Icarus and His Sun

December- 1972 [Part Two]

Sirius would rather eat nothing but dead slugs and maggots for the rest of his life than have to spend Christmas at Grimmauld Place. He wanted nothing more than to run off to the Potter's and spend the whole break mucking about with James. But he knew that Regulus would never agree to coming along, and he had sworn to himself after last Christmas that he would never abandon his brother in that house again. So he had resigned himself to being miserable for two weeks.

Just two bloody weeks. That was all.

The first half had been only mildly unpleasant. He received his fair share of yelling, smacking, and a few light curses, but things had been relatively calm over all, even for Walburga. The worst she had done so far was hex him so that he was unable to sit at all for a full two days after he had refused to move when ordered away from the dinner table. When she finally let him go, he had collapsed from sheer exhaustion and earned himself a beating for showing disrespect.

He tried to stay away from her at all costs in order to prevent any problems. If he couldn't stay quiet in an argument then the next best thing was to not get into an argument at all. And so he did his best to never leave his room unless absolutely necessary, completing any chores as quickly as he could and retreating upstairs to safety.

But of course, since he was Sirius, things were bound to go wrong at some point.

Every year, the Blacks hosted an obscenely massive and over the top gala on Christmas day to show off their wealth to their friends and family. Most pureblood families, those who had not dirtied their name by associating with muggles, were welcome to join.

These events were black tie, incredibly prestigious, and very, very boring. They carried on through most of the night and mainly consisted of adults pretending like they didn't despise each other as they gossiped about people two feet away.

As underage wizards, both Sirius and his brother would be playing the role of waiters for the night.

If wearing a horrendous suit and having to hand out tasteless hors d'oeuvres wasn't bad enough, the cherry on top was that Sirius was unfortunately still the heir of Black. This meant that on his mothers beck and call he was to present himself to whatever grown up she had enticed at the moment and listen and nod politely while they ravaged him.

The insults wouldn't have been nearly as severe had he been sorted into Slytherin like the rest of his family. However, as that was not the case, he was forced to endure hearing how much of a disgrace he was over and over.

It was getting a bit irritating, frankly.

"But you know it's all rubbish," Regulus assured him. "None of them really know you. Not like I do, at least, and I don't think you're a disgrace."

"Well it doesn't matter what you and I think, does it ?" he asked as he loaded up their platters with more bits of food that he couldn't name. He had dragged Regulus into the kitchen with him to regroup. "It matters what they think, and what they think is that I'm the scum of the earth."

"I'm sorry, but you can't change the way they think, Siri. There's nothing you can do."

Sirius grimaces, throwing food down on the plate. "Don't be stupid, there has to be something we can do."

"Well unless you plan on blowing up the ballroom, I don't see how you can get out of this." He takes his platter from the table, heading towards the dining room to rejoin the party.

"Merlin, I wish I could blow up the—"

Sirius falters, hand freezing on its way to grab another serving.

"Blow up the ballroom," he mutters.

His mind races, going to several different places almost immediately. First to the Gryffindor boys dormitory, then to the third floor prefects bathroom, and finally to his school trunk sitting at the foot of his bed.