A/N: So, this is actually the second story in a series that I'm creating. The first one (found in my profile) is called Burden Of Blood and centers on Narcissa Malfoy nee Black, during her child-hood. This one, as I'm sure you've all already realized, focuses on Sirius Black, during his child-hood.
Like so much else that I've written for this fandom lately, this was given to me as a challenge over on the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenge forum. It's a blast there, so go check it out!
It's hard, being a pure-blood.
(oh, we know, you don't believe us.)
Growing up in a family with a legacy means that there is always something that must be strived for. It is not just making a mother or father proud, it is about making an entire clan proud. And, oh, Sirius was so very far off from doing any of that.
Making any part of his family proud, that is. He's already a pure-blood, and that he had no choice in.
-x-x-x-x-
Sirius has a room on the second floor of the Black House, and by the time he is ten years old and up, this is where he spends most of his time. At this point in his life, his family has few hope that they will have a succesor in their eldest child.
Instead, they have finally begun to train Regulas in the ways of old.
(and there are many lessons to be learned, you see, because the Black's are an anciant family)
That's just fine with Sirius, of course. He hates the idea of having to parade around in a stiff robe all day, with a benign and totally fake smile curved on his lips. The local gossip doesn't interest him, like it does his mother, and never has, never will, why should he care who his cousin has been given away too?
Curled up on the top of his bed, with the door closed and the shutters pulled, heavy green blanket pulled up over his head, he tells himself that he doesnt. Narcissa and he have never gotten along, after all, and politics don't interest him.
Still, deep inside, Sirius knows that he does care. Mostly because, in a single year, he will be in Narcissa's shoes and his mother, Walburga, will be hand-picking a bride for him.
-x-x-x-x-
A year later, Sirius' is proven correct.
(but isn't he always? he knows his family so well, after all)
Partially, at least. Walburga hasn't selected the bride. His father, Orion, has. And when Regulas informs him that, from outside of Sirius' barred door, all the joy that recieving his letter to Hogwarts had brought vanishes.
After all, he doesn't get along with his father - who only cares about image and pride and, tell him again, why don't you agree with my thoughts? Far too often, a younger Sirius fell into that honey-tinged trap of words. Far too often, he felt the lash of a non-existant whip, carving very real and very visible scars to criss-cross their way along his back.
So it's with a heavy heart and leaden legs that Sirius clambers out of his bed. He stops to pull on robes, his good ones, because that's what Orion is expecting to see. Then he pushes his door open and glances slightly in Regulas' direction.
The younger Black isn't looking at him, but that in its self is enough to let Sirius know that his brother is upset for him.
-x-x-x-x-
Her name is Zerlinda Flint, and they say that he name means dawn. Sirius has always associated that word with beautiful things, like sunrise and salamanders and things that are bright and bold.
Zerlinda, he decides when his mother shows him a picture of her, is certainly not fitting for any of those categories.
She is pinch-faced and buck-toothed. Sallow skin is highlighted in the bad light of the photo, and the hand that she waves, back and forth, back and forth, bears nails that are so long they curl downwards.
It's her eyes that bother him, though. They are the same eyes that loom out at him from screaming portraits, casting judgement just because he sees things a little differently.
(the eyes of a pure-blood, says Orion, are something that he happens to lack)
-x-x-x-x-
He doesn't want to marry Zerlinda Flint, nor does he have any attention of going into Slytherin.
(which is where his entire family, his legacy, has gone)
No, Sirius doesn't want that. Not at all. He wants Gryffindor - because they are the bold and the brave and the loyal, and hasn't he always wanted to know someone that was loyal to him? Not because he was a Black, or Orion's son, but just because they liked who he was?
Yes, it is. That's why, when his mother sees him off to the station that year, he doesn't say goodbye to her. Doesn't hunt out his fellow green-blooded, like she told him to. No, he finds a compartment with an older boy dressed in black and red and gold, a younger one in all black with bright green eyes.
When you're a pure-blood, you are said to be loyal to family above all else. Sirius finds it hard to be loyal to a family that scorns him solely for being himself.