What’s left is only bittersweet
For the rest of my life, admitting the best is behind me
Now I’m drunk and afraid, wishing the world would go away
What’s the point of singing songs
If they’ll never even hear you?
Sirius has a suspicion he is broken beyond repair. He doesn’t know what he expected – that's what the dementors do – they suck the life away from you little by little. It wasn’t obvious to him at first that it was even happening. Lily and James had just died. Died, as in, sleeping and never waking up again. As in the end. Game over, as Lily’s friends would sometimes joke back when they were still in Hogwarts. When his biggest worry was James fucking up the dorm, or the occasional howler. It’s weird how grief works. It’s funny to think about it now; he still felt like that somewhat cocky twenty something when he walked into Azkaban.
Because Sirius didn’t do it. And Remus had to know. And he would tell everyone that Sirius was innocent. And he’d be free.
His second best friend, his life partner. His sun, moon, and entire night sky. Remus was coming to save him, he knew that to his core. Somewhere deep in his self, in his existence, he believed this. More than he ever believed Dumbledore as a child, or Euphemia as a teen, or James since. Well always. Remus was coming to clear his name. He would save him.
So although he was suffering during those first two weeks, he was still resisting. He wasn’t broken yet. He didn’t have empty eyes, or blank pain. He was not going to succumb to the torture of Azkaban. He had set his mind to it, and that would be that.
But then Sirius began to lose count of the days, then weeks, then months. All he knows now is in the beginning, the dementors weren’t so bad.
His hope had shown through him, in the beginning. He was self-assured – and sad, of course, underneath it all – but still hopeful. The fearlessness, the light, it all seemed to keep him together. Repulsing the dementors, even.
But it has since diminished. Significantly. Remus wasn’t coming. He never was.
The primary emotion Sirius feels as this point is a distinct coldness. It occurs to him somewhere in the back of his mind that “cold” doesn’t actually count as an emotion; but that part of his brain stopped being important a long time ago. It’s not so much that they are sucking out his soul slowly – because they are, that’s exactly what they’re doing – it's that he feels so much grief, so deeply and so intrinsically, that most days he’s numb to almost everything. Except for the cold. It is so, so cold.
As his mind wanders, as he goes insane, maybe, the comfort the transformations once brought him has dissipated. Azkaban scares Padfoot, and he changes back almost immediately. He thought it might keep some of his humanity, to not suffer alone. To not suffer in such a human way. But in the end, Sirius can’t blame him. It’s scary for everyone. He wishes he could have more time in a non-human form, but sometimes Padfoot starts whining for the wolf, someone he is more used to than not, and Sirius has to turn back anyway. The tugging at Padfoot’s heart, a creature more innocent and undeserving than himself, he thinks meekly, tends to sting more than when it’s his own.
Sirius spends a lot of time on his bed. Spends a lot of time thinking. Trying not to think. Thinking more. It’s a useless cycle. A waste of time. There’s nothing he can do anyway. He’s in jail. They imprisoned him. There is nothing in his life anymore that gives him pleasure, nothing to keep him warm.
He shivers.
The dementors must be approaching him specifically and he tries to shake it off but finds he can’t. He doesn’t know what he expected. He never can shake them off. That’s their job. They’re the most wretched creatures in the wizarding world, and he is a fool.
Merlin, he must look like a bumbling idiot. It’s his default setting in some ways.
He spends a lot of time thinking. About Grimmauld Place. About Walburga and Orion. How awful they were to him.
He hates to think it was all just preparation for now. They must have known that eventually he would end up here. They must be happy with this development. Smiling down at their morning paper, watching him scream in agony as he tries to convince everyone he didn’t do it. They must think he finally gave into his blood; must have betrayed his best friends. Must have fucked everything up in a classic Black family way. Must be tripping over themselves in glee. Boasting to their friends how he tricked us all. He was playing the long con and eventually it paid off. Regulus must be happy. He always did despise being the spare. The second best. He must be thrilled now that he can be the sole heir. The pride and joy of Walburga. A voice in his head supplies the fact that Regulus never actually wanted to be their heir, either. He fucked up there too he guesses.
And well, what's a bit more responsibility thrown onto undeserving and unsuspecting people? It happens more often than now, in exchange for his freedom. And the first thing he does with that freedom, the lack of association, the disinheritance, is get himself thrown into prison. His whole life was nothing but a feeble attempt at abandoning something too intrinsically tied to him. His family will never stop being associated with him. He will never stop being part of the Black line, no matter how many times they blast him off the family tree. He should have known. What an idiot he must look to be. No one was ever going to see him as an individual. And it seems he was the only one who didn’t know that.
He tried to drain himself of his blood, and all it did was land him in a cold, dark, cell.
He wishes he could write a letter to Albus. “An Open Letter to The Headmaster” he would title it. Publish it in The Daily Profit, so there should be no ounce of anonymity left. No drop of respect, or decency. Raw horror he thinks. That's what he’d give them. It would only be fair. That's what they gave him. The thought makes him laugh until he breaks down into sobs. Until he is hysterically clawing away at his skin on his cell floor. Until he doesn’t remember getting onto the floor. He’s losing moments, maybe. Maybe he just wasn’t paying attention. Time doesn’t move, and it doesn’t matter anyway.
Dear Headmaster, he would write.
No, he thinks, that's not it.
Dear Albus, much better.
I didn’t do it, it would go. No he doesn’t deserve Sirius’s reasoning. Albus never thought Sirius deserved his reasoning. Why should he give any sort of explanation? Albus is one of the smartest men in the wizarding world. Somewhere in his war-driven bloodthirsty brain, Sirius is sure he already knows what has happened. The truth, not whatever they’re writing in the profit.
You are the cruelest man in the world. You are a coward. You are evil.
We were all so worried about Voldemort, about the big bad evil, we never thought about the smoke and mirrors you gave us all. We didn't look around. We were stupid. We were just kids.
Freshly graduated, big eyes, bright futures.
Sirius thinks of when they joined up. He thinks of how he proudly boasted of his ready commitment to James. How James told him about his own joining. His own plans to fight.
Sirius should have never said anything about it at all.
He scraps the letter to Dumbledore. The old man deserves dust anyway, he thinks bitterly. And the cold returns. The shadows get closer. All thoughts of a man with a silvery beard disappear.
His wrongdoings wash over him as the quiet settles. Maybe that is the worst part about prison. The quiet. The thinking.
He is back at Grimmauld place. He is back at Godric's Hollow. He is betraying Remus on the full moon. Over and over. Again and again. All at the same time. Amplified.
He is screaming at James, he is begging his mother, he is ripping at his skin.
He is barely even alive at all.
He is cold. He is cold. He is cold.
His bones shake. His skin blues. His teeth chatter.
He is yelling at Remus that it shouldn’t even matter. It was a prank. It was an accident. No one got hurt. He is clinging and clinging to his friendship, desperately clawing the burning pieces back together. Crying and sobbing at Remus’s feet. All the while Remus is kicking him away. Calling him a spoiled brat. A privileged idiot with hair bigger than his heart. Remus’s face is red. He is spitting. Sirius thinks faintly that the only person he had ever seen this angry was his mother. He supposes after some amount of time he upsets everyone like this. He is the common denominator. He is broken.
He is telling his mother he loves her. Trying to calm her down. To make her stop hurting him. To put down her wand. She never listens to him. She gets angrier. She never loved him. Never wanted to. The spells are more potent. The emotion behind them makes them more powerful. That's what Sirius always thought at least. Maybe it was just his head. His emotions creating a heightened experience. Making everything hurt more. He was never good enough for her because he was never good enough for anyone. He is apologizing. Tripping over his words begging her to stop. She never does. The lashes seem to hurt more in his memory.
He is hoping James dies. Hoping he never sees him again. His best friend sees him as nothing more than a charity case, he knows it. They play pranks together and only one of them should worry about being taken seriously. Seen as more than just a Black family screw up. James tells him this is not about kindness or charitability. That he really cares and Sirius should stop being such a self absorbed idiot and get over himself. To take his word for it. Doesn’t he trust James?
But Sirius knows the truth. He knows what they all think of him. He sees the way their eyes linger on him in the halls. He knows what they say about him behind closed doors. He is a project. Something to be fixed. Something untrustworthy. Someone not to be believed. Someone who should not be the secret keeper. Such a prized job is unfit for the once heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.
James is dead.
Sirius is hoping he was never even born. This is all a dream he can wake up out of. He is out of his existence and living it all at once in sharp stabs. In slow succession, rapid hurt.
Bloodspill that he can’t touch, only taste. A phantom knowledge.
He thinks he should floo to James’s. They have a fireplace to warm him up.
He is delirious as he pats his body for his mirror. James is shouting at him. He needs to get up. Something is not right, he needs to get Remus.
He is cold.
What was the point of his life?
He has been hoping for The Kiss recently. His consciousness has been fleeting, and he doesn’t think he can handle it. He thinks faintly that Harry’s birthday must have passed but not why that might be significant. He thinks this is no way to live. And he thinks he cannot really think at all.
The idea that pushes itself to the forefront of his mind, that aims to kick him until he’s doubled over in pain comes back to him: what was the point? His life, his feeble attempts at separation from his family. His attempt to “change the world”. It was all for naught.
All those nights tangled up in bed with Remus. Talking about their future together. The war. He remembers seventh year, right before it all started, as the happiest moments in his life. Even after all of his time with James, and all his time at Hogwarts. The time that he will always cherish above all was his time with Remus. Sneaking late night snacks, and stolen kisses in the moonlight. Nights after the full spent gently cuddled together. They spoke of the poets, the stars, school, and quidditch matches, and above all else, Sirius felt such a deep connection to Remus. Something he had never truly felt, not in whole. Safety. This person would never turn their back on him, he had thought. He was raised crooked. He never knew how to put his heart in the right place. But this person did not care. This person loved him anyway. This person wanted a life with him.
This person threw him in jail just like the rest. Didn’t even attempt to get him out. Accepted it, believed it, moved on.
In all of his years all Sirius had needed was for people to see him beyond his family. He made as many muggle references as he could in fifth year after watching movies with Lily. He chewed gum and spat it wherever he pleased. He wore large spiked boots and dyed his hair. He pasted still figures across his walls. Screamed along to Bowie, and Mercury and all the other idols his mother threatened to kill. He got sloppy drunk in a way the Black family pointedly does not. He ran around in a goddamned leather jacket year round. He was a flaming homosexual. He donated most of his clothes to charity. He charmed luck for the needy, and misfortune for aristocrats. He was a Gryffindor. His best friend was James Potter.
No one believed him. They all threw him away in the end, no matter what. He accepts now that he was stupid before. They were never going to see past his name. Something was always going to stand in the way. They never saw him as a whole person, and it was always going to bite him in the ass. They were always going to turn on him. He was foolish. He was the idiot.
It was never enough. For the wizarding world. For Remus, the love of his life. It was never going to be enough. He should have known. He was never more to anyone than his name. His mother always told him he was a lovesick, hippie idiot. That no one would love him. No one would believe him. He hates to think she was right.
Remus claimed he wasn’t his family, he was different. He was separate and he needn’t think about them in relation to himself. Remus wasn’t often cruel, but Sirius thinks the lies he was told during their relationship, the delusions he was made to believe, cut deeper than any torture method. There was never a future for the two of them. Remus never thought he was pretty, or smart, or even worth anything at all. No part of Remus that saw him separated from his family, and he knows that now. That when it mattered, Remus was never going to be on his side. He never planned to, and Sirius knew it.
Sometimes he just wishes he didn’t have to find out in an Azkaban cell. With his best friend six feet under. With a creature clawing and whining at him wanting to be let out, wanting to see its playmate. Wishes he didn’t have to find out in the cold. It’s very cold.
He then thinks of the war. Of the body counts. The graveyard capacity notices. The way they had started turning families away. Said they were out of room. Out of time. Out of resources. Out of grief. He wishes he could stop thinking. But of course he can’t.
Time soldiers on in a way he never could.
He thinks of the battle. Of green lights. Of red lights. Of screams. Of the panic, the paranoia. Of Dumbledore. Of James’s laugh splitting his face when he was beyond happy. Of James’s body, lifeless on the steps of his Godric’s Hollow home.
James and Lily died for nothing.
Marlene died for nothing.
Dorcas.
Gideon and Fabian.
Sirius knows there's no point to the war now.
It plays behind his eyes as he tries to sleep and all he can see is James laying there.
Lifeless.
It’s not over and it’s ended. It’s ironic in almost a deadly way.
He will never make it out of the war. It’s hopeless. The PTSD, the fear, the paranoia. Everything growing in him. The weeds slowly sucking nutrients away from the good parts of him. It will last forever. It will never end.
It doesn’t matter anyway. His soul is slipping away. His friends have cut him deeper than any injury has any right too.
But who cares anyway? They never planned to love him.
What’s the point of it all?
They’ll never even hear him.