Discoveries
‘OK, so what next?’
They were sitting at the long kitchen table, parchment and books spread around them. Sirius had finally finished going through the various papers he had found in the study. Although his father had died in 1979 and seemed to have spent his final months preoccupied with the defences the house still boasted, Walburga had remained faithful until the end and they had hoped to find something of interest. However, the findings were paltry: a few lists of names - people present at meetings that had taken place at the house, dates scrawled on scraps of parchment, but nothing particularly revelatory. They had been more successful at locating the displaced library books, finding everything bar the first two they had noticed missing, and Remus remained hopeful that it meant they were likely somewhere in the house.
‘Well, the cellar, I guess,’ said Sirius, gesturing towards the damaged door as he scanned through one of their newspaper clippings for the thousandth time. It was the one about the sighting in Croatia - Remus thought he could probably recite it by heart.
‘And your rooms -’ Remus said, watching cautiously for a reaction.
Sirius rubbed his eyes and sighed. ‘Yes,’ he said, without looking up.
‘I can do it, if you want,’ Remus offered, ‘I know there are some bad memories - I can be in and out, no problem-’
Sirius looked up then, his mouth tight. ‘No,’ he said, after a pause, ‘no, I need to do it. I'm being stupid. They're just rooms.’
Remus held his gaze for a moment. They're not just rooms, he wanted to say, they're the rooms your parents shut you in for days on end, rooms in which they hurt you and left you afraid, rooms in which you held your little brother while he wept. Instead, he reached a hand across the table, resting it atop the one Sirius was using to pick at the ragged edge of the newspaper clipping.
‘Cellar first then?’ he said.
Sirius nodded, gratefully.
‘We should give Kreacher a heads up.’
Sirius rolled his eyes, but nodded again. ‘Kreacher?’ he called.
There was a crack and Kreacher appeared, looking sullen. The tepid enthusiasm he had shown during Harry’s stay had waned despite Remus’ best efforts and he seemed to spend most of the day creeping around the house, slowly repatriating many of the horrible heirlooms they'd tried to pack away. Sirius’ attitude towards him was still mostly one of disdain, but Remus had been adamant they should not isolate him further. ‘He’s a product of his environment, Sirius,’ he'd said, ‘we, more than anyone should be able to understand that. Besides, he was here that whole time…’
‘We’re going to do some more clearing -’ Sirius began.
‘Restoring,’ Remus said.
‘Er - yeah, some more restoring, downstairs in the cellar. Get it back to it's er - original glory,’ Sirius said, ‘I just wanted to let you know - I know your er - space is through there under the boiler…’
‘We won't disturb it,’ Remus added.
Kreacher narrowed his eyes, the way he always did when Remus addressed him, but said nothing.
‘Ok - great -’ Sirius said, rising from the table and tidying the parchment into a pile. ‘No time like the present.’
They descended the stone staircase, passing Kreacher’s cupboard on the way down, Remus lit his wand, sending orbs of light down before them to hover just below the ceiling, highlighting the blackened stain that hung above a rusted cauldron. A long workbench lined two walls and was covered with bottles, vials and measuring cylinders that glinted dully under a thick layer of dust between piles of unidentifiable substances that Remus supposed had once been ingredients. There was no doubt it was a potions lab.
‘Was this always down here?’ he asked, pulling open a drawer that hung beneath the workbench, revealing a selection of cutting implements, now blunt with neglect.
‘No,’ said Sirius, turning slowly on the spot, taking in the scene. ‘I mean, I never came down here but neither did anyone else. The house elves used it, for cleaning and storage, this is -’ he turned to the bench, lifting a bottle to examine its label, ‘this is Regulus' work.’ He turned the vial towards Remus, the neat handwriting on the label unmistakable as the same hand he had seen in the library ledger.
‘What do you think he was doing down here?’
Sirius picked up a stray sheet of parchment, blowing the dust off it in a great cloud that glittered under the artificial wand light. He examined it for a moment, but put it back down, moving along the table. Remus watched him for a second, turning away to open another drawer, this one stuffed with notebooks and sheets of paper. He slid one out - it was an old exercise book, the Hogwarts crest on the front - and flipped it open.
‘These are filled with notes -’ he said, ‘- it's too dark down here though, we'll have to take them upstairs to go through them.’
Sirius didn't respond and Remus looked up to find he had sunk, silently onto the dusty stool that stood beside the cauldron, knuckles white as he gripped it's grimy edge.
‘Sirius?’ he tried, tentatively, voice soft.
Sirius shook his head, eyes fixed on the cauldron's depths.
‘Ok, it's ok,’ Remus said, ‘back upstairs I think. Come on. I'll bring these papers up and you can look through them.’
Very gently, he unfolded Sirius' fingers, taking both hands in his own and pulling him up from the stool. He turned him, almost pushing him towards the stairs, back up to the kitchen and into the daylight. He sat him down at the bench, turning to put the kettle on, and when he turned back found Sirius with his head in his hands. He silently made the tea, placing two mugs on the table, and sitting down across from him, waiting.
‘I’m sorry,’ said a small voice beneath hands and hair.
‘It’s OK,’ Remus said. He meant it, but Sirius never seemed to believe it, ‘it’s not nice down there. Listen, when you're ready I'll go and grab those papers and we can have a look through them. The rest of it looks pretty disastrous anyway, we'll have to dispose of those substances, goodness knows what they once were -’
Sirius nodded, raising his head and Remus could see the damp streak glistening on his cheek.
Remus returned to the cellar and brought back with him the entire drawer of paper, plus the loose sheets of parchment that littered the table. Some were illegible, rotted by plant matter or spills, but he piled them up anyway and delivered them to the kitchen, placing them beside Sirius without expectation. Then he descended once more with a sack and a pair of dragon hide gloves. He began with anything clearly decaying or dead, methodically moving unbroken glassware to one side. He examined a stained cutting board, wondering if he could Scourgify it, but changed his mind and chucked it in the sack along with several cracked flasks and anything that still had something revolting stuck to the bottom of it. He lifted the lid of a large wooden box which contained what looked like the remnants of dried beetles, neatly divided, but ruined by damp. He heaved it across the table, silently lamenting the waste of expensive ingredients, to empty it into the sack. He turned back, replacing it with a thunk and caught a glimpse of something sticking up between the table and the wall. It was a book: pages splayed, as if it had been propped open before slipping down. He ducked under the table and wiggled it free, the spine cracking as he eased it closed.
It was the potions book from the library catalogue - the cover was faded and damp but Remus could make out the author's name in peeling letters on the spine. Hurriedly he gathered up anything else obviously putrid or beyond repair, stuffing them into the sack and hoisting it over his shoulder, making his way back up to the kitchen.
‘Look!’ he said, emerging from the staircase to find Sirius had managed to make a start on the drawer, ‘Moste Potente Potions.’
‘Secrets if the Darkest Art,’ Sirius responded, picking up a thick dark volume from the table beside him and waving it casually. ‘It was in the drawer. It’s full of mould though - stinks.’
‘Ah, great,’ said Remus, coming to sit down. ‘What about the rest of this stuff?’ He put a hand into the drawer, pulling out a notebook and flicking through the pages, ‘this is just a school book, look, Slughorn, sixth year.’
‘Yeah,’ said Sirius, gesturing to a matching book, open in front of him, ‘it’s all potions notes - some from school, some from - afterwards -’
Remus watched as Sirius turned the pages of the exercise book, his hand, gently smoothing each neatly lettered sheet.
‘He was really good at potions,’ Sirius said, quietly.
Remus turned back to the library books, picking up Moste Potente Potions, and allowing it to fall open to the page at which it had been stuck behind the table. The pages were yellowed and speckled with damp, stuck to the ones either side. He peeled them apart carefully.
‘Draught of Living Death, Drink of Despair,’ he read, ‘lovely.’
Sirius looked up, peering over at the book. ‘Draught of Living Death is reasonably accessible - let me see -’ he turned the book round, peering down at the list of ingredients, ‘- yeah this isn’t the recipe in Advanced Potion Making - look, death cap - this would kill you…’ He paused to read the opposite page, brow furrowing, ‘Merlin, this one looks nasty too. Was this the book Harry knew about?’
‘Yeah,’ said Remus, ‘maybe we should’ve pushed that one.’ He picked up the other book, turning it in his hands. The cover was wet through and when he opened it, black mould blossomed across the pages, obscuring swathes of old-fashioned text. He tried to carefully peel them apart, but the first page took half of the next with it.
‘Damn,’ he muttered, fumbling for his wand, ‘turgeo’, he said lightly, angling it carefully, beginning to syphon moisture from the book, ‘I think we might need to let this one dry out on its own.’ He carried it over to the sun-soaked windowsill, spreading out a tea towel to lay it on and turned back to the table where Sirius was still turning the pages of the potions book.
‘Polyjuice Potion,’ he said, indicating the page, ‘remember when we found out that existed…’
‘Ok so this is the plan,’ James was grinning over the cauldron which was bubbling horribly as he carefully stirred in the lacewing flies he'd scattered across its surface, ‘we’ll all take a cup, drop in a hair and pass to the right, and then -’
‘Wait, no, pass left,’ Sirius said, cutting James off, ‘I want to be Moony.’
‘I don't know if we should do this,’ Remus started, suddenly horrified at the idea of Sirius inside his body, ‘why are we doing this?’
‘Fun,’ said James.
‘To see if we can,’ said Sirius.
‘I’m not even sure if this is going to work on me -’
‘Oh come on Moons, we've been planning this for over a month, it'll be fine - don't you want to know what it's like to be someone else?’
All the time, Remus thought.
He sighed, looking round at their expectant faces, and reached up to yank out a few of his own hairs, dropping them into the cup James was offering him. It bubbled as they dissolved and turned a dark yellow colour, smooth, not unlike honey.
‘Woah, Moony’s looks delicious,’ said Sirius, winking at him as he dropped in his own. His potion fizzed slightly and turned a shimmering dark blue, he smiled, ‘Oh, nice - James do yours, bets on for bright red with gold streaks?’
James’ potion let out a little squelch as bubbles popped across its surface. It was red, but not like the Gryffindor banner that hung above his bed. It was a deep burgundy colour with a slight haze rising from it.
‘Concerning,’ Sirius smirked. James shrugged, and turned to Peter, nodding for him to take his turn. Peter followed suit, his potion marginally slower to settle, thickened into a solid dark orange.
‘Ok lads, pass to the left and bottoms up!’
It was a horrible feeling. Remus’ stomach rolled as the potion hit it, a burning sensation beginning in his centre and exploding outwards across his entire body. He doubled over, catching sight of Sirius to his left doing the same, he could feel his joints cracking as his limbs shortened, his skin stretching over his new form. It felt nothing like his monthly transformation but at the same time - oh why had he agreed to this?
As the prickling sensation in his body ceased, he sat up, slowly and took in the others. It was odd - like looking at a spot the difference puzzle - everyone was still there, just with places switched and clothes ill-fitting, and Sirius wearing James’ glasses-
‘Hey, I think you'll be needing these Wormy,’ he said, taking them off and passing them to Peter, who now looked like James.
‘Thanks, wow you really can't see anything can you?’
Remus looked down at his own hands, now in sleeves too long. They were smaller than before, Peter’s skin softer and unblemished.
‘We're going to have to swap robes,’ said Sirius' voice behind him, and he turned to see - himself.
‘That day was chaos,’ Remus said, ‘Lily was so horrified by you flirting with her we had to tell her you were James.’
‘I loved it,’ said Sirius, ‘I got to be my favourite person.’
Remus rolled his eyes. ‘Oh stop, you mean you got to spend all day doing things to stress me out - didn't I end up with detention from-’
‘What was it like being Peter?’
‘Hmm,’ Remus said, trying to remember, ‘yeah it was definitely different. I remember thinking his body felt so - whole and so - painless? I don't know. It felt good. But then in lessons that day none of the teachers picked me when I tried to answer a question - you know they always picked me when I was me? And I wondered if it was just that day or if it was always like that for Peter-’ he tailed off. Feeling sorry for Peter wasn't really something he was in the mood for.
‘Yeah I do remember that actually, McGonagall couldn’t work out why you weren't writing everything down like usual. She kept walking past me and tapping my parchment.’
Remus bit his lip, ‘yeah, well, I wasn’t sorry we decided not to mess about with it again.’
Sirius looked at him, ‘hey - sorry I -’
Remus shook his head. He had hated that day. Hated seeing himself from the outside, hated knowing Sirius had seen him from the inside, and yet had to be grateful that it had been him and not either of the others. James and Sirius, so proud of themselves for mastering the potion, brimming with excitement, and he and Peter, carried along, keen to please. And then Sirius, that evening, after the potion had worn off: ‘you’re beautiful’, he’d whispered behind closed curtains, ‘I’ve seen all of you now, and you’re beautiful.’
*
That afternoon, in an effort to get things over with, they found themselves standing outside Sirius’ bedroom door. Remus could see his own worried reflection in the brass nameplate, and looked cautiously over at Sirius who had paused, his hand on the doorknob. Remus waited, silently beside him, until he pushed it open.
It was a large room, like all of the bedrooms at Grimmauld Place, the layout reminiscent of Harry’s room below: the large bed stood opposite the window, its velvet curtains adorned with a thick layer of dust. The walls, a silvery-grey silk, were still plastered with the posters and pictures Sirius had boasted about fixing permanently to them with the sole ambition of upsetting his parents. There were several large Gryffindor banners and pages torn from Muggle magazines, their subjects faded and frozen on the tattered paper. Remus passed Sirius, who had stopped just inside the room, his hand still on the doorknob, and pulled open the curtain that hung, half covering the window, resulting in a bright shaft of light that illuminated the glittering dust that surrounded them.
‘So this was your room,’ he said, spotting another picture, pinned to the wall over the bed, this one magical, its occupants waving and laughing at the camera. It was them, of course: Remus, James, Sirius and Peter, standing arm in arm. He reached up to it, but it was stuck fast, Sirius’ Permanent Sticking Charm remaining strong, even all these years later.
‘We Blacks,’ Sirius said in a hoarse voice, finally releasing the handle and moving into the room, ‘are known for our Permanent Sticking Charms.’
‘Heh,’ Remus coughed, half laugh, half dust, and moved over to open the drawer under the desk. It was perfectly organised: parchment neatly stacked on one side, next to a pile of envelopes and an assortment of quills and ink.
‘There’s nothing in there,’ Sirius said, crouching in front of the bedside table and reaching underneath its upper shelf, ‘she used to check the desk.’ He rummaged around and with a small click, pulled a bundle wrapped in green silk from within. He unwrapped it, laying out the contents on the bed. They were letters.
‘I didn’t know if they’d still be here - I left them behind when I ran away, I didn’t take anything -’ he muttered. ‘Some of them are yours -’
Remus moved forward, picking up a letter, recognising James’ untidy scrawl. He reached for the next, seeing his own handwriting in the purple ink he’d used at school.
‘There aren’t many,’ Sirius said, ‘she stopped my post after fourth year. I don’t think there’s anything in here - I never kept anything important at home -’
He said it so mournfully that for a moment Remus thought his heart had stopped, so heavy with the weight of Sirius’ sadness. He turned to him, wrapping his arms all the way round him, burying his face in his hair.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry, let’s leave it.’
Outside in the hall, Remus looked over at Regulus’ door and felt Sirius shudder beside him as he drew in a breath.
‘Shall we have a break?’ he said, ‘we could go home even -’
‘No,’ said Sirius, a sudden steely determination in his voice, ‘come on, let’s do it, and then let’s get out of here for a bit.’
The door was locked, but no obstacle for a pair of wizards. The furniture was almost identical; the bed, desk and wardrobe a mirror image of Sirius’, but that was where the similarities ended. Green and silver covered every surface, the walls, curtains and bedding all proudly exhibiting the colours of Slytherin and the Black family crest was painted carefully over the bed. Beneath the crest, where Regulus could have seen them every night, was a collection of ragged newspaper clippings, pinned haphazardly to the wall. Remus moved to examine them, leaning across the dusty bedspread to carefully unpin them.
‘They’re all about Voldemort,’ he said, ‘some of these are - old - from right at the beginning -’ he turned, to where Sirius was standing by the desk. The drawer was open, and in contrast to Sirius’, a mess. It was stuffed with parchment and notebooks, much like the drawer in the cellar had been. Remus watched as Sirius flipped one open, the pages covered in neat notes, line after line of writing, even the crossings-out looked as though they'd been done with a ruler.
‘We should read these, I guess,’ Remus said, coming forward to lift them out of the drawer and smoothing the loose sheets of parchment as he piled them on top of each other. Sirius nodded, moving to the bookshelf, pulling out volumes one at a time, flicking through the pages and replacing them with a clunk. His hand came to rest on a photograph in a silver frame, and Remus shifted to see what he was looking at. It was the Slytherin Quidditch team, Regulus in the centre, smiling haughtily at the camera.
‘I left him here,’ Sirius said, sudden and almost inaudible.
Remus moved beside him for a better look. The brothers had always looked strikingly similar: Regulus just a little shorter, slightly slimmer, but it was impossible to confuse them. Where Sirius’ face had always looked so open - to Remus anyway - even if he couldn't decipher the messages his emotions etched upon it, Regulus’ was the opposite. Always closed, always composed, always an air of superiority. As his parents had raised him, Remus supposed. He knew the brothers’ relationship had been complex: that they'd been inseparable as small children, that Sirius had felt responsible for them both, that the decline of their brotherhood had made Sirius feel torn in two, but if he was honest, he had never managed to understand the guilt Sirius felt. Regulus had had the same chances - hadn't he? Remus looked down at the collection of articles he still held in his hand. Had he been left behind? Or had he wanted to stay?
He left Sirius by the bookshelf and opened the wardrobe, revealing musty robes, mostly black, neatly lined up on quilted hangers. He ran his hands briefly through the pockets, and into the crevices at the back of the cupboard, but they were empty. There was nothing under the bed.
‘I’m going to take these papers to the kitchen,’ he said, watching Sirius, who was still gazing at the photograph, now perched lightly on the ottoman that stood at the end of the bed. ‘Meet you down there?’
Sirius nodded and Remus left.
He laid the journals on the kitchen table alongside the rest of the books they'd been examining and put the kettle on. As it boiled, he retrieved the book he'd placed on the windowsill. It had dried out some, the magic and the sunshine accelerating the process and the pages had begun to separate, warped and crispy. He wondered vaguely about a spell for mould removal - there must be one. Perhaps he could look it up.
*
When Sirius emerged a while later, Remus was on his fifth notebook and his third cup of tea.
‘Ok?’ he asked as Sirius settled himself at the table, reaching for the biscuit tin Remus had left open beside him.
‘Yeah, fine,’ Sirius replied, gruffly, ‘anything?’
‘Mm, maybe. There's a lot in these but not a lot that makes sense. I don't know if he's writing in a code or something, it's confusing. It looks like he was researching things - dark magic - things Voldemort wanted looking into I guess.’
‘Or maybe he was looking into Voldemort.’
Remus looked up. Sirius was gazing out of the kitchen window, a strange look on his face.
‘Mmm’, he said non-committal, ‘look here, ‘Magick Most Evile, Godelot - isn’t he the guy that died in his cellar when his son stole his wand?’
‘Huh?’
‘Isn’t that what happened? With the elder wand? You know from Beedle the Bard?’
‘The kid’s book? Walburga wasn’t much for bedtime stories Moony. What’s that got to do with dark magic?’
‘I don’t know -’ Remus tailed off, his finger running down the page. ‘I keep feeling like we almost have it, but when I look at what we’ve found, I’m not sure there’s anything here at all -’
