Chapter Text
And my cheeks are growing tired
From turning red and faking smiles
Are we only biding time 'til I lose your attention?
And someone else lights up the room?
Sirius
“You can do better than that!” Sirius heard his aunt spit in anger. He stayed hidden behind the wardrobe but dared to peek.
Bellatrix was writhing in pain. The black mass that was her hair was covering her face. It always looked like Bella was hurting beyond what she could tolerate. He had stayed there for so long that his own scabbed knees had started to hurt. He wondered if all hurt felt the same.
“Say that you'll do better!" Druella roared with the wand in her hand so tight that Sirius thought he’ll see it break.
Sirius slapped his hands on his ears once again as Bella started screaming in pain. He had started hearing the same phrase from his aunt over and over. Do better. Keep the family name. Do better than your sister. Sirius knew it was far from encouragement.
If Dromeda was here, she would've put a stop to this. She would've been the first target, Sirius thought. But Sirius was a child and like all children, his hero had been the person who was kind to him, his cousin Andromeda. She was Bella’s older sister and therefore had kept Bella and Cissy safe from their parents' wrath. And often kept Sirius safe too. That was until Andromeda had had enough and eloped with her muggle born boyfriend. After which his family had had her blasted off of the tapestry. His aunt pretended she had only two daughters. Sirius had been punished more than once for mentioning her name. After her act of rebellion, the disciplinary methods had grown out of hand in The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.
A few more minutes passed and finally Druella stopped torturing her daughter. The moment she was out of the door, Sirius leapt to his feet. Wincing a bit from where his leg was wounded by his own mother for trying to steal apples from the pantry. He tried to slide out of the room as quickly as possible but he paused near the limpsy body of his cousin. He wouldn't have hesitated so much to help her if only Bella wasn't so terrifying when she wasn't helpless as now.
He had waited a little too long. Sirius saw Bella’s eyes snap open through her dark hair. The pain in her eyes quickly replaced itself with hatred when she saw who was peering down on her. There was blood oozing from her mouth. She looked monstrous. It was indeed a frightful sight for an eleven year old. Sirius stumbled backwards, steadied himself immediately and ran out the room and then upstairs as Bella’s maniacal laughter reverberated in the hallway. When he reached the landing, he ran in the opposite direction of his room and halted near the door.
“It's me," Sirius said before slowly opening the door.
He stepped inside and looked around. The room was empty but Sirius knew better. He walked to the bed, as quietly as it was possible with his bruised legs, and knelt down. He pulled the linen up and peeked into the darkness under the bed.
There she was. Laying in a fetal position. Hands clasped on her mouth to not utter a sound. Eyes so wide and face so wet that anyone would think Rigel Black was drowning in her own tears.
“Help me," she muffled through her hand still on her lips.
“I'm here," Sirius said and slipped under the bed himself. He wrapped his hand around her like gathering a bundle of clothes and held her tight. They stayed there a long time before Rigel’s crying turned into momentary hiccups.
“Why do they do that to her?" Rigel asked.
“She must've made some mistake," Sirius said but he wasn't sure if he was telling the truth. “They think we will learn if we're punished."
“I don't want to make any mistake. I… I don't want to be a mistake," Rigel said.
Sirius didn't know how to answer that. He often thought the same thing but Rigel always seemed smarter than him. She was younger but it felt like she knew and understood more about what was going on around them than he did.
"You can't be a mistake. You're the best sister I have.” Sirius said.
She leaned away from Sirius. “You should go back before mother finds you out of your room," she said.
There was a crease in Rigel's left eyebrow. Sirius could see something stirring in Rigel’s mind. He didn't know if he had said something wrong or if it was because of Bella. “You don't need to worry so much. Aunt Druella won't touch us. Mother would not like that. And mother would never do that," Sirius spluttered out quickly.
"Mother beats you all the time, Siri." Rigel said sadly.
“No that's different. She won't beat you. Not like they do to me. Not like they do with Bella,” Sirius said, secretly thankful that Walburga never used the Crutiatus curse on him or Rigel.
"But what if they do it when you're away?"
Sirius had no answer to that. He had spent many nights thinking about this. What would they do when Sirius was gone and there was no one to take a fall for Rigel? Would they punish her? Would they use Locomotor Mortis on her before beating her physically? Or would they use some other spell to harm her? Would they forget all of humanity and finally use the Cruciatus curse on her?
Sirius would not let it happen. He would die before he let anyone, even their family, lay a finger on his little sister. She was the most precious thing in the world.
Sirius turned to leave when she spoke again. “Please don't leave tomorrow."
“I will try," Sirius said smiling. It was a pathetic attempt at a request.
Sirius stepped towards her and wiped her face with his sleeve. He looked at her face. Same sharp features that the Black family had bestowed upon them. Same blue eyes. Hair curly but not as much as Bella’s. She looked just like him because she was like him. The same fear in her that came with the responsibility of being a Black.
Rigel was ten but had shown more magical abilities than Sirius ever had. His parents had started to hurl cutlery at him since he was five, expecting him to either stop those through his magic or at least transform it into something that wouldn't hurt. Nothing had worked.
When he was eight, his mother had started to wake him up in the middle of the night by pushing him off his bed in hopes of him doing something that would stop him from falling. But he was a disappointment through and through. It had only left his mother with the choice of throwing him off the stairs on his ninth birthday. That hadn't done anything either except breaking his legs. The Black family healer had mended them overnight. The next morning he opened his eyes to his mother sleeping in a chair beside his bed. When she woke up she said “I really thought that would make it work," and left.
Before Sirius showed his first ability, Rigel had already made water vanish from her cup when she didn't want to have tea, broken the glass windows of her room when she wasn't allowed to attend a particular family meeting, and set fire to one of the paintings in the stairwell when their great great grandfather had called her a good girl for obeying her parents. He wasn't jealous of Rigel but the rumors about him being a squib had started spreading among his extended family. He had assumed it would eventually spread among the Sacred Twenty Eight.
He was ten when he finally confided in Andromeda that he was scared of being a squib. They were having another noble family get togethers. She had clasped his shoulders with her hands and said, “There is nothing wrong with being different from your family. You have to be yourself, Sirius. And be yourself, fiercely. Be yourself, bravely. Feel everything about yourself that makes you, you. Never let them tell you how to feel.”
She must've been projecting her personal matters since she ran away within a week after the advice but it had been the right motivation for Sirius at the time. He had started thinking about it sitting in the corner when the party was going on around him. He concentrated on himself. On what he felt. What he felt about himself. And all he could find was anger. Whether the anger was for himself or for someone else, he did not know. But the anger was there, deep within his heart, rotting everything inside of him, holding the power to consume everything around him, including himself. The anger was what made him Sirius Black. He looked around him. At Bella, pouring wine down her throat. At Cissy, poised like a true Black. At Andromeda, who countless times endured torture from her parents, covering for her sisters who pretended to not know it. At Rigel, who was not a victim yet but that illusion could shatter at any given moment. At his parents, who were chatting up their acquaintances. The sight of such casualness when there was hatred around them was so maddening, it made Sirius go through the same emotion he always felt.
Sirius Black was angry. Always angry. Then he felt it. The deep rush from within. He felt it behind his neck crawling up his spine. On his fingertips. In his eyes as he closed them. And then it happened. The table at which he was sitting suddenly burst into flames. There were shrieks around the ballroom. And everyone hurried away except for Sirius who wasn't surprised because he had caused it. He had never done anything like it before but he had been expecting it.
He looked at his mother expectantly. A ‘well done’. An appreciative look. A taunt for burning her table. A slap across his face. Or something else to show she her love. Walburga stepped forward and raised her wand. Sirius flinched, dreading what was coming. But only heard ‘Aguamenti’ as water poured from the wand at Sirius’ scorching creation. “Clean it up," she said and turned away to usher her guests to banquets.
It took him a long time to clean everything. The soot mixed with water had created nasty stains on the floor and the wall. He could've asked Kreature but the wretched thing would have found a way to make everything worse for Sirius.
Later on that night Rigel had snuck out to him. “I hope you know she is happy," she said.
“Yeah, her display of affection made that very clear."
“Oh Siri, she was trying to protect you. If she had appreciated you, everyone would've known it was your first time. And you wouldn't have liked anyone calling you a late bloomer"
"But it was my first time. She isn't protecting me, she is protecting the family name.” Sirius Black was still angry.
"Oh come on Siri, at least we know now that you're not a sq-”
"I think you ought to be in bed!” Sirius snapped and Rigel stared at him with surprise for a moment before hurrying back to her room.
He had apologized to her soon. It was not long before his Hogwarts letter arrived. He was going to learn magic. He was going away.
The worst part was he felt happy that he was leaving. He would be away from his parents. Away from all those years of listening to talks of family status and responsibility. All the scars in the name of discipline on his body that faded to blend like they were a part of his skin. He never wanted to be a part of it. He never wanted to be part of his family. He wished to break the tradition. Like Andromeda. The Black sheep of the Blacks.
The Black siblings were housebound most of their lives. The family meetings for all of his eleven years were held in the ancient house leaving little chance for them to venture outside. Sometimes, Sirius used to look out of his room's window upon a muggle park outside his house. Of course, the muggle children would see nothing if they stared back. Sirius doubted if they even wanted to look inside the gloomy building when they had so much fun outside. Secretly, he was angry at them, envied them. And even deep down, he wanted to play with them.
A month ago, he went to Diagon Alley for the first time. Walburga had strictly warned him to stay right beside her and he did. If it were up to Sirius, he would've wandered into every shop on every street. The brooms decorated in the glass windows, the candy shops with colorful sweets, and the joke shop that intrigued Sirius the most.
However, Walburga had selected shops to visit. Although they were not as amusing as the others, Sirius took in every moment just the same. Madam Malkin took his measurements for the Hogwarts uniforms and he noted he had grown a full three inches since the last time their house seamstress had stitched his clothes. There were a lot of books in the bookshop that he wanted to skim through but his mother handed the textbook lists to one of the workers and the set was given to him within five minutes.
What interested Sirius the most was when he chose his wand. His own wand. Or as the old Ollivander had told him, “the wand chooses the wizard, Mr. Black.” He was proud of wielding his twelve inch Blackthorn with Hippogriff Talon for its core until his mother said that they would've gotten a better match at Gregorovitch’s shop.
Andromeda had told him about Diagon Alley but he hadn't expected it to be this joyous. When he had visited it himself, he wanted to tell Rigel all about it in details that Dromeda had lacked. He had snuck out of his room in the night to Rigel’s when their house elf, Kreature had snitched on him and he was starved the next day as punishment.
Remembering that day, Sirius now opened the door quietly and crept out of Rigel's room. He shut it and turned to walk over to his room when the person he dreaded the most was standing right in front of him. Walburga Black stood in the hallway glaring at him.