Chapter 46: What she wants
It was a Tuesday afternoon, and the fancier part of Diagon Alley – the portion that catered to the richest of clients, Fairen Square was on Southside Street and hosted, for example, the tailors Twilfitt and Tattings and the Café en Terrasse – was a bit more lively than the rest of the neighborhood.
Mostly because attacks on rich clients – hence, many purebloods and old bloods, if not only them – were less likely than attacks on the rest of Diagon Alley. They did happen, but less often, and thus people who could afford it felt slightly safer in Fairen Square.
It wasn't really surprising, given the size of Diagon Alley – which was really composed of four different streets, Knockturn Alley sandwiched between Northside and Southside and Horizont Alley crossing and linking those three, as well as an entire outdoor space, Carkitt Market on the West – that not all parts of it were affected the same way by the ongoing war. Fairen Square only got involved when the Death Eaters wanted to punish or scare a specific person, while Carkitt Market had been almost deserted, the round stalls across the large plaza abandoned after the first three terror strikes. Horizont Alley, housing more residents than shops, most often went unnoticed, not considered "public enough" for a massacre. Knockturn Alley didn't have big shows of power and cruelty, because its residents simply disappeared or the morning revealed a burnt husk – building or corpse – with no one having witnessed anything or willing to talk to the aurors and magestigators. Northside and Southside Streets were often raced through by Death Eaters who wanted to speed on their brooms while blindly cursing whatever blur caught their attention for half a second.
Those tendencies hadn't changed much, Sirius reflected, since the first war. It hadn't been long enough ago, probably, that the first generation of Death Eaters had forgotten their old habits, and that the newer ones hadn't been inspired by their tales.
Still, everyone here in Fairen Square still looked, if not afraid, at least cautious.
The Scene's doorman eyed the street for a tad too long before letting Sirius in.
"Mr Black. Mrs Travers and her sister are waiting for you in booth 17."
Sirius nodded – he hadn't expected Rebecca's sister to be present too, but he'd see – and gave the doorman a handful of sickles.
"Good job watching the street. Keep it up."
It wasn't in the job description, but should anything happen outside, the doorman would see it coming. He might have the time to warn others, or at least to run for his own life.
Besides, Sirius had too much money and no idea of what to do with it.
The Scene was, as advertised, a large theater – or rather, a high building with a round stage in the middle, bleachers similar to an old Roman theater's, and instead of a wall behind the stage, the expensive booths for customers who wanted to watch, speak with someone else, eat, or even just spend their time at the Scene. The booths were impossible to spy on, privacy charms left and right, should the customer see it fit: it was usual to at least keep your conversations private, if not your very presence.
Booth 17, indeed, currently hosted Rebecca and Lynda Travers – Sirius could recognize those brown curls with ease, he'd had them shoved under his nose too many times when he'd had to work with their half-brother Julius at the Auror Office. The oldest of the two – Lady Travers, too – tilted her white and silver hat at him and sent down the copper ladder to get to the booth.
Sirius nodded back and walked around the stage's pit – above him an older witch was singing something gut-wrenching in a language he couldn't recognize – to get to the seventh ladder point. Once there, the wizard strongly gripped the handle on the ladder itself, set his feet firmly on the first rung, and clicked his tongue.
The copped ladder slowly rolled itself back, bringing Sirius up with it – until he stood next to the fancy platform that was booth 17.
The ladder's pulley immobilized itself with a small and final creak and Rebecca smiled at her guest.
"You do seem better off nowadays, Mr Black."
"You can keep calling me 'Sirius', you know. And yes, I'm feeling much better. Congratulations to your daughter Irene, I hear she graduated not so long ago?"
Sirius himself had seen the girl – before Azkaban – perhaps two times, once for certain when he'd visited the Travers Lady to discuss her interest in Juliet. Irene Travers hadn't been yet two years old at the time, and thus the wizard wouldn't claim to know the young woman she had now become.
Rebecca gave him a satisfied look and pushed a chair with her wand.
"Last year, yes. Five NEWTs, I'm rather proud. Irene failed Charms, however, but I know she only took that class because her friends did too. She'd struggled with her OWLs, only grasping at an E, it wasn't a surprise she couldn't keep up..."
Rebecca trailed off, something obviously unpleasant in her thoughts.
The witch shook her head, the silver pearls on her white hat chiming quietly.
"Two years ago, she was complaining about being too young by only a few months to compete in the Triwizard Tournament. I... I don't think she'd have made the cut, she's more of a scholar than a hands-on witch, all things considered, but still... You cannot imagine how relieved I am, now, that she couldn't even try and give her name to the Goblet of Fire."
Lynda coughed by her sister's side, just as Sirius winced.
Rebecca paused, looked them both over, and turned contrite:
"...Or of course you can imagine. After all, the young Potter... Your godson, was it? I was only thinking of the young man who didn't make it back alive, but..."
Sirius took a seat, unwilling to speak much about the time he'd spent worrying – wondering how, who and why – about Harry's participation in the tournament. Those days – when he'd been far away, unable to act, and when he'd come back, unable to show himself – had been difficult, even if he'd, overall, kept his head better during that time than when he'd been stuck in Grimmauld Place.
He gave Lynda a tight smile, acknowledging her intervention.
The younger sister didn't manage to smile back.
Sirius, to be honest, didn't know much about Lynda Travers. She was the same age as Andromeda and Ted, a former Hufflepuff if he remembered right. Not really outgoing. Sirius didn't think he'd ever heard of a romance involving her – not that he could really talk, Eleanor was only his third such relationship – and the people she spent time with were not ones he had strong opinions on, one way or another.
Rebecca was, and had always been, the stronger personality of the two – she'd taken over the House of Travers, after her brother's death, with efficiency and a cool hand, dealing with the mess left behind without a complaint, making amends but no excuse for a fault that wasn't hers.
"Eat something. You may not look like death warmed over anymore, but you are as thin as ever."
The wizard graciously accepted to try a few savory biscuits on a plate.
"Trying to fatten me up will get you nowhere, Rebecca. I burn through any excess fat and quickly feel full on top of that, you will not see me get fat enough to stuff into a cauldron, as would the evil witch in a muggle tale."
He had been joking – though the stories of muggle children being eaten weren't so far from the practices of some dark witches, as human fat was a necessary ingredient in a number of powerful potions – but Rebecca eyed him critically.
Sirius wondered if that was what having a mom – not your best friend's, not even with how Mrs Potter had taken care of him after he'd run away – felt like. Rebecca hadn't been like that sixteen years ago, watching him with the knowing eye of a woman who had raised her own child from birth to adulthood.
"Have you considered..."
The Travers witch pursed her lips, stopped in her tracks.
"...Nevermind that. You want to know about Juliet, I assume, and frankly this is the main reason I invited you here. Your eating habits are not, after all, my concern, especially since you don't seem ready to keel over."
"...Thanks for the consideration."
Rebecca squinted at him – Merlin, she had become a full-on mom, she even did that thing where they knew you were being sassy but refused to acknowledge it and play into your hand – and took a few letters from the bag she'd left on the side table.
Sirius could see the international wax seal of long-distance mail – anyone with access to an actual owl post office with no risk of being thrown back in jail would have their letter waxburned to the corresponding country, and there they'd use owls to finish the delivery – on the envelope.
"This is a spell for Juliet's current address in Australia, to include if you want the owl post office to reach her. She had a few... incidents, following your escape from Azkaban, and therefore took herself off the owling lists."
"...I figured as much."
Sirius reached for the first letter, cautious – of what? He couldn't tell you himself.
There was, indeed, a homing ribbon in the envelope, as well as a small note. The wizard pocketed the letter without looking at the note – later. At the manor.
"Did she... Did Juliet tell you anything? About... Me. Or even what she's been up to?"
Rebecca smiled.
"That girl... She decided a few years ago that actually, she wanted to do something with animals, even though she hadn't taken Care for Magical Creatures back in school. She figured out a plan of action all alone, set her sights on an apprenticeship in a team of ramora guardians based in Perth, and only then did she come to find me with a request. Mostly, she wanted me to get the attention of the organization. She did all of the convincing on her own."
The Travers, Sirius reflected, were well-known for their travels – and their acquaintances all over the world, the ties they'd kept between branch families, even centuries removed. If there was someone with a worldwide network in wizarding Britain, it was the lord – here, the lady – of the House of Travers.
It had been a problem, back when Julius the-auror-with-Death-Eater-on-the-side had been at the head of the House – back when Voldemort had gotten one too many favors and other conveniences from foreign lands, deals made in secret and questions not asked. They hadn't known, back then, why everything came so easily from outside the United Kingdom, but it certainly hadn't helped the Auror Office to fend off the growing power of the Death Eaters.
Having a traitor amongst their ranks had been another torn in their feet, too.
Rebecca, when she'd been handed the reins of her family, had needed to undo almost everything her half-brother had done with their reputation – all that, without being branded a blood traitor and a target herself.
She'd promised, amongst other things, to help, should she be able to, with the education of a girl orphaned by her brother – and apparently Grandfather Arcturus had made sure Juliet remembered that, if she'd known to go to Lady Travers for her career project.
Sirius bit back a laugh:
"She sounds like she knows exactly what she wants."
Rebecca shrugged, visibly satisfied with herself and with Juliet's growth as a person.
"I did visit her occasionally, when she lived with your grandparents in Black Manor. I can assure you that girl was made for Slytherin, certain of her place in this world and of the ambitions she would carry. She might have changed her mind once or twice, but she always did her best on the path she'd chosen, reaching for a goal with no regrets to leave in her wake. I don't know how she managed it, but somehow... She always maneuvered around whatever tried to get in her way, to make her trip and fail. She helped Irene out with Charms the year she was passing her own OWLs, actually, and she'd say 'being the best at anything isn't about faking it with tricks and cheating, or you become no more than the best liar'."
Rebecca shook her head fondly.
"I... You need to see her for yourself, Sirius, she's yours, even if you didn't have much time with her. I can tell you stories, that's true, but I think... I hope you will look at her, soon, and think how proud you are. That she is one example of what a Slytherin should be, ambitious and cunning but not malevolent for all that."
Sirius squinted at the Travers witch.
"...I'm not angry at her for her Sorting."
She only shrugged.
"Maybe not. But you've had your difficulties with your family, with a great many witches and wizards who, for the most part, were Sorted in Slytherin in school. You were... shunned by your parents for not being there with your cousins, for being different. I've seen you when you were barely out of Hogwarts, Sirius, and I was there for your trial. I've heard what you had to say, then. One can wonder what you'd think of that girl you adopted so long ago, that you weren't able to raise yourself and who went to your grandfather instead, who ended up in the very House that had cost you so much. In fact, Juliet herself could have wondered about it, too."
That left Sirius speechless – his lips thin and teeth grounded.
It wasn't even... Rebecca wasn't implying that he should or would or might take it badly, just that regardless of his feelings on the matter, Juliet might have doubted him and herself because of all this. The witch sitting across the table, with her long brown curls and white and silver attire, wasn't trying to scare him away, but...
This was a very valid concern.
Especially as Sirius and her didn't know each other that well. They might trust each other's intentions, but they couldn't pretend to grasp the nuances of the other's thoughts.
Rebecca, he noted finally, didn't seem overly concerned with the answer to her question. It told him she was only testing the waters, trying to gauge his reaction to the question itself.
The wizard sighed.
"...Did she, then? Was she uncomfortable with her Sorting, at any point?"
Rebecca's mouth tilted up as she offered him some tea.
"I did say that girl was certain of her place in this world, didn't I? She had her moments, of course, but in the end, I think she didn't doubt herself half as much as the average teenager. Slytherin did bring a few tensions in her life, true, but it was never about her and always about the usual bullies, about the less savory elements of that House. I find, though, that the ones on muggleborn duty in Juliet's years at school were particularly efficient, so I wouldn't worry too much, if I were you."
Sirius, of course, would worry anyway – but he'd wait for Juliet to come and tell him herself.
"So... Wildlife protection, then? Juliet never seemed to care so much about animals, back then... But she was seven, last time I saw her, I suppose she has grown into new hobbies... Do you know why Australia? There are similar jobs all over the world, even in Great Britain."
Rebecca laughed:
"You are the one who left her with a pet snake to take care of, and who has a reputation for charming people, pets and wildlife alike. I'm not surprised she took a liking to that domain of work, honestly."
Sirius, embarrassed, passed a hand on the back of his neck – he hadn't thought such things were said about him, even if he couldn't deny...
"Right... Did Juliet take care of Scallywag, then? After... after that Halloween."
"Indeed. Your grandfather helped her with the snake, too. And about ten years ago, a bit before your pet passed away, Juliet had her bred and kept one of the babies. She named it Slitherking."
...That was a worthy successor to Scallywag, Sirius thought. Just the right amount of pun while still sounding like an actual pet name.
"Her naming skills are perfect."
Lynda cracked a discreet laugh – Sirius had almost forgotten she was here – while Rebecca rolled her eyes and took her teacup to her lips. Behind them, the singer started a higher, stronger, more powerful part of her chant. It was probably the last bit of her number, and Sirius found himself just listening.
He didn't remember the last time he'd taken the time to appreciate a show.
Probably something with Remus, Lily and Peter. James couldn't stay still long enough – in silence, so quidditch games didn't count – to bother bringing him along, usually he went to the Flying Quaffle on Carkitt Market and they'd get back together after the show ended.
A dozen minutes later, the singer bowed down and left the stage. Sirius and Lynda took the time to applaud her, while Rebecca skimmed through a letter a steward had brought during the last chant.
Only once she was done – folding the letter back and slipping it in her bag, her face smoothing from its frown without a hint of what it had been about – did she look back at her guest and answer the question about Australia:
"As for Juliet's specific choice of apprenticeship... I don't think she had her eyes set on that particular position, she is looking for experience in the field of creature care, however her uncle had to temporarily move to Australia for work and took her muggle brothers with him. With your grandfather's passing, she wanted the chance to reconnect with her other family."
"Ah... Mr Wells and the Carson boys are there too, then..."
Rebecca handed him another biscuit.
"You could book a portkey to Perth, spend a few days there. You certainly have the money."
Sirius winced, all too aware of the other issues.
"And I've barely been exonerated from mass murder, wizarding Great Britain is probably looked over warily by the other magical governments considering our current situation, and I have a lot to do about many different things. What I miss is time."
The older Travers witch went to retort, but Lynda put a hand on her arm and quietly pointed out:
"We are frequent travelers, Rebecca, and are recognized as such. We are both used to the proceedings of international travel and not considered suspicious in our moving around. Mr Black cannot claim the same."
Her older sister deflated.
"I suppose this would all be more complicated for you, Lynda is right. More time-consuming, and they might even kick a fuss about your unfortunate past. That said, didn't you travel around while on the run? I mean, I know you were hanging around Hogwarts about three years ago, but after that... Wasn't there a rumor about Tibet sometime last year?"
Sirius put down his uneaten biscuit and chortled:
"Right, Tibet. I was hiding out at my parents' place, with my mother's horrid portrait screaming in my ears every other morning. Though, before that I spent a couple of months in Equador, mostly got there through hippogriff riding and muggle means..."
Lynda's eyebrows shot up.
"Hippog... How exactly did you manage that?"
Sirius blithely waved that question away – no need to involve Hagrid and the kids:
"I'm the favorite of all creatures, it wasn't that difficult. I even found a couple of adventurous macaw parrots willing to deliver letters to Harry, even though they are mostly sedentary as a species. Anyway, I came back when I heard about the Triwizard Tournament and didn't actually leave the UK since then."
Rebecca watched him carefully.
"...Why was the Auror Office convinced you'd toured Asia, then?"
As a witch who did travel a lot and worked with other people who traveled even more, it wasn't surprising the woman had kept informed about travel advice from the Ministry – and not just what the Daily Prophet would report.
Sirius mimed zipping his mouth shut and added:
"I'm not giving up all my secrets, Lady Travers. Who knows, I could be wrongly accused of murder again, and where would I be if everyone knew how to track me then?"
Rebecca accepted his rebuttal gracefully enough.
"A valid concern these days, sadly. Still, you should write to Juliet and ask her if you could arrange a meeting, instead of waiting for a hypothetical time when you'd be free to travel or she'd come back to the UK. Especially as things are, you might not want the girl too close, considering her blood status. She is away already and honestly, Sirius? It might be safer for her to stay in Australia for a bit longer."
Sirius pinched his lips and didn't answer.
Rebecca was, of course, right: Juliet was a muggleborn, adopted by Sirius of all people. If she stayed in Perth, she was less likely to be targeted, either for being muggleborn or to get to him. It wasn't even as if the Travers witch was suggesting getting her out of the country.
But at the same time, having all the muggleborns leave wasn't an option. It would be safer for them, individually, but not for all the children with muggle parents in their world, those who couldn't leave yet, those who shouldn't have to. It was, in the end, conceding victory to the dark bastard and his bigoted murderers, letting them have their muggleborn-free domain.
It was, also, shifting the fighting to something only halfbloods and purebloods could do – when they weren't the first victims, when they couldn't quite pretend to know what a muggleborn had to live through in this situation, when they might settle for less than should be acceptable. Not because they didn't care, simply because it wasn't their fight... and because none of the victims would be left to correct them if they made a mistake.
Rebecca waited – didn't hear an answer, and changed the subject:
"Tell me about Eleanor, then. She is my cousin, you know."
"Both your mothers are Parkinsons, aren't they?"
Lynda nodded before her sister could confirm.
"Yes, the two oldest of Grandfather Lemuel and Grandmother Audrey. Rebecca and I haven't seen much of Eleanor, to be honest, we are more than ten years older than her, our time in school didn't even overlap. Her brother got to Hogwarts when I was in fifth year, and he's... eight years older than her, I think?"
Rebecca made a face.
"Let's not talk about that little vermin. What I want to know, Sirius, is what is going on with you and our cousin. If it's only friendship or a lot more. Because everything I know about Eleanor is that she doesn't do crushes, except if it's on you, and that has been true for nearly two decades now."
"Are you sure you aren't exaggerating? You just said you weren't close, the three of you..."
The white-and-silver witch across the table gave him a look that meant she wouldn't tolerate dancing around the subject, and Sirius had to accept he wouldn't leave booth 17 without giving her something, at least.
In the end, they spent about fifteen minutes talking about Eleanor – and not only her relationship with him, which was a relief – before Lynda took out her silver watch and caught her sister's attention.
"Rebecca, it's time for our appointment."
The witch grimaced as she stood up.
"Ah, well. Sirius, if you don't mind, we'll be leaving. We have to be at Mystic Pests and Monsters in ten minutes. Our Felixstowe Cottage is currently invaded by rats and I suspect them to be of the magical sort, considering none of the usual methods have been useful."
Lynda shuddered at the very thought of the pests in their ancestral house – calling it a cottage was, frankly, a misnomer, especially as Sirius had had the occasion to walk the grounds and notice that the main house had several outbuildings fit for habitation – and Sirius almost didn't ask, but:
"Rats?"
Rebecca had used the word "vermin" when talking about Thorfinn Rowle, and given Sirius' own and now public past with Peter... Maybe it was only a coincidence, but he'd rather not let it go, only to realize later that indeed, Rebecca had been trying to tell him something.
Lynda watched them both warily, still unnerved by the mention of rats – and somehow, there was something in the face she was making, in her silence during this visit, in the tension along her neck.
Sirius wasn't certain, no.
He hadn't noticed anything, at first.
He might be wrong, too.
Rebecca simply laughed.
"Pests, yes. We've seen two of them in the main house, but their nest doesn't seem to be there. There might be more running around, too. No amount of rat spray or Outwithit bait seems to chase them away, either. They've scarred Lynda a few times in her private quarters, haven't they?"
Her sister looked away.
"I... There's no need to talk about that. I just... don't like rats. The way they scurry around and nibble on everything. I'm not scared of them."
The younger sister finished her sentence and stepped on the copper ladder, promptly disappearing from view – and out of the privacy bubble of booth 17.
Rebecca gave Sirius a long look, her smile and laugh gone with her sister.
"She definitely is afraid of them. Those two overgrown rats have taken residence in Julius' old quarters, just beside hers, and they won't be leaving unless someone does something about it."
The ladder rolled back on itself – Lynda was done, then – and the witch turned around to get down herself. She didn't look back, didn't say anything else.
Sirius waited for his turn, committing each of her words to memory. With a closure like that...
That was a message, of that he was certain.
When the wizard finally got back to the ground floor, the Travers sisters were already at the desk for the bill – and another family was coming in, presumably for the next show.
Sirius felt around his pockets for the watch he'd taken off Obsidian Thomas' corpse, only a few days prior.
His left hand closed on the brass pocket watch just as Rebecca looked back at him, nodding goodbye with a tilt of her white hat. Sirius nodded back, grim-faced – then turned around to stop Emerald Cox – née Thomas, sister of Obsidian – on her way to the booth her family had booked for the late afternoon.
"Mrs Cox, a word, please."
Joseph Cox threw them both a look, and Emerald – about five years younger than Sirius himself, mother of two children yet too young for Hogwarts – hesitated, but eventually gestured for her husband to take the children – Gladys and Earle, he'd looked them up after the cave – to the rest of the family. They hadn't noticed the hold-up at the end of the group, except perhaps the youngest cousin, not very tall and yet looking their way with a frown on her face through the small crowd of the older generations.
All the way up to Olric and Laurentia Thomas, the grandparents – now great-grandparents – Sirius noted. A true family outing.
And here he was, about to give Emerald Thomas one of the worst pieces of news of her life.
"What is it, Mr Black?"
The witch sounded guarded, and Sirius told himself that, given the years that had gone by since her brother's disappearance, this wasn't going to be much of a surprise. It'd hurt, yes, but in the end...
The Thomas family had certainly suspected the truth for a while.
Sirius gave her a contrite smile and the watch he'd found in a nest of inferi.
"I'm sorry. I can't tell you where I got it, but I'm certain you can deduce enough on your own."
The woman's eyes didn't leave her own hands – the brass pocket watch that was now resting in them – for a long time.
When she did look up, there was a tightness to her words, something choppy about her tone.
"You found him. You... you and your lot, you found... Obsidian, is he...?"
"Not coming back, no. Tell your family if you must, but please, don't tell anyone that the body was found. Where it was left... It shouldn't have been found, and some people would be very irate to learn that that place was discovered. You could..."
As Sirius had been talking, Mrs Cox's expression had grown colder – all too aware of what he was implying, most certainly. Sirius didn't worry much about Emerald Cox's stance in the current war – she'd married a halfblood, her mother-in-law was a muggle and her brother had disappeared during the height of the first war. She had nothing absolutely nothing to gain on the other side.
"You were looking into some old cases from the first war, and you found Obsidian's belongings, things he would never have left behind. He'd left the house, back then, and no one knew where he'd been living, so it's possible that nothing was found until today. You've brought me his watch, because it wasn't important to your investigation, but you knew it was important for us. I am really thankful for that, Mr Black."
Sirius' eyebrows rose slightly and he couldn't refrain an impressed smile.
"...Indeed. Well, then, I hope you and your family will finally be able to move on, then."
"So do I, Mr Bla..."
Emerald Cox had just opened the watch – most likely out of habit, perhaps to see if it wasn't broken – and was now starring, her words lost to surprise.
Sirius, who hadn't looked inside the watch since he'd picked it up, moved to the side to be able to see what had caught the witch's entire attention.
"...Oh."
The interior of the lid had been engraved with a woman's upper body, a baby in her arms. It was difficult to say with the single color and small scale, but the overly frizzy hair and the general face seemed to indicate a black woman, the child looking to have slightly looser curls. There were also two names underneath, "Aubrey & Dean".
"I suppose it wasn't there when your parents got him that watch."
Obsidian's sister swallowed harshly, most of her poise gone with that particular discovery.
"No, it wasn't. And Dean... Do you think, Mr Black, that they'd have chosen Diane or Diana for a name, if it had been a girl and not a boy?"
"Right, Obsidian and Dean. A more common name, less obviously wizarding than his father's, but still linked, still tangibly chosen to resemble his father's."
Sirius didn't have much more to say than that – what did you say, when you'd brought definite news of a brother's demise and accidentally revealed an unknown nephew at the same time?
That looking into children born between 1978 and 1980 named Dean wouldn't be a bad idea?
Though, supposing he and his mother hadn't left the country since then, the wizarding community wasn't so big that finding the boy should prove a challenge, even without the mother's surname. There were, what? A bit more than a hundred kids born each year? A hundred and twenty, maybe? How many students in Harry's year, already? Hmm... Less than thirty in Gryffindor, so in theory... Sirius would have expected at least a dozen more in the whole year, but. It was probably a result of the first war: teens and adults and children killed then never had a chance to get kids of their own.
He hoped, for the Thomas' sake, that Obsidian hadn't been killed with his wife – girlfriend? whatever – and kid, that their corpses hadn't been in the heap of inferi from the cave, unnoticed amongst so many others unfortunates.
Sirius quickly excused himself, leaving Obsidian's sister to deal with her newfound emotional turmoil – and with the need to tell the rest of her family, up there in booth 21. Overall, the wizard didn't know those people and it wasn't his place to come in the middle of... that.
More than he'd already done, at least.
Instead, he headed for Northside Street and the small Sticks and Stones shop next to Eeylops Owl Emporium. He'd reconsidered, after his meeting with Jane Mauss – and the few nightmares in which he hadn't been fast enough in the cave, failing to protect Regulus once more – using sodalite marbles, at least during the night.
It wouldn't solve all his problems, but at least...
Sirius knew what lack of sleep, amongst other things, could do to him. He'd get less efficient, less reactive, might even miss important clues, if his nights went on that way. And, more specifically... He'd get crueler.
The Order didn't need someone like that.
The wizard got back out of the shop with a bundle of incense – sticks – and a small pouch of round blue marbles – stones. He'd spotted the incense sticks while waiting for the shopkeeper to deal with an anxious older woman and had realized that he could use some – you'd let them soak up a specific potion for a day and they'd release a less potent but longer-lasting version of its effects when burned – for his teach-wizards-to-punch-Death-Eaters project with the White siblings. A constant bruise-eraser floating in the air would prevent many mishaps of training, he was certain.
Sirius stopped in the street to put away his purchase before apparating – you didn't usually apparate in Diagon Alley, too many occurrences of people popping up on top of someone else, or in any busy street in general, but the place was almost deserted these days and he was about to apparate out, not in. The incense sticks went into his pocket.
He took a sodalite marble out of its pouch for a last look, though.
He had about twenty of those, which should last him at least a year before they were all cracked and overloaded with negative intent. The shopkeeper had pointed out that it depended, of course, on his own mental state, but most people lasted twenty days with one marble, and unless something drastic happened...
The air got chillier and Sirius had to raise his cloak's collar to stop shivering.
It was alright. He'd manage with those marbles, he wasn't so far gone that he'd burn through one in less than a week. He wasn't stuck in Azkaban or in Grimmauld Place, forced to relive his worst memories or to contemplate the less charming days of his childhood and his total inability to act without endangering everything, there wasn't a need to drink to stop himself from going out and...
Something small and full of color swiftly caught against his ankles and Sirius looked away from the blue stone pearl for a moment.
The thing down by his feet was a round yellow flower with vibrant orange dots, and a rather disturbing shine to it. Sirius frowned – unsure of what was ringing wrong with this situation, but he'd once had to go to the site of a dragon-damned muggle massacre with Moody and Eveline Smith and what had caught the Watchers' attention was a brightly-colored balloon floating about a hamlet and doing things that muggle balloons didn't do but somehow no one seemed to care mostly because they were all dead and a particular old man had even been pureed.
Cold air swished along the street, causing the few people out to hurry inside a shop, and Sirius...
couldn't help but remember
rotten fingers against his jaw
and a soul-aching tightness as he'd been drifting off almost terrified cold tired full of failures
The sodalite marble in his hand cracked.
No.
no no no no
His wand. He had to...
The cold got closer and Sirius couldn't not look up, yellow and orange flower forgotten.
Three dementors were closing in on him, ignoring everyone else where they even there anymore had they had hidden away was this once again him not being good enough to prevent a massacre was it Peter deciding he'd rather be a murderer than have to explain himself and face the consequences of his weakness was it and Sirius' body felt heavy with – not fear, he had to be much less stable for fear to even sound like something that might happen to him – echoes of a darker time.
"Expecto Patronum!"
The silvery dog did appear, which was a relief, but it didn't seem strong enough to go and push the dementors back – it hovered and circled around Sirius, keeping him from falling to his knees and relatively safe from the wraiths. Maybe he was lacking good memories, maybe he'd been more damaged by his time in Azkaban than he'd thought and his patronus wasn't as good as it used to be.
What thought had he used for this one?
Sirius couldn't remember.
The dementors stopped for a moment, still focused on him only – and when they saw that Sirius' patronus wasn't attacking them, they started inching ever closer.
The dog growled.
Sirius felt a cold sweat rolling down his neck. Something was wrong – with this situation, with the dementors, with him – and it might get his soul sucked away again the lake and grey cold fingers on his throat against his jaw.
He rose his wand once more, the dog sticking closer to him, fangs bared. There was something, something Sirius could do here, he knew it, something else, something other than the patronus, but what was it? He hadn't thought of it the last time, he'd been caught by surprise and hurt from his fight with Moony and this wasn't something everyone could do, but...
"Expecto patronum!"
Two other voices echoed his earlier words and a big, cat-like silhouette pushed past Sirius' dog patronus to snap at the dementors, closely followed by a small silvery bird that dove straight for the furthest dementor's head.
As the three wraiths retreated – far away from Diagon Alley and its DMLE representatives – someone put a hand on Sirius' shoulders and led him to the nearest bench.
"Come on, Black. You need to sit down for a bit."
Sirius: I'm going to start taking better care of myself, after all, it's not because I'm doing better that all my issues have disappeared
self-care tool: breaks
dementors: arrive