Fantastic Beasts and How to Win Their Hearts (7/7) - FINAL CHAPTER
FANTASTIC BEASTS AND HOW TO WIN THEIR HEARTS: A RETELLING OF BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
by
stereolightning and
starfishstar
SUMMARY:
A man with nowhere else to turn agrees to live forever in a remote mansion that exists in perpetual autumn, his host a reclusive character known only as the Beast. By turns attentive and taciturn, the monstrous lord of the house keeps his dark secrets close to his chest, yet both host and guest find themselves increasingly captivated by one another. But how can a Beast give his heart while he remains a prisoner of his own curse?
A fusion of Harry Potter with Beauty and the Beast, told in seven chapters.
CHAPTER SEVEN
At the sight of the Beast, the werewolf lowered itself into a crouch and growled.
The Beast gave a howl of rage of his own. “You foul creature!” he cried. “What have you done to Remus?”
The werewolf lifted its nose and sniffed the air, a look that seemed almost confused crossing its lupine face.
“Did you eat him, you monster? I’ll kill you.” The Beast lunged, but the werewolf was fast. It shot around Sirius’ legs and up the cellar stairs. He heard it crashing through the kitchen, knocking down pots and pans in its frenzied flight. “Come back!” the Beast shouted, and gave chase.
The werewolf darted through the rooms and corridors with surprising ease, as if it knew the layout of the house already, and dashed into the garden. The Beast finally caught up with it by the potting shed where he kept his Velocette.
“You murderer!” he screamed, and threw himself on top of the werewolf, which snarled and thrashed beneath his weight. It opened its jaws, its sharp teeth terrible in the last pale light of the setting moon, preparing to bite-and then it whined in confusion and snapped its jaws closed. Sirius pressed his advantage, trying to get his hands around the creature’s throat. “I-will-kill you,” he grunted. “You killed Remus, I will-”
The wolf whined again, some strangely human emotion in its yellow eyes. Sirius’ fingers finally found purchase around its throat and squeezed. He could feel its pulse thudding wildly. Then the animal began to contort under his hands, its body bucking as if it would burst out of its very skin.
Morning was near. The moon was setting.
The wolf emitted the most piteous sound Sirius had ever heard-a resonant moan, full of fear and pain and shame. The creature’s tail was receding into its lower spine and its legs were growing longer, bending the other way. Its ribcage expanded and changed shape, and on and on it moaned, flecks of blood flying from its mouth. Its claws flattened and widened, becoming fingernails, and its paws became hands, the dewclaws stretching painfully until they became thumbs. Last, and worst of all, the face-the long snout shrank and separated into lips and nose, bending the creature’s moan into a human scream. The teeth retracted as the skull gained mass. The bones of the face settled into an all too familiar countenance, and last, the eyes changed from round and yellow to human, etched round with lines, framed by eyebrows brindled with grey.
Those eyes fixed on Sirius, refusing to let go.
Remus’ body lay at an odd angle, completely unclothed, on the cold stones of the courtyard. He was shaking. He wheezed, trying to speak.
“Don’t,” Sirius whispered, horrified by the harm he had very nearly done. He scrambled off of Remus, terrified now of hurting him, but kept one hand resting gently on Remus’ shoulder, urging him not to move. He used the other to find his wand and Summon a length of fabric, something velvety and ancient from the drawing room. He wrapped Remus in it, then picked him up tenderly like a child. In human form, Remus weighed next to nothing.
“I’m sorry,” Remus croaked, his voice muffled against Sirius’ shoulder.
“You should have said something, before,” Sirius replied, his voice harsher than he meant it to be. “I didn’t know it was you. I nearly killed you.”
“Most people-don’t like-werewolves as houseguests,” Remus wheezed.
“I’m not most people,” Sirius growled, and he carried Remus into the house, calling out as he went for the house-elves to draw a bath.
He deposited Remus in the ornate upstairs bathroom, in the claw-foot tub under the care of the house-elves who surged in around him, chattering and fussing. Then the Beast walked away, back out to the garden where dawn was slowly breaking through the autumn chill.
#
Remus’ host had left him in the bath and stalked away. His expressions were difficult to read, and Remus wasn’t sure if he was angry. He must be angry. Remus had misrepresented himself, played guest under false pretences, then transformed within the house itself, mistakenly believing he would be a danger to no one if he stayed within the locked cellar.
He should have known better. He was always a danger. Even-perhaps especially-to this kind-hearted Beast.
Groaning with the effort, Remus rose and stepped out of the claw-foot tub. The house-elves, Blinken, Finchlet, Tothby, and Mag, clustered eagerly around him and offered a fresh set of borrowed clothes.
“This is too much,” Remus protested. “I’ve endangered you all. I should leave, not accept clothes from you.”
“Endangered!” Mag exclaimed. “Mr Remus Lupin is not endangering elves, sir! Elves is safe from werewolves, sir.”
“Really?” Remus asked, surprised for a moment out of his self-pity and guilt. “Are you absolutely certain? A werewolf wouldn’t try to attack you?”
“Elves is not humans, sir,” sniffed Finchlet, as if this were very obvious indeed. Which, perhaps, it was.
Tothby had fetched Remus’ wand from the cellar, and presented it now with a flourish.
“You’re too kind to me,” Remus said, surprised and moved.
“Remus Lupin, you is our master’s guest, sir,” said Blinken, with an air of this explaining everything.
After thanking the elves, Remus made his way, slow and creaking, downstairs. His bones still ached, though the warm bath had helped. Sirius was nowhere to be found in the house, so Remus continued out to the garden in search of his host, apologies already crowding at his tongue. The sun was up. Another full moon survived, but at what cost? Had he destroyed the trust of the one man from whom he was coming to feel he might wish it most of all?
He found Sirius by the potting shed where he kept his motorbike. He’d pulled the motorbike out of the shed, but didn’t seem to be working on it. He simply stood, hands resting on its seat and head bowed, as if deep in thought.
“I’m...sorry,” Remus said from behind him.
The Beast turned. “Remus.”
“I lied to you,” Remus said, taking a cautious step closer. “I lied by omission. I should never have spent even a single night beneath your roof without telling you the truth about myself. Instead, I spent a month.”
“Remus,” Sirius said again, and it sounded like a growl. Remus had to work to keep himself from taking a step backwards, so fearsome did Sirius look.
“I’ll go,” Remus said. Surely if the Beast himself had been able to leave the grounds last night, then Remus would be able to do so too. Especially now that he would be unwelcome here. “I only wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. And to thank you-for your hospitality, for everything. You’ve done so much more for me than I ever could have asked for.”
“You’re leaving?” The Beast crossed the space between them in two long strides. “Why?”
“Why? Because I’m a werewolf! Because-because, how could I possibly stay now that you know?”
“What if I don’t care?” Sirius growled.
“How can you not care!” Remus cried. “Don’t you understand? I’ll always be like this, every full moon. You have the hope that your curse may be lifted someday, but I don’t have that chance. Every month for the rest of my life, this is what I will be.”
“And if I still don’t care?” The Beast’s paws had come to rest on Remus’ arms now, sliding slowly up from his elbows towards his shoulders. It was strange how human the Beast’s face appeared sometimes, from certain angles. Or perhaps it was in certain kinds of light, like the rosy dawn that was now washing the garden in warmth. “I thought-I thought you’d left. That was the worst possible thing. Far worse than what I learned when I did find you.”
“But-” Remus protested.
“And my curse won’t ever be broken either,” Sirius said, his voice sliding into a snarl. “Last night, I found the man who cast it, the traitor who did this to me. He refused to break the curse, and now he’s disappeared. That hope is gone.” His hands-no, paws, they were paws, of course, though their touch felt like that of long, elegant fingers-clutched at Remus’ sleeves. “But I deserve it. I am a Beast, I deserve to be a Beast.”
“How can you say that?” Remus demanded. “You are so kind. You care so much. That boy in the mirror was Harry Potter, wasn’t he? And you’ve been looking out for him from afar all this time, even though you couldn’t be there with him. How can you possibly think you’re a monster?”
“I’m a Beast.” Sirius’ low voice quavered, as if it would break with emotion.
“Are you sure?” Remus whispered, gazing into that almost-human face. He wondered to think he’d believed the Beast’s head shaggy and overly large, his ears dog-like. He looked very much like a man.
“I-I don’t know,” Sirius whispered back, his eyes wide and his voice hushed with wonder. “I feel-”
“Sirius,” Remus exclaimed, because he was sure of it now. “Look!”
Sirius looked down with wonder at his hands, his human hands, where they held tightly to Remus’ arms. He shook his head from side to side, looking startled at how lightly and easily it moved. “Am I-?”
“You’re a man,” Remus said, awed. “Aren’t you? When I look at you, I see a man.”
“No-it can’t be-”
But even as he said it, Sirius’ body was growing smaller, slimmer, although still quite tall.
“It can’t be,” Sirius repeated. There was no question about it, he looked like a man now, like any other man. “Peter’s the one who cast the curse, he’s the only one who should be able to lift it.”
“Sirius,” Remus said slowly, the thought unfurling in front of him only as he spoke it aloud. “Wasn’t part of the curse not being able to leave the house and grounds?”
“Yes,” Sirius said, looking back at him, baffled. His hands, his lovely, elegant hands, were still wrapped warmly around Remus’ arms.
“But you left the grounds last night.”
“Because I had to. Harry needed me.”
“But could it be…what if you broke the curse yourself? You broke away from here through the force of your caring. What if that caring broke the curse entirely?”
“That’s not possible,” Sirius breathed, his eyes wide and fixed on Remus. Those grey eyes were still the same as the Beast’s had been, but they had resolved into a new face, set like jewels above high cheekbones. “Ancient transformative curses like that, only the one who cast the spell can lift it.”
“Did you actually see him cast the curse?” Remus asked.
“I-no. It was in the middle of a duel with dust flying everywhere, and the air was full of smoke and light. But something happened, right in the moment when Peter died, or when I thought he died. Something changed in me, and as soon as I was able to stop and take stock, I found I was a Beast.”
Remus felt his own eyes growing wide, reflecting back the wonderment etched on Sirius’ beautiful human face.
“Some are cursed by others,” Remus said softly, thinking of his own curse, his illness, inflicted on him when he was such a small child. “But others curse themselves. Sirius, is it possible… When you duelled this friend who had betrayed you, and watched him disappear in front of you before you could take the revenge you sought, at a time when you were full already of grief and guilt and remorse over the friends you’d lost… Sirius, is it possible the curse came from within yourself?”
Sirius stretched, arching his back. He glanced down at his own hands on Remus’ arms, flexing his human fingers and marvelling at the sight. Then he leaned his head back to gaze up the sky and laughed in delight at the sensation. Finally, he lowered his head again and returned his gaze to Remus. “Yes,” he said in a low, awed voice. “Yes, it must be possible. Nothing else makes sense. But then…how did I break the curse? Why now?”
Sirius’ voice was different now, smooth and rich. His hands were warm at Remus’ shoulders, and he was standing so very close. In human form he was tall, dark-haired, a man of aristocratic mien and desperate beauty. His black hair was long, unkempt, and his over-large robes hung on him like rags, but even in his dishevelled state, he was heartbreakingly handsome. A Caravaggio saint reimagined in a Gothic idiom.
This was no Beast, but a Beauty. Remus hesitated, stuttering a step backwards, all too aware of his own shabbiness, his greying temples, his patched robes. What could such a beautiful man want with someone like Remus Lupin, werewolf?
“It seems,” Remus said, his voice catching as he tried to keep hold of his thoughts despite this proximity, Sirius’ body so close to his own, “that you did it with the force of your caring. Your love. For-for Harry. If your curse came out of your grief at having failed those you loved, then your caring for Harry healed it.”
“Not only Harry,” Sirius murmured, his eyes locked on Remus’. His voice had dropped to a sensuous thrum. “Who showed me how to let someone back into my life after all these years? Who made me laugh again?”
Remus stared. Was Sirius saying-did he really mean-?
Remus’ own curse was one that could never be cured. But his loneliness, that was a thing he’d brought upon himself. Perhaps it was also a thing that could end.
Seized by mad impulse, Remus leaned in and kissed Sirius full on the mouth. Where before there had been the fur of a beast, now there was warm skin and rough stubble, the sensation of it against Remus’ cheek both ferocious and tender. Sirius’ hands tightened on his arms, and Remus felt desire sparking through him, burning all the way out to the tips of his fingers. His own hands rose of their own accord and found Sirius’ hair, the warm skin at the back of his neck.
“You fought only in self-defence, you know,” Sirius murmured against Remus’ cheek. “When you were the wolf. You never attacked. I don’t think I counted as human to the wolf, when I-when I was-a Beast. I don’t think you’re any danger to me. If you’re worried about that.”
“You’re a Beast no more, Sirius.” Remus pulled away from him, took a step backwards, afraid to give in to the hope that was beating wildly his heart.
“But I could be again.” Sirius took a half step forwards, closing the gap between them. “If you wanted me to. I could accompany you at full moons. I could change myself back, I’m sure of it.” A jagged, lovely, hopeful, mischievous grin stole across Sirius’ face. He extended one hand in the space between them. It became a paw again, then a hand once more.
Remus stared.
“I would be safe from you, see? Say yes, say you’ll let me transform with you, so you don’t have to be alone.”
“We can try it,” Remus agreed cautiously. “We’ll make a controlled experiment of it at the next full moon, to make certain you’re truly safe from me.”
Sirius rolled his eyes, bright and merry, at Remus’ caution. “Yes, yes, all right, precise and controlled experiments only.” Then his face lit up, as he took in what Remus had said. “Does that mean you’ll stay?”
Remus stared back at him, confused. “What do you mean?”
“You’re no longer bound here by any curse, Remus. You can go whenever you choose. But I wonder if… I was hoping… Will you stay, of your own free will?”
Sirius’ gaze was so desperately hopeful. No one had ever looked at Remus like that. And Remus knew there wasn’t any question. He never wanted to go another day without those eyes meeting his. The very thought-that this was possible, that he could stay and have this joy every day-left him giddy. He caught Sirius’ hand, the one that had been a paw and then a hand again, in his own.
“Yes,” he said. “Sirius, of course, yes.”
This time it was Sirius who surged forwards and caught Remus’ lips. Remus gasped into the kiss, the urgency of Sirius’ mouth on his. His hand reached again for the warmth of the nape of Sirius’ neck. Sirius growled against his lips and pulled him closer.
A patter, then a rumble. Startled, Remus looked away from Sirius and his breathless kiss, and saw that the apples were falling from their boughs, thudding against the ground. The fiery leaves of nearby trees shuddered, then dropped. The garden’s smaller plants drooped and wilted, drying into pale winter husks of themselves. Snow burst from the sky, dusting the garden and the eaves of the house with shimmering white. Remus turned back to Sirius and watched, entranced, as flakes of snow landed on Sirius’ long, dark eyelashes.
Sirius blinked, and laughed in delight. He stuck his tongue out and caught one snowflake perfectly on its tip.
And already the snow, too, was melting. Bright new shoots pushed their way out of the soil, leaves and buds unfurled on each tree and shrub. The grey bushes straightened their stalks and burst out with leaves that stretched towards the sun. In every direction Remus looked, the world was a riot of green in every hue and shade. He glanced at Sirius, who was grinning with wild joy, and when he looked back at the garden, roses of every colour were bursting into bloom-tropical red, velvety orange, even a delicately chartreuse specimen as big as a dinner plate, peeking out from behind Sirius’ knee. The apple trees were a maelstrom of pink and white blossoms.
“It’s wonderful,” Remus breathed. His eyes found Sirius’, their grey now bright with life and fervour.
“It’s right,” Sirius said. “This is right. Remus, there’s so much to do, I’ve got to undo the damage I did when I let that traitor escape a second time. But I know we can do it. We’re going to start setting things right.” Remus could feel how Sirius trembled in his arms, but his voice was strong. “Let it come. The future. All the things we have to do.” His hand slid down Remus’ arm and found his hand. “And all the things we wish to do, too.”
The grounds now matched the forest beyond, bursting with new life and colour.
Grinning with delight at the sights of it, Sirius said, “I think Harry should live here, if he wants to. In the holidays, whenever he needs somewhere to call home. Would you mind that, if he came here? Having someone else in the house?”
“Sirius, I’m still a werewolf. I would be a danger to him.”
“We’ll work something out. We have the map. We’ll find you somewhere secure-I’ll build a new wing to the house if I have to. And I’ll be here, looking out for you. Harry can come home. You can be home.”
Remus’ heart was in his throat. Was it really possible? Could this-could Sirius-be his home? Almost afraid of the intensity of his happiness, Remus reached for levity. “Oh, I don’t know, don’t you think it might get a bit crowded? I’d hate to have to share the five bathrooms here with someone else.”
Sirius gave a laugh like a bark and clasped Remus more tightly in his arms. Sirius’ eyes were so bright with joy. And Remus found he believed him, beyond any shadow of a doubt. This was safe. This was home.
Remus laughed too, giddy with happiness. “Well,” he said. “I suppose we’ll work something out. Five divided by three is still rather generous, isn’t it?”
“More than I could ever have asked for,” Sirius said solemnly, and then how could Remus do anything else but take that dear face between his hands and kiss it? The garden around them was a flood of green, a dazzling palette of colour. Somewhere high above their heads a songbird chirped, heralding the season.
Spring had come at last.
THE END
by
stereolightning and
starfishstar
SUMMARY:
A man with nowhere else to turn agrees to live forever in a remote mansion that exists in perpetual autumn, his host a reclusive character known only as the Beast. By turns attentive and taciturn, the monstrous lord of the house keeps his dark secrets close to his chest, yet both host and guest find themselves increasingly captivated by one another. But how can a Beast give his heart while he remains a prisoner of his own curse?
A fusion of Harry Potter with Beauty and the Beast, told in seven chapters.
CHAPTER SEVEN
At the sight of the Beast, the werewolf lowered itself into a crouch and growled.
The Beast gave a howl of rage of his own. “You foul creature!” he cried. “What have you done to Remus?”
The werewolf lifted its nose and sniffed the air, a look that seemed almost confused crossing its lupine face.
“Did you eat him, you monster? I’ll kill you.” The Beast lunged, but the werewolf was fast. It shot around Sirius’ legs and up the cellar stairs. He heard it crashing through the kitchen, knocking down pots and pans in its frenzied flight. “Come back!” the Beast shouted, and gave chase.
The werewolf darted through the rooms and corridors with surprising ease, as if it knew the layout of the house already, and dashed into the garden. The Beast finally caught up with it by the potting shed where he kept his Velocette.
“You murderer!” he screamed, and threw himself on top of the werewolf, which snarled and thrashed beneath his weight. It opened its jaws, its sharp teeth terrible in the last pale light of the setting moon, preparing to bite-and then it whined in confusion and snapped its jaws closed. Sirius pressed his advantage, trying to get his hands around the creature’s throat. “I-will-kill you,” he grunted. “You killed Remus, I will-”
The wolf whined again, some strangely human emotion in its yellow eyes. Sirius’ fingers finally found purchase around its throat and squeezed. He could feel its pulse thudding wildly. Then the animal began to contort under his hands, its body bucking as if it would burst out of its very skin.
Morning was near. The moon was setting.
The wolf emitted the most piteous sound Sirius had ever heard-a resonant moan, full of fear and pain and shame. The creature’s tail was receding into its lower spine and its legs were growing longer, bending the other way. Its ribcage expanded and changed shape, and on and on it moaned, flecks of blood flying from its mouth. Its claws flattened and widened, becoming fingernails, and its paws became hands, the dewclaws stretching painfully until they became thumbs. Last, and worst of all, the face-the long snout shrank and separated into lips and nose, bending the creature’s moan into a human scream. The teeth retracted as the skull gained mass. The bones of the face settled into an all too familiar countenance, and last, the eyes changed from round and yellow to human, etched round with lines, framed by eyebrows brindled with grey.
Those eyes fixed on Sirius, refusing to let go.
Remus’ body lay at an odd angle, completely unclothed, on the cold stones of the courtyard. He was shaking. He wheezed, trying to speak.
“Don’t,” Sirius whispered, horrified by the harm he had very nearly done. He scrambled off of Remus, terrified now of hurting him, but kept one hand resting gently on Remus’ shoulder, urging him not to move. He used the other to find his wand and Summon a length of fabric, something velvety and ancient from the drawing room. He wrapped Remus in it, then picked him up tenderly like a child. In human form, Remus weighed next to nothing.
“I’m sorry,” Remus croaked, his voice muffled against Sirius’ shoulder.
“You should have said something, before,” Sirius replied, his voice harsher than he meant it to be. “I didn’t know it was you. I nearly killed you.”
“Most people-don’t like-werewolves as houseguests,” Remus wheezed.
“I’m not most people,” Sirius growled, and he carried Remus into the house, calling out as he went for the house-elves to draw a bath.
He deposited Remus in the ornate upstairs bathroom, in the claw-foot tub under the care of the house-elves who surged in around him, chattering and fussing. Then the Beast walked away, back out to the garden where dawn was slowly breaking through the autumn chill.
#
Remus’ host had left him in the bath and stalked away. His expressions were difficult to read, and Remus wasn’t sure if he was angry. He must be angry. Remus had misrepresented himself, played guest under false pretences, then transformed within the house itself, mistakenly believing he would be a danger to no one if he stayed within the locked cellar.
He should have known better. He was always a danger. Even-perhaps especially-to this kind-hearted Beast.
Groaning with the effort, Remus rose and stepped out of the claw-foot tub. The house-elves, Blinken, Finchlet, Tothby, and Mag, clustered eagerly around him and offered a fresh set of borrowed clothes.
“This is too much,” Remus protested. “I’ve endangered you all. I should leave, not accept clothes from you.”
“Endangered!” Mag exclaimed. “Mr Remus Lupin is not endangering elves, sir! Elves is safe from werewolves, sir.”
“Really?” Remus asked, surprised for a moment out of his self-pity and guilt. “Are you absolutely certain? A werewolf wouldn’t try to attack you?”
“Elves is not humans, sir,” sniffed Finchlet, as if this were very obvious indeed. Which, perhaps, it was.
Tothby had fetched Remus’ wand from the cellar, and presented it now with a flourish.
“You’re too kind to me,” Remus said, surprised and moved.
“Remus Lupin, you is our master’s guest, sir,” said Blinken, with an air of this explaining everything.
After thanking the elves, Remus made his way, slow and creaking, downstairs. His bones still ached, though the warm bath had helped. Sirius was nowhere to be found in the house, so Remus continued out to the garden in search of his host, apologies already crowding at his tongue. The sun was up. Another full moon survived, but at what cost? Had he destroyed the trust of the one man from whom he was coming to feel he might wish it most of all?
He found Sirius by the potting shed where he kept his motorbike. He’d pulled the motorbike out of the shed, but didn’t seem to be working on it. He simply stood, hands resting on its seat and head bowed, as if deep in thought.
“I’m...sorry,” Remus said from behind him.
The Beast turned. “Remus.”
“I lied to you,” Remus said, taking a cautious step closer. “I lied by omission. I should never have spent even a single night beneath your roof without telling you the truth about myself. Instead, I spent a month.”
“Remus,” Sirius said again, and it sounded like a growl. Remus had to work to keep himself from taking a step backwards, so fearsome did Sirius look.
“I’ll go,” Remus said. Surely if the Beast himself had been able to leave the grounds last night, then Remus would be able to do so too. Especially now that he would be unwelcome here. “I only wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. And to thank you-for your hospitality, for everything. You’ve done so much more for me than I ever could have asked for.”
“You’re leaving?” The Beast crossed the space between them in two long strides. “Why?”
“Why? Because I’m a werewolf! Because-because, how could I possibly stay now that you know?”
“What if I don’t care?” Sirius growled.
“How can you not care!” Remus cried. “Don’t you understand? I’ll always be like this, every full moon. You have the hope that your curse may be lifted someday, but I don’t have that chance. Every month for the rest of my life, this is what I will be.”
“And if I still don’t care?” The Beast’s paws had come to rest on Remus’ arms now, sliding slowly up from his elbows towards his shoulders. It was strange how human the Beast’s face appeared sometimes, from certain angles. Or perhaps it was in certain kinds of light, like the rosy dawn that was now washing the garden in warmth. “I thought-I thought you’d left. That was the worst possible thing. Far worse than what I learned when I did find you.”
“But-” Remus protested.
“And my curse won’t ever be broken either,” Sirius said, his voice sliding into a snarl. “Last night, I found the man who cast it, the traitor who did this to me. He refused to break the curse, and now he’s disappeared. That hope is gone.” His hands-no, paws, they were paws, of course, though their touch felt like that of long, elegant fingers-clutched at Remus’ sleeves. “But I deserve it. I am a Beast, I deserve to be a Beast.”
“How can you say that?” Remus demanded. “You are so kind. You care so much. That boy in the mirror was Harry Potter, wasn’t he? And you’ve been looking out for him from afar all this time, even though you couldn’t be there with him. How can you possibly think you’re a monster?”
“I’m a Beast.” Sirius’ low voice quavered, as if it would break with emotion.
“Are you sure?” Remus whispered, gazing into that almost-human face. He wondered to think he’d believed the Beast’s head shaggy and overly large, his ears dog-like. He looked very much like a man.
“I-I don’t know,” Sirius whispered back, his eyes wide and his voice hushed with wonder. “I feel-”
“Sirius,” Remus exclaimed, because he was sure of it now. “Look!”
Sirius looked down with wonder at his hands, his human hands, where they held tightly to Remus’ arms. He shook his head from side to side, looking startled at how lightly and easily it moved. “Am I-?”
“You’re a man,” Remus said, awed. “Aren’t you? When I look at you, I see a man.”
“No-it can’t be-”
But even as he said it, Sirius’ body was growing smaller, slimmer, although still quite tall.
“It can’t be,” Sirius repeated. There was no question about it, he looked like a man now, like any other man. “Peter’s the one who cast the curse, he’s the only one who should be able to lift it.”
“Sirius,” Remus said slowly, the thought unfurling in front of him only as he spoke it aloud. “Wasn’t part of the curse not being able to leave the house and grounds?”
“Yes,” Sirius said, looking back at him, baffled. His hands, his lovely, elegant hands, were still wrapped warmly around Remus’ arms.
“But you left the grounds last night.”
“Because I had to. Harry needed me.”
“But could it be…what if you broke the curse yourself? You broke away from here through the force of your caring. What if that caring broke the curse entirely?”
“That’s not possible,” Sirius breathed, his eyes wide and fixed on Remus. Those grey eyes were still the same as the Beast’s had been, but they had resolved into a new face, set like jewels above high cheekbones. “Ancient transformative curses like that, only the one who cast the spell can lift it.”
“Did you actually see him cast the curse?” Remus asked.
“I-no. It was in the middle of a duel with dust flying everywhere, and the air was full of smoke and light. But something happened, right in the moment when Peter died, or when I thought he died. Something changed in me, and as soon as I was able to stop and take stock, I found I was a Beast.”
Remus felt his own eyes growing wide, reflecting back the wonderment etched on Sirius’ beautiful human face.
“Some are cursed by others,” Remus said softly, thinking of his own curse, his illness, inflicted on him when he was such a small child. “But others curse themselves. Sirius, is it possible… When you duelled this friend who had betrayed you, and watched him disappear in front of you before you could take the revenge you sought, at a time when you were full already of grief and guilt and remorse over the friends you’d lost… Sirius, is it possible the curse came from within yourself?”
Sirius stretched, arching his back. He glanced down at his own hands on Remus’ arms, flexing his human fingers and marvelling at the sight. Then he leaned his head back to gaze up the sky and laughed in delight at the sensation. Finally, he lowered his head again and returned his gaze to Remus. “Yes,” he said in a low, awed voice. “Yes, it must be possible. Nothing else makes sense. But then…how did I break the curse? Why now?”
Sirius’ voice was different now, smooth and rich. His hands were warm at Remus’ shoulders, and he was standing so very close. In human form he was tall, dark-haired, a man of aristocratic mien and desperate beauty. His black hair was long, unkempt, and his over-large robes hung on him like rags, but even in his dishevelled state, he was heartbreakingly handsome. A Caravaggio saint reimagined in a Gothic idiom.
This was no Beast, but a Beauty. Remus hesitated, stuttering a step backwards, all too aware of his own shabbiness, his greying temples, his patched robes. What could such a beautiful man want with someone like Remus Lupin, werewolf?
“It seems,” Remus said, his voice catching as he tried to keep hold of his thoughts despite this proximity, Sirius’ body so close to his own, “that you did it with the force of your caring. Your love. For-for Harry. If your curse came out of your grief at having failed those you loved, then your caring for Harry healed it.”
“Not only Harry,” Sirius murmured, his eyes locked on Remus’. His voice had dropped to a sensuous thrum. “Who showed me how to let someone back into my life after all these years? Who made me laugh again?”
Remus stared. Was Sirius saying-did he really mean-?
Remus’ own curse was one that could never be cured. But his loneliness, that was a thing he’d brought upon himself. Perhaps it was also a thing that could end.
Seized by mad impulse, Remus leaned in and kissed Sirius full on the mouth. Where before there had been the fur of a beast, now there was warm skin and rough stubble, the sensation of it against Remus’ cheek both ferocious and tender. Sirius’ hands tightened on his arms, and Remus felt desire sparking through him, burning all the way out to the tips of his fingers. His own hands rose of their own accord and found Sirius’ hair, the warm skin at the back of his neck.
“You fought only in self-defence, you know,” Sirius murmured against Remus’ cheek. “When you were the wolf. You never attacked. I don’t think I counted as human to the wolf, when I-when I was-a Beast. I don’t think you’re any danger to me. If you’re worried about that.”
“You’re a Beast no more, Sirius.” Remus pulled away from him, took a step backwards, afraid to give in to the hope that was beating wildly his heart.
“But I could be again.” Sirius took a half step forwards, closing the gap between them. “If you wanted me to. I could accompany you at full moons. I could change myself back, I’m sure of it.” A jagged, lovely, hopeful, mischievous grin stole across Sirius’ face. He extended one hand in the space between them. It became a paw again, then a hand once more.
Remus stared.
“I would be safe from you, see? Say yes, say you’ll let me transform with you, so you don’t have to be alone.”
“We can try it,” Remus agreed cautiously. “We’ll make a controlled experiment of it at the next full moon, to make certain you’re truly safe from me.”
Sirius rolled his eyes, bright and merry, at Remus’ caution. “Yes, yes, all right, precise and controlled experiments only.” Then his face lit up, as he took in what Remus had said. “Does that mean you’ll stay?”
Remus stared back at him, confused. “What do you mean?”
“You’re no longer bound here by any curse, Remus. You can go whenever you choose. But I wonder if… I was hoping… Will you stay, of your own free will?”
Sirius’ gaze was so desperately hopeful. No one had ever looked at Remus like that. And Remus knew there wasn’t any question. He never wanted to go another day without those eyes meeting his. The very thought-that this was possible, that he could stay and have this joy every day-left him giddy. He caught Sirius’ hand, the one that had been a paw and then a hand again, in his own.
“Yes,” he said. “Sirius, of course, yes.”
This time it was Sirius who surged forwards and caught Remus’ lips. Remus gasped into the kiss, the urgency of Sirius’ mouth on his. His hand reached again for the warmth of the nape of Sirius’ neck. Sirius growled against his lips and pulled him closer.
A patter, then a rumble. Startled, Remus looked away from Sirius and his breathless kiss, and saw that the apples were falling from their boughs, thudding against the ground. The fiery leaves of nearby trees shuddered, then dropped. The garden’s smaller plants drooped and wilted, drying into pale winter husks of themselves. Snow burst from the sky, dusting the garden and the eaves of the house with shimmering white. Remus turned back to Sirius and watched, entranced, as flakes of snow landed on Sirius’ long, dark eyelashes.
Sirius blinked, and laughed in delight. He stuck his tongue out and caught one snowflake perfectly on its tip.
And already the snow, too, was melting. Bright new shoots pushed their way out of the soil, leaves and buds unfurled on each tree and shrub. The grey bushes straightened their stalks and burst out with leaves that stretched towards the sun. In every direction Remus looked, the world was a riot of green in every hue and shade. He glanced at Sirius, who was grinning with wild joy, and when he looked back at the garden, roses of every colour were bursting into bloom-tropical red, velvety orange, even a delicately chartreuse specimen as big as a dinner plate, peeking out from behind Sirius’ knee. The apple trees were a maelstrom of pink and white blossoms.
“It’s wonderful,” Remus breathed. His eyes found Sirius’, their grey now bright with life and fervour.
“It’s right,” Sirius said. “This is right. Remus, there’s so much to do, I’ve got to undo the damage I did when I let that traitor escape a second time. But I know we can do it. We’re going to start setting things right.” Remus could feel how Sirius trembled in his arms, but his voice was strong. “Let it come. The future. All the things we have to do.” His hand slid down Remus’ arm and found his hand. “And all the things we wish to do, too.”
The grounds now matched the forest beyond, bursting with new life and colour.
Grinning with delight at the sights of it, Sirius said, “I think Harry should live here, if he wants to. In the holidays, whenever he needs somewhere to call home. Would you mind that, if he came here? Having someone else in the house?”
“Sirius, I’m still a werewolf. I would be a danger to him.”
“We’ll work something out. We have the map. We’ll find you somewhere secure-I’ll build a new wing to the house if I have to. And I’ll be here, looking out for you. Harry can come home. You can be home.”
Remus’ heart was in his throat. Was it really possible? Could this-could Sirius-be his home? Almost afraid of the intensity of his happiness, Remus reached for levity. “Oh, I don’t know, don’t you think it might get a bit crowded? I’d hate to have to share the five bathrooms here with someone else.”
Sirius gave a laugh like a bark and clasped Remus more tightly in his arms. Sirius’ eyes were so bright with joy. And Remus found he believed him, beyond any shadow of a doubt. This was safe. This was home.
Remus laughed too, giddy with happiness. “Well,” he said. “I suppose we’ll work something out. Five divided by three is still rather generous, isn’t it?”
“More than I could ever have asked for,” Sirius said solemnly, and then how could Remus do anything else but take that dear face between his hands and kiss it? The garden around them was a flood of green, a dazzling palette of colour. Somewhere high above their heads a songbird chirped, heralding the season.
Spring had come at last.
THE END