Sharp
WEDNESDAY. SEPTEMBER 1, 1971.
Sirius Black was decidedly pas pur, according to his parents. They hadn’t always felt that way about their eldest son. He’d been perfect for about a year. Then Regulus came along and showed them what perfect really meant.
Sirius shrieked like a banshee at the slightest of discomforts. Regulus never cried. Sirius asked so many questions. Stupid questions! Questions about the children he could see playing from his window— the filth he could see playing from his window. They were animals, really. Nothing more. Sirius’ interest in them was an insult to the people inside the house.
It didn’t seem to matter to Walburga and Orion that Sirius quickly learned to stop asking so many questions after he’d been disciplined. Regulus had the sense to never ask them in the first place.
Sirius is sharp. Not clever—though he is plenty clever— sharp. He had been from the first word he’d ever spoken: Ma’am. Sirius Black had called his mother Ma’am as his first words, and she took it as nothing less than an insult to her abilities as a mother. It felt, to him, as though she’d been giving him the side eye ever since.
He tried to dull his edges. Truly, he did. He never asked the same question twice. Never repeated an infraction after a punishment. Practiced piano. Practiced Latin. Practiced French. Art. Italian. Violin. Schooling. Quidditch. Whatever activity they tossed at him, he figured out.
But it was no use. There was no use in trying to dull his edges when Regulus was two feet away, soft as cotton and sweet as sugar. Sirius would never be fairy floss.
And yet, as perfect as Regulus is, he is not The Heir. Sirius is. So, it’s Sirius who marches behind his mother through Platform Nine and Three Quarters. The crowd parts for Walburga Black, whispering as she passes. Sirius does not allow himself to look at them. He keeps his back straight and his gaze high.
He does allow himself one short glance at the train. The Hogwarts Express, in all its scarlet glory, sits proudly on the tracks. That is the train that will take him farther from home than he has ever been. The train seems to know it, too. The way it’s gleaming in the early morning light, it looks smug. Sirius’ mouth twitches as he bites back a smile. He looks away from the train.
He’s never been around this many children his age in his entire life! Regulus would love this…
Fairy Floss had been left at home. Walburga didn’t trust him not to cry. “Tears are unbecoming.” She’d said, patting his cheek. Sirius had worried– a jolt in the pit of his stomach– that without Sirius and his sharp edges around, Walburga and Orion might forget just how soft Regulus is.
“Narcissa was kind enough to tell me what cabin she’ll be riding in. You will go to compartment thirty-one and sit with your cousin,” Walburga says. A command. “Won’t you, darling?” A reward. Softness from an icy woman. An example.
“Yes, Mother.” Sirius nods once. He forgot to smile.
She grabs his face, taking his jaw in one hand. His mother examines him, looking him up and down, tilting his head this way and that. She’s looking for an edge to sand down herself, tired of Sirius’ slow progress.
He smiles, and she releases him, patting his cheek affectionately.
“Do remember to write,” She said, all sugar again, “We’ll be eager to hear of your achievements.”
“Yes, Mother. Of course.”
The train whistles. Sirius does not look.
“Carriage O. Compartment thirty-one. Go.”
“Yes, Mother.” He smiles at her once more. She doesn’t pretend to be impressed. Sirius turns, trying his best to not look too eager as he walks away.
Once he’s on the train, though? There are no holds barred. As the Hogwarts Express pulls away from the station, he lets out a positively breathless laugh. He must look barmy, really, leaning over his luggage and laughing hysterically, but he can’t stop.
He covers his face with his hands to muffle the laughter.
Sirius Black is leaving. He’s leaving Grimmauld Place and he’ll be gone for months. There will be no portraits of grandfathers spying on him and reporting back to Mother and Father. No. Mother and Father will only be receiving report cards and letters that Sirius sends. The only information they’d receive would be good: they’d hear about his perfect grades, they’d hear about him making the Slytherin Quidditch team, they’d hear about him becoming prefect. This is the perfect storm. Sirius Black, sharp edges and all, is finally about to make his family proud.
And Regulus? Sirius stops laughing. And Regulus? What of Regulus?
Sweet Regulus. Regulus who always said ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you.’ Regulus was kind even to Kreature. Would Walburga and Orion be sweet in return? Sirius imagines his brother poised at the piano. He sees his feet dangling from the bench. He imagines his petite hands playing a song for Mother and Father. What if Regulus’ fingers, still chubby with baby-fat, were to stumble? How would they respond?
Sirius knows how they would respond were he the one on the bench. He knows it firsthand.
But Regulus is not The Heir. Regulus is just a boy. Regulus is soft and sweet and Mother and Father must know that. They must know that there is no need to…
Sirius is sharp. He deserved the treatment he received. Regulus is soft. Walburga and Orion are nothing if not fair. Regulus will be fine.
Sirius pulls back his shoulders and tries to collect himself. He combs his fingers through his cropped hair, and straightens his tie, doing his best to make himself presentable after this emotional episode.
There’s really no need to go through too much trouble. He’ll only be sitting with Cissa and her arsehole boyfriend. Maybe if he’s lucky, Andy will be there too, but it’s far more likely that she’ll be off somewhere with that Hufflepuff boy-toy of hers.
Carriage O. Compartment thirty-one.
Sirius twists his family ring as he walks. He can hear laughter coming from inside several compartments. Muffled chatter seeps out from under the doors.
Carriage O. Compartment thirty-one.
Narcissa had been quite proud about becoming a prefect last time Sirius had seen her. It was all she talked about. He hopes he’s not marching towards more of that torture. Uncle Alphard always says it’s horrible luck to hope too hard. Sirius is not great at taking that advice.
Carriage O. Compartment thirty-one.
Sirius takes a deep breath and opens the door.
Carriage O, Compartment thirty-one, as it turns out, is not populated by his favorite cousin. Nor is it populated by Narcissa and her prick boyfriend. It’s populated by a trio of boys, all dressed in muggle clothing. On one side of the cabin, there is a tiny boy in a large jumper. On the other, there are two more boys, the one nearest Sirius has a pair of round glasses. The podgy one in the back squeaks at the sight of Sirius, which makes the other two boys turn to look.
The silence stretches far longer than it should.
Sirius clears his throat. “Forgive me,” He says, “I’m looking for Narcissa Black. I was told she’d be in this cabin.”
One of the boys, the bespectacled one, stands up. “You’re Sirius Black,” He says.
That is not at all a response to what Sirius said.
The boy in the back looks queasy at the mention of the Black family name.
“I am.” Sirius agrees, giving a curt nod. “Now, back to the matter of Narcissa-”
“I’ve heard of your folks,” The boy interrupts, “Well, I actually don’t know much about them, but I know my parents have met them. I’ve heard them talking about it. James Potter,” He stuck out a hand.
Potter. Yes, Sirius has heard the name before.
The Potters were Orion’s favorite punching bags. Over dinner, he’d grumble about what fools they were. Traitors, he’d say, traitors to their kind. Blood Traitors.
Sirius wavers for a moment, his father’s voice ringing in his ears.
Then Sirius does something that is either incredibly brave or unbelievably foolish: he shakes the blood traitor’s hand. He doesn’t feel any dirtier for it, despite all his father’s warnings. With the way his parents spoke of mudbloods and half-breeds and blood traitors— the way they made it clear that they were other and wrong for it— he was sort of expecting the contact to feel different. But it doesn’t. This feels like a perfectly decent handshake. And that’s somehow worse.
He’s got to bail.
“Charmed.” Sirius says politely. “However, I really do need to find Narcissa Black. Perhaps you could tell me where she went?”
“Oh. Haven’t the foggiest. We just got here. Right, Pete?” James Potter turns back to the portly boy on the far side of the cabin. He nods dutifully. James Potter turns to the boy with the book, “Did you see a bird in here?”
When the blood traitor calls Narcissa a bird, Sirius struggles not to pull a face. The other fellow, however, it seems, has no such qualms. He scrunches up his face as if he’d just bitten into a lemon. Then he shakes his head.
Pete mumbles something and Sirius’ jaw twitches.
“Forgive me?” Sirius steps closer to hear him better. He steps into the cabin, allowing the door to slide shut behind him.
“I… I said that maybe she told you the wrong cabin number to ditch you.” Pete says. Potter elbows him. “But- But that’s okay! People used to ditch me all the time! It’s really not that bad; you just need to make your own fun.” He’s rambling. He hasn’t said that much, but it’s clear that he's rambling from the positively gormless look on his face.
Sirius is thankful for it. It’s the only reason he didn’t flush at the realization that Narcissa had given his mother the incorrect cabin.
His cousin had ditched him. She made him go on a wild goose chase and embarrass himself for what? So that she could snog her prat boyfriend? Based on the few times Sirius had the displeasure of speaking with Lucius, he doubted the man was even capable of speech that didn’t involve purity politics.
“There’s still room in here,” James Potter offers, smiling. Sirius blinks.
James Potter didn’t feel dirty. Nevertheless, Sirius knows that he is. He’s wearing muggle clothes, for Merlin’s sake. No. No. This has been a lovely little excursion, but Sirius needs to find Narcissa.
“That’s a kind offer, but I really should find my cousin.” His voice sounds ridiculously posh, even to him. Of course, it was always posh… but something about this situation has him trying too hard.
“Alright. Good luck then, mate.” If James Potter was at all affected by Sirius’ rejection, he didn’t show it. He just turned back to the other boys and clapped once. “Guess it’s just us then. The three musketeers.”
There were four musketeers. Sirius does not correct James Potter, though he’s certain his father would want him to.
“Just like a Quidditch team.” The squishy boy in the back says.
And, no, it was not at all like a quidditch team. Had he ever seen a quidditch team? Did Sirius need to explain Quidditch to them?
“Three people would make for a pretty shite Quidditch team.” James Potter laughs.
“I’ll bet you they could still beat your Falmouth Falcons!” Pete says.
“Oh, come off it!”
“They could! Your keeper is shite!”
“You’re shite!”
“Your mum is shite!”
“Oi! I’ll tell her you said so.”
“No! James, don’t you dare.”
“I always dare, Petey.”
“Over the Falcons?!”
“Anything for my Falcons.”
The boys in this cabin were discussing Quidditch and bickering… Wherever Narcissa was, she was most likely simpering at Lucius bloody Malfoy while he waxed poetic about The Knights of Walpurgis-- whatever the hell that was. Sirius had a vague idea, of course. It was some stupid exclusive boy’s-club that Sirius had never been interested in enough to pay much attention to.
But James Potter? Sirius is struggling to tear his attention away from him in order to leave.
I don’t want to go. Sirius realizes with a start. I want to stay here… with James Potter the blood traitor.
His mother would kill him. She would maim him. She would flay him.
She would never find out.
He takes a seat across from Pete. “It’s a bad season to be a Falcons fan,” Sirius says companionably.
James Potter looked positively affronted. “Et tu? Et tu?!” He puts a hand over his heart.
“Their keeper doesn’t know a quaffle from a quail.”
“That’s what I’m saying!” Pete throws his hands up. Then he frowns. “Are you staying?” He asks.
“S’pose I am.”
“Wait til my parents hear I sat with The Heir of The House of Black on the train!” James Potter is laughing at a joke only he himself understands.
Sirius raises a brow. He wonders if James Potter’s father has ever sat across from him at dinner and disparaged the Blacks.
James Potter looks to Peter. Does Peter know the answer? Was Peter present for these chats? Peter looks as though he’s about to puke.
“Pull that face about my family again, and I’ll sock you one.” Sirius bites. The words practically jump from his chest without much say-so from him.
Sirius Black is sharp edges. He is jagged shards. He’s a reflection of the parents who made him cast in a broken mirror.
“You…. you will?” Pete pales.
“Nah.” The boy reading the book says, without once looking up. “He won’t hit you. I’m sure he’d hate to get blood on that pretty ring.”
That was the first thing he’s said since Sirius arrived… and it sounded like an insult.
Sirius stops fiddling with The Black Family Ring wrapped around his middle finger. He hadn’t even realized he’d been doing that. “What did you say your name was?”
The boy seated beside him is practically drowning in his jumper. He’s been holding his book like a shield this whole time. The sharpness of his tongue comes as quite a surprise. It’s a rather bold juxtaposition to his appearance.
“Remus,” James Potter answers for him.
Remus has a sharp tongue. But his words have a certain… lilt to them. One that Sirius has never heard before.
“You’ve an accent, Remus.” Sirius grins. “Where’d you get it?”
“My mam. It was a birthday present.” He still doesn’t look up.
“I actually had the same question.” Pete prompts softly.
“It’s Welsh,” Remus says, his voice clipped.
“Ah!” Sirius says, pleased to have placed it. “I’ve never heard of any wizarding families from Wales, but-”
Remus slams his book shut. Sirius does not jump.
The Welsh lad puts his book in a knapsack lying at his feet, then turns to look out the window. He turns his back on Sirius Black.
Sirius feels a bit lost for a second. What had he said that was so upsetting?
Right then. He thinks haughtily. Remus can be a moody bint if he pleases.
After all, it’s not as if Sirius will be seeing much of him after this train ride anyhow.
Sirius turns back to James Potter and Pete. “Now, the Wigtown Wanders. That’s a real quidditch team.”
“No! You’re bloody delusional, the both of you!” James-Potter-the-blood-traitor-who-Sirius-is-meant-to-be-staying-away-from pushes his glasses up his nose and launches into a defense of the Falmouth Falcons