The first time James came to class wasted, he fell out of his chair and landed in the hospital wing.

'Somebody must have spiked his pumpkin juice.' This was Sirius' explanation, and James let them believe it because contradiction was such hard work. To tell the truth was not an option- not with a hangover this big, not with a reputation this envied.

The second time, he was more careful. His unsteady footsteps and accidental collapse in the third- floor corridor were passed off as after effects of a 'bad cigarette'. His too-loud laugh and too-quiet answers were put down to the mania that had haunted him since first year, the mania which had always made its appearances without warning and with repercussions- usually in the form of detentions or ended relationships.

After a while, it got easier to hide. There was a balance, James learned, between not-drunk-enough and whoops-didn't-mean-to-get-this-smashed. It took a while, but soon enough he knew exactly how much vodka to pour in his water bottle to keep him going through a typical day, exactly how many gulps of wine he could sneak in the bathrooms between lessons before the ground swung up and smacked him in the face.

James figured there was a point you had to cross before you could be classed as an 'alcoholic'. So far, he hadn't crossed it. Four weeks was a relatively long time to be drunk, sure, but not that long. Not compared to some people- like his grandfather, for instance, who had been living on a diet of Jack Daniels and cigarettes for forty years. There was still time to stop before he reached the danger point.

Lots of time.

He just didn't feel like stopping yet.

Six weeks in and James still didn't feel like putting down the bottle. This was partly down to the fact that it was easier to live in a state of permanent obliviousness and partly because, after six weeks, the hangover was going to be a killer.

The whole thing had been surprisingly easy. In a way, it annoyed him, because how the Hell could anyone not notice how slaughtered he was on a daily basis? On the other hand, it gave him a sense of power. He had a secret, and there's something enchanting about having a secret of your own- especially when it involves self-destruction. Self- destruction has a romantic quality, and James certainly recognised it. The only problem was Sirius.

Sirius knew about James' tendency to lean towards the over- dramatic. Of course he did; he was Sirius, and nobody knew James more than Sirius, not even James himself. Those grey eyes were always watching, narrowing as James tripped over his own feet in the dormitory, glinting as James turned too quickly and ended up on his ass. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't very long before Sirius cornered him about this new habit. He tried to do it subtly, tried to make it clear that he was only doing it because he cared, but the best laid plans go to waste, and all.

"Listen, you fucking idiot," Sirius said, as he held James up to the wall of the fifth floor corridor by his collar, "You're drunk."

James, ears ringing and world spinning, gave up on the idea of denial before it had fully formed in his blurry head. "Yeah," he agreed.

"You've been drunk- Oi! Listen to me, tosser!" Sirius snapped James forwards and back again, cracking his head against the stone. Not hard, just hard enough to focus the hazel eyes a little. "You've been drunk," Sirius continued, "For a month now. Does that sound normal to you? It doesn't sound normal to me. You know what it sounds like to me?"

He waited. James, unsure whether or not the question was rhetorical, avoided Sirius' stony gaze and shuffled his feet. "Um."

"Suicide."

James blinked, looked up, and gave a small smile. "I'm okay." Sirius' gaze was so incredulous, he had to laugh. Somehow, it wasn't manic, or even slightly off- kilter; it was his old laugh, and he wondered vacantly how he could sound this sober after ¾ of a bottle of straight Smirnoff. "No, I mean it. I just... God, I don't know. I'm sorry. I'll stop now. I'm sorry."

He repeated the words several times, pulling up tears and scattering them over the cold floor in puddles of remorse and sorrow that he didn't even feel. Sirius thawed, pulled him close, told him he's a wanker and that it'd be okay. James nodded, stared over Sirius' shoulder, and wondered who he would have to have sex with to get his hands on some E.

The school year ended, not with a bang, but with a pathetic pop of a cork being pulled. James, alone in his bedroom back at home, sat on his windowsill and watched the smoke from his cigarettes float past the bright moon. Under his bent legs, a small baggie held his sins and mistakes, little green happy-pills with stories to tell and nightmares to ward off. James didn't want to let himself think about what he had to do to get them, so he shoved two in his mouth and swallowed them with absinthe.

He was in control.

He could stop, if he wanted to.

He just didn't want to.

James knew that his parents knew. He lay on his bed, hands folded over his shrinking stomach, and imagined the conversations they were having behind their bedroom door.

There's something wrong with him.

It's just a phase.

Not a normal one. This isn't normal, he isn't normal. Have you been in his room? He wont open the curtains. It smells of illness in there, it's smothering, I can't stand to be in there. He won't let me in there.

He's hiding something.

There are pills in his school trunk, I asked them what they were, he said they're painkillers. Took them back, and I can't find them, he won't tell me what he's done with them. He's not eating anymore.

Not sleeping.

Not talking.

What is he hiding?

James wondered if he should feel bad about the stress that he'd caused them. He didn't, and he didn't feel bad that he didn't feel bad. He didn't feel bad about that, either.

A lot of his thoughts ended up like that- strings of endless riddles, unanswered questions, tiny molecules of ideas forming without a start or finish. It's amazing, how one's mind can turn on itself. James found it incredible, at first, the mere idea of a brain basically staging a mutiny and throwing itself into oblivion. Then he found it boring, and then it began to ache- a slow, sad ache, in his gut. Like the ones he used to get when he was a kid, when his mother would tuck him up on the sofa with blankets and hot chocolate and books and soup and crackers and love.

He would lie about illness on a regular basis, because the days where she would sit and sew and he would sit and read and his father would get him anything and everything to make him smile- those were the best days. He would create headaches, stomach aches, back aches. List the symptoms of an illness he had recently read about in a book or a magazine. Gaze up at his parents as they petted his hair and told him, just relax, sweetheart. We'll take care of you. Just lie back here and relax. We love you.

If he wanted to, he could have waltzed into their room, broken off their conversation about him, spread his arms and announced: I'm killing myself.

It would have been just like those days when they loved him, only better, because their panic would have given birth to a whole new level of adoration and sympathy and desperate affection. But the idea of all of that had lost its temptation. James didn't want their attention; he wanted to be alone.

And alone he was. It was working. He should have been smug, content, even proud.

But nobody ever told him that lonliness got- well, lonely. It must have been in the fine print. You can't read fine print when you're running on cheap wine.

Sirius knew, the minute James stumbled into the compartment in September, that he wasn't better. He had suspected, when the letters he had received from James over the summer sported words that didn't even exist. But now he knew, because people didn't push doors open and then fall sideways with them.

Remus was walking to the compartment when Sirius stormed past, pulling a bemused- looking James behind him. He shrugged it off as part of their Madness-Reunited routine, and sat down to wait.

Two carriages down, Sirius shoved James into a small bathroom and came in after him, snapping the door shut and turning to face his friend, who was staring in the mirror with a look so distraught that Sirius was nearly rendered speechless.

Nearly.

"James, what the fuck," he began, struggling to keep his voice down, "Have you done?"

James didn't even twitch.

"You never even stopped, did you? You've been drunk for the whole holidays, and- fuck. James, what's wrong with your eyes?" Sirius leaned in, grabbed James' chin between two fingers, studied his eyes.

"I lost my glasses," James said tonelessly.

Sirius leaned back, his face pale. "James, your pupils are huge."

James looked back in the mirror.

"James," Sirius whispered, the name suddenly sounding foreign. "James, what have you been taking?"

James pulled his elbow back and slammed his fist into the mirror.

Neither of them really remembered the next few minutes. Sirius dimly recalled pushing James onto his knees, wrapping his arms around the way-too-skinny stomach and pulling back until James vomited a waterfall of alcohol and a couple of white pills into the toilet. James had a blurry memory involving a small but painful scuffle that began with him elbowing Sirius in the nose and ended with Sirius holding him as he screamed ¾ of a year's worth of pain and anger and everything bad into Sirius' chest.

It was a half hour later when they returned to the compartment. Remus and Peter looked up as Sirius half-carried James in. Sirius was bleeding, James was shaking, and both of them were red- eyed.

"Are you okay?" Remus said.

"No," Sirius said bluntly. "But we will be." Then, after glancing at James, who had fallen into an available seat. "He's an alcoholic. And he's on drugs. We're going to tell Pomfrey when we get to the school."

Peter's jaw hit the carpet, but Remus just swallowed and nodded. "Okay." Truth be told, he wasn't that surprised. It certainly explained why James had sent him a four-page letter documenting the time they fell into the lake in Second Year.

"No," James mumbled. His eyes, huge and watery, focused- with some difficulty- on Sirius. Sirius gazed back, and then his hard expression softened. He crouched down and put his hands on James' trembling knees, as if he could hold him steady.

He couldn't.

But he could catch him when he fell.

"Yeah, we are," Sirius said quietly. James shook his head, and he ignored it. "This has gone on for long enough. It's going to stop, now, before it gets to the point where you can't stop at all."

"I can't stop," James whispered.

"Yeah, you can," Remus disagreed.

"Yeah," Peter echoed, though he looked unsure.

"Yeah," Sirius nodded. "You can. You just don't want to."

"Now, what on Earth are you doing wandering around when there's a feast big enough to feed even the hungriest of teenage boys in the Great Hall? Not creating a new record concerning the quickest detention gained in a year, are we, Mr Potter? Mr Black?"

Sirius turned, and it was Dumbeldore, blue eyes twinkling from the other end of the Charms corridor.

"I was trying to find Madam Pomfrey, sir," Sirius said.

Perhaps it was Sirius' lack of a witty retort, or perhaps it was the way James was curled up in a ball at Sirius' feet and whimpering, but Dumbeldore's blue eyes stopped twinkling, and he strode over, looking concerned. Before he could speak, Sirius swallowed and said, in an emotionless voice, "I hate to have to cause you any amount of stress so early on in the term, but James is addicted to alcohol. Oh, and he's on drugs. He doesn't sleep... or eat. Hasn't done for almost a year now. I don't know what to do, and I was wondering if you could help because," Sirius looked down at James, and his exterior crumpled. He looked back up at Dumbeldore, his face distraught, hands coming up to fist in his hair. "I think he's going crazy, Sir, and I can't stop him."

And from there on out, everything was a blur.

Dumbeldore carried James to the Hospital Wing in his arms. James didn't protest- he didn't do anything, really, except shake a little bit harder.

Madam Pomfrey arrived five minutes later. "The owl has been sent," she said, and Dumbeldore nodded without taking his eyes off of James, who was lying on a bed, motionless.

Sirius didn't move from the bedside. James parent's arrived, white-faced and shocked, but he barely acknowledged them.

James' lips were blue.

Treatment, hospitalisation, ecstasy, cocaine, under-age sex, inpatient. The words bounced around the room like a ping-pong machine. Sirius didn't take it in, because he was too focused on the unsteady rise and fall of James chest.

Rise. Fall. Rise, rise. Fall. Fall. Rise. Rise. Rise. Fall.

Stop.

"Professor," Sirius croaked, but nobody heard him.

Nothing.

"Professor," Sirius said, louder, standing up. "James isn't breathing."

"I think that's when it hit me, you know? Like, I knew what I was doing, it wasn't right. I knew it was dangerous, and it could kill me. But, like, I never believed it would kill me. And then I was, like, lying there, and I couldn't breathe, I could hear you all, talking about me, and I could feel Sirius next to me. And I couldn't move, and then I couldn't- I couldn't breathe. And you all flipped, and I was like, I don't want to die. I didn't... I never meant for it to go that far. I thought I would be okay." Hazel eyes lower to jean-clad legs. Pale fingers clench and un-clench around the sleeves of a too-big hoodie. "I didn't ever want to die. I thought I did. I didn't. I got scared."

There's silence in the room. James' mother, Dorea, has silent tears running down her face. Harold, her husband, is staring at the tiny boy- his son, his beloved, fucked-up son- curled in the chair next to him. Albus Dumbeldore is leaning his face in one hand in an armchair near the fireplace, and Minerva McGonagall is perched on a similar chair next to him. Sirius is sat with his back resting against James' chair, knees bent, elbows resting on them, arms hanging loosely in front of him as he gazes into the distance.

"I think you needed the wake-up call," Dumbeldore said quietly. "I can't help but wonder what would have happened if you weren't made aware of how much danger you were in."

It's three months later. Christmas isn't Christmas when there's a sixteen-year-old recovering alcoholic/drug addict in the family's living room, no matter how bright the fairy lights on the tree are. They are sitting in the Potter's most homely room, as if plump armchairs and furry carpets make an impact in the tension that comes with these kinds of conversations.

"I think I would have carried on," James says quietly, not raising his eyes from his lap, "Until I died." his eyes flicker down to the top of Sirius' head, face suddenly afraid. Sirius doesn't even flinch; he's long since become accustomed to the idea of his friend dying. It became easier to hide the agony that this caused him after several near-misses in the hospital- James had really done a number on his body; between the alcohol killing his liver, the lack of food killing his stomach and intestines, the lack of sleep killing his brain, and the drugs killing everything else, his heart gave up on him several times.

"I'm sorry," James says suddenly. His eyes are flickering all over the place now- mother, father, McGonagall, Dumbeldore, Sirius- and his face is twisted in misery and guilt. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to do it, I swear. I just- it just- I thought I could stop." James is distraught, enough so that McGonagall has to look away, determined not to cry herself. James' hands come up to flutter around his face, finally resting over his eyes, and he curls in on himself. "I'm so sorry. So sorry."

Sirius turns around and lifts himself to his knees, resting his elbows on the arm of the chair. "Nt as sorry as you're going to be," he says mildly. "Second you're deemed healthy enough to put up a fight, I'm kicking your ass from here to Timbuktu and back. Have no doubt, nobody will have ever felt as bad as you will."

James lets out a half-laugh, half- sob. "But- but I am. I never meant to hurt anybody, I'd never do that intentionally, I never wanted to be a bad person-"

"James," Dorea interrupts, voice firm even as the fresh tears cascade down her cheeks, "You are not a bad person."

"I did bad things, real bad things, I hurt everybody. I didn't want to hurt anybody but-" he breaks off. Then, as if a barrier has fallen and there's a time limit on how long he can talk for, he restarts, words laced with sobs and chokes. "Myself. I wanted to hurt myself, but I never thought it would affect everyone else, I really thought I could just- I don't know, do all of it, the drinking, the drugs, I mean they helped, right? They really made things better, easier to deal with, didn't have to feel all the shitty things I used to feel. I thought I could do it all, then one day I would either stop or, or disappear, and either way nobody else would care, or notice, but they did. And I told you I was okay, and you believed me, and I felt bad about lying to you, Sirius, I really did, I'm not a complete dick, you know, I felt like shit, so I had to- to take more, to make it better, make the guilt go away. And all the time I thought I was going to be able to stop, and then I really just, I actually couldn't. Stop, I mean. I couldn't even figure out how to begin stopping, and then I was like, why should I stop? You were the only one who noticed, who gave a damn enough to try and stop me, and I figured you would forget about it and I could carry on..."

James doesn't stop talking until his voice is hoarse with the secrets that have scratched his throat on their way up. It's an hour and a half later when he falls silent, knees at his chest, gazing, wide- eyed and broken, at his mother, his father. Sirius is leaning in, as if waiting for the moment when James loses it and he has to hold him together again. James doesn't lose it; he's too tired.

"I always told myself I could stop," he finishes. "I just didn't want to. Then I did want to, but I couldn't."

He hesitates, and Dumbeldore is gazing at him, intent. "And now?" he encourages. Dorea shifts, stiffening in apprehension, because if James says he doesn't want to stop she might not ever stop crying. Harold moves with her, places a hand on her shoulder- a shaking hand, but a hand nonetheless- while McGonagall looks from James to Dumbeldore, hands twisting in her lap.

James doesn't reply for a minute, and Sirius' face twists in pain. Then, finally, in a whisper, James forces out the words that he's denied himself for so long:

"I want to stop. And I can stop. So. So, I'm going to stop."