Carve Me Open / r.l. + s.b. /

Trust

"Who would have thought that an empty heart could weigh so much?"
-via Blake Auden

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Hogwarts Express, January 1972 (First Year)

Sirius traipsed behind his mother, shoulders slumped and eyes to the ground. He followed the skirt of her dress, a deep green stained with dirt and rain from the sidewalks outside the station. A trail of murky brown followed them; it sort of looked like shit, if you asked him. Every step he took, a jolt of fiery, white pain ran through his calves and into the crevasses of his spine. If he stopped moving, he let the pressure wear down on the wounds, forcing the deep gashes in his skin to close on account of gravity and allowing the blood to clot.

However, if he moved, he alleviated some of the relentless stingings that accompanied his newest punishment. It was an inner battle to decide. Should he stay put, both feet firmly planted to the ground in hopes that his skin would somehow magically mend. The agony would be lifted from his shoulders. Or maybe he should bounce like a circus animal from the platform into his compartment as if he were performing for all of London? Wouldn't his mother enjoy that exhibition?

"Would you hurry up," Walburga quipped, yanking Sirius by the wrist? "I have things to do and places to be, and I do not need to be late on account of your lollygagging!"

But her son wasn't listening. Sirius's focus remained on the rhythmic pattern of his dull steps like clockwork. The pain was bearable, but her whining and yapping like a wild animal were not. No matter what he said, nevertheless, she would continue. All Sirius had to do was breathe too loud or stumble over the table cloth she tied around her waist as a dress skirt, and Walburga would be tempted to thrash him in front of every wizard in London.

Walburga was without shame, without consideration. In her eyes, Sirius deserved all of this. Maybe in another life, he'd done something terrible, and this was God's way of punishing him.

He pulled his wrist from his mother's grasp, "That will be all I need from you."

They'd arrived at the convergence of platforms between 9 and 10. A few students crowded around the entrance, all saying their goodbyes. Their mothers coddled them and kissed their foreheads, told them how much they'd miss them or how they'd write. Sirius was convinced he'd never get that, and it didn't bother him. He was used to it. So, what was the point of her coming to the platform? Only to berate and abuse him as a whipping dog? It wouldn't stand!

"Excuse me," Walburga scoffed. "I don't quite like your tone."

Sirius rolled his eyes, "Oh, please, you never like my tone. If you're only coming to tell me to make good grades in the house of simpletons, father beat you to it. And if you think for one second I am going to let you publicly demean me as some sort of power play, you're mistaken."

"Watch how you speak to me," his mother warned, a treacherous, reedy finger waving in his face. "I can pull you from this school faster than you could say your own name."

"And put me where," Sirius countered, crossing his arms over his chest and raising his chin? "That boarding school in the snow? Or the one for ladies in France? How about the Yankee school out in the states?" Walburga's jaw dropped, stunned. "Oh, you were planning on homeschooling me? Yes, that seems like the best choice considering our relationship."

Their eyes met for a moment, neither sure who had the advantage. It was ill-advised of Walburga to show her true nature in the proximity of sane people; Orion would cane her if she managed to tarnish the family name over Sirius, even the boy knew that. While he loathed his father and everything the old man stood for, it was moments like these when he treasured the authority he held over Walburga. For a passing moment, Sirius was safe.