GOOD DOG || Sirius Black

(Twenty Four: Metanoia)

Metanoia: the journey of changing one's mind, heart, self, or way of life.

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Alex didn't sleep for a long time that night.

Which was strange, considering how tired she was.

Or not strange, considering the vague prophecy she had received only hours before.

She traced the delicate stitching of her pillow, something her mum had given her, passed down through the generations. She wandered idly with her exhausted mind if Maria Fawley had ever done exactly what she was doing now, ran her fingers over the stitching and thinking without knowing how to stop herself about the future of her descendants. The one slamming towards them like an oncoming train.

Maybe she had known that it was what Alex would be doing that night. A chill dread drenched itself over Alex, filling her bloodstream with the cool weight of ominous unsurety. She sat up in bed, fumbling clumsily for the light switch. The old ceramic lamp flickered to life with a reluctance that Alex resented, like it wanted to draw out the tension for as long as possible.

The cushion lay there, looking too light in the sudden explosion of exposure. It was a light blue, a raven stitched onto it with a darker thread than Alex thought existed. It had always seemed darker than black, like the space between the stars. Every woman in their family before her had been a Ravenclaw. They just had. But, with no other children to hand the artifact to, Helen Fawley had been forced to bequeath the pillow to her Gryffindor daughter.

Suspiciously, Alex prodded at the sides of the Raven, but no hidden notes emerged from the fabric. No clues leapt from the gaps where feathers were beginning to poke through.

Once she was satisfied, Alex reached once more for the light, cursing herself. Of course there would be nothing there. That was ridiculous. It was unlikely enough that no one had found the note hidden in the wall in the generations before it had been discovered by Alex and Sirius. Alex would have found anything else long ago- she had grown up here.

As she once again clumsily attempted to wrestle her bedside lamp into a mode where it was not burning out all the dark corners of her room in sickening artificial light, she hit the wall with her elbow. Gasping, Alex released the lamp, and it tumbled haphazardly to the ground.

It was as Alex was mid-grumble stretching to pick the object up that she saw it- the line of text printed ever so faintly on the inside of the shade:

The universe was not designed to help you. The world will not answer your questions for you. It's time you learnt to ask.

Far across half the country, while Alex was having her frozen freak-out, Sirius Black was dealing with a similar problem.

Earlier that night, he had subtly questioned his parents about the late Mrs Fawley, to which they had gone- for want of a better pair of words- completely ape shit. As the narrator, it is my responsibility to censor some of the more vulgar language used by Mr and Mrs Black, however impressed I am by its scope and creativity, although I am at liberty to disclose that synonyms for the words 'filthy traitor' and 'impure female dog' were employed more than once. 

In terms of actual information, Sirius gleaned very little, though this was not unexpected. He gathered that Maria Fawley had been, at one point, very close to the Blacks, and stayed at Grimmauld Place more than once. Perhaps she, like Sirius, had wanted out of the Black's lives after learning just how far they were willing to go to preserve their precious lineage. He couldn't help but feel as though he had found a sort of ally- you know, the dead, psychic kind.