Chapter Text
6th February, 2025
Sirius
Too much. When he was seven, he was too much. Now he’s twenty-three, and somehow, he’s still too much. Nothing’s changed. All his life, he’s been told he isn’t enough—and yet, somehow, too much. His mother once told him, “You take up so much space you leave none for others. Even if someone loves you, you’ll make sure they don’t.”
He thought he’d outgrown that voice. Thought he’d left her words behind when he ran away. Except this one. Because how do you unlearn something that keeps proving itself right?
Even now—standing here, in front of Barty, his boyfriend of three years, the one person he thought might actually love him enough to stay—he’s hearing it again.
“Sirius, I love you.”
No, you don’t.
“But I can’t be everything for you. I can’t be your friend and your lover and your therapist and your caregiver all at once. You need too much from me. It’s suffocating.”
You take up so much space you leave none for others.
“I want to be with you, I really do. But you make it so hard to breathe. I can’t keep doing this. I’m sorry.”
Too much. Always too much.
“I’m sorry, Barty. I’ll change, I swear. I’ll stop relying on you for everything. I won’t ask where you’re going or who you’re with or—I’ll stop being like this, I’ll be better, please, just tell me what I need to do, I’ll—” Sirius’s voice cracks.
“I don’t think you can change, Sirius,” Barty says quietly. “I don’t see us working anymore. We’re done.”
He reaches for him, hand outstretched—but Barty pulls away, shoves him, and the door slams.
Silence.
Sirius stands there, the echo of the slam still buzzing in his chest.
He’d met Barty in his first year at university—they’d been roommates. One night, Barty came home with a black eye, cigarette burns, dried blood on his cheek. Sirius had panicked, tried to help, but Barty wouldn’t let him. Not until Sirius just—wrapped his arms around him. Then Barty broke. He told Sirius everything. About his father—drunk, angry, cruel. How he hadn’t gone home in years, but that night had been his mother’s death anniversary, and he couldn’t not go. Sirius remembers holding him through the night. Talking, quietly, because the silence felt too heavy.
He told Barty about his own family—the constant pressure of being the Black heir, the way he was expected to be cold and perfect and proper. How every time he slipped, every time he tried to feel something, his mother met him with sharp looks and sharper words. He told him about the punishments—how she’d lock him in his room for days without food, or make him stand before the family tapestry, reciting the Black motto until his voice broke. The long stretches of silence when she refused to acknowledge him. The isolation from Regulus, who’d been told not to speak to him. He told him about his father, too—how Orion never shouted, never raged, just watched. How he only stepped in when Sirius needed to be “put back in line.”
And then he told him about the night he ran away. Bloody and shaking, glass still in his palms. His father had shoved him through the glass wall in the sitting room, and his mother had just stood there, watching. Her voice calm, almost bored.
“Look at what you’ve done to yourself, Sirius. You’ll never belong anywhere. How are you always lacking? You’re disappointing.”
He remembers stumbling out of that house, half-blind with fear and blood, running until he couldn’t breathe. He’d shown up at James’s door that night. And when James opened it, Sirius hadn’t said a word. He just fell into his arms.
Barty had listened to it all. Then he told Sirius about his own family. How the only time he felt safe was when his mother was home—how she’d take the blows for him when his father drank too much.
How she died. Ribs broken. Punctured lung.
How he’d rushed her to the hospital. How he’d sat in that waiting room all night, staring at his hands, until they came out and told him she hadn’t made it.He said he’d never felt anything emptier than that.
They lay there on the floor, holding each other. That was the first time Sirius felt like he could breathe. Barty understood him in ways nobody—even James—ever had.After that night, they started taking care of each other. And then one day that care turned into something else.
Sirius thought it was love.
But now—sitting here on the same floor, sobbing into the empty space Barty left behind, feeling small again, like he was back in front of Walburga—he doesn’t know what to think.
You’ll never belong anywhere.
Maybe she was right. Because if even Barty—who knew him better than anyone, who grew up with the same kind of bruises—thought he was too much, then maybe it wasn’t the Blacks who made him like this. Maybe it was just him.
He breaks down, breath hitching, panic clawing up his throat until he can’t pull air in at all. The edges of the room blur.
A chain of words loops in his head—too much too much too much too much too much—until everything goes black.
James
James met Sirius when he was eleven. Sirius had always been chaotic and mischievous, but he wasn’t loud. No, that came later. Over the years, as his relationship with his parents grew more tense, he became louder. It was his way of reclaiming some sense of control. He’d never heard the full story about Walburga and Orion. But James had seen enough—the scars, the bruises, the ways Sirius flinched at raised voices—to know they were abusive.
Even so, nothing could have prepared James for the night Sirius showed up at his door. It was late, and he was covered in cuts, tiny shards of glass embedded in his skin. Fear clung to him like a second skin. The moment he saw James, he crumbled, collapsing into his arms without a word. James’s parents knew the Blacks—and what kind of people they were. But seeing Sirius like this was the final straw. They immediately took him in, refusing to let him go back. They were ready to fight in court if it came to it. But, Walburga, ever prideful, disowned him a week later.
Through the years at Hogwarts, Sirius was happy, but James could always see it—there was something missing. a quiet hollowness that never left him. Then he went to university and met Barty. And things changed.
James couldn’t explain why, but he didn’t like Barty. Not because he was jealous. No, it was something else. Ever since Sirius started dating him, he became louder and distant. He retracted from everyone who wasn’t Barty. At first, James thought it was just the honeymoon phase. He hoped it would wear off. But their obsession with each other only grew, until it started to feel unhealthy.
James tried. Many times he tried to break Sirius out of his shell, to spend time alone like they used to, to remind him that the world was bigger than Barty. But every time, Barty found a reason to tag along, or convinced Sirius to cancel. Slowly, James watched the boy he had always cared for shrink into someone who existed only for another person.
Today, however, James was panicking. He was used to Sirius canceling plans at the last minute—but Sirius would always let him know. No matter the situation. They were supposed to meet at the café, 'Three Broomsticks', just down the street from Sirius’s place, at 5 p.m. It was now 6:15. James’s stomach twisted. Anxiety clawed up his throat. He couldn’t sit there anymore. He had to check on him. Maybe he’d fallen asleep. Maybe something had gone wrong.
He ran down the street, heart hammering, and just in time, he saw Barty stepping out of the building. A suitcase in hand, a scowl etched deep into his face, moving fast, almost aggressively, like he was trying to leave the world behind him. Something in James’s chest tightened. That scowl. That urgency. That suitcase. It was all wrong. James didn’t hesitate. He ran inside the building, two steps at a time, up the stairs to Sirius’s apartment.
He knocked. Once. Twice.
“Sirius!”
No answer.
His chest constricted. Panic clawing at him. He had an emergency key. He couldn’t just wait. He shoved the door open and froze. Sirius was on the floor. A mess. Twitching, eyes closed, unmoving. James’s heart jumped into his throat.
“Sirius, mate, please wake up!” He shook him gently.
Nothing.
“Come on, wake up!” He ran to the kitchen, grabbed a glass of water, and splashed some on Sirius’s face, hands trembling.
“Wake up, wake up, wake up…” Still nothing.
James’s mind raced. He pulled out his phone. Lily. He needed help.
“Hi, honey—” “Lily! Sirius isn’t waking up! What do I do? Please, tell me what I do! He isn’t— I tried!” His voice was cracking.
“James, breathe. What do you mean he isn’t waking up?”
“We were supposed to meet at 5. I waited until 6 for him to call or text, but nothing came. I saw Barty leaving with a suitcase. I went into his flat because he wasn’t answering, and… and he’s just lying there on the floor. I tried shaking him, spraying water, but it’s not working. Lily, please—what do I do?”
There was a pause. “Okay… I think he might have had a panic attack,” Lily said slowly.
“Panic attack?! What?!”
“Listen, James. I want you to make him lie flat on his back. Loosen anything tight. Are you with me?”
“Yes. He’s not wearing anything tight. He’s lying flat.”
“Good. Now raise his legs about 12–13 inches. Is he breathing normally?”
“Yes… yes, he’s breathing normally.”
“Perfect. He’ll be okay. Just stay with him. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
James sank to the floor beside Sirius. He held Sirius’s hand, talking quietly to him, reassuring him, praying he would wake up. Ten minutes later, there was a knock at the door.
“Hi, love,” Lily said, sweeping past him to kneel beside Sirius. James didn’t move. He was still frozen with worry, watching every twitch and breath.
“I’m so worried,” he whispered to Lily.
“I know, honey. He’ll be alright. Don’t worry.”
James watched as Lily checked Sirius’s pulse, monitored his breathing. And then, finally, Sirius groaned. His eyes fluttered open, dazed.
“Mate… thank Merlin,” James said, relief spilling out of him.
“Don’t move too fast, alright? Just… breathe.” Lily hel him down.
Sirius’s chest heaved, shallow and quick. His eyes darted between James and Lily, and James felt his heart squeeze at the vulnerability there. He looked so small. So fragile.
“You’re safe, Sirius,” James said firmly, squeezing his hand. “You’re okay now. We’ve got you. Right here.”
Sirius’s lips trembled, trying to form words, but nothing came. James held him tighter, whispering over and over,
“It’s alright, mate. It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re here.” Slowly, the tension in Sirius’s body eased. His twitching stopped. His breathing became steadier. James felt his own body relax a fraction. For the first time since the panic started, James could finally breathe too. And he promised himself silently, over and over: he would never let Sirius face this alone. Not ever.