The Nightmares
Sirius had nearly finished his first week at Hogwarts, and although he was enjoying it, and had made lots of friends, he was exhausted. He thought he probably would be anyway, but he had been having lots of vivid nightmares for the first few nights, which made him wake up crying or panicky after only a few hours of sleep, and left him too scared to fall back to sleep.
James and Adhara couldn’t do anything to help, unless James could sleep in a full body bind curse to stop him moving around so much. Despite his new best friend’s incapability of staying still, Sirius thought he was great.
They got on together really well, and seemed to always have the same thoughts. They had finished each other’s sentences at least three times since they’d met, which didn’t seem like much, but that was only a week ago.
The only thing going wrong in Sirius’s new life at Hogwarts was his parents. He was astounded at how they still managed to ruin his life somehow despite being at the other end of the country. They were making him dread going back home at Christmas, as he knew he would have to, even though it was months away yet.
He hadn’t told James this yet, the real reason for his nightmares. He hadn’t even told Adhara, but he was sure she knew anyway. James mentioned his family lots, ad they sounded great from what Sirius could tell.
His dad was apparently a potioneer, who had invented and now owned Sleekeazy’s, at first as a way to make it easier for his wife, James’s mum, to tame James’s unruly hair when he was younger, ad it worked so well he started a business out of it.
Although, James never used his dad’s potion unless his mum made him. He seemed to think his messy hair was cool, and had told Sirius multiple times, ‘I look like a cool quidditch player, don’t you think?’ which Sirius wasn’t sure about, but James was easily the coolest person he’d ever met so he probably did know better than Sirius.
James seemed to have an endless amount of love and admiration for his parents, which Sirius could not relate to, honestly. His own parents were too strict and mean for Sirius to like them much. He knew they would be annoyed with him for not being sorted into Slytherin but as Gryffindor was the worst to them, he was sure they would be even worse. Especially his mother.
His thoughts were confirmed on Friday one of the family owls had dropped of a couple letter for Adhara, but had none for him, and had simply flown out. He wasn’t surprised, but was secretly disappointed. He had harboured some sort of hope that they wouldn’t mind, although he would never have admitted that to anyone.
Sirius had already written once to Regulus, and hadn’t received a reply, and suspected that his parents were preventing Regulus from replying, which Sirius knew was deeply unfair, but was also powerless to stop. Maybe they hadn’t even let Regulus read the letters from Sirius.
Adhara came over to him with the letters in her hand, knowing he’d probably want to read them, especially the one from Regulus.
“Reg says everything is fine back home, but that he misses us, which isn’t surprising really. I know I miss him. Mother and Father congratulated me on my Sorting, but they didn’t mention yours. Or you at all really.” She said, looking at him with concern in her eyes.
Sirius just nodded. It was what he’d been expecting after all.
----
The next week, Remus was ill, and he had to stay in the hospital wing overnight. James had dragged the rest of them to visit him, but madam Pomfrey, the nurse, wouldn’t let them see him. Sirius didn’t particularly mind, even though James was very annoyed by it, as Sirius wasn’t really sure what to think of Remus.
If he was going to be honest, he found Remus and Peter both rather boring, but Peter at least made some funny jokes, and talked. Remus, on the other hand barely ever spoke, only if he was asked a direct question, usually by James, who always wanted to talk to everyone, not minding if they were shy, like Remus seemed.
When he finally came back from the hospital wing, Remus looked absolutely exhausted, like Sirius had felt during his first few days, and Sirius felt rather bad for him. When he was woken that night by Remus’s quiet writhing and mutterings in his sleep, he felt even worse for him, recognizing he was having a nightmare.
Sirius wasn’t really sure what to do as he cautiously crept over. He considered waking Remus up, but he had looked so tired earlier, and he might wake with a shout and end up disturbing everyone else’s sleep.
Whenever he had a nightmare, just being close to someone he recognized and trusted generally helped without having to be woken up. However, Sirius wasn’t sure whether Remus trusted him. And it would be a bit weird for Remus to wake up with Sirius in his bed.
As Remus’s sleep talking got louder, Sirius resolved to just stay with Remus until his nightmare stopped, and then he’d go back to his own bed. He clambered onto Remus’s bed, trying not to move too much and wake him.
He was leaning against the headboard, and reached out to run his hand through Remus’s curly brown hair in what he hoped was a comforting way, like how Adhara used to do to calm down Regulus, and sometimes him.
He gently stroked the edge of Remus’s face, feeling a bit stupid, but it seemed to work as Remus began to settle, and his face relaxed. After a few more minutes, once he was sure Remus was ok, he quietly tip toed back to hi own bed, and fell back to sleep almost immediately.
When they woke up in the morning, Sirius wasn’t sure if he should talk to Remus about it. He felt kind of creepy, and after making such amazing new friends, he didn’t want to jeopardise what he already had, so he decided to just leave it unmentioned.
The next couple nights continued in the same way, until on Thursday night, Sirius was lying on his side next to Remus, facing him and gently tracing his cheekbone, when he felt his arm become too tired, so he stopped and just let it rest beside him.
He could feel his eyelids becoming heavy and convinced himself he’d go back to his own bed in a just a couple minutes, not noticing the way Remus’s eyes had fluttered open slightly when Sirius had moved his hand away.
When Remus woke up in the morning, earlier than the others to allow him time to get changed so the others couldn’t see the scars that crisscrossed across his whole body, Sirius was lying on his front, taking up more space than Remus was sure was physically possible.
Remus had half woken up and seen Sirius last night, but he had assumed it was a dream. But now, he sat blinking uncertainly at the dark haired boy still fast asleep, and- was he… dribbling? On Remus’s pillow? Remus was bewildered, and slightly disgusted, but found it rather funny, and tried to stifle his laugh that was sure to wake the others.
At least now he knew the reason his nightmares were better and easier to cope with for the first time he could remember. He felt a surge of gratitude towards Sirius, and decided not to wake him, or mention it at all. Mainly to avoid the embarrassment, or the need to explain the nightmares would go in a few days anyway, so Sirius didn’t really need to have bothered.
He was grateful anyway though, he’d recovered much more quickly than normal, and had been feeling incredibly well rested for the time of the month because of Sirius’s kindness. He must have been wrong in is first impression of Sirius (loud, largely oblivious and ignorant to other people, and with some sort of superiority complex).
----
After the first time Sirius had woken up in Remus’s bed, he continued to fall asleep and wake up there, figuring if Remus minded, he would probably say something. After a few nights of that he began to notice Remus’s nightmares seemed to have stopped.
Sirius felt rather proud of this, and went back to sleeping in his own bed, although he secretly missed the comfort and security of knowing someone was right there. None of the other boys had said anything about Sirius’s adjustment of his sleeping arrangements, although he did catch a couple weird glances from Kingsley.
He suspected James had something to do with it, as only he knew about Sirius’s nightmares and what helped them, and James is the first one Peter would talk to about it. Although, he probably assumed Sirius slept there to soothe his own nightmares, rather than Remus’s.
None of this particularly bothered Sirius, who was just happy both he and Remus now slept peacefully, even if it was separate again. That was until the Friday after, when Adhara received letters from their family again.
Sirius had almost forgotten about his lack of a letter from their parents and brother two weeks ago, but it was the same again this time. He would have thought they had gotten over it by now, but apparently not, because Adhara hurried over to Sirius’s table at breakfast with the letters again.
She sat down next to him, and pushed one of the letters into his hands without saying a word. As he read through it, she stared at his expression worriedly, which he found rather annoying until he saw why.
In the letter their parents had basically forbidden Adhara from talking to Sirius, except to warn him to stop writing to Regulus. There were plenty of thinly veiled threats, along with a warning that Narcissa would be looking out for them, and reporting back anything she saw that ‘wasn’t appropriate for a respectable Black witch to be doing,’ which included talking to her brother apparently.
“Don’t worry, I’ll talk to Narcissa, I’m sure she’ll understand.” Adhara said confidently, and Sirius just nodded.
“Did Reg say anything?”
Adhara shook her head, but handed him the letter anyway, which was rather short and seemed mainly to be about some book he’d been reading recently.
----
That night, after a long day of lessons that Sirius didn’t pay attention in, Sirius fell asleep quickly, almost forgetting the letters from earlier. However, his subconscious clearly didn’t, and he found himself jolting awake and gasping for air, while tears made silent tracks down his cheeks.
He looked around his room, trying to ground himself and ignore the feeling of panic rising in his chest and making him feel sick. He saw Remus standing beside his bed looking concerned, and guilty as if he was about to be in trouble for something.
“Are you okay?” Reus whispered, careful not to wake the other boys.
“Yes, of course I am,” Sirius snapped, as quietly as he could.
Remus’s eyes filled with sudden hurt, and Sirius felt a wave of guilt within him, alongside the panic and embarrassment at Remus seeing him so vulnerable.
“Sorry,” he muttered, looking down to where his hands were fiddling with his sheets nervously, dropping them when he noticed.
Remus was studying him intently, before saying, “Okay, if you’re sure,” and turned back to go to his own bed.
Sirius felt the panic begin to rise again, until it was in his throat, heavily outweighing any embarrassment he had felt earlier, “No, wait, Remus- stay? …Please?” His whisper came out louder and more desperate than he had meant, but he watched as Remus turned back towards him and gave a small smile before climbing in next to him.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he whispered quietly as they faced each other, but Sirius just shook his head, and they carried on staring at each other in awkward silence until Remus said, “Okay, goodnight then,” and turned over facing away from Sirius, and Sirius did the same.