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He was 2.
Sirius Black couldn’t really remember ever having a birthday - he knew that he had to have had one, what with how much Mummy loved parties, but the only birthday party he could remember was the one for his cousin Cissy a few months earlier. (She had had a big chocolate cake, but Mummy hadn’t let him eat it in his fancy robes. Sirius hoped that he would get to eat cake at his party though.)
The fact that he couldn’t remember a birthday only made him more excited though.
Mummy’s house elf, Natter, had woken Sirius up extra early, putting him in his itchy fancy robes and ordering him to stay quiet and not to get his robes dirty.
Sirius had nodded with a petulant yawn, and immediately after Natter popped off to attend to his Mummy, flopped back onto his bed, pulling at the tight sleeve of his robes.
SIrius liked parties, but he really didn’t like robes (or Natter for that matter.) He liked soft blankets and his Daddy’s leather wallet and the sounds that came through the upstairs window when he managed to pry it open with Daddy’s sword.
Mummy always got angry when he did that though, so he didn’t do it often.
Swallowing another yawn, Sirius rolled onto his side, ready to catch a bit more sleep before Mummy would take him downstairs and let him play with Cissy. Maybe now that he was 2, Mummy and Daddy would let him play with cousin Bella too.
He was 12
Sirius Black awoke at the stroke of midnight to the sound of loud whooping, his best friend straddling him as he beat on his head with a pillow.
If it had been anyone else, Sirius would have hexed them, but knowing it was just James, he threw him off.
A sleepy Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew smiled at him from their blanket cocoon by the door as James hustled around, doing a rather impressive impression of a pixie as he threw clothes on and practically dragged the other 3 boys into the Gryffindor common room, where a pile of shiny presents sat precariously next to the fireplace.
The boys remained there for the majority of the day, skipping classes in favor of celebrating the fact that one of them was now 12, which to the quartet, seemed a very grown up number indeed. (Never mind the fact that Sirius was the least adult of them all).
Eventually, they snuck down into the kitchens, where a House-Elf-made cake and a letter from his brother waited – James and his family had opted to have him open everything with friends in the common room, while his birth parents had all but ignored the occasion. (Mr.Potter had even gotten him a racing broom, the same model as James)
Regulus had snuck him a card however, and even though it was covered in drawings of serpents, Sirius proudly displayed it on his bedside table.
When Sirius eventually found himself in his bed once more, the sound of James’ snores tickling his ears, a small thought trickled into the front of his mind.
The only birthday parties worth having are birthday parties with my brothers.
He was 22.
The thought came to him restlessly, almost as an afterthought to the stomach churning pain that had become a norm in the past 3 days.
He supposed that he should be excited - after all, it wasn’t everyday you turned 22.
But birthdays were intrinsically linked with the Potters, with laughter and lemon cake and lying through your teeth to your birth mother so you can floo to hug your chosen one.
This, Sirius supposed, was to be a part of his indeterminate prison sentence. Not only was he to live the rest of his worthless life in penance for betraying James, he was going to have to suffer through a birthday every year.
A birthday without James,Lily, and Remus; without all of their friends crowded into his modest flat around Remus’ masterpiece of a cake as Muggle records blasted in a final act of defiance to those who has brought him into this world.
A birthday without a drunk James pulling out an old family album, insisting to anyone who would listen that Sirius had to be his brother kidnapped at birth, because “He has exactly my dad’s nose,no one else has a Fleamont nose but Dad and Sirius.”
A birthday without life, for he has sucked the most lively people from the world because of his stupidity.
Sirius dug his fingernails into his palm, looking out of his cell to watch a Dementor glide past, pulling with it thoughts of Euphemia hugs and Lily’s high pitched giggle.
A fitting birthday present.
He was 32.
Sirius wasn’t entirely sure how he knew that, but he did. Although he had long ago lost track of dates, there was always a flutter in his stomach on the 3rd of November, a longing deep in his core that he knew could never be healed.
That never deserved to be healed.
Sirius had figured out how to leave Azkaban years ago now (or at least he thought it was years.) All it would take was a transformation and he could run away, swim to shore, and that was that.
The problem was that he didn’t want to.
As much as he loathed Azkaban, Sirius knew that it was his only chance to hear Lily and James’ voices again, regardless of the fact that they were screaming at him. An angry James was better than a dead one anyday.
Shaking out his fur, Sirius stood, walking in circles for a short while as the sound of Lily’s sobs and James’ taunts filled his ears, the timbre of their voices soothing away the sting of their words. They were speaking, and it let him imagine that they were alive, and that was all that mattered.
That would be his birthday present this year - he would bum a newspaper off of a guard to search for any word on his godson, and listen to James and Lily. He was almost looking forward to it.