Chapter 7
Chapter 7: Contemplations
April 25, 1982- The Foyer of Potter Manor, Unplottable Location
Sirius Orion Black sat in the foyer of Potter Manor, contemplating the choices he had made over the course of his life. He was a spy for the Dark Sect, for his older sister who was now their Dark Lady of all things. Of course, the grimm animagus couldn't be more proud of her for it, yet he still felt conflicted. Sirius loved his family fiercely and with everything he had- contrary to what The Daily Prophet and the rest of Wizarding Britain believed- and it hurt him every day to pretend to hate his little brother, Regulus- Reggie- when all he wanted to do was shield his younger sibling from the hurtful and hateful words of his fellow Gryffindors. He hated the lion's bigotry with a passion and how they classified anything remotely Dark or Slytherin as 'evil'. However- not all Gryffindors were completely bad, Sirius reflected with a wistful smile.
No matter how much he had hated to admit it at first, Sirius had enjoyed had enjoyed his time with his fellow Marauders, James and Remus, though he had always despised the rat, Pettigrew- he was a Black after all, he did have standards. He knew that his older sister, Lillian had had no patience whatsoever for the Potter Lord when she had posed as Lily Evans, though she had kept her true feelings hidden underneath her perfectly crafted façade.
Sirius quickly amended his previous thought. No matter how much his older sister would try to deny it, her actions and behavior as Lily Evans hadn't been far off from who Sirius believed she had truly wanted to be. As a child, Lillian had been the most compassionate person in the entire wizarding world- although Sirius may have been a little bias with that opinion- and brightened up a room by simply being in it. However, no matter how much of a joy she had been to everyone, Lillian had and still was holding a secret and it was one of the original excuses- hidden under factual and logical explanations and reasons via their father Lord Orion Black (as no one could admit any sort of weakness to the Dark Lord, no matter how close you were to him)- to hide Lillian among the foolish little Light Witches and Wizards. Lillian had been born with a Natural Gift of Magic.
At first, Sirius had both envied and admired his older sister, but as he grew older and received more information about- both inherited and given- Natural Gifts of Magic, he was horrified and swore to himself to never to let his sister become prey to the prejudice and prosecution of those with a Gift, not to mention those like his sister who had Given Gifts. Sirius knew of a group of people- a network- that were named Morgause's Mercenaries after the witch of legend who was widely accepted to be Morgana's teacher, mentor, master and sister in all but blood. The 'Mercenaries' bought and sold the various body parts of those found out to have a Natural Gift, but not before experimenting on them in the name of whatever ideology or cult they believed in. It was this group of people that made Sirius' blood boil in fury when he thought about what they could have done to his compassionate, caring and bright sister when they were just children.
Sirius had just had his ninth birthday at the time, making Lillian almost ten years of age. As such, the Black Heiress had been starting to follow their father to the Ministry and Gringotts so that she could start to understand and learn how to manage the family's holdings in preparation for when she would become the Lady Black. Sirius remembered that he had protested loudly at the knowledge that he wouldn't be able to do yet another thing that Lillian could do, not because he had ever blamed her- he had just wanted to take the opportunity to pin the blame on their parents in hope for some sort of gift as reward for eventually 'understanding and acknowledging the situation (he was a Slytherin at heart, after all).
Thinking back on it, Sirius didn't know how in the bloody hell his parents had ever been able to stand raising the combined force of Lillian, himself and Reggie- he was sure that if he had been in his parent's place he would have gone mad.
As Sirius played back the memories of all of the, well, marauding he and his siblings had participated in during their childhood, he was hit with a strong blow of longing to be back with his family, in the Dark, where he belonged.
Eventually, he remembered the reason for his ponderings in the first place and continued reliving one of his most painful memories, yet the one that reminded him of what there was to loose if he failed in his assignment from the Dark. He needed to remember regularly, otherwise Sirius was afraid he would loose sight of what was important, most likely due to his amber-eyed friend that he couldn't stop thinking about.
Sirius recalled that on that particular day, Lillian had gone with their father to view one of the Wizengamot meetings as many heirs and heiresses her age were doing. As it had been the first time she was at a meeting their father Orion had to formally ask the entire Wizengamot for permission to 'allow his heir to gain experience from observing the doings of their noble court', which Sirius still believed was a load of hogwash to make the precious Lords and Ladies of their noble society feel better about themselves.
While their father had been asking the Wizengamot so graciously- Sirius sniggered at the thought- for permission to allow Lillian inside, the Dark-Lady-to-be had been approached by Ophelia and Demetrius Hagardy, who were a side-branch in the House of Prewett- as Demetrius was a muggleborn and therefore it was safer to be umbrella'd under the Prewett's influence and power in wizarding society.
Lillian, being the joyful child she was, had responded eagerly when the married couple had politely asked of her wellbeing, though Sirius knew that they had never intended to just exchange pleasantries with his older sister. When Lillian had responded in kind, asking about their day, Ophelia had 'admitted' to have been feeling ill for a reason unknown to her and her husband- when in reality she had willingly fed herself a faulty potion only minutes before. Sirius childishly wished that (if they hadn't been brutally murdered by his own family in retaliation of their later actions) Ophelia had been in danger due to her 'sickness' and had dropped dead on the spot as a result or that she had been compelled to throw herself in a volcano earlier that day for even thinking of hurting his sister.
Of course, that hadn't happened and Lillian's gifted magic had reacted immediately to its carrier's wish for the woman to feel better, and when Ophelia had immediately felt the affects of the bad potion disappear, what they had originally suspected was confirmed. Lillian had a Natural Gift, Sirius concluded with a mental sneer towards the despicable pair. He hated them for what they had done next.
The Hagardy's had taken Lillian roughly by the arm in a state of triumph, bursting into the Wizengamot chambers and declaring that they had found one of them, as if what Lillian had been gifted with was some sort of disease to be disposed of. When asked to clarify by the Chief Warlock, Albus Too-Many-Fucking-Names Dumbledore, they explained that they had found someone guilty of performing Black Magic, nevermind that the witch they were accusing was a Merlin-damned child. The majority of the court- the Light Lords and Ladies- were all too eager to judge Sirius' innocent big sister due to the steady increase of the prosecution of any and all 'Dark Magic' since Grindwald's fall and Dumbledore's instatement into many positions of power. Sirius knew for a fact that many of the Lord and Ladies that had voted her guilty- with nearly no evidence in a mere mockery of a trial- had seen privy to Lillian's constant bubbly presence and acts of kindness towards anyone and everyone. But nooooo, that hadn't mattered to anyone, all they had seen was another Dark figure to be put down. His father hadn't even been able to raise a single protest before they had declared their light- their Lillian- guilty of practicing Black Magic. Albus Dumbledore had slammed down the gavel as their final answer and had signaled for the Ministry guards to take her away to the holding cells where she would remain overnight until she could be transported directly to Azkaban.
What had happened next had astounded Sirius every single time he viewed the memory- be it in a pensive or otherwise- and it was one of the few moments that showed him how exceptionally powerful a child's- anyone's- emotions could be.
As she was being dragged across the Wizengamot's pristine floors to her doom, Sirius' lovely, wonderful sister had snapped. She had sunk to the floor with tears streaming down her face and screamed. The shrill sound pierced the all of Wizengamot Members who had voted her guilty, making them quake in mixture of pain in fear at the full force of Lillian's desire to make them pay. When Sirius had first heard her cry in his father's pensive at the age of eleven, it felt like her magic had been able to reach him through time, through a memory, forcing him to relive all of his worst memories and experiences. It had nearly driven him to his knees in the force of her desperate raging pain.
Her primitive shriek- which had simultaneously asked for help and demanded everything from the guilty parties through rage and hatred- had made her gifted magic react ruthlessly. It had forced its way into the core being of every single guilty Members and made them forget that she was ever there.
She made them feel the extent of her pain and forced them to relive their worst nightmares, fears and mistakes, until all they knew was just what she felt. They felt her betrayal at their actions, her helplessness combined with the desire to destroy them. To Sirius viewing the memory, he had been filled with an unnatural need to help her, to save her and free her from her never-ending pain, making him reel from the force of her manipulating magic.
Her inhuman, never-ending screams echoed across the chamber as she sat there on the floor, glowing with internal power that would not and could not be contained. Her usually cheery green eyes darkened maliciously and her face visibly hardened at the betrayal of all she knew. She had stayed that way until their father had managed to find his way down to his daughter and she had collapsed in their father's embrace, her face blank and unfeeling.
The Ex-Gryffindor remembered that it had taken months- years for his sister to recover from the emotionless shell she had become after the incident, all the way up until the time she had to act as the muggleborn named Lily Evans. When their father had told them of his and their Lord's plan to hide her among her enemies- through the persona of the muggleborn witch, no less- his older sister had thrown a fit. Although she had already been eleven at the time, Sirius now believed- knew- that the experience had permanently marked his sister, making the boisterous young child she had been into an unfeeling pureblooded witch. For those few years before they had gone to Hogwarts together, Sirius had lost his older sister. He had lost the charismatic older sibling whom he had loved so much and had needed in his childhood.
In the following year, the Black Family had lost all of its cheer and it wasn't hard for the The Daily Prophet- through Angela Skeeter- and by proxy the rest of Wizarding Britain to assume that they had all done some sort of Dark Ritual that had eventually sapped them of their every emotion. That had been one of the only times that the Wizarding Britain had been truly able to wound Sirius. They had scorned and sneered at them while his once cheerful house had felt like a Merlin-damned morgue. They had retreated back into Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, no longer switching between the somber establishment located in Muggle London and Black Manor's extensive property in France. Lillian had gotten slightly better as she had tried to reach out to them at regular basis, but she still wouldn't be the young and bright child she had once been ever again. Sirius had spiraled into depression alongside the rest of his family as he tried to come to terms with the fact that his sister was gone and that he would never get her back.
According to their family's personal healer- a kindly old witch by the name of Gertrude- when Lillian's magic had reached out to punish those at the Wizengamot session, she had unintentionally found their truest desires, thoughts and opinions by grasping at the core of their beings and had been unable to deal with the consequences. It had forced her to mature a pace that was way too fast for her age to understand what she had been feeling and seeing from the hundreds of Wizengamot members. At the same time, her true maturity level had been frozen as a way to cope with all the images and feelings she had been experiencing all at once. The result was that Sirius' loving sister had been caught between two personas of her true self; one was of a child's mentality, maturity and emotions and the other one had been that of a hardened adult that seen far too much in her lifetime. In an effort to control the battling personalities in her mind, the animagus' reason for nearly everything he did in his life shut everything down. She blocked out nearly every thought and feeling until she became the perfect Heiress.
Other purebloods had congratulated their family on what a 'sound Heiress' they had, believing that her stoic calm and sharp wit was due to a perfected mask. It had silently tore their family to pieces, believing that they would never get their daughter back to her true self.
It was understandable that they were so surprised by the display of emotion when their father had proposed his carefully constructed idea. In that one instance, they had got what remained of their beloved Lillian back, even if it was through an admittedly childish temper tantrum. It was as if the proposition that Lillian would be separated from her family for unknown amount of time had stunned her out of her emotionless trance. She had begged them, tears streaming down her reddened face, to let her stay. To let her stay where she belonged, where she wanted- needed- to be.
They had eventually convinced her to go- to become Lily Evans- on the basis that Sirius would be with her so that she wouldn't be estranged from her entire family (they had had to get special permission from the Board of Governors to let Sirius go to Hogwarts a year early). Their father had hated to see them both go, but he had known that Lillian's safety was far more important, as Albus Dumbledore had started to come up to them, enquiring about their daughter with a knowing twinkle in his bright blue eyes. They couldn't even chance that he would find out about Lillian's gift, for he would fight tooth and nail to get her under his influence so he could profess to the Wizarding World that he had- once again- saved an innocent from Damnation. In this case damnation would most likely be represented by the Gifted's statuses as Dark Witches and Wizards, as Wizarding Britain wasn't too fond of anything perceived to be even mildly Dark or powerful, Sirius thought with scorn. The plan had been to have Lillian pose as Lily Evans- the muggleborn that had been 'created' not long after Lillian's birth in case she ever needed to use a second identity (though they created these personas for every Black member in case they were on the run from authority figures or something similar, not to hide)- up until the time she was twenty one years of age, where her Gift would have settled, as it did in nearly every other case of a Gifted Witch or Wizard.
However, it wasn't until later that it became clear that they were in perfect roles to smuggle information on the Light back to the Dark when they had finally settled with their friend groups. It just so happened to be that multiple influential light figures were suspected of either leading, supporting or founding Morgause's Mercenaries and was the main reason why Sirius hadn't followed his sister back to the Dark Sect. Well, that and the fact that he couldn't seem to leave his fellow amber-eyed marauder that he definitely wanted to be more than friends with.
Merlin, he really was hopeless when it came to the werewolf, Sirius thought with a resigned sigh.