Marmoris | Rabastan Lestrange [1] ✔︎

01 | VOID

"Memories warm you up from inside.
But they also tear you apart."

★

IT WAS NEEDLESS to say that Sirius being disowned affected the whole Black family. Orion and Walburga tried to hide it, but they were devastated about the departure of their eldest son. Despite their numerous arguments they still loved him, like every parent loved their children, and Phoenix had once caught Walburga calling out for Sirius to come down before realising that he was gone. However, their feeling of loss resulted in even stricter views when it came to blood purity. Not a day passed by without anyone making a rude remark about wizards or witches with filthy blood or the ones that had chosen to stand by their side. One evening Orion even told the twins horrible stories about the middle ages that were way more brutal than the ones he had used to tell them when they were kids. The stories about witches being burned on a stake or drowned in a river, slaughtered like animals in huge numbers, made shivers run down Phoenix' spine and fear gripped her heart. There was no doubt that he was telling them those stories to prevent them from even thinking about the idea of supporting anything but Pure-bloods. It worked. Phoenix couldn't believe that Sirius would stand by people that were descendants of the culprits of these mass executions and she waited for him to finally come back to them, apologising for the mistake that he made.

Of course, he didn't.

The adults tried in every possible way to erase the unpleasant memory of having someone of their blood not sharing the same values as they did. It was forbidden to even utter Sirius' name in the Black household after a few weeks and when they did, they used it as a bad example.

Nonetheless, Phoenix waited for a letter or any other life sign from her older brother. She was unable to forget the boy that had always let her sleep in his bed after a nightmare as a child or made their house-elf make her hot chocolate when she was ill or sad. The thought of having lost that dear friend tore her apart.

Sirius didn't owl her and she didn't owl him either. Although she was worried, she had made her peace with the thought that he tried to protect her by keeping his distance. At least that was what he had said when they had last spoken to each other. 'You're my sister. It's my job to look out for you.'

Still, she felt that void inside of her without him around. She loved her twin brother just as much as she loved her older brother, but Regulus was more reserved those days. He spent a lot of time in his room while Phoenix tried to suffocate the feeling of loneliness with a good book or working ahead for the next school year. She refused to show her unhappiness on the outside. If she had learned one thing in all those years being an heir of the Black family, it was to cover up her real emotions to fit the image of a perfect daughter and it worked a lot better than being as rebellious as Sirius.

However, keeping up that image became quite a lot harder when she walked with her brother and mother through Diagon Alley to collect their supplies for school. Their Summer break was nearly over and with that, another year at Hogwarts would start in a few days, which left Phoenix with a bad gut feeling. She wasn't sure if going back was a good idea. Even when they were simply shopping for supplies, they received so many suspicious glances and she didn't expect Hogwarts to be any better, not with the rumours currently spreading about her family. The number of deaths reported in the Daily Prophet had risen almost every day and people were talking about a dark wizard, better known as Lord Voldemort. Since the Blacks had never even tried to cover up their intolerance for filthy blood, people were sure that they were associated with him.

They were not wrong.

Walburga and Orion had spent several evenings in meetings with other wizards who followed the man that they called the Dark Lord. They worshipped him like their saviour and his actions were praised as the only way to get rid of the ones that had unrightfully gained the same powers as they had. According to them, it was the only right way to cleanse their community of danger and weakness.