AN: Yep, it's me again. Happy New Years to everyone! Thanks so much to the folks who left reviews. To the ones who did not, REVIEW! I'm joking, but please, if you have time, just drop a little note or tell me what you want to see from the story. Though I have some sort of an outline, I'm not exactly sure where I want to go, and I'd love your input.

Trigger warnings: Depression, suicidal thoughts, a bit of child abuse, and an unhealthy amount of dramatics. You guys know the drill.

Hope you guys enjoy!

James opened his eyes a crack to see a weak blaze of sunlight streaming in through the window. He widened them as he caught sight of Sirius' bed and a figure sitting down on the edge of it. In the daze of sleep, he had forgotten about the previous night; his stomach protested painfully against the thought. It was unbearable to see his formerly jovial, happy-go-lucky friend breaking down. But mostly, it made him angry. James nearly scolded himself—everyone knew what happened when James Potter got angry, and it was not pretty. This time, though, the Blacks definitely deserved the full burn of his wrath.

Drowsily getting up and slamming his glasses on his face, James made his way rather uncoordinatedly over to his friends. You better be happy that you made me worry so much I got up early, bastard! As he peered down at Sirius, however, he realized that his joke would fall on somber ears. Not even a joke could begin to fix his best friend.

Sirius was entangled in his sheets, grey eyes shut tight, wrists wrapped up in bled-through bandages. He was laying on his back, hiding the carved wound and many whip lashes James had caught sight of the previous night, but exposing other scars both young and old as well as an array of bruises. And his body, his body was so thin, so vulnerable. Sirius was starving, dying, ribs showing up through the stark skin that was almost as pale as the white sheets twisted around him. It wasn't beautiful. It wasn't something romantic or brave or prideful; this was destruction. This was abuse and self-mutilation and someone split open in raw agony.

James winced at the sight of his friend. "Moony...how was it? I'm sorry I fell asleep when it was my turn..."

"So did I." Remus spared James a glance before turning his head down and rubbing his eyes ferociously. "But Prongs, all the scars…"

"His wrists," James said, leaning forward as he caught sight of the bandages that were wrapped tightly around his friend's wrists. "What happened, Moony?" he asked, though the answer he knew was coming was already written all over his face.

"He...he cuts," croaked Remus.

"W-What?" James wasn't an idiot, he knew what cutting meant. But Sirius cutting? Those were too words that didn't belong together.

The amber-eyed boy only sighed heavily. For once, James felt like joining in. He had spent so much of his time since learning about Sirius' abuse hating, raging, concocting plan after plan to stab those Blacks right in the heart with their own silver blades, that he hadn't had time for the heaviness of the situation to settle. Now James just wanted his friend back. He wanted pranks and punk rock and confiding in the dead of night and uncontrollable laughter and singeing their eyebrows with exploding cards and clean wrists.

"He slept through most of the rest of the night." There were unspoken words between them, but neither dared to touch on them, opting to sit beside Sirius and watch him helplessly.

Peter was the third to awaken, and when he did, he was completely and utterly baffled. After shooting a series of What happened? and Why?'s, by which Remus was, surprisingly, becoming increasingly irritable, James turned to explain everything patiently. If he couldn't do much else, at least he could help his friends.

"And good morning, Sirius." He turned to the pale, fragile figure sitting up in his bed.

Sirius pulled the sheets over himself and looked down, twisting the thin cotton over his hands. His almost-shoulder-length hair cast shadows on his bare collarbone. He took a few minutes to survey the situation, eyes sharpening when he realized what had happened. Jerking the sheet up to his shoulders, Sirius quickly hid his scars. "Sorry, I didn't mean to cause such a fuss last night," his first words were, somewhere between nonchalance and guilt.

"Sirius, you're our friend. We'd do the same thing for Peter or James and you do do it for me during full moons." Remus gave him a small smile and pushed the hair out of his friend's face.

James had jumped up now was now hovered anxiously over Sirius' other side. "Aren't you cold, Padfoot? I'll get you a sweater. Oh, and make sure you brush your teeth afterwards if you're up to it. You shouldn't go to class today, you're too ill. You had a fever all night, you can't go wandering through the whole castle in this state..."

"James," Sirius croaked. "I don't--"

He was cut off by Remus. "Let him worry, Sirius. He's happy channeling his inner mother hen."

The corner of Sirius' mouth lifted as James protested from where he was digging a sweater out of his trunk.

oOo

The Marauders were hesitant to leave Sirius alone-- "Your wound looked infected last night," Remus protested, joined by James, who said, "Padfoot, we don't want you to leave you where you can… y'know, be hurt!" and Peter, who added, "We stick together!" But Sirius insisted that he'd be fine alone, so after being taken aside by Remus and James and told firmly not to do anything stupid, his friends had excited the dormitory quite reproachfully.

Sirius heaved a sigh, wincing when his ribs gave a painful throb. Gently he lowered himself onto his back, ignoring his protesting wounds.

Great, Sirius sulked. Now he was left all alone with nothing to occupy him but his thoughts. They nagged at him, sounding eerily like his mother. There's a pocketknife in James' bedside table, she said, voice silky. Sirius could feel a disgusted gaze raking over his body, setting every inch of his skin under siege. And suddenly his mother was screaming, and he was cringing. Get it and do something right for once in your life!

Sirius eased off of his bed but stopped after only a few feet. His toes had hit something warm, soft. Looking down, seeing that it was Remus' jumper, which had been hastily discarded this morning by the amber-eyed boy himself, Sirius collapsed down to the ground and pulled it close.

He had felt naked curled up on cold bathroom tiles, felt exposed, like someone had ripped off all his clothes and posted a picture of vulnerable, bare Sirius Black on a billboard for all the world to see. But his shirt had been ripped off, and they had seen his scars. They had seen how weak he was, and there was nothing Sirius could do to stop it. It was over, the Marauders were over, the best thing that had happened to him in his entire life was over; the other three wouldn't want to be friends with a beat-up, worthless traitor. Worse, they probably thought he was disgusting--seriously, who chopped up their wrists for fun?

Sirius hugged Remus' jumper to his chest, buried his face in the wool, which smelled vaguely of his friend and the crackling Common Room's fire and Earl Grey tea, fighting the urge to snatch the pocketknife from James' bedside table. Hurting himself had become an addiction. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. I promised. I swore to them that I would not do anything. A cough racked his body and he shivered as he clutched Remus' jumper and fell into a fitful sleep.