Title: Five Years
Disclaimer: I only own second-hand cardigans and Potter boxers –not Rowling's characters or Bowie's song. So don't sue. Dobedoo.
Notes: I don't usually do song fics. I don't even read them that much. And I sure don't know what to think about this one. It's kind of drabbly and snapshot-like... and I kind of like it, when I'm not deleting it.
But Bowie's song just fitted –timeline wise. Andthe lyrics are freakishly good.
Tell me what you think! And I'll think of you fondly forever!
:D jeezuz
Five Years
Pushing through, the market square,
so many mothers sighing,
News had just come over,
we had five years left to cry in,
News guy wept and told us,
earth was really dying
"Come on, Sirius!"
"Depressing meeting with the order, depressing shopping with you! And you won't even let me buy some waffles! You know, it's not like I'm asking you to make me some! Cruel Moony! Cruuuel!"
"Do shut up, Sirius! Buy your waffles then, anything! But just shut up!"
"Hey you didn't take what Dumbledore said seriously did you? He's just exaggerating to keep us on our toes. We're not really that worse off. We're not really losing…"
Remus raises an eyebrow.
"I don't believe him!" urges Sirius. Pressing the striped plastic bag of his newly purchased waffles to his chest. Defiant and broad shouldered.
Remus averts his gaze from him, resembling the frustrated and forlorn mothers that shuffle around them.
Cried so much his face was wet,
then I knew he was not lying.
The bathroom door is only almost closed. Remus can see Sirius bent over the sink in a white t-shirt and checked boxers. The light above the mirror is bright but cold –unforgiving.
Sirius' shoulders shake.
His hair is in his face and his nose squelches as he cries.
"Still don't believe Dumbledore then?" Remus asks softly as he treads into the tiled room. Drawing close to the quivering Sirius and carefully wrapping his arms around him.
"He is lying!" Sirius manages to persist through the annoyed grumbles and gurgles he emits.
"He's not. Dumbledore wouldn't lie. Not about a thing like this. I know it. He was literally tearing up when he told us all the bad news. Deaths, spies… though, mind you… he wasn't as worked up as you are."
Remus tilts his head back, taking hold of Sirius' jaw, and smiles gently into hopeless gray eyes.
Sirius buries his wet nose into the crook of Remus' neck and sniffles himself silent.
"I'm pathetic."
Remus grips him harder. "No your not."
But they both look small and rather pathetic in the mirror Remus glances at.
I heard telephones, opera house, favorite melodies,
I saw boys, toy, electric irons and TVs
My brain hurt like a warehouse,
it had no room to spare,
I had to cram so many things to store,
everything in there.
They pace through the masses. Past shops that sell electronics, past murky alleyways, through the deafening clamour of chatter, music and ringing payphones –heading for the opera house.
As they get closer the people in the streets appear tenser.
Twitchier.
They arrive.
And all the fat-skinny people, and all the tall-short people,
And all the nobody people, and all the somebody people,
I never thought I'd need so many people.
"There's so many people!" Sirius whispers in disbelief. Staring at the sidewalks. They are filled with frantic people that have been evacuated from the opera house.
"No wonder the death eaters hit here!"
"I know! But there was also a load of us here. We had been given a lead and we were supposed to prevent this… I don't see… I don't get… how this could have…"
Both of them stop.
They have walked onwards from the opera house entrance, reaching the outskirts of the shaken muggles who are receiving memory charms and bandages.
They've come to the injured wizards and witches and military-like aurors shouting commands and swerving from one place to another.
Remus feels blindly for Sirius' arm.
Finding and holding it tightly.
A quarter, maybe a half of the wizards, who had been stationed in the opera house tonight, now lie motionless on the pebbled street.
Dead.
Remus can't breathe.
A girl my age went off her head,
hit some tiny children,
If the black hadn't pulled her off,
I think she would have killed them"No! Lucas! No!"
A witch Remus vaguely recognizes as an Order member rushes forwards and halts, gaping at a lost wizard –Lucas.
Behind her a recent stream of muggle spectators whisper, chatter.
They've come to see the tragedy of the blown up opera house. They've probably just heard about it on the news.
They have trespassed on her heartbreak.
"Oh dear." One of them says, staring at the woman and her dead love.
The witch whips around and hurls herself at the people nearest to her.
Mostly teenagers and kids, who have slotted themselves into the front row.
She rips and scratches at them, screaming vicious and foul "OH dear!? This is not "oh dear"! You…"
Sirius pulls himself from Remus' side and seizes her, purposeful but considerate. He pins her arms down,
bringing her to sit in his lap, haphazardly, on the pebbles. Her legs jerk a little in protest and she wails. He holds steady.
The spectators scatter.
A soldier with a broken arm, fixed his stare to the wheels of a Cadillac,
A cop knelt and kissed the feet of a priest, and a queer,
Threw up at the sight of that
"I don't like this."
Remus is slicing a tomato.
Sirius stands by the window, his arm safely tucked into a sling,
staring at the street below. Listening to the cars hum.
"I don't like you getting hurt all the time. It scares me. What if something untreatable happens to you, something no one can fix?
What if you had been on duty the night the opera house was destroyed? Ended up cold and dead on the sidewalk?"
"It's my job, Moony" Sirius replies, his voice strained.
He still stares out of the window.
Remus picks up a cucumber when Sirius suddenly bolts from the room.
Remus can hear retching from the bathroom.
He scampers after Sirius.
"See now, your sick too!" Remus exclaims as he approaches the toilet and a crouched Sirius.
"They can't let you work in this condition!" Remus begins to dab at the corners of Sirius' mouth with loo roll.
"Don't sound so triumph. Skellygrow doesn't go with my stomach, that's all. I'll be back at work by Monday."
Remus frowns.
"And that Order member I just saw being very fucking friendly with a death eater –right under our window– didn't exactly make me feel any better!"
"Sickening little turncoat!" He adds.
Remus worries his lower lip.
"Really? Who was it? Do you think he's the spy? The one Dumbledore is so worried about. The one who's turning in high class information?"
"No, he doesn't know enough, that one."
Sirius motions with his thumb, vaguely.
"Knows nothing about Prongs and Lily for instance… No the spy we really have to worry about is much closer to home. Still good to rat out one."
Remus worries his lip even more.
I think I saw you in an ice-cream parlor,
drinking milk shakes cold and long,
Smiling, waving, and looking so fine,
don't think you knew you were in this song
Remus smiles genuinely as he sees Sirius sitting outside Florian Fortescue's, basking in the sunlight. Greeting Remus with a warm smile and wave.
It is hard to imagine that the previous week has been nothing but unbearable tenseness and turmoil; doors banging, rowing and unsatisfying make-up sex between them.
Everything is mellow and at ease now. A morning of soft breeze and sun after a storm.
"How've you been?" Remus asks as he plonks his shopping on the ground and takes the rickety white seat opposite Sirius under a mint and pink coloured shade.
"Missed you." Sirius utters.
"Haven't heard that in a while."
"That's because I haven't missed you."
"Why thank you"
"But that's because you've been all spiky and sarcastic. Just like now."
"Sorry"
"I've heard well enough of that during the last week." Sirius says, and puts his arms behind his neck. Languid and a little hurtful.
"Sorry"
And it was cold and it rained so I felt like an actor,
And I thought of Ma and wanted to get back there
Then two storms hit. It begins to rain head hurting-ly hard. The pink and green shade proves to be of little use against an actual gale.
Sirius begins to spit out his sentences. Directing questions and demands at Remus as they run for cover.
"Why do you have to be so grumpy and gutless these days? Always nagging and being boring! Always apologizing or shooting dirty looks at me when I have a little bit of fun –joke around!"
They stop sprinting for shelter and stand in the rain glaring at each other.
"Why do youalways have to be funny, and joke around at a time like this? It's like you don't fucking CARE about the war." Remus retorts.
" Don't care about the war? WHO THE FUCK IS RISKING HIS BLOODY NECK ON A DAILY BASIS? While others organize some meagre paperwork about and sit at home cooking!"
Reus' eyes blaze at this.
"Well who –while organizing meagre paperwork– discovered a lot of unauthorized absences during your shifts? Hours left blank. With you nowhere to be found. Who hears you come in hours after your work's ended? But never mentions it. Never asks…"
"What are you insinuating Lupin?"
Sirius voice is a steely, just audible over the spatter of rain.
"Oh, only wondering WHY A SPY WOULD FEEL SO UNCONCERNED DEALING WITH A DEATH EATER UNDER YOUR WINDOW!"
Sirius bares his teeth.
"I could ask you exactly the same thing."
The note of deadly coldness causes Remus to realize that he may have crossed a line that might never be uncrossed.
"Sirius I'm sorry"
Thunder sounds out.
They're the only ones standing in Diagon alley, drenched and desperate.
Sirius meets Remus' pleading gaze with a stony one.
Your face, your race, the way that you talk,
I kiss you, you're beautiful, I want you to walk
Then, suddenly they're lunging towards one another, kissing with a viciousness and roughness that's been present in all their affections for months.
Clasping to each other's sodden clothes.
Mouths slipping and sliding.
Wrenching each other's hair.
Sirius bites down at Remus' lower lip harshly,
causing Remus to whimper and bleed.
We've got five years, stuck on my eyes
Their sitting room bathes in warm, calm light.
Sirius is straddling him on the sofa. But the act is short of a promptness and clarity.
Sirius is forcing Remus' chin up and eyes shut.
With the width of his palm spread unceremoniously along Remus' jaw, Sirius kisses his closed eyes.
"For five years out of Hogwarts –our cradle– to date"
Sirius says before Remus asks.
We've got five years, stuck on my eyes, what a surprise
Sirius hasn't kissed him lightly, sweetly for a considerable amount of time.
We've got five years, stuck on my eyes, my brain hurt a lot
Sirius hasn't kissed him at all since then.
We've got five years, stuck on my eyes, That's all we've got
Five years was all they had.
A week later they split at the seams.
Soon after that Sirius was carted off in a ministry car laughing his head off.
An aged Remus Lupin has his eyes closed. He is resting them –not imagining the outlaw's kisses.
And so he hasn't yet noticed Sirius dancing on the map, which is spread before him, next to the almost graded papers.