Prologue: Gifts

Christmas, 1899.

It seemed like any other Christmas eve in the Brown household. The pine tree was hung with wooden ornaments that had been painstakingly hand painted to show various holiday scenes, little drummer boys hanging merrily beside miniature sleighs and wreaths of holly. A pile of presents, wrapped neatly in coloured packaging and tied up with bows sat beneath the lowest boughs of the tree, waiting to be unwrapped. Snow dusted the windowsills and lay thick on the ground outside, creating a blanket of glowing white that reflected the dim yellow light shining from the street lamps.

"Merry Christmas, darling."

Jim smiled down at his wife, and held out a tightly wrapped bundle of blankets. She took the bundle into her arms gently, a grin lighting up her entire face as she took in the sight of their newborn baby. Their daughter had a thick head of dark brunette hair, like her father, and shining brown eyes, rimmed with thick lashes. She had the same rosebud mouth as her mother, though, and the same high cheekbones that lent her a distinguished air without effort.

"What a perfectly beautiful little lady," Elizabeth breathed, brushing the backs of her fingers across the sleeping girl's cheek and cradling her lovingly.

Jim stooped down to give his wife a kiss, feeling as though he might burst with happiness. It may have seemed like any other Christmas in the Brown household, but to the young parents the day was something entirely, spectacularly new.

[[...]]

Christmas was going as it always did at the Black family manor. Three year old Sirius and one year old Regulus were sprawled on the rich, oriental rug in front of the fire place, Regulus excitedly hitting his chubby fists against the ground as Sirius held his toy broomstick in his hands. His grey eyes shone up at his father with reverence, but the proud wizard was too focused on reading the morning paper to pay much attention. Orion reclined in the high-backed, dark leather armchair, the backs of his slippered feet resting against the clawed wooden legs of the chair, and Sirius watched the puffs of smoke floating up and around the pages of the newspaper from his father's pipe.

"Well go on, Sirius." Walburga swept into the room in a cloud of woody perfume and swaths of embroidered silk, the scarlet red of her dress robes highlighting the lightness of her blonde hair, piled high on her head. "Go for a fly."

Sirius stood up on wobbly legs and perched himself on top of the broom, grasping the wooden handle between chubby fingers. His mother picked Regulus up and perched him on her hip, smiling encouragingly at her eldest son. Regulus clapped his fat little hands together and let out a gurgle of joy. Feeling confident, Sirius kicked off from the ground, lifted into the air – and flew straight into the wall. A tapestry tangled around his ankle and the top of his head hit the ground with a soft thud, and there he hung, upside down, feeling tears well in his eyes.

He watched his father stand up and come over to set him back on his feet, but when he opened his arms for a hug Orion ignored it and turned back to face his wife. "I told you you're just spoiling him by getting him that damn broom. He'll break himself and the house if you don't watch him."

Sirius was too young to understand what the look on his mother's face meant, or to know just how meaningful her reply would be, but he listened with hurt pride as she said, "Sirius will have to learn to take care of himself, eventually. He's not the baby of the family, any more."

The discussion was cut off by the front doorbell ringing, signalling the arrival of the entire Black family for Christmas lunch. His parents set off to greet the guests without glancing back at their eldest son, and Sirius was left standing in the corner of the sitting room, rubbing his sore head and trying not to cry. Yes, this Christmas was just like the other two Sirius had experienced, and he suspected that all the rest of his Christmases were going to be of a similar fashion, as well.

a.n. I re-watched Lady and the Tramp the other day, for the first time in years, and I just fell in love all over again. But the entire time all I could think of was how much Tramp made me think of Sirius Black. So here we go, an Alternate Universe story mixing Marauder's Era Harry Potter and Disney's Lady and the Tramp.
It's set in late Edwardian England (Lady and the Tramp is set in that time period, in New England, America; but what is a Harry Potter story without Hogwarts? And it fits nicely, anyway). Sirius Black obviously takes on the role of Tramp, while I've created a muggle-born OC by the name of Adelaide to fill Lady's role. All of the family names are taken directly from canon sources, HP and LatT respectively. One of the most important differences in this universe is that students don't receive their Hogwarts Acceptance Letters until the year they turn sixteen; please keep that in mind. I changed the age because it's (obviously) going to be a romance story, and I wasn't going to write about two eleven year olds having a romantic relationship.
It'll be updated pretty sporadically, because it's more something I'm writing for fun than a serious expedition, but I will do my best to update fairly regularly.
Please let me know what you think of the prologue/the idea/anything at all! Reviews will be returned and I'll love you forever.