Hungers gnawing

Abhorrent

Grabbing my soul

And keeps on pouring

Sirius stared out at the dark windows. He was leant against the pane, his hand pressed against the frosty glass.

James, Remus and Peter, or rather, Potter, Lupin and Pettigrew, as he had now take to mentally referring to them, were all snoring.

He needed to dehumanise the three people who had disowned him or else the pain became unbearable.

His stomach was growling, and he frowned, pressing his other hand to it.

When was the last time he had eaten?

Yesterday.

No the day before that.

No, the day before THAT.

Five days ago, at breakfast.

He could feel the hunger pains, but they didn't really take his notice.

Food was for the good people, and bad people like him didn't deserve the food that kept their traitorous souls alive.

Sirius knew his point of view was rather childish, but simplifying everything to the basics was his new coping mechanism.

Good people like James ate food. He was bad. Therefore, he didn't deserve to eat.

Simple.

The hunger felt like it was eating through his very soul. It wasn't like Sirius wasn't used to hunger. He felt it enough at home. But the fresh taste of his betrayal was still burning through his soul like acid, and even if Sirius decided to eat, he doubted the food would even pass, because he was full of holes. It felt like acid was dripping down the very throat that had betrayed one of his best friends, it kept on pouring down, like the rain currently hammering onto the window.

Walking, talking

Thoughts are stalking

With a blade so close

Just keep on walking

He thought back to earlier that day. Two weeks had passed since the worst day of Sirius' life, and none of his ex-best friends had said a nice word to him since. He woke up alone, sat in class alone, skipped meals alone, and did his homework alone. But every time he walked down the courtyard, he felt them behind him. Jam-Potter, Lupin and Pettigrew. Walking metres behind him. Whenever Sirius was near, their easy chatter would die down, and they would mutter things to each other in a dark tone of voice. Sirius could feel their eyes though. Burning holes in between his shoulder blades and right through his soul. Even when they weren't there, Sirius still felt it. His throughs manifesting in the shape of the three people he had never loved more, stalking him, following him everywhere he went. He couldn't physically see the thoughts, of course. It was more of the feeling of hatred that had recently began to emanate from the group of three, once four.

Sirius had taken to keeping a razor blade in his pocket. Yes, a Muggle razor blade. Sirius didn't really understand it's purpose, but he knew enough to figure out if the blades were removed, he could hurt himself with them.

Sirius had been cutting for years, and his friends sort of knew. They figured he stopped once he had started smiling and being happy in second year, and he got sleeves that fit him properly so they weren't always catching glances of his arms. Last time they had seen, the thick lines littering Sirius' forearms had pretty much disappeared.

Concealment charms were really Sirius' best friend in moments like those.

So whenever the three of them walked past, and gave him THE LOOK, he would reach into his pocket and just hold the blade, until he could find a spare bathroom and pull up a sleeve to relieve his pain.

He never once stopped to make eye contact with them, though. He always just kept walking.

Call me names

And fuck my pain

I'd rather jump under a train

The thing that had stung most, though, was the incident in Transfiguration three days ago.

Sirius had walked in a few minutes late. Professor McGonnogal wasn't there yet, so he hadn't been marked down. He had stumbled into the classroom and sat right at the back, as far away from the Marauders as he could get. And when a confused classmate had wondered aloud why Sirius was walking funny, James had loudly remarked "the little fag was probably getting shagged by lads all night. Dunno who'd want the fat bastard though."

Re-Lupin and James had both turned round to gauge Sirius' reaction to this comment. Sirius knew that James hadn't really meant it, but being bi was one of Sirius' most sensitive spots. James had only said it because he could feel himself forgiving Sirius a little, and he hated it, because he hadn't wanted to forgive him just yet. So he said that in hope of getting a rise out of Sirius, so they could blame him for something else.

But Sirius had only shrunk back into his seat, closing his eyes in shock, and under the desk, running two fingers over the seven extremely deep ridges engraved into his leg, bleeding through the bandages because Sirius didn't have the energy to magically stop the flow.

He didn't see the little flash of guilt across James' wide brown eyes, nor the lecture Lupin gave him after the lesson.

All Sirius knew was that nobody really wanted him now. Not his Mother, his Father, his brother, and now his best friends. Ex best friends.

Sirius could feel something dark starting to invade his soul, telling him there was no point in living. He didnt want to end it yet, because he still deserved to suffer for what he had done to Lupin. So Sirius tried something he only did at home. He thought of the Hogwarts Express.

When things were really bad at home, Sirius would think of the train with it's red smoke. To him, it signified the return to hs real home, with his real family. Things were hardly ever bad at school, so this was a first for Sirius.

But as he envisioned the train, he saw himself still on the platform as it began to set off. He somehow heard Jam-POTTER's voice, and Lupin's mocking voices echoing round the station as Sirius closed his eyes and threw himself in front of the accelerating train.

"Black!"

Sirius' eyes snapped open.

He got detention for his trouble.

Sweet peace serenity

I'd give anything

To close my eyes

And forget this obscenity

After the betrayal, Sirius only felt at peace four times. The three times he passed out from blood loss, and the one time he passed out in front of the Hospital Wing, more drunk than he'd ever been, and almost died from alcohol poisoning.

It was like dying, but without the commitment.

With his cuts, he was always roused from unconsciousness by the spell he'd put on the skin. After almost decapitating his hands, he'd lie in the bathroom at night, and after a certain amount of time, the spell would knit the skin on Sirius' wrists together, stopping the bleeding and waking him up half an hour later. The only downside of this spell was the scars it left.

Most nights he was drunk, but the night he quite literally almost died was the night of the Transfiguration incident. Sirius had been collecting Firewhiskey, and after the incident, he just wanted to drink into oblivion. He had drank a bottle, and barely got a cloud, so he drank another, and then another, and then another. At which point his liver just gave. It gave up, and send a warning agony from his abdomen spearing out everywhere. The tiny part of Sirius' rational brain told him to get to the Hospital wing, and now. And after an hour, he finally got there, his last adrenaline rush died, and he passed out in front of the building.

Poppy had freaked. She'd managed to save his liver with a series of spells, and he woke up the next day feeling like he'd been hit everywhere with tons of bricks. He'd spent at least three hours reassuring the distraught woman that he was fine, yes he was okay, no it wasn't intentional, he must have just drank a bottle with triple the usual alcohol content.

He hated lying to the woman, but he had become an expert at it.

And after his experiences, he felt at peace. Until he saw them again.

All he wanted was to end it.

But he knew that he couldn't, because he really did deserve to endure all this pain, for the amount Lupin had gone through after Sirius' betrayal.

Smoking cigarettes

With these scars on my chest

(I can't forget you

All that we went through

I took my knife

And drove it right through)

All the things that killed him were the only things that make him feel alive.

As he leant against that cold, wet window, he took his hand away from his stomach and lit a cigarette. The warmth of the lit embers were the only things that kept him warm. The only comfort he allowed himself, and if he forgot about Remus, no Lupin, for even a minute whilst enjoying the heat he deprived himself from, he would press the warmth through the black shirts adorning his thin frame, until the skin melted and he felt like screaming in agony.

The burns and scars from this punishment mechanism were all over his chest. He Concealed them when getting changed in front of the Marauders, along with the scars on his wrists. They didn't look at him anyway. They didn't notice that Sirius was constantly shivering, either, or that this was his own doing. He took cold showers, he only drank whiskey and pumpkin juice full of ice, and he wore the bare minimum of clothes. He went for long walks when it rained or snowed, and didn't sleep with covers on anymore. And with all this time alone, he just kept going over and over what had happened with Lupin, to torture himself. He vowed never to forget, after last time.

He had been doing his homework, five days ago, after breakfast. For two and a half hours, he was completely engrossed in the essay, and he completely forgot about it all.

Realising what he'd done again, Sirius had never hated himself more. So he had calmly risen, threw the finished essay that had make him forget into the fire, walked upstairs, taken out his Potions knife, and drove it through the offending palm.

With the days on my mind

And the way I felt inside

(Did I do the right thing

Stuck on my silence

Turned to my knife

And snuck up behind you)

Things were so easy before. He had taken the five years that had passed for granted, the friends he had make who had quickly become family. He kept thinking over every day they had spent together, and the intense love he had felt for the three people who meant everything to him. After they had disowned him, he hadn't fought. He knew he deserved the punishment, so he hadn't said anything. At all, to be exact. He didn't speak anymore, the only use of his voice was to answer the register the teachers insisted on. Even then, he was barely heard from the hoarseness built up on his voice due to him not using it. But thinking back, Sirius knew his silence on the matter could be a clear sign that he didn't care. Of course, it was the exact opposite. But after desperately trying to explain to James, and then Remus, POTTER AND LUPIN, all he had received was a very angry, violent James. Sirius had never seen James so angry as he had at that moment, and he just stood there as the first blow hit. All the way through the beating, he just kept thinking of Lupin's face when he discovered it was Sirius who had betrayed him. The disbelief, shock, and then pain. Compared to the way that had torn a chunk of him away, this was nothing.

James had dislocated Sirius' shoulder, broken two of his fingers and broken Sirius' nose before he finished by grabbing the boy by his hair and slamming it into the bedpost. Sirius' cry at this seemed to sate his anger, because he just sneered at Sirius in disgust, spat on him, and then stalked out of the dormitary.

Sirius would have allowed the wounds to get infected if it wasn't for Evans.

He had skulked down to the common room at midnight, when he was sure it would be vacant, with a bottle of Firewhiskey. Evans had been there, gasped in shock, and grabbed his sore shoulder when he tried to walk away from the redhead. She fixed his nose and fingers with the same spell, and physically jammed his shoulder back into the socket before using another spell to eradicate the pain. All through this, Sirius sat numbly, not saying a word, just taking the occasional swig from his bottle.

"You shouldn't drink." she whispered sternly, taking his bottle.

He let her take it, his arm falling to his side.

After she had wiped the blood from his face, he had gotten up, nodded at her in graditude, and just walked upstairs, collapsing onto his bed.

That was the last time anybody touched him up to this point.

Because now that I'm so lost

(I'm stuck in the dark

My home is my heart

I'm hating the friends

That kept us apart

Sirius was pretty sure Lupin would have forgiven him by now, if it weren't for Potter's residual anger and Pettigrew's preference of Potter. Three days ago, the other boy had waited for Sirius to come down the dormitory stairs, a considerably softer look on his face. Sirius had seen it, and taken a few unsure steps towards Lupin.

Potter and Pettigrew, however, had burst in at that moment, and seeing what was about to happen, grabbed both Lupin's arms and marched him away, muttering darkly in his ears.

The next time Sirius saw Lupin, the other boy had stared blankly through Sirius, like he wasn't even there.

That had pushed Sirius right over the edge. Hogwarts no longer felt like home, it was a dark, unwelcoming place for Sirius, so he had started to silently push it away.

He stopped doing any class or homework at all. He drank before class, after class, and cut every single night, sobbing quietly into the darkness. He started smoking a packet of cigarettes every day, leaning out of the window so the smell wouldn't make the Marauders hate him even more, and even sometimes just stopped going to class completely. In his ventures to the Muggle town, he met a shifty guy who had offered him something that looked very much like tobacco dipped in some sort of green. It smelt like high heaven though. Sirius figured it was some kind of new, stronger nicotine, so he had bought some papers and rolled himself a cigarette. He was slightly annoyed at the small amount he had gotten for £20, but after the roll-up burned down pretty past and Sirius had only gotten two drags from it, he understood why it was only sold in pinches.

Because after all, marijuana is very different from tobacco.

So he spent the great majority of his time high on the drug, but still somehow resisting the urge to eat which seemed to intensify when he smoked the green tobacco.

And my walls, of ice

Are crumbling down

They're freezing my heart

I can't hear a sound.

The blank expression he constantly wore behind his eyes had melted completely. Sirius permanently felt on the verge of a mental breakdown, especially when he smoked too much green tobacco, and he had once spent an hour lingering over Lupin's bed at four in the morning, desperately trying to say something to the sleeping boy but finding no sound coming from his lips, only hoarse, scratchy half-sobs that weren't even loud enough to wake the incredibly light-sleeping Lupin. His eyes reflected every emotion, but it was like he couldn't feel emotion anymore. The pain from his heart was replaced by a terrifying numbness. In class, when he was sat at the back with his skinny knees hunched to his chest, he stared blankly at his parchment while his other classmates chattered away. He didn't hear them, though. Everything above the numbness was just white noise to him, and Sirius could feel his mind fading.

They're crushing my ears

They're crushing my lips

They're crushing the fire

That kept me inspired

It's burning my hair

It's burning my soul

And I'm still stuck

Inside this hole)

His musical outlet was gone. Sirius hadn't touched a lyric sheet or a string of his beloved guitar ever since that night. He just couldn't find the inspiration anymore, to write, to sing, to move. He spent hours just staring up at his bed, though it had been three days since he had last slept. His hands shook too much to write anyway, and even if he could, Sirius doubted he would, because the bottled up angst was killing him inside and that was perfect for Sirius. Still living, still hurting and still unforgiven, but dead inside.

Sirius sat in front of the rainy window, a thin, shaky palm pressed against the glass, tear tracks glistening on his cheeks as he dropped the burned out cigarette.