A Cold War // Self Para // Early 1980
It had been strange; coming home to a family that had never loved him. The way Walburga looked at him. The way Orion never looked at all. But it had been easier than expected to settle back into the life he remembered with such contempt. It wasn’t the same as the memories but it wasn’t different either. Maybe he was just older. But it still felt like a prison and it was that feeling he had always hated most. Just like when he was a teenager, Sirius would retreat to the confines of his bedroom. Only now he could use a silencing charm on the door to shut out the endless shouting. There was always shouting. He would throw open his bedroom window, the one that faced the back of the house, straddle the window sill, and light up a cigarette.
Smoking was his silent rebellion. The one muggle thing he could easily smuggle into the house and enjoy behind his parents’ backs. It had become a habit during his school days. A muggle habit he just couldn’t seem to shake; not that he wanted to. He reveled in the thought that it would make Walburga furious if she ever found out. Just that thought would have been enough for Sirius, it never had to become a reality. But in the end she found him out anyway. Sirius was never quite sure but he always suspected Regulus had something to do with it. He couldn’t trust that prat with anything, which is why he never admitted the habit to his brother. But Sirius couldn’t deny that Regulus was smart enough to figure it out on his own and the younger boy had a knack for saying the right thing to the wrong person.
She caught him red-handed, sitting half in, half out of the window just like always. Leaning outside never kept his room from smelling but there were charms for that and he enjoyed the fresh air. She rushed him, already angry and screeching in that way that made his head spin. He might have fallen right out of the window if he hadn’t grabbed hold of the ledge. Without his wand on hand it was not bound to be a fun fall. She snatched the still lit cigarette from his fingers, calling it a “thing” (yet somehow she knew he shouldn’t be doing it), almost burning herself, and dropped it on the rug where it left a nice black mark. The mark that’s still there now.
After that day, Walburga policed her eldest son’s comings and goings with such ferocity that Sirius thought she might have finally found her calling. She made it almost impossible for him to keep up with the “disgusting habit” (whether it was disgusting in general or disgusting because it was distinctly muggle he wasn’t sure). There were raids of his room when he wasn’t around; she seemed happy to leave his room in more disarray than it had been in before she arrived. She confiscated anything that looked remotely like a cigarette (a theory he tested many times). No hiding spot was safe, whether it was right under her nose or in that crawl space off the extra bedroom that led you between the walls. She discovered even his most clever hiding spots.
Her diligence irritated him to no end, made his skin crawl in agitation whenever he thought about it. Out of his own stubbornness he kept up his silent war with Walburga for months. Planting single cigarettes all over the house just to send her on the hunt. At some point he no longer even cared about the actual smoking, he just wanted to piss her off. But that was her goal, wasn’t it? To break him of the habit. And she had done just that. Realizing he had lost wasn’t nearly as difficult as giving in and letting Walburga know she had won. But perhaps she already knew; she always won. She had won the battle of the cigarettes, the battle of the heir (not that he really cared whether or not he got squat). Perhaps worst of all she had outlasted him in their longest running battle; the one that proved he was a Black. He had come crawling back home, begging her forgiveness.
When he finally gave in it was more due to the feeling of inevitability than anything else. Walburga had won again. He would never be able to turn the tables on her; she was always one step ahead. There was Black blood running through his veins, as much as he didn’t like it and she’d been the one to put it there. While she might not have intended to let things get so out of hand when it came to her first born, it was his blood that gave her this grip on him. Even now, from beyond the grave he could feel it: her hands tightening around his throat as he absently tapped his lips with his middle and index fingers.
