It took a full two weeks for Sirius to heal completely. Star finally pronounced him well enough to go off with her brother but warned him not to do too much running or jumping. Which meant that the flying tree squirrel lessons were still a no go. Sirius had laughed for a full ten minutes when Night first mentioned it. And he still cracked up every time he thought about it.

With Star's approval, the two boys were free to leave the camp and roam the forest once more. Which is what they were currently doing.

"Hey Night?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah?" The other boy answered from the top of the rock.

"How long have you and Star lived here in the forest?"

Surprisingly Night didn't really react to that question as Sirius had expected him to. He simply frowned, more in thought than in anger. It was as if he was deciding how best to answer the question. It wasn't until Sirius finally reached him at the top that he answered.

"Looks like I win."

"What?" Sirius was startled. "Win what?"

"The bet." Night said with a small smile. "Star and I had a bet going on how long it would take you to start asking those questions. She thought the boredom of being confined to camp would make you crack. I thought you would hold out until you were allowed out."

Sirius snorted. "Trust you and your sister to make a bet over something like that. What did you bet anyway?"

"Chores. Whoever lost would have to do most of the chores for a week. Though I still have to do the fishing as Star claims that the fish like me more than her." The smile had grown into a full one now.

Sirius snorted again. "Of course they like you. Even I figured that out within the first minute and a half that time you tried to teach me how to fish."

The look Night gave him was enough to make Sirius nearly loose his balance on top of rock as laughter overcame him. Only Night's fast reflexes stopped him from introducing himself to the side of the rock and the ground the hard way.

It wasn't until after he had stopped laughing that Sirius realized that Night had never answered his question. Not even to say that that was something he couldn't share.

"You never did answer my question." Sirius pointed out.

"So I didn't." Night mused.

He stared off into the distance and Sirius knew that he wasn't really seeing the forest. He had once managed to get Night to confess that he was remembering things when he did that. What exactly he was remembering, Sirius had never discovered. At the time, it wasn't important.

"There are a lot of things you deserve to be told." Night said at last. "And it's not just my story to tell. If you want our story, you'll have to wait until Star can tell it as well."

"Can we go now?" Sirius asked, startling his friend.

"What?"

"Can we go now? I know that Star said she was staying at camp for the afternoon." Sirius said.

Night considered if for a moment before nodding. "If you want to, then sure."

The two boys stood up and clambered back down the rock. The walk back through the forest to the camp seemed to take longer than the walk to the rock had. Perhaps this was because both boys were silent, contemplating the conversation that would soon take place. It wouldn't be an easy conversation; that much they were sure of. Learning what had driven two kids to live in the forest would never be easy.

They reached the camp soon enough and Star must have sensed their presence for she looked up at them.

"You're back early." She said, surprised. "I wasn't expecting you back until well after dark."

"I win." Night said in response to her unspoken question.

If Sirius didn't already know what his friend was talking about he would have wondered if Night was speaking in some sort of code.

Star's face went from confused to understanding.

"Ah, he finally got around to asking, did he?" Night nodded. "Come and have a seat Sirius and we'll answer your questions."

Sirius sat down next to the fire, going despite the fact that it was still afternoon and fairly warm out. Night sat across from him and Star sat to Sirius' left.

"We're not the only ones who have a story to tell." Star said quietly.

It took Sirius a minute to catch on to what she was saying. Then he realized that they wanted to know his story as much as he wanted to know theirs. He should have known that.

"You want to know my story." He said, more for clarification than anything else.

The siblings nodded and Sirius let out a small sigh.

"Alright then. Who goes first?"

Star and Night had one of their silent conversations that only lasted a few seconds.

"Why don't you." Night said. "We get the feeling that your story won't take as long as ours."

Sirius nodded and was silent for a moment as he decided where to begin.

"You know that my family, the Blacks, are one of the wealthiest and most influential families in the village. In families like mine, children, especially the heirs, are raised a certain way. We are taught from a young age how we are supposed to act, think, what the expectations are for us and what our future will be like. I wasn't an exception. The problem was, I rebelled against that from a young age.

"My parents tolerated it when I was younger. They told me once that they put it down to a child experimenting with and testing their limits. They thought that I would grow out of it and become as a Black heir should be. It wasn't until about four years ago that their patience ran out with me."

Neither sibling had so much as breathed a word. In fact, if he wasn't able to see the faint rise and fall of their chests he would have thought that they weren't even breathing.

Sirius took a deep breath before continuing.

"The things I had done as a child were no longer tolerated."

"What kind of things?" Night asked, his voice barely a whisper.

Sirius' lips pulled up into a small smile as he recalled the things he had done as a child.

"I used to pull pranks on my tutors, ranging from having a buck of water fall on their head when they walked in a room to hiding their notes and books around the room, or the house if I was feeling extremely mischievous. I pulled pranks on my parents, brother, even some of the villagers. My reputation as a trouble maker spread and rumors began to arise because of it.

"Suddenly girls were claiming that I had courted them in secret, stolen a few kisses. One or two girls even claimed that I had slept with them. It didn't take long for my parents to hear of these rumors and interrogate me. That was the time when they began to really punish me."

Sirius forced himself to look up at their faces. Both Night and Star had mastered keeping their faces blank. Odds were though, that by the time he finished his story they would have cracked. The few people who found out usually did.

"It started off like you would expect. My parents punished me by locking me in my room for hours, usually making me skip a meal. Sometimes, depending on how badly I misbehaved, I would skip two meals. It didn't take long from them to catch on that that type of punishment had no effect on me."

"Why?" Star asked.

Sirius started at the unexpected interruption. "What?"

"Why didn't it affect you?" She clarified. "You would think that skipping meals on a regular basis would have some effect on you."

"That would be thanks to Lily. She was the only friend I had in that place, in the entire village really. She would sneak into my room at night after everyone else was asleep and brought me food."

"And she never once got caught?" Night asked.

"Once." Sirius admitted. "I got her out of trouble by saying that I ordered her to bring me food and being the obedient servant that she was, she obeyed me."

That broke their carefully constructed blank masks and both siblings began to laugh. When they finally settled down, Sirius continued.

"When they figured out that just taking away meals and locking me in my room had no effect on me, they turned to other forms of punishment. One in particular. They took to beating me whenever I misbehaved. Usually they used a belt, but there were times when they used other things. My father was usually the one who punished me as I was his heir, not my mother's.

"At first I thought I could withstand it like I had every other punishment. It didn't take me long to figure out that I couldn't. Not with my father doing the punishing. He was strong and that strength benefitted him whenever he beat me. There were times when he opened deep wounds on my back and my chest. It would take my days, sometimes weeks to recover from them."

"Like this one?" Star's voice was quiet as she asked.

Sirius shook his head, not daring to look up and see the expression on her face. "No. Worse." He whispered.

That was it. He knew without looking up that their blank masks had crumpled for good and were now showing a mixture of shock and horror.

"How much worse?"

"You really don't want to know." Sirius said darkly.

"It didn't take long for me to decide to shape up some. At least enough that my parents would think I was on track to becoming a proper Black. I still played pranks, but I limited them, keeping mostly to the servants who would never dare to report me.

"This went on for three years. The punishments stopped after a while and I was only ever punished when I did something major that they disapproved of."

"So what happened that led to your last punishment?" Night asked.

Sirius winced. He had planned on revealing his feelings to Night first. He had nothing against Star, but he wanted to have the chance to talk with Night about it and see if there was any chance he felt the same way. So Sirius chose to tell only part of the reason.

"I got tired of my parents trying to force me to live my life their way. The night before, my parents invited the Malfoys over for dinner. The Malfoys are another family like ours and they have a daughter my age. During dessert, I overheard my parents talking with the Malfoys about arranging a marriage between me and the Malfoy daughter Jasmine. That was the final straw. I stormed out of the dining room and up to my room. After talking with Lily the next morning, I decided to run away. My father caught me before I could leave and when I refused to marry, he punished me."

Everything he said was the truth. He just left out the part about how he refused to marry because he was in love with someone else. Night looked like he believed him but a look at Star told Sirius that while she believed him, she knew he wasn't telling them something. Sirius made a mental note that lying or holding back the truth would never work around Star. She was obviously well practiced in knowing when someone was lying or not telling everything.

"Where were you planning on going?" Star asked.

"Well, I was hoping you guys wouldn't mind if I stayed with you." Sirius said hesitantly. He hadn't thought about what he would do if they refused.

"Of course you can stay with us." Star said, correctly interpreting his hesitation.

Night nodded. "You'll always be welcome here."

Relief breaking over him, Sirius flung himself forward and wrapped his arms around them. Night and Star were clearly startled but quickly recovered, wrapping their arms around Sirius. One of Star's arms came into contact with Sirius' wounds and the dark haired boy let out a cry of pain. Night and Star pulled back quickly, apology written all over their faces. Sirius assured them he was fine and the apology disappeared to be replaced with matching looks of concern and anger. Sirius knew that they were thinking about what he had just told them.

AN: *Enters the room with a confused Night trailing behind.*

Night: I'm confused. Why are we going this way again?

Author: I told you. We have to catch Sirius and bring him back.

Night: That still doesn't explain why you dragged me along.

Author: *Slaps forehead with hand. Mumbles under breath: I still can't believe he doesn't see it.*

Night: What?

Author: Nothing. Look, Sirius is your friend. You rescued him, now he's going to return the favor.

Night: I am not kidnapped.

Author: *Smirks* That's not what he's going to think. Now be quiet.

Hello there everyone. As you may have guessed, Night and I are on a mission to catch Sirius. This was an idea suggested by a reviewer. So we'll see if it works. In the meantime, what did you guys think of this chapter? Now we have an idea of what Sirius' life was like before he met Night. Next chapter will be about what happened to Night and Star.

Now, I have bad news and good news. The bad news is, this week I have to review for finals at the Muggle University. So I'm not sure how much time I'll have for writing. The good news is, I think I have the next chapter done. So it will still be posted on schedule. I have to reread it and make sure, but I believe we are good to go. To all of you out there who have finals coming up for Muggle school, I wish you luck.

Oh, and one last thing. If you see Sirius, can you give him this note? *Holds out note* It will help him find Night. Don't lose it now. Otherwise we'll never catch him. Sirius will probably come through here next chapter. Until next week.

Author: Night, let's go.

*Leaves the room with Night trailing behind.*