A/N: Again, I apologize for the long wait. Such is real life, unfortunately. Before you read this chapter, please read the following warning and understand the full meaning behind it before proceeding:
CHILD ABUSE WARNING.
This is not a happy chapter, and makes many references to child abuse. If this makes you uncomfortable in any way, please skip this chapter. Other than that, I hope you enjoy this next chapter (in the sort of way in which you love dark, angsty things), and that you have a good holiday if you live in America.
Xoxo,
Willow Ann
***
Sirius' eyebrows were drawn down low and the muscles in his neck and shoulders were tense, locking him up and forcing upon his movements a stiffness that was unnatural and born of exhaustion and pain. He was sitting on the side of his bed—Harry's bed, for now—gazing at his godson as he slept fitfully. Harry's features were pinched and his head moved restlessly from side to side, but he didn't wake. Sirius watched him quietly, watched as his godson's fear persisted even into sleep, and he reached out a hand to brush damp hair off Harry's fevered forehead.
"How's he doing?" Remus' voice asked gently from behind him, and Sirius turned to find his friend leaning against the doorframe of his bedroom, looking pale and weary.
"He's got a fever," Sirius answered, and then cleared his throat briefly because it was hoarse from disuse and worry.
Remus frowned and approached the bed to lay the back of one hand against Harry's cheek, then forehead. A small, surprised noise left his throat at the unhealthy heat of the skin beneath his fingers, and he took out his wand and aimed it at the sheets, casting a cooling charm on them quickly and efficiently. Harry's small, anxious movements stilled for a moment before he shuddered violently, and his teeth began to chatter slightly as a new sheen of sweat seemed to appear on his skin in a matter of seconds.
"We should call Poppy," Remus said. Sirius didn't answer, just nodded numbly as he reached out a hand and let it rest gently on the curve where Harry's neck met his shoulder, and his thumb traced absently over the pulse point in Harry's throat where he could feel his godson's heartbeat fluttering quickly against his skin. He felt Remus' presence disappear from his side, and he dropped his head to let it hang heavily on his shoulders, his dry, burning eyes closing tightly to block out the afternoon light filtering in through the window. He snatched his wand from the bedside table and threw a sudden burst of magic at it and was grimly satisfied when he heard the faint cracking of glass even as the curtains drew themselves hastily together. He jumped when a gentle hand touched his shoulder minutes later, and he turned to find Poppy standing beside him with Remus lingering in the doorway.
"Sirius," Poppy said soothingly, reaching out to uncurl his tense fingers from their death-grip around his wand. "He's going to be fine. Let me have a look at him and we'll see what we can do."
Sirius nodded and didn't move, and then realized after several silent moments that she was looking at him expectantly. He raised his eyebrows at her in silent inquiry, gave her a look that said to Poppy 'Well what are you waiting for?' and she marveled to herself silently that she had come to understand the three men of this makeshift family so thoroughly that she could hear their questions and protests even when they didn't speak.
"You need to let me take care of him for a while so that you can take care of yourself. You look terrible," Poppy stated, and cut Sirius off as he opened his mouth to deny her accusation. "I'll examine Harry alone, and you can take the time to eat. And sleep. And catch up on the needs of your own body that you've been neglecting for a week," she said firmly. "Now shoo."
Sirius looked at her for a moment longer before nodding his head, and he gave her a small smile as he hauled himself to his feet.
"Thanks, Poppy," he murmured as he walked past her, and Poppy watched him meet Remus at the doorway and waited until the two figures receded and shut the door behind them before she turned back to her patient. She then took out her wand and bent forward slightly in concentration, preparing to work on Harry Potter for possibly the hundredth time.
***
When Madame Pomfrey answered Ginny's knock on the now familiar door of Sirius' quarters, she felt her stomach drop through her feet and get swallowed up by the floor as a rush of panic washed through her so strongly that it took her breath away.
"What happened?" she asked breathlessly. "Is he okay?"
Madame Pomfrey smiled at her gently and stepped out of the doorway, allowing her into the chambers. "He's fine," she answered steadily. "Just a bit worked up, is all."
"Can I see him?" Ginny asked, standing in the middle of the room and looking lost and very much like a little girl instead of the almost-woman she seemed to be on a more regular basis. Poppy felt her heart clench in sympathy and fear for the girl before her; though she hated to acknowledge it, Poppy felt as though loving Harry Potter got a little bit harder every day. The number of people who wanted to hurt him rose and seemed to be gaining power steadily, despite the best efforts of the Order, and the people around him had to fight a little harder with each passing moment to keep him alive. She nodded at Ginny and forced a small smile onto her face as she ushered her easily into Sirius' cozy bedroom where Harry was finally dozing peacefully. He must have been awake enough to sense Ginny's presence because when she sat in the chair Poppy had just vacated, his eyes opened evenly and he looked at her for a moment with eyes that were vacant and empty for only a second before they warmed with recognition, and a tired grin stretched out across his gaunt face and lit it up with a boyish charm that he seemed to have inherited from his father and godfather. And as Poppy peered in at them from the doorway, watched their quiet interaction and saw the way they teased each other gently to ease the other's worry, Poppy decided that the fight was worth it, and that she would keep fighting a seemingly endless and impossible war for herself and for Harry and for the Wizarding World as a whole for as long as she had breath in her body.
***
Sirius watched the smoke from his cigarette curl out into the night sky above him, tracked its progress as it dissipated into the night's coolness and wondered if he himself was also drifting away into the ether. He didn't know how long he had been here by himself on top of the Astronomy Tower—long enough for the remnants of the day's winter sunlight to fade into deep black, and as he laid on his back against the cold, unforgiving stone his eyes automatically sought out the bright light of his namesake. It twinkled at him merrily, mocked its earthly counterpart viciously, and Sirius suddenly hated it almost as much as he hated himself.
A strange numbness had come over him, had replaced the churning, sickly anxiety that had plagued him since he had forced Harry to relive his most terrifying memories, and the contrast was stark and absolute. Sirius thought vaguely that perhaps he should be worried about the sudden change, but he couldn't bring himself to do anything with that thought.
"I haven't seen you smoke since you were twenty-one," Remus' voice said from behind him, and Sirius tilted his head backwards against the floor of the Tower to peer at his friend from an odd angle. Remus had a thing, Sirius thought, for appearing in doorways unannounced. Sirius wondered briefly if his friend's eerie ability was connected to lycanthropy before deciding it had more to do with Remus himself; he had always been good at sneaking around, Sirius remembered, and the corners of his lips lifted slightly as he recalled the many ways they had used that ability to cause chaos throughout the castle as students.
"There's not much opportunity for smoking in prison," Sirius answered, and took another drag from the cigarette dangling between his fingers. He heard Remus' footsteps cross softly across the stone floor, and then he was briefly at eye-level with worn out, brown shoes before Remus was sliding down the side of the nearest turret to sit within Sirius' line of sight. There was silence for long moments then, Sirius flicking his cigarette agitatedly and staring at the stars while Remus picked idly at a thread on his sleeve. They could be seventeen again, Sirius thought, sitting up here in a comfortable silence, maybe waiting for James to join them. He could almost hear James' footsteps getting louder as they scrambled up the stairs, his voice speaking excitedly from the stairwell because he couldn't contain whatever story he had to tell long enough to actually make it to the top of the Tower, and Sirius turned his head to stare at the doorway. It looked empty and dismally lonely, standing by itself in the middle of the cold stone, and the heavy wooden door stayed firmly shut despite the fact that Sirius needed it to open, needed James to open it.
But James wasn't here now to drag Sirius to his feet and snap him out of whatever funk he was in, like he had so often. He wasn't even in the castle, or meandering the hallways with Lily, or sitting in the common room helping a first year with Transfiguration. James was dead, encased in the frozen ground and completely unaware of the fact that his best friend and son were falling apart. Sirius closed his eyes against the sudden sting there, turned his head to hide his face as a longing for James washed through him more fiercely than it had since his death, and Sirius could feel his torso start to tremble.
He was startled out of his thoughts, though, when sudden warmth settled over him like a blanket, simultaneously bringing his mind to the present moment and easing the chill that had seeped into his body without him realizing it. He snapped his head around and looked at Remus, who was sitting against the wall watching him with knowing eyes. Sirius stared at him for a moment, knew instinctually that his friend was aware that he was wishing for James even as he sat here with Remus, and Sirius felt his eyebrows tug down as guilt bloomed in his chest and he shrugged helplessly at him.
"It's not—" he began, but Remus cut him off with a shake of his head.
"I know," he answered softly. "James always knew how to pick you back up."
"He did," Sirius answered, at once filled with incurable sadness and tenderness so complete that he ached. "So do you."
When Sirius and Remus returned to their rooms from their Poppy-induced exile, Sirius moved right through the front room without pausing and into his bedroom, needing to check once again on Harry. His breath whooshed out of him when he saw that his godson was awake, chatting in a way with Ginny that indicated they were entranced in a world that belonged only to the two of them, and at that moment they looked so much like James and Lily that Sirius' knees almost gave out beneath him. He stood just inside the shadow of the doorway for a moment, his breath caught in his throat, and then took a quick step backwards out of the room and pressed his back up against the wall beside the door. He could feel Remus watching him curiously as he leaned his head back against the wall and fought to take a breath, to move through a grief that never seemed to lessen, and he looked back at his friend and shook his head grimly, helplessly, unable to find a way of moving forward.
"What is it?" Remus asked, voice soft and concerned as he took a step towards his friend.
Sirius choked around his voice, unable to say what he wanted—that he missed them, he missed them so damn much every day and he didn't know what to do with their son because he felt like he was losing him every passing second, that he was afraid Harry would suffer the way he did after Dumbledore had ripped his own mind apart and maybe he wouldn't come back from it, and said instead, "Nothing."
"Sirius—" Remus began, and reached a hand out towards him but Sirius darted out of the way before he could be reached and went to stand in front of the window, his back to his friend, shoulders hard and tense.
"I didn't want anyone to ever know how it feels," Sirius offered softly. He was silent for a moment, and Remus could feel his friend's anxiety emanating out through his body and into the room, making him feel slightly sick with sympathy.
"To have your mind raped," Sirius whispered thickly. "Being forced to believe you're experiencing your worst moments over again. Not just… remembering them," he clarified, voice haunted, "living them. They all happen again, and all at the same time, and when it's over it leaves you in pieces."
Sirius' shoulders shook, and his head dropped down to hang low on his neck. Remus studied his friend's back, watched the muscles there tense in a pain that he could never understand, and felt utterly helpless. He approached his friend quietly, feet soft on the plush carpet of their warm, comfortable sitting room, and when he reached a hand out again Sirius didn't pull away from it.
"Sirius," he said lowly, "I can't… say anything about what the process did to you, but what it did for you… Sirius, it worked for you. It nearly killed you, but it worked. Your parents never got into your head again after that. And it will work for Harry, too. He'll keep Voldemort out now, you'll see."
Sirius blew air softly out of his nose in a small, sardonic gesture. "And? Is it worth it?"
"It is to him," Remus said sharply. "He lost you because of a false vision. You died. Do you understand that?" Remus squeezed the shoulder beneath his hand hard enough to hurt. "Of course it's bloody worth it. He did it for you, because you're everything to him."
Sirius was silent for a moment, and Remus could see his eyes shifting back and forth quickly as he thought. "Maybe…," he said slowly, "maybe I shouldn't be. Maybe he'd be better off without me."
"Please don't," Harry's voice cut in from behind them, low and shaking slightly with intensity. "Don't say that."
The two men whipped around, startled out of their conversation by Harry's unexpected appearance in the sitting room. He was standing just outside the door to Sirius' bedroom, in his pajamas with his hair hanging limply down over his still-sweaty forehead. His face had an unnatural pallor clinging to it and dark rings had settled beneath his eyes that looked as if they had been painted on with a brush. But his eyes were bright, shining with anger and something else that Sirius couldn't name, and Sirius stepped forward and reached a supportive hand out towards Harry's elbow. Harry yanked it away, unconsciously mirroring his godfather's actions of just a few moments ago, and Remus was once again overwhelmed by the similarities between the two men before him. Sirius snatched his hand back as though burned, and crushing hurt washed over his face briefly before he visibly forced his features blank. Harry immediately looked apologetic, recognizing his godfather's reactions instantly, and he let out a breath and seemed to deflate, the shimmering anger in his visage dimming until he looked merely tired, and small.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I just... you can't say things like that. They're not true, and they scare me." He said this simply, too tired to be embarrassed or ashamed.
"I don't mean to scare you," Sirius replied, voice earnest. "I just… I promised myself I wouldn't ever leave you again, after last time. I promised you. But… if that's not what's best for you—"
"It is what's best for me," Harry stated.
When Sirius only looked at him, eyes uncertain and painfully conflicted, Harry ducked his head and spoke his next words hesitantly.
"I'm in here enough to hear you two talking, sometimes," he said softly, "and I think that something… unusual happened to you, after Dumbledore did that kind of Legilimency on you. Is that true?" He looked at the floor steadily, unwilling to meet Sirius' eyes.
Sirius opened his mouth to answer him, but no words came out. Harry fidgeted as he waited for Sirius to find his voice, but it wouldn't come and as the silence stretched out an itchy, uncomfortable sense of unease started to rise up inside Sirius' chest, until finally the tension was broken by Remus.
"That's true, Harry," he said softly.
Harry's eyes darted up, and then moved back and forth between the two men quickly, sharp and calculating. He waited for a moment and then nodded his head slightly in acceptance when no explanation seemed to be forthcoming, and then stepped forward until he was standing in front of Sirius.
"Whatever happened to you isn't going to happen to me," he said, and Sirius' eyes snapped up from where they had, like Harry's, been studying the floor intently. Astonishment washed through him at Harry's sense of intuition, at the fact that he had somehow managed to pick up on the exact source of Sirius' worry, and his sense of wonder must have made its way onto his face because Harry smiled at him in gentle amusement.
"I do know you, Sirius," he said, his voice lightly teasing, but his face was serious and empathetic when Sirius reached out and dragged a hand across his hair quickly and then let it rest on the side of his head, expression awed and grateful.
"No more talk of leaving, yeah?" Harry asked. "You did it to help me. It won't be like it was for you." His voice was firm, reassuring.
Sirius only nodded again, and wondered when his godson had learned to read him as easily as he could Harry.
***
Later that night, Remus found Sirius once again lying on his back on the couch with a myriad of sparkling figures floating about his head. As he moved across the room to sit in his chair, he got a look at Sirius' face and although it was tainted various colors from the floating images above it, he recognized the expression there instantly.
"You're plotting," Remus accused, eyes narrowed at his friend as he settled down into the chair beside the couch. It was odd, he thought, how habitual he and Sirius both were. It made it easy to live together, he mused vaguely, and then dismissed the thought as irrelevant.
Sirius' head in the meantime had turned towards him quickly and his face had adopted a pointedly not-plotting expression. "Am not!" he protested, sounding convincingly offended. If Remus hadn't known him for so long, he might apologize and feel vaguely guilty but as it was, he had known Sirius for a very long time and wasn't fooled in the slightest.
Remus snorted at him. "Sirius. You have your "I'm-plotting-ways-to-take-over-the-world-with-a-fork-and-ten-galleons" face on. I learned to be wary of that face in first year, you think I don't recognize it now?"
Sirius scowled at him for a moment before turning his face back towards the animated images above him. "That should have worked," he said petulantly, and Remus couldn't help the laugh that bubbled up out of his throat.
"You had a fork and ten galleons, Sirius," he said, amused.
"Exactly!" Sirius exclaimed, sounding completely affronted by the idea that his world domination plan had, in fact, failed. There was silence for a moment in the room, broken only by the soft crackling of the fire before Sirius let out a soft sigh and offered, "I'm not plotting. More… scheming," he said speculatively, and a strange note came into his voice that set the hairs on the back of Remus' neck standing up. "Plotting is too innocent a word for it, I think. More like payback."
"Sirius Black," Remus said sternly, alarm bells jangling inside his head, "whatever it is you're thinking of doing, don't."
"Stop your fussing," Sirius snapped at him, patience gone and calm suddenly shattered. "I won't be reckless."
"That's not true and you know it," Remus threw back.
"They deserve it," Sirius bit out, clearly agitated, and the shapes above him exploded in a violent shower of sparks as he ripped a hand through them.
"Who is they?" Remus asked, frustrated and utterly confounded as to where his friend's anger had come from.
Sirius sat up quickly and looked at him darkly from beneath his brows and growled out, "Those stupid muggles. The Dursleys."
Remus froze, caught off guard entirely by the seemingly random answer and at the hatred with which it was delivered. "The Dursleys," he stated, wrapping his mind around it slowly, shifting his focus and trying to catch up with his friend's mind. "Harry's family, you mean."
Sirius shot to his feet, suddenly furious, cheekbones flushed with color. "They are not his family!" he said dangerously, and Remus instantly stood as well and reached out a placating hand.
"I only meant by blood, Sirius, I didn't mean—," he began, but was cut off by his friend.
"Blood has nothing to do with it," Sirius said, voice bitter and aching, and Remus wished at once that he could take his words back.
"I know," Remus said softly. "I know that. I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking," he finished, and felt vaguely sick with himself for having inadvertently brought up both memories of Sirius' own horrid family and for poking at an insecurity that had yet to heal over Sirius' guardianship of his godson.
"Just… sit, yeah?" Remus asked, a faint note of pleading in his voice. "Tell me why you're angry with them. Maybe I can help you."
"I don't want your help if you're going to tell me not to do it," Sirius said, considering his friend warily.
"I'll only tell you that after you've explained, and only if I really think you shouldn't," Remus answered honestly.
Sirius looked at him for a moment, eyes suspicious and temper only barely reined in, and as Remus looked at his friend he felt suddenly furious himself only he was angry with Azkaban, and with Peter, and with a government that was corrupt. He was broken out of his hazy anger when Sirius sat abruptly and let out his breath in a whoosh of air, suddenly deflated.
"I saw what they did to him," Sirius said simply. "I saw."
Remus felt confused for a moment, and exhausted from trying to keep up with a brain that shifted it's focus so quickly and completely, and didn't realize right away that Sirius was referring to the memories he had seen inside Harry's head.
"You saw Harry as a child?" he asked, voice slightly awed and just a little bit envious.
"I saw him at every age, at his worst moments," Sirius replied. "I heard from Molly that they didn't treat him well, and Harry hinted at it but you know him—he'd never actually come out and say it and I … I didn't really know," Sirius said, voice incredulous. His eyes were wide as he thought, face utterly vulnerable and voice laced with shock as he said, "They abused him, Rem. It wasn't just… unpleasantness. It was abuse."
Remus' stomach sank as Sirius said these words, and suddenly he wasn't at all envious that Sirius had gotten to glimpse Harry as a child because he knew the memories would cause only grief and exasperate the already crushing guilt that was sitting in his chest over the fact that he had been living as a recluse while Harry was being mistreated and he hadn't reached out to him at all.
"How badly?" Remus asked even as he kicked himself for the question because nothing good would come of it, and it stemmed only from a self-masochistic desire to know.
"Badly enough," Sirius replied vaguely, hesitant to draw those memories up inside his head again, unwilling to see Harry wince in pain over burns and broken bones that hadn't had to happen.
"As bad as you?" Remus asked again, and he was pushing, he knew he was, and Sirius was going to get mad at him again but he couldn't stop himself. Sirius turned to look at him quickly and his expression was unreadable for long moments, but when he finally answered there was no anger in his voice, just an honesty so frank and brutal that Remus couldn't stop himself from closing his eyes briefly in an attempt to block it out.
"No," Sirius said. "Not as bad as me. But there's no measuring it, Remus. They hurt him."
"I know there's no measuring," Remus bit out, struggling to keep his own emotions in check now. "I just… I can't bear the thought and it gives me something to hold on to, that you turned out okay. More than okay. If you can come back from it then so can he," Remus said, and Sirius wasn't sure whether he was referring to his childhood or to the Legilimency but it was okay either way, he supposed, if it gave his friend something to ground himself with during a time when the Earth itself was being torn apart.
Remus exhaled quietly to himself, brought himself back together bit by bit, like reconstructing a fallen wall, and then gave Sirius a half-smile and asked, "What are we scheming, then?"
***
Harry was scared. That was the first thing he registered—a terror so intense racing through his body that even as he ran he felt completely paralyzed, as though hiding was an impossibility and he was doomed to be captured by whatever was chasing him. He didn't know what it was he was trying to run from, though, so he looked back over his shoulder and stopped breathing because Cedric Diggory was there, smiling his charming, easy grin that had made him so popular with the Hogwarts students, and his cheeks were pink with life. Harry stopped running, unsure why he was fleeing his classmate at all, and when Cedric caught up to him Harry offered him a smile.
"Sorry," Harry said sheepishly. "I didn't know it was you."
"It's alright, Harry," Cedric replied. "How have you been?"
Harry tilted his head at the boy in front of him, thought vaguely that somehow this shouldn't be happening but couldn't say why, couldn't figure out why his brain seemed to be sending him warning signals or remember why it was odd that he was talking to Cedric.
"Fine," Harry answered, suspicion rising up in his gut and panic beginning to race through his veins again. "You?"
"Me?" Cedric asked innocently, face angelic. "I've been dead."
And then Harry remembered, remembered that Cedric was dead, killed by Wormtail, and a horror came over Harry and he took a few rapid steps backwards.
"Cedric," he gasped out. "How?"
Cedric smiled at him and opened his mouth to answer but seemed to choke before he could get any words out and he dropped to the ground suddenly, writhing in pain. Harry quickly fell to his knees beside him and reached out a hand to his friend but paused just before he touched him, unsure what to do that would help him, and in his moment of hesitation something vicious and impatient flashed across Cedric's face. But it was gone just as suddenly and he was looking innocent and earnest once again, clenching his teeth against whatever it was that was plaguing him, and he choked out, "Won't you help me, Harry?"
"I don't know how!" Harry cried, anguished, and Cedric looked briefly victorious before he said,
"Take my hand, Harry," and reached out one shaking palm towards him.
Harry looked at it for a moment, saw himself reaching the Triwizard Cup out towards Cedric and having them both take it, saw Cedric dead by Wormtail's wand, and then firmly told the warning bells in his head to shut up because he had let Cedric die once and he didn't want to do it again. He clasped Cedric's hand in his own tightly, and Cedric stopped seizing and smiled at him brightly but this time there was something dark in his face, something evil.
"Thanks, Harry," he whispered, and Harry was confused for a moment before suddenly he couldn't breathe at all and it felt like he was being drained, like his very core was being sucked out of his body through his hand, and a chill that started in his fingers began creeping out into the rest of his body leaving only a dead, icy cold behind it. Cedric reached out his other hand and grabbed his shoulder, shook it roughly, and Harry sobbed and tried to yank it away but couldn't because it just held on to him more tightly except the hand was warm now, fighting the iciness that was threatening to overwhelm him, and it wasn't Cedric's voice speaking to him anymore.
"Harry!" Sirius said, voice urgent, and Harry recognized it now, recognized the hand on his shoulder to be his godfather's and not that of a life-sucking wraith, and opened his eyes abruptly and found himself looking up into Sirius' anxious face. "Are you alright?"
Harry was quiet for a moment, stunned, and took deep gasping breaths as he slowly became aware of his surroundings. He was in Sirius' bedroom, his for the time being, and the bedclothes were tangled around his body and damp with sweat. He sat up slowly and attempted to extricate himself, fumbled with the sheets and shivered as his sweat-coated pajamas stuck to his body. Sirius took out his wand and murmured at the sheets, and they disappeared entirely before new ones popped into the air above the bed, unfolded themselves, and then settled gently and neatly down onto Harry's lap. A few more quiet words and Harry's pajamas had dried themselves, and smelled faintly of cotton that had been let out to dry somewhere near the Burrow.
Harry sent his godfather a small, tired smile and croaked out, "Thanks." His eyebrows furrowed as pain laced its way down his throat from speaking, and he hunched in on himself a little bit as he realized the cause. "Was I screaming?" he asked, voice tentative.
Sirius looked at him, eyes searching Harry's face as though he could find a stamp of health there somewhere, and nodded at his godson blankly. Harry sighed in resignation and nodded his head slightly. "Thought so," he muttered. "Can always tell the next day."
Sirius made an unhappy noise low in his throat, conjured a squishy chair into being, and settled into it beside the bed. "I don't like that you recognize the feeling of screaming all night," he said softly.
Harry looked at him and shrugged. "It could be worse," he said, shoulders sagging slightly in exhaustion.
"Doesn't matter," Sirius said stubbornly. "I wish you didn't have to deal with it."
Harry smiled at him in a way that was half grateful and half amused, and as he flopped down onto the pillows again he said, "The nightmares used to be true; at least this one wasn't."
"True?" Sirius asked.
Harry was silent for a moment before he replied, voice low and still hoarse. "Over the summer," he said, "I dreamt of you falling behind the Veil. But… it wouldn't go away once I woke up. It would still be true, because it was a reality and a nightmare."
Sirius looked at his godson, worn out and fragile looking as he fought to even sleep soundly through the night, and felt once again that he had failed somehow.
"I'm sorry," Sirius said, and his voice cracked in the middle of it.
Harry tutted at him, and had Sirius not been so upset he would have been vaguely amused at the Hermione-like gesture. "It's not your fault," Harry said. "It's okay."
"It isn't," Sirius insisted, and then froze as a memory rose up inside his mind's eye of Harry, sitting hunched in a corner of a dark room that felt haunted and dead, looking as though he was clinging to life against his will. "That memory," Sirius said. "The one of you sitting against a wall, with your knees pulled up." Sirius paused when he heard Harry inhale sharply through his nose, and when he looked down at his godson he saw that Harry's jaw was tense, his teeth clenched tightly together. "That was this summer," Sirius finished, not asking a question but rather stating a truth.
Harry nodded grimly at him, face pinched. He opened his jaw stiffly, made to speak, but it took him a few tries before he was able to manage. "I was afraid to sleep," he whispered, "because I would just see you fall again and again and again… but when I was awake it felt as though someone had punched me through the chest and his fist had gone straight through." Harry paused for a moment, and his eyes were very far away, looking back on a place that Sirius couldn't see, and his voice was vague as he finished, "So I just… sat there, against the wall. Not asleep or awake, just existing."
There was absolute silence for a moment after that, Harry lost inside his head and Sirius unable to move because of the horror and guilt that was consuming him. Finally Sirius asked, "You spoke to someone. Who…?" he trailed off, voice too tight to continue.
Harry looked at him and his eyes seemed to come back into focus as he answered a bit more clearly. "My Aunt Petunia. She came in," he said, voice somewhat perturbed. "Dunno what for. It was odd really, because she never comes in."
Sirius made no response, only scrubbed a hand over his face and hung his head, feeling as though every bone in his body was aching with emotion and exhaustion.
"Sirius," Harry said, and Sirius lifted his head in response but kept his hand over the bottom half of his face, simultaneously supporting his head in his palm as he rested his elbow on the arm of his chair and attempting to hide his lack of composure. Now that Harry had his attention, however, he didn't know what to say to ease the look of utter distress in his godfather's eyes. He grappled for words, for something to do, and eventually decided there was nothing he could say.
"Maybe…" he said hesitantly. "Maybe being Padfoot would help." He offered the suggestion on a hunch that perhaps changing species would mute Sirius' emotions somewhat, and Harry didn't know if that was accurate at all but there was a small pop! and then a very large, shaggy dog was hopping up onto the bed and curling up by his feet, resting his chin across one of Harry's ankles. Harry bent a little to scratch the dog behind his ears and then said quietly, "Get some sleep." He then laid down himself and was asleep again within moments, nightmares forgotten as Padfoot's warmth stayed steady beside him.
When Harry woke again, sunlight was streaming into the room in thin rays as it spilled through a crack in the shades, and dust was whirling through it slowly, calmly, making its way down from the ceiling to the bed in a meandering sort of way. Harry watched it evenly, brain quiet, and he felt still in a way that he hadn't since before Sirius had done Legilimency on him over a week ago. He turned his eyes to the large, shaggy dog that was still sleeping on the foot of his bed, snuffling softly and paws twitching slightly every few moments. Harry felt his lips quirk slightly at the sight, and he wondered if Padfoot was dreaming, and whether or not the dreams were in color as Sirius' would be. His thoughts mulled over his godfather slowly as he watched the sleeping dog, and Harry felt a tugging curiosity rise up and try to break through his unusual calm. He fought it, unwilling to give up his current serenity or to pry into an event in Sirius' life that still seemed to haunt him, but the desire to know still niggled at him, teased him. Harry had no idea what could have happened to Sirius to make his Legilimency experience worse than it had to be; it seemed to Harry that nothing could be worse than the process itself, that there was no possible way any person could handle something more cruel or intense than being mentally invaded and torn apart.
But it had happened. Harry couldn't understand how, but he trusted Sirius enough to know that he wasn't lying. Even if Remus hadn't confirmed it to him, hadn't told him something strange had happened, the pain in Sirius' face every time he had to think about it was sharp and brutal, and it made Harry's chest tighten each time he saw it. Harry was startled out of his reverie when Padfoot yawned widely, open mouth accompanied by an inadvertent and contented-sounding whine. Both paws went over his nose afterwards and he looked vaguely as though he was protesting being awake and Harry couldn't help chuckling slightly; dog-shaped or not, that was still Sirius.
"Morning," Harry said, and Padfoot's head came up and grinned at him, tongue lolling out to one side. The dog stood on the bed suddenly and leaped off of it, and when he landed on his feet he was Sirius again, looking vaguely disheveled but happy enough.
"Hallo," Sirius drawled. "How're you feeling?"
"Fine," Harry answered. "Good, actually. Better."
Sirius' face was instantly relieved, and a wide smile broke out across his face.
"Excellent," Sirius replied. "Are you hungry?"
Harry opened his mouth to say no but then caught himself, and realized that for the first time in days he was hungry.
"Yeah," Harry said, voice a little puzzled but pleased.
"Good," Sirius answered. "Why don't you get dressed, and we'll eat in the sitting room."
Harry nodded in agreement, and when he entered the sitting room twenty minutes later he felt refreshed and awake, no longer fever-groggy as he had been for the past few days. No matter how many cleaning charms people threw at him, Harry thought, he was still convinced that spellwork-clean didn't feel as good as shower-clean. Sirius had clearly showered as well, as his hair was damp and tied back into a small ponytail that was dripping water down the back of his white button-down.
"Are you teaching today?" Harry asked, nodding at his godfather's shirt.
Sirius looked up at him over his tea, eyes scanning Harry's face for signs of health. "Maybe," he answered casually. "You look better," he commented.
"I told you I feel better," Harry teased, and Sirius snorted at him.
"Indeed you did," Sirius said wryly, "but I've learned that you don't always tell the truth when it comes to your well-being."
Harry shrugged at him and plopped down onto the couch, not willing to protest a statement he knew was true, but not quite conceding either.
They munched quietly for a while on toast, Harry on the couch and Sirius in the chair normally occupied by Remus, and as they sat Harry felt the nagging sensation come back into his gut, the one that was urging him to ask Sirius about an event he wasn't sure he really wanted to know about. Harry continued to struggle with himself for a few silent minutes, unaware of Sirius' knowing and somewhat amused glances he was throwing at his godson over his breakfast. Finally Sirius placed his tea on the table in front of them and then sat back in his chair, sprawling his legs out in front of him.
"Whatever it is, just ask," Sirius advised him gently.
Harry's head snapped up, and he flushed guiltily. "Sorry," he mumbled sheepishly.
Sirius snorted at him in amusement. "No need to apologize. What is it?" he asked again.
Harry hesitated, picked at the crust of his toast and tore it into tiny pieces.
Sirius grinned at him suddenly and burst out, "Is this about Ginny?"
"What?" Harry exclaimed, half-startled and half-horrified. "No!"
"Are you sure?" Sirius questioned, taking out his wand, "because I could always—"
"Oh please, no," Harry said, voice strangled as he looked at Sirius' wand in abject fear. "No more people. Once was enough."
Sirius barked out a laugh, and put his wand away safely out of sight. "Alright fine, spoil my fun," he teased.
"Your fun, my torture," Harry muttered, blushing slightly.
Sirius chuckled again and conceded, "I know, I know. No more people making out on my mantelpiece."
"Thank you," Harry replied sarcastically.
"So what is it, then?" Sirius asked, voice less comical now.
Harry took a deep breath and braced himself for a variety of possible reactions from his godfather, and none of them seemed particularly good to Harry.
"I was just… I was wondering if you'd tell me about what happened to you," Harry said softly, "after Dumbledore did the Legilimency on you."
Sirius froze, his face suddenly and perfectly blank, his body utterly motionless. Harry raised his eyebrows.
"Breathe, Sirius," he reminded.
Sirius' breath rushed out of him with a small whoosh, and Harry grimaced in sympathy.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked," he said, feeling poorly already for having brought it up.
"No, I--" Sirius choked out, but stopped abruptly and had to force himself to continue. "I was just surprised, is all."
Harry hesitated a moment, and the silence was thick. Sirius looked stunned, haunted, his face pale and blue eyes wide and unseeing. "You don't have to tell me, Sirius," Harry answered. "It's okay. I was just curious, I don't need to know."
"I'll tell you," Sirius said shortly. "I just—I've never." Sirius stopped again, and Harry looked at him and felt sick that something terrible enough had happened to Sirius to force him into inarticulacy. Fear rose up inside Harry's chest, tightened its grip there and squeezed until he was having trouble breathing himself.
"Sirius, stop," Harry said, wanting to shake his godfather until whatever was suffocating him went away, wanted Sirius to stop thinking about something so painful that it almost stopped him from functioning.
"It's not… it's not that bad," Sirius said, voice very far away. "I'm being silly."
Harry looked at him incredulously. "You're not silly!"
Sirius was silent for a long time and Harry didn't know what to do to fix him, to make him better and turn him back into the Sirius that Harry recognized.
"It wasn't… it wasn't just the Legilimency," Sirius began softly. "That's what makes it different from yours, I think. What I keep telling myself, when I worry that you'll be as bad off as I was." Sirius wasn't looking at him, was staring blankly straight in front of him, seeing images of a life he had had before Harry was born. Harry didn't speak, or move, and he tried to breathe more quietly in case he interrupted Sirius and stopped him from speaking. Sirius glanced at him then and seemed to come back to himself slightly, visibly forced himself to regain some of his composure.
"Do you remember last Christmas, when we looked at the Black Family Tree? On the tapestry?" he asked.
Harry nodded. "I remember," he said.
"She burned my name off sixth year, after I ran away," Sirius said, and Harry remembered also that Sirius had told him that, had told him that he had run away that year and gone to stay with Harry's dad.
"My parents and I never… saw eye to eye, even when I was little," Sirius continued, voice low. "And then when I came to Hogwarts and got sorted into Gryffindor, it was the worst thing that had ever happened to our family. By the time I came home from fifth year, things had gotten… out of control." Sirius stopped here, stayed silent for a few moments as he breathed and tried to remember that this was long over, that he didn't have to go back to the House of Black ever again and he was finally, finally free.
"My parents weren't stereotypical, I suppose, in their ways of punishing me," Sirius said dryly, and Harry felt his stomach drop and the hairs on the back of his neck rise in dread. "My father was… taller than I am even, and broader. He got it into his head that if I saw my blood—Black blood—that I would realize exactly what it was I was betraying." Sirius didn't falter as he said this, just described it calmly as it had happened, and Harry closed his eyes and had to turn his face away even as Sirius continued speaking. "My mother was the reason Dumbledore wanted me to learn Occlumency. She used to get into my head and try to manipulate me, would show me images of your dad and Remus and Peter, and myself, and convince me that what I was seeing was weak, and bad, and dirty. And the summer before sixth year I was fifteen, and brash, and so angry at them that I would say anything to provoke them and by the time I came back to school everything around me was falling apart."
Harry saw movement out of the corner of his eye and looked over his shoulder to find Remus standing just outside his bedroom, a look of weary acceptance on his face as he heard Sirius' last words, and Harry didn't know how long he had been standing there but knew from the look on his face and the way his body sagged that this was something Remus had seen for himself, firsthand, and that the memories still hurt him as much as they hurt Sirius.
"I came back to school and I was just… a ticking clock, I supposel. Your father and Remus and Peter were all I had—they were everything to me. As it got closer and closer to the winter hols, the thought of going home got worse and worse and I felt like I was being suffocated, and was convinced that if I went home the world would come to an end. I leaned on our group, on everything that made us a real family—not by blood but by our loyalty to each other—and when I ran into Snape on a full moon and he tried to tell me that I was weak, and that my friends were weak… I wanted to prove him wrong." Sirius said this last part simply, almost helplessly, and in the corner of the room Harry saw Remus drop his head and reach one hand out to support himself on the wall, anguish leaking from every pore but Harry couldn't tell if it was for himself or Sirius or both.
"Remus wasn't weak, I hadn't ever known a stronger person, and what better way of showing Snape that Remus was the definition of strength than on a full moon?" Sirius asked, mind seeped into the memory completely, sounding desperate and defeated all at once, like he was struggling to keep himself above the surface of something awful but was losing the battle inch by inch, and being dragged under. "I told him to go to the Whomping Willow, and I gave Remus away." Sirius said, and Harry shuddered because he had never heard someone speak about themselves with so much hatred.
"And then I lost them," Sirius continued, voice small and vulnerable. "I nearly killed Snape, and Remus could have been expelled and Dumbledore could have been fired for having let Remus come at all and… I hated myself and was so sorry but I lost them anyway. And I was alone suddenly, a disgrace to both my blood family and the one I had thought unbreakable." Sirius did pause here for a moment, and when he continued his voice was shaking slightly, forcing its way through a throat that was tight with emotion. "And that's when Dumbledore and I tried the new Legilimency."
Harry's jaw dropped open. He couldn't help it, he knew on some level that maybe it was rude but it was a reaction that he couldn't prevent. Harry could not wrap his mind around someone going through a Legilimency experience like he and Sirius had and not having anyone there afterwards, couldn't wrap his mind around that idea that someone would have to deal with the nightmares, and the sickness, and the crippling fear that wouldn't go away no matter if it was day or night, all by themselves. It was impossible, Harry thought.
"What… what happened?" Harry asked, and his voice came out breathless and disbelieving. He looked at Sirius helplessly, needing to hear the resolution—that it turned out alright, that Sirius was still alive obviously because he was sitting right here but Harry still needed to hear it, needed to know that everything fixed itself. Sirius opened his mouth to answer but sound would not come out, and his face was paler than Harry had ever seen it and he looked haunted in a way that Harry hadn't seen since just after he had escaped from Azkaban.
"He stopped eating," Remus' voice cut in. Harry turned his head to Remus quickly but Sirius looked at his friend more slowly, and when his eyes finally locked with golden amber ones Remus almost didn't recognize them. Remus walked forward slowly and sat on the other end of the couch, and knew that Sirius was done—that he wouldn't be able to finish this story even if he had to, and knew that the ending was his responsibility to tell, anyway.
"You thought we didn't know, Sirius," Remus said, voice thick and low, "but we did. We could tell the day it happened, because you were jumping every time something moved within your line of sight and your head hurt so badly you couldn't stand any sort of light without squinting." Remus looked at his knees and picked at a loose thread on the cuff of his shirt in an uncharacteristic display of nervousness.
"He stopped eating after that, and never slept, and got more and more subdued until he wasn't talking at all," Remus continued, and chose to address Harry because he couldn't bear to face his friend with this, couldn't face the role he had had in this event. "James was worried, he was ready to start talking to Sirius again in two days because he knew him best and he knew Sirius hadn't meant it, knew how it had happened, but I was too stubborn. I wouldn't forgive him, wouldn't relent even though I could see that he was in pain." Sirius was looking away from him but his face was tilted towards him slightly, and Remus knew he was listening intently and felt all the worse for it, knowing that Sirius should have heard this years ago and still needed it, after all this time.
"And then Sirius disappeared," Remus said, still speaking as though he was addressing Harry but knew he was actually speaking to Sirius. "He didn't show up to meals, or classes, or come to bed. We were all awake that night, listening for him to sneak back in, and I remember looking out the window and watching the snow fall and thinking to myself that in the morning, he'd be back and I would talk to him. But then he wasn't back in the morning, and James was ready to rip off my head and snapped at anyone who tried to talk to him. He went straight to Dumbledore at breakfast, told him Sirius was missing, but before Dumbledore could even summon the ghosts to look for him James slapped his hand to his forehead and took off."
Harry didn't know what to do except sit, awkwardly, horrified and nauseous over the things he was hearing, and he wished now, as he had known he would, that he had never asked Sirius to explain what had happened. At some point this had become a conversation that Harry wasn't supposed to hear, and he didn't know when exactly Sirius' answer to his question had turned into something private between Remus and Sirius, but somehow it had and Harry was distinctly uncomfortable. He was intruding, but he couldn't just get up and leave because his legs felt numb and Remus was still speaking like he was talking to Harry but somehow Harry knew that he wasn't, and Harry felt sick that Sirius had been so hurt, so utterly alone, and Harry wanted to leave and throw up and then go to sleep so he didn't have to think about it anymore.
When Remus spoke again, his voice was very distant, mind looking back on an event that neither Harry nor Sirius had witnessed. "The next time I saw James, he was in shock as he stood by your bed in the hospital wing while Poppy tried to warm you up, and your skin was blue and the robes on the floor were covered in snow and ice because you had spent nearly twenty four hours on top of the Astronomy Tower in a blizzard in December, and you were only half conscious and kept fighting her and telling her to let you die."
Remus broke off, unable to speak any longer as he watched in his mind as a hypothermic, sixteen-year-old Sirius asked Poppy to let him die, and a shudder ripped through his body and he felt suddenly and violently ill. He sucked in a deep breath of air, rested his elbows on his knees and rested his head in his hands because he didn't have the strength to hold it up any longer. "That's on me, Sirius," he said gently. "I left you alone when you needed a friend the most, when you needed someone else to pick up your pieces and put you back together after Dumbledore had ripped you apart. I'm sorry."
The silence that settled over the room after this statement was heavy and complete, each of the people in the room stunned and anguished to the point of exhaustion. Harry had to leave, didn't know what he could do but leave, and so he stood quietly and squeezed Sirius' shoulder as he moved past him, felt the shoulder beneath his hand quake slightly, and then moved towards the door with a murmured, "I'll come back later," and then left.
Sirius was silent for another long moment after the portrait door shut softly, feeling drained and empty. He had only a few memories of the day Remus was remembering, but they were some of Sirius' worst; he had been utterly and completely alone. He had felt desperate, trapped inside a body that he hated, and awful memories had played themselves over and over again inside his head and he couldn't stop them, and he had run to the top of the Astronomy Tower and had sat there for a long while because he couldn't breathe and when the temperature dropped below freezing and snow started falling heavily from the night sky, he didn't get up because he had no place to go.
And then days had passed without him realizing it. There were no memories of being on the Tower for more than a few hours; no memories of James finding him or bringing him in a panic to the hospital wing. There was nothing after that, nothing until he woke up and wasn't alone anymore. James and Remus were there, even Peter, and Sirius had never felt more relieved in his life than he did at that one moment despite the fact that he had nearly frozen to death. And if his friends had shown up too late, he didn't care because they had shown up, and Remus at least was still here. Remus still sat with him in the evenings, drinking tea and correcting papers, and he woke Sirius from nightmares that he couldn't break himself out of alone, and Remus was here, and Sirius knew that Remus was expecting him to be angry or upset but he couldn't bring himself to feel anything other than gratitude. So when he opened his mouth and murmured softly, "It's really okay, Rem," he somehow, despite everything, believed it. "You're still here. We're still here."
Remus shut his eyes against the possibility of losing Sirius for what seemed like the millionth time, and he smiled gently as he responded somewhat wryly, "Against all odds, yes, we are."
And when Remus reached out a hand and squeezed Sirius' knee, Sirius didn't hesitate in reaching out his own hand and wrapped his fingers around Remus' wrist, felt the pulse there beat steadily, and knew that he still relied on it as much as he had when he was sixteen.
"Don't leave," Sirius said quietly.
Remus made an odd, inadvertent noise in his throat and said simply, "I couldn't ever, even if I wanted to."
Sirius smiled at him crookedly, left side slightly higher than the right, and when Sirius said, "Me either," Remus couldn't help but smile warmly back at him.
***
TBC :)