The Black Brothers

Once home Elizabeth went straight to bed leaving her father alone, Dorian like any other night walked over to his office and locked the door.
The glass in Dorian’s hand felt heavier than it should have. The amber liquid inside caught the dim light from the desk lamp, glinting like a warning sign he refused to see. He set it down carefully, his fingers trembling slightly, and leaned back in his chair, staring out the wide window.
The silence of the house enveloped him, thick and oppressive, broken only by the occasional creak of the old wood floors. It had been this way for years—quiet, controlled, safe. But tonight, the quiet felt like judgment.
Elizabeth had gone to bed hours ago, but her words lingered.
"You’re strong, Dad. Not because you hide the cracks, but because you keep going even when it’s hard."
The memory of her voice had been a comfort at first, but now it felt like a spotlight illuminating corners of himself he had worked hard to keep hidden. He reached for the glass, hesitated, and then pulled his hand back with a sigh.
Dorian pressed his hands to his face, the weight of exhaustion bearing down on him. He had spent so much of his life convinced he was doing the right thing—protecting Elizabeth, shielding her from the ugliness of the world, giving her a life that was different from the one he’d had.
But had he really?
The thought crept in unbidden, unsettling and sharp. He closed his eyes, but the memories rose anyway. His father’s voice—stern, unyielding, demanding control over every detail of Dorian’s life. His mother’s quiet sighs, her eyes darting to her husband for approval before speaking. The endless rules. The locked liquor cabinet he knew was more about image than discipline.
It hit him suddenly, like a cold gust of wind through an open door: he had been doing the same thing.
Not all at once, not in the glaring, obvious ways his parents had. But subtly, insidiously.
The overprotection—shielding Elizabeth from the world to the point of suffocating her choices. He had told himself it was love, but how different was it from the way his father had kept him boxed in, trapped under the guise of “guidance”?
The secrets—oh, the secrets. Hiding his past, his struggles, even from her. He had told himself it was for her benefit, to spare her the burden, but wasn’t that exactly what his mother had done? Pretending everything was fine, even when it wasn’t?
The glass on the desk caught his eye again, a glimmering reminder of his other failure. The addiction. It wasn’t daily, not like his father’s had been, but it was there, lurking in the quiet moments. He had convinced himself it was harmless, a way to take the edge off. But wasn’t that what his father had said, too?
And the control. The possessiveness. He had been so afraid of losing Elizabeth that he had tried to hold onto her too tightly, making choices for her, guiding her life to fit his vision of safety. His father’s voice echoed in his mind again: “I know what’s best for you, Dorian. Trust me.”
He groaned softly, dropping his head into his hands.
How had he let it happen? How had he become the thing he had sworn he would never be?
The realization cut through him, painful and sharp, leaving him raw and exposed. He thought about Elizabeth’s defiance at the party, the way she had stood up for him, unyielding and fierce. She wasn’t like him, not yet. She still had her freedom, her fire.
And he had almost smothered it.
The thought was unbearable.
He pushed the glass further away, the faint scrape of it against the wood loud in the stillness of the room. He couldn’t keep doing this—not to himself, not to her.
Dorian stood and walked to the window, his reflection faint against the dark glass. He barely recognized the man staring back at him—tired, broken, and so weighed down by the mistakes of the past that he had let them bleed into the present.
But there was still time.
The realization didn’t come all at once, but in small, tentative steps. He didn’t have to be like them. He didn’t have to repeat the cycle. He had spent his life running from his parents’ shadow, only to find himself caught in it again.
But he could step out of it.
For Elizabeth.
For himself.
The house was quiet as Dorian made his way down the long hallway, the echo of his footsteps the only sound breaking the oppressive silence. His destination was clear. It always was on nights like this. The tapestry room.
The door creaked as he pushed it open, and the faint scent of old fabric and stale air hit him like a ghost of the past. He stepped inside, the dim glow from the hallway casting strange, shifting shadows across the towering tapestry that dominated the far wall.
It depicted a scene of triumph—an ancestor long gone, standing victorious on a battlefield, the family crest woven in gold thread above him. As a child, he had once been mesmerized by the intricate details, imagining himself as the hero in the story. Now, it was just another symbol of everything he despised.
Dorian closed the door behind him, shutting out the rest of the world. He lit a cigarette with shaking hands, the flicker of the flame briefly illuminating the hollow look in his eyes. The first drag was harsh, bitter, but it calmed his nerves just enough for him to pick up the bottle he had stashed there earlier. He didn’t bother with a glass this time.
The whiskey burned as it slid down his throat, but the fire in his chest was a welcome distraction from the storm raging in his mind. He stood in the center of the room, staring up at the tapestry, its golden threads mocking him in the dim light.
This room had always been his father’s pride. A shrine to their family’s legacy. But to Dorian, it was nothing more than a cage, a reminder of the lies he had been told, the secrets he had been shielded from. He could still hear his father’s voice echoing in his head: “The tapestry is our history, Dorian. It’s who we are. Never forget that.”
How could he forget? Every thread in that damn thing felt like it was woven from guilt, manipulation, and control.
He took another long drag from the cigarette, the smoke curling around him like a shroud. The alcohol was starting to dull the edges of his thoughts, but not enough to silence them entirely.
He hated this room. Hated what it stood for. Hated himself for keeping it intact all these years.
The thought of burning it down flashed through his mind, vivid and intoxicating. He imagined the flames consuming the tapestry, the golden threads curling and blackening, the air thick with smoke and the acrid smell of burning fabric. It would be so easy—just one spark, and he could be rid of it all.
But as he stood there, cigarette in hand, the memories crept in.
He was a boy again, small and unsure, standing in the very same spot. The heavy curtains that once covered the tapestry were in his tiny hands, too large for him to pull back on his own. The room had felt so big then, the shadows so long, the secrets so heavy. His crows—his only friends in those days—had flown in circles around him, their wings rustling the still air.
He remembered the stories his parents had told him, the half-truths and outright lies designed to mold him into the perfect heir. The weight of their expectations had felt suffocating even then. And now, standing in the same spot decades later, he realized he had become the very thing he had vowed to escape.
He had repeated their patterns. The overprotection, the control, the secrets. He had kept Elizabeth in the same kind of gilded cage they had built for him, convincing himself it was love, that it was for her own good.
The thought made his stomach churn with self-loathing.
Dorian tipped his head back, staring up at the tapestry until his vision blurred. He hated it. Hated what it represented. Hated that it still had power over him.
But most of all, he hated himself.
For the lies. For the manipulation. For the drink in his hand and the cigarette between his fingers. For every moment he had stood in this room and let the weight of his past dictate his future.
He took one last drag from the cigarette before crushing it against the edge of the bottle. The sharp smell of burning tobacco filled the air as he stared at the tapestry, his chest heaving with the effort to contain the roiling emotions inside him.
“Never again,” he whispered hoarsely, the words barely audible over the pounding of his heart.
For the first time in years, he allowed himself to feel the full weight of his hatred—not just for his parents, not just for this room, but for himself. It was a harsh, unrelenting thing, but it was honest. And in that honesty, there was a glimmer of something else.
Resolve.
Dorian turned abruptly, leaving the bottle behind as he strode out of the room. He didn’t look back. The tapestry could stay, for now. But its power was gone, stripped away by the clarity that had come with facing the truth.
The cycle would end here. No more secrets, no more lies. For Elizabeth’s sake, and for his own.
As he climbed the stairs to his bedroom, the faint smell of smoke clinging to his clothes, Dorian felt something shift inside him. The past would always be there, but it no longer owned him.
Dorian sat at the edge of his bed, the ache in his legs radiating up through his body like a slow, relentless tide. His cane leaned against the bedside table, a constant companion he had grown to resent. The sharp pang in his knees reminded him he wouldn’t make it much farther tonight without it.
The doctors called it Black Poppy Syndrome—a rare, cruel illness that sapped strength from the body, leaving the afflicted fragile and vulnerable. For Dorian, the name had always sounded too poetic, as if to soften the brutality of what it really was. It wasn’t poetic. It was a curse.
He pulled his sleeves back, glancing at his thin wrists. His skin seemed to cling too tightly to his frame, as if even his body wanted to retreat inward. Over time, the illness had hollowed him out, slowly eroding the vitality he once carried so naturally. Every step was a negotiation, every movement a reminder of how his body had betrayed him.
But it wasn’t just the physical toll. The curse of Black Poppy ran far deeper.
Dorian’s gaze drifted to the photographs on the nightstand. His wife’s smile frozen in time, the edges of the picture worn from years of being held. His parents, their stern, formal expressions captured in a family portrait that now felt like a lie. His brothers—Sirius with his mischievous grin, Regulus with his quiet strength. All gone.
It was as if the illness had chosen him to bear its weight, sparing no one else in his life. The irony was bitter. He was the weakest of them all, the one whose body was breaking down piece by piece. Yet, he was the one still standing.
If standing was what this could be called.
Sometimes, in the quiet hours of the night, he wondered if it was deliberate—if fate, or the universe, or some vengeful god had kept him alive for a reason. Not a reason of purpose, but punishment. Everyone he had loved, everyone who might have loved him, had been stripped away. His parents, his brothers, even his wife.
And now, all he had left was Elizabeth.
The thought tightened like a vice around his chest, stealing what little breath he had. The fear was constant, gnawing at the edges of his mind. If he lost her too, he wasn’t sure he’d survive.
But wasn’t that the cruel twist of it all? Black Poppy wouldn’t let him die easily. It would keep him alive, tethered to a body that grew weaker by the day, forcing him to endure whatever came next.
Dorian buried his face in his hands, his fingers digging into his scalp. He hated this. Hated the way his illness had made him feel like a prisoner in his own body. Hated the way it isolated him, even from Elizabeth. Hated the way it reminded him, every single day, that he was the one left behind.
His mind drifted back to the tapestry room, to the memories of his crows as a child. They had been his only comfort then, flitting about with their glossy black feathers and sharp eyes. He had always envied their freedom, their ability to leave whenever they wished.
But now, even that memory felt tainted. His crows were long gone, just like everything else.
The world had a way of taking everything he loved. That was why he had tried so desperately to protect Elizabeth, even when it meant holding on too tightly. He couldn’t lose her. Not her. She was all he had left.
And yet, standing in the tapestry room tonight, he had realized something terrifying. The very thing he was trying to protect her from—loss, pain, the crushing weight of control—was exactly what he was inflicting on her.
Dorian exhaled shakily, his hands falling to his lap. He reached for his cane, gripping it tightly as he stood. The sharp stab of pain in his legs made him wince, but he pushed through it. He had to keep going.
Moving slowly, he crossed the room and picked up the photograph of Elizabeth from the nightstand. She looked so young in the picture, her eyes bright with a fire he had always admired. He traced the edge of the frame with his thumb, his chest tightening.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to the empty room.
He wasn’t sure who he was apologizing to—Elizabeth, his wife, his brothers, himself. Maybe all of them.
For too long, he had let his fear dictate his actions. Fear of losing Elizabeth, of being left alone in a world that seemed intent on punishing him. But fear wasn’t the answer. It never had been.

Dorian placed the photograph back on the nightstand and sank into the chair by the window, staring out at the dark sky. He had a long road ahead of him—confronting his past, breaking the patterns he had inherited, and finding a way to truly let Elizabeth live her own life.
But for tonight, he allowed himself one small victory: the realization that he couldn’t protect her by repeating the mistakes of his parents.
The weight of his illness pressed down on him, but for the first time in years, it didn’t feel like the only thing defining him.
Maybe, just maybe, there was still time to make things right.

He sighed and got up grasping his cane and slowly walking over to his daughter's room, he slowly opened the door and glanced at her, asleep. In the bed that once was his, he smiled softly , she didn’t touch a single thing from his room, still the same as he had left it many years ago.
Well only some pastel and bright colors had changed because of curse her daughter was a little ray of sunshine, she was a gryffindor just like her mother after all, he was grateful for having meet Annabeth and thankful for her to bring him some light, that light in the form of true love and in the form of their daughter.
His precious little Elizabeth, well now not so little, was now slowly starting to enter her teenage years, so she was a little sassy feisty child, but she had always been like that, and he was grateful for that, his little girl,his love, his everything.

He slowly walked up to the small second floor he had, the only thing he liked of his house, it was his room, he had the biggest amongst his two brothers and how his parents at least let him “decorate” it how he wanted, he looked at his piano, his best friend for most of his life, he sat down and slowly started playing the same old melody he always played, it didn’t have a name, he invented it one night out of boredom, but he still remembered it, he loved that sound.
It brought him peace and a sense of comfort he couldn’t explain. But it felt like home.