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It’s late, and Sirius is swimming in his own mind. It’s fun, if lately you’ve been making concessions as to what fun means. It at least passes the time.
He’s sprawled over the sheets of his bed, absolutely still yet somehow moving. His bones are bird-light, and the muscle and skin around them don’t feel like anything more than gauze. Something tight and numbing. It’s almost like being held by nothing but the air, blurry and cloudy, so gentle and so—Sirius is only just now realizing—warm. Merlin’s beard, he’s sweating. Why is he sweating? It’s bleeding October, for Merlin’s sake!
He grumbles, rises to do something—doesn’t know what yet, just something—about it, and his head lifts just in time to see the door smack open.
James bursts through. His features sway across Sirius’s gaze. He’s a mess of dark curls, brown-gold eyes, and pinched lips. Sirius squints, unsure. Pinched lips isn’t a good sign, he recalls dimly. It’s like a nugget of wisdom, floating down from a faraway land. Pinched lips means portent of doom or—
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” James cries out.
Yeah, definitely a portent of doom. Is Sirius a Seer? There’s potential there, he’s sure.
Sirius blinks up at him, rather delayed. “What?”
James’s furious face twists into disgust. “Are you seriously drunk right now? What do—”
He laughs. The sound feels at once near and not. “I’m always Sirius-ly—”
“Shut up! Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Do you think this is some stupid fucking joke? Sirius, you could have killed him!”
Oh, right. Him.
He shrugs. “Would’ve done the world a favor if he died.”
He can’t read every emotion that crosses James’s face. They come too quickly, leave too soon, but the air’s feeling decidedly less warm as the seconds tick by and Sirius is beginning to think he might have said the wrong thing.
“Dumbledore is speaking to him right now.” James’s voice is grave. It comes through wrong in Sirius’s head, all discordant and contrary. For a moment, James’s face overlaps with Sirius’s father’s, and the mere thought is enough to sober Sirius up somewhat. “I pulled him out before he could get close, but he—he saw, Sirius.”
“…Saw how greasy his hair is?”
“Fucking hell, Sirius—you’re about to be expelled!”
That jolts something in him. His mouth feels dry. It’s been dry this whole while, but now it feels that way, too. “What?”
“Dumbledore asked me to fetch you. You—Merlin’s beard—I know it’s been tough, mate, I really do. But you weren’t this bad off during the summer. This can’t keep—do you understand what’s at stake here?”
Sirius can’t process it all fast enough. He snags onto the words in the middle. Yeah, he supposes he wasn’t so bad off during the summer. It all felt simpler then, when he showed up on James’s doorstep with a trunk full of school robes and pilfered heirlooms.
Now it’s…not.
James tugs him forward.
“Where are we going?” Sirius asks dumbly.
“We—” James lets out a nasty exhale, “—are about to make our case to Dumbledore. Don’t—honestly, it’s probably best you’re sloshed, it’ll make it easier for me to convince him you weren’t thinking straight.”
Something’s off here. Sirius is missing something, or James is being purposefully cryptic. Yeah, it’s definitely the latter. “Since when did you care about not getting in trouble?”
“I don’t know, maybe since my best friend lost his fucking mind at the start of term,” James bites back.
“Who cares what Dumbledore does—”
“I don’t care about Dumbledore, you twat! I care about Remus! Don’t you understand what you’ve just done to him?”
Sirius isn’t certain. He hardly understands what he’s done to himself.
By some miracle aptly called ‘James Fleamont Potter’s intervention,’ Sirius isn’t expelled. He has detention until the end of term, certainly, but he gets to keep his wand and pretend to care about his classes for another year at least.
It’s the morning after when he really has the clarity of mind to think about it all. The events leading up to James bursting into the dormitory are all fuzzy, memory blurring and slurring from what Sirius remembers happening into what he meant to happen. He only wanted to frighten Snape. He thinks. Or maybe he just blurted it out by accident? He’d been two bottles deep, after all.
Sirius’s head rolls heavy as he dawdles at the threshold of the Hospital Wing. He needs draught for his hangover, though Pomfrey doesn’t need all that detail, and he also needs to see Remus. Or, he’s supposed to see Remus. Sirius isn’t certain yet if he wants to.
“Sirius…?”
He lifts his head and is relieved to see that it’s only Peter. Small and harmless, scurrying out from behind the double doors with a pensive expression plastered across his pudgy features.
“‘Ello.”
“Are you here to see Moony?” Peter begins because why not start the morning off with the one conversation Sirius doesn’t want to have.
“Er, yeah.” Sirius gauges Peter’s reaction closely. “If he wants to see me.”
Peter’s pale eyes flicker to the doors nervously, then back to Sirius. “Now’s probably the best time. James isn’t here.”
That’s the best time? Sirius sort of wanted James there, if only because the issue of Remus might have been eclipsed by the bigger issue that is James.
“Okay,” Sirius says lamely.
Peter’s gaze roves over him uncertainly, but he has the decency not to lecture him about all this. Sirius knows that has less to do with courtesy and more to do with the fact that even in a group as close as theirs, there’s still a pecking order of sorts. Peter’s at the bottom. He knows it. Sirius knows it. Remus knows it. James, perhaps, doesn’t know it.
“Good luck…?” Peter tries.
“It’s not a bleeding exam,” Sirius exhales, annoyed.
“I mean—”
“Just go.”
And he’s off, though not without a small huff. Sirius spends a moment or two longer by the doors before resigning himself and stepping through.
The curtains are open. Light shines through and almost traitorously adorns Remus, shoving him front and center for Sirius to see as soon as he steps through. He doesn’t seem worse off than any usual full moon, which clues Sirius into the fact that, beyond Snape now in the know about Remus’s furry little problem, nothing has actually happened. It relieves him somewhat—or it would have, had Remus’s gaze not cut right through him, sharp as a pincer.
Sirius simply stands there, like some stupid first-year caught with his trousers down. Remus’s eyes, usually a murky green, seem to spark bright, almost too bright to bear. Sirius swallows thickly, painfully aware of the tight hold of his throat, of how dizzyingly the sunlight presses against him, of how unfairly fit Remus looks even when he’s furious.
“Well?” Remus demands at last. He’s waiting for something: for a reason, for everything to fall into its logical place, for Sirius to return to the person he was before he ran away from home.
Sirius simply stares back. It dawns on him, slowly, that he doesn’t know what to say. He has nothing. He knows what he’s supposed to say. I’m sorry, Moony. I wasn’t thinking straight, I wasn’t thinking at all. Please forgive me, tell me what I can do to make it up to you. But none of that is what Sirius wants to say because the raw and awful truth is that Sirius is not sorry. This right here, this festering pain, this bushfire gaining traction under his chest—it’s exactly what Sirius deserves.
He looks at Remus. He’s always been looking at Remus, and Remus—dear Remus, with his stupidly soft eyes and feathery hair—has always been waiting. Despite his fury, despite his hurt, he’s waiting for Sirius. And how does Sirius repay that patience?
He turns on his heel and leaves because running away is the only thing he’s good for.
It’s miserable in the dormitory when they’re all there. The atmosphere is stiff and awkward. You could—forgive the overused phrase—cut the tension with a knife, though Sirius would rather someone take the knife and plunge it into his heart, if only to spare himself from this.
It’s late. Remus is curled up somewhere under layers of blanket, probably avoiding any form of conflict by burying his nose in some mawkish novel instead. Peter’s quiet, sneaking from his bed to the washroom and back, afraid to draw attention to himself and have everything blow up again. James is—
James is waiting.
Sirius has only just come in, unsteady on his feet, breath stinking from gin and lack of dental hygiene alike, when the person who’s supposed to let him get away with this shit because they swore to be best friends or whatever all but accosts him.
“I knew it,” James scolds like an overbearing mother, eyes squinting as he looks over Sirius almost analytically. There’s no conveniently sloshing bottle with a ‘LIQUOR IN HERE’ label in Sirius’s hand, but his lips curl with frustration all the same. “Who gave it to you? I told Davies not to—”
Sirius gawks at him. “You told Davies? Why would you do that? Do you know how much trouble I went through today just to get a drop of gin?”
“Seems like more than a drop to me,” James sniffs imperiously. Merlin’s beard, is his trick this year to turn into Evans to get her to like him?
“Come off it,” Sirius grumbles, pushing past him. He’s set on collapsing face-forward into his bed and rolling into a numb, dreamless sleep. “I’m hardly pissed. It wasn’t that much, thanks to someone.”
“Yeah, you should be thanking me,” James snaps. “You and your liver.”
“Fucking hell, James, did you think that just because my mother disowned me, you could take over the position?”
“I’m trying to look out for you, you prat!”
“Funny, I don’t really remember asking you to do that?”
“We—” James’s brows crumple together, and he seems, for the first time, uncertain. “We look out for each other, Sirius. That’s what we do.”
There’s guilt lurking somewhere in the pit of Sirius’s stomach, but it’s buried underneath half a bottle of gin. Sirius’s tongue feels heavy in his mouth, but the words come out light and easy.
“Grow up, mate,” Sirius snorts. “‘That’s what we do,’ fucking hell, you sound like Sprout shepherding firsties.”
“No,” James grits out. “What I sound like is a concerned friend. What I sound like is the person you came to in July when—”
“Yeah, remind me all about that, why don’t you?” Sirius mutters. “S’not like I’m trying to forget all about it or anything.”
“Oh, is that what you were doing?” he says, drawing out the words. “Silly me, I thought you were drinking half the castle dry for some totally unrelated reason.”
“Shut up, James.”
“No, I think it’s time you heard this—”
“I think it isn’t, actually,” Sirius bites, feeling the first tendrils of fury wrap tight into his gut. It’s easy to get lost into this feeling. Easier even than getting drunk. “Save it for another night. There’s no one here to impress and show off your newly-developed savior complex to. Just let me know in advance when you’re trying to get into Evans’ knickers. I’ll try to be in the common room so you can publicly lambast me and—”
Remus’s book launches across the room and hits the other wall with such force that Sirius almost expects the momentum to keep going, past the stone and straight into the sky. The sound from the smack is not very loud, but it’s unexpected enough that Sirius stops and James stiffens, taken aback. He shifts his gaze to where Remus has risen from his bed, brows angrily set together, mouth curled into a furious scowl.
“Can’t you just shut up for once in your pathetic life, Sirius?” Remus howls. “What is wrong with you?”
(“You came out wrong,” she spits at him. She is so tall and he is so small, but if he screams back hard enough he can make himself taller. “You are a living stain on this family.”)
“Me?” Sirius laughs out, manic. “Something’s wrong with me? It was a stupid joke, and you’re all acting like I’ve personally signed your death warrant!”
“My life is not a fucking joke, you absolute prick—”
“How was I supposed to know he’d actually go?” Sirius continues, steamrolling right over Remus. His voice is too loud to be drowned out. It always has been. “If Snivellus were even half as clever as he boasts, then he wouldn’t have gone and fallen into such an obvious trap!”
Silence, save for Peter’s nervous, breathy exhales. James’s mouth has creaked open, gaping with disbelief. Sirius’s gaze cuts across the room defiantly, an almost challenging glint in his eye. There’s something better even than Firewhiskey lighting through his nerves.
It’s extinguished all too quickly.
“Trap?” Remus’s voice is cold. Sirius has to force himself not to shiver. “Is that what I am to you? Some tool to be laid out for your petty feuds?”
Sirius’s heart hammers against his chest, quick and hard enough that he can hear it all around him. Thump, thump, thump. It sounds like he’s falling, hitting every step as he tumbles down the stairs. It sounds like a death knell, the beginning of the end. It sounds like the start to a song, and Sirius knows this dance well. His mother taught it to him.
“You’re twisting my words! You always fucking do this, Remus, I can never—”
“I wouldn’t have to wring every drop of meaning that I can possibly get from you if you weren’t so stupidly vague all the time! Face it: you never say what you mean. You can’t because the truth of the matter is that you’re a coward, Sirius. That’s why you couldn’t face Snape head on, you had to send him to me—”
“Fuck you! You’re—”
“Yeah, you’d fucking like that, wouldn’t you?”
Sirius spits out a laugh, high and mocking. “That’s your entire problem, you know? That you think I care so much. Get over yourself!”
“Get over myself?” Remus repeats. “You think I think this is about me?”
“What else is it ever about?” He clasps his hand together, batting his lashes crudely. “‘Oh, Sirius, does it have to be a broom closet? Oh, Sirius, what if it were just us alone at Hogsmeade? Oh, Sirius, won’t you tell me what this means to you?’”
“You absolute—”
“Never mind that I have bigger problems than you,” Sirius roars over him. “Never mind that I can hardly catch a break with my shit family. But no—let’s see what Remus wants!”
“You know what? Sure, fine,” he hisses, almost electric with fury. “Think this is all on me, then, if that’s what helps you sleep at night—pretending like you’ve never humped my leg like the fucking dog you are.”
Remus stomps out of the dormitory. The door swings back from the force of his pull, cracking against the wall as he disappears beyond the bend of the stairs. Peter lets out a small, terrified squeak. Sirius only realizes his hands are shaking when he brings them up to knot into his hair.
James’s face is pale and deadly. His eyes fix on Sirius. Lowly, he says, “Just what the hell did he mean, Sirius?”
There is so much in that question, Sirius knows, because they have never hidden anything from each other. Not until now, at least.
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
It’s over.
Days pass strangely for Sirius. He spends them falling, but it’s a fall from night into morning. It hurts every time: the all-too rough touch of reality as he blinks, bleary-eyed and head pounding, to the messy yet eerily quiet sixth year boys’ dormitory.
He goes through the motions. Toast and water to settle his uneasy stomach, then a swig of draught to clear his hangover. He shows to his classes, though he hasn’t the foggiest what he’s learning in any of them. He cobbles together some hodgepodge of answers and gibberish alike for his assignments. His birthday passes somewhere through the haze, and suddenly Sirius is old enough to get his own liquor. That’s when he thinks James gives up, because he hardly sees him beyond classes and meals.
There’s a touch of pain there, but it’s drowned out easily enough. That’s the thing Sirius likes about liquor. It doesn’t keep you from falling, but at least when you do the impact is soft.
He lumbers back from the kitchens. It’s an hour past dinner, and he’s too far gone to figure out which Prefects are on patrol and where. He’ll have to hope he doesn’t run into any of them, though… What’s he trying to avoid, exactly? He’s already booked with detention every day of the week. There’s not much more anyone in this blasted school can do to him.
Sirius snorts at the thought. That snort turns into a chuckle, which is amusing in it of itself because the word is weird, isn’t it, and it turns into full-blown laughter.
“Have you finally lost your mind?” a painfully familiar voice hisses.
Sirius’s mouth clamps shut. He sneers as Snape slithers forward with all the grace and beauty of a wet and greasy sock. Did he actually come out here to confront Sirius? How very quaint and very foolish. Sirius is sloshed, sure, but that doesn’t suddenly mean Snape isn’t still pitifully weak.
Snape eyes Sirius’s drunken hunker with some measure of disgust and surprise. That’s mistake number two. (Mistake number one is, of course, having the misfortune of being born at all.) While Snape’s gawking at Sirius’s sorry state, Sirius rears forward to pin the offending creature—sorry, student—against the wall. His wand finds its way into his grasp easily. It jabs deep against the pale underside of Snape’s throat. His coordination is messy; he can’t tell how hard is too hard, but, then again, does he even care?
Snape’s eyes are wide, a deep and gaping black. Sirius feels for a moment he’s staring into a void. It seems almost familiar.
“You—let go—!”
“Why?” Sirius breathes. “I’m about to do you a favor, Snivelly.”
“Let—”
“Shall I get rid of that wretched thing you call a nose? I think it’ll be an improvement, though it might hurt.” He grins sloppily. “But that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
He feels Snape shift under him, an arm reaching, and tuts.
“The moment you take that wand in hand is the moment my wand—”
“Sirius—! What are you doing?!”
It’s worse than a Prefect, worse than any professor, worse than even Albus Dumbledore, Supreme Mugwump and all that, himself.
It’s James.
His wand’s out, too, tip swinging between Sirius and Snape like he can’t decide who he’s really up against here. It only takes two long strides for him to reach their sides, and at that point, Sirius has let Snape go. If the greaseball were actually smart, he’d turn tail.
But he’s not, of course. He simply stands there, glaring at Sirius, waiting expectantly.
“Go,” James orders.
Snape scowls at him. “He’s the one—”
“I know, but there’s nothing you can do. Just go!”
With one last filthy look, he stalks away. Sirius looks to James, faint irritation biting at his heels. He doesn’t look anything like the James that Sirius knows. His eyes are too dark, his hair too flat. His lips are pinched into a tight grimace.
The buzz draws away from Sirius, pulled away by something too heavy to ignore.
“Since when were you appointed as Snivelly’s protector?” he sneers.
James simply stares at him for a moment. “Since when were you so cruel?”
“It’s just me who’s cruel?” he says incredulously. “Just last term, we hung him up by his ankle and pantsed him, and suddenly I’m so evil? How dense can you be? You’re no saint, James, no matter how much you’d like Evans to think you are.”
James’s eyes flicker shut a moment. When he speaks again, his voice is so weak. “Just…stop. Please.”
Sirius doesn’t think he can. He hasn’t stopped since the night he left Grimmauld Place. He’s been running all this while, and his feet are aching, and his eyes are burning—but he cannot stop. He’s chasing something, that feeling that flared in his bones the moment he packed his trunk and stuck his thumb out for the Knight Bus, adrenaline buzzing through his veins, how sure everything seemed to slot in his head. He has to keep going. He has to get back to when it all it made sense, when it was simple. Two plus two equals four. Orion plus Walburga equals Sirius running away.
It made sense then, why doesn’t it make sense now?
“Mate,” James begins, and even that word sounds forced. His voice is already wobbly, teetering on the edge of some precipice that Sirius has only just begun to realize the height of. He’s so far from the ground. The fall will hurt. It already does. “You have to know that I’m on your side. No matter what shit you spew out, you have to know that. You have to at least know that.”
The moment thrums between them, taut and raw. Sirius feels his eyes sting.
“I don’t know what you want me to say to you,” Sirius says, and he wants it to come out rough and accusatory but he sounds just as wobbly as James.
“I want you to tell me what’s wrong. I want you to let me help you.”
“I don’t need your blasted help. None of what you’ve been doing has been helping me, James!”
“Then what can I do?” he urges.
“I—” the world’s spinning around him, as tight and suffocating as his throat, as harsh and unrepentant as his mother, “I don’t know! How am I supposed to know? Do you think if I knew how to fix myself, I’d still be standing here like the fucking mistake I am?”
James’s pained face contorts. “You’re not—”
“Oh, don’t start this with me. You don’t get it.”
“Then help me get it! I want to understand. I want to help you, Sirius. I’m—”
“There’s no point!” Sirius snaps. The premise is already flawed. Sirius isn’t someone who can be helped. “Stop trying to say you understand me because you don’t, James. You just don’t. You can’t!”
Each word spits out of him like a whip, quick and ferocious. Fury cracks through his voice, but Sirius can’t stop it, doesn’t ever stop it because all he’s ever known is yelling back. Over the dinner table, through the locked door of his bedroom, in the dreary hall just before the start of term—Sirius doesn’t know what to do now that there’s no one to scream at anymore. He’s never understood his mother more than this very moment: maybe they’re the same after all. Maybe she needs that fight, just the same as Sirius needs the next prank, the next cruel trick, something to anchor him in the moment and make him feel in control.
Sirius’s world is so noisy. It’s stinging hexes and thrown dinner plates and shouts that only wane once your throat is too hoarse to keep going. All he’s ever wanted is for some peace and quiet, for that semblance of normalcy he’s seen in the Potters, and he has it now. He ran for it, he reached it—and for a boy reared on the bitter bite of abuse, this silence is all too sweet.
Sirius cannot stomach it.
“Listen to me, you can’t keep doing this,” James cries out, pleading. His eyes are wet. His fingers dig into Sirius’s shoulder, harsh and tight, and the dogged press feels so familiar it makes Sirius’s stomach lurch. “I’m afraid you’re g—”
“Fucking LET GO OF ME!” Sirius screams, shoving him back.
And James goes toppling. He’s not the one Sirius expected to hit the ground, but here they are. Sirius still standing, James sprawled against the stone, not even bothering to pick himself back up. He simply looks up, eyes still wet and shiny, and Sirius wants to help him. He wants to take James’s hand, the hand that’s been reaching for him all this while, but he’s already backing up. Running away.
“Won’t you just tell me?” James says brokenly.
Sirius can’t. It’s a secret that’s too shameful to bare, a guilt that not even liquor can bury. It skirts along the very fringes of his mind, a ghost he can never be rid of. It means acknowledging what Sirius really is: his mother’s son.
I want to go back to my family. It’s the only place I belong.
“Just let me go, James.”
Winter hols are almost upon them, and despite all the holly wreaths and mistletoe, the air has never clung to Sirius so sourly.
Remus actively avoids Sirius at every turn. No surprise there, but what is curious is how Remus coldly ignores James, too. Something must have happened, though Sirius isn’t on speaking terms with either party to find out exactly what. The only person in their dormitory Remus still communicates with is Peter, who only makes a sound when strictly necessary. James, somewhere in the middle of this terribly awkward arrangement, appears so worn and gaunt that Sirius has begun to suspect that he’s going through his own mental breakdown. What fun.
Sirius knows this is all his fault just as much as he knows he cannot fix it. This is beyond him now. He’s always excelled at making a perfectly good mess even messier.
He blandly forces down a piece of dry toast. From the corner of his eye, he watches James sluggishly shovel some flavorless porridge down his throat. If things were not like this, he knows exactly how this scene would play out.
Is it as tasteless as Slughorn’s sense of fashion?
Charm a bowtie and a mustache on this bowl, and I think you’ll find the porridge wears it better than Slughorn ever could.
Merlin’s beard, he can almost hear James’s chuckle in his head. Is he going mad?
His gaze drops down to his pitifully bare plate. He hasn’t the appetite for anything beyond basic sustenance. Even the bread feels like a chore rather than a meal.
“Black?” a tinny voice calls out.
His head rolls to the side, where he’s greeted by some stringy third-year holding out a note. He merely grunts.
“It’s from Dumbledore,” the student finishes, all but thrusting the note at him before hurrying away.
Interest mildly piqued, Sirius takes the note in his free hand and forces it open.
Mr Black, please stop by my office at your earliest convenience. I hear candy floss has been particularly popular lately.
He rolls his eyes, dusts his hands free of crumbs, and makes his way up to the Headmaster’s Office. It’s a moderately long walk, enough time to wonder what this is even about. Perhaps Snape has tattled on him again? Or Dumbledore’s thinking of extending his detentions through next term, too?
The gargoyle lets him up without issue, and as soon as Sirius’s head crests the top of the stairs, his stomach drops.
Dumbledore’s face is solemn, far too grave for this to be any usual lecture, and he isn’t alone either. Seated primly in one of the chairs across from his desk is a pencil-thin woman in Ministry standard grey robes. There’s a pin showcasing two interlocking M’s tacked against her collar. Her head shifts as Sirius approaches, and her face is closed off into just as severe an expression as Dumbledore’s.
They’re expelling me after all, Sirius thinks dimly. Is the Ministry here to destroy his wand?
Something like dread coils in the pit of his stomach, and it is the only emotion beside anger that Sirius has truly let himself feel these past few months. The sensation is so abrupt and jarring that he almost feels faint.
“Good morning,” he says numbly, reaching for the second chair. He just about falls into it, desperate for something to hold him up.
“Good morning,” Dumbledore echoes back. It’s a little game they’re playing, pretending that anything about this morning is good. “This is Ministry official Roberta Runcorn. I believe you’ve been expecting her.”
“Hello, Mr Black,” she says. Her voice is crisp, businesslike.
Sirius’s dull gaze swallows up the scene. Expecting her? Did they send him a letter? Sirius has been throwing away his mail for months, for fear of encountering something from his parents.
“Er, I don’t…really recall,” he says eventually. “What’re you here for?”
Runcorn pulls out a long, thin scroll from a deceptively small cloak pocket. She unfurls it, then clears her throat. “Understandable, of course. I am sure you have had a lot to process. I am here to read to you the contents of one Alphard Pollux Black’s last will and testament.”
The world seems to tilt. Sirius splutters with disbelief. “I’m sorry, are you—my uncle died?”
Dumbledore’s brows raise. He and Runcorn share a confused glance.
“You didn’t receive news of this?” Dumbledore asks softly.
Sirius turns to look at him, and finally sees that the older wizard’s careful features aren’t laid out in solemnity but rather pity.
“I—I don’t know—” his eyes catch onto Runcorn, “—you sent letters?”
“Not regarding Alphard Black’s passing,” she says slowly. “The Ministry sends formal notices of someone’s passing only in rare circumstances. Normally, it is assumed the news is passed through family.”
“No, I—my family and I aren’t—” Sirius can hardly get the words out. He leans forward, cradling his head in his hands. It’s not as if he and Alphard were particularly close. He hardly saw the man after starting Hogwarts, only at the occasional family function that Sirius bothered to show his face at. Still, the death rattles him, proves with more certainty than any scream, any insult, that Sirius is out. No one bothered to tell him. “…When did this happen?”
Runcorn glances at her scroll. “November fourteenth.”
Sirius’s head shoots up, incredulous. “That was nearly a month ago!”
“Yes, I regret that we could not inform you sooner, but there were several members of the Black family who contested the will. We have done a thorough investigation and confirmed only this past Tuesday the legitimacy of the document.”
“Contested the will? Why?”
“Several members were concerned that the sole inheritor to Alphard Black’s sum capital indicated some sort of forgery.”
“What?” Sirius says dumbly.
Runcorn averts her gaze unsurely. “Many of your relatives could not believe that Alphard Black left all his wealth to you.”
“What?!”
“You have inherited a modest yet substantial sum of money.” Her sharp gaze flickers back to the parchment. “Forty-one thousand and ten galleons, twenty-nine sickles, and six knuts, all of which is available to you in Alphard Black’s vault at Gringotts. Number 532.”
She plucks out a key from her pocket and places it on Dumbledore’s desk, sliding it across to Sirius, who merely stares at it. The numbers linger in his head, though he can’t quite make sense of them. The only thing that sticks is the fact that Sirius, who was practically penniless just five seconds ago, can afford a flat of his own if he so wanted—and enough liquor to fill up every cabinet and then some.
Sirius picks up the vault key, presses it against his palm. The metal is cold against his skin. Without looking up, he croaks out at last, “Why?”
The official regards him strangely, perturbed. “Pardon?”
“Why did he leave me his money? I thought my whole family disowned me.”
She blinks rapidly, gaze darting back down to the parchment. Her eyes flicker through at a near-impossible speed.
“Apologies, Mr Black,” she says at last, “but it doesn’t say.”
Disowned or not, they’re family after all. Sirius never says, either.
Dumbledore excuses Sirius from classes for the rest of the day.
It’s more time than Sirius knows what to do with, truthfully. He wanders through the courtyard, then past the stonework, deeper into the grounds, until it’s just fresh, biting wind and verdant green. He misses lunch and dinner, but he hardly feels the pull of hunger. Something deeper gnaws at him, tugs and snaps at his stomach, until it has Sirius feeling nauseous in his own body.
He ends up as Padfoot, curled up at the foot of a tree overlooking the Great Lake.
It’s late enough and his coat is dark enough that any wayward student might see some oddly splayed shadow rather than a hulking hound. His head rests against the grass, snout twitching. His tail skirts against the base of the tree now and again.
It’s simple, being Padfoot. Sirius isn’t sure if it’s like this for all Animagi or if it’s specific to the animal, but when he’s a dog the world feels so easy. Like it’s smoother to swallow, despite there being so much more to it. There are scents under scents, sounds under sounds, sights under sights: everything feels so intricately laid out, like he can only experience the world for a fraction of what it is when he’s human but it all comes undone when he’s a dog. He can see all the threads, all the folds that make the world just that. The fuzz on a bee. The smell of rain. It’s all laid bare, simple in the way it’s not. When Sirius is Sirius he has to make up reasons for everything, draw out meaning until he’s left with a swirling torrent of emotion he can’t temper; when he’s Padfoot, he can see it all for the way it just is. Existence is reason enough.
He doesn’t know how long he sits there, just breathing, eyes fluttering open then shut.
Eventually, his ears perk up. There’s the squelch of dirt, a rustle over fallen leaves, and soon James appears from under his invisibility cloak. He’s wan and worn but somehow relieved. It’s not an expression Sirius has come to expect from anyone around him recently.
“Oh, good,” James breathes, slumping down against the tree, hip hitting Sirius’s hind leg. His disembodied head bobs out, glasses glinting under the stray moonlight as he absently takes in the lake. “If you weren’t somewhere around here, I was going to fetch a professor.”
Sirius snaps back into himself in an instant, back thudding against bark. He drags his knees up, arms circling around his legs.
“Fetch a professor?” Sirius repeats. Then, with some phantom of bite, because it's so rote now, he continues, “Snivelly turned you into a tattle, too?”
James is eerily still. He doesn’t rise to the bait. “No. Can I be honest with you, Sirius?”
“Were you not before?”
James ignores him. “I spent the past two hours searching for you. You didn’t show to any classes, which—fair enough, you skive off now and again—but with how everything’s been…”
James’s voice strangles into itself. The night feels all the darker for it. Something snags against Sirius’s neck, hot and impatient.
“What?” he presses.
“I thought you’d gone off to—to pitch yourself off the Astronomy tower or drown yourself or—I don’t know!” James lets out wretchedly. His voice is a raw wound, congealing around a desperation that hasn’t been put to bed since Sirius showed up on his doorstep in July.
Sirius doesn’t know what to say, so he defaults to the only thing that happened: “I found out my uncle died.”
James startles. Sirius can feel his gaze on him.
“I’m—” he examines Sirius a moment, hesitant, “—er, it was the good uncle?”
Good uncle. Sirius doesn’t know if there’s anyone in his family who’s good.
“Yeah,” he says all the same.
James relaxes. “I’m sorry, mate. I—Merlin’s beard, do you know what happened?”
“No,” he answers bitterly. “He died weeks ago. Of course no one in my family informed me. I only found out because Dumbledore called me up so a Ministry worker could go over his will with me.”
“Merlin,” James breathes. “That’s—I’m so sorry…”
“It’s—I’m just a bit shocked is all,” Sirius says uncomfortably. “He’d come round when I was little, but I wasn’t close to him. I can’t even remember the last time I spoke with him. It’s just… It’s not what I expected.”
Silence swallows them. It’s itchy and uncomfortable, not at all what Sirius has come to expect around James. There’s rarely a silent moment between the two of them, but when there is, it’s supposed to feel like the common room after hours. Fireplace flickering, shadows dancing on the walls, a hazy warmth that spreads from head to toe. It’s not supposed to feel cold like this. It’s not supposed to hurt like this.
“James…” Sirius’s eyes shutter for a moment. Even the dark of his mind is blurry. Distorted. He hardly remembers what began all this. A drink he shouldn’t have had? A home he shouldn’t have left? “Why did you go after Snape?”
It’s a stupid question because they both know the answer. Dumbledore can laud James all he wants, practically promise him Head Boy for it, puff up his ego for doing the right thing for morality’s sake, but it’s never been about right and wrong between the two of them. It’s always been what’s funny and what isn’t.
“So you wouldn’t get in trouble,” James answers simply. “I’m not about to see my best friend off to Azkaban for a mistake.”
“Is that was it was? A mistake?”
“Are you about to reveal to me that you’ve been intentionally plotting that idiot’s murder this whole time?”
Something vaguely resembling a smile flitters across Sirius’s lips. “No, but—I’ve been making an awful lot of mistakes recently.”
“Yeah, you’ve gotten incredibly clumsy. I’m no expert, but maybe, just maybe, it has to do with all the liquor you’re stashing under your bed.”
“It’s not under my bed anymore.”
“Because I got rid of them.”
“Because I moved them, prat.”
“Because I got rid of them.”
Sirius rolls his eyes. “Shove off.”
“Where are they now?”
“Unused dumbwaiter in the kitchens.”
“Shit, really? I kept thinking it was in the owlery somewhere. I’ve been wasting so many nights searching the nests.”
“Find anything interesting?”
“One of the school owls is collecting rings. Or stealing them? Or someone’s just been putting them there? Honestly, haven’t lent it much thought.”
“Is it that knobbly one with the—”
“—the uneven wings, yeah,” James finishes. “Merlin’s beard, are you behind it? Are you the infamous Hogwarts ring snatcher?”
And Sirius can’t help but laugh. It’s been too, too long since he let the feeling fly through him sober. It lasts only a brief moment, but the changes sticks for a long while after. Sirius stretches out his legs. He doesn’t remember the last time he felt so light.
Eventually, because all good things must end, James says, “Do you want to talk about…you know?”
Sirius regards him flatly. “No, I don’t know, James.”
“Er, so, I talked to Remus about, well, the two of you.” James rubs at the back of his neck. “It didn’t go over so well. It’s my fault. I probably shouldn’t have pestered him about it…”
Sirius’s gaze draws over the still surface of the lake. He feels oddly steady, maybe because he hasn’t had the chance to get a bottle in his hand today.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing, really,” James admits. “Believe me, mate, it really didn’t go over well.”
“Hmm… We have that in common at least.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“What? Me and Remus?”
“Yeah.”
“Now?”
James shrugs. “Yeah…?”
“As crazy as it may sound, I don’t really want to have a conversation with you about how I’m probably queer the day I found out my ‘good’ uncle passed away.”
“Right. Yeah. Sorry.”
The quiet hardly lasts fifteen seconds before James shuffles and opens his mouth again.
“Have any plans for holiday?”
“Usually, you start with the small talk, not shoehorn it in halfway through the conversation.”
“Answer my question, smartarse.”
“Besides the usual? Not really.”
James shoots him a sharp look. Sirius sighs. His hands knuckle into each other, aching for warmth his body can’t muster.
“I’ll wean off. I promise.”
“Is this like that promise we made to never keep secrets from each other, or is it actually real this time?”
“James…”
“Petty, yeah—but I think I deserve to be at least a bit.”
Sirius snorts lightly. The exhale curls in the air, a fine wisp of white, before it’s blown away.
“It’s a real promise,” he says at last.
He feels James sag next to him. “Good. I—I don’t want to fight with you again on this, mate.”
Sirius merely nods.
“Anyway, what I meant when I asked is if you were planning to stay here over hols? I understand if you need the space, but I think you ought to come home with me for Yuletide. It’ll be nice. Mum makes the most—”
“Wait, you’re inviting me to stay with you?” Sirius interrupts, wide-eyed and slightly stunned. He half-expected a lifetime ban from Potter Cottage after everything he’s pulled this past term.
“I’m hardly inviting the bleeding tree behind us, am I?”
Sirius can’t bear his best friend’s face any longer, how open his gaze is, bright and honest. He jerks his head to the side, shame crawling up his spine with an insistence so dizzying it leaves Sirius almost breathless.
The seconds tick on. Sirius doesn’t know what to say, every apology that comes to mind seems so foolish and stupid. He can avoid it. He can leave. Run away. Sirius knows full well, but he’s so tired. It’s over, James has caught up with him at last, though was there any doubt he would?
“Home?” Sirius repeats questioningly.
“Yeah,” James says, almost insistent.
Slowly, surely, Sirius lets the confession fall from his lips. “It doesn’t feel like home to me.”
James’s mouth dips into a slight frown, and he angles closer to Sirius. “What? Did my parents say something to you to?”
“No, of course not,” he protests. “I mean—Merlin’s beard, James—I wish it were so easy, but nothing feels right anymore. As sad and pathetic as it is, 12 Grimmauld Place was my home. I think it still is, a little bit. It feels wrong not to be there. It feels wrong for me to be somewhere else. I—I’m not meant to be anywhere else.”
There’s a reason they get on like a house on fire. There’s a reason James is the fuel and Sirius is the matchstick. It takes a moment, certainly, but a moment is all James needs to tease it out.
“You’re not like them, Sirius.”
“Sure,” he grants. Not exactly, at least. “But I’m not like your family either. I—shit, James—I don’t have a home. I lost the only one I’d ever known, awful as it was. I have nothing now.”
“You can stay with me for as long as you like. You know that. But you and I both know it won’t be forever. Whenever you’re ready for it, you can get a flat or something. Make a home for yourself.”
It isn’t anything Sirius hasn’t already considered. It even sounds appealing, but… “I’ll be alone.”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but with the way you’re going on right now—you’re a decent way there already.”
Sirius winces.
“I tried to be soft with you, but it’s the truth, mate,” James says, a tinge of apology coloring his voice.
“I know.”
“I think…” James hesitates.
“What?”
“I think Remus might come around, eventually.”
Sirius scoffs.
“Just give it time.” James pauses, then adds, “Lots of time. And an apology or two, er, dozen.”
“All right,” Sirius says eventually, deciding he may as well humor the prospect. He owes James that much, at least.
“Besides, it might do some good. Spending time alone.”
“What would you know about that?” he bites, then grimaces. “Sorry.”
James shrugs. “No, you’re right. I don’t, really. I just think you need to learn to be yourself. Just yourself. Sober, in case that wasn’t implied.”
It sounds so absurd. Sirius almost wants to laugh, too-loud and raucous and desperate. “Learn to be myself? Who exactly was I before, then?”
“I don’t know,” James admits. “I think you were just…whoever you needed to be to get through it. But there’s nothing to get through anymore. It’s over, Sirius. You won’t ever see them again.”
But I will, Sirius thinks. When he catches himself in the mirror, when his voice rises an octave, when his hands curl into themselves, itching to strike—he’ll see them then. They’re in his face, his magic and his blood. Sirius doesn’t know if it will ever really be over. He almost doesn’t want it to be. What’s left for him once the fight’s done? Once the screaming is gone? Silence has never sat well with Sirius. Too uncertain: he never knows what’s going to shatter it, a laugh or a fist.
Sirius lets out a breath. Maybe James is right. Maybe he just needs to be alone. Figure himself out. There’s time enough for it, at least.
“Yeah,” he lets out quietly.
“Yeah,” James agrees. “Let’s go back?”
“I might stay a while longer. It’s been…a day.”
James pats his shoulder sympathetically. “I’ll see you after, then.”
“Yeah…”
James hefts himself up. There’s the swish of the cloak, a leaf crunching underfoot—
“Hey,” Sirius calls out. His voice is so small. Afraid. He hasn’t felt this way since the first time he landed himself in trouble with his parents.
“Yeah?”
He lets out an unsteady breath. “Thanks.”
James smiles. It’s a soft, tired thing. “What for? You’d do the same. This is nothing.”
“Don’t say that. You… It’s everything. Really.”
“All right, fine. If you insist. I’m glad someone’s finally acknowledging all my effort. You were a right bitch to deal with.”
Sirius snorts. “Yeah? I guess I’m a dog for a reason, then.”
James’s smile widens into a full-blown grin. “Glad to have you back, Padfoot.”
“Glad to be back, Prongs.”