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- “When your mother hits you, do not strike back”
Grimmauld Place, Age Thirteen
The slap cracks through the silence like a firework.
Sirius stumbles back, his heel catching on the ornate rug as he reels into the edge of the parlor’s sideboard. The corner bites into his hipbone. He grunts but doesn’t cry out.
His hand flies instinctively to his cheek—hot and blooming with pain, his skin already prickling with the telltale sting of a raised welt. The taste of copper seeps between his teeth, making him grimace.
He doesn’t speak.
Across from him, his mother, Walburga Black, stands like a statue carved out of fury, wand still raised over her shoulder. Her hair is drawn back too tightly, face sharp with disdain, eyes burning like polished obsidian.
She looks at him like he’s a painting someone vandalized. Something beautiful, now grotesque.
The boots had been James’s. Scuffed, worn in, the laces frayed from spending all school year watching the Gryffindor Quidditch team in awe and running around the muddy field. Sirius had polished them himself before wearing them down to breakfast.
The t-shirt was his own—black, soft with age, the faded logo of a Muggle rock band splashed across the front. The Clash. A band he’d found in one of Lily Evans’ muggle magazines that she left in the Gryffindor common room. The shirt hung loose on his frame, sleeves rolled to his shoulders, collar stretched from too much love.
Together, they made him feel solid. Rooted. Not like the heir to some crumbling pureblood dynasty—but like a boy. A boy with choices. A boy with friends.
A boy who could choose what he wore, what he listened to, who he became.
“You will not wear that in this house,” his mother spits. Her voice is fire and venom, pronouncing each word through her gritted teeth like a hex.
“You will not strut around like some Mudblood whore. Do you hear me?”
Sirius’s throat tightens. His jaw is clenched so hard, it hurts. There’s so much he wants to say. So many things rising like hot bile in his chest—how he’s not an unfeeling object of hers, not their perfect little soldier, not a girl to be boxed and corrected and named wrong—
But he says nothing.
Because anything he says now would break something that’s already splintering.
And he’s not giving her the pleasure of watching him fall apart.
Her wand lowers, but her rage only sharpens.
“Look at me when I speak to you!” she screams, her voice echoing off the parlor walls.
Sirius still doesn’t move.
He doesn’t look at her.
Doesn’t flinch.
Doesn’t fight.
The restraint isn’t peace—it’s fury held so tight he thinks his spine might snap under the pressure. His fingers curl, digging crescent moons into his palms.
He walks past her. Not quickly. Not sheepishly. Just... steadily. One hand pressed to his cheek, the other brushing the carved banister of the staircase like an anchor.
Each step echoes through the quiet house like defiance.
Up the stairs.
Past the portraits.
Past the bedroom that used to be his.
Past Regulus, who stands frozen in the hallway, eyes wide and unblinking.
Sirius doesn't stop.
In the bathroom mirror, he sees the handprint.
A perfect red mark seared across his left cheek.
Her brand. Her fury. Her control.
He touches it gently.
His fingers tremble—not from pain, but from slowly unwinding restraint.
Because it would have been so easy to raise his wand. To scream back. To set the curtains on fire or hex every pureblood relic in that cursed parlor.
But instead, he breathes.
One breath in.
One breath out.
And in the silence, he runs a washcloth under cold water, then holds it to his cheek—beginning the slow, quiet, necessary work of erasing his mother’s power.
2. “When the boys call asking your cup size, say A, hang up.”
Third year. Owlery. Late afternoon.
Sirius is unbinding—gingerly, slowly, the way he always does when no one’s around. His ribs are sore. His shoulders scream. It’s not glamour; it’s pressure and pain. And he thinks, sometimes, that if he just had a few more galleons, he could buy a potion to help with…all of it.
The letter had arrived folded in a charmed paper plane. Blue ink, neat handwriting. From some Ravenclaw boy he barely knows. I heard you’re not really a girl, but you’ve still got tits, right? What are they, a B?
He tears the letter in half.
Then in half again.
Then again.
He is tempted to burn it with a spell, but doesn’t.
He wants the pieces to stay—scattered like feathers, useless.
Later that night, in the common room, he pulls out a half-used Transfiguration worksheet.
On the back, he scrawls one word in his sharpest, clearest handwriting:
A.
No greeting. No name. No explanation.
The next morning, during Charms, he passes by the Ravenclaw boy’s table—doesn’t even glance at him. Just lets the folded paper slide off the edge of his book and onto the boy’s open notes.
The boy frowns. Unfolds it.
Looks up, puzzled.
Sirius is already walking away.
Back straight. Chin up. No shame.
3. “When he says you gave him blue balls, say ‘you’re welcome’”
Fifth Year — Before Remus. Before Tenderness.
There was a boy. His name was Dorian. Tall, older by a year, lean with a perfect jaw and muscular chest that made girls stare and boys puff their chests out. He had shiny, dark, well-kept hair and a voice that dragged like velvet against stone.
He was a Slytherin. Of course he was.
He smoked in the courtyard when no one was looking and quoted obscure dueling case law like it was poetry. He wore his prefect badge like a joke, letting it swing loose on his robes, but would immediately straighten it when he saw some underclassmen he could abuse his authority on.
Sirius had noticed him in the library once, flipping through Magical Maladies with a grin like he’d already survived all of them.
Dorian looked at Sirius like they shared some private joke. Sirius liked that. Liked being looked at like a secret someone wanted to steal, keep.
It happened after Astronomy. The sky was clear, stars cutting sharp against black velvet, providing the only light save for the tip of Dorian’s wand as he led Sirius down the corridor.
He nudged Sirius’ shoulder and squeezed his wrist. “Come on. Let’s go somewhere fun.”
Sirius didn’t ask where.
Didn’t need to.
They slipped through the dark, down past the trophy room and behind the tapestry that led to a long-abandoned Charms classroom. One with a broken chalkboard and cracked ceiling tiles and the faint smell of old potion smoke.
The kind of room no one missed.
Sirius leaned back against the teacher’s desk, hands in his pockets, one boot pressed to the wood like he owned it.
Dorian stepped in close. Too close. He place a hand over Sirius’ shoulder, pinning him in. His reckless smile turned hungry.
“Been thinking about this,” he murmured, already undoing the top button of Sirius’s shirt.
Sirius didn’t stop him.
Not at first.
The kiss was hard. Fast. Mouths crashing. Teeth clashing. The kind of thing Sirius knew how to do: messy and hot and loud enough to drown things out.
But then Dorian’s hands slid down—too fast. Too entitled. Gripping. Pressing. Without asking.
Sirius tensed. Pulled back.
It took a second for Dorian to notice, his lips still parted expectantly.
“Seriously?” he groaned, breath ragged. “After all that teasing?”
He cupped himself like it was Sirius’s problem and muttered, “You’re giving me blue balls.”
Sirius blinked. Then laughed. Not a soft laugh. Not a you’re cute when you’re stupid laugh. A knife-sharp, bitter laugh that bounced off the empty desks like a slap. “You’re welcome,” he said.
He buttoned his shirt with deliberate fingers. One at a time. Didn’t rush. Let Dorian stew. “You think I give a damn?” he added, voice low and cutting. “God, you’re dull.”
Dorian opened his mouth, but Sirius was already gone, boots echoing down the hallway and hair wild as he ran, struggling to repress his laughter as he thought about the look on Dorian’s face.
Back in the boys’ dormitory, he didn’t cry. Didn’t rage. Didn’t feel like he’d lost anything. He felt clean. In control. Later, when James asked where he’d been, Sirius shrugged. “Wasting time.”
When Remus overheard and asked more gently, Sirius rolled his eyes. “Boring snog. Nothing worth writing home about.”
He didn’t mention Dorian’s hands. Or the way the kiss had made his stomach twist.
But he remembered, in quiet pride, how good it had felt to leave first.
To shut the door behind him.
To know he never had to open it again.
4. “When a girl with thick black curls who smells like bubble gum stops you in a stairwell to ask if you’re a boy, explain that you keep your hair short so she won’t have anything to grab when you head-butt her. Then head-butt her.”
Third Year, fourteen-years-old
The staircases were shifting again.
Groaning, creaking, pivoting midair like they had somewhere more important to be.
Sirius was already running late for Arithmancy, bag slung over one shoulder, hair damp from a rushed shower after dueling club. His boots thudded across the landing, and he paused just long enough to check which staircase would align next when she stepped into his path.
Chelsea Cormac.
Sixth year. American transfer. Loud voice, louder perfume. Always smelled like peppermint gum and glitter nail polish. She carried her wand in her boot and a mirror in her pocket and once hexed a boy’s eyebrows clean off for "breathing weird."
Sirius didn’t even have time to brace himself.
She popped a bubble between her teeth and said, loud enough to echo,
“Hey. Are you a boy or a girl?”
Just like that. No warning. No context. Like it was a game, like he was a game.
The air thinned.
He turned to face her slowly, carefully, eyes narrowed like flint.
Behind him, one of the staircases clicked into place with a heavy stone thunk.
Sirius tilted his head. “I keep my hair short,” he said, voice even and sharp, “so girls like you don’t have anything to grab when I head-butt them.”
Her gum popped again—louder this time. She blinked. “What?”
Sirius’s wand was already in his hand.
With a lazy flick, he sent a charm through the air—silent, seamless. Her hair, thick and glossy and carefully styled, writhed like it had been doused in potion. In seconds, her curls began to tighten. Not the cute kind of curl. The kind of spiral that knotted itself, pulled taut, tangled into a mess she’d be working through for hours.
Chelsea shrieked. “What the hell?”
Sirius didn’t flinch.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answered,” he said coolly, stepping backward as the staircase to his right slid into place with a heavy grind.
He didn’t wait for a retort. Just turned, cloak flaring behind him, and leapt onto the stairs as they began to move again.
Below, Chelsea was still clawing at her scalp, shrieking at the injustice, shouting about hair charms and discipline boards.
Sirius didn’t look back.
He smiled.
He made it to Arithmancy ten minutes late and didn’t apologize. Professor Vector raised a brow, and he just shrugged, dropped into his seat, and started sketching constellation tattoos into the margins of his notes.
Chelsea never asked him another question again.
5. “When a guidance counselor teases you for handed-down jeans, do not turn red.”
Fourth Year. Fifteen-years-old.
The summer before fourth year, Sirius grew two inches in three months.
Everything he owned betrayed him.
Shirts clung too tight. Robes didn’t close right. And every pair of school trousers left his ankles exposed like he’d charmed them that way on purpose.
But he wasn’t going home to ask for new ones. Not to that house. Not to that woman.
So, the night before the first day of classes, Sirius asked James, “Hey, Mate. Got anything I can nick before I start showing off my knees in Potions?”
Two days later, a package arrived from Mrs.Potter: three pairs of jeans, worn soft with time, frayed at the cuffs and faded at the knees. They smelled faintly like grass and broomstick wax and belonged to James in a way that made Sirius grin just to pull them on.
The denim hung low on his hips, perfectly slouchy, like rebellion sewn in cotton.
He cuffed them at the ankles and charmed the waistband tighter. No one had to know.
Slughorn’s classroom was warmer than usual, the thick smell of stewed fluxweed hanging in the air. The cauldrons bubbled low and quiet. Sirius had just leaned over to hand Remus a dried kelpie scale when he heard the professor’s voice, lilting and amused.
He said it casually, like he thought he was being clever:
“Not all of us are born tall and elegant, Mr. Black. Though I imagine the House of Black usually outfits its sons in something a bit... finer than frayed denim.”
A few students chuckled.
Not loudly. But enough.
Sirius felt the heat rise—not in his face, but in his spine.
He set down his stirrer, turned slowly, and met Slughorn’s eyes with that gleaming, too-sharp smile he saved for special occasions.
“Oh, these?” he said, brushing invisible dust from his jeans. “They’re borrowed.”
He let the pause hang, just long enough.
“From someone who doesn’t give a damn about bloodlines.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then a few surprised laughs from across the room.
Even Remus looked up from his notes, the corner of his mouth twitching.
Slughorn blinked, flustered, then forced a chuckle. “Well, fashion is always changing, I suppose.”
Sirius picked up his stirrer again, unbothered.
Let the potion simmer.
Let the comment land.
He didn’t blush.
Didn’t shrink.
He just stirred.
6. “When you have sex for the second time and there is no condom, do not convince yourself that screwing between layers of underwear will soak up the semen.”
Sixth year. Seventeen-years-old.
It started how most of Sirius’s flings did: late-nights, shared cigarettes, and enough silence between words to make the other person think they were seeing something sacred.
The boy’s name was Julian. A Ravenclaw with ink-stained fingers and a sharp tongue, Julian carried around battered poetry books and always seemed to be three seconds from challenging someone to a duel. He wore his robes half-open like it was a statement. Sirius liked that about him. Liked the way Julian moved, like he’d memorized every corner of his body and had already decided no one could touch it without permission.
It felt like a relief.
And Sirius had needed some.
He’d had a long week: another letter from his mother, another fight with James over his increasingly unpredictable moods, another moment when he caught Remus looking at him with quiet, unreadable eyes. He was tired. And being wanted—without history, without complexity—felt like something simple. Something easy.
Julian had kissed him behind the tapestry outside the Ravenclaw dorms. Had whispered, “You’re gorgeous when you’re mad,” and run his thumb down the side of Sirius’s throat. Sirius had leaned in. Let himself forget.
So when Julian sent a note—Astronomy Tower. Midnight. Bring your mouth.—Sirius had smiled. Tucked it into his pocket like a secret.
He showed up just before the clock struck twelve.
They didn’t talk. Just kissed. Back pressed to stone. Fingers fumbling with buttons. Breath hot and fast. The night was cloudless, stars strewn across the sky like twinkling witnesses. Then came the moment.
Julian pulled back, unzipped his own trousers, and pressed against Sirius’s hip, breath ragged. “Come on,” he muttered. “We don’t need anything else. It’s fine.”
There was no pause.
No question.
No mention of protection charms. No potion. No precaution at all.
Sirius froze.
It was subtle, at first. The slowing of his breath. The tightening of his jaw.
Something twisted in his chest—not fear. Not even shame. Just... a hollowness. Familiar. Cold. The sharp realization that Julian hadn’t thought about it. About him. About care.
He looked up at the ceiling. The constellations above were blurred through the telescope lens.
Orion. Cassiopeia. A family he’d never asked for.
“I’m not really here right now,” Sirius said, quietly.
Julian frowned. “What?”
Sirius stepped back, straightened his robes with fingers that didn’t tremble.
“I thought I could be,” he said. “But I’m not.”
Julian zipped up. Shrugged. “It’s not that serious.”
“No,” Sirius agreed. “It isn’t.”
He left first.
Took the long way back to Gryffindor Tower.
Walked until his lungs ached.
Then climbed the greenhouses, sat on the roof with his legs dangling over the edge, and lit a cigarette.
The stars above blinked down like they knew the truth: that he could have said yes. That it would’ve been easy.
But he didn’t want easy.
He wanted real. And maybe—someday—he wanted tender.
He watched the stars until his fingers went numb.
And thought maybe what hurt most wasn’t that Julian hadn’t understood.
It was that Sirius, for one foolish moment, had tried to pretend he didn’t care.
7. “When your geometry teacher posts a banner reading: ‘Learn math or go home and learn how to be a Momma,’ do not take your first feminist stand by leaving the classroom.”
Fifth year. Sixteen-years-old. Muggle studies. Just before leaving the house and name he was expected to uphold.
Sirius didn’t need Muggle Studies to know that some people thought he didn’t belong.
He knew it the way you know a storm’s coming—felt it in the air, in the glances, in the way some teachers hesitated before calling his name.
But he took the class anyway.
Because he wanted to.
Wanted to know how Muggles lived without magic—how they built homes and families and futures in a world that didn’t bend for them. He wanted to understand the things his parents mocked and feared: lightbulbs, radios, the concept of money.
He wanted to learn about what his bloodline had always insisted was beneath him.
The professor was stiff. Older. A Ministry-adjacent witch with a thin mouth and iron posture. She had a voice like cold parchment and a reputation for order. Everything about her felt pressed—robes, voice, soul.
First class, first day of term.
Sirius was in the third row, slouched in his chair with James’s hand-me-down jacket over his shoulders. The sleeves were too short and the collar was fraying, but it was warm and Muggle-made, and Sirius liked how it made pure-blood professors wrinkle their noses.
He was doodling on the edge of his notes when she flicked her wand at the front of the room. A banner unfurled across the blackboard, ink shimmering blue-black in the morning light:
“Learn the craft, or go home and keep house.”
The room stilled.
It wasn’t subtle.
It wasn’t clever.
It was a slap dressed as a slogan.
Sirius felt it bloom in his chest—not just as an insult to women, but as a warning shot. To anyone not deemed "fit" to master wandwork. To anyone queer. To anyone wrong.
It felt like a threat designed to be invisible.
He raised his hand.
“Professor?” he said, casual and smooth.
She turned. “Yes, Mr. Black?”
“Professor?” he said, voice calm, but cutting. “Just so I’m clear—if I’m bad at wandwork, my backup plan is ironing?”
The class snorted.
She narrowed her eyes. “Mr. Black—”
“Only asking,” Sirius added, leaning back in his chair. “Some of us would rather learn both. You know—spells and how to survive.”
Sirius stayed after class.
He waited until the room cleared, then walked up to her desk and leaned against the edge—not cocky, just deliberate.
“Your banner’s a little rich,” he said. “Considering how much Muggles actually know.”
She didn’t look up. “It’s meant to motivate.”
“To motivate who?” he pressed. “The girls told they’re only good for cleaning charms? Or the boys too proud to learn how to wire a lamp?”
Finally, she looked at him.
“You’re a Black,” she said, cool and clipped. “And this is beneath you.”
Sirius smiled wider.
“That’s exactly why I’m here.”
He left without waiting for an answer.
8. “When the boy you have a crush on is sent to detention, go home.”
Fifth year. Sixteen-years-old. Near Christmas time.
The castle was quiet that night.
It was just past curfew, and Sirius should’ve been back in the common room with the others.
But instead, he was here. Tucked behind the statue of Mildred the Misbehaving, shielded under the invisibility cloak.
He wasn’t even sure what he was doing—just that Remus hadn’t returned after Prefect rounds, and Sirius had found himself wandering. As if by instinct. As if some invisible thread pulled him toward the dark corridor outside McGonagall’s office.
That’s when he heard them.
Filch’s voice first—nasal and gleeful. “Out after curfew, and no bloody pass. You’re not above the rules, boy.”
And then—Remus.
Not pleading. Not afraid. Just tired. “I told you, I was helping someone in the library—”
“Tell it to the Head of House,” Filch sneered. “Let’s see how she feels about golden boys out sneaking around.”
They passed inches from where Sirius stood. He held his breath so hard his ribs ached.
Remus looked pale under the torchlight. Drawn. He wasn’t resisting, but his jaw was tight—set like stone.
Sirius could’ve stepped out.
He could’ve said, It was me. I dragged him out there. Give me the detention, not him.
He even reached for it. Took half a step forward.
And stopped.
Not because he was afraid of Filch.
But because he wasn’t sure how Remus would look at him if he did.
Because he wasn’t sure what was worse—getting caught, or being seen.
So he stayed in the dark.
Listened to their footsteps fade.
Then leaned against the stone wall and let the cold bite into him like consequence.
Later, back in Gryffindor Tower, he couldn’t settle.
The fire was too loud. Peter was snoring too much. James kept nudging him about the full moon next week, saying they should stock up on Chocolate Frogs and trail mix like it was a camping trip.
But Sirius’s mind was somewhere else.
When the dorm quieted and the candles burned low, he sat on his bed, legs crossed beneath him, gaze fixed on the frost-lined window. The wind outside howled like a warning.
He thought of how Remus looked as he was led away.
How small he seemed when no one else was watching.
The door creaked open just before midnight.
Remus stepped inside slowly, robes a little wrinkled, hair mussed. He didn’t speak.
Neither did Sirius.
He didn’t say I’m sorry.
Didn’t say I saw you.
Didn’t say I should’ve done something.
Instead, he reached into his drawer and pulled out a Chocolate Frog—still warm from a charm he cast on the box earlier.
He crossed the room and held it out.
Remus stared at it for a moment, then took it without a word.
Their fingers brushed, just for a second.
Then Remus sat down on his bed, and Sirius crawled under his covers, heart thudding so loud he was sure the others could hear it.
But no one said a thing.
9. “When your mother hits you, do not strike back.”
Fifth year. Sixteen-years-old. Christmas Break, and the breaking point.
There are different kinds of hitting.
Some are loud—smacks and shouts and flying objects.
Others are quieter.
“You are not my son,” she says one evening after he’s returned from Hogwarts with a binder in his trunk and ink on his hands from sketching tattoos he’ll one day carve into his own skin. “You are it. A thing.”
He stands at the bottom of the grand staircase. Regulus is watching from the hallway, frozen.
Sirius’s mouth opens, then closes.
He wants to yell that he is her son. That it doesn’t matter what name she gave him, or what body he was born in. That his identity is his own and always has been.
But he doesn’t.
He just walks past her, up the stairs, and starts packing.
10. “When the boy with the blue mohawk swallows your heart and opens his wrists, hide the knives, bleach the bathtub, pour out the vodka. Every time.”
The Summer Before Seventh Year – Knockturn Alley
Sirius first saw him in the back room of a pub called The Bottled Moonlight, a place where no one checked IDs and no one asked your name.
Asa had hair like a lost bet—dyed electric blue and tangled in every direction, shaved uneven on one side. But it was dine willingly. He wore eyeliner smudged to the edge of his jaw and combat boots scuffed raw. He laughed like he didn’t care who heard and smoked like it was keeping him alive.
Sirius was drawn to him immediately.
Not because Asa looked safe. But because he didn’t.
Asa was the opposite of safe—sharp edges, loud opinions, and the kind of magic that flared wild and too hot when he got upset. He didn’t ask Sirius questions. Just offered him a cigarette and said, “You look like you’re a bit of a black sheep, mate.”
Sirius took the smoke. “You have no idea.”
They spent that summer together. James and his parents were visiting extended family in France; Sirius was invited, but didn’t want to overstep. Remus had appointment after appointment for his lycanthropy, and Sirius was never very close with Peter. So, Sirius and Asa mostly spent their time in abandoned flats above apothecaries or in enchanted alleyways hidden behind bookstores. Asa introduced him to underground wizard punk music and a dozen more hexes. He had tattoos across his knuckles: LIVE FAST on one hand, DIE LOUD on the other.
At first, it felt freeing.
Sirius felt seen—not as a Black, not as a Gryffindor, not even as a trans boy navigating the maze of identity and expectation. Just Sirius, in ripped jeans and smudged lipstick, drunk on firewhiskey and wanting.
Asa called him “starboy”. Sirius called Asa “mine,” at least in his head.
They kissed like fire—fast and consuming. Fought like fire, too.
One night, the tension was already building —
Asa pacing, drunk on firewhiskey and fury, muttering about someone he’d hexed in Knockturn Alley who “deserved it.”
Sirius was sprawled on the edge of the bed, half-listening, arms folded, cigarette dangling from his fingers.
And then he said it.
Dry. Dismissive.
Not even looking up:
“Maybe if you weren’t so underwhelming below the belt, you wouldn’t have to overcompensate every time someone bruises your ego.”
Asa stopped cold. His face drained of color, then flooded back in an instant.
“You think you’re better than me?” he hissed.
Sirius raised an eyebrow, still calm, still unbothered. “No,” he said. “But you have to admit, my ability to not throw a tantrum every time someone questions my worth does give me an edge, doesn’t it?”
He tilted his head. “Well, that and the fact that I know what to do with my hands.”
He finished with a lazy, deliberate smirk. Designed to sting.
Asa crossed the room in two strides and grabbed Sirius’s wrist, squeezing hard enough to leave a bruise.
But Sirius didn’t flinch.
Didn’t move.
Just looked at him, eyes flat. “Let go before I take three off your’s and add it to mine, will you?”
Asa’s grip tightened for one breath—then he dropped it.
And stormed out.
The door slammed so hard behind him that dust shook loose from the shelves.
Sirius exhaled and finally let the cigarette fall from his fingers.
His wrist throbbed where Asa had grabbed it.
Sirius came back two nights later.
Because Asa always came back the next night, usually with a new song, a new scar, or a bouquet of half-dead roses he’d shoplifted from a florist in Diagon.
This time, Asa didn’t.
Sirius found the flat empty—except the bathroom light was on.
He pushed the door open.
Asa was curled in the tub, pale, wrists nicked in several places and streaked with red. The smell of firewhiskey clung to the air.
Sirius didn’t scream. Didn’t panic.
He moved fast, like he always did in emergencies. Years of experience with patching up Remus after full moons came bubbling to the surface. Spell to clot the bleeding. Spell to clean. Spell to calm. He washed Asa’s hands with trembling fingers, murmuring “It’s okay, it’s okay, I’ve got you.”
He wrapped Asa in a towel and sat on the floor beside the tub for hours.
When Asa finally spoke, his voice cracked. “I didn’t mean to. I just—couldn’t feel anything.”
Sirius whispered, “Don’t do that to me again.”
“Why not?”
“Because I care.”
Asa didn’t answer.
For a while after that, things got better.
Asa stayed closer. Quit drinking for a few weeks. Let Sirius pick the music. Let Sirius rest his head on his chest like it meant something.
But the edge never really left.
Neither did the danger.
When Sirius returned to Hogwarts that September, they promised to owl each other. Asa didn’t send a single letter.
By October, Sirius had heard that Asa had been seen hexing a street performer in a drunken rage.
By December, someone told him Asa was in St. Mungo’s under magical observation.
Sirius didn’t go visit.
Not because he didn’t care.
But because he did.
And that kind of caring had started to taste too much like bleeding.
11. “When the skinhead girls jump you in a bathroom stall, swing, curse, kick, do not turn red.”
Fourth Year. Fifteen-years-old. November Hogsmeade trip just before midterms.
The gender charm always made him feel more alive.
Not in the way flying did—like pure, intoxicating, boundless freedom. This was more controlled, more euphoric.
The spell—Mutatis Corpus—was one Remus had found in a book buried in the Restricted Section earlier that year. It had taken weeks to decipher. Longer to master. Sirius still couldn’t perform it on himself, not properly. Not yet. But Remus could. And he did, every time Sirius asked, without hesitation.
The results were near-instantaneous.
His jawline sharpened, voice dropped half a register. His chest flattened with gentle magical compression—firm but painless, nothing like the biting, suffocating feel of physical binders. His posture shifted subtly: shoulders square, hips less present, center of balance where it always should have been.
And over his skin, like a second, invisible layer: a magical sheen.
He could feel it—not quite pressure, but presence. Like walking through warm static. It was warm and pulsing, like a heartbeat pressed just beneath the surface of his skin. It caught the light in a subtle way that could pass as Sirius “glowing” with health or youth or happiness.
Even the air around him seemed to hum with approval as he walked, as if the universe finally regarded him as what he always knew himself to be.
It wasn’t just appearance. It was affirmation.
A correction. A spell that didn’t transform him—but revealed him.
And yet… it was still dangerous.
The charm had to be reapplied every six hours, and Sirius relied on Remus to do it. The theory was advanced and emotionally volatile—Sirius’s own attempts often destabilized when he was too anxious. There was a potion version too, but it brewed slower than Polyjuice, and most of the ingredients were restricted or expensive.
That day in Hogsmeade, Sirius felt completely and utterly right.
Which meant he was also completely and utterly visible.
They followed him through Honeydukes first. Three Syltherin upperclassmen. He noticed one of them —Callum Mulciber, broad-shouldered with a permanent sneer—watching him with a smirk. Sirius caught his eye once and looked away. He thought maybe they were just being pricks, like usual. Maybe he was being paranoid.
He wasn’t.
By the time he reached The Three Broomsticks with them trailing closely behind, he knew he was going to face trouble that day.
The pub was full, too warm, too loud. He slipped through the crowd to the back hallway where the washrooms were, ducked into one of the stalls in the men’s room with a shaky exhale. His ribs were aching from binding that morning (even with the charm, he didn’t take chances).
He ran cold water over his hands. Let himself feel—the way the enchantment had settled over his body like silk, how for once, the face in the mirror would almost match the one he imagined behind his eyes. If he dared look.
Then—
The curtain yanked open.
Three Slytherin boys. Older. Laughing.
Mulciber led. “Well, well,” he drawled, eyes flicking down Sirius’s frame. “The Black family’s very own misprint.”
Sirius didn’t respond.
The second one—Nott, all knobby joints and acne—snorted. “I reckon you’re in the wrong place, freak,” he said. “I don’t exactly see a bulge in your pants, poof.”
Mulciber let out a grab of laughter. “Reckon that allows us some fun though, aye boys?” He tapped his belt with a twisted smirk as he prowled towards Sirius.
The third boy shoved him, hard.
Sirius stumbled back into the sink. Water sloshed. His hip slammed into the porcelain. Pain flared.
And—
He didn’t freeze.
He didn’t flinch.
He swung.
His wand was already in his sleeve—he didn’t even remember drawing it.
“Serpentia!” he shouted, just as Mulciber lunged.
The sink exploded—pipes bursting, steam hissing into the air. The mirror cracked straight down the center.
Nott screamed. His hair unraveled into thick black serpents, hissing and writhing across his shoulders.
Another boy tripped over the wet floor and slammed backward into the stall door, which swung open and bounced him back like a pinball.
Sirius climbed onto the toilet seat, boots soaked, wand held high like a sword.
“Still think I’m in the wrong place?” he snapped.
They ran.
Tripping over one another, howling, slipping on water and soap and snake scales.
He was still laughing when Madam Rosmerta stormed in, wand drawn and apron soaked. Her eyes swept over the shattered porcelain, the rising steam, the last hiss of vanishing serpents.
“Black,” she barked. “Out.”
He didn’t argue.
He didn’t explain.
He just flicked the wet hair from his eyes, hopped down from the toilet, and sauntered past the open-mouthed onlookers like he owned the bloody place.
Remus met him outside with a to-go butterbeer and a disapproving frown. “That was completely reckless.”
Sirius grinned, pushing up the sleeves of his drenched shirt.
“Yeah,” he said. “But did you see Nott’s face?”
He got banned for a month.
Totally worth it.
12. “When a boy you think you love delivers the first black eye, use a screwdriver, a beer bottle, your two good hands.”
Sixth Year. October. Sixteen. A few months after being disowned by his biological family, a few months of being embraced by a better family. Still struggling to feel belonging.
The boy was from Durmstrang. A visiting delegate for the Triwizard Tournament.
He had a name Sirius barely remembered now. What stuck was the accent — that low, lilting cadence that made the simplest words sound like spells. It made Sirius feel dizzy. Like the floor moved under his feet every time the boy leaned close to whisper something in that deep, assured tone.
For two weeks, they’d been... something. Not quite secret, not quite public.
They flirted under enchanted lanterns at the Welcome Feast. Brushed knuckles in dim corridors between classes. Kissed behind the tapestry outside the Charms wing. Whispered confessions in firelight, curled together in the Astronomy Tower long after curfew.
Sirius had started to believe it.
Started to think maybe this one would be different.
He should have known better.
The fight wasn’t even about anything real. Some offhand comment Sirius made about wandwork technique, half a joke, not even aimed at him. The boy’s face had darkened. His voice had sharpened, lost its charm.
“You always have to talk back,” he snapped. “You don’t know when to shut up.”
They were alone in the Owlery. The light was low. The air smelled of hay and parchment.
And before Sirius could reply, the boy grabbed him.
Fingers too tight on his forearm. Voice too loud in the echoing space.
Sirius stumbled back, hit the stone wall hard enough to knock the wind out of him. His head snapped sideways from the shove, temple scraping rough brick. He saw stars—real ones, blooming behind his eyelids.
He pushed away, but not before the boy had said it:
“You’re lucky anyone wants you at all, you fucking thing.”
That night, Sirius didn’t cry.
He sat on his bed in the dark, hand cradling the bruise blooming below his eye like a secret, listening to Remus’s soft breathing from the next bed over. He could’ve woken him. Told him. But he didn’t. Not yet.
The next morning, he made a decision.
He didn’t hex the boy. Didn’t curse him.
He took one of the unopened Muggle beer bottles Remus kept hidden in the bottom of their trunk—green glass, weighty, solid in his grip—and walked out to the courtyard just before breakfast.
The Durmstrang students were there. Laughing. Loud.
He didn’t say the boy’s name.
He just walked to the nearest stone wall and smashed the bottle against it—one clean, echoing crack.
The courtyard went silent.
Sirius turned to the group, voice calm, level, loud enough for all of them to hear.
“No one touches me like that.”
Then he brushed the glass from his sleeve, turned on his heel, and walked away. Never once looking back.
Later, in the dorm, Remus sat beside him on the bed, holding a cold cloth to his cheek.
He didn’t ask for details.
But when he noticed Sirius’s raw knuckles, he only said, “Next time, take the corkscrew too.”
Sirius chuckled, softly. Just once.
The bruise would fade.
The lesson wouldn’t.
13. “When your father locks the door, break the window.”
Summer after second-year. Thirteen, and running out of patience and survival tactics.
He hears the lock slide into place.
Not a spell. Not a curse. Just the sharp mechanical clunk of the bolt in the heavy oak.
His father’s voice from the hallway is calm. Cold. “Perhaps a few days without outside influence will remind you of your duty to this family.”
Sirius doesn't scream. He doesn't even get up from the edge of his bed. He waits until the silence returns, and the hallway footsteps fade.
Then he walks to the window. He jabs at the seam with the end of his wand until it cracks. Then uses his elbow. The pain is sharp, clean, and satisfying.
The pane splits with a crunch.
Sirius wraps his jacket around his forearm, punches through the rest, and climbs out onto the ledge, blood already dripping from a cut on his hand.
It’s a four-foot drop to the garden below.
He doesn’t hesitate. He spends the night at James’s.
14. “When a college professor writes you poetry and whispers about your tight little ass, do not take it as a compliment, do not wait, call the Dean, call his wife.”
Seventh-year. Early spring.
Sirius was seventeen and already tired of being watched.
It wasn’t the stares from classmates—he was used to those, the half-curious, half-jealous looks that followed him like perfume. It wasn’t even the muttered comments from purebloods who thought he’d “lost his way.” That was expected. That was background noise.
This was different.
The new guest lecturer was from the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Some special Ministry fellow meant to teach a short series on global magical law. He’d arrived late, interrupting Transfiguration with a loud voice and a self-satisfied smile. Sirius noticed the way his eyes tracked students across the room—lingering in a way that wasn’t about pedagogy.
But he kept his head down. Took notes. Bit his tongue.
Until the third lesson.
Sirius had stayed after to ask about a footnote in the lecture—something about magical asylum laws in Eastern Europe. He didn’t really care. He just wanted to clarify something for his DADA essay.
The professor leaned in too close as Sirius finished his question. His smile curved in a way that made Sirius’s stomach turn.
“You know,” he murmured, “I used to know a boy who looked just like you at Durmstrang. Same cheekbones. Same bite. Same… tight little ass.”
The silence that followed was sharp. Shattered-glass sharp.
Sirius didn’t move.
Didn’t blink.
His fingers clenched hard enough around his quill that the wood cracked in his hand.
Then, with a cold smile of his own, he said:
“And I used to think Ministry officials had a better grasp of discretion. Or at least what not to say to a student on school grounds. Especially when they’re already married.”
He left without waiting for a response.
He didn’t go straight to Gryffindor Tower.
He went to Dumbledore’s office.
Filed a report. Every word, clearly and calmly. No trembling. No hedging.
The Headmaster’s face had been unreadable. “Thank you for telling me, Mr. Black,” he said. “You were right to come.”
By morning, the man was gone.
No public announcement. No explanation.
But Sirius knew. And so did Remus, who wordlessly handed him a chocolate bar at breakfast and squeezed his knee under the table.
Sirius didn’t smile. But he didn’t feel small, either.
15. “When a boy with good manners and a thirst for Budweiser proposes, say no.”
Summer After Graduation — August, in a Muggle Park near London.
Sirius never liked beer. He drank it, sure—at parties, on rooftops, under fireworks with James or Remus or anyone who made him feel real for a few hours. But he never liked it. The taste was bitter. Flat. It stayed on his tongue longer than it should. He preferred wine and whiskey, and partially blamed this acquired taste on his upbringing.
But Julian liked beer. Budweiser, specifically. Always Budweiser. He’d even brought a cooler that could keep the cans cold without magic—“a Muggle invention,” he’d said proudly, like it explained everything.
Julian had come back into Sirius’s life quietly. They’d reconnected at a Ministry mixer just a few months after graduation. Julian was working in International Affairs. Sirius had been drifting—between causes, couches, commitments. He was wearing dragonhide boots and hadn’t slept in two days between missions from the Order and all the thoughts racing through his mind that never seemed to quiet.
Julian had looked crisp. Buttoned. Impossibly well-rested.
And he’d smiled.
For a while, it worked.
Julian was kind in the way Sirius had never let himself believe he deserved. He was courteous, composed, and delightfully free of any history with Sirius’s more complicated habits. He brought Sirius flowers enchanted to bloom at night. Called him handsome in public, his hand firm and unapologetic at Sirius’s waist. He wrote love notes (actual love notes) on parchment that smelled like warm cedar, signed always with a gold ink J.
It felt good. Safe.
But eventually, even the safety started to feel like confinement.
Julian never asked about Sirius’s magic, the kind that didn't come from wands. Never asked about the scars beneath the transformation spells, or the way Sirius flinched when hands moved too fast. He never asked about Remus. Or James. Or Peter. Or what he did when others weren’t watching, or what he was thinking when they were.
And when Sirius corrected him once—quietly, gently—after Julian had called him ‘pretty’, Julian tilted his head with a shrug and said, “I don’t care what you call yourself. You’re just you to me.”
It was meant to be sweet.
It felt like erasure.
Still, Sirius stayed. Too long, maybe. He liked being adored, even if he didn’t feel seen.
Until the picnic.
It was mid-August, unbearably warm, the kind of heat that softened the edges of everything. They were sitting on a red-checked blanket near the Thames. Julian had brought cheese and grapes and two beers sweating in the grass.
And then, too casually, he pulled out a box.
The ring inside caught the light—simple, gold, elegant. Like Julian.
“I know this is fast,” he said. “But I think we could make it work. You ground me, Sirius. You… complete me.”
Sirius blinked. The world felt too quiet.
He looked at Julian’s face—earnest, hopeful, so sure.
And he thought about all the times Julian had smoothed him down, reshaped his edges, tucked away the messy bits that didn’t match the aesthetic. He thought about how Julian kissed him like a performance and spoke to him like a résumé.
Sirius didn’t touch the box.
“You don’t really see me,” he said, voice even. “You see a version you invented.”
Julian's smile faltered. “What’s wrong with wanting to love you?”
“Nothing,” Sirius replied, rising slowly to his feet. “But I want someone who knows the difference between loving and rearranging.”
Julian didn’t follow.
And Sirius didn’t look back.
He left the ring on the blanket, unopened. Walked barefoot across the grass, boots slung over one shoulder, beer unopened in his hand.
By the time the sun started to set, he was on a rooftop with Remus, legs dangling off the edge, passing a flask of whisky back-and-forth, laughter easier than it had been in months.
And he finally felt like himself again.
16. “When your mother hits you, do not strike back.”
Twelve Grimmauld Place. Age Nineteen. One week after the funeral.
She’s screaming again.
Not in flesh—she hasn’t had that power in weeks—but in oil and canvas and rage, immortalized in that cursed portrait nailed to the wall like a threat. Her voice scrapes against the bannisters, echoing through the stairwell like claws on stone.
“FILTH. TRAITOR. GIRL. ABOMINATION—”
Sirius doesn’t flinch anymore.
Not like the night he stepped through the front door for the first time in years, the key heavy in his palm and guilt heavier still. Not like when he found the drawing room just as she left it, with the silver goblets and bloodline charts and not a trace of warmth.
He doesn’t tremble.
He doesn’t shout back.
He simply walks up the stairs, deliberate and silent, and grips the velvet curtains. The rings shriek faintly as he yanks them closed, her voice vanishing behind thick fabric, reduced to a muffled, impotent growl.
He ties the cords in a knot. Tight. Final.
Then he turns.
Walks down the corridor. Past the scorched tapestry with his name burned out. Past the locked door to Regulus’s room—still untouched. Still sealed off like a tomb.
He stops outside the one room he’s avoided even in memory.
Her room.
The doorknob is cool. The key clicks softly. The hinges moan.
The air inside smells of dust, stale perfume, and old and is heavy with lingering judgment. The bed is still made—dark green velvet, crested in silver thread. The wallpaper, patterned with curling vines and serpent heads, peels at the edges like it's trying to flee the walls.
He doesn’t hesitate.
He steps inside with a paint bucket and a roller clutched in one hand, the other curled into a fist at his side.
He doesn’t spit. Doesn’t scream.
But the memories speak loudly: her hand striking his face at sixteen for wearing James’s Muggle jacket. Her voice twisting his name into a slur. That look when she found the chest binder folded beneath his bed—like she'd seen a crack in a stained-glass window.
He opens the paint tin.
Red.
Bright, blinding red. Gryffindor red. His red.
The kind that stains and refuses to be washed out.
He dips the roller, lifts it, and presses it to the wallpaper.
The first stroke slices through the green like a rebellion.
He paints over the vines. Over the embroidered wallpaper. Over the sanctified air she kept heavy with expectation. He paints over bloodlines and bitterness and every inch of the empire she tried to carve into his bones.
The red spreads. The room shifts.
No longer hers.
No longer a shrine to control.
His.
He paints for hours. Until the light outside turns gold, then gray, then blue.
Until sweat slicks his back and his arms ache.
Until the air tastes different—like dust and paint and freedom.
And when it’s done—when the walls bleed scarlet and the wallpaper is nothing more than a forgotten layer beneath new fire—he lowers the roller and breathes.
His shirt is soaked. His hair is streaked with paint. His fingers shake with exhaustion.
But his heart is steady.
The portrait still howls down the hallway. But she’s behind the curtain now.
He walks out, closes the door behind him, and slides the new key into his pocket.
She may still scream.
But this room is his now.
And she will not haunt him forever.
17. "When the boys tell you how good you smell, do not doubt them. Do not turn red."
Twelve Grimmauld Place. November 1979. Just after turning twenty and right before discovering how much can change in the blink of an eye.
The fire burns low in the grate, soft and golden, licking shadows up the walls like it’s trying to warm more than the room. Outside, wind knots itself around the eaves. Inside, Sirius breathes in candle smoke, old wood, and the memory of laughter from earlier that day.
James and Lily had left just after lunch—James still buoyant from the birthday toast, still repeating it like it hadn’t already been said a dozen times.
You’re going to be his godfather, Pads. His family.
The words still hang somewhere in Sirius’s chest. He doesn’t know what to do with them. He’s wearing them like a second shirt—warm, a little scratchy, close to the skin.
He’s stretched out across the sofa now, hair damp from the shower, one socked foot hooked over the armrest. He’s in James’s old jumper—oversized and threadbare, nicked from a Quidditch locker ages ago. It smells like the flat now. Like rosemary. Like Remus’s tea. Like home.
Remus is folded into the armchair opposite, long legs tucked beneath him, a half-forgotten book open across his thigh. But his eyes haven’t moved from Sirius in ten minutes.
“You smell good,” he says softly.
Sirius’s head lifts, brow quirking. “Bit sudden, Moony.”
Remus just hums. “No. I mean it.”
He tilts his head, thoughtful, like he’s naming something rare.
“You always smell like firewood,” he says. “And ink. Something sharp underneath. Like... the moment just before lightning. The air right before it splits.”
Sirius doesn’t laugh.
He watches Remus.
And for a moment, he feels every beat of his pulse.
“Trying to seduce me with weather metaphors?” he asks, voice low.
Remus shrugs, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “You make storms look gentle.”
The room goes quiet again.
The fire hisses. Time slips sideways.
Sirius doesn’t turn red.
He doesn’t joke to fill the silence. Doesn’t deflect.
He just... lets it settle. The words. The warmth. The fact that someone sees him and doesn’t want to change the view.
“I think I’m terrified,” he murmurs, after a while.
Remus doesn’t ask what of. He doesn’t have to.
Being loved. Being responsible. Being someone’s something.
So instead, he stands, closes the space between them, and folds himself into the curve of Sirius’s body without a word.
They lie there for a long time. Firelight painting them gold.
Sirius rests his head on Remus’s shoulder, breath evening out, the scent of parchment and earth and chocolate wrapping around him like a tether.
He doesn’t turn red.
But he does smile.
And that is enough.
18. “When your brother tells you he is gay, pretend you already know.”
Twelve Grimmauld Place. Summer after fourth year. Fifteen-years-old. When brotherly love is still found in shared blood.
It’s late.
He’s sitting cross-legged on his bed, shirtless in flannel pajama pants, reading a Muggle book he borrowed from Lily. Something about road trips and people running from themselves. He’s halfway through a paragraph when the door creaks open.
Regulus stands there, backlit by the hallway gaslight, pale and uncertain.
There’s something different about him tonight. His posture is less polished. His expression is frayed at the edges. The mask their family carved into him slips just enough for Sirius to see the vulnerability beneath. He looks scared, like a little kid. Like his little brother.
“I need to tell you something,” Regulus says.
Sirius raises an eyebrow, calm. “That you’re gay?”
Regulus blinks. His mouth opens, but nothing comes out at first. Then, quieter: “How did you—?”
Sirius snorts softly. “Reg, please. I’ve seen the way you stare at that blond Hufflepuff Beater. It’s not exactly subtle.”
Regulus makes a strangled sort of noise—half laugh, half breathless shame. He steps into the room fully now and closes the door behind him with a soft click. The whole hallway seems to sigh.
“Oh,” he says, small.
Sirius tosses the book aside and scoots over on the mattress, patting the spot beside him with two fingers.
“You want to sit?”
Regulus hesitates for just a second, then crosses the room and folds himself beside Sirius, legs drawn up, arms around his knees like he’s holding something fragile inside him.
They don’t speak for a long time.
The house groans in the walls. Somewhere downstairs, the clock chimes once.
And in the silence, Sirius reaches out—fingers finding Regulus’s wrist in the dark. He squeezes once.
Then again.
No words. Just the rhythm of a promise.
It’s enough.
For now.
19. “When the girl on the subway curses you because your tee shirt reads: ‘I Fucked Your Boyfriend,’ assure her that it is not true.”
January 1981. Muggle London. In the middle of a war, in the middle of waiting for what should be a blessing—their best friend’s firstborn—and feels more like a collective breath held anxiously.
They’d spent the morning with Lily and James—tea and toast and nursery paint samples, laughter stretched thin with worry. James had pressed a trembling hand to Lily’s belly like it might steady the world. Like it might ward off all the dark.
Sirius hadn’t said anything. Just gripped James’s shoulder before they left, like it was a promise.
Now, the Tube rocks beneath them like a cradle. Rain mist streaks the windows, soft and silver like memory. Sirius leans back in the plastic seat, legs spread, wearing that shirt.
He’d found the shirt buried in a bargain bin beside a broken lava lamp and a pair of leather boots three sizes too big. It was soft, cotton-thin and faded at the seams. The lettering barely legible unless you stared.
I FUCKED YOUR BOYFRIEND.
He bought it immediately.
Now he wears it with his leather jacket thrown open, jeans slung low, black polish chipped on every finger. His hair is rain-damp, curling at the nape of his neck. He looks like rebellion carved into bone.
Remus sits beside him, paper coffee cup warming his hands. He’s wearing that cardigan Sirius likes—grey wool, sleeves pushed up—and he keeps nudging their knees together every time the train sways.
They’re laughing about something stupid—a shopkeeper with a pet parrot that recited Shakespeare, badly—when the girl across the aisle clears her throat.
She’s young. Pretty. Tight curls. Tight jaw. Tight grip on her umbrella. Her eyes cut toward Sirius with disdain sharpened to a dagger.
“Think that’s funny, huh?” she asks, voice like a slap, chin jerking toward Sirius’ shirt. “You two get off on broadcasting that shit in public?”
The train hums. The lights flicker faintly overhead.
Sirius doesn’t miss a beat. He looks down at the shirt, then up at her.
“No,” he says, cooly, “But I do get off watching bigots get pressed over cotton.”
There’s a beat of stunned silence. Then—
Remus nearly spits out his coffee, choking on a laugh. He covers his mouth, ears going pink.
Sirius grins, all teeth and war paint.
He doesn’t move his arm from Remus’s shoulders. Just lets it rest there, easy. Casual. Possessive in a way that doesn’t beg forgiveness.
The girl rolls her eyes and looks away.
Sirius leans in, voice low in Remus’s ear. “You think she’s mad because you’re definitely hotter than her boyfriend?”
Remus shakes his head, smiling into his coffee. “I think she’s mad because you look like someone who’d actually do it.”
Sirius chuckles. “Hm, maybe I look the part,”he reached his hand further down Remus’ back and squeezed the slope of his ass, making Remus suppress a yelp, “But I much prefer what I have.”
There was a pause before he leaned in and whispered into Remus’ ear ‘I solemnly swear that I am up to no good’, chuckling as Remus squirmed under the brush of his lips.
They ride the rest of the way with knees touching and fingers brushing, the shirt still bold across Sirius’s chest. The train doesn’t care. The city doesn’t care.
But for once, Sirius feels like he does.
And that, somehow, is more dangerous than anything on his shirt.
20. “When your dog pees the rug, kiss her, apologize for being late.”
Grimmauld Place. July 1981. The first full moon after Harry is born. The first full moon spent divided instead of together in years.
The door slammed open.
Sirius dropped his keys on the floor as he stumbled into the entryway, out of breath, boots thudding across the warped floorboards. His jacket was half-off one shoulder, wand still gripped in his hand. He’d had to apparate twice, then sprint the last block from the alley when the Knight Bus never showed.
“Remus?” he called, voice sharp, panicked. “Remus, I’m—”
Then he stopped.
The rug in the drawing room was torn—deep claw marks slashing through the threadbare floral print, tufts of stuffing exposed like ripped flesh. The lamp beside the fireplace was knocked over, and the hearth glowed with low, flickering coals.
And there, in the corner—
Remus.
Curled into himself, trembling. Long limbs shaking under the weight of the wolf’s form. His fur, silvery-brown and tangled, bristled along his spine. He was smaller than a true werewolf now—shrunken, still hunched from the transformation, but his eyes were dull and human-damp. Not feral.
Wolfsbane still worked.
But it didn’t take away the pain.
He let out a soft, broken whimper as Sirius stepped into the room.
“Oh, Moons,” Sirius whispered, heart cracking. He dropped to his knees beside him.
Remus didn’t lash out. Didn’t flinch. He just let his head rest against Sirius’s leg, whimpering again, low in his throat, as if ashamed.
Sirius reached out and ran a gentle hand over Remus’s ruff. “I’m so sorry I’m late,” he murmured. “There was a flare-up at the Floo station—Ministry idiots—but that doesn’t matter. I should’ve been here. I should’ve—”
He broke off.
Bent forward.
And kissed the top of Remus’s head.
The wolf shuddered. Pressed closer.
“I’m here now,” Sirius said. “You don’t have to do this alone.”
Then he stepped back just enough to draw in a breath, centered himself, and shifted.
The magic crackled through him like a breath held too long. Bones shortened, fur bloomed from skin, and in seconds, Padfoot stood in Sirius’s place—tail twitching, eyes dark and clear.
The wolf lifted his head.
Padfoot stepped forward, gently. Pressed his side to Remus’s. Nuzzled behind his ear.
And slowly, slowly, the tension in Remus’s body eased.
They lay there on the ruined rug, side by side, tangled in moonlight and silence.
Two creatures who knew what it meant to be dangerous.
And what it meant to choose each other anyway.
21. “When he refuses to stay the night because you live in Jersey City, do not move. When he refuses to stay the night because you live in Harlem, do not move. When he refuses to stay the night because your air conditioner is broken, leave him. When he refuses to keep a toothbrush at your apartment, leave him. When you find the toothbrush you keep at his apartment hidden in the closet, leave him.”
Summer 1979. Just after the Potter wedding. Navigating change and growth and the loneliness that comes with it.
The flat isn’t much. One bedroom, a crooked stovetop, drafty windows that whistle when the wind picks up. The wallpaper curls at the corners. The heater’s moody, and the neighbors upstairs are always fighting.
But it’s his.
No Black family crest over the mantel. No shrieking portrait. No smell of ash and rot and bloodline. Just chipped tile, secondhand furniture, and a dented kettle that wheezes when it boils.
He brings men home the way he used to sneak them into Hogwarts: casually, recklessly, like it means nothing.
There’s Thomas, who compliments his tattoos but leaves without kissing him goodbye. Gabriel, who likes to fuck with the lights on and never asks Sirius to stay the night. Milo, who spells his own name wrong in a note and leaves behind a gold ring Sirius later pawns for groceries.
It’s always the same.
The boys like his sharpness, his swagger, the way he laughs with teeth. They like the myth of Sirius Black—punk prince of Gryffindor, motorbike rebel, the one who said fuck you to a legacy written in pure-blood ink.
But none of them stay.
None of them ask.
One of them—Marcus, he thinks—wrinkles his nose at the building’s front gate. “You live here?”
Sirius shrugs. “Yeah.”
“It’s just… not what I expected.”
“Then lower your expectations.”
Marcus doesn’t come upstairs.
Sirius doesn’t call him again.
He finds a toothbrush tucked behind the pipes in someone else’s flat a few weeks later. Hidden, damp. His toothbrush. The one he thought they’d thrown away.
That night, when the boy leans in to kiss him, Sirius steps back.
“I deserve to take up more space than this.”
The boy blinks. “What?”
Sirius doesn’t explain. Just walks out and doesn’t look back.
He goes home alone that night.
Lights a cigarette. Doesn’t smoke it.
He stands by the window, shirtless in the dark, city lights blinking like Morse code outside, and thinks—not for the first time—about Julian.
Julian, who had kissed like a dare and touched him like he was trying to own something. Who hadn’t bothered with protection charms. Who had made Sirius feel like a story someone else was telling.
And he thinks about Remus.
Remus, who brewed the gender charm without needing to be asked. Who watched him too closely some days, like he was trying to solve a riddle and didn’t mind how long it took.
Remus, who once murmured, You always walk like you’ve got nothing to prove, and touched Sirius’s wrist like it was something sacred.
Sirius exhales.
Smoke curls out the open window. Somewhere below, a dog barks.
He thinks maybe it’s time to stop running like he’s got something to outrun.
Maybe it’s time to want more than just being wanted.
22. “Do not regret this. Do not turn red.
When your mother hits you, do not strike back.”
October 1980. Twenty-one-years-old. Three months since a glimmer of hope came into existence.
Grimmauld Place is still in the slow process of unbecoming.
Sirius has painted the walls. Torn down the drapes. Replaced the family heirlooms with records, teacups, photographs taken on disposable Muggle cameras. There are still ghosts in the corners—shadows that gather when the lights flicker or the floor creaks—but they’re quiet now. Watching.
It’s the first time he’s let Remus stay the night since Harry was born.
James and Lily had dropped the baby off earlier that afternoon. A favor, they said. An errand, just a few hours. Sirius had pretended not to panic at the way the child looked so much like James—so much like hope, soft and sniffling and warm in his arms.
Now, the house is quiet. Harry is asleep in the center of the bed, bundled in a red-and-gold blanket Sirius bought on impulse. His little fingers twitch in dreams.
Sirius stands in the doorway, watching Remus kneel beside the bed, one hand cupped gently over Harry’s belly like a paperweight made of patience. Like he’s afraid the child might float away if he doesn’t anchor him there.
“You’re good at that,” Sirius says, voice low.
Remus glances back. His expression doesn’t shift much, but something in it softens. “I had three younger cousins. And you lot were basically feral. I learned.”
Remus snorts. “He likes milk and naps and chewing on my sleeve. Don’t take it personally.”
Sirius doesn’t laugh. Just watches the way Remus’s thumb absently strokes the edge of the blanket. The way Harry breathes so deeply in his presence. Safe. Unbothered.
And something—
Something in Sirius buckles.
Not with weakness. With weight.
With realization.
Because this—this isn’t like Thomas, or Milo, or Julian.
This isn’t about danger or rebellion or distraction.
This is something else.
Something that tightens his chest and loosens it all at once.
He doesn’t look away. Not when Remus glances up. Not when their eyes catch, hold.
Sirius opens his mouth—doesn’t know what he means to say. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.
But before the words can come—
“FILTH! TRAITORS!”
Her voice cleaves through the room like lightning striking stone.
Walburga’s portrait is screeching from behind the velvet curtain, which has blown open on its own—magic stirred by fury.
Her painted face twists in disgust. Eyes burning.
“You dare—you dare bring that half-wolf into my house!” she shrieks, jabbing a spectral finger toward Remus.
Harry whimpers, startled. Remus instinctively turns, shielding the baby against his chest.
“And that half-blood spawn—that stain of Potter’s bloodline—how dare you shame this family name by letting it draw breath beneath my roof—”
Sirius is already moving.
He crosses the room with purpose, slow and sharp as a blade drawn from its sheath.
He stops just in front of her frame. Her face still shrieking, spitting.
“My house now,” Sirius says, voice calm and cutting. “Not yours.”
Walburga’s portrait rears back in outrage, mouth open wide—
“They’ll always be welcome here,” Sirius finishes, and draws his wand.
With one swift motion, he slashes diagonally through the canvas.
The portrait tears with a sound like bone cracking. The paint peels inward, warping her screaming face as it collapses in on itself. The magic sputters—then dies.
The frame blackens at the edges. Silent.
Harry lets out a soft breath and settles back against Remus’s shoulder.
Sirius turns. He’s breathing hard, not from exertion—but from the echo of it all: the years of pain, the expectations, the burden of his name. It feels like he has finally, fully unshackled himself, letting the chains fall to the ground.
He walks to Remus, leans down, and kisses Harry’s forehead. Then—hesitantly—he lets his shoulder rest against Remus’s. They stay like that for a long time. The warmth of it is quiet and steady. Not thrilling. Not desperate. Just… right.
For the first time ever, everything is completely right.