Having decided to remain at Hogwarts over Christmas, Sirius neither saw nor received word from his parents and his younger brother until the summer holidays. All year he had been living in a state of blind exuberance, so caught up in his newfound joy that the impending doom waiting for him at home had hardly crossed his mind. But now, as the Hogwarts Express pulled into King's Cross station, he felt as though he were a balloon that had been punctured.
He tried to keep on a happy face in front of his friends, desperate not to spoil their last moments together, but James caught him staring glumly out of the window when he thought none of them were looking.
"Hey. You all right, mate?"
Sirius started. "Fine," he muttered.
James continued to stare at him, unconvinced. "What's the matter?"
Sirius shrugged and looked down at his shoes.
"Come on, spit it out," Remus said briskly, fixing him with a sharp gaze. "It's your family, isn't it? You've hardly talked about them. You never get any owls from them. You're obviously not looking forward to going back home, are you?"
It was as if Remus had read his mind. Though they had known each other for nearly a year, Remus' powers of perception still took Sirius by surprise. Sirius looked at him for a moment. Then, slowly, he nodded.
"Ah…rough luck, that," said James, "but hey: it's only a couple of months before we're all back here again."
"We'll write you loads," Remus promised. The others nodded their heads earnestly.
"As often as humanly possible," James agreed.
"And we'll send you sweets," Peter chimed in.
Sirius could not help but smile. Perhaps the summer would not be so bad. It was only two months, after all. And with James', Remus', and Peter's letters to look forward to, he felt he might just be able to survive it.
The train jolted to a halt. In a flurry of activity, everyone began to gather up their belongings and set off to find their families. Looking out of the compartment window, Sirius caught sight of his father standing, rigid and severe, upon the platform. He took as long as possible to unload his luggage, bid goodbye to his friends, and watch them run off to greet their own respective families, before dully mustering up his resolve.
When Sirius reached his father, Orion Black nodded curtly to acknowledge his presence, then turned on his heel and set off, without a word, back toward the Muggle world. With one last glance around the platform and one last wave toward James and his parents, Sirius followed.
The Black family home at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, was only a few minutes' walk from King's Cross, but it seemed to take hours. Orion kept a commanding hand upon Sirius' shoulder as they walked, as though afraid he might wander off in the wrong direction, or, rather, as though daring him to try and run away. Neither of them spoke. At last Number Twelve loomed into view from around the corner, its dark brick glowering dully at them in the sunlight. It looked exactly as it had when Sirius had left it nine months ago.
The same was also true inside. House-elf heads lined the hall, as they always had. The same portraits shifted and muttered to each other as they passed, and the same slightly musty smell rose from the carpets. As soon as the front door thudded shut behind them, Sirius broke free of his father's company and plodded with his trunk up the stairs to his room. He bolted his bedroom door with a sigh.
Looking around, his heart sank horribly. He had never before realized just how miserable this dank old room was. His eyes travelled over the austere furniture, the cold silver walls and dark floorboards, the Black family crest staring authoritatively down from the cornices, and he thought of Gryffindor Tower, with its crackling fires, cozy armchairs, and scarlet drapes. It was no good; he would have to do something about it. As he opened his trunk a sharp knock rattled the door, and he heard his father's voice for the first time since returning from Hogwarts.
"Your mother would like a word. In the drawing room. Now."
Sirius suppressed a groan. He had known he would have to face her at some point. Well: best to get it over with quickly, he supposed.
Down in the drawing room, Sirius' mother reclined pointedly in an armchair before the tapestry of the Black family tree. When Sirius entered the room, she did not ignore him as his father had done, but turned her head leisurely on the spot and met his eyes with a piercing gaze.
"Sirius Black," she said, enunciating each syllable as though tasting a fine wine. "Come and kiss your mother hello."
Obediently Sirius shuffled forward, kissed her briefly upon the cheek, and backed away again.
"Sirius Black," she repeated. "You are named after two of our family's forefathers."
Sirius nodded stiffly. He had heard this speech many times before.
"You are the heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black."
Sirius nodded again.
"Toujours Pur. Do you know what it means?"
"Yes."
"What does it mean?"
"Always pure."
"That's right. The house of Black must always remain pure, as it has remained for centuries, uncontaminated by the filth of Muggle blood and untainted by the ideas of their sympathizers. As the heir to this house, and this name, it is your duty to preserve our purity for times to come. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Good."
There was a note of finality in her voice that Sirius interpreted as an indication for him to leave, but before he could reach the door his mother spoke again.
"You've disappointed me, Sirius," she said softly.
Sirius froze without looking back at her, humiliation boiling in his stomach at the feeling of utter helplessness that consumed him whenever he was in her presence, at the absolute control she never failed to exert over him. He wanted to turn around, fix his mother with a fiery glare, throw his shoulders back, and yell that he was proud of where the Sorting Hat had placed him, proud of his friends, proud to stand in solidarity with muggle-borns, and proud to forego his responsibility to his family. But he could not bring himself to do any of these things, and he felt he was a disgrace to the house of Gryffindor.
"We have given you all that you have," his mother continued. "We have given you everything, and we intend to leave you everything. Do not give us cause to regret these gifts. You did not ask, I am sure, to be sorted into Gryffindor, but it is nevertheless a first step toward much more dangerous places. Take care you do not forget where you come from. Yes?"
"Yes," Sirius breathed, as everything inside him screamed 'NO!'
"Very well."
Before she could say anything more, Sirius left the drawing room and rushed back upstairs. In a rage of frustration, he flung open the heavy velvet curtains over his bedroom window so that sunlight spilled across the floor. He gazed up at the sky with the irrational hope that he might catch sight of an owl approaching, bearing word from one of his friends, but there was nothing except for one of those odd Muggle flying contraptions—what were they called? Eraplains? They were funny things, to be sure, but somehow they always looked so peaceful as they glided through the air in graceful arcs. Sirius watched it for a minute, and then set to the task of making his room livable for the summer.
First he ripped down the dark green hangings around his bed and stuffed them unceremoniously in the back of his wardrobe. Then he disemboweled the contents of his trunk, taking especial pleasure in strewing his belongings all about the floor before putting them away. The final touch saw two small Gryffindor Quidditch banners hanging from the bedposts, and Sirius stepped back to admire his handiwork. Not ideal, of course; not Gryffindor Tower; but it would do for now.
A small shuffling noise from behind made Sirius wheel around, and he found a pair of wide eyes gazing inquisitively up at him from the doorway.
"What do you want?" he asked his younger brother, perhaps rather rougher than the boy deserved. Regulus hurriedly glanced around to ensure they were alone, and then whispered, "What's it like?"
"What do you mean?"
"Hogwarts! What's it like?"
Sirius shrugged. "It's great. Much better than here, anyway," he added glumly.
"Is it scary when they sort you?"
"Only a little bit; at first. But it doesn't take too long once you're up there."
"Why are you in Gryffindor?"
For a moment Sirius debated what to tell his brother, but in the end he decided upon the truth. "Because I asked to be in Gryffindor."
"You can ask?"
"Yeah. I guess so."
"Why?"
"I don't know." Sirius was unsure whether Regulus was asking why it was possible to ask for a specific house or why he, Sirius, had asked to be in Gryffindor, but did not bother to find out. There was a slight pause. Then Regulus asked, "Is it true the Mudbloods stink?"
Something snapped in Sirius. Without answering, he strode to the door, slammed it in Regulus' face, bolted it, and began to pace around his room, fuming. Sirius knew that Regulus had no idea what he had done wrong, that he had only asked it because he had heard the words so often from their parents and did not understand what they meant. Sirius knew that he himself had wondered exactly the same thing at Regulus' age, having no idea what "Mudbloods" were or, never having met one, whether or not they actually stank. But this was why he could no longer bring himself to face Regulus: his younger brother reminded him all too much of his own former, loathsome self, who was someone Sirius had hoped never to meet again.
The one driving force that brought Sirius through the summer holidays was that his friends stayed true to their word. Over the course of his third day back at Grimmauld Place, three owls arrived at his window, and the barrage hardly let up all summer. James never went a week without writing, filling his letters with amusing anecdotes, words of encouragement, random facts, and bad puns. Peter wrote least often of the bunch, but as he usually sent boxes of sweets along with his short, poorly written letters Sirius did not begrudge him this.
To Sirius' surprise, it was Remus who wrote most frequently of all. Given Remus' quiet, unimposing disposition in person, Sirius had assumed that Remus would conduct himself similarly in print. From his very first letter, however, Sirius realized how wrong he was. Ink on parchment seemed to be Remus Lupin's inborn medium. His handwriting was small and cramped, often doing away with margins entirely so as to fit as much as possible on a page, and he wrote seemingly everything that popped into his head, from minute observations to world events. Indeed, Sirius learned more by far about Remus through letters over the summer than he had all year at Hogwarts.
These letters were his only reprieve from the stifling confines of Grimmauld Place—from his mother's orders that he remove his Gryffindor banners and return the green drapes to his bed, from the house-elf Kreacher's insolent remarks and Regulus' unintentionally foul, lingering presence—but they were enough. Sirius survived the summer.