Pain peels in layers
The smell of the rusting cauldron pots filled his nose as he held in a gag, half his body in the damn thing as he scrubbed the bottom. Manually of course because this was punishment. Not merely detention no, he had topped himself off. This was for nearly killing a student because your best mate or whatever the hell Remus was now nearly killed him. Because shocker he’s a werewolf. So scrubbing filthy cauldron For nearly causing Remus to be the first murdering werewolf on campus. He winced at the thought and took it back in his head. He withdrew himself taking a large breath and looking at the still filthy cauldron that needed to be cleaned an hour ago. Long were the days that Peter, James, and Remus got into trouble to join him.
The innocence had been burned out.
He re-wet the soaking sponge that oozed out the dark liquid into the bucket of previously fresh water. The smell of the residue from the latest potion filled up his nose. An astringent smell that was far from pleasant, too metallic to not remember. The coppery smell flashed screams and cries into his head that no amount of fire whiskey or drugs could erase.
He scrubbed back and forth his hands raw and his arms burning for exhaustion. He’d been at this for hours and there seemed to be no end in sight. His detention was a punishment, the tasks were grueling and in a way unfair. He hadn’t been able to figure out if the cauldron was charmed to stay dirty. he had cleaned the same ones over and over again the last few months. The tasks never changed, it was never new. It was cleaning cauldrons in the potions room from 6 to curfew.
His days blurred together. He didn’t talk to Remus it seemed to upset everything more. James and Pete treated him like an acquaintance, no longer cruel but nothing warm. It stung from Peter but it felt like a wrench to the heart from James. His best mate—his brother, everything had erased that.
He scrubbed the edge of the cauldron his arm scrapping against the stone as he hissed in pain. He threw the rag down and kicked the container of water in frustration. His eyes grew wet from an overload of emotions. He watched as the grey water spilled across the floor as he fell to the ground against the wall.
“ Fuck” He cursed ripping his face the perspiration pooling on his nose. He was so sick of this, he was tired of being alone. He wanted to drown in his sorrows but whoever said you can’t run from your problems was right. Drinking barely numbed anything it just allowed him to forget for a few hours. In the morning he remembered tenfold, that he hurt more, and wanted to swallow up his pain more.
The stone wall dug into his back with a dull pain, his wand dug into his side and he didn’t bother to pull it out. Times before he would have taken it out in fear of it breaking but now the thought of magic seemed not as bad. What could be worse than this?
“ You look like a drowned drunken rat” a smooth articulate voice drawled, a one of one voice he could pick out of a crowd drunk or not. He looked up in a flash of black and green. Sometimes he found it odd looking at Regulus, it was like looking at what he could have been. In line, respectable, Slytherin.
“ You look like a stuck-up snake” he spat angrily. His brother’s lips turned up in a smile as he shut the potion door closed. Sirius didn’t have enough energy to storm out or get up and face his brother. So he just sat there.
A flicker of wistfulness passed over his dear brother’s face. “ There’s all sorts of rumors about you going around brother, some that our parents would be proud of” Regulus smirked to match his scowl. “ They say that you’ve turned dark, cast away your Gryffindor lions. Said you’re a drunk, that you’ve drunk blood, snort cocaine. I’ve even heard you fucked two girls at the same time and left in the morning without a word. So dear brother care to tell me which rumors hold merit or should I guess?”
He shrugged, he’d heard most of those. Half of them were partly true. But he didn’t care anymore.
“ Your—well look at you, you’ve turned dark so let’s just say that one’s true. Your friends have dropped you but you are not friends so let’s say that’s true, perception is everything. I can smell the liquor on you and I’ve seen you at every party this year, you even dared to come to the snake pit so that’s true. Saw you sneak out although the two girls came as a shock. But cocaine” Regulus’s face hardened when their eyes met next.
“ What that’s the line huh Reg. I’m a drunk just like every person in our wretched family. Just like mummy drowning her bottle of wine every night before she beat the shit out of us huh” he watched the tables turn and hurt appeared on his brother’s face. He hated that he liked it, hated that he was hurting Reg. But for once it felt so nice to not be alone in this pain.
He continued. “ Is it because I’m just like Daddy then, going into his office to snort a line off of that damn dagger. Coming out high out of his mind ready to back her up and beat us too. Is it because coke makes people meaner and fear the day mummy took a line also? The first time she cracked my ribs, the first time I had to go get healed because I was that fucked up. Or was it because the first time she touched you it was to punish me, bashing you over the head with her cane? Is that why, is it because I’m becoming just like them” he yelled his voice rising without thought. “ I thought that was what you all wanted. To be more like YOU. To finally fit in, you wanted me to be a Slytherin so bad but now you have the gall to hate IT” he screamed.
He stood up on his feet wobbling and swaying pathetically as he stared at his brother with hatred that wasn’t just for him. In a second Regulus shoved him against the wall angrily, an expression that was far from the blank emotionless one Regulus wore so well.
“ No one wanted you to be like them. You were better you were good and you had a chance to get THE HELL OUT. You’re a fucking idiot Sirius. Go fucking makeup with your fucking friends and cut the drinking. I’ve already threatened every person on school grounds if they allow you coke I’ll kill them. Drink your heart out what do I care, you can buy it yourself. But if you touch coke I will personally string you up by your fucking neck.”
He shrugged. “ Coke doesn’t help anyways.”
“ What” his brother snapped.
“ Coke” he spit out. “ it doesn’t help makes me twitchy. I’ve only taken it twice and I stopped on my own accord so don't think you saving me or something because I’m not. And if it was so easy to make up with them you think I wouldn’t do that. But it’s not, it’s over so this is what you get. You’ve hated them this entire time don't tell me you’re not relieved.”
Regulus shrugged. “ I’m not the one who’s supposed to worry, I’m supposed to hate you. We don't talk or associate with one another, we leave each other alone until we go home. That’s what we do Sirius don't fuck that up.”
Regulus backed up and gave them space. He didn’t want that, he hated the distance between him and his brother. It was necessary but not welcomed. They had to survive and this was the only way.
“ Are you going to scold me so more Reg or are you taking your leave and letting me finish cleaning?” He was lying through his teeth, he wasn’t going to clean anymore he was sure the time had passed enough that he could leave.
Most of their encounters ended up in fighting, but this one wasn’t the worst. But left the ache in his chest more noticeable.
“ Get yourself together Sirius because you’re going to kill yourself. And I won’t be there to save you.” Regulus turned his back and left, as soon as he was there he was gone. The only trace was a light smell, mint, and masculine soap. Not cologne because Regulus’s skin was beyond sensitive.
He grabbed his wand muttering a spell to clean up the water and left the cauldrons all half-cleaned. He rinsed his hands under the small bowl of clean water set on the counters. Rinsing the dust and dirt from his hands.
His expulsion was still in the air and he hadn’t heard anything back, nothing good or bad. And he wasn’t sure what that was a sign of. There was no way he was going back to that house forever. He’d most likely end up dead, or a murderer. Two routes he wasn’t yet desperate enough to consider. McGonagall checked up on him continuously in class, when he went that was.
He hadn’t gone to any parties as of late but he was still drinking himself to sleep, with a lone bottle of fire whiskey stashed up in his bed. He drank too much but searching parties out seemed like too much work, and he lacked energy.
He cleaned up the room before heading back to the dorm hoping that everyone was asleep, or at least in their beds. He didn’t want to see their expressions or have another meaningless conversation. He thought that they were his family but how quickly did everything fall apart? With them, he could survive but without them, Sirius didn’t see an end in sight. He saw one thing.
His name is on tombstones, alone and deserted.
He walked up the stairs hoping off before it changed paths, James had the map but he knew the castle out of instinct. Padfoot had run the halls enough to know where to go without much thought. For that, he was great full for.
Nearly Headless Nick passed by him with a solum word he ignored and barely heard as he muttered the password and walked in. The common room was dim and quiet with a few sparse whispers to accompany it.
He caught the red hair seeing Lily sitting on the couches her hands traversing in a mop of black hair.
James.
He froze at the entrance, his body unable to move.
“ Give him some grace James if you think he doesn’t know he fucked up your wrong. Sirius is a lot of things but I know when he’s sorry and it’s written all over his face. It’s the same face that told me he was sorry after Severus called me dirty-blooded” Lily’s voice said in a hushed tone, gentle and warm.
He ignored the surge of anger at the remembrance of that memory but remained frozen by the doors.
“ I don't know what to do. If I keep this up I’m going to watch my best mate kill himself. I’m going to watch as he dies from all the fucking alcohol he consumes. But if I talk to him again I feel like I’m betraying Remus and all he went through. And I can’t choose but I am and it’s killing me. Mum and dad ask about him every week and I lie every week and I know they don't believe me.” James said his voice quivering and the panic in his voice crying out.
“ Shhh James” Lilly soothed combing through his hair, his head settled on her lap. He was curled up in an infantile position and Sirius just looked at him. He missed James fuck he didn’t realize how much until now. His body ached and his heart was breaking.
“ He’s going to go home and think I hate him and I’m going to spend my summer worrying about him. I can’t make them makeup but I can’t just watch him suffer anymore. I’d rather die.”
“ Remus never said to cast him out, all he said is he needed time. He still loves Sirius we all do. We never stopped but he made a disastrous choice and it hurt people. And he needs to know that, but he also needs to know he’s not alone. He’s been alone all this time, he had you guys and now he has no one. I honestly don't blame him for drowning in his sorrows” Lily said and his body prickled with uncomfortablility.
He couldn’t just sit here anymore and hear this, he deserved it. Everything that he had thrown at me he deserved, whether it hurt him or not.
He cleared his voice as both of them shot up as they looked at him, he walked toward the middle of the common room barely able to meet James’s eyes.
“ Sorry—I didn’t want to interrupt I just was—I’m leaving” he spits out trying to not stutter over his words and failing desperately. He felt everything falling apart as he stood there and felt both of their eyes on me.
“ Hi Sirius,” Lily said her eyes too soft and too kind, too much like Effies and too much love.
“ Hi,” he said awkwardly.
“ Do you want to sit down?” James asked abruptly. He froze not sure if James was asking him or another person that had to be behind him. He looked behind him and then back at James his eyes raised.
Lily rolled her eyes, “ Sirius sit down” she instructed.
He walked over to the other couch and sat down staring at his lap, fiddling with his hands his nail beds red and bleeding. He hadn’t realized the burning was coming from his hands.
“ Where were you” Lily asked suspiciously.
“ Detention.”
He watched as James’s eyes shot up, “ she still is making you do that” he asked.
He nodded. “ I have it until the end of the term, cleaning all the potion cauldrons. Better than helping out with the Thesterals” he shrugged. That had been his first detention, he nearly had a panic attack when he was able to see the damn beasts. Had a panic attack on the spot and McGonagall had relocated him.
“ Oh,” James said. “ I didn’t think she was still having you do that, I thought—”
“ Thought I was getting drunk,” he said as James’s guilty expression told him yes. “ Not always drinking myself to death James only sometimes,” he said a weak attempt at a joke.
The horror in both Lily and James’s faces told him they didn’t find it funny.
“ Sorry,” he whispered.
“ We love you—you know that don’t you” Lily asked, “ we love you Sirius desperately which is why everyone was so upset. Maybe it went too far, maybe it’s not as easy to separate Remus’s hurt and yours. You both are in pain, but you deserve to not be alone. They’re miserable without you and Remus might not welcome you with open arms but he will. There are very few people who love you as much as Remus does.”
That did it. He looked down at his lap and let the tears drop onto his lap.
“ I don't deserve that, you should be mad at me. You should ignore me, fuck I’m drunk right now” he admitted looking up at the both of them.
James’s face fell.
“ I took Snape to the shrieking shack and nearly let Remus kill him, that’s not forgivable. I think you all forget how bad it was” he got up and looked at them wiping his eyes dry.
“ Focus on Re he deserves it,” he said before he got up and walked away, he left them in the common room.
As soon as something good happened another layer of pain peeled back. He didn’t deserve forgiveness, he tried to talk to Remus he tried to say sorry again. But for the first time, Sirius realizes there is no way to say I’m sorry.
There is nothing he can do to make it better. What he did was unforgivable.
If Remus was a monster he was the creator, he was just as bad. Blood was on his hands and he could never wash it away.
Their dorm was silent and he slipped into bed slipping off his robes until he was just in his boxers and a shirt. He reached for the bottle and ripped the cap off. tricking the brown liquid into his mouth relishing in the burn that should have made him gag. He was drowning everything out tonight. He drank until he could barely swallow it down.
They were forgiving him because they thought he was dying. He didn’t want forgiveness like this. He wanted a redo. He wanted another chance at life but knew he deserved nothing.
So much for thinking damaged goods could become something good, he had been tainted from the start. There was nothing he could do to reverse anything that had been done to him.
Born dark, end dark.
He had a good few years, probably the best he’d ever had. Maybe that was his one chance at happiness.
His eyes shut and the warm tingly sensation passed over his body and he heard the door creak. Soft footsteps stopped right at the end of his bed. His heart clenched and everything in his body hurt.
“ You’re probably asleep but I have to say this. You’re my brother, my best mate and I’m mad at you. I’m so mad at you for dragging Snape into this and putting Remus in that spot. I’m so mad that you took it this far. But you’re killing yourself and you have to stop. Because I don't think I can do this without you. I don't think I can live my life without you. You promised me we’d share a flat after Hogwarts and we’d become Aurors. I count that as a bonded promise, you break it and I’ll die too. So please don't break our hearts because I know Remus wouldn’t survive.”
The voice was soft and it felt like a dream but he felt the words as if they crashed into him.