Chapter Text
Tik. Tik. Tik.
The sound drilled into his skull with the persistence of a curse that had missed its mark but refused to dissipate.
The Muggle clock sat on the bedside table, squat and inelegant, its brass face dulled with age and fingerprints. It had been a thank you gift from James and Lily — chosen, Sirius suspected, because it was stubbornly ordinary. Mechanical. Honest. Muggle. It had no magic to soften time’s passage, no charm to blur the edges. It simply counted.
Each second laid itself bare. Taunting him as it marked the endless seconds, minutes, hours that had passed since that awful night.
Sirius Black lay on his back beneath the heavy drapes of his childhood four-poster, staring up at the familiar cracks in the ceiling plaster above him. He had traced those lines a thousand times as a boy, imagined constellations in them when sleep refused to come. Had pictured the constellations of which his family had been named for. Now they looked like fractures — fault lines spreading slowly outward, threatening collapse at any moment.
He did not sleep.
He had not slept properly since that night.
Sleep only came now with mind numbing chemical help: his father’s Firewhisky, pilfered from the locked cabinet in Walburga’s sitting room, and a Sleeping Draught strong enough to flatten a Hippogriff. Even then, rest was a fragile thing. Shallow. Brittle. One wrong thought and it shattered all over again.
Tonight, he had refused both.
Some part of him — a stubborn, cruel part of him — insisted he deserved to stay awake. That he deserved the horror that now plagued his every waking thought.
Tik. Tik. Tik.
Every blink brought them back.
Grey eyes.
Wide. Wet. Terrified. Fixed on him with an accusation that needed no words.
Sirius exhaled slowly through his nose and pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth, grounding himself in sensation the way Remus had once taught him. Name five things you can feel. Four you can hear. Three you can see. Two things you can taste. One thing you can know with surety…
The sheets were stiff with age beneath his fingers. The air smelled faintly of polish and old incense. The clock ticked. A draft crept under the door. Moonlight bled through the gap in the curtains, silvering the carved posts of the bed. His tongue tasted like copper; from the way he had bitten at his cheeks.
It didn’t help.
The image waited patiently behind his eyelids, sharpening with every attempt to banish it. Andromeda’s face, pale in the low light of the nursery. The child’s soft whimper, cut short. The way Andromeda’s arms had tightened reflexively, instinctively around the infant — not in fear for herself, but for what she held.
For whom she had held. His niece. Her daughter.
Sirius squeezed his eyes shut harder, jaw tightening until it ached. His elder cousins face twisted behind his eyelids, grimacing in terror as bright green flashed in front of her.
“You did the right thing,” he murmured to the empty room, the words tasting thin. Hollow. Desperate. “You did.”
The Order said so.
They had been quick to tell him. Too quick.
The praise had begun before the smoke finished clearing behind them.
It came in murmurs at first — low-voiced, reverent. A clasped shoulder. A nod heavy with meaning. James’s hand gripping his arm with fierce pride, eyes bright and glassy all at once.
“You stopped something monstrous,” James had said, breathless, as though he had been the one to fire that awful spell. “You know that, right?”
Remus hadn’t said much. He never did. But his look had been steady, grateful. Almost relieved in a way that made clear how he felt about the whole situation.
Dumbledore had met Sirius’s gaze for a long moment in the ruins of the manor, firelight painting deep lines into his face. Then he had inclined his head — just slightly.
“Well done,” he had said quietly. “History may never know what you prevented tonight. But I will.”
The words had landed like a blow.
Not because Sirius disagreed.
But because there was that small part of him – that part his family had never understood, that wanted to preen in the face of his approval. That wanted to simply rejoice in the great evil they had stopped.
Now, lying alone in the Black ancestral home, the praise replayed itself with nauseating clarity. Each remembered word burrowed deeper, festering.
They called it courage.
They called it necessity.
They called him brave.
Sirius rolled onto his side, facing the clock, and stared at its relentless hands.
They hadn’t seen her eyes.
They hadn’t felt the wand shake in his hands as he cast that spell.
They hadn’t been the one to decide — in a heartbeat, in a fraction of a second — that blood was less important than prophecy.
That family was less important than possibility.
He scrubbed a hand down his face, fingers catching in his hair.
The Black family home loomed around him, silent and ever watchful. As it had always been. The walls were thick with old magic, saturated with generations of whispered judgments and oaths sworn in blood. Sirius had always hated this place — the way it pressed in, the way it seemed to remember him even when he wished to forget himself. Suffocating in its sentimentality.
Tonight, it felt like a tomb.
Andromeda should have been safe here.
The thought came unbidden, sharp as broken glass.
She had never left the family. Never turned her back on them. She had played the role expected of her — dutiful daughter, careful sister. Doting older cousin, the one who snuck him food when his mother banished him to his room as a child. She had married well apparently. Married power.
Tom Riddle.
The name curdled in his stomach.
The Blacks would have rejoiced when the match was announced. Sirius could picture the dinner vividly — the ancient, heavy dining table groaning beneath silver platters, the air thick with triumph. Walburga would have worn her finest emeralds. Orion would have toasted legacy and strength and the future of the line.
Uncle Cygnus would have had one too many and boasted his pride in his daughter’s choice. Druella would have been the perfect mother of the soon to be bride, talking of future grandchildren with a surety that Andromeda used to cringe at.
And Andromeda would have smiled. Reserved. Controlled. Grey eyes cool and assessing as she accepted their praise.
Sirius had not been there. Had not even been told of his cousins’ engagement.
He’d been at Hogwarts, nursing another argument with his mother by owl post, blissfully ignorant of the truth unfolding beneath his feet.
An outsider.
They’d meant to keep him that way.
They had fed him the same story his friends had been fed. Andromeda had run off. Had married a muggle. That she had chosen betrayal over duty.
And he had believed it. Had silently wished every night that his cousin was happy. Free in a way that he had never been.
A bitter laugh scraped out of his throat. His family had always known what he was. Gryffindor. Sympathiser. A liability waiting to happen.
They had simply underestimated how.
He groaned audibly, reaching for his wand to summon the bottle he had smuggled that afternoon. The amber liquid burning his throat – hot and painful, as he gulped the Firewhisky as fast as he possibly could. Giving in to his need to drown those eyes in the only thing that could make him forget.
The clock ticked on.
Morning came without ceremony. The kind that creeps up with a slowness that borders on painful.
Sirius didn’t remember deciding to get up. One moment he was staring at the ceiling; the next he was standing in front of the sink, gripping the porcelain so hard his knuckles burned white. His reflection stared back at him from the mirror — sharp cheekbones, dark eyes ringed with shadow, hair tangled from restless hands.
He looked older. Much older than he should look at barely twenty two.
He splashed water on his face, once, then twice and straightened, schooling his features into something passable. Neutral. Bored maybe. The Blacks prized control in public above all else. He could manage that. Lest he give them another reason to distrust him.
Downstairs, the house was already stirring. Kreacher’s muttering drifted faintly from the kitchen, thick with barely concealed disdain. Sirius ignored it, moving through the corridors with long, purposeful strides.
No one stopped him. Not even his mother when she passed him on her way to the kitchen. Her brow furrowed and her expression much grimmer than he had ever seen it.
No one asked where he had been.
Not yet.
He ate his breakfast alone, pushing food around his plate without tasting it. The Prophet lay folded beside his elbow, untouched. He already knew what it would say.
Tragic Fire Claims Entire Riddle Household.
Dark Wizard’s Line Extinguished in Mysterious Blaze.
They would all call it justice.
They would all call it fate.
Yet the bitter feeling of guilt would continue to gnaw at him. He was sure of it.
~~~~~~~
By midmorning, he had Apparated to Order headquarters.
The atmosphere there was light, almost… buoyant.
It made his skin crawl. His clothes, once his armour felt too tight. Like they were trying to suffocate him where he stood.
The Orders voices overlapped in animated bursts, speculation and relief and grim satisfaction tangling together. Someone had brought pastries. Tea was being poured. The war — for this one, fragile moment — felt as though it had never threatened their existence.
As if it were just some garish nightmare his traitorous mind had conjured up just to torment him. To test him.
If it had been, he knew by the sickly way that his stomach churned that he would have failed.
Sirius hovered at the edge of the room, watching it all with a strange sense of detachment.
This was what – their version of - victory looked like.
James spotted him almost immediately, his boyish face lighting up as he crossed the room in three long strides, his son – Harry, bouncing on his hip. “There you are,” he said, clapping Sirius on the shoulder. “I was starting to think you’d left us all to get merry and fat without your presence.” His voice was jovial. Little Harry grinned in his arms, soaking up his father’s joy.
Sirius huffed, his usual dry humour tasting like ash on his tongue. “Tempting.”
James grinned – that carefree grin that would have once caused Sirius to smirk in return, then he sobered. “Seriously, Pads. Last night—” He shook his head, awe and admiration warring in his expression. “You saved lives. Prevented countless casualties. Do you have any idea how many?”
Sirius met his gaze, something brittle tightening in his chest. “No,” he said honestly. “I don’t know.”
His words were meant as a confession, a plea for help, but James laughed, misreading it completely. “Well, trust Dumbledore. He always knows Pads.”
Across the room, Remus caught Sirius’s eye, his smile fading slightly as he caught his eye. There was a question there — quiet, concerned — but Sirius looked away before it could be asked.
He couldn’t answer it.
He didn’t trust his voice. Not now. Not here. Maybe not ever.
The meeting, when it came, was all logistics and contingency plans. The Order moved forward with renewed urgency, strategies adjusted, threats reassessed. Sirius listened, contributed where necessary, nodded at the right moments as they planned how to move forward now the threat was gone.
No one mentioned Andromeda by name.
No one mentioned the children. Or their fate.
That silence was louder than any praise he received.
When the meeting adjourned, Minerva clasped Sirius’s forearm, eyes bright behind her spectacles. “You did what had to be done,” she said firmly. “History will thank you.”
He smiled — or tried to, the expression coming out as some twisted form of a grimace— and excused himself before she could say more.
By the time he Apparated away, his hands were shaking. A fact that went unnoticed by everyone.
~~~~
He returned to Grimmauld Place just as morning began to fade, the house already steeped in the afternoons sun and shadow. Walburga’s voice carried faintly from the drawing room as he made to pass — sharp and angry.
“…a necessary excision,” she was saying. “The rot had to be cut away. It wasn’t the muggle born that was the issue Ori, it was the filthy ideals he tried to instil in her.”
Sirius froze in the corridor, heart hammering. His eyes scanning the corridor for any signs of life as he tried to puzzle his mother’s words.
Orion murmured something in response, low and approving.
“Andromeda understood sacrifice,” Walburga continued her voice dripping with a sadness he had never heard from her. “She chose her place. She chose well. She would have…”
So, they knew.
Sirius turned away before he could hear more.
He retreated to his room, closing the door softly behind him, and leaned his forehead against the cool wood.
They didn’t know it was him.
Not yet.
The thought brought none of the relief he had expected.
Only dread. The heavy sort that weight at your soul.
The clock was still ticking when he lay down again, its steady rhythm now a mockery of all that existed around him. Outside his window, the city hummed with life, blissfully ignorant of what had been done in its name.
Sirius stared into the dark and wondered how long he could keep this secret.
How long before they would all know of what he had done.
How he had cast that spell without thought. Without consciousness of who and what he had taken.
From the world.
From this family.
How long before the truth clawed its way free.
Because secrets had a way of doing that in this family.
And the Blacks were exceptionally good at making traitors pay.
~~~
The knock came just after dusk. Startling Sirius from the haunting image of his youngest niece’s fearful eyes as he picked her up.
The knocks were not sharp, nor were they commanding.
Just three measured taps, spaced evenly apart. In that tell-tale way that told Sirius exactly who had come calling on him.
Sirius stiffened where he sat on the edge of his bed, elbows braced against his knees, staring blankly at the opposite wall. For a fleeting, foolish second, he considered pretending he hadn’t heard his sister’s knock.
The clock ticked on.
The knock came again, this time louder, more firm than before, and Sirius found himself sighing in defeat. He knew better than to think she’d leave him be so easily.
“Come in,” he called finally, his voice rough and exhausted.
The door opened slowly. Cassiopeia Black — the youngest of their family — slipped inside without a word, closing the door carefully behind her. She did not look at him right away. Her attention — as razor-sharp and all-seeing as ever — moved instead to the room itself: the drawn curtains, the untouched glass of water on the bedside table, the foul scent of stale Firewhisky lingering in the air like a confession.
She was dressed in deep green, her hair pulled back in a severe twist that exposed the elegant line of her throat. Controlled. Always controlled. Cassiopeia Black had learned early how to survive this house. She was the epitome of them all. Or so their father said. The embodiment of the Black’s in all their glory and a shining example of an Heir barer.
“Sirius,” she said at last.
“Cass.” He glanced up at her, then away again, unable to meet her piercing blue eyes. “You can say it,” he muttered, attempting a smile — though he knew his beloved little sister was far too clever not to see through it. “I know I look like hell.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” she murmured softly, a sadness lingering in her voice.
That made him look at her.
Cassiopeia was watching him now — properly. Her eyes were sharp, assessing, unsettlingly calm and devoid of emotion. There was something in her expression he couldn’t place. Not anger. Not concern. Not quite sadness as he had assumed either.
Calculation.
His stomach tightened.
“What do you want, Cass?” he asked, trying for flippant and missing the mark entirely.
She moved further into the room, stopping just short of the bed. “You weren’t at dinner, haven’t been in a few days,” she said. “Mother has noticed.”
Of course she had. Mother always noticed — yet she didn’t care enough to come up here and check on him herself.
“I wasn’t hungry,” he dismissed, reaching for the muggle golf ball that he had nicked from a first-year muggle-born in his third year. Tossing it up into the air and catching it. Allowing the muggle ball to distract him from what he was sure was Cass’s disappointment.
Cassiopeia’s gaze flicked briefly to the clock. Then back to him, and Sirius could feel the way her eyes narrowed without looking at her. “You haven’t been hungry for days.”
Silence stretched between them, thick and uncomfortable.
“You’ve been avoiding the family, Siri,” she continued, her voice turning soft, almost pleading. “Avoiding me.”
Sirius scoffed weakly, his heart clenching traitorously at the hurt in her voice. “Didn’t realise I’d been that obvious.”
Or missable.
He tacked it on in his head. He knew that would be unfair to say to his sister — to dear, sweet Cass, the golden child of the Black family. She wasn’t meant to have been born, let alone survived her birth.
But she was a Black, through and through. Unwilling to sit quiet, unwilling not to fight. Especially when it came to something that meant something to them.
“You have,” she said quietly. “To anyone who knows what to look for. And I will always know what to look for, brother mine. Mother too — despite how little you believe she cares.”
Something in her tone — not accusatory, but certain — made his chest tighten painfully. He dragged a hand through his hair, agitation bleeding through the cracks in his carefully constructed indifference.
The golf ball fell with a thud, rolling somewhere beyond Sirius’ sight.
“What is this?” he snapped. “An interrogation?”
“No.” Cassiopeia shook her head. “This is me giving you an opportunity.”
He laughed — a short, brittle sound. “For what? Redemption?”
“For honesty.”
The word landed harder than he expected. Honesty. What was that? For Sirius, honesty was two-faced. The Order’s honesty seemed wildly inconsistent with the kind of honesty his sister was looking for.
Cassiopeia folded her arms, posture still composed, but her eyes softened — just slightly. “Something happened at the Riddle estate. To Tom. To Andy,” she said. “Something more than what is reported in the Prophet.”
His pulse began to pound, his mind recoiling at the mention of his name — of Andromeda.
“And you think I know something about it?” he asked, forcing casual disbelief into his voice.
“I know you do.”
The certainty in her voice stole his breath. How could she? Surely, she didn’t know.
“You came home changed; the night it happened.” she went on. “You stopped sleeping. You stopped provoking Mother — which, frankly, is the most suspicious thing you have ever done. The last time you did that, you were hiding a secret werewolf boyfriend from us all, as if we all didn’t already know.”
Her lips twitched faintly, the glimmer of a smile threatening her face, but the humour never reached her eyes.
“And when Andromeda’s name is mentioned, Siri, you flinch.”
Sirius swallowed.
“Cass—” he started, bile burning his throat. “You don’t—”
“NO! Siri. Do not dare pacify me as if I am Mother.”
He couldn’t help but flinch, his eyes — dark grey and guilt-ridden — meeting hers for the first time since she had arrived.
“She was my cousin too,” Cassiopeia continued, her voice gentling. “And my aunt is inconsolable.”
That did it.
Something in his chest fractured — a hairline crack finally giving way under pressure. He bowed forward, elbows braced against his knees, staring at the floor as if it might swallow him whole.
“You can’t tell them,” he said hoarsely.
Cassiopeia’s breath stilled.
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say,” she replied.
“I know who you’ll say it to.”
Silence.
When he looked up again, her expression had changed. The calculation was gone. In its place was something colder. All traces of his delicate, doting sister — the girl who once hid behind him during Mother’s rages — had faded. Replaced by a younger version of the woman he had come to despise more than anyone.
“Tell me,” she said.
He shook his head weakly. “Cassiopeia—”
“Tell me,” She repeated, voice firm now. “Or I will assume the worst and act accordingly.”
The words were unmistakably Black.
Sirius closed his eyes.
“I was there,” he whispered.
Her breath caught — just barely. But it seemed to echo in the room around them.
“At the manor,” he went on. “That night. The Order sent us. There was a prophecy.”
Cassiopeia said nothing.
“They told us there would be three,” he continued, voice breaking despite his efforts. “Three children. They said if we didn’t act — if we hesitated—”
His throat closed painfully.
“She reached for her wand,” he said. “Andy, she…” His voice broke again. His older cousin’s eyes — terrified — glinted at him from the recess of his own mind. “She was going to protect them. She didn’t even look at me — she looked at the baby.”
Cassiopeia’s face had gone very still, and Sirius couldn’t bear to look at her anymore.
“I cast first.”
The words hung between them, heavy and irrevocable.
For a long moment, Cassiopeia did not react at all. She simply stared at him, her gaze searching his face with clinical precision, as if confirming a hypothesis.
“You killed her,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You killed Andromeda Black.”
“Yes.”
“You killed a wife,” Cassiopeia said softly. “A daughter. An heir-bearer. A cousin. A friend.”
Sirius flinched as if struck.
“And the children?” she asked.
“No,” he said quickly, desperately. “No — they lived. I swear. We would never harm an innocent. Arthur took them. Dumbledore promised—”
“Enough, Sirius.”
The words snapped like a whip, each one filled with a disappointment Sirius had never known from his sister.
Cassiopeia stepped back from him, as though distance were suddenly necessary. As if she could no longer stand to share the same air as he.
“You cast an Unforgivable,” she said flatly. “On family.”
“She was married to him,” Sirius shot back, rising to his feet. “To Tom Riddle. You know what he is. You know what he would have done—”
“Andromeda knew too,” Cassiopeia cut in. “And she chose, Sirius.”
“That doesn’t make it right!”
“No. What isn’t right is you deciding for her,” Cassiopeia agreed. “It was hers. Her decision.”
The words stole the air from his lungs.
“You don’t understand,” Sirius said, desperation creeping into his voice. “They told me — they praised me. They said I saved lives.”
Cassiopeia’s eyes hardened.
“And what exactly did you save?” she asked. “At what cost?”
He had no answer.
Her expression shifted then — not to anger, but to something far worse.
Disgust.
“You didn’t just betray this family,” she said quietly. “You annihilated a branch of it.”
“That’s not—”
“You chose a prophecy and possibilities over blood,” she continued. “You chose strangers over your own name. You chose fools, following behind a blithering old fool with a god complex over your kin. And you expect me to keep that secret?”
She shook her head slowly.
“No,” she said. “I will not carry this guilt for you.”
Panic surged through him, and he stood, his hands outstretched toward her, his heart hammering as she moved back, out of his reach.
“Cassiopeia, please—”
“You thought I would protect you,” she said, voice low and steady. “Because I love you. Because I’d never do anything to hurt my brother.”
She met his gaze squarely.
“My brother would never have raised his wand and taken the life of our own blood. My brother would never have harmed a girl we grew up with. My brother would never have orphaned two innocent little girls. You, Sirius, are not him.”
She turned for the door.
“Cassie, please don’t,” Sirius whispered.
Her hand paused on the handle.
“When they ask — and they will,” she said without looking back, “I will tell them the truth.”
The door closed softly behind her.
Sirius stood frozen in the centre of the room, the echo of her footsteps fading down the corridor.
The clock ticked on.
And for the first time since that night, Sirius Black understood with terrible clarity that he was truly alone.
The Black Family Ceremony Room had often been a place Sirius had reason to visit throughout his life. Every special occasion—every wedding, every birth, every holiday—had been met with summons that drew the family together beneath its high ceiling and watchful walls.
The room itself lay deep within the Black Family Manor in Wiltshire—a grand, sprawling country estate, cultivated into an image of old wealth and quiet dominance. It was the sort of place meant to impress without effort; a luxurious retreat far removed from the press and noise of the world. A home his mother had never forgiven fate for denying her.
Walburga Black had often spoken of the manor with thinly veiled jealousy, her bitterness sharpening each time she recalled that it had not been hers when she married. Proud to the point of cruelty, she had always demanded the finest of everything – and resented anyone who denied it to her. Being left with Grimmauld Place—a mere townhouse, however ancient—had been a wound she refused to let close. No amount of polish or prestige could quite make up for what she considered a slight.
His father, Orion, had tried more than once to soothe her resentment, reminding her that Grimmauld Place was not a consolation prize but the ancestral seat, destined for the Heir of the House of Black. It was an argument that had never truly mattered. To Walburga, inheritance was less about tradition and more about possession—and Black Manor was the thing she had never been able to claim.
But Sirius had never shared his mother’s covetous sentiment. He had always disliked the place.
The room was overly large, its scale deliberate, built to dwarf those who stood within it. The walls were a deep, oppressive green, a colour chosen not for comfort but for effect, catching the light of the gold chandeliers in a way that made them gleam too brightly, too coldly. In the centre stood a vast dark oak table, polished to a mirror sheen, surrounded by thirty high-backed chairs carved with the Black crest. Though it had been many years since all of them had been filled, the empty seats remained, waiting, as though absence itself had been woven into the room as a form of judgement.
The table was adorned with heavy gold candelabras and an assortment of delicate golden trinkets—heirlooms, he’d been told—objects he had once reached for as a child and been sharply scolded for touching. Even now, they seemed untouchable, relics meant to be admired but never claimed, reminders of wealth that belonged to the family, not to its children.
But what Sirius hated most was the tapestry that dominated the back wall.
The Black Family Tapestry.
It stretched from ceiling to floor, a sprawling testament to centuries of names, each stitched in careful, reverent detail—each one a declaration of prestige, purity, and survival. And scattered among them were the scars: crude, ugly scorch marks where names had once been, where sons and daughters had been burned from the branches of the Noble Tree entirely. Proof that this was not merely a room for celebration, but a place where lineage was weighed, loyalty was measured, and family was something that could be revoked.
The Ceremony Room was empty when he had arrived, but it did not fill all at once.
It began quietly, almost politely. Distant footsteps echoed down the long corridors beyond the doors—measured, unhurried, as though time itself bent to accommodate those who walked these halls by right. The doors opened and closed in steady rhythm, admitting aunts and uncles, cousins whose names Sirius had learned long before he learned to hate them.
They entered in pairs or small groups, voices low, movements restrained, each one instinctively aware of where they belonged.
Chairs began to fill, starting from the far end of the table and working inward, a slow encroachment that made the room feel smaller by degrees. The scrape of wood against stone sounded unnaturally loud in the vast space, each seat claimed another reminder that Sirius was not meant to be comfortable here.
He remained standing.
Some glanced his way as they passed—brief looks, quickly masked. Others did not look at him at all. Indifference, he had learned, was its own kind of condemnation.
His great uncle Arcturus couldn’t meet his gaze. His aunt Lucretia looked at him as if he were something vulgar she had accidently stepped on.
His Uncle Alphard wore pity like it was his permanent expression. But he like everyone else so far, said nothing. Cementing the purpose of this meeting more than any words could. They were not here for anything celebratory.
The air around him grew clammy with bodies and breath, heavy with the faint mingled scents of old perfume, parchment, and magic that clung to the Black family like a second skin. It pressed against his lungs, settling uneasily in his chest. Sirius rolled his shoulders once, subtly, resisting the instinct to pace or shrink.
Then the tone shifted.
Bellatrix – his eldest cousin, and perhaps the most openly unhinged among them, arrived first of her generation, as she always did— her head held high, Rodolphus at her side like an accessory or an afterthought rather than a partner. Her gaze flicked to Sirius, sharp and assessing, lips curling faintly as though she’d found something amusing. Though Sirius saw the flicker of anger that burned behind her careful amusement. She did not speak. She did not need to. She took her seat with deliberate grace, folding herself into it as if the chair had been made for her alone.
Narcissa followed shortly after, gliding in beside Lucius Malfoy, a two year old Draco held close at her side. The boy’s pale eyes wandered the room with open curiosity until they landed on Sirius. For a fleeting second, something uncertain crossed his face—confusion, perhaps—but Narcissa’s hand tightened gently on his shoulder, guiding him forward without comment. She did not look at Sirius. Lucius did, briefly, his expression smooth and unreadable, before turning away.
And then came Cassiopeia. His sister. The one person here Sirius had hoped might offer him something other than pity, indifference, or anger.
She entered with her wife Marlene, his friend at one stage, beside her, their fingers loosely entwined, their daughter perched happily on Marlene’s hip. Oriah’s laughter cut softly through the hush, bright and unguarded in a way the room did not deserve. Her dark curls bounced as she spotted Sirius, her face lighting up with immediate recognition.
“Uncle Siri—” She wriggled, reaching for him with both arms, small fingers grasping at the air.
For a heartbeat, hope flared—sharp and unwelcome.
Sirius stepped forward instinctively, already lowering himself, arms half-raised to welcome her as he had her whole life—
Marlene adjusted her hold without breaking stride.
She lifted Oriah higher against her shoulder, turning smoothly away from him, her back coming between Sirius and her child with unmistakeable finality. Cassiopeia did not look at him either. Her face was calm, carefully neutral, an expression he saw often on his mother, never on Cass, as they moved past him without a word and took their seats together.
Oriah protested softly, confusion replacing delight on her innocent little face, but Marlene murmured something low and soothing into her hair. The child’s gaze lingered over Marlene’s shoulder, searching, until the distance grew too wide and Sirius was no longer within reach.
The chair scraped back. They sat.
The space beside Sirius felt colder.
By the time the room settled again, only a handful of chairs remained empty—those closest to the head of the table. No one claimed them. No one needed to.
The doors closed once more.
Silence fell—not the awkward kind, but something heavier. Expectant. Reverent.
Then the doors opened for the final time.
Walburga Black entered first, her presence commanding attention without effort. She moved as though the room itself bowed to her passage, spine straight, chin lifted, eyes hard as cut stone. Her magic hummed beneath her skin, old and proud and utterly unyielding. Her robes – an elegant dark green that matched the walls, flared as she strode forward.
At her side walked Orion Black.
His expression was composed, his movements precise, but Sirius felt the difference immediately. Where Walburga radiated cold certainty, Orion carried weight—measured, deliberate, burdened. His gaze found Sirius at once and lingered there, unreadable, before turning forward again. His magic, with the unmistakeable flare that marked the Head of House rolled around him with barely restrained violence.
Behind them came Druella and Cygnus Black, their faces set into expressions of solemn approval, as though this were not a reckoning but a duty long overdue. Though the unmistakeable taint of grief lingered on his aunt Druella’s face.
They took their seats at the head of the table.
The room was full now.
Sirius stood alone.
Seeing them all there, gathered together once more, two seats left unoccupied glaring back at him like accusations given form, Sirius found his breath locking painfully in his chest.
Those chairs had names.
Andromeda.
Regulus.
One he had been told was burned from the tapestry.
One buried far too young.
.
He could not decide which absence hurt more. The one he caused or the one he never saw coming.
Sirius swallowed, his lungs refusing to expand properly, the weight of so many familiar faces pressing in from every side. And yet—he did not run. Did not turn. Did not flee, even as his instincts screamed at him to do so.
He stayed.
Because if he left now, it would mean they were right.
It would make him a coward.
Orion Black rose slowly from his chair.
The scrape of wood against stone cut through the room like a blade, silencing the low murmur of magic and breath alike. His father did not raise his voice. He did not need to. Authority clung to him as tangibly as his signet ring, as the ancient magic coiled tight beneath his skin.
“Sirius Orion Black,” Orion said, his tone was measured, ritualised in that way that used to bring him comfort when he was young. “You stand before the House of Black accused of crimes against your blood, your name, and your kin.”
Walburga’s lips curved faintly—not in pleasure, but something complex and dark that he couldn’t place.
Sirius lifted his chin in response, forcing a crooked, defiant smirk into place against ashen features even as his pulse thundered loud and chaotic in his ears.
“Oh, don’t dress it up,” he shot back. “You’ve already decided my fate father. We both know that.”
A ripple of displeasure moved through the room and Sirius had to hide the wince that their displeasure caused. Their displeasure seeping into the magic that surrounded them, thick and cloying.
Druella Black’s hands tightened in her lap. “Hold your tongue,” she said sharply, her voice brittle with restrained fury. “You will show respect in this room, boy, if nothing else.”
Boy.
Sirius barked out a humourless laugh. “Funny. I was a man when you needed someone to blame Auntie.”
That did it.
Cygnus Black surged forward in his chair, rage flashing hot and unfiltered across his face. “You will not dare— address my wife with such familiarity…”
“Enough.”
Orion’s single word cracked like a whip before his uncle could finish speaking. Silencing the man. Cygnus subsided instantly, jaw clenched, eyes burning even as he sat back in his seat.
Orion turned back to Sirius, and for a moment—just a moment—something unreadable flickered behind his composed exterior.
“Tell us, Sirius.” Orion said. “Tell us that it is not true.”
The silence that followed was suffocating. Sirius did not know where to look. Every face carried the same judgement he had feared. The same anger and air of injustice that he had always loathed.
Alphard leaned forward, hands braced on the table, his voice rough. “Sirius,” he said quietly, almost pleading. “Tell me you did not raise your wand against your own cousin. Tell me you did not take Andromeda’s life while she sat defenceless, shielding her child.”
Every eye in the room fixed on him. Sirius’ jaw tightened.
“She wasn’t defenceless,” he snapped, unable to meet Alphard’s gaze. “She chose her side. She knew what she was doing.”
A sharp, collective intake of breath.
Druella made a sound—small, broken, unmistakably human. “She was my daughter,” she said, rising abruptly, composure finally fracturing. Her grief sharpened into something vicious. “She was beloved. By all of us. She was happy, Sirius. Happy. And you—”
“She married a monster!” Sirius shouted, the words tearing free before he could stop them. “A Death Eater. A fanatic. You let me believe she’d run off with a muggle—do you have any idea what that did to me? —only to find out she’d thrown in with Voldemort’s dogs? That she had in fact run off to marry the man hell bent on our very destruction.”
Bellatrix laughed.
The sound was sharp and cruel and utterly without humour.
“Oh, you stupid, stupid boy,” she drawled, leaning back in her chair, eyes glittering fiercely. “Here we thought there might be some sense in you. But to blindly follow some ancient con into a war you are wildly uneducated on? That’s more pathetic than we ever gave you credit for.”
Her gaze raked over him, merciless. “You don’t even understand the game you’re playing. Yet you take the life of your blood as if she were expendable.”
Sirius spun toward her. “I’m fighting for what’s right!”
“You stole the life of our sister Sirius, of our nieces. For what?” Narcissa asked coolly, her voice soft but cutting, speaking up from beside Bellatrix. “For men who whisper pretty words while sending children to die?”
“Enough, I will not hear your twisted rhetoric Cissa.” Sirius snapped. “I did what I had to do. I was protecting people—muggle-borns, half-bloods—people Dumbledore says are being hunted—”
“Dumbledore,” Cassiopeia repeated quietly. Speaking for the first time since she had entered the room. Her voice sliced through the noise like a knife.
Sirius turned toward her, hope flaring painfully in his chest. “Cass—”
She stood. And the room seemed to tilt as she met his gaze with nothing but cold hurt.
“You told me,” she said, her voice steady, controlled in a way that terrified him more than anger ever could. “You told me you cornered her in the nursery. That she had been asleep and woke startled and terrified. That she was holding her child when you cast the spell.”
A low, vicious murmur rippled through the room.
Sirius shook his head. “That’s not—”
“I didn’t-”
“I had no choice..” he began, stumbling to find a way to get her to see the truth in his words. To help her understand why he had done it. Why it had to be done.
“You told me,” Cassiopeia repeated, louder now. “You told me you had no choice. That it was already done the moment you recognised her.”
Marlene’s arm tightened around Oriah instinctively.
The child buried her face in her mother’s shoulder.
Sirius’ chest burned. “Cass, listen to me—”
“Did you hesitate?” Cassiopeia asked, finally looking at him. The silence stretched. Sirius opened his mouth. Closed it. And in that hesitation, something irreparable broke. Cassiopeia exhaled shakily and sat back down.
“That,” Orion said quietly, “is enough.”
Desperation clawed up Sirius’ spine at his father’s finality. He turned wildly, grasping for anything—anyone, that might offer him a glance. Desperate for any form of solidarity in this room full of strangers.
“Would Regulus be proud of you?” he demanded hoarsely, voice cracking for the first time. “Standing by while they do this? While they tear me apart for doing what was right? What was needed to protect us all from evil?”
Walburga’s eyes flashed.
“Do not invoke my son,” she hissed. “You do not get to use his death as a shield for your treachery Sirius.”
Orion’s face hardened, grief and resolve locking into something final. “You have chosen,” he said. “Again and again. And now the House of Black chooses in return.”
The magic in the room surged, ancient wards awakening, the tapestry behind him humming ominously as if listening.
Sirius straightened, spine rigid, bravado snapping back into place like armour. “Fine,” he spat. “Do it. Burn me too. Just like everyone else who has ever stood up for what is right, over obligation and expectation.”
He met his Father’s gaze with his own, forcing his hands to still at his sides. Forcing hiss chin high even as his stomach churned and tears threatened to fall from the corner of his eyes.
Orion’s gaze did not waver; he held Sirius’ gaze. Emotionless and alive all at once as the family magic began swirling around his skin. Answering the call of its Head of House.
“Sirius Orion Black, In taking the life of Andromeda Riddle. Daughter, mother, sister of this house, you have not only betrayed your kin in the most unforgiveable of ways. You have also betrayed your name and therefore your right to privilege from it. I Orion Black, Head of the most ancient and Noble House of Black, banish you from this moment forth. Stripping you of both land, family magic, and heirship. You shall never be welcome within the walls of our ancestral halls. From this day until you’re last.”
As he spoke Sirius couldn’t move, the magic around them pinning him in place as his father stripped him of his name. His magic recoiling and bubbling in his veins in a way that made him want to scrape and claw at the nerve endings within his skin.
He wanted to cry. To scream at the injustice. To lash out at them all as they sat watching his own magic boiling within his skin.
But Sirius knew it would be pointless. They wouldn’t help. Wouldn’t interfere so long as his demise did not impact their own ascent. It had always been the Black way. Hadn’t it? But somewhere deep beneath the ceremony, beneath the rage and righteousness and grief, a quieter truth whispered—one Sirius could not yet hear.
That the room was not judging him for simply going against his kin.
It was condemning him for why he believed it was necessary.