Canis Dirus

by Anonymous

Summary:

Even a Seer cannot foresee everything.
When Sirius kills his abusive mother and goes to prison, he hardly expects to become a Dark Lord, kill another and befriend a third. When Rodolphus loses his wife, he hardly expects to remarry and find redemption through sheer spite. When Grindelwald loses to Dumbledore, he hardly expects to live another half-century. But this is a story of corruption and redemption, of Fate that surprises and Love that endures.
This goes Siriusly AU in Marauder era and does not get back on track ever.

Warning: not for the faint of heart. The matricide, murder and some consensual adult sex is fairly graphic, the underage and dub-con sex is barely mentioned.
Warning 2: this is only funny if you like your humor Siriusly Black (pun intended)
Warning 3: this is a work of fiction and wish-fulfilment. Nobody and nothing in this story is real. Apart from the quotes from songs and other media.
Warning 4: this is a canon-complaint hardly Potter fanfic. In that I complain about canon and Harry himself is a cameo.
Warning 5: there is a shitload of ships, motifs and characters. I ran out of tags.
Canis dirus is Latin for the direwolf, a type of extinct large wolf.

Notes:

This story is not finished, it is under construction as permitted by the author's mental health and limited time.
Grindelwald and Dark Dumbles show up later. as for what happens from chapter thirty-ish on, will have to axe some tags to get it tagged, once I write it.
I could not possibly tag for everything that happens. There is death! Gore! Sex! Moonshine! Disparaging of Freud! And Puns! Please just make sure you're a grown ass adult with no triggers before reading it and you will have a grand time.

FLAMES WILL BE USED TO BREW COFFEE AND DISTILL MOONSHINE FOR FUELING THE AUTHOR'S SLEEPLESS SENSELESS WRITING. THE MORE YOU FLAME, THE MORE I SHALL WRITE AND THE MORE DERANGED MY WRITING WILL BECOME. THIS IS NOT AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO FLAME. NICE COMMENTS ALSO ENCOURAGE MY WRITING AND DON'T MAKE IT DEVOLVE INTO QUITE SO MUCH NONSENSE.

Chapter 1: No-One Ever Thought This One Would Survive

Summary:

Sirius kills for the first time

Sirius Black had never set out to be a Dark wizard, much less a Dark Lord. But things had a way of going sideways. The Blacks had always been a Dark family, Darker than Dark (like their name, people whispered) and proud of it, and Sirius's parents and grandparents were no exceptions to the rule. His cousin Bellatrix, the first babysitter he had (a dubious pleasure she shared with her slightly younger sister Andromeda, and dubious because no matter the age, Sirius had been a hellion), was even Darker than most Blacks, and in addition to that, posssessed a vicious streak a mile wide (unlike his mother's, it wasn't directed at him so it was okay, until he realised as a young man that it wasn't and he had the same cruel streak, if much thinner) and a fascination for knives. She was the one who first taught him to wield and throw a knife and as much as the blood-purity-obsessed witch should disdain a simple Muggle weapon, he got used to the idea of her with it before the strangeness of it registered. She taught him, too, that love was a weakeness but loyalty to the family was everything. And little Sirius had thought he loved her more than he would love another human being, the elder sister he never had, the mother figure who had stepped in where his birth mother had been too cold-hearted, until his brother was born. Regulus wasn't a remarkable baby by any means, a pretty one to be sure but in an uncommonly frail way, but he was pure in a way that Sirius didn't and would not for a long time understand. There was no darkness in him, no calculation. He cried when he needed things, and when he started teething and biting Sirius, there was no malice in it. It was as simple as that. And as Regulus grew, surrounded by Dark Wizards and Dark artefacts and Darker himself by the year even though he had not yet quite learned to read, he remained Sirius's favourite, because there was something about being looked up to and expected to know things and seen as a protector from the fury of Walburga. And then the Hogwarts letter came, and the Sorting hat decided to put Sirius in Gryffindor because of course he had courage with a mother like that and nobody to protect him and Gryffindor would guide him to greatness rather than darkness. Walburga Black sent her son twelve howlers. Regulus sent a message scribbled with the clumsy care of a child asking him to take care and tell him about Hogwarts, enclosed with their father Orion's letter talking about everything inconsequential, as Orion was wont to do when the consequential topics were extremely unpleasant.

 

Sirius Black had never set out to murder his mother, much as he hated her. It was summer and Orion Black had just died and been buried, and without her husband's calming, stabilising influence, Walburga had become worse, whether through grief or because she simply had nobody to tell her when to stop.

It was evening, Kreacher the house-elf had been sent away for an errand, and Regulus and Sirius both knew it was simply to get the elf out of the house. Walburga never did like an audience to her abuse. She called Sirius and Regulus into Orion's old study, and they noticed she had a goblet and half-full decanter of wine on the little table by Orion's favourite armchair, and she seemed to have been crying but now her face was cold and hard.

'Wands, boys,' said Walburga and they gave them to her, because to do otherwise was unthinkable.

A lecture followed, about how they were weak and filth and not worthy of the family name and of anything she had ever given them, and it was nothing they hadn't hear before.

'I'll show you,' she concluded, 'how the Dark Lord punishes blood traitors!'

And then she pointed her wand at Sirius and said something new: 'Crucio!'

Sirius screamed and thrashed and Regulus knew he had to do something, had to talk down the witch before she did something even more unforgivable.

'Enough, mother,' said Regulus calmly, holding a hand out for her wand and stepping up. 'You've had enough wine, and you've hurt my brother enough.'

But instead of relinquishing her wand, Walburga just pointed it at her younger son.

'Crucio!' she would have stumbled had the word been more than two sylables, as it was, she just slurred it slightly. She probably wasn't casting it properly, but it didn't matter than she was three sheets to the wind, or that she probably didn't hate her 13-year-old second son with all her being – to Regulus, having no comparison with a properly cast Cruciatus, it was still the worst pain humanely imaginable.

Sirius did something stupid then, because it was the only thing he could think of and because he was 15 and a Gryffindor, stupid recklessness was in his blood as much as Dark magic was, maybe more, and because the pain of the curse was running through his body, making him shudder with minute aftershocks. He shapeshifted into his dog form and leapt for Walburga, aiming for her throat. Her wand arm came up to shield her face and he snapped it with his teeth with a sickening crunch of bone and a burst of blood in his mouth (he would feel sick about this later, the human part of his brain decided). She was disarmed, but all the more dangerous for her knowledge of his secret, and there was no way back. He bit through her throat and felt the life drain out of her.

As he shapeshifted back to human form he noticed he was covered in blood and his mouth tasted awful, salty and metallic, and Regulus was screaming.

'Mother!' he half sobbed. 'You've killed mother!'

'She was my mother too,' said Sirius stupidly, 'and she was hurting you. I did this to protect you.'

Regulus broke down sobbing in earnest.

'I never wanted you to kill her.'

'It was the only thing that occurred to me at the moment.'

Sirius cast a spell to clean himself of blood, but that horrible taste remained, still making him vaguely nauseous. He took Walburga's goblet of wine, then drained it, went to refil it from the decanter, then thought better of it and set both back down.

'Regulus, I would never harm you, I swear on my magic. I only did this to protect you.'

Regulus calmed down very slowly.

'So what do we do now? We should call the Aurors, it's the only thing to do.'

'What? No. I don't want to go to Azkaban, Reggie, it's horrible, and you know it.'

'Why would they send you to Azkaban? It was self defence, I will testify that.'

'It's not self-defence to be an unregistered Animagus.'

Regulus's mouth fell open.

'So what do we do?'

'Transfigure the body into something, I've always been good at Transfiguration. And you vanish the bloodstains before Kreacher comes. Mother went out and never came back if anyone asks.'

'When should we start worrying, officially?'

'Tomorrow. I think tomorrow morning is appropriate.'

Chapter 2: Run From The Lies Don't Apologise

Summary:

Just a moment of peace before the next storm comes to torment poor Sirius into Dark Lordship.

The next morning, Cygnus Black received an unsettling Floo call from his nephews. His sister had gone out in the evening to Merlin knew where, probably drunk (a wine goblet, emptied, rested in the study) and certainly grieving her husband, and not returned by the time the house-elf served breakfast. Regulus appeared distraught, Sirius was little more put together despite there being no love lost between him and the old witch.

Cygnus sighed and desperately wished for a drink and for the the day to be over, but there was responsibility to take and arrangements to make.

'Come over,' he ordered rather than invited. 'We'll notify the Aurors and they will surely find her, and in the meantime, you will stay here. Cissy is missing company close to her own age, even if she'd surely prefer girls so she can talk robes with them. You can stay in Bella's old room, there's two beds.' He didn't even mention Andy, even though it had been Andy's room too till she was disowned.

 

Despite the greatest diligence, the Aurors found nothing, no clue at all suggesting the whereabouts of the missing witch. Walburga Black's disappearance gradually became the greatest mystery of the decade (never mind that Voldemort was on the rise and people were disappearing frequently, this was the matriarch of a rich, pure-blooded and influential family and the family's Dark reputation only made the puzzle more scandalous). By the time Sirius and Regulus had to go back to Hogwarts, she still had not been found, and Cygnus sent them off on the Hogwarts train with an entourage of off-the-clock hit wizards lest whoever had apparently killed her were after her brother and heirs. Little did he know that Walburga's body lay in Sirius's Hogwarts trunk, transfigured into a shiny black pebble with her own wand and soon to be buried in the Forbidden Forest.

 

As soon as he got to the Gryffindor common room, his head of house called him into her office. He liked McGonagall, she was a good teacher and a bit of a mother figure, though they fought like cat and dog because she was strict and no-nonsense and he was a rebel and a prankster. It didn't hurt that Transfiguration was his particular forte.

'Professor?'

'I'm sorry about the death of your father and the disappearance of your mother, Sirius. In the light of it, me and Horace have decided to give you two extra Defence Against the Dark Arts training. I asked my new coleague and he agreed to tutor you – on the condition that you do not prank him, it seems your reputation precedes you.'

'Professor, I am honestly not in the mood for pranks,' and truth is, he wasn't. 'Ever since she has been gone I just...' he had been eaten away by guilt, is what, and the horrible suggestion that he should be feeling infinitely worse and a morbid curiosity he couldn't even put into words in his mind, but he couldn't say that, so he said just 'I'm worried.'

'Oh Sirius,' the witch embraced him, lean and warm. 'Remember I am here for you every hour of the day and night. So is Horace, if you'd rather talk to him, and Albus is always busy but paperwork can always wait.'

'I trust you the most,' he said, because he didn't really trust her with that, but Slughorn wasn't a Gryffindor and Dumbledore was too smart for the good of anyone, which prompted another hug.

 

He snuck out on the next new moon as a dog and buried Walburga and her wand in the heart of the Forbidden Forest, somewhere even the groundskeeper didn't wander. And even if he did, he fixed the grass with a simple spell before shapeshifting back into a dog and running back to the castle.

 

That night he woke up James and Peter and Remus screaming, because he was dreaming of her again and the pain of her curse and Reggie's screams and the way her blood tasted on his tongue. He brushed his teeth more thoroughly than he ever remembered doing before the murder and sat on the bed, huddled.

James asked him what was wrong.

'Dreaming of Mother,' Sirius replied, truthful but as brief as he could manage.

'You haven't been yourself since she went missing,' pointed out Remus Lupin, ever the detective. 'And you hated her guts, so it's not like you're missing her.'

'Maybe I'm just worried I'm next, like my uncle says.'

'No, you wouldn't have snuck out today if that were the case. Sirius Orion Black, you are hiding something to do with her disappearance.'

And Sirius broke because those weren't Aurors asking him the same damn questions all over again, but his closest friends. He started crying before he noticed.

'I killed her. I didn't plan to but she used the Cruciatus on Reggie when he stepped in to protect me and I had to protect him. He's my baby brother. None of you have siblings, so you don't know. I had to protect him.'

'Of course we know, Sirius. We'd kill for you, for example,' said James and Sirius started crying harder when they all hugged him.

Chapter 3: You Can Release Yourself (But The Only Way Is Down)

Summary:

the one where Sirius kills for his second, third, fourth and fifth time, serves time and adopts Harry

Sirius Black never meant to kill Severus Snape and end up in Azkaban at 17. But Snape had challenged him to a duel at midnight in the Forbidden Forest, and used a spell of his own invention that appeared to be a modified cutting curse that Sirius barely dodged, and Sirius retaliated with one of the curses that the Black family library's books held, curses he had learned to read on. It was no Avada Kedavra, he wouldn't have dared cast that, but for all that was worth it still turned out very messily lethal when Snape failed to block, dodge or deflect. Before Sirius could think of regretting his choice of spell, the Potions prodigy's greasy hair was stained with his own brains and blood, and he was dead. It was, for all Sirius had hated Snape, horrible.

When the Aurors came to Hogwarts the next day, Sirius Black confessed, because the other suspect was James Potter, Snape's romantic and academic rival, and Sirius's best friend. And James Potter was innocent.

 

Time marched on, as time is wont to do. Sirius rotted away in Azkaban, forgotten by all but his nearest and dearest. Voldemort became even more of a threat. Peter Petigrew died first, never a formidable duelist, caught by a stray curse to the back in Etern Alley and disintegrated. James Potter was murdered by Voldemort at home, together with his wife Lily, and only his baby son Harry survived, going to live with his Muggle maternal aunt, Petunia Dursley. Remus Lupin survived, living in abject misery of both the financial and psychological kind. Voldemort disappeared and his Death Eaters were jailed, including Regulus, who had joined after his brother's imprisonment at the insistence of his cousin Bellatrix, who thought the Dark Lord was the best thing to happen to the wizarding world. And one day, a vision came to Sirius, that of young Harry Potter abused and mistreated by three people Sirius did not recognise, but somehow knew were Harry's Muggle relatives, and this time, Sirius absolutely meant to murder them (because as we all know, years of exposure to Dementors and Darling Cousin Bellatrix are enough to turn even the most reasonable man insane). He slipped through the bars, an emanciated dog, and swam to the mainland.

 

Harry Potter never expected the day his family would be killed by a crazed knife murderer. But if he had to imagine the day, he certainly would not have envisioned the man asking him to come out of the cupboard and making tea and the most chaotically put together sandwiches Harry had ever seen, taking one and motioning Harry to do the same. Harry did because he was hungry and because it was probably a bad move to anger a homicidal lunatic.

'I'm not going to hurt you, Harry,' said the man, in a voice as thick as mud and as rough as gravel. 'I might just slightly kidnap you, kind of sort of, but I'm not going to hurt you. I'm... I should have been your godfather, I was James Potter's best friend. I went to jail to protect him, which is why you don't know me.'

'My father was friends with a criminal?' asked Harry with morbid curiosity. 'I'm sorry, sir.'

'It's ok, pup. I suppose I am a criminal, though I never set out to be one. But I think people rarely set out to do crime.'

'What did you do?' asked Harry again, yet more curious and morbid.

'I murdered a man, barely more than a boy, in a fight, I was barely more than a boy too, and when they came to accuse your father, I admitted to it.'

'That must have taken courage. But maybe if he had gone to jail he wouldn't have died.'

'That was before your birth, pup, so you wouldn't have existed at all.'

'I think I'm glad I exist.'

'Good mindset to have. Lends itself well to survival, and more importantly, thriving.'

'Why are you going to kidnap me?'

'Because you can't stay here for the authorities to find you with three corpses, no matter how unlikely a murderer you are.'

'So they're dead?'

'Very. I made sure of it myself. Then I made sure again.'

'Why?'

'Because I don't suppose the world is much poorer for them and because my soul is already tainted with murder. They weren't good people. They abused you,' he added, looking at Harry's tearing-up eyes.

'Why should I come with you?'

'Because... bloody hell, Harry, I'm your rightful godfather. I want to raise you. I want to teach you the kind of stuff you need to survive in this world. I want to get to know you. And besides, the alternative is prison or an orphanage, which is just another kind of prison I am told.'

So Harry ran with the stranger, because an orphanage sounded awful, and found out the stranger shapeshifted into a dog. Which honestly, wasn't the weirdest thing that had happened all night.

Chapter 4: Back To The Meaning Of Wolf and Man

Summary:

the one where lovers reunite and nobody dies

Remus Lupin never set out to bed a wanted criminal. But Sirius Black broke out of Azkaban and murdered three people and promptly ran to Remus to confess it, kidnapped son of James Potter in tow, and Remus saw the face of his first love, changed by Azkaban but still handsome, and was struck by wanting. Which honestly wasn't a constructive feeling, so he squashed it down in favour of feeding the fugitive and giving him clothes in a state less deplorable than the prison rags and showing him the way to the bath. Which hardly helped, because when Sirius emerged clean and shaved and clothed in Lupin's clothes and with his hair washed and brushed, he looked even better. Lupin wanted the man he had been denied for thirteen years even harder.

 

As soon as Harry was asleep they had a very quiet argument.

'Sirius, while I appreciate your presence, running away from prison and killing three Muggles and kidnapping Harry wasn't a wise thing to do.'

'But nobody knows I killed them, and what was I supposed to do, rot in jail till I died? I don't think so.'

'Not the escape I am angry about and you know it. You could have just let them live.'

'They were horrible people, you didn't see it, Moony.'

'I just don't want you back in Azkaban.'

'Admit it, you are over the moon to have me again.'

'Believe it if I had you you'd know.'

Sirius looked surprised, like he hadn't considered his old love still loving or desiring him or making any sort of innuendo.

'You still want me?'

'You've always been a handsome dog. I have longed for you always, seriously deranged or not.'

'As much as I longed for you?'

'Quite possibly. But you have been unattainable, so far away from me.'

'You didn't spring me.'

'You sprang yourself.'

'Fair.'

And then they were kissing, Remus's scarred hand in Sirius's prison-long hair, at first hesitantly, then making out with all the hunger they felt. At some point Sirius offered to blow Remus and was accepted with enthusiasm. They stumbled to the bedroom in the manner of two lovers parted for too long, and Remus barely had the presence of mind to cast the locking and silencing charms before the fugitive pushed him to the bed and dropped to his knees in front of him, taking him down to the root with the same sort of shamelessness he exhibited in general and a skill that was positively sinful.

'Bloody hell, you have not forgotten anything, have you?'

Sirius let him go with a wet pop, stroked him filthily while he answered.

'I thought I had, but apparently I haven't.'

And he dove back in.

'Good boy,' praised Remus, over and over, their old catchphrase, Sirius's favourite, for all Sirius was not a boy anymore and had never been particularly good, especially not now, until the werewolf fell apart into complete incoherence and came almost howling. It took him a moment to realise that Sirius still had not come but was close to it, huddled in on himself and wanking furiously.

Remus all but pulled his lover into his lap, werewolf strength coming in useful, and stroked him off, barely a few strokes before Sirius was coming, almost going limp with the pleasure, then shuddering through afteshocks.

'Fuck it's been long. Didn't even wank, what with Dementors and Darling Cousin Bella watching.'

'Well, we'll just have to make up for lost time,' said Remus gently.

Chapter 5: Running Free

Summary:

the one where Sirius obtains a wand and frees Regulus from Azkaban

Sirius Black never set out to spring the Death Eaters from Azkaban. But Regulus was there, in the medium security wing, just a kid when they arrested him and threw him in without trial because he was the son of the House of Black and the younger brother of a convicted murderer. Sirius would have to go back to Azkaban and free his baby brother if it was the last thing he did. But step one was obtaining a wand, since his own had been snapped. And that was an expedition in and of itself. First it required brewing Polyjuice, then, obtaining the hair of two Muggles, a man who mostly varied from Sirius in colouring and a boy around Harry's age who could be his son.

'Hello, my name is Caleb Connor, I was visiting the UK and my wand was destroyed in an accident, and my son Jameson is starting Ilvermorny this fall and I thought I might as well get a wand for him too.'

'I think I know you. You remind me, yes, you remind me somewhat of Sirius Black, it seems like just yesterday he was here buying his first wand with his mother. Dreadful woman, that one, simply dreadful, of course she is gone now, poor soul, quite tragic, and it doesn't do to speak ill of the deceased. But still she was quite rude to me. Of course, he was even worse. Polite enough, but he got himself thrown in Azkaban for murdering a classmate, and he escaped, and now he's on the run. Wouldn't do not to be careful.'

'I swear on my mother's grave and immortal soul, my name is Caleb Aidan Connor, from Gay Bay, Newfoundland, and I am just a tourist in need of a wand. I am not Sirius Black, nor have I ever been to that Azkaban place.'

'Good enough for now, let me show you the wands that might suit you.'

Over an hour and dozens of failed matches later, both Sirius and Harry found their wands.

'I was not convinced you aren't Sirius Black, after all one cannot be too careful. But this wand shows the truth in your words. After all spruce favours a bold and daring wizard with a good sense of humour, and I hardly think Black, or any convicted murderer or Dark Wizard for that matter, could be thus described.'

'Thank you, Mr Ollivander,' grinned Sirius and paid the old wizard. Weirdly enough, people's assumptions of how Dark he really was were working in his favour.

Azkaban, decided Sirius upon returning, was still a hellhole. A gloomy and ugly stone building on a barren rocky little island in the middle of the stormy sea, it reminded him of the worst thirteen years of his life and he was loath to set foot inside again. But he would, for Regulus.

'I'm with you, I got your back,' Remus remind him and Sirius bitterly regretted bringing his lover to the worst place he knew.

'I'd really rather you weren't.'

'I know, and not an option. We will share all, we are one.'

Their footsteps echoed on the stairs as they climbed. All of a sudden Sirius felt very cold and the cold was horribly familiar. He had endured thirteen years of it, and escaped, and come back, and he would never escape it again, nor free Regulus. He would die here and his love with him, because he had made the mistake of bringing him. A Dementor appeared around the corned in front of him and went straight for his face and he couldn't even bring his new spruce wand up.

'No kissing him, that's my job, Expecto Patronum!' snarled Moony behind him and a silver wolf, more beautiful than anything Sirius had seen, leapt past Sirius to bite the Dementor. The cold spell abruptly lifted, leaving Sirius's thoughts clear again and he quickly lifted his own wand. The wolf was joined by a large dog and both animals ran ahead of the men.

Regulus was not in the medium security cell he was supposed to be in. Sirius freed everyone anyway, on the lower and medium security levels, because Azkaban was no place fit for a human being and he would die on that hill (hopefully not literally, he wanted to live long and prosper, like nearly everyone). But Sirius had a suspicion where Regulus might be. Sirius's own old cell. He climbed the hated stairs again and sure enough, there was his brother, huddled in a corner of the maximum security cell next to the Lestranges because apparently, Bella and her husband and his brother were still exactly where they had been. And the thing is, he didn't exactly intend to free her, but she pouted at him when he opened Reggie's cell and she had been his babysitter and he had spent spent nine years listening to her whining and screaming in her sleep and he felt sorry for her no matter how well he knew she was guilty as sin. And once he freed her, he might as well free everyone, because nobody there was a guilty as she was, and it would be unfair.

Notes:

Caleb Aidan Connor translates to Dog, Rascal, Dog-lover. Caleb comes from Hebrew, the other names are Celtic.
Gay Bay is a fictional place as far as I know, and I imagined it would be either tiny or made up by Sirius entirely.
Newfoundland is real and located in Canada, of course.

Chapter 6: Last Blood Benediction

Summary:

In which Sirius kills again

The next week, Sirius woke up to angry cursing. Of the sailor, not wizard variety. It was Remus, and he was swearing at two characters named Greyback and Umbridge. And the choice of vocabulary was truly colourful and the acts suggested were anatomically impossible... It took a lot to make Moony angry like that.

'What happened, my beloved swear-wolf?' asked Sirius coming out of the bedroom in Remus's pyjamas and sleepily heading for his boyfriend to embrace him in the tiny kitchen.
They were at Remus's, because Grimmauld may be bigger, but it was grim and ugly and notorious for hosting the Black family, such as two of magical Britain's current most wanted, Sirius and Regulus. There were probably Aurors watching the place like they expected Voldemort himself to Apparate on the lawn any moment. But Remus's cheap shitty neighbourhood had anonymity in spades and nobody would pay attention to anyone coming and going, much less tattle to law enforcement. The risk of getting mugged and shanked was preferable to the risk of being cursed by Aurors or Kissed by Dementors.
Remus didn't even acknowledge the pun, which said a lot about his rage. Of course, the following words said more.

'Fucking piece of shit Fenrir Greyback for biting me and fucking pain in the arse Dolores Umbridge for passing fucking anti-werewolf laws again. This one practically means I can't get a fucking job. Well, not unless I want to dig holes in the fucking Muggle world or some such,' He waved at the Prophet on the table angrily. 'I hope they fucking burn in hell sooner rather than later and stop pissing off every fucking human being that has at least a single brain cell.'

'I'm rich, Moony. You can take the money from the Black vault, anything you need.'

'Fuck that. You think I haven't? How the fuck do you think I afforded this shitty flat?'

'You should have chosen something else. Something better.'

'Fuck that too, I like this neighbourhood. It's shitty, but in a pleasant way, and yeah, people get shanked sometimes but nobody cares I'm a werewolf because at least five neighbours are werewolves themselves. I've actually made sort-of-friends here, which would be impossible in a neighbourhood like Grimmauld or worse still, like wherever Harry's shitty aunt and her fuckface husband lived. Because I would stick out, you know, as a single gay werewolf. But that's not the fucking point right now, I can't be a kept man of a fugitive because that's just not sustainable in the long run. Someone would realise I'm living beyond my means and investigate. Same reason I can't do career crime, come to think of it. And yes, I have considered crime but only the nonviolent type.'

'Lupin the thief does have a flair to it.'

'Stop joking, Sirius. I can't really tell with words you how much I hate this but maybe you will understand anyway. I hate this.'

'Would killing them make anything better?'

'Well I'd feel better yeah but I'd be still not working. No, Sirius don't you dare, you'll just go to Azkaban.'

'I got out of Azkaban, remember? Twice. And I wouldn't get caught, who do you think I am?'

'You admitted to a murder because James was a suspect. I will be a suspect here.'

'Alongside with like half of England. Nobody really likes Umbridge or Greyback, and you will have an alibi. An airtight alibi. Like Gringotts or something. Or the full moon, nobody can cast an Avada while shapeshifted. Or maybe we set up someone with the murders. Maybe we make them take the fall for each other, like a duel gone wrong kind of thing.'

'Sirius. I'm serious here, they're more trouble than they are worth, don't do it.'

'No, I'm Sirius. And I am going to do it. How does a Muggle circular saw sound?'

'Like overkill. I can't believe you're planning to do that.'

'I'm not planning anything yet. Just throwing ideas out there.'

Eventually a plan took shape, and was executed.

The plan was simple. Part one actually required tracking down Fenrir Greyback, confirming his identity and hitting him with a discreet tracking charm.
That was strictly a stealth job, but as bad a Sirius thought he was at stealth, he managed. Part two consisted of tracking down Dolores Umbridge and getting her alone, which required rather prolonged surveilance as Padfoot. If the damn toad thought she saw the Grim, well, it couldn't hurt  to scare her a little and it was not like she was wrong that she was going to die. And he could just attack her in his dog form, but he was a little worried she might fire off a spell before she died, and hurt him.
As soon as she had her back turned, shifted back to human, pointed the spruce wand at her, thought Expelliarmus, and shifted again before the short wand hit him. Umbridge turned, and what she saw was a fuckoff big black dog leaping for her. He bit through her femur, a harder bone to crush than the arm bones or the ones of the neck, but very messily fatal within minutes if the femoral artery was also severed. He needed exactly that: death but not instantaneous. She whimpered and dropped, passing out from pain. Then he shapeshifted back into himself and spat to the ground next to the rapidly bleeding out woman, because her blood tasted disgustingly like his mother's and no matter how many times he killed he would not be used to that. He cast a notice-me-not on the near-corpse, collected Dolores's wand, and Disapparated.
He appeared in a spot of scrubby woods near a village. The tracker he had put on  Greyback notified him the werewolf was dangerously close. Clutching Umbridge's wand, he searched, heart hammering in his chest and ears. Finally he saw a big werewolf, just at the same moment as the werewolf saw him, and started to run towards him.
And Sirius faltered, just for a split second. As many as he had killed, he had never actually used the Killing Curse and wasn't sure he wanted to now, for all he had decided prior it was the best choice, nor that it would actually work for him when he tried it, let alone with another's wand.
But this man, no, this monster, had hurt his Remus. This monster had made Remus suffer and work shitty jobs and hate a part of himself, and done who-knew-what to who-knew-how-many others. And besides it was too late to turn back now.
'Avada Kedavra,' yelled the Animagus with all the rage he felt and confidence he did not feel. A jet of green light hit Greyback at the last possible moment and he was no more.

On the morning following the full moon the Aurors were greeted with a gruesome sight. A squat and plain woman's corpse, clutching her wand, originally pink clothes mostly dyed dark reddish with blood from a femoral artery severed apparently by the jaws of the equally dead werewolf next to her.

'You think he killed her?'

'Who else? And she must have cast a Killing Curse with her last breath. I don't blame her, all things considered. Open and shut case, this one.'

Notes:

Lupin the thief is a reference to Arsene Lupin, popular fictional burglar of the French speaking world

Chapter 7: To The Curse You Will Succumb

Summary:

the Azkaban escape comes back to bite Sirius in the arse

Of course the mass Azkaban escape came back to bite him in the (very sexy, if he took Moony's word for it) arse, because what the fuck was even his life at that point, he should have expected it. All three Lestranges brought back Voldemort somehow and the undead genocidal maniac Called for his Death Eaters, including Regulus. Which just wouldn't fly. Sirius wouldn't have his baby brother fighting another man's injust and probably losing war, risking his life to raid and murder and torture mostly-innocent strangers and getting Crucio-ed for his trouble. Regulus wasn't a fan of the Cruciatus curse either, giving or receiving, and it was easy to persuade him to let his elder brother tag along one time when he was Called.

Voldemort, to his credit, didn't show much surprise.

'Sirius Black. Have you finally come to bow to me? I am sure your parents would have been delighted, I knew them, you know.'

'That's precisely why I wouldn't do it. Lord Voldemort, I challenge you to a wizard duel for control of the Death Eaters. Lucius, you are a prominent Death Eater but also my cousin by marriage, would you do us the honour of refereeing?'

'That won't be neccessary,' disagreed Voldemort. 'After all, only one of us is going to survive this duel. The victor will be thus clear.'

'I agree, but be that as it may, tradition must be honoured. Or were you raised by Muggles and do not care?'

'That is just vile slander. Fine, Lucius will referee.'

Lucius was in fact almost too terrified to referee but even more terrified of refusing. They filed out into the courtyard, the two rivals and a crowd of Death Eaters, some from Britain's most respectable wixen families.

'Any last words, Sirius Black?' Voldemort asked as they bowed to each other.

'I have seen your proud ambitions slip away like sand, I have seen the end of things that have not come to be.'

'And yet, you have not seen your own demise in coming here. I will kill you, as surely as I killed James Potter.'

'James Potter was not a Dark Lord. As amusing as that would have been.'

'Gentlemen, com...' began Lucius.

'Avada Kedavra,' interrupted Voldemort.

Sirius dodged, the curse singeing a tree behind him. And the fight was on, fast-paced and grueling. Voldemort was good, he was a formidable duelist, but he did not have the entire Black library's worth of Dark curses in his memory, nor a Seer's inborn instincts honed by years of dodging Walburga's curses. Eventually, Sirius was just a fraction of a split-second faster, and, like in those Muggle sharpshooter films with the horses and hats, that was all that mattered. Voldemort was dead.

Silence reigned. Then Regulus started clapping and slowly others joined. Then a woman's choked scream rose above the applause and Bellatrix Black Lestrange, looking a lot better than she had in Azkaban but still utterly distraught, lunged forward to huddle over the corpse.

'No, no, no,' she sobbed, 'not my love, not my love.'

Her sister Narcissa offered comfort and what looked like a handkerchief and was shoved away so hard she barely kept upright.

'Lord Voldemort is dead,' announced Lucius redundantly.

'Right,' said Sirius. 'He's dead. As a doornail. And I become your new god now. That means no murder or torture of Muggles, Muggle-borns or blood traitors unless they are genuinely horrible people and you can prove it to me and the Wizengamot. There will also be other changes, but that one's the relevant one. Now, let's go inside and leave my cousin to grieve alone, she needs the peace I think.'

And he turned on his heel, Regulus at his side.

Bellatrix rose from her knees, quick as a viper, face-tear streaked. But she made the same mistake as every damn person who went after Sirius at Hogwarts - overlooked Regulus. Regulus the spare, the younger and apparently less magically powerful brother, the quiet one to Sirius's shamelessness and ridiculous (in a totally bad way) quips, the one who was usually protected by Sirius - Regulus the Seer, who could know things before they happen, who knew his cousin was going to cast the Killing Curse before she could get past a whispered Ava- with his back turned, who always carried a somewhat cursed dagger at his waist like she herself did. Regulus threw the knife and closed his eyes before it made contact with Bellatrix's chest, but Saw her shocked face anyway, her lips going pale as they whispered Keda- then still before they could complete the word, the wand falling from lifeless fingers, the corpse dropping to its knees and then the floor with two thumps. Sirius turned before she was all the way down and watched her, face as shocked and pale as hers. Then he walked over to the body and closed the wide open eyes, his own shining with tears.

'I'm sorry, Bellatrix. I never thought you would try to kill me. You do have nobody but yourself to blame, though. Rest in peace, cousin. Anyone else wants to fight?' he challenged.

There weree no takers, not even Lestrange.

Notes:

'I have seen your proud ambitions slip away like sand, I have seen the end of things that have not come to be.' Alestorm, Voyage of the Dead Marauder
'I become your new god now' Metallica, The Judas Kiss

Yeah Sirius can hear songs that don't even exist yet but not in their entirety.

Chapter 8: Love, Loss And Those Who Sailed Into The Last Sunset

Summary:

in which Bellatrix's death has fallout, and Sirius Sees

'You turned your back on Bellatrix fucking Lestrange? I thought you had more sense than that.'

'She's my cousin. My fucking babysitter. Well, was. I sprang her from Azkaban. I thought it would mean something to let her grieve the man she clearly loved... that she would be too distraught to lift a wand.'

'You turned your back on the most dangerous person in England following Voldemort's death. Do you have a deathwish, Sirius?'

'Hardly. I like being alive and I like being with you.'

'Good,' exhaled the werewolf. 'Because for a moment there I was concerned for your self-preservation.'

'So I'm in the doghouse?'

'Not exactly, I have a punishment in mind that will remind you both why you love being alive and why it's not a good idea to scare me.'

'Moony?'

'Shut up, Padfoot. I think you should just take orders for once, and if you're a good boy I will let you come eventually. Not, that's not exactly correct, is it? I will certainly let you come eventually, but not before you're a begging, desperate mess.'

'Promise?'

'You're not in a position to make demands. But yes, I promise.'

 

By the time they woke the next day, the news had already made its rounds. Sirius Black had allegedly not only outdueled the Dark Lord, but killed his own cousin for siding with Voldemort. By the time they got to lunch they counted no fewer than 17 versions circulating. None mentioned Regulus, which suited both wizards just fine.

In the Prophet the words 'Saviour or New Dark Lord?' were used, and supported with extensive speculation that didn't really resolve the issue. The Daily Prophet did not want to get on his wrong side were he a Dark Lord, neither did it want to lose the money that would be brought in by the notorious implicitly libelous articles.

'The family name is getting blacker and blacker,' observed Sirius with no small dose of horribly punny and unfunny humour. 'Soon they will have to invent a new colour name to keep up with how dark it is.'

 

Sirius Black did not expect a visit from Rodolphus Lestrange, eyes red from crying but face hard and impassive. A golden cup glinted in Lestrange's hands incongruously.

'Lord Black.'

'Lord Lestrange.'

'Please don't Lord me, I am the husband – widower, now – of your cousin. I'm Rodolphus.'

'I'm Sirius, then. And for what it's worth I am sorry for your loss.'

'So am I. I'm sorry she never loved me. I'm sorry she died. And I'm especially sorry she was killed trying to avenge another man. All in all, I'm feeling pretty damn sorry for myself. Because I lost her and because I never had her. I had her friendship and her vows, but for all I loved her, never her love. But, here's a thing. A Horcrux, a soul piece. Of his. Voldemort's. Because I don't care what Bella's dying wish would have been, if she died, he might as well stay dead and burn in hell. Destroy it. Destroy the damned thing so he doesn't come back and torture me with her memory more than you do. Oh and there are others but I don't know where all of them are. I know Lucius has one, a little book. Ask him about it, that pompous arse. That's all, I think I will be going.'

Sirius took the cup from Rodolphus's hands. It felt sinister, somehow.

'Get home safely, then.'

'You're not like him.'

'Excuse me?'

'You're nothing like Voldemort.'

'Thank you.'

'So what's your goal, blood purity?'

'Hardly, I just want safety and prosperity for me and mine. And I will stop at nothing to achieve it.'

'I think I would like to be one of yours.'

'Maybe one day you will be. Not fighting me is a start.'

'Believe me, I have no intention of fighting you, I know when I can't win. I'm heartbroken but not suicidal.'

'That's good. Stay safe, Rodolphus.'

 

Sirius dreamed that night. He Saw a tower, forlorn and forbidding in a barren but ruggedly beautiful lanscape, and an old man with piercing mismatched eyes and a cruel face that was somehow still handsome despite the ravages of time. He heard the old man laugh, easily as cruel as Voldemort but lower-pitched and more human and genuinely amused, the way Voldemort just didn't seem to be unless he killed or tortured, heard the man's German-accented rusty voice asking why he should help. He saw Albus Dumbledore's grandfatherly disappointed face, heard the headmaster's voice: 'I am so disappointed with you, my boy. You could have been great. You chose a path of great evil instead, killing the deserving and undeserving alike. For Harry's own good I'm taking him away. And for the safety of the wizarding world, for the greater good, I'm sending you back to Azkaban.' And when he woke, he could only think that in a tower of old evil they key to his power waited, locked away like an embarrassing secret, he knew it with the certainty of the profoundly clairvoyant that lest he followed the lead, Albus Dumbledore would soon pose quite the threat to his continued freedom.

 

Gellert Grindelwald was surprised to see a visitor outside his cell at Nurmengard. Yet, a rather young and handsome man with long black hair stood at the bars.

'Lord Grindelwald, my name is Sirius Black and I have a proposition for you. I'll spring you from prison, and you will help me defeat Albus Dumbledore. I have foreseen he will be an obstacle to my plans.'

Grindelwald laughed, outright laughed. The laugh sounded just like in Sirius's dream.

'Help you defeat Albus Dumbledore, and why should I do that? We're lovers, ever since I was 15 we have been fucking. When I was in power... and now that he is.'

'15 you say, interesting. I'm sure the parents will be ecstatic their beloved headmaster fucked a 15-year-old.'

'No, nothing like that. I... we... he was hardly older than me, barely 17 himself, and I was the one seducing him and I greatly enjoyed it. It was not... it was not rape.'

'Thank you, Lord Grindelwald, for your most helpful assistance. That's all I needed to know. Oh and before I go...' Sirius waved his wand at the old man, and Grindelwald actually jumped a little before realising nothing wrong had happened.

'It's just a cold-activated warming charm, one imprisoned Dark Lord to another. Call it professional courtesy. Goodbye, Lord Grindelwald.'

 

Remus Lupin came to his senses slowly. He was naked, hurting all over, no surprise there, and his mouth tasted like blood. Wait, blood?

He pushed himself to all fours, all muscles protesting, and looked around. Another naked figure lay next to him. A man of roughly his own age, pale and obviously wounded but alive by the rise and fall of his chest. A fellow werewolf. The werewolf he had fought, now that the night was coming back to him, and won.

He tried to speak, failed, swallowed the taste of blood and tried again.

'How badly off are you?'

'I'll live. Need to sleep it off.'

'I have wound salve, and some blood replenishing potion that works on werewolves in my clothes.'

'You'd give them to me? You're a mess yourself.'

'Obviously you're the worse off since you lost.'

'Rub my face in it, will you?' The man laughed.

Remus grimaced. No matter how often he shifted, being naked with people was always awkward and the man had a nice laugh, and Remus was a sucker for a nice laugh if he said so himself, no matter how attached to Sirius he was.

'Listen, I'm trying to be nice and win a little goodwill here. Obviously I could have done worse to you, but that's not my style and I don't want you challenging me in a month or several. So, friends? And friends help each other.'

The man mulled it over.

'My name's Varg.'

'Remus.'

'Ha, I'm not the only one with an embarrassing first name.'

'What am I, chopped lived?' Piped up a girl with brown hair.

'Luna's not that bad.'

'Yeah it's not bad it's terrifible.'

Chapter 9: Serious Business

Summary:

The one where Sirius collectively intimidates the Wizengamot

The Wizengamot never collectively expected the very much wanted Sirius Black to appear in front of them, but appear he did. He calmly walked into the room in disguise, then cancelled it and, casting the Sonorus charm on himself, began what was possibly the most audacious speech they all had heard.

'Honoured Lords and Ladies, esteemed wixen, I stand before you today to make several requests... no, to make several demands, to be accurate. As you know, I am a convicted murderer and my brother a convicted Death Eater. I demand that we both be cleared. I demand I that I take the seat on the Wizengamot that is my birthright as Lord Black. I demand werewolves be given full rights as wixen and people, starting today. And I demand I and Remus Lupin be given custody of Harry Potter. Also starting today.'

'And why should we comply with those demands?' asked Augusta Longbottom coldly. Big brass balls on that woman. He liked her. She didn't like him, and made it clear. Of course, nobody really liked him unless they knew him. He grew on people that way.

'Because I killed Voldemort. Yes, we can say it now. Because he is dead. As a doornail. Voldemort, Voldemort, Voldemort, his life was rather sad and short. Anyway Voldy is moldy and I killed him and I am not above killing the next person who gets in my way if they annoy me enough. Lucius, Lord Nott, if you would confirm Voldemort's death.'

Lucius Malfoy was a power-hungry, self-serving man. He was also proxy to the Black family's seat on the Wizengamot by virtue of Sirus, Regulus and the Lestranges being imprisoned, Andromeda being disowned, and Narcissa not being interested, which, combined with the Malfoys' own political power, was quite the influence, he would be loath to give it up. But he was not a brave man, nor suicidal, and disagreeing with the man who killed Lord Voldemort before his eyes and brazenly threatened everyone within earshot with death was courage verging on suicide. And Lucius liked his comfy life too much to die.

'Lord Black is telling the truth, he did kill Lord Voldemort,' Lucius used the formal title to pointedly acknowledge that his cousin-by-marriage had the right to it. 'I know for I was there and I saw it. Not an assassination either, as impossible as even that would have been, no, a full-fledged, fair wizard duel. Well, fair on Sirius's side at least. As loath as I am to give up the Black seat, I vote his demands be met, they are reasonable.'

'Now, my boy, let's not be hasty,' admonished Dumbledore, going for benignly granfatherly and missing by a mile because Sirius's own grandfathers had generally been anything but harmless. Magnanimous occasionally, maybe, but certainly the furthest thing from harmless two old men could ever be. 'I vote the meeting be adjourned until after lunch, wouldn't do to decide such things while hungry. In the meantime, I would like to speak to Sirius Black in private.'

 

 

'Sirius, my boy, I am deeply concerned. It has come to my attention that you have started down a dark path, a path of evil.'

'I have been Dark since before I started Hogwarts, my family's teachings took care of that. And funny you should mention evil, Headmaster. I know what you did in 1899 and every now and then ever since. Or rather whom.'

'Who told you that? Only two people alive know that secret.'

'Oh he didn't mean to. He certainly tried to persuade me it was no big deal, no big sin.'

'What did you do to him?'

'Nothing, even gave him a warming charm, one imprisoned man to another. No, I didn't torture your paramour, if that's what you were worried about and I know you were. After all, you care deeply for him, even after all he's done. But that particular cat is out of the bag now, and unless you want everyone to know of your youthful dalliance, you will keep out of my way. Evil or no evil. And besides, next to the one you love I am positively puppies and rainbows.'

 

'...and that's how I convinced the Wizengamot to do exactly what I wanted.'

Remus Lupin laughed. And laughed. And laughed. Positively howled with laughter until he cried.

'You're blackmailing Dumbledore with him fucking a fifteen year old Grindelwald back in the 19th century?'

'Dark Lord, love, what did you expect?'

'Hypocrite. We were barely older when we started shagging.'

'I love that word, it's so punny... but we were older, and both the same age, and neither of us teaches at a school or pretends to be a paragon of all virtues. Besides, shame is in the eyes of the ashamed, and Dumbledore is so ashamed of himself it would be a crime not to take advantage.'

'Crime... like the murder you're so fond of?'

'Precisely, Moony. Precisely.'

'But you really convinced the Wizengamot to give werewolves full rights? To protect them with actual laws?'

'Yes, it's not a big deal. Why are you looking at me like I hung the moon?'

'Don't be ridiculous, if you had indeed hung the moon I would be seriously cross with you.'

Notes:

This chapter concludes what I have so far. I will return when mental health and real life aren't a pain

Chapter 10: Three Yards Of Cord And A Sliding Board Are All The Gallows Need

Summary:

The one where Bella makes a reappearance and a Horcrux is destroyed

'Bring my brother back alive, or I will end you painfully,' Sirius's words echoed in Rodolphus Lestrange's head as he walked through the village of Little Hangleton with Regulus, both dressed in surprisingly comfortable Muggle clothing to blend in, their sartorial choices having been vetted by Sirius's probably werewolf boyfriend and Harry bloody Potter of all people. It was was summer, before noon, and the streets were strangely empty.

'I'm sorry about your wife,' Regulus broke the silence, having surrepticiously cast a privacy charm. He was quiet and unassuming, and, once he spoke, perfectly polite. Rodolphus had not yet decided whether that meant he would forgive the younger man. 'She would have killed Sirius and I...'

'I saw it. I know. And I would have killed for Rabastan, too. But I don't know if I will ever forgive you anyway. What is worst is knowing she brought this upon herself, all for another man, knowing she would murder the boy she babysat for him, knowing she would give up her life for him. I thought... I thought I would earn her love by being a good Death Eater, that she would finally see me, not just him. But the obsession with him consumed her until nothing remained of the woman I loved... or maybe she had never been there in the first place. I should thank you, I suppose.'

'Thank me?'

'Do you know how the first Lestrange to die in Azkaban got there?'

'No.'

'He caught his wife getting fucked by their children's half-blood tutor. So he murdered them both. Do you know what I did when I caught Bella with Voldemort? I fucking apologised for not knocking and went back out. A Muggle died that night, all for bearing a passing resemblance... You carry madness and murder in your blood, Regulus, so did Bella, and so do I.'

'Madness is a choice as much as it is an inheritance. I am not my mother, and you are not your ancestor.'

'I didn't have a choice, that is the thing. Not in her loving him and not in her death.'

'But you have a choice in whether you spiral into grief and spite until nothing remains or not. You have a choice whether you're the monster she would have wanted or not. Be your own man, not hers, and certainly not his.'

Rodolphus didn't respond, mulling it over.

Presently, they came to their destination, the ruins of a little shack that must have been a slum in its heyday and now apparently was held together by cobwebs and the spite that made it endure for the surrounding landscape to suffer its ugliness. Rod thought it was a fitting metaphor of his life, but did not share.

'So that's how Voldemort's mother lived? Damn,' he said instead.

'Apparently. The Horcrux ought to be here.'

'Burn it all with Fiendfyre?'

'I Saw where the it is, or where he put it. Fiendfyre is redundant.'

'Damn shame. This piece of shit shack would have been much prettier as ashes.'

 

Together, they dismantled the web of dark curses that encompassed the structure. It took them until dark, and then some. Finally they shored up the rotting wood with magic and entered. It was even uglier and more squalid and dismal inside than out. Rodolphus sneezed at the dust and grimaced at the crunch of what felt like small animal bones underfoot.

'There,' pointed Regulus and Vanished a piece of the floor seemingly at random.

There, under the floorboards was a rather ugly ring with a plain black stone not entirely unlike the one Walburga's corpse had been transfigured into, 15 years earlier. Rodolphus reached for it, but Regulus Saw the Horcrux siphoning away the man's life and knocked it from his hand. He didn't trust Lestrange, especially with the recent revelations that proved him just as murderously crazy as his late wife, but he didn't want him dead and needed him alive.

The ring tumbled to the rotting florboards.

Bellatrix Black Lestrange stood before them, wild-haired and wild-eyed.

'The boy that killed me, and my darling husband, Rodolphus. What are you doing with my murderer?'

'Don't you dare, Bellatrix. Don't you dare mock me with the word "darling". Not when I loved you and you did not. You never loved anyone but him.'

'I swore an oath to him. We both did, Rodolphus.'

'You swore an oath to me, Bellatrix. I could stand you living for another man, but I can't stand you dying for him. Even though you should have been dead to me the moment you fucked him. But I loved you, enough to kill you, too much to kill you.'

'As if you could. I have always been the better duelist of us two.'

'But I still can destroy every last trace of your lover.'

'Don't do it, Rodolphus,' pleaded Bellatrix.

'Avada Kedavra!' A jet of green light flowed from Lestrange's wand and hit the ring, which screamed incoherently, Voldemort's voice, not Bella's, and broke in two. The Horcrux was gone.

Chapter 11: Running With The Wolf Pack

Summary:

meeting with McGonagall and Lupin's new pack

Notes:

I should have published it when I wrote it but I was too tired, so have it now

Presently autumn came. Sirius and Remus, after much deliberation, had decided to send Harry to Hogwarts after all. The risks of the boy being out of their immediate surroundings and close to the ever-scheming Dumbledore were outweighed by the benefits of him having a well-rounded magical education. The boy was sorted into Gryffindor and quickly made friends with his housemates, and that was a relief to Sirius, who had worried his fame and notorious guardian might alienate Harry. But a request from Minerva McGonagall to meet still surprised Sirius. He entered the office and found her looking particularly sternly at him.

'Sirius Black. I have not seen you since you killed a classmate, admitted it and went to Azkaban. But there is a rumour out there that you are Darker than Dark. That you are evil, murdering and threatening and blackmailing everyone who opposes you, that you are the next Dark Lord.'

'Professor, I respect you too much to lie to you. I am Dark. I do kill. But I do not murder the innocent.'

'Severus Snape was innocent. He was just a boy.'

'I was just a boy too, then. We were the same age. He used a dark curse on me, well tried to, and I overreacted and misaimed. It wasn't an accident, exactly, but I sought to merely injure and I regret that I killed him as much as I regret killing anyone. But I've paid for it, with thirteen years in Azkaban.'

'And the ones you do not regret?'

'They weren't good people. Like Voldemort. You can't pretend the world is poorer without him. Purer, maybe.'

McGonagall did not laugh at the pun, her face remained stern.

'I knew Voldemort, when he was younger. He was charming, much like you, but his charm, unlike yours, was lost on me. But be serious with me, taking control of the Death Eaters you freed from Azkaban?'

'Someone needs to control them, and I kind of won leadership by killing Voldemort. It was natural.'

'And what are your goals, now?'

'Protect myself and mine.'

'And your means?'

'Any neccessary. Any at all, professor.'

'Is that a threat?'

'I respect you too much to threaten or blackmail you, professor. But if you threaten me in turn I will fight you. Ask yourself, do you want to fight the man who defeated Voldemort? Do you want to stand against me?'

'I will not stand for Darkness and murder, even of the deserving.'

'I thought not, I respect you too much to have expected you to. But you raised me, and I want you to raise Harry to be a good man and a competent wizard. That's all I want.'

'Are you really a good man, Sirius Black? What one hears makes one wonder.'

'I am not bad to the bone, and you know that. You are too smart to have asked me outright otherwise.'

'I wasn't asking if you are evil, Sirius. I was asking if you are good.'

'I am good at some things, but no, I don't suppose so, generally, and I have made my peace with that.'

'Then I have failed you, Sirius. I'm sorry.'

He braced for a curse, expecting the worst, but none came. Instead, the old witch sniffled incongruously, as if holding back tears unshed. But she did not cry until the meeting's end. He still felt like the worst person on Earth for making her sad.

 

 

It was the following new moon. The werewolves Remus had somehow won control of (how the fuck did that happen? He knew, he just couldn't quite believe it) were sitting with him and Sirius around a campfire in the woods, drinking the liquor that Luna brewed in her garden shed and steadfastly refused to call moonshine. They were playing never have I ever.

'Never have I ever shagged a werewolf,' suggested Matthew. All but Remus and three others drank. Sirius also pulled Remus in for an especially filthy snog to prove just which werewolf he was shagging.

'Never have I ever killed someone with my teeth,' Marie said.

Several, a vast minority, Varg included, drank, most looking guilty. Remus did not. Sirius did, knocking back the shot in a way that made him look especially deranged in the firelight and his throat especially kissable to Remus (He refused to bite it, even in bed, even on the new moon, even if Sirius begged for it extensively, unless he lost control. But he hated losing control, even if it was harmless and pleasurable.)

'Twice,' was all Sirius said by way of explanation, like it answered more questions than it raised.

'That was supposed to be a secret,' said Remus reasonably.

'Fuck that. I have once been sentenced to life in Azkaban already and  I have the Wizengamot by their nonexistent balls, I can't exactly suffer from damage to my reputation. Besides, it wouldn't be fair to the ones who admitted it if I didn't.'

'But you're not a wewolf?' asked Marie confusedly.

'Ooh storytime,' went a voice from the cicle. Probably Annette.

'I don't strictly like talking about it. But fine, I am an Animagus, I'm a fucking big dog, I killed a woman who tortured my baby brother, well she was actually my mother. And the other one is Umbridge, I framed Greyback. I don't like killing like that though, knives are my favourite.'

'You have a favourite murder weapon?' Remus asked, feeling like he had failed at something, probably keeping his lover sane.

'You killed Greyback?' asked Varg.

'Yeah, werewolf or no werewolf he was just a bad person.'

'That's fair. Greyback was shitty, he bit a lot of people here and he just... he was mostly hated and only followed because there was no alternative.'

A dissonant choir of voices started up.

'Imagine following the man who screwed up your whole life because everyone else thinks you're shit.'

'Fucking piece of shit Fenrir Greyback.'

There werre a great many nods to that statement.

'Let's drink to him rotting and burning in hell then,' proposed Sirius.

They all drank.

'Now, now, if you're a dog Animagus, and you're shagging one of us, and you care about werewolf rights, and you have killed someone who opposed them by biting her, I vote that makes you a honorary werewolf.'

'Oi, can it, woman,' someone yelled. 'Who would want to be a honourary werewolf?'

'I would, actually,' said Sirius seriously but with a shade of ominous glee. 'I would be positively delighted.'

'Absolute maniac. Welcome to the pack then, Lord Sirius Black.'

 

Chapter 12: Image of a Witch

It was close to Halloween, now. Voldemort's Horcruxes - the ones they knew of - were gone and Rodolphus Lestrange had finally pulled himself together enough to put in order and pack away Bellatrix's things. He turned to the great dresser underneath a mirror first, the top of it hosting a charmed self-brushing hairbrush, a few long curly dark hairs still in it, and enough jewellery for twelve women, most in boxes, most boxes open. One piece especially caught his attention.

Bellatrix's favourite necklace, an ugly thing of silver and dark stones, a Black family heirloom, rested in a wood-and-black-velvet jewellery case that was a family heirloom as well, and he had seen enough of Voldemort's Horcruxes to know what the piece of jewellery was . Doubtlessly, any woman to wear it for a prolonged period of time would be possessed by the spectre of his late wife.

'Bellatrix?' He asked, tapping the necklace with his fingers, feeling silly. 'Are you there? We need to talk.'

Nothing for a while, then Bellatrix eventually appeared, looking sullen.

'Rod. What do you want?'

'You made a Horcrux? How did you even know...'

'The Dark Lord talked. Mostly in bed. And the rest I figured out myself.'

'Of course. You were always insane but brilliant. Kind of like him. I don't know what angers me more, that you had this knowledge in the first place, that you did not share with me or that you were insane enough to use it.'

'I could teach you. We could be together, husband and wife, for eternity.'

'Don't... Don't pretend, Bella. You made this to spend eternity with another, and at this point I am not even surprised, just sad.'

'We could still be together.'

'No. We couldn't. That you have even made this thing, let alone why, is reason enough for me to destroy it. To destroy you. Avada Kedavra.'

The Horcrux screamed and broke as they were wont to. Rodolphus had never expected that cursing the Horcrux of his unfaithful late wife would feel so cathartic, moreso even than destroying those of her lover. But it made sense to him upon reflection. After all, he had loved Bellatrix, not Voldemort.

 

Sirius did not expect a rather miserable-looking Rod coming through the Floo. Nor did he expect the man to open the conversation with:

'Did you know she made a Horcrux?'

'Trixie?'

'Who else?'

'There is a pun to make there,' said Sirius, 'that I will refrain from seeing as she is my dead cousin and you would hex me.'

'Oh believe me, I've made that joke to myself and it's not bloody funny.'

'No, I don't suppose it is. Especially to you. How did you find out?'

'I found it while cleaning out her things and I destroyed it. But the feelings remain.'

'Feelings?'

'Memories. I miss her. I miss her laugh, her smell, the way her hair felt... and I think it will be her final revenge to drive me insane. I keep thinking what if I gave her another chance.'

'She'd go on a murderous rampage and drag you along with her.'

'Rationally, I know you're right. But I haven't always been the sanest man.'

'That's an understatement.'

'Thanks.'

'You wouldn't have married Trix otherwise. But her crazy was more of a match to whatever Voldemort had going on. Harley.'

'What does a motorbike have to do with anything? Or are you just changing the subject to your new favourite one?'

'No, she was the Harley to Voldemort's Joker and the Joker to your Harley. Nevermind, you don't know Batman anyway. It's a Muggle comic about a rich bloke who dresses as a bat to fight crime. Love for Voldemort corrupted her and love for her corrupted you, to oversimpify.'

'Loving her kept me sane in Azkaban, knowing she was sharing this fate with me and I loved her was the worst thing I could think of but it was consistent.'

'I'm sorry.'

'But she didn't love me. She loved Voldemort. She even made a Horcrux. But wait do you think there's more?'

'More Horcruxes?'

'Yes.'

'You're in no state to hunt them down if there are any, considering you're grieving and tipsy.'

'And tomorrow I will be sober.'

'And still grieving. Give yourself a year, Rod. Then have the biggest most scandalous remarriage you can think of to the person she would least approve of.'

'That's what you would do? If your werewolf cheated on you and died for another?'

Sirius looked so heartbroken Rod felt guilty but nonetheless answered:

'That would depend on the circumstances, I suppose. But that's a moot point cause he wouldn't.'

Chapter 13: I Was Made For Loving You

Summary:

Smut and nothing but.

Notes:

Warning: features sleepy but fully consensual sexytimes. And nothing else.

As soon as Remus's back hit the bed, Sirius was kissing his face, his mouth, down his body, and Remus must have actually zoned out a little bit there because one moment Sirius was kissing his nipples, the next he had already reached his prick, which was standing up at least somewhat, despite Remus himself in fact being mostly too tired to stand, because cursed, post-full-moon horniness and oversensitivity, and was taking it in that warm, skilled, wonderful mouth. The mouth was soon joined by fingers, wonderful slick fingers probing at his entrance and he woke up a little from their coolness.

'Siri... I might fall asleep on you if you fuck me. I'm not saying no, I'm just warning you, I'm exhausted.'

Sirius looked serious.

'But will you enjoy it?'

'Yeah, kind of hard to imagine me not enjoying you fucking me.'

'Then let me fuck you. Let me pleasure you. If you sleep, you sleep. If you don't, good for us both, I guess. I just wanted to know if the full moon makes you more sensitive to pleasure as well as pain.'

'It does. But I'm always too tired to do much with it.'

'Just let me pleasure you, then. Let me kiss the curse away.'

'It doesn't work like that and you know it.'

'It's just a song reference. But if it makes you feel better at all, it's worth it.'

'You have my blessing.'

And Sirius lowered his head again to lick and suck while he fingered Remus. And it was pleasant, in a distant way, being slowly opened up and suckled while him mind strayed on the cusp of wakefulness and sleep. He woke up a little more when Sirius pushed inside, no pain, just pleasure, his body even more oversensitive inside to it.

'Mgonna cum soon,' he muttered indistinctly but Sirius caught it.

'That's the whole point, my beloved.'

So he let himself float on the mounting waves of hazy pleasure and the tension build in his body until he came all over Sirius's chest. The Animagus whimpered, dowright whimpered, and came as well.

Remus was asleep before Sirius magicked them both clean.

Notes:

How do I put it? Got a new job. A shitty one, compared to what I could have had I think. Real life is killing me (not literally) and I can't find time to write, I swear to the gods I will finish this fic, just expect it to take a long time and a lot of unexpected detours into weird sideplots. But the overall ending will come eventually and I can tell you, dear readers, that it won't be a bad one or a cliffie. In the meantime have some porn.

Chapter 14: Take My Heart And Set It Free

Summary:

The one where Rodolphus remarries in an aura of scandal and Sirius makes a speech

It had been over a year since Bellatrix's death and funeral and Rodolphus was still grieving inside, but he was nonetheless at the Malfoys', where Cissy had arranged a party, since she was no longer officially mouring her sister. And he was drunk and Andromeda, whom Sirius had reinstated, was there, the spitting image of Bellatrix, dancing with her mudblood husband dance after dance, eyes only for each other, and he felt so absurdly jealous for the man having a living, faithful wife he hated him with a vitriol truly worthy of a better cause. He could murder him in cold blood, if that sort of thing still flew at all. As it is, he settled for glaring daggers and wallowing in self-pity. A golden storm of hair, a glint of spectacles, a whiff of barely familiar perfume, and a femine voice asking if he was okay broke his miserable reverie. Rita was nothing like Bellatrix, for all they were the same age, both stunning and both dangerous in their own way. And he had realised at some point he liked women who were dangerous. It was a drunken, split-second decision. He knelt.
'Marry me, Rita Skeeter. I know I am the washed up excon widower of your Hogwarts classmate and you don't even probably like me, but marry me anyway.'
'That's the least attractive proposal I have gotten in my life, but at least you're honest about your failings. What's in it for me?'
'The inside scoop from the widower of Voldemort's mistress,' the words tasted strange in his mouth but rang true enough. 'Plus the Lestrange money and title.'
'Fine I accept. Now get off your knees before another reporter writes about my engagement before me.'

They found Sirius talking to Cissy in the gazebo, something about parental woes and Quiddich and Harry and Draco.
'Sirius, I thought you ought to be the first to know, I am engaged to be married. You may know my lovely intended, Rita Skeeter.'
'Know her? She's the vulture that covered my trial and I have never read such vitriol before or since. About damn time, Rodolphus, and I wish you a long and happy marriage.'

Rita, true to her word, wrote of her engagement herself the following day. She mentioned to her 'dearest readers' her 'upcoming nuptials' to the 'as notorious as he is charming', 'mysterous', 'recently violently widowed' 'Lord Lestrange', 'reformed Inner Circle Death Eater', and added that she intended to 'co-author' his 'scandalous but shockingly honest autobiography.' Rodolphus, plagued with a hangover, had an immensely bad feeling about this.

 

‘Rodolphus, have you lost your bloody mind? What the fuck are you doing? Bellatrix has barely been dead for a year…’
‘I’m doing my duty. To the family, and to myself, if a man can have a duty to himself at all.’
‘By marrying a media vulture? It’s unseemly for the wife of a Lord to work and you know that.’
‘Bellatrix didn’t do seemly either. As evidenced by the fact she’d go and duel wizards and the fact she was fucking a halfblood while we were married.’
‘For fuck’s sake, as disrespectful to the dead as that is, we aren’t talking about Bellatrix. Rita is a fucking journalist. She’s so busy chasing scandals she’ll sooner or later become one herself.’
‘And she’s giving up journalism. She’ll be a book writer now, a perfectly respectable profession for a noble lady.’
‘A book writer, you mean like the vulgar trash novels some witches read in the bathtub? I can’t picture her writing anything else, somehow.’
‘Hardly vulgar or trash or fiction, though it will be scandalous. A memoir of mine, or perhaps more accurately a biography of Voldemort.’
‘Are you… Have you, I must reiterate, lost your fucking mind? Bellatrix is dead and you are not only marrying a fucking journalist but planning to destroy her reputation posthumously?’
‘She did a good enough job of destroying her reputation herself when she was alive. I know everyone who mattered knew, and I suspect everyone else suspected. If she wasn’t conspicious enough fucking him, she made a show of dying for him in front of all the wixen worth a damn in this country.’
‘Because she swore an oath to him. Like I did. Like you did. Like you swore an oath to her. And now you’re cosying up to their killers like it isn’t your duty to avenge both.’
‘My vows to Bellatrix were rendered null and void when she broke her vows to me and were till death do us part anyway. As for the oath to Voldemort, well, we both know we only followed him because he promised us something he did not deliver on. In the end, he was just a halfblood hypocrite with a big ego and murderous streak.’
‘Don’t you dare talk of the Dark Lord that way...’
‘Or you’ll do what? Run to him? Hex me? We both know he is dead for good and I am the better duelist of us two. And anyway, you wouldn’t kill me, and anything else, I can live with. Pun intended. And back to the Dark Lord Black. He’s a better Dark Lord than Voldemort. He’s got weird ideas, sure, but he dragged us out of Azkaban rather than get us thrown in there, and he has kept us from going back there, even going so far as to reinstate us as respectable members of wixen society, going against all the Dumbledorists on the Wizengamot and especially Augusta fucking Longbottom. Not to mention, he is a better duelist and of pure blood, the son of an old, noble and Dark family who was actually raised by them in wixen tradition, not a Muggle-raised half-blood who hid under an assumed and frankly quite pretencious name because he was ashamed...’
‘Crucio!’
Rodolphus wanted to scream as the pain hit him, pain worse than almost anything he could reasonably compare it to, and with it, the memories, memories of writhing on the floor at the feet of the very wizard he had just spoken of while his late unfaithful wife watched with something akin to lust. He took a breath. Voldemort was dead. Bellatrix was dead. His skull was unsplit, holding his brains safe. His bones were unbroken, his flesh unmelted, his skin still covering them both. It was only his baby brother casting the spell, and he didn’t even cast it with his full power or passion. Rodolphus could still think, and breathe, and move. He reached for his own wand...
‘Expelliarmus!’
The pain ceased. Rabastan’s wand flew to Rod, missed him and fell to the floor. Rod fell to his knees beside it as his body ached with a residual soreness, perhaps a tenderness, and his mind ached with a nostalgia for something he never had had.
‘Get out. I will not have you thrown back in the jail you must have sorely missed indeed if you get out now and never attack me… or Rita… magically, physically or even verbally… ever again.’
‘You’re making a mistake. You’ll be ruined and so will the family. Mark my words. And give me back my wand.’
Rodolphus threw Rabastan’s wand at him, watched him catch it and disappear through the door, mercifully without any further curses. Then he locked the door with magic, dragged himself up to the master bedroom, looked at the conspicious lack of mementoes of his late wife, curled up on the bed and cried – for Bellatrix, for himself, for the love he never had had with his wife and the familial relationship with his brother he had just lost – until he fell asleep and woke up five hours later, fully clothed and feeling exceptionally shitty. He would swear up and down it was simply an effect of the Cruciatus curse.

 

Sirius surveyed the gathered wixen as he stood up at the table. Everyone who was anyone had been invited, and though half had not shown up, offended by the very invitation, it was still a lot of people. And Rod wanted him to make a speech. Thank fuck he had no shame.
'Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate the marriage of Rodolphus Lestrange and Rita Skeeter. I have known the groom for what seems like ages. Nine years, we had the dubious pleasure of serving in Azkaban together. For twenty, was the husband of my cousin Bellatrix. Those who knew Bellatrix, knew her, for those that did not, she died like she lived, fighting for Voldemort. Yeah, we can say the name now. I thought it would be old hat by now. Anyway, though cannot honestly imagine what he must have been going through, I advised a grief-stricked Rodolphus to mourn properly and then remarry. I couldn't more approve of the way he took my advice to heart nor of his choice of bride. I do not know Rita Skeeter well personally, I have read her articles and found them hilariously vitriolic, especially the ones about me, but I have no doubt she is a good person. The kind of woman who will not only help Rodolphus heal, but inspire him to stay on the path of redemption and righteousness that grief, spite, jealousy and hurt pride have started him on. The kind of woman, I hope, who will help him realise his dreams and then make them real. And I hope Rod will do the same for Rita. Rodolphus, know that, despite Bella no longer being with us and you remarrying, you are still part of the Black family - unless of course you want out, I would not blame you - bonded not by blood but by the nebulous bond of people who have been through hell together and overcome. Rita, through your wedding to my cousin, I welcome you to the family. I hope you start writing a little more charitably of me, but I am not holding my breath. No hard feelings if you don't. And as for the present - you might wonder why a man who has everything gets another man who has everything a perfectly mundane and ordinary pot of cooking herbs - well, that's cause there's no present like the thyme. That's all, thank you.'
He sat back down to a chorus of exasperated groans that filled him with satisfaction at his joke.

 

‘Can I ask you a rather personal question, Rodolphus?’
‘That depends, Rita, if you’re asking as a journalist or as a person.’
‘I’m asking as your wife, you dork. You know, since we did get married recently.’
‘Allright then.’
‘What is your biggest dream that you gave up on? For me it was being a music star, since I can’t sing. But I wanted to be as famous as the Beatles.’
‘Mine is rather… more mundane. I wanted to be a father. Nothing more, nothing less.’
‘And you gave that up… was that your dream or your family’s?’
‘I did want to carry on the family line, I still kind of do. But more than that… my father wasn’t a good man to strangers, but he was good to me and Rabastan. And I wanted to be that kind of father to my children, to pass on the love and the teachings. But then I married Bellatrix. And I realised soon she wasn’t meant to be a mother. It’s not that she didn’t want it. She did, but the timing was wrong, and she was too busy fighting his war. And Merlin knows what she would be like to a tiny helpless creature dependent on her for everything. And more than that, I had no certainty any child begotten on her would be mine, not Voldemort's. So I didn’t press. I did the opposite of pressing, I stalled. And she didn’t call me out on it, nor did she press the issue herself. And now she is dead, and I don’t know if I ever will love anyone the same way ever again.’
‘Not the same way, Fates be willing. Kiss me.’
‘Excuse me?’
Rod gaped at the non-sequitur.
‘You will never love as destructively to yourself and others if I have any choice in the matter, which I don’t but I can hope anyway. And as for the kissing me bit, well, I never thought of myself having kids, but that’s because I lacked the right man, one who wasn’t a jackass or intimidated by me, not because I was or am in any way opposed to motherhood. I think I would enjoy it, and my parents would be over the moon. And, as it has been reiterated and reiterated, most recently by Sirius, there is no time like the present, and it’s customary to start by kissing. I refuse to have a baby with a man who doesn’t kiss me, I have some standards.’
Rodolphus gave in then, thought to hell with it, the present was indeed a good time, and kissed Rita, awkward and shy at first then growing bolder and more heated.
‘Do forgive me if I am a lousy lover, I… I don’t know what you like and quite frankly, I might be overcome by nostalgia in the middle of things.’
‘That’s okay. I do know what I like and I can handle your nostalgia.’

It wasn't too earth-shattering an experience. But all things considered, it was a good beginning of an excellent habit.

Notes:

haha I bet you didn't expect that.
in other news real life is still killing me, and I know you prefer Sirius shenanigans to Rod reedemption but bear with me please

Chapter 15: By Any Means Neccessary

‘Rod, I heard you’re going to visit America for your honeymoon.’

‘Yes. Rita’s parents live in Vermont and I want to meet them. Besides, I am told there is about a million sites there that I have to see. We’re taking a magical camper van cross-country all the way to California. And then back by a different route.’

‘You’re driving?’

‘Rita is. I can’t, as unseemly as it is for a noble lady to drive.’

‘I could teach you, I know how. Remus taught me. Well, a bit. I’m frankly better on a motorcycle.’

‘Pass. Doubt I will get good enough before we leave to spend a day behind the wheel and not crash.’

‘Suit yourself. Will you be going to New York?’

‘Yes. Rita insisted.’

‘Good. I need you to do me a favour there.’

‘What kind of favour?’

‘The kind you are both capable of and interested in doing. I need you to kill a Muggle businessman, an absurdly rich one with probably absurd security.’

‘What’s he done?’

‘Well, he treats women and poorer people atrociously but it’s a question of what he will do that is more relevant.’

‘What he will do? Is it a prophecy? Because I don’t trust prophecies.’

‘It’s a vision. It’s not only him. I have a whole list of people who need to die before a certain point in time in order to prevent more deaths.’

‘What’s it called?’

‘The Black List.’

‘Of course it is,’ sighed Rodolphus. ‘Do you need me to kill anyone else while I am in America?’

‘Well, if you insist, I can give you the names and adresses. But remember that stealth is your priority and so is your and Rita’s safety. I wouldn’t forgive myself if you got killed or caught doing what is essentially my wetwork on your honeymoon. And if you don’t complete the job we can always try again.’

‘You give a shit?’

‘Of course I give a shit. As much as I used to think of you as Bellatrix’s accessory…’

‘Of the murder or fashion kind?’

‘Yes. Anyway we’ve both grown, you aren’t ruled by her anymore and I am no longer ruled by my prejudice against you. We could be called friends now, and it wouldn’t be a lie.’

‘Could you have imagined this, back when? We used to hate each other. You were too Light, I was too Dark. You were too Gryffindor, I was too Slytherin. You were too rebelious, I was too traditionalist. But we’re changed men. You realised Dark wasn’t always evil, I realised it sometimes was. We’ve both done unsavoury things for our convictions, and been through literal Hell for them, and we would do it all over again for the right damn reason. I respect the Hell out of that. I’d kill for you, Sirius. Literally. And I will.’

‘You’d kill for mediocre cup of coffee, Rod. And a mediocre cup of coffee is just some average joe.’

Rodolphus groaned.

‘You and those jokes. You’re not even kind of incorrect. How do you even come up with them? Never mind, I prefer a Dark Lord who tortures me with questionable humour to the one that used the Cruciatus curse.’

‘I wouldn’t do that. Not to you, not to anyone I know.’

‘I know. That’s why I prefer you. But, you mentioned a whole Black List. I presume they aren’t only Americans?’

‘Hardly. They are all over the world. But I will take care of most, and Reggie will help since he co-authored the list.’

‘I will tell you what you told me, don’t get killed or caught. Either of you.’

‘Remus would not forgive me if I did. And I would not forgive myself if anything happened to Reggie. Stay safe, Rod. And give my love to Rita.’

‘Goodbye, Sirius.’

 

‘Rita, darling, I have a secret for you to keep. Can you?’

‘I have been an Animagus for years and nobody knows. I air out dirty secrets but I can keep them too.’

‘I would need you to become an accessory to murder. I have… Sirius has asked me a favour that involves killing a list of fairly influential people before they become more influential and cause the end of the world as we know it or something along those lines. What I need is your silence and an alibi in case anyone questions us which they shouldn’t but better safe than sorry.’

‘Done. But why come to me with it at all?’

‘I have been lied to by a spouse before, I wouldn’t do that to you.’

 

Killing the businessman  was underwhelming. The man had absurdly high security, yes, but it was all Muggle absurdly high security. The hardest part was possibly making it look like a plausible accident, because Rodolphus did not know for certain what looked like a plausible accident to Muggles and because he was so used to killing either showily or with Avada Kedavra that doing anything else felt weird. It all felt weird, working for a Dark Lord who was as unlike Voldemort as possible, who wanted no glory or fame from his killings, who did not torture and who made jokes and who treated Rod like something between friend and family rather than a barely sufferable underling. The fact that the Dark Lord was his dead wife’s ten-years-younger cousin was the icing and cherry on the whole cake of bizzare. But it was a good kind of weird that had recently started happening to him.

 

‘So, Rod, my boy, what is your stance on the Voldemort nonsense that seems to have been happening in England?’

Rodolphus, a man in his forties and a Lord, was very much opposed to being called a boy, but figured it was to be expected from a man who seemed, like Tiberius Skeeter, to be a very spry and robust octa- or nonagenarian. Instead he adressed the crux of the matter, so to speak.

‘I must admit that I used to be part of that Voldemort nonsense and a mere year and a half ago I would have taken mortal offence at hearing it called that. But I have changed. I realised that Voldemort was, for the lack of a politer word, screwing us all royally, and I only regret that it took me his death to realise it. So, as for my feelings on the matter, they would be summed up best with four words: Thankfully over for good.’

‘Is it over for good though? I heard from Rita he came back from the dead once. What makes you so sure he won’t come back again?’

‘Well, I am sure because I made sure. He had… objects that kept him bound to life, as it were, and I destroyed them after he was gone. Well, I had much help.’

‘I still think the American Aurors should have gone there to deal with Voldemort, like they did with Grindelwald.’

‘There is a difference. Grindelwald had gone international when he made his men cross the borders, Voldemort was an internal British matter. And he was too paranoid to be taken down by anything but an inside job anyway.’

‘You know, I begged Rita to come back to the US when that nonsense started happening back when she graduated Hogwarts. She said she wouldn’t, because war was where the big media names were made. She’s not a sensible girl, as evidenced by her choosing to marry you.’

‘Dad!’ protested Rita.

Rodolphus just looked offended.

‘How did the two of you know each other anyway?’ asked Rita's mother.

‘Well,’ started Rita, ‘we went to Hogwarts together, different years, and spent most of that paying no attention to each other. Then, last year, I went to a party to write a society piece and Rodolphus was there, first time since his first wife Bellatrix died, and he was looking perfectly miserable, and I approached him to cheer him up. We got to chatting, and we realised we had things in common and one thing led to another. And, since neither of us likes wasting time or is getting any younger, he proposed pretty soon and I accepted. I have been very happy, I will have you know.’

‘Happiness is fleeting. Marriage isn’t. Have you given any thought...’

‘Leave it, Tiberius. Our girl is happy now, and if she isn’t in the future, well, divorce exists for a reason. We will pay her for the best lawyers, if we need to, and get our money back in the settlement.’

‘I’m afraid you won’t. Because I am. Not. Divorcing. Rodolphus,’ insisted Rita.

‘I am very glad to hear that,’ said Rodolphus, with just a smidge of sarcasm.

 

Chapter 16: When A Person Turns To Wrong Is It A Want To Be, Belong

In the shotgun seat of a magical camper van headed west on a long, straight stretch of highway a man stirred awake slowly.
'Sorry I fell asleep, darling. Where are we?'
'No problem. In two hours we're crossing the state line into Nevada.'
'Ah yes, Nevada. So called because it's renowned for its snow.'
It was not even that funny, but Rita laughed a short laugh and Rodolphus realised that one, he had probably never heard Rita laugh before, two, her laugh sounded nothing like Bellatrix's, lower and kinder and saner, for lack of a better word, three, he would gladly spend the rest of his life making her laugh like that. He might be falling in love with his own wife. Which was kind the opposite of problematic. 

Rodolphus dreamt. He was at home twenty years in the past give or take, and a young, naked Bellatrix was brushing her wet hair, as she would before applying a drying charm to it. He remembered that night, catching Bellatrix with Voldemort, apologising, going out to get drunk, then, through a drunken haze, killing that Muggle with a slurred but heartfelt Avada because she had hair like Bella’s and then feeling very sorry for himself and what he had done for reasons that eluded him for nearly twenty years. He remembered, too, coming home and confessing to Bellatrix the murder but not the motive and arguing about everything and nothing and fucking her through the Dark Lord’s wet cum, adding more bruises to her skin, to her great enthusiasm and his vague distaste.
But instead of asking where he had been, she said something completely different now.
‘You remarried. And now you’re starting to love again. Like I would ever allow it.’
‘You were literally fucking another man while we were married. Whore.’
‘I didn’t do it for money. You know that, Rodolphus.’
'Of course you didn’t, I know that. But what is power but another currency, and what is the ability to reduce a powerful man to incoherent pleasure but another form of power? Tell me, did you get off harder with him than with me because he was powerful? Because he killed more Muggles? Or is it the forbidden thrill of fucking a halfblood behind your husband’s back that got to you?’
‘How dare you speak of the Dark Lord that way!’
‘He’s gone, Bella. Gone and dead. And so are you. Leave me be. Let me live. Let me put my heart back together from the pieces you broke it into, along with your marriage vows and your own soul.’
‘I liked you better when you would kill for me.’
‘Of course you did.’
‘I should possess your new wife. Would serve you both right, to have me come back and wreck this thing you’re building.’

He woke up then and realised that he was in a camper van at a rest stop in the American desert, on that foldout bed that managed to be at once too soft and too hard, Rita naked and glorious and fast asleep next to him. As much as Bellatrix had been his greatest dream once, she had become his worst nightmare. He started hyperventilating, trying in vain to hold back his tears, barely managing to stay quiet so as not to wake Rita. She woke anyway, blinking away a haze of blissful dreams and reaching for her glasses with a long-nailed hand.

‘Rod?’ she asked.
He didn’t say anything for a long while, too busy panicking, then finally managed to pull himself together enough to form words.
‘I love you, Rita,’ he led with, ‘no matter what I’ve done or what a shitty man I am, I want you to know that.’
‘I do know.’
‘I killed a Muggle twenty years ago, well, I killed many Muggles but that one was… well, she looked like Bella in the dark and I was angry with Bella because I caught her fucking Voldemort. So I killed. A random girl with curly hair.’
‘Do you regret it?’
‘I regretted it immediately, but didn’t realise my regret until much later. I know that makes no sense.’
‘And you dreamt about that?’
‘Worse, my own wrongdoings, I can handle. I’ve done it, I can relive it. I dreamt of Bella. That night. You know, I came back and told her and she didn’t understand at all because how could she have when she didn’t know my reasons and I barely understood it myself. She praised me but you know the phrase damned with faint praise? It was exactly that. We had an argument about her affair and the worst makeup sex in the history of makeup sex. But tonight, she was talking about what happened with me and you instead. How I was falling in love and she would not allow it. How she would possess you. I’m not gonna allow that. Bellatrix had her moment when she was alive but now she’s dead and she… she better bloody fucking stay dead and gone. Because I am free from her, free from Voldemort, free from the man I used to be even… I’m not free of my memories and my guilt but I will take that.’
A beat of silence.
‘You should…’
‘I should…’ they started at the same time.
‘I was saying, you should go to therapy.’
‘I should make reparations to the people I wronged. But how do you even put a price on blood and suffering, let alone pay it?’
‘These two are not mutually exclusive.’

 

‘Hey Rod, how was America?’
‘America itself was fine, the camper van beat the hell out of Azkaban but that's the kindest thing I can say about it. Whom did I hurt to get punished like this?’
‘Do you want it chronological, alphabetical or inverse chronological order?’
‘That was a rhetorical question. At least I can laugh about my suffering unlike most of them. Which is rather depressing to think about. I did the favour you asked.’
‘I saw it, thank you.’
‘And how have you been? Anything interesting happen?’
‘Well, I got Harry a more realistic practice dummy. He called it Tom Vernon.’
‘Tom I get, but Vernon?’
‘The magic-hating Muggle who raised and abused him for nearly nine years. ’
Rodolphus laughed. Cackled really. He dimly registered Sirius saying something along the lines of ‘It’s not that hilarious’.
‘He named his practice dummy after Voldemort and a man who hated wizards. It’s ridiculous. He’s a hilariously vindictive little shit and they must both be spinning in their graves.’ He turned serious. ‘Is this Vernon in the grave though?’
‘Of course. Forty seven stab wounds do tend to have that effect.’
Which sent Rodolphus back into paroxysms of laughter so powerful Sirius had to steady him.

Chapter 17: My Will Be Done

Summary:

Some poetry from Rodolphus and a little bit of Sirius ordering a murder.

Rodolphus disliked his new therapist immediately. There was something about the vampire dressed in Muggle fashion that rubbed him the wrong way. But then the man spoke and Rod actually realised he did have some brains under that badly-dyed hair and decided to stay. Not like there were many wixen therapists anyway, especially ones who would take on the infamous Rodolphus Lestrange. So a bloke who wanted him to write poetry and annoyed the bloody hell out of him was, all things considered, tolerable.

To Bellatrix

Effulgent stars burn overhead,

Awaiting the new dawn,

Over a year you have been dead

- I have all but moved on.

Yet I miss you, my warrior star,

Your laugh so sweet and cruel

- I even miss the time behind bars,

Those years of grief and gruel.

You suffered with me, by my side,

Our sins the very same,

My partner in crime and my bride

- Was I, like you, insane?

You loved another more than me,

The Lord to whom we vowed.

You're gone - still I won't leave it be,

Of this, I am not proud.

You left my heart so battle-scarred,

Sent shivers down my spine,

You were my warrior and my star

But were you ever mine?

 

‘Sirius, what’s your sign?’

‘What sign? Like Zodiac? You know when I was born, and I don’t believe that shite anyway.’

‘No. Your Dark Lord sign. Grindelwald had the Deathly Hallows, and Voldemort the Dark Mark. What’s. Your. Sign.’

‘Oh. The Grim.’

‘Respectable’.

A beat of silence.

‘Oh no. You’re not getting the Grim as a coverup tattoo for the Dark Mark. I can’t exactly stop you, but I’ll… I’ll hit you with a broom until you admit it was stupid.’

‘Why though?’

‘Because... and I could leave it at that but I won't. Look, dammit, I’m not your rebound fling from Voldemort. You want to serve a Dark Lord, and you have a Dark Lord, and it’s understandable you have your Dark Lord expectations, but I am under no obligation to fulfil them, and getting a tattoo to show your allegiance is, in my opinion, terribly gauche and unsubtle.’

‘Says the man with a howling wolf inked on his chest.’

‘That’s different, that’s my… that’s it, Rod, get Rita.’

‘What?’

‘Get Rita’s beetle form as a coverup. You’ve put a Dark Lord before your heart once, now is the time to put your heart first and show it. I think it’d be romantic.’

‘You have a shite notion of romance, Sirius.’

‘Only because moonlit shags are a logistical nightmare when your partner’s a werewolf.’

‘I did not want to hear that. I might never recover.’

‘Hey, it’s not bestiality if we’re both practically the same animal.’

‘I’m not going to dignify that with a response.’

‘Get Rita. She will be thrilled. But ask her first, just in case.’

 

To Rita

In the depths of blackest sorrow,

When I was grieving my lost bride

And could not see a better morrow

Without my warrior by my side

You came along, a friendly soul,

To lift me up out of my pain,

To make me hale, to make me whole,

To make me live my life again.

You are not her - she is no more,

Lies shattered - soul, body and mind,

But it is you I now long for,

And in you my solace I find.

No violence, no curses vile,

No burning will to kill,

Your weapons are but those of guile,

Sweet smile and poisoned quill.

You're not the first I gave my love

And your hair is blonde not raven,

You weren't the heaven I once dreamt of

But you became my haven.

 

‘Dolohov is in England,' Rod remarked, stepping out of the Floo one Sunday noon.

‘What does he want?’

‘What does he ever want? It’s purely a social call, just like this meeting. Anyway, he brought vodka, and it’s the first time I’ve been happy drunk since Bella died. Well, a little of the philosophical kind of happy drunk, because you can’t not be philosophical with Dolohov, but not absolutely miserable.’

‘I’m happy for you, then. Leaps and bounds, and all that. What’s he doing now anyway?’

‘This and that. I think he is trying to woo a witch named Nadyezhda. Not that’s he’s getting anywhere, as far as I’ve gathered.’

‘Would he kill someone for me?’

‘He would kill for Voldemort, back when. I am not sure what his deal was though.’

‘His deal?’

‘Whatever motivated him.’

‘What made you think I would ask about his motivation? I was planning to meet with him and figure it out himself.’

‘And you want me to arrange it for you two to meet?’

‘Precisely, my dear cousin, precisely.’

 

‘Anton, I have a very serious question for you,’ asked Sirius, so drunk and so focused he forgot to laugh at the pun on his own name. ‘Would you kill a man for me?’

‘Depends. What’s he done? Or will do?’

‘Will do? Looks like my reputation’s getting ahead of me. He’s ex-KGB.’

‘That’s both a hell of a reason and a hell of a complication.’

‘What do you mean? Can you do it?’

‘I can. Makes it more risky, but the KGB gave me a fuckton of shit when I first tried to leave for the UK, I’d gladly take out one of them as retaliation.’

'Knew I could count on you.'

 

A postcard from Russia arrives by international owl post soon after Dolohov goes home. There are few words on it: 'I did the favour you asked.'

Chapter 18: So I Dub Thee Unforgiven

Rodolphus Lestrange, being a reformed Inner Circle Death Eater who had officially authored a scandalous bestseller autobiography unveiling the most shameful secrets of Voldemort, did kind of expect the Killing Curse cast at him randomly. But he did not expect having it cast at him in broad daylight in the street by a teenager. He so much did not expect it that he didn't even dodge when he heard the fateful words (which would have been useless at point blank range anyway)and only survived because the boy's wand did nothing but produce a few vaguely vomit-green sparks.

His hand, mouth, and mind acted of their own accord, hand going for the stunned assailant's wand, mouth and mind collaborating to produce the words:

'Dammit, kids these days. Don't you know you can't kill with another wizard's wand unless you win it in a proper fight?'

'Excuse me?' said the chubby but now deathly pale child with incredible offence, and promptly was ignored.

'How can you be so calm Rodolphus? I could have lost you.'

'You're overreacting Rita. You couldn't have, that's one, two I probably deserved it.'

'But I'm not ready to be a widow.'

'I would be concerned for my wellbeing if you were. Anyway, I'm alive and fine.'

The child, now wandless, streadily turned somehow even paler during the whole exchange but stood his ground stubbornly, valiantly or just in confusion, Rod couldn't be arsed to guess.

'Who the fuck even are you, child? What the fuck did I do to you?'

With a double crack of Apparition, the Aurors arrived in the persons of one very familiar and hated Mad-Eye Moody and one pink-haired What's-Her-Name-Tonks, whom Rod only knew as Bella's least favourite and thus Sirius's favourite niece.

Rodolphus dropped Neville's wand and raised his hands very quickly, not wanting to give a wrong impression to an Auror that hated his guts and was known to curse first, ask questions later.

'What happened here?' growled Moody stomping closer on his mismatched legs. His magical eye was swivelling distractingly.

'I tried to curse Lord Lestrange,' said the child, regaining color and speech at the worst possible moment and in the worst possible words. 'I tried to kill him.'

'The hell he did, or I would be dead,' interjected Rod, calculating the risk of being cursed for his words and running it anyway. 'What he actually cast were some ugly green sparks. You know very well that there is no salvation from a Killing Curse cast properly, and yet here I am, trying to explain what happened, noticeably not dead yet.'

'I tried to kill him,' repeated the child, obstinately and very unwisely. 'I don't know why he isn't dead.'

'What's your name?' asked Tonks.

The kid stopped incriminating himself long enough to answer.

'Neville Longbottom. He tortured my parents,' he sniffled, 'they never recovered. It isn't fair he's not dead.'

'I knew your parents,' said Moody to Neville, 'they wouldn't want you to go to Azkaban, even for avenging them.'

Neville started crying quietly.

'Look, kid, admit it, it wasn't the smartest prank to play but it was just a prank. You were merely trying to scare me, and you succeeded there for a moment. But it's no use to say you were trying to kill me, because that will just ruin your future. Better to be an inappropriate prankster than an incompetent murderer.'

'But...'

'Better to be an inappropriate prankster than an incompetent murderer,' repeated Rod firmly.

'And you, Lestrange, why are you helping him? What do you have to hide?'

'I'm telling the truth, because nobody would believe me if I lied,' gritted out Rodolphus Lestrange, literally lying through his teeth.

'I suggest you believe my husband,' interjected Rita Skeeter-Lestrange. 'I did hear those awful words, but the kid just shot some puke-green sparks. Nobody is dead, as you can see. Since nobody was harmed, nobody needs to be prosecuted. It would be a waste of resources and manpower.'

'I don't think we need to make an arrest,' said Moody to Tonks, looking for all the world disgruntled with Rodolphus's continued survival. 'I think there was no ill intent, nor any harm done.'

He Disapparated.

Tonks said something that sounded suspiciously like 'Bye, least favourite uncle' and followed suit.

And there went Rodolphus's hope he at least was preferable to Lucius Malfoy.

'Hey kid, Neville, right?' Rodolphus tried for as light a tone as he could manage. 'Your wand.'

'Isn't mine. It's dad's. Failed me.'

'It's better than no wand at all,' said Rodolphus reasonably, going down on one knee and handing the wand to Neville, who took it reluctantly. 'Any wand is better than no wand. But next time you try to kill someone, don't try to assassinate then in broad daylight, either challenge them to a proper duel or corner them without witnesses. And for fuck's sake, use a wand that is sure to work for you. And if you absolutely have to kill someone with an uncertain wand, try a blasting curse with as much power behind it as you can channel.'

'Don't encourage him to murder you competently, Rod.'

'He will try anyway. And I don't want him ending up in Azkaban on my behalf.'

'Lord Lestrange? Why don't you want me in Azkaban?'

'Because I was there, and while I would wish it on my worst enemy because I am a mean-hearted bastard, you're nowhere near being on that list. In fact, I owe you something.'

'I don't want you to owe me anything. I don't want anything from you.'

'Nonetheless, I owe a debt of guilt. I was a damn fool, the biggest bloody fool of them all, but folly is not an excuse.'

'Why did you do it?'

'For love. I loved my wife enough to burn down the world for her, and she just wanted to watch the world burn. I've come a long way since... but you probably don't care. But I can warn you grief and spite are bad advisors. Someone once told me, and I am passing on that piece of wisdom.'

'I don't want your wisdom.'

'It's Regulus Black's. I'm not smart enough nor sane enough to have come up with it.'

'What?'

'I didn't come up with it, because I couldn't have, Regulus Black said it to me.'

'I hope you die, Lord Lestrange,' said the teenager with feeling as he turned on his heel.

'I hope you don't do anything stupid, Neville,' Rod retorted at his retreating back.

Chapter 19: Because You're Unforgiven Too

Summary:

Sirius makes dog jokes. also plot happens, but not much.

‘Let me get this straight,’ asked Lucius Malfoy incredulously, ‘you want me to vote to acquit someone who cast the Killing Curse at the Lord of an old and noble family and my friend, why?’
‘Allegedly tried to. No harm was done. And the boy is just fourteen, and he is the son of an old and noble family too, if a Light-aligned one. Imagine if someone accused your Draco on a similarly flimsy premise. We cannot be setting a dangerous precedent. And trust me, people have reason to get at Draco because he is your son. Or imagine someone accused yourself, or Cissy.’
‘I know that it would be setting a dangerous precedent. But wouldn’t it be a more dangerous precedent if they acquit him? Casting the Killing Curse at a noble Lord should not go unpunished.’
‘Allegedly attempting to. Surely you realise there is a difference. Rod is not dead. Nor is he harmed in any way. If the alleged intended victim is well enough to argue against all charges for the assailant, I say we should respect his wishes. Besides, wouldn’t you like to have Augusta Longbottom owe you a favour?’
‘She’d sooner die than admit it, let’s be real here.’
‘True. But she will honour it, if you don’t ask for anything too outrageous in return. Or maybe it would be better not to cash in on the favour and simply hold it over her vulture-adorned head. I know I would.’
‘Don’t try to teach me politics, Sirius. I just think this isn’t worth setting a very dangerous precedent.’
‘Precisely, that’s why you will vote to acquit Neville. That and because deep down, you fear me. I don’t know why, it’s completely unfounded in my opinion, but you do. And I am not asking for your fear. But I am asking for your respect and loyalty, and your trust. Your trust in me to make the right choice. And Hell, I will owe you a thing.’
‘You will owe me… why do you even have an interest in it?’
‘Because he is a Gryffindor like me and he is Harry’s friend. And because I like keeping people out of Azkaban, it literally isn’t fit for a dog.’
‘This country is going to the dogs, if you insist on speaking in animal idioms.’
‘Yes, and I’m working like a dog for it. What can I say, I like dogs.’
‘Can you be serious for a moment?’
‘I’m always Sirius.’
‘I’ll take it as no, you cannot.’

 

‘Acquitted by Death Eater votes of casting the Killing Curse in public, against the vote of Dumbledore. Where did I go wrong in raising him, Minerva?’
‘It might have as well been me who went wrong, Augusta. He’s your grandson, but he’s my student. And I already failed one boy who was so full of promise, I let him turn out Dark.’
‘You’re speaking of Lord Black, aren’t you? He voted with the Death Eaters. I am not sure whether to thank him.’
‘Because you don’t want to acknowledge the debt to a Dark Wizard?’
‘Because I am not sure why he did it and whether or not he will turn against us.’
‘Let me tell you one thing, Augusta. Do you know why Sirius Black went to Azkaban in the first place?’
‘He murdered a classmate, didn’t he? With a Dark spell?’
‘Yes, they were both 17. And then Black went and admitted to the murder to protect his very best friend, James Potter, and later told me he regretted the killing.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means there’s no making head nor tails of Sirius Black’s motives and intentions. He is a mystery, or maybe the madness of his family has caught up to him rather early. But I don’t believe he is the same kind of man as Voldemort, not even similar, for all both bear the title of Dark Lord. Voldemort would not have gone to Azkaban willingly for anyone, nor risked his life to avenge them. Black may be barking mad, but he’s brave and can be noble.’
‘So why does that mean in terms of what Black might do?’
‘I have no idea. Be it method, madness or an elaborate prank, I have no idea. But I told him I hope, and I truly do, he is not rotten to the bone.’

Chapter 20: All In All You Expect The Wise To Be Wiser

Summary:

Grindelwald has finally become a player in the game... He talks a lot, he missed it in prison. In other words, this marks the start of an arc he features prominently in, though the previous arc shall be concluded a little bit down the line.
Also Hitler and the atomic bomb and genocide and suicide are mentioned in passing, sensitive readers are advised not to read. I blame Grindelwald for being Grindelwald.

Notes:

Flames will be used to distill moonshine. I need it.

Sirius Black did not expect Gellert Grindelwald to be ever freed from Nurmengard, nor did he expect the old man to come to England and all but invite himself in for tea.

‘Lord Grindelwald,’ he greeted in a neutral tone.
‘Lord Black, you’re very polite for a novice. Thank you for the warming charm, by the way. And the charming filth you sent me to read.’
‘You’re very sassy for a relic of a bygone age. Fancy seeing you free.’
‘Yeah, I was surprised myself. Something about the possibility of parole after 50 years and good behaviour in prison and frail health due to advanced age. As if I were frail! It was Albus pulling the strings anyway, I have no doubt. We, ah, have had a rather delightful reunion.’
‘No hard feelings, then?’
Grindelwald smiled in a way that took a century off his apparent age, joyous and lascivious.
‘All the hard feelings, if you know what I mean. But we must still sneak around, unfortunately.’
‘I understand all too well. Sometimes the people outside a relationship do not approve of it.’
‘Precisely. And while I do not, Albus cares a lot for people’s approval.’

The old Dark Wizard took a drink of tea and his mismatched eyes turned piercing.
‘I know you are blackmailing Albus. That you have threatened to out us, as the youth of today say, if he opposes you. And I have come to issue a warning of my own: I am an old man, and I have done a lot of things that are neither imaginable nor forgivable. There was once no line I would not cross. But, because I have done those things, I know what cannot be tolerated and I will use my considerable power to take you down if you cross the same lines I once did.’
‘Thank you for your warning, Lord Grindelwald. I have no intention to become the kind of man you once were. I am a Dark Wizard, yes, a Dark Lord even, not the first of my name either, but I have no intention of subjugating the world just for the hell of it. I merely want safety and peace for me and mine, and will stop at nothing… well, hardly anything to achieve it, there are some things I would not do. And as for your threat to rain destruction upon me, or something to that effect, I respect that. I respect that you have become a better man, one that fights evil rather than commits it, I respect that you are willing to risk life and limb for the cause that you think just, not just because it’s just but because the person you love more than anyone stands for it. Yes, more than anyone. I have Seen your Patronus, Lord Grindelwald, it’s a bumblebee. And while some might see your alliance with Albus Dumbledore as proof you have changed, others will see it as proof you changed him. Guilt by association, Lord Grindelwald. It might boost your reputation but associating with you would tarnish him as surely as associating with Hitler destroyed your standing.’
‘I killed Hitler. The alliance with him was a mistake, I realised too late, and I had to limit the damage he did.’
‘I know that. You Imperiused him to kill himself, an impressive and quite frankly terrifying feat of Dark magic. Also ironically the only reason you weren’t executed. That and Dumbledore’s influence. But the damage Hitler did was done already. But the point is, you have made your bed, as we say in England, and must lie in it. You have gone to great lengths and done terrible things to build a reputation of a villain and now, you can’t just change how people perceive you at the drop of a hat. You must work in the shadows, lest people conclude you have taken up your old ways, and stay away from your lover in public, lest the association with you damages him. So, to conclude, you’re powerful but you tarnish everything you touch. Dumbledore’s nuclear option, as it were. You do remember the Muggle device known as the nuclear bomb, don’t you? You’re that, metaphorically speaking.’
‘I think I should be flattered, you have a way with words. That, in diplomatic circles, is called telling a man to go to hell in a way that makes him look forward to the trip. We are not so unlike each other, Lord Black. We both have killed for the greater good. For the things we have Seen. I know about the Black List and the deaths of everyone on it.’
‘There is a difference in orders of magnitude, Lord Grindelwald. You have committed genocide, I merely a couple of murders.’
‘As if it were merely a couple... I was trying to prevent what you would call World War 3.’
‘By starting World Wars 1 and 2, both of which you lost by the way? I’m not buying it.’
‘I am not quite buying it myself, nowadays. Did I lose my way then? Or have I lost it now? Was I trying to do the right thing or the wrong thing or just an impossible thing? Would the world have been better, or worse, without my intervention? That way lies madness, Lord Black. Madness in the purest form. And I hope you never have to wonder what went wrong in your plans like I did with mine. But I know this: even if the convictions I hold now are completely wrong, I will still act upon them, because it’s not in my nature not to act.’
‘Neither is it in mine, Lord Grindelwald. I hope you find my actions acceptable, but if not, I can handle it.’

 

‘You’re friends with Gellert Grindelwald? Kreacher told me he’s been over for tea a lot.’
‘Wouldn’t put it like that, Rod, friends doesn’t quite describe it. More like he adopted me as the grandson he has always been too gay to have while threatening me to toe lines a younger him would cross without hesitation.’
‘Grindelwald though? Really? He was by far the worst Dark Lord of recorded history, Voldemort be damned.’
‘I know, I know, we read the same damn history books, dammit. But he’s no longer anything of a Dark Lord at all. More like… he’s an ardent Dumbledorist, nowadays.’
‘And you, dear cousin, don’t like Dumbledore at all. Not any more than you like… well, evil.’
‘Keep your enemies close and all that. Besides, I think it benefits the old man’s sanity to have someone to talk to. Solitude does nobody good.’
‘Benefits how? Keeps him out of Dumbles’ stronger grasp or from slipping into his old murderous and genocidal habits?’
‘Yes, Rod, precisely. I think everyone needs a social circle and support network, especially Seer Dark Lords recovering from a half-century of solitary confinement.’
‘Seer Dark Lords? So you do feel a kinship with him of sorts.’
‘He told me ‘quod sum eris’. That means…’
‘I know my Latin as well as you do, Sirius. Possibly better.’
‘Not what I meant. I meant it’s hard to be regarded as someone’s mirror, so to speak, without at least reciprocating the kinship a little.’

Notes:

Gellert Grindelwald, who has become a Dumbledore supporter, threatens Sirius not to become like the old him. Sirus respectfully denies ever being like that, and warns Grindelwald not to attack him.
Despite this, Grindelwald sort of adopts Sirius as a grandson, based on both being Seer Dark Lords.

Chapter 21: And How Can I Blame You When It’s Me I Can’t Forgive

‘Hey, Rodolphus. Why aren’t you a Seer?’
‘I don’t know why I am not a Seer, Sirus. I wouldn’t expect anyone to know that.’
‘Because you would have been a divining Rod.’
‘That’s terrible. I’m not in the mood for jokes, today. I have a confession to make. I hit my wife.’
‘Rita? What in the blazing hells possessed you and how hard do I have to curse you?’
‘Not Rita, her I wouldn’t have dared to touch like that. It would have meant a fate worse than death. Your cousin Bellatrix.’
‘You’re a brave man, then. Possibly suicidal.’
‘That’s what you have to say to me? Are you fucking insane? That I am brave for hitting your cousin and my wife?’
‘Listen, Rod, if you were married to any other one of my cousins and had hit her, you would be a dead man. Or at the very least, in a world of pain by my hand, as Lord Black and as the Dark Lord. But I know what kind of man you are and we both know what kind of woman Bellatrix was. So all I have to say to you is that it was positively Gryffindor of you. Which might be the worst insult you will ever hear from me in your book but I actually don’t care what you think about Gryffindors.’
‘You’re one, so is the kid that hexed me with those ugly sparks. Foolhardy doesn’t begin to describe you lot. Actually he’s kind of involved in me hitting her.’
‘How so? I don’t follow.’
‘I did it to protect him. When she… when Bellatrix… when we tortured the Longbottoms to find out Voldemort’s fate… well, she came up with the bright idea…’
‘To torture him to make his parents talk?’
‘How do you know?’
‘I knew Bellatrix. And you stood up to her, knowing you?’
‘She would not listen to anything I said. I got between her and Neville and twisted her wand arm away. I think I must have sprained it or something. Anyway she dropped her wand and you know what she did?’
‘What?’
‘She put her hand on my chest and cursed me. I didn’t think she could cast a wandless Cruciatus with her off hand at me of all people, but I guess she was pretty angry and I know Voldemort could… she must have learn from him. I wanted to laugh when she said the word but then the pain actually hit me… not the worst I have felt but I would not fucking recommend. So I hit her square in that pretty face of hers, and she staggered back.’
‘Ah, I always wondered whether that black eye she had when she came to Azkaban was courtesy of the Aurors.’
‘No. That was my doing. I think we might have killed each other, or the Longbottoms would have freed themselves and killed us both, but Barty intervened. He was a good kid, for a Death Eater, shame he bit it in jail. Smart too, Ravenclaw. So anyway he told us we would not find the Dark Lord with infighting and marital disputes… and we listened. Mostly I did. I apologised to Bella, offered her a healing charm, she told me she was not finished with me and declined the charm… She was… Merlin, she took it out on them. If I had not…’
‘She would have tortured a one-year-old baby for information from the parents. That’s not exactly better.’
‘True. But I could have talked her down without antagonising her.’
‘You couldn’t have. She was Bellatrix. And Neville doesn’t know?’
‘And never will, it’s not a story that bears telling.’
‘He might try to kill you again. It might save your life if he knows this.’
‘No. I would rather die than share it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I could and should have done more. Pure and simple. There are things I fear, but death at the hands of an angry Gryffindor teenager is not one of them.’
‘You’re quite Gryffindor yourself, you know that?’
‘So you have said, and I refuse to believe you.’
‘Suit yourself. The better I know you, the more Gryffindor you are to me.’
'No dice. I'm Slytherin through and through.'
'A Slytherin would have spun that story to his advantage... Or, wait a damn minute, maybe you're a secret Huffelpuff?'
'Yeah, right, like hell I am. I'd rather be Gryffindor, at least Gryffindor has you to show for it.'

Chapter 22: I Swear I Did It For The Love I Felt

Summary:

Gridelwald continues being an arsehole and gets poisoned. General warning for Grindelwald being Grindelwald.
I am deeply sorry to anyone who came here for Sirius and is stuck reading Rodolphus' and Grindelwald's arcs instead. Grindelwald has at this point hijacked the story like the evil fuck he is and will continue to feature prominently until his death.

The Hog’s Head was empty, it being the early morning of a weekday, when Grindelwald sauntered in. Aberforth recognised him immediately.
‘You! You got balls coming in here! What do you want?’
‘Yes, me. I want a beer, and to talk. Will you pour me one, for old times’ sake?’
‘With utmost loathing. But I suppose you might as well buy a beer if you’re going to talk anyway.’
Grindelwald fished in a pocket for his money and counted out the price named in small coins and Aberforth poured him a beer in a none-too-clean large glass stein. Grindelwald drained his beer and smiled nastily.
‘How did it feel to finally poison me, Aberforth? As good as you expected for all these years? Or are you disappointed because I am not dropping dead in agony? I Saw you intended to poison me, luckily for me I have been immune to this particular concoction for eighty years, as much as it gains potency with time and you have had this vial for almost a century. Came in useful more times than I can count, comes in useful now. Luckily for you, too. You wouldn’t want to go to Azkaban like your father, I heard it’s still a nasty place to be.’
Aberforth glared.
‘You corrupted my baby brother and killed my sister.’
‘I won’t deny either. Though as for your brother, he was very enthusiastic about his corruption, and anyway, I am told it’s perfectly fine to be gay nowadays.’
‘Not the fucking him business I am the most angry about and you know it. You rotted his brain with all that Greater Good nonsense. You made him the callous, self-righteous, loveless man he is now.’
‘I think he has plenty of love.’
‘That’s because he’s a sucker for you. You and you only. He would put you before his family, his duty, his reputation… He doesn’t realise what a piece of shit you are, despite all the evidence.’
‘And? What do you want me to do about it?’
‘I suppose dropping dead is too much to ask. Fine. You will not break my brother’s heart or talk him into evil, and I will not have to find a way to murder you.’
‘I don’t think you will find it. But I have no intention of doing either. Your brother is the love of my life that not even the entire wixen world could keep me away from and I am trying to be a better man. Which, incidentally, is why you are still drawing breath at all, not spread out all over the bar in a gory mess.’
Aberforth paled. And Grindelwald continued calmly.
‘That and my love for Albus. I do not forgive easily, Aberforth Dumbledore. I know you do not, either, which is why I understand why you did what you did. But I will not forgive you and I know you will not forgive me. Still. A truce? For your brother’s sake?’
‘I still think you’re a piece of shit. But I suppose I can tolerate you for Albus. As long as you do not harm his heart, his morals or his reputation.’
‘That’s fair. I have no intention of hurting him, you know.’
‘You’ve done it anyway, love of your life or not.’
‘I know. And I want to life the rest of my life without doing it again.’

 

Later that day, Gellert Grindelwald was thinking.
He thought about all the wrongs he had done and regretted and one thing he did not regret but knew he could not be forgiven for.
The murder of Ariana Dumbledore in cold blood.
She had died so young, and she could have lived a long life. She had been as magically powerful as Albus. And she had been entirely beyond human help, her continued survival a life imprisonment sentence for her brothers. Aberforth he didn’t give a damn about, but Albus, Grindelwald had loved then and still did, after so many years.
‘So I killed her,’ thought the former Dark Lord, ‘at the first chance I got, because it was a mercy to her and because I could not bear the thought of my Albus tied down like that. The Killing Curse does not hurt, as far as I know. He thinks… as far-fetched as it is, he thinks I was aiming at him, because I was jilted and jealous, and has forgiven me for trying to kill him. But he could not forgive the premeditated murder of his sister, especially since I did it to free him and do not regret it at all. It was for the Greater Good. It is the one secret I keep from him, and I shall take it to my grave.’

Chapter 23: Can I Play With Madness

Summary:

Grindelwald and Dumbledore have a talk. And another talk. I don't think any trigger wanings are appropriate here, but be careful as always.

‘I know what you are doing, Albus,’ mismatched eyes were cold and hard in an impassive face. ‘And I don’t like it one bit.’

‘What am I doing, exactly?’

‘You’re setting up Minerva McGonagall to take out Sirius Black. I will not stand for it. They are both good people, yes, even Lord Black, and do not deserve to be destroyed by your manipulation.’

‘Don’t you understand Gellert? It is for the…’

‘Don’t you dare say those words, especially to me, Albus. Especially since they aren’t true in this case. Black is trying to save the world, not damn it.’

‘So were you. Yet, I had to stop you. You would have destroyed it.’

‘Black’s methods are nothing like mine, and they might yet work. At any rate, I was a fool once, and you stopped me. You did not stop me soon enough and I might never forgive you. You are being a fool now and I intend to stop you if it destroys me.’

‘Destroys you?’ Dumbledore looked apalled. ‘Do you truly believe me capable of harming you, Gellert?’

‘Magically, yes, you could kill me and survive and I have no delusions otherwise. And as for your heart, I hope you would not do it, that you would hesitate, because I am your lover, as you have always shown me mercy in the past. But an obsession with the Greater Good does strange things to a man, and we both know it.’

‘Do you fear me, Gellert?’ asked Dumbledore, going for tender and missing by a little. Grindelwald captured his hand as it came up to caress his wrinkled cheek, peered through it as though trying to read the future in it as he answered.

‘Fear you? Albus, Mein Gott, I am far too old and have been through too much to fear anything from anyone, the only man capable of outdueling me included. But I do fear what you might do to other people in your quest to save them. That I do fear.’

‘Are you sure you’re not projecting, Gellert? That you’re not seeing too much of yourself in me, or that you’re not falling back into your old madness?’

‘Don’t you dare try and manipulate me, Albus. Despite the fact we’re fucking, or possibly because of it, I can see through you. Not perfectly, but clearly enough. And I can certainly see though the most blatant, heavy-handed and half-arsed of your manipulations.’

‘I wasn’t trying to manipulate you. I’m sorry. I’m just concerned for your sanity in the light of what you revealed.’

‘Wotan, nothing worse than a liar that believes their own lies. Or more pathetic. I think they call such a man paranoiac nowadays. And yes, if you can question my sanity, I will question yours.’

‘That’s a low blow and you know it.’

‘You started it. Albus, please understand it, I love you more than anyone and anything. But I will not let you destroy your own soul and the people who believe in you with this unnecessary, underhanded, self-righteous crusade – precisely because I love you.’

‘My soul? You truly believe it to be in danger?’

‘Of course. I know this as surely as I know mine to be beyond redemption. One who kills with manipulation and the hands of another is just as much of a killer as one who casts the spell or fires the gun or wields the knife himself. Maybe more.’

‘But some people might need to die, mightn’t they? Like Tom Marvolo Riddle.’

‘Whom you did almost nothing about until the Potters somehow managed to take him out, at the cost of their own lives, and even then, he somehow returned because you did not take care of the Horcruxes. Is that the word?’

‘How do you know about Tom’s Horcruxes?’

‘Don’t change the subject, Albus. I Saw it, but that’s beside the point. The point being, Voldemort did need to die, and Black took him out. And his Horcruxes, indirectly. I suppose that should earn him a lot of goodwill.’

‘He calls himself a Dark Lord. And he has been killing people.’

‘Darkness comes in shades. And didn’t you say yourself some people might need to die, just a minute ago? I don’t know if he’s truly preventing the world’s self-destruction, as he claims, but all those he has assassinated or had assassinated had it coming one way or another. I won’t cry for them for damn sure.’

‘Because they all have been Muggles so far?’

‘Wotan give me patience, you’re doing it to rile me up, aren’t you? I have known some pretty scum Muggles, and evil wizards, myself very much included, and I know there are good people, Muggle or magical, not many, but there are. Point is, I know bad when I see it. And I have not seen it in Black.’

‘So where do you draw the line, Gellert? And what if he crosses it?’

‘He won’t. He’s smarter than that. Smarter than me at his age. And if he does? Well, I’d like to see how he fares against our powers combined. None of this underhanded stuff. I’d like to finally fight side by side with you once more. And I’d like to go down in history as having done at least one right thing.’

‘You’d fight side by side with me? After all you just accused me of?’

‘If the cause is right, yes, in a hearbeat.’

‘But this isn’t the right cause yet, for you.’

‘Yes, Albus.’

‘I’ll go make tea,’ said the elder wizard, like he had run out of things to say and wanted to occupy his hands while the conversation occupied his thoughs.

 

‘I’m sorry,’ said Grindelwald before the kettle whistled. ‘I should not have attacked you like that. Even if you are wrong, I should have been less agressive about it, and anyway, I don’t have a leg to stand on.’

‘No, I’m sorry. I never considered I might be wrong. And now I am considering it.’

‘Kiss to make up?’

They did not end up drinking the tea until it went cold.

 

‘Gellert?’

‘Mhm?’ the most evil and reviled wizard of the century propped himself up on an elbow, face open and thoughtful.

‘You apologised first. The Gellert Grindelwald I knew, the Gellert Grindelwald I fought, would have never done that.’

‘Wotan, haven’t you caught on yet? I am not the Gellert Grindelwald you fought, I am no longer the man I was half a century ago. I have had too many Death and Tower moments. I no longer have any certainty at all in my own beliefs, nor any faith that I am for once right. I’ve been too wrong for too long to allow myself that luxury.’

‘Death and Tower moments? You mean your career as a Dark Lord and subsequent imprisonment at Nurmengard?’

‘Yes and no. I don’t suppose Tarot, of all things, would be the first thing you thought about, Mr Transfiguration Professor. Death and Tower are the name of Tarot cards, both mean change. The exact meaning is differs subtly on a case to case basis, but generally, Tower is the violent destruction of a previous situation or previously held belief while Death represents spiritual growth. Hel, you could use some moments like that, I don’t think you question yourself enough.’

‘I don’t have the luxury of questioning myself. I am too busy, I need to act.’

‘That’s never an excuse, you know. Action without thinking is never a good thing, take it from me. And sometimes, just thinking is not enough. You need to listen when someone calls you out. Not blindly obey. Listen and pay attention. Because they might be right. But equally, they might not.’

‘Merlin, Gellert, when did you get so wise?’

‘I spent fifty years doing nothing but thinking. I suppose it would reflect very poorly on me if I had nothing to take away from it. You know, I thought I would die the day you dueled me in 45. I had had Zarah Leander’s Nur Nicht Aus Liebe Weinen stuck in my head since I woke up, it’s a really magnificent song, as much as I don’t usually care for Muggle music, and I thought that, as ironic it was to die to someone you loved while a song about not crying for love played in your mind, there would be no way I would rather go out. And I knew, if I did not die that day, I would be hunted to the ends of this earth. So I went to my supposed death. But you did not kill me, you disarmed and imprisoned me instead. And I cursed your name for it, for being a coward and leaving me to rot slowly, until you showed up and fucked me into that damned prison wall. I realised then that you were not in fact too moral to kill me, you were too selfish. And I treasured that knowledge of that little shadow of darkness in your soul because it meant you still cared for me and because it meant you were still human, still corruptible, and because it meant my survival and imprisonment had a purpose, however base, and a purpose I approved of...’

‘I did not spare you for that reason…’

‘Albus, Liebe, you can pretend to yourself all you like. But let me pretend to myself as well, in that case, let me pretend that it was all my manly charms. I am not anymore evil, allow an old man to be a bit vain.’

‘I’m older than you, Gellert.’

‘Yes, by two years. Which may have mattered when we were young, but is vastly insignificant when we’re both over a hundred. Allow me my vanity. Of all my sins, I think this one is the most harmless.’

‘Some people consider loving a man a sin.’

‘Muggles. Don’t remind me of their folly, or I shall be tempted to take up the mantle of Dark Lord and subjugate the world again, and I am too old, broken and disenchanted for that.’

‘I think I am glad you no longer think of world domination.’

‘Oh, I do think of world domination, it’s just that you’re my world.’

Albus Dumbledore went a little pink above his white beard, but his voice was perfectly calm when he responded.

‘I think that can be arranged.’

Chapter 24: Don’t Waste Away All Your Sympathy On A Fallen Soul Like Me, There Are No Such Things As Miracles

Summary:

How do I put it?
More Grindelwald talking. Don't worry, he will die soonish. Well, kind of.
Warning for Gellert's views of psychoanalysis, which are not the author's views, and for necromancy.

‘Rodolphus Lestrange?’

The man in question jumped, hand going for his wand.

‘Fucking hells, what the fuck? You startled me. You don’t just startle a recovering Dark Wizard, you might get cursed. Yes, even you, Lord Grindelwald. What do you want? I can’t tell you where Sirius is, I don’t know.’

‘As if I could not divine that myself. It’s the recovering Dark Wizard business I want to talk to you about. I know, adequately enough, what kind of man you are and what sort of man you were. I cannot reconcile these two. What has changed?’

‘The object of my affections, to put it bluntly. That and I recently started therapy.’

‘The object of my affections remains the same since that kind of love was illegal and yet the man loving him has changed dramatically, I feel. And as for therapy, isn’t psychoanalysis a load of shit cooked up by an incest-obsessed coke fiend fraud?’

‘Incest-obsessed coke fiend fraud? Nevermind, I really don’t want to know that story. I think William would be gravely offended if you called him a psychoanalist, anyway. He uses a blend of cognitive-behavioral and poetry therapy, both of which he borrowed from the Muggle world he interned in.’

‘I actually have no idea what that means. Care to explain?’

‘I will explain as I best can. Congitive-behavioral therapy focuses on identifying destructive thoughts and behaviours and replacing them with constructive ones. As for poetry therapy, it simply means writing poems to identify your feelings and thoughts and organise them. Why don’t you give it a try? Worst case, you will get scared of by his whole demeanour and image, and decide it’s not for you, or write some bloody awful poetry which won’t help you understand yourself at all.’

 

 

Albus Dumbledore was dreaming. He was in a memory, but it was not his memory. Gellert’s, then. A combination of strong emotional bonds and physical proximity tended to have that effect on a powerful Leglimens. Sure enough, he saw Gellert, just as stunning as he had been all his life, though in different ways, middle-aged and with his hair and clothes cut in the fashion of the 1940s, mismatched eyes hosting the same haunted, hunted look that he had in the duel of 45, the one that made Albus sympathise no matter how many atrocities Grindelwald had committed and how well Albus knew it. But Gellert’s face was cold and focused, his grip on the Elder Wand steady and firm. A corpse, barely enough of it left to be called that, lay on a wooden table in front of him.

‘Risa!’ spoke Grindelwald with force and took a step back as the corpse, magically intact once more, opened its – no, his – blue eyes and breathed a shaky breath, then another.

Albus barely had time to notice Grindelwald looked suddenly weakened and weary before he was awake, staring into his lover’s mismatched eyes in a midnight darkness barely diluted by stars and a sliver of the moon outside the narrow Hogwarts window.

‘You saw that?’ asked Gellert, resignedly.

‘I did see something, though I am not sure about the significance,’ ventured Dumbledore, hoping for an explanation.
And he got one, after a minute’s hesitation.

‘Risa is the spell that brings the dead back to life, though I am not sure if it will work for any wand but the Elder one. I used to make a lot of use of it in the 1940s.’

‘It also mended the body’s injuries, did it not?’

‘Yes. It could fix almost anything, be it the damage from explosions, fire, animals or simple decay. But that meant more power had to be put into the spell. It did not remove the memories of the death or fix the mental damage of it. I raised a lot men and generally, the faster they had died, the sounder their minds were when they woke back up. The human mind is not meant to go on past death, I think, especially a violent or slow one. Of all the things I deeply regret, raising the dead for the Nazis is probably the worst.’

‘Because they were wicked men serving an evil regime?’

‘No. I mean, yes. I mean that too, kind of, but I mostly regret it because the dead aren’t meant to rise from death and resurrecting them is just cruel to them.’

‘Surely there is something to be said for living again though?’

‘Sometimes, maybe. But on general priciple it isn’t worth it.’

 

 

 

‘I think I shall die soon, Albus.’

Albus Dumbledore almost dropped his cup of tea.

‘Why? You are perfectly healthy, aren’t you, Gellert?’

‘Not my health I’m worried about. Men with a reputation like mine don’t last long outside of a prison cell. You might as well have signed my death sentence by pardoning me.’

‘What? No, Gellert. Didn’t you say yourself I am the only one capable of outdueling you?’

‘You used to be, back when I wasn’t rusty from fifty years’ imprisonment. I can’t fight as well anymore, and more importantly I do not intend to.’

‘Why not?’

‘Wotan, Albus, it would have achieved nothing. I might take out one avenger or ten or a hundred. It does not matter. Someone is sure to get me sooner or later, I have Seen it. ’

‘Weren’t you wrong about dying once already? When I dueled you?’

‘I have been wrong about many things, Albus. My own death included, yes. But I don’t think I am wrong now. My heart, my Sight and my mind all tell me the same thing, I shall die soon. If it’s any consolation, I shall not suffer. The Killing Curse is painless, as far as I know.’

‘I won’t ask how exactly you know, and it’s not any consolation at all, Gellert. Losing you would kill me!’

‘No, it shall not. But fighting to defend me would. I have Seen two futures. One is of you at my funeral, alive, grief-stricken but otherwise unharmed. The other… is you falling with me, is you dying with me, an inglorious and violent end to a life of greatness.’

‘And can I not choose my own fate, Gellert?’

‘I would not advise it. The world looks to you for guidance; you are a leader, a teacher, a scientist, beloved not just to me, but to many. Live for them, Albus, and for my memory. Because if I may ask for one thing selfishly, it’s that I be buried with the respect I might not deserve and remembered fondly, and you are the only one I can ask to do that.’

‘Why tell me this now, though?’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t think there is a good moment to say something like this. But I had to say it before I left you unexpectedly bereaved, and this moment was… not the worst. I’m so sorry.’

‘I see. Do try not to die, though.’

‘Fine, I will try.’

 

Chapter 25: Avenge The Fallen

Summary:

Grindelwald dies to an avenger. Sirius is still Sir Doing-Something-Or-Other-Offscreen. Be patient, the whole Grindelwald business may not be over quite yet but will eventually prove relevant.

Gellert Grindelwald had a habit. He knew that, to a man of his reputation, having habits was inevitably fatal, but he was sure the world would continue turning without him, possibly all the better for the lack of one former monster, and could you even stop being a monster? Even if Albus would be hearbroken, he would live, and probably thrive too. Grindelwald himself was over a century old, and if one of his little joys and follies brought him death, honestly he was past the point of caring. To a man of his age, having little joys and routines was more important than living indefinitely. Which was why 10 a.m. on one ordinary, sunny Thursday in the spring of ninety-six found him sitting alone on a bench at a Muggle park in a small town in Scotland, the same place he had gone for the past month while Albus did his extensive paperwork, soaking up the sunlight, because he craved it after his imprisonment and because he had recently seen a Muggle newspaper claiming it was positively vital to the elderly and their frail skeletons. He did not particularly care if he lived or died, but breaking a bone would just be inconvenient.

A rather petite woman of roughly Minerva McGonagall’s age sat down beside him. But where Minerva looked stern with her glasses and neat bun and robes, this one looked like a very spry, slightly eccentric and rather laid-back Muggle grandmother. Her steel-gray hair fell in messy waves to her shoulders, she wore no glasses and was dressed in a hand-crocheted cardigan in at least six vastly different colours over an off-white blouse and a dark blue, embroidered calf-length skirt with sensible-looking flats and a mid-size patterned handbag. A wand tip pressed into Grindelwald’s chest, where he sometimes thought his heart should be but wasn’t. Smart. To approach him with her wand hand on his less dominant side. When she spoke, she had a rather pleasant voice, very calm, even if just a little cold.

‘Gellert Grindelwald? You were unexpectedly easy to find. My name is Zuzanna Gorzki. I used to be a Ministry hit-witch, now I’m an almost full-time grandmother. You murdered my entire family during the War. Well, not you personally, your men. But that matters not. You are more guilty than they were, aren’t you? You made them do it. I wanted to get my hands on you as a young woman in the fifties but Nurmengard was impossible to get into. I consoled myself with knowing you were suffering and would not hurt anyone ever again, while I was building a happy life for myself. But now Albus Dumbledore made the mistake of releasing you into the world. You should have never seen the outside of your prison, just like all those people you murdered never saw the outside of a death camp. I think letting you walk free was not only abhorrent, it was vastly dangerous. But there is a silver lining to that huge storm cloud. I can kill you. Finally, after waiting for my entire life, I can kill you. Just like I killed so many less important men in my time. Any last words?’

‘I won’t ask you to spare me, because I know you won’t. And I won’t ask you not to torture me, because we both know you won’t do that, either. You wouldn’t have approached me in public if that was the case. And I won’t curse you, even though I could, even without my wand, because you would just be the first of many avengers coming after me until they killed me. And I am old enough I would rather die peacefully than live in constant paranoia. But know this: I die a man repentant, one who has tried to mend his ways and live what little time he had left as well as he could. And I made my peace with the only person who mattered to me at all. When you die, will you be able to say that you lived your best life?’

‘Yes. I have. I am sure of it.’

‘Well, good for you, I guess. And before you kill me, I know you aren’t using your own wand, but you need to lose it before you leave this park and be out of Britain before teatime or Dumbledore and the Wizengamot will have your hide.’

‘Why should I believe you?’

‘Then don’t. No skin off my nose, I will be dead anyway.’

‘Avada Kedavra.’

Gellert Grindelwald slumped where he was sitting, mismatched eyes still open and face blank, dead as a doornail, the picture of a man peacefully dead of old age. There were no witnesses to see the woman next to him vanish into thin air with a pop.

 

Grindelwald’s body was found about teatime that day, still sitting on the bench. The Aurors scrying for his murderer found the killer to be already out of Britain and thus out of range. The wand found next to him had been reported stolen the previous evening, and bore no fingerprints.

 

Notes:

Gorzki is a Polish word meaning bitter. Yes, I named a character Susan the Bitter. Though it is more of a Magneto and X-men Apocalypse reference.

Chapter 26: Memory And Thought

Summary:

Dumbledore takes the news of Grindelwald's death hard and accidentally outs himself.
The title is a reference to Odin's (Wotan's) ravens, whose names translate as Memory and Thought respectively.

Albus Dumbledore was not feeling well. He had woken up in hospital, the current Dark Lord’s only sane cousin, Andromeda, looming over him concernedly and the last thing he remembered was being informed of the death of his beloved, feeling a sharp chest pain even as he asked what happened and was told there was no sign of a struggle or torture but no sign of the killer either. That was when darkness had crept into his sight and he must have collapsed.

‘Good you’re awake, Professor. We were starting to worry a little.’
‘How long was I out? What’s wrong with me?’
‘You broke a heartstring from grief. You were out for a day. We have had patients, especially the physically frail and magically powerful, who did not wake up in circumstances like that… I take it, however unlikely, that he was a spouse of sorts.’
‘He was infinitely more than that.’
‘My condolences. I know how unlikely love can be. I was to give you this. It’s a poem, Lord Grindelwald left it with me to pass on to you when I saw you heartbroken… He said I’d know the time when it came.­’
‘Do not call him that.’
‘My apologies, I meant no ill. I do think he was a good man, towards the end. Or as damn close as he could be, which is all that matters.’
‘You really think that?’
‘He, ah, threatened my cousin to keep some sort of moral compass. I know he did it at your inspiration. I also know an evil man, like the old him, would either not have bothered or would have used extreme violence outright. And by extreme, I mean truly extreme, just for the hell of it. Read the damn poem, Professor.’
Dumbledore read.

A hundred years ago or so we were so painfully young,
We thought that we could change the world, heroes as yet unsung.
Now that a century has passed I understand our curse:
You tried to preserve the world, I changed it for the worse.
There is no rest for wicked men and there's no happy end,
A vengeance comes for all my crimes
And death for me, my friend.
A hundred years ago, my love, we were young and filled with lust
And as we loved we dreamed the dreams that later turned to dust,
We carved a heart upon a tree, that tree has long since rotten
And our names will be immortal but our love forgotten.
We carved our mark on history, I in blood and you in ink,
And though we lived over a century, it passed just like a blink.
There is no rest for great men in life or for repentant villains,
No escape from leadership, no redemption for killing,
No way to turn back the time and go back to before,
No gaining back of innocence, nor being young once more.
But if I could, my dearest love, I would turn back the tide,
And thow away all of my life to live it at your side,
And though the wicked and self-righteous are often one and the same,
I hope that I could live it well and not look back in shame.
Yet though I have shame in myself little do I regret:
Not enough moments in your arms that I cannot forget,
not enough moments by your side, too many torn apart,
Too many ways in which I have broken your trust and heart.
Yet if you love me, Albus, I know that you forgave,
And came again and again back to the man you craved.
You saw me chained, you saw me jailed,
You saw my deepest self unveiled,
You saw me in the throes of lust,
And mad with rage in battle dust.
And if you don't believe my word know one thing to be true:
There were two constants in my heart, faith in my gods and you,
And now I know that I shall soon leave this earthy shore,
I hope that on the other side I shall see you once more.
An avenger is coming, bringing my well-earned bane
And though I would much rather live for you,
I know I shall be slain.
Now that I know that I shall die
And cannot evade this fate,
Grieve not for me, my friend, my love,
For Valhalla awaits.

‘I, ah,’ Albus Dumbledore was wet-eyed but tried to keep his calm, ‘when is the funeral?’
‘As soon as you are cleared for that sort of emotional upheaval. Meanwhile he has been placed in magical stasis.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t thank me. It wasn’t my idea. I was fully on board, but it was Sirius that came up with it and did it.’
‘Why?’
‘Ask him when you next meet. Assuming you do talk outside of Wizengamot sessions and slinging accusations. Now, if you will permit me, I have other patients, and you have a visitor.’

Minerva McGonagall looked stern, for all she must have been crying, judging by the redness of her eyes. But what she led with was a pun and an intensely uncomfortable question.
‘The cat’s out of the bag now, Albus. Grindelwald? Really?’
Albus Dumbledore shrugged.
‘Is it too late now to deny it?’
‘Considerably, given you’ve called him your love and collapsed in front of me and two Aurors, then spent a day in a grief-induced coma. I have suspected there was something between the two of you, you looked at each other the way my students do before… I digress, I thought it was just… not something of this sort certainly… not love, just a casual thing. How long?’
‘Since the turn of the century.’
‘All this time? When it was illegal, when he was evil, when he was imprisoned?’
‘Always.’
‘I’m sorry. I cannot imagine. I don’t think I ever loved like that. I don’t even think I could. Not enough to lose my mind over it, certainly.’
‘You think I lost my mind?’
‘I’m not certain you ever had it, Albus. You’re brilliant, yes, but you’re also… I think I once heard it termed as kooky as all hell. But it doesn’t matter. I will support you no matter what. Well, unless you actually turn Nazi. That’s a deal breaker.’
‘I’m not going to do that, Minerva.’
‘Good.’

Notes:

The chapter titles are quotes from songs:
Ch 1 Ramones 'Poison Heart'
Ch 2 Ensiferum 'Run from the Crushing Tide'
Ch 3 Dio 'Last in Line'
Ch 4 Metallica 'Of Wolf and Man'
Ch 5 Iron Maiden 'Running Free'
Ch 6 Type O Negative 'Wolf Moon'
Ch 7 Alestorm 'Seventh Rum of a Seventh Rum'
Ch 8 Ensiferum 'Long Cold Winter of Sorrow and Strife'
Ch 9 Kissin Dynamite 'Where Are the Clowns'
Ch 10 Alyssa White-Gluz, Charlotte Wessels 'Fool's Parade'
Ch 11 Dio 'I Could Have Been A Dreamer'
Ch 12 Elvenking 'Eternal Eleanor'
Ch 13 Kiss 'I Was Made For Loving You'
Ch 14 Iron Maiden 'Ghost Of The Navigator'
Ch 15 Hammerfall 'Any Means Neccessary'
Ch 16 Iron Maiden 'The Thin Line Between Love and Hate'
Ch 17 Powerwolf 'My Will Be Done'
Ch 18 Metallica 'The Unforgiven'
Ch 19 Metallica 'The Unforgiven 2'
Ch 20 Within Temptation 'Paradise'
Ch 21 Metallica 'The Unforgiven 3'
Ch 22 Me And That Man 'You Will Be Mine'
Ch 23 Iron Maiden 'Can I Play With Madness'
Ch 24 Elvenking 'Black Roses for the Wicked One'
Ch 25 HammerFall 'Avenge The Fallen'
Ch 26 The Old Gods Of Asgard 'Memory And Thought'