Untreated Wounds | Sirius Black

Prologue

I couldn't stop screaming.

I was hunched over my best friend's body.

His limp body lay on the cold bathroom tiles of Grimmauld Place.

Blood pooled on the dark tiles and ran through the grout like a river. But not only were the tiles stained -- the walls were too and his body -- his pale skin was stained crimson with deep flesh wounds that sliced through his wrists. The knife was helplessly in his palm, the tip of the silver blade dripping blood.

I hated blood. I couldn't bear it. It was sticky and it was spilling from someone's body and it made bile climb up my tightening throat. But it was not the blood that made cries rupture from my throat -- It was whose blood that stained my hands -- Regulus Black's.

Regulus Black's blood. It was his blood that made salty tears run down my stinging cheeks and it was his blood that left my heart pounding in my ears.

I held his wrists down, keeping as much pressure on them as possible as I continued to choke on wails. I stared at Regulus's face. He was growing paler by the second and the healers hadn't arrived yet. Where was everyone? His mother? His father? Why was I holding his wrists as blood stained my hands?

Where was Sirius?

I was only sixteen. I didn't know what to do. I'd never seen so much blood. My flesh squirmed beneath my skin in agony as my palms pressed into those open flesh wounds -- flesh wounds he had carved into himself -- with a blade that wasn't his. 

"Reg, Reg, please," I cried, a throaty sob of pure desperation spilling from my lips, "Reg, wake up -- Reg!"

But his blood kept spilling. 

Nothing I could do would ever stop it from spilling. He'd bleed for the rest of his life and he'd leave it untreated. His flesh would decay as he begins to rot but still, he'd never let anyone treat his wounds. 

I didn't know where he'd found such a sharp blade. Was it given to him? Who gave it to him? Did he steal it with an intent to use it or did he simply stumble across it? Did he hesitate? Did he regret what he'd done when the crimson began to spill from his flesh? Or did it fuel him?

What fueled him? Who could've possibly fueled him to pick up such a hefty blade?

From the silence that echoed through the narrow halls of Grimmauld Place, I knew the answer to that question. If anyone were stalking those haunting halls, they'd have rushed in by now. But not even the screams that escaped my throat sliced apart the silence of Grimmauld Place. Still despite my cuts through the cold air and the blade my best friend clutched, it was the most peaceful Grimmauld Place had been for sixteen years.

For I was there to see the events only hours before. I was there when they locked him way in the drawing room -- when they left him to die on the cold timber floors of Grimmauld Place -- I heard Walburga's bellows when she reopened the heavy wooden door that her victim had escaped. 

Sirius Black, that was. 

I hated that cunt. He got to escape that night -- he made it out -- he got to live -- he had somewhere to go. However, I remained hunched over his brother's limp body. Sirius Black may have been a victim himself but he handed Regulus that blade -- he left him behind. 

The healers arrived and took him away and I was left standing outside a haunted house with a haunted family that once rested in it. But not only was I left with blood down me -- I was left to blame Sirius Black.

I promised I'd hate Sirius Black until my last breath and it was the only promise I was never breaking.

"Anybody can become angry — that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way — that is not within everybody's power and is not easy." -Aristotle