TW: MENTION OF SELF-HATE, SCARS, LONELINESS, EXCLUSION, FAMILY TRAUMA, PAINFUL WEREWOLF TRANSFORMATION
Piano Sonata n.14 or the Moonlight Sonata
Disclaimer: Everything you might recognize from the Harry Potter world belongs to JKR and her team.
Shadows lurked between the marble columns holding up the tall glass ceiling. Silvery starlight shone dully throughout the room, and stray moonlight beams bounced off the frescoes painted on the walls, dancing on the embellished tiles. A giant, sleek black Steinway grand piano stood in the middle of the room, vacant, still. Remus sat on the cold black and white floor, his back pressed against the hard stone, head buried in his hands. Despite his thick, woolen, gray jumper, he shivered intensely. His body shook and jerked every few seconds. His head pounded, every inch of his body ached, his hair was a knotted mess, and silent tears ran down his cheeks, dripping from his red-rimmed eyes. The luscious plants and animals depicted on the walls seemed to mock him with their vibrant colors, and the elegant Muses surrounded by cherubs all appeared to be bearing ironic, pitying expressions, their delicate painted lips curled in distasteful sneers, and their mesmerizing eyes reflecting pure disdain.
"Stop it," he growled, his usually brown eyes now shining yellow.
"Stop it!" He repeated a bit louder, breathing heavily.
Dress shoes clacked somewhere far below, moving up the stairs.
"STOP IT!"
The clacking sped up, whoever was climbing the steps, now rushing more with every pace.
Sirius found him this way, slumped on the floor, trembling, eyes puffy and red.
"Remus," he said softly. "It's okay, no one is going to hurt you here, I promise."
He wrapped his arms around the tall wizard, his long black locks falling over his brown curls, gold and charcoal intertwining. Remus took slow, deep breaths, trying to calm down, and overcome the intense pain that was spreading throughout his body. Sirius watched, pained to see him go through this. He hated it, his husband did not deserve this.
"Hasn't been he through fucking enough already?" He thought.
Desperate to make him feel better and alleviate his suffering, if only a bit, he took a chocolate frog out of the pocket of his striped cigarette pants and handed it to him. With a shaky hand, Remus reached for it, his quivering fingers crinkling the wrapper. Sirius sat down in front of him, gripping his hand tightly, watching as he slowly nipped at the dark chocolate.
"You know, back in my childhood, we used to have a room just like this one in Black Manor. Marble columns, glass ceiling, checkered black and white marble floor, Italian Renaissance-style frescoes on the walls adorned with golden embellishments…My dear mother always insisted Regulus and I learned how to play the piano. Andromeda taught me. She would sit with me for hours, and I would learn notes, partitions, concertos, sonatas…At first I only played wizardly compositions, but then Andromeda started teaching me music from Muggle composers. I remember it used to drive a mother insane," he added laughing bitterly.
Sirius paused, looking into his husband's tired eyes, questioning.
"T-tell me more," whispered Remus coarsely.
He nodded.
"The piano…," started the black-haired man softly, stopping abruptly, as if struggling to remember something.
"The piano," he repeated, "was very special as well. It resembled the one I have here, large, sleek, black. Same brand too, albeit an older model. Steinway & Sons is a muggle brand, so when Andy bought it, she cast a special Glamour Charm to make it look "wizardly" to anyone who would hate for it to be otherwise."
He scoffed.
"Anyhow, the piano had a secret compartment, where Andy and I hid our records, books, and magazines. It was a very simple mechanism, really, impervious to any magic, as it was pure mechanics. To open it, all you had to do was to press the keys in the right order, a melody we had invented and only she and I knew. Under the piano, a box would then pop out, a sort of double-bottom drawer. It had a crafty extension charm placed on it, allowing us to use it as the perfect hiding place. I never told my brother about it, he couldn't be trusted," he sighed. "No one bothered me, wanted me, asked me to do something I would go on to regret for the rest of my life, or ordered me around when I was in that room playing the piano. They left me in peace, it was my only haven inside of that wretched house. I am related to those people by blood. In some sick, twisted ways, they're still my family, even though we never felt like one, and they never treated me like a son. They are still part of my past, of who I am, and I cannot, must not, forget who they were and what they did, so I don't make the same mistakes, so I don't become like them. This room is a reminder of some sorts, just as negative as positive. Mother eventually figured out that there was something odd about the piano: she burned it," he finished quietly.
"You never told me about any of this," said Remus, his voice rough and dry.
"Didn't ever seem like worth mentioning, it's not important," shrugged Sirius.
They fell into silence, sitting in front of one another, staring down at the golden swirling patterns twisting across the black and white marble floor, holding hands.
"You are nothing like them, Sirius."
The other wizard simply nodded in response. They remained quiet once again, the tense quietness punctuated only by Remus' occasional growls of pain.
"P-Pads," he croaked weakly. "Play something for me. Please."
With a small, sad smile, Sirius got up and walked over to the musical instrument, sitting down on the velvet stool and opening the piano. The heavy lid slid into place with a small click. Taking a deep breath, he ran his long fingers gently and briefly across the pristine white keys, testing. He hadn't played in years, unable to since James', Lily's, Mary's, Marlene's, and Dorcas' deaths. Behind him, Remus groaned heavily in pain.
Sirius started playing. Tentatively at first, gaining confidence and power as the notes slipped out from under his graceful fingers. He rediscovered his favorite Muggle sonatas and concertos, playing piece after piece. Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Schumann, Bach and many more engulfed the room with their songs. The beautiful melodies were angry and tragic at times, gentle and peaceful at others, but all of them had a haunting, melancholic edge to them, as if tears sipped out from the piano, evaporating and saturating the atmosphere with their heartfelt stories. Bones cracking sharply growls full of rage and agony, and howls of pure pain interrupted the music. But he kept playing, trying to drown out the misery, his pounding heart-clenching a little more with every single one of Remus' tortured whimpers while appeasing the wolf. What felt like days later, yet in reality must have only been an hour or two, the transformation was complete. The wolf sat quietly next to the piano, his umber fur shining silvery under the starlight, and his intelligent yellow eyes observing everything, never losing their feral, predatory, dangerous glint. His paws clattered impatiently against the marble tiles, while he tilted his head and curiously watched as Sirius finished playing, bathed in a pool of pearlescent moonlight. His long black locks hung broodingly over his face, as his aristocratic hands flew rapidly across the keys. To the wolf's ears, the music was pleasing soothing him and lulling him into a sense of security. The last note of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" rang out, his fingers hovering a few brief seconds over the keys, as the last sound waves echoed in the room. Silence reigned. It was only Sirius, the wolf, and the piano. Nothing else existed. The painted walls, the columns, and the glass ceiling with its stars, all disappeared, everything outside of their black bubble ceasing to exist. Without a word, Sirius stood up and shifted into his Animagus form, transforming into a large black dog. That night, they spilled their sorrows to the moon, and cursed its damned existence, hadn't they survived enough already?
Author's note: Dedicated to my friend G, as always available on Instagram marauderswriting
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b-bye, daya
