Manipulating Death: Chapter Two
Series Summary: When Harry discovers he has a twin sister that was hiding for years, he wants to know all about her, specially about her ability to bring people back to life.
A/n: Again, English isn't my first language so I'm sorry if I misspell or use the wrong time at any sentence. Also, this is my first time doing a series here on tumblr so please have some patience with little ol' me :))
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"So... you're Sirius' brother." Harry started, standing on his feet in the kitchen while the man had his back facing them.
The place was the exact size of the kitchen and dining room from his uncle's house at Privet Drive, only a balcony separating them.
However, the similarities stopped there, the oven was cleaner and looked almost untouched, the cabinets were a little darker and looked rather unstable. The amount of things on the top of each one Harry couldn't even count.
"Yes. And as you seem to know, when I was sixteen I joined the Dark Lord." Regulus replied without looking their way, too focused on brewing tea and cutting pieces of a fresh baked pie which Harry guessed there's where the smell of blackberries came from.
"However, I always knew what he was doing was wrong." To that, Remus scoffed. Regulus proceeded, unbothered. "So I started looking for flaws on his plans, and when I was too deep into that, that's when I died."
He started stacking the cubes of pie, making two pyramids in different plates.
"If you knew it was wrong why didn't you run away? Like Sirius did." Lupin asked, arms crossed and frown never leaving his face.
"You don't know how my mother was like." He simply answered. "Anyways, I died when I was barely eighteen and a couple years later your sister brought me back to life."
However, the answer didn't looked ready to be known by him, because it kept being dodged every time he asked.
This time, it was by a groan coming from the living room.
"You better go see him, he needs a known face so he won't absolutely lose it."
Remus gave Harry a nod, he still didn't trusted Regulus, so he wouldn't, under any circumstances, leave him alone.
"Y'know, Sirius told me a lot about how your family was." He commented on it when the boy left the room.
"And he also told me how you were your mom's favorite." To that, Regulus only hummed slightly annoyed. "So I'm sorry if I don't see how that can be a bad ambience for you."
"Someone who drowns at ten feet under water is just as dead as someone who drowned at four." The Black finally turned to him, only enough so he could see the professor with the corner of the eye. "I was the favorite because I wasn't a rebel like my brother, so they would put much pressure over me to be the perfect pure blood son."
"And Sirius knew I wanted to run away, I just needed to have something against Voldemort, otherwise my escape would be useless."
With that, he went back to cutting the pie in perfect squares.
Deciding to keep the rest of the questions to when Sirius was present, Remus sighed and the room dived into an uncomfortable silence, being broken only by the sound of knife against the dishes.
Regulus, on his own mind, was trying to organize everything.
What he should tell them, what he shouldn't, what he would deny until the day he died (again).
The thuds from upstairs kept his heart calm, they might not believe him, however they'd probably believe Y/n.
Even if they didn't, they had no idea where the house was, so escaping again would be easy.
Disturbing his peace, Sirius walked in, stomping with eyes wide open and lips parted.
He turned slowly, not moving the hair away from his eyes just in case he needed to hide emotions yet again.
"How... Why... When... HOW?"
"Sirius let's calm down." Remus reached a hand to his shoulder, but got shrugged away by the Black.
"Don't ask me that RIGHT NOW." He screamed, not moving his eyes from the brother. "How are you alive? I remember the day I heard you died. I remember going to your grave. I remember it all too well." He stopped, catching his breath, tears making his eyes sparkle. "So how are you here?"
Regulus dropped the knife into the sink, swallowing thick before looking at Sirius.
"I died." Were the first words that came to his mind. "Just like you just did. And the same way, I was brought back to life."
"When? Who brought you back?"
His lips were sealed. It was not entirety his story to tell.
However, not everyone thought the same.
"Y/n". Sirius' head snapped at Remus. "It was Y/n Potter that brought not only him, but also you back to life."
The older Black looked fast at his godson before looking at his partner marauder.
"Y/n Potter died. Years ago, with James and Lily."
"That's what I thought too, Sirius. But I just seen her. She's alive. I don't know how, don't ask me that."
"So you all knew I have a sister?" Harry shouted, standing on the door.
"The entire Wizarding world silently agreed to never mention her, Harry." Remus started, looking rather guilty. "The night your parents died, everyone that walked into the house looked for Y/n, but not a single soul found her. We just assumed that the what occurred was opposite of what happened to you; that Voldemort had casted such a strong death curse on her, she vanished from existence. It was so horrible to even think about it, no one had the courage to mention it, and it stayed like that."
"When were you going to tell me?"
"When we made sure Voldemort and all his followers were gone." Sirius answered. "Losing your parents is bad enough, losing a twin that her body was never found..." he sighed, "We were scared we'd be giving you hopes she could be alive."
"WELL SHE IS!" Harry screamed, making the marauders take a step back. "SHE BLOODY IS! THAT'S MY SISTER! YOU SHOULD'VE TOLD ME!"
"We know..." Sirius whispered. "And we're deeply sorry, Harry."
Regulus, glad the attention wasn't on him any longer, went back to brewing the tea, not a big fan of knowing what happened when he was gone.
Y/n had told him the basics, Voldemort wasn't back but he knew if all the horcruxes hadn't been destroyed it would be just a matter of time; people still thought Sirius was guilty even though Dumbledore knew the truth, Snape was a teacher at Hogwarts and stuff like that.
The both got used to living a life where they were able to avoid the outside world, and Regulus didn't hate that.
"And you, brother." Once again, peace disturbed. "Why are you living with her?"
"As I said, she brought me back to life and just so happened that a month later you ran away from Azkaban, there were wizards searching for the Black blood everywhere, I couldn't risk it." He explained, sounding bored. "And when everything was settling down, she started having visions of Voldemort and Pettigrew."
"Wait, she had those too?" Harry interrogated, taking steps forward.
"She did. For months. I couldn't leave the house when the man I died to defeat was threatening to come back. So we just decided to live together."
He finished setting up the tray, with the one plate of square pie, teacups and the tea pot, putting it on the table and taking some steps back, his cup ready on the sink with the other plate of pie.
"The man he'd hate the most and the girl he couldn't kill." Sirius added, approaching the table. "In the same place. It's two birds with one stone, you'd be damned if he found out."
"Would you just shut up and eat? Hunger from resurrection is the worst."
He was right, Sirius stomach was aching.
So, despite the harsh words and the frown on his face, he sat down and started devouring the pieces of pie.
"And you guys shouldn't worry about safety. The house is completely sealed, the stairs are too, so are the bedroom doors, and we have special moves if anything happens. Believe me, we're safer together than separated." And took a sip of his tea.
"Speaking of.." Regulus started, hearing rhythmic footsteps coming downstairs.
"What are you doing?" Sirius asked, when his brother pulled a chair and left close to a cabinet, opened a random drawer and grabbed some herbs from one pot that was near the stove.
The three boys seated at the table perked up when the girl walked in the kitchen. Headphones were plugged in her ears and she danced lightly at the song.
Regulus handed the entire plate of pie and she grabbed it with a smile, without saying anything.
And then, the younger Black's behavior started making sense.
The chair he pulled, Y/n used to stand on and reach something above the cabinet. The random drawer he opened, she pulled a potion bottle from it without even looking. Before she started searching for the pot, he handed her the herbs.
It was like he was predicting her every move. Even moving the chair out of the way so she didn't bumped into it.
He knew what she would do, and decided to make things easier.
"She won't listen." Regulus advised when Harry tried to stop her from leaving the kitchen. "She deals with death a lot, and sometimes the voices from the dead get a little too loud so she either sings or listen to music to avoid them."
"Why does she deal with death?" Remus asked the question on everybody's mind.
He sighed, imagining she wouldn't come back from doming the possessor so soon.
"It's a long story and it's hers to tell." He started, making Sirius roll his eyes and Harry's lips were pulled down a little. "But, basically, she's been trying to bring her parents back to life."
"Don't scream! You'll attract the possessors!" The Black whispered-yelled, gesturing them to stay quiet.
They raised their heads, trying to hear any sound non-human around.
Fortunately, nothing but the basement door opening and closing, Y/n dancing steps disappearing.
"You didn't said anything when Harry was screaming." Sirius mumbled, taking another sip of the tea.
"Because I knew the possessor was with her, before she went to the basement it could've been anywhere."
"She said it wouldn't hurt us." Remus quoted the line the girl had said earlier.
"They're easily atracted to emotions, especially the bad ones. You ever felt the crippling feeling someone was watching you when you were on the edge of dying? You're filled with anger, sadness and fear. They smell it and get ready to take the person's soul."
The dining room was thrown into deep silence, Harry trying to be as still as possible.
Sirius had his eyes wide, the mouthful of pie stopped chewing and Remus held his breath.
"And Y/n is alone with that?"
"She can handle it." Regulus guaranteed. "It's nothing new and no one else here knows how to deal with them."
Harry kept quiet, adjusting his posture as if it'd make him hear a little better. He wished he'd payed attention to the sounds that creature made when it first came out, so he could identify it quicker.
However, nothing but silence came to their ears.
With that problem out of the way, they could focus again on what Regulus said.
"She's trying to resurrect our parents?"
The younger Black pulled a chair and sat down, legs crossed and hands enlaced on his lap.
All eyes were on him once again, waiting for the truth.
"I know you're about to say it's a long story and she should be the one to tell." Sirius interrupted before he even started. "But honestly, we need answers. That girl came outta nowhere, jumped into that motherfucking veil of death and-"
Regulus' eyes were now glued to his brother, suddenly interested.
No, scratch that. He was interrogating, staring at the older man like he was about to rip his head off if he didn't repeated the sentence.
"There's this sort of veil that kills you if you go through it. Our beloved cousin hit me with a spell and I fell on it, she came running and entered that, and pulled me out so- why are you looking at me like that?" He stopped the story, clearly bothered by his brother's gaze.
The younger one never looked at him like that before, with such repressed anger.
"Excuse me, I'll be back in a minute." Regulus asked, standing up and marching out of the kitchen.
The three wizards stared at each other for a moment before raced out the room to follow the Black.
While the discussion was happening, Y/n sat on the basement, in complete darkness except for one lonely candle.
Sharing the pieces of pie with the creatures they had caged, song wild on her ears, she was thinking.
How exactly would she tell all of her life to two people who believed she was dead and one who didn't even knew she existed?
It wasn't exactly on her plans to bring her brother, her godfather and her kind of an uncle to her house.
So now, she'd have to smush on her routine some time to answer their questions. And currently, her own questions were ringing on her mind.
What if they didn't trust her? What if they didn't believe her story? What if Harry didn't like her? What if they would trust her but not Regulus?
For years she dreamt of what would happen when they reunited. But in not one of them she thought it'd be like this, escaping Death Eaters and Sirius almost dying without knowing her.
"It really sucks." Murmured to the brand new possessor. It wasn't the biggest one, but it certainly wasn't small. "Wanna know what's worst?" Asked, throwing a piece of blackberry pie to the creature. "I'm probably never going to bring my parents back."
She smiled sadly, looking at the circle of herbs she made on the ground to hold the possessor's power.
The door swung open, and she only noticed because of the light it send all over the room. Pulling the headphones off her ears, fortunately the whispers had settled down and she watched Regulus get closer to her, a very unpleasant look on his face.
"What was our agreement when you left to go to the Ministry?" He asked, hands on his pockets and the girl sighed. He was playing games.
She knew it and he knew she knew.
"That I'd see Harry, only do something if really bad things happened and would get out of there the moment Dearh Eaters showed up." She recited, seeing with the corner of her eyes the other three sneaking to hear their conversation.
"I saw Harry, did something when bad things happened and got out of there. Safe and sound." She added.
"You forgot to mention you went through the veil." His words were sharp and Y/n could swore she saw poison dripping from his mouth.
She started standing up. "Yeah I did. So what? Big deal. Or I should've let your brother die?"
"You weren't prepared. You had zero equipments to help you, do I really need to tell you how everything could've gone wrong?"
The possessors around the room started waking up, glowing scarlet eyes watching them both, seeing their anger and frustration.
"But it didn't! I wasn't going to just stand there and watch Sirius die!"
"You shouldn't even be there! You should've left the moment you saw a Death Eater. You were reckless."
"I was and I'm not sorry for it. I finally met my brother and you got a second chance with yours. Can't we focus on that?"
Regulus kept quiet for some time, anger was bubbling inside him. She had been reckless, could've died and he wouldn't know until way later.
He thought about the three men hearing the discussion - of course he knew they followed him. The Black didn't wanted to give them another reason to think he and Y/n should be apart.
"Fine, I'll focus on that for now, and only for now," she smiled "if you stop this play date and go upstairs, I'm tired of answering all the questions alone."
The girl snorted. "Okay then, but knowing you I'm pretty sure you barely answered one." Taking one more pie square, she started walking. "Come on, they're so curious they forgot what privacy means."
Regulus suppressed a smile when he heard the loud mess of the wizards pretending they weren't listening and started walking with her, leaving the leftovers of the pie, and the candle behind for the possessors.
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