1971, 1st Year, 1st Day…
Sirius' Story:
Quote of the Day: Nobility is not a birthright. It is defined by one's actionsIt was breakfast on the first day of classes and we had just received our timetables from our two prefects Thomas Weatherly and Morgan West.
I was sitting with my dorm mates James Potter, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew at the Gryffindor table happily eating my breakfast when suddenly a whole hoard of owls came swooping in through a window.
Some of us got quite a shock and wondered what the hell owls were doing flying through the windows in the middle of breakfast but the older students told us they carried the daily mail.
I looked up and saw an owl swooping in my general direction. It was a very familiar looking owl. A very familiar owl that was carrying a red envelope. A red envelope that looked distinctly like a Howler. (Okay, I'll stop now, but you have to get the point!) Of course, it was inevitable that something like this should happen, but I didn't expect it to be so soon.
The owl in question was Zade, the owl that my mother and father and the rest of the family used, and just like them it was a particularly sinister owl, it always pecked me and annoyed me to no end. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if my mother herself trained the dumb owl to annoy me. I wouldn't put it past her.
Zade came swooping down to land on the table in front of me, causing my orange juice to tip over.
"Dumb owl!" I said, cursing, and almost instantaneously it started pecking me.
"It's a Howler!" Peter said.
"No need to state the obvious," I answered.
"You better open it mate, trust me," James said, eyeing the Howler as if it was about to explode there and then, the red envelope begun to smoke.
Of course that's what would eventually happen if I didn't open it.
By now all of the occupants in the hall were staring at me and the Howler. I looked over to the Slytherin table and saw my cousins Narcissa and Bellatrix smirking at me. Oh how I wanted to punch their stupid faces in!
The hall was silent with anticipation as I gingerly picked up the Howler and opened it. Suddenly it sprang into life and started to yell, it was my mother's voice, though unlike anything I've ever experienced, it was amplified about one hundred times so the whole of the hall could hear, (and anything within five hundred miles probably- I swear I could see the birds of the Forbidden Forest fly off in a flurry out of the corner of my eye- they probably lost half of their feathers from the shock). Just the sound of my mother's voice when she yells normally is enough to blow your eardrums out and make your eyes water.
"Sirius Black!" my mother's voice screeched, filling the hall with her horrible voice, the Howler literally lunged at me and nearly everyone around me jumped half way out of their seats, Peter nearly fell out of his chair.
"What do you think you are doing!? Being in Gryffindor and not in Slytherin! How dare you taint the Black name so! You ungrateful little brat! I'll have you know that every single Black has been in Slytherin since before you were born, it has been that way ever since the Black family started and we'll be damned if you ruin it! Your cousins Bellatrix and Narcissa were never like this; they went straight into Slytherin without question!
Don't ever forget that you come from a pure-blood family who is proud of its lineage and if you don't clean up your act now young man, there will be trouble to pay! We don't want your associating with that bunch of filthy blood-traitors, freaks, scum and half-breeds that people call Gryffindors! Your father and I will be up shortly to talk to Dumbledore about this whole mess. You should be ashamed of yourself Sirius Black, for tainting the family name! How dare you? You ungrateful little monster!" And with that the envelope burst into flames and smouldered into ashes.
The hall rang with sudden silence. Nobody moved and not a sound was heard. I sat there, stunned, sinking as low as I could into my seat. Everyone was still staring at me. Then after a while people begun to talk in hushed whispers and gradually the noise level and movement in the hall went back to normal.
I looked over at the rest of the Gryffindors, most of them glared at me. Just great, I thought, my first day and already everyone hated me.
"What's this about Gryffindor's being filthy blood-traitors, scum and half-breeds, Sirius?" James said, rather loudly, with a threatening look in his eyes. I could feel the whole of Gryffindors' eyes on me, and I knew that they were all expecting an answer as much as James was.
I was taken aback for a minute. "…You don't think I believe that, do you?" I asked slowly, looking at James, Remus and Peter.
James just stared back at me, his hazel eyes boring into my own. Remus and Peter avoided my gaze, looking very interested in their empty cereal bowls. "Do you?" I demanded again.
"Well, er, um… no…" Remus said slowly and unconvincingly, looking up at me.
"My owl could lie better than that, Remus," I said dourly. No one laughed however, not that I was expecting anyone to.
"Well, we, um, well, if you're in Gryffindor and not in Slytherin, it probably means that you don't think that then…" Peter said quietly.
"Of course I don't!" I said loudly, making sure that the other Gryffindor's would hear me, "Don't you see? That's why I'm not in Slytherin! Because I hate all that pure-blood mania, I don't want to be a part of it, my family is arrogant in so many ways. I never wanted to be like them, and of course I don't think you're all blood-traitors and all that," I said, hoping they'd listen. I didn't want to loose the only people that had previously showed me kindness on the first day.
"I believe you," James said slowly, "…although…" he said mock-hesitantly, "…Your mother is a total crackpot," James said, grinning.
I started to laugh, and soon Remus, Peter and James were laughing as well. Nearly the whole school was looking at us in bewilderment. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Narcissa and Bellatrix, and they did not look at all happy.
"And on that point," I said, laughing, "you are totally right," I said, still laughing.
"So, what do you think Potions will be like?" Peter asked, once everything had gone back to normal and I did not have to prove myself to anyone.
"I don't know, but it's a double with the Slytherins so it can't be very good," James replied.
I groaned, just what we needed first up, a double lesson with the Slytherins. The first day was just getting better and better. But little did I know, that it was just about to get a whole lot worse.
The signal went for the first class to commence and James, Remus, Peter and I stood up and started to exit the hall.
"Where do we go?" Peter asked.
"I don't know," James said, "hey look, let's just follow them, they're in Gryffindor I think, it looks like they know where they're going," James said, starting to follow a girl with thick red hair and another one with long dark brown hair. We followed them until we came to one of the dungeons that some of the first years had walked into. We followed them in, wondering what to expect.
As soon as we walked into the dungeon it instantly felt much cooler than the main castle, I almost shivered from the drop in temperature.
I stopped suddenly. James, Remus and Peter all stopped as well as they had followed me into the dungeons. I could instantly feel my jaw literally drop. I couldn't believe who was standing at the teacher's desk. I knew the face all too well.
"Sirius, what's the hold up?" James asked impatiently from behind me.
"I don't believe it…" I said in disbelief.
"Don't believe what?" James asked.
I didn't reply, but merely kept on looking at the figure standing at the front of the room. Marek Crevan. Marek Crevan was the Potions professor. The same Marek Crevan who was one of my fathers most trusted acquaintances and who had always been a close family friend of the Blacks; the Marek Crevan who preached the same pure-blood crap as my whole family. I could not believe it.
Finally, when I realized that I was holding half of the class up I gathered my wits and walked over to an empty desk, I tried to sit as far away from Crevan as I could.
I sat there stunned, one of my worst nightmares had just came true, the worst possible person I could have imagined to teach us was standing right in front of me, and would probably be here for the rest of my schooling years.
"Sirius, what is your problem?" James asked me quietly as he sat down in the chair next to me.
"That's Marek Crevan!" I whispered to James frantically.
"Mary who?" James asked, confused. If I hadn't been in such a state, James' reply to the name Marek Crevan would have been hilariously funny.
"Marek Crevan!" I said again.
"Who's Marek Crevan?" James asked. I swear, sometimes his stupidity surprised even me.
"The Professor!" I replied.
"Oh," James said, "and, ah, what's wrong with that?" James asked, still oblivious.
"He's one of my father's closest friends, that's what!"
"So?" Peter said.
"So? So!? That man is a pure-blood mental!" I said.
"Calm down, Sirius, I'm sure he's not that bad," Remus replied.
"You don't know the half of it," I replied bitterly.
But before any of them could comment a voice was heard from the front of the room. "Sirius Black!" Crevan said, staring at me, and the whole class turned around to stare at me, "No talking unless I say so," Crevan said.
"Yes Professor," I mumbled as Crevan smiled somewhat evilly.
Crevan then returned to the center of the room to take the register, he went on to explain what Potions would involve for the next five years but I was completely tuned out so I couldn't tell you what was said.
I couldn't believe that Crevan was our Professor! I mean, it wouldn't have come as such a shock if someone in my family had told me about it, I'm sure they would have known in the summer. And then I remembered, my family and I weren't exactly on friendly terms. The only people in my family that were nice to me were my cousin Andromeda, and my uncle Alphard, and I had only seen them a couple of days during the last summer.
Andromeda still lived with her family out in the English countryside in a small mansion, though she had finished school last summer. Andromeda was Bellatrix's and Narcissa's sister, and I felt sorry for her for having two complete bitches for sisters, though I think they got on all right.
Anyway, Crevan had been a friend of the Black family for as long as I can remember; whenever we had a dinner party he was there, unless, for some reason he could not go. I never really took any notice of him, all I knew was that when he came over to visit dad they would spend long hours discussing Merlin knows what, and sometimes he would stay for dinner and sometimes he would leave straight away. He was always criticizing of Regulus and I, if we did one little thing wrong he'd notice it and tell us not to do it. It was like he thought he was our third parent or something, like he thought he could tell us what to do! When I was younger actually, I got on all right with Crevan, but as I grew up he got more and more criticizing of me and he used to give me little talks about the importance of being a pure-blood, that's when I really started to dislike him.
But why wasn't Crevan at last night's feast? I wondered. I was quite sure I would have noticed him. And he couldn't be a new teacher because Dumbledore hadn't announced any arrival of a new teacher, and I was quite sure that he would have done it at the feast if there had been any new teachers.
I felt James nudge me, "Sirius," he whispered. I didn't need to reply though, because I knew exactly what was wrong, Crevan had been staring at me, and I hadn't taken any notice.
"Now that Black is kind enough to give us his full attention I will continue…" Crevan started talking again about Potions and began to write things down about it so we could copy. He wrote about what sorts of ingredients were commonly used and stuff like that, also known as the extremely boring features of potion ingredients.
What I really begun to notice about Crevan was that he seemed to like Snivellus, he didn't really favour anyone else, but he liked Snivellus because Snivellus was always the first to finish his potion, the first to get everything right, and he did everything 'perfect'.
But what I also noticed about Crevan, and this is what bewildered me at the time, was that even though he was negative with me he seemed all right with James and Peter, which was very strange because they were both Gryffindors, and Peter was a half-blood. He seemed indifferent with Remus so far, actually during that first lesson I had a feeling that he kind of ignored Remus, and I had no idea why.
Finally, the signal went for the end of class. I started to gladly file out of the dungeon with the rest of the class when I heard Crevan's voice from the front of the room, "Black, stay here."
I groaned, what did he want? I indicated to James, Remus and Peter that they needn't wait behind for me, and when all the students had gone I turned around and made my way over to Crevan's desk.
"Yes, Cr- Professor?" I asked, stopping myself from referring to his last name just in time.
"I've noticed you've made a couple of new friends, Sirius." He said 'friends' in an almost scornful manner, and I noticed that he addressed me with my first name, which he never did.
"Yes sir," I replied. What else was I to say? 'Oh yes Marek, they've been great friends, in fact, the other day...'? And talk to him like we were old mates or something?
"A few, Gryffindor friends." He said 'Gryffindor' in the same manner.
I didn't reply.
"Sirius, you do know the importance and place of being a pure-blood, do you not?" Crevan asked, looking me in the eye, I looked away.
"Yes Professor," I replied gravely. Why was he telling me this? Why did he think that I'd listen anyway? Little did I know that many more of these little 'talks' were to come.
"And you know full well of the importance that your family places on it?" He asked.
"Yes Professor," I replied once again.
"Then you must also know that making friends with Gryffindors puts you in a very sticky situation indeed," Crevan said. I nodded. Like I even cared what he had to say anyway!
"I suggest," he said, looking at me, "that you make friends with Slytherins in future, I'm sure Severus Snape would be very happy to be your friend," he said.
I almost scoffed at that, but stopped myself. Snape, I was very sure, loathed the sight of me, and I, him. There was no way in the world we would become friends. I'd rather face a chimera than be friends with that git.
Crevan noticed my negativities and said, "Understand that I have your own best interests in mind Sirius."
I didn't reply. My own best interests, yeah right, more like my family's best interests.
"You know that your father would loathe the fact that you've made friends with Gryffindors. Sirius, we only want to see you succeed, and success does not come with lowly friends, such as those of Gryffindor," Crevan said.
By now, I had had just about enough of this 'talk'. Sure, I hardly knew James, Remus and Peter, but they seemed better than any Slytherin I'd ever encountered.
"Yes, sir," I said through gritted teeth.
"Very well then, make sure you keep that in mind, you are free to go," Crevan said as he sat back in his chair.
I turned and walked out the door. Wanting to get away from the dungeons as fast as possible I fled as fast as I could back up to the Great Hall, where the students were having their breaks just before the next couple of lessons.
The first day and already I had had two lectures! They didn't know what was best for me.
Suddenly I again had second thoughts about all this, I could tell straight away that if I kept on rebelling, there would be more people to answer to and to receive lectures from. Maybe if I just accepted the fact that I am a pure-blood it would have been much easier. But no, that's not what I, Sirius Black, was about.
I hadn't been sorted into Gryffindor for nothing!
I wasn't like them, and I never was going to be if I could help it. Even if it meant daily lectures from my family and Crevan, even if it meant having to go against all my family believed in, even if it meant disowning the Black name, I would not be like them. I will never be like them. Ever.
Just as I resolved this however, I wasn't looking where I was going and suddenly I found myself running into two elder Gryffindors that I didn't know - whom will be referred to muscle-head (blonde-haired one) and freckle-face (red-haired one) from here on out.
"Watch where you're going kid!" one of them with blonde hair and quite a muscled body said, I think they were 7th years.
"I'm sorry, I wasn't looking," I said. Usually, I would have said, "you watch where you're going," or something equally smart but I didn't want to make any more enemies than what I already had on my first day.
"Oh, it's Sirius Black," the red-haired, freckle-faced one said, emphasizing my last name. They blocked my path. I had a feeling that if it had been anybody but me that had ran into them they would have let them pass.
"Shouldn't you be in Slytherin, Black, where the rest of your family belongs?" muscle-head said. Freckle-face laughed.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I replied, feeling quite intimidated by these seventh years.
"The whole Hall heard that Howler this morning Black! You know exactly what we're talking about; your mother was slandering Gryffindor in front of the whole school! And then you think you can just prance around the school thinking you're one of us," muscle-head said.
"You're not a Gryffindor, Black. Not to us, and other Gryffindors, you'll find, that they all agree, though they don't say anything. You might have made friends with other Gryffindors, but eventually they'll disown you, because you're just another Slytherin, you don't belong in Gryffindor," Freckle-face said, glaring at me.
I was quite taken aback at all this. If anything, I thought the Gryffindors would at least be nice to me now that I had already explained everything to James, Remus, and Peter (and the rest of the Gryffindors) at breakfast. How wrong I was.
I didn't have anything to say. I couldn't say anything.
Then all of a sudden a girl with curly brown hair appeared, coming out of the nearest classroom, it was the Gryffindor prefect, Morgan West.
"What are you doing Jared?" she addressed muscle-head, "Dominic?" (freckle-face) she asked, eyeing them, she seemed to guess what was happening.
"Hi West, we were just telling Black some of the 'rules'" Dominic said.
"Well you can leave now," Morgan said to both of them.
"If you insist West," Jared said, winking at her. Then, with one last glare at me, the pair of them left.
"Don't listen to those two Sirius," Morgan said, "you better just go straight to your next class or you'll be late, the signal's about to go," she said looking at a digital watch around her wrist. And, sure enough, the signal went for the next class.
"What's your next class?" Morgan asked politely.
"Um, History of Magic I think," I replied glumly.
"Oh, Binns won't notice if you're late or not anyway. Do you know where to go?" she asked.
"Yeah, I think so," I lied.
"Well be careful then," Morgan said as she walked off to her next class.
By now the corridors were filled with bustling students all making their way to their own classes.
I don't know why exactly I told Morgan that I knew where to go when clearly I didn't. Perhaps it was because I didn't want everyone to think that I needed special prefect attention, or that I was just a useless little kid - which I felt like already anyway.
I made my way to the History of Magic classroom - or at least where I thought it to be. I couldn't keep what Dominic and Jared had said to me earlier out of my mind, … 'you're not a Gryffindor, Black. Not to us, and other Gryffindors, you'll find, that they all agree, though they don't say anything'…
As I made my way through the corridors to the History of Magic classroom, I found that they were exactly right.
Almost every person that I knew was in Gryffindor either almost glared at me, or looked away when I walked past them. The Gryffindors that actually smiled at me were few.
Finally, after what seemed like ages, I had found the History of Magic classroom. I walked into the room to find that most of the class was already there. James had saved me a seat up the back between himself and Remus. Peter was on the other side of James. The Professor still wasn't present yet; it was good to know that I had finally managed to get to a classroom before the Professor.
"So what did Professor Crevan say?" Peter asked curiously as soon as I had sat down.
"Oh, not much really," I replied, trying to sound unperturbed.
Peter seemed happy with this answer. James, however, was not.
"But you were there all break," James said, looking at me.
"He just wanted to know about how my family was going," I lied. Instantly though, I knew that they'd know I was lying, only two hours before I had basically said how much I didn't like him. I didn't bother making up something else either so I just sat there.
"I'm sure he didn't want to just have a morning chat about how your family were going Sirius," James said.
But before I had to make something else up the Professor had entered, and in a most peculiar fashion indeed. I heard everyone gasp around me and I looked away from James to see a ghost floating through the blackboard. I felt myself gasp. Sure I had seen ghosts plenty of times, but one teaching us? That was weird and exciting at the same time. Though, if I thought that Binns' lessons were going to be exciting because he was a ghost, I soon discovered just how very wrong I was.Binns has to possess the most boring, monotone, wheezy and dry voices in the entire history of the world. And that's really saying something coming from me.
Being in Binns' lessons, I found, was about as boring as listening to my father and mother repeatedly talking about how supreme they were.
The strange thing was that Binns made exciting things in history, such as war, sound extremely dull. I was simply amazed that anyone could be that boring.
Of course the class begun to take notes as soon as he started talking, but after about five minutes into the lesson I put my quill down and tuned out instead. About half an hour into the class I realized that only a quarter of the class were taking notes, which included Remus. Remus seemed to be quite the studier. James and Peter had both stopped writing about five minutes after I had.
Of course doing nothing in Binns' class led me to dwell on all that had happened so far.
In just the course of the morning I had found out that Crevan was a professor here at Hogwarts, Crevan gave me a lecture about pure-blood crap and my new friends, and the two older Gryffindors, Jared and Dominic, told me that I didn't belong in their house.
Well what a nice start to my first day at Hogwarts. The thought of finally going to Hogwarts had been what had kept me happy through the summer, and now, I thought, that perhaps I didn't belong here either.
Well, where did I, Sirius Black, belong? Where would I fit in? I surely did not fit in with my family, and it seemed like I didn't fit in at Hogwarts either. Perhaps I should have been in Slytherin, after all, it seemed like the much easier option.
All of these thoughts, however, were interrupted as a small folded piece of parchment landed on my table in front of me, I looked over at James, and he was pointing at the note that had landed on the table.
I read the note:
Sirius, what's wrong? You don't look too happy, what happened with Crevan?
Of course I didn't look very happy. Very observant of you, James.
I'm fine, just first day nerves, you know. I wrote back, I threw the note back at him. All this note writing was pointless, I deemed, as I looked up at Binns, whom was still droning on.
Binns hadn't even noticed that three quarters of his class were no longer paying attention to him and I'm sure he wouldn't notice James and I passing notes. In fact, I'm sure he wouldn't even notice if the school blew up around us, he'd probably just keep talking about Ulric the Ugly.
Yeah right Sirius. What's really wrong? Is it something to do with your family?
James wrote back.
Why wouldn't he just give up on it already? It was clear that I didn't want to talk about it. Did I have to spell it out to him? That was the thing that first made me start to like James, his straight-to-the-point manner, and failure to give up on things. I really liked that about James' personality, but then however, it really irritated me that he wouldn't give up.
Look, I don't want to talk about it, okay? Just don't worry about it! Drop it!
I wrote back. Okay, maybe that was a bit harsh, but right then I didn't really care, I was getting sick of James' constant pestering for me to tell him what was wrong. If I didn't want to tell him then he shouldn't keep on bloody well asking. Needless to say, he didn't write back.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, the signal went for lunch and I was glad to get out of the classroom.
When we arrived down at the Great Hall we found that there were already many students there. About five minutes after I had sat down and began eating my roast beef, McGonagall came marching up to the Gryffindor table.
"Black, come with me please," she said briskly, looking down at me.
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Poor Sirius. Well this was a very long chapter so I hope that makes up for not updating, there's more to come, originally it was longer than it is now but I seperated it into two chapters. Ooh, a cliffhanger! Don't worry I'll probably update soon, I really can't help updating because I love the reviews and hearing what you all think about the chapters… so… please review! (If you haven't already). And thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far! I love you all!
Gemma- Thankyou, I'm glad you like the story! I've been thinking about Sirius' death and I'm not sure now what happened to him, I just hope he's not dead. Though J.K cried when she wrote about his death. L. But he lives on in fanfiction!
Leena-Sama- Hey! Thank you very much! I'm glad you like it, well here's more for you. Hagrid actually was the gameskeeper when James etc. were there, Hagrid was a student when Tom Riddle was at school, which was before MWPP's time, when Dumbledore was a Transfiguration teacher, Hagrid was a student at Hogwarts in the late 30's early 40's. Thanks again for your review!
Ronda-Silverpaw- Thank you! I'm glad you liked it, and the Dumbledore part. He's a little insane! Haha. Oh and I just wanted to tell you that I love your stories! I read some and didn't realize they were yours, but I do really like them! (Yes, I have officially turned into a slasher! It wasn't meant to happen!)
DracosPrincess1- Lol. Thank you! Please don't die on account of me updating my story! I don't want to be held responsible, lol, (only joking) but please don't die! I'm glad you like the story!LibbyBird- Thank you! I'm glad you like it, and you're glued to your seat! J
Mimi- Thank you! I will.
Linker27- Thank you! Yes of course I will post more, I'm intending to finish it.
V.N.T.A. Estel- Yes I recognise you! Thankyou!
Potterfan18- Thank you! I'm glad you liked the interruptions between Remus and Sirius. They're funny together!
Killua Bakura- Lol. Yes he is, I mean, who wouldn't mock the teachers if you had a bunch of crazy people teaching you! Lol.
This Parrot has ceased to be- Thank you very much! I'm glad you liked this chapter. I like writing about insane people, esp. from Sirius' POV, it's fun! I will try to update when I can. Thanks for the support!
Padfoot911- I'm glad you liked it! I love Sirius' sense of humour as well, he's great! And I'm glad you liked the quotes, I like them too, except some were hard to think of.
Blood red stain- Thankyou! Glad you like Sirius, (who doesn't? Honestly, half the chapters will turn out to be from his point of view! Not that I'm biased! ;) Lol.)