Warning- The following story may or may not contain explicit slash between Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. Consider yourself warned...
Disclaimer- None of the characters you are about to read of belong to me. I am only using them for my sick and twisted enjoyment... And yours. Pervert.
"My eyes can't believe what they have seen.
In the corner of your room you've stockpiled millions of my memories."
Taken from the song 'The Phrase That Pays' by The Academy Is...
It had taken months, if not longer, for Sirius' deed to go through. The Order had to wait and see if the house went to Harry rather than Bellatrix. If the house were to go to Harry, then everything within it would also he his, but if it went to Sirius' Death Eater cousin then it would all be her's and then the Order would be out of a place to have meetings.
After the long time of waiting everyone could finally breath a sigh of relief. The house went to Harry. The Order still had their meeting place and Harry had at least some things to remember his Godfather by.
"If you wish," Dumbledore said as he walked through the front door to Grimmauld Place with Harry, Ron and Hermione. "You can explore the house. It's yours now, you know."
"Okay." Harry nodded to the older man and walked down the hallway and up the stairs. Ron and Hermione decided to follow and explore as well. They would be staying her off and on over the summer, so it would be beneficial to see what the house held within.
Ron and Hermione broke away from Harry and went to explore some of the other rooms while Harry went into Sirius' old room. He walked inside and the first thing he noticed was the fact that it still looked lived in. It was as if someone just got up for the day and left the bed unmade and the laundry undone.
Harry walked inside and he saw that although it looked lived in, the room absolutely wasn't that. Everything was covered in a thin layer of dust and the quietness of the room was deafening. Harry lay his wand on the dresser and sat on the bed. He sank into the cushioning on the bed and looked around the room. There was a small end table next to the bed with an old looking lamp on top of it, and the dresser looked like the end table but was larger. On top of Sirius' dresser were photos of he and Lupin, he and James, he and Lily and then all four of them together. Peter wasn't in a single one. Lastly, there was a photo of Sirius and Harry. It was in color and was taken rather recently... Harry remembered the photo being taken. It was taken by Lupin and was taken in the ancient kitchen of the house.
Harry rose from the bed and walked towards the large closet. He opened the door and within it hung old clothing and moth eaten quilts were piled on the floor of the closet. In the back corner of the closet was what looked like a basin. It was rather large, made of stone and rather bland looking. Harry remembered that he saw something like this before... It resembled Dumbledore's pensieve.
He pulled the large stone basin from the closet and looked down into it. It had the sinewy gray liquid in it just as Dumbledore's did. Harry grabbed his wand from atop the dresser and took a deep breath before diving into the liquid. Just as before, Harry felt a falling sensation and then an abrupt stop.
"You shouldn't torture him like that..." Came a voice sounding like Professor Lupin's from around a corner.
"You heard what he called her, he deserved far more than just being suspended by his trousers, Moony." Another voice rung out, but Harry couldn't place it. He looked around the corner and saw it was a young looking Sirius, an even younger looking Lupin, a young Peter Pettigrew and a young James Potter.
"I know, I know." Lupin shook his head.
"He's a toerag, Moony." Sirius rolled his eyes and sighed.
"He's worse than that..." Peter pipped up.
"Exactly. I'm done talking about this." James turned from the other three and walked down the corridor in Harry's direction, though he wasn't looking at Harry at all.
Peter followed closely behind James as he shuffled along. Harry saw as Sirius threw his arm over Lupin's shoulder and they walked together down the corridor after Peter and James. Harry followed the split pack to wherever they were going. It was starting to get dark and the sun was setting quickly.
Harry followed the group up into their dorm room before the memory broke away and fell into a new one. This new memory was just of Sirius and Lupin. They were sitting together in the library, which as Harry understood was a rare occurrence since Sirius normally hated the library, and Lupin was reading something while Sirius stared blankly at the parchment in front of him.
"Moony..." Sirius sighed.
"Padfoot..." Lupin mimicked Sirius' tone as he looked up from the book.
"I'm so bored." Sirius put his head down on the desk in front of him and sighed once more.
"You didn't have to come to the library. I didn't make you..." Lupin shrugged and went back to his book.
"Oh yes I did." Sirius sat back up and smiled at the other boy. "It's pretty much the only time we can get alone. Plus, this place is so huge that we won't be bothered."
"Padfoot, not here." Lupin bit his lip and looked around the library. Sirius was right, there was no one here.
Harry gasped slightly as he watched Sirius kiss Lupin on the lips. His eyes widened when he realized that Lupin was kissing back. Was this for real? He knew that Sirius was never married and rarely was in a serious relationship, he heard that from Sirius himself. Were he and Lupin... Involved? Well, they looked a tad more than involved now, but still.
"Even though you say not here, you didn't try and stop me." Sirius waggled his eye brows and went in for another kiss, which Lupin had much obliged to.
How had Harry not known? Sirius told him everything... Why not this? Was it because Sirius was afraid that Harry wouldn't accept him? To be honest, Harry really didn't know what to think. He loved Sirius, and he liked Lupin a lot too, but having it like this made it complicated. Sirius was dead, and Lupin was with Tonks now. What had happened between them? Harry would probably never find out.
The memory faded and Harry felt himself fall into a third memory. This one was different than the others... There was no real light to see anything, and the room smelled musty. He heard water drip and hit stone in the distance and out of the corner of his eye, he saw a thin and pale figure move.
Harry turned with his wand drawn towards where he had seen the movement. He looked around, it was too dark to really see anything and Harry had bad vision so as it is. A sliver of light came through the sliver of a window. It barely let in a three inch wide by twelve inches long line of moonlight.
"He's at Hogwarts..." Harry heard a voice from the shadows of the corner. It was Sirius, and Harry realized that he was in Azkaban prison, and it was the night of Sirius' escape. "...He's at Hogwarts and soon enough I will be as well." Sirius cackled quietly.
There was a whooshing noise and then the sound of padded feet moving around on the stone floor. There was a slight yelp then a sound of skidding and dog nails scraping against the filthy floor echoed through the room and hallway outside. Then there was nothing. There was nothing.
The final memory came up quickly. The room was dark just as in the last memory, but the air seemed of better quality and didn't stink of fear and death.
"I love you." Moaned a voice from the darkness. "I love you so much."
"I love you too." Came a response.
Harry moved forward to have a better view of what was going on. It sounded like his Godfather and one of of his ex-professors from Hogwarts talking, but he wasn't sure. When he moved into the moonlight streaming through the window he saw the figures on the bed. It was, in fact, Lupin and Sirius.
"Oh god..." Harry whispered. He was in shock.
Why hadn't Sirius told him? Why hadn't Lupin? Sirius loved him, didn't he? And Lupin was with Tonks now, so perhaps he didn't love him after all... This was all so confusing. Harry had thought that it was just a little thing back when Sirius and Lupin were in Hogwarts, but apparently not.
Why had they lied? Harry would have accepted it. Wouldn't he? Of course he would have. Sirius accepted everyone that was okay, and just because he was gay didn't make him not okay. Didn't they want others to know, like Tonks? Does she know? She must know. Now that Harry knew that his Godfather and ex-professor were involved it was very obvious and Tonks wasn't stupid enough to not notice things. Perhaps she was ignoring it, and so was Lupin. Harry felt guilt, anger, and sadness for everything. He felt guilty about knowing and not having been told by those involved, anger for not being told in the first place, and sadness not only for Tonks but for Lupin and Sirius. They loved each other, or so he guessed, and they were torn apart by this war not only once but twice.
Harry closed his eyes and once again he felt the familiar pulling and falling feeling in his chest and stomach and he was standing back in Sirius' room. This is where the last memory was. That's why it looks so lived in. It was more than just lived in, it was loved in.
"Harry?" Called Hermione from down the hallway.
"Yeah?" Harry called back as he poked his head out of the doorway. "I'm just in here."
"Did you find anything?" Ron asked as he looked around on the walls of the old house.
Harry looked back at the pensieve on the floor. Did he really want to tell them? Was it their business? Did they already know? God dammit, this was so complicated.
"No, no. Just some of Sirius' old stuff." Harry tried to look as sad as possible, and it was working.
"Oh, Harry." Hermione pulled him in for a hug and held him for a while.
"Let's go downstairs, yeah?" Ron suggested as he passed the pair in the hallway.
"Yeah, let's go." Harry nodded and shut the bedroom door.
Author's Note:
I'm so so so sorry for how long it's been since I've updated... The site was giving me issues and I couldn't do much of anything and I'm really really sorry. I tried emailing them and all that whatnot, but nothing worked. Either way I hope you've liked this chapter and don't hate me for not updating.
-A.