The Night Is Still Young
I'm not sentimental—I'm as romantic as you are. The idea, you know, is that the sentimental person thinks things will last—the romantic person has a desperate confidence that they won't.
F. Scott Fitzgerald | “This Side of Paradise”
o0o
“What delicate fingers you have.”
He stared down at his own hands for a moment, saying nothing.
The truth was, he started wanting to punch this eleven-year-old spectacled boy whose hair was like a bird's nest, giving him a glimpse of how these delicate fingers were capable of when curled into fists.
Another boy chirped in –– blonde, beady eyed, short as a gnome, with the tidiness of church mouses. “Did you hear what Frank Longbottom from second year got for his detention? Scrubbing the floor without magic, just imagine. In this school they give all sorts of punishment for bad students.”
Four-Eyed grinned like a maniac. Alright, perhaps he should start calling him Potter .
“Wanna risk these for a fun prank?” Potter pointed at his fingers.
A prank became pranks, one Quidditch practice became the Beater post in the House team. His hands became calloused from scrubbing floors and knocking Bludgers, but the word stuck in his mind, delicate, delicate…
What a delicate thing he was.
It started with an ornate Persian rug. Every detail of it was supposed to gratify the eyes –– the rich material, the textures, dyed in the scorching heat of desertic sun. A fucking ugly rug, if someone asked him.
But Mother was very proud of her rug, taking a special interest in everything Oriental. “Made in Shiraz, hand-woven by goblins, 16th century.”
This magical heirloom, Mother would then tell them, absorbs human's blood. The more blood it consumes, the deeper its red textures.
Now he lay on it, his blood seeping from the abdominal wound, spreading through the reddened textures of the ancient rug that Mother loved so much.
He was trying to get back into the house when Mother caught him. Instantly, he felt her Legilimency, violent and intrusive, forced its way into his mind. It wasn’t just his absence from the banquet that drove her up the wall. It was the kiss –– the drunken kiss stolen by that Muggle girl at the Claremont Square. How stupid of him to think her hawk-like vigilance would ever falter. How naïve of him to assume she would ever respect the barest minimum of his privacy. His self determination.
Grandmother Irma’s Venetian vase had exploded into multiple pieces. His mịnd suddenly whipped up a funny comparison between Mother and that Muggle tenor Enrico Caruso, whose powerful voice could shatter glass.
“Grandmother's precious vase!” he’d exclaimed sardonically, mimicking Mother's tone when she introduced family antiques to her guests. “A lustre little thing, once sitting in the Duchess of Venice’s salon… Grandmother loved that vase so much, and now you broke it and obliterated the memories of her. She wouldn't be too proud of you, would she?”
The strike of her curse had come faster than he could anticipate. He had no time to dodge before he was sent flying back, falling down the black marble staircase.
Pain blossomed as his hip struck one of the cold marble steps. His body crumpled at the bottom, abdomen landing on a jagged shard of the very vase he’d mocked, and then he felt nothing but a blinding, sickening pain…
The guests were watching.
They were watching with a muted interest and detached judgement, as if they were spectators of an ancient Greek tragedy. None of them did nor said anything. Audiences don't interfere; they safely sit in the amphitheatre and watch, revelling in the drama, hungry to be entertained.
“Mother…”
Mother's eyes were gleaming with emotions, but she didn't move. She was aware that they were being watched. He saw his little brother, face fluorescent white under the dim chandelier. His blood seeped deeper into the cursed rug, which drank it with an insatiable hunger and turned into a glorious, beautiful shade of red.
He hated hearing himself beg. Maybe he, too, harboured an ugly pride.
Please, Mother, he wanted to say, Please choose me over them!
But she didn't.
Instead, she simply regarded him from above, distant, unmoving –– as though he was nothing more than an embarrassing accident.
But then he heard the sounds of footsteps. His breath hitched, and his hopes flared in his chest, burning him in the way it burnt a desert traveller crawling for the oasis…
The footsteps stopped just a few inches away from him. A pale hand lowered, white-nailed finger pressing into the last trace of blood the rug hadn’t swallowed.
“The essence of House Black.”
Mother straightened up, lifting her blood-streaked finger for all to see.
“This blood,” she said, her voice hot and cold, “is worth more than towers of gold. Sixteen centuries, uninterrupted.” Her gaze swept across the room, locked onto the audience. “Purer than my own blood.”
Quiet murmurs from the guests were reduced to silence.
“When he marries Cygnus and Druella’s daughter, his children’s purity will surpass his. A bloodline undiluted. That’s the principle. The backbone of our society.”
Her words reverberated through him, each syllable sharper than the shard of glass stabbed in his side.
There was a small thud. Through bleary eyes, he saw his brother slide a book back into the shelf. He saw him smile to their Mother.
“Words of wisdom, Mother. But I might add — for the bloodline to endure, the well-bred must also be well-fed. So why don’t we all continue with the banquet, prepared by the best cooks in our kitchen?”
Mother looked at Regulus briefly, as if measuring his words. Then, at last, she lowered her finger.
“Very well.”
As soon as she finished with him, she turned to the audience. “Now, back to the table, ladies and gentlemen,” Mother commanded, like an experienced maestro.“The next dish will be Nogtail’s Head Stew, a delicacy from Poland…”
And the show went on.
He felt his vision blurred, his breaths shallower as blood was pooling beneath him. The pain was too much for him to recognise the sting of unwanted tears trailing down his cheeks. Somewhere next to the stairs, Bella’s laughter echoed, high-pitched and ringing, grating on his soul. He didn't like Bella; he couldn't understand why some people said he had the similar manic allure to her… Merlin, what if one day he’d turn out just like her?
He rolled on his back, clutching his wound, and suddenly he also wanted to laugh. Yes, if these were his final breaths, he wanted to use all of them to manoeuvre a long, shattering laughter. His brother was staring at him from the dining room with an unreadable expression. Was it pity that his brother was trying to hide from his face?
Once the guests averted their gaze from him, he vaguely recognised his little brother kneeling beside him, murmuring some healing spells. Now he actually wanted to laugh. The House of Black hardly ever practised Healing. Wounds were always meant to be wounded.
Night fell. The house resumed its silence.
He felt her presence in his bedroom before he saw her silhouette. She was a wraith stepping out of the darkness, her face obscured by that black veil. Her hand touched his forehead.
Walburga. He loved her from the bottom of his heart.
He remembered this hand, the same hand that had once soothed him when he was five years old and ravaged by Dragon Pox, when everyone had thought he was going to die and the half-blood Healer was held responsible, punished. He remembered her perfume — the mythical Kyphi that ancient Egyptians had brewed thousands of years ago — a strong, nostalgic scent that reminded him of some ripe mystery, a mystery that he'd lost somewhere in the hallways of childhood…
He loved her, and here she was, like a terrible nightmare, to torment him.
“My poor son, it must have been so painful for you.”
His breath got slower and heavier… Her hand was no longer as warm as he used to know; it was dry, plastic, imitative, like a poor mockery of maternal affection. Despite himself, he still leaned to her touch, craving whatever was thrown to him, even if all he would ever get to receive was a hollow facsimile.
“Mother knows it hurts. Mother always knows,” she tutted, tucking a messy strand behind his ear. “It broke my heart, too, you must know. I had to turn away, so that you'll learn to be strong…”
“Oh, Mother,” he breathed, “Aren’t you ever tired of lying?”
She gripped his jaw, hard, with her clawed fingers.
“...So that you won’t be so weak,” she ground her teeth. “So… delicate.” Her nails dug deep enough into his flesh to leave bruises.
“Today will serve as a lifelong lesson for you, Sirius. Your scorching fire will one day burn you from the inside out. Keep your head cool. Because if you did, you would know not to slip a sign of weakness in front of others.
“Be hard. Be proud. You must hold your head up high even when you're burning on a stake, for a Black's pride is our might.”
o0o
Sirius liked Remus's eyes.
He admitted that, at first, he had been a little nervous at the unfathomable pit of darkness in them after he’d told his friends, briefly, what had happened — and was reminded all of a sudden why he hated people prying stories from Grimmauld Place off him.
But as he leaned over Remus's shoulder, craning his neck to watch Remus's face from below, those hazel brown orbs had looked down at him like he was a little lawless roguery, but the coldness hung in there had vanished.
The way he had treated his bruises. The way he had observed Madame Pomfrey treated whatever was left of the summer incident. With concern. With tenderness, like Sirius was a delicate thing. But for once, he hadn’t felt bad about it.
Remus was unmoved even when Sirius attempted to annoy him — like trying to nudge him off the stool or stealing the cigarette from his mouth (he smoked when he was stressed, Sirius realised). It was no use; he remained steady and calm as a statue. He’d simply let Sirius steal his fag, and pulled out another from his pocket the next moment. He was always like that, clad in a fully-tucked uniform and straight tie and shirt buttoned all the way to the throat, back straight and legs crossed — an exemplary student even if the sky crumbled down.
And his brown eyes. The strangest eyes, with the left one slightly paler in colour than the right. Something about those eyes made Sirius feel — had he always felt like this? — that Remus was standing from some mysterious island, laughing at the world that he had lost some faith in. He knew too many things that Sirius would never fully know — he was the person of multiple dualities after all, having spent his whole life musing between the worlds of Muggle and wizard, human and werewolf like Alice through the Looking Glass. All the mysteries were folded in that pair of uneven hazelish brown eyes.
Andromeda’s eyes were also brown. Merlin, he loved brown-eyed people.
o0o
Cold rain was drizzling outside, but the Marauders were happier than ever to enjoy their warm dinner in the cosy castle, with James now discharged from the infirmary. Somewhen during the dessert, they were surprised to find Professor McGonagall standing behind them. She asked Sirius to drop a visit at her office after dinner, and her stern voice revealed a hint of unusual softness that they were certain she was not going to reprimand Sirius for the fight.
“Who do you think was behind the cursed Bludger?” When Sirius had left, their conversation dived back to the incident.
From what they'd heard from Professor McGonagall, the culprit had yet to be found. She carefully reminded them to “not seek out revenge on other houses", in which “other houses" specifically meant Slytherin. The Marauders weren't fools; they knew it was someone from Slytherin.
“Who else could it be, if not Narcissa Black? She wouldn't have to marry him,” James’s eyes narrowed in an expression not quite fitting him.
The revelation of what had caused Sirius’s abdominal injury was still shaking them. Remus recalled Sirius’s complaint after they’d left McGonagall’s office “Not even a ‘Cheers, mate, we’re glad you’re still alive’?” It wasn’t even a joke.
“No, not Narcissa,” Remus dismissed, shaking his head. “Too blatant. Unsophisticated. Not her style.”
James was silent for a while, eyes searching Remus’s face. “Alright,” he said finally.
Remus stared at him. “ Alright? ”
“It wasn't Narcissa Black. I believe you, that's all that matters,” James shrugged. “Then the only possible culprit is one of her admirers, you know, those troll-heads Carrow and Bulstrode.” He wrinkled his nose in aversion. “Everything happens because of the sodding engagement. I’m so sick of it! If we don't settle the scores with those sons of a––”
“Someone stop it!”
Furious squeals erupted from the Slytherin table, cutting James off and echoing through the Great Hall. Every time one of them tried to pour tea into their cup, the cup automatically jumped away from their reach, causing hot liquid to spill across the table.
“Don't splatter it near my feet, you fool!” Regulus Black snarled at Amycus Carrow, who was yelping in pain as his teapot kept spraying hot liquid at him vindictively. On the other side of the table, Severus Snape squinted suspiciously across the Hall, at the Marauders.
Propping on one elbow, Remus rested his chin on his knuckles, an eyebrow raised at James and Peter.
Behind him, Amycus Carrow rushed to the hospital wing with a swollen hand –– the very same hand that had recently tried to dislocate Sirius’s jaw.
James opened his mouth, and closed it, and opened it again, utterly speechless. Peter shot back a wide-eyed look before bursting into sniggers.
“Don't give me that face, Potter. I only used Black's idea,” Lupin smiled. “But pumpkin juice would be no fun, it had to be something hot.” He seemed casual as ever, not even shifting in his seat, no sign of minding about the chaos he’d single-handedly created.
“Err,” James managed. “Sorry, I was looking for someone else –– stand-up bloke, rule-abiding citizen, Gryffindor’s face saver. Have you seen him around?”
“Shove off, Potter. I’ve lost us thirty points this year.”
“Who cares? We need more diabolical Remus Lupin,” James took down his glasses after a fit of laughter. “Now I’m under pressure to come up with a better prank, otherwise Black won’t be impressed, that picky git.”
“People just can’t be picky about their birthday gifts, can they?” Remus resumed shovelling the chocolate pudding as if nothing had happened. “By the way, why do you have an Animagus book under your plate?”
o0o
The third of November came like an early Christmas. To a person who’d used to hate his own birthday, this was an improvement.
Now they were strutting down a big thoroughfare of central London, arms slung over each other’s shoulders, perhaps a little tipsy, too. It was a perfect day. James and Sirius had spent the morning playing Quidditch, then Sirius was off somewhere with Mary before the four of them visited Hagrid's hut to tackle his teeth-cracking birthday cake (Sirius still chewed off his portion and left no crumbs). After nearly breaking his elbows from flying with Witherwings (if not his teeth), they had returned to the castle and grabbed James’s Invisibility Cloak and sneaked out to Hogsmeade, where they Flooed to London. Making it there and back without their ankles hung to the ceiling by Filch would take a miracle, but right at this moment none of them cared a whit (except Peter, but he was trying hard to pretend otherwise).
The whole idea about the trip to London sprang from a rather startling revelation. It turned out Sirius’s knowledge of geography was about as great as a broken compass.
“You can’t be serious…” For once, they’d let the joke slide. “You said you don’t know what a bloody Big Ben is?”
“Er…” Sirius’s fingers started to fidget. “No?”
“What about the British Museum, where we keep all the artefacts we stole from other countries?”
A huff of laughter. “I’m afraid not.”
“Alright. Trafalgar Square, then?”
Sirius shook his head, his pale throat bobbing.
“Buckingham Palace? Wembley Stadium? Hyde Park? ” Remus’s brow had raised in horror when he received headshake after headshake. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “Please tell me you at least know the Hyde Park.”
Sirius didn’t say anything, just looking at him with big, wide eyes.
“But how come?” Remus started pacing in the room, biting the inside of his cheeks. He halted to a stop, eyeing Sirius questioningly. “You live in London, and how come your London life is spent Floo-ing between Grimmauld Place and Platform 9 ¾ ? Wait… you mentioned that you’d snuck out of your house this summer. How far did you go?”
Sirius estimated the distance between Grimmauld Place and Claremont Square. “About two hundred footsteps away.”
Minutes elapsed in silence.
DontteasehimDontteasehimDontteasehim…
“That’s it. We’re visiting Muggle London for your birthday.”
It had been the right decision. His friend seemed to be enjoying every minute of their escapade. And he’d been the one who introduced the Muggle London to Sirius, leading him through the hustle and bustle of city life. He felt like Gregory Peck taking Audrey Hepburn on a Roman holiday. It was also because he wanted to keep a close watch of Sirius. Based on what the dark-haired knew about the geography of London, he wouldn’t want to explain to Professor McGonagall why one of her students got kidnapped to the U.S.
“Lupin. Hey, Lupin , ” he cooed into Remus’s ear, his voice curling into the French pronunciation of the surname. A cold breeze plastered his black hair against his cheeks as they walked across Old Compton Street. He was a bit tipsy. “Why does your name sound like you're related to Arsène Lupin? Are you actually a jewel thief? Do you vanish into the moonlit night with a swish of your tailcoat and a red rose between your teeth?...”
There had been times when the mention of his surname made Remus cringe. He’d never been very fond of “Lupin”, which reminded him too much of his monstrous side. At one point, he’d even considered changing his name to Remus Howell, after his mother’s maiden name. But tonight, listening to his surname spoken by Sirius’s alcohol addled voice, he didn’t think it sounded all that bad anymore.
The night so far had been a blast of magic, they must admit. It was colourful, full of music and lights and — as the cherry on top — of strangers singing Sirius happy birthday when they bypassed an outdoor restaurant.
It was Remus’s favourite moment of the night –– the sight of his dark-haired friend with flushed cheeks and radiant smile as he received the adoration from people who neither knew his name nor the world he belonged, who were studying him with an unconcealed amusement. “He's just turned fifteen!” said James aloud to the crowd, prompting an oooh from them which rendered Sirius timid. He looked with a reserved curiosity at the people whom he was raised against, and he saw them smiling back at him. Yes, he was fifteen now, no longer a child, but not yet a man either. Fifteen, and that was still very young even with that dress trousers and long black robe which did little to mask the adolescent lines of his frame. They were all very young, naïve and inexperienced in the ways of the world; they had saluted the crowd with a grandeur and promenaded away, laughing like there was no tomorrow.
“Oy, stop bullying Moony and act like an adult for once!” barked James, the noisy bastard.
“Watch your tone, kid,” Sirius blew into his face, “I was born a year earlier than you.” He was expecting his friends' reverence, but all he got from them was their unimpressed look. “Oh, come on!” His voice dropped to a mock-serious tone. “I’ll have you know, my little protégés –– I'm a man of the 1950s.”
At least that part was true — Sirius was born in 1959 while the rest of them 1960. A year different but also a leap between two decades; Sirius belonged to the Post-War period, but they were already citizens of the Swinging Sixties.
“Hey, look at that.”
Sirius suddenly untangled himself from James. What caught his attention was a dusty poster illuminated under a dim street lamp, and he was pulled towards it hypnotically.
“Who is she?”
It took Remus half a second to recognise. “Françoise Hardy.”
The poster captured the avant-garde French icon astride a Honda motorcycle, clad in leather jacket and jeans, dripping with a rough-edged nonchalance that had swept Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger off their feet. It seemed that Sirius Black was next in the line now, judging by the way his eyes darted from the chic jacket to the shiny motorbike.
“Proper stunner, isn’t she?” He said with a childlike wonder, “I have Diana Dors and Marilyn Monroe sticking on my bedroom wall to annoy my parents, but this is a whole new level of—”
“What?” Remus couldn’t stifle a disbelieved snort at the mention of those pin-up stars. “Diana Dors and Marilyn Monroe? How old are you, really, forty-two?” Sirius snapped his eyes at him like a grumpy cat. “Those were from ages ago.”
James and Peter watched them circling each other, jaw slackened, completely lost in what they were on about. Françoise Hardy watched them from the poster with a mysterious sideways look.
“How am I supposed to know?” Sirius threw one hand into the air. “It's not like everyday I fly people to the moon… Hey, you look like a snob when you make that face.”
“Oh? What face?”
“ That face–– Don’t say anything!”
“Say what?” Remus clicked his tongue, “The fact that you wank to Dors and Monroe still needs elaborating? You’d fit right in a retirement home with the grandpas.”
“I know you love making fun of me––”
“Don’t we all––”
“Alright! I’m listening!” With a resigned smile, he quickened his steps towards Remus. “You want to tell me so many things throughout our trip. You would dangle some cryptic bit of information in front of my face, get me all curious and bothered and wait until I beg for your further explanation. Well now I really am. Fire away. Tell me whatever you want me to know about this saturnine Muggle lady on a two-wheeled engine whom you probably wank to instead of––”
“I think you should try riding a motorbike.”
Sirius halted, his features shifting in a funny way. Eyes unblinking, Remus thought. Fuck, this is strangely intimate. People who were used to those bored, indifferent manners would never know what it felt like to be the centre of Sirius's undivided attention.
“What you referred to as a ‘two-wheeled engine’ is a motorbike. Not an ordinary one, but a Honda CB750, an equivalent to a Nimbus 1900 of this world. I think you’ll like it very much –– having this loud, metallic beast under your command.” His finger tapped on the two-dimensional curve of the back wheel, up to the smooth, polished leather seat. “Come closer. Take a proper look…”
It took them a bit too long before James’s voice cut through their conversation with impatience. “Hey, I hope Professor Moony here isn’t planning to discuss Muggle toys with his wide-eyed student all day. We’ve got another ride on the agenda.” The knowing look he gave Remus was almost conspiratorial, like he knew something that Remus didn’t know yet.
And that was how they ended up tumbling down a haphazard, grimy tube station. The security guard eyed them suspiciously as they struggled with the ticket barrier, his brows arching even higher when the spectacled one offhandedly asked whether they had to wave at the tunnel for the tube to come, like waving a taxi.
“My foreign cousins are travelling by metro for the first time,” Remus explained to the guard with a carefully disguised nonchalance, rolling his eyes and pretending to check the clock. When the tube arrived, he hurriedly yanked them on board, feeling like a babysitter all of a sudden.
Under the fluorescent-yellow lights, they saw nightly commuters seamlessly go about their lives: office workers with their suitcases and watches, collars slightly dishevelled after a long nine-to-five; tourists with a heavy backpack and an anxious, restless look, fidgeting with the tube line map every ten seconds; old men with their heads behind newspapers, and old women glancing pointedly at any youngster they found offensive, which, in fact, was any youngster at all; eyeliner-wearing, leather-clad punks with an air of cigarette smoke, whose powder-white face glowed eerily under the train light; girls standing into groups, all fishnet tights and metal accessories, some imitating Vivienne Westwood designs; college students with heavy glasses, mod hair and wide jeans, deep in conversations on how a military suspension in Southeast Asia related to the resignation of a US president; older men and women with a more traditional appeal, all fedoras and below-the-knee dresses, some having a Narcissa-ish wrinkle on their nose, though far less effective; working-class people with their shaved heads and coarse hands, dressed in threadbare, dingy clothes, looking like the sooner they got out of this stuffy bullet, the better for the world.
The whole scene, altogether, completely mesmerised Sirius and intimidated him at the same time.
And there were, of course, four young wizards, but none of the passengers knew they were. They just saw a truculent spectacled, a short and timid brunet, a tall, scar-faced swot, and a raven-haired Adonis, all looking extremely out of place. One of the leathery punks stared at Sirius with a gaze that made him flustered. But Sirius wasn't anything if not stubborn — he glared back at his onlooker until the bloke had to turn away.
That was before a tiny hand tugged at his hair.
“ Lisé, ne dérange pas les gens!” A very young mother whispered nervously to the baby girl in her arms, her cheeks blushing from embarrassment. The child didn't seem to hear her mother; she played with Sirius's hair with an innocent curiosity, her eyes twinkling like stars.
Sirius was taken by such a surprise that he froze. Whelps of filth , his mother had repeated like a rhapsody whenever she saw a Muggle child. Slowly, he turned to the baby girl, and he was met with a pair of big, black doe eyes that reminded him a bit of his little brother as an infant…
“I’m sorry, she's a bit energetic today,” said the mother apologetically.
“It's alright, ma’am,” Sirius replied in French, which surprised the woman. “I also have a little brother who used to enjoy playing with my hair.”
The young mother beamed at him, her expression softened. Her daughter giggled excitedly, and that sounded as merry as the tinkling bells. Her mini hand let go of his hair and reached forward to brush his nose. He chuckled at the gesture, leaning his head over her touch. The mother was shorter than him, so he lowered his back, hands tucked in pockets to stay balanced.
“Coucou, Lisé. Qui est la petite amie la plus mignonne?” He cooed at the child, his nasal voice ascending from low to high in a sing-song way, and Lisé sniggered between his hums. “Moi! Moi!” she responded excitedly.“C'est vrai,” he murmured in agreement, “Alors sois gentille avec ta mère, okay?” More people were staring at him now, but he didn't seem disturbed by it anymore. Not when he was having this little angel's undivided attention.
The baby girl paused, like she suddenly remembered something. She stuffed a clumsy hand in her mother's handbag, and dragged out a museum leaflet with a marble head statue photo on the cover.
“C’est toi!” She pointed at him with a tiny finger, then pointed at the photo, looking very proud of herself for such a discovery. Sirius blinked at the Hellenistic sculpture and laughed aloud. All the tensions he’d felt since setting foot on the underground had evaporated.
When they finally got out onto the searing cold of the night street, Sirius realised his friends were giving him a strange look. “What?” he scoffed. “Didn’t you find the baby cute? My friends are all heartless bastards, then.”
James coughed loudly, “Just wondering what it's like to be your brother.”
“You are my brother, James.”
“I mean Regulus ,” James spat the name, but he was grinning. “When you were kids, did you two cuddle and say things like ‘ Qui est le petit ami le plus mignon?’” He mimicked Sirius's accent with an terrible shrill voice. Sirius gave an annoyed sound and pushed him away by the face, “Bastard! I did not sound like that!”
Then, he said, more quietly. “Yeah, we used to.”
Someone was playing the saxophone at the entrance of Piccadilly station. The music grew more distant every second they walked away.
It only took them a while to reach the Thames. The river ran below them with a fickling flow, breathing and moving restlessly like a giant sea creature. London absorbed its life from the Thames regardless of day or night.
As Remus gazed at the twinkling city lights on the other side of the river, his thoughts flew back to his mother. Among those thousand dots of light like thousand distant stars, one of them was Hope's. What was she doing now? Was she also thinking of him?
“One Galleon for your thought.”
It seemed that the tipsiness had worn away from his friend, for his tone sounded less emotional and more collected. But his high spirit clearly hadn’t gone away.
“Just seeing if I could locate my mum there.”
The lights were wavering and flickering, like an ever-changing mirage. He couldn’t help but notice Sirius had been quite clingy to him these days.
“You miss her a lot?”
There was no answer. Boys of their age didn’t usually demonstrate affection for their mums with words.
“I must admit I’m quite curious about her. What kind of mums does archery and, what––is a David Bowie listener?”
Well, she’s curious about you, too. “Old people can have a good taste in music, you know. And I do archery as well.”
He tried not to look overly smug as Sirius’s eyes widened in surprise.
“We had a reputation to uphold as native Welsh, that’s what she said when she first showed me a bow and an arrow. She also said Welsh archers had been among the finest in Europe.”
“You…” After the stammer, Sirius sighed. “Alright, you win. I don’t do anything half as cool, and neither does my mother.”
“I don’t believe Mrs. Black doesn’t.” Surely upper-class people must do something fun regularly, otherwise what was all the money for? “Does she have any hobbies?”
“Apart from torturing everyone around her?” Dark eyebrows knitted in concentration. “Well, for one, she likes crafting dolls.”
“That’s lovely.”
“And cursing them with Dark Magic.”
“Oh.”
“No, really, she has a doll with my name on it and she––” Sirius dropped his head and sighed. “Nevermind. At least it keeps her entertained. When it doesn’t, oh well… One morning I woke up and found the entire house littered with hundreds of doll heads, red roses sprouting from the necks where they’d been ripped off. Vive la révolution .”
Remus didn’t know what to do with this information. He settled for, “Your family is weird.”
Sirius mumbled ‘Gee, thanks’ , but Remus was not finished. "Weird" couldn't even begin to describe what had been said about that family.
“Have you ever thought about this,” he continued, “A family whose bloodline is traced back to the Middle Ages, veiled by bizarre myths and mysteries, like the dark veil that obscures your mother’s looks. Never make an appearance in the newspapers, but still a perpetual presence in wizarding knowledge. By the time you set foot in Hogwarts, everyone already knew who you were, and for those of us raised in the Muggle world, it felt like we were supposed to know you. Everything else, however, was left for speculation. Being friends with you and hearing all those stories don’t make it easier––”
“Easier in what?”
“In making sense of House Black.”
“Why would someone want to make sense of it?” asked Sirius, with exceeding sharpness. Remus, however, was unfazed.
“To know more about you,” he said finally.
They stood quiet for a while, listening to the rush water and distant chatters from James and Peter.
“That’s where you and James are different,” said Sirius after a short silence, “James didn’t need to know about my family before he decided to take me by his side and keep me away from all those cold-blooded, thin-lipped people. Ignore it, he said. Trample it down. Cut it off like cutting a rotten limb from a sick body.”
“But?”
“There’s no but.” A muscle twitched in Sirius’s jaw. “The thing is, although I’m a member of that family –– the heir , even,” he spat the word, “I’m still wallowing in the unknown, almost as clueless as the rest of you. My family, they love secrets. Dark, mysterious rules and protocols that no one cares to explain why they exist in the first place, but expects everyone to obey nonetheless.” His intense grey eyes met Remus’s. “But I’m not good with secrecy –– it could back-stab me, not today, but someday in the future. What I prefer is transparency. So, is there anything I can do to dispel you from the mists surrounding my family?”
Surprised by his friend’s frankness, Remus pondered for a moment. There were hundreds of things he could ask –– purely out of curiosity –– and the subject’s very own insider was offering him the answers. Tell me about Andromeda Black. No, probably too cruel. Is it true that your family Confunded and Obliviated a high-ranking official at Number 10 Downing Street? Maybe another time. You are so warm; can you move closer to me?
Then, a villainous smirk split on his face.
“Something to ask you superficial Londoner,” he winked, “If you don’t even know what and where Hyde Park is, can you even locate your own house?”
Sirius punched him on the shoulder, knowing too well Remus was only asking it just to jab him.
“Come on, spit it out,” Remus cooed, swatting his friend’s hand away. “Surely it isn't a ghost address? House number, street, district, borough? Maybe I can pay you a visit.”
“Only when you wish for a painful death––”
“Wandsworth? Ealing? Lewisham? Islington––”
“Oh, that one.”
“ Islington? ” A huff of laughter. “Oh my God. You really are posh, aren’t you…”
“And yet I recall Dickens described it as ‘a dirtier or more wretched place he had never seen’ ...”
“It is indeed a place of stark inequalities, but we both know Grimmauld Place falls on the wealthier spectrum of the area. Grimmauld Place. Sounds a lot like ‘grim old place’ to me. How Gothic.”
“It's Unplottable, in case you’re hoping to come and take a peek.”
“If your family hates Muggles so much, why choose a place that’s jammed between Muggle townhouses?”
“Believe me, if they could live in Antarctica they would've done it ages ago. The reason they cannot live elsewhere is because it’s been my family’s ancestral home since before the first Muggle inhabitants settled down in the area. During the Middle Ages, they were even at peace with the Muggles — yes, you didn't hear me wrong. Not like holding hands with them while singing shalala, but the big, bad Blacks used to live in harmony among Muggles.”
Sirius’s hands shoved deep in his pockets, his gaze fixed on the running river.
“When things, well, changed ,” he continued after a while, “they retreated to the exclusivity. Made the mansion Unplottable, and put on it every security measure known to Wizardkind to protect themselves from the world. To protect the world from them.” A pause. “The place reeks of Dark Magic. Centuries of it, buried deep under the bones of the house. There’s even a family crypt beneath. They cannot leave it unguarded with all the rotten corpses and cursed sarcophagi.”
“Hold on a second... you live above a fucking crypt ?”
“Only the very old families have one –– the Blacks, the Ollivanders, the Lestranges. If you ever do get invited, remember to bring with you a squad of Curse-Breakers.”
A little shiver.
“Just imagine one day, I will be down there, my body rotting together with all the people who hate me, for eternity.”
He exhaled a misty fog, and averted his eyes from the dark water. Instead he looked up to the clear sky, where the Andromeda galaxy shone vividly.
Remus took Sirius's hand in his, as if by doing so, he could chase away the coldness of the Black family crypt from his friend. Sirius's hand was nothing warm, so he rubbed it to heaten it up.
“Do you think you’ll ever want to have children?”
The question seemed to jump out of nowhere. Well, Remus thought, maybe not exactly nowhere, after seeing the way his friend had played with the toddler on the train.
“Can’t pass down the werewolf genes, can I?” he said.
Sirius’s mouth split open to object, but Remus cut him off.
“Don’t get me wrong, mate, that's actually convenient for me. Because I’m not particularly fond of kids nor have the desire to raise one.” A pause to find his words. “It’s just alien. Not a thing for me. Not ever.”
Many things raced through his friend’s eyes as he spoke –– something like surprise, then like envy, and various other things that were made inconspicuous by the sirenic greyness. Eventually, it was mirth that ruled over them all. He barked out a rumbling laughter.
“What’s so funny?” A flare of irritation shot through him. Bastard.
“No, no… Don’t get me wrong. It’s just kind of cool coming from a fourteen-year-old.” The laughter didn’t cease. “To have a distinct idea of what you want and don’t want. And to have the autonomy to act on it. Brilliant.”
“That’s quite a thing to have, since autonomy is what I lack once every month, don’t I,” said Remus coolly.
“Sorry, sorry… Didn’t mean to offend you.” Sirius sighed. “It’s just… in this matter, I don’t have a say. So I guess I’m just jealous.”
“Thinking about an heir and a spare?”
“Within the first three years of our marriage, yeah,” Sirius’s hands clenched and unclenched. “Not my children –– an heir and a spare. That’s all they’d ever be in this family.”
But then he snorted. “Look, what a terrible conversation I’ve dragged you into. Boys born in 1960 wouldn’t understand the adults’ business, anyway.” His laughter burst out once again as Remus hooked an arm around his neck, mock-strangling him. “Someone call the reform center –– this kid is unhinged!”
“Let's get going, gents,” called James, oblivious to the onslaught. “We ought to catch a Knight Bus back to the Leaky Cauldron. It's already late now, and this one,” he pointed at Sirius, “still has a staggering pile of birthday gifts to unpack.”
“We’re not in a hurry, Jim. The night is still young.”
The next moment, they got into a quiet and faintly-lighted neighbourhood, waiting for the Knight Bus to come. Night rolled into a thick, soft carpet, enveloping the tireless city.
In the meantime, Remus felt around for his cigarettes. His eyes met Sirius, seeing them gleam like jewels. Then, remembering something, he sighed and put the cigarettes down. “I’ll go smoke elsewhere.”
“Don't keep us waiting too long,” reminded James as he stalked away.
He chose to smoke in a shadowy alleyway nearby, leaning his back against the gnarled wall. It was half dark, half lit by a lamp from the main street, but he stayed in the shadows.
As a fourteen-year-old boy who roamed in the dark at this late hour, he knew he should feel creeped out. But such things never frightened Remus — not anymore, after all the restless full-moon nights he spent alone in the Shack. Since long ago, he'd accepted that he was the frightener, the danger itself.
Then he heard a low, distant laugh. It echoed faintly in the alleyway, and Remus frowned.
He pressed the tip of the cigarette against the wall until it extinguished, his ears perking up in alarm.
“Bella—listen—Bella…”
The murmur came from a man, ragged and pleading. There was another laugh in response — a woman's.
“Isn't it too late, Rab? Why here, why now?”
“Why not here, why not now?” demanded the man’s voice. The woman laughed again — a gleeful, rhythmical sound, full of pleasure. There are some qualities in this laughter that oddly reminded him of Sirius.
“Scandalous,” chastised the woman in a lascivious cruelty. “I'm married to your brother, Rab. Do you see it? Do you see it while you’re holding my hand — our wedding ring?”
“I don’t give a damn about the bloody ring,” a low grunt fired back. “You’re untamable, impossible. You look at me like I'm nothing but dust. If only, Bella, if only I could have a part of you…”
“Oh, poor thing. I thought it was my dear cousin that your cock stirred for?” The woman’s cackle could make the bones rattle. “You always want what you can’t have. But, well, don’t we all?” Her voice lowered thrillingly. “Perhaps tonight you can have me. The night, after all, is still young…”
Remus shuddered. Great, he thought irritatedly, running into an adulterate couple back-alley was his last idea of fun for a night out. Shaking his head, he grounded the cigarette under his shoe and slipped away from the alley without a sound.
His friends were waving at him from afar. The Knight Bus arrived within a minute, and together, they left the dingy street to welcome the bright yellow light of the bus lamps. “The Leaky Cauldron,” they echoed, dropping four Sickles each, and they were already on the way.