The first time Sirius Black remembered being afraid of his mother, he was seven.
It wasn’t a single moment, but the slow build of little things that, when pieced together, made him feel like he couldn’t breathe in his own house. At first, it was something small—a comment she made in passing, a glance she gave to the space just past his shoulder that made his skin crawl. But over time, those things piled on top of each other until they filled the air around him like smoke.
Her hands would shake when she prayed. Her prayers weren’t the kind people said for comfort. Hers were fierce, urgent, and the words that fell from her lips sounded like a desperate plea to stop the inevitable, her hands trembling as she clutched a rosary tight enough to leave bruises. And when she’d look at him, her eyes never really seemed to see him. They seemed to look right through him, like he wasn’t there at all. Her voice would catch mid-sentence sometimes as if something had distracted her. She’d stare at some invisible thing over his shoulder, her face shifting with fear, fury, or the kind of quiet panic that made him feel like he might disappear if he stood still for too long.
“You must be careful, Sirius,” she told him one evening after dinner, her voice low but trembling with an intensity he had never heard before. Her grip on his arm tightened with a force he hadn’t known she was capable of. Her fingers dug into his skin, sharp and painful, as if she was trying to steady herself, or perhaps to remind him that she was in control. “The devil watches boys like you.”
Sirius was small, barely able to grasp the gravity of her words, but the way her hand closed around his wrist, so tight it felt like it might snap, made his heart race. He pulled back a little, but she only gripped harder.
“Why me?” Sirius whispered, his voice barely audible, caught between fear and confusion. His stomach twisted as he tried to make sense of the terrifying fervor in her eyes.
“Because he knows you,” she hissed, her voice a soft snarl that sent a shiver down his spine. She wasn’t speaking to him anymore. She was speaking through him, to something beyond the veil of their house, to someone—or something—he couldn’t see. “He sees you. You’re special, Sirius. You have to be strong, or he’ll take you away.”
Sirius didn’t understand what she meant, but the way her nails dug into his skin felt like a warning. A tightening of something in the air. He couldn’t breathe properly. His chest was heavy, his heart beating too fast.
She released his arm after a moment, and he immediately pulled back, feeling the sting of her touch burn against his skin. But she didn’t seem to notice. She was already looking past him, to the shadows in the corners of the room, like she expected them to shift and move on their own.
It started small—prayers muttered under her breath, candles lit in every corner of the house. Walburga’s obsession with cleansing the house, of protecting it from whatever she believed was lurking, grew as the days wore on. But what was small at first soon morphed into something darker. Something more dangerous.
Sirius was playing with Regulus in the living room one rainy afternoon when it happened. They were building a fort out of cushions, completely unaware of the storm that was about to hit them from inside the house. The rain drummed steadily against the windows, filling the air with a dull, comforting rhythm—until Walburga’s voice broke the silence.
“Get out!” she shrieked. “You’re not welcome here! This is a holy home!”
The sharpness of her voice sliced through the air, and Sirius froze. His heart lurched in his chest. Regulus looked up from the pillow he was clutching, his wide eyes locked on Sirius’s, his grip tightening instinctively.
“Do you think she’s talking to us?” Regulus whispered, his voice small, uncertain.
Sirius shook his head, though part of him wasn’t sure. He slowly crept toward the hallway, inching toward the sounds that seemed to come from the kitchen. His feet felt heavy, like they were dragging him into a trap he couldn’t escape. When he peeked around the corner, he saw her—standing in the kitchen, her face as pale as bone, her eyes wide and wild as she stared at something just beyond her reach. Her body was rigid, her hand raised, fingers trembling as she pointed at the empty space in front of her.
“You can’t have my son!” she screamed, her voice cracking with a mix of desperation and fury. “He’s mine!”
Sirius’s breath caught in his throat. Every instinct screamed for him to run, to hide, but his legs wouldn’t obey him. He couldn’t move. His feet felt frozen in place, as if the weight of his mother’s words had pinned him down. She was so certain. So convinced.
“What’s wrong with her?” Regulus asked when Sirius returned to the living room, his small voice trembling. He had obviously heard the same scream, but couldn’t understand it, just like Sirius.
“I don’t know,” Sirius whispered, feeling the weight of something heavy settle into his chest. The space between his ribs felt too tight, as though something was lodged inside. “I don’t know.”
But he was starting to think something was very wrong.
The next morning, Walburga dragged Sirius out of bed before sunrise. Her hands were cold and frantic, pulling him from beneath the warm covers and shaking him awake as if the sun was about to rise on a world he wasn’t prepared for.
“You’ve been marked,” she said, her voice thin and tight, as though she could barely breathe. She pulled him into the bathroom, slamming the door behind them as she locked it. The frantic pace of her movements made Sirius dizzy as she turned on the cold water in the sink. “I see it now. I see what he’s done to you.”
Sirius blinked up at her, his eyelids heavy with sleep, but his confusion was stronger than the fog of his tiredness. “What? I didn’t do anything—”
“Quiet!” she snapped, her voice sharp like a blade. She grabbed him roughly, pulling him toward the sink, her fingers digging into his shoulder. Her hands were shaking with an urgency that scared him, like she was trying to hold something back that was slipping out of her control. The cold water hit his scalp like an icy slap, and he gasped, his teeth clattering together. She didn’t care. She kept pouring the water over his head, muttering frantically under her breath, her words a chant he couldn’t understand.
“We have to cleanse you before it’s too late.”
The words burned in his ears as he tried to pull away, but her grip only tightened. She reached for the soap, scrubbing it against his skin with such force that it stung. The roughness of her hands felt like sandpaper, scraping against his delicate skin. She didn’t stop. She kept chanting, her voice rising with every word, louder and louder until it felt like the whole house was shaking from the power of her voice.
“Stop,” he whispered through clenched teeth, his hands pressed against the edge of the sink to steady himself. He wanted to pull away, to run, but he couldn’t. His body was caught in the frantic rhythm of her movements. “Mum, please—”
“Be still,” she said, her voice trembling as she locked eyes with him. There was no comfort in her gaze. No tenderness. “You’ll thank me when you’re saved.”
When she finally let him go, his skin was raw, burning from the rough scrubbing. His clothes were soaked through, sticking to his skin like a second layer. He didn’t move, couldn’t move, as she left the room without a word, leaving him trembling on the bathroom floor. The coldness of the water still stung, but it wasn’t enough to wash away the dread that clung to him. He felt like a ghost, like he didn’t belong here anymore.
Sirius started hiding the kitchen knives after that.
He didn’t know why—she hadn’t hurt him, not really—but there was something about the way her moods shifted. Her calmness could snap into something darker, more violent, without warning. One moment, she would be speaking in soft tones, praying for their safety. The next, she would be screaming, accusing the walls of conspiring against them. She would cry, then lash out, as if she was battling something inside herself.
One night, he watched from the top of the stairs as she paced the kitchen, muttering to herself. Her voice was a low, dangerous murmur, and every few steps, she would stop to look over her shoulder. Her face was contorted with a kind of primal rage. She was no longer speaking to him, or even to anyone real. She was speaking to the space around her, to the shadows in the corners of the kitchen.
“You think I don’t see you,” she spat to the empty room, her voice sharp and dangerous. “But I do. You won’t win. You’ll never win.”
Sirius swallowed hard. His mouth went dry. He couldn’t move, couldn’t make a sound. The air felt thick with her words, suffocating him. He crept back to his room, his feet moving as though they weren’t attached to him, his heart hammering in his chest. He slid beneath the covers, not even bothering to pull them over his trembling body.
Sirius squeezed his eyes shut, trying to drown out the haunting sounds of her voice, but it followed him into the silence of his room. He pulled the covers tighter around him, but the cold feeling of dread wouldn’t leave.
The days after that night blurred together in a haze of fear and confusion. Walburga’s behavior only grew more erratic, and her demands on Sirius became more intense, more consuming. Every morning, it felt like she was watching him, studying him like a scientist with a specimen under a microscope. She was always waiting for some sign—some shift in the air, some proof that whatever she believed was inside him was still there, lurking, ready to take him.
When he was ten, she gave him his first exorcism.
It wasn’t like any ceremony Sirius had seen in the movies. There were no dramatic chants or holy figures descending from heaven. There were only the cold walls of the living room, dimmed by the flickering light of dozens of candles, and Walburga, standing over him with a Bible in her shaking hands.
Sirius sat in the center of the room, his legs crossed, his hands trembling as he tried not to look at her. She walked in a tight circle around him, chanting under her breath, her words a low hum that only served to increase the weight on his chest. He felt trapped, the walls of the room closing in around him. The candles burned like tiny flames of judgment, casting long shadows on the floor that seemed to stretch and twist as the minutes dragged by.
“You have to fight, Sirius,” Walburga said in a near-whisper, her eyes wide and glassy as she stared at him. Her voice was feverish, as if her mind was somewhere else—somewhere far away. “You have to fight him. Don’t let him take you.”
Sirius didn’t know who "he" was. Was it the devil? Or was it something else entirely—something invisible and insidious that only she could see? He didn’t understand, but the look in his mother’s eyes told him that it didn’t matter. She was convinced. She was fighting a war in her mind, and he was caught in the middle of it.
His stomach twisted as she pressed a cold, silver cross against his forehead, muttering louder now. The pressure of her grip hurt, but he didn’t move. What would be the point? Nothing mattered anymore. She was too far gone, and he was just a boy—a boy who couldn’t fix her, no matter how much he tried.
When it was over, she stepped back, her breathing erratic, like the air had finally been released from her lungs. She didn’t look at him the same way as before. There was a soft smile on her face, one that didn’t reach her eyes.
“You’re safe now,” she whispered, as if assuring herself as much as him. “It’s over. You’ve fought him off.”
Sirius didn’t feel safe. He didn’t feel anything at all, except for the cold emptiness inside him, where warmth and comfort should have been. He felt small. He felt broken. And most of all, he felt alone.
His father did nothing to stop her.
Orion Black, ever the distant figure in their household, spent most of his time locked away in his study. He drank more than he should, smoked cigarette after cigarette, and avoided his family as if they were nothing more than inconvenient distractions from his work. His presence was more of a shadow than a comfort.
When Sirius finally gathered the courage to tell him about the exorcism—about the torment his mother had put him through—Orion barely reacted. He just took a long drag from his cigarette, exhaled slowly, and muttered, "Your mother loves you. She’s just… unwell."
Unwell.
Sirius stood there in front of him, feeling like a ghost in his own home. His father’s indifference stung more than anything his mother had ever done. At least she cared—even if it was in the most terrifying and twisted way. But Orion? Orion just dismissed him. Dismissed them both.
"But what if she’s right?" Sirius asked quietly, his voice cracking as he fought to keep the tears at bay. His small hands balled into fists at his sides. "What if there’s something wrong with me?"
Orion didn’t answer. He just stared at the empty glass in his hand, his fingers tapping idly against the surface. The silence in the room stretched, suffocating him until he could hardly breathe. It was clear—his father wasn’t going to help. He was never going to help.
The weight of that realization crushed Sirius, and he turned to leave the room, his legs moving of their own accord.
By the time Sirius was twelve, the fear had turned to anger.
Anger at his mother. Anger at his father. Anger at the entire world for letting him live in this twisted, suffocating nightmare. And mostly, anger at himself. Because if he couldn’t fix her, if he couldn’t make her stop seeing things that weren’t there, then what was he? What was the point of him?
One night, when Walburga tried to make him drink what she called “holy water,” something inside him snapped. He was done. Done with being the obedient child. Done with trying to please her.
“I’m not possessed,” he yelled, his voice breaking as he shoved the glass away from him, his hands shaking with fury. “I’m not. I don’t need saving! You’re not helping me—you’re scaring me!”
The slap came so fast that he barely saw it coming. The sting of her palm against his cheek was enough to send him reeling back, his eyes wide with shock. His breath hitched in his throat, but he didn’t cry. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” she hissed, her breath heavy, her eyes burning with conviction. “He’s inside you, Sirius. He’s making you fight me. Don’t let him win.”
Sirius didn’t say anything. He turned and ran up the stairs, slamming his bedroom door behind him with a force that shook the walls. His chest heaved as he slid to the floor, his back against the door. He didn’t understand it all. He couldn’t. But it didn’t matter anymore. All he knew was that he needed to get away.
When Sirius was sixteen, he left.
He didn’t tell anyone. He didn’t pack a bag. He didn’t leave a note. He just walked out the door, walked out of that house, and kept walking until it was far behind him. His footsteps rang hollow in the empty street, the sound of his heart louder than the silence around him. There was nothing for him there—not in that house, not with those people. He needed to get away. He couldn’t breathe in that house anymore. The constant weight of her eyes, the heat of her accusations, the sound of her voice—her yelling, always yelling, at things he couldn’t see, at things that weren’t there. He had to leave, before it consumed him, too.
But as he stepped out of the door for the last time, there was something else. Something more than just relief. Something that made his stomach twist and his chest tighten as he walked away. A hollow ache, a fear, a quiet guilt. It wasn’t the sense of freedom he had imagined. It was a feeling that clung to him, that followed him down the street, that stayed with him long after he was gone.
He had left.
He had left her.
Left Regulus.
And he hadn’t looked back.
Years passed, and Sirius moved on, as best as he could. He tried to fill the gaps with work, with friends, with a new life that was free of that place, free of the twisted mess of a family he had left behind. But there was a part of him that never felt quite whole, a part that was always missing, always aching. It was the part of him that had been her son, that had grown up in that house, in that madness. It was the part that remembered the way her hands would tremble as she clutched the Bible, the way her voice would crack with terror when she yelled at him, the way her eyes would lose focus and go glassy when she saw things he couldn’t. It was the part of him that remembered the fear, the confusion, the terror of not knowing what was real and what wasn’t.
And then, one night, years later, Sirius found himself standing in front of a mirror, staring at his reflection. The man who stared back at him was a stranger in some ways—older, harder, more guarded. But there was something in his eyes that made him stop and think. Something that made him feel it, deep in his gut. The guilt. The lingering pain of those years, the years when he had left her, when he had shut the door behind him and walked away.
What if he had stayed? What if he had tried to help her? What if he hadn’t been so terrified, so desperate to escape that house, that life, that he had left Regulus to to face her madness alone?
He tried to push the thought away, but it wouldn’t go. It stayed. It clung to him like a shadow.
It wasn’t until much later that Sirius began to piece together the truth. Slowly, through conversations with others—strangers who had no idea what his past had been like, doctors, books, a few old friends—he began to understand. To understand her.
Her illness.
The tremors in her hands. The wild, accusing look in her eyes. The words she would mutter under her breath, as if she were speaking to someone unseen. The prayers. The exorcisms. The violent, desperate love that had always been tinged with fear, with the terror that something was wrong with him. He learned, in bits and pieces, about schizophrenia—about the way it twisted the mind, turned the world into a nightmare of delusions, of voices, of shadows. It was then that the horrifying truth began to settle in, slow and cold like ice forming in his chest.
She hadn’t been a monster. She hadn’t been the thing he had feared. She hadn’t been evil.
She had been sick.
But at the time, he hadn’t known. At the time, all he saw was a woman who had tried to break him, who had tried to make him into something he wasn’t, who had believed—believed—that he was possessed. And when he left, when he walked out of that house, it was because he had to get away from the chaos. He had to get away from her.
But what if she wasn’t the one who needed to be fixed? What if it was him who had needed to stay? What if he had been strong enough to hold her in her madness, to comfort her, to be there for her, to try to understand instead of running?
The guilt gnawed at him. It ate at him, slowly, quietly, until he could barely breathe through it.
She hadn’t been trying to hurt him. She hadn’t been trying to punish him. She had been trying to save him, in the only way she knew how. The love she had given him had been fractured, twisted by her illness, but it had been love. It had always been love.
And he had left her to face it alone.
The thought of it, the weight of it, was too much. It made him want to scream, to break something, to turn back time and do something—anything—to change it. But he couldn’t.
And no matter how much he understood now, no matter how much knowledge he had gathered, it didn’t change the fact that he had left. He had walked away from her when she couldn’t help it. When she had needed him the most.
Sirius buried his face in his hands, as though by doing so, he could shut out the thought, the voice that whispered that he had failed her. That he had been selfish, that he had abandoned her in her time of need.
Because she had needed him. She had needed him to stay.
But he hadn’t been strong enough.
And now it was too late.
The guilt was suffocating. It felt like it would never leave, like it would cling to him forever. And every time he tried to move on, every time he tried to convince himself that he had done the best he could, that he couldn’t have done anything else, it always came back to that—he had left her behind.
And he would never forgive himself for it.