It's dark and it's cold. And all that's left around me are the able-bodied
memories, twisting themselves around my mind, creating a labyrinth with the
depth in which they present themselves. All I have is the memories these
days; one page of my past after another turning themselves across my
subconscious as though my mind were a dusty library, a shelf in the middle
of Hogwarts, deserted and beckoning in the restricted section. In the
darkness after the fall, it has become my only light....
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Cold winter's light streamed through the window of a child's bedroom, startling him awake. He rolled over and covered his face with his blankets, only to hear something he couldn't drown out coming from downstairs.
"Up, UP you lazy child, we haven't got all day!"
He rolled his eyes and opened them sleepily, then turned over in bed and found himself on the floor, tangled in sheets and staring groggily at the floorboards that replaced the mattress.
"I'm not waiting all day for you..."
"Coming mother!" he called, and listened to his high-pitched echo as it rang back to him from the walls. Jumping up, he pulled on a jumper, and then a robe, and then ran down the stairs, not bothering with socks. Best not to keep mother waiting.
"What is it, mum?" he asked breathlessly, hand still on the banister.
She stood at the base of the stairs, in the threshold to the main hall, tapping one foot impatiently, hair in a military bun, black satin dress laced and buttoned to tedious perfection. In her hand, she had a small piece of vellum that she was tapping against the woodwork of the doorway.
"Where are your shoes, boy?"
"Upstairs, mum... I didn't want to keep you waiting."
"You got a letter."
"A letter? Me?"
"Don't echo me like a mindless twit, just take the letter." She thrust it out towards him. He took it and broke the seal.
"We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry..." he looked up from the sheet. "Mother, what is this?"
"Your life for the next seven years," she answered tartly. "We're going to Diagon Alley in a half hour, now get dressed."
"Yes mum, thank you mum," Sirius answered automatically, and backed up the stairs to dress hurriedly and not ask for breakfast, afraid of inflicting a mother's rage.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Oh bloody hell, I have no friends, I have no friends, I have no friends..." he mumbled with each step as he made his way onto the train, passing each stage coach with laughing members in their compartments and feeling increasingly exiled.
One bloody empty car, one bloody empty car...
"Hey mate, there's room in this one if you're looking..."
Sirius spun around and looked at a messy haired boy waving congenially at him from the cabin two doors down.
"Thanks, mate," he answered gratefully, and dragged his dark suitcase towards the cabin.
"James Potter," the boy said happily, settling down and holding out a hand that bore the signature of thoroughly enjoyed chocolate frogs.
Sirius took the hand and shook it. "Sirius Black."
James nodded towards two other boys, both of whom were engaging in chocolate frog warfare. "That one there with the dismembered frog is Peter Pettigrew," --Peter waved a legless frog in greeting— "And that sticky one there is Remus Lupin." Remus looked up from the battle and grinned at Sirius. "Hello."
"Hi." Sirius ruffled his short hair absentmindedly. "What are we playing?"
"Don't know, really... but it's bloody good fun..."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Let the Sorting begin with Antiqua, Diana..."
Ruddy hell... I'm going to be in Slytherin... they don't look like a particularly friendly bunch...
"Hope I get into Gryffindor..." James whispered fervently next to Sirius, startling him from his musings.
"M-me..." Sirius paused, thinking about all he had been told about Gryffindors and half bloods and Muggles since he was born. His entire heritage told him to back away from this boy, with his bravery and his laughter and his unruly hair. Then something in him sparked.
"Me too," he whispered back firmly, and stood a little straighter as he waited for his turn.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Mum, you can't honestly have thought that I was going to follow in your footsteps forever! I've set out my own pa---"
"DON'T SPEAK TO ME, YOU FILTHY TRAITOR! STAIN ON OUR NAME, DISGUSTING WORTHLESS SPINELESS CREATURE! YOU ARE NOTHING! LISTEN TO ME BOY, YOU ARE NOTHING!"
"I'm leaving, mother."
"YOU'RE NOT LEAVING, YOU WORTHLESS TOAD... I'LL DIE BEFORE I LET YOU GO BACK TO THAT WORTHLESS SCHOOL AND IT'S BLASPHEMOS IDEAS! I'LL ROT IN THE FIERIEST PITS OF HELL!"
"So be it, mother."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Let your hair grow out, did you mate?"
Sirius ruffled a hand through his shaggy hair, making it messier than usual as he compared it with his friend's. "That I did. Hoping to beat you in 'least likely to have a comb'."
"Unlikely, Padfoot. I've been working on this look since birth."
"Your mother must be proud."
"Oh, of course she is. It ranks number two among my best qualities with her."
"Number one being?"
"His better half!" a sweet voice answered from behind James, linking her hands with his.
"Ahhh, Lily. Right on time, as usual. And you've brought company! Excellent..."
"Sirius, this is Eve. Eve, this is Sirius."
"Pleased to meet you."
"Of course he is! Look at this stunning piece of woman—OUCH!" James rubbed at the back of his head, making his hair all the messier. "Lily, do you have to hit me?"
"I find it improves most situations, yes."
"Let's leave these two to get a bit better acquainted, shall we?" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Eve, I'm... I'm kind of new at this." He struggled to get the words out as soft lips pressed on his mouth.
"Mmmm, I can tell. It's all right though, you're doing fine."
"Hard to concentrate with you being all... warm and nice like that..."
"That's what this is supposed to be, Sirius. Warm and nice and like that."
Sirius grinned into the darkness. "That much I know."
"Aahh, pop quiz then. What else do you know?"
"That these clothes are very much in the way." A calloused hand reached out and unbuttoned the top of her school uniform, arguing with each button down and finally pushing the cotton back. The hands replaced themselves on breasts that rose and fell with hurried breaths.
"Very good. Top marks," came a sighing voice, and her back arched up so that her flesh met his hands and rose up in shivers, breathy sounds of pleasure the only sound heard in the abandoned Astronomy Tower.
"S-sirius... you know, you don't have to do all the work..."
"It's fun to watch though," he said, smiling lazily down at the glistening face before him, obviously proud that he was able to do so much with so relatively little effort.
"I should at least reciprocate," she answered quietly, and rolled them over so she was on top.
"I can't be held responsible for what happens if you start doing that," he whispered shakily as she unbuttoned his shirt slowly, letting fingernails scrape lightly over skin and chest hair as she moved.
"That's what I'm counting on," she answered coyly, and let her hands drop lower and trailed her mouth after her fingers.
"Eve..." his voice faded off as she undid his belt buckle, and the words were replaced with heavy breathing that verged on a pant as she forged onto unknown territory. Sirius closed his eyes and thought of nothing except the fingers that were coiled around him, doing terrible and wonderful things as he lay.
Suddenly he was over her again, and tugging anxiously at her skirt with one hand as he held himself suspended with the other. "I can't take that anymore..."
"Good good, I was hoping you'd say that," she answered breathlessly, lifting her hips so the skirt could be pulled the rest of the way off. The rest of both their clothes followed, and was thrown unceremoniously onto the floor, save for one lacy bra that was flung over Sirius' shoulder and was now dangling precariously off the end of a telescope.
Sirius hovered uncertainly over her frame, held up by two arms now and looking down at her moon-glowing body, completely exposed and shadowed by his. He let his eyes wander down her pale skin, catching where bruises and red marks were rising from bites and suckling mouths and eager hands that would be carefully hidden in days to come. He was sure his own skin bore the same telltale signs. He heard her breathing and watched her breasts rise and fall in time with each intake, watched her bite her lip in anticipation, watched her dark eyelashes flip back and forth as she blinked up at him.
Slowly, he let his arms drop and fell to meet her body, gasped into her hair as her hips rose up to meet his. She rocked against him, scratched nails down his back, and he twined his own hands around the material from the blanket they had brought with them, letting the sound of her guttural, throaty outbursts of pleasure sing to him and the electric feel of her soft skin rubbing incessantly against his own cradle him.
What had been soft moving and delicate became harder and more demanding, more forceful, more hungry to seize up every inch of each other. She bit down into his shoulder, and raked her fingernails down his back again, harder this time, enough to leave trailing marks. In turn, he drove himself further down into her, unable to move fast enough and slow enough to compensate for the waves of feeling that rolled over him with every movement.
But finally, it ended, and Sirius collapsed down on top of her, blowing a sweaty strand of hair from his own eyes and inhaling deeply the scent of sweat and mingling perfume and felt her legs still wrapped around his waist. He let his hands trace up and down the curves of her frame, grinning down at her glowing face.
"Shall I be cliché and ask if it was as good for you as it was for me?"
"It was wonderful and you know it. Stop digging for compliments and I'll stroke your male ego when I'm good and ready."
Sirius pulled away and rolled over to check his watch. "There will be plenty of time for stroking later, I promise you. Right now, we have to get back to the Common Room before people start to wonder."
She stood up and grabbed around at her clothes, then bent down to kiss him soundly before she left. "I'll see you later," she told him softly, a smile playing at her lips once more.
"You bet," he answered her, and watched her form disappear into shadows as he dressed himself. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Sirius bit back a scream as a bloody figure emerged from the shadows, writhing and struggling to stand as the Death Eater's curse ripped through her body and forced her forward. She held up her wand with the last of her strength, and spat blood onto the beaten dirt as she tried to say the incantation.
"A-avad---"
"AVADA KEDAVRA!" the Death Eater shrieked, and Sirius blinked against the bright green light and then dove forward in it's wake, retrieving his own wand and stepping over two dead bodies to get to it.
"STUPEFY," he bellowed, and the Death Eater fell to the ground, mask going slightly askew as she fell. He rushed forward to see Eve's face, cold and motionless with dead eyes that had held so much warmth years before when she had looked at him.
Stonily silent, he Apparated. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"You clean up nice, Padfoot," James prodded, grinning at Sirius' reflection in the mirror as he adjusted his own tie.
"Why the bloody hell are we wearing these things for you to get hitched?" Sirius grumbled, loosening his tie for the third time. "Fecking thing feels like a noose..."
"Ahh, but it's tradition," James answered wisely, turning from the glass. "How do I look?"
"Like a penguin," Sirius answered resolutely, tugging at his tie again.
"It's not going to attack you, mate, just let it go." James grinned again, and pushed his glasses up his nose before running a hand through his hair.
"Didn't Lily tell you she'd kill you if you mussed your hair on your wedding day?"
The hand stopped in its path. "Oh. Right. Doesn't ever really lie flat, does it?"
"She's fighting a losing battle, mate." A pause. "You really love her, don't you, Prongs?"
"More than I can say."
"Who'd have thought that beautiful redhead would fall for a gangly, messy- haired waste like you."
"Lucky for me!"
"Sad for her, but we all saw it coming." Sirius grinned and clapped his friend on the shoulder. "Well, are you ready to do this?"
James stood up a little straighter. "Yes Padfoot, I am." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
James slumped down in his chair, watching his drink swirl around in his glass.
"No Padfoot, we're not."
Sirius looked up from his own drink, startled. "Not safe?"
"Not anymore. Voldemort is too strong, and getting stronger. And he has his sources."
"But how could he possibly know where you are?"
"He does, or he will. Which is why we have to go into hiding." He stopped, and regarded Sirius carefully. "Dumbledore wants us to have a Secret Keeper."
Sirius widened his eyes and stood up to start pacing. "And who do you want to do that?"
"We were hoping you."
He stopped pacing, and eyed his friend carefully. "You know I can't do that," Sirius said softly.
"Oh, but you can!" James reiterated, standing up as well. "We do the spell, you have our secrets—"
"And Voldemort knows exactly where I am and whose secrets I have. And you're both killed, and Harry is left parentless."
James drifted towards the thought of his newborn child, cooing in a crib at home and grinning cheekily up at him whenever he came into the room, Lily's eyes staring up through a baby's face. He would do anything to be able to hold his child forever...
"What do you suggest?" he asked, coming back to the present.
Sirius thought for a moment. "Wormtail... Voldemort wouldn't suspect him of being Secret Keeper. He's one of the four Marauders, he's one of the few we can trust."
James nodded slowly. "All right. Wormtail then. Let's get a move on then, Dumbledore wants us safely in hiding as soon as possible."
Sirius nodded, and stepped forward to embrace his closest friend. "Merlin help us if we lost you, James. World just wouldn't be the same."
James grinned, and returned the hug. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Where d'you think yur goin', S'rus..."
Sirius spun around in the midst of pulling his cloak on, eyes wild. "I've just heard that James and Lily might have been attacked, I'm on my way to.... What's that in your hands?"
The bundle Hagrid had clutched to his frame gave an almighty wail as if on cue, and Hagrid looked down at it sadly.
"'S young Harry, S'rus. Just come from the Potter house..." he trailed off, and looked up at Sirius with two tears falling down each beady little eye. "S'rus... they didn't make it."
Sirius stopped fumbling with his cloak, and stared, first at Hagrid, then at the baby, then at Hagrid again.
"What do you mean, they didn't make it?"
The flow of tears grew to a steady stream, and Hagrid shifted Harry in his arms so he could wipe at his nose with the edge of his sleeve. "They were all crumpled up on the floor, jus' left there to be foun', S'rus. Lily by the crib, tryin' ta protect Harry, and James jus' a few steps in front of her, wan' still in his hand. Right terrible..." he gave another great sniff and looked at Sirius again.
"How did the baby make it?" Sirius asked stonily, feeling the color drain from his face and his stomach start to churn violently.
A confused look came over Hagrid's face. "Tha... tha' I don't know, but he did... came away with not more than a cut, S'rus... a nasty one, but not more than tha'..."
Sirius looked over at the child, down at the forehead where a deep gash in the shape of a lightning bolt marred the otherwise perfect complexion. He swallowed, trying to dissolve the lump in his throat. "How did he find out?"
"Tha I don't know either..."
Sirius's stony expression suddenly darkened and he looked up at Hagrid. "I have to go. Where are you taking Harry?"
"Aunt and Uncle's... Dumbledore said something about it being safer there, though I think you should take them, they don' seem like the friendly type..."
"Yes yes, all well and good..." Sirius muttered distractedly. "Here, take my keys. The motorcycle is out back, it'll take you far less time to get to Dumbledore using that..."
"Are ya sure, S'rus?"
Sirius turned around, and eyed Hagrid with a look Hagrid couldn't quite figure out. "Beyond sure, Hagrid. Take it." With that, he swept his cloak up and Apparated. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Peter Pettigrew! YOU BLOODY----"
"S-Sirius... what's this all about?"
"YOU BETRAYED THEM, YOU WORTHLESS CREATURE! YOU BETRAYED THEM AND YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO SAVE THEM! I WOULD HAVE DIED FOR THEM AND YOU SOLD THEM TO VOLDEMORT!"
"Sirius, keep your voice down..."
"I WILL NOT KEEP MY VOICE DOWN... AND NOW YOU'RE SLINKING OFF... WHY ARE YOU SMILING?"
"Because your fate is sealed, you stupid man..."
"What..."
An explosion wracked the entire street, throwing bodies and fragmented pieces of buildings and road into the air and back to the earth. And Sirius was left standing in the middle of it, alone and laughing at the sheer madness of what his life had become. He had lost it all in the name of being a friend. He had lost everything when he wasn't even trying to gain... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Every single moment of his life, twisted into something horrific and unreal. Once the dementors had grown tired of reliving his worst moments, when he had become immune to his own pain, they started using his imagination. How did James and Lily die? Oh, it wasn't simple, and it wasn't fast. It was slow and languorous, and all the while Harry could hear them screaming.
His mother hit him more. He watched his friends die again and again, and lost track of who was really alive and who wasn't. When the dementors grew tired of him, his lullaby would be the screams of the souls in the next cell. The only thing that kept him tied down to sanity was his innocence, and the one thing that the dementors couldn't take from him—the truth.
So slowly, with his bit of sanity, he formulated a plan. Deep in the back of his mind, where it wasn't a memory so the dementors couldn't reach, he devised his escape.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Live with you?" Harry asked up to him disbelievingly, in a tone Sirius couldn't perceive.
"Of course not, you don't have to if you don't want to..."
"Are you kidding? I'd love it!"
And Sirius grinned for the first time in thirteen years.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Through the door and past the remnants of a battle fought, Sirius and his comrades raced to find Harry and his friends, to save them from Death Eaters that were after the Prophecy. Sirius spotted them first, and dove instinctively to save his godson...
And then there was more fighting, and Bellatrix casting a spell that made him lose his balance, and the last thing he saw was a tattered, shadowy veil coming closer to him... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Then there was nothing. No sight, no sound, no feeling. Just a distinct feeling that I had forgotten something as I drifted through nothingness.
And then there were voices that were all oddly familiar and yet strange, as though I hadn't heard them in a lifetime.
"We've been waiting for you, Sirius."
Waiting for me? For what?
"We don't know yet. We'll all find out together, someday."
How will you know when?
"We will know."
Will someone tell you?
"No. Something else will tell us where to go though. How to get beyond. That will tell us. The unspoken will tell us...eventually."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Author's Notes: A million thanks to Sammi and Kristen, who read it first and loved it most.
Also thanks to Sammi for her help on –that-section... I loves you!
And to my alarm clock, which had the decency to stay off after my two a.m. writing sessions.
Reviews and critiques are always appreciated... Please leave one!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Cold winter's light streamed through the window of a child's bedroom, startling him awake. He rolled over and covered his face with his blankets, only to hear something he couldn't drown out coming from downstairs.
"Up, UP you lazy child, we haven't got all day!"
He rolled his eyes and opened them sleepily, then turned over in bed and found himself on the floor, tangled in sheets and staring groggily at the floorboards that replaced the mattress.
"I'm not waiting all day for you..."
"Coming mother!" he called, and listened to his high-pitched echo as it rang back to him from the walls. Jumping up, he pulled on a jumper, and then a robe, and then ran down the stairs, not bothering with socks. Best not to keep mother waiting.
"What is it, mum?" he asked breathlessly, hand still on the banister.
She stood at the base of the stairs, in the threshold to the main hall, tapping one foot impatiently, hair in a military bun, black satin dress laced and buttoned to tedious perfection. In her hand, she had a small piece of vellum that she was tapping against the woodwork of the doorway.
"Where are your shoes, boy?"
"Upstairs, mum... I didn't want to keep you waiting."
"You got a letter."
"A letter? Me?"
"Don't echo me like a mindless twit, just take the letter." She thrust it out towards him. He took it and broke the seal.
"We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry..." he looked up from the sheet. "Mother, what is this?"
"Your life for the next seven years," she answered tartly. "We're going to Diagon Alley in a half hour, now get dressed."
"Yes mum, thank you mum," Sirius answered automatically, and backed up the stairs to dress hurriedly and not ask for breakfast, afraid of inflicting a mother's rage.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Oh bloody hell, I have no friends, I have no friends, I have no friends..." he mumbled with each step as he made his way onto the train, passing each stage coach with laughing members in their compartments and feeling increasingly exiled.
One bloody empty car, one bloody empty car...
"Hey mate, there's room in this one if you're looking..."
Sirius spun around and looked at a messy haired boy waving congenially at him from the cabin two doors down.
"Thanks, mate," he answered gratefully, and dragged his dark suitcase towards the cabin.
"James Potter," the boy said happily, settling down and holding out a hand that bore the signature of thoroughly enjoyed chocolate frogs.
Sirius took the hand and shook it. "Sirius Black."
James nodded towards two other boys, both of whom were engaging in chocolate frog warfare. "That one there with the dismembered frog is Peter Pettigrew," --Peter waved a legless frog in greeting— "And that sticky one there is Remus Lupin." Remus looked up from the battle and grinned at Sirius. "Hello."
"Hi." Sirius ruffled his short hair absentmindedly. "What are we playing?"
"Don't know, really... but it's bloody good fun..."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Let the Sorting begin with Antiqua, Diana..."
Ruddy hell... I'm going to be in Slytherin... they don't look like a particularly friendly bunch...
"Hope I get into Gryffindor..." James whispered fervently next to Sirius, startling him from his musings.
"M-me..." Sirius paused, thinking about all he had been told about Gryffindors and half bloods and Muggles since he was born. His entire heritage told him to back away from this boy, with his bravery and his laughter and his unruly hair. Then something in him sparked.
"Me too," he whispered back firmly, and stood a little straighter as he waited for his turn.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Mum, you can't honestly have thought that I was going to follow in your footsteps forever! I've set out my own pa---"
"DON'T SPEAK TO ME, YOU FILTHY TRAITOR! STAIN ON OUR NAME, DISGUSTING WORTHLESS SPINELESS CREATURE! YOU ARE NOTHING! LISTEN TO ME BOY, YOU ARE NOTHING!"
"I'm leaving, mother."
"YOU'RE NOT LEAVING, YOU WORTHLESS TOAD... I'LL DIE BEFORE I LET YOU GO BACK TO THAT WORTHLESS SCHOOL AND IT'S BLASPHEMOS IDEAS! I'LL ROT IN THE FIERIEST PITS OF HELL!"
"So be it, mother."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Let your hair grow out, did you mate?"
Sirius ruffled a hand through his shaggy hair, making it messier than usual as he compared it with his friend's. "That I did. Hoping to beat you in 'least likely to have a comb'."
"Unlikely, Padfoot. I've been working on this look since birth."
"Your mother must be proud."
"Oh, of course she is. It ranks number two among my best qualities with her."
"Number one being?"
"His better half!" a sweet voice answered from behind James, linking her hands with his.
"Ahhh, Lily. Right on time, as usual. And you've brought company! Excellent..."
"Sirius, this is Eve. Eve, this is Sirius."
"Pleased to meet you."
"Of course he is! Look at this stunning piece of woman—OUCH!" James rubbed at the back of his head, making his hair all the messier. "Lily, do you have to hit me?"
"I find it improves most situations, yes."
"Let's leave these two to get a bit better acquainted, shall we?" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Eve, I'm... I'm kind of new at this." He struggled to get the words out as soft lips pressed on his mouth.
"Mmmm, I can tell. It's all right though, you're doing fine."
"Hard to concentrate with you being all... warm and nice like that..."
"That's what this is supposed to be, Sirius. Warm and nice and like that."
Sirius grinned into the darkness. "That much I know."
"Aahh, pop quiz then. What else do you know?"
"That these clothes are very much in the way." A calloused hand reached out and unbuttoned the top of her school uniform, arguing with each button down and finally pushing the cotton back. The hands replaced themselves on breasts that rose and fell with hurried breaths.
"Very good. Top marks," came a sighing voice, and her back arched up so that her flesh met his hands and rose up in shivers, breathy sounds of pleasure the only sound heard in the abandoned Astronomy Tower.
"S-sirius... you know, you don't have to do all the work..."
"It's fun to watch though," he said, smiling lazily down at the glistening face before him, obviously proud that he was able to do so much with so relatively little effort.
"I should at least reciprocate," she answered quietly, and rolled them over so she was on top.
"I can't be held responsible for what happens if you start doing that," he whispered shakily as she unbuttoned his shirt slowly, letting fingernails scrape lightly over skin and chest hair as she moved.
"That's what I'm counting on," she answered coyly, and let her hands drop lower and trailed her mouth after her fingers.
"Eve..." his voice faded off as she undid his belt buckle, and the words were replaced with heavy breathing that verged on a pant as she forged onto unknown territory. Sirius closed his eyes and thought of nothing except the fingers that were coiled around him, doing terrible and wonderful things as he lay.
Suddenly he was over her again, and tugging anxiously at her skirt with one hand as he held himself suspended with the other. "I can't take that anymore..."
"Good good, I was hoping you'd say that," she answered breathlessly, lifting her hips so the skirt could be pulled the rest of the way off. The rest of both their clothes followed, and was thrown unceremoniously onto the floor, save for one lacy bra that was flung over Sirius' shoulder and was now dangling precariously off the end of a telescope.
Sirius hovered uncertainly over her frame, held up by two arms now and looking down at her moon-glowing body, completely exposed and shadowed by his. He let his eyes wander down her pale skin, catching where bruises and red marks were rising from bites and suckling mouths and eager hands that would be carefully hidden in days to come. He was sure his own skin bore the same telltale signs. He heard her breathing and watched her breasts rise and fall in time with each intake, watched her bite her lip in anticipation, watched her dark eyelashes flip back and forth as she blinked up at him.
Slowly, he let his arms drop and fell to meet her body, gasped into her hair as her hips rose up to meet his. She rocked against him, scratched nails down his back, and he twined his own hands around the material from the blanket they had brought with them, letting the sound of her guttural, throaty outbursts of pleasure sing to him and the electric feel of her soft skin rubbing incessantly against his own cradle him.
What had been soft moving and delicate became harder and more demanding, more forceful, more hungry to seize up every inch of each other. She bit down into his shoulder, and raked her fingernails down his back again, harder this time, enough to leave trailing marks. In turn, he drove himself further down into her, unable to move fast enough and slow enough to compensate for the waves of feeling that rolled over him with every movement.
But finally, it ended, and Sirius collapsed down on top of her, blowing a sweaty strand of hair from his own eyes and inhaling deeply the scent of sweat and mingling perfume and felt her legs still wrapped around his waist. He let his hands trace up and down the curves of her frame, grinning down at her glowing face.
"Shall I be cliché and ask if it was as good for you as it was for me?"
"It was wonderful and you know it. Stop digging for compliments and I'll stroke your male ego when I'm good and ready."
Sirius pulled away and rolled over to check his watch. "There will be plenty of time for stroking later, I promise you. Right now, we have to get back to the Common Room before people start to wonder."
She stood up and grabbed around at her clothes, then bent down to kiss him soundly before she left. "I'll see you later," she told him softly, a smile playing at her lips once more.
"You bet," he answered her, and watched her form disappear into shadows as he dressed himself. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Sirius bit back a scream as a bloody figure emerged from the shadows, writhing and struggling to stand as the Death Eater's curse ripped through her body and forced her forward. She held up her wand with the last of her strength, and spat blood onto the beaten dirt as she tried to say the incantation.
"A-avad---"
"AVADA KEDAVRA!" the Death Eater shrieked, and Sirius blinked against the bright green light and then dove forward in it's wake, retrieving his own wand and stepping over two dead bodies to get to it.
"STUPEFY," he bellowed, and the Death Eater fell to the ground, mask going slightly askew as she fell. He rushed forward to see Eve's face, cold and motionless with dead eyes that had held so much warmth years before when she had looked at him.
Stonily silent, he Apparated. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"You clean up nice, Padfoot," James prodded, grinning at Sirius' reflection in the mirror as he adjusted his own tie.
"Why the bloody hell are we wearing these things for you to get hitched?" Sirius grumbled, loosening his tie for the third time. "Fecking thing feels like a noose..."
"Ahh, but it's tradition," James answered wisely, turning from the glass. "How do I look?"
"Like a penguin," Sirius answered resolutely, tugging at his tie again.
"It's not going to attack you, mate, just let it go." James grinned again, and pushed his glasses up his nose before running a hand through his hair.
"Didn't Lily tell you she'd kill you if you mussed your hair on your wedding day?"
The hand stopped in its path. "Oh. Right. Doesn't ever really lie flat, does it?"
"She's fighting a losing battle, mate." A pause. "You really love her, don't you, Prongs?"
"More than I can say."
"Who'd have thought that beautiful redhead would fall for a gangly, messy- haired waste like you."
"Lucky for me!"
"Sad for her, but we all saw it coming." Sirius grinned and clapped his friend on the shoulder. "Well, are you ready to do this?"
James stood up a little straighter. "Yes Padfoot, I am." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
James slumped down in his chair, watching his drink swirl around in his glass.
"No Padfoot, we're not."
Sirius looked up from his own drink, startled. "Not safe?"
"Not anymore. Voldemort is too strong, and getting stronger. And he has his sources."
"But how could he possibly know where you are?"
"He does, or he will. Which is why we have to go into hiding." He stopped, and regarded Sirius carefully. "Dumbledore wants us to have a Secret Keeper."
Sirius widened his eyes and stood up to start pacing. "And who do you want to do that?"
"We were hoping you."
He stopped pacing, and eyed his friend carefully. "You know I can't do that," Sirius said softly.
"Oh, but you can!" James reiterated, standing up as well. "We do the spell, you have our secrets—"
"And Voldemort knows exactly where I am and whose secrets I have. And you're both killed, and Harry is left parentless."
James drifted towards the thought of his newborn child, cooing in a crib at home and grinning cheekily up at him whenever he came into the room, Lily's eyes staring up through a baby's face. He would do anything to be able to hold his child forever...
"What do you suggest?" he asked, coming back to the present.
Sirius thought for a moment. "Wormtail... Voldemort wouldn't suspect him of being Secret Keeper. He's one of the four Marauders, he's one of the few we can trust."
James nodded slowly. "All right. Wormtail then. Let's get a move on then, Dumbledore wants us safely in hiding as soon as possible."
Sirius nodded, and stepped forward to embrace his closest friend. "Merlin help us if we lost you, James. World just wouldn't be the same."
James grinned, and returned the hug. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Where d'you think yur goin', S'rus..."
Sirius spun around in the midst of pulling his cloak on, eyes wild. "I've just heard that James and Lily might have been attacked, I'm on my way to.... What's that in your hands?"
The bundle Hagrid had clutched to his frame gave an almighty wail as if on cue, and Hagrid looked down at it sadly.
"'S young Harry, S'rus. Just come from the Potter house..." he trailed off, and looked up at Sirius with two tears falling down each beady little eye. "S'rus... they didn't make it."
Sirius stopped fumbling with his cloak, and stared, first at Hagrid, then at the baby, then at Hagrid again.
"What do you mean, they didn't make it?"
The flow of tears grew to a steady stream, and Hagrid shifted Harry in his arms so he could wipe at his nose with the edge of his sleeve. "They were all crumpled up on the floor, jus' left there to be foun', S'rus. Lily by the crib, tryin' ta protect Harry, and James jus' a few steps in front of her, wan' still in his hand. Right terrible..." he gave another great sniff and looked at Sirius again.
"How did the baby make it?" Sirius asked stonily, feeling the color drain from his face and his stomach start to churn violently.
A confused look came over Hagrid's face. "Tha... tha' I don't know, but he did... came away with not more than a cut, S'rus... a nasty one, but not more than tha'..."
Sirius looked over at the child, down at the forehead where a deep gash in the shape of a lightning bolt marred the otherwise perfect complexion. He swallowed, trying to dissolve the lump in his throat. "How did he find out?"
"Tha I don't know either..."
Sirius's stony expression suddenly darkened and he looked up at Hagrid. "I have to go. Where are you taking Harry?"
"Aunt and Uncle's... Dumbledore said something about it being safer there, though I think you should take them, they don' seem like the friendly type..."
"Yes yes, all well and good..." Sirius muttered distractedly. "Here, take my keys. The motorcycle is out back, it'll take you far less time to get to Dumbledore using that..."
"Are ya sure, S'rus?"
Sirius turned around, and eyed Hagrid with a look Hagrid couldn't quite figure out. "Beyond sure, Hagrid. Take it." With that, he swept his cloak up and Apparated. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Peter Pettigrew! YOU BLOODY----"
"S-Sirius... what's this all about?"
"YOU BETRAYED THEM, YOU WORTHLESS CREATURE! YOU BETRAYED THEM AND YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO SAVE THEM! I WOULD HAVE DIED FOR THEM AND YOU SOLD THEM TO VOLDEMORT!"
"Sirius, keep your voice down..."
"I WILL NOT KEEP MY VOICE DOWN... AND NOW YOU'RE SLINKING OFF... WHY ARE YOU SMILING?"
"Because your fate is sealed, you stupid man..."
"What..."
An explosion wracked the entire street, throwing bodies and fragmented pieces of buildings and road into the air and back to the earth. And Sirius was left standing in the middle of it, alone and laughing at the sheer madness of what his life had become. He had lost it all in the name of being a friend. He had lost everything when he wasn't even trying to gain... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Every single moment of his life, twisted into something horrific and unreal. Once the dementors had grown tired of reliving his worst moments, when he had become immune to his own pain, they started using his imagination. How did James and Lily die? Oh, it wasn't simple, and it wasn't fast. It was slow and languorous, and all the while Harry could hear them screaming.
His mother hit him more. He watched his friends die again and again, and lost track of who was really alive and who wasn't. When the dementors grew tired of him, his lullaby would be the screams of the souls in the next cell. The only thing that kept him tied down to sanity was his innocence, and the one thing that the dementors couldn't take from him—the truth.
So slowly, with his bit of sanity, he formulated a plan. Deep in the back of his mind, where it wasn't a memory so the dementors couldn't reach, he devised his escape.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Live with you?" Harry asked up to him disbelievingly, in a tone Sirius couldn't perceive.
"Of course not, you don't have to if you don't want to..."
"Are you kidding? I'd love it!"
And Sirius grinned for the first time in thirteen years.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Through the door and past the remnants of a battle fought, Sirius and his comrades raced to find Harry and his friends, to save them from Death Eaters that were after the Prophecy. Sirius spotted them first, and dove instinctively to save his godson...
And then there was more fighting, and Bellatrix casting a spell that made him lose his balance, and the last thing he saw was a tattered, shadowy veil coming closer to him... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Then there was nothing. No sight, no sound, no feeling. Just a distinct feeling that I had forgotten something as I drifted through nothingness.
And then there were voices that were all oddly familiar and yet strange, as though I hadn't heard them in a lifetime.
"We've been waiting for you, Sirius."
Waiting for me? For what?
"We don't know yet. We'll all find out together, someday."
How will you know when?
"We will know."
Will someone tell you?
"No. Something else will tell us where to go though. How to get beyond. That will tell us. The unspoken will tell us...eventually."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Author's Notes: A million thanks to Sammi and Kristen, who read it first and loved it most.
Also thanks to Sammi for her help on –that-section... I loves you!
And to my alarm clock, which had the decency to stay off after my two a.m. writing sessions.
Reviews and critiques are always appreciated... Please leave one!