A/N: My final piece for Mew and Mor's Weird Pairings Competition. (Or is it Mor and Mew? MewMorMorMew) I just want to say that this was one of my favourite competitions/challeges ever and it opened my eyes to so many things. For example, I AM NOW A POPPY/SIRIUS SHIPPER.
So many thanks and hugs and kisses to the wonderful, the amazing, the spectacular TAMARICHAN, who betaed my 3 pieces for this comp, and who deserves your readership for being so wonderful/amazing/spectacular.
NEW: This is now also my second entry to TamariChan's Cross-Gen Competition! Yay!
And now...on with the fic...
He comes to her in the middle of the night. His skin is clammy and his eyes are haunted and she knows just by looking at him that she cannot help this boy. In his eyes, Poppy can see the hidden shadows of leering monsters, a pain that shows he's still a scared little boy even at eighteen. She cannot cure him.
"Mr. Black?"
"He's one of them."
His hands are shaking. In the moonlight that pours in from the far window, Poppy can see his lip quivering. She doesn't know what to say. She's not sure who or what he's talking about, but what else can she do? It's her job to look after these children.
He's not a child, though, is he? She looks at the man before her and watches as the curve of his shoulders slumps under the weight of the world.
"I'm sorry. I don't know what you're talking about," Poppy says.
He looks at her with a question in his eyes that he can't quite seem to push onto his tongue. She feels suddenly very vulnerable, very open.
"You wouldn't lie to me, would you?" he asks finally, and his voice is a burning ember that singes at her conscience. Would she? She doesn't know.
"I can't promise anything. You know that, Mr. Black."
Sirius drops his gaze, wringing his hands, and sighs.
"Out there. What's like? What's he like? Are we going to die?"
The questions spill from his lips and fall like lead, clattering to the floor. Poppy feels her heart squeeze at the childishness of his voice. She doesn't quite know how to feel, or how to reply. She's been told, of course, of the murders, the merciless masked men and him, the man whose name doesn't dare pass their teeth.
"Sirius," she whispers, taking soft steps closer to his trembling form. "I can't promise you that everything's okay out there. That would be pointless, and a lie at that. But I can tell you that you're not going to die in this war. I promise you. You are strong and you are brave. Those are the two best qualities you could have at a time like this. I don't know anything about You-Know-Who that hasn't already been in the Prophet, and I don't think I want to."
She wonders why she is saying these things, and why she believes them so much. But she does, so she lets her words float through the air and swirl before Sirius' eyes.
Sirius says nothing. He looks at the floor near her feet and she can see that his eyes are brimming with tears and the shaking in his hands is growing worse. She's not sure if it's rage or pain in his eyes, but either way he looks ready to lash out, his jaw clenched and his face reddening.
"Tell me, Sirius," she says, keeping her voice as kind and level as she can. "Why did you come here?"
Sirius stands up a little taller and shakes the hair from his eyes. He balls his hands up into fists and looks Poppy right in the eye. When he speaks, his voice is steadier than she expected, but something about it breaks Poppy's heart. It is the voice of a haunted man.
"You. You always know how to fix things. You always make everything better. Look at Remus, look what you've done for him! I just knew that if- if anyone was going to tell me the truth, it would be you."
For the second time that night, Poppy doesn't know what to say. She swallows thickly and reaches out to steady Sirius' trembling hands.
But he grabs her. And he pulls her close. And he kisses her.
For a brief second, Poppy lets him scorch her tongue with all his Gryffindor fire and draw her heart out through her lips.
(Poppy, no, this is a student!)
And she pushes him away from her and sees that now her own fingers are shaking, her own hands are unsteady and weak.
She looks up just in time to see a flash of black hair and hear the slam of the door.
In the echoes of the bang, in the empty infirmary, Poppy Pomfrey stands on the cold stone floor in her bare feet and a pink nightie and silently hates that part of herself that wishes he'd said goodbye.
After that, his visits become frequent. Every night at midnight, Poppy pulls on her fluffy morning coat, pulls the curtains in the infirmary and waits for five minutes. Sometimes nothing happens and she stumbles to bed and tries to ignore the disappointment in the pit of her stomach.
But most times, Sirius comes.
The first night he comes back, he is red-faced and apologetic. He's here, though. So she tells him he's obviously not sorry enough and kisses him before she changes her mind.
His hands are warm and firm on her waist and Poppy feels safer than she has in a long time.
When she pulls away, gently, and runs her thumb along his cheekbone, she wonders if he's going to cry. She remembers that haunted look and the rushed confession and she thinks he would hurt less if she knew, if she could share in his problems.
"Sirius. What were you talking about the other night?"
And when he says, "It's Regulus. I saw- I've seen the- he's been marked," and avoids her gaze, Poppy searches herself for surprise or shock. She finds none. And she supposes that's worse, because it's her job to look after these kids and she's allowed one to fall into the skeletal palm of a wicked man when she knew he'd probably end up there without her help. She did nothing.
Sirius must see it in her eyes because he whispers, "You mustn't blame yourself. You had other students to care for. He's just stupid, just reckless."
With his long fingers, he traces the webbing of veins across her wrist and they both sit there in the silence, reveling in each other's touch and pretending there is no war.
"You mustn't blame yourself either, young man," she says, sounding more matronly than she means to. But Sirius understands, and he cups her face in his strong hands and says, "I'll try," before he gives her one last kiss.
He stands up swiftly and smiles with strained lips as he leaves.
The slap of his stockinged feet on the old stone is all she hears before the door shuts and she is alone.
She learns soon enough. He leaves before the goodbye so that he'll never have to hear it from her, hear the finality of the words in her voice. He prefers to kiss her softly and leave with the taste of Poppy on his tongue.
And that is exactly what he does.
For the rest of his seventh year, Sirius sneaks to the infirmary in the dead of night and finds his kindly eyed matron with the heart of gold. They curl up on the empty beds and she tells him about her family and he tells her about his friends and they both ignore the guilt and wrongness that is fogging up the air.
It is not long before Poppy realizes that she lives for those nights. In Sirius' arms there is no battle; there is no war; there are no casualties. In Sirius' arms, there is just the two of them, warm, damp skin, and the empty room around them.
It is there, between the crisp, white sheets of a hospital bed, that Poppy Pomfrey falls in love.
She doesn't tell him because she doesn't think she has to. Surely her fervent whispers behind pale curtains are all he needs?
Before the birds begin to sing and the sky begins to lighten, Sirius presses his lips to Poppy's forehead, smiles, and is gone.
She falls asleep inhaling his scent from the cold, clean pillow.
When he leaves school, Poppy's heart breaks and she doubts she'll ever see him again. Sirius is a brave man, just as reckless as the brother that pushed him towards her so many months ago. He will be fighting, she knows, fighting and scheming and risking his life.
Yet, one warm and balmy midnight in the middle of July, she finds Sirius Black at her bedroom door with a bouquet in his hands and a promise written across his face.
He says, "I'll come back as often as I can. I miss you already, you know. It's too dangerous for me to send letters right now, but I promise, I won't leave you. I can't leave you," in a voice that reminds her of crackling fires.
And she believes him.
Even when he tells her edited stories and carefully constructed lies, she knows better than to doubt him. He works for the Order now, she knows that much, and he and his peers are the new wave of defense, the new warriors. Yet somehow, she knows, she still believes, that Sirius will survive.
He is a fighter.
He stays that night, curled up in her single bed so that they can't help but touch from shoulder to elbow to hip to knee. She rests her head in the curve of his neck and trails her hand across the pale skin of chest. He wraps his arms around her and traces circles and secrets into the curve of her back and, when they've said all they can with quiet kisses and nervous caresses, neither of them needs to speak.
They fall asleep soon after, and Poppy dreams of running away.
When she wakes, he is gone.
He comes back when he can, but his visits grow more and more infrequent as the war worsens. By August, Poppy's workload has doubled, even tripled, as Dumbledore pleads with her to tend to the injured Order members. She doesn't need asking twice. She throws herself into her work, mending and fixing and healing and both hoping and fearing each day that she'll find Sirius collapsed on one of her beds.
More often than not, Poppy curls up alone in her own bed and rubs the gooseflesh on her arms until she falls into fitful sleep, hoping against hope that Sirius will come back to her, safe and sound.
For three years, she makes do with rushed visits and hasty kisses. She feels the walls that Sirius slowly builds as they creep up and try to phase her out. It's in their conversations, their interaction; he listens and nods and his eyes search her face for the truth. He volunteers little information, and Poppy tries to be understanding but it hurts.
Every single visit breaks her down a little more, until one day, in late July, she cracks.
"What is it? Why are you doing this?" she asks desperately, and she knows she doesn't have to explain. He knows what he's doing to her.
She can see the suspicion that lingers behind his touch.
"They're coming for James and Lily," says Sirius. Poppy knows it's all he's going to tell her.
She stands up on her tiptoes and presses her lips to the corner of his mouth. Looking into his eyes, Poppy wonders when he lost the scared-little-boy look, when he donned this impartial mask. His eyes are steely and his face is unshaven. He looks so tired and so lost and there is nothing she can do.
"I love you," she whispers, and even though it's the first time she's said it, it's warm and familiar on her lips.
Sirius says nothing, but bends and kisses her roughly.
When she feels him pull away, she keeps her eyes closed and savours that moment, bottles how she feels and stores it away for when the lonely nights return. She breathes slowly and pictures his face, knowing that he's already gone.
On Halloween night, she is in the Three Broomsticks with Minerva when she hears.
"James Potter's son…"
"They were so young!"
"How could a little baby…?"
And when it hits her what they mean, she jumps up without a word and runs back to the castle faster than she's ever moved in her life. She pushes people out of her way with a breathy mumble of sorry and hopes she makes it back to her room before Sirius leaves and does something stupid. The muscles in her thighs are on fire and her lungs are screaming at her to stop. There is a stabbing pain in her chest and Poppy doesn't know if it's from the lack of oxygen or the thought of a broken Sirius.
When she gets there, he is nowhere to be found.
You will survive this war. She hears herself saying it and tries to remember the expression on his face. She tries to look for clues in her eyes, in his touch, but she finds nothing. She remembers the monsters that lurked unseen in his pupils.
Is he a monster, is he a murderer? She's not sure. There were witnesses, Poppy, she tells herself, there were bodies.
As hard as she tries, she cannot fit the murdering madman with her Sirius, her quiet, misunderstood Sirius. She remembers his pranks but they were never malicious, never to harm.
Weren't they?
In her mind's eyes she sees a sallow-skinned boy with fear and loathing in his dark eyes. She remembers feeding him chocolate and telling him it was okay, Remus was locked away on those nights, Remus was harmless.
She remembers Sirius.
It hurts too much, though. It breaks her down, it corrodes her insides and Poppy feels like a shell, an empty husk of what she once was. She feels like an imposter.
So she tends to sickly students. She reads in her spare time. She goes on with her daily life as if nothing has changed.
She does not participate in celebrations.
She forces thoughts of squat little Pettigrew from her mind, that harmless little boy with the dozy gaze and the simple smile. She tries not to imagine his body splattered over the grey pathway, the lone, bodiless finger, the maniac laughter that rang through the air. Or so she's been told.
He laughed, Poppy. He laughed.
And most of all, Poppy Pomfrey tries to forget the man with the sharp cheekbones and the cheeky smile, the glint of mischief in dark eyes, the happy-go-lucky boy who caused her so much grief. She tries to banish the memory of his kiss, his hands, his love. She tries not to picture that same man surrounded by dank, mossy walls, curled up in the corner of his cell and thinking it was worth it.
(She tries not to feel bitter that she never did get her goodbye.)