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Friday, 18.12.1998 / Sirius


Yay, all the Christmas shopping and planning done, we're ready to apparate to the Sunnegg as soon as classes are over at noon. The students are let off at noon today, so we don't even linger for lunch. I have only four lessons while Remus has five, so I'm packing what we want to take back to Switzerland and I'm getting Seraina and Denny ready for the trip home. School will resume on January fourth, so we have a good sized Christmas vacation of more than two weeks. I need it, badly, to be honest, because I'm quite exhausted. I can't wait for the school year to end and then change to Transfiguration for only the fifth, sixth and seventh years. I haven't heard if they have found the second set of teachers yet, but I'm not in a hurry and I'll see when the time comes...

Right now I'm packing some clothes for the twins and my briefcase, pick up Remus' laptop and get everything ready. The twins are on the carpet, both starting to crawl, which distracts them wonderfully from teething! It's just too much fun to watch them right now, they are amusing us with their competition of who's getting on the easiest and the fastest. If we help them, they already start to pull themselves up. Grabbing my fingers, Denny easily pulls himself into a sitting and then a standing position. He's cute now. His eyes are more blue than grey, but otherwise everyone thinks he's my spitting image. His hair is now fully black and has grown out a bit. He pulls on my fingers.

"Aren't you the big boy, Denny! Do you want to stand?" I ask.

He gurgles something and looks up to me, then smiles and finally, when I lift my hands a bit and he follows, he laughs, because he's standing on his little feet. A squeal tells me of his pride that he's managed that step. He still holds on to my fingers.

"You don't let go yet, little one, you're still much too small!" I warn him.

He drops back on his little nappy clad bum and turns around to crawl to his sister who has watched with her head tilted a bit.

"Hey, Seraina! What about you, my love? Are you going to do the same little trick or will you let Denny get away with it on his own?"

I'm getting a flash of a smile from her, then she just squeals, turns from her sitting position and crawls to me quickly. She's just so charming with that lovely smile of hers! If Denny is my spitting image then the charm certainly helped that Seraina is Remus' copy. She has a lot of little light brown ringlets that start to grow into curls all around her head and her eyes are a beautiful hazel, mostly brown, but with those moss green flecks inside that give them so much depth. Her mouth is finely curved, just like her Papa's, and the little nose starts to look a lot like Remus', too. She grabs onto my robes and pulls herself up, holding on to the fabric with her tiny hands. She smiles at me again. At that moment, Remus enters the flat. She turns her head in his direction and squeals in delight. She drops back onto the carpet and starts to crawl to Remus, who looks down and coos:

"Who have we got here then? A little creepy-crawly? A little Seraina girl? Come to Papa, love! - You're doing that very nicely, Seraina! Here you are!"

Remus has dropped his briefcase and lifts Seraina up to kiss her. Denny is already on his way to Remus as well and wails to be lifted up also. Remus quickly plants a kiss on Seraina's cheeks, then sets her down to greet Denny as well.

"Are we going back home with you two?" Remus asks.

"Their first Christmas, love! I'm looking forward to it so much!"

"Me too. Let's get ready and go."

"We are ready, we're just waiting for you, sweetheart. I've packed all the gifts in that bag. Everything made small, of course..."

"Good. Just let me pick up my own stuff..."

Once Remus has prepared a bag with his own things he wants to take along we both lift up one of the twins and put them into the slings. They are still very comfortable in the slings, at least for what short times they have to be inside of them. If we need to carry them for longer periods of time we have something like a carrier for the back, where they can sit inside and we wear it like a backpack. We pick up our brooms and start for the Entrance Hall and the main door. Many of the students pass and greet us and we wish them all Merry Christmas.

A short broom ride later we reach the gates and apparate back home. We're greeted by a living room that's already been decorated very festively. There's the big tree, covered with candles and lots of tinsel and baubles of all colours. The walls and railings have been covered with fir twigs bound around by red and gold ribbons. There are more fir twigs on the tables, adorned with red and gold candles.

"Wow, you've all done lovely work!"

Hermione comes around the corner from the kitchen and grins.

"And of course it's all charmed not to loose needles and not to wither before we throw it out! Nicole was tempted to ask us to do the same thing for her. We couldn't, of course, and she knows."



Saturday, 19.12.1998 / Hermione


It's quite true and we've had a load of fun doing it. Everyone helped and our wands have been busy. Ginny, Ernie and Blaise have been able to add a few extra spells they know fresh from their studies. It's great to have most of the family together. We all reserved Christmas Eve for the celebration with the gang and most of us will be visiting our families at home for Christmas day.

Dobby and Winky are happily working together in the kitchen to clear everything from lunch. I'm going over to look for a book in Remus' collection when I see a roll of parchment on the living room table. I pick it up and notice it's a first draft for the beginning of Remus' memoirs. His writing is very neat, even for some early draft. I sit down and read it. If he wanted it to remain a secret then he wouldn't have left it on the coffee table in the living room.

** I was born on the 5th September 1959. A very normal son of very normal parents. My mother worked as a healer and my father was an official working for the Ministry. There was nothing unusual about me, unless one counts my curiosity for anything that contained information, my ability to read at the very early age of three. Nothing unusual at all until one summer evening before my fifth birthday.

A clear evening, our home near a forest, warm summer weather and a lust to run over the nearby pastures and enjoy myself had kept me outside very late. I had heard my parents call me inside and I knew they would be scolding me for not listening, but everything was so peaceful and beautiful. Soon the sun would be setting and the moon would be rising and I wanted to see the stars twinkling in the sky. On the edge of the forest, not very far from our house I sat down to look up. Night was falling and I was hidden in the high grass. My parents had stopped calling me for a while, but were now on their way to find me. Just when I was ready to get up and show myself I heard a growl behind me. A huge beast pounced, attacked me, bit me and all I remember is that I screamed. Everything went so fast I couldn't even recognise what the beast had been.

I was told what had had happened a day later, when I finally woke up again. My father was sitting next to my bed and I felt pain throughout my body, but worst of all in my left shoulder. As tenderly as he could my father explained to me that I had been attacked by a wolf. Not a common wolf - a werewolf! I had only heard about those monsters once or twice before. And then I learned that this attack on me meant that I had been cursed to be a werewolf myself. I probably cried for days when I was told I would be transforming into such a wolf on the full moon night every month for the rest of my life.

I changed. Quickly. I had been a cheerful child, my parents told me later that I had been humming and smiling all day long. That was all gone from the moment I felt the wolf inside. I could not accept it. I didn't want to believe it, but I felt it inside of me. It made me angry, impatient, grumpy most of the time. I withdrew completely; no more playing with friends from the village further away down the road. They had heard what had happened to me and didn't want to play with a werewolf.

Other changes involved my senses. On the very day I had awoken in St. Mungo's I had been able to smell much more intensively, my hearing seemed to have been enhanced and at night I started to see much better.

Then the first full moon night after the attack came. My father had prepared a room in the cellar for me to be locked inside. He didn't know what to expect, but for days while the moon was waxing they held me on their laps, told me it would not be nice, but that I had to be strong and that they would always love me, no matter what I was.

I did not want to cry and make them sad. When they said that it was time I held my head up and went into that room. My father locked it after me and I heard them murmur soothing words. When the pain came I lost my mind and knew nothing anymore. In fact, I knew nothing anymore for two days, during which my mother healed all my broken bones and the gashes from my teeth and claws. I didn't understand what had happened, but I soon learned, that every month I would be in pain like this for almost a week.

Two months later we had moved. Another little house, neat and friendly, away from a village. My mother stopped working full time to stay with me. She taught me at home, trained me and conditioned me to become an overly controlled child. I learned to keep the wolf at bay and she told me I was only allowed to let it out on the night of the full moon. Both my parents did everything, researched, travelled and tried to find a cure, but there was nothing to be found. The first year after the attack they took me to countless healers or even charlatans, all with the faint hope that there would be something that could help me.

In the new house there was another cellar. My father did his very best to make it bearable, it was warm, he used cushioning charms on every wall, the floor and even the ceiling, but the wolf was strong. Every full moon night I would throw myself against the walls, the doors, I'd bite and scratch myself and when the night was over my clothes were torn and I was lying on the floor, usually in a pool of my own blood. My parents made me undress before the transformation started to spare my clothes, but that meant they took me out of the pool of blood naked.

The only bright memories I have of those years right after I was bitten were the times we spent in my mother's home country, Switzerland. It seems that werewolf prejudices there were reserved for a much smaller group of people and the fairly numerous family on my mother's side didn't hold their noses up, they took me the way I was. Except for short summer vacations we lived there so I could attend Muggle school. To cover up my monthly absences they told the school authorities that I suffered from a recurring disease which came with the full moon and that I would therefore miss some classes. It was quite amazing how easily that was bought. Every month I stayed home for the full moon night and returned to school after two days when Mum would have healed all my wounds and glamoured the bruises that would possibly still be visible. I started school a year early for Switzerland, with six, but I had not been sent to the nursery school there and the school's doctor checked me and declared I was fit enough to attend. My parents were happy that I was allowed to go to school and I was thrilled. I actually went there with two cousins who were around the same age. One of them was a squib, the other would go to Beauxbatons later like most of my mother's family had. Mum for some reason had received the Hogwarts letter.

I loved to go to school. Maybe that came with my mother teaching me for the year before I was starting. I had been so lonely without any friends. Now I at least went to school, but of course I didn't push for close friends, I only stayed close to my cousins who knew that I was a werewolf. I could sense more pity coming from them than distrust, that wasn't much better, but at least they tried to conceal it. So I wasn't as lonely as before, but going home from school meant going back to most of my isolation. I consoled myself with excessive reading. My father was working in the Department of Mysteries and did a lot of research. His library was very eclectic with books covering a multitude of subjects. Many of them of course treated things that were mysterious, even for the wizarding world. My mother as a healer had a large amount of books about healing, about the human body in general and both of them loved to read novels, too, so I really had quite the choice of books. They also gave me a lot of them for every occasion.

For years I only knew that I transformed into a raging monster through the tales of my parents. In the late summer before I was turning ten I finally got the first real feel of the wolf. I had been late to come back inside and my parents were frantic, but then I felt the pull of the moon and they had to lock themselves inside and pray that I would not find my way into the village. They had reconstructed my nightly adventure the next day, when they found me not too far away from home in the forest. Luckily I had stayed inside of the forest and luckily we were in England for that full moon, where we had much more space and the huge forest. The young wolf had been afraid of the village and even though it most probably had the scent of the humans in its nose it stayed in the woods where it ran for hours. Much to my parents' relief no one had taken notice of the werewolf in their neighbourhood. Every discovery would mean that we would have to move somewhere else. But this first full moon night spent outside had woken a more conscious realisation of the wolf in me. I had felt the power of the muscles and had probably run for hours and many miles. There were almost no wounds. It was clear to me that the beast needed its freedom, but I knew it couldn't have it.

Mum and Dad were amazed to find me in the late morning, naked, quite deep inside of the forest, but clear of wounds save a few scratches from the brambles. They both realised the same thing I had very quickly and it was with even more sadness that they took care I was inside the next full moon.

Many people would tell my parents to have me 'put down' in the course of the years. My parents would have none of it though. Patiently my mother continued to home school me in addition to the Muggle school and before I was ten I was reading most of the time. I had learned to meditate and had been trained in yoga, so that I could calm myself when I felt the wolf lift its head up too high inside of me. I loathed this beast and I hated the knowledge of what it could do. I knew what the people talked about werewolves early on, some of them had treated me like I had been a killer even as a small child. It seemed that apart from my parents who loved me no one would want to see my efforts to keep the wolf locked up and to be as human as I could be with this affliction. In the best case I was mocked, in the worst people chased me away throwing stones after me.

All this time I knew that the curse was to be blamed. I was cursed so I deserved their distrust. It made me incredibly sad. I never understood why it had to be me, what I had done to deserve this. To be treated so badly by the humans and to have to go through that unbearable amount of pain every time the full moon rose over the horizon.

My parents both loved me, but they carefully started to prepare me for a very lonesome life. They taught me but they let me know that I would not, like all other magical children, be allowed a magical education and possibly I would not even be allowed my own wand legally when I grew up. I believed them easily. We had been shunned and chased away once too often to not see it. I distrusted anyone but my parents. When we were in England I was afraid of the other children, was deathly scared of other adults. Even in Switzerland I didn't get close with my schoolmates. My only consolation were my books and the forest. When I roamed the forests during the day I felt at home and safe from everything.

And then came a day in the early summer before my twelfth birthday. We were in our house in England. When I got home for tea I found a visitor in the parlour talking with my mother. Instantly I was shy and withdrew, but Mum called me inside and put her hands firmly on my shoulders.

"This is Remus, Professor Dumbledore."

The Professor Dumbledore looked down on me and I saw smiling eyes that looked me over with interest over half-moon glasses. He was a very old man with long grey hair and a long beard. He seemed to be tall, even seated. His outfit was colourful and he looked like a very powerful wizard.

"So you are Remus. I'm pleased to meet you, young Mr. Lupin!"

I held out my hand and said:

"I'm pleased to meet you, Professor."

"And what a polite young gentlemen you are. - You are certainly wondering who this old codger is, aren't you?"

"I don't know..."

I felt very insecure, but Mum was smiling and she still held on to my shoulders, so I wasn't afraid. He then proceeded to tell me that he was the headmaster of Hogwarts. Of course I knew about Hogwarts, even if I had been warned that I would never see it. So what did the old man want here?

"Would you like to start your education at Hogwarts this fall?" he asked.

I was shocked to the bones. I looked at Mum, unable to say anything, with my mouth open and when she nodded I finally nodded eagerly myself.

"But... but I'm a werewolf..." I finally stammered.

"Yes, Remus, I know about your affliction, but we have already been thinking about something that will keep your schoolmates safe when you have to transform. Apart from that our school nurse, Madam Pomfrey, will be taking care of you. All the teachers will know about you, but no student will be informed. I heard you have an excellent mind, young Remus, and I'd think it would be a waste for such talent if it wasn't educated. Do you not agree?"

Again there was that twinkle in his eyes. I looked from him to Mum and finally she said:

"If you want to go to Hogwarts, Remus, then you shall go!"

Of course I wanted to go. In the next weeks my parents started to tell me all about Hogwarts they had kept for themselves because they had believed I would never be admitted. For the first time in my life I was taken to the Diagon Alley to buy my school equipment and my wand. I got fitted with the school robes before my parents took me to Ollivander's to find my wand. This was probably the most impressive event in my life after the bite. Stepping into the dark little shop and being greeted by a very creepy old Mr. Ollivander made me feel very little. A shop that looked so tiny but didn't seem to have an end on top. Or maybe it was because I was still so small. In any case from the way Mr. Ollivander looked me over I felt that he knew what I was and might not agree that a Dark Creature should be entrusted with a wand of its own. But if he did he let nothing on. I was welcomed warmly, measured and fussed over. Then I got wand after wand to try and none responded. I was deathly afraid that there would be no wand for me. But all the wands I had been given had contained either phoenix feathers or dragon heartstrings. After about an hour or two Mr. Ollivander turned from them and gave me several wands with unicorn hairs. It took a dozen of them until the right one was finally found. A beech wand with a unicorn hair brought forth a shower of sparks. I was probably not the only one who was relieved, but I'll never forget what Mr. Ollivander had to say as a comment:

"Curious, curious! Innocence is not reserved for humans alone. You must be meant for good deeds, my boy, because the hair in your wand comes from a unicorn that was a day old foal. The wand chooses the wizard and if this wand has chosen you, I can only expect you to bring innocence and friendship to those who will cross your path. This is a wand that gains its power from the pureness of the forest and its most innocent inhabitant. They can both be ruthless if they see no other way, so anyone who shall become your enemy must beware themselves." **

It looks like a draft, but wow, good beginning. I'm putting the roll down and advance to the study, where I find the book I'm looking for soon after. When I'm leaving the study, Remus comes in. He has Denny on his arm and picks up the scroll. I nod at it and say:

"I've allowed myself to read it, Remus."

"Oh. And?"

"You'll always be an innocent, you know! It's nice."

He smiles.

"Not so sure about that anymore, but it was certainly true when I was such a young child. I need to flesh the whole thing out still. It's just a quick overview about my childhood, but I think I have some bits to fill in about how I felt when I first transformed, especially after the transformations."

"I thought it was pretty good for a draft. You could certainly make it more detailed."

"Oh, I will. Basically I'm going through most from memory, then I'll go through all those bits I can't consciously get back and will extract them to the Pensieve. I'm afraid of writing about some of those though. Also I've left out most of my Swiss relations yet. There will be some more about that, and at least that part is a bit less dreary."

Thinking of the horrors he's seen and gone through that's not difficult to guess. Remembering that he only had his parents to rely on when they were in England I'm glad he reminds me of his other heritage and that he's been happier here.

"I'll gladly read more! And I know that I'll certainly read the book once it's done and out!"

"If ever! It seems a long task. But it's going to be great, because we'll have so much more time next year. Right now we have 37 lessons each week. No wonder we're both very tired. Next year it will be reduced to 18. One double and one single lesson per class and still two houses together. We switch to Gryffindor/Ravenclaw and Slytherin/Hufflepuff next year."

"That's your workload reduced by a half! Sounds reasonable though," I say.

"Oh, it's going to be almost like working with you guys here! Much better! Sirius will be glad, he's almost breaking down right now. He'll be very glad when June comes around!"

Remus lets Denny down on the carpet, and the little one pulls himself up on Remus' robes immediately. That's new to me!

"He can get up! Wow!"

Remus grins.

"They're getting up, yes. We have to take everything out of their reach now, so when they're around, put anything dangerous out of their reach, that's anything with a point, that cuts, wands especially etc. Take his hands and see what else he does!"

I do so, offer my godson my fingers and he grabs them and shows me how he can make his first guided steps. He beams, too, the little man! It's such a great progress since I've seen him last week. I lift him on my arms and kiss his cheeks.

"Well done, junior! You're growing so fast!"



Remus


That they do. They're eight months old now and both start to crawl, if we hold them by their hands they can walk a few steps. But there are new things to observe every day. The teething still takes place, but the worst seems over and they cry a bit less because of their teeth.

I watch Hermione flirt with her baby godson and think of Sirius back with Harry. He used to cuddle with Harry so often and he loved it. So did I of course. We were both very sentimental over it actually. Blame our homosexuality for that maudlin part in us. But I do notice that we're both a lot more pragmatic with Denny and Seraina. I wonder if the difference lies in the fact that they're our own children? Oh we love cuddling with them just like we did with Harry, only we have to do all the 'work' and there's that parental bit, so all in all we have to stay on the ground. I'm amazed that this is not too difficult and came completely naturally. The responsibilities that come with the parentage are no heavy burdens. We know that some of our interaction with our growing children will be hard, we'll have to say 'no' fairly often and it already starts! The difficulties will probably begin when they start to react to our 'no' and not obey. We're already starting to develop 'strategies' for those situations. How far can we go to keep our promise to never punish them physically? So far we've come up with sleep charms for extreme cases and just basically sending them to their rooms for lesser offences.

I know that Sirius is a bit scared about that part. He's been subjected to so much domestic violence and ridicule, so much verbal abuse and he was exposed to such a cold family. He loves the children, but he fears his reactions when they start to irritate him. He's working hard on that though. It's so difficult to be a good parent when you didn't have a good example in your own childhood. Sirius had the worst possible example! Having been put under an Unforgivable for the first time by the age of eight years does not make for a good basis. So he'll probably struggle a bit, but he does it consciously, he knows where the problems are and he asks for advice and help.

Just one more reason why I love him so much.



Friday, 25.12.1998 / Sirius


Suddenly the house is huge! Everyone left to spend Christmas with their families. Ginny, Ron, Ernie and Justin have left for the Burrow. They will have a huge party there. Arthur and Molly have invited us, too, but we've excused ourselves. This is the first Christmas with our children and we want to spend it with them alone. We've had the gifts yesterday, but we'll light the candles on the tree again tonight.

Parvati, Padma, Blaise and Draco have gone to the Patils. Mandy spends Christmas with Jason, Morag is at her parents' house, Hermione and Harry have apparated to Helen and George. We spend the day in the front room and the small living room. Only James and Lily are still with us. It's wonderfully cosy and there's lots of cuddling going on between Remus and I - and our children. Seraina and Dennis are really cute now, alert babies, always turning around and looking for those who are around them. They smile and laugh a lot. They crawl around for a bit, but they still tire pretty quickly. And with regularity they bump into something, which changes their smiles to wails fairly fast. But this is part of growing and we can only console them by picking them up and giving them a comforting hug. As soon as they stop wailing they usually want to return and continue exploring. Tears forgotten in seconds flat! It's fun to see how they are trying to pull themselves up in a standing position on anything they can latch on to. They can drop back on their little arses for a dozen times, but they're so determined to continue! We encourage that determination to build up their confidence.

Moony and I have both brought our Pensieves. We've set them down on one of the higher shelves in the study. And the door to the study remains mostly closed these days, because there are a lot of books on the lowest shelves. We would like to have some peace and not hear our children crawling in there and pulling out book after book. We've started to remove everything we have in reachable distance and put things higher up. They have their toys to pick up and grab and that will have to do for the moment. But of course we have already gathered quite the little collection of baby and children's books and we have already started to show them the picture books.



Saturday, 26.12.1998 / Sirius


I have the Pensieve out and I'm trying the spell again to pick memories randomly and from my subconscious. I know that's where I've hidden most of the bad things. I watch as the Pensieve is filled with strand after strand of my dark times. I'm thinking back on my life. I'm 39 now, and out of these 39 years I've had roughly thirteen that could really be called a 'life'. The rest was starting out with abuse, then followed war, then prison, then being on the run.

"Does it only appear to me or is what's in there darker than dark?" Lily asks all of a sudden.

She's come into the study through the closed door. I need to keep this far away from my children. I look up to her and say:

"Dare to look at it?"

"I think you shouldn't go in there alone, Sirius! Do you know what you caught?"

I shake my head.

"It's out of my subconscious. It can be anything from my childhood or from Azkaban, on the run, Hogwarts... I have no idea."

"I don't know if I can come with you, but I'll try."

"Thanks, Lily! But I think I need Remus as well, he needs to pull me out, just in case."

"I'll call him!"

Once Remus is there, too, James comes in as well. The twins are napping and he's asked Winky to be on the lookout for them when they wake up. The four of us look at the dark grey mass swirling in the Pensieve. Finally we all touch it and find ourselves in my memories. Remus holds my hand tightly and James and Lily frame us both.

>> Azkaban. A random day, but I recognise it as one of those in the early years when I felt the Dementors the worst. The cell is about three times two metres. There's a cot, but it's only covered with straw and a thin blanket. A window with a grid of bars that hardly leaves enough space to push a hand through. View outside to the barren island. Everlasting clouds and fogs around it. The window is small and lets in very little light. It's icy cold. Seeing the memory I'm freezing again. It's the cold that never left my body. I can see myself in the corner that was the least cold, next to the door. My clothes are still the ones I wore when they took me here. They have started to disintegrate though and I can see that the robes are threadbare. My cloak had been taken away. > The memory could have been a Muggle photo, one of those black and white ones with a few colours added by hand, nothing moved. Sirius is sitting in the shadow, occasionally throwing a glance out of the tiny window. But from the floor he can't see anything but the clouds. There's a sigh, then he swallows and finally he lifts a wrist to his mouth and starts chewing. I'm a ghost, but it makes my skin crawl when I realise he's trying to commit suicide. He actually gets the blood to flow, but he's so cold it doesn't seem to really spill. Another bite, then the other hand, and ten minutes later the door opens and two Dementors glide inside and heal the wrists. Sirius slumps on the floor, shaking and crying. I feel my own tears welling and try to imagine what it must have been like in there, day after day, for almost twelve years! The Sirius in the cell finally crawls to the cot and breaks down, still silently weeping. He looks appalling: the clothes hang around his emaciated body in rags. His hair hangs in long greasy strands, a tangled mass of filth. There's nothing he can do. All he does is sitting and crawling around. Then he starts to tremble and shake and we guess it's the time when the Dementors are coming. Finally he morphs from Sirius into Padfoot, who stops weeping, but whines in a very low voice. Gods, it's too painful to watch.

When I think I can't stand it any longer the memory shifts. All of a sudden we're back at Hogwarts, but it's still dark, in fact it's night and Peter and Sirius follow James out of the common room. It seems to be winter, because all three wear thick winter clothes and cloaks. They are leaving the castle and go down to the Whomping Willow. The moon above tells me it must be one of the full moon nights they spent with Remus in their Animagus forms. Peter stills the tree and all three climb inside of the passage. They follow the long passage already in their animal forms. Padfoot is able to push open the door to let Prongs and Wormtail inside. Remus has not fully transformed yet. I've never seen it before and it hurts just to watch! I glance over to Remus and see him closing his eyes. It's hard for himself to watch, too. But once the wolf is up on his legs he joins the 'pack', sniffs them all and establishes the fact that they're indeed his pack. After a while they leave the shack through the passage, again Peter stills the Willow to let his friends out. Prongs and Padfoot nudge Moony in the direction of the Forbidden Forest. They race there and then they race inside the forest, wrestling, howling and playing madly under the moon.

Another shift to another memory. Azkaban again. Sirius is looking a bit better in this one, though already quite shaken by the year he must have been inside the prison. Chains are to be heard, a creaking door and then the mad screams of a woman, guided inside by three dementors. Sirius looks up and goes to the heavy wooden door with the small barred window to see what is happening. He recognises the woman who seems to be a new prisoner. A dry laugh escapes his lips. Bellatrix! His cousin Bellatrix Lestrange and three more new prisoners. I recognise her husband Rodolphus and his older brother Rabastan. The fourth I have more difficulties to recognise. He looks so young! Then I remember the proud young Ravenclaw and his name comes back to me: Bartemius Crouch. Barty Crouch's son! A Death Eater? >Bellatrix recognises Sirius standing there, as calmly as he can in the presence of the Dementors and shrieks:

"HA! There you are, cousin! Not so haughty anymore, eh?"

Sirius doesn't reply. He just stares after his cousin and watches as she's dragged into a cell about four doors down the corridor on the other side. The three other prisoners are all spread over more cells, outside of Sirius' view. He sighs and returns to the cot, where he sits down and transforms, obviously glad that there are no cells opposite each other that would allow anyone to look inside of his cell. The memory fades.>Three children are playing in the Drawing Room at No 12, Grimmauld Place. It's Sirius and his cousins Bellatrix and Narcissa, who's two years older than the others and seems to have taken the lead in their games. Sirius grins and hops on his baby broom to get out of the room, Bellatrix following behind him. Narcissa gives a shriek and shouts at them:

"You're not supposed to fly in here! Just you wait until Auntie comes in and sees you!"

Which happens just five minutes later, but Bellatrix manages to be on the ground and make a straight face, knowing full well that her sister wouldn't give her away. Sirius tries to hop off the broom in time, but misses the timing and soon has to endure his mother's wrath. He's sent to his room without his broom. We watch him slink up the staircase to his floor and then into his room, which is quite big but dark. He grumbles and starts to play with something else. The memory fades again.

All of a sudden we're at Hogwarts. I can see the four of us walking down the last set of stairs to the Entrance Hall. We're all in fifth year, just after we've managed the initial transformation. It's after the Christmas vacation, after Remus and Sirius had fixed their friendship. I know that by that time Sirius was already deeply in love with Remus. They had talked things through, too, but had kept them a secret, for the obvious reason that Sirius' parents would have been outraged. I remember that incident now. In just a moment, Regulus would turn up. Two years younger than Sirius and in Slytherin, he was almost as bad as Snivellus in following us around. There he is. Looking us over with disgust. Immediately he starts to taunt Sirius:

"Hope you've had a good shag with your boyfriend, Sirius! How about I tell Mum and Dad about your little fuck buddy? They should be so pleased that you intend to give them no heir!"

Remus and I hold Sirius back. There's nothing like that going on between them, even though they would probably both love to do it, but they seem to think that they're still too young or something. Sirius almost jumps out of his clothes to get a go at his brother. Remus just tells him:

"Forget the little pest, Sirius, he's not worth it! He's just jealous, because you're the older one!"

That calms Sirius a bit and we can let him go. But he has his wand out and mutters a little curse, which sends his brother slipping and falling hard onto the marble floor, banging his head on the railing in the process. Sirius just walks by, stops and looks down. Says nothing and all four of us go into the Great Hall for dinner. >Sirius comes back into his home together with his mother and Regulus. Regulus looks pretty smug about something and Sirius throws a suspicious glance at him. No sooner than the door has closed behind them, Regulus turns to his mother and says:

"Mum, there's something you ought to know about Sirius."

Sirius looks daggers at Regulus. Mrs Black turns to Regulus and asks:

"What is it, dear?"

While Regulus starts to tell her, Sirius moves back to the door, his trunk still in his hand.

"He's got a... BOYfriend, Mum! He's a bloody poof!"

"What? - SIRIUS!!!" she shrieks, turns to him and starts off:

"Is that true? Is it not enough that you surround yourself with lowlife scum and Muggle-loving riff-raff? Must you go and shame us with being a poof?"

Sirius lets the handle of the door go. He stands up straight and tells her:

"I'm gay, mother, so? Yes, I do have a boyfriend. I love him more than my life. If you don't like it - I don't care, you know!"

She looks like she doesn't know what to say, but then she hits Sirius with a curse. I don't know what it is, but it must have hurt him, because his arms go around his stomach and he goes down on his knees. Not one sound comes out of his mouth. He must have expected something and there's nothing he can do as he's not allowed to use his wand. Regulus stands there, with a smug grin on his face and calmly picks up his trunk to go up to his room. Mrs Black continues to curse Sirius, until he's out cold on the floor. Then she levitates him up to his room and drops him on his bed. One of her house-elves brings up his trunk. The memory shifts again.

Hogwarts. I think it must have been seventh year. In any case it's the morning after a full moon night. One which Sirius couldn't spend with Moony and since Peter and I were unable to keep the wolf in check alone we hadn't been with him either. Moony had been very lonely and punished himself with some really ugly wounds. Poppy Pomfrey had brought him back to the hospital wing. Sirius slinks down the hall and inside of the ward, joins Remus at his bed and sits on the edge, quietly picking up his lover's hand to hold it. Poppy never throws him out anymore, she knows how much Sirius cares about Remus. She just comes in to check on the boy and, seeing Sirius there, she says:

"I don't understand it, Sirius, he's been so well for almost two years now, and last night he's done this to himself. He'll be out of it until tomorrow I'm afraid."

They both look down on Remus and sigh. Sirius caresses his cheek and bends down to kiss him on the forehead.

"Get well quickly, love, I have to go to classes now. I love you, sweetheart."

Then he slowly gets up and with a last glance at Remus, leaves the room. The memory continues with him coming into the Great Hall, where he gets around the corner to walk to the Gryffindor table. A voice we all hate asks him:

"So, is your little weakling boyfriend sick again? What happened, Black, did you beat him up? I bet he's in the hospital wing. Or did he have to leave for another funeral in his family? He must have run out of relatives to die by now?"

Sirius just turns around and looks the other way. I see myself sitting at our table and calling him over, relieved that he doesn't react to Snape's taunt. But right then I see Dumbledore turning to the Slytherin, taking ten points from Slytherin for this. Sirius looks satisfied and tells us that Remus isn't well. The memory fades, but returns to the next morning, Sirius again sits at Remus' bed. Remus moves and finally wakes from his sleep. His wounds have healed by now, but he's still very tired. I remember that this was a Friday and that Poppy didn't let Remus out until the afternoon. He was freed from the hospital wing but told to go directly to the dorm and stay there for the rest of the day. But this is the morning and when Remus finally wakes up, Sirius bends down to kiss him on the lips. He wraps his arms around his boyfriend and whispers loving words into his neck. I can see Remus returning the embrace and he starts to smile.

"You've been out of it for twenty-four hours, love," Sirius tells him, looking up and into Remus' eyes. >Sirius walks up the stairs to the dormitory with James and Peter at his heels. He barges them up rather and rushes inside of the dorm to see how Remus does. Remus is awake and tells James and Peter:

"Can you two please leave us room until after dinner? And would you kindly bring us something to eat when you return? Mustn't be too early either!"

Sirius sits there, stares at his boyfriend and grins sheepishly. James and Peter make a hasty retreat after picking the books they'd need to do their homework. He opens the door and looks back, saying:

"Three times History of Magic homework for that favour, Lupin! At least!"

Then he and Peter vanish, leaving a grinning Sirius and a smiling Remus behind in the dorm. Sirius starts to shed his clothes immediately, telling Remus about the lessons that day on the way. Wow! What a body! He looks absolutely great. By that time he's already 18, almost fully grown, almost two metres tall and his long hair hanging just below his shoulder blades. Remus sits up and pushes the blankets down, showing now that he's already been naked and waiting for Sirius. > Sirius needs no extra invitation. He hops on the bed, cock already sticking out and starts caressing Remus' pale, but beautiful body. For the first time I can see Remus' numerous scars, scattered all over his front. When he turns and pins Sirius to the bed I can see that his back is practically free from them, as the wolf can't reach himself there. In the glowing afternoon sun both their bodies are covered with a golden sheen. They continue to kiss and caress each other, then Remus starts to suck Sirius' nipples and strokes his cock. Sirius moans and holds Remus close. After a while he pushes Remus gently down. Remus looks up, smiles and calmly bends over the erect organ to pull it into his mouth. What follows must be a perfect blow-job, because Sirius looks like complete and utter bliss. His head tilts back on the pillow and he moans loudly. He has his left hand on Remus' back, caressing him and pressing his finger into the spine occasionally. I can see Remus twitch and shoot glances up at his lover.

Besides sucking Sirius off Remus starts inserting a finger into Sirius' opening, then a second and finally even a third. He pushes them inside and that seems to unhinge Sirius, because he starts to scream! Cries out Remus' name and in the next moment I can see him convulse and explode, he must have come right into Remus' mouth. Remus quickly swallows the seed. He lets go of Sirius' cock for the moment, but moves around and places himself between Sirius' widely stretched legs. Sirius pulls them up and places them over Remus' shoulders. I watch as Remus whispers a quick spell, then smears some lubricant on his cock and massages some into Siri's opening. And with one fairly swift movement he pushes inside, pulling Sirius' arse a bit up, then starts to thrust inside. It doesn't take very long, I can see him reaching his climax and releasing himself into Sirius who pulls him down for a kiss. > But I have to brace myself, this is a long trip and we are seemingly not spared anything, as we watch them for the next hour going through various positions and recovering periods. By the time James dares coming back into the dorm they must have been through it for about four times. They've pulled the blankets up and closed the bed curtains now. We're of course inside the bed, as we're in Sirius' memory. Remus smiles at his lover and it's that wonderful smile he's always had only for his Sirius. > I see my father holding up a baby, which must be me, to the family and presenting it:

"This is Sirius Orion Black, my dear relatives and friends. I proudly present to you the heir of the noble and most ancient house of Blacks!"

There is a murmur all around the gathering. I recognise my uncle Rigel and his pregnant wife Rose, their youngest daughter, my cousin Narcissa, two years old, another cousin from a sister of my father's with her parents, Lucius Malfoy's parents, and a lot of distant relatives. It seems to be on the day of my birth. Obviously they've all come to find out if the child born to my parents is a son or only a daughter. To their visible relief the baby on my father's arms is a boy. > The next memory is of a brightly lit nursery, but apart from the baby, me again, no one is in the room. I watch myself starting to wail and in half a minute a house-elf is there to see what's amiss, then the baby is fed, nappy changed and put back into the cot. It's a cot already, not a cradle anymore, so I must have been a couple of months old. The memory is almost like a photo, nothing moves much. Then the door opens, my mother and my father come inside to look into the cot. There's no smile, no cooing, no touching at all. They just make sure that the baby is taken care of, then they turn and vanish out of the room. After that there is another memory of this kind. We stay on to memorise the surrounding, the atmosphere. Then the next memory comes up, the room changes and I recognise that I've now been moved out of the nursery and into my room. It's a floor up from my parent's master bedroom. There is nothing bright in here. I'm lying in the big four poster bed and a spell hinders me from falling or climbing out. There is now a nanny, a young witch who is taking care of me in place of the house-elves. When the memory starts she's coming inside of the room, closes the door and comes to the bed, taking off the spell that holds me inside.

"Let's see if you're still clean, brat!" she says and picks the baby out of the bed.

I soon notice that she doesn't care at all for the baby. If the name calling is any indication she's a cold bitch just barely doing what she's paid for. She drops the baby on the changing cushion and undresses it with a spell, then takes away the nappy, again with a spell and cleans the boy. For all of the undressing, cleaning and dressing again she hasn't touched the child once. She picks it up and puts it in a high chair, then she calls a house-elf who feeds the baby. After that she picks the baby up again and takes it out of the room, down the gloomy halls and stairs to the drawing room, where my parents sit and look the baby over. My father then takes the baby from the witch and goes to the wall where the tapestry with the family tree hangs.

"Look at this, Sirius, and remember it well! These are all your ancestors and your relatives, dead and alive. They are of the purest blood in the wizarding world and you are their heir! Remember that always, you are the heir of the house of Black! You will never mingle with anyone below your station."

The baby stares at the wall, but I think I can't have seen or recognised much as it has to have taken place before my first birthday. My father repeats his words once again, then I'm placed again in the hands of the young witch who carries me back to my room. > The next two or three memories contain practically the same. Only by the different clothes and the growth can I see that time has actually passed. My room now contains wizarding baby toys and a playpen on the carpet. I'm mostly just sitting in there and by the third memory I'm pushing myself up on the bars of the playpen. I'm babbling something and the young witch comes inside and gives me a toy I have dropped outside of the playpen. She doesn't smile, doesn't speak, just mechanically hands me back toys. > The last memory is of my first birthday. I'm handed a handful of gifts, with which I know not really what to do, so they're opened for me. I wear beautiful tiny robes and my black hair is already shiny, people pat my head, don't smile, but say what a handsome child I am and then the young witch takes me back to my room. > Sirius is trained to follow every order. He's a bright child, and if I see this smiling, cooing baby there in the playpen my heart goes out to him. Never is he encouraged to do anything, when he smiles he meets scowls. It seems that the family tries everything to make him as dull, dank and dark like they are. All except for one uncle. It's Uncle Alphard of course, when he comes to the house, he comes up the stairs and heads for his little nephew's room. He picks the boy up and holds him on his arm.

"Let those bastards try and make another stupid Black of you, Sirius, I'm here to protect you and tell you about the bright sides of life! You will mark a change in the history of the Blacks if I can help it in any way! If you grow up to be what I think you can become then you shall one day be free from them! If they never tell you anything like that, know that I love you and as long as you are a really good kid I'll keep loving you."

The child is hard to recognise after that. There's a bright spark in those blue-grey eyes and he holds his arms out for his uncle. There are about three more memories like that, and every time Uncle Alphard goes to see his nephew and keeps him company, plays with the toddler for a while and encourages Sirius to babble and tell him stories in his baby talk. So that's how he learned to speak, I think. Sirius himself smiles now and looks over to me.

"Now I know how I could come out the way I did in the middle of those bastards. They didn't count, only Uncle Alphard did. Once I went to Hogwarts they forbade him to see me, but of course we corresponded when I was at Hogwarts as you know."

The next memory is again of the young witch, who still only uses spells to undress and change Sirius. He is even levitated into the bathtub where she washes him quickly and roughly. He gets fed and is put to bed, still with the spell that keeps him inside. In a further memory I see the little boy waking up at night and when he starts to cry for someone no one turns up. He finally screws his eyes shut and tries to stifle the wailing himself. It's hard to look at this when I know that our own children are just next to us, with James and Lily and Dobby and Winky taking loving care of them while we're going through those awful memories. I just want to hug Sirius and hold him, assure him of the love he gets from all of us.

When we see his parents in one of the next memories we can see his mother is pregnant with Regulus. She's even quite far gone already. I know that Regulus is two years and a month younger than Sirius, so it must already be close to his second birthday. > We are in the drawing room of the house again and there's a photographer to take a family picture, Mr. Black standing behind his wife who holds their second son Regulus, while Sirius leans on his mother's knee. His smile for the camera is real, while his parents' smiles look terribly frozen. What a beautiful child Sirius was. Two years old, silky black hair, a lovely face with those stormy eyes and his cute nose. His mouth is pulled in a friendly grin and he waves in the camera, but his mother puts his hand down. The grin vanishes.

There is a bit more interaction with his parents now. Sirius is brought to dinner with them and he hears them preaching about the family all the time.

"Always remember to set a good example for your brother, Sirius! He needs you to show him what a true Black is to be like!" his father keeps saying.

Finally we see a memory where he's being taken outside of the house and for a walk in the park. The young witch has a tight reign on him though and when he tries to play with children around the park he's pulled away immediately. He is not allowed to mingle with them.

"You are not playing with them, Sirius, they are scum, Muggles, useless dirt!" she hisses.

And after that he's taken home immediately. I can see tears in his eyes. And in the next memory with his parents we hear his mother say:

"We have thought that you need playmates of your age, Sirius. We have asked your aunt and uncle to bring Bellatrix over so the two of you can play together. There will be other children from good wizarding families you can play with."

And soon after that there is almost an invasion of children in Sirius' room. I can see Bellatrix and Severus and Sirius tells me who the others are:

"That's little Rodolphus Lestrange. Bastard, even then! Then there's Nestroy Avery. Anna Beth Wilson. Anna Beth never saw Hogwarts. In fact she didn't live past eleven, because she turned out to be a squib, so she had an 'accident'."

I shudder. Anna Beth looks like a very nice little girl, blond ringlets and dark blue eyes, a smile on her face like an angel. I don't even want to think of such a destiny. I watch the children playing, but I notice that Sirius soon holds back. He doesn't really mingle with them, not even with Bellatrix, whom he knows best of them all. Severus accidentally breaks one of Sirius' toys and they start to fight, but the young witch, Sirius doesn't remember her name, separates them immediately.

We see several such memories. Never is the playing time peaceful and many times the boys pick on Anna Beth who just crumbles and hides as much as she can. She doesn't seem to be the only one, but Sirius and Anna Beth don't find together either. It all looks very awkward. Then there's a memory with Sirius and Regulus. Sirius just looks at the baby. When he tries to touch it he's being taken away. > The young witch is still there and takes Sirius and Regulus to the park, keeps an eye over them so they do not even try to play with muggle children. It's summer and Sirius runs around on the grass, happy to be in the sun. His uncle Alphard turns up and Sirius runs to him, even more happy to see the only friend in his family. He's being scooped up and swung around.

"Hello, my little friend! Are you enjoying yourself?"

"Yes, Uncle Alphard! It's so dark inside and I'm not allowed out on my own at all!" Sirius says with his bright, but saddened voice.

"I know, poor kid that you are. Shall I tell you a story?"

"Oh yes, please, Uncle Alphard!"

Sirius, back on the ground, seizes his uncle's hand and pulls him to a free park bench. Alphard sits down and takes a book out of his pocket. He looks over and asks Regulus if he wants to come and listen, too, but Regulus shakes his head and sticks to the young witch. I look how he looks down on his feet, not wanting anything to do with the uncle that his parents declared to be a bad Black. The young witch does not dare to come too close. She knows that Alphard is regarded as a bad influence on the Black heirs, and he is strongly discouraged to come to his parental home, but he often sees Sirius in the park and Sirius is obviously very attached to the man. She doesn't dare to go too close and pry Sirius from his uncle, because the first - and last - time she has tried this she's been hit with a confounding curse that he only lifted hours later when he felt Sirius had been refilled with positive energy.

They both sit down next to each other and Alphard begins to read to Sirius, who cannot yet read and write at all. Something which his uncle notices with much disappointment, but Sirius tells him:

"I'm not allowed to, Uncle Alphard! They tell me I go to school soon and that I would learn it early enough."

"They are not doing you a favour, Sirius, but there you go. So, I'll just read the story to you, okay?"

"Yes, please, Uncle Alphard. No one ever reads stories to me, only you. Is it a Muggle story?"

"Actually this one is!"

Alphard starts reading Tom Sawyer to Sirius who listens without ever interrupting for about three or four chapters. Sirius' face shows his bliss at being allowed to hear something that lets him slip into another world, a world of fantasy, of adventure and thrill. That must have been one of the moments when his inquisitive mind was really woken, when he discovered that there were things to learn out there. After a while, Alphard puts the book back in his pocket and says:

"That's enough for today, Sirius! I'll read some more for you another time. You'll be going to school in September, so you'll learn to read yourself, finally, and I'll make sure that your birthday presents will always contain books. Some of them you might want to hide though, because they will be books like this one. I'll certainly cover them with something wizarding, but you'll know when you should not let them lie around."

Sirius' eyes gleam with mirth. He loves this uncle who is the only one in his family who can laugh and smiles at him. He embraces the boy and says:

"You are a bright child, Sirius! You will enjoy school, believe me, even if it is a wizarding primary school. You'll meet other wizarding children there which will do you an awful lot of good. I don't think much of the lot that your parents deem good enough for you to play with."

"They're always fighting, Uncle Alphard! I really don't like them. Severus has kicked me a whole lot of times he was there the last time and then he's had the nerve to run to Mum and tell her that I kicked him! And she punished me for it!"

Alphard rolls his eyes.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Sirius. There's not much I can do because they wouldn't let me see you at all if I interfered. As it is they think I'm corrupting you, and they're perfectly right, that's exactly what I'm doing. But I don't want to see your wonderful soul being turned into what they are! Hold on to it, Sirius, and whenever they do something like this, think of me and that I love you. Okay?"

"Okay. Do you have to go already?"

"Yes, dear, it's time for me to go, and you need to go back for tea."

Sirius sighs, then hugs his uncle by standing up on the bench. He hops down, waves again and races to where the young witch and Regulus are impatiently waiting for him. Within a few seconds his mood and his facial expression change. He shows them an indifferent face, falls into step next to them and follows them back to his dreary home.

Again the memory shifts. Sirius is taken to Diagon Alley for the first time in his life. His mother pulls him into some shops, buys his first school robes at Madam Malkin's, they are blue in colour. Then he receives a series of school books, parchment and quill, his equipment for the primary school he is to go to soon. Mrs Black doesn't take her time, she pulls Sirius along, with a tight grip on his wrist, not his hand and she doesn't look left or right unless she meets someone who is deemed worthy of her attention. In every shop they step she gets first class treatment, but Sirius clearly sees the dislike in the eyes of many shop assistants. Mrs Malkin is very friendly and competent, but her eyes only show warmth when Sirius flashes her a true smile. Then she pulls the robes over him with great care and warm words:

"Here you are, dear, let me just quickly fit that. Are you looking forward to go to school?"

"Oh yes! I can't wait to go!" Sirius says eagerly.

"Don't talk with subordinates, Sirius!" his mother commands with a hiss.

Immediately the spark in Sirius' eyes vanishes. But Madam Malkin has seen it and has already noted that this young Black might be a bit different from most of the rest. He shrugs his shoulders a little. Madam Malkin gives him a quick smile, one that his mother doesn't see and winks understandingly.

Again the memory shifts. Sirius' mother takes him by the wrist and puts him in front of the floo fireplace. She hands him the floo powder and says, checking that he has everything with him, wears the proper clothing and has his hair nicely combed:

"Say 'Hogsmeade Primary', Sirius. You go first, I'll come after you."

Sirius throws the powder into the fire and steps inside, saying the proper name and vanishes. He comes out in the hall of the school, big and friendly, and his mother apparates next to him only moments later. She cleans Sirius from the soot he's picked up and they move to the school's entrance hall. Many other children are there already and Mrs Black joins her sister-in-law with her daughter Bellatrix. Narcissa is there, too, but she soon says her goodbyes to join her classmates. The two Black mothers take their children to the first year classrooms they have been assigned to. Much to the dismay of the mothers Sirius and Bellatrix have been put in different classes. Sirius doesn't mind at all, as his cousin is a rather mean girl, who pinches and bites whenever she gets a chance to do so. And since she's a girl and two months younger than Sirius he isn't allowed to fight with her or he gets punished. So he's rather relieved to find out that he doesn't have to share the classroom with her. But to his dismay Severus has been put in his class.

There are some thirty-eight children, spread over two classes. Sirius sees some faces he knows, but they are only the select few his parents have allowed to play with him. As soon as the children are inside of the classroom, the parents who have brought them are asked to leave to make it easier for the teachers to deal with the children. Sirius immediately leaves the group of children he dislikes and for a moment he stands alone until another black haired boy steps up to him.

"Hi! I'm James Potter, who are you?"

Sirius looks at the boy who is next to him. His hazel eyes look through round glasses, his short black hair sticks up in funny angles and he has a big grin on his face. Sirius grins right back and holds out his hand:

"Sirius Black. - Are you a pureblood? My parents won't allow me to play with anyone that's not. Not that I really care..."

"From THE Blacks? Wow. Yeah, I am. A pureblood, I mean. Though my family probably stays far away from yours. We love the Muggles, you know."

"Yeah, that would be a good enough reason for mine to say yours are scum!"

"Do you still want to be friends? It's only that I saw you move away from Severus as soon as your Mum left."

Sirius grins.

"Sure! I hate that kid! He comes to our house and he treats me horribly! Said if he'd had a wand himself he'd curse me. I would really like to know why."

"Oh, we'll play a few pranks on him and he'll stop!" James promises.

"Don't know - he'd probably tell my Mum and then there'd be hell to pay."

James looks at Sirius with wide eyes.

"You think so?"

But before Sirius can reply the teacher calls them up and asks them to sit down at the tables in the room. Sirius and James take a seat next to each other and look at the teacher.

"Hello everyone! I'm Miss Ferguson and I'll be your teacher for the next year. That's what you will call me, too. Now I'd like to go through the list of your names so I will remember who you are. Alright?"

The children actually pay attention and answer her call. She looks at them all and places a little name plaque in front of them with a wave of her wand.

"I might need the help of the plaques for a few days. Please take it home with you and place it in front of you on the table every morning. Now - who among you can already read a bit?"

About half of the children lift their hands, Severus among them, much to Sirius' visible dismay. He turns to James, who seems to be able to read, too and says:

"I so wanted to learn, but they wouldn't allow me to. Can you believe it?"

The memory shifts again and from now on we float through many memories of Sirius' first school days. He learns to read in a matter of weeks. Writing follows quickly afterwards and whatever the teacher brings up, Sirius is like a sponge and licks it all up. Finally his mind gets occupied with some knowledge other than the arrogance his parents have tried to plant into him. He seems to never even have to think about memorising things, he hears them and there they are. He's active and replies to Miss Ferguson's questions often. From on his first tests his marks are in the top three at all times.

But in one of the next memories we find that there are drawbacks. His parents are not delighted when they find out who Sirius' best friend at school is. They tell him off, but he stubbornly sticks to James and while he is not allowed to see James outside of school, the two enjoy being friends inside of it. When Sirius comes home he storms up to his room to get his homework done. Then he usually looks for something to read, because he's not allowed outside of the house alone. At dinner he is questioned by his parents about his day at school.

Then there's the day that Sirius and James pull their first prank on Severus. The boy is in a close-knit group of friends from his circles, Rodolphus Lestrange and Nestroy Avery are among them. > Now I remember them both. I've seen them trying to bully some of the other children, but I've seen Sirius and James stand up and telling them off. To give them a bit of their minds they had the original idea to put something very slippery on their chairs, so each time they tried to sit down they slipped off. The teacher got really annoyed with them and when they said their chairs were slippery, she checked the chairs, but nothing was visible.

"Sit down and behave now or you will all serve a detention!" she threatens them.

Of course they all fall off their chairs again and promptly get decked with a detention and a low mark for bad behaviour. Sirius and James exercise their straight face with that very first prank and after the lesson is over they walk out of the room and high-five each other. Once the class has left the room though, they're back inside in seconds flat to clean the chairs from the invisible sliding potion they have received from a cousin of James'.

Of course Mr. and Mrs Black hear of the prank through the Snapes and Rosiers and in the next memory we witness the repercussions for Sirius. Asked if he'd done it, he admits it freely. So far he's been treated with cold distance, but we've never seen him disciplined other than being sent to his room. But now his father pulls out his wand and coolly curses Sirius with a boxing hex and another one. Sirius slumps on the floor of the drawing room and looks up with frightened eyes.

"That will hopefully teach you not to treat your friends like this! Go back to your room, Sirius, you will not come down here before you go to school tomorrow!" his father tells him in a cold voice.

Sirius follows the order, but once in his room there are tears in his eyes. The young witch is now only in charge of Regulus, so he really is all alone until the morning. A house-elf brings him something to eat, just a plate of soup and a slice of bread.

From now on every second or third memory contains some kind of a punishment. Sirius sticks up for the weaker kids at school, gets great marks, is loved by most everyone but his family and his supposed to be friends. The rift between himself and his family is opening up fast. > The first memory is from getting the school books for the last year of primary school. Sirius is taken by his mother. Regulus is with them and both boys aren't allowed one step away from their mother the entire time. They return to Grimmauld Place and Sirius is left to his own devices as long as he stays in the house. The next day school starts again and Sirius floos to Hogsmeade, Regulus following him immediately. Sirius is already seeing to it that he's gone before his brother arrives. He meets up with James and other friends before heading on to their classroom.

The next memory is of dinner where Sirius is silent and Regulus tells his parents of everything that has happened at school.

This pattern is what we get to see for a couple of times. Regulus tells his parents everything. He doesn't hold back with his opinion of his older brother and usually sticks his nose up in the air about Sirius' antics, which brings Sirius into trouble time and again. Sometimes we wonder how Regulus gets to know these things, but Sirius himself shrugs his shoulders and says:

"He's had it from both, Severus and Evan, who gladly told him everything, truth and lies and Regulus told our parents. When he told them lies there was no use to deny anything, because they believed every word he said."

It's a miracle that Sirius is still allowed to attend school. A few memories are filled with the way his mother and father punish him with all sorts of curses. There are weeks he doesn't get away one single day. About once every fifth time Regulus tells his parents about something James and Sirius actually did to Severus. Sirius has given up protesting. He sometimes tries to stay in his room right after school, but he's being dragged out and punished nevertheless. And he never says one word to James. He tells his friend everything but the way his parents treat him. It will take years until he finally lets James know how exactly his home life had looked like. He never wanted me to know about it. > The Hogwarts letter arrives and Sirius is happy to know that he'll get out of the house for most of the years to come. At dinner his parents discuss the letter and wonder if he also gets in invitation to Durmstrang. The shock in Sirius' eyes is visible. Then his mother says:

"Madeline Snape has told me that Severus will be going to Hogwarts, and so will Evan, Nestroy, Ryan and Bellatrix, so I think we can send Sirius there."

"Yes, you are right, it would look strange if our friends send their children to Hogwarts and we'd be the only ones to send Sirius somewhere else. We've all been Slytherins after all."

The relief in Sirius' eyes would have been visible, too, had his parents cared to look. So the memory shifts and once again it's Diagon Alley with another trip to fit new robes, black this time, to buy books and school supplies of the magical kind now and finally a wand. It doesn't take too long. Sirius' eyes gleam when he gets his own wand finally in his hand. Everything is put away with his new school trunk and as a pet he gets his first owl. He calls the owl Tom, but his parents don't know it's for Tom Sawyer, the first ever Muggle book Sirius has read all by himself. The first trip Tom is sent on is to take a letter first to myself, then to Alphard. A means of communication beyond the fireplace, which is in a very public area of the house, so Sirius had no way of contacting his real friends privately until now. I remember that first letter in his typical scrawl, all excited and looking forward to get out of the house, but full of worries about the house he'd be sorted into.

The next memory seems to be a few days before the school year starts. Sirius' parents comment on the nasty way they have to go to take him to King's Cross Station and that they will be forced to walk through all those Muggles.

"Not to speak of all the Mudbloods who will be there, because that fool Dumbledore welcomes them with open arms. I've been shocked to the bones when I heard that he was the one who strongly recommended it twenty-five years ago after he brought down Grindelwald. Now we again have half of the wizarding community run over by the scum," Sirius' father says.

"That was a shame in the first place! After all, Grindelwald was on the right track," Mrs Black comments.

"Oh, certainly, but that wouldn't stop the Muggle-loving fool. But I've heard that there's someone who will guide us to better times again. Called Lord Voldemort and I know that Mark Wilkes is already one of his followers."

Sirius can't hold his mouth.

"You're not talking about the nutter who goes out and kills people randomly, just because they're half-bloods or Muggle-born?" he asks.

Wrong thing to say, Padfoot.

"You will never speak with such foul language and disrespect about the new Dark Lord, Sirius! He was a loyal follower of Grindelwald's and he should lead us into a bright future!" his father shouts with a thundering voice.

Sirius only cowers for a moment, then he speaks his mind.

"But that is wrong. It is wrong to kill anyone!"

His father is up from his chair in a moment and the next thing I see is a whip in his hand. He pulls Sirius away from the table and starts whipping him over the back until the robes he wears are torn to shreds and Sirius' back is covered with bloody marks from the whip.

Both, Remus and I watch in horror. The boy is down on the earth and when the whip vanishes, a house-elf is called to levitate Sirius to his room, where he's unceremoniously dropped on the floor. After the first strike with the whip Sirius has gritted his teeth and there was not a sound out of his mouth. Now he weeps, silently, because he knows if they hear him it will only get worse. He's left lying there presumably the whole night. Because the memory shifts and in the morning his mother comes in and he's still there, the way he fell to the floor, unable to move. She waves her wand and the shreds are replaced by clean clothes, otherwise nothing gets done. > I see myself being led through the barrier at King's Cross for the first time. I can almost feel my excitement again. For two years at least I'll be out of the clutches of my family for most of the year. > Sirius is coming through the barrier. I see myself standing on the platform with my parents, who are laughing and wishing me all the best for a good start of the term. By that time I've never seen Sirius' parents and I was shocked to see how they looked. Sirius is a miniature of his father. Mr. Black is very tall, slender, has sleek black hair and grey eyes. Sirius looks exactly the same, only much smaller. Then I see his mother. She's about the ugliest woman I've ever seen, to be honest and I'm so thankful that Sirius looks so much like his father it's uncanny. First of all she looks old. Her hair is wispy and seems to be all around her head, her eyes are dark violet and her mouth is pressed into a thin line. Sirius doesn't even look at me directly, but he's already sent me a warning with Tom about that. Next to his mother there's Regulus. Her hand rests on Regulus' shoulder and he looks very smug about something. I hear them giving him last orders for the trip and the term. My younger self looks shocked at the way Sirius' face is expressionless, how he holds back any biting comments, that would be out in seconds flat if anyone at school would have talked to him this way. Before the train leaves his family returns through the barrier, leaving him to fend alone with his trunk.

Finally Sirius pushes his trolley to me and says brightly:

"Hi, James! Ready to go?"

"Hi, Sirius! Of course. These are my parents, Sirius. Mum, Dad, this is Sirius Black..."

"Ah, your friend who was not allowed to come and visit us? Hello Sirius! I'm pleased to meet you!" my father says.

Sirius blinks, holds out his hand and shakes my Dad's, then my Mum's.

"Don't worry, Sirius, I know your parents, they aren't very fond of me, that's true, but you have to grow up to become your own person, not a pawn in their hand. If you can manage that you'll always be welcome with us!" my Mum tells Sirius.

"Thank you, sir... madam..." Sirius is a bit embarrassed, he's really not used to adults who are kind with him. Except for most of the teachers at the primary school and his uncle he's never been treated kindly.

"So - let's give you a hand with that trunk of yours, Sirius! That looks heavy!"

"It is. Thank you, Mr. Potter."

My Dad helps us bring our trunks inside of the train, then waits with us until it's time to go inside. We have found an empty compartment, open the window and wave goodbye to my parents.

"Have a good term, you two! And remember to have some fun between studying!" Dad orders us.

"We will, Daddy! Bye Mum!" I call while the train leaves.

The memory shifts to a couple of hours later, when the door opens and Bellatrix, Severus and the whole bunch of them come into our compartment. We have a hard time to get them back out again and Severus tries to hex Sirius and then my younger self, but they get chased out by a prefect passing through the carriage.

"What's this here? You're first years, aren't you? Do you wish to lose house points before you are even sorted? Off to your own carriage you go or you'll be in detention for the whole first week!" the boy says, his hands firmly on his hips.

Bellatrix looks him up and down, then says haughtily:

"And who are you to command us around?"

"Don't try to mouth back, girl, you can see very well that I'm a prefect. And that's now ten points from whatever house you'll be in and that detention I've threatened you with. What's your name?"

"I don't need to tell you that! You're not in Slytherin and I won't listen to you anyway!" she says.

Sirius turns to the prefect and says:

"Her name is Bellatrix Black."

"Ah! Now I understand. Now listen here, Bellatrix: you will have to follow every prefect's orders, not only those of the house in which you'll probably land yourself. With an attitude like yours you will be very much disliked by anyone, now off you go!"

She just laughs, but finally leaves our compartment. The boys look like they still want to hang around, but the prefect looks at them sternly and says, tapping with his feet:

"And? Do you want a detention, too?"

Finally they leave. Sirius looks up to the prefect and says:

"Thanks for the help..."

"Frank Longbottom. That's okay, kid, if there's one thing I can't stand it's that kind of ganging up on someone. You're first years, too, eh?"

"Yes."

"Well, good luck for the sorting then! I'll see you tonight!"

With that, Frank left the compartment and went on, checking that the ghastly group has settled down in their own compartment again. The rest of the trip was uneventful and the memory shifts to the gathering on the platform at Hogsmeade. We know it well enough, having been here at school for the last six years. A huge man is waiting for all the first years and gathers us at one end of the platform. He counts us, makes sure we're all the first years and then says:

"Well, now I'll take ye across the lake to the castle. Ye'll be expected to be sorted after that. I'm Rubeus Hagrid by the way, keeper of the Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts. You can call me Hagrid, everyone does. Now come on!"

While we march off I can hear Ryan say to Severus:

"What an oaf! Looks like a half-giant."

"Worst of every side they get. Looks like he's rather stupid, too."

They giggle about that. I remember that I balled my fists overhearing this. Sirius turns and just glares at them. Severus glares right back and warns Sirius:

"Just wait until tonight when we'll be in our dorm! You won't have much to laugh and your low class friends won't be there!"

Finally we all climb into the little boats. Luckily, none of the gits tries to get into ours, but they're not far away and Sirius aims a stone at Severus, who actually falls into the lake. Hagrid is there to fish him out and chides him for being clumsy. My younger self and Sirius hide our giggles.

A dripping wet Severus and the rest of the first years are gathered in the Entrance Hall and then guided into the Great Hall. We get into a line, Severus still rather moist, then we get called to the hat. Sirius is the third to go. As was expected of her, his cousin has been sorted into Slytherin. Sirius looks like he's being led to the scaffold. It doesn't even take very long, and I remember how my heart went light the moment I heard the hat shout Gryffindor! Everyone among the teachers and all the Slytherins looked so bloody perplexed it was too funny. Even Dumbledore looked very astonished. Much later he would tell me that he was completely and utterly surprised. He had known that two Black children would start Hogwarts that year and was most flabbergasted that one of them went to the most unlikely house any Black could go.

The memory shifts again, this time to the moment Remus sat on the stool to put the hat on his head. This took a long time. I remember that I had tried to keep the name, but had forgotten it immediately. But I saw that Dumbledore watched with baited breath and when the hat screamed Gryffindor he had a relieved smile on his face. I think it really had to be fate. Then it was the turn of another boy to be sorted into Gryffindor and right after that it was my turn. The last thing I saw before the hat covered me was that Remus and Sirius were already talking with each other. And the next thing I heard was the hat was just saying:

"I know what to do with you, my child! Gryffindor!"

I watch as little James walks over to the Gryffindor table, introducing himself to everyone else. Then he asks Sirius:

"How did you avoid getting sorted into Slytherin, you sly thing?"

"I still don't really know, James! But I kind of thought to the hat to get it over and done with and shove me into the snake house if it had to be. And it said it'd most certainly wouldn't sort me into a house I obviously didn't want to go!"

"Wow!" said Peter. "You thought you'd be sorted into Slytherin? Why?"

"Because all my family has always been there. You have no idea how relieved I am not to be there!" > I watch Dumbledore destroying it before it was only halfway through, but enough evil things had already come out of it. Sirius probably wanted to vanish into the earth or something. It was actually Remus, who lifted his spirits. He hadn't talked much after my arrival at the table the night before, but he'd listened with great care, so he said now in a low but determined voice:

"Don't think anything of it, Sirius, the best is to hold up your head high and not react to anything anyone says!"

Sirius swallows and looks at this new dorm-mate, then replies:

"Thanks for that, Remus."

In the course of the next few memories we relive how Remus and Sirius hit off from the beginning. Remus is still very small, almost tiny compared to Sirius and I. Sirius is easily the tallest among us. Peter is barely taller than Remus, but a lot rounder. He doesn't only look like a baby he acts much more like a baby than any of us. He is the only one among us who has difficulties at the start and misses his family too much. He is the youngest of three brothers and the others are both out of school already. Since no one else shares our dorm we take him under our wings. Again, Remus is the driving force, claiming that no one should be lonely in a crowd.

The first potions class with the Slytherins comes around and of course that won't be pleasant. The Professor is older than sin and my father has told me beforehand he was the head of Slytherin house, but a very complacent character. Just how complacent he hasn't told me. The man must have been deaf and blind!

It made for good lessons though and we learned quite well with him. It also meant that we didn't get treated badly, but he never saw the most obvious things the Slytherins played on us. I'm waiting for something to come up among Sirius' memories and there it is. The first time we dare pulling a prank in potions on the Slytherins. Old Professor Simmons looks a bit like a mole when he squeezes his eyes almost shut to squint over the classroom. Sirius and my younger self sit together right behind Remus and Peter and since it's a practical lesson, the two of them drop a wrong ingredient into Wilkes' and Rosier's cauldron as those two sit closest. Instead of a potion that heals burns the two of them get a potion that causes bruises, so when it runs over the cauldron they get both hit. Professor Simmons thinks it's an accident and sends them both to Madam Pomfrey. I hear the four soon to be Marauders snicker, the other Slytherins, mainly Snape, seethe and another new Gryffindor, a girl with auburn hair and green eyes looks around to the four boys and makes an angry face.

After filing out of the classroom she rounds the four boys up and hisses:

"Are you aware that the potion could have exploded? What did you add in there?"

"Stop worrying, Evans, if you had looked a few pages ahead you'd have found a variety of today's potion, which heals bruises. And one ingredient more causes them... that's what we did. We added the remaining ingredient to 'cause' the bruises," James says coolly.

"That's cruel!" she insists and rushes away with her friends.

That was the moment the long lasting feud between myself and my future wife started and the moment we started calling her Saint Evans. She hated it!