I would like to say I was not affected in the least. But who am I kidding?

I'm alone now, and I won't lie, I'm in shock. I've just seen what no over-protective best friend should ever see. I'm so mad I can barely think. Those rotten, low-life freaks! How could they do that to him? Their own son!

Wow, I'm starting to sound like Lily. But even the thought of her, beautiful, charming Lily, can't distract me right now. I feel sick. I really, really want to vomit.

They hurt him. They hurt him bad. Just thinking about it and I'm mad all over again. how could they? How. Could. They?

Don't understand? Let me paint the picture for you.

I looked at the clock. It was nearly one in the morning.

"Who on earth would ring at this hour?" I mumbled sleepily, pulling on my shoes and stumbling down the stairs to the door. Mum and Dad are still asleep. I should let them rest. They had a long day at the ministry.

I feel my way down the dark hallway, silently cursing whatever imbecile wanted to come knocking so late. Why couldn't they just call tomorrow?

As I'm turning the doorknob and yawning, the realization hits me like a bucket of ice water straight to the face. What am I DOING? I'm such an idiot! Why on earth would someone come calling so early? Ding, ding, ding, Death eaters! Boy, am I STUPID!

I left my wand upstairs. I LEFT MY WAND UPSTAIRS. Damn, I'm scared! Should I run? Should I hide?

I'm going to die, and I know it.

Then I see who it is leaning heavily against the porch railing, and all my worries disappear.

Not in the good, blissful oblivion kind of way. In the oh-holy-shit-what-happened-to-my-best-friend kind of way.

Sirius is covered in blood. And not the cheap fake blood muggles wear at Halloween. I'm talking real, dark red and sticky blood. It's everywhere. His shirt is torn and completely soaked through with the foul crimson stuff. There is a livid bruise forming around his left eye, and two more on his neck that made it look like someone had tried to strangle him (which, horribly, is not such a wild theory).

There's a fraction of a second where Sirius looks at me and I look at him. Even his big grey eyes don't seem to have escaped injury. One was going black and the other had tears of blood dripping slowly from it.

I can't move. I can't speak. My heart is going a thousand miles an hour. I see the haunted look in my best friend's eyes, the terror and the immense sorrow.

Then Sirius collapses.

I don't remember screaming. But I must have, for my parents came rushing down the stairs, wands at the ready. My mum lets out a kind of soft shriek when she sees Sirius, and she and Dad rush to his side. I can't move. I stand frozen in the doorway. There's so much blood.

Somehow something I must've read once jumps into the front of my mind. If you can lie in a pool of your own blood, you're dead. Sirius looks like he's pretty close to that point.

He can't die. Sirius can't die. Sirius CAN'T die!

I drop to my knees beside my unconscious best friend, screaming my heart out at him. "YOU CAN'T DIE ON ME, YOU BLOODY PRAT!" I sob hysterically. "YOU CAN'T DIE ON ME!"

My mum takes me in her arms, and I'm crying like there's no tomorrow. Sirius can't die. Sirius can't die.

"Who-who do you think you are?" I wail, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him, his blood staining my hands. "Who d-do you think y- you are that y-you c-c-can just leave me, Sirius Black! D-DON'T YOU DARE D-D-DIE ON ME!"

My dad pries me away from him and carries Sirius upstairs. Mum helps me up, and we follow. I'm still screaming bloody murder, cursing black and blue, refusing to let my best friend in the world die in my house.

Well, thank the Lord, he isn't dead.

Sirius is asleep upstairs at the moment. Mum and Dad (and me, of course) bandaged him up as best we could. The bleeding's stopped. But I am far from over this. FAR, far from over it.

Sirius talks in his sleep. That's how I know what happened.

He and his father got into an argument, and his dad totally lost it. I know my dad and I fight sometimes, but he's never laid a hand on me once in his life. And mum…well, mum doesn't usually go around picking fights.

But from the sound of it, Sirius's parents are completely different.

He was screaming. Screaming in his sleep. Screaming for them not to hurt him.

I couldn't take it anymore, which is why I'm downstairs in our kitchen instead of his bedside. I think I totally broke down at one point, and mum decided that it was time to kick me out.

I wish she hadn't done that. Because now I have only my chaotic thoughts for company.

Chaotic thought number one: How the HELL did I not realize this sooner?

Sirius is my best friend in the entire world. No, he's more than that. He's my brother. And I never noticed a damn thing about the kind of abuse he was going through at home. Why? Because I'm a bloody idiot.

Yes, I know, you're probably in shock. James Potter, an idiot? It does sound impossible.

But it's not. I let my brother get abused to the worst extent by his own flesh-and-blood. I swallowed all his lies about tree-climbing or falling down the stairs when he came back from the summer holidays with bruises and cuts. I never questioned why he never talked about his parents, or why they never came to see him off at the start-of-term. They were Blacks, what more did I need to know? I would be ashamed of my family, too.

I let it happen. I let him go home every summer. I should have stopped him. I should have made him stay at our house until school started again.

Of course, he did visit a lot during the holidays. But he shouldn't have had to return.

In case you haven't noticed, there is a lot of hate inside me right now.

I hate the Blacks. I hate them with more passion than I've ever hated before. They are cruel, abusive pureblood maniacs who don't deserve to live. If it was up to me, I would march down to their house right now and beat the shit out of them, to put it eloquently. I am not even joking.

But most of all, I hate myself. I hate myself for not realizing this before. I could have prevented this. Sirius could have died all because I was too blind to help him.

I try to convince myself that it's not my fault. I couldn't have known. I had no reason to doubt Sirius. After all, he is my best friend. I would trust him with my life. I can't blame myself for being trusting.

Who am I kidding?