Sirius's heart sank as he saw the owl, what could his parents or his brother possibly want from him now. He's already had his mother's howler, but that had not by any means been his family's last correspondence. His parents letters were easy enough to ignore, it was Regulus's letters which always got what could have been a perfectly lovely day off to a bad start. "Can't you try to change into Slytherin so we can be together" "Mother and Father are really angry Sirius" "They're telling me off for the tiniest things now you're gone" "Please write back soon this time Sirius" "I can't wait to go to Hogwarts next year" "Have you started flying yet? I'm going to try out for the Slytherin team as soon as I'm old enough it's a shame we won't be able to be on the same team now…" Good old Regulus, ten years old and already getting Os in emotional blackmail, Mother and Father would be getting one Slytherin son to make them proud for sure.
But as the owl got closer Sirius saw that it was not his family owl, it was in fact Andromeda's barn owl Aurora. Andromeda had written to him once before, when she had first heard that he had got into Gryffindor, and her letter had carried him through those first difficult couple of weeks when he was still unsure around his new roommates. He had put off writing back to her for ages, unable to put his thoughts into words on a page, and yet he re-read the letter time and again while all the other boys were in bed. It was only after he and James had seemed to have grown really close that Sirius felt he had something to write about. So in the end his letter had contained less than a sentence on how he felt about being in Gryffindor and what his family thought and all the rest of it. Instead he had managed to fill three rolls of parchment scratching away with his quill about his friends' and his antics, and the general goings on around the castle. He told her about flying lessons, about the second year who made his friend grow tentacles out his nostrils at breakfast one day, about the funny things James said in class, about Lily Evan's bossiness, Snape's greasiness, Peter's annoying flickering between shyness and refusing to leave him and James alone. After some deliberation he told her about their joke with the Howlers, Andromeda always had a fairly good sense of humour, and she certainly would never tell his parents on him. He told her as well about Remus falling and needing to go to the Hospital Wing, thinking maybe Andromeda knew a bit more about that kind of thing than he did. He told her about all the silly little things that had filled his life since coming to Hogwarts, and only when he had finished did he realised that he loved the fact that his life was so full of such inconsequential nonsense. His parents would not have approved one bit, but to Sirius it finally felt like he was experiencing real life. He woke up in the morning never knowing what was going to happen or what silly expedition James was going to drag them all off on. This, though Sirius never put it so romantically, was the flesh of life.
"Dear Sirius," this letter started
"I'm so glad you're making friends, James sounds like quite the character, I've heard the Potters are good people and Gryffindors through and through. Remus sounds like a lovely boy too, what rotten luck get ill in the first few weeks of term! It happens to quite a few people actually, that's what happens when you put a whole bunch of children together in such close quarters, now winter's coming there'll be a loads of bugs flying around so make sure you're eating healthily. (I feel I ought to nag you a bit as by the sound of it Aunt Walburga is a little too busy ranting about making 'appropriate' acquaintances to do the normal motherly nagging and someone should be making sure that you eat your vegetables!). As for Peter he sounds lovely too so do try and make sure you include him even if he seems a little annoying at times, he's probably quite shy but clearly still eager to make friends, it's perfectly normal for a lot of people when they first start school.
Okay that's my nagging done.
Okay I was going to give you a proper reply to your letter first but I just have to tell you the wonderful news straight away… Ted and I are getting married! He asked me the day before last, you're the first person I've told, I want to tell Narcissa but I think I'd better wait and tell her in person so that I can gauge her reaction. I suppose I'll have to break it to the rest of the family at some point but for now there's no point in thinking about stuff like that. For now I am simply the happiest I've ever been and for once I'm not going to let our family get in the way of that happiness. Before I used to think that happiness was something that only a select few people can have, and that it wasn't worth wanting happiness so you might as well aim for money and influence so that you can be as comfortable as possible in your discontentment. I wish I could express in words how wrong I was Sirius, that was just what I was always made to believe and with no one to tell me otherwise it took me a ridiculously long time to make take the simple step of saying "sod this I'm going to aim for happiness". I'm telling you now Sirius, so that you don't have to go through the same painstaking process, that happiness is more important than anything either of our parents ever taught us to value. They spurn happy people as lowlifes and fools because deep down they are jealous of their happiness, of our happiness. I am happy now Sirius, happier than I thought it possible to be, I'm almost laughing out loud as I write this letter because I just can't get to grips with the sheer absurdity of it all.
But anyway, I'll stop being soppy now because I know that when it comes to happiness you have always had better instincts than me, or maybe you've just always had enough of that Gryffindor courage to follow them.
As I say, the family are going to be difficult obviously, so Ted's agreed to have a quiet wedding, just a few friends, his close family, and if you would like and if we can manage it we would love for you to be the page boy. We're going to have the wedding this coming summer to give us time to plan and to save money, because I hate being dependant on Father's money. I've got a few job prospects lined up, and so has Ted so we'll see how they work out. For now I'm still living at home and Ted's still living with his parents but we want to get a flat of our own together as soon as we can, even if it is before the wedding (which would make Mother flip her lid!).
I'm sure you already know this Sirius but you cannot tell anyone about this. The reason why Ted and I are planning this so carefully is so that we can make a quick getaway, so to speak, when the time finally does come. If manage to pull it off then I am aware I'll be leaving you in a very difficult position. For the rest of the year I'll do whatever I can to act as an intermediary between you and the family, while I'm still in their good books, but after Ted and I marry and move away together I daresay that I shall almost certainly be disowned, you're hanging onto the family tree by a thread as it is. But you mustn't ever worry about me. Once all this is over I will be fine, more than fine, I will be happy and I will be free. It is only you I am worried for, and Narcissa and Regulus as well, but in different ways. I want you to know that even though I am going to be cut off from the family our door will always be open to you (when we have once we can call out own) if it ever gets too much for you at home or if you ever get thrown out on your ear as well.
But remember that for the next seven years you have another home too, you have Hogwarts. You can learn a lot more than just magic at Hogwarts Sirius, your friends can teach you as much as your Professors, so listen to them and cherish them and make sure you don't slip back into any bad habits which could offends them and drive them away from you. You are a wonderful, wonderful boy Sirius, and I would hate for anyone to get the wrong impression of you because of a verbal slip up when you're angry. I am saying this mainly because of that muggleborn girl you told me about, the one you don't seem to be getting on with. It's fair enough not to get along with people but make sure it's for the right reasons. If you think she's a bossy know-it-all then, if you ever feel the need to insult her call her a bossy know-it-all, and on no account, however temptingly easy it may seem, call her the "m" word. Just so that I don't get a howler back at for that, I know you haven't done anything of the sort, and I don't think you ever would, but I personally found it took a while for language to catch up with views on the subject of muggleborns, though of course I was surrounded by Slytherins so I had the pressure to keep using foul words like that. Hopefully in Gryffindor you won't have that problem. As for the Slytherin boy Snape, like I say, it's all very well to not get along with people but iften the best thing is just to keep your distance. Don't look for trouble with Slytherin's Sirius, they look after their own, and you'll already be looking like a nice little target to them.
On a slightly lighter note, though still on the subject of Howlers, it sounds like you've already been punished enough for that prank, so I think I'll just give you Ted'd opinion on your little stunt instead of another rant, "nice one!". Merlin, what kind of a cousin am I, corrupting your innocence in so many ways! Of course, you thoroughly deserved that detention, but I must confess the story did make me laugh. If anything it was just the image of Slughorn running that did it. But do for Merlin's sake be careful if you and your friends are going to be doing silly things like that. If your friend Remus banged his head so hard he was in the Hospital Wing for the next couple of days he must have been seriously hurt. I'm sure it wasn't your fault, it may even have been his own fault, but either way all of you ought to be more careful doing things like that. Obviously I know what it's like at Hogwarts, I spent my fair share of time in the Hospital Wing and I put my fair share of people in there (mostly by accident!), but I really would rather you stayed in one piece until the wedding at least.
You're abominable role model of a cousin,
Andromeda soon-to-be-Tonks
"What are you smiling at?" asked James, "your parent's finally learn to crack a joke have they?"
Over the last few weeks James had gradually started taking the mick out of Sirius's parents, the more he heard about them the more he did it, and strangely the more he did it the more Sirius felt like telling him about them. He was surprised to find that laughing about things could actually be a good way of dealing with the big nasty things in life without making them seem so big and nasty, he's always though joking was just joking but with James joking could become so much more.
"No, it'll be a few more years and probably a good powerful Confundus charm before that happens," said Sirius, there he went again, casually disrespecting is parents and feeling a rush of joy wash through him as he did so, "no, it's from my cousin Andromeda."
"The good one right?" asked James.
"Yeah," said Sirius, "yeah, Andromeda's great."