Pensieve - Wolfstar Fanfiction

28

"Dinner's ready."
Walburga's cold, creaking voice spoke as she opened Sirius' door without knocking. He had used to it, the lack of privacy, and he had learnt to listen for steps getting closer to his door. But now he had nothing to hide, only this thoughts. The thoughts that scared him, ones that made him feel sick.

The middle aged woman was wearing a neat black dress. Her black hair was on a tight bun, pressed against the back of her head. A snake shaped ring on her finger and a black stone necklace hanging just above her heart.
It was kind of poetic how that piece of stone reflected to what was laying beneath it. That woman's heart was black and cold, small and unable to love.
"And for the love of god, change your clothes!"
She snarled and marched away. Sirius staid still on his bed, listening how the sharp snapping of her heels disappeared into the stairs.
The sun was almost entirely gone, turning the London sky a darker shade of gray by the minute. Sirius' room was filling with shadows, they were still and growing silently. The boy stared out of the window, he didn't want to leave that spot. He was safe there, staring at how the snow danced on the air before landing on rooftops.

His closet was open. Full of different types of dark gray and black suits and fancy jumpers, leather belts and hats that his mother made him wear whenever the ocassion was too fancy for Sirius' usual clothes.
He had no permission to wear his leather jacket or jeans anywhere near his family. Not to mention his quidditch jersey or school uniform, from those he would get beaten up.
He stared at that dark abyss of expencive and old clothing, not wanting to even touch any of them. They had that wet and cold smell on them, the house's smell. The worst smell in the world.

Two minutes or so later, as he figured Walburga wouldn't have any patience to wait for him much longer and the Christmas meal was turning cold downstairs, he forced himself to dress up.

He looked gorgeous. Dark curls framing his beautiful face, cheekbones and jawline highliting against the black jacket he choosed from the messy pile.

He took a deep breath. From the dusty and dirty mirror, a boy he didn't recognise stared back at him. With glazed and empty eyes and bruised, colorless face, the ghost of who he used to be was judging him.
But Sirius just swallowed the pain and the fear, the judgement he felt towards himself and thought silently
Just one Christmas dinner. Do it for Regulus.

The temperature somehow dropped even lower as he stood to the stairs. They were creaking and narrow, on the walls there were tens of portraits of dead relatives staring at Sirius as he went.
Whispering. Mocking. Judging.
Four floors lower, Orion was just about to lose his temper with waiting. Walburga got him to calm down.

And as he finally appeared trough the dining room door, face a shade of blue, red and purple, his mother looked furious. Almost so furious that she could walk up to him and smack him, but the condition of the boy's face was bad enough already without her adding another bruise.
Arcturus III sat in the head of the table with a sour expression, Orion next to him. The two were clearly a father and a son, the terrifying mad look on their faces was almost identical.
Regulus was the only kind face Sirius saw looking up at him. He looked well groomed, Walburga had cut his hair that morning.
"Your mother went to fetch you ten minutes ago!"
Orion's voice was the same type of cold, imposing with greatness, echoing loudly from the freezing walls around them. Sirius closed his eyes again, it had became kind of a reflex every time his father used that tone.
"I'm sorry, Sir."