The Marauders: Year Six #Wattys2017

Fennel

Fennel

James knew there was something wrong when he walked through the door and Sirius wasn't there waiting for him. Every day that week, when he'd come home from St. Mungo's, Sirius had greeted him at the door in true fashion to his inner dog. James stood in the frame of the door, absently pushing it closed behind him. "Sirius?" he called.

It was raining outside, so James shrugged off the rain jacket he'd been wearing and hung it up. Still no Sirius... and the lights were all off.

James already felt horrible, the idea of having to deal with Sirius throwing a tantrum over James pushing him away the night before was really not something James wanted to have to go through... It had been a long day. They'd had to scrape scales from Charlus's arms and face three times in the last nine hours and Charlus had actually cried in front of James from the pain of it. He'd never seen his dad cry before. Not really cry. Not like Charlus had done while they were scraping those scales. It had made James feel so very, very small in a way that he couldn't explain.

"C'mon Sirius, mate, I can't deal with this tonight..." he muttered.

He climbed up the stairs, heavy, and feeling a little annoyed. Selfish mutt, he thought -- he was probably hiding away in his room being dramatic and stupid about it and Sirius was probably going to complain how terrible James had treated him. He could almost hear the words. I know you're going through hell but, fuck, Prongs, you don't need to treat me like shit! And Sirius would be right - he didn't have to treat Sirius like shit, but damn it, James couldn't even fall apart over something like this? Something like his dad dying and --

He stopped in the hallway, losing his breath a moment. He pressed his palm to the wall and shivered.

He'd thought the words so smoothly.

His dad was dying.

James felt dizzy.

He looked at the door to his parents' bedroom, thought about all the times he'd crawled in bed between them when he'd had nightmares or when there'd been thunderstorms that had rocked the house... That small feeling filled him up again, that same small feeling he'd had when Charlus had started sobbing, begging the healers not to scrape his skin anymore...

James clutched his arms about himself.

"Sirius," he called again, more broken this time because he really needed his friend to just understand that he was sorry for pushing him away but none of this made sense. Charlus Potter was a constant, a beacon of strength, a pillar that James had always leaned on and now -- now he'd seen his father cry. Now the pillar was breaking apart and James had nothing holding him up. "Sirius, please, I'm sorry for last night... I'm just... I'm falling apart, I'm so scared of what comes next, I dunno how to do this... I dunno how to handle what I feel and --" he was yelling the words as he walked down the hall to Sirius's bedroom - the door was open ajar - and he pushed it in and waved his wand to turn on the lights... and... and it was empty.

Sirius wasn't there.

James stared about the room.

There was something very ominous about it.

He looked about for a note, there was nothing, no indication of where Sirius had gone. But his stuff was still there - the stereo, the tapes, his clothes, his rucksack... Sirius couldn't be far. James turned and ran back down the stairs, afraid something had happened... The Fidelus was still on the house, nobody could've come and taken him...

James was shrugging the wet rain jacket back on when the door opened and Sirius stumbled in. He was wearing his jeans with all the safety pins all over them, but no shirt. His torso was pale and dripping with water and his hair hung in thick, soaking strands, running rivers over his skin as he practically fell into the room. Sirius was clutching a bag from the market that was nearly as soaked as he was and his eyes were wide in a funny sort of way.