Chapter Text
[ August 28th, 1966. 7 years old. ]
Life was fine at Grimmauld Place. Maybe not entirely fun; Mummy shouted a lot, and Papa only criticized when he was around, but Regulus and Sirius made their own fun anyway, so it was fine. Bellatrix and Narcissa were fun too when they came around. Not Andromeda, though. Never Andromeda. Andy was always busy, scribbling in her weird journal. Sirius had tried to peek into it once, and all he saw were diagrams and floorplans for her house. But Meda was weird that way, so what did he expect?
He had fun with Regulus, Bellatrix, and Narcissa, though. They would sidestep their too-serious parents—and too-serious Andy—and play hide and seek in the shadows that plagued their house like wraiths. They’d dismember Regulus’ skeleton toys and hide the pieces throughout the manor, then watch him lose his head as he searched for them. It was great fun.
Bellatrix and Narcissa weren’t at Grimmauld today, but hide and seek only really needed two people to be fun, especially with the shadows helping.
Sirius kept up his search, looking behind the harp in the parlor, in the dark crevices under the piano, even inside the hearth. The house liked Regulus, though, and the shadows liked him even more. They always helped him hide.
Regulus liked to think he was very clever. The problem, Sirius thought, was that he was, then he got himself caught anyway because he was so smug about it.
This was very convenient for Sirius now as he tried to catch him. Sirius simply had to follow the sounds of self-important giggles to vanquish Regulus in hide and seek.
Sirius streaked past the west drawing room, momentarily flattening himself into the shadows to hide from his ill-tempered parents nearby. He stomped into the adjacent corridor and followed the trail of deranged giggles.
Sirius burst into his mother’s potions pantry and listened for the tell-tale hitch in breath. His eyes roved quickly between the shelves.
Ah ha.
Grimmauld Place was truly fantastic for hide and seek. The shadowy tendrils that plagued the building, thick as treacle and just as dark, were perfect for hiding in places that you shouldn’t necessarily be able to hide in.
Regulus was standing perfectly still between two tall shelves, the only disturbance in the room coming from the utter stillness in the shadows he inhabited. Silly Reggie, didn’t he know shadows didn’t stay still?
Sirius kept stationary for a moment and looked the other way. His sharp eyes surveyed a nearby jar of eyelids; the formaldehyde scent was stifling in the room. Predator to Regulus’ prey, Sirius watched out of the corner of his eye as Regulus relaxed a little. Then, he pounced.
Still looking the other way, Sirius abruptly threw a hand into the shadows and dragged Regulus out by the shirtsleeve.
Regulus let out a shrill shout. “How?!”
“I saw it,” Sirius bluffed, unwilling to divulge his secrets. “I told you I was a seer.” He sniffed haughtily.
Regulus ripped his arm away indignantly. “Mummy says you shouldn’t lie!” he accused.
“I don’t lie!” Sirius shouted, eyes flashing.
Regulus’ eyes widened at his brother’s shout, looking around as if his parents might materialize out of the eyelid jar. And they might’ve, except Sirius’ shout was overshadowed by Walburga’s own shrill scream. Sirius knew that Regulus always privately marveled at his mother’s lung capacity—a gift he did not share, as revealed by the minor drowning he suffered at Blackmoore two years prior. Who knew you could almost drown at one minute underwater? Not Sirius, and certainly not Regulus.
“I don’t care if you won the rights to it; another Abraxan was a foolish purchase!”
Sirius and Regulus exchanged a mischievous look. The last Abraxan had been named by Sirius, and Regulus was determined to win this time.
“Race you?” Sirius suggested.
Regulus shoved him aside and ran for it, never one to heed the warnings of his older brother.
Sirius barked out a laugh and gave chase.
Regulus was determined. He wouldn’t catch him this time.
—
“Name him Hyperion,” Sirius demanded. He could feel Regulus glare at him indignantly, although he never took his eyes off the Abraxan. It was a haunting thing. A genetic mutation had turned it pitch black, its eyes perpetually wide and ghostly as it stared at them. It hadn’t blinked since the moment they reached the stables.
“You don’t get any input. I’m naming him!” Regulus rebuffed. Regulus also had eerily wide eyes. Sometimes, when Sirius was bored, he would count how many times his brother blinked during a conversation. So far, he and the beast had been in a staring competition. Or maybe Regulus had already blinked inside the house? Sirius would be waiting a while for the next one if that were so.
“You’ll just choose another house elf name,” Sirius dismissed, referencing the bloodhound Regulus had dubbed ‘Kretin,’ after Kreacher’s mother. He kept stroking the beast’s mane, impossibly soft.
A moment of consideration came, Regulus thinking very deeply. He widened his eyes further as he thought, some of the house’s shadows having taken refuge in Regulus’ under eyes.
“Maudlin,” he decided. “His name’s Maudlin.”
“Well,” a voice drawled from behind. Sirius and Regulus were so intent on the Abraxan that they hadn’t noticed their father. “If you’ve decided, I suppose so.” His voice was flat. It always was. Papa's tone never really changed. Sirius felt that he was amused, though. Or maybe Sirius just wanted him to be.
A hand abruptly clapped down onto his shoulder. Sirius jumped and turned to see his father. They were so close Sirius could see each furrow in his slate grey irises, Sirius’ same eyes. Papa moved very fast, and very quietly. Sirius didn’t know how he’d gotten this close this fast. Perhaps the shadows helped.
A slow smile unfurled on Papa’s face. Sirius grinned back automatically. Regulus’ eyes were as wide as craters by now.
“Maudlin it is.”
—
[ Indeterminate, 1967. 8 years old ]
Sirius did not remember.
Mummy was mad that year.
—
[ December 1st, 1968. 9 years old ]
Regulus hunched, almost flattening himself to the floor as he ducked under the imposing portrait of his many-times-great uncle. He wasn’t supposed to visit Sirius when he was banished.
He opened the door to his brother’s bedroom, quiet as a mouse, and slipped in quickly.
“You said something dumb again,” he accused immediately.
Sirius, sprawled on his bed as far as his short feet could manage, gave an irritated huff that blew a piece of his hair out of his eyes.
“She’s mad again, I suppose?” Mad. A very fitting word, all things considered.
“It’s what Kreacher says,” Regulus said, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
Sirius sat up suddenly. “I wasn’t wrong!” he said brazenly. “Mummy and Papa aren’t in love!”
A moment of silence came. The utter quiet rang through the bedroom.
“Are parents supposed to be?” Regulus asked hesitantly.
Sirius had no answer. Prior experience would tell him no.
How many parents did he know who were in love? None.
The sounds of their mother in a rage permeated the silence. No doubt, she was rampaging in some ill-used sitting room, unleashing her fury on a few snuffboxes or vases. Mummy was a thrower when she was angry.
With no answer in sight, Regulus walked up and threw himself on top of Sirius, knocking the wind out of him with a small “oof.”
“The house is always colder in the summer,” he explained. And Sirius understood. Grimmauld was always freezing during the summertime, some aftereffect of the many wards on it, Sirius supposed. He could lose his mind in the sheer cold of it.
Sirius wrapped his arms around Regulus, and they lay there quietly, listening to their mother ignore the decor in favor of screaming at Aunt Cassiopeia’s portrait.
—
[ November 21st, 1969. 10 years old ]
Christmas at Black Hall was a lavish affair, always.
They were also mind-numbingly boring. Bellatrix, across from him, had the most vacant look in her eyes as she tore viciously through her steak. She wasn’t eating it so much as dismembering it. Sirius was reluctantly impressed.
“-Of course it only took two suggestions to Abraxas to remove the Mudblood from office,” Grandfather Arcturus’ grating voice cut through Sirius’ thoughts. Walburga gave a low laugh, amused eyes flicking sharply to Sirius and Regulus. The conductor to their orchestra. Ha ha, laugh. It’s so funny, aren’t Mudbloods so funny?
Sirius grinned wide to match Bellatrix, and their laughs melded together. Bellatrix’s eyes were still dead.
The Blacks couldn’t be considered funny by any stretch of the imagination, but laughing at the adults’ jokes was compulsory. Bite of the tongue behind the teeth, fist to the chest, blood in the gums—wasn’t it so funny?
Regulus turned his perpetually wide eyes to Narcissa, and she widened her smile in response. Call and response, Regulus’ piercing stare and Narcissa’s answering grin; too many teeth.
Sirius couldn’t remember how they got here. Last he remembered, they were in Grimmauld getting their finest robes pressed for the dinner. Blink of the eye, and he found himself across from Bellatrix, fervently wishing for the dinner to end so they could play shadow hide and seek in the gardens again. Sirius wondered if he should remember, but if it was important, he wouldn’t have forgotten in the first place, he thought.
Blink of the eye, twitch of the lids, and Sirius was sprinting through the gardens like the hounds of hell themselves were at his feet. Bellatrix and Narcissa were giving chase, skirts clutched in manicured hands, so he wasn’t far off.
Time was weird in Black Hall. Or maybe his memory was. Sirius could never quite recall.
—
[ November 3rd, 1970. 11 years old ]
Sirius’s birthday cake was shaped like an Acromantula. Red velvet flavoured with a chocolate ganache glaze, and a charmed sugar glaze exterior that removed like a spider’s exoskeleton. Sirius asked for a Quaffle-shaped one, but Mummy put in the cake order, so Sirius didn’t say anything about it and ate his slice of the spider-cake’s leg in silence.
It was Sirius’s 11th birthday, Sirius had just got his Hogwarts letter, and Mummy and Papa were terribly pleased. The party was held at Black Hall, Mummy invited more people than Sirius could name, and Sirius had to be on his best behaviour in the North Ballroom, which Sirius disliked because it always smelled wrong. They had a string quartet, and Sirius got new robes for the occasion that matched Regulus’s. Neither of the boys was particularly happy about that, but they wore them anyway.
Grandfather Abraxas got Sirius a dagger, Grandfather Pollux got Sirius a Black family genealogy book. Bellatrix then stole the dagger and stabbed the book, and the birthday ball promptly ended once the guests started shouting. A smaller celebration was had in the West Drawing Room with the family, which Sirius did like, as Bellatrix got shouted at by Uncle Cygnus and Aunt Druella upstairs. They were so loud they nearly drowned out the quartet, now playing in the corridor outside the drawing room. Mummy said it was for ambiance, Sirius thought it was to drown out Bella’s wailing; either way the quartet was working hard.
“The leg’s twitching,” Regulus idly remarked, next to Sirius on the chaise, staring at his own slice of the cake monstrosity. Sirius did not see the leg twitch, but he did see the cake wink with one of its eight eyes. He mentioned neither.
“If we put the sugar glaze in Cissy’s hair, d’you think she’d shout loud enough for Grandmother Melania to come out?” Sirius whispered to Regulus instead. Grandmother Melania hadn’t left her bedroom upstairs in years, not since Uncle Alphard had that fight with Papa and stopped talking to the family. She was nice, from what Sirius could remember. He’d like to see her again; Mummy and Papa were never as nice.
Regulus grinned, a wide thing to match his eyes, and whispered back that he’d already put it in Cissy’s shoes. Both boys turned to see Narcissa talking to Mummy and Papa near the hearth, promising to keep Sirius out of trouble once he’s sorted in Slytherin. Sirius couldn’t wait to see the Slytherin common room, it was meant to be under the lake. Sirius hadn’t been near water since Regulus nearly drowned years ago; he’d like to see it.
Narcissa shrieked, a piercing sound that hurt Sirius’s ears. Cissy had found the sugar glaze exoskeleton. Regulus jumped nearly a foot, his plate fell from his hands. Sirius did see the leg twitch then. Sirius didn’t jump, but he did turn to see the reaction.
“It was Sirius, it had to be!” Narcissa shouted, tearing up and pointing, shuffling backwards from her discarded heel. Mummy turned over, her expression grew hateful, the blank eyes and furrow in her brow she got before she started throwing things. Papa went red and put his brandy down slowly. Sirius thought to protest, and didn’t get much further than a “No—” before Mummy took a step forward.
A blink, a wetness in his ears, the clock ticked. Was it always this late?
Regulus was now on a different chaise, staring wide-eyed at his empty plate. He had a smudge of chocolate near his mouth that Mummy instructed the elf to wipe. Cissy’s cheeks were ruddy and she was staring at the ground; the adults were conversing on their own. Bellatrix and Sirius were sitting together, the cake was whole and they were about to cut it. Sirius could’ve sworn that wasn’t the case, but Mummy always said Sirius had a memory like a sieve, so he must remember it wrong.
Sirius couldn’t wait to try the cake. He had asked for a Quaffle, but Mummy got him an Acromantula one instead. That was alright, Mummy knew best.
“You’ll like Slytherin, it has a view of the lake,” Bellatrix whispered to him.
Sirius nodded and accepted a slice of cake from Kreacher.
“Didn’t we already cut the cake?” Regulus whispered. No one answered. Mummy joked that Regulus’s memory must be worse than Sirius’s. Sirius laughed, because he had to.
It was a good birthday, all things considered. It would be the last birthday with family for a while, since Hogwarts didn’t stop for November. That was alright. He’d have more when he came home after school, and even more when he was grown.
He couldn’t wait to go to Hogwarts.