Chapter 1
Sirius' mother was many things. Reasonable was not one of them.
"WHAT?!"
A cold hand collided with his face.
"Don't you dare raise your voice at me young man!" Walburga's screechy voice echoed around the kitchen.
"This is final. No negotiating. Pack your things and tell your brother to do the same." He turned heel and practically ran out of the room.
She was sending them to Australia. Australia.
Of all places he couldn't think of a worse place to go. There were snakes and spider and sharks and the food was probably terrible and really, AUSTRALIA?
He had known his mother would be pissed when he came home from school that day with the news that he was no longer welcome there but it had happened many times and he had never expected her to go to this sort of extreme. And of course she would send Reg too. Whether it was to have someone to keep an eye on him or to have Reg hate him even more for uprooting him, Sirius couldn't tell.
He made it to his room on the third floor and slammed the door behind him. Immediately he jumped back and almost screamed.
"For fucks sake, Kreacher!"
The Black's servant, Kreacher had a habit of lurking around the house without announcing his presence and was currently loitering around in his room.
Kreacher quickly exited, glaring at him the whole way. Sirius sighed, looking around his room, only taking a moment before beginning to pack.
Regulus burst into his room moments later, clearly having found out without Sirius needing to tell him.
"I'm not going to fucking Australia."
Sirius snorted.
"We don't exactly have a choice."
Regulus made a b-line to the door, leaving it open.
Sirius sighed and got up to close it.
***
The plane ride had been long and awkward, with Sirius being in the middle seat with Reg in the aisle and an old lady who had her movies on so loud that he could here them through her headphones the entire time. It wasn't much better off the plane either. You see, Sirius had been expelled in February, after the Christmas break of year 10. So now they were pretty much going to be repeating the first few months of the year that they were in as Australian school started in January. And it was fucking hot.
They were supposed to be meeting up with a family whose son went to the school, Hogwarts, or whatever.
They were standing close to the exit of the airport and didn't really know what to do. They hadn't been given a description, a phone number or where to meet them, just a name.
"The Potters," Sirius muttered, craning his neck over the crowd of people to try to spot someone of note, but it was hopeless, he wouldn't even know them if he saw them.
Suddenly, a middle aged lady with greying hair and dark skin bustled up to them, smiling brightly. Immediately both boys straightened up and Regulus smoothed his plane-rumpled clothes.
"Sirius and Regulus, is it?" She asked kindly. Her voice had a musical lilt to it.
They nodded.
"Very nice to meet you Mrs Potter." Sirius said, holding out his hand for her to shake.
The woman only snorted and batted his hand away, walking out the doors brusquely, forcing the two boys to jog to catch up with her.
"Call me Effie, or Euphemia, if you must," she said, clearly amused.
She checked her watch - 4:00pm.
"Right, so, Fleamont - that's my husband - will still be at work for an hour or so but James should be home from school by now. Well, hopefully, that bloody bus is always running late."
Regulus blinked and looked at Sirius in surprise. In his bewilderment at her swearing in front of them - something their posh parents would never do - he seemed to forget about his hate for Sirius for just a moment before quickly looking away.
"James is your son, I'm assuming?" Regulus asked, picking and his sleeve. Mrs Pot- Effie, nodded.
"Yes, yes, he's about your age Sirius, he's also in year 10, still 15, though."
Right, so she had gotten more information on them than they had gotten on her then.
Soon enough they were in Effie's car and pulling into the driveway of a house in Mosman(A/N: if you don't know what the suburb mosman looks like, look it up. the potters are rich).
The house was much nicer than there's in London. While their place back home was probably a similar price and just as large, this already felt more like a home.
The house was old, three stories(including a little balcony on the slanted tile roof) and had vines crawling up the sides. The garden was full of trees and flowers, most of which neither of the boys could name.
There were several trees with these funny red flowers, almost looking like the round hairbrushes that Narcissa always used, except the part that looked like the bristles was a bright red(A/N: bottle brushes). There was also shrubs that had flowers that were metres tall and of another brilliant shade of red(A/N: waratahs). However there were other plants they could name. There were a few bushes of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow flowers, Calla Lily's, Daffodils, Magnolias, Frangipanis and many more. The garden was beautiful and both boys were entranced as they climbed out of the car. Euphemia looked over at them, smiling.
"Yes, it's quite lovely isn't it?" she said. "Fleamont's been working on it for years. He especially likes the native Australian plants. You should see the backyard, it's even better."
They followed her through the front door leaving their bags there before walking down a hallway lined with pictures of Euphemia, a man Sirius assumed was Fleamont and a boy with large round glasses and a smile matching his father's that could only be James.
They made it into a large kitchen where Effie instructed them to sit down at the kitchen island.
"I'll make you something to eat and then you boys should go up to bed. You must be so jet-lagged."
They just smiled at her, too tired and too stunned by her kindness to do much else. Not that they had time too though, because the next thing they knew, the boy with round glasses was barrelling down the stairs into the kitchen and yelling at the top of his lungs;
"What up party people!!!"