'Til All That's Left Is Glorious Bone—
james potter x black!reader, (black siblings centered)
synopsis: being a Black isn’t just a name; it’s a burden carried in silence. your brothers handle it differently: sirius fights against it, regulus crumbles under it, and you have learned to accept it, yet still hide it. when james offers you love and safety, you flinch; not because you don’t want it, but because you’ve never been taught how to accept love. (9.8k)
cw: Chronic illness, suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, self-isolation, emotional breakdowns, grief, physical pain, identity loss, emotional neglect, overdose, allusions to death, trauma responses, unfiltered intrusive thoughts, self-hatred, references to childhood neglect, emotional repression. read with caution!!!!
based on: this request!!
a/n: this turned out much longer than i thought. very, very much inspired by the song Wiseman by Frank Ocean
part two part three dalia analyses of this!! masterlist
The hospital wing smells like damp stone and boiled nettle, and you have come to know its scent the way some children know their lullabies.
You’ve spent more of your life in this narrow bed than you have in classrooms or in common rooms.
Time moves differently here—slower and heavier—as though the hours have forgotten how to pass. The light through the tall window is always cold, a winter that presses its face to the glass but never steps inside. The sheets are tucked too tightly, the kind of tightness that makes it hard to breathe.
You don’t remember when it started; the pain behind your ribs, the way your body began failing you in small, careful ways. There was no single moment you could point to, no clear before and after. Just a slow shift. A day where you were a little more tired than usual. Another where the pain lasted longer. And then one where it didn’t leave at all.
It became routine before you even realized it. The walk to the infirmary. The same bed, or one close enough. The same questions asked in softer voices each time, as if the answer might finally change. You learned the smell of the place, the way the light falls through the windows at different hours, the quiet rhythm of it all. At some point, it stopped feeling temporary.
You’re there more often than you’re not. Long stretches where your classes blur into something distant, half-missed and half-forgotten. You learn to measure your days in smaller things, how long you can stay upright, how long the pain holds off, how much you can manage before your body forces you back here again.
Some days are worse than others. On the bad ones, it feels like your body is turning against you. On the better ones, it eases just enough to let you pretend, just for a little while, that you’re like everyone else.
But it always comes back.
Other students pass through in quick bursts. Broken bones from reckless flying, burns from careless spells, fevers that keep them there a night or two at most. They come in complaining, surrounded by friends, and leave the same way, already laughing again, already moving on.
They don’t stay long enough to notice how quiet it gets at night or how the beds empty out.
You feel like a fixture here, like the spare cots and rusting potion trays, like the chipped basin and the curtain hooks. Madam Pomfrey no longer asks what hurts. She knows by now that the answer is everything, and also nothing she can fix.
You didn’t grow up in a kind house.
The house was never loud in the way other homes were. No shouting that spilled into the street, no doors slammed hard enough to break. Everything was quieter than that. The kind of silence that made you listen to every footstep, every shift in tone, every look that lasted a second too long.
You learned early what was expected of you. How to stand. How to speak. When not to speak at all. Approval was rare and precise, given only when you got it exactly right, and taken back just as quickly if you didn’t. You stopped thinking of it as love after a while. It was something else; something you had to earn.
You were the youngest, but never really alone.
You were born beside Regulus, your twin, your other half. He was quiet in a way that made people underestimate him. Careful and watchful. He learned the rules as quickly as you did, maybe quicker, and he followed them with a kind of precision that kept the attention off both of you, when he could manage it. His presence was steady, something you could rely on without ever having to say it out loud.
And then there was Sirius.
Older, louder, impossible to ignore. He didn’t move carefully like you and Regulus. Where you and Regulus learned to bend, Sirius pushed back. He spoke when he shouldn’t, laughed at the wrong times, let his defiance sit out in the open where everyone could see it.
You watched him the way you watch something you don’t fully understand. Part admiration, part fear.
Because every time he stepped out of line, the house seemed to tighten around all of you. Yet despite all of it, Sirius was like a divine saviour in your innocent, young eyes.
While you were expected to be precise. Polished and perfect with no flaw in sight. The daughter of Walburga Black was not allowed to unravel.
Your hair was never your own. Your mother braided it herself, every morning, every ceremony, and on every photograph.
The braid was too tight—always too tight—and it made your scalp sting and your neck ache, but you never flinched.
You sat still while her fingers pulled and wove and twisted, like she was binding you into a shape more acceptable. Your fingers trembled in your lap, pressed together.
She said the braid meant order, discipline, and dignity. But it felt like a chain. A silent way of saying: this is what you are meant to be.
You wore that braid like a chain for years. A beautiful little cage. You wondered if anyone could see past it—if anyone ever looked hard enough to see how much of you was trying not to scream.
Your mother expected perfection. You were her daughter, after all. Hair always braided, posture always straight, lips always closed unless spoken to.
“A daughter of this house doesn’t squirm,” she would murmur, her grip unrelenting. “She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t disgrace herself over something as small as a hairstyle.”
And whenever you dared cry at the painful tugs she pulled, she would say, “Noble girls do not weep like peasants,” she would snap. “From now on, your hair stays up or braided. No more running wild. No more playing outside with your brothers. A lady must always be presentable — do you understand me?”
The memory was clear as day, and every time she finished she would tell you, “You’ll be grateful for this one day.”
You could remember it so clearly, the memory now resurfacing:
Outside the room, Regulus stood waiting. He looked down at your braid and didn’t say a word. His tie was loose, lopsided in that way he never could fix.
Your fingers moved on instinct, straightening it carefully, eyes never meeting his. He let you. The silence between twins had its own language — and right now, it said enough.
The hallway stretched long and heavy, lined with portraits that watched like judges. You didn’t stop walking. The destination had always been the same.
Sirius’s door creaked as it opened. He was lying on the bed, book propped open across his chest, thumb tapping absently against the page.
His hair was a little too long, his shirt untucked. Thirteen years old and already a constellation too bright for the house that tried to dim him.
He looked up — and the second his gaze met yours, his expression softened.
“Oh, pretty girl,” he breathed, sitting up straight. “Come here.”
You moved without thinking. As soon as the door closed behind you, the first tears broke free.
“She did it again?” His voice was low, careful. “Too tight, yeah?”
A nod. You climbed onto the bed beside him, pressing your face into his sleeve.
“I tried not to cry,” the words came out muffled. “I really tried.”
Sirius tucked a lock of hair behind your ear, then gently reached for the braid.
“‘Course you did. You're the bravest girl I know.”
He began to undo the braids. His fingers worked slowly, reverently, like unthreading something sacred. With each loosened twist, the tension in your body unwound too, your breath coming easier, softer.
“She says I’m not allowed to run anymore,” you whispered. “Says I have to look like a proper lady.”
“Well,” Sirius said, a hint of a smile in his voice, “I think she’s full of it.”
You let out a tiny, hiccupping laugh.
“There she is.” He brushed his fingers lightly over your scalp. “That’s better.”
The braid came undone, strand by strand, until your hair pooled over your shoulders — a curtain of softness, no longer a cage. Sirius shifted, lying back against the pillows, and opened his arms wide.
“Come here. Sleep it off. We’ll steal some scones from the kitchen tomorrow and give some to Reggie, okay?”
You tucked yourself beneath his arm, the scent of parchment and peppermint wrapping around you. In the soft hush of the room, it was easy to pretend the house didn’t exist beyond these four walls.
By morning, you would wake up to find him sitting cross-legged on the floor, fingers gently working through your hair again. But this time, the braid was loose and much gentler. It didn’t pull or sting.
“There,” he said, tying it off with a ribbon he pulled from his own shirt. “Just so it doesn’t get in your eyes when we go looking for some chocolate.”
And you smiled, because in that moment, you believed him.
The memory fades like breath on glass, slipping away into the sterile hush of the hospital wing.
You come back slowly. First to the faint scent of antiseptic and lavender balm. Then to the stiffness in your limbs, the press of cotton sheets against your legs, the dim ache nestled just beneath your ribs like something familiar.
“Easy now,” comes a voice, gentle and no-nonsense all at once.
Madam Pomfrey stands over you with her hands already at work, adjusting the blankets, feeling for fever along your temple.
“You’ve been out for nearly a day,” she says, eyes scanning your face as if checking for signs of rebellion. “Stubborn girl. I told you to come in the moment you felt lightheaded.”
You blink at the ceiling. “Didn’t want to miss class.”
She snorts softly. “You think I haven’t heard that one before? You students would rather collapse in the corridors than admit your bodies are mortal.”
Her hands are cool against your wrist as she checks your pulse. You glance down at the thin bandage near your elbow — the usual spot, now tender. You don’t ask how long the spell took to stabilize you this time. You don’t need to.
She sighs and straightens. “Your fever’s broken, but you’ll stay here today. No arguments. I want fluids, rest, and absolutely no exits.”
You nod. “Thank you.”
Her gaze softens, just a little. “You don’t always have to carry it alone, dear.”
Before you can answer, the curtain snaps open with a flourish — a burst of too much energy, too much brightness.
“There you are!”
James Potter.
“Sweetheart,” James breathes, as if you’ve just risen from the dead. “My poor, wounded love.”
You barely lift your head before groaning. “Merlin’s teeth. I’m hallucinating.”
“Don’t be cruel. I came all this way.”
He plops into the chair beside you without invitation, sprawled in that casual way that only someone like James Potter could manage.
His tie is missing entirely. His sleeves are rolled up in that infuriating way that shows off forearms he doesn’t deserve to know are attractive.
You squint at him. “You didn’t come from the warfront, Potter. You came from Transfiguration.”
“And still,” he says dramatically, “the journey was perilous. I had to fight off three Hufflepuffs who claimed they had dibs on the last chocolate pudding. I bled for you.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“I’m in love,” he counters, placing a hand over his chest like he might actually burst into song. “With a girl who is rude and ungrateful and far too pretty when she’s annoyed.”
“Then un-love me,” you mutter. “For your own good.”
“Can’t. Tragic, really.”
You shoot him a glare. “I should hex you.”
“But you won’t.” He winks. “Because deep, deep down, under that armor made of sarcasm and resentment, you adore me.”
“I deeply, deeply don’t.”
“And yet,” he leans in, “you haven’t told me to leave.”
You stare at him. He stares right back.
Finally, you sigh. “Potter?”
“Yes, my heart?”
“If you don’t shut up, I will scream.”
He laughs, bright and boyish and utterly maddening. “Scream all you want, darling. Just don’t stop looking at me like that.”
James doesn’t leave. He lounges like he was born to irritate you — the embodiment of Gryffindor persistence, or maybe just pure male audacity.
He props his elbow on the bedside table and peers at you like you're the eighth wonder of the world.
“You know,” he says, casually adjusting his collar, “if you’d let me walk you to class yesterday, none of this would’ve happened. Fate doesn’t like it when you reject me. Tries to punish you.”
“Fate had nothing to do with it,” you snap. “I tripped over Black’s ego.”
He blinks, then grins. “Which one?”
You throw your head back against the pillow. “Get. Out.”
“But you look so lonely,” he pouts. “All this sterile lighting and medicinal smell — what you need is warmth and some love.”
“What I need is silence,” you mutter. “Preferably wrapped in an Invisibility Cloak with your name on it.”
James leans closer. “But then you’d miss me.”
You sit up slightly, brows knitting. “Potter. For the last time — I am not in love with you!”
He looks wounded. “Yet.”
You glare. “Never.”
“Do you say that to all the boys who deliver their soul on a silver platter for your approval, or am I just special?”
“Neither. You’re just insufferable.”
There’s a silence then — or what should be a silence. It’s really more of a stretched pause, heavy with the weight of all the things you haven’t said and refuse to say. You busy yourself with fluffing the pillow behind you, more aggressive than necessary.
James watches, unbothered, as if every second in your company is a privilege.
It pisses you off.
“Why are you like this?” you ask suddenly, exasperated.
James looks genuinely confused. “Like what?”
“Like a golden retriever who’s been hexed into a boy.”
He gasps. “You think I’m loyal and adorable?”
“I think you’re loud and impossible to get rid of.”
“That’s practically a compliment coming from you.”
You huff, crossing your arms. “Did you break into the hospital wing just to bother me?”
“No,” he says, stretching. “I also came for the adrenaline rush. Madam Pomfrey tried to hex me.”
“She should’ve aimed higher.”
“She said the same thing.” He tilts his head, eyes softening a little. “Seriously though. You okay?”
You glance away.
It’s a simple question. An honest one. And it cracks something in you, just for a second — a flash of how tired you really are, how the weight in your chest hasn’t gone away since the moment you woke up here. But you’re not about to tell him that.
“I was fine,” you say flatly, “until you arrived.”
James laughs, not buying a word of it. And you hate him a little, for seeing through your armor so easily. For still showing up anyway.
“Well,” he says, standing up and slinging his bag over his shoulder, “I’ll go. But only because I know you’ll miss me more that way.”
“In your dreams, Potter.”
“You’re always in mine.”
He tosses you a wink before heading for the door — whistling as he walks.
You throw the other pillow at his back.
The door clicks shut behind him, and silence rushes in too fast.
You just sit there, perched on the edge of the infirmary cot, hands still curled in the blanket, knuckles pale. For a moment, there’s nothing. Just the quiet hum of the ward and the slow, measured ache blooming low in your back.
Then, you hear it.
James's laughter, bright and stupid, spilling through the corridor like it doesn’t know how to stop.
And then—his voice.
Sirius.
You’d recognize it anywhere. Cooler than James’s, more precise, threaded through with a sort of effortless arrogance he doesn't have to earn.
Their voices blur together, warm and sharp and unbearably distant. A private world outside the thin curtain, a place you’re never fully let into, even when you're part of it.
You swallow hard. The taste of metal still lingers.
Madam Pomfrey told you to rest. Strict orders, she said. But your body’s never listened to promises, and your mind is already slipping away from the cot, already pressing you forward with a kind of restless urgency.
The ache in your ribs flares when you move, but you ignore it. You swing your legs over the side and reach for your shoes with slow, shaking hands. Each movement tugs at the bruises hidden beneath your skin, the tender places no one else can see.
It isn’t the pain that drives you. It’s something worse. That feeling, deep in your chest, like a hand gripping your lungs too tightly. You don’t want to be the one in the bed anymore, weak and broken and watched over like a child.
You want to run until your lungs scream. You want to scream until your throat splits.
Instead, you walk.
The corridor outside is too bright. You blink against it, but don’t slow your pace. Your limbs feel like they’re moving through water, but you don’t stop. The voices are gone now, swallowed by stone and space, but they echo anyway.
And it stings, because Sirius never laughed like that with you anymore. Not since he left you and Regulus at Grimmuald.
You don’t go far. You don’t have the strength.
Instead, you slip into the back corner of the library. It’s always too quiet there, always a little too cold — and that suits you just fine. You drop your bag and sit without grace, shoulders curling inward.
Your books are open, but your eyes keep blurring the words. The light from the window stripes your page in gold, but your fingers tremble as you hold the quill.
There’s a pain blooming slow beneath your ribcage now, deeper than before, as if something inside you is tugging out of place. You press your palm to your side, hoping the pressure will settle it, but all it does is remind you that it’s real.
It gets worse the longer you sit. The burning in your spine, the throb in your joints. Your whole body pulses like a bruise someone won’t stop pressing. You grit your teeth and write anyway, like if you just get through one more page, one more hour, one more breath—you’ll be okay.
But you’re not. Not really. And every breath tastes a little more like defeat.
The days fold over themselves like tired parchment.
You wake. You ache. You drift from bed to class to hospital wing to silence. You ignore James when he finds you in the corridor and calls you sunshine with a grin too wide for the way your heart is breaking.
You tell him off with a glare you don’t mean. He calls you cruel and laughs anyway. You walk away before he can see the way your hands are shaking.
The world goes on.
And then one afternoon, when the sun slips low and casts everything in amber, you see him.
Regulus.
Your twin. Your mirror, once.
He’s seated beneath the black lake window, where the light is darker and more still. His robes are sharp and his posture straighter than you remember.
There’s a boy beside him — fair hair, eyes too bright. You’ve seen him before. Barty Crouch Jr. A Slytherin, like Regulus. Arrogant. Sharp-tongued. Always smiling like he knows something you don’t.
They’re laughing. Low and conspiratorial. Something shared between them that you’ll never be invited into.
And Regulus is smiling, real and rare and soft in the way you used to think only you could draw from him. His face is unguarded. His shoulders are relaxed. He looks... content. Not loud like James, not wild like Sirius. But happy. In that quiet, unreachable way.
It guts you.
Because both your brothers have found something. Sirius, with the way he flings himself into everything—light, reckless, loved. And Regulus, with his quiet victories and his perfect tie and his smiles saved for someone else. They’ve carved out slivers of peace in this cold castle, let someone in enough to ease the weight they both carry.
And you—you can’t even let James brush your sleeve without recoiling.
You can’t even let yourself believe someone might stay.
You sit there, tangled in your own silence, staring at a boy who you used to fix his tie after your mother left the room, because he never could quite center it himself.
And now—he doesn’t need you.
Now, he looks like the last untouched part of what your family once was. The only grace left.
He sits with his back straight, his collar crisp, his shoes polished to a soft gleam that catches even in the low light. His tie is knotted with precision. His hair, always tidy, always parted just right, never unruly the way yours has always been.
Everything about him is exact — not stiff, but composed. He is elegance without effort, and you don’t know whether to feel proud or bitter, watching him hold himself together like the portrait of what you were both meant to be.
He is the son your mother wanted, the child she could show off. He never had to be told twice to stand straight or speak softer or smile with his mouth closed. Where you burned, he silenced the flame. Where you ran wild with leaves tangled in your curls, he walked beside her, polished and obedient and clean.
If she saw you now — slouched, hair unbound and wild, dirt smudged along your hem — she would scream.
First, for your hair. Always your hair. too messy, too alive.
Second, for sitting on the ground like some gutter child, as if you weren’t born from the ancient bloodline she tattooed onto your skin with every rule she taught you to fear.
And third — oh, third, for the thing she wouldn’t name. For the thing she’d feel in her bones before she saw it. Something’s wrong with you. Has always been wrong with you. Even when you’re still, you’re too much.
There’s no winning in a house like that.
But Regulus — Regulus still wins. Somehow. He balances the weight she gave him and never once lets it show on his face. And maybe it should make you feel less alone, seeing him there. Maybe it should comfort you, to know one of you managed to survive the storm with their softness intact.
You blink hard, but the sting in your eyes doesn’t go away.
Because Regulus sits like he belongs.
The light in the library has thinned to bruised blue and rusted gold. Outside, the sun has collapsed behind the tree line, dragging the warmth with it. Shadows stretch long and quiet across the stone, draped between the shelves like forgotten coats.
Your hand closes around the edge of the desk. Wood under skin. You push yourself up, gently, carefully, like you’ve been taught to do. Your body protests with a dull, familiar ache — hips locking, spine stiff. You’ve sat too long. That’s all, you tell yourself. You always do.
But then it comes.
A pull, not sharp — not at first. It begins low, behind the ribs, like a wire drawn tight through your center. It pulses once. And then again. And then all at once.
The pain does not scream. It settles.
It climbs into your body like it has lived there before — like it knows you. It sinks its teeth deep into the marrow, not the muscles, not the skin. The pain lives in your bones. It nestles into the hollow of your hips, winds around your spine, hammers deep into your shins. Not a wound. Not an injury. Something older. Hungrier.
You stagger, palm flying to the wall to catch yourself. Stone greets your skin, cold and indifferent. You can’t tell if your breath is leaving you too fast or not coming at all. It feels like both. Your ribs refuse to expand. Your lungs ache. Your throat is tight, raw, thick with air that won’t go down.
Still, it’s the bones that scream the loudest.
They carry it. Not just the pain, but the weight of it. Like your skeleton has begun to collapse inward — folding under a pressure no one else can see. Your joints feel carved from glass. Every movement, even a tremble, sends flares of heat spiraling down your limbs. You press a hand to your chest, to your side, to your shoulder — seeking the source — but there’s nothing on the surface. Nothing bleeding. Nothing broken.
And still, you are breaking.
Your ears ring. Not a pitch, but a pressure — like the air itself is narrowing. Like the world is folding in. You blink, and the shelves blur, the light bends, the corners of your vision curl inward like paper catching flame. You think, I should sit down.
But it’s already too late.
Your knees buckle. There’s that terrible moment — the heartbeat of weightlessness — before the fall. Before the floor claims you. Your shoulder catches the edge of a shelf. Books crash down around you in protest. You feel the noise in your ribs, but not in your ears. Everything else is too loud — your body, your body, your body.
And then you’re on the floor.
The stone beneath you is merciless. It doesn’t take the pain. It holds it. Reflects it. You press your cheek to it, eyes wide and wet and burning, and feel the tremors racing through your legs. Your hands are claws. Your spine is fire. Your ribs rattle in their cage like something dying to escape.
It’s not just pain. It’s possession.
Your bones do not feel like yours. They are occupied. Inhabited by something brutal and nameless. You are no longer a girl on a floor. You are a vessel for suffering, hollowed and used.
White fogs the edges of your sight.
And then — darkness, cool and absolute.
The only thing you know as it takes you is this: the pain does not leave with you. It goes where you go. It follows you into the dark. It belongs to you.
Like your bones always have.
-
Waking feels like sinking—an uneven descent through layers of fog and silence that settle deep in your bones before the world sharpens into focus.
The scent of disinfectant stings your nostrils like a cold warning. Beneath your fingertips, the hospital sheets whisper against your skin, thin and taut, a reminder that you are here—pinned, fragile, contained. The narrow bed presses into your back, a quiet cage, and pale light spills weakly through the infirmary windows, too muted to warm you. Somewhere far away, a curtain flutters, its soft murmur a ghostly breath you can’t quite reach.
You’re not ready to open your eyes—not yet.
Because the silence is broken by a voice, raw and electric, sparking through the stillness like a flame licking dry wood.
It’s James.
But this James isn’t the one you know. The James who calls you “sunshine” just to hear you argue back, or the one who struts beside you in the hallways with that infuriating grin, as if the world bends beneath his feet. No. This voice is cracked and frayed, unraveling with worry and something heavier — the weight of helplessness.
“You should’ve sent word sooner,” he says, and every syllable feels like a shard caught in his throat.
“She fainted,” he repeats, as if saying it out loud might make it less real. “In the bloody library. She collapsed. Do you understand what that means?”
The sound of footsteps shuffles nearby, followed by Madam Pomfrey’s steady voice, calm but firm, trying to thread together the broken edges of panic.
“She’s resting now. Safe. That’s what matters.”
James laughs, but it’s not a laugh. It’s a brittle sound, half breath, half crack.
“Safe? You call this safe? She was lying there—cold—and I thought—” His voice breaks, a jagged exhale caught between frustration and fear.
“She doesn’t say anything, you know. Never says a damn thing. Always brushing me off, like I’m just some idiot who’s in the way. But I see it. I see it. The way she winces when she stands too fast. And none of you—none of you bloody do anything.”
Your chest tightens like a fist around your heart.
You hadn’t expected this.
This raw, aching desperation beneath his words—the way his concern flickers through the cracks of his usual arrogance and shields. The way he’s caught between anger and helplessness, trying so desperately to fix something that isn’t easily fixed.
You lie still, listening to him, feeling the swell of something close to hope and something just as close to despair.
James Potter — sun-drunk boy, full of fire and foolish heart, standing now like a storm about to break. He paces the edge of your infirmary bed as if motion alone might hold back the tide. He looks unmade, undone: his tie hangs crooked, his hair is more chaos than crown, his sleeves rolled unevenly as if he dressed without thought — or too much of it — only the frantic instinct to get to you.
“I should’ve walked her to the library,” he murmurs, and his voice is smaller now, like a flame flickering at the end of its wick.
Madam Pomfrey, ever the calm in the storm, offers a gentle but resolute reply. “Mr. Potter, she’ll wake soon. She needs rest, not your guilt.”
But guilt has already laid roots in his chest — you can hear it in the way his breath hitches, in the soft exhale that seems to carry the weight of an entire world. His hands press to his face like he’s trying to hold it together, knuckles pale, fingertips trembling slightly at the edges.
You blink. Just once.
The light slices through the shadows behind your eyes like a blade — too sharp, too clean. But you blink again, slowly, eyelashes sticky with sleep.
The ceiling swims into shape above you, white stone carved with faint veins and a hairline crack running like a map across its arch. It feels strange, being awake again. Like stepping through a door and finding the air different on the other side.
You shift your head — careful, slow — not because you’re afraid of waking anyone, but because you know the pain is still there, sleeping under your skin like an old god. Waiting. You feel it stretch along your spine, an ache carved into your marrow. Your body is quieter than before, but not calm. Just… biding time.
He doesn’t notice you yet — too consumed by whatever promise he’s making to himself. You catch only pieces of it: something about making sure you eat next time, and sleep, and sit when your knees go soft. His voice is hoarse, edged with something too raw to name.
And though your throat burns and your bones still hum with the echo of collapse, you find yourself watching him.
Because this boy — foolish, golden, infuriating — is breaking himself open at your bedside, and he doesn’t even know you’re watching.
It’s strange.
This boy who never stops grinning. Who fills every hallway like he’s afraid of silence — like stillness might swallow him whole. Who flirts just to irritate you, calls you cruel with a wink when you roll your eyes at his jokes.
This boy who you’ve shoved away a hundred times with cold stares and tired sarcasm — he’s here.
And he looks like he’s breaking.
Because of you.
You swallow against the dryness in your throat. There’s a weight lodged just beneath your ribs, sharp and unfamiliar, twisting like a question you don’t want to answer.
You never asked him to care. Never asked anyone to look too closely. In fact, you’ve spent so long building walls from half-smiles and quiet lies, you almost believed no one would ever bother to scale them.
But somehow — somewhere along the way — James Potter learned to read you anyway.
Learned to translate silence into worry. To see the way your shoulders fold inward when you think no one’s watching. The way your laugh fades too fast. The way you don’t flinch from pain because you’ve been carrying it for so long it’s become part of you.
And for the first time — it doesn’t feel annoying.
It feels terrifying.
Because if he sees it, really sees it… the frayed edges, the heaviness in your bones, the way you’ve started to drift so far inward it sometimes feels easier not to come back — what then?
What happens when someone finds the truth you’ve hidden even from yourself?
You wonder how long he’s been carrying this fear. How long he’s noticed the signs you’ve worked so hard to bury.
And quietly — achingly — you wonder how long you’ve been hoping no one ever would.
You’ve pushed him away a hundred times. Maybe more. With cold eyes and sharper words, with silence that says stay away. You made yourself invisible. Not because you wanted to be alone—but because you thought it was easier that way. Easier than asking for help. Easier than letting anyone get close enough to see what’s really breaking inside.
Because the truth is: you don’t want to be here much longer.
Not in some dramatic way, not yet.
But the thought is always there, quiet and persistent—like a shadow that never leaves your side. You’ve made plans, small and silent. Things you think about when the ache inside your bones is too heavy to carry. The nights when you lie awake and imagine what it would be like if you simply stopped trying. If you slipped away and no one had to watch you fall apart.
You’ve counted the moments it might take, rehearsed the words you’d leave behind—or maybe decided silence would say enough.
You wondered if anyone would notice. If anyone would come looking.
And yet here is James.
Pacing by your bedside like he’s carrying the weight of your pain on his shoulders. His voice trembles with worry you didn’t invite. Worry you thought you’d hidden too well.
But for now, you lie still, tangled in the ache beneath your skin. Wondering if leaving would hurt more than staying. Wondering if anyone really knows the parts of you that are already gone.
Wondering if you can find the strength to let him in—before it’s too late.
You don't mean to make a sound. You don’t even know that you have, until Madam Pomfrey draws a sudden breath, sharp and startled.
“She’s—James—she’s awake.”
There’s a rustle of movement. A chair scraping. A breath hitching.
And then James is at your side like he’d been waiting his whole life to be called to you.
But none of that matters.
Because you are crying.
Not politely. Not the soft, well-behaved kind they show in portraits. No. You're shaking. Wracked. The sob rises from somewhere too deep to name and breaks in your chest like a wave crashing through glass. Your shoulders curl, but your arms don’t lift. You don't even try to wipe your face. There's no use pretending anymore.
The tears fall hot and endless down your cheeks, soaking into your pillow, your collar, the edge of your sheets. It’s not one thing. It’s everything. It’s the ache in your bones.
The thunder in your chest. The way Regulus smiled at someone else. The way Sirius ran. The way James calls you sunshine like it’s not a lie.
The way you’ve spent your whole life trying to be good and perfect and silent and still ended up wrong.
And the worst part — the cruelest part — is that no one has ever seen you like this. Not really. You were always the composed one. The strong one. The one who shrugged everything off with a tilt of her head and a mouth full of thorns. The one who glared at James when he flirted and scoffed at softness and made everyone believe you didn’t need saving.
But you do. You do.
You just never learned how to ask for it.
And now—now your chest is heaving, and the room is spinning, and you can’t breathe through the noise in your head that says:
What if this never ends? What if I never get better? What if I disappear and no one misses me? What if I’m already gone and they just don’t know it yet?
You hear your name. Once. Twice.
Gentle, then firmer.
James.
You flinch like it’s a wound.
“Hey, hey—” His voice is careful now, as if you’ve become something sacred and fragile. “Hey, look at me. It’s alright. You’re okay. You’re safe.”
But you shake your head violently, because no, you are not safe, not from yourself, not from the sickness that has wrapped its hands around your ribs and pulled and pulled until you forgot what breathing without pain felt like.
Your throat burns. Your fingers curl helplessly into the blanket. You want to tear your skin off just to escape it. You want to go somewhere so far no one can ask you to come back.
Madam Pomfrey stands frozen in place, her eyes wide, her hand half-lifted. She has known you for years and never—not once—has she seen a crack in your porcelain mask.
And now here you are. Crumbling in front of them both.
“Black—please—” James tries again, voice breaking in the middle. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me what to do, I’ll do anything, I swear—”
“I can’t,” you gasp, the words torn from you like confession. “I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to— I don’t—”
You don’t say it. The rest of it. You don’t have to. It’s in your eyes, wide and soaked and terrified. In your hands, trembling like the last leaves of autumn. In the hollow behind your ribs that’s been growing for months.
James sits carefully on the edge of your bed. His eyes are wet. You’ve never seen him cry before.
“You don’t have to do anything,” he whispers. “Not now. Not alone. You don’t have to be strong for anyone anymore.”
You sob harder. Because that’s the thing you never believed. That someone could see your weakness and not run from it. That someone could love you for the parts you try to hide.
James doesn't flinch. He doesn’t joke. He doesn’t call you cruel or cold or impossible to love. He just reaches out with one hand and lays it on yours, feather-light, as if you’re made of smoke.
“I’m here,” he says. “I’m right here.”
-
A week passes.
It drips by slowly, like honey left too long in the cold — thick and sticky, every hour clinging to the next. The pain in your body doesn't ease. It deepens. It threads itself into your bones like ivy curling around old stone, slow but suffocating.
Some mornings it takes everything just to sit up. Some nights you lie awake listening to your heartbeat stutter behind your ribs, wondering if it will give out before you do.
James has not left you.
Not once, not really. He’s still insufferable — that much hasn’t changed — but it’s quieter now.
The jokes catch in his throat more often than they land. He hovers too long in doorways. He watches you like he’s memorizing the way you breathe. And his eyes — the ones that used to be full of flirt and fire and mischief — are wide and rimmed in worry.
It makes you furious.
Because you don’t want his pity. You don’t want anyone’s pity. You don’t want to be a burden strapped to someone else’s shoulder. You don’t want to see that shift in his face — the softening, the sadness, the silent fear that you might vanish right in front of him.
It’s worse than pain. It’s exposure.
Still, he meets you after class every day, waiting by the corridor with two cups of tea, like it’s some unspoken ritual. He never says you look tired, but he walks slower. He never asks if you’re in pain, but his hand always twitches like he wants to reach out and steady you.
Except today.
Today, he isn’t there.
And you know why before you even ask.
Because today is Sirius’s birthday.
You try not to be bitter. You try to let it go, to let him have this — his brother, his celebration, his joy. But bitterness has a way of curling around grief like smoke. It stings just the same.
You walk alone to the Great Hall, half-hoping, half-dreading, and then you see them.
All of them.
There at the Gryffindor table, the loudest cluster in the room, bursting with laughter and light like a constellation too bright to look at directly. Sirius sits in the center, crown of charmed glitter and floating stars hovering just above his head. He’s grinning — wide and wild and untouched by the quiet rot eating through your days.
Regulus used to crown him, once.
You remember it like it happened this morning — the three of you, tangled in sun-drenched grass, scraps of daisies in your hair, Sirius demanding to be called “King of the Forest,” Regulus rolling his eyes and obliging anyway, and you balancing a crooked wooden crown on his head like he was the only boy who ever mattered.
You loved him then. You love him now.
But everything has changed.
Now Sirius is surrounded by friends and light and cake that glitters. Regulus is far away, still sharp, still polished, still untouchable. And you — you pass by like a ghost with a too-slow gait and a storm in your chest, unnoticed.
No one looks up.
Not even James.
Not even him.
You keep walking.
And you try not to think about how much it hurts that he isn’t waiting for you today. How much it feels like being forgotten.
How much it feels like disappearing.
You sit in the Great Hall, untouched plate before you, the silver spoon resting against the rim like even it’s too tired to try. There’s food, you think. Warm and plentiful, enough to satisfy kingdoms — but none of it ever looks like it belongs to you.
Your stomach turns at the scent.
You haven't eaten properly in days, if not longer. You don't bother counting anymore. Hunger doesn’t feel like hunger now. It feels like grief in your throat, like something alive trying to claw its way up and out of you. So you just sit there, alone at the far end of the table where no one comes, where there’s room enough for a silence no one wants to join.
You have no friends. Not anymore. Illness has a way of peeling people away from you like fruit from its skin. They stop asking. Stop waiting. Stop noticing. You can’t blame them, really — what’s the use in trying to be close to a body always fraying at the seams?
Across the hall, Sirius is the sun incarnate. He always is on his birthday.
He’s laughing with James now, something too loud and full of warmth. His cheeks are flushed with joy, hair glittering with the shimmer of charmed confetti, mouth parted mid-story as if the world waits to hear him speak.
The Marauders hang around him like moons caught in his orbit, throwing wrappers and spells and terrible puns into the air like fireworks. It’s messy and golden and warm. And for a moment, you forget how to breathe.
You used to be part of that. Didn’t you?
Used to sit beside him and Regulus in the gardens with hands sticky from treacle tart and lips red from laughter. Used to have a seat at the table. A place. A life.
Now even Regulus is far away — his corner of the Slytherin table colder, quieter. But still not alone. He’s flanked by Barty, Evan, and Pandora. All sharp edges and shining eyes. All seemingly untouched by the rot that follows you. Regulus leans in, listens, offers a rare smirk that you remember from childhood, one he used to save just for you.
He hasn’t looked at you in weeks.
The ache in your chest blooms sudden and vicious. You press your knuckles into your side beneath the table — a small, private act of violence — as if you can convince your body to shut up, to behave, to let you just exist for one more hour. But the pain lurches anyway. Slow at first, then sharper. Stabbing between your ribs like something snapping loose.
You can’t do this.
You stand — too fast, too rough — and the edges of the room ripple like heat rising off pavement. No one notices. No one calls after you. Not even James.
Especially not James.
You walk out of the Hall without tasting a single bite.
And then you’re in the corridor, then on the stairs, and then climbing the towers toward your room. Step by step. Breath by breath. It should be easy — you’ve made this walk a hundred times. But your legs tremble beneath you. The pain isn't where it usually is. It's everywhere now. Your spine, your stomach, the backs of your eyes. Every inch of you buzzes like a broken wire. You clutch the banister like a lifeline, but even that’s not enough.
This is the third time this week.
It’s never been three times.
You should go to Pomfrey. Tell someone. Let someone help.
But your throat stays closed. You keep walking.
Some part of you wonders if this is what dying feels like — this slow crumbling, this breathlessness, this fatigue that eats your name and your shadow and your will to keep standing. It would be so easy, wouldn’t it? To stop. Just for a little while. Just until the pain quiets. Just until the storm passes.
Except you know the storm is you.
You reach your dorm and shut the door behind you with the quiet finality of a girl preparing to vanish. The walls are too still. The windows don’t let in enough light.
What if I just didn’t wake up tomorrow?
You let your bag fall to the floor. It lands with a dull, tired thud.
And then you see it.
Resting on the pillow — a single folded letter. Pale parchment. Tidy handwriting. Sealed not with wax but with duty. You don’t need to open it to know who it’s from. You don’t need to guess the weight of its words.
Still, you pick it up.
Your fingers tremble as you unfold it. Each crease feels like a wound reopening.
Darling, Christmas is nearly upon us. I expect you and Regulus home promptly this year — no delays. You’ve missed enough holidays already. No excuses will be accepted. — Mother
That’s it.
That’s all.
Twelve words from the woman who hasn’t written in months. No inquiry into your health. No mention of your letters, the ones she never answered. No softness. No warmth. Just expectation carved into command, as if your body isn't breaking open like wet paper. As if you’re still someone who can just show up — smiling, polished, whole.
You stare at the page until the words blur. Until they bleed.
And then something inside you slips.
The tears come without warning. No build, no warning breath. Just the kind of sob that erupts straight from the gut — ragged, cracked, feral. You sink to your knees beside the bed, hands still clinging to the letter like it might fight back, like it might tear through your skin and finish what your body started.
The pain blooms fast and ruthless. It surges from your spine to your chest, flooding every inch of you like fire caught beneath your ribs. You curl in on yourself, nails digging into your arms, into your thighs, into the fragile curve of your ribs. You clutch at your bones like you can hold them together — like you can stop them from collapsing.
But nothing stops it.
Nothing stops the sound that tears from your throat. A scream muffled into the sheets. A cry swallowed by solitude.
You can’t breathe. You can’t think. All you can feel is this white-hot ache that eats at your joints, your heart, your hope.
You don’t want to go home.
You don’t want to keep going.
You want it to stop. All of it. The pain, the pretending, the loneliness of being expected to survive in a world that only ever sees the surface of you.
You press your forehead to the floor. Cold. Unmoving. Solid.
And you cry — truly cry — not in anger or silence, but in the voice of someone who has held it in too long, who has no more space left inside for grief.
And still, the letter stays crumpled in your fist, a ghost of a girl who once believed her mother might write something kind.
You move like your bones aren’t breaking.
You move like the letter from your mother isn’t still open on the desk, edges trembling in the breeze from the cracked window, her careful handwriting slicing you open with its simplicity. Christmas is coming. You and Regulus are expected home. No excuses.
You move because if you stop, you will shatter. Because the only thing worse than pain is stillness. Stillness makes it real.
So you go to the mirror.
The room is too quiet, too full of the breath you can barely draw. The walls feel too close, like they’re pressing in, trying to crush the last sliver of strength you’ve kept hidden beneath your ribs. Your legs are unsteady beneath you, every step forward a question you don’t want the answer to.
Your reflection barely looks like you anymore.
There is a hollowness in your eyes that no amount of light can touch. Your skin is pale and stretched thin, the corners of your mouth pulled in defeat. Your hair is a wild mess—matted from where you clutched at it in pain, tangled from nights curled on cold floors instead of in beds, from days where brushing it felt like too much of a luxury.
You reach for the comb. It clatters in your hands, and for a moment, you just stare at it.
Then you begin.
Each pull through your hair is a distraction from the agony blooming in your bones—sharp, raw, endless. You comb as if each knot you work through might undo a knot inside your chest. It doesn’t. But still, you comb.
You need to. You have to.
Because Sirius is downstairs. Laughing. Shining. Surrounded by love and warmth and them. You should be there. It’s his birthday. You remember the way he used to leap into your bed at sunrise, dragging you and Regulus by the wrists, shouting, “Coronation time!” and demanding to be crowned king of everything. You always made him a crown out of daisies and broken twigs. Regulus would scowl but help you braid it anyway.
He loved those crowns. He kept every one.
You remember how the three of you used to sit on the rooftop ledge, legs dangling, hands sticky with cake, Sirius declaring himself “the prettiest monarch of them all,” and Regulus pretending to hate it, even as he leaned against you, quiet and content.
Now Sirius is laughing without you. And Regulus is nowhere near your side.
You press the comb harder into your scalp. You need to focus.
Because Regulus—he should be here. You need him. Desperately. With a bone-deep ache that feels like hunger. But you haven’t spoken in days. He doesn’t look at you anymore. Not really. And you can’t ask. You don’t know how.
And James—bloody James—you almost wish he was here. As much as he drives you insane, with his constant chatter and shameless flirting, at least it means someone is trying to stay. At least it means you’re not entirely alone. But he isn’t here. He’s down there with Sirius, and you're alone in this echoing silence, braiding your hair like it might save you from yourself.
You divide it into three sections.
One for Sirius. One for Regulus. One for yourself.
You twist the first strand with shaking fingers, tight enough that it pulls your scalp taut. Then the second, even tighter. Your arms ache. Your chest tightens. The pain is good—it makes everything else fade. Not vanish, but blur around the edges.
By the third strand, your eyes are burning again.
You begin to braid.
Over, under, over.
You focus on the motion. The discipline. The illusion of control. Each loop is a scream you don’t let out. Each pull is an ache you refuse to voice. You braid like your life depends on it. Like if it’s tight enough, neat enough, maybe you’ll stop falling apart. Maybe you’ll be someone your mother could stand to look at. Maybe you’ll be strong enough to walk past Sirius without dying inside. Maybe you won’t feel so abandoned by Regulus. Maybe you’ll stop wondering what would happen if you simply stopped waking up.
Over. Under. Pull.
You want someone to notice. Just once. That you're not okay. That you haven’t been for a very long time. But you also want to disappear.
The braid is so tight it lifts the corners of your face, gives the illusion of composure. It hurts to blink. It hurts to breathe.
But at least now, you look fine.
You stare at your reflection. The girl in the mirror doesn’t cry. She doesn’t break. She’s polished, composed, hair perfect, pain tucked behind the curve of her spine. Just like Mother taught her.
But you can still feel it.
Inside.
Worse than ever.
The kind of ache that doesn’t come from sickness. The kind that whispers, What if you just stopped trying?
And for a heartbeat too long, you wonder what it would be like to let go.
But you blink. You blink and you turn and you reach for your school bag like the world hasn’t ended, and you prepare to go sit through another class, braid perfect, bones screaming, heart bleeding.
Because no one can save you if they don’t know you’re drowning.
And no one is looking.
You stand in front of the mirror, eyes tracing the braided strands that crown your head—a braid so tight and perfect, the first since you were thirteen. For once, the wildness that usually clings to your hair has been subdued, pulled into neat, unforgiving lines.
It feels like a fragile kind of victory, as if this braid is a quiet rebellion against the chaos inside you, a way to tame not just your hair but the storm roiling beneath your skin.
Your fingers move almost mechanically as you smooth the fabric of your robe, the weight of it heavy with memories and expectation. Each fold you press flat feels like an attempt to iron out the wrinkles of your fractured soul, to shape yourself into something orderly, something that fits into the world your mother demands.
The knot of your tie is next—tight and precise, a cold reminder of the control you’re expected to hold, even as everything inside you threatens to unravel.
Turning away from the mirror, you move to your bed, your hands carefully pulling the covers taut. The fabric is smooth under your fingertips, but your heart feels anything but.
You straighten the pillows, tuck in the sheets, as if by arranging this small corner of your world perfectly, you can bring some order to the chaos swirling inside your mind.
Books come next. You stack them neatly on your desk, aligning every corner and spine as if the act itself could contain the chaos you feel.
You run your fingers over the worn covers and flip through the pages, lingering on the words one last time. Your homework lies finished—no undone tasks, no loose ends to catch you. Everything is set, ready.
Your hands tremble slightly as you set your quill back in its holder. The quiet click in the stillness of your room feels loud, a reminder of the fragile balance you hold. In this small, solemn ritual, you prepare not just your things, but yourself—gathering the last threads of control, the last remnants of order before you let go.
The silence wraps around you, waiting.
You stand in front of the mirror, eyes tracing the braided strands that crown your head—a braid so tight and perfect, the first since you were thirteen.
For once, the wildness that usually clings to your hair has been subdued, pulled into neat, unforgiving lines. It feels like a fragile kind of victory, as if this braid is a quiet rebellion against the chaos inside you, a way to tame not just your hair but the storm roiling beneath your skin.
The silence wraps around you, waiting.
The halls are half-empty, half-asleep in golden mid-afternoon hush, and your footsteps echo too loudly against the stone, like your bones are protesting with every step.
The books in your arms weigh more than they should, tugging your spine downward, but you hold them like a shield. Like maybe the act of carrying knowledge — of submitting things, of finishing things — will be enough to make you feel real again.
You don’t notice James at first. Not until he steps out from where he must’ve been waiting by the staircase — leaning against the bannister with the kind of bored posture that usually precedes some ridiculous joke.
But he doesn't speak right away this time. His eyes move to your braids, then down the neat lines of your uniform, and there’s a strange stillness in him. No grin. Just… surprise.
“Bloody hell,” he says finally, voice light but too soft to be teasing. “You’ve got your hair up.”
You blink at him. Say nothing. Your arms tighten slightly around your books, like you’re bracing yourself.
He lifts a hand, gestures vaguely. “Not that it’s any of my business — I mean, you always look like you just fought off a banshee in a thunderstorm, and now you look like you’ve… fought it and survived.” A smile tries to form, wobbly. “It suits you. You look really cute.”
You stop.
Not just physically, but inside too — something halting in your breath, like a skipped beat. Your gaze meets his, dull and quiet.
“Not today, James.”
Your voice is hoarse. Frayed silk over gravel. There’s no snap to it, no snarl or bite. You just say it like a truth. Like you’re too tired for anything else.
James straightens slowly. He doesn’t speak for a moment, just watches you like he’s trying to read through all the space between your words. Your name sits on his tongue, but he doesn’t use it. Instead, his brows lift — not in arrogance this time, but in something like confusion. Or worry.
“You—” He swallows. “You called me James.”
You shift your books in your arms, not meeting his eyes this time. “I just want to get through the day.”
He takes a step toward you, but something in your posture keeps him from reaching farther. “Hey, I can carry those—”
“I said not today.” you repeat, softer. Final.
And for once, he listens.
There’s a beat. Then he gives a small nod, stuffing his hands in his pockets, trying to play it cool even though you can see the concern crawling up his throat like ivy.
“Alright,” he murmurs. “But if you need anything, I— I’m around.”
You nod once — not in agreement, just acknowledgment. Then turn.
You don’t see how long he watches you walk away.
Your steps are heavier now, the ache blooming behind your knees and up your spine. It shouldn't be this bad — not again, not so soon. You already fell apart days ago. But the fire’s back in your ribs, licking up the side of your lungs, and you press your lips into a thin line, determined not to let it show.
You pass the Great Hall on your way. You don’t look in.
But Sirius sees you.
He’s mid-laugh, one of those rare carefree ones that sounds like summer. Remus has just handed him a small box wrapped in gold, and his crown — handmade from parchment, ink-smudged and jagged — sits slightly askew on his head. He freezes. The smile falters. His brows draw in. Something in his chest clenches.
“Was that—?” he begins, turning toward Remus.
“She didn’t see us,” Remus murmurs, already watching you too.
Your shoulders are too tight. Your spine too stiff. You don’t notice the silence left behind you. You don’t hear how the laughter quiets. You’re already up the next stairwell, already telling yourself you just need the potions. Just need to breathe. Just need to finish submitting your homework. Then maybe—maybe—
You won’t have to feel this anymore.
The infirmary is warm when you step inside, too warm. It clings to your skin like a fever, like the ache in your bones has grown teeth and is sinking in deeper the longer you stand.
You hug your books closer to your chest, as if they might anchor you here, hold you steady, keep you from unraveling.
Madam Pomfrey doesn’t look up. She’s bent over a boy laid out on the nearest cot—mud streaked across his face, quidditch robes still soaked in grass and sweat.
Normally, she’d have noticed you by now. Normally, she would have called you over, already tsk-ing and summoning your chart. But she’s too absorbed today, too busy, and for the first time in a long time, no one’s watching you.
Your eyes drift to the far side of the room—to her desk. A tray sits just behind it, lined with small glass vials. Labels scrawled in Pomfrey’s sharp handwriting. Pale blue, golden amber, deep crimson—every kind of potion she’s ever poured down your throat. You know their names better than your own.
And there, at the back, barely touched, is the strongest pain reliever in her stores. Veridomirine.
Dark and glinting in the soft light, like it already knows it’s too much for most. You remember it burning a hole in your stomach the last time she gave it to you. The way your limbs went numb. The way your mind stilled. The silence of it.
Your grip tightens on your books.
The decision happens slowly and all at once. You glance at Madam Pomfrey—her back still turned, wand still stitching, voice low as she murmurs reassurance to the boy on the bed.
You step forward, quiet, deliberate. Like you’ve done this before. Like your body already knows the path.
The desk is closer than you expect. You set your books down gently, hands shaking just enough to notice, and reach for the bottle. The glass is cool. Heavier than you remember. It fits into your palm like it was made for you.
You don’t hesitate. You don’t think.
You slide it into the fold of your robe, between the fabric and your ribs, right where the pain always begins.
And then you lift your books again, turn on your heel, and walk out as if you’ve only come for a quick word, as if nothing is different. As if your hands aren’t burning from what you’ve just done.
The corridor is quiet outside. Brisk. The chill hits your cheeks and you let it. Let it bite and sharpen and bring you back into your body.
But something is different now.
Because inside your robe, glass clinks softly with every step.
And for the first time, you feel like you’re holding your way out.
All you can hear is your heartbeat, dull and heavy, and the quiet clink of glass from the bottle nestled beneath your sleeve.
You push open the infirmary doors, and the hallway blooms before you, empty at first glance. But he’s there.
Sirius.
Leaning against the stone wall, one foot pressed behind him for balance, arms crossed in a way that looks casual—effortlessly disheveled—but you don’t see the way his jaw keeps tightening, or the way he’s been picking at the edge of his sleeve, over and over again.
He straightens when he hears the door creak open. His head lifts, eyes scanning quickly—and softening, melting, when he sees you. You, with your too-tight braid, your hollow stare, the way you walk like you’re already halfway gone.
He doesn’t recognize you at first.
Not because you’ve changed on the outside—though you have—but because something’s missing. Something small. Something vital.
And Sirius Black has never known how to say delicate things, not with words. Not with you. So he does what he always does—he opens his mouth and hopes something human will fall out.
“Hey—”
But you’re already passing.
You don’t see the way he steps forward, the way his fingers twitch like he might reach for your arm. You don’t hear the “Can we talk?” die in his throat. You don’t even look at him. Not once.
You’re already turning away.
The braid down your back is tight, almost punishing. A line of control in a world unraveling thread by thread. Your robes are neat, too neat. Tie straight. Steps calculated. As if by holding the pieces together on the outside, you might silence the ruin inside.
As if you can braid back the shadows trying to tear themselves loose.
Sirius opens his mouth. Wants to say your name. Just your name. Softly, like a tether, like a reminder. But the syllables die on his tongue. You’re already walking away, and the space between you feels suddenly endless. Like galaxies expanding between breaths.
And still—he doesn’t call after you.
He watches. That’s all he can do.
Watches you walk with the quiet defiance of someone who has learned how to disappear in full view. Someone who was born under a cursed name and carved their own silence from it. He knows that silence.
He’s worn it too. It’s in his name—in Black. Not just a surname but a legacy of storms. A bloodline that confuses cruelty for strength, silence for survival.
He told himself he had outrun it. That the name couldn’t touch him anymore. But now he watches you, and he realizes: Black isn’t just his burden—it’s yours too. You carry the same weight in your eyes. That same quiet grief. That same ache for something better.
You were the one who never bent. Never cried. Even when the pain took your bones, you met the world with cold fire in your gaze. But now he sees something else. Something crumbling. Something gone.
And it hits him like a curse spoken in the dark: he doesn’t know how to reach you. Not really. He was too late to ask the right questions. Too loud to hear the ones you never spoke aloud. Too proud to admit that sometimes, the ones who look strongest are the ones who are breaking quietly, piece by piece.
You vanish down the corridor, and Sirius stands there, the silence echoing louder than any spell. He leans back against the wall again, like if he presses hard enough, it might hold him together.
His name is Black. And for the first time in a long while, it feels like a mirror—cold, cracked, and full of all the things he was too afraid to see.
You were light once. Maybe not the kind that burned—but the kind that steadied. Quiet, firm, constant. And now, he wonders if you’ve let go of the edge entirely. If you’ve stepped too far into that old name, into the dark.
And Sirius Black—brave, loud, impossible Sirius—does not know how to follow you there.
The bottle is cold in your hand, colder than it should be.
You don’t know if it’s the glass or your fingers or something deeper, something in the marrow, in the blood. You sit on the edge of your bed like you’re balancing on a cliff, and everything around you holds its breath.
The walls. The books. The light. Even the ghosts seem to pause, like they know something sacred and shattering is about to unfold.
You set the bottle down on your nightstand, watching the liquid shimmer inside. It’s a strange shade—amber gold, like honey and fire, like something that should soothe, should heal. But you know what it’ll do.
You’ve read the labels. You’ve stolen the dosage. You’ve done the math. And for once in your life, the numbers give you certainty. This will be enough.
You glance around your room as if memorizing it, not the way it is, but the way it’s always been. The books stacked with uneven spines. The worn corner of your blanket where you’d twist the fabric between your fingers when the pain got too much. The chipped edge of the mirror where you once slammed a brush out of frustration. It’s a museum now. A mausoleum in waiting.
Your hands tremble as you reach for a parchment scrap—just a torn piece, nothing grand. You fold it carefully, slow and deliberate, your fingers aching as they crease the paper into small peaks. It’s clumsy, uneven. A paper crown no bigger than your palm.
You think of Sirius, of sun-kissed afternoons when he used to run ahead and shout that he was king of the forest, the common room, the world.
You and Regulus would laugh, always crown him, always believe him. You were never royalty, not really. Just children trying to carve a kingdom out of cracked stone and quiet grief.
You place the tiny crown on the edge of the desk. An offering. A prayer. A goodbye that won’t speak its name.
It’s his birthday.
You whisper it aloud like it means something. Like he’ll hear it. “Happy birthday, Sirius.”
And then, silence again. The kind of silence that screams.
Your fingers reach for the bottle. You uncork it slowly, and the scent rises—bitter, sharp, familiar. You think of your bones. Of how they’ve been singing a song of surrender for weeks. Months. Maybe years. Of how it’s taken everything in you just to exist in this body, in this name, in this world.
You think of Regulus. Of how his back was always straight even when everything else was falling. Of how you used to braid flowers into your hair for him, and he’d pretend not to care, but he’d look at you like you were magic. You think of James and the way his voice is always too loud but his concern is real, is warm, and how he didn’t call you a single name today. You think of how you almost wanted him to follow you.
You think of Sirius.
And it hurts so much you almost change your mind.
But the pain doesn’t leave. It never does.
It sinks deeper, folds into your joints, nests behind your ribs. It becomes you. You can’t keep holding it. You can’t keep waking up in a body that feels like betrayal, in a mind that won’t stop screaming, in a life that forgot how to soften.
There is a kind of pain that does not bleed. It settles deep — in marrow, in memory. It builds altars in your bones, asking worship of a body already breaking. You've worn this ache longer than you've worn your name, longer than your brothers stayed.
You were born into the house of Black — where silence is survival and suffering is an inheritance. Regulus moved like shadow. Sirius, like fire. But you? You learned to stay. To endure. To carry the weight of a name no one asked if you wanted. And you did it well. Too well. Long enough for the world to mistake your endurance for ease.
Because strength was never the crown you wanted. It was the chain.
You bring it to your lips.
There is no fear, not anymore. Just the hush beneath your ribs loosening for the first time. Not with hope — never with hope — but with rest. The kind no one can take from you. The kind that doesn’t hurt to hold. That doesn’t ask for your smile in exchange for survival.
You close your eyes.
And then — a crack of wood. A bang loud enough to split the night wide open. Like the universe itself couldn’t bear to be quiet a second longer.
The door crashes against the wall, unhinging the moment from its silence.
Wind howls through the space between now and never. Curtains billow like ghosts startled from sleep. You flinch before you mean to. Before you can stop yourself. The bottle slips from your hands.
It falls. A slow, glassy descent. And when it hits the floor — the shatter is almost gentle. A soft, final sound. Like the last breath of something sacred. Potion and silence spill together, staining the rug in pale, merciful ruin.
And there — Sirius.
Standing in the doorway like someone who’s already read the ending. Like someone who sprinted through every corridor of this house just to be too late.
His chest is rising like he’s run miles through storm and stone. His eyes — wild, wet, unblinking. The kind of stare that begs the world to lie.
There’s mud on his boots. A tremble in his fists. Panic stretched tight across his shoulders, brittle and loud. And something in his face — something jagged and unspoken — slices right through the stillness.
He doesn’t speak.
Neither do you.
The room holds its breath. Around you, time stands uncertain. The glass glitters between you like a warning, like a map of everything broken. The smell of the potion hangs in the air — soft, floral, almost sweet. A lullaby for leaving.
Your hands stay curled in your lap, still shaped around the ghost of what almost was. Still cradling the moment you thought you could disappear, undisturbed.
You were supposed to be gone by now.
Supposed to leave like snowfall, like mist at morning — soft, unseen, unremembered. You had rehearsed the silence. Folded your goodbyes into creases no one would find. You had made peace with the vanishing.
But he’s here. Sirius. And he is looking at you like he knows.
Like he’s known all along.
Not just the pieces you performed — the smirk, the sarcasm, the deflection sharp enough to draw blood. But the marrow of it. The hurting. The leaving. The way you’d been slipping away for years in small, invisible ways.
And you can’t take it back.
Not the uncorked bottle. Not the weight in your chest you were ready to lay down. Not the choice you almost made — not out of weakness, but weariness. The kind no one ever sees until you’ve already left.
And still, even now.
Something loosens in your chest, not quite hope but something softer, like release. Like breathing out after holding it in for too long. The weight begins to lift, slowly and gently, like smoke rising.
It slips out of your lungs, out of your spine, out of the quiet place where it had lived for so long, unnoticed but heavy all the same.
And for the first time, the ache goes with you.
‘Til all that’s left is glorious bone.
