Week One – Ivy, smothering

He’d be back.

He couldn’t survive on his own.

So, he’d come back. He had to.

It had been forty-eight hours since her son had stormed out of the house, all teenage angst and rage. He’d never been gone this long before. But when he’d been gone for thirty-three hours, he’d never been gone that long before. And the time before that, twenty-seven hours. This was just a new record, nothing more.

He’d be back.

He always came back.

She had raised Sirius to know what was good for him.

He would come home.

He’d apologised through gritted teeth, fighting every step of the way (as a true Black should!), but he’d be there, head bowed in resignation of the truth. He was nothing without family.

Her fingers trailed across his face, lovingly embroidered into the tapestry.

The fight had been no worse than any of the fights they had had before. There was no reason to fear he’d not return. Her golden child. The product of her flesh. Her dreams made real. He was merely a stroppy and wilful child, nothing more. No doubt she’d seemed as unruly to her parents, as strong willed and willing to put herself in conflict with their wishes. But look at where she was at now. When Arcturus died, she’d be head of the family (or as good as) and as it was, she was already head of the household. The Household which would continue their line, unlike her brothers. Mere branches to her trunk, daughters who had married out of the family, rather than forcing their husbands to take their name.

Sirius was too important for that. No one could take the name of Black from him.

He would return and he would settle. Sirius would make her proud.

“You coddle him too much,” Orion said.

“Really, Orion? You’re talking to me about my parenting, now?” Walburga sighed, pulling herself up to sit on the bed.

“Well, you’re the one insisting that we keep trying. I’ve provided you with two sons, an heir and the spare. I think I’ve more than done my duty as the man of the house and you should consider my words as a father. You coddle Sirius too much and neglect Regulus. Sirius needs to grow and Regulus needs more attention. I understand why we need a third but I don’t know if we’re ready.”

“Well, perfect time to bring up your concerns, Orion.”

He sighed and leaned back in the bed.

“It’s not that I don’t think we should have a third child, love, it’s that you need to not put all your focus on Sirius. He’s to become head of the house after us, we need him to be strong and independent – just like you are. Coddling him will make him weak, dependent, manipulatable. We cannot have that with our heir.”

“Sirius is strong,” Walburga huffed. “Did you see him at the last family gathering? He kept Narcissa in her place and he’s four years her junior. Not to mention he’s exceeded every milestone that Bellatrix hit and she is by all counts a powerful witch.”

“He needs space to grow, Walburga, otherwise you’ll smother him. Remember when you tried your hand at gardening and you overplanted. You lost those flowers you thought were so dainty and pretty because they could not compete.”

“People aren’t gardens. People aren’t plants.”

“No, that’s true,” Orion conceded.

“Then it’s settled. My parenting is fine.”

Orion pulled her into a hug, kissing her shoulder. Walburga allowed herself to melt back against him.

“Give Sirius some space, show Regulus some attention. I think they’d both like that.”

And she had. Walburga had tried to listen to her husband.

Sirius resented her withdrawal from him and Regulus was too needy.

When she let Sirius make decisions he pushed against their rules and decisions, crying out for boundaries. Where before she had entertained him in the nursery, now, left to his own devices, he snuck out into the muggle world. He came back with scrapped knees from playing rough with muggle children and toys. He bellowed when she chided him for his ill decisions.

He clung to the belief that he might know best, perhaps she shopping to that idea as well. They had always been too like each other. Perhaps that was why she could not help but love him.

Week Two – Rose, Red

Birthing Sirius had been hard. Walburga did not think she had faced anything harder before or since. He had taken a day before he came screaming into the world, all red faced and wrinkled. The healer had placed her son on her breast – her tiny, perfect, little boy.

She could still feel an echo of his tiny fingers wrapping around just one of hers as she sat, as she stared at the tapestry.

It had been a week and her child had not come home.

“Mother,” Regulus’ small voice came from the door.

He had been sorted into Slytherin, like a true Black, of that, she did have to concede. But the fire in the veins, the will to make the world his? No, her youngest had been born a follower and accepted that role all too willingly.

She’d been furious when Sirius was sorted into Gryffindor. How could the Sorting Hat had gotten her son so wrong? He was a Slytherin through and through. After all, he loved those stupid things he called ‘pranks’ and what were they other than an expression of an overly cunning child? Always trying to exceed himself, it demonstrated his ambition. He had all the traits of Slytherin. It was his house by birth right.

Naturally, she blamed Orion.

If he hadn’t made her withdraw to give Sirius this ‘space’ that Orion so spoke of, Sirius would have come out right. He would have been a Slytherin, like the generations of their house. She’d have put him right. She could have done it. Would have…

But in time, she had come to see that his placement in Gryffindor may not be too much of a fault. He was brazen and brash but they were the qualities of a leader and the family would need a leader in the years to come. She was neither deaf nor blind. A war was coming. She remembered being but a girl when Grindlewald attempted to set their world free and it would seem not everyone had forgotten that promise.

Her son must lead them to their glorious future.

She just had to shape him.

Eventually, he’d thank her for it.

When they were free from oppression and he sat on the Wizenagamot, governing the whole of the British Isles and not just those precious few with magical blood, he would thank her.

Only the best for her first born.

Only the best for Sirius.

Her little rose.

“Good night mother.” A door closed.

Week Three – Mint, spreading

Walburga sat out in her pristine garden, staring out at her work. Well, Kreacher’s work under her guidance. She sipped her tea. 

It was her first time leaving the house since Sirius left three weeks, two days and thirteen hours ago.

The air was warm with the promise of summer.

Birds sang.

The rumble of the muggle contraptions seemed far off.

She suspected Orion had had Kreacher slip something into her tea.

She felt oddly empty.

Devoid.

The house was silent without Sirius galumphing around. Without his screams and bellows about how terribly unfair the world was.

Unfair.

He had been born into one of the most privileged families in all of wizarding Britain. He had been born the heir of said family. He had been gifted with skill and strength. Yet he thought himself unfairly treated. He threw his lot in with blood traitors and muggle-lovers. People who dared to think that those they hide from, those who had spent centuries trying to kill them, were the oppressed.

Walburga sighed and sipped her tea.

Even these thoughts were not enough to tempt her anger.

Sirius was like a weed, she decided, staring at the garden.

He was virulent, he could rebound from whatever was thrown at him and throw his clutches further each time.

Once she had had Kreacher plant mint for her. It was pleasing to smell it’s freshness in the air and satisfying to have Kreacher use it in the drinks and deserts he prepared for the family. But the problem with mint was that it spread, creeping out of it’s carefully chosen pots and across the garden. No matter how hard she had Kreacher pull at the weeds, the mint sprung back.

Just like Sirius.

She had tried to cleanse him, to beat him back into an acceptable form but he could not be cowed. It didn’t matter what she said or did, after a fallow period, he’d fall back into bad habits.

Maybe as a punishment for causing her such stress, she should have Sirius deal with the garden, without magic. Perhaps he would then understand the stress he put on his family and actually start to be a better person.

“Mistress?”

“Yes, Kreacher?”

“Mistress has been sitting outside for quiet some time, perhaps Mistress would like to come inside?”

Through her apathy, Walburga knew she should feel something at Kreacher’s concern for her, should do something. To figure out what, though, took too much energy. Energy that she did not have to give. She sighed and stared into her tea. Without magic, perhaps it would be long cold but as it was, it was near as warm as it had been when first brewed.

“Mistress should come inside.”

She let herself be guided back in.

Week Four – Mistletoe, finality

Her anger was back. Orion hadn’t been medicating her tea, it had been Regulus. Perhaps he wasn’t as weak as she had feared. It showed backbone, it showed planning. All was not lost. It had been a month since Sirius abandoned them but now there was hope for the family.

Their legacy would not be abandoned.

Finally, she could see clearly. Sirius had been a parasite, a leech. If she’d have believed in the fae, she might even accuse him of being a changeling.

He was scarcely worthy of the blood in his veins.

Of the noble breeding stamped across his face.

She strode into the Tapestry Room, back held straight, wand in hand. Orion looked up from his paper, Regulus remained focused on his game of chess. Neither of the men in the house had dared to sort out the miscreant. In the end, it always come down to her.

Sirius’ face stared blankly out at her from the tapestry, blank, just as he had been in life. Sirius had never cared for the family, for their legacy or their future. He brought shame upon them and revelled in it. He had been born wrong, some defect that they should have detected and eradicated.

Her womb should have rejected him for the creature that he was.

Born a month premature, he should have come in December, when mistletoe decorated the halls of houses, begging occupants to kiss under its parasitic boughs.

Mistletoe stole life from the trees it grew on, it poisoned all who consumed it. So it was with Sirius. He had stolen life from their family, he had taken their good health, leaving nothing but anger, stress and tiredness.

They were well rid of him.

A month on and he’d not returned.

They had all accepted the truth.

He never would.

The child of her flesh.

The great perversion of all their family had worked so hard to build.

Walburga hated what he had become, what he had, perhaps, always been.

Trees needed pruning.

Weeds had to be pulled out by their roots.

But parasites must be burned.

She scarce needed a wand, nor incantation for that, such was he hatred.

His face, impassive and empty, began to smoke, then char.

Flame started. They licked at his face, not worth the love that had been sewn into it. The fire consumed and cleansed.

The weed was pulled.

The parasite destroyed.

Sirius was gone.