The Marauders: Year Six Part 2 #Wattys2017

Never Give Up, Prongsie

Never Give Up, Prongsie

Remus pushed open the door to the boys' dormitory to find Sirius curled up on his, Remus's, bed, facing the wall, and James in his own, also facing the wall, opposite to Sirius, so that the boys backs were turned defiantly toward one another. Remus sighed and stepped inside, followed by Lily, who hovered nervously in the door a moment before pushing it just to close behind her. Remus cleared his throat, "Alright, you lot. Both of you, listen up." Neither James nor Sirius moved to look. Remus looked at Lily.

"James? Sirius?" Lily pressed, then, "You're both -- you're both being horrible to each other!" she said, and when Sirius glanced over his shoulder at her, she continued, "Being a couple of idiots, honestly..."

"I'm not an idiot," Sirius said, tone defensive.

"Well you're certainly acting like one!" Lily scolded. "You're both bent out of shape for thinking the other one is doing exactly the same thing when really neither of you is! James, Sirius doesn't think you're weak and pathetic! And Sirius, James doesn't think you are, either. An awful thing happened and it's not anybody's fault. At least not anybody here, that is." She looked from Sirius to James, a frown of concern on her lips. "You lot need each other something fierce. Don't you understand that?"

Sirius rolled so that he was sitting up in the center of Remus's bed and looked across the room to where James lay on his own bed, his shoulders hunched in. "Is it true, James? That you don't think of me as weak and pathetic, then?" Sirius asked.

James could feel all four of them staring at his back. He sat up slowly, and stared at his knees, his hands in his lap sort of fiddling with the duvet. "Of course I don't," he answered.

Sirius sprang from Remus's bed, over Peter's and onto James's, wrapping himself 'round James's torso with his limbs all tangled up 'round James's frame, knocking his glasses askew and planting a huge kiss into the messy disarray of his hair. "I'M SORRY, PRONGS," he shouted as he flew across the gap between them, landing, his knees bending 'round his mate as he pressed himself to James's body. "I DON'T RECKON I'LL EVER FORGIVE MYSELF FOR BEING SUCH A PRAT TO YOU... I MAY NEVER STOP HUGGING YOU, I FUCKING MISSED YOU, I WAS SO WORRIED I WOULDN'T SEE YOU AGAIN, THAT YOU MIGHT THINK I -- THAT VOLDEMORT MIGHT HAVE --- THAT I --- THAT --" and he lost his words and simply pressed his face into James's hair.

James bent his arm as best he could 'round Sirius to pet his shoulder, though the angle was awkward on account of Sirius's legs criss-crossing over James's arms so that his mobility was quite limited. James said, "I didn't think I would be getting out of there alive, I thought --" he paused, then, "I'd sort of given up when you came and --"

"NEVER GIVE UP PRONGSIE, I'LL ALWAYS COME FOR YOU!" Sirius shouted. "Even if it bleedin' kills me to do it, I'll come for you. The moment I realize. And I'll realize sooner next time, I'll see it in your eyes before it gets to this. I'll --"

"Next time?" James asked and he laughed, "I sincerely hope there isn't a next time."

"You know what I mean," Sirius murmured, and he held onto James all the tighter. "The metaphorical next time."

"Yeah, the metaphorical next time," James nodded, and he pushed the nightmares he'd been having out of his mind, tried to swallow up the feeling that any moment, the door could burst open and Voldemort would be there... as though Voldemort could be lurking around any corner.

"I won't ever let him lay a finger on you again," Sirius vowed. "Even if he kills me, I won't."

James felt an unexplained heaviness in his heart because, above all else, he could remember the sound of Voldemort's breathing in the room as he waited for James to move after each bout of the cruciatus curse, as he allowed James to come back to himself for only just so long before inflicting the next round of the torture... and he shivered. The overwhelming sense that there wasn't anything any one of them could promise like that without the potential for it being broken stirred in him, sending ice-cold splinters to his spine.