Note: too soon to post again but it's going to be my birthday in a few days and damnit, I LOVE this chapter. And the one after that.
When Elodie Flooed back home, Remus was cleaning in the kitchen. He'd helpfully gathered up all of her cookies and conjured up a jar for them. Elodie had balked at buying the fancy traditional container that was always used for Gâteaufidél for many reasons. For one thing, it was very, very expensive. For another, the display value for the things had felt like a kind of gloating. She didn't want to use them to convince him that she loved him and then set up a shrine to his being wrong in their very own kitchen, after all!
Now, as she stood in the doorway of that kitchen and watched Remus, seeing a smudge of flour on his forehead from where he usually brushed his hair back, she wondered if the simple glass cookie jar still felt like gloating. She'd looked for a foolproof way to show him how much she loved him. If she'd asked the Monkey's Paw for a chance to prove to Remus that she cared, this would have been the result. It was a twisted and distorted reward, for all that it had been exactly what she'd asked for. Remus would absolutely know that short story, Elodie thought. He would appreciate the misery of it, too-had it been anyone else.
"Oh, you're back. I cleaned up a bit for you, thought it might help?"
"You are perfect," Elodie told him. "Sorry about all that," she added, forcing a smile.
"Sirius came back in and shuffled through your books. He sat down with the big one and made some faces while he read it. Then he Vanished it and told me off when I asked him what was wrong," Remus said, brushing his hair back and adding a second layer to the flour on his forehead. "I thought you were upset, at first, but now I think he's the one to worry about. Can you please give me at least an inkling of the issue?"
Elodie reached out and grabbed the teatowel from its hook on the wall and gestured at her own head with it. Then she handed it over.
"I thought I'd charmed the biscuits," Elodie said, sidestepping the truth. "Sirius knew I'd planned to, and he was going to demonstrate it for me when, as you saw, nothing happened. I was upset, so I Flooed over to Hogwarts to see if they worked there."
Remus grimaced in sympathy for her as he wiped off his forehead. "Nothing?"
"The cookies I took over did not react as I had hoped, no," Elodie said, clearing her throat against the deceptive way the words felt as they came out. "At least the biscuits taste good though?" she offered, shrugging.
"They're my new favorite," Remus told her, grinning. "I didn't want them to dry out or anything, so I even put a stasis charm on them in their jar. I hope you don't mind."
Elodie couldn't help but smile at the irony. Remus had preserved them just as that recipe usually was preserved-with great care, held in a stasis charm created by their intended recipient. There was, however, the not so little matter of their unintended recipient.
"I should go find Sirius," she said. "Thanks for cleaning up after me."
"It was absolutely no trouble, given what you went through to give me the best biscuits ever," Remus said, sliding his hands into his pockets. He rested a hip against the counter and leaned over a bit, looking at her. "I think there's more to what you're upset over, but I will respect your prevarication, for now. I just wanted you to know I am not wholly fooled."
Elodie felt a pang of loss. He was so quintessentially Remus in that moment. "Duly noted, my friend."
Her shoes were by the door, and Elodie slipped them on and grabbed her oversized knitted shawl, instead of a coat. Then, she went outside. Instead of directly looking for Sirius, she walked over to where she liked to stand and watch the little stream that helped irrigate the nearby fields. Something told her that Sirius would feel the need to come find her. After less than ten minutes, a quiet footfall behind her told Elodie she'd been right.
"I have a theory," Sirius said, coming up behind her. Elodie didn't turn around, and he didn't move into her field of vision. "I think I could take that batch of biscuits over to the Weasley household and watch them all hop away, one by one. The recipe worked just as it was meant to, didn't it?"
Elodie hugged her arms to herself and turned to see Sirius standing there looking more out of sorts than she'd ever seen before. His eyes were wild, dark and intent, and the late afternoon wind blew his shaggy hair around his head. He was still wearing the ripped shirt, flannel, and jeans from working on his motorcycle, and shockingly, his feet were bare. Whatever had happened in between the revelation in the kitchen and her following him outside had changed his calm shock into fierce agitation.
"Not exactly as intended," Elodie said, not without humor. This earned her a smile.
"I'm right, though," Sirius persisted. She looked down at the rocks lining the creekbed, following a yellow leaf as it was pushed through the eddies of water. When Sirius spoke again, he had moved closer. "I found the book you got the recipe from," he said. "I'm sure you already know that it's not possible to make a mistake that results in that particular outcome."
"Yes," Elodie said. She didn't let herself look at him; everything about Sirius was charged with emotional electricity, and the voltage got stronger with physical proximity. "It's an aspirational recipe. One of the ones you dream of being able to get right, someday, if you want to be a Potion Master."
"Like Wolfsbane," Sirius said in a low voice.
"Yes," Elodie repeated, this time nearly a whisper. Thinking of Remus was acutely painful. She wondered if that would ease up anytime soon, and doubted it. She needed to distract herself, and clung to the subject at hand as if to a lifeline, forcing a tone to her voice that mimicked a lecturer. "It's over a thousand years old, that recipe. They used to use it as a fidelity test in the dark ages. Hundreds of years' worth of Pureblood wives and daughters trained as Potions Masters, whether they wished to be or not. Just to prove their loyalty."
"And not one of them had a result like yours."
"I assume so." The leaf had gotten stuck, and she stepped past Sirius and pulled it free of the rocks it was trapped between. Elodie smoothed the water away from it gently, the shocking cold helping in an odd way to calm her. She shook the water from her hand, and Sirius flinched as a drop or two landed on his foot. "I'm sorry," she told him, finally feeling strong enough to make eye contact.
"Don't be sorry," he said, the double meaning obvious. "Just tell me how that result could be possible when I'm certain you were every bit as surprised as I was." As he spoke, he reached out and touched her shoulder, but she was pinned in place every bit as strongly by his expression. It was so like him-a jumble of emotions, all of them strong, every one gorgeous and wild. He looked determined, almost desperate, but underneath there was a confidence that Elodie felt the books had tried and somehow failed to bring forth. Perhaps, she thought to herself, it would have shone through more strongly if he'd been the main protagonist.
In that moment, Elodie realized just how accurate the blasted recipe had proven to be. She loved Remus, had done so long before she'd met him in actual, unbelievable reality, but Sirius had been a glorious surprise. A surprise, and yet somehow, inexorable.
"It wasn't completely unexpected," Elodie confessed. "I had no idea it was that strong, to have actually... " she trailed off, suddenly finding it very important that he understand what she'd been thinking. Elodie reached over with her other hand and clasped it against his, which was still on her shoulder. "I need you to know: I wasn't trying to create conflict. I wanted to show Remus-to prove to him that I wasn't just trying to take care of him, you know? That I care for him as more than, than what he called it, some kind of misguided hero worship!" She barely got out the last of it, overcome with the tears that had bubbled up from deep inside her.
"Oh, Ellie. Shhh." Sirius said, folding her into his chest and petting her head soothingly. She had her face buried in her hands, but she could feel the tears dripping through them.
"All I seem to be able to do today is drip on you," Elodie said, and she felt his laughter before she heard it. It was an intimacy that touched her in a profound way. The ache she felt in response told her that, unexpected or not, the feelings she had for him might be every bit as strong as the Gâteaufidél had implied they were.
She knew she loved him as a friend, that she felt completely and utterly at ease with him, that she'd responded when he'd made her angry enough to kiss him back, under the enchanted mistletoe. What she hadn't recognized was how close those fond emotions were to something more deep and lasting. The familiarity she'd felt joking around with him, the fierce way she was determined to keep him safe, those feelings could look ordinary, but in another context, they could also be seen as the bedrock under a different kind of structure entirely. Elodie thought about the tipping point she'd felt while in his bed; she remembered the light she'd seen in his eyes, how she'd instinctively known where it had the ability to lead. How had she missed this?
Elodie started to move back, unwilling to wipe her tear streaked face or hands on his shirt, and he gave her a little squeeze and released her. She settled on scrubbing her hands over her face and wiping them on her pants, realizing too late that she could have cast a spell to cleanse them. There she was, a Muggle imposter again! Sirius hadn't noticed, though. His eyes had shuttered in an odd way, as though he had cut off the connection between his emotions and the expression of them.
"He thought it failed, love," he told her. "I went looking for the recipe book that I'd seen you with, and when I came back through to go outside, he was sitting at the chair with a cup of tea and a pile of them. As if they were regular treats. He made a comment about being sorry they hadn't done whatever trick you'd been expecting."
Elodie sighed. "I know. I told him I'd been planning a potions trick, or something similar. I can't remember exactly what I said it was." She shrugged away the pain of lying to Remus and brushed her hair back away from her face. "Did you know he put them away?"
"Neat and tidy Remus," Sirius said. "I assume it wouldn't have the same effect if we sat him down and explained what you'd accomplished, now!" He let out a laugh that sounded more bitter than amused.
"God," Elodie groaned. "Kill me now." She turned slightly away from Sirius and tilted her head up to the sky, eyes shut, moving from side to side to loose the hair that had caught against the neckline of her shirt. When it was all free, she reached up to gather it all and twisted it to the side, enjoying the way the cool air chilled her. She'd spent too much of the past day hot, embarrassed, or angry.
"The sun is setting," Sirius said softly. Elodie looked over at him and saw that he was staring at her. The spark of interest was written plainly on his face, and her heart began to pound. Had he ever looked at her in that way before? She was almost certain to have missed it, so focused on Remus as she'd been almost since the moment she'd woken to find herself in this time and place. It was becoming more and more difficult for her to remember that she didn't belong here.
And there it was. Elodie caught her breath, feeling as though she'd just lit on a reason that might throw her conclusions sideways yet again, as if she'd not been feeling adrift on a roiling sea enough as it was.
She didn't belong here. More than that, her affection for both Sirius Black and Remus Lupin pre-dated her arrival by many months. How could an ancient spell possibly account for that?!
"Uh oh," Sirius said, his voice rich with both humor and feigned trepidation. She opened her eyes, surprised that she'd been so caught up in her realization that she'd shut them without really registering the loss of light. By the time she'd adjusted to it again, Sirius had turned and started for a section of larger boulders. He yelled at her over his shoulder. "Come on, I know a long conversation when I see one brewing."
His amusement was infectious, and Elodie stood still, just watching him for a minute. She whispered to herself, "Lord help me, I really might love that man." When she jogged over to where he'd settled, she found him sprawled up on a rock that placed him, seated, at nearly at her head height.
"You're wearing Rationalizing Face," Sirius said, lifting his eyebrows dramatically. "No, before you start into it, you need to listen to me," he added as soon as she'd taken a breath to speak. "Did you look for that spell specifically to bake proof of your love for Remus into something indisputable?"
"I-" Elodie started, defensive. Then, she gave up. "Yes."
"You researched the shit out of it, didn't you?" he asked then, grinning at her impudently.
"Yes." Elodie crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at him, but didn't let herself elaborate on her one word answer.
"The entire point of finding that recipe was to cut off any arguments against the truth of your feelings, yeah?"
She could see where he was going with this, and while his points were logical, he didn't have all of the facts. Before she could tell him this, however, Sirius spoke again, sitting up and leaning forward, which placed them only about a foot apart from each other.
"So, you're infuriated that Remus managed to dodge your Bludger, given that he's seen me pick the damned things up, right?" Elodie didn't nod, but she knew he'd see her narrowed eyes as confirmation that he was on the right track. "How can you be mad at him when you're every bit as blind to it as he is!" Sirius held both hands out beside him as if the conclusion was obvious. It kind of was, and when he voiced it, she felt the truth in her heart, even though she was resisting like hell with her mind.
"Elodie, I can touch them. If you see them as proof of your love for him, you need to see them as proof of your love for me."
He'd completely outmaneuvered her. Elodie would read a 12 book series based on the life and times of Sirius Black in a motherfucking heartbeat.
She also made the decision right then that she was going to tell him the truth. The whole batshit, unbelievable, inconceivable truth. If fate wanted to turn her life upside down and give her this insane gift, then she'd take that gift and give it back to herself in the form of Sirius Black's face when she told him exactly where she came from, and what she knew.
"You have a good point there," she said to him, the 'but' completely evident in her tone of voice.
"-and now you're going to dismantle that good point thoroughly and completely, and when you're done I'll somehow be convinced you're right, because that is pure Elodie, right there," Sirius said. "I'll listen to you, but before you do that, c'mere."
She couldn't not smile, because he was right, and the very fact that he knew her well enough to be right warmed her from the inside out. Elodie stepped forward at his insistence, and Sirius straightened up and angled his body toward her, pushing her wind-tousled hair away from her face.
"Bear with me, here," he said. Then, just as she realized what he was doing, he leaned in and kissed her, the brief brushing of lips stunning her with its sweetness. It was full of sincerity, as if Sirius was afraid that he'd lose his chance to do it once she'd elaborated her point. Elodie couldn't help but lift her hand to brush his own hair back from where it had fallen to tickle her cheek, feeling the warmth of him and thrilling to the realness of it. It was very hard to think clearly with such a force of nature to contend with.
"Now, go on, destroy me with logic," he said. He lifted a hand and pressed his fingers to his own lips for a fraction of a second, as if he were savoring the feel of her, and it was almost drugging to watch.
"You totally know how logic-destroying what you just did is, you… you-" Elodie said, putting her hands on her hips and trying to scowl at him.
"Dastardly criminal?" he prompted, lolling back on his rock. "Rakish root of all evil?"
He was joking, deflecting in that way he had, but it reminded Elodie of what she had planned to say.
"All of those things, definitely," she said, raising an impudent eyebrow. "Just hold onto that confidence, Black, because this? This is going to sound absolutely batshit insane."
Sirius's great barking laugh echoed across the meadow behind them, and for a split second, Elodie felt a pang of fear that Remus would hear him and make assumptions. Possibly accurate assumptions, at that. She shook the thought off and firmly set her affection for the werewolf aside, compartmentalizing out of sheer necessity.
Besides, this conversation was going to be fun.
She looked at Sirius, who'd calmed down only slightly, his shoulders still shaking with mirth. Deliberately, Elodie let all of her myriad affection for him, both fictional and real, glow on her face.
"Are you ready?" she asked.
"The more you set it up, the more I'm going to expect out of you, Ellie," he told her. She just raised both eyebrows, and Sirius smiled, the expression full of genuine affection, more than enough to make her heart flutter. "All right, Merriman. Bring it."
"First things first, then," Elodie said, her mind racing in spite of her outward confidence. Where to start?! Then, it came to her. "You are innocent."
Sirius leaned forward, eyes sparkling with amusement. "Mind blowing."
"Bear with me," she said, mirroring his earlier comment. "Last year, you spent a lot of time trying to get into Hogwarts. You even had the passwords to Gryffindor Tower, at one point."
"Not common knowledge, but not secret, either," Sirius said, leaning back on his hands.
"You were looking for somebody. It wasn't Harry, though. It was Scabbers."
One of Sirius's hands slipped, but he kept his facial expression steady.
"You'd tried to get at Scabbers before, but luckily for you, when you finally caught him, Remus was there to stop you from killing him. So was Harry, Hermione, and Ron," Elodie continued.
"Remus definitely told you at least some of that," Sirius said, but he stopped reclining, rubbing at his palms as though the rough rock had hurt them. It came off more as a defensive gesture, though, and Elodie could tell he was starting to become unnerved.
"He'd forgotten his Wolfsbane, though, and Snape got the better of you. You offered Harry a place to live with you, once your name was cleared, but Peter got away, didn't he? While everyone was distracted by Remus's transformation? You never got to clear your name that night, or tell everyone how he'd framed you." Elodie could practically hear her own heartbeat, and she felt a little sick at the look on Sirius's face. He'd only known her for less than a year, and here she was telling him things that not even Remus would probably have divulged to her. She stepped up against the boulder and reached out, almost close enough to touch him, and her heart nearly stopped when he raised his own hand to stop her.
"Go on," he said, his voice barely more than shovel dragging along gravel.
"This part, Remus couldn't have told me, unless you told him," Elodie said, her hand still held out toward him as if reassuring him that she wasn't on the attack. "The Dementors wanted your soul, and you were locked up. That's where you got Buckbeak, when Hermione and Harry came to get you. It was a Time Turner, that's how they got there so quickly-Hermione had been using it all year, for class. Did she ever tell you that? I don't really know if you ever got a chance to talk to her much, afterwards. Things went wrong, and Harry had to cast a Patronus to protect you. It was a stag, just like James's animagus form."
A lot of the color had drained from Sirius's face during her last few sentences. Putting as much compassion and caring as she could into her facial expression, Elodie turned her hand palm up. After a long moment, he reached up and grasped it, and she was proud of herself that she didn't wince at the crushing strength of his grip. Slowly, she leaned close enough to rest her hip beside their clasped hands, smiling at him before speaking again.
"Please don't think any of your friends have betrayed your confidence, Sirius. They haven't. The reason I know is… well, it's fantastical. More fantastical than hippogriffs and wandless magic, even."
"Why do I have this sudden fear you might wink out of existence, once you tell me?" Sirius asked, his voice barely above a whisper. She felt the movement as he scooted closer to her on their rock.
"That's a possibility, come to think of it," Elodie said. "But if I didn't wink out of existence the first time I lifted a wand and actually cast a real, honest to goodness spell, I think we're safe."
"That was what, twenty years ago?" Sirius objected. "I suppose I didn't really think about whether or not you went to Hogwarts, instead of a school in America."
"I didn't." Elodie gave him a wry smile and shook her head. "And it wasn't 20 years. It was just under a half a year ago, now."
Sirius shook his head. "I don't understand."
"You wouldn't," she told him. "I don't really know if there's a wealth of magical literature, but, have you read anything Muggle? Do you know about Middle Earth?"
"My mother hated all things Muggle, so yes, I read a lot of Muggle books during my Hogwarts years," Sirius said.
"Ah, your mother! Man, I wonder if with the house abandoned, the curtains are over her awful portrait or not?" Elodie mused, completely forgetting about what that kind of revelation would do to Sirius.
His hand holding hers yanked, and to keep her balance, Elodie had to turn towards him and throw her other hand out to catch herself on the boulder. He'd pulled her hand over his own heart, pressing her palm there, and she could feel it pounding away like a jackhammer. He looked actually frightened, but not as much of her than of the unknown power of her knowledge.
"That was thoughtless. I am exceptionally sorry, you dear, dear man," Elodie gasped out, stumbling over the apology through the frantic beating of her own heart.
"Please," Sirius begged, simply.
"Explain. Yes, yes. Right, and maybe a little less with the telling of impossible secrets, even," Elodie said, her back starting to ache with the odd angle she was being held to, given his hand's deathgrip on hers. She had absolutely no intention of moving, however. "Maybe quickly, like with a bandage?" Without waiting for an indication from Sirius, she pressed on. "You're a character. In a book. The whole world-the magic, the threat, the people, you're all come alive for me. I'm like Alice, and you are my Wonderland."
Elodie screwed her eyes shut and hoped. When she opened them, Sirius was looking at her, eyes wide, but not disturbingly so.
"So one day, 16 year old Sirius Black wakes up a member of the Rohirrim? Gets to learn to fight alongside Eowyn and falls in love with her?"
Elodie felt such a vast sense of relief that she could nearly taste it, metallic but completely welcome, in her mouth. It had to be the adrenaline.
"You actually aren't the main character in the story, but you should be, Sirius Orion Black. You are a complete wonder," she told him in awe.
"I understand what you're saying, and I admit it explains why you know certain things you shouldn't," Sirius said, sounding dubious.
"-but it's still a ridiculous notion, even to a man who uses a wand and built a motorcycle that can fly?" Elodie finished for him.
"Essentially, yes," he said, reaching over to massage her captive hand with both of his. The way he swept his thumbs across the meat of her palm was incredibly distracting. "Tell me something else you couldn't know?" He said this in a hushed voice, as though he expected some sort of consequence for daring to ask it.
Elodie thought about the question, closing her eyes and indulging in the joy of feeling his touch, after being so anxious and uncomfortable and above all, concerned for him. She wanted to pick something that didn't carry a lot of weight, plot-wise. What would Harry and Sirius both know? Then, she thought of something.
"The Marauder's Map insults people who touch it and don't unlock it with the right catchphrase. 'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.'"
Sirius's hands stilled. "Another," he said, less hushed, now.
"There was an incident, when you were at Hogwarts," Elodie said, deciding that ancient history was safer than seeming to predict the future. "One of your fellow students almost found out about Remus, after being told there was a secret to be found under the Whomping Willow tree."
She was afraid to look up at him, fearful of his possible reaction, but he hadn't thrust her away from him. Would he? Was he just waiting for her to-
"Ellie," his voice rumbled. "How much did you see?" Elodie looked up at him, full of confusion, and he spoke again, sounding and looking deeply concerned. "Of Azkaban," he whispered.
"Ohh," Elodie breathed. She disentangled her hand from his and reached up, cupping his face with her hands on either side. "Hardly anything, and that was quite enough. They're Harry's books, love," she told him, unconsciously mirroring his favorite endearment.
"That makes an odd sort of sense, actually," Sirius said, his voice sounding as haunted as the look in his eyes. Elodie could feel hers filling with tears. How negligent was she as a friend, to manage to forget the trauma this man had gone through mere months before she'd met him?
"I'm sorry," she said in a small voice, lowering her hands to rub them at her upper arms. "It just hit me, that you'd been through such abject misery and I knew that, and I've just treated you like any other friend-"
"It was perfect. Both of you have been perfect," Sirius objected. "Remus, I think, has been doing his best to treat me like the friend I never stopped being, as a way of apologizing for doubting me for so long. And you," he stopped, and when she looked back up at him, she understood that he'd been waiting for her to make eye contact. "You were this bright, happy, warm presence. After that long nightmare of cold horror, you reminded me about the sunrise, and spicy food, and what it was like to sit and laugh with friends. That it was possible to wake up in the morning to the smell of bacon, and for that to be real."
"That's far too much credit. You're a natural flatterer, Sirius," Elodie objected. "Admit it, a good deal of your drive has been about Harry. And Peter."
"I associate you with the good things. You, Remus, and Harry," Sirius said, undaunted. "If it weren't for the three of you, I'd be consumed by revenge." His brows furrowed and he added, "Is… have you read far enough to- My… character-"
"Is every bit as vibrant and interesting standing in front of me as he ever was in the books, only more so, now that I've gotten to know you," Elodie reassured him. "Sirius Black in the book series never strayed from being a champion of the good side, don't worry. Though, he definitely has a 'bad boy' vibe. All leather and attitude."
"Thank Merlin," Sirius said with relief. "I assume another of your favorite characters is Remus?" Elodie blushed, and was about to respond when he stopped her. "It's as clear as day, Ellie. I shouldn't have teased you."
"The books are about Harry's years at Hogwarts," Elodie said, "So Harry, Ron, Hermione, Albus, Professor McGonagall, they're the focus. And… You Know Who."
"So the Wizarding War. The second one."
"Yes. The Map was a key plot point during Remus's year there, and so was your escape. The big scene in the Shrieking Shack at the end of the book is part of what made me care so much about the two of you," Elodie said, closing her eyes to remember. Now, she could picture them as they really looked, having met the 'Golden Trio' and quite a few Weasleys. "I remember just feeling hungry for every scrap of information I could find to read about you two."
Sirius looked thoughtful, now. "Now, I understand your confidence with that Fidelity potion. So your argument right now is," he said, leaning forward to speak directly in her ear, his warm breath causing her hair to tickle her neck. "That because you loved my character, in this book series, that somehow that means how you feel now is less honest?" She felt his legs move, one sliding past to bracket her between them. "How, in either universe, could that be possible?" he said, speaking the words in a hushed voice.
Elodie spent a monumental amount of her allotment of inner strength to move her head away from his and look him straight in the eyes.
"What other explanation could there be, Sirius? Don't get me wrong, I'm.. I'm swept away by you," she admitted. "But you can't possibly understand the length and breadth of my affection for the books and certain characters. Albus and Minerva couldn't pick up those biscuits, but for all I know, Hermione Granger could!"
She should have realized by now how his brain worked.
"But, you've read them all by now, right? And you said it's about Harry's years at Hogwarts, so probably seven years-seven books. So technically, your Hermione is an adult. My MY, Elodie," Sirius said, chuckling at her.
"Stoooop!" Elodie said, leaning over and burying her head in his chest. His laughter shook them both.
"But am I wrong?" he persisted.
"No, but, my point!" she said, her voice muffled in his shirt.
"Have I actually out-logicked Elodie?" Sirius asked in mock incredulity.
"No!" she protested, pushing at his chest to straighten herself back up. "You're fighting my logic with ridiculousness! My point wasn't about attraction at all!"
At this, Sirius's expression turned sober. "So, you're not attracted to me?"
"Oh, I definitely am. God help me," Elodie said, at that moment realizing exactly how closely they were standing, nearly hip to hip. "But that's the material point, Sirius. I hadn't realized how much. That recipe is usually-scratch that, always made by married women. Women committed to the man they've made them for."
"Well, I'm all about breaking convention," Sirius interjected.
"You! Let go of your ego for a minute!" Elodie said, grabbing him by his upper arms and almost, but not quite shaking him.
"You're not the only one distracted, Ellie," he said. "But, I'm sorry."
"I guess I'm saying I'm flattered. And tempted," she told him.
"But devastatingly in love with Remus," he finished for her.
"Yes. For all the good it does," Elodie said, blinking her eyes against the onslaught of images from just a half hour earlier, when Remus hadn't even realized what she'd shown him.
"So go for it," Sirius said, belaying his words by the gentle way he brushed a tear from her cheek.
"You are very confusing," Elodie said, before she could stop herself. Sirius laughed at that, a genuinely joyous laugh that brought a smile to her face, despite her confusion and unhappiness.
"I told my brother this once: 'Do what's right.' The harder it is to do what's right, the more likely it was the right choice, whether it's papering my bedroom with half-naked Muggle women, or confronting Peter Pettigrew in an alley."
"Oh, Sirius," she said, her heart aching for what he'd gone through.
"You should try again. Explain about the recipe," Sirius said. There was something about his tone of voice that made Elodie wonder if there was something he wasn't saying. It was less passionate and more precise, something that felt wrong to her. At the same time, the substance of what he was saying was so consequential that she got caught up in the words, and set aside her reservations about his affect.
"So… what? Go to him and tell him I've baked my heart into a cookie and he's dissolved it away in his tea like it means nothing?" Elodie said, her voice cracking a bit on the last word.
"Maybe something more like, 'Gâteaufidél showed me I have a choice. I choose you,'" Sirius countered. He pushed his arms against the rock and half jumped, half slid his lower body up so that he was sitting on the top of it instead of leaning against it. She missed his warmth immediately.
"I don't think I could take it if he's actually not interested. I really don't even want to imagine how that would feel," Elodie said.
"If he's not interested, you can come cry on my shoulder. Then, I'll make you feel better." Sirius said, with waggling eyebrows and a smile so bright she was sure it could be seen from space.
"Sirius!" Elodie blushed, completely embarrassed by his clear implication.
"Ellie, in all honesty…" he started to say, but stopped. When she could finally bring herself to look at him, it was with both hands still mostly covering her burning face. "I said to do what's right. So that's what I'm trying to do, but this?" he gestured with his hand, back and forth between the two of them. "This is also right. I am happy to sit back and let Remus be happy, if he can let himself. He deserves to be happy. That doesn't mean I'm not going to be honest with you."
Elodie was overwhelmed, but she was still coherent enough to start to protest that Sirius deserved to be happy, too. Her hands flew indignantly on her hips and the words were poised to be spoken when he stopped her with a calloused finger held firmly to her lips.
The touch was every bit as electric as his brief kiss had been earlier. Her eyes drifted closed. Everything about Sirius demanded a person's full attention, and even then, he was a whirlwind. Here, he had all but told her to confess her love to Remus, while at the same time, just the touch of his finger was enough to stop her breath for the intensity of how it felt.
"Don't overthink it, Ellie. Just go tell him." With Sirius's finger still resting against her lips, and his words whispered in her ear, she knew that if she opened her eyes, she'd see him leaning his entire body toward her, his face close enough for her to turn toward him and kiss him despite what he had just said.
And yet, Remus. Her brave, self-sacrificing Remus, whose intelligence was ignored by basically everyone in his society, simply because he'd been attacked by a monster when he was a child. Attacked, and turned into that monster in the eyes of the most of the people who had power to help or hurt him. Remus, who stood like he felt like he was too tall, hands in his pockets as he discussed magical history, or Muggle authors, or the virtues of different brands of chocolate. What wouldn't she give to see him look at her the way Sirius had, before he'd kissed her?
Elodie stood still, feeling the tension ebb away from Sirius. Finally, she nodded.
"Good night, Ellie," he whispered to her. She thought he might have kissed her shoulder, but it could have been a brush of his hand as he climbed down from the boulder.
She didn't hear his footsteps as he walked away from her, but for some reason, Elodie was sure he'd transformed into his animagus form. There was something about the way the ground sounded that was different underneath human footfalls. She waited until she was sure he had moved far enough away before she finally opened her eyes, the unshed tears that her eyelids had been holding back falling in large drops on her hands as she lifted them to cover her mouth.
