The Other Side: Thick and Thin (Book 1)

Author's Notes: I sincerely apologize for the unreasonable delay. I've had some personal real-life issues, most notably my final semester at school and a new baby in my life, which took me over for a while. I'm just now getting back in the swing of writing fanfiction to relieve my stress.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Summer at Grimmauld Place was decidedly awkward. It was even more awkward than Sirius's first Christmas back home after his sorting, although in an entirely different way. The whole family felt the weight of Andromeda's actions.

Grandfather Arcturus had become particularly surly in his criticisms of his daughter-in-law, because without her presence in their immediate family the taint of Andy's actions wouldn't have stretched quite so far. They would only be distant cousins otherwise, but unfortunately, as it stood, Walburga was Andromeda's aunt. He had become very fond of reminding Orion that his side of the family was pristine, whereas he had warned his son against marrying the daughter of a man who already had a Squib brother and a catamite son--and now a Mudblood-fucking granddaughter!

"Come now, Father," his son had replied with a small grin that did little to hide his annoyance. "Certainly Alphard is a sodomite, but he's got too much chest hair to qualify as a catamite."

Grandfather's scowl had been so impressive and Sirius's confusion so great that he'd refrained from asking for clarification just then, but later he'd looked up those words in the library. It was unclear whether his feeling had been more one of embarrassment or curiosity after he learned the truth, but then again his curiosity and the mental list of questions he had for his homosexual uncle had been so embarrassing and foreign to him that he had quickly done his best to shove the entire subject as far into the back of his mind as he could. Although he was sure he'd still been blushing at dinner that night.

Of course, eventually Sirius had taken great offense to his grandfather's proclamations about Walburga's side of the family, more for their poor reflection on himself than for any great worry about his mother's feelings.

"The blood will always out," declared Arcturus as the rest of the family picked listlessly at their desserts one evening. "My father always maintained that my uncle marrying that Bulstrode woman would be the downfall of his brother's line. The Bulstrodes already had two squibs and at least one blood traitor in recent history when Uncle Cygnus married her, and look what she's introduced into his line: a Squib, a homosexual, and a Mudblood's slut."

"And a Gryffindor." Sirius had been seething in his seat throughout dinner, and he found himself speaking now with a reckless abandon born of several days of pent up thoughts.

Everybody turned to look at him all at once, his father and brother with a sort of panicked shock he had last seen that dreadful Christmas when Regulus had called him a blood traitor, and his mother with wide eyes in her gray face.

Grandfather Arcturus blinked at him owlishly for a moment before he finally managed to ask, "What?"

"Me, Grandfather," informed Sirius, drawing himself up to his full height and producing his best mask of aristocratic hauteur. "Your daughter-in-law's blood runs through your grandchildren, or hadn't you thought of that?"

"Sirius, you know that I never meant--"

But his grandson had been stewing on these thoughts for too long now to want to hear whatever patchwork explanation his grandfather was able to produce in the heat of the moment. "I suppose you think that your blood will out in me, not my mother's, although I'm not sure how you reconcile my being in Gryffindor--"

"Now, Sirius, just calm down--"

"--so you must actually be insulting me when you insult my mother."

"--and we'll talk about this like rational people."

"Fuck you."

Sirius's declaration was met with absolute silence from around the table, even from the target of his words. Arcturus was staring at him as if he'd never seen him before, but Sirius suspected it was more that no one had ever dared to speak to him that way before. Well, thought Sirius, at least Rabastan, from whom he'd learned a good deal of his swear words, would be proud of him. Maybe when his grandfather kicked him out of Grimmauld Place, his friend could sneak him in to stay at the Lestrange manor and keep him fed on leftovers he managed to smuggle away from family meals. Like a blood traitor Gryffindor puppy.

Drawing himself up as much as possible, Sirius stalked out of the dining room with as much dignity as he could muster. He only started running after he'd attained the second landing and was sure that nobody could hear him.

Nobody followed him, and over the next several days no one mentioned what had happened. His grandfather avoided him like the plague, even going so far as to fail to call him for their usual lessons in the afternoons. Sirius didn't mind, however, partly because he was secretly terrified of facing the man again but mostly because that left him more time to devote to his renewed studies in the art of dueling.

It was after one of his morning sessions with Dolohov when he came across Regulus moping in the library. It occurred to Sirius only then that his little brother had probably been hit hardest by their cousin's actions, because he had often looked on Andy the same way Sirius had looked on Belley. Although Sirius's wounded pride warred viciously with his brotherly affection, after several seconds of internal struggle he reluctantly decided that their fights over the past couple of years shouldn't stop him from being a big brother when it really mattered. Even if Regulus had been a less than ideal little brother.

He approached the sofa with caution, sinking down into the cushions on the far side only after Regulus made no move to keep him away.

"Hey," he greeted inelegantly. "What are you doing in here? Don't you have lessons until lunch?"

Regulus shrugged and kept his eyes on the book in his lap, although Sirius could see that his eyes weren't moving over the page. "Grandfather hasn't called for me since the morning after you--er, after your... outburst. He kept staring at me as if he couldn't stand to look at me, then he dismissed me and I haven't had a lesson since."

Sirius sucked in a breath of surprise. "Oh... I had thought it was only me. I'm... I'm sorry."

"You are?" Regulus finally turned his head to stare at his brother, his dark eyes--their mother's eyes--piercing Sirius like shards of ice.

"Yeah, of course. I shouldn't have lost my temper, or at least not that way. I never meant for it to affect you, too."

They sat in companionable silence for several minutes, which was closer than they'd been with one another since the year before Sirius left for Hogwarts. He took the opportunity to study his brother, finding that Regulus had grown out of the short, chubby stage that had plagued him all throughout his young childhood. He looked now like someone had stretched him out, all of his excess baby fat transforming into long, lanky limbs and knobby joints. Regulus's features weren't as strong as Sirius's. His cheeks were a bit more rounded, his nose not quite as defined... but they were undeniably brothers.

Finally, Regulus ventured, "Do you think it's true that we have weak blood?"

"Nah," replied Sirius, "I'm brilliant and very talented at magic, not to mention athletic and good looking." This was said matter-of-factly, as if he were discussing the merits of one type of broom polish over another. "I'm sure we're similar."

The younger of the pair considered the elder's words quite seriously for a moment, as if he were contemplating some bit of sage ancient wisdom, then he nodded in acceptance of its truth. It would have perhaps seemed like the height of vanity and arrogance if anybody else had heard them, but that fact seemed happily absent from either of their minds.

After a few minutes, and in a smaller voice, Regulus asked, "But do you think that I'll, you know...?"

"Be sorted somewhere other than Slytherin?" filled in his brother. When a flush crept up on Regulus's face, he knew that he'd guessed correctly. "Look, Reg, it doesn't matter, all right? You'll still be the same person and have the same talents no matter where you end up."

"Well, yes, but I've always wanted--"

"To be in Slytherin." Sirius sighed and cracked his neck as if that would relieve his sudden tension. "I know, trust me."

And so it transpired that several days later it occurred to Sirius to invite his brother along when he met a group of his friends in Diagon Alley. "They're all Slytherins except one, and I figured you'd like to meet them before you get to school," he explained stiffly. "But you should know that we absolutely do not tell each other's secrets to the adults. No matter how much you might want to get me into trouble, if you tattle your reputation will be ruined."

If the way his mouth hung open was any indication, Regulus was undoubtedly shocked when his brother greeted the pretty young witch who was waiting for them with a vigorous kiss, his tongue finding a much better occupation than actually talking to her.

The rest of their group laughed at his reaction, and it was Will Avery who finally said, "I hope you didn't expect to actually spend any quality time with your brother. The rest of us have accepted that he rarely comes up for air."

"It seems to run in the family," added Nigel Mulciber. His words hung in the air for a couple of terrible seconds when both Sirius and Regulus thought that he was referring to Andromeda, but then he continued, "Malfoy has all the luck."

Janice finally pulled away with a bashful giggle, and Sirius turned his eyes towards his friends. Will was holding hands with a witch of his own, a quiet Slytherin girl who seemed unable to decide between watching Sirius and Janice avidly or tearing her eyes away in embarrassment. Nigel was standing next to a small boy with freckles and straw-colored hair styled carefully into place as if he were planning on meeting the Minister himself that afternoon.

"This is my cousin, Bartemius Crouch," supplied Mulciber with a little wave of his hand in the boy's general direction.

"Barty," the boy immediately corrected.

Regulus took to Barty immediately, as they were both about to enter their first year at Hogwarts and wanted to be Slytherins. Of course, Sirius knew that his brother probably would not have been nearly so nice if the boy's last name hadn't been Crouch, which was one of the names of the twenty-eight remaining families that were truly pure-blooded. He supposed that Mulciber, whose family was not among that number, must be the product of what the Crouch family considered a disadvantageous marriage. All in all, Sirius was rather glad that his brother had someone his own age to hang out with, as he'd been somewhat regretting saying he could tag along.

"He's so cute!" exclaimed Janice as the group was walking towards Fortescue's. She was looking at the pair of younger boys as if she were observing a pair of toddlers and not boys who were only a couple of years younger than she was. "He's not as handsome as you are, of course--I noticed you from that first boat ride together, you know. Oh, how I wish we could take the boats again. It would be so romantic!--but he's very cute."

Sirius, who was used to her girlish outbursts by now, merely smiled and refrained from rolling his eyes. "Thanks, Jan."

"It's so nice walking together like this," she chattered on. "I'm so glad we'll be allowed to visit Hogsmeade this year. You will take me, won't you?"

"Course, love," replied Sirius dutifully, if a bit off-handedly since he was distracted by the display in the Quality Quidditch Supplies window.

She made a sort of mewling sound, as if she had choked on a squeal, and he turned to look at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Are you okay?"

She offered him a brilliant smile and clung even tighter to his arm. "Oh, yes. I'm just perfect."

"Okay then," he said quizzically, not really understanding her at all. Not that he ever understood her particularly well. With a little shrug to himself, he rushed her along to catch up with the rest of the group.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few weeks after the Incident--the one at the dinner table, not The Incident with Andromeda, which deserved at least two capital letters--Sirius's parents thought it would be best if he went away for a few days. The tension at Grimmauld Place was getting a bit too thick in the air to handle, but Orion was sure that he could talk his father down if he had a few days to work on him without Sirius constantly underfoot. Staying outside of the family was out of the question, because that would require some explanation for why he wanted to invite himself over. Likewise, staying with Uncle Cygnus and Aunt Druella was out of the question, because they'd recently had an unwed daughter become pregnant and elope with a Mudblood while under their roof. Sirius put his foot down and flatly refused to stay with Grandfather Pollux and Grandmother Irma.

Therefore he found himself stumbling out of the fireplace and straight into Rodolphus Lestrange's arms.

"I don't know what you and my brother get up to, but I despise hugging," the man informed him matter-of-factly. If it hadn't been for the humor in his eyes as he set Sirius onto his own feet, Sirius would have thought that he was being entirely serious.

"Really? Nobody must have told Bellatrix that," Sirius shot back, recalling the many times he'd had to sit uncomfortably by while they pawed at each other.

Rodolphus laughed, a sound that was similar to his brother's laugh but not quite as naturally full of malicious promise. "She's an exception. One day you'll understand."

"Oh, I understand," replied Sirius, thinking of how nice it felt to kiss Janice.

A vaguely worried look passed over Rodolphus's face, but before he had time to speak or Sirius had time to ask about it, his wife rushed into the room with her long hair wild around her shoulders.

"Siri!" she squealed excitedly, enfolding him in her embrace. "Rodolphus, why didn't you tell me immediately that he was here?"

Her husband shrugged entirely unapologetically. "I wanted to give him a moment of peace before you got ahold of him. Sorry, Sirius, but she's been like this since she learned you were coming."

The look Bellatrix shot him was full of promised retribution, but from the man's responding look Sirius could only conclude that he was looking forward to it. Sirius shuddered. Gross.

The young Lestrange couple lived in what Bellatrix had told him was a cottage on the southeast coast, but calling it a cottage was a bit like calling the ocean he could see beyond the windows a lake. Sirius saw a smallish library before he climbed the staircase, and he counted four bedrooms on the way to his own.

As soon as they'd closed the door behind them, Bellatrix tugged Sirius down to sit next to her on his bed. "Now, how are you?"

Sirius shrugged. "Fine. I was really more interested in asking you about your sister." When Bellatrix's face began to harden with disapproval and distaste, he clarified, "Narcissa."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, eyeing him curiously now. "She's taking it much harder than I had expected, now that you mention it. They were never close."

Sirius really had not wanted to bring it up with Bellatrix--or with anyone at all, ever. However, he had spent the weeks since finding out about Andromeda considering the problem of Narcissa and Malfoy, and he didn't really see how he could help at all if he kept it all to himself. He had considered asking his father, but that idea had been almost immediately rejected since he hadn't thought the adults in their family would like to know that more than one daughter had been... busy. He had thought about asking Rabastan, but that option was reluctantly rejected as Sirius had to acknowledge that he wasn't sure the older boy wouldn't take Lucius's side if it came down to it. That left him with Bellatrix.

"She, erm... told me some things," he began uncomfortably. "You know, right after we'd found out, when she was still crying about it. I... um... Well, you see, she's worried that Malfoy won't marry her."

"That's ridiculous!" exclaimed her sister immediately. "The Malfoys aren't so pristine that they can judge us!"

Sirius grimaced. "Yes... But she's worried he thinks she's the same as Andromeda because she, you know..."

Bellatrix glared at him, although he knew it wasn't directed strictly at him. "Know what?"

It was painful, truly it was, but Sirius had no choice except to spell it out. "Merlin's balls, Bellatrix! She shagged him, okay? Merlin..."

"Oh," she said flatly. Then, "Oh, Cissy..."

They sat in uncomfortable silence for several minutes, Bellatrix seemingly deep in thought and Sirius looking anywhere but at her in his embarrassment. Although he was getting quite used to talking about sex in front of his male friends, he had never imagined discussing any such thing in front of girls, especially not ones to whom he was related. He examined the elaborate embroidery that ran across the duvet, then the canopy. Next he painstakingly traced the carvings on the armoire with his eyes.

Finally, Bellatrix asked, "Why didn't she tell me?"

He was almost certain that she was just thinking aloud and didn't expect him to have any sort of answer. Nonetheless he scooted closer and wrapped his arm around her thin shoulders. "I'm sure she's just embarrassed, Belley. You know how everybody would react if they knew. She only told me because she was beside herself and not thinking clearly."

"Still, I could have helped her, made sure she knows how to be safe, so she doesn't end up like her. She might trust Malfoy to take care of her, but I'd feel better if she knew how to--"

"No, no, no," insisted Sirius, cutting her off with an emphatic shake of his head. "I do not want to know anything about that kind of... stuff. I already know too much."

He could feel her giggle against his shoulder, where she'd rested her head, but she obliged him and stopped thinking aloud about Narcissa's sex life.

"Do you think Rodolphus can do something about Malfoy?" asked Sirius, turning the conversation back to what he thought was the important thing. "I think he really loves Cissy, but she might be right about how Mr. Malfoy will react to... the situation."

Bellatrix nodded against his shoulder. "Mr. Malfoy's as old-fashioned as they come, but I don't think Lucius will cave in to him, especially not if he has the support of his friends. What can Mr. Malfoy really do against his only son, his only child?" She let out a frustrated sigh. "For all the progress we've made, I can't believe that we women are still subject to these ridiculous notions. You won't grow up to be like those men, will you, Siri?"

Sirius agreed that he would not. After all, Bellatrix was one of the most formidable people he knew, male or female. He could hardly argue that she deserved any less respect or that she needed to be protected just because she was a witch and not a wizard. He was sure that other women he knew--his mother, Narcissa, Mrs. Lestrange--would be just as formidable if they'd been raised with different expectations, or if they'd cared as little for expectations as Bellatrix.

It was unfortunate for Narcissa that she was probably the "best" of the Black sisters, by society's standards, yet it was the very society she cared so much about that was ready to tear her down.

His first night at Bellatrix and Rodolphus's house was relaxing and fun, full of laughter and games and silly discussions. Rodolphus disappeared before Sirius got up the next morning and only returned as Sirius and Bellatrix were sitting down to dinner, but he and Bellatrix spent the day having dueling practice and just generally spending quality time together for the first time since Sirius had started Hogwarts, so they didn't miss Rodolphus's company.

On his second night staying with the newlyweds, he found himself alone in the cozy library fairly early in the evening. His cousin and her husband had retired to their bedroom almost as soon as they'd eaten dinner (Gross! he thought.), and he'd considered it safer to stay downstairs for a few hours. He was perusing Rodolphus's self-annotated copy of Offensive Defensive Magic for the Advanced Dueler when he heard a curse and a crash from the small entryway.

He'd leapt to his feet and drawn his wand into his hand before his brain caught up with his body, but then his heart started pounding. He carefully poked his head around the door, being as silent as possible, and saw a large figure in the shadows near the front door.

"Stupefy," he whispered.

He couldn't wait until he learned to cast spells nonverbally, but for now he just had to hope that the intruder wouldn't hear him and defend himself.

As it turned out, his spell hit the mark. The man toppled over, his head striking the umbrella stand before he slumped motionless to the floor. A wave of Sirius's wand lit the sconces along the walls, and when he finally got a good look at the intruder he couldn't help but cry out in surprise.

"Rabastan! Shit!"

He bounded across the entryway to kneel down next to his friend, only belatedly thinking to cast the counter-spell. Rabastan immediately moaned in pain. He struggled to sit up, and without thinking Sirius reached around the larger boy's back to help him.

"Shit, Rab!" he repeated. "I'm so sorry!"

Rabastan leaned forward with his forehead resting against Sirius's shoulder and then seemed unable to go any further.

"Shh, it's okay," he shushed. Then, with a pained chuckle, added, "Nice shot."

Sirius wrapped his arms more securely around his friend to keep him from keeling over again, which he seemed about to do at any given moment. "What are you even doing here?"

"I live here!" retorted Rabastan. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm visiting! Why do you live here? Doesn't your family have a big manor up in Yorkshire?"

Rabastan fidgeted in discomfort for a moment, pressing his hand against his side.

"My parents thought it would be best if I left. I was making everybody uncomfortable and all," he said absently as he brought his hand up to his face to investigate it.

But Sirius wasn't really paying attention to his words, as he was distracted by the blood on his hand. He looked down Rabastan's body to his torso, which was covered in shredded robes and blood.

"Did I...?" he asked in a small voice, one of his hands going automatically towards the wound.

Rabastan froze for a moment when his hand made contact, then he huffed out a pained breath and said, "No, no, it wasn't you." He pulled Sirius's hand away from his body. "C'mon, love, I'm fine. I'll be okay. Help me up and we'll fix it, yeah?"

Mutely, Sirius rose to his feet and leaned down to help his friend up. He tried to be as gentle as possible, but as Rabastan was so large--at least six inches taller and, it seemed to Sirius, at least double Sirius's weight--it wasn't the easiest thing to accomplish. In the end, between the two of them and with the help of the wall, they managed to get him upright with only a handful of profanities uttered. "I don't want to bother Roddy and Bellatrix with this," Rabastan insisted when asked. He leaned heavily against Sirius, his arm wrapped around Sirius's shoulders and Sirius's arm wrapped low around his hips so as to avoid the injury, and directed Sirius to the makeshift potions lab Rodolphus had set up in a room at the back of the cottage.

After he had been settled onto a low stool, Rabastan motioned with his chin towards a large cabinet that took up almost an entire wall. "The dittany is over there, on the third shelf from the top."

By the time Sirius had located the rather large vial--surely larger than any he'd ever seen before, which made him wonder if this sort of thing happened often--Rabastan had peeled the remains of his clothing up to reveal a nasty gash running diagonally across his ribcage.

"Fucking hell, Rabastan!" Sirius cried, unable to help himself. "What happened?"

Rabastan looked up from where he was delicately prodding the edges of the wound with his fingers and met Sirius's worried eyes, his own sapphire gaze sparkling in amusement through his discomfort.

"It was just a basic Severing Charm. You should see the other guy." He paused for a moment, a dark expression passing over his face. "Well, what's left of him anyway."

Sirius watched with his arms crossed over his chest and a disapproving scowl on his face as his friend generously applied essence of dittany to his cut. A green billow of smoke later and the previously nasty gash was scabbed over and appeared to be several days old. Rabastan examined the results for a few moments longer before he finally removed the remains of his tattered robes and the shirt underneath. He still hissed a bit at the flex of his muscles, and when he looked back up he was met by the stalk of a green, leafy plant inches from his face.

"Aw, come on, Sirius," he whined. "I'm okay; I don't need it."

Sirius leveled an impressively flat glare on him. "Eat it. Or I'll go get Bellatrix."

Rabastan looked for a second as if he would argue, but then a brief smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "You're a right little dictator. Fine."

And amid all the grimaces and complaints he could manage, he chewed the raw dittany and gagged it down. Sirius was almost tempted to order him to open his mouth so that he could look and make sure his patient had really swallowed it, and he couldn't stop the smile that spread over his face at the thought of demanding Rabastan Lestrange to lift up his tongue for an inspection.

"Salazar but that's nasty," Rabastan informed him.

"It'll make you heal more quickly," answered Sirius with a shrug.

They were silent as Rabastan carefully cleaned the blood and remaining essence of dittany off of himself and Vanished his ruined clothing. Sirius wanted to ask again what had happened, but he sensed that he wouldn't get a better answer than the one he'd already received. So he kept his questions to himself and took the opportunity to eye the tattoo he'd noticed before on Rabastan's arm, now revealed in its entirety along with the rest of the older boy's bare upper body. It was probably the ugliest tattoo Sirius had ever seen, a skull with a snake coming out of its mouth. He wondered what on earth had possessed his friend to get it.

His thoughts were interrupted when Rabastan looked up and inquired, "So, we know why I got kicked out of my house. Why did you get kicked out of yours?"

Sirius had no idea why Rabastan had got kicked out of his house, unless he'd been referring to the fight he'd had with his sister seemingly all of the previous school year. And Sirius still wasn't one hundred percent sure what that had been about. However, he was too embarrassed to admit any such thing, so he nodded absently as he replaced the vial of dittany in the cabinet.

"My grandfather blames the supposedly weak blood on my mother's side of the family for Andromeda's... defection. He went on and on about it until I finally reminded him that anything he said about my mother applies to me, too, and I... might have... well... I told him to fuck off."

Full lips parted in surprise. "You did not!"

Sirius nodded again in confirmation. "He's been avoiding me as much as possible since then, and my father thought it would be a good idea for me to get out from underfoot for a few days."

"Sirius... I... Fucking hell!"

"I had thought to myself that at least you would probably be willing to hide me in your bedroom and keep me alive if I got kicked out, but it looks like that won't be necessary."

Rabastan, who was still shaking his head in apparent disbelief, allowed a chuckle to escape his throat. "Well, you can still live in my bedroom if you want, but I've been told that I kick in my sleep."

"And I steal all of the covers, so we'd make a miserable pair. I think I'll have to pass."

"Ah, well, the offer's always open," said Rabastan, with an odd expression passing over his face that Sirius couldn't quite read.

The next morning, Sirius found all three of the other occupants of the house already sitting around the breakfast table when he came downstairs. They abruptly stopped talking when they noticed him, which he found rather odd. He was used to it from all of the adults in his life, of course, but he had never placed these three in that category in his mind.

"Morning, Siri," chirped Bellatrix. "I hope you don't mind that Rabastan's staying here, too."

"We already talked last night," he told her as he settled into his chair and surveyed the breakfast offerings.

Breakfast was a subdued, nearly silent affair until their morning owls arrived. Sirius had more mail than anyone else, which prompted the others at the table to tease him about his popularity. The baby pink envelope in particular caused all sorts of uproar.

"An admirer?" asked Rodolphus between laughs.

Sirius rolled his eyes in exasperation. "My girlfriend. She's a bit... much."

"Girlfriend?" echoed the elder man, his quizzical eyes traveling to his brother and then back to Sirius.

"Say, Bellatrix," interjected Rabastan, who Sirius was astonished to see had just the slightest flush creeping up his neck, "do you think we might be able to get Dolohov to include Sirius in my lessons, too? You know, a two-for-one sort of thing, so Sirius doesn't have to miss his dueling lessons while he's here. And maybe he'll even have a chance to beat me and redeem himself after Gryffindor's disastrous loss to Slytherin in the House Cup...."

That was the best thing Sirius had heard in weeks, and it was more than sufficient to distract him from the rest of the weirdness going on around him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sirius was able to return home the next weekend, although relations were still tense between him and his grandfather. He sincerely wanted to leave again, at least for a little while, but he didn't want to impose any more on the newlyweds and he knew that there weren't really any better options. His parents would never let him go to Peter's--not that he'd want to go stay with Peter's Mudblood mother--and it was probably too early for him to broach the subject of staying with the Potters after the drama of the past two years.

James had written him a lengthy letter pleading for him to come to Godric's Hollow, where his family lived. I'm so bored I could die, he'd written. There aren't any other kids here our age, and Remus's parents won't let him go stay anywhere even if it isn't that time of the month. Plus I have some ideas I probably shouldn't put in writing, and I really want to talk to you about them.

It was incredibly tempting, because Sirius was incredibly curious what new schemes Potter had cooked up. (He imagined it was probably some cruelly creative new way to torture Snivellus.) Still, he figured that he'd stirred up enough trouble with his parents and grandfather to last him the whole summer and at least partially into Christmas holidays, so he wrote back that he wouldn't be able to visit and resigned himself to a miserable rest of the summer.

Over breakfast one morning, Arcturus flicked the top of his newspaper down to interrupt an otherwise perfectly normal conversation between Orion and Sirius about their visit to Diagon Alley later that day.

"Son, you had better stop into Bingham's when you're out today."

Sirius watched as Orion's newspaper landed in his empty plate. "Father, he's just completed his second year!"

"Yes, and by the time he goes back to Hogwarts he'll be nearly fourteen. We don't want to leave these things up to chance. Best to get it all out in the open sooner rather than later."

Orion shot Sirius a nervous glance. "Fourteen, Father? Do you really think this is necessary? You didn't take me until I was nearly fifteen."

"Well, we have already established that Sirius takes after me, not you," the elder replied with just a hint of humor in his voice. He and Sirius glanced at one another, but they both looked away quickly, still uncomfortable in each other's presence. Arcturus flicked his newspaper back up into place. "As I said, we don't want to leave these things up to chance."

"Father!" exclaimed his son, who was staring at the back of the paper with a horrified expression, as if it were Arcturus's face.

The voice that replied from behind the Daily Prophet was full of amusement, and Sirius wondered if his grandfather was actually smiling behind his barrier. "Orion, if you do not want to hear these things about your father, I suggest that you simply take his word as law and refrain from questioning him."

Orion stared a moment longer before a rueful smile flickered across his lips. "Well, if His Holiness will give us leave, I believe that it's time my son and I head out. Sirius, are you finished?"

Arcturus sent them off with an imperious wave from behind his Prophet.

Knockturn Alley was much the same as ever, although Sirius had never been inside the apothecary. The inside was substantially larger and less cramped than the apothecary in Diagon Alley, and the proprietor, Mr. Bingham, was behind the counter tending several cauldrons. A bell chimed when they stepped through the door, but the man did not look up from whatever he was working on. Orion did not seem bothered by this. He led Sirius directly to the third aisle, where he briskly walked about two-thirds of the way down and bent low to peruse one of the shelves near the floor.

Sirius leaned around to get a look at the vial of clear orange liquid his father had plucked from the shelf. "What is it?"

His father's face remained impassive, but his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed nervously. He looked around and held out a hand to quiet Sirius's impending question so that he could listen for other voices in the shop. Once he was satisfied--and by that time Sirius's curiosity had him on the verge of exploding all over the aisle--Orion answered.

"It's a contraceptive potion," he explained in a clipped tone that would have gone a long way towards masking his embarrassment if he'd been talking to someone who didn't know him as well. At his son's horrified look, he took a breath and then rushed forward as if getting it out quickly would lessen their mutual embarrassment. "It's probably better to explain it here, since at Grimmauld Place there's always your mother and brother or my father hovering about. Son, this potion will protect you when you decide to--Um, Sirius, you do know about the, er... the birds and the bees?"

Sirius's expression had by this time screwed up into one of disgust, if only to hide his acute embarrassment. "Are you really trying to talk to me about sex?"

His son's reaction had managed to make the elder Black relax enough that he was able to chuckle. "Yes, I'm trying to talk to you about sex. What do you know about how children are made?"

He looked at Sirius so expectantly that Sirius felt there was no hope of escaping this conversation. He blushed and turned to give the vials lining the shelf nearest him a thorough examination so that he wouldn't have to look at his father as he spoke.

He managed to bite out, "I know what goes where and that children are made when the man... you know... in the woman. You've no need to explain it to me." At that possibility, he paled beneath his scarlet blush. "Please don't explain it to me."

"Have you started, ah... you knowing, by yourself?"

"Father!" Sirius hissed. He was so aghast that he nearly knocked down the shelf he'd been looking at, and his face felt very hot.

Orion had the grace to look sorry he'd asked, if his son had actually been able to look at him and see it. On second thought, Orion supposed that he was not actually ready to hear about his son's sex life, such as it may be. He cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"I was just asking because, well, you can do that, you know, instead of rushing to do it with a girl. Just in case you didn't know, not that I want to hear about it if you did know...." He trailed off and swallowed again, then seemed to gather himself up enough to take one more stab at the subject.

"Right, well, in any case, once you decide to start with girls, this potion will prevent you from making any children with them. The Ministry regulates these potions and will only allow a week-long dose to be sold legally, for some reason--It's probably to increase the Half-blood population, if you ask me. Half-bloods and Mudbloods breed like rats.--but this version will last you a month. They don't have a very long shelf life, so we'll have to set you up with an annual owl delivery. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Sirius managed to grind out between clenched teeth.

"There's a potion for girls too, of course, but you don't want to leave something like this up to the girl. Why, if it were up to your mother alone, there have been several times we might have given you another little brother or sister!"

"Ew! Father!"

Orion blushed just a bit. "Right. Er, good talk."

Sirius glared at him. "Fantastic."

"Well, I'm glad we cleared that up," Orion declared with a decisive nod of his head.

He turned and started walking back down the aisle, his pace a bit faster than absolutely necessary, as if he could escape their joint mortification by leaving the scene of the crime. Sirius followed at a more sedate pace. He was sure that he needed several moments alone to compose himself before he could face his father again.

By the time he reached the front of the store, his father was waiting impatiently by the door. Neither of them dared to look the other in the eye as they headed back out among the dim views and dodgy denizens of Knockturn Alley. In fact, they barely spoke two words to each other for the rest of the morning as they flitted in and out of various shops completing their shopping lists and errands with a diligent, silent concentration theretofore unseen in either of them. By the time they sat down for lunch in the brightly lit café across from Twilfitt and Tattings, in the high-end section of Diagon Alley, both of them were feeling recovered enough from their earlier ordeal to look each other in the face again, although they were not feeling brave enough to venture more than the safest of subjects, such as Quidditch and the new electives Sirius would begin taking during the upcoming school term.

If Sirius had already been anxiously waiting to leave for Hogwarts before this incident, he was doubly--No, triply! Quadruply, even!--waiting for it now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Things began to go downhill almost as soon as he'd returned to school. Sirius was not one to pay attention to the news. Certainly he'd never hidden himself behind the Daily Prophet while breakfasting, like his grandfather and father. He didn't even have his own subscription. If he had, he might have realized how bad things had gotten before the entire Great Hall erupted in shock and sadness and anger.

He and Remus had their heads together discussing their Arithmancy homework, which was rather more complicated than Sirius had originally thought when he'd first signed up for the class, when it began. Sirius was dimly aware of the rush of owl wings and the happy chatter of students receiving mail. Then the deathly quiet caught his attention, and in those few fleeting seconds between registering that something was wrong and looking up from his textbook, the first gasp sounded out as if across a silent tomb.

James's face had gone gray as he look slack-jawed at his copy of the newspaper, which was only half unrolled. Sirius understood why when he saw the headline: "VILLAGE LEVELED BY DEATH EATERS!"

"Open it!" he insisted lowly, although he ought not have bothered to keep his voice low since by then the Great Hall was filled with horrified cries and nervous chatter.

"'Death Eaters, the followers of the Dark wizard known only as Lord Voldemort, have killed most of the magical residents of Appleby and burned the village to the ground. The attack began shortly after midnight and reportedly lasted for about an hour; Aurors were only alerted after the attack had ended and arrived to find the village ablaze and the Dark Mark hovering in the air,'" Sirius read silently to himself. He looked up to see Professors McGonagall and Sprout leading a shell-shocked boy in Hufflepuff robes out of the Great Hall. Sure enough, a bit further down the article it said, "'The bodies of the victims have not been identified as of the time of publication, but notable residents include Donald and Frances Bones, whose home was among those destroyed."

James was slumped low beside him. "Poor Jeffrey. My dad works--worked--with Mr. Bones.... I've been over to their house for dinner...."

But Sirius barely heard him, so caught up was he in a bit of information in the Prophet that had caught his attention. "'The Dark Mark, as we have reported before, is in the likeness of a skull with a serpent emerging from its mouth. In recent months it has been left at over a dozen crime scenes believed to have been the work of Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters.'"

He reread the first sentence several more times to make sure that he'd seen it correctly, then he lifted his eyes slowly towards the Slytherin table. The Slytherin table as a whole seemed much less affected by the news than the rest of the Great Hall, although the younger years seemed just as surprised as anyone else. Sirius could see that Regulus and Barty were looking around with wide eyes. The older Slytherins, however, and particularly the seventh years sitting at the very end of the table, looked completely stoic at best and amused at worst.

"I bet they're all Death Eaters," put in James from beside him, barely bothering to keep his voice low. "Or at least their parents are, and they will be too as soon as they leave Hogwarts. There's never been a Dark wizard who wasn't in Slytherin."

Normally Sirius would have taken exception to that little speech, but as it was he found that his head was spinning too much to really take in what he was hearing.

He would find over the next days and weeks that almost the whole school felt the same about the Slytherins, who didn't at all help the situation with their aloof behavior. James Potter in particular hated anything to do with Dark magic, and his hatred only rose to new heights as he obsessively pored over every report of an attack or disappearance. He had thus far avoided mentioning anything too specific about Sirius's family or his Slytherin friends, but Sirius suspected that was mostly because Sirius was giving every appearance of distancing himself from them. He had written to James over the summer about his disagreement with his grandfather, which had seemed to put the idea into James's head that he was no longer getting along with his family in general, and now he was taking care to avoid approaching the Slytherins anytime James might see him.

It wasn't that he honestly wanted to avoid them, of course; it was just that he found himself unwilling to go back to the accusations and ostracization he'd faced before. He had likewise decided not to even try getting away to continue his Dark Arts practice until the whole thing had time to blow over. He'd been left with sending longing, apologetic looks to the Slytherins behind James's back and exchanging surreptitious letters with them whenever he could.

Still, at least he and James were getting closer than ever. As they spent more time together, and as the Gryffindor boys became the only friends Sirius spent any time with, Sirius's feelings for James were steadily changing from necessary toleration to real friendship. That was probably the reason he didn't hex Potter's nose off when he was woken up by a harsh poke in the chest in the wee hours of the morning.

"What the--" he began, but James clapped a hand over his mouth before he could finish.

"Shhh!" insisted James, bringing his other hand up to his face and pressing a finger against his lips. Then he motioned for Sirius to come with him, and Sirius, though he glared at the other boy over the top of the hand still over his mouth, motioned that he would come. The stone floors of Gryffindor Tower were freezing against his bare feet as they crept down the stairs and across the common room, and Sirius made a mental note to have his mother send him slippers as he dug his toes into the threadbare rug in the furthest corner of the room where James had led them.

"Why couldn't we sit by the fire?" he whined as he aimed a Hot-Air Charm at his feet to warm them.

"Shhh!" James was looking around the common room suspiciously, but he finally turned back and whispered, "We don't want anyone to hear this, okay? It's about Remus."

All Sirius could do was blink at him in irritated, still-sleepy confusion. "Okay..."

His friend leaned forward earnestly. "You know how horrible those nights are for him..." began James, and thus began a complicated, winding explanation. Sirius could only goggle at him until the other boy finally concluded, "And so I think you'll have to take point on this one, seeing as you're the most talented in Transfiguration."

He half expected that James would reveal that it had all been a joke, but when several seconds passed with nothing more than the other boy's earnest look of expectation, Sirius could only say, "You want us to become Animagi."

"Yes," agreed James.

"You want us to become unregistered Animagi," Sirius felt the need to clarify.

"Yes."

"You want us to become unregistered Animagi while we're still students."

"Yes."

Sirius sat back in his chair, abandoning his Hot-Air Charm and hardly even noticing the immediate rush of frigid air meeting his bare feet. "Are you mad?"

"Come on, Sirius!" wheedled James. "You're probably one of the best Transfiguration students in the entire school, in any year! And I'm not half bad. I know we could figure it out between us, and just think how much it would help Remus."

Although he would not like to admit, even to himself, James's flattery had probably gone a lot further towards convincing Sirius to give it a try than the idea of helping out their werewolf friend had. Sirius still had trouble reconciling the quiet, intelligent boy he knew as Remus Lupin with everything he knew about werewolves, but even all of their recent time spent together since returning for their third year hadn't completely rid him of the wariness and prejudice he felt. He reluctantly agreed to at least gather what information he could from the library and, if necessary, from his library at home, but he rather thought that he'd only discover that it would be impossible for them to do and James would drop the matter.

It turned out that he was correct about it being almost impossibly difficult, but he was wrong about James dropping the subject. Soon enough their twice-weekly late-night meetings in the common room to read about the Animagus transformation turned into an annual event, and that in addition to the almost daily Quidditch practices and their heavier course loads caused the weeks to blur into months until it was time for their first ever Hogsmeade weekend.

"I can't, Potter," Sirius hissed under his breath, reverting back to using his friend's last name, as he often did when he was annoyed with the other boy.

"I can't slip away from Remus and Peter like you can," insisted James in a whisper.

They both raised their eyes to look at their two friends, who were walking several feet in front of them, Peter glancing back every so often with a look of supreme consternation at being left out of whatever plotting Sirius was getting up to with James.

Sirius rolled his eyes in exasperation. "I can only 'slip away' from them because I'm going to be with Janice! I think she'll notice if I take her to an apothecary and start asking for obscure ingredients I have no good reason to need, when we're supposed to be on a date!"

James looked as if he had an argument ready on the tip of his tongue, but at that moment the girl in question materialized at Sirius's side and leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. With an indulgent smile, he obliged by leaning down just enough so that her lips could make contact, then took her gloved hand in his own. It was the most affection either of them was willing to show under the watchful eyes of Professors Slughorn and McGonagall.

"Look, Potter," he said lowly as Janice began leading him away, "try to manage without me. If you can't then we'll figure something else out."

He and Janice trekked down the snow-dusted road leading from the castle into the village in companionable silence, until Hogsmeade came into view and Janice let out a little gasp that immediately reminded Sirius of the sound she made whenever he bit at her lip. It was a picturesque little village with cozy-looking cottages and storefronts lit up with twinkling displays, but the sight only made Sirius anxious. As he'd never been to Hogsmeade before, he really had no idea what he and Janice were going to do on this date. He thought that he was probably being silly, since Janice had also never been before and they'd been on plenty of dates and spent a lot of time together, but for some reason he couldn't identify, he couldn't help but be a bit nervous.

"Oh, it's so cute!" she exclaimed with a little bounce that Sirius couldn't help but notice made her breasts bounce, too. He'd returned to school to find that they seemed to be even more ample than they'd been when he'd seen her over the summer, and he could not but appreciate it.

He tore his eyes away with great effort.

"I thought we'd get lunch in the village," he ventured uncertainly, "but what do you think we should do before then?"

Janice leaned into him, her head resting against his arm, and he could feel one of the hair combs he'd given her last Christmas pressing against him through his thick cloak and winter robes. "Well, I want to have a look at Honeydukes and Zonko's, of course," she answered dreamily, "but I thought you could help me pick out some new robes at Gladrags."

Sirius pursed his lips together in displeasure. "Oh. Okay."

She burst into giggles a second later and brought one of her hands up to swat at his chest. "I was just joking, silly! Honestly, I know you wouldn't enjoy that."

He was obviously relieved, but then his mind raced to all sorts of possibilities. What if she were only testing him to see if he would do it? His mother did that sort of thing all the time to his father! With only a small grimace that he knew she couldn't see, he said, "But if you really want to, we can go."

"You're sweet, Siri, but I really was only joking." By this time they had entered the village and had just begun the walk up High Street, where all of the main shops were located. "How about we just window shop a bit, and we can go in if either of us sees anything interesting?"

That seemed like a good idea to him, and he quickly agreed to the plan. They passed by the Three Broomsticks first, but it already seemed to be too crowded to be comfortable even this early in the day and they weren't thirsty anyway, so they decided to pass it by and see about visiting on their way back. On the other side of the street from the pub, just visible in the distance, was a house that Janice pointed out to him.

"It was only built a few years ago," she informed him with a little shiver, "but my sister said that all of the villagers are afraid to go up there. They say the most awful noises come from it. It's called the Shrieking Shack." Sirius realized with a jolt that it must be the house he'd been told Dumbledore had commissioned for Remus's transformations. The shrieks they heard could only come from his friend, and that sent a shiver down his own spine. His thoughts were confirmed when his companion added, "Pam said that her boyfriend during her seventh year was dared to go inside once, but he claimed that none of the doors or windows would open."

A bit further up the street they found Honeydukes, and both of them were eager to fight the crowd in order to check out the sweets shop they'd heard so much about from their various older family members. The shop was so packed full of students that they could barely move at all, but after nearly an hour of browsing they'd managed to look at nearly every shelf in the place. Sirius was glad that Janice had brought her purse along, because he'd had to cast an Expansion Charm on its interior in order to hold all of their spoils until they could get up to the cash register. He'd shoved handfuls of treacle fudge, pumpkin pasties, cauldron cakes, licorice wands, sugar quills, bars of Honeydukes Best Chocolate, and all sorts of other interesting-sounding treats inside. And, when Janice had turned away for a moment, he'd nabbed a few packages of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, which the label claimed would allow the chewer to blow bubbles that wouldn't pop for days. He thought that he and James could come up with some use or another for such a thing.

As for Janice, she had been a lot more conservative in her selections, except for the dozen or so packages of sugared butterfly wings she'd enthusiastically snatched off the shelves. "They're so good!" she'd explained when she caught sight of his humored expression. "My sisters used to get some for me whenever they visited Hogsmeade. They're dark chocolate and coconut!"

Sirius rather suspected that she'd have liked them no matter what they were made of, just because they were shaped like butterflies, but he didn't say so aloud.

Next they perused the Tomes and Scrolls bookshop (where Sirius and Janice both purchased several books), Spintwitches Sporting Needs (where Sirius painstakingly examined the various types of broomstick polish on offer while Janice watched indulgently), Zonko's (where Janice pretended not to notice when Sirius gleefully selected several Galleons' worth of promising pranking supplies), and Dervish and Banges (where they were both delighted by the various magical instruments but neither one found anything they thought they ought to buy).

It was far past their usual lunchtime when Sirius finally led Janice into the unfortunately still-crowded Three Broomsticks, but fortunately Madam Rosmerta seemed to take an instant liking to Sirius and shooed a group of older Hufflepuffs away from their booth so that he and Janice could sit.

"They finished their drinks nearly half an hour ago, dears," she explained as she leaned over the table to clear away their empty mugs. Janice did not look at all impressed by the way the barmaid's plentiful curves were displayed so close to Sirius's eyes, and Sirius thought it best not to stare too obviously, even if he found that he suddenly quite fancied Rosmerta. "Space is at a premium when you students come down from Hogsmeade, so I can't have loiterers. Now then, what'll it be?"

"I'll have the '34 Blishen's Firewhisky. Bring the bottle, if you please," said Sirius, grinning up impishly at Rosmerta's pretty face.

She laughed. "Oh, this one's trouble, my dear," she told Janice as she waved her finger at Sirius. "You had better keep a close eye on him. That'll be two Butterbeers, then?"

"Actually," Janice replied, her voice tight, "I'd like a soda with cherry syrup."

As soon as Rosmerta had moved away from their booth, Sirius turned to his girlfriend with raised eyebrows. "I thought you wanted something to eat, too?"

"Well, I'm not sure I want to stay here if you're just going to flirt with the barmaid and... and... stare at her... assets!"

His eyebrows rose further up his forehead in consternation. Before he thought better of it, he blurted, "It isn't as if I can help it. I've been staring at your assets all day."

The next few moments played out as one of those bizarre situations where Sirius thought for sure that he would be groveling for her to forgive him because he had said something very stupid, but it turned out that he found himself attached to her lips because he'd apparently said something right without realizing it. It only took him a handful of seconds before he recovered himself sufficiently to kiss her back, and they were still enthusiastically snogging a couple of minutes later when Rosmerta loudly placed their mugs on the wooden table.

"Too much more of that and I'll have to send you on to Madam Puddifoot's!" she exclaimed with false severity.

Janice pulled back with a blush, and Sirius found himself suddenly disliking the pretty barmaid a lot more than he had previously.

"Did you really mean it?" asked Janice as soon as Rosmerta was out of earshot again. "I mean, about my... assets. Do you really think they're... you know, nice?"

"Yeah, they're very"--Large. Soft. Bouncy.--"nice."

In the end, they ended up ordering a selection of pub foods and several more Butterbeers and sodas, and although Madam Rosmerta encouraged various other loitering students to leave and make room for newcomers, she didn't disturb Sirius and Janice until it was time for all of the students to head back up to the castle.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The term continued on with more reports of Death Eaters, very little progress in their Animagus research, and their first Quidditch game (Slytherin three hundred and thirty to Gryffindor three hundred and ten) interspersed between their full course loads and detentions for their ever more elaborate pranks.

Sirius and James were walking back from the trophy room, where they'd had to polish every award by hand after being caught filling the Gryffindor common room with unpoppable Drooble's Best bubbles, when James first said something that made Sirius question his sanity.

"Evans was beautiful when she was angry though, wasn't she?" he asked, and after several seconds of oppressive silence he turned to see that Sirius was looking at him as if he were considering dragging him to the hospital wing for an examination posthaste. He rushed on. "You know, the way her eyes flashed and her little face turned all pink when that gum got stuck in her hair.... You didn't think that was cute?"

Sirius blinked at him. "James, mate, I think that you need to find a girlfriend if you're wasting your time thinking about Evans."

"Well, maybe I want her to be my girlfriend," he responded indignantly.

"Right," came Sirius's droll reply. "What with the way she thinks of you after everything you've done to her and Snivellus, I'd say that you have a better shot at convincing Snivellus himself to snog you than convincing Evans to do it."

James didn't speak to him for the rest of the walk back to Gryffindor Tower, but that night when he met Sirius at the appointed time for their meeting down in the common room he seemed to have put the conversation behind him. Although they had only been in the common room for a few minutes before they devolved into another argument.

"We've got to at least try, or else we'll never get any further with this," James argued.

Sirius disagreed. "Look, I can probably get to Diagon Alley on my own over Christmas break, or I can ask my cousin to get the ingredients for us. I'd really rather not risk being expelled for sneaking off school grounds to visit Hogsmeade."

"We can't buy all of the ingredients at once; they're on a list and the apothecary is supposed to record the names of everybody who buys them together since they can only be used in that combination for the Animagus potion," James explained, although Sirius already knew all of that. "It'll take us until this time next year if we try to divide the list up and spread it out so that we don't raise any suspicions."

They were all valid points, but to Sirius the argument really came down to one thing. "If we get caught, we're dead."

"When have you ever been afraid of the trouble you'd get in for breaking the rules, anyway?"

And Sirius really had no good answer to that, so by the time they crawled back into their beds a couple of hours before sunrise he had committed himself to Potter's harebrained scheme to sneak out of the castle in the dead of night and break into the apothecary in Hogsmeade. However, he had managed to get the other boy to concede that they ought to each try to get their hands on the more innocuous items over the holiday break so that their list would be significantly shorter and they could spend the least time possible in the shop in Hogsmeade, thus lessening their chances of being caught. The plan was scheduled to take place after the first Hogsmeade visit of the next term, as they both hoped that the professors and the denizens of Hogsmeade would be more exhausted than usual after dealing with the students' visit.

His own foray into the world of hard crime turned Sirius's thoughts to something he purposefully hadn't thought too hard about all term: At least one of his Slytherin friends was undoubtedly a Death Eater. After his mind was turned to the subject, nothing he did could distract him from it, and he determined that he really needed to talk to Rabastan as soon as possible and couldn't wait until Christmas.

Finally, a couple of weeks after he first thought of it, Sirius found a few hours to himself when James and Thomas, the Gryffindor Quidditch captain, holed themselves up in an unused classroom to discuss Quidditch tactics after they'd seen Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff in action for the first time in their match against each other. Aquila was more than happy to deliver a note to Rabastan, but she was definitely less pleased to have to come back with it undelivered. She fussed and fretted until Sirius managed to sooth her with a dozen owl treats and the promise of a nice, long letter for her to deliver to his mother the next day. The failed delivery was the best news for Sirius, though, since it meant that Rabastan was probably in the Slytherin common room.

He managed to sneak out of Gryffindor Tower while Remus and Peter were engrossed in a game of chess. Sneaking downstairs without being seen was the most difficult part, as he didn't want to risk using James's Invisibility Cloak without permission. Once in the dungeons, it was the work of a moment to snag a first year by the shoulder and demand that he pass the note to Rabastan.

Meet me in the practice room ASAP, it said. He trusted that Rabastan would know what he meant, as he'd ended up telling him all about his extracurricular Dark Arts studies over their time together in the summer. Sure enough, he'd only been waiting for a few minutes before Rabastan showed up, an unreadably surly look on his face.

"So, difficult situation, yeah?" the Slytherin asked without preamble. "I haven't talked to you face-to-face since the train."

Sirius shook his head, not in denial of that fact so much as in despair.

"I just don't want to go back to what it was like for me first year," he said softly. "You and Cissy and Malfoy'll be gone after this year, but I have to be in Gryffindor and in a dorm room with James Potter for four years after that."

Rabastan leaned against the wall, letting his head fall back against it so he could glare up at the stone ceiling instead of at Sirius. "I understand. Hopefully you'll still make time for me, though."

In the intervening silence, Sirius's mind returned to the actual reason he'd wanted to meet with Rabastan alone, besides just that they hadn't spoken to each other in months. He turned the issue over in his mind a few times, all of his previous plans seeming inappropriate now. When he couldn't put it off any longer, he braced himself and just spit it out.

"I don't think the threat of indignant Gryffindors will put me off spending time with you when I can, if finding out that you're a Death Eater hasn't done it."

Rabastan immediately tensed. He snapped his eyes to Sirius's and, in a voice too nonchalant to be genuine, asked, "What makes you think that?"

Sirius barked out a laugh. "Well, besides the fact that you haven't denied it, that Dark Mark on your arm sort of gave it away."

"I should never have let you see that," the Slytherin responded ruefully.

Sirius shrugged. "I'm sure allowances can be made when one has a big bloody gash on one's ribcage."

"I'm sure the Dark Lord would disagree."

"Well, I'll be sure to remember not to mention it to him if you don't." Then, his curiosity winning over, he blurted, "When?"

His friend eyed him seriously for several seconds of indecision, then, after letting out a defeated exhalation, answered, "Last New Year. You remember the business that kept Dolohov from coming for your lessons, which you whinged about incessantly?" Here Sirius let out a sound of protest, but he knew that he really couldn't deny it. "That was the business. The attack that night was something of an initiation for us."

Sirius wondered what it said about him that he wasn't very bothered by the fact that one of his closest friends and his dueling instructor were Death Eaters who tortured and murdered people. He supposed that Rabastan hadn't been joking when he'd said over the summer that there wasn't much left of the wizard who had slashed his side. In fact, the more seconds ticked by the more pieces of a puzzle he hadn't known existed until that moment seemed to fall into place in his mind: his parents' references to the Lestranges' "political allies," his grandfather's annoyingly close scrutiny of Dolohov's lessons, the Christmas dinner several years prior when Bellatrix had cut Rodolphus off when he'd mentioned some common acquaintance of Mr. Lestrange and Mr. Malfoy, Rodolphus's abnormally large supply of dittany....

"So your brother too, then?"

"Yeah, but he joined ages ago," replied Rabastan. "Your nutter cousin as well. I told you they were perfect for each other."

Sirius wasn't very surprised. Even though it did take him aback for about half a second to consider his dear Cousin Belley actually committing the atrocities he'd read about in the newspaper, he quickly realized that the image wasn't at all out of character.

"And Malfoy?"

Rabastan cocked his head to the side at that one, considering Sirius for a moment before replying. "Yes. But not Narcissa."

That drew a sharp laugh from Sirius. "I never considered Narcissa. Can you imagine her traipsing about in the wee hours of the morning, dragging Mudblood children out of their beds?"

"I think that you don't give her enough credit. She's right terrifying, just as terrifying as her sister when she puts her mind to it."

"Don't be silly," admonished Sirius. "Cissy's amoral and vindictive and attracted to Malfoy as much for his sociopathic tendencies as for his hair, but she wouldn't drown a bag of kittens by hand." At that, Rabastan released a startled laugh from high in his throat. Sirius grinned in return and added, "Besides, that ugly brand on her arm would interfere with her wardrobe selections between approximately April and September."

"Oh dear," Rabastan said between chuckles, "do you suppose she's considered what she's getting into with Malfoy? She won't be able to dress him as she pleases either."

They walked back towards the fork that would lead Rabastan to his common room and Sirius out of the dungeons with Rabastan's arm around his shoulders, both peppering in comments between their continued laughter. "That thing she does when--" Rabastan was saying as they came around the last corner, but he stopped abruptly when they almost ran right into someone who was coming down the narrow corridor from the entrance hall.

Both Sirius and Rosier reared back in surprise at the sudden sight of one another, until Sirius composed his face into his usual mask. Rosier didn't appear able to get his own expression back under control nearly as easily, and his stare traveled from Sirius's face to the arm around his shoulders several times without bothering to hide his surprise and jealousy. He'd just opened his mouth, probably to speak, when Rabastan broke in harshly.

"What are you looking at? Move along, Rosier!"

With a last, all-too-readable glance, Rosier lowered his head so that his long, chestnut hair fell into his eyes and turned back towards the Slytherin common room without uttering a word. Sirius watched him go, only to discover when he looked back to his friend that Rabastan was watching him with a peculiar expression on his face.

"You know, Black, I've been thinking." He ignored Sirius's snide remark about the dangers of that. "It occurs to me that it might be time to put this squabble with Rosier behind you. After all, you'll need a good friend in Slytherin after we leave."

"You want me to be friends with Rosier," Sirius stated flatly, not bothering in the least to hide what he thought about that.

"Well, you did used to be best friends, didn't you? It couldn't be that difficult to make nice again."

"He completely abandoned me!" Sirius immediately objected.

"Yes, but aren't you going through the same situation now? Admittedly I'm glad that you're only hiding your relationship with us evil Death Eater Slytherins and not completely abandoning us like Rosier did to you, but surely you can understand his position a bit better now?" By that time Sirius had gone completely stiff under his arm, and Rabastan tightened his hold around the smaller boy's shoulders. After a long second or two had gone by without Sirius making a sound, he added, "Look, Siri, I'm just trying to look out for you. Rosier's been moping around for two years on the fringes of Slytherin because everybody took your side, and I think it'd be easy for you to turn him into a nice, evil Slytherin influence for yourself for when I'm no longer available to corrupt your Gryffindorish little heart."

"Oh, hell..." whined Sirius, his petulant tone doing nothing to mask the newfound guilt he felt. "You are a bad influence. Bloody Death Eater."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author's Notes: I suspect that the time will come soon when the wizarding world fears to say Voldemort's name, but I think it's a bit too early for that in 1973.

Amelia Bones's brother Edgar was killed in the latter part of the first war, according to Moody, but since we also are told that his wife and children were killed along with him, I assume that Amelia must have another brother who is the father of Susan Bones. (Or a sister who chose to give Susan her maiden name instead of the surname of Susan's father, but that seems more unlikely.) So poor orphaned "Jeffrey Bones" it is.