"Sirius Black!"

Thwack.

Sirius groaned, a red haze thundering behind his eyelids as he recovered from the severe smack he had just given his head on the bottom of his desk. His hand closed tightly, crinkling the picture of the bikini-clad muggle girl that he had been crawling underneath his desk to retrieve—the relatives were coming over and he needed to make sure his room was properly set up to embarrass Walburga.

"Sirius Black!" shrieked his mother again from the downstairs hallway.

"I'm coming!" tore from his lungs furiously. He always had to yell in this house, no one would ever listen otherwise.

Head throbbing, he pulled himself up onto the bed and set the picture of the muggle-girl down on the bed, trying to smooth it out unsuccessfully. Man, she was beautiful. He looked at the smiling, dark eyes of the girl he had snipped out one of his father's magazines and hoped that maybe one day, he would find someone like that. Someone with eyes that were dark and kind, someone with eyes that radiated that inexplicable feeling of warmth. He sighed, giving up hope on fixing the photo as he balled it up in his right hand and tossed it vaguely towards the waste bin on the other side of his room. He'd done a good job this year. Looking around his room, he could barely find a square inch of his walls that wasn't covered in Gryffindor banners, motorcycle posters or cutouts of girls in bikinis. While he didn't EXCLUSIVELY like muggle-girls, they were the ones that covered his walls in the vast majority…mostly because he knew how much it pissed off his mother.

"Sirius Bl…"

"COMING!" He roared down the stairs. Dear God, the woman was a nightmare.

He stood up, pain still dully throbbing through the backside of his head as he ran a hand through his curls, took a deep breath, and headed downstairs. Christmas. Why had he come back again? The thought had honestly been plaguing him ever since stepped off the train at Kings Crossing and realized that no one coming to pick him up—he hadn't had any muggle money for a taxi, so he'd had to catch a ride with the Potters on the way home. They, of course, were sweet about the whole situation, but it was still embarrassing having to have your mate's family take you home when no one from yours had bothered to come pick you up. But honestly, what had he been expecting? While he'd never exactly been the golden child in the eyes of his parents, things had just been getting worse and worse ever since Regulus had gotten into Slytherin. Now that they were sure there would be at least one suitable "Black family heir", there really wasn't any reason for his parents to try anymore. They obviously hadn't expected him to come back for the holidays; he had seen the surprise etched all over Walburga's puckered face as he'd thrown open the door and dragged his suitcases up the stairs after the Potter's had dropped him off. He was honestly just surprised that they hadn't tried to turn his room into something more useful yet, like a house-elf workstation…or maybe a linen-closet. Maybe that's why he had come back; just one more way to show his parents that he wasn't going to do what they wanted him to do. Which in this case…meant coming home to see them over the holidays. Trying to rebel in this family was weird.

Or maybe he had come back for Regulus. He never saw him around Hogwarts, and honestly, he kind of missed him. Even though his relationship with his parents was a resounding shit-show, he'd always gotten along with his little brother. It's not like he hated him for being their parent's favorite; while Sirius could fight with Walburga about most things, she did have one thing right—Regulus was definitely the better child. He was smart and funny and …..sweet. Something that he himself had never been. His mind flew back to the prank he had pulled on Snivellus earlier that year and he could feel his stomach start sinking, tightening up the same way it always did when he started to think about what could have happened if James hadn't been there. He honestly hadn't meant any harm —or at least, no permanent harm—by what he had done; he had just let himself get carried away, again. It felt like there was this vengeful, mean-spirited side of himself constantly lurking in the back of his brain, just waiting to claw its way to the surface the moment he let his guard down. He could feel it bubbling at the edge of his mouth every time he smirked; he was terrified that one day he would look into the mirror and see the same petty hate shining through his eyes that he saw so blatantly reflected in his mothers.

The knot in his stomach grew even tighter as he reached the bottom of the stairs and saw his mother poised at the door, lips pursed in anger as she waited for the last member of the Black family, himself, to arrive in the hallway. Good God that woman could shoot daggers. He carefully kept his face nonchalant and he sauntered over to find a place standing next to his father, who seemed impatient to get this whole thing over with. Sirius felt the urge to run a hand through his hair again, something he always did when he was nervous, but kept them firmly at his side, afraid to betray any of his true feelings to Walburga. He quietly took another deep breath and tried to catch the eye of Regulus as his mother painted on a fake smile, twisted the handle and opened the door to invite the relatives inside. This was going to be fun.