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Black Ashes


Sirius Black woke in the middle of the night, sweat pouring over his neck and chest. Sirius had been having another of The Dreams. He’d begun thinking of The Dreams with capital letters when he’d realized that it had recurred several times in a week… but the longer he was away from Hogwarts and the other boys, the longer he was stuck here at Number 12 Grimmauld Place, the closer it had become to recurring every single night.

Sometimes, like now, twice.

The thing about The Dream was that it wasn’t a bad dream, exactly, at least not all of it. In fact, in the dream, just before he would wake up in a panic, he was very, very happy. It was just that the moment he realized it in the dream, he would wake up, and panic would fill him up...

The Dream started the same way every time - with him running away from something that was chasing after him, something unseen... But he would be running and running and suddenly he would remember that it was a wolf he was running from. But he wasn’t afraid of the wolf anymore, he realized, and he would stop and turn back and Remus would be laying there on the ground on his back, eyes closed, jaw slack… Panicked that one of the spells he’d been shooting over his shoulder as he ran had struck him, Sirius would run back to him and shake Remus, begging him to wake up, and he wouldn’t. So Sirius would bend down and try to do muggle resuscitation, pressing his mouth onto Remus’s mouth very hard and desperately...and tasting his lips… Remus’s mouth always tasted a bit like chocolate and something almost minty - he guessed this was the aconite leaves that Rey had taken to chewing at Veigler’s recommendation… Then suddenly the feeling of being chased was gone and they were just two boys on the floor of a forest, amongst the bracken and the leaves, and suddenly Remus’s mouth was moving against Sirius’s as he did the resuscitation. But it wasn’t a resuscitation any longer - Remus was no longer in trouble but awake and aware - so instead it was really kissing. Remus’s hands were up in Sirius’s hair and there was a great deal of tangled limbs and Remus would lean forward and suddenly Sirius would be on his back, staring up at him, and the world would go all fuzzy so that it was only Remus that he could see. Remus would lean closer and his mouth would open and Sirius would open his too and they’d kiss and Remus’s body weight would press against Sirius and he’d feel safe, despite Number 12, despite all the fears he kept buried deep inside himself everyday. Because Rey was there and if Rey was there then everything was alright. And for the briefest of moments, as Remus Lupin’s mouth traveled to Sirius’s neck, he would be truly, blissfully, absolutely happy. In his dream, he would even go so far as to groan with pleasure and he would run his hands up Remus’s arms to his shoulders… and Sirius would tilt his head back to give Remus access to this throat… surrendering completely to his Moony and Remus would kiss him gently, softly, right above his jugular and... and then Sirius would wake up in his own bed, sweating and choking for air, panicked and sick to his stomach.

Sirius rolled over and pressed his face into the pillows.

He wished he’d brought his Divination book home with him. But since they hadn’t had the subject in some time, ever since Cassandra Vablatsky had been poisoned, it had been kicked under his bed back at the dormitory in Gryffindor tower and forgotten. No doubt, that’s where it was now, unless some house elf had found it cleaning the dorms over the summer and moved it onto the little bookshelf in the boys’ room. Either way, the book was at Hogwarts and Sirius was not. But he would’ve liked to know what the meaning of the dream was, for surely it couldn’t possibly mean what it seemed on the face of it…

Could it?

He stared up at the ceiling and the moonlight cutting across the bedroom, reflecting on the posters of muggle motorbikes and half-dressed muggle women that he’d spent a good deal of the last month of term tearing from old muggle magazines at the Hogwarts library, just to bring them home and stick up about his room with permanent sticking charms. The motorbikes and half-dressed muggle women were what he’d picked out of the magazines because that’s what turned him on, he told himself. And it was true. At least about the motorbikes. But there was something indecent about the pictures of the muggle women, something unnerving that he didn’t particularly like. He’d told himself it was because the photographs didn’t move and frozen solid people in photographs were unnerving in general (it’s creepy when a person doesn’t blink, after all). The motorbikes filled Sirius with adrenaline.

Adrenaline like was pouring through his veins now as his heart raced...

There was a sound outside his door, then and he sat up quickly, drawing his wand from under his pillow. “Protego,” he said, and a shimmering shield went up between him and the door, incase his locking charm hadn’t been strong enough. His was probably the only door in the world that had been locked from both sides, what was outside keeping him in and him inside trying to keep what was outside out. He sat on the bed, ready, poised, a spell on his lips. But the sound must’ve either been Sirius’s imagination or not a threat to him, at least, so he lowered the wand and the shield charm faded off.

He looked at the bit of broken mirror on his bedstand. James, possibly the messiest person that Sirius knew, had knocked his side of the mirror over earlier in the week and it had slid from it’s place on his nightstand and onto the floor, under his bed, half poking out from beneath. The view from Sirius’s mirror, then, was the underside edge of James’s bed, the wood and the springs and everything holding the grey plaid sheeted mattress up and the ceiling beyond that. Although right now, James’s right leg, clad in maroon sweatpants, hung over the edge of the bed just a few inches, from his knee to his foot. His heel just hung onto the lip of the mattress, keeping his leg from slipping.

Sirius knew would never be able to get James’s attention with the mirror all the way down on the floor - not quietly enough to avoid getting unwanted attention gained here on this side of the mirror. Once James was sound asleep, somebody could perform an expulso right by his head and he’d never hear it.

It had been a very long month since The Marauders had said goodbye on Platform 9¾ although Sirius felt as though it’d been an eternity. Despite Sirius’s promises to Remus, too, he didn’t have anyway to escape Number 12. He couldn’t get out of his room. The moment he’d arrived, Walburga had grabbed a hold of his head by the hair, dragged him up the stairs in a rush, glancing over her shoulder, and she’d shoved him into his bedrooms so that he fell to the floor. “Don’t you show your face around this house,” she’d hissed at him, low and scornful. “And don’t you be making any noise. I don’t want to hear a blasted sound out of you.” And she’d slammed the door and cast several locking charms, sealing Sirius in seemingly permanently.

Three times a day, Kreacher would apparate into the middle of the room, carrying a try of food, and he’d put it on Sirius’s desk and then disapparate away before Sirius could say a word. At first, Sirius had refused to eat it, living off the remaining cauldron cakes and licorice wands and chocolate frogs that James had made him take home from the Hogwarts Express sweets trolley. But soon those had run out and he’d laid in his bed staring at the trays, his stomach growling. Eat, Remus’s voice had echoed ‘round in his head from the day they’d been at the Lupin’s after Sirius had turned to Snuffles for the first time. You’ll feel better.

It was those words of Remusified-wisdom that had made Sirius finally break down and eat the food on the trays. That and the knowledge that he literally would have to eat it or else he’d starve to death anyway, so even if it was poisoned, he would die whether he ate it or not.

Honestly, at the prospect of spending the rest of the summer the way he had already spent the first bit of it, a part of Sirius was tempted to welcome the idea of the poison. At least it would get him away from the Number 12. Life at Grimmauld Place was completely draining him so that he could barely remember what it felt like to laugh or to smile. It was as though the house were crawling with dementors.

That’s why it had been so hard to write to Marlene McKinnon, Sirius told himself. He looked over at the desk in the corner. She’d written him several owls over the month, once a week to be exact, and Sirius had started writing her a letter after the very first one… and the draft still lay on his desk, half finished.

Dear Marlene, it started, I’m having a great summer! I got your owl while I was backpacking in Costa Rica. That’s why it’s taken so long to reply. Your second owl has found me still in the jungle here. There’s quite a lot to explore. Did you know that sometimes oranges come from Costa Rica? I’ve been staying in a grove of them here, eating them right off the tree for breakfast every morning. I’ll be sure to bring you home one so you can see how spectacular they are. I really am having a wonderful time, it’s positively spiffing here in Costa Rica, and ---

The quill had been laying across the parchment since the arrival of her third owl to him, in which she expressed a concern for having not heard back from him yet and he’d sat down with the resolution to finish the letter only to find that he couldn’t come up with anything more to say. He’d begun worrying where he’d get a Costa Rican orange, too, and put his quill down without adding even another word, and when the fourth letter had come from Marlene he’d put it on the desk without even opening it, sure she’d probably broken up with her stupid, good-for-nothing boyfriend.

Meanwhile, he’d written loads of letters to Remus, though those were nowhere to be found. Afraid of a repeat of what had happened last summer with the bundle of letters, Sirius was using the incendio charm to burn them up every time he’d finished writing his reply. He would sit it in the rubbish tin and watch as the fire would curl the parchment and Remus’s handwriting would slowly melt away until there was nothing but black ashes.

Sirius felt as though perhaps that’s what Number 12 Grimmauld Place was doing to the heart within his chest, too. Soon, there’d be nothing left but the black ashes.

There was another sound by the door and Sirius raised his wand again, but this time, wanting to know what it was, he got up and went across the room and peeked through the keyhole. On the landing outside his room, he could see Kreacher, laying, curled in the dark, his palms up, shaking before him. Great tears fell from Kreacher’s bulbous eyes. He wanted to feel sorry for the house elf, but he didn’t… and even if he did there wasn’t a bloody thing he could do about it, being locked in as he was. He turned to go back to his bed, but he heard another sound, somebody on the stairs and he turned back, looking out again. This time, it was Regulus.

Regulus rushed over to the elf, “I’m back, shh, it’s okay Kreacher, it’s okay.” He whispered the words, glancing at Sirius’s door, clearly not wanting to be overheard. He would think that Sirius was sound asleep at this hour, of course, and if it hadn’t been for The Dream then he might’ve been. Regulus was holding a spool of knitting yarn and some strips of cloth, roughly torn from what looked like a pair of pyjamas. “Let me see your hands.” Kreacher held them out to Regulus and when he did the light of the flickering torch in the hall caught the torn up flesh, oozing with pus and bubbling blisters. Sirius and Regulus both had the same reaction: the breath caught in their throats in empathy. “Bloody hell, Kreacher,” whispered Regulus. “What did this?”

“It is Kreacher’s Master Orion, Master Regulus,” he said thickly, lowly, sounding ashamed of having to admit it. “He pressed Kreacher’s hands with hot irons for not being able to find the Blind Seer.” Kreacher’s tears ran harder than ever. “Kreacher is not meaning to disobey Master Orion, but the Blind Seer is not in his shop and Kreacher has been trying to find the Blind Seer as the Dark Lord commands but Kreacher doesn’t know where else to look!”

Regulus carefully took the strips of cloth as Kreacher spoke and he wrapped each of the house elf’s palms very gently. The elf winced and flapped his ears in discomfort as Regulus bound them securely with the yarn, which he’d had to use his teeth to bite through instead of cutting. “I’m sorry it’s not a better wrapping,” Regulus said, “This is all I could find.”

“Kreacher is thanking his Master Regulus,” the pathetic elf whispered thickly.

Regulus nodded, “Yeah, no problem. We don’t need you getting blood and pus all over everything you touch.” He tried to sound harsh when he said it, but it didn’t quite come out that way. He tucked the remainder of the cloth strips and yarn into his pocket.

“Kreacher will be careful not to bleed on anything,” the elf agreed.

Regulus asked, “Where have you searched for the Blind Seer already?”

“Everywhere, Master Regulus. The shop in Diagon Alley is boarded up and the seer’s clocks are gone. Kreacher has looked all about London and Hogsmeade. On Master Orion’s order, Kreacher has looked around the Claros, and on all the islets of Astypalaia.”

Regulus sighed. “You’ve done a very thorough job of it, Kreacher,” he said. He didn’t know what half those places were, or what their significance might be that Orion had sent his house elf to them. He’d been hoping to hear the elf had overlooked some place glaringly obvious and that he might be able to afford a suggestion, but it was clear the elf had done everything that he could to find the Blind Seer, but the man was hidden too well.

Kreacher shook his head, “Kreacher is failing at it and Master Orion will cut off his head if he does not find the Seer soon.” Kreacher’s newly bandaged palms moved to his neck. Kreacher will be displayed with his ancestors on the walls of the Noble House of Black.”

Regulus stiffened, “I won’t let him cut your head off,” he said in the voice of a spoiled child.

Kreacher blinked up at Regulus in a way that was clear the elf knew better - there wasn’t anything that Regulus would do to tame his father’s threat if Orion Black became enraged enough. Kreacher trembled slightly, his little bandaged hands staying against his neck.

“Come, Kreacher, let’s go to bed. It’s late. So late that it’s early.” Regulus stood up. He looked at Sirius’s door again and his eyes narrowed and Sirius backed away from the keyhole, afraid Regulus might be able to see his eye peering out. Regulus went closer and looked through the keyhole in reverse. Luckily, Sirius’s blankets were bunched up over pillows and when Regulus looked through, he thought he could see the form of his sleeping brother in the pale moonlight coming from his bedroom window, even as Sirius was pressed against the door directly opposite him, holding his breath.

Satisfied by that, Regulus turned and led the way down the stairs, followed by the bandaged house elf.

Sirius breathed in relief at the fading sounds of their footsteps on the stairs and he lowered himself to the floor slowly, wondering about the words he’d just overheard.

Who in the ruddy hell was the Blind Seer and what did Sirius’s father want with him? Whoever it was, for the Seer’s sake, Sirius hoped he was smart enough to stay hidden wherever it was that he had found where even magic could not find him.