I feel numb. Absolutely numb.
We just won the Quidditch match against Hufflepuff and I’m smiling. I can feel myself smiling, feel my cheek muscles stretching. Though that joy, the happiness and pride that is supposed to come with winning, doesn’t appear at all.
Sirius' arm feels like dead weight around my shoulders.
Our eyes meet and he’s grinning, eyes lit up with triumph and I search, search and search for that same feeling inside me but to no avail. It’s just not there.
I feel Sirius' arm tighten around my shoulder, looking at me deeply with an inquiring look, searching my eyes. I wonder if he sees the dullness and emptiness of happiness in them as I see every time I stare into the mirror. If anyone would notice the fake smile, the dull eyes, it would be him.
He gives me a look, are you okay?, and I don’t know how to answer that simple question.
Because we just won our match. Everyone around us is celebrating. Marlene right now is shouting in joy about the match with Mary. Lily, Remus and Peter are walking over to us laughing and chatting to each other. All my teammates are grinning, I’m surrounded by people I love, winning a sport I love, everything is great, for once everything is great but I can’t fathom an ounce of that same spirit found in everyone around me and I have no idea why.
So I just shake my head, giving Sirius a look, I’m fine, really. He stares back in disbelief but before he can inquire about it anymore Marlene runs over.
“This calls for a Gryffidnor party tonight, what do you think Captain?” Marlene says brightly, grinning from in front of me.
“Sounds like a brilliant idea.” Mary chimes in, having just caught up with Marlene.
I look between the two happy girls, a party feeling like the last thing I want to do right now. I don’t want to have to fake joy for the rest of tonight, just faking enthusiasm for the team talk before the game was hard enough. Though tearing my eyes away from the girls, it's to see my whole team watching me, awaiting an answer and I wouldn’t be James Potter if I refused a party, would I?
“Sounds like a fantastic idea!” I reply in fake glee to Marlene, my voice sounding like sandpaper against my ears. When was the last time I sounded like I wasn’t exhausted? Though it goes past everyone else who all cheer in celebration.
“Well you heard the captain,” Marlene starts, “Get your arses to Gryffidnor, time for a celebration!” Everyone shouts back in agreement before turning away to make their way back to Hogwarts.
Sirius lifts his arm away from my shoulder, going to stand in front of me, trying to catch my eyes. Though before he is able to, he gets swept away by the presence of one Remus Lupin.
I watch them talk, watch Remus whisper congratulations in Sirius' ears, watch Sirius' pale cheeks take on a pink tint and instead of feeling incredibly happy for my friends as I remember feeling all those weeks ago. I feel an uncomfortable memory of pink tinted pale cheeks.
Sweat prickles down my spine at the image. I have to drag my eyes away from Sirius, shaking my head at the confused, blurry and unfamiliar image that formed in my head for a second.
“James?” I hear from in front of me. I turn to see Remus and Sirius watching me. “You coming?” Sirius asks, it sounds like it isn’t for the first time.
“Nah, gonna take a shower first.” I reply, my voice scratching against my throat, unremarkably unlike me to anybody's ears.
“You sure? The rest of us were just gonna head up and get one at the dorms.”
“Yea, it’s fine go. I’ll catch up.” I try to sound encouraging, or really sound like anything, sound like I feel some sort of emotion.
He continues to stare at me for a while longer, searching for something, as if I’m not already doing that too. If I'm not thinking the same thing as him, where did your best friend go? Who the hell is walking around in his body because surely this shell of a person can’t be James Potter.
Though Remus seems to say something to him and he gives me one last look before they say their goodbyes, following the crowd back up to Hogwarts.
Though I can’t seem to move once they walk away. The dread of tonight weighs on me. I don’t want to drink, I don’t want to celebrate, I don’t want to laugh. I want to go to my bed and try get some fuckin sleep. I want to put my head on my pillow and sleep, sleep and dream again. I can’t remember the last time I dreamt that was something other than just darkness. It seemed that this numbness that surrounds me transpired into my dreams. And Merlin, do I just wanna dream again. Feel again.
I watch the bodies of my classmates slowly get smaller as they all enter out the quidditch pitch. And for the first time in my life I don’t want to join, don't want to be amongst the crowd. I want to be alone.
The wind picks up blowing harshly across my cheeks. That touch of air, that feeling across my skin, is what makes me finally take notice that I’m no longer smiling. That my cheeks dropped away from the painfully fake grin, I stand stoic looking out at my peers and feel absolutely nothing for them, for their joy. It took the wind against my face to tell me my cheek muscles stopped working to maintain the plastic grin.
Turning around to walk to the showers I hear a sharp pang of the bleachers from the right of me. I shift my gaze round to where the noise came from, thinking it must be nothing but looking for just something to do.
Though the wind, which I assumed made the noise, appears to be a head of black hair and a long black cloak. Though as fast as it was there, the faraway figure of someone is gone. Some last straggler of the match.
I just continue to walk to the showers, the wind blowing through my hair.
As I enter the shower, feeling the blazing hot water trail harshly over my dark skin. And as much as I scrub my skin until it’s almost peeling off, blood beginning to appear out of certain skin dents. I can’t seem to forget about the familiar unrecognisable far away figure, with black hair that won’t leave my head ever since I saw the blurry image of it for a second.
—
I drag my hands roughly over my eyes before finally placing my glasses on them. Blinking away the sleep from them before pulling the covers of my body and getting up to go to the bathroom.
It all started November fourth, the day after Sirius's birthday. I woke up and just felt… felt nothing.
It’s December second. A month of feeling completely numb. I spent my whole life feeling everything so massively, all at once, I never stopped feeling every single detail of my day, it overwhelmed me.
But now, I can’t even feel the slight boredom that homework would have once given me. I do it, I complain for that sake of complaining with Peter but I really don’t care. I do it because it's there, not because I feel like it. It’s there, I complete it, I move on.
And the worst of it all, I can’t for the life of me understand or remember the day of Sirius birthday, of what could have possibly happened to make me like … this. Make me so tragically empty that I don’t even smile when my parents write, empty that I don’t even laugh when Sirius cracks a joke. I can’t remember what makes me so dull.
Entering the bathroom I go over the same repeated routine I have done since first year. Do the toilet, wash my hands and face, brush my teeth, try to brush the state which is my hair, for it to stay the exact same.
I repeat the same few acts in the morning everyday, not because I want to but it’s because it’s what I remember always doing, and I will take anything that I can remember from my past. Anything even as mundane as a morning routine. I will take anything that even lets me remember who I used to be.
The only twist to it is my avoidance of the mirror. I can’t keep searching in it, looking into my eyes, waiting for my old self, the person I am, deep down to appear back to life in the brown globes.
I walk out the bathroom and like every morning since first year I get everyone up. I don’t feel an ounce of joy I used to feel when waking them up. All I do know is I want to go back to bed, rest my head on my pillow and hope to dream.
As last night, like the night before and the night before that and every night since November fourth. I dreamt of blackness and then woke up to live the same feeling.
—
I can feel the eyes of the moving painting’s as I pass by them. Feel the curiosity on the back of my neck making my skin crawl. The wonder they have, James Potter is just walking pass? Back hunched and not causing mischief? I can feel their thoughts, Is this the same James Potter who set that prank on Halloween? And Merlin, please I would love to hear their answer to that, because I truly do not feel like that person.
Peters got chest. Remus and Sirius are off somewhere and I couldn't sit a second longer in our dorm rooms and feel like I’m a forgotten object placed there that was never picked up again, out of place in the room I have called home for seven years.
So I walk the halls, walk the places I know no one will use, avoiding friends, avoiding anyone who would likely talk to me.
I stare at the cracked flooring of the hallway, watch the light brown colour of the floor and wonder how fast the hours to dinner are going to tick by. Though looking at the ground and not in front of me was not the smartest choice of awareness to where I was going because I ultimately bump into someone.
“What the fuck-” A high pitch voice is heard before I go toppling onto them as they land on their back, my feet tripping up over the mystery persons feet.
Instantly after falling I lift my arms up to try get off them but then all of a sudden the numbness that had coated my entire being since November fourth breaks as my heart decides to pang in an unreasonable feeling of hurt at the realisation of who I have just fallen into.
My brown eyes meet no other than the icy baby blue eyes of Regulus Black, Sirius' little brother.
The younger boy stares back up at me, seemingly loss for words, mouth parted as his warm breath falls across my skin. His pale cheeks coat a tint of pink from being pushed onto the floor, winded.
My arms seem to have paused and as I try to move them, lift myself up, get off him. They decide to do nothing, though that is before the annoyed voice of Regulus Black is heard, “Get off me Potter.” And instantly my arms work again and I push off him, only for the younger boy to scramble up straight away, putting at least three feet between us.
“Look, sorry-” I start before being cut off.
“Merlin, do you have no decorum at all? I mean seriously, you can’t have that bad of eyesight that you didn’t see me coming straight for you?” Regulus bites out, though the anger and hatred I assume is supposed to lace his voice fails to be heard.
I continue to stare at him, not knowing what to do. Do I leave? I think the last time I have even had a conversation with Sirius brother without them both arguing with each other, was all the way back in second year on the train ride over to Hogwarts for Regulus' first year. I turn to leave but my feet don’t seem to move, as for some reason my own limbs seem to be working against me.
I can’t seem to leave because being here, with Regulus, for the first time in a month I feel something, a confused feeling of hurt as my heart feels like it's being repeatedly ripped apart, but it’s fucking something. I can’t lose that hurt, I will take it over the numbness.
“No I didn’t see you,” I start, as for some reason I have decided to continue this conversation with the slytherin boy, hoping that because I’m not Sirius he won’t curse me, “Though if you knew you were walking towards me, why didn’t you move?” I ask.
Regulus seems to lose all function over his mouth, letting it fall open as he ponders for an answer. Cheeks brightening their tinted pink colour in embarrassment. His blue eyes blink watching me, and I try to take in as much as I can about him.
As for some reason, he is the person that has brung back the feeling into me when I was just beginning to think I was going to go through life numb. Not being able to feel, not feel the small happiness watching the spring flowers come in, the pride at Sirius and Remus wedding, the utter despair at my parents funeral. Though now, here, there's a feeling of hope as well as great painful, heart wrenching hurt.
Sirius’ brother, Regulus has brought out something in me and I think I might drop to my knees and cry.
Seeming to be able to work his mouth again Regulus answers, “I shouldn’t be expected to move out my own path for a .. blood traitor like you Potter.” And again the insult feels forced, the vile intended falling short to my ears. The younger boy looks at me and his eyes give away something that I can’t understand but feel as though I should, he looks at me and I can't help but feel. And I have no clue why, why it’s him that enlightened this in me now.
My eyes travel down the boy and they snag on something that hangs around his wrist.
“What's that?” I blurt out quickly pointing to his wrist, even though I’m almost ninety-nine percent sure I remember what that is.
Regulus is quick to cover his wrist with his sleeve before looking defensively up at me, “It’s nothing.” He bites out and this time, that anger and defensiveness I associated with him is heard clearly in his tone.
Though my brain has already ingrained what was around his wrist. A red and yellow handmade bracelet used with laces from shoes I used to own when I was younger. A bracelet plaited together to make the Gryffindor colours, tied to keep together with a knot. I sat when I was six with my dad and we made them out of old shoe laces. I didn’t want to waste them as I liked the colours but the shoes didn’t fit me anymore. So dad decided to make bracelets so we could keep the laces, he has a matching one that he wears everyday. Though I haven't had mine on for awhile, I lost it… first year? No, no it was the end of fifth year. Yes, I think… I just know I haven't had it since then. But there, just that second of seeing it on Regulus, I was so sure that was it. The homemade bracelet I made, that I said I would always keep.
“Yea, okay…” I reply, distracted. Maybe it wasn’t it, I could have been wrong. I get a lot of things wrong these days.
“Whatever, Potter.” Regulus says before walking past me, leaving me alone in the empty corridor. The hurt feeling still pangs in my chest and for the first time in weeks a true smile falls on my lips. I haven’t forgotten how to feel.
Walking back to the dorm to see if the guys are back, I don’t even register in my mind how it was Regulus that caused this all. He was already forgotten.
—
That night I sat in the common room with everyone. Listen to Marlene and Peter bicker, watch Remus silently judge them while hiding a smirk of his own, listen to Mary's gossip she found out today, laugh at Lily's iconic eye rolls at Mary's commentary of the gossip and joke with Sirius.
As I brush my teeth, reminiscing of the night, of the first time I have felt at least remotely happy in a while. Sirius enters, grabbing his own tooth brush.
We stay silent as we brush our teeth though as I finish off I look over at Sirius to seem him looking at me strangely.
“What?” I laugh, a smile playing at my lips as Sirius puts his hands up in surrender, still staring at me with his brows furrowed. “What?” I repeat again, amused.
“Nothing. Nothing.” Sirius replies after spitting out his tooth paste and starts to clean his brush under the tap. His own amused small smile plays on his lips, face more relaxed than when he walked into the bathroom.
“C’mon, Sirius, what is it?” I try pushing, starting to poke him in the arm before going to try to get him in a choke hold to mess up his hair. As he laughs swatting away my menacing arms he finally answers me,
“Stop! It’s nothing really, it’s just well, you smiled prongs, you haven't done that in awhile.” He says, voice soft as he looks up at me.
“Yea…” I reply, not knowing what to say. I understand that Sirius wants to know what happened to me, why I was who I was for this past month but I can’t. I know it hurts him that I haven’t gone to him for help but how do I go to help for this? How do I try to explain that one day I just woke up and felt nothing, felt like a big chunk of my life was missing, that I was missing, that I couldn’t remember how to be me. How do you explain that?
“Well whatever made you feel better, thank Godric.” He says smiling, and I feel forever thankful for Sirius, not pressuring me to talk about it, just allowing me to feel this semblance of happiness.
Even though that heart wrenching hurt that comes with having my feelings back, like a hammer is repeatedly being plummeted down on my heart, I take it and have never felt happier.
It doesn’t even cross my mind to remember who brung these feelings back to life.
—
“How could you Reggie!” Sirius shouts in absolute despair looking at his younger brother, staring at his now covered up arm that once showed, mere minutes before, the ghastly mark of the dark lord.
“Just leave it Sirius!” Regulus spits back in a quieter tone.
Their voices echo against the nearly empty hallway; the only people taking it up are the brothers, me and Remus and Rosier and Crouch.
“You got it- I can’t believe- after everything-”
“Well you weren't there to take it, so someone had to!” Regulus' tone is nasty and Sirius steps back at the force of that hate laced in his voice.
“Don’t! Don’t use me leaving as an excuse, I asked you to come!”
“They would have never let that, don’t be stupid Sirius.” Regulus bites back, letting out a hollow laugh.
Sirius stutters for a bit, looking for the words to try to find some way to connect with his younger brother, “We could have found a way…”
I look over to Remus who is just watching Regulus with anger coating his features, though when his eyes fall to Sirius they soften and he looks like all he wants to do is reach out and hold him. Though I’m unable to feel the same way, all I feel is a crashing weight falling down on my chest and I just want to run, run away as fast as I can before I break down, over what? I don’t know but ever since we entered this corridor my heart is in anguish and I can’t even think of a good enough reason why.
“Sure we could have Sirius.” Regulus scoffs, bringing me back to the conversation.
There's silence as both Black brothers watch each other wondering where they go from here, because this is it, isn't it? This is the end of any last chance of them reconnecting, Regulus got the mark, Sirius hates the mark and everything it stands for, Sirius said Regulus might get it months ago, I argued he wouldn’t. Why would I do that? It’s obvious now standing here, he was always going to get it. The brothers are never going to be brothers again and I feel like I might pass out due to the agonising pain splintering open my chest.
“If I see you out there Regulus, don’t think I won’t hesitate.” Sirius says, voice lifeless.
“Would expect nothing less from you.” Regulus responds, his own voice lifeless.
And that's that.
Sirius walks away and Remus follows and I don’t because I happened to make eye contact with Regulus as he turned his head, and the overwhelming feeling that I’m about to be sick came over me.
He looks at me for a second, and I delude myself into thinking it’s a look of regret before he turns away to Crouch and Rosier.
I stand there, in a now empty halfway, and throw up. Sirius is gone, Remus after him and Regulus left too. And I stayed, sick to my stomach with pain and betrayal and I have no idea why I feel like this. Why I’m not by Sirius side, why I watched the tears form in his eyes when he saw the mark and I felt my eyes match his.
I clean up the sick, watching the place where the two brothers once stood and feel a non-understanding urge to follow both.
I begin to regret begging for the numbness to be gone, all I want now is to feel numb instead of this gut wrenching, paralysing pain. I don’t even have a memory to fit why this pain is accurate, because there is none, none at all.
—
The stars are so bright and clear from the Owlery at this time of night as I watch them.
The last night of Hogwarts before we enter the real world, we enter the war and for some reason I felt a pull to come to the owlery.
I have barely spent time here, throughout my seven years at Hogwarts but the urge to come and visit on my last night was too strong to ignore.
So I left the party, a last one at Hogwarts before we all leave, escaped the clutches of my tipsy friends and came here, for something I don't quite know.
It feels as though I came here for something… though standing here now, there's nothing for me here and I’m beginning to think I was just feeling sappy for it being my last night.
I watch the stars, the constellations and I find myself knowing a few. I can’t remember ever learning any constellations but I know that I can see the Ursa Minor constellation and the Libra constellation.
I stand looking up at the sky, spotting constellations I can’t remember learning and feel a sense of comfort in the Owlery that I never had associated with this place before. Wishing that I spent more time here while I was at school.
I stay there and watch the sunrise and feel like I have done the exact same thing over a dozen times. Spotted constellations, looking at the sky and waiting for the sunrise. I have deja vu watching, gripping the railing. Though I have never done this before, never spent more than a few minutes in the Owlery, the distant memory of being here, that strong sense of deja vu makes me shudder at how intense it is.
A forgotten dream of being here maybe…
Though as the sunrise starts to finish I rid myself of any more thoughts of forgotten memories and stifle a yawn and begin to make my way back down the stairs. Content on how I spent my last night at Hogwarts.
—
My bones ache as I enter me and Peters shared flat, opening the door to an empty house, remembering Peters on a mission and won’t be back for two days.
As I flop down on the couch, my body aching as I let out a pained groan, remembering how Lily told me that I should have been checked up but I ignored her, just wanting to get home and sleep.
As I lay my head back down on the pillow, trying to relax, a spasm of pain shoots through my back unallowing for me to get rest. Letting out a tired groan, lifting my body up to head to the bathroom where we have pain relief potion.
As soon as I get my hands on a potion, I down it in a second, gasping in relief a few minutes later when it starts to take effect. Stretching out my tired joints, before washing my face with the water from the tap before going back to the living room, not even wanting to attempt to sleep on my bed, cringing at the mess I know awaits for me on it.
As I walk back into the living room, I notice the mail that is on the table, deciding I might as well respond back to my parents. Though as I pick up the mail, I notice a newspaper in the pile with bold letters for the title on the front page. Lifting the paper away from the rest of the letters to read what new news happened now,
“The Heir To The Black Family Is D-”
A distraught gasp leaves my lips as I drop the paper to the floor, hands uncontrollably shaking.
My eyes begin to blur over and I step back trying to find something, anything to hold onto to stop shaking, only to trip over my own feet and fall on my back, my already pained back aching at the pressure of the fall.
Though I don’t even feel it fully, my mind is too occupied with… with…
“The Heir to…”
“The Black Family….”
“Orion and Walburga Black take time to grieve their only son…”
“Missing…”
“....Dead.”
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“Dead…” I gasp, voice trembling, hands won’t stop shaking as I try to lift up the paper, it keeps slipping out of my clutch.
It has to be wrong, I mean it has to be…
I feel a weight push down on my chest until I can’t breathe. I lay on the floor, and breath won’t enter my lungs. Tears soak my skin. I can’t see. My hands won’t stop fucking shaking so I can pick up the damn paper.
And I don’t understand. I don’t remember. I can’t grasp why? Why do I feel this earth shattering pain that I can’t breathe over the death of Regulus.
I never even fully talked to him.
Why has my whole body broken down over him, of anyone, why over him. I feel like someone has stolen my lungs, someone is crushing down on my chest, taking a hammer to my heart, I feel like I will never get up again over someone I don’t even remember knowing.
Because I never knew him. But he had my bracelet.
I never knew him. But he took away the numbness.
I never knew him. But he made me sick to my stomach in betrayal when he got the dark mark.
I never knew him. But he was familiar.
I never knew him. But he brought me to the floor in tears, brought me to the most pain I have ever felt in my entire life.
I never knew him. But he seemed as though he knew me.
I never knew him. I never will.