Sirius curls up on his bed.

He's trying not to listen, but how can he ignore the voices echoing in his mind.

His parents always seem so angry with him, and he doesn't understand why. He never really thought much about it, not before he started going to school. It was just how things were, and how they are now.

They would yell and be angry, and once they had yelled and angered themselves out, it would stop. Isn't that how everyone else acts? Everyone gets angry. And you can love people and get angry at them, can't you?

So when his mother would yell at him about how selfish he's always been, how he exploits his parents at the young age of seven, that didn't mean she didn't love him. When his father would look at him like that, it didn't mean he didn't care, right?

Because they would tell him how they loved him.

When they were pleased and happy, they would say it softly. They would buy him things. They would smile at him, sometimes, during dinner.

Sirius tries so hard to remember those smiles, remember them through the yelling and the disgusted looks. He tries to believe he really is as terrible as they say he is.

Because parents never lie, right?