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Sirius hated Grimmauld Place. He hated everything about it. The dark, dusty halls, the head of the house-elves lined up on the stairs, the portrait of family members he wished to forget... He hated all of it.
Members of the Order residing in the house every now and then barely helped. They never stayed for long, which only reminded him just how stuck he himself was.
Sometimes it felt like Azkaban had been the better prison.
It had been over a year of being stuck inside. He didn’t understand Dumbledore’s insistence for him to remain indoors when he’d perfectly well survived nearly two years living as Padfoot out and about. He could do it. He’d be fine. Sure, Wormtail had told Voldemort of their Animagus forms, but Sirius wasn’t really important enough for anyone to keep an eye out for a black dog outside. There were enough other free roaming black dogs on the streets of every city, and not one of them had been captured by Death Eaters in the past year.
But Dumbledore insisted, and Sirius couldn’t do anything about it.
If only he had never offered up this house as headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix. He’d still be free (or something like that). He’d be able to see Harry every now and then. He could join Moony on full moons. Everything would be better.
It was always the worst when one of the Order members came back. Most of them simply didn’t care. Didn’t see a huge issue with making noise and waking the portrait of his mother downstairs.
Sirius cared, though. He minded terribly, actually. The first time he heard her screams again he froze up so badly he couldn’t move for several minutes, suddenly a child again, standing between her and Regulus and pretending he wasn’t terrified to the bone just to be strong for his brother.
They all didn’t care, however. They cared so little they somehow saw it his responsibility to make her shut up again. To step in front of her hateful, piercing eyes as if he hadn’t risked his entire life decades ago to escape them.
Kreacher made it worse. The house-elf had aged, terribly so. In the years living alone with only portraits and himself to talk to he’d done the same as most adults in Sirius’ life had too – radicalised, romanticising the old days, holding onto hate and contempt for others to make his own life feel less bad. Like this, Sirius had no idea how his brother ever considered Kreacher a friend. Not that he ever really understood it back then either.
And this – well, this was another aspect of living back at Grimmauld Place that Sirius couldn’t handle. The heavy, constantly present absence of Regulus. Telling Harry about his brother had been the first time in years that Sirius had spoken his name out loud. It felt like a blade inside his throat.
He couldn’t bring himself to climb the steps to the top floor. Didn’t want anyone else to enter the rooms either, so he put a ban on the stairs, barraging it from anyone who might try to enter. Even staying in his mother’s old room was better than going back to where all his memories were locked away. His room, a time capsule from twenty years ago. The photos and letters from James he knew must still be up there, unless his mother had found his secret hiding place for them. His old schoolbooks with his and his friends’ scribbles inside. His clothes, the posters and vinyls, unfinished homework and little mementos his friends had gotten him back then. He didn’t know how much of it survived, how much his mother had destroyed in a fit of rage, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out either.
And Regulus’ room he used to frequent so much before he was no longer welcome, told to stay outside with a sign on the door. The room that once held the only person living in this house he was sure truly loved him at some point.
Sirius wondered, sometimes. Wondered how much it had changed in the years, how much Regulus had changed. If he could find out anything of who his brother had become since Sirius had left school and lost even the last bit of contact with him. He longed for the knowledge the same way he was terrified of it.
It was going to be the first time since Regulus turned ten that Sirius would be at Grimmauld Place for Regulus’ birthday. The day crawled closer and closer and Sirius could feel it tugging the air from his lungs, scratching at the inside of his knees, begging him to leave, to run, to put distance between himself and this place. Himself and the ghost of a brother he was forced to learn to hate yet never really could.
Sirius couldn’t run, of course. Dumbledore didn’t care about what day it was any more than he cared about Sirius’ feelings about it. All Sirius could do was stay alone in the house and pretend he couldn’t feel the walls closing up on him, the carpet wrapping around his feet dragging him down, his mother forcing him into silence even now.
Sirius couldn’t run, and so he prepared himself to stay, to stay for his brother as he hadn’t twenty years ago. Stay for his brother, even if now Regulus would care about it even less than he would have had back then.
It was a Thursday on which Regulus would have turned thirty-five. A Thursday on which Regulus had been dead for as long as he got to live. It felt cruel that this should be the birthday Sirius had to spend where Regulus was supposed to be.
It was a long day. Turned longer by Sirius walking up and down the stairs of his house, staring at the staircase leading up to the fourth floor, considering finally tracing back his brothers steps, hesitating too long as if it at any point it might reveal a pale face and grey eyes so similar to his own. No one ever showed, of course, and under watchful painted eyes, through narrow corridors Sirius returned back to the kitchen to wait in silence, only to repeat the entire process again half an hour later.
Regulus had always been a quiet child, always a step behind his older brother, always looking out at the world from behind Sirius’ back, with big, wide eyes full of uncertainty. And then his brother had stepped away and Regulus was left looking at the world all by himself, until he found different backs to stand behind.
Sirius had often wondered when he’d gotten scared and tried to run. Had often wondered if he regretted his choices for more than selfish reasons. If he had feared his death, if it had come quick enough for him to not see it coming, or if his dark master let it be drawn out slowly, relishing in the screams and cries of a kid who didn’t know any better.
A screech, almost a scream echoed through the house and Sirius flinched.
Had he thought of his brother so much he’d imagined hearing his last minutes alive?
But no, a second later another scream sounded down to the kitchens of Grimmauld Place, a wailing full of pain and suffering.
Sirius leapt from his chair and sprinted up the stairs, taking two steps at a time. He’d almost set foot on the steps leading up to the fourth floor when another wail cut through the otherwise silent house, a wail coming from his own room. (His mother’s room, her once forbidden solitude he’d never felt the desire to enter.)
Alarmed Sirius threw open the door to the bedroom to reveal a sight of chaos. An overthrown chair, books strewn across the floor, the hangings of the four-poster bed in shreds, and in the middle of it all Buckbeak. The hippogriff was thrashing around in clear distress, the soft feathers of his stomach soaked in red, a silver shaft protruding from between.
“Buckbeak! Buckbeak, shhhh, calm down, calm down!” Sirius called out, his hands held high, not yet daring to approach the crying beast. “Hold still, I can help you. I want to help you, alright?”
In the months since his godson had freed him Sirius had grown rather fond of the hippogriff, a feeling that seemed to be mutual. There weren’t many left that truly trusted him, so having this proud creature that was so particular in who it wanted to let near extend its trust to him was not something Sirius took for granted.
Despite this, however, it still took several moments for Buckbeak to calm down enough that Sirius saw it safe to approach. Longer yet for him to dare to splay a gentle hand out across the hippogriff’s back as his other hand reached below the stomach, carefully pulling the silver letter opener from its abdomen.
Buckbeak flinched and kicked out, but under Sirius’ touch he stayed in place and let Sirius clean the wound, carefully healing it as best he could with the magic he knew worked on humans.
Sirius had no idea how the wound had come to be, how Buckbeak wound up stabbed with a silver letter opener. He hadn’t seen the object in this room before, didn’t remember having seen it at all since having lived here again, and yet it had been there, inside the creature’s soft abdomen.
“I’m sorry,” Sirius whispered, gently stroking the hippogriff’s beak. “I don’t understand how this happened, I’m so sorry. But you’re going to be okay. Just rest for a while, okay? I need to... I need to do something.”
Buckbeak let out a quiet, sad screech, then nudged Sirius’ chest before curling up on the rug in front of the window.
Sirius wiped the letter opener off the thick, red liquid and inspected it carefully. A constellation was etched into the handle. Nine stars meticulously carved, a dark green stone embedded in one of them.
Sirius remembered the birthday Regulus had been given this. It was his seventh, Regulus had still been struggling a lot with his spelling, a fact their parents never tired of reprimanding him for, and even at that age Sirius had thought it a mocking, cruel gift. What was a seven years old child supposed to do with a letter opener? Who could he have written to back then?
Regulus, of course, had not complained, had inspected it with his big, wide eyes and thanked his parents as he might have had he gotten a toy. He had always been so good and pliant.
It shouldn’t be here. This letter opener should not be lying in this room, not in Sirius’ hands, certainly not inside Buckbeak’s flesh.
It might have been an excuse that Sirius decided it needed to be back in Regulus’ room. It might have been the only reason Sirius could find to convince himself of finally breaching that invisible barrier that separated his old life from the rest of the house. Sirius didn’t linger on the ifs and might haves. He gripped the handle of the letter opener tightly, the green stone of Regulus’ star digging into his palm, and finally walked up the familiar steps he’d not walked in twenty years.
The sign on Regulus’ door was still there as it had been when he first hung it up, the elegant cursive of his handwriting leaving a stab of familiarity in Sirius’ chest.
He didn’t ask for express permission to enter the room. There was no one he could ask, no moody brother sitting behind the door, sending glares at being interrupted in his reading.
When Sirius pushed against the door it swung open with a quiet creak, the hinges unwilling to move after years of disuse.
The room had changed quite a lot since the last time Sirius had been inside. The furniture rearranged, the ones light curtains switched out for heavy green velvet ones. The stars stuck above Regulus’ bed had been removed, replaced with the Black family crest. Below it were newspaper clippings, cautiously cut out and stuck together in what seemed to be a carefully considered order. Sirius was almost surprised not to find a red string connecting the different articles. Although, he considered, it would have clashed terribly with all the green and silver around the room.
Curiously he leaned closer to read one of the clippings. Tragic Demise of Ministry Official, it read, followed by a description of the murder scene and the Dark Mark above it. It must have been one of the first appearances of Voldemort’s sign back in the day.
Sirius read another article. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Employing Giants? Claims have been made of giant-sightings near Carlisle and Blackpool–
They were all about Voldemort, Sirius realised glancing across the rest of the clippings. Every single one of these articles is about Voldemort. The realisation sent a shiver down his spine. The fanaticism this wall displayed was a painful reminder how Regulus had lived the last years of his life.
Sirius turned away from the wall and headed towards Regulus’ bookshelf.
Regulus had kept all his old schoolbooks. Sirius looked over them, taking note of the way his brother treated them all with utmost care, their cases almost entirely free of signs they’d ever been used.
He also noted that Regulus hadn’t kept any of the books from his seventh year, which struck him as odd, out of character for who he thought his brother had been. Instead where the textbooks should have been were dozens of books about the dark arts, books Sirius was sure Regulus had taken from the Black family library, a few novels, all wizarding works of course, and–
Sirius stopped short. There, between all the literature he’d expected to see in his brother’s room, stood a thin book, a dark, plain spine with only the title embossed. Hamlet.
Sirius knew that book. He hadn’t read it, but he knew of it. Had heard Remus and Lily talk about it plenty of times back in the day. As far as Sirius was aware, this was a Muggle book. A book that should have no right sitting on his brother’s bookshelf.
Carefully Sirius pulled it out opening the cover and gingerly flipping through the pages.
It was not a novel, as Sirius had expected, instead the lines of a play lay before him, and in between them, all around them, his brother’s handwriting, taking note of what was on the page.
Sirius was confused. This did not fit together with the wall above Regulus’ bed. It did not fit together with the boy Sirius had left behind all those years ago, or the young man whose death had been recounted in the margins of a newspaper.
Sirius didn’t want to put it back. He had to read this, had to understand what his brother had been thinking, had to understand who his brother had been. But that had to wait. Careful not to bend any of the pages, Sirius tucked the book inside his cloak pocket next to his wand, before turning his back to the bookshelf and his attention to the rest of the room.
Regulus’ wooden writing desk was perfectly organized. At least that had been something about his brother that hadn’t changed in the time Sirius stopped knowing him. The only thing that was peculiar about it was the quill and ink pot sitting out, as if Regulus had left hurriedly in the middle of writing something down. The absence of any notes, however, disproved this notion.
Despite Regulus being dead, despite the fact he’d never know what Sirius was doing here, Sirius felt guilty as he pulled open the desk drawers. Regulus back then would have killed him for this. Entering his room without his permission had been bad enough already, but looking through his things...
Sirius ignored the memory of his brother’s angry glare as best he could as he inspected the contents of the drawers. But there was nothing out of the ordinary there. More quills and parchment, a mostly blank pocket calendar, letters from Rosier and Crouch...
Sirius found the drawer that seemed most likely to have once contained the letter opener and gingerly sat the silver object down. Then he closed all the little doors and drawers he’d pulled open and straightened back up – but before he could decide to leave, his eyes fell to the delicately decorated wooden boards on either side of the centre cabinet of the writing desk.
Flitwick had had a similar writing desk in his office at Hogwarts. Sirius remembered well how him and James had snuck into the office once in search of a potion the professor had confiscated from them a day prior. It took them barely three minutes to locate it. Flitwick hadn’t made it particularly difficult for them, having left the door to the secret compartment of his writing desk wide open.
Curiously, Sirius pulled out the drawers on either side of the decorated boards, feeling around in the open space until he found a little latch. A quiet click was heard, then the boards sprang open and revealed two more narrow compartments, filled with paper.
Sirius checked the one on the left first. It held a stack of photographs and letters, bound together with a fraying, red string. When he untied it and flipped through it, he saw Regulus smiling on several of the photos, a carefree expression on his face that Sirius hadn’t seen on him since before Hogwarts. Regulus was there with Crouch and Rosier, laughing together. There were photos of him and Dorcas Meadows sitting by the lake. And photos of ... of Sirius. Of Sirius on his own, Sirius and Regulus when they were children, Sirius and James...
Sirius felt almost breathless as he flipped through the stack. When he got to the letters and recognised his own handwriting on some of them his fingers trembled. He could feel his heartbeat in his throat, the meaning of this too much for him to grasp right then.
He sat the photos and letters down before having come to its end and focussed his attention on the other compartment.
This one held mainly parchment, pages upon pages written on in Regulus’ elegant handwriting. Sirius leafed through them slowly, skimming the pages, a few words catching his gaze here and there.
Dark Lord. Cave. Horcrux. Immortality? Ritual. Locket. Horcrux. House-elf. Dumbledore? Potion. Soul. Horcrux. Horcrux. Horcrux–
Sirius’ hands were getting clammy, his breath coming too quickly. What did this mean? What had Regulus done? He felt like he was going to explode from this influx of information when a new word caught his eye–
Sirius.
Sirius froze, the grip around the parchment tightening involuntarily.
This was a letter. Addressed to him and never sent. A letter his brother had written.
The date noted in the top-right corner read 11 March 1979. Only a few days before Sirius had learned about his brother’s death.
Sirius had to sit down as he read the letter, the black ink smudged in some parts, several lines crossed out or scribbled through entirely.
Sirius,
I’m still debating whether I should send you this letter. I suppose this is a pointless sentence to write, since you will only get to read it if I do, in fact, send it. But I need it to sort my thoughts.
I know we haven’t spoken in years, and–
A short paragraph of scribbled out words followed. Sirius could not make them out, no matter how hard he tried.
I hope you will read this anyway. I should have believed you back when you told me all you thought wrong with the Dark Lord. You were right. His ideas of the hierarchy in the wizarding world, his believes of our unassailable supremacy... I was wrong to believe it all. You were wrong about our family, though. Mother and Father loved you, they only ever wanted the best for us. I wish you could have seen that. Maybe things would have gone differently then.
I have learned things about the Dark Lord no one else knows about, things the Dark Lord wishes to keep a secret. I cannot tell anyone about them, for I know if word gets back to him, he will ensure that he truly cannot be defeated. I have to act on my own, but I think I can do it. I have prepared well, I have one confidant who will continue when I cannot, and I will ensure the Dark Lord will be stopped.
I do not expect to see you again. I do not expect to see anyone again. I have come to terms with that. I know I have done many wrongs, but I think with this I might get to do them right again. I hope you can forgive me for the past. I hope you will find some feelings of pride for what I’m doing now.
I am thinking of you a lot these days, of you and–
More angrily crossed out words, the next line barely discernible underneath the smudged ink.
– how things could have been had I realised earlier.
I cannot tell you too much should this letter land in the wrong hands. Father has gotten paranoid, and I think rightfully so. He has increased the security spells on the house drastically ever since I voiced my doubts in the Dark Lord’s ways. They are afraid, and I am afraid I have endangered them by telling them even this much. I wish I could tell you more. I wish I didn’t have to do this alone.
I’m scared I’m sorry I cannot tell you more. I hope you know that I still love you. That I kept all of the letters you sent me. That I forgive you for leaving.
If When you get this, know that you do not have to be upset for me. It is alright. I’m making things alright again.
I hope you are doing okay. I hope you’re happy with your friends and get to live the life you’ve always dreamed of. Please tell
Those two words were all Sirius could read from the next sentences, the rest of it scratched out vigorously enough a tear appeared in the parchment. He wished he knew what Regulus’ request had been. He wished he could have fulfilled it.
I miss you.
Regulus Reggie
Sirius felt like crying. He wished his brother had sent this letter. He wished he had told him about this earlier, had let him know in time for Sirius to forgive him and help him in whatever– not whatever he had planned. It was clear what he had been doing, the parchments stacked away with the letter neatly documenting Lord Voldemort’s way of having ensured his immortality, and Regulus’ way of ensuring he became mortal once more.
Sirius had no idea if Regulus had been successful. He wasn’t sure if it mattered in that moment, because what he knew instead felt all the more important. Regulus hadn’t died a coward, or a blood supremacist, or a follower of Lord Voldemort. He had died trying to defeat Voldemort, trying to take away his power all by himself, an act of stupid, selfless bravery.
Sirius read the letter again, paying attention to every single word, imagining how Regulus would have sat hunched over his desk, his fingers smudged with ink as he kept secrets even in this letter bearing his truths.
Sirius had just started reading the letter for a fourth time, when a noise startled him back into reality.
“Black!” a shout reached him from downstairs, closely followed by the portrait of his mother shouting as well, slurs and hateful complaints that so clearly contradicted Regulus’ opinion of their parents. Loyal and naive, until the very end.
“Black!” the shout came again, and this time Sirius recognised Snape’s voice.
Hurriedly he pushed the letter and documents back into the right compartment, the stack of letters and photographs into the left one, and closed them both, pushing the drawers hiding the latch back into its place. Just in case, he spoke a Locking Charm over the door when he left the room.
“For Merlin’s sake, Black!” Snape shouted a third time, sounding impatient.
Sirius was irritated as he hurried down the stairs to the entrance hall. He needed more time with the secrets his brother had hidden. “What?” he snapped, ignoring his mother as he pulled the curtains in front of her painting shut again.
“I thought dogs were supposed to be good at coming when called,” Snape sneered.
Sirius glared at him. “Is that all you wanted from me? To insult me in my own house?”
“No,” Snape drawled.
Sirius heard conversation coming from the kitchen. He hadn’t realised anyone else had come in in the last few hours. He stretched his neck and saw Tonks’ pink hair through the doorway, and Remus’ cane leaning against the wall next to it.
“The others are leaving to go to the ministry,” Snape continued, talking as if he was relishing the taste of the words on his tongue. “I must return to Hogwarts for important tasks. You have to stay here.”
“Okay?” Sirius said irritated. Nothing out of the ordinary, then.
“Your godson has broken into the Department of Mysteries in an attempt to save you from the Dark Lord, just as the Dark Lord had planned, I’m sure.”
“What?” shouted Sirius, all irritation suddenly gone in place of panic.
Snape’s reply was inaudible over the return of Walburga’s screams. Sirius’ emotions were all over the place, and this time it took him several tries to pull the curtains shut again.
“We need someone to be here to communicate with Dumbledore,” Snape drawled with overt glee at Sirius’ distress. “Be a good guard dog for the house for us, will you Black? Go back cower in your corner and be … useful.”
Sirius so badly wanted to punch that smirk of Snivellus’ face, but just then steps sounded behind him pulling his attention away from his nemesis of schooldays past to watch Remus, Tonks, Moody and Kingsley exit the kitchen, and when he turned back to Snape, he’d already left.
“I’m not staying here,” Sirius said immediately. “Harry is my godson. I am his guardian. I am responsible for him and you cannot stop me from coming along.”
“We need someone to inform Dumbledore of what happened,” Kingsley reasoned calmly.
Sirius had no patience for this. “Kreacher,” he barked, and immediately Kreacher appeared in front of him. “When Dumbledore gets here tell him what happened. Tell him Harry is at the Department of Mysteries and the five of us have gone to get him out. This is an order, you hear me?”
“Kreacher hears,” Kreacher croaked.
“There. Someone will tell Dumbledore,” huffed Sirius. “Now let’s go.” He could not bear standing around here any second longer. He’d already lost too many people in his life. He would not sit back while he lost another one. He was going to save Harry, and at this point he didn’t even care whether the others came with him or not. He was going to make sure his best friend’s son was alright, and if it was the last thing he did.
Getting into the Department of Mysteries should not have been as easy as it turned out to be, but Sirius had no time to dwell on that fact. When they entered the Death Room the fight had long ago started. Harry wasn’t the only one here, and as much as Sirius did not wish any of his friends to be in danger either, he was glad Harry had had their support, ensuring he stayed alive until now.
When Sirius made a grab for his wand his hand brushed something else inside his pocket.
Hamlet.
Amidst all the worry for Harry he had almost forgotten all that he had just learned about his baby brother. All that he had learned about Voldemort, information vital to the Order, to the well-being of the entire wizarding world. He’d have to tell them soon. As soon as he’d gotten Harry out of here and ensured he was doing alright.
He felt so much rage then. About the injustice of it all. The way both him and Regulus had been treated by the world, written off as just another member of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, obsessed with power and pure blood. He felt the hatred for Voldemort and his followers pumping through his veins as he watched one of them aim his wand at Harry, who had already had to endure so much suffering because of them. When he spoke his stunning spell the force of it catapulted the Death Eater several feet through the air.
He hated them all, hated them as he hated that house he’d been locked up in for half of his life. He hated how they had turned one of his best friends into a traitor. Hated how they had killed the most important person in his life, killed more friends than he could bear count. He hated what they did to him, all that they’d taken away from him. His brother, his friends, his life– They would not be taking Harry, too.
When Bellatrix jumped in front of his wand he duelled her with all he felt. She was the embodiment of all that had ruined his life. She was Voldemort, she was his parents, she was him.
The book in his pocket pressed against his leg.
Revenge.
In the end Regulus had acted out of love and a feeling of righteousness. It felt oddly fitting that Sirius, now, was driven by anger and hatred. He knew that at its core this, too was nothing more than love. For Harry. For James and Lily. For Regulus.
I forgive you, Regulus, Sirius thought as he dodged another one of Bellatrix’s spells. I’m sorry I never got to tell you.
He felt reminded of his first life at Grimmauld Place. Of practising spells with Regulus during his first Christmas Holiday. It was the only time they’d ever done that. Regulus had tried so hard to mimic his brother’s wand movements, only making red sparks appear from the tip.
“Come on, you can do better than that!” Sirius yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous room.
More red sparks. Better than they’d been before, brighter as they hit him in the chest.
The book in his pocket pressed comfortingly against his leg.
It is alright. Sirius thought. I’m making things alright again.
Then he tipped backwards into nothingness.