A/n- This is something I hadn't planned on writing but I just opened the laptop and an hour and a half later, I had this on my screen with absolutely no idea of how it happened
For The Ultimate Battle Competition.
Hope you like it.
A Vow Not Kept.
The six year old boy sat on the floor, shivering, against his bed. His cheeks were strained with tears, his eyes were closed and he had his hands on his ears.
Sirius Black struggled hard not to hear the crashing sounds coming from downstairs. He struggled not to listen as his mother and father fought and hit each other.
Fighting was the only thing they did without using magic.
But despite trying not to listen, he kept track of every crash and every creak, waiting for it to stop, hoping that he wouldn't hear the sound of his door opening.
His parents easily got tired of each other, whether they were happy or angry, and sometimes he was the one who took the anger.
He prayed and hoped that his father wouldn't come up, prayed harder that his mother won't, either.
Sometimes, he thought, she liked hitting him more than his father did.
Suddenly the sounds stopped, he could hear the faint voices, but there was no more fighting, but he didn't dare hope that it was over, and his heart sank when he heard his door open a few moments later.
He gathered all his courage up to take the hits without crying, it only angered them more, he braced himself for the wounds he would have to hide for the next few days, he readied himself for everything that would follow in the next few seconds.
"Sir...Sirius?" A voice called out, but to his relief and dismay, it wasn't angry, it was sad.
And it wasn't his mother or his father.
It was his little brother.
He looked up from the floor, where he'd been sitting, and found Regulus, all five years of him, crying with a hand etched in red across his cheek.
"Come here," he urged his brother, and watched as Regulus walked across the room and sank down to the floor beside him, as tears streamed down his injured face.
"What happened?" He asked his little brother, softly.
"I... I heard voices and," His brother said, hiccups interrupting his words, "And... I went downstairs to see...to see what was happening, and I... I found them fighting, he... he got angrier when he saw me, I thi...think. He said that... that I wasn't supposed to be there and that kids should...should never interrupt their parents and... and that Black's should have better manners than that and then... then he slapped me."
Sirius's heart ached as he realised that he'd been so involved in fearing for himself that he'd forgotten about his brother.
He wrapped his arms around Regulus and held tight as his brother cried, tears streaming down his own face.
"Reg," he said, to his little brother when he'd calmed down a little, "Never, ever go down when they are fighting, okay? Come to my room instead, alright? Promise me."
Regulus nodded and leaned back against the bed, Sirius looked at the red –hand etched on his little brother's face and made a vow to himself that, this was the only slap Regulus would receive, that he would never, ever, let his brother face this again.
5 Years Later.
The eleven year old boy was sitting on the floor against his bed again, but this time he wasn't shivering, or crying, this time he was staring at the wall in front of him with an empty expression on his face.
Sirius Black heard his door open again, he didn't look, he knew who it was going to be, his parents had stopped coming to his room since he'd stopped fighting them and it had stopped being satisfying for them.
His ten year old brother came and sat down silently beside him, like he'd been doing for the last five years whenever the fights started up again.
"What are they going on about this time?" He asked, bouncing a ball against the wall.
"Something about the another woman that Father has been seen with," his brother replied, shrugging and picking up another ball to bounce it against the wall, too, "Mother is going on about how he should keep his 'businesses' hidden and in secret, she doesn't want the Black reputation to be tainted."
Sirius snorted, he found it extremely funny that the woman was more worried about her stellar reputation than about the fact that her husband was having an affair.
It'd been only this year that he'd realised that not all relationships were like this, Mr and Mrs Potter had taught him that even in this world, there were people who cared about each other more than what other people thought about them.
Mr and Mrs Potter had also taught him that not all parents liked to hit their little kids for their own satisfaction.
"They've been doing this a lot, you know," remarked Regulus, never even looking at Sirius, "Since you left, they've been fighting a lot about the house you were sorted in, then it was about a man mother had began seeing, it seems like they've been fighting every second day now."
His brother said all of this as if he was telling him what the day was today, and that's what told Sirius how bad things had been since he'd left.
His little brother, who once , couldn't talk about this without crying, was now unaffected, as if he'd gotten used to all this.
It made Sirius feel extremely guilty because while he'd been gone having the best two months of his life, his brother was left alone to suffer through the hell that was this place.
"You'll be out of here soon," he promised his brother, not knowing what else to say, "You'll be at Hogwarts, with me, and I know that you'll be sorted into Gryffindor, because you might even be braver than I am. And I know you will absolutely love James, and even Remus, he's a little quite but he can be fun too..."
And as Sirius talked about his amazing life and even more amazing friends at school, he never even realized that to Regulus, it seemed as though he'd lost his big brother, the only friend he had in this world.
5 Years Later
The sixteen year old boy was packing his bags, his closet was empty, his clothes were all wrapped up in his trunk, he'd just started to empty his drawers when his bedroom door opened.
Sirius was surprised to see his brother walk into his room, the brother that he hadn't talked to in the last five years, not since the difference between Gryffindor and Slytherin had become the differences between them.
"So, you are really leaving?" He asked, looking at the bare room, with the walls covered in outrageous posters, and at the bursting trunk on the bed.
"Yes, I'm really leaving," Sirius replied, not knowing what his brother was doing here, not knowing whether it made him happier or sad that the only reason his brother was here was because they were never going to see each other again.
At least, not from the same side of a wand.
"And you're really joining?" Sirius asked, but he already knew the answer, from tomorrow his brother and him would have nothing in common, not even this house.
Sirius would leave, and Regulus would get a mark on his arm that would forever create a wall between them.
A wall that not even death would be able to tear down.
"Yes, I'm really joining," Regulus replied, though Sirius could see that even though his brother was fully committed to his leader, he still was conflicted about the consequences.
Sirius wished he could stop him, wished he could tell him that it wasn't the right thing to do, that Voldemort wasn't the answer, that this wasn't who he was, that this wasn't a way to win his parent's love.
But he knew his words won't be welcomed or appreciated.
Not when he was the outlaw and Regulus was the golden boy.
"Where are you going to go?" His brother asked, and he didn't know if he wanted to know if he was concerned or if he wanted to know where to send something Sirius might've left behind.
"The Potters," Sirius replied, "It's about time I left. There's nothing, no one left here for me to stay for, anyway."
"You're right," Regulus replied, "No one to stay for."
Sirius knew what his brother meant by that remark, it was why he'd said it. Regulus knew, as well as he did, that they could never go back to what they used to be, no matter how much they wanted to.
Sirius could see it in his brother's eyes, he could still see traces on that five year old who had once came into this room crying with a hand etched on his face.
But he'd been overpowered by who he was expected to be, Regulus Black had been turned to the puppet Sirius had decided he would never become.
Sirius wished he could've done more, done something that would change the way they stood there in his room staring at each other like that.
He wished he and his brothers weren't strangers.
Regulus sighed, said nothing and walked out of that door, and that was the day Sirius Black lost his brother, not to death, but to a choice that had been a long time coming, and a choice that had changed their lives, forever.
And that was when he remembered that vow that he hadn't been able to keep.
All reviews would be appreciated!