The man stands outside of Grimmauld Place, Number twelve, in the rain. He is short but not too short, and very, very thin. His face looks like a skull and his skin is yellowish like a slowly melting candle; he is beautiful but in a tragic way, because he could have been much more than that. He is a tragedy himself—Sirius Black, the walking tragedy. He doesn't like the sound of it, doesn't like how it rings to his ears, doesn't like that it fits too much, because it's true, too true.
His messy, black hair is stuck to his forehead—he is dripping wet: wet clothes, wet body (this is London, after all, and it rains ). The wind howls, blowing his dishevelled hair around, hissing like a snake. He shivers, digs his fingers in his elbows in a futile attempt to shield himself because he hasn't felt warm for so long (too long); he shivers again and clenches his jaw; he looks up.
The house stands still, of course, as if waiting, listening for him. Mastering the courage to walk towards it, Sirius feels the blood wards engulf him; they aren't friendly, but they aren't unfriendly either—if anything, they are curious. He is curious, too, despite himself; curious to see what has become of the house he grew up in, of the dark and long corridors, of his own bedroom—will they have burnt it to the ground the same way they left a scorching mark on the tapestry? Will they have left it intact? He doesn't know which is worse: hatred or indifference? Or maybe it's the realisation that they may have actually cared to keep his room in a decent state, perhaps waiting for him to return …
Waiting for him to return … to return …
He has returned. No one is waiting for him now. There is no one left to wait. Everyone's gone gone gone (meaning not alive, not breathing, deceased), but for Sirius. (Sometimes he wishes that he were gone, too. It's not nice to be the only one left behind, because it's lonely . They are strong feelings—guilt, loneliness. And they're dangerous, too.)
He stands before the old door, taps its old, wooden surface with his wand, and it opens, leaving a horrible, creaking sound that makes Sirius wince and almost stumble back. He doesn't, though; he enters the house of his childhood, shutting the squeaking door behind him softly, perhaps afraid to wake up the ghosts; it closes with a silent click.
"Lumos," he whispers, and the tip of his wand lightens up the vast, unending darkness of the long, silent corridor, the darkness that seems to loom over his skin and taint it . (He is tainted.)
*
From somewhere in the house, there is a clock ticking. Tick, tick, tick. He wants to grab it, grab it and throw it out of the window, wants to break it, break the glass in front, then throw it away. All he wants is to destroy things. It's all he can do these days (for the last decade and more.) All he can do is destroy things. It's all he wants to do. Destroy, destroy, destroy.
It's unfair that he's the only damaged one. He doesn't want to be alone in his suffering. He doesn't want to be alone. (He is alone. He is alone but for a house-elf that sneers at him and murmurs about the bad Master, blood-traitor; broke my poor Mistress's heart when he ran away—)
Oh, Sirius can imagine the glass breaking into thousands of splinters, sharp and dangerous; he can imagine them scattered on the kitchen floor, can imagine them pierce his skin, draw blood, can imagine the pain, (the satisfaction), the metallic taste of crimson red. Something about causing mayhem in his old house … tempts him. But the thing is, no one is here to berate him; no one is here to get angry at him, shout at him, scream their throat raw. And what he wants— craves for, really, is a fight. For something, anything to happen. Because he wants to feel angry with someone, wants to unleash his fury, his frustration—it is not safe for you to go out, Sirius—wants to hit something, someone—hey, greasy git, and, how's the cleaning, Black —before he hits himself.
(Perhaps he doesn't want to destroy things. Perhaps he only wants to be seen. Noticed. But that only sounds hollow to his ears. Hollow like his heart. This is what he has become. This is want the war did to him, and Azkaban, and Peter, Wormtail, that rat, I will kill him, I will make him pay, I will—)
(Hopeless, endless promises. They are empty, just like Sirius when he isn't burning himself out with anger, with hatred, with resentment. Perhaps revenge can heal him, perhaps he will be free of this burden, from the guilt … perhaps it will make things better … )
(Then again, if he ever were free of his fury, what then? He would have to face other facts, other emotions; Sirius isn't ready. He will never be. Doesn't want to be. So he holds to his own anger the way he would clutch a lifejacket in the middle of a sea of memories, because drowning isn't really an option. Been there, done that.)
Tick, tick, tick.
His eye twitches.
*
The house is haunted, he swears it is.
Not in the way of ghosts and shadows lingering from the past, looming over his conscience, breathing down his shoulder—those are just his imagination and actual ghosts can't breathe, anyway. Actual ghosts …
It is the small things he notices at first. A hiss of the wind just by his ear, a cold, cold shudder running down his spine, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. It is the small things, because ghosts cannot touch anything, because they are transparent, because they are lingering wraiths from the past, tethered to this world by just a delicate, fragile, invisible string. Ghosts can become invisible, as well, which is why he doesn't figure it out earlier.
But Sirius knows now; the house is haunted.
*
The first time he sees the ghost—barely a boy, really—it is near midnight. He's been drinking non stop, trying to swallow his sadness down in the kitchen. It is why he doesn't believe what he's seeing, at first. Because he thinks it was just that—just another stupid hallucination alcohol brought. Or the Black madness finally catching up to him. Or a combination. Probably the latter.
The candles are deemed by now, and have melted, emitting an eerie, yellowish light just barely enough for the wooden, old table. He's slumped down on a chair, legs outstretched in front of him, crossed on the ankles; his hand is hanging down, his hold of the bottle light, slipping, slipping, slipping …
Clang .
The bottle has fallen from his light grip and it clatters to the ground, immediately breaking into thousands of small and sharp shards. Sirius jolts, head jerking up from the floating state between asleep and awake that he was just a few moments ago. He glances down, rubbing his forehead and curses under his breath; it will take hours to clean everything up. With a sense of resignation and a sigh escaping his lips, he drops to his knees, trying to pick some of the glass up—the biggest pieces, just to be safe, and trying to pick up with his hands the smaller ones is a hopeless case, really …
Fuck it, he thinks and rises—
There is a boy standing in front of him, watching Sirius' movements, leaning against the kitchen's door frame. He is short but not too short (Blacks never are, he will later think), skin sickly pale, jet-black hair falling in front of orb-like, silver eyes—and he's dripping wet, which is the first thing Sirius notices. The boy is drenched to the bone; it's a miracle that small pools of water haven't formed around him, which also literally makes no sense whatsoever …
He looks at the boy. The boy looks at him.
Sirius drops the shrads he'd picked up, screams like a bansy, and runs.
*
The boy suddenly seems to be everywhere. Everywhere, so that Sirius wonders how he never noticed him before. The boy is everywhere; now he's reading the titles of the books in the library, his hand trying to trace the books' spines (but he's a ghost, meaning dead, meaning transparent , so his hand passes through the books as though they aren't there—it's the boy that isn't there, really—); now he's floating over the kitchen table, as if trying to sit on the chair; now he's here, there, everywhere around the house.
It drives Sirius mad. It also gives him a strong sense of déjà vu, which convinces him about the going-mad part. Because he doesn't know the boy. He doesn't.
*
The sun rays creep into his room from the shutters shyly and touch his face, the warmth welcoming. Sirius groans and stretches his back; yawning, he gets up. He climbs down the stairs, stifling more yawns on his way, then slides on his seat to the kitchen table, eyes still blurry from sleep.
*
He doesn't even realise when the boy appears. One blink, and he's just there. In front of Sirius from the other side of the table.
"Morning," he greets the boy, even before he realises what happened. Then it hits him and Sirius blinks once, twice—the hallucination— ghost? boy? what are you, who are you, how did you get here, is anyone looking for you, are you in trouble, are you okay? (stupid question, stupid Sirius)—doesn't go away. Maybe it's not a stretch of his imagination, after all.
Wait, that actually is worse, right? Because the ghost could be a threat, a welcome-home present from his lovely family; it could be someone sent from the Death Eaters & Co ( although Sirius doubts that they have the brains to pull anything too complicated ... )
Still … what if …
But the boy only blinks, perhaps startled; he watches Sirius, his face a blank mask, his eyes too big—did I look so young, too? Sirius wonders. Was I so young, too, once? It seems ten thousand lifetimes away. He thinks of his younger self, so self-confident, cocky and arrogant and so self-righteous, waking up everyday and marching on a war with the world and himself. He wants to face this kid, to take him from the shoulders, shake him, talk some sense into him. He wants to, but he can't. He wishes he could. He wishes … he wishes.
The boy's gone before Sirius can utter a word.
*
After the incident—like how Sirius likes to call it—the boy starts following him around everywhere, like a little kitten, like his shadow. It is strange, but also … comforting, in a way. In the way that he isn't completely alone in this mad, mad house. In the way he can feel someone else's presence near him.
The boy always looks at him as if waiting for Sirius to say something, but Sirius doesn't know what he's meant to say; he keeps his mouth shut, instead, not trusting himself around this kid—barely seventeen, so young, so young, what happened to you—?
And the boy waits, and Sirius waits—but what are we waiting for? he wants to ask and is scared to, because he thinks itwill disappointthe boy and he doesn't want to disappoint the boy; he already has disappointed so many people … all of them gone now, lost, dead dead dead …
*
"You don't know who I am, do you?" the boy asks once. "You don't remember." It's the first time he says anything at all; his voice is raspy, a gravelly and rough, painful sound, barely audible.
Sirius hears him anyway.
He frowns. "I …" he doesn't want to admit it, doesn't want to disappoint— all you can do, it's all you can do, all you can do— ; the boy seems to understand anyway; he gets up and leaves.
It feels like a loss. (The worst? He doesn't know why.)
*
He understands soon enough.
*
(It is the small things he notices at first. A hiss of the wind just by his ear, a cold, cold shudder running down his spine, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. It is the small things, because ghosts cannot touch anything, because they are transparent, because they are lingering wraiths from the past, tethered to this world by just a delicate, fragile, invisible string. Ghosts can become invisible, as well, which is why he doesn't figure it out earlier.)
*
Sirius sits at his father's study. He frowns at the photo of their family; his younger self has left all of them; he frowns again, squints his eyes, blinks, trying to clear his eyesight …
His brother is short but not too short, skin sickly pale, jet-black hair falling in front of orb-like, silver eyes …
Images flashing before his eyes. The small things he has noticed. The boy waiting. That look. The books. Everything. It all screams one thing. It all points to one thing, one direction, one person …
(He doesn't even register himself standing up.)
Regulus.
*
(You don't know who I am, do you? You don't remember.)
I do now, I do, I do, I do, just wait, just wait for me, I do—
(He finds him in the library.)
*
Sirius sits in front of his brother many years too late.
"I know who you were," he says.
Regulus quirks an eyebrow, doesn't look up from the book someone had left open on the desk almost two decades ago; Sirius wonders if it was his brother that left it open and never got to finish it. (How many times has Regulus read that same page? Because, as a ghost, he can't turn the pages.) He doesn't say anything. He waits. He's listening. It's enough.
"You were Regulus," says Sirius firmly, "you were a Seeker, a book-lover; you drank tea and lived off black coffee—though I am convinced you didn't even like the latter—and your friends were Crouch and Rosier. I know who you were. Will you tell me who you are now?"
Because I can't do this alone. And I don't think you can, either.
There is silence; somewhere in the house, a clock is ticking. Tick, tick, tick. Tick, tick,tick. Counting the minutes that pass by. The time slowly slipping away through their hands like the sand. I don't want to waste more time, he thinks. We've wasted enough already.
Regulus looks up; he almost smiles. "Took you long enough."
*
You see, they have no judgment.
So it is natural that they should drown,
first the ice taking them in
and then, all winter, their wool scarves
floating behind them as they sink
until at last they are quiet.
And the pond lifts them in its manifold dark arms.
But death must come to them differently,
so close to the beginning.
As though they had always been
blind and weightless. Therefore
the rest is dreamed, the lamp,
the good white cloth that covered the table,
their bodies.
And yet they hear the names they used
like lures slipping over the pond:
What are you waiting for
come home, come home, lost
in the waters, blue and permanent.
Louise Glück, The Drowned Children)