Among the Stars

   The ride to Hogsmeade on the scarlet train was nothing new, nor was the ride to the castle in the carriages or the sorting ceremony. The feast on the other hand was interesting, to say the least. The Marauders decided to start the year off with a bang by setting Nifflers loose in the Great Hall. The chaos that ensued cost the four Gryffindors a month of detentions and a stern scolding by Professor McGonagall.

“I don’t care what Minney says,” James announces loudly as they enter their dorm room, “it was totally worth a month of detention! I mean who knew those little suckers would wreck that much havoc? It was beautiful! And I’m sure the ladies appreciated that one that ripped up your shirt Sirius, they got a peak of that summer body of yours through the holes, I think I saw a few of them faint from the sight alone!” James falls dramatically onto his bed in his imitation of the girl. Sirius laughs at his friends dramatics as he removes the freshly ruined shirt to put on a new one.

    “Where did you get all of those new scars from Sirius?” Peter asks him.

    Sirius tenses up, but then nonchalantly says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. The only new scars I get are from when you idiots talk me into doing something stupid.”

    “Hey!” James protests. “Don’t you try to pin that on us! You’re the biggest culprit out of all of us for most of the stuff we do!”

    “James isn’t wrong.” Remus says. “I am curious though. Most of what we do shouldn’t get you injured enough to give you scars and if so, not that many. What happens?”  

    “Yeah mate. There are more and more each year, you aren’t leaving us out of some epic adventure are you?” James asks.

    “Believe me, it’s not an adventure you’d want to be apart of.” Sirius mumbles. His friends look at him with concern written on their faces. “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”

    “No offence Sirius,” James says with a careful tone to his voice. “But the last time one of us said that it was Remus and he happened to be hiding something pretty big. Whatever it is you know you can trust us. I think we kind of proved our trustworthiness with Remus’ situation.”     

    “I said I’m fine, so just butt out of it okay?”

    “Sirius?” Peter walks up to his friend and puts a hand on his shoulder, Sirius flinches at the unexpected touch.

    “I’m fine.” He repeats, obviously getting irritated.

    “Do you really not trust us after all this time?” James asks.

    “That’s not it at all and you know it, I just… It’s none of your business.”

    “If you’re getting injured enough to get scars then I think-“

    “I said it’s none of your damn business!” Sirius snaps.

    The room falls silent and Sirius grits his teeth as he finished throwing on a new shirt. He grabs his wand and walks over to the door to leave. Remus catches his eye just as he’s about to walk out and Sirius hesitates before scowling and saying coldly, “Don’t give me that look Lupin.” Sirius slams the door on his way out.

    Wisteria is on her way back from the Library, having gotten a book on Nifflers, when she runs into Sirius who is obviously in a rotten mood.

    “Sirius? What’s wrong?”

    As quick as lightning Sirius dropped his scowl and replaced it with his usual charming smirk. “Nothing at all love.”

    “You can drop the act Sirius, I don’t appreciate your bullshit.”

    The smirk dropped immediately. “Well you’ve certainly got a mouth haven’t you.”

    “Keen observation Black, but unless you haven’t figured it out yet all animals have mouths.”

    Sirius let out a humorless chuckle. “Sarcasm.”

    “Do you need someone to talk to?”

    “No.”

    “It was a rhetorical question Sirius and you answered wrong.”

    “If I needed to talk to someone don’t you think the other Marauders would’ve beaten you to it?”

    “Sometimes you don’t need or want to talk to your closest friends. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to an acquaintance.”

    “Acquaintance. Ouch Evans, that’s cold. I thought I meant more than that to you.”

    Wisteria opens the door to a nearby empty classroom. “Come on. Let’s talk.”

    “What makes you think I’ll talk to you about my problems?”

    “I didn’t ask you to talk about your problems. I just asked you to talk to me. If the topic of your problems happens to come up then perhaps we’ll talk about that, but for now we can just have a normal conversation. Cheer you up a bit before one of your fangirls sees you like this and rumors begin circulating that Sirius Black is an actual human being with feelings.”

    After another humorless laugh and a moment’s hesitation, Sirius follows her into the empty room, closing the door behind them.

    “Ask me a question.” Wisteria tells him.

    “What?”

    “To get a natural conversation flowing. Ask me a question.”

    “Umm… Okay. What’s that book about?”

    “Nifflers. You all made me curious about them after your little stunt in the Great Hall tonight. I suppose you know all there is to know about them”

Sirius shakes his head no, “Remus did all the research on them and Peter went over to James’ house at the end of the summer to help him get his hands on a few. I honestly don’t know much about them.”

“Would you like to? I’ve already skimmed a few books on them, this one was just more in depth so I wanted to take it for a bit.”

“Sure.”

Wisteria launches into a long-winded explanation on all that she knows about them. As she talks Sirius begins to notice the way she talks with so much enthusiasm and spirit, even on something as boring as Nifflers. She makes learning about them feel more like an adventure than a lesson, like she’s telling a story rather than giving a lecture. She tells him stories she’s heard involving Nifflers and makes him feel as if he’s living the tale she’s telling.

    Interested in her ability to keep his attention, he asks her what they’re learning in History of Magic. After a small moment of her scolding him for not knowing for himself, she once again launches into a story and he’s never been so interested in History before in his life. After a while she stops talking a looks a little sheepish.

    “I’m sorry.” She apologizes. “I feel like I’m the only one talking, you’ve probably been falling asleep this whole time.”

    “No, not at all. I like listening to your voice.” Sirius says without thinking and then adds a quick smirk and wink afterwards to make the comment less embarrassing.

    “Honestly Sirius.” Wisteria says, rolling her eyes. “Do you have to flirt all the time?”

    “Sorry. You do have a boyfriend after all. I should probably stop if I don’t want him to kill me.”

    Wisteria laughs. “He wouldn’t do that.”

    “Oh I’m not so sure about that Wisty. I can definitely see him killing someone. Though that might just because he’s ginger. No offense of course.”

    Wisteria laughs again. “Oh gosh, look at this. I’m supposed to be the one cheering you up and here I am laughing at the jokes you’re making.”

    “But you have cheered me up.”

    “Well that’s a relief. I thought I was failing miserably.”

    “Actually you’re quite good at it. Have you had practice with cheering people up?”

    “Sort of. I have a couple of friends who are prone to… episodes of depression. I’ve gotten used to helping them out when we are in a public place. It’s typically best to get them to an area that has minimal people and minimal noise and then get them to just talk. Depending on the person it could be getting them to rant, or get their mind off of whatever is bothering them or cracking a series of really bad jokes until they finally laugh a little bit. In your case it was just me talking apparently.”

    “It really did help though. Thanks.”

    “Any time.” Wisteria pauses before hesitantly asking, “Do you want to talk about whatever it was that you were upset about?”

    The smile falls from his face and she immediately regrets asking him, but to her surprise he starts talking.

    “I was in the room with the other Marauders and they just starting asking some question that I didn’t want them to ask.”

    “Why didn’t you want them to ask?”

    “Because the answers are kind of hard to say out loud.”

    “I would’ve thought that after Remus you guys would have been a lot more open to being honest with each other.”

    “Knowing that a group is trustworthy doesn’t necessarily make it easier to talk to them.”

    “Careful, you keep saying poetic stuff like that and some people might get the idea that you actually have a brain inside that pretty little head of yours.”

    “You think I’m pretty?” Sirius asks jokingly, causing Wisteria to laugh.

    “What makes it hard to talk to them?” She asks him.

    “It’s just… a difficult subject to talk about.”

    “You don’t want them to pity you.” Wisteria concludes.

    “Yeah. I also don’t want any of them to get involved.”

    “Well damn Sirius. I never thought I’d say this, but you’re starting to sound like Remus.”

    Sirius laughs a little and then glanced up at Wisteria. “What do you think I should do?”

    “I think you need to get off your noble high horse and tell them. Knowing those guys, there’s no way they’re going to do something rash if you really don’t want them to, unless it’s a situation like Remus, if that’s the case then they will get involved, but I sincerely hope it’s not that bad. Just…. tell them, sooner rather than later. If you wait, all you’re going to do is cause them all more stress because then they have to worry about it and try to help a friend who wont let them in and believe me, when someone you care about shuts you out completely, it’s the worst feeling in the world.”

    “And what if I don’t have the strength to bring myself to tell them the truth?”

    Wisteria smiles at him. “Don’t ask stupid questions Sirius. You’re a Gryffindor aren’t you? Start acting like one.”

Wisteria left him alone after that to consider his next move. After Merlin knows how long he still had no idea what to do. If he tells them, they're just gonna worry about him every time they have to go home, but they can’t actually do anything to help, so really he would just stress them out more and that’s the last thing he wants. That was something he had figured out a while ago though. On the other hand, Wisteria has a point. If he doesn’t tell them, they're just gonna keep pushing until they find out on their own. Not telling them is just going to push back the inevitable and make it worse for all them. The problem now is finding a way and a time to tell them. This isnt the sort of thing you just tell people. At least it shouldn’t be that easy, right? Shouldn’t he have a plan going into this? Is he overthinking this? Procrastinating? Probably.

After a while he leaves the room and makes his way back to Gryffindor tower, figuring that maybe if the marauders corner him he'll just tell them and rip that scab off. When he gets back to the room however, Peter is the only one there and he looks as calm as ever, not nearly as upset as he usually does when one of them has an outburst like Sirius had.
Peter smiles at him. "The other two ran off to find you a bit ago. I told them I would wait in here in case you came back." Sirius nods silently and moves to sit on his bed.
"I er... I ran into Wist in the hallway and we talked for a bit."
"Are you up for talking a bit with me? Or is that an honor reserved for pretty girls?"
Sirius laughs. "It is an honor reserved for pretty girls and best friends, you happen to fall into the latter category."
Peter beams a bit at that. "When I was growing up I had a pretty good mix of both worlds I think. My parents are both wizards of course, but we lived in a muggle area, so I grew up with muggle kids. My best friend was a boy named Thomas. When we were seven he was hospitalized for a few days and when he got back my parents refused to let me go over to his house ever. They invited him over to our house a lot though... His mom had died when he was little and it messed his dad up a bit I think. His dad was an intimidating man to begin with, but then you took into account his alcoholism and well... Im sure you can imagine why he was hospitalized that one time and why my parents tried so hard to get him out of that house. My mom didn’t tell me what was going on until after our first year here. His dad had been beating him. When I got back I tried to talk to Thomas about it, but he avoided the subject and got irritated whenever I mentioned it. We don’t talk much now, but I do know he got out of there and somewhere better." Peter gives him a knowing smile. "I wont tell the others, but when you're ready to talk about it we'll all be here. You're not alone and it will get better."
Sirius looks at the other boy, a little bit in awe of him. "I don’t know how to begin telling them." He whispers honestly.
"It’s never going to be an easy thing to talk about, but it helps to let others know. Puts everyone a little at ease."
Sirius nods. "Can you... When they get back... Can you help me tell them if I need it? They deserve to know."
Peter nods. "Just out of curiosity, did you tell Wisty?"
"No. We just... talked. She cheered me up a bit and told me to tell you all. She said, and I quote, 'You're a Gryffindor arent you? Start acting like one.'"
Peter laughs at that. "She is something isn’t she?"
Before Sirius can answer the door opens and James rushes with Remus a bit behind him. "We couldn’t find-" James freezes as he sees Sirius.
"Sirius." Remus says. "We were looking for you."
"Look mate,” James says, “you don’t have to tell us anything. We were just worried is all, didn’t mean to freak you out."
Sirius looks at Peter who smiles and nods encouragingly.
Sirius clenches his jaw. "No. You all deserve to know. You've always been there for me and I know you always will be so... I... Peter, I dont... What do I say?"
"Start from the beginning like I did when I was telling you about Thomas."
Sirius nods a little and draws a shaky breath. "My parents have always been strict and I'll admit I wasn’t the best son, but..." He swallows hard and shakes his head a bit. "Er... When I would get in trouble they would lock me in my room with no food or water for a few days to 'help me learn my lesson'. And... When I was sorted into Gryffindor... I expected a howler or something, but I got nothing. They ignored me all year and told Mercury that he wasn’t to speak to me until I stopped disgracing the Black family name. When I got home my mum... She er... She sent me to my room with no food or water for a few days and told me not to speak to my brothers, she said she didn’t want me 'tainting' them. When I ignored her and tried to talk to Regulus she..." He feels bile rising in his throat.
"We get the picture. You don’t have to continue mate." James tells him quietly. The bed beside Sirius dips as his friends join him and wrap him in a group hug. Sirius lets out a sob, trying to cover it up with a cough, and his friends hold him tighter.
"If there is ever anything we can do to help, you have to promise us you'll let us know." Remus says.
Sirius nods. "I promise."
"You're always welcome at my house." James tells him. "Anytime you need, just come on over, no questions asked. My parents would be more than happy to help."
Sirius nods again and leans into his friends. "Thank you." He whispers over and over again.