Sirius Expelled

Sirius Expelled Part 10

Hi it's Luna! I don't normally put notes in front of my parts but this needed one. I would like to say, major, major, major trigger warning for Self Harming. Please, please don't read if you might even consider relapsing.  It's graphic, it's realistic, it's dark, and it's cruel. There is self harm, self hatred, and just a dark chapter. I wrote it as both a reasoning for further events that will happen, but also to to help myself with relapsing in a more healthy way. So again, please be careful as you read this chapter, because you only need to know that Sirius does start harming in this chapter. Skip if this could hurt you. Thank you.

And so, throughout the rest of the year, the two boys lived in misery, both full of guilt. The year passed in a dazing blur, something neither boy noticed in the clouds they lived in. Both of them barely noticed the days changing past them, Remus barely passing his OWL's and Sirius lost weight, often locking himself in his room and being lost and dazed. The lonely feeling pressed on both of them, affecting them and their friends. James, Peter, Lily, and Regulus had all lost spunk, feeling the pressure of Remus and Sirius pulling at the seams of their friendship. The lighthearted relationship that all of them had was falling out. Until one day Sirius discovered something that finally made him feel alive. Something deadly.
It had started out as always, numb and miserable. But that day as Sirius was slowly walking to the bathroom he tripped. As he fell, his weak body tried to catch itself on his dresser. It didn't work but his arm caught on the corner and tore. Fiery pain shot up his arm and he inhaled sharply. But after the pain peaked for a few seconds it began to die. But it left something in its wake. Joy.
Sirius pulled back his robe sleeve and looked down at his forearm and across his mark he saw something. A red scratch tore across the fanged head of the snake and his arm shook as a couple of droplets of blood rolled down his arm. A laugh made its way out of his mouth. Somewhere in his brain he felt as if he was being punished. That this pain proved that Sirius deserved nothing. That he was nothing. But it also sparked a feeling of life into him.
Forgetting the entire reason he left his bed, he turned back to his desk. Rummaging through the drawers, Sirius found it. An old pocket knife with his name was engraved on the handle. A birthday present from when he'd turned 10. He watched, his eyes flickering as he pulled out the blade, following the sparkling silver blade as he slowly twisted it around his fingers. Sitting on his bed, he watched the cut on his arm as the blood slowed.
"Punishment." he whispered to himself, but his voice wasn't sad or scared. It was numb.
Slowly he lifted the blade to just underneath the scratch. The blade felt heavy as his eyes watched his body. His mind felt empty, thinking of only one thing. The spark of joy that followed the pain. The blade rested on his skin and he gripped it tightly. With a fit of powerful rage, a hungry need to feel something, the craving of the pain that he'd just experienced, he put pressure on his soft skin and tore his blade from left to right. Through his teeth he hissed in pain, his hand tightening around the handle. But like before, the pain peaked and began to settle as he watched the skin turn from red, to white, and slowly back to red. But he didn't see the color of Gryffindor appear. The color of blood. Sirius craved the color so badly, more than he knew was possible. Lifting the blade again, he used his strength to press into his skin, just lower then the first cut. Once it felt like he couldn't press anymore, that the pain would be too much and he'd die, he forced it down slightly harder and pulled it across his arm. He gasped in pain and watched his skin again as he fought another whimper of pain. It turned red then white and dots of blood formed along the cut. The pain was undeniable now but it was like a breath of fresh air.
Like the freedom of a dog, howling at the moon with its best friend, deep in the woods.
Blood welled in the cut and a couple drops dripped down Sirius's arm, looking like the snake had blood dripping off its fangs. Sirius smiled, manically, abiet the throbbing pain in his arm. For the first time in weeks he was alert, awake, alive. That numb, dead, unfeeling sickness he'd been full of was gone. He breathed deeply and let the pain overwhelm his mind. Nothing else existed in the midst of pain, just the cuts, the blade, and his arm with the horrid tattoo. Remus, Regulus, James, his ex-boyfriend, his brother, his friend that was his brother. None of them were here, none of their voices were yelling at Sirius, they didn't have any power over him. Nobody did because if Sirius had his knife then nobody could control him again. He could hurt himself, punish himself, he could feel again. So Sirius was once again in power.
With the blood forming and the pain not fading, it pushed away all the horrible feelings he had been trying to get rid of. Guilt, anger, vengefulness, regret, sorrow, all replaced with this pain and the joy the pain brought. It was like summoning a demon out of the sick, twisted, mess of a person that Sirius was.
Slowly dragging the blade across his arm to find the next place, the tip landing on the face of the snake. With all his strength Sirius dug the blade in his skin and tore it across his arm. A bloodied scratch formed over the snake's eyes, running down his arm. It hurt like anything, stinging as the open cut made contact with the air. Exhaling hard to deal with the pain, Sirius put the knife back into his desk and stared at the cuts. His arm hurt, it shook slightly with the pain he'd inflicted on it. But he was proud. Because he'd gone through so much pain with Walburga, but this? This was him punishing himself for what he'd done. If he hadn't betrayed Remus then he wouldn't be here, bleeding and in pain. So again he laughed. Laughed in the face of fate because nobody else had the amount of control that Sirius had over himself. Laughed because of Walburga's twisted game to break him that had so clearly failed. He didn't worry about the pain any longer because nobody could do that to him. Not the way he did to himself. He basked in the pain, letting it pull all of his attention to the stinging mess that now made his arm. The blood was itchy and tickled as it pooled slightly in his hand and the snake had changed. Three open cuts and a scratch had shifted its dimensions, blood covered it making it seem less like a snake and more like an unknown shape.
"Look at that." he whispered to himself. "Look what you've become. Remus isn't the monster. He never was. You are. You always have been."
With these words Sirius knew that he had given up. The monster inside of him was released and with that he was alone.

And after that day Sirius could never again transform into Padfoot. Maybe it's because he was too broken. But nobody would ever know the true reason. Padfoot was gone forever, replaced with a damaged shell of the boy once known as the king of Hogwarts, now Sirius Black. He was the death eater, the Black family heir, the traitor who did something so wrong he was expelled from Hogwarts in a single night, with no notice, he just vanished overnight. Sirius the Marauder had become Sirius Orion Black the Third. And there was no turning back.

End of Part 10