The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part Two

LXIV: 23 June, 1994

"He's an animagus! Named PETER PETTIGREW!" 

The words had the effect Sirius had intended them to. Silence - dead silence - had filled the clubhouse room of the Shrieking Shack. Ron, Harry, and Hermione had all looked at one another and then at the rat and Remus had rubbed his face with his hand, pinching his nose with the index and middle of his left hand. Sirius recognized that expression... Even twelve years later, Remus's frustration with Sirius's dramatic flare looked precisely the same.

It won't be long before he'll be ready to send you back to Azkaban himself, breathed Achlys. Not even an hour and you're already on his nerves...

Sirius shook his head violently. No Achlys, he thought, no, you're wrong. It's different this time, it's different - he's different, I'm different, we're both... different...

He looked around, unsure if he'd spoken out loud or just thought the words in his mind. Nobody was reacting to it, so he must have thought them. It was hard getting used to knowing if one spoke or simply thought, Sirius was finding, and he wasn't always sure what bits of what he meant to say he actually said and what bits were just screamed inside of his mind?

"You're BOTH mental!" Ronald Weasley said in a wonderstruck voice.

"Ridiculous," Hermione added.

"Peter Pettigrew's been dead for twelve years. He killed him." Harry wheeled and pointed at Sirius and Sirius grinned at him, a laugh building up in his throat. Harry looked away as though seeing something obscene, and faced Remus.

Just another person not asking you the truth, he is... Just like everyone else...

"I meant to kill him," Sirius said, and he was fairly certain this was actually out loud. 

The others looked at him and he nodded, confirmation that he was speaking in audible words. Excellent.

Sirius sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the rat as it dangled from Ronald Weasley's hands. He stared and stared, unable to take his eyes off of the rat, and it seemed the longer he stared, the more anxious the rat was getting, swinging wildly like a furry little pendulum, just daring him to make a move, like a carrot in front of a horse.

"Little Peter got the better of me..." he was nearly whispering, hypnotized. "But not this time though."

He barely knew he was about to make the move before he was launching himself from the bed with all his strength. If only Azkaban hadn't stolen most of that, he might've got where he was going before a Remus caught him around the torso and, weak as Remus was at the moment, managed to block him.

"SIRIUS NO!" Remus yelled. And suddenly, the next thing he comprehended was that he and Remus were wrestling, fighting, shoving one another - Remus having stepped between him, Sirius, and Ron - who held the dastardly little rat.

Bad dog.

Sirius could've won this struggle a hundred times over before his body had all but wasted away on the floor of that jail cell. But that was the rat's fault too.

He killed James, he killed James! You don't understand! 

He did it, he did it, he did it, he did it, he did it!

Remus was shouting at him. "WAIT!"

I'VE WAITED AND WASTED AND I CAN'T WAIT ANYMORE - I CAN'T WAIT ANYMORE - I'VE GONE MAD WAITING! JAMES IS GONE AND I DON'T RECOGNIZE MYSELF, REMUS!

 "I'M NOT WAITING ANYMORE, REMUS!"

LET ME KILL HIM PLEASE! I CAN'T STAND TO LOOK AT HIM.

I CAN'T STAND KNOWING HE'S ALIVE AND JAMES IS DEAD!