It
is early morning. The sun is barely starting to rise, casting the sky
a sombre shade of grey. Sirius and James stand solemnly outside a small, quiet house.
From outside, the McKinnon’s house is in complete darkness. The only light comes from the glowing emerald skull in the sky above, a serpent twisting and coiling out of its gaping mouth.
Everyone knows what the Dark Mark means.
Inside the walls are gouged and blackened, scars left behind from violent curses. Sirius makes his way along the hallway, his heart thudding.
Mere minutes pass before the shrieking begins to subside, twice as long as it took for the cracks of disapparating witches and wizards to cease completely, but the boy knows it will take much longer for his mother’s fury to fade. He retreats to his room, patiently waiting for the heat of her anger to ebb. He hears the ache of the ancient floors, the night owls in the trees beyond the window, the rumble of a muggle car passing by. Only then does he begin to make his way back down the creaking stairs.
His mother sits, calm as the sea after a storm, sipping from a glass of dark red wine in her hand, the smell of something burning surrounding her, a manifestation of the anger that consumed her only an hour earlier.
He chuckles at his own joke while his mother remains passive. The coldness of his mother’s looks don’t mix with the smell of the smoke and, slowly, concern begins to creep into him.
His eyes fall on her wine free hand, loosely twirling her wand.
“Well then where is he?”
Walburga’s attention finally turns to her younger son.
“I don’t believe yourbrotherwill be coming back,” she said, contempt dripping from her lips.
“Why’d you say it like that?” he asked her.
A sudden realization rushes over him, and he sprints to the next room. He’s smelled that smoke before. A grand tapestry towers above him, full of the faces of his ancestors, scattered with scorch marks replacing those who had betrayed their pureblood ideals, but his eyes search for only one.
His mother is sat unmoving as he reenters the room.
As her footsteps fade, the smell of smoke dissipates into the air until there is no trace that anything out of the ordinary at all happened that night at Number 12 Grimmauld Place.
On this particular night, the Noble Black Family had many visitors in their home at Number 12 Grimmauld Place. The younger of the two sons wandered, talking with the guests of his home, smiling pleasantly, but never really saying a word. His mother caught sight of him from across the room and motioned for him to join her…
The woman rolls her eyes, disgusted with her elder son.
The boy hesitates, his brow creasing ever so slightly.
A moment passes and the boy still has not moved.
The boy makes his way up the stairs to the third floor, passing by the heads of dead house elves mounted on the wall, various family portraits that nod at him politely, numerous candelabra adorned with silver snakes baring their fangs, until finally he reaches the top of the stairs. On one side is his own room where the door is marked with a silver plate, reading “Regulus Arcturus Black.” He crosses to the door opposite. He knocks and waits.
“Sirius?” he calls. There is no reply. The boy reaches out, twists the door handle and enters the room.
Sirius: And did she tell you just how the imperious curse works…
A blaze of scarlet and gold from around Sirius’ neck catches his brother’s eye.
The elder brother shoves his way past the younger. Regulus can hear his steps descending, the stairs. He closes his eyes. And waits. The sound of his brothers steps fade and a moment later, he hears what he expected to hear; the shrill, painful shrieks of his mother and the sharp cracks of guests disapparating.
From an inner pocket of his robes, Moody pulled a very tattered old Wizarding photograph. “Original Order of the Phoenix,” growled Moody. “Found it last night …”
Harry took the photograph. A small crowd of people, some waving at him, others lifting their glasses, looked back up at him.
“That’s Marlene McKinnon, she was killed two weeks after this was taken, they got her whole family.”
“That’s Dorcas Meadowes, Voldemort killed her personally …”
“Sirius, when he still had short hair …”
“and … there you go, thought that would interest you!”
His mother and father were sitting on either side of a small, watery-eyed man Harry recognised at once as Wormtail.
He watched his parents beaming up at him…
…unaware that their lives, like so many of those around them, were drawing to a close.
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