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Holding On To The Self

Chapter 20

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

3 months later.

It’s funny, James thought as he heard the unmistakeable eruption of Sirius’s laugh, they’d all spent so long thinking they could fix him. But the problem had been so bound up in circumstances that it wasn’t until Sirius was liberated from his family that it was even possible to understand it at all. None of them had really been helping. Not for want of trying, and not even in a bad way, it just hadn’t even been possible for most of that time.

It was as if they had been set an impossible task, James thought, sensing the greatness of his analogy and inflating himself as if he was giving this speech aloud. An impossible task with no rules and no one to guide them and it wasn’t until the end that they realised they hadn’t even been able to begin. Yes, something like that. Erm.

James’s analogising was interrupted by a large quantity of black fur flinging itself into his face.

“Down boy,” he shoved the great ball of Padfoot away from him, but with affection.

The four Marauders were playing two-a-side Quidditch in James’s garden the day before they were due to return to Hogwarts, at the end of the Easter holidays. Well, the game was only a loose interpretation of Quidditch but they were celebrating Sirius being properly allowed to exercise (his treatment had been pretty strict about that for a while) and the fact he would finally be able to return to school. Sirius was so overexcited he kept shifting into Padfoot, which was endearing until James noticed the teethmarks he was leaving in the Quaffle. Even this, though, he didn’t really mind.

This was the first time in months it had been anything close to easy. It had been the first time Sirius had really been able to let go.

*

The first month or so had been disheartening for everyone, especially Sirius. He felt certain he was making no progress, was still reliving traumatic events as if they were still happening and couldn’t really fully make sense of it all. When he wasn’t actually reliving the events he felt distanced from them, as if they’d happened to someone else, like a horrible film he’d just been watching. He felt pretty distanced from everything, actually, finding himself zoning in and out of conversations at odd moments, or catching himself with a jerk as though he’d dropped back into his body from a great height and was unable to remember what he had just been doing.

Mrs Potter regularly assured him that they couldn’t wait to take them home with him, that they had always wanted another son, that he would be safe with them. Mr Potter assured Sirius that the Blacks would never get near him again, that if his father so much as looked in Sirius’s direction, he would be behind bars.

Sirius found it very hard to respond to this. The memories were still so raw and brutal and his throat would seal up as though his father’s hands were still wrapped around his neck.

It had been a breakthrough moment when these conversations finally became two-sided. Mrs Potter, sitting at Sirius’s side, chose not to say anything for once, but just stroked his hair gently, trying hard to convey her love through gestures rather than words. Sirius turned his face towards her, with his eyes closed.

“Thank you,” Sirius whispered.

 

Speaking got a little easier after that, but only a little. If he was caught off guard - perhaps if he’d just woken up – he could manage to have a full conversation without anything having changed. Then as soon as someone asked him how he was, or referred to any of the recent events or asked how he was feeling, his throat seemed to almost physically close up and the thought of talking seemed unbearable, all of a sudden.

Sirius couldn’t bring himself to care much about not speaking. What was the point of telling people what was going on or how he felt when he didn’t even know himself? They all knew exactly what had happened to him. Everyone around him had seen everything. He was fully exposed. Why did everyone want him to communicate all the time? He didn't have anything to say.

 

And then there was food. Sirius had lost track of what ‘normal’ was a long time ago. Any amount felt too much, not to mention his body had started to reject what little food he did willingly try to consume. ‘Refeeding syndrome’ he had heard the doctors call it. Great. It wasn’t fair – all he wanted now was to eat normally and he couldn’t.

Remus was close to tears when he sat down by Sirius’s bed. Sirius was lying back, staring at the ceiling. Remus wasn’t sure what Sirius was seeing, but at least he wasn’t panicking or crying, as he often was now. Remus ran his eyes over Sirius. His wounds had been healed long ago but his painful thinness remained, jutting out from beneath his soft skin as if beneath a layer of silk. It hurt Remus to see it, but since Sirius had been brought to hospital he had vowed to leave his own anxieties and worries behind. It didn’t matter what he felt, or that they were in a relationship, or whatever was going on with that - all that mattered was getting Sirius better.

“Hey Pads,” he said affectionately, sitting on the bed with care.

Sirius pulled his eyes away from the ceiling to give Remus a small smile, “hey.”

“How are you doing?” It was a risky question to ask as it could sometimes close Sirius right up, but they weren’t going to get anywhere if he didn’t ask it.

Sirius thought for a moment, then spoke quietly. “Not great, I guess.”

Maybe this was progress, thought Remus. There had been a time not so long ago when Sirius would insist he was fine despite all evidence to the contrary.

“How come?” Remus asked, resisting the urge to take Sirius’s hand. He didn’t want to distract him. This conversation was important.

“It’s this food thing,” said Sirius. Remus held his breath. Were they finally going to talk about it?

“I just… I want to eat, I do.” Sirius said, though he sounded like he was trying to convince himself of this. “But now that I’m trying to eat, my body rejects it.” He let out a hollow laugh. “Wouldn’t it just be typical if I survived… all that, just to be killed by my own stupidity.”

Remus did squeeze his hand then.

“You’re not stupid, Sirius. You had an extreme but understandable reaction to being abused.”

Sirius sighed. “But I’m free now. They don’t control me. Shouldn’t I be free in this too? All I want to be able to eat what I want again.”

Remus considered. “Sometimes to be free you have to give up control, just for a bit. The healers know what they’re doing. I know its horrible to give yourself over to what they tell you, but you're right, it would be even worse to have got through all this to die now.”

There was a shocked silence. Remus’s heart raced quicker, worrying that he’d gone too far, worrying that he’d upset Sirius.

But then Sirius started laughing. Full belly-laughs like he hadn’t for a long time.

“Yes,” he got out eventually, “yes it would. Wow.”

Without warning his laughs turned into sobs and he rolled onto his side away from Remus.

 

Things began to improve slowly once Sirius started actually listening to his healers and following their exact instructions for eating. He’d hoped there would just be something simple they could do with magic that could make him better, but no. This particular ward of St Mungo’s took inspiration from muggle hospitals – the kind-faced healer who saw Sirius the most had admitted that wizard medicine was far behind in terms of mental health.

But no medicine, muggle or wizard, could free him from the horrors he was reliving. It wasn’t until a conversation with his therapist that Sirius began to see that this made sense, that it was how things should be. His therapy sessions weren’t usually very useful as Sirius often found himself choked up when he went to speak, but on one occasion he confessed to her that he felt like he wasn’t getting any better.

“On the contrary,” she assured him, “this is exactly the ideal situation we could have hoped for.”

Sirius stared at her blankly.

“Trauma needs to be processed,” she said, “whether it’s immediately or thirty years down the line, at some point the body and mind needs to suffer through it again. In terms of getting ‘better’, the sooner this can happen the sooner you can begin to recover. Of course, it won’t just be something that gets completely better, perhaps not ever. The healing process takes a long time and in some ways it’s never fully complete.”

Automatically Sirius glanced down at his forearms, where a thick scar lay matted across the smaller white slivers of scar tissue.

“I mean emotionally as well as physically,” she clarified. “In Muggle medicine they have been known to break bones in order to reset them so that they heal properly. Reliving what you’ve been through now is not unlike that.”

Sirius nodded, taking in her words. He had to go through this to heal. A few weeks ago he would have found that maddening, unjust and unfair, but now he only felt resigned.  

“When will it end?” he asked.

“I can’t give you an answer to that I’m afraid,” she admitted. “But at some point you’ll suddenly notice that you’re thinking about those things less, that more positive thoughts will have crept in. It won’t be straightforward and there’ll be times when you feel like you’re sliding backwards. But I promise you, things will get better, slowly. You’ll get to a point when things feel alright.”

 

*

 

Her words reverberate through Sirius as he passes through the gates of Hogwarts once more. He lets his friends continue walking as he pauses to take in the sight of the magnificent castle. It is homely despite its imposing size, lights glinting off from its turrets, lake lit up by the spring sunlight.

It feels as if he’s a first year all over again - although back when he’d first seen this sight, his parents’ parting words had been running through his head, worries about how disappointed they would be with him causing his heart to pound and his head to ache.

He takes a deep breath now and consciously pushes the memory of that feeling away, leaving it behind him, like his therapist had suggested. They won’t be coming after him this time. Not ever again.

“Come on Pads!” James calls from ahead, beckoning frantically and almost hopping with excitement. Remus turns back too, a smile on his face, lit up by the sun behind like an angel.

Sirius returns the smile and steps forward, towards his friends.

Now he feels light, he realises. Not happy, exactly, but not bad either. He feels alright.

Notes:

Short but sweet to end on! Can't believe it's finally over. Hope you've enjoyed the story, I didn't want to wrap it up too much because that's not how real life works. Thank you everyone for your kudos and comments! Much love.
<3