Dog Star Over The Mountains
(Warning, summary, and ratings can be found in chapter 1.)
*****
Chapter 2- LateRemus was not the type of person to go to pieces easily. Countless tests had taught him the importance of level-headedness and of being able stay composed. Situations were never as overwhelming as they appeared if one kept one's wits about them.
Looking back, though, his complete calmness in those first few minutes would always be a mystery to him. It didn't even feel as if he were the person who led Sirius into the study and shut the drapes so he could safely return to his normal self. Surely those were not his hands that refused to shake, even when giving Sirius a pile of clean clothes to change into. Or his voice that impassively asked, without the slightest of tremors, whether or not he was hungry. It was if another part of him had taken over, one that wasn't crying at the sheer miracle of seeing those long lost eyes again.
Now, Sirius was sitting in that same beleaguered armchair in which Remus had almost fallen asleep. He had one foot up on the seat and one hanging down off it, and his arms were crossed over his chest. Dressed in a spare pair of striped pajamas, he looked almost domestic.
Although time had been less than kind to Sirius, he had improved greatly since the last time Remus had seen him. Then, he had been little more than a skeleton. There had been awful bags under his eyes, and his hair, once midnight perfection had hung scraggly and dirty. Now, the sheen had returned, and the firelight ran across it like a silk road to the stars. He had regained some of the weight Azkaban had stolen from him, too. His jaw was sprinkled with stubble, but then again, it always had been. Remus remembered how it used to feel against his skin. Sandpaper kisses.
What to do to break this silence, though? He didn't know what do or say. What after all, does one say in times like these? Remus thought of the soldier and his wife, reunited after years of warfare on foreign soil. How did they even begin to reconcile with the days and miles that had torn them apart? What did they do to mend their broken worlds?
As the hushed minutes passed, he wondered if it had been too long. Maybe there was only a finite time span for them, a cosmic expiration date that they had passed years ago. If only Sirius hadn't had James and Lily make Peter their Secret-Keeper; if only he hadn't snapped so completely so that Peter could frame him. If only…
Remus stopped his train of thought. He had been down this vague path of possibilities many times, and it never did any good. It wasn't Sirius' fault, after all. He wasn't responsible for this; there was only person who was. God help Peter if Remus even found him again.
"Dumbledore told me to come." Sirius spoke quietly, as if not wanting to offend the fire. Ah, Sirius. After all this time, Remus had almost forgotten the sound of his voice.
He grew steadily louder. "Have you heard about what happened this year at Hogwarts?"
Remus nodded, glad that he did not have to take control of the conversation. "After I left my teaching post last year, I've done my best to keep track of anything that concerns Harry. Besides the Daily Prophet, Dumbledore has been writing to me. I know about the Triwizard tournament and what happened."
Remus' vision clouded for a moment as he recalled a young man with golden-spun hair who had once generously helped him carry a carton full of Persian Swamp Chizpurfles. "Cedric Diggory was a student of mine."
"I'm sorry." Coming from anyone else, that would have been merely a formality, an awkward comment to defuse an uncomfortable situation. But from
Sirius, those two words were soothing in a way that little was. Sirius had always had that effect on him.
"He's really back, is he?" Remus already knew what the answer was, but he could not help but to ask, hoping somehow that he was wrong.
Sirius' jaw was set in a grim line. "Unfortunately, yes. Dumbledore wants me to notify the old crowd. You, Arabella- anyone that's willing to listen and to fight, really. I'm to wait here until he can give me specific instructions.
"That is," he added, and his eyes flashed for just a second, "if you don't mind my staying."
"Of course, you can stay," Remus replied, and then instantly flinched. Had he spoken too quickly? Sounded too willing to have Sirius around once again, even if it was only for a little while? Or worse, sounded as though he wouldn't mind too much if Sirius stayed even longer?"
Sirius grinned, and in that moment, he looked exactly as he had at Hogwarts, just after transforming Severus Snape's hat into a giant spider or something equally as dreadful. "Thank you, Remus." Was there a thread of mockery woven into those words?
"So," he ventured. "How have you been?"
Remus admired his courage. He could have never managed that pleasantry so well, without any hesitation. He was too aware of the space between them; yet Sirius didn't seem to notice it. They almost sounded like strangers chatting on a bus. Hello, how are you? Lovely weather we've been having. I heard it's going to rain later this week, though. Such a shame. Oh well, as my mum used to say, rain makes the flowers bloom. It was as if Remus didn't know exactly where the sensitive spot was that could make Sirius melt into a warm, saccharine puddle of bliss.
"I've been better," Remus allowed.
"I'm sure the same could be said about nearly everyone from those days, Moony."
Sirius' use of his old nickname was so subtle that it could have been unintentional. However, there was a question forming within the depths of his eyes that made Remus doubt he had done it inadvertently. What's more, he didn't know how to respond to what he was almost sure was being asked of him.
"I've missed you," Sirius added, and in his voice was a trace of… what? Need? Regret? Remus wasn't sure which, wasn't even sure if he hadn't just imagined it.
All he could do was nod, wishing he could have answered in kind. But something stopped him, and although he didn't know what it was, it was unsettling nonetheless. Any attempt he made to pin it down, however, only made his head spin.
At that moment, the tolling of a clock echoed from somewhere in the house. Remus listened to the steady chiming, hoping he could somehow draw direction from it. One, two, three times it tolled. Three a.m. He should have been asleep hours ago, but now with Sirius back, he wondered if he'd ever be able to sleep again. "It's really late," he said.
"Too late?" There it was, laid out in the open. Sirius wasn't going to relent easily tonight. Had he ever?
"I don't know." Honesty seemed the only thing left. "I don't know much of anything anymore." Unable to answer more definitely than that, Remus averted his eyes, instead watching the fire dance to a beat unheard.
"Neither do I." Sirius' tone became quiet again.
More silence. It was almost as if Remus was alone, with only the fire to keep him company; almost as if the person sitting in the chair across from him wasn't really Sirius, but merely the shadow of him. The shadow that had been following Remus for fourteen years.
"But I'm willing to stop worrying about that from now on." Remus looked up, and Sirius was staring at him with such force that Remus found himself blushing. "I'm tired of all this, tired of being alone, tired of being without you. I can't help it, and I'm sorry if you don't feel the same way. But I'm going to go out on a limb here, because there was a time when I think you and I were truly happy. And I've missed that.
"Do you even remember how it used to be between us?" Sirius asked. "I mean, before everything happened. God, Remus, we were so young. We never really thought seriously about the future, where'd we'd be someday and how we'd get there. And when we did, it was just going to be Sirius and Remus, stretching out into infinity. We thought that was all we needed. What did we know about separation, or pain, or true despair? We were young; we were in love."
"And we paid the price for it," Remus said. He hadn't meant it to sound so harsh, but the words seemed to have other ideas. They rocketed forth from his mouth like the echoing invocation of a particularly strong spell, slicing through the air, laden with power.
It may have just been the flickering shadows of the firelight, but Remus thought he saw Sirius flinch. He bowed his head, and when he spoke again, the intensity behind his words had ebbed away. "Now that we're older, we know better than all that. We learned our lesson the hard way. I can't promise you that we'll be together forever anymore. I've learned too much about my own mortality for such vows.
"That doesn't mean we can't try again, though." There was that… something in Sirius' voice again. "Just because we're a little more battered than we were then, it doesn't mean we can't try to recapture some of the old magic. Who knows? We may be luckier the second time around."
A second chance. A flood of memories he had tried so very hard to forget suddenly overwhelmed Remus. Their first proper date, when Sirius had accompanied him to the Hogwarts ball, dressed to the nines and blushing like mad. The time Lily and James had found them making out in the Restricted section of the library, and had burst into applause. The week Remus and Sirius had rented a cottage by the ocean in Brighton, and the night that he and Sirius had made love on the beach. A thousand summer evening when they'd lounged about in the sun like satisfied cats, and a thousand embraces by the fire on cold winter evenings.
But then, another image came unbidden. This was a photograph, one that had been forever ingrained into Remus' mind. It had come from the front pages of the Daily Prophet, and showed Sirius being carted off, in chains, to Azkaban. His long hair hid his face and his hands, marvelous hands that had always protected Remus, were in handcuffs. His wrists were red and chafed and Remus had known just by looking that he was in pain. At the time, he didn't know how he felt about that.
"What if it all ends the same way again?" Remus shook his head, but the image would not leave him. "What if this is just a circle, and everything's going to repeat itself over and over again? What if nothing ever changes?" He didn't like the tremor that had wormed its way into his words.
"Like I said, I can't make any promises as to how long this'll last. The world isn't what we thought it was when we were eighteen. There's evil out there; we've both had it brush up against our cheek more than once." This time, Remus was convinced that he saw Sirius wince. "And there aren't any guarantees that the next time we meet up with it, we'll survive unscathed. All I know is that to me, the risks are worth it. You're worth it.
"But it's something you'll have to decide for yourself."
*****
(end part 2)
