The Rise of the House of Black
First thing is, I had to remind myself for the hundredth time.
Be patient there, Steve-o!
Every sound beyond the door didn’t mean there were footsteps coming up the stairs. Too bad this big old house was so full of creaks and squeaks, bumps, rattles and thumps.
Patient. Got to be… patient.
Yeah, right. It’s something I should have gotten used to by now, being patient. Should probably even gotten good at it- remembering that things take time (though often much more of it than I’d like!).
So, let’s hear it, one… more… time!
Be patient!
By now, you’d think waiting would have become easier for me, wouldn’t you? I’ve had enough experience with it.
Like waiting through all the school years it took for me to learn to perfect each little detail of the animagus charm that enabled me to transform myself into a large black dog… Size of paws, length of fur, plume of tail…
Or waiting for a release from my hundreds of days pacing a narrow cell in Azkaban Prison, either by having my innocence proven, or by losing myself to madness at the slimy, scabby hands of the Dementors.
And, say? How about my fugitive days and weeks living on the run, hiding in a cave near my Godson’s school at Hogwarts? Not to mention the months waiting to return to my own time after I was tumbled backwards through a curtain into the world of a hundred-something odd years in the past.
Lots and lots of waiting.
Unfortunately, even with all that practice, I never quite mastered the art of patience.
But enough dwelling on that! Time to stop waiting and start doing! I set down my empty teacup and glanced toward the afternoon window of my sitting room. Was the sunbeam streaming in through the curtains landing on a different spot on the hardwood floor? Maybe yes, maybe no…
Okay. Realistically I did know time does pass. At least, it always had, up until now. I could, at last, perform that animagus spell and become a dog almost as quick as I can blink. It’s a useful spell. When I get overwhelmed by the constant noise and bright lights of London, I’ll sometimes use my free railway employee passes to journey out past the crowded city streets, through the suburbs to the stillness of the countryside. After leaving the train, I can slip into the deep, concealing shadows beyond the mostly sleepy platforms where nobody can see me as I make the change. Then, I spend a long, starry night running over open fields, my tail waving in the wind, before resuming my human form to catch another train back to work in the morning.
And now I knew my Godson is safe and sound. He’s not a school kid anymore. He’s come of age and is a fine young Wizard, busy reshaping his world after the defeat of old Lord Snake-Eyes. And, obviously, I made it back to the time I was born into, and am managing to live in secret as aMuggle, thanks to the months I spent over a century ago, leaning how to get by without my Wizarding Magic, under the guidance of Willow, Harry’s how-many-times Great-grandmother.
But, there was the problem.
No, I don’t mean that about living as a Muggle. I have always believed Muggles have wonderful Magics of their own, which I continued to delight in learning about. Good thing too, since I didn’t have a wand to perform most of the spells I learned at school. And, until I can get free of the shadow of Azkaban, there would be no way I could enter a Wandmaker’s shop in hopes that one waiting there would pick me.
The problem was that, while neither in Azkaban itself, nor living in a cave eating rats anymore, I still wasn’t truly free. My innocence was never proven. The murder charges against me were never officially dropped. They were only considered to have become irrelevant because, after I fell through that curtain, two-plus years ago, I was presumed to be dead.
Maybe I was no longer precisely on the run, but my life seemed to have walls of limitations around it, or had been caught in a sort of petrifying charm, with no clear way of breaking loose from it.
I’d spent more time on my own back in those fugitive days than in these more recent ones, but I’d become aware of how oddly lonely my life still was, not safe to move freely in either the Wizarding or Muggle world.
Even with all of Willow’s help, there were gaps in my Muggle Magic education. She couldn’t teach me about light switches, telephones or programs on the telly, because much of it didn’t exist yet in the time I lived with her. So, I had to live quietly on the edge of my workaday world, never mixing in too much with my colleagues, in case my ignorance would raise questions I couldn’t answer.
At the same time, while the people that mean the most to me knew what name I was going by, and how to contact me, I couldn’t meet with them openly in the places that were part of my life before Lord Snake-Eyes’ servant, that sneaky rat, Peter Petigrew, blew it all to pieces.
I wanted to enjoy a good butter beer or three with my friend Remus at the Three Broomsticks, share a leisurely supper at the Leaky Cauldron with Harry, or take Hessia Nightingale for a ginger ice at Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour. Maybe take her lots of places that had no longer had to do with fighting Dark Magic. But Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley or any of those Wizarding hangouts, were too risky- both for me and for them. If I was recognized, I could land myself back in dear old Azkaban, and my companions right alongside me, for helping, or hiding, a wanted fugitive.
Of course, Muggle London held lots of places to share a drink, to have dinner, share ice cream or just walk with a pretty Witch. But there would be the knowledge that, even walking under open skies, a part of me would still living undercover in a sort of disguise.
I was getting so tired of disguises, or living my life halfway in hiding.
So, again … Patience, Steve-o. The future, any imaginable future, would have to… well you guessed it… would have to wait.
Unless someone would come forward and admit they’d seen Peter Petigrew alive after the date I was supposed to have killed him, along with a whole street full of Muggles. It was my family’s dark reputation as much as a little circumstantial evidence that made me such a nice, believable suspect for the crime. The Blacks had been such big supporters of Old Snake-Eyes, why would anyone think I was any different? Those who could have defended me at the time were in hiding… or like Harry’s parents, James and Lily, they were dead.
It didn’t matter that I had seen Peter alive after my escape from Azkaban, but who’d believe me? Remus had seen him too, that same night at the Shrieking Shack, but he’s a Werewolf. A lot of people won’t take the word of a Werewolf, especially when it’s well known we were good friends when we were school-kids together. So, who’d believe him? Harry, Ron and Hermione saw him too, during their third year at Hogwarts, but Severus Snape put it on record at the Ministry of Magic that I had laid a confounding spell on all three of them and Peter had only existed in their imaginations. Snape himself encountered Peter along with the ret of us, but he had covered that up, since he and I were far from good old school-friends. Anyway, he’s dead now and, even if he actually wanted to, he can’t take back his old testimony.
But then, not long ago, Harry told me that there was someone he knew for certain had seen Peter alive. Who even spent a fair amount of time in his company.
Someone who might just be persuaded to bear witness to it.
This morning, Harry sent me an owl saying he was going to see him…
That’s why I was still sitting here, waiting for news.
Too bad it wasn’t a work-day. Time always seemed to pass quickly while I was busy selling train tickets, helping people plan routes and directing them toward the correct platforms. And all the clocks at the railway station worked. They had to. Must keep the trains running on time, right?
The wall-clock in my little upstairs London flat here must have fallen prey to that petrifying charm I was talking about. Or, more likely, the cord just got knocked out of the wall socket while I was trying to pass time this afternoon by rearranging the furniture. That sure used to go a lot faster in the old days when I could use a wand to levitate it.
Still, today, even if I could do that, fast was not what I was aiming for, but distraction. And… likely, I’d been so distracted, I’d forgotten to check before I pushed the couch back against the wall, whether the clock had gotten unplugged, disconnecting it from its Magic. Fascinating things, plugs. No wonder Arthur Weasley collects them, why he is so intrigued by electricity.
Maybe I should get up and go discover whether the cord was hidden back there, dangling loose behind the couch. But if it turned out the Magic was flowing and the clock hands were moving, that would only tell me time wasn’t going as slowly as it seemed to be, and I was still only being impatient.
Harry had only been gone since when?
It didn’t matter. I hadn’t checked exactly when it was he left, so I had no way to figure out how many minutes, hours or years had passed since then, whether or not the clock was plugged in.
I needed to get up, move around instead of sitting like a piece of petrified wood. I could pace maybe. Used to do that a lot in Azkaban. How weird, that the place seemed so close around m lately, after I’d lived halfway to free for so many months. I’d had days, even whole spans of them, when I didn’t give Azkaban a single thought. Perhaps it was just that freedom- real freedom- could be so close.
No.. I wouldn’t pace. I didn’t need to feel any more closed in than I already did, without my muscles adding in their memory of what it felt like to be contained.
I drummed my fingers on the tabletop, listening to the galloping sound they made on the wood, then checked the golden sun-spot in front of the window. Again.
Was Harry talking to his witness yet? The guy’s home wasn’t that far from here, less than a mile as the owl flies. It wouldn’t take Harry long to apperate there. He was pretty good at apperating, even if he likes flying a lot better.
Would the witness agree to talk with him? He might not want to. They were never friends, any more than Severus Snape and I had been. But he did owe Harry something. A great big something.. Harry saved his life, flying him to safety when an enchanted fire erupted in the Room of Requirements at Hogwarts.
That should count for something, right?
Could he be persuaded? Draco Malfoy’s family had a reputation almost as black as…
Well as… as the…Blacks’.
No! I wouldn’t think about my family, how it has been viewed in the Wizarding world and how I had always felt trapped by its reputation! I really would get up after all, not to pace, but to make myself another hot cup of tea.
Merlin’s beard! I’d had so much tea this afternoon I could about float away, or flood my tonsils. Still, it would beat sitting here, watching my mind go round and round in circles like the hands on my wall clock weren’t doing!
Because, even if I could be cleared of those murders, and I wouldn’t have to live out my life as the railway man, Steve Burin, I knew my other choice would be to live it out as the Wizard Sirius…
Well, as Sirius Black.
Sirius Black of the House of Black.
The ancient and noble House of Black.
Yeah, right. How about the Dark Arts loving House of Black?
Nice choice, that. One I hadn’t given much thought to over the years, what with the more pressing issues of watching out for Harry, scrounging for the odd meal (and some of them were very odd indeed) or evading capture by Wizarding Law Enforcement.
Enough! Really, enough!
Rising, I went to stand at the window. The sun streamed golden on my face and for that moment, my restless impatience stilled as I drank in the warmth. Down on the street, everything looked mid-afternoon quiet and peaceful. There was no sign of Harry or anyone else I knew. Only a young, dark haired woman pushing a pram and an old gentleman walking a big yellow dog (presumably a real one!) .
I turned from the bright window. Okay, time to make that tea. Head myself off to the small kitchen and busy my hands over filling the pot from the sink’s faucet, heating the water on the red ring of the electric stove and getting one of the tidy little Muggle-made teabags out from their tin,…
Distraction… Distraction.
But even as the warming water began to murmur to itself in the kettle, my thoughts were already back at it again.
Even if Harry found Draco at home, even if he would admit he’d seen Peter alive, that he had actually had him living at his parents’ house with Old Snake-Eyes, even if he would sign a statement to that effect for the Ministry, that wouldn’t guarantee I could start planning the future I’d been catching myself daydreaming of these past few months..
Hessia Nightingale might like me just fine. She and her honey gold hair and periwinkle Medi-Wizard robes had been a rare bright spot during my Azkaban days, and later on, after my escape, we’d made something of a point of sitting next to each other when the Order of the Phoenix held its secret meetings at Grimmauld Place. I sometimes suspected that she might, possibly, even have feelings for me, like those I’d been coming to have for her, but…
But would she consider joining her life and her name to a House with such a vile reputation as that the Blacks had enjoyed (really, really enjoyed!) for years, decades and centuries? I couldn’t blame her if she didn’t want to. Or would she consider living in the Muggle world with the railway man, Stephen Burin?
Oh, Merlin, Merlin! All these pointless questions! Cut it out and pour your tea! Sometimes I could be such a bore!
I decided to skip the milk, and began a search for the sugar. Where had I put it, anyway? The cupboard? Not in the refrigerator again!
Then, above the rising whistle of the teakettle, I heard a loud creak out beyond my sitting room door. Hadn’t I told myself a creak or a squeak or a thump didn’t have to mean anything?
The sugar could wait. For that matter, the tea could wait, too. At least long enough for me to have a good listen. I silenced the kettle by spinning the dial for the stove’s heating ring all the way to “off”, then as its red orange glow faded to grey white and then dull black, I turned toward the door. Standing motionless, I waited.
There was another creak. An even louder one this time, and, mingling with it, was the groan of wood on wood. Then another creak, louder and closer.
No denying it. Those were the sounds of the stairs. My stairs. Had to be, since mine was the only flat at the top of the house.
And, could that be voices as well?
Yeah. No doubt about it. Both male and female voices.
I listened harder.
Was that one Harry? It sounded like him. Was he carrying my future up the stairs with him? What future would it be?
What if Draco hadn’t been home? Or refused to give evidence?
Well, I would go on as I had been, right? It hadn’t been so bad, really, except that I sometimes wished for changes in my life that weren’t hurrying my way fast enough.
So, now, instead of my usual impatience, why, suddenly were my insides so full of jittery apprehension?
Drawing a slow breath and swallowing hard to drive down the fist trying to tighten itself in my stomach, I forced my strangely reluctant feet to move across the hardwood. One step, two. Three. Almost in rhythm with the parade of creaks and groans coming up the stairs beyond my door.
I was reaching for the knob almost as the first knock sounded.
“Harry?” I began, easing the door open, and blinking into the unlit hallway beyond.
Not only Harry, I saw, as several figures took form beyond the dazzle. As I stepped back to make way for them to enter, I realized that, along with him came Remus, Ron and Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger and…
… And Hessia!
They burst into the sunny room in their bright Muggle clothes, smiling as they surrounded me. Ron thrust a large, brown canvas sack into my hands. Inside it, I could hear the musical clinking of glass on glass. “Pass this round,” he told me, as Hermione shut the door. “Butter beers for everyone!”
I didn’t have to ask if Draco had been persuaded. Even as I began fumbling with the heavy ties securing the butter beer sack, Harry began filling in the details.
“Draco’s already sent an owl to the Ministry of Magic with a signed document.” He flopped down on the couch next to Ginny. He accepted the bottles I extended to him, passed one to her, then looked up at me, his face beaming with smiles.
“My friend, Adriana’s brother,” put in Remus, leaning forward to take a bottle of his own. “Is a lawyer. You probably remember him. Julian? He was a couple of years behind us at school? Went into law? He’s working for Merryweather and Mariner now. He’ll get the paperwork registered through the Office of Magical Law Enforcement. Verify that it’s authentic, after which, all the charges against you will be formally dropped. They’ll send an owl, notifying you that…””
I could hardly take in the rest of Remus’s words. All the charges? Dropped? After all the years in prison? In hiding? Was he really saying it could all be over? All at once? In a matter of only hours?
I turned to my Godson. “Are you saying Draco Malfoy agreed? Just like that?”
“Well,” Harry’s tone was serious, though the smile seemed to have taken up permanent residence on his face. “It was kind of awkward at first. He wasn’t exactly comfortable about admitting that Peter was staying at Malfoy Manor along with Voldamort, but…”
On the couch at Ginny’s other side, Ron winced, gave a loud gasp, then grinned sheepishly and shrugged “Old habit,” he apologized over his first swallow of butter beer. “Go on, Harry, tell him the rest of it.”
Harry nodded, though there’d hardly been a break in the rapid flow of his words. “…but his Mum got very firm with him. Said it had never been much of a secret that his family had been big supporters of Voldamort, so why try to hide it now? And since they all owed me a favour after I rescued Draco, she said if this was the favour that I wanted, then I’d have it.”
“Sirius,” Remus laid a quick, stilling hand on Harry’s shoulder, then turned to me. “I think you best sit down. You look like someone who’s been hit with a bludger.”
“Here,” said Hessia. “Let me take that bag from you before you drop it.” She set it on the low table in front of the couch as Remus pressed me into the chair beside it. A moment later, she was pressing a cool butter beer into my hands, then, as I took my first, sweet sip,, she nodded to Harry to continue.
“Well,” Harry took up the tale. “He wrote down that, not only had he seen Peter Petigrew years after he was supposed to have died, he could swear Peter was missing that one finger that was all the Ministry had ever found of him after he blew up that street.”
“It matched with the toe he was missing all the years he was our family’s pet rat,” Ginny said, her voice eager.
“Yeah,” Ron’s nod was vehement. “And there’s evidence of that. Scabbers’s picture was in the Daily Prophet, remember? From when we went to Egypt?” For a moment, a look of revulsion scrunched his features into a grimace. “He was sitting, right there, on my shoulder.”
“Ron, let Harry finish!” exclaimed Hermione as she wriggled into a tight space between him and the arm of the couch. Despite her brisk tone, I saw that her hand had found its way into the one of his that wasn’t circled round the neck of his bottle.
“Yeah, I remember that!” Harry cast Ron an affirming nod. “I saw that picture. You sent it along with my birthday letter when I was thirteen.”
“I saw it too,” I said. “Cornelius Fudge came on an inspection tour of Azkaban. I told him I wanted to do the crossword, and he gave me his copy of the Prophet. That picture was on the front page. I’d seen him become a rat so often, I recognized him right off. It was seeing that picture which motivated me to make my escape from there.”
Harry paused for a swallow of butter beer before continuing. “Both of his parents signed and witnessed Draco’s statement, too,” The slanting sun caught the neck of his beer as he gestured, glinting a bright amber color.
I found my gaze following that amber sparkle as he gestured, up, down, sharper, clearer than any face, or voice in the room. Everything else became little more than a light-headed blur.
Charges… dropped? I’d really heard it, right? Charges dropped.
I was what?
Free? Completely, totally free?
Good thing I was sitting down!
I’d dreamed of this day, despaired of ever hearing those words for years, but now, it was nothing like I’d imagined it would be. I always thought I’d be shouting, jumping, dancing… reveling in the pure joy of release, but…
Instead, I was simply and completely stunned.
Close to half my life I’d been seen as a criminal. Lived with the shadow of it hanging over me, until my actual innocence was all but obscured in its darkness. Escaping, running, hiding, always with that presumption of guilt pursuing me until it worked itself into the very fiber of my being.
Now, all of that was… gone?
That idea was enough to make the room spin. Or maybe it was only my head.
The sea of faces, the blur of voices…
It was all too much.
Setting my butter beer carefully on the table with shaky hands, I staggered, a little wobble-kneed, to my feet. “I’ll be right back…” I managed, crossing the sitting room into the kitchen, with all their gazes following me through the doorway.
“Sirius?” I heard Harry’s concerned voice over the running water as I stopped before the sink and turned on the cold tap. “You okay?”
“Back in a minute,” I called, a little breathless, as I splashed cold, cold water on my face. The brisk chill of it was steadying as it began to make what was happening seem less like a dream and more solid, more real.
So… Why didn’t I want to be shouting? Singing? Dancing?
I couldn’t really be suddenly hollow inside, could I?
“You okay, Sirius?” Harry called again. There was the clunk of a bottle, likely hitting the table, followed by the drawn-out protesting creak of my couch’s worn out old springs.
“He’ll be fine,” Hessia told him. “Let’s give him a minute to take it all in. After that, I’ll go check on him,”
I turned off the tap, suddenly aware that cold water was dripping from my hair and all down the front of my shirt. Grabbing the dishtowel from where it hung on the handle of the silverware draw, I was blotting myself toward something approaching dry when Hessia stepped through the doorway.
“Here, I can take care of that for you,” she said drawing her wand from the pocket of her jeans, where it had been hidden beneath her bright blue jumper.
Dropping the towel on the counter beside the sink, I spread my hands to the sides as she murmured a quiet spell and waved her wand across the wet spots darkening my shirt. Almost before she had finished speaking, they had all disappeared. “There,” she inspected her work. “That’s better now.”
“Thanks,” I nodded my appreciation. No trace of a cold, wet spot remained.
“No problem” she said, tucking her wand back into her pocket. “Just think, you’ll be able to go to a Wandmaker’s shop now, and see which wand will choose to be your partner in Magic.”
“I will… Won’t I?” My words came with slow amazement as I remembered that long ago day when my Mother had taken me to Olivander’s for my first wand. What adventurous possibilities had opened before me as I felt my fingers circle the warm wood for the first time. It meant that, not only did I have Magic in me, but I was going to learn to be a Wizard, going to have a real part in the Wizarding World.
And now, after so many years, would I really have that again?
I searched for the smile I’d always expected to have been as wide and delighted as the one that had lighted the faces of my friends in the living room. Like the one that was fading from Hessia’s features, to be replaced with a look of concern.
“Sirius…” Her hand was light on my shoulder. “What is it? For a moment there, you looked so happy, and now… What’s happened?”
“I’m not sure how…” I began.
“How to be a Wizard again, after living so long as a Muggle?” Her voice was gentle. “It’ll come back to you, and probably won’t take long at all. It’s in your nature. It’s a part of who you are.”
As much a part of me, I realized, as my name was. As the reputation of my family had been all down the centuries, so much so that there had never been any question that, if there was Dark Magic involved, anyone named Black would be sure to be embracing it. It hadn’t mattered I was the only Black ever to be Sorted into Gryffindor. Didn’t matter that I’d been in a group that fought against Voldamort. When there was treachery, even my closest friends had questioned my innocence. For a time, when I lived in the past with Willow, or sometimes, as I worked my Muggle job at the railway, I’d known a little of what it meant to live out from under the shame that went with my family’s name.
Of course, when I was a kid, for me, the lines were clear. I was the one that was different, a hot-blooded rebel who snuck out the window to learn about those intriguing Muggles, I was a Gryffindor. Everybody at school had heard the Sorting Hat say so, right out loud in front of the whole Hogwarts Great Hall. At home, I had its bright red and gold House colours hung all over my room. And, after that, as soon as I was of age and living on my own, I had joined the Order of the Phoenix to fight the rising power of Sir Snake-Eyes Voldemort.
But now? It was a lot more murky. If I returned to the Magic that had been my birthright, no matter how I might wish it otherwise, wouldn’t I be caught beneath the shadow of that Black reputation again?
Hessia’s blue gaze was steady on my face as she waited for my answer.
“No,” I shook my head. “I’m not worried about whether I’d be able to do Magic again, or about finding a Wand willing to work with me. It’s how to live in the Wizarding world again. Not knowing how… Well, how people…”
I swallowed hard and couldn’t bring myself to use the words “ how you…”
“…how people are going to accept me after thinking of me as a criminal for so many years. A criminal from a family who produced so many Dark Wizards and who did so many cruel things. Hessia, the Black family never apologized for them, you know, they gloried in what they did. They loved the power it brought them. I never wanted that.” I could hear more than a note of anger and bitterness creeping into my voice. “I kept trying all my life to get free of it, but the minute it was suspected that there was a traitor in the Order…”
My words trailed away as her hands slipped into mine, her touch very warm against my water-chilled skin. Very comforting and, at the same time, very scary.
I didn’t want her to reassure me with sincere, even heart- felt but ultimately meaningless words like: “It’ll be all right. The people who care about you will stand by you until enough time has passed that others will begin to see…”
And yet, at the same time, I wanted very badly to hear her say them, because if she did, then it meant that she believe them. She would be one of those to stand with me, at least as a friend…
She didn’t say those words. Shrugging, she let out a long, half-exasperated sigh. “Wizards!” she exclaimed. “You can all be so… so… So stupid!”
Her words seemed to vibrate through the kitchen, though they had caused no interruption to the rise and fall of conversation pouring in from the sitting room. It took a moment to realize that it wasn’t the volume of her words resonating around me, but the vehemence of them.
“What?” Caught up in the intensity surrounding her, I stepped back and stared at her.
Had I actually heard what I thought I had? Surprise stripped all the bitterness from my words. “Did you say… stupid?”
“Yes! Stupid!” she snapped, spinning away to take a few quick steps toward the stove before turning back to glare at me. “Wizards! Both you and Remus! You think you’re so-!” She paused, gestured helplessly for the seconds it took her to find just the right words. “-so… contaminated by bad old reputations that really have nothing at all to do with who you are! Anybody that knows Adrianna can see that she’s in love with Remus. She has been, ever since we were all at school together. I don’t think she’s ever tried to make any big secret of it, either. The only person who doesn’t see it is Remus himself. He’s so concerned that he’s a terrible, awful Werewolf that he can’t even conceive how anybody could possibly love him, no matter what a good, kind person we all know he is. Be his friend? Yes, okay. He’ll let himself believe he has friends. He’ll even call Adrianna his friend, but I don’t know if he’ll ever let her really love him or let himself imagine her wanting to live with him!”
She pushed a strand of honey gold hair away from her flaming blue eyes and continued to glare at me as her hands balled themselves into fists at her sides.
“What?” I repeated, though I’d heard her perfectly well.
I wasn’t thinking straight. I knew that much. Otherwise her words would make some kind of sense to me. But too much had happened since I woke up today. I could hardly decide if that had been moments, hours or centuries ago. Maybe the day had stretched itself out too long between waiting and pacing and a thousand cups of tea. Or, perhaps so many events had crammed themselves into a few instants for me to sort them all out. Instants tumbling over me, filled with words like “charges dropped”, and “freedom”, all tangled in with a crowd of smiling faces, clinking bottles of butter beer and this surprising announcement about my old friend.
I tried to gather my thoughts. “What does Remus have to do with this?”
“Nothing!” Hessia almost shouted. There was a brief stillness beyond the door. Drawing a deep breath, she continued in quieter tones. “Nothing and… everything. You’re just as bad as he is. There’s proof now that you’re no criminal. That you’ve never been a criminal. You’re free now to either hide from the world because of how it’s viewed the Black family, or show it a new way to look at it!”
I wanted to say something, but all I could do was feel my jaw dropping open as I continued to stare at her.
A new way? To look at the Black family?
Hessia must have thought I needed more convincing, because, after only a brief pause, she continued in a rush. “I’m not saying you have to decide right away how to do that. I’m just saying if you really want to be free, you can’t let their old actions stand in the way of you making your own new dreams.”
I nodded. She was right. I knew it, but I continued to stand there, gaping at her like a confounded troll.
“Look,” she sighed, the sound loud against my silence. “If you truly want to learn Muggle Magic and live as Stephen Burin, I’m with you. I can see you enjoy what you do for the railway. But I also remember how you used to talk about opening up a little motorbike shop, too…”
“Yeah…” I managed, suddenly lost in remembering. I had dreamed it out so well, so thoroughly, so very, very long ago, even back in my school days. It was a wonder the dream hadn’t faded over time, or grown more distant. But, there it was, so vivid I could almost see the sign hanging above the shop door and the bikes, along with the jackets, gloves and helmets that went with them, filling the space inside. “I did. One with two doors. Right along the road backing on Diagon Alley. One where both Muggle and Wizard folks could come in. If they wanted something like out of the usual Muggle biking magazines, they could come in one way. If they wanted ones with specialized spell-work, they could come in the other…”
Hessia was leaning a little toward me, now nodding eagerly for me to go on.
“I kind of thought of calling it something like… ‘Flying Wheels’.” I found myself prattling along as the stunned feeling began to give way to growing enthusiasm. “Muggles might take the name to mean we were just selling really fast bikes, But Wizards would know that I meant the name mean exactly what it said…”
I saw her smile light up her face, so bright, so beautiful, though the lovely picture she made faded a little as the memories came clear and strong and my words slowed.
Years ago, how I loved flying my motorbike, doing a vanishing spell if I wanted to soar several meters above the London streets, especially at night when the car lights flashed beneath like jewels on black velvet. Or sometimes I’d cruise along at ground level, weaving a zigzag path between autos, lories and buses, creating a rumbling roar to conceal the fact that the machine beneath me was completely powered by Magic, rather than by a petrol driven motor.
How many times had I flown that bike to James and Lily Potter’s house for Order of the Phoenix meetings, careful not to swoop in too fast and make an emergency landing amid Lily’s carefully tended flowers?
And then, of course, just once, I’d ridden it to my parents’ home in Grimmauld Place, after the death of my younger brother, Regulus. To my parents, Regs had died a hero, giving his life to support the rise of Voldemort. They didn’t know about the note he’d sent me, saying he had turned against the Dark Lord and wanted to help find a way to defeat him. He’d been almost tempted to go with me when I left home for good a couple of years earlier, but he had so much loved being not only part of the House of Black, but its heir. He’d still wanted the family’s pride and approval too much to cut ties with them then. Whatever it was that had prompted him to go against our parents’ wishes and step out of Voldemort’s growing shadow, I didn’t have the chance to learn. We were supposed to meet the night before to talk about it, and make plans, but Regs had never lived to make it to the meeting…
But I’d known the person of conviction he had been. What love and loyalty he was capable of. Whatever he believed was right, well, he’d stand by it, no matter what. After reading that note, I knew his mind was made up. He had gone against them. Together, the two of us would have fought the Dark Lord. Might even have changed what it could mean to be a Black.
Now, there was only me.
“Sirius?” Hessia’s voice cut across my thoughts.
“Hmm?” I blinked at her, standing there in front of my kitchen sink.
“You looked for a minute like you were a thousand miles away,” she said.
“No,” I found myself chuckling. “Not quite that far. At least, not in distance. Maybe only a mile or two. But in years, yeah… ” I paused, shrugged, then told her. “I was sixteen, and stuck for the summer holidays in Grimmauld Place. And I said… I said…”
Her eyebrows rose, but she waited, silent.
I could see again the dimly lit front hall, a narrow shaft of sunlight filtering in through the half open door from the parlour. I had been maybe halfway up the stairs, ready to head up to my room, grab my trunk and head out to anyplace that wasn’t that horrible old house. Cousin Andromada and her little girl, Tonks, were there, both looking up at me from a spot just inside the front door. Regs was hovering near the bottom step, his large dark eyes flicking back and forth, back and forth between me and our mother, standing in the middle of the long Persian rug runner . She had been shrieking, the way she always shrieked about how I would dishonor the House of Black.
Hessia’s gaze caught mine and held it. She smiled as I told her what I remembered shouting in the hallway that day, loud and full of determination.
“When I grow up, the House of Black won’t even recognize itself! It won’t be full of Dark Arts cowards!”
I wasn’t even of age when I said all that. I was barely grown when I was hauled away to Azkaban for killing Peter Petigrew and a whole street full of innocent Muggles who never even knew a thing about old Snake Eyes. All the years in prison, in hiding, or in the past hadn’t given me a lot of chances to do much to make all the changes I’d dreamed of when I walked out that day.
But…
“Charges dropped…” Harry had said it, hadn’t he? Just minutes ago?
And Remus had said it, too. How Adrianna’s brother would file the parchments and I’d have an owl making it all official.
Charges… dropped!
I was…
Merlin’s Beard! I was free! Free if I wanted to be. If I could look the future in the face with half the conviction I’d had that long-ago day.
Free. It was all in my hands to pick up if I wanted it badly enough.
Free to start making those changes, whatever they turned out to be. Free to make the House of Black something my parents and their parents and all those centuries full of Dark Wizard parents before them, wouldn’t recognize! Something that Regs and I, and whatever children came after me…
I looked at Hessia. She was still smiling, even brighter than before.
Whatever children came after us…
Could be proud of.
“Come on,” I said, grabbing her hand and spinning with her toward the door and the celebration waiting beyond it with all my loved ones in the sitting room. “I just realized… I’ve still got an open bottle of butter beer getting stale on the table! And a toast I want to make for all of us waiting to be raised!”
“A toast?” Hessia asked, sounding a little breathless from half a step behind me as we burst through the doorway into the sunny afternoon room.
“Yes!” I glanced over my shoulder at her, my own voice breathless with excitement. “A toast! I know just the one!”
I could feel my grin spreading, wider and wider and see it mirrored on the faces of Remus, Ron, Ginny, Hermione and my wonderful Godson, Harry. So many long sleeping dreams and ideas were coming awake. Drinks with Remus at the Three Broomsticks, a long, talkative evening with Harry at the Leaky Cauldron, ginger ices with Hessia at Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour. A new wand to make friends and work with… Riding on my motorbike with a brisk wind in my face. A little shop just off Diagon Alley…
Dreams were tumbling one over the next, over the next, too fast to see any one of them clearly before the next was demanding its own moment of excitement.
Merlin’s Beard! How could I even imagine them, let alone plan how to do all of them at the same time when I was trying to reach for and grab my amber butter beer and draw breath with which to speak?
First thing to do is breathe, right? I drew the breath, then smiled around the room.
Next thing I do is… remind myself…
One thing at a time.
Be patient there, Steve-o.
No. Instead remind myself… Got to be patient there,… Sirius.
The afternoon sun shone bright amber through the bottle as I raised it. “To the future.” I said as the room erupted in cheers.