Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or ideas created by the lovely and talented J.K. Rowling. I'm just borrowing them.
A Sirius Dilemma
Chapter One - Banished
Pushing to his feet, Sirius slammed a fist onto the library desk. “What do you mean you’re sending me to Black Moor Manor?” he demanded angrily. “I have plans for this summer that don’t include a trip to bloody Scotland!”
Across the polished surface, the woman whose features he’d inherited curled her lip. “Watch your language, young man!” his mother sneered. “It was bad enough when you went off to Hogwarts and got sorted into Gryffindor instead of Slytherin, but when you declare open war on fine pureblood families whose children were sorted into the right house, you have gone too far!” Looking down her aristocratic nose, she intoned, “Your transgressions this year have been mortifying, and I intend to mete out just punishment.” Pulling out her wand she directed it toward her son. “Accio wand.”
Sirius snatched fruitlessly for the wand, which sailed directly into his mother’s hand. “What was that for?” he sputtered.
“That question proves why you couldn’t have possibly been sorted into Ravenclaw much less Slytherin,” she scoffed, “You certainly don’t think I’d allow you to have your wand in Scotland, do you?”
“Mother,” Sirius growled, “I got detention for those bloody transgressions at school. Why do you feel I need additional punishment? Scrubbing cauldrons for that bumbling oaf Slughorn, oiling chains for ignorant squib Filch, and weeding acres of cabbages were enough!”
His mother laughed derisively. “You might think they were enough, my dear son. However, if you had indeed learned your lesson, you wouldn’t have had so many detentions! You will go to Scotland, and you will go without your wand!”
“If I am such an embarrassment to you, and all your Slytherin cronies, why don’t you just let me leave?” he attempted to bargain, “I could stay with a friend and you wouldn’t even have to see me!” Prongs would put him up, he thought.
A nasty smile spread across her disgruntled features, “No, Sirius. That would be a pleasure for you, and you don’t deserve any pleasure! You and your brother will be Flooing to Black Moor Manor after lunch today.”
“I have to spend the summer, not only in ruddy Scotland, but with my sodding brother?” Sirius snarled.
“Regulus is going for his own reasons,” his mother said dismissively. “Go pack your trunk; you will be leaving directly after lunch!” She ignored his muttering as she swept from the room.
Sirius dragged his fingers through his hair, tugging at the smooth black locks hard enough to pull a few out by their roots. How was he going to escape this one? “Prongs,” he whispered to himself. If anyone could think of a way out of this dilemma, he could!
Grinning, he bounded up the stairs and threw open the trunk he was supposed to be packing, which of course, had never been unpacked in the first place. Digging around, he found the two-way mirror. Glancing, at the door, Sirius made sure it was closed before he looked back to the mirror and breathed quietly, “James.”
It took a moment before the mirror warmed in his hands and his reflection was replaced with his tousled haired friend. “What’s up Padfoot? Trouble already?” James asked with a snicker.
“Trouble with a capitol ‘T’, my friend, and I only have an hour or two to think my way out of it!” Sirius whispered desperately.
“The humor faded from James’ eyes quickly. “Out with it then, let’s give it a think.”
“I’m being banished to Scotland, of all the bloody places!” Sirius spat. “Get this, without my wand, and with my brother!”
“Bloody hell,” breathed James. “I told you that you shouldn’t have. . .”
“Time enough for I-told-you-so’s later!” Sirius snapped. “What the bloody hell am I going to do?”
“Any chance of Flooing over here-?” James offered, “Stay with me. I can make it right with my parents.”
“Floo powder is locked up tight since last Christmas” Sirius couldn’t help but snicker a bit at the memory of that particular escape.
Suddenly his bedroom door burst open. “What do you have there?” his mother demanded. She held out her hand imperiously. “Give it to me now!”
Sirius glanced down to see one last regretful look from James before his friend’s face was replaced with his own. He sighed and held out the mirror to his mother who snatched it away. “Don’t think I don’t know what this is!”
“Of course not, mother.” Sirius replied snidely, “You know everything.”
She smiled cruelly. “That I do.” Without warning, she hurled the mirror into the fireplace, laughing derisively at the combined sounds of the mirror smashing and Sirius crying out, “NO!”
“I see you are already packed,” she said coldly. With a wave of her wand, the trunk closed, locked and rose from the floor. “Come along, lunch is ready.”
Taking a moment to mourn the loss of the mirror, Sirius rose, and followed his mother.
--
That afternoon, after a thankfully silent tea with his hard-faced disapproving maternal grandparents, Sirius sat, leaning against his bedroom window, gazing out over the rolling fields dotted with fluffy bits of down. Mindless, smelly and idiotic, the sheep were kept by his grandparents to crop the grass to a tolerable length. A long sigh echoed in the cold chamber. How he hated it here. It was boring, there was nothing to do, and being without a wand turned what was normally tedious, into something that was tortuous. There had to be a way to get out of here! Prongs would help, if only he could get his hands on an owl.
That's when he spotted her. Picking up a pair of old fashioned omnioculars, he focused on the girl walking toward the manor. Bright red hair, a slender figure, she almost reminded him of Lily Evans. However, Evans’ hair was a much darker hue, not this light fiery carrot color. "Well, Padfoot old boy, perhaps this summer isn't quite so much of a bust after all!"
“That’s Maeve.” his brother said sullenly, from where he slouched against the doorway.
Sirius turned slowly. “How would you know?”
“My punishment, brother dear, is to seal a betrothal with her sister, Morag,” Regulus replied bitterly.
Sirius couldn’t contain a bark of laughter. “Betrothal?”
“Yes, betrothal. It should have been you,” Regulus sneered, “but I heard mother screeching at father that you weren’t good enough to seal the betrothal agreement they had made with her parents. Said something along the lines of, ‘Sirius would find a way to humiliate the House of Black that we would never be able to recover from!’, so I’m the one to get stuck.
Sirius glanced out the window and back to his brother. “Well if she looks anything like her sister . . .”
“She doesn’t!” Regulus snapped, “Morag, is the eldest, older than me by a year. Your age, not mine. Dull brown locks, insipid eyes, although her figure isn’t too terrible.”
“Put a bag over her head,” advised Sirius with an unsympathetic laugh.
Cold fire lit Regulus’ eyes. “It should be you!”
“What did you do, to get stuck in my place?” Sirius asked, changing the subject slightly.
“Got caught by Filch in the Trophy Room with a girl from Ravenclaw,” Regulus replied with a shrug, “Mother said if I could do that with any girl from school, I might as well do it with my betrothed.”
Sirius howled with laughter. “And I thought Ravenclaws were supposed to be smart!”
A sly look crept into his brother’s eyes, “Oh, she was clever all right.”
Sirius rolled his eyes. “I supposed every once in a while a Hufflepuff might have a chance at being placed in Ravenclaw.”
“Whatever,” Regulus replied indifferently, “at least I’ve got my wand this summer. Watch yourself Sirius. You never know when a hex will come your way.”
“Think hard before you hex, brother,” Sirius growled, “I’ll have a wand again, and I won’t forget, much less forgive anything you do.”
Regulus squirmed slightly; he’d been on the receiving end of Sirius’ hexes too many times not to take the warning for what it was.
Sirius regarded his brother for a moment before leaving the room. “If anyone asks, I’ve gone for a run.”
“Like a Muggle?”
No, like an Animagus, you snobby git. Satisfied that distaste would prevent Regulus from following, he chuckled, “Yeah, like a Muggle.”
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Sirius jogged lightly toward the wood that lined his grandparents’ garden. Transforming into the large black Newfoundland mix dog which was his Animagus form, he looked forward to hunting, his prey, an attractive redhead named Maeve.
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Very special thanks to Kerichi for being such a wonderful beta. Without her red pen this story would be much harder to read
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