This was something that just kind of came forth. It's Sirius-centric, because I think Sirius' backstory and the time he spent alone in Grimmauld in Harry's fifth year could have been fleshed out a little more.

Also, this is dedicated to all of us who won't be going to Hogwarts tomorrow. Or today, depending on where you are.

This could be triggering for some. It mentions depression and suicide, so please be careful!

If you stop on any particular day in London on Grimmauld Place, you would probably at first wonder why your feet had chosen to take you there. You are most undoubtedly asking yourself that now, I'm sure. But there is a reason. Promise. We'll get to that though, later. And don't even think about skipping ahead, you'll ruin everything and you'll be so mixed up you won't know up from down and England from Scotland and what a mess that would be. Hm.

At first glance, there is nothing incredibly special about Grimmauld Place, except maybe that the bins in front of the houses are a bit nicer than some of the bins on nearby streets.

At first glance, Grimmauld Place holds nothing more than regular London secrets (because everything in London has secrets on the basic premise that everything in London is really bloody old) but if you look, I mean really look. You might see something. A glimmer.

But it's enough.

Now don't look away! Don't try to blink it away because if you do. If you do. You won't get it back. Things like this are finicky and if you don't go about things the right way everything blows to bits. Tricky, that.

Yes, right, glimmer. Focus on the glimmer, try to look…through it, yes through it. Take a step closer to the slightly nicer than normal bins on the curb. (Sometimes if one's eyesight isn't superb it's tricky but you really can't blame yourself for that. Except perhaps your parents but.) Do you see it now? The place where the number skips on Grimmauld Place? Twelve is not there and you probably think to yourself, "Why hasn't anyone other than the all-seeing, brilliant me noticed that a number has been skipped and there's a building unaccounted for?!"

Well.

For the most part, Muggles don't usually question what doesn't concern them. They're very good at it, being perfectly honest. But not you! Obviously. You've found Number 12's vacancy from the strip, so please just try to look a little harder. I'm sure I've put my faith in a good and proper Muggle. Fate at least owes me that.

Aha! Can you see it now? Unconcerning Number 12 Grimmauld Place. Yes, yes I know, it popped right up like tulips in the Netherlands. Now, my advice to you is don't go shouting police because you've just witnessed an act of the Devil. They won't be able to see it, they might not even see the glimmer that you saw. They'll wrap you up in a strait jacket and send you away.

Believe me, strait jackets are no fun. Terribly tacky. Not the least bit nice.

Avoid at all costs.

(And besides, if your Devils do exist, for what purpose would they go about hiding buildings? No sense there, I say.)

But yes, congratulations! You've just bypassed a very powerful spell (with some help actually, but mostly you, mostly you) as a Muggle. Nothing to shake a rag at. Or is it 'hat'? Muggle sayings are awfully daft, I find.

A Muggle, you probably are asking, seeing as I have just called you one, is a non-magical person. You, par exemple. And really, I mean that in the nicest of ways. Most of you are good and decent people, if not a bit dull.

Again, desolé, not you. Never you, you clever Muggle. You just bypassed a spell most wizards couldn't take apart in months in just a few minutes.

With help, of course, with help.

And since you're a Muggle it is only obvious that I, dear, dear Muggle, am a wizard. Though I suppose I could be a witch.

Though I am not. I just checked.

Continuing on.

Now that you can see Number 12, it's time we got a few things sorted.

I'm going to tell you a story. Or, well, more accurately several accounts that all fit together and make up one story. And you're going to have to remember it all. Yes, yes I know it sounds like quite a bit of work but honestly it's nothing worse than what you've already accomplished. You're going to have to retain this information, that's the end of it and that's all I will say for the moment, but more on that later. Cross my heart, or whatever it is you Muggles do.

Now that you can see Number 12 Grimmauld Place, it's safe to say that you can probably see the people coming and going. You might even be able to see Remus, and for Merlin's sake I hope you can see Remus. He's a bloody wonderful bloke.

Easy on the eyes too, which is just a plus.

So find Remus if you can. This is vitally important. He's a tall, skinny man with greying brown hair and probably wearing some ugly, shapeless jumper but just try to ignore that bit if you can.

If he is, outside I mean, when you find and read this, it's probably because he's smoking. He thinks I don't know he still smokes but of course I know he does because I can taste it on his lips when I—

Never mind.

I've kicked the smoking habit actually, which is ironic since I got Remus hooked in the first place. A long time ago. Maybe your whole lifetime ago, my dearest of Muggles. Maybe less. Maybe more. It's important that you know, however, that I had 12 years to stop smoking. The taste quite frankly repels me now.

But never when it's on Remus' lips. Never then.

Note: something else very secretive about Remus what you should know, vitally important that you know and something you absolutely must know for future reference when all of this is revealed. Bring this letter a bit closer to your face, look over your shoulders. Both of them. Yes? You have? Good. Now sit down, we're almost to the important part. Sit down by the nicer than most bins and smell the nicer than most trash and I will tell you.

Remus John Lupin is

a

werewolf.

Please have a laugh about how his name literally means Werewolf McWolfington. Before anything else at least.

Now a bloke like Remus who smokes a lot and wears a lot of brown and reads a lot of books and drinks a lot of tea probably doesn't look very wolfish to an average Muggle.

But you have probably realized by now that you are no ordinary Muggle. Look closer again, like how you did to find the house. Can you see the beast within him now? The great hulking mass that Remus is so bloody good at masking, the British way? (He is so very British, though his mother was Welsh and Remus was born in the north.) He's so bleeding calm, my Remus, but I can see the beast that is kept on the fringes. It bleeds through when he's angry or scared or when he makes love to me.

I do my best to tame him. Moony. The wolf. My nickname for the wolf. Clever, isn't it?

It is important that you get a good idea about how proverbial Remus is. He's the glue, the tipping point, he's the whole reason that I am where I am now, and I don't mean that sarcastically and don't think for a second that I am not grateful for all that he's done but.

He's only one man. A very brilliant, funny, daft man who I could spend the rest of my life trying to convey to you with my words and my understanding of several languages. The best word I can give you is important. Remus John Lupin is important.

So remember him. And the others, of course.

We'll have to move on. There are objectionable goals to attend to.

So we move on to Prongs. James Potter. The stag.

James Charlus Potter won't be spotted by you going out to join Remus for a smoke.

He's dead. Actually.

And he never smoked, even when he was alive. And he was so alive. He is the reason I am alive today, and that my blood was not spilled by my own hand on the very property you are standing on.

But that's not about James. That's about me and you'll get enough of my horrendously tragic backstory later. James first.

He was 21 when he died, back in 1981. He was tall. Not quite as tall as Remus though, had unruly, truly awful black hair he was always messing up and the most obnoxious laugh you could possibly dream up.

Obviously, he was my best friend.

I met him on the train ride to school when we were 11. Of course I knew all about him, and the Potters, before I even stepped on the train. He is, sorry, was, my second cousin, because we're all really interrelated in the Wizarding world and badly inbred but that's because there are Pureblood extremists (like my parents, if you will) who think magical blood is supposed to remain pure.

It's a load of shit, if you ask me. I actually got kicked out for thinking that, but. Again, not my backstory. Back to James.

He played Chaser for our House Quidditch team, which probably won't mean much to you but that's all right. Think of Quidditch as a mix between football, rugby, and cricket. On brooms. A hundred feet in the air. Yeah, that's about it. And James was brilliant at it. Probably would've gone professional if there wasn't a war going on.

Ah, right, the war. Hold onto that thought for half a mo'.

James, after much nagging and getting hexed and sworn at being an awfully big git finally won the attention (and hand) of one Miss Lily Evans and somehow they procreated and had my godson. Harry. Brilliant he is. Looks just like his dad.

Unfortunately, I don't even know if he's going to live as long as his father, and if there's anyone in the world who deserved more time, it was James Potter. He took me in when no one would. He and his family, hearts of gold. All of them. Kind of gave me hope that Pureblooded witches and wizards aren't all complete bastards.

(And don't think of the water stains too much, alright? Time, all of this, and seeing Harry finally, finally has made me a bit of a sentimental berk.)

But James is buried with Lily, now. In Saint Godric's Hollow. This is the first thing I need you to do. Go there, and find the monument. Most Muggles can't see it, what it really is, but you will, I'm sure. I need someone to see it. I've only been once, and it wasn't a proper visit. They almost called animal control.

Preach to the people in the square and tell them that the people who died for that monument to be erected are responsible for Britain still standing today. Tell of a man named James and a woman named Lily and all the good their son Harry did for his country and his people. You're the only person I can count on, to do this for me. So please.

This is just one a few things you have to do. For me. For me.

And I don't use please lightly, you must understand.

Please.

Harry is off at school now, half-fighting a war against a villain most people are too scared even to name. But if this man does win, most of Britain will either be slain or enslaved. Myself included. Though probably the latter, since I am of pure blood.

Ha.

Play a prank or two for James. In James' name. He'd like that. Make it something spectacular.

James leads us into Wormtail, the rat.

Peter Pettigrew to be exact.

He is a rat, and he's still out there, though maybe, hopefully he won't by the time you get this message.

At one point in time I would've called that man my brother, and now he is nothing but a dirty traitor.

He is the reason I am in this mess, that I must talk to you through this tedious medium, that I cannot show my face. He is the reason I was wrongfully imprisoned, framed for a crime that he committed. He's the reason my godson is not safe with me, with people that love him and care for him and want him to have the best life possible.

He is the reason we are once again at war with the villain I cannot possible name in this letter to you, because even though you were pulled into this adventure today, I cannot place a burden on someone so…wonderfully naïve. And bless you, you wonderful Muggle, for being so.

But if he finds you, or if you find him, tell someone. Specifically someone who can arrest him.

Note: I'm not asking you to do this. Only if the chance arises. He's dangerous, he's devious. He's stupidly brave to do something very, very bad.

But tell about him. Tell about the boy he once was, my friend, my brother. Tell that he had a mother who took him on Spanish holidays, and that he always had candy stuffed in his pockets and that he was sweet on a girl in a different house a year below us. Tell people of the boy and not the man he became, because there is not a person on this earth that should know any more than necessary about the man he's been made into.

He follows Britain's greatest villain, and that should utterly terrify you.

But enough time on Peter. I may never forgive him, but I've paid my respects.

And now that we're done with those three, that leads you to me. Your possibly less-than-trustworthy narrator of this.

You can call me Padfoot. The dog.

It's ironic that I am a dog, but you'll get that in a minute. My name for the moment is not important but I am almost positive you've heard it before. And let me just clear this up.

I

am

innocent.

I wanted revenge once upon a time, but prison dries any last life out of you. Sometimes literally, if you're unlucky or evil enough.

When I was much younger, a boy, barely ready for secondary school, I thought that I was untouchable, and that has ultimately led to my downfall twenty-something years later.

My parents, before they were utterly horrible to me and only horrible to the general public, told me I could do anything. Perhaps I could, if I had stayed their son. But I didn't. I tried to be a decent human being.

Maybe it was that part they didn't like.

But I was kicked out, sixteen years old, fresh into the Glam Rock Muggle era. They hated me, and I thought I'd lost everything. I'd lost my family, my brother especially (I owe Reg so much, but he's dead too, and he's the second brother I lost) my house, most of my inheritance.

But I had James.

And Remus.

And for a time. Peter.

I've lost two of them, one after another, and someday, I'll lose Remus. Or perhaps Remus will lose me.

Because I've been having dreams. Omens, if you will. And there is a thing you should know about me, Muggle, is that I am a bad omen myself. The Grim. The black dog. And these dreams have to mean something because dreams always do, perhaps they don't make sense, but Merlin do they mean something.

And I'm going to die.

Well everyone is going to die someday, it's foolish not to think so; even you, love. Now though, I think it might be sooner than I originally anticipated. Of course, when you're 16 and you're saying you're going to live fast and die young is one thing. But when you're 36, you are bound to realize that maybe you wanted to live a little slower and die a little older.

For now though, I have Remus, and I'll cherish him for as long as I am allowed. Ah, what is that poem that Remus likes so much? Yes, I have it now, Robert Frost.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

I suppose what I'm trying to say, what I've been trying to tell you all along, is that I will not be around long enough to remember everything. Remember the way things were. Remus is already far too burdened with current events to know of my thoughts, and my gut feelings.

My predisposition.

I digress.

Now though, I have my thoughts organized. Properly. Now.

What the point was of this, all along, is that I need you to remember this for me. Remember and cherish this, and tell people. Tell them the right story, and not what they just remember me…us. As. Don't let the public forget about four British boys who met in Scotland, who lived and laughed and loved together. Don't forget about the werewolf and the three others who would do anything to help their friend.

Don't forget about the stag that you think is there, in just the corner of your eye, right before you turn your head. Don't be scared of the dark and the deep. And please, for me, if you see a goddamn rat, jump up on a nearby surface and scream. Scream. Scream.

Because I'm afraid you are the only one who I've told. Everything. Anyways. And you are the only one I can tell.

So start talking for me. Be my voice. I'm stuck in this house until I actually drop dead, which is a rather depressing thought that might spur me there early.

You've been wonderful, my dearest of Muggles. The absolute best.

I've enchanted this just a tad, because I still have my magic, and my mind (most of it, anyways) so hopefully this falls into the right hands. I hope to Morgana it does.

Because there needs to be someone to tell the story of Sirius Orion Black, of the Great and Most Noble House of Black, so others, and perhaps my godson, can learn of who I was and who I became.

And if you do, one day, meet Harry James Potter (or look him up in the phone book, whatever that is; Remus says it's useful) tell him I love him. Dead or alive. I love him.

And if Remus is still outside smoking, tell him that for me too. He'll think you're utterly daft but he thinks that of a lot of people so don't worry.

I think that's it. If I think of anything else. I'll add a postscript.

With the best possible love and regards,

Sirius Black

P.s. I did think of something, actually. Pet a lot of dogs, alright? They love being scratched behind their ears and on their bellies and they are not petted enough.

P.p.s Of course if you're allergic don't do that. Get someone else to do that instead.

Ta muchly,

Sirius

May or may not have a sequel. Leave a review please!