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1968 - Sirius, 8 years old.
Regulus ran through the carpeted candle-lit corridor, under the somewhat endeared, somewhat disapproving, stares of a dozen nineteenth century Black ancestors.
"Mummy! It's not as good as a house elf of course, but this thing is doing what I order. Look, jump!"
Walburga Black, in a rare mood for reading, turned away from the pile of family heirlooms whose exact importance she was trying to determine, and gazed upon her youngest.
"Regulus, what? Oh, my dear, is that - ?" Walburga clapped her hands together and smiled, a rare sight. "Reggie! Did you make your very own inferi?"
Sirius, who'd come to investigate what all the commotion was about, stared in dismay. A patchy rabbit, its fur falling in clumps, and its eyes well on their way to being fly-eaten holes, was cartwheeling through the library.
Disgusting. Mother was ecstatic of course. Reggie could do no wrong.
"Sirius, Sirius, look what I made for Mummy!"
Sirius scowled. "So not a squib after all... Congratulations."
Regulus' face fell. His lips trembled slightly, his eyes growing wet. Sirius felt a pang of... something, but immediately his six-years-old brother had turned back to Mother. "Mummy, can you spell the rabbit cleaner so maybe I can make it of some use?" Ever the suck up.
"Darling, inferi don't last. The magic used to animate them destroys their body. Don't worry, I'm very proud of you."
Regulus preened like he had just been made Minister of Magic.
Sirius pulled a face. "He should use his powerful dark magic to get rid of the dead rabbit pieces he littered all over the house. They stink."
"So jealous, Sirius," Mother's voice was teasing, her mouth a sneer now. Everything Sirius hated."Be more like your brother, and you'll have nothing to be jealous of."
Sirius scowled and strode angrily to his bedroom. Not that the room felt properly his. It was large, too large, too empty, stone walls decorated with tapestries illustrating scenes of the Noble and Ancient House of Black's greatness. Father thought it was proof that, deep down, Sirius cared about becoming Lord.
The truth was, Sirius didn't dare decorate it his way. It would have given Mother and Father something to take away.
Be more like your brother. Tear-eyed Regulus who'd run up to Mother blubbering I love you, acting like a house elf to do his parent's every bidding and living for their approving nods. Wasn't Sirius to be Lord Black ? Who wanted a Lord to behave like a House Elf?
They didn't like it when Sirius was defiant. Sirius couldn't help it. He just... He existed. What was the point if he had to erase himself? A Lord made people adapt to him. Nobody told them what to be !
His bedroom window opened on a shaded, narrow beaten earth path between the house and the neighbors'. Like this, the two houses looked pretty much the same. Nobody would have guessed they belonged to two very different worlds. The Black's historical mansion didn't have grounds like most of their parents' friends'. Mother wasn't thrilled about this state of affairs, or the fact the neighborhood was muggle. Father had once said it was convenient at times to have access to muggles, but Sirius didn't understand what that meant. He didn't bother ask. He could never tell which question of his would cause his parents to sneer or shout at him.
Impulsively, Sirius climbed over the window rail and jumped out.
He had never explored the neighborhood. Silly, considering he lived there. His Rosier cousins had explored all fifteen square miles of their property, and they were younger than he was.
Gingerly, he walk-crouched out of the path and into Grimmauld Place. He only dared stand when he was out of the house's sight. Exhilarated he walked out into the street, a calm asphalted two-way lined with lamp-posts and the occasional tree. The sidewalks were wide enough for two people to walk side by side, and birds chirped on the power lines.
Sirius stopped as he spotted one of the muggle machines. It was on the side of the road, two wheels on the sidewalk, nobody seated inside. Sirius peered through the window. The pedals, the controls... it looked all so complex. Sirius had been at an event hosted by the Ollivanders, where they had showed enchanted machinery and Sirius had discovered the existence of motors and words like gears and steering wheel. He had for once been so glad that his Father insisted to be at events where everyone important was. The Ollivanders would have been too eccentric to be proper company otherwise, and Sirius would have never known of the roaring motorcycles Elisa Ollivanders had enchanted to behave like horses.
"It's quite the fancy car. You'll have to work hard at school to get yourself the same."
Sirius started. A woman with a rolling baby-carriage-thing had somehow managed to sneak up to him.
"My, what are you dressed up as, dear ?"
The woman's hair was held in place with a headband and a weird bright blue dress fell to her knees. It covered her chest and arms, finishing in a white collar around her neck. And she was asking Sirius what he was dressed like ?
Sirius stared down as his robes. "Uh, wizard?"
"Ah, I see it now. But where's your wand?"
Sirius straightened, proud the lady would think he was eleven years old. "I don't whip my wand out just for anybody," he said primly. "People like you don't get to see it. There's a law." Because the woman had to be a muggle. That or these were the strangest robes, but she did not look foreign.
The woman's lips twitched. Her laughing eyes quickly narrowed in warning. "Goodness, are you been clever with me? You're too young for innuendo, aren't you?" she mused, while Sirius mused about what innuendo might be. "Now, where's your mam?"
This woman didn't know his mother. She wouldn't be able to tell on Sirius. It was just too tempting.
"She's really a nasty kind of witch, Ma'am. I'd just walk around a bit myself. I live right over there. I'm big enough to be out of sight for ten minutes. I mean, kids half my age work in the coal mines."
Muggles sent their kids work in the coal mines and factories. That was common knowledge, even if Sirius wasn't clear on what factories were exactly.
The woman chuckled and ruffled his hair. "What a way to talk of your own mam!"
The muggle touched him. Merlin's feet, Mother was going to scourgify every strand off his face.
Unless Mother never found out. Sirius grinned. Muggles were friendly. Like dogs. Crabbe had a dog.
"Ma'am, you wouldn't know somewhere with dogs around here?"
"Like a shop? For puppies? In London for sure. But Mr. Allen at number 9 has a two fine dogs. Don't you know him?"
Sirius grimaced apologetically. "We don't talk to neighbors. My mother's a nasty witch." Merlin, he could say that over and over until sunset and not tire of it.
In the following days, Sirius felt like the smartest, sneakiest boy in the universe. Mr. Allen was old and altogether more polite Sirius had thought muggles could be. The woman in the street had spoken her English kind of funny and not proper, but Mr. Allen could've been pureblood. When Sirius asked, Mr. Allen gave him a quite serious speech about Queen's English, Cockney and class, and two sentences that changed Sirius' life.
"Some are of the opinion that a man's worth is in their origin, and so revealed in his speech. Others are of the opinion that birth is just happenstance, and what matters is what you do with your situation."
Sirius went home with the mind-boggling realization that his parents rules and sayings about what was proper or not were just opinions. Mr. Allen had wanted to meet his parents of course, but Father's wards always changed his mind as soon as he got too close to number 13, and by the third time, Mr. Allen stopped asking.
The fifth time Sirius sneaked back in, he found his brother on his bed, arms crossed with a pout on his face.
"Get off my bed," Sirius snapped.
He was satisfied to see Regulus obey. Regulus didn't lose the pout. "Where were you? You were gone for ages."
"I told you, exploring and stealing candy from filthy muggles, and I told you that if you told Mother she would shout. Here's some."
Kreacher was soft on Regulus. He wasn't telling when he could feel Sirius leaving the wards because Regulus had asked. Sirius was a genius for figuring out the bribe, and lucky the muggle man had given him candy that first time.
"We could get Kreacher to go get more. But I want to play with the dogs too!"
Sirius paled. "What? There aren't any -" His face flushed with fury as he realized. "Kreacher, you followed me!"
That nasty house elf just stared back. "Young master Black does not what is good for him."
"Kreacher says you're not actually stealing. He told me the muggle is giving you the candy. You're playing with dogs too. I want to play with the dogs."
Merlin. Sirius swallowed. Perhaps his little brother could be good for something, for once."Say Reggie, do you think you could convince Mother to get us a dog?"
"Mistress would never tolerate a filthy dog in her noble house."
Regulus looked dejected. "I do want to play with the dogs."
"Young master Regulus must now lower himself to go to a filthy muggle house. Young master Sirius is a disgrace."
Regulus' eyes filled with tears. "But I want to play with the dogs!"
"Shut up," Sirius muttered.
"I want-"
"Shut up!" Sirius urgently hissed, grabbing his shrieking little brother by the arms.
"What is happening here?"
Sirius' stomach dropped. Mother could not find out about Mr. Allen.
"He wants a dog," Sirius said with forced calm, now a solid step away from Regulus. "Dogs are... What do you think of dogs, Mother?"
Mother stared at him like he was a particularly filthy mongrel. "What a stupid question, Sirius."
"But what if they live with muggles?"
"Regulus, dear, you sound confused."
"We could wash after, really well." Regulus' face scrunched up. "Scourgify even."
"Kreacher, tell me what's going on."
Dread rooted Sirius on the spot. Kreacher couldn't lie to a direct order. Not exactly. Oh, he lied by not saying, to protect Regulus. He said Sirius had just come back from number 9, where there were dogs, and where he'd found candy.
It was more than enough to send Mother into a fury.
By the evening, the windows were spelled to not allow Sirius outside. Sirius was made to eat only candy for a whole week, until just the sight of it made him want to vomit. For Regulus, Mother bought a present : a plush dog enchanted to nuzzle him and softly bark on command. He was forbidden to share it with Sirius. He did it anyway. When Regulus had inevitably got caught, he told Mother he didn't want the future Lord Black to hate him.
Because Regulus was the favorite, instead of shouting, Mother smiled a little.
"Your brother uses his brain, Sirius. Why can't you be more like him?"
Sirius looked down, boiling with fury. He did like the toy dog, so he tried to be a bit nicer to Reggie. It was hard when Reggie was constantly all "Mummy I love you" and "Wow, Mother, that dress looks wonderful on you" to get his way. He made Sirius want to punch him in the face.
"What happened to Mr. Allen?" Sirius dared ask Kreacher a few weeks later.
"He's dead. Filthy muggle."
Dead. Dead. "But... the statute of secrecy?"
"Filthy Muggle was old. Nobody be suspecting."
Mr. Allen had had grand-kids. Three girls, one boy. The youngest starting primary school this year. He'd told Sirius all about them. And his dogs. What had happened to Ruby and Ollie?
"Kreacher does not know. Kreacher does not care about a filthy muggle's drooling beasts and young master shouldn't either."
Sirius felt like somebody had shoved a thin blade through his lungs. He couldn't speak. He could barely breathe. His hands shook.
He was very quiet the next few days. Father and Mother even praised him for it : "It seems like you've finally decided to grow up."
Sirius just quietly looked down. He'd gotten Mr. Allen killed.
It was just another afternoon stuck in dress robes, of being around while Mother and Father sucked up to Bartemius Crouch, who was pureblood and important and becoming even more important. His absent son was also Bartemius, ten years old but apparently too busy with studies to play (Sirius felt kind of sorry for him).
"Oh, Goldstein said that? The times we live in... To think a man of Goldstein's... station would dare..." Mother's voice was simpering and careful. She didn't shriek 'a filthy-half blood like Goldstein'. Surely Crouch wasn't stupid enough to fall for the act. "Someone should really show him -"
Sirius couldn't bear it anymore. "Like you showed Mr. Allen by killing him because you didn't like that I petted his dog?"
Crouch's head whipped to him. "Excuse me?"
"Sirius!" Mother shrieked.
He couldn't stop. It was like a bubble had burst. "Yeah, she killed him," he spat shaking with rage and grief. "He was a muggle, but he was –"
"Silencio!"
-he was nice.
Two days later, Sirius lay on his bed, shivering. He'd never felt so cold, so weak. Mother had spelled his mouth shut. He hadn't eaten or drunk in days. He hadn't been able to scream when she'd struck him with stinging curse after stinging curse, shrieking that he should be grateful she wasn't using anything stronger. Father had led her away after a time. Then Father had come back, standing over a breathless Sirius, struggling to inhale through his nose as tears ran down his face.
"Sirius, I understand growing up a Black comes with its set of expectations, and that at your age it can be challenging. You are magically more powerful than Regulus, and your mind would be just fine were you to apply it to the right things. But if you keep at it, Regulus will have to be named heir."
He was going to die. They would kill him. The only reason he was alive was his perfect little brother was magically weak.
"Do you understand the delicate position you put the family in ?" Father continued. "It was suitably resolved, of course, but surely you can see this kind of behavior fails to benefit you?"
Orion Black didn't look upon Sirius with love, but he did look upset and disappointed. Like one would be when realizing their prized Pegasus wasn't docile enough to ride.
"You act deaf to our words, perhaps your cousins will help you see reason. The Spring holidays begin next week. Until then, you'll stay in your room and reflect upon your actions."
Sirius gasped wretchedly when Father undid the curse on his mouth. He rubbed his lips, desperate to ascertain they were there, that they wouldn't vanish again.
"Kreacher will bring you water. Food will come next week, if you behave."
Reggie snuck in a couple of times, eyes teary. "I'm sorry," he'd whisper, "I tried to make them stop punishing you. I want to play... They won't listen. I'll try harder."
Sirius was too weak to tell him to go away, or to prevent Regulus from hugging him. He hated the awful feelings Reggie's blubbering stirred up inside him. Fury, because Reggie was so weak and such a suck up. Guilt, because Reggie did love him and Sirius had no idea how to be a good brother to him.
"Sirius, you need to do as you're told," Bellatrix said heavily. "Or you'll die before you go to Hogwarts."
Standing cross-armed while his cousins sat on his bed, Sirius swallowed. Cousin Bella was scary sometimes, but she showed him good stuff too. They played all together most summers, bringing the cold corridors alive with pretend-games where the world was theirs to conquer. And of the three cousins, Bella was most like him : she hated to be told what to do. If Bella said that, maybe... maybe Sirius should be scared and listen for real.
"Just don't say it," Narcissa said. "Keep it inside and do what they want until you have more freedom."
Cousin Cissy was a suck up like Regulus, she was just less obvious about it and her voice didn't whine. Sirius didn't like that she looked at him like he was stupid.
"It gets better at Hogwarts," Meda promised. "Much better. But you need to get there first."
Cousin Meda... Andromeda was clever. She'd gotten them to somehow to leave her alone. She would sneak up to Sirius' room after bedtime and read him stories. To him, not Regulus. Meda was his favorite.
"I told them medical checks were compulsory and that the healer at Hogwarts test all students for magical ailments and compulsions," Meda added. "They won't be able to do anything that has lasting consequences unless they want it public."
The rest you can survive.
Sirius balled his fists and bowed his head. Just three years to go. It felt like forever.
Sometimes, despite the wards, he would hear the roar of a motor outside. He pictured fancy cars and huge gleaming motorcycles, and the look on his parents' face when he'd be Lord Black and ride one to the Wizengamot himself.
Sirius' Hogwarts years are coming next chapter. The good news is that they're already written, just too long for a single chapter.
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