BLAME

Chapter 8: Beg and Plead

“You never answered my question, Moony,” Sirius sighed into Remus’ neck, planting wanton kisses there, seeing the way Remus appeared intoxicated by him, the shiver of longing that ran across his chest.

“Endeared yourself to me? Are you joking? I’ve been… interested in you since sixth year, you prick.”

Remus was trying really hard to appear unfazed, detached, unmoved. But he wasn’t, he really wasn’t. His pupils were so wide he couldn’t make out his moss green pupils at all; his breath short, erratic, his hair sticking to his forehead.

“I’ve never seen you look more beautiful,” he murmured in a low voice.

“Fuck, I…”

“What, Moony? Finish your sentence, Darling,” he teased.

“I dunno, I’m, uh, I can’t think clearly, I can’t think at all,” Remus replied looking dazed.

“When you said ‘interested in me’ since sixth year, what did you mean, exactly?”

Remus blushed, Sirius could feel his heart hammering against his chest.

“Did you know I think you’re beautiful?” He smiled at Remus fondly, kissing the side of his lips, the centre of his forehead.

“No, not at all,” Remus answered immediately, truthfully.

“You really are an idiot, Darling,” he laughed - a warmth, a joy swelling under his breastbone. “I’ve been mad about you since fourth year.”

“No you haven’t,” Remus said after a pause.

“I beg to differ. I’ve dreamt about you. Since then. A lot. I’m mad about you. I mean, if you don’t feel the same…” Sirius couldn’t help smirking as he moved away from Remus.

“Hey, wait! What I mean is… fuck,” Remus grabbed him by the collar and kissed him firmly.

“Have I endeared… you,” Sirius gasped.

“I’ve loved you, since... since fifth year when you played Good Old-fashioned Lover Boy on the piano in the shack on a full moon. Oh gods, it was actually third year, when Avery knocked you off your broom and you caught the snitch and nearly died in the same breath.”

“Ah, worried I was going to be pushing up daisies?” Sirius batted his long eyelashes at Remus, preening.

“Shut up, dwrn-garwr, which means wanker, by the way. Fine, I’ll admit it - since second year, when you kicked Mulciber in the groin for calling Mary a mudblood.” Remus hid his face behind his hands, a grin playing on his face, happiness he couldn’t ever recall seeing there, in months, in years.

“Not since first year, then?” Sirius tried to hide his disappointment.

“Fuck off.”

Sirius laughed.

“I hate you,” Remus kicked his shin half-heartedly, still beaming.

“I can see that,” Sirius leaned over, running his hand over Remus’ stubble, over his scarred upper lip and down his sharp jaw, as Remus watched in silence, spellbound. “This is what hate looks like, huh?”

Remus’ eyes were fixed on his lips.

“I don’t know what any of this means, but you better get your sorry arses over to Moody’s for a post- mission debrief. All clear.”

It was Dorcas, pretending to be oblivious. Sirius grinned back as Remus sat up in a hurry, looking flustered. A flustered Remus was a beautiful thing to behold.

“I’ll, eh, come with you,” Remus muttered, looking at Sirius and then winking.

It was Sirius’ turn to stare.

“I’ll… I’ll apparate back to the flat to grab our whisky and vodka and meet you there,” he said, feeling giddy. “We have… things to celebrate.”

He waved his arm vaguely, as though unsure.

Dorcas cackled. “Understood, see you in five, tosser!”

Remus held her arm and they disapparated instantly, leaving Sirius staring at an empty platform, unable to stop smiling. He patted his leather jacket, feeling for the chunky key of Uncle Alphard’s flat and prepared to apparate.

Nothing. Anti-apparition wards.

“Going somewhere?” Snape’s nasal twang was the last thing he wanted to hear.

He whirled around, wand outstretched. The bastard must have been spying on them, hidden, perhaps aided by a disillusionment charm. Snape emerged from the shadows, as crumpled and greasy and horrid as ever, his own wand at the ready.

“Enjoying life, are we?” he said.

His tone was instantly recognisable – pure, unadulterated vitriol. The fact that he might have seen Remus and him kissing and somehow hold it over them, or in some way place Remus at risk, more than usual, put him in a rage.

“Spiffing,” he said, his tone so clipped his mouth almost remained closed.

“How nice. And yet…I wonder what Lupin would think if he knew he was falling in love with the man who almost ruined his life. The man who nearly murdered me in fifth year at school? Would he like that, do you think? I suppose beasts don’t really care about killing others, do they?”

“What?” He wanted to rip Snape’s heart out for daring to call Remus a beast, but something else was off, something that didn’t add up? Instead of rage, he heard his own voice tremble. Unsure.

“Of couse he was always a powerful wizard, even as an obnoxious teenager, he obliviated you both astonishingly well. But deep down you know the truth, don’t you, Black?”

Snape was playing with him. Wasn’t he?

“You don’t believe me? I expected that. Here, take it, the original memory, untampered. Use Dumbledore’s Pensieve.” Snape held out his hand - a silvery, cloudy substance enclosed within a glass filigree vial, swirling ominously.

He stood rooted to the spot.

“Take it!” Snape threw the vial at him with force and he caught it, reflexively – years of quidditch practice.

He didn’t want it.

“You are a vile, would-be murderer, and soon all your friends will know the so-called brave Sirius Black let his best friend Potter take the blame for his actions for years. Pathetic.”

With that, his body seemed to elongate, fade into a swirl of black smoke which flew into the distance as it warped around and into itself. The vial was in his hands, cold and lifeless.

He didn’t want it.

He couldn’t breathe, remembering. The pounding headache, Minerva telling him he had been obliviated, his best friend and brother gone. Severus Snape smiling over at him, triumphant? Dumbledore shaking his head, unable to tell him where James had gone. Banging on the front door of the Potters’ house until they opened it, red-rimmed eyes, a broken old woman and her grief-stricken husband, shouting at them until it hit him - they didn’t know either, and he collapsed on the ground in silence. Their kindness in letting him stay until their son returned, “he would never leave without telling you, without telling me!”. Days turning to weeks, months. He couldn’t leave them. They too were nothing without him. They needed him. He refused to go home. He only returned to Hogwarts at their insistence, determined to do something with his life, to fight Voldemort, and all his Death Eaters, to make them pay.

The man was lying. He was a cursed snake. He was scum, a filthy… his breath caught in his windpipe, heart hammering too fast, unable to think.

He found the Pensieve, dropped the silver shadow into it, to prove the bastard wrong. And then he was there…

It is a full moon, a storm rages outside. In a dim corridor a younger version of himself faces Snape, his wand out. A storm rages on his face too, contorted with hatred.

“I’ll get your werewolf friend expelled!” Snape is ranting now, wand pointed at teenage Sirius. “I’ll get him thrown into Azkaban for putting us all in mortal danger, I’ll get the Malfoys, I’ll get your parents, all the purebloods to drag him into court, I’ll get him executed!”

He can feel his younger self losing control, he sees canine flashes of his teeth, as though holding back an urge to transform into Padfoot there and then and maul him to death.

“You think you can finish off Lupin, do you? Hand him over to the Dementors?” His own voice sounds far off, like an echo, dream-like. A vague memory of dissociation.

“Yes, he deserves it!” Snape is saying, sounding alarmed as young Sirius licks his lips in agitation. “He’s a soulless beast!”

“How about I help you? How about I tell you where Lupin disappears off to on the full moons?” he sneers, face now right up against Snape’s own, breathing heavily. “Wouldn’t you like to know the truth, once and for all?”

The vision pales. They are now in the Gryffindor Common Room, James Potter – a younger, more naïve version, fit and healthy – stares at him in shock, in horror. Peter Pettigrew is there too, eyes twitching uncontrollably as his gaze flits between the two other boys.

“I told him. I told Snivellus about the Whomping Willow, how to get past it,” Sirius’ voice a dull whisper as he turns away towards the window.

“You did what? Merlin, Pads, that isn’t even remotely funny!”

“Is that…?” Peter points out of the tall common room window.

In the shadow of the rising moon, a thin, slightly hunched figure, head bent down to avoid the heavy downpour, with shoulder length dark hair, walking in the direction of the Whomping Willow.

“Sirius, what the fuck did you do?” James grabs his younger self by his shirt collar and swings him around, hazel eyes blazing.

“It’s Snivellus,” Wormy says, nervous blue eyes flickering between James’ flushed face and Sirius’ expressionless white one.

“ANSWER ME YOU BASTARD! WHY DID YOU TELL HIM?” a vice-like grip on his shirt, practically lifting Sirius into the air.

A final time the vision fades, replaced by a dark, damp tunnel, unlit.Snape steps over a figure tied up on the ground, now stooping low, left hand touching the sides of the passage, moving towards the solid wooden door.

“Snape!” James bellows after him, struggling helplessly against the cords. “Snape!”

Sirius hears a moan coming from the end of the corridor, and a series of cracks - crepitus, to be precise, the sound of Remus’ ligaments and sinews snapping - just before he transforms.

“Prongs?” a low, pained voice from the other room.

“Don’t open the door!” James shouts, craning his neck.

Severus opens the door.

He is invisible, useless, utterly unable to help.

A young Remus Lupin lies on the ground in front of Snape, naked, his limbs twisted at an inhuman angle, a sheet of sweat on his brow and pain written all over his face. Pain, now replaced by momentary embarrassment, then sheer terror.

“Snape, get out!” Remus’s raw voice urgent as with another groan his neck muscles contract suddenly, his neck jerks backwards, an unearthly howl escapes his lips.

“No!” he screams – at Snape, at himself – but it is no use. Nobody hears him. The die is cast.

The werewolf howls once more and rises, huge, pointed teeth bared, salivating, facing Severus Snape. The door behind them bursts open and James Potter shouts “you absolute fucking dickhead, Snape!” as the Shrieking Shack fades to black…

Leaning against the Pensieve in Dumbledore’s office, hands gripping the edges of it for dear life, head down to stop the rising nausea. They are not memories per se – the Obliviation spell was too strong – but the body keeps the score. The rage whenever he catches Snape’s eye for the next two years of school. The shame whenever he and Remus talk about the twisted Prank James Potter had played. A shame so deep, it feels like a weight compressing his chest to the point of suffocation. He avoids all thought of it, drinks firewhisky when he couldn’t. He blames James for everything – for trying to kill Snape, for nearly making a killer out of Remus, for making him feel wicked by association.

But it had been him all along – his fault, his mistake, his actions, his vile wickedness, his shame.

He was to blame.

BLAME

He found himself retching uncontrollably into Dumbledore’s Pensieve.

My fault, my fault, my fault

Over and over.

My fault, my fault, my fault

The slow, dawning realisation that James Potter was innocent. Why had he – had he Obliviated Peter and him and - had Snape agreed and why – and – Fuck, why, if he was innocent, why had he joined the Death Eaters? That made no –

Eventually, the truth – James Potter was innocent and had taken the blame for Sirius’ actions, Snape had lied about it all, James had joined the Death Eaters not because he was evil, but because he wasn’t. If he had joined as a double agent, then who had he been reporting to –

Fuck Snape. Fuck Dumbledore.

Swinging out his arm and hurling all the contents of the Headmaster’s desk across the room, shattering glass, throwing the Gryffin paperweight across the room, smashing his great-grandfather’s portrait (bastard), grabbing the tablecloth and – myfaultmyfaultmyfault – pulling all the nick nacks and stupid charms and lamp and smashing his fist repeatedly into the stone wall, feeling nothing – myfaultmyfaultmyfault – until eventually he sank to his knees, blood-soaked knuckles clenched tightly.

He was worse than Snape and Dumbledore combined.

He couldn’t stand it. He had to do something, anything, to fix this, to make things right, to atone for what he had done, for ruining his best friend’s life, for – Remus could never love him now, and he would have to tell him, tell everyone. He nearly let himself feel it, the heartbreaking consequences of his own recklessness.

He didn’t deserve to cry. He deserved no pity.

He took a deep breath. His heart rate dropped. His mind cleared.

He was going to kill Voldemort.

He was going to kill Voldemort, which meant he was going to die, but he was going to take as many bastard Death Eaters with him as he could.