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In an orgy of sleeplessness, I have caught up with the traffic on the Veelainc list (I am evil, and neglect my modly duties) and finished the alternative chapter of "Scars." Bye-bye Claire, hello Remus and h/c (albeit sadly pg-13 h/c, in keeping with the story's rating).
“Everyone else can have my nightmares, and I’ll take theirs, thanks.” The dry attempt at humour slid back into a quiet mumble. “That bloody court martial, and James n’ Lily standin’ there dead to give evidence, and you n’ Harry behind them, an’, an’ those soddin’ things comin’ for me, an’ I call to you to help me, an’ that’s when I realize that the two of you are dead, an’ Wormtail’s standin’ behind you with his hands around your throat, an’ then they’ve got me, an’ they pull off their hoods an’ drag my head back, an’ their mouths taste like fog an’ gravedirt…” He trailed off with a shudder. “Stupid, I know. Wormtail doesn’t even have two hands anymore, not according to Harry.”
It didn’t sound stupid to Remus. It sounded like one of the creepiest things he’d ever heard. Sirius’s subconscious was evidently not a pleasant place to be. “I’m not dead. I’m fine, and Harry’s fine, and they aren’t here.” He paused for an instant. “I think I’ve said that already.”
“Prove it to me.” It was a whisper, so quiet that even Remus’s sharper than average hearing barely caught it.
“Prove to you that Harry’s fine? We can’t go waking him up now, Padfoot. It’s the middle of the night.”
Sirius half-laughed, a sound that never failed to raise the hairs on Remus’s neck. Sirius had several sorts of laughter, from “Look at Snape trying to brush the pink flower petals out of his hair, he doesn’t know we’ve charmed them into place, the git” to “that’s not really funny but I’m laughing anyway in a cynical fashion,” to “I’m laughing so I won’t cry,” to “watch me loose all emotional and physical restraint.” This one was somewhere between “cynical” and “laughing so as to not cry,” but any laughter from Sirius that wasn’t born of outright, honest amusement had bad associations.
“Not Harry—I’d never wake him up at this hour just ‘cause I’m unbalanced and paranoid. You.”
Ships: Remus/Sirius
Author’s Note: This is the way the third chapter of “Scars” would have gone, had I had the guts at the time to do it right. Back in February of last year, I was still a little nervous at the thought of writing slash, hence the use of Claire Sinistra as Sirius’s romantic interest in “Scars.” I’ve since gotten over my nervousness, and the following is a brief glimpse of what “Scars” might have been like if it were in the same continuity as “Gravity.”
In Which There is Pondering on Scars and Nightmares, and Remus Borrows a Potion.
“No, stop…no…” the sound of the tortured moans cut into Remus’ slumber. Deep inside him, the wolf reared its head, protective instincts aroused. His packmate was hurting. No one was allowed to hurt his packmates; they were his, his to defend…
The low, threatening growl that emerged from Remus’ throat startled him fully awake. He lifted his head from the pillow, turning automatically toward the couch where Sirius was sleeping. The other wizard was twitching and writhing in his sleep, face contorted into an expression of terror, breath coming in protesting gasps. “Please, no…”
“Sirius.” Remus was out of his bed and beside the couch in two bounds. “Wake up.” He shook Sirius’s shoulder gently.
Blue eyes popped open and stared wildly around, unfocused and filled with fear.
“It’s okay, Padfoot; it was only a dream.”
Sirius was shaking, face white and eyes ringed with shadows, their pupils huge and dilated. Slowly, he focused on Remus, and sense began to seep back into those haunted eyes.
“You were having a nightmare,” Remus said. “Screaming bloody murder. I woke up and thought someone was attacking us.”
Sirius drew a shuddering breath, sitting up and putting his head in his hands. “Bloody soddin’ dreams,” he muttered into his hands. “I don’t know which are the worst: the ones where Harry is dead, the ones where the Dementors are comin’ for me, or the ones where Lily and James…” his voice trailed off.
Remus laid a hand on Sirius’s arm, feeling muscles quivering uncontrollably under his palm, and skin cold as ice and covered with goosebumps. Not good.
“Come on, Sirius, it’s okay. Harry is safe is Gryffindor tower and the Dementors are all penned up in Azkaban.”
“No they’re not.” Sirius pulled his hands away from his face and glanced up at Remus through tangles of hair pulled loose from its ponytail by his tossing and turning. “They’re out. You didn’t hear it from Ron? It was all over the Gryffindor common room when I went to check on Harry. They left. The Death Eaters came last night and they all left.” His voice sounded odd, distant and far too calm. “They could be anywhere.” He looked down again, still shivering and rubbing absentmindedly at his scarred wrists. Sirius always fingered his scars when he worried—laying a hand against the old bite mark on his right shoulder or, lately, wrapping fingers around wrists to cover newer wounds.
Remus felt the hairs on the back of his own neck rising at the news, but managed to conceal the reaction. He reached over and turned Sirius’s face toward his, forcing the other man to meet his eyes. “Calm down. You’re being irrational. Nothing can hurt you inside Hogwarts, you know that.”
Sirius sighed and leaned his face into Remus’s hand, like a dog seeking reassurance. “Yeah, I know that, but apparently my unconscious doesn’t.”
Remus settled himself down onto the couch next to his friend, one arm around the bony shoulders. Too bony, definitely thinner than they had been even last week. He didn’t think Sirius had gotten so much as one decent night’s sleep since the boggart incident a week ago, and the nightmares were getting more and more frequent. And this new defection of the Dementors to Voldemort couldn’t possibly have helped.
“You really are a mess, Padfoot,” he said gently. “I thought we agreed I was supposed to be the unstable one in this relationship.” He regretted the phrase almost as soon as it left his mouth. “Relationship” was far too fraught a word at the moment, with all its lingering reminders of the way things had been between them once, before suspicion and betrayal and Azkaban had ruined things.
Nevertheless, it got him a faint attempt at a smile. “You are unstable. You get worse PMS than my sister used to.” The attempted smile crumbled away again. “It’s not your fault I turned out to be neurotic.”
“You’re not neurotic,” Remus protested automatically. The feel of Sirius’s body against his brought back old memories, but any inappropriate thoughts were quelled by the shudders that repeatedly shook said body, and by the faint hitches in Sirius’s breathing, as if he were stifling gasps or sobs. His arm tightened around his packmate, pulling Sirius closer, and the other man leaned into him, resting his head against Remus’s shoulder.
“I do a pretty good imitation.” Sirius’s voice was tired, dead, the humour that would usually have imbued such a remark missing entirely. “I wasn’t exactly a prize even before Azkaban.” His voice caught slightly on the last word, but he went on talking, pretending bravado for all he was worth. “Beatin’ up Death Eaters by day an’ drinkin’ myself blind at night. If it weren’t for… things, I’d of ended up in a twelve step program.”
Remus sighed, resisting the urge to press his lips into the dark hair that brushed against his face. All he needed to do was turn his head… No. It’s over. It was over a decade ago. Nevertheless, some small voice inside him that spoke more in growls and whimpers than in words told him to lick and nuzzle and comfort in a manner more physical than any he still had the right to use. He settled for words instead.
“As opposed to twelve years in Hell. Padfoot, if there’s anyone who has the right to be crazy, it’s you. But you’re not. I’ve seen you crazy, and trust me, I’d recognize it again.” As he spoke, the memory of that horrible, bloodstained day flashed behind Remus’s eyes, seeming to bring with it an echo of sobbing, hysterical laughter. He felt the sudden urge to clutch Sirius even closer, to wrap his arms around him and tighten his grip until ribs creaked, to chase away the ghost of a time when he’d thought Sirius lost forever, dead to him in every way that mattered. He managed not to give in to it. “Everyone has nightmares.”
“Everyone else can have my nightmares, and I’ll take theirs, thanks.” The dry attempt at humour slid back into a quiet mumble. “That bloody court martial, and James n’ Lily standin’ there dead to give evidence, and you n’ Harry behind them, an’, an’ those soddin’ things comin’ for me, an’ I call to you to help me, an’ that’s when I realize that the two of you are dead, an’ Wormtail’s standin’ behind you with his hands around your throat, an’ then they’ve got me, an’ they pull off their hoods an’ drag my head back, an’ their mouths taste like fog an’ gravedirt…” He trailed off with a shudder. “Stupid, I know. Wormtail doesn’t even have two hands anymore, not according to Harry.”
It didn’t sound stupid to Remus. It sounded like one of the creepiest things he’d ever heard. Sirius’s subconscious was evidently not a pleasant place to be. “I’m not dead. I’m fine, and Harry’s fine, and they aren’t here.” He paused for an instant. “I think I’ve said that already.”
“Prove it to me.” It was a whisper, so quiet that even Remus’s sharper than average hearing barely caught it.
“Prove to you that Harry’s fine? We can’t go waking him up now, Padfoot. It’s the middle of the night.”
Sirius half-laughed, a sound that never failed to raise the hairs on Remus’s neck. Sirius had several sorts of laughter, from “Look at Snape trying to brush the pink flower petals out of his hair, he doesn’t know we’ve charmed them into place, the git” to “that’s not really funny but I’m laughing anyway in a cynical fashion,” to “I’m laughing so I won’t cry,” to “watch me loose all emotional and physical restraint.” This one was somewhere between “cynical” and “laughing so as to not cry,” but any laughter from Sirius that wasn’t born of outright, honest amusement had bad associations.
“Not Harry—I’d never wake him up at this hour just ‘cause I’m unbalanced and paranoid. You.” A hand, cold and trembling ever-so-slightly, reached up to brush against the side of Remus’s neck. He raised his own hand to cover it, trying to trap and warm fingers that felt like five long, thin ice blocks. Sirius couldn’t mean… Yes he does, Remus, don’t be an idiot. There had been letters, awkward at first then gradually longer and longer, after that amazing, appalling night in the Shrieking Shack, a few hurried conversations by Floo, and, after a somewhat bedraggled and thin-looking Padfoot had shown up on his doorstep near the end of summer, a great many awkward-sliding-into-comfortable conversations, but somehow, the situation between the two of them during those last grim, frantic days of the war had never been discussed. They had slid back into being Padfoot and Moony, friends and packmates, but neither had ever so much as hinted at the concept of Sirius and Remus, lovers and mates. Remus had caught himself rearranging phrases, halting gestures that might be misinterpreted, making a conscious effort to keep things joking, keep things light, keep the subtext down. It had been years, they both had changed, they had been friends long before they became anything else, and they could remain friends still, and it was better not to bring something up only to have one’s last hopes shot down. And now Sirius was…
Don’t, Remus. Don’t. He’s vulnerable, and hurting, and probably not entirely rational, and if you take advantage of him now he’ll never forgive you in the morning…
The hand remained on his neck, hesitant, cold, motionless. “Please.” Another whisper.
And Remus did what he’d wanted to do since Sirius had first woken him up, turning his head and pressing a kiss into the black hair that brushed against the side of his face. He got a mouthful of silk that tasted half like shampoo and half like fur—a nice change from the cigarette smoke it would have tasted of years ago—and then Sirius practically threw himself at him. The body next to his shifted around and long arms threw themselves around him, clutching him in the same rib-straining way he’d wanted to hold Sirius earlier. Remus wrapped his own arms around Sirius in turn, and the two of them just sat there for a moment, holding on to one another as if letting go would cause the whole world to dissolve.
Sirius pressed his lips against Remus’s throat, burying his face there in a gesture that was as much Padfoot as it was Sirius, and mumbled something, the words muted to mere vibrations against Remus’s skin.
“What?”
“Kiss me,” Sirius repeated, pulling his head away from Remus’s throat and looking up—he was stretched out half-reclining across the couch, giving Remus an illusory advantage in height. “I want somethin’ alive to kiss me. I need somethin’ warm an’ alive an’ real to touch me. ‘ell, I won’t even complain if you bite me.”
Remus abandoned the last shreds of his original plan to acquire hot chocolate from the kitchens and sleeping potions from Snape, and complied. There wasn’t much desire in the next few minutes, but there was a lot of desperate need, hands and lips exploring flesh and hair as if reclaiming it, making sure that every last inch, changed as it might be by a dozen years, was still there, solid, real.
Eventually, the pair of them lay side by side on Remus’s bed, Sirius’s head resting against his shoulder and one pale arm thrown across his chest, as if to prevent him moving away. Sirius had always managed to make those few extra inches in his arms and legs count for all they were worth, either spreading out over more of the bed than one person ought to be physically capable of occupying, or wrapping them around Remus as if he were his own personal stuffed werewolf plush toy.
Remus lay still, very nearly luxuriating in the uncomfortable weight. Why had it taken the pair of them so long to get back to this point? Sirius wasn’t sleeping on the couch anymore, he decided as he watched his packmate’s—his mate’s—sleeping features, for once at peace instead of strained and set. It made much more sense for him to sleep here.
He lay next to—well, under, really—Sirius for a good fifteen minutes, until he was sure that he other man really was asleep, before carefully slipping out of the bed and pulling his robes back on. He was not going to go about this particular errand wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and strategically placed beard burn. Sirius might be sleeping now, but he probably wouldn’t be for long, and there was always tomorrow night, and the night after that, and if he didn’t go now, while the idea and the need were still fresh, he’d lose his nerve.
Remus didn’t relish going to Snape’s quarters, but there was no other way to get what he wanted at this time of night, and, really, no other person he could afford to obtain it from. Poppy Pomfrey would see through his lies in a moment, would know the potion wasn’t meant for him, and he couldn’t afford to have her wondering whom it was really intended for.
Miraculously, not only did he make it all the way down to the dungeons without encountering Peeves, but when he paused outside Snape’s office, he found the door open a crack, a thin line of light seeping out from underneath it. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one up late.
Tentatively, he knocked on the door.
“Who in Merlin’s name is it?” Snape’s voice snarled. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“Some hours after midnight, I would guess,” Remus answered, nudging the massive wooden door open slightly and stepping into the doorway. It was surprisingly deep for all it’s low height and narrow width—the doors in the dungeon were built for strength.
The glow from the twin pair of candlesticks on Snape’s desk danced eerily across the score of glass jars lining the room’s stone walls, the flicking illumination giving a grotesque appearance of movement to the largely unidentifiable objects floating therein, and refracting a hypnotic pattern of liquid ripples onto the ceiling. The candlelight also illuminated Snape’s scowling face as he sat behind the desk, bent, quill in hand, over a pile of scolls.
“It looks like I’m not the only one having trouble sleeping.”
“Lupin. Is it not enough for you to wreak havoc on the nights of the full moon? Must you extend your nocturnal depredations to the rest of the month as well?”
Remus, trying to muster a suitably polite and nonconfrontational answer, was interrupted in mid-thought as what he had assumed to be a stuffed crow perching on a corner on Snape’s desk suddenly moved, turning its head and regarding him with a glittering, unblinking stare unnervingly reminiscent of its master’s.
“Wolf,” it announced in an odd, croaking voice. “Wolf. Ten points from Grif-in-dor.” It let out a cackle disturbingly similar to Snape’s own malicious laughter.
“Excellent observation,” Snape said silkily, lips twitching in a thin, amused smile.
“Sev-a-rus,” the bird croaked, hopping sideways and cocking its head hopefully. “Raat?”
“You may as well cease that now, Caius. I assure you, it is not the slightest bit endearing.”
“Rat? Raat?”
“No. And you can’t have any of those pickled newts’ eyes either; they’re for the third-years’ class tomorrow.”
“Is that Caius?” Remus asked, mildly surprised. “I didn’t know you still had him.”
“Great Ravens live for an exceedingly long time,” Snape said in a slightly snappish tone, clearly embarrassed to have been caught showing affection toward anything. “Sometimes they even outlive their owners. You of all people ought to know that”
“That wasn’t exactly what I meant.”
“I know. He came back after I started teaching here.” His expression discouraged further comment.
Aside from their unusually long lifespans, Great Ravens were known for two things: their high intelligence, and their unwillingness to serve any wizard they judged unworthy. It was a rare dark wizard who managed to hold on to a Great Raven as a familiar, though they often kept other members of the corvidae family. Of course, there had been some speculation back in their student days as to whether the unusually small Caius was actually a Great Raven at all—Sirius had always opined that he was simply a rather moth-eaten crow with social pretensions.
“I assume you didn’t come poking your nose into my dungeon merely to discuss my familiar, Lupin,” Snape said, changing the subject. “What are you after?”
This was going to be awkward.
“Well, ah, there was a certain kind of potion I needed, and I would prefer not to go to Poppy about it.”
“And so you thought you’d come whining to me?” Snape’s voice was sneering. “What do you want; you won’t need the wolfsbane for at least another five days.”
How was he going to ask this without giving too much away?
“I was wondering if you would mind mixing up a dreamless sleep potion for me,” Remus said, feeling his face heat slightly as he anticipated the blast of sarcasm he was surely about to receive.
He was not disappointed.
“Oh, is the poor werewolf having trouble sleeping? We can’t have our esteemed Dark Arts professor performing under par because he’s tired—not that anyone would notice a difference anyway.”
Nevertheless, Snape got to his feet and crossed the room to open a wooden cabinet on the far wall, withdrawing a small blue bottle. He pulled out the stopper and decanted a small amount into a glass vial from a stack on one shelf, then thrust it ungraciously into Remus’ hand.
“Here,” he snapped. “Put two drops into something liquid and drink it. Be careful; it’s very powerful and I don’t know if it’s ever been tested on werewolves.”
“What is it?” Remus regarded the liquid in the vial gingerly. He wouldn’t put it past Snape to try and poison Sirius (or at least, subject him to some rather unpleasant side effects), but the Potions Master could have no way of knowing who the potion was actually intended for, so it should presumably be safe. Still…
“Wormwood and asphodel, among other things. It can be highly addictive if overused, so don’t come asking me to give you more when that runs out. And don’t try to brew up more on your own; you’ll get the proportions wrong and end up poisoning someone.” Seeing Remus’ raised eyebrows, he added: “I happened to have it on hand, and I’m not sure that something weaker would work properly on you anyway. I could mix you up some animal tranquilizers, if you’d prefer.”
“No, this will be fine, thank you,” Remus assured him, refusing to rise to the bait.
“Oh, and Lupin,” Snape added as he turned toward the door, “I’d wear a high-collared robe tomorrow, if I were you.”
Again, Remus refused to rise to the bait, resisting the temptation to finger what he was now filled with paranoid certainty was a giant and painfully obvious hickey or something equally humiliating on his throat. Knowing Snape, there might be nothing there at all.
As he left Snape’s office, he inspected the vial in his hands thoughtfully, a stray tendril of curiosity prickling in the back of his mind. If the Draught of Living Death (he had never been a potions expert, but he remembered what potion wormwood and asphodel went into) was “very powerful” and “highly addictive”, how was it that Snape “just happened” to have a bottle—a half empty bottle—of it in his office cabinet? And why had he given any of it to Remus at all?
^_~
Snape glowered at the door viciously as it thudded shut softly behind Lupin’s departing form. Already, he was regretting having given the DaDA professor any aid whatsoever, let alone that particular little mixture. Oh, it would work, he had no doubt of that; experience would have told him so even if professional pride did not. But now the werewolf would be curious, would wonder why he would have such a thing in his office, would, perhaps, pinpoint some vulnerability in his offer of help, however ungracious it had been.
It had been an impulsive act, an abrupt decision with no forethought involved, prompted by a moment of sympathy that he had no intention of ever revealing to the other man and was even now regretting.
Nightmares…no wonder Lupin always looked like hell. If the werewolf were desperate enough to come to him, and to come in the middle of the night, red-eyed and obviously sleep deprived, it would not be over a mere handful of bad dreams. No, it would take the kind of dreams that jolted you awake screaming and sweating, the kind that ripped open all the scars on your soul and left the wounds of memory fresh and bleeding, the kind that came again and again, until the haunting specter of them drove away even the thought of sleep. The kind of dreams that led you to discover that the quiet hours of the night were an ideal time to grade essays, and to remember that many potions worked best when brewed between midnight and four a.m. One would think that whoever Lupin had obviously been spending his nights with—Snape flatly refused to contemplate who, since the very short list involved some highly unpleasant prospects—could have been bothered to offer a solution, but no, it had to be up to him. Like every other unpleasant task.
Firmly, Snape returned his attention to tonight’s stack of essays, making an involuntary sound of disgust when he saw the name printed timidly atop the next one.
“Longbottom.”
Caius twitched his feathers slightly at the sound of the name and cackled softly. “Boom. Ten points from Grif-in-dor.”
^_~
“Everyone else can have my nightmares, and I’ll take theirs, thanks.” The dry attempt at humour slid back into a quiet mumble. “That bloody court martial, and James n’ Lily standin’ there dead to give evidence, and you n’ Harry behind them, an’, an’ those soddin’ things comin’ for me, an’ I call to you to help me, an’ that’s when I realize that the two of you are dead, an’ Wormtail’s standin’ behind you with his hands around your throat, an’ then they’ve got me, an’ they pull off their hoods an’ drag my head back, an’ their mouths taste like fog an’ gravedirt…” He trailed off with a shudder. “Stupid, I know. Wormtail doesn’t even have two hands anymore, not according to Harry.”
It didn’t sound stupid to Remus. It sounded like one of the creepiest things he’d ever heard. Sirius’s subconscious was evidently not a pleasant place to be. “I’m not dead. I’m fine, and Harry’s fine, and they aren’t here.” He paused for an instant. “I think I’ve said that already.”
“Prove it to me.” It was a whisper, so quiet that even Remus’s sharper than average hearing barely caught it.
“Prove to you that Harry’s fine? We can’t go waking him up now, Padfoot. It’s the middle of the night.”
Sirius half-laughed, a sound that never failed to raise the hairs on Remus’s neck. Sirius had several sorts of laughter, from “Look at Snape trying to brush the pink flower petals out of his hair, he doesn’t know we’ve charmed them into place, the git” to “that’s not really funny but I’m laughing anyway in a cynical fashion,” to “I’m laughing so I won’t cry,” to “watch me loose all emotional and physical restraint.” This one was somewhere between “cynical” and “laughing so as to not cry,” but any laughter from Sirius that wasn’t born of outright, honest amusement had bad associations.
“Not Harry—I’d never wake him up at this hour just ‘cause I’m unbalanced and paranoid. You.”
Ships: Remus/Sirius
Author’s Note: This is the way the third chapter of “Scars” would have gone, had I had the guts at the time to do it right. Back in February of last year, I was still a little nervous at the thought of writing slash, hence the use of Claire Sinistra as Sirius’s romantic interest in “Scars.” I’ve since gotten over my nervousness, and the following is a brief glimpse of what “Scars” might have been like if it were in the same continuity as “Gravity.”
In Which There is Pondering on Scars and Nightmares, and Remus Borrows a Potion.
“No, stop…no…” the sound of the tortured moans cut into Remus’ slumber. Deep inside him, the wolf reared its head, protective instincts aroused. His packmate was hurting. No one was allowed to hurt his packmates; they were his, his to defend…
The low, threatening growl that emerged from Remus’ throat startled him fully awake. He lifted his head from the pillow, turning automatically toward the couch where Sirius was sleeping. The other wizard was twitching and writhing in his sleep, face contorted into an expression of terror, breath coming in protesting gasps. “Please, no…”
“Sirius.” Remus was out of his bed and beside the couch in two bounds. “Wake up.” He shook Sirius’s shoulder gently.
Blue eyes popped open and stared wildly around, unfocused and filled with fear.
“It’s okay, Padfoot; it was only a dream.”
Sirius was shaking, face white and eyes ringed with shadows, their pupils huge and dilated. Slowly, he focused on Remus, and sense began to seep back into those haunted eyes.
“You were having a nightmare,” Remus said. “Screaming bloody murder. I woke up and thought someone was attacking us.”
Sirius drew a shuddering breath, sitting up and putting his head in his hands. “Bloody soddin’ dreams,” he muttered into his hands. “I don’t know which are the worst: the ones where Harry is dead, the ones where the Dementors are comin’ for me, or the ones where Lily and James…” his voice trailed off.
Remus laid a hand on Sirius’s arm, feeling muscles quivering uncontrollably under his palm, and skin cold as ice and covered with goosebumps. Not good.
“Come on, Sirius, it’s okay. Harry is safe is Gryffindor tower and the Dementors are all penned up in Azkaban.”
“No they’re not.” Sirius pulled his hands away from his face and glanced up at Remus through tangles of hair pulled loose from its ponytail by his tossing and turning. “They’re out. You didn’t hear it from Ron? It was all over the Gryffindor common room when I went to check on Harry. They left. The Death Eaters came last night and they all left.” His voice sounded odd, distant and far too calm. “They could be anywhere.” He looked down again, still shivering and rubbing absentmindedly at his scarred wrists. Sirius always fingered his scars when he worried—laying a hand against the old bite mark on his right shoulder or, lately, wrapping fingers around wrists to cover newer wounds.
Remus felt the hairs on the back of his own neck rising at the news, but managed to conceal the reaction. He reached over and turned Sirius’s face toward his, forcing the other man to meet his eyes. “Calm down. You’re being irrational. Nothing can hurt you inside Hogwarts, you know that.”
Sirius sighed and leaned his face into Remus’s hand, like a dog seeking reassurance. “Yeah, I know that, but apparently my unconscious doesn’t.”
Remus settled himself down onto the couch next to his friend, one arm around the bony shoulders. Too bony, definitely thinner than they had been even last week. He didn’t think Sirius had gotten so much as one decent night’s sleep since the boggart incident a week ago, and the nightmares were getting more and more frequent. And this new defection of the Dementors to Voldemort couldn’t possibly have helped.
“You really are a mess, Padfoot,” he said gently. “I thought we agreed I was supposed to be the unstable one in this relationship.” He regretted the phrase almost as soon as it left his mouth. “Relationship” was far too fraught a word at the moment, with all its lingering reminders of the way things had been between them once, before suspicion and betrayal and Azkaban had ruined things.
Nevertheless, it got him a faint attempt at a smile. “You are unstable. You get worse PMS than my sister used to.” The attempted smile crumbled away again. “It’s not your fault I turned out to be neurotic.”
“You’re not neurotic,” Remus protested automatically. The feel of Sirius’s body against his brought back old memories, but any inappropriate thoughts were quelled by the shudders that repeatedly shook said body, and by the faint hitches in Sirius’s breathing, as if he were stifling gasps or sobs. His arm tightened around his packmate, pulling Sirius closer, and the other man leaned into him, resting his head against Remus’s shoulder.
“I do a pretty good imitation.” Sirius’s voice was tired, dead, the humour that would usually have imbued such a remark missing entirely. “I wasn’t exactly a prize even before Azkaban.” His voice caught slightly on the last word, but he went on talking, pretending bravado for all he was worth. “Beatin’ up Death Eaters by day an’ drinkin’ myself blind at night. If it weren’t for… things, I’d of ended up in a twelve step program.”
Remus sighed, resisting the urge to press his lips into the dark hair that brushed against his face. All he needed to do was turn his head… No. It’s over. It was over a decade ago. Nevertheless, some small voice inside him that spoke more in growls and whimpers than in words told him to lick and nuzzle and comfort in a manner more physical than any he still had the right to use. He settled for words instead.
“As opposed to twelve years in Hell. Padfoot, if there’s anyone who has the right to be crazy, it’s you. But you’re not. I’ve seen you crazy, and trust me, I’d recognize it again.” As he spoke, the memory of that horrible, bloodstained day flashed behind Remus’s eyes, seeming to bring with it an echo of sobbing, hysterical laughter. He felt the sudden urge to clutch Sirius even closer, to wrap his arms around him and tighten his grip until ribs creaked, to chase away the ghost of a time when he’d thought Sirius lost forever, dead to him in every way that mattered. He managed not to give in to it. “Everyone has nightmares.”
“Everyone else can have my nightmares, and I’ll take theirs, thanks.” The dry attempt at humour slid back into a quiet mumble. “That bloody court martial, and James n’ Lily standin’ there dead to give evidence, and you n’ Harry behind them, an’, an’ those soddin’ things comin’ for me, an’ I call to you to help me, an’ that’s when I realize that the two of you are dead, an’ Wormtail’s standin’ behind you with his hands around your throat, an’ then they’ve got me, an’ they pull off their hoods an’ drag my head back, an’ their mouths taste like fog an’ gravedirt…” He trailed off with a shudder. “Stupid, I know. Wormtail doesn’t even have two hands anymore, not according to Harry.”
It didn’t sound stupid to Remus. It sounded like one of the creepiest things he’d ever heard. Sirius’s subconscious was evidently not a pleasant place to be. “I’m not dead. I’m fine, and Harry’s fine, and they aren’t here.” He paused for an instant. “I think I’ve said that already.”
“Prove it to me.” It was a whisper, so quiet that even Remus’s sharper than average hearing barely caught it.
“Prove to you that Harry’s fine? We can’t go waking him up now, Padfoot. It’s the middle of the night.”
Sirius half-laughed, a sound that never failed to raise the hairs on Remus’s neck. Sirius had several sorts of laughter, from “Look at Snape trying to brush the pink flower petals out of his hair, he doesn’t know we’ve charmed them into place, the git” to “that’s not really funny but I’m laughing anyway in a cynical fashion,” to “I’m laughing so I won’t cry,” to “watch me loose all emotional and physical restraint.” This one was somewhere between “cynical” and “laughing so as to not cry,” but any laughter from Sirius that wasn’t born of outright, honest amusement had bad associations.
“Not Harry—I’d never wake him up at this hour just ‘cause I’m unbalanced and paranoid. You.” A hand, cold and trembling ever-so-slightly, reached up to brush against the side of Remus’s neck. He raised his own hand to cover it, trying to trap and warm fingers that felt like five long, thin ice blocks. Sirius couldn’t mean… Yes he does, Remus, don’t be an idiot. There had been letters, awkward at first then gradually longer and longer, after that amazing, appalling night in the Shrieking Shack, a few hurried conversations by Floo, and, after a somewhat bedraggled and thin-looking Padfoot had shown up on his doorstep near the end of summer, a great many awkward-sliding-into-comfortable conversations, but somehow, the situation between the two of them during those last grim, frantic days of the war had never been discussed. They had slid back into being Padfoot and Moony, friends and packmates, but neither had ever so much as hinted at the concept of Sirius and Remus, lovers and mates. Remus had caught himself rearranging phrases, halting gestures that might be misinterpreted, making a conscious effort to keep things joking, keep things light, keep the subtext down. It had been years, they both had changed, they had been friends long before they became anything else, and they could remain friends still, and it was better not to bring something up only to have one’s last hopes shot down. And now Sirius was…
Don’t, Remus. Don’t. He’s vulnerable, and hurting, and probably not entirely rational, and if you take advantage of him now he’ll never forgive you in the morning…
The hand remained on his neck, hesitant, cold, motionless. “Please.” Another whisper.
And Remus did what he’d wanted to do since Sirius had first woken him up, turning his head and pressing a kiss into the black hair that brushed against the side of his face. He got a mouthful of silk that tasted half like shampoo and half like fur—a nice change from the cigarette smoke it would have tasted of years ago—and then Sirius practically threw himself at him. The body next to his shifted around and long arms threw themselves around him, clutching him in the same rib-straining way he’d wanted to hold Sirius earlier. Remus wrapped his own arms around Sirius in turn, and the two of them just sat there for a moment, holding on to one another as if letting go would cause the whole world to dissolve.
Sirius pressed his lips against Remus’s throat, burying his face there in a gesture that was as much Padfoot as it was Sirius, and mumbled something, the words muted to mere vibrations against Remus’s skin.
“What?”
“Kiss me,” Sirius repeated, pulling his head away from Remus’s throat and looking up—he was stretched out half-reclining across the couch, giving Remus an illusory advantage in height. “I want somethin’ alive to kiss me. I need somethin’ warm an’ alive an’ real to touch me. ‘ell, I won’t even complain if you bite me.”
Remus abandoned the last shreds of his original plan to acquire hot chocolate from the kitchens and sleeping potions from Snape, and complied. There wasn’t much desire in the next few minutes, but there was a lot of desperate need, hands and lips exploring flesh and hair as if reclaiming it, making sure that every last inch, changed as it might be by a dozen years, was still there, solid, real.
Eventually, the pair of them lay side by side on Remus’s bed, Sirius’s head resting against his shoulder and one pale arm thrown across his chest, as if to prevent him moving away. Sirius had always managed to make those few extra inches in his arms and legs count for all they were worth, either spreading out over more of the bed than one person ought to be physically capable of occupying, or wrapping them around Remus as if he were his own personal stuffed werewolf plush toy.
Remus lay still, very nearly luxuriating in the uncomfortable weight. Why had it taken the pair of them so long to get back to this point? Sirius wasn’t sleeping on the couch anymore, he decided as he watched his packmate’s—his mate’s—sleeping features, for once at peace instead of strained and set. It made much more sense for him to sleep here.
He lay next to—well, under, really—Sirius for a good fifteen minutes, until he was sure that he other man really was asleep, before carefully slipping out of the bed and pulling his robes back on. He was not going to go about this particular errand wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and strategically placed beard burn. Sirius might be sleeping now, but he probably wouldn’t be for long, and there was always tomorrow night, and the night after that, and if he didn’t go now, while the idea and the need were still fresh, he’d lose his nerve.
Remus didn’t relish going to Snape’s quarters, but there was no other way to get what he wanted at this time of night, and, really, no other person he could afford to obtain it from. Poppy Pomfrey would see through his lies in a moment, would know the potion wasn’t meant for him, and he couldn’t afford to have her wondering whom it was really intended for.
Miraculously, not only did he make it all the way down to the dungeons without encountering Peeves, but when he paused outside Snape’s office, he found the door open a crack, a thin line of light seeping out from underneath it. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one up late.
Tentatively, he knocked on the door.
“Who in Merlin’s name is it?” Snape’s voice snarled. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“Some hours after midnight, I would guess,” Remus answered, nudging the massive wooden door open slightly and stepping into the doorway. It was surprisingly deep for all it’s low height and narrow width—the doors in the dungeon were built for strength.
The glow from the twin pair of candlesticks on Snape’s desk danced eerily across the score of glass jars lining the room’s stone walls, the flicking illumination giving a grotesque appearance of movement to the largely unidentifiable objects floating therein, and refracting a hypnotic pattern of liquid ripples onto the ceiling. The candlelight also illuminated Snape’s scowling face as he sat behind the desk, bent, quill in hand, over a pile of scolls.
“It looks like I’m not the only one having trouble sleeping.”
“Lupin. Is it not enough for you to wreak havoc on the nights of the full moon? Must you extend your nocturnal depredations to the rest of the month as well?”
Remus, trying to muster a suitably polite and nonconfrontational answer, was interrupted in mid-thought as what he had assumed to be a stuffed crow perching on a corner on Snape’s desk suddenly moved, turning its head and regarding him with a glittering, unblinking stare unnervingly reminiscent of its master’s.
“Wolf,” it announced in an odd, croaking voice. “Wolf. Ten points from Grif-in-dor.” It let out a cackle disturbingly similar to Snape’s own malicious laughter.
“Excellent observation,” Snape said silkily, lips twitching in a thin, amused smile.
“Sev-a-rus,” the bird croaked, hopping sideways and cocking its head hopefully. “Raat?”
“You may as well cease that now, Caius. I assure you, it is not the slightest bit endearing.”
“Rat? Raat?”
“No. And you can’t have any of those pickled newts’ eyes either; they’re for the third-years’ class tomorrow.”
“Is that Caius?” Remus asked, mildly surprised. “I didn’t know you still had him.”
“Great Ravens live for an exceedingly long time,” Snape said in a slightly snappish tone, clearly embarrassed to have been caught showing affection toward anything. “Sometimes they even outlive their owners. You of all people ought to know that”
“That wasn’t exactly what I meant.”
“I know. He came back after I started teaching here.” His expression discouraged further comment.
Aside from their unusually long lifespans, Great Ravens were known for two things: their high intelligence, and their unwillingness to serve any wizard they judged unworthy. It was a rare dark wizard who managed to hold on to a Great Raven as a familiar, though they often kept other members of the corvidae family. Of course, there had been some speculation back in their student days as to whether the unusually small Caius was actually a Great Raven at all—Sirius had always opined that he was simply a rather moth-eaten crow with social pretensions.
“I assume you didn’t come poking your nose into my dungeon merely to discuss my familiar, Lupin,” Snape said, changing the subject. “What are you after?”
This was going to be awkward.
“Well, ah, there was a certain kind of potion I needed, and I would prefer not to go to Poppy about it.”
“And so you thought you’d come whining to me?” Snape’s voice was sneering. “What do you want; you won’t need the wolfsbane for at least another five days.”
How was he going to ask this without giving too much away?
“I was wondering if you would mind mixing up a dreamless sleep potion for me,” Remus said, feeling his face heat slightly as he anticipated the blast of sarcasm he was surely about to receive.
He was not disappointed.
“Oh, is the poor werewolf having trouble sleeping? We can’t have our esteemed Dark Arts professor performing under par because he’s tired—not that anyone would notice a difference anyway.”
Nevertheless, Snape got to his feet and crossed the room to open a wooden cabinet on the far wall, withdrawing a small blue bottle. He pulled out the stopper and decanted a small amount into a glass vial from a stack on one shelf, then thrust it ungraciously into Remus’ hand.
“Here,” he snapped. “Put two drops into something liquid and drink it. Be careful; it’s very powerful and I don’t know if it’s ever been tested on werewolves.”
“What is it?” Remus regarded the liquid in the vial gingerly. He wouldn’t put it past Snape to try and poison Sirius (or at least, subject him to some rather unpleasant side effects), but the Potions Master could have no way of knowing who the potion was actually intended for, so it should presumably be safe. Still…
“Wormwood and asphodel, among other things. It can be highly addictive if overused, so don’t come asking me to give you more when that runs out. And don’t try to brew up more on your own; you’ll get the proportions wrong and end up poisoning someone.” Seeing Remus’ raised eyebrows, he added: “I happened to have it on hand, and I’m not sure that something weaker would work properly on you anyway. I could mix you up some animal tranquilizers, if you’d prefer.”
“No, this will be fine, thank you,” Remus assured him, refusing to rise to the bait.
“Oh, and Lupin,” Snape added as he turned toward the door, “I’d wear a high-collared robe tomorrow, if I were you.”
Again, Remus refused to rise to the bait, resisting the temptation to finger what he was now filled with paranoid certainty was a giant and painfully obvious hickey or something equally humiliating on his throat. Knowing Snape, there might be nothing there at all.
As he left Snape’s office, he inspected the vial in his hands thoughtfully, a stray tendril of curiosity prickling in the back of his mind. If the Draught of Living Death (he had never been a potions expert, but he remembered what potion wormwood and asphodel went into) was “very powerful” and “highly addictive”, how was it that Snape “just happened” to have a bottle—a half empty bottle—of it in his office cabinet? And why had he given any of it to Remus at all?
^_~
Snape glowered at the door viciously as it thudded shut softly behind Lupin’s departing form. Already, he was regretting having given the DaDA professor any aid whatsoever, let alone that particular little mixture. Oh, it would work, he had no doubt of that; experience would have told him so even if professional pride did not. But now the werewolf would be curious, would wonder why he would have such a thing in his office, would, perhaps, pinpoint some vulnerability in his offer of help, however ungracious it had been.
It had been an impulsive act, an abrupt decision with no forethought involved, prompted by a moment of sympathy that he had no intention of ever revealing to the other man and was even now regretting.
Nightmares…no wonder Lupin always looked like hell. If the werewolf were desperate enough to come to him, and to come in the middle of the night, red-eyed and obviously sleep deprived, it would not be over a mere handful of bad dreams. No, it would take the kind of dreams that jolted you awake screaming and sweating, the kind that ripped open all the scars on your soul and left the wounds of memory fresh and bleeding, the kind that came again and again, until the haunting specter of them drove away even the thought of sleep. The kind of dreams that led you to discover that the quiet hours of the night were an ideal time to grade essays, and to remember that many potions worked best when brewed between midnight and four a.m. One would think that whoever Lupin had obviously been spending his nights with—Snape flatly refused to contemplate who, since the very short list involved some highly unpleasant prospects—could have been bothered to offer a solution, but no, it had to be up to him. Like every other unpleasant task.
Firmly, Snape returned his attention to tonight’s stack of essays, making an involuntary sound of disgust when he saw the name printed timidly atop the next one.
“Longbottom.”
Caius twitched his feathers slightly at the sound of the name and cackled softly. “Boom. Ten points from Grif-in-dor.”
^_~
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First of all, this is Juliane from the WolfStar thread. Hi! ::waves and huggles:: I'm so glad you got a LiveJournal! I hope you don't mind me friending you... :-)
Second, this is incredible. Of course I'm all for Scars being slash, especially since the Polaris-centric piece that went along with it (forgot what it was called, but it had the lyrics to Stars in it) was so well-written. Bravo you, this is wonderful!