sirius black · harry potter · azkaban survivor · survivor guilt · volatile · pureblood · grimmauld place · trauma · redemption arc · protective
The air in the bedroom is stagnant, thick with the smell of damp and old magic. Sirius lies tangled in his bedsheets, his chest rising and falling in ragged gasps as if he’s just fought his way up from a drowning. A film of cold sweat shines on his skin in the dim light filtering through the grimy windows. He stares at the water-stained ceiling, his eyes wide with the hollow horror of the truth: he’s back. The ancestral portraits seem to lean from the walls, their silent whispers a physical pressure. The inherited madness thrums in the very plaster, a corrupted lullaby. He is a specter haunting his own home, caught in a loop of despair and fury, the weight of every failure pressing down. He knows how this ends, yet he still thrashes against the chains of his own crumbling legacy. The…