New Story: For a Song, Part 1
Title: For a Song
Author: bratanimus
Summary: With no more fanfare than that, I’m away from home, from them. And when I’m out of hearing range I stop singing and my grin falls and, clearing my raw throat, I lunge into the future, though I don’t know where that is yet. Sirius/Lily.
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, sex.
Word Count: 12,107
Author’s Note: Written for the Tales of Dogs and Scoundrels challenge at redandthewolf. My prompts were “Off” and the Lenny Kravitz song, Black Velveteen. Big heartfelt thanks to the fabulous godricgal for her excellent beta work, and for the perfect suggestion for a title!
“Aren’t you going to kiss me goodbye, MUMMY?”
I yell at the bricks, so loudly I think I’ve sprained my vocal cords. I clear my throat as quietly as I can. I’ll be an arse out here in the street … just mustn’t give them the satisfaction of hurting me.
Mrs. What’s-Her-Face-Next-Door twitches her curtain open an inch, probably wondering again which house I actually live in. I stare her in the bleary blue bloodshot eye for a moment, then wave at her, grinning. The gap and the eyeball disappear immediately. My automatic grin drops. It’s our little game of peek-a-boo, and I can’t disappoint her today of all days. It’s the last time I’ll see her.
“All right, Walburga, Orion, Regulus, Kreacher - not necessarily in that order - I’m leaving!”
My voice is hurting.
“Good bye and good riddance, you lunatics!”
Is it possible for vocal cords to bleed?
Only one thing for it.
Sing.
I take a deep breath and raise my arms like the conductor of a symphony or someone delivering a Shakespearean soliloquy, and I croon, as loudly and obnoxiously as I can. I know they can hear me. They’re probably watching, too, so I point and throw in a rude gesture every now and then for good measure.
“DOGFACE! You’re just a slimy little CREEP! Why don’t you take a flying LEAP, before the dog catcher puts you to sleep, HEY!”
Remus taught us this song, which his Muggle gran taught him. It’s a peppy tune and, yes, it’s immature but it’s the best I can do. To make the song my own, and to let them know they haven’t beaten me, I take on the persona of a sleazy nightclub singer, doing a little soft shoe and swaying a bit in my boots, shuffling side to side, all jazz hands and eyebrows; and as my soles scrape the pavement I realise that I’m wearing my only possessions. With a sickening thud in my heart, my hand creeps round to make sure my wand is still in the back pocket of my jeans, and it is. Adrenaline has pumped into my arms and legs, making me dizzy and telling me to run.
I should sing louder.
“YOUR BREATH’S SO BAD … YOUR B.O. IS QUITE OFFENSIVE … SOAP AND WATER’S NOT EXPENSIVE … HEY, DON’T YOU BE SO DEFENSIVE … ”
The words carry me in a little sidestepping dance down the street, and I jump over the cracks out of habit, skipping and gyrating like an idiot as I continue to sing. With no more fanfare than that, I’m away from home, from them. For good. Forever. And when I’m out of hearing range I stop singing and my grin falls and, clearing my raw throat, I lunge into the future, though I don’t know where that is yet.
On the Knight Bus I’m pressed between two drunk old wizards, but they’ve got firewhiskey that they share with me as long as I listen to their tall tales while the morning sun and the drink redden our faces and the bus slams us from wall to wall like pinballs and that helps. The firewhiskey, that is. It clarifies. Got to be Machiavellian right now, which means doing things in the proper order. First things first, translation, Gringotts.
I joke around with the old fellows to pass the time, to pretend today’s no different, that there’s no special occasion or reason for drinking with strangers on a bus at ten in the morning, that there’s nothing that should be sinking in right now, nothing that should be wringing out my heart like a bloody dishrag. Just to look at me, there’s probably no evidence whatsoever of the screaming match I left at home, back there. I can start to pretend that I don’t have a brother who hates the “common” girls I kiss and thinks they should all be sterilised or chucked into a dungeon and who actually - no, I can’t think about that again. Another thing I won’t consider as I slug back the firewhiskey is the mother who’s convinced I’ve been permanently contaminated by my friends and who actually once had Kreacher pull the big cage out of the attic when she thought some of my friends were coming round for a visit, and that’s not even the worst - no. As the alcohol soaks my brain and deadens my limbs I can almost imagine I don’t have a father who won’t even look at me anymore, much less say my name out loud, a father who - mustn’t think about that, mustn’t, mustn’t, mustn’t. I’m not part of them, I’ve been cut from them like a chancre - and none too soon, for all parties involved. I can drink to that.
Here, to these fellows on the bus, I’m just another bloke, drinking and riding. They might think I’m doing so because I can’t afford a broomstick, which I can, or I’m too drunk to Apparate, which I’d like to be very soon. They believe that I’m no one, like them, and they elbow me as if I’m a beloved nephew. One of them looks a bit like Uncle Alphard, only not as drunk. I tell them my name is James and they offer meaty handshakes before I stumble out of the bus and onto the steps of Gringotts.
Later I’m leaving the bank with Uncle Alphard’s inheritance money put under a false name in case they try to fuck with me, and now I’ve got coins, magically reduced, jingling in my pocket. I’ve got to go and see James, but I’ll need a broom to get there.
Diagon Alley. I’m standing unsteadily in front of the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies, but I’m looking at the notice attached to the brick wall next to it.
DUE TO INCREASED NOSINESS
BY THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC,
LASZLO LEVIATHAN’S LOOT
IS GOING OUT OF BUSINESS.
ALL MERCHANDISE MUST BE SOLD.
MAKE ME AN OFFER.
There’s a map to a shop down Knockturn Alley and to the left. And there’s a photograph of a motorbike that seems to be posing provocatively, turning its front wheel from side to side, headlamps winking at me, metal glinting in the sun, and I can’t take my eyes off it. It looks like a little bit of ecstasy, wrought from chrome and leather, and I want it immediately. Simple as that, my day is getting better. I rip the notice down and start weaving my way down the narrow alley, trying to walk straight and doing a passable job. The shop windows and hags and hooded men I pass are blurs in my peripheral vision as I lurch towards the business at the end of the alley.
“Hello?” I call when I get there.
I’m standing in the oversized doorway of what looks like a warehouse or a very large garage. Dotting the place are crates, some of whose lids are off or half off. Several of the boxes are shuffling and rocking as if the contents are trying to escape. In the corner I see what look like huge spindly spider’s legs reaching out from between two slats of a crate, and they are feeling around, slowly and delicately, on the concrete floor. I shudder and take an involuntary step backwards.
“Anyone home?” I try again.
I enter and start to pad around, peering into the containers that aren’t moving, because I do value all my appendages. There are urns and cauldrons packed into newspaper. Beyond those are roots and pickled creatures and carpets. Books, stacked higher than me, lean precariously like skinny, drunken giants. I see robes and all sorts of Muggle-looking devices and wigs and hats and cutlery and skeletons and -
“Yes?”
The voice behind me makes me crinkle the parchment in my hand. I turn around and face a very large, very pasty man whose doughy face is roughly twice as wide as mine. His bald head is mottled with large brown spots, and his eyes are bulbous, dark, and strangely empty-looking. He’s wearing what looks like a Muggle train conductor’s uniform, only in white, and there are smeared stains on it and I’m not sure I want to know why he’s wearing those rubber gloves.
“Are you Laszlo?” I ask, watching my enunciation because even I know it’s odd to be drunk at eleven in the morning.
He nods, pulling off the gloves with two pops and tossing them onto a crate to my left. The man’s hands look nearly as rubbery as the gloves did, as if someone’s hexed the bones right out of him, and I wonder how he’s upright at all.
I produce the notice I ripped off the wall. “I’m interested in the motorbike.”
Laszlo takes the parchment from me and stares at it. “What bike?” he asks flatly.
“The one in the - ” I start to point to the photo at the bottom of the parchment, but there’s no photo there anymore. “Erm, I saw a photo of a motorbike. Not sure where it went, but it was there on your advertisement.”
Laszlo stares at me, those dull eyes unblinking as if I’m the most interesting bit of plankton he’s encountered all day.
I clear my throat. “It was black,” I offer lamely.
“I do have a motorbike - ”
“Ah - ”
“But I cannot sell it to you.”
“You mean it’s sold?”
“No, I mean I cannot sell it.”
“It’s your personal - ”
“No, no.” He sort of chuckles, a gurgly, hollow noise that sounds about as mirthless as a mortar full of newts’ eyeballs. “It’s not mine.”
“Then - ”
“I cannot sell it because it refuses to be sold.”
“You mean the bike - ?”
“Refuses to be touched.”
He looks again at the parchment, which is still void of any photograph, and I start to wonder if I was hallucinating. But no, he’s talking about a motorbike, even if he is talking crazy - unless he’s trying to wrangle some money out of me for something else. The old bait-and-switch; I’ve seen it before.
He sighs and his voice sounds wet, like he needs to clear his throat. “Ah, well,” he says. “It’s worth you having a look. Come on.”
We cross the warehouse and Laszlo speaks, oblivious as I drunkenly dodge several crates and boxes that lunge at me. I try not to flail too much while keeping my balance.
“I received this motorbike over a year ago,” says Laszlo, “from a gentleman who was passing through from California on his way to Moscow to be with his sweetheart, so he said, and he needed money. It’s a Muggle cruiser, but it flies, too, so technically I shouldn’t even have the thing. Ministry’s getting a little too interested in what I’ve got here, you know. I thought I was doing the bloke a favour, taking it off his hands. Now I wonder where he actually got - ”
“How much?” I interrupt. I’m not interested in the sales pitch, or why I should pay him more.
Laszlo doesn’t speak for a moment and we walk in silence. At last he says, “Make me an offer.”
We end up in a separate, smaller room, one that looks like a mechanic’s shop. There are tools, engine parts, and bits of wood and equipment everywhere, lying on workbenches, hanging from rafters, hooked to the walls.
And there it is, parked under a high window in the dusty sunlight. Black with gleaming chrome and those little leather straps that dangle from the handlebars; a long, broad seat made of leather and trimmed with metal grommets; room for storage in the black leather saddlebags; fat wheels, pristine - they look untouched, undriven …
“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” says Laszlo, but with that tone he might as well be commenting on the weather. “Tsk. Waste of space. It is unfortunate ... ”
He makes a wide circle around the bike towards what must be his desk, and the engine growls. I hadn’t realised the cruiser was running. Was it? Why would Laszlo leave it running?
The man shuffles through some papers in a file drawer, muttering to himself through his colourless lips. While he’s searching, I go and take a closer look at this sexy piece of machinery.
The engine idles lazily as I circle around, inspecting it. No dents, no scratches on the chrome; oval side mirrors; a very pleasing arrangement of little round headlamps at the front, a large one flanked by two small ones; foot rests sitting slightly forward; seat low to the ground … oh, and leather-bound hand grips, they’re the softest leather I think I’ve ever touched, and the engine purrs through the warm leather seat under my hand -
“What are you doing?” Laszlo snaps.
I jerk my hands away, raising them in placation. After the morning I’ve had, I’m in no mood for a punch-up with a seven-foot lump of dough. “Sorry, mate, just feeling the leather.”
“She let you touch her?”
“She - I - yes.” Not knowing why I feel like I’ve been caught cheating, I swallow. But I want this bike. I want it. I try to look bored. “One hundred galleons.” That’s not a fair price, but he’s going to haggle with me, of course.
“Two hundred,” Laszlo counters. “I’ve got to process the title into your name.”
“That’s hardly worth one galleon, much less a hundred,” I reply. “One fifty and no title.” I don’t want my family to know a goddamn thing about me anymore. I want to be untraceable. Maybe I won’t go back to school -
“Look here, young man - ”
He ambles towards me with a piece of parchment he’s pulled from the desk drawer, and as he reaches me the bike rumbles at him with a sudden lurch forward. He leaps back, his own white hands raised in surrender. The paper quivers and slips from his fingers; and when it settles onto the ground the motorbike inches slowly forward, dragging its kick stand across the concrete floor with a screech, until the front wheel is on top of the parchment.
“Bloody hell, that’s the title!” he yells at the motorbike.
The engine roars once, filling the shop with sound, and then cuts off. The front end lolls to one side, lifeless.
This is my chance.
“Can I have it?” I ask, placing my hand on the seat.
“Yes! Yes! Take the thing!” He’s beginning to sweat, and I wonder how many times he’s actually tried to sell this beauty.
I magically enlarge the moneybag in my pocket and dole out one hundred fifty galleons into Laszlo’s clammy, shapeless fingers. I’m surprised I don’t actually see suckers where the greedy bugger’s finger pads should be. His hand is shaking as he puts the gold pieces into a box on his desk and then locks it.
I take the handlebars, nudge the kick stand up with my foot, and gently ease the motorbike off the title. I jerk my head at the parchment. “Why don’t we tear that up now?”
With something like a frown, he leans down and retrieves the paper, then rips it into several pieces and tosses them into a trash bin. “Happy?” he mutters.
“Exceedingly.”
Two minutes later, as I’m walking the bike out of the garage, Laszlo is still cursing under his breath, muttering how I should be grateful he’s just sold it to me for a song. Not that it makes a bit of difference to me. Let him gripe; I got my motorbike, unregistered and untraceable. Cash. Who needs a sodding broomstick anymore, with the places I’m going?
I walk the bike out of the alley and onto a vacant road. We are alone.
“Hello, beauty,” I whisper, rubbing my hand along the soft leather seat. Remus told me that Muggle boys often refer to their cars and motorbikes as females, and who am I to argue with tradition? I’m as good as a Muggle now. I climb on the back and immediately get a bit of a hard-on. I squeeze the leather handlebars, masculine appendages on such a voluptuous item. I smile. “Black beauty.”
As if she’s read my mind, her engine switches on and we take off, up into the sky, and the motorbike is more solid than any broomstick. She’s heavy, and hard to manoeuvre at first; but once I learn to lean into her with a little counter-steering, and take my time, she’s butter in my hands.
The machine is huge, and she growls like a metallic steed that’s somehow mine and not mine, as if she’s only allowing me to ride her because I look good on her, like a hero on a white horse, a knight in shining armour, a rock star. I laugh out loud and the wind whips my hair into my mouth and across my eyes as I turn my head to look behind me and below. In the air it’s easy to forget what I’ve left. The pleasant rumble between my legs is soothing, and I feel like I own everything beneath us, the streets and shops of London and all the towns beyond on the way to the Potters’ house, which I could find even if I had to hitchhike there in the dark, which I’ve done. Twice.
The thought first crossed my mind in the shop, but I really do think I might not go back to school. I fly on, feeling freer than I’ve done in years, possibly in my entire ridiculous life.
The landing is a bit rough, and I nearly plough into the side of the Potters’ house. I manage to steer the bike round back and hide it in the bushes. The engine turns off as soon as I step away, which is a good thing because I realise I forgot to ask for a key. Or for a test drive. Lucky for me she runs well.
There’s no answer at the back door, but I know how to get in; the Potters told me, knowing I have to - had to - get away from my family sometimes. The kitchen is eerily quiet, and I help myself to a butterbeer while I sit and stare at the clock on the wall. Half past eleven. I notice a letter lying open on the table; there’s a funeral today, which is probably where they are now. James’ family has already been to three funerals that I know of this summer. I drink in silence, feeling poison bubbling up in me again; I’ve had to sneak out of the house for every single bloody funeral I’ve been to.
After half an hour of staring at the thick wood trim around the doorway I start to feel restless. They could be gone all day. All night, possibly, if it’s family. And this butterbeer certainly isn’t doing the trick, because the firewhiskey is wearing off and I’m starting to think again. I find a piece of parchment and a quill.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Potter and James,
Had a bit of a blow-up with the family. I was wondering
if I could stay with you tonight. Send an owl if it’s all right.
If it’s not convenient, I’ll go to Peter’s, don’t worry about me.
I hope you are well.
Many thanks,
Sirius
I don’t really want to go to Peter’s, though. He’s not very good at listening when I need him to listen, or shutting up when I need him to shut up. The Potters are good at it, and a bolt of jealousy slashes through me, not for the first time. They treat me like their own, it’s true, and I love them for it. But let’s face it: I’m not their son. Never will be. They belong to James, and I’ve got what I’ve got for a family.
I throw away the butterbeer bottle and go and sit on the steps at the back door for a minute, looking at the hydrangeas, running a hand through my hair. It’s beginning to sink in now, what’s happened, and I really don’t want to think about it.
I could go to Remus’ house, but the full moon was last night, and his parents will be with him at St. Mungo’s, and I can’t go there while he’s all white and sick and his mum is rushing around trying to make him eat soup and his dad is reading him bits of The Quibbler to make him laugh. Remus needs all their attention now, and there’s no room at their place for me to stay, anyhow. Jealousy stings me again and I slap it away.
I’m back on the motorbike, thinking where to go next, knowing exactly what I want, and trying to talk myself out of it but failing because truthfully I wasn’t really trying very hard. I turn south, knowing that it’s a bad, bad idea … but I need something, and there’s something that girls do for me, even though Lily isn’t like other girls, and there’s James, and I shouldn’t, but Lily - if I had the chance - fuck all, I can’t think about that right now either. I just go.
When I get close to her house I think I’m pretty sure her parents are at work because they’re Muggles and most Muggles have to work. Her sister might be there, which would be a real bummer, but we could work around that if -
But there she is, there’s Lily, red hair gleaming in the sun like a beacon, and she’s just stormed out of the house into the back yard with fists pumping as she circles the garden. It’s the Angry Lily walk. I love Lily when she’s angry, which is most of the time, thanks to James. She looks so … so real.
I land ten feet from her, skidding a bit on the grass. Lily yelps, dropping her fists and grabbing her wand, and suddenly she’s in fight stance, staring at my motorbike. Glancing at my face, she realises who’s dropped in, and I say hello.
“Sirius Black, what in the world - ?”
She pockets her wand again and approaches me, eyes on the machine. The motorbike rumbles uncertainly, but I run a hand along the seat. “It’s okay, Lily’s all right,” I murmur.
Lily looks me square in the eye, brow furrowed, like she thinks I’ve finally gone round the bend if I’m talking to inanimate objects, and she might be right.
“Fancy a ride?” I grin.
She looks at me - just looks at me - and there it is. That thing between us, the thing that keeps our eyes on each other when other people are around, only now no one’s around, and I think again I shouldn’t have come here, but I’m so glad I did, because it’s Lily, and I -
“Just bought her.” Keep talking, don’t think. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”
Lily drops her eyes and I heave a silent sigh of relief as she circles me, her eyes raking across the features of my motorbike instead of my face, but Merlin it felt good when her eyes were there and I immediately want them on me again.
“She is,” Lily says. “Absolutely gorgeous.”
The engine purrs, which is a good sign, because clearly this bike is an excellent judge of character.
“Then let’s go,” I say, extending a hand. What am I doing?
“Where?”
I shrug.
Lily hesitates.
“Oh, come on, Lily - ” I can’t help myself.
“No, I’ll go,” she says at once, and my heart jumps into my throat. It’s one thing to be alone in her family’s back yard, but another thing entirely to be alone somewhere else, and she said yes -
“There’s a place I’d like to see. How far can she go?”
At least from America to Europe, if Laszlo was telling the truth. “Far enough,” I say.
“Then let’s take a picnic.” She turns her back on me and goes back up to the house. I watch her slender form, the little thin summer skirt and bare legs, those calves - stop it, stop it - and her hair swinging down her back -
Oh Merlin, what have I done?
I follow her into the house.
“Petunia’s over at a friend’s,” Lily says as she pulls out a loaf of bread. She shoots me a threatening look. “I do hope none of the neighbours saw you flying that thing.”
“Would I get you into trouble, Lily Evans?” I ask, putting a hand over my heart. She smirks and doesn’t answer. Just as well.
But by Gryffindor’s garterbelt, she’s beautiful. I’m studying the dimple next to her mouth, and soon I’m leaning closer to her as if she’s got some sort of magnetic pull on me. She blushes and I feel a surge of yearning. She turns away to get some roast beef, and I have to drag my eyes away from her and look around the kitchen.
I’ve never been inside her house before, and it’s all whites and creams and yellow curtains, bright like her, the antithesis of everything I’ve left behind. As Lily organises our little picnic, I force myself to linger back, make small talk, lean against the kitchen table, keep my distance. Watching her delicate hands make our sandwiches, my heart contracts, almost painfully, and I understand that I want this. Her. Us, somewhere else, in a little white kitchen of our own. Did I just think that?
She turns around to face me. “Strawberries or blueberries?” But her face drops when she catches sight of mine and I wonder what I’ve accidentally let her see.
“Blueberries would be nice,” I reply, shoving my hands in my pockets and schooling my face into a more neutral expression as I stare at the black and white tiled floor.
Lily pauses, but eventually she turns back around towards the sink to wash the fruit, the afternoon sunshine through the window making a halo of fire around her hair. I want to go to her, to breathe her in, to scorch my lungs on that blazing mane, but I don’t move. It’s as if all my little tricks are suddenly inadequate here, in her presence. Not that she’d ever fall for them. For me. But then again, I know she’s got to be curious about -
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“The country,” Lily says.
We chit chat again for a few moments, and I notice she’s not asking what I’m doing here. That makes me go and join her again at the sink again because the table is too far away, too far from her. I want to be close enough to almost touch her; I want to make her blush again. I catch a whiff of something fresh and I grin at her, trying to will my heart to slow down. She glances at me with a twitch of a smile, handing me the colander of washed blueberries and a container to put them in. While I’m doing that, she leaves the room.
I carry the blueberries and wrapped sandwiches in a brown paper bag out to the motorbike and put the items into one of the saddlebags. I remain there on the ground, fastening the buckle, kneeling, hoping, and soon Lily joins me with another bag of things, which she deposits into the other saddlebag. I hear the clink of glass and metal.
“Ready?” I say.
“Ready.”
I climb onto my motorbike and the engine revs; but as soon as Lily straddles the seat behind me, the bike lurches forward and Lily falls backwards onto the ground.
“Shit! Sirius!” She’s angry. At me. Oh boy.
“Sorry, it wasn’t me!” I jump off and run to her. She’s tugging that little skirt down - oh Godric, her thighs - and her eyes are full of vitriol and promises of physical violence, and I adore that, though I’m absolutely certain I shouldn’t. I offer her a hand and she smacks it away, preferring to get up by herself.
“It wasn’t you?” She’s brushing freshly cut grass off of her skirt. “Then who the hell was it? Your motorbike?”
“Well, yes.”
“Oh, for - ”
“Wait. Let me talk to her.”
“ - Pete’s sake.”
I walk in front of my bike and cross my arms, trying to ignore Lily’s grumbles.
“Do you want to go back to the shop?” I ask it under my breath.
The bike growls at me. Lily tilts her head, thinking I’m completely deranged, at last, I’m sure.
“Let me tell you something, sweetheart,” I continue to the motorbike, cocking my hip and leaning close to the headlamps with my hands gripping the handlebars, backwards. “Lily was here long before you were. You’re the ‘other woman,’ not her. Got it?”
The motorbike is silent.
“Good. Now that we understand each other … ” I climb on again and hold a hand out for Lily. Her cheeks are bright red, and my own are hot, too, because I realise what I’ve just said about her and it’s too late to back pedal without drawing more attention to it. She glowers at the hand for a moment; but then she takes it, and I realise this is the first time we’ve actually touched on purpose, aside from when she smacks me, and it’s thrilling. So is her body wrapping itself around my back.
I take her hand and pull her arm firmly around my waist. “Better hold tight, just in case.” Oh, it’s such a cliché, but it’s so appropriate - and necessary - I’d be a fool not to use it.
Feeling her entire torso against my back sends a current of craving straight down into my jeans. I push the kickstand back with my heel and we’re off. Lily whoops and squeezes me tighter and I grin like the biggest, happiest imbecile there ever was. Luckily she can’t see me.
Some clouds are gathering, which is good, because I can steer us up higher for cover. It wouldn’t do to be arrested by the Ministry now that I’ve got Lily hanging onto me for dear life.
“Where to, love?” I call.
Lily leads us by speaking directly into my left ear while I steer, and I feel my skin prickle where her breath lands. We duck below the clouds now and then to follow the roads. Every once in a while she points with one arm, but afterwards she always grabs me tighter.
I hope this place, wherever it is, is far, far away.
After about twenty minutes of flying away from the towns and into the countryside, I’ve got a raging hard-on and I’m having to think about Herbology to force it down. It doesn’t help that Lily’s hands are right above my belt and I can feel the heat of her pelvis and her thighs and her breasts snug against - Mandrakes. Wartcap. Devil’s Snare.
Now she’s telling me we’re here, and she’s pointing at a farm below. There’s a creek and a little bridge and a barn, a wooden fence in disrepair, a few crumbling stone walls, and a cottage up on a hill. I see no animals. The sky is darker and threatening rain now, like it does in the summertime, and I wonder how long we’ll have here.
We land beside the barn, near the small wooden bridge. It smells of hay and manure. There is colour everywhere, though the sky is grey. I twist around on the motorbike and Lily’s eyes are brightest of all when she smiles at me, the green of leaves in summer and ivy in winter and every verdant thing living and resting in between.
She dismounts, not looking at me. There’s that flush on her cheeks again, and my heart starts doing somersaults beneath my breastbone. I follow her like a duckling after its mum as she walks across the short bridge and looks up at the house on the hill. I glance behind me at the motorbike, but it’s within sight and it’ll be all right while we look around. There’s no one out here, anyway.
Lily’s voice is small, but matter-of-fact. “My granddad lived there with my gran, until she died. Then he lived there alone, until he died, in February.”
“Death Eaters?”
“No. Cancer.”
“Oh,” I say, though I don’t quite know what that word means to Muggles. But it sounds like chancre and I can see Lily’s eyes glistening and I know it’s not good. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugs and wipes her eyes, then revolves on the spot to take in other parts of the farm. She sighs, smiling wanly. Behind a tree there’s a storage shed I hadn’t noticed when we landed, connected to what looks like a hen house. There are six bee houses dotting the hillside like dainty white buttons on a dragon’s shirt. A rusting piece of equipment sits cockeyed halfway up the hill, as if it got stranded there after it couldn’t decide which way to go.
It’s very, very quiet.
But suddenly there’s a huge thunderclap and the sky brightens for a millisecond. Lily and I jump and stare at each other with a mixture of fear and wonder, half-smiles on our wide-eyed faces, seconds before the rain begins.
Click for Part 2 ...
Author: bratanimus
Summary: With no more fanfare than that, I’m away from home, from them. And when I’m out of hearing range I stop singing and my grin falls and, clearing my raw throat, I lunge into the future, though I don’t know where that is yet. Sirius/Lily.
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, sex.
Word Count: 12,107
Author’s Note: Written for the Tales of Dogs and Scoundrels challenge at redandthewolf. My prompts were “Off” and the Lenny Kravitz song, Black Velveteen. Big heartfelt thanks to the fabulous godricgal for her excellent beta work, and for the perfect suggestion for a title!
“Aren’t you going to kiss me goodbye, MUMMY?”
I yell at the bricks, so loudly I think I’ve sprained my vocal cords. I clear my throat as quietly as I can. I’ll be an arse out here in the street … just mustn’t give them the satisfaction of hurting me.
Mrs. What’s-Her-Face-Next-Door twitches her curtain open an inch, probably wondering again which house I actually live in. I stare her in the bleary blue bloodshot eye for a moment, then wave at her, grinning. The gap and the eyeball disappear immediately. My automatic grin drops. It’s our little game of peek-a-boo, and I can’t disappoint her today of all days. It’s the last time I’ll see her.
“All right, Walburga, Orion, Regulus, Kreacher - not necessarily in that order - I’m leaving!”
My voice is hurting.
“Good bye and good riddance, you lunatics!”
Is it possible for vocal cords to bleed?
Only one thing for it.
Sing.
I take a deep breath and raise my arms like the conductor of a symphony or someone delivering a Shakespearean soliloquy, and I croon, as loudly and obnoxiously as I can. I know they can hear me. They’re probably watching, too, so I point and throw in a rude gesture every now and then for good measure.
“DOGFACE! You’re just a slimy little CREEP! Why don’t you take a flying LEAP, before the dog catcher puts you to sleep, HEY!”
Remus taught us this song, which his Muggle gran taught him. It’s a peppy tune and, yes, it’s immature but it’s the best I can do. To make the song my own, and to let them know they haven’t beaten me, I take on the persona of a sleazy nightclub singer, doing a little soft shoe and swaying a bit in my boots, shuffling side to side, all jazz hands and eyebrows; and as my soles scrape the pavement I realise that I’m wearing my only possessions. With a sickening thud in my heart, my hand creeps round to make sure my wand is still in the back pocket of my jeans, and it is. Adrenaline has pumped into my arms and legs, making me dizzy and telling me to run.
I should sing louder.
“YOUR BREATH’S SO BAD … YOUR B.O. IS QUITE OFFENSIVE … SOAP AND WATER’S NOT EXPENSIVE … HEY, DON’T YOU BE SO DEFENSIVE … ”
The words carry me in a little sidestepping dance down the street, and I jump over the cracks out of habit, skipping and gyrating like an idiot as I continue to sing. With no more fanfare than that, I’m away from home, from them. For good. Forever. And when I’m out of hearing range I stop singing and my grin falls and, clearing my raw throat, I lunge into the future, though I don’t know where that is yet.
On the Knight Bus I’m pressed between two drunk old wizards, but they’ve got firewhiskey that they share with me as long as I listen to their tall tales while the morning sun and the drink redden our faces and the bus slams us from wall to wall like pinballs and that helps. The firewhiskey, that is. It clarifies. Got to be Machiavellian right now, which means doing things in the proper order. First things first, translation, Gringotts.
I joke around with the old fellows to pass the time, to pretend today’s no different, that there’s no special occasion or reason for drinking with strangers on a bus at ten in the morning, that there’s nothing that should be sinking in right now, nothing that should be wringing out my heart like a bloody dishrag. Just to look at me, there’s probably no evidence whatsoever of the screaming match I left at home, back there. I can start to pretend that I don’t have a brother who hates the “common” girls I kiss and thinks they should all be sterilised or chucked into a dungeon and who actually - no, I can’t think about that again. Another thing I won’t consider as I slug back the firewhiskey is the mother who’s convinced I’ve been permanently contaminated by my friends and who actually once had Kreacher pull the big cage out of the attic when she thought some of my friends were coming round for a visit, and that’s not even the worst - no. As the alcohol soaks my brain and deadens my limbs I can almost imagine I don’t have a father who won’t even look at me anymore, much less say my name out loud, a father who - mustn’t think about that, mustn’t, mustn’t, mustn’t. I’m not part of them, I’ve been cut from them like a chancre - and none too soon, for all parties involved. I can drink to that.
Here, to these fellows on the bus, I’m just another bloke, drinking and riding. They might think I’m doing so because I can’t afford a broomstick, which I can, or I’m too drunk to Apparate, which I’d like to be very soon. They believe that I’m no one, like them, and they elbow me as if I’m a beloved nephew. One of them looks a bit like Uncle Alphard, only not as drunk. I tell them my name is James and they offer meaty handshakes before I stumble out of the bus and onto the steps of Gringotts.
Later I’m leaving the bank with Uncle Alphard’s inheritance money put under a false name in case they try to fuck with me, and now I’ve got coins, magically reduced, jingling in my pocket. I’ve got to go and see James, but I’ll need a broom to get there.
Diagon Alley. I’m standing unsteadily in front of the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies, but I’m looking at the notice attached to the brick wall next to it.
DUE TO INCREASED NOSINESS
BY THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC,
LASZLO LEVIATHAN’S LOOT
IS GOING OUT OF BUSINESS.
ALL MERCHANDISE MUST BE SOLD.
MAKE ME AN OFFER.
There’s a map to a shop down Knockturn Alley and to the left. And there’s a photograph of a motorbike that seems to be posing provocatively, turning its front wheel from side to side, headlamps winking at me, metal glinting in the sun, and I can’t take my eyes off it. It looks like a little bit of ecstasy, wrought from chrome and leather, and I want it immediately. Simple as that, my day is getting better. I rip the notice down and start weaving my way down the narrow alley, trying to walk straight and doing a passable job. The shop windows and hags and hooded men I pass are blurs in my peripheral vision as I lurch towards the business at the end of the alley.
“Hello?” I call when I get there.
I’m standing in the oversized doorway of what looks like a warehouse or a very large garage. Dotting the place are crates, some of whose lids are off or half off. Several of the boxes are shuffling and rocking as if the contents are trying to escape. In the corner I see what look like huge spindly spider’s legs reaching out from between two slats of a crate, and they are feeling around, slowly and delicately, on the concrete floor. I shudder and take an involuntary step backwards.
“Anyone home?” I try again.
I enter and start to pad around, peering into the containers that aren’t moving, because I do value all my appendages. There are urns and cauldrons packed into newspaper. Beyond those are roots and pickled creatures and carpets. Books, stacked higher than me, lean precariously like skinny, drunken giants. I see robes and all sorts of Muggle-looking devices and wigs and hats and cutlery and skeletons and -
“Yes?”
The voice behind me makes me crinkle the parchment in my hand. I turn around and face a very large, very pasty man whose doughy face is roughly twice as wide as mine. His bald head is mottled with large brown spots, and his eyes are bulbous, dark, and strangely empty-looking. He’s wearing what looks like a Muggle train conductor’s uniform, only in white, and there are smeared stains on it and I’m not sure I want to know why he’s wearing those rubber gloves.
“Are you Laszlo?” I ask, watching my enunciation because even I know it’s odd to be drunk at eleven in the morning.
He nods, pulling off the gloves with two pops and tossing them onto a crate to my left. The man’s hands look nearly as rubbery as the gloves did, as if someone’s hexed the bones right out of him, and I wonder how he’s upright at all.
I produce the notice I ripped off the wall. “I’m interested in the motorbike.”
Laszlo takes the parchment from me and stares at it. “What bike?” he asks flatly.
“The one in the - ” I start to point to the photo at the bottom of the parchment, but there’s no photo there anymore. “Erm, I saw a photo of a motorbike. Not sure where it went, but it was there on your advertisement.”
Laszlo stares at me, those dull eyes unblinking as if I’m the most interesting bit of plankton he’s encountered all day.
I clear my throat. “It was black,” I offer lamely.
“I do have a motorbike - ”
“Ah - ”
“But I cannot sell it to you.”
“You mean it’s sold?”
“No, I mean I cannot sell it.”
“It’s your personal - ”
“No, no.” He sort of chuckles, a gurgly, hollow noise that sounds about as mirthless as a mortar full of newts’ eyeballs. “It’s not mine.”
“Then - ”
“I cannot sell it because it refuses to be sold.”
“You mean the bike - ?”
“Refuses to be touched.”
He looks again at the parchment, which is still void of any photograph, and I start to wonder if I was hallucinating. But no, he’s talking about a motorbike, even if he is talking crazy - unless he’s trying to wrangle some money out of me for something else. The old bait-and-switch; I’ve seen it before.
He sighs and his voice sounds wet, like he needs to clear his throat. “Ah, well,” he says. “It’s worth you having a look. Come on.”
We cross the warehouse and Laszlo speaks, oblivious as I drunkenly dodge several crates and boxes that lunge at me. I try not to flail too much while keeping my balance.
“I received this motorbike over a year ago,” says Laszlo, “from a gentleman who was passing through from California on his way to Moscow to be with his sweetheart, so he said, and he needed money. It’s a Muggle cruiser, but it flies, too, so technically I shouldn’t even have the thing. Ministry’s getting a little too interested in what I’ve got here, you know. I thought I was doing the bloke a favour, taking it off his hands. Now I wonder where he actually got - ”
“How much?” I interrupt. I’m not interested in the sales pitch, or why I should pay him more.
Laszlo doesn’t speak for a moment and we walk in silence. At last he says, “Make me an offer.”
We end up in a separate, smaller room, one that looks like a mechanic’s shop. There are tools, engine parts, and bits of wood and equipment everywhere, lying on workbenches, hanging from rafters, hooked to the walls.
And there it is, parked under a high window in the dusty sunlight. Black with gleaming chrome and those little leather straps that dangle from the handlebars; a long, broad seat made of leather and trimmed with metal grommets; room for storage in the black leather saddlebags; fat wheels, pristine - they look untouched, undriven …
“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” says Laszlo, but with that tone he might as well be commenting on the weather. “Tsk. Waste of space. It is unfortunate ... ”
He makes a wide circle around the bike towards what must be his desk, and the engine growls. I hadn’t realised the cruiser was running. Was it? Why would Laszlo leave it running?
The man shuffles through some papers in a file drawer, muttering to himself through his colourless lips. While he’s searching, I go and take a closer look at this sexy piece of machinery.
The engine idles lazily as I circle around, inspecting it. No dents, no scratches on the chrome; oval side mirrors; a very pleasing arrangement of little round headlamps at the front, a large one flanked by two small ones; foot rests sitting slightly forward; seat low to the ground … oh, and leather-bound hand grips, they’re the softest leather I think I’ve ever touched, and the engine purrs through the warm leather seat under my hand -
“What are you doing?” Laszlo snaps.
I jerk my hands away, raising them in placation. After the morning I’ve had, I’m in no mood for a punch-up with a seven-foot lump of dough. “Sorry, mate, just feeling the leather.”
“She let you touch her?”
“She - I - yes.” Not knowing why I feel like I’ve been caught cheating, I swallow. But I want this bike. I want it. I try to look bored. “One hundred galleons.” That’s not a fair price, but he’s going to haggle with me, of course.
“Two hundred,” Laszlo counters. “I’ve got to process the title into your name.”
“That’s hardly worth one galleon, much less a hundred,” I reply. “One fifty and no title.” I don’t want my family to know a goddamn thing about me anymore. I want to be untraceable. Maybe I won’t go back to school -
“Look here, young man - ”
He ambles towards me with a piece of parchment he’s pulled from the desk drawer, and as he reaches me the bike rumbles at him with a sudden lurch forward. He leaps back, his own white hands raised in surrender. The paper quivers and slips from his fingers; and when it settles onto the ground the motorbike inches slowly forward, dragging its kick stand across the concrete floor with a screech, until the front wheel is on top of the parchment.
“Bloody hell, that’s the title!” he yells at the motorbike.
The engine roars once, filling the shop with sound, and then cuts off. The front end lolls to one side, lifeless.
This is my chance.
“Can I have it?” I ask, placing my hand on the seat.
“Yes! Yes! Take the thing!” He’s beginning to sweat, and I wonder how many times he’s actually tried to sell this beauty.
I magically enlarge the moneybag in my pocket and dole out one hundred fifty galleons into Laszlo’s clammy, shapeless fingers. I’m surprised I don’t actually see suckers where the greedy bugger’s finger pads should be. His hand is shaking as he puts the gold pieces into a box on his desk and then locks it.
I take the handlebars, nudge the kick stand up with my foot, and gently ease the motorbike off the title. I jerk my head at the parchment. “Why don’t we tear that up now?”
With something like a frown, he leans down and retrieves the paper, then rips it into several pieces and tosses them into a trash bin. “Happy?” he mutters.
“Exceedingly.”
Two minutes later, as I’m walking the bike out of the garage, Laszlo is still cursing under his breath, muttering how I should be grateful he’s just sold it to me for a song. Not that it makes a bit of difference to me. Let him gripe; I got my motorbike, unregistered and untraceable. Cash. Who needs a sodding broomstick anymore, with the places I’m going?
I walk the bike out of the alley and onto a vacant road. We are alone.
“Hello, beauty,” I whisper, rubbing my hand along the soft leather seat. Remus told me that Muggle boys often refer to their cars and motorbikes as females, and who am I to argue with tradition? I’m as good as a Muggle now. I climb on the back and immediately get a bit of a hard-on. I squeeze the leather handlebars, masculine appendages on such a voluptuous item. I smile. “Black beauty.”
As if she’s read my mind, her engine switches on and we take off, up into the sky, and the motorbike is more solid than any broomstick. She’s heavy, and hard to manoeuvre at first; but once I learn to lean into her with a little counter-steering, and take my time, she’s butter in my hands.
The machine is huge, and she growls like a metallic steed that’s somehow mine and not mine, as if she’s only allowing me to ride her because I look good on her, like a hero on a white horse, a knight in shining armour, a rock star. I laugh out loud and the wind whips my hair into my mouth and across my eyes as I turn my head to look behind me and below. In the air it’s easy to forget what I’ve left. The pleasant rumble between my legs is soothing, and I feel like I own everything beneath us, the streets and shops of London and all the towns beyond on the way to the Potters’ house, which I could find even if I had to hitchhike there in the dark, which I’ve done. Twice.
The thought first crossed my mind in the shop, but I really do think I might not go back to school. I fly on, feeling freer than I’ve done in years, possibly in my entire ridiculous life.
The landing is a bit rough, and I nearly plough into the side of the Potters’ house. I manage to steer the bike round back and hide it in the bushes. The engine turns off as soon as I step away, which is a good thing because I realise I forgot to ask for a key. Or for a test drive. Lucky for me she runs well.
There’s no answer at the back door, but I know how to get in; the Potters told me, knowing I have to - had to - get away from my family sometimes. The kitchen is eerily quiet, and I help myself to a butterbeer while I sit and stare at the clock on the wall. Half past eleven. I notice a letter lying open on the table; there’s a funeral today, which is probably where they are now. James’ family has already been to three funerals that I know of this summer. I drink in silence, feeling poison bubbling up in me again; I’ve had to sneak out of the house for every single bloody funeral I’ve been to.
After half an hour of staring at the thick wood trim around the doorway I start to feel restless. They could be gone all day. All night, possibly, if it’s family. And this butterbeer certainly isn’t doing the trick, because the firewhiskey is wearing off and I’m starting to think again. I find a piece of parchment and a quill.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Potter and James,
Had a bit of a blow-up with the family. I was wondering
if I could stay with you tonight. Send an owl if it’s all right.
If it’s not convenient, I’ll go to Peter’s, don’t worry about me.
I hope you are well.
Many thanks,
Sirius
I don’t really want to go to Peter’s, though. He’s not very good at listening when I need him to listen, or shutting up when I need him to shut up. The Potters are good at it, and a bolt of jealousy slashes through me, not for the first time. They treat me like their own, it’s true, and I love them for it. But let’s face it: I’m not their son. Never will be. They belong to James, and I’ve got what I’ve got for a family.
I throw away the butterbeer bottle and go and sit on the steps at the back door for a minute, looking at the hydrangeas, running a hand through my hair. It’s beginning to sink in now, what’s happened, and I really don’t want to think about it.
I could go to Remus’ house, but the full moon was last night, and his parents will be with him at St. Mungo’s, and I can’t go there while he’s all white and sick and his mum is rushing around trying to make him eat soup and his dad is reading him bits of The Quibbler to make him laugh. Remus needs all their attention now, and there’s no room at their place for me to stay, anyhow. Jealousy stings me again and I slap it away.
I’m back on the motorbike, thinking where to go next, knowing exactly what I want, and trying to talk myself out of it but failing because truthfully I wasn’t really trying very hard. I turn south, knowing that it’s a bad, bad idea … but I need something, and there’s something that girls do for me, even though Lily isn’t like other girls, and there’s James, and I shouldn’t, but Lily - if I had the chance - fuck all, I can’t think about that right now either. I just go.
When I get close to her house I think I’m pretty sure her parents are at work because they’re Muggles and most Muggles have to work. Her sister might be there, which would be a real bummer, but we could work around that if -
But there she is, there’s Lily, red hair gleaming in the sun like a beacon, and she’s just stormed out of the house into the back yard with fists pumping as she circles the garden. It’s the Angry Lily walk. I love Lily when she’s angry, which is most of the time, thanks to James. She looks so … so real.
I land ten feet from her, skidding a bit on the grass. Lily yelps, dropping her fists and grabbing her wand, and suddenly she’s in fight stance, staring at my motorbike. Glancing at my face, she realises who’s dropped in, and I say hello.
“Sirius Black, what in the world - ?”
She pockets her wand again and approaches me, eyes on the machine. The motorbike rumbles uncertainly, but I run a hand along the seat. “It’s okay, Lily’s all right,” I murmur.
Lily looks me square in the eye, brow furrowed, like she thinks I’ve finally gone round the bend if I’m talking to inanimate objects, and she might be right.
“Fancy a ride?” I grin.
She looks at me - just looks at me - and there it is. That thing between us, the thing that keeps our eyes on each other when other people are around, only now no one’s around, and I think again I shouldn’t have come here, but I’m so glad I did, because it’s Lily, and I -
“Just bought her.” Keep talking, don’t think. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”
Lily drops her eyes and I heave a silent sigh of relief as she circles me, her eyes raking across the features of my motorbike instead of my face, but Merlin it felt good when her eyes were there and I immediately want them on me again.
“She is,” Lily says. “Absolutely gorgeous.”
The engine purrs, which is a good sign, because clearly this bike is an excellent judge of character.
“Then let’s go,” I say, extending a hand. What am I doing?
“Where?”
I shrug.
Lily hesitates.
“Oh, come on, Lily - ” I can’t help myself.
“No, I’ll go,” she says at once, and my heart jumps into my throat. It’s one thing to be alone in her family’s back yard, but another thing entirely to be alone somewhere else, and she said yes -
“There’s a place I’d like to see. How far can she go?”
At least from America to Europe, if Laszlo was telling the truth. “Far enough,” I say.
“Then let’s take a picnic.” She turns her back on me and goes back up to the house. I watch her slender form, the little thin summer skirt and bare legs, those calves - stop it, stop it - and her hair swinging down her back -
Oh Merlin, what have I done?
I follow her into the house.
“Petunia’s over at a friend’s,” Lily says as she pulls out a loaf of bread. She shoots me a threatening look. “I do hope none of the neighbours saw you flying that thing.”
“Would I get you into trouble, Lily Evans?” I ask, putting a hand over my heart. She smirks and doesn’t answer. Just as well.
But by Gryffindor’s garterbelt, she’s beautiful. I’m studying the dimple next to her mouth, and soon I’m leaning closer to her as if she’s got some sort of magnetic pull on me. She blushes and I feel a surge of yearning. She turns away to get some roast beef, and I have to drag my eyes away from her and look around the kitchen.
I’ve never been inside her house before, and it’s all whites and creams and yellow curtains, bright like her, the antithesis of everything I’ve left behind. As Lily organises our little picnic, I force myself to linger back, make small talk, lean against the kitchen table, keep my distance. Watching her delicate hands make our sandwiches, my heart contracts, almost painfully, and I understand that I want this. Her. Us, somewhere else, in a little white kitchen of our own. Did I just think that?
She turns around to face me. “Strawberries or blueberries?” But her face drops when she catches sight of mine and I wonder what I’ve accidentally let her see.
“Blueberries would be nice,” I reply, shoving my hands in my pockets and schooling my face into a more neutral expression as I stare at the black and white tiled floor.
Lily pauses, but eventually she turns back around towards the sink to wash the fruit, the afternoon sunshine through the window making a halo of fire around her hair. I want to go to her, to breathe her in, to scorch my lungs on that blazing mane, but I don’t move. It’s as if all my little tricks are suddenly inadequate here, in her presence. Not that she’d ever fall for them. For me. But then again, I know she’s got to be curious about -
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“The country,” Lily says.
We chit chat again for a few moments, and I notice she’s not asking what I’m doing here. That makes me go and join her again at the sink again because the table is too far away, too far from her. I want to be close enough to almost touch her; I want to make her blush again. I catch a whiff of something fresh and I grin at her, trying to will my heart to slow down. She glances at me with a twitch of a smile, handing me the colander of washed blueberries and a container to put them in. While I’m doing that, she leaves the room.
I carry the blueberries and wrapped sandwiches in a brown paper bag out to the motorbike and put the items into one of the saddlebags. I remain there on the ground, fastening the buckle, kneeling, hoping, and soon Lily joins me with another bag of things, which she deposits into the other saddlebag. I hear the clink of glass and metal.
“Ready?” I say.
“Ready.”
I climb onto my motorbike and the engine revs; but as soon as Lily straddles the seat behind me, the bike lurches forward and Lily falls backwards onto the ground.
“Shit! Sirius!” She’s angry. At me. Oh boy.
“Sorry, it wasn’t me!” I jump off and run to her. She’s tugging that little skirt down - oh Godric, her thighs - and her eyes are full of vitriol and promises of physical violence, and I adore that, though I’m absolutely certain I shouldn’t. I offer her a hand and she smacks it away, preferring to get up by herself.
“It wasn’t you?” She’s brushing freshly cut grass off of her skirt. “Then who the hell was it? Your motorbike?”
“Well, yes.”
“Oh, for - ”
“Wait. Let me talk to her.”
“ - Pete’s sake.”
I walk in front of my bike and cross my arms, trying to ignore Lily’s grumbles.
“Do you want to go back to the shop?” I ask it under my breath.
The bike growls at me. Lily tilts her head, thinking I’m completely deranged, at last, I’m sure.
“Let me tell you something, sweetheart,” I continue to the motorbike, cocking my hip and leaning close to the headlamps with my hands gripping the handlebars, backwards. “Lily was here long before you were. You’re the ‘other woman,’ not her. Got it?”
The motorbike is silent.
“Good. Now that we understand each other … ” I climb on again and hold a hand out for Lily. Her cheeks are bright red, and my own are hot, too, because I realise what I’ve just said about her and it’s too late to back pedal without drawing more attention to it. She glowers at the hand for a moment; but then she takes it, and I realise this is the first time we’ve actually touched on purpose, aside from when she smacks me, and it’s thrilling. So is her body wrapping itself around my back.
I take her hand and pull her arm firmly around my waist. “Better hold tight, just in case.” Oh, it’s such a cliché, but it’s so appropriate - and necessary - I’d be a fool not to use it.
Feeling her entire torso against my back sends a current of craving straight down into my jeans. I push the kickstand back with my heel and we’re off. Lily whoops and squeezes me tighter and I grin like the biggest, happiest imbecile there ever was. Luckily she can’t see me.
Some clouds are gathering, which is good, because I can steer us up higher for cover. It wouldn’t do to be arrested by the Ministry now that I’ve got Lily hanging onto me for dear life.
“Where to, love?” I call.
Lily leads us by speaking directly into my left ear while I steer, and I feel my skin prickle where her breath lands. We duck below the clouds now and then to follow the roads. Every once in a while she points with one arm, but afterwards she always grabs me tighter.
I hope this place, wherever it is, is far, far away.
After about twenty minutes of flying away from the towns and into the countryside, I’ve got a raging hard-on and I’m having to think about Herbology to force it down. It doesn’t help that Lily’s hands are right above my belt and I can feel the heat of her pelvis and her thighs and her breasts snug against - Mandrakes. Wartcap. Devil’s Snare.
Now she’s telling me we’re here, and she’s pointing at a farm below. There’s a creek and a little bridge and a barn, a wooden fence in disrepair, a few crumbling stone walls, and a cottage up on a hill. I see no animals. The sky is darker and threatening rain now, like it does in the summertime, and I wonder how long we’ll have here.
We land beside the barn, near the small wooden bridge. It smells of hay and manure. There is colour everywhere, though the sky is grey. I twist around on the motorbike and Lily’s eyes are brightest of all when she smiles at me, the green of leaves in summer and ivy in winter and every verdant thing living and resting in between.
She dismounts, not looking at me. There’s that flush on her cheeks again, and my heart starts doing somersaults beneath my breastbone. I follow her like a duckling after its mum as she walks across the short bridge and looks up at the house on the hill. I glance behind me at the motorbike, but it’s within sight and it’ll be all right while we look around. There’s no one out here, anyway.
Lily’s voice is small, but matter-of-fact. “My granddad lived there with my gran, until she died. Then he lived there alone, until he died, in February.”
“Death Eaters?”
“No. Cancer.”
“Oh,” I say, though I don’t quite know what that word means to Muggles. But it sounds like chancre and I can see Lily’s eyes glistening and I know it’s not good. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugs and wipes her eyes, then revolves on the spot to take in other parts of the farm. She sighs, smiling wanly. Behind a tree there’s a storage shed I hadn’t noticed when we landed, connected to what looks like a hen house. There are six bee houses dotting the hillside like dainty white buttons on a dragon’s shirt. A rusting piece of equipment sits cockeyed halfway up the hill, as if it got stranded there after it couldn’t decide which way to go.
It’s very, very quiet.
But suddenly there’s a huge thunderclap and the sky brightens for a millisecond. Lily and I jump and stare at each other with a mixture of fear and wonder, half-smiles on our wide-eyed faces, seconds before the rain begins.
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