PLEASE NOTE: If any readers see this exact story on Wattpad, please know that it was originally posted to that site around two years ago (as of 2015), but has now been made available here because this site is solely focused on fanfics- which is great and better for my stories. I was/still am the author of this trilogy on both FF and Wattpad- it hasn't been copied from either site to the other by someone trying to take any works as their own. Just a notice so there is no confusion :)

"Sirius, get down here this instant!" Sirius Black heard the shrill calls of his mother coming from downstairs. He rolled over in his bed and tried to shut out the noise, "Sirius, come down now! Your brother has been awake for an hour, why do find it so hard to come and eat breakfast at a reasonable hour?"

Sirius got out of his bed and dressed. His room was very different to any other in the Black family house. The walls were plastered with Gryffindor banners of red and gold, which covered most of the silk papered walls. He was the only Gryffindor in his family, who were all in the green and silver house of Slytherin. Other posters accompanied the banners, they had pictures of his favourite Quidditch team, the Tutshill Tornadoes, and muggle motorbikes, which Sirius put there especially to annoy his mother.

He wondered how many times she had tried to redecorate his room while he was at Hogwarts. He had put a Permanent Sticking Charm on the back of each and every one of the posters when he was thirteen, that was three years ago, and his mother still hadn't managed to do so much as to peel a corner off the bedroom wall.

Sirius headed down stairs for breakfast and found his mother, father and brother, Regulus, sitting in the large, grand-looking dining room.

"There you are, sit down and eat. I want to leave for Diagon Alley soon, and I will not wait around for you to lay about", Sirius's mother said as he walked in.

"Good morning to you as well, Mother", Sirius said with obvious sarcasm. He assumed that his Hogwarts letter had arrived, considering his mother's desire to go to Diagon Alley.

Sirius's family did not entirely like him. In fact they hated him, detested him, they thought there had never been a more good-for-nothing person in the Black family. Sirius hated them just as much as they hated him. The Black family was a pure-blood family, they were dark wizards and witches. Sirius, on the other hand, loathed dark magic and didn't care about how much magical blood someone had.

He was friends with a muggle born, a half blood, and a blood traitor. He did not think muggles and everyone else who was not a pure blood were filthy animals. These were mostly the reasons that his family hated him. If anyone half decent in the family was born, and they decided to marry someone who was not pure blood, or help someone who was already disowned, they would be disowned as well.

The Black family were all very wealthy, and lived in fancy houses and mansions throughout Britain, as well as a crazy old uncle called Marius who lived in a castle on a mountain somewhere in Russia, because, being a squib, had been disowned as a child. Sirius's father, Orion Black was the only male child in his family as he only had a sister named Lucretia, so when Sirius's grandfather died, he inherited the original Black family house, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. The house was unplottable and had every protection charm on it so no muggles could ever find it. The house shared adjoined walls with Number Eleven and Thirteen. However, it could not be seen unless an occupant living there stood in front of it on the street. The house would then slide out from between Eleven and Thirteen and they could walk in.

Sirius and Regulus looked a lot like their father. Sirius was sixteen and Regulus was fourteen. They both had the same long, dark hair and grey eyes. They both had the good looks that most people of the pure blood families possessed. Sirius, though, was a lot more handsome than his brother, who was also shorter than Sirius had been at fourteen.

Sirius picked up some toast when his mother announced his O.W.L results and booklist had indeed arrived with the family owl, Vultoria.

"Here, open it so we can see how stupid you are", Regulus smirked as he threw an envelope across the table so that it almost landed in Sirius's porridge.

Sirius tore open the envelope, he was not that concerned, he was one of the cleverest students in Hogwarts, and his marks would be fine. There was his booklist and the usual reminder that term started on September the 1st, another piece of parchment was there, his results. They read:

ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVEL RESULTS

Pass Grades: Outstanding (O) Exceeds Expectations (E) Acceptable (A)

Fail Grades: Poor (P) Dreadful (D) Troll (T)

SIRIUS ORION BLACK HAS ACHIEVED:

Arithmancy: E

Astronomy: O

Care of Magical Creatures: E

Charms: O

Defence Against the Dark Arts: O

Divination: P

Herbology: O

History of Magic: P

Potions: O

Transfiguration: O

Sirius was happy with his marks, six Outstandings and eight O. all up. His ambition to become an Auror (some of his families' worst nightmare) could definitely become a reality. He had passed all the necessary subjects.

"Sirius, are you not going to show me your results?" Asked his father.

Sirius got up and walked over to the head of the table where his mother and father sat and set the parchment down on the table.

"Well..." his mother peered at his marks over his father's shoulder with a disdainful look on her face, "I suppose you have done reasonably well. I honestly have no idea why they insist on teaching you this rubbish, Defence Against the Dark Arts."

"I don't know, in case You-Know-Who decides he wants to do me in", Sirius said coolly.

Sirius snatched the parchment back and headed back down the long table to finish his toast in silence. You-Know-Who was, of course, Lord Voldemort. He had been in power for six years. He believed in the purification of the wizarding race and that pure blood wizards should rule over muggles.

The Black family were great supporters of this anti-muggle movement. It was only Sirius and a very few others in the family who were against Voldemort and his infamous followers; the Death Eaters.

Voldemort would go around killing and torturing muggles and muggle borns, or anyone who stood up to him. This actually gave Sirius a very good reason to be learning Defence Against the Dark Arts.

After breakfast, the House Elf, Kreacher, came to clear away. Kreacher shared the Black families' great dislike of all things good and nice, and Sirius. He purposely stood on Sirius's toes, who then hit him over the head and left the dining room before his mother realised what he had done. Sirius walked along the hallway and up the staircase where all the Black family House Elves' heads hung on little plaques. It was Sirius's Aunt Elladora who had started the tradition of beheading them when they got too old to carry tea trays.

Sirius continued up to his room on the topmost floor. Opposite his brother's room, which had a neatly hand written sign on it that said Do Not Enter With-out the Express Permission of Regulus Arcturus Black.

"Little prat", muttered Sirius as he walked into his own bedroom.

He started to dig through his wardrobe, pulling out his Hogwarts and Quidditch robes. He packed them in his school trunk, along with a motorcycle maintenance manual, everything except his broom. His parents didn't even know he owned a broom. He was Keeper for the Gryffindor Quidditch team and had been since his second year at Hogwarts, and had received a Thunderbow broom for his twelfth birthday, from his best friend, James Potter. Every holidays, James would take the broom to his home, so Sirius's parents had never seen the thing in their lives.

Sirius finished stuffing a pair of socks into the corner of his school trunk and sighed as he heard his mother call out to him.

"Sirius, come down now. We are leaving for Diagon Alley", shouted Sirius's mother from down the stairs as he rearranged one of his Gryffindor ties.

Sirius wound up the tie and threw it unceremoniously into the trunk, before getting up and moving downstairs.

His mother was standing in the hallway with Regulus, wearing her black traveling cloak which was fastened with an emerald encrusted broach in the shape of a serpent's head. An heirloom passed down from Sirius's grandmother, Melania, who, in her last days, had sent Sirius a giant spider in a box. He had thrown it out his bedroom window when it had attempted to bite his face off, which was not an odd thing for gifts from his family to try and do.

"Ah, there you are Sirius", She said, "Hold my arm".

Regulus obeyed and Sirius reluctantly followed, bracing himself for Side-Along Apparition. He felt a great force pushing against him from all sides as he was dragged into darkness. The extremely unpleasant sensation of what seemed to be like being forced through a thin pipe ended when Sirius felt his feet touch solid ground. He opened his eyes, which he had screwed shut, to see that he, Regulus and his mother had Apparated into the Middle of Diagon Alley. Sirius immediately let go of his mother's arm as his father appeared next to them, having just Apparated there himself.

Sirius looked around, Diagon Alley looked the same as it had for the past few years. There were notices and signs displaying safety measures to be taken against the Dark Arts, and the faces of wanted Death Eaters lashed out from yellowed posters. There were also little stalls lining the edges of the street, selling protective amulets and potion ingredients, none of which were very likely to work. Some of the shops had been closed, their owners in hiding from Voldemort. Other shops had been ransacked by the Death Eaters, the owners killed or captured. Just like Fernleafe's; Suppliers of Magical Plants, that had been up and running two years ago, before it was attacked. Wilkin Fernleafe was never seen again. Now the shop sat exactly the same way it had been the morning after the attack, with the windows shattered and the plants, now long dead, strewn all over the place, the dulling green paint peeling. No-one had come to clean up, the Ministry of Magic was too busy panicking about Voldemort. No-one had bought the shop either, there was not a particularly high market for businesses in Diagon Alley. Not that it was a bad place, no, that was Knocturn Alley. There were hardly any attacks there, although that may have been due to the fact that half the people there were Death Eaters themselves, as well as others who supported Voldemort.

Sirius, with his parents and Regulus, went around to buy his school supplies. First, they went to Flourish and Blotts to get his and his brother's new text books. They then went to Twillfitts and Tattings to buy Regulus some new dress robes. Sirius refused anything his mother suggested for him, opting for his Muggle clothing, rather than the ugly and sullen looking dress robes she found so suiting for a young wizard of his blood status. The family of four did make their way into the apothecary, but stocks were very low, meaning there was no unicorn horn for Sirius to use in Potions.

Once they had finished in Diagon Alley, Sirius's mother led them into Knocturn Alley. Sirius tried to slip away and go back to Diagon Alley to look in Quality Quidditch Supplies, but was spotted turning the corner. After his third attempt, and his father grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and moving in front of the others, he gave up and went with them.

"I have to get something from Borgin and Burkes", said his mother, "While I'm there, I don't want any trouble from you, Sirius".

"Oh, okay, and while I'm there do want Regulus to teach me how to tie my shoes and use a knife and fork?" Sirius knew he was pushing his luck by saying this, but he was always treated second best to his brother, "Although, I doubt he's smart enough to teach anyone how to even count to three."

"Sirius, don't you dare speak to you mother like that!" Sirius's father raised his hand in warning, and Sirius fell quiet.

He always got this from his parents, being treated as if Regulus was a perfect angel and he was a badly behaved pet, although, he thought the pet might get treated better than him, at least Kreacher did, anyway. This wasn't half as bad as when his father was feeling particularly nasty and used very painful curses on him for using magic away from Hogwarts when he caught him. Of course, it would be normal to punish him for that, but not the way he did. After his father found him trying to light a Filibuster's firework in Regulus's room, his knee joints had never been the same since. Sometimes he thought they were still a little backwards looking.

They stopped outside an old, shabby building. The sign said: Borgin and Burkes, Sellers of Rare Magical Artefacts Since 1854. By 'Rare Magical Artefacts', Sirius knew they meant dangerous objects for the use in dark magic, or home wears that liked to bite or do very sinister things to people. In other words, this shop sold things that his parents would undoubtedly take a liking to.

His father gave him a threatening look before leading his family into the shop.

A rustling noise came from behind a large vanishing cabinet and the shop owner, Borgin, stepped out from his dusting.

"How may I help you, Mr and Mrs Black?" he asked in a greasy voice.

"I am here to collect the order I placed prior", said Sirius's mother in an exceptional display of disdain.

"Yes, of course madam", snivelled Borgin, "If you will please step this way".

"Don't touch anything, Sirius," his mother instructed before following Borgin and Sirius's father up to the counter.

Sirius looked around the shop. There was a jar of shrunken heads, a large crystal ball painted like an eye, and a showcase of little bottles filled with what was most likely some of the deadliest poisons known to wizard kind. He noticed Regulus examining a shrivelled old hand on a wooden plaque.

"What's that you're looking at, something to keep you company while you're at Hogwarts?" Sirius asked him.

"Very funny, but I have friends, no this is something else, and it's none of your business", Regulus replied haughtily.

"Think it will help you get in the Death Eaters' good books, do you", Sirius said coolly, "Think it will get you a chance to join the inner circle of Voldemort's?"

"Don't say his name!" Regulus whispered urgently.

"Why? Are you frightened, Regulus?" asked Sirius, sneering at his brother, "Are you frightened of the man you want as a master for the rest of your life? Some way to live, that is."

"Being part of the Dark Lord's forces would be a far better way to live than to die fighting him, which is where you're heading", said Regulus, moving closer to his brother, speaking quietly.

"Why? Why don't you see how it's wrong? How it's wrong to kill people for the reasons Voldemort does?" asked Sirius, he was trying to sway his brother's view, as he had tried many times, "Is it because our mother and father are feeding you all these stupid lies? About Pureblood supremacy, and- and-"

Sirius's search for the right words ended abruptly as his parent came towards the two brothers from where they had been standing at the counter.

"Come, both of you", their mother demanded, and Regulus followed obediently, looking back at Sirius with a troubled look on his face.

Sirius had been trying to change his brother's mind about Voldemort for the past two years. Regulus was only fourteen, and he was already certain that he wanted to join the dark side in the wizarding war. But Sirius remembered his brother from when they were young. Regulus had been his friend and play-mate. Regulus was not a bad person, but he had been told many evil lies by his mother and father, and had believed them far too quickly for Sirius's liking.

Sirius stared at the back of his brother's dark head and thought about this, as his parents lead them back into Diagon Alley and Dissaparated.

##

That evening, Sirius was reading his motorbike manual in the secluded and empty drawing room when his mother came in. She looked surprised to see him there, as if he was something nasty a cat might leave on someone's doorstep. She seemed to decide that it was best to ignore him and that he might just disappear. Sirius was happy to go back to the chapter on basic mechanical maintenance and ignore his mother as she ignored him. He did, however, take interest when he saw she was holding the parcel she had got from Borgin and Burkes.

He watched over the top of his book as his mother unwrapped it. The brown paper came away to reveal a large rectangular box, the kind you might keep envelopes in. It was made from what looked like silver. It had a row of teeth like spikes along the edge of the lid, and Sirius could only imagine what they would be for as his mother set the box down on a little side table and walked out.

Sirius's curiosity got the better of him and he crossed the room to look at it. The box was ornately decorated with carvings of snakes and dragons. He noticed the spikes were razor sharp and decided he wouldn't use his hands to open it.

He quickly ran downstairs to the kitchen. His dinner was bubbling away on the fire while Kreacher was off cleaning. Sirius crept over to the bench where he saw a wooden spoon lying there. He snatched it up and stuffed it inside his jacket before proceeding back upstairs to the box.

Sirius took out the wooden spoon and prodded the box. The lid opened a little then snapped shut. He put the spoon under the lid and flipped it open. He fell over when he saw what was inside. He got back up and looked into the bottomless pit of blue fire that resided within the box. He dropped the wooden spoon in. It did not hit the bottom of the box but fell all the way into the fire.

"Enlargement charm I s'pose", Sirius said as he watched a little cloud of ash fly out of the box before the lid snapped shut, almost taking his hand off.

The box would come in handy. Especially when he got letters from school for using magic at home.

That night, dinner was an interesting event; Kreacher seemed to have lost his precious wooden spoon. He had to use and old ladle and was in a very bad mood. Sirius on the other hand, found it very funny and was trying hard not to have soup spray out his nose from laughing.

After dinner Kreacher openly accused Sirius of spoon theft. Sirius ran from the dining room before his father could hex him and went upstairs to bed. He was excited, tomorrow he could get out of his parents' horrible house and back to his friends and Hogwarts.

##

"Master Sirius, you must wake up. Kreacher's mistress wants you downstairs", a small croaky voice was shouting into Sirius's ear and someone was tugging on his sleeve.

"Wha-", Sirius looked down to see Kreacher standing next to his bed jumping up and down, and telling him to wake up, "I'm up, I'm up".

Sirius shoved the elf out of the room, "Yes, yes, I'm awake now", and under his breath, "And tell the old hag that she can stop sending her House Elf creeping around my room".

He got dressed and headed down to breakfast.

"Sirius, be quick. We need to reach the train by today, thank you", his mother greeted him in the usual manner.

He bolted down some toast for breakfast, and before he had time to brush the crumbs off his shirt, his mother had swept him and Regulus out into the hallway. They all went up to the finest and most spacious dining room, which had the largest fire place. Their trunks were waiting, set against the wall, along with a handsome barn owl, which belonged to Regulus, and was named Lokin.

Sirius's father took a small chest off the mantel piece and opened it. The substance inside resembled a greenish coloured ash. He pinched some out and threw it in the fire. The fire turned a bright green and crackled loudly.

"Sirius, you go first", he demanded, "And I want to see you waiting for us out the other end".

"Fat chance of that", Sirius said quietly as he took his trunk stepped into the fire. It tickled his feet but did not burn him. He shouted, "Platform nine and three quarters".

He started to spin, around and around. Different fire places flick across his field of vision while he tried to keep his elbows from hitting the bricks that surrounded him. Suddenly, he stopped and he stumbled out onto platform nine and three quarters.

Most witches and wizards entered Kings Cross Station to gain access to Platform nine and three quarters. However, there were two relatively unused fire places that had been built in the earlier days of the platform's creation, to cater for those who did not wish to walk through a station packed with Muggles.

Sirius set off at a fast walk, away from the platform fire places. He had no intention of staying to wait for his family. They really shouldn't have trusted him to stay there. A magnificent scarlet steam engine sat on the tracks beside the platform, waiting for young witches and wizards, to take them to their common destination, it was the Hogwarts Express.

Sirius searched through the crowd looking for his friends. He stopped when he saw over the sea of people, a head of untidy black hair. Very untidy black hair. It was his friend, James Potter.