Disclaimer:These characters and their universe belong to J.K Rowling. I just borrow them for my dreams. I make no money off them.
I rated this AU, because it is now generally accepted as canon that the Black sister and Lucius are older than Sirius. But it was not originally intended to be AU. I started it long ago, before Jo gave us any information about the age of the Black sisters. When I picked it up again to finish it, I did not want to change it. I thought it was too interesting to see Sirius as a child play with his later enemies - and the dynamics between them was fun, too...
THE FRONT DOORS
Prologue: The House
Sirius Black is an 8-year-old Wizard who lives at no. 12 Grimmauld place in the middle of Muggle London. His house is a large three-floor house with a basement and an attic. Mother and Father and Sirius' 6-year-old brother Regulus live there too. And Nanny, of course.
Teacher doesn't live there; he only comes to the house every weekday from 9 am to 3 pm. Sirius' cousins Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa Black come every morning through the fireplace in the front hall, to attend school with Sirius and his brother. Lucius Malfoy is the son of friends of their parents. He also comes to school every day through the fireplace. When school is over, they all leave through the fireplace again.
Guests often come to the house through that fireplace too, although adult guests who don't bring children sometimes apparate into the hall. If they are not visiting often, that is, because then they may apparate directly into the drawing room or enter by the fireplace there.
Nobody uses the front doors. It's nothing but Muggles out there.
The house of the Blacks is huge, with many places to play, as long as the adults don't get disturbed. Sirius knows the routines of his parents, so usually that is not a problem. Nanny doesn't count.
Father spends most of his time in his rooms in the basement where he studies Magic. He has an assistant who sometimes comes during the day to help him. The assistant never speaks to Sirius if he meets him in the hallway. He just disappears through the tapestry door that leads down into the basement as soon as he arrives. Father has a large study with a long wooden table covered in cauldrons, flasks, jars, and all sorts of strange and glittering instruments, all of them strictly forbidden to touch. Sirius has touched, but carefully, nothing has happened, and he hasn't been found out. Outside the study there is a small corridor with three more doors, one of them is always locked when Father isn't there. One of the rooms is sometimes empty, sometimes filled with caskets and boxes and chests which Sirius can find no way to open. The third room is full of cages, which sometimes hold smaller animals. Sirius has seen glimpses of them, but that room is mostly locked, too. But sometimes he has heard small piping and scratching sounds through the door. It doesn't seem like a nice place for small rats and rabbits to live.
Mother has her rooms on the first floor. The two glass cabinets on each side of the fireplace in her drawing room are filled with all kinds of strange things, some look like instruments of sorts, some look like pieces taken from dead animals. There are old daggers in there too, and Sirius would really like to know what's inside the richly decorated, different sized silver boxes. But the glass doors are locked, and Mother tells him sternly not to try and open them, because what's inside may be dangerous for an underage Wizard. He has tried, but the glass made his fingers burn when he touched it. Then Mother worked some Magic on him that made his fingers swell. The swelling made his blood throb in his fingers so he couldn't move them until she lifted the spell several hours later.
Mother experiments with Magic too. She uses the house-elves to try the new kinds of Magic she has heard of. The family has two house-elves, Annyma, who is an old female, and her son, Kreacher. Mother has never let Sirius watch her doing any experiments, but Sirius knows about them because he has sometimes heard her talking to guests about them.
Mother entertains many guests, she tells Sirius this is because his family is very important in the Magical world, and they have what she calls an obligation. And sometimes Sirius as the elder son is expected to sit and be polite at the tea table in the drawing room. It is terribly boring, but fidgeting is not wise. Mother tells him that he is the heir of the very Ancient and Noble House of Black, and he must know that whatever wrong he does as the heir will be a disgrace not only to his parents, but to all the generations of Blacks who have proudly striven to uphold the best traditions in the Magical world through seven centuries.
Sirius has sometimes managed to be nice and sit still and not be asked to leave the room to be punished afterwards, and then he has overheard what Mother and her guests are saying to each other. But he still doesn't know much about her experiments. Mother usually remembers his presence when she starts telling her guests about her Magic, and asks him to leave the room.
The best places to play outside the nursery are up in the huge attic, the back stairs only Nanny and the house-elves use, and the several empty bedrooms on the second floor. There are a few rooms on the first floor, too, where the furniture is covered in white sheets. But there one must be quieter, because Mother's rooms are on the other side of the main stairs. If Mother isn't down in the garden or on the ground floor somewhere, that is. The ground floor is often empty between meals, but there are too many breakable things down there in the elegant parlours, and the children are not supposed to be there. It's a place they only go to when dared to bring something back to the nursery, or to hide in a cabinet somewhere while the adults are eating.
The Magical garden at the centre of the house is not so fun. It is about the same size as all the rooms downstairs put together, and the door leading into it is placed in a parlour on the ground floor. But because it's made by Magic, you need a wand and a spell to be able to enter. Sirius as an under-aged Wizard is not allowed to have a wand. That means the garden is a place where it's not possible to be without adult supervision.
Sirius and Regulus are allowed to play freely in the garden, as long as they don't trample the beds of the exotic flowers, disturb the peacock, break the boughs of the trees or the bushes, or foul the waters of the beautiful and centrally placed fountain by throwing objects into it or even wading in it. But the exotic flowers grow everywhere, boughs break easily and they don't need to do anything to the peacock to disturb it - the peacock seems to get disturbed by the mere presence of two little boys. And what do you need a fountain for, if you're not allowed to even touch the water in it on hot summer days? But Mother says there is no need for that - if they want the pleasure of cool baths on hot days, the house holds three bathrooms, one of them with a reasonably sized sunken tub. They may be allowed to play in the water there with some selected clean toys - if they have behaved themselves recently, asked nicely and washed themselves properly first. Regulus likes it, but Sirius gets bored very quickly- when he's tired of the water, then what? In the garden, you could have played in the fountain but still had the grass, and the flowers and the skies, the ivy completely hiding the walls of the house, and robins singing.
Author's Note:
Yes, I know, no Magical garden in Grimmauld Place mentioned in canon. Just because Harry didn't see it doesn't mean it never existed, right? ;)
About this prologue: If I had started the story today, I'm not sure I would have included this kind of prologue. It's a little boring, this listing up of all the contents and people of the house. But it was kind of interesting to write it: think through what would have been significant to the eight year old Sirius, and include only that. Was a good exercise in order to get rid of a too adult perspective, and get into the young Sirius' mind. I still like it enough to include it here.