Fic: Glass (RL/SB) One-Shot
Title: Glass (1/1)
Author: Sam I Am
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Summary: Glass birds and stars. Pre-OotP.
Warnings: None
Rating: PG (it's pretty tame)
Author's Notes: Begun ages ago; finished when I should be in bed!
He remembered the glass bird.
There had been a room, his mother’s private retreat, where most of the precious silver and ornaments were kept. He’d first seen it there, catching his eye as he’d delivered a message to his mother from his father one evening. He couldn’t remember the message or his mother’s reply or what colour the elegant dress-robe she had been wearing was as she awaited the arrival of whatever guests they’d invited.
But he remembered the first time the glinting statuette had caught his eye. Like most five year old boys, his attention had been drawn to the sparkle in the cabinet like a moth to a flame, but all too soon his mother rose, willowy and graceful, towering over his scrawny velvet-encased form, blocking it from sight.
He remembered knowing she was perfect, feeling terribly inadequate as she arched a thin dark eyebrow and with slender delicate fingers, roughly straightened the silver clasp at his throat which held his cloak in place. He had looked up at the rise of her cheek bones, refined through years of selective breeding, her straight nose, her ebony hair that was arranged neatly in a bun and was surrounded by the soft natural scent that rose from her bare pale neck, the musk of wealth and archaic superiority.
He’d seen many people watching his mother’s every movement when they had dinner parties or on the rare occasion she allowed him to accompany her out of the house. He’d seen the way her beauty hypnotised anyone who caught her eye. And yet, in that moment stood before his mother, he was coveting that brief glimpse of pale light reflecting from the something in the cabinet behind her, magpie eyes greedily seeking it out through the gap between her silk covered thigh and slender forearm.
She leant forward placing a cold soft kiss to his forehead and then dismissed him, her voice hushed not due to motherly-affection, but years of training. Light glinted off the glass bird, but he still couldn’t see it properly.
Without another word, he bolted; she called after his retreating scrambling form, tone icy and hard like steel, scolding him for running in the house, but he didn’t stop. He sped past the gruesome frightening house elf heads that were nailed to the wall, large eyes watching him with malicious rapture, but for once hardly noticed them.
Reaching his room, he closed the door, panting, heart quivering like a small rodent’s. He smiled, still filled with wonder and anticipating his first visit to his mother’s private chamber to see the bird.
He fidgeted throughout dinner, much to the displeasure of his parents, his mother’s dark midnight eyes watching him almost constantly. His father’s disapproval was equally obvious; stern handsome frowns and pointed glares were shot his way more than once throughout the meal. He tried to control his excitement, but found it bubbling up within him every time he tried to conceal it, itchy and shivery and magnetic.
After the meal, the party retreated into the drawing room and his mother gripped his arm tightly, pulling him into the library. She ordered him to sit on a chair and placed a hefty book before him, brown crisp pages hissing as she ran her fingertips over them. She flipped a couple of thick parchment pages over and then told him that he had to read and learn the page before him on how a gentleman should behave at the dinner table.
He remembered nodding, her hand briefly squeezing his shoulder to enforce her strength as his teacher not her love as his mother, before she glided from the mahogany-panelled room, air dark and rich with the tang of old books.
With unknown restraint, he waited a full half an hour before darting silently, stealthily from the oppressive library. He was truly disobeying her for the first time and he knew this with un-childlike clarity, could sense her anger and the danger he was in, but found he could not stop as he ascended the staircase, could not return to the huge tome with its long unnatural words.
He reached the door to her room, opened ajar, just enough for him to squeeze his body through. He caught a button on the frame with a click and he froze, heart hammering, chest heaving. With furtive courage, he sucked his tummy in and slipped inch by inch into the darkness.
Immediately, he swung around to face the cabinet, scraping wayward strands of dark hair from his face. His eyes widened as he crept over to the case, shifting a chair for him to stand on and his small mouth shaped a sigh although he didn’t dare release it in this illegal space.
The glass eagle glinted in the sparse light from the doorway, lightning seeming to flow over the smooth curve of its sharp beak, the crown of its head, the arc of each wing. It looked like it was about to push off its silver stand, captured as it began to spread its powerful wings.
Even bewitched as he was, only five years old, he’d known better than to allow his itching fingers to press up against the cabinet door, leaving behind smeary incriminating whorls on the glass case. He was so close now his breath misted like frost on the cold surface and noticing he held his breath.
He strained to hear the smallest of noises from the party downstairs, blood thudding hotly in his ears, rising to his face, heat unable to escape through his thick constrictive clothing.
The reason it had been passed down the bloodline was for its majesty, the proud strong contour of the eagle’s form, although he hardly noticed that. He’d been drowning in vanity his whole short life and with desperate eyes searched for something fresh, humble, something uncomplicated that he could understand.
He found all he’d been looking for in those carved eyes, clear glass seeming to fill with life as the sparse light bent within them. Rainbow colours reflected against his small face as he stood on tip-toes, straining to get his nose as close to the bird without touching the cabinet.
There was something solemn and strong in the shape of its wings, feathers sleek and head craning up towards the ceiling. But in the eyes there was sadness, an ache that even when he was that young and raw rose in him too, causing him to swallow slowly, tongue dry, mouth tasting stale as if all he’d ever eaten was ash and the dusty old books filled with an odd combination of etiquette and pureblood propaganda that were all he was read at bedtime.
There were footsteps on the stair, his mother’s voice calling his name with soft precision, the faintest of hisses issuing from her lips in her self-restricted anger. He gasped at the sound, coming slightly to his senses, remembering where he was and what he was supposed to be doing.
With little thought, he opened the case and clasped the icy glass around the base. It was heavy as he lifted it and clambered down from the chair with startled clumsiness. At his touch, the bird seemed to warm as if it were truly alive, as if its fast-beating heart had begun to flutter beneath its breast, rough feathers scored into the surface seeming soft in his sweaty palms.
As her call became louder, he ran to the window, jaw gritted, teeth bared in a frightened, threatened, determined grimace. Placing the bird on the windowsill briefly, missing the comforting weight immediately, he flung open the windows, a cold lungful of London air striking him, easing the prickly heat of his small limbs that he couldn’t escape as long as he was buttoned up so tightly in dark velvet. He pulled open the collar and three buttons, finally able to breath, small young hands trembling anxiously at his throat.
The door burst open; the light from the landing illuminated the Eagle’s eyes once more. That last glancing glare that struck the bird’s sad face tore through the outraged screech of his mother, shining with something that seemed like understanding and hope scrambled into one unnameable stare...
And he lifted the bird and threw it out into the night’s air, less polluted than within his home. For a few moment, the glass Eagle soared, suspended in the clouded sky, and then it plummeted, smashing in the square below, bursting into a million stars.
His mother’s clawed hand struck his face, leaving a bleeding scratch and he cried out in shock and pain. She shook him fiercely, face still perfect, not even a strand of dark hair falling out from its delicate arrangement. As she smacked him and shouted, he cried. Too numb to feel the pain, too relieved to feel guilt; he cried with anger and humiliation, but also with a strange sense of triumph as he thought of the glittering grains scattered across the pavement.
That night, bottom still stinging too much to lay on, he buried his face in his pillow and cried for a different reason. He knew it had been the right thing to do, to free the eagle from its cage. But he could still clearly see the reflection of recognition in its smooth colourless eye.
All he could understand at that age was that he was trapped like the glass eagle in the case, decorative and on display, and that the only thing he’d ever empathised with in his life was now gone and he was alone. Still sniffling and feeling sick, he dozed, thumb pressing into his pallet, small fingers curling around the cold damp tip of his nose.
He dreamt of leaping from his mother’s window and exploding into a thousand tiny specks of light, a star shattering into lots of littler twinkling stars, enough to make constellations and galaxies and whole new universes. And he was comforted...
~~~ * ~~~
Remus is uncertain what to make of the soft glitter of an old memory in Sirius’ eyes, stood motionless, eyes staring out into the darkness of polluted, drizzly London.
Sirius had disappeared before dinner and had not returned for it, which was of course understandable, being back here again after so many years; Molly had practically charmed Remus to his chair, insisting that he needed to eat something to fill out the small hollows between bones and wiry muscles.
Sirius does not even realise he’s there, which is something difficult to comprehend as he’s always seemed to have an almost canine-like sense of someone else’s presence, especially Remus’.
He speaks with his teacher voice, calm and easy, hoping to coax the nervous man from his reverie without making him jump, “What are you looking at?”
Sirius doesn’t turn although he blinks slowly, a sign that he is back in the world of half-light and dust however reluctantly. After a moment, he sighs, “Lots of little stars.”
Remus shuffles closer and takes Sirius’ hand, something he’s been aching to do since they all arrived to the screeching and the black curses spewing from that ghastly portrait. He remembered Sirius’ eyes transfixed on her grotesque face as she foamed at the mouth with rage, just standing unmoving when he could’ve just pulled the curtain across her and silenced the hatred. Something tells Remus that this window, this room clearly filled with once-fine heirlooms, is tied closely with her and that that is what drew Sirius to it, just like the painting.
Lifting the hand, he places a damp kiss to the back of Sirius’ hand, right against the indent between his middle and ring finger knuckles, “Any relation?”
Sirius looks at him, face impassive for a moment as if he’s still registering what Remus said, and then his eyes drop to the damp-stained carpet, a bittersweet smile drawing up at the corners of his mouth, “Brothers-in-spirit.”
Remus does not smile in return though as he notices something fearful in the depths of Sirius’ eyes. He leans closer infinitesimally and knows that Sirius understands the question he asks without words. Sirius closes his eyes wearily and presses his forehead against Remus’ murmuring in a hushed, shell-shocked drone, “I’ve been recaptured in my old cage.”
He pulls Sirius’ hand to his mouth again and he knows nothing he can say can make it right; he’s already tried arguing with Dumbledore until his vocal chords felt like they should be bleeding. Instead, he nuzzles his nose against their now entwined fingers and hums, “Come to bed with me.”
After a few minutes, Sirius glances one final time out of the window, secretly drawing in a final lungful of air, before using his wand to yank the ancient window shut.
Without another word, Remus leads him away from the glass pane, the door creaking as he closes it behind them.
~~~ FINIS ~~~
Author's note: Feedback, Feedback and more feedback please!
Sam x