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NOT QUITE CATHARTIC

interim--part one--written for Egwene

Also archived at the SiriusxJames Yahoo! Group.

Today was important, though why, Sirius didn't know or care. All he cared about was the knife in his left hand and the burning fever flushing his face.

It's like a dam bursting in the middle of his chest—today, though he doesn't know why. He doesn't know where one day ends and the other begins.

Sirius isn't entirely sure what has happened, but nothing dulls the sharp pain that knifes through his ribcage and makes his head throb. He and James aren't speaking—they had a silly little fight, about what Sirius doesn't even remember anymore, but somehow the petty, spiteful words escalated to shouts and glares and shoves and Sirius returning to the dorm and crying, though later he would deny that he had.

A week had passed, or so Sirius estimates. He can't really think anymore, it's getting too hard to organise things in his head, they keep moving and changing and mixing. It makes him tired, and he lies down.

A week. He doesn't understand how it has gone by—like a wet painting whose colour has been smeared across by careless fingers, blurred and smudged and brown, a disfigured scar. He feels utterly alone, and in a way, he is; he and Remus are on polite terms, but things have changed since Certain Incidents in sixth-year, and of course, Peter, the dear boy, always sides with James, even if he doesn't know it... Sirius doesn't quite know what to think of them, or he wouldn't, if he could even think lucidly at all. He harbours no delusions as to his mental state as of the moment—au contraire, he expects it is hereditary.

Thoughts of his crazy mother—and she is crazy, though no one ever says so in so many words, and certainly not to her face—bring a giggle to his lips, a hysterical, choking giggle, one that isn't feminine because it's so frightening, so unstable. Unstable, unstable, unstable, and didn't someone call him that once, they said he was unstable, he muses dazedly, the fingers of his left hand shaking, curled tightly around the slender length of wood whose deceptively simple curve narrows and sharpens into that cutting steel blade.

Without turning his head, his fingers move from smooth wood to cold metal, the biting edge of the knife kissing the ridges of his fingertips in a sweet, forbidden way. He fancies he can feel the ice of the steel in his blood, which pulses steadily in his fingers under the blade, waiting, waiting, waiting.

He blinks, and feels eyelashes touch his cheek. He likes the feeling, and does it again.

He moves his hand, lays the flat of the blade across his forehead. It's cold, and feels good there. He is warm.

He blinks, again, not good this time because there's a sound, from the doorway. Sirius' mind vaguely grasps the scuffle of shoes and intake of breath, robes rustle and doors slam, and who is touching his arm? An echo sounds in his head: Sirius, Sirius, Sirius.

"Sirius!" There is a cry, and it hurts his ears. Fingers grab at his hands, his left hand, and the knife is pried away from him. "Oh my God, Sirius, what were you thinking, my God, Sirius..." and then James' words are just as unintelligible as Sirius' thoughts.

"I love you," Sirius says to the air. He can't focus anywhere. His eyes can't see.

A tear falls on his cheek. Is it his own? He can't tell.

James says, "You scared me so bad don't know what you're doing never again please Sirius love you what the hell not thinking..." and his murmurs become whispers that don't smell of secrecy and confidence but panic, frantic and chaotic, and Sirius doesn't like it. His head is swimming.

James kisses him on the forehead, where the cold blade of the life had lain. A tentative hand replaces lips, palm on flushed skin, and James whispers, "God, Sirius, you're burning up."

"Mum's crazy," Sirius whispers hollowly in reply, lips barely moving.

"Have to get you to the Hospital Wing," James breathes in his ear, arms coming to wrap around Sirius' midriff. Hands press against his back, hoisting him up slightly.

It's like a dam bursting in the middle of his chest—today, though he doesn't know why. He blinks again. James came to him today. Are they speaking again? What has he done wrong? He doesn't know where one day ends and the other begins.

"Why today?" Sirius asks.

The tear that touches his face is definitely James' this time, has to be, because Sirius' eyes are closed. "Oh my God, Sirius, Sirius, Sirius... it's your birthday. Happy birthday. How can I say that? Oh my God. I hate myself. I love you. Happy birthday."

Black lashes flutter against the pale face flush with fever. His birthday. He had forgotten.