The Most Beautiful Person I Know (Remus/Sirius Remix)
Title: The Most Beautiful Person I Know (The Black on Black Remix)
Author: Starrysummer
Pairing: Remus/Sirius (Sirius/Bellatrix, Sirius/Regulus)
Summary: Sirius says his whole family is doomed, and he says I'm the most beautiful person he knows (but James brags of the wine that he nicks at the parties I'm not allowed to).
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Incest, mild violence.
Author's Notes: Written for remixredux as a remix of " Phenomenon of Fire" by Rachel McFaith. Thanks to sioniann and rosesanguina for beta-reading this for me. Section headers come from the original story. Rachel's original version was unavailable online, so this never got posted anywhere, but I thought it'd be appropriate to repost it here today, as she's posted hers as a last-day tribute. Thanks again to underlucius and all the mods for inviting me and for putting together such a wonderful place for HP fanfiction and for writing.
The Most Beautiful Person I Know (The Black on Black Remix)
and I always knew how it would end
Later over tea and sympathy, and empty gestures, I wonder if maybe we were two minutes too late, or two hours. I wonder, with the sheets cold beside me, if there's something I could have said to Harry, or a night I could have wandered back on empty, drunken, winding streets all those years before.
But it's cold, and I'm alone, and that's all that's left now anyways.
I look through the spellbooks in the library - remember evenings fighting doxies and night touches brushing up against the sofa - and wonder what it was. The red light, the black veil, and he's gone.
a phenomenon of fire
I am on fire in the Ministry. The night inside is clear and cold and all I see is the end of my wand. All I feel is the heavy breath of footfalls behind me; all I hear is the snap of magic and thud of fallen obstacles. I think maybe the moon is full, but I am a man.
I am the calm and the fury, and I tell myself by instinct that he is beside me. Tell myself he always was.
And I ignore her face.
recklessness and power and indolence blending together until I don't know what is what anymore
There is a job to do; there are children to watch and classes to teach. Cold equations, facts laid down for generation of wizard after generation of wizard (and I can't help but think of his family).
I stand in the classroom and forget notes passed through clamped hands, forget James's laugh and Sirius's touch and the way Peter always shared his treacle tart. I forget it all, as my thin-soled boots walk the same hollow, hallowed halls and wonder if he watches me now, a little dot on a little map made of nights awake and whispers across the pillow.
There is a job to do, and a little boy - a godson - with hair as Black as night and blood that runs backwards tinged with wild, new-red hair. He has Sirius's smile and I look back with those same indulgent, open eyes, that same silence that Sirius always said scared him.
And when I see Sirius - time weathered on his face, years missing and lies unsaid (I haven't seen my brother in three years) (I'll only be gone for awhile), it all comes back.
I hit him, once, and he bled deep garnet on my fingertips.
savage hair and hands casually in pockets of worn tight jeans and black leather on blacker velvet
It's Edinburgh, rain and fog, in the late seventies. We're living together, and I'm working at the apothecary. We go to bed wine-drenched at two or three and fuck until four or five. We're drowsy and young and crazy. And tired.
The owl knocks against the window; my mind aches, my body's sore. Morning sunlight in September is brutal on my tired eyes, but I open it.
The bird is dark, the paper torn, ink bleeding black on family stationery.
"Sirius," it says, and simply: "Regulus is gone."
I sit on the end of the bed, my weight gone, my strength gone. The boy was so young, and I hadn't thought of him in ages.
I shouldn't care, and maybe I don't, less than Sirius will, certainly. He stirs in his sleep, and I hand him the paper.
He reads it, looks at me once. His eyes are hard, look misty almost for a moment, then he rolls over and goes back to sleep.
"I'm sorry, Sirius," I say.
"Whole family's doomed," he grumbles into the pillow.
He's still asleep at ten when I leave for the apothecary, and when I return at half past seven, my trunk is packed, laid out in the hallway.
"Whole family's doomed," reads the note pinned to the chest.
whispering of a him and a her, a her and a choice of sinful knowledge
It's James who says something, finally. He's got that cockeyed grin; he's got that way of knowing the world like it's a whispered joke in the back of Charms class.
"You think he's fucked his cousin?" he asks, and there's a jolt, a missing beat of blood somewhere, and I'm dizzy.
I still myself - still and silent and one eyebrow cocked. "Which cousin?" I ask, watching as Sirius turns Flitwick's quill into a garden snake.
"The Black one," he says, and he does - he does think it's funny.
"No," I say, quickly, but the seed's already gone to flower.
I dream of them that night. Dancing in one of the family balls that Sirius tells me are horrid anyway, tells me I'm lucky I can't attend (though James always comes back from holiday bragging about how much wine he nicked from the elves and how the London night spun starry black on solstice sky). Sirius's hand is on her shoulder, and she's wearing red, blood-red, black-red, and dancing. She kisses him, and it's a phenomenon of fire, the whole room aflame as together they burn like letters spurned to the blaze, like the heavens at the end of the world one fine day.
I ask him, a lazy Sunday morning when James and Peter have gone to toss the quaffle in the late March wind. "Tell me about your family," I say, simple and soft as I entwine my fingers in his.
"Rotted to the core," he says quickly.
"Does that make you rotted, too?" I ask, kissing him lightly on the neck as he turns away.
He's silent, but he nods. I grasp his hand and he turns back towards me.
"You're the most beautiful person I know," he says.
I stand, get my robes from the closet, and pull them down over myself, over pasty-pale flesh scarred on the nights I never remember.
And I always knew how it would end, if I let him go on.
I hit him once. I remember it now, as I toss and turn in the bed with the brass posts and cold silk sheets in summer fraying at the edges.
He saw me talking to his brother. He'd asked me about switching spells, and was only thirteen or fourteen then. I remember thinking that Regulus looked so much like his brother, hair shining black in the torch light that always made the magical world seem so warm, seem so yellow compared to home.
He stood against the wall of the hallway while a group of Ravenclaws girls walked by, while two Hufflepuffs nearly walked into him. He said nothing until Regulus left - with a glance at his brother, a lewd-burning stare of anger.
"Don't talk to him," Sirius said.
"He's just a kid, Sirius."
"Don't - just don't. They're awful. You don't know them like I do."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
And I didn't.
"I don't want to see - you can't - just don't talk to any of them, okay?"
"Don't tell me, Sirius. Don't say-" I said holding tight to calm. "You don't-" I didn't want to finish. "I'm not - he's your brother."
It was the first time he told me I was beautiful. In whispers that echoed against the Hogwarts walls, over and over and over again.
"You're the most beautiful person I know," he said, looking almost afraid. For the first time, as his eyelids flicker-fluttered, as he stood in half-shadowed darkness, I could see why so many mistook the two for twins.
"I don't believe you," I said. Quickly, firmly, a statement. He looked terrified and almost angry, one hand towards me slowly, outstretched waiting. I knew it for a lie, but he kept going.
"You're the most beautiful person I know," he said again. Again and again and again and he didn't stop until I hit him, once across the face, across the cheek and as my fist met his nose, a thin trail of blood - ancient, red-rotted blood - seeped down his face and he looked at me as if through lakewater and haze.
"You're the most beautiful person I know," he said, as the blood stained his thirty-galleon schoolrobes, his voice hazy and muffled and yet so very constant as if he was somewhere sure and gone, as if he were already veiled with black velvet.
Author: Starrysummer
Pairing: Remus/Sirius (Sirius/Bellatrix, Sirius/Regulus)
Summary: Sirius says his whole family is doomed, and he says I'm the most beautiful person he knows (but James brags of the wine that he nicks at the parties I'm not allowed to).
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Incest, mild violence.
Author's Notes: Written for remixredux as a remix of " Phenomenon of Fire" by Rachel McFaith. Thanks to sioniann and rosesanguina for beta-reading this for me. Section headers come from the original story. Rachel's original version was unavailable online, so this never got posted anywhere, but I thought it'd be appropriate to repost it here today, as she's posted hers as a last-day tribute. Thanks again to underlucius and all the mods for inviting me and for putting together such a wonderful place for HP fanfiction and for writing.
The Most Beautiful Person I Know (The Black on Black Remix)
and I always knew how it would end
Later over tea and sympathy, and empty gestures, I wonder if maybe we were two minutes too late, or two hours. I wonder, with the sheets cold beside me, if there's something I could have said to Harry, or a night I could have wandered back on empty, drunken, winding streets all those years before.
But it's cold, and I'm alone, and that's all that's left now anyways.
I look through the spellbooks in the library - remember evenings fighting doxies and night touches brushing up against the sofa - and wonder what it was. The red light, the black veil, and he's gone.
a phenomenon of fire
I am on fire in the Ministry. The night inside is clear and cold and all I see is the end of my wand. All I feel is the heavy breath of footfalls behind me; all I hear is the snap of magic and thud of fallen obstacles. I think maybe the moon is full, but I am a man.
I am the calm and the fury, and I tell myself by instinct that he is beside me. Tell myself he always was.
And I ignore her face.
recklessness and power and indolence blending together until I don't know what is what anymore
There is a job to do; there are children to watch and classes to teach. Cold equations, facts laid down for generation of wizard after generation of wizard (and I can't help but think of his family).
I stand in the classroom and forget notes passed through clamped hands, forget James's laugh and Sirius's touch and the way Peter always shared his treacle tart. I forget it all, as my thin-soled boots walk the same hollow, hallowed halls and wonder if he watches me now, a little dot on a little map made of nights awake and whispers across the pillow.
There is a job to do, and a little boy - a godson - with hair as Black as night and blood that runs backwards tinged with wild, new-red hair. He has Sirius's smile and I look back with those same indulgent, open eyes, that same silence that Sirius always said scared him.
And when I see Sirius - time weathered on his face, years missing and lies unsaid (I haven't seen my brother in three years) (I'll only be gone for awhile), it all comes back.
I hit him, once, and he bled deep garnet on my fingertips.
savage hair and hands casually in pockets of worn tight jeans and black leather on blacker velvet
It's Edinburgh, rain and fog, in the late seventies. We're living together, and I'm working at the apothecary. We go to bed wine-drenched at two or three and fuck until four or five. We're drowsy and young and crazy. And tired.
The owl knocks against the window; my mind aches, my body's sore. Morning sunlight in September is brutal on my tired eyes, but I open it.
The bird is dark, the paper torn, ink bleeding black on family stationery.
"Sirius," it says, and simply: "Regulus is gone."
I sit on the end of the bed, my weight gone, my strength gone. The boy was so young, and I hadn't thought of him in ages.
I shouldn't care, and maybe I don't, less than Sirius will, certainly. He stirs in his sleep, and I hand him the paper.
He reads it, looks at me once. His eyes are hard, look misty almost for a moment, then he rolls over and goes back to sleep.
"I'm sorry, Sirius," I say.
"Whole family's doomed," he grumbles into the pillow.
He's still asleep at ten when I leave for the apothecary, and when I return at half past seven, my trunk is packed, laid out in the hallway.
"Whole family's doomed," reads the note pinned to the chest.
whispering of a him and a her, a her and a choice of sinful knowledge
It's James who says something, finally. He's got that cockeyed grin; he's got that way of knowing the world like it's a whispered joke in the back of Charms class.
"You think he's fucked his cousin?" he asks, and there's a jolt, a missing beat of blood somewhere, and I'm dizzy.
I still myself - still and silent and one eyebrow cocked. "Which cousin?" I ask, watching as Sirius turns Flitwick's quill into a garden snake.
"The Black one," he says, and he does - he does think it's funny.
"No," I say, quickly, but the seed's already gone to flower.
I dream of them that night. Dancing in one of the family balls that Sirius tells me are horrid anyway, tells me I'm lucky I can't attend (though James always comes back from holiday bragging about how much wine he nicked from the elves and how the London night spun starry black on solstice sky). Sirius's hand is on her shoulder, and she's wearing red, blood-red, black-red, and dancing. She kisses him, and it's a phenomenon of fire, the whole room aflame as together they burn like letters spurned to the blaze, like the heavens at the end of the world one fine day.
I ask him, a lazy Sunday morning when James and Peter have gone to toss the quaffle in the late March wind. "Tell me about your family," I say, simple and soft as I entwine my fingers in his.
"Rotted to the core," he says quickly.
"Does that make you rotted, too?" I ask, kissing him lightly on the neck as he turns away.
He's silent, but he nods. I grasp his hand and he turns back towards me.
"You're the most beautiful person I know," he says.
I stand, get my robes from the closet, and pull them down over myself, over pasty-pale flesh scarred on the nights I never remember.
And I always knew how it would end, if I let him go on.
I hit him once. I remember it now, as I toss and turn in the bed with the brass posts and cold silk sheets in summer fraying at the edges.
He saw me talking to his brother. He'd asked me about switching spells, and was only thirteen or fourteen then. I remember thinking that Regulus looked so much like his brother, hair shining black in the torch light that always made the magical world seem so warm, seem so yellow compared to home.
He stood against the wall of the hallway while a group of Ravenclaws girls walked by, while two Hufflepuffs nearly walked into him. He said nothing until Regulus left - with a glance at his brother, a lewd-burning stare of anger.
"Don't talk to him," Sirius said.
"He's just a kid, Sirius."
"Don't - just don't. They're awful. You don't know them like I do."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
And I didn't.
"I don't want to see - you can't - just don't talk to any of them, okay?"
"Don't tell me, Sirius. Don't say-" I said holding tight to calm. "You don't-" I didn't want to finish. "I'm not - he's your brother."
It was the first time he told me I was beautiful. In whispers that echoed against the Hogwarts walls, over and over and over again.
"You're the most beautiful person I know," he said, looking almost afraid. For the first time, as his eyelids flicker-fluttered, as he stood in half-shadowed darkness, I could see why so many mistook the two for twins.
"I don't believe you," I said. Quickly, firmly, a statement. He looked terrified and almost angry, one hand towards me slowly, outstretched waiting. I knew it for a lie, but he kept going.
"You're the most beautiful person I know," he said again. Again and again and again and he didn't stop until I hit him, once across the face, across the cheek and as my fist met his nose, a thin trail of blood - ancient, red-rotted blood - seeped down his face and he looked at me as if through lakewater and haze.
"You're the most beautiful person I know," he said, as the blood stained his thirty-galleon schoolrobes, his voice hazy and muffled and yet so very constant as if he was somewhere sure and gone, as if he were already veiled with black velvet.