Ten
25th October, 1976
Why'd you have to twist the knife?
Walk away and leave me bleedin', bleedin'?
Why'd you whisper in the dark?
Just to leave me in the night?
Now your silence has me screamin', screamin'
Sirius
Sirius was having an absolutely awful day. It had all started that morning when he awoke from an absolutely horrendous nightmare, the memory of which still clawed at him, slithering around in his brain like his mother’s legilimency. Then he’d gotten to breakfast too late to do more than scarf down a piece of toast with some raspberry jam on it. To top it all off, an assignment he was sure he had done was nowhere to be found, causing him to lose precious house points (though, he had to admit, not as many as he’d cost them in the past).
All that to say, he was absolutely not in the mood for anything else to go wrong, which of course it did. It did, because it always did, because he was Sirius bloody Black and nothing ever went right for Sirius Black. Not his home life, not his schooling, and most certainly not his love life, if it could even be called that.
He’d been hidden away in a broom cupboard (because where else was he supposed to have done it?) with Emmeline Vance, his newest casual hookup, when the door banged open rather loudly. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t expect it, really who was he kidding himself that he hadn’t at least spelled the door shut? And really, he should’ve known that Remus and Lily would be the ones to find him, it was their night for prefect rounds, a fact that Sirius was all too aware of. There was a small part of him that considered that maybe he had known, and maybe that was the entire reason he’d been there in the first place.
But as he stood there, watching Remus’s face and eyes, examining every detail he’d once known so intimately, he felt nothing but awful. Remus was refusing to look at him, instead looking directly over his shoulder and speaking with the most monotone voice Sirius had ever heard him use, though Sirius couldn’t hear the actual words being spoken over the thudding of his heart against his ribs. Remus looked beautiful when he was angry, handsome when he was happy, downright sinful when he was being mischievous and soft and peaceful when he was curled up with a good book. In that moment however, Remus was none of those things.
His face and eyes were almost blank, something Sirius had never seen before and never wished to see again. He still had all of the same features Sirius loved, every line he’d memorised still the same, but something about the blank emptiness changed his face ever so slightly in a way that made Sirius ache. If Sirius had to give a name to the emotion he saw on Remus’s face, it would undoubtedly be disappointment, an emotion he was all too familiar with being on the receiving end of. He’d disappointed everyone in his life, his parents, his brother, even James had looked at him that way after the February moon; Sirius knew the look of disappointment well, but it had somehow never hurt quite this much.
Emmeline was next to him, pulling her nightshirt over her nearly naked body, but all Sirius could manage was a dazed stare at the tall boy in front of him. His light brown hair laid in a way that practically begged Sirius to run his fingers through it, the scar slashed along his face longed to be kissed, and the dips where his hips jutted out ached to be traced by Sirius’s long, delicate fingers. There were so many things he wished he could do, so many things he used to be able to do before he’d messed everything up. It wasn’t until Remus cleared his throat that Sirius realised he’d been staring long enough for Emmeline and Lily to leave the two of them alone.
“It didn’t mean anything,” Sirius nearly whispered though he could tell Remus had heard him by the way he stiffened slightly.
“I’m aware of that Sirius, you showed me as much in February,” his tone was cold and he still refused to meet Sirius’s eyes, his heart felt like it was being ripped out of his chest.
“Rem-”
“No. No, Sirius, we aren’t doing this. Go back to the dorm and go to bed.” Remus cut him off, his large hand held in the air between them as if he could physically stop the words from coming out of Sirius’s mouth. It worked as well as if he’d cast a hex on him because Sirius suddenly found that he simply couldn’t form any, all he managed was to cast his eyes to the floor, give a solemn nod and walk out of the broom cupboard after Remus.
He slowly made his way back to Gryffindor tower, now entirely alone as Emmeline had gone a ways ahead of him on her own. The corridors seemed to stretch out endlessly before him and though the turns were familiar it all felt so foreign and cold to him, almost like the halls of Grimmauld place with its sneering portraits and mounted house elf heads, even Potter manor had felt colder and more hollow over the summer. Remus was gone but there, lost but never missing, and in outer space yet planted firmly on the ground.
Sirius didn’t realise he was back in the dormitory until he was standing outside James’s bed curtains, frozen with one hand grasping the fabric between him and his best friend. From Christmas until February Sirius hadn’t slept alone, there wasn’t a single night where he didn’t share a bed with either James or Remus there to lull him to sleep and console him when he jolted awake from the nightmares of what had happened. Now, as he stood in front of his best friend’s bed, he hadn’t shared one with anyone since the 14th of February, the last time he’d slept with Remus’s limbs tangled with his own.
“Prongs?” He finally whispered, his voice breaking.
“Sirius?” Came his hoarse response. He could hear the sleep and confusion laced in his voice.
“Can- can I sleep with you tonight?” He asked, afraid beyond anything he would say no.
“‘Course you can,” he heard James shift over slightly in the bed before he pulled the curtains back slightly and slipped inside. He laid there, facing James, their hands held between them and their ankles crossed before James’s eyes met his in the dark. “Was it a dream?”
“No, I was in the broom cupboard with Emmeline, Remus caught us.”
“Oh, Padfoot, I’m sorry.” He didn’t need to tell James exactly why it was so bad that Remus had been the one to catch him, and whether he knew it was because of how Sirius felt about him or not, he understood.
“I just don’t think I’ll ever get him back James, not really,” he felt the sobs bubbling up within him, the familiar burn in his throat and behind his eyes.
“You will, I promise you will, it’s just gonna take some time.”
“It’s been eight months,” the tears finally started to fall. “Eight months of him being so close and yet worlds away.”
“I know,” was all James said in response, one of his hands smoothing down Sirius’s hair as he spoke.
“Thank you for being here.”
“Always Padfoot, always.”
The next day went much the same as the last in that Sirius had an absolutely awful time of things, though this time it was for an entirely different reason. He didn’t wake up too late for breakfast, though he didn’t have much of an appetite anyways, and all of his assignments were completed and with his things for the day. None of that managed to make him feel any better, not when Remus was even more distant than he had been since their talk over the summer.
He still sat in his spot, directly across from Sirius and to the left of Peter, he still spoke with the other Marauders and the girls, but not once did he even glance in Sirius’s direction. It was like the area he occupied was concealed under a notice-me-not charm and every word he’d spoken that morning was said through a wall laden with silencing charms. He felt worse than a ghost, at least they were seldom ignored, he felt like he’d been erased from Remus’s mind in a way he hadn’t felt in months. He was there, but not, and it was killing him. Actually, he thought, he’d much rather be dead than living like this.
Sirius tried absolutely everything to get Remus’s disappointed look out of his mind, but every time he caught sight of the other boy it flashed across his vision once again. He couldn’t focus during his classes, all he could see were Remus’s eyes looking at the empty space next to him instead of at his face as though it would physically pain Remus to look at the boy he’d spent hours curled around in bed just over eight months prior.
He was poison. He was poison and he was slowly infecting and killing everyone around him. He could feel it, the poison sliding through his veins like sludge, slowly replacing all of the blood in his body. Sirius had been sitting in muggle studies, a class he took largely because word of him taking it would enrage his parents, but the next time he blinked he was at the edge of the forest unsure of how he’d gotten there. He couldn’t remember class ending, nor could he remember leaving the school and walking across the grounds, he wasn’t even sure if he’d gone to his two other classes after muggle studies that day. All he knew, in that moment, was that he was on his knees, hugging himself tightly as if to keep himself together and his arms burned.
Why did his arms burn? Why was he there? How long had he been there? The unanswerable questions made him sob, though he realised that he already had been. His face was wet and his body ached. What had he done this time? His arms felt hot but his body had grown cold, he felt numb and broken all at once. The sun had set, which didn’t mean much other than it was at least after five and he’d need to head back into the castle before someone came looking for him.
After a moment, he managed to pick himself up off the ground, dry his face with the sleeve of his robes, pick up his bag and wander up the hill and back into the castle. Once he walked through the doors, he heard the normal chatter of students in the Great Hall having dinner and made his way into the room and to the table where his friends sat.
“Sirius!” It was James who noticed him first, he’d probably been looking for him since dinner had started. All of the heads near James turned in Sirius’s direction, but all he could see was the one that didn’t, the one that was still ignoring him.
“James,” Lily whisper-shouted, though Sirius didn’t know what she wanted his attention for in that moment. He slid onto the bench next to James and across from Remus, the other boy still not looking at him. “What’s happened to him?”
Sirius, who was reaching for the pitcher of pumpkin juice, was about to say that nothing had happened to him, that he’d just been out for a walk, when he heard James gasp. “Padfoot, what did you do?”
“What are you-” he stopped mid question when he saw it. His fingers were covered in dried blood. “I- I don’t know.”
“Come with me,” James stood and grabbed Sirius’s arm, causing a hiss to escape his lips. It hurt. He didn’t fight James then, he knew what was coming. “Pete, can you pack up a plate for Sirius? I’m gonna take him and get him cleaned up but we won’t be back before dinner ends and he’ll need something in his system.”
He couldn’t help it, he looked back as they were walking away, this time his eyes met the beautiful honey-coloured ones he’d been dying to see all day, only he was in too much of a state to decipher the emotion hidden behind them. James didn’t say anything until they were back in their dorm in Gryffindor tower, for which he was grateful. He didn’t even say anything until he’d ushered Sirius into their bathroom and shut the door. Neither of them spoke as James pulled his robes from his shoulders and started to run the tap on the sink. Finally, once James had found a clean flannel and had wet it, he spoke.
“Sirius, I need to clean you up okay?” James sounded like he was talking to a wounded animal in the woods and Sirius found that he suddenly had lost his words again, the tears burning hot behind his eyes. “It’s okay, I just want to see how bad it is.”
They fell back into silence as James worked him over gently. He dabbed the damp cloth against his skin, the pressure only causing his arms to ache even more. There was more blood on his arms than there had been on his hands, the deep gouges he’d torn into himself had bled quite a bit, he knew the only reason the blood didn’t show through his robes had been that they were so thick. He couldn’t look, but he knew his arms were the dark rust colour blood turned when it dried, knew there would be flakes of it falling off of his skin. He didn’t know how long they stood there, James gently dabbing at his skin and rinsing the cloth repeatedly, the water turning pink as it went down the drain, but the next thing he knew there was a soft knock at the door.
“I’m going to see who it is, okay? It might be Petey with something for you to eat.” James’s voice was soft and gentle still, as though he might scare Sirius into jumping out the window to escape if he spoke louder or made any sudden moves. “Oh.”
That was all James said at first before Sirius heard whispering, he didn’t need to focus his hearing to know who it was though. He’d whispered back and forth with that person too many times to not know the way his s’s sounded when his voice was lowered, not to know the way that voice sounded when the boy it belonged to was in pain and trying to hide it. Remus. Remus was there and he was whispering with James about him.
“I don’t know if he’ll want to see you,” Sirius caught the whispered words from James, they stood out like a galleon in a sea of sickles. He also caught the pained whine that he got as a response.
“Please,” he heard the sob as clear as day, he was accustomed to the sound. He’d heard it more times than he ever wanted to, it broke him just the same as it always had.
“Let him in,” his voice was barely above a whisper but James still heard him.
“Sirius, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” James was careful about the way he spoke, not wanting to upset either boy more than was necessary.
“I’ll be okay.” James searched his face for a full thirty seconds, trying to discern if Sirius was telling the truth or not before he nodded once.
“Do you want me to stay?” There he was again, looking out for Sirius as he always had, but there was nothing he’d be able to do this time. He shook his head without meeting his best friend’s eyes before turning back away from the door, not wanting to see the look on Remus’s face when James would open the door more. He heard him whisper something to the other boy, though the sound of his blood pumping in his ears drowned out everything below a certain volume. “I’ll be right outside.”
He heard shuffling and the sound of the door clicking shut and then nothing other than his breath and Remus’s. He knew it was Remus and not James even without turning around, something that used to comfort him but now only made him feel pathetic. There was a hint of chocolate in the air, a bit of parchment and mahogany, the undeniable scent of Remus John Lupin.
Neither of them spoke as Remus walked around and came to a stop in front of Sirius, and Sirius couldn’t bring himself to look into the other boy’s face. He didn’t fight it as Remus gently grabbed ahold of his wrists and brought his arms up so he could look at them, a pained noise came from him next.
“Why?” He finally choked out, the strain evident in his voice.
“I don’t know,” he whispered, the words feeling like they were being forced from his body.
“Well, what happened?” He grabbed the discarded flannel and took up James’s previous role, gently dabbing the warm, damp cloth across his burning flesh.
“I don’t know,” those three words seemed to be all he was capable of at that moment. The two stood there in silence for a while as Remus cleaned the dried blood off his arms, he still couldn’t look anywhere but the floor. After a while he stopped wiping away the blood and just stood there, silently staring at Sirius’s arms, it took him several minutes and a few tears hitting his skin to realise that Remus was crying. “Why are you crying?”
“What do you mean ‘why am I crying?’ Merlin, Padfoot, look at what you’ve done to yourself! Your arms half look like a werewolf got ahold of them,” his voice broke on the word werewolf as if it took all his strength to say it.
“I’ve had worse,” despite the fact that it was true, he felt like somehow that had been the wrong thing to say. Remus’s brow crinkled and a whine emanated from his throat.
“You’re not supposed to be having any of it,” the exasperation was evident in his voice, though there was concern laced through it.
“If you’ve just come in here out of obligation, you can go ahead and leave now. My friend was just here tending to my wounds, no matter how self-inflicted and unnecessary they may be. I’m not really in a state of mind to be judged by someone who already hates me.” If this wasn’t going to be a conversation with his Moony, he didn’t want him there. End of story.
“Don’t do that,” Remus answered, not unkindly.
“Do what?”
“Push me away when we both know that’s the last thing you really want,” he said it like someone who knew Sirius more intimately than even he knew himself, and maybe that had been the case eight months prior, but a lot had changed since then.
“That is what I want Remus, we aren’t friends anymore remember?” His words were harsh, his tone harsher.
“No, it isn’t,” there was a softness to his voice, a quality to it that Sirius hadn’t heard in what felt like a lifetime.
“How could you know that?” Sirius scoffed, his doubt creeping through his tone.
“Because I know you, Sirius. I know that when you cry your eyes become a mixture of different blues and golds, I know that you like your tea abysmally sweet, your favourite colour is orange like the sunset but you hate the fruit itself, you’re afraid of the dark, you secretly love books and have read more than half the people in our year though you’d never let anyone know it. Your middle name is Orion, which you hate because it reminds you of your father and you’d change it in a heartbeat if you could. You talk in your sleep, did you know? It’s just little words and mumbles but if you put them together sometimes it’s easy to tell what you’re dreaming about. There’s a million things that I know about you Sirius, and that means that I know that you don’t want me to leave, not right now.”
Sirius was speechless, what was he supposed to say to that? How could he find any words when Remus had somehow taken them all from his brain, scrambled them into a pattern he didn’t recognize and pasted them all across his skin like a brand. He felt the words sink into his veins, sucking out the poison and replacing it with golden ichor like that which came from a god. Before he had felt breathless, lifeless, like he was a walking corpse just waiting to be reanimated and he finally had been, he was finally brought back to life.
“Don’t say something like that to me, not if you’re just going to leave me again. I- I couldn’t handle losing you again Remus, I’ve barely been surviving as it is.”
“It hasn’t exactly been easy for me either,” the strain in his voice had returned, he almost sounded like he hadn’t drank water in weeks and was forcing his words out through sandpaper vocal chords.
“Could’ve fooled me,” Sirius scoffed, a part of him still not ready to let go of the flowering resentment he’d been harbouring lately.
“Sirius,” Remus whined, his brow furrowing like it did when he awoke in pain from the moon, Sirius longed to smooth the area like he’d done countless times before but instead all he managed was to tighten his hand into a fist.
“You hurt me, Remus, I’ve never felt pain like that and I grew up with Walburga for a mother.” He knew he was probably being too harsh, knew that he’d hurt Remus probably worse than Remus had hurt him, but the biggest difference in Sirius’s mind was that he hadn’t meant to hurt Remus, it had just been an unfortunate consequence of trying to get back at Snape.
“You hurt me first!” He threw his arms up in exasperation, “not to sound like a petulant child, but you ripped me apart Sirius, I’ve been fighting for the last eight months to try and forgive you for what you did. I want to, Merlin do I want to, but how can I forgive something you did so carelessly? You nearly got Snape and James killed and I would’ve ended up in Azkaban!”
Sirius felt the blood drain from his face, he’d never considered Remus going to Azkaban as a possibility of that night, an error that only haunted him more now that he could turn the thought over in his mind, taste the sour tang of it on his tongue. “I never would’ve let that happen.”
“You wouldn’t have had much say, and I would’ve deserved it.”
“You could never deserve Azkaban Remus, not you.” The words came from his lips before he could even think to stop them, though he wasn’t sure he would’ve even if he had.
“Except I would have, I would have because of a choice that you made,” the words came out in a hiss, Sirius felt like he’d just been struck. “You did this to us and I can’t even bring myself to hate you for it.”
“So you’ve spent the last eight months avoiding me and ignoring me out of a supreme lack of hatred? Didn’t know that was a thing.” He scoffed, how dare Remus claim not to hate him when he hadn’t looked at him until it was clear that he was absolutely spiralling.
“Merlin, sometimes I don’t know how you could be so bloody brilliant and yet be the thickest person I’ve ever met in my life.” He wiped his hand down his face, the tension evident in every muscle. “The reason I’ve been avoiding you, unable to speak to you, unwilling to even look in your direction because I might catch your eye? How can you be so bloody daft you can’t see that Ilove you? I’ve loved you since first year, I loved you on February sixteenth, even when I learned what you’d done, and I’ve loved you every day since. I can’t bear to look at you because I love you so much it hurts to see everything I’ve ever wanted in your eyes when I know I shouldn’t, at least not anymore.”
Remus was breathing heavily, the air between them felt charged as if an electric current had been generated in the space between them. He felt Remus’s breath on his face, ruffling his hair, stirring something inside himself he hadn’t dared allow himself to feel since that fateful February night. And oh, the space between them, somehow they were mere inches away from one another, close enough that if Sirius tipped his head up and pressed only slightly onto his toes their lips would touch. He thought about it, considered the implications of such an act in that moment, an acceptance of Remus’s confession and a confession all his own.
Clearly the fates had other plans in store. “Padfoot?” James rapped lightly on the door before pushing it open gently, the two boys inside springing apart at the intrusion.
“Yeah Prongs?” Sirius somehow managed to find his voice, though he was nearly certain James would hear the breathlessness in it.
“You alright?” He didn’t dare take his eyes off the ones of the boy in front of him, terrified he’d vanish the second Sirius looked away.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Can I come in?” Sirius opened his mouth to ask for a few more minutes, dared to hope and dream for just a little longer, trapped there in the heat of the confessions they’d both been dying to let free for some unknown amount of time.
“Yeah, I was just leaving,” Remus answered for him instead before he walked from the room, not sparing another glance for the boy inside. Sirius had never felt this level of frustration and anxious energy in his life, and for the first time he found himself actually irritated with his best friend for interrupting his moment. Something told him he wouldn’t get another chance like this one, he’d had all of his moments to seize what he wanted with Remus and he’d ruined every single one, yet another thing he would never forgive himself for. He’d add it to his long and ever–growing list of unforgivable sins he’d committed in his life, something he’d keep tally of until he was old and grey in whatever hole he’d carve out for himself in the world.
Sirius had squandered every chance of happiness he’d ever had and would lose everyone who mattered to him. He’d already lost his brother, his parents (as awful as they’d been, they were still his parents), and now he’d lost Remus. Next would be James and Pete followed by Effie and Monty, probably even Lily, Mary and Marlene too. He would be entirely alone before the end of school and it would all be thanks to his own doing.
“Padfoot?” James sounded concerned, he wasn’t sure how long that would last.
“I’m fine, think I’ll just head to bed okay?”
“Do you want to sleep with me tonight?” There was James, always thinking of others and putting their needs first.
“I’ll be okay, just tired, it’s been a long day.” He tried to give James a reassuring smile, though he was almost certain the other boy could see right through it. Nevertheless James let him go to his bed and draw the curtains around himself, he didn’t even ask questions when Sirius cast the muffliato, yet another thing he would be eternally grateful to his best friend for. Sometimes he just needed to cry, and he did, until he finally cried himself into a fitful, nightmare filled sleep. Dreams of hauntingly familiar eyes and harsh words spoken from beautiful lips, dreams of a future he wanted more than anything but would never be allowed to have, and dreams of a past he’d spend the rest of his life on the run from.