Chapter 33: A Slowly Healing Wound

Sometimes, we'd see Sirius staring off into space wearing a sad, lonely expression, and we could see that inside he was suffering. Then we'd say something to him and he'd always insist that he was fine, but we knew better. Of course James, Peter and I would always try to do things to cheer him up; the occasional game of pitch black, bewitching Lockhart's mirror, and of course, torturing Snape as much as possible. Sirius was still just as much of a prankster, but there was something about his laugh that seemed foreign, like it wasn't really him at all. It was hard for us too. Erin had been our friend too, of course, and we missed her. Sometimes just looking at her empty seat at Gryffindor Table in the Great Hall could bring tears to all of our eyes.

Things had gotten worse after the rest of the students arrived back from Christmas break. Of course Dumbledore didn't want to cause panic by telling everyone that Voldemort had attacked several students and killed one. So instead he told everyone that Sirius and Erin had fallen off of a broom in an unfortunate accident and Erin had been killed. This story only lasted a day or so and then somehow the word of what really happened got out. James and I had to tell off quite a few second and third years who kept on asking Sirius about his encounter with Voldemort. Snape found everything that happened hilarious. He only said that it was a shame that Sirius wasn't killed too because no one needs mudbloods like that in the world. James and I slipped a bit of shrinking potion into his cider at dinner that night, and then put him inside of a box and buried it the Forbidden Forest. It was almost a week before he finally came back that time, and Sirius found it entertaining despite Snape's ignorant comments.

One day in early February, we were sitting around in our dorm room, when James reached into his trunk and pulled out a tiny box. He snapped it open to reveal a diamond ring.

"Whoa, Prongs. What's that?" I asked.

"I'm thinking of asking Lily to marry me," he said, grinning. "For her birthday.'

"Go for it," I said. It was obvious that Lily would say yes. Then the two of us noticed Sirius, rummaging in his trunk, sobbing. He pulled out a box too, and revealed the ring inside.

"It was going to be for Erin," he said, crying. "It was supposed to be a Christmas gift, but I wasn't sure. Now I'll never get the chance to ask her." He sobbed. "I loved her so much. I miss her." James and I exchanged glances.

"We know you miss her, Sirius," I said. "We all do." Sirius shook his head.

"Yeah, Padfoot," said James. "But it'll get better with time. Trust me." Sirius nodded

The next day, James, Lily, Peter and I were just arriving back in the common room from Divinations Class. We entered through the portrait of the fat lady to find something we never expected. Sirius was sitting on one of the large armchairs with a girl on his lap. I recognized her as Violet Brown, a Gryffindor girl in our year. At first I was surprised, then I thought maybe we should do something. But Lily obviously thought more quickly than I did.

"Sirius Lee Black!" she shouted in a motherly tone, marching across the common room. "What on earth do you think you're doing!" Sirius glanced up.

"Oh, hi Lil," he said.

"Don't you hi Lil me!" shouted Lily angrily. Violet, who looked very startled, whispered something to Sirius and walked very quickly to the girls' dorm room. James had grabbed Lily's arm, to prevent her from attacking Sirius, who was looking as thought he had no idea that anything out of the ordinary was going on.

"Sirius, what were you doing with her?" demanded James.

"What? Now it's your business to know everything I do?" said Sirius.

"Yes it's our business! You're our friend!" said Lily, the anger in her voice lessening.

"You said I need to move on, James," said Sirius. "So this is me moving on!"

"Sirius, you're approaching this way too fast," I said. "You need time to heal."

"I am healed!" said Sirius. "This is me healed! And you don't have to care what I do because it doesn't matter! Everything I cared about is gone! I have nothing to care about now!" He stormed off to our common room, Lily and James tagging behind him shouting, "That's not true! You've still got us!" But he didn't listen. We all looked at each other.

"This isn't good," said James sighing.

"What does he think he's doing," said Lily. "It's only been seven weeks since—since…" she trailed off, burst into tears, and cried on James' shoulder.

"I think Sirius will figure out what he should do on his own," Peter pointed out. "Maybe he just needs to go through this."

"Maybe you're right, Peter," I said. "I guess we'll just see what happens."

"We shouldn't have upset him like that though," said James. "Sirius doesn't think clearly when he's upset."

Sirius broke up with Violet after that; at least we didn't see them together anymore. Sirius seemed to have forgiven us, because he treated us like usual. For about a week, Sirius ignored girls and went back to being as close to normal as he'd been since the attack. A bit over a week later, we saw him with another girl from Gryffindor, McKayla O'Dell. This time we didn't say anything about it, and Sirius didn't say much to us.

Lily's birthday came, and that evening, James brought her into the dorm room to show all of us the shimmering diamond ring on her finger.

"She said yes!" said James, grinning from ear to ear.

"Of course I said yes," Lily told him.

"Go Prongs!" said Sirius, in his usual teasing tone.

"Congrats," I said.

For a while after that, things seemed to go smoothly. Sirius and McKayla dated for a few weeks, James and Lily were as happy as ever, and pranks were better than they'd ever been. We still weren't pleased that Sirius was going out with someone, but we never complained about it to him. Besides, McKayla seemed to be nice, at least compared to some of the girls Sirius dated later, but of course at this time he wasn't desperate yet.

One night, I awoke from a deep sleep to shouting. I sat up and listened.

"No! Don't hurt her!" Sirius shouted. "Erin!" James, Peter and I had all jumped from our beds and ran to Sirius'.

"Sirius, wake up," said James. "Sirius!" Slowly, Sirius' eyes opened. He was pale and shaking.

"You were having a nightmare," I said.

"And shouting in your sleep," added Peter.

"Really?" Sirius pretended he didn't know what we were talking about.

"Could you keep it down out there? Some of us are trying to get our beauty sleep!" Lockhart popped his head out from behind his curtains long enough to yell at us.

"Oh shut it!" said James, tossing a pillow at him and turning his attention back to Sirius.

"I'm fine," said Sirius. "Really," he added when he noticed the three of us looking at him doubtfully.

"Can we get back to sleep now?" asked Peter, yawning.

"Yeah," said Sirius, who had stopped shaking and looked a bit less pale. We went back to sleep, and didn't wake up until the next morning.

From that day on, Sirius had nightmares every night about Voldemort attacking people. Sometimes he'd have them several times a night and none of us would get any sleep. Sometimes we'd wake him, other times we didn't. Eventually, Sirius decided that he wasn't going to sleep anymore. He forced himself to stay awake all night. He even stayed awake during History of Magic Class for the first time in seven years. Of course, he couldn't stay awake forever. One day, he had Quidditch practice, and he was so exhausted that he fell right off of his broom. Luckily he had only been about twenty feet in the air, so he wasn't badly injured. When he finally did fall asleep again, he had another nightmare. Things went on that way for a few weeks.

We worried about Sirius constantly. He wouldn't eat and wouldn't sleep. He looked terrible, and he was so weak he could barely do anything. His usual, thin but somewhat muscular frame had wasted away, and he was stick thin. His face was pale and hollow looking; his pale eyes were so empty looking, you'd have thought there was nothing there at all. Our teachers seemed worried about him as well. Even McGonagall, who scolded him about getting enough sleep so he wouldn't look so tired during Transfigurations, appeared to be concerned. We had some free time because since Beaker had been caught (he was captured and sent to Azkaban just a week after the attack) we no longer had Potions Class.

One day, after coming from the library to check out some books for a History of Magic essay, I arrived back at the common room in the middle of a very heated argument between James and Sirius. Sirius, who was looking even worse than usual, was slumped over in an armchair, James standing over him, shouting and pointing his finger accusingly.

"…You don't eat; you don't sleep! Honestly, Sirius, what are you trying to do? Kill yourself?" James shouted.

"I'm fine! Don't waste your time worrying about me!" Sirius tried to shout back.

"Of course I'm worried about you! You're acting like a complete idiot!" James shouted angrily. I thought that was a bit harsh. Neither of them had noticed that I'd entered the room.

"Mates, knock it off," I said.

"Remus," said Sirius, sounding startled.

"James, don't be so hard on him. He needs our encouragement now, not our criticism."

"What, you don't think he's an idiot? I guess not eating and not sleeping is a perfectly normal thing to do!" James shouted back.

"Of course it isn't!" I snapped. "But yelling at him isn't going to help." James shook his head.

"Then what do you suggest?" he asked. I turned to Sirius.

"Don't you think you should try to eat something, Padfoot?" I said. "And you can't go on without sleep forever. Maybe you should rest."

"Get the hell off my case! I can't take care of myself!" shouted Sirius.

"That's just the problem with you!" I felt myself beginning to get slightly annoyed. "You won't listen to anyone else when they're trying to help. You have so much pride that you won't let anyone help you!"

"Why should I? I told you, I'm fine!" said Sirius.

"Because maybe you have people that care about you! We don't want to lose any more people!" I shouted. James sighed loudly, and I glanced over at him. He was standing, his arms folded, glaring at Sirius, who had now jumped to his feet. Suddenly, James' expression changed and I glanced back at Sirius. He was lying on the ground, unconscious.

"Quick! Get help!" said James. I ran quickly to the infirmary where I found Madam Pomfrey, who came to help us. We told her that Sirius hadn't been eating or sleeping. She was not pleased, but placed him on a stretcher, and took him back to the infirmary.

James and I felt really guilty for yelling at Sirius after that. But James pointed out that we had to do something, and it was probably better that he did faint, because at least now he would get some rest and some food.

We visited him later that evening in the infirmary, along with Lily and Peter. He looked much better, after only resting a few hours. He wasn't angry with us either. We managed to talk for about twenty minutes before Madam Pomfrey kicked us out. Sirius admitted that he shouldn't stop eating and sleeping, and that he was going to try to sleep and eat again.

The next morning, when we went to see Sirius, he was in a better mood than he'd been in since the attack.

"I slept all night without a single dream!" he said excitedly.

"That's great," I replied, feeling very relieved. Madam Pomfrey agreed to let us bring Sirius to lunch with us that day to eat, even though he had to go back to the infirmary afterward. He ate enough for about seven people. All of us were feeling cheerful and hopeful that we could finally put the tragedy behind us. Sirius stayed in the infirmary for about three more days and slept almost constantly. Only twice did he awake with a nightmare. Finally, he was permitted to leave and come back to classes.

That day, we had History of Magic class first. Sirius had told James, Peter and I to go ahead and he'd catch up. About ten minutes into class, he arrived, floating his four poster in to the back of the classroom.

"Sirius! You can't bring your bed to class!" I said.

"Wanna bet, Moony?" he asked. I sighed. The rest of the class was laughing.

"Mr. Black, please don't bring beds to class," said Binns in his usual monotone voice before returning to his endless lecture.

"There is absolutely no school rule that states no beds in class," said Sirius, crawling behind his curtains. Two minutes later, we heard extremely loud snoring. At the end of class we couldn't even wake Sirius up, so we had to float his bed back to the common room. On the way, we passed Dumbledore, who just smiled, his blue eyes twinkling, and shook his head.

It was mid March, and we'd finally begun to realize that the end of our last year at Hogwarts was approaching much faster than we wanted it to. We spent those last few months of school pulling more pranks than ever. Our best one had to be when we gave Lockhart a strong dose of polyjuice potion in his sleep, so that he looked just like Snape for the whole day. Both of them were really confused, but we never got caught, and they never figured out what we did. Sirius got rid of Lockhart's annoying mirror once and for all. He made it levitate and took it to the center of the Forbidden Forest. Lockhart wouldn't dare go get it, so he cried constantly for three days straight. To make his crying even more funny, James put a spell on him to make his voice high-pitched. Peter slipped a bit of sleeping potion into Snape's stew at lunch one day, and then we hung him by his feet at the top of a huge tree at the edge of the forest. I'm still not sure how he got down, but unfortunately he did.

In early May, the last full moon that we'd have together at Hogwarts came. We ran around all night, and Padfoot chased a cat that looked a lot like McGonagall. It was the most fun we'd ever had on a full moon, and I was actually sad that it was our last one.

Before we knew it, we were scheduled for finals, and graduation was only two weeks away. We never thought we'd see the day come that we'd all graduate Hogwarts. After all, we could have easily been expelled about a hundred times. James, Sirius, Lily and I were the top of our class. We'd notice ourselves getting teary-eyed as we walked through the hallways and remembered all the good times we'd had together in Hogwarts, or every time we saw one of our teachers who had spent half of their teaching career in the last seven years yelling at us.

"I can't believe this is it," I said one day near the end of the year when we were sitting by the lake.

"I know," agreed Lily. "It all went by too fast. I'll miss it."

"But we'll always have each other," said James to all of us.

"So, what are you guys going to do when you're finally free?" asked Sirius.

"Dunno," I said. "We all got those scholarships."

"I want to be able to travel the world," said James. "And maybe be minister someday."

"I just want to live to see a time when we can all live in peace, without fear of Voldemort," said Lily.

"I want to work for the ministry," said Peter. "And get my Apparating license."

"Thanks for sharing your entire future plans for the next ten years," said Sirius. "But I was thinking more like next week." We all laughed.

"Well, we will need places to live," I said. "It's going to seem so weird. What if we live in different places?"

"Well, there's always my house," I suggested. "Mum would love to have you."

"Sounds good to me," James said.

"Yeah," said Sirius. "Of course Moony here will need Addi to be there too."