[hp fics] No Return, Left Unsaid, Regulus and Charlotte
No Return
Ship: Remus/Sirius
Rating: R
Setting: follows Consequences
Summary: Sirius couldn't go back, even if he wanted to.
Word Count: 1080
“Moony…”
Remus lifts his head slowly, giving Sirius time to admire the grace with which his shoulders roll back, then his neck. His hair falls back from his face and his lashes lift. His eyes are so dark, but things flicker below the surface. Reflections of mountains and sky. Live things, too. His eyes are like the sea at night, or some Highland loch.
“What?” he whispers.
Sirius licks his lips, unsure suddenly of what to say to the boy who is straddling his thighs and undressing him slowly, exposing his flesh to the silken night air slowly, like he’s already a part of the night, and intent on making Sirius a part of himself. Slowly.
Remus smiles, and Sirius tries. “Before,” he says, “in the croft. When we were… When I…”
“When you had your cock up my arse?” says Remus helpfully.
“Yeah.”
Remus undoes the last button, slides his hands under Sirius’ shirt and peels it back. Sirius shivers, feels his nipples tighten and all the little hairs on his arms, legs, and the back of his neck stand up. His cock twitches.
“Well?” Remus prompts. He leans over Sirius and begins to kiss him, first on the chin, then at the pulse of his throat. His lips are dry and warm as they ghost downward. His fingertips are dry and cool as they toy with his nipples, teasing them, tugging at them gently.
Now he’s really hard, and there’s Remus’ arse, planted thoughtfully over Sirius’ cloth-trapped cock. He bucks mildly and Remus pushes against him in response.
“Well…” he mutters.
“Well,” Remus echoes.
Lips replace fingers on his nipples. Lips, teeth, and tongue, kissing, biting, soothing. The hands are now busy elsewhere, stroking his sides, down to his hips, delving into his jeans.
“When I was…in you,” says Sirius. The words wobble on his lips and fall off. He wonders if he sounds this stupid to Remus. “It didn’t hurt, did it?”
He isn’t sure if this is something he’s supposed to ask. Remus is only the second virgin he’s ever shagged. With the first one -- a girl, of course -- there was blood, so he knew he was hurting her, though she denied it vocally. Remus only clung to him and shivered -- Sirius felt the tremors pass through his into his own and thought, /Please let him be enjoying this, because this is the best thing I’ve ever felt and I can’t stop…/
“A little at first,” Remus admits, lifting his lips from Sirius’ chest. “Not much,” he assures him. “Hardly at all compared to transforming, really. Why?” One thin eyebrow arches slightly. “Want to try it?”
“Not tonight,” says Sirius, and that’s all he has to say.
Remus does not look offended. “Lots of other things I can to you,” he says as he smiles again, and reapplies his lips to Sirius’ skin.
Sirius sighs. There are other things he wants to say, but he doesn’t know how to say them. Remus’ lips on his belly aren’t helping. Neither is the tip of his tongue, dipping into his navel.
Sirius arches and opens his mouth, but no discernible words emerge. He’s lost the power of speech.
Remus has not. He remembers a few words, anyway, and they happen to be some of the ones Sirius needs to hear: “I’m so sorry I hurt you, before. Didn’t mean to. What we did in the croft -- it was so wonderful. I swear. So good. All of it. Is this all right, what I’m doing here?” He is unzipping Sirius’ jeans and pulling them down, along with his pants. He waits for Sirius’ brief nod before lowering his face again and nuzzling between his thighs.
“Believe me,” Remus murmurs just before he takes Sirius in his mouth, and Sirius does. He has to.
A little while later, after they have washed and changed, and Remus is asleep in his arms, Sirius writes a letter in his head:
Dear Moony,
What I wanted to say before was, what you did to me before, using me to get back at your father, that hurt more than anything I’ve ever felt. More than anything my parents or cousins or the Slytherins ever did. More than when I thought you didn’t fancy me. I felt like you had taken a Beater bat and were using it to break me apart from the inside.
It was so bad I almost think I’ve undergone some kind of transformation, too. Maybe I have.
You’re inside me, you see, whether I’m penetrating you, or whatever. I don’t know exactly how this happened, or when, but here you are. You got in when I was looking out for something else. I don’t know why I wasn’t on my guard against you. Maybe I should’ve been. It’s too late, though. When I said you meant more to me than anyone else in the world I meant it. I don’t know if I knew that I meant it at the time, but I did.
I also meant it when I said I was falling in love with you. I am. I hope you’re really falling in love with me because what I realised today is this: I want you to love me, I can stand it if you don’t, but I couldn’t stand anything between the two. I don’t want just pieces. It has to be everything or nothing. I think I’m probably rather messed up -- in many respects -- but that is the truth.
I believe you, by the way. I believe you’re sorry about before and that what we did before that really was wonderful for you, too. I’m not upset anymore. Just a bit worried. Happy, too. Can you be worried and happy at the same time? Well, it has to be possible, because I am. I’m happy right at this moment, even though I know it’s going to end, because we’ll have other moments like this, right?
Love,
Padfoot
PS. You're fucking adorable while you sleep, you know. That's where this mess began, thought you might like to know.
He caresses Remus gently as he composes this letter. He brushes his hair back and kisses the nape of his neck. He kisses the faint scars, as well, and the two tiny moles on Remus’ right shoulder. Remus moves against him slightly, and murmurs in his sleep, but does not stir.
Sirius does not realise that he has already given himself to Remus like a love letter, sealed his heart against any other possibilities, addressed and delivered himself without hope or desire of returning.
Left Unsaid
Ship: Remus/Sirius is understood, though there's no mention of it in the cookie
Rating: PG
Setting: follows Midnight Conversation #2
Summary: Sirius and his sister and brother and the things he said and didn't say.
Word Count: 1170
Sirius knows that he is very ill, but it is a muted awareness of an unimportant detail. He remembers ice all around him, and fire burning him from the inside out. He remembers falling. He remembers James catching him. He trusts James to get him out of this -- as he always does -- in due time. For the moment, though, he is content to remain where he is.
Which appears to be his old bedroom in Twelve Grimmauld Place. He is not quite seven years old and he is lying abed on Christmas morning. What little sky he can see is a flat grey. Icicles are dripping onto his windowsill. He heard the steady /tap-tap/ in his dream and woke thinking it was Electra knocking tentatively on his door. For one glass moment he was happy. He sat up in bed and opened his mouth to call to her. Then he remembered that he no longer had a sister and fell back against his pillows, and lay there unmoving until long after the rest of the household began to stir.
He hears his mother a floor below, issuing orders in a sharp tone. He hears the House Elf, Kreacher, scuttling about, carrying out his mistress’s commands. Guests will be arriving in just a few hours: Sirius’ uncle Alphard, aunt Malora, cousins Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa; his mother’s sister, Elladora; probably a Malfoy or two, asking for favours.
Sirius is not looking forward to this luncheon. He wonders if his injuries will excuse him, but doubts it. Even if he can’t hold a fork in his bandaged hands his parents will probably insist he sit at the table in silence, or make polite conversation with his shrewish cousins. Well, Bella started at Hogwarts this past September. Maybe she’ll have some interesting things to tell him.
He hears the uneven patter of light, running feet out in the corridor beyond his bedroom. It stops, and his bedroom door all but bursts open. In rushes a very short, black-haired person still in his night robe and slippers. It is Regulus, Sirius’ brother, who has recently turned three and who is, in Sirius’ view, a wholly unremarkable person. He can’t read yet, is too young to understand and follow any but the most basic of orders, and he has no imagination.
“See-rus!” he burbles, and all but throws himself against the bed by his brother’s arm. He beams up at him, his dark blue eyes big and adoring.
“Guess what,” Electra says, her dark braids swinging down over her shoulders as she leans against the bed.
“What?” he asks though this is part of a routine he knows well.
“I love you!” she whispers and leaning over, kisses his cheek.
“Guess what,” he says in turn, and when she asks, “What?” he replies, “I love you, too!” and tries to kiss her back, but she usually tosses her braids and all he gets is a mouthful of hair.
It is a game. Neither really knows what the words mean. They learned them from books and repeat them like forbidden incantations. These are magic words their parents never use. Nothing ever seems to change when they say them, but Sirius and Electra know they have power.
Sirius looks at his brother and wonders if he should teach the game to him. Maybe, he thinks, but not yet. Regulus is too young to understand the importance of keeping secrets. He will tell their parents, and they will both be in trouble.
Still smiling, Regulus reaches out and touches one of Sirius’ bandaged hands with his chubby toddler fingers. “How?” he asks.
“Tried to burn down Great-aunt Lureena’s picture,” says Sirius and is somewhat relieved when Regulus does not ask why. He does not feel like repeating to his little brother the vicious things their great-aunt was saying about their dead sister.
“There’s presents,” Regulus says. “I opened mine. Uncle A-fard got me a train. It’s red.”
“S’nice,” Sirius murmurs.
“Want your presents?”
“Don’t feel like going downstairs,” he says, shrugging.
“I’ll get them!” Regulus announces, and he turns and runs out of the room.
“What’s this?” Sirius asks, tossing aside the ripped paper and holding up the crudely bound pieces of parchment.
“It’s a book, stupid,” says Electra, reaching over to turn the pages for him, as though she thinks he does not know how. “See? I made it.”
“What’s that big black thing? A bear?”
“A dog!” she exclaims indignantly. “Can’t you tell?”
“Umm…”
“Look, shall I read it to you?”
“I can read.” He squints at the pages. “I can’t read the way /you/ write. What word is this?”
“It’s ‘shit’!” she giggles, and turns bright red.
Sirius studies his Christmas present with renewed interest.
“It’s about a star-dog,” his sister explains to him, patiently. “He lives in the sky, see? One day he gets mad at some of the other stars, so he eats them, and digests them and…”
“See-rus!”
He looks up, and there’s his brother standing in the doorway again. But there are no presents in his arms. The Blacks’ Crups are crouched around him, their shoulders tensed, their dark blank eyes on his face. Sirius sits up. The Crups growl at him. Saliva drips from their sharp white teeth.
Regulus says, no longer using his baby voice, “If you like playing the bitch so much, here are some real dogs.”
They all rise as one and spring at him, and Sirius screams.
He thinks he wakes himself screaming, but he is so weak that all he can produce is a strangled whimper. It is heard by whoever is in the room with him, and soon there are voices buzzing in his ears. He can’t see who is speaking. It is a few minutes before he can distinguish voices and words--
“His fever’s gone down. He’s still warm, but…”
“Sirius--”
“James, /out of my way/--”
“Padfoot, oh, Merlin, I’m sorry, I should’ve--”
“/James/… Sweetheart, it’s going to be all right, now. You’re safe, here. Do you think you can eat at all? I have some broth heating downstairs…”
“It’s okay, Padfoot,” James whispers a moment later. “Mum’s gone to get her broth. If you don’t feel like it… I can try and chase her away. Probably best to let her mother you, though.”
He tries to turn his head in the direction of James’ voice. There’s something he needs to tell him, urgently. He tries to say, /I need to find Regulus. There’s something I never told him, and maybe it’s not too late, maybe if I tell him now…/ But the only distinguishable word is “Reg…”
“Don’t worry, mate,” says James, dabbing at his forehead with what feels like a damp rag. “We’ll get him.”
He doesn’t understand. Sirius can’t make him understand. By the time he has the strength again to explain, it will be too late.
“It’s all right, mate,” James says with forced cheer.
But it isn’t, Sirius knows, and it won’t be.
Regulus and Charlotte
Ship: Regulus/Charlotte, implied Remus/Sirius and James/Lily
Rating: PG
Setting: AU 1 November, 1981
Summary: Then he swooped her up just like in the books...
Word Count: 513
Regulus was in Diagon Alley, delivering illegal potion ingredients to Emmeline Vance when he heard the news. His first thought was for his brother. He thought, /He’s mine again, just mine/, and nearly staggered under the shame that assaulted him immediately after. His second thought was for Remus Lupin: /He’ll find Sirius, he’ll be with him, Sirius doesn’t need me right now./ His third thought was for someone he doubted anyone else would think of, and he knew with profound relief that there was something he could do.
He was on his broomstick and aloft before Vance could question him, and it took him all day, but he made it to Hogwarts. Hungry, windblown, and shaking with much more than fatigue he flew to her window and yes, she was there, though everyone else in the castle was probably at supper.
She was seated on her bed, her heavy black hair falling in disarray about her bowed, shaking shoulders. There was a bit of parchment spread in front of her. She was reading it by the light of a single torch that illuminated but did not appear to warm her pale hands and face.
He did not knock. Gripping his broomstick with one hand, he pulled his wand from his pocket and barked a hoarse “/Alohomora!/”
The window flew open and she looked up, startled. Her eyes were huge and dark and that was wrong, he thought. There ought to be flecks of green in her eyes like the first leaves of spring rising from wintry earth.
She did not say a word as she all but fell from the bed and ran to him, her long hair trailing after her like a veil. She clutched at the windowsill and without thinking he reached out and covered both of her hands with one of his. She had been crying, he saw, but her eyes were dry now.
“My cousin’s dead,” she whispered. “Lily, too. And the baby…?”
“Safe,” Regulus assured her. “On his way to Dumbledore. Maybe with him by now. Come with me, Charlotte.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. Anywhere you want. Just with me. I thought…”
He had not thought, but she did not seem to need to, either.
Holding tightly to his hand, she hoisted herself up onto the windowsill and swung her legs over.
They were very high up. Wind whipped her robes and skirt about her legs. Gripping the broomstick between his thighs, Regulus raised his other hand to assist her. There was a breathless moment when neither was holding anything except the other. Then her arms were around his neck and he was once again grasping the broomstick with one hand and using the other to clasp her slim fifteen-year-old body against his.
The broomstick sank under their combined weight, but he righted them quickly, and then they were flying away under the darkening November sky.
Her lips moved against his neck. The wind caught her words and tossed them away from him, but he thought he knew what they were, anyway:
“I knew you’d come for me.”
Ship: Remus/Sirius
Rating: R
Setting: follows Consequences
Summary: Sirius couldn't go back, even if he wanted to.
Word Count: 1080
“Moony…”
Remus lifts his head slowly, giving Sirius time to admire the grace with which his shoulders roll back, then his neck. His hair falls back from his face and his lashes lift. His eyes are so dark, but things flicker below the surface. Reflections of mountains and sky. Live things, too. His eyes are like the sea at night, or some Highland loch.
“What?” he whispers.
Sirius licks his lips, unsure suddenly of what to say to the boy who is straddling his thighs and undressing him slowly, exposing his flesh to the silken night air slowly, like he’s already a part of the night, and intent on making Sirius a part of himself. Slowly.
Remus smiles, and Sirius tries. “Before,” he says, “in the croft. When we were… When I…”
“When you had your cock up my arse?” says Remus helpfully.
“Yeah.”
Remus undoes the last button, slides his hands under Sirius’ shirt and peels it back. Sirius shivers, feels his nipples tighten and all the little hairs on his arms, legs, and the back of his neck stand up. His cock twitches.
“Well?” Remus prompts. He leans over Sirius and begins to kiss him, first on the chin, then at the pulse of his throat. His lips are dry and warm as they ghost downward. His fingertips are dry and cool as they toy with his nipples, teasing them, tugging at them gently.
Now he’s really hard, and there’s Remus’ arse, planted thoughtfully over Sirius’ cloth-trapped cock. He bucks mildly and Remus pushes against him in response.
“Well…” he mutters.
“Well,” Remus echoes.
Lips replace fingers on his nipples. Lips, teeth, and tongue, kissing, biting, soothing. The hands are now busy elsewhere, stroking his sides, down to his hips, delving into his jeans.
“When I was…in you,” says Sirius. The words wobble on his lips and fall off. He wonders if he sounds this stupid to Remus. “It didn’t hurt, did it?”
He isn’t sure if this is something he’s supposed to ask. Remus is only the second virgin he’s ever shagged. With the first one -- a girl, of course -- there was blood, so he knew he was hurting her, though she denied it vocally. Remus only clung to him and shivered -- Sirius felt the tremors pass through his into his own and thought, /Please let him be enjoying this, because this is the best thing I’ve ever felt and I can’t stop…/
“A little at first,” Remus admits, lifting his lips from Sirius’ chest. “Not much,” he assures him. “Hardly at all compared to transforming, really. Why?” One thin eyebrow arches slightly. “Want to try it?”
“Not tonight,” says Sirius, and that’s all he has to say.
Remus does not look offended. “Lots of other things I can to you,” he says as he smiles again, and reapplies his lips to Sirius’ skin.
Sirius sighs. There are other things he wants to say, but he doesn’t know how to say them. Remus’ lips on his belly aren’t helping. Neither is the tip of his tongue, dipping into his navel.
Sirius arches and opens his mouth, but no discernible words emerge. He’s lost the power of speech.
Remus has not. He remembers a few words, anyway, and they happen to be some of the ones Sirius needs to hear: “I’m so sorry I hurt you, before. Didn’t mean to. What we did in the croft -- it was so wonderful. I swear. So good. All of it. Is this all right, what I’m doing here?” He is unzipping Sirius’ jeans and pulling them down, along with his pants. He waits for Sirius’ brief nod before lowering his face again and nuzzling between his thighs.
“Believe me,” Remus murmurs just before he takes Sirius in his mouth, and Sirius does. He has to.
A little while later, after they have washed and changed, and Remus is asleep in his arms, Sirius writes a letter in his head:
Dear Moony,
What I wanted to say before was, what you did to me before, using me to get back at your father, that hurt more than anything I’ve ever felt. More than anything my parents or cousins or the Slytherins ever did. More than when I thought you didn’t fancy me. I felt like you had taken a Beater bat and were using it to break me apart from the inside.
It was so bad I almost think I’ve undergone some kind of transformation, too. Maybe I have.
You’re inside me, you see, whether I’m penetrating you, or whatever. I don’t know exactly how this happened, or when, but here you are. You got in when I was looking out for something else. I don’t know why I wasn’t on my guard against you. Maybe I should’ve been. It’s too late, though. When I said you meant more to me than anyone else in the world I meant it. I don’t know if I knew that I meant it at the time, but I did.
I also meant it when I said I was falling in love with you. I am. I hope you’re really falling in love with me because what I realised today is this: I want you to love me, I can stand it if you don’t, but I couldn’t stand anything between the two. I don’t want just pieces. It has to be everything or nothing. I think I’m probably rather messed up -- in many respects -- but that is the truth.
I believe you, by the way. I believe you’re sorry about before and that what we did before that really was wonderful for you, too. I’m not upset anymore. Just a bit worried. Happy, too. Can you be worried and happy at the same time? Well, it has to be possible, because I am. I’m happy right at this moment, even though I know it’s going to end, because we’ll have other moments like this, right?
Love,
Padfoot
PS. You're fucking adorable while you sleep, you know. That's where this mess began, thought you might like to know.
He caresses Remus gently as he composes this letter. He brushes his hair back and kisses the nape of his neck. He kisses the faint scars, as well, and the two tiny moles on Remus’ right shoulder. Remus moves against him slightly, and murmurs in his sleep, but does not stir.
Sirius does not realise that he has already given himself to Remus like a love letter, sealed his heart against any other possibilities, addressed and delivered himself without hope or desire of returning.
Left Unsaid
Ship: Remus/Sirius is understood, though there's no mention of it in the cookie
Rating: PG
Setting: follows Midnight Conversation #2
Summary: Sirius and his sister and brother and the things he said and didn't say.
Word Count: 1170
Sirius knows that he is very ill, but it is a muted awareness of an unimportant detail. He remembers ice all around him, and fire burning him from the inside out. He remembers falling. He remembers James catching him. He trusts James to get him out of this -- as he always does -- in due time. For the moment, though, he is content to remain where he is.
Which appears to be his old bedroom in Twelve Grimmauld Place. He is not quite seven years old and he is lying abed on Christmas morning. What little sky he can see is a flat grey. Icicles are dripping onto his windowsill. He heard the steady /tap-tap/ in his dream and woke thinking it was Electra knocking tentatively on his door. For one glass moment he was happy. He sat up in bed and opened his mouth to call to her. Then he remembered that he no longer had a sister and fell back against his pillows, and lay there unmoving until long after the rest of the household began to stir.
He hears his mother a floor below, issuing orders in a sharp tone. He hears the House Elf, Kreacher, scuttling about, carrying out his mistress’s commands. Guests will be arriving in just a few hours: Sirius’ uncle Alphard, aunt Malora, cousins Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa; his mother’s sister, Elladora; probably a Malfoy or two, asking for favours.
Sirius is not looking forward to this luncheon. He wonders if his injuries will excuse him, but doubts it. Even if he can’t hold a fork in his bandaged hands his parents will probably insist he sit at the table in silence, or make polite conversation with his shrewish cousins. Well, Bella started at Hogwarts this past September. Maybe she’ll have some interesting things to tell him.
He hears the uneven patter of light, running feet out in the corridor beyond his bedroom. It stops, and his bedroom door all but bursts open. In rushes a very short, black-haired person still in his night robe and slippers. It is Regulus, Sirius’ brother, who has recently turned three and who is, in Sirius’ view, a wholly unremarkable person. He can’t read yet, is too young to understand and follow any but the most basic of orders, and he has no imagination.
“See-rus!” he burbles, and all but throws himself against the bed by his brother’s arm. He beams up at him, his dark blue eyes big and adoring.
“Guess what,” Electra says, her dark braids swinging down over her shoulders as she leans against the bed.
“What?” he asks though this is part of a routine he knows well.
“I love you!” she whispers and leaning over, kisses his cheek.
“Guess what,” he says in turn, and when she asks, “What?” he replies, “I love you, too!” and tries to kiss her back, but she usually tosses her braids and all he gets is a mouthful of hair.
It is a game. Neither really knows what the words mean. They learned them from books and repeat them like forbidden incantations. These are magic words their parents never use. Nothing ever seems to change when they say them, but Sirius and Electra know they have power.
Sirius looks at his brother and wonders if he should teach the game to him. Maybe, he thinks, but not yet. Regulus is too young to understand the importance of keeping secrets. He will tell their parents, and they will both be in trouble.
Still smiling, Regulus reaches out and touches one of Sirius’ bandaged hands with his chubby toddler fingers. “How?” he asks.
“Tried to burn down Great-aunt Lureena’s picture,” says Sirius and is somewhat relieved when Regulus does not ask why. He does not feel like repeating to his little brother the vicious things their great-aunt was saying about their dead sister.
“There’s presents,” Regulus says. “I opened mine. Uncle A-fard got me a train. It’s red.”
“S’nice,” Sirius murmurs.
“Want your presents?”
“Don’t feel like going downstairs,” he says, shrugging.
“I’ll get them!” Regulus announces, and he turns and runs out of the room.
“What’s this?” Sirius asks, tossing aside the ripped paper and holding up the crudely bound pieces of parchment.
“It’s a book, stupid,” says Electra, reaching over to turn the pages for him, as though she thinks he does not know how. “See? I made it.”
“What’s that big black thing? A bear?”
“A dog!” she exclaims indignantly. “Can’t you tell?”
“Umm…”
“Look, shall I read it to you?”
“I can read.” He squints at the pages. “I can’t read the way /you/ write. What word is this?”
“It’s ‘shit’!” she giggles, and turns bright red.
Sirius studies his Christmas present with renewed interest.
“It’s about a star-dog,” his sister explains to him, patiently. “He lives in the sky, see? One day he gets mad at some of the other stars, so he eats them, and digests them and…”
“See-rus!”
He looks up, and there’s his brother standing in the doorway again. But there are no presents in his arms. The Blacks’ Crups are crouched around him, their shoulders tensed, their dark blank eyes on his face. Sirius sits up. The Crups growl at him. Saliva drips from their sharp white teeth.
Regulus says, no longer using his baby voice, “If you like playing the bitch so much, here are some real dogs.”
They all rise as one and spring at him, and Sirius screams.
He thinks he wakes himself screaming, but he is so weak that all he can produce is a strangled whimper. It is heard by whoever is in the room with him, and soon there are voices buzzing in his ears. He can’t see who is speaking. It is a few minutes before he can distinguish voices and words--
“His fever’s gone down. He’s still warm, but…”
“Sirius--”
“James, /out of my way/--”
“Padfoot, oh, Merlin, I’m sorry, I should’ve--”
“/James/… Sweetheart, it’s going to be all right, now. You’re safe, here. Do you think you can eat at all? I have some broth heating downstairs…”
“It’s okay, Padfoot,” James whispers a moment later. “Mum’s gone to get her broth. If you don’t feel like it… I can try and chase her away. Probably best to let her mother you, though.”
He tries to turn his head in the direction of James’ voice. There’s something he needs to tell him, urgently. He tries to say, /I need to find Regulus. There’s something I never told him, and maybe it’s not too late, maybe if I tell him now…/ But the only distinguishable word is “Reg…”
“Don’t worry, mate,” says James, dabbing at his forehead with what feels like a damp rag. “We’ll get him.”
He doesn’t understand. Sirius can’t make him understand. By the time he has the strength again to explain, it will be too late.
“It’s all right, mate,” James says with forced cheer.
But it isn’t, Sirius knows, and it won’t be.
Regulus and Charlotte
Ship: Regulus/Charlotte, implied Remus/Sirius and James/Lily
Rating: PG
Setting: AU 1 November, 1981
Summary: Then he swooped her up just like in the books...
Word Count: 513
Regulus was in Diagon Alley, delivering illegal potion ingredients to Emmeline Vance when he heard the news. His first thought was for his brother. He thought, /He’s mine again, just mine/, and nearly staggered under the shame that assaulted him immediately after. His second thought was for Remus Lupin: /He’ll find Sirius, he’ll be with him, Sirius doesn’t need me right now./ His third thought was for someone he doubted anyone else would think of, and he knew with profound relief that there was something he could do.
He was on his broomstick and aloft before Vance could question him, and it took him all day, but he made it to Hogwarts. Hungry, windblown, and shaking with much more than fatigue he flew to her window and yes, she was there, though everyone else in the castle was probably at supper.
She was seated on her bed, her heavy black hair falling in disarray about her bowed, shaking shoulders. There was a bit of parchment spread in front of her. She was reading it by the light of a single torch that illuminated but did not appear to warm her pale hands and face.
He did not knock. Gripping his broomstick with one hand, he pulled his wand from his pocket and barked a hoarse “/Alohomora!/”
The window flew open and she looked up, startled. Her eyes were huge and dark and that was wrong, he thought. There ought to be flecks of green in her eyes like the first leaves of spring rising from wintry earth.
She did not say a word as she all but fell from the bed and ran to him, her long hair trailing after her like a veil. She clutched at the windowsill and without thinking he reached out and covered both of her hands with one of his. She had been crying, he saw, but her eyes were dry now.
“My cousin’s dead,” she whispered. “Lily, too. And the baby…?”
“Safe,” Regulus assured her. “On his way to Dumbledore. Maybe with him by now. Come with me, Charlotte.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. Anywhere you want. Just with me. I thought…”
He had not thought, but she did not seem to need to, either.
Holding tightly to his hand, she hoisted herself up onto the windowsill and swung her legs over.
They were very high up. Wind whipped her robes and skirt about her legs. Gripping the broomstick between his thighs, Regulus raised his other hand to assist her. There was a breathless moment when neither was holding anything except the other. Then her arms were around his neck and he was once again grasping the broomstick with one hand and using the other to clasp her slim fifteen-year-old body against his.
The broomstick sank under their combined weight, but he righted them quickly, and then they were flying away under the darkening November sky.
Her lips moved against his neck. The wind caught her words and tossed them away from him, but he thought he knew what they were, anyway:
“I knew you’d come for me.”