Lucky You Saved Me
Title: Lucky You Saved Me
Author: Me
Summary: Remus and Sirius have a discussion about faith during their First Year and connect over 'secrets' not yet revealed.
Rating: Umm...ReadTheGodDamnThing
Warnings: GOD! the wizard?, Eleven-year-old boys holding hands
Author's Note: I always said I would make a fic about Sirius's introduction to the muggle religion of Christianity. Title from the song 'Lucky' by Damone because I couldn't think of a title to save my own life. Dedicated to my nephew Adrian and Holden Caulfield for the inspiration.
It was during Remus's first week at school that Sirius noticed The Book.
“What is this?” he said, picking up The Book, running his hands, prematurely calloused, along its leather spine. “Is this an assigned book?”
“No,” Remus said, plucking it away from his curious roommate and delicately replacing it amongst his pillows. “It's a gift from my mum.”
“Well, what is it about?” Sirius asked, sitting down on Remus's bed and prodding it with one finger, as if afraid it might bite. “It's in sore shape, that one. Here.” He pulled his new, high quality and quite shiny wand from his back jeans pocket. “I think I can set it right.”
“No!” Remus exclaimed and then flushed at Sirius's questioning look, his raised eyebrow. “I mean, err, it's special, that way. The way it is, that's how I like it.”
“Oh.” Sirius frowned. “My mum never lets us keep things in a state like that. She says we're not penurious.”
“Hmmm,” was all Remus said.
“Are you penurious?”
“No, I wouldn't say that. But I probably don't have as lavish a home life as you.”
Sirius decided to lie down then, mind, as was typical, wandering five seconds into the conversation. “So, what do you think of the other blokes we live with? Don't know them too well, eh?”
“I don't know you too well,” Remus said as he placed his last articles of clothing into the dresser drawer specifically reserved for him. “Have you put your things away?” he asked, scanning the room. James's clothes were already scattered in piles around his bed; he'd had difficulty in deciding what to wear to dinner. Peter's bags, like Sirius's, remained untouched. So, really, it was a pointless question. Sirius gave a pointless answer.
“Nah, I've been putting it off.” He sat up. “What is that book?” He grabbed it then, and Remus had been caught off guard and moved too slowly to stop the young boy from attacking it. He watched, helplessly, as Sirius held it before him and tilted his head in inspection.
“I've never heard of The Biblé.”
“It's The Bible. You've never heard of it? No, of course you haven't.” Remus shook his head, once again retrieving The Book and putting it on his bed. He was starting to wish he'd just stayed at dinner; he'd been feeling ill and planned on being alone. He was not planning for this boy to follow him.
And bother him.
He was Sirius Black.
Remus's father, a wizard, had been strong set against the Black family for as long as he could remember. But here he was, talking to one. And he didn't seem all that bad. Kind of annoying, but not all that bad.
“It's a muggle thing, eh?”
“Yes. It is.”
“My mum would pop if I brought that into my home. May I borrow it next break?”
Remus looked up in shock.
“Why would you do that? You want your mum mad?”
Sirius shrugged.
“She already is mad at me; I don't see how it could get much worse.”
Remus just nodded, knowing that it was not the time to bring up the Howler Sirius had received. His mother had said something along the lines of him bringing disgrace to the whole Black family. It had been a horrible thing; the whole Hall had witnessed it. That was probably why he'd been so eager to follow Remus back up to the dorms.
“You're kind of small and pale,” Sirius continued, standing up on Remus's bed and waving his fists. “I bet I could beat you up.”
“Probably.” Remus tried to keep his voice from quivering and stared down Sirius, as his dad had told him to do with all bullies. “But I'd fight back.” Remus paused. “Err, except I don't feel much like getting expelled, seeing as I've only been here three days.”
“Scrappy like that, eh?” Sirius laughed, plopping back down to a sitting position. “But besides, they don't expel you for fights. Might take some house points, but you don't get expelled.” A flicker of something appeared on his face. “My dad said if I ever got in trouble to owl him, and he'd make sure it was all settled.”
Remus didn't know what to say to that, so he just nodded. He looked around for something to do with his hands, but upon seeing nothing blatant, he resolutely decided to sit on his bed next to the odd boy.
“So,” Sirius said as Remus adjusted himself, “what is that book about?”
“Don't touch it!” Remus ordered, holding out a finger.
“I wasn't going to.” Sirius rolled his eyes, but retracted his hand, which had been extended towards Remus's pillows. “What is it about?” he asked again.
“A man. God. Faith.”
“I've heard of God.” Sirius sounded unimpressed. “Wizard. Used a Vanishing Spell, and when they came to check on him, he was long gone.”
“That's Jesus. God's son.”
“He was a wizard, too, then?”
“I---Muggles don't think of them as wizards.”
“But that's what they are? Moses was a wizard.”
“Muggles don't see him as a wizard.”
“He made a whole fucking ocean divide!”
Remus gasped. He wasn't sure what shocked him more- Sirius's cursing or his true knowledge of muggle religion.
“How do you know all that?” Remus asked.
“My mum used to tell me all that. As a joke. Wizards who fooled those filth.” Sirius sighed and began to untie and retie his sneaker. “They weren't all those funny of jokes. And she never told me those stories came out of a book. An important book.” Sirius said the last part with his eyes drilling into Remus's. “You believe in this God, then?”
Remus thought a moment before answering. He thought of his father's scoff when his mother announced that she was taking their boy to church. “Yes. I believe in God.”
“Then I believe in God, too.” Sirius puffed out his chest and Remus chuckled.
“You don't.”
“Err, no. Not exactly. Still sounds like a wizard. But muggles, they all read The Bibbet?”
“The Bible? Not all of them. Lots of them. But it's---I don't know. I can't explain it to you.”
“I wish you could.” Sirius exhaled. “It looks good,” he said. “Laying against your pillows. It means a lot to you, huh?”
Remus smiled.
“Yeah.”
“I don't really understand it all. But it looks good.” Sirius laid back down, and Remus, after a split second of hesitation, joined him. Staring up at the top of his four poster, Remus exhaled. “I wish you'd let me fix it up, though. I could make it look all crisp and new,” Sirius said.
“You could not.” Remus chuckled. “I'd bet you'd end up catching it on fire or something.”
“No way! I've been doing magic for as long as I can remember. And Dad's let me use his wand loads of times. He never lets Reg, that's my little brother, use it, though. Just me. And I haven't set anything on fire at all since I was nine,” Sirius boasted.
“I've barely used my wand at all,” Remus said, his mind flashing to his father in Ollivander's.
This is a big deal. Promise me you'll be careful with this wand.
I promise.
But Sirius went on like he didn't hear Remus. “Reg would get so jealous, the prat! And then we'd run around our backyard, flicking spells around, though mine were better because I was using a real wand to play with and all, and Reg was only using a stick. We'd be fighting off vampires, and werewolves, and ghouls, and all those awful things. He'll be coming to school in a couple of years. You'll meet him. Hope he's in Gryffindor, too. I think I like this house.”
Remus had shut his eyes and was barely even listening to Sirius anymore. It was just a dim buzzing in his ears now.
...And all those awful things...
“You okay, Rem?”
Remus opened his eyes and turned so that he was looking at the black-haired, grey-eyed boy next to him. “I'm fine, why?” He liked being called 'Rem.' It sounded like a nickname. It sounded like this Sirius boy was comfortable around him.
“You look ill. You gonna blow chunks, because if so, I'd love to watch?”
Remus laughed.
“Why do you want to watch?”
Sirius shrugged. “Why not? It'll be one of those stories. 'Hey, Remus! Remember in First Year, when you threw up all over the place? Sure you do! It was when we were lying on your bed!'”
“I hope we don't exchange stories like that in the future.”
“Oh, but we will.” Sirius again faced the ceiling. “My mum and dad exchange stories with their old classmates all the time. They reminisce.” Sirius didn't sound too happy about the 'reminiscing,' and in fact spoke that detail in a such a venomous, ominous, and painfully familiar tone that Remus found himself whispering, excitedly.
“Do you have secrets, Sirius?”
“No!” Sirius looked shocked. “Why would you say that?”
It was Remus's turn to face the ceiling.
“Because I've got secrets,” he said, barely audible to even himself.
The pair waited in silence for a few moments before Remus was surprised to find Sirius's hand in his own. He gave a light squeeze.
“Yeah. I've got secrets.”
Sirius whispered that, too, and pulled his hand out of Remus's before sitting up and announcing that if he stayed in Remus's bed much longer, he would fall asleep there, so he'd better head to his own four-poster and Goodnight.
“Goodnight,” Remus said, after Sirius had pulled his own curtains around him. Sirius did not reply. Remus chose to give in to sleep then, too, and pulled his curtains shut and got under his blankets. Before drifting off, he said a silent prayer for Sirius Black.