Ain’t No Sunshine
Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone
This house just ain’t no home
Anytime she goes away
13th April 1975
A heatwave had come with the springtime shift.
Heat clung to the air, to skin like sweat as the clouds withered away. At the Potter Manor, the younger wizards had flocked to the gardens. To the little stream and the pond out back - between the meadow and the orchards.
The sun was bright against the pond; sparkles that could blind if one looked too closely.
Which is why, that day, Henry Jordan and David Moon introduced their Pureblooded cohorts to sunglasses.
Regulus Black swam laps of the shallow pool as his brother interrogated David. Question after question as he inspected the frames - holding them up to the sun before placing them upon his nose. James watched on with nods of enthusiasm and queries of how to apply it to his own frames.
“Oi, Reggie!” Henry called to the boy from the pond’s edge, his feet dangling into the clear depths. The boy in question paused his lap, twisting round as he ducked his head underwater to flick the hair from his eyes.
“What is it?” He huffed, arms circling as he stared at his friend.
“Do you wanna go London with me this week?” The boy waggled his brows, a bright grin on his pleasant face. “You can buy this lot some sunnies.”
“Yeah, alright.” He nodded, kicking his legs forwards to swim on his back. His friend watched him from the water’s edge, smiling as his friend glided with delicate ease.
“He’s been half-fish since we were kids, I swear.” Sirius spoke with a fond laugh, plopping himself down beside Henry. The boy looked to him with a curious smile, eyes darting to David behind them. Still caught trying to explain the logistics of Muggle sunglasses to James Potter; the older boy frowning as he compared his own frames to the others.
As he looked back to his friend’s older brother, Henry had to admit the boy’s beauty. It was no wonder half the girls in school sent him Valentines, really. And it was no wonder Reg preferred to focus on his sister.
At least she was pretty to a different demographic.
“He’s always trying to get David and me to swim the Black Lake with him. Moons won’t ‘cause he’s scared of the squid.” He snickered, nudging the older boy. “Never seen you there.”
“I hate it.” Sirius confessed. “You put me in water and I flail until someone yanks me out.” The boy laughed, running a hand through his hair in such a familiar gesture. It was one that Reg mimicked - one he’d spied half the Marauders doing as they watched pranks come to fruition. “Never bothered to learn properly, you know?”
“You ought to.” Henry pointed out. “Never know when it’ll be important.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever face a situation in which swimming saves my skin.” Sirius spoke doubtfully, brow pulled down in confusion. “Reg might, if he keeps swimming like he’s training for it.”
“Didn’t you get the same talk from Ara?” Henry asked, eyes downcast as he skimmed his feet against the water.
“What talk?”
“Reg said that when they were kids, she gave him this whole talk about how he needed to be able to swim. Seemed really certain of it.” Henry shrugged, eyes flicking to Sirius, only to see intensity to the boy’s stare.
“Best not to dwell on that.” He clapped Henry’s shoulder, jumping from the pond edge and striding back to Potter’s side - flopping onto the grass beside him to ask a stupid question about suncream.
“He doesn’t like to talk about it.” Henry flinched, head spinning to spy Reg in the water beside him. With a push, the boy tugged himself to be sat on the side; his feet still in the water as he ruffled a hand through his wet hair.
“Talk about what?”
“The things Ara did when we were children.” Reg sighed, eyes darting to his brother. “If he knew how much I’ve told you, he’d go barmy. But he tells his Marauders about it, I’m certain.”
“Must be tough.” He replied lamely.
“It’s worse for her.” Regulus shrugged. “It’s her story we keep telling.”
“It’s yours too.”
They watched the water for a little while until Effie called them inside; promises of lemonade and custard tarts. Sirius and James parted with cheeky winks - disappearing inside to likely enact some Marauding plot.
The three Hufflepuffs found themselves seated on the countertops, pastries and drinks to their sides.
“How’s your sister doing?” David asked through muffled cheeks - gulping down pastry to punctuate his words.
“Are you still pining over Reg’s big sister?” Henry laughed, raising a brow from his perch on the counter.
“No!” David denied, pinked cheeks. “I doubt she thinks of me as more than Reg’s comic book friend.”
“No talk of fancying my sister.” Reg spoke defeatedly from behind his lemonade. “I’ve barely recovered from that rubbish with Lupin.”
“No relationship should be that convoluted.” Henry shuddered, flashes of Reg’s many rants on the subject so very clear in his mind. “Though, I suppose no one writes songs about the simple ones.”
“You buy one Lennon record,” David laughed, shaking his head as he put on a goofy voice, “and you start thinking that you’re all groovy man.”
“Oh, grow up.” Henry stuck his tongue out at the boy - laughter twinkling from the kitchen through the house.
——
Dinner was a lively affair.
That seemed to be how the Potters lived. With brightly lit meals and laughs; time in the music room encouraging him to play as the couples danced and youngsters snuck sips of wine and firewhiskey. Mornings flying across the grounds - watching the sunrise agains the opal exterior of the Manor.
Sirius flicked peas at everyone across the table. James loudly spoke of going to some concert in London. Dorea took the onions off Charlus’s pie and Monty spoke of his most recent match of Gobstones with the Minister’s tailor. David and Henry sat either side of Regulus, both chatting away merrily. Smiling as they took in this home their friend had found.
It was so… ordinary.
Loathe as he was to admit, Reg could get used to it. He was getting used to it.
But he needed Ara there. He needed his big sister in the same happy house, eating meals in a room full of windows. Sitting by the opal at the back of the manor as the sun set. He’d tell her off for smoking, and she’d make him swear not to tell Dorea about her habit.
He could do it then. As long as she was beside him.
“Ara?” He spoke, an ornate silver mirror in his hand - bedroom door shut firmly. Everyone else was in the gardens. Sirius had the bond, even if they were clearly still fighting. He didn’t need this too. This… it was for Reg.
The mirror rippled from his own face to another. One he had missed more than he would a limb.
“Hi, Reggie.” Ara breathed, eyes lighting up at the sight of him. Though the mirror was only small, it showed the sallowness to her skin and hollow of her cheeks so clearly. The dim lighting merely made the purple below her eyes seem to grow. “How’s having your boys over?”
“It’s going well.” He forced himself to smile, to be something uplifting like he knew she wished. “David’s got a crush on you, did you know?”
“I figured.” She laughed. “How else would I be first in line for so many of his new comics? I think he gave me that X-Men about Phoenix before he’d read it himself.”
“Probably.” Reg agreed. “At least Henry doesn’t feel that way. I’ll never have to worry about him with you.”
“Are you still mad about my fling with Remus?” She huffed, resting her hand on her chin in the frame. “Merlin, isn’t everyone?” She laughed humourlessly.
“No.” Reg lied, pouting petulantly. “I just hate thinking about any of my friends having crushes on my siblings. It’s hard enough hearing the Williams cousins giggling as they trail behind Sirius every other day.”
“Well, imagine how rubbish it is being the twin that gets less Valentines.”
“Imagine how rubbish it is being the sibling that gets the least.” Reg retorted.
“You haven’t grown into your cheekbones yet.” Ara spoke, matter-of-factly. “If you follow me and Sirius, they’ll pop over summer when your voice drops properly.”
“I can hope.” Reg laughed, the sound a little too soft as he heard her own. It was pitiful. The laugh of a dying man, holding it together just long enough to say goodbye. “Are you alright?” He finally asked - breath caught in his throat at her pause before reply.
It was a hollow silence.
“Wally got pissed at my new hair.” Ara feigned a petulant pout, her eyes too dim for the amusement to be real. “And I told her that Muggle hair dye is one of the only ways to stop your hair being used in Polyjuice Potion.”
“Please don’t tell me that’s why you dyed it.” Reg laughed; putting on his very best show.
“It may have been a reason.” Ara’s lip twitched, almost in amusement.
“Sometimes I can see why they call you mad.”
“All the best people are.” She replied with a grin, looking to him with utter fondness.
“Someone else said that to me.” Reg remarked. “I think it might have been David, he tends to know the same literary-”
There was a loud shriek, the sound of a door slamming open, and Reg watched as his sister flinched - eyes darting to the mirror, light dimmed horribly.
“I have to go.” She whispered, slamming the mirror down.
He only heard snippets before the connection broke; the hopeless sounds of a hex and a wince that he knew too well.
His eyes shut; squeezed almost painfully as he fought the emotion that threatened to swallow him.
A knock sounded on the door, three gentle pounds against the pale wood.
“You alright, mate?” The voice of Henry Jordan sounded, muffled through the wood. “Your brother wanted to come up, but I figured you’d rather me than him right now. I hope you’d rather me than David too, if we’re being honest.” Reg’s lips quirked upwards, a laugh bubbling from his tight chest.
“You can come in.” He called, blinking his eyes wide as he wiped away tears.
“Blimey.” Henry breathed, eyes wide as he scanned Reg’s bedroom at the Potter home. “This is where you sleep?”
“Last I checked.” Reg replied with a shrug, eyes glancing across the hall to his sister’s door - the room untouched since they’d arrived that break.
“You were made to be a Hufflepuff.” Henry announced, flopping onto Reg’s bed at the end; his arms tucked beneath his head. In the evening light, his skin almost glowed like dark amber. “Definitely not Slytherin, that’s for sure.”
“Why’s that?” Reg asked, brow furrowed in curiosity.
“They’d of crushed your spirit, my friend.” Henry shrugged, moving a hand from under this head to clap Reg’s knee. “Too much dark and too underwater. You need light and nature.”
“I suppose I might.”
“And you need me and David to stop you being too much of a Pureblood twat.”
“I can’t believe I invited you to stay for a whole week.”
“And you can’t back out now.” He sang back with a grin. “So stop being all mopey. Let’s practice your aim before you face the Gryff’s next term.”
——
15th April 1975
Dreary was perhaps the most apt word for a future, cleaned-out Grimmauld Place.
Hellish would be ideal, but considering the state of her twin in this future memory, she suspected that wouldn’t be kind to say.
They were in the guest drawing room - armoires cleared and surfaces hit by dozens of cleaning and mending spells. That smell of damp that unloved houses so often have; dark flecks on the carpet like singes of the thread.
In this memory, she (well, the Hermione that she lived within when unconscious) was sat on an armchair with her knees pulled up to her chest. There was Harry, always with her Harry, sat on the settee beside her with his usual mess of hair. Both looking opposite, to the man that made her heart ache.
He never looked well. Always emaciated and pasty; his straggly hair tied in a knot at the base of his neck. Blotchy tattoos and borrowed clothes. That sunken quality to his eyes that made the grey almost washed out.
Ara did not like to think of the events that made Sirius this way.
And she hated thinking of his life without her in it.
She’d clearly entered this memory halfway through; caught in the middle of a conversation as she watched Sirius clutching his whiskey glass like it could tell him how to make a Philosopher’s stone. It wouldn’t do Ara good to think on her future brother’s alcohol habit in a life that lacked a twin.
“Where are all your Weasleys anyways?” Sirius asked after a long story of James Potter’s Quidditch ego, noticing the absence of their third member as he commented on current Hogwarts teams.
“Ginny managed to convince Molly that the boys ought to learn mending.” Ara laughed. “So, she’s out practicing her flying while they’re stuck inside.”
“Sisters are menaces.” Sirius shuddered, lifting his glass to sip at his whiskey.
“Hermione’s my sister.” Harry spoke with an easy shrug, looking to Ara with such fondness. “Only issue we have is me not doing homework on time.”
“Oh, hush, Harry.” She laughed, reaching over to nudge him slightly.
There was something in Sirius’s face as that comment. Almost bitter, were it not for the melancholy that clung to his eyes. And there was something in the way he looked at her. This sorrow, this knowing that made her uneasy but not uncomfortable.
It was to be seen and known, without understanding in turn.
“You’re like your dad, you are, Harry.” Sirius finally spoke, a faint smile playing at his dour face. “He was an only child that adopted his own siblings too.”
Harry seemed to perk up at that, his chest puffed a little as he looked to Ara with a rather pleased expression.
“If only Ron could understand that.” He laughed, nudging her into a fit of giggles. “What did you say, Mione? Has he still got the emotional intelligence of a teaspoon?”
“I’d say it’s upgraded to a dessert spoon.” She sighed jokingly. “And it might upgrade even more, if only he learned how to extract his head from his arse.”
“But it makes such a lovely hat.” Sirius burst into laughter, looking to Harry with brightness.
“Bloody hell, you sounded just like… just like your mother.” His voice grew softer as he spoke, as he fumbled over his wording. His eyes darted to Ara and her breath hitched at that so-very-familiar worry.
In this future, as Hermione, her brother still looked at her the same way.
And in Ara’s deepest and most secret part of her mind, there was a thought she tried to ignore. A feeling that her brother could never know of.
Because in every memory, he looked at her with grief and guilt. He looked at Hermione as the doppelgänger that she was. The plain and academic version - same hair, same smarts, just in a slightly altered package. The sarcasm and the sharp comments; stubborn and unyielding.
An unmarred version of Ara Black.
A voice bellowed through the door - a yell for Harry to ‘get his arse downstairs’ before teatime and whatever chores the Weasley Matriarch could figure for him. With a grit of his teeth and a boyish shrug, he hopped from his seat.
“Suppose I ought to see what the fuss is about.” He spoke in parting; so very uncomfortable as he bid Sirius goodbye. It softened as he turned to Ara; a smile so naturally twinkling in his eyes as he brushed past with a quick peck to her forehead - pressed close to her wild curls.
Harry paused for a moment in the doorway, lingering as though he were summoning courage. Stuck on the melancholy man. And then, with a clench of his jaw and a nod her way, he disappeared into the darkness.
“I ought to head down too.” Ara spoke softly, though she made no motion to get up.
“Stars fall.” Sirius spoke solemnly, eyes fixed on his firewhiskey. “They burn up, and they turn to dust.”
“Sounds rotten.”
“We weren’t called Black for nothing.” He laughed humourlessly, lifting the glass to his lips to swallow the final dredges of amber. “Sorry you’ve been sucked into this life, kid.”
“It’s fine.” She huffed, pulling heavy curls into a bun at the back of her head. Curls she always had in those dreams, that she made sure not to in reality. It made it easier to know when she was trapped in memory. “I’m a Muggleborn, I was never going to be free of it all.”
“Still.” He shrugged, looking to her with great sorrow. As though she were missing something, entirely. “Must be rotten, too.”
They stayed in the quiet for a moment. Both watching the other, both curious as their eyes roamed.
“I’m going to see how the boys are doing.” Ara finally spoke, standing from the armchair and collecting her book under the crook of her arm. “I’m… I’m sorry you got sucked into this, too.”
That ghost of a smile he gave in reply was almost nightmarish. Too bitter for too beautiful a man.
It was simply devastating.
——
20th April 1975
They’d thought she wouldn’t make it, staring out of the window with concern. Eyes darting between the faces in the crowd - hoping for indigo hair against the rest. Four boys, four Marauders… barely breathing as they awaited their fifth member.
As the train began to pull from the station, Ara Black finally swung the carriage door open - looking nervous and hunched in on herself. She’d slid into the seat beside Remus and Peter, saying a terse hello. They’d merely nodded at her, trying to ignore the way she smelled like she’d smoked through a whole pack before hopping aboard, or the long sleeves covering her shaking hands.
Ara had snapped when the boys tried to ask about her break, warning them to stop worrying.
“Let it alone.” she’d growled, crossing her arms over her chest as she looked out of the window at the changing scenery.
The time in Grimmauld Place had a clear effect on her; purple bruises below her eyes and an unnatural paleness to her skin. Her hair wasn’t styled - her roots growing in - merely thrown into a low bun that left her unmade face bare. Her few freckles seemed unnaturally dark against her skin, as though painted on - the pink of her burns so very bright.
She held herself differently. Shoulder drawn inwards as she looked out the window. A cigarette perched upon her lips, chuffing away.
It took half the journey for Sirius to get her to look at him. If only to shake her head as he made a pun of his own name. Regulus’s arrival was what finally snapped her from her daze.
“You look like shit.” Ara’s head snapped upwards to face her little brother, frowning at his words. Her expression matched his own as Regulus scanned the compartment with distain. “Seriously? She looks this shit and you all just let her stew in it.”
“Fuck off, Reg.” Ara growled, flicking her cigarette butt out the window and crossing her arms. “I wanted to be left alone.”
“So what?” Reg tutted as the Gryffindor boys watched the exchange - heads bobbing as though it were a tennis match. “If the girls were in here, you’d already be sorted and we’d know what we’ll have to nick from Madame Pomphrey.”
“Is there a point to this?” Ara rolled her eyes.
“Oh for fuck sake.” He huffed, marching into the compartment and pulling his sister from her seat (much to Ara’s disapproval). She was flung over his shoulder before she could protest further. “See you all at the sorting. Sirius, with us.” Regulus called over his shoulder as he departed.
With an awkward salute, Sirius jumped from his seat and followed his siblings. His friends pretended not to see the shame in his eyes.
The train corridor was luckily bare of students. Regulus seemed certain of his path; ignoring Ara’s yelps of anger at being carried.
It was as he placed her onto the seat of the first empty carriage that a sharp wince sounded. An accident - pain exhaled through gritted teeth. Immediately, he pulled back and scanned his sister with military precision. As she tried to pull her arm in, Reg grabbed her elbow; tugging her jacket sleeve up in one firm motion.
The sight was horrific. Sirius turned ghostly, falling onto the seat opposite and staring hauntedly her way.
It was as though all the bones in her left arm had been broken. From her elbow to her fingertips, each joint and bone jutted against her flesh in uncomfortable bumps of purple and red. Each finger was swollen and blue - her nails chipped and bloody.
“When?” Reg grit out, swallowing uncomfortably.
“Last night was when she went a bit overboard.” Ara retorted, firmly looking down as to not meet their eyes. And so, Regulus Black crouched before his sister - a hand on her knee and kindness in the grey of his eyes. “She used some charm designed to break bones on it, all Easter. Meant to be for St Mungos only, but that never stops her.”
“When did she start?” Sirius frowned, clawing his way through the fog of the bond. Within a flash of memory and a moment, he leant forwards in his seat and promptly expelled his breakfast on the carpeted floor.
“What happened? Father didn’t heal you?” Reg whispered, looking to his sister with desperation.
“Kreacher tried, but… well, he’s always preferred Wally to me. It was just.. all so… Flint wrote Wally to say I wasn’t upholding my end of the betrothal agreement.” Ara sniffed quietly, tugging at her broken fingers, absentmindedly. “Since Alphard’s been burned off the tapestry, his agreement with the Potter’s is null. In exchange for us all staying there this summer, I have to go home and meet with Flint over summer. I have to meet his parents.” She shuddered at the idea. “And Wally wasn’t exactly happy with how I’ve been conducting myself.” Sirius stiffened as her eyes darted past his, and he knew… he just knew it was all his fault. “We barely made it through the Floo before she was casting. Orion had to tell her to stop, once it was nighttime. Apparently they had dinner plans.”
A short, derisive laugh fell from her lips. It was cold, sarcastic and so unlike Ara that her brothers both blanched at the sound of it.
“I think she’s gone truly mad. There’s something… something truly wrong in that house. Something dark and I just…” I know that feeling, she thought - gulping as she saw Sirius’s head bob up, clearly having overheard.
When?
In my dreams. Remember that dream of the odd storage room in flames?
He nodded.
“I think there’s a Horcrux in Grimmauld Place.”
“A what?”
“I looked through the library and I found a book about them. And it wasn’t dusty, either.” She shuddered. “It was like it had been deliberately placed. As though someone had left the clue.”
“For who?”
“Which one of us uses the library most?” She replied rhetorically. “It was between my copy of Hogwarts: A History, and our old textbooks.” At both of their blank looks, she elaborated. “Of us all, the spot was most known by me. It’s the place I cram all our old books that we barely read. I’ve spent enough time in that library, that there’s likely a trace of me or something.”
“Who would want you to guess such a thing?” Reg asked warily.
“I don’t know.” Ara lied, eyes darting to the window as she fought the face of that eerie pale face she had only seen once. A flash of a name, caught on her tongue like tar as she swallowed roughly.
Blessedly, Sirius did not comment on her deception of their younger brother. Instead, he helped distract her for the journey. Stories of Reg’s friends and James’s shenanigans. Promises of select goodies in his trunk for her; a folded cloak for when she needed rest.
Friends passed by their cabin, but Ara hardly paid them any mind. Lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking of the carriage - the thrum of the train as it clicked along the tracks.
Pandora came by at some point, she thought. There had been a kiss to her forehead, a thumb brushing over the spot and a whisper of hello. James too, as his yelp of trying to hush for her slumber broke through the fog.
As they pulled in, Sirius shook her lightly. Her bag on his shoulder and a sad smile gracing his features. Arm around her side as he pulled her up the path towards the final carriages - those familiar spectral steeds in her view. Most students were already venturing towards the castle; most carriages clicking their way up the path.
But there, his hand on the mane of a thestral, stood Barty Crouch Junior.
“Hi Barty.” Ara smiled as they approached, pulling back from Sirius to be stood on her own.
“Hello.” He grinned back, licking his lips in a nervous gesture as his eyes flickered to her brothers. “I’d ask how your break was, but I think you’d bullshit and say it was fine.”
“I’d do the same, but I think you’d just do the same.”
There was a beat before the most surprising thing happened. Barty seemed to jump from his spot and in a blink, his arms were wrapped around her. She reached around him on instinct, a little confused by this sudden but not unwelcome gesture.
“I’m glad you’re back.” He whispered, head caught in the crook of her neck and breath across her skin. “Father mentioned the Aurors at Grimmauld.”
“Hush, Barty.” Ara replied, voice but a murmur. “I’ll tell you all about it later.”
They pulled apart with a final squeeze - faces pinked as they caught the bewildered glances shot by students passing them. Ara’s shoulder dropped under the lingering pain; muscle aches and crackles that returned upon the loss of comfort.
“We’re not scrapping for at least a fortnight.” He declared as he scanned her with worried eyes, moving to shove her into the carriage.
“I’ll be fine, Barty.” Ara rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest as though it weren’t agonising as she slumped onto the seat.
“Sure.” He snorted, sitting opposite as the Black brothers confusedly joined in seating. “And I’ll be the next Minister of Magic.”
The ride to the castle was bizarrely lively. Ara and Barty laughed about the Avery’s birthday celebrations - apparently cut short by a gift of fireworks that burned down half of the gazebo. Considering the wicked look they shared as they laughed at the image, it was clear they’d conspired to bring it to reality.
Which begged more questions for the Black brothers.
How had they never noticed just how close Ara and her Slytherin friend were? Suspiciously close.
As the carriage jutted to a stop, Barty helped pull Ara to stand on the grass before her brothers could step in. A wicked wink sent their way as he hugged her once more and whispered something that made her giggle.
With that, he spun to return to the castle - his chortles of laugher echoing as he traipsed away.
“I really don’t get the pair of you.” Sirius announced, arm suddenly around her shoulder.
“I don’t suppose we’re meant to.” Reg sighed from her other side, linking his arm with her own.
“Oh, bite me.” Ara rolled her eyes. “Now will the pair of you help me to a carriage, or should I try and practice my levitation charms?”
“Oh, alright.” Sirius laughed, snaking an arm around her waist that pulled her feet off the ground - Reg’s arm around her to share the load as she pulled her arms around their shoulders.
“Say, Ara.” Reg spoke as they ventured to the carriages. “You and Crouch are strictly platonic, right?”
“I’ll kill you.” She glared.
“Will Barty help?” Reg batted his lashes in a mock simpering act as Ara bristled and tried to fight her way from her brothers’s grasp.
“You’re both rotten.” She declared as they pinched her sides in synchrony - ending her rather pathetic attempt at getting free.
“But you love us anyway.” Sirius declared back.
“Begrudgingly.”