Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling is a genius...I am not, but I intend to poke and play with her characters as much as I possibly can by writing fan fiction. All the characters belong to her!!
A/N: Bah! I have reviews! Whoo hoo! I'm thrilled!! I'll take a moment to thank you here:
Raphael
Aw, my first reviewer. Love ya, hun!!!!
angeliris3,
Minutes. Minutes. Minutes. Dammit, I've always spelt that stupid, bloody word wrong...seriously, defiantly NOT the first time it's been pointed out to me throughout my life...that damn word is a curse, I swear. I always forget how to spell it. Lol. Sorry to cause you the temporary insanity. Hope you're not too scarred, I understand that it is impossibly annoying when you're reading some fan fiction and notice a mistake but can't fix it...irks me too...and thanks so much for reviewing! Very much appreciated.
kurtcobain4eva
Oh my gosh, that's so cool that you said Nirvana rules! I loved that band. Hell, I still do. Those three are a huge part of my life, lol. No one I know agrees with me, and I've never found a fellow Nirvana supporter. Love to you!!!!! I virtually shake your hand!!!! Oh and Peter's defiantly coming. I may be ignoring him for now, but he'll have a huge part later, I can assure you. I'm just ignoring him now because of Sirius saying it used to just be him, Moony, and Prongs. So...yeah, Wormtail's coming. Thanks for reviewing!
You guys are the best for reviewing, I love you all!!!!
I'm updating really quickly because I want to get to the plot as soon as I can....That's why the frist three chapters area all up already. Please, please reveiw!!!!!!!!!!!! And there's not as many mistakes anymore. I've been paying more attention and getting more acustumed to fanfiction.net....Onto the story, though....tra la la...
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"Lily says hello," James told Sirius the minute they arrived safely in their dormitory.
"Shove it, Potter, that's not funny."
"Alright, sorry," James replied, though he hardly looked it. In fact, judging by the broad grin that was plastered to his face and the way his hazel eyes were shining with humour, he found the entire situation highly amusing. "So what is it with her, anyway?"
"She's just...she's this muggle," Sirius sighed and rolled his eyes.
"Ah," James replied nodding knowledgably, "'this muggle' that explains loads, Sirius, thanks."
"Stop grinning like an idiot, James, this is serious. How in the world did she get accepted into Hogwarts?"
"Well apparently she's not really a muggle."
"So it seems."
"Come on, Sirius; just tell me...how do you know her?"
Sirius sat on the foot of his bed and began untying his shoes.
"It's kind of a long story," he mumbled.
"Well, you can't sleep remember...we have time."
Sirius yawned. "You know, I'm suddenly very tired."
"Sirius," James whined, "come on...tell me."
"It's just," Sirius shook his head and looked up to the ceiling. "When we were kids we were neighbors..."
"Small world...," James grinned, already clearly enjoying this.
"Nah, not if you understand the whole story. See, my grandmother lives with us," Sirius paused as he made a face. "And she was good friends with Lily's grandmother...who was a witch, too....but she died before finding out that her daughter – Lily's mother...was a squib...which she was...a squib that is....and she was raised as a muggle and then married a muggle and ....are you getting this?"
James stared as he wrinkled his forehead in confusion, "No."
Sirius shook his head in frustration.
"Okay, well, long story short...my grandmother and Lily's grandmother were here at Hogwarts together. Both outstanding Slytherins as I've been told and great friends."
"Oh, so they lived next to each other after Hogwarts because they were friends..."
"Right, and when Lily's grandma died, she left her house to her children."
"Oh, so Lily's parents?"
"Not quite," Sirius sighed in slight annoyance. "Look...never mind, James it's a very long story."
"No, no, no...," James said, shaking his head, "I think I'm getting it...so both of your grandparents left neighboring houses to your families in their wills."
"Well, close enough...my grandmother's still alive though...unfortunately."
"But you grew up next to that girl because the houses were left behind for you," James concluded nodding in understanding.
"Right, pretty much...exactly...and well...you have to understand that my family is very...well to say the least...very uncooperative when it comes to muggles."
James nodded.
"So our families...that is...Lily's and mine...well, they weren't exactly the type to have tea on Sundays while chatting about puppies and flowers," Sirius scowled as he went on. "You see, they haven't been overly friendly to each other because the Evans are muggles, and well...I guess Lily isn't but...anyway, the rest of them are."
"And her mom's a squib?"
"Her mom's a squib, right," Sirius repeated, "but same difference. I suppose that's where she got her magic side of blood from, though. But her dad is a pure muggle, an annoying, rich bastard muggle, at that. And her uncle...oh, her uncle is the biggest muggle I've ever had the misfortune to meet. Something my mother and I are actually still able to agree on."
"He lives with them, too?"
"He was the one who got the house...after his wife died, that is." Sirius paused to look at James, making sure he wasn't too confused before he went on. "Because Lily's uncle married a witch. She originally received the house just because she was the only pureblood witch left in the family. You see, Lily's dear grandmother was just as bad as mine when it came to tolerance of muggles...of course, I'm sure Lily has no idea...I assume she found out for the first time that she was a witch when her letter came. She was such a muggle growing up, James, I swear. I was positive she wouldn't make it to Hogwarts."
"Alright so...she hates you now because...because your complicated, dysfunctional families were cruel to each other while you two grew up. So it's not really your fault, is it? I mean it's your families that are the problem, isn't it?"
Sirius grinned bitterly at this. "Well not quite. She and I didn't exactly make an effort to get on well, either. I mean...I was a little kid, I didn't know better. My family taught me that muggles were scum...and so far, the muggles I had met were scum-"
"But muggles are just-" James interrupted.
"I know, I know, "Sirius rolled his eyes, "there's nothing wrong with muggles, I know. But at the time I was stupid."
James snorted with silent laughter. "At the time, right."
Sirius chose to ignore this and continued. "At first it was just little things...like stepping on her flower beds and glaring at each other, but then one day she snapped my broom...I suppose she couldn't understand why a nine year old boy would carry around a broom everywhere with no apparent purpose, but she was always fairly smart....she saw that it meant something to me...so she snapped it clean in half after I stole a stupid piece of rope from her that she jumped up and down with and I threw on the roof..."
Sirius paused to grin at this. "It was funny for about ten seconds, before that miserable, evil little-"
"So she broke your broom and you threw her rope...and because of this you hate each other?" James interrupted again.
"Well, essentially, yeah," Sirius shrugged.
"Sorry to say this, mate, but it seems slightly childish to me."
"But there were a lot of other things, too," Sirius replied mildly then scowled at the ground. "Ugh, I can't believe she's here, though. Just when I thought I was getting away from her, too."
James sighed and grinned, "Well it could be worse..."
"No it couldn't, you don't understand...we've been fighting with each since we were two...it's an ongoing battle against good and evil, James, she being the evil, of course."
"Oh come on, that's not possible," James contradicted, laughing now. "People don't begin to hate each other at two year old, don't you think you're exaggerating a little, Sirius?"
"No, seriously, I have pictures, Potter, pictures of her slapping me when I was barely even old enough to walk!"
"Babies don't beat on each other," James laughed again.
"Yeah well, we were the exception to that theory."
"Alright, alright," James yawned. "Okay, well thanks for the bedtime story... I'm going to sleep...my head hurts from this entire melodramatic baby abusing talk...Goodnight, Sirius. Try to get some sleep, mate."
And with that, James pulled the curtains tight around his bed, Sirius heard him laugh one last time before turning off his lamp and becoming silent.
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"Sirius...hey, Sirius, wake up..."Someone was shaking him roughly. "Leamealone," he managed to mutter irritability.
"It's hopeless," the voice attempting to roust him exclaimed in exasperation, "I've been trying to wake him for fifteen minutes, James...it's as though he's dead..."
Sirius squinted against the sunlight up at his two friends, who were staring at him, shaking their heads.
"Maybe he is dead," James shrugged casually, ignoring the fact that Sirius was finally fully awake, both eyes completely open.
"Mmm," Remus sighed, "you don't suppose anyone will miss him, though, do you?"
"Who Sirius?" James looked taken aback. "Miss him? Nah, I can't think of anyone...can you?"
"Not a soul." Remus shook his head in mock sadness and tutted quietly.
Sirius glared at him and opened his mouth to say something; James however successfully cut him off.
"Must have been bitten by a spider or something," he offered, poking Sirius hard on his shoulder for no reason.
Remus paused as though he was in deep thought about this. "No," he finally concluded, "too heroic a death for him..."
"Yes, you're right, of course. Okay, maybe he saw the spider and died of sheer fright," James suggested happily. Remus nodded in agreement and smiled at him.
"Yes, that's much more likely."
James grinned, "It is, isn't it?"
"But you know...it is a shame, really," Remus added solemnly, now covering Sirius's head with a sheet, as though preparing him for burial "...I mean...he lived his entire life in vain...never doing anything useful or worth while."
"Imagine."
They fell into a very brief silence.
"Right, so what should we do with him?" Remus asked cheerfully.
"I don't know...feed him to my owl? Little bird hasn't eaten in days..."
"Poor thing. You think he'd eat something like Sirius, though? Disgusting."
"You guys suck, do you know that?" Sirius muttered suddenly, sitting up and untangling himself from his sheets he'd twisted himself in over the course of the night.
"By golly, he's alive!" James exclaimed overdramatically, clapping Sirius on the back. "We thought you were a gonner for a second there, Sirius. But you seem to be fine after all. And thank Merlin you are! I say this calls for a celebration!"
Sirius yawned and groaned for a few seconds before he quite literally rolled out of bed and sat lazily on the floor, apparently still waking up.
It had only been two weeks since they arrived at Hogwarts, but James and Remus quickly learned Sirius' morning routine of laziness.
And with a sudden burst of energy that occurred around the same time every morning, Sirius began pulling clothes haphazardly out of his wooden trunk, looking for socks and a hat to wear. At last, finding a rolled up pair of brown socks and a foul looking reptilian hide hat, Sirius stood up, stretched widely and grinned.
"Well, let's go."
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Sirius closed his eyes tightly as the owls delivered letters and packages to their owners at breakfast. He was sitting absolutely still, clutching his fork in one hand, and a biscuit in the other with a pained expression on his face.
James knocked the biscuit out of his hand and said something about squishing breakfast, but Sirius wasn't paying much attention.
He had been expecting a howler from his mother since his first day, anxiously waiting every morning to hear her hideous, shrieking voice snarling at him for disgracing the family and such things.
He took a deep breath and opened his eyes when the owls cleared out of the hall, thus marking the end of delivery, none of them leaving a bright red envelope for Sirius to open.
"I can't believe she didn't send it yet," Sirius angrily announced to no one in particular. "She's doing it on purpose, you know. She probably expects me to sit here like a bloody prat and wait for it every day; expecting the worst and going mad all the while."
"Maybe the owl got lost trying to deliver it-" Remus suggested tranquilly.
Sirius shrugged.
"Or...more likely...she's still working on curses to send me along with the howler, and can't find a good enough one yet..."
"Maybe howlers are banned at Hogwarts and it can't get through..."
"I doubt it, Remus. Besides, even if they were, she'd find a way..."
"Then...maybe the owl delivered it to the wrong person..."
"Nah, never happens. Not with Falamus, at least. Hey, do you think she could send a curse via mail that could kill me? I mean...I've heard of hexes that you can send, but..."
"-Or maybe, just maybe, she's not sending one at all," James interrupted calmly, "did you ever think of that, Sirius? Maybe she's actually proud of you and you're just over exaggerating."
Sirius laughed heartily at this. "You are indeed the funniest wizard alive, James Potter."
They ate quickly while talking loudly over the rumbling noise of students chatting and laughter before being inturupted by a very unwelcomed visitor.
"How many times, Mr. Black, must I tell you," a very silky, low voice suddenly addressed Sirius while snatching off his hat. "Hats, especially hats such as these," he hissed with a tone of great disgust, "are absolutely not permitted here. Twenty points."
Sirius looked up to see Professor Roklen; the handsome, well dressed, well poised, complete git , Potions teacher, was strolling slowly along the Gryffindor table, pausing every now and then to take points from anyone who looked at him strangely.
Sirius shook his head, pulled back his bangs, and roughly threw his hat back on as soon as the professor was a safe distance away. "Stupid, nasty, good for nothing gi-"
"Gi?" James repeated, bemused as Sirius suddenly stopped ranting mid sentence, eyes widened.
"No...no, It can't be...," Sirius muttered softly to himself in shock. "She wouldn't...I...I must be hearing things..."
Remus and James exchanged worried and confused looks before returning their gaze to Sirius, who was now standing up and backing very slowly away from the table. To their great surprise, he quickly took off his hat and shook his head so his hair easily fell back into place.
"What are you doing?" James asked with a grin as Sirius brushed food off his robes, straightened his tie, and continued to brush hair out of his eyes while his friends watched.
"I don't believe this...It's her...," Sirius answered in a flat tone, now unrolling the sleeves of his robes quickly and franticly.
"Who Lily?" James asked him, looking around the room grinning. He had grown very fond of watching Sirius and Lily fight every day over the past few weeks, especially when embarrassing childhood memories were revisited concerning Sirius and stuffed animals.
"No, not Lily, you stupid prat," he snapped angrily, "my mother."
"What are you on about, Sirius? Where do you see your mum?" James asked, doubt evident in his voice.
"I don't see her...," Sirius waved his hand in frustration, "I hear her."
"You hear her?" James grinned, "Really? You can pick out the sound of her voice out of all of this," James gestured pointedly around the Great Hall where the noise level seemed to have doubled in the last few minuets.
"Trust me, the voice of that woman is not easily mistaken...," Sirius retorted, clenching his fists in nervousness and staring towards the wooden doors separating the Great Hall from the rest of the castle.
"She's out there," he muttered, staring pointedly at the doors with a slight nod. "She came to take me away from Hogwarts..."
"Oh come on, Sirius! I swear, you're the biggest drama queen I've ev-"
But James did not have a chance to finish, as Sirius had turned and darted very quickly across the hall. Ignoring the girl he had accidentally knocked over in his rush, he flung the large doors open with all his strength, creating an eerie sort of rumbling noise when the heavy door slammed against its frame.
He jogged down the spiraling stairs to the main entrance hall, where, as he expected, his mother was standing conversing with Dumbledore, flailing her arms wildly.
Sirius stood rooted to the spot, halfway down the stairs, cringing as his mothers voice echoed loudly throughout the room.
"I demand to speak with my son, Dumbledore" she ordered in a frantic yell. "There's been some sort of filthy, disgusting mistake..."
"I assure you, Ms. Black," Dumbledore was explaining calmly in a soothing voice, "there has been no mistake in your son's sorting-"
"Well ," she shrieked, seizing the opportunity to interrupt Dumbledore as he paused to take a breath. "If it wasn't a mistake," she hissed, "then it was a conspiracy...a conspiracy to break up the noble house of Black, and I refuse to let you-"
"I can also promise you that there has been no conspiracy," Dumbledore assured her tranquilly, a faint trace of a grin forming on his aging, mild face.
She broke her gaze with Dumbledore and looked up to the staircase, directly at Sirius, a hideous glare fixed upon her yellowed, jeering face. He flinched as he met her eyes.
"Sirius," she bellowed in the same shrill tone she had been using with Dumbledore,. "How could you? How could any son of mine let themselves be sorted into...into..." she stumbled for words, "into that nauseating house!"
"Perhaps we should continue this discussion in my office; I've just finished furnishing it the other day. In fact, you two would be the first to see it completed. And my great uncle Larvix sent me a beautiful, calming Levardium that I could get out to relax ourselves," Dumbledore suggested gently.
Sirius cringed slightly as Dumbledore mentioned a Levardium. For some reason, his mother absolutely despised them. She received one of these fragrant vases of blue and green swirling liquid long ago. They had had the jar in their house as far back as he could remember. She tried countless times to smash the vase and poor out the liquid, but it was as though it was charmed against this sort of activity. For reasons Sirius could not understand, she hated the jar of calming, sweet-smelling liquid so much that she had actually given it to him when he was young; his first and only present he had ever received from her in his life.
"You old fool ...I would never bring myself to that level of shame," she hissed, eyes glinting wildly, "I've had enough! We're leaving."
Sirius was just about to yell something in protest, but remained silent when he noticed what 'we' she was referring to.
Kreacher, his mother's miserable house elf was standing behind her; squinting his watery eyes and twitching his nose as though there was a disgusting stench upon the air. She took the house elf everywhere with her. Sirius assumed it was her way of saying ' Hey, look at me, I'm rich enough to own a house elf! Whoo hoo! '
"Sirius!" she screamed suddenly in the same piercing voice, "get down here, you cowardly, wretched filth!"
Defiantly, Sirius descended the stairs, struggling to keep eye contact with his mother.
"You ," she snarled at him when he reached the bottom of the stone steps, "can no longer consider yourself a Black. I knew from the day you were born, you know. I knew you'd end up like this! Disgracing the family name, bringing shame to what used to be the greatest wizarding family of all time! I should have snapped your neck the day you were born! You're nothing but a useless, sick, shameful, rotten, blood traitor that doesn't kn-"
"That's quite enough I think," Dumbledore interjected, his voice no longer as calm as before, but now rather tired and irritated, "Sirius, you may return to breakfast, Mrs. Black, you are free to leave if you do not wish to carry this conversation any further—"
She scowled at Sirius with evident revulsion one last time as she turned to leave, Kreacher tailing close behind.
Sirius stood watching her with great distaste. Blood was pumping in his ears and he had gone numb with anger, more anger and hatred that he'd ever felt in his life. He found it hard not to charge after her and curse her into a thousand ugly little pieces as he grasped the banister in attempt to steady himself. His knees buckled and his right leg began to shake slightly but quickly in rhythm with his heartbeat.
"Wait," he yelled out in a voice filled with loathing that he did not recognize at first as his own.
She spun around so quickly and violently it looked as though it was physically painful.
They stood in silence for a while, staring at each other with equal looks of repugnance.