I'm leaving this history behind me. Burn me off your family tree but nothing can stop me.

James Potter could not find his glasses, he had no idea how he happened to lose such a thing when he needed to wear them to actually see anything clearly, but he had managed to lose them. "Mum," He shouted through the house, swearing almost as loudly as his yell as he walked in the corner of a door, he had sworn was not there a moment ago. Glaring at the door, he used his hands to get through it. "Did you take my glasses again? Ow bugger, that's a cabinet." He frowned at it, wondering how he could make his way around better in the dark then he could in the day when he didn't have his glasses. "In the kitchen," Came the reply. "In the kitchen?" James muttered under his breath as he reached the stairs. "What are they doing in the kitchen for?" He shook his head as he went down the stairs in twos, jumping past the last four. "Don't jump James," His mother said. He ignored her, like every other time that she had said that in the time of James' life. "I was fixing them," She said holding them out to him as he entered the kitchen, without any other mishaps.

He nodded at her, wondering why she hadn't just fixed them where they were and not take them all of the way into the kitchen. Why did they even need fixing anyway? They had been perfectly fine when he'd seen them last. "You knocked them off the bench again dear," Mrs. Potter said as he jammed the glasses back onto his face, and everything came back into focus. "You need to pay more attention. Or you'll turn into a Hufflepuff." He gave her an offended look. She smiled at him.

There was a sound of the front door closing. "Did dad go out?" James asked his mother, who shook her head at him. "He's in his office." She said, with a slight frown. "Go see who it is dear." "Right," He said with a nod heading back towards the front door, stopping a few steps into the hall as he saw his best mate walking towards him.

"Rather odd place to come for a walk," James commented with a grin that soon turned into a frown as he looked at Sirius more clearly, he didn't have his usual grin in place, in fact he looked rather morose. And looked as if he had been crying, and was trying quite hard to stop himself from starting again. "What happened?" James asked him walking over. "No-one died did they? Peter didn't try flying and fall and kill himself? The kind of thing he'd do." He added as an undertone, and a slight shake of his head. He looked at Sirius, waiting for him to say something.

Sirius, who hadn't even thought twice about walking in his best friend's house like he owned the place, shook his head at James. "N--no one died," he said, taking several deep breathes to steady himself again. It was hard enough to get there in the first place with the crying he'd been doing. Merlin, why couldn't he just hate them without hurting over leaving them. Mostly Regulus. The boy was a bloody prat and all, but Sirius was all he had between him and their parents. But, Sirius just couldn't take that house, those people, the lifestyle anymore.

He took a few more breathes and looked at James. "I--I ran away from home, Prongs," he said after a moment. "Couldn't take it anymore. Last thing I heard once I stepped over the threshold was mum screaming about disowning me...Blasting me off the family tree and all..."

James stared at Sirius, he opened and closed his mouth a few times unsure of what exactly to say. Sure, the two of them had created elaborate plans that included Sirius running away from home and him and James somehow ending up on a beach on the other side of the world. Never mind how they got there. But, that was different. Creating ridiculous plans and ignoring Moony telling them that there was no way they would easily get from one country to another was one thing, but, Sirius actually running away from home was another. "Oh," He said. For the first time in his life. Unsure of quite what to say. He wasn't very good at sympathy, and he wasn't quite sure if it was exactly the time to fool around. "Sorry mate," he said making a sympathetic face. As much as he disliked the Black family, he did mean it, because he hated seeing Sirius so distraught as he was now. "They didn't deserve your stunning face on their family tree anyway." He said in an attempt at a cheery tone though he looked at Sirius cautiously unsure of whether or not that was the right thing to say. He wondered when his mother would come to see who was at the door.

Sirius let out a dry laugh. "Always one for humor," he said, voice cracking a little as he wiped a palm across his eye, feeling it get watery then doing the same with the other hand and eye. "Um, think your folks would mind if I crashed here for a little while? I mean...I didn't think this through too much and didn't exactly plan for somewhere to go and..."

"I'm sure they'll be fine," James said to him, with a glance back towards the direction of the kitchen where his mother was. "I mean, you practicably live here anyway. And they've never had a problem with it before. And if they do, I mean, we can always go to France or something." He said. "Besides," He continued. "You're my best mate, it's not like they can kick you out. That would be like telling me neglect my duties as a best friend. Come on," He said walking over to Sirius and gestured towards the kitchen with his head. "We should tell my mother. Before she starts to freak out that some random has snunk into her house and kidnapped me while I bravely ventured to find out who the prosecutor was."

Sirius offered James a small smile. "Yeah, we should tell her..." he muttered, still not feeling at all like himself. This was like some surreal dream and soon he would wake up in his dark, red and gold adorned room to the sound of his mother's yelling just like he had every day that summer. And then he would go through the motions until he could escape again, either to one of his friends' place to that one place that was just his in the backyard. That was where he usually went, not wanting to deal with his mother shouting at him that if he was going to leave every day that he should just make it a permanent thing.

"Mhm," James said as they headed back to the kitchen as Mrs. Potter called out to her son. "Who's there James?" "Sirius," James replied as they reached the kitchen. "Sirius, how nice to see you dear. What's wrong?" She asked him, frowning softly and looking sideways at James who held up his hands in a . "I did nothing," Sort of way.

Sirius looked at James' mom, still fighting tears, as he suddenly thought of his own, hating her as much as he did. "Ran away from home..." he muttered, looking down at his shoes as though he was suddenly ashamed of the action. Being around James' mum did that to a person.

Mrs. Potter looked at Sirius for a moment, her eyes widened slightly. James looked at his mother, and wondered whether she was going to go on some rant about how he should go back and how his mother was probably worried or somecrap like that. But she didn't, instead she walked off and hugged Sirius briefly. "I'm sorry dear," She said, though James could tell that she was stopping herself from asking questions that were swirling around her brain. "James, take Sirius into the lounge room will you dear? I'll bring some tea in." James nodded at his mother giving her a weird look as she turned around and headed back to the kitchen. "When in doubt, make tea." He said with a look of seriousness. "It will solve every problem."

Sirius gave James' mum a really weak smile and followed his best friend to the other room. "I happen to really like tea. It always makes me feel better," Sirius commented. And this was, in fact, very very true.

James scrunched up his nose at Sirius. "It tastes like someones poured water and old fruit or something into a blender. Blended it about and served it into cups." They reached the lounge room, and James plopped down on a chair, putting his feet up onto the tea table. "Feet off of the table James," Mrs. Potter called through. "They're not on the table," James said putting his feet onto the ground and looking warily through the door. "I swear she has eyes on the back of her head, that can see through walls."

Sirius shrugged at James. "I like it, but then I grew up drinking it every day, and I don't recall that you did." Then he let out the best laugh he could muster at James' comment about his mother. "She's a mum. What do you expect? They're weird like that."

"I didn't touch tea till I was about ten, and after that, It was a few years." "Well you don't need to drink it James dear, if you don't want to." Mrs. Potter said entering the room holding a tea tray. She put the tray down on the table and passed a glass to Sirius and one to James, who scrunched up his nose at it.

Sirius nodded his head politely, taking the cup of tea. He always always always tried to use at least some manners around his friends' parents. "Thanks, Mrs. Potter," he said.

"Pleasure Sirius," Mrs. Potter said sitting down, and picking up her own cup. James took a tentative sip, and wrinkled his nose nearly spitting it over the carpet but stopping himself because he knew that his mother wouldn't like him spitting tea on the carpet. He made a face putting the cup back down onto the tray. "Do you want to talk about it Sirius?" She asked him. "You don't have to, if you don't wish to, and you can always speak with James later also." She smiled gently at him.

Sirius shrugged, looking down into his cup of tea. "'s nothing new and James has heard it about a million times already. We just...I never thought I would actually leave. I figured I could tough it out until I was 17...." Here Sirius stopped to take a sip of tea, hand shaking as he brought it to his mouth. "The final straw was..." he started to continue, but stopped and just shook his head. He didn't want James' mum freaking out over the reason, and he knew she probably would.

Mrs potter looked at Sirius curiously, though she said nothing. Letting the boy chose whether or not to tell her. James gave Sirius a look tellin him that he wanted to know what the final straw was later.



Itouches are hard to type on.

Sirius gave James a short nod, showing that he would tell him later, once his mum was gone out of the way again. It wasn't something he wanted her knowing about. It would just end up in a ruckus, and for once that was the last thing Sirius wanted.

Mrs. Potter looked from James to Sirius before she took a sip of her tea. Sometime later Mrs. Potter withdrew from the room, telling the two boys not to stay up too late. Once she had left the room, and was out of ear shot James looked at Sirius. "So, what was it you didn't want to say in front of my mother?" He asked him.

Sirius sighed. "The last straw that made me leave was..." he started then bit his lip. He sighed again. "Mum and I were having another fight and then I shouted that I would just leave then and she got really really angry with me and then, you know how my mum is when she's mad...so she pushed me into the wall and threatened me, that if I ever spoke to her like that again she was going to do more than just push me around, so I snapped at her and pushed her away from me and dad was in the room and he didn't like me doing that, so he grabbed my arm and pushed me against the wall again, and he's stronger than mom and I was actually scared for a moment, because they like Regulus better than me anyway and so he would be a better heir, so I think if they'd been mad enough I'd be dead right now, but I pulled my arm away and stormed upstairs to grab my things and then I just walked out. And Reg was watching from his room, looking terrified. I'm actually almost worried about him, but I'm sure he'll be fine."

James' eyes widened as he looked at Sirius, he blinked a few times just staring. "What?" He almost shouted and then glanced warily around, as if expecting one of his parents to charge in. He spluttered, everything that he was thinking coming out in a jumble of letters and sounds that didn't make much sense.

"They also both pulled their wands on me..." Sirius muttered. "Prongs, you know I don't get scared often. I hang out with a werewolf every month. Scared isn't something I do. But...having your parents pointing their wands at you in anger...."

James made an attempt at a sympathetic face, but he was too angry at Sirius' parents that his sympathetic face looked liked he was attempting to eat something that tasted absolutely awful. "They-," He stopped for a moment. "What? Seriously? They?" He stared at Sirius, and clenched his fist tightly. "They-your, ugh," He exclaimed, standing up suddenly, becoming to fidgety to stay seated down.

Sirius frowned and looked the floor. "James, calm down," he said. "It's not a big deal."

"Sirius," James said turning on his foot to look at his freind. "Of course it's a big deal, they could have seriously injured you, or knowing your parents, killed you. How is that not a big deal?" It took some effort to keep himself from raising his voice, he didn't want his parents in here, and knowing what had happened.