Chapter 2
Sirius didn’t mean to hurt his brother.
He didn’t. Even if the nasty voice in his head laughed and cheered, even if his betraying fingers trembled in exuberance, he didn’t mean it.
Regulus writhed on the floor, clawing at his throat in a silent scream. His eyes bulged out of his skull, breaths coming in short pants.
What was he doing?
This was his baby brother, no matter how many arguments they had. No matter how many times they traded death threats and glares across the halls. No matter how many times they rolled on the floor, throwing punches and choking each other till one of them could no nothing but lay bloodied and defeated.
But now, Sirius did the unthinkable.
He didn’t mean it.
‘But you did.’
To cast the Cruciatus curse, you had to mean it. You had to give it your all. Otherwise, it wouldn’t work. Sirius knew that from a young age. That’s why Walburga’s torture hurt more than the spell itself.
Sirius wasn’t sure when he crossed the line. When did Regulus become somebody he hated so much that he was able to curse him? With trembling fingers, he stared in shock at his brother, who trembled and cried and begged on the bloodied carpet. Suddenly, he felt sick. How could he do this? What was wrong with him? He wasn’t like her now, was he?
A wave of chilling terror rushed through Sirius' veins, making him drop the curse in shock.
He was.
Terrified, Sirius sprinted down the hall. He couldn’t look at his brother any longer. He was scared he’d hurt him more than he did just now. He tripped on the flooring, hit his shoulder on a wall while turning around a corner, slipped and almost fell onto a cupboard, stumbled while running up the stairs to his room.
He had to leave. He needed to get out of the house. What had he done?
Panting from magical and physical exhaustion, Sirius nursed his bruises and cuts from the fight. He stared with disgust at his wand, unwilling to relieve himself of the pain and use it to heal himself. He didn’t deserve it after what he’d done to his baby brother.
Bile rising in his throat, Sirius grabbed his school trunk and shoved inside everything that he saw around himself. Quills, books, trinkets, accessories, shoes, and random clothes thrown across his messy room. He took a pouch of galleons he’d been saving for a rainy day and took a quick swig of firewhisky he’d nicked from his father’s study. With a little clarity, he managed to put on his pair of Converse and tie his matted hair into a ponytail.
He had to leave; he needed to get out now.
Checking over the trunk, he nodded. He didn’t need anything else.
The wand lay on his bed, mocking him. Sirius sneered at it. The temptation to leave it behind was strong. He didn’t deserve it; he felt like a danger to those around him. To those he loved. But did he love Regulus? After being able to cast the curse? He felt like an uncontrollable beast who’d been given a dangerous weapon. Not taking his wand, however, would be stupid. What if he ran into Walburga whilst trying to leave? What if Orion waved away his apathy in order to punish him?
What if they tried to stop him?
Shaking away his spiral, Sirius grabbed the stick with a grimace. It was out of necessity, until he reached safety and could put it in the darkest corner of his trunk.
With a sharp turn and panted breaths, Sirius ran out of his room and pushed the door back with such force that it bounced back on the wall with a loud thud. Wincing, he sprinted down the stairs. His whole body shook. He couldn’t help the whine that escaped his lips. He was really doing it, leaving this hellhole for good.
When Sirius reached the front door, with all its elf heads and troll feet, he froze in shock at the start of the hallway.
Regulus sat beside the door, a strange glint in his eyes that overshadowed the pain of aftershocks he must have been feeling. When younger boys' hands shook uncontrollably (in a way that was all too familiar to Sirius, it made him gulp, shame rising up his spine), he clutched his robes in frustration. His usually held-together brother sat on the floor of their ancestral home, looking disheveled and so hurt that Sirius took a little step back.
His brother caught the movement from the corner of his eye and stared at Sirius' head on. Regulus eye flickered to the trunk in Sirius’ hand. A strange tension grew between them, electricity sparkled in their bones and Sirius clutched his wand tighter out of instinct.
Regulus flinched.
“Don’t leave.”
Sirius recoiled as if slapped, staring at his brother in shock. The grip on his wand loosened, his eyes stung with tears, and an unexplainable frustration rose in Sirius’ stomach.
Didn’t he understand? He had to leave. If not for Regulus’, then to escape the house. His mother was on her merry way to a visit in Janus Thickey’s ward and father closed in and in on himself until he was just a shell of a man, never leaving his office, never letting go of a bottle.
“I forgive you, just.. Don’t leave me alone.”
Sirius sneered on impulse, but looked at his brother with pity, a new perspective opening up upon hearing those words. He thought Regulus liked being Walburga’s favorite, but perhaps that wasn’t the case…
Ever since he got sorted into Gryffindor, their relationship soured and went downhill with each year. Sirius had some hope, once, that his brother would, too, end up in the den of lions, but that was a silly thought. Regulus was as cunning and self absorbed as they come.
After eleven years of living together, protecting and looking out for each other, that was their first argument. About how they changed. When Sirius saw how much his brother acted like their mother, when he saw the company he kept at school.. Regulus had changed too much in the year his brother wasn’t home. And Sirius changed too much whilst he was gone. Sirius saw the world, was proven of his mother’s bigotry. He hated seeing the same ideals in his little brother, be reminded that this is how he, too, acted.
“I can’t stay.. I’m sorry, but you understand, right?”
So, when Sirius looked at his brother, he knew that he couldn’t stay here with him. Even when Regulus’ eyes shone with tears and desperation. Not when he injured him so cruelly. Not even when the thought of his mother’s face made him sweat. Not when the thought of his father rotting away upstairs became more real each day. Sirius couldn’t stay, but maybe.. He could save his brother. Repent for what he did.
“Come with me.”
Regulus looked at him with bewilderment, something Sirius had never seen on his face. Then again, the night was full of surprises.
“But I’ve got a duty to-”
“I’m the heir. You know what happens when I leave? It all goes to you.” Sirius said solemnly. “The crushing responsibility, the sucking up and her..." he shuddered “training.”
The younger teenager bit his lip, weighing his options. Sirius stared at him. Even if they left together, he’d leave Regulus somewhere safe and go on his way. Yes, that’s exactly what he’d do. He’ll save his brother from this home, then from himself.
“What about mother?”
Sirius scoffed, waving his hand.
“She doesn’t really care about us. Don’t let her manipulate you. All she wants is a pair she can flaunt to all her contacts. She wants to be respected, more than she is now. All she see’s in us is an opportunity to make it happen.”
They stayed silent, until Regulus sniffed and rubbed his tears on his sleeves.
“She did something to father, didn’t she?” The younger boy asked, almost unsure, as if he was dreading the answer. Sirius just looked away and stared at the darkness of the house. All the curtains were drawn, the working oil lamps flickered on an off ominously. The house would be their grave if they didn’t leave now, when they had a chance.
“I think so.”
Another beat passed, Sirius shuffled in place uneasily. He didn’t want to wait any longer, the urgency to go, leave, run. It rang like a mantra in his head.
“Look, Reg-”
“I can’t.”
Sirius flinched. He didn’t expect that. He thought that maybe, Regulus would see how awful this home was, enough to leave. Maybe he was just too cowardly, he thought with a sneer.
The younger teenager lowered his gaze down to his lap, where he was willing his hands to stop shaking. A minute later, he stood up and braved the gaze of his brother, who was trembling with anger and urgency.
“Why?” Sirius bit out, teeth grinding in irritation. He didn’t understand. Why did Regulus not want to go?
“I can’t leave.”
“Yes, you can! Just grab your stuff and-”
“I can’t.” Regulus cut him off with a shake of his head. “My duty is here.”
Now, Sirius shook with actual rage. He couldn’t remember their argument from before, what made him angry enough to torture his brother, but he recalled feeling the same way as right now. It scared him, the unbridled anger, the heat that surged in his veins, the itch in his magic to cast.
Regulus just stood near the front door. Neither was he blocking Sirius’ way, nor was he on his way to leave. He stood there, impassive, looking ahead as if stuck in his own head.
“Fine, then.” Sirius sneered, trying to gather his rage and calm down. James always said he was a bit too much of a hothead. He needed to be level-headed, leave the house, and not blow off on his brother in the process.
It hurt to hear Regulus not accept his help. They were antagonistic for the past five years, but.. Did he truly wish to stay? In this house that is more of a prison cell than a home? To walk through these empty halls, with too many closed doors and morbid secrets behind them? Was he happy with this life? Sirius wasn’t.
He gripped his trunk tighter and walked towards the door. Regulus looked at him with steel determination in his eyes. Sirius hoped he wouldn't stop him from leaving.
“Stay safe.” Regulus whispered. He grabbed his brother's shoulder for just a second. His grip seemed comforting.
With stinging eyes and a sniff of his nose, Sirius nodded. He didn’t understand why his brother wanted to stay. He didn’t understand why he stood by him, whilst he left, and comforted him while he burned with rage. He didn’t understand why, after violating Regulus in the worst way he knew, his brother didn’t retaliate. Why he just stood with understanding shining in his eyes and a soft, resigned smile.
Not being able to bear the sight any longer, his mind running at a mile a minute, he opened the door. The wards washed over him, asking, inquiring. He shrunk his trunk, putting it in his pocket.
Once he walked down the front stairs, he looked back up at his brother. Regulus stood by the door, leaning against the doorframe, with a soft frown on his face.
"I'll see you, yeah?” Sirius asked, getting a tiny nod in response.
As he walked down the street, he felt a burning hot gaze on the back of his head. He gripped the wand he held in his hand tighter and recoiled once he realized he hadn’t put it away. Stuffing it in his holster, Sirius turned a corner. He was out of Regulus’ view.
Shifting into his shaggy animagus form, Sirius ran into the dead of night.
On the night he ran away from home, he knew that the only place he could go to was his best friend’s house. Fleamont and Euphemia liked him well enough whenever he came to visit during the summer. He hoped, whilst running through magical London, that they wouldn’t give him back to Walburga upon hearing that he ran away.
Luckily, James’ parents were more than welcoming. It took some time to get used to it. The welcoming smiles and soft touches that weren’t followed by curses or insults. The way they did everything sincerely, with no hidden motives.
He was given a spare room to stay in, just besides James' bedroom. Sirius, however, barely stayed in it. He spent most of his nights with his friend. Talking, pouring his heart out and seeking some sort of closure that wasn’t James’ to give.
They played quidditch, explored the nearby forest, and wandered through the town. James’ parents lived in a muggle-wizard mixed neighborhood. Their home stood tall at the end of the street. It wasn’t an imposing sort of manor, like the ones many purebloods loved to live in. It wasn’t like his own, a thin and tall townhouse, carefully hidden and concealed to hide it from the whole world.
The house was a warm red with a beautiful garden up front. The backyard had privacy charms so intertwined so tightly together that Sirius sometimes couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t at all like his own home, dark and dreary. With macabre beheaded elf heads lining the walls or magical house pests hiding in every cabinet or closet. This house was bright, light shone from every window and illuminated the light interior. Sirius felt airy and free, unchained by musky air and dark magic seeping through the walls.
One of the best parts, however, was that Peter lived nearby.
Sirius, James and Peter were best buddies. They got up to all sorts of trouble in school, were called the Marauders. They were tightly knit since day one.
When Sirius looked for an empty apartment on the first trip with the Hogwarts Express, he never imagined his life changing so drastically. From finding his first and best friends, to his world flipping upside down when new facts came to light.
His mother’s lies were debunked; the magical world was so much more than her bigotry. His life was his own to make, and he was glad that James and Peter showed him that.
Of course, the first few months were hard. They disagreed on everything. Sirius’ beliefs were ragingly different from the one’s his friends had. They could’ve brushed him off at any time, hexed him and been done with his bigotry, but they stayed. They sat him down and debated. They talked, long hours into the night. Just three eleven-year-olds, trying to find the right way to look at the world. There was screaming and cursing. Petty insults only children were capable of. But, in the end, they cracked him. Sirius understood. He’d forever be grateful.
By Christmas, Sirius wrote a letter back home, saying that he’d be staying with his newfound family. He paid the price for his words that summer, but didn’t regret what he’d said. In his mind, he’d renounced his family. Having been at Hogwarts for a whole year, he saw how beautiful magic was. It was more than cruelty and suffering. Muggleborns weren’t magic-stealing monsters. They were great wizards, witches, and awesome friends. He realized that his mother was wrong, and that understanding freed him more than anything else could’ve.
Peter and James did everything in their power to distract him that summer. They went to muggle arcades, spent their days wasting around town, creating all sorts of trouble that was so familiar to their pranks at Hogwarts it made Sirius giddy with happiness.
Things were great. The summer was one full of fun and a sort of carelessness that he’s never experienced before.
Nighttime, however, was a different matter entirely. Sirius preferred sleeping in the same room as James, but when they couldn’t.. Horrid nightmares plagued him. The torture of his brother, how he screamed and twitched from the curse. Images of himself merged with his mother’s, he saw the gaze her eyes often took reflected in his own. When dreaming, he spiraled into a deep, black pit of shame and regret. Nightmares of his own abuse paled in comparison.
Sirius refused to use his wand. From the moment he arrived at Potter Cottage, he put his wand in a drawer next to his bed. He hid it under clothes and towels. He didn’t want to see it. The pain he could bring his loved ones made his heart clench painfully and breaths come in short. What if he hurt James too? He couldn’t risk it. He was a danger to those around him and disarmed himself to the best of his ability.
That’s why, when it was time to go back to sixth year, he hesitated. He’d have to cast spells and have his wand in sight at all times. The thought made him queasy.
Sirius realized, startling himself, that he didn’t want to go back to Hogwarts. The castle would be home to people who’d always be out to hurt him, who wanted his head on a stick. (That was his own fault, to be honest.) And, worst of all, people surely knew that he’d been disowned. His last name wouldn't provide him with protection any longer. He'd have to use his wand.
A week into his stay at James’, a letter arrived for him with his mother’s eagle owl. The bird nearly bit his finger off. She wrote a single line, nothing more.
‘You are no child of mine; don’t you dare step one foot into this house.’
He realized then why he suddenly caught on fire while eating dinner with the Potters yesterday. She burned him off the tapestry. He was renounced.
The closer to September first it was, the more the thought of coming back to Hogwarts made him break out in sweat. He didn’t want to be around magic, he didn’t want to cast it. He realized that he’d rather live like a muggle. Like the Potter’s did. Besides Fleamont’s business brewing potions, the couple did everything the muggle way. It threw Sirius off, at first, but he quickly grew to appreciate and respect it. He enjoyed helping Euphemia with dinner, the act of making something delicious with his own hands, instead of magic, appealed to him. Cleaning with his own hands was therapeutic. There was something special that came with doing every task with his own hands.
It was three days before September 1st, before the day he’d been dreading so much. Sirius couldn’t keep still anymore. He was anxious; the thought of coming back to a world full of magic made him nauseous.
Peter, James, and Sirius sat on the floor by Peter’s bed. They were at his house for the night, since the Pettigrew’s lived only a street from the Potter’s. The two of them were childhood friends.
“Guys, I don’t want to go back to Hogwarts.”
It was only a whisper, but his friends heard him. James looked up with an alarmed expression, and Peter looked incredibly confused.
“What? Why?”
Sirius didn’t answer Peter’s question, just sat in silence. He didn’t know why he voiced the thought, but a heaviness lifted off his chest once he’d said it. The idea had been suffocating him for the past few weeks, it felt like a secret, something he couldn’t say out loud, but.. He realized that his friends wouldn’t judge. That’s how they were. If they could handle him at the start of his first year, with all his flaws and edges, and didn’t leave, Sirius thought, it should be okay.
“Mate, are you okay?” James asked, worry lacing his tone.
“Yeah, just..” Sirius rubbed a hand down his face, taking a deep breath. If he started the conversation, he had to finish it. “I think I’m scared.” He admitted.
“Of what?”
“Myself.”
Peter recoiled as if he had been slapped, James’ hand flew up to his mouth.
"I just..” he trailed off, unsure if he wanted to tell the story to his best friends. Would they hate him after? “The night I left home, I did it because I’d done something awful. Something I couldn’t forgive myself for.”
Sirius looked at his friends, trying to gauge their reactions. James was looking at him with something akin to pity in his eyes while Peter gave him an encouraging smile.
“That night.. Me and Regulus fought. It was worse than ever before, and I can’t even remember what started the argument," he chuckled, the sound coming out wet. He was on the verge of tears. “At some point, after we beat each other blue and bloody, I took out my wand. We rarely did that.” he frowned. “Next thing I know, I’m hurting him. I don’t know what came over me. Perhaps that cruelty was always somewhere deep in my brain..” Sirius trailed off, a bit unwilling to tell the tale. “Anyway, I cast the curse that our mother always used to torture us-” Peter winced and James gaped like a fish, “I felt so awful.”
“Hey, it’s not your fault," Peter said softly.
“But it is.” Sirius ground out, shame and regret pooling in his gut. He clenched his hands on his knees, trying to ground himself in the moment. “I used the curse, knowing what it will do and what sort of meaning it has for the both of us. I wanted him to hurt.” Tears welled in his eyes and he wiped at his face roughly. He needed to calm down. “And I don’t even know what triggered the thought. What if, at Hogwarts, something like that happens again? What if I can't control myself?” Sirius looked away from his concerned friends, looking through the window. He hoped some sort of answer would come to him in the night sky. The stars, however, stayed silent.
“Is that why you haven’t used your wand since you came to live with us?” James asked, his voice barely a whisper.
“Yes.”
Silence stretched between the three of them.
“Are you scared of magic, Sirius?”
He flinched, coming to stare at Peter with wide eyes. His sandy-haired friend looked at him head-on, not breaking eye contact. His silence was enough of an affirmative answer.
“You can’t just not go back to Hogwarts," James stressed, his hands coming up to tug at his hair in frustration.
“But what’s stopping him?” Peter countered, glancing at his distressed friend. “He finished his OWLS and can take NEWTS at any time at the Ministry, if he so desires. Most careers don’t even need them.” Glancing over at Sirius, he shook his head. “Then again, I suspect you have no intention of staying.”
Sirius stared at Peter in shock. His best friend understood him so thoroughly that he didn't expect it. They had been tightly knit for nearly five years now. He almost cried in relief. Peter understood.
“I think I want to go to the muggle world," he admitted, and the sound of the idea didn’t sound so terrible in his ears. There wasn’t much, besides his two best friends, keeping him here. “I don’t have an education to work there, but I doubt I’ve been locked out of my trust vault.” Hope shined in his eyes as he looked at Peter and James. The latter was biting his nails in worry. “Only Uncle Alphard can do that, as he’s Lord Black. He’s always liked me well enough. I should have enough money to live comfortably for a while.”
Peter grinned and moved closer to Sirius, slapping a hand on his back.
“That’s great! You’ll be set until you find somewhere to work.”
“You guys can’t seriously be considering this..” James whispered.
They turned back to look at him, dumbfounded.
“James, this.. It’s my decision. Nobody is keeping me here, and..” he trailed off. “I don’t want to be in this world. It's only brought me hurt and I gave it back as much as I got.”
Peter opened his mouth to say something, but he shushed him.
“I don’t feel comfortable being here when all I feel capable of doing is harm.” He admitted. “Maybe that will change over time, maybe it won’t, but.. I feel as though this is the right decision to make right now.”
James looked him in the eyes, searching his gaze for something. When he found it, he sighed and leaned back, his arms supporting his weight as he looked at the ceiling.
“Alright. But only if you promise that this will really be better for you.” He stressed, and Sirius could hear the seriousness in his voice.
“Trust me, I think it will.”
James smiled for the first time since the start of their conversation. Peter, who was still sitting beside Sirius, grinned once again.
Sirius relaxed, his nerves coming to a halt. If his friends supported him, he could do it.
No more magic, no more hurt. He will make a place for himself in the muggle world. He is going to start his life anew.