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XII. Have You Considered Therapy?

CW: child abuse and trauma

"Have you considered therapy?" Inquired Marlene.

She was sitting on the couch, knees pulled to her chest and textbook in her lap as she worked on the homework that they had already been given. Lily was sitting beside her, Mary squeezed in on the other side; the couch packed full of girls who were all looking at Sirius as though Marlene's suggestion had been the most obvious conclusion in the world for him to come to.

Sirius was sitting on the floor, back pressed against the chair that Remus was curled up in. James and Peter were sitting on the floor before the fire, a game of Wizard's Chess between them that Peter was currently winning. They both looked at Sirius, too, as Remus passed him the cigarette that was dangling between his fingers and allowed him to take a puff of the smoke.

Sirius did just that, holding the smoke in his lungs as he passed the fag back to Remus and let out a steady exhale that was mixed with a scoff. "I'm not putting my brother into therapy," he said, his voice a bit hoarse from the dryness that the smoke had brought to his throat.

Marlene raised an eyebrow and turned her attention back to the book in her lap as Lily spoke up. "No, it's not the worst idea in the world, Sirius. Regulus went through a lot this summer, I think that therapy would truly do him some good."

Sirius rolled his eyes and ran a hand through his hair, which was much too short for his liking at that moment in time. "Even if I wanted to, Regulus would never agree to it. He thinks therapy's stupid."

"Why?" Asked Mary, tilting her head a bit to the side as she held out her hand and took the fag when Remus passed it to her.

"Because our parents taught us that showing emotion made us weak. Just because Regulus ran away with me doesn't mean that he's just going to magically forget everything that our parents taught him. Hell, I'm surprised that he even came to me for help. I would have expected him to call Kreacher or something and have him heal him."

Lily frowned. "D'you really think he would do that?"

Sirius nodded and took the cigarette from Mary's outstretched hand. "I know he would."

"That doesn't mean that bringing it up to him is a bad idea," Marlene mumbled, turning the page of her book.

"It would make him shut down. I know my brother, I know what he's like, I know how our parents made him. Like I said, I'm surprised he even came to me at all. I'm not going to sit back and blow any chance that I have at helping him because I want to speed things up. It's gotta be slow, a steady integration of sorts." He took another drag of the cigarette and handed it over his shoulder to Remus. "If I bring up therapy he'd probably ignore me for days."

They were all silent for a few minutes. Remus smoked the rest of the fag down to its very last ashes, Mary finished the next row of the scarf that she had taken it upon herself to knit for Lily, Marlene continued with her homework, and Peter and James continued their game. Sirius sat on the floor, his legs crossed beneath him, his mind wandering to the boy sleeping in their dorm room upstairs and just what sort of thoughts may be swirling around inside of his hopefully-unconscious mind.

He hoped that they were good ones. For, Sirius had never been very good at dealing with people whose thoughts were anything but that.

"You're pathetic."

She was sneering down at him. Her wand was pointed toward his face. His body was erupting with unimaginable amounts of pain, tearing him apart, pulling his organs right out of his body. His throat was becoming raw from the screams that were escaping him, as though his voice itself had been manifested into the shape of hundreds of small blades, cutting him open and leaving him there to bleed under the gaze of his mother.