Anna VIII
When Anna - or, to be precise, Ursa - turned four, she met the other side of the Black family. She had met Walburga many, unfortunate, times and on the scarce occasion the woman had been in a decent mood, Sirius had been brought over. And in the tradition of playing honourable hostess, Druella had forced Anna to make nice with the overexcited toddler.
Anna had been happy, excited even, to meet someone new. Someone outside of the little, emotionally-stunted bubble that consisted of a sullen Cygnus, a steely Druella and their three darling daughters. Occasionally an elf would join that list but sooner or later, Bellatrix would have them fired for reasons unbeknownst to Anna.
The lengthy list of unemployed elves grew to a sharp stop when the girl started Hogwarts. It was a startling wake-up call to Anna, who had forgotten about the age gap between them. Some eight or so years separated them.
“Where’re we going?” Anna asked, tugging on Druella’s skirts. She had tried, dammit, to view this woman as a sort of mother figure but as governesses passed through the halls with lessons on their lips and kind gestures in their very bones, she had faded from the spot as the mother of the year. Apparently, it only applied when your children were infants.
Druella hummed. “To Grimmauld Place, to visit your cousins and Aunt Walburga.”
“Oh.” She said, trying to not letting her irritation slide onto her face. Damn, she hated that woman. “‘s Narcissa coming?”
“Will Narcissa be joining us?” Druella corrected her automatically, before shaking her head, blonde tussles of hair falling over her shoulder. “And no, she will be the lady of the house in my absence. Practice for when she becomes the lady of her own house. Now,” Druella gave her a warning smile, “chin up dear.”
Anna hid her scowl beneath a cover of her hair, dark and falling in loose curls. It tumbled down her back, half of it pulled up with a ribbon the colour of pine tree leaves. It was very strange to have such dark hair. Undyed too, she mourned her loss wordlessly.
But, reluctantly, as they approached the floo Anna blanked her face as she was prone to - emotions ran rampant, strangely, where they had been still in her previous life - Druella took her hand in her own, soft with magical manicures and creams. Anna had yet to travel by herself, keeping close to whatever caretaker was assigned to her at all times. The sliver of protection offered by her should-be mother was all kept her from falling out of the floo as they travelled, sometimes.
“Hold on tight,” Druella murmured, loose particles of powder spilling from her fingers like emerald stars. It was beautiful, in the terrifying way the edge of a mountain ledge was terrible. Anna nodded tightly.
Her first experience with floo proved to be equal to the rest of them and, unfortunately, Anna had little experience to combat the rising displacement combined with nausea. She stumbled into the silver robes of Druella, coughing up ash. As usual, the woman gave her a sympathetic smile but offered no help beyond steadying her stance. She wobbled precariously on the birch floors, tasting fire and smoke on her tongue. Do dragons feel like this?
Recovering from hacking up her lungs, Anna took in Number Twelve with the same amount of enthusiasm as she took in travelling by floo - that was, to say, with none at all.
The room was not dim nor dank, not rotting with the relics of dynasties and imprudences of its old inhabitants. The draperies were green and ivory, the armchairs gold and grey. Above the dark, shining cabinets that held books, relics and enchanted items were tapestries spanning from the first founding member of the house to the current. Spun with wool and embroidered with careful hands, they were a monument and a warning to the guests of Number Twelve.
Walburga Black greeted them tepidly, sweeping Druella into a half-hug and dropping a kiss on her cheek. She wore her own, dark hair in a complex bun that Anna, even in her previous life, would never attempt and a robe of rich, emerald velvet. Her hands were adorned with rings and her wrists with gleaming metal. “Druella, dear.” She smiled like a predator. “What a pleasure it is to see you.”
Druella smiled back, a slippery thing. “Why, the pleasure is all mine.”
“Come, boys.” Walburga turned around, her skirts swishing behind her, giving the two boys that stood behind her a sharp look. “Greet your cousin.”
Anna already knew Sirius, the dark-haired boy who looked like Orion in miniature. It was freakish to observe how he had grown to be like a tiny statue. Despite that, he held none of Orion’s calm nature and was, in Anna’s opinion, far too like his mother for his own good. Loud and brash with none of the courtesy that Walburga befitted herself with and with none of the tempered steel that Orion kept to himself. It was so simple to see how it had gotten himself blasted off the tapestry, even so young.
“Ursa!” Anna was winded by the force of his hug as Sirius was freed of the constraint of propriety. Gingerly, she patted him on the back and offered him a true but tiny smile.
Regulus stood behind his bolder, older brother with a timid air to him. He was dressed in such finery that she would have mistaken him for a doll. His eyes were grey and his hair was dark but straight and silky, unlike the rambunctious curls that his mother’s branch favoured. Slighter and smaller, in statue and spirit, Anna gave him a bright, curious look that she hoped wasn’t false upon her face.
“Hello, Sirius.” She greeted, her words wobbly on her tongue. He darted back seize Regulus’ hand, dragging him forward with a great struggle on the other parties’ side. Carefully, Anna hid a smile. “Hello, Regulus.”
“Very nice to meet you,” Regulus murmured in that stilted way that neither suited him nor his age. His words blended in such a way that if she wasn’t proficient in her own slurred talk from once ago, she wouldn’t have understood a whit of it. He shifted awkwardly where he stood, uncomfortable and unsure, and aware of his mother’s sharp eyes.
“Where’s Orion?” She asked, fiddling with the embroidery on her robes. It was snakes and crows, tripping over each other to a goal neither of them would achieve - or couldn’t because they were merely enchanted stitching.
“Gone with grandfather.” Sirius huffed, displeased. He always was, when it came to either of his parents. “Again.”
“Oh.” Anna nodded, feeling neither inclined to weep from joy or cry from abandonment. The absentee father was a role that all Blacks played well.
A smile stretched over the boy’s face and he looked nothing like the dignified noble he had been previously, eyes alight with an enchanting fervour. Lowering his voice so that neither Regulus nor their respective parents could hear, he told her. “I found somethin’ really cool, Ursa, wanna see?”
“You said you’d show the library, Siri.” Anna smiled sweetly, resisting the urge to rock back on her heels like a child - that’s what you are, something hissed inside her - but instead clasping her hands behind her back. “You promised.”
Well, Anna had reasoned before diving into the Black Manor library one day, if I’m stuck here permanently then I might as well make the most of it.
“But it’s really cool!” He insisted eagerly, practically hopping on the spot. He would have been if he was raised as a normal child. “Even Reggie doesn’t know!”
The boy in question was standing next to his mother and his hands would have been twisted into her fine robes was it not for her batting hands. Regulus looked nervous and kept throwing Walburga pitiful looks while she sparred verbally with Druella. It reminded her of that shaky elf who had whined after Andromeda before Bellatrix got her hands on it.
Anna resisted a shudder. I’d call her a psychopath, she thought, if Andromeda didn’t like her so much. Has to be a reason she stays around someone like that.
“They’re gonna want him to stay with us.” She argued back. “What if he tells?”
At this, Sirius grinned victoriously, his face alight with inexorable triumph. “If he does, I’ll tell mother he was in the muggles library readin’. She’ll go mad if she finds out!”
A thought struck Anna suddenly. “If you saw him there, you were there too, right?”
“Well, yeah.” The boy gave her a carefree smile. The realisation hit him with the force of a truck, his smile darkening a shade as his lips downturned. “If I tell her I saw Reg through the windows. They’re very big, Ursy. d’you think she’ll believe me?”
“Don’t call me that.” She snapped off on reflex, disregarding his snickers. Anna pondered it for a moment. There were about sixteen other ways to lie to Walburga Black and get away with it but Sirius’ stretched five-year-old mind was likely reaching its limits. “Prob’ly.”
“I let you call me Siri.” He huffed arrogantly, arms crossed over his chest before glowing with determination and eagerness. Sirius snatched her hand, tugging her forward with relentless abandon. “Now, c’mon, let’s get Reggie and go. I got up super early for this, y’know.”
She gave him a wide, false, wholesome smile before stepping on his toes. Slipping past him and towards the graciously sniping ladies and the boy who sat uncomfortably beside them, she ignored his hiss of pain and subsequent glare with the patience of another life. Haha, she smirked internally before frowning, well, that wasn’t funny at all.
“You’re so mean, Ursa.” He grumbled under his breath.
“Rather me than Bellatrix.”
“Too right.”
“Shush, Reg!” Sirius hissed under his breath, fiddling with a tapestry on the second floor. The heavy fabric made it’s protestations clear when it folded back on top of the boy callously. The enchanted, embroidered people on the tapestry continued on their merry way, waving wands and swinging swords.
Anna squinted at the struggling boy. “Are you sure-?”
“Yes!” He grumbled, nails scraping down the wool. “I’m sure.”
Finally, after what must have been half a lifetime, Sirius pulled away the tapestry to reveal a wall behind it. For all purposes, it was plain. It matched its compatriots in colour and style, reaching back into the last century and held together by woven charms. Anna frowned. She had been expecting more.
“Is that it?” Regulus voiced her thoughts succinctly. Sirius gave him a blank look before pulling out a long stick, aged and ancient, ridged and beautiful. Despite it being an object, it seemed awfully unhappy to be in Sirius' grip.
Then, Regulus made a high sound at the back of his throat. “Is that Great-Auntie Elladora’s wand?”
Sirius smirked smugly, looking mighty pleased with himself. “Mother won’t miss it.”
Turning on his heel with a flourish - Anna squinted, feeling an awful sense of deja-vu wash over her - the wand traced a simple pattern into the luxurious walls. Up, left, half-circle horizontally-
Where the wand went, sparking orange light was left in its wake.
To call it fire was an overstatement. It sparked and spit - jasper, honey yellow and vermillion falling to the green carpeting like fallen stars - but there was no soot or ash, and no thickly-scented smoke clogging her senses. It shimmered where it left and faded back into the plaid walls, the sun twinkling out for the final time.
When Sirius stopped, he turned to the two - it was very easy, Anna thought, to forget Regulus ever existed - with a gleam in his eye. “Brilliant, right?”
Tilting her head, Anna frowned. “Is that it?”
Sirius gave her a blank look. “At least Reggie likes it.”
They both turned to the boy simultaneously, who was eyeing the end of the corridor suspiciously. He paled underneath their stares, shuffling on the spot. “I-” He grinned at Sirius, a sincerer smile than any Anna had ever worn. Something settled uneasily in her chest. “I think it’s neat.”
“See!” He puffed up, satisfied with the audience reaction. Stepping back, Anna found a wand stuck in her face and staring down a playfully offended face. “You’re just a muggle, Ursa!”
That’s your cue, whispered her mind.
On instinct, beckoned by something other, she snatched the wand from Sirius’ hands. It was hot in her palms, unwilling, rejecting her very presence but willing to tolerate her for the sake of its forebearers. The wood was solid and heavy in her hands like a metric ton of metal and there were indented groves from repeated use.
Anna spun on her heel, her skirts not long enough to hinder her flight, and took off down the corridor with a thrown back taunt on her lips. Sirius bellowed back nameless threats as he chased after her, screeching like a siren on a bad night.
Ducking into a room, laughter sour on her tongue, she kept the wand close to her chest.
The solid footfalls of Sirius and his loud exclamations were sure to be echoing throughout the house. She pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear, waiting until the sounds faded. Not completely, of course- Walburga and Druella had shoved them on the second floor per their request and locked the door behind them - but far enough away that the chance of being caught was minute.
Anna slipped out soundlessly, only to stop with a shriek of surprise caught in her throat.
“Sorry!” Regulus apologised, eyes wide and frantic. “I just, saw you duck in there-”
Anna shrugged, “s’alright.”
A stilted silence enveloped them and Anna found herself without conversation material. Sirius was easy - trade snarky remarks, play makebelieve games when he wanted and he’d bend over backwards for you. Narcissa wanted to sip tea and bask in silence and the other two sisters had each other for company. It was only the thundering of the other boy was background noise that kept them from developing entirely into an awkward calm.
“Do…” Regulus started hesitantly, his grey eyes flickering from the ground to her visage. “Do you want to see the library?”
“Yes.”