The Boggart II: Sirius Circumstances

The Boggart II: Sirius Circumstances

The first time Sirius faced a boggart, he was eleven years old.

Wandering the halls of Grimmuald Place held little entertainment for a boy his age and his mother refused to let him play with the other wizarding children that lived in the neighboring houses. His younger brother, Regulus, always locked himself away in his room, no doubt studing up on the Dark Arts. He was their mother's pet; Regulus could do no wrong in her eyes.

Sirius didn't mind not playing with the other children much; most of them he felt were way too immature and beneath him. He still had some pride and nothing, not even a brand new CleanSweep, would make him frolick with that greasy git, Severus Snape.

There was one boy that caught his eye. He watched him from his bedroom window as the other boy lead the children in outrageous games and adventures. Sirius wanted so badly to be near the boy, to impress him. He began mimicing the boy's gestures, including the way he brushed his disheveled hair from his eyes. He even bribed Regulus into finding out the boy's name. James Potter, Sirius knew, would be his best freind when he finally came back out from his mother's thumb. James Potter would understand him, would prank with him, and help him when he needed someone to lean on. James Potter would be Sirius's way out of this hell.

It was Sirius's birthday, a day that never really saw much celebration as it did ceremony. Bored from the countless different relatives and partners flocked to the manor, the boy decided to retreat to his favorite hiding place, the upstairs attic. He knew exactly where the secret entrance was, having stumbled upon it during his mother's latest rantings.

Underneath the stairs, a portrait hung next to the owl perch. The portrait itself was of Sirius's great grandfather, Orion Black. Only the members of the Black bloodline could touch the door and gain access to the stairs. Years later, Remus resurfaced the portrait from the piles of dust and developed several serious burns across his hands and arms before Sirius saved him.

The boy rambled up the stairs and winding his way through the towering trunks of clothes and potion vials, the tarnished mirror embronzed with the Black crest, and older broken toys that caused an involuntary shiver down his spine. An antique chest quivered and then violently shook, leading to Sirius dodging behind the mirror. He peeked out while drawing a few panicking breaths.

The chest gently rocked on its legs. Lulled into a false sense of bravery, Sirius snuck forward on his knees until he stopped a hand length away. Reaching out, he grasped the handle of the door and yanked. A breeze of stale air ruffled his hair as he peered in, his eyes slitted against the dust. Curiousity coaxed him into moving closer. He leaned farther into the space between himself and the chest, searching for the source of the disturbance.

He barely had time to yelp before a cold, clammy hand clenched tightly over his wrist. He choked on his yell and fell hard onto his butt, pulling his hand free. He scrambled to put room between himself and the thing climbing from the chest.

The thing had black hair and dark eyes that glared a hole into his face. Sirius squirmed from fear and the thing's scrutiny. It had the resemblence of a boy, a doppelganger of someone he'd stared at and studied for several years. It was James Potter and for the life of him, he couldn't figure out how the boy found his way into the Black manor.

"James..." his voice quivered.

An evil grin split the doppelganger's face.

"You're that kid, Black, right?" he barked.

Sirius nodded slowing, swallowing a nervous tick that threatened to emerge.

"You want to know why I'm here, don't you?" he paused to watch Sirius's slow nod,"I don't think I need a reason besides the usual friendliness."

"How do you get in? Did you apparate or-"

"Kids can't apparate and you've got wards against that, stupid," James interrupted, "don't you have any brains in that head of yours?"

A dull rage began to hum in Sirius's veins.

"What do you want?" he snapped, jerking to his feet.

He yearned for a wand, or anything he could hex the boy with. James sauntered over, his actions much much more sure and direct then Sirius's.

"I want to know what kind of freak would stare at someone day after day? Is it the kind that has no life, or the kind that," he let his eyes slid down Sirius's body, "sees something he likes?"

Sirius gulped and stumbled back, his anger fleeing to hide behind a sickening foreboding.

"Is that it, Black? Are you a queer?" Sirius jerked back as if James had slapped him.

The grin spread James's face wider until Sirius thought his face would split into two pieces.

"I just wanted..I wanted..a friend," the boy stuttered.

"A friend..he wants a friend!" James remarked to an invisble audience as he laughed,"what makes you think I'd ever want you as a friend?"

Sirius began to back away and slowly creep towards the stairs.

"Where are you going? Is the ickle boy scared? Running to get your mummie to protect you from the big, bad boy? You're pathetic. I'd never be friends with you, even by some miracle you actually developed a brain!" James howled.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP HERE, SIRIUS ORION BLACK! HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU TO STAY AWAY FROM HERE!" Mrs. Black yanked Sirius behind her.

"Don't you know a boggart, boy, when you've seen one?" she boxed the boy's ears while simultaneously drawing her wand, "Riddikulus!"

James grimanced and began to fade. He fell back into the chest and the door swung shut with a loud click. With a wave of her wand, Mrs. Black relocked the chest and dragged the boy downstairs for her latest scolding.

Several months later, he met the real James at the start of their first year. They got along famously and the boggart situation buried itself in Sirius's mind.

He didn't encounter a boggart again until his fifth year. It couldn't have come at a worst time for the young man. Sirius had just recently alienated himself from his best mates, during the most dangerous, and, in his opinion, the dumbest mistake he'd ever made.

Remus and James wouldn't talk to him, wouldn't look at him, they wouldn't even say his name anymore. Peter, being the loyalest rat Sirius had ever seen, followed their example.

"I'm sorry, Padfoot, but if I didn't do what they wanted then they wouldn't take to me anymore..I can't have that," Peter said mournfully after Sirius confronted him in their dorm room.

He couldn't go to the library anymore; Remus spent his time there now, studying for their O.W.L.S. He couldn't go to the lake. James and Peter were at their favorite spot under the trees, watching the girls or more likely, Lily Evans. He didn't want to go back to the empty dorm room or the common room where they could wander in at anytime.

"No," he thought, wandering the halls,"myabe I should just hide myself in one of the empty classrooms. They'd never find me."

Sirius knew exactly which classroom to hide in. The maruaders had their own prank lab, where they concocted all their schemes and potions. He could spend his time in there until dinner, speeding through his homework.

He spent an hour in there before a loud knocking sound drew him from his work. A chill settled into his chest as he fell back in his eleven year self. A boggart in here. It had to be somewhere in here. Nothing else made that much noise besides the students.

Sirius located the source several moments later in a metal filing cabinet tucked away in the far corner of the room. An odd childlike fear began to cloud his judgement. With sweaty palms, he drew his wand from his back pocket and pointed it's tip towards the cabinet. The top drawer snapped open underneath his touch. A familar breeze flew into the room and even though Sirius knew it couldn't be the same boggart, his heart still froze as the creature's form solidified in front of him.

"Long time, no see, Black," James's voice lashed out at him from the doppelganger's lips.

The eleven year old cowered in Sirius's mind; he ignored him.

"You're not real." Sirius ranted. Dropping his wand, he swung his fist back and launched it home into James's cheek. At the last minute, a hand clenched around his fist and held him there.

"What's the matter? Still think you're right about everything. I hate to bust your little fantasies, big boy, but I am real."

"Ridd...di...Riddi-"

"It doesn't work without your wand, nimwit," James remarked, scooping the wand up from where it lay at his feet.

Now the tables were turned and Sirius suddenly felt a cold chill. Boggarts weren't suppose to do magic, but then again, Boggarts weren't suppose to be able to touch you either.

"Now, what I want to know is," he continued, twirling the wand in his fingertips,"how you could treat dear Moony that way. I mean, giving away his secret, a secret you had promised to protect, to the one person that certainly did not need to know. Betraying your friends and almost killing a fellow student, no matter how horrible he can be. Geeze, Paddy, were you trying to get attention or did you finally decide to live up to the Black heritage?"

Sirius slowly collapsed to his knees. He felt tears welling in the corners of his eyes and he blinked them back, ashamed. James, with a wild light in his eyes, tilted the wand until it's point fell directly between the young man's eyes.

"Maybe you're not worth the trouble, huh, Padfoot? Maybe I should just end it here and now, save everyone a little pain."

Sirius closed his eyes and gave up, just like that. He knew, or some part of him knew, that what the boggart said was true. His anger fell back, replaced by a forlorn sense of failure.

"Just do it," he whispered.

"RIDDIKULUS!"

Hands wrapped around his shoulder and yanked him back as his eyes watched open to see the boggart dissolve.

"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, SIRIUS? THAT THING COULD HAVE MADE YOU BITE THE DUST," The real James howled as he shook him,"DON'T EVER DO THAT TO ME AGAIN! PROMISE!"

"I promise, Prongsy." he murmured before the darkness fled in on both sides.

After the night spent in the hospital wing with Madam Pomfrey force-feeding him chocolate and scolding, the maruaders were able to sit down and discuss (or in James and Sirius's cases, shout out) their feelings until the trio became a tight knit group of four again. Sirius swore that he would never face a boggart again, a promise he kept for twenty-odd years.

Molly kept babbling on and on about the boggart in the upstairs parlor until Sirius felt he'd seal her mouth shut. He wasn't in a particularily good mood, due to Harry leaving soon and house arrest ordered by Dumbledore. He and Remus weren't getting along well; whenever Sirius tried to strike up a conversation, the werewolf found some polite way to back out of it. That wasn't the Remus he remembered. The Moony he remembered never had a reason to be polite to his mates; he ran circles around them with back-handed comments and snarky retorts. Now Remus woudn't even look him in the eye anymore.

Sighing, he reluctantly stomped his way up to the parlor after dinner. He tried roping Remus into helping but the man wouldn't even give him a straight answer. Which left Snape, someone Sirius avoided like the plague.

Sirius banged the door open with his hip. Strolling into the room with his wand at the ready, he calmly watched the desk shake. A wave of the wand and the drawer snapped open, the boggart whirling out onto the floor.

"RIDD-" he began.

"Hey, Paddy," James said. Sirius lowered his wand and stepped back.

"Prongs," he gasped hoarsely, his free hand coming up to brush his Azkaban tatoo.

"Do you miss me? Or were you too busy plotting Peter's death?"

"He killed you. Why-"

"Why wouldn't you, Black? Because you have two murderers at work here. You have Peter, stupid, ignorant hufflepuff that he is, and you, a snake in the grass in disguise."

"James, it wasn't my fault. I-" Sirius pleaded.

"Had nothing to do with it," James's eyes narrowed,"right. Who would ever believe that Sirius Black would ever hurt his friends? Excluding fifth year, of course. You're as much to blame as Voldemort. You left us all to die and abandoned Harry to Lily's family, a fate

I wouldn't give to a dog." The last part came out in a low growl.

Sirius choked. He stumbled to the door and fell out. The door slammed into its threshold behind him as he sank to the floor. Cradling his knees to his chest, he sat there, gasping in breaths.

"Sirius? What is it?" a calm hand fell on his shoulder and he looked up into a pair of

warm, worried brown eyes. He shook his head.

"It wasn't my fault, Moony. I tried, I can't tell you how I tried to save them and it...I..and Harry..James," he sputtered. Remus frowned.

"It wasm't your fault that it happen. Nothing could have prevented it, not even your own death." he said soothingly, pulling him into his arms since the first time they saw each other in the Shrieking Shack.

Sirius felt his heart break and he sobbed into Remus's neck. They stayed there, wrapped into each other, until Harry found them that evening.