Chapter Text
There was a much too eager hand groping around inside his trousers. It didn’t mesh well with everything else that was happening, which was why Sirius was reluctantly beginning to conclude that some of this might be a dream.
“What a beauty.”
That statement, for instance, didn’t fit. The voice was all wrong, for one, it sounded low and breathy and very London. James had a West Country accent; Remus mostly sounded Welsh and Peter could never hide that he was from the Midlands. He could still see all three of them; they were on the Hogwarts Express with him, down on the floor of the carriage, and they were playing exploding snap. He knew this because he had just watched the card his best mate James had tried to put on top of the pile explode.
It didn’t smell much like smoke around him though, maybe a little bit of cigarettes. But more of really bad body odour and spirits and that particular unclean smell the pavements of really large cities exuded.
“Shhh now, no need to wake up.”
The hand was becoming really insistent. Sirius prick wasn’t reacting to much of anything, though, he was probably too drunk. He was nauseous, at least, but would he really be drunk on the Hogwarts Express? He felt something akin to a burp begin to build, and with it the worry that he would throw up if he burped.
“Wha’s goin’ on ‘ere?”
It was another voice that didn’t belong in the train compartment Sirius had been so sure he was in; this one was proper Cockney. Uncouth and muggle, as his mother would say. Bloody marvellous, Sirius thought.
“Don’t mind us, the lad’s had one too many.”
“Step away from ‘im, righ’ now!”
The second voice was surprisingly commanding, but Sirius was truly not feeling well enough to follow any instructions right now. James’s face had frozen peculiarly in his head, and Sirius couldn’t stop the burp anymore.
“Fuck.”
It was much like he had thought; it was not an innocent burp. There apparently wasn’t that much in his stomach, just the dregs of whatever he’d been drinking, but he thought he did a thorough job of vomiting onto his own shoulder. The hand didn’t leave him though, he was still being fondled. People were strange.
“'e needs ‘elp and you be’er scarper if you know wha’s good for you.”
“We can share, if you like.”
Sirius shuddered and spat out some more of what was blocking his airways. Everything tasted and smelled of acidic vomit, it felt like he’d gotten some in his nostrils, too. The cold and hard thing underneath him wasn’t the floor of a compartment in the Hogwarts Express, and his friends weren’t here. It was beginning to dawn on him that he needed to pull himself together and run. There was a scuffle beside him, and the foreign hand finally left his prick alone. He turned on his side and tried to vomit again. There was only bile coming up. Then there were new hands, and if he could only get back on his feet it’d be lights out for whoever this strange man was.
“I’s awrigh’, 'e’s all gone. Le’s ge' you ‘ome, yeah?”
Sirius was pulled into a sitting position, which didn’t agree with his head at all. He was ice cold. The warm hands were on his arms, now, and he hoped that was a good sign. One of them held him steady and the second emerged with what was probably a handkerchief. The side of his face and his neck was rubbed with it and Sirius couldn’t help but think that a simple ‘scourgify’ would have done a tenfold better job.
“Whereabouts d’you live, mate?”
“Grimmauld Place.” Sirius was rather surprised he was able to talk, and less surprised that what he said came out laced with despair. He’d rather live anywhere else.
“You’re in the righ’ square, then. Need me to lead you to your doorstep?”
“Twelve,” Sirius stuttered out without thinking. The other man grabbed his vomit-free arm and started walking him through the little parklike square in the middle of Grimmauld Place. Sirius opened his eyes then; it would appear he had temporarily forgotten that he had eyes. They worked just fine, even though the bare trees and the dirty brick houses and the low walls were spinning and spinning. The man beside him was in a heavy grey winter coat and had a cheerful, red scarf around his neck. Sirius tried to look at his face, but that made him stumble and they had to stop as the man got a better grip on him before they could continue.
“Tha’s number fir’een now, jus’ one more.”
“Bugger,” Sirius muttered as he realized that the next house might not, in fact, be number twelve. Not for the muggle, anyway.
“Tha’s odd, innit?”, the man predictably said as they came to a halt.
“Thanks ever so much,” Sirius said as he gripped the wall next to him. The man’s hand left him.
“You sure this is the righ’ one, lad?”
“Yeah,” Sirius said, trying to sound emphatic. He managed to get a look of the man’s face now, he was standing in front of Sirius and looking confusedly from one house to the other. He was middle aged with a beard and glasses, and he didn’t look like a dashing hero or a strong fighter. Just normal and boring. “You can leave now. Have a good night.”
The man gave him a last look, then shrugged and started walking. He did it slowly, and he looked back several times.
Sirius used the wall for support as he made his way to number twelve, which was right there. Sirius’s father had gone on a bit of a spree last summer and made the house completely and utterly invisible to muggles. Before it had still been difficult for them to spot it, but with the help of a wizard they could, and they had even been able to enter the house, as Sirius had discovered and taken full advantage of. His father had not appreciated these visits when he found out.
The steps took ages for Sirius to conquer, but the door was unlocked, and Sirius entered without falling over. He was fumbling and his steps were uncoordinated, but he didn’t think he was making that much noise. He forced himself to stop shivering. The best thing that could be said about Grimmauld Place was that it wasn’t freezing cold. Not most rooms, anyway. He stopped in front of the large mirror in the hallway, just to see.
The boy who looked back at him had just turned sixteen, but he could usually get away with it if he needed to pretend to be older. Somehow, though, he felt like he hadn’t fooled either of the two men he met in the square outside tonight.
‘Met’ might not be the right word for all of that, either.
Sirius’s eyes were very beautiful, much too beautiful for a boy as his mother used to say when he was small. She didn’t say anything about his eyes anymore. His skin was pale as anything, it always took on a dramatic hue in the winter. He didn’t normally mind, but tonight he looked unquestionably ill. His hair still looked alright, except for the wetness on the right side. That would be the spew. His mouth was very red, he looked like he’d been kissed and kissed… Sirius shuddered. He hoped it was from earlier, he was moderately sure he had stumbled upon a muggle house party somewhere around Angel. He thought he remembered spending hours there, dancing and smoking and drinking at the very least. He thought there might have been more to it, but there was no reason why he would need to remember it.
There was something off about his reflection the more he looked, and he hoped to Merlin that this mirror wasn’t becoming sentient, too. There was enough of that going on in this house already.
He had been wearing a lovely muggle leather jacket tonight and not a winter cloak, and he would need to get Kreacher to make him something to combat a cold tomorrow. On top of that his jacket was ruined now, he might as well bin it. The shirt underneath was a plain, equally muggle one, and he knew it would smell something awful of sweat once he removed the jacket. The activities he’d engaged in tonight had in no way been kind to his body or his outfit.
His great grandfather, who hung from a large, silver frame next to the mirror, was shaking his head disapprovingly at him, but he didn’t speak. The portraits in Grimmauld Place rarely did. They could laugh, a loose, insane laugh they all seemed to share. And they would scream, occasionally.
He spotted something behind him in the reflection and he tried to turn, but he wasn’t fast enough. The only things behind him were the staircase and the decapitated house elf heads, a full dozen of them, all staring blindly at him from above. There was a low moan from somewhere, perhaps from the dining room, but Sirius decided not to acknowledge it. Instead he moved to the staircase. It would always creak at some point, but which step varied. The house didn’t like to be predictable, much like Sirius himself. Unfortunately, the house didn’t like him much, never had. It liked his parents, he thought, maybe his father in particular. His father was interested in the house, how it was pieced together, how the magic inside of it worked. Orion hadn’t tamed it, indeed Sirius didn’t think it was the type of house that could be tamed anymore, but there was mutual respect there. His mother, on the other hand, was a bit theatrical and the house did make for a nice backdrop when one wished to cause a scene or make a dramatic entrance. Sirius could see the appeal.
The fifth step groaned with an obscene loudness underneath Sirius’s foot. He didn’t stop but continued his unsteady ascent, hoping for the best despite it all. He couldn’t hear any human noises, just the house.
The first landing was massive, probably because it led off to all the important rooms, like the drawing room with the family tree and the parlour with the grand piano. The landing was decorated for Christmas, although what had been done was far from cheerful. There was a tree there, somewhat blocking the view of the severed elf-heads on plaques. The tree was made from silver, even the needles, and it was hung with an exclusive assortment of sheer, dark grey baubles and emerald snakes that writhed lazily on the branches, some hiding and ready to strike if someone they didn’t like passed by too closely. Sirius made that mistake at least once every Christmas.
He could hear them hiss as he passed, but he didn’t do anything. He had tried to change the tree one year, had felt it could do with a new colour scheme. The tree itself was easy enough to change into a golden colour, as he now knew, and the baubles into a warm copper. The snakes had not taken kindly to his attempt at turning them into miniature lions, though, and he had had to receive three types of antidotes for snakebites, not to mention the jagged bitemarks that had taken days to heal. His mother had changed the baubles and the tree back to silver and grey first, though, and cooed a little at the snakes to calm them down. That her oldest son was thrashing around by her feet, bleeding profusely and slowly dying from three different types of venom, had of course been a secondary concern to that of restoring tradition.
The library and the study along with a few spare rooms nobody had used in Sirius’s lifetime were on the next floor. One of the doors opened as he walked past, but Sirius was used to the house trying to lure him in and he didn’t even give it a second look. He could hear the same door snick shut as he reached the third floor, which was the floor that really counted. This was the one with his parent’s bedrooms.
Instead of trying to sneak even more quietly he upped his pace. If he made it to his bedroom before they woke up, he would be safe. He could hear a few notes of the piano all the way from the first floor. They were all in D minor, except for the last note which didn’t belong, it sounded false and jarring as it rang out in the night.
The next floor was more of a half landing, with an old nursery filled with semi-sentient toys and a large bathroom. Sirius was itching for a proper bath and a brush of his teeth, but if he were to go in there he was bound to get caught. He was still drunk out of his mind, but the need for stealth and the unexpected success of his mission to sneak in had made him a bit clearer in the head, and Sirius continued up the stairs towards the safety of his room and his wand. He’d been an idiot to go out without his wand tonight.
The top floor had just two rooms; Sirius’s and Sirius’s brother’s. Regulus’s door was closed and the sign he’d put up to keep Sirius out glared into the night. Sirius turned to his own door and pushed it open. It opened noiselessly; his room generally didn’t mind him as much as the rest of the house did. He threw open the windows immediately; it would be morning soon although the square was still under the cover of darkness, some muggle streetlights and Christmas lights all he could see. He could hear some drunk women arguing, and some muggle traffic, but it was unusually quiet for London. His wand was on his desk and he tried to force himself to be careful as he cast a ‘scourgify’ over himself. He still shuddered as it left all of him feeling scrubbed raw, although it left him spotlessly clean and smelling vaguely of roses. It was a smell that reminded him of his mother, and he wondered with some anger why the charm was still coming out like that. He could do with less reminders of his family bonds rather than more. He lit another fag instead of brushing his teeth and he sat there on his desk by the window and tried to clear his mind of all that had happened that evening. He didn’t need to know, didn’t need to analyse, it would be better to forget. He did spare the muggle man who’d helped him a kind thought, however, it was a nice reminder that there were good people everywhere, people who would help you without expecting anything in return.
He finally cast a fluoride cleansing charm on the inside of his mouth and was left feeling as if he’d downed gallons of minty ice water. It was infinitely better than the spew. He got down on his bed, carefully as he was hurting in odd places, numb in others, and pulled the blankets around him. Grimmauld Place hadn’t eaten him yet, but if it did, he hoped it would happen while he slept.