Chapter Text
After that night, Sirius fell into a routine.
The cutting was euphoric, the crimson dripping down his legs a sight to behold. The metallic smell of the blood was addictive. Sirius craved it. Every second of every day, he wished for that familiar feeling of a blade in his thigh, the comfort that the searing pain brought him.
So, he made a habit out of it.
Every other night, Sirius would sneak up to the Astronomy Tower, a near-dismantled razor clutched desperately in his hand. He knew he didn't need to use a muggle blade - he could do it with his wand if he wanted to. But Sirius liked the feeling of doing it himself.
His parents had spent most of his life using various spells and curses to abuse him, to cause him pain. Doing it himself, without his wand, gave Sirius a strange sense of freedom. He liked wiping the blood off his blade, bandaging his legs and arms, pulling his sleeves down as far as they can go. It gave Sirius a rush of endorphins, the thrill of the secrecy kept him alive more than any food or air in his lungs ever could.
It also gave him a strange, new sense of self. Sirius’s body had never been his own, tainted and marred by relentless torture from his parents. But the cuts and scars that adorned his thinning arms and thighs – they were his. No one could take those from him.
Blood leaking from his freshly sliced wrists, the young boy sat with his legs dangling over the edge of the Astronomy Tower, still desperately clutching his blade. The sun peeked over the top of the horizon, its orange glow only just beginning to bless the ground before it.
For the first time in a long time, Sirius felt peaceful. An unfamiliar sense of serenity washed over him, blanketing him in its stillness. He was home, finally.
Until he heard the light footsteps behind him.
Sirius swivelled around, not bothering to cover his arms. He was met with eyes identical to his own. Feeling his chest deflate, the elder Black brother turns away to face the sky. As silent and slightly scary as ever, Regulus comes and sits next to him.
"Sirius," He says, trying hard to hide the waver in his voice. Sirius hears it.
"Regulus," Sirius responds, stiffly.
His brother inches, ever so slightly, closer to him. He looks nervous, terrified even, when he reaches for Sirius’ arm. Sirius lets up. There’s not much else he can do. Regulus doesn’t look surprised, though. Never surprised. The elder boy’s chest deflates.
Without a single word, Regulus reaches for his wand, still keeping a firm but gentle grasp on his brother’s arm, and begins to clean the wounds. He murmurs soft spells under his breath, summoning cloths and bandages. Sirius sits there, uncomfortably.
After he’s done, the younger Black sits and stares at his brother. He looks like he wants something, though Sirius has no idea what. Answers? Ha. Like Sirius has those.
Sirius has nothing to offer Regulus, in place of an explanation. He doesn’t know why he does it. He doesn’t know why he does anything.
“Sorry,” Sirius murmurs, almost under his breath. It’s a pathetic excuse of an apology, no more than a shitty ice breaker, but he’s never been good with awkward silence. He shifts.
Regulus gives a short sigh, before finally meeting his brother’s eye and saying, “What for?”
Sirius falters.
He pauses. Thinks the question over. What for? What is he sorry for? The usual answers come to mind.
I’m sorry for worrying you.
I’m sorry for being a burden.
I’m sorry for being such a horrid big brother.
I’m sorry, because you deserve better than me. I’m sorry you have to put up with me.
But he keeps his mouth locked firmly shut. Partly for fear of seeming like an attention-seeker, something Sirius has been seen as his whole life. You get that, when you’re constantly loud and over the top. So, sometimes, he worries that, when he voices his emotions, he will come off as histrionic, just someone who feels a little sorry for himself.
He also knows, deep down, that none of it is true. Sirius has been hearing all of those sentences from his friends for years now. He’s comforted them enough to know he would just be a hypocrite, saying that his words apply to everyone but him.
So, instead, the boy whispers, “I don’t know.”
“Then you have nothing to be sorry for.”
His brother says it so simply, as if it is a proven fact, that, for a moment, Sirius allows himself to believe it. He imagines himself in a world where he had done nothing wrong, where he was more than just a fucked-up mistake smeared on Earth’s surface. But that’s all it is. His imagination.
“You don’t know anything about what happened,” Sirius responds, quietly. He suddenly feels very small and insignificant, as if he were the younger brother.
“No, I don’t,” Regulus agrees, “But I know you, Sirius. And I know you’re not a bad person. No matter what you did, you’re my brother. You’re the best person I know and nothing could ever change that.”
The breath catches in Sirius’ throat. His mind flashes back to something James once told him, when they were on speaking terms.
“You’re not a bad person, Sirius. You’re a very good person, that bad things happened to.”
For a moment, he is at a loss for words. Regulus has never been big on vulnerability. He was never the ‘comforter’. That was Sirius. This switching of roles leaves him feeling guilty. But, comforted nonetheless.
Seeing Sirius is not in the place to speak at the minute, Regulus awkwardly shuffles closer to him, until their shoulders are bumping against each other. Their legs hit against each other, as they dangle precariously over the edge. And, then, after a moment of contemplation, Regulus rests his head on his older brother’s shoulder.
He lets Sirius weep.
“Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.” Remus murmurs the line under his breath, his voice no more than a whisper, as his finger delicately traces the words on the page.
The moonlight illuminates the book gripped in between his two hands. He turns his face to it. The young lycanthrope is sat, riskily, on the edge of his balcony, as he has begun to do every night, when James crawls into Peter’s bed and draws the curtains. Sometimes, he forgets the silencing charm and Remus can hear the two of them whispering. He can never quite catch what they are saying.
So, he would come outside onto the balcony, his battered copy of ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ tucked under his arm, and he would read.
He knows his friends are worried about him. He doesn’t need that constant reminder.
A burning cigarette is situated between his two fingers. Remus lifts it to his mouth, taking a long, well-deserved drag. He blows the smoke into the air and watches it disappear, fading away into nothing.
The book the boy holds has been read many times. It has been the cause of laughs and tears. Its pages have been turned too many times to count, the copy is dilapidated, nearly falling apart. Remus has never loved anything more.
Well, maybe one thing.
He remembers the late nights they spent together, just lying in bed next to each other. Whenever Sirius would ask him to read to him, that would always be the book he chose. He isn’t sure why. It was never Remus’s favourite, not until he read it with Sirius.
Remus had always felt a kinship with Basil, loving too much and too deeply, much too fast. Getting hurt because of this silent overcompensation, because of selfish dickheads who don’t know how to think about anyone other than themselves. He had always thought that Sirius saw himself in Dorian.
Now he knows why.
The boy, suddenly looking a lot younger and a lot smaller in the moonlight, reads the book, intently. It might seem silly but, to him, this is his last piece of Sirius. The only thing left untainted by the carnage that was left behind.
The cigarette slips out of Remus’s hands, missing his knee by a millimetre. He can’t bring it in himself to care.
Gently slipping his tattered bookmark between even more tattered pages, Remus swings his legs down and gets off the ledge. He should feel a sense of stability, when his legs hit the ground. Instead, he feels even more lost and uncertain. He swallows.
Peering through the large windows, he can see that Peter and James are safely tucked into their own beds, snoozing softly. They know that he goes out onto the balcony at night, though they never make an attempt to stop him, or, even worse, join him. Remus silently thanks them for that.
He slinks back into the dorm room, placing his book into his dresser drawer and climbing into his bed. He feels as if he sinks into the mattress, feeling as if he is drowning.
Remus isn’t sure he can swim his way out of this one.
It was always Sirius that would help Remus swim, when things got hard, and Remus him. Sure, James, Peter and Lily were helpful too, but it was Sirius that held Remus’ head above the water, pressed their foreheads together and reminded him it would be okay.
“Everything will be okay.” He can still hear Sirius' gentle voice in his eyes, fingers gently situated under his chin.
Look where that got them.
Remus huffs. He knows he probably won’t get any sleep tonight – he never does – but he likes to keep up with the formalities. He climbs into bed, pulls the covers right up to his chin. He turns on his side, facing his blank wall and feeling the emptiness beside him.
When he shuts his eyes, he is met with Sirius’ face, inches away from his face. Their lips nearly touching, the other boy whispers to him excitedly, a secret only the two of them share.
“Read that bit again, please.” Remus had rolled his eyes. “Pleaseeee.. Moony…”
“Again? We must have read this a thousand times already.” Remus laughs exasperatedly, though he is already reaching for the book.
“It’s so good.” Sirius complains.
“Do I have to?” Remus moans, as he looks for the page number.
“Come on, you know you love reading to me.” Sirius’ black locks have fallen in his eyes, as he gives a mischievous wink and grins devilishly.
Remus is glad it’s dark. He doesn’t want Sirius to see his growing blush. He also doesn’t want Sirius to know that he secretly does love reading to him. He doesn’t need that ego boost. So instead, he says,
“Sure, I do,” he murmurs sarcastically, smiling when he finds the right page, “I don’t get why you love this book so much, anyway.”
“I love you reading to me,” Sirius says, his voice dropping to a whisper. They all hear the unspoken words. I love you, too.
Remus snaps his eyes back open. He blinks a few times, fast and hard, trying to block the memory from his head. Purge it. He doesn’t need that. Not now.
Not ever.
Later that night, Sirius was squirrelled away in Regulus’ dorm, lying on the bed with his arms resting on his stomach. His brother lay next to him, after he rushed Evan and Barty out of the room. Upon seeing Sirius’ bandaged arms and dead eyes, they didn’t need to be told twice.
Sirius doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t want to. He thinks, even if he did, he still wouldn’t want to.
Regulus inhales, opening his mouth to speak. Sirius is surprised by this. His younger brother has never been one for communication, or comforting people, preferring to stand awkwardly and keep his mouth shut.
So, the moment Regulus opens his mouth, Sirius is listening.
“I don’t know what’s gone on between you and the other guys,” Regulus speaks, staring intently at Sirius’ chest so as to not meet his eyes. It’s obvious he’s spent the last hour or so rehearsing this, perfectly it in his head.
“But they’re not worth this, Sirius. Nothing is worth this,” The smaller boy pleads, “Nothing is worth losing yourself for.”
Then, in a quieter voice, “I don’t want to lose you.”
For the first time that night, Sirius sees his brother for what he is. A scared child. A child who has gone through so, so much, experienced so much pain and loss. Sirius has been the one constant in his life, holding his hand through it all. He doesn’t want to lose that, he understands that.
Still not speaking, Sirius reaches out and interlocks one of his fingers with Regulus’. They stare at each other for a moment, Regulus’ eyes shining with unshed tears, Sirius’ still red around the rims.
“You don’t have to keep doing this,” The younger boy persists, suddenly sounding more hopeful. It’s unlike Regulus to sound hopeful.
“You can change,” He continues, “Get.. better, I mean. I don’t know the correct terms, Sirius, but please. You don’t have to do this. Don’t do this.” He nods, not just to Sirius’ arms, but to Sirius as whole.
For a moment, Sirius shuts his eyes. Everything is dark but far, far into the distance, there is a light. A light at the edge of the tunnel, shining into the emptiness like a full moon. Regulus’ spark of hope must be contagious. He begins to feel a smile curling at the edges of his lips.
Then, he opens his eyes. Wakes up. It’s as if the world is caving in on him. The smile turns sad.
“I want to believe that, Reggie,” Sirius murmurs, now intertwining both of their hands together, “But I can’t. I can’t keep lying to myself saying I’m going to change.”
“I’m poison. I come from poison. I have poison inside of me and I destroy everything that I touch.” Regulus deflates.
“That’s my ‘legacy’,” Sirius says, quoting his mother, “I have nothing to show for the life that I’ve lived and nobody is better off for having known me.”
A beat.
“You haven’t destroyed me,” Regulus whispers, gripping Sirius’ hand tighter.
“Haven’t I?” He responds, a sad smile curving his lips.
He receives no response.
“Checkmate.”
“How the fuck do you keep winning?”
Remus chuckles as he watches Peter win yet another chess match against James, from a safe distance of course.
He is cozied up in an armchair, mug of tea warming his hands. Lily is nestled in the chair next to him, not that that’s much use to him, as she can’t seem to take her eyes off of Mary, who’s busy plaiting Marlene’s hair.
“How could I not win?” Peter retorts, reclining back in his chair, “You’re shit, mate.”
James gasps dramatically, before jabbing a finger at Pete, “I will flip this chess board.”
“Go for it.”
Remus sighs, contentedly. This is it, where’s he meant to be. All of his life, all the turmoil and pain, it’s all led up to this. This brief moment of peace, surrounded by his family, the fire roaring and the wind whistling.
But something is missing.
Remus’s fingers tighten around his mug.
Tying the bobble on Marlene’s last and final plait, Mary turns around, her bright laughter going with her. Lily ducks her head, trying to hide her smile.
It’s been nearly three months since “The Prank”, as it has been helpfully dubbed. Remus knows he has forgiven Sirius. How could he not?
He forgave Sirius a long time ago and he has known this for a long time. The only thing standing behind the two boys is Remus’ pride. In situations like this, surely, he’s not meant to forgive him. But he can’t help it.
The more Remus sees of Sirius, the more he sees his hair thinning, the bags under his eyes darkening. He notices when Sirius isn’t in the Great Hall at mealtimes, he notices how he only wears long sleeves. Remus knows that the other boy isn’t doing well and, the more he notices, the more he feels inclined to help.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is sitting in his lap, as it often is these days, and he picks it up. It feels heavy in his hands, the weight of late nights curled up in bed together, whispering sweet nothings to each other, their noses nearly touching.
Remus thinks he should talk to Regulus.
“James,” He says, causing all of his friends to turn to him in slight surprise. He hasn’t spoken once this evening. He doesn’t speak much lately, there is always too much on his mind. Sirius has given him a lot to think about, it seems.
James looks up, from where he is lying on the floor, wrestling Peter, one of his palms pressed under Pete’s chin, his glasses askew and his hair tousled.
“Yes, Moony?” He says, innocently, with a grin, obviously expecting Remus to reprimand him for fighting.
“Where’s the map?” Remus asks, setting his mug down on the table next to him.
James blinks then, not expecting that answer. That’s alright, Remus likes surprising people. Lily turns to him, an eyebrow raised. The whole group looks curious, though they all know better than to question him recently.
“Uh,” He pauses, thinking, “Under my bed, I think. Why do you want it?”
“I’m going on a walk,” he says, abruptly, standing up. Before anyone can stop and interrogate him, Remus is off, making his way up the stairs to his dorm.
Once safely up the stairs, he creaks the door open, groaning as he bends down to look under James’ bed. His joints scream at him. Grinning triumphantly, he eventually sees the map and grabs it, pushing himself up with a lot of effort.
Lily is standing in the doorway.
Of course she is.
“How do you always get past the stairs?” Remus huffs.
“Magic,” She smiles, making her way over to him, “So.”
“So?”
“Where are you off to, at this ungodly hour?”
“I have a thing,” He protests, and even Remus knows it’s a weak excuse.
Lily laughs, “When have you ever had a thing?”
“Fine,” He groans. No one gets the truth out of him like Lily Evans, “You were right.”
“You’ll have to be more specific,” She smiles, sitting down on James’ bed. Remus doesn’t follow suit.
“About Sirius,” He lowers his voice.
Lily’s smile fades slightly, sensing this is something more serious. She furrows her brow, gesturing for him to keep talking.
“I miss him, Lils,” Remus whispers, “You were right, I don’t hate him. I could never hate him. I want him back and I’m scared he won’t come back.”
“So,” Remus continues, not giving Lily a chance to interject, “I’m going to talk to Regulus, then, to Sirius.”
Lily pauses, taking a minute to think this over, “Well, I think that’s very mature of you.”
A beat.
“Do you think this is the right thing to do?”
“Yes,” She says, without so much as a moment to think about it, “Sirius loves you, Remus. So much. There is not a single universe where he doesn’t. And I think he needs you right now.”
“I think he does too,” Remus nods, sincerely, “I’m gonna' go now.”
He stands up and makes his way to the door, cane and map in hand as he scans it for Regulus’ name. Before he leaves, he turns to Lily, one last time.
“Thanks, Lils.”
“Any time, Remus.”