And in this Pit of Hell, we See.
By Heaven's Flying Fish
Summary: 'Just take her back to her dormitory.' Simple? Ah, but nothing is simple with Sirius Black. Lily and Sirius bare all in the darkest pit of Hell they could find. (Lily/James. Sirius. On his own.)
A/N: This is my entry into LJ communityRed and the Wolf's most recent challenge, 'Tales of Dogs and Scoundrels'.
The prompts I borrowed were Down and I never would have pegged you/ For what you have become/ Everyone lies/ Everyone cheats/ Not like you've done – Dog New Tricks, Garbage.
And in this Pit of Hell, we See.
"She's still talking to Mary Macdonald."
James sighed, kicked his toe against the wall, and turned a pleading look on his best mate. "Come on, Sirius, just this once –"
"No."
"– can you wait for her?"
Sirius glared at James. "She's your bloody problem."
"She's not my "problem", she's my girlfriend –"
Sirius muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'Same difference' but James ignored him.
" –and I need to get to practice."
"Yeah, well, maybe I've got something to do as well."
James levelled Sirius with a Look. "You've been standing here with me for the last ten minutes, Sirius. If you've had something else to do ..." His voice was blank of expression as it lingered in its suggestion, but soon irritation welled into his tone. "Look. You've been standing here ten minutes – what's another three?"
"Precisely," said Sirius. "Wait for her your bloody self. Besides, why're you waiting for her anyway? You're just going to bugger off to Quidditch and leave her here with –"
"Sorry, James, Sirius – I didn't mean to take so long. It's just Mary had some things to –"
"Right. Let's go, already," Sirius grunted, making off down the corridor.
James looked apologetically at Lily and gave her a 'what-can-you-do?' sort of look. Lily furrowed her brow, but followed after him.
Once they caught up with Sirius, James checked his watch and swore. "I really have to fly – Sirius, take Lily back to her dormitory, please, mate?" And James was running, gangly-limbed, down to the Quidditch pitch, ripping his tie off and swearing as he went.
Sirius stared after his flailing form until the last awkward elbow disappeared from sight. Scowling, he sighed. "Come on, then," he grumbled.
Lily's face was slowly changing colour – from white to pink to red – and by the time it reached her Angry shade, she had to run to catch up with Sirius as he rounded the corner to head up the stairs.
But when she turned the corner, Sirius was gone. A shrill and angry cry of frustration ripped from her throat, and she stamped her foot on the cold flagstone floor. Hands on hips, she spun around in a circle, trying to figure out where her delinquent chaperone had gotten to.
Next to the staircase, there was a tapestry. A little corner of the tapestry was tangled up on the edge of the stone. The stone which formed a wall of a secret passage way. Lily grinned smugly.
"Nice work, Black," she muttered, stalking purposefully towards the tapestry.
She wrenched it aside, peering into the darkness for her boyfriend's best friend. "Sirius!" she hissed, and her voice carried on echoes to the end of the nothingness. "You get back here right now, or I'll –"
Lily's sentence cut short as she took three steps forward and almost toppled into a bottomless pit.
She screamed, hands flying out to clutch at the walls as she teetered over the edge, small stones skittering down the sides of the well. Her cry echoed, echoed, echoed, around the tunnel and down the endless chasm as her green eyes widely took in what could have been her death.
Lily shook as she scuttled away from the hole, her trembling body supported only by the stones surrounding her, and not her usual concrete structure on the inside.
She screamed again as Sirius appeared in the rectangle of light where the tapestry had been hanging. He chuckled, looking down into the cavity which opened, void-like, ready to swallow Lily whole. "Mind your step," he said softly.
Lily was still shaking as she straightened, gripping death-like to the rough sandstone. A mixture of horror, shock and revulsion marred her pretty features as she managed to stand up. She leaned hard against the wall, her breath coming in short little gasps and deep rasping wheezes.
Her mouth too weak to form words, she simply stared, aghast, at Sirius Black.
He sniffed, folded his arms across his chest, raised an eyebrow, leaned against the opposite wall, and stared, nonchalant, back.
"What?" he eventually said, after minutes had passed unbroken but for the sound of Lily's stricken breathing.
Still, she said nothing. Instead she launched herself forward and grabbed his hand. His eyes widened, minimally. Admittedly, this wasn't what he was expecting.
She raised his hand, and, without looking him in the eye, yanked it forward and crushed it to her chest. His eyes widened, as far as they could go.
This, most certainly, was not what he was expecting.
Looking slightly thrown, yet all the more stoic as minutes passed, Sirius quirked his eyebrows, as he tried to work out precisely what it was she was getting at.
Time ticked on, as did Lily's heart which was doing a rapid swing dance with her ribcage beneath his fingers.
Ah, he thought.This is what she's getting at. His other, forgotten, hand brushed his tousled hair out of his eyes.
He chose to ignore her point, and instead smiled in a 'could-be-charming, is-definitely-sleazy' way.
"Evans, darling, you could have just asked," he murmured, a small smirk curving his lips.
Briefly.
And then his skull was cracked to the side as Lily's other, forgotten, hand swung full force into the side of his face in a stinging, open-palmed slap.
And then she released him, flung him off her, sank back against the wall and cried.
Sirius stared down at her shivering on the floor. He opened his mouth and winced as his jaw crackled. He touched his cheekbone – what a wallop, but not a mark. His face twitched briefly with remorse - whoops - flickered fleetingly with worry – he hated seeing girls cry – but it quickly turned permanently to stony annoyance.
"Get up," he muttered.
"Go away," she returned.
Sirius rolled his eyes.
He leaned down and grabbed her arm, hoisting her to her feet. Her body broke with sobs as she flailed in his grasp, in between her tears wailing, "Let me go! Let me go …"
Finally, Sirius gave up. He put her back on the floor and sat down opposite her, waiting for her emotions to subside.
"Go away," she repeated, in between loud, unstoppable cries.
Sirius sat in silence.
Soon, Lily was sniffing and drying her face on her sleeve as she hiccupped. And soon she was staring down the hole at her feet, her face turned as far as she could go from Sirius's.
More moments passed in silence. The rectangle of light shining down the corridor was not only smaller, but now a completely different shade of light – dusk-light.
Twenty minutes passed.
The only person who passed was a little Gryffindor boy who smiled and waved with awe-struck reverence at Sirius, the only one who he could see, and was promptly rewarded with a blunt and creative way to leave – him – alone.
Lily, slumped across from him laughed a watery, breathy, sarcastic laugh. "And here I thought your bad-tempered attentions were mine, and mine alone."
"Hm." Sirius grunted. "Are you done? Can we go now?" he said, desperate to leave the cramped little tunnel which was just tall enough for him to stand in, but not nearly wide enough for him to sit comfortably in.
He scrabbled around for his bag, and, finding it near the hole, crawled towards it.
As he leant forwards, over the edge of oblivion, Lily shunted him hard in the back of the thigh with her shoe.
Sirius yelled out, overbalanced, and, by the skin of his fingertips, managed to grasp on to the opposite edge, his long body stretched over the five-foot gap.
Panting, he shuffled his ankles to Lily's edge, and walked his hands forward, distributing his weight over his upper body. Slowly, carefully, one foot, one hand, over the other, he turned over as his curses echoed, echoed, echoed, in the black cavern.
Breathing heavily, he bared two neat rows of teeth at his friend's girl. "Mind" – he panted – "your step," he grinned.
Lily was white, biting her fingernails, her lips, grabbing her robes, the floor, her hair, muttering curses and prayers and gibbery non-statements as her eyes, unlike Sirius's, filled with worry and remorse.
Still panting with exertion, Sirius looked over his knees at the panicking girl, and spoke lowly, "Don't have a panic attack, now, Evans. I'm over an empty Pit of Death – I won't be able to hand you a paper bag."
In amongst her shaking and muttering and crying, Lily managed a fiery glare that caused Sirius to laugh.
Slowly, carefully, Sirius turned himself back over, face down into the empty Pit of Death. Putting even more weight on his arms, Sirius let his feet drop with a grunt. Flinging his arms forward, and wincing at Lily's shrieks of 'No! What're you – insane!' Sirius managed to catch himself, and heave himself onto the opposite ledge.
He breathed deeply, then grinned, accomplished. "Nothing to it," he said, egotistic and proud of it.
He could see Lily silhouetted against the distant rectangle of light, and she could see his eyes and teeth gleaming eerily in the darkness. She shuddered, he saw. He preened, she saw.
"What were you THINKING?" Lily shrilled, and she saw his eyes roll, even in the pitch dark.
"What were you thinking, Lily?" he asked. "Honestly, kicking a man when his back is turned, no thought to the fact that he could have lost his life –"
"Oh, don't preach to me, Sirius Black!" Lily Evans yelled. "How dare you try and – try and guilt me, blame me into saying this was all my fault –"
"Is it working?" Sirius questioned, leaning back on his hands.
"You – shut up!" Lily screeched. "You talk after I'm done. Until then – shut. Silence."
Sirius laughed and mockingly saluted her.
She didn't have to see it.
She felt it.
Pink – red – Angry.
Lily's face changed colours quickly and furiously as she launched into a tirade. "All James asked you to do was WALK ME BACK in the SAME DIRECTION as you were heading. But NO! For some TWISTED and UNIMAGINABLE SIRIUS BLACK reason, you decided – 'No, I WON'T walk her back, I'll KILL HER'!"
Sirius yawned and leaned against his side's wall, surreptitiously drawing his wand and silently flicking a 'Muffliato!' at Lily – successfully ensuring that no one else could here their conversation.
Or, rather, her conversation.
Finally, her hands stopped flying about, and Sirius cancelled the spell to her last words.
" – DO YOU HEAR, SIRIUS BLACK?"
"Loud and clear," he muttered.
"Now. I believe we have some issues to sort out." Sirius groaned and stood up. "Don't you dare move," Lily warned.
"Or you'll what?" Sirius laughed. "Stun me? Petrify me? Won't you worry you'll send me careening into that Pit of Death? Or, if I don't fall in, I'll at least crack my head open all over the edge and pretty your robes with a fresh summer watermelon?"
"Shut up," Lily said. Her silhouette brandished her wand.
"Oh, but of course, she draws the wand. You'll get your wish then, Evans. Why don't you Levitate me over the hole and drop me?"
"Shut up."
"Why don't you wave your magic wand and send me crashing into that edge – or this one, rather, so you don't get yourself all sullied?"
"Shut – up!"
"No one would ever know, Lily. As far as they're concerned it'd just be your word that I ran off after James left – and who wouldn't believe perfect darling little Lily Evans? Murder wouldn't even be mentioned with their shining star, their Golden Girl, telling them what they needed - wanted - to hear." Sirius snorted derisively. "No, I'd have run off, or gotten myself killed, or gotten what I deserved. A big favour, really."
"Shut up," Lily whimpered.
"Oh, don't you cry all Victim and Pitiful at me, Lily Evans. Look. I'll even stand on the edge for you. All I'd need was a little push." He kicked a shower of gravel down, echoing, echoing, echoing into the empty Pit of Death.
Lily didn't tell him to shut up.
Lily didn't tell him to step away from the edge.
Lily didn't tell him to go away or leave her alone.
"What do you want me to do, Sirius?" she asked, defeated, lonely, tired and scared.
A second shower of pebbles rained down, and up, and around the walls, as the sound echoed and echoed and echoed.
"What do you want me to do?" she whispered, dropping her wand with a clatter – clatter – clatter on the cold – hard – stones.
The echoes stopped.
The gravel stopped.
Lily, Sirius, the world. Stopped.
"Leave him alone." Sirius growled. "Leave me alone. Go back to Snivellus. Go back to whatever hell you came from to take him from me." Pent up jealousy and rage and hatred, hatred he couldn't, wouldn't, understand. Boiling over, bile, hot festering, old and bitter. "It was all fine when you left him alone, when you left him behind. When you left him with me. When you left his family alone and didn't spend my holidays with my friend. When I didn't spend all of my time waiting for his girlfriend talking to her friends while our lives get on, shorter and shorter."
Lily was silent. Staring at those flashing teeth disappearing behind those dashing, snarling, bitter Black lips.
"…What?" she whispered, and what? what? what? answered her, when he did not. "What do you want of me?"
Another shower of pebbles.
"I don't know," he mumbled, he cried, his hands over his face, his lungs and ribs and stomach and heart all suddenly in his throat. "I don't know anymore," and his tongue was thick – too thick for his mouth – and his eyes were sore – too sore for his head. And then everything was too close, too dark, too intimate and private, and he howled, "GET OUT!" at Lily, and she ran, frightened and overwhelmed, she ran, and ran and ran, as he echoed, echoed, echoed on himself, his own, alone.