𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗣𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗢𝗡𝗘𝗥 𝗢𝗙 𝗔𝗭𝗞𝗔𝗕𝗔𝗡 [𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚍]

Chapter Twenty Seven: I Think Honks was His Name

‾‾‾‾‾‾‾ ･⋆✵⋆･ ‾‾‾‾‾‾‾

Everything went wrong.

It all started with Sirius wearing his red, lion emblazoned Gryffindor jumper the day after he came back to Grimmauld Place. Walburga told him to take it off or leave the house (Sirius was sure she wasn't bluffing) and he'd stormed back to his room this close to throwing a fit. He felt like punching every single stuffed elf head that was mounted on the wall, imagining each of them to look like Severus for some reason.

Once in his room he wrote to James to send him all the Gryffindor merchandise he could find and what James sent had to be carried by three owls. And Sirius couldn't have been happier. He spent the whole day covering every inch of his room in red and gold lions, the aforementioned jumper proudly displayed on the back of his desk chair. Technically, he did take it off.

The next day, Kreacher ran screaming out of the room after seeing all that Sirius had done when he came to clean and told Walburga how Sirius had 'defiled the Noble house of Black with the abominations of a bloodtraitor'. The house elf's exact words, right there.

And Walburga came into the room in all her glory and said if Sirius liked Gryffindor house so much, then he can spend the rest of the break staring at what he'd taped to the walls.

So Sirius's plan to just piss his mother off sort of backfired and he spent three weeks in Grimmauld Place with his loving family for absolutely no reason at all since he couldn't even visit the library, owing to Kreacher basically sleeping under his door to run off to Walburga if Sirius so much as breathed wrong.

Dinner was the only time Sirius was allowed out because Walburga Black had this obsession with showing that her family was picture perfect even when there was no one to judge.

The clank of forks and spoons on the silver plates, the logs shifting in the fire that did nothing to warm the cold walls of Grimmauld Place and the occasional rustle of Kreacher's feet as he brought things from the kitchen were the only sounds that were in the dinning room of Grimmauld Place that night.

Even Walburga wasn't talking to berate Sirius's posture or the way he holds his fork and Orion was too busy looking through the Evening Prophet for some business related thing.

"I noticed Andromeda is missing from the family tree, Mother." said Regulus halfway through dinner.

Sirius whipped his head around to look at that accursed tapestry he normally avoids looking at and sure enough, there was a roughly circular burnt out hole on the family tree next to Bellatrix's name.

"Oh, yes. Andromeda." Walburga breathed maliciously, her lips curling up into what passed for a smile for her. "Your cousin ran away from home and married a mudblood. I think Honks was his name." continued Walburga with undisguised glee, obviously happy that she wasn't the Black with the most disgraceful child anymore. "So your Auntie Druella disowned her a few days ago. Poor Cyngus. It must be dreadful to have children the likes of her. But a tree must be pruned to keep it healthy." Walburga gave Sirius a sideways glance when she said the last part.

Regulus went back to his meal, probably to forget this conversation by tomorrow morning because he didn't understand the not-so-subtle threat behind his mother's words. But Sirius did.

"May I be excused, Mother?" he asked as sweetly and respectfully as he can.

"You haven't had your dessert." Walburga said, her lips barely moving.

"I've eaten my fill, Mother. Thank you. May I be excused?" Sirius repeated.

She considered a moment, probably trying to decide whether tolerating Sirius's presence for a few more minutes was worth depriving him of something he wanted to do. "Yes. You may leave." she said at last.

Walburga pursed her lips when Sirius's chair made a loud scraping sound against the stone floor but didn't say anything. Sirius hurried to his room, accidentally stepping on Kreacher's long toes on his way out of the kitchen.

Once in his room, Sirius rummaged through his still packed trunk for a quill and parchment and started writing.

Sirius finished writing the letter and carefully tied it around his owl's leg. "Zephyr. Take this to Andromeda . . . Tonks, I guess."

‾‾‾‾‾‾‾ ･⋆✵⋆･ ‾‾‾‾‾‾‾

Sparsely spaced, snow covered cottages with pure white smoke coming out of their chimneys were all that can be seen through the train windows, the thin layer of frost that had settled on the glass making it blur just enough to give it a dreamy filter.

"Actually, I was locked up in my room the whole time." Sirius said, watching the landscape go by.

"Is it because of what I sent you?" asked James as he propped his feet up on the squashy seats of the Hogwarts Express and stuffed himself with more sweets.

Remus gave James' muddy trainers a look and slowly edged away from them but didn't say anything.

"What did you send him?" asked Peter, biting the head off a squirming chocolate frog. "A bomb?"

"You can say that." Sirius said, reminiscing about the infuriated look Walburga had given him when she saw all the red. "It exploded in my room and now it's entirely red and gold. Mother went absolutely mental when she saw it. You lot should be grateful that you still get to see more of my awesome self. I thought she was going to kill me."

"So you didn't find anything." concluded James. He was observant that way.

"Yeah." Sirius said, not smiling anymore. "Sorry, Remus."

"It's fine."

"Both of you stop being so mopey." said James and threw his feet off the seat to pull his trunk from under the seats where he'd carelessly stuffed it. He took out a book from it and held it up for them to see. "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander." he proudly stated. "Don't look so surprised. I can read, you know."

Remus, being the raging bibliophile he was, took the book off James' hands and started leafing thorough immediately.

"Are you sure about this? Mum says old age pushed Newt a bit off his rocker." piped up Peter.

"Dad knew him when he went to Hogwarts and he says Newt was never sane to begin with." James said with a laugh. "But he is brilliant when it comes to this kind of things. He knows his beasts. I've found a few other books too and we can borrow more from the library for reference. But let's not start today." he said and plucked the book back from Remus' hands to shove the copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them back in his trunk. "Opening a book is the last thing I want to do just now."

‾‾‾‾‾‾‾ ･⋆✵⋆･ ‾‾‾‾‾‾‾