Chapter Summary: James tries to decide whether it's worth trying to repair his relationship with Sirius.
At the start of their second year, James Potter and Sirius Black had claimed the very last compartment on the Hogwarts Express as their own. Since then, they had defended their territory fiercely—usually by pelting anyone who dared sit there with stink pellets and dungbombs. By the end of third year, the Hogwarts student body seemed to have collectively agreed that it was more trouble than it was worth to try and take the compartment back.
James found Sirius already sitting there as the train pulled away from Hogsmeade Station. Sirius had his bruised face pressed against the window and looked like he wanted nothing more than to sink into the wall. When he saw James standing in the doorway, his expression shifted. Now he looked like he wanted to throw himself out the window once the train picked up speed.
Several seconds passed as the two friends stared at each other. Sirius broke first, his head dropping forward, shoulders slumping. "I'll leave," he said quietly. There was a part of James that wanted to step out of the compartment doorway and let Sirius go. Never in his life had James been as angry with anyone as he was with Sirius right now.
However, some instinct warned James that if he let Sirius leave now, he would lose his best friend for good. Despite what he'd told Frank the night before, James was not ready to be done with Sirius quite yet. Sirius had already hauled his trunk down from a luggage rack and moved toward the door, but James stood firmly in his way.
"Sit down," James ordered. Sirius eyed him suspiciously, but obeyed, shoving his trunk back and retreating to his corner by the window again. He watched as James stepped inside. Peter followed a step behind James, chewing his lower lip anxiously as his eyes darted between James and Sirius. Poor Peter, James thought as he shoved his trunk into place. Peter had been the least affected by Sirius's idiocy, but the shorter boy never knew what to do when his friends were fighting. He'd been clinging to James all morning, barely giving him enough privacy to use the loo, just looking for guidance, for stability.
James chose a seat on the cushioned bench across from Sirius, halfway between the window and the door. Peter sat on the same bench as Sirius, but at the opposite end. It gave him a good view of both James and Sirius as he watched and waited to see what happened next.
Sirius had turned back to the window. His knees were drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around them. The almost fetal position was so unlike him, or rather, it was unlike the image Sirius allowed himself to present in public. Normally, Sirius never so much sat as he lounged, relaxed and carelessly elegant. It was only ever in the privacy of their dorm room, usually with the curtains drawn around one of their beds and silencing spells in place that James had ever seen Sirius physically draw into himself so much.
An hour passed in utter silence. Remus never showed up at their compartment, but James honestly hadn't expected him to. Peter fidgeted, bit his fingernails, and ate his way through half a dozen stale cauldron cakes he found in his trunk. James tried to play with his stolen Snitch, releasing it and catching it, but his reflexes were off and he grabbed the golden ball so roughly he bent one of its wings badly enough it could only list crookedly to the right afterward. He put the Snitch back in his pocket and sighed. The quiet and the tension were getting to him. James was loud and active by nature. He wanted to be moving, doing something. He wanted to be talking and laughing or playing games with his friends.
Sirius had spent the entire silent hour staring blankly out the window. What little James could see of Sirius's face was badly swollen motley of black and blue. James had done that. It seemed almost surreal. Sirius had deserved it though.
With that thought anger bubbled up in James's chest again.
"What the fuck were you thinking, Padfoot?" James blurted out, unable to keep the question in. He hadn't been ready to listen when Sirius had tried to talk to him yesterday, but now he needed to hear it all, so he could know if this was something he could forgive or not.
Sirius didn't look at him, just kept staring out the window as they passed along the side of a deep black loch. "At the time, I wasn't really thinking at all," Sirius said quietly. "I knew it was a mistake two seconds after I'd told him, but it was too late by then."
James sighed. "OK, let's start from the beginning then."
"Why bother?" Sirius scoffed. It lacked any real scorn though. "What's left to say?"
Irritation spiked through James, and he slammed a fist down into the bench he was sitting on. It was thickly padded, but sent needles of sharp pain up through knuckles James had already bruised against Sirius's face. In his corner, Peter cringed and began to gnaw on a thumbnail.
"Damn it, Sirius!" James shouted. "I love you like a brother, and I am trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here and believe that you didn't do something so stupid and so cruel on purpose! If that's not a good enough reason then try this: you almost got me killed too, so I think you owe me an explanation."
Sirius didn't even blink at James's outburst, he just continued to stare out the window. For almost a minute they sat in taut silence. Just when James was convinced Sirius would never speak, he sucked in a long, breath and began. "Right after our Transfiguration O.W.L., I went to meet someone…"
He trailed off, but finally turned away from the window. The look he gave James was pointed. It took him a second to make the connection between Sirius's words and what he wasn't saying. He'd gone to meet someone. When he saw the understanding in James's expression, Sirius turned back to the window and James glanced over at Peter, whose brow was creased with confusion. Aside from the boys he occasionally met with in broom closets and hidden corridors, James was the only one who knew Sirius was gay, and he wasn't about to come out to Peter right now.
"Hey, Pete? Could you do me a favor?" James asked. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a few Galleons. He tossed them to the anxious, towheaded boy. "I don't want to wait for the trolley to get all the way back here. Could you go buy us all some snacks?"
It was a sign of exactly how tense things were that Peter, who hated to be left out of anything, nodded and beat a hasty retreat out of the compartment. When the door had closed behind Peter, Sirius took another deep breath and continued. "Neither of us remembered to lock the damn door and…someone came in…"
"Snape?" James's eyes went wide, but Sirius shook his head.
"Regulus."
That was almost as bad, if not worse. Most of the wizarding community, including James's family, didn't hold strong prejudices against homosexuality, but old Pureblood families like Sirius's tended to be the exception. There was a deep obsession with breeding and bloodlines in their circles that didn't allow for men or women who were attracted to their own sex. Sirius didn't like to talk about it, but from what little he'd said, James knew the Blacks would react badly if they learned their oldest son had no desire or intention to ever marry a good Pureblood girl and give them slightly inbred grandchildren.
"I think I convinced Reg it was part of a prank, or at least convinced him not to tell our parents anything," Sirius said. Now that he'd started speaking the words seemed to come in a flood. "I was really freaked out though. My hands wouldn't stop shaking, I could hardly breathe. I dropped my wand, and when I went to get it, fucking Snivellus was standing on it!"
Sirius closed his eyes and pulled his hands through his hair, a habitual sign of anxiety or stress. James could see where this story was going.
"He kept saying things…things that made me think he knew, that he might tell. I couldn't think straight, James! I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, and he was asking about where we all went when we snuck out of the castle and…and I just—I didn't want to hurt him, James, I swear I didn't—I just wanted him scared…scared enough he'd never think of spreading rumors or asking questions again."
He exhaled a deep breath and his head fell forward until his forehead rested against his knees and James could barely see the tears that were leaking from the corners of his tightly closed eyes. When he spoke again it was slow and quiet, as though he barely had the energy to finish the story and every word cost him enormous effort.
"I realized what I'd done…how monumentally stupid I'd just been, almost immediately. I…I tried to stop him, but I still didn't have my wand, and when I grabbed for his robes he hit me with a full body-bind—said it was payback for doing the same to him down by the lake."
James grimaced. Had he set this entire catastrophe in motion when he'd picked that fight with Snape after their Defense O.W.L.? He'd been bored and wanted to show off, wanted to knock his nemesis down a peg. It all seemed so petty and spiteful now. Sirius had made a terrible, thoughtless choice, but so had James.
"I fell back into the hidden corridor," Sirius said. "It took hours for the curse to wear off, by the time it did the sun was already down…I should have gone straight to McGonagall or Dumbledore, told them what I'd done, but I went to find you instead…"
James knew everything that had happened after that.
"I'm sorry," Sirius said. "I never meant to put you or Moony in danger—I didn't even want Snape to get hurt. I got scared and I panicked…and I'm so sorry…"
Making his decision, James slid down the bench until he was sitting directly across from Sirius. His friend looked up, eyes red and face a rainbow of bruises. Sirius held himself perfectly still, poised as a hunting dog, waiting for James's judgment and clearly expecting the worst.
"This is going to be difficult to get through, Sirius," James said honestly. He believed Sirius, believed that he'd made a dumb and malicious mistake, and moreover that he was genuinely remorseful. "Dumbledore may have tricked or blackmailed or…did whatever it was he did to make Snape agree to keep all of this a secret, but Snape's not going to forget or forgive any of us—"
"You saved him though!" Sirius protested. James laughed without any humor.
"And I'm pretty sure he hates me more than ever for it. It's going to be difficult for Remus to forgive you too. You almost made him a killer—almost made him the monster we've been trying to convince him he's not for the last four years."
Sirius's head dropped to his knees again, hair falling forward to hide his face. "I don't deserve his forgiveness," Sirius said miserably. "I don't deserve yours either. You were right last night…"
James closed his eyes and knocked his head back against the compartment wall. Sirius wasn't the only one who'd said something terrible, wasn't the only one who'd hurt someone he loved.
After he'd left Sirius bleeding in the common room, James had wandered the castle for several hours. He'd wanted to sneak back into the hospital wing, to be there for Moony, who had looked so pale and hurt against the white sheets of his narrow hospital bed. Remus had asked that they give him some time alone though, and James forced himself to respect that, even if he knew Remus was lying awake somehow blaming himself for everything that had happened.
It had been well after midnight when James finally returned to their dorm room, only to find Sirius still awake, sitting just like he was now. He'd started to apologize, to explain, but James hadn't wanted to hear it. He was exhausted and angry, and the words had slipped out of his mouth before he could think.
"Your parents would be so fucking proud! You're just like them now, aren't you?"
With those two sentences, James had done more damage to Sirius than his fists ever could.
"I didn't mean it," James tried to assure him now.
Sirius shrugged without raising his head. "That doesn't mean it's not true."
Sirius had been struggling to escape his family's reputation and expectations for the past five years. It had never been easy for him; how could it be for a boy to stand against the weight of centuries of tradition and legacy? He didn't know what happened when Sirius went home, but he knew it wasn't good. James knew that every holiday haunted Sirius, and he always returned to Hogwarts with a desperate relief in his eyes.
For years, James had done his best to keep Sirius away from home as much as possible, always inviting Sirius to his house for Christmas or Easter or for weeks during the summer. This summer James wouldn't be there though, not for the better part of a month. He and his parents were going to visit some of his mum's cousins in Punjab. If Sirius needed him, he would be too far away to help.
Hitting his head against the wall again, James groaned and wondered how things could possibly get any worse.
That was when Peter burst back into the compartment.
The stocky boy was panting for breath, chocolate frogs and licorice wands spilling from his arms. His eyes were round with shock.
"James!" Peter wheezed. "People are—they're—they're—"
James got to his feet and steered Peter onto a bench before he collapsed. Even Sirius seemed to have forgotten his own self-loathing for a minute, watching Peter with concern as the boy struggled to speak.
"What's wrong, Wormtail?" James asked, taking one of the chocolate frogs Peter had dropped on the floor, unwrapping it and offering it back to Peter.
"Veronica Abbott—she told me—a rumor—"
James and Sirius both froze. Identical looks of horror crossed their faces. Had Snape broken his promise to Dumbledore?
"Remus…" Sirius's voice sounded strangled when he spoke the other boy's name.
Peter shook his head though and seemed to get a good breath in, because he managed to string a few more words together. "Not about Remus—about you two and Lily Evans!"
It took some effort, but they finally got the whole sordid story out of Peter. By the end James wanted to hit something again. He'd fancied Lily Evans in a casual way since the end of third year, and his feelings had started to feel a little more…real over the past few months. However, he'd so far managed to botch every attempt to flirt with her, to get her attention, to make her like him. Now this! There was no way the redhead was ever going to look at him with anything but loathing after this.
James was so caught up in his own maelstrom of thoughts that he didn't notice Sirius's reaction until the long-haired boy leaned forward and buried his face in his hands with a groan. "She's going to kill me," Sirius whispered. He didn't sound like he was exaggerating at all.
"Evans?" Peter asked. He'd regained enough breath to begin stress eating his way through the armload of sweets he'd brought back.
"My mother," Sirius replied. He lifted his head and beneath the bruises he'd gone ghostly pale.
James cursed himself for not having thought of that. In the eyes of Sirius's bigoted parents, their son shagging a Muggle-born girl was almost as bad as him shagging other boys. He reached across the space between them and laid a hand on Sirius's arm. The other boy recoiled and began to pull into himself again, shoulders hunching over.
"It's all right, Padfoot, she doesn't know—Pete, how widespread would you say this rumor is?" James asked.
Peter gulped down a mouthful of chocolate. "Pretty bad. A whole lot of people stopped me asking if it was true, or wanting details. Everyone had a slightly different story, but they were all variations of the same thing."
Sirius swore beneath his breath and ran his hands through his hair, tugging at it almost violently. "Regulus will have heard it…"
"Talk to him," James said quickly. "You already convinced him…of one thing. You can convince him this isn't true either."
"And if I can't?"
"You can!" James assured him. "If—if he does snitch though, tell them it's not true, swear to it, make an oath or vow if you have to! You can make them believe you, Sirius!"
"That's extreme, Prongs!" Peter squeaked, looking appalled at the idea. "What if he—"
"Not now, Wormtail!" James interjected. He couldn't explain to Peter that Sirius could easily make such a promise, even a magically binding one, since he was never going to want shag any girl, Muggle-born or otherwise. Peter instantly stopped speaking. He looked chagrined at being shut down, but James didn't have the time to worry about that now, because Sirius's breath was coming fast and shallow and his eyes were wide and wild.
The rest of the train ride was a miserable blur. A few poor souls were either brave or stupid enough to come and ask if the rumors where true. All of them left jinxed or hexed. James and Peter tried to talk about Quidditch or Bertie Bott's flavors, or other banal things, but they couldn't even keep up a conversation between themselves, let alone draw Sirius into one. The closer and closer they drew to London the more miserable Sirius grew.
It wasn't until they were off the train and Peter had already bid them nervous goodbyes, promising to write, that Sirius spoke his first words in hours. "Maybe it's better this way," he said, glancing around the platform. More than a few people were throwing looks toward the pair of them.
"What?" James asked, startled.
"Maybe it's better this way," Sirius repeated. For the first time in days a corner of his mouth twitched into a smile. "If people are running their mouths off about some imaginary love triangle between you, me, and Evans they won't go looking for answers, and they won't find anything resembling the truth. They won't look in Remus's direction. Like a decoy…it's not a bad plan, really."
"What about your parents?" James asked. He didn't trust the smile on Sirius's battered face. He was pretty sure people went to the gallows wearing smiles like that one. "You're not worried about them anymore?"
Sirius shrugged. "Better this than the truth, than any part of the truth."
A shiver went down James's spine. He stepped forward and grabbed his friend by the shoulders. "You don't have to go back," James said quickly, jumping on the sudden, impulsive thought. "You can come home with me, we can make it work—my mum and dad can make it work, make your parents agree to it—and you turn seventeen in November. Then you'll never have to go back again. I don't have to go to India with my parents—or you could come with us. I know they wouldn't mind, my parents love you. If you're worried—if you're afraid—please don't go back there, Sirius."
The smile had fallen from Sirius's face while James spoke and he'd gone almost eerily still beneath the tight grip of James's hands. He didn't look at James, instead he stared at the ground.
Sirius nodded, but James knew he wasn't agreeing the offer of refuge in the Potter household. James could read the grim acceptance and determination on his friend's downturned face. Sirius didn't have to say the words for James to know what he was thinking. It was a nice thought, but they both knew it wouldn't work. Whether his parents ever heard the rumor about Sirius and Lily Evans or not, Sirius was already in deep trouble for nearly being expelled. The Blacks would never allow their wayward son to spend the entire summer hiding with James's family. They wouldn't allow him to escape punishment.
James threw his arms around his best friend, pulling him into a hug. He hated that Sirius stood rigidly still within his arms, not hugging him back. "Promise me something," James said when he let go. "Promise me you'll just keep your head down. Don't pick fights or annoy them on purpose, just lay low, at least until I get back from India, please, Padfoot?"
He nearly sagged with relief when Sirius nodded. "I promise," Sirius said so quietly his words were almost lost beneath the din of the platform. "Now, go and have a good summer—I can hear your mum calling and I don't want her asking about the bruises."
James stepped back reluctantly. He hadn't heard his mother's voice calling his name until Sirius mentioned it, but now he could. Selfishly, he didn't want his parents to see the bruises on Sirius's face either. He didn't want to have to explain any part of what had happened in the last two days, and neither did Sirius.
Before the sound of his mother's voice could draw any closer, James turned away and started toward her. He threw one last look over his shoulder, and nearly stopped in his tracks as he saw Sirius's mother seize him by the arm. It was too late now. Walking away from his best friend was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do.
