I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)

Sirius took his place in the circle, crossed legged between Remus and James.
Sirius’ brother slumped down against the tree, stuck with his friends whom Sirius knew as Barty and Evan. Evan sat closer to him than usual - clearly trying to get Pandora’s attention from the other side of Barty, despite Regulus also being in between them.
Evan was similar in height to Regulus, but slightly taller. Sirius scanned him robotically and decided his outfit wasn’t so bad - Barty’s leather jacket pulled over his shoulders to cover a white tank top and light-denim cargo shorts. He might have been wearing vans - but they weren’t visible enough to tell.

Barty and Evan knew each other long before the others, meeting at a show Evan’s work was hosting. Evan was a waiter at this hall. It was specifically designed for weddings, gigs, comedy shows, plays and the like - as hellish as this sounds, the enticing part was how wonderfully it paid.
Especially enticing if you're basically getting paid to watch live music and heckle at weddings.
When a drink spilled onto the stage, tech made them clean it up to avoid any health risks and they called for the closest person, so obviously, Evan was not there - because he was hiding in the back.

Sirius pauses for a moment. Then remembers what happened next - Evan had come back out to go find Benji who actually turned out to be the unlucky lad asked to clean a rum and coke off the floor, after it had seeped its way into the cracks and made everything connected sticky.
Leaning down to help him, and swatting Benji away because at that point he was almost finished, and may god strike him down if he let Benji poke fun at him for ‘leaving him deserted surrounded by rum and coke’ even though, to most people their age, that sounded like the dream.

Not so coincidentally, despite what he says, Barty was walking past, but Regulus and Sirius had already come up with a theory on how Barty most definitely just could not resist making a fool of himself, and had purposely set his eye on him.

Regulus was laughing now, with black hair that just about touched his shoulders at the back while still short enough at the front to see. Despite his great efforts, he was rather closed off, and his outfit showed it. He was sat in a darker green, knit jumper and greyed, baggy jeans that could be considered fashion, but Sirius just considered it very, very Reg.

He had met Evan and Barty in their form room, they were together in the seating plan, as if it was a smart move, and they all clicked immediately.
Sirius looked around, trying to locate whoever was armed with the cigarettes today and his eyes landed onto the next group - Lily, Pandora, Mary and Peter, with a missing Benji.

Pandora, in a lace dress, by the looks of things seemed to be attempting to somehow attach herself to Lily, caught up in a simple vest top and skirt. She was staring wide-eyed with her legs over Lily’s and their arms intertwined, she was whispering over to Evan (well, as much as you can whisper when there’s two people in the way, Sirius thinks.)
Pandora, fiddling with her hair and a claw clip, was deep in thought whipping her head round to get Peter’s opinion on something. Peter had started to cover his ears and loudly scream the lyrics to It Wasn’t Me by Shaggy, and Sirius felt a need to save him from whatever horror film Pandora and Evan were painting to him.

Sirius followed the ground with his eyes until he could see Remus, watching him reach over and grab the lighter from James.
James had been best friends with Sirius since the second they met late last year, like they were brothers in a past life - this life, too. It stays on his mind often, how someone the opposite of solemn would see him in a crowd, when for a while that’s all he knew how to be.

-
Sirius shoves himself down in his seat, bumping shoulders with the slightly taller boy next to him, trying to seem in control, turning his head, his eyes meet a loud smile and wide eyes.

“See, how many of his brain cells do you think are replaced with pebbles?”

“What?”

The other boy tilts his head towards the front - and there perches, on his desk, Mr Flitwick, glaring daggers at the younger years sat closer.
Sirius’ hand flies to his mouth, trying to stifle a bark-like laugh. “Oh my god– right?”

“Did you hear about the year– “
“The year nines that stole his clothes when he was napping?”
“and stole his wallet!”

The stories continued, while the two were gasping for air, and grabbing at each other for stability by this point, with no idea why this seemed oh so funny. Eventually they settled down, ignoring how ridiculously long it took, and how many unfortunate things seemed to have happened to Mr Flitwick.
“James. James Potter.”
A long pause.
“Sirius, just Sirius.”

-

Sirius snatched the lit cigarette from Remus, and began to zone his way back into the conversation - intrigued by the sudden whispering.

“No- I know, I know,” Barty breathed out, staring intently at Pandora.
The energy has completely shifted, and Sirius was determined to find out why. He began to scoot closer, pulling the sleeve of Remus to get him to focus and listen, too.

“No, the girls in the year below,” Evan paused to think. “Amelie and Emma.”
“Amelia and Emmeline?” Peter chimed in.
“Yes- yes. Those two, last night. He left the mask from that new film, the one off Skeeter’s book.”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Oh, come on, Pete. Even Pandora can handle this.”
“Hey!”
Pandora swatted Evan away, narrowly missing Lily next to her, and turned to Barty.
“Did you hear, though, completely cut up. Completely!”
Barty leaned in, “Holy shit. As in-.”
“A complete copycat,” finished Lily.

A loud gulp comes from Sirius’ left, and he twists to stare at his friend, but James is already looking there, too. Regulus sits there, wide eye’d, listening intently. Sirius didn’t understand his brother’s nervous expression, and met his eyes, only to shoot him a confused look. Sirius takes a drag from his cigarette, and passes it to Mary.

“Like Andromeda?” Evan whispers, his posture going rigid alongside Regulus’.
“The same way?” Regulus choked out, completely normal to everyone but Sirius, stretching his neck to face Evan completely, as if willing it to snap.

Sirius takes a second. And another. And then, eventually, a minute.

His cousin, Andromeda, had been murdered, in a similar fashion, a year ago yesterday. The case was long, suffocating, and eventually led to the arrest of Ted Tonks, her partner. Sirius had seen a tall, shadow-covered man leave her house with a letterman jacket earlier that night, and that is exactly what the police found in Ted’s car. Except, covered in dried blood, belonging to Andromeda – Andy.

Thinking about it was sickening - but what was worse, was dealing with it. The press had hounded him, villainised Andy, and essentially stalked Regulus for months. Rita Skeeter - the reporter for Channel 6 - had not left them alone, obsessing with her own theory of Ted Tonk’s innocence.
She had visited him, despite his arrest and conviction, almost daily since the trial began, and had written a multitude of trauma-profiting books, all in favour of Ted Tonk’s innocence. The earliest being, ‘Wrongly Accused - The Andromeda Black Murder’ , full of lies and theories on how Andromeda was having an affair, and she repeatedly questioned Sirius’ honesty of seeing Tonk’s jacket leaving Andy’s home.
Orion, had slowly conformed to agreement with her, and was even quoted repeatedly in Skeeter’s books, even making his way into a character in her fiction novel - ‘The Woodsboro Murders.’

No reporter could convince either Regulus or Sirius to give any comment, grief or insult, and Rita Skeeter was the only one who had gotten under Sirius’ skin. He could barely hear her name, let alone be around her, answering horrid questions that secretly acted as a double-edged sword.

Regulus stopped speaking to Sirius entirely, when all he wanted was to talk about Andy. They’d fallen apart, and so had their relationship, the grief and anger eating at what was left. To Sirius, it seemed that Regulus didn’t even care, like he was unaffected.

Regulus interrupts the silence by clearing his throat, and pushes himself up from the grass.
“Sorry, I forgot. ‘Have to help out Slughorn.”
Sirius looks up, feeling as if he’s watching himself, watching Reg leave. Seeing his back turned felt familiar and in a bittersweet way, it was like no time had passed since last year.

“Nice going, guys,” James starts. “Totally the right people to say that around.”
Barty and Evan turn to each other, then stumble their way up to their feet, earning a snort from Remus.
“How did you think that was going to go, really?” Remus murmurs out, the words chasing after Evan and Barty as they go to catch up to the younger brother.

Sirius feels sick. He grasps at the bark of the willow and hauls himself up, with the pictures of the scene running through his mind. He wishes he could say that he can't even imagine what happened to the younger girls, and how their families must be feeling - but he can. That’s what makes it so real, he knows exactly what they’re in for, and he can’t do anything about it.

He stumbles his way round from the willow and can feel James following him with an uneven and unsure gait. James grabs his shoulder, as if holding him up, before Sirius realises how far he’s walked, and how hard it is, suddenly, to stand. It's as if time is moving on without him, and it isn’t until James is turning away that he realises he’s vomiting. Or that he’s panting, or that he’s practically anything.

-

The bell rings, and the intercom buzzes, alerting the entire room to silence.
“Sirius Black and Regulus Black to McGonagall’s office, please,” a muffled voice blares out into the speaker. “That’s Sirius Black and Regulus Black, Thank you.”

Remus holds his head steady, but locks eyes with Sirius, raising an eyebrow in intrigue. He shrugs, pats Remus’ shoulder and slinks out the door, feeling as unprepared as ever.

Eventually, reaching the office door, he finds it unlocked and ajar, and shoves his way in. McGonagall’s office was no more than 5 meters by 5, and he had been in here enough times to know the general layout - as he expected, the desk near the back right, covered by two chairs just low enough to cause inconvenience, had Mrs. Mcgonagall’s crossed arms and stern expression decorating it. Although, this time, his younger brother was sitting there, unmoving. Which he remained, even when McGonagall had noted his entrance.

“Sirius.” She stated, with an unwavering expression Sirus can only think, was inspired by the statues on Easter Island.
“Minnie,” he replied.
“McGonagall.”
“Who?”
“Me, Mr Black.”
“I think we switched the wrong way, Mrs McGonagall.”
“Thank you, Sirius. Sit down.”
He noted a small snort come from his younger brother, as he lowered into the parallel chair, smirking.
The calm the interaction painted did not last long, as three officers slowly made their way in, standing by the brothers’ left with expressions blank.

The closest officers’ badges read ‘MCKINNON’ and ‘MEADOWES’. They stood similar heights to Regulus - and were exchanging papers that Sirius presumed were a part of Emmeline and Amelia’s case. Mckinnon - dirty blonde with a firm grip on the belt around her hips, started to mutter hushed words to McGonagall and Sirius watched as Meadowes nodded along, chiming in with any missing information, or a quick addition.
The third, standing closest to the door, had made it her mission to stare down Regulus, and ignore Sirius all together. Her badge read ‘LESTRANGE’ and Sirius wonders if she’s French, because if so, it’s a little on the nose.

The blonde officer turns, catching the brothers’ attention, and puts on a small smile.
“Hello,” She starts, making sure to switch which brother she makes eye contact with.
“Im Marlene, one of the detectives working on this case. I worked very closely with PC Meadowes here, during the Andromeda Black case, if you remember her.”

Meadowes waves, and positions herself on the edge of the desk, in an attempt to appear less threatening. Sirius lets his mind run off, and hears a vacant voice talking about everything he’s heard before -

We’re so sorry for your loss.
We just need to ask you a few questions.
You knew the victim, yes?
Is all the information in this file correct, to you?