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I. Two-way Mirrors
“A mirror?” Sirius asks, not bothering to hide his disdain. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
Eleven years in the Black household has made Sirius no stranger to mediocre presents. His parents aren’t bad gift-givers, necessarily, but they have an infuriating habit of spending a small fortune on the most boring items imaginable. Which, as far as Sirius is concerned, only proves they don’t understand him at all.
He’d expected better from James Potter.
Across the table, Remus clears his throat. “It looks nice,” he says hesitantly.
“Very, er… shiny,” Peter offers.
Merlin. Is that what Sirius sounds like when he halfheartedly thanks his family every birthday and Christmas?
Beside him, James is vibrating with excitement, undeterred by Sirius’s lacklustre response. “It’s a matching set,” he says, pulling a twin mirror from his pocket. “See? Mum gave them to me.”
Sirius glances between the two mirrors and raises an eyebrow. “For when we do our makeup together every morning?”
James grins. “If you like. Go on, try it out.”
“I think I can figure out how to use a mirror,” Sirius says, voice dry. But he stares obediently at his own reflection, watching James from the corner of his eye. James leans closer, his breath tickling Sirius’s ear.
“It’s not cursed, is it?” Sirius asks. “You know I’ve been wanting an evil cursed mirror for my birthday, I’ve always said—”
“Say my name,” James interrupts.
“Why not my name?”
“Because that’s not how it works,” James says, in his Merlin, catch up voice.
Sirius smirks. “How what works?”
“Sirius,” James whines, impatient.
Sirius can’t hold back a laugh any longer. “Alright, fine.” He sits up straight and holds the mirror an arms-length away. “I hereby proclaim,” he says, squirming to avoid James’s fingers poking his ribs, “the prize for the Most Dull Birthday Gift is awarded to James Potter.”
Sirius squeezes his eyes shut, bracing for impact.
Nothing happens.
“I can’t believe you thought I’d got you an exploding mirror,” James says. Sirius opens his eyes, squinting at his reflection again. “Although, actually that would be—”
“What is that?” Sirius demands.
"What’s what?” James asks, perfectly innocent. Sirius brings the mirror close to his face.
His face, which is most certainly not the one reflected in the mirror.
“That’s you,” Sirius says stupidly.
James grins at him through the mirror, eyes dancing with mischief. “What gave it away?”
“Brilliant,” Sirius whispers, his eyes tracing the lines of mirror-James’s face. It’s a perfect match, moving and speaking in unison with real-James. Sirius leans over James’s shoulder and sees himself reflected in the second mirror, his face leaning just out of frame.
Sirius laughs, delighted. “You know this would be perfect for—”
“Obviously. Why do you think I gave it to you today?”
Sirius glances at his own mirror and back at James, who’s still vibrating with barely-contained excitement. His mind races, thinking of all the other things they can do with twin mirrors. He can even talk to James during the Christmas holiday, as long as Sirius closes his bedroom door and keeps his voice down.
That’s when it hits Sirius, with all the subtlety of a Bludger to the head, that nobody has ever made him happy on his birthday before. Somehow James Potter, the boy he met two months ago on the train and who feels like home contained in a single person, has done what his family hasn’t managed in a decade.
James’s grin disappears, eyebrows furrowing. “You alright, mate? You look like you’re gonna hurl.”
Of course I’m not alright, Sirius thinks hysterically. He traces the edge of the mirror with a fingernail, studying mirror-James in profile. Real-James nudges him with his shoulder, and Sirius leans into the warmth of him.
“I’m alright now,” Sirius says, and realises it’s the truth.
James leans right back, shoulder warm against his.
II. Human Transfiguration
“You hate it.”
“I don't hate it.”
Hazel eyes meet Sirius’s, sceptical. James tries to raise an eyebrow and accidentally raises both; the expression, goofy as hell, drags a bark of laughter from Sirius.
James elbows him in the ribs. “Shut up. You do hate it. I can tell.”
“I don’t,” he insists. James watches, eyes narrowed, as Sirius’s fingers tap an unsteady rhythm on the duvet. Sirius takes a slow breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth. Runs his tongue over his teeth and tries to decide how he feels.
It’d been a lark, this idea: experiment with human transfiguration and turn each other into girls. They’d sat cross-legged on Sirius’s bed, taking turns transforming cheekbones and noses and eyebrows, playing with proportions and bone structures until finally Sirius was staring at his best friend, only not. An image in reverse.
And it’s not a lie; Sirius doesn't hate it. It had been fascinating and exhilarating to change James’s face while James changed his, piece by tiny piece. Looking at his handiwork had made him grin in wonder, a fierce sort of pride rising in his chest. He was a master sculptor, an expert in the art of James Potter.
Except.
Then there was the realisation, cold and icy down his spine, that Sirius had become his mother. He’d made a game of cutting someone down to the bone, in order to carve an image of who he thought they should be.
“Sirius?”
Sirius bit his lip. “Maybe we should…”
“You’re too pretty to be a girl, is the problem,” James interrupts.
“What?” Sirius splutters.
A finger drags across his cheekbone. “Too soft,” James declares. The finger falls away and traces the line of his jaw. “This too.”
Sirius bats his hand away, but it immediately comes back to poke at his nose. “And this! It’s too small. Should be bigger.”
“Take your complaints up with the artist,” Sirius says, flicking the offending knuckles. James pulls his hand back, swearing under his breath. “That’s you, if you recall.”
James grins at him, eyes warm and bright, and suddenly something clicks back into place.
Oh, thinks Sirius.
It's just James. Of course it is.
“Shut up and stop calling me pretty,” Sirius says.
James’s grin widens. “Make me.”
So Sirius grins back, sharp and feral, and tackles him to the ground.
III. Polyjuice Potion
“You’re sure it’s yours, right?” Sirius checks for the third time. “Because I told you what happened to my cousin—”
“Relax, mate,” James says. He doesn’t even blink, just keeps holding out a strand of jet-black hair. “I’m at least eighty percent sure it doesn’t belong to Snivellus.”
“I will murder you,” Sirius says lightly, finally taking the hair from James’s fingers. “My sanity is already hanging on by a thread, you know. Turning into Snivellus for a day would tip me right over the bloody edge.”
“Can’t have that,” James agrees, watching as Sirius drops his hair into the Polyjuice. “Though, it might be worth it. Can you imagine the lads’ faces if Snivellus walked out the dormitory in your robes—Huh.”
James and Sirius both lean forward, fascinated, as the potion sizzles and shifts from a dark muddy slop to a clear golden liquid. Sirius lifts the cup higher, swirling it around to test the viscosity. He watches, mesmerised, as the potion dances with light as though lit from within.
Sirius sniffs it cautiously.
It smells of cinnamon and cloves. Sweet and warm, and familiar as anything. He smiles.
“Snivellus wishes his Polyjuice was half as gorgeous,” Sirius says, setting the cup down and plucking a hair from his own head. James grabs it from him. “Never doubted you for a minute, mate.”
“Lies and slander,” James says, dropping the strand of hair into his own cup and watching as the potion transforms. “You doubted me for so many minutes.”
Sirius hums absently, and they both fall silent as the potion shifts colour and settles into its final form. Sirius squints at it suspiciously, then feels his stomach drop. “Er… Is it turning—?”
Black.
Sirius refuses to say it out loud, horrified at the cosmic joke the universe is playing at his expense. Polyjuice reflects the inner heart of the person it becomes, and Sirius…
Well, of course he jokes about it. Black like my soul. But suddenly, Sirius wishes he’d had the foresight to test this potion privately first. It's one thing to be confronted with the evidence of your own rotten heart, but quite another to have it exposed to your best friend.
“No,” James says, and his voice is so full of wonder that it startles Sirius into glancing up at him. James meets his eyes and smiles, the special smile that only seems to come out when Sirius is having a panic.
“It's purple,” James says, tilting the cup so Sirius can see.
He leans forward. Sure enough, the Polyjuice has shifted to a deep, royal violet, shimmering with tiny flecks of light. If Sirius didn't know better, he’d think somebody had added a pinch of glitter to the mixture. It looks something akin to how he'd always imagined the distant galaxies.
The universe, contained in a cup. It's beautiful, Sirius admits reluctantly. He breathes in the scent of fresh pine and looks up again to meet James’s knowing gaze.
“Well, that's alright then,” Sirius says.
“Shall we have a toast?” James asks, raising his glass. “In honour of not becoming Snivellus for the day.”
“I'll drink to that,” Sirius says, so they do.
The whole skin-bubbling ordeal aside, Polyjuice really isn't as horrid as Bellatrix led him to believe. It’s over in less than a minute, and now he can see—
“Merlin,” Sirius says, astonished. “You really are blind as a bat, mate.”
“It's part of my charm,” James says in Sirius’s voice. He's holding out his glasses, and Sirius puts them on.
His own face snaps into focus, wearing James’s grin.
“That,” Sirius says emphatically, “is the creepiest thing I've seen in my life. And I’ve lived with Kreacher.”
“I can't believe you just compared me to your evil house elf,” James grumbles. “It can't be that bad.”
Sirius puts on his best Heir to the Noble House of Black face, a well-practised mask he's learned to whip out at a moment's notice. James blanches.
“Told you,” Sirius says, grinning triumphantly.
“That wasn't fair,” James insists. “I know you too well. Nobody else would notice.” He pauses, considering. “Bet you five Galleons I can make it through the whole day without anyone realising I'm you.”
Sirius scoffs. “No way,” he says. “I'll get you to crack; you won't last an hour.”
“Remus and Peter too,” James challenges.
They stare in silence for one moment, two, then scramble to their feet and race down the stairs.
IV. Animagi
“We should wait for Peter, right?” James asks.
Sirius stops in his tracks. He turns on his heel to look at James, who's reaching out a hand to grab his snitch from the air.
They’ve been waiting at the edge of the Forbidden Forest for a quarter of an hour, the heavy sense of anticipation making them both uncharacteristically quiet. James has been playing with the bloody snitch, again, and Sirius has been pacing a hole in the forest floor.
This is the night they’ll all transform into Animagi for the first time. As soon as Peter graces them with his presence, that is.
Hence the waiting.
Thunder rumbles in the distance. James raises his eyebrows expectantly.
Sirius narrows his eyes. “Why'd you say it like that?”
James pockets the snitch, then looks at Sirius with his fake-innocent face, all wide eyes and of course that wasn’t us, Professor. “Say it like what?”
“Stupid is a terrible look on you, Prongs.”
Sirius tries to pin James with a hard stare, but James just rolls his eyes and ambles over to him. He drapes an arm across Sirius’s shoulders.
“Padfoot,” he says solemnly. “Nothing is a terrible look on me. We know this.”
“We do,” Sirius says easily. “But riddle me this.”
“Love a riddle, me,” James agrees.
“Imagine you’re out in the forest, getting mud on your favourite boots, for the express purpose of waiting for your mate. Then,” Sirius says pointedly, “your other mate asks you, hey, d’you think we oughta wait for the mate we’ve been sitting here waiting for?"
“The answer,” James says sagely, “is to wear your least favourite boots out to the forest.” He pauses, studying Sirius’s face. “Fine, we can wait for Pete.”
“Fine?” Sirius echoes.
“Stupid is an even worse look on you. You’re getting uglier by the minute.”
“Impossible,” Sirius says, waving a hand dismissively. But he can’t stop the grin that’s spreading slowly across his face. James’s eyes are gleaming in the near-darkness. “You think we—”
“You know what I think,” James says, and of course Sirius does.
Without words, they separate and face each other, drawing their wands. They take one step back, two, then halt. Sirius feels, absurdly, like they’re preparing for a duel.
“Final words, Pads?”
Sirius chokes on a breath. “What?”
James shrugs, grinning. “Feels like we’re gearing up to murder each other, is all.”
“Oh, well if that’s all,” Sirius says sarcastically.
“Wouldn’t it be awkward if we were wrong about our animal forms?” James asks. “I mean, we’d have to come up with new names and everything.”
“Stop stalling,” Sirius says, pulling the phial of potion from his pocket. “Besides, I’m not wrong.”
“Stalling, he says,” James mutters to himself.
Sirius ignores him, scanning the grounds again for Peter. The sky flashes with lightning, and the horizon is eerily still. When Sirius looks back at James, he has his own phial uncapped.
They lock eyes.
“Amato Animo Animato Animagus,” they say together, then tip back their phials in a single motion.
The world fades away. There’s only the pain, coursing fiery-hot through his veins, and the steady burn of his bones. There are two hearts shoved into a single chest, each beating slightly out of time.
Then a vision of the dog, himself but not himself, teeth bared around a low growl. The feeling of disorientation and wrongwrongwrong makes him gag, and he wonders distantly if this is how the wolf feels, month after month, agony and confusion and an endless well of loneliness, deep and wide and very, very dark.
After an age, Padfoot opens his eyes.
Prongs is staring steadily back at him, eyes reflecting lightning.
[Interlude: Runaway]
“Let me see,” James says, voice soft.
Sirius crosses his arms, tucking his injured hand tight against his side. He grits his teeth against the pain and tries not to wince, pacing along the far edge of James’s room: from window to door and back again. James, sitting on the bed, tracks him with his eyes.
“Sirius,” he tries again.
“You heard what I said,” Sirius says.
“No magic,” James repeats dutifully. “I won't, I promise.”
A promise from James Potter is not given lightly. Sirius, who knows how rare a privilege he’s been given, stops halfway to the window. He turns to face James and settles his gaze somewhere above his left ear.
“Then why do you want to see?” Sirius asks, voice icy with suspicion. He can’t be bothered to soften his tone. Not tonight.
James, used to his sharp edges, doesn’t even blink. He holds out a tea towel and a small tube, leaving his arm outstretched like he’s waiting for Padfoot to sniff at it. Sirius twitches and ignores the impulse to transform.
“It’s a Muggle potion,” James says. “Anti… sepsis? No. Septic. It cleans the wound, but doesn’t heal it.”
“Where the hell did you get that?”
“Remus,” James answers, and doesn’t elaborate.
“If you’re lying,” Sirius warns, “I’ll just do it again. Plenty of walls in your house.”
Sirius clenches his fist to summon the memory of it: stumbling down the front steps of Grimmauld Place, freshly disowned and trembling uncontrollably, his throat raw from yelling. And not a damn scratch on me, he remembers thinking hysterically.
So he’d slammed his fist into the brick wall, once and twice and five times, then ten, until finally his vision cleared and he could breathe again.
“Padfoot,” James says, and there’s something in his voice that Sirius doesn’t recognize. Sirius’s gaze sharpens, and he looks James in the eye for the first time since he arrived this evening. James lets out a breath, long and shaky, and doesn’t say another word.
It’s fear, Sirius realises. James Potter is scared.
“Yeah,” says Sirius. “Okay.” He’s not sure what he’s agreeing to, only that a world in which James Potter is scared is a world in which Sirius Black has failed, somehow.
“Let me see,” James reminds him, holding out his hand.
Right.
Sirius doesn’t remember walking to the bed. He does remember James untucking his injured hand from his side and gently uncurling his fingers, one by one. He remembers the warmth of a damp towel cleaning dried blood from his knuckles; the sharp sting of antiseptic.
And he remembers James’s head bowed over Sirius’s hand, silent and solemn as if in prayer.
V. Veritaserum
“Hey, Prongs,” Sirius says, dipping a teaspoon into the cauldron. Three drops, he reminds himself, skimming the tiniest bit of liquid off the top. He pushes the cauldron to the side and snaps the lid shut.
James is watching him expectantly, his own spoon inches from his mouth. The corner of his mouth twitches, like he knows what Sirius is about to say.
“Truth or dare?” Sirius asks.
James smiles.
“Truth, of course,” he answers, and they swallow the Veritaserum as one.
Of all their experiments, Sirius finds this one the most anticlimactic. When you already know a person inside and out, when you've long since learned their secrets and hopes and fears, a truth serum is no longer a revelation.
VI. Legilimency
“You can go first, if you like,” James says. “I don’t mind.”
Sirius smirks from where he’s draped languidly over the sofa, feet stretched out in front of him. “Scared, Prongs?”
James rolls his eyes and drops onto the cushion opposite Sirius, kicking at his legs until Sirius huffs and makes space. “Don’t ask stupid questions.”
“I don’t want to go first,” Sirius says.
James catches Sirius’s eye, his gaze piercing. “You sure?”
Sirius hears what James is really asking, underneath his words: You still want to do this? He’s somehow sensed Sirius’s low thrum of anxiety and is offering to forget the whole ordeal. Bugger all their months of research and practising—one word from Sirius and he’ll shut it all down, never to be mentioned again.
It’s pure James Potter, through and through.
“I’m sure,” Sirius says, and means it.
James grins.
They both sit up, scooting closer until they’re cross-legged on the sofa, knees touching. James’s fingers twitch and his wand flies from across the room, landing obediently in his hand.
Their eyes meet, cool grey and swirling hazel.
"Legilimens,” James says, and the world shifts.
He is eleven and laughing in a train compartment, watching as the boy across from him runs a hand through a mess of black hair, eyes dancing with joy. He never knew it was possible to laugh so hard your cheeks hurt. It feels good, like stepping in from the cold and settling next to a fireplace that has never been lit until today.
The warmth penetrates.
He is thirteen and laying on his back on the Astronomy Tower, staring up at the summer constellations. Tomorrow, the train will take him back to London, back to the house that drips saltwater into his wounds and watches coldly as he smiles through the pain. There is something hot and burning rising in his chest, something he doesn’t have the words to articulate but that feels terribly, earth-shatteringly lonely. He wishes he could reach a hand into the heavens, push the stars across the sky until it’s September again and safe to breathe.
A hand reaches out in the darkness, warm and steady. He holds on tight.
He is fifteen and the dog is running, running, leaves crunching under his paws. He is following the stag, weaving effortlessly between the endless trees. It is against the dog’s nature to trust, but he always follows the stag without thinking, without worrying which way leads home.
He is sixteen and falling into his best friend’s arms, his injured hand dripping blood onto the carpet. He presses his face into a shoulder and feels fingers thread through his hair, careful and delicate. He chokes on a sob. The hand tightens, holding him close like it wants to press him straight through his skin and down between his ribs, safe and forever sound.
He is seventeen, and the other half of his soul is finally stepping into him, where he’s always belonged.
Conceited, much? The thought drifts between them like smoke on the wind. I do have memories that don’t involve you, you know.
Boring, comes the answering thought, fast and penetrating like a beam of light. What’s the point of that?
That, my dear Prongs, is arrogant toerag behaviour.
You love it.
You wish.
He pushes at the place where their perceptions are twisted together. Gently, with a gust of warm breeze he asks, my turn?
Thought you’d never ask.
The world opens up to him, glimmering with light.
He is eleven and awake past midnight, curled together on his new bed with his new best friend. Their feet are tangled together and he’s talking a mile a minute, voice pitched low so they don’t wake the others. He wants to talk forever, for a millennium and then some, because somehow his best friend has already missed eleven years of his life and needs to be brought up to speed. Here, he thinks desperately, offering himself up to those grey eyes, here I am, can you finally see me?
He is thirteen, staggering under the sudden weight of a body crashing into him, peals of laughter ringing in his ear. He holds on tight, grinning fit to burst, then yelps as they lose their balance and topple together to the soft grass. You. Bloody. Wanker, his friend says, emphasising each word with a fist to his chest, but his eyes are gleaming with happiness. Couldn’t have warned me your mum was planning to kidnap me?
Welcome home, he says, and the words feel right in his mouth; possibly more true and honest than anything he’s said in his life.
He is fifteen and the stag is running, fast and free under the waning moon. It is in the stag’s nature to be watchful, to scan the horizon for predators stalking silently in the night. But the dog is running behind him, fierce and trusting, and so the stag trusts him in return. It is easy to lead fearlessly with his brother at his back, so he runs faster over the endless hills.
He is sixteen and wiping blood from trembling knuckles, slow and gentle, trying not to show how terrified he is. He bows his head and focuses on his task, cleaning but not healing. Wishing he was healing. A tear finally escapes, inevitable, dripping saltwater onto the still-bloody hand. He curses under his breath, wiping it away. He wishes suddenly, fiercely, that he was a phoenix with the power to mend cuts and broken bones with nothing but his tears.
He could heal it all, the scrapes and bruises and aching heart beneath, with all the tears he could shed.
He is seventeen and stepping into the other half of his soul, and it feels as good as he’s always imagined.
Now who’s conceited? The thought drifts through them, between them. I also have memories that don’t involve you, I’ll have you know.
If you say so.
There’s an odd sense of disorientation as they try to pick themselves apart; try to figure out whose thoughts are whose. It’s a futile exercise. They are two halves of a whole, their thoughts and emotions shifting together and apart, then back together.
They drift for a time, trading memories back and forth like Chocolate Frog cards.
Remember this?
Look at this one!
Hah, I forgot about that.
What about that time—
Eventually, when they’ve shared everything they can think to share, they swirl around each other; a beam of light and a gust of wind.
You think we should—?
Reckon so.
They separate, and the world tilts. Half of his self, their self, slips through his fingers. They are no longer James-and-Sirius; they are separate beings.
Sirius blinks, and suddenly he’s back on the sofa. The world spins around him, the real flesh and blood world, and he almost topples to the floor. He reaches out a hand to steady himself on James’s knee.
Sirius looks up, and their eyes meet. It’s disorienting, staring into James’s eyes instead of out of them. James looks just as unsteady, leaning sideways into the sofa cushion.
Then James grins, same as he always has after a plan well-executed.
“Alright, Pads?”
Sirius smiles.
“Never better.”