As always, sorry this took eons. Inspiration for me is purely ebb and flow, but I try my hardest to update you when I start working again. Although I will admit, I have about 70k words thus far on this story and have done so poorly to bring them to you! I will really try to keep you updated regularly. You also may notice a shift from American standard spelling - British standard spelling, it's because I moved to the U.K. and what I produce for school and work has to be in the latter, so my keyboard and mind has adjusted like so. Hope this doesn't cause too much confusion. I'd also like to note (if I could I would edit) that the previous chapter is missing a date + location, and seeing it's a new locations I can tell you here: it takes place in Late December 1977 at Lestrange Grange in Upper Flagley, Yorkshire, England. Otherwise, I hope you all enjoy!
Late December 1977
12 Grimmauld Place, Islington, London, England
Blanche's stomach heaved at the sensation of the Apparition. In the state she was in, the last thing she needed was to begin vomiting up her breakfast. She tried desperately to get on her hands and knees, but her body gave in and she submitted to nauseous coughs and heaves upon the floorboards.
"Blanche," she heard a sputtering semblance of Sirius' voice sound from beside her. She turned her head and saw Sirius' chest heaving; his dress shirt reddened with blood quickly as his fingers fumbled with the small buttons of his shirt, trying to expose the skin that had been splinched.
Blanche forced herself up on her hands to lean over him, tugging the shirt off of him to expose the plane of his chest that was ripped apart. He'd left a fair amount of skin and tissue behind at Lestrange Grange and the blood was oozing steadily from the deep wound.
"Essence of Dittany," she muttered, looking into his wincing eyes and grabbing his forearm tightly. She had to keep him awake or else he'd succumb to the injury. "Where is it? It's got to be in this place somewhere."
"Kreacher," he coughed. Blanche ran to the door and out of the room, sprinting through the dark corridors of the Black family house. Her frailty had become second in priority as Sirius lay dying on his bedroom floor; she would faint of exhaustion and pain later.
"Kreacher!" She screamed from the top of her lungs, but released a hoarse wail instead. She tried again, and managed to summon the house-elf. He came out of the master chamber with a feather duster in his hand.
"Misses Lestrange—Kreacher is glad to see you again. Have you brought young Master Black back from his filthy delusion? Kreacher is so glad—so glad," he spoke in his lurching, quiet voice. "Misses Lestrange does not look alright, has she been hurt badly now—"
"Kreacher, Master Black's been splinched. He needs Essence of Dittany," she gasped.
"Oh, follow Kreacher, Misses Lestrange. Follow Kreacher," he tugged the end of her dress and she followed on his disproportionately large heels. His steps were small and not fast enough; she considered picking him up and carrying him. However, a medicinal armoire was close and Kreacher counted the drawers from the top. He pointed to one with a crooked finger.
"Essence of Dittany. Four drawers down from the top is the Dittany," he told her. "Kreacher likes to help," he commented self-appreciatively.
"Thank you, Kreacher," she muttered as she fumbled through the various essences and ointments within the drawer. She found the Essence of Dittany in a small maroon bottle of glass, and ran off with it. "Bring Sirius some water, Kreacher!"
"Yes, Misses Lestrange. Kreacher will," Blanche heard Kreacher obey and hobble off.
Blanche ran back into Sirius' bedroom—finding him with his eyes closed and stripes of blood stretching from neck to navel. A pool had formed on the wooden floor between his outstretched arm and his abdomen. With shaking hands, Blanche poured a steady stream from the bottle onto the roaring split in his skin. She saw Sirius' eyes shoot open as the essence bubbled over the wound and closed it slowly. Clearly he had not yet lost consciousness, and the pain had brought him entirely back with shouting and cursing.
"Kreacher is here, Misses Lestrange. You must open the door and invite Kreacher in. Young Master Black has hexed the room," the voice squeaked from outside the door.
"Annihilare," Blanche said to the door and it swung open. "Come in now."
"Kreacher will, Misses Lestrange," he walked in with a glass of water as large as his torso.
"Kreacher, I need to hold him down. Can you close the wound with the Essence of Dittany?" She asked. Kreacher's yellow eyes widened but he consented, twitching his bat-like ears. Blanche pinned down Sirius' arms as he writhed on the floor. Blanche wondered if Kreacher's unhurried application of the Dittany was intentional—Kreacher did not like Sirius much. The time Kreacher took gave Sirius the opportunities to nearly rid Blanche from her hold on him, but eventually the wound scarred over with fresh, pink skin and he calmed down.
"Kreacher is helpful," Kreacher complimented himself as he capped the Dittany. "Young Master Black is so very reckless."
"Fuck off, Kreacher," Sirius mumbled on the floor. His eyes were still closed, but a steady breath left his mouth.
"Kreacher will report your foul mouth to Mistress Black, Young Master Black. Kreacher saved your life, but you are still nasty!" Kreacher exclaimed. "Still the nasty blood traitor…" he murmured as he left the room with the dittany.
"Shut the door," Sirius sighed as he sat up on his forearms. Blanche's desperate spout of energy was finally failing her, and she barely had the strength to kick the door shut with her bare foot. He managed to get to his knees and put his arms beneath Blanche's shoulder blades and knees. With a heaving breath, he carried her up and placed her on his bed—which was still unmade as no one had had access to his room since he'd run away. She felt her eyes shut in a final moment of peace and comfort—the moment she closed them she finally felt some of the pain subside. "Don't fall asleep yet. I need to get the blood off you," he insisted.
She heard the door open then close, then barely made out Sirius and Kreacher spewing foul words at one another in the corridor. The room darkened and her sight was all violet—she was slipping away into unauthorised sleep. But soon she felt a wet cloth on her face and her nose twitched at the sensation.
"What did Young Master Black do to hurt Misses Lestrange?" Kreacher asked himself as he prodded at the blood dried on her neck. "Always messy, he is. Kreacher hates his messes."
"Well Kreacher's job is to fix the messes Young Master Black brings home. So shut up and help her."
After a moment of Kreacher muttering to himself about how horrible Sirius was to him, Kreacher suggested: "Should Kreacher get one of Mistress Black's nightgowns? Misses Lestrange's dress is so horribly stained. She shouldn't sleep in it, Kreacher thinks."
"Yes," Sirius agreed thoughtfully. "Go get one."
Sirius wiped the blood from Blanche's forearm with a long stroke of the reddened washcloth. He examined the split skin of her hand and shouted to Kreacher for bandages as well. He then scraped off what remained of her ruby necklace and threw it into the rubbish bin beside his desk.
"Never get splinched again," Blanche muttered beneath her breath, mustering a voice she didn't know she had anymore. "You're so hard to hold down."
She heard Sirius laugh as Kreacher returned, laying a thin white gown on the bed alongside bandages.
"Kreacher, get out," Sirius ordered.
"Young Master Black is so rude," Kreacher mumbled sourly as he closed the door behind him.
"Okay, Blanche. You have to stand up again," Sirius insisted, picking her up again and turning her in his arms so her feet were adjacent to the ground. When the pads of her feet landed on the wood, her knees gave in and Sirius had to drop the nightgown to keep her from falling. "Try and stand. I won't take long."
The zipper of the dress that ran along her spine came undone as Sirius tried removing the garment. She pushed away her exhaustion and managed to balance herself on the floor, reaching behind her to unzip herself. Sirius helped her remove her arms from the sleeves and tugged it over her slender hips. She kicked the dress away and reached to unclip her bra.
"Close your eyes," she spoke weakly and he obeyed to his own surprise. He assumed part of him wanted her to show all of herself to him when she was ready, and now was not the time. She had to give it herself, if she ever did. "Alright," she indicated it was okay to open. When he looked at her, she was already climbing back onto the bed in the nightgown. He reached for her hand and wrapped it with the thick gauze Kreacher had brought. When he finished, her unwounded hand fumbled with the ornate braid her hair was in; she pulled at the ribbon that kept it together.
"Here," Sirius walked to her and brushed his fingers through the braided hair. Before long it was flowing like a jet of ink down her back and Sirius was running his fingers through it only for the sensation. It put her to sleep in a heartbeat, and soon his eyes were slipping shut. Darkness stretched around him as he kicked his shoes to the ground, enfolding Blanche's body with his so their bodies were not alone in the night.
Blanche walked into the drawing room where her father sat with the Daily Prophet between his hands. Always reading the Daily Prophet. His narrow torso and head were masked by the paper so Blanche could only see his crossed legs. She stood before him politely—with a straight back and long neck as her mother had always instructed. Rabastan had surely heard the click of her Mary Janes on the wood as she entered the dark chamber, but he had not acknowledged her yet. He was so silent and unmoving, he may as well have been sleeping behind the unfolded paper.
"You asked for me, father?" Blanche asked. His pale fingers thrummed against the page, indicating his awareness of her. He reached for the short glass of Dragon Barrel Brandy and brought it to his thin lips before putting down the paper.
"Fool of a man—Idlewind. Thinks he can ban wands," Rabastan muttered. "Even us, the True wizards and witches of the wizarding world. Take it from the filthy Mudbloods, but not us. No—not us. What do you think of it, Blanche?"
"I think the Mudbloods should have their wands snapped. They don't deserve magic, and they soil it for us all," she rehearsed. Her father studied her with a raised brow. Blanche hadn't really related her answer to his topic of discussion, but she figured smearing Mudbloods would result in a sufficient answer.
"You believe Mudbloods don't deserve magic?" Rabastan repeated his words. She felt her brow lower into a furrow. Isn't that what he wanted to hear?
"Yes, father."
"Then what about Talbot Tully?" He inquired, and Blanche's eyes widened to saucers. "The boy with whom you spend all of your time at Hogwarts. A Muggleborn who lives in—if I'm correct—Ilkley? Only a two hour train ride from here. Is that where you went last Thursday afternoon? For tea with a dirty Muggle?"
"Father, I—" She began, tears welling in her eyes. Rabastan looked at his eleven year-old daughter, with her bruised knees and pale frock. She clasped her hands together and sunk her nails into her palm, pleading for his mercy. Some ghost of a clever thought washed over him, and he nodded to himself.
"It's alright, Blanche. Don't cry now. Loyalty is one of the greatest virtues, and I can see to whom you are loyal," he said. "Why don't you go see Talbot next Thursday? Tell your mother it is alright with me, and she can drive you to the train station this time. You won't have to walk."
A smile broke across Blanche's face and she clicked her shoes excitedly against the floor. "Thank you, father! That is so generous of you!"
"Now Blanche stop causing a racket. You may go," he ordered. Blanche nodded her head and walked out of the drawing room as quietly as she could.
She turned the handle to the door before she opened and closed it, making sure the click of the lock didn't make a sound. Her father was easily disturbed by noises, and most of what the family did was done in silence. Supper was hushed, breakfast was noiseless, and Blanche tiptoed around the house at all times. It was a precarious household, to say the least. Loud noises caused uproars on her father's part, and those usually resulted in bruises.
"Mother," Blanche called in a soft voice once she entered the lady's study. She turned a corner to see Lavinia writing a letter at her desk. It was most likely addressed to her sister, with whom she kept in constant contact. Lavinia's sister, Victoire, was just as chilly and distant as her. Blanche never understood from where their warmth for one another came, as neither seemed to be capable of genuine human compassion at all. However, she was ever confused by Victoire, who lived not far from Upper Flagley but had been unavailable for visit since Blanche was four years old.
"What is it?" She asked, repositioning her gold-rimmed spectacles on the slender bridge of her nose.
"Father said I could go visit Talbot this coming Thursday. He says he will permit our friendship!" She grinned widely. Although her mother was a withdrawn woman, she was never—at heart—tied to the Pureblood agenda. She was only a parrot to Rabastan; her words of hatred were echoes and nothing more.
No joy for Blanche reflected on Lavinia's face, only an unreadable expression Blanche had seen before but could not identify. She felt her lips knit into a confused purse. "I see," she said softly to herself, looking back to her letter. She picked up her pen and dipped it again in ink.
"Will you drive me to the train station?" Blanche inquired, forgetting the look on her face.
"You can walk. It isn't far," she responded, resuming her script.
"Father said you would—" Blanche began, but never finished. Her mother was writing again by now—she blocked out her daughter's words. She supposed she would walk. Blanche left the lady's study and went outside. She ran to the grove of willows and lay down on the grass there, hoping one day she'd work up the nerve to ask her mother for seeds to plant there.
Blanche woke up from her dream to an unfamiliar sensation. A large hand was smoothed across her belly and planted itself on her waist in slumber. She turned around and saw Sirius' sleeping face, his eyelids flickering in a dream. She thought of her own dream, and the end to that story. Paired alongside the memory of Talbot, she instantly recognised Sirius was too close. She pushed his hand off of him angrily and slid across the edge of the bed. Strands of dawn streamed through the small openings between the heavy drapes in Sirius' bedroom and cast figures of light across the walls. She hadn't been in his room ever before, and she was not all too surprised by what she saw. It was as much a disaster as it was a statement. Posters covered the walls from the Muggle world—women in flimsy outfits, bands touring the world, political activists with liberal views. Blanche didn't know how much Sirius cared about these things—though she recognised some bands he'd mentioned before. She knew he greatly appreciated the women. However—for the most part—she knew that these were all put up in an effort to annoy Walburga and Orion Black. Even the clothes strewn across the room and the empty bottles of beer covering every surface—it was all intentional. Sirius loved irritating his parents more than anything else.
Blanche heard some useless and quiet babble coming from Sirius' mouth, and she turned around to see him clutching the covers where she'd slept in a firm grip. His eyes were still closed, however. She stood and examined him pensively, looking at the scar across his—not buff but pronounced, she observed—pectoral muscle. The scar meshed with ink on his chest she'd never seen before; he must have added a few tattoos recently. She stepped forward and studied the designs carefully. There were two she could see: one on the end of his right collarbone a vertical line with two traversing shorter lines cutting through it—a shoddy doodle of a rune, perhaps; the second moved in scribbled text toward his sternum just before the slope into his abdomen, and she had no idea what it was. She didn't know when he got them, how he got them, or why he got them, but she didn't want to ask and let him know she'd been studying his bare chest. Before turning, she noted to herself the one on his collarbone looked quite like the Cross of Lorraine; however, Blanche had no idea what significance the Cross of Lorraine was to Sirius.
"Sirius Black, you come out of that little hole of yours RIGHT THIS MINUTE!" Blanche heard the familiar screech of Walburga Black as she was snapped out of her analytical trance.
Blanche leapt for the bed and shook Sirius awake. He was a deep sleeper, but eventually he woke when Blanche pinched his nose and cut off his air.
"Merlin's shite!" He exclaimed, pushing Blanche's hand away.
"Your mother!" She responded urgently, pointing to the door with a bandaged finger.
"I hear you in there!" Walburga warned. "I'll have your father kick down this door if need be! Right this MOMENT, Sirius!"
"Shut up!" Sirius yelled, closing his eyes and bringing his fingers to his temples in annoyance.
"What are we going to do?" Blanche begged, looking to the window for opportunity.
"Didn't you hear Kreacher? It's hexed. No one can come in," he sighed, sitting up. He looked down at the quarter of his chest exposed by his shirt and brushed his hand across the scarred skin. "Happens to the best of us, I suppose," he frowned.
"Kreacher saved your life," she remembered, thinking of the house-elf who'd delivered the Essence of Dittany.
"Kreacher is a foul little git who thinks my mother is the Virgin Mary and my father Merlin himself," Sirius muttered. "He's only nice to you because you're a Lestrange debutante and he doesn't know where your true loyalty lies. If he knew what you really thought, you'd share his affectionate nickname for me—'wicked and mischievous Young Master Black the blood traitor'," Sirius imitated Kreacher's shaky, high voice.
"Doesn't he have to be nice to you? You're master of the house."
"No, my father is and my mother the mistress. He can't disobey me, but until my father and mother die he can be as rotten as he wishes to me. My mother doesn't mind it. She applauds it, in fact," he sighed. "Didn't you have one at Lestrange Grange?" He inquired.
"Jester," she remembered. "My father starved him to death."
"Oh," Sirius commented. "Charming."
"Charming," she repeated. "We never got another after him. Father thought he was too noisy and bothersome. I liked Jester quite a lot, I remember. He called me 'Blanchette'."
"I quite like that. Blanchette," he repeated.
"Sirius Orion Black, you open this door right this moment!" Walburga screeched. Sirius jumped off his bed and walked to the door, opening it unexpectedly. Walburga's eyes bulged out of their sockets at the sight of Sirius' chest.
"What is—" She tried taking a step into the room, but couldn't.
"Still hexed," Sirius reminded.
"You—What is… What happened?! Did that strumpet's father give that to you? Is that a tattoo?! Sirius, WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON—" she stuttered and grasped sloppily for her first line of assault. "Is that my nightgown?!" She looked at Blanche.
"I'm sorry, Miss Black. My dress was a ruin," Blanche apologised dutifully. Walburga's face softened at her regrets. She had always had a heart for the girl; she'd hoped Sirius might end up marrying her into the family—Lestrange was a noble enough house for the wife of a Black, and this one was particularly pretty. She also had a slice of control over Sirius, which she'd always admired as she had not a bite of it. But her face contorted stonily again at the sight of Sirius' room, which she clearly hadn't seen in quite some time. "Filthy Mudblood-loving boy!" She reached to hit him, but her hand only stopped involuntarily at the doorframe. "You BASTARD!" She gasped.
"Wonderful to see you too, you mad, old hag," Sirius spoke sarcastically. He slammed the door in his mother's face then turned around, beginning to remove his shirt. Blanche focused on pummelling him.
"Why on earth—" she launched a slap at his hard shoulder. "Would you bring us here?!" She shouted.
"Merlin, you and my mother are one in the same sometimes," he fought her back with an extended foot and pushed her away. He reached for a white long-sleeved shirt and pulled it over his head. "Close your eyes. I must protect my modesty," Sirius played as he tugged his pants down from his narrow hips. She did so, putting a mangled hand over her eyes. When she opened, he wore dark green trousers. Once dressed, he stood back and looked at her.
"What is it?" She asked exhaustively.
"Perchance I should fetch you something to wear aside from my mother's oversized nightgown. I can't get you something that fits, but I can get you something you won't freeze to death in."
When Sirius was finished with his dressing, Blanche was dressed in a pair of jeans too baggy for her that a midnight friend had left in Sirius' room a few summers back, as well as a flannel button-up shirt of his that dropped three-quarters way down her thighs. He put on the finishing touches with his younger brother's—and also his shorter brother's—parka and a knit scarf he'd found at the bottom of the biggest pile of clothes in his room. Blanche looked into the full-length mirror, scowling at her reflection.
"I might as well be homeless," she scoffed.
"Aren't you?" He asked her, reflecting upon her disappearance from Lestrange Grange. "Unless, you plan on going back?"
Sirius and Blanche's laughter formed a familiar chorus, but behind the giggles were a painful truth: Rabastan had used all three unforgivable on his own daughter and her best friend within a span of five minutes—two of which were used to fatally harm them. She couldn't go back to that; she couldn't speak to or look at him ever again. She was homeless.
Not much later Sirius decided to Apparate them both to his newly-purchased flat in the London Borough of Camden, quite near Primrose Hill. It was a surprise Apparition, and Blanche was not at all happy about this, even though the two made it to the flat without being splinched. The nausea Blanche experienced from their first Apparition was hardly present during the second, but Blanche imagined that sickness was owed to her state at the time during the former.
In spite of being right beside Primrose Hill, Blanche was glad to see Sirius had not spent away all of his recent inheritance on a massive flat. She did have a taste for the finer things—a preference she developed through a childhood of decadence and wealth—but she knew Sirius was careless with money typically. It was nice to see he was finally moving away from that.
It wasn't spacious, but Blanche found she rather liked that. Colossal, neat rooms with Gothic ceilings and lengthy windows reminded her too much of Lestrange Grange. This flat was cozy in its colouring and design; its walls were painted a heavy green and an ornate rug covered unfinished floors. In the living room was a fireplace mounted in antiques Sirius had clearly stolen from Grimmauld Place, and thick rows of books framed the walls beside the fireplace. There were two bedrooms—one for Sirius and one for a guest, each with dark, pillowy bedding of maroon, a very small bathroom, and a kitchenette—which looked quite empty—attached to the living room. In the corridor outside the flat's entrance there was no door to Muggle eyes, but a simple charm revealed the portal with a great, thick mahogany door. When charmed, a plaque of brass read: 'Floor Three, Flat 0.'
Most shockingly of all, it was quite a tidy abode. It turned out Blanche was correct in her suspicions that Sirius was only a mess in his parent's house to anger them.
"We could have taken a taxi," Blanche glared at Sirius as he closed the door behind them, charming it again so the door disappeared to passing Muggles.
"That's true, but it's more thrilling this way—wouldn't you say?" He responded casually as he kicked off his shoes.
"It's quite peculiar you're so willing to Apparate, seeing you were the one who was splinched."
"I can't mourn over it forever," he shrugged. Blanche quieted herself; she had always admired Sirius' ability to work past problems and try again.
"Do you have parchment?" Blanche asked, walking through the kitchenette and into the living room. "And Lochlainn?"
Sirius pulled out his wand from his pocket and Blanche watched as a sheet of hanging navy silk flew through the air with a swish of his wand. An antique, painted birdcage appeared in the air and Sirius' barred owl, Lochlainn, greeted her with a hoot. "Parchment is in the desk across the lefthand bookshelves."
Blanche crossed the living room and saw a small wooden desk that had been hidden behind one of the great armchairs that sat across from the fire. The room was rather narrow, and in order to get to the desk she had to walk between the firewood bin and the edge of the armchair. Her heel knocked against the bin and it rattled with a clang, and she angrily leant to pick it up and move it to the other corner of the fire.
"Basic, Sirius," she sighed.
"It messes up the decor!"
She sat at the desk and pulled out several drawers before finding a fountain pen, a well of ink, and some parchment. Dipping her pen into the well, she began:
Dearest Lily,
I am writing from Sirius' flat in London now, which is why Lochlainn is now delivering this message. No longer am I welcome at Lestrange Grange; my mother's funeral was a harsh event I will inform you of it when I next see you, which I unfortunately believe will be when we return from break. To say the least—Sirius and I got ourselves involved in quite a hostile and dangerous conflict with my father. Sirius was badly splinched in our Apparition from Upper Flagley to London; however, he is better now and has only been left with a scar. I sincerely hope your holidays are going better than mine (even though this is not a difficult accomplishment by any means). I would love for you to visit us or simply to see you. Seeing neither of us have Pureblood balls and feasts to attend, our schedules are looking rather open. I miss you dearly.
Your sister,
Blanche
Blanche paused before her final endearment, but quickly decided upon it seeing she had no family left and Lily was the closest thing to family she had, aside from Sirius. However, she would try to think of Sirius as her brother but only become disgusted for an unidentifiable reason.
Blanche folded the letter and opened Lochlainn's cage, handing him the letter. He snatched it up in his orange beak and flew out of the cage, landing on Blanche's shoulder. She opened the window on the wall between the bookshelves and the desk, and Lochlainn took off with the letter in his beak.