Family Feast
The boys were sitting in one of the compartments on the train. Sirius was, as always, reading. Remus had joined James and Peter in their game of exploding snap. From time to time, one of the three boys would glance up at Sirius, but the boy didn’t seem to notice it, or just didn’t care about it. Suddenly, he slammed his book shut and shook his head. James looked up and frowned.
“You alright?”
The boy shook his head.
“No. I…”
He stopped and shook his head again.
“This is pathetic.”
Remus tilted his head. Next to him, Peter got a sad look in his eyes.
“What’s pathetic?”
“I’m scared.”
James moved a bit closer to him but stopped when Sirius froze for a few seconds.
“What are you scared of?”
Remus’ voice was careful and Sirius glared at him for that.
“I’m not a child. You don’t have to baby me.”
“What are you scared of?”
This time it was James who asked, and he managed to keep his voice calm but, at the same time, there was no pity in it. Sirius glanced out the window, before he turned back to the others.
“Grandfather. I know that he will be after me once I get back home. I escaped his punishment once already. He is not going to let that happen again.”
“Got away?!”
There was pure shock in Remus’ voice. Sirius rolled his eyes.
“He didn’t manage to kill me. It counts as me getting away.”
Peter, seeing that Remus was opening his mouth, quickly interrupted:
“Don’t you think that your aunt will help you?”
Sirius shrugged.
“I don’t know. I mean, aunt Druella is wonderful, but even she won’t go against grandfather. To be honest, the only person I could think of, who could go against him, is father. He is certainly powerful enough. I have seen myself what he can do. He’s a force to be reckoned with.”
“So are you.”
Sirius turned to James with raised eyebrows. The boy smiled.
“What? You are. I’ve seen what YOU can do. You are stronger than almost all of the older students. And the only reason why I say almost, is because Bellatrix is older than you.”
Sirius smirked.
“To be honest, I’m not sure which one of us is stronger. We never tried fighting. Father and aunt Druella would skin us alive.”
Remus frowned.
“Why? No offense but, from what you have told us, it seems that your parents would be happy if you fought.”
For almost an entire minute, Sirius just stared at him. Then he shook his head slowly.
“Yeah. I mean, no. It’s complicated. We… My father always had very strong morals. One of the first rules he taught me is that family is more important than anything else, but to a limit. If they weren’t following the family rules, they weren’t family. I’ve never been there when someone got blasted off, but father told me about it. And mother threatened me with it a few times, but she never actually did any moves to do it. I don’t think she dared to. Father would have been furious if she did.”
And, seeing the other’s confused expressions, he continued.
“I am the firstborn. The heir. There is more attention on me than on Reg. It would be a bad and shameful thing if I got disowned. It would take really much for that to happen to me. Bigger chance that Reg would get disowned. Or Andromeda or Cissy. Me and Bella are in very safe places. I mean, yeah, we have much more eyes on us and have to live up to many more expectations, but we are safe.”
The other boys were all a bit pale. Sirius shrugged. He slipped his book into his bag and sighed. James was thinking hard about something, before his eyes suddenly lit up with realization.
“What if you went out with Bellatrix?”
Sirius made a disgusted face.
“I might be a Black but I’m not into incest.”
This time the others made faces. James was the one who looked most alright with the sudden information.
“So it’s not just stories.”
Sirius barked out a short laugh.
“No. It’s not just stories. Back in the days, when the pureblood mania was even bigger, the purest families would marry inside the families to keep the blood pure. Usually it was between cousins, but there were times when siblings married just to get heirs.”
By that point Remus looked slightly green. James shook his head.
“Alright. But that’s not what I meant. I meant if you walked out of this train with Bellatrix and your father saw you with her and not us. Wouldn’t that make your situation better?”
Sirius seemed to consider it for a moment.
“Not really. My father is not stupid. And there are people from the school who will tell him the truth.”
“Malfoy, right?”
Sirius nodded.
“Yeah. Malfor. The Lestrange brothers. Andromeda. She really hates me for some reason. I don’t know why.”
James sighed but went back to the card game, while Sirius moved closer to the window.
The clip ended and everyone turned to Sirius. Molly was opening her mouth, when Hermione asked quietly:
“Could we watch what happened when you got off the train?”
Sirius glanced back to her and nodded slowly.
“Yeah. Sure.”
He waved his hand towards the wall and the picture appeared back on it.
The boys stepped off the train and looked around. Suddenly, James waved his hand wildly, almost hitting Sirius in the process, and started running towards his parents. Giving out a squeek, Peter set off towards his own mother. Sirius and Remus exchanged looks and followed them at a slower pace. When they got to the parents, Dorea had been finished with greeting James, and pulled Sirius into a tight hug. The boy was shocked and froze but, after a few seconds, he relaxed and hugged her back hesitantly. Next to them, James exchanged a smile with his father. Charles rolled his eyes and stepped closer to his wife.
“Dorea, you are smothering him.”
She let go of Sirius and the boy quickly shook the hand that Charles was stretching out towards him.
“Hello mr Potter. Mrs Potter.”
Hope Lupin was thinking about something very hard. Then, she moved forward a bit and enveloped Sirius in a gentle hug. Although even more shocked, Sirius hugged her back quickly. She put her mouth next to his ear and whispered so quietly that the others didn’t even notice that she had said anything at all.
“Thank you, Sirius.”
He nodded very slowly, before she let go of him. Sirius was visibly more relaxed when he suddenly paled and his back straightened. The boys all tensed up immediately. They knew what that reaction meant. It always happened when Sirius saw his father. And, very real, Orion Black was walking towards them. His face was calm, but there was a storm in his eyes. He stopped next to Charles and nodded towards mrs Potter.
“Dorea.”
She nodded back.
“Orion.”
Everyone was ready for the man to turn to Sirius, but that didn’t happen. He kept his eyes on Dorea.
“There is something I wanted to offer, Dorea.”
The woman frowned.
“I’m not sure if I like the sound of that.”
Orion actually smiled at that.
“You might actually like this. Two weeks from now, we’ll be having a family feast. I figured, since you were never officially disowned, you might like to join us. Cousin.”
James seemed shocked at the last word, while Sirius just kept his eyes on his father. Dorea frowned.
“You want me to join on a family feast? After all that happened?”
Orion nodded.
“Yes. And it might give the boys an opportunity to spend some time outside of school.”
That seemed to slightly shake Dorea.
“Wait a second. You want me to bring James with me?”
Orion nodded again. The calm look never left his face. Dorea seemed to think it through carefully, before she answered slowly:
“Alright. We’ll be there. But on one condition. After that, Sirius comes home with us and spends the rest of the summer at my place.”
Both Sirius and James looked at her with wide open eyes and, in James’ case, mouth. Then Sirius looked over to his father with slight hesitation. Orion nodded slowly.
“I can agree with that. As long as Sirius does all his homework and keeps studying for the next year.”
Dorea smiled and nodded her head.
“I’ll keep an eye on him.”
The older Black nodded to her and turned to his son.
“Sirius. We’re leaving.”
And he walked away without even once acknowledging Hope, Mrs Pettigrew or Charles. Sirius cast a quick smile at his friends before he followed his father.
As soon as the clip ended everyone was looking between Orion and Sirius.