Plushii here! How have you been, my lovelies? Sorry to disappoint, but this isn't exactly an update in the traditional sense. I said a while back that I was going to be updating this story, to fix it because, let's all face it, the original was absolutely horrendificus. So, here is the un-beta'd, revamped version of Chapter 1. Trust me when I say that you're going to want to read it, because quite a bit of the story has changed. I'm sorry it's taken me a year to update, once again, but yes, I am still perfectly healthy, and still very much alive if not very busy. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, but you all knew that already. :D

"That monster came out of my body!" she shrieked, pointing a shaky finger towards the small bundle that I held in my arms. "Kill it! KILL IT! It will curse us! It will shame us!"

I watched my wife as she focused wild eyes on my son, muted with horror as she tried to climb free from her resting bed and fight away the hands of maids that immediately raced forward to restrain her. Her mouth was twisted with hatred, her features furrowed and ugly in her rage. When she could no longer move, she spat at me, shaking her head in a furious display of insanity, just before her gaze locked solidly with mine.

"YOU! You did this to us. You're FILTHY, SCUM. You're not WORTHY of this house, you're not WORTHY of this woman. GET OUT. GET OUT. TAKE YOUR ABOMINATION WITH YOU AND GET OUT."

She was fighting again, and one of the maids rushed to my side, negligent of the dozing child that she jostled awake in my arms when she grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me from the room. She looked afraid, I noted quietly, and then she left me, without a word, to stare down into a pair of gray eyes that blinked curiously up at me. I knew he couldn't see me, even as tiny hands reached up, flexing fingers as his tiny mouth opened and closed.

I tried to smile, but it wouldn't come, and the upward turn of my lips turned into a grimace. Instead, I was crying, and the tiny newborn in my arms crooned, wiggling his tiny body before his fingers closed around one of mine. I watched, transfixed, as his mouth worked again, and instinctively, I placed the tip of my finger between those tiny lips.

He began to suckle and I, for the first time, started to love him.

"I'm so, so sorry," I whispered, knowing he couldn't comprehend my words, knowing the noise he heard would make no sense at all. "It shouldn't have been you. You shouldn't have been picked for this."

But Sirius Pollux Black didn't comprehend anything beyond the warmth of the body holding him, and the uncomfortable churning of his hungry stomach. He didn't understand either sensation, or what they could possibly mean, but they drew a reaction out of him none-the-less: a tiny, feeble wail that only served to further break his father's heart.

From then on, I vowed to protect this innocent child, to teach him how to fight and be strong in a world where nothing but cruelty would await him. I taught him how to be indifferent, and calloused, and cold; I taught him everything I thought he needed to know, and neglected the important lessons of mercy, and love. Sirius didn't need to understand these things, I believed, because Sirius was born to be a killer.

And so I watched as he grew from a child into his prime, and mourned for my son who had learned only how to be the very creature I had never wanted him to be, who loved nobody, cared for nothing, and watched the world through calculating eyes, assessing the length of other's lives and the worth of their existence instead of the beauty within them, and the love he could find through them. Sirius had learned not to show any emotion aside from a bred cockiness, and that was his strongest personality trait.

And then he turned 16, and I was haunted when they showed up at the door for him, ready to take him away from me forever. He didn't smile, he didn't hug me, he didn't even cry. Sirius turned his eyes to me and said goodbye, and I watched as the last white feather marring the pure ebony of his wings drifted to the floor in a slow, significant death.

The door closed, and for the second time in my life, I found myself crying.

What had I done?

Chapter 1:

THE BEGINNING

It took Sirius eight months to gain his rank as an archangel, and even fewer to become the leader of them all. Sirius excelled in everything they opted for him to do, destroying the competition with a calm that all the men around him observed as 'unnerving.' It didn't help that he'd gained his rank as their 'Master' when he'd slain the very man who had owned them before him for reasons unknown, and better left unquestioned.

Archangels were not decided by skill, or status, or wealth, or strength, but by an abnormality in their births. Angels, normal angels, were born with pure wings that glowed and grew thick, white feathers. The folk called these angels God's favored children, though Sirius believed that they lived less than savory lives. Archangels were born with tufts of black feathers to mar the beauty of their own white wings.

Nobody understood the reasoning behind the discoloration, but it had been that way since before a time when anybody could remember, and as these 'special' children grew and came of age, so their white feathers molted, and fell out, and were replaced with ebony. Their wings were softer, and at full maturity, much, much larger than any set of white wings.

Sirius usually found his self musing over the origins of his own curse, but today was not a day for contemplating his own destiny when he was watching so many men on the battlefield fulfilling their own. Standing aloof in blood-soaked armor, Sirius watched through merciless eyes as soldiers—his own and enemy alike—fell to the soiled ground beheaded. He watched with calloused indifference as their bodies lay lifeless for just a moment, and then their spirits rose from their bodies as the corpses disintegrated and the tiny balls of light were pulled with a nearly startling speed downwards, and out of sight. Sirius knew where they were going, because all 'dead' men in heaven only went to one place: earth. There they would live their lives out as humans, a second chance to prove their worthiness, and when they died, they would return to heaven, held in high regards and favored—the purest of the pure.

"Lord Pollux!" another dirtied man called out, heaving as he trekked across the bloodied field to come to a stand-still beside his master. 'Pollux' didn't turn his head to acknowledge the man, but this archangel was accustomed to such behavior, and did not wait for his invitation to speak. "We've killed the lot of them, that was the last bloody one. You're victorious yet again."

But Sirius felt no swelling sense of pride inside of his chest as he turned gray eyes onto his soldier, and licked his lips slowly before parting them to speak. "Do you think I can't see with my own eyes that we've won, Krauss?"

"No," Krauss said, failing to become intimidated by his master's temperament. It was not an abnormal thing to face Sirius's lack of patience with anything, and Krauss knew that he would suffer no harm unless he'd done something to deserve such punishment. "but you did ask me to inform you when the men caught the spies hiding too, and they've found and finished every single one of them off."

"Did any of them talk?" Sirius asked coolly, turning his eyes back onto the men left standing as they hunkered their way back towards him. There was delight in their eyes, victory written on their faces, and jubilance pouring from their lips in the form of shouted excitement. They embraced one another, glad to find their brothers-in-arms alive, and walked together, as one unit, to join Krauss and their master.

"Only the usual," Krauss mumbled under his breath, "a whole bunch of, 'Please, spare me! I have children!'—The usual garbage that those about to die conjure up before death. No information though. It's almost as if they can't muster up enough courage to do anything other than beg for their lives."

But Sirius has stopped listening to Krauss before the man had even started speaking, already knowing the answer to his own question. He was caught up in a sudden rush of excited men and wings, assaulted by hands patting him on the shoulders, speaking praise that Sirius didn't care to hear, and then they were careful not to jostle him as they grabbed at Krauss, hugging the older archangel to them.

"Krauss," Sirius said after a moment of allowing his men to joke freely, laugh boisterously, and tease one another about their wives, their honor, their skill. Silence fell when the leader spoke, and Krauss, grinning, turned to face his master.

"Yes, Lord Pollux?" he inquired, glee never leaving his face. Sirius turned to face him slowly, and it wasn't until Krauss caught sight of the object in Sirius's hand that his face took on a look of horror instead.

"Kneel," Sirius said softly, ignoring the sudden murmurs of shock as the older archangel kept his eyes on the blade held in his leader's hand. It shone a bluish-black, designed with intricate shapes and letters in a language that Krauss didn't understand. Still, he hesitated for only a moment before obeying the younger man and lowering himself to his knees.

"Lord Pollux, what is this about?"

"Silence," the beautiful angel commanded, and then turned his eyes onto every face of every man surrounding him. "This," he said, voice never once raising, "is what we do to those who betray us."

"No," Krauss said, horrified as realization dawned on him. Sirius knew of his betrayal, but how long had he known?

"Yes," Sirius hissed, reaching out with quick reflexes to grab Krauss by the hair on the top of his head when the man moved to flee, "how long did you think you could hide your secrets from me, Krauss? I know, I always know, and I always knew."

There was a subtle shift in the weight of the men around him, but Sirius knew it was of discomfort and not rebellion. Still, he lifted that gaze up again, to punctuate his point by meeting each set of eyes as he continued with his next sentence.

"This is what will become of all of you if you do not remember where your loyalties lie."

Without batting a lash, without flinching, or hesitation, Sirius brought the blade around from his middle in one sweeping arch that lopped off the older archangel's head in one clean swoop. He didn't even lean away when blood splattered his face, and held on to his victim until the last strands of hair had disintegrated from his fingers. Sirius watched, indifferent, as Krauss made his journey to his life down below.

"Remember this," Sirius said, and his men turned away to retire, no longer in the mood to rejoice or celebrate when the life of one of their most favored comrades had been revealed as a fallacy, and then taken.

But they would remember.

I can't exactly tell you what happened before I woke up in a dripping, dingy cellar with my hands bound behind my back and the side of my face an aching, bloody mess, but I can tell you that every single joint, muscle, and piece of tissue in my body hurt. I didn't understand, at first, why I was in pain, but I was spared the dreadfully long process of thought when a door in the side of the room opened.

I cringed toward the stone floor I was laying on, closing my eyes as the light penetrated my pupils like a mistress of pain, unrelenting in her attack to desensitize me to her torture. I groaned when I heard feet moving slowly towards me, and then hissed when a hand was brought down on my cheek, an almost soothing gesture that was so out-of-place with everything else that was going on around me, and inside of me.

"Who are you?" I croaked out, wincing at the pain that shot through my throat from the effort.

"Shh, shh," the voice soothed, "finally awake?"

There was amusement in that tone, but I couldn't muster up enough anything to be miffed at the tone of voice. Somehow, this man had a soothing effect, and figuring I wasn't going to be offered the formerly asked name, I asked another question instead.

"Why am I here?"

"You don't remember?" the voice inquired, sounding mildly surprised, and then even. "I'm not surprised after the beating you took, Remus. You were caught stealing from the consul again."

All of his words sounded foreign to me until he'd spoken the word 'consul', and I groaned outwardly as I tried to roll away from this eerily kind stranger and more towards the sanctuary of the wall. "Malfoy…"

"Yes, Malfoy. And it's your fifth offense," he said, not unkindly, as he pulled my aching body back in his direction. I hissed at the discomfort the action caused me, but he didn't seem fazed by my pain, and when I blinked up at him again, he was smiling.

"James," came a cold drawl from the doorway. Immediately I knew that voice, and I blinked away from the messy-haired man to stare straight at Lucius Malfoy. "Is he awake?"

"Yes, my lord," James responded automatically, but I could tell from the sudden set of his jaw that he was even less happy about the blonde's arrival than I was. Well, I thought bitterly, at least I wasn't the only one who hated Malfoy this much. At least somebody else shared my sentiments.

"Prepare him."

"Prepare me?" I asked, confused. Lucius only gave me a smile that I would've loved to knock off of his face if my treacherous body wasn't so badly injured. "Prepare me for what?"

"Your execution, little angel," Malfoy sneered, lifting his chin just a fraction of an inch as if I were something disgusting he was regarding. "It's a miracle you weren't born with those accursed wings of ebony. A pity, too. I would have loved sending you to war to die."

I wasn't the only one who looked as if they could have murdered Lucius on the spot right then, but this James fellow had the advantage of hiding his face well—he was facing me. Smug, Malfoy stared on at me until James cleared his throat once and adjusted his tone to a distant, but still socially acceptable monotone.

"I thought he was to be executed at a later date, my lord."

"Stupid boy, don't you know better than to ask questions?" the consul snarled, but James didn't flinch away from him, and turned to face him instead. He must've had his face under control, because Malfoy made no further comments about the archangel's demeanor, and instead explained himself. "The archangels are returning from war today, and I thought a public execution would be a wonderful 'welcome home' gift."

Great, I thought to myself. Just fan-freaking-tabulous. Not only was I going to die, but I was going to die today, in front a giant, sneering crowd, and just in time for the archangels to come home and thoroughly enjoy a little bit more of that carnage they always indulged in out on the battlefields.

Unable to help myself, I cocked my head back and gathered as much spit on my tongue as I could before launching it forward with as much force as I could conquer. I was victorious when my saliva collided beautifully well with that hideous face, and I smiled to show it. I wasn't smiling for very long though, because Malfoy had strode into the room after my assault and taken to me with his fists.

I should have been begging, but instead I found myself laughing, going further into hysterics with each blow he landed on my already ruined face until I choked, spitting blood. I heard James's startled reprimand, but there was no break in the beating my body took, and before I became completely numb to the pain, my brain took it upon itself to shut down.

Hopefully, I thought as the light around me faded, he would kill me now, and I wouldn't wake up with the eyes of thousands of blood-lusting angels upon me, eagerly awaiting my punishment.