#but i had a therapy sesh the other day that actually literally rewired my neural pathways

[padfootastic]

hello! i am back with yet another…thing. thank u for the tag @lovelymasks <3 (i realised, upon second reading, that this was supposed to be a sunday snippet but i’m an idiot n therefore this is now a saturday snippet mwuah)

I think you should go to a Healer, Sirius. 

Why, he’d asked, flippant. What was there to do with a Healer when you were a convict on the run? Besides, Sirius was wrong in a way that couldn’t be made right. He was past the point of return. Healers would’ve barely known what to do with him before Azkaban, let alone in the condition he was in now. 

Because you look like a stiff wind will blow you over, Harry’d answered, though the answering flippancy didn’t quite land the way he intended because what Sirius heard was ‘Because I don't want to lose anyone else.’ 

What Harry didn't say, and Sirius didn’t want to hear, was ‘Because I can’t lose another parent.’

He quietly acquiesced after that. The trembling, hopeful smile growing on his godson’s face was enough to wipe away all apprehensions after that. 

Until now, when Harry was at Hogwarts, and he was second guessing this whole business. 

Did he really need a Healer, like, really?

One look at the mirror in front of him gave him a solid, sturdy answer. 

He was dressed in his old rags and it was a testament to the conditions of Azkaban that clothes from when he was younger, before hitting his final growth spurts, were barely just fitting him now. Sirius’ back was almost constantly bent these days--all days spent curled up in a ball seemed to have reshaped his skeletal structure, who knew--each vertebrae gaining a distinct notch in the column of his skin. His stomach was a fascinating blend of too small and too bloated. He couldn’t keep anything down, but he wasn’t able to eat much either. A mystery for the ages. 

Less said about his face, the better. Sirius wasn’t vain, never had any reason to be, but there was a certain…pride he’d maintained, a level of outward appearance that was considered bare minimum for a Black, a conditioning he’d never managed to shake off. 

It was that conditioning itching at him now, turning him away from any reflective surface before he could see his distorted features, grotesque and inhuman, staring back at him. 

And ultimately, it was that, he realised with a shameful sort of guilt, that pushed him to see a Healer. Not his godson’s pleading look, not concern for his wellbeing--but leftovers from an upbringing that he hated, his mother’s words he couldn’t stop hearing, his father’s sharp commands. 

Ultimately, it was his blood that made him give in, as it always did. 

further tagging @jmagnabo92 @soopsiedaisies @groundzero-v 💜