Jet Black Heart // Wolfstar Short

1 - Not This Time

"Rey, please talk to me."

A shaggy-haired boy ran into the fifth-year Gryffindor dormitory after his scarred boyfriend. Silence followed his plea.

"Remus, please."

Again no reply.

"Remus, Snivellous is a right git but I didn't want him to get hurt, I just wanted to scare him a little, that's all. Just a prank. Please, you have to-"

"What do you want me to say?" Remus snapped, turning around from his place by the window. "That I forgive you? That I understand? Sirius, I honestly can't believe you expect that out of me. Not this time."

Sirius felt a little relief in his veins. Remus was speaking to him; that was a start.

"Rey I wasn't thinking-"

"That's the bloody problem, isn't it? You never do," Remus bit back.

Sirius trembled as he reached out to Remus. "Moony, if you're afraid of your secret getting out, don't worry. I'm sure Dumbledore will stop him from-"

And that was the point where Remus Lupin, ever kind, gentle, and forgiving, exploded.

"It's not even about my bloody secret. This is about you! You and how utterly inconsiderate you are about others! I could have killed Snape tonight, do you get that? I could have been branded a murderer tonight, Sirius. Beyond an innocent victim being killed, do you have any idea what that would have done to me? To be the murderer that the monster inside me so badly wants me to be?"

Backed against the wall from the anger in Remus's voice, Sirius tried and failed to respond. Remus kept going, anguished tears pouring down his cheeks.

"You can't see how your actions affect other people! You don't seem to get that there are consequences to everything, Sirius, consequences that can ruin other people's lives in an instant. You're just like-" Remus cut himself off, knowing that if he said the next words that were about to jump off his tongue, there would be no taking them back.

Sirius's eyes grew cold as continued to stare at Remus. "Just like who, Rey? My family?"

Remus broke eye contact, looking at the floor to avoid the hate-filled tears pooling in Sirius's eyes.

"That's what you were going to say, right? That I'm just like all the damn Blacks who haven't given a shit about the people they've killed? Just like my abusive parents and my Death-Eater brother and all the other self-righteous pureblood maniacs on the good old family tree?" Sirius's voice was bitter as he said all the words that had been whispered about him behind his back ever since the day he arrived at Hogwarts. "I've got a Black heart, is that it?"

Remus shook his head, tears continuing to dribble down his chin. "It's more than your family, Sirius. It's bigger than that. It's you. It's that you're too impulsive. It's that you love too hard and you act without thinking. It's that we're on the verge of a wizarding war and I'm so bloody terrified that you're going to get yourself killed." He finally looked up as the last words were spoken, hoping that Sirius could understand where he was coming from.

"I'm broken, Rey, you knew that going into this. You can't not love me anymore because of that." Sirius looked up from the floor, finding Remus's eyes already on him. The silence felt deafening to him as Remus stood there. "Can you?"

Against his better judgement, Remus softened his gaze on the shattering image of the boy in front of him. "Padfoot, I don't think I'll ever be able to stop loving you." A glimmer of hope shone in Sirius's eyes. "But that doesn't mean we're automatically okay. I need time to think about this, about what you did and how it'll affect us." Remus paused. "About whether or not I can ever forgive you for what you did."

That glimmer of hope was gone as soon as Remus finished his sentence and moved toward the door. He turned when he heard a ragged breath, watching as Sirius sunk to his knees and began to sob. Every cell in Remus's body screamed at him to run back to Sirius, to scoop him into his arms, kiss his forehead, and tell him that everything was going to be alright.

Remus shook his head, fighting his instincts. Not this time, he thought. I can't this time.

Sirius looked up as Remus finally left the room, feeling the final pieces of his heart break as the door closed. He folded himself into the smallest ball possible, his body shaking with the sobs wracking through it. Would you look at that, a voice in the back of his mind whispered. Mother was right; I guess I am a Black after all.