Tw: Sirius Black's poor esteem, Snape, minor mentions of religious trauma
Sirius Black rammed his fists on Professor McGonagall's door feverishly, eyes swimming with tears that would never touch his cheeks. He wouldn't allow it.
Her door opened after a few moments, lips pressed especially thin as she regarded Sirius stiffly, looking as though she wanted to transfigure him into a toad and keep him that way. She was dressed almost ostentatiously in a tartan pajama attire, looking no less menacing.
"What do you need at this obscene hour, Mr. Black?" She asked, waspishly. Her demeanor softened momentarily when her eyes focused on Sirius's hands, tremoring so uncontrollable he shoved them into his pockets. "Is something the matter?"
Slowly, Minerva McGonagall pieced together fabricated fragments of a skewed narrative. At last, she thought, Sirius Black had finally discovered Remus's secret.
"You mustn't tell anyone." Her eyes were no longer impatient. They held a firm note of urgency, as she stared down at the young Black. "If you believe that you truly cannot live with Mr. Lupin, I will make arrangements. But you are not to jeopardize his education in any way. Do you understand me?"
"No," Sirius gasped, clawing at his chest. His breaths were quick and uncomfortable. "No, I knew that. But now, Snape- he- he's there."
Minerva McGonagall was instantly alert. In a swish, her robes were comfortably situated across her narrow shoulders, wand clutched at the ready.
"Show me," she said, pressing. "Hurry."
As they sped through the halls, Sirius felt sobs tear through his chest, like Remus's splintering claws, ripping through his tendons, his ribs, deflating his lungs like helium balloons. A dull ache began to spread through his heart.
His heart, torn to bloody shreds, was reduced to nothing but a pile of tissue that once made up something great. Sirius Black was an old vase, made of aged porcelain and glazed to perfection before his inevitable shattering, leaving nothing but the remnants of what could've been.
That was him in a nutshell, wasn't it?
A coward placed delicately into the hands of magnificence, failing at anything and everything. He burned bright, beautiful, until the star went into supernova, taking everyone down with him.
And worst of all, he liked to cling to people against his touch starved chest, preen and fret and caress until they didn't know they were falling with him.
How could they know, when he didn't either?
Until they both fell through an endless abyss of self-destruction. And they tried to save him, pull him upward against the force of gravity itself. But there was no saving Sirius Black.
Sirius thought back to the first time Remus read Dante's Inferno. He'd hated it, of course (but he had loved it, too), 320 pages about hell and eternal damnation, paying repentance to your sins with the very source of your sinful actions. The greedy man would have nothing, the violent man would be subject to his very violence.
Well, Remus had chuckled, bitterly, I suppose I'll spend the rest of my dying eternity clawed at by a werewolf. And Sirius had laughed wryly, a blossoming sorrow spreading from the base of his lungs, each exhale a tender release of melancholic sympathy.
Oh, moony, he'd breathed, moony, your life and death will look awfully similar, then.
And Remus had only shrugged, sucked the smoke out of a cigarette, and gone back to hating the book, whilst loving it all the same. Sirius remembered, this, because he'd plucked the book out of Moony's veined hands, and snapped it shut, sharply.
"I don't understand why you read all that depressing shit, moony," he said loftily, cupping his hand around his own cigarette, and the flame that lit it. "Muggles, what a bleak group."
"He had some good points, you know," Remus had said, massaging his temples as his eyes fluttered closed in silent pain.
Sirius had raised an eyebrow and blew the smoke delicately out an open window. Then he clapped a hand over his eyes piquantly and flipped to a random page. His eyes scanned the page before he grinned, delightfully.
"There," he had said, a warm excitement filling his chest. "Read that."
Remus had sighed and rolled his eyes, before reading aloud in a flat tone. "You were not made to live like brute beasts, but to pursue virtue and knowledge."
"Well, there you have it, then!" Sirius had announced brightly. "Even our good man Dante agrees, and since he's so smart, he must be right. Now, go pursue virtue and knowledge the way Mssr. Alighieri wanted you to."
"But Sirius," Remus had said quietly, "you've got it wrong. See, I am a brute beast. Perhaps it's good that I've started to pay my retribution now. My very existence was cursed from the start. There's nothing you can do about that."
Sirius was quiet for a moment, a frown beginning to tug at his lips. He flipped to another page. "Do not be afraid; our fate. Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift."
Remus had only pressed his lips into a thin line. "Sirius, honestly. We all have an inclination towards evil. No one stays pure forever. Hell wouldn't exist otherwise."
"Good merlin, moony. Decided to convert to Christianity, haven't you?" Sirius said weakly, a sudden reminder of his mother's screeched preachings echoing in his head.
"Very funny," Remus said dryly. "Just because I don't choose to torture myself with biblical holiness doesn't mean I'm not allowed to ponder over eternal damnation."
"I think having a talk with Frank might help," Sirius said. "Gehinnom only last twelve months, typically. Much more bearable."
Remus only shrugged, smiled, and looked back down at his book (he'd started Anna Karenina during the course of their conversation).
That was the day Sirius Black realized he'd burn for eighteen eternities if it meant a lifetime with Remus Lupin. And according to Walburga Black, that may have been exactly what was required of him and his bouts of homosexuality.
And now, as Sirius Black watched hopelessly as Professor McGonagall scoured the forest, he realized that no one deserved hell more than him.
The boy he loved was his weapon of choice, his schoolyard rivalry turned into an attempted slaughter. Moony would wake up the next morning and be taken away by the ministry, branded a killer, and locked behind the cold cells at Azkaban.
He knew that Remus would never forgive himself.
Remus would wake up the next morning, cold terror running rampant through his veins like liquid fire, burning as the flames licked his sides, charred his golden skin, and reduced him to nothing but a pile of ash. The boy who amounted to nothing, but sought everything.
And Sirius was the kerosene, the match, the cigarette, the oxygen.
Sirius Orion Black was the sole person responsible for the burning of Remus John Lupin.
Sirius felt that it was only fair to confess.
"I killed him," he whispered, feeling the air leave his lungs. "I killed him."
"What are you talking about, Mr. Black?" McGonagall asked sharply, her wand illuminating Hogwarts' vast grounds. Barren trees danced across his vision, casting menacing shadows, gnarled black roots twisting and mutilating at his feet.
Sirius flinched, pressing a cold hand to his cheek. "Why do you always call me that?"
Suddenly, Professor McGonagall stopped.
She was tall, height was one of the many ways detached herself from her students. But she knelt until they were eye level, her eyes holding an uncharacteristic amount of humility. "Tell me, Sirius. What happened?"
And so he started from the beginning, from a letter, a greasy-haired Slytherin boy's incessant taunts, and a beautiful boy that became his collateral damage.
********
Severus Snape ran as fast as he could until he spotted two figures illuminated by the familiar glow of wandlight.
As he went closer, he saw the familiar pointed hat that indicated Professor McGonagall. He ran towards her, panting and clutching his side.
"Professor!" He fell at her feet, trembling with fear and rage. "He's a monster. Remus Lupin is a terrible, savage beast! He needs to be exterminated, he-"
"Mr. Snape, that's quite-"
"You're the one that decided to go poking around to find his secrets!"
Severus looked up, snarling as his eyes focused on Black.
"You!" he spat, picking himself up off the floor. "You wanted to kill me! I'll bet you planned it with that half-breed!"
"Mr. Snape! We do not tol-"
"Oi!" Sirius squared his jaw, eyes flashing. He took a step forward, and Snape instinctively retreated. "Don't call Remus that."
But Severus Snape was no longer scared. He'd just watched his classmate turn into a fucking werewolf. He was ready for the fight, ready to draw blood and watch it trickle into the earth, just as his blood had been spilled by the name of Sirius Orion Black. So he swung his fists wildly, hearing a satisfying crack! as his fist collided with the side of Black's face.
"Mr. Snape!"
He felt his smile slide off his face, seeing Professor McGonagall's piercing glare fixated on him. But he didn't regret it.
"You two," she said, breathing heavily. She looked as though she would explode, leaving behind a thousand tartan scraps. "Do not even try to explain yourselves. Tell me why you are brawling like muggles when we are currently short two Hogwarts students?"
Sirius blinked rapidly, gingerly touching the area where his cheek had split. "James and Alarie-"
"Haven't been found," McGonagall snapped. "That's right, the two friends whom you'd sent into this mess are somewhere, preferably not inside the Shrieking Shack. They are currently missing. And, based on the direction from which Mr. Snape came from, they are inside the Forbidden Forest."
Sirius let this sink in. James, his best mate, and Alarie, a girl who'd been nothing if not tolerant of his horrible attitude towards her, were most likely wandering through the Forbidden Forest, or worse.
And it was all because of him.
Suddenly, Sirius's gaze zeroed into the two wands sticking out of Snape's pocket. He felt his blood run cold, a wave of sheer terror dousing him like a shock of ice water.
"Why do you have Alarie's wand?" He asked, voice oddly empty.
Snape glared at him. "She was in my way."
Silence.
"You took her wand?" McGonagall asked, her pitch raising.
Snape shrank under her furious gaze.
"Unbelievable," she muttered. "Never, in all my years of teaching have I ever heard of such unsportsmanlike behavior. Taking another student's wand is unacceptable behavior. Especially when they are in dire need."
"Potter probably had a wand on him," Snape muttered.
"Probably got that in your pocket too," Sirius retorted, glaring darkly. But Professor McGonagall looked incredibly grave.
"Sirius, I need you to focus," Professor McGonagall said. "Did Mr. Potter leave without a wand when he went after Mr. Lupin?"
And suddenly, Sirius blanched.
Of course, the idiot had forgotten to grab his wand. James hadn't even thought, was instantly the white knight when Remus was in danger. Always the hero, always putting others before himself, until he was left defenseless in the Forbidden Forest. Sirius remembered the polished wood, sitting on his nightstand.
Fuck.
"Yes," he breathed.
McGonagall's lips grew thinner. She turned towards Severus. "And you, Mr. Snape? Did James Potter ever point his wand at you, make any indication that he had one on his body?"
Slowly, Snape shook his head no.
"Kindly fetch Professor Dumbledore, Mr. Snape." Her voice sounded oddly strangled. "Inform him of our current situation and tell him to meet us by the Willow immediately."
She watched Snape leave, blinking her eyes rather funnily.
"Professor?" Sirius whispered, feeling a tear trickle down his cheek.
"What is it?" She asked sharply.
Sirius sniffled. "They aren't..."
Silence.
"It has been years since I've lost a student," she said quietly. She didn't look at Sirius, merely glanced at the Shrieking Shack and its newly reinforced door. "Today will not be the exception. It will not happen, do you understand me?"
Sirius nodded.
"Good." She stood up briskly. "Go fetch Madame Pomfrey."
********
Brigitte Alarie felt a cool trickle of water run down her throat and was immediately aware of excruciating pain. She gasped, clutching at her side.
"Heya Alarie. Be careful." James looked pale, his eyes searching for hers. Hazel, she thought, as her eyes fluttered shut, with golden brown specks dispersed in the galaxy that is James Potter.
"Potter," she choked, a wave of shock rippling through her spine. "Where are we?"
"I-I don't-" James looked around blindly, screwing his eyes shut. "I don't know."
She scanned the dense, lofty forest, grasping James's warm hand with burning intensity. He gently leaned her against a tree, sweat beading against their foreheads. She took deep breaths, trying to keep the spots in her vision at bay. Every time she tried to concentrate on their whereabouts, her mind clouded over.
She wrapped her robes tighter around her shoulders and quickly realized that they weren't hers. She glanced over at James, wearing only his tunic, fringed with loose threads that dangled freely from its torn bottom.
Her eyes scanned their surroundings rapidly, her breaths fiercely steadying. She squinted at a sticky, viscous white substance plastered against a nearby tree.
"James," she whispered, "What is that?"
James swallowed. "I don't know. But it looks like something you'd typically find in a broom closet back at the castle."
Her lips twitched slightly, but she still remained tense. James crossed over to the tree, pressing a finger against the substance. Thin white wisps attached themselves to his finger, leaving him tangled in their strings.
Brigitte immediately began to haul herself up, a moan tearing free against her chest as she clutched her side. James hurried to aid her, bring an arm around her waist to hold her steady as she caught her breath.
"We need to get out," she said, hoarsely. "We'll get eaten alive otherwise."
"What is that?" James said quietly, tucking his robes closer around her shoulder. "Why are you scared?"
She fixed him with a burning gaze. "What did it feel like?"
"Spiderweb," he said confidently, as a sinking realization dawned upon him. "Oh."
FRANK LONGBOTTOM IS JEWISH BC I SAID SO YALL (this is in reference to the flashback where Sirius talks about Gehinnom, aka "Jewish Hell")
i'm grappling with the idea of this chapter having an alternate title: "the burning of remus lupin"
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR 100K READS THATS ACTUALLY INSANE!!!! I LEGIT CRIED WITH MY BEST FRIEND ON FT WHEN I SAW AND THIS WOULD'VE NEVER BEEN POSSIBLE WITHOUT YALL
where was I for another couple months after promising to start updating consistently?
well, you can blame that on crippling mental illness. but I think things are beginning to look better, so I'm back!!
speaking of which, I've discovered I have moderate to severe ocd, so I will be putting a pause on Emma's storyline until I get my affairs in order and it's not triggering for me to write about ocd.
ngl I don't feel great about this chapter, but it was too much of a hassle to rewrite.
anyways, please comment, they absolutely make my day!!! I love you <33