I am so sorry it's been ages. I've been unbelievably busy with university. I hope that hasn't completed distanced everyone from the story here--which I so often reread just for the hell of it! Also, the format may be slightly different here as I'm posting from the app rather than the website--my apologies!

Anyway, once again rereading the comments on this story encouraged me to post this next bit. Honestly, hearing back from you guys completely motivates when I next post. It's kind of sad but I really rely on your feedback. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Best,

Alisson

Mid June 1978

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Everything was done, the only thing left was purely ceremonial. The Last Ball, the last Quidditch match, and the N.E.W.T.s were finished, yet Sirius still felt like he had unfinished business at Hogwarts.

Although everyone, especially Blanche, had begged him not to think further about what was now being called the Regulus Issue, Sirius couldn't push it out of his mind. Everywhere he looked it seemed Regulus was lurking in a shadow. He couldn't walk to Hogsmeade without thinking he saw one of the wretched members of the gang of nasty Slytherins, he couldn't have meals without glaring across the Great Hall at the Slytherin table. Blanche called him obsessive, but he shrugged it off and pretended he wasn't staying up all night working on his lists and figures. He needed to know. Before he likely never saw his brother again, he needed to know.

That evening Blanche was spending time with Lily, as she allegedly hadn't had any time with her friend in the past few weeks now that Sirius was crowding over her entire life. James had scheduled to meet up with the other Seventh-Year, retired Quidditch captains for a 'parting glass.' Remus was with Ramona LeFrank, as he often had been these past few nights—finally indulging in the pleasures of women after years of abstinence. And even Peter was busy with something that had to do with herbology, but Sirius didn't know nor care what it was.

He needed to know. He needed to know. And one day, as he was walking down the Tapestry Corridor, what he needed came to him.

Between two long portraits of notable Hogwarts graduates, the stones of the wall crumbled and parted, leaving an oak portal behind in its place. Sirius looked at it with a furrowed brow. He'd never seen this door before, nor had it ever appeared to him before. This wasn't even on the Marauder's Map. So what was it?

Sirius approached it tentatively, looking down the hallway on both sides of him. It was long after midnight and he wore James' invisibility cloak. How could the school even sense his presence? Sirius grasped the door's handle lightly and pushed. He had to crouch to enter, but in he still entered.

Inside he found a large room that was dimly lit and full of mountains of unusual things. He looked about, squinting through the darkness. The most miscellaneous objects surrounded him: an empty, silver picture frame nearly as tall as he was, a brass lantern were a fully-melted candle sitting dustily in its centre, leather-bound tomes stacked on top of one another, a rusted armillary sphere sitting upon ancient astronomical wheel charts, cabinets of seed and potion vials, nearly twenty crystal balls, massive vases of Floo Powder, and more chests and jewellery boxes than he could count.

Sirius set his hands upon one small jewel cabinet covered in ornate, golden, Asiatic calligraphy and bursting painted lilies. He silently pushed open its latch and lifted its lid. Inside was a pair of simple jade earrings, each merely a bulbous circle of green fixed upon a thin golden loop. But they were beautiful and captivating, and Sirius couldn't decide why he'd chosen to inspect this of all the things around him—especially seeing there was a wheel of ruby-encrusted swords that he'd simply walked past.

The case was small enough to fit in his pocket. He didn't know why he felt he needed to, but he slipped the closed case under the cloak and put it in his robe. They were just simple jade earrings—no one would notice they were gone.

Sirius heard a loud creak sounding several piles of miscellany away. He walked towards wherever the sound was coming from, but stopped when the sound of low voices sang alongside the creak.

"The Dark Lord is very pleased with your work. It surely won't go unnoticed," a familiar voice hissed. Sirius couldn't pin it, but its serpentine ring was something that he couldn't ignore. He'd heard it before, but where? It was a long time ago.

Sirius peered around the corner of an armoire that was painted navy blue and dotted with mounds of gold to mimic stars. Some twenty metres from him was a massive black wardrobe, shaped to poke upwards in a sharp angle like a dagger. It was made of an old wood and embellished with iron latches and a small handle one would find on a door. Remembering Sirius was under James' invisibility cloak, he walked closer and lapped around the wardrobe.

On the other side stood the silvering head of Lucius Malfoy, the Death Eating graduate of Hogwarts. And how on earth did he get in?

"So I repaired it correctly?"

Sirius felt his heart drop down to his heart. No, even lower—to his balls. Because the voice who answered the snake known as Lucius Malfoy was Sirius' own brother. Sirius didn't know whether to throw off the cloak and curse them both or to run to the exit—whether to ignite the room in flames or blast these two into oblivion. Regulus Black had repaired what Sirius now realised was a Vanishing Cabinet, enchanted to provide access to anyone who had its match. And it seemed as though that match was in the possession of the Malfoys—and furthermore, Voldemort.

He wanted to throw off the cloak and beat Regulus to a pulp of the boy he once was. He didn't even want to use his wand—he wanted to use his own fists. But the fight here could potentially be Sirius against any number of Death Eaters with the Vanishing Cabinet. Anyone could come in through the other side. So Sirius only clenched his fists so hard his knuckles went white.

When Lucius Malfoy disappeared back into the cabinet some ten minutes of hushed discussion later, Regulus closed the door behind the fellow Death Eater and made way for the exit to the room. He brushed past Sirius beneath the cloak and found his way out of the room amongst the mountains of magical trinkets that he seemed to be familiar with by now.

But then Sirius thought: Fellow.

He needed to see the Mark.

Sirius took the cloak off him and ran towards the exit his brother had so recently left. When he slammed the door behind him—not caring for the desperate ears of Filch and Mrs. Butternicke, he heard the sound of stone crumbling behind him. He spun back, seeing the door sink into the walls—its handles crumbling into dust. And within moments the door was no longer there. The two portraits hung beside one another with nothing there. Where had he just been?

Sirius realised he didn't care. The Death Eaters could no longer defend Regulus now that their portal was closed. Someone from the school had to be in the room for the room to exist. Sirius raced down the Tapestry Corridor, heading in the direction of the dungeons, where Regulus was likely to crawl back to. He fumbled over the braided end of one ornate carpet, but proceeded onwards.

"Regulus!" Sirius shouted, his voice echoing down the chamber as he broke into the top of the staircase leading to the Entrance Hall. He saw his brother halfway to the level that descended into the dungeons. Regulus looked up apprehensively, hearing the fury in his brother's loud tone. Not only was Sirius older, but he was also exceptionally stronger from his athletics—tough sinew caressed every one of his long bones, which brought him to a height Regulus could never meet. And Regulus had gotten a beating from his brother many times before, but he'd forgotten the pain of the bruises he could inflict ever since he moved out.

Fear in his eyes, Regulus began to sprint down the stairs. But Sirius was faster—he always had been.

In the Entrance Hall, Sirius managed to tackle his brother onto the cold ground. The sound of Regulus' struggle echoed noisily through the chamber and one of the caretakers or ghosts would be there any second, but Sirius didn't care. What mattered only at that moment was ripping the flannel that covered Regulus' left forearm.

"Stop!" Regulus cried from beneath Sirius, who held him down with an iron clamp. Sirius tore a hole in his brother's sleeve as he pushed it up.

The pale inner skin of his forearm was raised with black ink. An open-mouthed skull and his figure-eight snake curling down, seeming to feed on the violet veins that ran from the wrist. The tattoo was alive, it seemed—it's serpentine pet eerily slithered in its place like a salted slug.

"You fucking idiot," Sirius swore between clenched teeth.

"Don't tell the Headmaster!" Regulus fought him, trying desperately to relieve himself of the crushing weight Sirius held on his shoulder. He was nearly free when one of Sirius' hands lifted, but saw he was just the opposite. Sirius' large, thickly-knuckled fist came slamming down upon his jaw. Regulus felt two teeth loosen.

Sirius felt as though he were punching and kicking the life out his brother for hours by the time he felt a tough grip try and pull him up to no avail. When whoever tried to stop him realised their physical inferiority, they magically locked his hand behind his back and yanked him up off the ground. Sirius sent a final few kicks into his brother's stomach, causing Regulus to curl into himself and struggle to breathe.

"MISTER BLACK, you will stop this instant!" Sirius heard the strict shout of Professor McGonagall from behind him. "SIRIUS Black!" She specified, finally catching sight of his victim on the ground.

"What is this nonsense?" He heard the exhausted voice of Professor Fawley from the staircase. "Sirius?" He familiarly asked, squinting through the darkness to examine the attacker.

"Misses Butternicke found 'im wailing on 'is brother, Madam," Filch reported to the two professors. "And found these on the older one," he said, holding up the Cloak of Invisibility and the Marauder's Map. Sirius—finally pulled out of his rampantly violent anger with his brother—internally winced. The Marauders, especially James, were going to hate him.

But he didn't care. His brother was a Death Eater. He knew now. What a fool.

"What is this about, Sirius?" Fawley asked, reaching the bottom of the staircase. Sirius looked to his brother on the ground, whose wounds were already swollen and red. Blood ran from his nose into his mouth and he clutched his stomach.

He thought about turning him in for a long, hard moment… But then his own fear of the Dementor's Kiss sat down cold in the bottom of his stomach. As much as he wanted to beat the evil out of his brother, he couldn't send him to Azkaban. Even in his youth, Regulus would face the hard law of the Ministry if his enlistment was revealed. He wouldn't do it.

Sirius was silent.

Blanche woke to the harsh light of mid-morning cutting through her eyelids. A hand was shaking her awake and Blanche shook her head, gaining awareness of her own hand that held an open book upon her chest.

"What is it?" Blanche sleepily mumbled with closed eyes, pushing the book to her side. She'd been reading a particularly vivid novel about the affair of Tristan and Iseult. She was surprised to discover last night that it was more explicit than she'd initially thought. As the hours of reading wore into the early morning, she'd found herself repeatedly replacing the face she'd conjured up for Tristan with that belonging to Sirius. And when the illustrative scenes came about, she herself was Iseult. By four in the morning, her eyes were closed and she was making love to Sirius in the top an ivy-clad, mediaeval tower somewhere in Cornwall. Not that she really knew what any of that looked like, but she imagined.

At the memory, a vibrant blush came to her cheeks and her eyes shot open.

"Filch found Sirius beating the life out of his brother in the Entrance Hall last night!" With her opened eyes, Blanche identified Lily and the pained look on her face.

"What?" Blanche shouted, throwing the blankets off of her. "Where is he?!"

"With Dumbledore in his office," Lily fearfully admitted in a quiet voice, standing back as Blanche launched out of bed. Barefoot and still in her pyjamas, Blanche jumped down the dormitory stairs three-by-three and left the Common Room. The few students lingering in the halls parted like the Black Sea when she sprinted down them. She took the Turris Magnus staircase and leapt into the Gargoyle Corridor. Before Dumbledore's office, Professor McGonagall and Professor Fawley heatedly argued over some matter. Blanche could take a gander who they were talking about.

"What happened?!" Blanche insisted breathily, approaching them.

"Miss Greengrass, where are your robes?" McGonagall asked sternly, examining Blanche's striped shorts and matching button-up pyjama shirt. Blanche reckoned she could have put on a bra, but that thought was quickly dashed at the thought of Sirius behind that cursed gargoyle.

"What happened?!" She repeated, ignoring her professor. She'd finished her N.E.W.T.s—she could really behave as she liked. Hogwarts didn't give her a diploma—the Ministry did. McGonagall sighed when she made this realisation herself.

"Sirius got into a fight with his brother last night," Fawley informed her warily.

"I don't know if I'd call it a fight," McGonagall corrected. "Regulus has been in the Hospital Wing since dawn and Madam Pomfrey still hasn't finished fixing his…face."

"Why'd he do it?" Blanche questioned.

"He won't say," Fawley answered.

"Well I've got to talk to him," she decided, then looked expectantly at the professors when neither responded. "Get me past this gargoyle!"

"Miss Greengrass, need I remind you that you have yet to graduate from this school? I can still take points from your house."

"I don't care about that!" Blanche groaned. "Fawley, please!"

"She can probably get something out of him," Fawley looked to McGonagall with reasoning eyes. McGonagall looked at him angrily before sighing and approaching the gargoyle.

"Bubble bath," she lowly muttered, triggering the opening arm of the bronze statue. Blanche wanted to laugh at the Headmaster's choice of password, but couldn't find it in herself to smile.

Upon entering the most elusive office in the school—but one which Blanche had seen before a handful of times—she ran across the scarlet carpet and circled Sirius, who sat with a straight back in a chair opposite Dumbledore's desk.

Blanche immediately held his face in her hands, examining the deadened expression on his face for wounds inflicted by Regulus. Not so shockingly—she realised—he was perfectly fine. She smacked him on the side of his head harshly to change that.

"What the bloody hell is wrong with you?!" She shouted.

"I supposed it was only a matter of time before you wedged yourself in here, kicking and screaming," she heard Dumbledore's soft voice sound cleverly from behind her. "You two only seem to come as a set."

"Why did he do this?" She insisted from the Headmaster, pointing angrily at Sirius. Dumbledore sighed in response, failing to answer and instead dipping a pen in a well of ink. Blanche turned back to Sirius and punched him in the shoulder. "I said, why did you do this?"

Sirius didn't answer, he just stared at her blankly. An unfamiliar colour sat in the iris of his eyes: an unknowing grey. Sirius always knew what he was thinking and saying and doing—whether or not it'd been thought, said, or done before. There was no one more sure of himself than Sirius Black. But now he seemed… lost. Blanche didn't know whether to hit him again or cradle him.

"Poppy says the boy will be fine eventually, but he'll be bed-bound for at least five days," McGonagall reluctantly informed Dumbledore.

"Broken nose, two lost teeth, and three loosened ones," Fawley informed. "You can certainly pack a punch, Sirius."

"When will you release him?" Blanche impatiently asked Dumbledore, as though he were a public servant keeping her waiting. The Headmaster and Professor Fawley struggled to hold back a grin as she crossed her arms across her chest.

"Miss Greengrass—" McGonagall prepared to discipline Blanche for her misbehaviour.

"It's alright, Minerva," Dumbledore quieted her. "The young man can leave now."

"Is he not expelled?" McGonagall persisted.

"There's not much use in that. He's received at least five Os on his N.E.W.T.s and the Ministry would never withhold a diploma from someone with those scores. All he needs to do is sail back across the Black Lake, and that's purely ceremonial. Mister Black could leave the school right now with no need for recompense. Expelling him does no use, as I've explained to him," Dumbledore informed them. His rationale was sound, but something else twinkled in his eye. Was there another reason he refused to expel Sirius? What could it be? "However, I cannot let such a show of violence stand. If I did, every student here with a chip on their shoulder would begin throwing punches. Thus, I will be deducting a hundred points from Gryffindor."

"That's nothing, Sirius," Blanche shrugged through it. She didn't want to do the math of it, but she had a sneaking suspicion this had the chance to take Gryffindor from the lead.

"Would you like it to be more?" McGonagall questioned Blanche irately with raised brows.

"You're free to go, Mister Black," Dumbledore dismissed him.

Once Blanche had managed to drag the newly sluggish Sirius Black out of Dumbledore's office and into the Gargoyle Corridor, she pinned him against the wall. For once, she wished that shit-eating grin would come to his lips at her advance.

"What happened?"

Sirius sighed, shaking his head minutely. He looked ahead for several long moments, for she didn't push him. She just waited until his eyes dropped to hers.

"Can I tell you someplace else? This place is making me ill."

Blanche trotted behind him in silence, trying to solve as much of it as she could without asking. He wore only joggers, socks, and a cotton t-shirt. It seemed whatever had happened had occurred sometime in the night or the early morning. She realised he probably hadn't slept at all last night. He had violet crescent-moons beneath his eyes and his hair was a mess—scattered ringlets curling around his jaw and at the nape of his neck. Several students watched him in awe as he passed—he not paying a single mind to them. They'd probably never seen him so unkempt and with such a blank look upon his face. He was always grinning, towering over most and forever surrounded by all those who wanted to be near him and soak up some of his popularity and energy. But now he was a ghost walking down the corridors in his socks, with his constant companion sulkily walking behind him. She began to care a bit—she'd sculpted an image of herself all these years; aloof, Gryffindor princess who rejected all the friendship requests sent her way. But now they saw through that ice castle—a sleepy girl in her pyjamas, mildly self-conscious against the forever effortless Sirius.

When they reached the Gryffindor Common Room, news had spread. Gossip whipped in whispers: They can't suspend him, what will they do? What did Regulus do to piss him off so badly? I never see them talking. That Potter will lose his mind if we lose the cup to this. Do you think we'd lose the cup for this? How does he look that sexy in joggers?

Blanche rolled her eyes at the last one, which left the mouth of some Sixth Year whose name Blanche hadn't the effort to recall.

Sirius headed in the direction of the boys' dormitory, but Blanche pulled his hand so he went towards the girls'. Even if everyone was watching, she knew Sirius couldn't face James' wrath in that moment. He needed someplace to sit quietly

, in a room otherwise empty save her. She needed to hold his head in her lap and stroke his cheek as he told her what had happened. And she knew Lily would have cleared out the room for this very purpose.

When Sirius reached the Seventh Year girls' dormitory—where he so rarely had access to—he made way Blanche's bed. He'd seen her climb into it before when he walked her back. Plus, he would be able to identify it without having seen her get into it. Three stacks of books sat at one side of it, each reaching a height higher than his knee; pictures of them together and Lily were magically pasted to the wall, as well as some pages from her favourite books; a well of ink and several expensive feathers sat upon her bedside table alongside three empty cups of tea. And it was closest to the window. The girls living in the dormitory knew better than to fight against her for it—best not incur her envy.

Sirius climbed into the bed and tucked himself under the covers. He stared at the gathered ceiling of her canopy and the charmed, twinkling stars that hung from it. Then he looked at her and sighed. She climbed in with him and held his head in her lap, stroking over the faint scar above his right brow.

"What happened?" Blanche asked again, and he finally conceded.

"Lately—without work to do—I've been trying to find out who, at least in the school, may be affiliated and, even, already indoctrinated into the Dark Forces."

"You were doing this when you had work to do, as well, Sirius," she reminded him. He hadn't thought she'd payed attention; but then, Blanche always payed attention. She just didn't always say something. He looked up guiltily at her.

"Fine," he huffed. "Anyways, I've been doing it for a couple of weeks now. And I couldn't get that conversation we overheard between Wilkes and Regulus out of me head, you remember that?"

"Yes."

"Well, even though you settled me a bit over it… I couldn't get rid of it. And I started seeing Regulus everywhere when before I just didn't give a shit, really. I knew he was an idiot, but I didn't think he was evil. And after what we saw in the Three Broomsticks… Snivellus, that fucking nitwit, what he'd said about Regulus being loyal and committed."

"I remember," she said calmly. He'd always loved the equanimity with which she listened to his grievances. True, when they were only friends, she'd shoot him a sour response or make fun of him—as she was really the only one who could and would—but she always listened until he was finished. He reached up to take the empty hand that wasn't soothingly smoothing across his forehead.

"And last night I couldn't sleep so I went for a walk through the school underneath James' cloak. And all I'm thinking is that I need to know, I need to know, and then this door appears in the Tapestry Corridor. So I go in and it's a massive room with mountains of just… random objects," he said, remembering the small jewellery box he'd taken with him that was still in his pocket. "And I look around a bit, but then I hear somebody. I get closer and see it is that absolute wanker Lucius Malfoy, remember the one you—"

"Yes," she smiled, remembering the event.

"And he's there with Regulus standing in front of a Vanishing Cabinet, which he Regulus has been repairing. So now I've seen he's creating a fucking portal for all the God forsaken Death Eaters to get into the school," he ranted. Blanche could tell he was getting angrier by the moment and she tightened her grip onto his hand. "And I can't do anything because Merlin knows how many of them could come in to defend him. But then Malfoy goes back in and Regulus leaves. I follow him and when I call out to him, he just flees like the pussy he's always been."

Sirius expected Blanche to scowl at his language, but she only nodded his head. "And I get to him and tackle him. And guess what he has tattooed on his fucking arm?"

Blanche raised her eyebrows. Even she was shocked—he was so young. This Dark Lord, Voldemort, had reached another low that didn't necessarily surpass the murder of innocent families but dove into another depth: he used child soldiers.

"And that's when I started beating the crap out of him. I couldn't stop."

Blanche looked up from his disconcerted face, looking across the dormitory. After several moments of her parted lips producing no sound, she realised she didn't know how to comfort him. She didn't know how to comfort herself.

Sirius watched the column of Blanche's delicate throat shift with a swallow. Although he had spent so many years finding her impossible to read and taking a chance at every smile she shone his way, he found more understanding now in looking upon the slight curve of her bottom lip; he understood now when and why she blushed, and what a single raised brow meant versus a double raised brow. And he could see by that minute shift in the muscles of her neck that she was as lost as him. However a glint that took to the blue of her eyes signalled something else. Maybe she was grateful not to be alone in her loss.

"I am sorry," she eventually muttered. Sirius sat up beside her. He had no right to her delicate affections when she so badly needed them herself. "Did you tell Dumbledore?"

With hesitance, Sirius nodded. "He understood, though. He swore he would not tell, but the information would be shared with a secret operative he was a member of which battled the Dark Forces… the Order of the Phoenix," he remembered.

"Probably wise," Blanche offhandedly commented. "How do you feel about the issue?"

"I don't know, honestly. Maybe… disappointed?" He questioned himself. "No, but I didn't have high expectations. Perhaps frustration? But more than anything—"

"Disgust," she finished for him, to which he nodded hurriedly. "I wish I could tell you something to make you feel better, Sirius. But I can't."

His nodding slowed to a stop and he looked down to his hands in her lap. He smoothed over the crest of her thumb knuckle. "At least neither of us are alone it in now. Your father, my brother…"

Blanche nodded silently, with not much more to say in comfort.