Bonus Fic: Secret Garden for Rosivan
Title: Secret Garden
Author: Brighty18
Recipient: Rosivan
Rating: PG-13
Highlight for Warnings: * swearing, over-use of adjectives, frogs, and references to hippogriff feces*
Word Count: About 2,600
Summary: Sirius cultivates many things.
Author's notes: Rosivan, you are made of awesome and ran an awesome fest, as well. You said wanted the two of them in a garden as well as a bunch of lovely images of Grimmauld Place, and I hope that I did it justice.
Despite the patriarchic system of the Wizarding world, Grimmauld Place always felt like his mother’s house. His father had owned it in title (and both his parents in blood), but in spirit it belonged to Walburga. Her presence inhabited every corner of every room, seeping through the crumbling, silk-papered walls to taunt him. Her portrait hung in the entryway (or Hall of Portraits, as she’d pretentiously loved to call it.) Her bedroom wardrobe still reeked of her scent, and her devious little curses (biting snuffboxes, the gravy boat that nearly swallowed Remus’ hand, the fifth stair from the top that repeatedly called Sirius a “Blood Traitor Sodomite,” just to name a few) still lurked in dark spaces. She was difficult to banish.
At one point the house had been a war zone, a constant push and pull of magic between Sirius and his mother. Forbidden to decorate his room as he pleased, he used Permanent Sticking Charms to cover the walls in a flurry of Gryffindor banners and posters of Muggle motorcycles, including his personal favorite - used only to drive her to apoplexy - the one with the half-naked Muggle birds. In retaliation, she Charmed his widow shut, refusing him fresh air. He enchanted the doorknocker to sing “Ding, Dong the Witch is Dead,” a prank only he, with his knowledge of Muggle culture, could truly appreciate. She commanded the mounted heads of long-dead house-elves to call him nasty names as he walked past.
And so it went until Sirius left home - and Merlin only knew what happened after that.
But when Sirius returned to Grimmauld Place he made a surprising discovery: the rooms that retained her presence most strongly were the ones that drew him. To relieve the odor in her bedroom, he placed Buckbeak there, the hippogriff’s warm and comforting presence banishing the cold, harsh aftermath of Walburga Black. Once, he and Remus had made passionate love beneath her portrait just to watch her face contort into a visage of rage and confusion at the sight of her once-precious heir being “taken by a Dark Creature.” Sirius had laughed savagely at her anguish, taunting her with his pleasure before he came. Remus initially had his doubts, but eventually went along with the plan and, in the end (so to speak), Sirius knew he enjoyed it. They often played such games when no one else was about.
Strangely, however, it was her secret rooms to which he gravitated. Telling no one - not even Remus, for a reason he could not initially fathom - Sirius would slip into the Secret Suite behind her wardrobe and spend hours wandering amongst the ruins of her life. If Remus was out, virtually no one noticed his absence, nor did anyone question the long hours spent with Buckbeak. Frankly, many joined Molly in calling it a “fit of the sullens.”
But Sirius was far from sullen. He was fascinated, he was motivated, and he was trying to transform her world.
The Secret Suite had been built for previous Black women - ostensibly to hide from their overly amorous husbands, but Walburga and Orion had no such problems. Instead, Walburga used it as a sanctuary to escape the clamorous drudgery of her two small sons and to recover after her frequent “fits.” Yet sometimes, blackouts or no blackouts, she just wanted to be alone. Unfortunately, young Sirius and Regulus were not about to let that happen. Once they’d discovered her little secret they were bound and determined to invade her space and plunder what she’d hid there. Sirius, of course, found the entrance first. Simply by trailing his mother around the house and hiding under the bed whilst she murmured her Entrance Spells, he discovered the way in to her secret lair.
Not that most of it was very interesting to small boys. Sneaking in whilst their mother was out for tea, Sirius and Regulus had found a suite of five, interconnecting rooms: bedroom, bathroom, solarium, study, and a small sitting area with a teacart and table. The bedroom, study, and sitting room were predictably boring, yet surprisingly girlish. That which was not violet-upholstered was silver-plated and the entire place glowed with reflected sunlight. The bathroom was slightly more fascinating to a child, but the rose marble tub was not nearly as big as the pool downstairs where they took their nightly baths. And then there was the solarium.
Oh, the solarium was a wonder.
More like a garden, really, it was flooded with sunlight from the enchanted ceiling and overflowing with a stupendous array of plants both Magical and Mundane. At night, stars drifted overhead and, if one were so inclined to make it do so, a soft rain could fall. No matter what the time of year, the room was warm and humid, and the soft blanket of grass beneath their feet thick and lush. It was Walburga’s sanctuary, a place to practice her clandestine botanical hobbies and relish in the relative quiet of an ever-summery garden. It was a paradise and soon became Sirius’ favorite room in the house.
Upon returning to his childhood home, the solarium was one of the first places he visited.
Alone.
Sirius found the room overgrown with foliage, as if after his mother’s death, the magic had gone feral. Wisteria had conquered the walls, its fragrant purple blooms hanging heavy in the humid air. Pink roses blossomed in reckless abundance, shining like beacons amongst the dark, purple stalks of Delphiniums and Queen of the Night tulips. Cherry, pear, and apple trees bloomed and fruited at once, as the magic grew wild in a riotous mix of seasons.
He paused and took off his shoes, savoring the feeling of soft grass beneath feet that had too long known only pavement and carpet. With some trepidation, he poked further into the suite, only to find that, there, too, nature had taken its course.
In the study, ivy climbed the walls, peeling back the violet-flowered wallpaper to reveal pale plaster. The grass grew here, too, spreading like a thick carpet into the bedroom and sitting room. Mignonette and cornflowers spread themselves across the sitting room table, giving way to a sea of more common wildflowers, some of which Sirius happily recognized as useful. Aconite. Coltsfoot. Wild ginger. Plants he knew to be practical as well as lovely - especially when one was in love with a werewolf.
But there was more to explore on that first day back, and with some trepidation he headed into the slime-streaked bathroom. Long drapes of Spanish moss hung from the fixtures of the bathroom, and the tub had transformed into a pool brimming with lotus and small, green frogs. Sirius caught a glimpse of his reflection in the tarnished mirror. Though still drawn and gaunt and far too thin, he sensed something deeper, brighter. There was a change afoot, a new chance, a breath of fresh air. And Sirius smiled showing slightly yellowed teeth.
The bedroom proved to be another mass of vines: moonflowers, Aubretias, and more ivy and wisteria, shielding the ceiling and walls with a mass of color. The bed, once covered with a heavy, damask spread, was now but a mound of jade-green grass and Sweet William. Brightness filtered in, green and violet and rose glowing from the long-neglected windows, bathing the room in an eerie, chapel-like light. Elsewhere in the house, the dark, stoic dining room or dreary bedrooms, Sirius often felt anxious - but here he was inspired.
Telling no one, he devoted himself to restoring the garden - though the other rooms would remain intact - to a workable splendor. It became his secret project, for he knew instinctively that the others would never understand. Moody would insist on tearing the place apart in search of Dark Magic, and Molly would inevitably suggest he use it to grow food. Sirius had nothing against the growing of food, per se, but this was different. Like his mother before him, he wanted to create something secret and decadent - but with an entirely different outcome. It became his world, his secret, and to show it others would be to sully the sanctity of the place. Eventually, however, he would bring Remus here, but not until it was finished.
Sirius worked tirelessly, planting, clearing out weeds, and carefully moving unwanted plants to more suitable locations. With the exception of the Multiflora Rose (the Muggle version of Devil’s Snare, in his humble opinion), everything was saved, preserving the true essence of the lurid, fragile world of the Secret Suite. In the bathroom he cultivated a water garden where fragrant, night-blooming lotus floated in a marble pool bathed in moonlight. Reeds grew tall in the basin of the sink, and iridescent dragonflies darted to and fro. He moved the table from the sitting room into the solarium to create the ultimate alfresco dining experience, and hoped to serve dinner there soon. The bed-mound in the bedroom was freshly carpeted with soft grass, all the harsh-thorned plants banished to distant regions of the suite. (In Remus’ absence, sometimes he slept there, contentedly snoring beneath a canopy of lilacs.) He enchanted the ceiling to extend to every room, flooding the wonders of light and water into every darkened corner.
But his most innovative creation was the study and sitting area, where grew an abundance of wildflowers and potions ingredients, most of which were intended for Wolfsbane. Sirius knew he could brew it. He could hardly apply for the Ministry-required license, but such petty regulations had never stopped him before, had they? “Illegal” was practically his middle name, after all! Besides, all he wanted was to make Remus happy. However, in and amongst the more useful plants, he scattered the seeds of pink lupine. Pink lupin, his own little botanical joke about lycanthropic sexuality.
Sometimes he felt Walburga’s presence in the warm, sunny rooms. Initially, he thought it would scare him, yet, strangely it didn’t. Wallburga had been happy here, a little voice in his head told him. She felt safe. Once, as he stood in the rain, arms outstretched and face turned to catch the silvery droplets, he thought about her frequent black outs and inexplicable fits of rage from which she awoke confused and unremembering. He felt a sudden stab of sympathy for her then, for, despite her hatefulness and the occasional Crucio - or perhaps because of them - she was not a well woman. Sane people did not torture their own children, really. The thought of it made him sad.
Finally, after months of labor under sun, stars, and warm, silver rain, the rooms were ready. All he had to do was wait for a night in which the Order (and, most of all, the damned Weasleys) had vacated the house, leaving him alone with Remus. Thankfully, the chance came two days after the next full moon.
“Moony, come with me, I want to show you something.”
Remus looked up from his copy of The Daily Prophet and sighed. Sometimes Sirius feared his lover was only humoring him, being patient merely because he felt he had to. But Remus smiled and stretched his long legs and pried himself out of his comfortable armchair by the fire. “Yes, Pads?” he said quietly.
His voice betrayed no emotion.
Sirius grinned and took his lover’s hand, leading him through the maze of darkened hallways to the back of the house. “Take your shoes off, love,” he commanded, as they reached the corridor leading to Buckbeak’s room.
“Why? So I can step in hippogriff shit?” asked Remus with a chuckle. “There’s no one here to hear us anyway and…”
“Okay, fine,” huffed Sirius, “you can leave them on ‘till we get there, but I want you to feel it between your toes.”
Remus looked mildly horrified. “The shit?”
Sirius just shook his head and pointed at his on bare feet. Grudgingly, Remus removed his shoes and socks before following Sirius down the hall. “See, I cleaned it,” grumbled Sirius as they tiptoed past the sleeping beast. Sirius leaned over and gave him a kiss on the beak. “Sleep well,” he whispered. The hippogriff farted in his sleep.
“Oh, dear… Moving on, then,” said Sirius, waving his wand at the wardrobe.
Remus looked genuinely shocked to see it swing outward to reveal a door.
“This doesn’t involve a lion and a faun and eternal winter, does it?” joked Remus.
Sirius laughed and shook his head. “Come, love, I’ve a nice surprise.” And the pair stepped into Sirius’ indoor paradise.
“Good Merlin,” breathed Remus, taking in the moonlit garden. The scent of wisteria surrounded them, and the brief chirps of songbirds (yet another bit of brilliant magic, if Sirius did say so himself) filled the air. “Are we…?”
“No, love,” answered Sirius before Remus could even finish his sentence. “We’re still inside the house. It’s my mother’s Secret Suite and it’s…”
“…magnificent,” finished Remus.
A soft silence fell as Remus absorbed what he saw around him. He padded slowly through the now-cultivated decay of the adjoining rooms, pausing briefly to pet a small frog in the bathtub pond. Feeling wild and free, he batted playfully at the hanging vines in the bedroom and pulled Sirius into a fierce kiss before sprinting back to the main solarium and plunking himself down on a chair.
“Sirius, you really needed this, didn’t you?” he said after a long pause. His voice cracked slightly, echoing with the unspoken words, “more than you need me.”
Sirius nodded slowly. “Yes, Moony, I did need this,” he replied. And it was true. As much as he loved Remus, the house was a prison, and he missed being free to roam the outdoors. His years on the run had, in some respects, been glorious, allowing him to fulfill his childhood fantasy of living rough.
“You always did prefer being outside,” continued Remus. He shuffled his feet, long toes plucking at tufts of grass.
“Only with you.” And it was mostly true. Life with Remus was worth giving-up the sun and the wind and the stars, but he knew that his lover would never require it. He was a wolf, after all, a creature of the forest.
The humidity rose and crept around them, making Sirius glad of their lack of footwear. The air crackled with magic and a faint tinge of something more sinister: worry, fatigue, fear of inadequacy. The very soil reeked of Sirius’ labor and Remus’ trepidation.
“Come,” sang out Sirius, breaking the spell. “There is one more thing.” He enthusiastically yanked Remus out of his chair and pulled him into the study.
“Look!” he cried, pointing to the small Potions garden.
Remus looked. “Erm, wildflowers?” he asked after a minute.
“No, idiot, look at the kind of flowers.”
Remus peered into the starlit darkness, obviously at a loss. “Daisies?” he ventured, indicating the Coltsfoot.
Sirius huffed. “You really are pants at Herbology, aren’t you, love?”
“Hey! I grow things!”
“You grow pot in your closet and once helped your mum harvest tomatoes.”
“Well,” laughed Remus, “that’s something, Mr. Outstanding-on-your-Herbology-N.E.W.T.”
“You got an Excellent.”
“But I still can’t grow anything worth anything.”
“You grow excellent weed.”
“Fair point.”
Finally at ease, Remus pulled Sirius close. “But what is all that?” he asked again. “I mean, what is it for?”
“It’s Aconite,” Sirius whispered in the shell of Remus’ ear. “And Coltsfoot and…
“The makings of Wolfsbane,” interrupted Remus, finally catching on. “You did this… for me?”
“And me,” conceded Sirius truthfully.
But Remus was far past listening or caring. Pulling Sirius by the collar of his robes, he dragged him into the bedroom, pushing him down upon the mound of grass. “I love you,” he hissed, rubbing himself against his lover.
Sirius closed his eyes for a moment and allowed himself to be undressed. He’d fantasized about making love to Remus in his sanctuary, but this was far beyond his expectations. Here he was, having sex in the private domain of his mother, but, unlike the tryst in front of the portrait, this was not fraught with anger and revenge. He opened his eyes and gazed up at the waxing moon sailing across the enchanted ceiling. A breeze stirred the flowers overhead, crickets sang, and the night was filled with silver and green and the phantasmic shine of pink flowers in the nighttime. Above him, Remus moaned in ecstasy as he rocked back and forth - and Sirius gave in to pleasure.
Later, they snuggled down next to each other on the warm grass and slept.
Sirius woke before dawn and looked around and the splendor of his newly created world. Perhaps this was what his mother had been seeking as well: peace and fulfillment, love without losing a sense of self. Escape. Purity. Happiness. It startled him to think that they might have that much in common. But he was the lucky one, for he had no fits and blackouts to bind him down and no foolish rules to bind him. He could be himself. But most of all, he had the beautiful man who slept by his side.
He closed his eyes and smiled.
Author: Brighty18
Recipient: Rosivan
Rating: PG-13
Highlight for Warnings: * swearing, over-use of adjectives, frogs, and references to hippogriff feces*
Word Count: About 2,600
Summary: Sirius cultivates many things.
Author's notes: Rosivan, you are made of awesome and ran an awesome fest, as well. You said wanted the two of them in a garden as well as a bunch of lovely images of Grimmauld Place, and I hope that I did it justice.
Despite the patriarchic system of the Wizarding world, Grimmauld Place always felt like his mother’s house. His father had owned it in title (and both his parents in blood), but in spirit it belonged to Walburga. Her presence inhabited every corner of every room, seeping through the crumbling, silk-papered walls to taunt him. Her portrait hung in the entryway (or Hall of Portraits, as she’d pretentiously loved to call it.) Her bedroom wardrobe still reeked of her scent, and her devious little curses (biting snuffboxes, the gravy boat that nearly swallowed Remus’ hand, the fifth stair from the top that repeatedly called Sirius a “Blood Traitor Sodomite,” just to name a few) still lurked in dark spaces. She was difficult to banish.
At one point the house had been a war zone, a constant push and pull of magic between Sirius and his mother. Forbidden to decorate his room as he pleased, he used Permanent Sticking Charms to cover the walls in a flurry of Gryffindor banners and posters of Muggle motorcycles, including his personal favorite - used only to drive her to apoplexy - the one with the half-naked Muggle birds. In retaliation, she Charmed his widow shut, refusing him fresh air. He enchanted the doorknocker to sing “Ding, Dong the Witch is Dead,” a prank only he, with his knowledge of Muggle culture, could truly appreciate. She commanded the mounted heads of long-dead house-elves to call him nasty names as he walked past.
And so it went until Sirius left home - and Merlin only knew what happened after that.
But when Sirius returned to Grimmauld Place he made a surprising discovery: the rooms that retained her presence most strongly were the ones that drew him. To relieve the odor in her bedroom, he placed Buckbeak there, the hippogriff’s warm and comforting presence banishing the cold, harsh aftermath of Walburga Black. Once, he and Remus had made passionate love beneath her portrait just to watch her face contort into a visage of rage and confusion at the sight of her once-precious heir being “taken by a Dark Creature.” Sirius had laughed savagely at her anguish, taunting her with his pleasure before he came. Remus initially had his doubts, but eventually went along with the plan and, in the end (so to speak), Sirius knew he enjoyed it. They often played such games when no one else was about.
Strangely, however, it was her secret rooms to which he gravitated. Telling no one - not even Remus, for a reason he could not initially fathom - Sirius would slip into the Secret Suite behind her wardrobe and spend hours wandering amongst the ruins of her life. If Remus was out, virtually no one noticed his absence, nor did anyone question the long hours spent with Buckbeak. Frankly, many joined Molly in calling it a “fit of the sullens.”
But Sirius was far from sullen. He was fascinated, he was motivated, and he was trying to transform her world.
The Secret Suite had been built for previous Black women - ostensibly to hide from their overly amorous husbands, but Walburga and Orion had no such problems. Instead, Walburga used it as a sanctuary to escape the clamorous drudgery of her two small sons and to recover after her frequent “fits.” Yet sometimes, blackouts or no blackouts, she just wanted to be alone. Unfortunately, young Sirius and Regulus were not about to let that happen. Once they’d discovered her little secret they were bound and determined to invade her space and plunder what she’d hid there. Sirius, of course, found the entrance first. Simply by trailing his mother around the house and hiding under the bed whilst she murmured her Entrance Spells, he discovered the way in to her secret lair.
Not that most of it was very interesting to small boys. Sneaking in whilst their mother was out for tea, Sirius and Regulus had found a suite of five, interconnecting rooms: bedroom, bathroom, solarium, study, and a small sitting area with a teacart and table. The bedroom, study, and sitting room were predictably boring, yet surprisingly girlish. That which was not violet-upholstered was silver-plated and the entire place glowed with reflected sunlight. The bathroom was slightly more fascinating to a child, but the rose marble tub was not nearly as big as the pool downstairs where they took their nightly baths. And then there was the solarium.
Oh, the solarium was a wonder.
More like a garden, really, it was flooded with sunlight from the enchanted ceiling and overflowing with a stupendous array of plants both Magical and Mundane. At night, stars drifted overhead and, if one were so inclined to make it do so, a soft rain could fall. No matter what the time of year, the room was warm and humid, and the soft blanket of grass beneath their feet thick and lush. It was Walburga’s sanctuary, a place to practice her clandestine botanical hobbies and relish in the relative quiet of an ever-summery garden. It was a paradise and soon became Sirius’ favorite room in the house.
Upon returning to his childhood home, the solarium was one of the first places he visited.
Alone.
Sirius found the room overgrown with foliage, as if after his mother’s death, the magic had gone feral. Wisteria had conquered the walls, its fragrant purple blooms hanging heavy in the humid air. Pink roses blossomed in reckless abundance, shining like beacons amongst the dark, purple stalks of Delphiniums and Queen of the Night tulips. Cherry, pear, and apple trees bloomed and fruited at once, as the magic grew wild in a riotous mix of seasons.
He paused and took off his shoes, savoring the feeling of soft grass beneath feet that had too long known only pavement and carpet. With some trepidation, he poked further into the suite, only to find that, there, too, nature had taken its course.
In the study, ivy climbed the walls, peeling back the violet-flowered wallpaper to reveal pale plaster. The grass grew here, too, spreading like a thick carpet into the bedroom and sitting room. Mignonette and cornflowers spread themselves across the sitting room table, giving way to a sea of more common wildflowers, some of which Sirius happily recognized as useful. Aconite. Coltsfoot. Wild ginger. Plants he knew to be practical as well as lovely - especially when one was in love with a werewolf.
But there was more to explore on that first day back, and with some trepidation he headed into the slime-streaked bathroom. Long drapes of Spanish moss hung from the fixtures of the bathroom, and the tub had transformed into a pool brimming with lotus and small, green frogs. Sirius caught a glimpse of his reflection in the tarnished mirror. Though still drawn and gaunt and far too thin, he sensed something deeper, brighter. There was a change afoot, a new chance, a breath of fresh air. And Sirius smiled showing slightly yellowed teeth.
The bedroom proved to be another mass of vines: moonflowers, Aubretias, and more ivy and wisteria, shielding the ceiling and walls with a mass of color. The bed, once covered with a heavy, damask spread, was now but a mound of jade-green grass and Sweet William. Brightness filtered in, green and violet and rose glowing from the long-neglected windows, bathing the room in an eerie, chapel-like light. Elsewhere in the house, the dark, stoic dining room or dreary bedrooms, Sirius often felt anxious - but here he was inspired.
Telling no one, he devoted himself to restoring the garden - though the other rooms would remain intact - to a workable splendor. It became his secret project, for he knew instinctively that the others would never understand. Moody would insist on tearing the place apart in search of Dark Magic, and Molly would inevitably suggest he use it to grow food. Sirius had nothing against the growing of food, per se, but this was different. Like his mother before him, he wanted to create something secret and decadent - but with an entirely different outcome. It became his world, his secret, and to show it others would be to sully the sanctity of the place. Eventually, however, he would bring Remus here, but not until it was finished.
Sirius worked tirelessly, planting, clearing out weeds, and carefully moving unwanted plants to more suitable locations. With the exception of the Multiflora Rose (the Muggle version of Devil’s Snare, in his humble opinion), everything was saved, preserving the true essence of the lurid, fragile world of the Secret Suite. In the bathroom he cultivated a water garden where fragrant, night-blooming lotus floated in a marble pool bathed in moonlight. Reeds grew tall in the basin of the sink, and iridescent dragonflies darted to and fro. He moved the table from the sitting room into the solarium to create the ultimate alfresco dining experience, and hoped to serve dinner there soon. The bed-mound in the bedroom was freshly carpeted with soft grass, all the harsh-thorned plants banished to distant regions of the suite. (In Remus’ absence, sometimes he slept there, contentedly snoring beneath a canopy of lilacs.) He enchanted the ceiling to extend to every room, flooding the wonders of light and water into every darkened corner.
But his most innovative creation was the study and sitting area, where grew an abundance of wildflowers and potions ingredients, most of which were intended for Wolfsbane. Sirius knew he could brew it. He could hardly apply for the Ministry-required license, but such petty regulations had never stopped him before, had they? “Illegal” was practically his middle name, after all! Besides, all he wanted was to make Remus happy. However, in and amongst the more useful plants, he scattered the seeds of pink lupine. Pink lupin, his own little botanical joke about lycanthropic sexuality.
Sometimes he felt Walburga’s presence in the warm, sunny rooms. Initially, he thought it would scare him, yet, strangely it didn’t. Wallburga had been happy here, a little voice in his head told him. She felt safe. Once, as he stood in the rain, arms outstretched and face turned to catch the silvery droplets, he thought about her frequent black outs and inexplicable fits of rage from which she awoke confused and unremembering. He felt a sudden stab of sympathy for her then, for, despite her hatefulness and the occasional Crucio - or perhaps because of them - she was not a well woman. Sane people did not torture their own children, really. The thought of it made him sad.
Finally, after months of labor under sun, stars, and warm, silver rain, the rooms were ready. All he had to do was wait for a night in which the Order (and, most of all, the damned Weasleys) had vacated the house, leaving him alone with Remus. Thankfully, the chance came two days after the next full moon.
“Moony, come with me, I want to show you something.”
Remus looked up from his copy of The Daily Prophet and sighed. Sometimes Sirius feared his lover was only humoring him, being patient merely because he felt he had to. But Remus smiled and stretched his long legs and pried himself out of his comfortable armchair by the fire. “Yes, Pads?” he said quietly.
His voice betrayed no emotion.
Sirius grinned and took his lover’s hand, leading him through the maze of darkened hallways to the back of the house. “Take your shoes off, love,” he commanded, as they reached the corridor leading to Buckbeak’s room.
“Why? So I can step in hippogriff shit?” asked Remus with a chuckle. “There’s no one here to hear us anyway and…”
“Okay, fine,” huffed Sirius, “you can leave them on ‘till we get there, but I want you to feel it between your toes.”
Remus looked mildly horrified. “The shit?”
Sirius just shook his head and pointed at his on bare feet. Grudgingly, Remus removed his shoes and socks before following Sirius down the hall. “See, I cleaned it,” grumbled Sirius as they tiptoed past the sleeping beast. Sirius leaned over and gave him a kiss on the beak. “Sleep well,” he whispered. The hippogriff farted in his sleep.
“Oh, dear… Moving on, then,” said Sirius, waving his wand at the wardrobe.
Remus looked genuinely shocked to see it swing outward to reveal a door.
“This doesn’t involve a lion and a faun and eternal winter, does it?” joked Remus.
Sirius laughed and shook his head. “Come, love, I’ve a nice surprise.” And the pair stepped into Sirius’ indoor paradise.
“Good Merlin,” breathed Remus, taking in the moonlit garden. The scent of wisteria surrounded them, and the brief chirps of songbirds (yet another bit of brilliant magic, if Sirius did say so himself) filled the air. “Are we…?”
“No, love,” answered Sirius before Remus could even finish his sentence. “We’re still inside the house. It’s my mother’s Secret Suite and it’s…”
“…magnificent,” finished Remus.
A soft silence fell as Remus absorbed what he saw around him. He padded slowly through the now-cultivated decay of the adjoining rooms, pausing briefly to pet a small frog in the bathtub pond. Feeling wild and free, he batted playfully at the hanging vines in the bedroom and pulled Sirius into a fierce kiss before sprinting back to the main solarium and plunking himself down on a chair.
“Sirius, you really needed this, didn’t you?” he said after a long pause. His voice cracked slightly, echoing with the unspoken words, “more than you need me.”
Sirius nodded slowly. “Yes, Moony, I did need this,” he replied. And it was true. As much as he loved Remus, the house was a prison, and he missed being free to roam the outdoors. His years on the run had, in some respects, been glorious, allowing him to fulfill his childhood fantasy of living rough.
“You always did prefer being outside,” continued Remus. He shuffled his feet, long toes plucking at tufts of grass.
“Only with you.” And it was mostly true. Life with Remus was worth giving-up the sun and the wind and the stars, but he knew that his lover would never require it. He was a wolf, after all, a creature of the forest.
The humidity rose and crept around them, making Sirius glad of their lack of footwear. The air crackled with magic and a faint tinge of something more sinister: worry, fatigue, fear of inadequacy. The very soil reeked of Sirius’ labor and Remus’ trepidation.
“Come,” sang out Sirius, breaking the spell. “There is one more thing.” He enthusiastically yanked Remus out of his chair and pulled him into the study.
“Look!” he cried, pointing to the small Potions garden.
Remus looked. “Erm, wildflowers?” he asked after a minute.
“No, idiot, look at the kind of flowers.”
Remus peered into the starlit darkness, obviously at a loss. “Daisies?” he ventured, indicating the Coltsfoot.
Sirius huffed. “You really are pants at Herbology, aren’t you, love?”
“Hey! I grow things!”
“You grow pot in your closet and once helped your mum harvest tomatoes.”
“Well,” laughed Remus, “that’s something, Mr. Outstanding-on-your-Herbology-N.E.W.T.”
“You got an Excellent.”
“But I still can’t grow anything worth anything.”
“You grow excellent weed.”
“Fair point.”
Finally at ease, Remus pulled Sirius close. “But what is all that?” he asked again. “I mean, what is it for?”
“It’s Aconite,” Sirius whispered in the shell of Remus’ ear. “And Coltsfoot and…
“The makings of Wolfsbane,” interrupted Remus, finally catching on. “You did this… for me?”
“And me,” conceded Sirius truthfully.
But Remus was far past listening or caring. Pulling Sirius by the collar of his robes, he dragged him into the bedroom, pushing him down upon the mound of grass. “I love you,” he hissed, rubbing himself against his lover.
Sirius closed his eyes for a moment and allowed himself to be undressed. He’d fantasized about making love to Remus in his sanctuary, but this was far beyond his expectations. Here he was, having sex in the private domain of his mother, but, unlike the tryst in front of the portrait, this was not fraught with anger and revenge. He opened his eyes and gazed up at the waxing moon sailing across the enchanted ceiling. A breeze stirred the flowers overhead, crickets sang, and the night was filled with silver and green and the phantasmic shine of pink flowers in the nighttime. Above him, Remus moaned in ecstasy as he rocked back and forth - and Sirius gave in to pleasure.
Later, they snuggled down next to each other on the warm grass and slept.
Sirius woke before dawn and looked around and the splendor of his newly created world. Perhaps this was what his mother had been seeking as well: peace and fulfillment, love without losing a sense of self. Escape. Purity. Happiness. It startled him to think that they might have that much in common. But he was the lucky one, for he had no fits and blackouts to bind him down and no foolish rules to bind him. He could be himself. But most of all, he had the beautiful man who slept by his side.
He closed his eyes and smiled.