Hide behind your smile
Golden light streamed in between the cracks in the curtains surrounding his four-poster bed, creating gleaming beams of illuminated dust above Sirius’ head.
As he peeled his eyes open however, he was unable to appreciate the beauty of the chilly, winter sunrise.
All Sirius could feel was pain.
Searing aches shot up his back and across his shoulders. His ankles, knees and hips stung with tight shooting pains, and his head felt like it was being squeezed by a circus strongman.
As he lay on his bed, attempting to calm the agony racing through his body with a series of deep breaths, he could hear the early sounds of his dorm-mates waking up and getting ready for the day. James walking barefoot towards the bathroom for his morning shower,
the rustling of Remus throwing off his covers and Peter groaning as he woke up.
After a few more deep breaths Sirius was able to ignore the head-splitting pain enough to sit up and lean against his headboard. He stifled a pained groan and reached up to his forehead and massaged his temples. He often woke up to agonising pain like this, but it was worse now, in the harsh cold of January, when everything in the castle was bone-chillingly cold and the memories of Grimmauld place were fresh in his mind, his joints constantly felt frozen solid. He had more nightmares this time of year too, so that didn’t help.
Still enclosed within his drawn curtains, Sirius savoured his last moments of isolation before venturing out for a day of drawn out lessons and putting on a brave face in front of his friends, pretending he wasn’t on the verge of tears with every step.
He finally managed to push down the pain for long enough to drag himself out of bed. Traversing across the cluttered dorm to get ready for the day. Thankfully, James had already left the dorm, most likely already down in the common room, ready to catch Lily on the way to breakfast, as was his newest courtship technique. That meant Sirius wouldn’t have to dodge any awkward questions about the slight limp he had that morning. At least he had remembered to cast the silencing charm over his bed last night, so nobody heard him screaming himself awake in the middle of the night after a particularly harsh nightmare.
Twenty minutes later he made his way out of the Gryffindor common room, school bag on his back, just in time for his first lesson: Charms.
Luckily for Sirius, Flitwick had separated him from Remus, Peter and James in their third year for “causing a ruckus”. At the time, he had been furious but it worked in his favour now, Mack Thomas wasn’t going to ask him why he had bags the size of the astronomy tower under his eyes, or why he kept massaging his left shoulder incessantly, and as far as Sirius cared, that was all that mattered.
He managed to make it through his first lesson without many problems, he had already mastered the banishing charm Flitwick was trying to teach them so he allowed himself to zone out and focus on ignoring the aches coursing through his joints, easier said than done. He only caught a few concerned glances his way from James so he must not have done too bad of a job at hiding the pain from his face, but he wasn’t looking forward to feilding those questions later.
As the students filed out of the classroom, Sirius hung back as much as he could, trying to avoid James. Remus and Peter had their Care of Magical Creatures class straight after Charms so he could get away with just throwing them a wave as they hurried off. Unfortunately, Sirius shared a free period with James. That meant an hour of trying to act normal, like he wasn’t in debilitating pain and running on a mere two hours of sleep, in front of his best friend.
Despite having lived in one room together since they were eleven, Sirius had managed to go 4 and a half years without baring his soul to his best friends. He had managed to keep his nightmares and the reality about his upbringing underwraps.
Sure, they knew about his intensely strict family, how they couldn’t write letters to him in the holidays and how it had been his parent’s greatest disappointment to have their eldest son sorted into Gryffindor, instead of Slytherin.
What they didn’t know was the summers he spent starving, locked in his room, or the scars littering his back from the punishments Walburga enacted on him for the smallest of crimes. They didn’t know that he spent every night tossing and turning as the worst memories of his childhood were re-enacted in his mind. They also didn’t know about the permanent and agonising damage done by his parents over the years, resulting in the chronic and unending pain he now felt as he walked over towards James.
“Hey Pads, did you sleep in this morning? You didn’t make it to breakfast.” James said as Sirius reluctantly reached his friend, stood waiting outside the classroom door.
“Yeah, I didn’t sleep too well, couldn’t get myself out of bed.” Sirius shrugged off the question before adding “How was Lily flower this morning? I noticed you left the dorm nice and early.”
“Oh she was perfect Pads!” James said, pretending to swoon into Sirius’ arms, “Her hair is always so perfect, everything about her is alway so perfect!”
The pair began to walk towards the great hall to spend their free period pretending to do work.
“Oh so you talked to her then? That's progress!” Sirius replied.
James’ shoulders dropped with a sigh, “yeah, yeah I talked to her…”
“And, did she talk back?” Sirius asked, knowing the answer.
“Yeah of course she did, I think she’s warming to me actually, she said, and I quote, “Hello James, Goodbye James”! A hello and a goodbye, and she said my name!”
“Oh yeah, she’s positively in love with you Prongs” Sirius replied sarcastically, trying to stop himself from limping due to the pain in his legs.
“Oh Shut up Pads, We’ll be married one day, I promise you, and you’ll be the godfather to our many many perfect red-head children” James retorted, not missing the slight wince Sirius attempted to hide as they walked down the stairs.
“Oh yeah I’m sure.” Sirius replied with sarcasm.
They made the rest of the trip to the great hall in comfortable silence, Sirius not noticing the way James was watching his walk with scrutiny.
When they finally made it to the hall and sat down at the table, Sirius felt like he had just climbed a mountain. The pain in his legs hadn’t gotten any better since he got up this morning and his back was throbbing even more dramatically.
Reaching into his bag for parchment and his ancient runes textbook, Sirius prepared himself for an hour of pretending to work to stop James from asking the invasive questions he was sure he had at the tip of his tongue.
He wasn’t quick enough however as James fixed him with a suspicious glare.
“What’s the deal with the limp Sirius?” James asked, leaving no room for Sirius to avoid answering.
“It’s not a limp Prongs, I just slept crookedly on my hip and it’s annoying me, that's all” Sirius said, in an attempt to brush off the question.
“What about your face then? It looks like you haven’t slept in years!” James followed up.
“I told you, I didn’t sleep very well last night, couldn’t get comfortable. That and Wormy’s snoring” Sirius provided, technically not a lie.
“Hmmm okay Sirius but you know you can talk to me about anything, right? And the hospital wing is just upstairs if you need something for your hip.” James backed off.
“Yeah I know that Prongs, there’s nothing wrong I promise, just a bad night’s sleep, that's all.”
Sirius didn’t like lying to his best friend but he just didn’t see how he could tell him the truth “Hey James, by the way my parents have been beating the living daylights out of me since I could walk and I have horrible vivid nightmares about my awful childhood. Oh and I often wake up in excruciating pain because their years of abuse has damaged my body beyond repair, and I'm gay and I think I’m in love with our other best friend but won't ever tell him because I’m far too emotionally damaged and actually I don’t think I know what love is.” yeah, right.
Thankfully James dropped the line of questioning and took his own work out of his bag and began to get on with it.
After about half an hour of Sirius attempting to ignore the pain he was in enough to concentrate on his essay about the symbols of henges due later that week, his frustration got the better of him and he let out an almighty groan, dropping his head to the table in front of him.
“You ok mate? Runes getting you down?” James asked.
“I can’t bloody concentrate on this essay!” Sirius replied, head still on the wood.
“Anything I can do to help Pads? I could read it through for you?” James offered.
“There’s nothing to bloody read!” Sirius exclaimed, lifting up the parchment in front of him to reveal a blank page, with a few ink splatters across the top where Sirius had held an inky quill, hoping an idea would emerge from his pain-addled brain.
“Let's go for a wander mate, I’ve not got much done either, let’s go and get some fresh air.” James suggested, starting to pack up his work, only slightly more done than Sirius.
Sirius also began to pack up his things, happy for the break from his own thoughts, but vaguely worried about hiding the worsening limp he was developing.