fatal love

Chapter 8

That night, when the other three boys had gone to bed, Sirius lay awake. He'd been trying not to act like a Black recently, but today, he hadn't really regretted doing so. Did that make him a bad person? He thought back to his Sorting, where the Hat had told him he was cruel. He'd never thought of himself as cruel, but now he was wondering if he just had different standards of cruelty than everyone else.

He got up to go to the bathroom and try and clear his head, when he noticed a light shining out from the curtains around Remus' bed. Cautiously, he made his way over and pulled back the curtains, to see Remus reading under wandlight.

"Sirius?" Remus asked, setting his book down. "Are you okay?"

"Can I come in?"

Remus nodded, and Sirius took a seat at the foot of the bed, shutting the curtains behind him.

"I lied, about today," Sirius confessed. "Cursing Rosier - yeah, what he was saying reminded me about my family, but it was also about you. I wouldn't have got so angry if it wasn't you he was saying that shit about.

Remus sighed. "Sirius, people are allowed to not want me here-"

"No!" Sirius interrupted fiercely. "You have every right to be here, and no one is allowed to say a damn thing about it! Look, I know you didn't think you'd ever come to Hogwarts because of how sick you get, and I also know that's not the whole story. But I'm telling you right now, Remus, whatever it is you're hiding, is no reason for you not to be here! And don't let anyone say otherwise!"

Remus looked at him for a long time. "Sirius... I'm a-"

At that moment there was a loud snore from Peter's bed, and Remus' mouth snapped shut.

"What?" Sirius pressed, "what were you going to say?"

"I- nothing," Remus said, avoiding his eyes. "Just... thank you, for saying that."

"It's true."

"Yeah, maybe," he hummed noncommittally.

"So we're okay?"

"Of course we are," Remus smiled.

"Good. I should probably go to bed then."

"Yeah... night, Sirius."

"Night, Re." As Sirius made his way back to his own bed, he couldn't help but think Remus had been on the cusp of telling him something very important. What it could be, though, he had no idea.

As the rest of the year went by, the school was full of whispers about Sirius. That the First Year Black Heir had cursed a classmate in a corridor, in front of twenty witnesses, and gotten away with it. The Slytherins seemed especially conflicted on how to react. On one hand, Sirius had done a very Slytherin, very Black thing, but on the other hand, he'd done it because he was defending his half-blood friend. Honestly, Sirius couldn't care less what they thought of him, and was just happy they'd decided to ignore him while they figured out where they stood.

James had been weird around him for a few days, and that was way worse. He wasn't mad at Sirius, exactly, but didn't seem to know how to treat him after seeing him in his Black persona, and was noticeably uneasy. But they were twelve years old, and within a week, James had forgotten about it, and moved on to trying to convince him to come stay at the Potters' over summer.

It's not that Sirius didn't want to, it was just that there was zero chance of that actually happening. Mother would keep Sirius in his room the entire holiday before letting him go and pal around with a blood-traitor.

Like the Christmas holidays, he was dreading going home, however unlike the Christmas holidays, he had absolutely no idea what to expect. He wasn't awaiting a punishment this time, which was good, but he was leaving Hogwarts with completely new attitudes. And going home to a family who would undoubtedly be on the other side of the war. He had no idea what to do about that. Trying to reason with them wouldn't get him far, he was sure, and displaying anything that could possibly be interpreted as going against the family values would end in a severe punishment. But he didn't know if he'd be able to listen to them talk, and nod along like he used to.