Chapter 1:The Muggle
Sirius
The second worst day of the year has arrived. Regulus's birthday. The one day a year where wizards and witches all sharing the last name Black fly in from all over the world to visit us in our house that to the naked eye, does not exist, to give dear Regulus all sorts of fantastic, expensive gifts and deliver praise upon praise on top of his small, practically bald head and tell him how wonderfully he's living up to the Black Family Name.
'What's that?' I hear you say, if that's the second worst day of the year, then what, pray tell, is the worst? Well my dear friends, the worst day of the year is, in fact, my own birthday. Thankfully, no one flies over to Britain to help celebrate my birthday, which is probably the best thing about it. I get no presents, well, no proper presents anyway. I just get letters, piles of them, all from relatives that instead of delivering best wishes for the year to come, contain nagging voice messages telling me how my younger brother is growing up better than what I could dream to achieve and how he's going to be a masterful dark wizard and that I should be more like him. Why I would want to become a short, practically bald, dark wizard when I grow up is beyond me.
Thankfully, it's only the second worst day of the year, though if I had it my way, it wouldn't even be that. I'm seriously sick of hearing them using their baby voices around the crib that contains the fantastic dark wizard and cooing to him over the side whilst I'm forced to listen and play with the dolls that my aunts had provided for my cousins as a form of entertainment. It always ends up in a duel of some kind as Bellatrix always sets the hair of Andromeda's doll on fire and I'm forced to defend Andromeda from the wrath her sister brings upon her.
Later that afternoon however, I make my escape. You know the expression how mother's have eyes in the back of their heads? Yeah, my mother has eyes EVERYWHERE I swear. Her portrait is the worst of her many eyes as not only does it scream at you with the perfect imitation of my mother's voice, but it also has the nerve to shout insults at you as you walk up and down the hall. My father had it painted for her by some German painter when they took Regulus there for an outing one afternoon, not that I was allowed to go. However this particular afternoon she was snoozing in her portrait, providing the opportune escape. Once outside the door, the sun shone on my face and a breeze blew on my cheeks, making me feel like the kid I should have been. I sat down, then and there on the bottom step and just took in the sun. I guess I looked quite sickly, even for a young English boy. My skin was white, white as a sheet since I was never allowed to go outside the house, my energy being reduced by running up and down the numerous staircases inside.
From my spot on the stairs, I had an ideal view of the street. Soldier like houses lined up on both sides of the long street, all identical, no character. A small muggle girl across the street was playing with quite a large, orange ball, made of some rubbery substance that allowed it to bounce up and down. Up and down, up and down. As soon as the ball hit the wet bitumen, it rebounded up to meet her hand, which rebounded off that towards the ground again. She did this numerous times before catching the ball in mid bounce and jumping, with the ball still in her hands, and pushed it up and forwards, away from her hands. She landed back onto the ground as the ball rose above a hoop on in its side, rather than up straight, which is normal for Quidditch, and falling straight down through it. She picked the ball up and the whole process began again.
I was intrigued, I must admit. Something was strangely comforting about the bounce of the ball and the scream of joy that echoed from her as the ball fell down through the sideways hoop rather than the screaming or cooing that usually echoed around my house.
After sitting there by myself for a while, I wondered why she hadn't noticed me sitting here for so long before realizing that my father, paranoid that we would one day be discovered by muggles, had probably made this whole house invisible, including the front stairs and the ancient mat that one might assume use to say 'welcome' but knowing my family, it was probably something rude. I personally didn't see anything wrong with muggles. Sure, they didn't have the gift, the talent, whatever we have that allows us to create magic but they seem content with their lives. I had watched them through my bedroom window that faces the street and watched the kids play, the adults waving hello as they walked home and couples walking hand in hand down to the park found in the street yonder.
Thinking it was only polite, I pulled myself up from the stone stair and stretched before stepping off the threshold of our house, which I had always been forbidden to do, like I had always been forbidden to go outside and look out the windows. And of course, the Golden Rule. Never, ever talk to a muggle, which I had never done but today, I had already broken all the other rules, why not break the Golden Rule while I'm at it. I reached the front of her house just as she was shooting her thirty or something goal and as soon as the ball plummeted from the height it had reached, she picked it up and turned to face me. For a muggle she had a good intuition, I was sure I hadn't made a sound the whole time I was crossing the road.
"Who are you?" She asked me pointedly, just like any seven year old would to a stranger. Her red, wavy hair had been tied back into a high ponytail; however strands had escaped whilst she had been playing with her orange ball. Her eyes were an almond shape, the colour green and piercing through me.
"I'm Sirius Black, I live across the road. Who are you?" I returned her straightforwardness and she smiled, revealing a dimple on her left cheek.
"I'm Lily. You wanna play ball with me?" She held out the ball to me and I stared at it. "Is something wrong?" she asked in confusion when I didn't take the ball from her.
"I don't know how to play ball," I told her simply and she stared. Then she burst into a fit of giggles, a sound I didn't think I had heard before.
"How do you not know how to play ball? It's easy," she told me as she quieted and she went about her way explaining the rules. I listened to her eagerly, more interested in her company rather than the sport to tell you the truth. In my opinion, Quidditch was the best sport in the world, no competition. However, my opinion's probably a little bit biased; Quidditch is the only sport I've ever known. After Lily was sure I understood all the rules, we began to play. Up, down, bounce, bounce, score. The rhythm continued as we began talking.
"How old are you?" Lily asked, again being quite prominent in her manner of questioning.
"I'm seven, you?" I answered her, not bothered by her blunt questions. This was how, I discovered, how most children my age talked. However since I had quiet a minimal social life even for a seven year old, had been cooped up in that god-forsaken house by my paranoid father and my over-protective mother, I had found books. These people were the only people I could confide in and have a conversation about something other than blood.
"I'm turning seven in two weeks, I can't wait! My older sister Petunia is always calling me a baby; she's already nine years old and always tries to be like mum but just wait. I'll show her, she won't be able to when I'm seven. What's your favourite colour?"
"Every colour except green, silver and black," I told her and she was consumed by a new fit of giggles.
"What?" I asked her curiously
"You don't like the colour black, and that's your last name!" she laughed and I smiled. If she were part of my family, she wouldn't like the colour either. "What's yours?" I asked her.
"Pink," she said simply, stealing the ball from me and scoring.
"Pink?" I asked her, a mild tone of dislike in my voice. Pink was such a ... girly colour.
"What's wrong with pink?" she asked me, turning around to face me, the ball held in her arms.
"Nothing," I said quickly "Want to play again?"
"No, I'm tired," she told me as she walked over to her front stairs and sat down. I walked over slowly and sat down next to her. We looked up at the sky and watched the sun slowly sink down under the horizon.
"You know what?" I asked her when the sun was no longer visible and only pink and orange clouds separated the horizon from the darkness. "I'm really glad I met you. I've been cooped up in my house for so long without someone nice to talk to. It's been fun,"
Lily didn't say anything for a while. We just continued to sit there on her front door step and stare at the ever-growing darker sky. After a while, I thought I had said something wrong she didn't respond, but I felt something slowly slipping itself though my hand and I looked down to see her hand.
"It was good to meet you too," she told me earnestly and I smiled. The sky was now turning black, a future I was facing upon returning home.
"I have to go home now," I told her, slipping my hand out of hers and standing up.
"Will I see you tomorrow?" Lily asked me, her eyes wide waiting for a response.
"I dunno. Maybe," I told her, as she got up too.
"But I will see you again?" she asked me in earnest and I smiled.
"You sure will. You'll see me so much you'll get sick of me," I told her and she smiled. "Well, see you," she said as she walked up the few stairs to the front door. I sighed, and began the journey back to hell. As I climb up the stairs that lead to my front door I hear a series of loud pops echoing in the room beyond. Finally, the family is leaving. At least my sentencing won't be a public affair this year, last year mother screamed at me till the cows gave home and I was a popular subject among dinner guests. I opened the door slowly, making a slight creaking sound so I hurried inside, but before I was able to shut the door gently, the breeze, picking up, slammed it shut.
"Sirius!" my mother screeched, both her and her portrait in sink. I sighed. Whenever something happened, something somewhere always yelled Sirius. I swear it was like a natural reaction in my house. The front door slammed = Sirius. Someone ate the last slice of bread = Sirius. Some tried to sneak some of the adults 'punch' at the Christmas party = Sirius. It was then my mother decided to turn into the hall and see me standing at the end.
"Where HAVE you been? You left your poor cousins up there by themselves, you didn't even wish your brother happy birthday and you didn't say hello to any of your relatives," she began, her voice practically rocking the house.
"But Ma," I began "Whenever I see the relatives they always nag me," I complained and she turned redder, apparently deciding that since it was Regulus's birthday, she may as well give me the Regulus's speech as well, especially since I had escaped from this torture from all the relatives.
"Well if you tucked your shirt in and brushed your hair and did what you were told no one would nag you," she yelled, a vase quivering behind her "If you followed in your father's footsteps, your grandfather's footsteps or your great grandfather's footsteps we would be so proud! But instead, you waste away your days dreaming of becoming either a Quidditch star or an Auror for goodness sake! You will bring shame and dishonor this family! How I gave birth to some filth like you is beyond me. Go to your room and when you come out, try to be more like your brother Regulus," she screamed, pointing to the stairs.
"But Ma, he's four years old. You want me to act like a baby?"
"And you will go without dinner for being smart. Insolent child, what I did to deserve you is beyond me," she told me when I walked passed her. She didn't think I was moving fast enough, so she kicked me in the behind, forcing me to fly forwards and land on the ground on my stomach. I dragged myself to my feet and looked over my shoulder to see my mother, still looking livid at me. I narrowed my eyes at her before turning back and climbing the stairs to my room two at a time.
Once inside, I bolted the door so my mother's pesky house elf would stay out. He had an annoying habit of coming into my room after I'd gotten into trouble and would rub it in, so from then on I'd bolted it so I would be left alone. I walked over to my bed which stood in the center of the room and fell onto my back in the middle of the bed, spread eagle. The bed groaned when I landed and made a squeaking noise whenever I moved but apart from that, this bed was the most comfortable bed in the world. As I laid on the bed, staring at the ceiling I thought about my afternoon with Lily. Wow, I thought, I have my first real friend.
Lily
The day started out like any other. Woke up, brushed teeth, had breakfast, watched a bit of telly, had lunched, grabbed a ball and played outside in the arvo; usual summer routine. Except today when I was playing ball outside, suddenly I wasn't alone. There was him. I'd never seen him before and I thought I knew all the kids in the street, but he came over and was watching me play ball, I could feel his eyes on the back of my head and so I spun around and came face to face with him. I thought he was older than me but he said he was seven, so in two weeks we'll be the same age.
I invited him to play ball with me and what was really funny was he didn't know how too. Everyone knew how to play ball, everyone. I couldn't believe he didn't know but I taught him how to play and we played for most of the afternoon and towards the end I swear he was having as much fun as I was. But then I got tired and so I sat down on one of the stairs leading up to my front door and he sat down next to me and we watched the sun turn different colours. He said to me that he was really glad that he met me, which was strange because I was thinking the exact same thing. I was sick of being by myself all the time. Tuney was no help; she spent her time in her room or going out with the kids in the street who were her age, leaving me alone. I slipped my hand through his, I had seen people do this on the telly and it seemed like the right thing to do. His hand tensed when I first touched it but it seemed to relax. But he had to go home when the sky became black. Haha, did I mention his last name is Black too? I think its funny but he didn't seem to think so. I asked if I would see him tomorrow and he said maybe.
So now its tomorrow and even though he said he might not come, I'm waiting. I hadn't anything better to do either, Tuney's claimed the telly so I can't watch a movie and mum's cleaning and dad's at work so I'm all by myself. I've been sitting in my window seat for the past hour, just staring out into the empty street. I'd started daydreaming, just your usual six/seven year old fantasies when the doorbell went off. That's funny, I thought to myself as I stood up, I hadn't seen anyone in the street but then again I had begun to daydream, I could lose myself for hours in my daydreams. Tuney says it's not natural but she has no imagination.
I skipped down the stairs to answer the door, since mum was vacuuming she couldn't hear a thing and Tuney never seemed to go out of her way to do anything. I undid the chain, twisted the door handle and pulled it wide. Sirius was standing on my doorstep; his shoulder's hunched, his hair hanging down over his face, failing to disguise the black eye.
"You wanna come in?" I asked him and he nodded shyly. He wiped his boots on the front mat and walked inside. I shut the door and lead him up the stairs to my room, the one at the far end of the hallway. I opened my door and waited for him to enter before shutting the door behind us.
"What happened?" I asked him as we walked over to the window seat. He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them.
"I don't want to talk about it," he told me in the typical manly way. I shrugged and opened the hatch in the window seat. I reached down and grabbed the box on top and pulled it out.
"Monopoly?" I asked him and he smiled and nodded. By the time he left to go home, the sky outside was dark like his name again and he left grudgingly. I thought that if he didn't have to, I don't think he would have gone home. We had talked all afternoon and I felt I knew him better than I knew my own sister. We talked about things we liked, things we didn't. Everything really, except his family. And although I never found out who gave him that bruise, he's now the closest friend I've got.
Sirius
I've been sneaking out every day to go see Lily, regardless of the pain I'll receive when I return home and the front door will slam and the whole house will wake up and yell at me. But my mother inflicts the most pain, hitting me when I didn't tell her where I've been going. I'd rather my skin be black and blue than tell her about Lily, the first friend I've ever had who hasn't been related to me.
The past week with Lily has been, no comparison, the best of my life. We've played all sorts of muggle board and card games, we've played ball outside and I had no fear of my parents seeing me, the paranoid pair would never look out their window and they were always sure the last time they hit me would be the time I'd stop doing what I wasn't supposed to. I'm happy that their oblivious, makes things easier for me. Regulus, he's the one I have trouble with now. He follows me everywhere, calling me 'Siri' and wanting me to pick him up all the time.
The one thing that always makes a barrier between me and Lily, as if it is purposely trying to fail our friendship is the fact that I'm a wizard. I have to be careful whenever I'm around her, so I don't accidently make something happen, which happens a lot at home. I'm not even allowed to tell her anything, though if I had it my way I would. I found out in one of the books in our library that Section 3 in the chapter Muggle Relations I'm not allowed to tell anyone anything about magic, Hogwarts, Quidditch unless they are directly related to me. It's awful.
But apart from that small issue the days have been great. I would sneak out early in the morning while my parents were lying in and Regulus was napping, run across the street, up the small flight of stairs and press the doorbell. Two seconds later Lily would answer as usual with a great big grin on her face and we would race upstairs to her room where we would talk and play. Today I 'invented' a game where we would take two brooms from the closet and ride around on them, our feet moving them of course, and we played a game like tag on them. After lunch though, we were exhausted and so we trudged back up to Lily's room and fell flat onto her bed, head to toe and squished as it was only a single, but I was happy.
"Lily, you know you're my best friend in the whole wide world don't you?" I told her as we laid there staring up at the ceiling.
"Of course silly. And you're mine," she told me, her hand curling around mine. We just laid there for the rest of the afternoon and although we didn't talk or do anything, it was nice. But all too soon her room turned shades of pink and orange and I was forced to uncurl my hand from hers and leave.
"See you tomorrow," she said to me as I left her room, climbed down the stairs and walked out the front door. It was when I was on the second last stair when I stopped, frozen. She was outside the house. Why was she outside the house? She never leaves the house, she and father were too paranoid muggles would find us if they stepped outside. But not only was she outside, but she had seen me; she had seen where I had come from. And she didn't like, she didn't like it one bit.
Her face was red, redder than I had ever seen it before even including the time I ate the rest of the fruit pie at Christmas without asking anyone else if they wanted any or the time I slid down the banister and smashed a vase as I flew off the end. But this has to be worse than either of them, worse than both of them together, because I was outside, and not just outside, I was outside a muggle's house. I'm heading 6 feet under.
"What the hell you doing coming from that house of filth?" she screamed at me from across the road, I moved away from Lily's house so she wouldn't hear but my mother kept taking long strides towards me, quickly closing the gap between us. "You filthy blood traitor! How could you even think of contaminating our bloodline our forefathers had worked at so long to keep pure?"
"She's just a friend!" I yelled at her, something I hadn't been brave enough to do to her face "How is being her friend going to 'contaminate' the blood line?"
"You pathetic fool! She's a muggle for goodness sake, haven't your father and I explained this to you over and over again? She's scum, she's beneath us!"
"Stop yelling at me!" I cried, my eyes watering over in a mixture of terror and anger "She's a human, just like you except she can't do magic. It's not her fault!"
My mother looked livid; I don't think she expected me to openly defend a muggle, let alone in her presence. She took out her wand and I flinched. My mother was a skilled witch, trained in the Dark Arts and knew all sorts of spells to inflict pain without leaving a mark. She had always threatened to use them on me, but had chosen a more physical approach as it left a mark to remind me of my wrong doings. She saw me flinch and grinned, she reminded me of the maniac guy from 'Physco's' smile. She pointed her wand at me and I let out an involuntary whimper of fear. Her smile grew.
"You wouldn't hurt me out in the street, for people to see, would you?" I whispered, shrinking back away from her, and I was embarrassed to admit I was really scared of her.
"Oh I'm not going to do anything to you in the street," she told me sweetly, stowing her wand back inside her robes. I recoiled forward, the balance restored back to my feet "We're going to go inside, and when your father comes home I will tell him of your 'love' for the disgusting muggle filth and then, first thing in the morning, we're moving. That's my final word,"
"No!" I cried, "Please ma, please!"
"That's enough Sirius, its enough that you're crying over something that's as pathetic as this, I don't want a sissy for a son. Now, get inside," she ordered, kicking me forward in to the dank house I was doomed to live the rest of my life in.
