Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, 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: Slash. Very mild but still slash.
Author: Penguin
Title: WOLVES, DOGS AND HUMANS
Wolves, dogs, humans.
No one has ever understood me like you. No one has been so close to me, or so far away. Those times when you didn't understand, or those times when I was afraid of you, were more painful than the transformation from man to werewolf.
I could have killed you, Sirius. I could have. But in the end, I didn't need to.
We shared two worlds, two daylight worlds. There were other worlds, too. The hellish ones. We each had our own.
You did your best to share my hell. I could never share yours.
- - -
How old were we? Eighteen? Nineteen? Snuffles was curled up on the floor next to me, asleep, but my eyes were wide open, watching the moon. My wolf brain numbed by that clever potion.
When the illness wore off, I was amazed and touched that he would sleep so easily next to me. Relaxed, as if he were quite safe. As if anyone ever is.
I got up on my two feet, always a little unstable after a few days on four. Sat down in the armchair, watching Snuffles sleep. Listening to his even breathing, watching the rhythmical movement of it. I could have sat forever.
Daylight came and the first ray of sunlight ignited sparks in his black fur. I wanted to pat him, stroke his head, his ears. I sat on my hands.
He opened his eyes and looked at me, sat up, stretched. Pink tongue came out between his teeth and it looked as though he was laughing.
He transformed back into Sirius.
I always loved him most when he had just woken up. The soft sleepiness about him, rounding off the edges that were always there.... The expectation in his eyes: what's new? What adventures will today bring? It wasn't coincidence that his animagus form was a dog.
He went up to me in the armchair, that anticipatory dog smile still on his human face. Eyes wary but friendly. I looked up at him. I don't know what he saw, an answer perhaps, or a wish. He bent down and kissed my forehead.
Fire ate me. My hands, still weak and shaky from my illness, grabbed at his waist to pull him down, to keep him there.
He pulled back. That smile, always that smile. His eyes met mine before he bent down again and kissed me on the mouth. There was an energy there that flowed through my body from my lips, an intense will to live that burned and flared in me. I thought that if I could only make him stay there, stay with his lips on mine forever, I would never ever be weak again. His energy, his strength, his warmth would flood me and never allow me to stagger or break.
Never be weak again? How little you know at eighteen.
"You don't mind, Moony, do you?"
His voice as soft and dark as his hair, as his eyes, as he himself. He blotted out the too-bright, too-sharp image of the white full moon that still lingered in my mind.
I made a feeble effort to nod but my mouth was saying no, whispering no against those warm lips.
No, Padfoot, no. I didn't mind.
Nor did I mind all that came after. The small intimacies or the ones that were too enormous, too fantastic to grasp. The arguments and the passion that followed. I didn't even mind all the times when his casual cruelty made me bleed.
Then they took him to Azkaban, to hell.
I still can't bear to dwell on that time. Twelve years of my life and his in darkness, my darkness only punctuated by the silvery moon that I fear most of all. His darkness one I can't even begin to understand.
No more than I can understand his darkness now.
Or is there darkness? Please, Sirius. Talk to me. Tell me there is light where you are.
No one has been so close to me, or so far away.