Title: the moon and the stars
Challenge/Prompt: Written for the Big/Lis' Sis Team Prompt Competition, hosted by Allie (dimitrisgirl18), to the Big Sis prompts of pairing: Wolfstar; word: believe; time: just before dawn; actions: holding hands; plot device: an unexpected visitor.
Rating: K
Word Count: About 1000 words
Characters/Pairings: Sirius Black&Remus Lupin (more platonic and friendship-based than romantic)
Disclaimer: This work of fiction is in no way connected to the author of Harry Potter, JK Rowling. Harry Potter is owned by her, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Warning(s): Unbetaed, probably miserably American-esque, lack of slurs against Houses or blood statuses, little to no dialogue, weirdly portrayed!Sirius, cheesiness, and all-around shittiness (im so sorry). Sirius seems, mentally, about 30 years old with a family and a pension. I cannot apologize enough.
it was midnight when you first thought
that you were missing something
big, that marked the skies
and joined the constellations, above
You met when you were young.
Both riding along on the Express to Hogwarts, ruddy cheeked and virtually shaking in your dragonhide boots. You hid your nervousness behind a bravado of brashness and slight churlishness. You weren't especially comfortable with letting down your barriers – they'd always been virtually required of you in a den of snakes, for they'd taught you from the day you'd been conceived that anyone would take advantage of you, if only you gave them the incentive to do so.
But he was quiet and thin, face wan and pale against the stark black of his robes. You could hear your mother's voice droning in your ears about being especially careful of new clothing, to sit quietly and still lest you wrinkle what would be a considerable amount of Galleons for anyone else, but was little more than pocket change for the Black family.
You dropped in the seat beside him, James' voice loud in your ears as he excitedly expounded on the greatness of Gryffindor House – you could agree, if only because of that feeling of notslytherinnotslytherinnotslytherin that seemed to twist your very insides and cause the smile that brightened your face so much prior to darken at its hinges. He was twisting his cuffs in his hands, seeming oddly small despite your own short stature.
"So," you start, searching for some topic of conversation to speak about instead of staying silent. It always seemed much easier to talk the talk, rather than walk the walk. You wondered, briefly, how Reg had even managed to strike up and maintain a steady stream of dialogue with Barty Crouch, Jr., that one day, months previous.
When he finally spoke back, you felt some mysterious feeling well up in you, and knew you wanted him as a friend, for some reason. It was like he was the sun, and you were a planet caught in his orbit. You were the moon, and he the Earth. It was unlike anything else you'd ever felt before, and you, all at once, wished to keep this feeling with yourself, always.
When Snape finally spoke up at the other end of the car, you felt an anger take hold of you the likes you'd never really known you could feel. You could feel your cheeks burning a blotchy red, and a pain tightening your chest as you lashed at the other boy, much paler and skinnier than even your new friend with his flat, dark hair, and the greyed circles beneath his eyes.
When you glanced back at newfriend, his chestnut hair shielded his eyes from your view, but you could feel the weight of that stare nevertheless. He was slightly disapproving of your approach to the situation, and you felt sickly at that. As if you had failed some sort of test you'd no idea you were a part of, and wished to take it back, all the same.
You just hope that, with that bridge burned, you hadn't halted the construction of another in your mind's eye.
You'd immediately collapsed at the table, tie newly Transfigured to match the sea of redandbronze that you were now a part of. You couldn't believe what you'd done, and didn't know whether you actually regretted what had occurred, or if you were just in shock.
Seconds soon passed into minutes, and suddenly you weren't alone, anymore. Because he was right there, a small smile painted on his face, and you felt an eagerness to start up the new year with a bang strike you with the force of a Blasting curse.
And though it was usually as if you always make mistakes, perhaps this wasn't one of the many?
Your mother had dutifully sent you a Howler the next day, her voice lashing out at him from beyond the confines of a red envelope that floated steadily above your head, to your dismay. It was humiliating – the eyes of the many on your person – and you felt as if you would cry, right then and there, in the Great Hall.
Instead, you concentrated on appearing as boring and unimpressed with her actions as possible, spoon scraping the bottom of your bowl of porridge, and did little in part to cover up your yawn. You could feel the warmth of his body next to you, nearly hot enough to be feverish, and felt weighted down in a way you'd never felt before. As if he was actually the moon, really, and you were merely a rock floating within his atmosphere.
He was the gravity that held you down. But you hadn't especially realised it then, as focussed as you were on the many events that were quickly taking shape and enfolding around you in the space of a few years' time.
You aren't especially confused as to how you feel for him. It's as natural as breathing, wishing to be by his side as a confidant, as a friend of forever. He's your complement, in more ways than one: he's soft where you're not; he's pensive where you're abrasive; he's quiet where you're loud; he's light while you're dark. He's your anchor in an ocean filled with unknown possibilities, keeping you steady and still instead of floating about aimlessly, searching for a way to keep yourself occupied.
You do what you wouldn't do with anyone else, otherwise: you snuggle beneath covers of the same bed when you're too tired to move; you hold hands up until dawn, when one of you will make a break for your own bed; you trade whispered words at the dead of night, and laugh at private jokes that James and the others have no way of understanding.
He was an unexpected visitor, at first, but he soon became the usual, and a regime of switching beds every few days soon became an involuntary action that your brain completed without much effort on either of your parts. Your belief is that you was an inevitability; you can't imagine a universe in which he wasn't there for you, and you for him.
So, if someone were to question you as to whether you were having fun – making mistake after mistake, enemy after enemy, annoying your professors senselessly with your pranks and jokes and even projecting an easy laziness about you – you would answer in the positive.
For you always had him to share secretive smiles with, and to match your eagerness with his own.
You'd met when you were young, and would never regret it.
Author's Note:
um so i was gonna write a dance au but couldn't so here is more nonsensical friendship stuff brought to you by team erised ;D
(i aM SO SORRY ALLIE I USED YOUR PROMPTS WEIRDLY DOES ANY OF THIS EVEN COUNT)