Well, this is another long one... with plenty of canon detail needing explaining at the beginning...
Right – James' position in Quidditch. I did my research on this. I always assumed he was Seeker for two reasons:- 1) the film said so (but I am inclined to ignore the films) and 2) he is excellent at catching the snitch, which would imply practicing for Seeker duties. However, I found out from an interview with JKR that he played as Chaser. Now I know that interviews don't have to be regarded as canon fact, but I like the fact that father and son aren't exactly the same. So James is Chaser? OK? Oh, and I can't find anywhere that refutes Sirius being a player also, so ner. He is. And he's a Beater. I understand that you don't have to be athletic to be as popular as Sirius obviously is but he can be if he wants to be.
Sorry – I had written the following Harry/Lupin bit, but forgot to add it in to chapter 13 – I was so glad to have a computer again. So I've just tweaked it and placed it here. Apologies if the story is difficult to weave. It's hard to keep on top of the many changing threads and perspectives.
Harry rinsed the final breakfast plate impatiently. No mention had been made of the events of the previous night, the words 'letters' or 'nosy' or 'intrusion' never poisoned the air; in fact Lupin had appeared totally oblivious to any such occurrence, which was the only way Harry could be truly sure he did know about his transgression. Lupin had very carefully ignored the whole episode, and had attempted to further sate Harry's appetite for stories with the hurried account of the train journey over breakfast. Lupin had seemed determined to skip all meals in favour of his attentive duty as carer, but after seeing the trouble that Harry had taken to provide a full British fry-up (choice of eggs – slimy scrambled and rubber fried – pink sausages and blackened bacon from somewhere on a pig and charred toast all accompanying the main dish of Heinz baked beans) he graciously accepted the offering, and gave his other charge as much time and attention he felt he could afford before darting back up to the infirmary.
Drying his hands, Harry brushed the remaining crumbs off the table and treaded the familiar path up the stairs. He was frustrated; he could understand his godfather's confusion. Girls were an alternate species, with a different language where yes meant no, or vice versa, they had different thought processes requiring an interpreter to figure out what the hell they wanted. Sirius' troubles reminded him so much of his disaster with Cho, although it comforted him a little to know that his godfather also had the occasional trouble with the opposite sex. Harry wondered whether there was actually a point to the whole relationship business, whether it wasn't just a load of unnecessary hassle and bother in which your heart and mind were cruelly ripped in different directions and expected to jump over obstacles that you couldn't even see. What, when you came down to it, was the point?
Harry's bitter musings brought him to the landing, where the soft voice of Lupin could be heard pleading through the doorway. Here Harry found 'the point'.
"I love you," came the quiet confession, in hushed tones as though the speaker was ashamed to admit something so personal to the world. "I never said it enough, but I did. I do. I do love you." A defeated sigh made Harry's ears pink with embarrassment at once more being the intruder of private thoughts. "Wake up," here the voice faltered, and took a few breaths to steady itself, "wake up and I'll tell you every day. Just come back and I'll do anything."
Harry tried to back down the stairs, but a creaky floorboard betrayed his presence. The voice changed immediately; the desperate, pleading whisper was replaced by the usual friendly call of his ex-teacher.
"You don't have to be a draught-excluder Harry, come in." Harry did so. "Keen for more?"
Harry nodded, and desperately wished his cheeks would stop flaming.
"If only everyone was such an attentive listener, lessons would have been much easier." Lupin smiled the easy smile of the unruffled, and squeezing the prone figure's fingers in his own, began his story once more.
Sirius sat distractedly through the Sorting Hat's song, and cheered or jeered (whichever was appropriate) impatiently as the nervous first years, whose heads could barely peep above the long tables, were sorted into the four houses.
Throughout Dumbledore's welcome speech Remus caught Sirius and James exchange several furtive glances and was filled with a deep sense of foreboding. Accurately, as it transpired.
They were barely into the feast when screams erupted from all four tables. Remus looked up from his potatoes to see a large brown bubble bobbing past his face. Such bubbles seemed to have invaded the entire hall, and were currently attacking several students. Their efforts seemed to be concentrated on the Slytherin table where a particularly vicious gang of football size bubbles had backed Severus Snape against the wall and were pummelling him into submission. Several other Slytherins were suffering a similar fate as the tough, sludge coloured spheres prowled the table, in a strangely menacing bounding motion. A brave contingent from Ravenclaw were battling with the strange orbs, but their tough skin seemed impermeable to popping spells or even sharp jabs with wands waved around like makeshift swords. Over at the Hufflepuff table a small panic had erupted as some more vicious bubbles had encased the heads of a group of fourth years. Remus punched away a keen bubble and stared at James and Sirius, who were both in hysterics. They were leaning against each other, shoulders shaking with uncontrollable laughter, seemingly unaffected by the plague of coffee-coloured bubbles upsetting the rest of the school.
"What the hell is this?" Remus demanded, half in annoyance, half in awe.
Sirius extended a quivering digit to the gravy boat, which was issuing forth streams of the bubbles. James caught Remus' disbelieving gaze and burst into fresh giggles.
Remus stared at the commotion in the hall; the bubbles were beginning to get out of control. Snivellus was now sprawled on the floor, and the Ravenclaw troupe's wands were being knocked everywhere by the mutant gravy bubbles.
"Very funny," he said, not totally dishonestly, "but you have to stop it." Peter gave a small squeak from Remus' left as a zeppelin bubble dive-bombed him off his seat. To his right, Ella and Lily were faring no better as an army of knut sized bubbles surrounded them, swarming all over their hands and faces. Laina was desperately trying to help the two, while trying in vain to stamp on the puppy-sized bubble that had developed an attraction to her ankle.
Remus batted a floating ball at Sirius' head. The teachers were not looking amused, with the exception of Dumbledore, who was watching the commotion with an air of mild interest.
"Really, you have to stop it."
Still giggling, holding his side in pain, Sirius glanced at James – who had laughed so hard he was ready to slide off his seat – and nodded. He reached for his wand, but before he had chance to say the incantation the commotion ceased. Bubbles popped, or floated nonchalantly back to the gravy boats, which re-filled quickly and began to steam once again. James stopped giggling and looked around, puzzled.
"Who did that?" He looked quizzically at Sirius, who merely shrugged, bemused.
Remus had a fair idea, as Dumbledore innocently requested that they recommenced eating, and his suspicions were confirmed as Sirius and James attempted to tuck into a well-earned meal.
"What the - ?" Sirius' voice rang around the hall.
James, too, was staring open-mouthed at his plate. The chicken and ham pie he had been generously spooning himself was still there and intact, but had turned a disgusting, filthy yellow colour. It appeared like food post-vomit. Sirius was suffering, too, his new potatoes a rancid green and his carrots looked like they had been dipped in old blood.
James grabbed a baked potato, but the minute he touched it vile orange tinge coloured the entire potato. Sirius spooned some peas onto his plate, which, when they arrived there remained totally unchanged. Except they were now a bruised violet colour.
Remus snorted into his water. He looked from his gobsmacked friends, to their plates, to Dumbledore (who seemed totally oblivious to anything out of the ordinary) and back to the gaping faces of Sirius and James. Their food was exactly the same as everyone else's, with the slight problem that everything they touched suddenly became a totally different and utterly revolting colour.
"King Midas." Laughed Remus.
"Midas yourself," snapped Sirius, his grasp of legend rustier than Remus' and therefore unaware of the relevance of the reference.
James, whose appetite was insatiable despite his remaining skinnier than a rake, had begun to tentatively try his food. Discovering that only the colour had been affected, he began to tuck in with renewed vigour.
"Try it Padfoot," he mumbled, between mouthfuls of potato, "it's fine."
Sirius wrinkled his nose. "I have no desire to eat anything that is the same colour as your socks at the end of the month," he assured his gorging friend.
"Your loss," shrugged James, shovelling Sirius' rusty carrots onto his plate. As James devoured the odd food Remus chuckled into his green peas and orange carrot and pink ham as Sirius looked on hungrily.
xxx
Sirius was still grumbling when they left the Great Hall.
"I don't see why it mattered what colour it was," said James, who had fully enjoyed his peculiar grub, "it's all the same on the inside."
"That was the problem," complained Sirius, "those vegetables looked like they'd already been inside, then forcefully made their way out again."
Remus waited for James to make a sardonic remark, but the boy's attention was elsewhere.
"Hang on a minute." James dashed off to collar a surprised Dumbledore.
"I hope he gives him what for," growled Sirius, "that wasn't funny."
Remus had opinions to the contrary, but kept them to himself.
"I can't believe James has the guts to tell off Dumbledore!" piped up Peter, his voice a shaky mix of terror and awe.
Remus didn't believe it either. James' wild gestures were enthusiastic rather than angry and he was saying something that Dumbledore seemed to find mildly surprising but very amusing.
"He's got big balls, our Jamie." Sirius said proudly, as a parent might brag that their extremely talented prodigy of a child had been accepted to Oxford at the age of eleven.
But James also had big brains, large enough to know what a risk it would be to challenge the Headmaster for something so deserved as revenge. However, judging by James' expression of glee as he re-joined them, whatever his purpose, the conversation had gone well.
"Did it."
"Well done Prongs," cheered Sirius in admiration.
"Cheers," said James, beaming widely. "Lets head to the rooms though, I have stuff to do before seven."
"What?"
"I've got to polish my broom before Quidditch practice. And unpack." Added James as an afterthought.
"What? Quidditch practice? Already?" With each question the pitch of Sirius' voice rose an octave.
"Start as we mean to go on," said James determinedly. "So I've just booked the pitch for our first practice at seven."
Nobody moved to follow James.
"Come on," he urged his stunned friend, "I've got to tell the others, too."
But Sirius was staring out of the window, where boiling black clouds were assembling menacingly in the turbulent sky.
"Bloody chuffingly awesomely great."
xxx
It was 7 o'clock and the doom-laden clouds had not broken yet, but like a glasss wobbling precariously on the table edge it was only a matter of time before they did, and water would spill everywhere.
Practice was as depressing and chaotic as the pressured sky above. Nobody was thrilled to be dragged onto the Quidditch pitch on the first day of term, and James' efforts to 'jolly everyone along' only served to irritate people even more.
His usually infectious enthusiasm was failing to permeate the grumpy exteriors of his team.
"Good try," James called encouragingly to Laina, who had just sent the Quaffle flying several feet left of the hoops.
"Bullshit Potter," growled the frustrated girl in return, "and you know it." She swung her broomstick around and zoomed off to the opposite end of the pitch.
"That was bullshit, James," agreed the third chaser, Michael Bain ploughing through the humid air to meet James and Sirius. "She's really off today."
"We're all making mistakes today." Said James fairly. "People are just a bit tense."
"Yes, but," Michael tilted his head as though trying to get his head around James' point, "you and me haven't missed every shot. Off or not."
James sighed as tossed the Quaffle between his hands absently. "But I've always been better at shooting than her. We've always been the better shooters." He amended.
"Granted." Accepted Michael. "BUT, she is quicker than you, I mean us, and it's not just her shots that have been off, her passing used to be the best part of her game, and she's nearly been unseated by a Bludger three times – she used to be able to dodge trains, but she keeps staring off in the wrong directions, and I just - "
"OK! OK, Michael," snapped James, "what would you like me to do about it? Kick her off the team for not playing well? If that was the way I did it you'd all be out today. I understand you're not fluffing like she is, but Merlin, what the hell do you want me to do about it?"
Michael was stumped. "I don't know." He managed.
"Right, well, when you do let me know. Now will you go and tell everyone to get ready for three-on-four? I need to speak with Sirius a moment."
Michael nodded sheepishly and flew down to the mingling players.
"Sirius mate, you have to pull it together." James rubbed his forehead tiredly. "Gods this is hard work," he muttered, "I'll never say a bad word about 'Team Tyrant Tucker' ever again."
"Pull what together?" asked Sirius, taken aback but radiating blameless innocence.
"Don't get cute with me Padfoot," sighed James. "You're playing appallingly, too. And I know what's putting you off. It's that," James pointed to two huddled figures in the stands, "and that." He gestured to an angry blur of red and gold wheeling in the heavy air.
Sirius knew better than to try to maintain ignorance. He knew exactly what James meant. He didn't know how Fiona had found out about the impromptu practice, in fact her eagerness quite scared him, but there she was, bundled in robes keenly watching from the deserted stands. He had to admit she looked very attractive, for a stalker, her fur lined robes giving her the appearance of a very cute Eskimo, soft fur framing her petite face, nose and cheeks tinted pink by the ferocious wind. She caught him looking and gave him an excited wave.
James rolled his eyes. "She's distracting you. And she's distracting other people."
Sirius glanced at Laina, who was glaring down at the encroacher. He felt the familiar surge of annoyance as she looked contemptuously at his guest. Laina was far less beautiful than Fiona in her already crumpled Quidditch robes, the plain cut further disguising any womanly attributes and making her figure even more boyish. The red robes highlighted the crimson in her cheeks; her face flushed and blotchy from physical exertion and the whipping wind. Her hair was a mess, teased out of its loose knot by the breeze and plastered to her forehead by sweat. Far less beautiful, but as Sirius shuddered he was loathe to admit, by no means less appealing.
"Look Sirius, I don't know what the hell's going on, and you know what? I don't want to. But please, sort it out. You used to be able to put your stupid squabbles behind you when it came to Quidditch, so what's happened now?"
"Prongs, it's nothing - "
"Good, then get your damn head back in the game." James looked skyward as it began to drizzle. "Brilliant," he growled as he soared back to the waiting team, "just brilliant."
Three minutes later the situation was much worse. The first few scout raindrops had reported back that all was well down here thankyou, and the rest of the bulging clouds' contents seem keen to make their way earthwards as well. Sirius squinted through the driving rain. Fiona and her friend were still there, having produced a large black umbrella from somewhere. Damn, she was persistent. Sirius supposed he should find that flattering, rather than desperate and intimidating.
A whoosh by his ear caused Sirius to grip his broom in alarm. He wobbled mid-air as the Quaffle sliced raindrops in two on its express tragectory past his head.
"Oi! Black! You're not going to stop any bludgers looking up girls skirts."
An extremely alarmed Sirius bypassed the obvious statement that he'd have to be considerably lower to get any good vantage point up a skirt and progressed straight to what he considered a witty retort.
"Well, De Moitie, you're going to score a lot fewer goals throwing the Quaffle at team members instead of the goal, that is if it were possible to have a lower goal count than absolute zero."
Laina's lip curled in fury as she swooped up close to yell at him head on. "It might be easier to score if I knew my team members mind was on the game instead of in his over-active testicles."
"Perhaps," mused Sirius, his voice twisted into mock concern, "perhaps it would be easier for you to score if you had an idea where the nets where?"
Laina's voice was so full of venom it her spit would have dissolved brick-thick metal, "Perhaps you should stop checking on your stupid fan club and pay attention to more important things."
"Why should I pay attention to you?" spat out Sirius, before his brain caught up with his tongue. "To what you think?" Sirius added, a little too late, and a little too carefully.
"Alright! That is it!" James snapped, his patience rapidly uncoiling like a spring that has been stretched just too far. "Everyone, showers!" he barked the order, glasses slipping down his nose, unsettled by the unusual anger. The team sank to the ground, partly due to the weight of their rain-drenched clothes, and dejectedly headed to the changing rooms.
"Not you two," said James, holding out a hand to block the way of Sirius and Laina, who were still glaring daggers at each other. "You two need to practice. I don't want to see you back in the Common Room before nine o'clock."
"Fuck off Prongs." Laughed Sirius. It was barely eight o'clock already and the rain showed no sign of stopping its pitiless onslaught.
"I'm deadly serious. If you don't stay out here 'til nine pm, you can count yourselves off the team."
"Arsehole." The indignant response was in chorus.
"Maybe. Get on with it. And I'll remove the distraction."
James spun on his heel and waded through the mud to where Fiona and her friend were cowering under the umbrella. Sirius watched blankly as James ushered the girls from the soaking seats and led them off the field, not without positioning himself under the shelter of the black umbrella. Fiona looked back at him, appealing for him to protest, but he could not find the will. Instead he glared at his friend's back as the traitor left the pitch. Former friend, he corrected himself.
"Awww. So not true love after all?" mocked Laina.
"I wouldn't expect someone like you to know anything about it." Replied Sirius, haughtily. "Lets get on with this crap, I don't want it to last longer than necessary."
"I heard that was your approach." taunted Laina. "As you wish. What would your highness like us to do first?" she bowed with mock servility.
Sirius ignored the gibe and accepted the authority. "Well, since you ask, your shooting could do with a little work. Today's hundred-percent failure record isn't quite acceptable for house team play."
"Fine." Snapped Laina, and scooping up a Quaffle from by her foot, kicked off from the ground with such force that mud spattered everywhere within a three metre radius.
Sirius had just assumed the role of keeper when a vengeful red missile flew past to his right, whizzing squarely through the centre hoop. He darted after the Quaffle, but its phenomenal speed took it so far he was panting by the time he flew back to the hoops, where Laina sat haughtily atop her broomstick, arms folded, sneering, with smugness radiating off her like steam in the pouring rain.
By the end of ten minutes Sirius was exhausted and a highly self-satisfied Laina had managed to put fifteen out of twenty balls through the hoops. Sirius had not managed to save a single; the power behind each defeated him where accuracy could not. He could have sworn one of the balls had blazed the air behind it, and he had a horrible feeling she had only managed to hit the targets by imagining his head was floating in the hoop space. It would certainly explain the way she squinted angrily before each attempt.
"Alright, time out. You're no James Potter, but you're getting better." While this was an intentional jibe, there was truth behind it. James would have got every shot straight through the hoops, especially with as poor a Keeper as Sirius. However, Laina was Chaser for a reason - two, Sirius conceded - which were her speed and her agility. She knew she was not as accurate as James and Michael and fought to make up for this by being the sharpest passer Gryffindor had seen for a long time. Her natural instincts told her to never back down from a challenge and whilst this had earned her many a punishment from the referee, it had also won the team many crucial battles and it was this ferocious passion that Sirius found so enticing. Used to find so enticing, he corrected himself. "Perhaps we should try something else. You had plenty of near misses with the Bludger today, could you use some practice?" He knew this would be a sore point, Laina prided herself on never being hit by a Bludger. A fictitious boast he was sure, but he would admit it was never a bad thing to keep your opponents in awe of your players.
His comment had the desired effect. Laina's eyes narrowed and, wiping the rain from her face, she gripped the handle of her broomstick like a weapon.
"Come on then," her voice was barely a hiss over the howling wind, "I daresay you could use some practice with your bat. It must have been such a strain having nothing to play with all summer. Well, let's get out all those pent-up destructive tendencies. You hit the Bludger and I'll dodge it. Who knows, you might get a chance to destroy something."
As she soared spitefully into the air Sirius would have liked nothing better than to throw the bat at her head, but he restrained himself, and settled for smacking the Bludger in her direction.
Laughing, she dodged the Bludger with ease, performing an unnecessary loop as it passed her on its return journey.
"Come on," she called, "I know you can do better than that. What happened to that anger?"
That anger boiled up inside Sirius and welled into a tidal wave that broke onto his bat. The Bludger was sent hurtling through the air towards the taunting figure on the broomstick. Once more his shot was easily avoided.
Laina wrapped her legs round the broomstick and swung below it. Gripping by her knees she waved at the Bludger as it passed her. The blood rushed to her head making her look like a grinning red balloon and Sirius' hands itched to pop it.
"What's the matter Black?" called his tormentor. "Not afraid to injure me, are you? Thought you always got your own way, no matter who you hurt in the process." Here her voice turned bitter and cold and she hoisted herself back on top of her broomstick. "No, of course you're not afraid to wound people. So do it." She snarled the challenge through gritted teeth and scorched a furious figure of eight in the tattered sky.
The rain was slicing the air into heavy shreds, water cascading in sheets of glass. The wind grabbed Laina's words and flung them at Sirius where they echoed in his head, which was empty save for one thought.
He hit the Bludger, pouring his whole weight and fury into the swing. As it charged back toward him he drove his anger once more into the bat, driving the Bludger with all his frustration and resentment. He wanted to break it, to send it flying so fast and so hard that it would tear the very air in two, rip the fabric of the universe apart and laugh at the desolate void beyond. He was no longer flying; he was suspended in empty space. He no longer acknowledged the rain, he did not notice the frenzied winds that beat his sides and dragged his hair, that prowled the pitch and tore away at the scraps of words uttered by the girl in front of him. All there was was him, the laughing figure, and the steady, comforting weight of the bat. Laina was like an insect, dancing in front of his vision. Each confident, mocking loop she turned to avoid his aim, the harder and faster he drove the bat.
He barely saw her face; rain streaming down her face mingling with the tracks of sweat, hair lank and dripping, falling in wide eyes, fearful that she may have pushed too far. Now she was the embodiment of all he feared and hated. All he saw was a laughing mouth, exposing his weaknesses, tongues stabbing at his frailties. He was a Black, arrogant, cruel, ruthless. No feelings for himself or for others. Eyes turned red and demonic, narrowed in resentment. A disgrace to the family name, not worthy of the title Black; he was pathetic, weak, small. The voice of his mother mingled with that of Laina, with that of his father, his brother, teachers, Jamie, one tangled mess of disappointment and betrayal. He was a nothing. An empty space of worthlessness and failed chances.
He had to destroy it. To be free.
As he swung the bat for the final time he forced his paranoia, his fear, his anger into the wood. It did not, to his surprise, explode under such pressure, but rocketed the ball with canon speed towards the demon on the broom; it would find its mark, clean and true, in the face of his tormentor. To smash it to pieces, to destroy the fiendish vision, then his shackles would be lifted.
Now Sirius saw Laina's face. Slamming back to reality with a force that almost drove the air from his lungs he saw the satanic image wash away with the rain. Where a demon had lingered seconds earlier there was the frail, human figure of a girl clutching a broomstick, her eyes and mouth wide with fear as she withheld the unstoppable force heading straight for her.
Sirius could see it all too clearly. There is no way even Laina could avoid the force of this shot. The heavy ball connects brutally with her face, at this speed bone fractures under the force of such violent impact. The bloodied body and broomstick detach, and both make their silent descent to the ground. In the fight they have flown too high and under the mud the ground is still solid. As it hits the earth the limp body crumples like origami, the mangled body now no more human than a paper figure.
He knows this will happen.
But it doesn't. Somehow Laina swung backwards, but lost control of the broomstick, which bucked from under her leaving her dangling with only handfuls of bristle to cling onto. The Bludger continued its near-fatal course, but instead of connecting with skin, smashed into the broomstick handle, splintering the wood with its explosive force. Sirius watched in fascinated horror as Laina dangled from one half of a fragmented broomstick and desperately manoeuvred the unstable craft to the ground, where she collapsed in an exhausted heap, still clutching the remains of her treasured broom.
It was while Sirius was watching dumbstruck as Laina made her ungraceful landing that the Bludger returned with a vengeance. It had lost most of its momentum as it smashed the Comet 200, but as it rounded back to hit the next, and only other player, it picked up enough speed to deliver Sirius quite a blow to the head.
Stunned, relieved and quite probably concussed, Sirius could think of only one response as he fell to the floor.
"Shit."
"Shit!" cried Laina, bending over him, with, as far as Sirius could tell in his dazed state, a look of extreme concern etched on her mud-spattered features.
"Bludger." Mumbled Sirius, his tongue refusing to work properly.
"It's OK, I've put it back in the box."
"I'm. I'm sorry 'bout, 'bout nurly hittin' yur." Sirius' words were slurred but Laina seemed to understand.
"It's OK." She replied.
"I've put it bac' i' the box." Sirius repeated, giggling slightly through the pain.
His head was throbbing and his vision wavered as Laina knelt by his side. She brushed his sodden hair from his face, taking great care not to brush the welt left by the iron ball. It must be bleeding, Sirius assumed, although he could not tell the difference between rain and blood leaking down his face, but he could taste tin when he licked his lips with his tongue, which seemed to be the only dry part of him. Laina's fingers were rough from Quidditch practice, but Sirius didn't want the delicate motions to stop.
"I'm not very good at this." She apologised, producing her wand, "You'd've been better with my sister, or James." She placed the tip of her wand to his head and muttered a charm. "Or Remus is very good at healing charms, I noticed." She added as a further charm eased the throbbing in his head.
"Oh?" Sirius tried to be indistinct, which wasn't hard as he still felt as though he had been thoroughly washed, ironed and pressed.
"I need to get you to the hospital wing, can you stand?" Laina asked, extending her hand, which was filthy with mud from her fall. In fact, dirt streaked every part of her, tangled her hair and smudged across her face.
Sirius accepted the help and unsteadily got to his feet, feeling as though he was about to walk for the first time.
However, at his first step he faltered, and fell into the prepared arms of Laina.
"Sorry." He said, and while he had meant sorry for falling he was surprised at how all-encompassing the apology sounded.
"Me too."
The rain tracing channels on Laina's cheeks looked like tears, and softened all her self-built hard edges. Sirius was prepared to admit that this softening may have been to do with the blurry concussion, but right now, staggering under his weight, the soaking, filthy mud monster in front of him was the most delicate, fragile thing in existence.
The rain was trailing down his back, like finger strokes, cool and tender. The mud licked and nibbled at his feet, hugging the soles of his shoes. The wind played with his hair, teasing each strand and breathing softly on his flushed cheeks like a quiet whisper. Lips met, the rain melting the two together until there was one being, easy and natural.
There was no great significant rumble of thunder. There was no beautiful, dramatic flash of lightning to illuminate the scene in the rain below.
But there should have been.
Wow, this one has exhausted me. I made Sirius a lot more traumatized than I meant to, but he is a poor dear with much going on in his life. Ah, don't we love tragic heroes?
Please R&R for this one, because it took me ages, and took a lot out of me, I'm not used to writing so deeply. I really got attached to this chapter, which is weird because it wasn't there in the beginning, I just thought we should see more of Sirius and Laina after concentrating so hard on Remus and Ella. So, please tell me what you think.
A worn out Sham.