(a/n-hi! i know that last chapter was really short, but i promise this one's longer. anyway, read on! oh and please review!)

(disclaimer- everyone belongs to JKR)

A huge, evil grin grew on Mrs. Black's face as she watched her terrified son come closer. Regulus was nearly peeing his pants with excitement. It was the first time he was allowed to see Sirius being beaten!

"Oh God, please no," Sirius thought. "I'm still only little!"

He was almost to his mother when he screamed, "Somebody please help me!"

"Foolish child," she spat. "You know no one can hear you."

Mr. Black pushed Sirius closer to his mother.

"This is it," he thought. He closed his eyes and waited. He suddenly felt the whip on his left leg. Letting out a yelp, he fell to the ground.

Mrs. Black brought the whip down on any part of his body that she could get to. Sirius tried to hold in his desperate screams.

"Go ahead and scream, little Siri," Regulus taunted through his laughs.

"Please...." Sirius gasped. "Stop...."

This just made the other members of the Black family laugh even harder.

Mrs. Black finally stopped, and they all walked away laughing. Sirius lay on the floor, tears brimming in his eyes, with cuts from the whip all over his body. A small pool of blood formed around him. He crawled down the hall to his room and up onto his bed. It was then that he actually did start to cry.

"Better get used to it, Black," he said to himself through his shaky sobs.

"I wonder if they remember loving me," Sirius thought. He paused. "Of course they don't. Because they never did in the first place. They were only waiting to see if I would be like them before they started loving me. Then when they saw me talking to that boy in Diagon Alley, they decided that they weren't going to love me. James, I think his name was. I hope his parents don't do this to him. He was really nice."

Sirius looked at his bed sheet and realized that it was staining from the blood. He didn't really care.

"Happy Birthday to me," he sang almost inaudibly. "Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday dear Sirius, Happy Birthday to me."

He was surprised he even knew the song; he had only heard it at Regulus's birthdays. Sirius shook his long dark hair out of his face and fell asleep.

His parents used the whip quite often after that, but not too often, for they did not want to have to tend to him. If they didn't use that, they would use their hands and feet like they used to.

Sirius never looked forward to his birthdays. His parents knew around what time it was, and they would always make his beatings a bit longer and worse for how old he was.

Sirius was sitting in his room on his 8th birthday when "they" called him to come get his food. He went out into the kitchen and his mother threw a slice of stale bread, a small hunk of cheese, an apple, and a small bottle of water, and yelled at him to get out.

Sirius scampered back into his room and forced down his food, even though he was starving. He was nervous about what his parents had in store for him after dinner. By the excited look on Regulus's face, they had something planned tonight.

"Sirius!" shouted his father angrily. "Get out here!"

Sirius gulped. He knew that tone all too well. It was time for an upgrade.

He walked slowly out of his room and met his parents and Regulus in the living room.

"What is it?" Sirius asked with a hint of fright in his voice.

"You know damn well what it is!" his mother yelled. She drew her wand and spoke, "Crucio!"

Before Sirius could think, "What's that?" he was twitching and screaming on the ground. Pain engulfed every inch of his body. His teeth dug into his tongue and his mouth filled up with blood. His mother lifted the curse and could barely control her laughter.

"Get up, boy!" his father yelled.

Sirius could not get up. He was still shaking all over. Mrs. Black walked over and kicked him hard in the ribs.

"Did you hear your father?" she shrieked. "Get up!" She kicked him again.

Sirius closed his eyes and just waited for them to get bored or find something else to do. He prayed they would.

Finally, his mother decided that he had had enough. For now, at least.

"Get!" she said, kicking him again.

Sirius crawled slowly back to his room, spitting up blood. "What the hell was that?" he thought. "Well, what ever it was, it hurt really bad."

"I can't live through that again," he said. "I guess I'll have to though."

Sirius thought for a second. "What did I do to deserve this?" he asked himself. He remembered what his mother had said to him when he was 4: "No one loves you anymore, you blood traitor brat!"

Truly enough, he really was a nice kid, contrary to the rest of his family. Yet he was the only one being put through hell on a daily basis. He smiled humorlessly at this thought. For being a nice kid, he was beaten at least three times a week. For being a nice kid, no one loved him. For being a nice kid, he was lying in his bed spitting up blood.

Sirius figured it was one of those "Why me?" kind of things. He knew he didn't deserve this. "God, I can't wait to go to Hogwarts," he thought aloud.

Sirius got yet another "birthday present" when he turned 9. He had come out to the kitchen to get food, when his mother grabbed him from behind, slammed him up against the wall, and bound his hands behind his back.

"What the hell are you doing?" he shouted.

"Regulus needs some practice," she muttered. Sirius gulped as she led him towards the basement door. She opened it and pushed him down the steps.

Sirius wasn't sure if he had heard anything crack or not, but it didn't matter. All the beatings from that week caught up with him, and he groaned. Mr. Black dragged his half-conscious son over to his other son.

Sirius waved his arm weakly in protest, but of course it stopped no one. He felt a sharp pain to his side, and then heard his father say, "Ok, now you try it. Nice and hard." He then felt another, almost equally strong, kick to his side.

Sirius blacked out and was not awoken by the fist that collided with his face.

He woke up about three hours later on his bedroom floor, in extreme pain all over. "What happened?" he asked nobody. Sirius climbed up on his bed with a yelp. It hurt to breathe. He sobbed into his blanket.

"I can't take it anymore!" he yelled at his dingy old mattress, sending a jolt of pain though his bruised ribs. "I just want to leave this hellhole! If I'm such a screw-up, why don't they just throw me out? I would be much happier if I were dead!"

Sirius calmed down and fell asleep. He had the first dream in his life that wasn't a nightmare and that didn't feature his parents. He was sitting on his bed with a knife to his throat when he saw James, 9 years old like himself.

"Sirius, please don't," James said nervously. "You have a duty to fulfill. You need to stay with us. Oh, God, Padfoot, please don't leave me."

Sirius didn't know what James exactly was talking about, or why he was there, or why he was calling him Padfoot. But he put the knife down anyway.

James relaxed. "Thanks, Siri."

Sirius woke up and stared at his ceiling.

"Duty..." he whispered. "Gotta stay alive, Sirius. Gotta get through it. For James."