A/N: Strange because it was sunny, beautiful and happy outside when I wrote this.
The lake was glassy, still; tranquil, perfect. So blue it was almost black. Black. The shit that had made him as fucked up as he was.
It's not that he didn't enjoy sex; he did. But it was only to help him forget the vile relatives for a while.
It's not that he didn't enjoy pranking Slytherins; he did. But it was only a way for him to get revenge on the stupid bastards.
It's not that he didn't enjoy being in Gryffindor; he did. But it was only a way for him to separate himself from the others.
It's not that he didn't love being friends with 'blood traitors' and halfbloods; he did. But it was only a way to rile his shitty family up even more.
Half the time it was whole and pure and fun and careless. But it was times like these, in the black of night when he was all alone and there was no Prongs to convince him otherwise, that he sat there and let the darkness, the hatred, consume him.
In times like these there was no Sirius Black. There was only hatred and bigotry and selfishness and bribery and pain and guilt and a whole plethora of emotions that would have killed him long ago if he didn't have James.
James sodding Potter. A blood traitor. A man of honor. A man of purity – the right kind of purity.
James didn't play pranks on the Slytherins to actually harm them. James wouldn't have meaningless sex with meaningless girls. James didn't have a shitty family to rile up. James' family was perfect.
He hated them. He hated the whole lot of them – James, Charles, and Nira. Them with their perfect honor and their perfect sense and their perfect righteousness and their bloody perfectionism . . . they didn't have any dark, secret, screw-ups. They weren't stupid and child abusive. They weren't insane. They didn't enjoy hurting people.
They never thought of even contemplating fucking suicide. They never had reason to cut themselves. They never had reason to jump off the Astronomy tower. They never had reason to whack a Bludger into themselves on purpose. They never had reason to fall off their brooms on purpose.
If James had been in his position . . . fuck, James wouldn't even have been in this position. James would never have gotten to the point where he was seriously contemplating just falling out of this window. James would prank them and ignore them and insult them in the safety of his dormitory and then that was that. He would have simply forgotten them.
Well, he wasn't James bloody Potter. . .
He sat in silence for several bitter minutes.
. . . but who was to stop him from doing the same thing?
He stood slowly from the window seat. He spared a glance at the sleeping James Potter. He went to bed.
For the first time in months, he got a healthy night's sleep.
And, fuck, it felt good. Better than any of the other shit had ever felt.