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Orion Black was an irritatingly light sleeper. Any disturbance, no matter how vague (the crackling of the newly-lit bedroom fire in the early morning, the evening yowling of alley cats in the streets below, the vulgar wail of the alarms of Muggle vehicles which always seemed to set off spontaneously at around three o'clock in the morning) was guaranteed to rouse him from his slumber.
So it was little wonder that the sound of a sudden, violent smashing sound, followed by an urgent, fearful cry coming from his elder son's bedroom directly above his own had him sitting bolt upright in bed, immediately wide-awake and alert.
Orion grabbed his wand from his bedside table and dashed upstairs, his palm uncomfortably warm from the heat of the fir wood against his skin, his magic poised for attack at a second's notice.
He threw open his son's bedroom door, a ball of bright, white light emitting from the tip of his wand illuminating the darkness of the room.
"Who's there?" Orion demanded, loudly, his voice fierce and threatening.
The only reply was a faint whimpering noise from the direction of the bed.
Orion shone his light at the bed to find a small, trembling lump under the bed covers, shaped suspiciously like his five-year-old son, Sirius.
His grey eyes scanning the room for danger, Orion swept over to his son's bed and tugged back the covers to reveal his Sirius, hidden beneath them.
"Sirius?" Orion's voice was frantic, urgent.
The little boy was curled up tightly on his side, knees to chest, his face hidden in his arms.
He did not reply. He was crying hysterically, his whole body shaking with fear.
Orion shook him by the shoulder.
"Sirius" he repeated, firmer this time. "What happened?"
Growing frustrated with his son's lack of reply, Orion tugged at the boy again, trying to uncurl him from his protective position.
"Tell me what happened, Sirius" the father demanded, his lit wand and hunter-like gaze flitting from his clearly terrified young son to the room surrounding them, as though expecting a hidden attacker to reveal themselves at any moment.
"Was somebody in here, boy? Tell me!"
Just as Orion was about to give him another frustrated shake, a small whimper suddenly emerged from Sirius amidst his sobs.
"No..."
"Then what happened? What was that crashing noise? Tell me, now"
"H-had a n-nightmare"
Orion breathed a sigh of relief - and irritation.
His son, with his ever-present fondness for dramatics, had caused such a commotion in the middle of the night over a mere, unfortunate, unpleasant dream.
"Salazar have mercy..."
Orion all but collapsed into a sitting position on the edge of his son's bed and, pinching the bridge of his nose, forced himself to humbly thank the powers that be that his worst fears had been disproved. A violent crash and a fearful cry coming from his child's bedroom in the dead of night - what was any self-respecting father supposed to think?
His obligation of gratitude towards the fates observed, the wizard allowed himself to indulge once more in his annoyance at being so inconveniently awoken in the middle of the night.
"A nightmare, you say?"
Sirius did not reply. He seemed, in fact, rather incapable of speech, every ounce of his energy consumed by his fearful sobs.
Orion observed his son, his usually-confident, fearless, oh-so-cheeky son, curled up in a ball in the middle of his bed, clearly having burrowed himself as deep under the covers as he could for maximum safety, his small body wracked with sobs of terror.
It started him. Sirius was stubbornly stoic almost to a fault, never willing to admit fear or hurt of any kind. Orion remembered only last week, observing with a degree of amusement, how his son had bitten back the tears of pain, whilst being patched up after a tumble down the stairs, so harshly that he'd made his own lip bleed.
And yet, here was that same boy, a mere few days later, the definition of a terrified mess of a child.
It must have been a truly awful nightmare.
"What- was the nightmare about?" Orion asked, somewhat cautiously.
"D'menters"
"Dementors?"
A frantic nod in reply, as his small frame appeared to tremble a little harder at the name.
Orion sighed again.
It was late afternoon that same day, when Orion had been taking afternoon tea with his wife, that their conversation was interrupted by a resident of the many portraits which lined the walls of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. The former guardians of the house, and the name of Black, continuing to watch over the hallowed halls and their current residents.
And as such, the portrait of Orion's grandfather, Sirius Black II, felt it his duty to interrupt his grandson's leisure to inform him of the break-in currently undergoing two floors above, in Orion's study.
The criminal in question being none other than five-year-old Sirius Black III.
Orion had marched upstairs immediately, sweeping into his study to find his young son sat, cross-legged in front of the fire, with a large, worn book, bound in dark-green leather, splayed open on the floor in front of him.
The book in question, An Encyclopedia of Dark Creatures of the British Isles, had been spotted by Sirius several weeks ago, during one of the rare times he was, as a treat, permitted to join his father at work in the early evening. His eager little hands had reached out to pull the book from the bookshelf, only to be swatted away by his papa with a firm warning that such a book was most unsuitable for him and that any further attempt to grab it would mean he would be permitted no further visits to the study for quite some time.
Evidently, the message had not quite sunk in.
And here was precisely the reason why Orion had forbidden his son access to such a book.
He recalled how his son had gazed up at him, wide-eyed in alarm at being caught, before heaving the heavy book closed with both arms. But not before Orion had caught a glance at the illustration on the page, giving away the creature which his son had been gazing at so intensely that he had seemed in a trance, unable to look away for several seconds after realising his father had entered the room.
Dementors.
Orion had been furious. A fury only further stoked by the emergence of the fact that the inhabitant of the portrait above his study fireplace, Licorus Black, had been assisting his wayward son in his endeavours by reading aloud and explaining the terms of the text that Sirius's juvenile reading skills couldn't understand. Explaining to Orion's five-year-old son, in graphic detail, exactly what dementors were capable of.
Sirius had been sent to bed immediately, without supper, for his disobedience, and Licorus Black received such a fierce scolding from his irked descendant for his part in the crime that he had retreated from his frame all together for the rest of the night, no doubt off to complain about Orion's lack of courtesy for his ancestors to whichever of his fellow portraits would listen to him.
And now, here they were - at half-past two in the morning (all fear of an intruder now extinguished, Orion had glanced at the clock on the mantle piece over the fireplace to establish exactly how much sleep he had managed to soak up before being rudely awoken), a five-year-old boy curled up and crying in terror, and a father proved right, naturally.
"You had a nightmare about dementors?" Orion asked, forcing his voice to remain soft and somewhat sympathetic, devoid of the "I told you so" fatherly wisdom he instinctively wanted to lean towards.
"Yeah..." came Sirius's muffled whimper from under his tightly folded arms. "They were g-gonna get me. Gonna s-suck out my soul..."
Sirius's words, broken with fear, descended into a fresh fit of cries.
Orion couldn't help but feel a wave of sympathy wash over him at the sight of his elder son, his too-fearless-for-his-own-good son, reduced to a trembling, tearful mess. He had withheld the book on dark creatures from Sirius for a good reason, but never did he anticipate that reading about the dark magical creatures of Britain (even those as foul as dementors) would reduce the boy to such a state.
Sirius's arm shifted a little and Orion caught a glimpse of the boy's eyes poking out from the crook of his elbow - bright grey, matching his own, but utterly devoid of their usual mischief and glistening with tears.
Orion found himself instinctively reaching out to press his hand to his son's back. He began to rub, somewhat hesitantly at first, in small circles, in an attempt to calm the boy.
"There, there..." he muttered by way of an attempt to soothe his son, who's crying continued regardless.
Another muffled whimper, followed by what sounded vaguely like words, came from Sirius's curled-up form.
"Pardon?" Orion asked.
"Didn't mean to break it"
"Break what?"
"Lamp"
Orion suddenly realised that the silver lamp that usually sat on Sirius's bedside table was missing. He lifted his still-lit wand to examine the room and now discovered the shattered glass glinting in the wand-light, scattered across the floor beneath the mirror frame, with the lamp itself at the centre of the mess.
So that was the source of the smashing noise.
Instead of the violent intruder of Orion's imaginings, it had instead been a violent outburst of his son's juvenile magic, attempting to protect him from the imagined horrors of his mind, by hurling the nearest heavy object at the opposite wall, which unfortunately happened to be the home of a rather expensive mirror, housed in a gilded, gold frame.
"M'sorry"
Orion was taken aback.
It was the first time he could recall having heard Sirius outright apologise for a misdemeanour without prompting or persuasion, with true sincerity and regret.
How often he had longed to hear such an apology from his son. And how wrong it felt to hear it now, when, for once, it was not deserved.
Orion found himself reaching out instinctively to scoop the quivering child up into his arms, drawing him close to rest against his father's chest, holding him tight inside his protective embrace.
The child who so often resisted the slightest of corrective manhandling did not put up a fight, nor even hesitating. In fact, somewhat to Orion's surprise, Sirius nuzzled closer into the fabric of his pyjamas, staining the green silk with his tears.
"It's alright, now"
Orion spoke softly, reassuringly. He stroked the back of Sirius's head, carding his fingers through the wisps of soft, black hair that curled at the base of his neck.
"There are no dementors here"
"C-could see one by the window"
Orion glanced across the room to the window in question, the view out of which was mostly obscured by the material of the long, sweeping curtains, black in the late-night darkness.
The wizard could appreciate how, to a child as young and imaginative as Sirius, the fabric could be mistaken for the foreboding appearance of a dementor's cloaked silhouette.
"Those are just curtains, Sirius" Orion reassured his son, stroking the hair on the back of his head comfortingly. "Not a dementor. There are no dementors here, nor anywhere remotely close to London. Nor will there ever be. They're all far, far away, on an island in the middle of the sea"
"Azk'ban"
"Yes, in Azkaban"
Orion had to appreciate just how much of his hurried study of the forbidden book his bright young son had absorbed. Had the subject been more age-appropriate, he would have praised the boy.
"Which is hundreds of miles away, and somewhere that you will never need to go"
"Never?"
Sirius's head tilted upwards, sniffling, to seek visual reassurance to back up his father's words.
"Never" Orion said, firmly, tightening his grip protectively on his son and noting that his trembling had calmed somewhat, though it was not yet completely gone.
"You are a Black. Your place is right here, in this house. You were born here and you will continue to live here. And one day, you will preside over the family from this house. It is no business of yours to go far away enough to encounter dementors. You are safe here, from them, and all things. And that is how it shall stay. Do you understand?"
Orion gazed down at his son expectantly, awaiting a reply.
Sirius sniffled slightly and his breath shuddered with the aftershocks of his cries, but he nodded meekly up at his father.
"Yes, Papa"
"Good"
Orion paused for a moment, staring down at his son, whose crying had now almost completely ceased. His tears may have stopped flowing at last, but the boy's cheeks were tear-stained and the skin around his eyes was red-raw. His bright, grey eyes still shone wetly.
With one arm still grasped tightly around Sirius, Orion reached into the pocket of his pyjama shirt, in which he always kept a handkerchief.
It did well for one to keep a handkerchief about one's person at all times. One never knew when it might come in handy. Such as now.
"Here" he said, coaxing Sirius to sit up a little against him.
He handed the boy the handkerchief.
"Dry your eyes"
Sirius obediently raised a shaky hand to rub his eyes with the square of cotton before wiping his nose with another sniffle.
Once his son was looking slightly more presentable, Orion vanished the handkerchief with a tap of his wand.
"Now, then" said Orion. "Since we've firmly established the fact that there is nothing in this room, nor in this house that I would ever allow to harm you, I'd say it's about time we both returned to sleep, wouldn't you?"
Sirius seemed to shrink a little further into his father's arms at the suggestion of sleep.
An idea struck Orion.
"Come now, let's get you tucked back in-" he said, somewhat reluctantly releasing his tight hold on Sirius and manoeuvring him, gently but firmly, to lay back down against his pillows. "- and then, I know of a little something that may help"
Once Sirius was firmly tucked back into bed, Orion wordlessly summoned the potions' case of household remedies that could usually be found amongst his wife's substantial, personal potions stores.
He could see Sirius's keen eyes watching him closely as he opened the box and pulled out the required bottle.
"Here we are" said Orion, holding up the small, teardrop-shaped bottle to the wandlight, examining the contents. The liquid inside, of a pale, lavender hue, glinted mystically in the white light of the wand. "All will feel much better after a good night's sleep"
Sirius famously hated being dosed with any form of medicinal potion. He'd thrown an almighty tantrum in an attempt to stop a dose of infection-preventing serum being forced into him after receiving a rather nasty crup bite during the family's last summer trip to the Black country estate and had, without an ounce of shame, spat out the pepper-up potion his mother had painstakingly brewed for him when she'd decided he was still looking far too peaky after recovering from a nasty cold last winter.
But to Orion's surprise, Sirius allowed Orion to bring the dose phial of dreamless sleeping draught to his lips and obediently swallowed the potion down in one go.
"There, now" Orion said, softly, as Sirius's eyes immediately began to droop. "Now you can sleep safely. No more nightmares"
"Night, Papa" Sirius murmured before sleep finally claimed him completely.
The little boy's face visibly relaxed as he descended into unconsciousness. The fear and stress of the night melted away, replaced only by the oblivious relaxation that was never more natural than when apparent on the face of a sleeping child.
Orion lingered for a few minutes, sat on the edge of his son's bed, watching him sleep. How curious it was, to see his five-year-old in two previously-unthinkable states, one after the other; inconsolable fear followed by innocent, angelic peacefulness.
And to think that on this most ordinary of nights, in these most unexpected of circumstances, Orion had borne witness to his errant, disobedient, wilful scamp of a son in the grips of both extremes. How very different they were from his usual states of either brazen cheekiness or rude sulkiness.
Orion reached out to gently brush away the stray locks of Sirius's unruly mop of black hair that had been allowed to cling to the side of his face in a most unseemly manner. He allowed his hand to linger, stroking against the soft skin of the boy's cheek for a moment longer than necessary before pulling away.
The wizard took up his wand, which lay, discarded and still lit, on the bed beside him. With a silent flick at the mess caused by Sirius's outburst of magic, he repaired the damage, watching how the glittering shards of glass slotted themselves back into the frame like peaces of a puzzle and the silver lamp flew itself back to its usual spot on the bedside table.
With the damage repaired, a surprisingly heavy heart, Orion gripped his wand tighter in his palm, preparing to carry out his final task of the night.
With a sigh, he raised his wand arm, pointed the tip of the fir wood at his sleeping son, and murmured,
"Obliviate"
Orion carefully wove his magic in and out of the delicate strands of his son's mind, selectively snipping away at the fragments of his memories of their midnight encounter. He removed all trace of the nightmare that had plagued his son so intensely, ensuring he would have no memory of the unfortunate incident beyond his punishment of being sent to bed early and falling asleep, no doubt in a sulk.
It wouldn't do to allow such awful sights to remain in a child's head, unfiltered. What would stop him from having the exact same dream tomorrow night?
Unfortunately, for the memory modification to carry out its task, all memory of the encounter between father and son that night was also required to be erased from Sirius's young mind. No reference to the nightmare in any form could be allowed to remain.
Sirius would have no memory of his nightmare, but nor would he have any recollection of being held by his father, comforted in his arms, soothed by his words.
Orion squashed down a pang of sadness inside him at the thought.
It was for the best. The greater good.
His work complete, Orion set down his wand on the bed beside him. He turned back to his son and allowed himself one more indulgent look at the sleeping boy.
Sirius's eyes were red - the usually-flawless porcelain skin flushed and raw from crying.
But no matter. He was at peace, now, and his face would be as it once was, by morning.
All would be as it once was, by morning.