3,156Chapter 55: Bad Memories
A/N: Bugger the schedule, it's Hermione's birthday. Let's have an extra chapter on the house.
Saturday, 5th August 1995.
Sirius glared at the solid black expanse of wood before him.
He had been dreading this moment for far too long, but it was high time that he made the plunge. The twisted silver serpent hanging on the surface seemed to be glaring at him, but that was the only thing doorlike about the blank wooden surface. There was no handle or keyhole and Sirius was left wondering just what modifications his demented mother had made to the place since he had run away over nineteen years ago.
Of course, Dorea had immediately welcomed him to live with them at the Manor. She had not questioned his decision for an instant. His birth mother, however… She had delighted in tormenting him once his allegiance became clear. Long before he had met the boy that would prove his refuge against the darkness of his own family.
Anyone who did not fully buy into the supremacist ideals of the Black family was a failure. And she had greatly enjoyed employing the family elf to try and teach Sirius that lesson.
Sirius sighed as he shook off the dark memories. He was here for a purpose, and dawdling at the door while he wallowed in bad memories would not achieve it.
He closed his eyes for a moment, centring himself as he reached out his right hand and grasped the knocker. As the only object on the door, he assumed that was how his mother had secured the property.
However, the moment his fingers brushed the metal, the snake came alive and sunk its silver fangs into his hand, on the wide expanse of skin between his thumb and forefinger.
"Ow, you bloody prick!" He yelped, as blood poured out of the wound but was immediately absorbed by the seemingly smirking snake.
As quickly as it had struck, the snake released Sirius and he stepped backwards as it returned to its former twisted shape, strumming the surface once as it fell limp again. Heavy mechanical whirring came from the other side of the door and for a moment, Sirius was worried.
His mother had delighted in calling him a blood traitor, and if the knocker had sampled his blood as seemed obvious it had…
A hefty click filled the air and the door fell silent at last.
"Alright there, Padfoot?" Remus asked, standing on the footpath in front of the house.
That was as far as Sirius had deemed safe for anyone else at present. He glanced over his shoulder at his school friend and simply nodded, pulling his wand with his left hand and tapping it against the punctured skin. The bleeding stopped immediately, but the thrumming pain remained.
Sirius cast several diagnostic spells over the former wound, checking to see if his dear departed mother had left some form of nasty poison in the knocker, should he ever return to darken her doorstep again. But no matter what he cast, nothing came back.
Instead, he was left with the only other alternative. The knocker had sampled his blood to ensure he belonged to the Black bloodline. Sirius immediately shuddered as he considered what would happen if Harry were to grasp that nasty thing. While he did bear Black blood through his grandmother, the lad was twice as much muggle by blood thanks to Lily's parents. At least by the cuckoo logic that his twisted family used.
That knocker would need to come off before he would let anyone else touch the door.
Sirius switched his wand into his right hand and gingerly pressed the solid wooden door with his left, but it still did not budge. He groaned at it before he tapped it with his wand, willing the stupid thing to get out of his bloody way already, and finally, the door swung inwards.
The smell of decay that wafted out wasn't nearly as bad as what had seeped out of the Gaunt house, but it was still pretty bad. Sirius wondered for a moment if Kreacher had finally mounted himself on the wall with his fellows after Walburga had kicked the bucket.
It was near pitch black inside, despite the hour of the day. None of the lamps were lit, nor was there any source of natural light penetrating the building from behind, where the sun currently lay, casting the porch in shadow.
"Wait here," Sirius said to Remus, lighting his wand and taking his first step into the house in almost two decades.
"Hold up there, Padfoot. I'm here to help, not stand out front like a guard dog." Remus replied, stepping up towards him.
"Stop," Sirius growled, spinning to face his friend. "The damned door just bit me. Alright? I need to make sure that there is nothing else dangerous waiting for anyone that comes with me. It's been even longer since you were here than me after that bitch found out about your condition."
Remus's face darkened slightly. He was far better about his curse these days. Harry had made sure of that. While Remus still found somewhere safe to transform every month, Harry had ensured that the man had copious amounts of Wolfsbane Potion provided by some of the best brewers in England. Not that the brewers knew who they were stocking at any point. And ever since he had been set free, Sirius had joined the man once more.
Most months, it simply meant curling up on a rug in front of a fire as Padfoot and listening to his friend whining. Neither of them was all that keen to go out and about running without Prongs by their side. It just didn't feel right anymore. Plus, the risks involved that could leave Harry without them once more were all either needed to behave themselves throughout the night.
Add in Ted and Richard, and Remus had been unable to continue moping over his existence. It certainly helped that he had held the same job for the past almost seven years now. The longest he'd ever held a job. Also helped that his employer knew him personally. James would never fire him now that he had actually accepted the role.
The look in his eyes suggested that Remus still intended to argue matters. After all, he had stayed in this very house before, back when they were teenagers. A couple of short visits during the summer holidays back before Walburga had learned of Remus's curse and forbade him to ever set foot inside again. And if the house was taking blood samples, Sirius couldn't guarantee Remus would be safe inside yet. His family might have accounted for that, just in case the 'feral wolf' ever returned.
Sirius slowly indicated the knocker, still visible on the door that had now swung inside the creepy and stinking house.
"Fine!" Remus growled back, but he still took another step up onto the top step. "Go on, but I'm going to be watching the whole time from here. Got it?"
Sirius just nodded in acquiescence. He knew he wouldn't win any more than that with Remus right now.
He turned and stepped into the house, trying to ignore the rotting smell. The lamps did not ignite as he passed, so the only source of light remained the small ball of light at the tip of his wand. Sirius cautiously moved forward, carefully stepping over the detritus that had somehow gathered at the base of the stairs to the upper floors.
This space had once been a grand entry hall. Or as good of one as such a narrow property could hold. But the blasted elf had clearly let it go to pot. The family portraits that lined the walls glared down at Sirius as he passed, but none of them spoke as he moved deeper into the house. Simply keeping themselves resigned to scowling at the family disappointment.
Before Sirius passed the stairs, heading towards the other stairs down to the kitchen at the back of the level, he heard a deep gasp from his left. He swung to the side, bringing his wand up as he moved only to pause as he caught sight of something he'd hoped to never see again.
Walburga Black glared down at him from an enormous portrait that almost filled the wall from floor to ceiling. It had clearly been painted sometime after Sirius had left the home, as his mother looked far older than he recalled when he had stormed out that night. Yet the crazed look in her eyes had not changed one bit.
"YOU!" She finally screeched. "TRAITOR! STAIN OF DISHONOUR! SHAME OF…"
"SHUT UP!" Sirius howled back and the woman within recoiled in shock at the words. Sirius was already panting heavily as he stared at the life-sized portrait of his vile birth mother glaring back at him. "You want to talk about shame? How about the shame of being beaten by your bloody elf for sorting into the wrong house? Or for the hatred you saw in the eyes of your family over your every achievement being the wrong sort? For having the wrong friends…"
"YOU BROUGHT FILTH INTO THIS HOUSE!" Walburga snarled back. "BEFOULED THE HOUSE OF MY FATHERS!"
"You already befouled the house with your disgusting views! You hateful bitch!" Sirius roared back, decades of pent-up anger at the howling woman pouring forth freely at long last.
"KREACHER!" The painting screeched, the sound hurting Sirius's ears with its awfully familiar tone. It was the sound he would always hear when he had displeased Walburga by being a decent human being once again. "KREACHER!" The howls echoed in the halls, but nothing happened in response.
"Seems like he isn't coming," Sirius smirked in return. "You'll have to deal with this mess yourself for a change, you miserable old harridan."
Walburga glared at him for a moment before she simply started screaming at the top of her lungs. The sound pierced his entire form and Sirius brought up his wand defensively. He whipped it at the painting, casting a powerful silencing charm at the canvas but was pulled up short when it didn't diminish the sound in the slightest. If anything, the horrid screeching sound grew louder.
"Silencio!" He said, pronouncing the incantation clearly and ensuring he used the proper movement that Flitwick had shown them all those years ago. But still, the spell had no effect.
And a trait of portraits showed itself in the worst possible way. While they mimicked many of the mannerisms of real humans as they hung in place, the subjects in paintings weren't actually subject to many of the flaws of humanity. Walburga did not have to breathe in order to make a sound. Which meant the scream simply continued unbroken.
"SHUT UP!" He yelled at her, but her lips simply curled up in a horrid smirk and the sound continued.
"REMUS! GET IN HERE!" He shouted towards the doorway, hoping his friend could hear.
He shook his head in relief as the sound cut off as Remus stepped up beside him, wand drawn as well. Sirius assumed that his friend had managed to silence the painting in some way he had forgotten. But his relief was short-lived.
"DISEASED HALF-BREED! YOU SULLY THE BEAUTY OF THE HOUSE OF BLACK! FREAKS! FILTH! SCUM! BEGONE!"
"Oh, for fuck's sake! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UUUUP!" Sirius roared at the painting, having no effect as Walburga simply continued an unending tirade of insults at the pair of them, occasionally calling for the elf that had helped make Sirius's childhood so miserable.
He didn't know if it was dead, or simply staying away from him now he was master of the family. But he was glad for its absence. Thinking was hard enough given the screeching voice coming from the bloody painting.
"That's it!" He said, pushing Remus down the hall and moving aside himself, bringing his wand up once more. "Incendio!"
The red spell flashed across the surface of the oil paint, but it did not catch. It didn't even leave a scorch mark across the surface. But it did succeed in angering Walburga further. Her face reddened and she resumed just screaming at him, occasionally breaking only to call for Kreacher once again.
Sirius covered his ears with his hands as he tried to think of some way to silence the foul woman. Thankfully, the protections on the house meant that her screeching would not summon any of the neighbours to investigate, but it was seriously beginning to hurt his brain being so close to the noise.
Remus stepped over to the frame and cast several spells at the painting. Some at the canvas and others at the wall behind it. Nothing seemed to silence the harridan within, nor did the painting shift in any way at all.
Giving up after a few minutes of trying, Remus moved over to Sirius and pushed him further down the hall, the two retreating into the even worse-smelling dining room behind the horrid painting. Remus slammed the door behind them, but it only quieted the noise a little.
"It's held in place with a permanent sticking charm," Remus informed him.
Sirius scowled as he realised what that meant. They would not be able to shift the painting. And it was in the only entrance to the building. Even if he opened the house's wards enough to allow apparating or floo access, both of those would still be restricted to the room in which she was perched. No one could come or go without her seeing and kicking up a stink.
He growled to himself as he cast his eyes around the room, hoping to find something he could use to shut her up for good. Obviously, Walburga had ensured that the painting was protected against magical attack, so they couldn't remove it that way.
He paused as his eyes landed on the windows opposite the door. An old memory pushing its way to the surface and giving him a simple idea.
"Give me a hand with this." He said, stepping around the rotting wooden table and sliding the moth-eaten velvet curtains to the side.
Remus followed him over but clearly had no idea what he intended.
Sirius pointed to the rail at the top of the window. "Pop the latch on that side and help me carry it."
He flicked his wand at the piece of metal holding the curtain rod to the wall on his side and it came away immediately. Remus was slow enough in copying him that Sirius was easily able to catch the railing as it came down from its perch.
"Come on," Sirius said, dashing back into the hall, wincing as he swung the door open again and was hit with the full force of Walburga's howling.
"BLOOD TRAITOR! KREACHER! FILTHY CREATURES! ABOMINATIONS!" She continued as Sirius stepped to the left of the painting and passed the far end of the rod to Remus.
Unable to speak over the screaming woman between them, Sirius just pointed above the portrait and lifted his end of the curtains up and over the life-sized painting. Thankfully, the long curtains were enough to reach the bottom of the painting once he was holding it in place and with another wave of his wand Sirius secured it above the golden frame.
Remus copied his action on the far side, still oddly confused at his actions before Sirius took a step back and stared up at Walburga with a smirk that seemed to finally halt her screeching.
"Fuck you, bitch." He said simply before he wrenched the curtains closed.
As the fabric came together, Walburga began screaming again, but the moment the two curtains came together, all sound from beyond them ceased entirely.
Remus simply stared at them in surprise, but Sirius was too busy enjoying the silence again to explain it just yet.
"How?" Remus asked after several long and blissful moments of quiet.
Sirius leaned against the wall and looked up at his friend. "The Blacks didn't want the muggle neighbours hearing the screams as they had their fun now, did they? So all of the curtains in the house have been woven full of silencing runes. Whatever is on the other side of these curtains cannot be heard and cannot hear us. Mostly." He added, switching to a whisper to finish. "Let's keep the noise to a minimum, just in case."
"I had sort of forgotten why you ran away from this awful place," Remus whispered back, glancing at the now quiet curtained painting.
Hopefully, after a few hours of not being able to see him anymore, Walburga would shut up and drift off to sleep. If not, Sirius would just need to find a way to tie the bloody curtains shut for good.
Casting his eyes over the still dark but now silent house, Sirius decided it was probably for the best to leave the handful of rooms down here until later. That way, if Walburga arced up again, they could simply get the hell out of the house. He pointed upwards, knowing that now Remus was inside, he would not easily go back out and wait by the door.
Remus nodded, and holding their wands in front of them, the two Marauders headed up the stairs. They had to be cautious as there were many dark and dusty items on the steps. Wherever Kreacher was, he had not been doing his job around here for a good long while. The house was filthy, except for Walburga's frame, everything they passed was covered in grime and cobwebs.
The wallpaper was peeling off the walls between the many portraits. Most of which Sirius avoided looking at. Just knowing the contents of some of them was enough to turn his stomach from the memory alone. Be it action or individual.
Stepping up onto the first floor, Sirius ignored the doors behind him as they were just a spare bedroom and the floor's bathroom. Nothing they needed would be found within those. The doorway to the right led into the drawing room. Sirius gently opened the door and peeked inside.
There was a little more light in here, as the curtains had been left open, allowing a tiny amount of natural light to penetrate the gloom. The peeling olive green walls were covered in a familiar dirty tapestry rather than portraits here. One he would sooner not spend any time investigating right now. It had been chosen both as a record-keeping device and to keep the noise of unwanted chatter of the paintings to a minimum compared to out in the halls where they would normally happily chew your ear off if you let them.
The far wall held a small fireplace and large cabinets full of dusty trinkets. There were a few books tucked into the shelving, but Sirius could see the titles from here and he was fairly certain that none were the books he was here searching for.
Closing it once more, he turned to see that Remus had been quietly stunning each of the smaller portraits as they moved along. He considered that was probably a good idea, as his family certainly would have had other frames for that lot to bugger off into.
They were here because of the increased number of attacks being carried out by the enemy. It would not do for one of his nasty dead relatives to bugger off to their other frames and rat them out. Not that he believed many were left who could gain entry to the home regardless. Although, thinking back to the day a few years earlier when he had been made Head of the Black family, there were still enough to make it worth the effort to cover their presence.
Sirius began to follow Remus's lead as he zapped the half dozen portraits he passed on his way to the next set of stairs. Unless the crazed bitch had entirely remodelled, the second floor was most likely where they would find what they were looking for.
As he crested the stairs to the floor, Sirius saw that the door to the library, which sat directly above the drawing room, was already open.
He indicated that Remus should be cautious and he stepped up to the doorway. Sirius paused for a moment before he swung across the doorway, twirling on the spot as he moved and allowing him to see into the interior of the room without posing a static target for anyone inside to hit. While allowing him to sweep his own wand across the entire room.
He swore at what he saw inside.
"What?" Remus asked, stepping up to the other side of the doorway that Sirius had just vacated.
Sirius relaxed his taut stance and turned back into the doorway. Inside, the room was utter chaos. Someone had clearly knocked just about every single book off of their shelves and onto the floor. The Blacks had never had a decent organisational system for their library to start with, but this would mean the search would take days.
"Someone made a bloody mess." Sirius groaned, stepping inside at last, careful not to step on any of the myriad books.
"Looks like we might need to be here longer than you thought," Remus noted, turning into the room himself.
Sirius sighed heavily to himself as he took in the sheer number of books they would need to sort.
"Then we better get started. Don't touch any of them. Just use magic where you can. Some of these books bite." Sirius noted, rubbing his left wrist at the memory of one such incident in his youth. "Or worse."
This was going to take ages.
ϟ
Voldemort continued staring out of the window over Yaxley's perfectly manicured yard.
His thoughts were swirling as they had been for hours, ever since he had returned from the most recent assault.
It had taken weeks, but his forces had finally acquired enough supplies for them to begin sending out full raids. This past weekend had been the first real attacks of his new reign, and he should be considering it a success. Of the sixteen attacks that had been carried out, only four could be considered anything but complete successes.
His disquiet lay in which ones had failed.
While he had secretly hoped that the foolish child would succeed, Voldemort had not actually expected it. Draco was a poor imitation of the useful pawn that his father had been. And thus, if the rumours were to be believed, he had apparently died at the hands of Potter.
Cementing the fate of the woman now lying dead in the centre of the room behind him as well. Exactly where she had fallen the day before when he had killed her, as Lord Voldemort had told the foolish boy he would. With their maid gone, no one had come in to remove the body since, so Narcissa remained in place, a look of resignation on her pale face. Even after the Dark Lord had so delighted in drawing out the moment of her death by torturing the failure of a woman first.
The Malfoy family were no more, their value as servants gone and their failures too great to leave unpunished. To do so would invite others to follow their example. And Lord Voldemort would brook no such division in his ranks. If the rumour proved untrue, and Draco had been taken captive instead, Lord Voldemort would dispatch the fool himself at the first opportunity. An example must be made. Failure was not to be tolerated.
The greater loss had been some of the new hands that had gone with the child and the supplies that had gone with them that had been difficult to acquire, to begin with. The entire force captured, bar those who had been cast away by the wards protecting the home. They were powerful enough that even Voldemort himself paused at the thought of testing their might. It would not do to be rash in such matters.
And so, the mudblood and her family still lived. Bellatrix had made sport of her portion of the mission. And had left a swathe of muggle bodies for the Ministry to clean up. But the rest of that effort had been a detriment to his efforts.
The second had been the attack on Bones.
Her leadership was almost admirable, if it were aimed anywhere but at foiling the Dark Lord's goals. So he had attended to that matter personally. The roving guard had been easily taken under their wing with the Imperius Curse, which allowed him to stand next to the fool guarding the door. A quick green flash of magic each had disposed of them and Voldemort himself had blasted their way inside without any warning being given to the occupant.
The battle had been brief, but he had felt such joy as he stood over Bones and summoned forth the end of her life. His grandfather's wand delighted in the thick feeling of the killing curse travelling down its length. Unlike the child's wand, which had rebelled against casting such potent magic.
Yet there, in the moment of his triumph, Bones had vanished with a quip he did not understand. The spell instead shattered some of the ancient brickwork behind her. That nuisance was still out there. Voldemort could only hope that the attack would give her pause until he could find a way to finish the job. While he had rushed to carry out his threat to murder the rest of the woman's family as well, they found only an empty home. Thus, he had ordered it ransacked and destroyed. They would take whatever was of value and then leave them no place to return. If they wished to run like cowards, then they would need to run forever from his mighty wrath. Yet it still counted as the third failure.
The last failure had again been his own. And that made it rankle more than anything.
His final assault attempt, only a few hours ago, had been on the other family who could have once posed a threat to him. An attempt to remind Potter of the Dark Lord's menace.
But try as he might, not even the Dark Lord Voldemort could find the Longbottom home to attack it. Some within his force could vouch for the fact of its existence, they had walked within the home in the past decade. And yet, try as he might, it remained concealed from him.
Whatever magic the Aurors and the mudblood had cast all those years ago worked. Voldemort was left seething at the idea that had the rat not come to him, the elder Potters were so well protected that they would still be alive. Perhaps, he could have avoided a decade as a wraith cast to the winds and finished his ascendancy then.
They had been so close to toppling the weakened Ministry at the time, but he had so feared the contents of the prophecy that Snape had brought to him, that the mighty Dark Lord had acted rashly.
He sighed and centred himself once more. Seething against things that had already happened would do him no good. It was impossible to change the past, even for wizards.
This weekend had proven the value of his new army. They were capable. He would send them out. Cautiously, of course. He cannot afford to continue losing numbers like he did in Crawley.
And while they ravaged the country, he would consider his options.
Perhaps it was time to find a way to hear all the words for himself.
ϟ
It was nearly nightfall when Sirius needed a break for the second time that day.
Sorting the books into piles of what to keep, what to trash and what to take with them when they left. Unfortunately, the third pile, the most important of the three, was decidedly lacking. Which was what had spurred him to check the upper few floors of the house as well.
Every step inside this mausoleum of degeneracy irked him. But he had found a surprise on the fourth floor when he opened the one door that bore his name.
Given his sudden and less-than-amicable departure from the house, Sirius had not expected to find this room so neat. In fact, it looked as if no one had set foot inside of it since the night he left.
His old bedroom was exactly as he had left it. It was surprisingly spacious, given some of the much smaller rooms lower down in the building and the narrow nature of townhouses such as these to begin with. Most of the room was still taken up by the large bed covered in scarlet Gryffindor bed sheets. A flash of colour amidst the sea of green and silver snakes throughout the rest of the house which made Sirius smile.
The walls were so heavily covered in pictures that it was barely possible to see the tatty wallpaper underneath. Sirius smiled even wider as he recalled using permanent sticking charms of his own on the pictures, so that his family couldn't take them down while he was off at school. And he had certainly enjoyed ensuring they were as provocative as possible.
Muggle motorcycles and Gryffindor paraphernalia made up a significant number of them, but the lion's share were the scantily clad muggle women. Those had truly aggravated the bitch downstairs. Sirius was particularly fond of local lady Janice Raymond. The large centrefold images from the December 1974 issue of a muggle magazine that took pride of place over the fireplace opposite the bed had been the source of several messes on the covers of said bed.
In fact, it had been an argument begun by that very picture that had spurred Sirius's departure that night so many years before.
Sirius looked up into the woman's sultry blue eyes under the sleek strands of blonde hair and nodded his thanks to her. He truly owed her so much.
He refocused away from the walls, noticing that there were dozens of small framed images as well. While those hung all over the walls were all professional in nature, taken from magazines or posters purchased in the few outings into the muggle world, these smaller pictures were all candid. A group of friends enjoying their time at Hogwarts.
Sirius had not been prepared to see so many smiling examples of himself and James staring up at him through the layer of dust. When he had run, it had been from the drawing room downstairs where he and Walburga had ended up after she stormed from his room to find Kreacher. A rarity in and of itself.
But that had meant that he had headed straight for the front door. Down that single set of stairs and out into the night with nothing on him but the clothes on his back and his wand tucked into his back pocket. Every other keepsake that he had owned at sixteen was left in this room at the time. And no one had moved any of it since.
Of course, Dorea had made sure he had plenty of fresh clothes once she welcomed him into the Potter home. And Alphard had provided him with the funds needed for anything else he wanted to purchase. Pissing his sister off so much that she had burned the man off of the tapestry in the drawing room. In those next few short years, Sirius had accumulated a few new keepsakes, but there weren't nearly so many photos.
Sirius reached out and picked up the nearest one, sitting on the bedside table. It had been one of his favourites, taken just after James had helped score a winning goal before their seeker had nabbed the Snitch in his fourth year. Without that goal, they would have drawn, and they needed the win to lock down the Cup that year.
He had rushed onto the pitch and hugged his mate fiercely. One of their classmates had taken the snap while neither of them was aware of their presence. And thus had captured a true moment of their friendship in bloom. Sirius was so much younger then, carefree and cheeky as a nude toddler.
The smiles on the faces in the picture turned to face him as he looked down. He was so young he hadn't even started to grow his now thick facial hair. Though James had allowed his sideburns to grow far longer down his face than looked remotely acceptable to Sirius now.
Sirius couldn't help the smile that grew across his face as he fell into the memory of those days at Hogwarts. It had been only two weeks before this that Sirius had finally finished his first successful transformation into Padfoot and immediately leapt onto James's bed and licked his best mate's face, waking him in the middle of the night.
Today was almost the twentieth anniversary of Prongs's first appearance as well. Woken by his mirror burning and vibrating on the nightstand, Sirius had wasted no time in rushing to the Manor to see his friend's achievement. The stag and the hound had played long into the night dancing through the gardens and trees around the manor that night. And so very many after as well.
It had taken all of Sirius's limited patience to wait until that Christmas before the three of them had revealed their achievement to Moony and taken their first trip out on the full moon. It had been quite the gift for their usually melancholy mate to receive. Though he had needed some corralling that night. And many after as well.
Looking back, Sirius could see how incredibly stupid they were, taking a transformed werewolf out around people. But back then it had seemed the greatest idea in the world.
Turns out that most of Sirius's great ideas turned to crap.
Despite the continuing smiles from the photograph, Sirius's mind turned as he recalled that it would be only six and a half years before the boy beside his youthful self would be dead thanks to the idea of the shaggy idiot in this picture.
Changing Secret Keepers had been Sirius's idea. As had been picking Pettigrew as the replacement. All of Lily's carefully laid plans were undone by his stupid idea of a joke. Letting amusement at the idea of Peter hiding right under the Death Eaters' noses put his chosen family at risk. A risk that Riddle had capitalised on at the first opportunity. Because the rat bastard was already in their camp.
"Can't leave you alone for five minutes, can I?" Remus said from only a metre away, causing Sirius to jump back out of his morose dwelling.
He looked up at his friend, noting the age in the young man's face that matched his own after their mutual ordeals over the past twenty years. The lycanthropy aged Moony almost as much as Sirius's time in the clink had affected him. Both looked quite a bit older than their mid-thirties. Scars lined Remus's face as he looked down on Sirius, a glimpse at the pain they both concealed underneath.
"Stop moping," Remus said, taking the picture out of Sirius's hand and joining him on the bed.
He had no idea when he had moved to sit down on it, but it still felt as comfortable as ever. The one small measure of comfort he ever felt in this miserable house.
"I see they never redecorated," Remus noted, looking around at the walls with a smile. "Some of the best nights of my teen years were in this room."
Sirius could not stop the instinctive retort that followed. "None of mine were within these walls."
He immediately felt bad at the suggestion he had never liked the few times that Remus had stayed the night. The few decent moments of his father's life had been whenever he had cast a long-lasting cushioning charm on the nearby rug to serve as a place for Remus to sleep in the room under a spare blanket.
After all, they were purebloods. Chucking a mattress on the floor like a muggle would be beneath them.
Despite the slight against his presence, Remus just smiled at Sirius.
"I know you hated it here. But Dad always appreciated my visits. My childhood really took a toll on him. With how much they had to keep me locked up, lest my condition become common knowledge, any chance to get out of the house was a welcome day for me."
"I didn't mean it like that," Sirius replied, now feeling bad for upsetting his closest living friend.
"I know. I know that simply being here is hard for you. This house is a mausoleum of bad memories. I just want you to know that not every memory of this house is bad. You were a part of the best memories of my youth. Especially after mum died."
Sirius well remembered the melancholic state their friend had fallen into when Hope had died of influenza before they had even finished their schooling. Passing in their final year at the school to the common muggle ailment that did not even affect magical folk. As such, it had been far too late for her by the time the Lupins had realized what was wrong with the woman. She had a habit of playing down her own problems, given all that Remus and Lyall went through after Greyback's attack.
"And that wasn't your fault either, Sirius. Damn it, stop blaming yourself for everything bad that has ever happened." Remus said, glaring at him once more.
Remus tossed the picture past Sirius and onto the pillow, letting up a puff of the layer of dust that lay over everything in the room.
"You need to start listening to Harry, Robert and Richard. None of what happened was your fault. Mum was always a quiet woman who kept her worries to herself. Long before I met you. And I very well may not have made it even that long in life without all of you. I had given consideration to ending things a couple of times before you lot showed up that night. Padfoot literally saved my life, Sirius. You have done good things in this world you damned muppet. So cheer up a little bit, would you?"
Sirius was stunned at his friend's words. While his sessions with Robert had often covered his own failings and feelings, Remus only ever chimed in to try and raise his spirits or stop his spirals of blame. He never shared his own problems and worries. The sessions were about Sirius's mental state, not Remus's. So Sirius had never known that his friend had come so close to ending his life in his youth.
"If not for you and James, and as loath as I am to admit it now, but Peter as well… I wouldn't be here now Sirius. A werewolf's life is never easy, but you lot made it better than anything I could have hoped for. Your presence turned a curse into a nuisance. Try focusing on the good parts more often. Surely you have one good memory of this room?" Remus asked.
There was one moment that stood out amongst the others for Sirius, but like so many others, it was tainted by something as well. This room, this very bed on which they now sat, was where he had lost his virginity to a muggle girl he had met while morosely wandering the streets during the summer of his sixteenth year. Only a few weeks before he had departed for good.
It had been an incredible experience for Sirius, but he had brought a full-blooded muggle girl into the Black family home. Had his mother or father caught them, horrible things would have befallen the innocent girl. Far worse than his inexperienced teenage fumbling. For nothing other than her parentage. She wasn't even a muggleborn. And Sirius had exposed her to that risk.
Remus clearly noticed his continuing spiral.
"Alright, that's it. Get up." Remus said while standing, dragging him upwards to his feet as well.
"What are you doing, Moony?" Sirius groaned.
"This is going to take us days. Clearly, we have spent too long here today. We're going back home and you're going to go play Quidditch with Harry or something to get your head out of whatever spiral you're in right now. Come on."
Sirius could think of no reason to resist. He wanted out of this mausoleum of pain regardless.
"Go on, down the stairs. Wait for me by the door." Remus said, shoving him towards the bedroom door before following quietly.
The other man paused for a moment, looking back into the bedroom before shutting the door once again and following. It did not take the pair long to repeat Sirius's path from his last visit to this miserable house of horrors.
Only this time, Sirius had to turn and look back inside as he stood on the porch. Remus used his wand to swing the large black door shut and Sirius finally engaged his brain again, bringing up his own and locking the door once again.
It was time to put the misery behind him and find joy again. And that always meant finding Harry.