Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light
Chapter Thirteen
By the time Remus returned to visit, Sirius had made it out of bed, back to wandering the house aimlessly and occasionally destructively, as he occasionally took offense to some of the decorations Kreacher had taken the liberty of displaying. Remus found him in such a state, attempting to drag a painting, none too gently, from the wall of the drawing room.
Remus stepped in quickly, seizing the painting as Sirius' strength seemed to waver. Remus lifted it easily from Sirius' hands, easing it to the floor while Sirius collapsed to the dusty couch.
"I was doing fine," Sirius wheezed, coughing roughly as the dust aggravated his lungs.
"You're still not up to full strength," Remus warned. "And you really ought to be in bed. If for no other reason than you're driving Molly crazy."
"It's my house," Sirius grumbled, not moving. "And I'm doing just fine. Molly has me on a steady diet of soup and Pepper-Up Potion."
"According to Molly, she can't get you on a steady diet of anything because you won't eat more than three bites per meal." Sirius lurched to his feet, clearly outraged, and Remus looked him head to toe, cutting him off before he could begin his defensive speech. "And don't bother denying it, because I can tell."
"I've been sick!" Sirius protested, folding his arms defensively. "I haven't had an appetite."
"Sirius," Remus said softly. "You're my best friend. So let's be honest with each other. We both know that's not the whole story. And maybe you're fooling Molly, but I know you better than that."
"What do you want from me, Rem?" Sirius said, sinking back onto the couch.
"You've got to do better than this, Sirius," Remus said, sitting next to him. "We can't send you to St. Mungo's this time, if it gets out of hand. You can't let yourself get that sick."
"I'm not…" Sirius mumbled, trailing off.
"What are you afraid of?" Remus said. "Anyone will tell you that you're thin. You'd have to gain probably four stone before you'd even be remotely close to overweight."
"It isn't about that," Sirius muttered. "I'm not worried about getting fat."
"Then what?"
"You can't understand this," Sirius said flatly. "Everyone thinks it's so easy. 'Just eat.' You think I wouldn't if it were that simple?"
"I know it's not that easy."
"I know I don't look good. I know what you see, okay? But just because I can see it doesn't mean I can stop it."
"What can I do? Do you want me to move in here for a while, help you through it?"
"No," Sirius said sullenly. "You have real work to do. I'm not going to let you sacrifice that just for me. I'm not worth that." He stood up, striding towards the door of the drawing room.
"Yes, you are," Remus said insistently. Sirius didn't stop. "Sirius!"
Sirius paused at the doorway, hand poised on the knob. "Not everything can be fixed, Remus." And he disappeared up the stairs.
Remus sat on the sofa for a long moment, repeating the words over and over in his mind, the darkness of it, and the darkness so evident in Sirius. And the longer he thought the more he could see it, the darkness of their world, of their demons, of the things Sirius lived with on a daily basis, of the things he himself experienced. The darkness he had seen in James before his death, the darkness that had finally taken over Peter. Those little things that clung tightly to their souls, the creeping doubts, the futile fears, the obsessions that persevered even under the strongest moral convictions. Maybe there was no fixing these things. Maybe the truth was the little corners of darkness were permanent fixtures in even the brightest wizards. Maybe it was all about scouring the darkness in whatever way you could, if it meant you could keep it from taking over.
Finally, he pulled a piece of parchment from his pocket, scribbled the only words he could think of, and with a wave of his wand, sent it flying up the stairs to Sirius' room, before trudging down to the kitchen to use the Floo.
"I never said you were broken."
He was self-destructive. He brutally attacked both body and mind, leaving carnage strewn in his path. He felt it all distantly, his body feeling almost foreign to him at times, while at the same time, the pain was so intense and the wounds so deep that they left him shaking, shocked, shamed.
At twenty years old, he had seen far more than his share of despair. But they all had. James and Lily, harboring the guilt of lives lost for them, the blood not on their hands but marring the door of their hideout where the conscienceless and truly guilty pounded to get in, the blood always there to remind them of how much they mean and to what they must measure up. Remus, struggling on his own for years before finally accepting that no matter what the bounds of his abilities were, the limits of his lycanthropy would always be too far within them. Even Peter, the fear in the face of friends' fortitude, the knowledge he will never be more courageous than cowardly. Even in the safety of their homes, out of reach of death eaters, the demons drudged up from the dark, and they all had to face them.
Sirius told himself he was no different. He was not special. He had no right, none at all, to permit the demons to defeat him when the others stood strong, turning their fears outward to determination and force.
But he was worn down. And maybe his demons were just a little stronger than theirs. James' demons had James' voice and no others, easily drowned out in the crowd of people telling him not to listen. But Sirius was a different matter.
Because when Sirius black lay awake at night, the voices that came from the darkness within were all different, rising in cacophonous crescendo.
His mother, voice a venomous hiss, spitting words like "worthless," "useless," "disappointment," "not my son."
His father, slurring in the kind of honesty brought out only when the alcohol kills all else: "weak," "pathetic," "waste of skin."
His brother, timid but somehow sure, "it isn't worth it, to be like you. None of it matters enough for this."
James, pleadingly desperate, "I can't deal with this, with you doing this. You know I can't. Why are you doing this now?"
Remus, ponderously slow, "All your energy should be going to fight. You should be out there stopping Voldemort, not killing yourself."
Self-destruction is the flipside of self-preservation. Maybe he was killing himself. Maybe it was true that he could feel his body feeding on itself, his muscles shredding, his magic dwindling, and maybe it was true that no one had the time or energy to deal with this now, including him. But it wasn't a decision he made one day, to die. He wasn't even trying to die. He wasn't trying anything. He just wasn't trying, period.
When he was sixteen, recovering, promising himself daily that his life was worth something, back then it had seemed like an uphill battle, but a winnable war. And maybe sometimes he slid back, but overall he was moving forward, and one day this would all be a distant memory. The trouble was over, there was no reason still to starve.
But there never was a reason to starve. There was just never a reason not to. He was not trying to die. He was not trying to live. He was just trying not to hurt. Because every time he saw another body of another friend, another house shrouded with the Dark Mark, another Death Eater that might be the brother he hadn't saved, every time it took everything he had to give and more. And he kept fighting, kept searching, long past what he had to give, and by the end of the day when all he had taken in was sorrow, bitterness, fear and regret, there was no room for anything else. The fear at each bite he could take, even though he could justify every one and more, after everything else he couldn't face this too. He ached with the fullness, his skin stretched tight over his bones to contain all of it, and it was all he could do to collapse into bed, run his fingers over the sharpness of his hips and collarbones, the ridges of his ribs, remind himself he was not bleeding, he was not broken, every piece was there, visibly identifiable as whole. And he found comfort in it, because even though he knew it was wrong, he knew that bones are bad and life requires living, he was still here. He was strong. He didn't need to eat the way they did, he was not dependent.
He was doing all he could, struggling through it like they all were, and maybe seeing his skeleton scared them but he was surviving and persevering. And even when his demons screamed their loudest, heart-rending notes, the growling of his stomach would drown it all out.