Hyperion: Poets & Cynics

Her heart lusts not for love, but thro' and thro'

For blood, as spotted panther lusts in lair;

Gaze not upon her, for her dancing whirl

Turns giddy the fixed gazer presently:

—Babylon the Great, Christina Rossetti.

"You play the violin?" I asked, perhaps not masking my shock entirely as he bit the inside of his cheek in what was appearing to be a recurring (but nearly imperceptible) tic nerveux.

My hand rested in the crook of his arm as we walked along Regent's Park, cold, nighttime air nipping at my throat. The familiarity and ease with which we'd taken to each other was rather uncanny, to be honest.

I think we both saw pieces of ourselves in each other.

Slightly unhinged, confused. A deep-seated yearning to feel alive, to escape the machinations of fate.

"I... took lessons as a child," he said, pace slackening as my hand imperceptibly tightened around his. He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. "I haven't touched one in years."

I hummed inconsequentially.

We sat in amiable silence for a while, gazing at the stars, sometimes stealing glances at each other. When our eyes met, his eyes glowed like the silvery-blue flames that licked the bottom of a candle wick.

Beauty is adulterated. We are taught to scorn the superficial, to dismiss vanity.

We are taught to repress our envy at what our gods, gene pools, and serums did not—cannot—bestow upon us. But, in spite of this, it is the unspoken hierarchy;

Beautiful people hold the world pivoted at the tips of their forked tongues.

It is mordant, yes, but that is life.

Upon Primrose Hill, my eyes fell to Canis Major. There it was, the brightest star in our sky. Scorching, glowing. Burning.

I turned to him, moonlight fluid and fey upon my face.

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread

—Kubla Khan, Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

The view from Primrose Hill was something.

Muggle London blinked, enticingly, its strangely-shaped buildings buzzing with life and light, like honeycombs.

There was something so reassuring in the mundane. To know that an entire world existed, outside of one's own. A world unshaken.

Indifferent, almost.

The Muggles had their own problems to deal with, I supposed. That did not make it any less surreal. One would think that the novelty would have worn off after a couple of drunken shags with Muggle birds in the back of dingy pubs.

It hadn't.

L'amour interdit, and all. Rebellion never lost its charm, whether disguised in the form of cigarettes, loud music, and leather, or sneaking sweets behind your family's back as a diabetic seventy-year-old.

This was something new. Not unpleasant, but certainly new. I wasn't especially used to sitting around, stargazing in a companionable silence, forced to retreat into the company of my own thoughts; something I'd been avoiding nearly all my life.

I tended to be impulsive. Not a Heathcliff sort of fellow, to be entirely honest.

But this? This felt perfect. There was something about this strange, wayward tart's manner that put me at ease. Perhaps it was the way she seemed to completely own the skin she wore: she was bold, and god forbid, she seemed every bit as impulsive as I was. A manic fire gleamed a seductive dance in her eyes that would have scared me if it hadn't turned me on.

I felt like a fucking fourteen-year-old schoolboy again. Merlin, her eyes. Black as the void though they were, they seemed to catch the light in such ridiculously enticing ways. Her teeth gleamed in her tanned face, eyelashes curling, black as soot above a smooth cheek. Of course, I'd experienced that instantaneous attraction before, a sort of primal magnetism that hooked and pulled.

But it was rarely ever reciprocated, as is the way of the world.

We'd been subconsciously leaning towards each other. Rebellion in the later years may signify something more disturbing, a fragmented memory said, quoting something I'd read off a medical magazine Lily's parents had left lying around their house.

Disturbing, it echoed, as my lips slid across hers.

Trust is a fickle thing.

At first, it is given freely. It is no blessing; it is no boon. As a child, there is no price attached to the neck of trust.

And then, comes the earthquake, the veritable disaster, the inferno that rages and shakes your belief system and lays the bitter seeds of existentialism and cynicism in its wake.

It is the breaking of that naïve, misplaced trust that is the grotesque sigil of lost innocence. It tears your psyche irreparably, leaving the idealistic concepts of empathy and true love an ersatz fantasy.

My belief in Reg was steadfast. The little boy who'd look up to me with wonderstruck eyes, seeking to imitate my actions, looking to me for guidance, enveloping me in his soft, comforting hugs when I'd have bitter arguments with Walburga and Orion— sweet, unassuming, quietly intellectual Regulus, who, despite the hatefulness drilled into his mind at a tender age, could treat Kreacher with kindness and empathy, something I, even with the didactic moral high-ground that came with being a Gryffindor, could not do.

I believed that he had the strength to break through the poisonous, revolting drivel that had been fed to us. Even after he'd been sorted into Slytherin, I'd tried my best.

When he began to make acquaintances with the unsavory ones, the wizards who delved into the Dark Arts as an enjoyable divertissement, the ones who could barely string together coherent sentences but seemed to have no qualms in throwing about slurs at those they deemed lesser— that was when I decided that I couldn't take it anymore.

When cornered, Reg flashed his eyes at me in a manner that I was entirely unaccustomed to. The sheer malice in his eyes melted what little hope I had.

"Sirius," he said, voice seeped with a quiet rage, "heir, loved by all. Handsome, charming. Effortlessly intelligent." he took on a sardonic, mocking tone, "He can do no wrong, can he?"

My interjections were lost in the sheer magnanimity with which his voice rose. "No," he said, unwaveringly, "you will hear me out. It's the least you can do, after I've spent all these years being—" his jaw clenched, "spoken for."

"Even after your multiple indiscretions, Mother and Father refuse to disown you. Our ancestral home, with its priceless heirlooms that have been passed through the ages, all of it― squandered, all because you are careless and... uncultured? Petty and ungrateful? Traitorous?"

Regulus had never been impulsive, as I was. Perhaps that was his downfall.

My knuckles hit his jaw, his face moving with the impact. Muggle means of violence? A personal favourite. Rubbing the salt in the Black family's wound, as the proverb (also Muggle, I noted, with a slightly dazed pleasure) went.

We'd never been particularly violent with each other as children. What few fights we had would end in Reg clinging to Mother Dearest's voluminous robes, tears shining in his big, grey eyes (greener than mine were), while she berated me with a pleased gleam in hers. Every opportunity she saw in tearing him from under my influence meant that she was one step closer into molding him into the perfect vision of an ideal Pureblood male.

Regulus did not respond. He just stood there, as I seethed. As my hand raised to deliver another blow to his impassive face—damn him, he'd always been good at that—his mouth moved.

Ferveo, he said, caressing the syllables. His façade bore no change as the flesh of my body began to melt, filling the air with the rancid smell of ash and blood. My screams were cut off by a quickly placed Silencing Charm.

Traitor, his voice echoed in my head, bouncing around the membranous walls, giving impetus to waves of pure, unbridled rage wherever it stuck. TRAITOR. The one thought I'd been trying to quash for years, and it seemed like the world was privy to my struggles.

I belonged nowhere. Not there, with those kindly, sometimes foolish, loyal-to-a-fault Gryffindors. Nor did I belong with my family with their black hearts and even blacker souls. A war was brewing, and even at fifteen, I was aware of it.

I'd probably have melted into a puddle of blood and tissue if not for Remus.

Sometimes, choosing a side seemed like the simplest decision to make.

And times like those, not so much. Blood was thicker than water, after all.

Or so they said.

It hadn't mattered, in the end. I'd made my choice.

And, in the arms of someone who seemed as lost as I was, the struggles seemed to fade. I had made a momentous decision, the answer to that question I'd asked myself two years ago. I would have to live with the consequences, but I was unafraid. All that mattered was this warmth, this visceral spark, this inferno that kindled in my being, my magic tingling as I moved my lips along hers.

And I think she felt it, too.

I hope that was enjoyable, if a bit rushed. But, that's precisely the element I want to bring in― Sirius' infamous impulsiveness coupled with his identity crisis lead him to make slightly questionable, brash decisions, while Ray is not without emotional baggage of her own.

Reviews are much appreciated. I'd bribe you with the usual— chewy cookies, warm, if only virtual hugs, gooey hot cocoa, my firstborn, etc., but it's been done to death, hasn't it?