Sirius shattered to the floor as violently as the portrait frame did, the sound of shattering glass filled the room as his knees gave out and he hit the carpet.

Remus ran into the room and dropped beside Sirius, hands on his shoulders in concern. "Sirius," he said as his husband folded into himself, breaking down. "Oh god, I'm sorry." He'd overheard the whole horrible shouting match between the brothers, heard everything that Sirius had said about his childhood, about the things he'd been through.

The breaking didn't seem over dramatic - suddenly nothing about Sirius seemed over dramatic. It all seemed justified, all the shouting and the tears and emotional relapses and fiery reactions. Suddenly nothing about Sirius seemed too much. Suddenly Sirius was the bravest person that had ever lived and sure Remus had thought that before time and again, but this time --

"I wasn't weak, I wasn't weak," Sirius was sobbing into Remus's stomach and he could feel the tears soaking through his shirt.

Remus stroked the side of Sirius's face and pulled his husband closer so that as Sirius cried, Remus could feel the tears soaking through his shirt at his abdomen. Sirius clung onto him fiercely, and his body trembled under Remus's touch as his fingers slid through the black strands of his hair.

Remus had a sudden, jarring flashback of the day, in their fifth year, he'd gone to the boys toliets outside the library at Hogwarts and found Sirius in a very similar state, laying on the floor, his hair shorn and Evan Rosier laughing horridly... Remus felt his gut twist and, just as it had in fifth year, his blood boiled now, raw power simmering just beneath his skin. The mirrors shattering echoed in Remus's mind now and he couldn't help but see the parallels between Sirius's pain then and the shattering glass of the portrait frame as it hit the far wall.

Remus would have agreed to go through the pain of a thousand full moon transformations just to be guaranteed that Sirius would never cry like that again.

"Why didn't they love me, Remus?" Sirius asked, choking on his tears. "At least Regulus? He - he did once... long ago."

"I don't know anyone could know you and not love you," Remus said.

"I - I didn't even d-do anything," Sirius cried, hearing but hardly comprehending the words Remus was saying in return. "I just - I was just myself, I was only - I was just myself and I - I tried, I tried so hard to - to be what they - wanted -I tried..."

"I know, I know you did," Remus said, rocking Sirius gently. "I know you tried so hard." And he had, Sirius had tried so hard. All the time that Remus had yearned after Sirius and Sirius had stayed ten steps back, all that time that Sirius had denied himself, his desires, his love... all in the name of being what the Noble House of Black had expected of him, even if it had been only in his subconscious. Remus knew Sirius had tried. And the times Sirius had tried with Regulus... He could still the crestfallen look on Sirius's face, standing in the hospital room, when Regulus was found alive after months of letting Sirius believe him dead.

That rage bubbled in Remus's veins.

"I didn't want the money or the titles or any of the things they promised me when I was the heir," Sirius's voice shivered as jaggedy as the broken glass that lay on the floor beneath the frame across the room. "I just wanted - I only ever wanted to be - to be loved."

"I love you," Remus said firmly, "And James loves you. And Lily... and Dora... and Tonks loves you... God that child loves you so much. You're a bleedin' hero to her, aren't you?"

"I suppose I'm sort of her Uncle Alphard," murmured Sirius.

"Uncle Alphard?" Remus asked.

Sirius drew back from Remus, his head laying across Remus's thigh. The expression on Sirius's face was one that Remus could just tell a long story was coming, so he slid awkwardly the rest of the way down to the floor from the crouch he'd been kneeling in before. Sirius lay across Remus's lap, staring up at him, hair pooling on the floor. "My Uncle Alphard... he was brilliant. He didn't come 'round very often, but when he did... he really shook things up at Number 12 when he did. Mother and Father hated him and, back then, I never knew why. I just remember they said he squandered the inheritance he supposedly stole from my Mother."

"He stole an inheritance?"

"Yes, that bastard was born and being the eldest male made him the heir over her because that's apparently how heir-ship works."

"Ohh. Right." Remus nodded. "Yes, that would be how... traditionally, at least... things like that works." He frowned.

"Well, they hated him for that... but also because he was... different."

"Different?"

"Gay."

"Ah." Remus smirked, then, playfully, "So that's where you caught it from."

"Yes, terrible contagious, gay is."

Remus stroked Sirius's hair. "Is that why you suppressed yourself for so long?"

Sirius drew a deep breath, "Yes I believe so." He stared up at Remus's chin, at the whispers of facial hair that were growing in the days since Remus had stood in the bathroom shaving. Sirius liked watching Remus shave, liked watching the hairs grow back in the places they'd been cut from, and loved to run his nose across the rough patches and feel the scratchiness against his own skin. Remus's hair had always been something that Sirius had loved - back in fourth year, he could remember staring at the way the curls fell across Remus's forehead, and the way he tossed his head from time to time when they'd grown a bit longer than he preferred, and the mop of curls fell over when he stared down at his parchments as he wrote... Sirius had loved those curls always. And he reckoned that Uncle Alphard had probably once loved other person's curls. Or some other small piece of his lover's being that he couldn't get out of his mind. And for that - for loving the curls on the forehead of a boy - Orion and Walburga had hated him. For that, they hated their own son. For that, a great deal of people hated him.

Hated him for loving.

Sirius leaned up and he ran his hand over those curls now, though they were shorter, closer to where Remus preferred they rested than they'd been back in fourth year with all the tossing had been done. Sirius stared into Remus's eyes.

"I love you," Remus told him firmly, "And I hate that they did not love you. But you are loved now. And you are safe now. I will not let anyone hurt you. No one will use that cruciatus curse on you again. I will see to it. And if they do, it is because they've done it after my last breath has left my body or else the moment before the last breath will lose theirs." Remus stared into Sirius's eyes, "I swear that to you as solemnly as I gave you my vows, Sirius."

And Sirius believed him.

Maybe it is telling that neither of them thought there was anything more painful than the cruciatus curse - even then.

Sirius ran his hand over his face, swiping away the stains of tear tracks that lined his cheeks. "All of this... all of this because that sodcake dared to tell me not to trust Peter." Sirius shook his head.

Remus paused.

Sirius saw the pause in his eyes. "What?" he asked.

Remus's voice tread lightly, "I was in Peter's room just now... well, before. When you went to play your records with Tonks. She'd said that Peter and Oni asked her to guard something in there... Silly, I know, probably just a thing to distract her mind... but I was curious. So..."

"And?" Sirius pressed.

Remus opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted by the sound of Lily's voice, frantic, "SIRIUS? SIRIUS WHAT'S WRONG?"

Her cal was quickly followed by James's, "Oi Padfoot!"

"Oh shit," Sirius said, rising himself up from the floor in a fluid motion, "Lilith felt all that emotion, blast! She oughtn't be panicking in her condition, I -" and he rushed out to meet her partway.

It took Remus a moment to get up, clutching desperately onto the night stand. He noticed the watch laying there, glowing. He tilted his head, confused. Was the glow broken? He remembered picking it up from the floor.

Speaking of broken...

Remus looked over at the frame on the floor. The wood was broke, bent at an odd angle, and he walked over and bent to pick it up, glass rained onto the carpet and when he turned it over it was to see that the way the frame had hit the wall, the glass had shattered in big bits and one particularly jaggedy edged shard had speared through the portrait so that the image of Regulus Black was broken in two. The portrait was not moving, but still, exactly as Remus had drawn it, without a bit of life in the eyes.

"No," Remus whispered, horrified. "Oh no.  Please no." He brushed the glass away and gingerly slid the pieces of the portrait out of the frame, letting the broken frame fall to the floor again and he turned to the bed, laying the two pieces down, hand shaking, and smoothed the sheet out, pushing the two bits together. "Hello? Hello? Regulus?"

The portrait pieces didn't move.

He turned the pieces over, heart pounding, and quickly drew his wand, spellotaping the back, and turned it back upright.  He felt a bit like a telly show James had watched once where a muggle doctor was trying desperately to resuscitate a patient. Remus poked and prodded the parchment, begging under his breath,  but it was no use.

The portrait wasn't waking up.

But it didn't usually on command, did it?

Surely a tear wouldn't remove the magic, would it?

Perhaps there was magic he could do to refresh it?
He didn't know how he'd done it the first time, though, much less how to do it again.

"Rey?" James was in the door way, a look of concern on his face. "Alright?"

Remus shook his head and motioned for James to come in the room and close the door behind him. James glanced back down the hall - the sound of Sirius and Lily talking loudly, in heated tones wafted in behind him. Clearly, Sirius must have told Lily about Peter and Oni leaving Tonks at the flat alone. James dodged into the room and closed the door quietly. "What's on, Moony?" he asked.

Remus waved his palm over the portrait.

James stepped up and looked it over. "What happened?" he asked, looking up at Remus.

"Sirius had a fight with him and he threw the frame..." Remus whispered, "He's going to lose it if we can't fix it."

James leaned closer. "Think a reparo,...?"

"I dunno."

"You know who would, odd as it sounds, but I'll bet Mr. Filch at Hogwarts would know how to fix it. He does all the restorations at the school."

Remus looked up, "YES! Filch! But how the hell do I get it to Filch without Sirius knowing it was torn?"

"I'll bring it tomorrow. I'm refereeing Gryffindor-Ravenclaw, I can go early and take it to him."

"And if he notices it gone?"

"You're on your own there."

Remus sighed.

James gently picked up the two pieces and looked it over. "It really is a brilliant likeness, Rey."

Remus shrugged, "I don't know. It never quite seems right to me." He didn't say it, but he thought the eyes were just a wee bit too engaging and friendly for Regulus's personality.

James shook his head, "It's very good. Stuff like this is why you're the artist amongst us lads." He looked at Remus, "I hope I'll have a chance to talk with him when we've got the portrait restored."

Remus flushed and looked down.

James carefully tucked the portrait pieces into his jumper pocket. "So what happened? What is he mad at Peter for today?"

"Tonks showed up today and Peter left with Oni, and they told her to guard the flat and went who knows where. They told her to lie to us and tell us she didn't see them and not to let anyone in Peter's room, that she was guarding something very important."

James raised a brow.

"What's in his room?"

Remus reached into his pocket, "Well..."

James took the book and read the title, looked up at Remus, who nodded back at James's shocked expression. "That's disturbing. Why would anyone want to read Grindelwald's muggle murder manifesto?" Even as he asked it, though, he tipped the cover opened and started flipping pages with a look of disgust upon his face.

Remus shook his head. "I didn't even read it when we studied him in History."

James was staring at a page where his eyes had caught the name Albus, and he was skimming a paragraph that seemed to be accusing Dumbledore of having helped form many of the ideologies in the book, saying. James murmured, "Hm."

Remus reached over and took the book back, uncomfortable with James reading too much of it, really, and closed the cover. The boys looked at each other, and Remus finally said, "Regulus's Portrait said something about not trusting Peter and that's what set Sirius off."

"Sirius was set off by somebody talking bad about Peter?" James had to hold back the laugh. "Sirius??"

Remus said, "I know, usually he's first line on being a bit of a bully toward Peter. Especially after he left Tonks here alone. I don't know what turned it so fast - he was literally shaking with anger at Wormtail when he left the living room and I came to tell him about this," he shook the book, "Nervous that I was adding gasoline to a fire, and instead I overhear his argument defending Peter to the portrait." Remus paused. "He - there was a lot said - he broke down a bit and we were talking about his family when you lot came. So I haven't shown him the book yet."

James sighed, "We'd better do it, and Lily, too."

"I mean what do we do? Should we even do anything?"

"We should ask him what's on, I guess."

"Do you think there's any connection between this and what he said to Tonks? I mean, it was on his desk, he must've been reading it recently at least."

"I dunno," James shrugged. "But Peter's one of our best mates, and I'm sure there's a perfectly normal explanation for that book, and maybe not a good explanation for leaving Tonks here alone other than perhaps a bit of stupidity... We know he has a crush on Oni Lamm, he might've just got overexcited at her wanting to go some place with him and fallen out of his right mind. I dunno, I'm making excuses, but let's give Pete the benefit of the doubt unless we have hard evidence that something nefarious is on. He's never --" James paused, he'd been about to say he'd never done anything underhanded before, but he rememberer the ordeal with the watch, and the unbreakable vow and all the sneaking about for that whole summer. James absently ran his hand over the watch on his wrist and he muttered, "He's one of our best mates," again.

Remus nodded.

"C'mon, lets go talk with Sirius and Evans about it. This sounds like a matter that ought to be discussed by the whole family."

"Alright," Remus agreed, and he followed James to the door, then paused, looked back, and waved his wand so the glass and broken bits of the frame were swept up in a small cyclone that glittered with the light catching the shards. They spun across the room and fell unceremoniously into a dust bin before Remus tucked the thick volume under his arm and closed the door behind him.