Sherbet Lemons
Sep. 10th, 2005 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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royal_almost prompt sherbet lemons. Some gifts are not welcome in the Black House. Complete with an attempt to write in the style of the young Sirius Black who has some issues with spelling and sentence-structure.
14th March 1972
Dear Reggie,
That was the BEST howler ever! Professor McGonnergal knocked her porrige off the table when Mother started on about how the Mudbloods would murder us all in our beds. Bella got detention cause she cheered and Andromeda lost twenty points for Slytherin because she tried to use Silencio and it exploded all over Lupin’s chair (which didn’t matter cause he was in the hospital wing AGAIN but the wood’s gone a funny colour) and that end of the Great Hall still smells like DRAINS. Some of the house elves were crying over it this evening. Had to shout all through dinner to make ourselves heard over them.
Sorry about the sherbett lemons. I forgot she wouldn’t like them just because they were Muggle sweets. They wouldn’t have hurt you. Honnest. Everyone here is eating them, even DUMBLEDORE.
Did she really make you throw them all up? Potion or ejecto omnium? I HATE that spell – Madam Pomfrey has a much better one she used when Peter and I transfigured nails into cockroach clusters and that prat Potter ate them all. Did you sick up them all in one go or did she keep you at it? Did you hit Kreacher – I shall DISOWN you as my brother if you didn’t!
Evans isn’t talking to me. I think she got offended by the bit about exterminating the filthy mudbloods because of their inhuman perversions. Probabally shouldn’t have laughed but I could just see Mother saying it with her eyes rolling and everything. The only perversion Evans has is being too bloody good at Potions. She’s the only person in our year who understands Slughorn and I haven’t got anyone to copy off now. I’ll have to get Lupin to get her notes and then copy his and I can’t ever read his handwritting. On the other hand, they were her sherbett lemons so it’s partly her fault, right?
Hope you’re not still feeling ill. Bag of dungbombs attached – I was going to use them on Narcissa but thought you might like them. We nicked them from Filch’s room. Use them on Kreacher. Send me a photo if you can.
Must go – Peter and I are going to watch Quidditch practice. We’re going to THRASH Hufflepuff next week.
Regards and all that,
Your favouritte brother,
Sirius Orion Alphard Quercus Black
P.S. Sorry. Things are different here. You’ll see next year.
Years later, Regulus reads all those letters again. He has saved each one of them and now he spreads them out across the floor. They are like a map, he thinks dully, showing how he had lost his brother. Now it is too late to mend the breach with dungbombs and exotic sweets. He knows the precise moment when Sirius stopped loving him. He can’t tell when he himself started to hate his brother.
All that is past. Hogwarts is behind them both.
Heavy-hearted, Regulus lifts his wand and whispers, “Incendio .”
As the letters burn, he makes his way down through the house. There is a locket hidden downstairs that wasn’t there yesterday and Regulus smiles to himself, even though he can feel his lip curling. Sirius never played a prank this good.
He hears Kreacher shriek at the flames as he reaches the front door and slips out, knowing he will not be followed. It’s time to go back. Time to cover his tracks. Time to die before Voldemort can find out what he has done.
Before he apparates he reaches into his pocket. There’s a bag of sweets there that he brought from a grimy Muggle cornershop earlier. He slips one into his mouth and sucks until the sherbet bursts against the top of his mouth.
How strange, he thinks, that redemption should taste of lemons.
royal_almost prompt sherbet lemons. Some gifts are not welcome in the Black House. Complete with an attempt to write in the style of the young Sirius Black who has some issues with spelling and sentence-structure. The sofa with stuffing missing
Gryffindor Common Room,
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,
Nr. Hogsmeade,
Scotland,
United Kingdom,
Europe,
Earth,
The Solar System,
The Universe14th March 1972
Dear Reggie,
That was the BEST howler ever! Professor McGonnergal knocked her porrige off the table when Mother started on about how the Mudbloods would murder us all in our beds. Bella got detention cause she cheered and Andromeda lost twenty points for Slytherin because she tried to use Silencio and it exploded all over Lupin’s chair (which didn’t matter cause he was in the hospital wing AGAIN but the wood’s gone a funny colour) and that end of the Great Hall still smells like DRAINS. Some of the house elves were crying over it this evening. Had to shout all through dinner to make ourselves heard over them.
Sorry about the sherbett lemons. I forgot she wouldn’t like them just because they were Muggle sweets. They wouldn’t have hurt you. Honnest. Everyone here is eating them, even DUMBLEDORE.
Did she really make you throw them all up? Potion or ejecto omnium? I HATE that spell – Madam Pomfrey has a much better one she used when Peter and I transfigured nails into cockroach clusters and that prat Potter ate them all. Did you sick up them all in one go or did she keep you at it? Did you hit Kreacher – I shall DISOWN you as my brother if you didn’t!
Evans isn’t talking to me. I think she got offended by the bit about exterminating the filthy mudbloods because of their inhuman perversions. Probabally shouldn’t have laughed but I could just see Mother saying it with her eyes rolling and everything. The only perversion Evans has is being too bloody good at Potions. She’s the only person in our year who understands Slughorn and I haven’t got anyone to copy off now. I’ll have to get Lupin to get her notes and then copy his and I can’t ever read his handwritting. On the other hand, they were her sherbett lemons so it’s partly her fault, right?
Hope you’re not still feeling ill. Bag of dungbombs attached – I was going to use them on Narcissa but thought you might like them. We nicked them from Filch’s room. Use them on Kreacher. Send me a photo if you can.
Must go – Peter and I are going to watch Quidditch practice. We’re going to THRASH Hufflepuff next week.
Regards and all that,
Your favouritte brother,
Sirius Orion Alphard Quercus Black
P.S. Sorry. Things are different here. You’ll see next year.
Years later, Regulus reads all those letters again. He has saved each one of them and now he spreads them out across the floor. They are like a map, he thinks dully, showing how he had lost his brother. Now it is too late to mend the breach with dungbombs and exotic sweets. He knows the precise moment when Sirius stopped loving him. He can’t tell when he himself started to hate his brother.
All that is past. Hogwarts is behind them both.
Heavy-hearted, Regulus lifts his wand and whispers, “Incendio .”
As the letters burn, he makes his way down through the house. There is a locket hidden downstairs that wasn’t there yesterday and Regulus smiles to himself, even though he can feel his lip curling. Sirius never played a prank this good.
He hears Kreacher shriek at the flames as he reaches the front door and slips out, knowing he will not be followed. It’s time to go back. Time to cover his tracks. Time to die before Voldemort can find out what he has done.
Before he apparates he reaches into his pocket. There’s a bag of sweets there that he brought from a grimy Muggle cornershop earlier. He slips one into his mouth and sucks until the sherbet bursts against the top of his mouth.
How strange, he thinks, that redemption should taste of lemons.
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-07 03:20 am (UTC)P.S. Sorry. Things are different here. You’ll see next year.
I love how Sirius is trying to comfort his brother. His knowledge of the vomit-inducing spells his mother would use chilled me.
How strange, he thinks, that redemption should taste of lemons.
I love how that sentence is layered with meaning; the sourness-- the bitterness-- Regulus feels at having lost his brother, and now that he's trying to stop Voldemort he can't do anything to reconcile with Sirius. This is so painful. Never before have I come across a more compelling portrayal of Regulus and Sirius's relationship.
and Andromeda lost twenty points for Slytherin
Just to nitpick-- I believe Andromeda was in Ravenclaw, not Slytherin. :)
no subject
Date: 2005-10-07 07:46 am (UTC)I believe Andromeda was in Ravenclaw, not Slytherin. :)
I'm pretty certain that's fanon, not canon :) I don't have the books with me here but I've just double-checked against the lexicon and there's no mention of her house there.
Ah - just found a copy of OotP - Sirius doesn't mention her house in the tapestry chapter, just that she married a muggleborn and was his favourite cousin. I like redeeming Slytherins and what hints we've had about her make her sound quite cunning so I sort her into Slytherin.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-10 04:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-10 12:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 02:19 pm (UTC)That was a funny image.