With Sirius…
The next day was painfully bright.
By unspoken agreement, they had decided that James would not be joining the so-called revolution against Voldemort. That matter, at least, was settled.
Sirius, however, could not find peace.
The tapes burned in his thoughts.
He wanted—needed—to see them. To understand. To find out the truth about his father, about the woman who was supposed to be his mother, and what in the name of Lady Magic had happened for her to simply vanish from existence.
And now Orion Black had returned, attempting to play the role of a father.
Sirius snorted at the thought.
If Orion truly cared, he would have come back sooner. He would have thought about his children, about the damage left behind. Instead, Sirius could see it clearly—his father cared more about what his mother would have thought of his actions than about actually facing the fact that he had failed them.
That was why Sirius now sat alone in a room only he knew about, hidden near the kitchens, having deliberately skipped his Arithmancy class.
He had found this room years ago—back when he had been quite literally running for his life.
Newly sorted into Gryffindor, Sirius had been terrified. Terrified of what Walburga would do. Terrified of what the noble children would say. Of how they would sneer and whisper that he was a stain upon the Black name, that he was unworthy, that it would fall upon Regulus to restore the family's pride.
What had begun as verbal cruelty had quickly escalated.
Backhanded spells when no one was looking. Tripped staircases. Jinxes cast from behind. Slytherins of all ages—children who carried old grudges against the House of Black—had found the perfect outlet for their resentment.
He had been a first-year.
They had been sixth-years.
That day, he had been running from two of them, heart pounding, lungs burning, praying to anything and everything that might listen.
And that was when Hogwarts answered.
A door had appeared out of nowhere near the kitchens—where there had been no door before. Sirius had slipped inside, slammed it shut, and locked it behind him, pressing his back against the wood as he struggled to breathe.
The shouting continued outside.
Footsteps passed.
But no one noticed the door.
That was the day Sirius Black learned that the rumors were true.
Hogwarts was sentient.
And sometimes—just sometimes—it chose to protect its own.
*******
"So… what do I even do with these tapes?"
Sirius stared at the bundle in his hands, turning them over as if they might explain themselves.
"I know how they work," he muttered to the empty room. "At least—in theory. But I've never actually used one. And I don't even have anything to use them with. A—what was it called? A video player? A television?"
The moment the words left his mouth, the room shifted.
Not abruptly. Not violently.
It responded.
Unlike the Room of Requirement—which bent itself to conscious desire—this place worked differently. It did not wait for clarity. It opened only when the need was genuine, and once it did, it adapted even when the person inside did not yet know what they were looking for.
The walls softened. The sharp stone lines blurred. Furniture bled into existence as if painted into being—until Sirius found himself standing in what looked like the living room of an ordinary Muggle house.
There was a couch. A low table.
And opposite him—
A television.
The screen was larger than any Sirius had seen before during his wanderings into the Muggle world with James. Sleeker. Sharper. Almost… too perfect.
A faint chill ran down his spine.
He exhaled slowly, forcing his shoulders to relax.
This room had always done that—answered before he finished asking.
A selfish part of him stirred, unashamed.
He had never told the others about this place. Not James. Not Remus. Not even when they were creating the Marauder's Map. This room was his. His secret. His refuge.
Sirius stepped closer to the screen, the tapes clutched tightly in his hand.
And yet, beneath the wonder, something dark coiled in his gut.
The memory of the Room of Requirement still lingered—fragmented, distorted, like something pulled from a fever dream. Whatever they had encountered there… it hadn't felt accidental. It hadn't felt dormant.
It had felt aware.
There was something behind the walls of Hogwarts. Something old. Something dangerous.
Something that even Dumbledore might not fully understand.
And Sirius was certain of one thing: they had crossed a line.
Triggered something.
Put themselves directly in its line of sight.
His jaw tightened as he slid one of the tapes onto the table.
"Fine," he murmured, more to the room than to himself. "Let's see what you've been hiding."
If there was a root to this madness—
He would find it.
Even if it meant opening a door that should have stayed closed.
********
There was someone else who was not attending classes that day.
Lucius Malfoy.
He lay motionless in the infirmary, his body whole, uninjured, and infuriatingly perfect—no broken bones, no curse marks, no trace of dark magic lingering on his skin. His breathing was steady. His pulse strong.
And yet his mind was gone.
Madam Pomfrey stood beside the bed with a furrowed brow, her wand hovering just above his temple. Every diagnostic charm she knew told her the same thing: physically, the boy was fine. Magically, he was stable.
Mentally—
Trapped.
"It's as if he's fallen into a memory," she murmured to herself, voice tight. "Or memories. Deep ones."
A magical coma.
That was the only conclusion she could reach.
If the condition persisted, protocol demanded that Lucius be transferred to St. Mungo's. And that thought alone made her stomach churn. Lord Malfoy was notoriously protective of his heir. And Lord Black—
Lord Black was no less dangerous when it came to what he considered his.
When Regulus Black had dragged Lucius into the infirmary, pale and shaking, Pomfrey had been too alarmed to question him properly. A mistake she now bitterly regretted.
Regulus Black had a silver tongue. Everyone knew that.
And now, standing before Albus Dumbledore, she found herself with far fewer answers than she liked.
"He appears to have experienced some sort of… trigger," she finally said, choosing her words carefully. "Something powerful enough to lock his consciousness away. I can't tell whether he's reliving a single event or caught in several overlapping memories."
Dumbledore's eyes flicked briefly to Lucius's still form.
"And Lord Malfoy?" he asked.
Pomfrey swallowed. "We haven't been able to reach him, Headmaster. Not by Floo, not by Patronus. Nothing's getting through."
That, more than anything else, unsettled the room.
Dumbledore was silent for a long moment, the weight of thought settling visibly upon him. When he finally spoke, his voice was calm—but somber in a way Pomfrey rarely heard.
"Do what you must, Poppy. Monitor him closely. If his condition worsens, prepare for immediate transfer to St. Mungo's."
He turned toward the door, then paused.
"And continue trying to contact Lord Malfoy."
She nodded quickly.
"I will have a word with young Mr. Black," Dumbledore continued, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Whatever led to this… did not happen by accident."
He looked back once more at Lucius Malfoy—the unmoving heir of one of the most powerful families in magical Britain.
"Keep this contained," he said quietly. "For now."
Then he left.
Madam Pomfrey sank into a nearby chair, clasping her hands together as she whispered a prayer to every god, old and new, that she could remember.
Because if Lucius Malfoy did not wake soon—
Hogwarts would not be the only thing facing consequences.