Home Economics, Task #3: Burn-Healing Charm - Write about someone's feelings being hurt

Word Count: 1,224

This takes place in the same verse as i kissed a girl (i hope my boyfriend don't mind it), love is all around (that does not make it good), and singing from the heartache (from the pain). I don't think you really need to read them to understand, but if you'd like some more info on the whole James/Julia deal, that's where you should look.

An heir and a spare.

Orion and Walburga Black had followed that principle in their progeny.

And it is good that they had done that, in more than one sense.

Sirius is the older brother. He is born first.

His parents never exactly dote on him, they deem themselves too noble to do something like care for their own children beyond the necessary.

But they look at him regularly and while the emotion in their eyes isn't exactly love, it's something close to it.

And yes, there is a large number of dangerous traps hidden everywhere in the house, a number so high that surely even Morgana herself must disapprove.

But his parents warn them about the ones they don't yet have the skills to deal with. Or rather they tell their house elves to do so.

That lasts until Sirius is about five years old.

When Sirius is five and Regulus is three, they are deemed old enough to accompany their parents to various social functions.

It is not a pleasant experience in general, but one incident stands out in particular.

It's been about five months since they've started being dragged along and Sirius has gotten the idea in his head that voicing his opinion on the clothes he is to wear is a good idea.

That in itself would not have been an issue. The problem is that he'd like to wear a dress as his mother does.

Neither of his parents like the idea at all. Neither does Regulus.

The latter at least, only tells him his disapproval once and hugs him until the pain goes away.

From that point forward, they eye him a bit more critically.

They actually pay attention to them, not just to the concept.

An heir and a spare.

And they find a lot of things they don't like.

They don't like that he questions things. Even though he's just seeking to understand.

They don't like the way that he ignores the tasks his tutor sets for him. But they are boring and easy and he'd much rather do something else, something that's interesting or a challenge or both.

They don't like his compassion either, he thinks.

Sirius doesn't like looking at the heads of the house elves in the hallway, doesn't think that the tales they tell him of the ancestors that tried to hunt muggles are the pinnacle of entertainment.

He gets a very strong sense of disapproval and disappointment from this.

Life gets worse for Sirius.

He's not sure if it was ever good, to begin with.

An heir and a spare.

Yet both get the same education for the duties that come with being Lord Black, Head of one of the Most Noble and Ancient Houses, one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.

Exactly, precisely the same.

That probably should have told Sirius something.

At Hogwarts, Sirius is sorted into Gryffindor.

It's not what anyone had been expecting. Quite the opposite, in fact.

This is the most he has disappointed his parents so far.

At first, he feels alone, but soon the Indian kid in his year, the one he sat with on the train, he sits down next to him.

"So. I hear you've been saying the 'M-word'. That's not nice."

"The what?"

The frown on the other kid's face lightens slightly. "You actually don't know better? What did you say your name was again?"

"Sirius Black."

"Ah. That certainly explains it." The kid looks him in the eyes. "James Potter. Do you want to be a bigot like the rest of the family or learn the ways of polite society?"

Sirius is not surprised to learn that he had been taught horrible things. A part of him desperately wishes he was.

"Teach me. Please." He adds on after he sees the expression on James's face.

"I will if you listen. Which you seem to do alright so far."

They are soon joined by Remus, who hears them discussing their potions homework and requests their help.

James immediately accepts it, before Sirius can even ask what they would get in exchange like he had been taught to.

They get something in return anyway.

Remus helps them where he can and his company is always pleasurable.

Sirius starts looking forward to it in no time.

Then there's Peter.

Peter, who comes to them, not with a request for help with homework, or even anything related to the formal aspects of their education, but with an idea on how to modify a spell.

"It seems too complicated to do alone and you were more easy to approach than Ravenclaws," he explains, shrugging.

And they gather as many books from the library as the librarian, Ms. Murphy, will let them take at once. They seek refuge in an unused classroom and they work on adapting the spell.

It takes them a few months to produce any result at all, but that does not matter to them.

What matters is the fun to have together.

Is this what having friends feels like?

Sirius learns a lot about James and Remus and Peter in the following months.

He learns that James goes to India to visit his grandparents every single year and that his sense of humor works out perfectly with Sirius's own. James is the kind of person who would constantly do things just to prove he could.

He learns that Remus may be shy and nervous at first glance, but that he is just as much of a prankster as the rest of them deep down. There's also the fact that he's secretly experiencing a culture shock, since the way his mother's people, the Welsh Kale, the descendants of Abram Wood, live their lives quite differently.

And he learns that Peter's mother follows the old ways and believes in the Old Gods; and that she has no idea who Peter's father even is. Peter himself has been fascinated with spellcrafting as long as he can remember and his knowledge in that area already surpasses OWL level by a lot. He also worries a lot about every little thing.

The four of them work well together.

Yes, they get caught for a lot of their pranks, but for even more, they don't.

There's a plan for a prank and suddenly it turns out that James is actually Julia.

Sirius doesn't have a problem with that, doesn't think any less of Julia or think her any less his friend than when they all had thought she was James.

He is just kind of jealous how readily Julia's parents let her wear dresses and skirts.

Meanwhile Regulus is still at Grimmauld Place with their parents.

He's being taught that what Sirius is learning, doing, and experiencing is wrong.

And he accepts it, at least for now.

Sirius thinks about whether the fact that he would like to wear dresses makes him a girl, too.

He decides that's not the case.

No. He is a boy and he will grow into a man one day.

But for now, he is eleven. He's making friends and starting on a path that will take him farther and farther from his family every single day.

That, however, is not something he is aware of at this point

An heir and a spare, yes.

The real question was which of the brothers is which?