Midnight Rain

Prologue

August 2nd, 1995

"Sirius.... What is all of this?" Harry asks as he runs his fingers over the dusty tapestry that hung on the wall.

"This is the Black family tree," Sirius tells his godson. "I try to keep out to avoid memories..." he begins.

"My parents and their pureblood mania. I hated the lot. All of them," he recounts the bad memories revolving in the room.

"What's this?" the young boy asks, referring to the burn mark where his finger lay.

"My mother did that after I ran away. Charming woman," Sirius lightly chuckles as he feels the burn mark Harry had introduced.

"Where did you go?" Harry asks. "Your dad's," he smiles.

"I was always welcome at the Potter's," he explains, his voice cracking a bit. "It wasn't exactly my first choice but it was a good one," he continued the vague story, leaving Harry frustrated.

"What do you mean?" Harry asks as he runs his finger over the picture of the brunette girl next to Sirius's branch.

"There were three of us," Sirius begins to answer his godson. "I was the middle child, promptly followed by my younger brother, Regulus," the memories of his lost family flood with each word.

"Then there was my older sister, Athania. We were only a year apart but she was still the oldest so she was expected to be the mother that ours refused to be," Sirius says, sparking a thought in Harry.

"Athania Black, I've read about her in-"

"The old Daily Prophet's in the library," Sirius finishes the sentence for him. "She was quite famous for a while there. Rightfully so, she was brilliant," he continued to explain.

"When she graduated, she had a plan to move Regulus and I into her new home with her husband. Then when I graduated the next year, I would have gotten my own flat and raised Regulus," he explains the plan he crafted with his sister so many years ago.

"What happened?" Harry asks, earning a dark chuckle from Sirius.

"It got complicated," he turns from Harry, tears beginning to pool in his eyes.

"I assume you know of your dear friend, Draco's father, Lucius Malfoy. Am I correct?" Sirius asks, earning a nod from Harry, who now listened as if his story was the most important thing in the world.

"She was forced into an arranged engagement with Malfoy the summer before her final year at Hogwarts. Merlin, they resented each other," Sirius explains his sister's road less traveled.

"The two sets of parents wanted a bride and the kids wanted to make their own name," he continues, chuckling at the next part of the story.

"But somewhere along the line, she fell for the big git. Athania always had a way of pushing the clouds aside to find a rainbow," Sirius smiles at the thought.

"I was happy for her... no matter how much I detested the Malfoy boy," he tells every piece of the story.

"Lucius had changed for her. They had fallen deeply in love with each other and a wedding was planned for a few months after graduation," Sirius' eyes were practically shining as he talked about his beloved sister.

"When we thought her life couldn't get any better, she found out that she was with child in 78," he continued. "Every aspect of Athania was turning out perfect until we all found out what he had entangled her in," Sirius' smile suddenly faded.

"Sirius...." Harry begun.

"Athania, being the saint of a woman she was, stood by Malfoy's side whilst he ran off to do the dark lord's bidding," he says, his voice cracking a bit as his eyes became glossier.

"When Lucius decided to be a man and announce that they were done working for him, Voldemort blamed his unloyalty on my sister. He said she had changed him for the worst," Sirius remembers it all, following his words with an uncomfortably long pause.

"He killed her. Didn't he?" Harry asks.

"He did. I have hated Malfoy every day since then for taking away the only light in the life I didn't think was worth living," Sirius says as a tear escapes his eyes, falling onto his cheek.

"What bloke mixes up their pregnant wife with Voldemort?" Sirius runs his hands through his hair, clearly frustrated.

"I'm sorry.... Let's get out of here," Sirius says as he leads Harry out of the room, taking one last look at Athania's portrait on the wall before closing the door.