Chapter Text
His hearing had gone all hollow and rushing, as if he were in a tunnel. Remus sounded far, far away, a distant call, a flat sound with meaning trailing slowly.
‘Don’t lie to me, James.’
He had to force the air into his own lungs, gasping hard and big. ‘I’m not,’ he managed roughly, and felt pricks of pain at the back of his neck as Remus’s fingers tightened in his hair. A moment later water slammed against his face, the slap of it shocking, and the sudden flood in his open mouth and nose choking him.
It was only a few moments before Remus pulled his head back above the surface of the lake. ‘I’m not stupid, you know,’ the other boy said in his ear, his fist still locked in James’s collar, the other hand flat against his chest, supporting him almost gently. The rest of James’s body was numb. The lake water was freezing, and when Remus had first pushed him into it the weight of his crash had broken a thin crust of ice. He could no longer feel the pinch and press of Remus’s knees in his back. Just the hands, only a little warmer than the water, and the weight in his lungs, the bitter taste on his tongue that was fear and mud.
He should have obeyed his intuition. Come for a walk, James, Remus had said, and there’d been something wrong with his face; but the Tower had been so hot, so stuffy, and Sirius and Peter were in detention and he’d been bored. Come for a walk, just us.
It had been almost two months since the whole thing had happened. James just hadn’t seen it coming.
He found his voice, though it was hard to be coherent. ‘Wha– makes you think– ‘m lying?’
He should have known. There’d been something off in Remus’s face, the invitation had been too innocent.
The hand on his chest went away, and came down on James’s shoulder instead, gripping hard enough that he felt it. ‘You smell guilty,’ Remus whispered. He pushed, and James went under again, held down relentlessly. But again it was only a few moments, and James spat and dripped and shivered when Remus wrenched him up again. ‘I want the truth.’
‘Sirius sent Snape–‘
And then he was back under, blind, beginning to panic, beginning to pass out. Surely he was drowning. He didn’t want to swallow but water poured down his throat in a great rush of disturbed sand and slime. He could scream here and no-one would know, not even Remus. No-one would hear him. No-one would help him.
Fitting, that.
He was weaker than a kitten when Remus finally let him up. Blearily, his glasses long since lost, his frozen arms trailing limply, James stared into the night and couldn’t tell the difference. I sent Snape, he confessed, and didn’t know if it came out aloud.
It must have. Remus held him up, kept him squashed into the muck with his chin just grazing the chilly lip of the lake. The silence, that roaring silence, went on forever while James struggled to breathe.
Then, Remus said, ‘I know. Sirius is a lot of things. Murderer may even be one of them. But he knows the price of acceptance.’
That was true. James knew how hard Sirius had worked to free himself of his family’s reputation. He knew how hard Sirius had fought to make a place in Gryffindor with all sides calling him a blood-traitor. James knew it firsthand, because Sirius had come to him, hadn’t he? Had shown up on James’s doorstep in Surrey with a trunk containing all his worldly possessions, and fresh tear-tracks on his cheeks, and helpless, desperate hope in his eyes.
When Remus let him go and stood, James went under again because he couldn’t hold himself up. He woke with bright spots dancing in his eyes and the roaring sound inside his head, and Remus swearing at him from a long way away as he was hauled out of the lake and into the weeds. He retched weakly, and Remus grimly pounded him on the back until he’d spit up everything in his stomach. James lay with his cheek cold in the grass, his body blunted and anaesthetised by the ordeal.
‘He follows you blindly,’ that unrelenting voice accused. It was like the voice of God. From out of the darkness.
‘I know,’ James croaked, blades of grass collecting between his lips. ‘He never... never even protested.’
Remus rolled him onto his back. ‘Why would he?’ he demanded brutally. ‘It doesn’t take a genius to see that he thinks he owes you.’ And, God, yes, there was something wrong in his voice now too– contempt– contempt breaking through the icy crust that Remus had been wearing since that innocuous invitation, the heartless attempt to kill him in the lake. And James almost sighed in relief to hear it, because it was the first time since Remus had stepped behind him and pushed that James thought he might live to see dawn.
‘I–‘ James started.
‘I’m not done yet,’ Remus cut him off. Something moved against his chest, and James realised it was Remus’s fingers, unbuttoning his blazer and shirt and freeing him from the soaked garments. ‘Sirius isn’t the one with the grudge,’ Remus went on, that boyish harsh voice floating down from above him. ‘None of us hate him like you do. We never understood it. But you’re our mate. We trusted you to have a good reason. Do you have a good reason, James?’
‘Remus,’ he whimpered. It sounded like defeat even to his own ears. He could just see the blurry outline of Remus’s shoulders against the dark night sky, the moonless sky. No werewolf with him here tonight, the black night, the night without even stars to relieve the darkness. Just Remus.
‘What Sirius does for you is his own business,’ Remus went on. He unbuckled James’s belt, and pulled hard, and James felt his jeans jerking roughly down his bare thighs. Finally relieved of his clothing, he began to shiver, and vaguely remembered that was a good thing. ‘I’ll corroborate his story because that’s what he seems to want. You and I, though, are going to come to an understanding.’ Remus ripped off one, then the other, of James’s trainers and tossed them away. Off came his socks. ‘Don’t mistake me. I think it’s disgusting how you used him. But it was his decision to go along with your farce. The problem I have is that you didn’t ask me, James, and you didn’t ask Snape.’
The cold was creeping back over him. His teeth were chattering. Every brush of the night breeze was a torment. He struggled to wrap his arms about himself, to curl onto his side. The weight of his body was unbearable. His empty stomach cramped. He felt sick with knowledge.
‘James. Wake up.’ He tried– he did. But he couldn’t seem to move. He flinched when Remus grabbed him by the shoulder again, conditioned now to know that pain would follow, but Remus only pulled him upright with an arm under his, rubbing him on the back, not gentle, not hard. James crossed his eyes twice before he could see anything– the faint luminescence of Remus’s white white skin, bare like his now, and his yellow hair plastered back against his skull so that his face was all bones and angles and shadows, like an ancient human, all prominent brow and nose and jaw. Somewhere in there, James knew, were eyes, Remus’s amber eyes, but they were invisible like James’s glasses, disappeared somewhere.
‘I didn’t mean to use you,’ James said hoarsely. The broad palm on his back came to a stop, pressed lightly between his shoulder blades. ‘You have every right to be angry. To hate me.’
‘I know.’ Remus’s voice was as calm as ever. James had to fight down an hysterical giggle. Did nothing shake him? No. That wasn’t true. Because James remembered that look, that shattered look, on Remus’s pale face when he’d told him about Snape and the Shrieking Shack.
‘Why did you do it?’ Remus said, asking now, that hand supporting him on his back. ‘Why do you hate Snape so much?’
If there was an answer James didn’t know how to give it. It wasn't enough to say that it had been nothing. How could he explain how he had laughed aloud when he'd thought of it? That he'd thought only of the harm to himself. That he'd been fifteen and stupid and so sure of himself and his own righteousness. He was Gryffindor; he was a Potter, a wizard with an ancient Pureblood line of heroism and power and influence. Hogwarts was his kingdom and the Marauders were his knights. And now, half-drowned with his own betrayal, he thought he might kill himself before he admitted that it had been just one more thoughtless cruelty in a long queue of little crimes. He’d never even known himself for a monster before he’d had to face a raging werewolf that smelled human blood.
‘James?’
There were some things that a boy couldn’t share with his friends. There were some things so shameful that they had to stay secret if you intended to grow up and do better and be better.
‘I’ll make it up,’ he said instead. He felt the sobs threaten, and then they overwhelmed him in a torrent, as if he’d gotten so much of the lake in him it was going to start coming out wherever it could. Water spilled down his face in a flood. ‘I’ll make it up,’ he repeated mindlessly. ‘I’ll make it better. I swear, Remus. I swear I will.’
And then Remus sighed, and hugged him hard. ‘You will,’ he said in James’s ear, and there was steel in his voice, not reassurance– command, not understanding. ‘You will make it up for the rest of your life, James.’
And James took that, and wrapped his heart around it, and he tried.