The morning James Potter thought he’ d lost everything
This is not a story I want to tell, the one where James Potter catches Sirius Black before he falls; the one where Sirius Blacks falls into the unknown while leaving his brother behind and James Potter´s worst nightmare displays before his eyes -the only difference being this time he does not wake up-.
He waits for him to vanish -as he always does-, but the body is still there when he opens his eyes, and he shouts, he cries his name until he summons the presence of every inhabitant of potter manor but his, the only one that mattered.
His brother does not respond and he doesn´t either. He grabs gently the other boy´s head, putting him in his lap, and he strokes his hair while his mother comes by his side, trying to focus, to hide her tears long enough to reach out to her son.
This is why healers never deal with their families, he thinks incoherently, and it makes no sense, no sense at all, because, right then and there, Euphemia Potter isn´t a healer, not at all, she is a mother, and that´s all he sees.
“I do not understand” he mumbles, inclining his head long enough to kiss Sirius´s forehead, “you´re not bleeding, brother, wake up, wake up!” he is shouting now, trembling and shouting, so much that he does not even realize Dumbledore is there, that he is by their side and murmuring some of the most complicated spells he would ever see.
“HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO ME?” he bellows, regretting the words as soon as they come out. Then, in a lucid moment, he laughs bitterly, thinking about Lily Evans, about what she would say.
Surely you realize not everything is about you, James Potter, she´d say, a severe glance as the only affection he´d ever receive from her, the world does not revolve around you.
Perhaps it´s then, as Sirius gives what he thought it would be his last breath, when his childhood truly ends. With nobody paying him attention, he longs to call Remus Lupin, he would want me to, he thinks, but the truth is that the thought of leaving his side terrifies him.
Moony, a part of him tells him, you need to call Moony, but James Potter is a vile, selfish creature, he realizes that now, while Sirius Black is dying in his arm.
A lifetime of mischief passes before his eyes.
He does not call it mischief now, as he sees himself hanging Severus Snape by his ankle and mocking him and his loose second-hand trousers, just as he doesn´t call it naivety when he recalls that last time: the last time James Potter convinced himself even bigots like the Black had limits.
He sees himself walking toward Dumbledore´s office, just last year, while Sirius follows him evidently worked up, he wants to break into the scene, just as his brother is begging him not to go, not to say anything.
“You are killing him!” he wants to shout now, “you´re killing them both!”
Remus is there as well and, to his credit, he does not forget the idea so easily.
“We should have spoken up ages ago” he tells him, days and days after the event, “I told my parents, even then, that the right thing to do was making sure the ministry was aware of the situation! No matter what could have happened to me!”
It is finally Regulus the one Sirius seeks to make sure they live that one down.
“You can´t tell!” he begs them, hidden in a lonely corridor, “My parents would destroy you both, and plus, nothing is going to happen, I promise, we have each other”.
And James Potter cries, he cries until he has no voice left, until every chance of sirius recovering seems lost and he just stares at his expressionless white face wondering why him, why the lightest soul he had ever met had to pay all his wrongs.
It is finally then, as Dumbledore struggles to stand up and Euphemia Potter starts sobbing, when Sirius Black takes his first breath.
“He is alright”, he mutters to himself, “he is alive”.
For a moment, the world seems a brighter place, for a moment, everything is going to be ok, he just knows it. It is not until the headmaster hugs Euphemia when he understands.
“Let him rest” he warns her, “but do not expect him to wake up, you know...”
“I recognise the signs” she interrupts him, a fierce gaze taking over her expression when she looks at them, “you should go”.
She does not thanks him, and James Potter – if he were in a right state of mind – should have been put out by that, but he is not, not when the only thing he can focus on is Sirius´ peaceful face, his breathing, the movement of his chest:
Up and down, up and down...
What James Potter would never know is that Euphemia has spent years writing the same latter, the same combination of words and failed intentions, because she would do it if she could, she would take those black boys in a heartbeat, and she´s tried, she´s tried more than anyone else, more than anyone ever would, but still, it was not enough.
“Ssshh” she whispers in his ear, “it´s gonna be ok, you´ll see, but you have to let me take sirius now”.
“No!”. He takes her hand, not wanting to let him go, “Where are you taking him? He stays here!”
“To his bedroom, love, I´m just taking him to his bedroom”.
“I don´t want him to be alone when he wakes up”, he confesses then, begging her to take him with them.
Her expression softens, she gives him a hug and rises Sirius with her wand.
“He won´t be” she tells him, “You´ll be there, whatever happens”.
Whatever happens.
Those words feel heavy in his throat, as if he did not want them to get out.
Sirius feels miles away, he was there and, just like that, he isn´t anymore. He crawls to the chimney with a clear intention in his mind: he has to call Remus.
He deserves to be there, Sirius needs him, but the truth is James needs him too.
It´s his father the first one to answer, a stern expression on his face.
“Remus is resting now” he tells him.
Of course, he had forgotten, for the first time ever, he had forgotten: the fool moon was two nights ago.
“I need to see him, please” he stutters, “something has happened, Mr. Lupin, something awful has happened”.
It is then when Remus appears, limping towards his father with a confused expression. He looks tired, he realizes he had probably waken him up, but he does not care, he does not care for anything or anyone but Sirius right then.
“Father, leaves us” he begs, “please, father, I´m gonna be ok”.
The man walks out the room reluctantly; perhaps, in any other situation, James would have realized it by his own, that Mr. Lupin was ell aware of what happened last June and he hated them for it, for putting his boy at risk.
“James, what is going on?” Remus asks, now more confused than ever, not really comprehending the gravity of the situation.
And James breaks; James breaks and Remus knows, he knows because there was only a selected group of people in the world that could make that happen, - he knew he somehow was one of them -, and only him, only Sirius would occupy his mind, – everyone´s minds, really –, during the summers.
“Sirius” James stutters then, “Si,sirius...”
Remus forgets his anger, his disappointment, because, no matter how much he would like to pretend otherwise, he still cares, even after everything, he still loves him so fucking much.
“What happened to Sirius, James? Is he ok?” he asks, not bearing to think otherwise, he had to, he had to be.
Sirius Black, his first friend, was the most alive person Remus had ever met. He was the one constantly marvelled by the little pleasures of life, the one constantly surprised by how lucky he was, and Remus knew, deep down, Remus had always known that, that if there was someone who deserved a happy ending, that was Sirius Black.”
“They don´t know if he will wake up” James mutters incoherently, “they say he won´t, but I don´t understand, Remy, what is going on? He is not bleeding! HE IS NOT BLEEDING!”.
Many would say that the day James Potter broke would be the day the world ended, not without reason, because James Potter, the one always warning them not to walk barefoot because they might catch a cold and then proceeded to look after them every time that happened, was the most childish and yet stable person he had ever met.
And only then Remus understood, only then he could phantom the idea of a life without Sirius. His world shattered into pieces as he did, as he found the last pieces of the puzzle.
Somehow, Sirius Black had ended up in James Potter´s hall seconds away from death, and he was not there to ensure that didn´t happen, - he couldn´t bear to think about it, but the truth was that, even in the worst scenario, Remus would not be there to say goodbye -. That broke him, a world in which Sirius died unaware of his love for him; sure he would hate him forever and that was that.
He rushes out of the room, looking for paper in her mother´s study. There it is, he thinks with urgency as he scribbles where he is going. His body doesn´t ache anymore, he doesn´t notice the effects of the full moon then, as he pleas with James for him to go and he throws the floo powder into the chimney.
And there he is, in a blink of an eye, he finds his arms wrapped around James.
“Let´s go to him” he tells him, helping him to stand up.
Ms. Potter makes no comment when she sees him. Remus looks at her, at the worry her eyes show, and knows Sirius is wrong, he does have a family, after all.
He grabs his hand as soon as they cross the door.
Facing his static body, he knows.
Hundreds of words pass through his mind, every book he´s read over the years about the topic come to him then.
The cruciatus curse leaves no effect whatsoever, not in appearance and not to the body. The mind is the one tainted by such an evil magic.
After ten minutes under it, there is little to no possibility for the victim to live, or, if they do, to recover conscience; thus, to this day there is little we can do for those who do, for those who live, as the number is so low that not many studies have been done about the topic.
The kind of trauma is, in theory, treatable by a mind healer.
“He´s been crucioed” he tells James.
“No, no...” The other boy mumbles in response, shaking his head repeatedly.
Time stops right then, as they collapse near the bed. Remus feels he can´t breath, shaking and trying to take a breath , his hands come to his head, beating himself without control. Sirius used to be there, he used to be the only one able to calm him, but that time that he is not, it seems that that particular scene makes James Potter recover his essence.
“Sshh... Remus, it will be alright, you´ll see, he will wake up” he mutters, making him lean on his chest.
“Deep breaths, Moony, deep breaths”
“I never told him how much I love him” he confesses.
“He knows, he knows we...”
“No James” he interrupts him, “I love him”.
“Oh”.
The silence makes him uneasy for a moment; for a moment, he regrets saying those words, he regrets coming out even in the situation they´re in, because without Sirius life wouldn´t be what it was, because he can´t loose James as well...
Nobody remembers Peter, and maybe it is then when things start to fall apart, when Padfoot is on his deathbed and Wormtail isn´t immediately summoned; because, who wouldn´t feel left out? And even more so if it is poor, insecure Peter we´re talking about.
James gets up after a while. “I´m going to write to Wormtail, tell him what happened...” he trails of, closing the door behind him.
He collapses as soon as he does this.
He gets to live again hundred of moments – significant moments -, and, somehow, he realizes that he´s always known, that Sirius and Remus´ love was different from the day he met them on the Hogwarts Express, and that does not bother him. He is glad he knows now; although now he does he wishes more than ever that Sirius would wake up.
He has to, he thinks fervently, not for James, but because if anyone deserved to live a fairy-tale love story, that was him.
“I don´t know when I fell in love with you”, he hears Remus say through the other side of the door, “it feels as if I´ve always been, just as I´ve always been a werewolf, and I don´t know what is going to happen, I truly don´t, but what I do know, Sirius Black, is that I cannot go through it alone”.
“Shit” he mutters, feeling guilty for prying as he walks away. He grabs a piece of paper and set himself on the task he was supposed to be doing.
He is still in that position by the time his father returns.
“I´ve been talking to Dumbledore,” he tells him “seeing if we can get the other one out”.
“And?” James asks, his heart pounding loudly.
“There is no way” he answers in defeat, “how is Sirius?”
“Remus says he´s been crucioed... what if he does not wake up, dad? What would I do without him? And I don´t know if...” he struggles to say, loosing himself for a moment.
Fleamont bends to his level; his concerned expression is all he sees before he hugs him.
“He will wake up, son, he will” he shushes in his ears while he strokes his hair, and James believes him, not because he is his dad, but because he is one of the strongest people he knows, and Fleamont Potter has never lied to him yet, not in the things that matter.
It is then, after he returns to the room Sirius lies in and passes the night, alongside Remus, by his brother´s side, when, just as the sun comes out, he opens his eyes.
He looks around him, his febrile eyes longing desperately for someone that is not there; and then he sees them. James cries again, but for entirely different reasons, and Remus, somehow, thinks it is fitting to insult him.
“Sshh” he calms them, “why are you two crying?”
“That why...?”
“I´m ok, see?” he points out, gesturing at himself, “well I´m not” he adds, “I´m knackered, but nothing major, nothing major...”.
“Now” Sirius intercedes one more time, his eyes filled with worry and determination even though he is barely able to talk, “listen to me, I need to contact Dumbledore, I need to tell him what happened, Regulus...”
“We know” James admits, “we know about Regulus staying, and your parents...”.
“No” announces Sirius then, surprising everyone in the room, “they were not alone, they... Regulus saved me! Regulus stayed there, he took my place, and Voldemort...”
Voldemort? What has Voldemort to do with anything? James wonders, but Remus pales, his eyes filled with fear, and, from the other side of the door, Fleamont summons his patronus before walking in. His son´s words unable to leave his mind.