Sirius opened his eyes. His vision was blurry. He blinked a few times and it cleared. He noticed he had a shocking head ache, and his body hurt all over. He groaned as he rolled over on the couch. A couch. He was lying on somebody's couch.

He sat up suddenly, and his head throbbed painfully. He was in a sunlit room. It seemed strangely familiar. The cream coloured curtains, the couch he was on, the deep red carpet, and the boy sitting in the corner of the room across form him. His glasses were lopsided on his face as he dozed. His black hair was extremely ruffled and messy looking. It was James Potter. He was lying on the Potters' couch in the Potters' house.

Why he was there he had no clue. He threw off the blanket that was covering his legs.

"Ah!" he was surprised to see his jeans had been cut shorter to reveal scratches all over his lower legs.

Sirius slowly shifted around on the couch. He saw a plate of toast and bacon sitting on a small coffee table in the middle of the room. Sirius leapt off the couch and grabbed the plate, before slumping back down and stuffing his face. He was so hungry, he knew he would need more food than this. Sirius looked around slowly to see James in the chair, smiling at him.

"Hello, your finally awake!" said James, who was still in his pajamas.

"Mrumph", replied Sirius through a mouthful of bacon.

"That was my breakfast you know", said James.

"What?" said Sirius, "Sorry, I was just so hungry, and tired and- Why the ruddy hell am I in your lounge room?!"

"That's what I was wondering", said James slowly, "Dad was in the kitchen last night and he saw you out the front near the gate. Then you collapsed. Anyway, he brought you in and put you on the couch. Mum healed you up a bit and Dad brought you some food from the kitchen. Which is not my breakfast by the way, I was just messing with you. So I sat in here and waited for you to wake up, but you didn't, so I fell asleep. There was one point were you woke me up, moaning in your sleep. But I dozed off again. But now you're finally awake, you can give me some answers".

Memories came flooding back into Sirius's head, his long two-day journey from his parents' house. Falling down the hill-side, the Knight Bus, and finally arriving in front of the Potters' house. After that he must have blacked out.

After he had left Grimmauld Place, he had walked out of London. With his broom at James's house and not able to apparate yet, Sirius just had to go on foot. He had traveled through the night. During the next day, he had gone through the countryside. By then he had decided to go to the only place he knew he would be welcome, the Potter's. After a night and day of walking he had grown extremely tired, tired enough that he could have collapsed at any given moment. But he kept moving.

He had been walking along side a main road. The woods that lay next to the road were situated on a steep hill. While he was walking, Sirius had noticed something moving between the trees. He kept walking but it repeatedly caught his eye. He stepped off the road to see what it was. He wasn't entirely sure, but it had looked like a shining mask and a long, black cloak. Before he knew what was going on, he was tumbling down the hill.

He was unconscious for a while. But when he woke up, a large and violently purple triple-decker bus was next to him. It seemed he had rolled out onto a side-street behind the stretch of forest. He noticed his hand and wand had stretched out and into the gutter. A middle aged man had hopped out of the bus, wearing a purple uniform and started to speak. Sirius had realised the man was introducing himself and the service of the bus, which was called the Knight Bus. It had turned out that all you had to do to flag it down was to stick your wand out over the road, and the bus would magically transport you anywhere.

Sirius, who was in a very bad way by then, had managed to tell the man to take him to the Potters' residence. Once outside the Potters', he had walked through the gates. Fatigue had washed over him in great waves. The last thing he remembered was the muddy ground rushing up to meet him.

After Sirius explained this to James, his best friend looked really confused.

"So you're saying that you didn't know about the Knight Bus?" asked James in disbelief.

"Well, sorry, but my mother never took kindly to public transport", said Sirius, a little frustrated that he hadn't known, "I've never been on any sort vehicle, magical or not, especially not the Knight Bus".

"Right, well, fair enough", said James slowly, "But that thing, the mask or whatever, in the trees, that's just weird. Maybe I should ask Dad about it, he worked at the Ministry."

"Yeah, but in the Department of Experimental Charms", said Sirius, now convinced that he would never find out what the mask had been.

"It could have been a Boggart or something", said James, thinking, "You aren't scared of silvery masks are you?"

"Nope, not unless I know your face is behind it", laughed Sirius, suddenly feeling happy and light-hearted now he had had something to eat.

Before the boys could continue their conversation any further, James's mother, Mrs Potter, walked in, carrying some of James's clothes. Euphemia Potter was a tall, older woman, of thin willowy stature. She had caramel coloured hair and hazel eyes. James definitely resembled his father, having the same slight build and hair, but he had his mother's eyes.

"Sirius! You're awake", she said.

Mrs Potter put down the clothes and pulled Sirius into a bone crushing hug. Sirius was surprised at the sudden display of affection, but it felt good to have Mrs Potter give him a hug, he couldn't remember the last time he had shared one with his own mother.

"Dear, dear, we didn't know what to do with you. Showing up like that in the middle of the night", Mrs Potter had a look of worry in her eyes.

She was the closest thing Sirius had ever had to a real mother. She cared for him like a son, and he hated seeing her so concerned.

"I'm okay now, Mrs Potter", he smiled, "I really am."

"But you were in such a bad way last night when you got here", she continued, "What ever made you come all this way".

"Oh", said Sirius, he had not really wanted to tell her how he had run away from home, and how he had, in his somewhat deluded state, thought that he could live at the Potters', "I sort of had a falling out with my parents. It was pretty... bad. I'm really sorry to bother you. I can go somewhere else."

"You ran away from home?" Mrs Potter exclaimed, "Oh, Sirius, dear, you can stay here as long as you like, James won't mind sharing a room with you and there is plenty of room for one more here".

"Are you sure Mrs Potter?" Sirius asked.

"Of course I am", she stood up suddenly, "You're not even of age yet, not even seventeen. You have no money, and only a broomstick and a trunk full of clothes. You don't really think that I and James's father would let you out there on your own! No, Sirius, you're staying here, at least until you finish Hogwarts, and you will always be welcome. Besides, Chalky won't mind the extra work, gives her something to do."

Chalky was the Potter family House-Elf. Small and getting on in years, Mr and Mrs Potter had not wanted to place all their house work into the Elf's hands, but she was a gift from an aunt who no longer needed the help of an Elf. The Potter family didn't believe in keeping anyone to do work for them, but Chalky had become a member of the family, and when they had James rather late in their lives, Mr and Mrs Potter were glad of help around their home. James didn't mention Chalky that much any more, but Sirius could recall the times when James spoke of her with fondness in his voice.

"Thanks Mrs Potter", he said, extremely thankful, because he did really have no money, "Really, I don't know what else I could do".

Mrs Potter smiled warmly at him and handed him the clothes. She left the room. Sirius unfolded the pair of James's jeans and let them unravel. They were about five inches too short for him.

"Oh, and Mrs Potter?" he called out the doorway, "I might need some bigger clothes."

##

Life at the Potters' was like nothing Sirius had ever experienced before. Mr and Mrs Potter were very lax when it came to house rules. As long as he and James kept their things tidy, they were pretty much allowed to do whatever they wanted. Sirius and James spent a lot of time down the back of the estate, in a large paddock, tossing a Quaffle around on their brooms. Chalky's cooking was amazing, and the food seemed to be endless. Sirius could get up at whatever time of day he liked. A privilege he abused quite a lot.

The thing he liked most was that he could finally breathe. Last year, when James had told Sirius to let everything go, he had tried. But he still had the weight of his family hanging over him. Now however, he was officially disowned. The Potters were the closest thing to family he had now, and he was making the most of it.

A few weeks went by and James and Sirius began to grow bored. It was all very well to throw the Quaffle around and wrestle it off each other mid-air, or head down to the Muggle village a little way off from the Potters' home and look around, but there was only so much of this they could do before the boys were over it.

James had the idea of inviting Remus and Peter over to stay a while, about a week. It would surely alleviate their boredom, coupled with the fact that they would arrive in time to celebrate Sirius's seventeenth birthday, which was arriving quickly.

James wrote to them, and they both sent back a yes.