Chapter Text
But you're so full of shit, uh
Tell me it's a bit, oh
Say you don't see it, your mind's polluted
Say you wanna quit, don't be stupid
BIRDS OF A FEATHER - Billie Eilish
(1:55)
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James loved people easily. It wasn't hard or weird for him to say the words or to acknowledge the feeling. It wasn't a big deal. He loved his mum. He loved his dad. He loved Marlene. He loved Mary. He loved Lily. He loved Peter. He loved Remus. He loved Sirius. Those were just facts.
He didn't care that some people might not say it back so easily, like Sirius and Remus. He was quite aware of how good his life was compared to theirs. Sirius grew up in an abusive, evil household. Remus was a werewolf who grew up in a neglectful household (and who may have been in multiple gangs, although he'd never confirmed it...).
James had grown up in a loving household. A household full of kisses and hugs and reassurances. His parents didn't hate him, didn't despise him. He had known love all his life, had never been hurt except for the few times he'd scraped his knees.
That's why the situation he was in right now was particularly hard.
The thing was, he missed Sirius. So bad. He missed his barking laugh, his mischievous smirk, his dramatic flair, his glinting eyes. James missed his brother. He knew that Remus could see it, James could see the dullness in Remus's eyes, the bitterness. It tore James's heart to shreds. But he loved and loved and loved and loved, and therefore he missed.
James didn't think he was capable of hating. Because he should've hated Sirius, he should've wanted to never see him again. But he did. He longed for everything to be normal again, to forgive Sirius for what he did. For Moony to forgive Sirius so that James could too. It wasn't fair of him, James knew. What Sirius had done was betrayal. He'd told bloody Snape about Remus. He could have ruined Remus's life, he could have made Remus a killer.
Remus had every right to hate Sirius. James just didn't know if he could, too.
---
James stared at the empty space where Sirius's bed used to stand. It had been moved to another room after that night. Sirius had detention for the rest of the school year and he had been kicked off the quidditch team. James felt it was deserved, but that didn't mean his heart didn't still clench when he scored a goal and didn't have Sirius beside him to high five. It didn't mean it didn't still hurt to have to live without him. Sirius didn't sit with them in the great hall anymore either. Remus would promptly stand up and walk away if he did, and James and Peter would follow.
It was their last day at Hogwarts before the summer. It was six weeks after the incident, but the three of them hadn't really talked about it. Remus had been pulling himself back, hanging out with Lily, Mary and Marlene more than with James and Peter. Remus had always been quite the ladies man, but the amount of time he was with them now was, frankly, ridiculous. Sometimes James thought that if Peter and him were to hang out with Sirius again, Remus wouldn't even notice. James would never do that, of course. But it was weird. He was on Remus's side, but Remus didn't seem to be aware.
He was short with them. Not irritated or mad, but it wasn't like before. It wasn't like when he would roll his eyes fondly at their antics. Now he just rolled his eyes. James didn't know what to do. He felt like he didn't know anything anymore.
"You can forgive him, you know?" Remus's voice pulled James out his thoughts, his eyes jerking up from where he had been staring at the empty space in their dorm. Remus was sat by the window, the sleeves of his crinkled white school shirt rolled up to his elbows. His forearms were littered with white, faded scars. He was smoking a fag casually, hanging it out of the window so their room wouldn't stink up. He sounded relaxed, but James could see the tightness in eyes, the stiffness of his posture.
"I don't want to," James said stubbornly. They'd had this conversation before. James was lying, of course, but just because he wanted to didn't mean he should. James knew that. In their first few years at Hogwarts, Remus had mentioned multiple times about how he and Peter were basically just honorary Marauders. He'd always said it casually, like everybody knew it, but it always made James's heart clench. He didn't think of Remus and Peter that way at all. They were his best friends, he loved them. James and Sirius were just similar people, they just clicked really well. That didn't mean Remus and Peter weren't really a part of their group. Not in his eyes.
And now Remus was telling James he could forgive Sirius because he thought that James didn't care about him, that James was just choosing Remus's side to be righteous. But James didn't do it to be righteous. Fuck being righteous, honestly. Sirius had hurt Remus, that's why James chose Remus's side. He cared about Remus. Remus just couldn't seem to get that. For someone who was quite intelligent, Remus could be really dumb sometimes.
Remus sighed, letting his head fall back and closing his eyes. He looked tired. "James.. I know you miss him, it's obvious. He's basically your brother, and I'm keeping you away from him while he didn't even do anything to you. I've been selfish long enough."
James frowned. "Moony, that's not what you're doing. You're not selfish-"
"I'm tearing your friendship apart, James!"
"That's not your fault, that's his." James insisted. Remus looked at him, silent, something melancholic shining in his eyes. His eyes looked like that all the time, these days, and James hated it.
Remus closed his eyes again, turning his head away from James. The air suddenly felt thick, and James's heart began thumping against his rib cage wildly, though he didn't quite know why. He had a bad feeling about the defeated look on Remus's face. About the way Remus's hand was turning white gripping the hem of his shirt, about the way he took a particularly long drag from his cigarette. Something felt wrong.
And then Remus began talking.
"When I woke up after that night, I felt disappointed," he began, not looking James in the eye. "not at Sirius or at Snape. I felt disappointed because.. because I woke up, I guess," James reared back, his heart sinking to his stomach. "I felt disappointed because, after years of trying to convince myself that I wasn't like other werewolves, that I was still good, that I wasn't a monster... I was proven wrong."
"Remus, that's not-" James began to interrupt, pretty sure that he'd have a heart attack if Remus went on. "I was hungry for your blood James. I was ready to kill you, maybe to even turn you. I licked your and Snape's blood off the floor and I made myself bleed just to have more. When I woke up, I was disappointed that I hadn't made myself bleed too much. I still am, sometimes." Remus looked him in the eye then, with a completely neutral look on his face as if he wasn't turning James's world, as if he wasn't tearing James's heart apart. As if what he was confessing to was a completely normal thing. As if it was normal to feel like this.
"Sirius did that to me. Did Sirius make you feel like wanting to die? Did Sirius make you realize that you're not even human, not something worth living?" maybe Remus wanted James to answer, but he was shocked into silence. "You could never hate him the way I do, James. You don't even hate him, you're not even fucking capable of it. You think that after a few months, we'll make up and everything will be normal again, that we'll forget it ever happened. But I won't ever forget. And you'll stay by my side, and you'll resent me for taking you away from him. Don't you bloody see? I'm not like you, I'm not like any of you. But you and Sirius? You are like each other, and so you'll leave to go back to him. So I'm sparing the both of us the pain already. I'm telling you to go back to him, because eventually you will anyway."
A pause followed. James didn't know what to say. What to do. What could he do? Remus had wanted to.. maybe even still wanted to.. to not wake up. How could James show him how incredible he was? How deserving of life and love he was? How could James tell him that he'd never just leave Remus or resent him?
And then Remus talked again, tearing James's world apart even further.
"I'm not coming back to Hogwarts after this summer, James. Go back to Sirius, I won't be here to see it, anyways."
That snapped James out of his shock. Remus was leaving? He couldn't do that. Why would he do that? "What? Remus, no. Moony, we can fix this, I swear. Don't leave, Moons, c'mon. This isn't- This isn't the end. Sirius didn't make me feel like that, and maybe I don't hate him, but I'm so angry at him. I wish I could hate him. I wish I could make you feel better, I wish I could help you. Things will get better, though, I swear. Just- Don't leave us, Moony, please-"
"I'm heading to bed, g'night mate," Remus interrupted his pleas, tossing his fag out of the window and getting up. He said it like it was just any other night, like he didn't just break James's heart. Like he didn't just say things no one should ever have to say, like he didn't just give James bloody heart problems.
James had always been the one to calm Sirius and Remus down when they got into a fight. He was always the one to fix it. To fix whatever got in their way. To fix Sirius and Remus when they were sad. But he didn't know how to fix this. Now that he thought about it, maybe he hadn't ever really fixed anything. Remus thought he was a monster. James hadn't told him enough times that he wasn't. He hadn't fixed it.
He didn't know if he could.