Rating of R
I do not own the character, JKR does. I simply borrow them.
Blood Chronicles
"...Greyback specializes in children...Bite them young, he says, and raise them away from their parents, raise them to hate normal wizards."
-Remus Lupin, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, 334
What if, when Remus Lupin was bitten, Greyback stole him off into the middle of the night. What if he was never found. What if he never went to Hogwarts and never met three people that could change his life forever. What if he met one of them. Six years too late. This is that what if story.
Blood Chronicles
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After their impromptu magic lesson, something resembling a friendship formed. Or at least as much of a friendship as their circumstances would allow for. At least they could put up with one another now. To an extent.
It was fragile and slow in coming. Like an early spring creeping up on an unexpected winter. Over time they stopped sleeping on opposite sides of the room and learned how to use each others body warmth to their advantages during the cold nights under the ground.
Sirius was growing used to his life among the wolves. But just because he was getting used to it didn't mean he had to like it. He now knew what certain things meant so when he saw Remus digging through his backpack to uncover a bar of soap and two threadbare towels he knew it was shower time.
And boy do I need it, he thought, lifting up a strand of his lank hair between his thumb and forefinger.
"Well," Remus said, straightening up and throwing a towel across his shoulders. "You ready?"
"Shower?"
"Why do you look so excited? I thought dogs hated getting baths."
"Most."
"So am I to take it that you're an exception to the rule?"
"Most definitely."
Remus shook his head, threw a towel to Sirius and dug his fingernail into the bar of soap so he headed for the door.
They walked out of the den and then another two hundred or so yards behind it until they reached the six, gray roofed shower stalls.
"Wait a sec," Remus held out a hand in front of Sirius before he could rush into the nearest stall and went into it. "God dammit, you again."
Sirius could hear him on the other side of the shower stall door and was just wondering who the hell the other boy was talking to when out he came with a hissing, six foot long, copper headed snake.
"Okay," he said, holding onto the snake's tail and keeping away from its head. "All yours now…"
Remus trailed off, seemingly lost in thought when the snake lunged for his leg. He jumped back, swore and looked to where Sirius was regarding him and the snake with a curious look.
"You wanna know a trick."
"What kind of trick?"
"One just as good as your magic trick. Watch."
He slung the snake over his head and cracked it like a whip. Sirius' eyes widened as he watched the head fly off and roll into the under brush. Remus threw the rest of the snake after it, handed Sirius the bar of soap and disappeared into the second shower stall. The water hissed into life.
"I want it when you're done. And just call if you have anymore snake problems!"
It was nearly a full minute before Sirius got into the shower and turned on the hot water knob. As soon as the water hit his skin he screamed and stumbled out of the shower stall.
The water continued to pour down in the empty stall. The water in the stall next to his shut off and Remus' head appeared about the door.
"What? What is it?" he asked, eyes darting from Sirius to the shower stall.
"It's-"
"What?"
"The water's freezing," his teeth chattered and Remus looked at him blankly.
"Oh, brother," he sighed and went back to his shower, the water hissed into life once more. Sirius walked up to the door and knocked loudly on it.
"What now?"
"Aren't you going to fix it?"
"How do you suppose I do that?"
"Doya have my wand?"
"No."
Sirius sighed, grabbed his towel and wrapped it around his waist. The water turned off again so that all that was left was a steady drip. The door opened a crack and Remus' water damp haired head poked out around it.
"Aren't you coming in?"
"What?"
"You heard."
Sirius blinded twice and shook his head.
"I'll just wait until you're done."
"There isn't gonna be any hot water left."
There was a long pause.
"So, you want me to take a shower…" Sirius started slowly. "With you?"
Remus shrugged. "You don't have to, but I don't know when the next time we can make it out here is. I wont look."
"I…" silver eyes moved uncertainly from his dirty torso to Remus' water damp face. His clean damp face. "Oh, budge over."
It wasn't as awkward as he thought it would be. They showed back to back, eyes fixed on the cinder block wall and occasionally elbowing one another in the ribs with muttered apologies. They only spoke when they asked the other to pass the soap or to tell the other to mover over and stop being such a water hog.
"Move over, I'm not getting enough water over here," Sirius mumbled, elbowing Remus over so that he could stand under the shower head.
Remus shouldered him away, fingers slipping to keep their grip on the slippery bar of soap.
"You're all washed up already-"
"Don't care."
"Well, too bad, I didn't have to offer to share my shower with you-"
"You're shower?" Sirius asked skeptical, face upturned to catch every last drop of water from the low pressure shower head.
"Has been since I was six."
They pushed each other back and forth, fighting to be under the full spray of the shower head. Each time they exchanged another shove, they grew in degree of viciousness.
"Move over-" Siruis hissed.
"No, you move over-"
"Why should I?"
"'Cuz you've already showered-"
"So?"
"Goddammit, Sirius." Remus rammed his shoulder hard into the soaking, raven haired teenager and Sirius slipped on the wet cement floor. He pin wheeled his arms wildly for balance and grabbed Remus' wrist as he toppled to the floor.
"Are you happy now?" Sirius asked through gritted teeth.
"Very," the other boy answered from his perch atop Sirius' chest.
He climbed to his feet, absentmindedly pulled Sirius up with him, and turned his back. Before he had the chance to turn his back fully, however, he caught a brief glimpse of a long scar running the length of Sirius' back. Remus double checked over his shoulder and also came to see a number of other scars crisscrossing all over Sirius' back.
Remus turned so that they stood back to back again and lathered the soap between his hands. He stood slightly off to the side so that Sirius could enjoy the hard down pour of artificial rain water.
"Where'd you get that?" he asked quietly, talking to the wall while his fingers spread the soap suds up and down his forearms.
"Hm? Get what?" Sirius tilted his head up, letting the water sluice the top of his head and roll down his back.
"The scar on your back." He felt Sirius' shoulder blades tense behind him and heard him swear lowly.
"You promised you wouldn't look," he laughed bitterly. "I told you I was just that irresistible."
"I never promised anything. I just said I wouldn't…I don't break promises."
"I didn't realize there was a difference."
"You're avoiding the question."
"No I'm not."
"You just did."
There was a lengthy pause. Remus lathered the rest of his body and rinsed the suds down the drain where they swirled in a colorful whirlpool.
"It's really none of your concern," Sirius said coolly, turned off the water.
He left the shower stall and the gray door swung like a long ago used saloon double in his wake.
Remus took his time, towel dried his hair, and felt the invisible tug when Sirius reached the end of his ten foot range.
"I didn't mean to see it."
Remus slipped into his grass stained jeans and shoes. He looked up to see that Sirius had had the very same idea after towel drying his body.
"All the same, you didn't have to say anything about it," Sirius snapped, pulling on his tee shirt and righting it after he put it on backwards in his haste to cover his back and rage. Remus covered his own souvenirs after living eleven years with werewolves.
"Just curious."
"Being curious could get you in a lot of trouble. Haven't you ever heard of curiosity killed the cat?"
"Good thing I'm not a cat then, isn't it?"
Sirius turned sharply on the beaten path to glare at the smirking boy a pace behind him.
"You're not funny."
"Wasn't trying to be," Remus shrugged.
They walked further down the unmarked path to a fork and took a right. The sky was growing darker with the setting sun while the leaves crackled under their shoes. Sirius kicked a stray stone so that it rolled into the thicket and out of sight. For a long time, neither spoke.
"My dad did it."
Another stone rolled into a creek that ran along to their left side.
"Lemme guess," Remus tapped his chin in mock thought. "Your dad did it, with the candle stick, in the ballroom. Am I right?"
Sirius froze and turned his head with a very serious expression on his face.
"No, not even close." He picked up a slow pace again and Remus took up a place at his side, matching step for step. "My dad, with a belt, in the study."
For a moment that was all either could say.
"I shouldn't have said that, it's not really something to be joked about, is it?"
"You've got that right," Sirius snarled, sounding every bit like his bear size of a counter part. "You've no right to say anything. You don't even have rights, for Christ's sake! You don't even understand and you never could. It would be unfair of me to expect you to."
It was Remus' turn to stop in his tracks. "What?" his voice was as emotionless as a heap of black ashes. "Did you just say that I don't understand? That I'd never be able to understand the concept that concerns when a father hits his child? Abuse?"
"You wouldn't be able to, you don't have a father-"
"Trust me, I have a suitable substitute."
"It-"
"Don't tell me I don't understand. Don't tell me it's not the fucking same," Remus growled. On the last syllable, his voice betrayed him and broke.
"I-" Sirius broke off and collected himself before he said anything else that he wuold come to regret.
He sat down on a fallen tree a little off their chosen path. Remus joined him, sitting on the opposite end and turned to straddle it. Sirius turned to face him, but found that he could not force his eyes to meet Remus' keen golden gaze.
He took a deep breath and plunged onward, the urge over sweeping him in a reckless surge that he could not put off and if he were to he knew that he would never find the inspiration to explain again.
"Ever since I was eleven, my father's used his fists to correct me. He never got over the fact that I ended up in Gryffindor and not the families' prided house of the snake."
Remus remained silent, filing each word carefully away for further examination.
"It was horrible, the black sheep to the Black family," Sirius paused to smirk at his own pun.
He twisted the steam of a wild flower around his finger, watching as the sweet moisture slid out of the end and down his hand.
"Good thing too, bunch of heartless, vile-" he had to pause to check himself. "Right, now's really not the time for a bitch on the family."
Remus shrugged. "When is it a good time?"
"I ran away, last year. Birthday present to myself," Sirius trailed off, lost in thought about how he'd left the house amid his parents' screaming and had went straight to James' house.
"I'm sorry."
They were both equally surprised by the words that came from Remus' mouth in response to Sirius' tale. It was only then that Sirius could bring his eyes up to meet Remus'. He was satisfied to note that his had not been the only ones averted.
Sirius half shrugged. "I dunno, James tells me that everything happens for a reason, or something like that. I guess that's supposed to make me feel better."
"Does it? Not for me. Fate just has a fucked up sense of humor when it comes to me. I don't see where having Greyback use me as his personal chew toy is supposed to get me. I don't see any reason for a lot of shit to happen."
Sirius looked up at Remus from behind the fringe of his hair. Remus cocked his head and almost didn't catch what the sable haired boy was saying. He found the gesture intoxicating.
"In a way I think James had it right…the more I think about it…the more I think I wouldn't have been anything like I am right now. You know, the lows were really low, but the highs were also really high."
"Really low is an understatement," Remus spoke to the smooth curve of Sirius' collar bone and wondered if he'd taste like the rebel he described himself to be.
He wasn't used to this, sex was not something he was used to restraining himself from. If it was someone he wanted, he got them. Curled up in the blankets in his den with harsh panting and a steadily building growl-
"-a rainbow."
Remus shook himself, wetted his lips, and dragged his eyes up to Sirius' gray ones. Gray eyes hidden half behind the damn fringe of dark hair.
"What?"
Sirius rolled his eyes. "They say that after every storm, there's a rainbow."
Remus opened his mouth, but a fat raindrop landed on the tip of his nose and cut off all further speech. They both looked up and saw the billowing thunderclouds huddled close together, casting the skeletal figures' of the trees into shadow.
It was a silent agreement to get up, gather up everything they'd brought, and head back before the rain really started to pour. They also walked shoulder to shoulder, side by side, by an unspoken agreement.
And in the morning, after the storm had come and gone, there was indeed, a glorious rainbow.
-
