The Promise

The morning is hollow, and the sunlight is cold and dull once Remus closes the door behind him. Sirius wishes, not for the first time, that he could be Padfoot all the time. No one questions a stubborn mutt begging its owner not to leave- and Remus certainly owns at least some of him. His heart, for instance, and his loyalty, and whatever fragments of his tattered mind are left, like so many ripped little bits of cloth and burnt parchment.

Yet, for all the years in a cold stone cell where he had convinced himself otherwise, Sirius isn’t a dog. He’s a man, with all the indignity and fragility implied therein. He’s a man who just sat like a wretch before the love of his life, just so that he could- so that he could what? So he could feel abandoned when Moony inevitably turned away? He must be a masochist. Is it still masochism if you deserve the pain and punishment? Sirius isn’t sure that’s how it works. Sobriety is making him even more confused than the delirium of last night’s scotch, but if he drinks until his liver curdles just because Remus will be gone for two weeks, it will really signify how pathetic he is in a way he’s not ready to confront.

So instead, Sirius heads upstairs to his parents’ old bedroom. He still gets a thrill of satisfaction seeing the room in shambles with Buckbeak nesting, restless but happy, in the center of it. He opens the door to the sweet, wafting smell of Timothy hay, with an undercurrent of barnyard stink that isn’t altogether unpleasant.

“Hey Beaks,” he says, but he’s met by a different face, a craggy, wrinkly, pouchy little face that he resents.

“The fuck are you doing in here, Kreacher?”He asks flatly.

The wizened, pale little elf glares up at him blearily. Sirius only catches snatches of what the other mutters.

“Master Sirius… oh yes.. yes…Missus‘ bedroom…defile the sacred manor of such a pure-.”

“Yeah, alright, fuck off. Unless you’d like to be turned into a ferret for Buckbeak. Remus isn’t here to protect you.”

“Kreacher needs not the protection of a filthy halfbreed-.”

Sirius whips out his wand in a blind fury. He wishes he really could turn Kreacher into a ferret, but he can see already see the disappointed faces of all those he’s trying to convince of his stability. Feeding Kreacher (no matter how vile a little git he is) to Buckbeak just for fun will almost certainly lose him some regard, not to mention the little autonomy that is still afforded to him.

“NOW, Kreacher. Before I lose my temper. Me and mother have that in common at least, right?”

Kreacher winces and grips his own arms, hugging them tightly about his chest. His withered ears flatten, like a dog who’s afraid of being struck. “Ironic,” Sirius thinks. “One stricken dog striking another.” Still, he can’t help but enjoy this a little, feeling something that isn’t despair and sickness and hurt, even if it’s only anger and vindication.

“Yeah. There it is,” Sirius says with sick satisfaction as he watching Kreacher flinch. “That’s who she was, my dear old mom. You worship the ground she walked on, but even you couldn’t bear to take her beatings.”

The elf looks away, hatred seething in his eyes. Sirius wonders what the little shit would try if he weren’t sworn to serve him.

“You can hate me all you want, but we were in the same boat a long time, so I know just where to hit to make you shriek, because I’ve still got scars in those places. Takes one to know one, you little bastard. Now get. the fuck. out.”

Kreacher is gone with a pop, and a distinctly professor-like voice echoes in Sirius’ head. “Antagonizing your fellow students again Mr. Black? I trust you have a reason this time?” Sirius can’t remember how he answered that question as a boy, but he knows he certainly had never needed a reason to tease, bully, or antagonize. He was an angry young dog in desperate need of chew toys- anything to get that snarling bite out, to shake something silly between his teeth.

Once Kreacher vanishes, Sirius is left, chest heaving, alone in the room with
Buckbeak, who has been silently watching the altercation from the floor, his wings neatly folded. He looks vaguely disapproving.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t narc on me, alright?” He mutters, sinking down beside the hypogriff and scratching his feathery neck. Just as quick as it came, the fight in him is gone and he falls asleep against Buckbeak’s air-light plumage.

…

When he wakes it’s well past noon. Large, dark patches of shadow alternate with the deep yellow light of oncoming evening. It gives the room an air of foreboding it had not carried earlier, and Sirius shivers. Buckbeak, seeming unconcerned, nips his ear affectionately.

The stairs creak almost as loud as his bones and he finds himself keeping his footfalls light, as if there’s still someone in this house to be afraid of. Who knows, maybe there is. The Blacks are just the sort who would go on as ghosts just to spite the living. He’s sure his mother would love to torment him this way, but the halls are all quiet, as usual. Regardless, Sirius assures himself that by the time he dies, he will have had quite enough of life, and no desire to prolong it into undeath.

Just when he has assured himself that he is perfectly alone, the front door creaks open. Could it be Remus? A flutter of anxiety, relief, and dread all alight suddenly in his stomach. Could he be back? Could something have gone wrong? Will he be angry with Sirius or will they crash into each other like disparate galaxies, entropic with passion and rage and grief-.

“Sirius?” The voice is not Moony’s, and he feels like a complete and utter idiot, not to mention a little angrier at Remus, however unfair that is. He sighs, reaching the first landing and intercepting the guest in the corridor.

“Molly?” He asks, confused. His grip tightens on his wand in the pocket of his ragged cardigan.

“They didn’t tell me anyone was coming, I-.” He freezes. He’ll sound paranoid if he asks her to leave, but still, an unannounced appearance at Grimmauld Place is an uncommon thing, and it stokes a small blue flame of fear and suspicion in his chest.

Unbidden images, like James and Lily dead, dementors beside his cell, the Diggory boy dying while Harry watches on alone and helpless, make him short of breath. He swallows, glancing apprehensively at the door, and the eyes that follow his understand his anxiety.

She takes a tentative step forward, like she’s approaching a wild animal.

“When Gideon was in sixth year, he sent a letter home first week of school. He said he had to break up a fist fight between two Black cousins. He said the girl was much older, bigger, and meaner, already had quite the reputation- but that the first-year boy had more spirit. He gave him a talking to, but the boy said she’d earned it by calling someone a mudblood. “Gid tried to tell the boy that fighting was never the answer, and the boy told him ‘I will never apologize for defending others.’. He put all of that in the letter, and the last thing he wrote was ‘I wasn’t at all surprised at the sorting, Mol. That Sirius Black is Gryffindor through and through.’.”

Sirius sighs. He can scarcely remember his own childhood, and he has a friend relaying it to him to gain his trust and prove her identity. The irony isn’t lost on him.

“Hi, Molly,” he says quietly, rubbing his temples. She smiles a little, but it’s solemn, and there’s pity there that makes him squirm.

“Albus really didn’t tell you? He said you would be free this week to help me get Grimmauld in order.”

Sirius quirks an eyebrow.
“I’m always free. That’s my problem. Why does he care about the state of this place all the sudden?”

Molly, to his surprise, smiles very brightly.

“Christmas, Sirius. You don’t want doxies flying up Harrys ears when he comes for the holiday do you?”

Sirius’ head snaps up. He can’t help but mirror Molly’s easy smile.

“I didn’t know he was coming here. I mean- I guess- I could’ve- but- yeah, yeah I’m free. Could use a bit of a distraction, actually.”

He’s relieved when Molly doesn’t ask from what. Instead, she puts a hand on her hip.

“We may not always see eye to eye, Sirius, but I would never dream of keeping you from your godson on Christmas,” she says firmly.

He nods, but his thoughts have gone askew because all he can think of is giving Harry a wonderful holiday at home, the likes of which he’s probably never had; The likes of which Sirius had never had until he was thirteen, burrowed under a half a dozen quilts on James’ parent’s overstuffed chintz sofa, of making Christmas so wonderful for the kid, his kid, that it makes up for the fourteen years he couldn’t.

His heart gives a stab at the thought of the lost time, and the ever present knowledge that his first act as Harry’s parent was to abandon him. Yes, Hagrid hadn’t given him to Sirius when he told him to, yes, Dumbledore hadn’t trusted him with Harry’s upbringing- but Sirius should have fought tooth and nail for the little boy he loved so much, and he didn’t. Instead, he had taken all of his pain and all of his anger and channeled it into a frenzied quest for revenge that was over before it even began. His foolishness, his childish anger, his selfishness, had left Harry to cruel, indifferent guardians, and Remus to twelve years of loneliness. He doesn’t deserve the second chance he’s being offered. He should still be there, in the dark, in the cold, on that island, with the-.

“-irius?”

He looks up and finds himself sitting at the kitchen table. The tea kettle is halfway to boiling, and Molly is looking at him with inquisitive concern.

“Sorry,” he says, feeling like he’s emerging from a dream. He needs to say something, something to make her stop looking at him like that. Christmas. They were talking about Christmas.

“So, Christmas- erm, when…? I don’t even know what month it is, actually.” It’s such a blunder that he almost laughs, but instead he rubs his eyes, frustrated. “Nice, we’ll done. Very reassuring,” he thinks bitterly.

Molly purses her lips and assesses him tiredly. It’s not hard to imagine her as a mother of seven. She’s always been the sort to look after others. There’s only some twelve years between them, but he feels like a shamefaced kid under that sharp gaze.

“When did you last eat, dear?”

“Ummm…”

“If you have to think about it, it’s been too long,” she says shortly, pulling a dishrag from the counter and tossing it over her shoulder.

“Lucky for you, I am a bloody excellent cook. Now make yourself useful, and grab me that frying pan down would you?”

…

Later, after they’ve drawn up a rough plan for the house and Sirius is well and truly exhausted from talking to someone for so long, he finds the time and space to dig out a hidden bottle of strong spirits. Because the ache of abandoning Harry and Remus is still pressing on his chest, right beside the constant, soul-wrenching stab of failing James and Lily. It creeps up his throat, demanding his attention, squeezing the air from his lungs with guilt and shame. He needs to not think, because if he thinks he can’t breathe, not that he deserves to, not when Lily and James will never breath again, because of him, because of him, because of him.

He wishes he didn’t exist, because then he couldn’t have hurt them, but he’ll settle on forgetting he exists for a while.

Molly finds him an hour or so later, once his head is already swimming but his mind is irritatingly still intact. He expects sharp words and disapproving glares. He expects her to accio the bottle and tell him to grow the fuck up. She’d be right to do it, of course. Sirius is crazy, not stupid. He knows he’s acting like a shit.

Instead, she sits down on the library floor next to him and sticks her hand out for the bottle. Taking a swig she says, “Merlin- are you sure that’s not some kind of cleaning potion?” She holds her burning throat gingerly, and Sirius huffs a laugh.

“What are you doing Molly? You’re supposed to hate me, you know.”

She fixes him with a hard stare, and it takes him a moment to realize that she’s hurt.

“I don’t hate you, love. You’re like a little brother to me.” This stings, since both of Molly’s little brothers are dead. Sirius can’t remember whether or not he was responsible for that too. He wouldn’t be surprised.

“You- you’re impulsive. You’re reckless, careless, and irrational- but you’re also passionate, loyal, and- and infuriatingly ready to throw yourself into the fray for anyone you love or anything you believe in. How could I hate you, Sirius? How could anyone?”

He doesn’t have an answer, at least not one that he can verbalize. How can he explain that every bad thing, all of the darkness and ugliness in all of their lives- that it stems from him? How can he convince her that he’s poison? It wouldn’t make sense to her. She wouldn’t understand how it all comes back to him, none of them would. It’s his private, tortuous truth to bear.

“Reckless,” he echoes thoughtfully, taking back the liquor. “I just hope one day, it’s me that my recklessness gets killed for a change, and not somebody else.”

Molly doesn’t seem to have anything to say to that, but the fear and sorrow in her eyes convinces him that he’s right. That he can’t even help it.

He is poison.