VI
Sirius is folded up with his knees to his chest. There’s a bay window in his old bedroom, and it faces east. Dinner has long since come and gone, along with Molly badgering him to come downstairs, but Sirius has remained here, watching the progress of the moon rising across the sky, heavy with its increase. This is the epoch of its life. After tonight, it will diminish and die, only to be born again next month. But it’s not the moon that concerns Sirius. Only it’s fullness.
He thinks of every full moon he watched from his hollow, cold cell throughout all those years, and something about it steals his breath from his lungs and replaces it with a throbbing pain.
He knows Remus will be fine. He’s had how many full moons to adjust to being alone? Many more than they had ever been able to spend together. Still, the ache in Sirius’ heart is all Padfoot, who knows he shouldn’t be here, that he should be running the woods and howling and tumbling around in the dirt, snapping playfully at Remus’ heels. The same pain has pervaded his existence monthly for fifteen years, and now that Sirius is (technically) free, it takes all of his strength to resist throwing open the front door and running off into the limitless night, to be reunited with his wolf or to die trying.
But if time has taught him anything, it’s that Moony will manage without him. If he leaves now, it’ll be because he selfishly craves the presence of the other. And of course, there’s Harry. He has to stay put for Harry.
The thought of the boy warms his heart in a way that still feels so new and unfamiliar. He imagines Lily’s big green eyes, the mess of black hair that’s all James, the sharp bend of the jawline that holds all of his grandmother’s stubbornness, but the gentle, sheepish smile of his grandfather. Harry is the best of the Potters all wrapped into one, but he’s also so much more than the sum his parts. He’s a brand of kind and brave and funny that’s entirely his own. He’s daring and snarky, but so tempered by wisdom and tragedy. He’s been hurt, been hungry, and been neglected. It’s because of this that, in many ways, Sirius understands Harry better than he ever understood James. James was benevolent. He gave and shared all that he was and all that he had because he never feared that there wouldn’t be enough. There hadn’t been a dearth of love or care in his home to convince him otherwise.
But Harry? The second Harry is loved, he’s afraid it will be taken away, and he would go to the ends of the earth to keep that from happening, to protect his loved ones and love them in return. That’s something Sirius can understand. Yet in Harry, it doesn’t look as selfish as it does in Sirius himself.
Sirius untucks himself from the window ledge. His joints feel swollen and bent from maintaining the crouched position for so long and he twists his back to and fro, issuing tremendous pops and cracks. Even his wrists feel tight, and he presses his palms together until he hears a crunch. Ah, the joys of aging. He and Lupin had always complained of aches and pains, even when they were young, given years of hard use through transformations and careless quidditch maneuvers. James, somehow remaining perfectly unscathed, had always teased them mercilessly. He was the type who never got sick, never got hurt, the infallible James Potter. It makes a terrible sort of sense to Sirius that he died without a single scratch on him.
He crosses the room and produces an old stack of envelopes from a battered writing desk that once belonged to him. It feels as if he wrote them yesterday, but the edges are already yellowing. He knows from Remus that all of his things had been returned to his family home after his incarceration, though he can’t for the life of him imagine why his mother didn’t burn them. He’s too tired to wonder, and examines the first letter in the stack instead.
It’s written in James’ tight scrawl which makes the ink look even blacker due to its compactness.
Padfoot,
Need to discuss Fido. We think there’s a snake in our shrubs. Blossom and Fawn are well.
Your brother,
Prongs
Sirius doesn’t have the heart to force the letter back into its envelope. It’s one of the last pieces of correspondence to pass between them, and it feels wrong to treat it with anything other than reverence. But Sirius can’t stand looking at it, so he slides it away from himself across the desk.
A few more letters in, he finds what he was looking for. That beautiful, feminine scroll of Lily’s lopes with carefree elegance across the page, much in the way that Lily herself had once skipped across the green pastures and lakeside groves of the Hogwart’s grounds. Sirius can’t help but hold it to his chest for a moment before setting it down.
It begins a pile of letters that he puts to one side, a Christmas gift for Harry. Letters from Lily, letters from James, all with pictures of their little family attached; Letters containing wedding plans and pictures of the reception, where Lily looked radiant in a simple sundress and James’ sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, his strangely fashionable suspenders askew. Harry is there too, though Lily’s womb doesn’t show it yet. Among the guests, only Remus and Sirius had known, because they had already been asked to raise Harry if anything went awry. Sirius of course, had been asked to be godfather- but they had always come as a set, He and Moons. He’s sure of that just from looking at the pictures.
In one, the Remus of old laughs and jostles a younger Sirius. The scars across this Remus’ face make him look roguish and devil-may-care instead of battered and tired, but he wears the same academic cardigans and oxfords as today. Sirius on the other hand, looks totally different. His face is still angular, his eyes still piercingly grey, but there’s something about him that looks much fuller and livelier than the person Sirius avoided in the mirror this morning. His biceps are broad, pushing at the fabric of his dress shirt, and his posture is impeccable. He’s of a height with Moony, who looks only a little stooped and shy. Big crowds never had been his scene.
By comparison, Sirius is obviously reveling in the noise and merriment, his suit coat discarded, more than a little tipsy, and he throws his head back to laugh at something Moony has just said. He looks regal and charming, a totally different man than the one holding the photo. His shoulder length black hair is untied and shining. It keeps brushing Remus’ flushed cheek. Eventually Remus grabs it and ties it up into a bun at the back of Sirius’ head. Their unsteady legs tangle for a moment and Sirius grabs Remus’ hip to steady himself, but the touch lasts a little too long before they break apart, suppressing feverish, hopeful thoughts behind barely-there smiles.
Sirius wants to stare at the image forever, but also finds that he can’t bear to look at it even a second longer. He doesn’t put it in the pile for Harry. Instead, he slides it into the pocket of his jeans and tries to forget it’s there.
“All well?” Comes a voice at the door frame. Molly, of course. True to her maternal instinct, she can only leave him alone for so long. He hums in agreement.
“Just looking through old things. Thought Harry might like them. I know Rubeus gave him pictures, but-.”
“No, no. I think it’s a lovely idea,” Molly says. The air is peculiarly taught. He looks up and finds her pressing her lips together, looking shaky and deathly white.
“What is it, Molly?” He asks, trying to sounds only vaguely curious. In reality, all of the worst thoughts run through his head. Is Harry in trouble? Or otherwise not coming for the holiday? Has Lupin been injured? Did Voldemort-.
“Oh, it’s nothing serious, dear,” she reassures him. “Only-.” She bursts into tears.
Sirius thinks this might be one of those times when it’s appropriate steer someone by the shoulder and lead them to a seat, but the idea of touching most people still makes his skin crawl with anxiety.
“Molly!” He says, mentally berating himself for snapping. “What is going on?”
“It’s just Ron, dear, he’s- he’s alright but. But, there was an accident. He and Harry-.”
Sirius feels something like an icy stone drop in his stomach. He tries to keep his voice level.
“What. Happened,” he demands softly, trying to keep the oncoming hysteria out of his voice.
Eventually, and with patience he didn’t know he was capable of, he drags the story out of her, in agonizingly small bits and pieces.
A silly girl trying to sneak Harry a love potion; Ronald Weasley getting it instead; Going to the potions’ master for an antidote; Sharing a toast; The toast turns deadly; Harry cramming a bezoar down the other boy’s throat.
In about eight different ways, Sirius feels that it’s too close a shave. The love potion could’ve been a draught of certain death. The bezoar could have been out of reach. Harry might’ve consumed his glass first. He’s angry and frightened and agitated, but he knows this isn’t the time to pitch a fit.
“Molly, where’s Ron, now?”
“H-h-hospital wing. He’s just resting. Dumbledore says he’s alright, th-that there’s no need for me to- to leave-.”
Sirius realizes with a twinge of exasperation that she’s trying to stay at Grimmauld for his sake. Because he needs a babysitter. He’d take the time to be insulted if it weren’t true.
“That’s nonsense,” Sirius says matter-of-factly.
“Go to your son.”
Molly looks at him, relieved but guilty, as if she was hoping he’s say this.
“Are you sure? I can’t- I don’t-.”
“Molly, I’m alright. I’m an adult. Go have kittens over your boy and coddle him for a change. I know that’s your favorite pastime.”
She shoves his arm playfully and scoffs but she’s already getting to her feet, dusting the front of her skirt.
“I’ll be back in a little while, alright?”
She scurries out of the room and he hears her retreat quickly down the stairs.
In a way, he’s relieved. It’s nice to know that he seems stable enough to look after himself for a few hours, and Kreacher has been M.I.A. since the arrival of “yet another blood traitor”. There’s a chance that Sirius has the house to himself. A week ago the thought would’ve terrified him straight into a bender, but today, it doesn’t seem so horrible. Maybe he’ll play piano, or try to blast his way into some of the locked rooms.
A few more hours pass and Sirius decides that the latter sounds like a great deal more fun, and he sets aside his pile of letters for Harry, now no smaller in width than a small textbook. One by one, he tries the locked doors.
Some of the brass knobs spit at him and curse him, or squirt acidic, foul smelling liquid, but sometimes they burst open in a splintering of wood just like muggle doors would. As he searches the rooms, he finds mostly things that bring his mood back down. Taxidermy house elves who never made the cut to be mounted, black leather-bound books on phrenology, euthanasia, and dark curses. The shadows seem more substantial in these dark rooms, but Sirius takes pleasure in setting them right, incinerating all of the dark objects he can and locking away those he cannot.
Once, he hears a bang from the corridor, and runs out, convinced he’s set something loose in the house, but he only finds a mounted house elf head fallen from the wall and rolling about on the floor. He removes it with disgust.
Sirius goes from the first floor, to second, to third, and realizes with an uncomfortable rankling feeling that Regulus’ room is the only one left. Suddenly this scavenger hunt feels more like a chore than a diversion, but he grips his wand and slowly climbs the well-worn steps to the fourth floor.
He reaches for the knob, wand at the ready to repel whatever rude curse issues from it- and stops cold. The door is open. The door to Regulus Black’s bedroom, which most certainly had been locked up right until this point, hangs ever so slightly ajar. Sirius swallows, his heart beating rapidly against his chest. For a brief moment, he thinks of Moody, paranoid to the point of superfluous violence, calling in the aurors over nothing. But no, this is strange. He’s certain this is strange. Why would someone sneak in to Grimmauld when the only people who can are in the Order?
“There’s a snake in our shrubs,” he recalls from James’ letter. Not again. Please, not again. Well this time, if there is, he’s going to kill it.
He hears whispered arguing behind the door, and then a quiet, brutal struggle. There’s a soft smack and someone curses.
Sirius throws open the door and a jet of red light shoots from his want and hits the lumpish figure lurking in the shadows on the other side of the room.
“Aooooiy!” It cries ridiculously, and drops to the ground with a great metallic clang. Somewhere, Sirius here’s a cold snap and he throws up a shield just in time to defend himself from a strange golden-white spell.
“Revelio!” He cries, and there is Kreacher, several feet before him, glowering with all his might.
“Don’t you dare move,” Sirius says dangerously, sounding much more like the mad, escaped convict than the reformed, loving godfather.
“Lumos,” he mutters, and in the dim wand light, the first thing he notices is a great burlap sack with all manner of trinkets spilling out of it. The second thing that comes to his attention is the stench of stale beer.
“You have to be fucking kidding,” he mutters to himself, flipping the prone figure beneath the window over onto his back.
He’s faced by none other than Mundungus Fletcher.
,,,
“Morning, Dung.”
“Oh, fuck.”
“Uh huh,” Sirius agrees, smiling grimly.
The exchange occurs in Grimmauld Place an hour or so later, in the kitchen, where Mundungus is tied to a dining chair with an enchanted length of rope.
“Now,” says Sirius primly, swinging a chair around in front of Dung’s and sitting on it backwards.
“What the fuck are you doing in my house, exactly?”
Dung mumbles something that Sirius doesn’t catch. Sirius scrubs his face with one hand in frustration, drawing his wand with the other.
“I’ve never been known for my patience, Dung,” he says cheerfully.
“O-roight! O-roight! Easy, man!” Mundungus looks no better than Sirius remembered him, but no worse than he would’ve imagined. Five o’clock shadow and oily skin, he has the look of a man whose eyes you might avoid on the sidewalk. Years of drink and the use of ambiguous substances haven’t improved him.
“Was the elf, alroight? Heard that the coast was pretty clear round here- been down on me luck, see- so I just thought I’d swing by and, and, you know…”
Sirius’ eyes roll in an extremely exaggerated way.
“So you waited until the place seemed empty, and then decided to pilfer the house for a quick galleon. Have I got it?”
Mundungus tries to sputter in protest, but ends up smiling guiltily.
“Well…You’re not using any of it, are ye?”
“Ohhh Merlin grant me patience,” Sirius grumbles, emptying the sack out onto the kitchen table.
“If Kreacher has anything to do with this, I swear I’ll give him a shirt,” he mutters darkly, surveying the contents.
Silver spoons, curse books, his mother’s jewelry, and a number of other trinkets that Sirius recognizes litter the surface. Yet there are a couple of objects entirely foreign to him. Sirius turns them over in his hands, growing more and more concerned. There’s a sneakaskope, a couple glittering stones, and a finger bone that looks suspiciously like it had belonged to a small human.
“God, Reg,” he says, shaking his head. As he turns, a flash of something bright gold catches his eye.
It’s a large, heavy locket- certainly not his mother’s. Sirius is sure he would’ve remembered it. It’s not only large and impossibly glittering with emeralds- but in addition to its imposing appearance, it radiates power. Something in it fills Sirius with dread.
“Aparecium,” Sirius says softly, pointing at it with his wand. The locket only blinks at him defiantly.
“Revelio. Cistem Aperio.” Nothing. The tug of unease in his stomach only grows.
“What is this?” Sirius asks urgently.
As best as he can while being bound to the chair, Mundungus shrugs.
“Necklace?”
“Oh, thank you. Very fucking helpful.”
Sirius shifts quickly into Padfoot, places two great black paws on the table, and sniffs the locket with great trepidation.
It smells… wrong. Frightening, even. The same way that one instinctively dreads the scent of death or decay, Sirius knows this thing smells evil. He whimpers despite himself, a high keening sound, and shifts again into a man.
“Kreacher gave this to you?” Sirius asks sharply. Mundungus has the good grace to look ashamed.
“Well… actually… he tried to take it from me. Seemed really attached to it, matter of fact, so I thought… you know… must be really valuable.”
Sirius’ head is spinning.
“Kreacher? Oi, Kreacher!” Then he remembers that he demanded the elf not move from Regulus’ room. He summons the elf quickly, impatiently, and he appears with a pop before him, large, withered ears flopping.
“What is this, Kreacher?”
The elf stares at the object in his hand before looking away sourly.
“What IS it?! The truth!” Sirius demands.
“‘Tis Master Regulus’ locket. Master Regulus ordered Kreacher to destroy it,” the elf murmured, tears in his eyes.
Sirius blinks in surprise. Kreacher, he sees, is trembling and even paler than usual.
“Why?” He asks, his voice solemn but steady.
The answer makes Sirius drop his wand.