Chapter Text
Dim candlelight trembled in the draughts of the Hog’s Head cellar, drawing quicksilver arcs across the dust-slick stone. Albus Dumbledore stood slightly apart, permitted here only by his brother’s grudging tolerance, watching the woman Sirius Black had dragged out of Knockturn Alley hours before. Cassandra Vablatsky II—last surviving blood of a Seer line that had long since dwindled into obscurity—sat hunched in the centre of a chalk-drawn circle. Her thin, greying hands clutching a chipped crystal sphere that pulsed faintly from within, as if lit by a dying heartbeat.
Sirius had found her raving, half-feral with terror, telling any who would listen that the end was coming. None of her words had made sense, yet Albus was grateful it had been Sirius and not someone else who brought her forward. War loomed like a thunderhead over their world, and Albus would take any advantage he could—no matter how fragile—to stave off the plight that crouched at their doorstep.
When Albus arrived, Cassandra’s voice had been high and papery from overuse. She had shaken violently before collapsing to her knees, her eyes caught somewhere between the present and the unbearable elsewhere that only true Seers ever glimpsed. And then she went still—horrifyingly so. She had not moved in nearly an hour, the only sign of life was the slow, disquieting roll of her eyes under their bruised lids.
Then, without warning, the sphere cracked.
The sound was like ice shearing apart on a deep winter lake. A low moan spilled from Cassandra’s throat as shards of crystal fell to her knees like broken stars.
Dumbledore straightened.
“Aberforth, quill—quickly.”
Cassandra’s head snapped up. Her eyes were clouded, glassy and unseeing. When she spoke, her voice came in two tones—one mortal, one impossibly distant.
“When the Serpent and the Star eclipse the Sun…” She began.
The air thickened instantly, heavy with the scent of ozone. Shadows crawled up the walls all around them like ink seeking purchase. The crystal fragments at her knees shuddered, lifting, as they began orbiting her head in slow, glowing spirals.
“The purest, raised in mud, shall draw breath from shadow’s flame.
Born of two who defied the light, she shall bear the dark within her soul,
And by her rise, the false dawn shall fall…”
Dumbledore’s stomach dropped, turning to a hard, sick weight.
Born of two who defied the light.
There was only one couple that fit so neatly—so damningly—into such a warning. He saw Andromeda Riddle’s cold grey eyes, Tom’s terrible serpent-smile. Despite the lead in his stomach he forced himself to listen as the quill scratched furiously across his parchment.
“The balance shall awaken in sorrow, the voice of reckoning veiled in grace,
Bound by blood divided, she shall stand at the world’s edge,
Guiding the dark queen’s hand toward the turning of the age.
And when the child of stars descends upon the battlefield of truth,
Their bond shall break the chains of fate—and forge them anew.
Three as one shall rise where one once fell,
And night shall birth a dawn no light can claim.”
The last note rang like struck crystal, the sound vibrating through stone, marrow, and candlewick. Then came a silence so deep even the flames seemed to hold their breath.
Cassandra’s eyes rolled forward, wide and milky. She reached blindly toward Dumbledore, fingers trembling.
“Too late,” she whispered, in her own voice now. Fragile and spent. “You’ll make it true.”
Her hands dropped to the floor, her eyes focusing on his with a disquieting mournfulness. Her mouth opened again as if to continue—but no words came. Albus’s expression softened into something that resembled pity, though it never reached his eyes. Cassandra Vablatsky had lived a long life, a full life. She was kind. Insightful in the rare, instinctive way true Seers sometimes were. But Albus could not afford to take any chances. He could not have her leaving here to spill what she knew to any others.
He looked away, meeting Aberforth’s glare with one of his own. “Leave us.” He demanded. His voice sharp and hushed. Abe stared at him long and hard, mistrust etched into every line of his face. But Albus knew his brother wouldn’t tell anyone. As loathed as Albus was to him. He was loyal – begrudgingly so. He would not tell a soul. He could be trusted.
Cassandra however, couldn’t.
Albus slipped his wand from his sleeve. The gesture was smooth, quiet, almost reverent. He cast a sorrowful glance at the retreating silhouette of his brother, then at the woman still on her knees on the cold stone floor in front of him.
“I have no choice, my dear,” he murmured, a false sweetness – clearly meant to cajole – entering his tone.
Her eyes widened—understanding and horror flashing through them like a final prophecy of her own.
A soft, almost gentle burst of light filled the cellar.
. . . . .
Dumbledore stared at her body long after the magic faded. Her final prediction pulsing through his mind, a warning bell he refused to heed.
Three as one shall rise where one once fell.
He saw a dark trinity forming in the shadows of possibility—Tom, Andromeda, and whatever children they might yet bring into the world. If the prophecy was right, then safety lay only in preventing that future from ever taking shape by ending the Riddle line completely. Or at the very least… pruning the worst branches from their family tree before they festered into something unstoppable.
He folded the parchment, sealing it with wax before the ink had even dried. Tucking it into his left breast pocket, he murmured the words he had always told himself were noble.
“For the greater good.”
But the phrase, usually said with reverence, tasted like ash on his tongue.
And so, with quiet, determined steps, he climbed the cellar stairs—carrying with him a prophecy that could destroy them all. Unless he destroyed its subjects first.
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The atmosphere within the Burrow was always a lively one — a fact that came hand in hand with the family that lived within its eccentric walls. Molly Weasley was a mother of six boys, with another child on the way. Blessed as she was, they had little money, as was demonstrated by the mismatched furniture and the many haphazard repairs. But it mattered very little. The house was filled with love, laughter and so many rambunctious little feet that Molly barely minded the peeling paint or chipped China.
On this particular evening, however, the Burrow wore an unfamiliar stillness. The usual clatter of bedtime and the muffled chorus of children’s voices were gone. Devoid of laughter and warmth, the house felt exposed — its bones showing where the habit of joy normally hid them. Molly had ensured every one of her precious children was safe at her aunt’s house; she couldn’t — wouldn’t — allow them to be exposed to the harsh realities of the war that was brewing outside their door, not for as long as she could help it.
Even so, empty of children, her house was far from empty.
Bodies filled the rooms; the Burrow had become, tonight, an island of refuge and counsel. Albus Dumbledore had contacted Arthur via the Floo, requesting an urgent meeting to be held within the walls of their home. He had sounded rushed, disturbed even, and they had never been able to deny the man a thing. If Molly had been surprised when the entirety of the Order of the Phoenix stumbled through the green flame with him, she dared not let on.
So here they sat — huddled around her modest dining table, perched on stair spindles, standing in corners, and filling every spare chair. Albus took Arthur’s usual seat by the window. Not that she or her husband minded, mind you; he had earned it. He had, after all, been there for them — guiding and protecting every person here as best he could for as long as any one of them could remember.
Despite her relief at being able to offer sanctuary, Molly could not shake the tension that lay over the room like a damp blanket. Faces she knew well were tight with worry; hands absently rubbed tea-stained knuckles; someone — she couldn’t see who — kept tapping the edge of a cup as if to a rhythm only they could hear. The air felt heavy, as if something detrimental had already happened and she were about to be asked to bear witness to its aftermath.
It unsettled her.
A quick look at Arthur’s face told Molly that he felt it too: the furrow between his brows, the way he kept standing and sitting as if the floor beneath him might give way.
“What is going on, Albus?” Molly had never been one to hold her tongue. She wouldn’t now.
“All in good time, Molly, my dear,” he replied, his tone soft, as if to reassure. But the way he cleared his throat right after made her skin prickle.
“Earlier this evening, young Sirius found an elderly woman in disarray in Knockturn Alley,” Dumbledore said. “He brought her to me. A step made in compassion that has proven to be of great importance.” His voice carried across the packed room, measured and careful. He did not raise it more than he usually would; his words carried weight instead.
Molly couldn’t help but frown at his cryptic phrasing. Lily scowled and Alice leaned in closer; letting Molly know without having to ask that she wasn’t the only one who wanted the explanation immediately.
“As it turns out,” Dumbledore continued, “the woman was a Seer — the last of a dying line who have, in their time, prophesied many of history’s greatest turns.”
He paused, and Molly felt her frown deepen. There was a theatricality to Dumbledore that she usually found endearing, but tonight it sat ill with her. People were disappearing. War was on the horizon. And between that and her swollen belly, Molly had little patience for enigmatic flourishes.
“And what, Albus?” She snapped. “Out with it already.” She leaned her elbows on the table, flushing as red as her hair when Sirius and James began snickering at her outburst. Though judging by the sharp choke of James’ breath before he went silent, Lilly must have chastised him. A thought that did little to ease the flush of her face.
“Ah, I apologise, Molly. I do have a habit of waffling a little. However the backstory is important in this case.” He smiled warmly and his large hand squeezed her arm in comfort when she leaned back, embarrassed by her own impatience.
“This woman, though in poor shape, did deliver a prophecy this evening—one which I am afraid we must not allow to come to pass.” He produced a piece of parchment and, with a small, almost absent flick, duplicated it several times before passing copies around the table.
Molly took hers gingerly. Her eyes devoured the words and a cold, creeping horror crept in as the meaning settled. Around her, the anxiety of those present rose line by line as they read. Gasps and murmurs of shock and outrage fluttered through the room like startled birds.
“Surely this cannot be true, Albus?” Lily asked, her voice tight with disgust. The tone, a far cry from her usual softness.
“Voldemort has procreated?” Frank muttered incredulously. His lips spitting the vile man’s name as if it were poison. In many ways, it was.
“I’m not sure how he managed to convince anyone to shake his hand, let alone warm his bed,” Sirius scoffed, incredulously. The absurdity of the idea drew a few strained chuckles from the room.
There were other voices, but Molly’s focus narrowed. The inked lines seemed to throb beneath her gaze as she read the prophecy again and again. At the bottom, in a hand she recognised as Dumbledore’s, were notes — his interpretation — and the realisation that he had not yet shared everything made her stomach flutter like a trapped insect.
Surely not.
Merlin knew the man – Voldemort - was vile, evil incarnate. Yet somehow the idea of him having one child — raised under his influence — let alone three of them, felt more terrifying than anything else she had encountered.
The image reared in Molly’s mind of her own little ones: William, her eldest boy, in the garden, muddy from chasing those infuriatingly persistent gnomes; Charlie pouring over his dragon books, curled up on the back decking; her darling Percival clinging to her skirts; cheeky Fred and George – her three year old twins - who were so like their twin uncles, plotting to make their brothers laugh; and Ron – her youngest little boy, face flushed from the teething, gnawing stubbornly on her knitting needles.
Her hand went automatically, instinctively to her stomach, to the soft roundness that housed their newest child.
What would become of them? Of all of them — if this prophecy ever came to pass?
“This cannot be true,” she whispered, her voice small and raw as she desperately sought Arthur’s eyes.
His – usually calm and twinkling with untold excitement - were wide with horror. When their gazes met, she couldn’t stop the whimper that rose in her chest.
She turned to Dumbledore, silently pleading for instruction, for anything that would dull the horrifying thoughts that had filled her head.
“We cannot let this happen,” she said, tears stinging the corners of her eyes. “The children”- she cut herself off. The thought of any harm coming to any of her babies too monstrous to voice out loud.
“She’s right,” Minerva McGonagall spoke up from the back of the room, her voice steady and firm. “We cannot allow this to happen, Albus.” Molly welcomed the certainty in Minerva’s voice: she had always been a grounding presence. Stern. Calm. Reliable.
“We shall not,” Albus promised, a calmness in his voice that felt like a pledge, one Molly clung too. He flicked his hand and the parchment in Molly’s fingers — damp and crumpled from her sweaty grip — leapt free and gathered with the others in a neat stack before crumbling to ash. The fragile dust sifted into the air and drifted like snow across the tabletop.
“As it is, after hearing the prophecy, I did some digging,” Dumbledore continued, leaning forward. “I wanted us to be as informed as possible before forming any type of plan.” He paused.
Molly felt Arthur’s hands come to rest on her tense shoulders, squeezing gently — a quiet anchor.
“Voldemort has, in fact, been married. It is with a heavy heart that I tell you that your lost friend Andromeda Black did not run away with a Muggle, as her family claimed. I uncovered a marriage licence dated the day after the end of her seventh year at Hogwarts — to Tom Riddle.”
“Albus—you cannot be serious,” Minerva cried, her voice sharp now with betrayal.
Molly felt a strange, hot anger rise up — the kind that burns when someone you trusted has been taken from you under false pretence. They had all hugged Andromeda that last day of her schooling. They had wished her well as she gathered herself to face her family for what could have been the last time. They had wept when the news reached them that she had been disowned. They had prayed to the gods for her safety when they learned that she had fled her home, never to be heard from again, and not even the most Noble and Ancient House of Black could find her, despite their determination to ‘prune’ her from their line. Not that there had ever been anything noble about the Black family. Molly had believed she had escaped into the world and started anew with the Muggleborn boy she claimed to love.
But the idea that she had betrayed them, betrayed her friends — that she had given herself to such a man — felt like a stolen grief. A horror that Molly could not have comprehended in this life or the next.
“She let us grieve her,” Molly spat, unable to hide her hurt. “We mourned for her, and all this time she has been shacking up with a murderer? Playing doting wife to a man that would see our friends dead?” She stood, hands slamming against the table, mind racing faster than she could grasp it, and Arthur's attempt to draw her down was pushed off with a fierce wave of her arm.
“Don’t, Arthur,” she hissed, eyes flicking to study Sirius, who looked as horrified and betrayed as everyone else, his face ashen, eyes wide. Before her gaze moved on, landing on Severus Snape, who had remained silent in the corner. “Did you know, Severus? Did you know of her betrayal? That she was…that she was that…that devil’s whore—” Her voice broke. Her throat tightening and choking on the last word. She would feel guilty later for the venom in it; for now, she could only see black.
“I did not.” Snape’s reply was curt and hard. His black eyes met hers and Molly felt a sheen of shame — but also suspicion. Her eyes narrowed and the suspicion was only bolstered when she heard James scoff at the man’s denial.
Molly had always known of the animosity that existed between Snape and James, but silently she wondered if James’ scepticism wasn’t ill aimed. Severus was a Slytherin after all. Everyone knew they couldn’t be trusted. Hadn’t Andromeda just proved that?
“What would you know of my knowledge, Potter?” Snape snapped when James murmured that the man had probably known the entire time. James bristled, and Molly watched the old, familiar rivalry between them flare like tinder.
“Order,” Dumbledore said sharply, cutting through their bickering. Both men falling silent as if they were scolded school boys. “We are not here to fight. What is done is done. What is important is what we do now.” His voice brokered no argument.
“Now the prophecy speaks of three children,” he continued carefully. “In investigating, I discovered that Riddle and Andromeda have had one child so far — a girl. Her name and birthdate are not recorded.”
Molly’s chest constricted; a vision flashed — not of a child but of a red-eyed thing, an image distilled by fear. She swallowed, numb.
“What do we do?” she whispered.
“We take them out now,” Alastor Moody barked, voice like gravel and iron. His one good eye flashed with a machine-like cold. He had seen what men like that could become. “Before they have a chance to produce any more.”
“How?” Lily asked, sceptical and tired. Molly’s own heart echoed the question. How could they hope to take on Voldemort and his household when an army stood behind him — when they were ruthless, when they had nothing to lose? When they had proven to be nothing but depraved killers, without any morals?
“I have put some thought into it,” Dumbledore answered, quieter, sending a chill down Molly’s spine. “It would take the strongest of us. Our best fighters, our keenest minds. But if we plan appropriately, if we execute it perfectly, if we strike where they are vulnerable, we might—” He let the sentence hang.
“You mean a targeted ambush?” Arthur asked, though she pretended not to hear the tremor in her husband’s voice.
“Exactly that. At their home.” Dumbledore’s eyes scanned the room and landed on each face with a soft, impossible gravity. For a moment Molly saw the cost in his expression — the knowledge that any action could become a seed of consequence.
“I could get the address and building plans from the Ministry,” Moody added, voice flat.
Molly gaped. Her mouth opened and closed. They were seriously planning to ambush the world’s darkest wizard in his own home? “Have you lost your minds?” she demanded, the question raw. Her world — her heart — felt oddly fragile and small in the face of decisions that could tear nations apart.
“Unfortunately not Molly. But we all may do just that if we do not act now.” Albus responded, his voice holding a gravity that made Molly wish to crawl back into her husband’s arms.
“So Alastor will secure the layout. Who goes? When?” James’s boyish bravado was gone; his tone was unexpectedly sober. Molly stifled a little whimper. James had always been loud with life, and to hear him steady and serious toppled another plank from the flimsy ramparts of her peace.
It was happening. The war was no longer a distant thunder. It was at the door; the disappearances, the whispers, the darkening skies were all closing in.
“We go tomorrow,” Dumbledore said simply. He let his eyes linger on them, and Molly felt, with a cold, certain dread, that what he would ask next would take from her more than she had yet been willing to count.
“Arthur, James, Sirius, Remus — the four of you will accompany me personally on this mission. We will need your strength.”
Molly’s hand found Arthur’s without thinking; his fingers tightened around hers. “Absolutely not,” she said, voice sharp with a terror she could not name. “Arthur stays here. I will not have you risk my husband.”
“I cannot let them fight this battle alone, Molly Wobbles,” Arthur whispered, drawing her closer. His face was lined with fright and a resolve she had never seen before. Molly could only fold into him, press her cheek to the rough wool of his jumper, and let the world tilt as it would.
“But our babies?” she murmured, hand protectively resting on the small, warm curve of her belly.
“They are why he must,” Dumbledore said, soft and grave. His words were a gentle steel; they slipped under Molly’s defences with the quiet of inevitability. She hated the way his tone coaxed her towards acceptance.
“We need our strongest members. Arthur is one of them. If your children — all of your children,” he raised his voice then, addressing the room though Molly felt his eyes fixed on her, “are to survive and live their lives free of harm, Tom Riddle and his family must not survive through tomorrow night, his legacy must die or I fear what is yet to come.”
There was a hush. The kitchen clock ticked like a metronome measuring out a small, private terror. Molly’s pulse beat loud in her ears; images of scraped knees and sticky jam, of Fred and George’s conspiratorial grins and Ron’s freckled, earnest face, each pressed against the inside of her skull. She felt bereft of air.
For a long moment no one spoke. Then, as if that silence were a signal, a dozen different sounds rose — the scrape of a chair, a swallowed curse, the soft keen of Minerva’s breath.
“This is not something to be considered lightly,” she heard Alastor say at last. The thin scrape of his mechanical eye against its socket carried a warning. “We do what must be done tomorrow and we do it cleanly. No mistakes.”
Molly closed her eyes. The Burrow around them — with its damp scent of tea and toast and the reassuring clutter of a life well lived — felt absurdly small when set against the map of the world and the monstrous shape of the choice before them. Yet in that smallness was also the tenor of why they fought: for bedrooms and bedtime stories, for scraped knees that would one day become old hands. She let the warmth of Arthur’s palm steady her, and when she opened her eyes again the resolve on the faces gathered was like iron warmed and hammered into shape.
“We leave at nightfall,” Dumbledore said. His voice was not triumphant. It was, instead, the brittle acceptance of men and women who had folded the future into a single, terrible task.
Molly swallowed, the taste of copper and salt sharp on her tongue, and reached for the teacup nearest her — not to drink, but to steady the small tremors that had begun in her hands. Outside, the wind had picked up; it rattled the old shutters like distant, impatient fingers.
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The wind off the moor carried a thin hiss of rain within its grasp, and the old Riddle Manor loomed ahead of them—three stories of black stone silhouetted against the darkened sky. A single window on the top floor burned faintly, its light too steady for candle fire.
“Motion-ward, southeast corner,” murmured Remus, his wand already raised, his magic already working on unfurling the ward as he spoke. “Nothing else stirs.”
Dumbledore nodded once. “Good. We must move quickly. No mistakes tonight.”
Five cloaked figures stepped out from the hedgerow, their boots sinking into the sodden earth. Sirius carried himself with the coiled energy of a man pretending not to be frightened; James kept close at his side, jaw tight, wand already drawn. Arthur Weasley’s freckles had gone pale against his skin, but he followed without hesitation. They all trusted Dumbledore’s cause—even when they did not fully understand it.
Inside, the manor was silent.
Marble corridors stretched away into dust and candle smoke. Portraits had been shrouded in black cloth long ago, their hidden gazes pressing in from behind linen veils, and every doorway felt like the mouth of a waiting beast. Magic shimmered faintly in the air—old, powerful, unmistakably Riddle.
And yet… it was not what they had expected.
The magic here was not cold. Nor was it sharp with calculated malice or fury. The magic here felt softer. Intimate. Lived-in.
That fact unsettled them more than any curse might have.
Riddle was a villain, his wife was a villain. Nothing of theirs was meant to feel warm or loving, particularly not like this.
Though despite the creeping unease, they pressed on.
They split at the first staircase. James and Sirius going left, toward the nursery wing. Arthur and Remus followed Dumbledore upward, toward the master chambers, the scent of burning sage still clinging stubbornly to the walls around them as they climbed.
“Are we certain they’re here Albus?” Arthur whispered. His large form pressing in closer to the group.
“Quite,” Dumbledore said. His voice held no triumph - only weariness, and a cold certainty that brokered no room for argument. “Fate leaves very few doors open to chance.”
On the top floor, they found the first of the rooms. The door stood slightly ajar, the faint rhythmic sound of breathing behind it. A soft glow emitting the crack from the lit fire – burning low within. Dumbledore eased the door open with a whisper of a spell and all three men held their breath. Anticipation warring with apprehension within the two younger men as they entered.
A man lay asleep upon the bed—black hair fanned against the pillow, features still and peaceful. Almost boyish looking in repose. His infamous serpent-headed wand rested on an ornate oak table beside him.
Remus drew in a sharp breath, his eyes widening comically as he realised what they were about to do. “Merlin… he’s—” he began. But Dumbledore silenced him with a pointed glance.
For a heartbeat, he simply looked at the sleeping man, and something complicated flickered across his face—satisfaction, perhaps, or recognition. But both Remus and Arthur caught the look, gulping nervously as they tore their eyes from their leader back to the man sleeping before them. Still completely unaware of the danger that hovered around him.
Time seemed to seam itself shut around them as they stood there, watching the slow rise and fall of Tom Riddle’s chest. The way his arms lay as if they had once been wrapped around someone—someone he had held, sometime earlier that night. As if he had felt the need to hold whoever it was close.
As if he had cared for them.
Remus had always been so sure that Tom Riddle could not care for anyone. Dumbledore had said as much.
“Avada Kedavra.” Dumbledore’s spell was whispered, but the sound of his voice, the certainty in which he spoke them seemed to snap Remus and Arthur out of their minds as they watched the spell collide with the sleeping mans chest.
Green light flooded the room, and the world held its breath.
When it faded, Tom Riddle lay very still. His eyes were closed, as if he had never woken. His chest – that same chest that they had seen move with such peace, now lay still. It did not rise nor did it fall. Ceasing it’s rhythm in defeat.
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On the first floor, the nursery wing smelled of lavender and milk.
A small muggle lamp burned low beside a rocking chair, where a dark-haired woman slept with a child—barely two—pressed tightly to her chest. Sirius froze on the threshold, breath catching painfully in his throat as he took in the sight of his once-beloved elder cousin.
James’s hand hovered near his shoulder, as if he too could sense the turmoil in his heart without needing to ask.
“Are you sure this is—?” James whispered, his voice filled with empathy. Though he did not get the chance to finish whatever he was about to ask.
A muffled curse cut him off. Arthur’s voice, from the hallway, tripping over something wooden as he alongside Dumbledore and Remus made their way towards them. Clearly finished with whatever had met them upstairs.
The noise broke the stillness like a spell. The silence shattering like dropped toys on a tiled floor. As whatever the man had tripped on went flying across the marbled floors, crashing into a nearby wall.
Sirius gulped, his gaze locking on his older cousin as she stirred, her eyes flashing open—startled, confused. Her arms gripping the girl within them tighter in reflex. As if she meant to shield her. The child whimpered softly in her arms.
Sirius’s breath caught. The moment stretched paper thin as their eyes met. Sirius saw the moment Andromeda realised what was happening, saw the recognition in her eyes and the betrayal – betrayal that spoke of their shared youths – flash within her dark grey eyes as one hand released the now fussing infant, reaching quickly towards a nearby table.
Towards her wand. Sirius couldn’t let her reach it.
Without thinking – he raised his own. Whispering the one spell, they had both feared as children. A flare of green light flooded the room, a single cry cut short, and silence rushed back in. Deafening in its finality.
James turned away first, his hand settling heavily on Sirius’s shoulder in silent support, recognition of what his childhood friend had just sacrificed evident in the grim set of his jaw. Sirius didn’t move. His wand trembled in his grasp until Dumbledore appeared in the doorway behind him, expression utterly unreadable.
“Take the child,” Dumbledore said softly, his eyes studying him with that same penetrating scrutiny Sirius had always despised.
The child.
Sirius stumbled forward as if burned, prying the terrified girl from her mother’s lifeless arms. His own hands still trembling. He could not look at Andromeda. He held the child at arm’s length, as though afraid to feel her warmth as he moved back towards the others.
In the hall, Arthur stood cradling another small form. This one perhaps a couple of years older than the infant Sirius held.
“Found this one in the room back there,” Arthur said, confusion heavy in his voice. Sirius’s stomach dropped as he took in the drowsy child in Arthur’s arms—dark curls, grey eyes bright with suspicion. To his horror, she was Andromeda’s double.
“There’s two of them?” James hissed, his voice bewildered and Sirius followed his friends lead, turning towards Albus. They had only been aware of the infant that Sirius held within his arms.
“So it would seem.” Dumbledore replied, his expression remaining blank. “Yet it only reaffirms the necessity of tonight. The prophecy spoke of three. We have two. It would only be a matter of time before they would produce the third.” His lips turned down in disdain. Glancing at them all.
Sirius nodded, tamping down the guilt that bubbled in his chest as his gaze finally landed on the infant in his arms, who was looking at him in silent terror, her grey eyes wide and wet.
Accusatory in their innocence.
“What is to become of them Albus?” He asked, his voice much meeker than he had ever felt.
“They shall come to no harm dear boy. Do not worry. They will grow up safe, far from the reaches of the dark, you have my word.” Albus replied, his hand coming to rest on his shoulder. Eyes glistening with sincerity.
Sirius nodded. His eyes taking in the sight of his nieces.
“Now Arthur - take the children and Apparate home. I shall come for them once we have tied up everything here.” Albus demanded. His sincerity gone. Replaced by that same business like tone that had always made Sirius feel like nothing more than a boy. Sirius handed the infant off to Arthur as the man reached for her. His heart constricting as those tear filled eyes never left his. As if the little girl knew just how horribly he had betrayed her, betrayed his cousin, his nieces.
He shook his head, forcing his gaze away from the little girl as she was taken outside, beyond the property borders.
“Now,” Dumbledore said, turning back to the manor, “we must make this convincing. A terrible battle. A fire. The entire family perished. No one must know the children lived, none must suspect. Wreck the house. Destroy all trace of the lives once lived here. Do not hold back.” He commanded.
They obeyed.
Spells tore through walls and furniture alike, fire bloomed unnaturally fast consuming every trace of the Riddle family, and Sirius moved alongside them. Letting himself be carried along by the destruction—by the noise, the smoke, the necessity of motion. The chaos granting reprieve from his own festering guilt.
“You did the right thing,” he whispered to himself. “You did the right thing.”
But even as the words left his lips, Sirius Black knew two things for certain. One - he would never forgive himself for what he had done this night.
Two – those grey eyes, his cousins, his nieces, wide with terror and wet with betrayal, would haunt him for as long as he lived.