Archive of Our Own

“You’re so pretty.”

It’s Sirius’ least favourite phrase.

Nothing good has ever come after anyone told him that.

Sirius knows he’s pretty, handsome, beautiful— whatever descriptor people want to use for him. He always has been. Since the day he was born, through all of his various insecurities throughout the years, his looks have never been something he’s given a second thought. He’s tall, broad, and muscular, with a sharp jawline and aristocratic features, exactly what the House of Black tries to breed. He, with his silver eyes and pale skin and black curls, looks every bit like the heir to his family.

He hates it. Thus far, the cons seem to greatly outweigh the pros. People boil him down to his appearance, assuming there’s nothing to him beyond a pretty face. People assume he has no problems on account of him looking the part. People entitle themselves to touching him whichever way they want, using the excuse of “you’re pretty” to justify their actions.

The first time someone looked at him, cupped his cheeks, and told him how nice he looks, he’d been four. It had been a family friend who was babysitting him. It was the first time an adult had truly given him undivided positive attention, and he had thrived under it for all of fifteen minutes. After sufficiently praising him, the family friend had taken him to the bedroom. That was when Sirius realized that he is, in fact, good looking.

He’s never been able to fully accept compliments about his appearance since then. No matter how innocent, who they’re from, or how much he trusts the person giving them, Sirius has always awkwardly nodded along and ignored the feeling of shame and self-disgust eating him alive.

Since that first incident, Sirius has lost track of how many times people have decided that his body and face are reasons to use him. Family friends, schoolmates, tutors, teachers, relatives. It’s always the same excuse every time: he was just too attractive for them to stop themselves. It doesn’t matter who, it doesn’t matter how old he is, and it doesn’t matter what he says; it ends the same way each and every time.

Now, though, Sirius has an idea. An idea to end this torture once and for all.

The problem is his looks. His face is always the first thing people see. He can fix that.

It happened again yesterday. Sirius was just at a party, minding his own business. James and Peter were in detention and that’s not Remus’ scene, so he’d been alone. It hadn’t taken long to realize that someone had put something in his drink. The sensation of losing control over his body due to substances is far from foreign to Sirius; he’s done enough of his own accord and had enough people do this to him that he recognizes it easily. When he started heading back to his dorm, hoping to collapse into his bed and play it off tomorrow as being extremely drunk, a body hits his and he’s being dragged into an empty classroom.

That was the final straw. Now, Sirius stands in front of the mirror in the dorm, wand clutched in his white-knuckled hand, a determined look in his eyes. His face is handsome. He needs to fix it. He can only think of one way to do that.

Wearing no makeup, doing it purposefully badly, and even using spells to accentuate his eye bags and any possible imperfection he can find hasn’t worked. There’s no point in beating around the bush. The only thing he can think of is ruining it. He can do that. If his past attempts haven’t worked, then this one will, he’s sure.

The mirror is a curse. His eyes are sliver, an echo of his mother in his own face. His jawline is sharp, a reflection of his father looking back at him. He is a product of his horrible, black blood, a broken being of pain and abuse, his only redeeming quality being his looks. His cursed, tainted looks, which have only served to hurt him further. He needs to ruin them.

He ties his hair up in a tight bun on the right side of his head, keeping it out of the way. He straightens his back, tilting his chin up. There’s nothing else he can do. He’s done it all.

This is his last resort.

No one is in the dorm. No one will find him for at least a few hours. That should be long enough for him to make sure this works.

Sirius raises his wand. It looks black against his pale skin. The tip flickers, but he holds it steady.

Sirius grins.

Everything goes white.

~~~~~

It hurts. That’s the first thing Sirius takes note of. There’s a sharp, burning pain radiating across his face and a dull throbbing sensation at the back of his head, an ache in his back and arse. The pain in his head is distracting. It feels like someone has lit the entire left half of his face, along with his nose and right cheek, on fire. It’s hot and brutal, like being stabbed.

The second thing he notes, after the disorienting pain, is that someone is talking to him. James, he recognizes quickly. His brother’s voice is desperate and scared, well past frantic. Sirius feels his right shoulder being jostled, along with his left wrist. It’s a strange technique to wake someone up, he thinks blearily. Why not just grab both shoulders?

Then Sirius clues in to the pain rapidly spreading down his neck, to the left. Ah. That explains it. That also explains why James sounds so panicked. With the burning sensation radiating from his cheek, Sirius has to imagine there’s a lot of blood involved in whatever scene James has walked in on.

When he opens his eyes, blinking away the harsh lights, he sees relief crossing James’ face. The younger boy has tears on his face. One shaky hand reaches over, close to cupping Sirius’ jaw, but James pulls back almost immediately, fear evident in his expression. Sirius blinks up at him, breathing thick and raspy. It feels like there’s something clogging his airways and forcing him to breathe through his mouth.

The taste of iron sits heavy on his tongue. Blood. There’s blood in his mouth. James makes a weird half-sob-half-cough sound. Sirius wants to spit it out, but movement feels impossible, currently, and his head is spinning too fast for him to even consider standing. He’s on the floor, staring up at his brother.

“Pa— Padfoot,” James grits out, one shaking hand grabbing Sirius’. “Fucking hell, Paddy,” he breathes in sharply, then chokes on nothing and covers his mouth. Guilt consumes Sirius for no discernible reason. James reaches out again, then holds himself back again.

“Wha…?” is all Sirius can mumble around his strangely tender tongue. He wonders if he bit it, based on the blood in his mouth and pain when he speaks. James swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing, and he looks like he might vomit. Sure enough, he gags and looks away from Sirius, who doesn’t quite understand what’s wrong. Why is James having so much trouble looking at him?

After a few long moments of deep breathing, James finally lifts his head, colour drained from his brown skin. He looks pained, almost as pained as Sirius feels. He gives the older boy’s hand a hard squeeze, somewhere between reassurance and an attempt at grounding himself. It doesn’t hurt, not in comparison to the boiling agony running through Sirius’ left side.

“What happened, Pads? Why are you— your face—” James cuts himself off with a harsh breath. “W-what happened?” he asks shakily. Sirius’ eyes drift to the bathroom floor, where the tiles are splattered with blood and his wand has clattered into a corner. Ebony wood, long and squared at the base, runes carved into its sides, laying in a puddle of crimson.

Bright white light. A loud ringing noise. Searing pain.

Oh. That’s why James sounds so disgusted.

Sirius feels himself grinning despite the agony it grants him. It worked. If his brother, his platonic soulmate, can’t look at him without gagging, his plan must have worked. James has never turned his nose up at anyone for surface level reasons like this. Remus slicing his chest open and bleeding out on the floor of the Shrieking Shack never made him behave like this, neither did Peter’s fall from a broomstick that resulted in two broken fingers the one time he tried to fly. Now, though, he’s gagging and grabbing Sirius’ hand like it’s his only lifeline.

“D’ya like it?” Sirius questions, laughing around the pain. James looks completely and utterly baffled. His mouth hangs open and his brows furrow, glasses sliding down his nose due to a mix of sweat and tears.

“What did you do?” he asks, barely a whisper. Sirius wants to look in the mirror, wants to see what he did, wants to prove to himself that he’s thoroughly deterred everybody from touching him ever again. James’ word is one thing, but Sirius would like to see the damage for himself. He hopes that James won’t try to force him to go to Poppy. She’ll do her best to fix his face with minimal scarring, and that’s the opposite of what he wants.

“Tell me ‘s bad, James,” Sirius all but begs. He needs confirmation. He needs James to tell him it’s ugly, it’s disgusting, it’s the worst thing he’s ever seen. He needs this to have worked. If it hasn’t, he’s all out of ideas. The only other thing he could think to do is kill himself, because, at the very least, if someone tried to touch him, then, he wouldn’t need to remember it.

“Oh, it’s bad, alright,” James says, incredulous, still looking startled. It makes warmth flood Sirius’ chest. It’s bad. It worked. Sirius laughs again, but, this time, he’s relieved. His body feels hot and tingly and far away, but he doesn’t care. James knows it’s bad. James is always right. It’s bad.

He’s ruined himself and that’s all that matters. That’s all he wants.

“Why are you laughing, Padfoot? What’s wrong? What happened?” James questions for that feels like the hundredth time. That just makes Sirius laugh harder. The rising and falling of his chest makes his body hurt even more, but it barely feels like anything when he’s this elated. Thank Merlin, he doesn’t need to go through that ever again. He doesn’t care who he intimidates, disgusts, or whatever else: he’s safe.

“Y’on’t un’s’and, James,” Sirius slurs, brain going fuzzy. There’s a distinct throbbing in his head and nausea is building in his belly. Everything is blurry and the lights are too bright. Sirius still doesn’t fucking care because he’s safe.

“You’re damn right I don’t understand!” James hisses through gritted teeth, fingers tightening on Sirius’ hand. He looks away again, both hands curling around Sirius’, a distressed noise bubbling up from the back of his throat. “What the fuck happened? Why’s your face busted? Talk to me,” he pleads. There’s blood soaking into his trousers.

“I did it,” Sirius informs him proudly, grin twisting around the corners. James gags, watching him with horror written all over his face. Admittedly, the information that Sirius blew his own fact up isn’t very comforting—maybe James thinks he’s lost his mind. Maybe he has. Maybe all of the torture he’s endured has fucked him up irreparably. Maybe the fear of touch, of people, of bodies on his, has decimated his mental state.

“You— holy hell, what?” James stares at him, eyes wide. Previous hesitation goes right out through window and James reaches out, hand cupping the right side of Sirius’ face, careful to avoid the burns and blisters spilling over from the left. “Why would you do that? Why on earth would you do— whatever it is you did?” he asks, breathing heavily. Sirius’ smile finally fades. He doesn’t want to think about this anymore. He wants to forget. He wants to put his broken past behind him and let it rest.

“B’cause I ‘ad to,” Sirius grumps. James doesn’t need to understand him, he just needs to accept that, sometimes, things happen that he doesn’t have the experience to comprehend the consequences of. This is one of those things. James will (hopefully) never understand what kind of pain he’s going through, so he needs to acknowledge that the consequences are beyond his comprehension.

“Why on earth would you have to do this?” James exclaims, fingers tangling in his unruly hair. “I— you know what, no, I don’t care right now,” he shakes head, sounding exasperated. He takes a long, deep breath, scrubbing his hand over his face, sighing. “For now, let’s get you to the hospital wing and then—” Sirius cuts him off.

“No!” he cries, anger bubbling over. He can’t go to Poppy. He needs his scars. They’ll keep him safe. “No hos’p’l wing,” he protests, voice whiny. “I can’t…” he sniffles. Tears prick his eyes. James looks down at him, his expression confused and sickened. He blinks once, twice, then makes a sound like he’s about to hurl.

“Why not? Why? You—” James cuts himself off this time. He cards his shaking fingers through Sirius’ hair, holding him like he’s something precious, something fragile, something loved. It feels weird. No one looks at him like that. He’s always the strong one, the tough one, the powerful one. He’s the one that cups Remus’ cheeks and kisses his forehead when he gets overwhelmed. He’s the one that pats Peter on the back and tells him it’s alright when he’s stressed. He’s the one that wraps an arm around James’ shoulders and tells him to take a break when he spends too long on quidditch practice. “Sirius,” James murmurs.

“Wha?” Sirius huffs. James looks hurt. Sirius feels guilty. His brother never refers to him using his first name, it’s always a nickname.

“It’s either the hospital wing or St. Mungo’s right now, Paddy. You have to pick one. You’ve…” he trails off, studying Sirius’ face for a long moment. “The damage is… bad. You’ve kinda…” James gestures to his own face vaguely, cringing. “There’s blood and… and burns… and… well, whatever you did is… it’s not… you’ve really hurt yourself,” he explains, looking queasier and queasier the longer he talks about the injuries Sirius has caused himself. Perfect. Although, he does feel guilty. James has always had a weak stomach. “Which one do you want?”

“Neither,” Sirius says stubbornly. James doesn’t look impressed.

“If you don’t pick one, I will. You’re not in a state to fight me on anything right now. I’m taking you to one of them and that’s not optional. Which would you prefer?” James looks stern. He doesn’t usually look anything but friendly. Sirius wants to be good for James. He wants to make James happy. While he is both taller and heavier than his brother, the younger boy is strong and could pick him up, even if he were to act as a dead weight, anyways.

Well, if he has to pick, then Poppy is more likely to listen to his pleas to not minimize scarring than some random healer at St. Mungo’s. Sirius sighs. “Hos’p’l wing,” he grumbles. Maybe, if he really begs, Poppy will take pity and allow him to keep as much of it as possible. With the extent of the damage James seems to be implying, he can only assume that it’s severe enough that scarring is inevitable. Maybe he doesn’t need to worry too much.

“Alright,” James nods, looking pensive. He crawls up, settling next to Sirius’ head on his knees. He hesitates to touch Sirius once again, like he might break, and that’s annoying. He’s not fragile. He can be manhandled, he can be pushed around, he can take it. He’s strong. “How are we going to do this?” he asks after a moment. “D’you think you can stand?”

“Yeah,” Sirius says quickly. He’ll walk on his own. He’s not pathetic. He’s strong. He doesn’t need help. He’ll never need help. James looks doubtful, but he nods slowly. One of his arms slides under Sirius’ head, wary.

“If you say so…” he mutters. Sirius slowly adjusts his arms so he can prop himself up on his elbows. That makes his head spin, nausea taking over and bile reaches his throat, but he swallows it down and blinks until the lights go back to their regular size. James’ hands are on his back, and his brother has slid in behind him, ready to catch if need be. He hears James inhale, opening his mouth to say something.

“Don’t,” Sirius warns through gritted teeth. Mercifully, James keeps his mouth shut. Slowly, after a few long moments, Sirius pushes himself up to sitting. He leans forwards, gagging. The world has suddenly tilted and turned upside down, and now his head is spinning and he can’t feel anything other than pain and nausea. James’ body is behind his, suddenly, and he pulls Sirius to lean against him.

“I’m not letting you walk in this state,” James states. Sirius wants to complain, assert that he’s fine, but he’s in such deep agony that he’s not sure if he’s able to.

All he can manage in response is an annoyed groan. James takes that as permission, which is great, because Sirius isn’t sure he’d be able to admit to needing assistance.

Gently, Sirius is rotated and propped against James’ chest, one arm securing around his back, the other snaking under his legs. In slow, deliberate movements, he hoists both of them off of the floor. The motion jostles Sirius, causes his head to move in a way that shoots bolts of agony through his skull and gag once again. Thankfully, James stills the second he’s on his feet.

“Are you okay?” he asks, breathing heavy. Sirius makes a broken little sound and shuts his eyes. “I’m going to take that as a yes,” James murmurs, tightening his hold. Carrying a limp body already isn’t easy, never mind a limp body the size of Sirius’— well over six foot and heavy from broad muscles.

James starts walking. It shakes Sirius a little bit, eliciting a pained groan. James slowly down, stepping with more purpose in attempt to minimize the impact of his movements.

By the time they get out of the common room, Sirius is worried he might puke. He’s in horrible amounts of pain and would really like to be knocked out. He’s also pissed about how no one has noticed the damage he’s done to himself. The whole point of this was to make sure he would never be touched against his will ever again.

When Sirius is carried into the hospital wing and Poppy sees his face, she immediately has James dump him in a bed so she can take a closer look at him. His shirt comes off, and there’s a lot of poking and prodding around his chest, shoulder, neck, and head. Poppy doesn’t seem to know where to start with him, which he hopes is a sign.

While she’s studying his left cheek, which took the brunt of the explosion, Sirius speaks up. “Don’ take m’ scars, please,” he slurs. Poppy does a double take at that, straightening to look down at him. There’s a quizzical expression on her face.

“Pardon?” she presses the cloth in her hand to his cheek. There’s also blood on his chest and shoulder, so he’s not sure why it’s just there that she’s concerned about.

“Make sure they scar,” he mumbles, determined to ensure his plan works. “I wan’ ‘em.”

“Mr. Black, it doesn’t matter what I do right now, these are going to stay,” Poppy informs him. Sirius feels relieved beyond belief. “If you’d like, I can refrain from doing anything to minimize scarring,” she offers. Yes, that’s exactly what he wants.

“Perfect,” Sirius confirms.

~~~~~

There’s bandages on his face, now. He wants to rip them off and see what he’s done. He can’t. James, Remus, and Peter will never let that happen. It’s bad for healing, or something like that. He doesn’t care. He’d love to disrupt the healing process, maybe that’ll make it look worse.

He had a concussion due to his head slamming against the tiles with the force of the explosion. That was fixed relatively quickly, and the only thing he needs to heal from, now, are the extensive burns covering his body. Sirius did not take into account how much recovery would be necessary after his stunt. It’s worth it.

Somehow, he hasn’t damaged his eye nearly as much as he would’ve assumed. It was limited to some minor vision loss that Poppy managed to reverse with a couple of potions, thankfully. That’s nice. He hadn’t taken that into account when he’d first decided to blow his own face up, but he’s glad he didn’t do any irreversible harm in that regard. He quite likes because able to see.

No one understands why he did this. He’s been asked by everyone he’s come into contact with this far— Poppy, when she’d finished bandaging him; James, repeatedly, since the moment he found him to now; Remus, who asked the moment he saw him, crowding his space and kissing every non-wounded inch of skin on his face; Peter, who hadn’t really known what else to do, by the looks of it; Minnie, who had visited him when it became apparent that, not only is his wound self inflicted, he doesn’t regret it in the slightest; and Lily, who, since getting with James, has become close with him and had come to check in. Regardless of who asks, his answer doesn’t change.

“I had to.”

No one has been satisfied with that answer. It always results in further questioning, but he never supplies any more information. Instead, he reiterates variations of the same phrase until they give up and change the subject. He’s stubborn, the most stubborn person he knows, and no one can outlast him in a game of obstinacy. They’ve tried, but he’s a professional at digging his heels in and dying on whatever hill he’s chosen.

James and Remus, when they’d come together, had come the closest. Separately, they’d given it after more than most are willing to battle through, but, when they’d decided to work together to get answers, it’d resulted in over half an hour of questioning. They hadn’t gotten any closer to cracking Sirius’ resolve and getting answers. He’d stayed just as firmly rooted in his decision to keep his reasons close to his chest as he’d been in the beginning.

Since finding him half-dead on the bathroom floor, James has been especially clingy. Sirius can’t blame the younger boy: he found his brother laying on the tiles, blood splattered everywhere, concussed and covered in self-inflicted injuries, laughing and crying all at once. He can’t imagine he’d be particularly keen on leaving James alone if the roles were reversed. James has spent every free moment he has next to Sirius, maintaining as much contact as the older boy will allow.

Granted, that usually isn’t much, seeing as Sirius is incredibly touch averse and that distaste only heightens when he’s stressed or upset in any way. While he is feeling much more comfortable in his skin, he’s still not enthused about the idea of being cuddly with anyone. This incident stemmed from being raped touched again, and that’s left his nerves raw and his heart vulnerable. Everything aches when hands overlap with the invisible marks seared into his skin from four days ago.

Sirius feels guilty whenever he sees James’ fear, his desperation to reach out and touch, hold, feel. He seems to want reassurance that Sirius is still here, still alive. So far, most of his offers for contact have been limited to hand holding or allowing James to trace idle patterns onto his biceps. Remus— and everybody else, really— has faced similar boundaries. Sometimes he’s willing to allow his boyfriend to kiss his face (James gets that privilege, too), and, on rare occasion, his lips, but that’s it. Peter can hold his hand sometimes. No one else gets to lay hands on him.

The day James brought him to the hospital wing and the one after, Sirius accepted that he would not be allowed out. Now, though, he’s been petitioning to be allowed out. His injuries were too fresh, and, admittedly, with no reasons for why he did this to himself, sending him out on his own would be foolish. To an outsider, he would seem to be either dealing with self harming behaviours or actively suicidal.

And, you know what, if he does engage in self harm from time to time, and if he’s not particularly concerned with whether or not he lives or dies, who cares? That’s no one’s business. He’s not said or done anything to make anyone think that’s true, other than the obvious. Since he hasn’t been an idiot since the incident, there’s no point in keeping him here. It’s not like his injuries will heal better depending on his location. He could be hanging out in the dorm if he absolutely needs to be in bed.

Plus, he needs to go make sure people don’t think he’s pretty anymore. No one wants to be the person that says it straight up, but he can read people. Mary could be his first test. She’s easy to read and hasn’t been shy about informing Sirius that she finds him attractive. Marlene would probably just tell him if it looks bad enough. Dorcas would definitely be honest, but they’re harder to read than both their girlfriend and Mary, so he’d get less information from them.

Either way, he’s got a variety of reasons to want to leave. That’s why he’s trying to convince Poppy to free him from this damned place. It’s nice, sure, lit with natural lighting through large windows, comfortable enough bed, and curtains for privacy offered to anyone sticking around longterm, but there’s better places to be. Sirius is tired of this place. Despite that, Poppy seems intent of keeping him around for another few days.

Currently, Remus is sitting next to his bed. James has been dragged off somewhere by Lily and Peter, who have been concerned about the amount of time he’s spent in the hospital wing. That’s alright, Sirius appreciates alone time with his Moony.

Remus is gently running his fingers across Sirius’ right cheek, big eyes tracing the bandages on his face. He looks oddly reverent, which Sirius has mixed feelings about.

“Will you tell me why you did this yet?” Remus asks, tilting his head to the side. Sirius sighs. He has no intention of sharing what happened a few days ago. What happened a few weeks ago, a few months ago, a few years ago. It’s been thirteen years since the first time someone forced themselves on him. He’s never told anyone. Not a single soul knows what he’s been through, what keeps him up at night. Sirius fully intends on keeping it that way.

“Don’t worry about me, Moony,” he mutters, catching Remus’ hand in his own and holding it. He doesn’t want his face to be touched right now. It feels too intimate, especially so soon after the ordeal following the party.

“It’s hard not to at the moment,” Remus says. He leans forward, propping himself up on his elbow to look at Sirius. That is, simultaneously, the thing he loves and hates the most about Remus. He observes. He watches. He takes things in and likes to figure things out. It’s as wonderful as it is infuriating. Sirius sometimes wonders if it would be easier for him if Remus enjoyed studying people less than he does.

“Well, try,” Sirius says flippantly, shrugging. Remus gives him a disapproving look, and he feels guilty again. That seems to be his constant state of being at this point.  “Don’t look at me like that,” he grumbles, turning his head so he doesn’t have to see it. It’s childish, but disappointment coming from the select few he cares for is his biggest weakness, second only to failure.

“I’m not looking at you like anything,” Remus huffs. Sirius hears him stand up, then feels the bed dip when he sits bedside him. “You blew your face open and then refused to talk about it, Padfoot. How do you expect me not to worry?”

He makes a good point.

“I had to,” Sirius sighs. Remus will never understand that. Remus understands a lot of things about him, more than most, because he’s has also been hurt in the past, but this is nothing he’s experienced. It’s not that that’s a bad thing, not at all; Sirius is glad that Remus has never been through this, but it does make speaking about his feelings harder. He doesn’t want to go through that. If he had to talk to anyone about things he’s been through, he’d want to talk to someone who’s been through things similar to what’s happened to him. That would make it easier, because it would involve less graphic explanations of the visceral emotions on account of the person he’s conversing with already having some understanding of them.

“Why did you have to?” Remus asks. A soft, thin hand starts toying with his curls. Sirius grits his teeth. It doesn’t matter what he says, what he does, how he puts it, Remus will never understand why he had to do this to himself. It just won’t make sense. Nothing will change that. Sirius has accepted that fact.

“You wouldn’t get it,” Sirius mumbles. Before Remus can argue with him, he presses on. “Don’t. Just… don’t. It’s fine. Leave it be,” he feels exhausted. He’s so, so tired. He doesn’t want to think about his life anymore. It only serves to distress him. Remus sighs.

“I wish you’d tell me why you did that,” he states. Sirius rolls onto his back, staring up at his boyfriend with empty, tired eyes. “Budge over,” he mutters, nudging Sirius’ arm. The older boy does as he’s told, moving to the edge of the bed to Remus can lay down next to him. It’s a small mercy that Remus is small enough that he doesn’t touch Sirius’ large form, even in the hospital bed.

“Look, Moony, I know you’re curious, but…” Sirius trails off. He doesn’t know how to explain to Remus that he is broken. He is different. He has a million things wrong with him, and no one understands them, because no one he knows has experienced the things he has. “Drop it, please,” he says, feeling a little bit desperate.

“I will,” Remus assents. After a moment, he looks at Sirius, a mischievous spark in his eyes. “For now,” he adds. Sirius rolls his eyes, equal parts annoyed and endeared. He’s well aware that this is going to be an ongoing issue for them, but he can deal with that. He’d rather have a long-standing argument than talk about his past.

“You and James are going to be the death of me,” Sirius sighs fondly. The part of the sentence he doesn’t add is “if I don’t kill myself first.” He has a feeling that that wouldn’t go over well when people aren’t entirely convinced that he’s not actively suicidal. It’s not that he isn’t suicidal, Sirius supposes, it’s just that he isn’t quite bad enough, just yet, to purposefully take his own life, so there’s no need to worry anyone. Maybe that’s still an issue, but it’s not bad enough for him to tell anyone.

“Don’t be that way,” Remus chides, no real heat to his tone. “You know we only do this because we love you. We’re worried. I’m not certain this doesn’t count as a suicide attempt,” he adds that last part in a much quieter voice. He’s anxious, Sirius can tell. He squeezes the werewolf’s hand in an attempt at comfort.

“I wasn’t trying to die,” Sirius claims. It’s the truth. He hadn’t even considered the possibility that he would die when he blasted his own face, neck, and shoulder into oblivion; he’d been too focused on not being pretty anymore to think about much else. Remus’ hum in response doesn’t sound entirely believing.

“Right,” he says slowly, turning his head to look at Sirius. He’s squinting, thick brows furrowed. “Why’d you do it, then?” Remus asks. It’s the same question. The exact same fucking question. Sirius feels a wave of annoyance wash over him. He does his best to keep it off of his face, but he’s not certain it worked.

“Remus,” he says, a warning. “We just talked about this,” Sirius mutters through gritted teeth. His heart promptly breaks when Remus’ expression falls and his eyes slide away. “No, no, come on, Moony, don’t do that,” he says tiredly.

“I’m not doing anything other than worrying,” Remus says, rolling onto his side. He catches Sirius’ hands again and brings it up to his lips, brushing them against his scarred knuckles. It only serves to make Sirius’ skin crawl. Any sort of intimacy makes him nauseous while the ghosts of people who thought him to be attractive are so close to the surface.

“Stop looking so… sad,” Sirius protests, folding his free arm under his head. “It makes me feel bad,” he whispers grumpily. “Just… accept that this isn’t something you’re going to know.”

“This feels like something I should know,” Remus presses. He’s probably right. They’re dating and have been for a little over two years, they have an active sex life, and they try to have good communication. This is one of those things that he should probably be communicating about. Whatever.

“I’m fine, stop worrying about it,” Sirius says, exasperated. He’d like to bury all of this in the past and forget it even happened. Unfortunately, as he’s found out through intensive attempts, that isn’t possible. Even obliviating certain memories only takes the conscious recollection of the moment away, but leaves all of the feelings and trauma behind. The main difference is that, when he still has the memories, he knows what’s triggering his panic attacks and pain. When he doesn’t know what he’s breaking down over, it becomes much harder to calm himself. Also, somehow, the memories always come back after a while, so it’s not worth the effort.

“That’s not a great way to convince me you’re alright,” Remus informs him. Sirius is aware, he simply doesn’t have the energy to try harder.

“Moony, you know I love you, but come on,” Sirius stares at the ceiling. How can he change the topic? How can he make sure this never comes up again? How can he make everyone forget about this? He’s fucking tired and he wants to sleep and never wake up . He wants to get in the shower and scrub the skin from his flesh. He wants to bash his fists against a wall until they’re gushing blood and his knuckles are shattered. He wants to scream and cry and curse the world out. He can’t do any of those things. He settles for balling the hand behind his head into a tight fist, digging his nails into his palm.

“Yeah, I love you, too,” Remus says quietly. “Sorry,” he mumbles. Sirius immediately wants to punch himself. He shouldn’t be making Remus feel bad just because he’s a mentally ill, traumatized, short-tempered prick. No one deserves to deal with someone broken, someone angry, let alone Remus. Remus deserves his fuckery the least.

“Don’t be sorry,” Sirius hates unnecessary apologies. “You’ve not done anything. You’re allowed to be concerned. You just don’t need to be. I’m fine,” he reassures Remus, who still doesn’t look entirely convinced. “I’m not fucking with you, I promise,” he says, running his thumb over the back of Remus’ cold hand.

“Sure, Cariad,” Remus relents with a sigh. “Talk to me when you’re ready,” he adds quietly, like he’s worried Sirius will snap. That only serves to stomp on the shattered remains of Sirius’ heart. He makes a promise to himself, then, that he will never snap at his Moony for being worried for him. It’s only human nature to be scared when your partner does something stupid. Sirius would be terrified if Remus was the one who blew his own face to bits and wouldn’t explain himself, as well.

“Alright,” he agrees, even though he has no intention of actually talking about it.

“You know I still love your pretty face, right?” Remus murmurs, smiling softly. He looks gorgeous in the warm light filtering through the window. Sirius wants to shove him off of the bed.

“Yeah. Alright,” he can’t keep the disappointment out of his tone. Remus frowns.

~~~~~

It’s about half an hour after curfew, when Sirius knows none of his friends will come to see him until tomorrow, when Poppy comes to see him. She settles on the edge of the bed, hands folded in her lap. Sirius sits upright.

“Hi?” he furrows his eyebrows and frowns. She looks somber, like she’s come to inform him that someone has died. It’s unnerving.

“Mr. Black, I’d like to talk to you about something I found while patching you up,” Poppy says slowly, tentatively, as though he’s going to run away. That only serves to annoy him. He doesn’t need to be treated like he’s fragile. He’s not.

“Go on, then,” he prompts. He doesn’t need pity. He doesn’t need to be looked down on. He needs to be shoved and yelled at and told it how it is, the rougher the better. He wants to be hit and punched and cursed out. Violence is all he knows, all he can comprehend. This stupid, gentle bullshit is the thing he hates most. James, Remus, and Peter get like this whenever they think he’s upset: patient, soft, and pitying. They act like he’s some battered puppy they need to protect at all costs. It’s the most frustrating shit he’s ever been through.

“After you passed out, I noticed some injuries on your body that were clearly not from the blasting charm. Some of them seemed… worrying, so I checked them and found even more,” Poppy pauses looking at him with an expression that makes his skin crawl. She’s worried about him. She’s going to say something that’ll make him angry. “Something happened to you shortly before you injured yourself, and I believe it may have been the cause of your actions,” she says diplomatically, and Sirius’ heart drops.

No. No, no, no, no, no. No way this is happening. Absolutely not. No, she can’t know what happened. She can’t. That’s not possible. No. No, no, no. This can’t be happening.

Sirius feels his blood still in his veins. He feels his heart stop beating, only to start pounding at the speed of light seconds later. Every muscle in his body tensed up all at once, and his throat burns when bile tries to force its way out of his mouth. His eyes prickle with tears that he refuses to allow to fall. He wants to break his own skull open.

“The fuck are you talking about?” he grits his teeth, securing his arms around his body. He glares at her, hoping to scare the woman into leaving him alone. Poppy just frowns sympathetically, like he’s some kind of useless child sobbing over something pathetic. He hopes his rage, his aggression, will make the healer leave him alone about this.

“Mr. Black, I understand that this is difficult to talk about, but I need you to cooperate,” Poppy says firmly. It’s more familiar than her stupid kindness from earlier, so he decides to push it further. Maybe, if he makes her mad enough, she’ll snap and leave him alone. “You’re gone through something, and I’d like to help you,” Sirius is going to hit someone. He doesn’t need or want help, and he never will.

“Nothing fucking happened, and, even if something did, it would be none of your fucking business,” Sirius hisses, digging his nails into his sides through the hospital wing-issued shirt. He curls his shoulders up defensively, pulling his legs up to his chest in attempt to make himself look as small as possible. Poppy sighs and leans back.

“If you won’t tell me, I won’t force you,” she relents, that look of pity still written all over her face. “If you change your mind and ever want o talk about anything— and I don’t just mean this, I mean anything at all— feel free to come and see me. I am both a physical and mental healer, remember,” Poppy says warmly, smiling at him. Sirius wants to hit her. He won’t, of course, he does his best to refrain from violence, but it would be nice. He bets that that would get her to leave him alone about this. It’d definitely get him into trouble, but trouble is better than people knowing. He wonders if she will— or has— told anyone what happened to him. That thought makes him panic internally, but he does his best to hide it.

“Sure, whatever, just leave me the fuck alone,” Sirius growls. Poppy shakes her head and sighs. She’s clearly given up, which is nice.

“Alright,” she stands and leaves, then. Sirius feels weirdly uncomfortable with that. Why is he guilty over this? He’s just protecting himself. Maybe it’s something to do with how kind she is, to both him and everyone else, yet he’s still being such a cunt. He’s hurting everybody, but the only one he’s helping is himself. He’s being selfish.

The thought isn’t enough to make him tell Poppy anything she wants. He’s too selfish for that.

When the curtains shut behind the healer, he flops onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. It’s carved quite ornately, with lovely designs of magical creatures, wix, and some swirly decorations. Following the twists and turns of the strands of magic makes his head spin. Or, at least, that’s what he wants to believe is making him feel sick.

~~~~~

Ten days after being admitted to the hospital wing, Poppy finally allows Sirius to leave.

The second he’s informed that leaving is now an option, Sirius is on his feet, yanking off his hospital wing clothes and pulling his own band tee shirt and worn black jeans. He shrugs his leather jacket on, ties his combat boots, and marches right out. She sends him off with a light scolding, telling him to call her Madame Pomfrey, but he doesn’t listen. There’s still bandages covering half of his face, his neck, his chest, his shoulder, and his left bicep, but he couldn’t care less. Apparently, healing charms also make scars less prominent, so he didn’t allow Poppy to use them.

When Sirius stomps into the common room, big boots slamming against the floor, he blatantly ignores the looks he gets from everybody there. He doesn’t give them a single glance in return. Instead, he makes his way up the stairs. It’s early, early enough that very few people are awake or out of the dorms yet. Judging by the time and the fact that it’s a weekend, Sirius doubts that anyone he shares a room with, save, maybe, James, will be awake at the moment.

Sure enough, when he pushes the door to their dormitory open, Peter and James are both snoring loudly and Remus is breathing heavily. James is sprawled starfish-style on his back, drooling onto his pillow; Peter is resting on his side, cuddled into a fluffy pillow; and Remus is swaddled on his stomach, wrapped in at least three quilts and buried in a mountain of pillows.

It’s then that Sirius decides he should shower, change, and try to rest. He didn’t sleep well in the hospital wing; his anxiety skyrockets when he knows he’s vulnerable, and it’s difficult to find a state in which one is less vulnerable than when one is sleeping.

Either way, Sirius makes his way to the bathroom and removes the clothes he just put on, and his eyes immediately drift towards the mirror. He needs to see how bad the damage is. He hasn’t been allowed to see his reflection just yet; everybody is too worried he’ll do something stupid if he sees what he’s done. He knows he won’t.

His reflection is… not as bad as he expected. The plasters are a little distracting, but, other than them, he looks pretty much the same. His hair is still curly and black, his skin is pale and scattered with moles, his eye— the one he can see— is still icy silver and piercing. However, he does appear to be little bit more tired than before, maybe calmer, as well. He supposes he has less to worry about when he’s protected by the scarring on his face, which would explain the calmness.

Well, he has to shower now, so he can take the bandages off and see his wounds. They haven’t been too painful, aside from the initial agony when he first woke up to James’ panicked face as he lay on the bathroom floor. That, Sirius must assume, is mostly the fault of the concussion, injury to the back of his head, and shallower burns. The ones on the directly affected areas, though, are worse. He hasn’t felt much of anything from them since he came to for the first time in the hospital wing.

Poppy says that’s bad. She mentioned something about nerve damage due to severe burns, which sounds less than ideal, but there’s not much he can do about that. That’s not the worst thing, he reasons with himself, at least he won’t need to deal with his as much of skin burning under the warm water.

With a flick of his wrist, the shower turns on, and Sirius prepares himself for removing his bandages. It’s not that he’s worried about how bad it’ll be, but he’s worried that they won’t be bad enough. With a deep breath, Sirius decides to start with the plasters on his bicep.

The flesh underneath is… strange. It’s white and looks kind of leathery, dry and patchy with a red, bloody-looking spot in the centre of it, the skin mottled and covered in dips and valleys. It’s surrounded by red, lightly blistered skin, white and splotchy. The more lightly burned skin, when touched, still makes pain radiate around his arm. If that’s what he’s done to his face, then he’s quite certain no one will want to touch him now. Perfect.

Sirius unwraps his chest, next, only to find it in a similar state as his arm. Twisting around, he can see that the burn spreads from his left pectoral to the back of his shoulder, wrapping around his shoulder and spilling down his bicep. The entire left half of his neck is covered, to the point that it’s reaching over to the right side. Some of it, towards the upper portion, looks particularly ugly. That gives him even more hope for his face.

Speaking of his face, it’s time to see how bad it is. Slowly, Sirius unwraps the bandages there, then looks up. Oh. Oh, it’s perfect.

The entire left side of his face has been burnt to a crisp. There’s tendrils of white reaching across his nose, redness spreading from those, and there’s darker charring from his left cheek to his forehead His eyebrow is entirely gone and his eyelashes are, too. Poppy says they’ll come back, as will some of his eyebrow, but it’ll take a while. It’s part of why keeping his eye covered is so important; so nothing gets in there. The eye, itself, is cloudy, pupil milky, like his vision should be gone. He mentally thanks Poppy for restoring it.

His flesh is marred, gnarled and enflamed. It’s bloody at the centre, just like the rest, but his face is covered in the most severe burns. His lips are messed up, both covered in stitches. There’s a chunk of his lower lip that seems to have been totally blown off and reattached. They’re both singed and bloody, parted in an unnatural-looking way that clearly from being eaten away at by the explosion, and he can see his teeth from between them.

His skin looks strangely loose on his left side, like it’s been stripped and reattached. It looks brutal, deep and bloody and filthy. The texture kind of looks like tree bark, thick and twisting and strange. It’s perfect. It’s exactly what he needs. It’ll look less bloody and fresh when it’s healed, but it’ll still be disgusting, which is the goal.

Sirius grins. It makes his cheeks ache, the lighter burns there not having suffered the same nerve damage as the others, but he doesn’t care. He feels good. This has proved to be more than worth it.

The shower hurts. It makes the first and second degree burns on his skin feel fresh, the latter more so. Sirius counts it as a mercy that he can’t feel the third degrees.

Either way, when he’s done, he feels much better than before. He’s cleaner, that’s for certain. The hospital wing means relying only on cleaning charms, which aren’t quite as effective as actual showers. It’s nice to not feel gross.

Bandaging himself up takes an annoying amount of time. He’s learned that burns can take a ridiculously long time to heal, which is even more annoying. How on earth could they take so damn long? Years, possibly, Poppy said. That’s frustrating.

Either way, when he’s done, he pulls on a thin, long sleeved, loose shirt and a some snitch, budger, and quaffle patterned joggers. He got those to match James, who has the same set. They’re absolutely ridiculous looking, but comfortable and a little big on him, which not many clothes are, so he likes them nonetheless. Sirius is a large human and, as such, there’s a limited amount of clothing items he can buy that are oversized on him. Although, his dorm mates seem to enjoy that fact. His clothes are stolen quite frequently.

When Sirius makes his way out of the bathroom, James is sitting upright in his bed, yawning and stretching his arms out over his head. He makes an exaggerated groaning noise as he flops backwards, arching his back and stretching his legs. Sirius scoffs at him, dropping down on the bed he shares with Remus, who is still sound asleep.

“Padfoot!” James cries, immediately throwing his blanket off of his legs and sitting up straighter. “You’re back!” he exclaims. Sirius smiles at him as though he didn’t just spend fifteen minutes admiring the damage he’s done to his own body. His brother looks so excited to see him, Sirius can’t dash that happiness. He feels warm inside. James is happy to see him.

“Hi, Prongs,” he chuckles. “I’m back,” Sirius confirms.

~~~~~

Two weeks. That’s how long it takes for everything to go wrong.

Hogwarts, on occasion, has people over to talk to seventh year students about different job opportunities for when they graduate. For some horrible, cursed reason, they’ve chosen a highly respected member of the wizengamot who happens to be part of the Sacred 28. He’s got a convincing he smile, Sirius will admit, but it sets off warning alarms in his mind.

This fucker, for some reason, is staying at the castle for an entire week. A week. Sirius has to suffer through him for a week.

It’s been three days and Sirius hasn’t eaten. He can’t stomach anything when he knows that The Man is around— which is what he’s taken to calling Hogwarts’ visiting professional, because he’s not capable of so much as thinking The Man’s name without gagging. He fills up on water and vanishes food from his mouth so his friends don’t get suspicious. He’d love to eat, but, last time he tried, it stayed down for all of five minutes before he was reminded of hands on his body teeth in his skin eyes raking over him tongue down his throat and painpainpainpainpain.

His arms are marred with deep lines from his nails, indented with bite marks and bruised from how hard he’s been squeezing them. His knuckles are stained black and blue, encrusted with scabs and dried blood from slamming into walls and furniture and whatever will hurt the most. There’s cuts and burns and any other kind of injuries he can magic up on his thighs and hips and chest because he needs to be in pain or he’ll explode. His lower lip is red and achey from being bitten and his scalp is tender from him yanking on his hair.

He’s completely given up on most of his wardrobe, relying instead on the handful of clothing he owns that are too big on him. Whatever he’s wearing is always layered in a bulky jumper to hide as much of his figure as possible, and he’s started hiding behind his hair, taking solace in any place he knows The Man can’t get to him. That usually means the dorm room, curled up under the blankets.

His touch aversion has skyrocketed as well, vomit building in his throat at the idea of anyone’s skin on his. Every time he looks in the mirror, before he sees his scar, his expression, or even himself, he sees those invisible marks covering his body. All he can see, feel, or comprehend is those hands all over him. It’s dumb, how he perceives them as massive, wrapping around his hips in their entirety even though he’s taller than The Man now.

It doesn’t matter that his face is completely covered with scars or that the kind of person who goes for a seven year old boy wouldn’t try to get with a six-foot-three, two hundred and fifty pound, eighteen year old man. Nothing matters except for the fact that something happened and nothing will ever be the same. So many things happened, so many people happened. Sirius has never realized that he can run into the people who stole parts of his soul, his innocence, his smile. Now, though, that knowledge will forever haunt him.

Sirius does his best to stay near people. James, Remus, and Peter, especially, but, when he can’t be with them, it’s Lily, Mary, Marlene, or Dorcas. The more people around, the better. The safer. Because his fight or flight instinct has been running rampant and his mind has been screaming “DANGER!” at top volume.

Of course, he can’t be with people forever. Nothing will ever keep him safe for long enough. That’s why it all came crashing down.

Sirius is speed-walking down the hallway, just slow enough to not look ridiculous, but hasty nonetheless. He has things he needs to do. His shaky hands are stuffed in his pockets, eyes darting around the corridor, teeth digging into the inside of his cheek. He’s alone right now and he doesn’t want to be caught like this. He’s already caught The Man looking at him one too many times, lingering stares that Sirius swears trace places no one his age should be looking.

It’s too much. Everything aches and burns and his head is throbbing. He turns into an empty corridor, the one leading up to the Gryffindor tower. There isn’t a single person there. It’s awful. He feels horribly exposed and lonely, like he could be grabbed at any moment. His skin crawls with anticipation of something he desperately wants to avoid, his mind sinking further and further into pain and terror the longer he’s alone.

No one touches him when he’s surrounded. People touch him when he’s alone. Sirius has learned this. He’s always lured away from a party, dragged into an empty classroom, forced away from anywhere public. Monsters like to hide, he recognizes. No one wants to be caught buried inside of a child, hands around his neck, taking whatever is left of him to take. There’s not much anymore, but people seem to keep finding things. He might be impressed if he wasn’t so sick over it.

The door to the common room opens slowly, quietly. Sirius doesn’t need anyone paying him any mind today. There’s nothing else he can do. Fighting back didn’t work, making threats didn’t work, destroying his face didn’t work— there’s nothing more for him to do. He failed. His final attempt, his desperate bid at safety, has failed. He can’t save himself anymore.

After his eighteenth birthday passed with no hiccups, Sirius wondered if, maybe, just maybe, he might’ve found a way to be safe. He’d gotten drunk that night, very drunk. Come the next morning, though, unlike every other time he blacked out at parties, he hadn’t noticed the unmissable, unmistakable feeling of someone’s done something. He’d taken that as confirmation that his looks, his face, had been the problem. He’d finally saved himself.

He was wrong. He was naïve and stupid to think that that would work. Well, maybe it works on teens his age, shallow as they are, but it doesn’t seem to work on people older than him, more seasoned and understanding of differences. Sirius hates himself.

Now, he has one more chance. One single chance. There’s only one more option. He’s done it all.

When Sirius is back in the dorm room, he beelines to the bathroom again. This time, though, he has no plans of coming out alive.

There’s still a faint bloodstain on the tiles, residue from no one cleaning up after his incident for too long. An explosion and concussion didn’t take him out, so it’s time to try a new method. Sirius’ wand still stands out against his pale skin, his hands just as strong and steady as they were the first time he was staring into his own eyes in the mirror.

~~~~~

“Sirius, Sirius, Merlin, please,” a voice rings in his ears. It’s distant, but desperate. “Sirius, please— oh, fuck, Padfoot— p-please, please,” the voice sobs, gasping and terrified.

Sirius’ eyelids feel heavy. There’s stabbing pains in his neck, and everything else feels so far away that it barely matters. His breaths feel thick and watery, like liquid is seeping into his lungs, clogging his throat. Metal is heavy on his tongue and his neck, chin, and chest are hot and sticky. His voice has run away somewhere, and Sirius would quite like to go to bed.

Fuck, sleep would be great right now. Sirius is so, so tired. The ringing in his ears is building, drowning out the begging from… someone. He’s not sure and he doesn’t care. The pain is dulling, now. It’s fading into an ache in the back of his mind, easily brushed under the rug.

He’s floating somewhere in a pool of blackness that slowly wraps around him, cool and calming and gentle. It feels… safe. Comforting.

The darkness calls to him, tells him to let go. Sirius listens. Of course he listens, this is the safest he’s felt in years.

~~~~~

Sirius’ plan to end his own life was simple: use a powerful cutting charm to slit his throat and die on the bathroom floor. James was supposed to be on a date with Lily, Peter at chess club, and Remus studying with some of the girls. No one would be in the dorm for at least two hours.

Because his life is some kind of sick joke, James ended up getting a bad gut feeling and dragging Lily back to the dorm to check on Sirius. Mortifyingly, not only had James seen him with his throat gaping open and blood pooling underneath him, Lily had also gotten a front row seat to his rapidly declining mental health.

Due to the depth of the wound, Sirius hadn’t been allowed to talk for a few days or he would’ve further injured his throat. Poppy had been very firm about that.

He’d never felt more embarrassed than waking up in the hospital wing again, bandages around his throat, knowing that he couldn’t even kill himself right. James, Remus, Peter, and Lily were there when he came to, and they’d been infuriatingly kind.

No, not kind. Pitying.

Sirius had rebutted that with all of the anger he could dig up, but no one even flinched. They all just kept looking at him with that horribly soft look on their faces, like he’s weak, pathetic, and useless. Every time they touch him— a squeeze of the hand, an arm around the shoulders, anything— it’s so gentle, like they think he’s going to break if they press too hard. He’s not fragile. He doesn’t need this.

When Sirius catches James’ eyes watering while watching him when the younger boy thinks he’s not looking he wants to hit his brother. He always feels guilty afterwards, of course, but his mere existence shouldn’t be enough to bring anyone to tears. Remus is always so delicate when he touches Sirius’ hands, like he’s afraid the animagus will crumble if he’s any rougher. Sirius shouldn’t be treated with anything other than harsh pushes and slaps to the face. Peter hesitates every time he speaks, like he’s afraid anything he says might send the older boy over the edge once again. That’s bullshit. Sirius is tough as nails, he doesn’t need anyone to worry about being his final straw. All of it is so painfully annoying.

Since waking up in this damned bed again, Sirius has felt more violent than ever before. Every time someone looks at him with that pity written all over their faces he wants to pound his fists into their stupid fucking expressions. He wants to tear someone apart, wants to sink his nails into someone’s flesh and rip until they’ve come apart in his hands. He wants to bash someone’s face into a wall until their teeth come out and their brain is running down their forehead. He wants to hurt someone, wants to kill someone. He’s angry.

Part of him, the part that’s always been too much like his mother for him to comfortably accept it as a piece of himself, craves blood. Internally, he’s overflowing with rage. Cold and calculated and dangerous, a knife held in capable hands, Sirius wants someone to fall to their knees and beg him. Beg him for forgiveness, for mercy.

Everybody who’s ever wronged him. That’s who Sirius wants to bleed dry. He wants The Man and all of his friends and all of the people like him under his feet, heels digging into their throats, nails digging into their eyes, listening to them scream and plea, just like he used to do for them. He wants revenge. He wants justice. He wants to make something better, easier to bear. Maybe seeing them broken and bloody and begging will heal something inside of him. He doubts he’ll ever get the chance to see that, but it would be nice.

For now, he’s sentenced to an eternity of laying in a hospital wing bed, daydreaming about scenes so violent, so disturbing, he would never dream of sharing them with anyone. No one needs to hear how disgusting and vitriolic his thoughts can be. Sirius is sure that his friends would have things to say if they knew he routinely fantasizes about brutally torturing and murdering people who once wronged him. He’d probably end up on some kind of registry if his professors found out, too.

Speaking of Hogwarts staff knowing things they really don’t need to know, Minnie and Poppy are standing at the foot of his bed, looking at him worriedly. Sirius wonders idly if he could get away with hexing at least one of them. Maybe he doesn’t want to get away with it. It’d definitely give them something to talk about other than his failed suicide attempt, the recent explosion incident, and whatever else she’s found on him.

It’s been long enough that Sirius can start talking again, so long as he doesn’t overwork his vocal cords and takes care to stay hydrated. For the first time since he woke up, he wishes he still wasn’t allowed to talk. That way, he’d be able to avoid this conversation for at least a little while longer. Maybe, if he had that time, he’d be able to figure out some sort of strategy to convince them he’s actually completely fine, thank you very much.

After sharing a brief glance, Minnie sighs. Apparently, she realizes that Sirius is, under no circumstances, going to break the tension like they clearly want him to, because she speaks first.

“I’m sure I don’t need to spell out why, exactly, we need to talk to you,” she says, one hand on the small of Poppy’s back. They’re standing like parents worried about their rowdy child. It makes Sirius’ skin crawl as though his own parents are standing there in place of them.

“Maybe you should stay out of my fucking business,” Sirius growls, crossing his arms over his chest. They’re bandaged from his wrists to his shoulders, as, apparently, his relentless scratching and accidental wandless magic has caused wounds that required treatment. His thighs are bandages as well, though, the extent of the damage there is significantly worse than his arms, on account of the purposeful use of spells. His whole body aches at this point. He can’t seem to go more than a few days without severely injuring himself as of late.

“We’re concerned for your well being, Dear,” Poppy states, completely ignoring his aggression. That just ticks Sirius off even more. Her hands are folded nearly in front of her abdomen, head tilted towards Minnie. They look happy together. That’s infuriating.

“I’m fucking fine,” Sirius huffs, leaning back against the headboard, trying to seem much more unbothered than he is. He’s not sure it works on the women, they’re too intelligent for that, but he hopes it, somehow, will.

“Forgive me for being so tactless, but, Sirius, in the past three weeks, you’ve nearly died by your own hand twice,” Minnie says tiredly, like she’s been fretting over him for years. Sirius digs his nails into his arm once again, gritting his teeth. “Poppy has informed me of some… concerning things she discovered last time you were here,” she continues after a brief pause. Sirius’ heart drops to somewhere at his feet.

No. His favourite professor absolutely cannot know. Minnie cannot be aware of the filth covering his body, the pain he’s allowed to befall himself, the people he’s handed himself over to. His peers know that, before he started dating Remus, getting with him was as easy as approaching him when he didn’t have any pressing commitments. No one knows that he’ll get on his knees for grown adults, for his relatives, for anyone who gives him enough positive attention. Most of the time he doesn’t even want it, but he still does it, because it’s all he knows how to do. Nobody, especially not Minnie, should know about that.

“Fuck’re you on about,” Sirius mumbles around his numb tongue, well aware that he couldn’t be less convincing if he tried but unable to muster up anything more. He curls forwards, shoulders hiking up protectively.

“I brought this up with you last time, but you weren’t comfortable with talking about it,” Poppy says softly. Sirius wants to scream. He wants to get up and shove her into a wall, chastise her for ever daring to look down on him like this, shout and curse and cry until he’s bleeding from the throat again. He wants to dig his nails into his neck and rip until he can’t breathe anymore, until his airways are clogged and his words are drowned in blood.

“Nothing fucking happened and you’re delusional if you think it did,” Sirius hisses, venom thick in his tone. Infuriatingly, neither woman looks even remotely perturbed by his insults.

“I found the injuries on you. You can’t lie about this,” Poppy states, walking closer. She settles in one of the chairs beside the bed and Minnie sits down next to her, one hand resting on the healer’s knee. “I know you’re afraid to talk about it, but—” Sirius cuts her off, rage boiling over at that.

“I am not afraid,” he damn near yells at them when Poppy dares to imply that he’s scared. He’s not pathetic. Sirius Black isn’t scared of anything. He will never be scared of anything. He’s strong, stronger than that.

“You’re allowed to be,” Poppy reassures him. Sirius shoves the blanket off of his legs and throws his legs over the side of the bed, glaring. Immediately, she gets up, making an attempt at ushering him back under the covers, but Sirius doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to deal with this horrible, disgusting, enraging pity. He’s going to hit something, someone.

“I don’t fucking care! I don’t need this bullshit!” Sirius yells at them, forcing himself out of bed. His legs almost buckle, the amount of time he’s spent sitting and the sudden spinning of his head causing him to balance himself on the bed and small table beside it. “It doesn’t fucking matter what you cunts think you need to talk to me about, because there’s no way I’m telling you shit,” he growls, pushing himself upright.

“I understand that you’re angry, Sirius,” Minnie’s voice is stern and even. Sirius’ eyes snap to her face. “But you cannot talk to people that way just because you’re struggling,” she’s angry. She’s angry, angry, angry. Sirius is in trouble. He’s going to get hurt. Just like he always does, Sirius has completely fucked everything up and someone is going to pull a wand on him and he’s never going to be safe again and the adult here he trusted most wants to hurt him and maybe they’ll call Walburga and Orion and then he’ll really be in for it and they’ll take him back to The House and The Man and all of his friends that are just like him will be there and—

“Sirius,” Poppy’s kind voice snaps him out of his trance. She’s too close to his face. It’s more instinct than anything when Sirius pushes her away, not hard enough to knock her over, but hard enough to give himself more room to breathe. For a second, he thinks she’s going to say something, but she just looks at him like he’s a wounded puppy.

“What the fuck do you want,” his voice comes out more gritty than he expected, like it’s getting caught on something in his throat. It’s not a question, it’s a demand. He doesn’t get into trouble this time. Instead, Minnie comes into view beside Poppy and reaches towards him. Her thin, boney hand on his shoulder feels like sandpaper grating on his skin.

“Have you ever told anyone what happened to you?” she asks him, all that strictness gone. It’s melted into something warm, something kind, and Sirius wants to feel warm blood under his fingers, warmer flesh in his palms. Sirius stares at her, eyes wide and breathing heavy.

“Let me— let me go,” he mumbles, feeling out of breath even though he hasn’t done much of anything. He doesn’t even notice how his voice cracks and he stutters, two things completely out of character for him. “I wanna go,” Sirius pleads.

“Sirius…” Minnie sighs, her hand moving to his cheek. He feels weirdly cherished, which makes him simultaneously want to snap his own neck and melt into a puddle to beg for more of that kindness. “If you’re truly not comfortable with talking to us about this, which I understand, I ask that you talk to someone. Your friends, another member of staff, just… someone. Please.”

Sirius watches her, unblinking, inhaling sharply. He licks his lips, mouth suddenly bone dry. He sniffles, eyes stinging. He can’t cry, not in front of them. He can’t cry, not now, not ever.

“If you’d like, both of us are here for you. I know that whatever you’ve gone through is difficult to talk about, but, please, remember that we will listen to you if you ever decide you’d like to tell us anything,” Minnie assures him, her hand on Sirius’ face more tender than any adult has ever touched him. Any adult except for… for the ones that preferred to take him gently. All of a sudden, the touch makes gag, and he almost doubles over, covering his mouth with one hand, crossing the other over his stomach. “Oh, Sirius,” she pulls back, looking worried, as though she wants to help but fears making it worse.

He can’t tell them. How could he explain that, as much as he hates it, sometimes, allowing people to take him is when he feels the most loved. Sometimes they say the kindest things. Sometimes they hold his face and kiss him so sweetly and their fingers are so gentle. Sometimes it feels good. Sometimes he even finishes, too. No one would understand that, on occasion, he craves it. The attention, the praise, the love. When he was young, especially, he used to wish for the people who would use him to kindly to come around, because at least they loved him, even if only for his body.

How could Sirius explain that when he was bent over, hands yanking his hair, teeth sinking into his flesh, being split open with nothing but pain, he desperately wants everything to end. When he’s being held, cradled, cared for, he feels nauseous when he gets on his knees and begs for more, then wakes up later with a hard on, sobbing, nails embedded in his arms. It just wouldn’t make sense to anyone who hasn’t already experienced it.

“It hurts,” Sirius admits quietly before he can stop himself. “I didn’t… want this. I thought…” he trails off, ducking his head and squeezing his eyes shut before his tears can fall. Without fighting, Sirius allows Poppy to nudge his shoulders until he’s sitting once again, face buried in his hands, elbows on his knees.

“Let us help you, Sirius,” she whispers, rubbing his biceps supportively. “I know you don’t want it, and I know you don’t like accepting help, and that you’re more than strong enough to make it alone, but, please, let us help you. You deserve to be helped. You deserve to be cared for,” Poppy murmurs. Sirius can’t. He can’t tell them. He’s never been able to share, to be open, to talk about his feelings. Talking about himself has always resulted in Walburga hitting him, screaming at him, the knowledge that he is weak and less than for displaying emotions.

“I don’t know how,” Sirius all but whimpers, scrubbing roughly at his eyes.

“Would talking to a friend be easier for you?” Poppy asks, voice sweet. Sirius damn near sobs. He can’t deal with this kindness; it’s not something he understands or has ever experienced before. He looks up at her, pain written all over his face. Before he realizes what he’s doing, Sirius has reached out and grabbed her wrist, desperate for something, anything.

“It hurts,” he repeats.

His worth has always stemmed from his body. Always. His looks, his curves, his sexuality. His ability to please and pleasure is what makes people care. He is, as even his friends have called him, sex embodied, the personification of human desire. People want him for his body, for what he can give them, for his talents. It feels strangely offensive to not be wanted for his sexuality, as much as he hates it.

“You’re alright, Sirius,” Minnie reassures him, catching his feee hand. She sits beside him, her small frame unnecessarily comforting, even though it makes him want to rip his skin off once again. “I know you can do this. You’re stronger than you believe yourself to be,” she adds, sounding so sure of herself that he almost believes her. Despite all of his insisting, Sirius knows that he’s pathetic. He simply tries too hard to make up for his faults.

“I don’t know what to do,” Sirius breathes, sinking his teeth into his full lower lip. His tears are barely restrained at this point. He shouldn’t be talking to anyone about this, it’s meant to be a secret. He could get people into trouble, ruin the lives of upstanding citizens, tear families apart, and it would be entirely his fault. Everything always seems to be his fault. Somehow, it all circles back to that.

“Talking to someone about it might be a good starting point,” Minnie advises. Sirius sniffles. That sounds difficult. He can’t verbalize the things that happened to him to himself, he can’t imagine telling anyone else. Minnie and Poppy only know because they saw the evidence. “You don’t need to go into details if you’re not ready, but letting somebody you’re comfortable with know that something happened could be your first step,” she says, and that makes it sound a little bit easier. Poppy pulls a chair up and sits in front of him.

“How?” Sirius whimpers miserably. While he knows, deep down, what the “people touching him” actually is, he’s never so much as allowed the word to cross his mind without a mental scolding (and, usually, some kind of physical injury). How on earth is he meant to admit it to somebody else when he can’t even admit it to himself? “I’ve never…” he doesn’t finish the sentence.

“Well, who would you like to talk to?” Minnie questions. Sirius hadn’t thought about that, yet, but his mind immediately goes directly to James. James Potter, his person, his brother, his other half. Remus is wonderful, the love of his life, his partner, and Peter is his best friend, but James? He shares a soul with James. They clicked the instant they met and have been inseparable since.

“Jamie,” he states immediately. There isn’t another person he’d consider over the younger boy. “I’ll talk to Jamie,” Sirius confirms, to both himself and the women. James is kind and loving and understanding. If anyone has to know about how disgusting Sirius is, how pathetic, then it’s James, who has never judged him for anything. Sure, he’s a little bit entitled and he can definitely be arrogant, but he’s getting better with Lily’s influence and he’s never anything but accepting when it comes to Sirius.

“That sounds like a good idea,” Poppy agrees, smiling softly. “Mr. Potter is an exceptional friend, as I’ve heard,” she adds. Sirius nods. She’s right, James is an exceptional friend.

“He’s… he’s good,” Sirius murmurs. He coughs, scrubs his face again, and tucks his leg under his other knee. James, perfect and wonderful and supportive, is so, so good. James already knows what Walburga and Orion have put him through, and the younger boy took it all in without running away. Despite that, the thought of telling James what he’s let people do to him is sickening and terrifying. What if that makes him leave? What if this is the problem that, finally, makes James decide that Sirius too much to deal with?

“Mr. Potter is an excellent person. I’ve seen how much he cares for you. You have nothing to worry about,” Minnie soothes. Sirius isn’t quite sure how she knows what he was thinking, but he doesn’t care.

Life feels very real right now, more real than it has in years.

~~~~~

A few days later, when he’s finally out of the hospital wing, Sirius is laying in bed with Remus, thinking about the conversation he had with Minnie and Poppy. Remus is asleep, so are James and Peter, but Sirius’ eyes won’t stay closed for more than a few minutes before he recalls something else.

Most of his childhood is blotted out, a scroll with ink spilled over certain passages, a muggle tape with sections cut out, but, what he does remember, he remembers in vivid detail. Tonight, in the light of his abrupt mental spiral, seeing The Man, and his failed suicide attempt, Sirius isn’t doing the greatest. It’s his first night out of the wing, and he’s struggling to sleep with Remus tucked under his arm. The physical contact is difficult when his memories are this close to the surface.

Minnie’s words replay in his head. Talking to someone is a good idea. James is a good friend. He’s going to be okay.

Even though it’s two hours past midnight and everybody is already sleeping, Sirius is suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to tell someone something or else he’ll actually explode. He’s never wanted to talk about his past until this very moment, and now he knows he’ll punch something, someone, if he can’t.

Slowly, he detangles himself from Remus and eases himself off of the bed, freezing every once in a while to make sure his boyfriend stays asleep. Remus is a heavy sleeper, but, knowing Sirius’ luck, this would be the time getting out of bed would wake the werewolf up. A valiant attempt to cling to his hand is all the fight Remus offers, and it’s easy to replace Sirius’ body with a pillow, which is quickly snuggled up to.

Once he’s sure that Remus is still asleep, Sirius pads over to James’ bed, where his brother is laying starfish-style on top of the blankets, snoring. He crawls onto the mattress, pulling the curtains closed and waves his wrist, a quick, wandless silencing charm to enclose them in a bubble of privacy, then creates a little ball of light so they’re not sitting in pitch blackness.

He doesn’t bother trying to talk himself down. Sirius needs to get this off his chest.

He gently shakes James’ shoulders, calling out to him. “Prongs, Prongs, Jamie,” he pokes James’ brown cheek. James groans, rolling onto his side and nuzzling into a pillow. “C’mon, Jamie, I need to talk to you,” Sirius’ voice cracks in a way that makes him feel insanely pathetic, but hem doesn’t care enough to stop trying. “Please,” he almost whines. It’s just low enough that he might be able to pass it off as normal, but it’s close.

“Pa’f’t?” James slurs, half asleep, flopping onto his back. He blinks blearily, brows drawing together, frowning. “Y’okay?” he asks, rubbing his eyes tiredly. He props himself up on his elbow, shooting the ball of light floating next to Sirius a harsh glare, then his gaze drifts to the older boy and softens again.

“I have to talk to you,” Sirius says quickly. “It’s— it’s important,” he adds. He needs to talk about it. He has to. He has to know he’s not crazy, not overreacting, not weak. James sits up, stretching and adjusting his shirt. He reaches through the curtains, puts his glasses on, and then squints at Sirius again, eyes adjusting to both being able to see clearly and the light.

“Alright,” James nods slowly, studying Sirius’ expression. He cards his fingers through his messy hair. “Is this something that can wait until morning, or…?” he cocks his head to the side. It’s a completely innocent question, but it’s still infuriating.

“No,” Sirius shakes his head quickly. “N-no, I can’t. I need to tell you. I can’t sleep— I— I just—” he inhales sharply. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. He’s stuttering, feeling overwhelmed, and it shows. James sits up straighter, frown deepening. Sirius is never like this, never vulnerable or emotional or looking to talk about anything personal.

“We’ll talk now, then,” James agrees immediately, looking worried. “What’s going on? You’re acting… not like yourself,” he says, grabbing Sirius’ hand. Ever the fidgeter, James begins toying with his fingers, tracing the scars covering the skin and the tendons on the back.

“It’s late, I know,” Sirius sighs. “I just— I need to say something, I can’t— I can’t, Prongs, I can’t,” he sniffles, digging his teeth into his lower lip. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. James cups Sirius’ cheek with his free hand, and looks at him with so much kindness that he might actually implode if he can’t share the demons eating him alive.

“Hey, hey, Paddy,” James’ hands, for some reason, don’t trigger his touch aversion. Then again, none of his triggers seem to consistently apply to James, so it’s expected, at this point. On Sirius’ bad days James still needs to follow all of the rules everybody else does, but, for the most part, he exists with a whole new (and much looser) set of boundaries and limitations. Remus and Peter, the former, especially, also have more flexibility, but no one beats James.

“Don’t look at me. I can’t talk about it if you’re looking at me,” he almost begs. Because James is wonderful, he nods and turns around, settling in with his back to Sirius.

“Alrighty, then,” he says, shooting a small smile over his shoulder. “Whatever you need, Padfoot.”

Sirius turns around, too, putting his back to the younger’s and curling his knees up to his chest. He wraps his muscular arms around his legs, taking a deep breath. After a brief moment of hesitation, he summons a glass of water for James, who complains about how dry his throat is every time he wakes up. Anything to kill time. Despite his earlier conviction, Sirius is fucking terrified to talk about this.

“Thanks, mate,” James chirps, sounding just like he does any other day, any other time, like they’re not sitting in his bed at 2:00 in the morning because Sirius desperately needed to talk about some mystery topic that was distressing enough to make him break character. It feels… nice. Refreshing. Normal. That’s exactly what Sirius needs, and he never even knew it.

“Sure thing, man,” Sirius breathes, knocking his head gently against James’. He breathes for a moment, listening to his brother take a sip. He doesn’t know how to start. Minnie gave him a lovely starting point, but it’s gotten lost somewhere in the folds and creases and valleys of his memories of pain and hands and tears.

After a brief moment, James breaks the silence. “What’d you want to talk about?” he asks, then, with an audible grin: “If you’re going to wake me up at too-fucking-early o’clock, you’d best have a good reason,” he laughs lightly. Sirius feels his shoulders relax. James always knows what to say, how to diffuse the tension, how to calm Sirius’ panic-prone arse down.

“I— I think I do,” Sirius says ruefully. He swallows his saliva and his pride. “Well, I can’t really tell. I’m not sure, but Minnie and Poppy think I do, at the very least,” he explains nervously, wishing he could bite his tongue and stop babbling so much, but his subconscious seems determined to drag this out as long as possible. James hums, acknowledging, and takes another sip.

“You’ve always been shite at admitting when you get hurt,” James says calmly. There’s jest in his voice, but there’s an undertone of something, for lack of a better word, serious. “It scares me, sometimes. Makes me wonder what’s happened to you,” he laughs solemnly, and Sirius can hear water splashing as he swishes his cup. The admission feels oddly intimate.

“That, er,” Sirius hesitates again, cursing himself for acting so out of character. “That’s kind of… what I wanted to talk to you about. Something that happened,” he elaborates, tracing an invisible pattern onto his clothes kneecap.

“I see,” James nods. “Does this have anything to do with you blowing up your pretty face?” he teases lightly. This time, instead of being comforting, Sirius’ stomach drops. He has to take a deep breath to force his nausea away, then grabs his wrist again, sinks his nails into his skin in hopes of calming down. He’s accepted that he’s going to cry, there’s no getting around it when he’s talking about this, but he doesn’t want to let himself break this soon.

“Y-yeah,” Sirius says thickly, speaking around the lump in his throat. He hopes his choked voice can be chalked up to his recent injury.

“That made you sad,” James comments quickly, sounding worried. “Why did that make you sad? What part of that made you sad?” he presses, reaching back with one hand to touch Sirius in some way. He doesn’t seem particularly concerned with what he comes into contact with, just seeking some form of physical contact.

“I think that’ll be easier to explain if I tell you about the… the circumstances behind why my reason for doing that, first,” Sirius laughs anxiously. He reaches down to catch James’ hand. It’s tiring, thinking about this so much, but existing in the comfort of James’ bed, back-to-back with his brother, who is the most loving person he knows, makes it easier. He’s never told anyone these things. He’s barely even gotten to the point of using the proper words for these things.

“Let’s start there, then,” James says comfortingly. The way he simplifies things is incredibly comforting. Sirius has a tendency to greatly over complicate stuff, as do many of the people in his life. James’ perspective is refreshing.

“When I was in the hospital wing the first time, Poppy, er, she found some things,” Sirius starts, breaths shallow. That’s not what he’s supposed to be doing, he chastises himself, forcing a few deeper breaths. “Some not very good things. She tried to talk to me about them, after, but I didn’t really want to. Was kind of a cunt,” he continues. “The second time, though, she told Minnie about it and they decided I really should be taken up on it because… y’know,” Sirius rolls his shoulders, trying to loosen them. “I was also a cunt, that time, but I started thinking about Walburga and Orion, and I kinda just… gave in, I guess? Got scared or something and said too much. By the time I started thinking again, I’d talked to them too much to back out, so… now we’re doing this.”

“Well, I’m glad they talked you into sharing. That’s nice. What did Poppy find?” James questions. Now for the hard part. The part where he verbalizes words he can barely think. The part where he will, inevitably, break down. The part where James realizes he’s weak, pathetic, and not worth the effort.

“Th-the day before I blew myself up,” Sirius says slowly, voice brittle. “Something happened. At the party. Something… happened. So I had, er, I had some… marks… from that on me. And she found them,” he grits his teeth. Forming words is way harder than he recalls it being previously.

“You’re not being very forthcoming with me, man,” James comments, squeezing Sirius’ hand supportively and running his thumb over the callused skin. “What happened at the party?”

“Sorry,” Sirius whispers. “I’ve— I’ve never talked about this. I only started using the real words for things in my head after I talked to Minnie and Poppy and they gave me some pamphlets and shit,” he pauses for a brief moment. “It’s scary. I’m scared. I’m scared of how you’ll react,” he admits quietly, hand tightening on James’. He does his best to control his grip, not break James’ bones, but it’s hard when he still wants to hurt somebody. Preferably somebody like The Man.

“Oh,” James states. “I’ll never judge you for getting hurt. You’re my brother, I’m never leaving you,” he reassures Sirius, who can only hope that that will stay true when he finds out what happened.

“Okay, I’ll— I’ll tell you, but I need you to promise not to interrupt, because I’m not sure if I can keep going if you do,” Sirius mentally promises himself not to give up.

“I promise,” James says solemnly, taking a long drink of his water and putting the cup on the bedside table. Sirius takes a deep breath.

“When I went to that party alone, someone put something in my drink,” Sirius forces out of his mouth before he can bite it back. James’ hand tenses, but he doesn’t interrupt, thank Merlin. “I left when I realized, but I ended up in an empty classroom, and—” he cuts himself off with a sharp inhale. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. “When I— when I woke up I could feel it— what happened, I mean. It hurt, Jamie,” Sirius sniffles. He squeezes James’ hand tightly.

“What happened, Padfoot?” James asks breathlessly, squeezing back. “Please don’t say it’s what it think.”

“H-he, er,” Sirius swallows hard, but his voice gets caught in his throat when he tries to form the words. The word, singular. Rape. He chokes on it and it strangles him. “I c-can’t say it, James. It’s hard,” he whimpers pathetically. James’ breath catches.

“Did he— Sirius, I need you to tell me, did he… touch you?” James queries shakily. Sirius’ eyes burn and he covers his mouth, just barely repressing a gag. He’s not supposed to tell anybody these things. Nobody is meant to know. He shouldn’t be doing this.

He has to do this.

“He said I was pretty,” Sirius whispers, like it’s the worst thing in the world. To him, it is. Being good looking hurts. James inhales, but Sirius keeps going. “Everyone always says I’m pretty. It’s always the same excuse,” he grits out, bitter rage lacing his words. “Every fucking time, it’s always what they say. I was just too p-pretty for them to resist,” he growls. James is perfectly still, holding his breath.

“That has happened before,” James says quietly, body still rigid. “Other people have done that to you,” he looks down, Sirius feels his head move. Sirius digs his nails into his cheek, desperate for something, anything, to distract him from his mind and his memories and his pain. James sounds upset, Sirius can hear it in the slight shake in his voice and lowered tone.

“Yeah,” Sirius admits quietly. “Too many times,” he adds, miserable. James swallows audibly. He makes a move to turn around, then catches himself and resolutely settles again, staring at the headboard of his bed. He’s angry. Sirius is fucking terrified.

“Who? Who did it?” James asks, something uncharacteristically rough in his voice. While he can be an egotistical prick from time to time, James is never dark and growly and mean, as though he’s holding a dagger to someone’s throat. That’s Sirius job. James is too-hot summer days and cocky grins, Sirius is barbed wire and ice down your back. That’s how they are. Except that, now, James sounds like Sirius’ brand of anger.

“Too many people,” Sirius says shakily, feeling completely and utterly exhausted. “So many people,” he whimpers, tears finally falling. They’re hot on his cheeks and he doesn’t even care anymore. He’s too tired to care. James goes silent for a few long moments. “I-it just… keeps happening. Over and over and over again. They all just say I’m so pretty that they can’t resist,” Sirius sobs, unable to hold back anymore.

“Sirius…” James whispers, sounding close to tears, himself.

“I was four, James, I was four,” he snivels, muffled by his hand over his mouth. Sirius never intended to share this much, but he’s talking now and doesn’t want to stop. “I was fucking four and he was nice and I didn’t fucking know what he was doing, but I still let him, because he was being so nice, and— fucking hell, I’m such a whore, James, I let anyone do anything to me if they’re nice enough, I’m a fucking slag, I—” he hiccups, and his brother cuts him off quickly.

“Stop,” James orders. Sirius immediately clamps down on his words by sinking his teeth into his tongue. He’s fucked up, he’s done something wrong, he never should’ve shared this. “You’re not a whore or a slag or anything like that, don’t talk about yourself that way. You were four. What could you have done?” James asks him, thumb gently soothing over Sirius’ hand once again. “Were you a slag when you were four? Were you asking for it when you didn’t even know what it was?”

“You don’t get it, Prongs!” Sirius sobs into his palm. “I didn’t stop him, I didn’t even try! He— he said I was pretty and that he was proud of me and— and he said everything I wanted to hear, s-so I let him. He said he j-just wanted to make me feel good, that we would both feel good. That’s the worst part— that it did. It did feel good. I just laid there and let him do whatever the fuck he wanted. After, I just fucking laid there. I laid there and stared at the wall for hours,” Sirius’ breathing, at some point, went very wonky, and his lungs don’t seem to be willing to come anywhere near full. It’s making it very difficult to speak, but, at the same time, he feels like he has to keep talking or he’ll die. “How fucking pathetic is that, James? How stupid? I didn’t even ask him to stop. I just stripped and spread my legs for him the second he asked me to. I’m fucking pathetic—” James cuts him off again.

“You aren’t pathetic, don’t say that,” he scolds, no real heat to his voice. “You were just a kid. Your parents were mean and he was nice, so you assumed that the nice person should be trusted. It’s not your fault, Sirius,” James soothes. Sirius breaks.

It’s not your fault, it’s not your fault, it’s not your fault. The words repeat in his head, over and over again, bouncing around his brain and echoing through his thoughts. Not your fault, not your fault, not your fault. He’s always wanted to hear someone say that. No one has ever said that. No one who cares has known that he’s struggling enough to say it, and no one who knows he’s struggling cares enough to say it.

Sirius doubles over, clinging desperately to James’ hand and sobbing hard. He feels James make another attempt to turn around, then remember his instructions and still.

“Sirius—” James tries, but Sirius cuts him off with another involuntary sob. “It’s alright, Paddy, it’s going to be okay. I know now, and I won’t let you get hurt like that again, promise. We’re in this together, right?” he comforts Sirius, who only cries harder. No one is this nice to him. Fuck, he loves James Potter so much.

“I ca—can’t do it again,” he cries, roughly scrubbing his face. “I’ll die if it happens again, I can’t do it, I’ll die, I’ll fucking kill myself,” he blubbers, inhaling sharply, broad shoulders heaving, nails dragging across his cheek when he moves. He’s covered his mouth again, a subconscious attempt at silence, at safety.

“Sirius, can I turn around? I want to hug you,” James queries thickly. Sirius might puke if James sees the tears falling down his face, his runny nose, the stupid expressions he makes when he cries. He doesn’t want his brother to see him come apart at the seams. He’s the strong one, the unbreakable, unshakeable one, the powerful one, the one no one fucks with and everyone is aware of. He’s not supposed to cry.

“Please don’t,” Sirius whines pitifully. “I— I’m fucking worthless, James, I can’t even deal with you looking at me right now,” he clutches James’ hand like a lifeline, knowing it’s the only think keeping him from doing something stupid, like clawing his skin off of his face or stabbing himself in his neck. “I’m so, so sorry, I shouldn’t have woken you up for this shit.”

“Merlin, Pads, do you really feel bad for that? You can wake me up for things like this whenever you feel like it. This is plenty reason,” James reassures him. “And, for the record, you’re not worthless. I know I’m not the most experienced with this stuff, but, from what I’ve heard from everyone, this isn’t a simple thing to talk about. It’s… it’s bad. You’re allowed to talk about this whenever you need.”

Sirius whimpers like a sad dog. Maybe he is. “Thanks, Jamie,” he whispers, not trusting his voice to work properly at a higher volume.

“Anytime, mate,” James says sweetly. It sounds like a cue for Sirius to be done, but he’s not. He needs to say something before he implodes.

“That’s why I fucked my face up,” Sirius mumbles, tilting his head back as he slides downwards to rest it on the back of James’ shoulder. James does the same to him, the tips of his fluffy hair ticking Sirius’ cheek, body sleep-warm and kind and made up of everything that is good in this world. James is made of safe and perfect and love. James is the most wonderful person in this world, and Sirius feels a little guilty for doubting his support in any matter.

“What do you mean?” James queries, tilting his head so he’s nearly speaking into Sirius’ ear. Where he would usually find that uncomfortable and eerily intimate, but, with James, it’s normal. It’s familiar. It’s not sexual or an attempt at anything other than being physically close.

“I exploded myself because I didn’t want to be pretty anymore,” Sirius explains softly, stretching his legs out in front of his body. His long limbs make it so that his toes already touch the edge of the mattress when he’s laying properly, so he can’t actually stretch, but he can allow his legs to uncurl a little bit. “I thought it would end if I did that. I thought… I, er, I thought that, if I wasn’t pretty, people wouldn’t want to… to touch me again. I thought I’d be safe,” he stays strong in the beginning, but he quickly breaks. By the end, he’s choking on another sob.

“Oh, Sirius,” James sighs, sounding upset. “I’m sorry. For what I said earlier, about your pretty face. I thought I was helping. I think you look nice because you’re my brother and I love you a lot. It’s not much about your appearance, it’s just how I feel about you as a person,” he explains, and, for some reason, mostly because James can’t lie for shit, Sirius believes him.

“I wouldn’t be mad at you if you did,” he grins ruefully, sniffling. “I know you wouldn’t hurt me even if you thought so. It’s okay. I trust you more than I’ve ever trusted anyone,” Sirius confesses with a wet laugh.

“Aw, Paddy,” James coos, giggling. There’s a sad, slightly hurt undertone to it. James should never sound sad, but, for some reason, it validates that something is wrong, that it shouldn’t have happened. “I trust you, as well. My favourite being to ever exist in the history of ever,” he adds excitedly.

“Yeah,” Sirius agrees. “Yeah, you’re mine, too,” he murmurs. Despite the tears running down his face, Sirius is smiling.

“Can I ask you something?” James asks after a brief moment.

“Anything,” Sirius affirms.

“Why did you… y’know, do that to your throat. I know it’s probably related to all that stuff, but is there a particular reason, or is it more the buildup of everything getting overwhelming, or…?” James trails off. Ah, the dreaded question.

Sirius feels sick to his stomach at the thought of admitting how weak he became upon spending three days in the same castle as The Man. Nothing even happened. The Man just looked at him a few times. Sure, he was grinning weirdly, and, sure, he’s done things in the past, but there’s such a big difference between then and now, so it would make no sense for him to still be into Sirius.

“I, er,” Sirius stumbles over his words, inhaling sharply. He swallows hard. How will he explain this to James? He’s going to sound so useless when he says that he didn’t even need anything to happen to decide that dying was the only appropriate solution.

“I’m not going to judge you for anything,” James pauses. “I solemnly swear. Marauders oath, Padfoot. I, Messr Prongs, solemnly swear that I will never, ever judge you, Messr Padfoot, for this sort of thing,” he announces. Sirius, despite himself, laughs. It’s tearful and made up of at least part of a sob, but it’s a laugh nonetheless.

“A-aright, then, Messr Prongs. You make a compelling argument,” Sirius is smiling. James has a funny way of making everything easier to handle, less terrifying, not completely and utterly overwhelming and nauseating. James laughs, evidently pleased with himself for making Sirius feel even marginally better. “Er. You remember that wizengamot guest we had for a while?”

“Yeah,” James affirms, sounding somewhat confused. “What was his name? Something like—” Sirius cuts him off before he can hear The Man’s name. He can’t hear it again. Hearing it is torture. Hearing it is everybody praising him and talking about how good he is and brutalizing Sirius’ feelings.

“Don’t say his name,” he all but begs.

After a brief moment, James nods. “Alright. What does he have to do with all this?” the younger boy asks.

“I know him. He’s friends with Walburga and Orion. Never caught his name, but, er, we spent a lot of time in the same place. Pureblood-bigot parties and all that,” Sirius explains anxiously, taking a deep breath. James seems to hold his breath in turn, probably foreseeing where this is going but not wanting it to be true. “Sometimes, since they fucking hated me, Walburga and Orion would take Regulus with them on, like vacations and outings, and leave me home. The house elves all hated me, too, because their masters did, so they would send me off with a babysitter until they came back. That guy— The Man, I’ve been calling him— used to… er… volunteer for that job. Watching me, I mean.”

“The Man would volunteer to babysit you,” James echoes, suspicion thick in his tone.

“Every time he heard I needed babysitting,” Sirius affirms. “At some point, they just started going to him whenever I needed to be watched. He… really liked watching me. He was so, so nice at first. He said all the things I wanted to hear, so, when he asked me to do him a favour, I didn’t even consider saying no. People had already done things to me and a lot of the, weren’t nearly as nice, so… why wouldn’t I let him? I was seven and dumb and… and traumatized,” the last word is hard to say, but he manages. It’s one of the things he’s been practicing since his talk with Minnie and Poppy.

“Oh, Merlin’s arse, Sirius,” James breathes.

“He got less and less nice every time he did something. Rougher and meaner and, at some point, I stopped wanting it. I know it’s kind of sick, but, when he was nice, I kind of… craved it? I don’t know. I mentioned it earlier, kind of. I wanted someone to— to be nice to me. I didn’t like the touching part of it, but I liked the nice part, so I guess I enjoyed it. When he wasn’t being nice anymore, though, I just wanted it to stop. It didn’t. It only ended when I got old enough to no longer need a babysitter. I was thirteen by then.”

“And he came to Hogwarts,” James mutters. “He came to fucking Hogwarts. Did he try anything?” he asks, tone low. Sirius sniffles, laughs pitifully, and runs his hand over the burns on his face.

“No,” Sirius admits, feeling horribly and truly pathetic. “No, I only… saw him, and I couldn’t do it. I know I’m dumb and ridiculously sensitive, but I just— I couldn’t do it. Every time I saw him or heard him I just… I kept remembering what happened, and… he kept fucking smiling at me. He was smiling at me and it felt like I was little again, seeing him at a party, knowing I was going to end up in a bathroom with him— probably on my knees, because he didn’t want to get caught.”

“Sirius, that doesn’t make you sensitive. I’m no expert, but that’s sounds like a pretty normal reaction to having to temporarily live in the same place as someone who literally abused you,” James emphasizes the second to last word in a way that makes Sirius shiver, but, begrudgingly, he acknowledges it as the truth. “I mean, imagine if we put Moony in the castle with the one who bit him. I know it’s not exactly the same because he didn’t get, y’know, assaulted, but he was still traumatized. We wouldn’t blame him if he was hurting or did something dumb. That would be damn cruel. It’s no different for you.”

“I guess so,” Sirius sighs. He shuts his eyes, trying to measure his breathing. “It feels pathetic. I know I’d never judge Moony for something like that, obviously, but… it just feels different when I’m the one being a dumbass over this shit. I slit my fucking throat because The Man is around. Not even doing anything, just… there,” he sniffles, tilting his head to the side, breathing in James’ aloe-and-broomstick polish scent. He smells warm and just a little bit sweaty from sleep. He smells like home.

“You’re allowed to be hurt, Sirius,” James says softly. “You’re allowed to be traumatized and upset and all those things. Maybe it is, logically, an overreaction, but that’s doesn’t make you wrong or sensitive or anything. You have trauma, man. You’re allowed to be sad. No one is going to judge you for that, not when it’s over something like this,” he says, sounding much like a promise. Sirius loves him so fucking much.

“Sometimes I feel like I can’t hurt,” Sirius admits quietly, little more than a whisper. He clutches James’ hand tighter, both of their palms sweaty but neither willing to pull away. “I’m… I’m always the strong one, right? I protect everybody, and… I don’t know. I feel like shite. Like I’m not allowed to be like this,” he finally opens his eyes again, staring up at the canopy of James’ bed. There’s a doodle of a sun and a star in the corner, along with a dog and a stag a little away from it, plus their respective initials. It’s remnants from nights like this one, when Sirius got bored and took out a muggle pen or marker to draw on something— usually James.

“You are. You’re allowed,” James matches both his tone and the way he squeezes his hand. “You’re so bloody strong, Sirius. Even stronger when you can talk about these things. I can’t even imagine how much courage this would take. You’re bloody brilliant,” he sounds truly awed, impressed with Sirius, of all people. Sirius, for talking about things. For doing what everybody else does. Somehow, hearing James say it makes him wonder if, maybe, just maybe, this is something at least little impressive. “I couldn’t imagine going through everything you’ve had to. You’re damn amazing, man, honestly,” James laughs a little. Sirius sniffles, but grins.

“Thanks,” he whimpers, taking a deep, long breath. “I… I’m just trying by best. It’s hard to believe that I’m not weak or pathetic or something,” Sirius pauses. “I think you’re brilliant, too, by the way,” he adds with a sniff.

“Anytime,” James sounds like he’s grinning. Sirius hopes he is.

“Could I stay with you tonight?” Sirius asks softly after a moment. He has a boyfriend, he knows he should be sleeping in the same bed as Remus, but he wants the comfort of his brother right now. He wants to comfort of the only person in his life, other than the people that did it, who knows he’s raped multiple times over the course of his life.

“Of course, mate,” James says cheerily. “Anytime you want. You know my bed is always open to you,” his tone makes it sound like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Sirius’ shoulders finally relax. “The only tax is that I do demand cuddles,” James adds. Sirius laughs.

“Alright, I can do that,” Sirius agrees easily, turning around. He wraps his muscular arms around James’ torso, burying his face in his brother’s shoulder, bracketing the younger boy with his toned thighs. “Thanks, man,” he whispers. James covers Sirius’ callused hands with his own somewhat smaller ones.

“‘Course,” James giggles, pressing his cheek against Sirius’ temple. “I love you, dude,” he says softly.

“I love you, too,” Sirius murmurs.

Fifteen minutes later, Sirius is laying on his back, James half-curled-half-sprawled over his side, arms wound around the older boy’s waist. Sirius has snaked his arm under James’ head, wrapped around his shoulders, head tilted to his lips are pressed to his best mate’s head. James has hooked his legs over Sirius’, glasses abandoned on the bedside table again.

Sirius feels safe, safer than he has in at least a decade, maybe his whole life.

“Thanks for talking to me, Padfoot,” James mumbles sleepily.

“Thanks for listening to me, Prongs,” Sirius responds quietly.

~~~~~

Come morning, Sirius isn’t in the mood to get up. Talking about what’s happened to him was good for him in the moment, and he’s definitely excited to tell Minnie and Poppy about het fact that he did it, but, Merlin, did it drain him.

Sirius is the earliest riser of the Marauders, a habit literally beaten into him by Walburga Black, consistently waking before 5:00 in the morning. James follows between 6:00 and 6:30. Peter, if not woken, will sleep until noon, then naturally wake himself up. Remus will sleep indefinitely, but, typically, will set an alarm on his wand to make himself rise at 9:30.

Now, though, James has been awake for an hour and Sirius is still curled under his arm, face hidden in his chest. James, perfect, merciful James, has just been running his fingers through Sirius’ dark hair, murmuring to him about nothing in particular.

This happens, sometimes, when things get overwhelming. Sirius crashes and burns until there’s nothing left but soot and ash, collapsing into a pile of nothingness, existing as little more than an empty shell of a person. His roommates have borne witness to him falling into deep depressions more than once, and James has always treated it exactly like he is now: as an opportunity to cuddle, chatter about whatever is on his mind, and kiss his cheeks and forehead. Remus and Peter go to classes to make sure nobody falls behind, and James stays in the dorm for however long it takes to bring Sirius back.

Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to be insanely depressed, so, hopefully, he’ll be able to sort himself out by later today. He’s more tired than anything. The weight on his shoulders has definitely been lifted. Sirius feels more comfortable than he ever has. He hopes that, when he talks to Minnie and Poppy, they’ll be proud of him.

“Paddy-Cakes, we’ve quidditch training today,” James nudges Sirius’ side with his thigh. “You being my brother doesn’t mean I’m letting you get away with missing practice,” he says decisively, the bastard.

“I didn’t get to sleep until 3:00, Jamie,” Sirius groans in protest. “You’re captain, why don’t you just cancel?” he asks with a pout, even though James can’t see his face. James laughs at him like a prick. Typically, Sirius wouldn’t throw a fit over an early practice; he’s only on the team, still, because James wants him to be, not because he has any motivation to do anything quidditch-related in the future, but he quite likes exercise and very much likes his brother, so he can work with it. Today, though, he’d really rather stay in bed.

“I can’t cancel quidditch just because my best mate is being a lazy git,” James teases, grin audible. Sirius is going to smack him. Actually, maybe he’ll slam a bludger his way during this apparently un-skippable practice. Perks of being a beater, he supposes.

“What if this lazy git throws the next game for the sake of vengeance?” Sirius taunts, pinching James’ side. James yelps, then gasps exaggeratedly.

“You wouldn’t!” James cries.

“Well then, maybe you should cancel practice,” Sirius chuckles, and James makes a loud, offended noise.

“Blackmail! From my own flesh and blood! How dare you!” he exclaims, shoving Sirius’ shoulder. It doesn’t do much; Sirius is a very large, very strong man, just a little more on both fronts than James (though, they are pretty close). Sirius just squeezes his waist until he makes an unattractive choking noise. “Oi!”

“Hey, it’s not blackmail! I’m just saying, you can choose—” Sirius is cut off when James swats at the back of his head. He laughs.

“That’s what blackmail is, you twit!” James protests, wrapping his legs around Sirius’ waist in return, making an attempt at squeezing him back. Sirius tenses his abdomen to reduce the pressure, then resumes crushing his brother between his arms. With another strangled sound, James arches and pulls Sirius’ head down, against his chest. In vengeance, Sirius ceases his squeezing, which is getting weaker and less effective by the second due to his greatly depleted and already stifled energy, and digs his fingers into James’ sides.

“Bastard,” Sirius laughs into James’ chest, biting the skin there. A third noise comes from James, and the thighs around him clench, then loosen greatly.

“You’re not playing fair!” James giggles and writhes, trying to squirm away from Sirius’ callused hands,  to no avail.

“Prongs, Padfoot,” comes a tired, whiny voice in the direction of Remus and Sirius’ shared bed. “‘S too early for this shite, stop it,” Remus grumbles, and Sirius can perfectly imagine him yanking a thick quilt from his mother over his mouth and huffing petulantly. He laughs. Remus’ expression, he’s sure, is that pouty one he makes when he’s been woken up, with his brows furrowed and his eyes already drifting shit.

“Sorry, Moony-Mine,” Sirius calls back, finally halting his assault on James’ ribs.

“Sorry, Moony!” James says at the same time, gasping for breath. He’s still laughing softly, running his fingers through his sleep-tangled hair.

“Wh’ever,” Remus slurs sleepily. Then, he groans and Sirius hears the mattress moving. “Padfoot, where are you?” he asks, and Sirius can imagine his eyes blearily opening, amber and honey in the warm morning light, scanning the room to find his partner. Despite waking up earlier, Sirius usually turns off Remus’ alarm to get back into bed and wake him up with kisses and cuddles. It’s not normal for Remus to rise without Sirius right next to him.

“In Jamie’s bed,” Sirius informs his boyfriend. “It’s a little early, Baby, you can head back to bed,” he adds, realizing that it’s about 7:30, meaning Remus has another two hours before it’s time to wake up. There’s no school today, meaning their only commitment is quidditch, the various study groups Remus and Peter are involved in, and Peter’s chess club. They all have to be up around not on school days, but, weekends? Nah, that’s when they sleep in.

“Why’re you in Prongs’ bed?” Remus questions, yawning audibly. “It’s… too-early-time,” he huffs, using the grammar Sirius has come to expect from him when woken up too early.

“Having an affair,” James announces. Sirius chokes on his spit and starts laughing.

Remus sighs dramatically and Sirius, once again, hears the mattress shifting, then soft footsteps padding across the hardwood floor. The curtains open, revealing a very sleepy looking Remus. His hair is tousled, eyes bleary, rubbing his eye with his knuckles. He’s still dressed in Sirius’ oversized quidditch jumper and his own unicorn-patterned sleep trousers. He blinks at them.

“This looks more like fighting than an affair,” he observes, monotone and tired. Sirius pushes himself up, feeling those tendrils of exhaustion and fatigue wrapping around him, trying to drag him back down and suffocate him in his own mind.

“Hiya, Moony,” James chirps, sitting up straighter. Sirius shifts to his arse instead of his knees and slumps against his brother’s chest, his side against James’ stomach, because he’s too tired to sit up without support.

“Hi, Chéri,” Sirius smiles up at Remus, who squints at him.

“Mind if I join you?” he asks, cocking his head to the side like a confused puppy. He’s sweet, Sirius thinks. Adorable, kind, and the most passive person Sirius knows. James, while kind, is definitely more fiery and bites a lot harder— metaphorically, of course.

“Of course not! Come here, we have plenty of room,” James says warmly, gesturing to the empty space on the bed beside them, beaming. Remus smiles back, crawling onto the mattress and getting himself comfortable under the cozy blankets. He curls on his side, blankets tucked up to his chin, and James flops down beside him, dragging Sirius down, too.

“What’re you too doing?” Remus asks, tucking one arm under his head. “I’m not super familiar with what you guys do in the mornings, but, seeing as I’ve never been woken up by you, I have to assume this isn’t normal.”

“It’s not normal, no,” Sirius confirms. “Usually, when we wake up, we go to the common room to hang out so we don’t wake you,” he explains, squeezing into the space between Remus and James. The younger animagus immediately rolls to throw his leg over Sirius’ hips, head on his clavicle, and the werewolf nuzzles into his side, curling up against him.

“Why’re you three having a cuddle without me?” Peter interrupts them, voice gritty with sleep. James perks up and looks at him.

“Come join us, Wormy!” he exclaims brightly. Obediently, Peter rolls out of his bed and makes his way over to the occupied one, in the same tired state as Remus, maybe even more disheveled. His trousers are rolled up on one side, shirt riding up around his belly, yawning. He crawls over them and drops down on the other side of James, the only place there’s still room, and flops his arm over both he and Sirius’ stomachs

“Why’re we having a morning cuddle-session?” Peter asks groggily, voice muffled into James’ back. “It’s too early to be up on a weekend,” he grumbles. James laughs, Remus hums in agreement, and Sirius just smiles tiredly.

“Pads came to see me at, like, fuck-ass in the morning,” James explains happily, then pauses. “He wanted to talk a little,” ever the actor, his tone shakes when he says that. “Er, afterwards we decided to have a little sleepover. Didn’t wanna wake anyone up switching beds, right? Especially ‘cause he shares with Moony,” James lies unconvincingly. Sirius truly wishes he’d kept his mouth shut and left the explanations to the oldest boy, who is, easily, the best actor and liar of the lot of them. Peter comes second, the James, and Remus is after him, seeing as the lycanthrope’s first reaction is to panic and freeze up.

Remus hums. As much as he sucks at lying, Sirius knows he’s incredibly clever and the most likely to manage to gather enough information to piece things together. James doesn’t have the patience to do things like that, and Peter, while very observant, doesn’t understand the darker side of things as much as Remus. He’s just as likely as James is to assume the best, whereas Remus and Sirius, especially the latter, tend to assume the worst possible scenario. In this case, that would be much closer to the truth than Sirius is comfortable with.

“What were you two talking about? Fuck-ass in the morning feels a little early to decide to have a sleepover,” Peter comments, sounding significantly more awake now. Sirius adores James, truly, but he’d quite like to slap his brother for being so bad at keeping secrets.

“It’s complicated,” Sirius evades, doing his best to sound relaxed. He knows he’s doing well. He has over a decade of practice lying his ass off about what’s wrong. James stiffens, uncomfortable, next to him. Ah. This is the first time James has heard him lie and known exactly what he’s covering up. That’s probably uncomfortable— and making him question things.

“Does it have to do with… with what you did?” Remus asks softly, thumbing over Sirius’ collarbone. Sirius can feel his eyes tracing the wound on his neck, mostly healed, now, but still red and tender, the skin bumpy and scabbed at the deepest parts. It makes him feel a little bit sick, knowing that his stupidity and weakness is on display for everybody to see.

James’ words from last night begin replaying in his head. He’s not weak. He’s not pathetic. He’s nothing bad for what happened to him. That’s what James said. James is good. It doesn’t feel like it. It feels like he’s completely worthless and the most pitiful human being to ever walk the face of the earth. Merlin, why is this so hard?

Sirius glances at James, who is looking up at him with a meaningful expression. His glasses are askew on his face due to the angle he’s resting at, eyes wide and imploring, lips drawn into a frown. His eyebrows are raised, and he gives Sirius a light squeeze. It’s encouragement, Sirius knows. Encouragement to tell Remus and Peter something, anything.

“I guess, yeah,” he mumbles, unsure of himself but unable to refuse James anything. Quidditch practice is completely forgotten in the face of his past.

“You guess?” Peter echoes. He lifts his head to look at Sirius. “That feels like something you would know for sure, Padfoot,” he says suspiciously. James offers an apologetic look. Sirius just sighs, not wanting to see the too-perceiving expression he’s sure Remus is wearing.

“I’m almost certain that’s just what people say when they don’t want to talk about something,” Remus says, not unkindly. It’s clear that he doesn’t buy it, but Remus has never been the confrontational type, and neither has Peter, so, at the very least, Sirius knows he’s not likely to be taken up on his blatant avoidance.

James is looking at him again, frowning, brows furrowed this time. Sirius just feels guilty, then. He needs to say something. James wants him to.

“That was… part of what we talked about, yes,” Sirius admits, even though talking about it right now feels like the physical embodiment of nails on a chalkboard. He has to grind his teeth and bite his lip to refrain from digging his fingers into his own skin and ripping until he can see flesh and tendons and bones.

“What else did you guys talk about?” Remus questions, tracing over Sirius’ collarbones, starting at one side and ending on the other, fingers coldest when he feels them in the little dip between the bones. Remus’ breath is warm against Sirius’ neck. Sirius feels a chill go down his spine. Talking to James, alone, when he couldn’t be seen, was much more comfortable than this.

“Lo-lots of things,” Sirius stutters, the words feeling foreign in his mouth. No, no, no, no, no, he chants mentally, desperate for this to end. He can’t do this, he can’t tell them. Not like this.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, you can just say that, Sirius,” Remus reassures him. Sirius feels himself relax. If James wants him to tell Remus and Peter what happened to him, then he will, but, Sirius reasons with himself, that doesn’t mean he needs to do it right this second. He will. He will tell them. If James wants him to, he will. He will make James proud. Just… not yet. He needs to prepare himself, first.

“I really don’t,” he sighs, tilting his head so his nose is pressed into Remus’ tawny curls. He breathes in the heady smell of tea and warmth and sleep. Remus hums again.

“Alright, mate,” Peter says with a yawn. “Talk to us whenever you want,” he adds sleepily. “Let’s go back to bed.”

“Sure, Wormtail,” Sirius agrees easily. In a matter of moments, Remus and Peter are asleep again. Peter didn’t fully wake up in the first place, and Remus has always loved his sleep, never struggling with resting unless he’s particularly stressed.

“I guess you’ve gotten your wish about quidditch practice,” James grumbles, huffing.

“Best get some more sleep, then,” Sirius shrugs.

~~~~~

Later that day, Sirius has left Remus and Peter a tangle on the bed, James is off apologizing to the team for missing practice, and Sirius is heading to the hospital wing. He’s not hurt, but Poppy wants to check on his wounds once a day so she can make sure he’s healing well. He’s also excited to tell them that he did it, he talked to James.

When Poppy sees him, she immediately looks worried.

“I told James,” Sirius says before she can ask him anything. Her shoulders relax and she smiles up at him.

“And how did it go, my dear?” Poppy asks kindly, leading him to a bed. He tilts his head up so she can inspect his throat. He’s been through this song and dance enough times already to know the drill.

“He was… good. He’s James, of course he was good. Didn’t make me look at him or say anything I didn’t want to say,” Sirius explains, swinging his legs idly as he does. “Didn’t mind me waking him up past midnight to talk, either. That’s why he’s my best friend— brother, more like. Puts up with all my shit without complaining at all.”

“That’s how friendship works, Sirius,” Poppy hums, plucking a salve from her apron pocket to dab at the rippling scar crossing his jugular. “In any case, you seem to be healing quite well. There will be scarring, I’m sure, but you shouldn’t have much, if any, lasting damage. You might end up prone to scratchy throats, but, other than that, I think you’ll be alright,” she soothes the marred skin with a cool gel. It feels nice, with the way Sirius constantly runs hot and the odd, somewhat numb feeling that’s taken over the scarred area.

“James said it wasn’t my fault,” Sirius whispers at the ceiling. Poppy stills, and he knows she’s probably looking at him. “Is he right?” he asks the older woman, looking down at her, eyes wide and feeling all to raw. James is brilliant, but Poppy has experience. She’ll know.

“Have you really been wondering that?” she questions him, standing up straight. The salve ends up in her pocket once again, brows furrowed and a frown on her lips. Sirius’ fragile feeling of security, of happiness, collapses. Oh. He’d been a fool to want to trust James. The younger boy is his brother, of course he would lie to spare Sirius’ feelings. Of course it was his fault. Why wouldn’t it be?

“Sorry, dumb question,” he laughs, rubbing his cheek awkwardly. “I, er, I shouldn’t make you answer that,” he mumbles. That would be mean. Poppy has no reason to lie, but Sirius isn’t ready to hear the truth. He knows it’s his fault, but hearing it from the mouth of someone he believes to be good, to be safe (rather, as safe as any authority figure can be) might ruin whatever is left of him.

“Oh, Dear, of course it’s not your fault,” Poppy coos, reaching out to cup his cheek with one cool palm. Her eyes are soft, kind, and that’s familiar sensation takes over Sirius, like there’s ants crawling just under his skin, eating him alive. “Why ever would you think that? You were assaulted, Sirius, of course that isn’t your fault,” she sounds like she’s telling the truth. Her eyes are warm and open. Sirius doesn’t buy it for a second. Her moment of surprise gave enough away.

“Yeah, alright,” Sirius agrees easily. He doesn’t want to fight. There’s no point. She’ll never agree, not when he’s in such a fragile mental state, still coming off of a suicide attempt. He feels pathetic again. Is this really all it took to drag him back down?

“I would recommend that you continue talking to Mr. Potter about what happened, if you’re able. He’s good for you,” Poppy says softly, running her thumb over Sirius’ cheekbone. He needs her hands off of him. He needs everybody’s hands off of him, save James, who he knows would never lay hands on him. Remus is wonderful, but they are together, which means he is physically attracted to Sirius in some way. As much as Sirius knows his boyfriend would never, he barely trusts himself most days, let alone anybody else.

“Of course he’s good for me, he’s James. He’s good for everybody,” Sirius spits, more aggressive than he intended. He feels oddly raw and overprotective. How dare she insinuate that he’s the only person James Potter is good for. James is everything.

“I never meant to imply anything else,” Poppy soothes. Sirius narrows his eyes. “Honestly, I know Mr. Potter is a very good man. You don’t need to justify anything to me.”

“Okay,” Sirius doesn’t want to fight. He would fight for James in a heartbeat, but, between that and everything going on, he knows he can’t. He simply doesn’t have the energy or drive to do anything more than relent.

“You don’t believe me,” Poppy frowns.

“It’s fine,” Sirius takes a deep breath. She was being nice. She was just being nice. She was literally just being nice. There’s no need for him to be this riled up over nothing. She’s Poppy Pomfrey, she’s not allowed to talk badly about students, being part of the staff and all. That doesn’t change the spike of annoyance Sirius felt the second James’ name rolled off of her lips in a way that inferred something not-quite-negative if interpreted a certain way.

“How are you feeling outside of that?” Poppy asks, hands returning to her sides. Thank Merlin. Sirius isn’t sure how much longer he could’ve dealt with skin on his. Despite his frustration, which he did not hide, she still looks kind and patient. Like James, who never snaps at him, even when he’s harsh or rude for reasons nobody (not even Sirius, himself, sometimes) understands.

“Fine,” Sirius shrugs. He wants to go back to the dorm, back to James, who will, inevitably, make it all better. He always does. James is so wonderful, so kind, so brilliant. He’ll make all the misery and pain and torment go away.

The second Poppy finally frees him (another pamphlet has been stuck in his pocket— why do they have so many pamphlets about rape?), Sirius beelines it to the dorm. When he doesn’t find James there, he checks the Marauder’s Map. He’s still off apologizing to the team. Sirius decides to wait for him. He doesn’t want to see anyone other than James right now. He sits on the edge of the bed that was his before he moved to share Remus’.

Thankfully, it doesn’t take long for his brother to get back. Sirius, instead of saying anything, is suddenly possessed by a fucking toddler who decides that the best course of action is to scrunch up his face like he’s seconds away from tears and reach out to do grabby hands. He was fine five seconds ago, but, now, upon laying eyes of James, he is overtaken with the urge to sob.

James, bless him, rushes over. “Merlin, Padfoot, what happened?” he asks worriedly, crawling directly into Sirius’ waiting arms. James allows the older boy to nestle his face into his neck, sniffling and clutching at him like a lifeline. James is safe, James is good, James is a place he can let his emotions out.

“I don’t know,” Sirius whimpers, fingers tightening on James’ shirt. “I— I just—… everything feels like my fault, and— and, last night, I… I believed you. I believed it when you said it wasn’t my fault. M-maybe not entirely, but I did. Then— then I asked Poppy what she thought, and… she hesitated. I’m not dumb, I know what that means. It just… it felt nice. It felt nice to believe it wasn’t my fault for a while,” he explains, barely a whisper, scrubbing his face against James’ shirt collar.

“Oh, Sirius, no,” James cards his fingers through Sirius’ hair. “It wasn’t your fault, Padfoot. I’m sorry I didn’t do a good job making sure you knew that last night. I promise you, it was not your fault. You were just a child,” he murmurs into Sirius’ temple, rubbing his back, holding him close. Sirius wants to breathe the air from his lungs. He doesn’t care that it’d kill him, inhaling that much carbon dioxide, it would be worth it for James.

“It… it really, really feels like it,” Sirius sniffles, wanting to pout like a child. Maybe he is pouting like a child. He feels like a child. Useless and small and desperate for attention. James squeezes Sirius against his chest and kisses his head.

“It’s not, I swear,” he coos. “You’re the last person to blame for what they did to you. They took advantage of you and they used you. I… they raped you, Padfoot,” that word makes Sirius shiver, “They’re all terrible, awful people, the worst I’ve ever heard of. It isn’t your fault, not at all,” James sounds almost as emotional as Sirius feels. He sounds like he’s hurting, like he’s miserable, like he just wants to help. It makes something stir in Sirius’ chest. It’s not a familiar thing, not something Sirius feels often, but it makes him feel cherished in a way he doesn’t usually.

“I want to forget it, Jamie,” Sirius whines, making a pathetic sound against his neck. He pulls back to look James in the eyes. His brother looks pained. “Help me forget, Jamie, help me— fucking— I don’t know, obliviate me or something, please, I need it— I can’t keep doing this, I need you to help me, please—” he sobs, desperately clutching at James’ shirt, tears overflowing. He fell apart fast, he knows, but, somehow, he doesn’t mind it. He just wants his brother.

“Sirius, I’m not going to obliviate you, don’t say that,” James says sternly. “But I will help you, of course I’ll help you,” he adds, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You’re my best mate and my brother, I’ll help you with anything.”

“I don’t want to remember what they did, I don’t want to! I want to forget, I want it gone! I want to feel better, let me feel better,” Sirius hiccups, looking at James with wide, wet eyes. “Please, Jamie, help me. I need this to end. Please, please, please,” he snivels, full lower lip quivering and eyebrows drawn. James stares at him with scared eyes, teeth sinking into his lip, swallowing hard.

“Talk to me, Padfoot, I don’t know how to help you,” James says wetly, both palms on Sirius’ cheeks, eyes magnified with his glasses and pupils dilated. “I just want to help you. How do I help you?” How can James help? All Sirius wants is to be reassured that he’s not bad, he’s not gross, he’s not at fault. He just wants to be loved. He wants to be cradled and kissed and cared for in the way only James can provide. He wants to hear James tell him he’s good. Sirius wants James to love him and cherish him the same way he loves and cherishes James. Hell, James’ existence helps.

“I love you,” he whimpers. “I love you and… and… and…” Sirius sniffles, not totally sure where he’s going with the sentence. He knows what he needs to hear, but he doesn’t want to tell James. James is too nice, he’ll tell Sirius whatever he thinks will help. He needs to say it on his own. Then Sirius will believe it. “I don’t know. I just love you,” Sirius settles on.

“Padfoot, I love you, too,” James says fondly, smiling. “Is that what you need right now? Love?” he questions, thumbing over Sirius’ cheekbones in a similar manner to the way Poppy did. This time, though, it doesn’t make him want to rip his skin off. This time, it feels nice.

“I dunno,” he mumbles, voice still too high and quivering for his liking. Things he usually has under control stop being easy when it’s just him and James. “What if… what would happen if… what would you do if it happened again?” Sirius asks quietly, watching James, terrified of what answer he may receive. James frowns deeply.

“Is that even a question?” James sounds incredulous. Sirius almost pukes. “I’d be here. I’d help you however I could. And, maybe, kill whoever did it to you. Of course I’d be here. I’ll always be here,” he says, like it’s impossible to fathom any other options. “I love you more than anything. You’re my brother. You were my first real friend. You’re the best person I know. If anything went wrong, I’d keep on loving you and doing my best to take care of you. I’d do whatever it takes to make you feel better,” James announces, no hesitance in his tone. Sirius is promptly reminded of the fact that he is weak for kindness, for love, especially when it’s coming from the ones he cares for, and especially when it comes from James, when he completely and utterly melts.

“You wouldn’t think I’m bad or gross?” Sirius asks, shy and vulnerable. He’s never shy and he’s never vulnerable. And then James comes along.

“Of course not,” James replies, tugging Sirius further onto the bed and then flopping onto his back, wrapping himself around the older boy. “I wouldn’t think anyone was bad or gross for that, not even Snivellus or your family. Mind, I do think they’re all a bad and gross lot, but, point being, I wouldn’t be never think anyone in the world is either of those things just for being assaulted. You’re already good and awesome, and this doesn’t change anything.”

“You’d… you’d stay, even if I was sad and depressed and needed help to not die? Even if I kept making you sad? Even if I couldn’t be fun or happy?” Sirius presses. Having fun, running around, laughing and pranking and joking, are all the things James loves. How could Sirius take that away? How could James stay when that’s not possible anymore? “What if I was depressed and couldn’t get out of bed for days? Weeks? What if it was a month?” he asks, sniffling.

“I’d stay, of course I would,” James promises. “You’d still be you. I’d take care of you as best as I can. I’d cuddle you and brush your hair for you and get you food and water. I’d help you get changed and cleaned, and I’d do everything in my power to help you feel better. I’d make sure you were as comfortable and safe and loved as possible. It doesn’t matter how long it would take or how much work, I’d do anything it took and I wouldn’t look back,” he vows, kissing Sirius’ head. Sirius, who makes an ugly noise, a mix of a sob and a whine, and buries his tears in James’ shirt.

“Je t'aime, je t'aime, ne pars pas, bon sang, je t'aime,” Sirius babbles, his ability to speak English evading him in his emotional state. This also happens sometimes. In moments of panic or fear or any strong emotions, his language skills tend to evade him, and he defaults to his mother tongue. “Ne me quitte jamais, ne pars pas, j'ai besoin de toi,” he sobs desperately, clutching desperately at the back of his shirt.

“Oh, Paddy-Cakes, I’m sorry, I don’t understand you,” James coos, tightening his grip around Sirius even further. He squeezes. Somehow, it makes things feel better. “I don’t know French— oh, but I know how to say I love you! I love you, too,” he sniffles as he toys with the shorter, wispy curls at the back of Sirius’ neck. “It’ll be okay. I’ll be here, don’t worry,” he murmurs. How he manages to understand what Sirius is saying, even when Sirius isn’t speaking a language he understands, is a testament to how wonderful James is. He flips them, allowing his weight to rest on Sirius in the way he knows, after years of helping with depressive episodes, helps.

“Je t'adore. Tu es tout. Mon frère, mon frère, mon frère,” Sirius blubbers, wrapping a leg around James’ thigh and hooking the other around his ankle, much like vines winding around a tree or a koala clinging to a branch. “Je t’aime,” he sobs. If it were possible, he would wind his very soul around James’ and burrow into his chest, live as a part of him.

“I love you, too, Sirius,” James whispers, kissing his cheek. Sirius no longer cares if he’s being pathetic. He just wants his Jamie. Like a broken, bullied child, all Sirius wants is comfort. He no longer cares for pride or shame or anything else that makes him an adult.

James holds him until his tears stop, then until he stops shaking, and then until he goes limp against the bed, too tired to hold himself up anymore. At that point, James retrieves a tee-shirt and joggers to change Sirius into, and, for once, there’s no squirming, scared feeling upon being seen in only his pants. He doesn’t fight when James eases him into an old band shirt and fluffy, quidditch-patterned trousers. Instead, he patiently waits until James has changed into his matching trousers and a sleep shirt, then crawls into bed, blanketing Sirius’ bigger form.

He wraps his arms around James’ shoulders, allows him to settle between his legs and drop his weight again. James’ body is warm, his skin soft, save his hands, which are callused from broomsticks. They’re not as callused as Sirius’, which are battered from brooms and bats and tools and everything else, and they lack the scarring. They’re better. Nicer. They’re James’, of course they are.

His breath is warm against Sirius’ neck. His lips are full where they’re pressed against Sirius’ shoulder. His body is strong and warm where it rests on Sirius’ chest. James is safe. James is home. James is everything.

“Poppy says I should keep talking to you,” Sirius mumbles, inhaling deeply, face pressed against James’ fluffy hair. He feels completely at home, more at home than he’s ever felt.

“She’s right,” James laughs into his neck. His laughter is warm, like honey and sunlight dancing on Sirius’ skin, all love and kindness and James. “Is there anything she told you to keep talking to me about, or is it just in general?” he inquires, hands working their way under Sirius’ body, flattening under his back.

“About what they did,” Sirius breathes, hands twitching. He shuts his eyes and does his best to breathe. It’s a little hard with James on his chest, but he wouldn’t choose anything over their position. Although, if this does end up with them discussing any sort of assault, they might need to go back to back once again. Sirius isn’t sure he can talk about what happened to him when somebody could, in theory, see his face. He’s not sure why that is, but it is.

“Oh,” James pauses. “Would you like to do that now, or do you want to wait a little? I don’t mind either way. You’re my brother, I’ll talk to you about whatever, whenever,” he told Sirius, sounding sure. Sirius hopes he is. He hopes that James keeps that up when he knows more details.

“I can’t talk about this when you can see my face,” Sirius mumbles, one hand finding James’ hair. He turns his head to the side. It’s about 10:00. Under normal circumstances, Remus would be awake by now, but, without his alarm, he’ll sleep until someone rouses him, and they have roughly two hours until Peter wakes up. In theory, they have time to talk. Sirius also has time to have a mental breakdown over talking about it.

“Would you like to talk about it?” James asks. “Regardless of what you need to talk about it, would you like to? Because, if so, I can make it happen,” he says, nestling his cheek against Sirius’ chest like a puppy getting comfortable. Like he’s the dog. Truly, Sirius’ animagus form is fitting. Sirius is a dog; he’s loyal to a fault, he’ll come back even if someone beats him, he’ll do anything for someone he loves, he’ll kiss someone’s feet if they’re nice enough, he bites of provoked and then feels like shit. Sirius is, in every way, a dog.

“Do you… want me to talk about it?” Sirius questions in response, twirling one of James’ fluffy locks around his finger.

“Well, it seemed to help you last time we talked about it,” James muses. “You were pretty distraught while we were actually, y’know, saying the words, but you seemed happier this morning than I’ve seen you in quite a while. I guess I want whatever will make you feel the best. If that’s talking, I want to talk. If that’s just being together, I want to be together. Anything you’d like,” he says kindly. Sirius takes a moment to consider.

“I… I don’t think I can do that right now,” Sirius admits. It feels pathetic to verbalize, but it’s true.

“That’s alright, man. Whatever you need,” James assents easily. “Whenever you want to talk or even just cuddle, I’m here for you. Always, man. Always,” he murmurs against Sirius’ pale skin.

“Thanks, Jamie. I’ll take you up on that later,” Sirius responds, kissing James’ head.

“Anytime.”

~~~~~

“You know, James,” Sirius starts. His voice is lower, more rumbly than it used to be. He’s gotten taller, too, and broader. His hair is longer. His hands are more callused. “I’m glad I have you. I’m glad I have had you,” he amends. James flops onto his back, head in Sirius’ lap. The motion makes his now square-framed glasses go crooked. Sirius fixes them like he always does.

He’s gotten older, too. His hair has a few thin streaks of grey in it, and there’s crows feet by his eyes and deep smile lines on his cheeks. Despite that, he still looks a good few years younger than Sirius, who has a relatively thick grey streak in his bangs and perpetually looks far more tired than he is, the bastard. That’s what excessive stress does, he figures.

“Well, aren’t you a sweetheart,” James teases, reaching up to pinch his cheek. He’s grinning. Sirius grins back. James finally managed to grow some facial hair, a light beard and moustache in his mid-twenties. Sirius has spent the past decade and a half teasing him about managing what the older man did at sixteen well into adulthood.

“Shut your mouth, Potter, I’m not joking,” Sirius flicks his brother’s forehead. James sticks his tongue out, but his mischievous expression melts into something more mature. Thick, callused fingers begin toying with the still-tangled mess of fluffy hair on James’ head, like he always does when they have this kind of conversation.

“Alright,” James prompts, catching Sirius’ free hand to toy with his fingers. Even at forty, he can’t sit still.

“Thanks for being with me through… everything,” Sirius laughs lightly. He never would’ve been able to laugh like this back in Hogwarts. “I really don’t think I would’ve made it if I hadn’t had you. I know I would’ve ended it all if you weren’t there. I also don’t think I would’ve been able to escape, either. So just… thank you for everything,” he professes quietly, smiling softly, well aware that this is an incredibly dark topic to be broaching, but also aware that it’s not an issue with James.

“Oh, Padfoot,” James sits up and turns to face him, throwing his arms around Sirius’ shoulders. “Of course I helped you. I’ll always help you. I love you to death, mate,” he coos into Sirius’ neck. Then, more serious than before: “I’m glad you’re still here, too. You mean so much to me. You’re my brother and my best friend.”

“I’m so glad I had you to convince me to keep living. I would hate to have missed out on this,” Sirius admits quietly. Life is good, better than he ever could’ve hoped for.

He got back into contact with Andromeda and discovered her child and husband at eighteen, through the Order of the Phoenix. At nineteen, a broken protection spell lead to a perfect, wonderful baby, their Teddy. He married Remus at twenty, a joint wedding with James and Lily. Harry, his godson, came along only a few months later. Peter found a girlfriend about a decade ago, a muggle girl he’s decided to take it slow with and proposed to recently. The war ended with a very impressive bit of magic from Lily and Harry. His career as a curse breaker has been successful and exactly what he wanted, as have Remus’ job as a magical elementary school teacher; James becoming a professional chaser; Peter a baker; and Lily a potion maker.

Sirius has gotten to see his friends to all sorts of things, too. Marlene becoming a chaser on the same team as James; Dorcas finding a career as an esteemed healer; Alice and Frank getting jobs as aurors and working their ways up the department; Mary a successful businesswoman specializing in bringing muggle ideas to the Wizarding World; and everybody else he cares for flourishing. There’s been other kids brought into the world from a number of their friends. Sirius has had the privilege of seeing so many of his friends get married, have kids, settle down, build careers, or simply live their lives to the fullest.

Not everything has been perfect— Regulus died during the first war, Harry was far too involved in a prophecy featuring Voldemort, and general life things happened, but it’s been good. Everything worked out, and, hell, it’s worked out better than he could’ve expected.

Soon, Sirius will get to see his kid, his Teddy, get married. They’ve managed to get themselves into a long-term relationship with Cedric Diggory and Cho Chang, two kids a year older than them. It feels surreal. They’re twenty-one now. It’s insane. His baby definitely shouldn’t be getting married yet— except that his baby is older than he was when he got married, so, yeah, it’s alright, but still! They’re already talking about kids, about a family, and, fuck, Sirius is simultaneously completely ready and not ready at all for that.

It should be too good to be true, but it’s not. It’s real, and it’s his.

“I love you, man,” James says into his neck.

“I love you, too,” Sirius murmurs back.

Merlin, Sirius Lupin-Black absolutely adores James Potter-Evans.