All the Ways We Drowned (2/3)
Title: All the Ways We Drowned (2/3)
Author: spin_deep
Character/Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Rating: NC-17/R
Word Count: This part, about 5k. Total, about 14k
Summary: If you were receiving these notes, I would say: I love you. I'm sorry. I didn't do what they say I did. I love you.
Sirius looks back, and then forward.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Warnings: This part has a bit of violence and the barest bit of dubcon, although I'm not positive everyone would classify it that way.
Author's Notes: This turned into a bit of a monstrosity. Sirius, it turns out, has quite a lot of feels. I hope you enjoy it regardless! I love knowing what people think of my writing, so please feel free to comment! Oh, also, I'm sure you could figure this out on your own, but just to avoid any confusion: the numbers throughout this fic denote the number of months that have passed since Halloween, 1981 (aka when Voldemort showed up in Godric's Hollow and Sirius and Peter had their showdown and Sirius got arrested). So 001 is November, 1981; 144 is October, 1993, etc. Don't worry, there's not an entry for every month. That would be excessive, even for me.
080.
I've worked it out. Eighty months, nearly seven years.
I like it better when I have no idea of all the time that's passing.
084.
I keep thinking of Harry, growing up without Lily and James. Hagrid said he was taking him to his aunt's, Lily's sister's. She never really talked about Petunia to me, although I know James hated her.
I hope he's okay.
I know your life is not going at all the way you expected it to, but I wish I knew that you were looking in on Harry, every once in a while. I wish I knew that he were all right.
I said, years ago, that wishes were dead. I seem to be making more and more of them, the more time I spend here.
That's probably not very smart, but what else do I have left, Remus? I don't even have you.
You have me, though.
085.
You must not want me. I wonder if you would, if you knew that I am innocent.
I wish you knew.
089.
Some days (nights? weeks?) I imagine that you tear through the doors here, wild and wolfy, come to save me.
Dementors wouldn't touch you, Moony.
093.
The second time we were fourteen and a half.
I had gone on a date (a laughable thing, really, that young-I think it was with Alice, which makes it even funnier) and I came back to the dormitory around ten and you were in the common room with the others. The moon was waning and you had been fine, earlier that day, but you disappeared up the stairs only minutes after I joined the lot of you.
I asked James what the matter was. He shrugged and said you had mentioned that you had a lot of homework to do. Peter said he thought you might have gotten a stomach-ache from the pudding at dinner, most likely because Peter himself had a stomach-ache from the pudding, and I remembered the way you'd said, "We can't, Sirius," and the way we'd gone silent for weeks after, until James had taken each of us aside separately to work out what the matter was, and we returned to normal because hurting James was worse than
hurting ourselves.
It didn't take long for me to give up and go upstairs to find you. You were lying on the bed, face buried in your pillow, and I wanted to stretch myself out beside you, breathe the same cotton fibres you were breathing, tell you how desperate I felt when I thought of you.
But I was too young for those feelings, and you had said we couldn't, and so I sat cross-legged on my bed and told you, "It was a rubbish date, in case you were wondering." I don't think it was, really, but I hadn't been with you, so it was comparatively rubbish.
"Why'd you ask her out then?" Your voice was muffled by the pillow. You were mature enough not to add, "Not that I care," although I wouldn't have been surprised if you had. I would have.
I don't remember what I told you. I'm sure it wasn't a satisfactory answer, because you just huffed into your pillow and didn't say anything.
I know that I said, "It's not a big deal, Remus. It's not like it meant anything."
And then you swung yourself out of bed and you were livid, eyes bright, and I don't think I have ever seen you that angry, before or since, and you stood there, hands shaking, skinny arms looking immensely dangerous.
"Do I?" you asked.
Do you mean anything? That question floored me then, it floors me now, it replaces the air in my lungs with concrete.
It breaks my heart, to think that you didn't know.
"Remus," I wasn't brave enough, I didn't know enough, but I reached for you in a terrible facsimile of the first time, clasping my hands around your shaking wrists, "Of course," and I stood and took a soft kiss that I will never give back, not even if you ask for it.
"We can't," we said at the same time, as we came apart, and, "I won't go out with any more girls," I told you, but you said, "That's not fair to you," and I said, "They don't matter, though, so it isn't fair to anyone for me to go out with them," but none of that was a problem because we said, "We can't," but both of us knew that we wanted to.
096.
How mad, now, to think of what we did-how mad, but how right, as well. What else would you have had us do? Nothing, while you bit yourself and the furniture and yourself again and screamed and screamed under a trembling roof? No, it was better to have us there. We all thought so, and I know you did too, when you weren't feeling stupidly guilty.
I remember the first time I saw you transform, you were-Merlin, Moony, I could never tell you this, but I was absolutely terrified of you and astounded by you and stunned that you were Remus, my Remus, and also Moony, and raw, and terrifically fantastic. Sitting there, as Padfoot, waiting for the transformation to end-it was agonising, and how I loved you, then. You were-are, I hope-frightening, maddening, utterly wild. I froze that first night, seeing you. If James hadn't moved forward and touched his muzzle to your trembling nose, I think I would have just stared at you all night. I think you would have stared back.
098.
James and Lily's wedding is a blur of white in my head these days.
I remember laughing, feeling buoyant.
I remember thinking that everything was going to be perfect from then until the end.
I remember telling you that I loved you, and thinking that even they-Lily and James-did not understand how much.
That's absurd, of course, but some days I could barely look at you, I loved you so much.
104.
September of fifth year was a long time away from November of second, but it was naive of me to expect us to work out the Animagus thing quickly. When we finally managed it, in an abandoned classroom down in the dungeons, you nearly fell off your desk you were so surprised.
Me as a dog; James as a stag; Peter as a rat; you as you-wasn't it perfect, Moony, the way it all worked?
I still can't remember who came up with the nicknames. Oh, I know I gave you Moony. Peter probably gave me Padfoot, I gave James Prongs-and was it you who named Peter Wormtail? I hope so.
At the time I wondered if Padfoot could get away with more than I could. Remember how I used to come up to you, press my nose against your leg because I wanted you to pet me-because I wanted to know whether you would touch me.
You just pushed me away, though. I suppose you saw through it all.
105.
Thank Merlin for it, though. It's second nature now, being a dog. (Oh, the jokes we used to make about that.)
108.
It was the very end of fourth year, and life was starting to feel overwhelming and huge. Particularly when the moon was full, or in its gibbous stages, or new and empty and we were all fitful, anxious. You, most of all; I remember you just after May's full moon, when you had injured yourself, you had a cut on your arm that oozed an awful amount of blood. You stayed in the hospital wing so long my eyes stopped looking for you in your bed, your absence hit me so hard, but when you were finally released we weren't even there for you.
I got back to the dormitory first, found you sitting up on your bed, your arm held in a white bandage across your chest and your head tilted back against your pillow. You were always paler after the full moon, and you seemed even worse this time, because of the bandage and the lethargic way you were sitting. It scared me, seeing you like that.
"All right?" was all I said.
"Been better," but you smiled at me, so I knew you were going to be fine.
112.
The third time is the hardest to remember.
That's a lie. It's the easiest to remember here, but it's the hardest to recount.
It was after the second month we went out with you, and you and I had gotten into a fight; Prongs had needed to pry us off of each other, and Wormtail had bit my tail to get my mind back on track. I woke up the next morning a bit bruised, with surface scratches down my legs and an oval of red marks where your teeth had gripped my shoulder.
I washed, everything stinging; I still had some red scrapes on the pads of my fingers-apparently my paws were not quite as resilient as I had thought they were-but I assumed that when you returned from the Shrieking Shack things would continue on as normal. After all, we'd fought as humans before. Why would this be different?
Then you found us practising for Charms in an empty classroom, shut the door, and looked around, face set. "This is over."
"What is, Moony?" James didn't look up from the book he was reading.
"You're not coming with me anymore."
The three of us stared at you; you didn't even shift your feet.
"We are," James said, reasonably.
"No. You are not," you said, unreasonably.
"You try to stop us. We'll come anyway." I had spent three years of my life studying some of the most agonising spells existent to be able to be with you, you were not about to stop me.
"You will not." You pointed at me, your hand shaking, and I noticed a violet bruise snaking its way along your bare forearm. I had done that, I realised. But you had done the same to me. Fair trade, I thought.
"But, Moony," Peter began. You glared at him, eyes hard, and he shut up.
"Remus," I said. "Look, we've gotten in fights before. Why is this different?"
"Because I could kill you, Sirius. You could die because of me. Or, worse," and you gulped down air like you were drowning, "you could become like me."
"He couldn't," James interrupted, because I was still struggling with the worse, with the idea that you would rather have been dead than a werewolf, "we can't be affected when we're animals, which is why we became Animagi, which you know."
"But what if I hurt one of you so badly that you can't maintain the spell, and you turn human again? What then?"
"That didn't even seem like a possibility last night, Remus." I tried to put a hand on your shoulder but you turned away from me, so angry, so scared.
"It's not going to happen," Peter spoke up. "I did research on that, it's never happened."
"But it could, and how could I-what would I do, if I killed you," your eyes were wild as you looked at me, and you hurried to add, "any of you?"
"But it's probably impossible." James came to stand behind me. "Remus, Sirius is completely fine-you look worse than he does, to be honest-and we are not going to leave you alone on a full moon ever again. Never." We lied so innocently, so naively back then.
"We need to be with you," I explained, "it makes it better for everyone, please don't deny that."
And then you crossed that miniscule but ghastly space between us and kissed me, hard this time, so hard. When you pulled away you said, "You do not understand me."
You left.
James and Peter stared after you, and then looked at me, and I said nothing. For long moments of terrible silence I said nothing. And then I admitted, "We can't."
"How long?" James asked. He sounded tired. I remember that, Moony, the way he sounded so exhausted with all of it.
"Forever," because time was not a real concept, when it came to us; we stretched beyond it in every way, or I thought we did, "but only three times, we've only ever admitted it three times."
James held onto me while I broke, and Peter brought me chocolate, and you were alone, Remus, and I could not bear it.
And that is your voice saying, "You do not understand me," over and over in my head, cold and terrible and I loved you. Madly, Moony, I loved you madly.
115.
I speak as if you have died, but I hope you know that really I'm the one who's gone.
120.
James went to find you. I wanted to, but he told me it ought to be him. I don't know what he said to you. I imagine it was something brotherly and firm. Something obvious but real, like, "We love you. Sirius loves you. Get your head out of your arse."
But I don't know. James came up to me late that evening and told me you were in the Owlery and that you would probably see me, if I wanted to see you, and I told him he was daft, of course I wanted to see you, and I borrowed his cloak and there you were, by the wide open windows at the edge of the room. It was cold and your breath was in the air; mine was, too, and you saw the white ribbons before I became visible again.
"Hello, Padfoot."
"Moony." I tugged the cloak off, dropped it in the corner farthest from the soft hooting and rustling movements of the owls.
"That was rather public, wasn't it." You weren't asking a question, so I didn't answer you. I stood beside you, my hands in the pockets of my robes, and stared out at the Forest.
"Did I really hurt you last night?"
"What?" You glanced at me. "No, of course not, you idiot. Did I hurt you?"
"No." Of course not, you idiot.
Silence stretched and stretched un-breaking.
"Except," I finally said, "why do you always say we can't?"
"You say it, too," you pointed out.
"But you said it first." Stupid, like it mattered.
"But you agreed."
"I did. But sometimes, Remus, I feel like-"
Here is what I wanted to say: I feel like I will die if you don't touch me; like you are the fucking sun; like the way you look at me could kill an angel; like we are drowning in each other, drowning and drowning and drowning and happy about it; like your hands are the wind and I am the trees; like you are the King of Hearts and I am the King of Spades; like you are a drug and I am the vein you belong in; like you love me.
Here is what I said: "-we could."
You did not say anything for fifteen seconds.
I did not breathe for fifteen seconds.
"But, Sirius," you finally said, "there are rules-"
"Fuck them," I said. "Honestly, Remus. I understand." That word tasted bitter, so acrid after You do not understand me. "I get it," I rushed, to cover up the lingering sense of wrongness that word carried, "that you are already carrying stupid prejudices up to your ears, that you can barely even think of handling more, but, Remus, I could help you handle this one. This one I do understand, completely, down to my bones. This one I want to take on with you."
"That was mean of me," you said, "to say that you don't get it. You try so damn hard to get it, and you do, more than anyone else, you do, and I'm sorry, I'm-"
"You're avoiding the real issue," I interrupted, and that was rude of me, I'm sorry, love, "which means, I guess, you don't want to try?"
You reached out your hand and pulled mine from my pocket, twisting our fingers together until I could barely see for the force of touching you, being touched by you.
"I do, I do, I love you." You said loudly, clearly, and whenever I made a Patronus, back when I had a wand, that was the memory I used. Your voice, dry the way it got in the evenings, saying, "I do, I do, I love you."
And mine, right away, saying, "Good. I love you, too."
125.
The fourth time was a week after you told me you loved me, do you remember?
We were sitting next to each other in the library. James and Peter had been there, at the seats across from us, but they had left and we were alone, surrounded by books.
I had finished my work already, but I kept flipping through the book we were reading for Defence. I didn't want to leave you alone.
You glanced over at me at some point, realised I wasn't really reading, said, "Hey," softly, and I turned my head to look at you, to find you right there.
You had the briefest smile on your lips before they touched mine, and this kiss was hard and long and my tongue invaded your mouth and your tongue invaded mine and have I ever told you that you tasted like French mustard?
Your mouth was a delicacy.
127.
I keep cursing time, remembering things that happened so long ago. Like Harry.
We were at my flat, you and me and Peter, and Lily Flooed in, looking livid.
"Where the bloody fuck is James?"
"Beyond me," Peter said.
"What's wrong?" you asked.
"He might be with Dumbledore," I supplied.
"I have just found out that I am pregnant," Lily announced, answering you, "and he is not here."
We all went a bit hysterical then, but I managed to retain enough sense to Floo Dumbledore and ask if he'd seen James. He said he had, briefly, and that he'd said he was going home.
So then I Flooed the house in Godric's Hollow and there James was, looking worried, and I said, "You'd better come, Lily's pregnant and crazy," which was perhaps not the best way to break the news of James's coming prodigy to him. But they still loved me enough to make me Harry's godfather.
And look where that got him.
Do you think he's safe at Hogwarts? Do you think he's happy? I hope he finds someone to love the way we all loved one another.
I hope he's whole.
129.
Sometimes I wish I could relive our sixth and seventh years, and the year after, just have it all happen over again. Falling in love with you and you falling back in love with me-there were many moments in those years that I would be happy to stay in for eternity.
Waking up on a Saturday after the others had left the dormitory, and you had crawled into my bed and had fallen all over me, the way you used to, arms spread, ankles holding my ankles, teeth slightly against my shoulder-not hard or anything, just there. Waking up to that, to you around and on me, on a Saturday in our sixth year, and I wondered whether people had known how to love before we started at it, or if we had reinvented it, made it better, more real.
Sneaking out to Hogsmeade with you one Thursday night, just you and me, at the Three Broomsticks, where Madam Rosmerta gave you Firewhiskey even though she really oughtn't to have, and we both got raging drunk, so drunk, and you shouted, "I love Sirius Black," when we stumbled out of the pub and then you pressed your whole hand to your mouth and said, "Shhh it's a secret you can't know," to me and I kissed you so hard and so long that my mouth still burnt with your taste the next morning (which was not a nice morning but we suffered it together and that made it nicer).
That time when we were all sitting at the Gryffindor table at breakfast, and you reached out a hand to wipe some jam off my cheek, and you let your fingertips drift down and they dug in there, a little, your nails lingering just long enough to leave tiny half-moons along my jaw, and then you leaned across the table, like you just couldn't help it, and you kissed me, and I knew people were staring and you knew people were staring but neither of us gave a damn.
The first time Lily and James let us babysit Harry, and he cried for so long that we thought he might run out of tears, and I walked around the place holding him, and you kept humming this song your mum had sang to you when you were little, and when Harry stopped crying he held out his tiny soft hands towards you and you took him and didn't let go of him the rest of the night, and he didn't cry again, not once while you were holding him.
After a particularly horrendous full moon, when you felt like the whole world was against you, and I lay in your bed while you sat at the foot, not touching me, but saying everything. How it was growing up, about how much it hurt, letting me in deeper, letting me see so much more of you than anyone else, and after, when you crawled back towards me and kissed me once and buried your face in my chest and sighed, like you'd come home.
131.
This is the worst:
I remember waiting for you after James saved Severus from that idiotic prank I had planned for him.
I couldn't sit still, I couldn't stand still, I was going mad. James wasn't speaking to me, Peter had called me a prat, and Severus knew and could have ruined everything, and it was all my fault. I hadn't spoken to you about it, and it was terrible, horrible, the way I knew that it would be perfectly reasonable for you to cut me out of your life entirely.
And then you came walking-no, striding-out of the hospital wing. You saw me, your eyes blitzed, and you gestured for me to follow you. We got to an empty classroom and you shoved me inside, shutting the door so hard that the sound echoed up in the stone ceiling of the room.
"You," and you hit me, punched me in the gut, "utter," another fist, "fucking," and another, "imbecile." And then you fell back against the wall and covered your face with hands, which were red from hitting me.
I couldn't say anything.
"You hate him so much more," you lowered your hands, hit me with a terrible stare, "so much more than you love me."
That made no sense to me, so, "I don't," I said.
"You do," you returned. "Sirius, you just don't see it. But you would sacrifice me-my sanity, my happiness, my secret-just to injure him. I might have killed him, and don't you know how that would have ended everything for me?
"You wouldn't have," I told you. I was right, you couldn't have. "I was there, I was going to stop you from doing anything."
"And then everyone would have known about you, Sirius. Merlin, it's so fucked up and twisted. Do you know?" Then you laughed, a bitter, harsh sound. "I actually feel jealous of how much you hate him. At least you would give up everything for him."
My brain stopped.
You left.
133.
James didn't speak to me for two weeks after the Severus incident; Peter lasted seventeen days; you lasted a horrible thirty.
I didn't ask Peter or James to intercede on my behalf; I deserved the silent treatment, and I-I don't think I've ever told you-I needed the time. How was it possible, I wondered, for me to behave as if one cruel, foolish idiot mattered even a centimetre more than you? You were it, for me. I knew that, I wished that I had never made you doubt it.
On the thirtieth day of silence between us, I cleared James and Peter and Frank out of the room and waited for you on my bed. You didn't come until close to eleven, and when you saw that it was just me you were about to turn around, but then you straightened your back and came all the way into the room and said, "Yes, Sirius?" just so...sadly, so calmly, that I wanted to marry you right then, I loved you so much.
"I should never ever have done that. I should have known that nothing good would come of it-he's just a nosy git, and I shouldn't have let him get to me, but-but that doesn't matter because what does matter is that I love you and fuck, Remus, not talking to you has been like not having a heartbeat or eyes or something very important. I feel like," but I stopped talking because you had flinched and opened your own mouth and it was your voice I wanted more than anything.
"You do understand, don't you, that if you do something like that again-something that jeopardises me at the full moon, my integrity, my sanity, or someone else's safety in regards to me-then we are over. Actually over. Never speaking again." You swallowed visibly. "I love you, Sirius, and it would kill me, but I would leave you, if that happened again."
"Of course," I said, "Of course. I promise."
You nodded and turned and opened the door, and James and Peter and Frank were there, blushing. "You may as well come in," you said to them, "Sirius is not getting any tonight."
It's not like I really expected to, honest. At least I had you again.
135.
You lasted a horrible thirty days. The worst-the very worst-of all those days was the fourteenth. You went thirty days without speaking to me, but on the fourteenth, you tore me apart.
I was walking from the library to Gryffindor Tower and you came striding down the hall toward me-I could see you coming for practically ages, it was just us in the hall and it hurt-and I'd never seen you look like that, haven't since-your eyes were nearly black, your skin flushed, you looked, well, angry-livid, actually-horny, terrifying.
My mouth went dry when you got near to me, and then we passed each other, me nodding, you not saying a word, and suddenly I felt your body against mine, your hands pushing me out of the corridor and into a classroom. They fisted in my robes, your hot hands, and you shoved me back against the blackboard.
Your breath was coming hot and fast in my face and I opened my mouth, only getting out a quiet, "Remus," before your right hand let go of my robes and pressed over my lips, fingertips shutting me up.
Your forehead met mine next. You felt like you were running a temperature, the way it burned against mine, and you pressed forward hard, hard, hard, until I thought my head might break backwards through the blackboard, and you might come all the way forward and we'd just be the same person, finally, and then you dropped your hand and angled your face a little so you could kiss me.
Snarling, that's how it felt, your teeth on my lip, your tongue struggling, insistent, you tasting incongruently of something sweet, chocolate, probably. Your hands were on the blackboard, your arms caging me, and later I noticed that you'd left sweaty handprints on the blackboard, salt marks among the chalk.
You were flush against me, hard against me. You bit and bit and left a mark below my ear. Your nails scratched my stomach, once you got through my robes and shirt, robes undone and shoved unceremoniously back, hanging stuck around my arms, shirt rucked up to give you access to the skin of my stomach, so your nails could dig there. I bit and bit my lip as you raked my skin, I tasted blood when your hands drifted down and undid my trousers and you didn't even look as you jerked me off, didn't even shift your gaze from the blackboard behind my head. You burnt me to pieces, the way it was so casual for you, like some fucking job, while I was coming apart at the seams, the way I did whenever you were near me.
Having you touch me after two weeks of not even having you speak to me was ecstasy; having you touch me from such an emotional distance was the worst punishment you could have dreamt up, and I suppose that's why you did it. When I finished, shaking under your hands, under your familiar orgasmic fingers, which were acting so terribly harsh, you wiped remnants of my come on my shirt, turned-even though you were hard yourself-and left me alone.
I don't know if you told James where to find me, or if he was checking the Map and saw my name lingering in that classroom, but he did come eventually.
He found me slumped against the wall; I'd refastened my trousers and discarded the robe entirely, my t-shirt was tugged down, although I'm sure I smelled shameful and looked filthy.
"Fuck, Sirius." James stood in the doorway to the room. "Remus did this to you?"
Well. "I deserved it, I guess."
"This?" James shook his head. "No, I don't think you did."
I didn't say anything for a while, and James moved to perch on one of the desks in the front row.
Finally, I asked him, "Do you think I hate Snape more than I love Remus?"
He snorted. "I think you're immature and stupid. I think we all are. I think the only thing you actually know how to do well is fuck up, and I think that eventually you'll learn that depth of feeling means very little compared to actions." Which didn't really answer my question, although now I think it may have.
"Do you think we'll ever be all right again?"
"I am almost positive you will be."
And that was a relief, even though I still tasted blood in my mouth.
Part Three
Author: spin_deep
Character/Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Rating: NC-17/R
Word Count: This part, about 5k. Total, about 14k
Summary: If you were receiving these notes, I would say: I love you. I'm sorry. I didn't do what they say I did. I love you.
Sirius looks back, and then forward.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Warnings: This part has a bit of violence and the barest bit of dubcon, although I'm not positive everyone would classify it that way.
Author's Notes: This turned into a bit of a monstrosity. Sirius, it turns out, has quite a lot of feels. I hope you enjoy it regardless! I love knowing what people think of my writing, so please feel free to comment! Oh, also, I'm sure you could figure this out on your own, but just to avoid any confusion: the numbers throughout this fic denote the number of months that have passed since Halloween, 1981 (aka when Voldemort showed up in Godric's Hollow and Sirius and Peter had their showdown and Sirius got arrested). So 001 is November, 1981; 144 is October, 1993, etc. Don't worry, there's not an entry for every month. That would be excessive, even for me.
080.
I've worked it out. Eighty months, nearly seven years.
I like it better when I have no idea of all the time that's passing.
084.
I keep thinking of Harry, growing up without Lily and James. Hagrid said he was taking him to his aunt's, Lily's sister's. She never really talked about Petunia to me, although I know James hated her.
I hope he's okay.
I know your life is not going at all the way you expected it to, but I wish I knew that you were looking in on Harry, every once in a while. I wish I knew that he were all right.
I said, years ago, that wishes were dead. I seem to be making more and more of them, the more time I spend here.
That's probably not very smart, but what else do I have left, Remus? I don't even have you.
You have me, though.
085.
You must not want me. I wonder if you would, if you knew that I am innocent.
I wish you knew.
089.
Some days (nights? weeks?) I imagine that you tear through the doors here, wild and wolfy, come to save me.
Dementors wouldn't touch you, Moony.
093.
The second time we were fourteen and a half.
I had gone on a date (a laughable thing, really, that young-I think it was with Alice, which makes it even funnier) and I came back to the dormitory around ten and you were in the common room with the others. The moon was waning and you had been fine, earlier that day, but you disappeared up the stairs only minutes after I joined the lot of you.
I asked James what the matter was. He shrugged and said you had mentioned that you had a lot of homework to do. Peter said he thought you might have gotten a stomach-ache from the pudding at dinner, most likely because Peter himself had a stomach-ache from the pudding, and I remembered the way you'd said, "We can't, Sirius," and the way we'd gone silent for weeks after, until James had taken each of us aside separately to work out what the matter was, and we returned to normal because hurting James was worse than
hurting ourselves.
It didn't take long for me to give up and go upstairs to find you. You were lying on the bed, face buried in your pillow, and I wanted to stretch myself out beside you, breathe the same cotton fibres you were breathing, tell you how desperate I felt when I thought of you.
But I was too young for those feelings, and you had said we couldn't, and so I sat cross-legged on my bed and told you, "It was a rubbish date, in case you were wondering." I don't think it was, really, but I hadn't been with you, so it was comparatively rubbish.
"Why'd you ask her out then?" Your voice was muffled by the pillow. You were mature enough not to add, "Not that I care," although I wouldn't have been surprised if you had. I would have.
I don't remember what I told you. I'm sure it wasn't a satisfactory answer, because you just huffed into your pillow and didn't say anything.
I know that I said, "It's not a big deal, Remus. It's not like it meant anything."
And then you swung yourself out of bed and you were livid, eyes bright, and I don't think I have ever seen you that angry, before or since, and you stood there, hands shaking, skinny arms looking immensely dangerous.
"Do I?" you asked.
Do you mean anything? That question floored me then, it floors me now, it replaces the air in my lungs with concrete.
It breaks my heart, to think that you didn't know.
"Remus," I wasn't brave enough, I didn't know enough, but I reached for you in a terrible facsimile of the first time, clasping my hands around your shaking wrists, "Of course," and I stood and took a soft kiss that I will never give back, not even if you ask for it.
"We can't," we said at the same time, as we came apart, and, "I won't go out with any more girls," I told you, but you said, "That's not fair to you," and I said, "They don't matter, though, so it isn't fair to anyone for me to go out with them," but none of that was a problem because we said, "We can't," but both of us knew that we wanted to.
096.
How mad, now, to think of what we did-how mad, but how right, as well. What else would you have had us do? Nothing, while you bit yourself and the furniture and yourself again and screamed and screamed under a trembling roof? No, it was better to have us there. We all thought so, and I know you did too, when you weren't feeling stupidly guilty.
I remember the first time I saw you transform, you were-Merlin, Moony, I could never tell you this, but I was absolutely terrified of you and astounded by you and stunned that you were Remus, my Remus, and also Moony, and raw, and terrifically fantastic. Sitting there, as Padfoot, waiting for the transformation to end-it was agonising, and how I loved you, then. You were-are, I hope-frightening, maddening, utterly wild. I froze that first night, seeing you. If James hadn't moved forward and touched his muzzle to your trembling nose, I think I would have just stared at you all night. I think you would have stared back.
098.
James and Lily's wedding is a blur of white in my head these days.
I remember laughing, feeling buoyant.
I remember thinking that everything was going to be perfect from then until the end.
I remember telling you that I loved you, and thinking that even they-Lily and James-did not understand how much.
That's absurd, of course, but some days I could barely look at you, I loved you so much.
104.
September of fifth year was a long time away from November of second, but it was naive of me to expect us to work out the Animagus thing quickly. When we finally managed it, in an abandoned classroom down in the dungeons, you nearly fell off your desk you were so surprised.
Me as a dog; James as a stag; Peter as a rat; you as you-wasn't it perfect, Moony, the way it all worked?
I still can't remember who came up with the nicknames. Oh, I know I gave you Moony. Peter probably gave me Padfoot, I gave James Prongs-and was it you who named Peter Wormtail? I hope so.
At the time I wondered if Padfoot could get away with more than I could. Remember how I used to come up to you, press my nose against your leg because I wanted you to pet me-because I wanted to know whether you would touch me.
You just pushed me away, though. I suppose you saw through it all.
105.
Thank Merlin for it, though. It's second nature now, being a dog. (Oh, the jokes we used to make about that.)
108.
It was the very end of fourth year, and life was starting to feel overwhelming and huge. Particularly when the moon was full, or in its gibbous stages, or new and empty and we were all fitful, anxious. You, most of all; I remember you just after May's full moon, when you had injured yourself, you had a cut on your arm that oozed an awful amount of blood. You stayed in the hospital wing so long my eyes stopped looking for you in your bed, your absence hit me so hard, but when you were finally released we weren't even there for you.
I got back to the dormitory first, found you sitting up on your bed, your arm held in a white bandage across your chest and your head tilted back against your pillow. You were always paler after the full moon, and you seemed even worse this time, because of the bandage and the lethargic way you were sitting. It scared me, seeing you like that.
"All right?" was all I said.
"Been better," but you smiled at me, so I knew you were going to be fine.
112.
The third time is the hardest to remember.
That's a lie. It's the easiest to remember here, but it's the hardest to recount.
It was after the second month we went out with you, and you and I had gotten into a fight; Prongs had needed to pry us off of each other, and Wormtail had bit my tail to get my mind back on track. I woke up the next morning a bit bruised, with surface scratches down my legs and an oval of red marks where your teeth had gripped my shoulder.
I washed, everything stinging; I still had some red scrapes on the pads of my fingers-apparently my paws were not quite as resilient as I had thought they were-but I assumed that when you returned from the Shrieking Shack things would continue on as normal. After all, we'd fought as humans before. Why would this be different?
Then you found us practising for Charms in an empty classroom, shut the door, and looked around, face set. "This is over."
"What is, Moony?" James didn't look up from the book he was reading.
"You're not coming with me anymore."
The three of us stared at you; you didn't even shift your feet.
"We are," James said, reasonably.
"No. You are not," you said, unreasonably.
"You try to stop us. We'll come anyway." I had spent three years of my life studying some of the most agonising spells existent to be able to be with you, you were not about to stop me.
"You will not." You pointed at me, your hand shaking, and I noticed a violet bruise snaking its way along your bare forearm. I had done that, I realised. But you had done the same to me. Fair trade, I thought.
"But, Moony," Peter began. You glared at him, eyes hard, and he shut up.
"Remus," I said. "Look, we've gotten in fights before. Why is this different?"
"Because I could kill you, Sirius. You could die because of me. Or, worse," and you gulped down air like you were drowning, "you could become like me."
"He couldn't," James interrupted, because I was still struggling with the worse, with the idea that you would rather have been dead than a werewolf, "we can't be affected when we're animals, which is why we became Animagi, which you know."
"But what if I hurt one of you so badly that you can't maintain the spell, and you turn human again? What then?"
"That didn't even seem like a possibility last night, Remus." I tried to put a hand on your shoulder but you turned away from me, so angry, so scared.
"It's not going to happen," Peter spoke up. "I did research on that, it's never happened."
"But it could, and how could I-what would I do, if I killed you," your eyes were wild as you looked at me, and you hurried to add, "any of you?"
"But it's probably impossible." James came to stand behind me. "Remus, Sirius is completely fine-you look worse than he does, to be honest-and we are not going to leave you alone on a full moon ever again. Never." We lied so innocently, so naively back then.
"We need to be with you," I explained, "it makes it better for everyone, please don't deny that."
And then you crossed that miniscule but ghastly space between us and kissed me, hard this time, so hard. When you pulled away you said, "You do not understand me."
You left.
James and Peter stared after you, and then looked at me, and I said nothing. For long moments of terrible silence I said nothing. And then I admitted, "We can't."
"How long?" James asked. He sounded tired. I remember that, Moony, the way he sounded so exhausted with all of it.
"Forever," because time was not a real concept, when it came to us; we stretched beyond it in every way, or I thought we did, "but only three times, we've only ever admitted it three times."
James held onto me while I broke, and Peter brought me chocolate, and you were alone, Remus, and I could not bear it.
And that is your voice saying, "You do not understand me," over and over in my head, cold and terrible and I loved you. Madly, Moony, I loved you madly.
115.
I speak as if you have died, but I hope you know that really I'm the one who's gone.
120.
James went to find you. I wanted to, but he told me it ought to be him. I don't know what he said to you. I imagine it was something brotherly and firm. Something obvious but real, like, "We love you. Sirius loves you. Get your head out of your arse."
But I don't know. James came up to me late that evening and told me you were in the Owlery and that you would probably see me, if I wanted to see you, and I told him he was daft, of course I wanted to see you, and I borrowed his cloak and there you were, by the wide open windows at the edge of the room. It was cold and your breath was in the air; mine was, too, and you saw the white ribbons before I became visible again.
"Hello, Padfoot."
"Moony." I tugged the cloak off, dropped it in the corner farthest from the soft hooting and rustling movements of the owls.
"That was rather public, wasn't it." You weren't asking a question, so I didn't answer you. I stood beside you, my hands in the pockets of my robes, and stared out at the Forest.
"Did I really hurt you last night?"
"What?" You glanced at me. "No, of course not, you idiot. Did I hurt you?"
"No." Of course not, you idiot.
Silence stretched and stretched un-breaking.
"Except," I finally said, "why do you always say we can't?"
"You say it, too," you pointed out.
"But you said it first." Stupid, like it mattered.
"But you agreed."
"I did. But sometimes, Remus, I feel like-"
Here is what I wanted to say: I feel like I will die if you don't touch me; like you are the fucking sun; like the way you look at me could kill an angel; like we are drowning in each other, drowning and drowning and drowning and happy about it; like your hands are the wind and I am the trees; like you are the King of Hearts and I am the King of Spades; like you are a drug and I am the vein you belong in; like you love me.
Here is what I said: "-we could."
You did not say anything for fifteen seconds.
I did not breathe for fifteen seconds.
"But, Sirius," you finally said, "there are rules-"
"Fuck them," I said. "Honestly, Remus. I understand." That word tasted bitter, so acrid after You do not understand me. "I get it," I rushed, to cover up the lingering sense of wrongness that word carried, "that you are already carrying stupid prejudices up to your ears, that you can barely even think of handling more, but, Remus, I could help you handle this one. This one I do understand, completely, down to my bones. This one I want to take on with you."
"That was mean of me," you said, "to say that you don't get it. You try so damn hard to get it, and you do, more than anyone else, you do, and I'm sorry, I'm-"
"You're avoiding the real issue," I interrupted, and that was rude of me, I'm sorry, love, "which means, I guess, you don't want to try?"
You reached out your hand and pulled mine from my pocket, twisting our fingers together until I could barely see for the force of touching you, being touched by you.
"I do, I do, I love you." You said loudly, clearly, and whenever I made a Patronus, back when I had a wand, that was the memory I used. Your voice, dry the way it got in the evenings, saying, "I do, I do, I love you."
And mine, right away, saying, "Good. I love you, too."
125.
The fourth time was a week after you told me you loved me, do you remember?
We were sitting next to each other in the library. James and Peter had been there, at the seats across from us, but they had left and we were alone, surrounded by books.
I had finished my work already, but I kept flipping through the book we were reading for Defence. I didn't want to leave you alone.
You glanced over at me at some point, realised I wasn't really reading, said, "Hey," softly, and I turned my head to look at you, to find you right there.
You had the briefest smile on your lips before they touched mine, and this kiss was hard and long and my tongue invaded your mouth and your tongue invaded mine and have I ever told you that you tasted like French mustard?
Your mouth was a delicacy.
127.
I keep cursing time, remembering things that happened so long ago. Like Harry.
We were at my flat, you and me and Peter, and Lily Flooed in, looking livid.
"Where the bloody fuck is James?"
"Beyond me," Peter said.
"What's wrong?" you asked.
"He might be with Dumbledore," I supplied.
"I have just found out that I am pregnant," Lily announced, answering you, "and he is not here."
We all went a bit hysterical then, but I managed to retain enough sense to Floo Dumbledore and ask if he'd seen James. He said he had, briefly, and that he'd said he was going home.
So then I Flooed the house in Godric's Hollow and there James was, looking worried, and I said, "You'd better come, Lily's pregnant and crazy," which was perhaps not the best way to break the news of James's coming prodigy to him. But they still loved me enough to make me Harry's godfather.
And look where that got him.
Do you think he's safe at Hogwarts? Do you think he's happy? I hope he finds someone to love the way we all loved one another.
I hope he's whole.
129.
Sometimes I wish I could relive our sixth and seventh years, and the year after, just have it all happen over again. Falling in love with you and you falling back in love with me-there were many moments in those years that I would be happy to stay in for eternity.
Waking up on a Saturday after the others had left the dormitory, and you had crawled into my bed and had fallen all over me, the way you used to, arms spread, ankles holding my ankles, teeth slightly against my shoulder-not hard or anything, just there. Waking up to that, to you around and on me, on a Saturday in our sixth year, and I wondered whether people had known how to love before we started at it, or if we had reinvented it, made it better, more real.
Sneaking out to Hogsmeade with you one Thursday night, just you and me, at the Three Broomsticks, where Madam Rosmerta gave you Firewhiskey even though she really oughtn't to have, and we both got raging drunk, so drunk, and you shouted, "I love Sirius Black," when we stumbled out of the pub and then you pressed your whole hand to your mouth and said, "Shhh it's a secret you can't know," to me and I kissed you so hard and so long that my mouth still burnt with your taste the next morning (which was not a nice morning but we suffered it together and that made it nicer).
That time when we were all sitting at the Gryffindor table at breakfast, and you reached out a hand to wipe some jam off my cheek, and you let your fingertips drift down and they dug in there, a little, your nails lingering just long enough to leave tiny half-moons along my jaw, and then you leaned across the table, like you just couldn't help it, and you kissed me, and I knew people were staring and you knew people were staring but neither of us gave a damn.
The first time Lily and James let us babysit Harry, and he cried for so long that we thought he might run out of tears, and I walked around the place holding him, and you kept humming this song your mum had sang to you when you were little, and when Harry stopped crying he held out his tiny soft hands towards you and you took him and didn't let go of him the rest of the night, and he didn't cry again, not once while you were holding him.
After a particularly horrendous full moon, when you felt like the whole world was against you, and I lay in your bed while you sat at the foot, not touching me, but saying everything. How it was growing up, about how much it hurt, letting me in deeper, letting me see so much more of you than anyone else, and after, when you crawled back towards me and kissed me once and buried your face in my chest and sighed, like you'd come home.
131.
This is the worst:
I remember waiting for you after James saved Severus from that idiotic prank I had planned for him.
I couldn't sit still, I couldn't stand still, I was going mad. James wasn't speaking to me, Peter had called me a prat, and Severus knew and could have ruined everything, and it was all my fault. I hadn't spoken to you about it, and it was terrible, horrible, the way I knew that it would be perfectly reasonable for you to cut me out of your life entirely.
And then you came walking-no, striding-out of the hospital wing. You saw me, your eyes blitzed, and you gestured for me to follow you. We got to an empty classroom and you shoved me inside, shutting the door so hard that the sound echoed up in the stone ceiling of the room.
"You," and you hit me, punched me in the gut, "utter," another fist, "fucking," and another, "imbecile." And then you fell back against the wall and covered your face with hands, which were red from hitting me.
I couldn't say anything.
"You hate him so much more," you lowered your hands, hit me with a terrible stare, "so much more than you love me."
That made no sense to me, so, "I don't," I said.
"You do," you returned. "Sirius, you just don't see it. But you would sacrifice me-my sanity, my happiness, my secret-just to injure him. I might have killed him, and don't you know how that would have ended everything for me?
"You wouldn't have," I told you. I was right, you couldn't have. "I was there, I was going to stop you from doing anything."
"And then everyone would have known about you, Sirius. Merlin, it's so fucked up and twisted. Do you know?" Then you laughed, a bitter, harsh sound. "I actually feel jealous of how much you hate him. At least you would give up everything for him."
My brain stopped.
You left.
133.
James didn't speak to me for two weeks after the Severus incident; Peter lasted seventeen days; you lasted a horrible thirty.
I didn't ask Peter or James to intercede on my behalf; I deserved the silent treatment, and I-I don't think I've ever told you-I needed the time. How was it possible, I wondered, for me to behave as if one cruel, foolish idiot mattered even a centimetre more than you? You were it, for me. I knew that, I wished that I had never made you doubt it.
On the thirtieth day of silence between us, I cleared James and Peter and Frank out of the room and waited for you on my bed. You didn't come until close to eleven, and when you saw that it was just me you were about to turn around, but then you straightened your back and came all the way into the room and said, "Yes, Sirius?" just so...sadly, so calmly, that I wanted to marry you right then, I loved you so much.
"I should never ever have done that. I should have known that nothing good would come of it-he's just a nosy git, and I shouldn't have let him get to me, but-but that doesn't matter because what does matter is that I love you and fuck, Remus, not talking to you has been like not having a heartbeat or eyes or something very important. I feel like," but I stopped talking because you had flinched and opened your own mouth and it was your voice I wanted more than anything.
"You do understand, don't you, that if you do something like that again-something that jeopardises me at the full moon, my integrity, my sanity, or someone else's safety in regards to me-then we are over. Actually over. Never speaking again." You swallowed visibly. "I love you, Sirius, and it would kill me, but I would leave you, if that happened again."
"Of course," I said, "Of course. I promise."
You nodded and turned and opened the door, and James and Peter and Frank were there, blushing. "You may as well come in," you said to them, "Sirius is not getting any tonight."
It's not like I really expected to, honest. At least I had you again.
135.
You lasted a horrible thirty days. The worst-the very worst-of all those days was the fourteenth. You went thirty days without speaking to me, but on the fourteenth, you tore me apart.
I was walking from the library to Gryffindor Tower and you came striding down the hall toward me-I could see you coming for practically ages, it was just us in the hall and it hurt-and I'd never seen you look like that, haven't since-your eyes were nearly black, your skin flushed, you looked, well, angry-livid, actually-horny, terrifying.
My mouth went dry when you got near to me, and then we passed each other, me nodding, you not saying a word, and suddenly I felt your body against mine, your hands pushing me out of the corridor and into a classroom. They fisted in my robes, your hot hands, and you shoved me back against the blackboard.
Your breath was coming hot and fast in my face and I opened my mouth, only getting out a quiet, "Remus," before your right hand let go of my robes and pressed over my lips, fingertips shutting me up.
Your forehead met mine next. You felt like you were running a temperature, the way it burned against mine, and you pressed forward hard, hard, hard, until I thought my head might break backwards through the blackboard, and you might come all the way forward and we'd just be the same person, finally, and then you dropped your hand and angled your face a little so you could kiss me.
Snarling, that's how it felt, your teeth on my lip, your tongue struggling, insistent, you tasting incongruently of something sweet, chocolate, probably. Your hands were on the blackboard, your arms caging me, and later I noticed that you'd left sweaty handprints on the blackboard, salt marks among the chalk.
You were flush against me, hard against me. You bit and bit and left a mark below my ear. Your nails scratched my stomach, once you got through my robes and shirt, robes undone and shoved unceremoniously back, hanging stuck around my arms, shirt rucked up to give you access to the skin of my stomach, so your nails could dig there. I bit and bit my lip as you raked my skin, I tasted blood when your hands drifted down and undid my trousers and you didn't even look as you jerked me off, didn't even shift your gaze from the blackboard behind my head. You burnt me to pieces, the way it was so casual for you, like some fucking job, while I was coming apart at the seams, the way I did whenever you were near me.
Having you touch me after two weeks of not even having you speak to me was ecstasy; having you touch me from such an emotional distance was the worst punishment you could have dreamt up, and I suppose that's why you did it. When I finished, shaking under your hands, under your familiar orgasmic fingers, which were acting so terribly harsh, you wiped remnants of my come on my shirt, turned-even though you were hard yourself-and left me alone.
I don't know if you told James where to find me, or if he was checking the Map and saw my name lingering in that classroom, but he did come eventually.
He found me slumped against the wall; I'd refastened my trousers and discarded the robe entirely, my t-shirt was tugged down, although I'm sure I smelled shameful and looked filthy.
"Fuck, Sirius." James stood in the doorway to the room. "Remus did this to you?"
Well. "I deserved it, I guess."
"This?" James shook his head. "No, I don't think you did."
I didn't say anything for a while, and James moved to perch on one of the desks in the front row.
Finally, I asked him, "Do you think I hate Snape more than I love Remus?"
He snorted. "I think you're immature and stupid. I think we all are. I think the only thing you actually know how to do well is fuck up, and I think that eventually you'll learn that depth of feeling means very little compared to actions." Which didn't really answer my question, although now I think it may have.
"Do you think we'll ever be all right again?"
"I am almost positive you will be."
And that was a relief, even though I still tasted blood in my mouth.
Part Three