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It’s kind of impressive, Sirius thinks.
These injuries are from literal years ago— over a decade, actually. Moreover, they’re from one of those things people know is painful but don’t consider severe. It was a ruler, that was all.
Thirty centimetres, stainless steel, thin as a sheet of paper. It wasn’t originally Walburga and Orions’ idea, of course, because they would never think to do anything the muggle way, but they adopted it when they realized it was effective. It’d been one of his many tutors who started hitting him over the backs of his hands and wrists with the thing, chiding him for being slow or answering incorrectly.
Sirius, when his parents had originally learned of the new method, had been relatively certain they would never use it on him. A muggle writing instrument would surely be much too lowly for Lord and Lady Black to lay hands on, right? Apparently not.
Rulers, as it happens, are exceptional tools for discipline. Sirius isn’t sitting up straight enough? Ruler. Sirius won’t use the right fork? Ruler. Sirius isn’t studying as hard as he should? Ruler. Pretty much anything he was doing while sitting, with his hands in view, could be corrected with a ruler. They extrapolated to use a magicked ruler, one that delivered shocks and didn’t break, no matter how hard they brought it down on him.
He’s 20 now. There’s rippling scars criss-crossing the backs of his hands and his wrists, pale and shiny. Those aren’t the problem, and he doubts they ever will be. Sirius has never cared about how he looks, his scars, any of it. It’s the rest of the damage, the injuries beneath the scars, that he cares about.
“Sirius, come help me out over here,” James requests, frowning at his wand. Their group and Lily are currently trying to master the Patronus Charm. Sirius has had it under his belt since he met his friend group and had sufficiently happy memories to do it— power or wand control were never issues for him. It’s kind of ironic, the fact that everybody else is having the exact opposite problems he did. That’s fine, Sirius is perfectly happy with helping people. Well, that’s usually fine, but…
“Sure,” Sirius agrees, even though his hands have been shaking all day, full of that annoying pins-and-needles feeling. He wills them to be still when he comes up behind James, whose biggest problem in terms of summoning his Patronus has been proper wand movement. It doesn’t work, of course, but he can hope.
It’s already weird helping other people learn this way, if only because Sirius is left handed and nobody else in his group is so he needs to show them with his non-dominant hand. He’s perfectly capable with his right, because his left hand always used to get hit first and so he would need to switch to be able to do anything without pain, but he much prefers his dominant hand. Now, though, he’s shaking and can’t feel his fingertips, and his wrists aren’t quite doing what he wants them to do.
Regardless, he presses his chest to James’s back and brackets his right hand, cringing at the fact that he can barely feel the warm skin against his own. He grit his teeth and hopes he’ll be able to help James properly with the way his body refuses to cooperate.
“You’re shaking pretty bad, Paddy-Cakes,” James observes, frown audible. Ah, James. Sirius loves his to death and hates him at the same time, for the same set of reasons. He cares so deeply and loves even deeper, and Sirius sometimes gets headaches at how much James thinks about him.
“I’m fine, Prongs,” Sirius says firmly, tightening his grip on James’s hand in hopes of making himself stop shaking so violently. It doesn’t work, just makes James wince ever-so-slightly, and that makes Sirius feel guilty. “Sorry.”
“It’s alright,” James soothes, lowering his wand slightly. His eyes haven’t left Sirius’s hand. He looks even more concerned when it spasms suddenly and drifts to the side. Merlin, this is going to become a thing now, isn’t it? “Are you sure you’re okay? That looks… problem-y,” James decides, then he drops his wand on the coffee table next to him and turns to face Sirius, taking both of his hands to check them over properly.
“I’m perfectly fine, James,” Sirius replies firmly, making a half-hearted attempt at pulling away. James clings to his hands and turns them over, checking the backs next. The scars are the slightest bit inflamed because they always get itchy before they go numb and so he’d been scratching them a little bit earlier.
“You don’t look fine,” James says, sounding suspicious. Of course, that gets Peter’s attention, because he’s been struggling with the spell, too, and was already waiting for Sirius to be done helping James to get his turn.
“What’s wrong?” the youngest animagus asks, taking a step over. Now that the three of them have converged, it’s only a matter of time before Remus and Lily notice. Sure, the two of them always focus harder than anyone on these things, but that doesn’t mean they’re stupid or oblivious. A scene is the last thing Sirius wants or needs right now.
“Nothing,” he informs Peter curtly, looking over his shoulder to check on the other two, making sure they aren’t paying attention yet. “My hands are just shaking a little bit, that’s all. James is being a drama queen, as per usual,” Sirius explains bluntly, hoping to get out of this by making James react in the typical manner— an overreaction leading to some theatrics and ultimately a change of topic. He has no such luck.
“I disagree,” James grumbles, tapping that spot on the back of Sirius’s hand to watch the way it spasms. It hurts like a bitch even though it shouldn’t, because the extensive nerve damage the ruler left has made parts of his hands weirdly sensitive and others completely numb. James, in their years-long brotherly relationship, has become familiar with exactly where he aches and where he can’t feel at all.
“Quit that,” Sirius scolds, scowling down at his brother even though he knows James won’t care. “You know doing that always makes my hand go stupid. That doesn’t prove shit. I’m just shaking,” he says firmly, pretending like his hands haven’t been hurting all day long. He refuses to take a pain potion for a dull ache, and that wouldn’t fix the numbness or the loss of fine motor control, anyways, which is the most frustrating part. He has a high tolerance for pain and can deal with a lot. He does not have a high tolerance for his body not doing what he wants it to.
“Don’t be that way,” James mumbles, seemingly too distracted checking Sirius’s hands over, as though the injuries that caused problems were ever visible. Even when he had proper wounds, they were never the thing that caused all of this.
“Maybe we should call Dorcas or Madame Pomfrey. Your hands look really red,” Peter observes, peering down at them. He still calls Poppy the name they had to call her back in Hogwarts. Right now, it makes Sirius want to shove him, but that’s probably got more to do with his concern than anything else, so the older man bites that urge back.
“Don’t be that way,” Sirius chides, and this time Peter actually looks up at him, somewhat apologetic, which makes him feel marginally more righted than James, who blatantly ignored him. Maybe that’s why James is his brother and Peter is his best friend.
“What way?” Lily asks. Sirius notes that, now, Remus and her are both paying attention as well. Perfect. That’s just what he needed, really: more people who are going to be dramatic about an injury he’s had for over a decade and is never going to get any better. Why should anybody so much as think about it if it’s never going to be fixed?
“Your hands are red,” Remus comments as he comes up next to Peter, brows furrowed with concern. Now it’s going to be a whole scene. Sirius hates this. Usually, he doesn’t mind being the centre of attention— he doesn’t actively search for it, but he doesn’t mind— but this? Sirius hates this kind of attention, this sympathy, all centred around the fact that he got hit as a kid. It’s what they’re all thinking: that he’s some sort of victim because his hands are only hurting on account of the abuse in his past. Sirius can’t stand that.
“Yeah, they were itchy earlier. What does it matter?” Sirius insists, making a vague attempt at pulling away from James. James doesn’t let that happen, just keeps clinging to Sirius’s hands, now looking up at him with a stern pout.
“You’re shaking so badly you can’t show me how to do a spell you’ve had mastered since, like, first year or something. That’s a big deal! That matters!” James objects, flipping Sirius’ hands over so they’re face-up and flexed just enough that she shaking becomes even more obvious. Lily is staring at him, looking confused and concerned, and Sirius realizes that she has no idea where the scars came from. Oh, even better. This’ll be good.
“Second year, actually,” Sirius corrects, even though he knows that clinging to a small part of an argument and acting like he disproved the whole point is a logical fallacy. He doesn’t particularly care.
“That’s not any better,” Remus chimes in, taking one hand from James to hold it. It’s actually pretty nice, Sirius admits, with how cold Remus always is. It’s soothing against his inflamed skin. James’s skin is warm and callused where Remus’s is cool and soft, and, while he loves everybody here, he really prefers his fiancé’s touch right now.
“Come on, Moons,“ Sirius sighs, mentally flitting through ideas about how to get out of this. “Look, I’m fine. If you’re that worried, I’ll go find some salve or something, okay?” he offers, because, really, it’s not that big a deal. If Sirius can deal with it, why are they so worried?
“That might work…” James says slowly, as though that’s not already more than Sirius would’ve done. “Do you need a pain potion? This looks painful,” he asks, those big, brown eyes worried and loving.
“No, I’m fine. I’ll put on some salve,” Sirius confirms for them, even though he knows it’ll be a waste because the pain isn’t what’s bothering him. His friends like to feel like things have been fixed, even if it’s just surface level. Not that he’ll tell them this won’t actually do shit, lest they continue fretting.
~~~~~
Remus is the one who ends up gently smearing the salve on Sirius’s skin, careful to cover each and every scar and all of the reddened flesh. His little pout as he works is adorable and almost makes this all worth it.
“See? Isn’t that better?” James asks from where he’s leaning against the wall, arm wrapped around Lily’s waist. She looks worried, which is a little bit frustrating, but Sirius doesn’t comment on that. She doesn’t know the full story and he’s hardly ever injured or willing to accept aid, so some concern makes sense with how independent he is.
“Yeah,” Sirius agrees, even though nothing has changed. Nerve damage can’t be fixed with some salve on his skin. The only thing that’s ever had any impact on the pain are some specific spells he’s hand-crafted on his own that are tailored to deal with his needs. The issue with those is that they tend to make his whole arm either hypersensitive or numb, or take so much energy that he needs to use them sparingly. It’s not severe enough for him to be able to justify any of that.
“I don’t understand why you’re so against helping yourself,” Peter murmurs, peering over Remus’s shoulder to watch him work on Sirius’s right hand when he’s finished with the left.
“I just don’t feel the need to do this most of the time,” Sirius replies lightly, hating the way his hand spasms violently when Remus brushes the salve over the back of his hand, the spot that makes everything hurt. He hisses under his breath but doesn’t let himself make a show of it.
“Sorry,” Remus says quickly, flinching away from Sirius’s skin the second he twitches. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, it’s alright. You needed to put it there, anyways,” he shrugs. It’ll take a lot more than that to upset Sirius after everything that’s happened in his life. Of course, Remus didn’t need to put it anywhere, because it’s not doing anything, but, if it makes them all feel better, he’s fine with it.
“What even happened?” Lily asks kindly, bright green eyes flicking over Sirius’s body, returning to his hands over and over again. Sirius reasons with himself that she’s currently six months pregnant and so it’s reasonable for her to be a little bit emotional. It does help make him a little bit less annoyed at her for being worried about him, so he supposes it worked.
“A ruler,” Sirius answers bluntly, not looking away from where Remus’s fingers are smearing salve over his scars, because it’s easier than knowing how Lily reacts to the words. He can’t be bothered to deal with a fourth worried friend.
“Like… a measuring ruler?” Lily questions, her tone switching to the one she uses whenever she’s learned something new that’s caught her interest. Now she wants to know more. Hurrah.
“Yeah,” Sirius confirms. “Or a dictator, take your pick. Suppose it could be both,” he says with a wry smile, pleased by his own joke, if it could even be called that. Walburga and Orion certainly fancied themselves rulers.
“Huh,” she’s quieter this time, apparently having realized that he’s being serious and, yes, something so mundane managed to do this to him. How funny that a man who is feared by Death Eaters and has the thickest skin of anybody they know was bested by a bloody ruler, of all things. How pathetic.
“All done,” Remus chirps when he’s finished with applying the salve, smiling that crooked little grin like he did something exceptional. Sirius is never going to dash his hopes when he looks so sweet.
“Thank you, Darling,” Sirius smiles back. Everybody looks pleased, now. Sirius is happy, even if nothing has changed.