MONSTERS & ANGELS
Archive: Sure, just let me know please.
Summary: An 18-year-old Sirius's thoughts on a certain werewolf.
Spoilers: PoA
Rating: Maybe PG-13 for the slashy longings and a bad word.
Disclaimer: Nothing's mine but the smut, the rest belongs to the exceedingly talented Ms Rowling, and the verse is from Voice of the Beehive's Monsters and Angels.
Originally posted: Azkaban's Lair, 28 May 2001
Notes: This is part one of a series entitled HONEY LINGERS borrowed (cough) from the C.D. By Voice of the Beehive.
Dedications: To the wonderful Nezad for all your help and inspiration and romantics everywhere.
Feedback: Please :) Let me know if it's worth finishing the series at: vin7blue@yahoo.com.au TYK.
ENJOY :)
'There are monsters there are angels
There's a peacefulness and a rage inside us all
There is sugar there is salt, there is ice and there is fire
In every single heart'
"Sirius!" James Potter sighed as he appraised his anxious and grumpy best friend. "What is wrong with you these days?"
"Nothing," Sirius snapped.
"Rot!" James snapped back. "You've been in a foul mood for weeks, and it's driving us all mad and it has to stop before you do something truly stupid."
"You mean besides beating Snape's head like a bludger?" Peter Pettigrew grinned, remembering this afternoon's fight between Sirius and Severus Snape.
James frowned, "That is exactly what I mean...Sirius, what were you thinking?"
Sirius's handsome features drew themselves into a fierce snarl as his mind went back to the fight...
\\ He and Remus had been happily minding their own business, chatting about the finer points of Defence Against the Dark Arts when that smarmy git Snape had sneered at Moony,
"I suppose you'd be an expert on that, hey, Lupin?"
Sirius had watched as once again his friend's exquisite hazel eyes closed in on themselves.
"Fuck off, Snape!" Sirius growled.
"Defending your boyfriend, Black? How noble," Severus smirked.
Remus blushed bright red and Sirius blanched visibly.
Snape continued with his taunts.
"I suppose being *intimate* with a creature like Lupin does entail a good grasp of knowledge in the Dark Arts?"
"I'm warning you, Snape!" Sirius hissed menacingly.
Remus reached out and touched his arm. "Sirius, he's not worth it, please."
"Ahh, how touching."
Those were the last words Snape managed as Sirius had launched himself at the foul Slytherin. \\
Sirius sighed heavily as James came and sat beside him.
"Padfoot?"
"He was being cruel to Remus."
James couldn't see his friend's statement as it was hidden by a curtain of long black hair, but he could guess...
"Sirius, why don't you write down what you're feeling?"
"What?!" cried Sirius as he snapped his head around to James.
James watched the panic in his best friend's eyes and wished Peter was anywhere but there.
"You don't have to send it, just write it." He glanced at Wormtail, then all but whispered to Sirius, "Just let it out."
"Let what out?" asked Peter, feeling left out of things again by these two.
"Whatever it is that's bothering him, Peter," James replied, trying to keep the irritation from his voice.
Peter knew there was more going on here, but he also knew that upsetting James and Sirius was something he did not want to do.
James stood up and walked over to Wormtail. "C'mon Peter, let's go find Remus and get you sorted out for that test, shall we?"
"God," moaned Peter, "I'd forgotten all about the Transfiguration test! I'm bound to fail for sure."
"No, you won't. Remus and I will make sure of that," said James as he herded the blonde boy toward the door. Just before he followed him out, James turned to Sirius.
"Think about it, Padfoot, what I said ... OK?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sirius did more than think about it. After all James was generally right. He searched for parchment and quill, sat himself down, and began to write out all the concealed thoughts that had been plaguing him lately.
Remus,
I remember the first time I saw you. I was too young to really know what beautiful was, but somehow I knew you were it.
Through the years I've watched you grow even more so. Why do you hide it.your light, your beauty?
You curl inside yourself. Keeping everyone at arm's length, even us. Oh, you laugh with us, and joke with us, but still you hold back, terrified you'll hurt us, or worse, we'll hurt you.
I could do that. I'd never mean to, never want to, but I know myself too well. Yes, I could hurt you. That's why I don't let you see how I feel about you, your strength, your grace, your eyes.
Oh, your eyes, I want to lose myself forever in their gold, your gold, the color of your soul.
You think you're bad, that your heart is tainted. You couldn't be further from the truth. You're good, too good, that is your crime, your failing. That's why I can never tell you, never let you know.
I long to let your sweetness cleanse me, quell my rage, make me whole, not just some flashy fly-by-night. I know you'd see, do see the depth in me, the real me, the one I try so hard to cloak with this mouth of mine.
Damn, it hurts to see the mess you make of yourself in the wake of the moon. I ache to take you in my arms and tell you it's all right, that you'll be safe, that I'll protect you from your pain, your loneliness.
I can't, no one can, and the injustice of it kills me.
What would you do if I told you this? Would you give me that shy grin and disbelieve? I wonder what you would do if you knew how much I would cheerfully give up for one night of mapping your pale bewitching flesh?
What I wouldn't give to know you, all of you, inside and out, brand you as mine, have you place your own mark upon me.
Your mark is deadly. Isn't that how you think, what you think? You believe yourself a monster? You do. I've heard you call yourself this. I've seen the terror in your eyes at the thought of others doing so.
How can I make you see you are not a monster? Not to us, not to me.
How can I do this without giving into my wants?
I do want you. Can you not see it? Feel it?
Perhaps we are both too good at concealing our needs? Will we ever be good enough to conceal them from ourselves? I fear not. For just as you can't lose the wolf, I can't lose you.
I have read of people calling angels monstrous.
Did you know that, my beautiful Remus?
Forever yours,
Sirius
Sirius Black re-read what he'd just written and sighed. Carefully folding the parchment, he picked up his wand and transfigured the note into a lupine flower.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Several days after their arrival at Godric's Hollow, James and Lily Potter were still unpacking their belongings.
"Oh, James, look!" cried Lily. "It's your old school trunk."
James went and knelt beside his lovely wife. They immersed themselves in memories of Hogwarts and the Marauders, Quidditch and classes, sorting through pictures, plaques, ribbons, badges and books.
"Good Lord," grinned James, as he pulled a rather hefty belted tome from the pile. "The Monster Book of Monsters."
"I remember those, you have to stroke their spine to read them," Lily giggled, holding out her hand to her husband, "Here, give us a look, James."
He watched as she carefully removed the tie around it and stroked its spine till it consented to let her open it.
"Why, James, this isn't your book, it's Sirius'. Look."
James took the book and looked at the name plate inside. It read 'Property of Sirius Black.'
"Hmm, that's odd. I must have borrowed it at some point and forgot to give it back," he muttered as he leafed through the pages. When he got to the chapter on Werewolves, he blinked ... Once ... Twice.
"What on earth is ... is that a flower?" Lily asked.
James picked it up and held it out to her, "Yes ... why would..."
"It's a lupine flower," interrupted Lily as she rolled her eyes. "How very Sirius."
James quirked black eyebrows at her in confusion.
"Lupine ... Wolf ... Werewolf ... Lupin ... Flower!" she explained.
"Ah, yes, quite," said James as some long distant memory started to tug at his mind.
"Poor Sirius, do you think he'll ever tell Remus how he feels about him?"
"Hm?" replied James, distractedly.
"Of course, Remus is just as bad. He doesn't say anything either..." mused Lily, deep in thoughts of her own. "What if we locked them in a room for twenty-four hours? A room with nothing but a bed, champagne and chocolate? Do you think that would work?"
"Hm?"
Lily shook her head at her husband. She was just about to chide him for not listening when Harry woke up, demanding to be fed. She got up to see to him and left her husband deep in his own thoughts.
"Hmmm?" pondered James as he slid his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose. "I wonder?"
// It had been their final year at Hogwarts, and Sirius had been driving everyone batty with his foul temper, till one day he'd just exploded and sent Snape to Madame Pomfrey...
"Sirius, why don't you write down what you're feeling?", "You don't have to send it, just write it.", "Just let it out." //
"Hmm?"
// What was it Lily had said? "Lupine ... Wolf ... Werewolf ... Lupin ... Flower!", "How very Sirius." //
"Would he really do that? Oh, hell, it's Sirius, yes, he would."
There was really only one way to find out. He took out his wand, said a few choice words, and tapped the flower. And there, sitting in his hand was a folded piece of parchment with one word in Sirius' bold scrawl, *Moony*.
James didn't read it, he didn't think it was his place to, but he did get his own scroll and write ...
Remus,
I believe this belongs to you.
He then returned the parchment to its floral state and attached it to his scroll, adding ...
This floral epistle contains all your heart's desires.
He was just about to sign it when he heard Lily calling him to dinner. He put it back in the trunk. Never mind, he could owl it later.
Unfortunately, later never came for the Potters. Voldemort did.