The Marauders: Year Two | #Wattys2016

Defiance

Defiance

Grimmauld Place was a most excellent name for the street that the Blacks lived upon, Sirius decided one day, not long after having arrived back home for the holiday. It certainly was grim. Everything was dull, grey, colourless - especially now, in the winter, with all the leaves dead from the trees and the flowers in the square dead and buried under the dirty snow and patches of brown grass. It was downright dismal. Yet outside, even in the cold grey atmosphere, was still better than being inside, where the lanterns flickered in dim lighting and Kreacher roamed about, moaning and grumbling to himself as he creaked about, playing the slave for Master Regulus.

Walburga and Orion barely paid any attention to Sirius's presence at all. Often times, if they needed to speak to him, Walburga would turn to Kreacher and tell Kreacher to tell Sirius something rather than saying it directly to him herself, even if he was in the same room. Kreacher would croakily repeat the message that Sirius had heard perfectly well when she told the elf what to say, and Sirius would ball his fists up in frustration.

"I ruddy heard her myself, you dim witted little creature!" he shouted at the elf one of the times that Walburga had done this, "I'm right here! And if she wants to speak to me, then she can tell me it herself!"

That had earned him a good dose of the Cruciatus Curse.

Sirius sat now, perched in a branch in the square, his feet up on the trunk of the tree, watching some muggle boys that were building a fort on the other end of the square. They didn't know Sirius and hadn't seemed much interested in letting him join in when he'd gone 'round to talk with them.

One of the boys had crunched up his nose when Sirius introduced himself, "What sort of name is Sirius?" he asked, disdainfully.

"Where do you live?" another had asked, his eyebrows bunching together.

Sirius had remembered, then, that the charms on Number 12 Grimmauld Place rendered it quite invisible and the other children were suspicious of the strange boy with the funny name who, as far as they could see, didn't live on their block. He'd retreated off to his tree then, but that didn't stop him from watching them. They reminded him of James and Remus and even Peter. They'd made a snow fort on the ground of Hogwarts back when the snow had first fallen, and he remembered the way James sounded telling a joke when they'd sat inside, drinking butterbeers that Peter had knicked from the kitchens and warmed themselves by a little fire that Remus had conjured. He could almost feel the warmth of both the fire and the friendship and it made something inside him ache with longing to go home.

To Hogwarts, he corrected his thoughts.

He'd been doing that lately. Thinking of school as home and this awful place as - well, something else.

Hell, perhaps.

There were crunching footsteps below and he looked down to see Regulus, looking up at him with a sour look on his face. "Mother says you're to come inside now," Regulus said. He was wound up with a grey scarf with the Black family crest on the end. He turned and started back toward the house, beating his hands together to warm up as he walked, not waiting for his brother.

Sirius jumped down from the tree and flipped the bright gold and maroon scarf he wore 'round his neck. The Gryffindor colours were the brightest things in the whole neighborhood. "What'd she send you out here for? Why not send Kreacher?" Sirius asked, quickly falling into stride beside Regulus.

"Kreacher in the square!" Regulus scoffed, "That would be a grand way of blowing the Statute of Secrecy, wouldn't it?" He rolled his eyes, "What are they teaching you in that school? Obviously not any smarts."