The Noble and Most Ancient Black Academy

In all honesty, Bellatrix was kind of confused.

She knew better than to reveal that to everyone; they’d always thought of her as assured and steadfast in her ability to take things on the chin. But she had absolutely no idea what to do in this situation. People don’t just come back from the dead. Especially not people who look the same age they were when they died – or disappeared, really, since they never confirmed Regulus’ fate.

The future?

She knew the future was going to be shitty – both the near future and the far future – from the day she turned sixteen. There was something about sixteen that put things into perspective for Bellatrix. It was then that she understood the world was awful and was always going to be awful. It was also then that she realized the future was going to be nothing but pain and misery until she died.

What could the future possibly hold that made Regulus refuse to even speak about it?

Growing up, the boy had always been quiet, especially when he was suffering, so this wasn’t new. Unlike Sirius, who wanted everyone to know when he was miserable or pissed off, Regulus liked to stew silently. But not about important things.

No, Regulus was a big proponent of working as a group, of taking on issues together instead of striving out alone. She supposed that was something that came from being Number Two. He never wanted anyone– Sirius, especially – to do things without bringing the rest of them along, not wanting someone to get all the credit on their own.

Or he was a big proponent of that.

When Sirius left, everything changed. Everything.

But even that version of Regulus was vastly different compared to the Regulus standing in front of her. Or sitting, rather.

Kreacher had made Regulus a soup of sorts, and now they were all gathered at the dining table watching him eat it. He was put together as he ate, but Bellatrix studied him closely and nearly without blinking, which allowed her to see what the others did not: he was uncertain.

His hands shook, making the spoon he gripped onto shiver ever so slightly, noticeable by the rippling in the soup he’d scooped up that was settled in the swell of the silver. It reminded her of a lake.

He clenched his jaw.

And the biggest tell of all was the hesitancy to put the napkin over his lap.

Regulus hadn’t had a proper meal in a while, it seemed. She couldn’t imagine why not. Even though she didn’t have the best decorum, table manners had been quite literally beaten into them, so she was never able to ditch them. The set of her plate and silverware, as well as the erect way she held herself, always betrayed her background whether she was conscious of it or not. But somewhere along the line in the future, Regulus had lost this part of himself.

Bellatrix narrowed her eyes. He flicked his gaze over to her, and she knew the moment that he sensed her suspicions.

“You’ve gone quiet in your old ages,” Regulus finally said, breaking the silence.

Everyone had been watching him, holding their breaths collectively.

“Twenty-four is not old,” Sirius protested, always easily baited into speaking. Bellatrix thought he was quite like the dog he could turn into: never content to sit still, easily excitable, practically trembling with excitement whenever someone turned their attention to him. She figured it had something to do with their shitty childhood, but it was such an annoying characteristic of his that she couldn’t find it in herself to feel sympathy.

Regulus shrugged. “Coming from someone who’s physically eighteen right now, I’d beg to differ. I feel infinitely younger.”

That reminder again. Regulus had indeed grown up in the future, though there was no telling how much. Did he reach old age? Based on his sour attitude, Bellatrix was partially convinced he’d lived to be an eighty-year-old in the future and had brought the grumpiness back with him.

“We’ve not grown boring, you’ve just grown more interesting than anything we could possibly be talking about right now,” Narcissa murmured.

He cut his gaze to her. “Try.”

Bellatrix’s nose still hurt from Sirius breaking it. That was an interesting story, right?

“Orion and Walburga were together,” Sirius said, voice dropping as if he was confessing his biggest secret.

Andromeda groaned at the mention of the topic again, which made Bellatrix grin. The most panicked she’d ever been to this day was when she was frantically trying to clean away Andromeda’s puke before anyone realized they’d been snooping where they shouldn’t have been. The memory was tinged with retroactive happiness despite not being the slightest bit funny in the moment.

“You didn’t know that?” Regulus asked, pausing with his spoon halfway to his mouth to frown at Sirius.

Sirius’ jaw dropped slightly, and he looked around, eyes wide. “Did everyone know that except for me?” he demanded.

“Yes,” Bellatrix said cheerfully.

“When did you find out?” Narcissa asked Regulus.

He shrugged. “I feel like I’ve just always known it. It was intuitive even if it was gross.”

“Wait, how the fuck was it intuitive?” Andromeda cut in.

“It just was,” Regulus said, sneering slightly at being questioned. So defensive. He was on edge, even if it was just in a passing conversation about something that didn’t mean anything, at the end of the day. Bellatrix knew that couldn’t mean anything good.

She so desperately wanted to cut into his scalp and figure out what was going on in his brain. She wanted a way to project his memories onto a wall so she could binge through them to figure out what made him so jumpy with them all. The incessant need to know and to understand made her fingertips twitchy, like maybe, by figuring out what the hell was wrong with Regulus, she could figure out what was wrong with her. He was the most mysterious of the bunch now, and she did love a good mystery.

Bellatrix almost wanted to send Rita Skeeter after him – that journalist may have made her life a living hell for a few months, but she was sure to drag some truths out of Regulus, truths that Bellatrix herself wouldn’t be able to pull from him. It was a tempting thought. Maybe she’d even get a free dinner out of it or something.

“No, the fuck it wasn’t,” Sirius snapped, drawing Bellatrix back to the heated discussion at hand.

“Well, Bella figured it out somehow,” Narcissa said, crossing her arms. “She was the one who pointed it out to us. So maybe Reg is right.”

“Oh, it wasn’t intuitive for me,” Bellatrix said, eyes bright and wide with amusement. “I saw them kissing.”

Andromeda dry-heaved, her hands flying up to cover her ears.

Bellatrix delighted in making her writhe with discomfort. It was so fun to make them all twitch with disgust – it somehow made her forget about her own revulsion regarding the whole situation.

She remembered that day very clearly.

She’d been headed towards Orion’s office, wanting to poke around in his bookshelves despite it not being allowed. He'd left for a meeting that morning, and she hadn’t heard him return despite carefully listening for the sound of the front door opening. She'd thought it was safe to go up.

When she’d reached the top of the stairs, she was greeted with the sight of Orion and Walburga talking quietly, heads bowed together. Morbid fascination kept her watching. Growing up, Bellatrix rarely saw or received signs of affection. The art of loving was foreign to her, and she was so incredibly deprived of it that she was left begging for any hint of it like a kicked dog. She squeezed relationships out like rags, desperate to wring out every last drop of appreciation and love that she could manage.

She’d learned from the best, of course. Walburga Black was an expert at pulling love from the unwilling.

As Bellatrix watched, Orion ducked and pressed his lips against Walburga’s, kissing her quickly.

She was shocked. She’d scrambled down the stairs as quietly as she could, heart pounding in her chest and threatening to break free from her ribcage. She could practically feel the bones cracking with how fast her heart was beating against them.

It wasn’t until a few days later that she told Narcissa and Andromeda.

“Let’s talk about something else,” Andromeda begged now. “Anything else.”

“What time’s the funeral?” Regulus asked, putting his spoon down. He picked up his napkin and dabbed at the corners of his mouth, staring forcefully at Bellatrix the entire time, as if he wanted to make sure she noticed. She grinned, a giggle at his ridiculousness bubbling up in her throat; she could see how foreign the movement was for him. It wasn’t the action itself; it was the manner in which it was done, something Regulus seemed to forget in his franticness to correct his mistake.

“Druella told me it was three this afternoon,” Andromeda supplied easily.

“Kreacher should be running out to pick up the urns soon,” Narcissa murmured, tapping her pointer finger against the tablecloth absentmindedly, the small tick betraying her restlessness.

“I thought cremation took longer,” Sirius said, frowning.

Bellatrix gasped at a realization that hit her. “Wow, they’ll be burning in hell and in the cremation furnace.”

Everyone looked at her, various levels of distaste on their face, before ultimately ignoring the comment, deciding it to be unbecoming to even acknowledge it.

Look at me, look at me, look at me.

The quiet hum under her veins of the desire to be acknowledged was making her twitchy.

“Usual it does,” Narcissa said, referring to the cremation process. “But they rushed it, I guess, from the paperwork I read. They used a private company, too, someone that was easily persuaded into fitting the process the timeline they so desired.”

“How extensive is their after-death plan, Cissy?” Regulus asked. He was considering something, a newfound conspirator.

“Very detailed, we’ll just say,” Narcissa answered.

“I need more than that.”

“Ooh,” Bellatrix said, poking her tongue against the inside of her cheek. “Little Reggie’s doing something important, it seems. What are you planning, mon chaton? Quelque chose de mauvais? Quelque chose de méchant?”

Regulus sat right across from her, and there was no mistaking the annoyance in his gaze when he glared at her. “Nothing,” he snapped. “I’m not planning anything.”

“All the questions make it sound like you’re scheming,” she insisted lightly, clucking her tongue against the roof of her mouth, the soft pop of it cutting through the tense silence that had fallen over the room.

“What would I scheme about?” he demanded.

“Maybe you killed them,” Bellatrix pushed, though she didn’t actually believe it. Just seeing someone get mad over something she said was enough to remind her she was alive when Cygnus, Orion, and Walburga weren’t, and the reminder was euphoric. She was here. She could push and pull on the world around her without the Black seniors around to watch.

“What the fuck, Bella,” Sirius snapped.

“He could’ve done it,” she insisted, eyes wide and crazed, pupils blown with excitement at riling everyone up. “He could’ve time-traveled and done it! He might be lying to us all right now.”

“They had heart attacks, Bella,” Narcissa said sharply.

“The only one with powers to make it look like they had heart attacks is you, Bella, so I wouldn’t be throwing around false accusations,” Regulus hissed.

They could all gang up against her, and that was fine, all that mattered was this: they were paying attention to her. She was real, and she was breathing, and they were looking at her. She could put ripples in the water, could draw blood if she wanted to, could kill someone or something if so desired.

She hadn’t killed Walburga or Orion, of course.

She had an alibi if they accused her.

Speculation didn’t hold up well in court, either. Neither did discussions of otherworldly powers derived from an unnatural phenomenon. Though their powers were widely known about and readily discussed (the specifics were vague, but intrigue attracted more attention than solid understanding), there was no law in the world that mapped out the parameters under which the children could operate. Cygnus so loved that loophole when it came to the morality of it all.

“I’ve never been able to do that before,” she snapped. “The heart isn’t energy. Not the kind I can use.”

“Andy might one day discover she can use her telekinesis on herself,” Regulus countered. “Discoveries can be made. Abilities can be tapped into further. Shit, there’s no one else like us in the world – no one older, at least. Maybe your powers grow stronger when you age.”

“No one killed Orion or Walburga,” Andromeda said, holding up both of her hands as if she were preparing herself to physically separate Bellatrix and Regulus if they decided to fly at each other.

“If I were them, I would’ve killed myself,” Sirius commented.

Regulus and Bellatrix both shot him a glare for being so widely off-topic.

“I’m going to sleep,” Regulus suddenly announced, abruptly standing up. “I’ll be up before the funeral starts.”

“You think you’ll be able to sleep with a murderer under the same roof as you?” Bellatrix taunted, watching as he left the room. He didn’t even spare her a second glance, but Andromeda, who sat next to Bellatrix, hit her on the arm.

“Don’t,” she hissed.

Bellatrix stood as well. “I’ll be back,” she declared sharply, turning on her heel and walking the opposite way as Regulus.

Early that morning, Andromeda had caught Bellatrix trying to steal things from the kitchen. Though she tried to deny the accusations, they were correct – it was fun to steal things from the house. Especially things she knew the Black seniors would have a heart attack to see her carrying around.

Before Andromeda had realized Bellatrix was in the house, she’d gone around and poked through most of the rooms, pocketing things here and there. She stored her growing collection under the cushion of Orion’s chair in the library, the one no one else was allowed to sit on. She figured that the rule would still be followed, too heavily ingrained in them, but she also figured that Orion would’ve been fuming to find this out. So, not only was it a good hiding spot, but it also would’ve given the old man another heart attack.

She ducked into the library now, pulling the door shut behind her.

She'd nicked a silver box too jammed shut to open, some tiny sculptures that were probably collector's items, a few books she thought would be interesting, as well as a few other random things that just looked shiny. She cradled her collection close to her chest, concentrating hard on not letting anything fall as she readjusted the cushion.

If something heavy fell and banged against the ground, she didn’t want anyone bursting in and demanding she put all the stuff back.

Bellatrix hurried out the front door before anyone could find her and question her further. She wanted to bring all this stuff back to her current apartment, which wasn’t too long of a walk. Maybe half an hour if she walked slowly. But it was cold, which was motivation enough to hurry.

As she walked, she could feel something slipping out of her grasp, falling slowly and slowly. She stopped and lifted her knee, trying to catch it without dropping everything else, but it was fruitless.

The item fell to the ground, clattering loudly against the cold concrete.

It was the jammed silver box.

Though she was dying to see what was inside, she figured it wasn’t a big loss. It was fine. If it was still there on her way back, she’d pick it up again. If it wasn’t there, then that was alright too. It was probably just silver varnish, anyway – not even worth anything if she tried to sell it.

Bellatrix kept walking.

The old bank was on her right when she passed by it, and she couldn’t help but glance over at it, thinking of the past.

“Number Two, you will Apparate into the building before the others so as to get a sense of the situation. While you are in there, you will also break one of the windows open so the others can get through,” Cygnus ordered. “Number Four, once the windows are broken, you will lift everyone inside the building. Number Five has been given a rope, and she will help you up as the others assess how to best deal with the situation. Does everyone remember our objective?”

“Kill the criminals but not the victims,” Sirius supplied dutifully.

Cygnus snapped his fingers. “That is correct. This is an armed robbery, children. You'd best remember your training. It has all amounted to this moment.”

“Do not mess this up for us,” Walburga hissed, and then the Black seniors left, disappearing to where they could observe without being involved. That was a preferred parenting method of theirs.

As told, Regulus Apparated into the building, disappearing in a quick flash of blue. They were silent as they waited for him. Narcissa smoothed down the skirt of her uniform over and over again, and the repetition was starting to piss Bellatrix off.

She wanted to snap something, to tell Narcissa to get a hold of herself, but then a brick flew through the window, shattering the glass. The shards rained over them, catching in Bellatrix’s curls. She gasped.

Quickly, Andromeda lifted her hand, moving Sirius through the air simultaneously. Carefully, she fit him through the shattered window, yelling for him to stop moving around so much otherwise she would purposefully drag him through the shards.

When he was safely inside, Andromeda lifted Bellatrix next.

The feeling of levitating was terrifying. She wasn’t afraid of heights, though; she was afraid of being so powerless. Moving under Andromeda’s command was like being a puppet – even if she fought and fought, Andromeda was always able to overpower her, moving her wherever she saw fit. Sometimes, in arguments, Andromeda would toss things at other people. And sometimes, when she was particularly upset, she’d throw the others themselves around. When they were eleven, Andromeda threw Bellatrix against a wall so hard that she’d cracked her head open, bleeding over the dented wood and nearly passing out. Bellatrix swore up and down that she was in the right regarding that argument even though she was the one blamed for it. She still had crisscrossed scars on her left calf from the punishment for that, wounds she’d taken thanklessly in Andromeda’s stead.

Andromeda directed Bellatrix through the broken window, moving slowly and carefully to avoid brushing her up against any of the jagged pieces of glass.

When she was set down inside the bank, Andromeda retracted her hold, freeing Bellatrix. She sprinted off towards where Sirius and Regulus had gone: the main room of the bank.

There were four robbers in total, all armed with guns. They clutched bags full of money and yelled things like “Nobody move!” The robbers had their guns pointed at the hostages they’d gathered – tellers, workers, and people who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The victims sat on the ground, cowering and pitiful as they tried not to set the robbers off.

“We need to wait for Cissy and Andy,” Regulus hissed, not taking his eyes off the scene in front of them.

“Unless things heighten,” Sirius agreed.

Even through their differences and arguments, teamwork was so heavily pushed by Cygnus, Orion, and Walburga that it allowed them to move together seamlessly. They were all working parts in a machine, all too aware that they were responsible for each other. If Narcissa broke a glass, they would all scramble to clean up the mess before anyone could notice, even if they’d been at each other's throats the second before. If Regulus tripped during a training exercise, Sirius would immediately ram into him, forcing the Black seniors to blame it on him instead of Regulus, effectively throwing the competition. They were a tight-knit group, always breaking and regrowing around each other, a volatile and complicated mess with short fuses and bruised knees and split lips.

The passing minutes were filled with demands from the robbers, though it seemed as if the situation had hit a plateau in urgency.

Finally, after what felt like forever, Narcissa and Andromeda appeared from the dark maw of the hallway, cheeks flushed from the effort of getting Andromeda inside.

Without waiting for discussion, Narcissa slammed an illusion over the hall of the bank, casting them all in a deep darkness. Bellatrix couldn’t even see her hand in front of her face, that’s how dense the blackness was.

“What the fuck?” came a chorus of upset cries from the robbers. Various other mutterings joined the cry, but they all boiled down to complete and utter confusion.

Bellatrix could feel Sirius next to her as he transformed into a dog, his fur brushing against her. As a dog, his senses were heightened, and he nudged Bellatrix through the darkness with his cold nose, guiding her toward where the robbers ran around like chickens with their heads cut off, lost in the darkness.

She could feel the pulse of electricity running through the building.

She closed her eyes – muscle memory more than anything – and pulled the electrical current towards her, wrapping it around her hands until she had energy crackling around her fists. The buzz of it was low and droning – though she could always hear the electrical current, it was louder when she harnessed it, finally at a volume where other people could hear it as well. If Narcissa hadn’t washed the place in shadows, Bellatrix would’ve been able to see the yellow sparks swirling around her fingertips, ready to zap anyone she touched.

Sirius did his best to avoid brushing against her hands, not wanting to get electrocuted. They'd made that mistake before during training once.

He stopped her in front of one of the robbers. Even without the sensitive senses of a dog, Bellatrix was able to hear the man. He breathed loudly as he panicked, each shuddering breath in and each rattling breath out reverberating through the room.

Narcissa lifted the darkness as fast as she’d cast it.

He was facing her.

“Boo,” Bellatrix said, more for fun than anything.

The man shrieked, and she slapped her hand over his mouth, cradling the back of his head with her free hand so he couldn’t get away, silencing his pained screams as she electrocuted him. The current moved through his body at the speed of light, making him spasm and twitch under her touch.

A few seconds and it was over. The man crumpled to the ground, dead.

Then the other three robbers trained their guns on her, eyes wide with warning and revulsion.

“Are we gonna shoot a kid?” one of the robbers demanded, looking at the others frantically.

“That’s not a kid, that’s a fucking freak,” the second robber shouted.

The third clicked off the safety.

Sirius stepped in front of her, a low growl rumbling in his throat as Bellatrix laughed and laughed. He barked in warning as another safety clicked off.

A wall suddenly materialized in front of them.

“The hell?” the second robber said. Experimentally, he fired his gun off three times, and Bellatrix barely managed to duck before the bullets sailed over her head.

Narcissa must’ve made it seem as if the bullets hit the brick wall, because the third robber demanded, “How the fuck did a wall get here?”

Sirius didn’t wait for them to fire again. He leaped through the illusion of the wall, shattering it, and tackled one of the robbers onto the ground.

At the same time, Regulus Apparated in, the brick he’d broken the window with clutched in one hand, and he brought it down hard against the second robber’s head, knocking him out before he could shoot Sirius. She could see a smear of blood when he lifted the brick up, and drops of it splattered onto the ground around them.

Bellatrix ran for the other guy, jumping on his back before he could pull Sirius off his friend. She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding tight as he tried to shake her off.

The front doors slammed open, courtesy of Andromeda, and the girl ran by without stopping to help the hostages up, Narcissa on her heels.

The boys were both fighting the same guy now that Regulus had taken out the other robber, but Bellatrix didn’t have the energy to focus on them right now. She concentrated the electricity around her fingertips again, risking letting go with one hand to reach for his gun, shocking him as she wrestled with his hand for it. With a pained yelp, he dropped the gun, and it clattered against the floor.

He bent over to pick it up, simultaneously throwing Bellatrix over his head and onto the ground with as much force as he could muster. Hot panic coursed through her as everything went blurry, and then she was tossed sideways in the air, moved by the familiar feeling of Andromeda’s powers. She would’ve landed on her neck if Andromeda hadn’t saved her. Instead, she managed to twist in the air, using the time Andromeda had granted her to move so she could land on her side instead. The landing hurt, but it could’ve been worse. Bellatrix slid against the smooth marble, scrambling up to her feet when she could get a grip on the floor once more.

She watched as Sirius, back in human form, ripped the gun away from the last remaining robber, struggling for it. Right as he was about to turn the weapon onto the man, the tip of a blade blossomed from his stomach. Bellatrix looked over to see Narcissa’s arm still outstretched, a smug grin on her face.

“I was going to do that, Narcissa,” Sirius complained, his voice loud in the silence of the bank.

The last of the hostages scrambled out the front door, not bothering to look back at the children. They'd done it. They'd won their first fight.

Bellatrix remembered the feeling of victory so well. The pride that she’d done something that made Cygnus, Orion, and Walburga proud, the knowledge that she’d done something worthwhile. There were more fights after that, but they all paled in comparison to the glorious feeling of that first victory.

A thick mist had started mere minutes before the funeral did, making everyone cold and miserable. They grabbed the umbrellas from out of the closet, but the mist was determined to get them wet regardless, and the fine droplets still managed to get everywhere. A deep cold rooted itself in Sirius’ bones and he could hardly feel his toes.

Sirius buried the lower half of his face into the scarf Lily had knit him, the one Remus had forced him to wear this morning. A fresh wave of gratefulness washed over him as the scarf was the only thing keeping his neck and face warm. Water droplets clung to the fabric, but they didn’t seep into it, not like they were seeping into Remus’ sweater.

The air smelled fresh and damp.

He shivered slightly, lower lip trembling as though he were about to start crying. His teeth chattered against one another, and the sound rattled through his skull, loud and droning.

Druella was the only one among them who didn’t look cold, but robots were unable to feel temperature, so that made sense. He was jealous of her ability to be unaffected by the weather. Narcissa had still encouraged her to put a jacket on despite that fact, and now the two women were huddled together under the same umbrella, with Narcissa’s arm wrapped around Druella’s as if that would keep them both warm.

Sirius eyed the point of contact, recalling how desperately Narcissa sought out a mother’s love throughout their youth. She’d even called Druella Mum or Maman sometimes, a fact that pierced him a little to remember. Regulus, too, had called Druella that occasionally, though he never knowingly did it in front of Sirius. Sirius had only overheard him do that a couple of times, but he knew better than to say anything, filing that information away for later in case he needed to poke at a sore spot.

He was quite cruel, he realized, as a boy, though he never truly meant it. Cruelty was a learned defense, something he’d developed to keep his heart from getting stepped on, and it was only after willingly attempting to unlearn it that it stopped being his first choice of weapon. Still, sometimes he defaulted to it; every time someone raised their voice, he was sixteen again.

It was strange to think of himself that way. He'd come so far only to end up back at the Black Manor still, never quite able to escape the gravitational pull of that fucking black hole.

It didn’t help that Regulus looked young again. Though he was physically eighteen, he looked similar enough to his sixteen-year-old self for Sirius to nearly confuse the two. It was as if he’d blinked and been transported back in time.

Regulus had changed out of the ridiculously large clothes he’d shown up in, slipping into jeans and a sweater he must’ve dug out from the back of his closet. They were faded, and Sirius could smell the dust they’d no doubt been covered in when Regulus walked by him.

Sirius didn’t really know how to feel about Regulus’ return.

He was happy that Regulus hadn’t died, of course. Happy that there was some semblance of an explanation for his sudden disappearance. But the circumstances surrounding the entire situation felt strange. Something was wrong. He might not have seen Regulus for quite some time, but he was still in tune with him enough to know the future Regulus had gone to wasn’t good to him, whatever that meant.

He didn’t know just how bad it was, but he could tell something was wrong with it even beyond the “it’s shit” comment.

It was the way Regulus refused to talk about it that tuned him in on the matter. He carefully skirted around describing it. If Regulus just wanted to be petty, he would’ve never brought it up in the first place. He would’ve shut down Narcissa’s question instead of vaguely answering it, opting for silence rather than crypticness.

Sirius’ only guess was that maybe one of them died.

Quite honestly, his first thought went to Bellatrix, and he had a sudden image of this being her funeral instead of Orion and Walburga’s. He didn’t know why – Bellatrix had never been one for drugs, so it wasn’t as if she would overdose, and he didn’t suspect her to be suicidal, though after the terrible day this had already been, he wouldn’t blame her. But it was always Bellatrix who seemed the most reckless out of all of them, so his thoughts inevitably went there, picturing her mangled body laid out in a casket in front of them. He blinked, clearing away the image.

Andromeda and Narcissa, they were healthy, and they were living good lives.

Sirius, too, was doing alright for himself.

He supposed freak accidents could happen any time, though.

Maybe it wasn’t one of them dying that made it so bad. Maybe Regulus was just a dramatic little bitch who wanted to torture them with the fear of what tomorrow may bring.

But he couldn’t shake the worry.

He'd already called and told Remus about all the new updates, making sure to include that he now owed Sirius a pound per their bet earlier that morning. Remus laughed, but Sirius could hear the strain in his voice; he almost hated Sirius’ family more than Sirius himself did. He knew Remus was worried about him and what being here would do to him, but Sirius was quick to assure him that everything was fine and there was nothing and nobody here that he couldn’t handle.

Remus had been ecstatic to hear the news about Regulus. The two were never able to meet before, but he knew all too well the grief that had wrecked Sirius when Regulus disappeared, and he was happy to hear that Regulus was alright.

He shared Sirius’ suspicions, though.

Regulus was more on edge than Sirius remembered him ever being. The tight lines of shoulders and the twist of his scowl, coupled with an ever-growing impatience, told Sirius that Regulus had something to do here. He came back for a reason.

However, he didn’t believe Bellatrix’s theory – that Regulus killed Orion and Walburga. It didn’t make sense. Besides, it was also impossible. Narcissa was adamant that the coroner’s report deemed them to have died due to a heart attack, and Sirius was inclined to believe that the death looked natural enough to pass as that. He also didn’t believe that Bellatrix had killed them either. Neither Regulus nor Bellatrix lacked a dramatic flair, and if they killed the pair, they would’ve made sure it was more obvious than this. Bellatrix would want the credit; Regulus would want the honor.

No, his running theory was still Druella, but he knew better than to try voicing that again. Narcissa had practically jumped down his throat the last time he brought it, but he couldn’t see what was so improbable about it.

Cygnus, Orion, and Walburga had treated Druella terribly throughout the children’s entire youth. It would make sense if she wanted revenge. Something could’ve gone wrong in her coding or something could’ve clicked in robot-brain, and she could’ve killed them. She was programmed to know everything; Sirius didn’t doubt that she could’ve made it look as though they’d died from natural causes.

He felt as if he was thinking in circles, though, like a broken record always reciting the same song over and over. There had to be more, something that could give them more information. People just don’t drop dead at the same time. Especially people as hated as Orion and Walburga Black.

Looking at Druella now, he tried to search for any malice behind her gentle smile and doe eyes. She turned her gaze to him, cheeks flushed from artificial blush, and said, “Are you alright, dear?”

“I’m fine, Druella,” Sirius said tightly.

Narcissa shot him a glare. In the drizzling rain, she looked like the angels from those old paintings – blonde and pale and fuzzy from the mist, eyes piercing and swimming with depth and quiet intellect. Sirius wondered what her husband, Lucius Malfoy, thought of all this bullshit.

Was he happy his wife was free from them all? Was he worried for her to be here? Did he try and accompany her like Remus tried to come along with Sirius?

“What are doing outside?” Druella continued. “It’s rainy – surely you’re all cold and miserable. Why can’t we be inside?”

Narcissa squeezed her arm. “Walburga and Orion died. We're outside for their funeral.” She was gentle with Druella, tiptoeing as if she might hurt her nonexistent feelings.

“Oh, that’s right,” Druella said, nodding to herself.

Sirius shot Narcissa a wide-eyed look, which she huffed at, rolling her eyes. He turned to Andromeda then, eyebrows raised in an are you seeing this? way. Andromeda just frowned and shook her head, mouthing, “Stop.”

He rolled his eyes but looked away, annoyed to be chastised like a child.

Kreacher came forward, his head bowed in grief, holding both urns in his snarled hands. Sirius didn’t know how Kreacher had come to be at the Black Manor. But even beyond that, he didn’t know what compelled Kreacher to stay. It wasn’t as if he was paid – at least, not that Sirius was ever able to tell. And it wasn’t as if he was appreciated – the only one of them who was remotely benevolent towards him was Regulus, but that always came across so wrong when Sirius said it that way. The truth was this: Kreacher was only ever nice to Regulus, so of course the boy reciprocated the kindness. The other children were tolerated by the housekeeper, not adored, so it wasn’t as if Kreacher wasn’t asking for the rude treatment.

Sirius was a big fan of the “hit me and I’ll hit you harder” approach to life, something he knew Bellatrix stuck to as well. Narcissa and Andromeda always thought Kreacher was just creepy.

It was silent.

“Does anyone want to speak?” Andromeda asked, glancing around at the others.

Sirius pressed his lips into a thin line; he couldn’t think of anything worse than trying to give the two a polite send-off. Cygnus, Orion, and Walburga haunted him long before they were dead, and now with them all being nothing more than memories, he found he didn’t quite care to uphold the carefully constructed image of the ever-loyal and adoring child.

“I’ll speak,” Bellatrix said.

This ought to be good.

Bellatrix propped up her umbrella by pinching it between her head and her shoulder, holding her freed hands out for the urns. Cautiously, Kreacher handed the boxes over, eyeing her warily.

They watched in silence as Bellatrix opened both urns one by one, revealing the ashes settled within them.

She leaned over the urns, a grin twitching at her mouth that she tried to suppress.

“Fuck. You.”

Bellatrix punctuated each word by spitting into one urn and then the other, malice and mania glinting in her eyes.

They all watched her warily, but none of the others protested, not even Andromeda, surprisingly.

“You disrespect my mistress?” Kreacher cried, voice shrill and cracking. “You nasty, ungrateful girl. Oh, if my mistress could see this. Traitors upon traitors under her roof, soiling her name with their disgrace.”

“Quiet, Kreacher,” Bellatrix snapped, her mouth pinched tightly and muscles taut, anger clearly sparking from the comments.

“Nasty, ungrateful girl. Traitors upon traitors among Kreacher. Oh, if his mistress could see him now,” Kreacher repeated in a quiet hiss. He knew damn well what Bellatrix had meant by “quiet”.

“You’ll do as you’re told and be quiet, Kreacher,” Sirius snapped, his patience running thin from the emotionally taxing day.

“Yes, of course, Master Sirius,” Kreacher said, bowing his head reluctantly, hate painted across his elfish features. “Kreacher lives to serve the noble and most ancient Black Academy.”

“You need not order him around,” Regulus snapped.

“Did you hear how he was speaking about us?” Sirius demanded. “If it escaped your notice, he thinks we’re all traitors, even you, Reg.”

“He’s free to have an opinion.”

“He’s being rude about it, though!”

“Bella did spit in their urns while saying ‘fuck you’ to purposefully disrespect them.”

“Oh, like you wouldn’t if you had the chance,” Sirius snarled. Narcissa closed her eyes – he could see it out of the corner of his eye.

“Give me one of those,” Regulus demanded, holding his free hand out to Bellatrix without breaking eye contact with Sirius.

“Reg,” Andromeda said softly, but the word held little weight, and it was more like she was just trying to clearly separate herself from the situation and emphasize her disapproval.

Bellatrix wordlessly handed him Orion’s urn, pure delight on her face at the way the funeral was going.

Regulus took the urn and smashed it to the ground, sending ashes flying up in a dark gray cloud. The spilled ashes quickly grew damp from the rain, starting to stick together in clumps almost instantly. “Is that what you wanted to do, Sirius?” he snapped. “Does that makeup for your terrible fucking life?”

“Dramatic prick,” Narcissa muttered, quickly followed by a light slap on the wrist by Druella for using foul language.

“Yeah, it does make me feel a little better about it,” Sirius fired back, yelling over the tail-end of Narcissa’s sentence.

“Oh, go fuck yourself, Sirius, you’re not the only one who’s had a hard life!” Regulus snarled. “Being Number One always did give you such a huge fucking ego, and I never missed it once. God, I’ve never met anyone with a complex as bad as yours. It’s like you think you’re the epitome of tragedy when surprise! You left before any of us ever did, which means you had two years without all their bullshit, and yet you still insist you’ve had it the worst.”

“I’ve never fucking claimed to be the only one with a hard life,” Sirius started.

“That’s true,” Bellatrix cut in, never quite able to keep her mouth shut.

“Shut the fuck up, Bella,” Sirius and Regulus said at the same time, still not looking away from one another.

“Go on,” Regulus insisted. “Do something brash and rude that’ll make everyone even more pissed off at you. Destroy Walburga’s urn. Spit in it, like Bella did. Make a scene since that’s all that you’re good at.”

“How about I say something?” Narcissa interrupted.

Finally, Sirius and Regulus looked away from one another, the fire slowly fading from their gazes. A quick glance from Regulus suggested that this wasn’t over yet, though, and Sirius couldn’t help the twist in his gut at the mixed feelings of finally having this back. Of having Regulus in front of him once again.

Sirius had missed him a lot, that much he knew. And that included every part of their relationship – all the hostile snarls and the broken glass and the silent apologies and the hits taken for one another. They were always bruising one another and then icing the wounds side by side, shoulders pressed together. Every landed punch was like a self-inflicted wound, and they both ended up hurt even if only one of them had physical proof of it. Regulus was able to cut Sirius in a way that no one else could, in a way that no one else dared to, and the opposite was true as well; Sirius knew exactly where to make Regulus bleed where it would hurt the most. Time hadn’t managed to change that.

In a way, they were raised to be like this.

They were named Number One and Number Two respectively, and it would always define them no matter how hard they tried to pull away from it. They were always supposed to battle it out until the end of the world. Sirius wanted to keep his title; Regulus wanted to prove he was more than just the runner-up. This was the root of it all. This was always the root of it all.

“Fine,” Regulus muttered, always easily persuaded by Narcissa, even after all these years. It was like nothing had changed.

“Cygnus, Orion, and Walburga deserve to rot in hell more than anyone I’ve ever met,” she declared. “They bought us like we were commodities – not because they wanted us, but rather because they wanted to study us like lab subjects. They pushed us to our limits just to see what it would be like when we broke. They pitted us against each other mercilessly. Shit, they stopped hitting us in the face for the most part once we’d started getting onto magazine covers because they didn’t want their real personalities revealed. A fucking robot and an elf were better to us than they ever were.”

She paused.

“But, in a sick and deluded way, I think they loved us.”

The sentiment was so ridiculous that Sirius had to laugh. “No the fuck they didn’t.”

“Walburga cried when you left,” she said, which was the wrong thing to stay, not that she could’ve known.

“You want to be loved so desperately that you’ll make something up to feel better about yourself, Cissy!” Sirius knew he’d fucked up when he saw her face drop, suddenly blank, as she locked her emotions away, but he’d already dug his claws in. “No, I don’t think they loved us, because I’m not insecure enough to need their approval still. I don’t look back and try and find places where Walburga smiled at me just to prove that somebody somewhere loved me, not when I’ve found a better life for myself on the other side.”

“You think I wanted to be loved by those sick bastards? Their love was a sickening, heavy thing, something toxic and rotten that poisoned us all. You think I really want that?”

“Yes, I do, because you’ve always been able to excuse awfulness if it meant preserving the minuscule goodness you can find,” Sirius snapped.

Narcissa flinched as if he’d struck her across the face, her mask slipping, and her arms came to wrap around her body protectively.

“Don’t fucking talk to her like that,” Regulus snarled, stepping in front of Narcissa.

“I’m being honest,” Sirius defended, but he knew how weak that sounded. Truth be told, he regretted saying anything at all, but it was too late to back down now.

“No, you’re being mean,” Andromeda said, moving to untangle Narcissa from Druella so she could wrap her arms around her. The hug was awkward, and Narcissa seemed vaguely sickened by the display of affection, but she didn’t pull away.

Bellatrix shook Walburga’s ashes around in the urn, clearly bored of the argument, and studied the way the soot moved.

Sirius snatched it from her hands and lobbed it as far as he could, ignoring Kreacher’s agonized wail. The ashes trailed out in the air, a banner of smokey remains that streaked across the sky before showering down onto the dirt around them. The urn itself clattered against the ground a hundred or so feet away from where they stood.

“Wow,” Regulus commented dryly.

“You did the same,” Sirius reminded him.

“I had more class with it.”

“What a great funeral, guys,” Andromeda said harshly. “Really great job everyone. You can’t even shut up long enough to pretend you’re mourning.”

“In my defense,” Bellatrix said, “you invited us to speak once the funeral started. Otherwise, I would’ve stayed quiet.”

“Sure you would’ve,” Regulus snorted.

“Let’s go inside, dear,” Druella said to Narcissa, smiling at her kindly.

Narcissa nodded numbly, pulling away from Andromeda and allowing Druella to lead her inside, leaning into the robot’s side as they walked. Andromeda watched her walk away, longing and despair swimming in her eyes.

“I don’t think she likes you very much anymore,” Bellatrix commented in a sing-song tone, smirking at Andromeda as she skipped after Narcissa and Druella like a young girl.

“Fuck you both,” Andromeda said, whirling around to snap at Sirius and Regulus.

Both boys held up their hands in a display of mock innocence, looking like reflections of each other.

“No,” she continued, “you guys can’t just pretend that you didn’t do anything. You caused a scene like you always used to. Stop it. Stop being so mean. Everyone here is hollow – you don’t have to shout and shout about things we all already know. Arguing’s pointless. They’re dead, and the graceful thing to do is to just move on.”

Sirius studied Andromeda. Her eyes were sharp, pupils dilated in anger, and the fierce shine of them finally made him realize that something had been missing from her the entire time. She’d grown softer. Gentler. Kinder. She no longer sizzled with a quiet warning, and no longer seemed as threatening as she used to be when she was younger.

And now she was talking about the “graceful thing” to do.

The change in Andromeda was subtle enough, almost like it was something she’d earned and still fought to keep instead of something she’d grown into.

One glance at Regulus told Sirius that the other boy had noticed it as well.

“We’ll do better,” Regulus quickly said, ceding the argument, which immediately sparked Sirius’ interest. That was new. He was planning something, playing at an angle that he knew would get her off their backs.

Notably, though, he didn’t apologize. That was just too unlike him for it to be believable; Andromeda would’ve been able to see right through him, just like Sirius was doing right now.

“Yeah,” Sirius said, following Regulus’ lead. “Sorry, Andy.”

She nodded, her lips pressed into a thin line. “I’ll see you both back here tomorrow, yeah? We need to divide the things in the house, now, and figure out the wills. And Reg, if you need somewhere to sleep, just come and find me – I've gone an extra bedroom.”

“I’ll figure it out,” Regulus promised her.

They stood side by side, silent, watching Andromeda retreat into the house, not moving until the door swung short behind her.

Sirius let out an explosive sigh. “Nice lying.”

Regulus flicked an unimpressed look towards him.

They were silent.

“Do you want to get a drink?” Sirius asked, not quite knowing what else to do.

Regulus lifted his wrist, pulling back his sleeve to check a watch that looked suspiciously like a watch that had belonged to Orion once upon a time. “Yeah, I’ve got time for that.”