CHAPTER 10: Purpose
Sirius' cheerful moods become fewer and further in between as the month went on, spurred on by letters from his Godson who was still forced to stay at Privet Drive.
Order meetings became longer winded and new members came from Dumbledore's invite. Sirius was fairly indifferent to it all, until to new member's began to awake his mother's old portrait. Her annoyance had first brought about a delight in Sirius, but that joy had faded and now his mother's annoyance only became reflected in him as he found himself wrenching the curtains back shut time and time again.
Another day, another set of screaming from his dear mother, another time to pull the curtains shut: no longer were Sirius' days marked by the colours of the open sky.
One of the new members that had a habit of waking up Sirius' dear, old mother was Mundungus. He had jumped a mile when he first saw Sirius, then proceeded to search in a large number of oddly lumpy pockets for his wand before someone remembered to inform him of Sirius' innocence.
Oddly enough, Mundungus interact with Sirius as he noticed more and more of the house.
Meanwhile, the constant presence of the Weasleys had not only meant an increase in mysterious explosions from the twins' room, but an increase in delicious meals being forced upon Remus courtesy of Molly Weasley. Remus had noticed that Molly had not been as insistent towards Sirius as she had Remus, despite Sirius emancipation from 12 years in Azkaban plus a year of living off mostly rats.
Despite the increase in people, Sirius often sought company of Buckbeak and locked himself up in his mother's room for hours at a time. He also began to transform into Padfoot to escape his increasingly claustrophobic mind.
"Is he alright?" Ron had asked one afternoon when Sirius had disappeared yet again.
"Hmm?" Remus lowered the report he was reading and looked up.
"Sirius," Ron specified, "Is he okay?"
"Well", he replied, considering slowly, "His family house isn't his favourite place to be locked up in. He's just frustrated and worried about Harry, too."
His worry for Harry and his frustration at being trapped in a home he hated fed off each other. Harry was never far from his mind. Every time that Sirius became frustrated from his situation it lead to the realization that Harry was in the same situation. Frustration grew and became bitter towards the headmaster who would refuse to move Harry and give no explanation aside from safety. Grimmauld Place was deemed safe enough for Sirius' imprisonment, he had thought bitterly.
Remus' dread grew steadily along with the closeness of the next full moon. He dreaded being pushed from his mind, all the while as Sirius became increasing desperate to escape bitter entrapment of his mind.
Remus' dread was greatly lessened as he discovered that, to Snape's bitterness, Snape had been ordered to brew wolfsbane for him regularly.
Snape had always made sure to wear his most pronounced sneer when handing the wolfsbane over silently, his lip curling. Remus had been sure to thank him.
Sirius had remained silent on this new development. He did not ask Remus to let him accompany him during the full moon. The only time they had touched on the topic was after Sirius had come downstairs after Snape had handed over the Wolfsbane and left.
Sirius had eyed the potion with distrust upon knowing who had brewed it and clearly remembering the brewer's personal eagerness for Remus to lose his soul.
"Does it... help?" Sirius asked.
"Very much so", he answered quietly, "It allows me to kind my mind when I transform."
"I had wondered why you didn't transform in the Shrieking Shack", Sirius said.
Remus looked up sharply.
"I thought they didn't want you transforming on the grounds so they flooed you somewhere else."
"Were you going to… accompany me?" Remus asked.
"I decided that I wouldn't. I didn't want you to choose between helping me and being honest with everyone else", he paused before adding, "In saying that, I was near the shack in case I could hear you having a bad time of it."
Remus sat alone in the basement with his wand balanced between his long fingers. He hesitated before casting silencio.
No-one would hear him. He would hide this part of him; it was personal and his burden to bear. He was determined not to inflict it on anyone in the slightest; he would try, for the most part, too be normal. And on nights when he was not normal, he would hide his shame, his abnormality. They would not hear him. There would be no reminders of it.
He carefully put his wand out of reach of the wolf and removed his old robes and waited for the shivers to overcome his body and try in vain to penetrate his mind.
Sirius sat upstairs with a butterbeer. He had considered a firewhiskey but upon seeing the moon, full and bright in the night sky that he only ever saw through a window, he thought that perhaps he might be useful tonight.
Useful; it was hard to remember the last time that Sirius had felt useful. He had long focused on one task in attempt to undertake some kind of purpose. Chasing after Peter was not for any reason aside from selfish ones. There was no argument that it was for the greater good: Peter wasn't doing anything and pursuing Peter had only led to the return of Voldemort.
"SIRIUS!"
A yell from the living room brought Sirius out of his reverie. He got up hastily and rushed to find a flash of red light as a Phoenix vanished and Arthur Weasley look up from a letter.
"Harry's been expelled from Hogwarts", he said as he stood up quickly.
"What?" Sirius shouted.
"Mundungus left midway through his watch, Dementors came, Harry did the patronus," Arthur said in a rush as he ran his hand through the small amount of hair he had remaining.
"What-"
"Dumbledore is worried that Harry will leave Privet Drive or do more magic."
"Okay, what are we doing, let's-"Sirius started, but stopped once he saw that Arthur was scribbling as he didn't want to distract him.
"You're just sending him a letter?" Sirius said disbelievingly, once he saw that Arthur was simply writing to Harry and not for more instructions or information, "Harry doesn't have a clue what's going on, I'm sure it would be nice if we kept him informed rather than just following him around and telling him what to do."
"It will look too suspicious if we take him now. The ministry might be on their way as we speak. We need to wait for Dumbledore to sort things out. I expect Harry will be here soon enough."
Sirius went from frustrated, to resigned, to worried in quick concession. He grabbed Arthur's abandoned quill off the coffee table and scribbled his own note to his Godson, hoping that his Godson would not receive the same lack of freedom from Dumbledore as he had.
Arthur sat down after sending both letters but Sirius felt overwhelmingly frustrated. He escaped Azkaban to protect his Godson but he wasn't allowed to do that under Dumbledore. He was purposeless, unwanted and spare, even in his own house, even in a war, even when his Godson defended himself and will have to pay the price for it.
He left Arthur in the living room and headed downstairs to find Remus, and possibly some usefulness or calm, at least.
Sirius paused outside the door and waited, breathing deeply in an attempt to calm himself. He didn't really know what he wanted from Remus, but he knew that if anyone could calm him, it would be Remus; whether by reasoning with him in human form, or knowing that he was okay in wolf form.
"Remus?" Sirius asked tentatively through the door, "Remus? Are you alright in there? Has the potion worked alright?
He was answered by complete silence. There was not a knock in return or any indication at all.
"Remus?" Sirius called louder, "Are you alright, can you signal somehow. Knock on the door or something?"
Sirius felt himself panic; it creeped up his throat and he kicked the door in frustration and worry.
Sirius quickly performed charms to prevent to wolf from entering the main part of the house and removed the charms that Remus has placed on the door just in case before putting his wand safely away and transforming into Padfoot. He opened the door with his paws to find Remus lying calmly on the floor, tapping his tail as though bored. Remus tensed as he saw Sirius, and Sirius tensed in preparation to be pounced on as Remus quickly got up.
Sirius relaxed as he saw surprise and confusion etched so humanly upon Remus' wolf that Sirius would have laughed. Since he was transformed it came as a soft bark.
Sirius nudged Remus playfully now that his mood was lifted and his panic subsided. Remus nudged him softly back, before laying back down across the basement floor. Sirius looked at him for a moment before laying down next to him.
And even though it felt nice for Sirius to have a bit of purpose, he realized with a stab of self-loathing that he had come down to check on Remus to calm himself: selfish.
A/N: I wanted to show a bit more of Sirius' character. I imagine one of Sirius' greatest fears to be like his family and I think one of Azkaban's lasting effects on Sirius was that it convinced him that he was, no matter how he tried to stop, always a Black. In doing so, Sirius sees his actions as selfish and in sync with his ancestry. I wanted to contrast this with Sirius' number one redeeming quality: his care for his friends, particularly Harry and Remus.