Of Love and Guns.
Based on the song 21 Guns by Green Day.
I looked on as Snape went down the shoot leading towards the Shrieking Shack. I was numb to all thought, rational and not. I watched and I saw a figure, it was James I learned later, pull Snape out of the tunnel. I heard a howl echo through the night. I'd messed up I always messed up everything good in my life, everything I care about goes to shit. I ran up to the astronomy tower. I am going to jump, end it all, what have I got to fucking live for anymore. I pull myself over the rails and look into the abyss below.
Do you know what's worth fighting for
When it's not worth dying for?
Does it take your breath away
And you feel yourself suffocating?
I pull myself back. Not today. I think. Maybe he'll forgive me, maybe he'll understand. Maybe he won't hate me. All those thoughts crumble into dust when I get back to the dorm. James's and Peter's curtains are pulled shut. Remus isn't there at all. I fucked up. I go into the bathroom and pull out my wand. I pull up my sleeve. I hadn't cut in years, not since I found my friends and the bond we had. Now all those feelings come rushing back. Tears are streaming down my cheeks falling onto my exposed flesh. It is too easy. To just cast a cutting curse across my arm and watch the bright red rubies drip from the deep welt in my forearm. I feel a strange sense of release. I cut again and again and again. Then I just sit there, blood streaming down my arm and falling onto the white ceramic tiles. I get up, as if controlled by a puppeteer and methodically clean my arm and wrap a clean bandage around it. I wipe up the splatters of blood on the floor and the sink. I look at the pale white face in the mirror and barely recognise it, the black circles underneath the eyes, the high haughty looking cheekbones and the straggly mussed hair. I walk into the room, a small light is shining out through a gap in the curtains beckoning a new day. I can't deal with them hating me… I can't see the hurt in his eyes. The betrayal. The anger. I can't, I just can't. I lie in bed and get up at seven o'clock sharp. If I get to school early I won't have to see them, then it's just lessons and then… then well.
Does the pain weigh out the pride
And you look for a place to hide?
Did someone break your heart inside?
You're in ruins
I walk down to breakfast and eat. I don't have much of an appetite. I pick at a piece of soggy toast. Half an hour must have passed and I see the others come into the hall. They look at me hard and purposefully walk to the other end of the table. I bite back a sob and walk off, lessons start in half an hour. I go to the lake and look at the silky black water. I see my brother and his cronies come towards me. I see more than hear the insults pushed my way. They're laughing now. I see the shoe connect with my stomach and feel the hard punch as the air is knocked out of me. It doesn't last long. The pain remains for ages though. I check my watch it's almost lesson time. The walk up to the castle seems to take years. Lily Evans is by the stair case. She looks up at me and her face turns into one of horror. She grabs my arm and takes me to the hospital wing.
"Sirius, who did this to you?" she asks
"I fell out of a tree"
"No, you wouldn't have been so beaten up. Come on Sirius who did this?" she asks.
"I told you, I fell" I say.
"Fine be that way. I was just trying to help" she says, looking hurt.
"I don't need your help!" I snap.
She lets go of my arm and pulls back abruptly. She turns and walks off. I almost call out and say I'm sorry, but I don't. I don't do anything, just stand there, looking after her. I see Remus come out the hospital wing, I look at him and he looks at me. Obviously he sees the bruises but he just shakes his head and walks away. He hurt because of me. He's sad because of me. I almost got him expelled, and school means so much to him.
"Remus! Remus, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't want to get you expelled. I didn't think! I was stupid. Please forgive me. If you don't want to see me anymore then don't but please find it in your heart to forgive me." I plead, close to tears. Closer than at breakfast, closer than I was last night.
"No, no Sirius. I don't forgive you. Give me time and I might. Please just leave me alone" he says and turns his back and walks off.
I slide down the wall, ignoring the protests of my bruises and the ribs that are almost certainly broken. Somehow I get to the hospital wing. I wake the next day to the kindly face of Madame Pomfrey.
One, 21 guns
Lay down your arms
Give up the fight
One, 21 guns
Throw up your arms into the sky,
You and I
When you're at the end of the road
And you lost all sense of control
And your thoughts have taken their toll
When your mind breaks the spirit of your soul
It has been two months since I last spoke to my friends. I think I'm going mad. The cutting is even worse. Nearly every night you can find me in the bathroom with small puddles of blood around me. Then I just get up, like nothing has happened and my friends are talking to me and I didn't fuck up. I did, I know I did though. They don't speak to me; they don't even look at me. They act like I don't exist; I would prefer to be beaten up and yelled at rather than this blank wall of contempt. I can't take it. Regulus and his followers beat me up a lot, James was the only one who would stop them. It doesn't mean I'm weak but I am stronger when I am with friends, and now I have none; now I have no one.
It's late and I should have gone back to the dorm hours ago. This is the second full moon that I have missed. I vowed when we found out to never leave him, and now I have. The black lake is there in front of me. I get to the shore and I don't stop. It is definitely below freezing out here, it is January in Scotland after all. I don't stop walking until my shoulders are submerged. The numbing cold seeps through me into my very bones. It makes me feel alive, like I could do anything. It makes me feel for the first time in two months. It makes me feel human again. I slowly turn towards the shore and make my way out of the lake. I should turn and go back to the castle, get warm and dry. I know that I have a very good chance of dying if I stay outside. Maybe it's better like this,feeling human as I die. I lost everything the moment I told Snape to go down that hole. So instead of listening to the shivering cold in my body I walk to the quidditch pitch. I lie on the slightly damp grass, staring up in to the beyond. I lie there for what seems like no time at all. The moon tells me that I'm right. It was eleven o'clock when I left the school. I know I should get in but everything is going fuzzy, I can't feel my hands or feet or nose. I can't feel anything. I see the world rocking from side to side. There's someone pale white face, someone with brown hair and gold eyes.
"Sirius! Sirius, no stay with me you bastard. I don't want to see those eyes close! Don't you dare die on me" says the Someone.
I feel warmth blast my face. I see light and hear footsteps on a stone floor. I feel the warmth of a blanket and hear muffled sounds of shock. I hear the Someone crying out my name. I see a screen being pulled across my view and know no more.
"I didn't want this to happen. I never meant for this to happen. If I hadn't been so stupid to overlook him, it must have been Regulus. If I hadn't blanked him-" it's only know when I realise that the voice I've been hearing and the Someone I was seeing was Remus.
"He deserved it. Not the almost dying part, don't be stupid he's my best mate but, what he did was awful. He's more than paid for it though" that was James speaking. I didn't know Jamie could ever be so serious.
"James, I didn't know you could be that serious" that must be Peter.
"He can't, I'm Sirius" I say sitting up.
"You prat" says James "You almost die and now all you can do is that stupid joke… pathetic" he's smiling now though, there's a note of fondness in his voice.
Remus looks at me "James could you give us a minute, please?" he says.
"Sure, see you in a bit, Pads" he smiles knowingly.
"You weren't joking… when you sent Snape after me… it wasn't a joke, was it?" he says.
"No, no it wasn't" I say back.
He takes a big breath. "I forgive you"
"What?"
"You heard me, you great big buffoon. I forgive you" he looks me in the eyes "Don't you ever do that to me again. What were you thinking?"
"I wasn't"
He looks at me, properly now. His eyes scanning me whole body, up and down. They focus on my forearms, where the bandages still linger on them.
"Sirius… oh god… you weren't… you couldn't have been… no…no, I don't believe it. You wouldn't? How? When? Why?" he says tears are streaming down his cheeks.
"I- I don't know what I was trying to do. I needed to feel something. I needed to feel alive." I say.
"Sirius."
And that's all I need, for him to say my name; to look at me, without hate, without anger or betrayal. I wanted Remus Lupin to look at me with love. I feel alive. I feel human. I feel like I can do anything, but in that moment I don't want to do anything but kiss the perfect boy sitting cross-legged on the bed in front of me. I don't, I don't want to ruin what is just begun. I can and will wait till I am healed enough, whole enough for him.
Your faith walks on broken glass
And the hangover doesn't pass
Nothing's ever built to last
You're in ruins
One, 21 guns
Lay down your arms
Give up the fight
One, 21 guns
Throw up your arms into the sky,
You and I
Did you try to live on your own
When you burned down the house and home?
Did you stand too close to the fire
like a liar looking for forgiveness from a stone?
Days and weeks pass, I feel good. We smile and pull pranks. It is like nothing ever happened that day, or the events after it. Life is good. My and Remus's relationship has changed we steal glances and, sometimes, when no one is looking; kiss in deserted corridors or in the library when studying gets too boring, otherwise though we are back to how it used to be… just about, I still don't feel right or- or whole but that's just how things go isn't it? Remus says that I went through something so big that it will take a while to heal fully. Maybe it never really will. I don't know. The war is becoming worse, it gets more noticeable each day, the disappearances, the deaths; nothing is ever going to be the same. I will meet it with all the power that I have. I will protect all of them, all my friends. I think I would go mad if something bad happens to any of them, even Peter who I don't really trust. I would die rather than betray my friends.
When it's time to live and let die
And you can't get another try
Something inside this heart has died
You're in ruins
One day in early May, when the buds were just about showing on the trees in the courtyard, I was walking to charms class when I passed Regulus and his cronies. Instead of beating me up as they usually would, he just smirked at me and told his friends to go on ahead.
"What do you want Regulus?"
"Just to say, watch your step. He's watching you, following you… and your boyfriend." He looked almost normal, not smirking or glowering.
"Right, I will. Regulus, stay safe" I say back.
"Sirius I-" but before he can say anything at all one of his moronic 'friends' is calling for him to 'stop talking to the fucking faggot and get his arse down here'
I roll my eyes and give him a small smile and a nod. "Go. Stay safe little brother"
"You too" he whispers back. In those few moments I see the little boy who used to hide under my bed when father was shouting at me, the eight year old who fell off the swing and grazed his knee making me carry him all the way home. Most of all I see the bitterness I thought he used to hold against me disappear in a haze of… what can only be described of as love, something I am very sure that Regulus hasn't felt for me since he was eight years old. It confirms in my thoughts that he is going to do something very stupid and, quite possibly, get himself killed. Once I used to think of my brother as a villain I can now only think of him as a victim. I used to hate him but now I think I might be only able to feel a small sense of love again.
One, 21 guns
Lay down your arms
Give up the fight
One, 21 guns
Throw up your arms into the sky
I'm glad I made up with Regulus. I am also very glad that I kissed Remus. I am also glad that James is still trying to get Lily Evans to go out with him (his attempts are very comical). I am glad that everything is almost back to the way it was.
One, 21 guns
Lay down your arms
Give up the fight
One, 21 guns
Throw up your arms into the sky…
You and I
Fin.
A/N this story is dedicated to Jenn who helped me get back into the real world.
Thank you 3
I own none of this except from some of the plot- the song belongs to Green Day and the characters to Jo
Reviews are love and cookies. I will also be giving out topless Sirius's to whosoever reviews.
DFTBA
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