Rating of PG.
I do not own the characters, JKR does. I simply borrow them.
How Sirius Black got his nickname from a very unlikely place. One could almost call it ironic.
Irony
–
The first time we met, I was eight and he was two. It wasn't the whole love at first sight crap either. Not at all, quite the opposite. From the moment I first laid eyes on him, I hated him. Man's best friend or not.
Where as he was black, I had the pallor of a ghost. He had long black curls and I had a mop of short and neatly combed raven. I was tall and he was short, I was fast, but he was faster still.
I hated him. We were nothing a like.
How, I wondered, could such a beast truly be man's best friend.
I didn't know then, but I do now.
His name was Padfoot, my uncle had named him. His name was unusual, I'll admit that, but mine was even more so. It was better. I, unlike he, had a name from the heavens, from the Gods...From the stars.
Sirius.
Sirius Black.
–
The only thing that Padfoot and I shared was our blood. Mine was pure and his was too. I was born of pure Black honor, and he of fine Newfoundland champions. Funny how my parents wouldn't even allow a half blooded dog in our house.
My cousin had been whining for the mangy mutt ever since we first met him at my uncle's cross country summer estate. And of course, whatever dear Bella wanted, dear Bella got. So, much to my surprise, my parents brought that black fur ball home. I remember it like it was yesterday. Perhaps it was.
I sat in the entrance hall of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black. Sitting in my stiffly starched, elegant clothes. Grim faced and glaring at the doors, awaiting my parents' return. The grandfather clock on the opposite wall ticked away each second, and then minute, slowly. It seemed as if it were teasing me with its slow moving second hand and leering, hand carved face.
It struck three and then, almost as if on a timed schedule, the front door was thrown open. I sprang to my feet with perfect balance, expecting my parents, one by one, to walk slowly, calmly, and coolly through that door and then yell at me for having my shoes on in the house. Instead, it was not my parents that made an entrance first, but a shaggy black dog.
He bounded up to me with mirth filled eyes and tackled me to the floor. The front of my shirt ripped and he left a sloppy trail of muddy paw prints in his wake.
"Get off me!" I yelled, shoving the dog away form me and standing up.
I frowned as I straightened my clothing and ran a hand through my hair, causing it to lay neatly once more.
It was only then, as the obnoxious beast bounced around me and yipped happily, that my parents strode into the house, Bella in front of them both.
Bella strutted up to me and picked the puppy up from underneath his forelegs.
"His name is Padfoot," she told me, patting the canine sharply on the head with an open palm that made him flinch each time her hand made contact with his sleek body. "And he is mine," she snapped before setting Padfoot on the floor and starting up the stairs, the small bouncing form following in her wake.
–
I remember the moment I met that flee bitten mongrel as if it were the highlight of my life. I don't know. Perhaps it was.
From the moment I met him I envied him beyond words. He was so carefree, so uncaring, so careless and untamed. Myself, on the other hand, had no fun loving spirit in me. My parents had raised me into the perfect child.
Or so they thought.
Instead of toys and play things, I got books. The best of everything tried to replace my parents' love. Where there was china there should have been plastic. They tried to replace friends with strict teachers and tough love.
It never worked.
I wanted to be just like him. Just as carefree and fun loving. Equally careless and bouncy. Just like him. Just like Padfoot.
–
Over the next month that I spent with Padfoot, I only grew to hate him even more. He was daring, brave, and a quick learner. I tried playing with him a few times. But that only made me angry. He seemed to be better than I at just about anything and everything.
Bella seemed to grow bored quickly with his playful nature and ceased to take care of him. So he starved for six days until I came to his rescue with a bowl of water and a pound of my father's richest steak.
They say the way to a dog's heart is through his stomach. I hadn't known it then, but from the moment I met him, I had passed his stomach and had went straight to his heart. He loved me and I hated him. I fed him, bathed him, and gave him exercise, but never out of love or desire. It was only because I had to, not because I wanted to.
Or so I thought.
–
When I turned eleven I set off to start school at a magical university called Hogwarts.
–
I was fifteen and he was eight.
By then, I was half way through my fifth year and Padfoot sat at home. Now age was starting to show on his body, but never in his eyes.
When he was so tired and weak that a short run would send him gasping for air, his eyes still danced. Even though his whiskers had started to turn silver, his eyes still shone. His love never changed either. Padfoot still loved me undoubtedly.
Mine hadn't changed either. I still hated him.
The one thing that I had to say in the beast's defense was that he made a good teacher. A wonderful teacher. A fantastic one at that. Better than any other teacher that had ever been unfortunate enough to have the displeasure of teaching me.
Padfoot showed me not how to write or read or how to turn a snail into a ball or even how to levitate all of my books to class. No, he showed me something of a greater value.
Fun.
I had learned his ways, every single one of them. All 5,792 of them to be exact.
How to have fun and get into trouble. To pull pranks and run with the wind. He taught me to love life and how to live it to the fullest. That sometimes you just needed a break from your studies. Padfoot showed me how to get down and dirty and how to live life.
That was what my friends saw by the time I started school. Carefree, trouble making Sirius Black. That's how I'd like them to remember me as well. Not crying over a letter from home just because that stupid dog died.
The letter did not arrived with the usual post, so I was a bit surprised. It was late at night and I thought nothing could possibly go wrong, not with the Animagus transformation complete only the day before.
I guess I was wrong.
All four of us sat in the fifth year dorm room. Already hard at work making plans for our first full moon. The box of every flavored beans grew lighter as we passed it around and joked. We only stopped when there was a frantic tapping on the other side of the wall length window.
For a minute, all the laughter died from our faces. We exchanged a cautious look before James got up from among his tangle of red and gold satin pillows and opened the window slowly to peer outside. A blur of black whipped past him so fast that he yelled and stumbled a few steps backwards to regain his Quidditch toned balance.
The raven flew over to me and dropped a letter in my lap before promptly changing its course in mid air and flew back from whence it came. The window snapped shut on its own accord with a wild gust of wind.
My heart picked up a fast rhythm and pounded madly against my rib cage. Nothing good ever came from the letters written by my mother's hand. As I rotated the letter slowly in my hands I took to note that it was rather heavy and came to the conclusion that something was hidden among the parchment and ink. The worn collar that fell from the envelope proved me right.
Before even reading the letter I just stared at the brown leather collar. I swallowed thickly against the unwelcome lump that had formed in my throat. Please let there be another explanation...Any other explanation.
There wasn't.
When my eyes had finished sweeping the letter for a third time the truth finally settled in the very marrow of my bones.
My teacher was gone.
Padfoot was dead.
I never knew how much I truly loved him until he was gone. Now it was too late. It wasn't long before the tears came raining down, causing the ink to run. The hand that rested on my shoulder made me jump. I quickly wiped the tear stains from my face with the back of my sleeve. When I looked up, silver met amber.
"Sirius? Hey, are you alright?"
I nodded, folded up the letter with care, and slipped it into my pocket.
The collar I fastened around my neck and traced the name Padfoot that had been carved so long ago into the leather with a trembling finger.
"Yeah...I'm okay Moony. And it's Padfoot. That's the name I want to use," I whispered with eyes now locked on the floor.
He didn't seem convinced, but left me alone anyway. Remus sat cross legged on his bed and pulled out a paper back novel from his pillow case. I couldn't help but smile at that.
Carefully, I slipped the book from his hands and kicked it under the bed.
It was time to pass on Padfoot's teachings.
–
The next time I saw him, I was thirty-six-years-old and he hadn't aged a day over eight.
–