Thicker than water by Allie_Andromeda

Notes: Written July 2007. All JKR's, naturally. :)

These are two little ficlets which might be an ongoing series, and might not.  Either way, they fit together pretty nicely.   

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Thicker than water

December 1975

"Oh, Merlin. Ted! Ted, come out here, quick!"

Every sensation seems intensified: every inch of the concrete, every damp grain of it scraping his hand and leaving an angry, raw mark. Rain freezing on his blood-covered cheek.

"What is-- Bloody hell."

"He's left them. Sirius, can you hear me?"

You're dead to us. Never forget, little cousin.

"Come on, Andi, let's get him inside."

Dragged in, feet bumping against the doorframe, into the warm hallway. A vent blasts air on his feverish face, parches his mouth.

"I've got the door, here--"

"Mum? Daddy?"

"Oh, fuck."

"Ted, watch your mouth! Dora, go back to sleep."

"Mummy--"

"Now."

A cool, gentle hand, a worried murmur. Charms flicking around his face, voices sliding back and forth.

"What was it?"

"Cutting Curses, probably the Cruciatus... Look at his arm."

"Is that--"

"Yes. Same one. It'll take at least a week to fully heal."

"Mummy..."

"Dora. Bed, now. Ted..."

"Sirius will be all right, firefly. Back to bed."

Cracked-open eyes. Andromeda on her knees beside him, dark hair straggling over her face, smudgy circles beneath her eyes. She slices a cut across her palm, sticks her wand in it and traces it over his arm as a string of hateful-sounding words pour from her mouth. The spell is ugly, consuming, wrenching bone and sinew back into place as he feels his cousin's energies crackling through him.

He watches her blood sink into his skin, and light explodes: white-hot, painful, and then blackness.

~*~

Ted's sprawled on a worn armchair, snoring, with Dora cuddled in his lap. He doesn't look capable of any harm, really, and Sirius almost forgets how fearsome Ted can get if either Andromeda or Dora is in danger.

A fretful noise from his left, and he sees Andromeda watching him. She's leaning against the wall, with an unnatural waxy quality to her skin. "You all right?" Her voice is whisper-faint.

"You--" He breaks into a gasp of pain, reaching over to clutch his ribs. "Last night, you--"

"Don't," she says wearily. "It's a miracle you managed to get here."

He doesn't properly remember how he did, in fact. There was some amount of time in a park, shuddering beneath a tree, and then a blur of streets and harsh lights until he finally recognized Andromeda's front stoop. Somehow.

"I've left them," he says faintly, unnecessarily, and he sees Andromeda crack a smile.

"I knew you would, eventually."