Evermore

Sirius

It should have taken Sirius five more days. Five more days of the sneaking off and the pushing food around and then he wouldn’t have to lie anymore, but the number wouldn’t budge. After Remus’ chat with him Sirius made sure to hide everything a little better - no use worrying Moony over something that would be over so soon! But when he weighed himself that night, the scale still showed 57kg. Behind the locked door and silent charm of their bathroom, Sirius screamed. He had done everything right, why wasn’t he losing?

He stepped off the scale and onto the cold tile of the bathroom wondering when that number had begun to mean so much to him. *It’s okay, you’re nearly done. It’s not a big deal.*

So he dropped onto the floor and did sit ups until he heard Peter banging at the door, “Padfoot. Hurry up! Some of us still need to shower!!”

Standing up, Sirius saw stars, he grabbed at the edge of the sink to balance himself before undoing the silencing charm and shouting back, “sorry wormy, just had to make sure the hair and skin were perfect!” He hid the scale and tried to stroll out casually despite the lightheadedness he felt.

His abs hurt as he crawled into bed, but the pain was as welcome and comforting as his empty stomach. For the past few weeks he had been attempting to eat under a thousand calories each day, plus his exercise. It had worked so far but now Sirius could see that he would have to go a little further, only for a few days just to loose those last two kilos. *Under 800*, he thought to himself. How to do that avoiding attention was the biggest question, but he knew a few tricks. Sirius knew he shouldn’t be excited by this but the thought of feeling even more empty let him go to sleep happy that night.

~

When Sirius woke up the lightheadedness was gone, replaced by an eagerness to burn calories. It was still dark as he approached the quidditch field, he was in his Gryffindor winter training uniform so the cold barely touched him. His hair was pulled back away from the light November winds and all he wanted was to run. As much as he loved quidditch, he was a little grateful for the broken arm, running burnt more calories. Running made him feel lighter. It was Wednesday so no houses were on the field today, just Sirius. As he ran he thought about Remus, about his concern that Sirius wasn’t eating. He’d never had that, he didn’t understand it. If he was fat, which he was, he didn’t deserve to eat, it was that simple. He would eat again when he was skinny. When he was 55kg. Or maybe less. Whilst sun rose behind the big lake, Sirius ran more laps than he should have, he ran until his legs were shaking and he had dots in his vision but he didn’t want to stop. I need to burn it all off, I need to burn the fat off, I need to be lighter.* He repeated in his mind like a mantra. He couldn’t get the image of the scale out of his head. Fuck! When did this happen? he thought.

He only stopped when he noticed James waving to him from the stands,

“Oi Padfoot slow down! You’re going to be fitter than me soon!”

Sirius blinked a few times to clear his vision, taking a seat before shouting back “Ah my prongsie-boy but I could never!” as James ran down the stairs to greet him. “You will always be the greatest player to grace this fair house,” he added in a Victorian accent whilst James took a seat next to him.

“Thank you Kind Sir,” James mimicked.

“Have I fed your ego enough for today?”

“Never!” James shouted dramatically, “how’s that arm of yours doing?”

“It’s alright, doesn’t hurt now it’s in the cast, just a pain for showering you know.”

“I swear, I’m going to kill Mulciber the next time we play them. I mean what the fuck was he thinking, that bludger was intentionally aimed!”

“Eh, James it’s fine, at least it’s my left so I can still do my essays and stuff.”

“Essays? Merlin! All that time you’ve been studying with Remus lately has really rubbed off on you. I swear you two are studying like its NEWTs!”

“Hahah…yeah…” Sirius laughed nervously.

“You know what you need? To take your mind off the arm…”

“My mind’s not on my arm. I told you Prongs, its fine!”

“Well then to stop you from studying so much!”

“I don’t mind studying,” Sirius interjected quickly.

“You need a prank!”

“James. We just pulled a big one like as soon as we got back, don’t you think it’s a bit dangerous to do one so soon?”

“Nah, they’ll never know its us!”

“They always know its us! You make us brand every prank with *The Marauders!* Ugh where is Pete? Isn’t he usually down here, I need some back up! A prank so soon is a bad idea.”

“But dying everyone’s robes red was so much fun! Oh and Pete didn’t want to wake up this morning, something about it being too early? But Remus is waiting for you in the locker room, too cold for him in the stands.”

Sirius sat up a little straighter at this.

“The locker room?” He enquired, trying to suppress his eagerness.

“Yeah.”

“Okay well, I should probably go shower then, see you in Charms?”

“Yeah.” James got up heading back towards the castle. Sirius also got up, waited for his vision to clear and then went to find his boyfriend.

Remus

At the sight of Sirius, Remus swore he could almost feel his knees buckling. He sauntered into the locker room teasingly slowly, making Remus watch as he let his hair down and shook it out.

“You waiting for me baby?” Sirius teased. Remus tried to calm his thoughts, lately the two boys couldn’t get enough of each other, finding every excuse to touch, every excuse to be alone.

“What took you so long?” he finally replied.

“Prongs wants to pull a prank.”

“Another one?”

“That’s what I said!” Sirius was now mere steps from Remus and it was taking all his control not to pull Sirius into him. “He also noticed that we’ve been studying together a lot,” Sirius continued, his voice taking on an air of mischief, “thinks I’m going to be smarter than you soon.” They were now barely inches apart, Sirius’ head tilted up slightly, locking eyes with Remus.

Remus raised his eyebrow teasingly, “oh yeah?” And that was it for Sirius, every ounce of confidence he had entered the locker room with dissipated at the tone that took over Remus’ voice. It was music to Sirius, the tone reserved for asking him to use his words.

“Mmhmm” he nodded, eyes shifting down to Remus’ lips.

“There’s probably still a few things I can teach you love,” Remus added, picking Sirius up and slamming their lips together.

~

Neither Remus nor Sirius made it to breakfast that morning. In fact, both were struggling to get to Charms on time. Remus was leading Sirius through an almost desolate castle, racing up the stairs towards their classroom. Sirius was usually the faster one but Remus just assumed his run this morning had exhausted him. They were nearly there, on their last set of stairs when Sirius suddenly stopped, panting heavily. Remus walked down to him, noticing the glazed over look in his eyes. “Padfoot, you okay?”

Sirius looked like he couldn’t hear him. He was blinking slowly, shaking his head and before Remus knew it Sirius had fallen onto him. “Shit, fuck, Padfoot. Padfoot!”

“mmmm sorry Moons, just a bit iron deficient. Maybe a little tired, two workouts in one morning is a lot! You really know how to make me weak in the knees” he joked.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Mhm. We should go. Going to be even more late.”

They slipped into class seconds before Professor Flitwick arrived, Remus taking his seat next to Pete and Sirius next to James. “You okay?” James asked.

“’Course. Moony thinks it’s too soon for another prank.”

“Ahh wimps! The lot of you!” James declared, shooting a look over to Remus and Pete.

Sirius

Sirius and Remus actually spent their free class that day at the library. Sirius was in the middle of re-reading his charms notes when Remus stopped doing his own work and nudged Sirius’ knee. “What happened this morning pads?” His voice made Sirius feel like he was in trouble.

“Well I’m not sure how good my memory is but I’m pretty sure after you took my top off then you…”

“Sirius.” Remus interrupted, “the stairs?”

“Oh that! We both missed breakfast, I just wasn’t expecting to do so much exercise this morning, I think I overdid it running up the stairs.” None of this was a lie. He probably shouldn’t have been running that morning at all given he had barely eaten this week.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry,” Remus shook his head, “You just seem different, I’m worried.”

Sirius could tell Remus wasn’t going to let this go. He needed to give him something.

“It’s Regulus.” Not a total lie. Remus clearly wasn’t expecting this, and it took him a second to register. Sirius watched as his features softened.

“Oh. Oh, Sirius I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, I just, I don’t like not being there for him. I know it’s good I got out, and I love the Potter’s but sometimes I still worry about him.”

“I know, it’s okay to worry, but he’s grown up now he knows how to take care of himself.”

“I know.”

Remus squeezed Sirius’ hand under the table, “We should probably go to lunch Pads.”

Sirius thought he could feel his heart drop, the idea of food made him stiffen up slightly, when did he start having this reaction? He was scared. When did he become scared of food?

“Yeah, yeah okay.”

~

That week passed without any more vocal concerns from Remus. On Friday night, when everyone else was still lazing around the common room, Sirius excused himself early to go to bed and he weighed himself again; 56.9 kg. *Fuck.* One hundred grams? Surely he had lost more than 100 grams! He had run until he saw stars every morning, managed to get away with 800 calories for the past three days he should have lost a kilo! No. No. He stepped off the scale and looked in the mirror, he could feel the tears stinging his eyes. *No. No.* He could feel the panic rising in his chest, he couldn’t do this, he couldn’t be this fat. His brain was yelling at him, telling him he didn’t deserve to eat, didn’t deserve to live. He didn’t know how to make it stop. He sat on the floor pulling his knees to his chest and sobbed. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted his razor, and he reached for it, the cold metal a comforting feeling. He carefully took it apart until he was just holding a small silver rectangle. He held it in his broken hand and carefully slid it across his right wrist. The first time it didn’t draw blood so he held it harder and he ran it across the skin until he could see red. He felt better immediately. He did this three more times, until the sobbing subsided and he was no longer shaking. Getting up, he grabbed his wand and aimed a healing spell at the cuts, they dissipated slightly but the scars were still there. Good thing it was freezing outside.

That night he vowed to eat less, to exercise more, to do whatever it took to lose weight. He want to be skin and bones. He wanted a thigh gap like Regulus. Somewhere in the back of his mind lay the thought, “if I was skinnier, would Regulus start talking to me again?”