Parallel or Together
Thursday, February 9th, 2006 04:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
orange_crushedSo, this is it, the entire thing, it's finished. I figured that it's been so long since the last chapter, I should just put everything together, as it's meant to be. Many apologies to all those whom I have kept waiting; many thanks for your patience and kindness.
The Brothers Black, at large.
"It's alright." Remus says, and takes his hand under the table, all propriety bedamned. He's always been more sensitive; and Sirius is grateful for him, that he is alive, that they accidentally switched charms books that one time and had to be introduced. "I promise that it will be alright."
Parallel Or Together
"Black, Regulus."
If it were appropriate for two twelve-year-old boys to hold hands, Sirius would be clutching Remus's in fearful joy. Because it's got to be now, finally, that everything gets put to rights. Reg will end up in Gryffindor and they can be blood traitors together; and he can tag along on adventures and learn how to prank. And Sirius won't feel that awful pang in his chest anymore, when he thinks about his brother all alone in that house, with his mum blabbering endlessly about blood rights and inheritance and abominable filth.
"SLYTHERIN !" The hat cries out, and does a little hop-skip of impatience on his brother's smallish head. There is some faint cheering and a desperately loud silence from Sirius's circle.
"It's alright." Remus says, and takes his hand under the table, all propriety bedamned. He's always been more sensitive; and Sirius is grateful for him, that he is alive, that they accidentally switched charms books that one time and had to be introduced. "I promise that it will be alright."
And for a very long time, it is.
November, 1976.
He can’t stop looking at the empty bed. It isn’t made, and he can’t understand why the house-elves haven’t at least straightened the coverlet or pulled the curtains shut or done something; anything that would erase the crease where Remus last sat to put on his shoes, Friday after dinner.
James says he packed without even sitting down, almost without stopping. He must have forgotten something, because there’s a glint of gold paper under the bed, beyond the thin circle of dust. So Sirius bends down and pulls the drapes aside, sticks a hand fearlessly into the darkness. It’s a chocolate frog card, a bearded man he doesn’t recognize. He fumbles back again, and his hand hits something soft and solid, like a cardboard parcel. It rattles as he drags it out.
It doesn’t register at first, what these objects are. They’re familiar- most of them presents. A scarf as soft as a rabbit’s belly. A sneakoscope and a Gryffindor flag, the latter edged with mud. And here’s the crowning glory, a singularly unhandsome notebook with raggedy dog-ears; this is the plan for the greatest thing they’ll ever make. The Something-something Map. Working title, of course.
He must have left all this by accident, he thinks immediately. He’ll want all this, so that he doesn’t forget. It helps to think that maybe he could mail this off, that he could be useful in some small way; and that Remus might be grateful. But all his books are gone, all the sweaters from Peter and the quill-pens from James. Those things he took.
When Sirius reaches the bottom of the box, he starts to cry.
Sirius-
Just stop arguing with me and come home. I actually bought you something for Christmas. It's boring without you, and maybe all your dreams will come true and she'll explode right there on the doorstep. Bring your transfiguration text home with you because I need it; Parkinson stole mine.
Ass.
Sincerely, Reg.
"We're only related." Sirius says haughtily, dragging his trunk off of the rack and following his brother down the steps. "That doesn't make us friends." Regulus sniffs in his general direction. He is smaller and fairer; more like a nervous, delicate thoroughbred than an overeager wolfhound. It's easy to see why their mother prefers him, though mostly the resemblance is superficial.
"I have friends, thanks." He manages to make this sound like an accusation, but Sirius doesn't bite. Instead, he sets the other boy's trunk on top of his own, and leans against the station wall.
"I didn't see you go, last year."
"You went with Potter." Regulus scans the crowd, and doesn't look him in the face. "I can see how somebody so loud and stupid would be distracting."
"Ah, shut your mouth, Reg. I just wanted to ask you a question. Remember the first year you came to school ? Mother brought us. The year after that, I went with Andromeda and you went by yourself. With the elf." Sirius can see it still, Andromeda and her fiancé and the soft belly that was going to be 'Dora or Roland, whichever came out. She kissed his cheeks and ruffled his hair and when he'd gotten onto the train he'd seen Reg through the window, clutching a suitcase, alone on the platform.
"So ?"
"Does she always send the elf ?" Sirius stands up against the wall, his arms folded. "Is it always just the elf ?"
"Shut up, Sirius," he says, by way of an answer.
He writes letters sitting at the desk besides the window, with a plate of sandwiches forgotten at his elbow. To James he writes I hope you can forgive me and to Peter I hope that you miss me and to Remus he writes everything, absolutely everything. The owls come back empty-handed, so at least he's accepting them. Maybe he's burning them, or binding them into a book, or using them to wipe up spills. Sirius isn't sure, and he hates the feeling.
James writes back to him and it says you're a berk, but it also says I guess I'll see you next term, and that is a kind of hope.
"I'm going to eat this." Regulus has appeared behind him, and his hand is curling around the edge of the plate. Half of the sandwich is already going into his mouth. "Muh can'b stoff me."
"Greedy." Sirius shoves the rest in his direction and sits back in his chair. "Fatty. You're going to end up like Uncle Alphard and have duck for dinner every night."
"Shulf off." Between the cheese and shreds of lettuce clinging to his chin, Regulus looks like a younger version of himself; fat cheeks and all. It makes Sirius feel strangely generous- they were friends once, the very best, before they knew there were other people in the world that one could choose from.
"You want to go somewhere tomorrow ? There's a thing I need from Flourish and Botts. We could get lunch if you want."
"No, sorry." Regulus wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and actually has the grace to look embarrassed. "I'm going- I'm going to a friend's house."
"They can tag along, I don't care. Who is it ?"
"A friend."
"Don't be stupi-"
"A friend. It doesn't matter. Look, Sirius, I can't go, alright ? Maybe another time." He leaves the crusts on the plate and turns on his heel for the door. Sirius doesn't stop him; but it's the most puzzling conversation he's ever had with his brother. Could it be a girl ? Maybe a half-blood, which their mother would have fits over, but it's not like Sirius would care. Although I probably couldn't resist telling. Reg, you clever bastard. It's too good to be true. The favorite son following in the black sheep's footprints. He feels absurdly proud.
Sirius's brilliant deductions are all cut short, however, when Severus Snape shows up at the front gate the next afternoon.
They do this every time now, though neither of them really enjoys it. Sirius attacks and Regulus defends as best he can, while still trying to get out of the door.
"We're friends."
"Are you ? Really ? What on earth do you talk about ? I can't imagine that newt's eyes are interesting after the fourth or fifth time."
"Leave it, Sirius." Regulus laces his boots, and stuffs his wand into a side pocket. "I'll be back later, around eight."
"Frog's legs ? Can't be quidditch, or girls. He doesn't know anything about girls. It's got to be something slimy. Or scaly. Bezoars. Tell me it's bezoars."
"It's not."
Severus never comes any closer than the front gate, and he never makes a motion to open it himself. He stands stiffly beside it, Sirius thinks, like a cow at a board fence. Regulus always hurries out, sometimes without breathing so much as a goodbye, and they head off in the same direction. Sirius is intrigued by their little ritual at first, never mind horrified; and then he's bored by it, and now he's come full circle back to puzzling it out. He stares at Severus out of the upstairs bathroom window, and notices how the skinny boy never even so much as looks up at the house, or bothers to pluck at the ivy leaves choking the fenceposts. Just stands and waits. Stands and waits.
Sirius thinks about throwing something, maybe a glass paperweight or a shoe, and then doesn't. He can't imagine that anyone would think it was funny after last year. Not even him.
The first thing he does when he sees James again is shake his hand; and he puts the whole force of his arm into shaking that silly knobbly wrist, until they nearly fall into each other and it becomes a hug. Peter is wearing this strange mechanical grin, but he hugs Sirius as well. It's a pretty good start. And they ask about mothers and holidays and don't give very good answers, just smile anxiously and nudge one another. And thirty-eight minutes later they've had a terrible fight.
"Still a git." James huffs off with Peter in tow, who has lost the mechanical smile and is grinning for real now. The boy has gotten less small and less round but he still fills the air around him with a kind of fat apology. Sirius sees him leaning closer to James so he can commiserate, and nod in all the right places. It makes him a little sick.
"I said I was sorry." he says to nobody, though he doesn't feel sorry; but mad.
The worst part of it hasn't even begun. Sirius dreaded Hogwarts as much as he longed to return; he assumed that he would be a pariah, and that everything would remind him of Remus. He's half-right. The window-seats where Remus corrected his spelling are unbearable to sit in. And he cannot eat at the table with the fist-shaped knot, which Remus has charmed to (still) recite vulgar limericks about table-manners when anyone spills food over it. But his social life, if he wished for one, would thrive. Sirius cannot understand it.
"Hullo, Black." He hears his name in the hall as often as ever, though he's mostly stopped pranking. They tell him hello, ask about his health, offer some butterbeer one of these days; and it's never the ones he expects. It's always a dark-haired boy from Ravenclaw, or a Slytherin prefect, or one of the million faceless brown-eyed Hufflepuffs. It's the Gryffindors, his own tribe, who won't look him in the eye. And he accepts this, Merlin, he's bought and paid for it; so why hasn't anyone else noticed ?
It doesn't take him long to discover why.
Ian Everness (whose cousin makes terrible come-hither moues at Sirius when she thinks no-one is looking) is walking beside him along the path to Hogsmeade on a Sunday afternoon, tossing a pack of Drooble's from one hand to another and lamenting the shortage of eligible Slytherin girls.
"Yeah, well." Sirius catches it deftly and tosses it back. "There's too many in Gryffindor. Honestly, they're all over the common with lost barrettes and passing notes and talk of women's problems. Take one off of my hands. Take a few."
"Nah." Ian shakes his dark, neat head. "Too many mudbloods. You never know which is which, not with Gryffindor. Now, Ravenclaw, that's a house I could make some trouble in."
There's a long and angry silence, and suddenly Ian realizes that Sirius is not walking beside him any longer. "Sirius, mate, you alright ?"
"What the fuck are you on about, Everness ?" he shouts. His hands are clenching at his sides. "Don't you say mudblood to me !" Ian, clearly dumbfounded, takes a defensive step backwards, palms up.
"Hey, hey calm down. I didn't- I thought you were- you're a Black, after all !"
"So ?" This is, in all of Ian's young life, the most dangerous syllable he's ever heard. He feels that he should choose words carefully, or perhaps else quickly discover how Morgan Ashfare became a toad for three hours last term.
"You- after last year, what you did. Everybody thought you were with Potter, and them. And suddenly in the middle of the year, just like that, turning out a werewolf ! A dark creature, hiding right here in the school ! And a filthy halfblood to boo-"
Naturally, Ian Everness is not physically able to finish this sentence for several days.
Gradually the mood lightens in Gryffindor tower; and even Gideon Prewitt, three days from graduation, deigns to offer him an indian burn and a few words of advice.
"You're a fuckup, Black." he says kindly, and slaps his reddening arm. "But you don't mean to be a bad guy. Everybody knows that. Give them time, and it'll be daisies soon enough."
Sirius wants to say, tell that to Remus, but instead he ducks his head and mumbles thanks. He wonders if he will ever be anyone's best friend again.
Last term at Hogwarts isn't anything special or our of the ordinary; pre-post-graduate counselling ends up being twenty-three awkward minutes in McGonagall's office wherein he tells her he doesn't want to be anything when he grows up. Except maybe a muggle basketball player, or a shoemaker. She apparently feels that he is poking fun at a serious subject, and makes him write a scroll on notable Mediwizards, 1950-1975.
Sirius gets up when his name's called and recieves a grown-up sash for his shoulder and a scroll with his name sparkling in tiny lights. Regulus claps for him so loudly that Rosier tells him he's a suck-up; but Rosier gets a toad's eyeball in his sandwich on the train ride home, because blood is blood.
Once school is out, and out forever, Sirius finds himself wandering in the house like an unmannerly ghost. He haunts family mealtimes and drifts in and out of his father’s study with all the purpose and energy of an idle summer wind. He doesn’t need to work, and doesn’t know what he’d be good at. Regulus is busy acing all his final exams and being courted by the Ministry; the same department, Sirius remarks, that absorbed both Malfoy and the elder Rosier boys. He’ll do well for himself. He’ll be in with all the right people; ambitious, young and attractive. Sirius tries to be happy for him.
Even their mother, who once cooed nothings about keeping her babes in the nest forever, has begun to eye Sirius with a kind of disdain. She drops hints about marriage, which he ignores. She occasionally screams and works herself into minor fits, which he avoids being present for. It’s as if he is playing hide-and-seek professionally; to stay alive. There’s nowhere in particular for him to go. The house is already made monument to the dead. When anyone shakes the flour can in the kitchen, he expects knucklebones to come pouring out. He’d rather not add himself to the collection.
So when he glances out the window on Friday afternoon, the eve of the New Year, and sees Severus Snape once again absconding with his baby brother; Sirius feels a sudden need to find a direction and follow it. He waits until they’ve turned the corner, then pulls on a cloak and tracks them in the snow.
The first snow of winter sits on his eyelashes like down, frilling delicately out from under the pinion feathers of a gander. He can feel the suggestion of cold but not the sensation, thanks to a skill with heating charms acquired from long hours by the lake. The pair ahead of him aren’t hurrying, nor are they taking any particular care not to be seen. That’s a good sign. He thinks perhaps he could be mistaken; that what he sees as some kind of ritual indoctrination could just be a couple of misanthropic teenagers on a search for firewhiskey and dates.
The weather has something to do with the softening of his temper. Sirius likes the snow, and the cold- the breath that flies out and hangs for a long second makes him think of words, spoken and remembered. Words that can be shared like pictures, that crystallize with meaning and make intentions clear. They remind him of Remus; Remus’s misguided affection for the truth, and for order and purpose. But more than anything they just remind him of other winters, and snowballs, and Shepard’s Pie. Times when warmth implied infinitely more than temperature.
He remembers being wanted. When his company was precious and desired, when he had something to say. He feels like a snowflake; if only in that he is falling.
They turn and he turns; they pause and he pauses, pretending to read a menu in a storefront café. There’s a pub at the intersection ahead, which they enter, and Sirius hurries to catch up. Through the crooked panes he can see the usually ungainly Snape give the barman what could pass for a smooth and subtle nod. Regulus suddenly turns and glances behind him reflexively, and Sirius flattens against the doorway. When he lifts his head again, there’s a puff of flame, and both his brother and Snape have vanished into the gap of the floo.
“Dammit.” Well, he’s come this far. Sirius pulls his hood over his head and pushes the door open, aiming for an authoritative stride. “Am I late ?” he says, a little too loudly. “They can’t have gone on without me. Excuse me sir, have they passed this way ?” The barman gives a noncommittal shrug.
“Tha’ depends, boy. On who you're looking for.”
“I’m Sirius Black.” he says haughtily, and throws the hood off. “And I’m looking for my brother.” It works, if only because Sirius looks as proud and vain as he sounds. Anyone can see that the cut of his cloth is fine, much finer than any other patron’s; and that the clasp at his throat bears the seal of House Black. He is shown to the fireplace. Without being asked, the barman fills his hands with powder and mutters a word over the flames.
“Off you go, young master.” he says; and Sirius is lost in a tunnel of smoke and darkness.
He stumbles onto uneven ground, swinging his arms in front of him for balance, and connects with the trunk of a tree. Steadying himself against it, he glances around, hoping he's still unnoticed. There's not a soul to be seen; not even the two cloaked idiots he's tailing. But the scene is still familiar- a village choked with elderly trees, bare branches against the outline of cottages. A few hearth fires, and in the distance a hill rising out of the forest. It reminds him of something, a memory that aches against the sides of his brain.
Some distance ahead, on a road that curls along the hill like a cat's tail, there are a handful of shadows walking towards the wind. At the top he can see a great house, with barn and stables. There's a light in the window. And immediately he places the image- the house, a party, the glow of torches and wandlight, a purpling bruise, the rich smell of meat and wine. It is the manor of the LeStranges. The party he remembers is his cousin's engagement, the day of his first duel. He was thirteen.
It occurs to Sirius for the first time that he may have done a very stupid thing. Cousin, can you bleed ? she'd asked him. And he had, until his uncle had caught them and cleaned them up, and sent her back to her friends. He can still bleed. And he can still turn back.
He feels a rush of hate for Severus, burning in the center of his chest like a brand. For bringing him here, for bringing Regulus here. For being in the middle of something so large and horrible that it is swallowing Sirius's very heart to think of it. He wishes fiercely for James's solid anger and Remus's clarity, and holds tightly to the wand in his pocket.
He won't abandon his brother to this. He casts a disillusionment charm around himself, and wipes his shadow away, before starting along the rising path.
To the back of the garden is a poor attempt at a hedge maze, too low and too unimaginative to be authentically old. There isn't a single moving statue, or charmed fountain, or beastly topiary. Sirius doesn't even bother to reproach himself for the pureblood contempt he feels towards the LeStranges; recently rich and recently evil and altogether without class.
Beyond that is a courtyard with an iron gate, and beyond that the family plot. This is the oldest part of the manor, he feels certain, as water and time have removed much of what was written from the monuments. His brother and Snape are winding their way through the crypts and stones, Regulus with a certain degreee of uncertainty. It's clear to Sirius that this is not their usual destination, though Snape seems to know the way. Sirius, hanging back, carefully charming his footsteps to leave no print in the shallow snow, can see a group ahead. A few of them have bothered to bring light, though it's mostly unnecessary in the milky softness of the waxing moon.
The figures meet and merge. Regulus hesitates a beat; then inclines his head towards the circle, and as one they step towards the closest obelisk. Sirius sees a stairway leading underground and curses under his breath.
Bella is there, too; one hand laid delicately on the arm of a hooded man. Her hair is undone and her head bare, like some savage queen in the light of the lamps; though she looks more like a happy bride. She cups a hand at the back of Regulus's neck and Sirius feels the shiver on his own skin. What she's whispering in his brother's ear, he can't hear or see; and in a moment they've stepped into the darkness.
He starts to follow and hears a sound like thunder and pain. A light is rising and he knows, he knows why they've come, and what they are doing; Sirius apparates away but not quickly enough, not quickly enough to miss Regulus's screaming.
Three days pass. Sirius is aware of every second that changes to the next. He stares at the skin of his own arm, which is rougher and more often sunburnt than his brother's. He imagines that he can feel it burning. He plans how to kill Severus Snape.
The opportunity presents itself shortly. Snape has the gall to return with Regulus when the weekend is over, both of them drawn and pale. Sirius is already running to the gate as they arrive, and even Snape's fairly quick wand hand is a fruitless defense.
Sirius punches him viciously in the throat, without preamble. Snape goes down, wand still waving, and Sirius feels the whistle of a curse go past his ear. "Wordless, huh ?" he asks, and stomps down on Snape's wrist until he can hear the bones shatter. "Curse me." he says, and Snape says nothing. His eyes have rolled back into his head, giving him a slightly crazy look. "CURSE ME !" Sirius repeats, shrieking, and kicks him in the ribs. He feels a sharp jab to his shoulder.
Regulus has his wand out, at the level of Sirius's heart.
"Leave him." he says. It doesn't even sound like Regulus, the high-pitched croak coming from his throat. "Leave him, or I'll- I will. I will." There are tears in his eyes.
"God, Reg." The rage goes out of Sirius like water. It pools at his ankles, Snape and revenge and murder forgotten. "What have they done to you ?"
Regulus doesn't answer. Instead, he lowers his trembling arm and turns to Snape, who has rolled onto his side and is coughing blood.
"I've got to take him to a healer."
"Fine." Sirius can't stop staring at the phlegmy puddle of blood beside Snape's face. He is disgusted with himself, but only a little. Regulus is favoring his left arm, and the sight of that makes something hateful and dark rise in Sirius again. It's better that they both leave him alone. "Go."
"I'm going."
Regulus forgets to tell him, later, that he obliviates Snape somewhere along the way.
Neither of them forget.
It becomes something of a hazard to put Sirius in the confines of a room with his kin. It starts like an average quarrel, and suddenly Bella has bitten a chunk of his ear off, and he's hexed her hands red, so that she looks like she's dipped in blood. Her husband thinks it's funny, but nobody else.
Bella's mother is a very old woman, with black eyes like a dog's, and hands that seem carved from tree-stumps. When she pulls Sirius close to give him a good-bye kiss, next to his newly mangled ear, she whispers she'll kill you when she can.
"Don't you mean if ?" Sirius snorts, and rubs her old-lady breath away. She smiles at him, and asks for a handkerchief.
He tries to help, tries to get him to argue about it on the rare occasions that he's home. If he'll argue then he'll open up, get angry enough to say something stupid. But Regulus won't speak to him. Sirius begins to think that it would be better somewhere else; and though he hasn't a plan or a clue, he wonders if he can live like other people do, for a little while. He doesn't bother to tell his parents, just rents a flat and buys a second-hand couch, and has it delivered.
Once in a while it doesn't hurt to be rich.
He drags the suitcase down the stairs mostly for effect. There's only one, though it contains two much larger trunks spelled to the size of toasters. It bumps and rattles like a march of angry walking-sticks; and suddenly Regulus is at the bottom of the stairs, and Sirius nearly falls.
"I wish you weren't such an ass." he says.
"You wish ?" He's beyond furious, he's dead, he's exploded. "I wish that you were one of my friends instead, and that this house was made out of candy apples." Sirius shoves him aside, which is unnecessary, but it's the only way he can think of to touch his brother before he leaves. "So get out of my way."
The hurt on Regulus's face is something he has wanted so many times; when it comes, it makes him sick to his stomach. But he's a Black, goddamit, so he keeps walking until he's in the garden, and then he disapparates, and ends up in his new kitchen. He sets the suitcase on the floor and sits on top of it, and now he is still sitting there, three hours later.
The moon comes up, very properly, and the world continues to turn. He knows that Regulus is out there somewhere in the dark.
This is what he does while he waits for something to happen: spells the pantry cold, organizes his record collection, buys a rug, dirties the rug, beats the rug out on the fire escape, turns the bathtub into a giant shoe and back again, tries thirteen different kinds of shampoo, buys groceries, makes his first curry, ruins a saucepan, writes thirty-nine more letters and never gets an answer.
It's like living, only just.
Finally it appears, his change. James is featured in the Quibbler, speaking out against the dark lord; not under his own name, of course, but as "Pods Jasperson". Sirius remembers signing that to fake valentines back in second year, which makes him think that James remembers, too. Sirius believes in war, and he believes in James. He wonders if Remus has joined up, and if they'd let him, because of things. Which of course is a stupid question; Remus on the wrong side of a fight, or not on a side at all, is the stupidest idea he's ever heard.
He discovers that he can navigate every twist and turn in the tunnel from Honeyduke's, and still end up lost on the third floor on the way to the Headmaster's office. He pulls a few candlesticks off the wall before he finds the right one.
"Sirius, shut the door." Dumbledore says, from behind the desk. Clearly he has been expecting this. Despite the years and the diploma and the majority, Sirius takes his hat off and stands pigeon-toed in his presence. It's like coming home.
"Hello, sir."
"Hello, boy." He eats a sherbet lemon. "You've got work to do."
He gets better at following people out of absolute necessity. More than once he has reason to be grateful that, although he is far too self-centered to ever be a truly great wizard, he is both fast and mean. It counts for a great deal. If anyone had the time to pay attention, they would have noticed that he was looking for Regulus.
Regulus, of course, finds him.
It's an out-of-the-way place, unfashionable enough for Sirius to feel as if he's slumming it; and dim enough that Regulus's glamour isn't obvious. They drink two beers together in silence, both of them with their hands in a jacket pocket, wand at the ready.
"I'm going to kill you." he says.
"Is that all ?" Sirius is surprised to find that he cannot manage even a scrap of hatred.
"Yes." A light, like a smile, flickers at the edge of the younger man's face. "And then we're going to kill the dark lord together."
"Typical." Sirius drops his cigarette and stands. "Of your disorganized mind. Anyone could see you'd have to kill me later." They leave a couple of notes on the table and walk out into the evening. It's fall, beautifully; the wet leaves underfoot are like walking in old clothes. Everything smells like rain and woodsmoke and happy dog. "You've been hard to find."
"You've been an as-"
"You took the mark." he hisses, and Regulus falls silent. "What was I supposed to think ?"
"You could have trusted me."
"I didn't." They scuff across a gutter. "Are we alright ?"
"You utter moron." Regulus punches him in the arm, and he falls into a pile of leaves, face up, staring at the sky. He is lighter than the air. Regulus sits beside him on the street, twirling a leaf between his fingers and waiting for him to get up.
They're alright.
The Brothers Black, at large.
"It's alright." Remus says, and takes his hand under the table, all propriety bedamned. He's always been more sensitive; and Sirius is grateful for him, that he is alive, that they accidentally switched charms books that one time and had to be introduced. "I promise that it will be alright."
Parallel Or Together
"Black, Regulus."
If it were appropriate for two twelve-year-old boys to hold hands, Sirius would be clutching Remus's in fearful joy. Because it's got to be now, finally, that everything gets put to rights. Reg will end up in Gryffindor and they can be blood traitors together; and he can tag along on adventures and learn how to prank. And Sirius won't feel that awful pang in his chest anymore, when he thinks about his brother all alone in that house, with his mum blabbering endlessly about blood rights and inheritance and abominable filth.
"SLYTHERIN !" The hat cries out, and does a little hop-skip of impatience on his brother's smallish head. There is some faint cheering and a desperately loud silence from Sirius's circle.
"It's alright." Remus says, and takes his hand under the table, all propriety bedamned. He's always been more sensitive; and Sirius is grateful for him, that he is alive, that they accidentally switched charms books that one time and had to be introduced. "I promise that it will be alright."
And for a very long time, it is.
November, 1976.
He can’t stop looking at the empty bed. It isn’t made, and he can’t understand why the house-elves haven’t at least straightened the coverlet or pulled the curtains shut or done something; anything that would erase the crease where Remus last sat to put on his shoes, Friday after dinner.
James says he packed without even sitting down, almost without stopping. He must have forgotten something, because there’s a glint of gold paper under the bed, beyond the thin circle of dust. So Sirius bends down and pulls the drapes aside, sticks a hand fearlessly into the darkness. It’s a chocolate frog card, a bearded man he doesn’t recognize. He fumbles back again, and his hand hits something soft and solid, like a cardboard parcel. It rattles as he drags it out.
It doesn’t register at first, what these objects are. They’re familiar- most of them presents. A scarf as soft as a rabbit’s belly. A sneakoscope and a Gryffindor flag, the latter edged with mud. And here’s the crowning glory, a singularly unhandsome notebook with raggedy dog-ears; this is the plan for the greatest thing they’ll ever make. The Something-something Map. Working title, of course.
He must have left all this by accident, he thinks immediately. He’ll want all this, so that he doesn’t forget. It helps to think that maybe he could mail this off, that he could be useful in some small way; and that Remus might be grateful. But all his books are gone, all the sweaters from Peter and the quill-pens from James. Those things he took.
When Sirius reaches the bottom of the box, he starts to cry.
Sirius-
Just stop arguing with me and come home. I actually bought you something for Christmas. It's boring without you, and maybe all your dreams will come true and she'll explode right there on the doorstep. Bring your transfiguration text home with you because I need it; Parkinson stole mine.
Ass.
Sincerely, Reg.
"We're only related." Sirius says haughtily, dragging his trunk off of the rack and following his brother down the steps. "That doesn't make us friends." Regulus sniffs in his general direction. He is smaller and fairer; more like a nervous, delicate thoroughbred than an overeager wolfhound. It's easy to see why their mother prefers him, though mostly the resemblance is superficial.
"I have friends, thanks." He manages to make this sound like an accusation, but Sirius doesn't bite. Instead, he sets the other boy's trunk on top of his own, and leans against the station wall.
"I didn't see you go, last year."
"You went with Potter." Regulus scans the crowd, and doesn't look him in the face. "I can see how somebody so loud and stupid would be distracting."
"Ah, shut your mouth, Reg. I just wanted to ask you a question. Remember the first year you came to school ? Mother brought us. The year after that, I went with Andromeda and you went by yourself. With the elf." Sirius can see it still, Andromeda and her fiancé and the soft belly that was going to be 'Dora or Roland, whichever came out. She kissed his cheeks and ruffled his hair and when he'd gotten onto the train he'd seen Reg through the window, clutching a suitcase, alone on the platform.
"So ?"
"Does she always send the elf ?" Sirius stands up against the wall, his arms folded. "Is it always just the elf ?"
"Shut up, Sirius," he says, by way of an answer.
He writes letters sitting at the desk besides the window, with a plate of sandwiches forgotten at his elbow. To James he writes I hope you can forgive me and to Peter I hope that you miss me and to Remus he writes everything, absolutely everything. The owls come back empty-handed, so at least he's accepting them. Maybe he's burning them, or binding them into a book, or using them to wipe up spills. Sirius isn't sure, and he hates the feeling.
James writes back to him and it says you're a berk, but it also says I guess I'll see you next term, and that is a kind of hope.
"I'm going to eat this." Regulus has appeared behind him, and his hand is curling around the edge of the plate. Half of the sandwich is already going into his mouth. "Muh can'b stoff me."
"Greedy." Sirius shoves the rest in his direction and sits back in his chair. "Fatty. You're going to end up like Uncle Alphard and have duck for dinner every night."
"Shulf off." Between the cheese and shreds of lettuce clinging to his chin, Regulus looks like a younger version of himself; fat cheeks and all. It makes Sirius feel strangely generous- they were friends once, the very best, before they knew there were other people in the world that one could choose from.
"You want to go somewhere tomorrow ? There's a thing I need from Flourish and Botts. We could get lunch if you want."
"No, sorry." Regulus wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and actually has the grace to look embarrassed. "I'm going- I'm going to a friend's house."
"They can tag along, I don't care. Who is it ?"
"A friend."
"Don't be stupi-"
"A friend. It doesn't matter. Look, Sirius, I can't go, alright ? Maybe another time." He leaves the crusts on the plate and turns on his heel for the door. Sirius doesn't stop him; but it's the most puzzling conversation he's ever had with his brother. Could it be a girl ? Maybe a half-blood, which their mother would have fits over, but it's not like Sirius would care. Although I probably couldn't resist telling. Reg, you clever bastard. It's too good to be true. The favorite son following in the black sheep's footprints. He feels absurdly proud.
Sirius's brilliant deductions are all cut short, however, when Severus Snape shows up at the front gate the next afternoon.
They do this every time now, though neither of them really enjoys it. Sirius attacks and Regulus defends as best he can, while still trying to get out of the door.
"We're friends."
"Are you ? Really ? What on earth do you talk about ? I can't imagine that newt's eyes are interesting after the fourth or fifth time."
"Leave it, Sirius." Regulus laces his boots, and stuffs his wand into a side pocket. "I'll be back later, around eight."
"Frog's legs ? Can't be quidditch, or girls. He doesn't know anything about girls. It's got to be something slimy. Or scaly. Bezoars. Tell me it's bezoars."
"It's not."
Severus never comes any closer than the front gate, and he never makes a motion to open it himself. He stands stiffly beside it, Sirius thinks, like a cow at a board fence. Regulus always hurries out, sometimes without breathing so much as a goodbye, and they head off in the same direction. Sirius is intrigued by their little ritual at first, never mind horrified; and then he's bored by it, and now he's come full circle back to puzzling it out. He stares at Severus out of the upstairs bathroom window, and notices how the skinny boy never even so much as looks up at the house, or bothers to pluck at the ivy leaves choking the fenceposts. Just stands and waits. Stands and waits.
Sirius thinks about throwing something, maybe a glass paperweight or a shoe, and then doesn't. He can't imagine that anyone would think it was funny after last year. Not even him.
The first thing he does when he sees James again is shake his hand; and he puts the whole force of his arm into shaking that silly knobbly wrist, until they nearly fall into each other and it becomes a hug. Peter is wearing this strange mechanical grin, but he hugs Sirius as well. It's a pretty good start. And they ask about mothers and holidays and don't give very good answers, just smile anxiously and nudge one another. And thirty-eight minutes later they've had a terrible fight.
"Still a git." James huffs off with Peter in tow, who has lost the mechanical smile and is grinning for real now. The boy has gotten less small and less round but he still fills the air around him with a kind of fat apology. Sirius sees him leaning closer to James so he can commiserate, and nod in all the right places. It makes him a little sick.
"I said I was sorry." he says to nobody, though he doesn't feel sorry; but mad.
The worst part of it hasn't even begun. Sirius dreaded Hogwarts as much as he longed to return; he assumed that he would be a pariah, and that everything would remind him of Remus. He's half-right. The window-seats where Remus corrected his spelling are unbearable to sit in. And he cannot eat at the table with the fist-shaped knot, which Remus has charmed to (still) recite vulgar limericks about table-manners when anyone spills food over it. But his social life, if he wished for one, would thrive. Sirius cannot understand it.
"Hullo, Black." He hears his name in the hall as often as ever, though he's mostly stopped pranking. They tell him hello, ask about his health, offer some butterbeer one of these days; and it's never the ones he expects. It's always a dark-haired boy from Ravenclaw, or a Slytherin prefect, or one of the million faceless brown-eyed Hufflepuffs. It's the Gryffindors, his own tribe, who won't look him in the eye. And he accepts this, Merlin, he's bought and paid for it; so why hasn't anyone else noticed ?
It doesn't take him long to discover why.
Ian Everness (whose cousin makes terrible come-hither moues at Sirius when she thinks no-one is looking) is walking beside him along the path to Hogsmeade on a Sunday afternoon, tossing a pack of Drooble's from one hand to another and lamenting the shortage of eligible Slytherin girls.
"Yeah, well." Sirius catches it deftly and tosses it back. "There's too many in Gryffindor. Honestly, they're all over the common with lost barrettes and passing notes and talk of women's problems. Take one off of my hands. Take a few."
"Nah." Ian shakes his dark, neat head. "Too many mudbloods. You never know which is which, not with Gryffindor. Now, Ravenclaw, that's a house I could make some trouble in."
There's a long and angry silence, and suddenly Ian realizes that Sirius is not walking beside him any longer. "Sirius, mate, you alright ?"
"What the fuck are you on about, Everness ?" he shouts. His hands are clenching at his sides. "Don't you say mudblood to me !" Ian, clearly dumbfounded, takes a defensive step backwards, palms up.
"Hey, hey calm down. I didn't- I thought you were- you're a Black, after all !"
"So ?" This is, in all of Ian's young life, the most dangerous syllable he's ever heard. He feels that he should choose words carefully, or perhaps else quickly discover how Morgan Ashfare became a toad for three hours last term.
"You- after last year, what you did. Everybody thought you were with Potter, and them. And suddenly in the middle of the year, just like that, turning out a werewolf ! A dark creature, hiding right here in the school ! And a filthy halfblood to boo-"
Naturally, Ian Everness is not physically able to finish this sentence for several days.
Gradually the mood lightens in Gryffindor tower; and even Gideon Prewitt, three days from graduation, deigns to offer him an indian burn and a few words of advice.
"You're a fuckup, Black." he says kindly, and slaps his reddening arm. "But you don't mean to be a bad guy. Everybody knows that. Give them time, and it'll be daisies soon enough."
Sirius wants to say, tell that to Remus, but instead he ducks his head and mumbles thanks. He wonders if he will ever be anyone's best friend again.
Last term at Hogwarts isn't anything special or our of the ordinary; pre-post-graduate counselling ends up being twenty-three awkward minutes in McGonagall's office wherein he tells her he doesn't want to be anything when he grows up. Except maybe a muggle basketball player, or a shoemaker. She apparently feels that he is poking fun at a serious subject, and makes him write a scroll on notable Mediwizards, 1950-1975.
Sirius gets up when his name's called and recieves a grown-up sash for his shoulder and a scroll with his name sparkling in tiny lights. Regulus claps for him so loudly that Rosier tells him he's a suck-up; but Rosier gets a toad's eyeball in his sandwich on the train ride home, because blood is blood.
Once school is out, and out forever, Sirius finds himself wandering in the house like an unmannerly ghost. He haunts family mealtimes and drifts in and out of his father’s study with all the purpose and energy of an idle summer wind. He doesn’t need to work, and doesn’t know what he’d be good at. Regulus is busy acing all his final exams and being courted by the Ministry; the same department, Sirius remarks, that absorbed both Malfoy and the elder Rosier boys. He’ll do well for himself. He’ll be in with all the right people; ambitious, young and attractive. Sirius tries to be happy for him.
Even their mother, who once cooed nothings about keeping her babes in the nest forever, has begun to eye Sirius with a kind of disdain. She drops hints about marriage, which he ignores. She occasionally screams and works herself into minor fits, which he avoids being present for. It’s as if he is playing hide-and-seek professionally; to stay alive. There’s nowhere in particular for him to go. The house is already made monument to the dead. When anyone shakes the flour can in the kitchen, he expects knucklebones to come pouring out. He’d rather not add himself to the collection.
So when he glances out the window on Friday afternoon, the eve of the New Year, and sees Severus Snape once again absconding with his baby brother; Sirius feels a sudden need to find a direction and follow it. He waits until they’ve turned the corner, then pulls on a cloak and tracks them in the snow.
The first snow of winter sits on his eyelashes like down, frilling delicately out from under the pinion feathers of a gander. He can feel the suggestion of cold but not the sensation, thanks to a skill with heating charms acquired from long hours by the lake. The pair ahead of him aren’t hurrying, nor are they taking any particular care not to be seen. That’s a good sign. He thinks perhaps he could be mistaken; that what he sees as some kind of ritual indoctrination could just be a couple of misanthropic teenagers on a search for firewhiskey and dates.
The weather has something to do with the softening of his temper. Sirius likes the snow, and the cold- the breath that flies out and hangs for a long second makes him think of words, spoken and remembered. Words that can be shared like pictures, that crystallize with meaning and make intentions clear. They remind him of Remus; Remus’s misguided affection for the truth, and for order and purpose. But more than anything they just remind him of other winters, and snowballs, and Shepard’s Pie. Times when warmth implied infinitely more than temperature.
He remembers being wanted. When his company was precious and desired, when he had something to say. He feels like a snowflake; if only in that he is falling.
They turn and he turns; they pause and he pauses, pretending to read a menu in a storefront café. There’s a pub at the intersection ahead, which they enter, and Sirius hurries to catch up. Through the crooked panes he can see the usually ungainly Snape give the barman what could pass for a smooth and subtle nod. Regulus suddenly turns and glances behind him reflexively, and Sirius flattens against the doorway. When he lifts his head again, there’s a puff of flame, and both his brother and Snape have vanished into the gap of the floo.
“Dammit.” Well, he’s come this far. Sirius pulls his hood over his head and pushes the door open, aiming for an authoritative stride. “Am I late ?” he says, a little too loudly. “They can’t have gone on without me. Excuse me sir, have they passed this way ?” The barman gives a noncommittal shrug.
“Tha’ depends, boy. On who you're looking for.”
“I’m Sirius Black.” he says haughtily, and throws the hood off. “And I’m looking for my brother.” It works, if only because Sirius looks as proud and vain as he sounds. Anyone can see that the cut of his cloth is fine, much finer than any other patron’s; and that the clasp at his throat bears the seal of House Black. He is shown to the fireplace. Without being asked, the barman fills his hands with powder and mutters a word over the flames.
“Off you go, young master.” he says; and Sirius is lost in a tunnel of smoke and darkness.
He stumbles onto uneven ground, swinging his arms in front of him for balance, and connects with the trunk of a tree. Steadying himself against it, he glances around, hoping he's still unnoticed. There's not a soul to be seen; not even the two cloaked idiots he's tailing. But the scene is still familiar- a village choked with elderly trees, bare branches against the outline of cottages. A few hearth fires, and in the distance a hill rising out of the forest. It reminds him of something, a memory that aches against the sides of his brain.
Some distance ahead, on a road that curls along the hill like a cat's tail, there are a handful of shadows walking towards the wind. At the top he can see a great house, with barn and stables. There's a light in the window. And immediately he places the image- the house, a party, the glow of torches and wandlight, a purpling bruise, the rich smell of meat and wine. It is the manor of the LeStranges. The party he remembers is his cousin's engagement, the day of his first duel. He was thirteen.
It occurs to Sirius for the first time that he may have done a very stupid thing. Cousin, can you bleed ? she'd asked him. And he had, until his uncle had caught them and cleaned them up, and sent her back to her friends. He can still bleed. And he can still turn back.
He feels a rush of hate for Severus, burning in the center of his chest like a brand. For bringing him here, for bringing Regulus here. For being in the middle of something so large and horrible that it is swallowing Sirius's very heart to think of it. He wishes fiercely for James's solid anger and Remus's clarity, and holds tightly to the wand in his pocket.
He won't abandon his brother to this. He casts a disillusionment charm around himself, and wipes his shadow away, before starting along the rising path.
To the back of the garden is a poor attempt at a hedge maze, too low and too unimaginative to be authentically old. There isn't a single moving statue, or charmed fountain, or beastly topiary. Sirius doesn't even bother to reproach himself for the pureblood contempt he feels towards the LeStranges; recently rich and recently evil and altogether without class.
Beyond that is a courtyard with an iron gate, and beyond that the family plot. This is the oldest part of the manor, he feels certain, as water and time have removed much of what was written from the monuments. His brother and Snape are winding their way through the crypts and stones, Regulus with a certain degreee of uncertainty. It's clear to Sirius that this is not their usual destination, though Snape seems to know the way. Sirius, hanging back, carefully charming his footsteps to leave no print in the shallow snow, can see a group ahead. A few of them have bothered to bring light, though it's mostly unnecessary in the milky softness of the waxing moon.
The figures meet and merge. Regulus hesitates a beat; then inclines his head towards the circle, and as one they step towards the closest obelisk. Sirius sees a stairway leading underground and curses under his breath.
Bella is there, too; one hand laid delicately on the arm of a hooded man. Her hair is undone and her head bare, like some savage queen in the light of the lamps; though she looks more like a happy bride. She cups a hand at the back of Regulus's neck and Sirius feels the shiver on his own skin. What she's whispering in his brother's ear, he can't hear or see; and in a moment they've stepped into the darkness.
He starts to follow and hears a sound like thunder and pain. A light is rising and he knows, he knows why they've come, and what they are doing; Sirius apparates away but not quickly enough, not quickly enough to miss Regulus's screaming.
Three days pass. Sirius is aware of every second that changes to the next. He stares at the skin of his own arm, which is rougher and more often sunburnt than his brother's. He imagines that he can feel it burning. He plans how to kill Severus Snape.
The opportunity presents itself shortly. Snape has the gall to return with Regulus when the weekend is over, both of them drawn and pale. Sirius is already running to the gate as they arrive, and even Snape's fairly quick wand hand is a fruitless defense.
Sirius punches him viciously in the throat, without preamble. Snape goes down, wand still waving, and Sirius feels the whistle of a curse go past his ear. "Wordless, huh ?" he asks, and stomps down on Snape's wrist until he can hear the bones shatter. "Curse me." he says, and Snape says nothing. His eyes have rolled back into his head, giving him a slightly crazy look. "CURSE ME !" Sirius repeats, shrieking, and kicks him in the ribs. He feels a sharp jab to his shoulder.
Regulus has his wand out, at the level of Sirius's heart.
"Leave him." he says. It doesn't even sound like Regulus, the high-pitched croak coming from his throat. "Leave him, or I'll- I will. I will." There are tears in his eyes.
"God, Reg." The rage goes out of Sirius like water. It pools at his ankles, Snape and revenge and murder forgotten. "What have they done to you ?"
Regulus doesn't answer. Instead, he lowers his trembling arm and turns to Snape, who has rolled onto his side and is coughing blood.
"I've got to take him to a healer."
"Fine." Sirius can't stop staring at the phlegmy puddle of blood beside Snape's face. He is disgusted with himself, but only a little. Regulus is favoring his left arm, and the sight of that makes something hateful and dark rise in Sirius again. It's better that they both leave him alone. "Go."
"I'm going."
Regulus forgets to tell him, later, that he obliviates Snape somewhere along the way.
Neither of them forget.
It becomes something of a hazard to put Sirius in the confines of a room with his kin. It starts like an average quarrel, and suddenly Bella has bitten a chunk of his ear off, and he's hexed her hands red, so that she looks like she's dipped in blood. Her husband thinks it's funny, but nobody else.
Bella's mother is a very old woman, with black eyes like a dog's, and hands that seem carved from tree-stumps. When she pulls Sirius close to give him a good-bye kiss, next to his newly mangled ear, she whispers she'll kill you when she can.
"Don't you mean if ?" Sirius snorts, and rubs her old-lady breath away. She smiles at him, and asks for a handkerchief.
He tries to help, tries to get him to argue about it on the rare occasions that he's home. If he'll argue then he'll open up, get angry enough to say something stupid. But Regulus won't speak to him. Sirius begins to think that it would be better somewhere else; and though he hasn't a plan or a clue, he wonders if he can live like other people do, for a little while. He doesn't bother to tell his parents, just rents a flat and buys a second-hand couch, and has it delivered.
Once in a while it doesn't hurt to be rich.
He drags the suitcase down the stairs mostly for effect. There's only one, though it contains two much larger trunks spelled to the size of toasters. It bumps and rattles like a march of angry walking-sticks; and suddenly Regulus is at the bottom of the stairs, and Sirius nearly falls.
"I wish you weren't such an ass." he says.
"You wish ?" He's beyond furious, he's dead, he's exploded. "I wish that you were one of my friends instead, and that this house was made out of candy apples." Sirius shoves him aside, which is unnecessary, but it's the only way he can think of to touch his brother before he leaves. "So get out of my way."
The hurt on Regulus's face is something he has wanted so many times; when it comes, it makes him sick to his stomach. But he's a Black, goddamit, so he keeps walking until he's in the garden, and then he disapparates, and ends up in his new kitchen. He sets the suitcase on the floor and sits on top of it, and now he is still sitting there, three hours later.
The moon comes up, very properly, and the world continues to turn. He knows that Regulus is out there somewhere in the dark.
This is what he does while he waits for something to happen: spells the pantry cold, organizes his record collection, buys a rug, dirties the rug, beats the rug out on the fire escape, turns the bathtub into a giant shoe and back again, tries thirteen different kinds of shampoo, buys groceries, makes his first curry, ruins a saucepan, writes thirty-nine more letters and never gets an answer.
It's like living, only just.
Finally it appears, his change. James is featured in the Quibbler, speaking out against the dark lord; not under his own name, of course, but as "Pods Jasperson". Sirius remembers signing that to fake valentines back in second year, which makes him think that James remembers, too. Sirius believes in war, and he believes in James. He wonders if Remus has joined up, and if they'd let him, because of things. Which of course is a stupid question; Remus on the wrong side of a fight, or not on a side at all, is the stupidest idea he's ever heard.
He discovers that he can navigate every twist and turn in the tunnel from Honeyduke's, and still end up lost on the third floor on the way to the Headmaster's office. He pulls a few candlesticks off the wall before he finds the right one.
"Sirius, shut the door." Dumbledore says, from behind the desk. Clearly he has been expecting this. Despite the years and the diploma and the majority, Sirius takes his hat off and stands pigeon-toed in his presence. It's like coming home.
"Hello, sir."
"Hello, boy." He eats a sherbet lemon. "You've got work to do."
He gets better at following people out of absolute necessity. More than once he has reason to be grateful that, although he is far too self-centered to ever be a truly great wizard, he is both fast and mean. It counts for a great deal. If anyone had the time to pay attention, they would have noticed that he was looking for Regulus.
Regulus, of course, finds him.
It's an out-of-the-way place, unfashionable enough for Sirius to feel as if he's slumming it; and dim enough that Regulus's glamour isn't obvious. They drink two beers together in silence, both of them with their hands in a jacket pocket, wand at the ready.
"I'm going to kill you." he says.
"Is that all ?" Sirius is surprised to find that he cannot manage even a scrap of hatred.
"Yes." A light, like a smile, flickers at the edge of the younger man's face. "And then we're going to kill the dark lord together."
"Typical." Sirius drops his cigarette and stands. "Of your disorganized mind. Anyone could see you'd have to kill me later." They leave a couple of notes on the table and walk out into the evening. It's fall, beautifully; the wet leaves underfoot are like walking in old clothes. Everything smells like rain and woodsmoke and happy dog. "You've been hard to find."
"You've been an as-"
"You took the mark." he hisses, and Regulus falls silent. "What was I supposed to think ?"
"You could have trusted me."
"I didn't." They scuff across a gutter. "Are we alright ?"
"You utter moron." Regulus punches him in the arm, and he falls into a pile of leaves, face up, staring at the sky. He is lighter than the air. Regulus sits beside him on the street, twirling a leaf between his fingers and waiting for him to get up.
They're alright.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: Thursday, February 9th, 2006 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, February 9th, 2006 10:51 pm (UTC)*cries*
So beautiful and sweet-sad.
Hard to find, indeed.
Auugh!
Date: Friday, February 10th, 2006 12:06 am (UTC)I'm putting down this post to say glad to have you back! No matter how short the time!
no subject
Date: Saturday, February 11th, 2006 03:05 pm (UTC)