Chapter Thirty-Two: Blame Me All You Want

He gets off easy—too easy.

He doesn't know the details—it's not like James will even speak to him—but James pulled Snape out of the tunnel before McGonagall even reached them. Sirius doesn't know why—it doesn't make any sense—but Snape says he doesn't want to press charges, and Dumbledore doesn't suspend or expel him. He loses a hundred house points, and for the duration of the school year, he's been assigned weekly detentions and loses his place on the Gryffindor Quidditch team—but as much as Sirius is going to miss flying, all this is a small price to pay for how close he came to something much, much worse happening.

James marches out of Dumbledore's office and down the corridors without a backwards glance at Sirius. Sirius doesn't try to catch up, careful to slow his steps so that he's giving James a wide berth.

Peter is already back in the dormitory by the time Sirius gets there. He tosses James and Sirius their phials and says quietly, "We'll start the chants in the morning. Sunrise should be around half past seven. James, will you come with me to see Moony after that? We should tell him, um…"

"No," says Sirius hoarsely. James and Peter both look at him impassively. "I should be the one to tell him. He—he deserves to hear it from me."

There's a long pause, and then James says, "Fine, but you'll need to clear out of the Hospital Wing by eight-thirty so that Peter and I can spend some time with him before Charms."

"Okay. Yeah. I'll just…"

He considers going down to the common room, but the girls have no idea anything is wrong—they'd surely try to talk to him if any of them saw him there. He doesn't know how to tell them what it is he's done that's lost Gryffindor a hundred points and netted him such a severe punishment: it's not like he can out Moony by telling them the truth, and telling them anything less than that would just feel like he would be covering his own arse.

There is one thing he could do that he knows would make him feel better—but he can't use Marlene to get him through this, not this time. She's just another item on the list of things Sirius doesn't deserve, and even if it kills him, he's got to hold out and stay away from her.

So he shuts the curtains on his four-poster and sits with his knees pulled up to his chin, staring at the bedspread, waiting to get tired. It doesn't happen for hours—he's too wound up—but that's just as well: it's karmic justice for him to stay here with nothing to occupy himself but his shame. He's done the unthinkable—and in the process, he's also gone and done the thing he's feared most for years now: he's driven James away from him.

He's driven James away, and he's driven Peter away too, and in a few short hours, he's going to drive away Moony.

They all wake up and dress in silence when James's WWN alarm goes off at a quarter past seven. Too soon, the sun starts to peek out. Sirius gets a death grip on his wand and touches it to his heart.

"Amato Animo Animato Animagus," he mutters. Peter and James do the same, slightly out of sync with him.

The walk to the Hospital Wing seems to take ages while he's doing it—but when he gets there, Sirius suddenly feels like it's arrived far too quickly. The curtains around Moony's cot are open, and he gives Sirius a sleepy smile. "Where are James and Peter?"

"They're coming at half past eight. I… I did something, Moony. There's something I need to tell you."

He sits at the very foot of Moony's bed, far down enough that he's not even brushing Moony's feet. As Sirius talks, Moony's face remains—tired. Sirius is expecting anger, betrayal, resentment, hurt—but he doesn't see any of these in Moony's expression. When the whole story is finally out in the open, Moony takes a long time to respond. "Why did you do this?" he finally says softly, but his tone is just—sad. Concerned, even, like that makes any sense.

"I don't know why I did it. I don't know. There were a lot of reasons—but I think the biggest one was the way he keeps talking to you, now that he'd figured it out, and I just—I couldn't stand it. I couldn't take it, and now, I've made you complicit in something I never should have…"

Moony sits and waits.

"I've ruined everything. I've been an abusive shit to Regulus and to Snape—I've taken Marlene and sucked her into my mess—and now, I've lost the three best friends I have in this world, and it's all my fault."

Moony's clearly fighting with himself on something. Sirius can't look away. "No," Moony says finally.

"No?"

"You say you didn't mean to hurt anyone?"

"I—no."

"And you didn't mean for me to…?"

"No, but…"

Moony sighs. "Okay. Just—okay."

"It's not okay. I've—"

"I can't… I'm going to need some time, but I'm not going to leave you, Sirius. You shouldn't be left alone like this, not after the couple of years you've had."

"I…" Sirius's head is swimming. "I don't understand. The thing with Marlene—I thought you hated me."

"I could never hate you," Moony whispers. "I hate the things you do, but—Sirius, I love you. You're my life, okay? And you shouldn't have done it, but—you're only going to get worse if you're alone. People are their worst when they're alone."

"But… I used you in the most horrible way."

"And I don't forgive you for that, but… I can't just leave you like this."

Moony's voice cracks. He extends his arms, a plea in his eyes, and Sirius shouldn't, but he falls into them and just—lets Moony hold him.

He's not gone by the time Peter and James come in. "I told you to get out of here," snarls James.

"I…"

"Have you even told him? Does he even know what you've done?"

"It's okay," says Moony now. "I know."

"And you're okay with it? You don't see the problem here?"

"No. No, I'm not okay with it. But James, that doesn't mean—"

James shakes his head and looks up and scrubs his face with his hands. "I can't believe this. I'm surrounded by people with no morals."

"James—"

"You're as bad as he is. Just—come on, Peter. Let's get out of here."

Peter lingers a moment longer than James does, and Sirius's heart catches in his throat—but then Peter is gone, too. "You shouldn't have done that," breathes Sirius. "You should have left me like I—"

"If you try and tell me one more time that you deserve bad things, I swear to god, Sirius…"

"How can you not see that? You're the one who's ridden me the hardest this past year. I thought, out of all of you…"

"I already told you I can't leave you." Moony sounds almost annoyed as he says this. "Why do you think I've been so pissed at you? You keep doing things that should make me walk away, but I can't, so just… stop doing shit that makes it more painful for me to stay, and just—hold onto me. Can you do that? Can you just stop it already?"

"Okay," Sirius chokes out, and now he's crying, like that's not humiliating. "I'll stop. I'll do whatever you need me to do."

Moony shushes him and clutches Sirius's head against his chest. "None of that. We've got, what, ten more minutes before you have to get to Charms? Let's just…"

"But I don't want you to let me take you away from them."

"I know."

"Peter got the dew," Sirius tells him numbly. "The moon was out last night. We started the chants this morning."

"Okay."

"I'm going to fix everything. I don't know how yet, but I'm going to fix everything."

"Okay, but you don't have to fix it in the next ten minutes, all right? Just—be here with me."

Sirius doesn't know what he did to deserve any kind of kindness from Moony right now. He shouldn't accept it, but—he's given up Marlene, and he's lost James and Peter, and it's all too tempting to pass up.

Charms is—painful. When Sirius enters Flitwick's classroom, James gives him a death glare, and Peter won't even look at him. Marlene looks up at him, her eyes big and round and sad, before she turns back to her conversation with Mary.

Alice is sitting with Em today in Remus's absence, which means Sirius can either partner Evans or sit alone. He's famished—he skipped breakfast, and he hasn't eaten properly since he put the damn leaf in his mouth a month ago—and his stomach rumbles loudly as he pulls out a chair at an empty desk and throws himself into it.

Maybe, if this were two years ago, he'd have sat next to Evans. Maybe she'd even have gotten up and come over to him after seeing him sitting alone. But it's not, and they stay at their separate desks and don't even make eye contact all period.

He, Marlene, and Mary have got a free period after this, during Ancient Runes. If he knew what was good for him, he'd spend it in the Hospital Wing with Moony. No, scratch that: if Sirius really knew what was good for him, he'd spend it alone, doing homework in the dormitory where nobody can touch him and, more importantly, where he can't touch anybody else. But Marlene catches up with him on the walk out of Charms, and Sirius—

"Not now, McKinnon," he says with a sigh and no heat whatsoever.

"Did you have something to do with the one hundred points Gryffindor lost last night? Only Mary reckons—"

"Yeah, it was me, and I don't want to talk about."

"Is that why Jay and Pett aren't speaking to you? What the hell did you—?"

"I said I don't want to talk about it, all right?"

"Black—"

The instant she drags him into that broom closet, Sirius knows exactly how this is going to end—but he allows himself to pretend that he doesn't, that this is an innocent conversation that he's going to end promptly before getting the hell out of there and away from her. "Talk to me," Marlene demands. "You can't just—we were something, weren't we, before you spent the last month icing me out? Why can't you just talk to me like I know you? You can't convince me I don't know you, Black, because I do know you, and—"

"Of course we were something," he mutters. "Of course you know me. I just—I don't deserve any of it, okay, McKinnon, and—"

"Don't you dare," she says in a clipped voice. "Don't abandon me because you think you know what's good for me. You have no idea what's best for me. I can make my own bloody decisions, and—"

He kisses her. It's rough and frenzied, and it feels so good at the same time as Sirius hates himself so much for it. But he hasn't had this in a month, a full month, and Marlene—

—Might be one of the only people Sirius will have left by the end of this, and he shouldn't take advantage of that, but he does. He can't stop. He can't ever stop, can he?

xx

They don't walk down to lunch together: she leaves the closet two minutes before he does, and by the time Sirius gets to the Great Hall, she's sitting with Mary and Alice and laughing. Sirius considers going up to join them—he's certainly not welcome to join Peter and James, at any rate—but on second thought, he grabs himself some empty space alone at the far end of the table. Nobody from other years comes up to join him, and judging by some of the dirty looks people keep flashing him, he assumes word has already started to spread that the hundred points Gryffindor just lost are his fault.

He's just starting to feel like he can get used to the rest of his life as a friendless social outcast when Moony comes up and sits gingerly on the bench next to him. "Hey, Sirius."

So he's out of the Hospital Wing—it's always a toss-up whether Moony will be released in time for afternoon classes. "You sure you want to be seen with me? People are going to start treating you like a leper if they associate you with me."

His tone is joking, but Moony doesn't smile. "I told you, I can't walk away. I just… can't, Sirius."

"You don't owe me anything, you know, especially not after…"

"Yeah," says Moony heavily, "I know."

"I… Marlene and I, we…"

Moony's fork freezes halfway to his mouth. "Again?"

"Yeah. Again. When everybody was in Ancient Runes. I'm sorry—I know what you must think of me—but I just… I can't walk away, either."

Based on Moony's reaction, Sirius thinks it might have been better if he'd punched Moony—but it's too late to take any of it back. "What happened to stopping? What happened to doing everything in your power to clean up your life?"

"I will. I swear. I'll do better tomorrow. I'll…"

"You've been talking about 'tomorrow' for months, Sirius. You—"

"Please don't hate me."

It's a low blow, and Sirius knows it, but it slips out before he can stop himself. Moony looks totally wounded. "You… just…"

He slumps against Sirius, who puts an arm around him and holds on tight. "It'll be okay," he tells Moony. "It's going to be okay."

Neither of them, he's pretty sure, believes it.

So they fall into an uneasy rhythm—James and Peter together, sometimes with the girls, and Sirius and Moony entirely apart from them. Without Peter—without James—Sirius feels like he can barely function. And the way Moony keeps looking at him, like he…

It's Sirius's own damn fault, of course, but he doesn't understand why Moony doesn't just walk away. Well—that's not entirely true. If it were him in Moony's shoes, he'd probably feel similarly—unable to forgive, and yet unable to leave, either. They're caught in a trap, and Sirius can't seem to stop hurting Moony—to be the boy Moony deserves.

The two of them start spending as much time as possible away from the common room and dormitory. They study in the library, go for walks around the castle, kick up dirt and snow on the grounds. Whenever Moony's on his prefect rounds, Sirius tracks Marlene down for a few minutes of peace that he always immediately regrets.

Every sunrise and sunset, Sirius makes sure he's locked in a bathroom alone for his Animagus chant—but there's a morning after about two weeks of this standoff when he oversleeps. It's Peter who shakes him awake, saying, "Hey. Sunrise is in five minutes."

Shit—that's not really enough time for Sirius to collect himself and get himself alone in a loo. "Thanks," he mutters. He tries to smile at Peter, but he can't get his cheeks to cooperate, and anyway, Peter steps back and goes to sit on James's bed with James in an instant.

So he puts his wand in his lap and looks out the window and waits for the sun to come up. Peter and James are talking in low voices, as is usual these days, but Sirius doesn't try to eavesdrop; he doesn't think it's his place to insert himself into any of their conversations. Moony's still asleep, and Sirius considers waking him if only to have somebody to make him feel less alone, but then Sirius reminds himself that he doesn't get to feel less alone—that he shouldn't be consorting with Moony in the first place.

The sun peeks up from the horizon, and Sirius hastens to tap his wand to his chest and mumble, "Amato Animo Animato Animagus," And then—

"James, did you feel that?" says Peter quietly.

"What the bloody hell?" James says back, sounding baffled.

Sirius felt it, too—a double heartbeat where his wand touched his chest. Is that normal? The spell Peter and James copied down from the Restricted Section didn't say anything about that being normal.

But he doesn't say anything. He starts to undress and is rooting around in his trunk for clean robes when James says, "Why are you bothering, anyway?"

Sirius freezes. He thinks James is talking to him—he's raised his voice, anyway—but—

"It's not like you were there for Moony when you sent Snape after him like that. Why bother now? Why go to the trouble and take the risks you're taking to be there for him now?"

And—he knows his reasons, knows how desperately he loves Moony and doesn't want to lose him, but Sirius doesn't think anything he could say would convey this to James. "I don't expect you to understand," he mutters instead.

"You're right: I don't understand. I don't understand either of you. You're a hypocrite, Sirius, and Moony… he's no better."

For the first time in what feels like a long time (but probably isn't), Sirius feels a little flame of anger. "You can blame me all you want—it's what I deserve—but don't put any of this on Moony. Do you hear me? He's done nothing to anyone."

"But he has. He's allowed you to try to turn him into some kind of—of criminal, and he doesn't even care. If he's perfectly content with the thought of killing someone—"

"It's not like that. Moony just…"

But Sirius can't finish his thought, not when it would be a total betrayal of Moony's trust to expose his dependency like that, and he's on thin enough ice that he can't stand to put yet another nail in the coffin of his and Moony's friendship. He's already lost James, Sirius reminds himself: snitching on Moony would just give Moony another reason to resent him, and it wouldn't do a damn thing to bring James back to either of them.

This is life now. He doesn't have a choice: he's just going to have to live with it.