Chapter Text
Sirius stands on shaky legs as he waits for the train to arrive at the platform. He’s one of the only people at the station, nearly three hours early. He can’t help but feel self-conscious as he watches distinguished wizards amble around him, feeling their eyes on him. Sirius is certain that he looks a wreck, but he can’t do anything about it. He’s spent the last month basically on the run, switching between sleeping in the woods as Padfoot and travelling closer and closer to King’s Cross on foot. He hasn’t showered in weeks, only managing to wash himself in dog form when a group of sweet kids snuck up on him and decided they wanted a puppy.
It was the best three days of Sirius’s life, he thinks pathetically, as the kids kept him well-fed and loved in their large backyard. It all came to an end when their father came home from his business trip and convinced the kids to let him go, promising them a “real” puppy rather than a “mangy street mut.” Sirius left with his tail literally between his legs, but he couldn’t blame their father. Sirius wasn’t deserving of this comfortable life with this happy family, even at the cost of living the rest of his life as a dog.
After the family let him go, Sirius finally found both the nerve and a reason to transform back into human form, and all of the emotions he had been unable to feel came flooding back. He spent nearly two whole days curled up in a ball, sobbing brokenly as he mourned his life with his family, his life with this new family, both of which he had lost because he was too much of a disappointment.
He picked himself up after that, continuing his travels toward King’s Cross. Sirius wished he could just apparate there, but he was still sixteen, not to mention the walk was doing wonders for him. Sirius had certainly lost weight with his journey, though he didn’t feel or see much of a difference. Now, standing on the platform waiting for the train to arrive, Sirius realizes that he hasn’t seen his own reflection in weeks, maybe even months. His mother’s taunting tone rings in his ears, and when he shakes his head to dispel it, black spots fuzz over his vision.
Walking slowly, Sirius makes his way toward the row of toilets that borders one wall of the station. He locks himself inside of one, turning to look at himself.
What he sees shocks him.
Sirius’s hair is a bird’s nest, nearly rivalling James’s bedhead. It sticks up in all directions, long and knotted, and when Sirius tugs a hand through the knots a whole clump comes loose. He holds his breath as he frantically finger-combs his hair, getting it to lay flat on top with only some remainder of frizz at the ends. His hands are filled with clumps of dead hair, wrapping around his fingers like snakes. Sirius knows he can tidy it up once he’s on the train and can use magic again, but this is already a huge improvement. He thanks Merlin or the universe for his thick hair, relatively satisfied with its position near his shoulders.
With his hair fixed, Sirius is able to focus on the rest of his appearance. His eyes appear sunken in, dark circles underlining them. There’s nothing he can do about those, so Sirius takes a deep breath and lets his eyes roam down. His face is pale and colorless, so Sirius pinches his cheeks a bit to bring some color to them, cringing as he feels how chubby they still feel beneath his fingertips. He skims over his chin and neck, looking down at his clothes. Sirius nearly cries as he sees his arms and torso in the mirror, the two parts of his body looking so at odds with each other that he wouldn’t have been surprised if they were from two different people. His arms are stick-like and knobbly, his skin a bit grimy as his bones press against it. His stomach, however, is the exact opposite. Despite his lack of food and shelter the past month, Sirius’s stomach sits heavy and bloated, pressing against his thin and worn shirt. He pokes and prods at it, his knobbly fingers sinking in easily. Logically, he knows he can’t have put on weight, but why does it look like he has?
Sirius cannot wait to put on his school robes. When his parents kicked him out, he managed to summon his school trunk and shrink it down so it could fit in his pocket. He ended up looping a thick piece of rope around it so he could wear it like a collar when he was Padfoot, and now that he’s back at the platform, Sirius decides that he can risk one quick spell to bring it back to size.
He mumbles the spell under his breath, hoping that his wandless magic will still work, as his wand is trapped in the small trunk. It takes a few tries, but the trunk finally grows, and Sirius nearly sobs with relief. He digs through it immediately, putting on his robes with his back to the smudged mirror and shoving his well-worn clothes deep into the corner of the trunk. Part of him wants to throw them away, but they’re his only clothes other than his robes. Sirius laughs to himself--the Black heir, living out of one measly trunk with only the clothes on his damn back.
Risking a glance at himself, Sirius sighs contentedly when he sees that his robes drape over his frame well enough to hide the majority of his body. He hasn’t grown since the last time he bought robes, thankfully, so his legs are hidden down to his ankles. The sleeves fall a bit over his wrists, but they slide down when Sirius reaches up to mess with his hair again, and Sirius makes a mental note to transfigure himself a tight long-sleeved shirt to wear beneath it when he can actually do magic again.
Sirius takes a deep breath and opens the door, dragging himself and his trunk behind him as he makes his way back toward the platform. It will all be better when he gets to Hogwarts, he thinks to himself. Just get back to Hogwarts.
---
When Remus boards the train back to school for their sixth year, Sirius nearly has a heart attack. He was a bit taller than Sirius before they left for the summer, but now he’s got nearly half a foot on Sirius. His shoulders are broad and wide, tapering perfectly into his narrow waist and strong hips.
Sirius’s breath catches when Remus reaches up to put his trunk above their heads, his biceps flexing and his shirt riding up just a bit to reveal a faint, nearly blond happy trail. Sirius marvels silently while James teases Remus for not using magic, and Remus chuckles in his brand new, deep voice as he reminds James that not everyone comes from a household of first-nature magic.
Remus takes Sirius’s silent staring as offense, as he stops discussing the Muggle world, and Sirius feels his chest cave in. Remus must think he’s just like his family. Just another Muggle-hating, snobby pureblood. The thought makes bile rise in his throat, but Sirius swallows it down, cringing as he tastes acid.
Sirius realizes that all three of the other boys are still in their street clothes, a strange mix of Remus’s casual Muggle fashion and James and Peter’s high society brand clothes. Sirius is the only one in his robes, and Peter teases him as he notices.
“Damn, Sirius, never thought you’d be so keen to start studying that you’d be the first in your robes,” Peter jokes. James cackles like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard, and Remus even giggles a bit. Sirius used to be the one to make the other boys laugh, not Peter.
A spike of jealousy rushes through Sirius, and he retorts hotly, “If anything you should be the one worried about studying, Wormy. Fifth to last in our class, right?”
Peter’s face falls as Sirius’s words sink in, and the other boys fall silent.
“Fucking harsh, Sirius,” Remus grits out angrily, Sirius’s full first name falling from his lips like a curse.
Sirius flinches back slightly at the use of his given name. One conversation in, and Sirius has already fucked up.
“S-sorry, just… just stressed for this year. Sorry, Pete,” Sirius apologizes to Remus first, then Peter.
“Whatever,” Peter mumbles, and Sirius wishes he could just start over. Remus doesn’t even respond. He’s already driven away his own family, but apparently that wasn’t enough. Apparently he has to drive away his friends, too.
Sirius takes a deep breath around the lump in his throat, clenching his fists subtly and biting his lip. He doesn’t speak for the rest of the train ride, feigning sleep when the sweets cart rolls by and ignoring the defeated clenching of his stomach and heart as he listens to his friends enjoy themselves.
---
By the time Sirius “wakes up” from his nap on the train, the rest of the boys are dressed and back to speculating about the upcoming year. Sirius pretends to startle awake when Peter lets out an uncharacteristically loud bark of laughter at one of Remus’s quiet, witty quips.
“Look who’s up,” James teases as Sirius sits up, biting his lip to hold back a wince as the movement pulls at a still-healing bruise on his torso.
Remus and Peter turn to face him, Peter flushing as he realizes that his noisiness supposedly woke up his friend. “Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty,” Remus says with a hint of a smile on his lips, and just like that, they’re back to normal.
Something hesitant and warm begins to unfurl in Sirius’s stomach at the triplet smiles on his friends’ faces.
“Couldn’t exactly sleep through the whole of Sixth Year, could I?” Sirius asks lightheartedly in return.
“That’s Moony’s job,” James responds.
As Remus flushes, Sirius marvels at the truth in James’s statement. Remus takes more naps than the other Marauders combined, managing to fall asleep in the strangest places at the oddest of times. Sirius doesn’t have time to inspect the weird sensation in his chest when he looks at Remus for too long, as James moves quickly back to the conversation they were having, then diverts to rambling on about Quidditch practices, before hopping back to his summer vacation, then landing on Lily’s hair. It had been happening a lot more in the past year or so, and Sirius can only imagine that it’s the remnants of his anxiety spiking.
“You slept through the sweets cart, Pads!” James exclaims, realization dawning on his face. He rummages around for any leftover sweets in his stack, but all that’s left are licorice wands, which Sirius despises with a passion. “Shit, Moony, give Padfoot a chocolate frog,” James demands.
Sirius opens his mouth to object, but Remus rolls his eyes and sweeps the rest of his sweets into his trunk. “Fuck off, Prongs, you know I don’t share food,” he says teasingly, but the boys know he’s telling the truth. Remus never shares his food, hasn’t from the start of Hogwarts, and this little quirk that used to irk Sirius to no end now acts as his saving grace.
“Don’t worry about it, Moons, I’d never ask to steal from your precious stash,” Sirius jokes, winking at Remus.
Remus blushes and shakes his head, and James reaches over to tousle his unruly curls. “Stingy,” James quips, and the boys all laugh.
Sirius forces himself to play along, to tease James and nudge at Peter and share glances with Remus, but he can’t shake the feeling of otherness that has settled over him. He watches himself from deep inside his body, feeling like there are layers and layers of rock between him and his friends, miles separating him from his own flapping hands and twitching leg.
Sitting shoulder to shoulder with James in the Great Hall, the feeling only increases. The pressure of his best friend’s body against his helps a bit, bringing him a bit closer to the surface for the Sorting and some of Dumbledore’s welcome speech. Still, as soon as the food arrives on the table, it dissipates.
Tons and tons of food rest in front of him, more than Sirius has seen since… Well, since last year. Even at… even there, he didn’t have access to food like this. After a week or so of denying the needlessly fancy food his family served at the dinner table, he received his meals on a singular plate from Kreacher--if he got them at all--and they were bland and meager. At the end, when they started feeding him again, it all tasted like ash.
The roast sits tauntingly in front of him, rolls of bread and little cups of butter scattered about like oversized sprinkles on a giant’s cake. It’s all just too much.
“Pads?” Remus asks from across from him, startling him out of his staring match with the roast. His voice sounds like it’s coming through water.
“Yeah, Moons?” Sirius asks in what he wished was a casual tone, though it sounds shaky even to his own distant ears.
“Good?” He asks shortly, raising an eyebrow that pulls at one of the scars lining his soft features.
Sirius nods, picking up a roll on impulse. “Just tired,” he says after a moment, smiling brightly at Remus to keep him from asking questions.
Remus nods and starts in on his own meal, falling into that single-minded focus that he sometimes gets when he eats. Sirius watches absently as he piles potatoes, greens, rolls, and a number of other dishes onto his plate. It makes Sirius feel nauseous seeing all of that food in one place, squeezed onto one plate. He reminds himself that Remus needs it, that he’s got werewolf metabolism, that he’s taller and skinnier and more muscular than Sirius. He can do that, he should do that.
Watching his friends out of the corner of his eye, Sirius hesitantly scoops a bit of each dish onto his plate with shaking hands. His wrist still smarts a bit when he puts too much weight in his hand, so he uses that as a gauge for how much he should scoop from each bowl.
Then, Sirius starts to eat. As much as he hates his weakness, it’s been days since his last meal and the food just looks so good . The rich delicacies taste so good it makes his mouth water, yet he finds himself having to stop after a few bites. His stomach roils uncomfortably at the thought of putting anything else into it, and he has to take a series of deep breaths to keep from spewing it all back up right onto the table.
James freezes next to him and Sirius is distracted from his own spiral as he watches his best mate forge through his own.
“Jamie, what--” Sirius starts, following James’s gaze before cutting himself off. Lily .
“Shit, shit, Pads, what do I do?” James asks, turning fully to face Sirius so quickly that it nearly knocks them both onto the floor.
“Slow down, Prongs, do about what?” Sirius asks slowly. He searches his mind to think of what event could have caused James to panic about Lily already, but he can’t think of any.
“The Five Year Plan!” James bursts out, and Sirius can hear Remus snort from across the table. “Shut up, Moony, this is serious! Fuck, Sirius, you know what I mean. Shit, we only have one year left!”
Sirius can’t help but smile when he remembers the Five Year Plan. When they were Second Years, James’s little advances evolved into an actual crush on Lily. She started off as a little schoolboy crush--though not even the other marauders could understand his fascination with the stick-in-the-mud, poor, bookish girl--but it quickly turned out to be far more encompassing than he predicted. So, over the Christmas hols of their Second Year, James forged the Five Year Plan. It was a step by step, year by year plan to get on Lily’s good side and, in his words, “achieve the unachievable”: convince Lily to go on a date with him.
It was Peter’s idea to set the time limit to five years rather than six, though they would all be in school for a whole other year whether or not James failed the plan. In his mind, either James and Lily got a year at Hogwarts in honeymoon bliss and James could show off his success to the rest of the year, or he could spend the year meeting the girl he would actually focus his energy on as an adult.
Really, it was smarter than any suggestion Remus or Sirius made, and James agreed to it begrudgingly. Sirius knows that James finds the latter so unlikely it’s basically out of the picture for him, but he’s glad that there is a back-up plan for when James gets his heart officially broken.
“You don’t have to do anything now, Prongs, you can give the bird a day off,” Sirius says logically. James immediately brushes him off, as Sirius knew he would, and turns to Peter and Remus for “actual advice.” All the better for Sirius.
With his friend’s frantic eyes off of him, Sirius sets about merging all of the food on his plate into a seemingly eaten pile of mush.
By the time dinner has ended and James has come up with a plan to talk to Lily after Quidditch practice the next morning, Sirius has successfully made his meal mimic something half-eaten and thoroughly enjoyed.
Not to mention downed at least three goblets of water to quell that damned anxious swooping sensation in his stomach.