Sixth Year

Intimacy is not who gets to touch your body.

True intimacy is to be completely vulnerable with another person, to hide nothing. To expose the person underneath.

To be naked, physically, isn't total intimacy.

Your body is not a labyrinth which maps out hundreds of late night thoughts. It shows hunger, stress, sadness… all of those feelings. You can infer that someone is nervous by the way their hands are restless, but you still have no idea why.

And even if you somehow knew, if it was written on their fingers, scripted on their fingernails, you probably wouldn't bother to read it anyway.

No, true intimacy is the person you call at three in the morning, when all the sane people are fast asleep, and your mind is a hijacked carousel, going round, and round, and round…

It's the person who gets the password to your locked up darkest thoughts, even if you don't want them to have it.

And sometimes, they use it for good. Sometimes, they don't. You never truly know. Because intimacy is based on trust.

Without trust, you have no foundation for intimacy - the entire thing will collapse.

Sirius stole my password long ago. And I like to think I have his. But then there are times like this, where he's sat two metres away from me, chewing his lower lip with a slight frown on his face, gazing into a fire that was extinguished long ago.

I wonder what he's thinking about.

The lip thing shows he's nervous. The frown…he's thinking. Hard. Debating.

Running away from home?

That's always been on his mind, more so as he gets older. The majority of his thoughts have to do with his parents. But what…

"I'm going to stop cutting." Sirius mumbled suddenly, and I froze.

"Oh." I breathed, my voice remaining calm despite the uproar of emotion in my head.

Everything I thought I knew about Sirius Black had just been blown up by that mine bomb of a confession he'd just dropped.

"Yeah." Sirius muttered, standing up. "Well, I'm going to bed then."

"Kay." I said absently, my eyes fixed to the floor.

I heard him leave the room, the distant slam of the dormitory door and the disgruntled yell from James, who'd previously been asleep, and let out a massive exhale, letting myself slide down the couch and onto the floor in a crumpled heap.

I shouldn't be dismayed, because that makes me such a fucking horrible person. But I can't help this feeling of horror, the dread that I just lost my confidant, my best friend.

It's been a week.

It's been a week since my last conversation with Sirius, a week since Sirius last cut, and a week since I lost my best friend.

God, I'm dreadful. I'm a dreadful person.

It's not that I want Sirius to cut, because I really wouldn't ever wish that on anybody. But it just seems… with every scar that starts to fade on his body, he forgets what I'm going through more and more. I respect his decision. I really do. But if I hear one more goddamn comment about how positive this change has been for him, how positive it'd be for me too if I'd just try…

I may actually punch him.

It looks like summer. I'm sat by the edge of the lake, my face angled to the sky, watching a single wisp of a cloud lazily drift across the blue backdrop. A shroud of cold has collected over my body, leaking through the thin material of my shirt, and little shivers are bursting through my body.

"I hate this."

I keep my eyes glued upwards, ignoring the voice behind me, and resisting the urge to sigh when I hear Sirius sit down next to me.

"Wow, was that something negative?" I say sarcastically, even though being cold to him is already making me want to cry.

"I hate this!" Sirius yells, and it echoes all around the lake, making the birds scatter and shoot off into the distance. I cringe, and so does he.

"Hate what?" I mumble, and he sighs miserably, folding his arms behind his head and laying down on the hard soil.

"This. I hate it!" he exclaims, and I swallow, reluctantly turning a few inches towards him.

"I don't know what you mean." I murmur.

"Us not talking. it's fucking horrible!"

"I know." I say, shuffling a tiny bit closer to him. "What else?"

"I hate not cutting!" moans Sirius, screwing his nose up, and I almost laugh at the absurdity of Sirius acting like a child when this is what he's complaining about.

"I just…need to." he mutters, and I nod, lowering my eyes to the floor, because I understand exactly what he means; we're on the same page again.

"You can't give up now Sirius." I say unconvincingly, biting my lip.

"I've been trying, Moony. So fucking hard. I've stayed positive even though this has been the most shitty week of my terrible existence, and I just can't…" he starts, anger filling his voice.

"Padfoot, no. You haven't cut in an entire fucking week. A week! That's fucking amazing! And it's not supposed to be easy, because if recovering from self harm was easy, then it wouldn't be something worth having. And you're going to have these thoughts, and yeah, maybe relapse once or twice, or maybe even more. But you will not give up, because I swear to God, you made a choice ad you will stick to it, even if I have to kick your arse all the way there!"

I'm breathing heavily, both of us silent, a little bit shocked by my outburst.

And then Sirius starts laughing.

"Fucking hell Moony, alright!" he laughs, and after a second I join in too.