Disclaimer: Anything you recognise belongs to JK Rowling.
The Outside of Enough: A Sirius Story
July 1976
Sirius Black had thought he'd be spending his summer in hell, but as it turned out, he had been wrong. Hell would have been a pleasant holiday spot compared to a Black family reunion.
What I wouldn't give for Prongs' Invisibility Cloak right about now, Sirius thought ruefully as he surveyed his mother's crowded sitting room with a wary eye. Everywhere he looked there were Blacks: his aunt and uncle were accepting cups of tea from Kreacher, Sirius's family's house elf. Old Aunt Elladora was sitting by herself on the sofa as usual, muttering under her breath to a nearby bolster cushion that she'd apparently mistaken for her long-dead husband. Uncle Alphard had very strategically situated himself next to the drinks cart; he was currently sneaking, by Sirius's count, his fifth nip of firewhiskey.
Not that Sirius could blame him; actually he'd have liked nothing better than to walk over there and join him. Aside from his disowned favourite cousin Andromeda, Sirius was fonder of Uncle Alphard than of anyone else in the family, and that included his parents and brother. This wasn't actually saying much, as Sirius loathed his brother, had reluctantly tolerated his father, and shared a mutual hatred with his mother. Still, he had a few semi-fond memories of Uncle Alphard, particularly of last year's family reunion when Uncle Alphard and Sirius had invented the Black family drinking game: every time anyone in the family had said the words "pureblood," "noble," or "abomination," they'd taken a swig. Both Sirius and Uncle Alphard had been thoroughly soused by dinner, which had not, to put it mildly, pleased Sirius's mother.
Sirius shuddered faintly as he recalled the screeching his mother had done over last year's firewhiskey episode. No, best not to join Uncle Alphard by the alcohol. He'd do much better to stand in a corner and try to ignore his horrible family until he had the opportunity to slip out unnoticed. Sighing in resignation, Sirius returned to his perusal of his relatives.
On the opposite side of the room, Sirius's cousins Narcissa and Bellatrix were chatting with his brother Regulus. Something Bellatrix had said caused Narcissa to chuckle and Regulus to throw back his head with laughter. Sirius snorted in disgust; he somehow doubted that he'd find their joke funny.
Bellatrix, a smug smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, glanced up just then and caught Sirius's eye before he could turn away. Instantly her smile became a smirk and a familiar and dangerous gleam entered her eyes; Bellatrix would love nothing better than to see Sirius get in trouble in front of all of the assembled Black relatives.
Sirius merely curled his lip at his cousin; past experience told him that rude gestures didn't sit well with adults who might happen to see them, and he absolutely refused to have his broomstick taken away again just for flipping Bellatrix off. Bloody hell, he still hadn't gotten the broomstick back from his mother after the last time he'd done it. Sirius had finally had to go out and buy another one, and this current broom was much too nice to lose over his mad cow of a cousin.
Bellatrix's smirk widened as she put her arm round Regulus and began toying idly with his hair, keeping her eyes on Sirius all the while. Sirius bit back a laugh; apparently Bellatrix still hadn't gotten it through her deranged head that he didn't care how close she was to Regulus. Sirius had written his brother off years ago, especially after James had become his best friend. Who needed a whiny, sniveling, brown-nosing younger brother when he had Prongs?
And besides, Sirius told himself firmly as he looked deliberately away from Bellatrix and Regulus, if I want to be around a whiny, sniveling, brown-nosing git, I'll go find Peter.
Sirius smiled slightly as he considered his fellow Marauder. Peter was probably on holiday in Bath with his mother, bored out of his mind. Remus would be in bed sick, resting up for tonight's full moon. And James, of course, was pining for Lily Evans at his parents' country house, coming up with new ways to impress her that Sirius would eventually have to talk him out of.
At the thought of James, Sirius pressed his back more firmly into the corner, wanting to put as much distance between himself and his relatives as possible just in case evil was catching. Once again he measured the distance from his corner to the door with a practised eye. It shouldn't take him more than a couple of seconds to cross to the doorway, and it would take him about seven to get to the front door. Sirius wouldn't need much of a diversion to slip away, but his mother had freakishly good hearing and he could swear there was an eye in the back of her head, so the distraction would have to be a good one if it was going to keep Mrs. Black occupied.
Kreacher, who was passing Sirius's corner on his way to fetch more tea from the kitchen, stopped short when he saw where Sirius's eyes were wandering to. The house elf gave Sirius a very passable imitation of Mrs. Black's patented glare: one part warning, one part fury, and two parts contempt. The message was clear. Kreacher was on to Sirius's escape attempt and he wouldn't allow Sirius to do anything that might upset his sainted mistress. Sirius knew from long experience that Kreacher was passionately devoted to the Most Noble House of Black, a veritable fanatic about Sirius's mother in particular, and that few things made him happier than an opportunity to run and tattle to her. Especially if he could get Sirius in trouble in the process; Kreacher shared his mistress' view that Sirius was a filthy blood traitor and unworthy of the Black family name.
Sirius returned fire with his own trademark sneer, daring the house elf to stop him. And he was half-hoping that Kreacher would try it; Sirius had been looking for an excuse to throttle the miserable little blighter ever since Kreacher had told his mother which house Sirius had been Sorted into at Hogwarts. Sirius still had no idea how the nosy little toerag had found that one out, but he still maintained that he could have gone through his entire Hogwarts career without his mother knowing he was a Gryffindor if Kreacher had only kept his big mouth shut.
"Did you want something, Kreacher?" Sirius drawled, staring the house elf down.
"Would Master care for some tea?" Kreacher asked venomously, a sickeningly polite smile pasted on his face.
"There isn't any tea left," Sirius pointed out with a smirk. "You were going to the kitchen to get some more."
"But Kreacher will hurry back if Master Sirius wants tea," Kreacher replied in the sweetly poisonous tone he always reserved just for Sirius. "Kreacher would not want Master Sirius to be thirsty."
"Kreacher!" Mrs. Black said sharply, pausing in her conversation with Cousin Araminta. "Haven't you fetched that tea yet!"
"Yes, Mistress, right away, Mistress," Kreacher was all but slobbering.
"Better hurry along, Kreacher," Sirius gloated in his victory.
Kreacher's head swiveled from Mrs. Black, to the door, to Sirius, to Mrs. Black again, clearly divided in his purposes. Sirius could practically hear the cogs turning in Kreacher's ugly, long-eared head: his beloved mistress had ordered him to get more tea and would be furious if he didn't obey her instantly. On the other hand, if he left the room to get the tea, her nefarious eldest son would escape from the family reunion, which would make Mrs. Black even more furious, possibly for days. Either way, Mrs. Black would be upset, and Kreacher had made it his personal mission in life to keep his mistress happy. Which Sirius reckoned must have been a rather frustrating mission, considering the fact that he could count on one hand the number of times he'd seen his mother happy.
"Kreacher!" Mrs. Black repeated shrilly, watching her son and house elf with suspicious, narrowed eyes.
"Kreacher is going right away, Mistress, Kreacher is most humbly sorry, Mistress." With one last glare at Sirius, Kreacher scurried out the door, muttering under his breath all the while.
"Finally," Sirius breathed in relief. No time for subtlety now; Kreacher was on to him, and if he wasn't gone by the time the house elf returned with the tea, Sirius could kiss his escape chances goodbye.
He glanced around the assembly one more time to ensure that no one else suspected what he was up to. But as usual, none of his relatives appeared to be paying the least attention to Sirius Black, the family disgrace that no one liked to talk about, let alone look directly at. Sirius's lip curled at the thought, but he didn't have time to brood over his family just now. There'd be plenty of time to do that after he escaped to the Potters. And there he could complain to James, which would be a whole lot more fun than feeling sorry for himself.
Moving slowly but purposefully, Sirius crossed the short distance between his corner and the door, and, with one last furtive glance over his shoulder, stepped into the corridor and freedom.
Or that was the plan, anyway.
Instead of stepping quietly over the threshold and tiptoeing discreetly down the corridor, Sirius tripped, went sprawling across the floor, and flattened a small end table with a resounding crash that echoed through the suddenly silent room.
"What in the Founder's name is wrong with you, boy?" Mrs. Black demanded loudly. "Can you not take two steps without tripping over your own two feet!"
"No," Sirius said rudely as he hauled himself to his feet.
Mrs. Black spread her hands and glanced round the room exasperatedly, as if asking all of the assembled Blacks to see what she had to put up with. Sirius folded his arms and smirked at his mother, refusing to be intimidated into looking ashamed.
"Well don't just stand there, boy!" Mrs. Black screeched. "Pick up that table!"
"Kreacher can do it," Sirius said in his best snobbish tone. "Merlin knows he isn't good for anything else." The house elf, who had returned with the tea tray in time to catch Sirius' words, glared openly at him.
Sirius returned Kreacher's glare. He knew full well that he hadn't tripped by accident. The house elf had put some sort of stumbling spell on the door to keep Sirius from leaving and to draw attention to the fact that Sirius was trying to do so. It was diabolically clever, really; if Sirius hadn't hated Kreacher, he just might have respected him.
"I told YOU to pick the table up, you clumsy, ill-mannered child!" Mrs. Black's voice rose another octave above her usual shriek, a sure sign that she was upset. "And you WILL do as I tell you!"
And because she was standing there waiting, Sirius bit his tongue and did as his mother ordered. The sooner she went back to ignoring him, the sooner he could get out of hell.
Sirius began gathering splintered pieces of the table under his mother's triumphant gaze, concentrating on fitting the pieces together. Not that Sirius knew how he was going to refasten them without magic; he'd already gotten one warning about underage magic from the Improper Use of Magic office this summer, and he couldn't stand the idea of being expelled from Hogwarts and having to live in Grimmauld Place forever.
"What in the bloody hell is wrong with you?"
Sirius looked up to find his brother Regulus scowling down at him. "How kind of you to come and help me, Reg," Sirius drawled, continuing to fit the table together. "Don't suppose you could hand me that piece by your foot there, could you?"
Regulus's foot darted out and kicked the table leg toward Sirius. "Why do you have to do this all the bloody time?" he hissed.
"Do what?" Sirius pretended to be confused. "Fall onto tables, do you mean? Dunno if I exactly do it all the time; I think this is a first, actually."
Regulus peeked furtively over his should to see whether or not Mrs. Black was still watching. But she'd gone across the room and out of earshot to berate Uncle Alphard about the firewhiskey, apparently feeling that her work with Sirius was done.
"You know what I mean," Regulus accused with a bit more volume, secure in the knowledge that his mother couldn't hear him. "Why do you have to play some stupid prank and pick fights with Mother every bloody time we have a family reunion?"
"Why do you care so much?" Sirius didn't bother hiding his own scowl now.
"Because it's embarrassing!" Regulus retorted hotly. "You're embarrassing, and you make us look bad! Why can't you just act like you're supposed to and be normal?"
"Normal like this lot?" Sirius indicated the roomful of Blacks with a contemptuous wave of his hand. "Hate to break it to you, mate, but there's nothing normal about anyone in this room. Evil, bigoted, and terminally annoying, yes. But normal? No."
"And I suppose you think you're normal?" Regulus was furious, and practically quivering with it. "You and that lot you hang about with, James Potter and Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. You think a lot of blood traitors and halfbloods and freaks are normal?"
Sirius stood very, very slowly. "You ought to be very, very careful, Reg," he said softly, his blood boiling, as it always did, whenever someone dared insult his mates. "Or something besides this table might get flattened."
Regulus' hands balled into fists. "You –"
"What's this?" Mrs. Black was suddenly bearing down on her sons, reinforcing Sirius's belief in the third eye in the back of her head. "You dare to pick a fight at our family reunion like a common Muggle in the street?" she seethed at Sirius. He could practically see the smoke coming out his mother's ears. "Answer me!"
"We were having a small disagreement, Mother," Regulus spoke earnestly to Mrs. Black, wearing his best "good son" expression. "Forgive us for our rudeness and for embarrassing you in front of our esteemed relatives."
Sirius snorted; Regulus was taking it too far with the 'esteemed relatives' bit, in his opinion. But Mrs. Black seemed slightly placated, if still a bit suspicious. "Be assured we shall discuss this later," she warned them, preparing to return to Uncle Alphard.
"Of course, Mother," Regulus agreed politely. "We can discuss Sirius's – situation – later."
Regulus knew what he was doing; Sirius had to give him that. Mrs. Black stopped dead in her tracks and spun around. "What situation?" she snapped at Sirius. "What have you done now?"
"I thought you wanted to discuss this later, Mother," Regulus pretended to be distressed.
"We will discuss it now," Mrs. Black said sharply. "What have you done, Sirius?"
Sirius opened his mouth to give his mother an appropriately sarcastic retort, but Regulus cut him neatly off before he could utter even one syllable. Mentally Sirius compiled a list of all of the 'situations' he'd been involved in recently that Regulus might know about and shrugged; the little weasel couldn't possibly get him into more trouble than he could get himself into.
"Well, technically he did it quite a while ago," Regulus began apologetically, "in January, in fact, but I only just found out about it from Bellatrix, and, well, I was so shocked that I'm afraid I came right over here to ask Sirius about it without thinking about how the whole thing might look."
Now Sirius was really baffled. He wracked his brain trying to remember back to January, but the truth was that it had been so long ago and he'd gotten into so much trouble since then that he had no idea at all what Regulus was talking about.
"What. Did. He. Do?" Mrs. Black enunciated, very clearly at the end of her tether.
"He set fire to the restricted section of the library at school," Regulus said in a seemingly apologetic tone; Sirius couldn't wait to get his hands on the little git. "And he was banned from the library for a year."
"WHAT!" Mrs. Black shrieked. Sirius winced; he hadn't known her voice could go that high. Hell, he hadn't known anybody's voice could go that high.
"HOW COULD YOU!" Mrs. Black roared, her nose only inches from Sirius's.
"It was an accident," Sirius was really having trouble seeing what the big deal was; he'd certainly done worse. And when had his mother become some sort of literature advocate anyway? "Besides, we put most of the flames out before Filch got there." Most of the really big ones, at any rate, but Mrs. Black didn't need to hear that part. And Sirius had always been a firm believer in providing information on a need-to-know basis.
"Sirius," Regulus scolded; he was enjoying this a bit too much in Sirius's opinion. "Don't you think you ought to tell Mother the rest of it? I'm sure she'd care to know that several very old and valuable volumes of Dark magic were damaged beyond repair – oops," Regulus grinned widely at Sirius as their mother let out a fresh, wordless bellow of rage. "I've upset Mother."
"I am going to force-feed Kreacher to you when this is all over," Sirius hissed at his brother as their mother continued to scream. "Then I'm going to kill you with a melon baller. And then -"
But before Sirius could expand upon his threat any further, Mrs. Black found her voice and began to rail at Sirius in earnest. "You DARE to destroy Dark spell books? Have you NO reverence for sacred relics? You spit in the faces of our ancestors with your disrespect!" she shrieked. "Worthless, ungrateful abomination! You are the shame of this noble house!"
Mrs. Black went on to screech about irresponsibility, carelessness, stupidity, and her certainty that Sirius was going to flunk out of Hogwarts and become an even greater burden on the Most Noble House of Black. But years of experience had taught Sirius how to more or less tune his mother out. However, years of experience had also taught him that there was no stopping Mrs. Black once she was on a roll, so Sirius stood in front of his mother wearing the blankest expression he could muster, tried to keep a lid on his simmering temper, and waited for the big finish.
"WHAT in the Founder's name possessed you to DO such a thing?" Mrs. Black roared with particular volume, snapping Sirius out of his daydreams about what he would do to Regulus once he got his hands on him.
"He and James Potter were playing some sort of prank," Regulus reported. It was clear that Mrs. Black was running out of ammunition, and Regulus was only too happy to provide her with more.
"I might have known!" Mrs. Potter shrieked, her nostrils flaring as though she really might breathe fire at her elder son. "James Potter! Nothing but a worthless blood traitor like his parents! An abomination to wizardkind, all of them, with the way they presume to change our traditions, the way they lower us all with their talk of equality for Mudbloods and Muggles and their slander against the great Dark Lord!"
Sirius clenched his jaw and his fists and did his best to go temporarily deaf, but it wasn't doing him much good. He could feel his temper boiling up again, threatening to spill over.
Oh, the shame! The shame that a son of mine should burn Dark spell books with the son of such filth!" Mrs. Black went on dramatically, oblivious to Sirius' rage. "What have I done to earn such a punishment? My firstborn has been tainted with the lies and unnatural ways of the Potters and Albus Dumbledore! Blood traitors and Mudblood lovers, all of them! Mark me, Sirius, you will end your days dead in the streets right along with them; all of you will die like common Mudbloods when the Dark Lord has his triumph!"
And just like that, Sirius felt something snap inside his head. It was one thing for his mother to call him a filthy blood traitor; it was true enough. Sirius was in fact a blood traitor in the eyes of the Black family, and bloody proud of it. But to talk about James and Mr. and Mrs. Potter and Professor Dumbledore that way, to call them unnatural and say they would die in the streets, well, that was another thing entirely. In fact, it was just the outside of enough. Sirius had had enough.
"For the love of bloody Merlin, just SHUT UP, YOU MAD OLD BAT!" Sirius roared at his mother.
A collective gasp went round the room; they'd all known that Sirius had no shame, but to stoop THIS low? Mrs. Black's jaw dropped slightly in her disbelief, and for the first time in several long minutes, she was completely, blessedly silent.
"Well, really!" Cousin Araminta sniffed to Mrs. Black, breaking the stunned silence. "No manners, no respect at all. Didn't I say all along that you ought to have sent that boy to Durmstrang? It isn't too late, you know."
Sirius gave a short bark of laughter. "Oh yes, it is," he smirked at Cousin Araminta. "Because I'm done." Sirius's eyes sought his mother's, stared defiantly into them. "I've had enough."
With that, Sirius spun on his heel and strode to the door, this time with everybody watching him.
"Come back here this instant!" Mrs. Black had found her voice. "This instant!"
Sirius stepped into the corridor, climbed the stairs to his room, and began to stuff things into his trunk, ignoring his mother's increasingly shrill shrieks all the while. He pulled on some Muggle clothes, grabbed his broomstick, and dragged his trunk out of the room and back down the stairs, letting it bang onto each step with a resounding "thunk!" as he went.
Mrs. Black had stepped out into the corridor to watch, with Regulus hovering just behind her in the sitting room's doorway; Sirius imagined the rest of the relatives were right behind him, straining to hear. "What fresh humiliation are you planning now?" she demanded, stepping between Sirius and the front door. "Take that trunk upstairs immediately!"
Sirius didn't go back upstairs. He continued to drag his trunk after him as he strode purposefully toward the front door. "I told you, I'm done," he called down the corridor to his mother. "I'm going."
Mrs. Black hesitated for the barest instant as Sirius's meaning sunk in. She looked into her son's eyes, and a stricken expression passed fleetingly across her face at what she saw there. Regulus's mouth dropped.
"Shame of my flesh!" Mrs. Black shrieked with renewed vigour, her face purple with effort. "You are no son of mine!"
She stalked furiously back into the sitting room, elbowing Regulus out of her way. Sirius just continued to pull his trunk toward the front door. He didn't stop even when a colossal "boom!" shook the sitting room wall and several startled screams and trails of smoke drifted out into the corridor. Sirius hid a smirk; it sounded like his mother was doing her best to blast his name off the family tree. He remembered how long it had taken her to get around the tapestry's various fireproof charms when she'd blasted Andromeda's name off; the sitting room had smelled like singed fabric for weeks, and Kreacher had lost his eyebrows at least twice in the process. Sirius sincerely hoped his own name would present as much of a problem.
"Blood traitor! Abomination!" Mrs. Black panted, and several more explosions shook the house. "Go, go and starve in the streets, and be damned to you!"
Even starving in the streets probably had its advantages over staying with his mother, but Sirius knew he wouldn't have to resort to that. He had a place he could go, people who would be glad to see him.
Sirius reached the front door and shoved his trunk onto the stoop. His mother continued her screeches in the background, but Sirius didn't look back as he closed the door on 12 Grimmauld Place.
Author's Note:
Hello again!
I found myself missing fanfiction, so I thought I'd try writing a short story about Sirius. I have a couple of other short story ideas as well, so it's very possible that you may be hearing from me again in the near future. Hope you enjoy!