fic: the shape of (in)finite spaces (the black parade remix) [hp]
Title: The Shape of (In)Finite Spaces (The Black Parade Remix)
Written: 040407
Summary: Sirius has always hated the ticking sound that clocks make. Remus/Sirius.
Rating: R
Fandom: Harry Potter
Warnings: Slash
Spoilers: Mild for OoTP
Disclaimer: Never ever mine. It all belongs to J.K. Rowling.
Remixed from: The Shape of (In)Finite Spaces by ladyblack888 for We Invented The Remix, Redux V
Time is my enemy. You’d shake your head in exasperation at my melodrama if I ever declared it out loud, but it’s been this way for as long as I can remember. My relationship with it is bitterly contentious - me clawing desperately against it as it sweeps me along its inexorable path; or it relentlessly holding me back when I need to rush on ahead.
Early hostilities with it always resulted in total and utter defeat on my part. Being wrenched from my secret hiding place to my parents’ side as Mother flaunted our exalted lineage during the endless dinners and balls she hosted. Forced to return from outings cruelly cut short when Mother discovered that Aunt Andromeda was bringing me to places where I could possibly be ‘contaminated’. Months of false hope for a playmate in my brother dashed when I was denied regular contact with Regulus, so he would ‘grow up to be a true Black’.
It scored one of its most resounding triumphs when Mother had a grandfather clock installed in the hallway downstairs. I hated the contraption - it was huge, its operation maintained by house-elf magic, keeping the large brass pendulum swinging, and the hands of the clock moving - its every tick marking out the days and hours of my miserable childhood spent facing contempt and disappointment, gleefully pointing out the meagre minutes and seconds gone by when I felt anywhere near content. Gradually, I grew to despise hearing the sound it made, and the battles I had - attempting to Silence, break or burn it - always ended with me being sent to my room, while it continued its ponderous announcement of the passage of time, mocking my every failure.
My war with Time and its minions didn’t end when I entered Hogwarts, but the tide began to turn in my favour the day I got sorted into Gryffindor, after I opened the door to our dormitory and met your eyes. As the years went by, I managed to learn how to disregard the ticking sounds of the clock that would remind me at any and all times of my constant foe, and how to score tiny victories against it.
You are the one who taught me how -- and Prongs and Wormtail, of course, but you most of all. Knowing you, truly knowing you for whom and what you are, has taught me that I am not the only one Time has ravaged. Our days are both marked out, charted for us, only by different means. And through learning to be with you, to be there for you, I forget about my own war.
I remember you smiling, so blindingly beautiful, the first time I spent the entire evening without once trying to Silence the irritatingly loud clock in our common room. We were poring over the texts on Animagi we’d sneaked out of the Library, the covers Transfigured to make it seem like we were exceptionally fascinated with schoolwork. Later, when James and Peter went on a bathroom break, I’d kissed you, and all the clocks in the world could have been chiming for all I cared.
Then I became Padfoot, and realised that it was entirely possible to be indifferent to Time. Padfoot lives in the moment, from experience to experience. For the first time in my life, I tasted a strange sort of freedom. There are even days when I secretly look forward to the full moon, despite the pain I know it always causes you, so that I can relive this rare liberty.
The first night we spent together in the Shrieking Shack as Padfoot and Moony had been a particularly harrowing experience, as your werewolf side was still getting used to having another creature there with it while it endured its incarceration. By the time dawn had arrived, we were both exhausted, sprawled across the wooden floor with no desire to twitch a single muscle. The early morning rays slid through a gap at the top of one of the windows that had not been properly planked up, and the sun beams had illuminated your sleeping form. There were scratches on your arms and legs, smudges of dirt upon your face - and I swear it was the most stunning vision I’d ever seen.
I’d forced myself to crawl next to you, reaching out to touch your hair, face, skin, to make sure that this was not another cruel dream from which I would be dragged awake. Then you opened your eyes, your hand caught mine resting against your cheek, and the moment became all-consuming, leaving no space for Time’s derision.
***
The last day before we left Hogwarts for the Christmas break, I’d cornered you in our dorm room and spelled the door locked. I’d needed something to tide me over till school started again, a memory to sustain me through the scorn, disdain and disapproval that is my existence at 12 Grimauld Place.
It was something I had been planning for a while now, as the holiday season approached, along with my impending banishment back to the oppressive mansion my family called home. So while you were downstairs in the common room with Peter and James, helping them iron out the kinks in James’ latest ploy to get Lily to agree to go on a date with him, I’d been in your bed with your hand lotion. The thought of how your cock would feel helped me ignore the unfamiliar burning stretch as my fingers forced their way up my arse.
The rest of that afternoon always returns to me in flashes - me on the small study desk with my legs hooked around your waist, the velvety feel of your half-hard cock as I pulled it out of your trousers, the flicker of your tongue against suddenly-dry lips, the weight of your body pressing mine down against the solid wood of the desk. I always harden as the erotic sense-memory of your cock sliding against my hole assails me, the head slowly breaching my entrance. The stinging pain as you began to thrust tentatively, your lips warm and reassuring against mine as you pushed all the way in, swallowing my anxiety with your passion. Your movements gained speed and force, little by little, and the nearly unbearable pressure became a blazing heat that started to spread throughout my body.
The desk was already banging against the wall, harder and harder, and the floor was strewn with fallen books and quills, yet all I could do was gasp and beg you to go faster, harder, deeper, until you were so connected to me, we would never be apart again. The urgency built until I finally exploded, and you followed seconds later, wide-eyed, pushing so deeply into me it seemed like you were trying to disappear into me. And in those few seconds as we soared upon the currents of pleasure, joined in the most intimate way possible, Time held no dominion.
***
It’s been a fortnight since that day, and the memory of that afternoon is the only thing that makes my life in this oppressive prison endurable. With each return, 12 Grimauld Place has become even more claustrophobic and suffocating. When I’m within these walls, it feels as if my life with you and all my other friends at school is nothing but a far-off dream - nothing is real except the incessant ticking of the grandfather clock, spelling out barren days of sneers and disappointed glares; of the world going by outside my window, while I’m shackled here in this place I stopped calling home a long time ago.
But since we’ve been together, the sound of the clock has become slightly different - it’s started to tell me something new, something I’ve been working up the courage to do.
It’s three in the morning and I still can’t sleep, tossing and turning in bed. The clock is still going on, and I close my eyes to think of you instead - your skin, your mouth, your cock. My hand drifts lower, pushing into my pyjama pants and I bring myself off once more to the memory of our lovemaking.
As my senses return to me, so does the sound of the grandfather clock - an unexpected accomplice with its insistent new message to Run! Run! - leave this place where Time would lead me towards a bleak and wretched future. I have to break free, carve out an existence where I’m not a slave to Time and its vagaries.
Slowly I wipe my cum off with a corner of the bedsheet and get up. I head towards the closet and start to pack. Tonight, I’m not going to make myself go back to sleep, clinging to distant memories that fade with each successive day.
Tonight I’m going to listen to the clock.