Pure Sinners

When Remus awoke the next morning and saw Lily's bruised face staring at the TV he didn’t say anything, simply sat down beside her. Waiting patiently for her to divulge the reason for her summons. Sirius looked puzzled as well, his eyes darting to James’s closed door then back to Lily. 

“We’ve got a job tomorrow” she announced and Sirius groaned loudly “Seriously what is it ?” Lily shook her head. “Its a big one” she said and Sirius instantly righted himself on the sofa. Remus nodded slightly, James’s absence making sense.

“Who?” He asked. When they got these jobs it was often ex-death eaters. Members who needed to be quieted - often friends of Sirius’s father. Lily frowned, and the air in the room felt heavy.  “It’s Andy and her husband,” she said quickly, her shoulders hiding a flinch as Sirius jumped up from the sofa.

 Andromeda Black was Sirius’s cousin, his favourite, and one of the few friends Sirius had in his youth. “Lily you can’t be serious. They just got married a few years back, there’re not even 40 for fucks sake” he was pacing now, running his hands through his hair. 

“I can tell Riddle I won’t take it, but if I don’t someone else will and they won’t be as kind” she offered him gently and Remus knew she would do whatever Sirius asked. Riddle would be raging but Lily would stand by her word, and from the look on her face she was desperate for a reason to refuse the task. 

“Fuck” Sirius said eyes closed as he fell back into the sofa. There were tears falling from his dark lashes and Remus did him the service of pretending he was very interested in the crown moulding all of a sudden. 

“She wanted to have a kid,” Sirius whispered and Remus felt his heart break a little for Sirius. 

It broke for this couple he didn’t know and it broke most of all for Lily who would have to do the deed. She would do it so Sirius didn't have to, so they could keep surviving. Lily sat next to Sirius placing her hand on his arm “I’m sorry” she said, the words barely out before Sirius violently shook her hand off. 

He stood gracelessly and stormed out of the apartment through the front door. 

“What else is it?” Remus asked the strangely silent girl on the sofa. She shook her head, erasing her mind like an etch-a-sketch “Riddle needs me tonight, he’s got some special associate from Germany” she said her lip wavering but her eyes dry. 

“When?” He asked voice suddenly horse. Lily glanced at the clock it read 9:15. 

 “11” her voice robotic and her body still. 

“Don’t go. Stay in tonight with me..we’ll watch TV and I’ll make you tea whenever there’s an add break” he pleaded sitting next to her. She smiled at him, a sad sort of smile filled with pity. Remus felt the rage building in his stomach as she spoke again.  

“It’ll be fine” she tried to convince him, and Remus felt his temper rise.  

Lily was a liar. She never argued or fought against Riddle’s demands, at least not for herself and Remus couldn’t understand it. He didn’t understand much about the world anymore - what use was a world where good people suffered? What good was a world where girls like Lily had to do whatever monsters like Riddle demanded? 

Remus didn’t know what they would do to her tonight, it was always different. 

Sometimes they just needed a punching bag - someone who looked like their wife or mother.  

Someone who would cry and scream as they yelled vile words to someone who was not there. 

Sometimes they simply wanted to talk. They just wanted a woman to listen to them, someone to hear about there interest and pretend to find their personality charming. - these were the rarest jobs for Lily but Remus sometimes thought they weighed the hardest. When she returned her hair would be plastered to her forehead from anxiety, and her eyes would be searching for something Remus couldn’t see. 

Mostly the men just wanted to fuck. 

Remus didn’t know when it started but he knew Riddle had stopped these meetings after a particularly violent experience a few years ago. The man - Snape, had been obsessed with her and had been stalking her for quite some time. Riddle claimed not to have known the man’s deranged interest.

Personally, Remus doubted Riddle was unaware of the mans desire to posses Lily but said nothing in favour of keeping his toungue. The man had been dealt, buried in a shallow ditch out by the motorway after his parole hearing. 

He didn’t know why Riddle was sending her back now, this German must be very important to Riddle for him to throw Lily in with no warning. As much as the other DE’s whispered about Lily for being Riddle's favourite, they weren’t wrong. 

Riddle had a soft spot for the girl. The man had raised her after all. Remus didn’t know much about Lily's childhood, and her reluctance to share more telling than any story. But he knew her parents had died when she was young, about 5 or 6 - Riddle had found her, and taken her under his wing.

Despite the horror, Remus supposed her childhood must have been Lily had never tried to run from the Death Eaters. The scars Remus had seen over her body were faded, soft thin white lines raised against her hands and back. They looked pretty in a way, gentle like they had formed at birth, soft and unnoticed until you looked closely. 

Though he tried not to, Remus often resented Lily for her connection to Riddle. It was her choice she hadn’t run and Sirius had stayed for her. His desire to pack up and run, was held at bay only by Lily's green eyes and flighty smile.  

Sirius would never leave Lily, and Remus felt a sharp pang of jealousy at the thought. He wouldn't leave her either, but he wasn't above knocking her out until they crossed the ocean - her happiness be damned. 

In fact he wasn’t sure if Lily had ever been happy; if she even knew what happiness was. Riddle had certainly never shown her happiness or kindness but somehow she had so much compassion, as though it were written into her DNA. 

She wouldn’t leave Riddle because she didn’t think it was safe - she thought he would find them and something bad would happen - not to her, but to him or to Sirius. 

Remus hated agreeing with Riddle but he was right; the girl was soft. 

It was going to get her killed one of these days.  

She would follow Riddle’s orders, no matter what they were. She would follow them because she couldn’t think of another way to keep the flat, because they could hurt him or Sirius if she didn’t. She would follow them because she believed it was what she owed Riddle for saving her life. She would follow them because she always had. 

They sat there for an hour or so, neither speaking. They sat and Remus pretended nothing was wrong with the lives they were living. They were just two friends watching TV before work in the morning. 

They sat and imagined they were more than criminals.

 More than just an addict and a whore.          

By the time Sirius returned it was 10:30. 

He swept in all anger and sadness, a frown marking his perfect face. “I want to do it” he demanded of the pale-faced girl.

“I want to kill them” he requested voice smaller, Lily nodded but everyone in the room knew who would deliver the killing blow to Riddle's targets. 

Remus needed out. 

Everything was going to shit. He needed something. He needed a fix. 

As though she read his mind Lily spoke “I have to go out for a bit Sirius, you’ll watch something with Remus, won’t you?”. She was smart.  He was indebted to her and hated her more than anyone else in the world. 

He banished the thought - she was only trying to help. 

She was always trying to help. 

 “Sure, where are you off to” Sirius said, his head in the fridge as the girl in question snuck down the fire escape. “Where’d she go?” Sirius asked throwing himself onto the sofa and cracking open his beer. Remus took the beer from his palm remembering the codeine in his friend’s system better than Sirius himself did. 

Remus was a purist at heart. He firmly believed you didn’t mix drugs and you definitely didn’t mix drugs and booze.

 “Riddle called her in” Remus said waiting for the penny to drop. As always Sirius was slow on the uptake “Why would he call her in now its..” He quickly moved to stand but Remus was quicker pressing him into the sofa “it's too late now, she’s gone” Remus said voice calm as Sirius struggled against his hold.

Sirius went still, instead cupping his face in his palms “Why did you let her go?” He asked accusingly. “For the same reason you would..I didn’t know what else to do” Remus bit back. 

They sat in silence for a while “we need to get out” he said and Remus laughed loudly. “There isn’t an out, you know that” he said. He knew he was being cruel but he didn’t care. He felt like shit why shouldn’t Sirius feel like shit too. “We haven’t tried maybe there is..” Remus interrupted him “The only way out is to die and if you die, I die and so does Lily. Genius plan right their Black” he spat as he left for his bedroom. 

After he entered he slammed the door behind him, he took a deep breath. 

1

2

3

you don’t need it

He knelt on the Wooden floor and the cold seeped into his bones. 

you don’t need it

His hand reached under the mattress.  The limb didn’t feel as though it were his own, he wasn’t reaching for the stash under his bed that must be someone else.  

“you don’t need it” he said aloud gazing at the small quantity of heroin he had hidden from his last bag knowing Lily would find it.  

 Remus found it so strange that something so small could make all of his worries turn to dust. That one small syringe made him feel as though he were flying high above all of his troubles, somewhere they couldn’t touch him.  

“you don’t need it”  he said flicking his lighter on and placing it under his spoon. He imagined Lily at that moment bleeding on the floor as some greasy old man hit her with his belt, his fists, his words. He transferred the substance into a clean syringe as he pictured Sirius crying over the corpse of his cousin, blaming himself for the death. He placed the needle above a large vein in his elbow crease. He saw himself sitting at his mother's hospital bed as she whispered words of comfort, her eyes fixed on the fresh burns covering his face. 

 The needle punctured skin and Remus poured the sugary syrup into his blood. 

The world whited out and for a moment Remus thought of nothing. 

He saw nothing. 

He felt nothing. 

Nothing hurt.

Over time the white world faded back into the room he knew, but the bliss remained. His body felt truly his and as he stated at his face in the mirror, it was just his face.

It wasn’t ugly or scarred it was just a face. With two eyes and a mouth - it seemed silly to hate something so ordinary.  

He thought of Lily lying on her back in some hotel room somewhere and he felt nothing. He considered Sirius sobbing over his dead family and thought him strange. Why should he care? what would crying help? What was death anyway? Remus pictured himself sobbing over his mother’s grave and wondered how he had ever contained such emotion. He stumbled his way to bed and stared at the ceiling above. 

He thought about a bit of everything and much of nothing. 

He invented something revolutionary and forgot it instantly.

 He decided upon the meaning of life and resolved to never share it. 

He watched from somewhere far off as colours painted the sky - ranging from blues to pinks and purples. He watched as the sunrose and bathed his room in orange hues.

 Remus fell asleep with a smile on his face and a swooping feeling in his gut. 

Remus woke slowly. His eyelids sticky as he tried to rip them apart. He stared at the window and could not tell if the sun was rising or setting. He forced himself to rise from bed, the guilt began to crawl in. The dread replacing every ounce of heroin in his system. 

What if Tix found out? She would be disappointed but she wouldn’t say anything. Her eyes would follow him like a hawk for the next few days ensuring he didn’t get anymore. And when he inevitably snapped at her she would forgive him immediately. 

The worst incident had been roughly two years ago - Sirius had been away for his brother’s funeral and Remus had gotten high with some black tar that Peter had slipped him. Lily had found the bag and flushed the rest of it. He had been so angry, so so angry. He grabbed her by the shoulders and slammed her into the wall, screaming abuse at her. Words Remus couldn’t remember but knew she did - he knew they would hurt, that’s why he had said them. 

He couldn’t remember hitting her, his bruised knuckles the only evidence. He had left her there, eyes fluttering, a crumpled doll abandoned on the floor. He had left her, uncaring of her weak breaths and stormed into his room. Eventually, she appeared in his doorway: her shirt bloody and her eyes red. She handed him a cup of hot chocolate and let him sob into her shoulder. He told her he was sorry, she had nodded and told him not to apologise. She had told him he was already forgiven and he had looked at the strange creature in front of him with confusion.

Remus hated her forgiveness more than anything, he wanted her to be mad at him. He wanted her to hit him, to hurt him. He wanted her to be cruel and send him away but she never did. 

She would never tell Sirius about the drug use nor the anger he would inevitably throw at her. Sirius had always been the best of them. More emotionally adept than either of his friends. His spectrum of feeling too much for the boy to handle, often leaping from one to the next. His anger became sadness and his sadness turned into joy. 

Remus stumbled into the kitchen on tired legs. pulling open the fridge as began making French toast hoping to assuage his guilt slightly. He was startled a few minutes later by James entering the place through the back door. 

 “Where have you been?” He asked turning back to the frying pan as the man replied “Went for a walk,”. The messy-haired boy sat at the table and Remus plated the first two pieces of toast before handing them to him. “Thanks,” James said with a half smile, his eyes looking away from Remus’s own.

“Remus..” Came a childlike call as Sirius dragged himself into the kitchen “French toast?” He asked excited as can be. Remus nodded and Sirius shrugged, eyes flicking toward the clock on the wall. Remus followed his gaze quickly realising more time had passed than he thought. Remus's eyes fell back to Sirius as he attempted to swipe a bite of James’s toast. 

“Where’s Lily?” James asked and Remus felt the air in the room disappear. “She’s..” Sirius began only to be interrupted by the woman herself standing in the doorway. “Right here, whatcha cooking Remus?” She asked, waltzing towards the kitchen table. Remus’s eyes raked over her, she looked okay. His eyes met hers and she smiled brightly, resting her hand on his arm as she swiped the next plate of toast.

 “Hey! That was mine” Sirius moaned and Lily's smile widened. 

God he was so selfish, he was always so selfish. He pushed the thoughts away trying to imitate the pure white nothingness he had felt last night. 

It didn’t work.

 He began the next set of toast, ignoring Sirius’s complaints about Lily's theft.  

After they ate, Lily told them all about the mission for that evening. Both he and Sirius reacted as though this was news to them in order to make James feel a little more comfortable. “There’s a party tonight just outside of the city, we’re to go and get something from the bedroom whilst the party is happening,” Lily said. Of course, this was a lie, they would not be stealing anything but the breath from two innocents. 

“James and I will go in as guests. Remus you're on get away and surveillance - although the security cameras will be off for the party so I only need you to monitor communications throughout the house. Sirius you’re coming in through the old service entrance, it's sealed so you’ll need a crowbar…” Sirius nodded and James asked “Why can’t he come in as a guest like us?”. Remus thought the question fair and jumped to respond before Sirius lost his cool “Sirius knows the couple who are throwing the party, they would recognise him”. James nodded, obviously glad for the information. 

“Party starts at 7. James your clothes are on the sofa, next to Sirius’s. Here’s the layout of the house - memorise it” Lily ordered and James scurried out of the room to do as asked. The three sat silently until they heard the door to the spare bedroom (now his Remus supposed) close. 

“Well” Sirius said crossing his arms like an impatient child.

Lily matched his stance “well?” She uttered and the two stared at each other in silence.  

“Holy mother of Mary.  Lily, Sirius would like to know if you are okay. Sirius stop being a prat.” He said looking between the two duellers in his kitchen. The two laughed at his words and stepped closer to each other. 

“I'm alright” Lily offered and Sirius nodded, something passing over his face quickly before wrapping his arms around the girl. “I'm still mad at you” he mumbled into her crown. “I know” Lily replied as her hand called out for Remus to join in the hug. He smiled and wrapped his long arms around both of them. 

The guilt lessened and Remus took a deep breath of Lily’s strawberry shampoo mixed with Sirius’s cedar wood perfume. They were his family and he was theirs and they would get through it all together.

 “I love you” Sirius mumbled as though it hurt him to keep it contained. 

“Love you both” Lily responded and Remus knew the words were truer than perhaps any other she had spoken.

 “I love you more than anything” Remus told them as the weight lifted from his chest and he could breath freely once again.