A Black Life

1

Chapter 1 - Black and Blue

A ripple in the air in front of Number 4 Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey, England gave away the fact that someone, an invisible someone, was standing near this quite normal, suburban home belonging to Mr. And Mrs. Vernon Dursley. If you were looking that is - and if you believed that someone could be invisible - which you could if you believed in witches and wizards. Because it was a wizard who was standing near Number 4 Privet Drive and he was under an invisibility cloak.

Sirius Black was being careful to stay on the cleared sidewalk and driveway of the home, since it had snowed the night before and he didn't want to leave any tracks on the lawn. This made it harder for him to get close enough to see anything through the windows.

Sirius blew on his fingers and waited impatiently on the front porch landing for the owner of the home to leave for work. He was hoping that he would be able to slip past Mr. Dursley as he opened the door to go out to his car, and spend some time inside the house observing how Mrs. Dursley interacted with her two-year old son...and her 16 month old nephew. Petunia Dursley was Harry Potter's Aunt and he had been living in her home for two weeks now. His Godfather and Remus were anxious to see how Harry was being treated, whether he was happy, or not.

They had been subjected to first hand accounts of Petunia Dursley's hatred of the wizarding world from her sister Lily when she had been alive; and they couldn't believe that Petunia would gladly take in Lily's son without some sort of protest and/or petty retaliation against him.

Sirius and Remus had started staking out the home two days ago to see what the couple's pattern of living was, and now they were going to actually go inside and see for themselves how Harry lived. It was Sirius' turn to stand watch and he was very excited to be able to finally see his Godson.

The door handle began to turn and Sirius could hear Vernon calling good-bye to his wife as the door began to open. Vernon Dursley was a great walrus of a man, with a mustache to match, and Sirius was concerned that he wouldn't be able to get by him without being discovered. He was in luck though. As Vernon opened the door and stepped out on the landing he stopped, with his hand still holding the door open, to breath deeply of the fresh, chilly air and look about him at his home and car with an expression of pride on his florid face. It was a morning ritual with him that Sirius now took advantage of. He slipped through the door behind Vernon as he held the door open - and almost ran into Petunia. She had hurried into the foyer of their home with their rather large-for-his-age son on her hip to let him give his father a wave good-bye.

Sirius sidled past Petunia into the living room and carefully walked over to the far corner where he would be out of the way. He looked around the scrupulously clean room for any sign of another child. There was nothing but an empty playpen behind the couch. There weren't even any toys in the playpen.

The sound of a small hand slapping against a flat surface came from the kitchen, along with the quiet murmur of baby talk. Sirius smiled to himself and headed toward the kitchen. There he found two high-chairs. One occupied by a small, black-haired, green-eyed little boy. He was chasing the remains of some dry toast around on the tray of the high-chair.

As Sirius watched him play, he noticed that Harry would sometimes stop playing with his toast scraps and lean over, reaching for the other high-chair. He assumed that one was for Petunia's son, Dudley. He could see the tray, instead of only containing toast scraps, was full of scrambled eggs, bacon and other signs of a hearty breakfast, and the floor underneath the chair was littered with the same kinds of food. The floor under Harry's chair however only showed a few more scraps of dry toast.

Maybe he doesn't like eggs. Maybe he's a picky eater and he only likes toast. Sirius was trying to convince himself that he wasn't seeing any kind of favoritism. Although isn't Harry a little young to be left alone in a high-chair? He could climb out and fall over the side. His brow creased lightly with concern as he thought this, although as a bachelor he wasn't really sure what a responsible mother would have done. It just seemed a little risky to him.

While he was watching Harry, Petunia returned to the kitchen with Dudley after seeing Vernon off to work. She walked in and plunked Dudley back in his own seat and encouraged him to continue eating the food that was on his tray, offering to heat it up again for him if it was too cold. Sirius cringed as the large boy grabbed handfuls of the food and crammed them into his mouth. He smeared the food over his face and pushed more off the tray onto the floor.

Petunia then turned to Harry and bent over to pick up the scraps of toast that had fallen to the floor, returning them to his tray, berating him at the same time for making a mess. When he took one of the scraps to eat, another accidently fell to the floor again. Petunia slapped his hand and scolded him for making another mess.

Sirius knew that his mouth was hanging open, and he could feel a growl of protest coming up from his chest. He knew it would burst out in a moment so he clapped a hand over his mouth to help keep the sound in. He couldn't believe what he was seeing! The only thing that kept him from whipping the invisibility cloak off right then and there, and running out of the house with Harry in his arms, was the knowledge that Dumbledore would require more proof than this one instance to believe that Harry was being mistreated. Sirius was determined to stay and store up as many memories as he could stomach so that he could show them to the Headmaster in all their glory. Then Dumbledore wouldn't be able to deny the what he could see for himself!

****

When Petunia laid the boys down for a nap after lunch, Sirius took the opportunity to let himself out the back door and walk far enough away to apparate back home. During the hours after breakfast, Sirius had watched as Petunia cleaned up the boys. He saw her coo and play with Dudley while carefully wiping the food off of his face and clothes and cleaning up around his seat. She left Harry in his chair again as she gave her son a bath and changed his outfit. After putting him on the clean floor to play, she harshly wiped down Harry and changed his nappie. Then carted him off to the living room where she put him it the playpen that Sirius had noticed earlier.

Toys were brought out and scattered around the floor as Dudley toddled in from the kitchen. None of the toys made it into the playpen where Harry sat though. When one got close enough for Harry to reach out and pull it into the playpen with him, his cousin started to cry. Petunia saw what had happened and she immediately took the toy from Harry and gave it to her son. Dudley stopped crying. Harry just watched in confusion. When he tried to reach out for the toy again his cousin hit him with it and then crawled away, leaving it just out of Harry's reach.

The morning continued to pass in like manner. Dudley was praised and Harry was scolded. Dudley was given whatever he wanted and Harry had the cast-offs until his cousin wanted them too. Sirius was under so much strain from keeping himself hidden that he thought he would explode.

The last straw was when Petunia started getting the boys ready to lay down for their nap. When she opened the cupboard under the stairs and he saw a mattress inside, Sirius at first didn't know what to think. It wasn't until he saw her pick up Harry out of his playpen and carry him over to the cupboard that he understood. The young boy started to fuss, and the closer he got to the cupboard, the harder he cried. When she closed the cupboard with Harry inside, crying and hitting the door, begging for release, Sirius was in shock. He bit his lip and clenched his hands so hard they hurt. A tear escaped to trickle down his face.

****

Remus didn't have to ask what the outcome of the morning's expedition had been. One look at his friend's face and he knew better than to say anything. He waited while Sirius paced back and forth in the kitchen, slamming cupboard doors as he pretended to look for something to eat. Though nothing would have stayed down, he was that upset. Sirius finally threw himself into one of the chairs and slapped his hand sharply on the table while muttering an expletive.

Turning to Remus he growled, "What a hateful woman! I could hardly contain myself!" His face screwed up in remembrance of the morning and when he had related all that he had seen to his friend, he said, "You have to go back and watch too. See if things are any different this afternoon. You can go in the back door while Petunia is busy or napping with the children. I left the door unlocked."

"I know the ministry won't accept testimony from you because of your lycanthropy, but Dumbledore must. In the meantime I am going to start going through the Black family library and look for the strongest protection measures I can find. We HAVE to convince him to let us take Harry away from those...Muggles!"

When Remus returned that evening, seething with anger after seeing Vernon slap Harry to get him to stop crying, he too agreed with Sirius and joined his friend in the library, tearing through books with a vengeance in search of an alternative to leaving Harry to live with such horrid people.