Hey everyone. This is story for the Return of the Chocolate Frog Cards on Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I wrote for (Gold): Sirius Black. The task was to write about Sirius Black. Here is how I thought the night Sirius Black ran away from went. I think I might have made Sirius' mother and brother a bit out of character. But I think at some point Mrs. Black must have cared for her son, Sirius and still probably did care a little when he left. I hope you enjoy The Night He Left.
I looked back only once the day I ran away from home for good. I don't know what I was looking for. Maybe I was just hoping that the people I called my parents would care enough to try to come after me. Maybe I was just taking one last look at the place I called my prison for years on years. All I know now is that it was a mistake to look back. Looking back only caused pain.
I don't remember how the argument started. Maybe it started like it usually did. My parents trying, in their mindset, to be the loving parents they made everyone else believe they were.
"Sirius," my father said as he and my mother walked into my room, "your mother and I have something to talk to you about."
I sighed as I closed the muggle magazine that I had been reading. I knew that they would have something to say about this choice in reading material but right now I didn't care. I looked at them pointedly as though to say I was listening. I knew what it was they were going to say. It was the same thing they'd been pushing for this whole summer.
"You know that you are coming of age this year," my father told me.
"You don't say," I quipped sarcastically.
"Sirius," my mother chided me, "this is serious matter. You should listen to what your father has to say."
I barked out a sarcastic laugh at her. "Of course this is Sirius matter," I barked out a laugh at my own pun. "And I know what your going to say. It's the same thing you've both said to me since I came home the first week of summer vacation."
"And will listen to it again," my father snapped furiously at me. "You are to marry the Yaxley girl and I will hear no argument against it. You will also join your brother Regulus in the Death Eater ranks. I will not be made to look a fool because of you. Do you hear me, boy?"
I snorted a laugh at this.
I could see through the mask of concern for their son that my parents held in place. I could see the rage clearly now in my father's eyes but I wasn't going to stop. I wasn't going to go back on my way of thinking. How could they say that I was wrong when they didn't even give my thoughts a second thought of their own.
"Sirius," my mother chided softly, trying to be the kind caring mother everyone outside of Grimwauld Place saw, "we only want the best for you son. You should know..."
"He should know better than to talk back to his elders," my father yelled not bothering to hide the fact that he was now pissed off at me. "He should consider himself lucky that any of friends might want to offer their daughters hands in marriage to him. You've made this family look like fools time and again."
"I didn't that," I said nonchalantly. "You and your friends make this family look like fools all by yourselves. And you've pulled my brother into it too. I wish I could say I'm sorry but I'm not. I won't do a darn thing of what you just said."
My father stood from the bottom of my bed, where he had been sitting trying to pretend at being close to his son, in a fit of rage that anyone could clearly see. "I will not be talked back to by my children in my own house," he shouted spit flying from his mouth as he spoke. "I'm am in charge here. Me. Not you. When you have a family of your own you will understand why I do the thing I do."
"When and if I have a family of my own," I shouted back at him, "I won't force my choices on them."
"You don't like the life your mother and I provide for you then you can leave," my father snapped sneering down at me as towered over my sitting form. "You have until tonight to decide. Will you make us proud and be the pureblood son we raised you to be? Or will you be the blood traitor you have turned into?" With that he whirled on his heel and left my room.
My mother, who looked to on the verge of actual tears, looked at me both of us knowing it would be for the last time. She shook her head tears falling from her eyes. I knew then that father had poisoned her mind against me. I didn't have anyone who would defend me in this house. I watched her back retreat from my room. No words had been uttered but I knew that the gauntlet had been thrown. The choice was mine.
As I packed my bag I knew the choice that I had to make. The choice that would be the saving of me. I couldn't stay in this house and live the life that they wanted me to live. I had to be free of them. Of what they wanted for me. A soft knock on my door broke me from the thoughts racing wildly through my head. Without waiting to be invited in Regulus entered the room.
I could tell just by looking at him that Regulus had been listening. These conversation usually made him break down. I could see the tear track that he had recently cried. I held out my arms to him and he walked into the embrace. Even though he was the loyal son I could tell this plot I was about to embark on would have ill affects on him too.
"Why can't you just do what they tell you to do, Sirius?" he asked me. "Like me."
"It would lie," I told him. "I can't live a lie."
He nodded sadly hugging me once more before heading to the door he had just entered from. Once he reached it he turned back towards me with a sad smile. "Take care of yourself, Sirius," he said.
"You too, little brother."
I quickly finished my packing and headed down the stairs of my old house. I knew I wouldn't miss this place. It was everything this family was in almost every aspect. It was cold and forbidding and miserable. I opened the door of Grimwauld Place with air of finality. I would never come back here if there was anything I could do about.
As I walked down the street to the place that James and Mr. Potter had agreed to me, I couldn't help but look back towards the home I was leaving. There was Regulus sitting glumly on the steps leading into the house looking more and more the clod lonely figure I had just made.
I hope you can forgive me brother, I thought as I rounded the corner to see my new family waiting to take me home.
I hope you enjoyed The Night He Left.