Left Empty
SATURDAY. SEPTEMBER 4, 1971.
“-the library, probably. Waste of a Saturday, if you ask me.” The bedroom door bursts open. James Potter’s voice ricochets off the walls of the room and assaults Sirius’ ears. He’s so bloody loud.
“We do have loads of homework…” Pettigrew. Quieter. Just as irritating.
“Homework? Homework?! This is the most important morning of my entire life, and you’re thinking about homework?!”
Sirius Black has been perched uncomfortably at the edge of his still-made bed since he woke up. He had hoped his roommates might be gone for the whole day. He had hoped that he might be able to think for ten seconds without something interrupting. Apparently, the universe has denied his request. Uncle Alphard’s law strikes again.
“Sirius, tell Pete that homework can wait.”
James Potter is always doing this, always trying to rope Sirius into conversation. He doesn’t seem at all deterred by the fact that Sirius has decided he hates James Potter’s guts.
Naturally, this decision had come a little too late. Just like everything else did with Sirius. He’s always just a little too late: he always has to ask the question first. Always has to test the limit. Always has to touch the hot stove before learning his lesson.
Lesson learned.
“What are you on about?” Sirius snaps, whipping his head around to scowl at the other boys.
He scowls harder when James Potter smiles.
“Quidditch tryouts are today!”
“So?”
“So? ‘So’ he says.” The boy’s grin is blinding. Sirius wants to snuff it out. “So, we’re going!”
“First-years aren’t allowed to play Quidditch.”
“Yeah, but we can still watch. It’ll be brilliant! Like a private game!” James Potter kicks off his shoes and digs around in his trunk for a new pair. “You should come.”
Sirius doesn’t dignify that with a response. He turns away from the other boys.
“Suit yourself,” James says. “Come on, Pete. I’ll race you!”
“You’ll win.”
“Sure will!” James Potter’s footsteps are just as loud as his voice as he gallops down the hall.
“Wait! James! James, you’re cheating!”
And, just like that, Sirius Black is alone again.
Which is fine.
It’s good, actually.
Because that’s what he wanted: to be alone.
Except, now that he is alone, he’s not quite sure what to do with himself.
It’s taunting him.
The letter under his pillow is taunting him. It has been ever since he received it.
Sirius reaches out and clasps the dry parchment in his hands.
He looks down at the awful thing. His mother’s handwriting stares up at him. Clean, elegant strokes spell out his name. Simple. Sleek. Sinister.
The longer he waits, the worse it will get. He’s certain of it. Walburga is not a patient woman.
Sirius shares that quality with his mother. Patience is a virtue he was never blessed with. Though, in all truth, it doesn’t seem he was blessed with many virtues at all.
He had one job. One. Simple. Job. Sit on a stool: a task so simple even a bloody house elf might have managed it. Yet Sirius Black mussed it up. How? How did he fail? What secret deformities of the soul had that dusty old hat seen in him that rendered him unworthy of his birthright?
Sirius knows he hasn’t always been the best son. He knows he can be brash and insolent. He knows he’s sharp in a way no parent wants their child to be. But he’s The Heir. And he’s never wanted anything other than to make his parents proud of him. Never. Not for a single solitary second. That has to count for something. It just has to.
He can’t look at the letter any longer. The image of it has burned itself into his brain. The parchment stings his fingertips.
He can see the Quidditch pitch from his window. He sees the teeny little smudges– presumably his roommates– rush across the pitch and climb into seats in the stadium. The James Potter blob joins a blob already seated in the stands. Lupin? The Pettigrew blob is not far behind.
The brooms are in the air. Red smudges whip around in the sky above the stadium, weaving through the towers. Chaser tryouts.
Is this nasty habit where it all started?
Sirius had spent years watching muggle children play from the windows of 12 Grimmauld Place, much to his parents’ chagrin. Was that where this all began? Was that the first domino to fall?
No.
With trembling hands, Sirius stuffs the envelope back beneath his pillow.
He knows exactly where this all began. It began with James Potter. It began with shaking his hand, with staying in that compartment. James Potter was the first domino to fall.
Sirius wants to scream. He wants to break something. It was the first little act of rebellion– the first real choice he’s ever made for himself– and it all led to this. It led to him standing alone in a garishly red bedroom, scared half to death of a bloody letter.
He has to leave. He doesn’t know where he’ll go, but he can’t stomach being in this room anymore. He doesn’t belong here. It feels like the crimson walls are closing in on him. He’s claustrophobic.
He needs to leave, and so he does. He rushes down the stairs and out of the portrait in a dizzying blur of rouge. He leaves his tie behind. No need to wear the reminder of his plight like a leash.
If he were a Slytherin, Mother would have wanted him to always be in full uniform. Mother would have wanted him to wear his tie as a mark of pride. And he would have.
But he’s not in Slytherin.
If he were in Slytherin, he wouldn’t be stuck ambling aimlessly around the dungeons on a Saturday morning. He would just know where Andy was. He wouldn’t have to look for her in the first place. He wouldn’t need the comfort. He’d be happy.
Happy feels very far away.
“Sirius?”
It isn’t Andromeda.
“Sirius, what are you doing down here?” Narcissa’s porcelain skin looks almost green in the dim, cool light of the enchanted torches. She’s alone, a rare sight these days.
“Cissa.” Sirius’ tongue feels heavy. He can’t force out any other words.
For two days, Narcissa’s face has haunted him. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her: glossed lips parted in a perfect O, betrayal blatant in her gaze.
Betrayal. She’d had the audacity to look betrayed by him. She’d looked hurt. As if he’d had any say at all in what the sorting hat decided. As if he’d chosen to abandon his family.
“You shouldn’t be down here.” She’s been standing statue-still ever since spotting him. She won’t step forward. He’s contaminated now. He’s other now.
Gravity crushes Sirius. His limbs feel like lead. All he can do is blink at her.
He hates her.
It’s like the click of a lock popping open. He hates her.
It burns dark and vile in his belly. He hates her.
He hates her. He hates her. He hates her.
He hates her half as much as he hates James Potter. He hates her for forcing him to meet James Potter. For allowing him to fall into a situation where he felt obligated to shake a blood traitor’s hand. For allowing him to become contaminated. For tipping over the first domino that led to his fall from grace.
He hates her.
“Sirius, really, you need to leave.”
“Why?” His throat is tight. “Because you can’t stand to look at me?”
She doesn’t answer. Her pink lips press into a thin little line, like a scar cutting across her ivory skin.
He steps forward. She steps back.
“Do I make you feel guilty, Narcissa?” He hates her. He hates her. “Do you have the decency to feel guilty?”
She’s still silent. Just staring. Her eyes are scanning his face like she's looking for something. Like three nights in the Gryffindor dormitory might have changed it. Like she’s looking for physical manifestations of the blemishes the sorting hat had seen in his mind. It makes him burn crimson. He hates crimson.
“Answer me!” He growls. The anger is like pins and needles all over his body. Everything is alive. Everything hurts.
Narcissa is composed. Always composed. Toujours pur. She straightens her spine.
“I hope you’re not insinuating that what happened to you is somehow my fault.”
Somehow? Somehow?! He laughs. It’s entirely joyless. “You abandoned me.”
“This is about the train?!” She rolls her eyes.
The anger flares. It’s agony. It’s invigorating. His bones rattle with rage. She ruined his life. She ruined his life so she could fraternize with her fiance.
Sirius hates her.
“Sirius-”
“Shut up!”
She shuts her mouth. He can hear her teeth clack together abruptly.
The vitriol has his throat in a vise. His eyes sting.
“I hate you.”
Narcissa’s pale face barely twitches. “You need to get out of here before somebody else sees you.”
Sirius doesn’t move.
“Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She sniffs. “Excuse me.”
His cousin pushes past him. He watches her leave. When her dark head of hair rounds a corner and slips out of view, the rage recedes, and Sirius Black is left empty.
***
SUNDAY. SEPTEMBER 5, 1971.
On Sunday, Sirius scours the castle for a good place to be alone that isn’t so bloody red.
Eventually, he settles for sitting out by the Black Lake. September is growing chilly. Sirius shivers as he stares out at the choppy water.
He chucks a rock into the lake. He’s watching as the water ripples outwards when something soft hits his back.
“You’ll catch cold without a jumper.”
Andromeda folds her arms over her chest, but her face is soft. Her brows furrow nearly imperceptibly when Sirius doesn’t smile at her greeting.
He turns back to the lake.
“Ne sois pas si têtue, petite étoile.” Andy huffs. She drapes the jumper around Sirius’ shoulders. “Landing yourself in the hospital wing won’t fix anything.”
Sirius grumbles at the babying. Yesterday he might have welcomed it, but all he wants right now is to mope. He wants to sit by this lake until he withers. He wants to wither. Andromeda, with her glowy eyes and luminescent laughter, is not one to allow for withering.
“You’re being dramatic.” He says.
“I’m dramatic? You’re the one sulking by the lake like somebody’s died.”
Sirius doesn’t respond.
She doesn’t let him sit in silence for long. “I heard you ran into Cissa.”
The hole in his chest howls. Narcissa. He hates Narcissa. He wants to hate Andromeda for bringing up Narcissa– anything to fill the hole. Anything to stop the terrible empty feeling in the pit of his stomach.
But Sirius could never hate Andromeda. Hate the same Andromeda who tutored him in French and healing spells and violin? The same Andromeda who made funny faces at him from across the table at holiday feasts? The Andromeda who would waste her Sunday morning sitting by the Black Lake with her little cousin? No. Hating Andromeda isn’t an option.
“She told you?”
Andromeda hums in lieu of a proper response. She shrugs halfheartedly. “She tells me everything.”
Everyone does.
Except, perhaps, for Bellatrix. Though, in all honesty, Sirius isn’t certain there’s much for Bellatrix to tell. Sirius is mostly of the opinion that once people grow up and marry their betrothed, things just sort of… peter off. They stop caring about real things like Quidditch and cousins and start worrying about grown-up things like politics.
Bellatrix hasn’t been married just yet, of course. But she will be soon. And Sirius has already noticed the change in her. He’s a bit sad, truly, to see her go… not half as miserable as he will be when it happens to Andromeda in a year or so.
He wishes Narcissa was the eldest. He wishes she could’ve been snatched away by her betrothed ages ago. It’s clearly all she cares about, regardless.
“I hate her.” He informs Andy. It sounds incredibly matter-of-fact; he supposes that it is, but this upsets him nevertheless. He wants the anger back.
She hums again. “I know. She told me.”
“I hate her, Andy.” He insists, finally turning towards her.
“Okay.” She nods. She barely even frowns. Sirius is struck dumb.
“Okay?”
“Mhm.” Andromeda’s fingers weave through the blades of grass beneath them. “Okay. You hate her. That’s okay.”
Sirius Black does not do ‘okay.’ ‘Okay’ does not tend to sit right with people made of jagged pieces.
He feels alone. He feels hollow. He feels…
“I’m scared.”
The confession is quiet. He sounds so much younger than he feels. He sounds like Regulus.
Andromeda opens her arms, and Sirius surges forward, burying his face in her shoulder.
Now that the confessions have begun, they pour from his lips like water from a broken dam.
“Mother sent me a letter.”
“I figured as much.”
“I can’t answer it.”
“She can wait a few days.”
“I can’t even open it.”
“It’s alright.”
“I shook a blood traitor’s hand.”
She says nothing.
Andy holds him tighter. Does it hurt her? Something inside him wonders. Does it hurt her to hold him so close? Does he prick her the way he pricks himself when he’s alone with his thoughts?
She squeezes him so tight he thinks he might break. He welcomes it. He hopes he does. He hopes he breaks into a million little bits so that someone might sand his edges and put him together better than before.
“I didn’t mean to-”
“I know.” She quiets. She doesn’t let him finish. He doesn’t know how the sentence would have ended anyway.
“What do I do?” His shoulders shake, his face reddens, but no tears come. Je suis sale. Je suis sale. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I know.”
Finally, from his lips spring his deepest fear. “Mother will disown me.”
Andromeda laughs. “Over your Hogwarts house?”
He prickles.
“Please, Sirius.”
“She will!”
Andromeda just shushes him. They sit, locked in an embrace, swaying in the September breeze for a few moments. Then, she makes a confession of her own.
“Theodore’s parents are muggles.”
Sirius’ blood turns to ice in his veins. He pulls away.
“What?”
“My boyfriend-”
“I know who Theodore is!” Muggles. Muggles. Andromeda’s been associating with mudbloods. “Does Uncle Cygnus know?”
“Does he know who Theodore is? Or do you mean-”
“Quit avoiding the question!” He smacks her shoulder. She laughs. It’s a delightful little sound, like the tinkling of bells. It’s nearly enough to cheer him. Nearly.
“Yes, yes. Father knows.”
“And Aunt-”
“Yes.” She’s being terribly impassive about this entire earth-shattering revelation.
“And they’re fine with it?” Sirius finds it difficult to believe that anyone in his family would allow this sort of affiliation to occur.
“Of course not.” Andy wrinkles her nose.
Ah. That makes more sense.
“But I haven’t been disowned.” She brushes her long fingers through his short hair. Sirius closes his eyes and leans into her touch. “You think they’ll disown The Heir for fraternizing with blood traitors? I am a blood traitor and I-”
His eyes snap open. “Don’t say things like that!”
Andromeda isn’t a blood traitor. Blood traitors are… they’re people like James Potter. They’re loud and self-centered and nothing like Andromeda at all. Andromeda isn’t a blood traitor.
“What else would you call it?”
Sirius does not have an answer.
“The point is,” Her hand settles at the nape of his neck, “you won’t be disowned.”
He can’t meet her eyes.
“It’ll all turn out fine in the end.” From Andy’s mouth, it sounds like a promise rather than a platitude.
“I don’t know what to do now.” He admits.
“You might want to start with answering that letter.”
His stomach turns.
“You’re right.”
“Always am.” She stands up, stretching out like a cat. “Come on then. Can’t let you starve. Walburga would have my head.”
He accepts her outstretched hand and pulls himself to his feet.
Andromeda consorts with mudbloods. Her Hufflepuff boytoy is a mudblood.
But she isn’t dirty. She isn’t dirty at all.
Andromeda is pure. Not in the same way as Walburga or Bellatrix or Narcissa, maybe. But pure nevertheless.
Narcissa is a freshly bloomed peony. Andromeda is cobblestone after a storm.
Sirius wants to be exactly like her.
The badge on her robes glints in the sunlight as the cousins tread back toward the castle.
“Why didn’t you tell me you made Head Girl?”
She laughs again. “When would I have had a chance to, with Cissa around? 'Blah blah blah blah blah…'”
Andy gives him the same conspiratory look as when she's just kicked his shin beneath the table at a stuffy dinner party. Sirius feels his lips curl into a smile for the first time in half a week.