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As Sirius thought back in time, he knew that it was never about how he looked. It certainly didn’t help that Walburga was on constant diets and commenting on other people’s bodies was a hobby to her. Even fifteen years later Sirius could remember how after the parties she would pour herself a glass of expensive alcohol and go over the weight gains and losses of different relatives and friends.
“Bellatrix ought to watch what she eats if she wants to get a good husband”, she would scoff at Sirius, who was just ten and mourning the fact that his mother’s disapproving stares had stopped him from eating more cake. “She probably already weighs more than her mother. At her age I could easily fit into my confirmation dress.”
When she was pleasantly drunk, she would sometimes stroke Sirius gently on the cheek and call him her beautiful and lovely child, who knew how to behave himself in public. “There’s nothing more horrifying than people without self discipline. They think they can hide it with flashy clothes and bright smiles but uncontrollable flesh will always give it away.”
I
Sirius is fifteen and has given up managing his behavior. The once careful strokes are replaced with harsh words and he is now an insolent brat, arrogant and shameful boy. “What happened to my first born?” Walburga demands. Sirius wipes away the tears in his eyes and spits out: “He grew up to not believe all this bullshit.”
His mother’s eyes flash with venom. “You should learn to keep your mouth shut for once. Go to your room, you’re not eating anything tonight.”
Sirius doesn’t mind being sent to bed without dinner, because sitting at the table with his parents is a greater punishment. Either it is too quiet, the knives scraping against porcelain, or things escalate to a fight. Sirius is always letting his tongue slide, giving snappy comebacks. You will not speak to your mother like that. Leave this table if you can’t behave . He is happy to get out of the dining room where he is always under the steel cold eyes of his father - Regulus will bring him something to eat later anyway.
It is summer before sixth year when he stops showing up altogether. It becomes his last resort of gaining back the ownership of his body - his mother can trap him in the house and make herself an ugly nest in his head, but she can’t force him to eat.
The lack of food makes his life somehow a little softer. There is a constant fuzz around the once sharp edges. His emotions, usually volatile, are suddenly flat. It is like he has lost the ability to care and in a house where being passionate about things means getting yelled at, not caring feels like freedom. Sirius is safely floating above everything that happens around him and to him.
Hunger makes him also nauseous but Sirius does not budge. His methods of warfare force him to spend a lot of time in bed, trying to conserve the little energy he has. He is kept alive by his younger brother, who will sneak back upstairs whatever he can nick from the kitchen.
“You have to stop this”, Regulus pleads as he watches Sirius eat painfully slowly. “I don’t understand why you are doing this - do you want to die? There are quicker ways for that.”
“It is just a game, Reggie.”
“It’s not worth destroying yourself.”
And Sirius laughs because his brother is being so dramatic; like two months of eating less than usual would do any harm. Soon he will be back at school and gain back all the weight he lost. It is not a big deal.
“Could you just try to get along with them?” Regulus tries. “For one meal. Just sit down, don’t talk back, eat and go away. None of this would happen if you stopped running your mouth.”
“I’m the one who should shut up? I am sick and tired of hearing them talk about other people like they’re beneath them. Those are my friends they’re talking about - immigrants, working class people, queers. I can’t just let them get away with it.”
“You’re riling them up on purpose!”
Regulus can’t understand, he is a good child, the one that is easy to mold however their parents want. Sirius, on the other hand, has broken loose like a wildfire. Even if he would stay quiet, his mother would punish him for existing. Their fights haven’t been about things Sirius says for a long time; they are about the way he dresses, how he refuses to cut his hair, the people in his life. It is who he is that they hate so much.
Sirius still has a half eaten bread in his hand but instead of finishing it, he throws it right in the middle of Regulus’s forehead.
“Stop trying to help”, Sirius says coldly as he lies back down. “I don’t want anything from people like you.”
When Sirius feels like he can’t keep himself safe in that house anymore, he runs to his best friend. James’s parents take him in, give him clean clothes and warm hugs and a huge bowl of leftover soup from the night before. Sirius can not eat it.
He quickly learns that nearly anything can be explained by going through a recent trauma. His nightmares? James will gladly sleep in the same bed. Sudden physical pain? His body is reacting to everything that has happened. Depression? Expected. Loss of appetite? He doesn’t have to finish anything on the plate, of course he can go back to bed if he is feeling unwell.
Everyone is being endlessly kind and patient and handling him with such care that Sirius wants to scream and break things. Being out of that house has changed nothing and he still has no control over the things that happen to him. He feels like chaos amidst Potters’ beautiful house, big garden and rooms that bathe in the morning sun. Something unpredictable and dangerous that has the potential to destroy the lives of these lovely people, who just want to make sure Sirius is alright . How could he even begin to explain how not-alright he feels without sounding utterly ungrateful? They are the only reason Sirius is even alive, how could he tell them that he wakes up wishing that he would have thrown himself in the Thames instead of coming there?
Back in school Sirius doesn’t gain the weight back but keeps losing more of it. He can’t explain why eating doesn’t feel safe anymore, why he still holds onto desperate attempts to find peace in starving himself. Hunger has lost its earlier magic - instead of being a little high all the time, Sirius feels drained and anxious. His hands have started shaking.
“It is because you’re not eating enough”, Remus says to him when Sirius is upset about receiving his worst marks in math. “It’s hard to concentrate if you don’t have enough energy.”
“That’s not fucking it!” Sirius snaps and regrets it the second he sees the hurt look on Remus’s face. He is like that all the time - his temper has always been short but now he keeps getting into fights with his friends and classmates constantly. Like he is still carrying Grimmauld Place around in his chest, making sure that nobody is at ease around him. Taking the frustration out on other people feels good for a second but it leaves Sirius with horrible emptiness and thoughts that he is just like his mother after all.
“Sorry Moony.”
“It’s fine”, Remus says. Just like the Potters, he too is endlessly patient and puts up with Sirius too much. His gentle nature is something Sirius has always admired and during their fifth year his feelings towards Remus shifted to something less friendly and more like a crush. He would stare at Remus’s messy hair and wish that he could sink his hands into it.
If he doesn’t stop being so angry all the time, Remus will get tired of him and leave. His mother’s voice is ringing inside his head: you should learn to keep your mouth shut . She is wrong in so many things, but Sirius fears that this is not one of them.
His marks improve once he starts putting in some extra effort and he is relieved because it wasn’t about eating after all. He can keep skipping meals and be the top student. Maybe other people have to get calories and nutrients to thrive, but Sirius is different. He can drink five cups of coffee a day and write stellar essays.
It is exhilarating, to be above such a mundane thing as food. Everybody has been telling him that he is extraordinary - he has heard it countless times from his parents, tutors and teachers. Sirius has grown up believing that the rules that apply to everyone else don’t really apply to him - he can get away with things others can’t because he is exceptionally smart and charming and able to talk himself out of any situation. Things that would be considered arrogance for somebody else are only well earned confidence for him because he is Sirius Black.
He can do it all: get good grades, keep his friends, maybe get a boyfriend one day when he has time to date. There is nothing that isn’t possible for him through raw talent and sheer stubbornness. He doesn’t need food for any of it. He has control.
Guess I learned to keep my mouth shut after all.
From time to time something in Sirius snaps and suddenly he wants to wolf down food until it makes him sick. The need usually manifests during late nights when he has too much time to obsess over things that happened at Grimmauld Place, of Regulus, who isn’t talking to him anymore, of his need to push Remus against the wall and eat his neck. His mind keeps racing and he feels a rare surge of hunger, which forces him to reach out for the small box he keeps safely under his bed. It is full of sweet things he bought from the village or sometimes receives from his friends and Potters, valiant efforts to make him feel better about the disaster of his life. And it makes him feel better, for a while at least. In the safe darkness of night he goes through custard cakes and candy bars and tells himself that it will be alright, he will just not eat the next day to make up for it.
Fifteen minutes later Sirius is on his knees in front of the toilet, throwing up everything he has eaten and in his mind he screams: look at me now, mother! Look at where your words and your ever so watchful eyes have taken me! Are you happy, are you finally proud that your son has learned to be a master of his own flesh?
II
Sirius is twenty two and things have never gotten quite bad enough to be considered a real problem or something that needs to be treated. He is still stuck in a constant cycle of starving and binging and throwing up and promising to himself that he will get it under control tomorrow. But he is also finishing his studies at university, working a part time job and babysitting for James and Lily - life has gone forward even if part of Sirius is still stuck inside the walls of his childhood home.
Lots of times he asks himself what keeps him from moving on. It has been six years since he left, which should be enough time to forget. But Sirius keeps remembering things that freeze the air in his lungs. They’re sharp things, loud voices.
“I don’t know why I am this messed up”, he tells Remus one horrible night when he can’t get his mother’s words out of his head. Ungrateful and selfish. You’ve ruined the life of this family . “They never even hit me, I should be happy about that.”
“You don’t need to be thankful that your parents didn’t hit you”, Remus says. He sounds upset and it makes Sirius feel worse because now he is ruining his life too. You can’t do anything right.
Sirius has tried to shield his friends from the ugliest parts of himself. He tries to not comment on the amounts of food like his mother did. He doesn’t want to drag anyone else down in the same hole with him. It is not working very well because they all know, it is a public secret amongst his friends. Sirius remains tight lipped about it regardless, it is not something he is willing to discuss with other people.
He lives with Remus who loves him and knows about his quirks and difficulties with food. They rarely talk about it but he does a good job keeping Sirius from drowning and sometimes he asks things like should I be worried?
“It’s fine, I am just having a bad day”, Sirius reassures him. He has had many bad days in a row, that kind when he can’t stand the sight of food without getting into an anxious spiral.
“I ate in the afternoon and kept it all down”, he promises. Sometimes it is true, sometimes he blatantly lies.
“You know I love you and you can be honest with me”, Remus tells back, keeping his arm around Sirius’s shoulders, keeping him safe and grounded. “And if you ever feel like talking to someone -”
“I will tell you if it gets too overwhelming”, Sirius says, hoping that Remus will drop it. He will not go to talk to someone just to hear that there’s nothing that can be done. He won’t match any criteria, he is not emancipated enough, his behavior does not fit to any neat patterns. He is not sick and that’s for the better because it would mean putting his life on a halt to recover and Sirius is not willing to do that. He wants to complete his courses and go to work and keep seeing his godson - it is bad enough that Lily and James have been fighting over if it’s safe to leave him alone with Harry.
“She is afraid that you will fall unconscious or get a seizure or something”, James tells him later. He doesn’t keep things from Sirius, but this time Sirius hopes that he would. “I told her that nothing like that has ever happened. I know that you wouldn’t put Harry’s life in danger like that - if you knew that there’s even a chance that you’re not well enough.”
Sirius shifts uncomfortably in his seat because it has been only a couple weeks since he fainted in their living room and woke up to Remus frantically shaking him. He avoided getting dragged to ER only by swearing that he would start eating breakfast again. He also made Remus promise that he wouldn’t tell anybody about it.
When Sirius comes home that night he blames Remus for breaking his promises because why else would Lily start doubting him like that? And Remus says that he didn’t tell Lily anything but frankly he agrees with her and that makes Sirius even angrier.
“I have never put him in danger!” he shouts. “I don’t understand where she got the idea all of the sudden!”
“She can probably tell it by just looking at you”, Remus bites back. They’re both tired and nearing tears but this fight has been coming for a long time. “You fucking wobble when you stand up, it’s a miracle it has happened only once. Or have there been other times that you just haven’t told me?”
“Why can’t you just fucking trust me!”
“I want to, I really want to trust you. But it’s just - it says everywhere that lying is part of this because -”
Remus breaks down and starts to sob. It knocks out the fight from Sirius and suddenly he notices how exhausted he is. He decides to ignore that Remus has just basically told him that he doesn’t trust anything Sirius tells him. They can keep fighting about it some other time.
He gathers Remus into his arms and he clings onto Sirius like he’s afraid that he is going to vanish.
“I really didn’t tell anything to Lily but sometimes I wish I could”, Remus says. “I know that you don’t want people to know but it’s really hard not being able to talk about it to anyone. Sometimes I am so afraid that this will end up killing you.”
“Don’t be a fool, Moony”, Sirius says softly. He is crying now also, petting the soft hair of his boyfriend and thinking idly that he would have some really nice curls if he would use proper shampoo once in his life. “I am not dying.”
“Your body can take only so much. At some point it will start collapsing if you don’t take care of yourself. I don’t know how long I can just watch you destroy yourself.”
Sirius thinks Remus is being too dramatic because what does it matter if he skips a meal here and there? He still eats, albeit irregularly and maybe less than people around him. It’s not like it was back in the school when he straight up refused and went days without a single bite of food. He doesn’t even keep a box under his bed anymore. Sometimes he has a piece of cake without excusing himself to the bathroom.
The next morning they eat breakfast together - Sirius ignores the alarm bells going off in his head and does his best to enjoy spending time with his boyfriend. Remus looks at him with fondness, like Sirius is doing some big gesture. In a way everything would be so much easier if Remus didn’t love him so much; the adoration in his eyes is the only thing that prevents Sirius from giving up all his self-preservation. Eating is too complicated and he is tired of navigating it, but he doesn’t want to make Remus sad.
While they’re on their second cups of coffee, Remus gets out the expensive chocolate that Sirius had bought him as a birthday gift. He opens it up, breaking pieces for them both. It should be saved for special occasions, Sirius thinks, weighing the treat on his hand. It should be all for Remus.
Remus sees him questioning and gives Sirius a kiss on the cheek.
“Eat. It’ll help.”
“With what?”
“Everything.”
III
Sirius is twenty five when Regulus comes back to his life. It has been almost ten years since they last talked and he has given up the hope of ever seeing his little brother again. What reason would Regulus have to contact him? Their last discussion was about how difficult Sirius is, how much better everything would be without him. He imagines how peaceful Grimmauld Place must have been after they got rid of the root of the problem; the horribly unfit eldest child, the uncontrollable one.
He imagines nice family dinners and pleasant discussion, his mother being gentle with Regulus, who always was the better one. For Sirius there is no Grimmauld Place without shouting and constant feeling of doom. Rationally he knows that there must be good memories too - it is not possible to live somewhere for sixteen years without laughing at least once. But they’re all buried deep underneath harshness and hostility.
Regulus is probably happy that he left and that’s a thought that haunts Sirius.
So when Regulus shows up to their front door, Sirius’s first instinct is that he has finally lost his mind. Maybe he is hallucinating or seeing the ghost of his brother, suddenly a grown man instead of scrawny teenager. His hair is a little longer now - not as long as Sirius’s - and he has finally grown into his features. He looks good, healthy.
Sirius is painfully aware that he can’t say the same about himself. He feels Regulus’s gaze flicker over him quickly before he catches himself and pretends that he wasn’t looking. For a short while Sirius wants to slam the door closed and leave Regulus standing there, to go on with his life pretending that it ever happened. But he doesn’t do that - instead he steps out of the way to let Regulus inside his home. Neither of them has said a word and as Sirius watches how Regulus takes his shoes off, he wonders if his voice is much lower than it was at fourteen.
“Do you want tea?” Sirius finally asks.
“That would be nice”, Regulus answers. The voice is deep - not a child anymore. Sirius has to accept that he is real because his imagination is not capable of conjuring an adult version of Regulus. In his mind he has stayed little all this time.
Sirius makes them tea and they sit at the table facing each other. Before the doorbell rang, Sirius had been standing in the kitchen trying to argue with himself whether he should eat the lunch Remus had left him or throw it away. Now he doesn’t have to make a choice - he can justify himself with the sudden appearance of Regulus, it is totally reasonable that he forgot.
“How did you find me?” Sirius wants to know. He really hopes that the location of their flat is not common knowledge amongst Blacks. He has no reason to believe that his parents would want anything to do with him, but he doesn’t want them to know where he lives. He has been constantly thinking if it was a good choice to stay in London but in the end he and Remus both decided that they wouldn’t leave their lives and friends behind because of Sirius’s parents. After all, he had already run away from them once.
“I tracked down Andromeda”, Regulus tells him. “She was very suspicious of me but I promised her that I have no ill intentions. She has a very nice child”, he laughs a little. “I figured that you two might have been keeping in touch, the family runaways and all.”
Sirius flinches a little at the casual tone Regulus uses. “I assume you had a good reason if you went through so much trouble to find me.”
“Father is dead”, Regulus says. It moves nothing in Sirius - for him his father has been dead for a long time. So has his mother and to some extent Regulus also. He doesn’t know what he should make of this new knowledge since he has been disowned and won’t be awaiting an invitation to the funeral.
“So you’re the head of the house now”, Sirius says. “Congratulations.”
“That should’ve been you.”
“Are you trying to get me back? Because if that’s what this is all about, you can go to hell.”
Regulus shakes his head. “Would you believe it if I told you that I missed you? That I have spent many years regretting that I never tried to reach out to you? I am here because I want my brother back and I want to tell you that I understand better now why you left.”
Sirius has to close his eyes and take some deep breaths because he doesn’t want to cry. Never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined hearing those words from Regulus.
“I believe you”, he says quietly. “I am sorry that I didn’t try to contact you either. I thought you hated me.”
“I never hated you”, Regulus says. “But it took me a long time to figure out that you were not the problem. I blamed you and I want to apologize for that.”
“It’s all forgiven.”
The smile on Regulus’s face is the first proper one Sirius remembers seeing for a long time. Even as a child he was quite solemn, rarely letting his emotions show. Polar opposite to Sirius who never learned how to conceal his feelings.
“Do you live alone?” Regulus asks even though he must have figured out the answer by now. There are touches of Remus everywhere, pictures and love notes on the walls.
“I live with Remus”, Sirius says softly. “Remus Lupin, if you remember him. He is my boyfriend.”
“I remember Remus. I can’t say I’m surprised. You two were sickening during your last year.”
Remus is at work, teaching English and history at a local high school. He should be home soon enough and Sirius thinks that he should maybe text him to let him know that they have a visitor. He has no idea how Remus is going to react to Regulus - they have never talked to each other and Remus knows Regulus only through the things Sirius has told which have sometimes been quite harsh. But Remus also knows that Sirius has missed his brother and has always said that if he decides to reach out, he will support that choice.
“How are you doing, Sirius?” Regulus asks.
“I’m good. I had my masters in social work and did that for a while. I am in between jobs right now but thank god for Alphard’s trust fund.”
He doesn’t mention that he was let go after the trial period because his supervisor didn’t think he was well enough to work with children. She had been sincerely apologetic about it, promising Sirius that they would absolutely welcome him back once he was in better condition . Thinking about the whole ordeal fills him with hot shame, Remus and James are the only people who even know about it. To everyone else Sirius came up with different excuses for not staying in the job he had really liked. They probably know the truth but pity him enough to not blow his cover.
Regulus looks at him like he would like to ask something but in the end decides against it.
It hasn’t been easy to admit that he has a problem but even harder is to grapple with the fact that this isn’t the way Sirius really wants to live. For years he has convinced himself that he can get away with it because he is playing with a different set of rules. Remus was right; it really has started to catch up on him. He is tired, it is bone deep exhaustion that has nothing to do with the amount of food he eats or doesn’t eat.
He has started making some changes. One of them is the rule that Sirius has to eat something every day, he can’t reason himself out of that anymore. Remus knows about the new rule and is happy about it, he actually cried a little when Sirius told him that it was something he wanted to try.
“I am so proud of you. You can’t even imagine how happy this makes me.”
It feels good and at the same time Sirius knows that it’s not something a person at their age should be happy about. No adult should be worrying if their partner eats, a thing that most people learn to do independently when they are children. To his credit, Remus is not monitoring him, but he keeps leaving Sirius meals because he wants to make it easier for him. It’s very sweet and it also makes Sirius angry with himself; he’s so fucked up that his boyfriend is forced to babysit him because he finds food scary and confusing.
Some messed up part of Sirius’s brain is convinced that him being sick is the only reason Remus stays with him - he is not a monster, he would never leave a person who might starve himself to death if he’s left alone. So what happens if he stops being sick and Remus realizes that he has been trapped into a relationship out of need to be a savior? If Sirius thinks about it too much, he throws up without even trying.
The biggest change is that Sirius talks about it now. The worst part is keeping all the secrets from the people he loves. It has caused endless fights over the years, so much shame and guilt for Sirius and so much worry for everybody around him.
“We can never know what is going on with you”, James has said to him, one of the rare times his patience ran out. “You saying that everything is alright has lost its meaning. I just want to be able to trust you again, Padfoot.”
Being trustworthy is something Sirius has always pride himself on and losing that with James of all the people made him really step back and consider the way he is always lying to everybody. He doesn’t even dare to think about all the horrible things he has done while trying to cover up the depth of the mess he has gotten himself into.
Regulus coming back is a reminder that he could have a second chance. If he doesn’t do things differently, his brother will be just one more person he lets down. That thought stops Sirius from sleeping the first night Regulus stays on their couch. He is restless, rolling around and waking up to the slightest sounds every thirty minutes. Remus tries to calm him down by taking Sirius into his arms but it’s one of the nights he feels too hot and tight in his skin and crawls away because he can’t stand somebody else’s body against his own.
It’s half past four in the morning when Sirius notices that Remus is not in the bed with him anymore. It happens sometimes that he sleeps in the living room when Sirius is being too fidgety but now Regulus is there so Remus has no place to sleep - he stumbles out of bed, he needs to find Remus, has to tell him that it’s fine, he doesn’t want to sleep anymore, Remus can take the bed. But when he gets to the closed door of their bedroom, he hears two voices talking in the living room: Remus and Regulus are both awake.
Sirius stays silently eavesdropping on what his boyfriend and his brother are talking about. It reminds him of the times he would hear his mother talk about him downstairs even when he wasn’t there. Her voice was loud enough to pierce through the wooden floor that Sirius lay on, she wasn’t even trying to hide her anger. Maybe she wanted him to hear.
“He still has an eating disorder, doesn’t he?” he hears Regulus ask. Sirius closes his eyes and forces himself to remain calm. Regulus is not stupid nor unobservant, that clearly hasn’t changed since their childhood. Of course he would be asking about it.
What hurts him is the little still . Sirius regrets the last summer at Grimmauld Place when he thought that wasting away would be the answer to his problems. Not only because that was him digging the hole he now has to claw himself out of, but because he is just starting to realize that Regulus got caught in the middle of it. He always hoped that he could shield his little brother from the most horrible parts of their house, wished that his childhood wouldn’t get overshadowed with the explosive fights between Sirius and their parents. But he had forced Regulus to fear that his older brother would die.
“Yeah”, Remus says softly. He has permission to talk about it now because Sirius couldn’t ask him to lie anymore. It is the first time he hears Remus talk about it - he doesn’t usually want to know what he tells others. Doesn’t want to think about Remus going on and on about how hard it is to live with a person who can’t even eat normally.
“I don’t like it. I thought he would be over it by now”, Regulus says. “I really thought getting out of that house would help him.”
You and me both, Sirius thinks bitterly. How much he wishes that it would be that easy.
Remus laughs. It is an odd reaction and Sirius can imagine the look at Regulus’s face. He has seen countless times the expression that says this is not the slightest bit funny.
“None of us likes it, Regulus. Sirius is not doing it because he likes it.”
His tone is harsh, maybe more than necessary. It blooms something warm in Sirius’s chest. He was ready to hear Remus say oh yeah me neither, it got tiring five years ago . It feels like he is taking Sirius’s side if that is something a person can do in a situation like this.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just… really hoped that his life would be better and it hurts to know how badly it affected him.”
“It has been a lot better since he left”, Remus says much kinder now. “And I know that it is not ideal but it’s not as bad as it used to be. He tries, he really does, he doesn’t want to end up in hospital. And I believe that one day he will be able to recover.”
They move eventually to different topics but Sirius stays by the door for a long time, listening to voices he never believed would speak to each other. He probably could just walk into the living room, throw himself on the sofa in the middle of Regulus and Remus and pretend that he has just woken up. Remus would give him a kiss on the cheek, Regulus would roll his eyes and they could all drink some tea together. Maybe Sirius could eat some of the cookies Remus’s mum has baked for them - he could be brave enough.
Remus can see that he tries. Remus has not given up on him. It gives him hope.