Notes: Credit for the address of the Potter residence goes to Darth Kat, who did some deer research for me. This chapter, by the way, is dedicated to anyone who is very tired of Sirius having a motorcycle called the Black Shadow, or some variant thereof. Because Sirius isn't naming motorcycles anything with Black in their name. ;)

Disclaimer: all herein belongs to JK Rowling. I am making no money; I am only having fun.

The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black

Chapter Three

144 Odocoileus Court

Having reached a decision, I attempted to stand up. My body, still overtaxed and in pain from my father's earlier curse, protested loudly. I barely had the energy to roll onto my stomach before my body rebelled completely and up came my Hogwarts breakfast, my sweets from the Express, and then dry heaves for what should have been my dinner. Feeling even weaker than before, my throat now burning, I shakily dragged the sleeve of my robes across my arm and carefully rolled myself over to the nearest dining chair. From there, I half-climbed, half-dragged myself up the chair and to my feet. For a moment I stood shakily, furiously willing my legs to hold my weight. Deciding I might as well risk it, I took a step forward and immediately collapsed. Wincing, I hauled myself to my hands and knees and from there commenced crawling across the dining room and into the hall.

It took what seemed like forever to simply cross the room; I was panting and shaking by the time I reached the hall. I knew that I was likely to get very sick if I didn't rest for a few days and preferably drink lots of hot soup, but as it was far from likely I'd be allowed either while at 12 Grimmauld Place, I crawled on. Upon reaching the stairs to the upper landing, I didn't allow myself to stop, just placed my hands on the second step and dragged my legs up behind me. As long as I didn't think about it, I reasoned, I would be able to keep on.

I blacked out about two-thirds of the way up the steps.

It was still totally dark when I awoke again with a start, silently cursing myself for such a weakness that could trap me in this damn house even longer. I levered myself up a bit and resumed crawling. After an eternity I reached the upstairs landing, crawled along it for a little ways, and managed to reach my door. My next challenge, opening the door, was easily solved when I reached up rather desperately, accidentally grabbed the doorknob, and twisted it, the momentum knocking me into the room.

For a minute I lay breathless on the floor, trying to muster more strength to match my desperation and will to get out. I crawled shakily across the room, my hands eventually bumping into my trunk at the foot of the bed. I scrabbled around for the latches, found them, and clicked them open, throwing back the lid of my trunk. Several moments more frantic scrambling, and my hands found my wand. With a little sigh of relief, I raised it and opened my mouth to cast a light-giving spell.

Nothing came out.

Beginning to panic now, I tried again. Still nothing. Giving it my best effort, I managed to give a faint croak. Of course. I'd screamed so much I'd gone hoarse. Swallowing back another wave of nausea with the panic, I recalled something we'd learned in the magical theory portion of our Charms class.

Many witches and wizards first manifest magic when under pressure. While a wizard's wand helps him channel that magic, if under pressure, with or without his wand, the wizard may perform wandless magic. This magic, though usually involuntary, may be channeled, if the wizard's will is strong enough.

Come on, I thought, clinging tightly to those words. I need this. Come on. Light!

My wand blossomed with white radiance. I breathed a sigh of relief and raised it above my trunk, peering through it. Spellbooks. Potion ingredients. Owl treats for James' owl Jocelyn. A handmade photo album. Lists of prank ideas. My whole life was right here, in this trunk. Everything I needed to survive until I graduated Hogwarts. And I planned to let it be my ticket out of here, too.

If I could get my voice to work.

Now I pointed my lighted wand at my own throat, praying that it would work, that I would be able to cast a voice-restoring spell on myself and not something different or damaging.

"What is sir doing?" said a sneakily polite voice from behind me.

I turned with an audible gasp. "Kreacher!" I choked. Which meant I had my voice back, that the spell had worked. Excellent. Except that there was a house-elf standing in my bedroom, looking suspiciously from me to my wand to my trunk and back with something very like comprehension in his eyes. "Kreacher," I said again, "get out of here."

"Sir is running away," Kreacher muttered. "This will not do at all. Master will be most displeased, and it will break poor Mistress's heart."

"She doesn't have a heart, Kreacher," I told the house-elf shortly, all too aware that my throat, momentarily feeling perfectly normal, was swiftly becoming sore again. If I lost my voice …

Kreacher was shaking his head, large ears flapping. "It is only Kreacher's duty, sir, to tell his Master and Mistress what sir is doing."

"No, don't –" I started, before it occurred to me that if I was running away, I wouldn't have to worry ever again what the disgusting house-elf thought of me. With a sort of mental shrug, I pointed my wand at Kreacher. His eyes widened in sudden panic, and I pronounced, "Petrificus totalus!" The house-elf's body snapped straight as a board, then toppled over backwards. I had the funny urge to kick Kreacher, or say something taunting, before I remembered my father's voice, murmuring let that be a lesson to you and his crushing kick to my ribs. No, I wasn't going to be like my father.

I stared for a moment longer at Kreacher before recalling my increasingly sore throat. Turning, I tapped my trunk, murmuring the spell that would transform it into a Portkey, direct transportation from my room at number 12, Grimmauld Place, to James' house in Wiltshire, at number 144, Odocoileus Court. It seemed to work. I took a last look around the room.

"Going, are you?" someone said softly from above my head.

I turned and saw Phineas Nigellus leaning against the inside of the picture frame, regarding me thoughtfully.

"Yeah," I said hoarsely, "yeah, Phineas, I'm going. And I'm not coming back."

Phineas frowned. "Here you go again, feeling sorry for yours –"

"He put the Cruciatus on me, Phineas," I interrupted. "My father."

The portrait's eyes widened. "I do believe," he said, albeit dryly, "that this does surpass the realm of teenage self-pity and tread into those waters of self-preservation. Though," he added, glaring at me fiercely, "I'm sure you deserved it, whatever you did. I always did say you were worthless."

"Sure, sure," I muttered, not really paying attention. "Goodbye, Phineas." Clutching my wand tightly, I pressed my other hand against my trunk. With a jolt to my navel, which I queasily realized probably wasn't going to do much good to my overall physical health, the dark bedroom dissolved around me. I'm still not entirely sure, but I think that snarky old portrait of Phineas Nigellus may have winked at me as the room vanished in a rushing blur.

A moment later the world solidified, and I collapsed on a spiky-haired doormat that cheerfully read Welcome! in the faint predawn light, with little painted-on paw prints around the word. I found myself grinning slightly. So very much like James, I thought, to have such a silly cute front doormat.

Then I had time for one more thought, which was oh no, not again, before the world turned dark around me and I collapsed on the Potters' front doorstep, out cold.

When I came to, I was no longer lying on the front steps of a redbrick house, a brass number 144 above my head, nor was I back in my horrible dark room at Grimmauld Place, nor was I at Hogwarts, blinking awake after a horrible nightmare; I was somewhere far more disorienting than that.

I was in a large bed with a blue-checkered quilt and a down pillow, in an airy room with faded yellow wallpaper and sunlight streaming in through a large open window, lighting the yellow walls and making the checkered window curtains flutter a bit in the breeze. I blinked bemusedly at the window, wondering dazedly if I was in some weirdly cheerful place people go when they die.

"Sirius!" someone gasped, sounding extremely relieved.

I turned my head towards the voice and saw James, sitting by my bed on a white wicker chair, holding Quidditch Through the Ages upside-down in his hand. "James?" I asked, my voice coming out in a hoarse whisper.

James' eyes were shining suspiciously brightly as he said in a rather shaky voice, "What the hell happened to you, Sirius? Last night at about five in the morning, Mum was downstairs organizing some morning reports for St. Mungo's when she heard this great thump on the door. She goes to see what it is, right, and it's your trunk, mate, it slammed right into the door. Lucky thing it did, too, Mum says, because …" James, who had been speaking rapidly, suddenly trailed off, and ended rather hoarsely, "…because, Mum says, you were pretty far gone there." He hastily swiped the back of his hand across his eyes, knocking his glasses sideways, and readjusted them, looking embarrassed, then continued, "Mum works for St. Mungo's, you know."

I nodded, tried to speak, coughed, and then managed, "Yeah, you've said."

Grinning shakily, James said, "Anyway, Mum says she's fixed your throat as best she could, and your lip, and that bruise on your wrist, and she thinks that now you've woken up your muscles can relax properly too." He paused, frowning, then added hesitantly, "Mum says … it looks like you were under the Cruciatus."

I nodded mutely.

James bit his lip. "Hell. Who –?"

"My father," I said softly. My throat was definitely feeling better, now James had mentioned it. I rather wished I still had the excuse of a given-out voice, because I really didn't feel like an interrogation, albeit a well-meant one, and I really didn't want to relive the previous evening just yet.

James glanced at me, perhaps reading these thoughts in my face. "Look," he said finally, "right now, it's best to get some fluids into you. Would you like tea? Some sort of soup?"

"Yes, soup, please," I said, and my eyes filled embarrassingly with sudden stingingly hot tears as I remembered wishing for exactly this while crawling up the dark stairs. "Thanks," I added.

Pausing in the doorway, James said quietly, "You're welcome, Padfoot." He turned, making as though to leave.

"Wait!" I called hoarsely in sudden panic. James checked on the threshold and popped his head back into the room, eyebrows raised in question. Feeling rather silly, I said, "About me staying here …"

"Of course," James said immediately. "For as long as you need to." He gave me a bright but somewhat anxious grin and disappeared to get me some soup.

The next couple of days passed in a sort of blur. I remember eating an awful lot of soup, usually brought up by James. My throat continued to be sore, and eventually Mrs. Potter diagnosed me with having come down with the flu on top of it all. I was forced to drink weird-tasting potions along with the soup, so I was more often than not only half-awake. At this point Mrs. Potter began spending a lot of time in my room, constantly checking up at me. I only remember snatches of it, but whenever I was awake enough to notice her, she'd give me a really kind smile, looking like she truly cared what happened to me. At this point my eyesight would go all blurry and I'd have to bury my face into the pillow, feeling grateful and bewildered and very sad all at once.

After what James claimed was about a week, I began to come round again. I was heartily sick of the checkered quilt and cheerful yellow walls by this point, and in the effort to keep me entertained, James had gone through every single Quidditch book in the house. One sunny morning, as James came into my room clutching International Quidditch: A History, I decided I'd had it.

"No, Prongs," I croaked, annoyed. James, who had just sat down in his wicker chair, looked at me in surprise. "We've already read that bloody book," I told him, "and I'm really tired of being stuck in this bed."

James looked uncomfortable. "You're still really weak –"

"Forget that," I interrupted him. "I'm never going to stop being weak if I'm lying around all the time." I looked hard at James. "When was the last time you listened to what anyone else told you was best, anyway?"

Looking startled, James said, "Pulling pranks has nothing to do with keeping your best friend healthy."

"Forget that too," I said. "James, I need to go outside. I'm going mad cooped up like this!"

James sighed, and I knew I had won. "Okay, but first you have to prove to me you can walk from your bed to the door without any assistance." He got up from the chair and went to the doorway, then looked back at me expectantly.

"Right," I said, and looked around, judging how hard it would be to meet this demand. I was already sitting up, propped against about three pillows, so I pushed the covers back and swung my legs over the side of the bed and onto a polished wooden floor. From there, to my own surprise, I managed to stand. My legs shook a bit, and the room threatened to spin, but after a moment I steadied myself and took a hesitant step forward. When my legs didn't give out, I took another step, and then a third. Trusting myself enough to look away from my feet, I lifted my head and grinned triumphantly at James, who was looking impressed in spite of himself. Starting to laugh, a little hoarsely and almost uncontrollably, I made my way across the room and made a show of falling dramatically into my friend's arms, still laughing like a maniac.

James was chuckling a bit too. "Argh, geroff, Padfoot you big lump." He shoved me upright and regarded me critically for a moment. "That was pretty good. Right, where to?"

"Well, seeing as the only places I've ever been in my life are Grimmauld Place," I counted off on my fingers rather sarcastically, "most of London, Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, the Forest, some of the mountains, your front doorstep, and this room –" I looked up at James, raising my eyebrows and holding up eight fingers " – I think that anywhere else would count as pretty new and exciting. Let's see your room, shall we?"

"Right," said James, so off we went.

I knew right away I loved James' house. The upstairs landing was carpeted, and looked out on the two-story room below it, that seemed to serve the Potters as sitting room and dining room and study all in one. All the downstairs rooms, I could see by leaning over the banister on the landing, opened up onto each other, with large windows letting in sun and air and the smell of freshly-cut grass from outside. The stairs and upstairs landing – indeed, all the upstairs rooms except the lavatories, James told me – were carpeted, a welcome change both for my feet and peace of mind after all the rough wood or cold stone of the Black house.

James led me across the landing, past a number of moving pictures of the Potter family, all of whom smiled and waved as we passed. James saluted them cheerfully and reached for the knob of the next door down. He paused, turned to me, and announced, "Welcome, my friend Padfoot, to the room of your esteemed colleague Mr. Prongs."

"Charmed," I grinned.

I don't suppose charming is really the best word to describe James' room. Cluttered is probably a better term. It was bright too, the window flung open, and James' junk was spread everywhere. His spellbooks were scattered on and around his desk, Jocelyn the owl's cage was tossed sideways on the floor, and spilled Every Flavor Beans covered half his Ballycastle Bats quilt.

"I love it," I told James honestly, and sat on the Bean-covered bedspread, slightly winded from the trek from my room to his. Looking around, I saw some movement among the Beans, which upon closer inspection revealed itself to be a dozen wizarding photographs. I picked them up in curiosity and saw that it seemed to be a number of pictures of us, the Marauders … though the last photograph was something else entirely.

"You've got a photo of Evans!" I crowed.

James went bright red. "Yes. Well." He glared at my grinning face, and with Seeker-quick reflexes, snatched the photo from my grip. "Never mind that." He scrutinized me for a moment. "Want to play Snap?"

So we spent the afternoon on the floor of James' room, having bits of paper blow up in our faces. Sometime during those games, I realized with a funny twist of the stomach that little pieces of paper were all they were. Not clever tricks, or even Muggle cards, but some silly game invented by wizards … wizards who could have been exactly like my parents.

That thought stuck with me all through the night, as I lay in the checker-quilted bed in the yellow-walled room, and the next morning, though I came down and had breakfast with the Potters (meeting James' dad for the first time, a man with my friend's untidy hair and a comically stuffy air about him), afterwards I didn't really feel like doing anything with James. James, who seemed to understand that I still needed time to myself, recommended that I spend the morning in the garden, so I went outside.

The garden was nice enough, really, this sort of rambling mass of green things and flowers surrounding the large brick house, with a matching brick path rambling through the sprawling green things. I wandered around on the path for a while, going a little faster than my body really wished to, because I felt that if I went fast enough I might be able to get away from my thoughts.

Going through my head, played out as though a wizarding photo had been glued in front of my eyes, was my mother's mad grin, my father's disgustingly charismatic one, my brother's half-wild eyes. They're all just a bunch of idiots, I told myself. They won't be able to do anything to you anymore.

And then I'd remember the conviction on their faces when they spoke of the Dark Lord, and of how my father hadn't even hesitated before performing an Unforgivable, and I knew that this wasn't over at all. If there were enough people like them, my family's Dark Lord was likely to become a real threat.

Ironic, really, that I could know with such conviction that my own family was going to be the death of me.

I stayed outside all that day, coming in at dinner and doing my best to be sociable. I knew the Potters could see straight through it, but I couldn't quite bring myself to care. For the next couple of days, it went on the same way; I remembered to be polite, and thanked them repeatedly for letting me stay, and grinned at James when he smiled at me, but my mind was still trapped back in thoughts of the House of Black and my relatives and the horrible things they wanted to happen. Between meals, I spent all my time out in the garden, certainly not because it was better for my peace of mind, but because if I was outside the Potters couldn't look at me concernedly or attempt to cheer me up.

One day, about two weeks after I'd come to number 144 Odocoileus Court, I was sitting out on a homemade-looking swing, staring up at some puffy clouds scudding across the sky and trying not to think about much of anything. I suddenly felt another presence in the general vicinity. Looking in a more earthly direction, I found myself face to face with a very stubborn-looking James.

Uh oh.

"Hello, Prongs," I said wearily.

Instead of saying hello like any sane person, James said, "Right. That's it. Come with me." He grabbed my elbow and forcibly dragged me off the swing, then began leading me down one of the rambling brick paths, not in the direction of the house, but in the direction of a cute little shed I'd seen from James' window.

"James, what on earth are we doing?"

"Giving you something," James said shortly, stopping up short as we reached the shed. He pushed the shed's door open and stepped aside, looking annoyingly righteous.

I gaped.

Standing proudly inside the shed was the biggest and most gleaming motorcycle I'd ever seen. "James," I gasped. "Where – how –"

"I remembered you saying you wanted a motorcycle," James said, looking pleased with himself. "Anyway, behold the remnants of my father's wild youth."

"Your father's –" I said, turning to stare at him, before I saw a wicked smile playing across James' face. "Prat!" I added. "I wasn't taken in for a moment."

"Sure, sure," James grinned. He seemed to recall himself, and his face sobered. "Listen, mate. If I know you, you're going to work your tail off getting this thing to fly. I also know you can pull it off, because you must've done underage wizardry at some point and gotten away with it." He took a deep breath. "Anyway, all I'm saying is, I want you to have something to do, until either you get that baby into the air or you're ready to talk about what happened to make you leave."

I nodded mutely.

James made to go, then checked and turned back to me. "By the way, I invited Peter and Remus over. They're coming on the twelfth of August."

"Right," I mumbled. James left, and I turned back to the motorcycle, feeling hurt. So now James thought I didn't have a say about our friends coming over, did he? Even when we were living in the same house, too. Well, bugger James. I had a motorcycle to fly, and even if it took me all summer, it was going to leave the ground.

~*~

I didn't know Remus and Peter had arrived until I came back, rather oily, from a day's careful spellwork on the motorcycle, which I had rather sarcastically started mentally referring to as the White Dog. I came into the house, wiping my blackened hands on my jeans, and almost literally bumped into a very startled-looking Peter.

"Wormtail!" I said on reflex.

"Sirius!" he squeaked, looking very happy to see me, and blinked at my dirty clothes. "What have you been doing?"

"Enchanting a motorcycle," I said shortly, sudden annoyance catching up with me. "Move it, Pete. I need to wash my hands." Now I had two extra people and their sympathetic glances to deal with. I stared at Peter's retreating back and suddenly felt a little guilty. It wasn't Peter's fault that James had invited him over, and it wasn't Peter's fault that I didn't think I could face Remus just now. It was entirely my own fault that I was afraid I'd see Remus and make a right idiot of myself and start saying things that I hadn't been willing to tell anyone all summer.

I made my way into the kitchen, going around Mr. Potter, who was happily humming something and ladling a thick stew into six bowls. I washed my hands under hot water from the kitchen sink, taking rather longer than I needed to, then dried my hands on a dishtowel and went out. Going along the passageway to the dining room, I heard my name amidst the voices coming from the dining table. I stopped walking and strained my ears.

" … just needs a bit of time," Mrs. Potter was saying.

"Mum," said James' voice, "he's had all sodding summer. He's not coming round. He's just spending all his time with that damn motorcycle –"

"That you gave him in the first place," Remus cut in mildly.

"All the same," James' voice continued impatiently. "I'm – I'm worried about him."

"Worried?" Peter sounded puzzled. "Look, James, if he wants some time to himself that's not a really bad thing, is it?"

"You didn't see him when he first came," James said in a low voice, so that I had to edge farther down the passage to hear. "He wasn't even trying to get better."

"Understandably, James," said Mrs. Potter, and I could hear the frown in her voice. "I'd like to hear of someone else who's fared better after being under the Cruciatus."

There was a long and uncomfortable pause.

"Do we know that?" James said finally, so softly I had to come almost to the doorway to hear him. "Mum, you said yourself that you've never seen anyone that damaged from the Cruciatus. And Sirius said his own father did that to him. So … could he be … I don't know … making it up?"

"Why?" Remus said coldly.

"He's said himself his mother's insane," James said, speaking rapidly. "Might it be that it's not just her, that it's some genetic thing and –"

I turned away, feeling numb. So. James Potter had the nerve to think that, not only had I come to his house under false pretenses or having hurt myself, but I was also insane having done so, and it was all my mother's fault. I was shaking with rage by then, and had half a mind to go into that room and hex James, and half a mind to just storm out.

I stormed out, right past Mr. Potter, who was coming out of the kitchen levitating the bowls of soup and stared after me, perplexed. I went out of the house into the twilit rambling garden, and marched right across it, uncaringly crushing some lovely flowers on my way to the shed. I laughed as I crushed the flowers. Damn things deserved it for looking so cheerful and for belonging to such a nice family.

Reaching the shed, I slammed the door open and stared for a moment at my gleamingly black White Dog, hesitating for one final moment. Then I strode over to the motorcycle and wheeled it out of the shed, climbing atop it in the warm twilight air. Not bothering to worry whether the spells I'd set on it would actually work, I kicked it to life, tapped it twice with my wand, and found myself and my beautiful motorcycle rising smoothly into the air with a muffled roar.

I pulled up at about fifty feet and circled twice around the house, wild laughter with the high glee of freedom spiraling down to the rooftop. Then I turned my motorcycle in the direction of the rising half-moon and sped off towards it through the air, not a thought in my head of where I was flying to, but every thought of where from – from my horrid family and their curses and their precious Dark Lord, from James' bright house and his caring parents and my bloody friends who didn't seem to be the friends I'd thought them to be, from my whole damn life.