Sirius Black was eight the first time he realized that he wasn't what people wanted him to be.

1967

'Sirius Orion Black! I will not tolerate such things in my house and you will not express any of your disgusting opinions here!'

His mother screamed at him to go to his room. He went all the way up to his room but instead of crying, (he shamed the Black name enough today and he was not going to test what would happen if one of his parents was going to hear him cry) and then sat on his bed and tried to think.

Sirius didn't understand why saying that 'muggle music is cool' had made his mother so angry, and yes, he brought a muggle device (it didn't even work, but it looked so cool and different from everything that he had and he just had to take it home) into Grimmauld place, but why was that so bad? He only wanted to see how the muggle music worked.

And then he thought about it more and finally came to a conclusion. No one wanted him to be himself. No one wanted him to have fun and explore. They only wanted him to be perfect, to know all the stupid traditions and to act like a 'true Black heir'.

The only person who was nice to him was Reg, and Andy was too, but Andy was away at Hogwarts and Sirius was almost sure that when Reg will be a little older he will be as bad as the others. He knew that Reg was perfect, just what their parents wanted.

He hated them, all of them, he was just hoping for the moment when he won't need to be with them all the time anymore. The moment was so far in the future for an eight-year-old boy, his Hogwarts letter will only come in another three years, but he didn't care, he just wanted to get out. He had to wait.

And he got out of there, his first refuge was Hogwarts but it was not the only one. The Potters' manor, the Lupins' home, the house in Godric's Hollow, even Peter's place for a time. There was one more place where he felt safe, and it made him the happiest, because it showed him that being a Black was not a death sentence, that getting out was not just a temporary thing.

Christmas 1981

The Tonks' home was a lovely place in a small British town, it was quite small but looked beautiful in the snow that was covering almost everything.

When Sirius arrived he felt very uncertain of himself, he wanted to stay home that morning but he wasn't able to resist meeting people for real. Andy and some other people sent him owls after the funeral, they were all worried about him, but he couldn't think about his emotional state. He wanted to be active, to act as nothing had happened, that was always his way of dealing with that kind of situations, but he wasn't able to. He didn't have anything to do, so he sank deeper and deeper into his feelings. But now he had something to do, and he wanted to make the most of it.

Sirius knocked on the door, his heart pounding in his chest. Five seconds later, the door opened and a young girl at the age of nine (if Sirius remembered correctly) with a dark blue hair was staring at him with an inquiring look.

'Are you mum's cousin?' She asked him right away. 'You both got the same nose.'

'Really?' It was surprising that that was the first thing she noticed about him.

'Yeah, but your hair is cooler,' she said and her hair immediately got longer and blacker.

'Well now your hair is just as cool as mine,' he joked.

'What?' she sounded a little surprised and immediately went to look at her hair when her dad, Ted Tonks, showed up.

'Sirius, come inside, I'm sorry about Dora, she's just curious about everything,' said the older man.

The smells inside the house were fabulous, and the whole house looked so beautiful. A big decorated tree was standing in the side of the living room and on the sofa next to it sat Andromeda Black in a lovely dark green and blue dress, smiling at the view of her cousin.

'Sirius! It's so good to see you, please have a sit, we were just waiting for you.'

Sirius seated himself at the table, everything looked so right, and Sirius felt too broken to be there.

'It's really nice to see you too, Andy. Thank you for inviting me.'

It was nice being there, feeling like a part of something again, but he was worried he was ruining something. He felt like a burden.

Andy, who always knew what to say, said; 'Sirius, you are here because you are family. We wanted you to be here, we are here for you.'

Sirius didn't answer, he just sat there with a small smile and didn't say anything.

Andy and Ted brought the food to the table and they all started to eat.

After some time, Sirius tried to start a conversation with Nymphadora, he didn't know how to talk to a nine-year-old so he asked about the only thing he could think about.

'Hey, Nymph,' Sirius began to ask, 'you are going to Hogwarts in two years, right?'

'Don't call m-' she said, sounding a little angry 'never mind, you can call me that, Nymphadora is sooooo long, and of course I'm going to Hogwarts. It's going to be amazing! I'm going to be a Hufflepuff because it's the coolest house and dad was there. And I will learn all about spells and stuff and it would be brilliant!' She sounded very excited about those things. ' Oh, and I could prank people with my powers!'

Sirius, who was already smiling, now fully grinned.

'Wait,' Nymph turned to Sirius, 'What house were you in? Mum said that everyone in her family was in Slytherin like her, which sounds pretty cool, so you were there too?'

Sirius wasn't grinning anymore, 'No, I was in Gryffindor. But it was fucking cool.'

When Sirius realized he just cursed, it was too late.

'Sirius Orion Black! No cursing in front of my daughter!' Andy was trying to look mad, but she wasn't really angry about Sirius's cursing, she knew that her daughter knew those words and wasn't a person to use them often, but she had to set an example as a parent. Her daughter was proving her relation to Sirius and started laughing; not because of the use of a curse word but because she found it very funny watching her mum being mad at someone who wasn't herself.

After that, the rest of the dinner went without any disturbances but the one-time Nymph "accidentally" turned her nose into a pig snout and almost made Sirius choke on the food he was eating.

When the dinner ended, Nymph went to the sofa to look at the presents that were already under it, she eyed them suspiciously, as though they were a dangerous thing. After looking at the presents for some time, she noticed something.

'Hey, Sirius, mum bought you a present!' She shouted.

Sirius now turned to Andy, who now realized she was caught, 'you really shouldn't have, I don't need anything.'

'Lucky for you, it's not something with much use.' Andy said frowning.

Sirius was embarrassed by the fact that Andy bought him something; he didn't buy anything for the Tonks family and wasn't prepared for them buying something for him. But when he thought about it, he guessed he should have known, after all, it was Andy, she was always caring for Sirius, and when no one was there for him to do small things like buying him a gift for the holidays, she was there to do that.

'Well, I think I should go home, I don't want to be a bother,' Sirius said, ready to go. It wasn't like he didn't want to stay, but he felt like he was ruining the holiday spirit.

'Sirius Black,' interjected Ted, 'you are not going anywhere, you're staying here tonight. It's Christmas and we will not let you be alone.'

'Ted is right, you are staying here, we have a guest room that you can sleep in,' Andromeda said. 'And if Nymphadora can take herself to her room, I need to talk to you about something.'

'Mummmmmmmmmm, why can't I stay here? I'm not little, I can understand stuff, you even told me about your sister.' Nymphadora sounded annoyed.

'It's not the same thing, and it's already late,' Andromeda said, 'if you want to open presents tomorrow you need to go to sleep.'

'Kay, but if I'll wake you up tomorrow it'll be your fault.' Nymphadora said.

After Dora went to sleep, they sat to talk.

'Did you tell her about Bella? Why?' Sirius asked Andy.

'Bella's picture was on the Prophet, and Dora asked Andy about her,' answered Ted.

'Oh, are you okay, Andy?' Sirius asked in a worried voice.

'I'm fine, and I am not the one here that needs to be asked this question,' Said Andy.

'What did you want to talk about?' Sirius asked, 'Is everything okay?'

'We are okay, but I think you should know something.' Andy's voice went dry, 'Dumbledore thinks that The Da- You-Know-Who is still alive.'

'What?' Jumped Sirius, 'it can't be! He- he is dead.'

'I don't know too much about it, but if Dumbledore thinks he is alive,' said Ted, 'it must be for a reason.'

'If he is alive I'm going to kill him myself!' Sirius looked very angry.

'Sirius, please calm down. If he is alive we are all in danger, you can't be impulsive.' Andy, the calculated Slytherin said, 'It's not an easy thing, you would have to study those things, it's dangerous.'

'I will study it,' said Sirius in a very stern tone. 'I will kill the monster who killed my brother.'

'You need to sleep,' said Ted, 'you are not doing anything right now.'

Sirius went to sleep, or at least to bed; he didn't sleep, he thought about Voldemort. In the short time, he did sleep he had nightmares, he saw Voldemort murdering James, Lily and Regulus.

In the morning Dora woke them all, as she promised; She was excited about opening the presents.

'Sirius, you should go first!' Nymph jumped excitedly.

Sirius opened the present. It was a set of three necklaces, one with a crown, the other with a lily flower and the last with a broom. Symbols for his lost family. Sirius began to cry silently.

'That way you can keep them close to your heart, they will always be there.' Andromeda said softly.

'Thank you, Andy.' Sirius said in a whisper.

After Nymph opened all of her presents, it was time for Sirius to go, he said thank you to all the Tonks and Nymph told him that he needs to visit more often.

Sirius apparated back to his flat and started to cry, he would think about Voldemort later, now he wanted to be with himself and the memories.

It was a good Christmas.

Author's note:

About the necklaces, the crown necklace is for Regulus and the broom necklace is for James.

For Reg's necklace, I had three ideas,
I could have made it a star because Regulus is a star,
I could have made it a lion because the Regulus star is in the Leo constellation,
and I could have made it a crown (and in the end, I chose this idea) because Regulus in Latin means prince.
James's necklace was a little more complicated, the meaning of the name James is the name Ya'akov (יעקב) in Hebrew. The meaning of this name is a heel, or to follow, and the only thing I had in mind is to make it a foot, but I thought it would sound stupid. There is a problem with choosing a broom because Reg was also a seeker, but that was my best idea.