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There’s a dent in the ceiling, and it’s smoking. The mattress is ripped open. Thin cracks form a spider web across the windowpane. Pieces of paper drift gently to the floor, some still burning, filling the air with smoke. A letter-opener is embedded hilt-deep in a wall. All over the furniture, much of which is overturned, are strewn clothes and books and ink. The pots and quills lie smashed in front of the door.
“Padfoot, open up!”
Sirius flicks his wand, sending a china figurine rocketing up into the smoking dent. He hates the noise it makes when it shatters.
“I don’t think he heard.”
“Oh, he heard. He’s being his usual pigheaded self.” The door rattles on its hinges beneath a deluge of blows. “Sirius, I will hex a hole right through the wall if you’re not out here in thirty seconds minutes!”
“Don’t hex the wall, James, Merlin’s beard, think what Remus would say.”
“He’ll say a lot more if he comes home to find—whatever this is.” The hammering resumes. “Open the damn door!”
There’s a sigh, clearly audible through the wood. “What time does Remus get back?”
“Probably—let me see your watch, Lily—probably in about two hours if we’re lucky. He usually likes to hang about for a while when he’s in Wales.”
“Someone should fetch him. Peter?”
God, no, Sirius thinks, and blasts a lightbulb to pieces. Several shards land in his hair. If Remus comes home, Sirius will let himself be dragged out, he’s sure of it. He can’t stand the thought.
There’s a moment of silence, broken by a thud as a book teetering on the shelf finally loses its balance and falls to the floor.
“I’ll get him. Where do they keep their Floo powder, do either of you know?”
The green bowl on the mantel. Sirius prays none of them remember.
“It’s in a green bowl on the mantel. Don’t dawdle.”
Sirius drowns out the sound of receding footsteps by setting the desk on fire with loud spurts of flame from his wand. The wood crackles and pops, one forgotten inkpot exploding in the heat.
The door shudders. “You can still save yourself if you come out now,” James calls. “Remus will be here in five minutes and you know what he’s like when he frets.” He pauses, apparently waiting, but doesn’t seem surprised by the lack of reply. “He gets all angry and mopey at the same time, doesn’t he, and doesn’t speak to you for a week. Actually, he doesn’t speak to any of us. So get out here and save us all the trouble.”
“Sirius, please, come on.” Lily’s voice is much softer. “We’re all worried. Can’t you at least tell us what happened?”
Sirius almost melts the doorknob at that one. He settles for gouging out a section of plaster in the wall and exposing the studs. A spider scurries for cover. Telling them what happened would be worse than going home for Christmas. Well, not anymore, he realizes, and feels his throat close up. Now more than ever, going home is the worst thing in the world. He wipes at his eyes and sets the desk chair on fire, too.
When Remus arrives a minute and a half later—Sirius counts in spite of himself—he pounds so heavily on the door that Sirius thinks he’s James. Until he speaks, that is. “Sirius? Are you all right?”
“I don’t think he’s hurt himself,” Lily says. “Just the room.”
“Good.” He doesn’t sound nearly as upset at the possibility of extensive vandalism as Sirius expected. “What did you say happened, Pete? He just got an owl?”
“Yeah, it came in the window and he opened it up at the kitchen table. Then he went all pale and apparated upstairs—”
Sirius shoots a blasting spell at the bed. It hits one leg with a bang and the entire frame lurches sideways. Wood creaks and snaps loudly.
When the noise dies down, there is a short pause. “He’s angry about something,” Peter remarks in a hushed tone. “Have you ever seen him like this before?”
“No,” Remus says, just as quietly, “never. When his uncle died it was bad, you remember, but nothing like this.”
“Maybe it’s something to do with his family this time, too,” Lily suggests.
“He hates his family,” James replies, also in a near whisper. “Except maybe his brother. He never talks about him much. You know, the one who’s into all that Dark stuff—”
They don’t seem to realize that Sirius can still hear everything they’re saying. He reminds them with a yell, dragged out of him by the ache in his chest, and with the colossal ruckus of the still-flaming desk hurtling across the room to slam into the door. The cracks in the window expand.
“Sirius, are you all right? In the name of Merlin, would you say something?”
“I think he just did, Moony.”
“Shut up, James.” His voice moves closer. “I want to talk to you. Please open the door.”
“We tried that,” Lily says after a few moments. “He didn’t say anything to us either.”
It’s too quiet for Sirius to make out, but he knows Remus is sighing. “Could you all go downstairs for a bit?”
“What? Why?”
“I think it might help if it’s just me out here. Maybe less of an audience…” He hesitates. “No offense.”
“None taken.” James claps him on the shoulder. “Good luck, mate.”
When their footsteps have faded away from the squeaky old floorboards, there’s a very soft thump on the door. Sirius imagines Remus leaning his forehead against it. “Something’s happened, obviously. I guess you don’t want to talk about it, but please, please open the door. You’re scaring me.”
Sirius opens his mouth. He’s not sure what he wants to say, only that he’s got to speak or he’ll explode. Remus has that effect on him. Makes him want to be comforted when, logically, there shouldn’t be anything that can make it better.
“I just want to help.”
“I know,” Sirius says at last. He’s raspy and has to work to make himself heard through the door.
There’s a pause, and then Remus says, “You sound awful.”
Sirius points his wand to move the desk away from the door. It slides, grating, in a smoldering heap to its previous spot beneath the window. “You can come in if—if you want.”
He doesn’t know why he adds that; he knows Remus will come in and he sure as hell can’t stand him being outside. It’s some sort of last stand, he supposes, a raging against the dying of his sullen, self-loathing light.
“Of course I want to, you plonker—” Remus stops short when the door opens, staring around at the mess that is their bedroom. With a yelp, he notices the fire and showers water from his wand over the desk and chair, setting them hissing and steaming. The closing of the door behind him finally does the window in. The glass falls to pieces and tinkles out of the frame. Remus ignores it, striding forward to where Sirius sits huddled in the corner. “Are you hurt?” he asks, kneeling carefully among the debris.
Sirius shakes his head. It must be harder to tell than he’d thought. He looks down at himself and sees that he’s covered in ink and water.
“Yes you are,” Remus argues, suddenly seizing his hands. The knuckles are bloody, the skin raw. “What’ve you done?”
“I think I punched a wall.” God, his throat hurts.
“You’ve been shouting up a storm in here, they say.” Remus taps his hands with his wand. “Here.” He conjures a glass of water. “Drink.”
Sirius rubs the new, itching skin on his knuckles and takes the glass. “Thanks,” he croaks.
“Don’t mention it.” Remus sits on the bed and immediately jumps up when it pitches to one side. “Reparo.” He gingerly sits down again.
Into the silence, Sirius says, “How are your parents? You haven’t seen them since Christmas.”
“They’re fine.” Remus sounds cautious. “Dad’s giving an address at the International Conference for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. It’s in Brazil this year.”
“What’s he talking about?”
“Lethifolds. He’s discovered that they’re actually not related to Dementors at all, because of the external…” Remus stops and sighs. “I’ll tell you all about it if you want me to, but what I’d really like—and please don’t hex me—what I’d really like is to talk about whatever’s going on here.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sirius replies.
“I know.”
“Then you can leave well enough alone.” He stabs his wand into the floor, leaving a dark burn.
“Stop that.” Remus takes the wand from him, gently but with a firm grip. Sirius glares, feeling like a child. “Well, you’re acting as if you’re about five years old,” Remus says, a mind-reader like always.
“You would too, if you’d had a day like mine.”
“Pete said you got an owl.”
Again, his throat constricts. He tries to drink the water but almost chokes. “Yeah,” he gets out.
“Who was it from?”
“Andromeda.”
Remus raises his eyebrows. “She hasn’t spoken to you since she ran off with that Tonks fellow, though, right? Years ago.”
“Right.”
“Why now, then?”
It’s so typical of Remus, Sirius thinks, to ask these horrible questions in such a kind way, barely above a whisper. He can almost pretend they weren’t asked.
“Is it family stuff?” Remus prompts.
Sirius nods.
“Is it your mum?”
He shakes his head.
For a moment there’s utter stillness, and Sirius can hear the gears working in Remus’s brain. “Is it your brother?” he asks at long last.
Sirius swallows down some of the water, along with a lump the size of a Quaffle.
“What happened?”
“He’s dead!” Sirius’s voice is halfway to a scream again. It echoes. “He’s dead.”
“I’m sorry.” A hand settles on his shoulder, gives it a squeeze. “So, so sorry.”
“It’s his own bloody fault,” Sirius spits out. “He ought to have known what he was getting into. Running around with all his Death Eater pals, it’s not like it’s out of the question.”
“He was your brother,” Remus says, sounding a bit shocked.
“He was an idiot.” Sirius shoves the hand from his shoulder and springs to his feet, stalking to the empty window. “If he didn’t have the guts to be a monster, why’d he sign up? What a useless git.” He turns around and sees Remus staring at him. “What? He didn’t have an ounce of sense. You can’t just back out of that sort of thing.”
Remus folds his hands in his lap. “How do you know that’s what happened?”
“Andromeda wrote it in the letter. Said he’d been done in by his so-called master when he got cold feet. A week ago, actually. She only just found out.” Sirius leans on the sill. “There’s no body.”
“If there’s anything I can do…” He makes a vague motion with his arms, as if to embrace Sirius, though there’s five feet between them.
“He was always so soft, though,” Sirius plows on. “Whatever our parents said, he did it. He swallowed all that rubbish about wizarding superiority and the new order, always, ever since he was old enough to listen. It made me sick, but he’d just nod and go knit a Slytherin scarf or something.” He picks up a shard of glass and watches the refracting light without seeing it. “He messed up our house elf something awful, too, Andromeda said.”
“Did she say when they’re having the funeral?”
Sirius laughs. “As if they’d hold one for him.”
“I thought—well, I thought your mother loved him.”
“She did, but can you imagine the shame? Her pride and joy just turned tail and ran from all that glory. She’ll be trying to cover it up for years.” He snorts. “Makes being friends with werewolves seem like less of a problem, doesn’t it? Maybe she’ll welcome me back.”
“Please—”
“God, it’s just infuriating! If he’d listened, just once, why couldn’t it have been to something good? It’s that fucking house, it got to him and chewed him up and spit him out, and now he’s—I mean, they’re all going to say it was such a shame, but they’re hypocrites, every one of them! They spend their whole lives spouting that nonsense and then act surprised when it kills them. How? I don’t get it.”
“Me neither,” Remus admits, looking worried. “Sirius, calm—”
But he can’t calm down. The lights—the few that are still intact—are flickering. The curtains are whipping out as if in a high wind, and there’s something hot roiling in his chest. “It’s all so messed up, Remus! He could have done something—could have been something—he was better than me at Transfiguration, d’you know that? And Potions, too, he could make anything. He could have made things different, but he was all alone in that house with our parents, with her, and I left him there!”
A number of things happen at once. The remaining lightbulbs explode, a crack the height of a man splits the wall, and Remus takes hold of Sirius’s hand. Immediately the wind, which has reached the whistling intensity of a small tornado, dies down, the curtains fluttering back to rest against the wall.
Sirius wipes at his face with his free hand. “It’s my fault.”
“It isn’t.”
“I could have made him see sense, I could have helped him…”
“You didn’t know this would happen.”
Sirius shakes his head. “I hate him.”
Remus must know what he means, because he just tightens his grip.
Sirius looks down at their locked hands. He swears, he’s never going to let go.