Sirius Orion Black looked to be growing into a man of great stature.
He towered over his peers, necks craning to catch his gaze. His interest like smoke - quickly waning wisps slipping between fingers.
This served him well, emphasising the aristocratic hook of his nose from which he ever appeared to be sneering down behind, as he met none's eyes without adorning his signature apathy. His own pair, stormy iris clashing against ivory sclera, were chiselled expertly into his stone face, conveying an intensity few were subject to for long.
Corded muscles rippled with his every move, conservative wizarding robe often shed to reveal a tight button-up distinctly muggle and distinctly scandalous, tie hanging loose, top buttons taunting toned chest. For rebellions sake, for ego's sake, or for both, knowing the careless young master.
Unlike broomsticks which he outgrew by the year, bristles as spiky as a mohawk the day it was cut whenever he graced the pitch with his presence, the sense - or arguably lack thereof - of fashion was eternal.
His brother, Regulus Arcturus Black, though not quite so impressive in build, could not be said to be short, either.
Regulus stood meagre inches below his brother, in those brief moments they'd brush shoulders in the halls. Each pretending the other held not a drop of blood in common with himself, who held a high head, a silent proclamation of indifference to the chance meeting of his not-quite-mirror image.
Tall but not quite in comparison; handsome but plain when their portraits hung beside on another; haughty but never so confident as to throw his head back and truly not care like the elder, wittier, prouder Black.
Regulus' nose was less curved and more-so straight, as though he were made in a studio, sculpted meticulously into an attractive son and heir - a claim many would attest to, for his desirable ambition ('Clever boy! Keeping up with the times. Have you heard of his foray into the dark forces?'). His total obedience to family was a shining pureblood virtue.
Robes were a second skin to him. He owned a dozen in the same shade of matte black that brought out his hair. The bulk he'd nurtured with an unhealthy dosage of spite towards his brother seldom made an appearance outside the pitch, drawing many a lady to his games for an exclusive glimpse of the young scion whilst he forgot his reservations in the skies his eyes embodied.
These differences were crucial in discussions which kept ladies dormitories awake late into the night: heated debates, wistful sighs, coy smiles.
However, the conclusion when both parties had wearied their spiels was always the same: there was no difference, in truth.
Temperament? Both uppity. Appearance? Tall, dark, handsome - both boys’ silhouettes striking shadows to swoon for. Accent? Polished, t's crossed before Sirius' tongue could remember to forget.
If one were to be plucked from a crowd, he could - and undoubtedly had - been mistaken for the other, be that the Marauders hounding the wrong head of black hair or Rosier recoiling from a thumping of his less favoured cousin on the back and the subsequent hex.
Pandora Lovegood, witnessing this all, cataloguing carefully, was cautious not to make such an error.
And, standing in a dim-lit corridor - a roguish grin across from her brightening the night-soaked halls of Hogwarts, sharp features blackened by shadows, glints of steel-grey making up the entirety of what could be distinguished of her partner - she did not find difficulty in parsing the brothers from one another at all.
Making the acquaintance of Regulus Arcturus Black had been something along the lines of this:
A young boy, a puppy more than a dog, bounding up to the Ravenclaw table on Sorting Day. The spring in his step was enviable, and Pandora let her gaze linger on his back, a spectator breathing in his joy.
Inhaling and thinking the air tasted rather like sunlight, with only him on her mind, it was no surprise when she - to ovation that had her flinching - followed him minutes later.
Students parted on the long bench and she found herself beside him. Barty, he called himself, in his glossy robes, sporting pearly teeth with jagged edges, smooth-spoken like he’d spent the entirety of the evening introducing himself.
He looked like a tosser. He looked like a Crouch from a long lineage of Crouch’s, a Bartemius with a dozen Bartemius' in trench coats behind him hidden by his lanky frame.
Pandora knew what that meant.
Pandora also knew the ache of his cheek from his smiles was the cousin of the thumping behind her eyes when she tore her gaze from her readings; she knew that he was of her kind.
It wasn’t much of a choice, in the end.
Naturally, with Barty as her sole connection to the living world - for her tendency to read the newspaper alongside her family’s letters, her inability to listen to her elders when she thought alternatively, the ‘accidents’ surrounding her movements characterised her as other - she began to see a lot more green.
His company became hers.
First, Aubrey, who she tolerated as not so distinct from their fellow Ravenclaws, bringing a lazy drawl and easy confidence. Wagstaff with him, taking advantage of the new market base for his flawed attempts at business, although he has minuscule success with anyone but those who pitied - or swooned for - his beseeching, lying eyes. Cresswell loitered, half-nervous, half-sly.
Finally, Black.
They remained distant, for the most part. Pandora hung by Barty’s side, a shadow on the wall, levelling looks of various interpretation when the boys were particularly outrageous.
They remained distant, for the most part, until they didn’t. Until a late afternoon, where Pandora watched candlelight waltz across Regulus’ face, the only shining light on him, as if it were a stage and he the main actor. He must’ve felt this to be true, too, as he ignored - or forgot - her presence, reading aloud a letter he meant to send home.
But, it wasn't a stage. It wasn’t a play in which she could not interfere. There was no script of which her breaking would have her punished.
Pandora spoke. Quiet. A whisper in the darkness. His head snapped up. She did not stop.
From there, it evolved.
Barty-and-Pandora became Barty-and-Pandora-and-Regulus, when his cronies could spare him.
On occasion, it was even Pandora-and-Regulus. On more than occasion, if she were to be the utmost truthful.
It was something the same and different, from hearing what Barty says of his family to hearing what Regulus does not. Letting a head rest on her shoulder, when no-one is awake enough to draw away. A hand, a signet of black upon the thumb, brush over her shoulder.
Their friendship was not one of much physical affection. There was friendship, nevertheless. Best-friendship, she would muse, the weight of community pressing down on her shoulders, her boys knowingly cuffing her, pulling her from brooding. Regulus’ sky-grey eyes calling her names which walk a thin line, too close to honesty to be comfortable, too close to the heart to be ignored.
Sentiment and secrecy, things he could not read off her lips with his tainted vision, blind, and things she could not say aloud with her weak heart, mute, tripping her honour.
Pandora. Panda. Witness. Weakness. (And something mangled. Something almost like Sister.)
That’s two differences she could jot down.
The first time she saw Regulus' brother as more than a faceless 'traitor' could hardly count as a sighting of the infamous boy. Even young, he loomed over the crowd of his peers, consistently, effortlessly magnetic, be it for his genetics and not his personality as she would assume most would prefer.
Pandora pushed her way through a swarm of oohing and ahing. The strawberry-blonde hair of a girl caught on her tongue when it was flicked behind a shoulder, tasting more like cobwebs than anything sweet. Pandora spat it out, and gave up on slithering through the gawking onlookers.
Her pointy elbows flew out, her arms untucked and vicious; her height had her ducking beneath arms and her figure had her slipping through the narrow spaces between rowdy mates; slamming to a stop, her feet almost gave out as she reached the front, grasping onto the arm of someone she vaguely recognised.
Distracted, her apology was swift and sounded as sincerely sheepish as cardboard to the ear, eyes already on the scene before her.
James Potter and Sirius Black stood in the centre of the chaos, the calm of a storm where no-one had dared trespassed. Not a single cloak embellished in green stepped forward, leaving Bertram Aubrey on his lonesome as he was stared down by the duo.
Open space.
Outnumbered.
Lupin and Pettigrew were scarcely aways, the latter with twitchy fingers and the former restraining his friend from taking another step, looking positively morose to be present. Pandora, thinking of the morning's attacks plastered across newspapers, felt much the same.
Boys.
Not her boys, though. Not her issue.
But, Pandora wasn't one for pretending to herself.
For ignoring her issues - the creeping fear that consumed her most nights, the obituary column and how it only seemed to expand, blood spelling names that held a weight which kept her under - yes.
She'd wager herself an expert at that, at silencing the voices in her head and pretending to others.
Practice made her perfect. Practice came from midnights patiently hearing out Regulus' fervent ramblings of glory, not meeting his clear eyes, knowing the glaze that would shine in candlelight. She felt her lips tug into a sardonic smile. She stayed silent, spectated, spoke not of the names she should not know in grim ink on the bottom left each week of the Daily Prophet.
That way, she would not be alone.
Omitting to oneself was much harder, however.
If she'd tried, flashes would come to her without permission - of Aubrey. Of his presence to her left the nights before tests because she was the most tolerable to study around. Of how he slicked down the hair of her boys, tussling them but adjusting them to his standards - perfection. Of how, in any case, this fight was over Regulus because Aubrey was his friend.
And somewhere, along the way, the stuck-up scion had become her friend, too. A good friend. A good - or mostly - person.
Pandora was still raising her wand when they struck.
Flung backwards by spiralling cerulean light, Aubrey struggled, staggered.
His balance was off, what with the extra weight. His head had almost doubled in size.
That had been a nasty hex from Sirius, the effects brutal in their speed, and - a part of her conceded - creative.
A few students stifled their laughter, allowing the tension its reign.
Pandora watched Aubrey's neck strain with the newfound weight of his head, his harsh features harsher with his grimace. Grunts sounded out, husky, hissed, helpless.
The proud boy was rendered with his head bent as though apologising - an impossible occurrence considering the disdain he wielded to his attackers.
He snarled something rabid, and still found the energy to accuse, "Going for my face, Black? Suppose you're that envious-"
A flick of her wand, now lowered to her side, kept Aubrey upright as he dug his grave deeper. She'd judge, if she wasn't equally as inclined to doggedly pursuing and sticking to her way. Instead, she smiled faintly, briefly.
Half her mind - familiar frustration withering into exasperation and solidarity - told her to similarly let loose.
Her wand raised higher, until Aubrey's head was planted firmly on his shoudlers, no longer attempting to roll off.
There was whispers. Potter appeared aggravated, Pettigrew almost admiring that Aubrey kept to his feet.
No eyes were on her. None but a pair of storm grey. Enough to raise the hairs on her nape.
Meeting his gaze, Pandora watched Sirius watch her. In his appraisal, he guided her attention to her wand with the lazy drop of his leer, and like a rennaisance painting, she could not quite make out if his lips had thinned into a smile or a scowl when his palm connected with Aubrey's shoulder, toppling him.
Smack.
Noise- "Did you see-?" asked an overexcited second year, "Muggle of him, really" claimed a Slytherin who hadn't lifted a finger for his housemate, "Someone shoud-" a worrier fretted for a countless time - erupted.
The girls behind her clasped each other's arms, squealing and whispering; a raucous group on the edges summoned bursting berries that popped like the sound of a head hitting the floor; everything in the throng of bodies smelt strongly sickeningly of cinders, squash, fruity fragrance, musky aftershave, arms waving and applause, pandemonium.
His eyes were focused, she thought, feeling like she was floating, separate from it all but from him, finally, him who’d levitated to join her on her impassive perch, unintentionally as it were. He looked untouched, not intoxicated by the violence they were schooled amongst, that lived in the dark alleys and the staticky surveillance of their society, that which he perpetuated.
No, Sirius Black was more frightening than any young wizard or witch clinging to their values and beliefs, kicking dust and slamming hands to be heard. Sirius Black saw, saw what he was doing, saw her, saw the sham this all was. Sirius Black perceived. Yet still, he fought.
Drawn by the ruckus, down came Peeves, and down finally came a harried Professor, halting one of precisely seven fights which had occurred in the three days from Monday. Generously, Pandora supposed as she crouched beside Aubrey, at least no one was gravely injured this time.
It was only his proportions hindering his standing, unlike yesterday's most gossiped victim - her legs had been flayed. It was only her usual chills leaving her shaken. Of course.
Who cared about Regulus' disinherited brother?
Students departed swiftly, even Aubrey's 'friends', wanting to avoid the detentions that were handed out incessantly: a weak deterrent to the brewing discontent within the castle's walls. There wasn't much more anyone could do, after all.
People were predictable, Pandora thought, like so. People would fight. People would flee.
Seeing Sirius didn’t break this predictability. However, it certainly turned upon its side.
To watch a man with Regulus' same eyes, same jaw, same haughty framing of the face, same prowl, same slow leisurely walk, same thorny presence, was unnerving. To watch him act so decidedly un-Regulusly was uncanny. Physically hitting his opponent? Regulus wouldn't dare. Hardly many would dare.
Pandora as with all things extraordinary and unusual felt almost charmed, felt almost a tickle raking her ribs, a faint laughter out of place for the circumstance. Simple and creative - her favoured inventions, and this was an innovation, dragging a new world into the combat the halls housed.
Shamelessly, Pandora forgot for a split-second that this was no game and that she should be very, very afraid.
She always preferred seeing sideways, couldn’t help it when it was her salvation, breaking the monotony of waiting endlessly, waiting for the next newspaper and the next names to recite in her prayers, waiting for a war.
The second development, the one that took her longer to notice, vanished her mirth.
What she thought was simply the residue of the inscrutable stare that had pinned her when none thought to see her - strong, sensual and invasive as touch - thickened, collected on the bow of her lips - shifted.
Like a child with a hand in a beehive suddenly opening their ears to the buzzing they'd obliviously bypassed, she recoiled. Her wand swept an arc, only wind greeting the fighting-end. Wind that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. It bounced across the walls. Echoes confounding her ears lingered.
People, in her long experience, flee. Sirius Black - no matter how he walked, talked and degraded like his brother - was then not a people she knew. Not at all.
And that - and he - exhilarated her.
One, Sirius was far from averse to touch. Not that he quite needed it to have himself felt.
(And two, he could see, clear, clear as a raven’s midnight wings against the day’s blue-ish sky, but that was neither here nor there. Not if she wanted to keep her distance, keep Regulus’ friendship.)
The third difference she found, cementing the Black Brothers as separate entities within her mind despite the strategic breeding - that quite frankly produced a chilling resemblance, bravo! - was far far less tolerable.