Madman

Chapter Ten

They surrounded him like a pack of dogs that had made its first kill, with no idea what to do next. He felt angry, sad, embarrassed - any sort of emotion. After James had all but carried him up to Gryffindor tower by himself, Sirius couldn't place what he was feeling, except that he was on display, and he frankly did not like it.

James now paced angrily back and forth by the door, looking as if Sirius might make a run for it anytime. His eye was red from where he'd been prodded, but more striking were the tears that lay dewy on his lashes.

James was crying. After all this. James.

Remus was sitting on his bed with his palms facing the ceiling, as if in surrender. He stared disbelievingly at Sirius. He was probably unable to understand how their friend could fall apart so completely in so short a time.

And Peter - Peter was the only one who didn't look at him; he was sitting on the windowsill, looking down. For once, impossible to read. He looked upset, but whether it was with Sirius or with himself was a mystery.

Sirius was in the center of the whole thing, on the floor, leaning against the foot of his bed. He tried to hold back his crying, pinching the bridge of his nose, but the illusion of composure was ruined by the redness of his eyes and the blood on his palms, which he was wiping again and again and again on his robes with a hiss of pain.

"How long as this been going on?" James finally asked, voice cracking.

Sirius didn't lift his head. He was so tired. "How long has what been going on?" he said bitterly.

"Everything." Remus's mouth gaped there in the last syllable of the world; he didn't move otherwise.

"Everything," Sirius repeated, closing his eyes. His fingers tapped on the floor, a pattern they all knew by now. It was slow, desperate, looking for reassurance and finding none. "Forever, I guess."

Forever? That was a lie, and a blatant on at that. He'd started falling apart that summer after the first Marauder excursion. It was nothing, just a twinge - he'd always been orderly and he'd always had worries. But something must've driven him over the edge, something...

Sirius curled against his bedpost, feeling the smooth chestnut wood against his hot face. If only they'd stop looking at him.

"Why do you do it?" James pled, trying to capture eye contact and failing. "Why don't you just stop?"

"I can't," he tried to say hoarsely.

"It's mind over matter," Remus interjected. "Even if you get some weird pleasure out of it, Padfoot, why would you -"

"Pleasure?" Sirius echoed carelessly, his fingers still beating, his eyes angry. "Do I look happy to you? Do I look like I want this? Well, I don't!" he yelled, and the room reverberated with the noise, sending sharp notes of pain through his ears. He released a shuddering breath.

Silence. Stunned silence.

"It's not mind over matter, Moony," he said very weakly. "It's like you think. I'm just fucking crazy."

And then the tears fell. He definitely hadn't meant to say that.

"No, you're not," Peter said suddenly. Sirius looked up, shaking. His friend turned from the window and watched him steadily. "You're still Sirius. You can do whatever you like to your hair or your -" he nodded at Sirius's suffering hands "- but you'll never be crazy. You're okay."

Sirius didn't answer. He wavered.

"Are you kidding, Wormtail?" Remus looked incredulous. "Look at him. He's not okay."

James didn't say anything, either. His eyes were pained.

"I don't care, Moony, he's still our friend," Peter shot back fiercely. "No one targets Sirius like those blokes did, not if we have something to say about it."

"Damn right," James agreed finally, his eyes dark and vindictive. "I say as soon as Padfoot pulls himself together we teach them a lesson or two."

Sirius shook harder, unable to control himself. A blossoming hope exploded in the pit of his stomach. They didn't care. They expected him to tackle this problem and move on, like with everything else that'd ever come his way.

He felt cast aside. And yet perhaps this was exactly what he needed.

A little confidence.

After another pregnant pause, Remus got up from his place on the bed and settled cross-legged on the floor beside Sirius. Seeming to understand his friend's unwillingness to be touched, he left a good twelve inches of space between them. The skepticism was gone from his face.

"You're...not enjoying this?" he asked very carefully and quietly.

Sirius shook his head.

"Wow," Remus breathed. "I don't know why I ever thought you were."

"I thought you hated me," Sirius said.

The other boy looked positively shocked. He fiddled with his shoelace before finally saying, "I couldn't hate you, Sirius."

Peter joined them on the floor, examining his friend's expression, tentative. "None of us can, Padfoot..."

For a long time, James only stared. He seemed conflicted, as if he felt he'd already done his part and, after so long, he wasn't used to this kind of unity within the group anymore.

Then he came away from the door, kneeling carefully to look his best friend in the eye.

"You know I love you, Si," he said.

It struck Sirius then that he could handle this, with his friends at his side. He'd taken worse at home - if his family couldn't break him, this - this phase, this depression, this whatever-it-was could not.

His mind still struggled, worries still screaming out against what logic was telling him.

For once in a long time, logic won.

--

After this life was eeriely quiet. It was like a dream, a spool of thread that, unrolling, had had hundreds of tangles before this single smooth section. The peace was almost unnerving.

People went silent and averted their eyes when Sirius walked past, but now it was not because he was going mad but because of his entourage: Peter and Remus and James, all by his elbow and glaring overprotectively. Maybe the old Sirius wouldn't have liked this, but the new Sirius was so relieved for this wordless gesture of brotherhood that he couldn't find the proper thanks.

James was James again, except gentler and tireder and toned down, dialed back a notch, some of the belligerence filtered out of him. He was genuine, but there was a noticeable pause before he said anything, a momentary flicker of his gaze toward Sirius.

"Si," he'd said very quietly one day, when no one else was around, "no matter what we do or say, you're my best mate. You know that?"

Sirius had looked into those hazel eyes and seen nothing but honesty.

"Even if you do ridiculous things," James promised, lowering his gaze. Something had clicked then.

They were the dynamic duo. Except...they simply weren't that dynamic anymore. They'd both changed for good. But James had been saying it was okay.

It was a few days later that Sirius noticed the skin on his palms had healed over, soft and pink, renewed like his grip on himself. The fear of being invaded, irrational like all his fears, had faded. Just the one. One was enough.

He entered the common room that day with his step count on his mind. His hands were normal-looking, his growing hair tucked in a short, thick little ponytail at the nape of his neck. His eyes closed briefly against the bright light of the room.

When they fluttered open he saw her come to him, all long hair and almond eyes and gangly arms and legs, a picture of grace if he ever saw one. She was deer-like in every way, including her tentative approach.

"Hey," she said quietly, while he looked around to verify that she was, in fact, addressing him. Across the room, James glanced over and something flickered in his eyes, but Sirius's momentary panic was assuaged by the memory: No matter what we do or say, you're my best mate.

"Hey," he finally replied, surprised at how normal he sounded.

She shifted her weight from foot to foot. "How are you, Sirius?"

He rubbed his wrists and answered truthfully, "I'm doing better."

"Good." Lily didn't look at him for the longest time. She rumpled her hair, looking simplistic and beautiful like that, mussing up her auburn locks, and his heart flipped. She said with a sigh, "Rumor has it you like me."

"That's...quite the rumor," he responded hesitantly.

"So that's all it is? It's not true?"

He said, "No, it's definitely true."

She was quiet for a very long time, and he became anxious again. He hadn't meant to put her off, but she deserved the truth.

Finally she looked up from her feet and murmured, "I just don't know what to say, Sirius. You're really handsome, and sweet, and of course you're a good friend..."

Sirius shrugged, a lump forming in his throat. "I know you don't feel that way about me," he told her. "So you shouldn't worry."

Lily looked sheepish. "I guess you know who I do like," she muttered.

He cast another glance across the room, where James was pretending very hard not to be looking at them. "Yeah, I do," he said.

"Is it that...obvious?"

"No," he promised softly.

"I'm sorry, Sirius."

Sirius dared to put a hand on her shoulder, and for a second - just a second, a fleeting memory - he felt like his old self. Like nothing had ever happened. "It's okay. We're - we're friends, and I'm glad for that." He swallowed, aware he was probably saying too much. "...it's...always okay."

She nodded a slow, stiff nod and, after looking at him for the longest time, slipped away. The sounds of the common room came rushing back as Sirius remembered where he was.

He felt the same heavy knowledge of himself: the vivid colors in his vision, the warm air in his lungs, the blood moving through his veins.

And there, an unforgettable rhythm playing out between his fingers and his waist, he knew in his bones that everything really would be okay.

--

End.

Author's Note: And there you have it. I really don't have much to say now, except I'm very glad I wrote this piece, and I hope the ending didn't disappoint you. I have to thank anyone who read and/or reviewed... you've been so motivational. Um... that's all. I hope you check out my other work on your way out. :)