Sirius walked to the bus stop nearly two miles from Grimmauld Place, hoping that nobody would notice he was gone until it was too late. In order to get out of the house, away from Bellatrix and Regulus and whoever decided to come visit that day, he had forged his mum's signature to join the public kindergarten class. It gave him an excuse to get as far away from the people who tormented him all day and night every single day and just take a break from the pathetic reality that was his life. There was nobody else waiting at the streetlight with the bus stop sign on it when he got there, but he hadn't anticipated meeting anybody there, for it was nearly three hours early. He sat down on the sidewalk in the glowing orange light, watching the occasional car pass. There was a faint line of light coming up in the east as the sun began its daily path across the sky. It wasn't that he WANTED to go, it was just only thing he thought he could do to elude the taunting and threats he got on an hourly basis.
"They won't care where I went as long as I'm not in their way and it doesn't cost anything. I can't get in trouble because there's nothing left that they can do to me," he said quietly, examining a large bruise on his arm and turning his attention back to the streetlight, watching the many cockroaches crawl across the glass, then get fried when they got too close to the light bulb. He winced when a particularly large roach received a particularly loud zap and laughed when it landed a few feet in front of him, still trying to walk. It got up and scurried away and he was strangely amused by its unintended antics.
"Maybe they won't notice if I never go back. It's not like they care, they just wouldn't have somebody to torture everyday. Where could I go, though? The only person in my so-called family is Alphard, but he has enough on his plate already, considering what happened last time I asked him something stupid like that." He had to admit that it was, indeed, a useless and completely lifeless idea that only an extremely desperate and rash person would do, which he realized he sort of was to have thought of it in the first place. He had no money, no idea where he would go, and a little over four years until he could go to Hogwarts. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair, remembering the last episode he had caused between Alphard and everybody else: even his own wife had been against him.
"How worthless am I?"
Sirius couldn't believe how awful the morning had gone. He stared up at the ceiling of the bus filled with Muggle kids heading towards a kindergarten class he didn't want to go to, but had signed himself up for anyway. He remembered walking to the bus stop and the older kid who had been about ten years old coming over and calling him names, then the boy had soared ten feet into the air, landing in a nearby tree. As the bus turned the corner, he had screamed something about Death Eaters beng after Sirius because of what he had done, making all of the other kids stare in disbelief and shock at him. He groaned and threw his head back, trying to ignore the nervous and angry looks from everybody else on the bus. They all sat in the front, usually four or five to a seat, terrified of what else he might be able to do to them. It was silent at the back of the bus, whereas there was a constant roar in the front from all of the whispers coming from the kids. Occasionally he would catch a word, like "hypnosis" or "telepathy" and he just rolled his eyes; it reminded him exactly how clueless Muggles could be.
'Why did I HAVE to do that?' he thought, glancing out the window as the bus stopped to give another group of students a ride to their doom. Three girls dressed in neon pink and pale yellow climbed the steps at the front, their blond hair reflecting the sunlight while a younger boy with wild jet black hair and silver glasses tried and failed to board the bus twice, finally jumping on the final try. He staggered down the aisle, looking drunk and ignoring the whispers from the other kids. The girls sat down in the first available row, following the example set by the other kids and wanting nothing to do with the strange kid who sat at the back of the bus. The boy, however, went to the back seat and sat down next to Sirius, much to his dismay; he pretended to have not noticed the boy, hoping he would go away and instead examined what may have been the largest (and most hideous) collection of garden gnomes on the planet.
"Hi, are you in the kindergarten program?" the boy asked, watching Sirius with interest. He nodded and stared at the seat in front of him. "I finally found somebody then. Umbridge?"
"What?" Sirius asked, looking at him like he was just out of a mental institution.
"Are you in Umbridge's class? I am and I heard she's about as a friendly as a rock, about as interesting as one, too. She's a really batty old thing." Sirius shrugged and the boy grinned, looking as evil as a Death Eater on a killing spree.
"What gave you that idea?" he asked, glancing at all of the kids and the bus driver glaring at them.
"She's only passed about twenty kids in the last eighteen years. Who in their right mind would keep something like that around for that long? I'd rather have Volde..." he said, looking shocked that he had slipped up.
"Voldemort, yeah," Sirius replied, wanting to laugh at the look of relief on the boy's face. "You had better watch that or you'll have Muggles wanting to hear everything and the Ministry after you."
"Good idea. Mum would kill me if she found out what happened. I'm James Potter, and you're... Sirus Black, right?" he asked, shooting a glance at all of the people at the front of the old bus.
"Sirius. I get that a lot. Bloody family names," he answered as the ugly, peeling yellow vehicle made it's last stop to retrieve passengers.
"Sorry about that. Yeah, stupid honorable names, anyway," James replied, grinning and losing his glasses as the bus driver realized that there weren't any kids at the bus stop and hit the gas pedal. He dropped down onto the floor and started crawling around like a rather awkward spider as Sirius picked them up from the floor about a foot away. They were completely flawless in any way and made from pure silver, which glittered in the sunlight as the bus sped along the road. He recognized the well-known family crest imprinted upon the frame and realized that James was a pureblood, a member of one of the most wealthy and powerful wizarding families ever.
"Are you looking for these?" he asked as James began searching under a row of seats about five feet away, to the disgust of the girls who had gotten on at the same stop he had.
"I think so." He came back and took the glasses, then wiped them off and started looking for any kind of damage imaginable. "If anything happens to these, Mum'll have my head on a plaque above the fireplace." The bus driver slammed on the brakes and all of the kids screamed as the bus came to a sudden halt. James clutched his glasses and looked like he wished death upon the driver since he almost dropped them again.
"This is going to be fun."
