Choices

To: Harry Potter
Written From London
Spring, Harry’s Fifth Year at Hogwarts

Dear Harry,

I’m not sure whether it was Remus or I who was more delighted and appalled today, to see you looking at us out of the fire here in Grimmauld Place! You know the delight part came from having the chance to talk with you again. I’ve missed you, Harry, both your conversation and your correspondence!
Which brings me to the appalled part- correspondence. Scary how fast Hogwarts has gone down since I last dared to send Dapper there with a letter for you over the winter. And how you had to risk sneaking into a staff office to use a flue to contact the outside world! It was a gutsy move- (your Dad would be proud!)- but it’s clear your school’s no safe place for communication at this time.
When Albus was in charge, Hogwarts was a haven for ideas. No more. Not with Umbridge taking over! The idea of her presuming to name herself Headmistress is an insult to every hope and dream Dumbledore has spent his life pouring into the place. The thought that she may have tried to insert her presence into his serene office is like an abomination!
I wish it wasn’t so easy to envision how she is inspecting all owl-posts and watching the Floo network to know what comes and goes. On the surface, that sounds like a good safety precaution in these darkening times. A matter of security. Somewhere around here, I have an article about it from the Prophet in which she attempts to reassure parents by calling it a means for protecting the students under her care.
Ha! Censoring letters isn’t protection! Isn’t security! That’s becoming a tyrant! As is her deciding what students are allowed- Merlin’s beard, allowed!- to say among themselves! Does she think choosing ignorance will make the big bad Dark Lord go away? Stupid. Voldemort will gather power if she lets people discuss him or not.
For not being a Death-Eater, she certainly does their work well for them, stopping people from banding together to oppose him or learn to defend themselves against him.
Of course, there’s not much she can do about those things she’s not aware of, is there, hmmm? Harry, your Dad would be even prouder of your Defense Against the Dark Arts group than of that little fireplace adventure I mentioned above. And your Mum would be, too. Not to mention your Godfather, of course!
I wish I could find it in myself to believe Umbridge really held the student’s interests first in her heart, as Dumbledore always has. But it seems she’s more keen on protecting the power of the Ministry of Magic than the community it is supposed to serve.
And, of course, through the Daily Prophet, the power of the Ministry protects her...
I wish there had been longer to talk before you had to whisk back through the flue. Wanted to ask if you knew how yet to work the parcel I gave you after Christmas. Probably not or you’d’ve tried using it by now. It’s the one way I could think of that would maybe work for us to contact each other in secret.
So much I wanted to say to you tonight. Like- whatever questions came as you saw your Dad, Remus, Peter and me in Professor Dumbledore’s Pensive, please consider this. While it may look like one, it’s no skrying bowl. You saw Severus Snape place a silver strand of his thoughts in there before you examined it. What you observed looked and sounded like us, was us, young idiots that your Dad and I could be in those days, but our actions were filtered through Severus’s memory.
I don’t say that to defend us. You know our history- especially my history- with Snape. We traded- not only inflicted but traded- lots of cruelties with him over the years. Until the night I took him to Remus’s tunnel, James and I, and (often I suspect) Severus too, found it to be a contest of fierce one-ups-man-ship over each other. An unspoken competition of daring and skill. Bright kids looking to occupy their minds by outdoing each other, walking a danger line of spells barely within our understanding. (Misapplied homework, if you will).
Deeper down, of course, it was more serious, more complex. Anything I might say about Severus’s motives would be pure guesswork. For James and I, there was that anger at how Snape always seemed to be into something murky. Like the way he was prying into Remus’s disappearances and attempting to learn what his secret was. Or his keen and savage joy in the dark spells he already knew when he got to school and his contempt for those he called “mug-bloods”, or, for that matter, almost anyone not in Slytherin. It reminded me of the family I hadn’t altogether left behind when I came to Hogwarts.
I didn’t do that til I was coming up on sixteen. Never told you about what happened then, did I? Bet you thought it had to do with old Voldemort, right?
Wrong! At least not directly. Oh, his power was growing, even then. And he had his followers. Most, not all, came out of Slytherin House, and from the old Pureblood families. You certainly know already what big fans of his the Blacks were! But at least during my years at school, it wasn’t like it is now- not like it’s been for you. He wasn’t an ever-present shadow over our lives. In admiration or disgust, people still spoke his name aloud, without hesitation. Or not much hesitation anyway. That whole You-Know-Who, He Who Must Not Be Named business came only later.
For your parents, Remus and I, along with our friends who joined the Order of the Phoenix, it was only after we left school we began to learn how deep the danger ran. I think no Wizard within living memory was steeped so deep in Dark Arts or so mad for power as Voldemort was. So nobody- except maybe Albus Dumbledore- imagined how really bad, bad could get.
Before that time, I believed Voldemort was not much more than just another stuck-up, boring old Wizard, one so pompous he wanted to have people refer to him by a snobby title like the Dark Lord! Oh, he was keen on the stealthy powers of the dark arts and busy spouting all his outdated ideas of blood purity and family prestige. But, while I knew he was, by far much more outspoken and venomous in his views even than my Mother, and much more in love with the rightness of his own ideas than my Father, I thought he was not all that much different than my relatives.
Correct that.
I should say not all that much different than most of my relatives.
Which leads back to my point about Snape. You got a rare chance to view the world through another’s mind. Share his reality as he saw it while he lay that memory in the Pensive, if not as he saw it the day we sat our O W L exams.
Did Snape hear Remus joke how he put answers in his test about being a werewolf? Possible, of course. I’d have to put my own thoughts about the day we sat that O W L exam in a pensive to find out exactly what happened. I certainly don’t remember Remus doing that. Even with us, he rarely made light of his condition, though I do recall that he found it highly amusing when your Dad called it his “furry little problem”.
I don’t say what Snape put in the Pensive was a lie. The Magic of the thing would prevent that. But he’s known Remus’s secret for years. Knowing has changed his perception. Made him view his past through different eyes, hear it with different ears.
Don’t discount what you saw, though. It might help you understand Snape better. (Merlin knows I never will!) That could be useful for you during these next months while you are having occlumancy lessons with him. And it is vital, Harry, that you continue with those studies!
Speaking of Remus, he has been staying with me here from time to time. I have valued his visits and his companionship more than I can express in words. He brings some steadiness and sanity to this place and to his old friend Padfoot.
But, lucky bloke, he is out tonight on business for the Order of the Phoenix.
Could wish I was with him, but aside from Albus’s orders to stay here, I’m not really sure what exactly I can do anymore to help them out the way I would like to. Everyone tells me I’m too recognizable in the Wizarding world to do much good as a spy. And I’m far too ignorant of the Muggle world to set myself up as one there. Maybe you or Hermione could help me with remedying that over the summer? Then, come Fall, I’d have some real service I could offer the Order. What do you think?
As for tonight, there is nobody else here except Kreacher. Glad to say that he has taken his endless chain of grumblings and carried them off to his bed with him, leaving the kitchen in quiet. As for me, I’m far too wakeful for sleep just yet. So, I’ll fetch myself a cup of tea- some of that fine-smelling Jasmine Albus brought me at the New Year, then levitate another log onto the hearth while it’s steeping. Bring some brightness to this dreary room. Then I’ll tell you a tale about changing perceptions.

Choices

It came again, a prickle across the back of my neck.
I was about to raise a hand and rub the feeling away when the sound came, soft, from the bedroom door behind me.
A rustle. Then a creak.
“Blast!”
Fear jolted hot up my throat and every instinct screamed out. Hide it! Hide it!
What had I been thinking? Or not thinking? This wasn’t Gryffindor Tower! Knowing what I’d come in here to do, how was it that I’d failed to secure my door with a non-ajaratus charm?
I made myself pull a careful breath. Lifted my head and my voice. Let the fear shift to irritation. “Yeah, what?” I called as the prickle of a gaze slid across my shoulders and was gone. I laid my hand over the parchment I was reading and let the breath I’d drawn, ride out on a long, loud sigh of annoyance before I turned around in my chair.
Regs was leaning in the doorframe, not looking at me but above my shoulder out the front window.
“Did anybody ever teach you how to knock?” I demanded.
He half nodded, then cleared his throat.
“Well, do you have something to say for yourself?” I glared at him. “Or are you only here for the view?”
He shrugged the red-clad shoulder that wasn’t holding up the woodwork. “We were talking last week about trying out some Quidditch moves, remember? The morning before all this rain started? Well, as you can see, it’s finally stopped.”
Despite my irritation at how he liked using my window to check the traffic through our gate, I found myself grinning at him. “Oh, yeah. I remember. No second thoughts, then, about consorting with the enemy, ‘ey Regs?”
He scowled. “That’s Regulus. I’ve only been saying that for about four years now.”
“All right, Regulus!” I shrugged and grinned some more. “You sure you still don’t mind the idea of playing with a Gryffindor instead of a Slytherin?”
“Beggars can’t be choosers.” His scowl kept trying to smooth itself away, reshape itself in a grin to match my own, no matter how far he thrust his chin out. I thought I saw some of the old eagerness in his dark eyes, like I’d seen on other summer mornings before I went to school and everything changed.
Truth was, I could feel the old eagerness myself. After days of cold rain spattering the windows, the sun was shining clear and bright. A good tear around the garden on our broomsticks would be a change from sitting cramped over notes all day.
Not that I needed to study. I’d had this spell down since Spring. But it’d be cool if I could do it fast! Maybe when I got back to school, I’d be able to become a dog quicker than James could turn into a stag! We were both already twice as fast as poor old Peter was at taking the shape of his chosen animal, a rat.
“I’ll be down in a minute.” I told him, turning back to my desk. Even if I’d had to study, my legs voted for the garden. With deliberate casualness, I gathered up my parchments, then waited as I listened for the sound of his footsteps to move away down the hall. I needed to seal my notes in the pouch I got in Hogsmeade during Spring term without drawing his attention to them or to where they were kept. Only James, Peter and Remus knew about perfecting the Animagus spell.
It wasn’t part of any of our school subjects. Strictly speaking we weren’t supposed to try it without supervision, so James and I, under his invisibility cloak, made midnight trips to the restricted section of the library to copy it from an ancient book of transfigurations. The spell was supposed to be too advanced for us. It was supposed to be dangerous. It’s users were supposed to be approved and registered through the Ministry of Magic.
That last part may not have been a big deal to my parents, but hexes would fly if they knew I had learned it so I could safely keep my good friend Remus company during his transformations at the full moon. If they knew his secret, they’d have Regs and me out of Hogwarts in two whisks of a wand. People like Remus had about the worst reputation in the Wizarding world. How angry and appalled they’d be to know my kind, gentle friend was a werewolf.
I could almost hear the silence behind me. “I’ll get my broom. ” Regs said at last, but didn’t leave to fetch it. There was only the soft scuff of his shoes on the carpet as he shifted from one foot to the other, then his words tumbling out in a rush. “There has to be something good- you know- about us being in different Houses. It makes it a bit more of a real match. If you see what I mean.”
His hesitant words tugged me round in my chair again.
It must have taken a lot for him to say them. When I got Sorted into Gryffindor, our parents let him know in no uncertain terms that all the Family’s honour now rested on him. After my first year at Hogwarts, he asked all about school, but kept saying how I would learn so much more if I was in Slytherin like the rest of the Blacks. Probably figured if he said anything nice about my House, the Hat would hear about it and send him there too.
But once he was safe in Slytherin, he still said it. Not at school. Hardly had the chance to there. Different years, different Houses. Except for a glimpse passing in the corridors, or over meals across the Great Hall from our separate House tables, we hardly saw each other. But at holidays, back in Grimmauld Place, he’d repeat the comment to me as we played Snap or Wizard’s chess. He didn’t sneer like Lucius Malfoy or Severus Snape would’ve done, but he believed it right enough and said it so often, it ruined the games. After a while, I’d mostly quit playing.
At first we’d argued- hot, loud fights that sent the old House Elf, Kreacher, scuttling to our Mother. It wasn’t her shrieks that stopped me arguing with him, but seeing how useless it was. It’s easier to talk someone into hating a thing than argue them into liking it. So, I quit that too.
Maybe it was because we were getting older, but this summer was different. We’d found a bit of common ground, talked carefully together about the things we’d enjoyed in the past. Had done some of them, too. Set up a few chess games. Helped each other polish up our broomsticks. Even posed with them in the garden last week while our Father snapped a photograph. But this was something much more. A gift.
Now he waited to see if I’d take it. I did. “Yeah!” I exclaimed, grinning at him. “We’ve each learned different broomwork and strategies. It’d be cool, making a proper game of it. Find a way to build hoops to guard from each other-”
“Yeah!” he dropped onto my bed, leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Or we could throw things from different heights for each other to catch! Maybe that old invisibility spell around the garden wouldn’t bother you so much if…”
His words ground to a halt. It was a subject we avoided. Five years ago he’d told our Father how I had tried to get past the Magical barrier to explore the Muggle world beyond. Our Father had taken down the tree that was my escape route. The memory still twinged, but enough time had passed for me to see past what Regs had done, to what he had been trying to do. He didn’t want to shut me off from the real world, or hold me prisoner in one peopled only by snobby old Wizard families and their traditions. He wanted to keep me safe, out of trouble.
It was an old enough pain to put aside now if it meant giving Regs a gift in return. “Well,” I said, shrugging one shoulder as I gave him a quick grin. “It’s about time the thing served some good purpose.”
His shoulders relaxed. “All right then! I’ll get my broomstick and…” He rose, then stopped, mid-motion. His gaze traveled from me to the window.
“What do you see?” I was only half interested. While he wasn’t looking at me, the spell notes slipped into their pouch.
“Cousin Andromeda. Wonder what she wants. Blast, she’s got her little Mug-blood brat along with her again. Bet she wants Nymphadora to hang out with us while she talks to our parents.”
“Do you have to call Tonks that whenever you see her? It gets real old. And she’s hardly little anymore. She’s coming up for eleven.”
“Well, little next to us, anyway.” He turned for the door. “C’mon. Hurry. I don’t see why them showing up has to change our plans.”
“In a minute.” As he disappeared round the door, I hurried to open my school trunk. I slid the pouch between the pages of a Muggle Motorbike magazine James had given me for Christmas last year. I slipped that under my robes. I stared down at the House badge on the front of them. Smiled at the gold Lion on its red background.
Gryffindor. House of those chosen for their courage. Or so the Sorting Hat said. Odd how, during holidays, seeing that shining badge squeezed something in my chest- made it ache and glow warm at the same time. Before closing the trunk, I brushed a finger across its bright surface. Then, snatching my Shooting Star from its place in the corner, I hurried from the room.
Regulus was right inside the front door. He stood, shifting from one foot to the other, and clutching his Meteor as he watched me coming down the stairs. “There you are! C’mon! I’ve had this idea for the hoops…”
Nymphadora’s face popped round the parlour door. Her hair bounced on the yellow shoulders of her robes and her eyes sparkled. “Siri! Guess what!”
“We were going out to play Quidditch!” Regs cut in, putting his hand on the knob.
“We have a hundred errands,” said Andromeda’s voice beyond the door. Which of my parents was she talking to? “My Father’s old cauldron’s in the attic here somewhere. I want to come by later to collect it. And Dory has news she wants to share with Sirius.”
“It had better not take long.” My Mother snapped. “He and Regulus have been cooped up indoors, under foot and making noise for almost the entire week now. It’s about time they got outdoors where they can burn off some of their extra energy and I can get some peace …”
Poor Andromeda! She’d probably come here hoping to talk to my Father, her Uncle, alone. Not to my Mother.
“Siri…” Nymphadora repeated, lowering her voice. She glanced from Regulus to me. “It’s the coolest thing ever!”
I gestured for Regs to wait, then stepped toward her. “What is it, Tonks?”
“Well,” Her cheeks grew pink and her words tripped all over themselves as they tumbled out. “We… well… we um- got an owl this morning.”
“Sirius, Regulus!” Our Mother’s voice rang against the walls and front door . “Leave your brooms in the hall and come in here, so we can all hear this news at the same time.”
“You don’t call getting an owl news, do you?” said Regs, passing Nymphadora in the doorway and going to stand in front of the hearth. “We probably get half a dozen of them a day ourselves.”
On feet that couldn’t decide whether or not to dance, Tonks passed the tapestry of our Family Tree, hanging dark and stern in one corner, then chose a spot where morning sun streamed through the window. Andromeda, by a large desk near the door, gave me an apologetic smile. She reached out to touch my shoulder, then let her hand drop several inches short of it.
“Well?” My Mother sat in her usual chair, which was across the wide hearth from the one my Father occupied, quill and parchment on the table beside her. “Come, come then, what is it? Out with it child.”
Nymphadora’s face took on a pinched look as she gazed from her Mum to me, then Regs and my parents. No words came.
Andromeda looked past my Mother, dividing a smile between my Father and me . “Well, Uncle Arcturus, Sirius, Dory’s letter from Hogwarts came this morning.”
“Hey, Tonks!” I shouted. “What’d I tell you? You made it!”
Her large, trusting eyes lit and a smile began to bloom as she looked at me.
From the direction of the hearth, I heard a sharp intake of breath. As I glanced in that direction, I saw Regulus’s gaze swing from my cousin to me. He frowned.
“Andromeda,” With a loud dry rustle, my Father’s newspaper dropped to the floor beside his chair. Lay there, ignored. “You don’t plan to let her go, do you?”
“Oh, that idiot Dumbledore,” my Mother hissed under her breath.
Regulus turned from me, his dark eyes fastening on her face. He took a step closer to her chair.
My Father paid no attention to her muttered words, gazing instead up at Andromeda. His voice, as usual, was quiet. “It hardly seems fair…” he said.
“Well, of course it’s not fair!” My Mother leaned forward in her chair as her voice rose. “That child being at Hogwarts would weaken our family’s position in the community. But at least, with her background, Regulus, it’s hardly likely she’ll be Sorted into Slytherin. That should come as one relief.”
I couldn’t help grinning. “Yeah.” I said. “And I bet it’s one for Tonks, too.” I gave my cousin a wink.
Her face had gone pale and wary, her eyes round and watchful, but the corner of her mouth tweeked up and the wink came back to me.
“Mother,” said Regulus. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I caught my jaw before it could hit the floor. Was this my brother talking?
Regulus cast me a side-eyed glance before focusing again on our Mother. “It’s hardly a relief if she gets herself Sorted to that place of Siri’s.”
That place of Siri’s. He said it like he’d touched slime in a garbage bin.
The words smacked like punches below the ribs. So much for good things about being in different Houses.
“I can hear it now!” Regulus went on. “He’ll be walking her round all the hallways asking everyone ‘Oh, have you met my Cousin Tonks yet?’”
My Mother’s eyebrows rose. “Tonks? What is all this Tonks nonsense?”
“Tonks,” I said. “It’s part of her name. You know? It comes right after the Nymphadora bit.”
Despite himself, Regs let out a snort of laughter before he got his scowl under control. He shrugged one shoulder and continued in a louder voice. “Oh, Siri’s been using that name with her since she was eight years old. Made a game of it. How she’d be called by her last name like everyone at school. Pretending she’d end up at Hogwarts.”
“Yeah, well, she did, too, didn’t she?” I pointed at the parchment clutched in Andromeda’s hand.
“That’s what we’re discussing right now,” said my Father. “Or at least we’re trying to. Andromeda, you must have some consideration for the child’s feelings…”
“Yeah, right.” Regulus nodded, standing taller as he divided his comments between our Mother and Father. “After all, I’m trying out for Keeper on Slytherin’s Quidditch team this fall. How can they trust I’m part of the House if she’s there ruining it for me? A Slytherin, related to a Mug-blood?”
“Well, Regs, like you told me,” I recalled how good his words made me feel a little while ago and now tasted the bitterness of them. “There must be something good about being in different Houses. I mean, you can always pretend we don’t exist, right?”
“Don’t worry about it, Regulus, Dear.” My Mother ignored my comment. “After all, it’s not your bloodline that’s been polluted.”
There was a moment of crackling silence.
“How can even someone like you-” Andromeda stepped toward my Mother, her golden hair almost rippling with anger. “Say such a cruel thing in front of a child?”
My Mother gazed from Regs to our Father, not sparing Andromeda as much as a glance. Tonks, looking very small, stood in the middle of her square of sunlight. I went to put an arm around her narrow shoulders. Light poured warm across my back and over her sunny yellow robes, but beside me, she was shivering.
“It’s not just blood!” Regs was almost groaning now. “It’s honour! Half the guys already say I’m not a true Slytherin or a real Voldemort supporter because I’ve got a brother in Gryffindor. Now, if she comes-”
Before he could hurl more words in Tonks’s direction, I cut in, hoping to deflect the blow. “Merlin’s Beard, Regs! Not that old snob Voldemort again! I’ll bet you a galleon, not even everyone in Slytherin likes all that outdated old pureblood drivel he spouts off with.”
“Well, so what if they don’t?” Regulus threw back his head, his eyes bright sparks of defiance. At his sides, his hands were curling into fists. “I like it. The Dark Lord wants to reunite our whole Wizarding world, bring back respect for old family traditions, restore order…”
“Silence! The both of you!” Nobody could slam words down with such forceful softness as my Father. The room went still. “Regulus, the child whose feelings I refer to is Nymphadora.”
Regs looked like he’d been slapped.
“Arcturus!” My Mother shrieked, coming half out of her chair.
My Father gestured her back down and (better still) into silence, then went on. “It’s Andromeda I’m speaking to. If you follow through with this decision to allow Nymphadora to attend Hogwarts, you’ll be putting an unkind burden on the child, sending her to a place where she will be hard put to keep up…”
“Uncle Arcturus, my Dory has as much Magic as anyone in the family-”
“Not real Magic!” came my Mother’s inevitable shriek. “It can’t be! Not when you saw fit to defy your family! Not when you took up with a man who spent his growing up years outside the community. One, moreover who-”
“Don’t you dare,” Andromeda warned, each word slow and measured as she took a step forward to glare at my Mother. “Insult my husband for having been Muggle-born! Ted’s a good man and proud of our Dory. You know, the only reason that I came here today was to get my father’s old school cauldron, not to get a lecture from you! He always said how much he enjoyed going to Hogwarts. I wanted Dory to take something along from my side of the family as well as from Ted’s. But I’ve been away from all of you long enough now that I sometimes forget what being in this family means! All these years I came here just often enough so Dory would know who her relatives are, but no more! There’s no love in this place! When I look around this dark, cruel house… And all of you steeped in its evil… I don’t know why I ever wanted her to do as much as set eyes on any of you!”
Her sweeping hand guided our eyes around the room.
During holidays, I mostly ignored my surroundings here. Just looked to September first when I’d gather up my trunk, catch the Hogwarts Express and go back home. Back to James and Remus and Peter. Now, in the stillness that followed Andromeda’s words, I saw the place as I hadn’t let myself in years.
This dark cruel house…
My parents’ chairs were carved to suggest the bodies of snakes with arms forming the sharp-fanged heads. Bookshelves held fat, leather-bound volumes with gilt lettered titles like Hideously Heinous and Horrific Hexes, Blood Bones and Bewitchment, Curses: Clever, Cunning and Completely Concealable, or Producing Powerfully Potent and Poisonous Potions. The glass case by the window was a crowd of enslavement bracelets, cursed jewels, thought extractors, dream benders and stoppered potion bottles etched in spidery ancient runes.
Most of the objects were hundreds of years old, and had come down from one generation of Blacks to the next. But some new ones had squeezed themselves in on the shelves periodically throughout my childhood. It was all Dark arts stuff like they sold in Knockturn Alley.
“That place gives me the creeps” my friend James said the first day I met him…
I’d never told him about this room.
Partly it was because those dark arts themselves had seemed to both of us like a cheat. Sneaky, dishonest Magic. I didn’t want to admit I lived under the same roof with such slimy things. Partly because the stuff gave me the creeps too. I didn’t want to think, much less talk, about it. Especially once I started understanding what their names meant. Dream benders. Thought extractors… But til now, I’d never asked myself what their appearance in the glass case signified.
Today I noticed how each item had been carefully placed, brightly polished. Their perfect repair and prominent display was a proud warning that they were ready and waiting for use.
Regs had told me years ago how our Mother loved studying Defense Against the Dark Arts at school. She told him how, after you learned to protect yourself, that knowledge gave you courage to use all the power those dark and ancient arts held. That you wouldn’t be scared they’d backfire on you instead of working on the people you used them against.
Had she ever used any of the stuff gleaming in that cabinet?
Could she gather its power and bend another person to her will? Looking at her glaring at Andromeda right now, made it so, so easy to believe that even if she never had, she definitely could.
And my Father? There were things he found improper and people he didn’t approve of, but I wasn’t sure I could see him locking an enslavement bracelet on someone’s wrist to make them do his bidding, or wielding a thought extractor. Still, he must believe using them was a good thing or he wouldn’t let them be so proudly displayed in his house…
Finally, there was the tapestry hanging beside me. Its black velvet covered half the wall. The Ancient and Most Noble House of Black, it said. Hundreds of names were sewn into it, gold thread stitching the generations together. I saw my Uncle Antaries’s name. His daughter Andromeda was there, with her younger sisters, Bellatrix, who was in Slytherin when I started school, and Narcissa, who entered it along with Regs. I spotted his name too, beneath those of our parents, Arcturus and Nocturna Black-
It was right next to mine.
This dark cruel house… and all of you steeped in its evil…
Sweat prickled my skin, cold and slimy. I stepped away from Tonks. She shouldn’t have to be touched by anything or anyone that lived in this place. Who had stayed willingly under its roof with that stuff. Like her, I shivered.
“Mum, wait!” Her voice was loud in my ear. “Stop! Don’t say that about Siri!” Her hand grasped mine, pulling me forward with her as she grabbed for Andromeda’s sleeve. When I’d have jerked away, she held harder. Squeezed.
Brave, kind little Tonks!
But my Mother had seen the gesture. She rose, her fingers curved like the snake fangs on her chair. “Don’t touch him, you Muggle-born brat…”
“Stop!” My Father was up, pulling her back.
She stilled in his grasp. Waited. We all did, even the room.
He gathered our attention for a moment, then cleared his throat. “So, Andromeda, against my advice, the child goes to Hogwarts. However the two of us feel about it, Nocturna, it’s not our decision to make. Or yours either, Regulus, though, believe me, your Mother and I both understand how you feel about your place in Slytherin House. We know what your position there has meant to you all these years. You’re a true credit to the House of Black, son.”
My Mother looked toward Regulus, nodded agreement.
A slow smile was spreading across Regs’s face as he looked from one parent to the other. As long as I could remember, he had hungered for their pride and approval. Now it warmed him from within, setting his dark eyes to glowing and filling his face with a candle-bright radiance.
Still, the air in the parlour hung close and expectant. Andromeda moved to stand between Tonks, me, and my parents and Regs. Tonks’s small hand in mine vibrated with tension. All at once it mattered more to me to pull her close than to wonder whether I might spread the effects of this foul old house to her.
“Despite today’s developments,” Though my Father still held my Mother’s arm, his eyes and quiet smile were all for Regulus. “Ultimately, most of your status there will come from choices that are yours to make. Supporting the team, whether as its Keeper or leading cheers from the stands. Embracing the traditions of the House, by showing loyalty to your classmates there and to the ideals of Lord Voldemort, who wants to see Salazar Slytherin’s values brought to the Wizarding world as a whole.”
This could get real old, real fast. I sighed, turning my gaze to look over the top of Tonks’s head to the morning garden outside the window. My Father’s voice spoke words like reputation, fit companions and blood purity. I knew the speech. Could have chanted it along with him almost word for word. How I hated the cold, arrogant ideas expressed in his words, even while I ached over the warmth and kindness in their tone.
“All you can do in this situation,” he was saying. “Is to pick your response to it. You may do a good deal to shrink its effect on your status among your Housemates, simply by treating it as unimportant, by choosing to ignore it. But any direct power of action lies entirely with your brother.”
That pulled my gaze back into the room, to where my Father, having let go my Mother’s arm, now stood with his hand on Regs’s shoulder.
“Me?” I stared at him in surprise. My voice had begun changing almost a year ago but it cracked on the word.
“Yes, Sirius, you.” My Father’s face was stern. I could find no hint of warmth in his eyes. Only a sort of weariness. “What you must decide is-”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Arcturus! There’s no decision to be made here!” My Mother’s voice sliced off his words. “While Sirius may have failed to meet the high standards required of a member of Slytherin House, he has been raised to recognize where his duty lies. In this matter, he will honour the wishes of his family and-”
Beside me, Tonk’s small weight shifted. She didn’t do anything so obvious as to step away from me, but I could feel her muscles tighten, gather themselves to withdraw from my touch. It was like she was pulling part of my heart away with her, setting that old invisible wound to bleeding like it had done as I stood in the Great Hall of Hogwarts waiting to be sorted into Slytherin.
What was it I had told the old Sorting Hat that night? “When I grow up, the House of Black won’t even recognize itself, because if I’m going to be its head…”
It wouldn’t be full of Dark Arts cowards, I’d said! I wasn’t going to be one, then or now! I wouldn’t care what the Slytherins thought, I’d stand by my friends. I’d cheer for James on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. I’d say hi to Remus in the halls! See if he looked happy like he had that night, or scared like Nymphadora, even if it was Slytherins who were picking on him…!
Oh, yeah. I knew where my duty lay all right.
“Tonks,” I said, as my circling arm drew my cousin close against my side once more. “Is my family, too.”
Time became something that flowed as slow as winter honey. My Mother turned to me. It took a long while. Her mouth was a line, a crack, a crevasse, a rumbling cavern erupting with thunderous, volcanic sound.
“Sirius!” Her eyes blazed hot and bright as liquid obsidian. Anger and disgust. “Don’t be a fool! You debase yourself with those words! Mark yourself as nothing more than a filthy Blood-Traitor! A defiler of our Family Honour!”
Her words rang against the walls, stunned the room to silence.
How often had I given that look back to her over the years? Shouted my arguments and had them count for nothing? Like when I protested the way she treated our House Elf, Nori? Or when she summoned and inspected my possessions without one thought of asking my permission first? Or when she petrified my hands?
This time it was different! Whether I had liked it or not, she could control all those other actions. Not this one. She couldn’t use a spell to alter the facts of Tonks and my relationship or change the way I felt about it.
I held my head high, took a step forward and met her gaze. Found I could shatter the silence of the parlour in a voice no louder than the one my Father would use. “Yeah, well it’s true, isn’t it? No matter what you say, Tonks is my Cousin! So, that makes her a part of my family and I’m proud of her!”
The silence following my words held three, four, five seconds before the heat of her fury melted the moment and time sped up again. I swung Tonks behind me, shook back my hair and stared into her blazing eyes. When had she stopped being taller than I was? But it was Andromeda, just in front of us, that my Mother sprang at.
“See what you did, you turn-cloak?” she shrieked, her hand darting into the pocket of her robes. “Mixed with Muggle scum, fouled the bloodline of this House! Despoiled the mind of its heir into treachery and madness with your twisted, filthy ideas!”
Her wand! She was going for her wand.
I thrust my hand into the pocket where I kept mine.
So what if I got in trouble with the Ministry for doing Magic out of school?
A good loud expelliarmus would send her wand flying harmless into a corner!
“Nocturna!” Regs was knocked staggering as my Father snatched at her hand- at her arm. He caught her sleeve, but not before the blackthorn wand was visible in her fingers.
And my wand was-
Was-
Locked in my school trunk upstairs!
With a jerk, my Mother freed herself from his grasp, raised her wand. “Take yourself and your spawn from my House!” she shrieked at Andromeda. “Your blood shall be from this day forward purged from this family! Purgio sanguinum!…”
Regs’s eyes met mine. Grew wide. “Mother, no! I didn’t want to have you throwing curses or-!” He hurtled himself at her.
It was my Father who raised his own wand and shouted “Expelliarmus!” just as Regs crashed into him, sending the spell flying high, wide and useless into the ceiling.
“Eradicatus naminum!” my Mother finished. Red light flew from her wand, hitting the tapestry in a spray of sparks.
My Father’s hand closed on hers. She made no move to resist. Instead, she laughed, her mouth stretching wide, her eyes still fastened on Andromeda.
“Your name shall be forever severed from this tree! Branch from trunk! Leaf from twig! Now see the cleansing of this House as the blood you have dishonoured shall mark your banishment!”
All eyes met at the spot where Andromeda’s name had been. Colours tangled there. Scarlet light, black velvet, gold thread, grey smoke. Swirling, and spattering as the light dulled, then liquefied in a colour like blood.
A dark stream spurted from the velvet. A vivid splash of drops hit the turquoise of Andromeda’s robes. They spread. Became large crimson blots. I tried to pull Tonks out of the way, even as I saw violet splotches bloom on sunny yellow.
“Siri, no!” Regs pushed past our Mother, grabbing my arm as I felt the wetness. We stared at my sleeve as the red stain grew on blue cloth, became burgundy. Marking my exile from the House of Black.
My Father held my Mother so she couldn’t pull Regs away from my side. His words stumbled as he looked from her to my brother, to me. Then at the stain soaking into my sleeve. “It’s only a proclamation, Sirius.” He sputtered. “Not a hex. Tell him, Nocturna, it’s no real curse.”
I didn’t wait for her to speak. Only looked into my Father’s face and shook my head. “You can’t undo this spell and make me into a part of this House again! I don’t belong here anymore!”
“Sirius, believe me! It doesn’t have to mean anything!” He was nearly pleading. “It was nothing but an accident! She wasn’t going for you, she only…”
“Oh, yeah? Ask her if it was only an accident, okay?” I could hear my voice rising as I looked at him. “She just said it! Like she’s been saying it for years! I didn’t make it into Slytherin! That’s the only thing that matters in this stupid House! Slytherin, Voldemort, blood purity and how things look! Not me! Not what I think! She’d be happy to see me gone!”
“Nocturna, tell him! Tell Sirius it doesn’t have to be permanent! We can undo it!”
“You really believe that, don’t you, Father?” Watching his urgent fingers scrabbling to get a firmer clutch on my Mother’s sleeve was like seeing a familiar face on someone I hardly knew at all. Beside me, Regs let go my arm and turned to gaze at him as well.
There wasn’t enough air left in me to yell them, but words kept pouring out. They seemed to come from some other person while I stood there listening. “You don’t shriek or yell or curse like her, but you’re as bad as she is! What you don’t like, you make go away! Privilege of being in a pure old family, right, Father? That mess on the tapestry? This stupid curse? Yeah, let’s just make it all better, like it never happened, okay?”
Tonks moved as I stepped back from my Father’s reaching hand. My back brushed the tapestry. I shuddered away from the clammy touch of it. Looked toward the door, toward the window. There was so little space in here and the shape of what there was didn’t fit me! The ache of unshed tears pressed up from my guts, squeezing out more words with claws that tore at my throat as they came.
“And, hey, how about the vine that got me into the garden without a report coming to you from every House Elf in the place? Simple! Just get rid of it! No problem at all, right? And the big old tree that might’ve let me see something beyond this little world of yours? Well, that went too, just ‘cause you wanted it to. Well, maybe this is one thing that you can’t just wish away!”
“Sirius,” He reached toward me again. “We were trying to protect…”
Ducking the touch, I found myself almost cornered between the cold velvet tapestry and the cabinet of Dark Arts objects. “No, you weren’t! You wanted to make me someone who likes this stuff!”
Raising a hand, I thumped the side of the display case. It rocked. Swayed. From inside came the small sounds of glass clinking on glass, metal chiming cold on metal and something growling over being disturbed. “You hoped you could turn me into someone who thinks its their right to make people obey every little command whether they like it or not. Who knows who to ignore or to give loyalty to, because of what their blood’s like, not who they are. So, tell me, how do you do that when the choice is between people you… People you…”
My words staggered to a stop.
Andromeda was right. I couldn’t bring myself to say the word “love” in this close, barren place. Regs and Tonks stood on either side of me. I looked from one to the other, shook my head and turned for the door. “You can’t force me to make a choice like that. It’s not fair! I can’t do it! I won’t.”
Never knew such a tight space could hold such distances! Seven huge, long steps. My knees shook and my feet thudded on the carpet like I’d been hit with a jelly-legs jinx.
Six steps. Gazes buzzed on my back. It was odd, being able to separate one prickle from another, read each one of them as I moved. The one from Tonks was confused, Andromeda’s, shocked. My Father’s, amazed. My Mother’s, the deepest tingling, was full of hard, spattering rage.
“Ooh,” she hissed. “That troublemaking Albus Dumbledore, filling your head with Gryffindor idiocy!”
Five steps, four. Any moment she’d shriek at me again- She’d lunge- clutch- Grab something from the glass case behind me. Three steps. Two. One…
A hand grasped my arm. “Where are you going?” It wasn’t my Mother, it was Regs.
He was a step behind me as I made it into the hallway and took a shuddering breath. “I dunno. Anywhere but here.” I said.
His hand tightened. “I can’t believe you’d pick Nymphadora over-”
“Weren’t you listening back there?” I jerked away and started upstairs. “I didn’t pick anyone over anyone! They shouldn’t have asked me to do it! Wouldn’t have, either, if you hadn’t made such a bother about Tonks coming to school-”
“I’m sorry! Honestly! I never thought there’d get to be such a whopping great row over it.” His words caught me on the fourth step. “Look, I’ll find a way to live with it if Nymphadora comes to school, whatever you decide to do about it. But, Siri, don’t leave because of what I did…”
I turned, looked down at him and the dark hall with our two broomsticks still leaning in the corner waiting for the match they’d never get to play. I sighed. “It’s not you, Regs. Not really. It’s this place. And them in there, wanting me to be different than I am. Like they’ve done since I can remember.”
“Siri, I wish you wouldn’t go like this.”
What I wished was for him to get annoyed at me for calling him Regs. Not to hear that hard swallow in a throat that must feel as tight and dry as mine did. “I’ve got to.”
“But why?”
I jabbed a thumb toward the parlour door. “Those dark arts you say are so great? I don’t want any part of them! Don’t want to be around them any more! They do nothing but make people hungry for more and more power! Our Mother treats the servants like they don’t have feelings. She says its, ‘cause House Elves aren’t Wizards, they must be made to remember not to get above themselves. But you know why she really does it, don’t you? Because she can! She treats Tonks that way, ‘cause she’s a kid who doesn’t have a wand to fight back with. We’re no different to her! She’d just use us however she likes to get what she wants out of us, that’s all. She doesn’t care who we are inside! Only that we look right to people outside this horrible old house, so they keep thinking how great this family is…”
“But, Siri,” he interrupted. “For hundreds of years the House of Black really has been a great old…”
“Yeah, right. Andromeda’s a Black, too! Same as we are! And she got hexed for standing up for herself! Tell me you can’t see our Mother doing more than blasting names off that tapestry to get her own way!”
“I- I don’t know.” Regs stammered, then gathered himself. “Not without a good reason, I don’t think she would.” His eyes were huge in a face that hadn’t been so pale five minutes ago. They were the same sad, desperate eyes that had gazed at me in a darkened window years ago as he told me what he’d done to keep me safe. Safe as he saw it. Maybe by asking me to stay, that was what he was still trying to do.
I hesitated. If he thought it was safe here, why couldn’t I? I’d never once been hungry, or cold in this house. But I’d starved for dreams, hadn’t I? Longed for the warm company of friends instead of the cold loneliness of power?
And if my family knew what kinds of friends I had now, then what? Bad enough a Black enjoying comradeship in Gryffindor! Imagine a member of this family with one best friend who was madly smitten with a Muggle-born girl and another who was a werewolf!
No question about it, they’d do all they could to cut James and Remus out of my life, no matter how much I bled.
Regs and I weren’t ten and eleven now. Safety didn’t mean anything as easy as having food, a warm bed, or a family to shelter with anymore, as if it ever had. Maybe times had changed my parents. Maybe it was Voldemort and his ideas that had done it. Or maybe now I was old enough to recognize the anger, fear and hatred that had been there all along, under what I’d always thought was just the dumb old snobbishness of my parents and their friends.
There was nothing safe in this place, in this family. Nothing safe about being pressed into the dark, willful mould that was the House of Black.
Not for either of us.
“Regs!” I spoke fast as, within the frame of the parlour door, I saw Cousin Andromeda gather Tonks’s hand in hers and move toward the hall. “You’re not like our Mother! Or Father either, even if you can be a snob sometimes. Under all that, you’re… kind, loyal! You risked getting me really angry years ago ‘cause you thought you were helping me! I saw how you looked when our Mother threatened Andromeda today, just for sticking up for her own family! You didn’t like it any better than I did!”
“So what?” He shrugged. “Our Mother likes making scenes. It’s embarrassing, but it doesn’t mean anything! She’s just upset the Purebloods haven’t taken full power over our community as quick as she hoped! She says once Lord Voldemort has power to restore the old order, things will be better. Clearer. This whole thing with Nymphadora wouldn’t have happened today if we Purebloods were in power already!”
My voice dropped. “Regs, people can’t think about stuff like that all the time without it doing something to them! After a while it doesn’t matter about being Pureblood or not! Only about power itself! Do you think our Mother’d hesitate to turn on you if you disagree with her? Think she won’t use her wand to lift you off the floor or turn your hands to stone? She did it to me often enough, and I was supposed to be this great all-important heir to the House of Black! Look, you wouldn’t have to stay here, either. You could come with me…”
“I could?” His eyes rose to mine. A slow light came into his face. Not like the almost feverishly radiant one I’d seen in the parlour. But a look that was excited and eager. The same one he’d gotten when we were little and planning great adventures.
“Yeah! I’m going upstairs for my trunk. You grab yours, too. I have some galleons from Uncle Alphard. We could go to Diagon Alley, stay there until school starts…”
I could see it! We’d get a little room together, maybe over the Leaky Cauldron. Make the rounds of the joke shops by day, try out the stuff we got late into the night. We’d sit for hours and talk like we hadn’t in years. Maybe we’d learn from each other that, after all, there really were some good things about being in different Houses. Then, in the morning, we’d get up and go to Fortesque’s Ice Cream Parlour and have ginger ices for breakfast…
In his eyes those same visions were coming to life. He put his hand on the banister.
For that one moment I thought he would follow me upstairs.
Then he glanced toward the parlour. At our parents, a bit behind Cousin Andromeda in the doorway. He bit his lower lip. Looked back at me. Shook his head as the visions died and his hand dropped to his side. “No, Siri. I’d like to, but... Well, the Family honour rests with me now. Someone has to carry on the traditions of…”
I reached for his arm. “Regs…” I said. “think about it, please…”
“Don’t touch him!” My Mother’s voice filled the hall. She wasn’t talking to Tonks now, but me. “If you want to go, foolish boy, we won’t stop you. But don’t think we’ll welcome you back when you find the world out there isn’t what you thought it was.”
My Father stood beside her, his mouth a tight horizontal line. Something in his eyes didn’t quite match the rest of his face. It didn’t look quite like disapproval. It could almost have been satisfaction. “Make your choice, Sirius.” He said.
“I’m going to get my stuff. Then I’m going.”
They waited, Tonks and Andromeda near the front door, my parents just outside the parlour and Regs, now standing between them. I began to turn back up the stairs.
“Never mind that, you Blood-Traitor!” My Mother’s wand came out again. Rose. My hand groped for the banister. I had time to draw a breath. Meet her upturned eyes. To think- I will not duck, I will not duck, no matter what she does, I will not duck…
“Oseo, trunk!” she cried. There was a clatter upstairs, then the swoosh of a dark shape from the landing above. Despite my resolve, I ducked aside as my school trunk sailed past me down the stairs. Andromeda’s hair rippled in the breeze of its passing before it crashed down by the front door. “Now,” said my Mother. “Take your things and go.”
Steps again. Seven, five, three. Across another distance. Walking through silence on jelly-legs. Watching the door swing open before me. Blinking in the dazzle of sunlight. Seeing from the corner of my eye how Andromeda used her wand to maneuver my trunk outside and levitate it down the path. Wondering if Regs might run upstairs to look at us out my window- My old window- then change his mind and come clattering out after us. Listening for his footsteps up to the moment I heard the gate slam shut behind me.
It was then tears burned my eyes, blurred my vision, though they remained unshed. I didn’t know I was shaking til Andromeda put a turquoise clad arm around my shoulders. Pressed gently. “You don’t have to do this, Sirius,” Her voice was close to my ear, as Tonks’s small warm hand slipped into mine and held tight.
“Yeah, yeah I do. I can’t live there anymore. I don’t fit. I don’t even want to.”
She nodded. “I know. Neither did I. Do you want to come stay…?”
A family to shelter with. The offer was a sweet bolt of pain through my chest. But I couldn’t take her up on it. Not without forcing the same decision on her my parents had demanded of me, choosing between members of her family. Despite her anger and my Mother’s curse, Andromeda may not have planned to sever her ties with my Father. If she chose to do so, it had to be for her own reasons. Not because of me.
“No… No, thanks. Just got to get to Diagon Alley. I’ve got gold. It’ll be okay.”
“Siri, you forgot your broomstick!” Tonks let go my hand, began to turn back toward the tall front door. “You want me to go and get-”
A wrenching little chuckle fought its way out through the tears as I looked at my small, brave cousin. I managed a smile. “No, Tonks, leave it. I don’t really need it. I’m a lousy Quidditch player anyway. I’ve been thinking lately about a different way to get around after I’m done at school. A beautiful way. Different Magic. Let me tell you about it while we walk. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before! Muggles call it a motorbike.”

So, Harry, there you have it. How perceptions change. Alter how we view the truth. Slowly over time, as might be the case with Severus and the scenes you viewed in the Pensive. Or all in a flash, as they did for me that day. Powerful things, perceptions.
Now you know a bit more about why staying here is so hard for me. It’s not the loneliness when only Kreacher and my thoughts are here to keep me company. Or knowing that, as Severus never fails to remind me, I am doing nothing useful here to help the Order of the Phoenix. Even the horrible confinement would be almost bearable anywhere else. After all, I’ve lived with confinement before.
But in this place there are so many memories. So many regrets and “if only’s”. I keep seeing Regs and I standing there by the stairs that morning and knowing how close we almost, almost came to working something out between the two of us.
If only my Father had let himself consider that someone of mixed heritage, like Tonks, could bring true honour to our family...
If only my Mother hadn’t tried to make me choose between her and my brother…
If only I’d had one more moment to persuade Regs to come with me to Diagon Alley… So many things might have turned out differently….
But the future wasn’t ours to see. Wasn’t then. Isn’t now. That was a gift only given to the great Merlin himself.
And… Just possibly to Albus Dumbledore.
Admittedly, Albus is not my favourite person right now. Not when I keep asking him what I need to do, need to learn, in order to be useful to the Order and he keeps telling me to wait, stay here, useless, in this place. All this when I know the situation with Voldemort grows more and more dangerous each day. But that doesn’t make him wrong about the importance of you learning occlumancy from Snape. It’s the best tool you have to protect yourself during these dark days at Hogwarts.
Before you decide your Godfather has become a complete and bitter cynic, let me tell you one more thing. That the events I described here did end up leading me to some of the most precious memories of my school years.
It was on my third morning in Diagon Alley that I ran into James at Fortesque’s Ice Cream Parlour. That was how it came to pass that, as I once told you, your Grandparents brought me back to stay with them and your Dad for the rest of that summer holiday. And over the next Christmas as well. From them, I learned a lot about what being in a real family can mean. Kind of like you and Molly Weasley, I guess.
Seems odd, writing this to you now, without knowing when you’ll ever get to read it. When I’ll ever get to let you know that any of these writings exist.
As matters stand at Hogwarts, I don’t want you in peril like today when you tried to contact me. If it was only me risking danger by our contact, I’d pop into your fire each night and post a dozen owls a day to ease things for you there. But receiving visits or owls is now dangerous for you!
So, I’ll save this for the time being, along with some other papers I kept from last year’s cave, or wrote to you here in this kitchen. They are in a tin that once held some Floating Fudge I got from Cousin Andromeda the Christmas I was ten. Used to keep Chocolate Frog cards in it. I found the thing hovering in the shadows near the ceiling of my bedroom closet when I came back here last summer. (Still had a Nicolas Flamel inside it, too. Left it for you in case you might want it.) The long-ago charm I put on it to keep Regs out of my candy still works! (Must’ve paid more attention in Professor Flitwick’s class than I realized.) I’ve modified that charm so the tin will open for you or me with equal ease.
I’ll have Dapper bring it to you once Professor Dumbledore’s back in place at Hogwarts. Or, better still, give it to you myself when I see you this summer.
Til then, Harry. Be strong, be safe. Keep close to your friends. Be true to what you believe in!
I love you.

Your Godfather,

Sirius