Broken men.
Soft footsteps echoed through the empty hallway as Remus lupin walked towards the currently haunted looking mansion's living room. He paused at the doorway for a moment to take in the scene of the broken man before him. Sirius's thin form was hunched in on himself, his head bowed and thin arms snaked around his skeletal torso. The man did not seem to have heard Remus's entry neither did he notice as Remus moved in and tentatively hovered a few steps away from him, not knowing what to do. 14 years had annihilated all formality and to bridge the distance was an art long forgotten.
"Padfoot" Remus called softly, taking another hesitant step forward. Instantly Sirius straightened and pushed himself against the back of the couch before turning away from his fellow marauder.
"Dead" he replied, his flat hard tones made Remus flinch. He swallowed hard and waited, watching as Sirius sighed before standing up and facing his former best friend with emotionless grey eyes. "What can I do for you lupin?" he asked with no inflection.
"Sirius please….." Remus began, his tone pleading as he looked at the other man who stared emptily back at him. Time stretched and broke and finally Sirius raised an eyebrow.
"The headmaster thought it was a good idea if I stayed with you, you know it would give you some company and I….." Remus managed to stutter out before his voice gave away and his words trailed off. Sirius held his gaze a moment longer before shrugging and sinking back into the couch. A few heart beats later Remus moved to sit on the single arm chair across from the black heir who took absolutely no notice of him. It wasn't like he was trying to ignore him; it seemed more like he wasn't there and that pained the werewolf.
Somewhere from the floors above, a clock chimed, declaring an hour to have passed but Sirius still did not bother to acknowledge the man before him. Remus felt anguish, despair and guilt well up within him along with raw searing pain and he decided to beg Sirius one way or the other.
"Sirius?" he asked tentatively and was unsurprised by the lifeless grey eyes that looked at him as he poured out the best of his emotion in a silent plea to the other man, begging him to understand what words failed to express. There was no response though, not even a flicker and Remus gave up.
"Sirius I'm sorry" he started, not knowing what else to say as the grey eyes watched him.
"please Sirius, I'm sorry, I know that doesn't change what happened, I know it cant make it up to everything that went wrong but we can't fall apart now…..we're all there is left….Sirius please?" Remus choked but the grey eyes remained effectively blank. "Its not like I had it any easier either, Sirius please?" he tried again in vain.
Moments passed by before remus's pained eyes hardened and when he spoke again, his voice had a dangerous sort of calmness to it.
"I was away on an order mission and returned to find James, lily and for all I knew then, peter dead and you were in Azkaban. The last time I knew you were the secret keeper and not even for a moment did I imagine you would use peter…what do you expect me to think? I didn't have it any easier and I would appreciate it if you tried to understand that" he ended his monologue with a heavy sigh and looked at Sirius's still expressionless face. A couple of deep breaths later, his temper finally lashed out and Remus stood up, his body quivering with silent rage as he glared at the once handsome man before him. Sirius for his credit did not react even after managing to rouse the generally soft tempered man but merely shifted his gaze to meet the fury in the brown eyes.
"I stopped trusting you only over James's, lily's and 12 other corpses even though I had enough reason to stop trusting you before….but you, you didn't even trust me enough to tell me that you switched, you doubted me before with absolutely no reason. How do you justify that?" he asked his voice shaking with the effort to not yell. Suddenly the silence in the room died, replaced by echoes of mirthless laughter that rang high and cold. The rage faded from Remus, his hair standing up at the back of his neck. Sirius stood up, easily towering over Remus's form.
"You are awfully self righteous, werewolf!" he spat, his tones harsh and degrading. Remus flinched away instinctively and stepped away from the man before him. He was used to the degradation and insults from the others but to hear the words from Sirius sent the knife true and straight into his heart.
"As you yourself just said, you were away when the switch occurred and we all knew you were due to return the next day and thought it pointless to write to you when we could explain it our self the following morning" Sirius said, sounding distressingly like his father, "I apologize though" he continued, his voice more of a lazy drawl as he sneered "I didn't quite expect peter to handover the potters the same night or Voldemort to act immediately, if I had I certainly would have written to you".
Remus's mouth fell open and he felt his lungs constrict painfully as the words hit him in the gut like a well aimed punch. The little color drained away from his face and words refused to form. When he could manage, he whispered brokenly "you only switched that day?" Sirius's glare was scathing and icy, making Remus gulp. Tears formed on their own accord and began to streak down his face. The black heir watched for a moment before continuing mercilessly "and as for your reason to not trust me, well I can only imagine the cheap mentality of werewolves but even for a filthy half breed I think its pretty low for you to hold on to the one reason that I gave you to mistrust me while forgetting the million reasons why you could trust me, after all I trusted you even when you were a monster!" Sirius spat the last word out as he finished his haughty speech. Smirking at the pain evident on his former best friends face, his mother would have been proud of him then had she heard him ruthlessly tear the other man down to shreds.
Remus fell to his knees, the truth in Sirius's words stabbed at him like a million knives. Excruciating pain coursed through him, somehow turning physical in their raw agony. How many moons had Sirius spent with him? Trusting the monster even when the human in him ceased to exist. How many times had Remus's claws torn through his friend, his fangs sunk into the black dog? He had taken it all without a single complain and had still returned dutifully the next month. He could have died a dozen times, the monster was brutal enough to have killed him and yet there had been a silent trust, something that made him bet his life on it. Damn it! Remus clutched wildly at his hair, if only he had visited Sirius once…..one trip to Azkaban and things would have been so different. Sirius had come to the shack a hundred times and he had failed to return the favor even once. Some part of his mind registered sirius walking out of the room, leaving him alone in this misery but he could not even find it in him to cry out and thus resorted to curling up right there on the cold floor.
Eleven days had passed since the two marauders had spoken and as the full moon rose, a wolf howled into the night from the basement it was locked up in and began to scratch itself in agony when a large black dog leapt on it, effectively preventing it from hurting itself further. The two animals fought, the dog being thrown into the hard wall and then having sharp claws tear through its thick fur. It snarled, baring its fangs and they launched at each other over and over in the small confined area until the night finally ended.
Remus returned to himself, his body hurt and shaking as he turned to watch the bleeding animal before him slowly morph into the dark haired man. His body had been much too weak to handle the wolf and Sirius couldn't stand. His leg was broken and probably a rib too, a deep gash on his arm bled profusely and more vivid red marks made themselves known as the blood oozed out. Remus staggered to his feet and moved to reach out to Sirius.
"Padfoot" he muttered as he crouched over the other man sprawled on the ground, with his teeth clenched and eyes shut tightly and tried to stop the blood when the man opened his eyes, pure hatred emanating from him "don't touch me werewolf" he ground out and Remus stopped dead.
"I don't understand…you came" he said, his eyes clearly depicting the confusion he felt as he watched Sirius try to move away. Familiar grey eyes stared icily at him but the exhaustion in them marred his efforts. Remus sighed. "At least let me help you up, please?" he asked softly. Sirius hissed under his breath before yanking his broken body away from Remus who made no move as he continued to watch the other man try to expel enough energy to heal some of the cuts.
The sun was pretty high up in the sky when Sirius managed to get on his feet and stumble towards the steps, Remus still watching him helplessly. Once at the door, Sirius panted for a moment and tugged it open, before pausing for one short minute. "you broke my trust, the monster did nothing and I won't abandon it until it does" he said quietly, before stumbling out of sight. Remus's eyes closed as he understood the words for what they were, a promise. A promise to return till his dying day, for that was exactly what awaited him if the monster were to ever break that trust, death.
One put his head between his knees and stayed at that way while the other sunk to the floor, his back to the door. Both men broken beyond repair…..
A.N : so did you like it? i would truly appreciate a review and would be grateful if anyone pointed out any errors, seeing that this has not been edited. gracias!