Pensieve - Wolfstar Fanfiction

27

Christmas morning.

Sirius woke up to a nightmare at six AM. In it he had watched his father hit Remus repeatedly with his cane, over and over again until the boy was barely breathing. And Sirius had no power to stop the beating, he just stood there by the door watching. Paralyzed. Terrified. The sound of the stick smashing against Remus' bruised, soften skin. The silent splashes when the boy's flesh broke, leaking out blood that ended up splattering on the emerald green wallpaper of 12 Grimmauld Place's drawing room.
Those noises were haunting, they were stuck in Sirius' head. Playing over and over again. And every time he closed his eyes that day, even just to blink, he saw the scene from his dream in front of him. It's not real. That was what he kept telling himself, but the quilt of just staring there as it happened, dream or not, was overwhelming.

He staid quiet all day. Afraid to exit his room for unnecessary reasons, afraid to look at his mother in the breakfast table. Sadly, Christmases at Black's were always like that. No joy or laughter, no warmth. Just fear. He would have skipped the eating, but Walburga would definitely find a way to call that "disrespectful". So he sat down to his seat, the same one that his father had beaten him out of previous night. He sat and he ate, even though he felt like throwing up. Not just because of the terrifying images flashing in his head, not only because of the noises from his dream. Not the bleached clean spot on the floor under the table from Kreacher cleaning up the wine, vomit and blood from last night. Most of all, it was the empty void inside of him that kept growing. Day by day it erased more of him. His personality, the jokes and charm, they had gone a long time ago. Then it took his apetite, his ability to sleep normally, his courage and will to do anything at all. It took everything, even the sea that Remus claimed to see in his gray eyes. And it replaced them with numbness, sadness and fear.

Regulus could sense it in the air, after what happened the night before his brother was not the same. He hadn't said a word, not even "merry Christmas Reg" like every year. Those were just words, but they meant so much to Regulus. Because they were about the only words Sirius spoke to him, once a year ever since the sorting. Walburga couldn't stand the two playing together after that. She cut them out of each other's lives, even though they lived in the same house. To her, blood purity meant too much. So much that in her petty little mind, his Slytherin son could somehow pick up his Gryffindor brother's traits and stop the purity of her family. It's just a fucking Hogwarts house, wake the fuck up. To her it was everything.

So, the majestetic Christmas tree that Regulus had no permission to even touch, was just a prop built by Walburga that morning so Orion's father Arcturus III would in some scale be impressed. That old gray haired man was emotionless, like a shadow with a face, and impressing him was sometimes the only thing that Orion and Walburga cared about. It was scary to think about, how they abuse their children but would do anything just for some old cunt's approval.
Regulus sat on one of the armchairs, in his green detailed suit with his dark hair cleanly brushed and falling neatly around his face. He made sure not to touch the carpet with even the tip of his shoe and to keep his posture as straight as possible. He sat quietly for hours as it was gently snowing outside, reading a book about poisonous frogs as his mother cooked the Christmas meal. Orion hadn't been outside of his study all day, what was a relief. And Sirius just sat in his room, staring at the white line of light that came from the window as the sun was slowly getting lower. He blocked out the noises of tableware clattering downstairs as Walburga did whatever it was that she was making three floors below him. He blocked out the smell of dust and something cold and wet, the house's smell, because it made him feel sick. And he tried to block out the thoughts in his head, the ones about the dream and the ones about death, but they were too strong to silent.
He was terrified. He needed to find a way for it stop, for it all to stop without hurting Remus. But that was impossible, and it made him feel even worse. There was no right thing for him to do, so he was just spreading out all his options quietly in his mind.
He couldn't run away, Orion would find him. He couldn't break up with Remus and pretend to be straight, he'd rather die than live that lie. Because maybe the only thing left of the old Sirius was that little bit of pride and he would not let it go. He could kill his father, a little thought that had popped into his mind as he cried himself to sleep last night, but he could never do it. First of all, he stood no chance. He could poison the old pig, but Orion's employees and allies would know he did it. There was no way around it, any path he could choose would lead to him and Remus paying for their love with their lives.

That's when Sirius made the choice.
He would not let his father have the pleasure to watch the light dim from his eyes.

He would do it himself.