The Noble and Most Ancient

3. Alastair

Al had spent half his life pretending to be asleep.

Just because he wanted to make things simple for his mother. At 11 years old, he finally understood that no matter if he was asleep or not, his mother's life was not any easier. She would always sit alone by his bed, always tell him some stories from her childhood. "Your grandfather would have loved you so much," she had whispered. "He would have loved all of you, but you most of all."

And Al often tried to imagine this love that his grandfather would feel for him. But each time it came down to a single question. Why would Sirius the Third Black love him so much? More than the others?

When he had asked Aunt Andromeda that same question, she had simply smiled. Her eyes had drifted to something outside her perfume shop when she had sighed. It was a minute or two before she finally spoke, but for Al - who was six at the time - it was an eternity. An eternity he had the patience to wait. Especially when it came to the person who would love him. More than the others. "Sirius... maybe because he knew what it was like to see your child die." 

And Al was almost dying every week. It felt like everyone was waiting for the day the breakdown would come, but he was not going to be there to see the "after" of it. 

It's just that in one moment - the familiar moment - he wouldn't be able to breathe. He would be lost in his own world of suffocation and trying to get back to his family. And then... then he would pass out and wake up. But not with his family... Not with the family he knew. 

He would wake up to the grandfather he didn't know. And Sirius Orion Black would smile at him. "Hello, Al," his grandfather would say. "Welcome to the afterlife."

Before answering, Al would study his features. And he would think how much this man looked like his mother (just as his grandmother Emma had said). He would see the dark hair and the nose and the shape of the eyes and the shape of the lips... and Al would cry. Because he had left his mother alone.

Yes, she had his siblings. She had Delphi and Teddy. She had his grandmother and his aunts and uncles. Even sometimes his mother had his father.

But Cassiopea Black was not one to confuse others with her own feelings. And she would be alone until things just ended. She would let her own magic destroy her (for good this time) and she would... die thinking she had failed her last child. And with her death, she would fail the others as well.

It was these things that had given him pause years ago when Regulus had told him, "You know it can all end, right? Just tell Mom you want to die."

"And what will mom do then?"

Regulus had shrugged. "It's not your problem, Al."

Al wasn't sure what to do now. Indeed. He could open his eyes and tell his mother that he wanted to die. He could break her heart even more. He could do so much damage with just a few words. He could give her a wound so deep that it would never heal.

He loved her, he wasn't going to lie.

But how could he not love his own mother? The one who took care of him, who sat by his bed, who listened to him... Honestly, while he was lying in that bed, one memory that stood out the most was her making him his favorite pancakes at three in the morning.

"Cassie," he heard the soft wintry voice of Professor McGonagall.

She usually sounded like spring to him - gentle and kind to every one of the children at Hogwarts. But now... Now - as she turned to his mother - McGonagall was not the good teacher who would always protect them. She was the judge of the eternal battle between good and evil within the souls of her children - her disciples. A battle that did not stop for a second in his mother's soul. Because he knew history better than anyone.