Walburga Black examined her reflection in the gold ornate mirror in the room she shared with her husband, Orion.
She had to admit to being loathe to marry him when the arrangement had first been proposed, but he'd turned out to be tolerable enough. He usually let her do whatever she wanted, which was good as if he hadn't, she'd have done it anyway, just with more shouting involved.
There was the sound of smashing china and the hand she had on her fine silver necklace clenched so that the chain snapped.
"SIRIUS!" She bellowed, marching out of the bedroom and storming her way down the grand staircase.
She knew exactly which of her children would be responsible for whatever had been broken this time. Though they both looked up at her guiltily as she met them in the entrance hall.
"You can fix it easily with your wand though, can't you?" Sirius said, frowning from the mess of broken china on the floor to his mother as if there could be a simple solution to his misbehaviour.
She pulled out her wand and pointed it at her son. He yelped as she hit him with the stinging hex but she didn't care.
"That's not the point you little ingrate." She snapped. "How many times must you be told to be careful? And how many times must you disobey me?!"
She continued to lecture him, but no matter how much she shouted at or punished him, it seemed to make no difference whatsoever.
Over time she grew to loathe her eldest son. It seemed he went out of his way just to irritate her. He'd embarrass her at parties with his constant talk of muggles (and how they 'weren't that bad') or else by playing childish jokes which neither she nor Orion seemed able to stamp out of him.
He would play tricks and jokes on them too, asking Kreacher to do ridiculous things like dye all Regulus' robes pink or else hex his brother's bedroom slippers so they bit his toes.
After whacking him hard with said slipper, she wondered for the thousandth time where they could possibly have gone wrong with him.
He'd been given absolutely everything he could have wanted or needed in life. They had money, status and power. They hired the best tutors and nannies and bought him the finest clothing and most expensive books.
His ingratitude truly knew no bounds.
And this was before he was sorted into Gryffindor…
When she received the letter from her niece Narcissa, she screamed so loudly Kreacher and Orion both came rushing into the kitchen.
"Mistress!" Kreacher cried, looking up anxiously at her. "What has happened? What can Kreacher do?"
"Walburga? Are you alright?"
"Mother?" Regulus' anxious face appeared in the doorway too.
Walburga got to her feet, letter still clutched in her hand and, enraged, thrust it in front of her youngest son.
"Your brother has gone and got himself sorted into Gryffindor." She snarled, spitting the words out through her teeth.
Regulus' mouth fell open. Orion let out a vehement exclamation. Kreacher tutted and began to mutter under his breath.
Walburga could rarely remember feeling this furious. After all they'd done for him. After the hours of lessons, the years of telling him who he was and where he came from, and this was the thanks they got?!
"He's lucky he's so far away." She snarled, breathing heavily as she turned, glaring, to her husband. "I don't know what I'd do if he was here right now."
"Mother…" Regulus began tremulously.
"What?!" She spun around and snapped at him. "Will you defend him? Are you going to end up in Gryffindor too one day? Orion, perhaps you'd better teach our younger son what happens to disobedient children who denounce their family lineage and join the house of blood traitors and muggle filth."
"No, please don't!" Regulus pleaded. "I promise I won't do anything like that. I don't agree with Sirius. Please don't punish me."
She glared at him, scrunched the letter up and threw it on the floor. She grabbed a piece of parchment and quill and sat down at the table. Her son would soon regret the foolish decision he made today…
…
With Sirius gone, Walburga began to calm down to a degree. She still felt a spasm of fury whenever she was reminded of him, but she got on with her life as usual nonetheless. There were parties to attend and people to impress.
She was convinced her fellow party-goers would bring Sirius up in conversation just to irritate her though.
This was particularly so with her sister-in-law, Druella, whose subtlety and spite knew no bounds.
"Oh Walburga, there you are!" The woman gushed from the champagne bar, pulling her over to where she was engaged in conversation with Malfoy. "Abraxas and I were just discussing our children. They're both prefects, in Slytherin of course. We were saying how nice it is that our friends from our school days stay with us for life. Important to mix with the right crowd, wouldn't you say?"
Walburga knew Druella was only saying this to try and upstage her in front of Malfoy. Druella's family of birth was neither as rich nor as influential as the Blacks. Her marriage to Walburga's brother had been highly advantageous to her and she was embittered and resentful because of it.
Walburga gave her a forced smile and elbowed around her to get a drink.
"How is young Sirius?" Abraxas asked, causing her to grind her teeth furiously as she turned back to the pair. "Lucius tells me he's quite a handful at Hogwarts…"
"Not for much longer." She spat. It wasn't too far to go until the Christmas holidays. She'd have plenty of opportunity to bend her son to her iron will then.
"You must have been too soft on him." Druella said, her tone of sympathy belied by her gleeful smile. "I know how it is with the first borns. It's so easy to spoil them."
Had she spoiled him? What more could she possibly have done to bring him into line? She'd done everything she could think of, save for the unforgivable curses. She wasn't a monster after all.
"If I have, I certainly won't be this Christmas." She promised grimly.
To her fury however, Sirius returned from Hogwarts more stubborn, rebellious and wilful than ever.
Nothing she or Orion did seemed to break him, and the more they punished him, the more defiant he seemed to become.
Walburga couldn't understand it. The methods they used seemed to work with everyone else's children. Sometimes she cursed whatever force it was that had borne him to her in the first place (before cursing him in turn).
She hated how he'd try and make her feel guilty for this. He'd done it as a small child, crying when she punished him to try and make her stop. She hadn't bought it for a second.
He'd stopped doing that so much as he got older, but his old ways were back again this Christmas. He glared at her through his tears after she put her wand away and considered him, waiting for the apology that if he was wise, he would give her.
"James Potter's parents don't do this to him." He'd said instead, glaring furiously at her as though this were her fault.
"That explains a great deal." She said coldly. She knew of the Potters by reputation and had met their spoilt son once at a party.
He shook his head. "Remus' don't either."
He hadn't mentioned a 'Remus' before. It was a Latin name so she could hold out some hope that this other friend of his wasn't a mudblood at least. Though knowing her son, anything was possible.
"Stop being such a filthy blood traitor brat and I won't have to either." She snapped impatiently. Honestly, why did he insist on trying to make her out to be some sort of villain?! "This is your fault."
He glowered at her more darkly still. "I hate you." He said before turning and leaving the drawing room.
Part of her wanted to run after him. To curse him again, to insist on his obedience and respect. How dare he speak to her like that?!
But she was too shocked. There was an odd feeling of emptiness inside her. She didn't understand at all. She'd done everything right, hadn't she? So why on earth did it all feel so wrong…?
…
Unfortunately, things with her eldest son did not improve in the years that followed.
The more he defied her the angrier she became. She considered her actions perfectly reasonable. Anyone would have lost their temper on discovering the posters he'd attached to his bedroom wall with a permanent sticking charm.
"He has to learn!" She'd snarled at Orion who had disarmed her as she raised her wand to curse him again.
It wasn't like her husband to intervene in her treatment of Sirius. He spent most of his time muggle-proofing their house and usually let her get on with whatever she wanted.
"Well he is evidently not learning." He'd said irritably.
"And whose fault is that?!" Walburga had shot back furiously.
But it seemed Orion wasn't the only one who felt she sometimes went too far.
"You're being too hard on him." Her middle brother Alphard told her one night when he was visiting with the rest of the family over Christmas.
Walburga knew Sirius and his uncle had a good relationship. How many times had she seen the two of them huddled together, laughing? Always stopping instantly when she looked at them as if she was some sort of Medusa.
What sob story had her son spun to his uncle now?
She frowned at him. "That's funny, because Cygnus tells me the exact opposite. He and Druella seem to think it's my fault he went and got himself sorted into Gryffindor by being too soft on him."
"Of course Cygnus would say that. He thinks like our parents."
"And what's wrong with that?!" Walburga snapped. "None of us were foolish enough to have been sorted anywhere other than in Slytherin."
"Do you think it's right to do things in life based on fear?" Alphard asked quietly. "I begged the sorting hat to put me in Slytherin on my first day at Hogwarts. I was terrified of the consequences of being anywhere else. But looking back on it now, sometimes I wish I'd had Sirius' courage."
Walburga stared at her brother. "It's you who's been giving him these funny ideas!" She accused furiously.
"Walburga, has it never occurred to you that people can think for themselves?"
She slammed her fist down on the table. "I forbid you from spending any more time with him!" She shouted. "I will not have it. He will come round to our way of thinking if it's the last thing I do!"
Alphard sighed sadly. "You're going to lose." He said before getting to his feet and leaving the kitchen.
Walburga stayed there, breathing heavily. She couldn't lose. She'd never lost.
Her life had been perfect up until Sirius was born. She'd always been perfect. She was beautiful, intelligent, charming and graceful. She had men falling at her feet, but she had settled for Orion. Her parents had considered it the best match for her and she, unlike her dear son, had not argued with them.
She'd been a good wife. Though she'd achieved outstanding in all her NEWTs at Hogwarts and at one point had ambitions to go into business, she had put all that aside to fulfill the duties expected of someone of her station, attending parties and keeping up with her correspondence instead.
And then, when she was ready, they had Sirius and Regulus.
At first it had been wonderful. She'd not had much to do with them in the first few years, leaving their care mostly to the nannies, but it soon became apparent that Sirius at least would not be the heir she and Orion had expected him to be.
It must have been a cruel joke. The one thing wrong with her picture perfect life. And unlike those in her social circle who irked her, she couldn't simply cut him out. He was her son. What was she supposed to do with him?!
The rage she felt on the day he ran away from home was unlike any she'd ever experienced before. How dare he throw away the years they'd spent trying to shape him to their mould? How dare he presume to think he knew better than they did?! The Blacks were a member of the sacred twenty eight - a group of ancient pureblood families whose blood was not yet tainted with unworthy muggle filth.
How could anyone throw that away?!
Breathing heavily and feeling slightly lightheaded with rage now, she stormed into the drawing room and over to the family tapestry.
She looked at it. There were several holes in it by this point. Her squib uncle Marius was no longer there and nor was her great uncle Phineas who supported muggle rights.
She'd blasted off Andromeda's name after the wretched girl had eloped with a mudblood. And now there was one more name to go to cleanse the filth and dirt that threatened to sully the family's good name.
There was the scent of burning fabric and a small black hole appeared where her son's name had been.
She'd be lying if she said she hadn't felt a flutter of fleeting regret. It was an odd sensation, the idea that things could be different, that she hadn't needed to do any of this.
But the idea was so uncomfortable that she quickly stuffed it back where it belonged. Into the recesses of her dark mind.
Sirius had been a good-for-nothing perversion of her noble ancestry. Good riddance to him.
Fortunately Regulus turned out to be a much better son than his brother had been. He was of course sorted into Slytherin and did well for himself, playing as seeker on his house quidditch team.
He made them both proud by joining the death eaters before even graduating Hogwarts.
At least she had one son who had the right idea about things.
But then Regulus died. And Orion died. And she never heard from Sirius again except to read his name in the Daily Prophet several years later.
He'd been sentenced to life imprisonment in Azkaban for the murder of twelve muggles and betraying James Potter and his wife.
She had frowned when she read the article. Sirius would have done anything for James Potter. She remembered the times he'd attempted to sneak away to the boy's house in the holidays, and all the letters she had intercepted that the pair would write to one another.
Though she didn't enquire where he'd gone after running away, she was sure it had been to the Potters. James had been the family he'd chosen over the one he should have been proud to have. If he'd finally, after twenty years', changed allegiances, he'd have come crawling back. And he hadn't. She knew her son. She knew he hadn't committed these crimes.
A cruel smile played about her lips. Ah, justice was finally being served. This was his punishment for trying to outsmart her. For trying to fight for another way.
There was no other way. There was only her way. There was only power and those too weak to seek it.
Sirius had lost. She had won.
Her spite and vindictiveness kept her alive until her dying day.