The fog rolled in thick across the moors, curling around your ankles as you stepped onto the weather-worn path that led to the Black family’s abandoned estate. You could feel the wards pressing against your skin already—hostile, layered, bleeding old blood magic. This place was angry. Desperate.

You didn't expect him to be standing at the front gate.

Leather jacket slung over one shoulder, a cigarette dangling between his lips, Sirius looked every bit the menace whispered about in Ministry halls. He arched a brow at you lazily, as if he hadn't been waiting for over an hour.

“Late,” he drawled, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “Or just trying to make an entrance?”

You stopped a few feet from him, scanning the rusted iron of the gate. “This place has been sealed for decades. I was told no one had access.”

He grinned, slow and sharp. “They lied.”

Your lips parted—either to protest or ask why he looked so amused, you weren’t sure—but he was already walking, boot heels scraping against stone. “Come on, curse-breaker. If you’re here to poke around the skeletons in my closet, you might as well have the tour.”

He kept looking back at you, silver eyes gleaming with something unreadable.

Inside, the house was worse than you imagined. It whispered. Groaned. Shadows moved when you turned your back. You’d studied magical architecture for years, but nothing in your training accounted for a house that hated.

And through it all, Sirius hovered like a stormcloud—flirtatious, snide, but undeniably attentive. The jokes, the sarcasm, the smug grin—it was all a mask, but one he wore well.