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The house was finally quiet.
After a week of frantic missions, close calls, and sleepless nights, Grimmauld Place had fallen into an exhausted silence. Many of the Order Members are staying in Grimmaul Place for now. Doors were shut, lights dimmed, the creak of old wood settling the only sound left. It was nearly three in the morning, and Sirius Black stood alone in the sitting room, staring out the window at a thin slice of moon.
He wasn’t tired—he was wired, nerves stretched thin and refusing to settle. Maybe it was adrenaline. Maybe it was habit. Maybe it was the echo of years in Azkaban that made true rest feel like a luxury he didn’t quite deserve.
He sighed and leaned his forehead against the cool glass.
A soft noise behind him made him straighten. Footsteps. Slow, dragging, uneven.
Sirius turned.
Severus Snape stood in the doorway.
Barefoot. Shirtless. Only worn grey pajama bottoms clinging to his thin hips, his chest and shoulders were bare, thin but strong, pale in the moonlight. His hair hung limp around his face sticking to his temples, his jaw was unshaved, rough with dark stubble, and deep violet shadows bruised the skin beneath his eyes, the unmistakable marks of a man who hadn’t slept properly in weeks. He looked… wrecked.
And very, very drunk.
Snape blinked at him owlishly. “Black,” he slurred, as if surprised to find someone there.
Sirius swallowed whatever instinctive remark rose up. The man looked like he might fall over if someone breathed too hard. “Snape, couldn’t sleep either?” he said quietly.
Severus didn’t answer. He simply shuffled toward the window, steps unsteady, and came to stand beside Sirius. He leaned forward, pressing his forehead heavily against the cold glass like Sirius had moments ago with a low thud.
He sighed, fogging the glass.
They stood like that, the silence oddly peaceful.
Then Severus began talking.
“At—at night,” he tried, words tumbling out, “the… the lights—outside—look like…” He waved a hand in a vague arc, nearly smacking Sirius in the face. “Stars. Stars on the ground. Like… fallen stars. But—but not sad ones. Busy ones. Working ones.”
Sirius blinked. “I… don’t follow.”
Severus frowned, concentrating hard, as though wrestling with a thought that kept slipping through his fingers. “The… the point,” he said solemnly, “is that nature is… alive. It breathes. We—we’re not listening properly. All of us. The Order. The Dark Lord. Everyone.” He paused, swaying. “Nature is talking. Loudly. But everyone is shouting louder.”
Sirius stared at him. “I still don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”
Severus opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again.
“Trees,” he announced suddenly.
Sirius blinked again. “What about trees?”
Severus squinted at him, like Sirius was slow. “Trees,” he said, voice rising with drunken determination, “are… very important.”
It was so earnest, so solemn, so utterly nonsensical that Sirius felt his mouth twitch. And that was when he realized—
Snape was obliterated.
Severus Snape could deliver entire dissertations after three bottles of firewhisky. He could insult, lecture, threaten, and philosophize while drunk. He could duel drunk. He could brew drunk. He could wordlessly stab someone in the ego drunk.
But this level of babbling?
This was new.
Sirius looked him up and down. The pale skin, the shaking hands, the heavy eyelids, the exhaustion carved into every line of his body. Double agent work had eaten him alive.
Sirius watched him, bewildered… then worried.
Severus rarely rambled. Even drunk, he was precise. Cutting. Articulate. This babbling — soft, wandering, almost childishly earnest — was unlike him entirely.
“Snape,” Sirius said gently, “you should go to bed.”
“…I couldn’t sleep.” Severus slurred.
Sirius blinked. He hadn’t expected an explanation — certainly not a voluntary one.
“It’s been… days,” he murmured hoarsely. “Maybe weeks. Time’s a blur. Close my eyes and—” He exhaled sharply, shaking his head as if to clear ghosts. “It doesn’t matter.”
Sirius took a cautious step closer. “Nightmares?”
“Not always.” Severus let out a brittle laugh. “Sometimes nothing at all. Just… lying there. Listening to my own mind tearing itself apart.”
His voice was thinner now, frayed around the edges. “I drink to quiet it. To force rest.”
He swallowed. “It’s not working anymore.”
Sirius stared at him, jaw tightening.
A war raged in his head — one part wanted to snap something cruel and distant; another part wanted to drag Snape to a damn bed and force him to sleep for a week.
What came out was something in between.
“You know,” Sirius said, sounding gruffer than he intended, “most people talk to a Healer when that happens. Or someone they trust. You don't just… pickle your organs and hope you pass out.”
Severus let out a humorless scoff. “Who precisely do you imagine I would speak to, Black?”
“I don’t know,” Sirius shot back. “Someone who isn’t me?”
Severus blinked, processing. Then nodded. “Okay.”
That one word hit Sirius harder than he liked.
He swallowed down the tightness gathering in his chest and tried to smother it with louder irritation.
“You’re a bloody idiot,” Sirius muttered. “A stubborn, miserable, self-sabotaging—”
“—I’m aware,” Severus cut in, voice cracking in spite of himself, swaying on his feet.
Sirius’s mouth worked soundlessly for a moment.
He wanted to say something reassuring.
He wanted to say something biting.
He ended up saying something neither of them expected.
“…You shouldn’t deal with it alone.”
Severus stared, eyes unfocus and then whispered, “I always do.”
He turned, took two steps, veered left, corrected himself, then shuffled toward the sink in the corner of the sitting room—one hand braced against the wall.
Sirius realized what was about to happen.
“Snape—”
But was cut off when
Severus leaned over the sink and vomited. Hard.
Sirius froze. Completely motionless. The sound was awful, wet and echoing, and it lasted far longer than Sirius expected.
Finally, Severus wiped his mouth on the back of his wrist, eyes half-open and unfocused. Without looking at Sirius, he mumbled, “Good night,” and staggered toward the stairs.
And Sirius stayed standing exactly where he was, rooted to the spot, watching Severus sway up the steps and disappear around the corner.
The silence settled again. Heavy. Strange. Almost suffocating.
Sirius exhaled slowly.
“Well,” he muttered to no one, “that’s going to stay in my head forever.”
He turned back toward the window.
And for a long time, he didn’t move.
His only thought, "How long has he been holding himself together like this… and why is no one helping him?"
— End —