Growing Up

Part 40.

"Who was it?" Remus' nails dug into the palm of his hands, trying to conceal his shaking breath. Peter was looking down at the floor, his blond hair in front of his eyes, hiding his face.

"Who was it!" Remus grabbed the desk chair next to Sirius and threw it against the wall. He was yelling now, his blinding rage causing James to feverishly grab his wand from his back pocket and place a silencing spell on the room itself, fine light like glitter spanning over the door and carrying across the room. The chair clattered against the wall with a sharp sound that made Peter revert into Wormtail, scurrying across the floor straight under the nearest bed.

Remus hadn't noticed. He stomped the wooden bedframe of his bed, snapping the leg into halves. He threw heavy items like feathers in his loose grip. He punched through the wall nearest to the window, his knuckles bleeding crimson tears down his fingers and onto the wooden floor.

"Who fucking told Snape?"

James was cowering now, his glance switching between Sirius and Remus.

Sirius stood upright, watching it happen. Tears brimmed in his eyes as he flinched with each crash of a different item.

"Fucking tell me!"  His fist smashed into the wall again, his hand through the drywall to the bathroom. He yanked his arm out, the pain like electricity through his arm distracted him from the flaming pain in his hip. This time, a peculiarly frightening calm washed over him. He turned to stare at the two, his face smooth minus the furious crease engraved in his forehead. Left with no other option, he reached for the weak link.

He grabbed James by the collar of his shirt, blood from his hand scribbling red streaks of blood into the pure cotton.

"James."

James' face scrunched, looking away from him like he was some kind of flesh-eating beast, somehow different and more terrifying than what they had seen the night before. Without harming him, Remus twisted his shirt to pull it tighter.

"Tell me." He hissed.

"I-" James whimpered, watching Sirius' tear-streaked face.

"Who did this!"

"It was me!" The voice cried out from beside him. Sirius was no longer put together. His hair was disheveled and his pink face was wet with tears.

"It was me." He repeated, his voice quiet and shaken.

Remus let go of James and could hear the air flow back into his lungs and the blood rush back into his head. He mumbled an apology and rested his hands limply on James' shoulders. Once the dead weight of his arms fell, he slowly turned to face Sirius.

"I just wanted him to stay away. I thought we could scare him-"

"You thought... I, could scare him." Remus corrected him.

"No, I thought he was going to-"

"I could've killed him."

"Moony,"

"Don't 'Moony' me!" Remus felt like a toddler throwing a tantrum in a grocery isle, and Sirius' guilty eyes made it feel even more so. Remus' expression wavered, his bottom lip quivering with an escaping sob followed by a slew of meaningless words. He had to hit him where it hurt, make him feel the same bone-deep anguish he felt right then, and he knew how to do it.

"I never want to see you again."

***

After ten minutes of persistent convincing and ten more of sitting on the other side of the door, Lily succeeded in getting Remus to open the broom closet door in the common room. She knew something was terribly wrong when he walked down the stairs, tense and almost catatonic, the rest of him hovering over his moving legs. Even through the dimly lit room and his quick pace,  his eyes held a look she didn't recognize. A haunted shell, a carbon poltergeist, whatever it was, Lily's stomach sank with the echoing thud of her journal. She felt the lock turn and stood immediately when the doorknob clicked. When it opened, Remus' shadow stood still.