The One That Got Away| Sirius Black

025| Like Christmas

June 20, 1975

The rest of Sirius's fourth year had gone fairly smoothly. He received great marks in his classes and was second behind Remus. James had gotten fourth, after Lily Evans. Their friend group had a hay day teasing each other about that one. Nothing else happened with the Slytherins besides the usual trash-talking. The Marauders pulled many more pranks against them but didn't target anyone specifically. Sirius only managed to get seven more detentions.

He also didn't talk to Isabella at all for the rest of the year. They had gotten new partners in Potions and avoided each other at all other costs. For some reason, Sirius found himself saddened by this.

The summer was drastically different from the last two blissful months of school. It seemed that the Wizarding World was falling apart outside of Hogwarts. An anonymous author posted an article about werewolves not being monsters. His mother threw a fit upon reading it and his father was quite upset as well. After that, there were many disappearances of werewolves and others that supported them.

"Sirius! Regulus! Get down here!" Walburga screeches from downstairs. Sirius cringes at the sound of his mother's voice. He rolls his eyes and crawls out of bed. He stops by his mirror and straightens his clothing, not wanting to give his mother any more reasons to nag him.

Sirius and Regulus walk out of their room at the same time. Regulus gives Sirius an anxious smile; Sirius squeezes his brother's shoulder and leads the way downstairs. Sirius hopes that his mother isn't in one of her moods.

The boys enter the dining room, following the smell of food. Kreature is setting out plates for the family but stops to bow to the boys. Sirius rolls his eyes at the elf and takes a seat. Regulus smiles at the elf and sits across from his brother at the table. The boys wait for their father to begin loading his plate before they do the same. The room is silent, besides the sound of silverware scraping the plates. The two sons don't look up from their plates.

"They captured that bloke who works at the ice cream parlor," Walburga declares, interrupting the deafening silence.

"It's about time," Orion tuts monotonously.

"For what?" Regulus asks dryly. His face is stoic, but Sirius can hear the slightest quiver of fear.

Walburga gasps, clutching her chest in shock. "Regulus, surely you know. He was a werewolf!"

Sirius gasps, which leads to him choking on his food. All eyes turn to his outburst. Normally, Sirius was able to keep his composure. When it came to werewolf matters, Sirius was a little more sensitive. Every time he heard news about werewolves, he feared for Remus. Especially now that Sirius was back home and couldn't send letters to his friends. With the rise in disappearances, Sirius's anxiety had grown.

"Is something wrong, Sirius?" Walburga asks, turning to her son with a piercing stare. "I don't want those things walking around the streets infecting everyone. A wild beast deserves to be put down."

Sirius shakes his head, shoveling a spoon of pudding into his mouth.

"You agree with me, don't you?" Walburga presses. She leans closer to him in her seat. Sirius tries to avoid her gaze.

"He's not important right now, Walburga," Orion announces, shutting his wife down. "We need to get going soon."

"Where are you going?" Regulus asks bravely. Their parents had just gotten home from work and were planning to leave again. They'd been doing that often in the few weeks the boys had been home for the summer. Orion and Walburga were often gone until late at night and sometimes for entire weekends. The boys could only guess that it had something to do with the Dark Lord.