Harry Potter (Remus/Sirius)
Apr. 27th, 2007 11:19 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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kinkfestTitle: Visit, Stay
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
puella_nerdii
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1,837
Warnings: none
Prompt: Harry Potter, Remus/Sirius: Relearning each other - "Of all my demon spirits, I need you the most"
A/N: Takes place during Goblet of Fire. I kind of want to go back and add more to it. I'm compulsive like that. Sorry for the lateness -- RL does unexpected things sometimes.
The whistle of the kettle drowns out the scratching at the front door; Remus doesn’t hear anything until he takes the battered kettle from the stovetop and does his best to keep hot water seeping from the cracks in the faded blue pottery as he pours his tea. A pity that the Repairing Charm only does so much, he muses to himself. The scratching becomes a feverish tattoo. Remus sets the kettle down and decides he ought to open the door before the wood sustains any more damage from whoever’s so desperate to come in. He doesn’t quite have the money for home repairs now, after all.
He douses the cheery flames leaping from the stovetop with his wand, then pulls the door open just as the clawing reaches a new frenzied pace. Padfoot’s large black eyes stare up at him, polished black shoe buttons nested in the heavy velvet of his fur. His tail twitches from side to side as the barest hint of pink tongue slips from his jaws.
Remus blinks.
“You’d best come in,” he says at last. Padfoot obediently trots inside at his heels.
Remus gets to work pulling the blinds shut. It’s not yet half past two, he’d rather that his closest neighbors remark on the peculiarity of drawing one’s curtains at such an early hour than remark on how they saw a large black dog transform into an escaped convict. Granted, his neighbors don’t seem the type to spy on his every doing with high-powered Muggle telescopes. They’re in the thick of planting season now, so it’s unlikely that they have the energy to wonder what that nice Mr. Lupin might be up to. The residents of Crosby Village think him a pleasant enough chap, always very polite, but just a bit strange all the same; not the kind of strange like Aunt Muriel thinking she was the Empress Josephine, one housewife clarified to her friend while Remus was in earshot, but the kind of peculiar that’s—well, that’s more like having a big collection of funny-shaped rocks. Harmless, really, but still a bit off. (The housewife’s friend nodded vigorously). Still, it’s one of the more flattering descriptions he’s been privileged to receive over the years. It reminds him of something James might have said, which in turn reminds him that Padfoot ought to be fed. His coat’s thicker than it was when Remus saw him that night, but it’s nowhere near as glossy as it used to be.
“I suppose you didn’t think to stop and eat,” he murmurs. “I’ve just finished putting on the tea, and we can have some bread to go with that, if you’d like. If you’d written ahead to say you were coming up, I could have gone shopping earlier.”
Then again, Sirius never has been one to plan ahead—and even if he had made plans, he’s never been one to stick to a schedule of any sorts. Padfoot’s tongue lolls out as he stretches and shifts, his outline becoming taller, more human. Moments later, Sirius is sitting cross-legged on Remus’s kitchen floor.
“Sorry,” he says. He’s managed to get in a decent meal or two since Remus saw him last, at least, and he’s gotten rid of most of that filthy tangle of hair. The edge of desperation has worn off from his smile, though shadows still lurk (and likely always will lurk) at the corners of his mouth. “Harry wrote to me, and well—I thought I’d best come up.”
“Well, you don’t have to stay on the floor.” Remus draws his wand and sketches the outline of a chair; the shape hangs in midair, glimmering and rotating slowly before it solidifies and falls to the floor with a muffled thump.
“Thanks.” Sirius slumps against the chair’s sturdy back and sighs, closing his eyes.
“Tea?”
“I could do with that, yeah. Haven’t had a good cup of tea since—” He shrugs, but not before Remus sees the shutters closing behind his eyes. Just for a second.
“Then you’ll have one now. I’ll let you talk after you’ve eaten.” Remus gets out his least chipped cup and takes another moment to appreciate the situation: Sirius strolling in through the front door just as he used to, unannounced and unplanned. And he’s making tea for the two of them, just as he used to. But no, it’s not quite the same. Sirius grips the sides of the cup hard enough to turn his knuckles white, and Remus’s eyes keep straying to the door.
Sirius notices. “I can transform back if you’re worried about visitors.”
“I’m not,” he says. “Besides, I’m the only wizard around for miles. Or I was until a few minutes ago,” he adds. “Did you get a new wand?”
Sirius draws a thin strip of wood from the sleeve of his robes, dark brown and gleaming. “Dumbledore sent it to me while I was still in Africa.”
“Thoughtful of him,” Remus says as he takes his seat next to Sirius. “So. Africa? It explains those birds…”
Sirius chuckles, and it’s the same bark-like laugh Remus is used to, or close enough to it to make his heart contract with the memory. “I thought them a nice touch.”
“They’re hardly inconspicuous.”
“I’m hardly inconspicuous.”
“True.” He sighs and leans back in his chair, running his fingers over the rim of his teacup. He has to ask, he knows that. “You still haven’t said why you’ve come, you know. I don’t think you’d fly all the way back to Britain for a cuppa.”
“I would if it was your tea. You always did make the best tea.”
Remus says nothing, just stares at him over the rim of his cup. It’s a trick he used often last year to get answers from some of his more stubborn students. Sirius holds out longer than they usually did, but only just. He runs his hands through his freshly shorn hair. “Harry wrote me, like I said. His scar was acting up.”
Slowly, Remus sets down his cup.
“That’s no good.” He’s almost but not quite surprised at how—even he sounds about all this. In some ways, it’s to be expected. None of the old Order thought he’d be gone for good, and after Wormtail’s escape and from what Dumbledore told him about Sybil’s prophecy…well, it was a matter of time. Still, it had been pleasant to believe otherwise these past thirteen years, to convince himself that perhaps it really was over.
“It’s not,” Sirius agrees. “And with Bertha Jorkins vanishing in Albania and the Dark Mark at the World Cup…”
Remus nods. He knows where this is leading. They both do.
“I had to make sure he was safe, Remus.”
“I know.” He reaches across the table to cover Sirius’s hand with his own, and that’s not quite the same either; there are heavy scars striped across Sirius’s knuckles now. He can feel the thick marks rising angrily beneath his fingertips. He’ll ask later, if he’ll ask at all. Sirius brushes his thumb against Remus’s palm, a ghost of a touch that makes Remus want (or need) the real thing all the more. “Have you told Harry that you’re back?” he asks.
“I told him I was flying north,” Sirius says, then smiles just a little, the corner of his mouth curving up. “He wasn’t happy about it.”
“He cares about you,” Remus says simply. “He doesn’t want you to get caught.”
“I’ve been careful,” he grumbles. Remus half-expects him to roll his eyes. “I’ve been traveling on Buckbeak—I let him go hunting out in the woods behind this place—but I only fly at night, I don’t fly over populated areas, and if I have to rest, I find a cave or curl up in dog form after I slap a Disillusionment Charm over Buckbeak. I renew the charm three times a day. And the wand’s not registered with the Ministry, Dumbledore says, so that’s all right. So have I been a good boy, Mother?”
“If I were your mother, I’d be far more of a shrieking harridan than I am now,” Remus replies smoothly.
“If you were my mother—” Sirius stops and looks down, clearing his throat.
“…I’d have killed myself after discovering that I had a certain other monthly affliction,” Remus finishes for him. “We used to joke about that one all the time.”
Sirius grins. “James said they should just ship you off to the girl’s dormitory and be done with it.”
“But never in Lily’s hearing,” Remus adds, smiling faintly.
“No, of course not. He could be thick, but he wasn’t stupid.”
They sit in silence for a few moments and remember.
Remus speaks first. “When will you send word to Harry?” he asks.
“Soon. After I’ve gotten settled in those caves outside of Hogsmeade. You remember them.”
“I remember James getting stuck in them.”
“You remember them,” he repeats, grinning widely enough that Remus can’t help but smile back. Everyone has to smile when Sirius grins like that. It seems the dementors couldn’t take that from him. “Dumbledore suggested that Buckbeak and I stay there.”
“When do you think you’ll get there?”
“Two days?” Sirius shrugs.
“Two days nonstop?” He understands, of course. Harry’s safety takes priority over…well, over tea. He didn’t expect this to be a long visit—shouldn’t have, at least. Really, he’s glad that Sirius found the time to stop by at all. (Or he should be.)
“Two days if…well.” Sirius’s eyes shift down again. “If I stayed here tonight.”
The smile spreads over Remus’s face like a ray of sunlight. It’s a sensation he’s grown quite unaccustomed to feeling. “You’re welcome to. You always are.”
“I just—I figure I’ve bollixed things up enough for you as it is, and I know I should be groveling right now, and—oh, hell.” Sirius’s voice cracks. His chair topples to the ground when he springs forward from it and pounces on Remus, his hands fisting in the front of Remus’s robes as he kisses him and kisses him and kisses him again. His lips are on every inch of Remus that he can reach, and Remus forgets to breathe. He has to keep tasting the curve of Sirius’s lips, the ridges of his tongue; they’re burning with a fire that’s so unmistakably Sirius, and the flames are covering every inch of him, tongues of fire lapping at him hard and fast, and it’s too much and not enough all at once, and that’s Sirius for you.
They break apart, panting. He runs his hand through Sirius’s hair, traces his fingers down the line of Sirius’s jaw and feels the light prickle of stubble there—Sirius used to be so fastidious about shaving, he remembers. He rubs his thumb over the wrinkles around Sirius’s eyes and forehead as though to smudge them out, erase the passage of time and start anew.
“God, I’ve missed you,” Sirius whispers.
Remus laces his fingers in Sirius’s and tugs him closer. “Welcome home.”
Author:
puella_nerdiiRating: PG
Wordcount: 1,837
Warnings: none
Prompt: Harry Potter, Remus/Sirius: Relearning each other - "Of all my demon spirits, I need you the most"
A/N: Takes place during Goblet of Fire. I kind of want to go back and add more to it. I'm compulsive like that. Sorry for the lateness -- RL does unexpected things sometimes.
The whistle of the kettle drowns out the scratching at the front door; Remus doesn’t hear anything until he takes the battered kettle from the stovetop and does his best to keep hot water seeping from the cracks in the faded blue pottery as he pours his tea. A pity that the Repairing Charm only does so much, he muses to himself. The scratching becomes a feverish tattoo. Remus sets the kettle down and decides he ought to open the door before the wood sustains any more damage from whoever’s so desperate to come in. He doesn’t quite have the money for home repairs now, after all.
He douses the cheery flames leaping from the stovetop with his wand, then pulls the door open just as the clawing reaches a new frenzied pace. Padfoot’s large black eyes stare up at him, polished black shoe buttons nested in the heavy velvet of his fur. His tail twitches from side to side as the barest hint of pink tongue slips from his jaws.
Remus blinks.
“You’d best come in,” he says at last. Padfoot obediently trots inside at his heels.
Remus gets to work pulling the blinds shut. It’s not yet half past two, he’d rather that his closest neighbors remark on the peculiarity of drawing one’s curtains at such an early hour than remark on how they saw a large black dog transform into an escaped convict. Granted, his neighbors don’t seem the type to spy on his every doing with high-powered Muggle telescopes. They’re in the thick of planting season now, so it’s unlikely that they have the energy to wonder what that nice Mr. Lupin might be up to. The residents of Crosby Village think him a pleasant enough chap, always very polite, but just a bit strange all the same; not the kind of strange like Aunt Muriel thinking she was the Empress Josephine, one housewife clarified to her friend while Remus was in earshot, but the kind of peculiar that’s—well, that’s more like having a big collection of funny-shaped rocks. Harmless, really, but still a bit off. (The housewife’s friend nodded vigorously). Still, it’s one of the more flattering descriptions he’s been privileged to receive over the years. It reminds him of something James might have said, which in turn reminds him that Padfoot ought to be fed. His coat’s thicker than it was when Remus saw him that night, but it’s nowhere near as glossy as it used to be.
“I suppose you didn’t think to stop and eat,” he murmurs. “I’ve just finished putting on the tea, and we can have some bread to go with that, if you’d like. If you’d written ahead to say you were coming up, I could have gone shopping earlier.”
Then again, Sirius never has been one to plan ahead—and even if he had made plans, he’s never been one to stick to a schedule of any sorts. Padfoot’s tongue lolls out as he stretches and shifts, his outline becoming taller, more human. Moments later, Sirius is sitting cross-legged on Remus’s kitchen floor.
“Sorry,” he says. He’s managed to get in a decent meal or two since Remus saw him last, at least, and he’s gotten rid of most of that filthy tangle of hair. The edge of desperation has worn off from his smile, though shadows still lurk (and likely always will lurk) at the corners of his mouth. “Harry wrote to me, and well—I thought I’d best come up.”
“Well, you don’t have to stay on the floor.” Remus draws his wand and sketches the outline of a chair; the shape hangs in midair, glimmering and rotating slowly before it solidifies and falls to the floor with a muffled thump.
“Thanks.” Sirius slumps against the chair’s sturdy back and sighs, closing his eyes.
“Tea?”
“I could do with that, yeah. Haven’t had a good cup of tea since—” He shrugs, but not before Remus sees the shutters closing behind his eyes. Just for a second.
“Then you’ll have one now. I’ll let you talk after you’ve eaten.” Remus gets out his least chipped cup and takes another moment to appreciate the situation: Sirius strolling in through the front door just as he used to, unannounced and unplanned. And he’s making tea for the two of them, just as he used to. But no, it’s not quite the same. Sirius grips the sides of the cup hard enough to turn his knuckles white, and Remus’s eyes keep straying to the door.
Sirius notices. “I can transform back if you’re worried about visitors.”
“I’m not,” he says. “Besides, I’m the only wizard around for miles. Or I was until a few minutes ago,” he adds. “Did you get a new wand?”
Sirius draws a thin strip of wood from the sleeve of his robes, dark brown and gleaming. “Dumbledore sent it to me while I was still in Africa.”
“Thoughtful of him,” Remus says as he takes his seat next to Sirius. “So. Africa? It explains those birds…”
Sirius chuckles, and it’s the same bark-like laugh Remus is used to, or close enough to it to make his heart contract with the memory. “I thought them a nice touch.”
“They’re hardly inconspicuous.”
“I’m hardly inconspicuous.”
“True.” He sighs and leans back in his chair, running his fingers over the rim of his teacup. He has to ask, he knows that. “You still haven’t said why you’ve come, you know. I don’t think you’d fly all the way back to Britain for a cuppa.”
“I would if it was your tea. You always did make the best tea.”
Remus says nothing, just stares at him over the rim of his cup. It’s a trick he used often last year to get answers from some of his more stubborn students. Sirius holds out longer than they usually did, but only just. He runs his hands through his freshly shorn hair. “Harry wrote me, like I said. His scar was acting up.”
Slowly, Remus sets down his cup.
“That’s no good.” He’s almost but not quite surprised at how—even he sounds about all this. In some ways, it’s to be expected. None of the old Order thought he’d be gone for good, and after Wormtail’s escape and from what Dumbledore told him about Sybil’s prophecy…well, it was a matter of time. Still, it had been pleasant to believe otherwise these past thirteen years, to convince himself that perhaps it really was over.
“It’s not,” Sirius agrees. “And with Bertha Jorkins vanishing in Albania and the Dark Mark at the World Cup…”
Remus nods. He knows where this is leading. They both do.
“I had to make sure he was safe, Remus.”
“I know.” He reaches across the table to cover Sirius’s hand with his own, and that’s not quite the same either; there are heavy scars striped across Sirius’s knuckles now. He can feel the thick marks rising angrily beneath his fingertips. He’ll ask later, if he’ll ask at all. Sirius brushes his thumb against Remus’s palm, a ghost of a touch that makes Remus want (or need) the real thing all the more. “Have you told Harry that you’re back?” he asks.
“I told him I was flying north,” Sirius says, then smiles just a little, the corner of his mouth curving up. “He wasn’t happy about it.”
“He cares about you,” Remus says simply. “He doesn’t want you to get caught.”
“I’ve been careful,” he grumbles. Remus half-expects him to roll his eyes. “I’ve been traveling on Buckbeak—I let him go hunting out in the woods behind this place—but I only fly at night, I don’t fly over populated areas, and if I have to rest, I find a cave or curl up in dog form after I slap a Disillusionment Charm over Buckbeak. I renew the charm three times a day. And the wand’s not registered with the Ministry, Dumbledore says, so that’s all right. So have I been a good boy, Mother?”
“If I were your mother, I’d be far more of a shrieking harridan than I am now,” Remus replies smoothly.
“If you were my mother—” Sirius stops and looks down, clearing his throat.
“…I’d have killed myself after discovering that I had a certain other monthly affliction,” Remus finishes for him. “We used to joke about that one all the time.”
Sirius grins. “James said they should just ship you off to the girl’s dormitory and be done with it.”
“But never in Lily’s hearing,” Remus adds, smiling faintly.
“No, of course not. He could be thick, but he wasn’t stupid.”
They sit in silence for a few moments and remember.
Remus speaks first. “When will you send word to Harry?” he asks.
“Soon. After I’ve gotten settled in those caves outside of Hogsmeade. You remember them.”
“I remember James getting stuck in them.”
“You remember them,” he repeats, grinning widely enough that Remus can’t help but smile back. Everyone has to smile when Sirius grins like that. It seems the dementors couldn’t take that from him. “Dumbledore suggested that Buckbeak and I stay there.”
“When do you think you’ll get there?”
“Two days?” Sirius shrugs.
“Two days nonstop?” He understands, of course. Harry’s safety takes priority over…well, over tea. He didn’t expect this to be a long visit—shouldn’t have, at least. Really, he’s glad that Sirius found the time to stop by at all. (Or he should be.)
“Two days if…well.” Sirius’s eyes shift down again. “If I stayed here tonight.”
The smile spreads over Remus’s face like a ray of sunlight. It’s a sensation he’s grown quite unaccustomed to feeling. “You’re welcome to. You always are.”
“I just—I figure I’ve bollixed things up enough for you as it is, and I know I should be groveling right now, and—oh, hell.” Sirius’s voice cracks. His chair topples to the ground when he springs forward from it and pounces on Remus, his hands fisting in the front of Remus’s robes as he kisses him and kisses him and kisses him again. His lips are on every inch of Remus that he can reach, and Remus forgets to breathe. He has to keep tasting the curve of Sirius’s lips, the ridges of his tongue; they’re burning with a fire that’s so unmistakably Sirius, and the flames are covering every inch of him, tongues of fire lapping at him hard and fast, and it’s too much and not enough all at once, and that’s Sirius for you.
They break apart, panting. He runs his hand through Sirius’s hair, traces his fingers down the line of Sirius’s jaw and feels the light prickle of stubble there—Sirius used to be so fastidious about shaving, he remembers. He rubs his thumb over the wrinkles around Sirius’s eyes and forehead as though to smudge them out, erase the passage of time and start anew.
“God, I’ve missed you,” Sirius whispers.
Remus laces his fingers in Sirius’s and tugs him closer. “Welcome home.”
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Date: 2007-04-28 04:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-28 04:11 am (UTC)Thank you!
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Date: 2007-04-28 08:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-28 08:23 am (UTC)...um. That's a longer way of saying "omgwoobflailsquee@R/S." But yeah. Glad you liked!