Chapter Text
Sirius had a reputation. He was the heir of the House of Black of course, so he was born with a reputation. Nothing Sirius could do would ever get rid of that reputation, nor would anything be likely to change it.
Everyone already had an idea of who the Blacks were and who Sirius was before they had ever spoken to him. He wasn’t meant to be a good person, and after a while of hearing what people had to say about him when they thought he couldn’t hear it, he started to believe it. Of course, it was nothing he hadn’t heard before he attended Hogwarts; he had just grown numb to his mother telling him he was a bad person. It was different when other people said it too, though. It was different when he respected those people enough to care about their opinions.
Sirius was a loner at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The Slytherin 5th-year had never really been seen with a group of friends, other than sometimes resigning to hang out with his younger brother and his fourth year friends. It was quite apparent that he had no friends of his own. He liked it that way. He liked being able to have the reprieve and freedom that came with being by himself. It’s strange because he can still remember the first time he stepped on to the Hogwarts Express and wanted with his whole being to make a friend. Maybe dreams get discarded as you grow.
He had only ever heard about the concept of friends through fairy tales before: ones that protected, ones that hugged, ones that said that they loved each other. He had Reg, though. Regulus was his friend, and he would always be Regulus’s first friend. They hugged, they protected one another, they loved each other; though, neither of them were really able to express that to the other.
He didn’t need anyone else. He was already sure of that. He was always polite but never too friendly, and that was that. This was the beginning of 5th year, so he knew what he had to be focussed on: getting good grades on the OWLs, keeping as much pressure from the family off of Regulus, making sure his parents didn’t find out he was still playing quidditch, and keeping to himself. It was going to be so fucking bor-
“Mr. Black,” Slughorn’s voice startled him from his thoughts. “You and Lupin will be potion partners for this year.” Honestly, Sirius was glad he got Remus and not another Slytherin in his year. Literally anyone was better than the likes of Mulciber, Snivellus, and Avery. He couldn’t stand their dumb faces with their dumb expressions and dumb words that they used to taunt younger, defenseless students.
He straightened his posture and got up from his seat. He had witnessed the limp that Lupin always seemed to have and figured it would probably be easier if he was the one to walk towards his seat instead.
Lupin gave him a weak excuse of what was probably an attempt at a polite smile. Sirius had seen many of those before, and as much as he tried to be polite, he didn’t usually find himself smiling back at those phony facades people gave him. When Lupin saw him staring blankly at him and towering over him in his seat, he finally lost the weird grimace on his face and cleared his throat.
“Uh-hi, I’m Remus.”
“I know that. We’ve been at this school together for the past five years,” he rolled his eyes at the stupidity.
“Yeah, right,” Remus said, beginning to tap a… writing utensil?
“Is that a quill?” Sirius couldn’t help himself from immediately reaching out to touch it before stopping when he saw Remus’s hands pull back. He sat on his hands after that.
“No, no,” Remus- wait when did Sirius start referring to him as Remus in his head- Lupin looked like he was trying and failing hard to contain his laughter. “You and James will be the death of me. How can you be 15 years old and not know what a pencil is?”
“A pencil?”
“This,” Lupin waved his interesting muggle contraption in Sirius’s face, “is a pencil. Wow, you really are just a posh pureblood, aren’t you?”
Sirius immediately slouched his posture and took his hands out from under his lap to cross his arms over his chest in a childlike way- very unbefitting of the Black heir, he was proud to say. He blew a… raspberry? He wasn’t entirely sure what it was called but he had seen many of the Gryffindors, or Marauders that seemed to hang on to Rem-Lupin’s every word, do it before plenty of times. “I am not a posh pureblood”
“Oh, sorry. I forgot you were a dumb jock too,” Remus nodded sarcastically. WAIT I MEANT LUPIN. Lupin. Not Remus. Not a friend. Lupin. He was supposed to be civil and polite, not blur the lines and make this something it wasn’t meant to be.
“Like you’re not friends with the biggest dumb jock there is. Can we just do the assignment? I’d rather maintain my spot at the top of this class, and you’re ruining my chances as we speak.”
“You act as if I don’t care about my grades. You know, for a fact, that I am 2nd in cla-”
Sirius knew Remus was still talking, but he couldn’t hear him. The ringing was back. He first experienced it over break, after what he assumes was too much exposure to the Cruciatus from his mother, if he could even refer to her in that way. It was strange; he had been exposed to the Cruciatus so many times before this. None had ever had an affect on him. Not like this.
There was always the trembling for days afterward. There were always the random bouts of absolute agony that made him feel like he was still under the curse- like he would never escape from it. And maybe- well, Regulus described something that very well may have been an absence seizure more than once if he had done his research correctly. But none of those things made him feel insane like this made him feel insane.
The Black family madness had been talked about so many times around him. Sirius thought he could escape that. He knew he was broken, but he was meant to be broken without also being insane. Maybe it was truly just a side-effect of being a Black, not the Cruciatus.
Remus obviously realized something had happened from the discomfort on Sirius’s face, and Sirius didn’t know this, but Remus could also sense his elevated heart rate. “Sirius, can you hear me?” The words Lupin spoke were all a blur, and all Sirius could do was shake his head and cover his ears.
That didn’t stop the ringing of course, and it was beginning to become unbearable. All of the people in his class were gathering around him, crowding him like it was some kind of show that he was putting on for them, like he was some sort of zoo animal. Jeez, Rem- Lupin was really a Gryffindor if he could make this big of a scene; oh wait, it was him making the scene.
Why did this have to happen in the middle of class? What had he done to deser- no he knew exactly what he did. He was a Black. He didn’t protect Regulus from his mother, from the pressure. This was the universe giving out his karma, and he had no right to think that he didn’t deserve this.
In this moment, Sirius briefly considered if it mattered what he deserved or not. He may not be a good person, but shouldn’t he be able to go to class and learn without wanting to vomit and feeling like he was about to pass out from the massive amount of pain he was under?
And as Remus hesitantly put his hands on his shoulders, trying to get his attention, a plan spawned. It was a plan to escape the life he had now, to stop failing Regulus, to be a person he could be proud of one day. So for the first time, when someone reached out, he didn’t pull away.