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Sirius was ready for this, in a way. Not ready for it emotionally, not ready to leave the comfortable nest he’d found he could build here, but he had expected it. There are things that one can never get rid of, patterns that follow someone around for the rest of their life, and Sirius’s pattern is needing to leave, no matter how much he feels at home, he knows that it can never last forever.
The Potters were nice to let him stay for a while, but Sirius has overstayed his welcome and it’s a good thing he leaves now before James can also despise him for staying around.
It had been a stupid fight, something that Sirius would have never expected to blow over so quickly and intensely. But he should have known—surely it is the Black in him that always makes things worse in these kinds of situations. He’d been messy. Just messy like usual, leaving his stuff around mostly like James does too sometimes, but he’s not home, and he knows that, and he shouldn’t have gotten so comfortable. James had been annoyed with his mess, and he’d first made a joke—that could Sirius could tell stemmed from real annoyance—about it, because it had only been about his clothes on the floor, and Sirius never realised that it had been about anything else than that.
But Sirius snapped, and suddenly nothing felt like a joke anymore. And now, Prongs—yes, Prongs, his James, his brother in heart, the only person he thought he could never drive away—thinks he’s too much, that he always steals the attention away from everyone because he thinks himself better than everyone. And Sirius doesn’t know how to deal with that with anything else than anger.
So every time they look at each other, or bump into each other in the hallways of the Potter house, Sirius feels it. There is a constant tension, a ticking time bomb ready to burst, and Sirius thinks it’s better to leave before it explodes: they’ll see each other on the train to Hogwarts if James doesn’t ignore him just as much as he does right now and James will have the choice of being around him if he wants to. But now, it seems terribly cruel to impose, to make his presence an obligation and make James frustrated, unsafe in his own home. This is not his home, and he shouldn’t stay where he is unwanted.
He’ll just have to find somewhere else, to wander the streets in the hope of finding someone that will open their door to him. He could ask Remus, but he’s hesitant: if James got tired of him so quickly and easily, then what tells him that Remus won’t? He prefers to keep as many of his friendships intact for now, for as long as he can manage.
So he’s packing, gathering all his stuff in a way that feels way too similar to that famous night he left Grimmauld Place. He wants to stay, oh how badly he wants to believe that Euphemia and Fleamont will let him stay when he’s only been a nuisance, but his time has come, the pattern continues, and he doesn’t want to hurt anyone on his inevitable path to failure.
He holds tightly onto the t-shirt he is wearing, pressing his arm against his belly to get rid of the incessant ache. This is better than being chased away, he tells himself, it’s better to leave now than to be hated later, and the thought of James hating him—because maybe he does already—is excruciating. He can’t handle it, not from him.
He feels like crying when he shoves his favourite socks in his suitcase and nearly takes James’s accidentally.
“Shut up ,” he scolds himself quietly, hitting his free fist against his own leg, even though he’s been fully quiet for a while. In fact, ever since James has mentioned his need for attention, he hasn’t talked, not unless the Potters have addressed him. He’s tried to be invisible, as if that would push back his departure. He tries to breathe in deeply, but he can only take short successive puffs of air at a time, like he’s already sobbing, but only from the inside.
“Sirius? Are you coming down for dinner?” Euphemia yells from downstairs in her sweet, warm voice. When he’d first gotten here, those yells had sent him into an immediate panic, but now he knows better. Euphemia would never hurt a fly, she wouldn’t even hurt someone as horrid as Sirius.
“In a minute!” He yells out as clearly as possible with the knot stuck in his throat. He’ll come down for dinner in a few minutes, and he’ll leave, and James will smile again, and that’s all that matters.
Where Sirius will sleep tonight doesn’t.
He stops in his tracks when he finds under his offensive pile of clothes—no wonder James got angry—a picture. It’s them, just the two of them, last summer, the first time the Potters let him stay after he ran away, laughing after they both fell into a fountain in a Muggle park. He’d pushed James after he’d been lingering dangerously close to it, and James had held onto him during his fall and they’d both been soaked and unable to stop laughing until their cheeks ached and their stomachs felt on fire.
Sirius had never felt so unashamedly happy, had never laughed so hard without caring about being too much or sounding weird.
He slides the picture into a secure pocket of his suitcase swiftly. James won’t want it anyway, he’d throw it away. He’s so entranced in the action, or maybe in his thoughts, to hear the steps, and then the door opening.
“Sirius, what are you doing?”
He flinches at Euphemia’s voice and feels incredibly stupid for it. She’s not a danger, she’s never been one. He turns to look at her and all his courage, his bravery seems to leave him. It was easier in his head, to announce that he’s leaving. And now, he’s only stupidly hoping that she’ll tell him to stay once he tells the truth. Stupid. So stupid.
“I’m packing,” he says quietly. He feels small, like a tiny insignificant speck of dust in the universe, insignificant enough to be wiped away without a thought.
“Isn’t it a bit early for that? School starts in more than a month,” she replies, never getting rid of her soft smile, like Sirius is simply being silly, like how he’s acting is more sweet than annoying.
“I thought I could leave early,” he lies because it’s easier to tell himself that.
Euphemia looks at him for a few seconds, before sighing, and then asking, “Is that really the reason you’re leaving, Sirius? Or does this have anything to do with that fight you had with James?”
“It’s best if I leave,” Sirius whispers, trying to hold on to that last buoy of happiness he’d felt in this house because else he’ll drown, and nothing else will ever hold him above the surface because he won’t get another chance. He managed to ruin everything, once again, and his breaths are counted.
Euphemia pauses before kneeling down on the floor beside him. “What makes you think that?” She asks him, her blue piercing eyes searching into his soul. He looks away because he doesn’t want her to see the ugly, to have to look into a broken, damaged soul.
“James, he–” It’s hard because he’s her son, and any moment she could decide she hates him too for hurting her pride and joy. “I think he’d prefer if I wasn’t here anymore,” Sirius explains, his stomach clenching. James is his brother, his best friend, but apparently, brothers fall out, and best friends become strangers.
“Did he tell you that?” She asks him seriously, and if Sirius has the strength, he’d tell her to direct her anger to him. He deserves it after being so stupid, and James is just collateral damage.
“No, but he’s too nice to say it.”
And James has been nothing but nice to him. He let him stay here, interrupt his daily life, steal his parents from him. He’s forgiven him for things that Sirius never wants to think about again and comforted him in his worst moments. It’s normal that he cracked, that the pressure of Sirius’s presence got too much, that Sirius got too much. He never expected it would last forever.
“Well let’s ask him,” she says, before yelling out again, “James? Can you come here for a minute?”
And it feels too dangerously similar to those times Sirius didn’t manage to take the blame off Regulus and he got hurt anyway. Just like Regulus, James is good and he doesn’t deserve whatever is in line for him. Sirius can take it, he can take whatever blame Euphemia would put on James, he can take the punishment, because he’s used to it. James doesn’t get punished, or at least he never did before Sirius disrupted his life.
“What? No! James didn’t do anything,” Sirius pants, grabbing Effie’s arm before realising his mistake and letting go of her like burnt. She looks at him, silent, and Sirius feels the fire rising in him, burning his throat. “I– it’s me. It’s my fault,” he says, “He didn’t say or do anything he shouldn’t have.”
The fire is consuming him, stealing the air around him.
“Sirius, I just want to talk, alright?” Euphemia reassures him. She presents him her hand, and Sirius stares at it for what feels like an eternity. In the Blacks’ house, giving out his hand is for punishment, but here, in the Potters’ house, it is for affection, comfort. His head is spinning, his thoughts conflicting, but he gives out his hand and lets Mrs Potter take it. “No one is getting punished,” she adds, smiling at him, and Sirius feels like he’s being treated like a five year old, but he doesn’t mind. He feels as lost as a five year old.
The door opens once again and Sirius looks up at James until their eyes meet. He wants to pull his hand away—still looking for attention, still stealing people away from James—but Effie doesn’t let go. He stares intently at the wooden floor, like entranced by its patterns, but he simply can’t handle looking at his friend. Friend? He can’t bare the lack of affection in James’s eyes. The complete lack of emotion.
Walburga used to love him too when he was a young child, but it’s how it works. People love him until they learn who he truly is.
“Mum?”
The word always feels foreign to Sirius. It was ‘mother’ for him, and she stopped thinking of him as her son a long time ago.
“I think you two should have a talk,” Effie says softly.
Sirius thinks they don’t. He squeezes his eyes shut, the words repeating in his head over and over again. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to talk. There are things he knows already but doesn’t want to hear, things he’d prefer remain unspoken.
James is silent for a while, almost as if he was never there, and the pit in Sirius’s stomach only grows.
“Pads, are you leaving?”
The nickname hurts, and Sirius wonders if he truly deserves this torture. Everyone is being so nice, treating him with care, as if they don’t know that he’s the one at fault, that he is always the one at fault.
He doesn’t answer and the silence grows heavy. He wants to ask James if he’s happy that he’ll be gone, but the words won’t come to him. He prefers not knowing.
“Sirius, tell him what you told me,” Euphemia encourages him, but his mouth is heavy, his lips stuck together like they’ve been shut with a charm.
He knows already, Sirius wants to say. He knows why I need to leave. Because he’s making Prongs, sweet, protective Prongs, miserable, and everything would be better if he left. James knows that, but he’ll never say it out loud, he’ll never force Sirius to leave because he knows he wouldn’t find anywhere else to stay.
Tell her. Tell her you don’t want me here anymore. Tell her why, and she’ll want the same.
Tears sting his eyes and if he was alone, he’d let them go, let the heartache overtake him. He’d grown to think he’d found a home, a forever family, people who would love him for the rest of his life and take him as he is. And they do take him in, but it isn’t fair. He won’t force them to love him.
He stares down at his packed clothes, unable to tear his eyes away. Euphemia squeezes his hand one time before letting it go entirely. His arm falls down ungracefully, his whole body cold and frozen from the distance. He expects them to leave, walk away and let him leave without saying goodbye.
“Come down to eat, Sirius, we’ll discuss there,” Effie says.
He hears the creaks of the wooden floor planks and feels her moving away. The door squeaks, hurting Sirius’s head, and he watches as both the Potters walk away, leaving him alone. A moment after, he wonders if it truly ever happened. He stretches his cramped-up legs before rising from his sitting position.
He feels sick before walking through the doorframe, he doesn’t want to talk. Usually, being honest makes people angry.
Nearly breathless, he walks to the dining room, careful not to drag his feet against the floor and make impossible noise. He freezes halfway on his way to the table, unable to continue walking with his weak, trembling legs. Because where there is a plate in front of every seat at the table, there is none in his.
Oh.
The intensity of his hunger suddenly hits him and he truly feels like he could cry. Even the Potters can’t forgive everything. He hadn’t eaten much this morning or during lunch. He hadn’t been hungry, not with his stomach cramping every time he looked at his friend sitting right beside him. He’d hoped on eating more during dinner to make up for it; he shouldn’t have been so careless.
He’ll have to find something in London once he’s left, use the little money he’s saved to regain all the energy he’s lost over worrying about his departure.
James is already sitting down at the table, not yet eating, but playing with his food and giving no attention to Sirius at all like he had the last few days. A few months ago, he’d been horrified to learn that Orion and Walburga sometimes left Sirius unfed for a few days to punish him—he doesn’t seem to think it so unreasonable anymore. Because he’s seen , because he knows now that Sirius at his worse—or his normal state, because is there a difference?—is bad enough to punish. He knows now that Sirius doesn’t deserve the care and love he’s been given by his friends.
“Sirius,” Fleamont calls out, pulling Sirius out of his thoughts. The boy looks up at him, tearing his sore eyes away from the empty table mat, his head spinning. The man’s eyes are kind, and understanding, as if Sirius uttered his self-hate out loud and he heard everything. “Sit down, love. Effie’s coming back with a plate for you, alright?”
Air fills Sirius’s lungs again and he only then realises that he had entirely stopped breathing.
He sits down at the table, careful to stay at a large enough distance from James without being too squeezed into the table leg. Euphemia comes back from the kitchen with a steaming plate in her hand and Sirius makes sure not to be in the way when she sets it in front of him. He knows the terrible pain of getting burnt from hot ceramic, and he really doesn’t want to inconvenience Effie after she’s been so kind.
“I know you don’t like this dish, Sirius, so I made you something different,” she explains, and when he looks up at her through his long hair hanging in front of his face, she is smiling lightly.
“Thank you,” Sirius croaks out before sending a look James’s way, but his friend isn’t looking at him at all and Sirius’s whole body feels tense, on fight or flight mode.
The silence as everyone except Sirius digs in their plate is deafening. He isn’t hungry, not as his stomach twists and churns, not as his—up until now—perfect world crumbles around him, threatening to crush him under the wreckage. He isn’t only losing a home, a bed to sleep in, but a brother, a friend he doesn’t know how to live without. And without James, there is no Remus, no Peter, no Hogwarts, no freedom, no happiness.
During all those years he has known those boys, he has been scared of losing them, not knowing that it isn’t a possibility, but a certainty.
He failed his brother in so many ways, and now he is failing himself, failing his friends and the closest thing to a family he has.
“Are you really leaving?” James breaks the silence, his familiar voice almost enough to warm Sirius again. If he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine that they are laying in James’s bed at Hogwarts, whispering in the middle of the night, telling each other things that no one else knows, telling the other about what is hidden deep in their heart.
There are memories that Sirius never wants to forget.
“Aren’t you glad?” He asks, and secretly, he wants James to protest, to let him know clearly that it is the last thing he wants, that he wants Sirius around forever and that he still thinks of him like a brother, like family. He wants to know that even though Sirius is selfish, stupid and reckless, he is loveable.
But he doesn’t say that, because it’s another one of those fairytales Sirius has made up in his head, another one of those impossible stories he makes up to hope, to pretend he is different, better.
“Do you want to leave?” James answer with another question, too kind to be direct, to tell the truth. Because the truth will hurt and those words he probably wants to say will be permanent.
Being unwanted isn’t something one can forget easily.
“It’s not up to me,” Sirius croaks out, looking sideways to wipe at the few stray tears on his face.
“Of course– of course, it is,” James whispers, generous as ever. Too generous, he never tells anyone what he truly wants and needs.
But Sirius needs to hear it. Maybe because he likes to torture of it, the pain of the truth as punishment for all that he is and that he is not. He has been away from Grimmauld Place for a while, but the house’s ways stick and there are things he can’t get rid of. There are punishments he knows he deserves.
“James, I don’t– I don’t want to stay,” Sirius starts, and then pauses to look up, sniffling, trying to keep as many tears in as possible. “I can’t stay if you don’t want me here.”
“I want you to stay, Padfoot.”
Why? What do I give that you can’t easily get elsewhere? Are my faults, scars and inadequacies really so easy to ignore? How do you get past the ugly, the broken, the unwanted?
“I was angry– not at you, just at the whole freaking world—because it felt like you were more important, that your pain mattered more than mine,” James explains, quiet, and the sting that Sirius feels is satisfying. He craves more.
“James,” Effie mutters sadly, and Sirius watches through his tear-blurred vision James smiling at his mother as she reaches out to hold his hand. Sirius is hit once again with the realisation of how perfect Prongs is, of how good he is compared to him. There is a reason his parents are so kind, and there is a reason Sirius’s weren’t.
“No, I know, now. I know that that’s not true—”
Of course it isn’t. It’s quite the contrary, really, Sirius doesn’t know why they’re all so kind, why they’ve given up so much of their time to comfort him after every stupid trigger.
“I don’t want the attention on me. I don’t want it. And I don’t want to be scared all the time. It just happens and I wish I could just replace my brain with a better one. I don’t to be like this, Prongs, and I–” Sirius is panting, unable to breathe, unable to slow down. Unable to stop crying.
He is pathetic. Utterly pathetic.
“I know that, Padfoot, I know. What I said… I didn’t mean it,” James says quietly.
Maybe he didn’t mean those exact words, but the anger undeniably comes from somewhere and there are many unforgivable things Sirius has done, many times he has almost lost everything.
Some worse than others.
“Are you still angry at me for—”
Immediately, Prongs seems to understand what he is talking about. His eyes widen slightly and he shakes his head aggressively.
“No! No, I’m not. This isn’t about that, Sirius. I promise,” he exclaims, grabbing Sirius’s hands tightly. Sirius can never understand how James forgives him, he never understands what Prongs sees of him that he deems worth loving, worth staying for.
“Alright.”
The dining room is silent for a few more minutes before Euphemia breaks it. Sirius is relieved, because tense silence usually hides a lot.
“We want you to know, Sirius, that Monty and I, even if you and James fight again, we’ll still want you to stay here. This is your home, darling, just as much as ours,” Euphemia says quietly, again almost as if she’s talking to a small child, and Sirius immediately feels himself shrinking, unused to the careful, considerate tone of voice. In the Black family, you start acting like a grown-up as soon as you understand what that means. There is no comfort, no discussion, no gentle understanding.
He’d like to keep being talked to this way, but it isn’t his place. He is not a child anymore, not their child, and certainly not deserving of this kind of care.
“That’s very kind and considerate, Mrs Potter but–”
“Sirius, please call me Effie,” she interrupts him, but he acts like he hasn’t heard.
“I know that I’m… a lot…” The words feel like they’re burning his tongue, travelling in his oesophagus, all the way to his stomach. It had been James’s words, and he knows that James remembers them because the boy tenses in his chair beside Sirius. But it’s true, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much he wants to pretend that it isn’t the case. “And it feels unfair to impose myself.”
It feels unfair to become an unwelcome burden.
“Sirius, you’ve become a son to us and we love you. We accept you just as you are, no matter what,” Monty says, and when Sirius looks at him, he’s worried that he’ll break down instantly. If there is a thing that Sirius knows he thought he could never have is to be loved, truly, without having to change, without having to pretend to be a subdued version of himself, a kinder, less hurt, less damaged Sirius.
Suddenly worried, because being called a son by your own friend’s parents can be delicate, he looks at James, trying to find in his eyes any anger or hurt, but James is looking at him already, smiling wetly.
“Sorry, I–” Sirius chokes out, unable to stop the tears any more. He covers his face with his hands, unable to ignore the shame he feels. Crying is the biggest mistake you can make at the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. It’s something he’s learned the hard way. According to his mother, he had always been too fragile, too weak to be an heir.
But here, he is allowed, and still, it feels like he’s asking for punishment.
He feels Prongs’s arms wrap around him and the warmth of his embrace is healing. Sirius hugs him back, tightening his hold around his friend probably way too much, but James never protests.
“You’re fine,” James whispers. “And I’m afraid that you’re stuck with us forever.”
Sirius laughs through his tears, because that sounds like the best thing that could ever happen to him.
“I’m sorry you felt like I was the only one who mattered,” Sirius apologises. Because even if somehow James and his parents believe that he deserves to be loved and cared for, James doesn’t deserve to feel like he matters less, like he is loved any less.
“It’s alright. I’m sorry I said that you’re too much and an attention seeker,” James makes a self-deprecating grimace when he pulls away from the hug, rubbing at the back of his neck with his hand.
Sirius can’t quite stop the words that come out of his mouth.
“Mother used to say that,” he utters quietly. It’s maybe unfair to his friend, but saying it loud feels liberating, like a large weight being lifted from his shoulders. For so many years, he has convinced himself that he didn’t care what Walburga thought of him, but her words still stuck, still to this day cling onto him, pollute his thoughts.
It’s time he lets them go.
“Your mother is a bitch,” James exclaims suddenly, and Sirius can’t stop the laugh that explodes out of his mouth.
“James, please!” Effie cries out, shocked at her son’s vulgar words.
“What? It’s true!”
“I’ll allow you just this once,” She says eventually, with a small smile tugging at her lips, and James looks at her with a twinkle in his eyes. He turns back to look at Sirius again.
“Your mother is no reference point when it comes to judging you because she’s a bitch,” he repeats proudly.
“You’ve got a point,” Sirius smiles brightly, his heart light. His mother is possibly the worst person on Earth, and he won’t allow her words to affect him anymore. He has never agreed with any of his family’s beliefs, so why should he agree on their vision of him?
He’ll start listening to people he truly knows he can trust. Or at least he’ll try as good as he can.
“I usually do,” Prongs smirks casually.
“Oh shut it,” Sirius laughs, glad to have his friend back.
Maybe he’ll be alright.