Disclaimer: Not mine, everything's JK's.
Always A Puppy Shipper, Never the Puppy in Question
I enter the clearing and the light immediately dims to a moody, petulant grey – the skies are bruised overhead, perse tied down by tendrils of obsidian, and in the distance, lightning flares white against the pitiful emerald of the field. I resist the temptation to roll my eyes, and think classic Padfoot, focusing on the hard stone of anxiety pressing against my spine instead, that which is giving me an unwanted stomachache that I shall have to take out with Sirius later, when his brewing tempests finally break and scatter. I do not need to crane my neck to search the top boughs of our tree to know that he is there, safe in the anonymity of whispering leaves and scratchy bark, the world twenty feet below and away from him. After all, I am the only other person who shares this giant cypress with him, who knows to flee to its waiting arms whenever the world feels just a little bit too dark.
The tree is constructed from my memory, the very first task I undertook when I have first arrived here, with my Bambi – a term of endearment only to be used furtively, for even if I know she secretly revels in the nickname, I do not wish to risk castration, or worse. This world that we live in, here and now in Death, is beyond my understanding, because it is a world barely held together by yearnings and recollections, that gathers my innermost thoughts and transfers them into impossible corporeality. I have been raised religious, inducted into the doctrines of the local parish just beyond Godric's Hollow, by my parents who are perhaps more pureblood in their spiritual rigidity than they would like to admit. I have attended church unfailingly every Sunday that I am home from Hogwarts, and while it is given that my thoughts are always far away and possibly most unholy, the fact remains that I studiously adhered to the rules my parents, and their parents before them, have set down in stone. When Sirius moved in with us in our sixth year, he had been granted honorary membership to our flock, and he had resisted it – but in uncharacteristic silence, borne out of nothing but gratitude and devotion to my parents. Even though I sometimes shared Sirius' most vulgar sentiments, always muttered solely for my benefit, I never thought to rebel, nor to question.
Suffice to say this afterworld, this heaven - if one likes - is nothing like the Divine Hereafter I have been taught as a boy. I won't pretend that I am not perturbed by this turn of events, this exceedingly alarming failure of expectations – there are no pearly gates anywhere I can see, and definitely no furious red of hellfire and slobbering hell dogs, unless, of course, one considers Padfoot's over-zealous displays of excitement. Lily laughs at me and calls me strange, and after I am done reflexively mussing my hair as an instinctive reaction to any form of Lily-induced embarrassment, she kisses me and tells me not to look gift horses in the mouth. That comment alone took me 4 months and 12 days to decipher, because I have never taken Muggle Studies to be able to recognize it as a clichéd adage, and because I am easily confused by all things Muggle, including my charming hurricane of a redhead wife. Luckily I have time and then some at my disposal here in Death, and an assortment of books that would have made both Madam Pince and Moony weep with envy.
The cypress had once stood in the extensive backyard of Godric's Hollow, and it had been our favourite haunt in our youth. If it isn't so geeky, and if Padfoot wouldn't kick me through a wall for even vaguely suggesting that he is a true blue nerd and not the dashing rebel that he imagines himself to be, I might concede that the cypress had been like the secret tree house to the Boy Scouts that we most undeniably were.
I scale the first branches of the tree now, flinging myself upwards on hands and feet. I know Sirius would be high up, because he has an addiction to danger, to the potential of falling, and falling messily. I have always thought this is the reason why he had chosen Remus – quiet, secretive Remus, who is both our best mate and a Marauder, and who is Sirius' only match when it comes to emotional baggage and subterfuge. Together, the both of them are like storms that feed off of each other, terrors of wind and hail, who would consume each other whole, furious and fighting, only to seek hidden hearts of calm, luminous and generous worlds of golden light. But I suppose I shouldn't be one to judge, having decided to want the very woman who had sent me to the hospital wing for a total of 83 times in 7 years, and with a variety of hexes and curses that had gotten progressively more painful and more creative.
Sirius is my brother in everything but name (but maybe even in that, given the lack of inhibitions with which the crazy pure bloods fall into bed together), and I know him better than I do myself. But yet, Remus has a hold on him that I would never wish to dispute. Remus has in his possession a map of doorways and corridors and alcoves, that which leads him straight to Sirius' center, to his carefully concealed gentleness and vulnerabilities. Love may be blind, but Padfoot and I sure as hell aren't – anyone can see how beautiful his Moony and my Bambi are, even when they are passionately furious, even when they burn with the unspeakable weight of their own fears and desires.
He is sprawled on his back on one of the thicker boughs, staring up listlessly at the approaching thunderstorm, his own eyes a thin grey, nearly transparent against the dark of his long hair. I sigh, recognizing the tell-tale imprint of some deep hurt in his eyes; his eyes are always indigo-black when he is angry and evasive and unreasonable – drowning eyes, Remus calls them – pools of ebony one could get swept into and become hopelessly lost. But they are always pale, in hues of washed, regretful grey, when he is truly hurting, when some demon of his own mind holds court in his head. In the twelve years he spent in Azkaban, those eyes have been nearly colorless, dull and faded, and they have broken the very heart of this dead man, every single day.
"Go away, Prongs," he mutters without even turning his head, alerted to my presence by my faint sigh, or the tread of my footfall, or just instinctive knowing.
"No," I reply, just as easily, and climb onto the next branch to sit, so that we are face to scowling face.
He ignores me with great exaggeration, turning on his side so that his back is against me. I allow him his silent tantrum for a few minutes, pushing my heels together and then watching them swing from under me, the meadow below us a minuscule landscape of glittering greens and sage.
"The weather is a little wet, ain't it?" I call out conversationally, opening my palm to catch the first raindrop.
My words get the reaction I knew they would, as he snaps his head around to glare black fire at me, his jaw tense and furious.
"Fuck off, Prongs," he grits, and when I shake my head calmly, not in the least perturbed, he slams a wrist over his eyes, and thunder claps ominously in the distance.
"You know, I think we probably shouldn't abuse our weather privileges like this," I comment after another few minutes, pushing my now soaking wet hair away from my face, and watch as rivulets of water run down Sirius' cheeks, looking very much like the tears I know he hates to shed. I badly want to crawl deeper into the cypress, to hide beneath its crown of branches and leaves, better protected from this storm that we are now caught in. But I cannot, or would not, because I know Sirius would never budge, and I would only move when he does.
I wait in silence, and he ignores me studiously, and my thoughts have drifted to what Lils and I agree is Harry's soon-to-be inevitable proposal to his red haired Weasley when he finally speaks, his words forming a demand more than a sentence.
"Did you know he's been having tea with him?"
"Who?" I am careful not to look at him, pretending to gaze skywards instead and am rewarded with fat rain bullets hitting the frame of my glasses.
"You know who!"
I remove my glasses and dry them against my shirt, and reply, incredulously, "Remus is having tea with Voldermort?"
Even with my hazy vision, I can tell that Sirius has sprung up into a sitting position, and is glowering at me with enough fury to kill. Apparently his sense of humor is off when the puppies get into a fight.
"Remus is having tea with my brother. My brother."
He spells his words for me, drawing each syllable out through his teeth, his canines drawn back against his lips and looking every bit like fangs. I frown at his human likeliness of Padfoot, and make a point to tell him this later, when he is less likely to shove me off the branch.
"And that bothers you? That Moony is having tea with Regulus and didn't tell you?"
"Yes!"
I stare him down, and then he flushes, just a quick turn into lightest scarlet, and remedies, "Yes-No. Hell, I don't know!"
He looks away to give himself a few minutes' head start to flee from my prying, and so we are once again silent, and I am waiting for the next outburst to break the tense quiet.
"Did you know? About Reg?"
His question is abrupt, plucked out from this humming, electric air, but I have long been anticipating it. And I do not know if he realizes it, but he had used his nickname for Regulus, which I would freely admit I had not seen coming.
He is impatient with my deliberation, and as though to punctuate the force of his frustration, a stray bolt of lightning hits the ground near our tree, as the rain hammers down with even greater fury. I jump at the crack of white light, and he does not even have the grace to look embarrassed.
"Fuck, Sirius," I growl, "we may be dead and all, but I don't relish being struck by lightning, you know. My hair sure as hell does not need any more imperative to stand on end!"
"The weather is feeding off of my emotions – go blame the brilliant person who decided that heaven should give us precisely what we want!"
"Then calm down, for God's sake," I mutter, reaching forward to begin pulling on his arm, "and please get into the shade before we both drown!"
When we are under the vast canopy of the embracing cypress, he shakes his hair out, pelting me with wet droplets, and I sigh, resigning myself to wringing the water from my trousers.
"Did you know?"
He is done with his doglike behavior, and his rakish hair hangs messily around his face, looking unfairly like it had been deliberately styled. There is no justice in the world, and afterworld, I decide, pushing my own wet mop out of my eyes.
"Yes," I finally reply, knowing he is no longer referring to the secret of Regulus being Moony's tea buddy. "Yes, I knew," I repeat, looking him dead in the eyes.
"Great, am I the only person who doesn't know then?"
His tone is petulant, but razor sharp, and I wince, because he is in that mood.
"I was watching him in that cave," I informed Sirius, and he flinches at the mention of Voldermort's inferi-infested cavern, and looks away.
"I could not have told you then, could I? I was dead, and you were in Azkaban – what was I to do? Possess a Dementor and talk to you?"
He snickers, a low sound, and I am momentarily relieved, and take it as encouragement to plunge on.
"And you weren't watching when Harry and Remus found the truth out – it was the period with Tonks, and Teddy, and you were hurting and evasive, and going everywhere in Padfoot's skin."
"So it is my fault then?" he mutters.
"No, you berk," I reply, exasperated, "it was difficult to watch. I know how hard it is to look on from Death, and be so damn helpless."
He fixes me with an unblinking stare, and I can hear his yeah, right in his arched eyebrow.
"I was with you in Azkaban, for hours, every single day, over twelve years."
A dead silence follow my declaration, and I force myself not to cringe, because I had never meant to tell him this.
"Voyeur much, James?"
He snorts lightly under his breath, and I am glad for his show of disdain, because it saves the both of us from the certain embarrassment of sentiment. We are quiet for the next few minutes, but he lies back down again, the top of his head just pushing against my knee, and I shove back lightly, and we are content.
"I never felt you though."
He has his eyes conveniently closed now, that sneaky bastard, so that he does not have to wade through this emotional landmine seeing and uncomfortable. I am tempted not to answer, because his words bring me back to that small prison in Azkaban, and I am once again on my immaterial knees, trying desperately to protect him when I already know he no longer feels me.
"I am not surprised," I finally say, "you always were bollocks at divination."
His eyes fly open, and they are that pale bite of impossible smoke-grey that scares me, and I wonder briefly if he knows that color is also referred to as Magic Moon in a painter's palette. It is amazing the things one can learn when they are least looking for it. I know the invisible difference between hues and shades, and I can name them for every degree that they vary under the cast of light, and I know all these because my mother used to paint, in true pureblood, ladylike recreation of choice. He would be tickled to know even his hurting eyes are in some way related to Moony, and then I am willing to bet ten galleons that he will regale me with drawn out and theatrical litanies of how his Moony is meant, destined, divinely willed for him. So I hold my tongue, and file this information away for another day, when I am bored and need his dependable dramatics for amusement.
His eyes look at me in silent askance, and I nod briefly, letting him know that we are okay even if we don't talk about this. Then he grins, without hesitation and in complete trust of my judgment, and in that snooty manner I know best, informs me that please, he has always kicked my ass when it comes to Divination grades.
"I have you know it is highly possible to get killed by a trampling hippogriff," I huffed, absolutely certain that the smug git is referring to my Acceptable in third year, as compared to his Outstanding.
"A week after falling off a broom and breaking your neck in two pieces? Geez, Prongs, you haven't got any understanding of the craft of balancing lies to make them more believable, have you?"
"Oh, Jedi Master of Bullshit," I breathed mockingly, raising my left hand in a two fingered salute, and rolling my eyes at him as he retorts with a well-chosen finger of his own.
"You are not angry at Moony."
It is not a question that I ask, but a statement. His eyes roll upwards as he looks at me upside-down from his lounging position, all earlier mirth muted now.
"How long are you going to avoid him?"
He does not pretend to misunderstand that I am referring to Moony, and his I don't know is a whisper, terror and regret and shame in every pause between the solitary words.
"I failed him, Prongs."
His confession is so quiet that it is almost stolen by the snatching wind, and it leaves a pocket of silence in its wake, the rain subsiding into a slow drumming as his anger cedes to an emotion more invasive.
I do not hasten to assure him that he did not fail Regulus – my words would not matter, and they would be selfish, the fumbling attempts of an adopted brother desperate for some activity to end the hurt of the one he loves, even if it is more for his own benefit than for the latter. And confessions, after all, do have a cauterizing effect, regardless of how much they cut and tear when they are first given voice.
"I just left him to my parents. Hell, I did not even have the grace to hope that he might have died fighting Voldermort, just assumed he died like a scared dog at Bellatrix's hands." A bitter laugh, like a racking cough, and I clench my fists.
"If anything," he continues, viciously, "I am the one who fell like a stray before Bellatrix."
"You died protecting your godson, my son," I interrupt, my eyes hurting from the sudden surge of unwanted moisture, "don't you dare take that away from yourself."
"I was so busy fighting my own surname that I ended up fighting Reg," he murmurs, a note of wonder in his tone, an echoing disbelief.
"And Moony must know now, he must."
The dry sob that he had been suppressing creeps into this last line, and I know his anxiety, his shame, both cringing in the face of love.
"Moony loves you, you git, and you don't see yourself the way he sees you, the way we see you, or you will know he probably loves you even more now."
He laughs, a choking whimper, and I pull his hands away from his face, forcing him to look at me.
"If he despises you now, he would not have come to me, rambling and anxious and restless, giving you this space to hurt and rage that he knows you need, even if it must be hurting him to not know if you're alright, if you are no longer upset with him."
A long pause, and then the rain is quieter, and I can imagine I can see fingers of golden light weaving in between the bruised indigo clouds.
"How long are you going to hide in this tree from Regulus, Padfoot?"
He groans, but manages a weak chuckle, and offers a feeble I don't know in return.
"You didn't fail him, Padfoot," I say quietly, loud enough for his ears only.
"A brother who failed Regulus would not have visited Grimmauld Place that December night, in biker boots and mismatched pajamas, throwing stones at Reg's window to talk to him. A bad brother would not have begged with him to leave the Death Eaters, instead of turning him in after recognizing him in the fight earlier that day. A bad brother would not have been able to recognize Regulus from behind that mask, and from his movements and dueling stance alone."
I suck in a breath, and he takes that pause to stare at me incredulously, smartly informing me that I need to get a hold of my stalking tendencies. I ignore him, because I notice a glint of brown just below us, a shade of sticky, worried caramel, as those eyes searched the branches.
"Even if you don't believe my sagacity, it does not matter – right things now, at least, Padfoot, because now, we actually can."
He looks up at me, alerted to some change in my tone of finality. I climb to my feet and stretch, and nudge him with my foot briefly.
"But you had better believe me when I say this, or I'll hex you into next week. You are the best brother I could ever have had, and would ever need. Regulus is a lucky berk to share your blood."
I begin my climb down, just vaunting over the next branch when he leans over and yells.
"Oi, Prongs! You can't leave me on this girly note! At least try to sock me or something!"
I laugh, noticing that the rain had finally stopped, and wave a free hand at him lazily.
"Not now, Pads. Someone is waiting for you."
I hear him gulp as he follows my line of vision, his fingers scraping awkwardly against the branch as he scrambles upright on his hands and knees.
I leap off the last few branches five minutes later, and am greeted by Remus, his eyes questioning. I merely grin, and point him vaguely upwards, and lope off. I do not need to turn to know that Moony had climbed up that tree, even while Sirius is scrabbling downwards to meet him. When I finally pause at the edge of our meadow, my gaze caught by that all-too-girly rainbow just behind the clouds, I glance over my shoulder, and those two morons are hip to hip, Sirius gesturing as he speaks, apologizes, rambles, even as Moony's fingers trace the contours of his face, the touch clearly wondering, gentle, loving, even from this distance.
I snort, and saunter towards that rainbow, reminding myself both to tease Sirius mercilessly about it later, and to tell Lils about this new accomplishment of her one James Potter – puppy shipper extraordinaire, but thankfully, never one of those troublesome puppies in question.
But then again, what are brothers, and Marauders, for anyway?
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End
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