Eleven - Summer After Year One
I really wasn't sure what to expect from my parents when they found out I was Gryffindor. I wasn't expecting them to be pleased, of course. This was MY family after all. The Blacks. A long, unending legacy of Slytherins. Guess who had the wonderful luck of being the first Black in over fifty generations to be in a different house. Yep. That's right. Lucky me. Lucky little Sirius.
We hadn't really gotten along before I went to Hogwarts. I hadn't exactly tried to hide the fact that I disagreed with my parents. Disagreed about their support of The Dark Lord and his reign of terror. Disagreed with their cruel and horrible treatment of anyone Muggle, MuggleBorn, or HalfBlood. My parents hadn't tried to hide the fact that they thought I was "too soft" to be a Black. They peppered me with insults since I was eight years old and had smiled at a muggle boy my age from across the street.
I had managed to keep the fact that I was in Gryffindor from them all school year. Keeping letter brief and to a minimum. Avoiding holidays at home due to "way too much homework." But now that I was home for the summer, there was no way to hide it. They saw the Gryffindor Crest embroidered on my robes. The scarf. The Qudditch robes. The flag.
As I said, I wasn't sure how I expected my parents to react. Probably screaming. Almost definitely name calling. Maybe locking me in my bedroom for a couple hours to a couple days as they always did when they got REALLY angry. The only thing I hadn't considered was my Dad's fist connecting with my jaw, sending my slight, eleven year old frame sprawling onto the kitchen floor.
The beatings, or at least their frequency, decreased slowly over the summer. Not out of regret or acceptance, but out of discretion. He didn't want the bruises to be noticable. They weren't.
No one except for James noticed that something was wrong. My best friend. But when I hastily and bitterly snapped that nothing was wrong, he dropped the subject.
I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER OR ANY OF THE CHARACTERS. ALL CHARACTER, RIGHTS, ETC. BELONG TO J. K. ROWLING, THE FANTASTICALLY AMAZING AUTHOR OF HARRY POTTER! :D