Title: What You'd Do for Freedom

Pairing: Slight Sirius/Remus
Rating: PG14 for strong language
Disclaimer: Jo rules this roost, but at least she lets us rent it out and take things for a spin once in awhile.
Summary: Sirius Black desired freedom above all things.

Dedication: To Sirius. Because you deserve the truth.

Chapter 1: Cage of Blood and Bruises

1976, Summer

"You will not disobey us, Sirius Orion Black!"

He had heard those words once too many. He had heard them in the Howler he got after the news of his sorting into Gryffindor made its way home. He had heard them when news of his choice of friends was snuck home by snide whispers from cousins. He heard them when he had chosen to stay at Hogwarts over the hols instead of come home. He had heard them when he had snuck away to James's house last summer.

Now those words had no power over him.

Only the strong hands that held him fast kept him from disobeying once again.

His mother's hands, clawlike and cruel, gripped his arm so tight that he could feel her nails biting into his skin and drawing blood.

She wouldn't let him get away.

Not while he shared her blood. Toujour purs. Always pure… by any means necessary.

He woke up on the cold concrete.

His clothes were torn and wet. Wet? Oh yea, the blood. His blood. Well the floor could just keep that.

The reason he was laying here, bruised and torn, in the cellar was his damned blood.

They weren't going to let him out until he agreed to go along with their bigoted pureblood stupidness.

Well, let them see how long they could hold him down here.

Sitting up slowly, he checked his pockets gingerly, trying not to touch the bruises and cuts under his red-stained trousers.

They'd taken his wand.

Damn.

He shuffled himself into a better position, gently checking all his limbs for breaks or anything he'd need to fix right away. Thankfully, he had learned a small wandless spell that helped speed up healing.

But that spell wasn't any good for the deep cut on the side of his leg.

He pinched the skin together, wrapping it in a cloth and holding the wound closed, hoping it wouldn't get infected before he stole his wand back.

Now, to figure out how they had booby-trapped the cellar this time so he could escape.

Edging carefully through the tunnel, meant for the house-elves but rarely used, he couldn't help but hiss in pain as he accidently put his weight on a knee that was probably sprained from getting into the tunnel.

His mother had thrown him down in the cellar many times before. Sometimes after a beating. Sometimes before. Either way, the cellar meant pain.

He lifted the hatch of the tunnel, peering out. No one was nearby. Matter of fact, it was dark out now. Crap… How long had he been stuck down there?

Touching the knotted cloth around his leg, he wondered how much blood he had lost, apparently enough to merit being lightheaded and dizzy. He scrambled out under the cover of the bushes, wincing as the weedy branches poked into his bruises and cuts. He had to get out of here. Maybe James would-

He paused. The thought had caught him off guard, but now that he'd thought of it… He could actually do that. He could actually run away.

No more screaming fights, no more bruises… no more bloody cellars.

He could leave. He could leave and never come back.

Glancing up at the house, he struggled to his feet. But first, he had some things to finish.

He arrived, like a red-streaked ragged mutt, on the Potter doorstep around eight in the morning

He had filled his trunk with his meager possessions along with a few stolen items that the rest of the Blacks probably wouldn't notice until years later. Disregarding the decreed of underage wizardry as always, he'd been discovered by mother as he placed the last permanence charms on his walls, which were littered with photos and pictures…

Things he would have gotten lashed out of his skin later, if he had stayed.

He didn't want his family to just write him off, like they had so many others.

Now they had something from him that was stuck there forever. They couldn't get rid of his presence even if they tried.

Still… he had barely escaped.

Mother had caught him fast. She knew his plans from the sight of his trunk, packed and ready. She made him watch as she blasted his name from the tapestry, than had tried to blast him into a black smudge just the same as the fabric.

Mr. Potter answered the door, yelling aloud when he saw the state of the teen on his doorstep.

His eyes were watery. He wasn't crying. He just had something in his eyes. That was all.

He hadn't wanted to be part of the Black bloodline anyway.

It was a good thing he had been erased from their history.

He wanted nothing to do with them.

…But still tears streaked through the clotted blood on his face.

The tears didn't stop, even when James, shocked as he was, grabbed him close and tight in a hug meant for brothers of something more then flesh.

The tears didn't stop until long after he had finally passed out on the cot in the guest room, with James snoring on the nearby armchair.

He woke to the healing presence of a real family ready to accept their new son.

The Blacks might have crafted his blood from theirs, but the Potters had crafted his soul from the once small and painful thing it had once been.