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Remedial Potions


“Here, cut them this way,” Lily reached over and guided Sirius’s hand over the cutting board as he worked at cutting up a palmful of figs for the potion they were working on. She took hold of his wrist and moved it in smooth slicing cuts across the fig, “See? Carefully, so you don’t crush the juice out ‘til you’re ready.” She looked up at him as he nodded and she released his wrist so he could do it on his own.

Sirius was biting his lower lip in concentration, his forehead puckered.

Lily glanced up toward the front of the room and saw Slughorn was half asleep, dozing in his chair, his head nodding against his chest as he fought the urge to fall completely asleep. She turned back to Sirius. “How have you been feeling? Any better since our little talk in the library?”

Sirius shrugged.

“I’ve been worried about you.”

Sirius’s finger slipped and the knife caught the tip of his finger and it burst blood instantly. “Fuck!” He dropped the knife to the table and clutched the hand he’d cut to his chest, cursing loudly. Slughorn spluttered but didn’t wake up. “Fuckfuckfuckfuck,” whined Sirius.

“Let me see,” Lily said, taking out her wand.

“No, it hurts,” Sirius said, holding it close to his chest.

“Let me see!” Lily insisted, grabbing for his hand.

Sirius struggled away.

“Sirius Orion Black,” Lily snapped. She gave him The Look and held out her palm. He slowly lowered his hand into hers and unfurled his fingers so she could see the cut. His palm was covered with smeared blood from the cut, but it was a relatively tiny cut, really, and not very deep at all. Lily cast a quick charm and it was sealed up instantly. “All that shouting over that!” she said in a scolding tone.

“It hurt,” Sirius replied.

“Yes I’m sure it did, but you don’t need to be holding it all in like that! You thought it helped but it didn’t, did it?” Lily’s green eyes were very bright as she stared up at him. “It’s better now that I’ve helped you, isn’t it?” she asked pointedly.

Sirius nodded slowly.

Lily sighed and turned to clean up the mess he’d made with the knife and the tabletop, sweeping away the affected fig into the trash and getting a new one out of the ingredients kit. When she looked back up, Sirius was staring at her. “What is it?” she asked, putting the fig down on the table and holding up the little knife again. “Here. Be more careful or I’ll get you a butter knife to do this with.”

Sirius took the knife and concentrated on the fig again. His eyes were funny, though, she could see him thinking as he moved.

“What’re you thinking on?”

Sirius shook his head.

Lily flipped the page of the Potions book to the next sheet of instructions and got the ingredients they’d need for the steps following the figs. She was turned back-to him, rooting through the kit, when he said, “It was James.”

“What was James?” she asked.

“The person I heard Regulus talking to about Snape.”

Lily paused in her search and looked over her shoulder. “Oh?”

“Yeah. He… He sort of talked to Regulus after I’d told him not to and that’s why we’ve been fighting.” Sirius stared down at the figs. He’d finished the first and was now cutting a second one carefully, and very slowly. “You saw Reg’s patronus?”

“Yes,” Lily nodded.

“Did you… did you recognize it?”

Lily nodded.

Sirius hesitated with the knife a moment, then put it down on the tabletop. He stared at the slices of the fig, bleeding the juices on the cutting board. “When we were little, I told him stories… loads of stories… to distract him when my parents were fighting. I made up songs and taught them to him… so he could sing them when --” Sirius stopped.

Lily put her hand on Sirius’s shoulder.

“Well when we got in trouble, Mum would, uh --” he spun the knife a little on the table and Lily reached over and took it away before he knicked himself again. She looked up at him. “She’d use the cruciatus… on me.”

Lily stared at him, her eyes widening. “Your mother did that?”

Sirius was careful to keep his eyes turned away from Lily’s. “I thought I became a disappointment when I went to Gryffindor but - but seeing the patronus, remembering the stories, I realized that I was all along.”

“You’re not a disappointment.”

“You dunno, Evans.” His eyes turned toward the ceiling and she could see the torch light reflected in them.

“I do know,” she said gently. “I’ve known you five years, Sirius and --”

“And I’ve pissed you off through all five of them,” Sirius replied.

“All big brothers piss off their little sisters,” Lily answered solemnly. “It’s part of their duties as big brothers. They’re obligated.”

Sirius continued to stare at the ceiling for a long moment. “You always got along with your mum and… and your dad, yeah, Evans?” he asked.

“Not always,” Lily replied, “I mean every family has their moments.”

“My father tried to kill me, more than once and I reckon if I ever showed up back at Grimmauld Place again that my mum would deliver my head on a silver plate to Voldemort for the bounty money if she had a chance.” He drew a deep breath, “They hate me. They’ve disowned me. Look.” He reached into his leather jacket pocket and held out the Happy Mewmories birthday card she had sent him back at the end of October. He shoved it into Lily’s hands. “Look at that.”

Lily looked down at a severely wrinkled picture of the cat - it was a colourful picture, and the cat wore a tipped party cap and had a noise maker laying on the floor amongst come confetti it was laying in. It looked very much like the sort of thing that Sirius Black would positively hate. She unfolded the card carefully. To look inside and she saw the generic greeting, put in by the card company, followed by the stiff signature - Walburga R. Black - at the bottom.

She looked up at him. “It’s… it’s a birthday card,” she said, confused.

Sirius rubbed his nose, “She sent it October 3rd.”

“So?”

“My birthday is November 3rd.”

“Maybe she wanted to be sure you got it,” Lily suggested.

Sirius shook his head, “It came with this.” He reached into a pocket on the inside of the jacket and withdrew what looked like another crumpled bit of paper.

Lily held out her hand and as he dropped it into her palm, she realized it wasn’t paper at all, it was a bit of a tapestry, a small oval of it, with singed edges that, even after months of sitting in Sirius’s jacket pocket, still smelled of burning material. She turned it over to look at it… and looking up at her was a painted face of a little boy - a little boy she recognized from memories of first year. It was Sirius Black when he was eleven years old. The boy in the picture blinked up at her with wide eyes full of hope and light and she felt something like sadness for him… Beside the picture was his name. “What is this?” she asked.

“In Mother’s library is a wall that is completely covered with our family tree. Rows upon rows and branches upon branches. Tracing the pureblood line back absolute eons. Practically to the stone age, for bloody hell’s sake.” He nodded to the bit in her hand, “That’s my branch from it. She’s blasted me right off the wall… right out of the family.” His eyes glistened as he spoke the words. “If that ain’t disappointment... dunno what is.”

Lily covered her mouth.

“And honestly, Evans, even if I wasn’t disappointment to Mother… I’d still be one. I disappoint myself.”

Lily said, “You musn’t talk like that.”

Sirius looked down at the figs, “Do these… go in the potion now or later?” he asked.

“Now,” she answered.

He scooped them up and dumped them into the cauldron.

“Sirius, you aren’t a disappointment.”

He turned to look at her, his eyes full of tears and he wiped them off with the heel of his hand, “I am. I disappoint everyone. I disappoint Mother and Father for not being evil enough and I disappoint Regulus for not being strong enough to stand up for us both. And I disappointed Minnie and everyone for - for needing remedial classes, for being an idiot. I disappointed Moony being too upset to play well with others and he’s going mad trying to help me and there’s nothing that fucking helps… I can’t help it I’m sad, I can’t help it. There’s - there’s darkness in there and I’m fighting all of the time. All the time Evans. I just want it to go… That’s why I cut myself because I wanted it out, I wanted the Black blood out of me!” His face was crunched up tight, holding back tears.

“Sirius, no…” she had tears in her eyes.

“Evans… I loathe who I am,” he choked the words, “I loathe that I am a Black. I would do… do anything… anything at all… to be… any-anything else. Anyone else.” She pulled him into her and he let her as she hugged him ‘round about the head softly.

“You don’t disappoint me, Sirius,” Lily said, “And I love who you are. And so do your friends, and Remus. Remus loves you so much. It’s your family’s loss, Sirius. They had an opportunity to have the best, most incredible person… We are so lucky, the other Marauders and I, to have you in our lives. We’re the luckiest people in all the world, Sirius.” She kissed the top of his head softly, “I’m so lucky you’re my brother… Of all the brothers I could’ve got in all the world, I’m so lucky it’s you.”

“I’m a horrible brother,” he whispered, “To Regulus.”

Lily patted his arm, “You’re a hurting brother. You need mending in your heart. But you aren’t horrible. You’re just hurting.”

Sirius said, “I don’t know how to make the hurting stop… It hurts so bad.”

“You have to work at it. You have to talk it through. That’s the way you get it out, Sirius. That’s the only way you get it out.” She stroked his hair softly.

“I just want it out,” he whispered.

“I know, I want it out of you, too.”

“Lily… will you help me?”

“Of course I’ll help you, Sirius, love.”

He hugged her tight and they sat there like that for several long moments. Sirius’s breath was unsteady. “Take a deep breath,” she whispered.

He did.

“Let it out real slow,” she instructed. When he’d done it, she instructed, “Again.”

She guided Sirius through about six long, low breaths like that and when they’d finished he drew away from her, his eyes still all red, but his breath steady now and his face a lot calmer and he stared down at the potion before him. Sirius lifted up the wood spoon and gently stirred in the figs.

At the front of the room, Slughorn smacked his lips and shifted his weight in the chair.

Lily held up a couple sprigs of rosewood as the potion turned the deep purple shade described in the book. “These, you’re going to scrape the leaves off gently and cut up the stems… Save the leaves, they’ll be good for other potions, but this one calls for the stems.”

Sirius nodded.