Chapter 10: You've Got New Brothers Now
After the nightmare that was this past summer, it feels jarring to Sirius to be happy again—to be back somewhere safe, where he's surrounded by people who aren't eager to beat him when he doesn't repent hard enough for bringing shame to the family. Nobody Cruciates him when he messes up spells in class, and he gets to stay out late, breaking into Hogsmeade and the kitchens, without repercussions; he gets to actually crack jokes and mess with Snivellus, and more than that, people laugh at him when he does. The worst thing that ever happens is getting separated from James when they're both serving detentions, but even then, he's got James's other two-way mirror to give him some companionship.
They've been hanging around the girls more since coming back to Hogwarts for second year, but the Marauders, as James has started calling them, still spend the last couple hours of each night holed in the dormitory, working on the Map and planning pranks until Moony starts looking so peaky that James insists they all go to bed. Tonight, Moony is looking particularly out of it, lying on his side on the bed with his whole body curled up around Sirius; Sirius has got one hand resting on Moony's head, twisting circles of his hair around and around, and it's nice, feeling like he can just be here, with his best friends, and not have to apologize to anyone for it—not have to pay for it. Back home, whenever he and Regulus got too loud or too comfortable, they always had to pay for it.
The only way this could be better were if Regulus were here with them, sitting with his knees drawn up until James finally, reluctantly kicked him back out to his own dormitory—but Sirius tries not to think about that. He tries not to think about Regulus much at all.
"I just wish there were something we could do to help you during your transformations," Peter is saying to Moony. "I mean, it's on a Friday night this week, so we can come and spend the whole morning on Saturday with you after—and the afternoon, if you need it—but you just… even if you don't remember it after, you do get really banged up while you're out, and if there were some way we could help with that—"
"Thanks, Pete, but what are you going to do?" says James, smirking. "Prostrate yourself in front of him so he can attack you instead of himself?"
"Well, I was thinking…" Sirius hedges.
James and Peter both look at him. Even Moony twists himself around so that he can tilt his head up; Sirius lets his hand shift so that he's cradling the back of Moony's head from below.
"You know I was joking, right?" says James, an echo of a laugh on his face.
"Yeah, I know. But—what if we weren't people when we kept him company?"
"What do you mean, what if we weren't—?"
"Moony, do you know if you attack everything when you're the wolf, or do you only go after humans?"
Moony frowns. "Sirius—"
"Just answer the question."
"Well… I don't know if I would go after animals," he says slowly. "It's not like I remember what's going through my head when I transform—and I'm always either chained up at home or stuck in the Shrieking Shack; it's not like there are any animals around me."
"Okay, well, we Transfigure things into animals for class all the time, don't we? On Friday, we can leave a badger or something down there with you, and—"
"Sirius, mate," says Peter, "I'm not seeing how your intellectual curiosity about whether or not Moony would attack an animal is going to help us to—"
"That's the thing," Sirius says. He drops his hand from Moony's head and leans backward, propping himself up on his pillows. "If Moony doesn't go after animals when he's transformed, maybe animals could help him keep calm. Maybe we could help him keep calm."
He can see the lightbulb going off in James's mind. "Like, as Animagi?"
"Ani-what?" asks Peter.
"Animagi," says James, his voice rising in excitement. "People who can transform into animals. It's not like regular Transfiguration: you do this spell—a complicated one, from what I've heard—"
"—And illegal if you don't get supervised and registered by the Ministry—" Moony points out, dragging himself into a sitting position.
"—and if it works, from then on, you can transform into a certain animal at will anytime you want. You get to keep your clothes, and if you're good enough at Transfiguration, you can even do it without a wand."
"And if it doesn't work," says Moony, his own voice getting louder now too, "it can go horribly wrong—you could end up as a half-human, half-animal mutant forever. I appreciate the thought, mates, but seriously, this is too risky to even be considering. If it goes wrong—"
"—If it goes right," says Sirius, looking directly at James and ignoring the other two entirely, "Moony doesn't have to be alone on full moons anymore. He might not even have to be violent on full moons anymore."
Peter's got his face all screwed up as he visibly tries to make sense of what the other three are saying. "Sirius, I want to help Moony as much as you do, but this sounds really, really risky. I don't want to get stuck as a mutant."
"You're not going to get stuck as a mutant," says Sirius, rolling his eyes. "We can pull this off. I know we can."
"Like hell you will," Moony mutters, rubbing his eyes. "I won't allow you to do this and put yourselves at risk like that. I'm not worth it."
"Yes," Sirius says very earnestly, "you are."
He and Moony stare at each other for a second, and something in Moony's face seems to crumble. Sirius flinches a little when James breaks the silence—he'd quite honestly forgotten that James and Peter are there with them. "We don't even know if having animals keep Moony company would help, right? So let's just—do what Sirius suggested and leave a badger in the Shrieking Shack on Friday night and see what happens to it. If it comes out unscathed on Saturday morning, then we can research the spell and see if we can even find any information in the library on how to do this, if we do this."
"I don't like this."
"Yeah, but it's not up to you, is it? It's our bodies—mine and James's and Peter's—and we decide what we do with them."
"Well, we don't have to decide anything tonight," James says, clapping his hands. "Come on, it's after midnight, and Moony looks like he's going to keel over any second just from trying to hold himself upright. Bed. I'm serious."
xx
Sirius, James, and Peter are already sitting in the Hospital Wing waiting for Moony when he arrives with Madam Pomfrey at eight o'clock in the morning on Saturday. "Honestly," says Pomfrey in a voice of resigned frustration. "Out of my way! Out! My patient needs rest, and we've got a lot of healing to do!"
"As much healing as usual?" Sirius pries, unable to help himself.
Moony glares at him, but Pomfrey doesn't seem to notice anything amiss. She's got an arm wrapped around Moony's waist, his own arm slung over her shoulders, as she helps him hobble to the nearest cot and settle down on it. It doesn't look good—if the badger had allowed Moony to keep more of his mind, he wouldn't be limping or wincing like that, and he ought to be walking on his own—but then again, if just sticking a badger with a badger's mind instead of a human one in the Shrieking Shack were enough, they wouldn't be considering Sirius's mad plan to become Animagi in the first place.
It seems to take forever for Pomfrey to finish examining Moony and running her wand over him to close up all the gashes along his body. When she finally, finally does, they crowd closer around his bedside, James rubbing his shoulder and Peter taking his hand. "Well?" asks Sirius quietly.
"Not a scratch on it by the end of the night," Moony whispers.
James and Sirius look at each other.
They spend the rest of the morning in the poses they usually adopt during weekday breakfasts in the Hospital Wing: Sirius curls up sleeping with Moony while James and Peter sit at the foot of the bed and chat. If the bed were big enough, all four of them would probably be passed out on it—Sirius, Peter, and James always stay up far too late when Moony isn't around to keep them in check—but Sirius has long since staked out sleeping with Moony after a full moon as his territory, and James and Peter seem to respect that.
By now, the girls know Moony is sick—even if they don't know with what—and in his half-asleep haze, Sirius hears the low voices of Emmeline and Marlene join those of Peter and James somewhere in the middle of the morning. "Alice wants to stop by when she's done with the Potions essay," says Marlene, "and if Remus isn't out yet by the time Mary gets done with the Hufflepuffs, she says she'll come down, too."
Distantly, Sirius hears footsteps and the dragging of chair legs on the ground, and then he feels a hand on his shoulder. He thinks it's Em's.
"Don't bother trying to get his attention," James remarks. "He's not getting out of that cot until Madam Pomfrey drags him out. He may not be dead asleep in there, but he's dead to anyone but Remus."
Sirius is really, really glad that his eyes are closed and he doesn't have to look at anybody right now. Em's hand lets go of his shoulder.
They skip lunch, too, so Sirius is famished by the time dinnertime rolls around and they all head out in a big gaggle to the Great Hall. At first, he's surprised when a big barn owl swoops over his head and drops a letter in his steak and kidney pie, but then he remembers that he missed owl post this morning when he chose to spend breakfast asleep in the Hospital Wing. When he rips the letter open, it turns out it's from Andy.
"Whatcha got there?"
"It's from my cousin," says Sirius dumbly, rereading it. "She wants to know if Regulus and I want to spend winter break with her and her husband."
It's a little early to be asking about Christmas plans, but nobody questions it—probably realizing, as Sirius does, that Andy's bringing it up now so that Sirius doesn't have to spend the next three months worrying about what he's going to do for the holidays. "Are you going to go?" asks Peter. "I mean, your parents don't want either of you associating with her, do they?"
"No, but I can just tell them I'm staying at Hogwarts for the break. I did that last Easter—they won't question it."
"And you think your brother will go with you?" asks Alice.
Sirius's eyes flick to the Slytherin table as he tries to seek out Regulus. He finds him near the far end of the table, kind of up by the High Table, eating methodically through a plate of vegetables and nodding at something a couple of older boys are saying to him. "Dunno. I guess I won't know until I ask him, will I?"
As dinner ends and students start to filter out of the Great Hall, Sirius buoys himself over to the Slytherin table and grabs Regulus's shoulder before the boy can escape. "I heard from Andy today—we need to talk. Come with me."
Regulus looks like coming with Sirius is just about the last thing he wants to do right now, but he allows Sirius to drag him up from the table and out into the Entrance Hall, where Regulus stands with his weight shuffled between his feet and his gaze downcast. "Look at me," Sirius spits, suddenly furious, but when he sees the fear in Regulus's eyes, he regrets it immediately.
He's turning into Mum. The last thing he ever wanted to do was to turn into Mum.
He trips over his next words: "So, uh—it's like I said; Andy wrote to me today. She asked—d'you want to go with me to spend winter break with her and Ted? Only—it means we won't have to see Mum and Dad, and I don't know about yours, but my friends are all going home over the holidays, so if we stayed at Hogwarts—"
"No."
"What?"
"No, I don't want to see them over break with you."
He'd be angry with Regulus if he didn't feel so disappointed—so betrayed. After a second, he realizes that Regulus probably feels the same way about him. "Have you ever even met Ted? Just because he's Muggle-born—"
"Have you met him? Because as far as I can tell, you're doing the exact same thing I'm doing—making assumptions about him based on his blood purity. The only difference is that you think it makes him some kind of hero."
"I don't think he's a hero," says Sirius, feeling his face start to heat up. "I think that I trust Andy's judgment, and if she cut herself off from our family for him—"
"If Andromeda really had good judgment, she would have put her family before some Mudblood who would just as soon strip all her rights away—"
"Right, like the way you put your family first? The way you put me first? I'm your brother, Regulus. I'm your best friend, and—"
"You abandoned me!" Regulus's voice suddenly rises. "You abandoned everything we've always believed in, and you abandoned me, and for what? So you could cozy up to the Mudbloods you share a common room with? I thought you and I—"
"Abandoned you? I abandoned you? I'm the one who's been making every effort to track you down and spend time with you, and you've rejected me every single time. If you want to talk about abandonment—"
"Okay, so maybe I did abandon you," murmurs Regulus. "Maybe it's too bloody hard to see Mum every time I look at you, and I didn't want to do it anymore."
Sirius blinks. "So you'll ditch me because I remind you too much of Mum, but you'll stick with all the bullshit she's brainwashed you into believing?"
"The only person who's brainwashed here is you, Sirius. At least I have the presence of mind to recognize that someone can be right about some things and wrong about others. You lay down everything you know is right just because you think it'll make your stupid Gryffindor friends like you better."
And Sirius just wants to—grab him and shake him, slap him just as hard as Mum would—and he hates himself for it. "If your view of the world is so nuanced," he says, breathing hard, "and you're so good at telling the difference between somebody's beliefs and their character, then why ditch me? Why can't you see that I am on your side—that I love you? Because I still love you, Regulus, even after all the bullshit you've put me through—and—"
"I may not have to love Mum just because I agree with her principles," says Regulus, "but that doesn't mean I have to love you just because I don't agree with yours."
Honestly, it would have been better if Regulus had Cruciated him. Sirius raises a hand to cover his open mouth, and he stares and he stares and he replays Regulus's words in his head as if he can make him take them back from sheer force of will—but there's no taking them back. If his brother doesn't love him anymore—
"Fine. Fine."
And he runs away—literally runs all the way from the Entrance Hall to the second year boys' dormitory.
He has no intention of emerging anytime tonight—anytime the rest of his life, in fact—but he didn't exactly pick the most private hiding place he could have found, because twenty minutes later, he hears the door behind him open and close, and Peter says, "Uh, Sirius? Did it not go well with your brother? Everybody's hanging in the common room—the girls are starting to wonder where you got off to."
"He hates me, Pete," Sirius groans. He rolls onto his back, allowing Peter to perch precariously on the edge of the bed next to him. "He's my best friend—was my best friend—and he hates me."
"I'm sure he doesn't hate you. He may disagree with you about some big stuff, but—"
"He literally told me he doesn't owe it to me to love me anymore." Peter falls silent at that. "My whole life, he was the one person who understood me—the one person who was there for me—and he's just gone. I wish I didn't care so much. I wish I didn't have to love him, but I can't stop. How do I stop? How do I do that?"
"When I figure it out, I'll let you know," says Peter quietly. "Look, I know it probably doesn't help for us to keep saying that you've got new brothers now—"
Sirius scoffs, "Thanks, but it really, really doesn't. I don't need new brothers. I need my brother."
"I know, but we're the ones you've got now. I know I'm not Regulus, but I'll do my best to make you feel valued, okay? We all will. And—I'm not making up the way I feel about you. If I didn't have the three of you here…"
Sirius grabs his hand and squeezes. Peter's right, in a way—if he can't have his real brother, the best thing Sirius can do for himself is to concentrate his energy on the people he's got—but he can't just cast Regulus to the side like he doesn't matter. For almost Sirius's whole life, Regulus has been the only person in it who's truly mattered, and without him…
"I just need time to—to grieve," says Sirius thickly. "You can understand that, can't you? I can't just move on without processing it."
"Okay—but you don't have to grieve alone," mumbles Peter. "Come back downstairs. Emmeline and James are asking about you, and—I think Moony needs you."
Sirius shakes his head. "Not tonight. I'll do it tomorrow, but I can't do it tonight."
"Then you can stick with me—but we need to get you out of this dorm, Sirius. I mean it. Want to go down to the library? We can tell the girls we're working on the Potions essay and then try and find anything we can about how to become Animagi."
"Just you and me?" Sirius mutters.
"Just you and me. Come on."
He has to admit, three hours later when they're still poring over books with no success, that it could be worse: Sirius could be all alone with nobody to lean on. He may not have his brother anymore, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have any brothers—and it doesn't mean he has to be miserable.
Screw Regulus, really. Sirius can do this without him, or at least, he'd better believe he can—because he's going to have to.