Title: Dog Days
Author: Airam
Author E-mail: airam_ect@hotmail.com
Category: Romance
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Just read the books.
Summary: Reunion Fic. Sirius,
finished with his task, goes to "lie low" at Remus's. S/R Slash.
Absolutely pointless fluff. Light, and happy. (I promise the story is in better sentences than my summary!)
Author's Notes: Thanks to my beta, Berne (Read her stories at FF.N under her penname!). Your help was absolutely invaluable. There are also more notes at the bottom.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters in this story. (Although I do own the "soft blue china") They are divvied up into parts by JK Rowling, Bloomsbury, Scholastic, and other places, I think. They also own the characters' situations. I am not making any money off this story and I don't intend copyright infringement. Thank you!
Q: "What are the 'dog days of summer'?
A: It is the time of year when Sirius, the "Dog Star," appears on the horizon, just before the sun rises in the morning."
~Found on a packet of Best Yet® Instant Oatmeal under the category "Wacky Trivia"
The dog days of summer were upon us. Looking back I realize, I didn't know at that time what the "the dog days of summer" even meant. I know now.
I had known of the phrase since I can remember. What child hasn't heard it? But I never thought about what it meant. Nobody thinks about the meaning of those kinds of things. To me, a thirteen-year-old kid with no means of transportation and no neighbors to speak of, the dog days of summer were the days when it was so hot that all you wanted to do was lay around the house like a lazy dog. It's funny that my inquisitive nature never provoked me to discover why someone would dub these "dog days." It was simply received, with an innocent childhood acceptance.
I sigh now, wishing for those childhood days again. Of course, it wasn't as though my childhood in particular was very spectacular. It wasn't horrible. It could have been worse. I was never bored, or even lonely. My best friend, myself, was always with me, and I could amuse myself for hours at a time. When I ran out of things to do I would stalk my brother Amadeus and his friend Connor all around the property. No, in fact, other than my lycanthropy, my childhood was fairly normal. Even enjoyable at times.
But this memory sequence is not about my childhood. Back to dog days. The dog days of summer are defined as the time of year when the star Sirius, the Dog Star, appears on the horizon just before sunrise. It's ironic, that definition, because that is exactly what happens. Or what did happen. That one summer morning.
I had just woken up, but it wasn't the sun that woke me; it wasn't dawn yet. It must have been a feeling, like some kind of natural foreshadowing. But that's not important. The important thing is that I was up. I was in the kitchen making tea. I always loved the act of making tea. I loved the soothing sound of the dishes clinking and the hot water being poured over the tea leaves so that they steamed and hissed. I loved the soft blue china. It was comforting. I wasn't thinking of him. I tried not to do that as often as possible. It got me excited, and I needed focus.
It had been just over a year now that I had last seen Sirius. I had written to Dumbledore telling him where I was living and I offered my assistance, willing and eager to repay the favor he had done for me.
If there's anything I can do just let me know.
He had written back thanking me for my concern, and had explained to me about what had taken place at the end of the school year. He had also asked for my help. That was why I needed to stay focused. I needed to center all my attention onto the coming war. Ex-boyfriends were a distraction, and I had a job to do.
But that morning was destined to be special. I took my tea outside, as I often did on warm summer mornings, and sat on the porch swing as I drank it. The birds were just starting to wake. I was between jobs at the time and didn't have anywhere to go. I just swung and relaxed. The porch faced east, toward the sunrise. I had had it placed that way on purpose. A lucky thing, for had it faced any other direction I probably wouldn't have seen what I saw that morning. It was like a scene from an old silent film, almost too perfect to be believable. But I remember it very clearly; it did happen.
I sat there looking at the sun rising, my mother's warnings about going blind ringing in my head. I was so lost in my thoughts that I hardly noticed the lanky figure being revealed as he cleared the hill. The first part of him I saw was his hair. The air rippled in the July heat, even this early in the morning, and his hair shone in the rising sun. My Dog Star was appearing on the horizon, and as I witnessed it the butterflies rose in my chest. Slowly the rest of his body appeared. His feet made little clouds of dust as they kicked up the dry earth from the dirt road. He carried his robes in his hand, too hot for anything but a white t-shirt and a pair of thin, blue, prison-issue pants.
I stood as he got closer, observing his recently cut hair, which fell just above his chin. Too long and heavy to hold its natural curl, and too short to be weighted so much that it was straight, it fell in wavy black locks that stuck to his face, plastered there by the sweat of his journey. His skin, which had been paled by Azkaban, was beginning to recapture its glorious dark complexion.
I walked out to the steps of the porch, and I think that's when he spotted me. My heart was beating in my throat. I didn't want to prepare myself for how awkward this was possible to be. It wasn't 1981, and we weren't twenty-one. But to be honest, I happily tossed all logic out the window. It was summer and my lover, my soul mate, was here. Nonentities like wars, post-traumatic stress disorder, and the real world could just fuck off for now.
Or, that was the idea at least. But as I stood there, holding my cup of tea and breathing in therapeutic deep breaths in an attempt to stall the cardiac arrest I was in danger of going into, it was becoming harder and harder to convince myself of this. Ten more of his long strides and he would be in my arms. But he stopped suddenly. Why would he stop?
"Hello Remus," he called, waving his hand above his head. He was smiling. I allowed myself to smile a bit in return. He looked happy.
"Hello," I called back. "Well what are you standing in the lane for? Come in, Sirius."
He shrugged cheerfully, and started walking toward the house.
This won't be awkward. This won't be awkward. This won't be awkward. I repeat this mantra to myself. Maybe if I say it enough it will be true.
Eight steps later he was standing at the bottom of the porch steps, looking up at me. This won't be awkward. This won't be awkward.
I want to smile at him, but I couldn't seem to control my facial muscles. Or my arms for that matter because, without my consent, the decided to fling themselves around Sirius' neck. As I stumbled down the stairs, with my arms around Sirius, he returned the embrace, staggering backwards with me. Twenty-one again, we fell, ungracefully, to the dirt path, still in each other's arms.
Regaining my composure, I asked, "I'm sorry. Did I hurt you?"
"Well I didn't get this sort of greeting at Arabella's," he laughed. "But, no you didn't hurt me." His voice lowered to a half-whisper. "It was nice."
I smiled. Still a charmer, Sirius.
The sunlight shone on his face, only inches away from mine. I felt it then, something of what we'd had before was still there. Buried as deep as it could possibly be buried, under more than a decade of loneliness, despair, and distance, but it was still there.
"Come on," I urged, "lets go inside."
And so, with our arms around each other, we walked up the porch steps and into the cool darkness of the house.
And it wasn't awkward.
Author's Notes: I don't normally write fluffy romance, but I saw that oatmeal packet and it just spurred me on. What can I say? I hoped you liked this anyway, but I won't blame you if you don't. (I despise all fluff but my own. Come on admit it, you think your stories are the bomb too.) I understand that Sirius isn't likely to be traveling around in his human form, and I originally wrote it so that Padfoot was coming up over the hill and then transformed, but the damn dog just couldn't pull off the sexy walk like Sirius could. And then he got fleas and it all went to hell. J We'll just pretend that he changed right before he came up over the hill, so he could give Remus a good entrance. ::wink, wink:: I hope you enjoyed. Please send me feedback. You can email me at airam_ect@hotmail.com, or just leave a review!