Lia

‘- absolute wanker.’ His monologue over, James yawns expansively and reclines imperiously on his parents’ sofa. The mirror is filled by his riotous mass of hair. ‘What time are you getting here, by the way?’

‘Five, I think. I’ll check the ticket.’

‘Fantastic news. That gives us time to stop for a pint on the way back to mine.’

Sirius snorts as he mounts the stairs. The portrait hanging on the third floor landing - some relative or other he’s never bothered to learn more about - tuts at him.‘How the fuck are you planning on buying a pint, you pilchard? You’re fifteen.’

James looks outraged. ‘Yeah, but I’ve got the gift of the gab, haven’t I? And she likes me - the barmaid. It’ll be easy.’ Sirius rolls his eyes. ‘Anyway’ - a flicker of movement in the corner of the mirror reveals that he’s scratching his nose - ‘even if she doesn’t buy that I’m legal, she’ll be convinced by you. You definitely look eighteen - as long as you’re not wearing that t-shirt Moony hates. If you’re the one who orders, then -’

Sirius reaches the landing between his and Reg’s bedrooms.

‘Mate, I’ll have to call you back.’

He shoves the mirror in his pocket before James can reply.

The door to his room is open, which is ominous enough - since it usually indicates that Kreacher is rummaging through his things in search of “evidence” to support his mother’s delusions - but the cherry on top of the steaming pile of shit is that his mother herself is standing in the middle of his room, looking at the posters plastered across the walls.

He knows full well that, when his mother is standing in the middle of his room, the reason is rarely a good one.

(His act of defiance - choosing the girls in the frilliest knickers and tiniest bikinis from the Sun, imagining the outraged look on his mother’s face with the turn of every page  and laughing to himself - doesn’t seem quite so funny now.)

‘Sirius, come here.’

There is a rustle of crepe - the black expanse of her skirts, whispering like a Dementor’s cloak - as she turns to look at him, forcing him to move forward when he’d prefer to run back down the stairs.

He enters the room with as much belligerence as he can muster and leans against the doorframe to consider his next move.

His mother is parked on the rug - the one they’ve had countless fucking arguments over (it was bought with a pattern of snakes woven into it, he’d transfigured them into lions when he was twelve, this had apparently ruined it) - examining a poster of a Harley. Her mouth (Reg’s mouth) is a thin, disapproving line.

‘A Permanent Sticking Charm.’

‘Yep.’

‘Very perceptive. You correctly anticipated my reaction to seeing something so… distressing.’

That’s four coherent sentences in a row, all delivered at a normal volume. She isn’t pacing around, muttering to herself and wringing her hands. She’s having a good day, then. She thinks that he’s a piece of low-class scum, rather than a demon sent to destroy the family.

‘Yeah,’ he sniffs, ‘but since you find everything distressing, that wasn’t fucking difficult.’

‘Mind your language.’ She fiddles with a loose thread at her cuff. ‘You have become so vulgar recently… The filth you come out with… I cannot stand it.’

‘Whatever.’

His mother narrows her eyes (Reg’s eyes). ‘You learn it from that blood-traitor boy.’

‘Yep. Sure do.’

She frowns (she looks just like Reg) at a picture of a red-haired girl (Sirius had noted, and then immediately repressed, her resemblance to Lily), posing fully nude with a cricket bat strategically covering her crotch.

‘He teaches you to lust after Mudblood jezebels as well, I am sure.’

‘Exactly right, Mum. We’re getting our pureblood dicks wet every night in a load of Muggles’ daughters.’

‘Sirius! What have I said about your language?’

‘So you can say “Mudblood” but I can’t say “dick”?’

Thank God she hasn’t realised what you are… a voice whispers in his ear. She’s happy to believe every conspiracy under the sun about you… But it’s never even occurred to her that you’re a poof…

‘You will restrain your attitude for once, Sirius. I am here to talk to you.’

‘About what?’

‘Your father and I have decided to start making arrangements for your future.’

‘What?’

‘You are well aware what this means.’

‘I’m not getting married.’

His mother considers him, looking faintly perplexed and faintly amused.

‘Of course you are not getting married, Sirius.’

(She always looks like that on her good days. She carries herself like someone who finds basics facts about the world - that women have bodies and not all of them go around covered from neck to ankle in shrouds; that normal people don’t plan out marriages like shopping lists; that all the old wives’ tales about fairies are bullshit - impossible to comprehend. Like someone who’s watching the rest of them through a screen.) 

‘It is not our tradition to marry our sons when they are fifteen.’ She examines her own hand, frowns at the too-big wedding band on her finger. ‘It is simply time for you to begin discerning. Your engagement will not be finalised until you have left school.’

‘But -’

His mother turns to face him. Her hair is pulled back into a tight bun. (She wears her hair up, on her good days. Kreacher trusts her with the pins.) It makes her ears (Reg’s ears) stick out.

‘This is how it is done. You are the age your father was when your grandfather arranged for his future. You are the age your grandfather was when your great-grandfather did the same. It is the way we keep our bloodline free from pollution. You know this. You have had it impressed upon you since the day you were born.’

‘But I didn’t -’

‘Thank goodness that Regulus is attentive to the responsibility which comes from bearing the Black name, at least…’ She turns back to the posters. ‘You will marry, Sirius. That is non-negotiable. You will marry and you will produce sons.’

‘I -’

His mother touches her fingers - briefly, the movement is so quick that it looks like a trick of the light - to the brooch at her throat.