Title: Broken Lights
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Song: Real by the Goo Goo Dolls
The greatest joy in life is falling in love. The hardest thing to face in life is knowing that love doesn't always last forever.
"Honestly Moony, c'mon!" Sirius Black peers over the paper that Remus Lupin is holding and looks desperate. "Its wonderful out! You can't just hole up in here all day!" Sirius points a hand to the bright spring sunshine that is pouring through the common room windows. He feels the tingle under his skin and the itch to lay in the sunshine, but the paper has his attention in full. He looks at the black and white of the Prophet and worries his lower lip with his teeth. Sirius leans closer trying to read the headline that Remus is so intent on.
"Are they going on about that whole 'dark cult' thing again?" Sirius says almost casually. At the end of their sixth year and almost into their seventh, Sirius has developed something even more cocky in his attitude then he ever had before. He didn't seem to take much of what was going on in the world seriously at all. In fact, Remus hadn't either until he had picked up the paper that morning.
"I don't know Sirius, it says here there's been a murder and they think that this gang is the culprit." Remus sounds a little more than causally worried. Sirius snatches the paper from his hands and gives him a hard look, their faces barely an inch apart. Remus raises an eyebrow, looking at his paper, now crumpled and sad looking in one Padfoot's fingers.
"I was reading that."
"Well now you aren't. You are going to come for a lovely spring walk with me. Or I will steal all of you chocolate and put it on the observatory roof."
"Oh, you are so wonderful at charming someone into going on a walk with you." Remus says sarcastically. He allows himself to be yanked from his chair anyway, already having given in to Sirius' demands before the threat had been issued.
As the two fled out the door the paper fluttered to the well worn floor, and it unrolled, slightly crinkled. It read:
'Death-Eaters': A Threat or a Scandal.
You read the news
Turns you inside out
And everybody feels
The same as you
Uncertain times
The onset rules apply
Caught in the blind spot
Of mirrored love
Maybe its nerves, or maybe its the fact that Sirius Black is pressed against his body and he can feel his breath in his ear, smell the thick wonderful spicy scent of his hair. Remus feels like he might suffocate. Sirius is looking at him in that way that makes every piece of him give in. He is trying to process what is happening.
It had started with a causal conversation on the way to dinner. They had gone out on a walk to look at the little old muggle's theater that was in the town where James lived. James himself had been out with Lily all afternoon since she was visiting him for a few days. As they had been walking, Remus had been talking happily, though nervously, about what they intended to do after their last year at Hogwarts. Sirius had looked at him in a very odd manner. Remus had trailed off mid sentence. Three moments later Sirius had Remus cornered against the old stone wall.
"S-sirius, now is hardly the time for a wrestling match," Remus says uncertainly. There is no one around, and it is already almost dark, the stars twinkling into existence around them. Sirius suddenly looks unsure as well, like he wishes he hadn't made the move at all, but now he is there, Remus unmoving beneath him, looking into golden eyes full of questions.
"I don't know what I'm going to do."
The words are thick, soft spoken, and heavy with emotion. Remus opens his mouth so say something, but Sirius cuts him off.
"I don't know what I'm going to do because I can't...I can't imagine it without you. Without us. And Horgwarts...and the Shack. Remus...I don't think I can." Sirius sounds truly bewildered. Remus understands.
"You don't have to loose any of that. The places may change, but I will always be with you." Remus says it nonchalantly and matter-of-factly. He had always assumed that was how it would be. They would grow up and get jobs and everything, but they didn't have to stop being friend because of that.
Sirius looks at him again. He seems beyond words and Remus feels a little more confused. He doesn't have any idea why Sirius would pin him to a crumbling wall half-way to the Potters' house and then tell him that he was afraid.
And then Sirius kisses him.
Remus has always considered Sirius to be his light. Even when he is at his worst, even when they are at their wits end and want to kill each other; Sirius is always there. He shines like a bright, happy, slightly intrusive light and it reminds Remus that life isn't always full of darkness and hardships and struggling.
As their lips touch and fingers entwine in hair with a fervor that surprises them both, the whole night turns to light around Remus. His drinks it in, and clings to it.
Can you feel
Real like you are?
Can you feel alive?
The way I feel your light
And the biggest chance
That we can take
Is so often wide awake
Hold me now
So we can feel alive
Tonight
The world is going out in a bang. Everything has stopped working and Remus knows it. He is crouched in the darkness as sparks whizz in every direction, making hair singe and people scream in terror. The whole of Hogsmead has turned into a massacre as a large green snakes wraps itself through a skull of smoke in the sky. It had been a perfectly normal school trip, but now Remus couldn't tell up from down. In the cold Autumn air he can smell blood, both his own and not, tint the air. He has his wand out and is shaking so badly he'll be lucky if he can fire at anything if he has too. He chokes on his fear as something loud crashes behind him. People are running in every direction and he has lost everyone.
He looks around a corner, face white and smeared with dirt and ash. Buildings burn brightly in the brisk autumn air, the smoke blotting out the sky like a giant ink spill on fresh parchment. There is a group of strange wizards clad in all black storming though the whole of the fray, yelling curses and causing massive destruction. Remus turns back around and bolts.
Down the alley choking on smoke, out the side and into the field that leads to the shrieking shack, away from the monstrous bunch that are having no qualms with leaving lifeless students all over the ground he runs. He is caught in the fray of those fleeing an wishing upon everything he owns for something to happen. Someone to find him. He has never felt so small.
And then out of the confusion and yelling and blood smell a hand catches his robes, the force almost pulling him right off his feet. He is yanked into an embrace and then he looks up into the blood smeared face of Sirius Black. James and Lily are right behind him and they're yelling instructions to all the students. As Head boy and girl they are doing their best to keep everything together.
"I thought I had lost you!" Sirius bellows over the noise.
"You did you tit!" Remus cries back, but just seeing the other boy has the confusion crashing into some sort of order he can grasp and soon he is shouting orders to the stragglers, his hand never once leaving Sirius'. The world is real and harsh and manageable as long as they have each other. It's always been that way, and it always will be.
I need
To feel you there
I want to know
Where I belong
And I felt the sting
The sting of corrosion
I need a safe place
To close my eyes
The night is cool and comfortable in the little house that Remus stands in, making tea in the kitchen. Its nights like these that remind him that the world wasn't always a giant mess, that just two years ago everyone heard the name 'Death-Eater' and scoffed. Now the mention of the name inspired such fear that mothers didn't let their children play in a room in their very house unattended. He runs a hand through his hair and pulls the teapot up from his cup and goes to fill the second.
As he is thinking, a pair of hands snake around his waist and he snorts.
"You'll make me spill the tea."
"Oh Merlin forbid you spill the tea,"
Sirius, despite all the antics that he now goes through as an Auror, doesn't seem to have matured a day past seventeen. Neither has James, who is now a father. Remus doesn't know what to make of them, and neither does Lily. Instead of replying to Sirius' taunt he just chuckles.
"You know what?" Sirius says, very close to Remus' ear.
"You smell like dog?" Remus offers, mixing cream into Sirius' tea at just the right amount.
"No." Sirius says, he has a smirk in his voice and Remus almost wants to roll his eyes.
"You have solved the mystery as to how we are going to have a garden without Death Eaters burning it down?"
"Still working on that actually." Sirius says thoughtfully.
"What then?"
Sirius kisses Remus' ear and smiles against the soft skin.
"I love you."
Remus feels his face heat up. It happens every time Sirius tells him. He can't help it.
Abandoning the tea on the counter Remus turns in the other man's arms and looks up at him.
"I love you too." He says quietly. He lets Sirius nuzzle him close and kiss his neck, taking comfort in the strong arms and reassuring smells. He had never imagined this was what he would get to come home to every night. A lovely, familiar embrace and the most dizzying amount of happiness he has ever experienced. It's almost as if, despite the fact that the world is falling down around them, they have built there own little bubble of happiness.
"Forever?" Sirius asks suddenly.
"Hm?"
"Will you love me forever?"
"What makes you ask that?" Remus looks up and gives him a questioning look.
"Yes or no, Moony." Sirius says teasingly, but Remus feels something is going unsaid.
"Sirius Black, I will love you until they day I leave this earth, and afterwards." He says finally.
"Forever?"
"Forever."
Can you feel
Real like you are?
Can you feel alive?
The way I feel your light
And the biggest chance
That we can take
Is so often wide awake
Hold me now
So we can feel alive
No matter what happens, no matter what we think, what we believe, nothing ever happens exactly as we think it will, or want it too.
Remus wakes up one morning and Sirius is not beside him. This is not right.
Remus goes downstairs and there is no Sirius up early either.
Remus goes to the window, and in the pre-dawn light there is no horrible motorbike in the driveway. Remus' face goes slightly pale and he looks around for some note. Anything. The rule is to leave a note when leaving the house in these times, so that the other doesn't need to worry about what happened.
There is no note.
Remus sits alone.
The day drags on and there is no owl, no letter, no message, no visitors, and no Sirius. Remus begins to think he needs to go out and find him, and is almost on his last good nerve as the sun starts to set. Through the lavender curtains he see the unmistakable shape of a ministry owl. His insides clench as he undoes the window latch.
Oh, we were so lost
And there was so much more
Than you could bear
And I was cold in my defeat
You're alone and incomplete
When the sound
Could break down the walls
The great brown barn owl juts it's foot out to Remus, where there is a piece of parchment neatly tied to its leg. He unfold it slowly, his lower lip trembling as he scans the sheet. The further he gets, the more he shakes. He doesn't ever finish the note, letting out an agonized cry and wilting against the window sill, the bird seems almost heartless as it leaps back out the window and takes of.
Remus clutches the paper and lets out a cry that echoes through the empty house.
"N-no...no...no!" He cries out, voice strangled. "NO!" He rocks backwards and kicks a chair, sending it toppling to the ground. He runs to the other window, stares at the sky. "Sirius-No-" he looks, begging the darkening sky to spit out the great nasty motor bike. He swears he will never complain about it again. He swears. The sky just continues to grow darker silently, as if the very light is leaving Remus' life.
He slips to the floor and let the parchment slip out of his hand as he dissolves into sobs that make him shake against the wall.
The Parchment flutters to the floor beside him, it reads:
Mr. Remus Lupin, It is our greatest displeasure to inform you that last night James and Lily Potter both were killed in an attack at their home by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. This was the direct result of Sirius Back, who has been confirmed a Death-Eater and supporter of the dark lord. He was arrested this morning after the murder of Peter Pettigrew. Our deepest condolences, MoM
"Forever..."
the biggest Joy in life is falling in love. The hardest to face in life is that love doesn't always last forever. Can you feel
Real like you are?
Can you feel alive
The way I feel your light
And the biggest chance
That we can take
Is so often wide awake
Hold me now
So we can feel alive
So I can feel alive
Tonight