#silver chains

Sirius reels like he’s been slapped, taken aback as he narrows his stare on his little brother. His little brother who he was certain was a perfect angel and never did anything wrong. 

“What?” 

Reggie stands, rolling his eyes as he gestures for Sirius to follow him. He does, but not without argument.

“You have a place for hiding things from mom and dad?”

“Yes, and it’s clearly better than yours.” Reggie closes his bedroom door behind the two of them, though their parents seem wrapped up in a meeting and likely won’t even see their children until the following morning. 

Reggie slides open the bottom drawer of his dresser. It’s filled with loose scarves and other things he hardly ever wears other than under the guidance of his mother. He sets the drawer aside, reaching into the empty space, and presses against the base of the dresser. His fingers slide to one of the corners, and peel it back. 

Sirius doesn’t know what he expected from his brother. Joints? Dirty magazines? Condoms? That’s what he would have.

Not papers. Not books. Like Reggie has been hiding away their lesson materials in the bottom of his dresser since he started school. Why would he waste such a perfect spot like this for fucking papers?

“You can hide stuff here.” Reggie tells him. Sirius gives him a half-focused nod and watches as he replaces the drawer.

Sirius never hid anything in Reggie’s drawer. 

He never went back to read any of the papers, either. He’ll regret that forever.

The steps up to 12 Grimmauld Place don’t get any easier no matter how many times Sirius has to force his legs to follow the same path. His hand tightens its grip around his wife’s hand, your hand, tugging you along beside him as the two of you approach his parents’ house together for the first time since the “wedding.”

The dress you’re in is making you uncomfortable. Not because it doesn’t fit, or because of the fabric. Sirius has given you a small wardrobe full of perfectly tailored clothing. It’s uncomfortable because you’ve never worn clothes made for you, or clothes this expensive. You feel… unworthy of it, so it clings to your frame like a bad omen. Sirius thinks you look beautiful, but he doesn’t think telling you that will make either of you feel better.

Sirius is wearing a suit. A nicer one than he’d donned during his last visit to the Manor, during his wedding. He needs to make a good impression, he needs his parents to think he’s caved to their demands. He needs answers, and the only way to get any is through them. So, even though the idea makes him sick, he’ll swallow his disgust and pretend to be the perfect son. 

For Reggie. 

Approaching the front door feels like approaching the Gates of Hell. His mother, the Devil, surely waits with a faux smile on her lips on the other side, ready to rip him into shreds and set him aflame. The dread settles in his stomach like a weight, and he finds himself squeezing your hand. You don’t squeeze back, but you don’t pull away. It makes him feel a little better as he raises his other hand toward the door knocker. 

The ominous thunk, thunk, thunk, that sounds from Sirius’ knock at the door makes you press a bit closer into his side. There’s something ironic about the two of you feeling more comfortable around each other now that you’re united against a common enemy. Though, really, you aren’t necessarily antagonistic against Sirius’ family, just more weary and unsure of them than him. 

“It’s going to be fine,” Sirius leans down to whisper in your ear, a piece of his long, dark hair brushing against your shoulder when he does. You fight the urge to shiver, keeping your eyes focused ahead on the door, waiting for Sirius’ family’s butler to open it. When the butler does finally open the door, he looks just as angry and disgusted as he did last time.

“Kreacher,” Said butler’s nose scrunches up even more at Sirius’ greeting, practically a snarl at this point. 

“Ugh, you again.” He shuffles out of the way, grumbling to himself. The butler barely spares you a glance as he turns around, and waves the two of you toward the sitting room. He heads into the kitchen, shaking his head. 

Sirius gives the both of you another moment to compose yourself before he squeezes your hand again and pulls you inside. 

It’s even worse than Sirius had imagined. He’d resigned himself into playing the role of the perfect heir, if only for long enough to find out information about Reggie, but what he didn’t expect is the massive decline his parents have taken only within the last few weeks. 

“Our lawyer suggested we name an heir as Head of Household,” His mother had said. Sirius hadn’t asked why, but the answer is evident now as the two of you sit across from his parents. They’re ill. With what illness, Sirius doesn’t know, and he doubts either of them would tell him the truth if he asked. 

His father is barely coherent. The wrinkles on his face have deepened in a way that ages him far beyond his years, his hands shake violently with every movement, and his eyes seem to have a hard time focusing. Sirius even catches him murmuring to himself, lips barely moving, but Sirius isn’t able to hear it. 

His mother is more coherent than his father, but she talks. And talks. And talks. About anything and everything all at once, words strung together with barely a breath. Sirius is able to understand most of what his mother is saying but she flutters from topic to topic mid-sentence. Her eyes bounce between you and Sirius, back and forth, like she’s watching a tennis match. Her hands shake every time she lifts her cup to her lips, and it isn’t long until the china shatters when she misses the small saucer. Sirius feels his heart stop, and you practically jump out of your skin. 

“Oh, no!” His mother’s face morphs into one of frustration and she stands, calling out for Kreacher. The butler shuffles into the room, his feet lagging and the scowl on his mouth showing his anger at being forced to do his job. Walburga stands, knees quaking and creaking with every shift and slight movement of her body. Kreacher grumbles to himself as he begins to clean up the shattered china. Orion just sits there, eyes unblinking, staring through instead of at, the slight rise and fall of his chest his only sign of life. 

Walburga clears her throat, heavy jewelry weighing down her hands as she brushes them over her dress, smoothing the fabric. “Pardon me,” Her voice is hollower and shakier than it was a few moments ago. “I shall return. I just need to… freshen up.”

The tension in the room grips tighter with every clack of her heels until the door is slamming closed behind her. Kreacher lets out a low curse, following behind her with the remnants of the teacup wrapped in a napkin in his gloved hand. 

There is only silence for a moment, the kind that echoes and feels fuzzy in your ears. Sirius turns to you, eyes frantic, and reaches for your hand. Your instincts tell you to pull away but his fingers squeeze around your wrist, holding it firmly in his grip. 

“Listen, I need you to do something,” Sirius’ instructions come out in a low, hissed whisper, his head tilting toward yours to hide his lips from the far-off gaze of his father. Since he is still in the dark about Orion’s illness, he doesn’t want to take any risks of his mother finding out about this. Your lips purse in uncertainty but the look on his face has you pausing, listening. “I need you to go upstairs, to the third room on the left. There’s a desk in there. The bottom drawer of that desk comes out, and underneath it, there should be some papers. I need you to bring those back to me, but hide them. Okay?”

The instructions swirl in your brain, threatening to get jumbled up, but you nod anyway. You leave through the opposite door that Sirius’ mother had, tiptoeing your way through the house. The stairs take the longest, each step a great risk when the old wooden beams could creak at any moment, calling attention to you. 

You let out a breath of relief when you finally reach the landing, feeling like you’ve won a small victory. Finding the third door on the left feels like another, and the tension in your shoulders eases the smallest bit. You know better than to let your guard down, though.

The door opens to a bedroom, and closes behind you with a soft ‘click’. You’d been expecting an office, but your expectations don’t make a difference when you spot the desk. You barely glance around the rest of the room. It looks… undisturbed. Untouched in a way that makes you think it’s been empty for quite some time despite the furniture. There are no decorations, no hints of personality or touches of the life of the person who slept here. It’s just… cold. 

The drawer slips out of the desk with an ease you aren’t expecting, your breath catching at the ‘thunk’ that seems to echo around you as the wooden bars come unhinged from their notches. You spend at least thirty seconds trying to silently place the drawer on the floor, holding your breath and steadying your hands to avoid making any more noise. The last thing you want is for someone to catch you up here. 

You find the papers rather quickly, fingers grasping at the parchment and removing them all from their hiding place. There’s at least a dozen, most covered in a swirly, elegant writing, ink cracked and paper crinkled and folded. Some, instead, have a scratchy, rougher writing, but were discarded seemingly just as hastily, the corners torn. Your heart pounds as you work to flatten them out, breathing shaky as your eyes begin to trace over the lettering. 

It’s… horrible. Random pages seemingly torn off or out of longer letters, short snippets of information that lack a beginning or an end. Discussion of private schools, of Family Names and businesses, but also of arranged marriage, words that make your own skin crawl and the silver ring on your finger to burn like a hot fire. It doesn’t take long for your gaze to find a familiar name amongst the rest of the horrific words, either. 

Tom Riddle.

Even seeing it in writing has you trembling, flashes of pain and fear from the last several years tearing through your mind. Your fingers put more wrinkles into the paper as your grip tightens, your eyes continue to follow the words, to read the truth, to see a reflection of your own experience hidden away in a drawer. 

‘unfortunately, the deal cannot go through in the absence of the older boy.’ The elegant loops do nothing to aid in the horror of the words they create. ‘our searches for sirius have been useless, i fear we are no closer to finding him than we were before. i wish it weren’t so, but i fear we do not have a choice, not with the older one gone. tom riddle will come for regulus, now.’

You can feel the tell-tale burn of bile rising in your throat, and you force yourself to swallow it down as you shove the papers back into the drawer. Your ears ring as you replace everything exactly as you found it. Endless thoughts and questions run through your mind but more than anything, you feel a sense of despair.

Had you been taken just like Sirius’ brother seems to have been? Has Regulus been forced into years of work and a marriage he doesn’t want, just like you? 

Walburga is back by the time you return to Sirius’ side. He can barely keep his eyes off of you as you sit stiff as a board next to him. His mother, as if only realizing your absence upon your return, offers you a small look of suspicion. 

Their conversation continues, though you don’t hear most of it. You can tell from the tone in Sirius’ voice that he isn’t getting the answers he’d hoped for, anger and frustration toying with each word he speaks. His mother continues to speak, speaking over him, speaking over herself, too. His father sits there, silent and staring hollowly. Your mind stays preoccupied, recounting words in elegant scribbling and horrific memories that force themselves to the surface.

You barely manage a smile and a goodbye as Sirius ushers you out. The look on his face is dark, but he tugs you along with an urgency that suggests he wants to talk. You let him pull you out the door, a tough silence enveloping the two of you as you climb into the car. 

“Well?” Sirius’ voice cuts through the quiet as the car engine starts, and you avoid looking at him, your eyes instead moving to stare out the window. You don’t know what to tell him. You can’t even admit some of Tom Riddle’s horrors to yourself and you experienced them. If his parents made a deal with Tom Riddle…

No, you can’t go back there. You don’t want to think of that place, of the things you did and saw there. The cruelty, the evil. 

So, when you clear your throat, the words slip out of you before you can even fully decide what you want to say, your instincts making the decision for you.

“Nothing.” You find yourself telling him, eyes meeting his own finally. 

“I didn’t find anything. It was empty.”

© prettydaisygirl

Reggie doesn’t stop. Sirius’ body wracks with anxiety and panic, his nervous system already reacting to the pain he knows will come.

He can hear the clicking of his mother’s heels moving down the hall toward Regulus’ bedroom, right on cue. 

click click click.

“Sirius!” His mother screeches. And Sirius’ own eyes begin to well up with tears, even though he knows they won’t help him.

Sirius chews the skin around his fingernails until it’s raw, eyes dialed in on his own bedroom door. He hates the way he feels like it’s uncharted territory, like his own things are being held hostage. 

“How long do you think this will take?” He asks, his knee bouncing restlessly as he leans back into the sofa. 

Remus raises his eyebrows at him. “They’re having a conversation, Sirius. There’s not a set time limit.”

Sirius squeezes his eyelids shut and leans back further, fists bunching up and covering his eyes. Remus’ answer is true, but it’s unhelpful. Sirius feels like he might be sick. 

James comes bounding into the kitchen with a sandwich. He plops down next to Sirius, seemingly unaffected by the situation despite the fact that Lily is currently trapped in Sirius’ bedroom talking to you. His wife. 

Now he really feels like he’s going to be sick. 

He stands up, unable to stay still. He opens and closes his fists, pacing back and forth along the rug. He’s uneasy, and he hates it. He hates that he’s become unwillingly in charge of your wellbeing. 

“Oi!” James kicks up his leg in Sirius’ direction, though he’s nowhere close to actually kicking him. “You’re blocking the telly.”

Sirius shoots James a glare, but sees himself into the kitchen. He starts chewing on his nails again, his eyes darting toward the hallway over and over. His bedroom door is still closed, his mind a battlefield as he darts from one thought to another.

You remind him of Reggie. Reggie the way he was at the end, before Sirius left with no plan to return. It’s in the barely-disguised slump of your shoulders, the way you struggle to meet his eyes fully. He remembers the way Reggie slowly began to cave in on himself, already rare smiles never reaching his eyes. At the time, Sirius hadn’t noticed. He was a young, self-centered boy with no care in the world except for himself. Time has made him reflect, see things that he didn’t used to. You’re too much like Reggie.

He knows nothing about you. Actually, that’s not true. He knows two things about you. The first: that you were given to him his family by some man named Tom. The second: you have the same look in your eye that Sirius used to see in the mirror as a boy. He doesn’t know how to explain it, but something changes in you when you expect every movement from other people to end with pain. He recognizes that same shadow in your eyes.

He rests his head against the wood of the kitchen table, his fingers digging into the black denim of his jeans. His mind spins and his heart races, he hates all of this. He doesn’t want to speak to his parents, he doesn’t want to be Head of the Black Family, and he definitely doesn’t want to be your husband. 

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, waiting. Long enough that his neck starts to ache. It gets worse when he hears the telltale creak of his bedroom door and he stands up so fast he sees stars, gripping the table to stop himself from falling over. 

Lily comes out alone, an odd look on her face as she shuts the bedroom door behind her. She moves down the hall slowly, dragging her feet a bit like she’s being weighed down. Her eyes meet James’, then Remus’, and then finally they move toward the kitchen to meet Sirius’. She moves forward, then, and signals for all four of them to sit down with her at the kitchen table. 

There is silence for a long moment, and Sirius can’t help the way his eyes dart back down the hall, back to his bedroom door. His attention is regained once Lily speaks, soft and low like she doesn’t want to have her voice carry at all. 

“She’s… well, she’s very quiet, isn’t she?” Lily asks, her head tilting as she starts playing with her fingers, her hands resting against the tabletop. James slides his arm around her waist, his hand rubbing comforting circles into her side. Remus leans forward in his chair, and it creaks. It feels like the sound echoes, like every whisper will bounce off the walls and somehow make it down the hallway to your ears. The five of them normally do not hold back, voices loud and boisterous, booming through every room. It feels strange to feel so… listened to.

“I think she’s said… maybe, ten words to me?” Sirius says, trying to play it off with a nonchalant shrug, but the way his smile falters makes it obvious to everyone that he’s on the verge of something drastic. 

Lily nods slowly, watching Sirius closely. “Honestly, I didn’t… She didn’t say much. I did most of the talking trying to get her to open up,” She shrugs, and her face scrunches up a bit, her eyes moving back and forth as she decides what she wants to say. “She told me that she’s never had a job, and that she doesn’t know who you are, didn’t know you before the- the wedding.”

She takes a shaky breath before continuing, “I asked her about school, or- or anything like that and she said that they had lessons at the place she lived before. I asked her what kinds of lessons and she… she sort of clammed up and she said ‘well, they prepare us for our roles.’”

All three men tense further. 

“Well, what the hell does that mean?” Sirius asks with a bit of a snap. His hands are shaking at this point. 

“I don’t know,” Lily’s voice wavers just a bit at the end. “She shied away when I asked her to tell me more.” She shakes her head, red ringlets lightly fluttering around her face. “There’s something really wrong here, Sirius.”

“I know.” He says it before he even registers his own answer, but it’s true. This whole thing is worse than strange. “I know. I told you before, Lils, she didn’t fight against the wedding, she didn’t fight when I brought her here, and now she’s been trapped in my bedroom all day, and still, not a word. I don’t even think she’s left to use the loo.”

“She hasn’t.” Lily confirms with a somber shake of her head, eyes downturned. “I asked her about Tom and she told me that she was done talking.”

The four of them sit in a long, tense quiet. The house is completely quiet, that soft, staticky sound of silence filling the room. Lily sits back in her chair, eyes on Sirius. James watches the two of them, eyes moving back and forth while he waits for someone to speak again. 

“I think you need to handle this very, very carefully, Sirius.” James presses closer to Lily when she says this, though he finds his eyes staying on Sirius, knowing he is on the verge of a breakdown already. “You need to really think things through before you just… act.”

“I know.” Sirius’ voice comes out as a hiss, his stomach in knots, and he shakes his head. He knows that, but that doesn’t mean he can stop the way anger and upset flood through his veins. “I didn’t- I don’t even want this. I don’t want any of this!”

“Well, it’s happening, so we have to do something. Soon.” Remus sits forward finally. Sirius scoffs, but Remus continues, “This isn’t something you can run away from, Pads.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was you who got married against your will, Moons.” Sirius’ shoulders tense as he stands, and James stands too, his face dropping with panic.

“Sirius-”

“No, really. If we need to do something, why don’t you all go and find my brother, then? That would solve all of my problems!” Sirius grabs his jacket as he talks, his fists clenching in anger as he stops toward the front door. It slams behind him loud enough to make everyone jump, including you. 

It’s quiet when he gets back. It’s late evening, but the sun hasn’t dipped fully below the horizon yet, leaving the sky pretty shades of orange and pink. Sirius steps inside, only slightly less tense than when he left, but it all seems to come crawling back full force when there are no signs of his friends inside. 

Things are off, the further inside he steps. The living room is… cleaner, neater, more put together. Not that the flat was disgusting before, Remus always made sure of that, but it wasn’t exactly perfectly organised. Things have been moved, and now it looks… almost like a hotel, unlived in. It’s uncanny, and Sirius finds he hates it more and more as his eyes take everything in.

He pushes forward, and steps into the kitchen. You’re standing in front of the oven, hands clasped in front of you as you watch something bake inside it. Sirius clears his throat, and he sees the way you freeze, your muscles locking up.

“What have you done?” He asks, low and a little suspicious. He’s mad you’ve touched his things, their things, that you’ve made in impact, that he can’t go in his fucking bedroom. It’s his own fucking bedroom.

“Well, I just…” You seem to struggle deciding what to say, glancing between him and the oven slowly. “I thought I’d make dinner for everyone-”

“I meant with the living room.” He crosses his arms and you clam up even more, keeping your eyes on the oven door now. 

“I thought it would be nice for things to be cleaned up.” You keep your voice steady, not willing to bend to his anger. 

“No one asked you to do that, why did you do that?” Sirius steps closer and your shoulders rise. You purposely avoid looking at him, the steadiness of your voice wavering the slightest bit.

“Because you told me to do whatever the bloody hell I want.” You repeat his words without the bite, though Sirius still feels it as he narrows his eyes at you even further. 

A whirlwind of emotions surge through his bloodstream, and as per usual, anger becomes the primary one that he is able to grip onto. He wears it like a second skin, shielding him from whatever else is deeper, things that he doesn’t want to give a name to. He doesn’t want you here, he just wants to find Reggie. He clenches his jaw so hard his head begins to ache. 

“Well, go put everything back.” He leans a hip against the dining table, raising his eyebrows when you turn to look at him with parted lips. It’s the most emotion he’s seen from you yet. 

“Put everything back?” You ask, your voice just slightly higher than usual and you blink a few times, eyes still lingering on the oven.

“Yeah, go put all of our things back.” You don’t move, and his anger spikes. He says something he doesn’t mean. “I was told you’d listen to what I say, so go.”

Something shifts in you. Your face drops just a bit, and your eyes fall toward the floor. “Yes, sir.”

Sirius reacts like he’s been slapped in the face. You step out, heading toward the living room to fix your mistake, and he’s left standing there with a weight in his stomach and he feels like he can’t breathe. He didn’t mean for you to act like that, though now that he’s said it, he doesn’t know why he expected anything different. 

He thinks back to his conversation with Lily, how she told him that he needs to tread carefully with this. Clearly, Sirius treads about as carefully as an earthquake. He hears you fluttering around in the living room, and just as he moves to follow you and tell you to stop, he’s interrupted by the loud, shrill ringing of the fire alarm. 

He jumps, and the sound of a thud reaches his ears from the living room. You dart back into the kitchen, eyes wide and panicked, and reach for the oven. It happens before he can stop you, and you grab at the pan with your bare hand. You cry out, dropping the pan on the floor as your uninjured hand grips for your burnt one.

Sirius calls your name, stepping around the pan and scattered bits of dinner. He cups your injured hand in his palm, leading you to the sink. He sticks your burnt palm and fingers under the cold water, your face scrunched up in pain. The fire alarm blares.

“I’m sorry,” You say after a moment, loud enough for him to hear you, a tear slipping down your cheek as you try to pull your hand away from him. “I didn’t set a timer, I was watching it before I- well, it was only supposed to be in the oven for a minute.”

“I’m sorry,” Sirius insists with a hiss, watching your skin blister under the cold stream of water. He feels that choking guilt again, the one that always traps him in darkness and suffocates him. “This isn’t your fault, you’re as trapped in this as I am.”

You seem a bit stunned by his words, hiccuping but speechless as you gently curl and uncurl your fingers. It burns horribly, but it’s not the worst thing you’ve ever been through. Not by far.

Sirius bandages up your hand without a word, a silent apology through actions over words. That’s always who he’s been anyway, never good with words, always fucking up and making a mess of things. Clearly.

Eventually the fire alarm stops and you take your hand back from him once he finishes bandaging it. You retreat back to his bedroom before he can say anything else. He doesn’t know what else to say yet, honestly. 

James brings home takeout for everyone, the charred remains of whatever you’d been making still in the sink after Sirius picked it up. You’re asleep when he brings you some of his own food on a plate, laying on top of the covers with your clothes still on and your bandaged hand outstretched and resting on his pillow. 

Sirius sleeps on the couch again. As he settles in, he knows his back and neck will ache in the morning, and the insomnia from the previous night seems to overtake him again. His mind races, visions of Reggie, visions of you, trying to grasp onto something solid like a plan but nothing seems to stick. He hates himself, the way he acted, the way it seems that the both of you are unwillingly trapped in this situation, and neither of you know how to get out of it. 

What he does knows: his brother is alive (unconfirmed), you’re his wife, he is the Head of the Black Family, and he has no fucking clue what he’s doing. He’s responsible for your wellbeing now, and itching to figure out what the fuck is going on with you. He has no idea of what to do or where to go from here. Reggie’s words, as much relief as they bring Sirius to know he’s alive, are extremely unhelpful.

They know. Find me.

Sirius tosses and turns, unable to settle or get comfortable. His parents know what happened to Reggie. Sirius needs to play the game, needs to somehow get closer until he is able to pry information out of his mother. He decides he needs to go to Grimmauld Place again, though every instinct in him fights against it.

He needs to know more, he has to find Reggie. 

Then, and only then, with early pieces of a plan starting to fall into place, Sirius finds a restless sleep. 

© prettydaisygirl