Sirius Vignettes by dentedsky
Rated PG-13, (Sirius/Remus)

My father tutored me and my family members when we were young. His way of teaching was simply lecturing, and not just on reading and writing; he took his opportunities to hammer in the whole fucking system of power, control and wealth. It was important, he believed, that children of such high breeding understood the whole mechanics of it all, that his nieces would get well educated until the time when they got married to good pure-blood wizards, and it was so damn important that his sons would marry proper, educated women and accept only the best of dowries.

He said Regulus and I should understand the fine details of art, but we were never given drawing pencils. Read the great literature of past wizards but 'never become a writer!'. You must get respectable jobs, he said, and keep in touch with those who served some purpose for your own ambitions.

Regulus absorbed the whole propaganda like a drug, while I sat back and stared wistfully out the window like a caged bird ready to fly.

It was popular in those days to be home-schooled, but parents were so often busy. My father knew the right families, and he undertook favours. Sometimes when he had to work, he would send me over to Malfoy Manor to be tutored, for example. And likewise children were sometimes sent over to The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. I was eight when I first met James Potter, an awkward, skinny kid, but still a right bastard even then.

He had stashed sweets in his pockets and we ate them when my father's back was turned, giggling at our own cheek. He had stolen ink from my father's desk one day and drew little pictures on my arm with his ink stained fingertips. That afternoon Bellatrix had come back from her trip at Diagon Alley with Aunt Elladora, with a fancy new wand. I was jealous of her, because she was leaving to go to Hogwarts and I wanted to be there myself, and she was smug about it. After James left she saw my arm and told on me. I got whipped on my bare backside with a strip of leather several times.

The next day James came again. His parents were away somewhere, and I told him what my horrid older cousin had done. We snuck into Andromeda's girly little room.

James made a face at all the pink and the frilly lace. "I don't like girls," James confessed. "They smell."

"I don't like girls either," I said. The statement seemed to stick with me more than James, though.

We located Andy's little diary, wedged under her mattress. It was then that we opened it - we read a bit, but not much - ripped some pages out and planted it in Bellatrix's bedroom. The inky pages were crumpled and scattered over the blankets of Bellatrix's bed.

Now my eldest cousin had a special gift that I would not recognize until later. She would say things, and they would come true.

She got a thrashing that made her cry for a whole day. By the end of it all that was left inside her was anger for me, and she hissed in my ear, "I will kill you one day, Sirius, I will kill you!"

*

I knew about the Lupins.

All through my life the Black children came to be taught about which pure-blood family were good to associate with, and who were not, though for some reason the list of last names were dwindling over the years. The Lupins, I knew, were not a good family. They were like the Weasleys - lower middle-class and common.

James and I were so excited to be on the Hogwarts express that we ran up and down the isle singing old folk songs at the top of our lungs. While other eleven year olds crept onto the train timidly as if an older student would run up and eat them, we took to banging on compartment doors and talking to random people. Mellow out, most people told us, feel the love. But we were pure-blooded and rich and important and we could do what we liked.

Two children our age were in one compartment, though I only noticed the one at first. He was sitting next to the window holding up a book, his brown eyes flickering over the text, ignoring everything and everyone else. His hair was brown and his skin pale, his small rough fingers curled firm over the jacket of his book. Why I noticed him I do not understand even to this day: he was so plain and uninteresting to the eye, but my young eyes stared curiously regardless.

James sat next to Peter Pettigrew. The Pettigrews were a good, noble family.

I shut the compartment door and sat next to boy, snatching his book from his hands.

"Hogwarts: A History. Been there, read that." I threw it over to James who caught it easily. Peter giggled, knowing piggy-in-the-middle bullying when he saw it.

"Who are you, then?" asked James haughtily. He threw the book back to me.

The boy opened his mouth to speak. "No," I interrupted, "it's a game. Only the person holding the book can speak. Now - tattered brown clothes, scruffy brown hair, who do you think, Peter?" I threw the book to him.

Peter caught it. "Mudblood," he squeaked with a malicious grin.

James snatched the book from his hands. "I don't think so. Think. Only a pure-blood first-year could own a, rather tattered, wizarding book." He threw it back to me.

Quick as a flash, the boy caught it before I could and hugged it close to his chest. "Lupin," he said softly. "My name is Remus Lupin."

"Lupin!" I exclaimed. "I knew it." James and I laughed cruelly.

*

All thirteen-year-olds are awkward. They are half-way between child and teenagers, and adulthood seems naively immediate.

They blush at the silliest things, especially kissing. The beds in the dormitory were lined in a semi-circle, so all the third and forth year Gryffindors looked as if they were onstage, the door their only audience. The thunder crashed outside like an orchestra.

They sat in a circle and James spun the bottle. It landed on Lily Evans; a red-haired girl who insisted that love and peace were Mother Nature's gifts and should be embraced by all. I watched while James crawled forward and kissed her on the lips, his square glasses bumping against her nose.

It was her turn to spin, and it landed on me. She came forward and puckered her lips confidently. At the last moment I lost my nerve and turned my head so her kiss came down upon my cheek.

My eyes caught on Remus's, and he looked quickly away.

*

My kiss was excited and wet. When we pulled away, he rubbed the back of one hand across his swollen mouth.

I looked at him, scared out of my mind, because it was such a bad thing to do and my whole family would hate me if they found out. I did not want to think about what my father would do with his happy strip of leather. It had all started in third year, when there was a thunderstorm and the friends we were entertaining in our dorm room had long ago left. I wanted to try it with a boy, because I wanted to know if it was any different.

I had kissed him and every now and again we would kiss in dark corners. It had eventually led to me putting my tongue in his mouth, and my arms around his shoulders, and it all felt very good. I always wanted more.

We were panting, and I kissed him one more time, a little forcefully. It had to stop, sometime, before anyone found out.

We pulled away and looked at each other.

"What are we going to do?" said Remus finally.

I felt I could do anything. Even leave my family, if I had to, just so I could kiss him as much I wanted.

"Stop pretending it's not real, for a start," I said.

End.

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