So Much For Love
A/N: Do I have to say anything? No, I can't really think of anything, besides the fact that David Cook just fucking won American Idol and I'm like, dying of happy. Seriously, huge fan of his. But besides things you're not worried about at all, here's the second chapter. By the way, would it disappoint you to know that I could totally see this becoming a tragedy? Read on.
Chapter Two: Interlude
It was not often that the two Black brothers could be seen walking across campus amiably, speaking in relatively civil tones and conversing as if they were companions rather than brothers who both had an incorrigible streak of competition. But, about one time a month, in the middle of the week, this was the case for Sirius and Regulus Black, who would abandon whatever else they were doing to speak to one another for a few choice moments.
Excuses went something along the lines of the fact that they needed to talk. Because once a month Bromsgrove gave the choice to the boarders spend a weekend at home rather than at the school. Both of them cited this dilemma as their reason for talking, when they both knew full well that the monthly dialogue was unnecessary and, worse yet, uncomfortable.
"So, are you?" Regulus would ask, inspecting whatever book he was holding rather than his older brother. This day, it was his Chemistry textbook and fascinating as chemicals and their properties were Sirius was rather keen on the idea that his face was much more pleasing to the eye, but this was standard procedure for them so he didn't say a word concerning the matter.
Every week he would answer the same, "No, since when have I? When I have the choice I stay away from there." There was home, there was Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, and there was the most loathed place of Sirius' existence. Watching his brother's face, still intent on his book, there was no emotion and there never was, because it was never a surprise.
"Alright," Regulus said, shrugging it off as he always did, finally looking at Sirius, searching as he spoke the next words. "You never know when someone will have a change of heart." And, just as he had for years, Sirius kept his own face in want of expression and surrendered nothing. Regulus nodded slowly, message received.
They did it every month and they always knew what the outcome would be. Neither one of them spoke much outside of this contact, if they could help it. Even when, on the rare occasion, they found themselves alone, usually at some point during a vacation when they were at home, remarks that flew between them were much more friendly than brotherly. It stemmed from a long string of occurrences during with Regulus was generally favored by their parents and Sirius was generalized as a degenerate. Parting, then, was not the same as it was for other siblings, just a barely existent word of farewell and they were on their own, opposite, ways, not a thought spared between the two about the other.
James was probably getting suspicious. After all, one could only study for tests for so long, and it was taking up the afternoons they usually spent together doing whatever they felt like doing. Sirius felt a small pang of guilt about this fact, but the caught up with each other later in the day, something that he couldn't do with the reason he was even in the library in the first place.
For him, it was quite odd to be forfeiting the time that he did for the off chance that Remus might be there for five or ten minutes. That was all time they would ever spent talking and yet Sirius would stay for nearly two hours until he gave up. The worst part of it all was that he had yet to make it through any of the books he had picked up. Most of the time he lost interest halfway through anyway.
This particular afternoon, a Thursday, he had just gotten out of his mathematics class and left James, who had knowingly rolled his eyes at the strange behavior of his mate, and made his way to the library. The air was cooler in the large area that was filled mainly with books and pseudo-silence, feigned by whispers and muffled laughter from students. It may have been cooler, but it was also slightly musty, Sirius noted as he grabbed several books from the S section and sat at his usual table.
"Fascinating stuff," he muttered to himself as he looked at the books that fate had caused him to pick up. All three were on star constellations. The most that could be said for the pages he turned was that they didn't bore him to tears. Truthfully, there was something to be said about the arrangements of the heavens, the odd way that they formed familiar figures and faces in the night sky.
He had to hand it to Remus, though; the boy seemed to be catching on to what was going on between them. He was arriving earlier and earlier, this day coming in just fifteen minutes after Sirius had and sitting down before Sirius could even motion his approval for the action. It was an appeasing event, but Sirius disguised his smug smile as a calm one, though he wanted to revel in the fact that it hadn't taken much to build some sort of relationship between him and Remus.
"Do you like it here?" Sirius asked, as he traced the outline of the Pegasus constellation.
Remus seemed to be more focused on the stars than anything else visually and Sirius found himself taking this as an opportunity to look at Remus when he wouldn't get caught. That hair, it was incredibly messy, more than likely because of the wind outside, but seemed like it would be soft to the touch. The way that his unique amber eyes followed the stars with his own brand of disinterested curiosity. Sirius could admit that Remus was attracted, but plenty of people were attractive, Sirius told himself. It didn't mean anything that he thought Remus was attractive.
Somehow he managed to lock onto Remus' words as well as his looks. "I like…certain aspects, I suppose," Remus replied slowly, something close to a shrug accompanying his statement. The words were completely unlike the Remus that Sirius had come to know. The two may have only talked for a few short times, but through it all Remus had come across as someone who was sure of himself and who would say what he was thinking if asked.
"Certain aspects?" Sirius asked. "Do tell, Remus." He leaned forward on the table, partially covering his book and getting the other boy to finally look up at him. Sirius raised his eyebrows suggestively and actually managed to elicit a flutter of light laughter from Remus that did unexpected things to Sirius' heart; things that he ignored completely by his better judgments.
Smiling, Remus shrugged and leaned back, dropping his own book onto the table. He seemed to be about halfway through the huge paperback and Sirius almost grimace, thinking about the fact that he couldn't even finish something half that size. The more he thought about it the more he realized that it was just as unlikely that he would ever make anything more than an acquaintance relationship with Remus. In terms of books, Sirius was something a kid threw together for a class assignment and had been looked through from cover to cover by everyone he knew and Remus was an new piece of literature that everyone had heard about, but only few had taken a chance on.
"Things here and there," Remus said finally, pulling his book back towards him. "Definitely the library, there's a lot to look at, you know." There the conversation died, like all of their past ones had and Remus left soon after, leaving Sirius alone to contemplate his own worth, staring at the star that was his namesake. He shut the book forcefully after a moment, looking at the back cover he noticed it had been donated, not even the library had been willing to pay for it.
He checked out the book regardless of the fact that he wasn't even learning about the stars.
Later in the day, often times, James and Sirius would sit near the weeping willow that sat close in proximity to Elmshurst house. The willow was known for getting particularly violent when it was windy out, but the wind had died down by the time early evening set in and they made their way down to the grass. Unlike other areas of the grounds there were no places to sit, no benches or tables set up, but they favored the ground anyway.
James was lying down, staring up at the sky while Sirius fixed his eyes upon whatever moved, whether it was a group of girls or some stray leaf floating in the early absentminded winds of autumn. Dialogue was already taking a turn for the worse, but Sirius wasn't about to stop, he never was. "Just saying, mate, you talk to her all the time and then you pretend that she hates you. Obviously there's something there." Talking about Lily Evans always put a damper on both of their moods.
"She talks to him all the time," James responded in a bitter voice that made Sirius roll his eyes as he watched a few skirts hurry down one of the walks. He was trying to convince himself that it was a severely fun activity to watch them, but there was an anomalous, nagging voice in the back of his head, intermittently telling him that giving up on girls would have happened sooner of later anyway. He needed a career that involved ignoring things, he was damn good at it.
"Who?" he asked, shifting his eyes back at James as the girls disappeared past the tennis courts.
"You know who," James said, their eyes met, Sirius shrugged because he did know. "Seriously, I think she hangs out with me so she can talk about him when she's not with him, so it's some sort of, who knows, celebration of all things Lupin. I find it utterly disgusting." When they both knew full well that James wouldn't be complaining if it was a celebration of all things Potter. "Want to know something weird about him?"
"Erm." Sirius didn't commit, just played with the grass, twisting a few pieces until they broke off into his hand and there was a small patch of green that was shorter than the rest. Sirius wasn't sure if he wanted to know something 'weird' about Remus, especially from James who might make it seem worse than it actually was as a symptom of jealousy. James knew that Sirius talked to the new boy, but didn't know the lengths that he went to just to do so.
Not surprisingly James ignored Sirius' hesitation and went on. "I guess he plays the piano," James continued. "Lily says he won't even play for her, but she's so sure he's amazing," he scoffed lightly, looking angry as he thought about Lily. "He has some sort of weird thing about playing in front of people. I'm telling you, if I knew how to play the fucking piano, I'd play it for her," he grumbled, now almost talking to himself more than to Sirius.
"The piano?" Sirius asked, slowly.
"Yeah."
"He never told me he played the piano."
"Mm, I'd be willing to be there's a lot of things he hasn't told you."
Friday afternoon was rapidly becoming a waste. Sirius had spent the better part of three hours in the library. Four books had folded pages, marking spots he had made his way to and lost interest at. Various subjects were being perused, from the American Civil War to the idealism of Socialism, nothing that he really understood, but things that made him feel substantially more intelligent as people walked by.
A few people greeted him for a moment or two, exchanging a word here and there, but Remus was nowhere to be seen. It shouldn't have troubled him as much as he did. Lately his lack of sleep had been making his overreact to everything, and the frown that was firmly placed on his face was just one example. He feigned a smile whenever he saw someone he knew and let himself look solemn the rest of the time.
Even he knew it was unlikely that he would see Remus after a certain point, but a stubborn aspect of his personality had him convinced to stay for a little bit longer, and he went off in search of another book. Nothing caught his eye as he walked through the numerous bookcases and eyed every subject that was available to them. None of them were engaging in the least, at least not at this point.
Gloomily, he made his way back to the table he had been sitting at, expecting to only have inanimate objects full of ideas left sitting there for him to return to. Instead he found the person he had been waiting for, arguably full of ideas as well, smiling at him expectantly, like he had been waiting for Sirius the entire time. Sirius grabbed the back of one of the chairs but didn't sit down.
"Hey."
"Hey," Remus replied, casually, blinking a few too many times.
"I was actually just about to leave." But he didn't have to, now that Remus was here, he wanted to add. That, oddly, he wanted to talk to Remus until all hours of the night when he scarcely knew a thing about the kid. He would spend all night listening to what he had to say and maybe, in true Black fashion, throw in an opinion or two of his own when it was absolutely essential.
Much to Sirius' own astonishment, the next words out of Remus' mouth were: "Alright, where are we going?" As if he could read Sirius' mind and had decided to be obliging to him. Sirius looked at him questioningly, almost considering this option. "We talk every day and I have the strange feeling you're not much of a library person so – I don't know, I just had the idea that maybe you come here to talk to me?" he ended on a question, playing with his tie and not looking at Sirius as he spoke. His words were dead on, and Sirius cursed in his mind for being such an open book lately, even to people he had just met.
"Well it is almost time for dinner and I am a growing boy," Sirius pointed out, gathering up the books from the table. Remus nodded in agreement and they made there way out of the library. Sirius dropped the books into the return slot. "I haven't finished a book in years," he admitted with a grin. Remus hit him carelessly on the arm with his own book, some sort of sidekick in the form of paper. "Do you remember how you said you had heard of me?" he mentioned, breaking the short silence that had settled between them as they left the library and met the chilly air outside.
"Vaguely," Remus said, squinting his eyes at the evening's sun, which was unblocked by any clouds, shining, though slightly dull, into their eyes. "Why do you ask that?"
"It just so happens that I've heard quite a lot about you," Sirius said, smiling at the slightly nervous look that came over Remus, the way that he looked alluringly golden in the sunlight, stopping in his tracks and then cocking his head to the side, asking questions without opening his mouth. "Nothing bad, mind you. Well, nothing completely terrible would be more accurate. Though, if you've killed someone now would be a simply divine time to let me know."
"We'll talk about that later," Remus said, distractedly, barely seeming to notice the joking implications of murder that had just been made. "What have you heard about me and from whom? I can't imagine who would even know anything about me that would tell people something." Remus, so preoccupied with his worrying, seemed to be alluding to the suggestion that there were some things Sirius wouldn't want to know about him.
Once again: ignoring was Sirius' new best friend. "Lily Evans." Recognition flooded over Remus' face and he looked relived. Either he trusted Lily or she didn't know anything of real substance. "And all I've heard is that you play – or rather, don't play – the piano pretty damn well."
"I'm not playing it for her, so if this is some elaborate plan of hers – " Remus said quickly and defensively.
"Believe me, I'm the last person Lily would ask if that's what this was," Sirius said with a smirk. "What I actually want, is for you to play for me." Remus looked at him hesitantly, but didn't outright say anything either way. "Come on, Remus, tomorrow night, it's the weekend, it won't be a big deal. Just one song and I'll never ask you for another." Remus opened his mouth and then let out a sigh.
"Fine, I don't know why, but I'll play a song for you."
A/N: Wow, I actually got that chapter done without being overly preachy. Cheers to me. Except not really, I'm not that full of myself. Also, I deviated from the actual layout of the school and made them have one library as a separate building. Not a big deal, but you know. I think I'm having too much fun with these characters. They're genius. Damn, thanks a lot Jo for thinking of them first. Review even if you hate it.
