A/N: Oooo, my D&C people might get angry, but while writing the second chapter I was listening to a CD that one of my friends had burned for me and this breathtakingly beautiful song started playing. I immediately thought of Remus and Sirius, and how Sirius died in OotP (Sorry, if I spoiled it for you!) and this great song fic just popped simultaneously into my head. Oh, and yeah, the song I based this fic on is: "Hallelujah" By Jeff Buckley and NOT the classical version by anyone else. Just so you don't get confused or the whole mood of the story is set of by a bunch of be-robed church choirs squawking Holy Praise at the top of their lungs.
Disclaimer: These characters are not my own, but in fact belong to J.K. Rowling. The lyrics to "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley do not belong to me, but to Jeff Buckley himself.
THIS IS SLASH, SO IF YOU DO NOT LIKE IT JUST PRESS THAT LITTLE ARROW IN THE CORNER OF YOUR SCREEN TO GO BACK AND READ NON-SLASH.
Dedicated to Megan, who loved this song so friggin' much she had to steal my CD!
HALLELUJAH
I sat alone on my couch with a warm cup of tea wrapped in my hands. Other than the slow, melodic tick of my out-of-date clock, there was no noise whatsoever. The night was silent.
For hours at a time I would sit just like this and think of nothing. Since Sirius had died thinking wasn't the same. Everything centered around the fact that -Sirius just wasn't here-. But not a tear was shed. We were all, maybe, beyond tears as we witnessed Sirius' departure from the living.
And as I accepted everything that came to take place, I accepted that everything would be silent. My thoughts would be silent; my days would be silent, my mornings, my afternoons, my nights, all silent. Tonight would be silent. That is, until I heard something.
Scratching noises.
Something scratching at my door.
"Well I heard there was a secret chord
that David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?"
I looked up, alert, my oh-so frequent predatory werewolf senses kicking in, those senses that I could never really get rid of. Blast them.
I calmed myself down. Perhaps it was a stray animal searching for food. Analyze, Remus, I thought. You're a werewolf, but don't act like one. I remembered that there were some extra bones left from supper and I decided that if it indeed was a hungry stray animal, a few leftovers wouldn't hurt. Being who I am, I've always had a very tender spot for starving animals.
For a while I WAS one.
"Well it goes like this :
The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah"
As I rummaged through the remainders of supper I heard that scratching again. It was desperate. I think I heard a whimper. It inspired me to rush my duties until I'd collected a good amount of assorted bones and small portions of meat. It was enough to feed a pack of starving wolves. I wasn't eating very much at all. Tonks and Molly would point that out often, when I did venture out of my door to visit them.
"Oh, you look so thin and tiered, Remus, you're in awful shape. It's nowhere near the full moon at all. Let me fix you a nice cup of tea." Molly would then smile a scuttle off to the kitchen. God bless women like her. She reminded me of my own mother at times.
I walked out of my clausterphobia-inspiringly small kitchen and to my front door. Nothing prepared me for what I saw when the door was opened.
Sitting on its haunches atop my welcome mat was a large black dog with hazel eyes. The tin of cold leftovers fell out of my hands.
"Hallelujah... Hallelujah... Hallelujah... Hallelujah..."
I clutched my chest in amazement. "No, no, it can't be you," I said as I watched the dog smile and wag its tail. It sniffed curiously at the leftovers strewn across the ground before it walked casually past me and into the house. I still stared at the bits of meat and bone lying untouched on the pavement as I heard a soft whisper from behind me; warm gusts of breath against my ear as his face drew close to mine.
"Close the door, love."
"Well your faith was strong but you needed proof.
You saw her bathing on the roof.
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you."
As I closed the door behind me, I stared at him in minor disbelief. I wanted to believe it. Desperately.
"It's really you..." I backed up against the door, feeling the lightly lacquered wood scrape and slide against the cloth of my robes.
"Of course, love, it's me. Who else could it be?" He drew close, smiling down at me with that familiar dog grin and touch the exposed flesh of my neck. His eyes looked loving, and I saw no lie in them.
"But I thought you were..." That word wasn't fit for speech yet.
"Dead...?" He said it for me. I felt his fingers lightly tracing patterns at the nape of my neck. "No." He laughed. "You know me better than that. Death itself isn't stronger than my will. I survived thinking of you, Remus, darling."
Then it was his warm mouth that met mine.
"And she tied you to her kitchen chair
She broke your throne and she cut your hair
But from your lips she drew the Hallelujah"
Our kiss broke apart and he looked down at me with loving eyes. I put my fingers against his lips.
"How did you... when did you-?"
He gently took my fingers in his own and kissed them softly. "No need for that, love. All that matters is that I'm here. Here with you."
"Hallelujah... Hallelujah... Hallelujah... Hallelujah..."
I fell into his arms, then. I sobbed into his shoulder. "I missed you," I said, "I thought you were gone... I thought you were dead...."
He stroked my hair gently, cradled me in those frail, bone-thin arms and said, "Love, you no longer need to worry."
He tilted my face up to his with a hand under my chin. "It's me. It's Sirius. I'm home. I'm here to stay."
Our lips met again and it was heaven. Pure heaven.
"Yeah but baby I've been here before
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor, You know
I used to live alone before I knew you"
Walking down the hall into the bedroom was different. More different than it had been before Sirius had supposedly died. Now it was as it had been before. Just like heaven.
"And I've seen your flag on the marble arch
and love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah."
His lips were on my neck, massaging my throat and I could barely stand on my own two feet. He supported me with his arms.
The need for the feeling of his skin against mine was insatiable. I needed to reassure myself that he was there, and not some figment of my imagination. I felt his fingers skillfully undoing the buttons of my collar.
Our lips met in another captivating cinematic kiss.
"Hallelujah... Hallelujah... Hallelujah... Hallelujah..."
The sheets of the bed were cool and soft against the naked skin of my back as I lay down. Sirius knelt at the edge of the mattress, undressed completely and leaning over me, his weight supported by his arms. My arm curved around the small of his back, pulling him closer to me and kissing him once more.
His fingertips moved in teasing strokes along the ridges of my ribs. I almost died right then and there.
"Well there was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show that to me do you"
Lovemaking wasn't a thing I'd considered to be of any importance until Sirius fell through that arch. I took the feel of his fingers on my goose pimpled flesh, the warmth of his breath in my cheek, the way he moved skillfully and fluidly in me and brought me into fits of ecstasy for granted when I knew I shouldn't have.
But now he was back and he was touching me and I was touching him and everything was in order.
He thrust into me fluidly and I groaned for it all, turning my face from left to right and muffling my voice in the down of my pillows. In mid thrust he caught my mouth and we moaned into each other deeply.
I heard his voice in my ear, hushed but hurried. "God... oh, god, Remus... I love you..."
"But remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath you drew was Hallelujah"
Laying there panting seemed all the more worth it when the sweat was wiped from my brow with one cool hand and my cheek was pressed against a soft shoulder as I almost slipped into sleep but not before hearing these words:
"No words, love, I'm here to stay."
"Hallelujah... Hallelujah... Hallelujah... Hallelujah..."
My dreams were nonexistent as I slept. And when I woke to the bright sunlight pouring in through the curtains of my window I noticed something.
"Maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you."
I looked to the left and there was no cleft in the bed beside me. That side had been cold for a long time. That black dog hadn't graced my doorway at all.
"It's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah"
I sighed to myself.
Just a dream.
Come back to reality.
-The End-