The Forest - R.L.

Chapter 45 - The Howler

"Sirius Orion Black!" it began with a screechy voice that perfectly matched that of his mother, Walburga Black.

"How dare you dance with that mudblood boy!? I thought – I hoped that you were better than that. Your filthy Gryffindor half-blood friends are bad enough," the Howler paused, as Peter, Remus, Grace and James all looked at each other.

"She does know that I'm actually a pure-" James began to correct her, but was cut off as the envelope opened its paper mouth again.

"But dancing with a muggleborn at the ball, with the whole school watching is too far. And a boy as well? You disgust me, Sirius."

Sirius looked across the hall and made eye contact with a worried looking Ely. Sirius gave him a reassuring smile.

"Don't expect to be coming home this Christmas, either. This is the last straw – you've already betrayed us enough times and the rest of the family is beginning to wonder why we hadn't disowned you yet. You're a disgrace to the Black family name, boy, and I've had enough. You make me sick. I don't want to ever see you in my house again!"

And with that, the letter tore itself up and burst into flames.

Sirius just sat there in front of it, watching as the cinders fell to the table.

A few Slytherins began to laugh.

The others exchanged worried glances. Whilst they knew that Sirius hated his family, it was another thing to be disowned by them. He had grown up in that house and now he was most likely never going to see it again.

James put a hand on his shoulder. "You're more than welcome to stay at mine for Christmas. You know my parents won't mind, they love you."

"Possibly more than they love you," Sirius said with a chuckle, although they could all see by the sadness in his eyes that the grin was just a façade.

For the rest of the day, Sirius was uncharacteristically quiet, keeping to himself during classes and trying to keep his head down. A large proportion of the students were there that morning, and those who weren't soon found at what happened. Numerous times he overheard snippets of conversations from students walking past about him. Some students even approached him and said things to his face.

They were mostly Slytherins, many of which he was related to in one way or another, simply reiterating what Walburga had said in the Howler. That he deserved to be thrown out, that he was disgusting, that he was a disgrace to his prestigious family.

Both James and Grace ended up with detentions for hexing them

Ely came over during lunch and apologised profusely, to which Sirius just laughed and hugged him, causing Ely's face to go bright red again.

Regulus stopped him in the hallway on their way back to the Gryffindor Common Room.

"I'm sorry. About this morning," he said quietly, looking at his feet.

"I know," Sirius replied with a sigh. "I don't want to leave you with them, Reg."

"I'll be fine," Regulus assured him with a sad smile, patting his brother's arm before continuing down the corridor towards the dungeons.

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The school holidays were soon upon them, after the Christmas gift giving shebang with the Hufflepuffs that they had planned to have on the last day of school was postponed until after the holidays as majority of the group – save for Lily, Abbey and Ely – hadn't gotten all of their presents together yet due to disorganisation. No surprises there.

All of the Marauders were headed home for Christmas, with the exclusion of course of Sirius who was headed to the Potter's, but then again the Potter Mansion had always been more of a home to him than Grimauld Place.

The afternoon after they arrived, a large package arrived at Potter Mansion with six very tired looking owls standing on it.

Sirius immediately recognised one of them as his mother's and moved over to open it.

The package was wrapped in plain brown paper that had been magically charmed not to tear, with a thin string tied around it. A small tag was attached to it:

I thought you might want these. – R.A.B.

A smile broke out on his face as he ripped open his brother's package to reveal a large bag, filled with all sorts of things that Sirius had had in his bedroom – spare clothes, a collection of muggle memorabilia (which he specifically owned just to annoy Walburga), a few posters, mostly depicting motorbikes, and his guitar.

James wasted no time in helping Sirius carry the bag up to the guest room that had been declared his.

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This chapter and the next one are going to be shorter than usual because I wanted the next one to end in a certain place (you'll see why next week).

Also guess who has exams for the next week and a half? :)))))))))))killme But then we have work experience and the school holidays which usually means more regular updates then every weekend so you have that too look forward to.

-Grace