This was going to be the worst vacation in his whole Hogwarts career, thought Sirius gloomily, as he sat leaning against the window of their compartment, staring outside blankly.

And he knew that it was nobody's fault but his own; if he hadn't tried that stupid prank on Snape, Snape would not have discovered that Remus was a werewolf, and if Snape had not discovered that Remus was a werewolf, Sirius suspected that Professor Dumbledore would not have written to his parents.

He remembered that awful hour in Dumbledore's office so well. Sick with worry about Remus—James refusing to look at him—Snape going on and on about how parents would not want their kids studying with a monster...

Finally, Dumbledore had managed to calm him down a little; writing to Sirius' parents and sending the OWL off immediately had played a big role in doing that. Sirius guessed Snape, who seemed rather close with Reg, knew about Sirius' equation with his family.

Sending the complaint meant that Sirius spent the rest of the term terrified of how his parents would punish him when he got back, but it had helped Dumbledore in making Snape promise to keep Remus' condition a secret, and Sirius wasn't complaining.

"Padfoot?" said James, breaking into his thoughts.

Sirius turned around quickly, hoping that James hadn't noticed anything.

"Yeah?"

James stared at him piercingly for a moment, but decided against saying anything except, "We're starting a new round, want to join?"

His message was clear: stop moping or else face my questions.

"Yeah, ok," said Sirius, joining in their noisy round of Exploding Snap.

Most of the noise was being caused by James and Peter, though, because Remus, in general, did not approve, and honestly today, Sirius was not in the mood.

He guessed things were better now than 2 months ago when the other three were flatly refusing to even talk with him. They had all come around eventually—only he caught a look on Remus' face sometimes which told him that even though they were ok now, Remus didn't quite...trust him anymore.

The Hogwarts express pulled onto Platform Nine and Three Quarters eventually; of course it would, though Sirius would have preferred it to never end at all.

James' parents greeted them all warmly, and now Remus' dad was coming over, Peter had spotted his parents and was running over, and Sirius was looking for Regulus...there he was.

"Bye, James...Remus," said Sirius in a voice that sounded rather hollow even to himself.

James' eyebrows knitted at once, and Remus looked like he would say something, but Sirius didn't need to hear anything honestly. He strode over to Regulus without another word.

Walburga Black was hugging Regulus by the time Sirius reached them. As if Reg hadn't been home since the beginning of the year, as if he hadn't gone home for Christmas and Easter, thought Sirius contemptuously. Sirius waited in silence as his mother and father finished hugging him and asking him all sorts of nonsense like 'how were your exams', 'how are your friends', etc, etc.

Stupid, meaningless, nonsense. It did play in the back of Sirius' mind that all this sounded suspiciously similar to how Euphemia and Fleamont Potter welcomes James back for a holiday, but he ignored that stupid voice.

"There you are," said Orion Black, as if he had just noticed Sirius.

"Yes," intoned Sirius. "I guess I am."

"Before you take that tone with your father, know that have a few important things to discuss with you," said Walburga nastily.

"Been busy, haven't you, forcing even that Muggle-loving Headmaster to complain about you?" said Orion.

"A bit, yeah," muttered Sirius, but his mood was swinging down even lower.

"Insolence," hissed Walburga, but in a low voice so that others in the station couldn't hear her. "We will talk when we get back."

Sirius looked around once where the Potters and Lupins had been standing. They were all laughing about something.

Sirius grinned bitterly and followed his 'family' out of the station.

**********************************************

"Professor Dumbledore didn't tell us explicitly what you did. He just said you endangered the life of a Slytherin student," said his father, at dinner.

Sirius remained quiet.

"What did you do?" asked Orion coolly.

"I can't tell you," replied Sirius, equally coolly.

Walburga stared at him as if she couldn't believe her eyes.

"What did you say?" she gasped.

"I can't tell you what I did, sorry," said Sirius.

And he couldn't, of course he couldn't, saying anything would force him to reveal that Remus was a werewolf and he wasn't going to do that. He had betrayed Remus once, and once was enough. He wouldn't do that ever again.

"Tell me what you did," said Orion, very clearly.

Sirius looked at his father's threatening expression and Regulus' half-scared expression.

He sensed that giving a flippant answer and walking out was not a solution this time.

"Father—I—I can't," he said, attempting at a polite tone, but it came out weak and more scared than Regulus looked.

Orion Black was always quick to spot any sort of weakness.

"Go up to your room," he ordered. "Do not come down before you are willing to tell us."

Sirius jumped up so quickly the chair almost fell down. Thinking that this was a lot better than he'd expected, he dashed upstairs to his room without another word.

**************************************************

Sirius had not expected that staying upstairs meant that he could not even go down for meals. He had not expected Kreacher to sneak into his room in the dead of night and taking his owl and supply of Floo powder downstairs so that he could not contact anyone. But he had expected that his parents would come up every 6 hours to demand the truth of him, which was what they were doing.

"What did you do?"

"I can't tell you."

And it continued. Kreacher brought up a single meal to him everyday which consisted of mouldy bread and stale milk. Since the Blacks' meals were usually standardly lavish like at Hogwarts, Sirius could only conclude that his mother was deliberately letting the food go bad before giving him. Or maybe she'd given Kreacher free reign to give him whatever food he wanted to. He would not expect anything better from him, anyway.

On the sixth day, Sirius, his stomach growling from hunger and overall crazy with loneliness finally remembered the two-way mirror. Almost immediately, a sick feeling descended over him.

James was the one who had enchanted that mirror in their first year holidays, with the help of his father. After the Whomping Willow incident, during the time when they were shunning him, James had demanded it. Sirius had given it to him without protest...and now he realized that he had never taken it back.

He guessed Remus or Peter had it now. Maybe Remus. James was extremely overprotective of Remus, more than he was of him and Peter.

Not that he needed protecting.

Only, he wished so hard he had the mirror—at least he could have heard a friendly voice inside this hellhole.

Why had Remus not returned it to him? In fact why had James taken it in the first place? It was not as if Remus had bitten Snape or anything. They had played plenty of dangerous pranks before...in fact even becoming Animagi was good enough to get them expelled. Even if James had not got there in time, they would probably have been expelled. That's all.

So what so different this time that they had had to ignore him for a month, and now he was stuck inside his house alone, with a furious pair of parents, a cowardly brother and a godforsaken house-elf.

Not that anyone cared.

Why would they?

James had taken his half of the mirror and given it to Remus—didn't it speak rather a lot about his priorities.

He supposed Remus and James were talking to each other right then.

He wished Remus had bitten Snape. At least they would've been rid of him.

No, he told himself. No. Don't think like that. Remus would never have been able to forgive himself if he killed someone.

It was nearly time for sunrise...7 days....