For blurred motion who has touched my heart
Different
He was different, Sirius knew that. He had known that he was different ever since he was eight years old, when the words that had earned him his very first beating had tumbled out of his mouth.
No.
That was all he had said. A simple "No" had gotten him whipped by his mother and beaten by his father's fists. Nobody had ever said no to Walburga Black before.
It wasn't his fault that he hadn't wanted to play with Regulus. His little brother was boring and whiny anyway and his parents had been talking about much more interesting things, like the status of muggles in their society.
Sirius was very interested in muggles. He found them fascinating. As a young wizard who had been born into a wizarding family, he found it positively absurd to be growing up without some form of magic in you.
It was this fascination, this absurd situation that really sparked Sirius' pro-muggle stance. He watched them every day by the light of the sun and every night by the light of the moon through his bedroom window, observing them as they went about their daily lives and the little eight year old boy saw that they were no different from the wizards. Granted, they didn't have magical blood, but they were still human, they were still living and breathing, just like Sirius was.
"Father?" He had asked confidently over dinner one night. Orion had almost dropped his fork in surprise. His sons simply weren't allowed to speak while they were eating.
"What is it, boy?" Orion snapped.
"Why do we class muggles and muggle borns as lower than us?" Sirius asked, looking up at his father with wide, innocent eyes full of curiosity.
"Because they are not as good as us, boy, their blood is not pure. It is dirty and contaminated." Orion spat.
"But they're the same as us, father." Sirius said, blinking in confusion, not cowering away when his father's face started to go red. "They're still human, they live and breathe the same air that we do, how does that make them any different to us, just because they can't do magic?"
"Sirius," Walburga said sharply, "Go to your room. Your father will speak to you later."
"But Mother, I haven't finished." Sirius said, indicating the onion stew that he had been eating up until a few moments ago.
"Just go."
Sirius knew better than to argue. It had only got him a world of pain last time he had tried that. He had slunk up to his room and waited gloomily for his father. Still trying to fathom why everyone of pure blood descent didn't like muggles.
The scars on Sirius' back were reminder enough to never ask that question around his family again.
Yet he continued to be different. When he was sent to Hogwarts, he was sorted into Gryffindor, the first Black to be placed there in centuries, possibly even ever. The look on his cousin's faces when the hat had screamed Gryffindor to the hall was priceless. He wished that he could've taken a picture. Bellatrix had been livid, Andromeda, indifferent and Narcissa was off in her own little world like she always was.
He became friends with James Potter, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew, the three people that he knew that his father hated the most. It didn't stop him from introducing himself to James on the Hogwarts express though.
For the first time in his life, Sirius had been happy. He had three wonderful friends, he was being avoided by his family, his mother had only sent three howlers and most importantly, he had finally found somewhere that he truly belonged.
When he arrived home for the Christmas holidays however, that sense of belonging had disappeared. It had evaporated just like the heat from the stone cold cellar that he had been locked in for the entirety of the holidays with no contact with anyone, human or animal, because even rats and mice didn't venture into the dank, dusty cellar of the Black House.
No matter what his parents did to him, Sirius continued to be different. He couldn't help it. He liked being different and by the time that he was fourteen, it had become more of a way to annoy his family than to be unintentionally different.
The thing was, the things that he did with James, Remus and Peter came naturally to him; the pranking, the backchat, the tormenting. He loved it and that was the only thing that Sirius ever thought showed that he was a Black; His love of torment and even that he managed to eradicate over time. He loved being different.
He had been different right from the very start, and he would always be different, right until the very end.
AN: In addition to writing this for the lovely and amazing blurred motion. I have written this for.
The Character Diversity Bootcamp Challenge – Prompt #5: Magical
The Chinese Moon Competition: Rebellion Slice
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Potter on
~The Original Horcrux~
