CW: Emotional and (mostly offscreen) physical child abuse starting about halfway down the chapter. There's a summary at the bottom of the chapter for anyone who'd prefer to skip this one.
Chapter Seven: The Riffraff In There
Sirius can feel his pulse quickening for the entire time it takes the Hogwarts Express to travel from Scotland to King's Cross station. He's sitting in a compartment with James, Emmeline, and Alice, the latter of whom picks up on his anxiety the most—probably, Sirius suspects, because of that day last month when he brought her along to ask Andy's advice about whether to come home from the holidays. They didn't talk much about it after they parted ways with Andy, but Alice at least seemed to pick up on the fact that Sirius has got a fraught relationship with his mum, even if Alice doesn't know the full extent of it.
When the train pulls in at the platform and James and Em make to get off, Alice puts a hand on Sirius's forearm. "It's going to be okay," she says quietly. "I'll write you."
"Thanks, Abbott. Just—be careful what you say in any letters you send, okay? If my mum intercepts any of them…"
She pulls him into a quick, tight hug, winding her arms around his neck. Alice's breath is low and fast in his ear. "I'll see you really soon. It's only for a couple of weeks, right?"
"Only for a couple of weeks," he echoes.
Once they've touched down on the ground, Emmeline hugs Sirius, too—his heart starts beating even faster, if that's possible—and then so does James. "You can Floo over to my house anytime, all right? No questions asked. Bring your brother, if you want—he's welcome there, too."
Sirius tries to thank him, but the words die in his throat when he catches sight of Mum, Dad, Aunt Druella, and Uncle Cygnus. Regulus isn't with them—Sirius feels a brief flash of disappointment—but he'll have Andy and Cissy as buffers on the walk home, at least, and can track down Regulus when they get there. If all goes well, he can avoid having much contact with Mum until—
—when? Dinnertime? Or will she hunt him down sooner than that on some vendetta or other?
His whole body has been keyed up for hours, and the intensity only heightens on the walk home; he can barely follow Andy and Cissy's conversation. The second he crosses the threshold into number twelve, Grimmauld Place, he mumbles something to Mum and Dad about wanting to say hullo to Regulus and dashes up the stairs as fast as he can.
Regulus isn't in his room, so Sirius checks his own room next, and—it's just like he thought. "What have you been doing under here? Mum and Dad weren't even home until, like, five seconds ago."
"Dunno. Felt safer this way," mutters Regulus as Sirius crawls underneath the bed to join him.
"I missed you, little bro."
"Missed you too. I can't believe you're in Gryffindor. What's it really like there? You didn't really say in any of your letters, and—"
"It's good. Honestly, Regulus, it's really good. I can't wait until you come with me next year. I'll have to introduce you to everybody. You can meet some of them before you even go, if you want—James Potter says you can come over to his house with me over the break, and Peter Pettigrew—"
"Pettigrew's the Mudblood, right?"
Sirius rolls his eyes. "Don't call him that, Regulus, god. It's not his fault his parents are Muggles."
"Yeah, but it's your fault if you're talking to him. Are you so impressionable that you've forgotten everything you know?"
"Impressionable? If you're taking moral advice from Mum—"
"But it's not just Mum," sighs Regulus, "and you know it. You were ready to join Andy and Cissy in Slytherin, and then I get a letter saying you're in Gryffindor and making friends with Mudbloods—"
"—Muggle-borns—"
"—I mean, what happened to you? You spend one day on a train away from our culture, and you're ready to abandon your beliefs just because some Mudbloods were nice to you?"
And Sirius knew what to expect from Mum and Dad, but he hadn't banked on getting ambushed by Regulus the second he set foot in the door. "I thought you'd be happy to see me."
"I am, but Sirius, just because I miss you doesn't mean I agree with you. I'm not just going to join you in Gryffindor and pal around with a bunch of Mudbloods—I want to stick to my own kind, the ones I know will protect me if I protect them."
"I keep telling you, it's not like that. If you don't believe me, I don't know what I'm supposed to say to you."
He starts to worm his way out from under the bed, but Regulus cries, "Oh, Sirius, no—don't go. You don't know what it's been like without you here. Mum—"
"I can handle Mum," Sirius lies smoothly.
"But I can't. Please stay. I won't say anything else about your Mudblood friends. I just…"
Sirius scoots the rest of the way out from underneath the bed, but when Regulus's face falls, he quickly says, "It's okay. Let's just get out of here together. We don't have to stay holed up under here—let's go up to the attic."
They manage to stay away from Mum and Dad until dinnertime. Like always, it's tense: Sirius and Regulus load up their plates in the kitchen in silence, scoot their chairs at the dining table close together, and don't say a word as they eat unless Mum or Dad directly asks them a question. After being away from this for so many months, Sirius feels like his tolerance for Mum is completely shot—like he's lost his ability to live in this house and be around her and mitigate his fear.
Because Sirius is afraid. He doesn't like to admit it or think about it, but he knows that he is—he can feel it on his sweaty forehead and in his perpetually full bladder.
"Chin up, Sirius," Dad says when they've been in the dining room for all of five minutes. "Your mother and I have hardly seen you since you've been home."
He tilts his face up, feeling totally exposed.
"You look older. Different. Impure."
Sirius doesn't comment on this.
"So," Dad drawls. "Gryffindor. I hope you're keeping away from the riffraff in there."
"Yes, sir."
"Studying hard?"
"Yes, sir."
"Keeping out of trouble?"
He pushes down recollections of all the points he's lost and detentions he's served for going after Snape with James, for getting caught trawling the castle to map it out after hours—after all, all four of them don't fit neatly under James's Invisibility Cloak. "Yes, sir."
Dad grunts, seemingly satisfied, but Mum isn't. Of course she isn't. "I can't believe the shame you've brought upon this family," she seethes. "Six generations of Slytherins! Six! All ruined!"
Sirius doesn't bother making a case for the Muggle-borns in Gryffindor: it's not like that argument will actually work on someone like Mum. Instead, he says quietly, "Plenty of purebloods from respectable families are in Gryffindor. My friends James Potter and Alice Abbott are in Gryffindor, and so are Fabian and Gideon Prewett a year above us."
"The Prewetts and Potters are almost as big of blood traitors as the Weasleys," Mum hisses. He doesn't think this is quite fair—in Mum's eyes, a good three-quarters of the purebloods in Wizarding Britain are equally bad blood traitors, regardless of their reputations or participation in pureblood culture—but he doesn't push the point, partly because he knows better and partly because Mum isn't done. "What's next? Bringing your little Mudblood friends over to the house on summer vacations? Marrying them? Tainting the bloodline? I won't have it, Sirius. I won't have you destroying the respect our name commands just to fit in with people who would just as soon make us all slaves to them!"
If we don't make them slaves first? Sirius's brain fills in. Why does it have to be either-or, anyway, he wonders? Why can't everyone just coexist? People of all blood statuses are coexisting in Gryffindor, after all—can't it be the same in wizarding legislation, in society?
He doesn't voice any of this, but it doesn't matter: Mum is already working herself up beyond the point of no return. "You're a naive, stupid, selfish boy, Sirius Black, running off to Hogwarts and pulling a stunt like this—like you can get away with it—like it doesn't affect anyone but yourself. But it does affect us, Sirius. It affects our good name. It keeps us up at night. I thought we taught you discipline. I thought we raised you to be a good, respectful, obedient pureblood boy, and you go and you mingle with that filth without a thought for anything but your own self-indulgence—your own hedonism. Did you ever stop to consider what we've had to tell people?—the shame your father and I have felt because of you?"
"I didn't think—"
"Clearly, you didn't," barks Mum, "because if you had—or maybe you did. Maybe you did think, and you concluded that you don't give a fuck about this family's pride, and you went and you got yourself Sorted into Gryffindor anyway."
"Walburga—" Dad says in a long-suffering voice, but Mum ignores him.
She's on her feet now, dinner forgotten, and Sirius pushes his own plate aside: he won't be finishing it. "You can't take it back, Sirius! The rest of your life—the rest of our lives—we'll have to tell people, well, we had six generations of good Slytherin purebloods, but our son Sirius—do you want us to disown you? Do you want us to burn you off the way we did Cedrella? We could cut you out like that, and then where would you be, huh? Will your little Mudblood friends provide for you the way your father and I work so hard to provide for your ungrateful mouth? Because if they don't, and you come crawling back begging for your place back in this family, we won't keep it warm for you. Oh, no. I won't hesitate. I won't hesitate, Sirius."
"But Mum—"
"'But Mum! But Mum!'" she mocks. She's walking forward now, dragging Sirius just centimeters away from her face by the neck of his robes, and her spit sprays him with every word as she backs him up against the wall and pins him there; his feet dangle in the air, toes just skimming the ground, and Sirius can't breathe. He can't breathe, and he's not here right now—he's still up under the bed with Regulus, or he's back in Gryffindor Tower with James's arm slung around him, or maybe he's wedged into a cot in the Hospital Wing with Moony, who's crashing the morning after a long and painful transformation—he's not here, only he is here; he's been away from this for too long; it's been too many months, and he doesn't remember how to shut this out the way he used to.
"You're on thin bloody ice, Sirius Black," Mum spews now, and she's adopted that voice, the one that means she means it, the one that's pitched low and frantic and growling, frenzied and manic as the deranged look in her popping eyes. "You're lucky we don't toss you out on your arse and never welcome you back. You're lucky we stomach the sight of you as well as we do, you filthy—ungrateful—repulsive—"
She punctuates each word with a slap to Sirius's cheek. His face smarts with pain, and when she pulls away a wet hand, she roars, "Feeling sorry for ourselves, are we, little boy? This is your fault. You brought this on yourself with your own fucking actions. You deserve—every—last—"
That's when she gets her wand out.
He tries to tune it out, to focus on the rest of the room—Dad is sighing Mum's name between sips of soup, while Regulus is sitting frozen, riveted, with his eyes fixed on the scene of them—and Sirius isn't here. He's at Hogwarts. The words he's hearing are just the incantations of his classmates as they struggle to Transfigure hedgehogs into pincushions, and the pain he's feeling is only a curse he's practicing in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and he's up in the dormitory with James and Peter and Moony—James is curled up in Sirius's bed with his head by Sirius's hip—he's teasing Peter for how silly he looks in the shocking violet dress robes he's going to wear to the Slug Club party—it's eight in the morning, and Sirius and Moony are sleeping through breakfast in the Hospital Wing while James's and Peter's voices wash over them—
It's been about ten minutes of this by the time Dad intervenes. She tries to buck him off when he puts his hands on her shoulders and tugs her backward, but he maintains his grip. "Walburga, let's go on upstairs. Come now. Tell it to me instead."
Sirius crumples to the floor in a heap, but Regulus waits a full two minutes to make sure Mum and Dad are really gone before he pushes out his chair and rushes to Sirius's side. "It's going to be okay. You're going to be fine."
"She's gotten worse," Sirius mumbles, dazed. "Has she been like this to you every day?"
Regulus smiles faintly. "She hasn't gotten worse. I think you've just forgotten what she's like."
When he follows Regulus out of the dining room on unsteady feet, Sirius grunts, "Not upstairs. Living room. We'll Floo to see my friend James."
xx
James, god bless him, doesn't ask any questions—at least not at first—seeming to detect that something is wrong and rushing to the fireplace as Sirius stumbles out of it. "Mum, Dad, this is my friend Sirius."
"Jamie, honey—"
"Not now, Mum. Sirius, what do you need?"
Behind him, he can hear a whoosh of wind and a loud thump in the fireplace. "This is Regulus," Sirius explains, and then he gives up trying to talk for the moment.
"Dad," says James carefully, "can you please go and fetch Sirius a glass of water?"
The next few minutes are a blur: Sirius is dimly aware of footsteps and awkward introductions as he pulls himself into a sitting position and accepts the glass that Mr. Potter hands him. "There are a bunch of staircases between here and my bedroom," says James, "so let's just—get you on the couch in here, okay?"
"It's fine," Sirius insists. "I'm fine. Just—wasn't prepared for it this time, I guess. Stupid of me."
He rises—his legs feel like they're going to give out, but not because he's weak or hurt, just because he's still a little shaken—and follows James onto the sofa. "We shouldn't stay long," says Regulus fervently. "Our dad is talking our mum down right now, but when they try to find us—if we're not there—"
"Jesus Christ, Sirius," James mutters. "Your mum—did she—hurt you?"
Sirius shrugs one shoulder. "It's fine. I just wanted to get out of there, you know?"
"You told me your mum was a nutter, but you didn't tell me your mum was…"
"She's not usually like this," Regulus says. "She only gets this bad once every week or two, and—I figured it would be bad, when she first saw him, with him being in Gryffindor and all. It should be mostly okay for the rest of break if Sirius stays out of her way."
That's when Sirius notices that, for the first time since last night, his heart is no longer pounding. He never, ever, ever wants to leave this house—leave James's side—but Regulus is right: it'll be worse for them later if they're not there when Mum and Dad go looking.
"Can't he stay here with us over break, Mum?" James asks now.
"No," Sirius groans. "We have to go back."
"But Sirius—"
"Regulus has to go back eventually," he says, "and it's going to be worse for him there the longer either of us avoids it. I'm not doing that to him."
"Charlus," Mrs. Potter says firmly, "can I have a word with you in the other room, please?"
"I'm sorry," Sirius mutters after James's parents have left the room. "We shouldn't have come here. Now we have to go back, and I don't know if I—now that I've left, if I can—and your parents are probably flipping out, and—"
"Don't you dare apologize to me. Do you hear me? Don't you even try. I'll be straight with you—Mum is probably going to want to report this to the Ministry—" Sirius suddenly feels a wave of nausea hit him "—but your dad works there, doesn't he? My dad will probably talk her down from it—everybody knows that opening an investigation into somebody who's highly respected at the Ministry will just end badly for the people instigating it, especially since we haven't got any proof, and—well—it's not like you're really injured or anything."
"I shouldn't have dragged you into—"
"Stop," says James so firmly that Sirius actually flinches away. James's face immediately droops with remorse. "I mean—it's okay. If you have to go back, then you have to go back, but—you can come back after, right? I mean, if you ask your parents when they're not already pissed at you?"
"Maybe," says Sirius, shrugging. "Probably."
"You can, too," James says now to Regulus. "I know we don't know each other, but you're Sirius's best mate, and that makes you my friend, too."
"Oh, no. I can't," says Regulus quickly. "I mean, I should—you're a—and I'm—"
It takes James a second to piece it together, but then he cottons on. "You don't want to come back here because you think we're blood traitors," he mutters.
"I…"
"We need to get back," Sirius decides. "Tell your mum and dad thanks for me. I don't want to leave Regulus alone there tonight. Do you have any Floo powder in here?"
When they make it back to Grimmauld Place, they end up underneath Sirius's bed again. It's not like Sirius blames Regulus for liking this spot so much: it's dark and small enough that it feels safer, like Mum can't reach them down here, even if that's just an illusion. "You shouldn't have come back," Regulus whispers. It feels safer when they whisper, too.
"I had to. If I'd dodged it over Christmas and Easter, it would have just been worse when I came back for the summer. I asked Andy if we could move in with her after she graduates, but…"
"She said no," Regulus concludes. "Why? She knows what Mum is like. Why would she…?"
But Sirius can't tell Regulus what he knows—that Andy's marrying a Muggle-born the second she gets out of Hogwarts. "It's going to be okay," he says instead. "It's like you said: that was probably the worst of it, right? It'll just get easier from here."
It does not get easier from here, but Sirius doesn't know that yet. Right now, all he knows is that he's safe under his bed with his brother, and Mum is somewhere else in the house, far, far away.
Summary: Sirius prepares himself for a long two weeks at Grimmauld Place over Christmas break with bracing support from James and Alice. Sirius and Regulus fight about Sirius's Sorting, politics, and Gryffindor friends, but they put their differences aside when Regulus asks Sirius not to leave him alone in the house. At dinner, Walburga loses her temper and accuses Sirius of being a disappointment, and the scene escalates to slapping followed by magical violence as Sirius tries and fails to distract himself with escapist thoughts about being back at Hogwarts.
When Orion finally pulls Walburga away, Sirius and Regulus Floo to James's house for some respite, where James comes to better understand Sirius's home life. James suspects that his own mum will want to report the abuse to the Ministry, but as there's no evidence and Sirius appears physically unharmed, she doesn't. James offers for Sirius and Regulus to continue to return to the Potters' manor throughout Christmas break to get away from Walburga and Orion. Although Sirius accepts, Regulus declines; James realizes that Regulus doesn't want to associate with others whom he considers to be blood traitors.