If Sirius didn't see the color white ever again, it would be too soon. Funny, James had made journeying through the Afterlife seem like a great adventure, fraught with danger and strife. He would be like Hercules, fighting off demons and monsters at every turn on his journey to save the ones he loved. Never a dull moment, constant danger and strife, a true sacrifice. But, thus far, it was none of that. There was just a flat white expanse, nothing ever changing, continuous boredom, monotonous white on and on and on and on…

Sirius Black did not do well with boredom, especially when there was no Snivellus around to hex.

Finally, in the distance he saw something, a black smudge on the white landscape. He started running towards it, ready to finally do something in this great beyond rather than simply walk… walk… walk…

When the smudge became clear, however, Sirius began to slow down. He recognized it. It was the O' Bailey home—and not the good one with the sheep grazing in the fields, pies cooling in the windows. No, this was the ancestral home of his in-laws.

He tried to stop, promising he would be content in the forever whiteness, if only he didn't have to relive this, this pain he had caused, but it was as if physics had stopped working and he was sucked inside the house, back into his ten-year-old body. He looked around and recognized where and when he had been brought to; it was the day he had received his wand. He could hear his parents in the kitchen, making plans for his betrothal to Tilly. It was the tradition in "fine Wizarding families" for a wizard to be betrothed when he received his first wand.

He wanted to stay in the dining room, the only time that he had ever wanted to be close to his parents, but that was not how that day had gone. Instead, Sirius was sucked upstairs into Tilly's room, decorated in the palest pink and white, straight out of the dreams of any good Pureblood princess. He had spent an inordinate amount of time up there before this day. He and Tilly were constantly forced upon each other by their parents, making them both the worst sort of enemies and the best sort of confidantes.

"I have a secret Siri," little eight-year-old Tilly said, just as he had remembered her saying. "I tried to play with Mummy's wand!"

"Only wizards who are ten can handle a wand, Matylda," he said, the words pouring out of his mouth with little direction from the present-day Sirius. He had been such a pompous little bastard back then. "It's the law. You could have burnt down the house!"

"How?" little Tilly said. "Nothing happened! I just picked it up and waved it—nothing happened."

"Nothing happened?" Sirius said, giving her the sort of superior look that only spoiled ten-year-old boys could give. "But that not right—whenever anyone magical picks up a wand something happens."

"Maybe it was malfunctioning?"

Sirius tried to force himself not to do what he did next, knowing what it would lead to, but he failed miserably. He handed her his own brand-new wand for her to test out. And, just as he remembered, nothing happened as she waved it. He could feel at that moment, the complete lack of magic she possessed. The two children stared at each other for a mere moment, both knowing what was going on.

"You're a Squib!" Sirius said. Then, in a mocking chant that grew louder and louder, "you're a Squib, you're a Squib, you're a Squibby-Squib-Squib!"

"Sirius, Sirius, no! No, no I'm not!"

"You're a Squib, Squibity-Squib-Squib!"

"Well—well—you're a son of a bitch, Sirius Black!" Tilly shouted, stomping her foot in righteous anger.

"What is going on in here?"

Sirius looked up, seeing a tall, stern man with steely gray eyes frowning down at him. It had been several decades since his father had looked down that aristocratic nose at him. By the time Sirius had run away, he had outgrown his father by at least two inches and had decided that Orion Black would never again make Sirius feel so small. He was becoming better and better at making a liar of his own self.

Sirius, though his older self definitely wanted to do better, knew to do better, pointed straight at Tilly.

"She's a Squib, Father!" Sirius yelled, feeling as though he was about to split in half. He pointed an accusing finger at the little girl, who was shaking in fear. "She held my wand and she can't do any magic!"

Orion raised an eyebrow and as Sirius stared into his father's grey eyes, he saw the little girl who would grow up to be his wife cowering in fear from her parents as they raged and roared at her, until her father finally cast a hex on her, throwing her to the back of the room, possibly dead. But, once the angry and disappointed couple left the room, Sirius saw the little girl scramble up off the floor and run out the door.

Matylda O'Bailey ran and ran and ran until she couldn't run any further, finding shelter under a bridge in Dublin. She had reinvented herself there, changing from the proper Pureblood princess into the strong, street-wise woman that Sirius had come to love years later. As he watched, the little girl broke down sobbing, pulling out a formal picture that the Blacks and the O'Baileys had had done of their children a few years before.

"I hate you, Sirius Black!" she sobbed at it, crushing Sirus' heart. Then, she took the picture and ripped it into a million little pieces, allowing them to fly away in the wind.

Without warning, Sirius was pulled from the scene and found himself in Grimmauld Place. The house-elves were scurrying about as Mrs. Black screamed at them. It was the day that Sirius was going to Hogwarts and so of course, everything had to be perfect.

In the months following the revelation of Tilly's lack of magic, things in the Black household had been extremely tense. Though Sirius had consistently tormented the girl, he felt guilty when he learned that she had run away, and angry when his parents and brother had made fun of the O'Baileys for their "out-of-control little pet" and were "so glad that they had discovered her infirmity before sullying the noble name of Black".

Sirius had spent his time trying to do just that.

They had, of course, immediately begun seeking out a "proper Pureblood witch" to betroth to Sirius. Being Sirius, the little boy had done everything he could to make himself undesirable to the other Pureblood families—he insulted the fathers, licked the hands of the mothers instead of kissing them when offered, farted loudly and on purpose in the middle of dinner, and expounded on the genius of Albus Dumbledore (which, granted, he knew very little about, so he simply talked of how glorious it would be to have the man's beautiful beard).

The older Sirius grinned. This was a good day in his life—the day he met his best friends, the day he became a Gryffindor, the day he finally flipped his family the proverbial bird and became himself in the process.

But, then he was sitting under the hat.

"You would do well in Slytherin, Sirius Black," it whispered in his ear. "You are not so different from your family as you'd like to believe. You revealed your wife's most dangerous secret. You allowed your best friends to be killed. You put the blame on your other best friend. You abandoned your daughter—your children actually."

As the hat was saying all of this, Sirius saw himself walking over to the green and silver table, being clapped on the back by Lucius Malfoy before being brought to the Dark Lord, given the Mark. He watched as his wand directed the Torturing Curse onto his wife, Lily, James, Remus, and finally onto Bailey and Harry. He watched as the green light from his wand snatched the breath so cruelly from all the ones that he loved most. He was able to do nothing but scream in horror as he caused their deaths, all their deaths.

Suddenly, he was back in Grimmauld Place, and his mother was towering over him, near murderous intent in her eyes.