Author's notes
This is the first anything – story, fanfic etc, I have written in over 12 years, so I am very rusty and ask that you please be kind and forgiving of any mistakes. I am hoping that this exercise can cure my fear about writing and make me remember how much I loved it.
After re-reading the books it struck me how little you understand about Sirius's motivations, his heart and his actions. And surely such a great character deserves a story of his own. What makes Sirius, Sirius? I hope to find out.
These characters belong to J.K. Rowling, of course, but have chosen to hang out in my mind and in my story for a while.
The Real Sirius
Prologue
"You don't trust anyone do you?" she asked him quietly towards the end of the days he cared not to remember.
"I trust myself, and my wand" he had said and meant it.
When he thought back to that conversation, he could never be sure what she had said next, but the look of shattering heart-break in her eyes, the stuttering flames of the candles reflecting in her limpid irises, well, that was harder to forget.
It was these and other memories with which he chose to spend his time, all the time in the world it seemed. Locked in a dark, dank cell, reeking of death and disillusionment, screams of terror and hacking sobs of abandonment from his fellow prisoners, his constant companions. Fear and despair, ever-present, had by now faded into the background. The angels of death glided past the bars of his room, they had no interest in him now; everything happy had been sucked from his life, only the truth remained. He was innocent. He had been loved. He wanted revenge.
Chapter 1 Early Days
His was not an unhappy childhood. A longed-for child, a son of the noble House of Black, ferociously intelligent but relaxed with it, and stunning enough to be considered beautiful with long curling dark hair, silvery grey eyes, and a constant half smirk, the light and dark of his personality perfectly balanced, he appeared to fulfil all of the long-held desires of his parents, Walburga and Orion Black, and expectations of his birth. Of course they had a second son to be sure. The requisite spare. But all of their care, attention, tutelage and love (limited as that was), was given to him.
Certain truths were drilled into him from birth; his kind, his family, his blood were born to rule. There would be those who might try to circumvent this, blood traitors, perverts and scum, not to mention the conniving and foul muggle-born who had stolen power from true pure witches and wizards, polluting the magical world. His job, his right, was to bring honour to the name of Black, to restore the magic world to its position of omnipotence and to carry on the line. Everything else was superfluous.
Up until the age of 7 Sirius did not question his teachings. Coddled, adored and worshipped, he was as arrogant and as confident as his parents could have hoped a son of theirs might be. His younger brother Regulus eagerly worshipping his idol trailed him from room to room around the austere and forbidding house, until Sirius desperate for some peace from him, from his parents, from his life, made the decision to lift the wards on the front door (of course he knew how to do this, he was also sneaky), let himself out, and walked away down the road.
The flush of hot excitement hit him as soon as he reached the bottom of the street, he had never been allowed out on his own, and the unexpected bustling order of the muggle world was overwhelming.
He walked all day. When he was hungry he magicked food from nearby vendors into his hand, when he was thirsty he stole a bottle of water from a café, just like a muggle pickpocket he had once secretly read about in the restricted section of his father's library. When he was tired, he sat down on a bench in the park and watched the ridiculous muggles hurrying as if they were in a race with each-other towards underground stations. He had been told the muggleworld was ugly and ill-conceived, but gazing up at the ornate buildings surrounding him, the brickwork as elegant and as old surely, as his own home, he knew this to not be true.
"Are you lost?" he heard someone ask, glancing up he saw a muggle woman with kind eyes smiling softly down at him. She had her hand on the head of a little girl about his age with red hair peeping out from behind her.
"I…" he began, only to realise he really was not quite sure where he was "I live in a house on the square, I went for a walk" he offered.
"A square near here?"
Sirius shrugged. He had been warned not to trust strangers, and strange muggles least of all, but this woman hardly seemed threatening. She was looking down at him with a sort of gentle concern he had never experienced before.
"I am Rose" she said "and this is my daughter Karen. I saw you walk around the park earlier on your own, and I don't like to leave you here…if you agree we can walk you to the police station around the corner so we can track down your address?"
Sirius did not know what a police station was and did not care to. "No" he said, "but I'll come home with you" in the sort of commanding way he was used to saying most things.
He saw the woman, Rose, give a start. "I'm not sure if that's such a good idea…" she began, but Karen sliding out from behind her approached Sirius and gently put her hand in his. He had never been touched by anyone other than his parents and his brother and then only infrequently, even his tutors and the house elves would place an item on a table in front of him, rather than touch their skin to his. It had been made clear that touching, hugging and any excessive display of affection was considered unseemly and not worthy of the name of Black. But Karen's soft hand in his, her large unblinking blue eyes fixed on him and her rosebud lips shyly smiling, well, that was a different matter entirely.
Rose seemed to think so too, and agreed to take Sirius home with them. The trip on the crowded underground train from 's all the way to West Ruislip station was thrilling. Sirius traced the train's journey on the red line above the door and held Karen's hand tightly in his. Ending at the final stop, the trio departed the station and walked through the quiet suburbs to Rose and Karen's small house. Sirius observed the tired looking paint covering the walls on the outside, but unlike other houses on the road, had no rubbish strewn about outside. He was surprised to find that they were immediately climbing stairs as soon as they entered up to the upstairs floor.
"It's a maisonette" Karen confided with the proud tone of someone who had just learnt a new word.
Rose settled them in the living room with a cup of warm 'blackcurrant squash', whatever that was, and a jammy dodger biscuit each, which Sirius chewed through in a haze of delicious eagerness. He distantly heard Karen speaking to someone and peering out the door, saw her with an odd looking object attached to her ear, the curling string connected to a table just out of sight. "Yes please, I need the police and child services". But as Karen had just handed over her jammy dodger and turned on a box in the corner of the room which was blasting out moving images, he forgot to be interested in the rest of the conversation.
A little while later, sprawled on cushions on the floor next to Karen, as happy and as contented as Sirius had ever been in his young life, he made the decision that he would stay there with Rose and Karen, at least for a while. He was not worried about his family - and he did not think, as most children of 7 do not, of their feelings of worry regarding him - he knew their expectations of him and his duty, but this sort of warm comforting feeling, this was new and needed to be explored, and as Karen put her hand in his again, Sirius smiled at her and felt at peace.
Sirius heard a hum before it happened, like a wasp cruising for its next meal, and then, all of a sudden, lights and bangs and screams. The air was filled with dust and bricks, the shabby wallpapered walls between kitchen and living room rent in two. Sirius saw a wizard holding Rose, wand pointed at her head, she was sobbing, and then with a casual crack of her neck she was dropped to the ground.
"No! no! no! no!" Sirius could hear someone crying, only to realise it was him and he was being restrained by his father. Other wizards prowled the room firing spells, checking for muggles.
"Mummy!" Karen was shrieking, running towards her mother, and Sirius knew. He knew what was going to happen. There was a blast and a light, and Karen was on the floor. Her red hair arced in a fan on the old carpet. Her blue eyes gazing up at Sirius, unseeing, accusing, dead. Walburga Black stowed her wand away again in her robe, did not look at the muggle child whose death she had just caused.
"Muggle security are on their way" she said to Orion "the mudblood called them. I am taking Sirius home. Make sure this is taken care of". She put her hand on Sirius's shoulder preparing to apparate.
Sirius looked down at Karen again, at Rose's lifeless body in the kitchen, and he understood now that everything he had previously known and been taught, his beliefs, his family, his kind, was wrong.
Aftermath
Sirius was for the first time in his life, harshly disciplined. He was locked in the dusty attic at the top of the house. His mother overcame her dislike of touching him and beat him. His father shouted at him again and again. His tutors badgered and lectured and cajoled. Think, they said, think of what you could have revealed, of the Black family name and the magic world, the shame you have brought.
They did not say, their deaths are on your hands, they did not need to. Sirius knew it to be true. And they did not care to make the distinction.
Every time he closed his eyes he saw their faces, felt Karen's hand in his, and he knew that he could never let this happen again and next time, because there wouldbe a next time. Next time he would be clever and cunning and, he would win.
Author's notes
Thanks for reading (if you've made it this far!) Hoping to explore his Hogwarts life in the next few chapters. Let me know what you think, and if anyone has a clue how to format (I clearly don't!) please give me a shout.