When the next video clip once again flashed up on the screen after a few seconds of blackness, Harry was almost instantaneously given a headache by the shakiness of the image. Clearly whoever was in charge of filming duties this day was running. The backs of James and Remus, draped with Gryffindor scarves, kept jumping in to frame, and it soon became apparently that the three boys were running through the halls of Hogwarts.

"Hang on, have we skipped forward to November suddenly?" asked Harry in surprise, turning to Remus.

"I suppose so. I think we forgot to film for quite a while. To be honest, the camera only really came out every month or so once we'd got over the excitement of the first week."

Hermione looked confused. "How do you know it's November," she asked, gazing at the screen and trying to find any clues to the season. However, the vomit inducing jumpiness of the screen hardly offered much in the way of clues.

"They've got Gryffindor scarves on so I presume their going to a Quidditch match," Harry pointed out.

Hermione still looked confused.

"And Quidditch season starts in November," Harry added slowly.

"Oh, does it?" Hermione looked ashamed of her dismal Quidditch knowledge.

"Good god Hermione, even I'm embarrassed for you," muttered Ginny.

Harry turned his attention back to the screen, where the boys were now running across the grounds towards the distant Quidditch pitch. Despite the awful footage quality, Harry didn't think the pitch looked as though it had changed at all.

"I can't believe we overslept for our first ever Quidditch match! And Gryffindor's playing!" James' voice sounded distant and out of breathe.

"I know," Remus' voice panted back.

The back of the two boys gradually became more distant and in shot. The young Remus turned back towards the camera as he ran and called out. "Come on Peter!"

The footage continued bumping around, as the boys entered the stadium and began clambering up the wooden stairs. The screen now showed the wooden slats criss-crossing between the inner and outer walls of the stadium and Peter's muttered "Wow" showed that this was their first time inside it.

"Was it really that vital for you to have filmed that?" asked Fred sarcastically. "It's put me off my hobnobs."

Harry snorted, also feeling faintly sick from the jumpiness of the footage.

The shot suddenly stopped and swung back round, to where James and Remus had stopped suddenly ahead.

"What is it?" Peter sounded very out of breath.

The young James turned round quickly with his finger pressed to his lips. He mouthed what looked like shut up but the screen was very dark as the boys were currently hovering uncertainly on the steps just below one of the landings.

"… well I don't know what you want me to do about it." They could just about hear the words so Remus flicked his want to turn up the volume.

"Who's speaking?" Ron asked Remus.

"Lucius Malfoy I think," Remus replied.

"Please Lucius. Surely you can write to your father-"

Harry recognised Sirius' voice, which had been suddenly cut off by Lucius' deeper one. Now that Remus had identified the voice, it was unmistakably that of Malfoy. Harry felt a burst of sudden anger. "And he would do what? Have a word with your parents and they would magically accept their Gryffindor son?" The camera picked up the derisive snort which followed this very clearly.

The camera shot stayed frozen on the backs of the young Remus and James, who were now craning their necks to try and catch all of the conversation. It seemed as though their excitement to see the Quidditch match had long been forgotten.

Sirius now sounded defensive. "I am NOT a Gryffindor. This is just a huge mistake." He hissed these words, causing James, whose face was now in profile, to give a grimace of dislike.

"Oh, and the hat just made it's first mistake in one thousand years did it? Yes, that's certainly a plausible excuse."

"Lucius, please help me."

Harry was torn between feeling sorry for the young Sirius and feeling disgusted that he was pleading with Lucius Malfoy, of all people.

"Since when do Black's snivel, Sirius? No, you got yourself in to this mess and you can therefore suffer the consequences. I presume this is your father's message too?"

Sirius' answer was too quiet to be picked up by the camera. Apparently James and Remus had missed it too as they glanced at each other and shrugged their shoulders.

"Ah, the silent treatment is it? Well if you want to anger your father than that's up to you. I'd rather you than me."

Sirius spoke slightly louder this time. "I didn't choose for this to happen Lucius. You must believe me!"

"You have always had a disobedient side, so my mother has told me." There was the sound of sharp footsteps, causing Remus and James to shuffle back towards the camera in alarm, but they sounded as though they had climbed a couple of steps. "No, you must sort this out for yourself. Now, excuse me." The footsteps rang out again, this time fading into the distant sound of the cheers and boos of the crowd.

After a few moments of silence, they could here Sirius begin to pace back and forth. James backed down a couple more stairs towards the camera, clearly worrying that Sirius was about to come back down, where he would turn the corner and run straight into his fellow Gryffindors, who could have not looked more like they had been snooping if they'd tried. However, after another few moments, the sound of Sirius' footsteps continued up the steps, much to the visible relief of the other boys.

James turned back to the camera as huge cheer from the crowds about them echoed in the stairwell. "Did you film all of that Peter?" He seemed surprised that the camera was still on.

"Yeah," came the reply.

"Well I hope he does get transferred. I don't want to be stuck with a boy who just grovels to all of the Slytherins." James looked very annoyed.

The younger Remus pushed him gently in the back. "Let's go up. It sounds as though the match is almost finished."

The camera shot started to bounce as the three boys began to climb the stairs again. It finally settled down as they emerged onto the stands and took a seat at the back. The shot now zoomed in on the match and the end of the footage was of a rather boring match finally won by Gryffindor.

"Quidditch looks like the most boring game ever when you have to watch it on a crappy screen," Ron said, echoing Harry's thoughts exactly.

Fred snorted. "Well it doesn't help that whoevers holding the camera doesn't seem to realise that it's generally helpful to follow the players with the quaffle rather than always zooming in on the bloody people in the opposite stand. He didn't even catch the bit when they caught the snitch!"

Remus laughed. "That's exactly what James said when we watched it back. Peter wasn't allowed to film any Quidditch matches after this one."

"Well at least we now know that Lucius Malfoy was always a complete knob," said George.

"A bit of an understatement if you ask me," Remus commented dryly. "He was the ringleader of that little pureblood pack. A very nasty piece of work."

"At least we know where Draco gets it from," said Ron, grabbing another biscuit and apparently feeling absolutely fine after the awful quality of the footage they'd just watched.

Hermione looked disturbed. "I know I shouldn't but I just cant help but feel sorry for Sirius. He must have felt so isolated."

"I've got to admit that we did feel a bit guilty in second term for having been so nasty to him," said Remus. "However, he didn't attempt to make life any easier for himself."

"Was his father really that bad? Even Malfoy seemed hesitant to approach him," said Hermione, and Harry wondered once again why it was that she was able to pick up on the slightest nuances that went straight over everyone else's heads.

"Sirius' father?" clarified Remus. "Well, you've seen what his mother is like from that damn portrait so I think you can guess just how lovely his father was."

"So did Sirius always hate his parents?" asked Harry, wondering what was worse; never having known your parents or having parents who you always hated?

"He didn't really hate them until he was sorted into Gryffindor. I think before that he just never really knew them and was always slightly scared of them to be honest with you," Remus answered, standing to gather the used teacups from the table.

"What do you mean, he never really knew them?" asked Ginny, picking up some crumb covered plates and taking them over to the sink.

"Sirius didn't live with his parents until he was nearly six years old."

This surprised everyone. "What? Where did he live then?" asked Ron.

"In Black Manor, which is now Malfoy Manor. Sirius and his brother, Regulus, lived there while their parents lived here," Remus replied. "It used to be very common for pureblood parents to hand their children straight to nannies, just like it was within the Muggle aristocracy, but it was quite rare when we were growing up."

"That's awful!" Hermione looked disgusted. "So they were just dumped on strangers?"

Ginny looked outraged too. "I don't understand how parents could do that."

"Bet mum wished she could with some of us," muttered Fred, sending George a wink over the table.

Remus flicked his wand and the scrubbing brush started its work on the dirty teacups. "Sirius didn't see it like that. He said that his childhood officially ended when he was six and was taken back to live with his parents. And they dismissed his nanny, who had pretty much solely raised him from his birth."

Hermione shook her head, frowning. "So he was actually happy never seeing his own parents as a child?" She sounded disbelieving, but Harry could see Sirius' point when considering the portrait upstairs.

"He did see them, Hermione," Remus answered. "But only when they made formal visits to the Manor. Sirius said that the visits where hugely traumatic because the entire household would be in a panic for about a week before, and then he and Regulus would be paraded out in front of them. He said they would be in tears every time."

"No wonder they didn't get on," Harry said, feeling the overly familiar wave of crushing sadness when he realised how little he'd actually discussed with his godfather.

"And hence he was so desperate to get his parents to forgive him for being placed in the 'wrong' house," Remus continued. "He was terrified of them. But of course we didn't know that at the time."

"No wonder he was never even bothered by mum, even when she was really in her stride," said Fred. "She must be easy-going in comparison."

Remus laughed. "Well, quite."

A thought had suddenly occurred to Harry. "Did you say that Malfoy Manor used to be Black Manor?"

Remus nodded. "Yes it did. Because Sirius was disowned, and then Regulus died suddenly, it passed down to Sirius's father's cousin after his death, who happened to be Lucius Malfoy's father."

Harry chewed his lip, thinking. He supposed that the discomfort he felt was due to the fact that he had never thought of his godfather as part of the pureblood elite. After Sirius had told him that he had run away from home, Harry had simply presumed that meant he had always hated his family. In hindsight, he realised that that was a pretty foolish assumption to have made, and one definitely shattered by the tape they had just watched.

Remus seemed to have sensed the underlying uneasiness to Harry's question. "Look Harry, it's hardly surprising that Sirius acted like a complete arse when he first came to Hogwarts, but he changed completely. You have to believe me when I say that."

Harry nodded, feeling slightly reassured as he helped the others finish clearing up the table. The next video sat ready and waiting on the table for them to continue the following morning.

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Thank you to all of you lovely lovely reviewers and followers. I'm going to try and pick up the pace a little.

Oh, and just in case any of you think that my version of Sirius' childhood is a little farfetched, I consider the pureblood upbringing to be comparable to that of the traditional English upper-classes. And the section about how the children were paraded out in front of the parents is based on the childhood of the Queens father, who grew up away from his parents and was pinched hard by his nanny so that when the King and Queen saw him, he would be crying and would be told off. Nice little useless fact for you – part of the reason why he stammered (as in The King's Speech). Right that's my little history lesson done for now! I just thought that I would explain my thought process a little with this. I try to fit in as much historical fact as I can to add a little weight to the story, if that makes sense.

Anyway, thanks a bunch!