Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light

Chapter Twenty

The cold ached in his bones, numbing him from the inside out. Humiliation clearly bested him, and he got out of the bath as soon as he regained enough feeling in his limbs to do so, despite the painful tremors and the chattering teeth. Bundled in clothes and blankets downstairs, he was not any warmer, despite his place in front of the fire, and so when Remus placed the bowl of soup in front of him, he ate.

There was a surreal quality to all of it. Having known he would never sit in this kitchen again, never taste a warm meal again, never hear the tiny echo of his own voice as he rambled nonsensically, never feel Remus rubbing his shoulder soothingly through layers of fabric, having known all these things would not happen, and then experiencing them once more was both confusing and uncomfortably real. Every sensation shocked him and it stung – the world was too close to a man who had kept it all at arm's length for most of his life. The numbness of starvation was giving way to stomach partially full of hot soup and a world that might reach out and grab him at any moment from any direction, and he would be caught unawares.

When he stammered that he couldn't eat anymore, Remus frowned worriedly, but helped Sirius gather the blankets around his shoulders and stumble up the stairs. Sirius moved to collapse onto his bed, still shivering, painfully aware of the fatigue of his muscles and the blue tinge to his fingertips and the weakness of his legs beneath him. But Remus quickly redirected Sirius to a chair and stripped the sheets off the bed.

"Do you have clean sheets somewhere?" he asked as he balled up what apparently were dirty sheets. Sirius stared at him, trying to imagine where clean sheets would be kept and wondering if he had ever changed his own sheets and wondering why on earth Kreacher hadn't done so on his own and he was still wondering when Remus sighed and disappeared, returning relatively quickly with a set of folded sheets. A wave of his wand made the bed neatly and Sirius took his cue to collapse on it, curling into a tight ball. Remus handed Sirius a hot water bottle, and Sirius hugged it to his chest, willing himself to stop shaking.

Remus dropped into the desk chair, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, and hesitated.

"I know it was stupid, Moony," Sirius whispered. "You don't have to…I mean, I just…I know."

Remus nodded sadly. "I'm going to be staying here for a few days. Just to help out with…things."

Sirius looked away. "Okay."

"It's just for a little while. Just until…"

"Until?"

"Dumbledore wants to talk to you. He can't get away yet, but he expects the opportunity will present itself soon."

"So you're keeping an eye on me until he shows up." Sirius sighed.

"I just want to help, Sirius. That's all any of us wants."

"Okay." Sirius couldn't meet his eyes.

"Don't you want help?" Remus asked, softly.

Sirius pulled the blankets over his head and didn't answer.

In the end, Remus only had to stay at Grimmauld Place for a week. It was only a week before the event which, as far as Remus could tell, was truly the signal of all hell breaking loose at Hogwarts. Dumbledore seemed pretty calm about the entire matter, but then Dumbledore never did seem to panic about much of anything.

Regardless, Remus lived with Sirius for exactly one week until Dumbledore dropped in to see them, and in that time, he determined that Sirius Black was even harder to live with than the werewolves.

There was an anxiety about Grimmauld Place, a lingering sense that the worst was yet to come. It was irrational, yet Remus crept about the house in near silence, in the hopes that he would not awaken whatever this "worst" might be. In the dead of night, he could hear the house, the groans of old wood, the whispered shriek of wind between battered boards, the static sound of dust settling. It was downright eerie.

But worst of all was Sirius himself. Remus hated himself for thinking it, but despite the aggression, filth and general unpredictability of the werewolves, Sirius was a worse roommate by far. He was not any of those things, but somehow he was even more fearsome.

Anorexia is terrifying. Living makes perfect sense, and dying makes perfect sense. Suicide even makes sense, in its own way. But to feel enough pain to want to die, to feel that there is only one way out, and then to spend years slowly working toward it? To suffer more just to eventually ease the suffering?

There was no remaining doubt that Sirius Black wanted to die. Through adolescence and their early adulthood, Remus had believed that Sirius was just sick. He was struggling; he did not have appropriate coping mechanisms. He was starving, but he didn't honestly want to die. In the end, he would recognize what he was doing and turn it around. And Sirius had been amenable to that belief. He had entered treatment. He had worked towards getting well. He ate and he talked about his feelings and he did what everyone else did – he got through it.

But he wasn't through it. And this latest stunt had left no question – Sirius wasn't asking for help. He wasn't accepting help. He was trying, desperately, to die. And it made Remus wonder if Sirius had ever been better. Maybe at one point or another, he had weighed more, but Remus doubted he had ever really been healthy.

Sirius was not currently pursuing death – at least, not any more actively than he had for most of his life. Remus made them both meals and Sirius ate. Not a lot, but it was certainly more. He talked to Remus and seemed almost happy, but Remus knew it wouldn't last. It never did.

Over time, Remus realized, he could no longer distinguish his friend from his disease. Anorexia had become Sirius, and Sirius had become anorexia. And that was, perhaps, the most terrifying aspect of all. That what had originally started, Remus assumed, as a minor diet, or even just an unconscious lack of appetite in a stressful situation, had escalated to the point of dictating personality, physicality, and mentality. That Sirius, who had once been funny, lively, full of bravado and false overconfidence, was reduced to a skeleton, to fear and anxiety and a set of behaviors that both characterized and fed his disease.

After a week, though Sirius had been perfectly pleasant and even occasionally let Remus win at Gobstones, Remus realized he was looking forward to leaving Grimmauld Place. He hated himself for it, but just as he could no longer delude himself into believing Sirius didn't want to die, he could no longer convince himself that he was not watching his best friend die. Most of what Sirius had once been had died years ago, and what was left was dwindling quickly. And for all his determination and strength, Remus knew he could not stand to lose Sirius.

So when Albus Dumbledore, in robes of midnight blue, eyes hauntingly lacking their usual twinkle, spun into existence in the roaring emerald fire of Grimmauld Place, peering through his half-moon spectacles at the skeletal frame before him and declaring a need for conversation, Remus excused himself. He went upstairs and picked up his suitcase, which was packed and waiting, and walked out the front door without a goodbye.

He had said enough of those already.