[Title: Remus Knows]
[Author: ArianaJB]
[Music: Once by Caleb Kane]
[Summary: Remus watches Sirius, and he knows why he's been broken, and he knows it has nothing to do with Azkaban.]
The others often talk about how Azkaban's unhinged him. Azkaban makes a man crazy, that's common knowledge, and 12 years of it must have made Sirius Black the broken, unstable man he was today. At least that's the logical explanation, but Remus knows better.
Not because it's uncommon, because it isn't in the least, just the opposite, because it is so common it can't have anything to do with Sirius Black, and that was something he learned back in his Hogwarts days.
Remus knows it's something else that has driven Sirius to insanity, he knows what is it that's has broken the once vibrant Black beyond repair, but he keeps his thoughts mostly to himself because he doesn't want to dreg up old and painful memories.
To be honest Sirius was never all there, for as long as Remus has known him he always been slightly touched in the head, but he's always known that to be a result of growing up the way he did, in Grimmauld place, in the dark prison that was his disturbing childhood, but this is something different.
Remus finds it strange that Sirius has stayed so strong through all the tragedies of his life until that point, he finds it strange that of all the things he's gone through this is what broke him, but then again, when he thought about, it that was the instant when Sirius lost everything he had ever lived for since he was just eleven years old, it was no wonder he had crashed and burned.
Sometimes Remus thinks that the events of that night and days, or months even, leading up to that night have changed him too. He isn't as broken as Sirius, and he doesn't think he ever will be, but Remus knows he's been effected by the loss even more than he's been effected by his transformations, and that scares him.
When he looks back on it, it wasn't even the betrayal of one of their closest friends that did it, it wasn't the shock that came with the realization of what happened, it wasn't the guilt of blaming the wrong brother. Remus knows that all those things hurt, but what hurt the most was the loss of the only man that had ever believed in any of them, of the only one that had kept them sane and hopeful through all of life's tragedies, through Hogwarts days, and fights with Sirius' family, and Remus' transformations, and even Peter, he had done so much for Peter, just the thought of what the man had done still made him sick after all these years.
That's why Remus knows what has Sirius so lost and broken, because he feels it too even though he knows it has never hurt him nearly as much as it still hurts the other man, because Sirius needed him more than anyone else.
Remus knows because he sees the way the Sirius stares at Harry when he's fallen asleep on the couch with his hair covering his scar and his green eyes hidden behind closed lids, and It's almost as if it's 17 years ago all over again. And Remus knows it's losing James that unhinged Sirius, it's losing James Potter that broke him harder than anything else ever could.