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September 1981
the Potter-Black residenc
"You know, I haven't received anything from Peter lately," Thea said as she walked into the bedroom to Sirius, flipping through letters, "have you?"
"No, probably because he's the secret keeper though. He might want to go underground," Sirius suggested as he sat up in bed, "anything for me?"
"Yeah, something from Orion and Walburgha," Thea said as she handed him a letter that clearly stood out from the rest of them.
The inky Black family seal was stamped on and with Regulus dead, they were the only other option.
Sirius just stared at it with hate filled eyes for a while, not even daring to break the seal.
"You don't have to open it, you know," Thea said quietly as she shifted into the covers next to him.
He nodded and threw it to the side. The letter fell off the side of the bed and onto the ground.
Sirius turned on his side and let his eyes settle on Thea's face. The hate in them turned to love as he leaned forward and softly kissed to nose and her cheeks and her forehead and lastly her lips.
"How about we get a cat for Christmas?" Thea asked softly, "James got Crookshanks and I terribly miss him."
"But dogs are better," Sirius said with a small smile.
"Mmmmm," Thea mumbled, "don't think so. Dogs are so much work."
"You're right," Sirius said in a low tone, "you have to feed us and keep us and take care of us."
As he said this, he moved so he was over Thea and kissed her slowly and sweetly. Thea knew he was trying to distract himself from the letter that screamed at him. She let him.
It was a shame, really, that Sirius never opened the letter. Though it is understandable. For he would've seen the first and last desperate attempt of Walburgha Black at being his mother.
If Sirius had opened the letter, instead of picking it up and throwing it into the fire as he pulled his pants back on, he would've seen just Walburgha writing him of the terror to come.
He would've seen, in her perfect cursive, so neatly practiced and drilled into her since she was a little girl, a warning.
A confirmation that the boy who could become a rat might actually be one. That the dark mark had infiltrated the Order.
He would've seen her fear for his life, not just as the sole heir, but as her son. As the child she carried for nine months in her body and the little boy the adored and doted on. The teenager she started to hate when she saw him removing himself from her, pulling away. The sixteen year old she cursed at when he did the exact thing that could get himself killed in a family like theirs.
The boy she sat, thinking about, wondering what went wrong. Because in Walburgha's mind, she's right, that's what you must understand. In Walburgha's mind, she somehow messed up, not just as a perfect, pureblooded woman that was beaten into her, but as a mother. As someone who wanted the best life for her son.
So in that letter, addressed to an address that she despised, she made one last attempt to save him, even if it was from afar. For he was not coming back, she knew that, but she could help him from where she was.
It was a shame really that it was only the flames who consumed it and not the little boy inside of Sirius who so longed for his mother's love.
