Running With Wolves

Chapter 3: Sirius' Secret

Chapter 3: Sirius' Secret

Sirius waited in his bedroom, tapping subconsciously on his bedpost. The bowtie around his neck was uncomfortably tight and his dress robes made him feel out of place and uncomfortable. It was only a matter of minutes before his mother shoved Kreacher up the stairs to come find him. Or even worse, she came up to drag him down the stairs herself.

Sirius had locked his bedroom door. Not that it would keep out his mother, or the creepy house elf. Still, it was one more barrier between him and the dinner that was currently happening downstairs.

He stared at his reflection in the window. His hair looked awful. His mom had forced him to cut it, and while it wasn't so short by her standards, compared to how he usually wore it, it looked horrible. And it would take several months for it to grow back. He ruffled it up irately, trying to make it seem less proper.

Sirius whipped around to the heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. Someone pounded against the door. Then, with a bang, the door was thrown open.

His mother.

"Sirius Orion Black, get back downstairs this instant," she said shrilly. When, rather than following her out the door, he took a step backwards, she marched into his room, grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him along with her, her fingernails digging into his shoulder hard enough to break the skin, and shoved him down the stairs in front of her. He barely managed to avoid falling on the face by grabbing the railing and throwing himself against the wall.

"Get a move on," his mother snapped. Grudgingly, Sirius continued down the stairs, shaking his hair from his face once more for good measure.

The drawing room was full of people Sirius hated. Old families, people he'd met and disliked, people he'd never met, but knew he disliked anyway. Abraxas Malfoy and his pig of a son Lucius were there. The blond boy was near his age. They had gone to school together for a few years, but Malfoy and his family were about as Slytherin as one could get. Sirius scowled when he notice Malfoy was talking to his little brother Regulus.

Regulus: his perfect brother, everything that Sirius wasn't. Regulus was a Slytherin like everyone else in the Black family. Regulus embraced his pureblood status and the prejudices that came with it. Regulus was cruel and muggle-hating just like he was supposed to be. Regulus was not a disappointment. And Malfoy, the only son and heir of the family. Also happy to be a bigoted git. Both boys looked up at him when he came in the room. Malfoy smirked, Regulus...Sirius couldn't read the expression on his brother's face. Sirius looked away.

An old crotchety man in billowing navy cloak approached him with a crooked smile. "Young Master Black," he said—even his voice sounded like a precariously built tower of wood about to crash down on top of them. "What a pleasure it is to meet you at last. The black sheep of the family, so to speak, ha, ha. That certainly seems to be accurate. I'm told you were sorted into Gryffindor, is that true as well?"

"Yes, sir," Sirius said stiffly, already he hated the man, who was now cackling at Sirius gripping his silver cane in both his gnarled hands. "Excuse me, sir, I've been rather meaning to speak with, er—," Sirius let his sentence trail off as he left the man behind, shuddering slightly.

"Come back here, boy, I wasn't finished with you."

Reluctantly, Sirius turned back.

"Take this, I have no use for it, though I get the feeling you will quite soon." And the old man stuffed a small leather pouch into Sirius' hands. Sirius pulled open the strings to look inside. It was filled with gold Galleons.