december 2nd, 1976
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to my dear sister catherine,
first of all, i apologize for my late response but i've found myself to be very busy as of late. at any other point in my life i would've had a vastly different response to your letter, however, things have changed for me very quickly, catherine.
i met a girl, a no-maj girl, a girl mother would never accept. her name is lizzie, not elizabeth but lizzie. isn't that so quaint? during the day the sun seems to dance on her raven hair and by the light of the moon her skin seems to glow as if her very flesh and bones are radiating some sort of angelic light. she is the most beautiful girl i've ever seen and up until right now i would've never given her the time of day.
i know you'll do better than me little sister, you won't have to be tempted by sins of the flesh to fight prejudice, you're strong enough to do better than me.
i'm sure this letter wasn't at all what you were expecting to hear, and for that i apologize once again. it'll be some time before i see you again, before we can speak on the matter any further and i'm sure mother will try to convince you that you've never had a brother at all.
so until we meet again i love you with this:
it's your life catherine, live it how you see fit. after all, how do we forgive ourselves for the things we never do?'
your brother,
rowen webster
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cath had all but forgotten about the letter she had written to her brother and it seems he had too. while reading his response she remembered the urgency she had written him with and was growing quite upset that he was just now getting back to her.
that being said though, she was thoroughly shocked at his response, to say the least. it must be a cold day in hell for her brother, her perfect brother, to fall for a no-maj girl, to destroy the perfect path their parents had built for him. no longer would he fall into the roll of holding the webster name up in society, instead he was eloping with the lowest of the low as her mother would put it.
now catherine herself certainly didn't have any reservations about no-maj relations, she didn't quite get why you'd want to be with someone who didn't understand magic but she didn't have a problem with it either.
her parents were another story.
she knew her brother was right in saying that it would be a while before they saw each other, because it most certainly would be. no longer would they be able to comfort each other at family gatherings, no longer would she be able to seek solace in her brothers arms when her mother got to be just too much. she knew her mother would wipe him out if existence, burn his portraits, destroy his things, he would now only be a webster by way of legal name.
'she'll have a field day with this one.'
as much as she knew she'd miss her brother she couldn't help the smile that graced her face when she thought about the perfect rowan webster becoming the family's very own black sheep. she felt comfort in the fact that finally she wouldn't be the disappointment.
she smiled at that thought until it hit her, really hit her.
her mother wasn't going to burn her brother out of the family out of disappointment she was going to do it out of rage.
pure, unbridled rage for a son she once loved.
she couldn't even remember what a smile felt like when she realized that her mother's rage would only hurt her ten-fold. any hopes of some sort of 'half-blood leeway' were now off the table.
rowan had left her all alone.
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'ironic how i really do miss mother telling me what to do in moments like this.'
cath found herself in a similar position to the one she had been in when she wrote to her brother in the first place, directionless.
the only difference this time being that she truly didn't have a direction to go in. she couldn't write to rowen any longer and her other most trusted confidant, delia, was a halfblood with just about the sweetest family a girl could ask for, so reaching out to her was off the table. she supposed she could try to talk to someone at hogwarts about it but out of the few people she was truly comfortable with she doubted they would understand what her mother was like. the few times she had tried to explain her situation had ended in-
'-black'
sirius knew what it was like, he had to know what it was like, and if anyone was going to empathize with her plights it would be the eldest black boy.
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when she finally managed to track down sirius black he was, as usual, with the other marauders.
they seemed to be speaking in low voices again so she assumed they must be planning something. the boys were known for their pranks (though they often seemed less like practical jokes and more like mean spirited taunts) and she was more than happy that she was friendly enough with them to avoid being a target. as she approached the boys she noticed the small things they were doing while conversing, remus was thumbing through a book, peter was eating some sort of sweet and james seemed to be trying to braid sirius' hair while sirius was swatting away his hands. james' braid did not look to be very successful.
"hi."
she pulled at the hem of her skirt and rocked back and forth of her heels as she spoke. the boys hadn't made her nervous since she first met them but something about the nature of the situation made her a lot more on edge.
"sirius-" she turned to face the long haired boy, looking him directly in the eyes "-can we talk? alone? it's kinda important."
sirius seemed confused by her question but went along with it.
"sure love, my dorm?"
"that'll work." she said nodding.
as the two walked away cath began planning what she was going to say in her head, though she was interrupted by the loud voices of james and peter speaking to remus.
"ya look like you're gonna rip his head off moony."
"you do look a little mad."
"i'm sure they're just going to talk mate."
it almost sounded like remus might be jealous.
'he would only be jealous if-'
'no.'
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it had dawned on cath that she had never really been alone with sirius and the prospect of talking to the womanizer did frighten her just a little bit but she got over that quickly when she began to pour her heart out to the boy without any rhyme or reason.
she lamented all of her worries about her mother and brother and the extra weight she now carried because of him. she talked about her family and her legacy and he wordlessly listened to it all. as it turns out, sirius black, who's typically too full of himself to not shut up, is a surprisingly good listener.
"-so that's all. i didn't really know who else to talk to, i don't really have anywhere else to go. sorry that i'm unloading all of this onto you black, i know we aren't-"
"merlin no cath, don't apologize. it's fine, i know how you feel, and i know how much i wanted someone like me to talk to."
he punctuated his sentence with a sarcastic smile that was laced with just enough sincerity to let cath know he really did mean it when he said things were fine.
"that being said though love, i think he's right about the whole living for yourself bit, i think he phrased it better than i could've. you've got to be careful or your going to end up like reg."
regulus black was a boy cath had only ever heard of. the younger black sibling was the antithesis of his older brother. catherine has developed a soft spot for the boy, knowing it must be hard carrying all the pressure of being a black, though she couldn't help but to resent him in just the slightest for being the same as every boy her mother ever wanted her to be with, rich, pureblooded, intelligent, and most importantly obedient.
her mother didn't seem to like individuals.
"i know, thank you sirius, you didn't have to listen like you did."
"no problem doll, talk to me anytime or-" a wolffish grin found its way onto the boys face, "-we could skip the talking and really get close to each other."
he moved closer to her after that, their faces were only a few inches apart before they both burst out laughing.
"kidding love, moony would kill me if i did anything like that."
that caught cath off guard.
"what do you mean?"
"oh, nothing. nothing, nothing, nothing."
sirius looked as if he knew he had said something he shouldn't have.
"let's head out, sound good? i'm sure the boys miss me."
and with that the two went there separate ways, sirius running off the find his friends and cath returning to her own dorm.
if only sirius black knew he was leaving cath just as troubled as before, only for a whole new set of reasons.
'thanks a lot, black'