TRIGGER WARNING: depression & self harm. The specific paragraph is bolded below to help readers avoid this section.
"Pomfrey's gonna skin you if she finds you in here," Remus murmured when he felt the weight of Sirius come up onto the bed beside him.
"How'd you know it was me?" came his voice from the air behind Rey. It was deeper than usual, more throaty, and Remus could tell from it that Sirius had either been crying or, at very least, trying extremely hard not to.
Remus's laugh was soft - a chuckle, really. He smiled, "Are there many invisible people in the castle? I've never seen any.."
"Well you wouldn't, would you? They'd be invisible."
"Touche." Remus said with a grin.
Sirius chuckled.
Remus felt Sirius shift until he was pressed against Remus, leaning over his torso so to be looking into his face and he reached up and gently pushed the invisibility cloak back to see Sirius's face and he smiled, "There you are... Hullo."
"Hi," Sirius answered.
Remus could see in his eye something was wrong. He stared into Sirius's eyes, getting lost in the grey. "What happened at patronus class?" he asked.
"Just - you know ... learned some... James worried about Evans as usual... some kids said some stuff so I hexed Mulciber... my brother was there."
Remus asked, "What's Mulciber saying?"
Sirius kissed his chin, "Nothing, Moonshine, that's the point for the jinx. I lang-loncked him." He smirked.
Remus laughed. "Well what'd he say before you lang-locked him?"
"Just some rubbish he ought not've done," Sirius replied with a shrug. Then, "You've done a load of research about the patroni, yeah?"
"Some, I dunno about a load, I mean there was one book and a few smaller bits in a couple other books, but --"
"Can people control what their patronus is?" Sirius asked.
Remus mused, "Well. Yes and no. Not consciously. I've discovered that the word Patronus stems from the same word we get patron from... Pater, latin for father or protector or defender. The shape of our patronus represents someone or something that one recognize as our protectors or defenders. Said in the book if someone feels unprotected or unsafe, they might not be able to produce a patronus, or at least not a corporeal one. Said the shapes can change if our views of who our protectors are change. The example the book used was a girl might have a patronus that represents her mother or father when she is young, but it may change to her husband when she's older, that sort of thing."
Siris asked, "Well what if someone wanted you to think they thought a certain person meant something to them? What then? What if there was a reason they wanted to fake it? Is there a way to cast a fake patronus?"
"Sirius, what's going on? Why don't we just talk about this straight instead of in riddles?"
Sirius sighed and he rolled off Remus's chest and laid next to him, half on the bed, half off, staring up at the ceiling. He sniffled and reached up to rub his eyes, the invisibility cloak having mostly fallen off him so that most of his upper half showed now. "He had Snuffles, Rey."
There was only one person that could mean. Regulus. Remus studied Sirius's face for a moment, then he asked, "Does Regulus know about Snuffles? I know he knows I'm a werewolf but does he know about the animagi?"
Sirius said, "He must." Then he paused... and he, too, remembered the night in the clubhouse, with the bedtime story and the tales of Snuffles the dog that Regulus had always begged him to tell. Subconsciously, he'd named his doggy self the same as the character in his brother's favorite tale... and Sirius murmured, "Well. Maybe. I mean.... I've only just remembered... I used to tell him stories I made up about a dog named Snuffles when we were young."
Remus stared at Sirius's profile, at the shape of his nose and curve of his lips.
"Why do you think Regulus is faking it?" Remus asked gently.
"Because he's Regulus," Sirius answered.
"And?"
HIs eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. "And none of my family thinks anything of me. They think I'm rubbish. Regulus himself has called me such... called me such since he's been at Hogwarts, even. He's - he hates me, the same as Mother and Father and -"
"What if he only acted like he hated you because that's what he was supposed to do?"
"Supposed to do?" Sirius looked at Remus.
"You hated muggles once."
"Because I was young and naive and Mother said I should," Sirius argued.
Remus nodded. "And Regulus was young and naive when you left for Hogwarts and got sorted Gryffindor, yeah? And she probably told him he should hate you, yeah?"
A lump rose up in Sirius's throat and he was very quiet, very still, his breath coming out a wee bit shaky.
"Perhaps Regulus is just as confused as you were."
Sirius's fingers kneaded the blankets.
"You know what it sounds like to me, Sirius?"
Sirius looked at Remus.
"It sounds like your brother needs you."
Sirius bit his lips.
"And you know what else I think?"
Sirius's features were trembling.
"I think you need him."
Remus wasn't sure what Sirius thought of his assessment. Instead of answering, Sirius lay there quietly for a few moments, staring at the ceiling, just breathing, and composing himself. His eyes were hard to read from the side like this and Remus didn't dare to move to look down into them, afraid of how that might affect his knee-growing. He could still feel the cartilage down there squirming about and it made him a little nauseated, truth be told. He would've liked to take more sleeping draught and go back to his dreaming but Sirius needed to talk.
Finally. "What do you reckon your patronus will be, Rey?"
"Dunno," he said.
Sirius looked over at him. There was something - some emotion - there in Sirius's eyes, something that Remus couldn't quite place. Sirius suddenly sat up and the invisibility cloak fell to the floor completely and he stared down at his knees, which hung over the side of the bed and he rubbed his hands together.
"Padfoot, what's the matter?" Remus touched Sirius's arm.
"Nothin'," Sirius answered. But it was something. There was a heaviness to him that wasn't there before, and he slid off the bed and his stocking feet hit the floor. He'd left his boots back at the dorm to be able to sneak quieter though the castle to avoid getting caught, so all he had on were his thick wool socks. He bent down for the cloak and picked it up off the floor.
"Sirius, come back and lie down," Remus requested.
Sirius shook his head, "I just wanted to check on you. You're... you're still healing. You... need rest."
"Yes, but I'll rest better with you here. Come on. I'll push over so you've got more space."
"I gotta go, Rey."
"Why?"
"I just gotta go."
"Sirius, what's going on?"
Sirius shook his head.
"Sirius --"
Sirius tugged the invisibility cloak 'round his shoulders and reached for the hood.
"Sirius come back here, please," Remus requested and he struggled, trying to sit up, but it made him wince if his knee jostled and he inhaled sharply. "Please. Don't go. I can't come after you, it isn't fair."
"Nothing is fair, Remus Lupin," Sirius said dramatically. He turned around and the cloak shimmered slightly about his shoulders - his head alone hovering there in the air. "Nothing at all," he said in a slightly crazy voice. He was laughing in a low, sort of insane manner.
"Sirius..."
But he'd pulled his hood on over his head and though Remus begged him not to, Sirius went out the door of the hospital wing, letting it slam shut so hard that Madam Pomfrey came running out of her quarters to see what the matter was.
Remus flopped back onto the pillows and closed his eyes in frustration. "Blasted leg," he muttered, "Blasted wolf. Blasted moon!" He opened his eyes and found the window - out it the slightly waning gibbous moon. He hated the moon so much. He wanted to go after Sirius more than anything in the world, but there was nothing to be done for it. His knee was still rebuilding itself and there came Madam Pomfrey with the next dose of Skele-gro and sleeping draught...
He wanted you to say it would be him, a whisper went through Remus suddenly as he watched Pomfrey walk closer with the smoking glass and the small vial.
That's what had been in Sirius's eyes. Sirius had wanted Remus to say that his protector was him, that his patronus would be the black dog... and saying he didn't know had hurt Sirius's feelings. That's what had been in his eyes, that's what he had left for.
Remus rubbed his forehead.
"Mother of Merlin," he muttered, shaking his head.
Sirius wanted to be alone. He didn't go back to the dormitory. He wandered the halls in the invisibility cloak, carefully weaving around people he passed in the halls. He thought passively about doing some pranks, but his heart just wasn't in it. He tried to find the most obscure place in the entire castle he could go to... some place nobody would find him... and he found himself climbing down the steps to the little boat docks from the entrance hall. It was quiet and cold there, the water sloshing about the edge of the docks below. He stopped halfway down the stone stairs and pressed himself to the cold wall and hugged his arms, trying to stay warm, rubbing his palms across his arms that stuck out from his t-shirt.
If Lost, Please Return to Remus Lupin, it said.
He felt lost.
He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the stone wall.
He could feel the darkness inside him moving, like storm clouds... billowing, growing, amassing... They seemed to expand and fill him up, the darkness spreading through him to his very fingertips, and he started to rock himself slightly. He didn't know why he felt like this, why the darkness was filling him up, attacking him like it was...
I have a dementor inside of me, he thought.
"Go away, go away," he whispered, "Go away. Get out of me."
He wanted it out.
He started scratching at his arms with his fingernails, digging them into the skin so that there were great white lines streaking across the flesh of his elbows and forearms as he scratched and rocked and he could still feel it in there and his imagination started to go wild. He could see it in his mind, the way the dementor would look - his cloak billowing about, as though the inside of Sirius were an empty cavern and he could see that horrible bone hand reaching out for his heart... It had to be a dementor in there. It had to be. He had to get it out.
He reached into his pocket and he took out the little pocket knife James and Remus had given him to escape Number 12 and he pulled out the blade. It flashed silver in the slight amount of moonlight coming into the stairwell and he stared at it for a moment. It reminded him of the glimmering shine of the patroni and he thought that was a sign that what he was about to do would work to get rid of the dementor - that perhaps this was his patronus, the only patronus that he would ever be able to produce. So he leaned back and pulled up his shirt and he dragged the blade across his chest, a line straight down his sternum. He winced at the pain of it, but it wasn't nearly as horrible as the pain of the dementor in his chest and he watched the blood leak out, watched it stripe across his pale chest and belly. It was so dark in the stairwell that the blood looked nearly black and Sirius imagined it was the darkness streaming out of him and into the night, and he felt hollow, but relieved and he tugged his shirt right off, dropping it onto the stair beside him, not wanting it to get stained. He closed up the blade and leaned against the stone, closing his eyes and feeling the darkness drain out of him.
The next morning at breakfast, Remus was finally allowed to leave Pomfrey's ward and he walked down to the Great Hall - slowly, taking his time - and found James and Peter at the table. Peter was telling James about a book he'd read over holiday, his voice excited as he spoke quickly, "So they find the forty thousand dollars and jewels in the old water tower - because Jackley didn't mean the Tower Mansion at all! And then Hobo Johnny shows up and ---"
"Rey!" James interrupted Peter, seeing Remus coming across the hall to sink down in the place next to James, "Hey look at you, walking and everything. Brand new knee, 'ey?"
"Glad you're feeling better," said Peter from across the table.
Remus nodded, "Still a little sore... New, yes, but still sore." He rubbed it carefully as he looked around the table. "Where's Sirius?"
"I was about to ask you the same thing," James answered, "Didn't he spend the night with you?"
"No," Remus shook his head, "He came by but he left... I thought he was going back to the dorm. He didn't go back to the dorm?" Peter and James both shook their heads. "Are you sure? He was invisible. He had the cloak on. Maybe he snuck in?"
"We would've seen the door," James replied. "We were both in the dorm all night."
"James helped me with transfiguration homework," Peter said proudly.
"And then we practiced the expecto patronum a bit," James added.
Remus looked worried. "Well, where is he, then?"
They exchanged glances.
"I'll go get the map," said Peter.