Don't own HP. Probably never will. Long oneshot, sad, depressing. Slash. Don't like, don't read. R&R!!!
.x. Cyanide and Nicotine .x.
Remus sat at the oak writing desk, staring blankly at the parchment. In his mind's eye, it leered at him, taunted him, and drove him to the point of madness. Had he been in a better disposition he would have laughed—he was going insane over a few little words. He looked down again. He knew what he wanted to say, but how? How could he portray all his feelings on this tiny sheet of paper? Surely this tiny roll of parchment could not be big enough to contain the heart he wanted to spill out onto it?
.xx.
I mounted the Hogwarts Express the first time with a mingled sense of fear and hope. At Hogwarts, I knew that things would either be heaven or hell—there was no room for purgatory in the new life I was beginning. I had always been kept away from other children because of my "condition", as my parents called it in public, and as I walked down the bustling aisles no familiar faces greeted me like my peers. When I reached this compartment, the very last on the train, I was relieved to find it empty apart from two boys. One was tall with long, dark hair; the other was a watery-eyed boy who slightly resembled a rodent.
"Erm, is this compartment free?"
The dark-haired boy looked up from the pamphlet he was reading—A Practical Joker's Guide To Hogwarts—disinterestedly and told me to sit down. I did so.
"Peter Pettigrew," said the shorter of the two, sticking out a pudgy hand. I shook it—it was sweaty. His voice was high-pitched and squeaky, and it sounded nervous.
"Remus Lupin," I said. The other boy looked up from his pamphlet again; he had pale gray eyes that made my insides churn slightly in a way that I did not understand. He flipped his hair out of his eyes and, after inner debate, seemed to deem us fit to introduce himself, too.
"Sirius Black," he muttered. He then returned to what he had been doing.
"I'm worried about being sorted," said Peter, "I heard that we have to battle a Chimera," he wailed. Sirius looked at him, repulsed.
"Where the hell did you hear that?"
"One of the older kids."
"You idiot. They use a hat."
I was relieved at this—I had never even heard of a Chimera.
"You shouldn't listen to anything this ass says," Sirius told me, pointing to Peter. "Trust me—we go way back and I don't think I've ever heard him say something true." I looked to Peter, and when he smiled nervously I did as well. I couldn't know then that it would be the beginning of a friendship that would one day evolve into something much greater…
.xx.
He dipped his quill into the inkwell indecisively, licked his lip, paused with the tip a mere centimeter above the parchment, and, finally, set it down again. It was useless, and he hated it.
.xx.
I looked into their eyes expectantly. James' expression was one of detached interest, Peter looked horrified, and, for the first time in a long while, I couldn't read Sirius' face. It was this that bothered me the most, and I didn't know why. "You can leave if you want," I whispered. "You don't have to talk to me."
"You…you're really a w-werewolf?" Peter squeaked. I nodded, ashamed, as though I had done something wrong. As though I could have prevented Greyback from biting me. Peter let out a squeal of fear and Sirius hit him, hard.
"You prat," he snapped, "why do you care? I don't care, do you, James?"
James shook his head. "I figured it out awhile ago, mate."
I looked up hopefully. "So you don't hate me?"
Sirius snorted in disgust or laughter, possibly a bit of both. "Well, you haven't bitten us yet, have you?" He said with a grin. For the first time since I had decided to tell them my secret, I smiled.
.xx.
He could hear the members of the Order moving around in Number 12, Grimmauld Place. Molly was preparing some sort of meal, and somebody else was walking around. He heard Tonks trip over something, setting the portrait of Mrs. Black off. Her wailing permeated the drawing room:
"FILTH! HALF-BLOODS! BESMUDGEONING THE BLACK NAME! BLOOD TRAITORS! CHILDREN OF FILTH!"
He would normally have rushed out to help, but he needed to write. He needed to be able to tell him his feelings for the first time in a long while…
.xx.
We were alone in the dorm that night as James and Peter served detention with Slughorn. He and I had lit lamps and were pouring over the Maurader's Map, seeing if we could pull off a prank in the small hours of the morning, when I caught sight of his mischievously twinkling gray eyes. My breath was caught in my throat and I paused. "Remus?" he asked. "Something up?"
I shook my head. He nodded, believing my lie, and went back to the piece of enchanted parchment before us. My heart raced.
"Sirius?"
He looked up. Without thinking, I closed my eyes and quickly kissed him. It was a poor first kiss, either as a couple or as a person. He looked at me, confused. "What the hell was that?"
"I don't know."
He kissed me again. I placed my inexperienced hands on his strong shoulders, feeling the tips of his long black hair brushing against my fingers. He opened his mouth slightly and I breathed into him. We each felt something flare inside of us as our lips collided…our kisses were so addictive, laced with cyanide and nicotine. Each of our meetings conducted after that night was like this, so sorrowful and desperate. We could never be together, not the way that they wanted to be. We knew that. We could only have these hidden glances and secret touches: those stolen moments that left too quickly….
.xx.
"Augmenti," he whispered, pointing the tip of his wand at an empty glass. A jet of cool water issued from the tip and he drank it gratefully. The parchment was still blank. How could he say everything he needed to say?
.xx.
I looked at him, the hurt evident in my brown eyes as we stood alone in the room. "You told Snape?" I asked in disbelief, hoping that the story Peter had told me about why Severus was in the hospital wing and James in detention was false. The look in Sirius' gray eyes affirmed my fears. "How could you?"
"Come on, Moony, it was just a joke."
"Just a joke?! Sirius, don't you realize what people finding out means? It means I have to leave! It means I have to go home and hide, forever."
Sirius looked shocked—he wasn't used to serious consequences to his actions. "It was just a joke," he whispered.
"I hate you," I snarled wolfishly, my brown eyes glinting gold. Sirius was slightly concerned, but I could see a playful smile sprawling across his haughty face. He leaned in to kiss me, but I pushed him away. "I'm not kidding, Sirius!" I yelled. He stopped in his tracks.
"Are…are you serious?"
Finally, I said what I had been thinking for weeks. "We can't be together…"
He blinked at me, not understanding that he was being refused. He had never been refused in his entire life.
"Why not?"
"Because I don't like pretending," I told him indifferently although my entire being wanted to scream out to him how I truly felt. I stopped myself—It had to be done. "I have one too many big secrets as it is."
"Oh. Right." He looked at me for another moment. "Well, then I'm going to go work on Slughorn's Potions essay, I guess." He exited without another word.
.xx.
At long last, he knew the words he needed to put onto the parchment.
"Sirius…" he wrote.
"REMUS!" His head snapped up—it was Sirius' voice.
"I'll be right there," he called back.
"NO, THER'ES NO TIME TO WASTE. YOU HAVE TO COME NOW. HARRY'S IN THE DEPARTMENT OF MYSTERIES!" He froze. Within moments he was out of the drawing room and apparating to the Department, along with everyone else who had been at Headquarters at the time.
When they arrived, the place was in turmoil: Harry and his five friends were holding their own (at this point, it had been reduced to Harry and Neville alone fighting), but the Death Eaters outnumbered them by far and were quickly swooping in to what would be a sure victory. Order members began to cast spells, causing calamity.
Sirius looked at him. "Find Harry." Remus nodded, and ran off. He dodged spells and duels, until finally reaching Harry. They watched as Sirius fell, slowly and gracefully, into the veil. They watched the tattered piece of fabric swing back and forth, as though a breeze had blown past it. He heard his heart shattering to the sound of Harry's screams.
.xx.
A year later, Remus found himself in the same drawing room, sitting and crying in the same chair he had sat in all that time ago. He swallowed the lump that was growing in his throat at the though of his intentions. He cursed the fact that Sirius had never known the way he truly felt. It tortured him night and day that he had never found the words to tell him. He looked at the carefully polished surface of the desk—he considered it to be the last piece of Sirius he had. He looked at his watch: it was the night of the full moon, and dusk was gathering quickly. Realizing the room he was in, he panicked and attempted to make his way out before his transformation. He had not had access to any Wolfsbane since Severus' flight from Hogwarts, and had fully transformed in the past months. As he reached the doorknob, he felt the familiar pain and cursed again. He said a silent prayer that the desk would be left alone in the night as he felt his nose enlarging into a snout and lost his human frame of mind…
Outside of the room, Molly and Tonks lamented poor Remus' condition as they heard his growls, yelps, and barks.
"I wish there was some way I could help him," Tonks told Molly, "but I'm horrible at brewing potions. Nearly failed the class." Molly agreed with her, saying that she could only brew household potions.
"He's seemed so down lately," Tonks mused, blissfully unaware of her love's broken heart.
.xx.
When morning came, the first thing that he noticed was the torn-up state of the room. The cabinet contents had been sprawled across the room, including a curious gold locket. He walked over to it and picked it up—an ornate 'S' had been carved into it. His brown eyes widened as he realized what the piece of jewelry must be. He picked it up and walked over to take a piece of parchment from the desk drawer and paused. The desk, his last piece of his love, was on its side. There were giant gashes in the top and sides; a leg had been torn away. The corner of it appeared to have been gnawed on. Remus felt his heart break again. It had been his last reminder, his last material possession. Hot tears stung his eyes for reasons he couldn't explain. He couldn't make sense of why this hurt him as it did—it was just a desk…but no, there was so much more to it than that….
.xx.
Remus stared at his old friend in the dusty confines of the Shrieking Shack. "Sirius?" he asked incredulously. Could it be? The man grinned a grin that was a shadow of what it had once been, but nevertheless recognizable as the one he had known so well. He enveloped the man in a hug that, though seemingly brotherly, meant the world to him. He had his Sirius back…
.xx.
Remus lifted the desk so that he could pull out a roll of parchment from a drawer. He first tore off a large piece and waved his wand at it; it transformed into an envelope. He quickly scrawled Harry's name on it and slipped the locket inside. With another wave of his wand, the envelope sealed itself.
He tore off a second piece. This time, he knew exactly what to write.
"Padfoot…I love you. Always."
With one last wave of the wand, he transformed his quill into a small gun. He looked down at it, scrutinizing its appearance. It was a dark gray color, steely, and cold. As he cocked it, he thought of everything. The way they couldn't get it together. Those kisses laced with cyanide and nicotine.
"I hate you…"
"Well, you haven't bitten us yet, have you?"
"It was just a joke…"
Our kisses were so addictive, laced with cyanide and nicotine….
He felt the barrel of the gun against his temple. He swallowed again.
Sirius….
He looked up at the ceiling.
"Sirius…"
The sound of the gun going off filled the empty space of Number 12, Grimmauld Place.