A/N: This is probably my favorite chapter of this fic so far. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! I was going to wait another 12 hours or so to post it, but I got impatient. :D

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Chapter Twenty-Two: The Day I Leave

For the first time in his life, Sirius is counting down the days until he can go back to Grimmauld Place. He's not looking forward to it, of course: he's going to be miserable there; he hasn't deluded himself into thinking it's going to be okay. But this time—this time—he doesn't think he deserves to be okay. He just wants to get the hell out of this castle so that he can get what's coming to him and stop taking advantage of people who have no business comforting him.

Because James, Peter, and Moony won't stop trying to comfort him. They don't know precisely what's going on: he wasn't able to get many coherent thoughts out that terrible night in the dormitory, and even if he could have, he didn't think he deserved to talk about it like he felt sorry for himself—like he's the victim. He's not the victim. That's the whole problem.

And his friends—

Peter keeps trying to get him to explain what happened to instantaneously switch Sirius's mood from three months of rage to the past few days of cataclysmic depression. James seems to think that he can get Sirius to let his guard down if he distracts him, cracks jokes, and lets Sirius come to him on his own time. And Moony—Moony is the worst of all. He hasn't said much of anything, but he's taken to constantly curling up against Sirius as if being treated with compassion and affection is supposed to make Sirius feel better.

It is not making him feel better. Well—that's not exactly true. He gets a little rush of calm relief every time Moony touches him, but he knows he shouldn't even be allowing Moony to do it, and almost immediately, the feeling of peace gets doused in a whopping helping of guilt.

They're amazing friends and human beings, don't get Sirius wrong. But that's just it: he doesn't belong with them. He belongs—

—He wouldn't go so far as to say at Grimmauld Place. He doesn't think anybody, no matter how twisted, belongs trapped in a house with his mum. But it would be best for everybody if Sirius locked himself away somewhere that he can't break anyone, and the bloody Marauders just won't let him go.

The girls are treating him weirdly, too, and Sirius isn't sure whether it's because of his own behavior, because the boys told them about his breakdown, or both. If they do know what happened on Friday, they haven't tried to ask him about it. But Mary is talking his ear off more than usual at meals; Alice keeps inviting him to study for end-of-term exams with her; and Marlene, whom Sirius typically spends very little time with, has taken to trying to make up excuses to go with him every time he tries to escape the common room in the evenings—not that he lets her.

Emmeline is the only one who's not going out of her way to ask after him, which is just as well: Sirius doesn't think he could face telling her what he knows he needs to tell her, which is that he's dangerous and she's got to stay away from him. In the back of his mind, he realizes that she probably thinks Sirius's behavior is somehow her fault, that she's trying to give him the space she thinks he wants, but all this makes Sirius feel is torn between wanting to protect her from himself and wanting to somehow make her understand that he doesn't blame her without having to tell her literally anything that's going on.

As much as he needs them, he can't bear the constant attention and questions—can't stand the idea of opening up to any of them. He endures it for the duration of the weekend, but come Monday, he's had enough.

They've got Charms first after breakfast. Although he usually partners Emmeline in Charms, and she at least isn't acting weird, she's still being quite chipper and friendly every time she sees him. It's way, way too much—so he passes by their usual desk in the back without acknowledging her.

He considers grabbing a desk alone—he wants to grab a desk alone almost as much as he wants to go running back to Em and just drown in her—but Moony and Alice haven't come in yet, and if they spot him on his own, one of them will surely grab the free seat and spend the next hour-plus trying to talk to him.

His eyes fall on the open seat next to Evans.

He hurls himself into it, busying himself fishing through his bag for his copy of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4 while Evans turns her head and openly stares at him. "What the hell d'you think you're doing?" she demands.

"Making sure nobody else can get to me in classes today. We don't even have to talk—it'll be like I'm not even here."

Flitwick starts to take roll call just then, and she doesn't try to say anything more. At first, Sirius is fully expecting her to start wanting answers as soon as Flitwick lets them loose to keep practicing their Summoning Charms, but they sit there in silence broken only by mutters of Accio and, occasionally from Sirius, curse words.

It may seem counterintuitive, but Evans feels like just about the safest person in this castle that Sirius could spend any time with right now. Whatever precarious common ground they'd found in third year dissolved the second James and Sirius started bullying her in response to the rumors that James fancied her; since then, they've only ever spoken to them when she's been yelling at them about hexing Snape, although Sirius has noticed that when she does so, she directs a lot more vitriol at Sirius than she does at James. It's probably because she'd started to think that Sirius was somebody she could trust—in some regards, at least—until he let her down.

Well, he'll just have to add that to the list of things Sirius Black has got to feel guilty for. Nothing unusual—nothing to see here.

In any case, he knows she's not happy with him, and he knows that probably means her curiosity about whatever's wrong with him isn't going to overcome her loathing enough to make her actually want to talk to him. By the last few minutes of Charms, Sirius is actually starting to feel—not good, not relaxed, not relieved, but at least less agitated now that he's not trying to juggle the aftershocks of his mental breakdown with attempts to dodge incessant questions, invitations, and attention from the people who (he buries some more guilt here) are only trying to help him.

He's got a free period during Ancient Runes after this, which he intends to spend dodging everyone in the library, but—"Is it cool if I work with you again in Herbology? Fenwick and Clearwater won't mind, right?"

Evans tightens her grip on the pillow she's just Summoned and glares at him. "No, Black. It is not cool if you work with me again in Herbology."

"But—"

"We can't keep doing this," she snaps. "I can't live like this."

"Live—like what?"

"We are not friends, remember?"

"So you keep saying—"

"I don't get you," she says hotly. "You keep—you keep talking to me like you care about me, like we have some kind of emotional connection just because your brother and my best friend are both Slytherins. But you hex the shit out of Severus every week just for existing, just because he doesn't—look like you or suck up to you or wear the same house colors you do—and you take stupid James Potter's stupid crush on me—"

"He doesn't have a crush on you," says Sirius dully.

"—And you turn all the rumors around on me—make it all about how I'm just a piece of arse with a personality neither of you can stand. And then—then you expect me to just set all that aside and take you in like a stray dog the second you need my help. Well, I'm not doing it anymore. I can't keep going back and forth between being—whatever you think I am when you try to be nice to me—and watching you act like a piece of trash to me and Severus."

"Right," he says softly. He raises his wand again and aims it at one of the pillows piled up by the chalkboard. "That's fair. Sorry."

"You—" She looks like she's about to launch into another tirade before she pauses and processes what he's just said. "What?"

"I said I'm sorry, okay? I'll leave you alone in Herbology. I won't bother you again, I swear."

She huffs, "What is with you the last few days? Don't think I haven't noticed you avoiding all your friends—or at least trying, not that they let you—and you haven't said a word to Severus on any of the opportunities you've had to go after him. And now you apologize? I don't think I've ever heard you apologize for anything."

"I thought you said you didn't want to talk," says Sirius distractedly just after he accidentally whacks himself in the face with an incoming pillow.

"I did. I don't."

"Then why…?"

"You're giving me whiplash here. Just stop it. I already know you're never going to change—not for real—so just stop trying to get me to—to—to trust you or whatever the hell it is you're doing. Can you just stop trying to get my hopes up? Because—"

"I've been getting your hopes up?"

She blushes furiously, but Sirius thinks it might be because of anger more than embarrassment. "I used to think you had a shred of decency, do you know that? I used to think that somewhere under the bullying, superior front you put up to everyone, there was an actual soul in you. But I haven't thought that in a long time, and I certainly don't need you trying to convince me of it again just to turn around and go back to your pattern."

The bell rings just then, and Sirius packs his bag and takes off from the classroom without another word. He considers spending his free period in the kitchens, just so he can eat early and avoid having to go to the Great Hall for lunch, but he thinks the way the house-elves would dote on him down there might actually be worse than the way all the Gryffindors are treating him.

Mary and Marlene have got next period free, too, and it feels like only seconds before they both catch up with him out in the corridor. "Sirius, want to—"

"No," he says curtly.

"But—"

"Please, Mare, just—just don't."

Something in his face must give him away because she drops her falsely cheery tone and asks him, "Sirius, what's going on with you lately? We just—we're trying to help you, but none of us knows what you need, and—"

"I don't need anything. I just need to be alone."

He doesn't go to the kitchens during Ancient Runes, but he doesn't go to the Great Hall at lunchtime, either. Feeling increasingly hungry, he spends the next few hours in the library, buried in books about Transfiguration, and when the warning bell rings to signal that he really ought to get over to Herbology, he bites his lip and shrugs and keeps on reading.

xx

He runs into Regulus one more time before the start of break, the evening before they're slated to get on the Hogwarts Express. He looks at Regulus, and Regulus looks at him with some kind of nondescript pain in his eyes, and Sirius just says quietly, "I'll see you at home tomorrow, okay?"

Regulus obviously was waiting for Sirius to ridicule or jinx him again, and he looks like he's got no idea how to deal with what Sirius has just said to him. "You're—coming home for break?"

"Yeah. I owe you that much, don't I?"

Regulus's little Slytherin friends start hustling him along then, and Sirius allows James to take him by the forearm and drag him along the corridor. "My offer is still open, you know," James tells him. "My parents said it's okay for you to come if you change your mind."

"Thanks, but I won't," Sirius sighs.

James stares at him open-mouthed and stops walking. Grabbing Sirius again, he pulls him into a broom cupboard and shuts the door. It's dark, and Sirius can barely make out James's silhouette until James lights the tip of his wand.

"Look, mate, I've tried. I've tried to give you space, and I've tried to cheer you up, and I don't know what you want from me. You're not responding to anybody, and—and what was that all about in the dormitory on Friday, anyway? What—?"

"No."

"Just—just cut it out! We're not going to leave you alone until you talk to us—one of us—somebody, okay? So you might as well start talking because—"

"I don't understand," Sirius whispers. "Why are you doing this? I've been so awful to all of you. Why won't you just give up? Why do you insist on torturing yourselves like this?"

James is looking at him like he's stupid or something. "Because we love you. Haven't you learned that by now? We love you. I love you. And when you love somebody, you try to help them even when they don't want it."

"Well, you shouldn't."

"I just said—"

"You shouldn't love me, I mean. I'm not… James, I'm not a good person."

James raises his eyebrows. "Talk. I'm not kidding. What the hell happened?"

Sirius gapes at him for a second, then turns around and reaches for the door handle—but James is too quick for him. "Colloportus."

"You—"

Sirius reaches for his own wand, but James follows that spell up with a quick "Expelliarmus!"

His wand flies out of his hand and into James's. Sirius dives for him; they scuffle for a moment, but James holds both their wands up high and uses his other arm to get Sirius in a headlock.

"Let—me—go!"

"Sirius—"

"It's my mum, okay?"

James freezes, Sirius's head still crushed to his chest. "Your mum? I thought it was about Regulus."

"It is about Regulus. It's… I turn into her, James, every time I see him. Hell, I turn into her every time I take my anger out on you lot. I'm just like her."

James releases him, but he doesn't seem to trust that Sirius isn't going to go for his wand and try to break out of the cupboard again; he tosses them both back over his shoulder, and they get lost somewhere in the rubble back there, Sirius isn't sure exactly where—the tip of James's wand went dark again as soon as he cast the Colloportus. "Listen to me," says James, and his voice is shaking with—anger? "You are nothing like your mum. Nothing. I promise you that."

"But I—the way I go after him—I'm just so pissed all the time, and we were doing to each other the same damn thing Mum's always done to us, and when he tried to break free, I just kept at it. I'm an abusive prick. I—"

James cups both Sirius's cheeks in his hands, and even in the dark, Sirius can feel the intensity with which James is staring him down. The hairs on the back of his neck all stand up. "Have you ever made Regulus bleed?"

"No, but—"

"Have you ever used the Cruciatus Curse on him?"

"No, but—"

"Have you ever done either of those things to anyone?"

"No, but—"

James releases him and puts his hands up in the air, triumphant, as if he's just proven his point.

Sirius is shaking with frustration. "You don't get it, do you? You think it's fine to go after people—to go after Snape—as long as you don't cross your arbitrary-arse lines—"

"'Arbitrary'—do you even hear yourself right now? Not committing Unforgivable Curses isn't arbitrary, and you know what Snape is. You know he deserves every last curse we throw at him."

"Does he, James? Does he?"

"He's the one using Dark Magic—"

"All curses are Dark Magic, James, not just the ones that draw blood! And anyway, we started it. For all we know, Snape never would have resorted to any of that if we—"

But Sirius breaks off because he's just recognized the hypocrisy in his own statement. Sirius didn't deserve Regulus's love even before things went to shit because he would always have had the potential to start abusing him—but Snape gets a free pass just because he didn't start out using Dark Magic?

"Sirius, look at me. Listen to me. Snape is—we—I know, okay? I know we go too far." James's voice is high and urgent and a little hysterical. "I know I shouldn't think it's funny, and I know I shouldn't play it up just to maintain my stupid bloody reputation, and I know I'm just a pampered little rich kid who's never had to be on the other end of bullying—"

"James, no, I didn't mean—"

"Yes," sighs James, "you did, and I deserve it, but it's not because I care too much what other people think of me, okay? And it's not because I don't give a shit. It's because—because if I can act like I feel confident, like nothing gets to me, like all I care about are popularity and laughs, then I can sort of fool myself into believing there really is nothing wrong with me. I get some kind of sick pleasure out of what we do to Snape, and I know I shouldn't, but if I just give into it and act like it's fine, then it is fine. It comes true, and I don't have to feel like a terrible Gryffindor anymore.

"If I set up—what did you call them? 'Arbitrary lines?' If I set up arbitrary lines, and I don't cross them, then I can justify to myself that everything up to the line is excusable, because it doesn't feel wrong when I do it, Sirius—it doesn't feel wrong until after, when I have to lie with it at night, when I have to look at myself in the mirror. But even in my bed—in front of the mirror—I can tell myself it's fine. It's okay that I'm a bully because I'm not a Death Eater. It's okay that I'm a sadist because I don't use Unforgivables. And it's not just that; it's… it's okay that I'm anxious every minute of every day because if I act like I'm not, then I'm not."

This glimpse into James's psyche isn't revealing anything that Sirius thought it would, and he feels a little sick to his stomach, like he didn't want to hear any of this—to intrude on James's personal failings like that. Lord knows Sirius is in no position to be judging anybody, not even James. "James—"

"But you?" James goes on like he hasn't heard him. "You're different. You didn't start it, Sirius—I did. You just follow my lead because I make it seem okay, even when I know it's not. You can't blame yourself for doing to your brother what your mum did to the two of you because—because that was your example. Okay? You're not a bad person; you're just—"

"I'm fifteen years old," Sirius mutters. "I'm fifteen years old, James, and I don't care if it's what I was taught—I'm old enough to know the difference. At a certain point, I can't just blame my parents for everything I am anymore. I'm humiliated that I didn't figure out what was happening until now, and I'm horrified by the way I've treated Regulus—by the way I've acted to everyone the last few months when nobody in Gryffindor has done a damn thing to hurt me.

"It's me, James. I shouldn't be tormenting Regulus just because I want—to punish him for leaving me, or to keep him in my life the only way I know how, or whatever the hell my reason is. And—and I shouldn't be treating Snape and Evans the way I do just because of how badly I want you to accept me—or wanted you to accept me, anyway. Not that I don't still want that, but—but at least now I know I don't deserve it. I can't ask you for it if I know I don't deserve it."

"That's what you think of me?" James breathes. "You think I'm going to reject you if you ever call me on my bullshit?"

"No," says Sirius. "No. You've never given me any reason to believe that you would ever abandon me. I just… when I lost Regulus, I got you, okay? Regulus left me when we stopped seeing eye to eye, and I guess I just always thought that if you knew that we didn't always see eye to eye…"

James rakes a hand through his hair. He's been doing that constantly since September, ever since he and Sirius joined the Quidditch team, as if he thinks he'll impress people more if he always looks windswept—but this time, he sure as hell isn't trying to impress Sirius; it looks like an anxious tic. "Sirius, I always want you to feel comfortable calling me out. I'm not saying I'm always going to learn my lesson—I'm a lot of layers of screwed up, okay, and I can't guarantee that I'll let what you're saying penetrate my thick-arse skull—but just because you think I'm wrong sometimes doesn't mean I'm ever going to leave you. If anything, I'm scared of the day you leave me."

"The day I leave—why would I ever leave you?"

"Because you'll figure me out someday. You'll realize what a tosser I am, and you won't want to put up with it anymore, and I'll be so busy trying to convince myself I don't have anything I need to own up to that I'll drive you away."

"That's not going to happen," says Sirius slowly. "James, mate, I know you can be a tosser, but—that's not all you are. That's not even close to all you are. You can be kind—okay, maybe not to Snape, but to the people you're loyal to—you're so loyal, James. You don't give a shit whether people gossip about you—you're going to show us affection anyway because you want us to feel that you—you love us. You're wicked smart—I'm not talking about grades; grades don't matter; I'm talking about your creativity, your inspiration—and you're generous, and you're charming, and you're a leader, and you're the kind of pureblood that I want to be.

"And even if you weren't all those things, I still couldn't let you go, because I—I need you too much. All right? I bloody need you, James Potter. I don't think I could survive without you, not now that I know what it's like to have you in my life."

"Well, I bloody need you, Sirius Black, and I—and I need you to stop thinking you don't deserve me or Moony or Peter or whoever the hell—whatever it is you're telling yourself—because we need you, too. We're not whole without you. I'm not whole without you."

They're both panting like they've just run a marathon, and Sirius feels like a complete human being instead of—of a collection of symptoms for the first time in days. James has fed Sirius's addiction, now, and it's easier for Sirius to bury himself in the Gryffindors than to own up to any of the shit he needs to own up to. James loves him. James isn't leaving him. Nothing else matters. Does it?

"So are you going to stop this nonsense?" says James now. "Are you going to come up to the common room with me and let us need you?"

"I… James, I…"

"Come on," says James, and he turns around and starts fumbling on the ground for their wands.

xx

He spends all of Christmas break shut up in his room, and Regulus spends all of it shut up in his own. They don't talk. They don't even make eye contact. When Mum gets her wand on Sirius, and he's trying not to scream, and he looks over to where Regulus is sitting frozen at the dinner table—Regulus just sits there staring at his peas and doesn't say a damn thing.

It's all Sirius can think about the next time he and James get hold of Snape. When James takes out his wand at points it at Snape and gets him in a Leg-Locker Curse, Sirius is looking at James, but just like Regulus, James won't look back as he jeers at Snape over the laughter of the crowd.

He should call James on it—he knows he should, now that he knows James is making himself sick being this way and that James isn't going to bail on him if he does. But—he's just spent the last seventeen days getting Cruciated, and the brother he'd thought would always be his frigging soulmate didn't raise a damn hand for him—not that he's ever intervened on Sirius's behalf; it was always the other way around; but at six years old, Sirius used to live for the moments when, afterward, Regulus came in his room and held him while he cried under the bed, and now, the door to Sirius's bedroom remained resolutely shut for hour after hour as he waited and waited for Regulus to come inside. Regulus is gone, and James is so wrong some of the time—but he's here, and he knows what Sirius is, and he hasn't left yet—and Sirius doesn't think he can handle seeing the look on James's face if Sirius tells him he's bang out of order.

So he doesn't tell James—but the next time he passes Regulus in the corridor, Sirius bows his head low and walks away.