~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter Eight: Les Racines
What happens
: Remus tells Lilly, James and Peter and spends the winter at the Black residence, where Sirius learns of prejudice, even in his own family, and discovers the necessity of secrets. Yes, this summary is a dork.
Main Characters: Remus J. Lupin, Sirius Black
Subsidiary Characters: James Potter, Lilly Evans, Peter Pettigrew; Severus Snape, Lucius Malfoy; Professor Voldemort, Professor McGonagall; Etienne Ibert
Couples You Will Find In This Fic (Whether You Like It Or Not): Sirius Black/Remus Lupin; James Potter/Lilly Evans; Severus wanting Remus's body; a hint or two of Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape; other relationships of both a homosexual and heterosexual nature
Dedication: This fic is dedicated to all my reviewers, without whom I would be a miserable mess; now, I'm just a cheerful one with big happy dorkfaces. To 'Emmy the Cat' -- you make me smile so much, whenever I read your reviews, that I can't help but dedicate this chapter to you, as well as to all the people who have emailed me, reviewed my work faithfully, sent me pretty graphics (yes, Ana, you know who you are) or even cared in the slightest. It's all for you, people. My reviewers. You rock my socks! Always.
This is: chapter eight of a work in progress. Like all my works in progress, it is possible that you will be waiting a very long time between installments, or they could come out daily in a psychotic and rather frightening fashion. Do Not Worry! Just take it as it comes, and feel free to send me demanding fan mail (all demanding fan mail should be sent to IremusJLupin@aol.com) if you feel you've been waiting an egregiously long time. Demanding fan mail is annoying sometimes, but on the whole it makes me feel incredibly cool. And that's what it's all about, right? Oh yes. And I am also constantly updating chapters that have already been uploaded, whenever I find a hideous spelling error or a problem with grammar. So check back often.
C&C: is demanded. Or, you know, desperately longed for, in a rather pathetic sense. Just gimme some of that good ol' fashioned R&R, and let me know you actually do want to see more of my work.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Chapter VIII: Les Racines

Telling the others about himself was different, to say the least, than telling them, with Sirius, about the two of them. The latter had been easy -- they had shown it, Lilly and James knowing them well enough to understand and even cultivate the bond that grew fast and strong between them, Peter seeing and comprehending much more than anyone ever gave him full credit for. The former was something different entirely, Sirius beside Remus but not a part of it. This was all his own, on his own shoulders, on his own back, forever.

James, sitting beside Lilly, said nothing. Peter watching Remus more than he watched his hands for once. Sirius stood adjacent to Remus, a foot away, arms crossed over his chest as he watched from beneath his bangs, admiring.

The words came out simply, smoothly, not too fast and not too hurried, slow and simple. It was, as Remus had said, that it merely was. He presented it as such, and the air was heavy, pregnant with silence, their unspoken questions, the struggle within them to try and grasp what it meant.

"So," James said softly, "that's why youevery month" Remus nodded, keeping his eyes focused on the wall behind his friends. His hands were steady but his heart pounded like a caged bird fluttering within his chest.

"Mm," he replied, thinking of little things, such as the cotton of his old robes, or the tree branches that waved in the breeze against the gray air just outside the window. There had been a bird nesting once upon them but she had flown South a month before. Small things such as that, keeping him otherwise occupied, so he wouldn't have to think about the eyes on him.

"I never even guessed," Lilly murmured, shaking her head, "never, not once." And, as Lilly knew most things always, to admit such a thing was important indeed. Still, Peter and Sirius were silent.

"I suppose," Remus said softly, ducking his head down, "that's just what I wanted." It seemed as if he were smiling sadly in the shadows his own form made, waiting for the harsh blow that would come at any second from an unknown direction. It was something for which he could not be entirely prepared.

"I've heard," James said, "I mean, I've read, that being -- you know -- is" He licked his lips, and kept his pale blue eyes on Remus, unsure. "I've read that it's hard," he continued finally, "and -- I mean -- that sounds bloody stupid, I sound like a bloody git, I can't possibly know, but -- I" Remus shrugged lightly.

"I'm used to it," he said.

"And you never told us." Lilly frowned to herself, less angry and more thoughtful. "We never even knew."

"Sorry," Remus said.

"No," Lilly hurried on quickly, "no -- it's just -- Remus." At last, Remus was pulled away from what was going on outside the window, eyes catching Lilly Evans's own emerald ones. She had an intense gaze, pure and bejeweled, and Remus couldn't break away from it, found her searching him as she searched his eyes and he felt oddly out of place but allowed this deep intrusion.

"Yes?" Remus's throat was dry. For all that he had prepared and steeled himself for this moment, for losing the friends he had spent more than three school years with, for all that he had told himself he didn't mind it, so long as he had Sirius with him, he still felt something close up tight as he swallowed, and his palms were cold.

"You could have trusted us," Lilly said at last, very softly. Her eyes were sad. "Really, we" She found herself looking away, found herself faced with something she could not stare down, or reason her way out of, or be strong against, or triumph over. There was, she thought, no success in a world that had such dilemmas in it. Such pain. Such creation. It was the first time she had come to discover this reality, and she shivered. James, eyes flickering casually over to her, slipped his hand into hers.

"I should have," Remus replied, smiling weakly, his face aged, "and I'm sorry. I lied to you. I lied to all of you."

"You never lied," James said, holding tight to Lilly's hand, "never once did you lie."

"When I went away those nights," Remus sighed, "each time, I lied to you."

"That doesn't count," James protested, "everyone lies like that, at some point or another, and none of them have ever had as good a reason as you have. I'd like to say -- I'd like to say that I wish you'd trusted us more, that I wish you'd told us, but I -- I don't know what I would have done," he went on, "and I never will. So I suppose -- I trust you -- and know what you did, it was what was best." His brow was furrowed, his hand warm, as he worked his theory, his decision, out for himself. Remus lifted his head, slowly.

"But I," Remus began, and this time, Peter cut him off.

"You did, I think, what any of us would have," he said, slowly and deliberately, "and we can't blame you, not for who you are."

There was silence, in which it was easy to feel Sirius smile.

"See?" he asked at last.

"Exactly," James said. Lilly looked up at Remus's face, eyes wide, unsure but hopeful, aching with the wisdom of the earth. So that was why, she realized, he always looked so sad and so old. So that was why he was unlike any other boy she had ever or ever would know, holding himself proud yet ashamed, strong yet weary, wild yet broken. So that was how his eyes seemed to know everything, more even than Lilly herself did. So that was why he lurked within the crinkling confines of a good, long book.

And James's words made sense, thinking deeper than what was shown, thinking deep beneath the lines, as James sometimes had the wisdom to do. Inside she was still hurt, but not at all for her own feelings, hurting rather for Remus and the load on his shoulders, the silver in the gold that lurked within his eyes, wishing there were something she could do and knowing there never would be.

Lilly felt herself smile slowly, brightly, her eyes bright also, as was the radiant light that shown through her features. Sadness and warmth chased each other over her face.

"You can trust us," she said, "you can always trust us, Remus."

Remus knew then that they would tell no one, betray his secret to no one, and that this moment of lingering smiles was enough to carry him through the rest of his life on a wave of blissful acceptance. He shrugged faintly, feeling half embarrassed by each fresh burst of pride, and his muscles tightened ever so slightly. It was the first promise all five of them had ever shared and it would not be broken for many years to come, in a time and place much different from rare childhood.

Remus had never used a library for this purpose before. It was new. It was interesting. It was, Remus had to finally admit, very nice.

He was pressed up not uncomfortably against the prickling bindings lined up in the ancient muggle literature section, a place which no student other than Remus had ever found any reason to explore. Now, that heedless neglect of such brilliant classics had proven to be a gift to both Sirius and Remus in a search for some much needed privacy. All right, so the carpet was dusty, and the bookshelves smelled of age and disuse, and it was hard to ignore the tickling in their noses that sometimes heralded a sneeze they needed to fight back. But, all in all, it was a most opportune and convenient discovery.

Even though the fraying book bindings were proving to be quite uncomfortable against Remus's back and neck.

There were other things that were very much nicer, however, that Remus could concentrate on instead of that roughness on his skin. First of all, there was the very smooth, very soft way Sirius's lips were on his. Then, there was also the very gentle, very delicate fashion in which Sirius's hand was pressed against Remus's hip, warmth through the fraying robes. There was also the nice, close way their bodies were pressed, or how Sirius thought to slip an arm around Remus's waist and pull him close, or how sweet the world smelled all dusty and bookish and with Sirius's scent above all that.

No, Remus had never used a library for this purpose before, but he was certain that he'd like it very much to do so again.

As Shakespeare was knocked out of the shelf, landing in a puffing dust cloud by Remus's thigh, Remus closed his eyes to this supposed abuse of literature and imagined himself in a world of words and poetry and beyond that, the warm feeling of Sirius's lips on his own. When they kissed, now, they kissed with more daring, lips parted, breath hot, little sounds of air catching in their throats raggedly, hungrily. When they kissed, now, Remus was half-mindless, no better, or perhaps no worse, than the beast inside him.

"Quelle...bonne idee..." he whispered against the side of Sirius's jaw. Sirius turned, quieting him in another kiss. A Midsummer Night's Dream toppled over on top of a collection of sonnets.

"Yeah," Sirius mumbled back into Remus's mouth, "yeah, whatever that meant -- sounded good, anyway..." Remus shivered as Sirius pressed himself closer in another cloud of dust, another cloud of old English.

"J'aime...cette idee...je l'aime beaucoup..."

Sirius kissed him a little more fiercely, claiming those French lips with a low laugh and a soft growl. Remus lifted a hand up, grasping at the front of Sirius's robe. Their hips came in contact and again, it was like growing up, bone against bone, the realization that beneath that light cotton cloth was warm, flushed skin. Just thinking of that skin, just thinking of flushed skin against flushed skin, made that unknown thing clench up tight in Remus's stomach. Above him, Sirius was trembling, very slightly, shaking with the effort of keeping himself up as much as he was over Remus's body.

"When," and then Sirius's lips were on Remus's cheekbone, "you talk," and then by his temple, breath puffing against the light hairs above, "like that," and he was on his forehead, each kiss slow and deliberate and wonderful, there, "it sounds," and he was breathless with kissing down Remus's nose, "so," right above his upper lip, "beautiful." Remus threw back his head a little and caught Sirius's lips in his own. As they kissed again he laughed, a deep, wonderful laugh that got caught up in the junction of their mouths. Sirius felt his own gut clench and his body pressed forward, the muscles in his thighs clenching tight.

"Mais," Remus whispered, as their kiss broke, and he looked up into those blue eyes, "quand nous embracons, je ne pense pas...je parle des mots, mais je ne les entends pas..."

"Whatever you're saying," Sirius said, burying his face in Remus's neck, "keep saying it." He worked over scars and unmarred flesh alike, using teeth and tongue and lips on pure instinct alone. His instinct was perfect. Kissing Remus came naturally to him, more naturally than anything else ever had. From the very beginning he had worked out a map of Remus's skin, each weak spot, each place that tasted particularly sweet. He knew the other's face by heart. It wasn't like memorizing formulas or dates or calculations, and there was much less margin for error in the sheer wonderful way they felt when they touched. Sirius threw himself to the task as if it were a game. Sort of, he would have explained, like Quidditch, only he was better at this than he was at the sport, and he'd grown much fonder of touching Remus and hearing Remus make these soft, young sounds than he was of falling off his broom and hitting the ground hard. In Remus's arms, in the privacy of just the two of them, there was no way Sirius could fail at anything.

He loved it as much as he loved Remus and could only show the vast range of these feelings when he was kissing, touching, letting his body speak for him as opposed to the clumsiness of his awkward, embarrassed words.

Remus felt the cover of something very poetic stab him in the shoulder-blade.

"Je ne dis rien," he murmured giddily, breathlessly, "mais, peut-etre, je dis tout?"

"One day," Sirius whispered, promised, "I'm gonna learn French, and be able to understand everything you're saying.

"Mais non," Remus replied, closing his eyes, "apres, il n'y aurait pas le mystere."

They kissed a little while longer and pulled down the collars of their robes, unbuttoning them with careful yet hasty fingers, so they could explore necks, collar bones, a bit of the flesh that lay beneath. And then, they went no further, Sirius relaxing against Remus's chest, curling up between his legs, half in his lap, his head tucked beneath Remus's chin. Remus snaked his arms around that bigger form, seeming oddly miniature as it was, now, coiled into a tiny, contently warm ball. Toying with his hair, Remus thought about their breath as it slowed, the deeper rhythm, the pure relaxation stored in their lungs.

"Quelle bonne idee," Remus repeated, thinking aloud, "quelle belle idee."

"Remus?" Sirius's eyes were closed and he felt half-asleep, groggy and satisfied.

"Oui?"

"Come home with me."

"Quoi?" Sometimes, they needed no translations between languages, their voices, their tones of voice, enough to convey all it was they wanted to say. Sirius knew without needing to ask that he should clarify the request. The statement.

"You always stay in Hogwarts over Christmas Break -- come home with me."

"Mais," Remus said, "l'argent..." And Sirius knew also that Remus was protesting, for some reason or another, despite what he wanted. He would have frowned if he felt like moving even that much. As it was, he stiffened a little.

"C'mon," he pleaded, "my family wants to meet you, and it'd only be for a week -- I want you to come. Please?" He nuzzled into Remus's neck, breath puffing out warmly. "Michael and Sean'll be in, and Mum and Da have heard so much about you, never having seen you -- everyone's starting to wonder if you're real."

"Je," Remus sighed, "je le voudrais..." His hand stilled against the soft silk of Sirius's hair, his body, his breaths, pausing in thought. "I'd like that," he said finally, "I'd like that very much."

"Yeah," Sirius said, relaxing again, that warmth and excitement moving like slow liquor through his veins, "and your dad could come, too, if he wanted. Mum suggested it in a letter and I thought -- you know, I just thought it'd be nice. To have a nice Christmas -- only my mum can beat Hogwarts cooking, you know."

"I'm sure," Remus replied with a slight smile.

"So?" Sirius's voice was pleading again. "What do you think?"

"I can ask," Remus said. Hamlet was giving him a pain in the back, sharp and insistent, but Remus ignored it, "and that's all I can do, after all."

"I know," Sirius said, "but it's a start." The dust moved around them like laughter. Homework forgotten, they kissed again, and twined themselves together until it was impossible to tell where one boy ended and the other began, which arm or which leg belonged to whom. It was dark and dusky in that abandoned corner of the library and they stayed that way until late in the night, too awake to sleep, too asleep to move, too content to feel anything anywhere else echo or disturb the comfort of their air.

And so, when winter came, showering snow down upon the pale world and making it seem, for such whiteness, all the more vivid, Christmas became a green thing, sparkling with lights, promising presents beneath a tree and the one word Remus tried so often to ignore: family.

He had written his father, asking at the end of a very long letter for the permission to spend the holiday vacation with Sirius's family. Etienne, who had, unbeknownst to his son, received a promotion just a week before he received the letter, wrote back immediately, telling him it was all right. Already, Remus knew his Christmas was complete, this being the first and most important present he could have gotten. At Sirius's urging he wrote back, inviting his father to come, as well.

Because of the two boys' youthful eagerness and Etienne's accountant's efficiency, arrangements were made in less than a week. For the first time in Remus's life, Christmas Break had become something he looked forward to, something he allowed to distract him during homework and fill his mind with daydreams during classes. Sirius, too, couldn't wait, writing letters back and forth with his parents until all the plans were flawless and set in stone. Dumbledore watched these two with a keener eye than he did most, spending the occasional tea with Professor McGonagall or Professor Hemlock discussing their achievements or insights.

In this time Remus barely saw Severus Snape more than twice, and even then it was only in passing, exchanging careful smiles as they walked by each other in the hallways. As a result, the Slytherin boy spent more and more time at Lucius's side, growing closer as two rosebushes did, pricking each other with their own thorns.

The night before Remus and Sirius were to take two trains, first the Hogwarts express, and then another to where Orion and Aquila Black were to pick them, Sirius found he couldn't sleep. His mind ran over things in a wild frenzy: his parents would drive them back to Rhondda, where they'd meet with Etienne, and then Sirius could show Remus the treehouse he'd built a few years ago, the solitude of the old, abandoned mine, which he knew Remus would like, the stripped out, empty feeling it gave off, lonely unless you were with someone else. And then there would be presents, and Christmas, and firesides, and the full moon wouldn't be on anyone's mind. The best cure for anything, Sirius knew, was distraction. Well, for anything, except for sleep. Sirius's eyes refused so shut, his body refused to relax.

He found himself wondering if Remus had drifted off yet, or if he, too, was as excited as Sirius himself was. Eventually, he decided that Remus was no doubt being the adult he always was, asleep already so he wouldn't be tired out the day of the trip. It made him smile and frown all at once. With a deep, long sigh, he stretched himself out over his bed.

And found he still couldn't sleep.

And then he'd show Remus how it looked when you looked down from the treehouse over the world below, and Remus would understand what it meant to be above things, taller than them, watching them seem all unreal beneath. And maybe Remus, in looking out over everything, through the thick foliage of the trees at the edge of the town, where mining and man met the forest, he would say something like, "Jolie," and it would mean something nicer than English words could tell, just 'cause Sirius knew by the way Remus was talking what it meant.

He slipped out of bed, feet on the cold floor, pushing past the thick, enveloping curtain around his bed. Beneath him the floorboards creaked softly in tired protest. He took a few steps forward, and then grew bolder, even though it was dark and quiet. Remus's bed was only a few steps away, in any case.

"Remus?" He pushed the curtain to Remus's bed aside, voice lowered to a questioning whisper. "Remus. Are you awake?" Startled, Remus turned in the bed, hair falling in disarray over his eyes, which were wide, surprised. Sirius could tell immediately that he had not been sleeping; no doubt, he was indulging in whatever it was he thought about so long and so hard sometimes.

"I suppose I am, now," Remus replied, sitting up slowly, running his fingers through his hair to keep it from his eyes, in a weak attempt at neatness, "what is it?" Sirius sat down on the edge of the bed and it groaned as the floorboards had. Everything, in the dead of night like this, was tired, protesting against those awake, clinging to slumber with groggy hands.

"Couldn't sleep," Sirius murmured, flopping back against Remus's shins, looking up at him.

"No," Remus said wryly, "I can see that." Sirius had never come to him this way before, in the deep night, in the privacy of his own bed. Only once had they both sat on the same bed, that one evening of the Butterfly Summer, but that had been different, was different, than this. "What are you doing here?" Sirius said nothing and merely shrugged. "I could have been asleep, you know."

"But you weren't," Sirius informed him, "so it doesn't matter." He looked so cocky, so sure of himself, that Remus couldn't help but smile, and the grin on Sirius's face widened. "C'mon," he said after a moment, "aren't you just a little bit excited?"

"Of course I am. It doesn't mean I have to show it. It doesn't mean I'll keep myself from getting some sleep."

"Always so practical," Sirius complained, though he put no heart and no energy in it, "why do you have to be so practical all of the time?"

"Because it helps." Remus's voice was dry.

"Anyway," Sirius went on, shrugging as best as he could in such a position, "I was bored, so I thought I might drop by for a bit of a visit, Monsieur Moony." Remus blinked, and felt a laugh rise rusty in his throat. He pushed it down for the moment, lifting a skeptical brow.

"Calling on me unannounced, Monsieur?" Sirius did laugh at that, wondering when they'd both turned into Cassie and her best friend Andrea.

"I hope it hasn't been too much of an inconvenience to your busy schedule," Sirius said, when he was finished laughing, lips pursing faintly, a repressed grin dancing over them. Remus ran his fingers again self consciously through his hair, which was in need of a cut, for it was always nice, the more you could see of Remus's face.

"I'm sure I can squeeze you in, somewhere," Remus said. After that, they were silent, until they began to laugh, both of them now, Sirius deep and free and Remus breathy and wounded, speaking of such laughter that only came after great pain. Sirius reached up to Remus's face lazily, fingers brushing over his cheek very lightly.

"Even when you are being practical," Sirius said, but he didn't finish the sentence, his eyes bright and dark at the same time, seen through the shadow, the lack of light. The conclusion to those spoken words was left floating in the air, and Remus closed his eyes, letting it bathe over him slowly. Sirius knew, then, that things were so much better, compliments so much greater, when they were left to the imagination. Anything could have come after that. You're beautiful. You're mine. You're amazing. You're everything.

"Even when you are being a child," Remus replied, and he didn't finish his sentence, either. They met each other's eyes in the darkness, some light glinting between them, not external but lit from within. Sirius ran his thumb thoughtfully over the curve of Remus's cheek, slow, gentle. Remus leaned lightly into the touch, sighing softly, deeply, as all the heaviness he bore with him took off from the center of his chest, the pit of his stomach, the very tips of his fingers. Both of them closed their eyes on an unspoken, sudden cue, and Remus dipped his head down, then lifted it up, rubbing back against Sirius's palm. It was soft. He could tell it was brown. Even in the darkness, he knew the colors that were not by his sensibilities but by his senses. The wolf, he had given free reign over himself, over his eyes, his ears, his nose. His lips. He turned his face to the side, very slowly, and pressed those lips against the very soft flesh beneath Sirius's fingers. They curled against his nose, against the sides of his nose.

They shivered, though it was very warm.

"I'm not a child," Sirius mumbled in feeble protest.

"Yes, you are."

"You are, too. Just a boy. Moony." His thumb trailed over Remus's lower lip first, then the upper. There were the slightest of broomstick-caused calluses on his fingertips. Even so, they were soft.

"Not quite," Remus whispered as a knuckle brushed over the corner of his mouth.

"No," Sirius said, "not quite." He took Remus's jaw in that hand, cupping his cheek in an upside-down fashion, bringing his face down to kiss his lips and then stopping suddenly, pausing, letting their noses and breaths brush together but not closing that last distance, a few centimeters at most, between them. They waited. Remus felt thrill after thrill run down the very center of his spine, burying themselves into the depth of his stomach.

Still, they waited.

It grew cold, fingers of snow ghosting over their skin, causing the pale hairs there to stand on end in the cool night.

"Kiss me, Moony?" Sirius asked at last. Remus could feel the words on his own lips. Remus could almost taste them. Remus closed his eyes and opened them again, and he leaned down, across the miniscule but important space between them. He found Sirius's lips, pressed his own to them, and then drew back with Sirius's lower lip between both his own. The kiss lingered that way, until Remus pulled slowly away.

"Comme ca...?"

"Again."

Remus obeyed.

"Une autre fois?"

"Like that."

Remus obeyed.

"Avec les yeux fermees."

"Open your eyes."

Remus obeyed. This kiss was deeper. He searched Sirius's mouth as if it held not just his own secrets but the secrets of the world, ones which he had been searching for the answers to for all his life. He dropped a lazy, graceful hand and rested it against Sirius's cheek as Sirius still pressed his palm against his own. They opened their eyes together. Closed them together. It was dark and they could see nothing whether their eyes were open or closed. Nighttime blanketed them and Sirius shifting against Remus's legs to accommodate the depth of their kiss and the grace of their touches. Sirius felt Remus's golden lashes fluttering against the bridge of his nose. Remus bent himself over Sirius's chest, kissing, movements slowed.

It was the first time, Sirius realized, that Remus had truly kissed him. Some strength, some courage, that Sirius had never before seen was conveyed through this kiss. Some firmness of spirit. Some presence of mind. Some deep desire and it made, Sirius discovered, a world of difference.

Sirius Black had never before in his life been kissed this way. It made his head pound and his stomach twist up in knots, and he wasn't sure, with the shadow above, whether or not he had his eyes open, until he saw his own reflection in the gold of Remus's eyes, and moved into his arms, body light as a feather, heart sounding like the sea.

Aquila Black thought she had never seen a boy so small or so pale before in all her life. Used to her own boys -- loud, tan and more than just rowdy -- her eyes were unused to the sight of one so petite and so unsure of himself as this Remus Lupin Sirius was always going on and on about. On first instinct, she wanted to take the poor, starved looking child under her wing and feed him with meat pies and sunshine until he grew as strong and hearty as Sean or Michael, but she didn't think Sirius would much appreciate such efforts.

And then, Aquila saw the look in the small boy's golden eyes, and felt her heart comforted. When one had eyes as sharp and as determined as that boy did, they'd be all right, Aquila knew, in this world.

Still, as Aquila watched, she saw that Remus stuck close to Sirius's side, half behind him, holding tight to a hand-me-down suitcase as if it were a lifejacket and he were shipwrecked in a vast ocean. Sirius, Aquila realized suddenly, was using himself as a human shield to protect the other boy, leading him through the crowd and making sure no one bumped into him. She lifted a brow and watched in half-bemused pride until her son caught sight of her and the mood broke. His face broke out in the brightest of smiles and his back straightened, and then he'd grabbed Remus's arm and was racing across the small distance between the two of them and the gathering of his family, waiting for his arrival for the holidays.

"There he is!" Michael cried out, and Sirius dropped Remus's arm as he and his older brother catapulted towards each other like two over-zealous puppies. "Gotta love him, late as always!"

"Aw, come off it, Michael, 'fore I knock you off!" Remus shrunk back as the two boys laughed, watching quietly, pensively. The taller boy Sirius had called Michael was darker, with a sharper angled face, but looked much as Sirius did. He ruffled Sirius's hair into disarray before pulling back, dark blue eyes sparkling.

"All right," he said, voice rich with laughter, "where is he, then?" Sirius stepped aside to reveal Remus behind him, running his fingers through his hair to straighten it out. His cheeks were flushed and it was rare that Remus ever saw anyone so vividly alive as this.

"Remus," Sirius said, that same laughter in his own voice, "this is Michael. Michael, this is Remus." Remus felt those dark blue eyes run over him speculatively and he stood his ground, though he kept his own eyes lowered, as he had made his inspection of the older boy previously.

"Well," Michael said finally, after a few moments of silence had passed, and then he held out his hand, "after all this time, it's very nice to meet you at last."

"It's nice to meet you, too," Remus replied, taking Michael's callused, rough hand in his own and feeling quite inadequate when faced with the older boy's intense, almost crushing handshake.

"All right, Michael," Sirius grumbled, smiling beneath a frown, "stop crushing his hand and let me introduce him to the rest." Michael ran his eyes one last time over Remus's face and then dropped his hand, stepping back. Despite himself, Remus felt oddly chilled by the look, as if Michael were seeing something he disliked extremely, and was trying to keep it hidden despite the sudden frown to his eyes. He couldn't face those eyes, and turned instead to what had to be the rest of the family, all the boys looking very much like Sirius, and the three girls almost exact miniatures of a tall, big-boned woman with the strongest eyes Remus had ever seen. "All right," Sirius went on suddenly, "pay close attention, 'cause there are a lot of them."

"Mm," Remus murmured, as if to tell Sirius to go on. He was taking this seriously, still shaken up by the look Michael had given him, abrupt and disapproving.

"Sean," Sirius began, "the oldest." Sean stepped forward, hands shoved in his pockets. He looked to be about twenty, his hair cut short, his face thin and intelligent. He was dressed in a blue suit made of a light, cheap cotton, but he wore such clothing comfortably. "The brains of the family," Sirius explained.

"Nice to see you do exist," Sean said as he, too, shook Remus's hand, and Sirius gave his eldest brother a light punch in the arm before he moved on.

"And you've met Michael, unfortunately," Sirius grumbled, as the rest laughed, "and me, of course. Then there's Cassiopea, but call her Cassie or she won't even give you the time of day." Cassie frowned at her brother but smiled at Remus and it was the first look he'd gotten yet that he felt comfortable with. He smiled back.

"Nice to meet you," Cassie said, and then she grinned the famed Black grin, "and if you've got any brains, you'll stay away from my brother."

"Shut up, Cassie," Sirius grumbled, giving her a look. Remus shrugged faintly.

"No," Remus said, "I know what you mean." The entire family laughed at the way he said it, simple as his shoulders rose and fell resignedly. It felt familiar and oddly nice, though Remus could still feel Michael's eyes on him, not so much thoughtful as calculating, and it kept him on the edge of his toes, more nervous than he had been for a long while.

"Moving on," Sirius muttered, shooting them both half-heartedly nasty looks, "these are the last, the twins, Lyra and Peg. Short for Pegasus. Catching a pattern?" Remus smiled faintly, taking in the two young girls who stood staring up at him, wide-eyed and silent. "And this," Sirius continued, "is my mum. Mum, this is Remus."

"I hope we haven't terrified you too much." Sirius's mother stepped forward, looking down on the boy. Up close, she could see the nervous flickering in his eyes, but beneath that, the solid, admirable constitution that kept him standing firm. She searched his face and then nodded in approval. "But you don't look easily terrified." She smiled and nodded again. "All right," she went on in a louder voice, "let's get out before we get stuck in afternoon traffic!" The rest began to pile into the small car and Remus drew back for a moment. He had come far since his first terrified days at Hogwarts, but the idea of being packed into a small car with bodies crushed in on all sides was less than comforting to him. Sirius caught his eyes.

"It won't be that long," he said softly, "mum and I've magicked the car so it works sort of like a broomstick. We'll be home in half the time."

"I know," Remus said, "I'm all right." He met that smile with one of his own and picked up his suitcase as if it were a battering ram. He'd get over this initial nervousness soon enough, if only for Sirius's sake.

Above all, Rhondda was cold. A snowstorm greeted them as Aquila parked the small, cramped car right out front of the Black house, which was a two story building of warm red brick mixed with whitewashed stone, and the wind was so harsh and so chill that even Michael, the most blustery and most stouthearted of them all, hurried to get the suitcases out of the car and into the house in order to escape the attack of such angry weather against him. It seemed, though, from the winking of light in the snow-fogged windows, that once inside the snug house that weather would have no effect on them. Remus kept close to Sirius still, and when the other boy entered, he followed close behind, both of them stamping their feet and shaking their hair free of snow.

"Here we are," Sirius leaned down to say in the privacy given them by the other's ignorant bustle, "home sweet home." Remus lifted his eyes to the ceiling and felt that expected warmth sweep over him. "My da should be here soon, with yours. Mum said he left to pick him up a while ago, so they shouldn't be caught in the storm." Remus rubbed his hands together to chase the chill from his half-numbed fingers.

"It's very nice," he said truthfully. Sirius flashed a wide grin.

"It's cold," he murmured, hanging up his and Remus's coats, "c'mon. I'll show you my room, and maybe find a way to warm you up." The staircase to the cramped second floor was made of creaky boards and the banister of one long slab of roughly polished wood. In their slightly damp socks Sirius led the way quietly up the steps and all the way down a narrow hall to a doorway at the end, half open.

"You have your own room?" Remus asked quietly, hiding his curiosity so even Sirius couldn't catch it in his voice.

"Fought Michael fist and tooth for it," Sirius replied proudly, pushing the door open. "After you." Remus stepped through the low doorway and into the room, looking around. It was chillier throughout the upstairs because the heat had yet to rise but it was snug enough, and smelled wonderfully of Sirius himself. Every corner, every shadow, sang gloriously of the boy's scent, and it took Remus a moment just to breathe it all in, commit every detail to memory, how the air moved around the room in which Sirius lived.

The room itself was just as Remus expected it to be.

Beneath the cleanliness it was half-messy, and every inch spoke of a half-term of disuse, as Sirius had been away at Hogwarts for five months beforehand. There were old posters on the wall above the bed, some curling in the edges from where they'd been tacked up years ago. Bands, movies, most of which Remus didn't recognize at all. The bed itself was small, the comforter plush no doubt filled with down. Out the window Remus could see the snow falling over a few scattered houses, and the light was graying from the clouds and the snowfall, shadows stretched in all the corners.

Behind him, Sirius closed the door, taking a few slow steps forward into the room, until he stood behind Remus at the window.

"It's nice here," Remus said softly, realizing he should speak, "cold, but beautiful." Sirius ran his fingers absently through his hair, shrugging a little. He could keep the grin from his lips but he couldn't keep the feeling of it from his chest, getting into his bloodstream, warming up the center of his stomach.

"It's not that great," he mumbled, "nothing like the city, anyway." The palms of his hands itched. He could see the back of Remus's neck from where he stood, pale flesh revealed by the low neckline of a sweater just slightly too big for the small boy.

"No," Remus agreed, "nothing like the city." But the way he said it made it seem really different, more than just special, more than just wonderful. Pride suffused Sirius's cheeks, so that he was glad for the darkness of his room.

"Hey," he said softly, "still cold?" He took a hesitant step forward so that his chest brushed up against Remus's upper back and his breath ghosted over the side of Remus's cheek. When Remus shivered, it wasn't from the cold, but Sirius took it as an ample excuse to let his hands fall against Remus's hips. After that, he moved him closer. After that, he let his face, his lips, rest against that bared spot of Remus's neck. After that, they were both still, Remus warming to the feel of Sirius's body against his. He moved his cold hands slowly down to rest over the ones on his sides.

"Maybe I was," he murmured breathlessly, though his heart was beating at a normal rate, "a little."

They held each other for a little while and it was nice, Remus's discomfort and Michael's half-accusatory looks soothed over until they all but disappeared, a lurking nastiness in the back of his mind.

As always, Sirius's hot breath against his cheek could assuage any troubles and disperse any misery.

"I want to keep you here," Sirius murmured at one point, in a voice so soft it could barely be heard. Yet, for all that it was kept to a whisper, the words were powerfully strong, as if Sirius had learned suddenly that sometimes, that which was said in the most soft-spoken of voices was always the most powerful.

"There's a forest near your house," Remus replied, staying perfectly still, "isn't there." He had felt it when he looked out the foggy glass pane before him, chilled with condensation from the outside world. He couldn't see it, or how big it was, but had felt it humming, had thought perhaps he'd heard a hoot owl hoo-ing to the snow.

"Yeah," Sirius said, "yeah, not anything special." He twined his fingers in Remus's, enjoying the soft skin of Remus's palm.

"There are no forests," Remus thought aloud, "in the city." Which was perhaps why Etienne had taken him to Canterbury, where the only call of the wild was the occasional public park they passed by on their way to the library, or to pick up some fish and chips. In Hogwarts, it was always different, this living on the edge of the forest, for the magical barriers between human and animal were stronger there, strong enough to help him. In his heart, he thought that maybe he heard a wolf howling, and his blood rather than his body ran cold.

"Is it a problem?" Sirius's voice rose slightly in question, curious and unsure. There were many things he had yet to learn, and it would take a while after that for him to actually understand them.

"No," Remus said, hands tightening over Sirius's, "no, it's not a problem at all." It was a part of life. If he allowed himself to think of such parts of life as problems, then he would never forget, or never accept, their existence. He smiled slightly. "It's just that I'd like to see it. Sometime." He could feel Sirius relax in a pleasant way that meant he was satisfied. Remus liked feeling simple changes such as that, especially against his own body. He leaned back a little.

"Then I'll take you."

"Thank you."

"It's nice," Sirius went on, "especially when it snows. It's...well, you know. It's the sort of thing you'd like, all the snow, with everything quiet and white and things. Later on I'll take you to see it." Remus leaned back into the embrace, which grew more and more pleasant as the seconds passed. The last time they had been out walking in the snow was a few years ago and Remus remembered only the vast blue-white spread out before him, and the tune of Dalila's aria echoing in his ears.

They stood like that for a while longer without saying anything, Sirius watching nothing and Remus watching the snow fall, and then there was the sound of a car coming up the driveway, muffled by the snow, light reflected by it.

"Da's home," Sirius murmured regretfully, "which means your dad's here, too."

"Sirius!" Aquila called up from below, as if she had been given some sort of cue. Sirius held Remus suddenly tighter and then pulled back, feeling foolish.

"We'd better," he began, "you know, you're dad's waiting, and all."

"Mm." Remus nodded, straightening himself out, readying himself to face the perhaps over-zealousness of Sirius's family and the cold of the snowy world without Sirius's arms.

They spent the night in Sirius's bed, the sleeping bag Sirius's mother had set out for Remus lying forgotten and empty on the floor. It seemed to be the first implementing of some unspoken rule just now established: that whenever they could, they would curl up together beneath the sheets, on the comforting softness of a shared bed. It was nicer that way, easier to sleep, easier for dreams to be soothing rather than confused or angry or scared. For Remus, it was a haven inside this unfamiliar house, to have those familiar arms wrapped around him. For Sirius, it was simply heaven, as it always was to have Remus close.

They spent the evening after Etienne's arrival encouraging conversation as best they could, Remus finding it a harder task than Sirius did, for the latter was always good with breaking the ice in a room, whereas Remus found that most often, his presence caused it. Orion Black was a loud, handsome man, whose face was no longer young despite the obvious fact that he was not very old at all. His features, worn and craggy from years and years of hard work, were at least kind, and familiar in that they could have been Sirius's in thirty years, had Sirius been destined for the mines. While Etienne's aged looks came from a weariness and a great pain that gnawed away his heart, turning all moments alone to a gray, spidery sadness, Orion's youth had been slowly crushed out of him by stone and cave-ins and long work days. Still, he was obviously a fighter, his eyes bright and his jaw set and his hands, wide and powerful, as determined as no doubt they once had been when he was just Sirius's age.

Aquila Black was just as strong as her husband, if not more so. There was a calculating light in her fringed eyes, intelligent and empathic, and she had a smile even to her frown that suggested the true motherliness of her nature. Remus liked her immediately for the way she did not fuss, did not coo, but merely was, a pillar of strength and a tower of understanding. Her children loved her, that much was plain to see. Even Sean, the eldest, had a close tie with her still that was not one of power or control but merely of friendship. Once, Remus had been friends with his mother and the part of him that did not banish all such memory from his mind longed for that relationship once more, despite how deeply he knew he would never again have it.

Conversation was staggered but at least not unpleasant. It took a while to get it going, but Etienne could speak of business with Sean and Remus could speak of schoolwork with Aquila, and Michael was the only one who kept silent, whittling away at a piece of wood over an old basin by the fire. Remus wondered absently what it was he was carving, or why it was that it felt as if those deep, Black eyes were fixed always on him, until he tried to catch them in the act. Then, they would be back on the piece of wood and the well sharpened knife, slicing away long strips of the pale wood, which fluttered downward gracefully in the firelight.

In the corner, a freshly bought Christmas tree stood erect and proud and seasonal, decorated with winking ornaments and framed by candles. That alone was enough to ease the mood and bring both the two Lupins and the vast number of the Blacks together, amicable enough for pleasant fireside talk. Dinner had been delicious, the night had worn on, and at last Remus and Sirius retired to bed and to each other's arms with the weary gratefulness of two travelers returning home after a long and tiring journey.

I wish, Remus thought dreamily to himself, right before the two of them drifted off to sleep, I could have a world like this to return to. One day. But even as he thought such things he knew he was the sort of person better suited for the city -- if only because the industrialization and unnatural setting of it protected him from who and what he truly was.

The next few days were filled with Christmas shopping and cooking, sightseeing, games. While it was hard to get Sirius away from his brothers for even a minute, Remus had no objections to the time he spent with his family, watching the games they played in the snow, the mock fights they staged, as he would a little of pups someone had rescued from the winter cold. They threw snowballs and laughed and rolled around in the powdery white stuff, all of them, even Sean, allowing themselves to be little children in the comfort of Christmas and home. Cassie and the two twins helped out in the kitchen as Aquila baked and cooked enough in preparation to feed an entire army of starved beasts. Etienne spent most of his time in the lower city with Orion, talking, as Orion put it, about things only they could understand. Aquila had snorted, rolled her eyes, and everyone else had laughed. Etienne had merely looked a little sheepish, keeping almost as silent as Remus did.

Remus himself wondered when, or even if, Sirius would have time enough to show him the forest, the two of them on their own. He had seen the treehouse, about which Sirius had reminisced so many times, and he did have to admit it was made with expert hands, literally a palace, for what it was. He had looked out the single window, just a square opening in the wood, and had felt Sirius at his back, and for a little while, he had thought that was the privacy he had been searching for. Had thought, that is, until Michael called down from above and dragged Sirius off to chase after Sean, who had done something or other to offend him. With a whoop Sirius had jumped down and followed, and Remus had for the first time wondered if Michael was actively trying to keep the two of them apart.

Now they were, for the fourth time the past three days, staging another snowball fight, this one with all out trench warfare. Remus looked up from his book as Sirius let out a fabulous warcry and charged the enemy lines, a swirl of fairy-like snow ghosting out behind him. Remus allowed the slightest of smiles to ghost his lips as he slid his bookmark in to keep his place and let the book remain ignored in his lap, watching the action, now, chin resting on his palms. Sirius had knocked down the first wall of a sloppily made fort and was going towards the second as Michael tried to keep him from doing so.

It occurred to Remus then that this was something he would never be a part of. Not that he was jealous, no; it was that he was wistful, wondering. He wasn't this sort of person. He'd never had a snowball fight before in his life. It didn't seem to help that Michael regarded him as an intruder, a disturber of the peace. It was obvious the older boy didn't want him here, and would be glad enough when he left, even though it would mean Sirius was leaving, too. So Remus could only wonder why it was that Sirius's brother disliked him so. It wasn't a hate, not by a long shot, but Remus knew enough about people and their eyes to recognize complete distrust when he saw it.

There was nothing he could undo, no prejudices to disprove. It was, though, disconcerting at the most, and Remus chose to ignore it, watching instead the laughter from Sirius's lips condense hotly upon the air before fading. That was enough for him. He'd always been the sort to sit on the sidelines -- whether it was a time like now, or back in Hogwarts, at a Quidditch match -- and he'd learned long ago not to mind it.

When Michael went down in the snow and cried out for mercy, Remus allowed himself to smile again, only this time, it was wider. With a cry of triumph and glee, Sirius tackled him down and sat on his chest, making the boy beg for mercy until Sirius's almost canine pride was satisfied. Then, he stood, brushing the already-melting snow off his clothes and lifting his hands up in another warcry -- this time one of victory.

"Wasn't I," he asked Remus, breathless, "simply fabulous, or what?" His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were bright, heat puffing out in little clouds before his parted lips. Remus ducked his head down, so that Michael, who had roused himself and was coming up behind them, would not see the nature of his smile.

"Oh, yes," he murmured, trying to keep his voice dry, "wonderful." Remus had found he could make even the most wonderful of truths seem dry or cold, nothing special. He wondered vaguely whether or not that was something to be proud of.

"Mum," Michael muttered good-humoredly, "is going to bloody kill us both for getting our clothes all wet like this. She'll skin us. Alive."

"What a big boy you are," Sirius scoffed, "afraid of his mum when he gets his clothes all mussed!" They had a good laugh at that, and even Remus knew that, had Aquila heard Sirius's previous words, the boy would be off and running in a snap to avoid the law laid down by her iron fist.

"Right, right," Michael grumbled, "you sure can talk, little brother. Let's just get cleaned up before she notices, else your legs'll have to be as fast as your mouth is -- and I know for a fact they're not." Sirius looked down at Remus as he passed by: those pale cheeks flushed with chill, those pale hands tucked into the sleeves of his shirt, that body curled protectively around the thick book just as if he were a pillbug of sorts, retreating into the safety of his own shell. It dawned on him suddenly that there was a coldness in the air that came not from the threat of the snowclouds gathering, but rather from Michael's own body language. It gave Sirius pause to think. Something about the bow to Remus's back, something about the set of Michael's jaw, didn't feel as it should.

He frowned, feeling troubled and unsure as he followed his brother inside.

"So this is it," Sirius explained as he plowed through the fresh, previously unmarred snow. "The forest used to have a name a long time ago but I've forgotten it. It's from Gypsies, I know that much. Something real low sounding, low in your throat. Mum used to tell all of us that if we were bad children she'd lose us in these woods and no one'd ever find our bones. I was terrified of it for a while -- and then, Michael and Sean took me in, and showed me all the secrets it's got. Like, there's this old cottage in there someone abandoned a long time ago, but the roof's still thatched up nice and it's kinda warm in there, if you set a fire beneath the mantle. And the floor's a little mossy, but it's got glass windows and it's really classy, or something, if you can find it, through all the snow." Remus listened to Sirius as he talked on, enjoying the sound of such silence broken only by the harmony of Sirius's tones. They had changed in the past few months, Remus noted, changed to sound a little more adult, even so far as to say, a little more manly. Remus, however, would never tell Sirius that. It would get him far too pigheaded. "And so if we do find it, maybe, it'd be nice to spend some time there," Sirius had gone on, "you know, just the two of us."

It was going to snow again. Remus could tell from the way the clouds were gathering close together, not for comfort, but to plot, to plan, and to destroy. He missed a beat in his rhythmical steps at Sirius's words, then allowed himself the fleeting whisper of a smile.

"That would be nice," he admitted softly, "very." He turned his face just slightly to see Sirius's, but the other boy had his eyes fixed on the interlacing of the trees, which seemed now more like bars than anything else. The forest had a wild sort of call to it, bitter but enticing, exotic and strange. It smelled of dirt and leaves and warm things, moist things, beneath the soil where the roots coiled. Remus licked his lips softly.

"You've been real quiet, lately," Sirius said suddenly.

"Hm?"

"I said, you've been real quiet, lately," Sirius repeated, sighing a bit. He held a branch back, shaking free a centimeter or two of snow from it, and ducked a little as it sent a miniature snowstorm down on them. "Sorry about that." Remus shrugged it off. He'd barely even noticed, though there was a spot of wet cold on his nose, which he wrinkled away.

"It isn't anything," Remus murmured, "just the weather, I think." There was something about the snow that made you think. Sirius, knowing Remus as well as he did, would take that excuse with no further pressing of the issue, though he still felt a nagging wonder deep in the back of his mind. He ignored it, beating the way through the snowy underbrush, clearing a path for Remus to make it easily through after him.

They walked on after that in mutual silence, no sound but for the shifting of brittle branches and falling of the snow, and occasionally the snapping of wood as Sirius pressed to hard against a younger branch and it broke clean in half. There seemed to be no wildlife, or perhaps all the smaller animals could feel Remus coming, and had fled beforehand. The cold had heightened Remus's senses, so that each sound as well as every moment of silence fluttered breathlessly through his system and affected the pounding of his heart. It was such a feeling he had never quite indulged in before, the cold of the snow, the familiarity of the forest, the sense of perfect belonging. As if this, and not a fireside, and not a comfortable bed, and not a shelve of books, were his true home. He knew it was not, but it was nice to imagine, just for a moment, that he belonged to this world not as a track in the snow but a branch from a tree or a root beneath the snow.

Somewhere above a snow owl took off through the branches, the one bird that seemed to have remained. A flare of teeth and fur and hot blood raged up within Remus's gut, and Remus's hands trembled into fists as he pressed such urges down.

"Well," Sirius said at last, "here we are." He fell still and Remus drew up behind him, looking out over his shoulder upon a small cottage covered in snow, thatched roof peeking out beneath the whiteness, one glass window winking through a coating of slick ice. The sun, which fell down through the lattice of leaves above their heads, caught on the glass and shimmered brightly, enticing. Having a house, man-made, in the middle of such a natural setting, was almost soothing to Remus's boy side, a barrier between him and the wolf. "You wanna go inside?" Sirius looked back over his shoulder at Remus's pale, delicate face, almost as white as the snow, the only color in it the flush of his cheeks and lips. It was hard to keep himself from kissing that mouth, especially in front of his brothers.

But Sirius always had to wonder what Michael and Sean would think, and he knew above all that his father would never approve of such love.

In his world, you married a nice girl and set up in a nice, snug place, supporting your inevitable children with the meager money you made working in the mines. One man never looked at another, no boy thought of anything but the curvy daughters of their neighbors. That was the way it was, no room for change, no room for differing tastes or opinions.

However, now wasn't the time to think of such things. He bowed a little, not entirely facetious, and motioned for Remus to lead the way. Remus nodded slightly and did so, moving soundlessly through the snow and having little difficulty in forcing the door open.

Inside, it was chilly but clean, as if someone had come in not a few days before to dust every inch of the plain but sturdy wood. There was a fireplace, into which some snow had fallen through the chimney, and an old, old bed in the corner, just a mattress upon a frame, sheets long stripped and taken away. There was a sunken armchair whose cushions were ancient and weary, but all in all, it reminded Remus of his own humanity, and for that, he was glad.

"Make yourself at home," Sirius said, grinning from ear to ear. He bent down to a pile of wood by the mantle and began to light a fire in the fireplace, looking around with an even wider grin as he lit it with his wand. Damn protocol, he figured, just for the sake of lighting a fire and keeping Remus as warm as possible.

"All right," Remus murmured, favoring the creaky bed over the sunken chair, sitting down on the edge to test it out. It let out a low groan and then gave up all protest, too old and too worn to even care at this sudden intrusion. Sirius stood, wondering if Remus knew how suggestive he could be, without ever meaning it.

"Comfortable?" Sirius shrugged off his jacket and tossed it over the old chair, moving across the small room to sit at Remus's side. Remus smiled halfway, one side of his mouth quirking up further.

"Could be worse," he said.

"Yeah," Sirius agreed, "and it could be better." He leaned forward to kiss the corner of that familiar mouth, and then the center of it. Remus let his eyes fall shut.

"You seem," he sighed deeply, "to have a one track mind." But it was obvious he wasn't complaining.

The bed behind them groaned again as Sirius eased Remus's jacket off his shoulders and let it drop to the bed beneath. It was nice to have a little privacy, where they knew there was more than just a locked door to separate them from the rest of the world. Now, there was a half mile of snow and trees between them and the village. It was heaven.

They kissed for a little while and then talked for a little while, and then kissed for a little while longer. It began to snow outside and when they talked they watched that for a bit, the way the snowflakes began slow and few and far between, and then grew in speed and number until all the world turned perfectly white, the emptiest color without any sound or accusation.

"I wouldn't mind if it was just you and me and no one else," Sirius murmured to Remus's neck.

"You would," Remus replied.

"No," Sirius insisted, "I wouldn't."

"You'd get lonely, with just me, with only me." He ran his fingers through Sirius's hair. Sirius needed, adored, craved the contact of people. It was a trait Remus had never shared. Were it not for the knowledge that Sirius, who Sirius was, would be destroyed by the loss of other people, Remus knew he himself would be perfectly content if there were no one else in all the world besides Sirius and he.

"Maybe," Sirius admitted, "but I'd be happy. You don't understand, Remus. You don't -- you don't understand." He closed his eyes, long, dark lashes brushing over Remus's skin in butterfly kisses.

"Don't understand what?" Remus's voice was thick with sudden pleasure, the kind that knotted in his stomach just like the wolf's fierce desire, only much more wonderful, for all that it was terrifying.

"What it is," Sirius whispered, "what it is." He touched Remus's hip, touched his thigh, and Remus cried out very, very softly, trying almost unsuccessfully to muffle the sound. He felt that tightness more acutely than he ever had before, deep in the very center of his stomach. Sirius's face was hot but pale, his hands shaking just slightly, his mouth set in a determined line that Remus could not see for all that Sirius's face was buried in his neck.

"What what is?" Remus managed to ask, his voice choked, breaking in the middle of the sentence. Sirius lifted Remus up by the waistband of his jeans, which were suddenly and oddly tight, in the strangest, pleasantest of ways.

"These feelings," Sirius murmured, breathless, "these feelings you give me. All the time, Remus. All the time." He was never one for words, never knew what to say or how to say it. He was never brave enough for words, which had, he thought, to come out just right, or not at all. Actions were different. You thrust yourself into them, didn't even have to think. That wasn't bravery, not by a longshot. It looked like bravery, but it weas simply foolhardy, careless.

He didn't know how to speak, around Remus. He barely even knew how to be. He barely even knew how to breathe. And it came upon him slow and sweet, like warm breath, like sunshine bright mornings. It came upon him wonderfully, left him helpless and warm in its wake.

And that was just his mind. There was always his body, as well. Michael and Sean had told him things, all the times they'd been with girls behind the movie theater or in the back of Sean's old car, or up in their rooms when their parents were away. Sirius himself was fifteen. He knew from dreams what it was he wanted. He wasn't going to take it, just wanted maybe to see it, or to feel it with Remus's soft skin beneath his fingertips. The only matter was, he didn't know how Remus felt, about anything, ever.

"What feelings?" Sirius pressed a hand between Remus's thighs, questioning, daring. It was as much of an answer as Remus needed, as this odd pleasure pumped like blood through his veins and made his vision, for an impossible moment, go completely white.

"I don't know what you want," Sirius admitted softly against Remus's cheek. "I don't know what to give you." Beneath those words, though, there was a promise of anything. He would give him anything it was in his power to give, and beyond that, and beyond.

"I think," Remus whispered, voice very soft, "I think, you."

Sirius moved, slipping one hand beneath the waistband of Remus's jeans, eyes closing. It was new, very new, a sort of newness that heralded growing up just a little, but feeling as mindless as a little child, all at once. Still, Sirius kissed him, lips on lips, lips on cheeks, lips on neck, lips everywhere at once and still managing to move in the slow way that Remus loved.

It was as if Sirius thought he could tell Remus he loved him through the easiest way, of motion, of touch. All that came through, however, was a helplessness and a pleasure that Remus had never before experienced, with Sirius's hand shoved down into his pants, seemingly so careless like that.

Things built quickly and ended quickly, Remus moving forward as fast as he could into Sirius's fingers, against his palm. While it lasted, it was wonderfully intimate and burning hot. There would later be some amount of shy embarrassment between them but for now, it was all on instinct, all based on what Sirius knew of his own body and the way Remus trembled and whimpered, hyper-sensitive, to his touch. And then Remus went rigidly still and there was a pleasure, blinding white, that took him out of himself and into someone, something, else, that was not boy and was not animal and probably wasn't man, either. It was what could happen, at the dangerous excitement from Sirius's touch. It made him throw back his head and bare his neck and choke a little on his ragged breaths, so that he thought perhaps his heartbeat had stopped, or altered, changed forever by this one moment, and the way his blood froze while it burned throughout his limbs.

He tumbled back against the bed with Sirius over him, wide-eyed, studious. The first thing Remus saw, when he came back to himself, were those deep blue eyes peering into his own. Questioning. Unsure. That hand was still down inside his pants, wrist against the skin of his hip. Sirius was just as frozen as he had been, a few moments before, and it seemed as if the other boy was waiting for something, an answer to an unspoken but ageless question.

Sort of like, how was that?

Remus licked his lips, which felt dry and cool as the air hit the moistness upon them. It was hard to move, his body still thrumming with the ebbing of that now-distant pleasure. He shivered a little, convulsed as an extra, reminiscent thrill ran through him, and as his eyes fell slowly shut to ease the burning of his eyes the fullest smile spread itself over his bruised lips. Better, he knew, than any words.

Sirius let out a soft, relieved laugh, closing his own eyes and letting his muscles relax. Slowly, he pulled his hand away, flushed and a little excited himself, simply by watching the loosened beauty of Remus's blushing face. Something about that face, he thought to himself, that wasn't like anyone else's. Something that made him feel a way no girl ever could. Something that made him know, without a single doubt, what he wanted, not just for now, but for always. He wasn't the sort of person who liked to put that kind of commitment -- forever -- into anything at all, but this was Remus. This was different.

It was warm in the cottage, now, the fire flickering lazily over the crackling logs in the fireplace. Sirius slipped his arms around Remus's shoulders tentatively and pulled him close, Remus putting up no protest as he did so.

For a long time they did not speak in the silence of the snow.

"Everyone'll be wondering where we've gotten to," Sirius thought aloud, breaking the silence at last. "I wonder if it's time for supper, yet." There was no clock in the place, which was perhaps why time had been passing oddly, dictated only by how heavy or how fast the snow fell.

"We should be getting back," Remus said softly, as if he truly didn't want to admit it.

"We can come here again tomorrow," Sirius promised as he pulled away. Even leaving the feel of Remus's body was something he hated to do. With a deep, greatly plagued sigh he stood and crossed the room as Remus sat up, coming his hair with his fingers. Sirius kicked out the fire, watching the sparks fly around his feet in silence. Remus pulled his jacket on, though it was poor substitute for the warmth of Sirius's arms around him.

"I'd like that," Remus said finally. He bent down, picking Sirius's own coat up, and crossed the room to where Sirius stood, back to him. "Your jacket," he murmured, holding it out.

"Thanks," Sirius returned, shrugging his shoulders into it. He flashed Remus a grin. "I really would like it to be just you and me," he said, as they moved to leave. "No matter where we were, you know? No matter what we were doing. Just the two of us, and no one else." He stepped out the door into the blue and white patterns of the pale, cold snow, letting his words be swallowed up by the wind and the vast silence of the winter that blanketed them both.

"You can look, now." Sirius dropped his hands from where they had been covering Remus's closed eyes, and Remus blinked them open quickly, squinting to the bright light in the garage. "I've been working on it for a really long time," Sirius went on, "and mostly by myself, 'cause Michael can't work with the magic part, and mum doesn't know about it 'cause if she did she'd stop me quick as that, and don't you know it."

Before Remus was the sleek, lovingly polished black lines of an old but very well maintained motorcycle, catching the sunlight once Sirius tugged the canvas cloth off of it. It didn't seem to be in the best of shape, beneath that polish, but there was something a little bit off about it that suggested it would no doubt work despite how old and pathetic it really did seem.

For a while, Remus was silent; he hoped Sirius thought he was giving it some deeper study, as opposed to just thinking what in Heaven's name he was supposed to say about it. It was a motorcycle. Why a motorcycle should in any way be a source of excitement to him, he was yet to discover. No, Remus admitted, he was not the manliest of his sex, but if manly meant getting thrilled over the mere sight of a big black motorbike, then he wasn't quite sure if he wanted to change his foolish ways.

"It's," Remus said, "well. I never once guessed." Sirius grinned widely, proudly.

"Isn't it great?" he asked, moving forward to run a hand across that smooth, polished surface lovingly, a tender caress. Remus was immediately sure that this was the sort of thing Sirius and his brother's understood, though Remus himself was left a little bit at a loss for words. He didn't know what to think.

"You said," he attempted, "you were using magic on it. For what?" It looked like any old motorbike, to him, though he could have been missing something. He tended to miss a lot.

"Oh," Sirius said, eyes sparkling, "well. That's the part I wanted to show you." He moved in a circle around the vehicle and then stopped in front of Remus again, lounging against the black body, face holding secrets that threatened to burst forth at any moment.

"Well?" Remus prodded. He wasn't all that curious, but it would be best for Sirius to seem as if he was.

"Well," Sirius said slyly, slowly, "I've been working on it for a long time. And this summer, I finally got it to work."

"What?" Remus said after a moment of silence, realizing Sirius wanted Remus to urge him on. It worked immediately.

"It works like your average Nimbus does," Sirius explained, gesturing towards the motorbike behind him, "only on a more basic level. After all, I'm not quite good enough to configure that. Not nearly as good. And I probably never will be. But it's the same way mum and I got the car working, I suppose, just a primitive version of your average broomstick."

"So what you're saying is," Remus said, with the proper amount of incredulity, "you've put magic on the motorcycle to make it fly?" So that was the funny thing about it, the little waver in air around it, the little inconsistency of its aura.

"Pretty much," Sirius replied. He couldn't stop grinning, so he kept his head down, rubbing the back of his neck with the palm of his hand. "Yeah."

"Is it safe?" That was the sort of question Sirius would love, for it would appeal both to his sense of danger and his own pride over the no doubt highly detailed workings of the machine.

"Course it's safe," Sirius scoffed, "I've worked for more than two years on it. It's safe. Down to the last gear shift, it's safe -- maybe not for driving on the roads, but for flying, you can't find anything safer! Anyway," Sirius said, "I thought maybe we could test her out. She if she holds two as nicely as she holds one." Remus had to keep himself from smiling at that. He was flattered, yes, but there was something undeniably ridiculous about assigning motor vehicles a gender specific pronoun. He took a step forward and touched the handlebar, tentatively at first, then letting his palm fall to rest against it.

"I'd like that," Remus said, with a voice that stated his complete trust of Sirius's worked. It was literally impossible not to feel him swell with pride at the words.

"Great!" he exclaimed quickly, and then coughed, trying to keep the apparent excitement from his voice, "great. Here -- let me help you on her." Before Remus could say anything Sirius's hands were on his waist, lifting him up so that he could slip into the seat without any trouble at all. Sirius hoisted himself up behind him, stomach against back, and he stole a quick nip of Remus's earlobe before he'd revved the engine with a vulgar, yet strangely musical growl of the old motor. The garage door was opened wide to the sunlight and Sirius maneuvered the nose of the bike easily towards exit, pressing down on the gas and, in doing so, pressing closer to Remus's body. Remus was never one for leaving the comfort of his home, the ground, which was why he had never been good on broomsticks and simply refused to ever ride in a place. He had been give feet for a simple reason, he rationalized, and not wings, so staying on the ground was the only sensible course of action to take.

The motorcycle coughed and spluttered, Remus leaning back a little, so he could hold onto one of Sirius's arms and keep his eyes closed.

"Hold on," Sirius said, simply because he'd always wanted to say something like that, and the tone of his voice was perfect for those words, stern but wild all at once. He laughed softly, gave out a delighted whoop of expectation, and then they'd zoomed out of the garage, lifting off the ground as if they were light as air.

Remus clutched tight to the sleeve of Sirius's coat and squeezed his eyes shut tight. He felt his stomach sink down to the vicinity of his feet and for a moment he thought he was going to be ill. It was only by sheer force of will that he wasn't, commanding himself to calm, commanding his nerves to steel themselves against the foolishness of such flight.

Beneath them, he could feel the world passing, too far down for any sort of comfort, too unreal from where they were for his stomach to stop churning like crazy. So long as he didn't look down, however, he could open his eyes, keep them fixed on either Sirius's shoulder or, if he turned a bit in his seat, on Sirius's face. Anything to keep from seeing the world passing below him, people dotted like ants on the rolling plane of snow.

"Isn't it great?" Sirius asked, and Remus held him a little tighter, swallowing hard.

"I've never liked flying," Remus said, chancing to peer over Sirius's forearm and, in doing so, catching a glimpse of the life in miniature beneath on solid ground, "but it's better than a broomstick, I think." The gusts of cold wind whipping through his hair and numbing his flushed face were oddly refreshing, if not quite chilly, and the warmth of Sirius's body firmly against his own was a comforting familiarity that reassured him, at least to the point of trying to enjoy himself. It wasn't the sort of pasttime he was made for, not by a long shot, but it wasn't something entirely miserable. The motorbike rumbled underneath him, spluttering a little, but still feeling trustworthy.

"Oh, she's better than a broomstick, all right," Sirius bragged, because he couldn't help himself, "miles better. I can't believe no one ever thought of this before!"

"Mm," Remus agreed, loosening his tight hold on Sirius's arm. Once he got used to it, it really wasn't that bad, after all. He didn't necessarily have to ignore the lack of ground beneath the motorbike's wheels so much as not let it bother him. It was a fact that they were are this very moment speeding through the air, nothing holding them up besides Sirius's magic. All right, Remus decided, he could accept that. He didn't have to enjoy it, but he could accept it, as he would any other ride.

"Mum'd kill me," Sirius went on, and then he let out an infectious, glorious laugh, tossing his head back, letting the wind race like fingers through his hair. "Isn't it great?" Remus sighed deeply and settled back against the stable contentment of Sirius's chest, allowing himself the slightest of smiles.

"Mm," he murmured again, "it is."

Sirius guided them over treetops and along a river, then further, out over the sea. Beneath them it stretched on and on, twinkling, frigid but beautiful, and Remus found himself watching the sights they passed half eagerly, now. Sirius knew him all too well, Remus realized some time later, as he looked back on that afternoon, for they passed over somber things, solemn things, landmarks of great dignity and also great beauty -- all of which Sirius knew Remus would love to see. From above, a previously ordinary world was transformed into one of delicate splendor, particularly with the improvement added by the elegant snowscapes. Waves moved in creased wrinkles, crawing over the surface of the water. People moved with insectile precision, and it was all the more delightful to wonder whether they laughed or cried, worked or played, against the backdrop of the endless snow. The rumble of the old bike became friendly, a sort of music to set the scene. Remus rested his head back against the curve of Sirius's neck to his shoulder and closed his eyes against the wintry air.

It was one thing to imagine, and quite another to see.

In silence, Sirius turned the bike towards the task of landing, setting down as easily as if he'd been born knowing how to drive, or fly, this thing. Cutting through the snow to slip unseen through the still-open garage door, Sirius parked carefully and cut the engine, the splutter and grumble fading out, everything finally still beneath the two of them.

"What do you think?" Sirius hopped off the motorbike and assisted Remus in doing the same, enjoying it simply for the fact that it allowed them to touch a little more, just a little more.

"It grew on me," Remus admitted, lifting a hand to smooth out Sirius's ruffled hair. Sirius didn't even flush at the touch, but rather leaned into it, letting out a pleased sigh over the contact.

"I just wish it'd be allowed at Hogwarts," Sirius mourned, covering up the motorbike once more with a wistful shake of his head. "Could you just see Professor McGonagall if she caught me with this thing? Worse'n what mum'd do to me, you can bet." He shrugged, tossing his head, resembling a spirited horse as he did so.

"Not only would she confiscate it, but she just might keep you from leaving school grounds for the rest of your life," Remus mused, readjusting the zipper on his coat. "Come on. It's about time for lunch, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Sirius said, brightening. With one last, longing look thrown back to the enchanted motorbike, he trotted out into the snow, Remus following dizzily, his feet unsure whether or not they truly belonged on the ground, after all.

"Don't know what the neighborhood's coming to." Sean warmed his hands by the fire, snorting softly. It was late; night had long since fallen with the last of the snow flurries over the village. Only he, Michael and Sirius remained awake, Sirius convinced into staying after Remus had gone to bed by his older brothers, almost, Sean realized, because of their jealousy of his soft-spoken friend.

"All sorts of things," Michael muttered, hands around a cup of strong tea, something that had always helped him to sleep, as it helped his father, and his father before him, to do, "are possible, lately." Sirius listened with fading interest, drowsiness overtaking him. Though he loved his brothers, and did want to spend as much time as was possible with them, it was still hard to keep hiding his frequent yawns.

"I just can't believe he's allowed to stay here," Sean went on, voice a low, dangerous mutter. Somewhere during the night their discussion had changed course towards something else, something obviously offensive, but Sirius had missed what, exactly, that topic was. He leaned forward in his armchair, interest caught. "Someone should run him out, and that's all I have to say on the matter."

"People have tried," Michael replied slowly, over the rim of his tea mug, "believe me, but he's of a stubborn sort."

"If we allow people like that to live around these parts the village'll be overrun in the blink of an eye and then where will we be?" Sean puffed out a snort, lighting up the last cigarette from his pack and puffing it in lazy smoke rings. "I'm planning on having children one day -- what will I be bringing them up to inherit?"

"A town poisoned by perversion, that's what," Michael returned, voice growing angry. "He and his little lover, the two of them rotting this town from the inside out, thinking there's nothing we can do about it."

"Me and three of the boys tried to torch his house a few weeks ago," Sean said in a low, conspiratorial voice, "but he caught on to us and put it out 'fore it could do any damage at all. If he had any mind at all he'd take it as a damn warning and get the hell out 'fore we do worse to him. We can and he knows it." He rubbed his hands near the flickering flames with a thoughtful frown creasing his brown, dark blue eyes caught up eerily with the firelight. His face looked almost malicious, from where Sirius reclined, and it made the boy frown, himself.

"We haven't any room here for them that's iron," Michael muttered, "and those are the best pair of fairies I've seen in my life, pinker'n Cassie's dollies, for a fact." Sirius squinted.

"What are you talking about?" he murmured softly, leaning forward, movement signaled by a creaking of wood beneath him. Sean and Michael turned around simultaneously, as if they hadn't known Sirius was still there, still awake, still listening to them speak. Michael's eyes rested on Sirius's face for a moment, as if he could see something there he truly despised. After a moment, the expression passed fleetingly from the older boy's face, and Michael was grinning ruefully.

"Didn't know you were still awake," he said, leaning back in his own chair. He looked from Sirius to Sean, lifting a brow in question. Sean shrugged.

"Well," Sirius said, trying to look insulted and as attentive as possible, "I am, anyway. Who're you talking about?"

"Someone I used to know from school just moved back here," Sean began slowly, "from college. He's brought this -- friend -- with him."

"What's he done?" Sirius was still interested, more awake now than he had been before.

"It's not what he's done," Sean said, casting an unreadable look towards Michael, "but what he is, rather." There were a few minutes of silence while Sirius registered this. Then, he spoke up again.

"Well?" His voice sounded strangely dubious, even to himself. "What is he, then?"

"Your average Nancy-boy," Michael said, his voice laced with a bitter disgust Sirius had never heard before -- or, he had, but he did not wish to remember it, since it was just how Lucius Malfoy sounded when he spoke of mudbloods. "A pansy-arsed faggot if I ever saw one."

"In other words," Sean elaborated, with less vehemence but still with enough prejudice and distaste to make Sirius's blood freeze in his veins, "he and his friend are...lovers. Two men defiling the same bed, one of the worst sins you can inflict upon a town, not to mention yourself, or the church."

Sirius thought of Remus and himself, curled up around each other upon mutual agreement, sharing the same bed in what his brothers quite obviously believed to be the most revolting sort of relationship there could be. It jarred him a little, this sudden realization of what it would mean to his family, what he and Remus did. It had never occurred to him before that they wouldn't approve. Certainly he had never even entertained the thought that they would hate it.

So maybe that was what he'd seen in Michael's eyes. Maybe, Michael knew, or simply suspected. Perhaps knowledge, or a notion, of such prejudices, was what had kept Remus so quiet for the duration of his visit.

Sirius pushed down the urge to say, 'but what if they love each other?' Something told him his brothers wouldn't understand or take kindly to those words, and might go so far as to be offended by them. It seemed even to himself suddenly a foolish choice of words, childish and inane. He swallowed his own voice down, for the first time in his life silencing himself before he spoke carelessly.

"Don't worry about it, anyway," Sean said, leaning back to the fire, a troubled expression chased over his face, "we're taking care of it. By the time you come back for the summer, they'll be gone and hopefully no one else'll be stupid enough to try'n stay where they couldn't." Both Sean and Michael's expressions looked dangerous, Sirius realized, as the abnormal lighting from the dying fire danced over their features. Dangerous and, as Sirius had never thought so before of any of his family members, terrifying. If Sean or Michael ever discovered the more-than-friendly nature of Sirius and Remus's friendship, which Sirius realized now he needed to keep as a secret for both his and Remus's sakes, then he wasn't quite sure what would happen, or where he would stand with any of his family. Truthfully, he hadn't told them what he felt over Remus because he had told only Dumbledore with words, and perhaps Etienne with one shared look between them. Other than that, no one knew, besides Remus, of course, and even Remus didn't know the whole truth.

"You look troubled, brother," Michael said softly, head cocking to the side. "Something we've said hasn't bothered you?" Again, he was searching Sirius's face for that thing he was intent upon finding and torching out of him, as he would do to those two poor lovers. It was an injustice Sirius was muted and dumb against, helpless, miserable. He couldn't allow himself to think about it, but he couldn't keep his mind from dwelling on the image, either. What was he, if he allowed it to happen? What was he, if he kept silent?

But what was he to his family, if he spoke up against it?

Sirius grinned faintly, shrugging, hoping his eyes did not betray the queasiness of his stomach and the pains constricting his chest.

"Nothing," Sirius lied, pushing himself to stand, "I'm just tired, that's all. Think I'll turn in for the night, or mum'll be wondering why I'm falling asleep in my breakfast tomorrow morning." The lie passed through, though it troubled the air and the fire flickered in objection to it.

"Night," Michael said, looking away from him. Things between them would never be the same again, both of them knew. Sean, who was nowhere near as connected with Sirius as Michael was, could not feel the inherent tension in the air as he kept himself warmed by the flames.

"G'night," Sean echoed, not even looking up.

As Sirius dragged himself up the stairs his feet felt no lighter than the lead weight his heart had become, beating slowly not in weariness but rather in grief. He felt sick to his stomach, still, but he resolved himself on one thing: to never let his family know. It wouldn't be a lie; rather, he would be obscuring the truth, keeping it from them for their own good.

What you don't know, Sirius figured, won't ever get the chance to hurt you.

For the first time in his life he locked his door twice behind him before slipping into bed at Remus's side. The other boy shifted in sleep, making a soft, content sound as the extra weight was added to the mattress and the bedsheets rustled with Sirius's arrival.

"I'll keep you safe," Sirius promised him, voice a low whisper, "I'll keep all your secrets safe."

No matter what the personal sacrifice might be.

"They are nothing like us," Etienne told his son, though he knew Remus had already come to that conclusion on his own, and did not need to be told a thing about the nature of Sirius's family. "They are nothing like anything we are used to." He took long strides in the pale snow, long and thoughtful and strangely powerful, for all that he was a quiet man, just as soft-spoken in so many ways as his son was.

"They're just like he is," Remus replied, glad for the time alone with his father, the time to think with Etienne thinking with him.

"And I suppose you are more used to it," Etienne thought aloud, "or at least, young enough to accept the bravado?" Of all of them, Etienne found Aquila Black the easiest to take, while all the men, or perhaps simply boys, of the Black family were a bit too loud, a bit too self-sure, a bit too imposing, at least for Etienne's liking.

"It doesn't bother me," Remus answered truthfully, "not in Sirius, at least." They had moved past the scattering of houses and on into the snowed fields beyond, in the opposite direction of the forest. Etienne would not set foot in it since they arrived, would not allow himself to be drawn into the embrace of the moist green woods. Vengeance waited there for him, he knew. As long as there was Remus, to love and to protect, he would not let that revenge claim him, despite how he may have deserved it. He was no glutton for punishment, and took only what he could upon his shoulders. Judgement day would come for him and when it did, he would have no complaints. He was the sort who went gently into things, with a saddened smile tugging at his lips, wrinkling in the corners of his pale eyes. He was determined that Remus be nothing like him.

"Still," Etienne went on, "they're very hospitable, and the cooking is delicious." For the most part, he did not want Remus to think he begrudged him this visit, this greatest of all Christmas gifts. "And it is lovely here."

"Like it was," Remus said, and to avoid naming anything, he chose merely to follow that with, "back then." When it snowed in C¦urdeloupe it was truly a sight to behold, everything glistening with ice over snow, your breath freezing in what might be the lines of poetry before your nose and lips, ponds iced over just enough to speak of the frigid water beneath that could suck you in and never return you. On the trees, slim icicles hung, falling to the ground when a gust of heavy wind slammed against the tree branches, and there it would shatter with a sound like the tinkling of bells. Dalila had songs for winter, too, the most chilling of them all, like the embrace of a Snow Queen fairytale in the dead of night. They lit fires and Dalila held Remus upon her lap, weaving wordless tales in with the flickering of the flames. Etienne would stand in a corner and watch, wondering and speechless, just as Dalila would have kept him for all time, at odds with the two of them, alienated and alone.

Etienne observed Remus's drawn face, the somber lines, the flush to his cheeks. There was color in him against the gray, bright things in with the pale. You only had to search for them. And once you found them, they were like hidden treasures, something you remembered always, no matter what. The more you worked towards something, towards a laugh, or a kiss, or a connection, the more you cherished it once you had it within your grasp.

Perhaps, Etienne wondered, if Remus's childhood had been as Sirius's was, if Remus's family had been as bursting with life as the Black household, whether or not his boy would be any happier, any more sure of himself, or if all that he had gone through had simply made him stronger than any protection could have. He moved through the snow like a part of it, as if he belonged to the light flurries as well as the crisp, clear air. And there were times when he seemed a part of the storm, as well, with his eyes bright and his cheeks suffused with cold pink.

"What do they think of me?" Remus asked, after they had walked in silence for a long while, Etienne studying, Remus's eyes drawn within himself as he buried his mind in thought. Etienne blinked his eyes almost owlishly, breaking the rhythm of his confident strides. "What could they possibly think of me?"

"Does it matter?" Etienne remembered the way it had been, when his family had rejected Dalila from the very start. It had only made his love burn brighter, determined in the face of adversity. He knew without even having to think about it that Sirius would fight against all odds with a deeply ingrained passion to keep anyone or anything from taking Remus from him. That was the sort of headstrong child Sirius was, and the sort of headstrong man he would become. It was easy enough for him, for anyone, to see it in the boy's nature.

"I think it does." Remus moved so he could look back over his shoulder as he kept walking at the tracks they had made in the snow. Shifted over by the wind, they could have been the tracks of any man, child or animal, just passing through. It was anonymous and in that anonymity, comforting.

"I don't know," Etienne said, allowing a smile to slip into his voice, "but I'm inclined to wonder how they could ever dislike you."

"As you said," Remus murmured dubiously, "they aren't like us. They're -- strong, for one thing, strong in a loud way, strong in a way that makes you know it. I don't think they much approve of my spending time over poetry, or in libraries, or at museums. I should be building snow forts -- treehouses -- playing Quidditch, or," Remus searched blindly, "soccer, or...something, with them, like them, but I'm not -- I'm not good at it. I don't think they like me, because of that, or because of something else that I can't even fix." He stated each point as if he were arguing a thesis. It was clear to see he'd done a lot of thinking about this. Etienne felt his heart convulse but showed no signs of it.

"Perhaps that's what they're used to, yes," Etienne replied, having to pick his words very carefully so that he would not further wound his son's sensitivity, "but obviously, whatever it is that you are is what has drawn Sirius to you in the first place. And," Etienne continued hurriedly, before Remus could interrupt, "it is also what will keep him with you. You're different, Remus, but that's not necessarily a bad thing; certainly, there are at least a few people, myself included, who do not seem to think so. Differences are what make great men."

"I will never be great," Remus said, but there was no bitterness in his voice, only a heaviness that spoke of age and wisdom far surpassing the boy's years, "I just want to be happy."

"You shall have that, too, mon fils," Etienne vowed, "I promise you." As long as there was Sirius in his son's life, as long as Etienne was there to protect him and fight for him as he had contracted to do that dark night which smelled of blood and gunpowder, then Remus would have the happiness for which he was seeking. It was something that Etienne did not just believe but rather something that he knew, assumed because he would always fight for it, so long as Remus did.

It was something the Blacks did not understand, or at least did not seem to. The quietest of fights were always the bravest of battles. That which you did not hear was that which was most powerful, and that which you did not even whisper of was that which confronted the gravest and hardest of tasks. Remus himself, quietest of boys, smallest of children, gravest of solemn souls, was all but silent, and Etienne saw in such silence the puissance that swept through his veins, the force behind his every small action. Sirius, he knew, understood that mute strength, though not as fully as Etienne did. And no one, not even Etienne himself, could ever know what moved in noiseless shadowplay along the backs of Remus's eyes.

Perhaps, were she still alive, Dalila Lupin would have recognized each lash-silhouetted specter that ghosted through Remus's eyes. But Dalila Lupin was dead, and had left as her only legacy this boy-child, unsure of his actions but stronger than Atlas himself in them, the burden of such worlds as Remus had been forced to see and now wished never to comprehend carried without complaint upon the proud lines of his yet un-bent shoulders.










TRANSLATIONS
What...a good idea.
I like this idea...I like it very much.
But, when we kiss, I don't think...I speak words, but I don't listen to them.
I'm not saying anything, but, maybe, I'm saying everything?
But no, after, there would be no mystery.
What a good idea.
Yes?
What?
But, the money...
I, I would like that...
~*~
Like that?
Another time?
With eyes closed.