Disclaimer: I do not own Alphard, Sirius, Hogwarts, or the House of Black. JK Rowling does. I just find the family utterly fascinating.

"Sirius. . . ." Only five minutes before, Mum had been yelling, at me or at anyone stupid enough to tell her to calm down, but it finally seemed she'd screamed herself out. It had only taken two days. "Just go. Before I become a murderer."

When my mother says that, she's not kidding. I decided it was probably best that I get out of the parlor without another word.

The question, as I closed the door and headed up the steps, was where to go now. Regulus was probably still hiding in the library, and since he actually agreed with me for once and I still needed to yell, I could finish venting without him interrupting me. Of course, Regulus paid attention to Mum's moods, and I wasn't sure I could deal with his bespectacled stare over whatever book he was reading, silently asking me if I honestly expected anything different. Reggie was way too perceptive for someone who never did anything about it.

Instead of subjecting myself to my brother, I pushed open the drawing room door, half-hoping to see Dad pouring over the tapestry like he did every time the Hogwarts Founders' lines frustrated him. I still needed to yell at someone, after all, and Dad would either let it slide off, since he'd liked her, too, or yell right back, since I still shouldn't yell at my mother like that.

Dad wasn't there. My uncle Alphard, on the other hand, was perched on the couch with a magazine of some sort in his lap, a cigarette in his mouth, and a lighter in his hand. Every ten seconds or so, the lighter would click and let off a spark that didn't light the cigarette. Alphard growled something around the pale cylinder and tried again. I stared at him a moment, wondering vaguely where his pipe had gotten off to, especially since there was already smoke haloing around his head.

"What happened to your pipe?" I asked finally, coming in.

"Your mother confiscated it," He answered, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and looking up at me.

"Oh." I came into the room. Alphard might not yell back, but at least he would listen, which was more than I could say for anyone but Reggie. "Why?"

"Her usual reasons," he answered with a shrug. "Said it was a filthy habit and she wasn't having it in her house. I just want to know how I'm supposed to calm down after her without a smoke. So I braved the shop on the corner a few streets down for a pack of cigarettes." He glowered at the cigarette for a moment, put it back in his mouth, and mumbled. "I can't get it to work."

"That's going to kill you eventually," I couldn't help but say, since Meda wasn't around to say it.

"Better this than Wally," Alphard mumbled back. "Although it'll probably be the one in conjunction with the other. . . ."

As he spoke, the lighter flared to life again, still missing the cigarette. On the other hand, the flame licked Alphard's fingers. He swore and dropped the lighter. "I'd swear the damn thing thinks it's funny," he grumbled, glowering at it as it lay lifeless on the floor. He nudged it with his toe, which failed to provoke any threatening reaction.

I snorted. "Really, they aren't that difficult to work," I told him, leaning down and picking it up. "Peter showed James and me how."

Alphard raised an eyebrow.

"To light candles with," I added defensively. "We were in the library after hours looking for moon charts and no one had remembered their wand."

"Good," Alphard said, pulling his wand out of a pocket. "Now that we know how dangerous it is I won't have my twelve-year-old nephew picking up on my bad habits." He touched the end of the cigarette with his wand, and there was a brief, red flash of heat. "So much for adventure," he added ruefully. "Can't seem to get the hang of anything Muggle if I try. I'll stick to what's normal."

I rolled my eyes. Most people, even wizards, wouldn't call lighting cigarettes with their wands normal. Alphard was the only smoker I knew who didn't just stick to his pipe.

"You can keep the lighter, if you want, so your Dad doesn't catch you lighting candles with your wand again. I heard about that," Alphard added. "You just need to promise not to burn the place down."

"I'll wait til Mum and Dad are dead," I mumbled, expecting him to glare playfully at me.

But Alphard was no longer paying attention. He did that a lot, too, and on anyone else it would have been a really irritating habit. But I couldn't stay mad at Alphard for very long, especially since he was the only adult Black who was remotely sane.

"What're you reading, anyway?" I asked.

"Some news report about a Ministry scandal," Alphard answered. "It's mildly entertaining."

I raised an eyebrow and reached for the magazine— Alphard had told me many times that he didn't find the Ministry of Magic mildly entertaining; he found it greatly frustrating."The Quibbler?" I asked. "What?"

"With your mother for a sister, I need rubbish I can laugh at," he answered, taking it back.

I shook my head and wandered over to the tapestry.

"You needn't bother looking," Alphard announced from the couch. "She's gone. Wally blew her off the night she married Ted."

I shook my head and searched the bottom for Andromeda's name anyway. "I kept hoping she wouldn't."

"Oh, come on, Sirius, you know your mother," Alphard told me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him waving the cigarette vaguely, searching for a more coherent answer. "Once Meda broke with her ideas of well and proper, Wally wasn't going to wait around for you or me or Reg to change her mind."

I nodded morosely and reached out to touch the splotch where Meda's name had once been. "I'll have to give you that, I guess."

"Looks a bit like a cigarette burn, doesn't it?" Alphard asked. He had come up behind me and was also staring at the mark. Then his eyes drifted up the last three-hundred years of the family tree, and without waiting for me to answer, he added, "So many cigarette burns, too. We're a temperamental family."

He gestured with the cigarette towards his own name. "You know, there are times, when Wally and Cygnus are acting as stupid as they are now, when I want to light one of these up and press it against my own name, get the hell out of this madhouse, and not worry about what she's gonna think anymore. You wouldn't be able to tell the difference between Wally's mark and mine." His hand, with the lighted cigarette, hovered over his name for a moment. Then he shook his head and took another puff.

"Why don't you, then?" I asked, not quite sure how to tell him that I felt the same way right now. But Alphard wasn't a twelve-year-old kid; there was nothing in his way of walking out.

He shrugged. "You, Reg, Cissy . . . up until a few days ago Andromeda. Bella, even, on a good day. You kids need someone other than your parents you can look at, so you see that a Black doesn't have to be" —he waved the cigarette vaguely again, looking for the right word, and couldn't find it— "them."

I couldn't help but stare at him. Alphard was a writer, and I was aware that he dealt with serious stuff in his stories. But I wasn't used to Alphard the writer. Alphard the uncle was never serious, a good-natured nuisance, really, who tripped over every family tradition with a vague smile on his face and an apology when demanded. Sometimes I wondered if he thought we needed a relative like that, who'd take the mick out of us rather than always be at us about serious things.

Alphard caught my stare and seemed to realize what it was about, because he shook his head and a rueful, nicotine-yellowed grin crossed his face. "Besides, how would I write my villains without your grandfather's Dark magic library?" he asked.

I shook my head. I knew he was trying to lighten the mood, but it hadn't worked. "I wonder how much longer I'm gonna last," I mumbled, fingering my own name.

Alphard's gaze drifted up the tapestry again. "If you don't last," he muttered, "Wally won't be the only Black woman to blow her own son off this thing." Then he shook his head. "Both of us need to get out of here before we get too gloom-and-doom, don't we?"

I blinked, not expecting one of the abrupt changes in the subject Alphard always used around Mum. "I guess so."

"Yeah, we do." He was already drifting in the direction of the door. "Why don't you go get Regulus and the three of us go down to the ice-cream shop in Diagon Alley? Change of scenery and away from your mother and all that. . . . Speaking of Walburga, I'm going to go trick her into giving me back my pipe."

"All right," I mumbled. Getting out of the house did sound good.

"Good. I'll meet the two of you at the door in five minutes," Alphard answered. As he walked out, he dropped his cigarette butt in the bin.

Before I went to go terrorize Regulus, I couldn't help but glance down into the bin after it. It was probably just my imagination, but it seemed to still be smouldering against the broken mug it had landed on. Staring at it, I couldn't help but wonder if I'd ever want to press one of them against my own name so badly I let a lit one hover over it.

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Author's Note: I actually wrote this prior to Familt Threads, which might explain the Alphard comment in the Regulus vignette. But I wasn't happy with it when I posted Family Threads, so I spent a couple of hours rewriting this thing in first person, because that seemed more fitting. . . . Enough about the quirks of my creative process. The tapestry fascinates me and Alphard needs more fics. So I gave him one. Now, you know you want to tell me what you think of it! Cheers! --- Loki