Chapter Text
Have you ever had the feeling that you might have known exactly how you were gonna die?
A niggling thought in the back of your mind before you go to bed. Telling you, that the image repeating in your head is the truth.
That's the way you're gonna go.
Honestly, I can't say I wasn't certain. However, for as long as I was a teenager I had this image in my mind.
A fear of knives though I've never once been cut.
I never got into trouble. I never stepped out of line of the law. I did my best to excel where it was expected of me. I raised my siblings when my parents couldn't, and helped others where I could.
I figured, karma builds right?
Because I felt like I was gonna die from a stab wound in the back someday.
Karma should have piled up by now and saved me right?
I didn't expect to die today though. I didn't think it would be the ex-boyfriend of my wife the day after I got married. I should have known.
The one person I hurt and it’s completely unintentional because I never fucking knew the guy.
He had been waiting for me. Somehow he had known my work schedule. The fact that I stayed outside for an extra ten minutes before getting off the bus to have a smoke and think.
I think he was in the bushes when I lit my cigarette.
As the lighter failed to spark a few times, he stepped over grass and pressed the tip of the knife against the small of my back.
I took one drag of my barely lit cigarette and knew this was it.
"Brian." I said calmly as I breathed out the last puff of addicting nicotine I'd ever experience. Why was I being killed by a guy with a name as lame as Brian.
Damn Maria for dating a psychopath before she even met me. Damn me for not double checking her history before signing those papers.
Damn. I wanted a couple kids and a dog before I kicked the bucket.
"Shane." Brian greeted once before he pushed the knife into my back. "Perhaps now you won't touch what's mine hm?"
I felt the burn of the jagged knife slipping though muscle, tendon, and bone. Then it hit nerves that caused the pain to immediately flee my body as my legs lost their ability to hold me up. I fell to the cement on my side and hit my head.
I was dying, but I felt calm as I shoved my body onto my back and looked into the bright blue eyes of Brian Gelding. He wore a leather jacket, jeans, and a faded dark blue shirt. His boot kicked my leg before he reached down and took the cigarette from my fingers and began to smoke it.
His dyed red hair stood out under the lamplight, and I wanted to be upset that this would be the last thing I saw in life.
But I saw this coming. I'd seen this moment for years.
I closed my eyes without even trying to take one last breath.
🐈⬛
Sirius stared hard at his hand, wondering if this was all a huge joke.
He had opened his eyes to an ugly thing crumpled on the ground in front of him and a stick in his hand.
Unsure of what was happening, he dropped the stick and glanced around.
There was a posh woman with black hair wearing a black dress like those from the early 1900's, with a gothic flair to it.
A pretty woman. Looked kinda mean.
"Good job Sirius.” She hummed approvingly. She turned to the other human in the room. “Now Regulus, you know better than to hug the filthy elves, they are nothing but servants. Not to be used as your comfort animal." The woman sneered at the smaller child huddled near the settee.
The child whimpered.
Sirius was confused. What the hell was happening? Who were these people? What the heck was this deformed thing at his feet? Sirius prodded the thing with the tip of his toe. The thing moved and Sirius immediately stomped on its head.
Now that's just nasty. Like a gremlin. Someone must of fed it after midnight.
With the crunch of the things skull, a few memories suddenly flashed in his mind and he winced.
Ah. Kreature. He'd just murdered Reggie's elf.
Sirius looked down at the dead beaten thing and wondered what in the world Regulus saw in the thing. It had been hideous for as long as he could remember.
Sure it wasn't mean or anything, but it was disgusting to look at. Stupid too. It helped that they liked to hurt themselves so much, but even that got to a point where it was just an eyesore rather than an entertainment.
Sirius looked towards his mother and smiled calmly when she gave him a proud smirk. Then she knelt down to Regulus and pulled the child into her arms and let him cry.
"Hush now Reggie, we'll get you a new elf. Just make sure you don't treat it like the last one. If you show those things too much affection then they start acting like they're equal to us and sell out all our secrets to other witches and wizards." Mother soothes as she takes the child upstairs passed the elf heads.
Sirius watched them for a long moment before staring down at the dead elf.
Gross.
He was going to have to clean this thing wasn't he? The family didn't have a back up elf yet.
He sighed deeply and picked up the wand he had dropped earlier and thought hard about the vanishing spell his mother always used on their leftovers.
He scowled as he soon discovered his memories were scrambled in his head. Sirius' last memory was getting stabbed, which didn't make any sense at all.
Just ten minutes ago he had been practicing condundito on the elf. A dark spell created to slowly crush the victims without breaking anything.
Sirius stared down at the dead elf for ten minutes just sorting out his memories before he finally remembered what he ate this morning and how his mother had vanished the rest of his food when he was done.
"Evanesco" he growled as he pointed the wand at the corpse. It quickly vanished into the abyss, leaving a mess of blood and brain matter on the carpet.
"Scourgify" the blood and brain matter became bubbly so he threw another evanesco at the bubbles and smiled when it was all cleaned up.
He didn't get to practice spells with the wand that often, but now mother had left the wand with him. He must have earned her trust when he had stomped the elf's ugly head into the rug.
It's a pity it made her want to comfort the baby instead of praising him more. Stupid Regulus.
🐈⬛
Sirius sat at the head of his bed staring tiredly at the book shelf that stood against the wall to his right. All day his mind had been messing with him, and he didn't know what was happening.
He had earlier found himself baffled at a moving painting. Then he had gone to see the boggart to mess around with it and practice some spells but it had turned into an ugly blue eyed guy with a leather jacket and a knife in his hand.
Kept calling him Shane.
He backed out of the room and then proceeded to stare at another moving picture with a grumpy man on it before it started speaking to him.
Sirius was confused. He knew who he was, he knew where he was, he knew what he was and what was expected of him. Why was he confused?
He didn't understand. Everything felt wrong.
He got up from the bed and went to stare at the mirror and frowned at the sight of a child's face. Grey eyes, styled long black hair in a low ponytail, impeccable sleeping attire, and a symmetry that looked as if magic herself had sculpted his face with her own two hands.
He was quite the beautiful child, but it was wrong. He didn't know what was supposed to be right.
He stared at himself, thinking hard and trying to focus before sighing and giving up. It was better to just practice his occlumency like mother always nagged.
Someone must of cursed his brain to make his memories fall out and rattle around his head. Everything just felt so backwards inside. He moved back to the bed and crossed his legs to settle into meditation.
Ugh.
He hated occlumency, only because Regulus was so good at it. He hated anything Regulus was good at. The spare that wasn't needed kept showing him up by being better at everything!
He took a slow breath and focused on keeping his mind calm and empty.
🐈⬛
Weeks had gone by and the mess of his mind still hadn't gone away. The boggart finally went back to being his father like it used to be, with the whip and a disappointed frown. So he kept practicing his spells on it.
Mother hadn't taken back the wand she let him borrow from the attic, and they eventually got a new elf.
Regulus didn't even speak to the new elf. Clearly scared of getting attached again. Stupid kid, why did Mother like him better?
Sirius lived with the strict schedule, and did his best to focus when the tutors came by every day. He ate everything he was given at the table, he continued to be polite to his parents, and avoided Regulus like the plague.
When Mother instructed him to help regulus practice stupefy on the elf, he did his best to show the kid how it was done with the same polite smile he used with his parents.
Reggie didn't even know he was hated.
The kid beamed at him when he got the spell right on the first try like Sirius was supposed to feel proud of him for being better. Sirius patted the kids head and messed up that stupid hair.
Copycat.
Regulus had started copying everything Sirius did. To the way he walked, talked, and dressed. When Sirius wanted to try out a new colour ribbon in his hair, Regulus did the same the next day.
Sirius hated it. But he knew he'd get the whip if he tried to do anything about it. So he ignored it most of the time, and only smiled at the boy when their parents were watching.
He couldn't even curse the boy in private because he knew Regulus would just go crying to mother. Regulus never got whipped.
They didn't want to scar his perfect skin.
🐈⬛
His eleventh birthday came and went. They had a dinner party, the rooms growing to accommodate the hundred or so guests. He greeted everyone as he should, opened meaningless gifts, and copied the smile Regulus always pointed towards him.
A sweet kind, and innocent smile. Everyone was enthralled, and he made his parents proud.
The next day they all went to Diagon alley with the letter he received yesterday and the first years shopping list. Regulus wanted his own broom when Sirius got one, so Regulus got to have one.
Regulus wanted his own copies of the first years books, so he got them. Regulus couldn't get a trunk, but he was instead gifted a satchel with expansion charms woven into the thread that cost more than his own trunk.
Sirius feigned an indulgent smile to it all. Regulus beamed at his purchases and the black family returned home.
Sirius hopes Father decided that the spare would get whipped in his place whenever he wanted to get his rocks off.
🐈⬛
"Slytherin!" The hat yowled the moment it touched Sirius' head, and he despaired. He looked towards the kind James Potter and found nothing but contempt on the boys face.
"Slytherins are all evil" James had claimed in their shared train compartment.
Sirius didn't want to be evil. But Slytherin welcomed him with open arms and he managed to find his own personal servant in a pitiful ugly boy named Severus Snape.