Chapter Text
Sirius was not made for this. He knew this with a certainty that sat in his gut like lead, that traveled upwards, forming a knot in his throat that threatened to unravel at any moment. He was not sure exactly what it was that he was made for, but he knew sure as anything what he was not. Because this feeling was wrong, a feeling that he was never meant to experience.
But then again, he had felt it so many times before. The rejection, that stinging, shameful pain. The inescapable vines of dread wrapping around his throat, his mind, his very being. The thought, no the knowledge, that it was his fault. That he had sealed his own fate, as he inevitably always would.
And he always tried to escape it. Or elude it, for as long as he could. He tried to be better, tried to fix the irreparable cracks in his soul, his personhood, his character. He tried not to feel it when he went home (no, not home, that was Hogwarts, or perhaps their dorm room, or perhaps Remus’... no, perhaps nowhere, now.) He tried not to feel it when Regulus arrived at Hogwarts his first year, after his sorting, when he looked at him with eyes full of derision, and even worse fear, firmly locked away but nonetheless glinting to the surface. He tries not to feel it in the lesser moments as well, even when the feeling does not become something all-encompassing and inescapable. When he could tell he was pushing people’s tolerance, their patience too far (no, not all people, just those he cared for; James, Mary, Peter, Remus… Remus).
But still, it always came back. Sirius would try, he would try to contain what felt like his inherent nature, but he would forget himself, become lax with feelings of acceptance, of safety. He would get so lost in being loved that he would forget the very things which made that love impossible. And then he would mess up (a remark said too flippantly, a joking insult that perhaps landed far too close to home… Or far, far worse that wicked anger that so often would trod the line of cruelty) and the feeling would be back; carbon steel meeting hot metal, a surgeon’s blade meeting skin, water meeting rock until it crumbled into sand.
And so now here he was, stuck and forever reliving the horrors of his grand mistake, like watching the scene of a massacre that you can not look away from. And it had nearly been a massacre, hadn’t it?
He could say he did not know why he did it. And this would be part truth, at least. He certainly knew what spurned his actions; that anger and frustration that bubbled up inside him, scratching, clawing, rioting relentlessly inside his mind. It was not mere emotion but a physical feeling that built up with a crescendo until it exploded from him, the fortissimo blare of trumpets, of brass instruments that Walburga would surely have considered a pedestrian affront to music. He knew this reaction, had observed it countless times, a scientist to his own defects. What he still did not know, however, was what caused it. Why he was so flawed, so broken, so irredeemable that he could never stop it, tap it down, rein in the wild bucking horse of his anger the way that all of his friends seemed to be able to. At the very least, when it did manage to escape, their anger did not have such devastating and unrectifiable effects.
And so, though he did know why he told Snape about the knot on the Whomping Willow, he did not know why his anger, his destruction of all the things he held sacred, was so inevitable.
He did know he needed to fix it. It, meaning the gaping chasm that had formed between himself and those he held most dear.. It, meaning him. And he was equally lost on how to do both.
James (and subsequently Peter) had, as was due, ceased any and all communications with Sirius. They no longer ate together, or studied together, or planned pranks under the guise of studying together. It was understandable, of course it was, it was what he deserved, but this did not stop the relentless aching of his heart, the feeling in his stomach as if he had been dropped from a great height and not been allowed to come back up. His three favourite people in the world, whom he had gotten used to spending each and every day with, would no longer meet his eyes. Comfortability had wormed into Sirius’ heart like an infection, a dormant tumor that acutely materialized its effects once forcibly removed. And if you thought, as Sirius foolishly had, that the fact that all four boys shared a room would mean they had to speak to him, even if just to ask him to move out of the way, you would be sorely mistaken. The loyalty that had so often benefitted Sirius was now working against him, as James and Peter remained staunch in their convictions.
And Sirius could not hold it against them, not for one moment. If anything, it caused his heart to swell with love for the two, the reassurance that someone who would dare to hurt Moony so deeply would be met with the swiftest and harshest possible consequences. Every time Sirius’ mind went idle, or he lay in his bed in the uncomfortable quiet of the dorm, unable to sleep, that last conversation played and replayed itself in its mind. A mirage only in that it was no longer tangible, merely a memory, but those words that had ingrained themselves into Sirius’ mind. It was a memory he felt he may never be able to escape, the effects forever lacerating through his mind like a dagger tipped with poison. Forever reminding him that it had really happened; that it was all devastatingly, heartbreakingly real. The shame never relented, and thus the memory never did either, two forces producing an endless feed-back loop. He did his best to distract himself, but it always came back, he could never-
“What the fuck is wrong with you, Sirius?” James had shouted, once the dust had settled. James, who hardly ever raised his voice in anger. James, who in this moment called him ‘Sirius’; not ‘Padfoot’, or ‘Pads’, or (as he had begun doing recently, much to Sirius’ extreme annoyance) ‘Pads-y’. A James so at odds with every other memory he had of him that it almost defied reason, seemed nearly impossible, if not for the context of it all.
Sirius had tried to interject, tears streaming down his face as the reality of the situation had sunk in. “I didn’t-, I wasn’t-.” Shuddering and ragged breaths forced their way between Sirius’s words. Finally, his mind managed to piece together something. “James, I swear, I wasn’t thinking, I was just so fucking angry… You know I would never hurt Moony, not-”
“No.” James said, unflinching, the usual warmth of his eyes replaced with something cold and unyielding.
“What? I-”
“NO!” If his words had been harsh before, they were now a battering ram, slamming relentlessly into the door of Sirius’ heart.
“No, no you do not get to fucking call him that. Not now. Frankly, I don’t give a fuck what you were feeling.” He snorted with derision. “Oh, you weren’t thinking? No fucking shit, Sirius. And the worst part is, you know. You know what would happen to him if he had touched a hair on Snivellous’ head. He would be expelled. Locked. Away. Whatever the fuck else the ministry sees fit to do with him.” At this point there were tears gleaming in James’ eyes too. “So, no, no excuses. I don’t want to fucking hear it.”
And Sirius had just stood there, the mounting horror of shell-shock rising within him. Tears flowing down his face freer than ever. He realized, in that moment, that he had nothing left to say. That there was nothing he could say.
James turned to Peter, who had been watching this exchange silently, with almost as much shock on his face as Sirius’. “Come on, Pete.” And they both turned, and walked away, without so much as a glance.
And that had been the last time any of the Marauders had spoken to him.