All the Young Dudes ( Sirius' Perspective )

Summer 1971

Sirius Black was awake. He doubted that he would ever sleep again. His entire body was alive with energy, buzzing, as if he could feel the magic fizzing in his veins.

This was unfortunate, as it was well past midnight and there was nothing to do but lie in bed. His mother had begun sending Kreacher, the wretched little snitch, to check in on him after one fateful night when she had discovered Sirius under the covers with a muggle magazine. She had been furious, ranting about how her niece was "poisoning his mind" and "contaminating the purity of the noble Black family." There had also been a lot about 'Dromeda's "perverted obsession with mundanity," a line which Sirius had thought his cousin would actually find quite funny. It wasn't funny when Walpurga was screaming it, though-her face twisted up into a frightening snarl.

The magazine wasn't even Andromeda's. Sirius had nicked it from a bin two weeks back; he'd shown it to Reg, and they'd had a laugh about the silly, unmoving pictures.

Tonight, though, none of that mattered. Because tomorrow-tomorrow Sirius was going to Hogwarts.

Hogwarts.

Just thinking the name made him giddy, and he grinned up at the dark panelled ceiling of his room. He felt like laughing-he wanted to throw off the covers and jump up and down on the overlarge mattress. Hogwarts. It was all he'd wanted since he could remember, the shining light at the end of what felt like a very dark tunnel.

All summer he'd been up at the crack of dawn, racing downstairs to check the post. His mother's sharp reprimands that he behave with decorum had not been enough to thwart his excitement-nor had the punishments she doled out when her commands went ignored. He didn't care about washing a few dishes or dusting a few old cabinets, and the fact that chores were the worst of it made Sirius think that secretly, his mother must be just a tiny bit excited too. Maybe even proud of him. Just a little. Surely, if she was truly angry, she'd have done much worse.

When the letter did come, Sirius had whooped with joy and grabbed Reggie's hands, swinging them around in circles until they collapsed on the living room floor, giggling.

"Can you believe it, Reg? I'm really off to Hogwarts." Sirius had sighed, blissfully. His little brother smiled, although there was a hungry glint in his eye as stared at the letter clutched in Sirius's hands.

"Wish I could go with you," he said, rolling over so that he was lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

"Aw, come on, you'll be there in a year! And we'll be housemates, living in the dorms together, and I can show you 'round and tell you which professors are nice and all that."

Regulus dug his fingers into the plush carpet beneath them. "S'pose," he said. And then, after a short pause, "Won't be the same 'round here, without you, though."

Sirius stiffened. "'Course it won't," he said, "Be a lot a more boring, eh?" Even to his own ear, the cheer sounded forced, but Reggie smiled valiantly.

"Yeah," he said, "Right."

They left it at that.

Walpurga Black refused to take her sons shopping in Diagon Alley, and Sirius knew better than to think that any amount of pleading or bargaining would change her mind. The Noble Black Family was above mixing with the crowds of halfbloods and mudbloods that were sure to flood the place, she said; it was bad enough, the state Dumbledore had let things get at Hogwarts.