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Sirius sometimes feels like there are two sides of himself. He doesn’t know how to explain it. And he doesn’t know how he would explain it to others – especially someone like James. He envies James, because James is the same with everyone he meets. He’s the same with Remus, with Wormtail, with his parents, with McGonagall – granted, he’s a bit of an idiot around Lily, but Sirius can’t hold that against him, especially when it’s so amusing to watch.
But the fact of the matter is, idiot or not, James is always the same. So is Remus, in his own quiet, moody, angsty way. He can’t really imagine any hidden depths to Wormtail, either.
But Sirius… he sometimes feels like the biggest fraud on the planet. Or, put less dramatically – and of all his strengths, being less dramatic is certainly not one of them – he sometimes wishes that the version of himself he was around the Marauders, in school, was the version of himself he was with his family.
His family. He hates thinking of them that way. They may have brought him into this world, but he’s sure they regret that decision every day, just as he regrets being born into a family of tossers. He’s only been home a week, and he’s pretty sure that it’s been mutually exhausting for both himself and his family, even attempting to tolerate each other. Not that there’s been much of an attempt from their side.
Just a couple more months, really, he thinks to himself as he sits down at the (unnecessarily ornate) dining table. He needs to get through this summer, and then he’ll turn seventeen and he need never come to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place again in his lifetime. Never again.
“Is this what you’re wearing to dinner?” his father asks him as he takes a seat. At the head of the table, because of course it is.
Sirius’s hand curls into a fist on top of knee. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing? What, you don’t like it?” he mutters, looking down at his outfit: it’s the least offensive t-shirt he has and an old pair of jeans. He left the leather jacket behind in his room, too, which is the most effort he put into not offending his precious parents. He hates that he still tries to appease them a little bit. He hates that he knew the jacket was what would push them over the edge, and he chose to leave it behind. He hates that it’s an effort he makes.
Regulus sweeps into the room then, looking every bit the perfect pureblood prince that he is in green robes. “Evening, Father,” he says, and gives Sirius an expression that’s halfway between a smile and an anxious frown of disapproval: the Regulus special, in short.
“Did you have to wear Slytherin colours here, too? We’re not at school anymore, Reg,” Sirius says.
“Nothing wrong with taking pride in your heritage,” his father says.
“It’s not pride, it’s–”
“You certainly wouldn’t know, anyway,” his father continues. “You have no pride in the Black family or what we stand for. You’ve turned your back on our principles, and don’t think we don’t notice your arrogance–”
And then, lured in either by the words Black family or the fact that someone is partaking in her favourite activity of insulting Sirius, Walburga Black walks into the room, straight-backed and haughty, as always, Kreacher at her feet.
She gasps, audibly gasps, when she sees Sirius, and rests her hand on her chest, over where her heart would be if she had one instead of the blackened tar pit that Sirius is sure festers inside her. “Oh, what are you wearing?”
“Just… normal clothes,” Sirius mutters. This is what he hates about himself, that he just sits down and quietly snarks at his terrible family instead of just doing something about it. When he’s at Hogwarts, he’s all action, all the time, but that instinct seems to slow into a sedentary bitterness when he’s back at Grimmauld Place, and he hates it.
“Normal? Is that what you call normal, this Muggle filth that you’ve brought into the house – it’s bad enough that you turned your back on Slytherin – and you bring that attitude into this house, the house of our fathers!”
“The real filth is this house!” Sirius says, and ignores Kreacher’s pathetic whine in the background. Kreacher, who’s imprinted on this house the way a baby duckling imprints on its mother, if a baby duckling was a house-elf clinging on to his mother’s robes and following her from room. “These… these fucking values, these principles, this goddamned heritage– it’s all bullshit!”
Regulus gapes at him from across the table. His cowardly eyes are wide, and Sirius wonders if he agrees with a word he’s saying. He wouldn’t admit it if he did, Sirius knows that. Wouldn’t admit a thing that would mean him sticking his neck out. Besides, what would his precious Death Eater pals have to say about it?
“You will show some respect!” his mother says. She seems close to tears.
“As long as you live in this house–” his father says.
Something snaps inside Sirius then. He thinks of his parents, his brother, Kreacher, this house, how all of it feels like a prison, how his heart had been heavy the entire duration of the train ride back home.
He hates it. He hates all of it. He thinks some part of him has always hated it, but he didn’t realise it until he got to Hogwarts, until he met James, until he realised that not everyone has to detest their parents. Until he met Snivellus, and realised that he and his tosspot friends have more in common with the things his parents say than he does. Until he met Lily, and Dorcan, and all the other Muggleborns in their year, and realised that if it were up to his parents, they wouldn’t even be at school with them.
“As long as I live in this house what, Father?” he demands, setting his fork down.
“As long as you live in this house, you will respect us and our values–”
“Shut up, shut up about these values!” Sirius roars and gets to his feet. The chair scrapes back against the floor. Regular winces. Kreacher whimpers. “What values are you talking about here – pretending you’re superior to everyone because of how you were born, or wanting to kill every Muggleborn you meet? Are these the values I’m meant to respect?”
“Have care how you speak!” his father says.
“Or what?” Sirius says.
“You,” his mother snarks, pointing a finger at him. Her fingernails are long, and Sirius sometimes wonders if she polishes them against the furniture. “You may be a Black, but we’ve seen what you get up to. We know. Cavorting with Mudbloods and scum. You’ve completely thrown out our traditional Black family values–”
“Not this again,” Sirius mutters. The fucking values. He sits back down, because… fuck. What else is there to do?
“Lest you forget, just because we’ve been generous with you,” his mother says. “Don’t forget what could happen. It happened to Andromeda–”
Regulus doesn’t gasp, but he draws breath in sharply enough that Sirius can hear it. They don’t talk about Andromeda. None of them do. It’s a Black policy.
They burned her on the tapestry. Sirius watched it, watched as his mother pointed her wand at her name and cackled. Burned her out like she was nothing.
And it’s what she’s threatening Sirius with now.
“What, it’ll happen to me?” he asks. He’s aiming for snarky, insouciant, even. But his voice shakes.
“If you don’t learn some respect…” his father says quietly.
His mother, anything but quiet, says, “You have the arrogance – the gall – in my house, the house of my fathers, to talk to us like this! Everything you have is because of us, you… you ingrate. And sympathising with blood traitors – from what we’ve heard, you’ve been fraternising with the likes of the Potters, those low-life–”
“Enough!” Sirius says. “Fucking– enough!”
“How dare you use that tone with me?!”
Sirius thinks of James’s parents, who are maybe the best people he knows. Hearing his mother call them low-life is what does it.
He’s lived here for sixteen years. He’s tolerated them when he can, snarked at them when he can’t, and above all, stayed. And come back. And come back. But it sinks into him now. No matter what he does, it’s not going to be enough. Not for them. And nothing they do will ever be enough for him, either.
Low-life.
“I’m done,” Sirius says quietly.
“What did you say?” his mother says. “W hat did you just say?”
“I said, I’m fucking done.”
“If you leave, you’re not coming back!” his father says. His nostrils are flared, and the way he looks at Sirius is pure malice.
As for his mother… Walburga Black isn’t even looking at him. She’s got her arms crossed, her face angled away, her hand holding her wand. Probably getting ready to blast his name off the tapestry and never talk about him again.
So much for maternal love.
“Fine, then,” he says. “Then I’m definitely done.”
He doesn’t have much time. Something kicks into him then, and he doesn’t think straight as he runs up to his bedroom and slams the door shut behind himself. He can hear footsteps, and he doesn’t know if it’s his mother or father.
It isn’t either – the door flings open, just as Sirius picks up a rucksack, and when Sirius turns around, he’s met with Regulus, looking pale and worried.
“What?” he snarls.
“You’re not really going,” Regulus says. “Are you?”
Sirius’s chest is heaving. He grabs his jacket, a box with his Chocolate Frog cards, a few t-shirts, and throws them at random into his rucksack. “Like hell I’m not.”
“If you go downstairs– if you apologise to Mum and Dad–”
“Apologise? Apologise? No fucking way, Reg,” Sirius says. His pyjamas. James’s Christmas card from last year. His Potions textbook.
“I know you don’t get along…” Regulus says quietly. He walks over to Sirius, takes the rucksack from him. It’s fine, because Sirius was running out of place in it, anyway.
“That’s one way of putting it,” Sirius mutters. He goes to close the door, and leans against it as he turns around. Hope, wild hope, flares up in his chest, sudden as any of his impulses are. “Come with me,” he says, as he walks to the foot of his bed and opens his trunk. It’s still mostly packed, still has his robes and his books and whatnot, so all he has to do is do it up.
“I– what?” Regulus says.
“Come with me, Reg.”
“Where are you even going to go?” Regulus asks.
It’s not an unreasonable question, but it makes Sirius angry. Angrier, rather. “I don’t know yet.”
“I can’t,” Regulus says. He sounds pained, and when he offers the rucksack back to Sirius, it feels like an apology. “Sirius… I can’t. You can’t, either.”
“Oh, can’t I?” Sirius says.
Regulus sighs, and picks up Sirius’s wand from the bedside table. “You’re not even seventeen yet,” he says. “What will you do? Where will you go?”
Sirius thinks about the one place he’s always felt like he belonged. “Think I have an idea,” he mutters.
“You’re not thinking straight,” Regulus says. “Sirius, please, if you just calm down–”
“I’ve never thought more clearly in my life. Give me my wand.”
“But–”
“Give me my fucking wand, Regulus.”
Regulus hands his wand to Sirius. “Will you be alright?” he asks in a small voice.
“Me? Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. You should be worrying about yourself,” Sirius says. “These– these fucking Death Eater scum you hang around with, the way you try to stay on our parents’ good side– I hope you think better of it, Reg.”
Regulus withdraws. “I should go,” he mumbles.
“Yeah. So should I,” Sirius says. He hesitates for a moment, which seems to stretch infinitely, before he makes his mind up. He drops his rucksack and crosses the distance between him and Regulus, and pulls him into a hug.
They don’t hug. They don’t hug, as a general rule, but Sirius pats Regulus’s back, on top of his disgusting Slytherin robes, and says, gruffly, “Take care of yourself, alright?”
“Yeah. Yeah. You too, Sirius,” Regulus says. He sounds close to tears for a moment, but then, quicker than anything, he’s slipping out of the hug, out of the room, just before Sirius hears thunderous footsteps make their way up the stairs.
Sirius smiles wryly to himself. Of course he managed to leave the scene of the crime just before their mother got in, that fucking weasel.
***
“Where to?” Ernie Prang asks him half an hour later.
It’s too warm for a jacket, but Sirius puts it on anyway. He tries not to think about how his father had thrown his trunk out of the door, how his mother flung his rucksack at him and hit his face, how she said don’t you dare disgrace this house with your presence again, how his father said you are no son to me, you will never be a son to me again.
How his mother had blasted his name off the tapestry, just like that, just in front of him.
“Mate? Where to?”
Sirius clears his throat. “Godric’s Hollow, please. Thanks, Ernie.”
“Been looking for a new conductor,” Ernie tells him, once he’s paid for his ticket. “But it’s hard to find a good one. Godric’s Hollow, you said?”
Sirius nods.
“Alright, then. It’ll be a few hours, so have a seat. Make yourself comfortable.”
Comfort. There’s a thought.
“Did you hear about Stubby Boardman?” says the witch sitting next to him. “Rumour is he might retire soon.”
Sirius turns around. She’s wearing bright purple robes, a matching hat, and an expression of happiness that is definitely not suited to the occasion. “Is he?” Sirius says. “Who’ll deafen us all at The Hobgoblins concerts now?”
The witch gasps. “You should watch your manners, young man!”
“Yes,” Sirius says dully, and sits back in his seat, putting his feet up. “Been hearing that a lot recently.”
It’s a slow ride, or maybe it just feels that way. Realistically, Sirius is aware that Ernie drives just as fast as he always does. The bus goes just as fast as it always does. But he turns around and watches as the streets around them grow quieter and more dead the further they get out of London, and he feels like time has slowed down to the world’s slowest trickle.
The Hobgoblins fan gets off near the Leaky Cauldron, so Sirius doesn’t have to tolerate her for too long. He rests his head on the window, thinks about whether he should sleep. Probably not a good idea. He doesn’t want to miss his stop.
“Godric’s Hollow!” Ernie yells out, an indeterminate time later. Might have been a second. Might have been an hour. Might have been three hours. Might have been several years.
He’d been determined not to fall asleep, but it turns out he’d failed at that task. Wrenching his eyes open, he gets to his feet. The nights are getting longer, but even so, the sky’s darkened completely. It’s close to pitch black, and he slowly makes his way out of the bus, struggling a little with his trunk and rucksack.
He waits for the bus to leave before he starts walking. He doesn’t know the way to James’s exactly, but he lives on the outskirts, he knows that much. It’s been raining; his trunk is splattered with mud by the time he spots a familiar-looking alley.
“There it is,” he mutters. “There you are, you slippery bastard.”
He never did finish dinner. Maybe that explains why he feels a bit shaky now. That’ll do it. It’s just the hunger and nothing else, he thinks, drawing to a halt outside a house he recognises. They never said he could stay there. James has said it, often enough, but it’s mostly lighthearted. Your family are tossers, come move in with me. What if it was an offer he never meant, and just a joke? What if he’s made some kind of terrible mistake, leaving home? Even if James did mean it, who’s to say his parents will agree? Why would they agree to let him stay with them, when he’s left home of his own volition – why wouldn’t they want to make him go back to his own house, even if he’s entirely convinced that he has no right to ever call that place home again. But why should James’s parents know that? Why should they care?
He takes a deep breath. There’s only one way to find out. And it’s too late to go back now.
The windows are dark; the curtains are drawn. The Potters are asleep.
Well, he thinks dryly, they’re about to have a hell of a wake-up, aren’t they?
He knocks. Waits a minute. Knocks again.
It doesn’t take too long. The door opens, and he’s met with the sight of James Potter, wearing Snitch-patterned pyjamas and a confused expression. “Sirius?” he says.
“Right here, in flesh and blood,” Sirius says.
He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t know what he can say. It’s not cold. It’s a warm night, and he’s wearing a jacket, but he shivers, and once he starts shivering he can’t seem to stop.
“Well… you’d better come in, then,” James says, leaning over and grabbing Sirius’s arm to pull him into the house. He seems to spot the trunk then, and paused. “Here for a surprise visit, or did it finally get too much?” he asks.
“The latter,” Sirius says.
James nods and steps out, pulling Sirius’s trunk into the house and closing the door behind him. “Alright,” he says, and throws his arm around Sirius’s shoulders. “Mum! Dad!” he bellows.
A minute later, Euphemia and Fleamont Potter walk down the stairs, both of them looking as if they’d been asleep seconds ago. Sirius feels a wave of guilt wash over him and settle into his shoulders. “What’s going on– Sirius? What are you doing here, dear? Is everything okay?” Mrs Potter says worriedly.
“Sirius is going to stay here with us,” James says. Easy as that. No if it’s okay with you. It’s not a question.
Mr Potter blinks. “Well, alright,” he agrees.
“Why?” Mrs Potter asks.
“His family’s terrible, so I figured he could share mine instead,” James says easily. “We’ve got the space, don’t we?”
Mrs Potter looks at them appraisingly for a long moment, and then says, “Well, come on then, James. Get Sirius’s things up to your room. I’ll make us some tea.”
Sirius makes to grab his trunk, but Mr Potter says, “Not you, son. You’ve probably worked up an appetite, travelling all the way from – where have you travelled from?”
“London,” Sirius says.
Mrs Potter clucks sympathetically. “London. Oh, you poor thing. Come sit down. James, bring a blanket down from your room, won’t you?”
“On it, Mum,” James says, and gives Sirius a grin before he leaves, Sirius’s trunk in tow.
“Come on, love,” Euphemia says, guiding Sirius onto the sofa. “Monty, will you heat up the leftovers from dinner?”
“Of course, Effie,” Mr Potter says, and goes to the kitchen, seemingly happy to be ordered around by Euphemia, much as James is.
Sirius finds himself sitting on the sofa, in his old jeans and leather jacket, and soon has a blanket wrapped around his shoulders – courtesy of James – and a warm cup of tea in his hands. Mrs Potter murmurs something about helping Monty with dinner and bustles into the kitchen, leaving James and Sirius there, sitting on the sofa.
James looks at Sirius, brow furrowed. Sirius knows he wants to ask him something, or fuss over him, and he can’t handle it right now, so he says, “Guess what?”
“What?” James says.
“According to a witch on the bus, Stubby Boardman’s going to retire soon.”
James’s face eases into a smile. “Well, this just means a spot’s opened up for you, Padfoot. I always thought you and Stubby looked alike…”
“Oh, fuck off, I’m far better looking than him,” Sirius says.
“I’ve told you, you can’t get your opinions on your looks from looking into the trick mirrors at Zonko’s,” James says earnestly.
He manages to keeps his expression serious and earnest for all of a second before he bursts into laughter, and within a moment, Sirius is joining him, leaning back against the sofa, allowing himself to exhale for the first time in sixteen years.