Chapter Text
It never felt right
22 November ‘75.
Sirius was sitting alone in the common room. The atmosphere felt heavy, even if no one was there. He should’ve been heading down to the Great Hall for dinner before all the food would banish. Yet he wasn’t. He sat on the red and gold couch in front of the fire. The only sounds in the room keeping him company was the crackling sound of the latter and his own heavy, annoying breathing. He closed his eyes, his cold face being warmed by the closeness of the flames. He took a deep breath, leaning his head to the side, his face shifting into a grimace just by thinking about… himself.
He didn’t move, yet he did open his eyes, when he felt the portrait move, a sign that someone might be back. No, someone was back. He felt steps, some hurried up the stairs, not running, yet it was like that someone wanted to be alone. Then another pair of footsteps. And another.
“I feel bad,” someone whispered from behind Sirius. He just gulped, without turning around or letting that someone know that he heard.
“Does he, though?”
Sirius felt his nostrils flare as he recognised even the second voice. He does. He does. He does.
I do.
His throat burned, too much for him to even hiss. He bit down on his lower lip when his eyes started to betray him. His vision started to slowly turn blurry, like his own fucking eyes wanted to part from him. From their body.
Sirius looked down, blinking those tears away as he started to fidget with his fingers, with his rings. The ring of the Noble and most Ancient House of Black. It rested there, on the ring finger of his right hand. He wanted to burn it, to see it become dust so that he could get rid of it forever. But it was just a ring. It held memories, terrible ones, but it was just a ring. Destroying it wouldn’t make him a better person. One that wasn’t part of his family. Blood was making him part of that circle. Blood and, apparently, his whole soul. There was just one thing that could’ve separated him from his family.
Was he a coward for even thinking about it, or was he a coward for not having done so before?
Well if he had done so before he would’ve spared some suffering to his friends and to himself. But he never cared that much about it. Never gave a fuck about how his own action would’ve effected him.
“Sirius.”
He blinked a few times before turning around slowly. James was standing there in front of him, Peter at his side, looking quite worried.
“You weren’t at dinner. Again.” Peter clarified slowly.
“We’ve brought you some.” James added, a plate full of food in his hands.
It had been a week or so now. He didn’t show up at breakfast the first day. He was there at lunch. James saw him talk with Regulus that same evening. He wasn’t there for dinner. The next day he started skipping every single meal. He was never there. Sirius wouldn’t talk. His friends didn’t ask. They did not care about him anymore.
Sirius just nodded at James, a quiet and kind way to say thanks. Without burdening him or Peter with his presence. James pressed his lips together and walked closer, circling the couch and placing the plate on the small wooden table in front of him. Sirius watched carefully, his eyes scanning James' movements and Peter’s, like he feared they would attack him. They didn’t. What a wasted opportunity.
“Eat. You’re pale.” James said, flopping down an armchair, while Peter sat at the end of the couch, at Sirius’ right. Now he was trapped between the two of them. Amazing.
Sirius slumped on the back of the couch without a sound. James pulled out a pack of cigarettes from the back pocket of his jeans, offering one to Peter, who declined with a shake of his head. After a beat, he offered it to Sirius. He looked at James’ hand, the cigarette and then James’ face.
“I don’t want a cigarette.”
“Oh, fuck sake. You want it, take it.”
“I don’t deserve it.”
James’ eyes widened slowly, his hand lowering by itself.
“Pads! It’s a cigarette!” Peter urged, leaning towards Sirius, who didn’t bat an eye.
James sighed, placing the cigarette he was offering near the plate with Sirius’ dinner. He lightened his own cigarette before placing the lighter near the cigarette on the table.
After a few moments of silence, he grabbed the toast James and Peter brought him. He took a bite. Merlin, it was the first thing similar to food he was eating. And it tasted so good.
His stomach tightened while he was still chewing the first bite he took. He abandoned the toast on the plate and forced himself to swallow. He looked down.
“Food is for those who behave. Did you behave, Sirius?”
No. The answer was no. Even if that sentence was told to him when he was only five. It wasn’t just food. It was everything that felt remotely good. Food, friends, fun. His own existence, even.
“Sirius, it’s food. I’m not letting you starve.” Peter said, pushing the plate closer to Sirius. He just turned away.
“It’s not.”
“Sirius, don’t make this harder than it already is.” James stated calmly, even if it sounded more like a plea.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Oh really? You haven't been hungry for ,what, over a week?”
Sirius just remained silent. James sighed and exchanged a look with Peter.
“I don’t want your pity.”
“That’s not pity, Sirius!” Peter tried again, without any result even this time.
“Eat. Before someone else arrives. We don’t want to cause a scene.”
“Because I already have.”
“For fuck sake–!”
“It’s the truth!” He barked.
“Can’t you see it? What have I done? Have you both gone blind? He fucking hates me. He doesn’t want me around. He doesn’t want to talk or listen to me– Oh, how can you blame him? My mother would be so fucking proud.” He almost shouted, standing up and slamming one of the cushions on the ground, leaving his friends startled.
James looked like he had seen a ghost, his cigarette hanging loose between his fingers. Peter wasn’t doing much better.
“That does not mean you need to punish yourself, to starve yourself–”
“Who cares, Prongs?! Who. Cares? Do you– Because I don’t.” He panted as he looked at his bestfriends. “He doesn’t care. And he’s fucking right.” He finished pointing at the stairs leading to the dorms.
“He hates me. Why shouldn’t I?”
James stood up, trying to calm Sirius down.
“Padfoot–”
Sirius turned around and grabbed the cigarette James had prepared for him and lit it up before placing the lighter back on the table.
James eyes him. Sirius never lit up a cigarette in the common room. Maybe in the dorm but never in the common room.
“I don’t have Regulus lighting it for me anymore.” He stated as he had just read James' thoughts. “Astronomy tower.” He muttered before heading for the portrait.
James and Peter remained speechless as they watched him disappear. James' eyes remained fixated on the portrait before Peter pulled at his sleeve. He turned around and Peter pointed at the stairs.
James sighed when he saw Remus sitting there, his arms folded over his knees and his chin resting over them. His eyes looked everywhere but them.
He, calmly, stood up and walked back upstairs.
*
“Where is he? It’s been weeks!” Lily remarked for the second time that week. “Are you at least bringing him food?”
“‘Course I am!” James answered rather offendedly. “Yes, we had a fight. No, I’m not making him starve as a punishment. He’s doing that to himself.”
James leaned down on the back of the chair in the library. He lifted his glasses from his eyes to rub them as he sighed.
“I don’t know what has gotten into him.” He admitted looking at Lily, who was sitting in front of him, after he let his glasses fall back into place.
Lily took a deep breath, her gaze over her books and parchment.
“Remus doesn’t talk to me about what happened.” She started, fidgeting with one of the pages of the book of History of Magic. “I figured it out eventually, I put pieces together and I happened to ask him only after what happened with Severus. I didn’t know. He stopped mentioning Sirius. And being friends with him and everything.”
James listened carefully and nodded along as Lily talked. She had figured out Remus' lycanthropy about the end of September. She asked him only after his fight with Sirius. She remembered how he looked miserable, the corner of his mouth slightly crooked downwards and his eyes a little watery. She couldn’t bear it. She just embraced him and promised that she will never let it slip out with anyone. Just after that Remus talked about the prank.
“With me and Pete he is the same. Even with Sirius in the room. But if Sirius talks, which doesn’t happen anymore, he just walks away. Or ignores him. Or pretend he doesn’t exist.” James explained and Lily looked up at him, raising one of her eyebrows and opening her mouth to talk.
“There is a difference between ignoring and pretending that someone doesn’t exist.” James started to explain and Lily closed her mouth. “If you ignore someone, you still listen to what they say, but you just don’t answer. If you pretend that someone doesn’t exist… Lily, he acts like Sirius never existed. Never played one of the most important parts in his life. They were best mates…”
When James stopped talking, he locked eyes with Lily, a sentence hung heavy between them. A sentence that James didn’t say out loud but that Lily had caught anyway. Lily sighed and looked down, her eyes sad.
“I cannot blame Remus.”
“No, we really can’t.” James leaned forward. “Lily.”
“They were something more than best mates.”
They eventually finished their essays and headed together out of the library to the Common Room. They had to leave their bags in their dorms before going for dinner.
“I never knew that side of you.” Lily said as she moved away from two first years that were running away from Filch.
“What side?” James asked, looking down at her, a small smirk on his face.
“You care about them.”
“They’re my best mates, Lily. They’re literally my second family.” James answered shrugging.
“You just said one of the sweetest things and you didn’t notice.”
“It was just the truth.” He declared as they took the stairs that headed to the portrait of the Gryffindor tower.
Once they were in the Common Room, they noticed as there were very few people there, probably because they were headed to dinner. Sat on the corner of one of the couches, there was Remus, who was reading one of his thick books. Sat beside him there was Peter, who was talking to a few fourth years.
Lily greeted the two of them and went up the stairs of her dorm to leave her bag and go to the Great Hall with the other girls. James smiled at Peter and walked towards his friends. Remus lifted his head from his book, only noticing James now that he was standing right in front of him.
“Prongs,” he greeted, smiling up at him while closing the book with his index finger between the pages he was reading.
“Moony, Wormy,” James repeated, sitting near Peter, placing his bag at his feet.
Peter looked at James for a moment and stood up, sitting closer to the students he was talking to. So that James could talk to Remus. He shot his friends with a knowing look, before turning his head towards the others.
James shifted closer.
“Whatever you’re going to say…” Remus started, without looking at James, his eyes focused on the fire.
James sighed and looked down at his feet.
“Listen. Me and Pete are with you, okay? It was a huge, fucking betrayal Remus.”
James agreed, crossing his arms over his chest. Remus shifted a bit uncomfortably.
“This is getting out of hand.” James whispered, hoping that Remus would look at him. Instead he sighed like he was just wasting his time. James bit down on his lip.
“He is not eating. And you know it. We bring him food, he just takes a few bites. He’s punishing himself. That’s what it looks like. Can you just–”
“No. I– He almost ruined my whole existence. I just can’t let it slide.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“It’s what it looked like.” He snapped, turning to look at James. “I just can’t stand it. All of this happened because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Because he wanted to do– to do what?”
“Try to talk to him.” James said slowly.
“No, fuck you.” Remus retorted. “I don’t care. He did it. He just did it. He doesn’t fucking think. I hate it. Just because he couldn’t stay away from Snape he.. could’ve killed him! James, I’m sorry. I can’t just let it slide. You can. Peter can. You will. I won’t. And I don’t fucking care. I should’ve known from the start.”
“Remus, just, try to– He started having problems with Regulus too.”
“I don’t care. I’m not surprised. He was always afraid of being like his family… What is he doing right now? Was he any different? From his mother?”
James caught Peter gesturing nervously towards them, making him sign to shut up. To stop talking.
“Turns out, he is his family.”
James could only squint his eyes towards Peter as he grabbed fistfully his blonde hair and pulled. Then something near them shattered. James turned around and he wanted to disappear. A few of the students that were still in the Common Room looked over quickly, before shrugging away the noise.
On the ground there was something that was supposed to be a glass of pumpkin juice. The liquid all over the ground. Sirius was standing there. His left hand that was supposed to hold a glass, now empty. In the other he was holding a plate with a slice of some sort of chocolate cake that the elves made once a month after dinner. The one that they ate rarely because all the students in all bloody Hogwarts wanted at least a slice. The one that Remus wasn’t able to eat last month because of the full moon.
His empty, grey eyes were fixated on Remus. Just on him. His ears started ringing as his eyes slowly started to swell. Not because he was sad, no. He was sad, but that wasn’t the reason for that. He was angry. Disappointed. That demonstrated that he’d become the most disgusting thing he had ever seen. His hands were shaking at just the moment they noticed his hand. How it was wet and it was bleeding. Sirius didn’t drop the glass to the ground. It just exploded in his hand after he squeezed it too hard.
Remus’ eyes widened as he realized that he had hurt himself. He tried to stand but Sirius walked over, placed the plate, harder than he wanted to, on the small wooden table with a thud and stormed out. They watched him skim through a few students and pass the portrait disappearing.
Remus gulped, his eyes fell on the plate. Near the slice of cake there was a little note.
“I’m sorry. Please forgive me? - Sirius.”
Remus sighed and fell backwards on the couch, with his arm over his eyes.
That night, at dinner, even Remus was missing. Lily looked over at James and Peter and looked away as they both shook their heads.
*
It was cold, up in the Astronomy tower. The sharp wind kept blowing in his face, making his eyes swell a little bit. He looked down at his bloodied hand for the second time in the last five minutes. The wound on the palm and the small scratches kept burning as he moved it. He could feel his hand starting to go numb. Sirius just sighed and looked back up at the beautiful sky, his eyes moving from star to star.
He took a deep breath when he felt footsteps behind him. “James, I swear to Merlin—“
“I am not James.”
Sirius’ shoulders tensed and then turned around, facing the girl behind him. “Oh. My bad, Lily.” He answered, turning fully towards her, leaning against the railing, trying to hide his injured hand.
Lily moved closer and stopped a few steps away from him. His eyes followed hers downwards.
Stupid, he thought, biting down on his lower lip.
As soon as he got up to the Astronomy tower he got rid of the big piece of glass that got stuck in his hand when he was in the Common Room. He absently threw it on the floor, a few droplets of blood staining the ground.
Lily looked back up at him, her eyebrow raised.
“Sirius.”
“It’s just a scratch.”
“Let me see.”
She passed the piece of glass in the ground and reached for Sirius arm, the one tucked behind his back. He didn’t even protest as she pulled at his wrist.
“Oh.” She started, her voice sweet and her touch fatherlike. Sirius felt like he was going to cry, but he pushed back those sensations.
“Yeah.”
She sighed and slowly brought out her wand. She moved it over his wounds, without letting it touch his hand. He winced in pain. He saw as the blood started to fade away and the skin tried to close. Which it didn’t completely. Lily summoned a white bandage and wrapped it around Sirius’ palm.
“Better?”
“A bit. Thank you.”
Lily moved closer to the railing and looked up in the sky.
“How did you find me?” Sirius asked, looking at Lily. He was standing a few feet behind.
“James told me.”
Of fucking course.
“You made a mistake,” Lily stated. “Remus did too, tonight. You’re, what now? Even?”
Sirius didn’t say a word. He just looked away as she turned to look at him.
“Sirius, get a hold of yourself. You’re sorry. He’s too. He needs time but that doesn’t mean that you have to punish yourself.”
“I am not.”
“That’s what it looks like from the outside.”
Sirius clenched his fists as he looked down, his eyes burning with tears and rage.
“You have to talk to someone, eventually. It’s getting out of hand. It doesn’t have to be me, or right now. But you need to. You’re imploding Sirius. Stop pretending everything is fine when it isn’t.” She whispered, taking a step closer, her hand lifted up and cupped the side of his head. Sirius lifted his eyes and looked up at her.
“Something happened, right? Not just with Remus. Something else.”
It wasn’t a question. She was just stating the truth. Sirius looked down at his hands, flexing the fingers of his injured hand.
“I’m so tired.”
October 1959
It was cold in London, but despite everything, she was standing on the balcony of her bedroom.
“Did I mention how you should not be standing out in the cold?”
Her long hair shifted as she turned around, meeting the cold eyes of her husband. She nodded once, before moving her eyes back to the night sky. She was shivering, not wearing more than her long nightgown.
She could hear her husband’s footsteps move around their shared bedroom behind her. She ignored them, when she felt them closer.
“It took years to conceive a baby. Do not kill him just because you don’t dress properly for the weather.”
“It won’t kill him,” the answer came out rather quickly than the man had expected. Her husband understood immediately how his words stung her.
As he was standing right next to his wife, he threw his coat over her slender shoulders before lighting himself a cigarette. The strong smell made the woman grimace and turn her head away as her hand reached to cup her heavily pregnant belly.
Her cold and slender fingers grasped tightly the silk fabric of her nightgown while closing her eyes.
Boy or girl, this baby was supposed to be a pure blessing.
November arrived even colder than October.
There was a thin layer of snow covering the streets and houses of the city by the 1st. By the 3rd cars were blocked because of said snow. Even if that morning the sun was up in the morning sky - warmer than ever - it couldn’t melt the cold, white and now thick layer of snow that was covering everything.
Her eyes were gazing out of the window of her bedroom, right where she always used to stand. She felt hot. then cold. Then hot again. She was having a fever and she had this consistent urge to vomit. Her eyes burnt as she tried to keep up her usual stoic expression.
She was alone.
Slowly and painfully, everything became darker outside, snowflakes falling down without control. And she happened to find that calming, almost fascinating. She wanted to reach out and touch them and bring them inside. To feel their coldness spread through her palm.
But that could not happen. She was as cold as ice, snow can’t melt on ice. But also because getting out of bed right now wasn’t a good idea.
She was surprised by her own body as she felt a single tear slide down her stoic, candid face. And so was the other woman watching over her. It had been a painful four hours and she never let her emotion take over her. But now, here she was.
She tore her eyes away from the window and looked at the woman in front of her.
“How long?” She asked in her cold voice, even if there was a hint of something else.
“You’re ready, ma’m.”
It was a shame her husband couldn’t make it home in time.
That was her first thought.
It was almost midnight and she never left her bed. She couldn’t. It’s been a few hours since the room started smelling like magic. It always smelled like magic in a house of wizards, but now it was stronger, almost intoxicating.
It smelt like something pure and soft and incredibly sweet. She wasn’t used to such feelings. She didn’t like soft or sweet, she liked strong and sour. That night, Fate seemed to have other plans. Just by bringing weakness into the house, even in her heart. But she would never admit that. Not to anyone, not to herself. Her only duty was to keep up the name of the family, after all.
Attachment was not permitted.
Walburga Black was disappointed.
She was raised to be cold, to not care about people, to only think about her House.
But now, as she laid alone in her bed with her first born on her chest, she was puzzled.
Why was her son making her weak?
Nobody was watching her, nor her son. She hadn’t named him yet. Her husband told her more than one time that he didn’t care. The name just needed to fit with the family names.
She sighed as she slowly moved her hands over her son’s little back, she was thinking about a name. But it felt like no name could ever fit that new life. Like it didn’t belong there.
She was brought back to reality a few moments later by the sudden cry of her baby. And before she knew it, she started sobbing with him. Hot tears streaming down her cold cheeks as she tried to reassure her baby. Alone.
And she couldn’t stop herself even when the boy had calmed down. She felt like she did something wrong, something sinful. Her face turned to the side as she kept crying.
Her son made her look like this. The more she looked at him, the more she loved him. The more he made her feel alive. She was trying to hate him. To, at least, be indifferent. But those blue eyes - soon turning grey - and that tiny, little face all scrunched up, made her want to crawl out of her own skin.
As her eyes met the full moon outside, she knew. She knew she could never hate her son. Her baby. Her first child.
“Beautiful, beautiful boy,” she cried as she smoothened his dark hair away from his face.
As the moon talked to her, her eyes met with one star. It was talking to her just like the moon was. The star was calling her and she recognised it.
The brightest of them all.
November 3rd 1975
Son,
you’re becoming a man, on the paper at least.
Me and your father expect you here for the winter break, and on Christmas.
We arranged dinner with the family.
I'll write to your brother personally.
You must be here.
If you still want a roof over your head.
Present
“You burnt the letter?” Lily asked, tilting her head.
“I did.” Sirius said as turned to look at her. "Received one a few weeks later.”
“And? What did it say?”
“Mother will come here tomorrow.”