III.
"Now. You will repeat after me –"
"No. I won't."
Sirius' mother slaps his face, a light, sharp slap. It stings, but it is a blow purposefully calculated to inflict only pain, not damage. It is the fifth time so far that she has slapped him in this cool, controlled way.
"Attend. Repeat after me. 'I will never again so lower myself as to consort with –'"
"No. I won't say that. It's rubbish."
Another slap.
"' – as to consort with any children whose –'"
"I wasn't consorting. I was playing. A game with –"
Another slap.
"'- children whose breeding cannot equal my own' Say it."
"– a game with a ball, some sort of Muggle thing – "
Another slap. Considerably harder this time. She does not like to hear the word "Muggle" uttered in her house.
"Attend. Repeat what I've told you to repeat."
"No. I won't."
Slap. Sirius has cut his tongue on one of his teeth at some point, and a small, bright thread of scarlet leaks out of the corner of his mouth. His lips are pressed so hard together that they have gone white, and his face has gone white too. His eyes are boring into his mother's steadily, alight with anger, and every line of his small body communicates his defiance. He is at war. There is no fear in him at all.
"Football, I think they called it," he remarks conversationally, and shows his mother his teeth in a bloody, humorless smile. He looks like a fox kit at bay. He is seven years old.
Sirius' mother is secretly appalled by the nearly insane degree of willfulness her young son can already display. She does not raise her hand to slap him again. She is so torn between fury and fear at this stubborn streak in him that she knows she might really hurt him if she were to strike him again just now. He is, after all, very small, however willful. She is appalled, and she is afraid, because even at seven, he borders on being uncontrollable. What will he be like when he is seventeen?
She is also very proud of him, her willful, handsome little son, already elegant and well past the puppyish awkwardness so common to others of his age. His fearless defiance does credit to his blood; he will be an exceptional heir to his house. She does not wish to beat this high spirit out of him, she wishes only to control it.
But how is that to be done?
Sirius' mother draws a fine lawn handkerchief out of her own sleeve and dabs at the small line of blood at his mouth gently. There is not much gentleness in her, and less affection, but she has learned that often he responds better to gentle and affectionate touches than he does to the direst punishments. She does not approve of such weakness, but she remembers that he is still only a little boy, and that he will grow out of it, and that she loves him very much, in her way.
"Sirius, please try to understand," she says. She deliberately allows a pleading tone to enter her voice as she dabs the blood away and gently smoothes her child's baby-fine hair back into place. "You must promise me that you will never associate with those dreadful children in the next block ever again. They are not for you. They are not like you. Won't you promise your mother?"
She suddenly kisses his cheek, and feels a fleeting glimmer of remorse to see how his eyes widen in surprise at the touch. All the rigid fury in his small body melts away in an instant.
Young Sirius cannot be compelled by force or by anger. His mother could have slapped him until his face fell off, if she'd cared to. But he has little defense against love. She so rarely offers him such tangible affection. She strokes the cheek she had slapped only moments before, and instinctively her son nuzzles his face into the palm of her hand.
"Won't you promise your mummy, Sirius? Please?"
He trembles. She adds another motherly peck on his forehead to her argument. It is the coup de grace.
"All right," he answers, defeated. "I promise."
