The Quiet in Between
They didn’t speak for days after the cave.
The silence was thick and suffocating, stretching between them like a chasm neither dared cross. Sirius spent hours staring into the fire, his hollow eyes reflecting the flickering flames. Barty, in contrast, paced endlessly, muttering to himself as though the act of moving might stave off the memories that clawed at him in the quiet.
The locket sat on the table between them, untouched. Its presence felt like an accusation, a tangible reminder of what they had failed to change.
Sirius barely ate, the thought of food turning his stomach. When Barty finally broke the silence, it was more out of frustration than genuine care.
“You’ll waste away if you keep this up,” he snapped, throwing a piece of bread onto the table in front of Sirius.
Sirius glanced at it but said nothing. He looked thinner than ever, his cheekbones sharp, his frame skeletal beneath the tattered robes he still wore.
Barty groaned and slumped into the chair across from him, his fingers drumming on the edge of the table. “Merlin, you’re insufferable when you’re brooding. How many days are you going to sit there like a ghost?”
Sirius didn’t rise to the bait. He hadn’t spoken since they’d returned from the cave, and it was clear Barty was reaching the end of his patience.
“You think you’re the only one who’s lost someone?” Barty continued, his voice bitter. “You think you’re the only one haunted by their ghosts?”
Sirius’s head snapped up at that, his sunken eyes narrowing. “Don’t you dare compare yourself to me.”
Barty smirked faintly, though there was little humor in it. “Why not? You think you have the monopoly on grief, Black? You don’t know the first thing about me.”
The tension between them was palpable, the air charged with unsaid things. But Sirius’s anger was too raw, too close to the surface. “I know you betrayed your own parents. I know you tortured innocent people.” His voice was low, sharp as broken glass. “You’re not grieving; you’re guilty.”
For a moment, Barty looked like he might lash out, but instead, he leaned back in his chair, his expression darkening. “And what about you, hmm? What do you call it when you walked out on your family and left your brother behind to face them alone?”
The words hit Sirius like a blow. He opened his mouth to retort, but the venom in Barty’s voice cut him off.
“You think you’re any different from me?” Barty sneered. “We both abandoned the people who mattered. The only difference is, I admit it.”
It was late when Sirius finally spoke again. The fire was dying, casting long shadows across the room, and Barty had fallen silent, staring at the locket with a faraway look in his eyes.
“I loved him, you know,” Sirius said quietly. His voice was rough, the words heavy as though each one was being dragged from the depths of him.
Barty didn’t look at him, but his fingers stilled against the table.
“Remus,” Sirius continued, his gaze fixed on the embers. “He was… everything. And I ruined it. Just like I ruin everything.”
The confession hung in the air, and for a moment, Sirius thought Barty wouldn’t respond. But then the other man spoke, his voice uncharacteristically soft.
“Evan used to say that about himself.”
Sirius glanced up, startled by the quiet vulnerability in Barty’s tone.
“He thought he was broken,” Barty continued, his gaze distant. “Said no one could love him because he wasn’t enough. Too cruel, too sharp around the edges.” He let out a bitter laugh. “But he was wrong. He was the only good thing I ever had.”
There was a silence that stretched between them, but it wasn’t the oppressive, suffocating silence of before. It was tentative, fragile, as though they were both afraid to shatter it.
“What happened to him?” Sirius asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Barty’s jaw tightened, his fingers clenching into fists. “The war happened,” he said simply. “He died, and I—” He broke off, swallowing hard. “I had to pretend it didn’t matter. That I didn’t care. But I did.”
Sirius didn’t press him. He knew what it was to carry the weight of loss, to be haunted by the ghosts of what might have been.
They sat in silence for a while, the locket glinting dully in the firelight.
“Do you ever wonder,” Sirius said eventually, “if they would hate us for what we’ve become?”
Barty’s lips twitched into a faint, humorless smile. “All the time.”
That night, they sat outside beneath a sky filled with stars. Sirius’s gaze lingered on the constellation of Canis Major, the bright star of Sirius shining down like a distant reminder of home.
“Regulus used to talk about the stars,” he said softly, his voice carrying on the wind. “Said they were the only thing in the world that didn’t lie.”
Barty glanced at him, his expression unreadable. “Evan hated the stars. Said they made him feel small.”
Sirius huffed a quiet laugh, though there was no humor in it. “I used to think I was the brightest star in the sky. Turns out I was just burning myself out.”
Barty didn’t laugh, but he leaned back, his gaze drifting skyward. “Maybe that’s all any of us are—burning out one by one.”
The thought should have been depressing, but somehow, in the stillness of the night, it felt almost comforting. They were both broken, both haunted, but for the first time, they weren’t alone in it.