Sirius/Harry Slash
Ohhh heavens, you know I just live for your guys reviews? Time to get some slash up in here.
{Chapter Twelve}
He's not going to be asleep – of course he's not going to be asleep, he puts up enough silencing wards so he could make enough noise to raise the dead and nobody would hear, he's not going to be resting.
Sirius cracked open an eye and found a pair of bright greens looking down at him – of course, he wasn't asleep – he should be in the hospital wing really, not in a sleeping bag on the floor – but he hated the white walls of that place, and Sirius couldn't fault him for that.
They didn't say anything for a while, and for a Great Hall filled with students – it was quiet, except for the sound of footsteps from teachers patrolling it was quiet.
"Not sleeping?" Sirius whispered.
"No," Harry whispered back, wincing when he heard a student grunt – they were already being too loud, piercing the quiet. Sirius withdrew his wand from his sleeping bag, glanced around, and cast a silent silencing charm around their bags, and wiggled up to him once more.
"There we go," mumbled Sirius "-as long as we're not too obvious…we should be fine,"
"Thanks, I don't think I'll sleep well like this though, silencer or not," said Harry softly, staring up at the enchanted night sky.
"You never could, sorry I can't change into Padfoot, I dunno how it helps but you always sleep better with Padfoot, sorry all you got is me," said Sirius – smiling wanly.
Harry didn't say anything, but his face coloured a little in the dark, both were laid on their backs in their sleeping bags, staring up at the enchanted Great Hall ceiling, spelled to look like the night sky – not the real night sky, it'd be far too cold for that, but an almost exact mimicry.
"You're enough," said Harry after a moment – sighing and watching his cold breathe roll out in mist form – the sleeping bags had warming charms fitted, but it was still far too cold for this.
Sirius didn't know what to say to that but the heat rushing up to his face in the dark warmed him in ways he needed to be right then.
"How do you sleep? You know, when you can't, without potions I mean, do you just…lay in bed…until it happens?"
Sirius glanced over to where Harry was laying without moving his head.
"I count all the stars I know, until I fall asleep," he admitted "-they tell you do that when you're a kid,"
"Muggles imagine sheep and count them, or imagine them jumping over a fence," mused Harry aloud, still speaking in whisper despite the charm, somehow it made their moment that much more intimate in a hall filled with people.
"That is…strange," said Sirius, looking up at the ceiling "-does it work?"
"For some probably,"
Silence again, except for the sounds of varying degrees of snoring.
"I know some stars – from Astronomy, but I don't remember it much, sometimes I'd fall asleep, but I was okay in it," he said softly.
Sirius wiggled up to him again, and felt his head connect with Harry's shoulder, breathing deeply into the night.
"I mean – my dad – Orion – that's…Orion the Hunter… my family like to name after stars – it's like tradition – Orion the Hunter points to my star, my brother Regulus – the brightest star in Leo," Sirius was rambling something about stars, and Harry found himself more enraptured than in any one of Sinistra's lessons.
"-My cousin, Bellatrix – is the shoulder star to Orion – opposite Betelgeuse, lucky nobody in my family has been cursed with that one – yet," he added as an afterthought, Harry's rich, but quieted chuckle filling his ears.
"-but I'm in Canis Major – look, it's mapped that one out – it's not real but…it is close," he pointed his finger up to the sky when they were sure teachers had their backs turned and Harry's eyes followed his finger up to the enchanted ceiling.
"I'm right there, Sirius," Harry interrupted him now, gently, softly.
"The Dog Star, the brightest in all of Canis Major," he knew about that much, and Sirius grinned even if Harry couldn't see it.
"Orion the Hunter – all you have to do…is draw a line…right through his belt to the left – and you'll always find me," Sirius let his eyes flutter close for a moment.
"Just name all the stars you know until you fall asleep, if you have a nightmare I'll wake you up so you don't thrash and hit anyone, nobody will hear you," he paused "I'll help,"
"Okay…" said Harry closing his eyes.
"Rigel, Regulus…." He sighed softly – feeling silly, though the stars on the Great Hall ceiling were getting blurry. "Betelgeuse, Arcturus, Pollux, Polaris,"
"-Capella…."
Oh it was working, and he was running out of names, and he wasn't sure if he was dreaming, or still speaking.
"Castor, Canopus,"
Sirius's soft tone interrupted to add to his list, sensing tire overcoming Harry.
"Alphard, Atria, Bellatrix,"
It jarred his thoughts - the name of his cousin.
'Did you love him, little baby Potter?'
"My Sirius," Harry added sleepily, before nodding off completely and utterly.
Sirius's eyes flew open, his sleepy haze disappearing in a snap as he turned his head to face Harry, only to be faced with deep breathing and tiny near-snores. The Great Hall was filled with them, and while most of the Hall slept as well as they could, Sirius could not. A wave of misplaced bitterness overcame him - he remembered holding him barely a few hours ago while he was unconscious, dragging his body through Honeydukes cellar, his heart pounding, strapping his arms and legs around his torso like a backpack as he climbed up that stone slide back into Hogwarts, terrified for his health. He was unconscious, the only thing that made him feel alright was listening to his heart before setting him down on a Hospital Wing bed. He bolted through Hogwarts floors, past the throngs of shaking evacuees and didn't stop until he was red faced and panting, laying him down for Madame Pomfrey.
And he has the nerve to drop words like that and not the dignity to explain them in the morning.
"You have no idea what you do to me," grunted Sirius, before closing his eyes, and trying to fall asleep.
His forehead was damp with sweat, and he felt a very real weight pushing him down on something soft, Harry's breathing was deep and heavy, he felt himself on a bed - Egyptian cotton, memory-foamesque mattress, sinful satin draperies, dull candles lighting up a dark room that was filled with gentle velvet colours. It was a room far rich to be of his own tastes, and he felt like he did not belong there. It was so comfortable though - that he did not feel like moving.
Looking down, he realised his bare skin making contact with every soft sheet - and it felt divine, looking up - coal dark hair and misty eyes met his own along with a playful smirk, the head of curly dark hair running fingers down Harry's chest experimentally, his skin flush.
His hands were clumsy but soft, and a deeper voice cut through the room.
"Do you even know what you're doing?"
"Learning," the young boy breathed, drinking in every part of Harry "-Just like you," - it was Sirius, his Hogwarts tie was loosened down his chest, his outer robe had been shed, but he was painfully clothed, compared to Harry, enough that he felt his cheeks flush in embarrassment, painfully self-conscious.
Harry turned - his head lolling on the soft pillow to meet another set of identical dark eyes, disbelief washing over him along with a dark sort of excitement.
It was a tall man with dark hair that made his heart skip a beat, his green eyes going wide at the sight - oh this was wrong, so wrong, wrong and naughty and just...wrong.
It was Orion - at least, Harry thought, until he stepped out of the darkness, nearer, smirking a bit and mounting the bed from the other side, where he didn't see a meticulously trimmed goatee but a fine well groomed overall beard and hollowed cheeks, a gaunt sort of beauty that did not belong to Orion - and he realised the locks of dark hair were too wavy to be his.
His throat let out an embarrassing squeak - oh no, no, no, no. This was the godfather he knew, the memory he was tarnishing with every yelp he made under his large hands as his curious eyes roved all over Harry's figure.
"You've changed..." he was almost purring now - in a way Harry had never heard from his adult self - his eyes falling on Harry's folded out wings he was laying on. "-Those are new,"
Harry moved to pick the sheet up around his hips but found his arms above his head - raised high, a little uncomfortably, and a familiar blue sash around his wrists, tying them to the bedpost and leaving him awfully vulnerable - a soft hiccup escaping his throat which crashed into the whimper that soon followed.
"Ah-hah-!"
"Look at you," the older Sirius smirked at him as his left knee inverted against his right in a twitch of barely constrained shivers "-you've grown so much," the large hand trailed down the smooth surface of Harry's lower abdomen before it became lost under the dark red sheet and his hips immediately bucked up, his mouth falling open.
"Hah - W-what are you doing, Oh Mer-Oh Merlin! Sirius - what-" confused stammering mingled with disbelief stuttered their way out of his throat, leaving him sounding worse than Quirrell when a warm, firm hand slid itself around Harry's cock. He opened his mouth to utter another useless string of words until the younger of the two pressed down on his lips, swallowing his words in a forceful kiss. His eyes fluttering open widely as he heard the oldest chuckle at him.
A trail of warmth began to pool in his lower gut as the younger Sirius pulled back, gently tugging on his lower lip as he did so, grinning widely at its slightly swollen state. Harry let out a soft hiss when he felt those warm lips kissing his collarbone hesitantly, before slowly roving down his figure. He forced himself to raise his head up off of the pillow - his eyes met with the older, and swallowed thickly at the sight. He could feel his heart beating wildly at the sight of Sirius's hand moving slowly but purposefully under the sheet.
Harry chewed on his lower lip nervously – hips bucking up into the older man's hand, the sensation of the rougher, and more course hand doing nothing to dull the sensation of his touch.
The older man grinned, pulling the sheet down in one crude moment and making Harry's face flush even darker from his ears down to his neck at the sight of his own naked cock, just seeing it in somebody else's hands was dangerously arousing, and he'd missed the flushed look coming over the younger's face when his lips stopped at Harry's hip bone. Older and younger mirrored each other with coy smirks, and suddenly the helplessness of his situation sunk in.
"Ohh…you've been holding out on us," the younger pouted a little, while the elder chuckled at him – he seemed to be doing that a lot – and it just made Harry feel dwarfed and small, straining against the soft constraint of the Black family heirloom which was responsible for tying his wrists to the upholstery.
"I want to..!" the younger was pouting at himself now – a strange sight to behold, before swatting the larger hand away and letting his fingers run up from base to tip, drawing out a long shudder from Harry.
"You…you guys need to stop," his whining sound pathetic even to his own ears, and younger Sirius seemed to enraptured by the throbbing sensation in his fingers that he was barely paying mind, tilting his head as the gaunt man whispered in his ears.
"Why?" asked the older softly, turning to Harry and rubbing his inner thigh, letting his younger self play, the desperation seeping to the forefront of those green eyes was just enough to make him pause.
Harry's wrists twisted against the blue scarf, and tugged almost viciously against the bedpost.
"Because if you don't stop that I'm going to cum," he hissed through his teeth, cheeks going deeply red. The younger paused, licking his lips as a clear bead of liquid pushed from the head of Harry's cock and began to dribble down his shaft, curiously spreading it across his fingers and running it down to the base, Harry quickly screwed his eyes shut, because witnessing it seemed that much harder to handle.
"When was the last time, anyway?" older Sirius's lips quirked once more – his smirk breaking out into a full-grown smile – eyes glancing over to the younger's ministrations "-too long, I suspect,"
Harry opened one eye first – daring himself to see if he could handle what was happening just visually, the sensation of warm, slick wetness spreading over his cock was alien when done from hands that weren't his own. He gave a soft hiccup of surprise when the younger popped a finger into his mouth, innocently sucking. The taste didn't seem terrible – at least, younger Sirius didn't let it be known if it was, and it was enough of a greenlight for his head to stoop down, and give a long languid lick up the side of the pulsing shaft, both of Harry's eyes fluttering open.
"Oh God, Oh God – um – there..? R-Really…?" He heard of it, knew of it, people talked about it enough, but really…someone's tongue…there…of all places…? The oddness of it dashed from his mind the moment he felt another tongue – on the other side of his cock, making him shudder right down to his core, warmth coursing down his bound arms from his fingertips to his stomach, to his hips and gathering at the head of his dick – it had been so long since he'd touched himself it felt like the head might burst – a heavy pink gathering at the head from the sheer frustration.
Harry forced to keep his head upright to watch – older Sirius licking down his right in a downward motion with younger Sirius licking upward, marvelling in curiousity and arousal as the heat spread across his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose, gently taking the head into his lips once he reached the tip, and suckling for a few moments of utter bliss, before his older counterpart's tongue was racing up to meet him, forcing him to release the cock with a gentle pop from his lips.
Mumbled cries of what're you doing and strangled whines filled the room – cries that he didn't expect to be answered, but only existed to fill the disbelief in his mind that it was happening and he was enjoying it and Sirius – both of them – were enjoying doing it to him.
The older blinked a bit, his cheeks also stained red as he pulled back and moved down his length again – feeling a trail of warm, tasteless fluid clinging a little to his lip, the younger chuckled – giggled almost – at the sensation of it rubbing the inside of his throat and dripping down there.
"You really need to stop," Harry breathed out, his vision blurring as the heaviness in his abdomen mounted, hips bucking up against their mouths until he felt their hands weighing him down.
Was it supposed to happen – like – right there, in their mouths, or on…them…? Really?
Harry gulped audibly when the older gave him a knowing look, moaning around his cock.
"Go on Harry…" he uttered.
"It's okay," the younger added, his eyes wide open as the older predictably shut them to shelter them, the younger of the two wanted to absolutely burn the image of Harry writhing against the constraints – head thrown back – and moaning their name permanently in his mind, his cock throbbing against their lips as hot reems of white began to map his face in ropes, the intense pleasure hitting like wave after warm wave crashing into one another, heat, warmth and heaviness leaving his body in sharp jerks.
Harry couldn't keep his eyes open even if he tried, a warm pleasure rushing through him in droves without a hope of stopping, his knees trembling almost violently against each other, his wrists almost burning from how hard they were rubbing against the constraint. The younger was panting heavily, his shoulder moving erratically, and Harry could only whimper at the realization that the nervous self-control he knew Sirius to have was gone now, and that he was masturbating with urgency, with bumbling inexperience but raw desperation, pumping his cock with a speed that he didn't even bother to pause and wipe his face free of Harry's cum.
The older Sirius – the gaunt, Azkaban-haunted adult had managed not to succumb to his baser urge, and licked the trail of cum from the head of Harry's cock and lowered himself down.
"Ah—N..nng…Oh…!" it hurt, but it hurt good – the warm, heated sensation around the head of his cock which already had every pleasure nerve raised had him choking on the air, his eyes watering and hips breaking free of their hands.
"Ahck—Ah…! T-that…that's too much..!" His vision spotting, and his eyes watering heavily – he didn't think he could even cum anymore, if he could even handle the next, shorter wave of pleasure that followed as the older man's sucking slowly came to a halt, and he finally released Harry's member, his lips in satisfaction, and images of young Sirius frantically beating off filled his thoughts and his vision as something warm began to coat his stomach in thick heavy jets. Younger Sirius was staring at Harry, but his eyes were drawn low, unable to meet his, cheeks enflamed with arousal and embarrassment as his fly was open, allowing room enough to release his cock, and touch himself for relief, until he had cum – all over their bound boy.
A soft gasp and sharp pull of his shoulders sent Harry's eyes fluttering awake, his skin deeply flush in the dark and Sirius mumbling against him. He had awoken to his name being hissed through Harry's teeth and thought it was a nightmare at first - at least - until he caught Harry pitching a fierce tent in his sleeping bag and silencing charm or not, the Great bloody Hall was not a great place to have one of those kinds of dreams.
Sirius felt something in his PJs twitch a little at the thought of him being the root cause of them though, but maybe he was just a passerby - for all he knew he might not have even played a big part, but the idea of Harry laying next to him all hot and frustrated with a rager was rather arousing, if not for the setting.
"Not the place for that," Sirius slurred out tiredly, while Harry lay there - silently mortified.
With a rather dire need to relieve himself sexually.
He had a sexual dream about Sirius - this one - okay, but his godfather?
'The man he's going to be, - or could be,' his thoughts were so, so uncomfortable, and he wondered briefly, if it would have been better if it was Sirius and Orion in them - he grimaced a little, feeling a tight ache in his gut from his pent up tension, and failed to fall asleep that night.
Choir and most extra-curricular had been put off for a while due to stressed out students, and that was fine with Harry, really, he wasn't in a rush for the club he'd been strong-armed into. It gave him some time to figure out the book he got, and his mess of feelings. Did the dream mean he'd been attracted to Sirius back then? Did he only like this Sirius due to that Sirius? Did it matter? Was it for the right reasons? Should he even invest in something like this, was he ever even meant to be this kind of happy?
He spent a lot of time reeling after breakfast and the announcements, he didn't breathe a word to any one besides non-committal "Mhmms," and "Yeahs" - even snubbing the Marauders a bit, who put it down to lack of sleep.
Alexander couldn't offer much in the way of advice either, and he was far too nervous to approach Lily when they weren't even very close. There was Bancroft, he supposed, but they weren't friends.
In the end, he ended up consulting some of the Firewhiskey they'd smuggled in, before distributing it amongst the others, who were keeping there's for the weekend.
Classes were cancelled following breakfast after lockdown, and most students spent it sleeping - not everyone was able to rest in the Great Hall and a fair few needed some time to recover from the shock of an attack on Hogsmeade, younger years who couldn't go there anyway were sent to lesson but half the school were off - with nobody celebrating - it seemed to...solemn for that.
"I need rest, I didn't get much on that lockdown," his cheeks aflame - unable to look at Sirius.
"Aright," Sirius gave an exaggerated yawn and followed him to his bed - as per the dorm norm. He didn't say anything to Sirius and didn't even shower, just kicking his shoes off and curling in his covers after drawing up the curtains - hiding his face in his pillow.
"It's nothin' to be embarrassed about y'know," said Sirius awkwardly "-it happens," he flushed.
He was glad Harry didn't know Legilimency or he'd realize just how true that was, and did his best to cozy up to Padfoot - as though nothing had happened which was his usual go-to approach to this sort of thing.
Animagus forms reacted funnily to unconsciousness, Sirius could tell when dog dreams changed to human dreams, colour would fill them, and the shift of his body was almost unnoticeable, rarely did he wake when he did that. He almost didn't, if not for the sensation of being squeezed around his midsection tightening. Sirius gave a sharp intake of breathe, blinking his tired eyes open to the sleeping form of the Fey boy.
"Er—could you…loosen up a lil?" he asked shyly, feeling a heat begin to surround his entire face.
"This is fine, you don't need to change into Padfoot," Harry managed to grumble out tiredly - Firewhiskey on his breathe - wanting to gage Sirius's reaction to his more matured advances - testing waters, Sirius blinked at this answer, slowly processing through his tired mind. Harry registered the other was in human form more so when he realized a leg was between his own, and two had mangled closely together in perfect interlock.
Sirius wondered briefly, if boys were supposed to be this close, and James had jokingly commented that they had a weird but strangely cute closeness, and Remus would jibe to close the privacy curtain between chuckles, but nothing really amounted of it but harmless teasing.
"Looks like you've graduated from dog to teddybear, Padfoot," Peter joked before the two went to lay together. That night, Sirius moved so his back was to Harry – thinking it would be less awkward, far less awkward than his leg going between Harry's – oh but…
"Merlin…" he breathed to himself, screwing his eyes shut, feeling Harry's hand go up his undershirt – that wasn't the worrying part – the hand settled, mercifully, on the flat of Sirius's stomach.
He had to stop himself from twitching, those long, graceful fairy fingers stopped short of resting on the inseam of his boxers, and stayed mercifully in one place, any lower and he might have shuddered, any higher he might have whimpered. By far – the most torturous part, was putting up with Fey pressing his thighs against his arse, and being too blissfully sleepy to be bothered by the fact his cock was burrowed against Sirius's arse and poking him out of dreamland and making a warm sensation pulse uncomfortably in his own groin.
"Fey…" he groaned, never more pleased for the curtains, privacy ward and silencer than the boy put up to spare the Marauders his nightmares.
"Harry," he tried his first name this time, trying to get him to stir, wriggling in the grip, which didn't help, it just rubbed his arse against Harry more, which just served to make him whimper – right in Sirius's ear.
"You gotta stop that," he grunted at Sirius, who scoffed.
"You're the one whose stiffy is poking me awake and standing up to herald the bloody dawn," hissed Sirius, his cheeks flushed with a violent stain of red, and that woke Harry up – his green eyes darting open.
"Stop wiggling then," he all but whimpered, looking even redder than Sirius, who couldn't help but roll his eyes a bit.
"Loosen up then," Sirius shot back.
"No, y-….you're soft," Harry admitted sleepily, burrowing his head into Sirius's hair, the hand that was up his shirt roamed up and down aimlessly over his skin, not realizing what he doing and causing Sirius to twitch at his hips involuntarily.
"Well you're hard and that's the problem," mumbled the young Black, embarrassedly.
"Is it really…?" said Harry – if he let go and tried to scoot off, he'd fall off the small single bed, if he had been lucid he was sure Harry would be mortified at himself, but dream-Harry seemed to conduct himself without a filter, and with some kind of misplaced confidence - he'd probably think this conversation were a dream, Sirius realized.
"I guess not…" Sirius relented, part of him didn't want to let go – it was hot, the other part didn't want him to let go due to utter comfort – and he wasn't sure if he'd sleep soundly on his own anymore if he broke the wordless agreement to continue the bed-sharing pattern they'd begun. It was an unsaid contract, and Sirius didn't want to be the one to break it.
He'd just have to ignore – that – somehow, Merlin help him.
"Sorry…" mumbled the Fey boy –interrupting Sirius's thoughts.
"Forget about it, y'know you're more daring when you're half asleep?" breathed Sirius, screwing his eyes shut and wiggling against the other – ignoring his sharp intakes of breathe and small noises until he found a comfortable position against what was poking him in the arse.
"Night,"
Promoted to teddybear – right, Sirius gave a mental scoff – if this was what happened with those, he really didn't want to see what Peter did with his plush toys.
Albus Dumbledore looked at the young adult sitting at his desk in his office, twiddling his thumbs - his face utterly enflamed, he had nobody he could talk to about this, literally no one, and dragged himself to Dumbledore to do so.
He'd tried with Snape, of course, who had all but laughed in his face after turning a funny shade of puce.
"You think I know anything about dating and stuff? I don't even know how that works with a boy and girl let alone two blokes, if you're that worried ask the headmaster - he's your magical guardian or whatever, it's his job to tell you that stuff if no one else will," said Snape, his face turning an odd colour.
"I don't even know how...two guys... you know...!" Harry had gone bright scarlet and Snape looked up from his book, eyes wide and mildly horrified.
"I am not giving you that talk, I'm not even...I don't even know what to tell you and if I did, I certainly wouldn't, nuh-uh, no, definitely not, have you checked the erm...the library? For like...sexual...health...stuff...?" he pained over the words "-muggle libraries are pretty informative."
"I'm not going to the muggle world for a book on blokes doing it!"
"Well...I doubt you'd be let out much anyway, not after Hogsmeade...the Dark Lord is getting daring and it isn't safe," murmured Snape "-you could always ask your head of house," he choked a bit at the idea of asking McGonagall about any of that.
"Slughorn likes you, you could try him,"
"Oh Merlin no, I have to see him in class, daily."
"Unless you plan on bothering another teacher your only option is the headmaster - you're friends right? You should be able to get your answers off of him,"
Harry groaned, he didn't want to and he was sure Dumbledore would be sensitive about that sort of thing.
"What brought this on, dare I ask?" Snape cringed "Black?"
"No! Well. Yes. Well, sort of, not him really, but I had a dream about him and it got really-" Harry paused, cheeks flushing as Snape stuck his fingers in his ears in a rather muggle fashion, grimacing.
"I don't need to hear this, I'm already trying to repress this conversation, maybe I'll Obliviate myself..."
Which led to Harry in his current predicament, and Albus Dumbledore having to hand over a rather detailed book on lovemaking relations that hadn't been touched in too many centuries from a high bookshelf to give to an adult who should really know better, and made him seriously contemplate adding sexual education to the Hogwarts roster - if only parents and governors didn't hate it.
Dumbledore had the nerve to call out "Have fun!" as the fairy zipped out of his office like hell was on his heels, face burning, and seriously contemplating never seeing the light of day again in favour of hiding. A lot.
He had a bunch of messed up feelings towards Sirius Black to figure out.
Apparently, he fancied him on a visceral level too.
The man in his past, in his present, in his future, for what he could be, should be and would be - it would be beautiful if it wasn't so...strange.
He had a life before this though, he'd mourned him once - he couldn't again, not truly, not when loving him - well - like this. He didn't know if he could - if he had the strength, he'd already lost everything once, he missed the feeling of holding a smaller baby wizard in his arms, singing them lullabies, being a parental figure - trying to build something like a family, he didn't know if he was brave enough to try with Sirius. Not with Voldemort around. Horcruxes to eventually hunt. Responsibilities.
Coward.
Snape's earlier words from a different conversation came to mind.
I'm a coward and he really does deserve better.
Harry shook his head, sitting down on his bed and drawing the curtains up, before cracking the questionable book open on his lap, his ears burning as though he were humiliating himself in front of a crowd.
But first, I have to at least...try for him.
He turned a page and swallowed thickly at the diagrams.
Here goes nothing.
He read that book cover to cover and felt utterly like he'd lost some part of his innocence and gained something else in turn, it was hard to look up from the floor for most the day of classes once they resumed, and he spent a lot of time jerking away from Sirius, and generally avoiding looking at him directly.
In short, it hurt, especially when Sirius could have sworn Harry was having thoughts about him.
He couldn't even entertain the possibility of dating someone else - it didn't fit in with Harry there - it's like their bodies were designed to lock with one another, he couldn't explain it any better than that, but it had to be Harry, and there could be nobody else.
'Having it bad' was an understatement from Remus, really.
"He had a life before you Paddy - before all of us, no offence or anything, but he lost a kid, he probably might have even been engaged once, he's lost people, he probably just doesn't like to gamble that anymore," said Remus sympathetically.
"That's not fair, he shouldn't have to pay for that his whole life-" when the dorm door opened, Sirius merely raised his voice, unwilling to let it drop just because Harry had entered, he'd had enough.
"You need to take a gamble sometime! You'll never be happy if you stick with what you know and keep yourself miserable doing it! It's not fair on anyone!" he looked right up at Harry as he said it, who didn't even bother looking baffled, and blurted out before anyone could say anything.
"I'm sorry Sirius,"
Sirius was ready to go on a full fledged rant until the wind was taken out of his sails.
"...Eh...?" his hips were pulled sharply by Harry's hands, tugging him in until they were forehead to forehead and the hands moved to plant on his shoulders, green eyes boring into his own.
"I'm sorry I upset you," he wrapped his arms around him for a far too intimate hug, disregarding the Marauder audience - he didn't care, he'd probably been hurting Sirius this whole time with his wilful ignorance, refusing to even entertain that his flirting might be serious.
"What's wrong with me!?" Sirius snapped, his voice cracking just a bit, his eyes burning with confusion, hurt, longing and too many feelings to analyse, when Harry let go, he looked at him, perplexed.
"Am I not hot enough or something?! You've been acting weird since lock down and you won't even look me in the face properly!"
Remus stared - what happened during lock down? He looked at James and Pettigrew who shrugged cluelessly, eyes wide at the scene.
"What, huh?! Am I not-" his words were cut short by something hard and tension filled, desperate, bumbling and clueless, but intense all the same, warmth and tingles shooting through him, feeling a pair of lips unexpectedly on his forehead, even James gasped a little - girlishly even.
"Don't be stupid," Harry rebuked gently, before letting him go almost reluctantly "-I just have...had to figure some stuff out," he looked at Sirius with emotions that he struggled to quantify, they were too intense even for words really - how could he tell him he'd love him for who he was, who he is, and who he was becoming? How could he ever possibility quantify that? How, to someone he didn't even know could return that depth of feeling back?
"I care about you, ya idiot, don't go thinking otherwise, now," Harry swallowed thickly "I think James, Remus and Peter should give us the room,"
James, glancing at the blue scarf around Harry's neck - a Black symbol, suddenly had an epiphany - like something dawned on him, and grabbed his friends and headed for the dorm door.
"Don't get too crazy in here," and quickly left, all of them with varying degrees of blush.
"We err..." he looked at Sirius, face aflush "We should probably talk, huh."
This time, without Firewhiskey fuelling his advances.
