Chaos reigns all around him in the Department of Mysteries. Spells are flying, both from the kids and the Death Eaters. Sirius Black sees Harry dueling for his life from the corner of his eye, before a curse nearly hits him. He refocuses on Bella laughing, cackling hysterically in front of him.
"My, my Sirius! You’ve gotten rusty!", she taunts. In the face of her rapid spellfire, all he can do is dodge and try to put shield charms up in time. Sirius hasn't duelled in sixteen years, and he's barely keeping up.
He retreats, Bella hot in pursuit. He ends up near some archway; from it he can hear whispers caught in the air, which dissolve into nothingness when he tries to listen.
(Pads! Just in time! What do you say we—)
(You filthy blood traitor! You are no son of mine—)
(Sirius, please help me. Mother wants me to—)
Sirius sends off a hex towards Bella, but she backs him up. The voices tickle in his ear, his stomach drops, goosebumps raise on his arms, on the back of his neck, because—
Because he knows these voices.
And they call for him.
(Sirius, some say. Padfoot, he hears. A pleading voice he’d know anywhere whispers, Siri?)
In the moment where his blood freezes and he stands petrified, he gets stunned. As he rapidly falls unconscious, he feels his body enter a cold, dark void. Bella cackles gleefully. A scream of Sirius from Harry, and another of I killed Sirius Black from Bella.
Sirius closes his eyes.
When he opens them again, he's greeted by a hospital room. Some nurse is holding him, and he feels disoriented. Until, he's handed over to a familiar face he hasn't seen in over a decade.
"Hello," Walburga Black whispers to her newborn child. She looks over at her husband, who nods. He tells her, "So it's decided. Welcome to the family,
Sirius Orion Black."
The newborn wails.
In this life, Regulus Arcturus Black has only ever known his brother to be kind (After all, only Sirius remembers his life from before). Although, Siri's a little bit weird; he'll ruffle his hair and play with him in the gardens and generally be a nuisance, but sometimes his brother looks at Regulus with something indescribable.
(When Regulus grows up, he'll learn this expression to mean several things. Grief and regret, but with hope, determination; a second chance.)
Life at their home is pretty okay. Sirius plays with him often, and teaches him things Regulus isn't sure how he knows. One time, they were hiding in the attic at the top floor, and looking out the window. They’d watched the people (muggles, his mother once said disgustedly) walking through the street, and buying things at the shops or hanging around in the nearby park.
Muggles, he remembers his mother explain, are people without magic. Regulus thinks of the magic that runs the house—cleaning spells that tidy things up in a second, summoning spells that find what his father's looking for, heating spells that get the tea done fast. He asks his brother this: "How do muggles live without magic?"
Sirius startles and looks at Regulus (I’ll do better by you Regulus, I promise), before thinking and replying, "What we can do with magic, they can do with technology."
"What’s tecnowlogie, Siri?" He asks back. He stares at the kids running around the park playground. Maybe he can convince Sirius for them to sneak out and visit the park sometime.
"Technology is uhh, things that run on electricity! And electricity is sort of like muggles' magic.", Sirius explains.
"They have lights powered by electricity", he continues, "and also things like kettles and toys. Oh! And they sort of have their own moving portraits that run with electricity, except theirs is a big box that can show stories. It's called a television."
YOU ARE READING
Stellar Parallax
FanfictionSirius closes his eyes. When he opens them again, he's greeted by a hospital room. Some nurse is holding him, and he feels disoriented. Until, he's handed over to a familiar face he hasn't seen in over a decade. "Hello," Walburga Black whispers to h...