The Runaway
James,
My summer’s been okay, I suppose, with the exception that my parents and I had to put Dommie to sleep. His spine was hurt badly after an accident he was in; best we put him down before it got worse. I talked to Peter about coming over to my house, he said he’s in. I heard from you, of course, but I still haven’t heard from Sirius. I sent him two letters and he hasn’t answered to either. I was thinking of writing a third one, just to see if he’s alright. Obviously he hasn’t written to you either, since you asked me if I’d heard from him. Maybe something’s going on at house? Let’s give him another day before one of us writes to him again. I told Peter to do the same thing.
- Remus
“Regulus, you’re bloody mental!”
“What are you talking about?”
“You believe all the rubbish Snape tells you?”
“It’s not rubbish, Sirius. They’re doing this to help the Wizarding World.”
“They’re helping the Wizarding World by treating Muggle-borns and half breeds like scum?”
“They aren’t like scum, they are.”
Sirius let out a roar of frustration, got out of his seat, slammed the chair into the table, and stormed out of the kitchen of number twelve Grimmauld Place. He marched angrily down the long corridor and up the stairs, out of the basement of the house. This had been the topic of conversation in the Black Family ever since he got back from school. Sirius’s parents were inexplicably thrilled that Regulus was taking a deep interest in what those Dark wizards had to say. He was a right little hero in their blinded eyes. Hearing all of this brought Sirius flashbacks of the day he, James, Remus and Peter snuck into the Forbidden Forest, following that group of suspicious-looking Slytherins. Regulus agreed with people like those Slytherins and the man they were answering to - Lucius Malfoy. Malfoy said that someone would not be uninterested in Regulus.
He was talking about Voldemort.
Sirius’s feet pounded loudly on the steps until he was all the way up to the floor where his room was. He snarled furiously as he passed the batty House Elf that was Kreacher. Kreacher’s aspirations in life were to be beheaded and join his ancestors on the walls of Grimmauld Place. The mentally unstable elf gloried in muttering insults directed at Sirius under his breath whenever they crossed paths. Kreacher had been completely silent, until he saw the eldest Black child passing him. “There goes my Mistress’s ungrateful brat. How he breaks my Mistress’s heart.”
“Get out of it, Kreacher!” Sirius snapped heatedly. Kreacher dropped into a mockingly low bow, ceased speaking and went on his way. Sirius could hear the elf snicker under his breath as he neared the bottom landing.
As Sirius reached the landing, he saw another one of the last people on Earth he wanted to talk to, yet could not escape from “ his father. Orion Black was over the moon that Regulus was fully embracing the ways of the Black Family and loved mentioning this whenever his eldest son was around, hoping that if he mentioned it enough, Sirius would eventually begin to believe it. Orion did not know his oldest son well. Sirius gritted his teeth; he really was in no mood to hear, for what felt like the thousandth time, that Regulus was the perfect son.
Perfect was only a point of view.
Still, he could not hope to avoid his father now. If Sirius wanted to get to his room, he would have to pass the man to continue up to the fourth floor. His sanctuary was temporarily cut off. Sirius took a deep breath; he tried to keep his rising temper under control. The last thing he wanted to do was upset his father, not that he wouldn’t thoroughly enjoy it. If he ever hoped to see his sixth year of Hogwarts, he would have to do that much “ refrain from irritating his farther. This was the price of not having any plans for the holidays. When were his friends going to write to him? It had almost been a week since they all returned home. He had expected at least one letter.
“Sirius,” Orion acknowledged, nodding his head to the eldest of the Black children.
“Dad,” Sirius said shortly, looking at his father for a moment and diverting his attention to the walls.
An odd expression flittered across Orion’s face for the shortest of seconds. “Have you seen Regulus?”
Sirius had to restrain himself from smirking or rolling his eyes. One of the first rules in this family was to always show respect to the adults. Sirius let his sarcasm come into play once in a while, but it usually went undetected no matter how obvious he made it. “The prince is downstairs.”
Mr. Black’s eyes flickered towards the staircase. “You know, you should be more like your brother.”
Sirius let out a short, derisive laugh. If memory served him correctly, wasn’t it usually the younger child being told to behave like the older child? My, how the tables had turned. “You mean I should be friends with boys who have futures I don’t want?” He would sooner kill himself than end up like Snape and his cronies.
“It would be a better future than the futures those miscreant friends of yours are looking at.”
Sirius literally had to bite down hard on his tongue to keep himself from uttering the swearword he so wanted to utter. “My friends are not miscreants.”
“Miscreants, delinquents, call them what you will. They are not the type of people your mother and I want you associating with.”
Sirius inhaled and exhaled slowly. His father was steadily pushing it. “So you want me to hang around people who hex Muggles for fun?”
Orion took on a tone as if he was explaining something to a five year old. “Sirius, you are better than Muggles, you know this.”
Sirius grimaced. “Who says I am?”
“I do.”
“Well, your opinion doesn’t matter very much to me.” Sirius was mad. His father knew that the lowest of blows to Sirius would be to insult his friends and he had done it without batting an eyelash. Sirius had had enough of it; his friends were better people than anyone in the Black Family, with a few exceptions, could ever hope to be. He knew there were Muggles better than he was, better than dozens of Wizards. Just because he could perform magic did not make him better than others; he was not arrogant enough to believe this.
Mr. Black looked as though he had been slapped across the face by Sirius’s statement. “You know, Sirius, when you were Sorted into Gryffindor, your mother and I thought we could get past it and we did. But when you started acquainting yourself with boys who have no hopes of becoming successful at anything-”
“No hope?” Sirius repeated incredulously, his fists clenching tightly at his sides. “Do you know the plans my friends have? James is going to work at the Ministry, Remus is going to become a teacher and Peter is going to open his own shop that will become more successful than any other in Diagon Alley or in Hogsmeade. All these things require brains and they have them. Do you call that a pathetic future? What have you amounted to, anyway?”
“I’m a successful owner of a store and head of a prominent family.” Mr. Black grimaced at himself; he did not feel he should have to justify his life achievements to his own son.
“A store in Knockturn Alley.” Sirius spat the name as though it was poison building in his mouth. “And the only reason our family is prominent is because half the Wizarding population knows how terrible we all are and they all hate us. No one wants anything to do with us unless they’re like us.”
Red began creeping onto Orion’s cheeks. He was not going to be spoken to like this by his son. He was Sirius’s father; Sirius owed him the utmost respect. “Sirius Orion Black, you mind how you speak to me.”
“Why? You don’t speak to me any better!”
“You’re my son; I can speak to you however I want.”
Sirius’s hands balled into fists again at his sides. So his father could treat him like the dirt under his shoes, but Sirius had to honour him whether he deserved it or not? That was not fair and his father did not deserve honour. “That’s it,” he snarled. He pushed past his father and dashed up three more flights of stairs until he was safely in his room.
He heard his father following him up the stairs, yet Sirius did not look around once. He was determined to what he had to do. He pushed open the door to his room and stood in the doorway for a moment, his eyes rapidly scanning the room for all of his belongings. Sirius’s room was a shrine to all things that would annoy his parents “ Gryffindor colours everywhere, pictures of Muggle girls. It was part of the bane of his parents’ existences.
Having spotted everything he needed, Sirius got to work. In several quick movements, Sirius had dumped everything he would need into his school trunk and had again pushed past his father, who was standing with his mouth gaping open as he watched his son. Sirius’s trunk clunked noisily on the stairs as he hurried down them and towards the front door.
“Sirius, where are you going?” Orion barked. Sirius was leaving. He had packed everything up. His son was leaving.
“I don’t know, but I’m done here!” Sirius was seething. He was not going to continue living here if he wasn’t going to be treated with even the smallest amount of respect. He had put up with them long enough.
“Where are you going to go?”
“Anywhere! I’m sick of having to hear you praise Regulus for being the little berk that he is and telling me I’m worthless because I chose a path different than yours. It’s not right and I’m done with the lot of you. You and Mum and Regulus “ I’m done with you all! You tell me my friends are scum, you tell me I’m going to get nowhere in life. That’s not what a family does! This isn’t a family! At least this isn’t a family I want to be in and I’m through. I’ll make it on my own if I have to, but I am done coming here and calling this place my home. It never was my home.”
Orion was enraged. “Sirius, don’t you dare walk out that door!” This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Orion had never expected his son to walk out on them. Well, maybe he had thought about it once or twice, but he never expected it to come to pass. He knew Sirius didn’t like them, but he never thought his son would take it this far.
“Don’t wait up for me.” Sirius pushed the front door open and yanked his trunk out with him. Glancing over his shoulder as he swiftly descended the porch steps, he saw his father was too stunned to follow him. Good, Sirius thought bitterly, sending his father a glance of the utmost scathing. He lagged under the weight of his trunk; it was much too heavy for him to run with it. It was either him or the trunk and it wasn’t going to be him. As he moved farther away from the house, he saw it begin to dissolve as the power of the enchantments his father put on it to conceal it from the Muggles took effect.
Once he was fully past the courtyard, Sirius sat down on his trunk and rested his head in his hands, wondering what he should do next. He couldn’t very well sit here all night. The Muggle authorities would ask him what he was doing and they would suspect he had something illegal in his trunk. When they opened it, if they weren’t sure it was illegal, they would be sending him to the loony bin at any rate. What else would they do to a teenage boy with a trunk full of spell books and a cauldron? Where could he go, though? Perhaps he should have premeditated his escape from Grimmauld Place and not have acted in the heat of the moment. He would have a plan, anyway.
His thoughts went to his friends.
Remus lived out in the countryside, far away from any cities and especially far from London. His parents didn’t want to expose their son during the full moon and it was easier to manage if they were far away from prying eyes. James also lived in the country, much too far to walk. Peter lived on the outskirts of London, but Sirius could not remember exactly where and it would not do to walk aimlessly around the edge of London. He would look extremely suspicious. He needed a mode of transportation.
The Knight Bus!
Sirius recalled his parents discussing the ludicrous purple, triple-decker that was the Knight Bus. It ran anytime, anywhere and everywhere, as long as it was not in water. He remembered his mother saying she would rather be stranded in the middle of nowhere with herd of rabid Hippogriffs than ride on that ‘monstrous contraption’. That was perfect - something his parents hated. But how did he contact it? He couldn’t wait to send an owl and receive a message back. Who knew how long that would take? Then his father’s voice filled his mind “ Flag it down with your wand.
Sirius slid off his trunk, snapped the latches up and pushed the lid up. His wand was lying on top of his other belongings. He snatched it and jerked his wand arm out. Almost at once, a large, purple bus came pelting out of nowhere, causing Sirius to fall backwards in surprise. When Sirius had pulled himself up into the sitting position, he saw that a man who appeared to be in his mid-twenties had stepped off the bus.
“Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. My name is Earl Jenkins and I will be your conductor on this fine day.” He looked down at Sirius, who was staring at him as if he was from another planet. An uncertain frown crossed onto Earl’s lips. “You did flag us down, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Sirius said, standing up and gripping the handle of his trunk. “I was just surprised, that’s all.”
“Well, where is it you want to go?” Earl stepped off the last step of the bus and went to pick up Sirius’s trunk to bring it on the bus.
Sirius frowned thoughtfully. He did not know the exact location of the Potter’s house. He only knew that the house was located somewhere in the countryside. “The countryside,” he vaguely told Earl.
“Whereabouts in the countryside?”
“The Potter Mansion.”
Earl nodded knowingly. “Ah, I know where they live, given them lifts a couple of times. C’mon, get on.” Sirius pulled out some gold to pay and Earl took the allotted amount. The inside of the Knight Bus was decorated with a series of mismatched chairs and tables, some of which were overturned. Sirius took an upright chair that was against the window and pressed his head against the glass. He soon learned this was a mistake. The moment the doors to the bus closed, the bus shot out of the courtyard at top speed, turning sharply around a corner. This viciously quick movement caused Sirius to painfully crack his forehead against the glass and then to topple sideways off his chair and onto the floor.
“Oh, hell,” he muttered to himself, shakily picking himself up, only to fall down again when the bus sharply rounded a second corner. Whose horrific brainchild was this? A bus that went anywhere at any convenient time was a nice concept, but not when it was driven by a maniac who didn’t know what gear was slow, or if there was even a speed other than fast. After the sixth attempt to sit down on a chair, Sirius decided it was best he just sat on the floor.
Of course, sitting here would mean the dangers of fallen objects.
He hoped the Potters were home and not off somewhere when he arrived. He would be a right site to find sitting on the porch when they arrived home. Then again, he would be a bit of a surprising visitor when he knocked on the door, anyway. He had not heard from them and they had not heard from him in a week. There was absolutely no warning of his imminent arrival. But Sirius was confident that even if they weren’t expecting him, they would take him in. There was no way Sirius was going back to Grimmauld Place. He was done with his life there. He was never going to see his parents again if he could help it, not after the way they treated him for the better part of his life.
“Bloody hell!” he shouted as a wooden chair nearly went toppling over his head. He managed to roll out of the way just in time. “Whose mental idea was this? The Knight Bus is a brilliant idea, my arse.”
After an hour and thirty fallen chairs, the Knight Bus skidded to a screeching halt in front of the familiar Potter mansion. Sirius could see the lights on in several of the windows and he grinned broadly, they were home. Sirius ran off the deathtrap that was the Knight Bus, grabbing his trunk and saying a swift goodbye to Earl. He pulled his trunk up the walkway and when he reached the door, he knocked loudly on it.
Within two minutes, the front door swung open, revealing Charles Potter, dressed in his lime green robes and clearly just coming home from work. Surprised would be an understatement to how he looked when he saw his son’s best friend standing on their doorstep with his trunk in hand, a sheepish smile on his face. “Sirius,” Charles sputtered. “What are you doing here?”
The sheepish smile on Sirius’s lips faltered. He was not sorry that he had done it, but it felt strange admitting that he had done what he did. “I… I ran away from home.”
The surprise Charles was experiencing obviously increased at the mention of this. “You what?”
“I couldn’t take it anymore, so I left.”
“Come in, come in.” Charles relieved Sirius of his trunk and stepped aside so the boy could walk inside. Charles took the trunk and leaned it against the wall next to the staircase. “James! Come down here, please!” He looked over at Sirius, who was standing uncertainly in the foyer. “Come on, Hannah’s in the kitchen.”
When Sirius began to follow Mr. Potter into the kitchen, he could hear James’s footsteps hurrying down the stairs so he could find out what his father wanted. James probably thought he would in trouble for something, judging by the way his feet hesitated ever so slightly on the bottom few steps. Sirius almost laughed at the look on James’s face when he saw it was his best friend standing at the bottom of the steps. “Sirius, what are you doing here?”
“That seems to be the popular question,” Sirius commented as James fell into step with him behind Charles. Sirius had no time to privately explain this to James, and besides, he would only have to repeat the information to James’s parents, as they would more than likely want to know. It was best just to get it over with in one go. In the back of his mind raced ideas as to what his parents might be doing right now. Certainly Sirius’s father had gone straight to his wife to inform her of her son’s abrupt departure. Sirius didn’t understand why his father had looked so taken aback; the both of them should have seen it coming. They knew their son hated living under their roof. It was only a matter of time before he escaped from it.
They entered the kitchen and Sirius saw Hannah Potter standing at one of the counters, overseeing a set of knives as they chopped away at carrots and celery, while she idly let mashed potatoes flow out of the tip of her wand and into a bowl. There was a plate of roast chicken resting beside the sink. Hannah glanced up when she heard footsteps, thinking it was merely her son or her husband coming to ask when dinner would be ready. She did not expect to see both of them, plus her son’s best friend. James hadn’t told her Sirius would be coming. She set her wand down and the knives immediately ceased chopping and the mashed potatoes ceased appearing. “What’s going on? What’s Sirius doing here?”
“Sirius told me he ran away,” Charles explained before Sirius could even open his mouth.
“You did what?” James demanded of his friend. Would this possibly explain why Sirius had not replied to a single letter he, Remus or Peter sent him? How had he gotten here? He hadn’t walked here all the way from London, had he?
Sirius nodded.
“Why did you run away?”
“James, is that really a question?”
James struggled with his words for a moment. “I know you hate your family, Sirius, but I didn’t think you were ready to run away.”
“Yeah… well… I was.”
“What did your parents do?” Hannah asked concernedly. She considered Sirius as one of her own sons. If they had laid one hand on him… her maternal instincts would take control.
“More of what they didn’t do.”
“And that is?”
“Act like they were my parents.”
Mrs. Potter flinched. She could never imagine a household where a child was not loved by his parents. Sirius was a good boy, if not mischievous like James was, and it was his parents’ own faults that they could not see this. Sirius had tried to show them this, but they never took the time to look. They had obscured ideas of what was right and what was wrong. They firmly believed families like Hannah’s and the Lupins’ were on the wrong side, the side that was going to fail, but Hannah believed it was the other way around. The Black’s were on the wrong side, except for one of their sons.
“I’m sorry I bothered you,” Sirius told them all. “This was just one of the only places I could think of going.”
“How did you get here?” James questioned. He could not imagine Sirius taking a Muggle taxi. He wasn’t sure Sirius knew how to flag one down or how much currency he would need to ride in one. Besides, Sirius had no Muggle money and he did not have time to go to Gringotts to exchange his Wizard gold for it.
“The Knight Bus.”
Every Potter in the room groaned simultaneously. Clearly they were recalling the experiences they had had on the deathtrap. Hannah cleared her throat and removed herself from the counter where she had been standing. She looked at Sirius with concern, as if he was a five year old boy who had run away from home rather than a sixteen year old boy. Yet, Sirius noticed, there was something else in her look. She was looking at him in a way his mother never had “ like he was her son. “Well, Sirius, you will have to stay here.” Her motherly instincts were taking over, telling her that this was a boy who needed a home and could not go back to the place he had so loosely labeled as one.
Sirius blinked, he must have misheard. Then again, why would he doubt the words of Mrs. Potter? She was a better mother than Mrs. Black, the woman he grudgingly called “Mother”. “Thank you,” he said sincerely.
“You can have the guest room. Merlin knows we don’t use it nearly enough, except for when you boys come over. It’s all yours.” She diverted her attention to James, who had a large grin on his face as he thought about the prospect of his best friend living at his house. “James, could you help Sirius with his things?”
“Sure, Mum.” James stood and disappeared into the foyer where he picked up one end of Sirius’s trunk, while Sirius took the other.
“Dinner will be ready in a half hour, boys,” she called to them as they disappeared up the stairs.
Charles sat down at the kitchen table and shook his head. “You know, Hannah, it was only a matter of time.”
James and Sirius walked awkwardly up the stairs, Sirius glancing over his shoulder so he could see the steps and James peering past the edge of the trunk so he would not accidentally miss a step and bring the both of them down. Once they reached the top landing, they could walk more easily. “So,” Sirius began conversationally, “heard from Remus or Peter lately?”
“I got a letter from Remus the other day,” James replied, sidestepping a sock that he was sure was his. He made a mental note to pick it up later. He frowned. “His parents had to put his dog to sleep.”
Sirius frowned. He had always liked Dommie, he was a friendly dog. “That’s too bad. Remus is okay, though, right?” He knew Remus loved his dog, frequently used the Labrador as a pillow, and played with him whenever he got the chance. It would have been hard on him to see the dog die.
James nodded, shifting the weight of the trunk so it rested more on his left arm now, as his right arm was aching terribly. “He says it was for the best. Dommie was old, anyway. Remus had him since he was three, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, he did.”
They veered off into the guest room, where the door was mercifully open. They heaved Sirius’s trunk onto the bed and James rubbed his sore arms. “Merlin, did you pack five cauldrons in there?”
“No! Just the one.”
James glared dubiously at Sirius, as though he doubted this, but he sat down on the bed and said nothing more on the subject. He was done with the small talk now; it was time to find out what had really gone on. “So, you finally had enough?”
Sirius didn’t have to ask what James meant. “Yes. I couldn’t listen to it anymore, so I just left.”
“What were they saying?”
“My dad was just going on and on about how I should be like Regulus and that I was friends with people who were going nowhere in life and I was going to the same place because of that and, Merlin, you should have seen the smug look on his face when he was saying all of that rubbish. He was just waiting for me to snap, I know he was. I’ve heard this a thousand times before, but this was just one time too many and I couldn’t take it.”
James scowled. He never hated Orion and Walburga Black as much as he did right now. “I can imagine.”
“So I left.” Sirius slid out of his shoes and propped them against the door.
“Peter lives closer to you, you know,” James pointed out. It would have made sense to go to the place that was closest.
“Yeah, but I came here.” Sirius shrugged. “Your place is farther away from my parents, too.”
“Always a good thing.” James crossed to the dresser and picked up the mirror lying on it. Sirius recognised it as the counterpart to his own two-way mirror. “You could have contacted me using this, you know. Remus, Peter and I sent you loads of letters that you never answered.”
Sirius cocked an eyebrow. They had sent him letters? “What are you talking about? I never got any letters from you three.”
“We sent you at least a dozen and you never replied to any of them.”
“That’s because I didn’t get any letters.”
The corners of James’s mouth turned downward. The only reasons he could see for Sirius never getting the letters were his owl going astray (which never happened as his owl knew quite well where Sirius lived), the owl being intercepted, or someone taking the letters the moment they arrived at the house. James couldn’t think of anybody who would intercept an owl that was just going to a school friend, especially since that letter held no important information. He was quite certain that Remus’s owl and Peter’s owl knew how to get to Grimmauld place. Though Remus’s owl, Jude, had never been to Grimmauld Place before, but Remus said he used the family owl.
That only left one option.
“Padfoot, you don’t think your parents were taking the letters we sent you?”
Sirius’s frown was thoughtful. His parents’ minds definitely thought in a pattern that would lead them to that decision. “They might have been. Bloody gits.”
“It would explain why you think we’ve been ignoring you.” James set the mirror down and headed towards the door. “C’mon, let’s see how dinner’s going.”
Sirius followed James out the door. His parents may have snatched every letter his friends had sent him over the week, but that wouldn’t happen again. He was never going back to number twelve Grimmauld Place. He had put up with his parents’ nonsense for sixteen years and, for the first time in his life, he was truly free of it. He did not have to hear about how Slytherin was the perfect house and Gryffindor was for blood traitors. He didn’t have to listen to horrific stories about the alleged pureness of blood. He did not have to put up with hearing that he was not a suitable heir to the Black Family. He had escaped from it all.
Sirius Black had found his real home and it was with the Potters.