Every year, during the Hogwarts fall break, The Moste Noble And Ancient House Of Black held a dinner party for all of the relatives and friends. In recent events, however, these meetings were becoming increasingly concerned with the Dark Lord. They would meet and discuss the families' plans, their offspring's futures, and marriage propositions. Now it was about supporting the Dark Lord’s agenda.
Narcissa was to be married to Lucius, Bellatrix to Rodolphus. Andromeda…well…
The family does not speak of Andromeda anymore.
Walburga and Orion were planning a wedding between Sirius and some other pureblood he hadn’t met, hopefully not someone related (unlikely).
Regulus was currently being matched with Pandora - Evan Rosier's twin. But in light of his recent events, they were becoming harsher and more cruel. Sirius was in his fourth year at Hogwarts, a proud Gryffindor who was running around the grounds with “blood traitors.”
In Walburga’s eyes, Sirius was ruining the family. He was destroying their name and legacy, and The Dark Lord would never agree to fully commit with a family member like that, holding the potential to be a traitor. Several times there was discussion of killing him, yet nothing had been done towards that.
It would be possible.
They had a second heir.
It would be possible to kill him, to force Regulus to step up, and this thought bounced around in the back of Sirius’s head almost constantly. The anxiety and fear through his gut like an invisible force was attempting to eviscerate him.
Sirius never planned on going home for fall break, he never wanted to, but there was nothing to be done. There was only one year at Hogwarts where he was able to stay, and that year his parents happened to be back in Paris for whatever reason.
-
The dinner was grueling. Everything was too formal, and there were too many adults who were batshit insane, in Sirius’s opinion. In most of the other kids his age opinion.
Luckily, the only saving grace was the part of the evening where the adults kicked the children out. Sirius and Regulus, Evan and Pandora would all sneak up to Regulus’s bedroom to hang out, while the McNair kids, Narcissa, Bellatrix, the Goyles, Crabbes, and a few others moved to the library.
Last year, Evan snuck downstairs and listened to their discussion. He was always one for eavesdropping, getting into things he shouldn’t. There were so many times when his friend Barty had to get him out of trouble.
In Sirius’s opinion, those two were the best, but most, pathological liars he had ever gotten the chance to meet.
Regulus led the way up the stairs, holding his door open for the other three to pile in. Evan went straight for the bed, quite literally throwing himself on it and hanging his head down off the side. Pandora went for the green armchair, folding her legs neatly up under her. Sirius dramatically fell to the floor to lay down, and Regulus went to sit on the edge of the mattress, next to Evan.
“In my most humble opinion, I do declare these dinners to be quite the waste of time, would you not agree, Evan?” Pandora asked, taking her hair down from its tight bun, letting the blonde braids tumble down and wrap around her shoulders. She took off her black sweater to reveal a pastel pink shirt.
“Why yes, dear sister of mine, I would agree that those dinners are quite dreadful,” Evan responded, rolling around in the bed to take off his suit jacket, undoing the first few buttons to his dark green, silk button-up.
“Oh come off it, you two,” Sirius snapped, but it lacked the anger. “They aren’t here, you can talk like a normal person now.”
Regulus let a puff of air escape him, a subtle smile seeping onto his face.
“I am not a fan of black, it’s too dark,” Pandora complained to the room.
Evan sighed, “Yeah our parents want her to stop with all the ‘frilly clothing’” Evan used his fingers to gesture air quotes, “because she needs to dress like a ‘proper lady with dignity,’ so they’ve been taking away some of her options and replacing them with blacks and dark blues and greens, it’s awful, really.”
“Sounds like our mum with Siruis and his golds and reds,” Regulus said. The room went quiet for a moment, watching as Pandora went to the window and opened the curtains, raising the sill up so the room was flooded with the warmth of the outside, combating the deathly chill that existed in The House of Black.
“I wish Barty was here,” Evan complained, flipping over to shove his face into the duvet. His next words were unintelligible, but the word “arson” was distinct.
“I agree, I wish Dorcas was here,” Pandora said.
“And James,” Sirius added.
“First of all, you lot are mental. You want them here, in this house, filled with cold people and dark magic, in depressingly dark rooms. I would never wish that on someone. Second, I completely disagree,” Regulus said, his eyebrow raised. He turned to each person as he spoke. “Evan, you and Barty would light this house on fire, and Pandora you would watch it happen just for fun. Sirius, James would try to kill each adult here, and -”
“Oh my god!” Evan said, lifting his head and interrupting his friend. “That reminds me! The other night I was listening to my parents talk, and I remember wanting to ask you guys about it.” This caught all of their attention, Sirius sat up, using his arms to hold him there. Evan had the room’s attention. “So mum was talking, you know how her and Panda get visions?”
“Yeah,” the brothers agreed.
“Instead of seeing into the future, she saw into the past? I’m not sure how it works, and dad called her crazy for it.” Evan picked up a Remembrall Regulus had on his desk, throwing it in the air and catching it lazily. “But the other day she had shook hands with one of the mums while they were out, and she got a memory from a few years ago. I don’t know what happened, they didn’t know I was listening. I ended up falling actually, and they stopped discussing to find me having fallen over a table in the entryway,”
“For someone who stalks around people out of boredom, you’re really bad at being secret,” Sirius remarked.
“What can I say,” Evan shrugged. “So she got this memory, the mother was talking to her crying son, she broke his leg. Quite literally broke the thigh bone and shin bone in his leg clean into two, and told him ‘Well it’s too dangerous for you to walk around and act like that,”
The memory echoed in Sirius’s head, and he couldn’t help but mouth the rest of the sentence, “So I had to save us from you.” He zoned out, remembering the pain of that day. It was awful, absolutely awful. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the Cruciatis curse, but it was non-stop all the same. Through this, he could feel Regulus staring at him, a sad look on his face. This did not go unnoticed to Evan, who swung his legs around and sat up properly, ignoring the Remembrall as it dropped to the floor and rolled away.
“No way, you know the story? Who was it?”
Neither one responded though, and the silence was deafening. Evan’s eyes dropped when he realized, and Pandora slid to the floor, instinctively wrapping her arms around Sirius.
Evan didn’t ask any follow-up questions, they just sat there in silence until Sirius came back around.