From justprompts
What's something you have not told anyone and probably never will?
There was probably something to be said about the fact that Sirius never viewed his family as 'abusive', at least not in the terms of the actual definition of the word.
Growing up, after all, this sort was normal. It wasn't as if Sirius had known much else to compare to. He knew what he knew and as far as he'd been aware, the Black family was the status quo. It wasn't like he could have told right off the bat if his family was bad or cruel or anything approaching 'evil', in any sense of the word. He'd insist that he'd always had the inherent sort of thought that something had always been wrong about that house, but what with hindsight being 20/20. An easier and more accurate way of explaining might've been that Sirius just, quite plainly, hadn't liked it.
It wasn't like his parents had all-out beaten him, that would've been quite off. Orion Black had a strong arm and, sure, he would use it, time to time, to yank one of his sons back into reality, grip his shoulder when he was on the verge of saying something highly inappropriate. But Sirius had never been whipped or lashed or any other horror stories he'd heard of. Or, a switch to his backside, actually, once or twice, but that was the extreme and even then, not quite so bad.
His mother, on the other hand.
In retrospect, the Blacks had always just been... very medieval. With their disciplinary tactics. Old-fashioned things that he hadn't much thought of until he hadn't even heard of other families using them. Just... the little things, the lessons to have him learn where he'd gone wrong. Polishing two-hundred pieces of silver, utensils, wasn't so bad - fingers cramped after a while. Scouring spells, the taste started sticking with you longer and longer the more they were used to clean your mouth of cuss words. Even when he was little, when he used to wet the bed and the elves would tattle on him, he'd get a day locked in his room without food or anything - that wasn't... THAT bad, just. Got thirsty by the end of the day. A bit counterproductive too, he'd note, considering, well, bloke had to pee sometime in a day.
'Abusive' was just an entirely different word that he didn't know much of what to do with. It was too strong. He'd bet there were kids that had it way worse. Granted, there were kids that had certainly had it better. Two weeks into Hogwarts and Sirius had learned fairly quickly that maybe his parents' tactics were not exactly on. Kids shared horror stories, was all, and after the first few that'd been shared, where the worst he'd hear was a nasty grounding or something, he'd remembered staring in a bit of disbelief. "That's it?" he'd barked out, a little too soon.
"Why, what would your parents do?" Pete had asked defensively, after describing a whole two agonizing weeks in which he had not been allowed to leave the house except for school.
Sirius had opened and shut his mouth and started growling about Howlers, much to the winces of the other Gryffindors at the table.
Maybe it just wasn't as bad to him because it hadn't been detailed as bad. He'd never told anyone, so there had never been the sympathetic moment, with the hugs and the possible hand-holding and the 'everything will be okay' or whatever the hell they did in the Hallmark films. He liked keeping that sort of thing in the 'unimportant' box in his mind. He liked not having to have people make significantly woeful and stupid-- pitying or whatever kind of horrible expressions in his general direction.
There were just some things people didn't need to know, especially about him. Nobody wanted to hear about that shit. It's not like anything they could've said would make him feel better, or THEM, and it would just do a lot of bullshitty harm and Sirius liked staying in the zone where nobody knew a bloody thing. He'd jest and throw things out there and water things down to jokes - hilarity! How bad his mother was! How strange his household! - and it was just easier. Blurred the lines between what was real and what wasn't. And then most people assumed they were just jokes, that was that.
He didn't tell Pete these things, certainly didn't tell Remus or James these things. It was just silly. He shouldn't have cared. They were horrible people, they did horrible things, he should have been horribly indifferent. Who cared that he got his named burned off the family tree? Sirius didn't care. Sirius didn't even want to be one of them, didn't want to be in their great big stupid Death Eater fan club or whatever they were doing.
But a kid was a kid, and fan club or not, gods, did he want a family. That, he couldn't help. It was futile and stupid, but it was a base of human needs and wants.
Whatever. It couldn't be helped. It was in the past, and it was done, and he didn't want to bother. Didn't want to give them the attention they jeeringly tried to take from him.
Or maybe, line-blurring and all - he forgot sometimes - maybe-- he just didn't want it to matter as much as it did.
There was probably something to be said about the fact that Sirius never viewed his family as 'abusive', at least not in the terms of the actual definition of the word.
Growing up, after all, this sort was normal. It wasn't as if Sirius had known much else to compare to. He knew what he knew and as far as he'd been aware, the Black family was the status quo. It wasn't like he could have told right off the bat if his family was bad or cruel or anything approaching 'evil', in any sense of the word. He'd insist that he'd always had the inherent sort of thought that something had always been wrong about that house, but what with hindsight being 20/20. An easier and more accurate way of explaining might've been that Sirius just, quite plainly, hadn't liked it.
It wasn't like his parents had all-out beaten him, that would've been quite off. Orion Black had a strong arm and, sure, he would use it, time to time, to yank one of his sons back into reality, grip his shoulder when he was on the verge of saying something highly inappropriate. But Sirius had never been whipped or lashed or any other horror stories he'd heard of. Or, a switch to his backside, actually, once or twice, but that was the extreme and even then, not quite so bad.
His mother, on the other hand.
In retrospect, the Blacks had always just been... very medieval. With their disciplinary tactics. Old-fashioned things that he hadn't much thought of until he hadn't even heard of other families using them. Just... the little things, the lessons to have him learn where he'd gone wrong. Polishing two-hundred pieces of silver, utensils, wasn't so bad - fingers cramped after a while. Scouring spells, the taste started sticking with you longer and longer the more they were used to clean your mouth of cuss words. Even when he was little, when he used to wet the bed and the elves would tattle on him, he'd get a day locked in his room without food or anything - that wasn't... THAT bad, just. Got thirsty by the end of the day. A bit counterproductive too, he'd note, considering, well, bloke had to pee sometime in a day.
'Abusive' was just an entirely different word that he didn't know much of what to do with. It was too strong. He'd bet there were kids that had it way worse. Granted, there were kids that had certainly had it better. Two weeks into Hogwarts and Sirius had learned fairly quickly that maybe his parents' tactics were not exactly on. Kids shared horror stories, was all, and after the first few that'd been shared, where the worst he'd hear was a nasty grounding or something, he'd remembered staring in a bit of disbelief. "That's it?" he'd barked out, a little too soon.
"Why, what would your parents do?" Pete had asked defensively, after describing a whole two agonizing weeks in which he had not been allowed to leave the house except for school.
Sirius had opened and shut his mouth and started growling about Howlers, much to the winces of the other Gryffindors at the table.
Maybe it just wasn't as bad to him because it hadn't been detailed as bad. He'd never told anyone, so there had never been the sympathetic moment, with the hugs and the possible hand-holding and the 'everything will be okay' or whatever the hell they did in the Hallmark films. He liked keeping that sort of thing in the 'unimportant' box in his mind. He liked not having to have people make significantly woeful and stupid-- pitying or whatever kind of horrible expressions in his general direction.
There were just some things people didn't need to know, especially about him. Nobody wanted to hear about that shit. It's not like anything they could've said would make him feel better, or THEM, and it would just do a lot of bullshitty harm and Sirius liked staying in the zone where nobody knew a bloody thing. He'd jest and throw things out there and water things down to jokes - hilarity! How bad his mother was! How strange his household! - and it was just easier. Blurred the lines between what was real and what wasn't. And then most people assumed they were just jokes, that was that.
He didn't tell Pete these things, certainly didn't tell Remus or James these things. It was just silly. He shouldn't have cared. They were horrible people, they did horrible things, he should have been horribly indifferent. Who cared that he got his named burned off the family tree? Sirius didn't care. Sirius didn't even want to be one of them, didn't want to be in their great big stupid Death Eater fan club or whatever they were doing.
But a kid was a kid, and fan club or not, gods, did he want a family. That, he couldn't help. It was futile and stupid, but it was a base of human needs and wants.
Whatever. It couldn't be helped. It was in the past, and it was done, and he didn't want to bother. Didn't want to give them the attention they jeeringly tried to take from him.
Or maybe, line-blurring and all - he forgot sometimes - maybe-- he just didn't want it to matter as much as it did.