April's cruel, a bitter plight
Sirius hated March.
But he hates April more.
He walked through the common room the fire lit and the red warm. Maybe if he wasn’t so cold he could feel it. No one in the common room anymore is like a plague they try to avoid it. Or perhaps it’s just him. But the common room is desecrated. People barely stay to stand for a moment. They flee like it’s the battlefield full of bloodshed.
He doesn’t see much of anyone anymore. He barely sees himself, avoids mirrors at all costs. There’s only so much of the dead corpse he’s become. Dark eyes and even darker circles around them, and his pale skin is almost blue. His lips were red and bloody and his eyes were almost always bloodshot. He looks horrible and his ego can’t even begin to care. The prodding of his hair or the way he presented himself its life it was never there. The shadows on his chest and the curvature of every rib and bone.
His hair is dull and too long. He truly looks like a shaggy dog. And perhaps that’s because he’s pad foot hold the time. Running through the corridors and the gourds as the mangy dog that looks just as ill. ribs poking out and rd cuts that transfer to his human body.
He drags himself up the stairs wincing at the cut on his knee spead and splits again. He’s beginning to think that cut is never going to heal. They only truly ever heal when Madam Pomphrey drags him up to the infirmary. Heals them for him. And try to talk to him.
He never lets her touch this one. The place where the whomping willow branches slashed against his knee as he ran to—
He didn’t even want to think about it anymore.
The warm stairwell is so cold and he softy opens the door to his dorm. Although it honestly feels like he’s not much anymore. He’s quiet to not wake anyone. He doesn’t want to see them, Remus mostly. Sirius can’t bear to see him, to see a look of hatred and disgust. And when they fade it’s only betrayal left.
Seeing Peter and James isn’t better. James looks at him with pity and Peter just stares. He don’ts talk, what the bloody hell would he say? He doesn’t do much of that anymore. Even when he’s partying he’s still silent. So much so his voice is hoarse like he’s just screamed for hours on end.
But he hasn’t.
He’s in desperate need of a shower and his clothes are soaked in sweat blood and fire whiskey. They reek of smoke but all he can muster up is a weak scurgify. His wand is shoved in his pocket if only by habit. He rarely uses his magic. It takes too much from him, his magic is no longer a part of a soul. But a whisper of something outside his body he can barely call back inside of it to conjure a first-year level spell.
He steps carefully trying to make his way to his bed. Their dorm is unordinarily clean. The floors are visible and he can see the wooden floors. His bed is a mess everything is thrown on it leaving a small spot that’s clear for him to sleep.
Creak.
He cursed under his breath as the floor loudly creaked under his foot.
Fuck.
He gave up and walked over to his bed normally kicking off his docs that were covered in a liquid that Sirius couldn’t even recall. His mind was foggy and he was still drunk.
And high.
He kicked his boot off getting caught on the heel of his foot and he heard a shuffle of someone coming out of their bed. He freezes and looks up.
James scratches his head his face scrunched from sleep. “Sirius?” He croaked. He peered his head out of his curtains and squinted at him.
He stops in his tracks barely moving. He rarely hears that voice directed at him anymore. He yearns for it, hears it in his sleep. The angered voice that he had only heard twice prior to this year. Amongst the screams of terror.
Things had never been awkward between them and now they were. It felt like he had lost James too. He had. Everyone had taken sides and Sirius didn’t even blame them. He had fucked up, there wasn’t a way he could come back. He had tried.
The first week he had tried. He spoke and talked and apologized. And James was pissed and he had expected things to bounce back between them at least. And they didn’t. James ignored him or cursed him, and Remus; he was just silent.
There wasn’t getting a word out of him.
Pete had tried to be the go-between but was shite at it. Peter and Remus had always been close not the way he and James were—had. But he wasn’t sure anything came close to a broken boy and one that was brighter than the sun. But his loyalties were to Remus.
James didn’t talk to him anymore. It hurt more at the beginning, now it was this ache that sat in his chest. Unavoidable and incomparable. James spoke to him as little as possible only saying something when he toed that line.
When he came back to the dorm collapsed on the floor with alcohol poisoning. James had brought him up to the infirmary and told him to grow up. That happened more than once and James’s words varied from an exasperated Sirius, idiot, and the best was your killing yourself. Their relationship was broken—it was bad.
He looked up putting the boot at the end of his bed. “ Sorry,” he said before looking away. He couldn’t deal with this he was entirely to trashed.
He sat down in his bed about to close the curtain as James cleared his throat. He let the curtains around his bed hang open. James looked at him scaling over him his eyes settling on the new ink he had gotten a few days ago. He had been going to muggle London more and more.
Getting are tattoos whenever.
He had gotten three, a pair of theater face masks with a pain expression, a cross, and the words born sick going around his upper arm. The tattoos were still healing and the skin around them was pink and irritated. It didn’t help he wasn’t cleaning them properly.
He didn’t expect James to even say anything, this would be the longest conversation they had in weeks. Besides the one time, James asked for his quill and Sirius had to walk out of class so he didn’t cry.
“ Where were you” James asked and he hesitated before saying anything. He wasn’t sure saying he was partying in the Ravenclaw dorms was going to ease things. Ravenclaw parties were known to be bad they always supplied drugs all tested but James had never been a fan.
Guess that didn’t matter though.
“ Out,” he said shortly.
“ Night,” he said before closing his curtains. He couldn’t look at James when James looked at him like that. He just sat there for a second waiting for something, a sliver of the James he needed. James had always been there to come to pull him out of his head. He hadn’t this time.
“ I’m so mad at you—you know, and I’m so angry at you but I miss you. And fuck Sirius I’m worried you’re out and you don’t come back. And I see you and you’re killing yourself. I smell it every time you walk in, I hear about it. You’re killing yourself and I can’t help you—I can’t save you from this” James’s voice broke and he knew James was crying.
And in turn, his throat burned with the emotion that was caught.
But he didn’t reply,
He silenced his bed and he laid back taking a swig of the half-empty bottle of fire whiskey on his bed. Drinking down the guilt and the elation that came with knowing he’d soon pass out. That’s what he lived for now, moments when his mind went blank.
_____________________________________________________________________
The moment he walks down to the dungeons he knows he’s hit rock bottom.
Sirius knows he should feel a least a shadow of guilt for it coming to this. His desperation for reprieve overrode his pride. He despises them, the entire house the green, and the snakes. But he’s exhausted and he’s kicked out of every party tonight. Except for the Slytherin party.
His eyes are rimmed red from the weed he smoked over an hour ago and his mouth is dry. It’s dark but there are hints of light where the morning sun will begin to peak through. He navigates the halls trying not to sway too hard. Trying to walk as if he wasn’t drunk out of his mind.
Remus won’t look at him. He won’t talk but thats not what he craves any and all words from Remus are cursed and cold. And he deserves it. No longer is the boy who blushed punk and handed him a cup of tea in the mornings. It’s a colder version that physically pains Sirius to look at.
He knocks on the door noticing how his cuticles are bloody and red. He’s been scraping at them for weeks and they don’t heal. Nothing on his body heals anymore. He’s not sure his body has enough energy he’s running it dry and he knows that.
The door creaks open and he hands out the stack of galleons. There isn’t a chance in hell he’s getting in for free. A sixth year looks him up and down her eyes celery enjoying what she sees. Her hair is black and cut short. “ There’s only one Black allowed down here and it’s not you,” she said slyly.
He almost forgets that his cousins are no longer Blacks. Andromeda is Andromeda Tonks. Narcissia is now a Malfoy, and Bellatrix a Lestrange. It’s down to him and his—.
He gives her a shining smile. “ Make an exception?” He cocked his head to the side.
She rolls her eyes but opens the door doing nothing but glare at the stack of money in his hand. “ I don’t need to be bribed I don’t have a lack of funds,” she said holding up her hand to show off the ring with the crest. Sacred 28 crest.
The green lights and low thrumming music grew louder as he walked in trying to not flinch at the ways she rubbed her body on his as he passed her. He looked back grinning once more. “ Pleasure,” he said before searching the tables for something to drink. The lights were dark and seeing faces was nearly impossible.
Slytherin loved nothing more than ambiguity.
He finds a bottle of fire whiskey and grabs it pouring it into a cup. his mouth isn’t touching the glass. The first drink is like a smooth wash over him. His body was calmer and his mind put at ease. It numbs the itching thoughts that poke up. He leans against a wall sipping on his cup continuously.
He overhears a conversation and stops to listen. “ Turned a new leaf quite refreshing opens him back up as an option. Mum and dad weren’t a fan—him hanging out with halfbreeds and all. It’s disgraceful. It’s not hard to spot him now though he’s at every party. I saw him at the last Ravenclaw party he was drunker than my Uncle Ernest. But I could put up with almost anything with that amount go galleons in my vault” The girl snickered and he didn’t move. He wasn’t amused and had no desire to strike up a conversation with her.
“ Haven’t seen him in class either? He’s bloody disappeared my brother did that last year said he was at meetings. Think it was some sacred 28 business so maybe you’re right. Not sure I’d go for him his brothers quite striking too.”
He bristled at the mention of regulus, a topic almost as sensitive as the current state of his friendships. In shatters, decimated. He hadn’t even considered he might bump into Regulus, his brother had never been a partier. Hated the loudness and the drunk people, nearly everything about it.
Another voice one that he didn’t resign fully drawled out. “ See I find his best friend ravishing—Evan Rosier I think. Now that is a specimen of a man, the black brothers” the man sucked in a breath. “ They’re rather mopey and horribly damaged. Mummy issues to the fullest its tragic. But try your shot with me, love.”
The girls looked up at smiled—although it was hard to see their exact expression. And before he could walk off to dance in the middle of the common room finally at the pissed that let him loose he felt a presence hovering over his skin.
“ What are you doing here you hate us” another voice sneered.
He looked up holding his cup up. “ I’m getting bloody pissed” he snapped.
“ In the Slytherin dorms,” the other one popped up with lighter hair. Their names could be anything he wouldn’t fucking remember even if he did know them. “That’s scandalous I thought you loved you prissy Gryffindor lions” one chuckled.
“ Not a fan of snakes like your brother” the dark-haired one and he registered these for Regulus’s friends. And that could only be Rosier and Crouch. He knew them.
“ Just as pure as the both of you and richer too. Fuck off and let me get pissed and leave me the fuck alone. Or I could write a nice letter to your fathers I think the big one’s name was Franciscus and then Barticimus Sr” he snapped his voice slurring at the end.
Both of them froze.
They looked to one another smiling. “ Maybe he’s a Slytherin after all somethings are” Crouch grinned. “ Genetic” he smiled turning away and walking towards another table. Rosier paused looking back and then smiling. “ Bye Sirius what a wonderful bump in,” he said jovial.
The music continued to bump along but his mood wasn’t very happy anymore. He moved through the crowds and found the center of the room. He downed his glass and refiled it in two swift movements and found himself pressed against to girls. He couldn’t see them and didn’t look. He felt their bodies press and sway against him. The green light shown against the crowd of people. He lost himself in sensations that were neither good nor bad just okay. Enough to drag his mind from the dark place they resided in.
The girl at his back had her arms up often coming up to wrap them around his shoulders and neck her nails grazing his skin. He only enjoyed the small bite when they dragged across and cut his skin. The one in front pressed her arse against his crotch and grinder away. In swift movements.
Like a flip turned on, he felt a rush of pleasure. Soon every noise and every feeling increased. His mood went from seeking a high to at a high. He had taken a pill at the prior party and it was hitting him now. He felt incomparable he felt like a god. At the top of the world as if he had never felt anything bad before in his life.
The dimly lit common room was now colorful. The pulsating music thundering as if it were in his own head. His hair fell in his face and he threw it back as he swayed to the music. He laughed this voice tinged with reckless abandon.
The girls grind against him somehow in unison to each other and the music. But he doesn’t even think of them. As the music pounds louder his mind drifts away in hazy thoughts. Consumed by Remus. The room blurs around him in vibrant colors with flashes of brown hair and sweaters.
He feels himself being tugged away from the body of people. He can’t even quite feel his body more so the sway of it moving. As he moved the sounds of the party fade soon muffled. A door closes shut and he looks around suddenly in the room.
The party gave oblivion and the pill has given him ecstasy.
“ Lie down” One of the girls whispers her voice is soft and ragged but he only hears Remus. Remus’s voice was soft and deep but raspy. Like his words in the morning or at night or during the flu moon where it was hoarse. He never quite yelled but poked with intoxicating conviction.
He rises from where he’s been pushed on the bed and stumbles to find her face. Two sets of hands he can’t decipher.
He’s not unaware of what is happening. He’s done this before. Drunken or high nights with a body next to him. He tries to fuck the memories out but they only seem to last longer. His lips find hers in a soft yet fleeting kiss.
Flashes of the smell of chocolate and freckles and scars flood his mind. He shifts and involuntarily thinks of him.
The kiss breaks away as clothes are thrown off. He gets up and lays one of them down the other just lying there. He kisses them and groans but it’s fake. Its a facade it the pill its the drugs it’s the desperation.
He tries to feel something other than wreckage. Because that is what everything has become. Solace in fleeing moments that don’t suffice or last.
She tastes like cherry but he wants chocolate and tea. She smells like perfume and flowers but he wants paper and books.
She feels sufficient and warm but he wants complicated and hard.
He is breaking and he can’t do anything about it.
Her legs wrap around his waist and she tries to pull at his shirt to touch him. But he snatched away her hands and nearly flinched. He holds her wrist above her head so there’s no other option. He’s barely naked but entirely exposed.
He groans when he feels her nails drag down the back of his neck a searing pain that lets him know she drew blood.
He rips his mouth away and presses his head against the headboard. He drowns out her noises until she’s not even there not in his mind. The pill is confusing him. His mind is one place he never allows it yet for once he didn’t feel pain.
Its remembrance. Like a place you’ve been before and feel safe. Warmth and protection are not a place but a person. Like the deepest comfort. He doesn’t have that, scratch that he don’ts have it anymore.
He’s back to where he’s started.
The pleasure wrecks his body and time becomes so linear he’s not sure when it began and when it ended. She slumps over and he rolls to the other side. She doesn’t touch him and for that he’s grateful.
He rolls over furthest and hits a wall of exhaustion. Dry aching pain and heaviness that won’t allow him to move. A buzzing fills his body and he hears a muffled incantation that reassures a part of his Brian not even functioning right now.
The contraceptive charm.
“ You’re welcome, I don’t have children out of wedlock” he hears but he doesn’t respond. He feels the bed or whatever he’s lying on shift and his eyes flutter but don’t open,. They’ve been slowed the entire time.
Instead, he exhales and settles down subconsciously. His mind finally drained out that it lets him sleep if that’s what you can even call it. It’s more of a automatic shut-off.
Sleep is revitalizing,
What he’s been doing is merely charging him up enough to not die.
That’s what he does.
Not die.