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ha, you thought you were getting a jegulus chapter.
so this is not a wolfstar centric fic there relation ship barely gets explored and they only get a few pov's rarely after this. this fic is jegulus and pandalilly centered.
tw: past family trauma (including when sirius ran away that scene), general emotional distress, vilonce, i think a splash of hemophobia (i think).
this chapter is really just sirius's take on everything (but jegulus because he's blinder then james with out his glasses)
now after all that siri pov
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The night I ran away it was pouring rain, my uncle carried me to my best friend's house after asking if I had anywhere safe to go; the Potter's was the first thing that came to mind. After that my memory goes in and out, I remember miss potter telling me I was living with them and sometimes Uncle Alfred, I remember talking to James under the tree, I remember how guilty I felt. Not just about intruding on the potter once quite lives but about regulus.
He was too weak for that house, and I knew it, but the problem was I was also too weak. We both needed to get out but when the time came, I left, and he didn't. That doesn't mean I stopped thinking about him, he always seemed to be lingering in the dark corners of my mind, waiting, for what I don't know.
It also felt like the second I got to the potters James was different, almost uncomfortable, unnatural, I missed my best friend, I did, but it felt like he was slowly hiding from me. I felt like an outsider. Too dark for the light colorful world that was the potters as if I was a drip of black ink on a rainbow page.
All my fear and anger over time turned into something more tangible, stronger. Anger took over my mind at my family, at reg, at all the fucked-up purebloods, looking back that is the day I told myself I would fight with Dumbledore in the coming war, I know I would have before as well, but then just then I knew that is where my future lye.
Just as my anger settled, forming a new foundation in my mind, it was time to go back to school.
That was the first time I saw reg, snape was picking on a first year so me and James went to sort the slime ball out that's when Lilly showed up – she always did- but regulus oddly was lingering at the door frame. When he opened his mouth, he no longer left like my scared baby brother but the cold black hair I made him become. If he only just went with me.
The day on the train he had just left so abruptly.
After he was gone my mind raced with questions and thoughts that I had run off to the marauder's empty compartment and elementally broke down sobbing. James was soon on my tail begging me to tell him what was going on with regulus. I didn't know why he cared so much but nevertheless I spilled. He learned about so many story's so many memory's with my brother like the nightmares he had and how he always crawled into my bed at night when he was scared, how I taught him to play quidditch how he kept falling, I told him about the aftermath with andromeda, I told him everything tears fell from the both of us and when I was done all he asked was "then why does he hate you?"
The question had floated in my mind for some time I never could figure it out I never seemed to be able to connect the dots "I wish I knew."
James just looked me in the eye, standing up. "Where are you going?" I asked whipping a stray tear, "finding out why he hates you." He said it so simply that before I could say anything, he diapered behind the sliding door. Remus found me after that and made me feel better, but he always did.
I wish I had seen it sooner I wish I hadn't wasted so much time before the incident. I wish me and marline never happened but at the end of last year Remus felt like too much I couldn't do it, so I started dating marline to try and hide those fucked up feelings. She is great, don't get me wrong she's a great friend. Friend, nothing more. Every time we kissed, I suppressed a gag again nothing to do with her, but she just wasn't Remus.
Maybe that's why I felt so relieved when she broke up with me.
Soon after that the marauders and I pulled the weather prank, a prank I was quite fond then when things started going wrong, I gave James the supplies and told peter to run.
That left moony and I to run into the night together. We laughed as we dashed down the halls, the freedom we felt for a moment together seemed unreal. "We make quite a pair, don't we?" Remus said when a set of perfects came around A corner. "Yeah, we do." He looked to me so close our hands brushed together as the footsteps faded. There was a look in his eye, a look I had never seen before, something real and deep.
That's when I kissed him - or maybe he kissed me- It was like walking on air no it was like I could breathe for the first-time sense I ran away. I know that now I am away from my family it should be the best time in my life, but it was not just wasn't.
But then after the kiss things went bad, neither of us said anything about it though we needed to. Sometimes I felt like we couldn't get it right. Maybe we never would. Maybe we are never meant to have that big grand love story that everyone talks about.
One day during this long spurt of awkwardness, we were walking down the corridors going to meet the girls for breakfast. We did that quite often, but something was different this time. Something fell off. Remus seemed stiffer than normal, even with us fighting, I just couldn't figure it out. I didn't see anything wrong with what happened that morning with snape. I didn't see what I did.
Maybe that was the problem.
On our way, I heard my brother talking with his friends inside of a classroom. The voices came in choppy. Never been able to make our entire sentence. But one word said by one of my brother's friends -If you can call them that- ran so loud through my head I couldn't ignore it; mudblood. It rained in my ears like a sick plague, made me angry, made Lily worse than that, but that just seemed to have made me even angrier. Mary ran off after her, But I just stood there, fuming with anger, with hatred.
I wasn't quite sure what I was going to say to my brother. I don't think I could predict what was going to happen in the conversation. I don't even know what I wanted out of it. But I just needed to direct all that built up resentment, hatred, anger at someone, at something, and it just happened to be him at the time. Feel sorry about it. Looking back, he didn't deserve that. But he could have left. He could have had a great life. He could have had the life he wanted and preached about. But he didn't. And I still couldn't to understand why he didn't leave.
We spoke some harsh words, some sinking in deeper than others, a couple feeling like the final twist of the knife in our relationship. But that relationship was already on its last legs. I was starting to doubt we good ever going to be with each other. He would always choose the great Noble House of Black, he always had to be one of them.
When he ran out of the Great Hall like a coward, James was on his tail. Always had to be the savior, James was always needing to be able to fix things, be able to set the world right. Even though I highly doubt the world would ever be right. I'm not going to lie and say it didn't hurt, because it did a lot James went to my brother, someone he has literally never spoken to. Over me, his best friend, his confidant, his other half. The Great Hall was just staring at me, I was just standing alone with my brother gone, although his words left a harsh mark that would never completely fade. I turned on my heel, walking out of the Great Hall. Not shedding a single tear, not one wavering eye. I kept my head high and I left. Maybe my mother would have been proud of me.
I wasn't sure where I was headed to. I just knew that I started walking and walking and walking. I didn't care where my feet carried me, I didn't care where I was, I didn't care who followed me. I don't care if I was alone, I don't care if I was followed by 1000 people. I just needed to keep walking, to keep going. That soon carried me to the Hogwarts grounds. Until I was on the edge. Until a sanded hair, ambered eye Gryffindor prefect ran after me. Calling my name, but I didn't pretend to hear him. We haven't spoken in weeks at that point. At least not kindly. There were plenty of people I expected to follow me. Suspected Peter, Maybe Lily, or marline, hell I would have guess the minister of fucking magic before Remus. He was the boy who broke my heart and now I hoped he would fix it.
"Siri." He called out, panting. He hadn't used that name since first year. In recent years, it's always been pads or pad foot, if we were ever on stable ground enough for a nickname. He looked concerned, worried, like it was a bomb that was about to go off. Maybe I was. Maybe that's what happened with Regulus. Maybe I just went off.
"You, okay?" he asked stuffing his hand in his pockets.
"Probably not." he nodded slightly like he didn't know what to say but we never did know what to say to another "Wanna talk about it?"
"Not particularly."
"Want- I don't know –company?"
"With you?" I lifted a brow looking at the prefect he squirmed under my eye
"I don't see anyone else around." I think his words came out blunter than he intended.
"Okay." I said slightly sharper then a wanted to "Where are we going?"
"3 broomsticks?"
I nodded thinking of a warm butter beer "Alright then."
We wandered in silence ten we got to the wooden door of the small pub, Madame Rosmerta met us with a kind smile sending over two butter beers our normal order, yet we didn't say anything to each other for quite a while. It wasn't comfortable silence, but it wasn't uncomfortable. It just simply was silence. Some people will say that's what I needed at the time, just a break, just quiet, just no more anything. Others will argue that I should have talked about what was going through my head. But I'm not a big fan of either of those people.
We didn't say anything until we were two butter beers in each. It was Remus who talked first, asking once again, "Are you Okay?" And once again, I responded. "Probably not." Remus had let out a resigned sigh. Not quite annoyed, but not quite happy. And then, surprisingly, he stretched out his hand across the table, landing on mine and giving it a gentle squeeze. Amber eyes met Gray. As a million words felt said, none were, we had always been very, very poor at talking. Communication was something to be desired.
"I'm sorry Si." I assumed he was talking about regulus, so I responded "You don't have to be. It's happened more than once."
The werewolf laughed a little taking another sip of butter beer "He's an asshole, don't blame yourself. You don't deserve it."
"I'm the reason he's like that, you know, I left him."
"You did what you had to do to survive. You know this you..." he pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand not talking the other off mine his mear tough felt like a gentle breeze on a warm summer's day, always calming and bringing a sense of serenity to those around. "It's a real shit place to be in, all right? Both sides. You did what was best for you, and you shouldn't blame that on yourself. If anything, blame it on that house or the person that used to be your little brother."
A small smile escaped me as I took another swing of my butter beer "Thanks Moons."
"And, Shit, I'm sorry."
"For?"
"I've also been an asshole." he said staring into his butterbeer "I should have talked to you, but... You know how you are about that type of stuff."
I laughed a little making Remus smile a bit the voices in my head scolded me "Yeah, I know."
"I'm so sorry padfoot."
"I am too. If anything, I should have said something. I've just. I don't know. Froze, I guess. No, that's" I was taping my foot on the hard wooden floors the sound echoing through the pub "Hesitated."
he nodded "Where do we go from here?"
"I wish I had the answer to that."
"I wanna fix this. Whatever this is. Long term, new beginning, a new chapter. I guess. But if anything we should get better at talking. Because... all I'm trying to ask is. Fuck. Do you want that new beginning as well?"
I could feel the smile burning on my face a shit day turned good or as good as any day could get. "Yes."
"Hey, look at us talking, communicating effectively." he said sarcastically. Too many sappy feelings, that's what Regulus would say.
"Shut up, Moons." I reached acrost the table pulling Remus closer to me kissing him once again, he tasted like butterbeer and chocolate of course he would taste like Chocolate. I could feel his lips smile agents mine as i left some galleons on the table pulling his hand out of the pub.
On our way back to the castle man, he invited me over for Christmas break to go over to his. But I did not want to do that to the Potters. Be we agreed on a compromise of half the time at his, and the other half the time at them at the Potters. I wanted a Christmas with my new family. Sue me.
Maybe we mended whatever was wrong, at least I think we did, at the very least temporarily. Things were great for a while. Every time prongs and wormtail would disappear. We would as well. We were all keeping something to ourselves, something from each other, some things that we weren't telling. I think we all know it. I don't think any of us want to acknowledge it. The marauders have always been open with each other in every deep and dark secret, but recently? Everything feels like it's cracking. Like the foundation we have built is shaking and shaking.
Maybe that's what led me to do it. Trying to fix the cracks in my own sick, twisted way. I just wanted us to be solid again. Just wanted that foundation back. A foundation not built on anger or hatred or lies but built on love and support and friendship. I miss that foundation. I loved what I had with Remus really, I did. I wouldn't have traded it for the world, I wouldn't have traded it for getting that old foundation back.
But I always mess everything up, always do the wrong thing and always say the wrong thing, never quite getting it right. Maybe if I did get it right, everything would be better, everything would be simpler, everything will be easier. I don't know what the right thing is most of the time. More than most of the time.
Then when he had snuck off from the rest of the Marauders- I think you can take a guess at why- about a week before break. Just were having fun, like, stupid kids who don't have anything that's stake. It was just fun, just stupid fucking fun, trying to be normal kids. For a moment we were. For a long moment we were. Then it all went to hell.
Snape came from around the corner neither of us knew he was there even with our senses maybe we're a little bit distracted at the time, but still. But his fucking face when he saw us will haunt me for the rest of my life he looked so disgusted, so shocked. It was like a deep knife wound but the knife was rusted, and always left traces, left marks, the left irreversible side effects. He called us names, threatened to tell people. Then just walked off.
Remus and I never did end up ever talking about it.
Those days of Lupins over break were fun and exciting. The Potters were like a home and a real family, but still there was that sliver of tension that note of unwelcoming. James was acting weird. He's always acting weird. I don't know what happened, but. For a minute we would always get the old James, the one who pulled pranks and cursed Slytherins but then there were also moments when he was just quiet. Like a different person. As if he had something he wanted to say, but just didn't. He was still fun and eccentric, talking everybody's ear off, but he felt more particular about what he was saying. Like his thoughts didn't match up to what the words that flowed out of his mouth.
Remus and I snuck away on the train back. We only planned to be gone 10 minutes, but next thing we knew, we pulled up to the Hogwarts train station. We decided to meet the rest of the group at the Great Hall saying we got cut up in something. But just then, just as we made our way to the great hall, that's when Snape trailed after us.
He was doing what he always did, kinds of names. Nothing that really cut deep. Nothing about me that cut deep. But then he started saying shit about Remus, he acted like it didn't hurt him but I know it did. That's when I got angry, so many things were making me angry, everything but Remus was making me angry. And I did what I always do when I was angry, I lashed out. Maybe it's the black family blood in me. Always happened to lash out the worst moments to the worst people getting yourself in trouble. My mother would be so proud.
I had snape pined against a wall wand to his throat. That was the first time I legitimately considered killing them that day. Just shutting him up once and for all. Remus try to plead with me to get off of him, just to leave them alone, but that didn't matter I tried to tell myself. But I knew it did, at least to him. It wasn't until I saw the look, Moony's eyes, that I let Snape go. Remus was scared of me. He was sad. I didn't want to be that person again, but you always get what you want.
I'm scared people will see in too deep and that they see the dark. I have never meant to tell snape. I didn't. I truly, truly didn't. But when I get angry, sometimes things just come out.
Mary Marlene had gone off with Alice. Remus went out to the library; I think with Lily. Peter went off for whatever reason, James was talking to Frank about Quidditch. That Left me alone, and I haven't been alone in what felt like years, at least not while at Hogwarts. But when I was in first year when I was caught between talking to James, pulling baby pranks, and panic attacks I made a small habit of roaming the halls, taken in the silence of the once chaotic walls. It felt nice. The wind seemed to seep through the windows, piercing my skin, setting the cold sharp shiver down my spine.
But then, once again, Snape came out of no where, like he seemed just so often do. He started saying so many things about me, about my family, about regulus, about James, about everything. And he started calling Remus things. And that's when I lost it. I wish I could go back to that moment. I wish I could stop myself. I wish. I wish so many things. But, nevertheless, I felt provoked, justified in my head. I even thought about it, which I highly doubt. I thought about it. I don't remember what Snape asked me, it must have been something about Remus. I don't think it mattered.
That's when I told him about the entrance to the shreeking shack. That's what I told him about the full moons. That's why I told him about the werewolf that lurked there. But the really shitty part was I called the Werewolf Monster. That might be what stains the most that I called Remus the most gentle, loving, kind person I have ever met, a monster because of something that wasn't even his fault that he had no control over.
And then I found it funny. I found it really funny. The idea of the werewolf ripping snape to shreds was hysterical. I thought about it over and over again each time it growing more and more hysterical. And later that night, I slowly, manically walked down to the Shrieking Shack. I saw him disappear under the tree room just for a brief second considered stopping him. But then my mother's voice echoed in my head, telling me to stop, to let it happen. I hadn't listened to that voice in years longer maybe, but I did then. I've watched as Snape went down. It made me smile.
Not long after his name disappeared, the full moon slowly started to rise. Not long after Snape disappeared James and Peter came rushing down. Prongs was so concerned the deep in his eye looked like deer in headlights. He was talking, but his words all blurred together in a vast array of nothingness. And one sentence came out. One measly sentence that seemed to justified everything. 'The slimeball deserved it.' He didn't. Looking back, I know. I know that no one deserves that. But that's why I told myself that's how I justified it. He deserved it. He deserved it. He's a deserved it. He's an awful person. He deserved it. The world is a better place for it.
The most sickening part is Remus didn't even cross my mind.
I never thought about how I would hurt him. I never thought that I would hurt James as he rushed in there being the noble, great James Potter that he always was, always so perfect. He seemed perfect to everybody. Look at him. The perfect straight, chaser, seemingly charmful, mask never cracking, and I called him my best friend.
Peter got a teacher, I think. But I stood there frozen, my thoughts never once catching up to me, it never clicking, it never comprehending what I had just done. Not Snape, not Remiss, not James. Me. And yet, I still didn't feel bad about it.
Madam Pomfrey, Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, they all came rushing down. Peter, slowly trailing behind them, out of breath and panting. Professor Dumbledore pulled out a pair of binoculars from under his robes, looking into the shack. I tried to read the expression on his face it was not quite pissed, wasn't concerned, wasn't angry, just was. Madame Pomfrey held a Gurney in her hands. She looked scared. She looked worried. Minnie just looked pissed off. She looked angry. She looked disappointed. Professor McGonagall was one of the closest things I've ever had to a decent mother in my life. She was stable support from year one even before I met Mrs. Potter. She was there on the very first day calling me into her office, offering me biscuits and tea and talking to me like I was a person, not a toy born to be manipulated.
It always hurt knowing that I made her upset.
"This isn't you sirius. What happened? What did you- How did you- Why? You are not like them, serious. Don't try to be." Her words cut deep, deeper than bone. Deeper than soul, deeper than magic. Deeper than anything ever has ever been before. Yeah, I still couldn't seem to feel guilty about it. How did I not feel guilty about it? How did it not click in my sick mind? How did I not see that I lost killed the two most important people in my life and that slime ball, but I just couldn't see it. Maybe I'm just a monster. Maybe i'm the one who deserves a rot in his grave. Maybe I am like them, maybe I'm just like them.
Maybe I shouldn't have left. Maybe it would have been better if I stayed not just for Remus but for everybody. Maybe I should have been the black heir they wanted me to be. Maybe that's where I should be. That's who I should have been.
What I had done didn't seem to click. I didn't click for a while. Then click until several moments later after my very boring meeting with Dumbledore, just telling me that I was off the Quidditch team and had detention for the rest of the year, which honestly feels light for what I had done. I wanted to make my way to the hospital waiting to make sure Moony was Okay. The guilt seemed to wash over me, drowning me from the inside out. I just wanted to rot away and let the breeze take me into a new life, into a new being, to not be myself anymore. Because this person cannot be good enough for this world, cannot be good enough for James Potter, cannot be good enough for remus Lupin. Maybe I should have just stayed.
Still nothing really set in. Until I talked to James at Moony's bedside. He was screaming at me to just go away. To just leave them alone, just leave because I shouldn't have been there. I didn't deserve to be. I slotted to the cocky, pretentious black heir mask that I so often wore when I was younger. I pretended I did not care I pretended it didn't hurt. I pretended that everything was fine, that they're he crazy ones. That they're the ones that were overreacting, that I'm fine. Everything that I did was in line. Because that's the black way of thinking; I'm not crazy They're crazy. I'm not wrong. They are. I'm fine. Except I'm anything but fine. Everyone but me could see it every one but me could see the monster.
When he told me to leave that final time, I knew that if I didn't I would just make things worse. So as moony began to wake up calling my name, I turned, and I left. But my soul felt like it was still there. I sat outside the hospital wing door. Listening to James recount the events of the past night to moony. I hated how I sounded, and I hated hearing what I'd done. I hated hearing his reaction, I hated hearing his sobs. I hated hearing Remus kicking James out like James had kicked me out. James listened. He left.
I don't know how he didn't see me as he opened the hospital wing doors. I was sitting right there. But he seemed too lost in his mind. He seemed too scared, no, not scared but too lost. I had never seen James Potter be lost before. He was always so confident in himself; he was my rock. He was the other half. He was everything. And yet his face, as he emerged from the hospital wing, was empty. Like the entire being was just sucked out of him.
He left seeming lost, I his own mind.
The second he was out of sight, I shot up Going into the hospital. I just need to talk to Remus. I just needed him. I'm sorry that's all I wanted to say. I needed him to see my side of things to know just to let me explain. I needed him to forgive me. But the look in Remus's eye as I opened the curtains. As our eyes met. But when our eyes met before -felt like a million years ago- even when we were mad at each other. There was still some form of love in there, still something to hold on to. No matter how many harsh words were spoken, how little we were actually talking. That tiny sliver of love. Dumb hidden love in those times. But it wasn't enough to keep going. When I had looked into his eyes that day. That little sliver of love was dead.
And I know that I was the one who killed it.
"I'm so sorry, moons" I choked out looking at the bruised bandaged Remus that laied before me.
"Don't. Just don't." my heart stoped "I don't understand. Sirius. I really, really, really don't. Why? Why would you do that to me?"
"I-I don't know."
"Bullshit. Give me an answer, give me an actual answer. Give me a reason to be mad at you. Give me something to hold on to, because I feel like I'm falling apart right now." tears threatened to pierce through his eyes as I said once again "I'm so sorry, Moony."
"Don't call me that and stop telling me that you're sorry. Just tell me why. Why you would betray me? Betray everything that we had" he hesitated "...or could have had?"
My heart longed to say the right thing but all I could get out was "I don't know what to say."
He scoffed with what little voice he had left in him "You've never been good at knowing what to say, have you?"
"No."
"Get out sirius." his words were sharp, but he meant his tone this time.
"Moons." I pleated.
"GET OUT."
It was never meant to hurt that much. Two words were never meant to hurt that much, to cut that deep. I was never meant to put some makeshift bandage on it with the fake persona. Because if I pretended everything was fine, that everything would be fine, that everything would be fixed, everything could come back, and actually make everything better I would. But nothing could go back to where it was, and I don't even know where that could have been.
Things were falling apart before I did what I did. Though I know telling snape was the breaking point I can't help but wonder what the breaking point would have been otherwise. If James said the wronge thing one day and I or Peter lashed out or maybe one of us would go through a bed break up or something.
It seemed like everything I had left was falling right before me, cracking and crumbling with the only good in my life. This was supposed to be my chance at freedom. But I've never felt more suffocated. My air had taken away from out of me and I was the only one who made it go out. So many bad things happened because of what I had done. Why had I done it? Why?
Why?
I've told you everything, told you every detail. Everything I can remember. Can you tell me? Can you tell me why I did it? Don't just say it was anger. Don't say I was confused. Don't. Just don't. Say I was as much of a monster as the world wanted me to be.
You know you want to.
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monday for an actual jegulus chapter (picks right up were the last one left off but in reg's pov)