(All the encrusted shells, in the hollow where we made love, had their particularity.)
The summer had been mild. A summer of simple rains and soft winds and dewy clouds that covered the sun like cotton, always about to clear away without ever quite doing so. It was a summer that felt like spring.
Sirius left the Potters on a Sunday in the last weekend of August, and as a dog he walked to the home of the Lupins.
They lived on the outskirts of Brighton, in the south, where it was almost warm, where one could imagine seeing Europe from across the sea on the clearest of days. Their house was a cottage on the beach. Sirius had learned this. Of course, over the years, Remus had told him.
Sirius walked and ran until his paws were sore and his fur was dirty from sleeping under hedges, but in the end the journey didn't seem to take long. As an animal he did not have so very much impatience. He knew where he needed to go and so he went, and that's all there was to it.
(One has the purple of our souls.)
As naturally as fate, when Sirius arrived on the beach- the sand was dry, his paws sank in, the air smelled fresh with an incoming storm- Remus was there, a lone figure upright in the distance, the wind blowing his scent to Sirius' nose. It hadn't been planned. They had exchanged no letters. Sirius went to him, and on instinct more than rational thought his tail lifted and wagged, and when Remus noticed him there he bent at the knees and reached out, stroking Sirius' head. He smelled of himself and of seasalt. His eyes looked very blue in spite of the gray sky.
(One is hiding the blood of our hearts.)
Remus stood and began to walk away, saying nothing, and Sirius followed. They walked until the beach became overhung by cliffs, and the wind was silenced by the rock. There came a sense of solitude here- without noticing it earlier, Sirius realized they had been within view of Remus' home. Now, they were entirely alone.
(I burn, and you're lit on fire.)
Sirius turned back into a man, and the change in senses startled him for a moment. He didn't have anything to wear. Remus had sat on a rock, expression unreadable, and still he said nothing. There was a tension in the air, and Sirius didn't really know what kind. He took a step closer- the sand felt harsher on his feet than his paws- Remus didn't move- another step…when the distance between them was insubstantial Sirius kissed him, and it was both a relief and entirely expected that Remus kissed him back.
(Another takes on your languor…)
In an instant, it was too much. Sirius pushed him down against the sand, rough, a wild makeshift bed…he felt already like he was going to burst, like the fire was going to devour him from the inside out, but more importantly than this Remus let him, his long legs falling apart, fingers resting loose at his sides…his clothes vanished somewhere between breaths, slithering off without their intending it, folding themselves at the side of the coupling to wait. Magic. The air around them seemed to glow with it.
(...and your pallor when, weary, you grow angry with my mockery.)
Remus whimpered- a beautiful sound- had he said the spell that lit the way, that opened the gates for him? Sirius could not remember, but here again he met no resistance, and Remus' body arched up to meet him and this was better than any conversation they could have had, surely it was more honest...or at least, for Sirius, it was. He was making foolish sounds, but he didn't think of them. He didn't want to think of anything.
(this one counterfeits the grace of your ear)
Sirius kissed him again, deep, and saw in the act that Remus' eyes had filled, overflowed, up and over…clear light spilled down his temples, colourless and without vitality, and Sirius saw that some of the hairs growing from the top of his scalp were gray. He did not remember them as such. Sirius licked the drops away from his skin like a dog, like he was, and Remus made a sound so entirely wolfish Sirius' entire body was seized with nigh-climactic pleasure then and there.
(that one, your neck)
...but in the end it was Remus who made it over first, and he did it soundlessly, even though Sirius wished he would howl.
"Sirius," he whispered, the name Sirius almost didn't want, because he hadn't chosen it- and he wasn't done yet, not for another almost painful moment, when Remus' breath trembled against his cheek and his eyes looked so distant Sirius could have cried. "Sirius."
Then it was over, and Sirius collapsed against him, holding him to the sand. Their breathing was too fast for the careful rhythm of the ocean. Sirius felt Remus' heart against his own, and its beat seemed unsteady, too much like a bird fluttering uncertainly back and forth.
"Moony," Sirius replied, but Remus had gone quiet. "I've got you, Moony."
Rain began to fall around them, sparse and light and warm, and their bodies slowly settled. All the while, Remus said nothing, and Sirius thought nothing at all. He felt, somehow, as if he were dreaming.
(...but one, amongst them, troubles me.)
"I think I should go alone this time," Remus whispered, and his voice sounded small and faintly scared, little more than a breath that didn't reach Sirius' skin where he sat in the Gryffindor dormitory, parchment spread out haphazardly on the table, not really intending to be written upon. "I should…like I used to-"
"No," Sirius hissed, and Remus flinched almost imperceptibly, his eyes flicking down and away. "That's ridiculous- you'll hurt yourself. Of course we'll come with you."
The others- James and Peter- nodded and agreed, patting Remus' back- why had they thought he'd said this? Did they think he was being self-sacrificial, given that they had so much homework this year (seventh year, the last year, it was only September and yet already the professors were overloading them), given that the moon always left everyone so exhausted? Sirius hoped it was so, wanted to think it was so, yes, it was so. He was only being considerate. He didn't want to be alone.
(This trick of the mind did not work so very well anymore.)
"Alright, alright," Remus acquiesced and his head bowed, and Sirius could see the sparse hairs on the back of his neck, and in his thoughts he reached out and touched them- placed his hand there to feel the warmth, to reassure him- but in the real world he did nothing. He looked back down at his page. He wanted the moon to come sooner.
(Surely it would all be fixed, come the next full moon- Sirius had already apologized for what had happened last year, for the incident, for that setting-loose-of-things…he had apologized many times, on the beach after they'd had sex and on the train back to Hogwarts and on the first night at home in the dormitory. He had done enough penance. Moony would forget it all when Padfoot greeted him under the moon, yes, then he would see…everything would go back to the way it had been, he knew it, he wouldn't accept anything else.)
(Since when had he stopped believing he could change the world with his thoughts?)
On the full moon they all followed Remus and Madam Pomfrey down to the Whomping Willow, poorly disguised under the Invisibility Cloak, for now James and Sirius had become so tall they needed to bend nearly double for the fabric not to reveal their feet. The air beneath the cloak was sweaty with the breath-smell of young men. Sirius wondered on the way down what Pomfrey thought- if she would even deign to consider why the werewolf did not suffer so terribly from self-inflicted wounds anymore- if she would be relieved when he graduated and became 'someone else's problem'. Sirius started for a moment to wonder how Remus felt about the adult world that was sweeping towards him, and then stopped. Thinking of that was, somehow, impossibly worse than thinking of his own future. He couldn't afford it on a night like tonight.
Soon, blessedly, they were all in the tunnel, alone, seperate from the world. Sirius flung the Cloak away and he wanted to take Remus' hand, but he didn't, always, always. Remus already looked pale and vaguely inhuman. In this cycle, the moon had wandered close to the earth; its face, as Sirius had seen, was a burning orange. The Harvest Moon. Remus had been itching with it all day.
(To Sirius, this knowledge was still deeply erotic.)
They made it to Hogsmeade before long- to this place that the residents called the 'Shrieking Shack', how amusing, though the name made Remus sad- and Remus and Sirius went upstairs together while the prey-animals waited below (a custom that had never been verbally agreed upon) and there the change was swift and seamless and like this, Sirius got everything wanted.
The wolf shook out his fur, shivering and twitching, and Sirius trotted over to lick at his nose and sniff behind his ears, to admire him. The urge to mount him was, for a moment, very strong- but Remus wandered unsteadily away, back downstairs, eyes huge and amber like the face of the moon outside. Like he was high. Sirius always loved this.
The stag and the rat greeted them and both canines wagged their tails; Sirius knew what came next, it was as obvious as the next breath of air, and he ran excitedly to the makeshift 'door' they kept in the North-facing room…during the months in between visits they kept it shut from the elements with a heavy wooden board, but surely (as always) the human James-Peter had moved it aside before transforming, while Sirius and the wolf were upstairs…the air that drifted through promised the wildness of the night beyond, carrying the scents of pine and bark and the hints of a distant winter. Sirius bounded out, the ground beneath him turning from rough splintered wood to soft grass, and he heard the others joyously follow.
The others, save one. When the deer and rat both had preceded him, Sirius stopped and looked back, his ears and tail raised high and curious. The wolf stood in the doorway, eyes glowing in the shadows of the Shack, but he paused there, head lowered towards the dirt. Sirius barked at him (lash of the tail- once, twice) and the wolf only looked on in reply, ears pushed softly back against his skull, legs still trembling. Sirius didn't understand- indeed, he didn't have the faculties at the moment to understand this sight at all.
Sirius bounded back to the hole in the wall and pushed his nose against the wolf's ribs and then his rump, urging him out into the night. He whined softly but Sirius didn't really have to force him, and soon they were both running, catching up to their packmates and friends.
Then, ecstasy.
Sirius forgot any and all troubles of the human world. It was impossible to think of them; he was alive now and only now, all the atoms in his body singing with self-actualization, and the world was impossibly alight with scents and sounds and sights. The black-orange moon gave them all a wild energy, but this was far beyond being human-drunk. They ran endlessly, weaving through trees and out over clearings, and Sirius never lost his breath nor had one thought of conservation, and all the power and fearlessness and confidence he had begun to feel slipping away from him as a human were returned now in full-force.
It was perfect- just like he had known it would be.
They found themselves on a dirt road, once, surely late into the night- the brown soil beneath their paws almost looked bloody for how deep was the colour of the moon. The wolf tipped his head back, a distinctive sight, and Sirius joined in with the howl- though as always his own rough voice petered out and the wolf's cry continued on long afterwards, for a moment without end, a sound that turned the world feral and effortless and immortal.
When he was finished- the call could have ended after an hour, or even a million years, Sirius neither knew nor cared- Sirius threw himself wildly into the play position, tail thrashing with joy and love- but the wolf didn't quite look at him, didn't return the gesture as expected. The wolf was staring at something over Sirius' shoulder, ears suddenly ramrod-straight and hackles raised, and for a moment, Sirius didn't even try to understand.
Then, the wind shifted- a scent came- a familiar, foreign scent. An animal scent. An animal that shouldn't have been here- not here, not now.
Human.
Sirius turned and saw in the distance a broad figure- tall, surely, but who really knew, he couldn't say- a dark spectre, limbs unclear, wizard's robes. A lone man approaching on the road.
The wolf shot past Sirius like a curse. He was running- Sirius was running now too- the wolf had always been faster. Sirius could smell the sudden bloodlust rising off his fur- it was almost artificial, how strong it was, like a mind-altering potion or drug…it infiltrated Sirius' nostrils and his brain, making him dizzy, and he was just at the wolf's heels but he couldn't quite reach him…could never quite reach him.
It all happened in an instant- less than a minute, perhaps even less than a second- but in that non-time the world shifted, and Sirius lost the last part of his mind that was human, and then, perfectly and only then, he became entirely a wolf.
They were hunting together, they were. The Moon commanded them, a brilliant amber eye. They were going to bite, and rip, and tear- drink, and suck, and feast- they were instinct, parts blended together perfectly into one whole, inseparable and barely distinct. Sirius- Remus- Padfoot- Moony- wolf and dog, and wolf and wolf. Want, and love, and possession. Animal. The seventh sky. This was what he had spent so much time yearning for-
("You wanted me to kill someone.")
A blur of thick fur and musk came before Sirius and he stumbled, reminded of his own four paws (when, a second ago, he had had eight) and his one slavering jaw (when, a second ago, he had had two). The stag. Sirius skidded on the ground, dodging out of the way, but the wolf had been too intent on his prey- with a shriek he slammed directly into the waiting antlers and was rebuffed, lean silver body tossed back against the dirt. He wasn't discouraged, however; he was on his feet again in a second, snarling an evil-sounding snarl, and the deer raised up on his hind legs, kicking and braying, his split hooves shining with deadly promise in the moonlight. Sirius remembered himself then- remembered that he had a role to play here. He darted between them- a distraction, don't go for it, Moony please- pushing the wolf's flank and nipping at his heels, herding him the way sheepdogs did their wards.
The wolf whined, a high and desperate sound, but he was crowded in on all sides by hooves and antlers and teeth, and had no choice but to acquiesce to their demands. In a flurry they were back behind a cover of trees, and Sirius looked back out across the road once, towards the man- he could still see the figure, oddly blurred by distance and his inefficient eyes, but he could not make out any emotion (neither fear, nor surprise, nor condemnation). He turned away, and did not spend another thought upon it.
In the darkness of the forest the stag urged the wolf along, and the wolf obeyed even though he was shaking and crying oddly, letting out long and painful noises between ragged breaths. He wasn't limping, quite, and Sirius couldn't smell blood- or at least, he couldn't until the wolf suddenly stopped and spasmodically bit himself, sinking long teeth into the thin fur of his own haunch, and the stag had to butt his rear (far more gently than before- using his soft head instead of the antlers) to encourage him to keep moving.
When they were long out of reach of the road the stag eased off and the wolf, no longer pressured, slowed to a halt. His ears were flat against his head and Sirius saw something strange in him- some kind of un-animal calculation- he looked at his wound like he was considering whether he should worsen it, which was not how a wolf should think at all. Sirius tried to interrupt him, licking his mouth and then his bleeding thigh, his own throat vibrating- he was whining too, and hadn't meant to.
The wolf lay down then, out of breath, and Sirius continued to lick him where he bled- two instincts overwhelmingly urged him to do so, one man and one animal, the desire to help and somehow, also, the desire to apologize.
(For what- he couldn't then say. It felt more genuine than it usually did.)
The rat joined them after a moment, squeaking quietly, and Sirius found that the Harvest Moon's magic was broken- he was aware of aches in his own body, and the world felt much realer and more solid than it had. He knew that time was passing. Eventually, the sun would rise.
The wolf looked up at him from the ground, muzzle still stained with his own blood, and he looked deeply unhappy.
Their return trip to the Shack was strange- too tame, too cautious, too disquieted. They did not play among each other. The forest around them felt eerie, too dark- as though it was hiding something from them in a way it never had before. Sirius could hear the rhythm of his own heart all the way. He didn't know why it beat so unsteadily.
Once in sight of the Shack, the wolf sped up- he ran back inside as though the place was a refuge, or the arms of a waiting matron, and he curled up on a carpet on the floor with his tail under his rump, his body wound into a circle too small, as though he sought to make himself disappear.
Sirius joined him there, pressing fur to fur to warm him, in hope of easing his trembles...like this, they waited for sunrise.
When the night was over, Remus' human body seemed reluctant to wake. He was very pale and tired-looking, dark hemispheres and dry lips, the experience having sapped him of energy instead of the reverse. Sirius licked his shoulder once before turning back into a human-
-God, what a weight it was, every time-
-and he fetched a blanket and some water, those things they kept here since no one else would, and he brought Remus into his arms. How feeble he looked. His skin shone with a feverish quality Sirius had hoped he would never see again.
Remus looked up at him, curious and close enough to kiss, shifting thin limbs to make himself comfortable…then he winced, eyes and hands drawing downwards in surprise, parting the blanket...there was blood on his thigh. Blood, and teeth marks. Another scar.
"Oh," Remus breathed, the sound without texture. "This…what happened?"
"You," Sirius tried to say something, but the word aborted in his throat- an unformed thought, unsuitable for birth. Remus was examining his wound gingerly, long neck bent before Sirius' mouth…still so soft, just waking, a thing without memory.
(Moony had been crying last night.)
"You, uh, you bit yourself," Sirius managed after a moment of these poorly blended thoughts. "That's all, I- I'm sorry, I couldn't stop you."
(The truth- but it didn't feel like it.)
"Why?" Remus asked, turning to look up at him. From this distance, Sirius could see the flecks of greenish gold that were left behind in the blue, the scattering animal signs that were uncannily like scars. "Why did I…?"
"You were just upset," Sirius told him. "At the start of the night- the Harvest Moon must have bothered you, y'know, it was really strong…but, but after that you were okay."
"Okay," Remus murmured, and Sirius' hands were shaking with the lie, so he wrapped them around Remus' belly and held him tight, an embrace that lasted only a moment, too fierce and too honest.
James and Peter stirred, they too were waking from their sleeps; Sirius let Remus go, no secret kisses this time, and as he stood to dress himself and find their store of Dittany he felt Remus watching him, eyes as hot as a brand against his back, and surely it was only because he was guilty that they felt so accusatory.
It was evening, Sirius returned to the dormitory from the bathroom; Remus, who was still sick with the effects of the moon, lay on his bed in disheveled night clothes, head bent as he spoke to James. Sirius saw them for a moment like a perfect outsider- like he wasn't in the room at all. A ghost. It was an inversion of the status quo so violent his head spun with it.
But no, he was not truly invisible; they noticed him, the black thing standing in the shadows, their heads turned- James sighed, Sirius could see it, his nostrils flared and his lips pursed, a familiar- albeit uncommon- kind of face. It was hard to say anything of Remus' expression. Sirius didn't think he had ever seen it before. He looked exhausted, bone-weary...but he did not cry the way he had the first time Sirius had betrayed him. It appeared almost as if he were too tired to feel anything at all.
Sirius greeted them cheerfully, as though that painful pause had not happened, as though nothing had ever gone wrong- and he flopped down onto his own bed and James joined him in idle conversation, about Quidditch and classes and careers. Remus, for his part, fell asleep. It was at times like these that Sirius doubted himself the most- doubted his own memory, even- for just then he couldn't say with any certainty that he knew himself, or Remus, or anyone in any meaningful way at all.
"Are you angry with me?" Sirius asked Remus one afternoon; the sun warmed them through the library's tall windows, and they were alone and terribly sleepy, cushioned by the dusty air in the circadian low. The question had been impulsive- the opposite of intended, the words had slipped from Sirius like a sigh. He didn't even have a concrete reason for asking it. Remus had simply seemed too far away lately.
"No," Remus told him, but Sirius didn't know if it sounded like the truth. Remus' head was rested upon folded arms- the moon was new, and so his eyes were mostly blue, and his face was tired and sick in the way it always was, these days. "No, don't worry, Sirius."
"Then what?" Sirius suddenly felt disquieted, suddenly desperate- though his mind was sedate and felt nearly on the edge of dream, his gut had become electric with some terrible, nervous shame. Guilt. He had to push it away or he would lose himself.
"It's just…" Remus' words trailed off, and Sirius watched their shapes leave his lips, watched the clarity of his gaze fade away. This quiet scene didn't feel right for damnation- and yet, in the years afterwards-
(the long, cold years he would never be able to name- Atlantic salt and black ice and madness made metal)
-he would look back upon it and realize: they had been standing on the barest edge of a cliff for a very long time. The day didn't need to be stormy, for one of them to fall from it.
"It's just…"
(A whisper- no stronger breeze required- Sirius would fall, and the sky would not catch him as he had once thought it would.)
"...I can't trust you anymore."
Sirius woke late into the night, and the air tasted of dust. He turned his head, instinctive, peering through the crack in the four-poster tapestry…Remus' own curtains were flung from his bed, he wasn't occupying it, he was sitting on the windowsill, looking up at the clear light of the half-moon.
Sirius had never seen him like this. He looked…sick, somehow, sick and insane, shivering and rocking slightly, whole body tight with anxiety, and his eyes glowing impossibly bright- like the cigarette butts of fireflies. It wasn't beautiful this time.
Sirius got out of bed immediately, pushing his own curtains aside and stepping out into the Night. Remus turned to him, head twitching like he had been startled, and Sirius thought that for a moment, he wasn't even recognized…he held out his hands, hushing softly, and slowly (but not completely) Remus relaxed, let Sirius embrace him, let his head rest against Sirius' chest. Sirius could feel him shaking. His breath was coming high and small and fragile, like that of a wounded animal.
"Are you okay?" Sirius whispered. "What happened?"
"Nothing," Remus whispered back, though the words sounded choked. "I'm fine. I'm- I don't know."
Sirius thought only the last of these statements was honest. They sat there in the moonlight for a while, and Sirius rubbed Remus' thin arms (too thin- had he lost weight? Since when? Background thoughts) until the trembling melted away and Remus seemed like he could breathe again, and then still held him a little longer.
(He wasn't ready to let go.)
"What am I going to do, Sirius?" Remus murmured, his voice little more than a sigh. "When it's over…when we're done…what am I going to do?"
…and Sirius realized he didn't have an answer for this. He didn't even have platitudes. This was what he couldn't stand to think of, didn't Remus know? Didn't they both know…?
Sirius kissed the top of Remus' head and told him it was best to go back to bed, they both needed rest…and Remus agreed, perfunctory, and they both went back to their separate beds (designed, surely, to be too small for two fully grown people) and closed their curtains, but after that Sirius did not sleep again. He spent the night watching Remus' bed, waiting for the gap to open again, for him to come crawling back out, needing comfort or escape or the light of the moon…but he didn't. The sun came, and Remus must have slept.
Remus and Sirius were alone in the haunted bathroom. Which one of them had led the other here? Sirius didn't know; the action had seemed either entirely reciprocal, or entirely foreign, as though there was some vast third party- invisible and all-consuming- that had pushed them this way, tugging their strings until they obeyed. Something like God.
Sirius usually would have kissed Remus, in a situation like this, but Remus was holding his Advanced Transfiguration textbook over his chest and looking everywhere save Sirius' face- the floor, the ceiling, the stupid tap that someone had inscribed with a serpent…Sirius abruptly felt very deeply afraid, as though he was watching the most precious thing he owned be drawn away from him, and he yet he had neither the method nor the tools to stop it from happening.
"I'm going to go home for Christmas this year," Remus said raggedly (he said everything raggedly, these days). "I know you…I mean, you can go with-"
"I'll come with you," Sirius said- blurted- the words were too forceful leaving his chest. Suddenly desperate, he reached out and took one of Remus' arms- a forbidden touch, that's what it felt like, like reaching through the impenetrable wall. Remus did look at him then. He had the gall to look surprised.
"I didn't get to meet your parents," Sirius continued. "You know- this summer. I'd like to. And I'd like- like to go back to that beach."
The words felt lame, crippled in every sense- just a year ago, or maybe two, they would have been natural. The beach would be covered in snow over Christmas, anyway, far too cold for fucking- the hell was wrong with him, saying something like that- but in Remus' eyes the surprise faded, and was replaced strangely by a slow-growing warmth.
"You would?" Remus whispered, and he was blushing now, and Sirius felt like his insides were on fire- so much so he couldn't speak, could only nod in reply.
"I didn't think you…" Remus trailed off, shrugged, like he was admitting something shameful. "Didn't think you cared- about, er, that sort of thing. Well. If you'd like to, then…"
Sirius just watched all these incomprehensible little changes, feeling like he had somehow guessed the correct answer on a test he hadn't understood at all, and then Remus- in what looked like a sudden act of bravery- leaned over and pecked Sirius on the lips. It was chaste and soft and sweet, no matter the dryness of his lips, and then he was gone- back out the door, off to class, they both had one- and Sirius was left standing there, stupefied.
Sirius thought he had seen this very scene before, in a romance film- perhaps, in real life, somewhere in Hogsmeade. But it was wrong- crucially, damnably wrong- because the Problem as always was still there.
(Two many parts that were the same.)
A soft voice in the corner of the room giggled, and Sirius whipped around, startled- the ghost of the girl he had met last year was peeking her head out from one of the stalls, translucent fingers brushing her gray lower lip, cheeks lifted in a satisfied kind of smile.
"That was sooo cute," she said, even as Sirius glared, filled then with intense and inexplicable shame. "I'm glad you got over your fight. You know, it's so sexy when you stare at him like that, like he's just the best-"
In one quick and surprisingly violent motion Sirius drew one of the books from his own bag and lobbed it at the ghost's head. Unsuspecting, she didn't have time to draw away, and she shrieked as though in pain when the thing passed through her, turning her face for a fraction of an instant to smoke.
"What- whyyy- what did I dooo-"
Sirius went past her and picked up the book, saying nothing and burning angrily inside (a different kind of burn to the one he felt for Remus). He felt he had done something wrong, but he didn't know what.
He left the ghost girl wailing in the bathroom and stormed to class, the edges of his vision dark. It was all coming for him…coming too fast. Even the year was on the verge of death.
(Like she had said: what did I do?)
The inside of the Lupins' seaside cottage was strange- or at least, it was for Sirius. In some ways, it reminded him of the Potters'- smaller and homier than Grimmauld Place, normal, comfortable without need for decadence- but there was something off about it, in comparison to that. Something felt…ungenuine, or faded, as though the honest happy-family energy that imbibed the Potters' London home had been sapped from this place, or slowly and quietly replaced, piece by piece, until it was hard to tell what exactly was different, what exactly was wrong…even Sirius couldn't exactly describe it. All this was to say, simply, that the hackles of his soul had raised just a little, when stepping over the threshold.
Remus' mother had greeted him very warmly, embracing him like a son, and taken his bags to Remus' bedroom, where another bed had been set up. There wasn't a guest room, she had said, she hoped he didn't mind…he didn't think she knew, not even a little bit. And as for Mr. Lupin, he was away, would be back on Christmas Eve- business to attend to for the Ministry- apparently, he did very well there. This statement, too, seemed to smell a little strange.
There was only one picture of the family all together, and it sat over the mantelpiece. In it, Mrs. Lupin was younger and rounder, her hair dark all the way through, her cheeks plump and her smile wide. She had lost a lot of weight, Sirius thought, since this was taken. Mr. Lupin, for him Sirius had no comparison, but he looked good-natured there. Remus, in the picture, was held up between them- he was only a baby, at most three years old, burbling and letting his mother wave his wrist in the imitation of a 'hello'. Sirius had to lean in closer to the photo to be sure it was really him- how strange, he was nearly unrecognizable. Of course, his face had the putty-like quality of all babies, but there was something else- something different about his eyes, they were missing pieces that Sirius had never seen him without. And of course, his skin had no scars. The picture- which looked very happy- must have been taken before…
And there were no pictures of an older Remus, not anywhere in the house.
(Sirius didn't want to think about what that meant.)
"Let's go for a walk," Remus told Sirius, and they put their breakfast plates in the sink where they would magically wash themselves, and said a quick goodbye to Mrs. Lupin who, as always, smiled widely (perhaps, a little too widely) at Sirius.
Outside, the air was chilled, but not freezing. A soft snow was falling, the kind that landed completely silent, and when caught melted before one could even look. Remus took Sirius' hand, entwining their gloved fingers, and it felt like a shock- Sirius almost pulled away, but then allowed it. The way his heart beat faster at things like this, it was more unpleasant than pleasurable- but it felt wrong both to continue and to pull away.
Remus didn't say anything, hopefully didn't notice; he led the way down from the cottage, down rocky magic-hewn stairs in the cliff, down to the beach where the sand was frozen and covered in a blanket of that snow, and the low breath of the waves smelled like salt and ice. Sirius, too, kept his silence. Even their footsteps were muffled by this atmosphere.
Remus took them to the hollow where they had been that summer- but all of the seashells were buried or taken, now. Sirius let his fingers slip away, out of Remus' embrace and back to his side, where they sat limp. Remus looked back at him, and something about this gray light made all of his scars stand out like rivers on his face. Brilliant silver. For a moment, Sirius was breathless.
"This is where we were," Remus murmured, entirely unnecessarily.
"Yeah," Sirius said, the bare minimum of what was required, but Remus didn't seem to care. He looked like he was struggling with his words, like they were clawing at him on their way out, and Sirius thought he knew exactly what that felt like.
"We're going to graduate," Remus declared, louder than before. "This year, we- we'll be done. It'll be over. Do you know- have you thought-"
He stopped for a moment, choked, and Sirius wished for a single, very hot instant that he hadn't agreed to come here, hadn't asked for it. James wouldn't have wanted this from him- but then, James was something entirely different.
"I don't have many options," Remus continued. "Even if I do very well with the NEWTS- even if I'm the best in the class, which you know I won't be- I won't…any job I can get will rely on kindness, you know that, don't you?"
"I guess so," Sirius muttered, a despicable and uncommitted little sound. Remus looked at him like he was in pain, and Sirius felt frozen where he stood.
"And there isn't much of that for werewolves," Remus declared, and the word somehow startled Sirius where he stood- he didn't think he had heard Remus say it like that, not in a long time, perhaps not ever…so firmly, so decidedly.
(Not, 'I have lycanthropy'- rather, 'I am a werewolf'.)
"Or, for that matter…for men like us," Remus continued, but now his voice was a whisper, like he was unsure…like he was standing on thin ice.
(Sirius was the ice.)
"Men like us?" Sirius asked, even though his ears felt muffled by his heartbeat, even though he already knew. Remus pursed his lips, not yet disturbed enough to bite them, but he looked worried- almost afraid. His brow was constricted and he blinked very quickly, too delicately, just like he had always been.
"You know…" Remus trailed off, and for lack of a word (Sirius thought he knew the words, now, but he couldn't say them- to say them, even to think them, was anathema-) he took Sirius' hand again, clumsily entwining their fingers, but this time Sirius pulled away. This time, he let go.
"It's not like that," he said, bitter words that were the opposite of the truth. "Don't worry about it. Come on, let's go back."
Christmas dinner was strange. At the little square table, Sirius and Remus sat opposite each other, and Remus' parents on the other sides. Mr. Lupin had returned late on the night of Christmas Eve, and though Mrs. Lupin had been heard speaking to him, Remus hadn't gone out. He had been awake. Sirius had seen him.
Now, in between bites, their conversation was perfunctory. Mr. Lupin asked Sirius many dry questions- where are you from, what are your hobbies, what's your favourite subject at school- Sirius answered, but not always honestly, and the adult didn't seem to realize the lies. Remus did, Sirius saw it in his eyes.
(Thankfully, Mr. Lupin did not bring up his 'future', his 'career'- it didn't even seem to occur to him- small mercies.)
Remus and his father did not speak at all. There was talk of work and school, but it was always adjacent, and though Mrs. Lupin said Remus' name often- somehow desperate about it, Remus will you pass the salt, Remus what do you think of the ham- his father never looked at him. The air in the room resounded with the clicking of cutlery on china, but not with conversation. This place wasn't like the Potters'. It wasn't like Grimmauld Place, either.
"So, Sirius," Mr. Lupin began, as the plates were being cleared away. "Do you have any girlfriends at Hogwarts?"
"Erm," the question was false, it didn't sound natural. For an instant- too long or not, he couldn't say- Sirius was frozen, and then the answer came, somehow birthing from his mouth without ever having been contained in his heart. "Yes, of course. Loads."
(...it was caustic, this inauthenticity.)
"Good," Mr. Lupin replied. It did not seem he had even heard the answer, at least not properly. "That's how it should be."
Remus was looking at his father now, a gaze that was not returned, and Sirius was shocked to find that in the yellow of his eyes there was much more of the wolf than the boy.
For Christmas presents, Remus gave Sirius a small model motorbike, enchanted to drive about on any surface it was placed on, making tiny mock-engine noises. In return, Sirius gave him a new scarf. One, a gift for a child, the other, for a stranger.
(Sirius didn't know how this was happening to them.)
"My father can't stand me," Remus whispered across the room that they shared. Christmas was over, and there was a week left until they needed to return to Hogwarts- and contained within that week was the full moon. "Can't you tell?"
"Why?" Sirius whispered back. Remus sat up, his blankets shifting from his shoulders, and Sirius saw a flash of his scars in the high moonlight. His eyes were glowing with it, it was almost here. Unable to resist (the night changed him, made him desirous and malleable, it always did) Sirius slipped from his bed and into Remus', tangling their limbs together, his own cold and Remus' sickly with heat. From this distance, he could feel all of Remus' breathing. It was almost as it had been before, on that first Hogwarts Christmas, when they had been together for the first time.
"Remus Lupin is a sweet little baby," Remus replied, cryptic, and when he smiled Sirius' eyes were drawn to his canine teeth, which even like this were sharp and curved enough to resemble fangs. "And he's dead. He died years and years ago, when Greyback tore him to shreds…"
"What are you, then?" Sirius asked, their faces so close they were nearly touching, and Remus sighed softly into his ear.
"A shadow," he murmured, and Sirius shook his head. "A beast kept around at my mother's bequest. He wanted to give me away."
Sirius thought he saw it then, for just an instant- a flicker of something he hadn't ever truly contemplated, absurd and unwholesome in its eroticism- that was, Remus as a werewolf, the kind of werewolf children were told stories about…savage. Would he still be so good and so harmless, had he been raised by his own kind? Would he still cry at the thought of hurting anyone, and bite himself as preemptive punishment? Sirius didn't know if he liked this conjured image. It seemed too distant, and Remus was already distant. It was the sight of something foreign, a yellow eye disappearing into the forest foliage. Something a domestic dog had almost no hope of chasing.
"I thought I was the shadow," Sirius said, and he brushed a single stray curl behind Remus' ear, and somehow that seemed permission enough to kiss him too. Unlike usual, the kiss was tender, uncomplicated…perhaps this was so because Remus was nearly a wolf and everything was easier when he was a wolf. In the moonlight they could kiss for hours without noticing the time passing at all, without feeling that pressurous regard of the Sun…Sirius wondered if he was being foolish. He wondered if he would feel the same way when the daylight came.
"Tomorrow night's the full moon," Remus told him through pink and swollen lips; they were entangled now, quiet and helpless, bodies knotted until their difference was illegible, like two ends of a single rope.
"I know," Sirius replied.
(He always knew.)
When the sun began to set Remus put his dinner dishes away in the sink, eyes downturned and head bowed, and he looked precisely as he did whenever Madam Pomfrey came to pick him up- somber and saintlike and miserable. Mr. Lupin was already gone, vacated, he had made up some meaningless excuse…but Remus' mother stayed, her smile wide and very tight, too pained to reach her eyes.
"You know, don't you?" she asked Sirius, and he nodded. To lie about that would be silly- though there were other things he did need to lie about. Being an illegal Animagus, for one.
"Will you mind staying up?" the woman asked, and the things she said were so divorced from Sirius' reality he didn't know how to answer her. "It's loud…it can be very frightening…at Hogwarts, of course, you wouldn't be as close…"
"I'm fine," Sirius told her eventually. "It won't bother me."
('It'- what did that refer to, exactly? The situation? The night? The wolf?)
Remus then opened a door Sirius had not really noticed before, having assumed it was a closet- but it was not a closet, rather it opened onto stairs, downwards turning stairs that led to a strange and abandoned basement. The walls in here were dusty and scratched and held dark stains, and there was no furniture save a pair of chains fixed to the concrete wall, manacles for holding human wrists. The air smelled stale and faintly of mold, and for one dizzy moment Sirius thought he would be sick- this wasn't how it was supposed to be. Even the Shrieking Shack was better than this.
Sirius turned at the bottom of the stairs and found that Remus' mother hadn't followed them, though she stood at the top, looking uncertainly down. Waiting for him to flee, perhaps. Remus began to undress, out of sight of the upper floor, and his movements were so stiff and clean he seemed more robotic than wolffish. When he was done he walked to the chains- and Sirius had to look away at this, he felt cowardly but it was too much, to see the wolf so familiarly tie himself to this blackened place. He wasn't going to be happy like this, Sirius knew. In such confinements he would surely bite himself bloody. He deserved to run free on the beach…
"I'll come back as soon as I can," Sirius whispered in horror. "As soon as your mum goes to bed. I promise, I…"
Remus just looked at him strangely, like he didn't really know what was being said…he sat on the hard, cold floor with his legs folded, a meditative pose, but surely it hurt, he was too thin…everything about this was sickening. There were no windows through which the moon could shine. There was nothing soft at all for the wolf to lie upon.
Sirius went back upstairs shaking, and Remus' mother locked the basement door. The sound of the turning bolt felt like something much worse- like a gunshot, perhaps- or the release of a terrible curse. Sirius felt like he had stepped into some inhuman alternate dimension where everything was twisted and ill- but no. This wasn't a bad dream- it was the real world. This was how things were done, outside of Hogwarts…
Mrs. Lupin patted Sirius on the back, he didn't doubt she was still smiling some horrible smile, and so he went back to their bedroom as he assumed she wanted. He did not undress or brush his teeth, all he did was sit, first on his cot and then on Remus' bed, as though seeking some shadow of his body warmth…he waited there, fingers clenched into the mattress, until the screaming started.
(The villagers of Hogsmeade called it the 'Shrieking Shack'.)
Sirius couldn't bear to listen for more than a minute. He left the room, tongue tight in his jaw, his movements rapid and uncomfortable. Sweat as cold as ice broke out of his back, flooding him, and the sounds only became louder as he went down the corridor- this wasn't like the first time. No, this was all wrong.
Remus' mother was sitting at the kitchen table, and she would have seen Sirius had her face not been buried in her hands. Sirius doubted his footsteps or uneven breathing was heard- the sounds from downstairs were too loud. Sirius didn't even need to say the spell- alohamora- the door opened all on its own. Wordless magic, soul magic, magic that came straight from the heart. Sirius closed it behind him, nearly silent, and went.
(Down.)
His feet didn't make it to the final step- by the time they reached it, they were paws. Sirius shook himself of his human clothes and ran across the room, ears flat and tail half between his legs, whimpering…Moony was wailing and gnawing on himself, his back leg that he favoured, the cries of pain interspersed with angry snarls.
("No- hush, hush- don't do it, baby, I'm here, I've got you…")
Sirius licked desperately at the place where the wolf's teeth met his own flesh, licked until he released, yellow eyes wide and confused. In such a short span of time, he had already done so much damage- Sirius wished he had more than one head, so he could lick the blood from Moony's teeth and clean his wound simultaneously. He didn't deserve this.
("What? You're here- why? This isn't where we meet…")
The wolf seemed to settle after a few moments of this care, his cries dying down to soft whines, and Sirius saw his eyes clear. He was trembling- pain and fear, anyone could smell his anxiety, the thick wafts of it that came from his fur- but Sirius knew he was recognized. Pack-mate. Mate. The shadow.
("Yes, I'm here…it doesn't matter where…when you're like this, I always want to be with you.")
The wolf stood uncertainly, stretching out his long legs, and Sirius saw how strangely the manacles fit him in this form, how they tripped him and trapped him close to the wall in unnatural and surely uncomfortable positions. They weren't going to play tonight.
("It hurts…I'm so scared…I hate it here.")
Sirius paced the room for a moment, looking for something soft- but there was nothing, his man-self had already determined it. The dark stains on the walls smelled of old blood, the wolf's blood. This was a torture chamber.
("I know. It's going to be alright. Everything's going to be alright.")
When Moony cried again, more softly this time, Sirius returned to his side, nose pressing into the silver fur where it gathered thickest, the back of his neck and shoulder blades. They both lay down again, as closely entwined as the chains allowed them to be, and when Sirius felt how high and fast the wolf's breathing was he began to lick him again, slow and soothing, a guide for his frail lungs.
("Are you sure?")
("...")
After some time like this, they both managed to fall into a disquieted sleep.
Sirius woke to the sound of footsteps on the stairs. He raised his head, and a light flickered on; standing across the room was a human woman, and like this it took a few seconds for Sirius to recognize her, for her scent to drift across the room: kin of the wolf, his bearer. She was looking at them, frozen, silent. Sirius didn't understand her expression, couldn't, not like this.
He turned and examined the wolf a little more closely- he had smooth skin now, hair only on his head, paws turned into fingers that clutched at Sirius' pelt even in sleep. The sun must have risen somewhere then- but in this terrible place, it was impossible to tell.
Sirius sat up carefully, disentangling them as gently as he could, and then he turned back into a man. His neck cracked, and he rubbed it with a sigh, and looked back across the room to Mrs. Lupin- she had one hand over her mouth, and still he couldn't quite tell what she was feeling, if the shock was from horror or joy.
"You can't tell anyone," Sirius said to her softly. Remus shifted by his side, beginning to wake. "It's illegal- I'd get in a lot of trouble…"
Mrs. Lupin took her hand from her mouth and nodded. She was smiling, close-lipped, a more cracked and honest smile than her usual one. Even from here, Sirius could see she was trembling.
"Alright," she whispered. "Yes. Of course. Why don't I…why don't I go put on breakfast for you boys? Yes…"
Then she was gone, and after a moment of tension Sirius decided to believe her, and turned back to Remus, whose yellow eyes were just opening. His teeth were still bloody behind his lips.
"Good morning, Moony," Sirius murmured to him, and in response- so fragile he looked already broken- Remus smiled.
On the train back to Hogwarts for the winter term, Remus slept, and Sirius talked with the other animals. He found himself distracted often, losing his words at the sight of that pale, tired face…so peaceful a state…so unlike how he usually was, how he had to be.
There were only months left until graduation. The future was racing towards them and there was no way to stop it.
Metamorphosis. Sirius couldn't afford to ignore it anymore.
Christmas was over; the old year had died and the new one had been born. There were left only a few months until graduation- something that had always been a distant, unformed dream, and now it was rocketing towards them like a meteor. Sirius always woke with a stab of anxiety in his chest, and only with much effort was he able to bury it.
"I'm more excited than anything," James told him, but their eyes didn't meet, he was busy releasing and catching a crippled Snitch with all the confident ease of a cat toying with a mouse. "There's so many options- we've still got all those pamphlets for Ministry jobs, and there's so much more beyond that..."
"But we'll always be friends," Peter chimed in with some concern. "The Marauders- we'll always have each other's backs, if things get bad."
...and so Sirius agreed with them. He even looked at the Ministry pamphlets; pathetic. There were plenty of jobs he was sure he could do, plenty of jobs that would be fun to do- dragon researcher, curse breaker, Auror. A self-made man, like he had dreamt, surely that wasn't so difficult. How could he describe to them, then, the problem? How could he explain why he was so unhappy, and not excited in the slightest...?
(We'll always have each other's backs, if things get bad- some terrible part of Sirius' mind murmured a response: will we?)
In February, a new 'trial' was announced: the graduation dance. This was something Sirius had long forgotten, if he had ever truly known that it existed; a special ball held in the spring for those seventh-year students who would be leaving, some never to return. The swan song, the final send off.
Professor MacGonagall seemed so delighted when she mentioned it- so tired, also, as though this was a spark of something good in an onslaught of effort and drudgery, a flower growing on a glacial field. Second-hand enjoyment, the way parents take pleasure (at least, theoretically, in storybooks) in handing out gifts to their children for holidays.
Sirius looked over at his friends during the announcement: Peter was blushing, his face pressed down into his soft neck, warmed by the very concept. James was leaning forward, his expression intent- but Sirius knew the why of that quite well, knew which firey-coloured back-of-head he was staring at without needing to look, this was all very expected. Remus- it didn't look like Remus had heard. His face was turned slightly towards the window, expressionless and exhausted, like someone a million miles away- but they had just gotten back from the moon. Less and less these days did it seem like the daylit world had the capacity to hold Remus' attention. Like mist, he seemed to fade in it.
The classroom was filled with titters from girls and shuffled feet from boys; the wake of the announcement left the room over-full with these such sounds, these presences. Sirius' own face felt warm. Still, he found he didn't really know what he was feeling- he was suspended in the wolf's apathy, that which was surely not his own, and for a few moments- a few hours, that whole first day- he was numb from the inside out. Funny, how such a state was almost comforting.
By the end of the week matters of the dance had taken over their year, and that pleasant emptiness in Sirius had completely vanished- replaced, as expected, by his usual anger and shame, those things that bled from the fetid hole in his chest, that ever-oozing sore in his heart. Why was it that, whenever he managed to forget it for a time, he assumed it was overcome? Surely it could never be overcome. It was in his blood, now.
"Don't worry about it," Sirius told James, and the words sounded just on the edge of spiteful. "There's no way she'll say no. You guys have been going out for…for how long, now?"
"You don't get it," James replied; he was adjusting his hair in the mirror, trying to make it lie flat, that which was surely an utterly hopeless task. "She's just so…I don't want to be complacent, I always want to impress her."
"Well, your combing skills certainly won't," Sirius told him dryly, and he was rewarded with a shove, rough but good-natured. James gave up on his hair with a sigh, and turned away from his reflection.
"And what about you?" he asked, and for a moment Sirius didn't understand him at all.
"What about me?"
"Well, you've got your pick of the lot," James replied, wiggling his eyebrows up and down. Absurd. "Haven't you noticed? There's loads of girls following us around…and they certainly aren't looking at Peter, huh."
James chortled to himself for this, and Sirius grinned, but it wasn't a very true grin and so he stayed quiet. James didn't push the subject, it was easy to steer him away to other things- such as his nervous proposal to Lily.
Small mercies.
Sirius did notice the girls, after James mentioned them. Their smiles and quiet laughter seemed, to him, on the edge of manic. He still performed- he ran fingers through his hair and smirked and winked, their shrieks falling on deaf ears, ears that thundered with his own heartbeat. He wondered how he could possibly look convincing. He didn't believe himself in the slightest.
"The whole thing is stupid," Peter complained, his ears red. They were sitting in the common room; he had just returned from a particularly bright flock of girls, and he flopped down into his chair, defeated. "I don't get why we have to do it, anyway…"
"Rejected again?" James asked him, completely self-satisfied; Lily had said yes, of course. "Don't whine about it, Wormtail. We're men, this is what we do…you just have to get stronger."
"Stronger- you mean by having a long-term girlfriend?" Peter groused, and the two bickered good-naturedly.
"You go on, Sirius," James said suddenly, dragging him into the conversation with an elbow to his ribs. "Show the little mouse how it's done."
"Er, maybe later," Sirius replied; the words felt thick and sticky, like putty. "I haven't quite decided yet."
(He couldn't quite tell if that was the truth or not- couldn't quite tell if, after all this time, he even had a choice anymore.)
Sitting in the library. This was where Remus spent most of his time now- he did not join Sirius and James for all of their late-night parties and wanderings.
(Peter came every time, no matter the sacrifice of his grades or sleep- but Remus and Peter had ever been very, very different people.)
What are you thinking? Sirius wanted to ask; Remus was writing out problems for Arithmancy, and his writing looked beautiful on the page, just like it did on the Map. Beautiful, and incomprehensible. Sirius had never had much of a head for maths.
"Are you going to the dance?" Sirius asked him, which felt like a deeply foolish question. He didn't even know where it had come from- from the atmosphere around them, perhaps. The table across the room was filled by seventh-year girls, and they kept turning to look Sirius' way and whisper. He felt like he was burning under their spotlight; he couldn't stand it.
"You need a partner to go to the dance," Remus replied, soft and measured. He didn't look up from his assignment. Sirius wished very much that he would.
"Yeah, so?" Sirius shrugged his shoulders. Feigned indifference- that was so much of his life now. "You could get someone to go with you, Moony. You're…tall. Handsome."
(Stunning. Bewitching. So beautiful my heart is always ripped from me when I see you-)
"I'm not handsome," Remus told him with a small, wan smile. "I'm deformed."
"No," Sirius said, but the word was numb in his mouth. It didn't seem to be good enough. Remus dipped his quill into the ink and began to write again, slow and careful, graceful loops across the page. All their conversations felt like this, these days.
"Are you?" Remus asked quietly, after their silence had gone on too long. "...going to the dance?"
Sirius noticed that his fingers were white where they gripped the quill, that he had stopped in the middle of a number, a drop of ink breathing on the end of the metal. Sirius tried to meet his eyes, but Remus wasn't looking at him- the colours of them were obscured behind long gray lashes.
"Sure," Sirius replied roughly. "Why not?"
He turned around in his chair then, facing the girls. A few of them gasped, one put her hand over her mouth. Sirius raised a hand, half a wave, and whisper-hissed across the room:
"Marlene. Hey, Marlene."
Marlene McKinnon; Gryffindor, a friend of Lily's. A blonde. She sat up a little straighter in her chair, cheeks reddening far more than Remus' ever could, and waved delicately in response.
"Want to go to the dance with me?" Sirius asked, and Marlene began to smile, and then there was a sudden thud of noise and surprising pain- Sirius had been hit on the back of the head by Madam Pince's newspaper, which she reserved for precisely this purpose.
"Quiet," she snapped, and then she moved on, and Sirius rubbed the back of his skull, looking back up at the girls. Marlene, grinning and flushed, nodded at him. The other girls were all laughing quietly; quietly enough not to attract the librarian, at least. Sirius gave her a thumbs-up- even this felt false- and turned back around in his chair.
Remus had spilled some of his ink onto his parchment; he vanished the stain with a tremulous little wave of his wand, and then dipped his quill back into the inkwell. He didn't say anything, so Sirius didn't either.
What are you thinking? I don't know you at all anymore.
The night of the dance came at last. There was no moon in the sky- it should be nearing fullness, just a few more days to go, but its light was obscured by a cover of thick black clouds. By all accounts it looked like it would rain.
Sirius, James, and Peter- the last of which who had, after all, managed to find a date for the dance- put on dress robes of assorted quality; James' were new and fit him well, Peter's were second-hand but not terribly shabby, and Sirius had bought some decent ones on the last Hogsmeade trip…he could barely imagine the kind of monstrosity his family might have provided for him, had they still been that. But he was not 'Black' anymore.
"Sorry you didn't catch anyone, Moony," Peter said as he adjusted his tie, faintly snide and completely oblivious. Remus, who was sitting on his bed wrapped in blankets, shook his head.
"Don't worry about it," he murmured. "I don't feel very good right now, anyway…I'd rather stay here."
Was this the truth? Sirius looked over at him, properly for the first time that night- he did seem ill, his skin shone slightly, and his lips were gray. Had he lost weight again? How had Sirius not noticed? Where to did all his pieces keep vanishing…?
"Rest up then," James told him with ill-disguised glee. "Never fear…we'll make a full report."
And then they were going, and then they were gone; Sirius was swept up in their crowd and forced to follow their flow, down the stairs without another word. In the common room the girls were waiting- Lily was in green, Marlene in pink, and they stood to one side, for an instant more separate than Remus had ever been, like beings from another world…then they turned and waved, laughing, and Sirius recognized them once more. James rushed forward, sweeping Lily into a bold kiss- but all of Sirius' attention was taken up, not so much by Marlene but by his own inconvenient body, which had become somewhere back on the stairs more mannequin than man.
"You look nice," Sirius told her. The wrong word, he knew that. "Um, pretty."
"Thanks," Marlene replied, flushing once more. "You too. Er- handsome, rather."
What in the world was this? Sirius had stepped into his Role without quite intending to. He thought he knew his lines- thought he had heard other people say them, thought he had seen this scene played out before- but there was a problem, and it was that he didn't believe it, didn't believe himself, didn't feel that wonderful rush, they way he felt for others...his heart wasn't in it, that was the expression. No, his heart was pulsing only with poison.
The dance passed like some kind of slow, inescapable nightmare. They went to the Great Hall for it- all attendees lined up, boys on the left and girls on the right, marching down the stairs in their glittering dresses and stern dress-robes. The new generation. Young lovers. Bearers of fruit.
The Hall was decked out in flowers for the new season- though the ground was still gray and slushy outside, more of a dying winter than a blooming spring. Everything was pink and blue. There was a long table with punch and petit-fours and floating candles; the staff table had been replaced with a stage for the musicians, a wizarding band Sirius thought he had heard of, once or twice (though he had always preferred Muggle music). Everything was sweet, everything was sanitized. All the sensations (sounds, sights, tastes, smells) were so similar they blended into one unending wall, an onslaught, and Sirius felt utter despair. The anger was gone, so was the usual nausea- as though the unjust nature of it really was that, a nature, and his soul had finally given up on even pretending to fight it.
(Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.)
Marlene wanted to dance all night. Sirius obliged her. They spun and twisted and bumped into their classmates, they laughed and drank the punch and the whiskey James had snuck in under his coat, they sweat and their ears throbbed with the music and, more than once, Marlene took his hand- palm to sticky palm- and like this they made a pair that could be seen by the world around them.
Though, it was James and Lily who made up the 'belle of the ball'- they had eyes only for each other, and so helplessly everyone else had eyes only for them, they who seemed to glow in each other's arms, as though they had been made to be there. An archetypal happy couple.
Sirius looked around the room for any envious Slytherin shadows, but found none- of course, what girl would want to go out with Snivellus? Then, it was only Sirius who felt that black-pitted emotion when he looked at them- and not because he wanted Lily, and certainly not because he wanted James, but because…oh, it was horrible. It was horrible and he was horrible and this was surely going to kill him, this dissatisfaction and this shame…
When the night had no hour anymore, Marlene took Sirius aside- they went out into the garden, where others had been slipping to the whole time, where there was fresh chill air and beautiful fairy-lights to guide their way- Sirius looked up at the sky, and he saw nothing at all. It was a completely dark expanse. There was not even a sliver up there to save him.
"You know, if you'd asked me out before, I would have said yes," Marlene told him. She held his arm, and he looked at her- what was exposed and what wasn't, the rouge on her smooth cheeks, her wet lips. He said something in reply, but he neither heard the words nor remembered them when they were done. She laughed, she squeezed him, she turned her head up towards his face and the empty sky and her warmth penetrated his dress-robes, a mild presence, too dim to have been observable beforehand…
Sirius kissed her.
(He probably kissed her for some time.)
When it was done she adjusted her dress, what was that, they went back inside, best not to be caught, best not to give too much away. The dance was winding up, it was time for all the good children to be back in bed. There were secretive grins, and delicate touches, soft skin on soft bodies, long hair and the scent of flowers, instead of the cold pine.
When it was done Sirius thought of Dementors- perhaps, for the first time he had ever really thought of Dementors- those fabled creatures that sucked away souls with a kiss…Sirius frantically touched his chest, wondering if he still had his, but of course there was no sign. He only felt his heart, which was beating quick and steady, a war-gong that made his veins throb.
When it was done everyone left to return to their common rooms, scattered clusters no longer so well organized- hair had come undone, ties loosened, drinks consumed. Peter said goodbye to his date, who was apparently from Hufflepuff, and James and Lily and Sirius and Marlene all walked arm in arm back towards the stairs that would lead them home again. But they didn't make it all the way- they were stopped at the door, a group of Slytherins blocking their tracks. Sirius wondered for a wild instant where his cousin was- but she had graduated years ago.
The compilation, then, was this: Mulciber, Malfoy, Rosier, Snape.
Malfoy- blond and ever popular- had been at the dance, Sirius had seen him; perhaps Rosier had been there also, both invited by seventh-year girls. Where were their dates? It didn't matter. The other boys were dressed only in their regular school uniforms. There was something aggressive about the way they stood- and this was more than enough to relight Sirius' blood, it was an excuse, something familiar, anything anything- he would rather bark and snap than spend another moment in the peaceful, proper fantasy of the dance. He removed his arm from Marlene's light, repressive hold and came forth to stand beside James, wand flicked from his pocket.
"What's this then?" Sirius asked. He sounded too bold. "You're a little far from your common room. Need something to help you sleep?"
He wanted to fight, wanted it so bad, his leg was bouncing in place and he felt a savage hunger that had nothing to do with food. Malfoy smirked at him, cold and aristocratic and superior (typical), but of course it was the deeply bitter expression on Snape's face that drew attention- and he was looking at, as one could predict…
"Eyes off the girl, Snivellus," James suddenly spat, moving protectively in front of Lily- antlers up, that's it, let's wreck them- all wands were out now, some pointed but others only at the ready. Curse me, Sirius thought with all his being.
"We just stayed back to watch the competition," Malfoy said lightly; Sirius didn't quite understand him, though this didn't matter at all. "Though, none of you have to be on the 'other side'…isn't that right? Potter and Black, you're of good breeding…I don't know about you, Pettigrew…of course, I'll say nothing of the bitches-"
(But of course: Marlene and Lily both were Muggle-born.)
At the insult James sent out a jinx- at last, Sirius' heart cried, so he did the same. Malfoy seemed surprised- fucking idiot- and a flurry of different coloured jets of light lit up the darkened hall, voices cried out, Sirius felt the elation of magic and combat and also felt something burn, but he didn't care what, he found in that moment that what he wanted more than anything was to become the dog and snarl and bite and howl…
"That's enough," came a voice, cutting through the din, surely amplified; Professor MacGonagall. The world came back. Sirius looked around: Marlene and Lily were crouched on the stairs, the former behind her friend with her hands over her ears, the latter with her wand out and her face oddly, brutally determined…the boys were in varying states: Malfoy's nose was bleeding, who had done that, Rosier had dropped his wand on account of the fingers on his hand swelling like overblown balloons- MacNair's face was as red as a pepper, whether that was from a spell or not Sirius couldn't say- James' glasses were on the floor and broken, but he and Peter were otherwise uninjured, and with a well-practiced resignation James repaired them and summoned them back to his face.
(Snape, too, was uninjured- but then, Sirius wasn't sure if he'd even raised his wand.)
Sirius looked himself up and down- his heart was still beating at obscene speed, his lungs heaving, he did not feel satisfied, every nerve both numb and heightened…but it did not seem he had been touched. The fool Slytherins, then, were just bad at dueling.
"That's quite enough from all of you," MacGonagall continued, hands winding in frustration around her wand. "This is entirely inappropriate for tonight's festivities. Now, anyone who is injured, to the Hospital Wing…Black, Potter, are you-?"
"No," James answered, and Sirius didn't contradict him.
"Then back to your common room. Twenty points from Gryffindor and Slytherin…"
So, they were dismissed. Sirius felt deflated in the aftermath. As the Gryffindors began to make their way up the stairs, however, Malfoy called out again around his bleeding face:
"This isn't over, Potter! You'll see- we won't be in school for much longer! The future is coming…"
A terrible phrase, the worst kind of fear, a prophecy- but what it meant Sirius didn't get to find out; MacGonagall began hustling the Slytherin boys away and, through some uncanny miracle, Sirius and the rest were trusted to return to Gryffindor Tower on their own.
Peter complained about the Slytherins the whole way back- 'I am a pure-blood, just 'cause I'm not from some famous family'- and James doted on Lily. Sirius stayed quiet; he didn't even have words for Marlene, who at first had tried to hold his arm again, and then had backed away. Her eyes were very wide. Sirius did not meet them.
Once in the common room the sexes separated, though only after James kissed Lily goodnight; Marlene looked at Sirius as this happened, expecting something, and as though suddenly shocked (or rebooted, perhaps, like a Muggle's magic mirror) he lurched forwards and pressed his lips to her cheek. Her skin there was almost cold. When it was done she smiled at him, but she seemed disappointed- he didn't deserve that. Hadn't he been trying very hard…?
Climbing the stairs to the dormitory, Sirius felt the adrenaline of the fight starting to wear off, and what it left behind was an incredible, bone-deep weariness. The feeling struck him like a tidal wave, cold and sudden and all-at-once; he didn't think he had ever been so tired in his life. He felt like Heracles, having been put through countless harrowing tasks…he realized, after a moment, that a frozen sweat had broken out across his back.
"Hey, Remus," James said to the room; Sirius felt the name like a knife wound in his heart. There was no reply. Sirius suddenly felt like he was going to collapse- his mind was spinning- for an instant he was filled with a terrible and irrational fear, a fear that during the dance Remus (who had been left here cursedly, damnably alone) had vanished, spirited away, perhaps even been wiped from the face of the earth- that Sirius had kissed Marlene, had betrayed him once again, and in doing so had traded him away-
Sirius flung back the curtains on Remus' four-poster; he was there. The relief was enormous- and extremely short-lasting, Sirius felt it for only a breath; Remus was asleep under disheveled covers, and his skin where it was exposed shone with sallow sweat, his hair was plastered to his skull and his eyes flickered in their sockets, their lids so dark they looked bruised.
"Shit, Moony," Sirius whispered, his voice weak. He sat clumsily at Remus' side, brushing damp hair from his slick forehead- Remus at first barely stirred, but then slowly his eyes opened, yellow and moon-wild and- for one frightening instant- without recognition.
"You're back," Remus eventually croaked, his voice as dry as his lips. Sirius had thought to fetch him water, but it seemed a terrible effort to move- he was still too dizzy. "Sirius…what happened?"
"Oh, we had a lovely dance," James chirped, though he sounded disconcerted by Remus' appearance. "Until the end, that is, the Slytherins showed up- but that's not important-"
"You're bleeding," Remus whispered, and one thin hand raised to Sirius' side, pressing against the dark fabric of his dress robes. Trembling, it drew away red. Sirius looked at it in surprise, took it, entwining their fingers- Remus' skin was so hot it almost burned, and now both their palms were slick with it…Sirius' blood.
"Oh, fuck," Sirius muttered from somewhere far away. "I guess I got hit…"
And after that, Sirius didn't quite lose consciousness, but he nearly did- it was as though he fell asleep, and the dream he had happened to mirror exactly what happened in reality, in that James took him back downstairs and out of Gryffindor Tower and all the way around to the Hospital Wing, and there he was fixed up with the swiftest wave of a wand and escorted back to bed…none of it felt real, Sirius didn't understand any of the words that were said to him, as though his head was stuffed with clouds or cotton.
Still, it felt like a relief- in the logic of the dream, if he was being punished than Remus, surely, would be fine.
(Funny- that only seems to matter to you when he's already hurt.)
However, when the sun rose the next day Sirius was fully recovered, and Remus was not. It was a Sunday, so he stayed in bed until past noon, when Sirius was able to convince him to make it down to the Great Hall for lunch- James and later Lily both tried to insist that he visit Madam Pomfrey, for there were simple magical cures for fevers, but he refused and Sirius did not ask of him the same. There was no way this was a regular fever- not the sort of fever that could be healed by a swallow of potion or a simple spell.
Remus listened to James, Lily, and Peter as they talked about the dance- the beautiful decorations, the music, the food- but he did not ask Sirius anything, and so Sirius stayed quiet. Surely they both knew it already- Marlene sat with other friends during meals, but she blushed and waved and gave Sirius sweet, knowing smiles. Sirius wondered if guilt could actually burn through the flesh of one's organs, or if it only felt that way.
The full moon came- Padfoot and Moony went under the earth. They transformed without much stress or pain- indeed, Remus was done in only seconds, when it usually took him longer- and their play was entirely ordinary, perfectly tame. Nothing disrupted them; Remus' howls petered out after only a few moments. They had spent so many moons together, and of all this one had been the closest to unremarkable.
Strange- Sirius had somehow been expecting it to be worse.
The dance faded in the mind of the school almost as quickly as it had come- in just a week it felt like a million years had passed to Sirius, and by the end of March it was a matter of another world entirely. He still spent all his mornings waking with a sick feeling in his stomach, but these were for what was going to come, rather than what had happened.
Marlene did not agree. For the first while she followed Sirius around, catching his eye during meals and taking his arm in the corridor- she was often with Lily and Lily was often with James and James was often with Sirius, and so as this four (five, including Peter, who always tagged along) they often accumulated, like ore-dust drawn to a magnet. Sirius always felt nauseous when they were like this- always felt like he was someone else, like 'Sirius' was sitting in the passenger's seat of a machine piloted by a stranger- by an 'artificial intelligence', like in those Muggle sci-fi stories, a heartless automaton that could only imitate real people, could only respond to stimuli. He knew it wasn't convincing. He saw it on Marlene's face more and more as time went on- as he failed to take her aside and kiss her like she surely wanted, failed to ask her out on the last Hogsmeade trip, failed to be what she wanted…what he was supposed to be.
(To do that- it would be- why couldn't he finish this thought? Stolen kisses in broom closets, dates in Hogsmeade, he had already done these things. To do them again, and so heartlessly- he wasn't a good enough liar for that.)
"Is there something wrong?" Marlene asked him; they were alone, she had cornered him, and all his heart felt was dread. "Do you not…I mean, did I do something?"
Her hair was curled today, she was wearing blush and lipstick. Sirius could see the pigment gathered in the fine lines of her mouth. Even her eyelashes were painted, the pale colour redrawn dark, coated in an oil that could be seen clumping slightly when up close. She looked perfectly human- and Sirius knew she was beautiful.
"No," Sirius told her- and for once, for some unknown reason, he found he was being honest. "No, you've done nothing. Nothing wrong. I just…"
He trailed off; she bit her lower lip, her fair brows contracted, he hated that he had to tilt his head so far down to look at her, he felt like some hulking thing standing here, like a troll- he was the one who had done something wrong, was always doing things wrong. That much was obvious, surely, to everyone save her.
"I don't know if I can do this right now," Sirius continued, and now the words tasted false again, like pieces from a script. "I don't think I'm ready for…for a real relationship, you know? I, er…it's not you, it's just…"
Liar! Deviant! the wound in his heart shrieked. Marlene didn't seem to believe him- she surely thought he was lying to cover up his distaste or disappointment with her. He could see the flicker of hurt in her eyes- but he didn't even have the words to take it from her.
"Oh, alright," she said hollowly. "I mean- I guess I understand that. You're going to graduate soon, and I still have a year...we'll be heading in different directions…"
Sirius nodded, throat so full of pinballs he felt it would swell.
"Well, I enjoyed the dance," Marlene told him, bouncing once and bravely on her heels. "So thanks for that."
Then she was gone.
It wasn't a relief. Even though she stopped sitting so close to him, stopped trying to get his attention- both her presence and her absence filled him with shame.
(The only time he didn't feel this way was deep into the night, when he woke to the sound of Remus sighing or shuffling in his sleep. The moon always comforted him so much more than the sun.)
Just at Christmas, in that beachside cottage, what terrible lie had he told: girlfriends, oh yeah, loads.
"That's how it should be."
Sirius remembered Remus' hard yellow eyes, the look he had given in response, that rejection of his father's jagged assumptions; 'men like us', he had said, and he had taken Sirius' hand.
Moony, baby, I just realized: I think I am the weaker of us two.
Everyone was sitting around the common room fire, in variously deep states of study; by 'everyone', that now meant James and Lily, and Peter, and Remus. Sirius sat on the floor by this latter unit, his DADA binder open loosely on his lap- this was the subject that interested him the most, but he was having trouble focusing on it just then. James had his arm around Lily's back, and she was resting her fiery head on his shoulder, and they did this openly and without any judgement and they looked perfectly natural doing so. Sirius looked at the back of Remus' long, bent neck- the vertebrae there were ever so slightly visible- and he felt a familiar longing ache.
(He'd become pathetic- that's all the dance had shown him, all he'd learned from Marlene. He was weak and set adrift.)
(No wonder he couldn't stand to think of the 'future'.)
"It's starting to worry me," Lily said softly, turning the pages of her own binder. "Exams are only a month off- and what I've heard, it's that employers really care about your NEWT scores, that's the most important part…"
"Not the only important part," James said reassuringly, rubbing her back. "Extracurriculars too. And, like…"
"Breeding," Sirius offered sarcastically.
"Kind," Remus whispered, his words following Sirius' like a shadow. Sirius thought he was the only one who heard, and it turned his heart cold.
('Kind'- that is, 'species'- it was so easy to forget- by the standards of wizarding law, one of the people in this circle was not actually 'human' at all.)
"And it's not like you won't do well," James told Lily, the only person he had eyes or ears for anymore. "You're the smartest out of all of us- save maybe Moony…"
Remus scoffed, but Sirius didn't think James noticed this either. Lily seemed mollified. Sirius looked down at his book again- the words were too blurred by the comfortable, sleepy atmosphere. He supposed he should be concerned too, should be taking their advice- legally speaking, he didn't have much in the way of 'connections' anymore. He too needed to do well, should he want to satisfy some future employer for a job he hadn't even decided on yet.
But he didn't want to do that- what he wanted at the moment, he realized, was to sit with Remus the way James and Lily were sitting now, and he knew he couldn't do that.
(That would be to disobey the laws of the universe.)
So, what was it then, this inertia? Perhaps he had simply become accustomed to the thought that he would never have what he wanted.
(Not as he was now, anyway.)
Remus was getting letters; he waited for them at breakfast, face raised slightly towards the ceiling, and he always snatched them from his owls with hasty, trembling fingers. James asked him once what they were:
"Job applications," was Remus' reply. Or rather, responses to job applications, to say this would be more accurate- but whenever Remus finished reading these letters his haste and tremulousness went away and his eyes looked flat, and he always slipped them into his book bag with no comment.
"The competition must be tough," Sirius said once, in the common room- Remus was burning a handful of these official-looking letters, and if he was doing that the answers couldn't have been good. "But, I mean…you haven't even graduated yet, that's got to be part of it, right? Remember what Lily said about the NEWT scores- you don't have your diploma-"
"I have to state my condition on their forms," Remus said flatly. "It's the law. If I don't I can be punished."
Sirius' jaw closed with a flaccid 'click'. Remus lifted the last of the letters, waving it slightly, sarcastically, and Sirius didn't think he had ever seen this particular kind of bitterness in him before.
"This was for a waste disposal position," Remus hissed. "No diploma required. They won't even let me do that."
He threw this piece of paper into the flame with more vigour- a refusal- as though burning the words could burn away their intent, could burn away the memory of them, those things that left scars. Remus' shoulders looked unbearably tight. In the firelight, the hollow between his cheek and jawbones were made deep, like the valleys between mountains on the ocean floor.
Sirius slipped from his chair to kneel at Remus' side, and put a hand on his back, between raised shoulder blades. A fragile imitation of what he had watched James do, only applicable when they were alone. Remus looked at him sharply, as though only just remembering he was there.
"And what about you?" he murmured, and his voice was almost cold. "Have you even considered what you're going to do?"
Sirius looked away, and dropped his hand. The fire flickered merrily, satisfied with its meal of Remus' failed hopes, warm on Sirius' skin. He wished the world would stop asking him that question.
A fortnight passed- that merry, juvenile attitude that had infected the seventh years before the dance was gone completely, everyone now had their eyes turned forward- exams, job applications, the future. As far as Sirius was concerned, the last day of the semester might as well be the end of the world. Even James, these days, was less concerned with fun and mischief- perhaps Lily had rubbed off on him, perhaps he just wanted to do well. When was the last time they had used the Map together? Sirius didn't recall. He felt always like he was trapped- like he was wearing a muzzle. He wasn't sleeping much at night- he spent all those black hours on his side, peering through a crack in his curtains towards Remus' bed, ears straining to hear him breathe. It wasn't hard- Remus always tossed and turned, and more and more was he whimpering in his sleep, like a dog having a nightmare. Like a wolf. Sirius never asked him of these things.
He felt like the line had come back- that thing he had so often envisioned as a child, the thread pulled taught between their hearts, ever tugging on the depths of Sirius' aching chest.
One night Remus woke in full- Sirius heard him shudder, heard him sit up- Remus flung back his own curtains, trembling as he stood to put on his slippers, and Sirius hesitated only a moment before rising as well to join him.
"Moony," Sirius hissed, throwing his own legs over the side of the bed. "Moony, what is it-?"
Remus looked at him only once- his eyes were glowing and wild, almost completely without recognition, and similarly without a word he left the dormitory, heading downstairs, each movement jerky and tense and painful-looking. He behaved the way he did as an animal, when he was going to hurt himself.
Sirius hurried after him, shorter legs having to run to keep up. It was past midnight- the common room below was dark and deserted, the fire having long turned to embers. Remus was gripping his own skin, nails digging into the humerus, and he darted to the window on impossibly silent feet, looking up at the sky like it was the only thing that could save him- a half-moon sky. Not nearly good enough.
"Remus," Sirius whispered again, but Remus didn't look at him- he was shaking his head, shaking all over, and one hand spastically gripped the base of his own neck- his nightshirt clung to him in places, sheer with sweat.
"I can't, I can't, I can't," Remus was saying in a voice as hoarse as death. "Oh, my God, I can't-"
"Hey, hey," Sirius found himself replying, the way someone else might speak to a spooked horse. Had they done this before, or something like it? He felt like they had- only this was worse. Remus always looked sick these days, sick like someone on the verge of dying, and Sirius had never had the strength to ask him why.
When Sirius pulled Remus into his arms, however, he didn't flinch or twist away. He let himself be held, tensely at first, until slowly he melted, leaning into Sirius' touch and their bodies molding together, and Sirius stroked his back until his shuddering breathing began to even out.
A wisp of moonlight touched his eyes- Sirius felt Remus' bones under his palms- a tear that was not his own made its way across his skin, born from the place where their cheeks were pressed together…then, Sirius had an epiphany.
''.
(How could he not have known it before, it was so obvious- this was what he had wanted all along- he was a coward, and had been hiding from this truth, but no more.)
"I'm sorry," Remus murmured after a while, sounding ragged as though he had no energy left. "I don't know what just happened. I-I was dreaming, and…"
"It's okay," Sirius told him, and they pulled apart just enough to look at each other- for Sirius to see that the raw panic in Remus' eyes had faded, that he had come back to himself. "Really."
Remus' lips parted, like he was going to express some doubt- Sirius kissed him. Remus seemed surprised- but then, they hadn't done this in a while, hadn't touched each other properly in weeks…that was Sirius' fault, but he would make up for it.
He felt a certainty inside himself that was entirely foreign- the smoothness over the pain in his chest was fortifying, addictive, and all this told him that he was right; what he had realized was surely the truth, prophetically so. There was no more reason to fear or doubt anything.
(Hadn't he once thought it- that what they had was 'true love'?)
The kiss broke naturally after some time; Remus needed to breathe. They found themselves sitting, backs against the window, limbs entwined, so much like the way they lay as dogs. Sirius smiled to himself.
"Hey, Moony," he said quietly. Remus looked up at him; his eyes were still clear. "I've decided what I want to do after school."
Remus didn't say anything in reply, he just watched. Waiting. Perhaps he was too tired for words- that was another thing Sirius could make up for, he felt then like he had the energy within him to speak a million truths. He had thought his star was dying, but he had just found another way out.
"I want to be with you," Sirius declared simply, proudly, and overcome with it he leaned in to kiss Remus' too-warm cheek. There it was: something that actually felt good when he said it, that did not cause his inner wounds to throb but rather soothed them instead…Sirius found himself grinning, but when he pulled away it was strange: Remus was not smiling back at him. In fact, his expression hadn't changed at all.
"What do you mean by that," Remus murmured, and though it was the form of a question he said it more as a statement, and he looked away as he did so. The light caught the yellow of his eyes, making them glow; still, he looked exhausted. "Honestly, Sirius…"
"I mean it," Sirius insisted, and he put a hand to Remus' jaw to turn his head back, to force their eyes to meet. "I mean- I mean everything. All the way. You and I, we- I've always wanted this. Always. And I think…I think you do too…do you remember, the first time you saw me-?"
Sirius heart and head were racing, snatching pieces of the puzzle from the air and cramming them together, eager to find the final picture, that which would surely represent Paradise. He remembered it- the first night- the first truth- Remus had wanted it then, the look on his face had been of pure hunger, pure desire… everything else in the interim had been Sirius' subconscious attempt to reach this conclusion, everything else had been leading to this moment…or, well, not this moment, the moon was only half-full. They needed to wait another few weeks…
Remus didn't hear any of these thoughts, of course- his lips were parted and his brow furrowed, he clearly didn't understand. Sirius didn't mind. He would, and when he did, he would know it was the truth, surely he would realize…
"Here," Sirius whispered, and his voice was hoarse and wild, toneless without his choosing it. Did he sound a little mad? Well, no matter. "Here, baby. Don't you see…"
He pulled Remus to him, Remus who was limp enough to allow it, and he pressed his face into the crook of his neck, running fingers through his graying hair. Sirius could feel Remus' lips, warm against his shoulder, just above his collar-bone.
"Bite me," Sirius told him breathlessly. "I want to be with you."
There- it was understood at last.
The stillness following this revelation lasted less than a minute.
Remus twitched- he tried to pull away- Sirius didn't let him at first, not understanding, it seemed so obvious- he expected those dry lips to part, to feel those not-quite-human teeth tentatively press to his skin- all the tension between them resolved at last. But Remus' mouth did not open; he shook his head and pulled back again, harder this time, and when Sirius let him go he sprang away like something released from a catapult, too-thin limbs trembling and recoiled as though to touch Sirius again would disgust him.
Disgust- that wasn't quite what Sirius saw on his face, but it was something like it.
Horror, maybe.
"No," Remus whispered, head still shaking back and forth. "No."
Then he turned and fled, back the way he had come- up the stairs on nearly perfectly silent feet, only looking back once, his expression terrified, as though he expected Sirius to chase after him. He didn't.
Sirius sat alone at the window long after all traces of Remus had vanished from the room- until even his scent did not linger on Sirius' skin. The face of the moon outside, when he looked at it, told him nothing- and yet somehow, he thought that its expression was coldly disapproving.
The ecstasy of certainty had long gone. Sirius didn't understand. He didn't know what to think anymore.
"Another unexplained disappearance," Lily said at the breakfast table, flicking open her copy of the Daily Prophet. "How many has it been now? It's so weird, seeing all these kinds of reports…"
Sirius, Peter, and James, all who sat with her, did not have much to say to that. Peter and James, surely, because they did not have any answers; Sirius because he had barely listened to what she said. His mind was a million miles away. He was only aware- and deeply, painfully aware- of how their little group at the Gryffindor table had been reduced to four. Remus was not with them anymore. He hadn't sat with them in over a week, not since…but it hurt to think of that.
Every time Sirius remembered that night he flinched, and almost felt sick with himself. It wasn't because what he had thought wasn't true- he knew it was true, at least as far as he was concerned. His mistake had been in overestimation- whatever Sirius felt, Remus did not return, at least not in the same way.
Sirius didn't know what in the world Remus felt. Whenever he tried to figure it out- his mind straying through memories, both warm and cold, things said and touches returned and the many, many colours of his eyes- this somehow too made him cringe, made his heart stutter and all his organs tense, and what he felt was like some great ball of humiliation and guilt and shame, always this latter thing, and he didn't know how to control it.
Something had become unavoidable though: he didn't know how to picture a life after school without Remus. The thought of something like that was worse than all the uncertainty and anxiety in the world.
(And worse still- pire- could it be- he might have already blown his chance. Three strikes, you're out- at this point, he surely had more than that.)
"I think something bad is going to happen," James said. Sirius was dragged back, just a little, from his self-flagellating reverie. "You've seen what the Slytherins are like these days- Malfoy's gang in particular. And all this stuff in the news…"
"Something bad," Sirius said numbly- unbelievable, no future tense there, but it had already happened. "Oh, yeah. Definitely."
Remus was in the library, again- how many moments had begun with that? Sirius had followed him here, he could fancy himself a tracking dog but it was an educated guess more than anything deeper. Sirius watched him at his seat for a moment, hidden behind the stacks- acting like a coward, like some slithering thing, like Severus Snape. Perhaps only this thought was enough to force him to act- trying to remind himself that he was a Gryffindor, no matter what his stale blood might say.
Remus looked sick, as always- the hemispheres under his eyes were practically black and he turned the pages of his textbook listlessly, occasionally copying down phrases with a trembling quill. When Sirius sat beside him, it took a moment for him to look over, a moment in which he swallowed and exhaled a very long sigh.
"What is it, Sirius," Remus asked softly, in that same uninterested tone as before- as though he was even too tired for the effort of raising the end of his phrase. "Because I'm not going to do it…"
"I know," Sirius told him. "I'm sorry."
Remus blinked once- he seemed surprised by this (unfair, Sirius' brain first insisted- but then again, maybe it wasn't).
"I shouldn't have asked for that," Sirius mumbled, looking down now at Remus' papers, shy. "I was being…I don't know."
(He didn't have a word for it- not one that seemed accurate, anyway.)
"You don't have to apologize," Remus replied- another surprise. Sirius watched as Remus stretched out his neck, rubbing a knot of muscles at its base. "It doesn't matter."
I think it does, Sirius wanted to say- he opened his mouth to do so- but Remus beat him to it: he turned slightly and fixed Sirius in those sad, frightening, yellow-gray eyes and murmured:
"You know, Sirius…I really don't understand you at all."
"Well," Sirius struggled for a reply. Wasn't that what he was supposed to say? "Er…what are you working on, right now? I guess I should be studying, too…"
A cheap ploy. Please, let me stay with you, anyway.
Let me stay with you, regardless.
(That was a lot to ask of anyone- nevermind someone he had hurt so often, and so casually.)
"Potions," Remus replied hopelessly. "I'm going to flunk it."
"No you're not, look…" Sirius blinked at the words, tried to put his head on straight: He could do this. Surely, he could do this.
Whatever it took.
It was late when they set out for Gryffindor Tower from the library. Sirius didn't know if Remus felt any better about his inclement Potions exam- Sirius wasn't exactly a tutor. In fact, Sirius didn't know what Remus was thinking at all. Their conversation had been strange- strictly academic- containing neither the sexual nor the lupine. It seemed a long time since they had been alone together with nothing wild between them- in fact, had anything they'd ever done been so mundane? Sirius couldn't remember-
A voice distracted him from these thoughts- a familiar, feminine cry. In a slow-beating second Sirius recognized it: Lily.
"What are you talking about- you can't meant that-"
Her words echoed from around an incoming corner; Sirius and Remus both, unspeaking, sped up slightly to catch her, summoned by the distress in her voice, and yet before they made it they heard the reply:
"You have to make the right choice- if you go with him, you'll be a target-"
It was unmistakable, that halting drawl: Snape.
"You'll be nothing more than a mudblood."
Sirius rounded the corner on these exact words, and his loyalty to James made him raise his wand in the stag's stead.
"The fuck did you just say, Snivellus?" he snarled. Snape looked startled; hadn't been expecting reinforcements, had he? Saw fit to track down girls alone in the corridor and pick on them, did he? Pathetic- even Sirius had more fucking honour-
Sirius opened his mouth to say something more, probably a curse- Snape was already running away, his expression anguished as he looked back over one scrawny shoulder- it would be so satisfying, who gave a shit if it was fighting fair-
"Sirius," Remus snapped, and Sirius was stopped as surely as though he had been dunked in ice water. "Leave him."
Sirius' wand lowered, and Snape skittered around a turn up ahead, escaping out of sight. Sirius looked back at his friends: Lily's arms were crossed over her chest, her eyes wide and her face deathly pale. She was not crying. She looked as though she had realized some horrible truth, and simultaneously had found the strength to stand up to it.
Remus put a hand on her back, his own expression concerned, but Lily shrugged him away with a sigh, brushing long red hair behind her ears.
"It's alright, guys," she said lowly. "Thanks, though."
"Are you sure?" Remus asked her gently. "That was a terrible thing to say…"
"Yeah, well," Lily replied, shrugging again. Sirius imagined it was a false confidence- but there was bravery in that, too. "Maybe I needed to hear it- a confirmation, that is."
"What do you mean?" Sirius asked her, and when she looked at him her entirely human eyes were almost on fire.
"Things really are changing out there," she said, and her voice surprised Sirius in that it was then as strong and firm as a military general. "Our lives aren't going to be like those of our parents. Have either of you studied Muggle history- like, the Second World War?"
"Yes," Remus replied softly, but Sirius didn't know what she meant- the term sounded only vaguely familiar, and yet the look on both his friends' faces somehow told him everything he actually needed to know: what they spoke of was a very great horror.
"That began just the same," Lily said simply.
They returned to the common room, exchanging nothing more. Sirius didn't dare speak, it would be like breaking something; Lily's eyes were as hard as steel and Remus looked like he was going to cry. When they arrived, at least, James came over, sensing the danger- then was the time to tell the story (Lily did this, Remus and Sirius sat quietly, the former looking only at the fire and shaking slightly) and the time to complain, the time for James to make righteous declarations of payback for Snape…but Sirius knew now, and quite clearly, that Lily didn't want this.
She had seen something horrible: The Bigger Picture.
So had Remus- and though Lily seemed strong, it looked like it was breaking Remus already.
(Was it really true- all this time, had he actually been so fragile-?)
Sirius hadn't seen it yet. He strained his eyes, but he was blind; he still had a black blindfold wrapped around his head.
Sirius leaned in closer, listening attentively to the voices and gestures of his packmates, miming strength so that when the time came, he really would be strong. That was the only way he knew how to do it.
(Whatever it took.)
Then, exams. They smacked into everyone like a runaway train car- a full week of mechanical revision in which everyone did nothing but eat, sleep, study, and write- and these former two things were often neglected. The environment was oppressive; it hadn't been this bad taking the OWLs, Sirius recalled, but perhaps there were too many consequences now. Everyone had realized that true adulthood was just a breath away.
The exams themselves were gruelling. Sirius left each one in need of a charm for an aching hand or wrist, and his head dizzy. He never knew how well he actually did- the mix of questions and commands he had known the answers to and the ones he hadn't were too convoluted. More than once, some part of him balked at himself, thinking wordlessly: perhaps I really should have done more. He didn't even have the faculties to long for when it would be over- he lost track of the days after the second test.
In the mornings, before heading to the Great Hall to stare desperately at textbooks while cramming food into their mouths, Sirius tried to find time to hold Remus' hand- just once, just quickly, a squeeze and nothing more. Somehow, he needed the reminder. Beneath the constant, wearying flurry in his head lay a formless kind of dread, born of Lily's somber words and the vanishings reported in the news and all the things he had heard strangers say and do…he didn't know at all anymore what world would be waiting for them when they finished this, and stepped out of Hogwarts' gates for the last time.
Then, it was over. The week had seemed torturous as it happened, and once it was done like it had passed in the blink of an eye. Sirius spent a whole day lying numbly in bed, his brain too exhausted to even think to move; he wondered if he was supposed to feel relief, or perhaps anxiety over the grades he would receive…but now he found he didn't care at all for his academic achievements. He didn't think he ever really had.
"Thank God that's over," James said to him (he, too, was lying in bed- like this, eyes turned up towards the empty ceiling, they could talk to one another). "Ugh. I don't want to look at a sheet of parchment ever again."
It was so lighthearted, this kind of talk- it took Sirius a moment, but something in James' tone gave him the strength to raise himself up to the same level.
"Me neither," he said, and they both laughed at this extremely unfunny, commiserating kind of 'joke'. "Wonder what'll happen next?"
"Doesn't matter," James replied, with both a swiftness and a confidence that surprised him. Sirius turned his head limply on his neck, looking over, and found that James had done the same: he looked into the eyes of his first and dearest friend, and saw in them a sense of power- perhaps, a sense of hope- that wholly surprised him. "We'll figure it out."
Sirius thought they had had this conversation before, or something quite like it- but just then he found he actually believed it, in a way he hadn't the first time.
Small wonders. Sirius found himself smiling, a kind of mischievous grin he didn't think he'd worn in quite a while; on James' face it was returned. He knew something then: no matter what happened, they would never grow apart. Regardless of time or strain, their friendship was a bond that could not be broken.
Sirius found Remus out by the Great Lake; the air was warm but it was sprinkling a faint rain, the sky clouded over so thickly the light was gray. Remus didn't realize he had been followed at first, he was distracted- Sirius thought he was walking too quickly, too sporadically, and when he arrived at the shore he threw the cloak of his uniform down carelessly, as though it was bothering him. Once it was discarded, Sirius saw that he was shaking.
"Hey, Remus," Sirius called, guessing- and guessing correctly, he soon found- that Remus was in the thrall of some consumptive panic, the same as he had been on the night in the common room when Sirius had so thoroughly opened his heart, and so thoroughly embarrassed himself.
Remus didn't take notice of him until he was close enough to touch- but he didn't do this, not until Remus' wide eyes showed recognition, until his posture softened enough for an embrace.
They were entirely alone out here, in this rain. Sirius ran his fingers through Remus' thin hair- his first and dearest…something.
Lover, his brain supplied sternly. There was no sense in hiding from the words anymore. He was too old for that.
"I'm scared," Remus whispered, voice raw in his throat. "God, I'm so scared, Sirius- I don't know what I'm going to do."
Sirius pulled back enough to look into Remus' eyes, wanting to ensure this would be convincing- wanting to ease these trembles more than anything in the world.
"Doesn't matter," he said with confidence, a mix both of practiced and honest, an echo of James' strength. "We'll figure it out."
Then, a kiss. Remus accepted it, and in that moment Sirius felt like a dog again; felt nothing but joy.
(Later, though, he would think to himself that he had not been as convincing for Remus as James had been for him. Remus was, of course, made of a fabric different to any of them- a fabric perhaps already torn in a few too many places.)
There was a day to go until the Hogwarts express would spirit them away for good; the graduation ceremony, subdued and filled with strange and almost apocalyptic promises from the headmaster, had already passed. Their diplomas were now only taking up space in their trunks.
Sirius climbed the stairs to the dormitory, wide-eyed and wondering at the world around him- all of these things he had grown up with, these things that filled all his memories, that had shaped him…and now, it was already over. What he felt wasn't quite sadness, wasn't quite horror- it was too numb for either of these- instead, it was more like disbelief. Where had all their time gone? Just years ago they had had before them an infinity.
Remus was the only one in the dormitory; he was dressed in his nightclothes, unbearably thin, hunched over a piece of parchment on the bed. When Sirius entered, Remus looked up at him, and his eyes caught the fire in a way that made him look barely human at all.
"What's that?" Sirius asked, gesturing to the paper, though he had a guess-
"A job offer," Remus replied, and Sirius was for a moment surprised. Then he grinned, heart flooded with a relief that seemed too large for an accomplishment not his own, and he had to pump the air to be alleviated of it.
"Yes! Good for you, Moony! I knew you could…"
Remus smiled at him faintly, but he did not seem as pleased as he should (did he ever?). He gestured, then, with one long arm to Sirius' pillow, which- when he turned to look- he discovered had rested upon it a letter, sealed inside a plain white parchment envelope. Upon the surface, there was an insignia drawn in spiraling green ink: a long-necked bird with spread wings, rising from a spray of liquid fire.
(A phoenix.)
"I think you have one too," Remus said softly.
