Sirius Black and the Drapery of Doom

The room was full of boxes -- old wooden crates, battered trunks, most of them covered with cobwebs. Whatever Sirius had been expecting, it wasn't this.

She couldn't have ... she wouldn't have....

He walked over to the nearest box and lifted the cardboard flap tentatively. Inside were some fox fur stoles and a pair of snakeskin heels he was fairly sure Regulus would not have been caught dead in. He tried the one next to it -- moth-eaten old dresses, in appallingly hideous paisley patterns that he vaguely remembered seeing on his Auntie Elladora.

Anger mounting, Sirius checked a few more boxes and trunks at random -- finding a case full of shrunken heads and a huge stuffed manticore under a sheet, but nothing that might have belonged to Regulus. In fact, except for faded outlines on the peeling wallpaper where posters of Quidditch stars and rock bands and veela once hung, the room bore no signs of having ever been inhabited by the younger Black son. Just like the one across the hall had been purged of all traces of the elder Black son (as he had known it would be, even twenty years ago, when he thought he'd never see it again).

A funny ringing filled Sirius's ears. They had done a pretty thorough job cleaning the rest of the house, and had never come across any of Reggie's stuff. Which meant ... it had been thrown out....

He couldn't believe it -- she had no right --

Before he even realized what he was doing, Sirius was charging down the stairs, wand in hand, determined to blast down Mother's portrait even if he had to take the whole damn wall down with it. He was almost at the ground floor when a noise from upstairs -- a rather horrible noise, like a wounded hippogriff -- stopped him dead in his tracks.

Confused, Sirius gripped the banister and looked up. Half of him still wanted desperately to go downstairs and do to Mother's portrait what he should have done long ago, but the other half could hear the distress in the screechy braying that echoed through the stairwell....

Buckbeak?

The thought that the hippogriff might be hurt was enough for Sirius to make up his mind. He turned and hurried back up the stairs, reminding himself bitterly that Mother's portrait was unlikely to go anywhere in the meantime; he opened the door to her old room, frowning.

"Shh," he whispered. "What's got into you?"

Buckbeak was stretched out on the floor, flapping his great wings and turning his head wildly from side to side in obvious anguish. Sirius tried to hold his beady orange eye steady while clearing the hippogriff dung from Mother's bed with a wave of his wand.

"Keep still so I can figure out what's wrong," he said gently, edging around the animal to try and make out what had happened. Then he saw the problem -- one of Buckbeak's hind legs was sticking out at an odd angle. Looked like he'd fractured a bone.

"How in Godric's name did you manage to do that?" Sirius muttered, casting a quick Sedating Spell on the hippogriff and following it up with a local anesthetic on the injured leg. Buckbeak's frantic movements slowed then stopped, his head drooping slightly. Sirius stroked his feathers in a comforting way.

How was he going to fix this? They had never learned anything about broken bones in Care of Magical Creatures, as far as he could remember. After a moment's thought, he conjured up a splint and bandage to wrap Buckbeak's leg; then he dashed upstairs to the library, returning a few minutes later with a copy of the Do-It-Yourself Guide to Medical Magic.

Buckbeak had dozed off in the meantime, which at least meant he wasn't in too much pain. Sirius kicked a few rat skulls out of the way and flopped down on the floor, leaning his back on Buckbeak's flank, which was warm and sturdy.

He had grown very attached to this animal over the past two years, often the only company he'd had for months on end. They were outlaws, the both of them -- both innocent, and both forced to flee from the Ministry for their lives. Sometimes Sirius felt like the hippogriff was the only living creature who really understood him, as stupid as that may have sounded. Or the only one he could really stand to be around. At least hippogriffs never told you you were irresponsible or depressed....

Sirius flipped through the Do-It-Yourself Guide, looking for anything that might be of use for Buckbeak. But the image of Reg's room came floating back to his mind before long, and when it did a fresh wave of outrage nearly propelled him up and out the door to finish off his mother's portrait.

How dare she? he thought furiously, glaring at a diagram of a wizard whose nose had been switched with one of his ears.

She was the one who'd poisoned Reg -- all that, "we know you won't disappoint us like your good-for-nothing blood traitor of a brother," garbage. She'd really done a number on him those first two years Sirius had been at Hogwarts. Terrified, no doubt, of having both her sons wind up in Gryffindor. She lavished Reggie with her pathetic simulacrum of parental affection, which was even more disgusting than the cold indifference she'd displayed toward them both when they were younger. Sirius knew what real parental love looked like; he'd spent a fair bit of time at the Potters', and had seen through her act right away. But Reg just hadn't known any better, had refused to believe he was being manipulated....

Well, she'd gotten what she wanted. A proper son: one who went around with his friends tormenting defenseless Muggle children for sport, who graduated to massacring innocent families, simply for incurring the wrath of the Dark Lord. Well, maybe she hadn't wanted that last bit. Maybe Reg hadn't either. Nonetheless, there was no honor in being a deserter. Nothing for a mother to be proud of in her son running away from the fight, and getting swatted down like fly for it. In the end, Regulus had hardly been more of a credit to the Black name than Sirius himself. It probably shouldn't have been surprising that the house was cleared of his relics. A wonder he hadn't been blasted off the tapestry too.

Sirius's teeth squeaked, at which point he realized he'd been grinding them in anger. Then just outside the door a stair creaked, and he realized someone was softly calling his name.