Chapter Thirty-Three: Cold, Even for You
Without James with them to hold Moony accountable, it's fallen to Sirius to make sure that Moony gets to bed at a reasonable time every night—which means Sirius is caught in an awkward dance of putting Moony to bed, sneaking out to see Marlene after he's reasonably sure Moony is asleep, and hoping that James and Peter aren't back in the dormitory yet by the time Sirius returns to it. Tonight, he makes it into his bed just in time—because the door creaks open and James and Peter follow him inside not five minutes later.
Sirius isn't asleep yet: the sleepy, sedated feeling he always gets right after being with Marlene has worn off and been replaced by the usual tension and worry. Peter and James, however, clearly think Sirius is asleep because they carry on a hushed conversation—quiet enough that it probably won't wake Moony, but the content of which certainly suggests to Sirius that they don't realize he's awake to hear them.
"Hey, you never told me—what happened between you and Evans after dinner?" Peter asks while they're both making rustling sounds that must mean they're changing into pajamas.
And Sirius isn't trying to listen in—he's not—but he'd bailed on dinner early enough that he didn't realize James had spoken to Evans at all, and he is kind of curious what could possibly have happened between them. He fights down the pang he feels when he realizes that, if Evans ever finds out what Sirius has done, she's probably never going to speak civilly to him again. It's not like he's so desperate for her approval—but they did used to have a sort of understanding once, and that's probably gone forever now.
"Oh, yeah," says James with a certain bravado leaking into his voice. "It's going around the school, you know, that I rescued Snape the other day, and she just wanted to—thank me, I suppose you could say."
"Really? I never thought I'd see the day that she thanked you."
"Yeah. She doesn't know the details, but she, uh—she asked me if it was true, and I said it was, and she asked me what happened, and I didn't tell her, but—"
"Wait, she didn't already know? Snivellus hadn't told her?"
"Nope. Dumbledore swore us all to secrecy, you know, to protect Remus."
"And Snape's gone along with that?"
"Yep." James lowers his voice so that Sirius has to listen hard to make it out. "I reckon he's feeling humiliated right now. He could have told Evans what really happened, but he wouldn't have wanted to admit to her that I saved his skin in that tunnel. And he could have pressed charges, but he didn't. I was surprised at first—I'd thought for sure he'd take the opportunity to have Sirius face some real-world consequences—but now, I think Snape just doesn't want us holding over his head that he's a tattletale and can't take care of himself."
Peter snickers, "You'd really react that way? That's cold, even for you."
"Hey, I just said I reckon he thinks I'd act that way. I never said I would act that way. You weren't in that tunnel—you don't know what it was like when I went and saved him."
"Well, then, what was it like?"
There's a pause here, and Sirius knows he should announce his presence—leave the room—tell James to cast a Muffliato. Something. Anything so that James doesn't go there without realizing Sirius can hear him. Sirius doesn't do any of these things, of course: he lies there, entranced, in his bed, concentrating hard on what he can make out of James's voice.
"I was scared shitless, you know—I think we both were by the time I got to him. I'd called out for him when I entered the tunnel, but I didn't hear a response, and I was sure he was already all the way to Remus and already dead or something. I squeezed my way through as fast as I could, and when I got to the end and dropped into the Shack, he was… he was trying to hold the wolf off, you know, but Stunners don't work on werewolves, so he couldn't knock him out. He kept shooting Shield Charms at him to keep him at bay, but he never had enough time to get back into the tunnel before the wolf would come back at him and he'd have to turn around and fight it again. You can't keep a Shield Charm up if you lower your wand, you know."
"So what did you do? How did you break the cycle?"
"Shot a bunch of Impedimentas and Reductos at it from the tunnel. The second I thought I had enough time, I pulled Snape in with me, and we hauled arse out of there. Snape was shaking. I was shaking. There was a moment, you know, before I got hold of him—a few moments, really—where I really thought I was too late. I thought—"
Sirius can't stand to hear any more of it. He makes a show of yawning and rustling around under the covers, and James and Peter fall silent. "You think we woke him?" Peter whispers.
"Let's get out of here," James replies. "I'm too wired to sleep, anyway."
The dormitory door clicks shut behind them a few seconds later, and Sirius—
—Sirius can't stop trembling. If he knows his place, he'll stay right here in this bed, and he won't try to distract himself—to make himself feel better—but Sirius has spent years, it seems, with his fears and his doubts and his loathing, and he thinks if he has to stand any of it for one more second—
He pushes through the curtains of his bed, past the curtains of Moony's, and climbs gingerly into Moony's bed.
"Whassat? Sirius?"
"Go back to sleep."
"But why—?"
"Everything's fine. Just sleep, Moony."
But Moony doesn't sleep: he doesn't say anything more, but his breathing remains quite soft and hasty. Sirius surges with guilt even as he relishes how it feels to curl up under the blankets and pull Moony into his arms. It feels weird—almost forbidden—but also very right to be doing this outside of the Hospital Wing, in private, where there's nobody to show off for and no full moon to use as an excuse.
When he puts his ear over Moony's chest, Moony's heart is throbbing almost painfully. "Why are you nervous?" Sirius whispers.
"I'm not nervous," Moony whispers back.
Sirius doesn't believe him, but he doesn't press his luck. He waits for Moony's heart to calm down, but it never does, at least not before Sirius drifts off to sleep.
He feels totally humiliated the next morning when James's WWN goes off and wakes them all up. It's not like he's never shared a bed with Moony before, but they haven't done it in the dormitory—and moreover, Sirius already knows that James and probably Peter are judging the shit out of Moony for keeping Sirius around.
It's stupid because it's not like Moony isn't pissed at Sirius. Of course Moony is pissed at Sirius. His pissiness has underlain every interaction they've had for—a long time now, but especially the past few weeks since the prank. He's only stuck around because he can't stand to feel separated from Sirius—because it's easier to be here and be pissed than it is to walk away. But Sirius doesn't know how to explain that to James and Peter—to get them to take Moony's side—without betraying Moony's trust, and he certainly doesn't have an excuse for why he's allowing Moony to stay close by when Sirius knows full well that Moony is too good for him.
He doesn't get out of bed right away, allowing himself a few precious seconds to stay snuggled up to Moony where everything is safe and warm and Sirius isn't a goddamn attempted murderer—but he can't stay there forever. It's almost painful to pull himself away from Moony's chest and sit up in bed. Moony just rolls onto his stomach and flings an arm over Sirius's lap—he doesn't have to be up for the dumb-arse Animagus chant at bloody six-thirty in the morning that Sirius, Peter, and James have to do.
Peter and James are both staring at Sirius. "Unbelievable," says James curtly. "Unbelievable."
Sirius just wants to get out of there—get himself to the loo where he can do his chant at sunrise away from Peter and James—but Moony's got him trapped in bed, and he can't bring himself to free himself from Moony's arm. "James—"
"How can you lie there in his bed and not see a problem with you using him like that? How can either of you live with yourselves?"
And Sirius—
—Can't live with himself. That's what James doesn't understand. But at the same time, something in Sirius just snaps and he can't—he can't—
Everyone around him keeps blaming him, and nobody is bothering to ask Sirius why he can't hold his shit together. He's not saying he's right about any of it: he's probably wrong about literally all of it, and he knows that, and he hates himself for it. But—he can only hate and blame and accost himself so many times before he has to shut it all down. He can't handle this.
Regulus is gone. Andromeda is gone. Emmeline and James and Peter and even Evans—all gone. Sure, Marlene hasn't walked away, but whenever they're not banging, they're fighting; she can't begin to understand why he does what he does because he doesn't know how to explain himself. Even Moony, the one person who's really standing by Sirius in all this, doesn't really forgive him: he feels it in the way Moony looks at him, the edge to his voice every time anybody even mentions the name Marlene McKinnon.
It's not like Sirius doesn't have reasons for being such a screwup. Just because the reasons aren't good enough doesn't mean they're not real—doesn't mean he's doing any of this with bad intentions. And not a damn person in his life seems to appreciate that all he's ever done has been the best he could.
"How can you live with yourselves?" Sirius bites, totally helpless to stop himself. "You think I haven't noticed the way the two of you have kept right on bullying the shit out of Snape? I'd have thought that you'd have some shame—that you wouldn't turn right around after saving his life just to treat him like scum on your shoe—"
"You think I should feel ashamed?" says James, his voice rising. "Where is your shame? How can you even look Remus in the face anymore? We all know you belong on the inside of an Azkaban cell, and you parade around this castle like you're—"
"You want to talk about parading around the castle, Mr. 'I'm James Potter, and I just dismounted a broomstick—?'"
The shouting has fully pulled Moony into consciousness, and he struggles up into a sitting position. "James—"
"And you," James snarls, his eyes flicking over to Moony. "You don't even give a shit that he used you for something so—so sick. How low is your self-esteem that you're okay with the idea that you were almost unwittingly turned into a murderer? Into one of the very things that bit you when you were little?"
"It's not like that—" Moony starts to say, but James isn't hearing any of it.
"It's exactly like that! I know I'm a—I know I'm not… but this is different. This is life and death. And if you don't think you're worth not being made an accomplice to something like this—"
"I know that," says Moony very heavily. "I know. Do you really think I could come out of something like this and not hate him for it? I hate him sometimes, James—for this, for Marlene, for all of it. I look at him, and I just see…"
Sirius's breath has caught in his throat; he feels so tense that his whole body is tingling. There he goes again, getting flushed and overheated. "I didn't know that," he mutters.
James isn't satisfied. "Then how can you—"
"Because I need him, okay? I need him more than I hate him. I would have thought that you, of all people, would und—"
"You think I don't need him, too?" James roars. "You think it's not killing me that two of my best mates in the world are just—gone from my life? I feel like I'm just—scrabbling at nothing without the two of you. It's like summers without Sirius, only worse, because it's both of you, and because—because as badly as I want you back, the people I love aren't who I thought they were. The people I love don't exist."
"So you're saying, what? We're dead to you?" says Sirius in a weak voice. His heart is hammering very fast.
"If you were dead to me, I wouldn't see your faces everywhere I turn. If you were dead to me, you wouldn't constantly remind me what I don't get to have anymore."
"But we're right here. It doesn't have to be this way. If you could just somehow understand—"
"I don't want to understand. I don't ever, ever want to understand what it feels like to decide what you decided and do what you did and stick by you after."
There's a long pause, and then Peter points out quietly, "We're going to miss the sunrise."
James throws him an extremely dirty look. "Thanks so much for all the backup. Real supportive."
"James—"
"I have to go," mutters Sirius. "I have to get out of—I'll go."
"Sirius—" Moony tries to say, but Sirius grabs his wand and bolts.
He skips breakfast—Defense—Divination—lunch—Charms. By the time his free period during Ancient Runes rolls around, he's starving, but he ignores it: he endured worse during three whole Mandrake months; he can stand a little hunger if it means he gets some privacy.
He shouldn't be surprised when Moony comes after him. He's in the Forbidden Forest—the only place Sirius could think to go that would ensure no one else would be around—so at first he doesn't think anything of the footsteps behind him, assuming it's just a hippogriff or a Blood-Sucking Bugbear or something. But then Moony's voice calls very quietly, "Sirius?"
When Sirius turns around, Moony's tucking a scrap of parchment into his bag—the Map, then. It figures. "Just leave, please," says Sirius in an oddly polite voice. He wants nothing more than for Moony to stay—for James and Peter to come home—but he knows well enough by now to know that nothing any of them is going to give him will be what he really wants from them.
"I can't do that."
"I said leave."
"And I said I can't do that. I can't."
"Why not? After all, you do hate me, don't you? You said it yourself."
"I—shouldn't have said that. I didn't mean it."
"Sure you did," Sirius remarks, turning around so he can't see Moony anymore—
—But Moony marches right up to his back and throws his arms around Sirius's neck from behind. Sirius, who wasn't expecting this, stiffens, but after a moment he puts his hands on top of Moony's where they're clasped together over Sirius's breastbone.
"Sirius, I love you. Is that okay? Do you understand me? I love you more than I love myself. I—"
"Well, you shouldn't. Look what I tried to do to you."
"I know, and I'm angry, but that doesn't—I don't hate you. I could never, ever, ever hate you."
Sirius peels Moony's hands away a little, just enough to give him wiggle room to turn around and press his forehead against Moony's. Their faces are very, very close. "Well, they still hate us, and I don't know what to do. What the hell are we going to do? I can't keep doing this without all of you with me. I just… everything fell apart a long time ago, and every time I think it can't get any worse… it gets worse."
Something inscrutable flashes across Moony's face, but Sirius doesn't have time to process it before Moony squeezes his arms around Sirius's neck and buries his face in Sirius's shoulder. "We'll get them back. I don't know how yet, but we'll get them back. And—in the meantime, we've got each other."
"Even though I…?"
"Yeah. Even though. Can you just—come inside with me? Dinner's going on, but if you don't want to be around everyone, we can get something from the kitchens. I just… I need you not to shut down on me, Sirius. I can… I can forgive you—I know I can—but I can't do it if you shut me out."
Sirius puts a hand on the back of Moony's head and clutches it closer; his other hand rubs circles along Moony's back. "You shouldn't feel obligated to forgive me. I don't want you to let me in just because you think you have to. You don't have to."
"Yeah, but where's the fun in that?" Moony mutters, his voice all muffled by Sirius's shoulder, and Sirius would laugh if he weren't so damn pathetic.
"Look, Moony… about Marlene—"
"You don't owe me an explanation," says Moony quickly. "It's none of my business, and I shouldn't keep trying to interfere."
"Yeah, but is that really going to stop you?"
"Probably not," he admits after a pause.
"I just… you should know that I know how awful I am—with her and with the thing with you and Snape. It's not that I don't know or that I don't care. I just…"
"Can't stop," says Moony. "Yeah. You've said that before, but I don't think I really understood it until I realized that I couldn't leave you."
"Why can't you, anyway?" Sirius asks, stepping back a smidge. He puts two fingers under Moony's chin and tilts it up until they're looking in each other's eyes again. "I mean, when you decided to stand by me, you gave up James and Peter. I would have thought that losing both of them would be harder than just losing little old me."
"Well, I didn't know James was going to take it so badly at first, did I?" says Moony slowly. "And then, after I knew, I didn't want you to be alone, for one thing, and I just… I'm not saying they're not my best mates, because they are, but—you're different. There's just—something about you. I can't explain it."
Sirius looks from eye to eye, searching for something Moony doesn't know how to give him—but he doesn't have to. After all, Sirius knows exactly what he means.