Notes from Andromeda
Title: Notes from Andromeda
Author: magentabear
Rating: PG-13ish?
Warnings: none
Word Count: 4000
Prompts:
22. "Pity your sister- as a final kindness./When he has granted it, I shall repay/my debt, and with full interest, by my death." (Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 4, lines 599-601)
47. "Now it’s your time and you know where you stand/With a gun in your hand, with a gun in your hand/Now I’m no longer an ordinary man" (‘Be Somebody’, Kings of Leon)
Summary: How three letters taught Sirius Black the meaning of betrayal.
Author’s Notes: Well this is cutting it close with the deadline, no? heh. Thanks so much to the mods for the lovely prompts!
-
For all their faults, despite everything they did to hurt those already hurting and despite all the hate they poured into his childhood, Sirius loved his parents until the day they told him he didn't deserve to be a Black. He was too young, just returned from a year at Hogwarts, when his father called him into the study and his mother closed the door with a small click.
"You need to stop talking about Gryffindor," she said softly. Mother always spoke softly when she was trying to control her temper.
"It's not appropriate," his father said.
The room felt like a funeral. Sirius squirmed.
"We're still not certain what you did to end up there-"
"-can't imagine what you must have said to the Hat-"
"-but it's not something we'll allow into our home."
"I didn't say anything, I already told you that," Sirius said. He mimicked Mother's softness.
"You said something to the Hat, boy, don't get smart with me."
"I didn't."
His father laid a hand on his mother's trembling shoulders and narrowed his eyes at his son. "Don't upset your mother. She hasn't had her potion yet."
She leaned into his touch. "I'm fine, dear. Don't fret over me."
It always boggled Sirius how loving they were to one another. Years later he would wonder if it was all an act, nothing more than a firm dedication to their roles, but as a child he was certain they loved each other dearly. It made the disdain they clearly felt for him all the more obvious.
"I'm a Gryffindor, Mother. There's nothing I can do about it, Father. I've done nothing to dishonor the family."
He said the words dully. He'd said them so many times-written them so many times in response to so many furious letters-that he didn't even bother trying to put any force behind the words. It would all get lost somewhere between his mouth and their ears anyway.
Mother stared at him, sizing up the scrawny boy already developing the face of a man. An ugly look came over her. "Blacks don't belong in Gryffindor. You may not share a dormitory with halfbloods-with mudbloods-and expect me to welcome you home again."
"This is where I live," he yelled, furious suddenly, something finally cracking in the coldness he always wrapped around himself during these conversations. "I'm in Gryffindor and you are my parents and my name is Sirius Black."
"No," she said evenly. Mother drew herself up even straighter and met his eye squarely. "No, I don't think it is. You don't deserve our name. You are welcomed to change it when you're of age."
Sirius turned away from her eyes to look at his father. It wasn't real until he nodded. His nod ruled the Blacks. It was the only thing that ruled his mother's anger.
He nodded.
Sirius swallowed hard. He swallowed hard and dug his fingernails into his palms so sharply he broke skin. Mother really must not care, he thought distantly, to let them reach this length.
"You could have been somebody," his father said. "You could have been a Black."
Sirius slammed every door between the study and his room. He dripped blood on the floor and he cursed under his breath and he never, ever let them see him cry. He no longer considered them his parents, not for a moment after that conversation did he ever consider himself their son. But he still played the part. He practiced their manners. He was silent when his mother's headaches flared up. He dressed nicely for company and asked polite questions when she gave him the signal. To every pureblood but himself and his parents he was still Sirius Black, eldest son of Orion and Walburga Black, and decent one at that even if he had ended up in Gryffindor.
It was all an act. It was fake and disloyal. It was a quiet, personal, horribly intense betrayal of the parents who had raised him. And he did it every summer. Every holiday was a practice in betrayal. When Sirius closed his bedroom doors (and he never slammed them anymore for what was the point when the house no longer mattered?) he decorated the walls with red and gold and wrote long letters to his friends detailing his masterful plans of escape. One of them involved a thestral, leading Peter to ask if he'd ever seen someone die, leading to Sirius asking them if House Elves counted, leading to a very horrified Remus spending hours in the library and making Peter promise not to ask the obvious question.
The more he betrayed his parents, the more he became a shell for them, the wilder his escape plans became. It was only a matter of time, he told himself, before he would show them his betrayal. He would run away and that would show them. It was only a matter of time.
Andromeda beat him to it.
Sirius hadn't been especially concerned when Aunt Druella showed up at the House of Black clutching a piece of parchment, a broken wand and a hysterical Bellatrix. But he listened at the door anyway. What else was he to do? It was a holiday and without anyone demanding that he play the role of perfect Black son and with Remus taking far too long with that research, he had some free time. Not like he was planning to do his homework. He pressed himself to the wall and concentrated on breathing silently.
"She's gone," Bella was saying. "She took her clothes and she left."
"Stop saying that, child. We're all aware of the problem here," Aunt Druella said coolly. She was like ice, his aunt.
"My apologies, Mother," Bella cooed. Sirius shook his head, impressed despite himself at Bella's ability to act so submissive. He knew from bitter, bitter experience that she was anything but submissive-unless she was trying to get information. He leaned closer. This was about to get interesting.
He knew he was right when the voices got softer, more secretive. Snatches of conversation floated to him, nothing making sense until he heard the words "ran away" and "marrying some mudblood" in connection with cousin Andromeda. A jolt ran through him and he abandoned his post immediately. He ran (always silently, oh so silently in this house that didn't want him) to his room and wrote a letter to Andromeda. He dashed it out quickly and nearly pushed the bird out the window, annoying it with frantic urges to hurry hurry hurry. He had to send it before the family birds knew not to deliver to Andromeda. When the Blacks cut somebody off, he knew without needing to ask, they did it thoroughly.
He wasn't surprised when the owl returned without a letter. He was surprised it returned without a hex. Andromeda had a quick wand and quicker temper, and no way of knowing he wasn't sending a collection of foul insults.
Weeks later, on his first morning back at Hogwarts, a school owl dropped a heavy parchment in his eggs and flapped his wings in Sirius's face until he surrendered his bacon. He mourned this loss much less when he realized the letter was from Andromeda.
It as a long letter, far longer than any conversations they'd ever had. He read it hungrily, angry, desperately. And when he was done, when he had devoured every word, only one sentence echoed in his thoughts. I don't miss them.
She didn't miss them.
He wouldn't miss them, either.
I don't miss them.
"You okay there, mate?" Peter asked from across the table. "You look a bit splotchy."
James walloped him on the back of the head. "We're being respectfully quiet," he hissed too loudly. "Learn to read a situation."
Remus choked back a nervous laugh.
Sirius shoved the letter into his bookbag and grinned widely at his friends. Remus only looked more nervous.
"I'm not going back home," he told them. "Just thought we should be clear on that."
"It's only the first day of term," Peter said when the silence got too loud. "Why would you go back?"
James looked at Sirius with a fierce sort of understanding, the kind that can only happen when you're too young and too old at the same time and then suddenly you aren't a child anymore. "I don't think that's what he means, Peter," he said with an almost hidden grin. He was still looking at Sirius.
Sirius stabbed his fork into his toast and waved it in a ridiculous little flourish, all the time smiling like a loon at the three of them.
Remus, his expression shifting to match James', plucked the fork from his hands. "Say it properly," he ordered. "Say it so it matters."
"I am never," Sirius said slowly, savoring each word, "I am never going back to the House of Black ever again. I'm never seeing any of them ever again. Never," he added for good measure.
They gave him a standing ovation and three days later James gave him a note from his mother inviting Sirius to stay with them during holidays.
James' parents greeted him with hugs at the Hogwarts station. Sirius leaned into them gratefully, too pleased to see parents smiling at him to care that his friends were watching. Mrs. Potter ruffled his hair and told him it would be a wonderful Christmas and for the first time in years Sirius agreed.
They went to Diagon Alley to find James' dad a Christmas gift (Sirius had convinced them to go all the way to Diagon Alley; it had to be perfect, just perfect, he'd insisted until they agreed) and instead found Narcissa.
"I'm going to speak with her," James' mum announced.
Both boys loudly and frantically insisted this was unnecessary. She ignored them.
"What is wrong with your mother?" Sirius demanded. The demand lost a fair bit of force by his twitchy appearances and rush to duck behind a pillar. "I can't watch," he moaned. "What's happening?"
James just looked uneasy.
"Are they talking? What are they saying? Does she look angry? Narcissa never looks angry. How does your mother know who Narcissa is anyway? What's going on?"
"Will you shut up," he hissed. "Christ, you're annoying. I don't know what's going on, okay? Now get up. You look a right idiot."
Sirius glared up at him from his crouched position. "At least my hair is combed."
James kicked him.
"No fighting, boys," his mum said cheerfully. "Sirius, what are you doing on the floor? It must be filthy."
He bounded up. "What did you say to her? Why? What did she say?"
"Very little," she sighed. "They're quite angry with you, dear."
"Not helping, Mum."
"There's no point in lying, is there? Now, Sirius, I want to tell you something." She straightened her glasses and fixed her very strongest look on him. "You need to know she will always be your cousin. You've left them and they gave you good reason to, but they're your family and you can't change that."
Sirius shook his head.
"Wow, Mum. That's even less helpful."
"You should pity them, Sirius," she continued. "You should pity them for not understanding what you and Andromeda do."
He shook his head again, stronger this time.
"Do you hear yourself, Mum?"
"James, sweetie, be quiet for a moment. This is important. Sirius, your family is narrow-minded and confused and wrong. The kind thing to do is to pity them."
"Inbred dimwits," he muttered. "They aren't my family."
"They made you who you are, Sirius. You'll always owe them that."
"I owe them nothing."
"Maybe a swift kick in the-"
"James."
"Sorry, Mum."
"I don't owe them anything and I don't pity them." He stormed off. James gave him mum a final glare and then followed.
"Andromeda doesn't pity them," Sirius said when James caught up. Doesn't miss them either, he added to himself.
"Of course she doesn't," James agreed loyally. "Don't mind my mother. She doesn't understand."
But Sirius couldn't stop thinking about it. They bought the gift quickly, none of them in the mood to be out any longer, and hurried home. Sirius shut himself in the room they'd given him and wrote a letter to Andromeda.
The entire Potter family heaved a sigh of relief when it was returned. An anxious Sirius was an aggravating Sirius.
James watched him read it.
"She agrees," Sirius said, utterly shocked. He reread it. "She agrees with your mother." He read it again. "She pities them."
"Guess she's kinder than you, then."
Sirius threw a quill at him.
"Ow. That's pointy. Christ, mate, she is kinder."
He crumpled up the letter and threw it away. "I'm finished with this. I can't look at it. C'mon. I'm thinking we need a pre-dinner snack, yes?"
"Fine, just let me get my wand and perform a healing charm you daft idiot. Who throws a quill? Honestly."
"Weakling. I'm eating the good biscuits." And he left.
Sirius found the note at the bottom of his bag when returned to Hogwarts. Say what you want about James, he was a good friend. Sirius reread it once more before hiding it with Andromeda's earlier, and much longer, letter. "But I still don't owe them anything," he muttered. "Pity's as far as I'll go."
Peter walked into the dormitory. "Hello, Pads. Talking to yourself again?"
"Not my fault no one else appreciates the charm."
"Certainly," he agreed easily. "Good holidays? How are the Potters?"
"You know. Same as ever."
"Can I ask you something?" His pudgy face took on a somber expression. Sirius scowled on instinct but Peter preserved. "Did they ask you about you leaving? About why you couldn't go home?"
"Does it matter?"
"Of course. You didn't have to tell your parents. About the leaving, I mean. They already knew you were a lost cause so you could have just faked it a bit longer. You didn't have to go to the Potter's."
"Lost cause?"
Peter blushed. "You know what I mean. You could have gone home again, or just said you wanted to visit James and saved yourself all those Howlers from Bella. You could have lied. You lie all the time, I don't know why you couldn't just lie. It would have been easier."
"No," he said flatly. "I'm done lying."
"So you left them?"
"I believe you were there."
He blushed again. "So… you betrayed them."
"When did I become the bad guy here? Have you met my mother?"
"You're-no. That's not what I'm saying."
"What, exactly, are you saying then?"
"Just… just trying to understand. They're your family. You were angry at Andromeda for leaving you and you acted out. I don't think you meant it, really. No one betrays trust like that."
Sirius stared at him. Peter didn't squirm. There were times when he wondered how Peter had ever ended up in Gryffindor. He was a rat for God's sake. He trembled at shadows and oddly shaped tree branches. But then every once in awhile this sort of thing would occur and this-this flash of hardness-would come over the boy and make Sirius think. It made him think so hard he forgot that he should be furious, should be changing into Padfoot so he could eat this stupid rat of a friend who said he betrayed his family when clearly they betrayed him.
But it wasn't his fault, Peter. He didn't know. He couldn't understand what it felt like, lying so completely like that. Peter's family was ordinary. Peter was ordinary. Ordinary people don't betray anyone and there's certainly no reason for others to betray them. They're far too… well, ordinary.
"Don't try to understand, mate," Sirius advised. "You'll give yourself a headache."
"Sirius-"
"No, we're done," he said harshly, patience gone. "That's it. Andromeda did what she had to do. I did what I had to do. That's it. Now shut up."
Later he would remember this conversation and throw things across the room. He would remember this conversation and remember the way Peter nodded so decisively and he would charge out of the room and hunt him down and then-and then he would go Azkaban.
But first Peter had to betray them.
It took Sirius years to piece together the events that led that night. He and Remus stayed up all night once, just passing a bottle of firewhiskey between them and trying to figure out when Peter switched. Remus was adamant that it wasn't until after Hogwarts but Sirius was equally adamant that it before.
"You don't understand, Moony," he said raggedly. "You didn't see the way he talked about me leaving. Little bugger was fascinated."
"But how could none of us notice? One of us would have noticed the change. You don't just-you can't just start spying and have no one notice."
"He was a forgettable guy, our little rat. And anyway, isn't that the point of spying? The not noticing?"
Remus shook his head slowly in the way only drunk people can. "One of us would have noticed."
A piercing shriek startled them. Sirius drank faster.
"Your mother-I only met her once but she wasn't… I don't remember the yelling. She didn't even send Howlers, not even after you left."
All her life (well, the part he was present for and he takes a firm pleasure in knowing that part was small) Sirius's mother had complained of headaches. His earliest memory was a silencing sell descending on him suddenly while he played with his train set. Mummy, he'd tried to wail, but she just lectured him about the virtues of quiet and the necessity of her poor head having a place to rest.
There wasn't a time Sirius didn't hate her headaches. Even as a child he'd suspected they were fake, something she used to frighten the children into quiet submission. It was a brilliant tactic, if one can be objective about such things, because even if he suspected they were fake how could he be sure? And what son would ever risk hurting his poor mother's head?
Sirius growled, the dog so much closer to him after the years in Azkaban, as he remembered the lectures, remembered the headache potions she made him memorize and the writing lessons she made him do over and over again until he'd learned how to do form his letters in silence. Mother didn't abide with the sound of quill scratching on parchment. Said it wormed into her ears and made her poor head ache.
"I always knew she was faking the headaches," Sirius muttered to Remus. "Knew it. And the cow knows she can't fake it anymore, not when she's DEAD." He yelled that last word, willing it to travel all the way to mother dearest. Remus winced and pointed out that such noises do affect those who can still feel their heads.
"Or maybe it does hurt her," Sirius said, ignoring him completely. "Maybe it hurts her but she's so upset she can't help it. Maybe her canvas head feels like someone's crumpled it up and stepped on it and then torn it up. Do you think?"
"You did hurt her."
"I did." He grinned. "A celebratory drink, old friend?"
"Don't mind if I do."
It wasn't much longer before they finished the bottle.
Remus was looking dodgy the next morning, and not just from the effects of a strong hangover on a sickly werewolf.
"Spit it out already," Sirius ordered. "How else will we pass the time?"
"Oh, fine. You are aware of my, of Tonks and I, well-"
"Sneaking off to go at it like rabbits? Yes, I'm aware."
"Right. That's not what is occurring but I'll not have this conversation again. Her mother would like me to give you this." He left an envelope on the table and walked out.
"Coward," Sirius muttered at the door. The desire to feel James hovering over him was almost overwhelming but he batted it away and opened the letter.
He was pacing when Remus returned.
"Well?"
"I still can't believe you and Tonks are-well, you and Tonks."
"That's hardly relevant and only slightly true."
Sirius laughed, a clipped sort of sound. "And I can't believe you told Andromeda I was here."
"It seemed the right thing to do. What does the letter say?"
"Warns me to watch out for Bella. Apparently she's gone quite round the bend. Even more than last time. Tells me she's sorry about hating me for so long."
"Always a fun apology to hear, isn't it?"
"Yeah, right up there with playing Quidditch. Love it."
Remus watched him pace.
"She won't visit, though, will she?" Sirius asked, only slightly pathetically.
"She won't enter the House of Black, you know that."
Sirius fought the rage that always bubbled when he thought too hard about this house. It was here in this kitchen that Regulus beheaded a House Elf on Mother's orders. It was three rooms away that they disowned him. It was at the front staircase that Father gave him robes with the Crest of Black on them and it was at the top of them, just before their bedroom, that Mother snatched them away a few years later.
"She hasn't spoken to them since she left. Not any of them," Sirius said. "But she still calls Bella her sister. See, look, she says 'my sisters are even worse than before.' My sisters."
Remus took the letter. Sirius watched him read it, knowing exactly which part he was at by the expressions that flitted across his features. The grin was for the part about Tonks and the brief laughter was for references to childhood games. The rest of the time he was angry and conflicted, eyes streaking quickly across the page and eyebrows coming closer together. He finished and looked up at the still pacing Sirius. "She can't really believe that, can she?"
"That they'll be happy when she dies? Of course she does. And they will be. Trust me, they think we owe it to them to just die already. Finish what we started and all that."
Remus sighed heavily. "Tea?"
Sirius finally stopped circling the kitchen to flop into a chair.
He drank the offered tea and looked at the walls that hated him. It was a familiar, almost comforting sort of hate. It felt like home. He drank his tea and thought about his childhood and wondered about Regulus and considered Andromeda and remembered the handful of family dinners when smiles weren't forced.
Remus finished his tea and ducked out. Sirius continued staring at the walls.
Betrayal was a tricky thing. He'd thought it was an event, something with a start and an end. He'd thought he could run away and be a new man, or kill Peter and save Harry. He knew better than that, though. For all his struggles he was still saddled with a name he hated and James was still dead-and that's how it would remain. He would always be the son who ran away, the man who gave information to the spy who killed his friend, the innocent who went to Azkaban. He would always be trapped by his history.
Betrayal wasn't an event. It wasn't the decision to walk out and it wasn't the stunned shock when a friend suddenly became an enemy. It could never be contained in a conversation or a letter or a summer holiday.
Betrayal was a lifestyle.
It was his lifestyle.
Sirius sat in the house he never left and remembered the friends he couldn't save and the friend it turned out he didn't have, and with a grin that didn't reach his eyes he raised his cup of tepid tea to toast the walls that closed in around him.
Author: magentabear
Rating: PG-13ish?
Warnings: none
Word Count: 4000
Prompts:
22. "Pity your sister- as a final kindness./When he has granted it, I shall repay/my debt, and with full interest, by my death." (Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 4, lines 599-601)
47. "Now it’s your time and you know where you stand/With a gun in your hand, with a gun in your hand/Now I’m no longer an ordinary man" (‘Be Somebody’, Kings of Leon)
Summary: How three letters taught Sirius Black the meaning of betrayal.
Author’s Notes: Well this is cutting it close with the deadline, no? heh. Thanks so much to the mods for the lovely prompts!
-
For all their faults, despite everything they did to hurt those already hurting and despite all the hate they poured into his childhood, Sirius loved his parents until the day they told him he didn't deserve to be a Black. He was too young, just returned from a year at Hogwarts, when his father called him into the study and his mother closed the door with a small click.
"You need to stop talking about Gryffindor," she said softly. Mother always spoke softly when she was trying to control her temper.
"It's not appropriate," his father said.
The room felt like a funeral. Sirius squirmed.
"We're still not certain what you did to end up there-"
"-can't imagine what you must have said to the Hat-"
"-but it's not something we'll allow into our home."
"I didn't say anything, I already told you that," Sirius said. He mimicked Mother's softness.
"You said something to the Hat, boy, don't get smart with me."
"I didn't."
His father laid a hand on his mother's trembling shoulders and narrowed his eyes at his son. "Don't upset your mother. She hasn't had her potion yet."
She leaned into his touch. "I'm fine, dear. Don't fret over me."
It always boggled Sirius how loving they were to one another. Years later he would wonder if it was all an act, nothing more than a firm dedication to their roles, but as a child he was certain they loved each other dearly. It made the disdain they clearly felt for him all the more obvious.
"I'm a Gryffindor, Mother. There's nothing I can do about it, Father. I've done nothing to dishonor the family."
He said the words dully. He'd said them so many times-written them so many times in response to so many furious letters-that he didn't even bother trying to put any force behind the words. It would all get lost somewhere between his mouth and their ears anyway.
Mother stared at him, sizing up the scrawny boy already developing the face of a man. An ugly look came over her. "Blacks don't belong in Gryffindor. You may not share a dormitory with halfbloods-with mudbloods-and expect me to welcome you home again."
"This is where I live," he yelled, furious suddenly, something finally cracking in the coldness he always wrapped around himself during these conversations. "I'm in Gryffindor and you are my parents and my name is Sirius Black."
"No," she said evenly. Mother drew herself up even straighter and met his eye squarely. "No, I don't think it is. You don't deserve our name. You are welcomed to change it when you're of age."
Sirius turned away from her eyes to look at his father. It wasn't real until he nodded. His nod ruled the Blacks. It was the only thing that ruled his mother's anger.
He nodded.
Sirius swallowed hard. He swallowed hard and dug his fingernails into his palms so sharply he broke skin. Mother really must not care, he thought distantly, to let them reach this length.
"You could have been somebody," his father said. "You could have been a Black."
Sirius slammed every door between the study and his room. He dripped blood on the floor and he cursed under his breath and he never, ever let them see him cry. He no longer considered them his parents, not for a moment after that conversation did he ever consider himself their son. But he still played the part. He practiced their manners. He was silent when his mother's headaches flared up. He dressed nicely for company and asked polite questions when she gave him the signal. To every pureblood but himself and his parents he was still Sirius Black, eldest son of Orion and Walburga Black, and decent one at that even if he had ended up in Gryffindor.
It was all an act. It was fake and disloyal. It was a quiet, personal, horribly intense betrayal of the parents who had raised him. And he did it every summer. Every holiday was a practice in betrayal. When Sirius closed his bedroom doors (and he never slammed them anymore for what was the point when the house no longer mattered?) he decorated the walls with red and gold and wrote long letters to his friends detailing his masterful plans of escape. One of them involved a thestral, leading Peter to ask if he'd ever seen someone die, leading to Sirius asking them if House Elves counted, leading to a very horrified Remus spending hours in the library and making Peter promise not to ask the obvious question.
The more he betrayed his parents, the more he became a shell for them, the wilder his escape plans became. It was only a matter of time, he told himself, before he would show them his betrayal. He would run away and that would show them. It was only a matter of time.
Andromeda beat him to it.
Sirius hadn't been especially concerned when Aunt Druella showed up at the House of Black clutching a piece of parchment, a broken wand and a hysterical Bellatrix. But he listened at the door anyway. What else was he to do? It was a holiday and without anyone demanding that he play the role of perfect Black son and with Remus taking far too long with that research, he had some free time. Not like he was planning to do his homework. He pressed himself to the wall and concentrated on breathing silently.
"She's gone," Bella was saying. "She took her clothes and she left."
"Stop saying that, child. We're all aware of the problem here," Aunt Druella said coolly. She was like ice, his aunt.
"My apologies, Mother," Bella cooed. Sirius shook his head, impressed despite himself at Bella's ability to act so submissive. He knew from bitter, bitter experience that she was anything but submissive-unless she was trying to get information. He leaned closer. This was about to get interesting.
He knew he was right when the voices got softer, more secretive. Snatches of conversation floated to him, nothing making sense until he heard the words "ran away" and "marrying some mudblood" in connection with cousin Andromeda. A jolt ran through him and he abandoned his post immediately. He ran (always silently, oh so silently in this house that didn't want him) to his room and wrote a letter to Andromeda. He dashed it out quickly and nearly pushed the bird out the window, annoying it with frantic urges to hurry hurry hurry. He had to send it before the family birds knew not to deliver to Andromeda. When the Blacks cut somebody off, he knew without needing to ask, they did it thoroughly.
He wasn't surprised when the owl returned without a letter. He was surprised it returned without a hex. Andromeda had a quick wand and quicker temper, and no way of knowing he wasn't sending a collection of foul insults.
Weeks later, on his first morning back at Hogwarts, a school owl dropped a heavy parchment in his eggs and flapped his wings in Sirius's face until he surrendered his bacon. He mourned this loss much less when he realized the letter was from Andromeda.
It as a long letter, far longer than any conversations they'd ever had. He read it hungrily, angry, desperately. And when he was done, when he had devoured every word, only one sentence echoed in his thoughts. I don't miss them.
She didn't miss them.
He wouldn't miss them, either.
I don't miss them.
"You okay there, mate?" Peter asked from across the table. "You look a bit splotchy."
James walloped him on the back of the head. "We're being respectfully quiet," he hissed too loudly. "Learn to read a situation."
Remus choked back a nervous laugh.
Sirius shoved the letter into his bookbag and grinned widely at his friends. Remus only looked more nervous.
"I'm not going back home," he told them. "Just thought we should be clear on that."
"It's only the first day of term," Peter said when the silence got too loud. "Why would you go back?"
James looked at Sirius with a fierce sort of understanding, the kind that can only happen when you're too young and too old at the same time and then suddenly you aren't a child anymore. "I don't think that's what he means, Peter," he said with an almost hidden grin. He was still looking at Sirius.
Sirius stabbed his fork into his toast and waved it in a ridiculous little flourish, all the time smiling like a loon at the three of them.
Remus, his expression shifting to match James', plucked the fork from his hands. "Say it properly," he ordered. "Say it so it matters."
"I am never," Sirius said slowly, savoring each word, "I am never going back to the House of Black ever again. I'm never seeing any of them ever again. Never," he added for good measure.
They gave him a standing ovation and three days later James gave him a note from his mother inviting Sirius to stay with them during holidays.
James' parents greeted him with hugs at the Hogwarts station. Sirius leaned into them gratefully, too pleased to see parents smiling at him to care that his friends were watching. Mrs. Potter ruffled his hair and told him it would be a wonderful Christmas and for the first time in years Sirius agreed.
They went to Diagon Alley to find James' dad a Christmas gift (Sirius had convinced them to go all the way to Diagon Alley; it had to be perfect, just perfect, he'd insisted until they agreed) and instead found Narcissa.
"I'm going to speak with her," James' mum announced.
Both boys loudly and frantically insisted this was unnecessary. She ignored them.
"What is wrong with your mother?" Sirius demanded. The demand lost a fair bit of force by his twitchy appearances and rush to duck behind a pillar. "I can't watch," he moaned. "What's happening?"
James just looked uneasy.
"Are they talking? What are they saying? Does she look angry? Narcissa never looks angry. How does your mother know who Narcissa is anyway? What's going on?"
"Will you shut up," he hissed. "Christ, you're annoying. I don't know what's going on, okay? Now get up. You look a right idiot."
Sirius glared up at him from his crouched position. "At least my hair is combed."
James kicked him.
"No fighting, boys," his mum said cheerfully. "Sirius, what are you doing on the floor? It must be filthy."
He bounded up. "What did you say to her? Why? What did she say?"
"Very little," she sighed. "They're quite angry with you, dear."
"Not helping, Mum."
"There's no point in lying, is there? Now, Sirius, I want to tell you something." She straightened her glasses and fixed her very strongest look on him. "You need to know she will always be your cousin. You've left them and they gave you good reason to, but they're your family and you can't change that."
Sirius shook his head.
"Wow, Mum. That's even less helpful."
"You should pity them, Sirius," she continued. "You should pity them for not understanding what you and Andromeda do."
He shook his head again, stronger this time.
"Do you hear yourself, Mum?"
"James, sweetie, be quiet for a moment. This is important. Sirius, your family is narrow-minded and confused and wrong. The kind thing to do is to pity them."
"Inbred dimwits," he muttered. "They aren't my family."
"They made you who you are, Sirius. You'll always owe them that."
"I owe them nothing."
"Maybe a swift kick in the-"
"James."
"Sorry, Mum."
"I don't owe them anything and I don't pity them." He stormed off. James gave him mum a final glare and then followed.
"Andromeda doesn't pity them," Sirius said when James caught up. Doesn't miss them either, he added to himself.
"Of course she doesn't," James agreed loyally. "Don't mind my mother. She doesn't understand."
But Sirius couldn't stop thinking about it. They bought the gift quickly, none of them in the mood to be out any longer, and hurried home. Sirius shut himself in the room they'd given him and wrote a letter to Andromeda.
The entire Potter family heaved a sigh of relief when it was returned. An anxious Sirius was an aggravating Sirius.
James watched him read it.
"She agrees," Sirius said, utterly shocked. He reread it. "She agrees with your mother." He read it again. "She pities them."
"Guess she's kinder than you, then."
Sirius threw a quill at him.
"Ow. That's pointy. Christ, mate, she is kinder."
He crumpled up the letter and threw it away. "I'm finished with this. I can't look at it. C'mon. I'm thinking we need a pre-dinner snack, yes?"
"Fine, just let me get my wand and perform a healing charm you daft idiot. Who throws a quill? Honestly."
"Weakling. I'm eating the good biscuits." And he left.
Sirius found the note at the bottom of his bag when returned to Hogwarts. Say what you want about James, he was a good friend. Sirius reread it once more before hiding it with Andromeda's earlier, and much longer, letter. "But I still don't owe them anything," he muttered. "Pity's as far as I'll go."
Peter walked into the dormitory. "Hello, Pads. Talking to yourself again?"
"Not my fault no one else appreciates the charm."
"Certainly," he agreed easily. "Good holidays? How are the Potters?"
"You know. Same as ever."
"Can I ask you something?" His pudgy face took on a somber expression. Sirius scowled on instinct but Peter preserved. "Did they ask you about you leaving? About why you couldn't go home?"
"Does it matter?"
"Of course. You didn't have to tell your parents. About the leaving, I mean. They already knew you were a lost cause so you could have just faked it a bit longer. You didn't have to go to the Potter's."
"Lost cause?"
Peter blushed. "You know what I mean. You could have gone home again, or just said you wanted to visit James and saved yourself all those Howlers from Bella. You could have lied. You lie all the time, I don't know why you couldn't just lie. It would have been easier."
"No," he said flatly. "I'm done lying."
"So you left them?"
"I believe you were there."
He blushed again. "So… you betrayed them."
"When did I become the bad guy here? Have you met my mother?"
"You're-no. That's not what I'm saying."
"What, exactly, are you saying then?"
"Just… just trying to understand. They're your family. You were angry at Andromeda for leaving you and you acted out. I don't think you meant it, really. No one betrays trust like that."
Sirius stared at him. Peter didn't squirm. There were times when he wondered how Peter had ever ended up in Gryffindor. He was a rat for God's sake. He trembled at shadows and oddly shaped tree branches. But then every once in awhile this sort of thing would occur and this-this flash of hardness-would come over the boy and make Sirius think. It made him think so hard he forgot that he should be furious, should be changing into Padfoot so he could eat this stupid rat of a friend who said he betrayed his family when clearly they betrayed him.
But it wasn't his fault, Peter. He didn't know. He couldn't understand what it felt like, lying so completely like that. Peter's family was ordinary. Peter was ordinary. Ordinary people don't betray anyone and there's certainly no reason for others to betray them. They're far too… well, ordinary.
"Don't try to understand, mate," Sirius advised. "You'll give yourself a headache."
"Sirius-"
"No, we're done," he said harshly, patience gone. "That's it. Andromeda did what she had to do. I did what I had to do. That's it. Now shut up."
Later he would remember this conversation and throw things across the room. He would remember this conversation and remember the way Peter nodded so decisively and he would charge out of the room and hunt him down and then-and then he would go Azkaban.
But first Peter had to betray them.
It took Sirius years to piece together the events that led that night. He and Remus stayed up all night once, just passing a bottle of firewhiskey between them and trying to figure out when Peter switched. Remus was adamant that it wasn't until after Hogwarts but Sirius was equally adamant that it before.
"You don't understand, Moony," he said raggedly. "You didn't see the way he talked about me leaving. Little bugger was fascinated."
"But how could none of us notice? One of us would have noticed the change. You don't just-you can't just start spying and have no one notice."
"He was a forgettable guy, our little rat. And anyway, isn't that the point of spying? The not noticing?"
Remus shook his head slowly in the way only drunk people can. "One of us would have noticed."
A piercing shriek startled them. Sirius drank faster.
"Your mother-I only met her once but she wasn't… I don't remember the yelling. She didn't even send Howlers, not even after you left."
All her life (well, the part he was present for and he takes a firm pleasure in knowing that part was small) Sirius's mother had complained of headaches. His earliest memory was a silencing sell descending on him suddenly while he played with his train set. Mummy, he'd tried to wail, but she just lectured him about the virtues of quiet and the necessity of her poor head having a place to rest.
There wasn't a time Sirius didn't hate her headaches. Even as a child he'd suspected they were fake, something she used to frighten the children into quiet submission. It was a brilliant tactic, if one can be objective about such things, because even if he suspected they were fake how could he be sure? And what son would ever risk hurting his poor mother's head?
Sirius growled, the dog so much closer to him after the years in Azkaban, as he remembered the lectures, remembered the headache potions she made him memorize and the writing lessons she made him do over and over again until he'd learned how to do form his letters in silence. Mother didn't abide with the sound of quill scratching on parchment. Said it wormed into her ears and made her poor head ache.
"I always knew she was faking the headaches," Sirius muttered to Remus. "Knew it. And the cow knows she can't fake it anymore, not when she's DEAD." He yelled that last word, willing it to travel all the way to mother dearest. Remus winced and pointed out that such noises do affect those who can still feel their heads.
"Or maybe it does hurt her," Sirius said, ignoring him completely. "Maybe it hurts her but she's so upset she can't help it. Maybe her canvas head feels like someone's crumpled it up and stepped on it and then torn it up. Do you think?"
"You did hurt her."
"I did." He grinned. "A celebratory drink, old friend?"
"Don't mind if I do."
It wasn't much longer before they finished the bottle.
Remus was looking dodgy the next morning, and not just from the effects of a strong hangover on a sickly werewolf.
"Spit it out already," Sirius ordered. "How else will we pass the time?"
"Oh, fine. You are aware of my, of Tonks and I, well-"
"Sneaking off to go at it like rabbits? Yes, I'm aware."
"Right. That's not what is occurring but I'll not have this conversation again. Her mother would like me to give you this." He left an envelope on the table and walked out.
"Coward," Sirius muttered at the door. The desire to feel James hovering over him was almost overwhelming but he batted it away and opened the letter.
He was pacing when Remus returned.
"Well?"
"I still can't believe you and Tonks are-well, you and Tonks."
"That's hardly relevant and only slightly true."
Sirius laughed, a clipped sort of sound. "And I can't believe you told Andromeda I was here."
"It seemed the right thing to do. What does the letter say?"
"Warns me to watch out for Bella. Apparently she's gone quite round the bend. Even more than last time. Tells me she's sorry about hating me for so long."
"Always a fun apology to hear, isn't it?"
"Yeah, right up there with playing Quidditch. Love it."
Remus watched him pace.
"She won't visit, though, will she?" Sirius asked, only slightly pathetically.
"She won't enter the House of Black, you know that."
Sirius fought the rage that always bubbled when he thought too hard about this house. It was here in this kitchen that Regulus beheaded a House Elf on Mother's orders. It was three rooms away that they disowned him. It was at the front staircase that Father gave him robes with the Crest of Black on them and it was at the top of them, just before their bedroom, that Mother snatched them away a few years later.
"She hasn't spoken to them since she left. Not any of them," Sirius said. "But she still calls Bella her sister. See, look, she says 'my sisters are even worse than before.' My sisters."
Remus took the letter. Sirius watched him read it, knowing exactly which part he was at by the expressions that flitted across his features. The grin was for the part about Tonks and the brief laughter was for references to childhood games. The rest of the time he was angry and conflicted, eyes streaking quickly across the page and eyebrows coming closer together. He finished and looked up at the still pacing Sirius. "She can't really believe that, can she?"
"That they'll be happy when she dies? Of course she does. And they will be. Trust me, they think we owe it to them to just die already. Finish what we started and all that."
Remus sighed heavily. "Tea?"
Sirius finally stopped circling the kitchen to flop into a chair.
He drank the offered tea and looked at the walls that hated him. It was a familiar, almost comforting sort of hate. It felt like home. He drank his tea and thought about his childhood and wondered about Regulus and considered Andromeda and remembered the handful of family dinners when smiles weren't forced.
Remus finished his tea and ducked out. Sirius continued staring at the walls.
Betrayal was a tricky thing. He'd thought it was an event, something with a start and an end. He'd thought he could run away and be a new man, or kill Peter and save Harry. He knew better than that, though. For all his struggles he was still saddled with a name he hated and James was still dead-and that's how it would remain. He would always be the son who ran away, the man who gave information to the spy who killed his friend, the innocent who went to Azkaban. He would always be trapped by his history.
Betrayal wasn't an event. It wasn't the decision to walk out and it wasn't the stunned shock when a friend suddenly became an enemy. It could never be contained in a conversation or a letter or a summer holiday.
Betrayal was a lifestyle.
It was his lifestyle.
Sirius sat in the house he never left and remembered the friends he couldn't save and the friend it turned out he didn't have, and with a grin that didn't reach his eyes he raised his cup of tepid tea to toast the walls that closed in around him.