The Shape of Me

Chapter Three

Sirius

Yes, yes, Sirius Black, convicted murderer- although he wasn't- yes, he was my cousin. Second cousin, technically speaking; he was my mother's cousin, but since he and Mum both were estranged from their family, he had been almost the only extended family member I had known. My dad was an only child, and while I had my Grammy Tonks, Sirius was really the only relative with whom I had much interaction. I had met Mum's family once, at a Black family function of some sort, a long time ago. I had been rather young, but I remember Aunt Narcissa preening and scowling beautifully at me as I toddled around with Sirius and his younger brother. Auntie Bella had been there as well, a dark haired, intense woman who had cornered my mother almost immediately, talking to her with a clipped, angry voice. Sirius had drawn me aside that day, not wanting me to overhear what was being said, as well, I think, as to prevent Auntie Bella from noticing me. From all the time that he had spent around her, he knew that she wouldn't have been terribly pleasant to her sister's half-blood child. He was always watching out for me like that.

Anyway, when I heard him enter the house, I got horribly excited. At that age, I absolutely idolized him...oh, shut up; it's not that uncommon for a young girl to have a ridiculous crush like that. Besides, the way these old Pureblood families go, had Mum and Sirius stayed true to their heritage, he and I might have found ourselves paired together. It's not beyond the realm of possibility, and Merlin knows the pickings are getting pretty slim. However, they didn't, and we didn't, and wouldn't have anyway. But at the time, I was convinced that he was my hero, and that he could fix anything. As soon as I heard his voice, I was certain that whatever was bothering Mum, Sirius would make it better.

But Mum didn't seem happy to see him that day; she told him sharply to lower his voice, and hurried him into the kitchen. No one had seen me peeking down when Sirius arrived, so I snuck down to the kitchen door to unabashedly eavesdrop on their conversation. Ms. Teadle had done me no good at all, I'm telling you.

I couldn't make out what Sirius was saying as I crept up to the door, but I could hear Mum clear enough. She sounded angry, almost in tears. "Have you lost your mind, Sirius? How can you consider this?"

"Because they are still out there, still killing innocent people, and this might be our best chance! Don't you see that I have to?"

"You know that they'll come for you. You know who will come for you. Sirius, you can't do it."

"Andie, I didn't come to get your permission; I came so that you wouldn't worry when I disappeared! It's already been decided, everything is already in place."

"Let someone else do it! Someone who doesn't already merit personal attention from some of the Death Eaters..."

"Who better to outthink them?"

"What about Nymphadora? She'll be crushed when you drop out of her life- have you thought about that?"

"Damn it, Andromeda! Why are you making this harder than it has to be? Why do you think that I'm here, if not to spare you and her some pain when I go?"

I was already frozen at this point; the realization that there was some conflict going on where people were actually being killed...you have no idea the effectiveness with which Mum had insulated me. She didn't want me to be confused over the role that her family played in the war, for the wrong side, and the result was that when I found out about it in this manner, I couldn't quite take it all in. I was horrified, especially with the implication that Sirius was somehow known by or involved with the killers, but I was also unable to retreat back to my room.

Sirius kept on talking. "This is what I have to do, a lot is riding on it. But I couldn't go without letting you know I was leaving. You're all the family that I have left."

There was a pause, and then Mum spoke again, sounding a little calmer. "I was sorry to hear about Regulus. But I don't think..."

"I don't want to talk about it."

Another pause. "Fine. But sacrificing yourself for the Potters isn't going to bring him back."

"Just drop it, Andie." Sirius sounded tired, unlike his usual self. "That's not what this is about, and you know it. You just..."

I never heard the rest, for at that moment a hand dropped on my shoulder, and I whirled around to find my Dad frowning at me in disapproval.

"You've been raised better than to go listening at doors, especially on your Mum's private conversations. Go to your room; we'll discuss this later."

"But Dad," I protested, "I want to see Sirius; he said he was leaving..."

He raised an eyebrow, and I shut up and did as I was told. My dad isn't a big man at all- he's a tiny bloke, really- but he's got a certain presence about him that makes one sit up and look sharp. Sirius always said that Ted had a Napoleon complex, but I think that's going a bit far. My dad was just who he was- a tough little Cockney wizard, tamed by Mum, but never giving an inch.

Upstairs, I sat fuming and worrying by turns, terribly frightened that Sirius would leave and I wouldn't get a chance to talk with him or even say goodbye. I was angry, too, that he apparently cared more for these Potters than he did about me, and I was more than a little scared. The thought of people called Death Eaters- I thought it was the creepiest name!- who were killing other people, and who somehow were aware of my family...well, with the indiscrimination of youth, I was sure that they were after me before too long. And so it was that when Sirius finally knocked on my door, entering right on the heels of the last rap, he found me crying in the back of my closet.

"Nymphie?" he called uncertainly, shutting the door quietly behind him, and I crawled out of the closet, sniffling. "What's wrong?"

I deliberately stopped just beyond his reach, and glared at him accusingly. "Why are you leaving, Sirius? I don't want you to go!"

He paused, and looked a little uncertain for one of the only times in memory. Right or wrong, Sirius always seemed to know what to do, and he always looked good doing it. He was devilishly handsome, Sirius was, one of the few examples of pureblooded breeding paying off. While most purebloods seem to have a wasted air about them, due no doubt to the thinning of the available gene pool, Sirius was representative of all the best traits of the Noble and Ancient House of Black. He had fine aristocratic features, eyes so deep a blue as to be mistaken for black, and black hair that he wore down to his shoulders. Combined with his vigor and his arrogance, his was an exceptionally magnetic personality.

Of course, he was also possessed of a sharp humor, abiding loyalty, and strong opinions that opposed those of his family, thus making him completely unfit as heir. And his looks weren't cutting any slack with me that day; the horrible feeling that I was being deserted by my hero was almost more than I could bear.

"Why?" I demanded again.

He looked at me, a little sad, but resolute. "Overheard us, did you? Not that I was going to hide it from you... Nymphie, I have to go," he said firmly. "People are depending on me and what I do." He walked over to my bed in three smooth strides, seating himself fluidly at the foot of it to regard me with affection where I stood across the room. "I'm gonna miss you, kid."

My lower lip started quivering again, and I told him, "I don't understand."

Sirius shook his head, and this time there was anger in the gesture. "I don't entirely understand it myself, Nymphie. Look," he glanced over at the bedroom door before bringing his eyes back to mine. "I'll try to explain what I can, but you can't tell your Mum! She doesn't want you to know what's going on, but I think you have a right to know, especially considering...well, you should just know."

"Considering what?" I shrilled. "Sirius..."

"Sh!" He made a face like he had just bitten into an unripe persimmon- yeah, that bad, he always was dramatic- and then sighed. "I guess that I should have kept my mouth shut. I meant to say, considering who your family is."

I was stunned. "Mum and Dad?" I whispered in horror. "What did they-"

"No! No!" Sirius shook his head frantically, waving his arms. "Not Andie and Ted! It's your Mum's sisters, and my family. Nymphie, honey, they're not nice people. They don't like folks like your Dad, who are Muggleborn, and they aren't afraid to hurt, and even kill, to make their point. And they aren't the only ones out there; there are a lot of them right now. That's why I've got to go away for a while; there's a chance that some of us can strike a heavy blow against them, but we've got to act now."

"But won't they hurt you?"

Sirius shrugged, a little uncomfortably. "They might try, if they caught me. But they won't catch me. I've got a plan."

"Tell me!" By now, having got over the worst of my anger with him, I approached where he sat and he laughed as he tweaked my nose.

"Nope. Can't even tell you, little Nymph; it's that big a secret."

I pouted and sulked in return. "I don't want you to go," I whined petulantly, and just for an instant I thought that I saw into Sirius' head, because in that moment I knew that he was afraid, even though he'd never admit it to anyone. In a flash it was gone, and my same old cocky, strutting cousin was back in place, assuring me that he didn't want to go either, but that it was all for the best. I let him cozen me, but inside I was becoming more and more scared and confused. I couldn't understand half of what I had heard, and the little that did make sense put an entirely new light on nearly everything important in my life. My family was embroiled in a war that I had only now heard about, my courageous cousin flashed fear in his eyes, and abandoned me for people I had never heard of. And to know that Mum had kept this hidden from me was baffling as well, for why would she not tell me such important things?

But I was a Metamorphmagus, and putting on faces was no big deal. Sirius never knew how upset I was when he finally gave me a hug and left, nor did my parents see any of the turmoil in me when they came up later to scold me for eavesdropping.

But Sully knew. He knew it the moment he saw me next.

~*~*~

It wasn't until another week had passed that the news came out. You-Know-Who, the scourge of the Wizarding world had been thwarted, vanquished by the one year old child he had set out to kill. Very little of that made any impression on me, as I had only recently heard about the war in the first place. But what happened next had an enormous impact on me, and the repercussions of it took a long time to work out.

I found out all about it one morning, when I awoke to the sounds of owls hooting, and their soft wings shushing through the house. When I left my room, I saw that the house was literally filled with them; they were perching on furniture and fluttering in and out of the open window in the living room. A large screech owl startled me with its strident cry on the banister beside me before taking flight, and I started calling for Mum, who darted out from the kitchen with a shout.

"Nymphadora! Oh, I didn't know you were up yet, sweetie, I'm sorry..."

"Mum," I called down to her, ducking a barn owl that was doing excited aeronautics overhead. "What's going on?"

"It's liberation, dear!" caroled a weathered looking witch with sunbleached hair, one of Mum's friends, who was following her from the kitchen. "It's a celebration today!"

"Why?" I couldn't imagine what would cause all of this fuss, and Mum frowned at the other woman.

"There have been a lot of bad things happening," she told me gravely, "but they are all over today. The world is a much safer place now, and everyone is celebrating."

"Okay." It's hard to get excited over a freedom that you didn't know you had ever been missing, but such was Mum's gift to me. I flounced down the stairs, and shooing a pair of owls from my favorite chair, I sat down and started running through the list of noses that Sully had first made me memorize. Boredom around the house over the last few weeks had driven me back to drilling my masks, a task that Mum couldn't criticize for being too loud.

"Andie, darling, you really ought to go and laugh at that sister of yours! The one who married that awful Malfoy man, and who never missed a chance to snipe at your own lovely family..."

"Magda!" Mum turned to her friend. "Not in front of Nymphadora!"

"Oh Andie, you can't wrap her in swaddling clothes forever! And today of all days..."

The front door burst open then, and my Dad rushed in, his face bloodless white. "Andromeda," he said urgently, "I need to talk to you right now."

I sat straight up, ignoring Magda's squawking and the owls still doing their aerial dances. Dad was never so excitable; he and my mother had always been the souls of imperturbability. Mum's face was slowly draining of color too as she studied him, and then she turned to her friend. "Darling, I'll come and see you soon; please give me some time alone with Ted." Magda, for all her noisy chatter up to that point, cut it all off abruptly and kissed Mum on the cheek, exhorting her to call on her soon before Apparating away. Without a look at me, Dad snagged Mum's elbow and steered her up to their room.

For the second time in a week, I was left knowing so little about what was occurring around me that fear was the only response I could come up with. I think at that point I actually started wishing that the war were still going on, if it would only mean that people would start behaving normally again. Of course I had no frame of reference for that silly wish, otherwise I would never have thought it, but what can you expect from a child as sheltered as I was? All I knew was that in the space of a week my entire world was different, and my own family were becoming more and more like strangers to me.

I heard a strangled cry from upstairs, and my gut wrenched. "Mum?" I called in a quavering voice, but it couldn't have carried much beyond my lips. "Dad?"

No one answered, and my heart was beating in my throat as I rose from my chair, trembling. To this day I have no idea how I managed the stairs; my legs were shaking and my head was buzzing with adrenaline by the time I reached the top. About that time, my parents' door opened and my Dad came out, shutting the door behind him. His face was sad and worried, but when he saw me he gave me a broad, watery smile.

"C'mere, Nymphadora," he said, holding his arms out to me, and I raced to him, bawling without knowing quite why. He just held me and rocked me, not saying a word, while I sobbed on his shoulder. I think that he knew then that nothing Mum could do would keep this secret from me, no matter how much she would want to spare me. But he couldn't be the one to tell me that my beloved cousin had just been arrested for murdering a dozen people in broad daylight.

~*~*~

By the next evening, I knew all about it.

And I do mean all about it; Mum was in no condition to do what would have been necessary to keep me ignorant of that event. I snatched the Daily Prophet from the owl's talons before it could even land, I listened to all the Wizarding broadcasts that I could; I even stayed up late that night, hidden in the bottom of the coat closet, just so that I could listen to a young man who had dropped in as I was going to bed. I had seen him at a distance once or twice before, and all I knew was that he was one of Sirius' friends, but on those credentials alone I figured that he ought to have some important news, or evidence that would exonerate Sirius. That was how these things happened, right? The good guy is always redeemed in the end, isn't he?

Yes, the irony still makes me physically ill.

Anyway, I was optimistic, and so I huddled among the rain boots and macs and pressed one ear against the inside of the door to listen. In case you hadn't already figured it out, I was either persistent or foolish, and possibly both. Regardless of what I was, what I wasn't was reassured by what I heard.

The man talked to my Dad for a short while, relating the bare facts of what Sirius had done. He seemed to know a little more than all the other reports I had read and heard, and he spelled out the events in a sad, choking voice, occasionally having to stop as he was overcome with emotion. The one thing he kept saying, over and over, was, "It just can't be real. They can't all be gone." I still remember that, still remember the way his voice cracked as he repeated it brokenly. He was the only person I ever heard at that time who I thought might feel as wretched over it as I did.

So I listened, as he detailed how Sirius had confronted another friend of theirs, and how he had killed that friend and a whole street full of other people, all with one powerful curse. How he had been found on the scene, laughing maniacally, and offering no resistance at all as he was taken into custody. And how he had caused the death of the very people that he had been promising to protect, and how that was somehow the worst of all his crimes. And through it all, the man kept saying, "It can't be real," and I so deeply wanted that to be true. Everything had become surreal almost overnight, and I only wanted the nightmare to end so that I could go back to my sheltered existence.

"I still can't believe that he was a Death Eater," the man said hoarsely, and a chill ran down my spine at the name. "Of all the people I knew, never would I have thought Sirius..."

"No one did," my dad told him. I heard the clink of glass, and I knew that he was pulling out the bottle of firewhiskey he kept on the sideboard. Liquid gurgled, and the other man made a sound like a sob.

"How could he...James and Lily, and little Harry..."

"Take a drink, Remus. And just be grateful, as I am, that Sirius was captured before he could do any worse harm. Though after that...Merlin, he was just here the other night with Nymphadora..." More alcohol was poured, and my father drank noisily. As I listened, the remembrance of my last time with Sirius flooded back and I sat utterly still in the bottom of that closet, immobile with pain and confusion.

You have no idea how much that memory still hurts me.