Sirius had only just ventured into the kitchen, intent on thawing tonight’s dinner, when the harsh electrical buzz of the bell cut through the music playing on the radio.<br/>“Coming,” he called ahead as he ascended the stairs from the cellar kitchen to the ground floor, a tedious trip at best that had cost him many missed parcel deliveries.<br/>He moved through the house with an ease that had only been afforded him after decades in this house, finally his entirely. That feeling suddenly and violently escaped him as soon as he opened the door.<br/>Nothing could have prepared him for the spitting image of his brother standing on his doorstep, inverted and bright where Regulus had been pitch black. For a brief, irrational moment, Sirius thought he had seen a ghost, translucent in the summer sun.<br/>The unmistakable familiarity of the stranger made him stall, the sudden prang of heartache dulling his immediate friendliness, his hand tentatively moved from the knob to the edge of the door.<br/>The young man, now clearly not his reanimated brother, seemed equally thinly worn by the interaction, prompting Sirius to ask a clumsily considerate, “Alright?”