Sirius

Sirius heard the tell-tale sound of suitcase wheels on the landing. He leapt off his bed, almost launching the two-way mirror across the room. Ignoring Prongs's indignant yelling coming from the glass, Sirius scrambled towards his door. He pressed his ear to the wood, and heard footsteps. He couldn't tell whose footsteps and he decided to risk a glance out. He readied his wand, just in case it was his lovely mother in the corridor.

The door creaked open, and Regulus faced Sirius. He arched one eyebrows and Sirius frowned at him, "I thought I smelt something rotten."

"I'm not the rotten one here." Regulus drawled, in that classic Black manner. All of them did it. All of them spoke lazily, dragging each word out, like everything in the world was boring to them, like it was tiring just to speak. Except Sirius, who spoke with such animated enthusiasm, it seemed to physically hurt his family to listen to him.

Which it likely did.

"If a tree has only ever created bad apples, when a good apple comes along, it can be a little confusing." Sirius smiled, leaning against the door jamb. His black hair brushed against his neck as he watched his little brother.

Regulus was a lot like Sirius, which they both detested. They looked alike, so much so, that they could be twins. Except Regulus never smiled, his face was stuck in a perpetual state of disdain and boredom. Much like their mother. Sirius's hair was longer and softer, and his shoulders were broader. Still, though, they both had the model good looks and marble grey eyes that ran in their family.

"Clever. Did your muggle friends teach you that?" Regulus asked, clenching his fist on his suitcase handle so tightly, his knuckles were turning white.

"They did actually. Right before we all had dirty, muggle sex-"

"Regulus! Hurry up!" Sirius's mother screeched from downstairs, interrupting Sirius.

Regulus almost jumped three feet in the air, as he hurried to please their mother. Sirius rolled his eyes as Regulus ran down the stairs, dragging his suitcase behind him, and returned to his room. He found Prongs in the two-way mirror, still ranting on about being rudely abandoned.

"It's great staring at your ceiling when I'm in the middle of talking-"

Sirius interrupted him, "I gotta go. I'll mirror you when you can come over."

"Sirius Black, you-"

Sirius tucked the mirror back into it's hiding spot – under his pillow – muffling James's complaints. He yanked the leather jacket off his desk chair and threw it on, looking at himself in the mirror. He was wearing typical muggle clothing. Black jeans, an off-white tee, and his leather jacket. The only thing that wasn't a muggle item was the small dragon tooth necklace around his neck, given to him by Remus last Christmas.

No one in his family would be caught dead in this outfit. Sirius grinned as he left the room, there was nothing like giving his family a proper farewell.

He roughed a hand through his hair as he jogged down the stairs. He followed the sound of voices towards the lounge. He took a deep breath, and steeled himself, before stepping inside. Nine pairs of haughty eyes turned to glare at him. Despite the anxiety that had clogged his chest, Sirius smiled easily.

With forced enthusiasm, he asked, "Is everyone ready to go?"

"You're not coming!" His mother hissed, looking at her disappointment of a son. She looked thoroughly humiliated. As though the other people in this room hadn't been aware of his existence until now.

Of course, that wasn't true. These were the people who were present at every one of his birthday's until he had been sorted into Gryffindor, when they'd all collectively disowned him.

Sirius looked at the people in the room. His mother and father, Walburga and Orion, were stood closest to him. They both looked embarrassed and furious. His father had a restraining hand on Walburga's wand arm, probably stopping her from murdering Sirius right here.

He had been told to stay in his room until they were gone. Which, normally, he would love to do – his room was his only haven in the hell-hole. But he knew how much his presence would piss off his parents, and that was worth whatever curses they could throw at him.

Next to them, stood his Aunt Druella and her devil-spawn Narcissa and Bellatrix. They were both younger than him, yet they looked at him like he was a rebellious child, and they his hardworn parents. Druella lacked the token raven black hair, not being a Black herself, and Narcissa had inherited the white blond. It stood out starkly against her sister's, which was ratty and pitch black. Sirius looked at them with disgust.

Regulus stood in between his paternal grandfather, Arcturus, and his maternal grandmother, Irma. Sirius nodded at them both, but neither acknowledged his presence. They were both too busy fawning over Regulus, they hadn't stopped talking to him about his time at Hogwarts, even when Sirius had walked in. Regulus had stopped replying to them though, preferring to stare at Sirius with everyone else.

Oh, and Kreacher was there. But he wasn't worth mentioning, as he clung pathetically to the hem of Walburga's dress.

"Oh please, Mother." Sirius begged, putting on those puppy-dog eyes he did so well, "Please let me come to your pureblooded, snake loving, muggle hunting trip. I so want to be there." He dissolved into laughter. No one laughed with him.

"Why do you keep that blood traitor in this house?" Bellatrix asked, her childish voice rang through the room.

She was maybe seven or eight, Sirius guessed, and she was already so full of discrimination and hate. Sirius would mourn for her, if he didn't hate her so much.

"Because," Druella said, acknowledging her child and completely ignoring Sirius's presence, "They cannot legally kick him out yet."

"Yes. Don't worry Trixie darling, I'll be out of your rat's nest of a hair pretty soon." Sirius smiled.

He dodged the curse that was sent his way by his father, and smiled back at him lovingly. He knew he should leave. He'd successfully mocked one of his relatives, embarrassed his parents, and even thwarted their attempts at harming him, he was three for three, and if he stayed any longer he'd start to lose.

He was enjoying the awkward silence he'd created though, he wanted to bask in it a little longer. He moved away from the door and walked further into the room, feeling nine pairs of eyes on him. It was a lot like walking into the lion's den, although in this case, it was more like a snake pit.

"Don't mind me." Sirius voiced after no one had said anything for ten minutes. Even his grandparents had stopped fawning over Regulus, to watch him uneasily. They didn't like that he was here. None of them trusted him. Which was insane, because if anyone was in danger here, it was so clearly him.

Remus once said that Sirius had no sense of self-preservation, and this was just proof of that.

"Sirius, go back upstairs." Orion ordered, his voice boomed like thunder in the silence, but Sirius barely flinched. Compared to his mother, his father was a harmless kitten. Sirius smiled to himself and spun to face his dad.

His dad towered over him, but Sirius still didn't back down. He looked up at his father, who also looked a lot like him. Sirius looked like a lot of the people in the room, and he hated it as much as they did. If he could dye his hair red and gold, he would. In fact, he'd have to find out how to do that.

With a smile that would infuriate everyone in the room, Sirius said, "Make. Me."

His father looked taken aback briefly, until his face scrunched up in fury. He gritted his teeth and Sirius could practically see the fire starting in Orion's head, the steam was about to come out of his ears and Sirius couldn't wait. He would love every second of his father's explosion, because he had caused it. He would have made his usually calm and bored-looking father, lose his cool. Sirius waited eagerly.

Only, the explosion never came. Orion's anger fizzled out lamely, like a failing bomb. A calm mask fell over his face, and he stared blankly at Sirius, looking uninterested. Sirius narrowed his eyes.

No.

He would not lose this, not in front of everyone. His father would react, he would.

"Go." Orion stated, no inflection in his voice whatsoever.

Sirius had lost. He realised with horror that he'd been outsmarted. His father knew Sirius wanted him to explode, and he'd refused. Sirius pursed his lips. There was a tangible shift around the room, as everyone else realised what had happened. Sirius felt uncomfortably hot, suddenly he wanted to leave the room. He wanted to be free of them, before they brought him down any further. He took a step away from his father.

The anxiety had flooded his chest again, and he found it much harder to breath. He shouldn't feel this way around his family, but he did. Any of them could attack him right now, what had he been thinking coming in here?

He could have been upstairs talking to James, or blasting muggle rock music to piss them all off. He could have been in safety, but no, he had to poke the bear. He had to be arrogant and spiteful. He had to sink to their level. He hated them all, they brought out the worst in him.

He looked at them all individually. Regulus and Bellatrix wore matching smirks. The adults looked at him exasperatedly, like he was a toddler throwing a tantrum and nothing more. He blinked once and pasted a smile on his face.

It felt fake, and they could probably tell it was, "As always it was lovely to see you. Please be careful when you curse innocent children and puppies this week, we wouldn't want any curses to backfire and make you all hideously grotesque, would we?"

Sirius spun around, his smile dropping from his face the moment they couldn't see. He reached for the door handle. The curse smacked into his back, launching him forward.

As his vision refocused, the floor materialised in front of his face. He didn't remember falling or landing. He wasn't in pain, if you didn't count his bruised ego. The laughter grew in volume as he lifted his head, and he realised what had happened.

His mother.

Of course it was her. Her laugher was the most prominent, and the curse had her signature all over it. There was no pain initially, it had been designed to knock him to the floor and humiliate him. The moment he started to get up though, the pain began. The moment he regained some sense of pride, the curse was designed to knock him back down again.

He wouldn't let it though. He'd fought worse than this, and she knew it, being the one who put him through it. Sirius used the wall to pull himself up, ignoring the laughter and focusing on his heartbeat. He was alive, no matter what the acid spreading through his veins tried to tell him.

He yanked the door open, hoping the pain in his body wasn't obvious with every agonising step. Razor wire was threaded through his every nerve. He held his head high and walked from the room, letting the door swing closed behind him.

As soon as he was away from them, he stumbled towards the stairs, staggering up them as his vision blurred in and out of focus. He almost tripped several times. He wanted to stop and collapse, to curl into a ball until the pain stopped, or he passed out. He had to get out of the corridor though, if he was here when they began to leave, he'd be inviting them to attack.

The walk to his door seemed to grow with every step. Had his door always been this far away?

At the top of the stairs, he pushed away from the bannister, and hit the wall with a thud, sending fresh slices of pain through his body. Ignoring the steady thumping of a headache growing at his temples, he slid across the wall shamefully. He didn't feel real, he felt like he was an intruder in his own body. He felt like he was made of fire and pain and loss.

He palmed open the door, just in time to hear the voices of his relatives as they filed towards the fireplace, in the second lounge. They were still laughing. He let himself drop to his knees now, and crawl into the room.

He stopped moving as the pain reached it's max, and lay face down on the floor. He thought of his friends, hoping they'd come round soon and find him.