FIC for: lyras
Title: Pro Familia
Recipient: lyras
Fic or Art: Fic
Rating: PG
Characters: Regulus Black, Sirius Black, Draco Malfoy
Summary: REGULUS ARCTURUS BLACK’S SECRET DIARY THAT ANDROMEDA GAVE HIM FOR CHRISTMAS FOR KEEPING SECRETS IN
Draco sniggered … a child’s diary; there would be no demons here.
Link to Part One
1st September 1972
I’m here. I’m at Hogwarts. And I’m in Slytherin. I’ve already sent an owl to Mama and Papa to tell them. I hope they weren’t worried that I would be Sorted somewhere else, like Sirius. I was a bit, because I know how much they wanted me to be in Slytherin, and how upset they’d be if I wasn’t. But I am, so it’s all right.
When the Sorting Hat called out ‘Slytherin,’ I looked over at the Gryffindor table. Sirius was sitting with his friends, but he looked right at me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking at all. Maybe if I’d been in Gryffindor as well Sirius and I could’ve been proper brothers again. Last holidays all he did was talk about James and Remus and Peter, and he went to stay with James for some of the summer, even though he’d been with James all year and I’d been on my own with Mama and Papa all year.
Anyway, the Slytherin dungeons are all right. They have chairs like Papa and Uncle Cygnus have in their studies. The other boys in my year are okay. I haven’t heard of some of the boys, but Yaxley’s uncle is friends with Papa and Uncle Cygnus, so he’s all right.
Only he’s just asked what I’m doing. I think writing in a diary might sound a bit girly.
Draco Malfoy stopped reading in order to stretch out his limbs. The old chair had been growing uncomfortable. He reread the last line and smiled to himself. Regulus was right: writing a diary in Slytherin house was never a good idea. He remembered the time when pages of Millicent Bulstrode’s diary (including some rather gory passages about her love for Blaise Zabini) had been plastered on the walls of the common room. One of Pansy’s better moments, that. It had amused Slytherin house for several nights. He thought that it had been Daphne Greengrass who’d provided the semi-permanent Sticking Charm which had withstood Millicent’s frantic attempts to take the pages down.
Poor Millicent. Draco sniggered. She’d had to beat all the blokes in the year above at arm wrestling just to regain a bit of respect. Draco had had a week’s fun reciting the juiciest parts of the diary, complete with eyelash fluttering and pig noises. He’d only stopped when Millicent had threatened to challenge him to an arm wrestle in the middle of the common room as well. Draco was horribly afraid she would have beaten him. Those were his best memories of Slytherin - full of jockeying for position within the house, friendly and not so friendly rivalries. Always presenting a united front outside of the Slytherin common room. Those had been the early years when life had been no more complicated than trying to get Potter into trouble on a fairly regular basis. Before choices - or lack of choices - had been put before him. Before bloody Potter had got his father put in prison.
He’d been so keen to prove himself. Draco had been sure that he could regain the Dark Lord’s favour for his family. It was only a year ago, and yet Draco now felt that he’d been as young and immature as Regulus Black in the diary writing about his privileged pureblood upbringing. He’d been right about the diary - reading it had been a good way to escape his own thoughts for a while. It was comforting to swap his own worries for someone else’s, especially amusing as it was a family member, albeit one he had known very little about. Of the cousins, only his mother and Aunt Bella had not turned out to be … disappointing. The fact that Aunt Bella was clearly mad not withstanding. When Sirius Black had escaped from Azkaban (Draco thought of his father and shuddered), Mother had told Draco about her cousin who’d been sentenced to life for killing a load of Muggles, and for giving Potter’s parents to the Dark Lord. Fat lot of good it did him. It turned out that he hadn’t been a Death Eater after all, and Aunt Bella had had to kill him.
Draco looked down at the name on the diary’s battered cover.
When Professor Snape had dragged him back to the manor, Mother and Aunt Bella had both been there. Mother had trembled and looked near to tears. Aunt Bella had listened to what Professor Snape said, and Draco had felt himself shrinking under her scornful eyes.
“Weak, unarmed, alone, Draco, and yet you could not kill him,” Aunt Bella had said.
“I was just about to,” Draco had tried to protest, but it sounded feeble to his own ears. His mother had let out a dry sob.
Aunt Bella had walked towards him, had grasped his chin in her bony, claw-like hand. “Don’t you think, Cissy, that the boy may have the look of Regulus?” she had asked.
“No,” his mother had gasped. “Not Regulus.”
Professor Snape had merely sounded bored, not at all as though he had murdered a man and fled for his life that evening. “It may be that Draco will have the opportunity to redeem himself, Bellatrix. Do not be too hasty.”
“Yes,” Draco had said. “I’ll do anything.”
“Yes,” Snape had replied, eyes half-closed and emotionless. “You will.”
Draco didn’t know if he wanted to read any more. What did the look of Regulus mean? Regulus’s upbringing did not sound dissimilar to his own - it had been more or less the same as his mother’s upbringing. Had Draco’s choices been Regulus’s as well? And what of Regulus’s fate? Draco didn’t think he wanted to know. He flicked through the remaining pages. Many were blank at the end - whatever part of Regulus Black’s life he’d documented, Draco had read the bulk of it. The writing was more even now, smaller, formed with less care and more habit. Draco read on.
12th April 1975
Well, this is a bit of a surprise, coming across my diary. I’d forgotten about this old thing. I haven’t written in it in years. Diaries are for girls and children, and they’re quite stupid. Supposing someone found it and read all your secrets. This is a diary for secrets, after all, and I used to feel terribly important when I had one to keep. Of course now I know that the only way to keep one is to lock it tight in your own mind, and even that’s not always safe unless you’re an Occlumens. Bella started teaching me last summer, when Sirius was staying with the Potters. She’s got all sorts of stories and she’s been sharing them with me, and she says she can’t have just anyone looking into my mind and seeing them. And I’m not thick enough to write them here, either.
As a harmless secret for old time’s sake … I saw Andromeda and her child the other weekend in Hogsmeade. She saw me, and I’m pretty sure she knew that I’d seen her too. She waved, but of course I couldn’t do anything about it. Not now that she’s married that Muggle-born and had a half-blood child and been taken off the family tree. It was a shame at the time - Andromeda was always decent to me and Sirius when we were growing up. She was the one who gave me this diary ages ago.
I hadn’t seen the child before. It’s quite old now - two, or so. Walking, anyway. Stupid of Andromeda to risk going about the place on her own, what with all that’s been going on. A blood-traitor from such a prestigious family - she could be made an example of. Perhaps I ought to write and tell her. After all, she is was family. Maybe she thinks Bella would protect her. I’m not sure. But to contact her would be to betray the rest of the family. Andromeda will have to be sensible by herself. There’s nothing I can do.
I’ve just had a thought. She was probably going to meet Sirius - I passed him and his lot as I walked down. Stupid Sirius, he’ll get himself into trouble if he’s caught with Andromeda. They both should know that. The problem with Sirius is that I think he doesn’t care. He goes against our family’s wishes, and it doesn’t trouble him. He’s probably pleased at the thought of upsetting them. I should write to Mama and tell her so that she can put a stop to it.
I won’t, though. No one need know I know.
23rd July 1976
Today feels like the end of my life. I’ve … oh, God, I can’t even write it. I don’t even know what to feel. Sirius has gone, and I’ve … it’s my fault. Or if it isn’t then … I don’t know what to think.
Sirius ran out of parchment. He’s been getting through it by the tree this summer. I think he’s taken up art or something, because he’s been scribbling away since he got home, and his room is was completely littered with inky scraps of parchment. He ran out, and he’d already nicked the rest of mine, so he went downstairs to look in Mama’s bureau. I followed him because I was bored, and watching Sirius going mad about something is more entertaining than my Potions work for Professor Slughorn. So I watched him turf out Mama’s bureau, but all he could find were household bills and invitations and such, until he found a locked drawer. A locked drawer to Sirius is like a pile of dirty laundry to Kreacher. It just has to be investigated. And Sirius has always been good at Charms, and he’s never cared that we’re not supposed to do magic during the holidays. It was only when Sirius had to use a really powerful unlocking charm that I realised that if Mama had locked the drawer then it was locked for a reason. I tried to tell him, but he just told me to shut up. Then he opened the drawer and pulled out a piece of newspaper. He read it, and then he went completely still and pale, the way he always does when he’s at his angriest.
“What do you know about this?” he asked me, and he shoved the clipping under my nose. It wasn’t from a wizarding paper. There was a photograph and it wasn’t moving. It was Muggle.
“I’ve never seen it before,” I said. I tried to hand it back, but Sirius forced my hand into my chest.
“Read it,” he said. He sounded so calm that I think it would’ve been better if he’d shouted. Sirius just isn’t calm, not unless something’s really wrong. I read it. I wish I hadn’t. At first I still couldn’t see what the fuss was about. It was an article saying that this little boy had died of a mystery illness. Some mutation of chicken pox, the article said, but there were fears that it was small pox, even though the scientists said that it definitely wasn’t. Then I read the boy’s name, and realised I recognised the boy in the photo. Derek Jackson. The Muggle boy Sirius had played football with. The one whose house I visited.
“He’s dead? That’s a shame,” I said. And it was weird thinking about it like that. I mean, he’d been Sirius’s age. We’d known him. Then I looked at the date of the paper and saw that he’d died almost six years ago.
“It’s more than a shame,” Sirius said. “Don’t you remember, Regulus, you went - she made you go - to his house that day when you had Dragon Pox.
I looked back at the article and felt sick. “You think it was Dragon Pox that killed him?” I asked. “But I was all right.”
“You had Healers,” Sirius said. “Of course Dragon Pox would kill a Muggle.”
For a few seconds I couldn’t work out what he meant. And then I wanted to cry, or be sick or something. If Sirius was right then it was me who’d given Derek the illness that had killed him. I’d caused him to die.
“Didn’t you ever wonder, Regulus,” Sirius said, and his voice sounded cold and hard, as though he was stabbing something with every word, “Didn’t you ever wonder why Mama took you onto the Dragon Pox ward when you hadn’t had Dragon Pox?”
Suddenly I remembered Mama telling me to kiss the woman with the face covered in spots.
“It’s our duty to visit ill people in hospital, even if it is dangerous,” I said. Had Mama said the same thing to me then? I think perhaps she had.
“You idiot,” Sirius said. “She knew you’d catch it. And then she sent you to Derek’s house on purpose.”
I couldn’t believe it was true, but even as I was telling Sirius he had to be wrong, I didn’t believe myself either.
“She was so furious that I used to go and play with that boy in order to get out of this STINKING house that she murdered him.” Sirius’s voice was shaking now. He was shaking. Before, he’d been completely white but now colour began to build up in his face. “She MURDERED him in COLD BLOOD.”
“Mama wouldn’t murder anyone,” I said. “It’s a coincidence or an accident, Sirius. Stop it.”
Sirius wrenched out one of the drawers of the bureau and tipped the papers all over the floor. He crossed to the mantelpiece and swept everything off it. Most of the ornaments bounced because Mama sweeps things off the mantelpiece quite a lot so Papa told Kreacher to Charm them all. I don’t think Sirius has ever realised how much he behaves like Mama.
“That’s it,” Sirius shouted. “I’m not staying in this rotten house any longer.”
“Come on,” I said. “Talk to Mama. Wait until she and Papa get back. They’ll explain.”
Sirius took two deep breaths. “I’ll wait,” he said. “I want to have this one out with them. And do you know what they’ll say? They’ll say that he was worthless because he was a Muggle, and that she was only doing what was right for the house of Black.”
I couldn’t say anything to that because it was true. Derek was only a Muggle. But that didn’t mean he had to die, did it? Even though he was only a Muggle, I didn’t want to have killed him.
Sirius packed his trunk while we waited for Mama and Papa to come home. I went into his room to try and stop him, but he wouldn’t talk to me, just kept shoving his clothes and books into his trunk and slamming the lid. Then he tore a page from one of his text books, scribbled a note on the back of it, and pushed the trunk and the note through the fireplace to James Potter’s house, just as the door opened and Mama and Papa came home.
They saw the mess in the living room at once, and Papa demanded to know what had been going on. Sirius gave a nasty smile and held out the newspaper clipping.
Mama scanned it, then turned to me. “Regulus, what has your brother got himself upset about?”
I didn’t want to answer but I had to. “He says, Mama, that Derek Jackson died because I gave him Dragon Pox when I went to his house.”
“Nonsense,” Papa said. “Dragon Pox doesn’t kill children.”
“It does if they’re Muggles,” Sirius yelled.
Papa gave a shrug because, well, it’s only a Muggle. And then Sirius went mad. He shouted and shouted at Mama, and Mama shouted back that it was Sirius’s fault for going about with a Muggle boy and she’d only done what was necessary and nothing could be proved. Sirius said he was leaving, and Mama and Papa didn’t believe him at first, but Sirius said he meant it, that he hated our family, that he was ashamed to be a Black. That Andromeda had had the right idea.
Mama slapped Sirius round the face with a scream that sounded like a Banshee’s wail. The slap stopped Sirius from shouting at once. He just stood there and glared at Mama. Then he said, “I’m leaving now.”
“If you walk out that door,” Papa said, “you will not be welcome in this house again.”
“Good,” Sirius said. And he left.
I keep thinking he’s going to come back. That any sound downstairs will be him creeping back through the door. But I really don’t think he will. He’s gone.
I keep seeing Derek Jackson’s face, and remembering going to his house - his mother was kind to me - and we listened to music and played with his football men. He died not long after that, and it was my fault.
I killed him. Murder. Not the type you go to Azkaban for, because I didn’t know, of course. But if it wasn’t for me, Derek Jackson would still be alive. So I killed him and it’s my fault. Even if he was only a Muggle.
6th March 1977
The Dark Lord held his biggest ever attack a few days ago. Now I know why Bellatrix’s last letter was so excited and secretive.
Today Severus Snape came up to me and said, “Your brother’s capable of murder, Black. Did you know that?” Snape looked awful, with great rings under his eyes, and a load of bruises that had only just been Healed.
“I don’t have a brother, Snape,” I said. Which is true, because Sirius was blasted off the tree just like Andromeda, and I’m the official heir now. But ever since Snape said it, I can’t stop thinking of Derek Jackson, and even Bellatrix, and wondering whether murderous capabilities are just another Black birthright. Could I do it? Not just unknowingly give a Muggle Dragon Pox. If I had a wand pointed at someone’s heart, could I say the words and mean them enough to kill?
If the Dark Lord does not have full power by the time I leave Hogwarts, I think that I’ll have to find out.
31st January 1979
Papa is dead. He and Uncle Cygnus both. It was another of their arguments - they’d been having them since birth. Cousins brought up like brothers, close and competitive. This time they duelled and both of them lost. And, I suppose, both of them won. Either way, it means that when Grandfather Arcturus dies, I will be the head of the Black family, responsible for its history and its values and its future.
Yesterday was Papa’s funeral. Today was Uncle Cygnus’s. Sirius did not come. There were plenty of mourners at both funerals, though some of them watched Bellatrix and Rodolphus warily. Their allegiance to the Dark Lord is well known - no one was afraid of Lucius and Cissy, even though Lucius is an avid supporter as well. Fewer people know about Lucius, and even I don’t know whether Cissy is a Death Eater as well as her husband. All of the family’s friends agree with the cause, but some are afraid of it and afraid of how far the Dark Lord will go. The purification of Wizarding blood is worth standing for, but is it worth killing or dying for? I still don’t know.
Just before the tomb for Uncle Cygnus was created, Aunt Druella, who was standing next to me, gave a little cry. A woman and a child, dressed in black, were approaching us. It was Andromeda and her daughter. Mama went to Aunt Druella and held her hand, while Bellatrix moved in front of them.
“You’re not welcome here,” she snarled at Andromeda.
Andromeda never used to stand up to Bellatrix when we were children, but she drew herself up and kept walking towards Uncle Cygnus’s body.
“Nymphadora and I have come to pay respects to her grandfather,” Andromeda said.
The child - Nymphadora - had dark hair and wide grey eyes. She looked very small, and quite a bit like Sirius. Mama probably thought the same; she glared at the pair of them. “You are no kin of ours,” she said.
Andromeda looked down at Uncle Cygnus on the stone table. “He was my father,” she said.
“My brother was ashamed of you,” Mama spat. “You brought shame upon him and our family.”
“He was still my father,” Andromeda said. She was clutching Nymphadora’s hand, and the little girl was glowering at us. Again, the expression made me think of Sirius.
I could feel Bella’s eyes on me. Grandfather Arcturus put his hand on my shoulder. Lucius moved forward, ready to make Andromeda leave, but it was my family and my duty.
“You’ve seen him,” I said, “now leave. You’re not our family any more; he wouldn’t want you here.”
Andromeda’s jaw clenched. She turned around very slowly, and walked out of the graveyard, still hand in hand with her half-blood daughter. We watched until they were out of sight, and then plumes of smoke shot up to create Uncle Cygnus’s tomb next to Papa’s, almost as thought the magic had waited until Andromeda had gone as well. Andromeda was a blood-traitor, a family disgrace, and she had upset her mother and mine by coming here. But at least she had cared enough to come and see her father before he was in his tomb. Sirius hadn’t bothered to come to Papa’s funeral. I could probably have forgiven him for leaving when I was fifteen, for preferring James Potter’s family to our own. I could possibly try to understand why he is fighting against the Dark Lord rather than for him. But I’ll never forgive my brother for not caring enough to try to come to our father’s funeral, Sirius who wouldn’t care that he wasn’t invited, that it was against the rules.
I know it’s weak, and Blacks are not meant to be weak, but I wanted Sirius there yesterday. I shouldn’t have expected him to come. It’s just one more betrayal from Sirius, and he’s betrayed our family quite enough.
“You’ve done well, Regulus,” Bella said. She stood next to me, between our fathers’ tombs, and reached out to touch my hair. “The Dark Lord is pleased with you too,” she said. “He is pleased that you understand your duty to your family - to your blood.”
My mouth felt very dry. “I am glad,” I said.
“You’ve only a few more months of school, and then you will be the Dark Lord’s servant.”
She said it as if she was giving me a treat, and I’m sure she thought she was. Bellatrix loves the Dark Lord and serving him. She believes, as I suppose I do, that the work is necessary and for the good of our kind. I imagine that Sirius thinks the same thing about his side - it’s no secret that he’s fighting with Dumbledore’s lot to thwart the purification of Wizarding society.
I kept my mind Occluded so that no stray thoughts could get out when I answered Bellatrix. “Yes.”
She looked into my eyes, and I knew she was trying to see into my mind. She looked a little confused when she couldn’t. Then she smiled at me. “Clever boy.”
I looked at my family: Mama and Aunt Druella and Aunt Lucretia and Uncle Ignatius and Cissy and Lucius, Great Uncle Pollux and Great Aunt Cassiopeia, Grandfather Arcuturus and Grandmother Melania. All standing near the tombs, and around them other relations and friends. Purebloods, old families. Centuries of power and knowledge and tradition.
Then there is Sirius on one side and me, I suppose, on the other. We’ll both be fighting, it seems. And what if we die? At least one of us is likely to. I know they will not bury Sirius. I wonder if they shall bury me?
The diary ended there. Draco stopped reading, but stared at the final entry for several long seconds, until the writing blurred before his eyes. Then he snapped the book shut and tucked it into the inner pocket of his robes.
His head was crowded with questions. Did Regulus manage to kill in the end? What had he done? Had he joined Sirius on Dumbledore’s side? Had he perhaps turned spy, as Aunt Bella had accused Professor Snape of doing? He had died, of that Draco was sure. But when, and how?
And Regulus’s belief in the Dark Lord’s work. Had he kept that? Draco, like Regulus, thought that the infiltration of Mudbl - his mind faltered over the word. He saw Dumbledore on top of the tower, facing death and rebuking Draco for swearing - He thought that the infiltration of Muggle-borns was tainting Wizarding blood, devaluing customs and tradition, changing the fabric of the world in which Draco’s forefathers had lived. Regulus, though, had worried about killing, had not known, despite causing the death of a Muggle child, whether he would be able to kill on the Dark Lord’s orders. Draco had never thought that he might not be able to kill until he had been faced with the moment of death and had been talked out of it by an old man, had been duped into lowering his wand.
He remembered the fear. That night relief and excitement and exhilaration had carried him through, right until he had Dumbledore alone and at wand-point. Then the fear had felt like drowning. He’d been drowning all year. Kill or be killed. Kill or watch your mother die. Kill or see your father wasting away in Azkaban every time you close your eyes. Draco had even thought of Potter in those horrid moments on the tower. They said that Potter was the Chosen One, the only one who could defeat the Dark Lord, and if that hadn’t been an incentive to join the Death Eaters he didn’t know what was; Potter was useless. But on the tower Draco had thought that if Potter ever came to this point, standing with his wand aimed, he wouldn’t look into the Dark Lord’s eyes, as Draco had with Dumbledore, and see pity and understanding and trust. There would be nothing in the Dark Lord’s face to stop Potter from striking.
Draco stood up, feeling faintly foolish for spending the afternoon tucked away in a very dusty attic. He thought he understood his own claustrophobia better now, having read snatches of Regulus Black’s life. Regulus seemed to be penned in by his duty, the expectations of his family, and in living up to those he may not have been living up to himself. And he’d probably got himself killed in the process. Hadn’t the idea of saving his parents, upholding the family name, driven Draco far more last year than the knowledge that he was helping to wipe out the Dark Lord’s opposition?
Where would the Dark Lord stop? Could he really take and keep control of the Wizarding population? Would Draco want to be there if he did?
Draco didn’t know. He only knew that he didn’t want to wait in this house for something to happen to him. He walked briskly out of the attic, ignoring the cobwebs clinging to his hair as he passed. He made his way down the carpeted stairs, and stood on the landing to watch as they swung up into the ceiling, a grimy, dusty figure standing alone on the top floor of the manor.
It was time, he decided, to decide.
*
It is right and proper to die for one’s family.
Recipient: lyras
Fic or Art: Fic
Rating: PG
Characters: Regulus Black, Sirius Black, Draco Malfoy
Summary: REGULUS ARCTURUS BLACK’S SECRET DIARY THAT ANDROMEDA GAVE HIM FOR CHRISTMAS FOR KEEPING SECRETS IN
Draco sniggered … a child’s diary; there would be no demons here.
Link to Part One
1st September 1972
I’m here. I’m at Hogwarts. And I’m in Slytherin. I’ve already sent an owl to Mama and Papa to tell them. I hope they weren’t worried that I would be Sorted somewhere else, like Sirius. I was a bit, because I know how much they wanted me to be in Slytherin, and how upset they’d be if I wasn’t. But I am, so it’s all right.
When the Sorting Hat called out ‘Slytherin,’ I looked over at the Gryffindor table. Sirius was sitting with his friends, but he looked right at me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking at all. Maybe if I’d been in Gryffindor as well Sirius and I could’ve been proper brothers again. Last holidays all he did was talk about James and Remus and Peter, and he went to stay with James for some of the summer, even though he’d been with James all year and I’d been on my own with Mama and Papa all year.
Anyway, the Slytherin dungeons are all right. They have chairs like Papa and Uncle Cygnus have in their studies. The other boys in my year are okay. I haven’t heard of some of the boys, but Yaxley’s uncle is friends with Papa and Uncle Cygnus, so he’s all right.
Only he’s just asked what I’m doing. I think writing in a diary might sound a bit girly.
Draco Malfoy stopped reading in order to stretch out his limbs. The old chair had been growing uncomfortable. He reread the last line and smiled to himself. Regulus was right: writing a diary in Slytherin house was never a good idea. He remembered the time when pages of Millicent Bulstrode’s diary (including some rather gory passages about her love for Blaise Zabini) had been plastered on the walls of the common room. One of Pansy’s better moments, that. It had amused Slytherin house for several nights. He thought that it had been Daphne Greengrass who’d provided the semi-permanent Sticking Charm which had withstood Millicent’s frantic attempts to take the pages down.
Poor Millicent. Draco sniggered. She’d had to beat all the blokes in the year above at arm wrestling just to regain a bit of respect. Draco had had a week’s fun reciting the juiciest parts of the diary, complete with eyelash fluttering and pig noises. He’d only stopped when Millicent had threatened to challenge him to an arm wrestle in the middle of the common room as well. Draco was horribly afraid she would have beaten him. Those were his best memories of Slytherin - full of jockeying for position within the house, friendly and not so friendly rivalries. Always presenting a united front outside of the Slytherin common room. Those had been the early years when life had been no more complicated than trying to get Potter into trouble on a fairly regular basis. Before choices - or lack of choices - had been put before him. Before bloody Potter had got his father put in prison.
He’d been so keen to prove himself. Draco had been sure that he could regain the Dark Lord’s favour for his family. It was only a year ago, and yet Draco now felt that he’d been as young and immature as Regulus Black in the diary writing about his privileged pureblood upbringing. He’d been right about the diary - reading it had been a good way to escape his own thoughts for a while. It was comforting to swap his own worries for someone else’s, especially amusing as it was a family member, albeit one he had known very little about. Of the cousins, only his mother and Aunt Bella had not turned out to be … disappointing. The fact that Aunt Bella was clearly mad not withstanding. When Sirius Black had escaped from Azkaban (Draco thought of his father and shuddered), Mother had told Draco about her cousin who’d been sentenced to life for killing a load of Muggles, and for giving Potter’s parents to the Dark Lord. Fat lot of good it did him. It turned out that he hadn’t been a Death Eater after all, and Aunt Bella had had to kill him.
Draco looked down at the name on the diary’s battered cover.
When Professor Snape had dragged him back to the manor, Mother and Aunt Bella had both been there. Mother had trembled and looked near to tears. Aunt Bella had listened to what Professor Snape said, and Draco had felt himself shrinking under her scornful eyes.
“Weak, unarmed, alone, Draco, and yet you could not kill him,” Aunt Bella had said.
“I was just about to,” Draco had tried to protest, but it sounded feeble to his own ears. His mother had let out a dry sob.
Aunt Bella had walked towards him, had grasped his chin in her bony, claw-like hand. “Don’t you think, Cissy, that the boy may have the look of Regulus?” she had asked.
“No,” his mother had gasped. “Not Regulus.”
Professor Snape had merely sounded bored, not at all as though he had murdered a man and fled for his life that evening. “It may be that Draco will have the opportunity to redeem himself, Bellatrix. Do not be too hasty.”
“Yes,” Draco had said. “I’ll do anything.”
“Yes,” Snape had replied, eyes half-closed and emotionless. “You will.”
Draco didn’t know if he wanted to read any more. What did the look of Regulus mean? Regulus’s upbringing did not sound dissimilar to his own - it had been more or less the same as his mother’s upbringing. Had Draco’s choices been Regulus’s as well? And what of Regulus’s fate? Draco didn’t think he wanted to know. He flicked through the remaining pages. Many were blank at the end - whatever part of Regulus Black’s life he’d documented, Draco had read the bulk of it. The writing was more even now, smaller, formed with less care and more habit. Draco read on.
12th April 1975
Well, this is a bit of a surprise, coming across my diary. I’d forgotten about this old thing. I haven’t written in it in years. Diaries are for girls and children, and they’re quite stupid. Supposing someone found it and read all your secrets. This is a diary for secrets, after all, and I used to feel terribly important when I had one to keep. Of course now I know that the only way to keep one is to lock it tight in your own mind, and even that’s not always safe unless you’re an Occlumens. Bella started teaching me last summer, when Sirius was staying with the Potters. She’s got all sorts of stories and she’s been sharing them with me, and she says she can’t have just anyone looking into my mind and seeing them. And I’m not thick enough to write them here, either.
As a harmless secret for old time’s sake … I saw Andromeda and her child the other weekend in Hogsmeade. She saw me, and I’m pretty sure she knew that I’d seen her too. She waved, but of course I couldn’t do anything about it. Not now that she’s married that Muggle-born and had a half-blood child and been taken off the family tree. It was a shame at the time - Andromeda was always decent to me and Sirius when we were growing up. She was the one who gave me this diary ages ago.
I hadn’t seen the child before. It’s quite old now - two, or so. Walking, anyway. Stupid of Andromeda to risk going about the place on her own, what with all that’s been going on. A blood-traitor from such a prestigious family - she could be made an example of. Perhaps I ought to write and tell her. After all, she is was family. Maybe she thinks Bella would protect her. I’m not sure. But to contact her would be to betray the rest of the family. Andromeda will have to be sensible by herself. There’s nothing I can do.
I’ve just had a thought. She was probably going to meet Sirius - I passed him and his lot as I walked down. Stupid Sirius, he’ll get himself into trouble if he’s caught with Andromeda. They both should know that. The problem with Sirius is that I think he doesn’t care. He goes against our family’s wishes, and it doesn’t trouble him. He’s probably pleased at the thought of upsetting them. I should write to Mama and tell her so that she can put a stop to it.
I won’t, though. No one need know I know.
23rd July 1976
Today feels like the end of my life. I’ve … oh, God, I can’t even write it. I don’t even know what to feel. Sirius has gone, and I’ve … it’s my fault. Or if it isn’t then … I don’t know what to think.
Sirius ran out of parchment. He’s been getting through it by the tree this summer. I think he’s taken up art or something, because he’s been scribbling away since he got home, and his room is was completely littered with inky scraps of parchment. He ran out, and he’d already nicked the rest of mine, so he went downstairs to look in Mama’s bureau. I followed him because I was bored, and watching Sirius going mad about something is more entertaining than my Potions work for Professor Slughorn. So I watched him turf out Mama’s bureau, but all he could find were household bills and invitations and such, until he found a locked drawer. A locked drawer to Sirius is like a pile of dirty laundry to Kreacher. It just has to be investigated. And Sirius has always been good at Charms, and he’s never cared that we’re not supposed to do magic during the holidays. It was only when Sirius had to use a really powerful unlocking charm that I realised that if Mama had locked the drawer then it was locked for a reason. I tried to tell him, but he just told me to shut up. Then he opened the drawer and pulled out a piece of newspaper. He read it, and then he went completely still and pale, the way he always does when he’s at his angriest.
“What do you know about this?” he asked me, and he shoved the clipping under my nose. It wasn’t from a wizarding paper. There was a photograph and it wasn’t moving. It was Muggle.
“I’ve never seen it before,” I said. I tried to hand it back, but Sirius forced my hand into my chest.
“Read it,” he said. He sounded so calm that I think it would’ve been better if he’d shouted. Sirius just isn’t calm, not unless something’s really wrong. I read it. I wish I hadn’t. At first I still couldn’t see what the fuss was about. It was an article saying that this little boy had died of a mystery illness. Some mutation of chicken pox, the article said, but there were fears that it was small pox, even though the scientists said that it definitely wasn’t. Then I read the boy’s name, and realised I recognised the boy in the photo. Derek Jackson. The Muggle boy Sirius had played football with. The one whose house I visited.
“He’s dead? That’s a shame,” I said. And it was weird thinking about it like that. I mean, he’d been Sirius’s age. We’d known him. Then I looked at the date of the paper and saw that he’d died almost six years ago.
“It’s more than a shame,” Sirius said. “Don’t you remember, Regulus, you went - she made you go - to his house that day when you had Dragon Pox.
I looked back at the article and felt sick. “You think it was Dragon Pox that killed him?” I asked. “But I was all right.”
“You had Healers,” Sirius said. “Of course Dragon Pox would kill a Muggle.”
For a few seconds I couldn’t work out what he meant. And then I wanted to cry, or be sick or something. If Sirius was right then it was me who’d given Derek the illness that had killed him. I’d caused him to die.
“Didn’t you ever wonder, Regulus,” Sirius said, and his voice sounded cold and hard, as though he was stabbing something with every word, “Didn’t you ever wonder why Mama took you onto the Dragon Pox ward when you hadn’t had Dragon Pox?”
Suddenly I remembered Mama telling me to kiss the woman with the face covered in spots.
“It’s our duty to visit ill people in hospital, even if it is dangerous,” I said. Had Mama said the same thing to me then? I think perhaps she had.
“You idiot,” Sirius said. “She knew you’d catch it. And then she sent you to Derek’s house on purpose.”
I couldn’t believe it was true, but even as I was telling Sirius he had to be wrong, I didn’t believe myself either.
“She was so furious that I used to go and play with that boy in order to get out of this STINKING house that she murdered him.” Sirius’s voice was shaking now. He was shaking. Before, he’d been completely white but now colour began to build up in his face. “She MURDERED him in COLD BLOOD.”
“Mama wouldn’t murder anyone,” I said. “It’s a coincidence or an accident, Sirius. Stop it.”
Sirius wrenched out one of the drawers of the bureau and tipped the papers all over the floor. He crossed to the mantelpiece and swept everything off it. Most of the ornaments bounced because Mama sweeps things off the mantelpiece quite a lot so Papa told Kreacher to Charm them all. I don’t think Sirius has ever realised how much he behaves like Mama.
“That’s it,” Sirius shouted. “I’m not staying in this rotten house any longer.”
“Come on,” I said. “Talk to Mama. Wait until she and Papa get back. They’ll explain.”
Sirius took two deep breaths. “I’ll wait,” he said. “I want to have this one out with them. And do you know what they’ll say? They’ll say that he was worthless because he was a Muggle, and that she was only doing what was right for the house of Black.”
I couldn’t say anything to that because it was true. Derek was only a Muggle. But that didn’t mean he had to die, did it? Even though he was only a Muggle, I didn’t want to have killed him.
Sirius packed his trunk while we waited for Mama and Papa to come home. I went into his room to try and stop him, but he wouldn’t talk to me, just kept shoving his clothes and books into his trunk and slamming the lid. Then he tore a page from one of his text books, scribbled a note on the back of it, and pushed the trunk and the note through the fireplace to James Potter’s house, just as the door opened and Mama and Papa came home.
They saw the mess in the living room at once, and Papa demanded to know what had been going on. Sirius gave a nasty smile and held out the newspaper clipping.
Mama scanned it, then turned to me. “Regulus, what has your brother got himself upset about?”
I didn’t want to answer but I had to. “He says, Mama, that Derek Jackson died because I gave him Dragon Pox when I went to his house.”
“Nonsense,” Papa said. “Dragon Pox doesn’t kill children.”
“It does if they’re Muggles,” Sirius yelled.
Papa gave a shrug because, well, it’s only a Muggle. And then Sirius went mad. He shouted and shouted at Mama, and Mama shouted back that it was Sirius’s fault for going about with a Muggle boy and she’d only done what was necessary and nothing could be proved. Sirius said he was leaving, and Mama and Papa didn’t believe him at first, but Sirius said he meant it, that he hated our family, that he was ashamed to be a Black. That Andromeda had had the right idea.
Mama slapped Sirius round the face with a scream that sounded like a Banshee’s wail. The slap stopped Sirius from shouting at once. He just stood there and glared at Mama. Then he said, “I’m leaving now.”
“If you walk out that door,” Papa said, “you will not be welcome in this house again.”
“Good,” Sirius said. And he left.
I keep thinking he’s going to come back. That any sound downstairs will be him creeping back through the door. But I really don’t think he will. He’s gone.
I keep seeing Derek Jackson’s face, and remembering going to his house - his mother was kind to me - and we listened to music and played with his football men. He died not long after that, and it was my fault.
I killed him. Murder. Not the type you go to Azkaban for, because I didn’t know, of course. But if it wasn’t for me, Derek Jackson would still be alive. So I killed him and it’s my fault. Even if he was only a Muggle.
6th March 1977
The Dark Lord held his biggest ever attack a few days ago. Now I know why Bellatrix’s last letter was so excited and secretive.
Today Severus Snape came up to me and said, “Your brother’s capable of murder, Black. Did you know that?” Snape looked awful, with great rings under his eyes, and a load of bruises that had only just been Healed.
“I don’t have a brother, Snape,” I said. Which is true, because Sirius was blasted off the tree just like Andromeda, and I’m the official heir now. But ever since Snape said it, I can’t stop thinking of Derek Jackson, and even Bellatrix, and wondering whether murderous capabilities are just another Black birthright. Could I do it? Not just unknowingly give a Muggle Dragon Pox. If I had a wand pointed at someone’s heart, could I say the words and mean them enough to kill?
If the Dark Lord does not have full power by the time I leave Hogwarts, I think that I’ll have to find out.
31st January 1979
Papa is dead. He and Uncle Cygnus both. It was another of their arguments - they’d been having them since birth. Cousins brought up like brothers, close and competitive. This time they duelled and both of them lost. And, I suppose, both of them won. Either way, it means that when Grandfather Arcturus dies, I will be the head of the Black family, responsible for its history and its values and its future.
Yesterday was Papa’s funeral. Today was Uncle Cygnus’s. Sirius did not come. There were plenty of mourners at both funerals, though some of them watched Bellatrix and Rodolphus warily. Their allegiance to the Dark Lord is well known - no one was afraid of Lucius and Cissy, even though Lucius is an avid supporter as well. Fewer people know about Lucius, and even I don’t know whether Cissy is a Death Eater as well as her husband. All of the family’s friends agree with the cause, but some are afraid of it and afraid of how far the Dark Lord will go. The purification of Wizarding blood is worth standing for, but is it worth killing or dying for? I still don’t know.
Just before the tomb for Uncle Cygnus was created, Aunt Druella, who was standing next to me, gave a little cry. A woman and a child, dressed in black, were approaching us. It was Andromeda and her daughter. Mama went to Aunt Druella and held her hand, while Bellatrix moved in front of them.
“You’re not welcome here,” she snarled at Andromeda.
Andromeda never used to stand up to Bellatrix when we were children, but she drew herself up and kept walking towards Uncle Cygnus’s body.
“Nymphadora and I have come to pay respects to her grandfather,” Andromeda said.
The child - Nymphadora - had dark hair and wide grey eyes. She looked very small, and quite a bit like Sirius. Mama probably thought the same; she glared at the pair of them. “You are no kin of ours,” she said.
Andromeda looked down at Uncle Cygnus on the stone table. “He was my father,” she said.
“My brother was ashamed of you,” Mama spat. “You brought shame upon him and our family.”
“He was still my father,” Andromeda said. She was clutching Nymphadora’s hand, and the little girl was glowering at us. Again, the expression made me think of Sirius.
I could feel Bella’s eyes on me. Grandfather Arcturus put his hand on my shoulder. Lucius moved forward, ready to make Andromeda leave, but it was my family and my duty.
“You’ve seen him,” I said, “now leave. You’re not our family any more; he wouldn’t want you here.”
Andromeda’s jaw clenched. She turned around very slowly, and walked out of the graveyard, still hand in hand with her half-blood daughter. We watched until they were out of sight, and then plumes of smoke shot up to create Uncle Cygnus’s tomb next to Papa’s, almost as thought the magic had waited until Andromeda had gone as well. Andromeda was a blood-traitor, a family disgrace, and she had upset her mother and mine by coming here. But at least she had cared enough to come and see her father before he was in his tomb. Sirius hadn’t bothered to come to Papa’s funeral. I could probably have forgiven him for leaving when I was fifteen, for preferring James Potter’s family to our own. I could possibly try to understand why he is fighting against the Dark Lord rather than for him. But I’ll never forgive my brother for not caring enough to try to come to our father’s funeral, Sirius who wouldn’t care that he wasn’t invited, that it was against the rules.
I know it’s weak, and Blacks are not meant to be weak, but I wanted Sirius there yesterday. I shouldn’t have expected him to come. It’s just one more betrayal from Sirius, and he’s betrayed our family quite enough.
“You’ve done well, Regulus,” Bella said. She stood next to me, between our fathers’ tombs, and reached out to touch my hair. “The Dark Lord is pleased with you too,” she said. “He is pleased that you understand your duty to your family - to your blood.”
My mouth felt very dry. “I am glad,” I said.
“You’ve only a few more months of school, and then you will be the Dark Lord’s servant.”
She said it as if she was giving me a treat, and I’m sure she thought she was. Bellatrix loves the Dark Lord and serving him. She believes, as I suppose I do, that the work is necessary and for the good of our kind. I imagine that Sirius thinks the same thing about his side - it’s no secret that he’s fighting with Dumbledore’s lot to thwart the purification of Wizarding society.
I kept my mind Occluded so that no stray thoughts could get out when I answered Bellatrix. “Yes.”
She looked into my eyes, and I knew she was trying to see into my mind. She looked a little confused when she couldn’t. Then she smiled at me. “Clever boy.”
I looked at my family: Mama and Aunt Druella and Aunt Lucretia and Uncle Ignatius and Cissy and Lucius, Great Uncle Pollux and Great Aunt Cassiopeia, Grandfather Arcuturus and Grandmother Melania. All standing near the tombs, and around them other relations and friends. Purebloods, old families. Centuries of power and knowledge and tradition.
Then there is Sirius on one side and me, I suppose, on the other. We’ll both be fighting, it seems. And what if we die? At least one of us is likely to. I know they will not bury Sirius. I wonder if they shall bury me?
The diary ended there. Draco stopped reading, but stared at the final entry for several long seconds, until the writing blurred before his eyes. Then he snapped the book shut and tucked it into the inner pocket of his robes.
His head was crowded with questions. Did Regulus manage to kill in the end? What had he done? Had he joined Sirius on Dumbledore’s side? Had he perhaps turned spy, as Aunt Bella had accused Professor Snape of doing? He had died, of that Draco was sure. But when, and how?
And Regulus’s belief in the Dark Lord’s work. Had he kept that? Draco, like Regulus, thought that the infiltration of Mudbl - his mind faltered over the word. He saw Dumbledore on top of the tower, facing death and rebuking Draco for swearing - He thought that the infiltration of Muggle-borns was tainting Wizarding blood, devaluing customs and tradition, changing the fabric of the world in which Draco’s forefathers had lived. Regulus, though, had worried about killing, had not known, despite causing the death of a Muggle child, whether he would be able to kill on the Dark Lord’s orders. Draco had never thought that he might not be able to kill until he had been faced with the moment of death and had been talked out of it by an old man, had been duped into lowering his wand.
He remembered the fear. That night relief and excitement and exhilaration had carried him through, right until he had Dumbledore alone and at wand-point. Then the fear had felt like drowning. He’d been drowning all year. Kill or be killed. Kill or watch your mother die. Kill or see your father wasting away in Azkaban every time you close your eyes. Draco had even thought of Potter in those horrid moments on the tower. They said that Potter was the Chosen One, the only one who could defeat the Dark Lord, and if that hadn’t been an incentive to join the Death Eaters he didn’t know what was; Potter was useless. But on the tower Draco had thought that if Potter ever came to this point, standing with his wand aimed, he wouldn’t look into the Dark Lord’s eyes, as Draco had with Dumbledore, and see pity and understanding and trust. There would be nothing in the Dark Lord’s face to stop Potter from striking.
Draco stood up, feeling faintly foolish for spending the afternoon tucked away in a very dusty attic. He thought he understood his own claustrophobia better now, having read snatches of Regulus Black’s life. Regulus seemed to be penned in by his duty, the expectations of his family, and in living up to those he may not have been living up to himself. And he’d probably got himself killed in the process. Hadn’t the idea of saving his parents, upholding the family name, driven Draco far more last year than the knowledge that he was helping to wipe out the Dark Lord’s opposition?
Where would the Dark Lord stop? Could he really take and keep control of the Wizarding population? Would Draco want to be there if he did?
Draco didn’t know. He only knew that he didn’t want to wait in this house for something to happen to him. He walked briskly out of the attic, ignoring the cobwebs clinging to his hair as he passed. He made his way down the carpeted stairs, and stood on the landing to watch as they swung up into the ceiling, a grimy, dusty figure standing alone on the top floor of the manor.
It was time, he decided, to decide.
*
It is right and proper to die for one’s family.