A/N: Just a one shot for my own Abuse challenge on xoxLewrahxox's forum. Hope this is enjoyed! Please review with your input! Hopefully not OOC!

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of its characters.

Words: Excluding the author's notes, disclaimer, this, and title, exactly 500.

Damned:

T'was easy to pretend you were strong when those that weakened you were far away, back at home. Being a Gryffindor gave him the sense that he had to be this way; courageous and unflinching, not caring what anyone, especially family, thought. Putting on an act, however, and actually feeling the way you were pretending to was much easier said than done.

After all, what sort of eleven year old doesn't want the love and approval of his or her family? Over the years Sirius had become good at hiding his emotions. His parents were Death Eaters, and though with their point of view he didn't agree didn't mean he would be able to get away with saying so. He wasn't exempt from the obedience rule of the house. Even less so now that he'd proven himself a disloyal muggle lover.

So though when Regulus expressed wishes of wanting to join the dark side when he grew up made the older of the two feel sick, Sirius kept his opinions to himself. That he was even still being permitted to remain living with the rest of the Blacks at their manor was, or so he'd been told millions of times, privilege. The boy wasn't necessarily happy to be there—okay, truthfully, not at all—but only a few more years and he'd be free, a man well capable of taking care of himself and doing whatever he should like.

Putting up with the bull shit with which he was treated was no piece of cake, that was for sure, but it really seemed as if he had no other option. 'Just grit your teeth and bear it,' he told himself daily, whenever things got really tough. Better to hold his tongue and be able to escape to his room unscathed than be screamed at because of his beliefs and jinxed, or get his ears boxed.

Better safe than sorry, because being the only non Slytherin in the house, Sirius wouldn't stand a chance in a duel against the rest of his family. Outbursts happened from time to time, as was only natural in a teen his age, but for the most part, if he filtered his thinking before he opened his mouth, Sirius was okay.

This had been the case at first, anyway. Though it hadn't been his choice to be sorted into the house he had been, even if he didn't regret a thing, Slytherins still were and always would be bullies. He could behave as an angel or let the wild streak in him run loose, and either way put downs were shouted or he was injured by the wand in somebody's hand.

It made him sad, and until he'd run away to James' place to live with the Potter family instead of his own there hadn't been a thing he'd been able to do about it.

Whether or not well behaved, he wasn't treated like the rest of them.

'Damned if I do and damned if I don't.'

A/N: There it is! Please tell me what you thought = )