Soft Black

Soft Black

by : epiphanies

He had never been a real part of our family. No, never had he been a real Black. A true Black. No, he wasn't a Black just as James wasn't a Potter. They were Sirius and James, who hung around such as Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. Funny. All Purebloods, but all so ridiculously soft towards Muggle-borns, like that silly redhead, Lily Evans. I could never figure out why James had liked her so much - but enough about that. Why I'm even thinking about Sirius.... well, I certainly have an inkling to why I'm thinking about Sirius.

He's dead.

Not just hiding, not just in Azkaban. He's dead.

And I'm not upset, I'm not crying, I'm not devastated, either. Because even though he is technically my cousin, it doesn't mean that I have to like it, or ever have liked it, or will continue on in my life to feel badly that I never got to know him better. Because, as I said, he wasn't a true Black anyway.

We're such an odd family. Honestly.

It would just be me, and my blonde hair and blue eyes, snogging Lucius in the Astronomy Tower and him catching us and scolding me (even though we didn't enjoy each other in the least) and him telling me that modelling for the robe shop would be wasting my life. What did he know?

He was always trying to get Bella to stop drinking the Firewhiskey. She always had that smell, you know that smell, on her breath, and sometimes even on her robes... I remember, when we were kids, the first time that Bella painted her eyelids that heavy black and Sirius told her that she looked like a hag. And she hexed him, but he was young and he didn't understand why there were flapping boils on his face....but he didn't even cry. He just stood there and said, "You're going to wash off your face, Bella-boo." She hated being called Bella-boo. He knew she did.

And Andromeda. Oh, Andro. He loved her. And she loved him so.

I snuck into her room in fifth year (for nail paint) and read a note that she'd written to him... she seemed to tell him everything! The way it sounded, she knew everything about him. And he her. And I remember being angry that I didn't have somebody like that to talk to. Why didn't she indulge her little fantasies and thoughts in me? Even in Bella? Of course, Bella wouldn't tell anybody because she was always so pissed that she never remembered anything anyways. The note was going on and on about some boy she'd met named Ted. And how he'd given her a black rose (supposedly, according to the note, her favourite flower.) I remember the night about two weeks later that our parents brought her home after finding her in at a Muggle dance party on the arm of some common mudblood! Well, he was at that time. She ended up marrying the porky swine. He bought her a little Chihuahua that she named Petticoat. Andro was always quirky like that. No wonder she and Sirius got on so well.

No likely that bond caused their demises. It was their own bloody faults.

The last time I actually saw Sirius was my sixteenth birthday. It's so hard to believe. It seems like yesterday, probably because I've been Sirius' picture in the paper so much lately that I can just feel his presence. Or, I could. Before this.

I had been presented, wearing a pale pink silken gown, with Lucius on my arm. I was swelling with pride inside. We had become betrothed on that evening, I remember. Everybody who was everybody was there. The Potters, the Blacks, the Malfoys, the Parkinsons, absolutely everybody. Regulus was there with his prissy little girlfriend, Matilda Parkinson. Didn't see them all night. Sirius was in his black dress robes, as usual for all family gatherings, just sitting in the corner quietly jinxing wine glasses to crack and throwing insults at various passers-by. There was a fourteen layer cake, and Regulus spiked the punch, and Bella arrived late (and drunk, as per usual.) And I marched up to Sirius in the middle of it all and said, "It's not a family gathering until I get insulted by you, so I decided to get it over with." And he just said, "Your brain is twice the size of your silly little man-friend's over there and you're going to spend your entire life not using it, but pumping out his blonde little children until your hips are wide and you can't even model anymore. Happy Birthday, Cissa." And he was sort of right, but I shall never admit it aloud.

I eavesdropped on Andromeda and Sirius that night, when Lucius went to get us punch. I didn't understand their conversations in the least, and I still don't, not really. They were speaking about people with code names like "Fonzie" and "Cotter." And they started singing a song called "Sixteen Going On Seventeen," and I thought momentarily that it was sweet before I realized that if it were actually sweet, they would be singing it to me, not behind my back. They spoke about wishing the family were more "open" to the new trends, and Sirius spoke to Andro about Lily... and I felt bad about that, because I knew who Lily was, Lily was James' girl, and it was painfully obvious that Sirius had some form of non-admittable "thing" for Lily, because his eyes lit up when he spoke of her...

It's hard to believe that the bright-eyed star of a cousin I once had is really gone. Because, no matter how strange it is that he's gone, and that my sister was the one who murdered him, I'm not sad or angry or depressed. I'm only off my hook at the moment. Because from the moment I laid eyes on Sirius, I knew he was, that he must be, invincible. And if the invincible dies....who's next?

Bella called on us today. She hugged me. Bellatrix actually hugged me. It was frightening. I think she was proud of herself. And she whispered, "Only one more blood traitor to go, Cissa. Then...why, we're once again, truly, the wise and noble family of Black."

And I suppose she's right. Once the Death Eaters wipe out the Order, including my niece Nymphadora....we may stand again, be unafraid to tell our names, and shout out with even pride, if so we wish. The soft Blacks are gone for once, and for all.

I am a true Black.