Secrets

Sirius thinks that he's very good at keeping secrets.

Before now, that's never really been a problem either. He likes keeping secrets. There's a secret for each of the people he's ever loved in his life, and there are secrets for each person he's ever despised.

Sirius likes secrets. He likes the way that in knowing them, he can see all sorts of undercurrents and he can cause all sorts of trouble in stirring them up.

A secret can give him leverage, and can give him power. He's seen the Potions professor corner Snape. And he knows that his little brother's been dabbling in the dark arts. There have been times in his life where he had no power and he likes that by knowing things, he never has to put himself in those positions again. The weak get preyed on. The strong learn how to pick themselves up and get smarter.

Or a secret can bring him closer and create a bond. Remus is a werewolf. James turns into a stag. Peter doubles as a rat. They wouldn't be the Marauders if it weren't for the secrets they kept.

Sirius knows that few people would ever see it, but he has evasiveness down to an art form. He's almost as good as Remus. Almost. It's just that they cover their tracks in different ways.

And really? Sirius admires the way Remus keeps his cards so close to his chest. He does it with the minimum amount of fuss, and Sirius thinks it's cool to watch him simply fade away into the background when confronted with them.

At the same time though, staying quiet is not Sirius' forte. Neither is fading into the background. Blacks are nothing if not flashy. Sirius likes the boisterous arguing. He lives for causing a scene.

And he'll be the first to admit that he enjoys being the center of attention. There's a certain knack to creating chaos where it didn't previously exist, and Sirius likes striving for perpetual states of confusion. He discovered long ago that it just wasn't in his nature to stand on the sidelines.

The sidelines are boring. And silent. And, if he's willing to admit it to himself, just a bit scary.

Because it's in the boring silences that his own thoughts intrude, and he doesn't like the things he thinks. He doesn't like the secrets he keeps then.

Because sometimes they don't seem at all like gems of trust or tools for blackmail.

If he slows down long enough to let them all gather together in his head, they feel dirty. And stifling. They crowd him until he feels cornered in his bedroom at home, trying to get away from them. Because like being at home, all those secrets are a part of a deceptively simple prison.

When he's pranking with James at lunch, scheming with Peter during study hall, or running with Remus on a full moon, the secrets seem like fun. But when those three are gone, when it's just him and there's no one else around, he feels them closing in on him.

Because if all the things he knows are things he can't tell anyone but them, what would be the point of talking to anyone else if they were gone? Because sometimes he thinks the biggest secret that they keep with each other is themselves.