Two Shots
This is what I get when I try writing after a day at work. Cue: thunderclouds. Sheesh. I had started on Dancing with Wolves, but there was no no room in the pitiful remains of my brain for humour and thus I subconsciously created a new universe for myself, which may prove to be my first AU. *head---> desk*
1) I don't need a new universe
2) I don't do AU.
The only upside (which is also potentially a downside), it does look like the muse will be here to stay for a while. Why the heck couldn't it be around when I was wrecking my brain for rs_games ?!
X-posted on remusxsirius .
Title: Una Furtiva Lagrima
Summary: You are not alone.
Parings: Remus/Sirius
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Don't own HP obviously, though Remus and Sirius appear to have built themselves a little home in my brain.
1974
The slender fingers caressed the strings, even as the light touch of the bow coaxed the gentlest lilts of melancholy from the instrument. The quiet strains clung onto the night air for the faintest moment, desperate to be heard, before fading easily into nothingness.
The music suited his mood, even if it were far too weighty for a young soul of fourteen years. Wistful longing after the impossible, dissipating into the painful awareness of futility.
At last the fingers stopped, ending on a timid timbre. Remus removed the bow from the strings, still reluctant to let go of the violin tucked under his chin.
Soft applause cut through the thick silence. Remus lowered the violin then, only just recalling that he was not alone. Still basking in the lingering memory of the notes, he smiled a tad sadly as he turned to look at Sirius and nodded in thanks.
Sleep had eluded him; it usually did every time the full moon loomed round the corner. He would have sneaked out of the dormitory alone had the only light sleeper not caught him. Failing to convince Sirius to stay in bed, he had unwillingly brought an audience along to the music room.
The room had been a secret gathering place of sorts ever since James stumbled into it a few moons ago. It was clearly one of the many forgotten rooms in Hogwarts, abandoned as more and more wizards opted for the ease of Charms over the art of playing music with their bare fingers. Remus had loved the room on first sight - the piano, the small collection of musical instruments and the scores messily scattered on the chairs and couches, forsaken by their previous owners, reminded him of home.
“It is an incredibly sad piece,” Sirius commented from his perch against the window. He had never thought Remus could play the violin - it would have been easy enough for the exceptional student if he had used a wand, but this simple mastery? No, he had not expected Remus to actually play the instrument. “Does it have a name?”
“Donizette’s Una Furtiva Lagrima,” Remus replied, as he lifted the violin to his chin again. It was a soporific piece his mother often played just before his bedtime as a nostalgic reminder of her half-buried Italian heritage, but it became a mournful lilt after he became a werewolf.
“It suits you.”
“Does it?” Remus placed his bow on the strings, pausing only to look up thoughtfully at Sirius. He chuckled self-deprecatingly. “It would be appropriate, I suppose”.
He has no idea just how appropriate, Remus thought as he drew out the first plaintive strains.
“You are only as alone as you let yourself be, Remus,” Sirius remarked loudly as he closed his eyes and leaned back to take in the beautiful music. “There is always a shoulder if you need one. At least two in fact, the last time I counted.”
When the tune stopped abruptly, Sirius opened his eyes to look knowingly at Remus’ surprise.
Giving a small nod, he closed his eyes again and threw his hands behind his head as he settled in further in his spot.
“One Furtive Tear,” Sirius said. “I do have an Italian grandmother.”
-------------------------------------------
Title: Betrayal
Summary: Sirius knew where his loyalty lies. In the same universe as "Una Furtiva Lagrima"
Parings: Remus/Sirius
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Don't own HP obviously, though Remus and Sirius appear to have built themselves a little home in my brain.
Author's notes: It called to be written - I didn't question the muse. On hindsight, I should have.
Remus stood at the window, watching the first fall of snow. The cold sheen of white obliterated any semblance of life, mirroring his thoughts and feelings at that moment exactly. He hugged his violin close to his chest, even as he swallows the lump in his throat, steeling himself against the wave of pain and grief.
It had only been a week, but it was the longest week he had ever had, even in his troubled life. It was made all the longer for he was only just beginning to have hope, just some, that he was capable of happiness.
That hope had been wrenched from his grasp.
The door creaked open, but Remus ignored it. His mind was too preoccupied with capturing the last strains of half forgotten tunes before they dimmed in his memory. Still he stood, remembering even as a pair of arms snaked round his waist and pilled him against a warm solid wall of support.
Sirius did not speak. His heart ached with a regret he did not know he could feel, as he took in the fatigue and despondence etched into Remus’ face. He just knew he should have ignored Remus’ wishes to be left alone, but that had ceased to matter; he was here now. He merely held Remus, planting soft kisses in the limp, honey locks - he could be more patient than anyone would give him credit for; he would wait.
Remus felt the first tear threatening to break through the dam, a dam that he had kept resolutely closed since he lost the beauty of the full moon. The warmth enveloped him but failed to reach his bones.
Turning slightly to bury his nose in Sirius’ neck, he closed his eyes, yet again willing the flood to keep at bay. But his attempts failed the moment he felt Sirius’ hand running soothingly up and down his back. Struggling valiantly, he bit down on his lower lip.
He was not about to lose control. He would not give them the satisfaction.
Sirius stroked Remus’ hair in silent comfort, cradling his lover’s head close against him. He kissed the pale forehead and remained quietly in wait, as he reached to cover Remus’ grasp on his violin with one hand.
Remus surrendered his precious violin readily, immediately slipping his free hands round Sirius’ waist in turn, desperately seeking fortitude. It was getting so much harder, keeping to himself, as one tear, and then two escaped his lashes.
Sirius placed the violin carefully on the window ledge, even as he kept his hold on Remus. Then, crushing the other lad against him, he leant down and hummed a soft tune in Remus’ ear
- no word could be appropriate.
Remus gave up then.
A little voice in his head wanted to berate him: why fight the tears for so long only to give in now, you fool? But he could no longer help it. The lure of comfort, the tiny whisper of solace was his greatest temptation.
Sirius felt tears welling up in his own eyes, so palpable was Remus’ grief. The spoken word failed him, so he offered his shoulder and his soul in exchange for the other’s peace. He was helpless, so he only felt his anger boiling against the invisible enemy who had put the anguish in his lover’s eyes.
His.
A reservoir of untold sorrows and unspoken pain could not empty itself in the space of day - Remus stopped only because he was too tired. When he finally managed to lift his head away from Sirius, he had found himself on the floor, slumped heavily against Sirius.
Sirius rested his forehead Remus’, just barely touching noses and waited again.
“It was not a fire.”
That was all he was waiting for. Sirius cupped Remus’ face and looked into the amber eyes, swollen from the tears, burning with a curious mix of grief, sadness and anger, before saying just as quietly, “No, I hadn’t thought it was.”
Remus took a shaky breath. Grabbing Sirius’ arms, he forced the words out of his throat, long dry from his self-imposed silence. “No fire could have killed my parents.”
“Not Dad,” Remus whispered brokenly, before spitting with rancorous hate, “Someone killed them. I know in my blood. Someone killed my parents.”
“We shall find them,” Sirius replied harshly. It was not an empty promise - he would gladly spend his life hunting down the sick bastards. Not for revenge, and not just because he knew Remus would do the same.
He had to keep his Remus safe.
//Sirius watched Professor Dumbledore pace. He had been in the headmaster’s office before, for a whole multitude of reasons usually surrounding one prank or the other, but never under such circumstances. He would have been eager to get away; he had more pressing matters to attend tom but this was about Remus.
It could only be about Remus.
There was no preamble when Dumbledore finally broke the silence, “You were there when I told Lupin.”
The steely blue eyes were staring straight at him, completely devoid of their usual twinkle. Sirius gave a curt nod, but did not speak.
“It was not a fire.”
Sirius remained quiet. He had suspected not.
“There was only a charred shell by the time the Aurors managed to get to the cottage, but the trees around the place were untouched.”
Sirius kept quiet. Why are you telling me this, he thought.
Dumbledore appeared to hear the unasked question, and turning away from Sirius to walk towards his old friend Fawkes, he continued, almost coldly, “Remus’ parents were not burnt alive. No, quite on contrary, they were left staked to the stone chimney and bled dry. Reneld was still alive when his friends came to his side.”
His hand still stroking Fawkes, Dumbledore paused before looking back on Sirius and said meaningfully, “He held on just long enough to whisper two words.”
Sirius stood up, already hoping that Reneld Lupin had left a name. A name he could hate and hunt down, Remus’ father had been a well-established Auror, specialized in hunting down unregistered dark beasts in the Ministry of Magic, until he left to become a twelve years ago, too shaken by the revenge attack on his only child. He would know his enemies.
“My son.”
Sirius raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“That was what Reneld said. My son,” Dumbledore could feel his anger boiling over as he recalled what the Auror Inspector Alreicht had told him. “The Aurors knew he loved his son well and thought he had wished for one last look at him, but Reneld had pointed at blackened words carved into the stone above him. ‘Breeders of vermin.’”
Sirius felt the rush of fiery anger racing against the dreaded cold in his bloodstream.
“They thought to execute him. Execute him and his lovely wife. They butchered them, all in the pretense that the cold, thankless blood in their veins could be purer than that which flowed within them and their child,” Dumbledore’s glare was unmoving, unforgiving as he kept his eyes on the brilliance captured in the phoenix’s feathers and spat out. “Pretentious bastards!”
“Julian Lupin was the one and only teacher who had thought to offer a home to a child, a child who grew too old too soon. He had remembered the child, when the world was too taken by the prodigy, so easily impressed were they,” Dumbledore said softly, half in remembrance. “And they dared to murder the child of his blood.”
The venom would have surprised Sirius, if the urge to spit out the bitterness in his throat was not also on his mind.
“They are after the last of the kin,” Dumbledore turned now and his stare bore painfully through Sirius. “And hell may freeze over my dead body before I let them have him.”
“And mine,” Sirius added. The chill in his calm voice hung from the edge of the thick air.
“And yours,” Dumbledore repeated. “I would not have called you hence, Sirius Black, had I thought different.”
Here it was, Sirius thought. Why me?
“Few wizards have the brains or the skill to even approach Reneld; fewer still could have bested him even as a coterie,” Dumbledore drew out as he gripped tightly onto the mantelpiece. “But more importantly, only a pathetic handful would have had the gall and the ability to cast a mage fire.”
Sirius’ eyes widened in abject horror as realization dawned.
“There had to be more than one of them. Not even I would have the confidence of facing down the wily ways of Reneld alone, much less taking him out. Just one of them - one of them had had that finishing touch,” Dumbledore said bitterly before turning back to Sirius.
“And one of them could have been a Black.”
--------------------------------------------------
Sirius saw the shadow of uncertainty in Remus’ eyes, and repeated with greater conviction, his voice hardening from the memory of the conversation in Professor Dumbledore’s room, “We shall find them.”
Dumbledore did not leave him a choice, but there was never one for him anyway.
He knew where his loyalties lie.
1) I don't need a new universe
2) I don't do AU.
The only upside (which is also potentially a downside), it does look like the muse will be here to stay for a while. Why the heck couldn't it be around when I was wrecking my brain for rs_games ?!
X-posted on remusxsirius .
Title: Una Furtiva Lagrima
Summary: You are not alone.
Parings: Remus/Sirius
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Don't own HP obviously, though Remus and Sirius appear to have built themselves a little home in my brain.
1974
The slender fingers caressed the strings, even as the light touch of the bow coaxed the gentlest lilts of melancholy from the instrument. The quiet strains clung onto the night air for the faintest moment, desperate to be heard, before fading easily into nothingness.
The music suited his mood, even if it were far too weighty for a young soul of fourteen years. Wistful longing after the impossible, dissipating into the painful awareness of futility.
At last the fingers stopped, ending on a timid timbre. Remus removed the bow from the strings, still reluctant to let go of the violin tucked under his chin.
Soft applause cut through the thick silence. Remus lowered the violin then, only just recalling that he was not alone. Still basking in the lingering memory of the notes, he smiled a tad sadly as he turned to look at Sirius and nodded in thanks.
Sleep had eluded him; it usually did every time the full moon loomed round the corner. He would have sneaked out of the dormitory alone had the only light sleeper not caught him. Failing to convince Sirius to stay in bed, he had unwillingly brought an audience along to the music room.
The room had been a secret gathering place of sorts ever since James stumbled into it a few moons ago. It was clearly one of the many forgotten rooms in Hogwarts, abandoned as more and more wizards opted for the ease of Charms over the art of playing music with their bare fingers. Remus had loved the room on first sight - the piano, the small collection of musical instruments and the scores messily scattered on the chairs and couches, forsaken by their previous owners, reminded him of home.
“It is an incredibly sad piece,” Sirius commented from his perch against the window. He had never thought Remus could play the violin - it would have been easy enough for the exceptional student if he had used a wand, but this simple mastery? No, he had not expected Remus to actually play the instrument. “Does it have a name?”
“Donizette’s Una Furtiva Lagrima,” Remus replied, as he lifted the violin to his chin again. It was a soporific piece his mother often played just before his bedtime as a nostalgic reminder of her half-buried Italian heritage, but it became a mournful lilt after he became a werewolf.
“It suits you.”
“Does it?” Remus placed his bow on the strings, pausing only to look up thoughtfully at Sirius. He chuckled self-deprecatingly. “It would be appropriate, I suppose”.
He has no idea just how appropriate, Remus thought as he drew out the first plaintive strains.
“You are only as alone as you let yourself be, Remus,” Sirius remarked loudly as he closed his eyes and leaned back to take in the beautiful music. “There is always a shoulder if you need one. At least two in fact, the last time I counted.”
When the tune stopped abruptly, Sirius opened his eyes to look knowingly at Remus’ surprise.
Giving a small nod, he closed his eyes again and threw his hands behind his head as he settled in further in his spot.
“One Furtive Tear,” Sirius said. “I do have an Italian grandmother.”
-------------------------------------------
Title: Betrayal
Summary: Sirius knew where his loyalty lies. In the same universe as "Una Furtiva Lagrima"
Parings: Remus/Sirius
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Don't own HP obviously, though Remus and Sirius appear to have built themselves a little home in my brain.
Author's notes: It called to be written - I didn't question the muse. On hindsight, I should have.
Remus stood at the window, watching the first fall of snow. The cold sheen of white obliterated any semblance of life, mirroring his thoughts and feelings at that moment exactly. He hugged his violin close to his chest, even as he swallows the lump in his throat, steeling himself against the wave of pain and grief.
It had only been a week, but it was the longest week he had ever had, even in his troubled life. It was made all the longer for he was only just beginning to have hope, just some, that he was capable of happiness.
That hope had been wrenched from his grasp.
The door creaked open, but Remus ignored it. His mind was too preoccupied with capturing the last strains of half forgotten tunes before they dimmed in his memory. Still he stood, remembering even as a pair of arms snaked round his waist and pilled him against a warm solid wall of support.
Sirius did not speak. His heart ached with a regret he did not know he could feel, as he took in the fatigue and despondence etched into Remus’ face. He just knew he should have ignored Remus’ wishes to be left alone, but that had ceased to matter; he was here now. He merely held Remus, planting soft kisses in the limp, honey locks - he could be more patient than anyone would give him credit for; he would wait.
Remus felt the first tear threatening to break through the dam, a dam that he had kept resolutely closed since he lost the beauty of the full moon. The warmth enveloped him but failed to reach his bones.
Turning slightly to bury his nose in Sirius’ neck, he closed his eyes, yet again willing the flood to keep at bay. But his attempts failed the moment he felt Sirius’ hand running soothingly up and down his back. Struggling valiantly, he bit down on his lower lip.
He was not about to lose control. He would not give them the satisfaction.
Sirius stroked Remus’ hair in silent comfort, cradling his lover’s head close against him. He kissed the pale forehead and remained quietly in wait, as he reached to cover Remus’ grasp on his violin with one hand.
Remus surrendered his precious violin readily, immediately slipping his free hands round Sirius’ waist in turn, desperately seeking fortitude. It was getting so much harder, keeping to himself, as one tear, and then two escaped his lashes.
Sirius placed the violin carefully on the window ledge, even as he kept his hold on Remus. Then, crushing the other lad against him, he leant down and hummed a soft tune in Remus’ ear
- no word could be appropriate.
Remus gave up then.
A little voice in his head wanted to berate him: why fight the tears for so long only to give in now, you fool? But he could no longer help it. The lure of comfort, the tiny whisper of solace was his greatest temptation.
Sirius felt tears welling up in his own eyes, so palpable was Remus’ grief. The spoken word failed him, so he offered his shoulder and his soul in exchange for the other’s peace. He was helpless, so he only felt his anger boiling against the invisible enemy who had put the anguish in his lover’s eyes.
His.
A reservoir of untold sorrows and unspoken pain could not empty itself in the space of day - Remus stopped only because he was too tired. When he finally managed to lift his head away from Sirius, he had found himself on the floor, slumped heavily against Sirius.
Sirius rested his forehead Remus’, just barely touching noses and waited again.
“It was not a fire.”
That was all he was waiting for. Sirius cupped Remus’ face and looked into the amber eyes, swollen from the tears, burning with a curious mix of grief, sadness and anger, before saying just as quietly, “No, I hadn’t thought it was.”
Remus took a shaky breath. Grabbing Sirius’ arms, he forced the words out of his throat, long dry from his self-imposed silence. “No fire could have killed my parents.”
“Not Dad,” Remus whispered brokenly, before spitting with rancorous hate, “Someone killed them. I know in my blood. Someone killed my parents.”
“We shall find them,” Sirius replied harshly. It was not an empty promise - he would gladly spend his life hunting down the sick bastards. Not for revenge, and not just because he knew Remus would do the same.
He had to keep his Remus safe.
//Sirius watched Professor Dumbledore pace. He had been in the headmaster’s office before, for a whole multitude of reasons usually surrounding one prank or the other, but never under such circumstances. He would have been eager to get away; he had more pressing matters to attend tom but this was about Remus.
It could only be about Remus.
There was no preamble when Dumbledore finally broke the silence, “You were there when I told Lupin.”
The steely blue eyes were staring straight at him, completely devoid of their usual twinkle. Sirius gave a curt nod, but did not speak.
“It was not a fire.”
Sirius remained quiet. He had suspected not.
“There was only a charred shell by the time the Aurors managed to get to the cottage, but the trees around the place were untouched.”
Sirius kept quiet. Why are you telling me this, he thought.
Dumbledore appeared to hear the unasked question, and turning away from Sirius to walk towards his old friend Fawkes, he continued, almost coldly, “Remus’ parents were not burnt alive. No, quite on contrary, they were left staked to the stone chimney and bled dry. Reneld was still alive when his friends came to his side.”
His hand still stroking Fawkes, Dumbledore paused before looking back on Sirius and said meaningfully, “He held on just long enough to whisper two words.”
Sirius stood up, already hoping that Reneld Lupin had left a name. A name he could hate and hunt down, Remus’ father had been a well-established Auror, specialized in hunting down unregistered dark beasts in the Ministry of Magic, until he left to become a twelve years ago, too shaken by the revenge attack on his only child. He would know his enemies.
“My son.”
Sirius raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“That was what Reneld said. My son,” Dumbledore could feel his anger boiling over as he recalled what the Auror Inspector Alreicht had told him. “The Aurors knew he loved his son well and thought he had wished for one last look at him, but Reneld had pointed at blackened words carved into the stone above him. ‘Breeders of vermin.’”
Sirius felt the rush of fiery anger racing against the dreaded cold in his bloodstream.
“They thought to execute him. Execute him and his lovely wife. They butchered them, all in the pretense that the cold, thankless blood in their veins could be purer than that which flowed within them and their child,” Dumbledore’s glare was unmoving, unforgiving as he kept his eyes on the brilliance captured in the phoenix’s feathers and spat out. “Pretentious bastards!”
“Julian Lupin was the one and only teacher who had thought to offer a home to a child, a child who grew too old too soon. He had remembered the child, when the world was too taken by the prodigy, so easily impressed were they,” Dumbledore said softly, half in remembrance. “And they dared to murder the child of his blood.”
The venom would have surprised Sirius, if the urge to spit out the bitterness in his throat was not also on his mind.
“They are after the last of the kin,” Dumbledore turned now and his stare bore painfully through Sirius. “And hell may freeze over my dead body before I let them have him.”
“And mine,” Sirius added. The chill in his calm voice hung from the edge of the thick air.
“And yours,” Dumbledore repeated. “I would not have called you hence, Sirius Black, had I thought different.”
Here it was, Sirius thought. Why me?
“Few wizards have the brains or the skill to even approach Reneld; fewer still could have bested him even as a coterie,” Dumbledore drew out as he gripped tightly onto the mantelpiece. “But more importantly, only a pathetic handful would have had the gall and the ability to cast a mage fire.”
Sirius’ eyes widened in abject horror as realization dawned.
“There had to be more than one of them. Not even I would have the confidence of facing down the wily ways of Reneld alone, much less taking him out. Just one of them - one of them had had that finishing touch,” Dumbledore said bitterly before turning back to Sirius.
“And one of them could have been a Black.”
--------------------------------------------------
Sirius saw the shadow of uncertainty in Remus’ eyes, and repeated with greater conviction, his voice hardening from the memory of the conversation in Professor Dumbledore’s room, “We shall find them.”
Dumbledore did not leave him a choice, but there was never one for him anyway.
He knew where his loyalties lie.