingly into the darkest, foulest sorts of magic. From a handsome young man, he had become something else, his features still theoretically pleasant, unmoved... and disturbing, as if his good looks couldn't hide the truth of his soul.
And when she thought about it, it made sense.
Sirius had died.
Bellatrix Lestrange had killed him.
And no one could come back from the dead.
The Dark Lord had fooled death, certainly, but he had never been truly dead. The same could be said about Sirius. Both of their bodies had been created by the Dark Arts, and while Sirius had been nowhere as damaged as the Dark Lord when he had cast the Reciprocation Curse, and so still looked all the way human, there were bound implications.
Bella winced. Apparently, if the Reciprocation Curse could visibly affect the user's body, it was one of the darkest spell she had ever witnessed, right after the Dark Lord's foulest deeds. Luckily, Sirius wouldn't have to resort to such drastic measures in the future. She certainly didn't want him to end up as evil-looking as the Dark Lord.
A chance that Blacks didn't know the allurement of the Dark Arts, only their less important and down-to-earth side effects. If not, Sirius could have been lured into using even darker magic, and then, bye bye the good looks.
"What does this mean?"
The ghost snapped out of her thoughts and looked at the stone family tree. The effects of Sirius' decisions about the House of Black were the same as on the Black Family tapestry, obviously, but that didn't mean they had the same visual aspect. Bella had seen the tapestry mend itself before her very eyes the previous day, watching with interest as the burned off spots were restored, as the faces of the Blacks gained a new vigor.
On the wall of the dining room, there were no images of the family members, only silver-lined rectangles in which the names of the family members were carved with their birth and death dates, also in silver. The lines between fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters were silver too, while the wedlocked relationships appeared in gold.
It was a bit disturbing to see that Sirius already had one date of death, carved in gold unlike the others', in 1996. Then again, he wasn't the only one. Three other Blacks, all heads of the family, had, through a centuries-old family tree, two dates of death, the first one being gold-lined.
But it wasn't what was unnerving Sirius – and, dare she think that, herself.
No, what was really unnacounted for, was the death date of Regulus Arturus Black.
Sirius stared at the wall, unsure of what to say, not knowing what to do. This, this had never happened before, and the thing was, the wall couldn't be wrong. But what the freaking hell was that supposed to mean?
When he had looked at it the day before, when his eyes had lingered on his little brother's name, it had been perfectly normal, it hadn't been like that. Not at all.
Regulus Arcturus Black
1961-1979
That was what had been written in silver carving on the wall.
But now?
Now, it was still written, mind you. But it wasn't written as it should have been. The name was there, all silvery and everything, just good, the birth date was alright, clearly written in silver, but the death date!
Regulus' death date was there. It was there, it was still 1979.
But it wasn't silvered.
Not anymore.
What was that supposed to mean?
Sirius cast a lost look at Bella, as if hoping that she had some sort of explanation, anything that could make sense. Because, he knew very well that Regulus was dead. If he wasn't, then why had the London tapestry, why had the wall, just the day before, shond that his little brother was dead?
Unless the last lord – namely Arcturus – had knowingly messed with the family tree so that everybody would believe Regulus to be dead, Sirius didn't see how the wall and the tapestry could be wrong. Unless Regulus had somehow been taken back from the dead during the night, he had no explanation of what was happening. Or he was going crazy, maybe.
"You knew of this, Bella?"
The ghost winced.
"I was in Grimmauld Place when it happened. By the way, did you really have to send me in the eye of the storm? I had to hide from Order members, I'll have you know. So, I was growing impatient when I saw the tapestry mend itself, and I figured you had something to do with it and you were here, but, obedient as I am, I didn't rush to Black Manor, dumbly believing that you'd come as you said. The images of all the disowned Blacks were coming back, the burn marks were disappearing, and the skulls of the ones who had had a violent death turned into their living faces. Regulus' too. But not entirely. His picture was becoming human again, and then it stopped."
Sirius ignored her complain, but frowned as she mentionned the skulls. He had never understood why the tapestry had this thing with skulls. After all, if it was for the dead, then every single one of the Black ancestors should have been depicted with a skull. One day, his father had told him it had to do with the way they had died. But Orion too had been unable to be more precise.
Regulus' was a skull.
It made sense, if he had been killed by Voldepants or one of his minions'. His death certainly hadn't been a happy, fluffy one.
"What do you mean, it stopped?"
The ghost shrugged, glancing at the doors each time she heard something. She really didn't want an auror to burst in and see her. Not now, not here. It would be hell for Sirius, and for her too.
"It didn't fully revert back to a picture of his living face, and you could still see the lines of the skull through the lines of the face, but it was almost there. And his date of death was halfway erased."
"And here, it's only halfway done. The carving is there, but not the silver."
Sirius stayed silent for a moment, then went and sat down in one of the dining seats. He sighed, closed his eyes, and stayed still for a time, before sighing once again.
"It's as if Regulus was in the process of dying, but was not dead yet. As if the family tree couldn't honestly see him as living, while he isn't completely dead either. As if, for all those years, he had been in agony, and as I corrected the status of the whole family, the family tree had to correct Regulus' actual, real status."
Suddenly his silver eyes were on Bellatrix, fully appreciating her past as a Death Eater.
His question startled the ghost.
"Do you know how he died?"
Bella watched him warily, knowing very well that it wasn't just any subject. She had no idea how Sirius would take her answer, but there was no use in lying.
"I don't. Actually, no one knows, or if they do, they never talked about it. He simply disappeared, one day, and then the tapestry..."
Sirius nodded, realizing what that could possibly mean.
"The Dark Bastard claimed he had him executed only after one of us Blacks said he was dead, didn't he? For what we know, Voldemort could as well have not known of Regulus' death before everybody else... meaning that he might not have had him killed."
Bellatrix didn't miss his use of the Dark Lord's actual fake / real / whatever-name-that-wasn't-his-but-yet-was-without-being-a-derogatory-name-such-as-'The-Dark-Bastard'-or-'Voldepants'.
"Well, the Dar... Voldemort had ordered us to be wary of Regulus weeks before. I'm sure he was doubting his fidelity, and because of that, we all thought he was the cause of Regulus' demise."
Sirius shook his head, a mirthless and rather unpleasant laugh on his lips.
"I have no doubt that Voldemort caused my brother's death. What I'm saying is that he might not have done so knowingly."
And the man said no more.
Bella looked at her cousin, perplexed.
Some time passed, and the double doorss opened on the entrance hall as Julius Moody took a look in the dining room. The ghost went posthaste in the shadows of the high ceiling, disinclined to reveal herself and jeopardize everything Sirius was working for.
"There you are, Lord Black. The relief team is here, and they need you to get them in."
The broody look on Sirius' face went away as fast as it had come, and the wizard positively beamed at the young auror, certainly grabbing any opportunity not to think about his little brother and the mysteries of his disappearance / death / what-else?.
"Does that mean I won't have to put up with Bitterish Dawlish?"
"Not before tomorrow, at least. I hope you didn't come up with a nickname for me too, I'm not sure I'd appreciate."
Sirius arched an eyebrow comically as he joined the auror in the entrance hall, noticing that said Bitterish Dawlish was already waiting by the front door, looking as uninviting as ever, in a hurry to leave Black Manor and at the same time dejected that he didn't have more time to look around in search of compromising documents or artifacts.
Sirius took his best Mad-Eye voice and glared at the older auror, before turning to Julius.
"You're already Moody Jr., lad, whatever you think about it. But don't worry, you're alright compared to Dawlish. Actually, I think that many people are alright compared to Dawlish. Even Mundungus Fletcher."
Julius only chuckled. He couldn't say that he wanted to antagonize his senior auror, but sometimes it looked like Dawlish wanted to be in bad terms with about everyone.
Sirius led the two aurors back to the gates, bid them goodbye in a ridiculously polite manner, and finally invited the relief team in.
Sirius watched the two new aurors, a man and a woman this time, analyzing their behavior in search of clues of what they thought about him. They were oddly neutral, not friendly like Julius Moody, nor openly accusatory like Dawlish. All in all, they were doing their work right, not visibly bothered by the hearsay or their own beliefs, working as aurors, by the law only, and thus refusing to judge him as it wasn't their place to do so. But Sirius had been seen as a criminal, and treated as such, for too long, and the neutrality was disturbing him.
"Aurors Savage and Gulch, Lord Black. We were ordered to keep an eye on you until the day of your trial. Please do refrain from trying to sneak out, and always warn us before leaving a place."
Sirius rolled his eyes, opened his pocket watch, and had a manic grin.
"Then, Auror Savage, Auror Gulch, do put a tracking spell on me. And, would you please step out of the property? Don't worry, I shall follow you in this action, and won't shut you out of the manor."
The aurors backed away, rightly suspicious of his tone. Sirius passed the gates just after they did, and grabbed both their left forearms. The aurors reached for their wands instantly, wondering why he hadn't gone for their right arms – after all, most people were right-handed.
He let them do so.
"The Leaky Cauldron."
His matter-of-fact tone told them it was the warning the witch had asked for, and the spinning around them told them they'd been owned, as the young lord was side-along disapparating them already.
They apparated in a dark alley near the pub. Savage, the wizard, and Gulch, the witch, jumped back as soon as the world became normal again, their wand drawn and pointed at Sirius, who ignored them and made his way to the Leaky Cauldron. They shared disbelieving looks, and followed him before he could run off to God knew where.
Sirius walked into the pub with a haughty look on his face – which reminded him way too much of his mother, but eitherway, he was feeling so smug he could't help it. Or, he could, but didn't want to.
For years, all the people in there, all the witches and wizards who were actually in Diagon Alley, everyone in freaking wizarding Britain, they had all thought him guilty. Only the ones who had actually been guilty of what he had been accused to be had known he was innocent, ironically. Then again, he wasn't even sure how many Death Eaters had known about Wormtail. While in Azkaban, the truth had been relayed by Bellatrix and a few other Death Eaters, the most trusted ones, whereas the lower ranked hadn't known. Malfoy had known, surely, and maybe one or two others, such as Nott or Avery, perhaps.
But finally, there he was, Sirius Black, the last heir, and now Lord of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. He could walk freely – well, almost, but no one was trying to feed him to the dementors anymore, and that was definitely an improvement, even if they couldn't have anyway since the bloody soul-sucking monsters had defected. He could look at all those who had thought him to be a monster without even knowing a thing about him, he could despise those who had thought so while knowing him. He wasn't going to hold it against them. They had had reasons to believe so. But he would take a few seconds of hatred, since it was offered to him, he would loathe them, and then he would forgive them.
So that's what he did.
For a minute Sirius appreciated the dumbfounded looks on the faces of the customers.
And after that he let go.
Sirius had become a lot over the years.
The first Black sorted into Gryffindor – ever, mind you, he had checked in the family papers. The Blacks had been Slytherins to the core, sometimes Ravenclaws, but never Gryffindors or Hufflepuffs.
A rebel, not interested in his family's ways.
A friend to a werewolf, knowingly at that.
A star student – though the professors would always deny it, since he had caused so much trouble.
A runaway teen, taken in by his best friend's parents who had given him all the love he had never been shown at home.
A betrayed older brother, who had only watched as his little brother was stolen by the dark side, and had refused to save him himself, not even when the dark side had torn his brother apart.
A Black who had refused to go and be the servant of the Dark Lord.
One of the best rookies Mad-Eye Moody had had in years, by the man's very words.
A wizard hunted by his own family, but who had decided he'd rather fight them standing.
A traitor and murderer, or so they said.
The first man to ever escape Azkaban alone.
The scapegoat for the Ministry, when they had refused to see the truth.
But now? Now he was a dead man who still walked, a man who had died but denied death. He was Sirius Orion Black, the lord of one of the most powerful wizarding families in the United Kingdom, the head of a House whom all feared for its history of dark wizards and witches, and an innocent they had sent to hell without thinking twice about it.
But no. He wouldn't let anyone put him down, never again, he wouldn't let himself be defeated. He had defied Azkaban, he had challenged death, and Voldepants wouldn't make him back off.
Feeling a bit better at last, Sirius waved at Tom, the barman and owner of the Leaky Cauldron, before heading to the courtyard. Curious eyes landed on him and the two aurors behind him, and some people gasped when they saw him taking out his wand to open the doorway.
It was the same thing as in the pub, going through Diagon Alley. Some of the people they met on the way gasped at the sight of Sirius Black, some other nodded politely at him, some looked away.
Sirius ignored most of them, but nodded back at those who were polite to him.
He decided to go to Ollivanders first.
When he walked into the narrow wand shop, they'd passed by two closed shops. Death Eaters attacks, Savage and Gulch had said. It wasn't a good sign. There weren't many people out either.
"Sirius Black. I hadn't hoped to see you again, Lord Black."
The always terrifying voice of the wandmaker almost made the young lord jump, but he refrained from doing so. Ollivander had always been... strange, and he had to deal with it.
"For years I haven't hoped to get out of Azkaban, and yet here I am."
The old man had pale silver eyes. Sirius' and his met, and the two silver colored pairs of eyes looked into the other's, trying to see, beyond the mask of their faces, if there was something interesting, something worthy in the man in front of them.
Sirius didn't know why, but it had already been this way at their first encounter, when he had been eleven. Their eyes had locked onto the other's, and the young boy had seen a great mind behind the face of the not-so-old-yet man, but also something disturbing, hidden in Ollivander's eyes, something not so human, not so sane, but pure, in a way, a desire for knowledge which surpassed ethics and humanity. A tiny shred of brilliant madness, there, in the eyes of Garrick Ollivander.
Sirius wondered what the man could see in his eyes.
The wandmaker smiled a strange smile.
"Some feat if there ever was one, Lord Black, your escape from Azkaban. But may I ask what brings you to my shop? No trouble with your wand, I hope? Or maybe you need a new one?"
"Unlike most, my wand was stored instead of snapped. Am I not lucky?"
"Oh, I know about that. The Unspeakables contacted my family about wandlore at the very beginning of their research, centuries ago. Apparently, they're salvaging dark wizards' and witches' wands, something to do with the effects of the use of the Dark Arts on the wands, and other things too, but that have not much to do with wandlore so I don't know more."
Sirius raised a dubious eyebrow, still a bit unnerved when people talked about him as a dark wizard, voluntarily or not. He coudn't honestly deny that he had already used the Dark Arts, because he had used them, and more times than he liked to be reminded of, but he wasn't what was called a dark wizard for all that.
He handed his wand to Ollivander, who looked pleased with seeing his own work, as always.
"Ah, ebony and thestral hair, ten inches. I don't habitually use thestral hair, but when I do, the wands which are created from them always go to peculiar individuals. And in the light of the last events, I dare say that you already had an uncommon affinity with death when you came to this shop with your father in 1971..."
The old man had taken the wand in hands as he spoke, and was looking at it carefully, searching for a flaw or anything else that might warrant a visit from its owner.
"A thestral hair, yes... Rather than an affinity with death, I'd say I knew more of the true face of the world than most children do. A thestral can only be seen by one who has seen death, after all."
Sirius winced, remembering his childhood as the heir of the House of Black. He remembered his mother, the punishments for his misbehavior, harsher than what was usually deemed necessary for a child – but not for Sirius Orion Black, the one who would carry the name of the House of Black. He remembered the inhumanity he had faced early into his childhood.
Not that Walburga Black had ever gone too far. If she was insane, Sirius suspected that she had loved him, in her own, twisted, crazed way. At least, she had until his Sorting. After, he wasn't sure.
Not that the Blacks had been unbecoming in raising their children. But there had been a coldness in the family, something that could easily twist a child's mind, as much as it could format it into that of a proper pureblood, or, if the child was a bit more perceptive than usual, that could disgust it. Bellatrix had been twisted. Narcissa had been formatted. Andromeda and Sirius had been disgusted.
Regulus... had been somehing between formatted and disgusted, and his indecision had surely been one of the things which had caused his death.
"Anyway, what I came here for isn't to talk about my inner nature. Since I got it back, I can't use my wand properly. The spells are way too strong, and sometimes completely wide of the mark. I used a knockback jinx in the Department of Mysteries, and it blowed up the stairs when Bellatrix dodged. Yesterday night, I tried to close a door from afar, and the door almost broke down from the shock. A door in Black Manor, spelled, bewitched, enchanted and jinxed to resist onslaughts!"
A new light could be seen in the old wandmaker's eyes, as if he felt the need to assess the young Black lord once again. His fingers brushed past Sirius' wand, checking one last time for a fault, and the light in Ollivander's eyes only became stronger.
"You are worried that there is something wrong with your wand, and not that it has been damaged."
"Not necessarily..."
Sirius' voice was lower than before, and he trailed in his wording.
"Maybe there is something wrong with me. Maybe it's not really mine anymore. I don't know, maybe it does not want to be mine anymore."
He was really worried. Had his short yet real death lost him the wand's allegiance? Or worse, maybe the fact that this body wasn't exactly human had something to do with it. Maybe, Sirius thought bitterly, his new body wasn't really that of a wizard, as it wasn't exactly that of a human being. Yes, it could be that he wasn't meant to have a true wand, now...
The dark-haired man forced himself to calm down and looked back at Ollivander, whose smile hadn't disappeared at all. Hopefully it meant something good. Hopefully.
"Have you used another wand while you couldn't access yours?"
He nodded hastily, remembering that he had had problems before using the Reciprocation Curse, so it couldn't have anything to do with it. Yet, he was still worried. Was it due to Azkaban? Maybe too much time with the dementors had changed him so badly that his own wand didn't recognize him anymore?
"Yes, a discarded wand found whos know where. Possible that its owner had done something bad and wanted to get rid of it, I don't know. At first, it was difficult, but in the end I managed to cast about everything as I did before, even if it wasn't mine."
Ollivander looked at him with his eyes wide open, as if he was a particularly interesting enigma.
The thought struck Sirius like lightning. It was a bit silly, kind of ridiculous, but at this point he was really considering it. What if his wand felt that he had cheated on it somehow?
The wizard started when the old wandmaker burst out laughing. Well, as much as Garrick Ollivander could be imagined giggling.
"Lord Black, you used a wand which allegiance wasn't to you, and you managed to do just well with it in little time. You've become used to putting much more power into your spells than what is normally necessary, and you're doing the same now that you have your wand back. Your wand, that does not oppose your will."
Ollivander smiled broadly, and if it was a bit scary, it put relief in his customer's heart. Sirius' wand didn't have anything against him – it was only that he was trying to light a candle with fiendfyre.
"Well, Lord Black, I believe you will do incredible things, now that you got your wand back."