Chapter Text
“Mother’s calling for you, Sirius.” Regulus pokes his head through the doorway to his brother’s bedroom. Though his pose is casual, with one hand resting on the doorjamb and the other on the handle, he’s tensed, ready to shut the door should something should fly towards his head again. Sirius has already tossed a pillow, then a book, then a mug at Regulus the last few times he’s disturbed him.
“Tell her to leave me alone,” says Sirius, barely looking up from where he sits hunched over his desk, scribbling on scrap of paper. His current project lies scattered around the room, blocks of wood toppled over, cans of paint overturned, diagrams haphazardly shoved to a side. Since completing his BS in engineering at Cambridge almost a month ago, he has done absolutely nothing, preferring instead to work towards his goal of being the most useless member of society there ever was. He doesn’t see the point in actually getting a job; his parents would probably be happy about it. Sirius will not stand for that sort of treachery.
“She won’t shut up. Please just go.”
Sirius scowls, but shoves his chair back and moves towards the door anyway. “I haven’t even done anything this time.”
“Maybe that’s why.” Regulus shrugs helplessly, then turns away and walks into the hall. Sirius follows, dragging his feet on the plush carpet away from his room and towards his imminent downfall. His mother, otherwise known as the worst woman in existence also probably from hell, runs the renowned conglomerate Black Enterprises. His father is probably also from hell and also runs Black Enterprises, only he sleeps with more women along the way.
Ever since he can remember, Sirius’s life has revolved around preparing him to one day head the company. The eldest son, Sirius endured a childhood of tutors, training, polishing, his parents chipping away at him like a sculptor with a block of marble. A very obstinate block of marble that causes nightmares for everyone around it. A very obstinate block of marble who now walks towards the dining room to face his mother and suffer through the third rebuke this week.
Sirius reaches the long oak table where his mother sits at the head, hands clasped and facing the window, away from him. “What,” he says by way of greeting.
She doesn’t turn around but just screams. Sirius flinches. The screaming goes on for quite some time, but when Walburga has decided she is done screaming, she twists in her seat to stare her son in the eye. Sirius stares back.
“Do you know what I found this morning?” She is still talking in an uppercase sort of way, each word strained, grating. Walburga doesn’t hold anything in her hand, but Sirius gets the feeling that if she had, she’d be shaking it in his face. “The armchair! Covered in grease!” Sirius doubts the whole armchair was harmed, but humours her nonetheless. “Do you know how expensive those are? How much I have worked to earn the money to buy them?”
“You don’t even—”
“And you! You destroy them! Ungrateful, useless!”
“I thought—”
“Shut up! Shut up! You lie around all day, doing nothing, tinkering with your, your, whatever, like a poor mechanic! Dirtying everything you touch! I didn’t raise you to do this! It’s been three months, Sirius! What are you going to do with your life!”
“You can just buy another armchair.” He faintly remembers using the armchair to prop up a mirror he was using to reflect a laser to slowly burn a hole in a string which would give way to let some blocks fall over and launch a catapult and throw things at whomever opened the door to his room. Sirius tells his mother as much. She doesn’t take it well. The rest of the conversation goes similarly, ending with his nerves slightly frayed and a stronger resolve to do even less of anything productive tomorrow.
Back in his room, Sirius makes a series of resentful Google searches:
16:04 “how to take down black enterprises”
16:08 “is it difficult to kill your mother”
16:08 “black enterprises criticism”
16:20 “destroy black enterprises”
16:22 “cool rube goldberg machines”
He learns that killing an influential businesswoman is more trouble than it’s worth, that the band OK Go possesses the same fanatic dedication to Rube Goldberg machines as himself, and that he isn’t alone in hating his family. It turns out the Socialist labour union group called the Order of the Phoenix, which Sirius thinks is a stupid name and knows he’s right about that, has an agenda focused on eliminating the politician Tom Riddle. Tom Riddle, the same man whose name is printed on a tacky sign (“YES on Riddle! Purer is BETTER.”) planted in the front yard. Tom Riddle, whose campaign last autumn ran on millions donated by none other than Black Enterprises.
Order of the Phoenix, meet Sirius Black.
Sirius spends the afternoon on various social media platforms to follow the Order, getting into touch with the manager, and trying to seem as non-suspicious as possible while still being the eldest son of the family he’s selling out. At one point, Regulus walks into the room and looks surprised at the lack of anything hitting his face.
“What are you doing?” Regulus glances around for signs of danger.
“Mmm. Tweeting.”
“Is something about to explode?” The younger Black narrows his eyes.
“No. Well—” Sirius hesitates. "I’m about to offer these activists insider knowledge about us.” He sounds casual, but holds himself very still as he waits for his brother’s reaction. “Well, us and Riddle.”
“O—”
“Don’t tell mum. Please,” he adds as an afterthought.
“—kay. You should meet my new plants if you’re done being a dolt.” Regulus steps gingerly over some precariously arranged bottles and out the door.
Sirius doesn’t linger too long on that exchange. Reg doesn’t seem that bothered, so Sirius continues halfheartedly clicking through blogs of Order members as he types out a list of illegal activities undertaken by Black Enterprises within the last year.
One blog in particular catches his eye. Not for any real reason related to the cause but because it’s so astounding in its ugliness. The URL is “jayymespotter” but the title reads “FOOTBALL IS LIFE” with the description similarly disappointing, “james, 22, england. feel free to message me if ur hot ;)”. Sirius rolls his eyes and moves to close the tab but he glimpses, out of the corner of his eye, a set of selfies.
The man in the photographs looks like a complete idiot. He’s missing a shirt but somehow found a wooden sword somewhere to lift into the air like some kiddy sports trophy. Sirius can physically feel his cheeks burning with embarrassment for whoever he is, and yet can’t really find it in himself to be too mean about it. The man just looks so jubilant! He seems so overcome with emotion that his coke-bottle glasses sit crooked atop his nose, black hair tousled like he just got out of bed. How can Sirius deny the stranger this joy? And maybe, if he’s being truthful, a tiny part of him recognises that the man is sort of good-looking, in a weird way. Like if he squints and tilts his head a little and covers one eye. And if Sirius were into dweebish losers, obviously.
He scrolls down to see the owner of these photos and raises his brows in surprise when he finds out it’s "james, 22, england” himself. Don’t judge a blog by its shitty description, he learns that day, amongst other lessons such as Arsenal FC is the best team in the world, James has a girlfriend who is a lesbian, and that it is indeed possible for a 22-year-old man to run a blog entirely about football and dogs.
Suppressing the flare of self-consciousness that rises in his gut, and not before taking a quick glance behind him to make sure Regulus wasn’t judging him from over his shoulder, he quickly clicks the heart to like the selfies. He hesitates, sure that a flush is rising to colour his cheeks. He checks behind him again. And he clicks reblog.
#grfffcccsshhhvv #sorry
With a solid-sounding thump, Sirius lets his head drop forward onto the desk and groans, loudly and with feeling. What did he do that for! And now he can’t delete the post or edit it because the internet is forever and somebody following him (probably Regulus) will know that he’s weak for dweebish losers who care too much about football.
Because he was raised to be dignified if nothing else, Sirius manages to drag himself back to a sitting position and navigate to James’s ask page and metaphorically burn the metaphoric bridge he’s about to metaphorically cross. He types, “hey. i’m sirius—” before screaming and deleting everything. Trying several more times to little success (“i noticed you were into labr—” “did you fall from heav—” “put on a fucking shirt you heathen or so help me—”) but thankfully less screaming, he finally settles with what he knows best: an inappropriate degree of formality. So he enters:
“Hullo James, 22 years, of England. As you may have noticed, I have liked and reblogged your most recent set of ‘selfies’ to my personal blog. I unfortunately misused the tagging system and regretfully tagged them with the wrong sort of sentiment. Please kindly ignore my misstep and I shall endeavor to prevent these awkward occurrences from happening again in the future. Regretfully, Sirius Black, Esq, Newest Order of the Phoenix Member. Yes, Black as in Black Enterprises.”
Sirius shuts his eyes tightly and clicks the ‘ask’ button before he can succumb to his inborn weaknesses that got him into this trouble in the first place.