Sirius&James @mighty-prongs
It hadn’t been planned. It had been one of those impulses, his ability of thought washed away with the waves of anger that crashed through his mind. He hadn’t been planned, no, and Sirius hadn’t been quite sure of what he was doing, what it all meant. No, wrong. Sirius knew. He had thought about it plenty. He knew that he would erase himself from the family bound by blood. He knew it meant the end. His teenage mind, rather, couldn’t apprehend truly all that would entail. What it really would mean. He knew deep down that this is what he needed to survive, that he would follow relatives into madness - brought on either by inbred genetics or from the maddening pacing of a trapped animal never allowed to roam free - if he had stayed. If he had forced himself to play the part he had never wanted, never asked for, had no desire to play. He wanted rid of that. He wanted rid of the expectations, the heavy traditions, the lack of any understanding or wellbeing for the individual rather than always always being about the family.
But had Sirius understood that it would mean that he could never come crashing through Regulus’ door again, to gleefully annoying the younger brother that was so unlike him that Sirius couldn’t help but love? He knew, in theory, what it meant. What it meant that he would never be invited into Orion’s study for discussion and tutoring, to feel that heavy hand on his shoulder, or those moments when mother played the piano and everything was alright, for a while. He could imagine the concept. He wasn’t able to feel it. Hadn’t thought through that it meant pushing Regulus - unprepared, oft ignored but better son from the beginning - into the role Sirius now had refused.
All in all, Sirius had never liked it at home. The brief moments of joy and familiarity was too often shadowed by the heaviness of the air at Grimmauld. When he first had heard stories that James had spun about his family life, Sirius had thought it fairytales. And then Remus seemed to have a similar, but not entirely same, spin on it. Peter, no. Peter had had a more normal stance on family life. James, Hogwarts, meeting the outside world hadn’t planted the frustration Sirius had always felt, the anger and sadness and hopelessness, but it had nurtured it, encouraged the feelings that he could have something else.
And thus, that evening, Sirius had tugged out his trunk, filled it with all the letters he had saved from summers past from Peter, the mirror from James, the drawings of Remus laughing, reading, clothes he couldn’t leave behind, precious books, the leather notebook and pencils Regulus had gifted him the past Christmas. The essentials of Sirius - the essentials of him that he had been allowed, or been able to sneak by - thrown into the trunk with a teenage boy’s gangly anger. And then, he had opened the window, levitated it outside (having learned one of the very, very, very few weaknesses of Orion’s fortifications that had allowed him to slip out, to drag himself back home drunk), and jumped after it. He hadn’t looked back, the feeling of it being real rather than just a few days away on a holiday, to punish his parents, to put his foot down. He hadn’t looked back. Maybe he should’ve. Would it had been a difference? Maybe, for his own emotions, later.
Sirius hadn’t his bike back then. Hadn’t a broom (that was Regulus’ thing). Apparation would be too far for him, too risky in his anger, in his non-licenced novice. Sirius had dragged his trunk the posh London street, saw waiting for the Knight Bus to come collect him.
It hadn’t even rained that evening.
It all felt so very summery, so happy, so promising, when he later that night stood underneath James’ window, head tipped back to look up at it. He felt his soul yearn for the boy inside. James, James that had rocked his world so, that fateful day they met at the train, and ever since. Where else would he go? He didn’t like to intrude, and he had always felt rather weird the times he had been allowed to stay at the Potters, unused to the warmth and familiarly the Potters showed James, showed him. But where else? Remus had his sickly mother, and they weren’t that kind of best friends that he could just pop along and claim Remus’ place as his own. Peter, never, too miserably, too same-same. Potter, then. And it hadn’t even been an option, a conscious decision. He had just gone there. Followed his heart.
Sirius threw a pebble, two, three, up at James’ window, waiting for the boy to save him, once again.
