On a Windswept Cliff (4/9)
Aug. 5th, 2014 05:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starfishstarON A WINDSWEPT CLIFF
Summary:
On the cliff top where the fearsome Lord Black once stalked, an outcast man meets a big black dog, and things are not as they seem.
Or: The Remus/Sirius gothic romance AU.
CHAPTER FOUR
Remus woke to find bright sunshine streaming through the window. Finally a day of perfect weather, just when he wouldn’t have minded rain and stormy gusts to match his chaotic thoughts.
Had that really happened, had he sat there on that windy beach with a beautiful stranger? Had he kissed that stranger? And then just walked away?
All that day and all that night, Sirius failed to turn up anywhere.
Well. Remus knew it was his own fault.
Determinedly, he threw himself into the daily routine of his new work life. His mornings were spent in the museum, helping Molly with whatever needed to be done there; the afternoons were for his caretaking rounds, what Molly’s children had started calling his “listening to the stones” time, because indeed much of his work involved standing still and silent with his wand out, paying attention to the slightest variations in the magic that ran deep in the abbey’s walls and the earth around it.
The children wandered in and out of view, easy and at home around the abbey ruin, as Remus went about his tasks all the rest of that week.
Bill, the oldest, was usually out with his friends from the village – Muggle children, to Remus’ impressed surprise, meaning the Weasleys were clearly a family who did more than just talk the talk of Muggle tolerance – but the rest of the children could be found popping in and out of the museum where their mother worked.
Charlie, who’d just finished his first year at Hogwarts, talked incessantly about magical creatures. Remus loaned the boy an old book about rare dragon species, and thereafter suspected he’d accidentally gained himself a friend and worshipful admirer for life.
Percy could usually be found with his nose in a book, while the twins Fred and George made mischief of one kind of another, three-year-old Ginny generally close behind. And there was Ron, the youngest boy, one year older than Ginny. It hadn’t escaped Remus’ notice that Ron was almost exactly the same age as Harry was now. In fact, he could easily imagine the two boys as friends.
Well, who knew, perhaps Harry was an entirely different child now, but when Remus had last seen him, at the age of a year and a bit, Harry had been such an easy-going and happy child, always laughing, quick to befriend anyone he met. James used to joke that Harry would soon know more people than his parents did.
Fifteen months old, Harry had been when Remus last saw him. He was born in July of one year, and orphaned in October of the next.
Remus had last seen Harry at the funeral, on a wretched, drizzling November day in Godric’s Hollow. Dumbledore had been there – as all the Order of the Phoenix had been – and he’d taken Remus aside afterwards and put a hand on his arm. He’d done Remus the courtesy, at least, of not asking how he was doing. Spared him the burden of lying and saying he was fine.
But he’d brought up the question of Harry.
“There’s Lily’s sister as well, of course,” Dumbledore had said, “but Lily and James made you Harry’s godfather and I don’t imagine it’s a decision they took lightly. If you would like to take custody, legally speaking your path is clear.”
Remus had felt his throat constricting. He’d let Harry’s parents die. What kind of fool would let him even hold the baby, much less take sole responsibility for his wellbeing? He could barely even look at the boy without being crippled with fear of what might happen if he went any closer.
“Harry should go to family,” Remus had said, then fled the gathering at the soonest acceptable moment.
He hadn’t even tried to sleep the night after the funeral, but had walked through the rain for hours, remembering the desperate fear and loneliness of being packed off to relatives he hardly knew. How lucky he would have been if his parents had named a dear friend as his guardian instead.
But surely, he’d told himself over and over, it would be different for Harry. He was only a baby; he was young enough that he would learn to love his aunt and uncle as if they were his own parents. The best thing for him would be for Remus to stay far away.
Remus had left the next day and not set foot back in the country since, until the guilt of his cowardly running away brought him back here to England to try to make a life at the fringes of wizarding society. But even so, even living here, it was his still responsibility to keep the people he cared about safe the only way he knew how – by keeping his distance.
Lost in these thoughts as he watched the Weasley children play late on Friday afternoon of his first week at Grimmauld Abbey, Remus was startled when a voice behind him said, “You must be Remus!”
He turned from where he’d been leaning against the outside wall of the museum to see a man coming towards him, approaching the abbey roughly from the direction of the village. Red-haired and jovial, this could only be Arthur Weasley, Molly’s husband and the father of the motley crew playing on the grass.
“Yes,” Remus said. “And you must be Arthur.”
Arthur grinned, pleased, and stuck out his hand. “The very one. Pleased to meet you at last – Molly and the kids talk about you constantly, you know. Sorry, meant to make it up here to say hello before this, but work’s been a bit mad.”
“Pleased to meet you, too,” Remus said, shaking his hand. He liked Arthur instantly, despite himself, and had to hold himself back from the impulse to make friends with him. “You work for the Ministry, is that right?”
“Yup,” Arthur said. “Not as exciting as it sounds. Well, not that it sounds exciting at all, I suppose. But it’s nice, stable work. Molly’s the one with the adventurous career. And you! I’ve been dying to meet the man Dumbledore picked for this job. He wouldn’t have just anyone, you know.”
Remus wasn’t quite sure what to do with that statement. “Oh, well – I suppose I happened to be on hand and at loose ends at the moment, and he figured I would do.”
Arthur shook his head. “All right, you’re modest, I get it. Perhaps you could give me a tour around here sometime, though? I mean, the magic tour, not the one for Muggles. Really explain what’s gone on here and what you do to contain it? Bill tells me you showed him some kind of impressive Revealing charm – ‘wicked cool’ were the words used, I believe.”
Remus found himself completely disarmed by Arthur’s enthusiasm. “I – yes, of course. I’d be glad to.”
“And we’ll have to have you over for dinner one of these days. The kids would love that.”
“Oh, of course…” Remus said, vaguely. So far he’d been able to dodge Molly’s dinner invitations, but he wasn’t sure what he’d do if they both started asking.
“Anyway, I’m just here to collect Molly and the kids.” He frowned at Remus. “You’ll be all right, up here alone over the weekend? You’re welcome to drop by our place in the village any time.”
Molly would work a half-day on Saturday, just in case any tourists turned up unscheduled, but other than that she would be off-duty for the weekend. Technically, Remus would be off-duty as well, but it didn’t seem right to leave off his caretaking duties. Defensive magic wasn’t something that obeyed business hours, so Remus felt he should do his rounds at the weekends as well.
“I’ll be fine,” Remus assured Arthur Weasley. “You needn’t worry about me.”
Remus’ weekend was quiet. He took his time making his rounds of the grounds, watched the view of the sea from the ruined stones of the abbey, took long walks and tried to tire himself beyond the point of thinking.
About Harry.
About the people he’d lost.
About the bittersweetness of missed chances.
About Sirius, perhaps?
Sunday night was the full moon, and that night even more than others, Remus knew he would go outside and walk and walk. He always found it hard to sleep on a full moon night, with the memories it brought.
He watched the sun set and the moon rise, from a seat in one of the stone arches of the abbey’s exterior wall. Just as the sun was swallowed by the curve of the horizon, Remus thought he heard a dog howl, as if in pain, somewhere not far off. He supressed a shiver, thinking of werewolves undergoing the painful transformation that made them lose their human minds.
When the moon was fully up, Remus set out walking, across the hills, roughly following the jagged edge of the coast. Once he could have sworn he saw Sirius up ahead, his outline unmistakable, cloak flying out behind him.
But when Remus reached the spot where he thought he had seen him, high atop one of the cliffs, no one was there.
He could have sworn, too, that the figure had looked back and seen him, then walked away. But surely that was only his fanciful imagination, the full moon making him more maudlin even than usual.
The thought of seeing Sirius was fraught with dangerous temptations; the thought of not seeing Sirius was laced with sadness. But the thought of seeing Sirius see him but turn away… That was nearly unbearable.
The next morning, with the sun shining again, surrounded by the joyful company of Molly and her children, Remus told himself that the sight had indeed been only his imagination.
The black dog was back again, barking with delight as the children chased him through the high grass. He came up to Remus once, too, nudged his head up under Remus’ palm, and Remus skritched him behind the ears. The dog tilted his head up and gave Remus a soulful look, for all the world as if he were saying, See? See how nice things can be?
Remus decided he should probably spend a bit more time around people, if he was now ascribing human emotions to dogs.
And in fact it was only a week later, the next Sunday, that Remus finally ran out of excuses and succumbed to Molly’s dinner invitation.
The Weasley home – a large, rambling house at the edge of the village that they’d dubbed the Burrow – was just as cosy as Remus had imagined. Ginny proudly brought him an armful of the Cat named Cat, Ron showed him his Chocolate Frog Card collection, and Charlie pulled Remus into the back garden and asked him half a dozen questions about gnomes.
Molly finally laughingly dragged Remus’ hands free from the children’s eager grasp, saying they would never get round to dinner if everyone had to have a turn at Remus’ attention.
She smiled at him over the twins’ heads, and he could tell she was pleased at how well he and the children got along.
The thought made him deeply uncomfortable, but he didn’t know how to extract himself back out of this family that seemed already halfway to adopting him as an honorary member.
Of all the things Remus least wanted to talk about, Harry Potter came up in conversation over dinner.
Molly had said something about the abbey, and Arthur had said something about Lord Black, and somehow they’d arrived at Harry.
“That poor boy,” Molly said, just as she had done on the day when Remus had first met her. “Saved our world, but lost his parents in the process. And he was just a wee thing at the time, a year or so old.”
“Fifteen months,” Remus said, before he knew what he was doing.
Heads swivelled towards him, Molly’s and Arthur’s and those of any of the children who were paying attention to the adults’ conversation.
There was a long beat of silence.
“You knew them,” Molly breathed, eyes gone shocked and round. “His parents, I mean. The Potters.”
“Yes,” said Remus. “We were at school together.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Molly said. “And here all this time I’ve been saying such thoughtless things. Remus, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s quite all right,” Remus said, wishing he could will it so just by saying it.
With a last wide-eyed sympathetic glance at him, Molly quickly changed the subject, steering the boys onto something about the Quidditch team they all followed.
Later, though, after pudding was finished and the children had run off to play, Remus found himself alone with Molly in the kitchen, sitting opposite her at the long table.
“Remus…” she said, hesitant. “I don’t want to pry, but if you ever want to talk about, er, what came up in conversation before… I would be glad to listen. I don’t mean to presume, but it seems as though perhaps you don’t have many people you can talk to.”
Remus studied the wood grain beneath his hands where they rested on the table. He was resigned to this, now. He would end up telling all of his secrets sooner or later. Perhaps it was even better this way. It might make it easier when he inevitably had to explain to Molly why they could only be colleagues, not friends.
“Harry’s parents were my closest friends at school,” he said. “And after we finished school, as well. When they heard Lord Black was targeting them, they asked me to be their Secret Keeper, but for various reasons, I backed out. And in the time between when I should have done it, and when they would have found someone else–”
He couldn’t say it.
“That’s when they were killed,” Molly said, her voice very soft.
Remus nodded, and blinked at the ceiling.
Molly reached across the table and rested her hand on his, startling Remus with her touch.
“That’s a terrible burden for anyone to bear,” she said, voice still terribly gentle. “I could tell you it’s not your fault, but I know saying it wouldn’t change how you feel. I’m so sorry. I’ll certainly do a better job of thinking before I speak, now that I know.”
“You needn’t – Don’t think you have to–”
“They were your best friends,” Molly said. “And you probably hear their names tossed around all the time as if they were only a footnote to history. Of course I’ll make a point to think before I talk about them.”
Remus nodded. His throat was still treacherously tight.
“Do you ever see their son?” Molly asked quietly.
“No. I’m not the right person to look after him.”
Molly just squeezed his hand.
They sat a few moments longer in silence, then Molly said, “Remus, it’s been such a pleasure to have you here this evening. But if you’d like to head back to your own place now, I’ll make your excuses to the children, and I won’t be offended in the least.”
“Molly–” Remus said. How could he express his gratitude, his guilt?
“I understand,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Remus. Get home safely.”
Remus did not go home.
He climbed the hill from the village, gave the hulking black outline of the abbey a wide berth and kept walking, along the cliffs, following the ragged line of the coast. The sun was just setting. The moon, at its waning quarter, wouldn’t rise for hours. The wind off the sea was painfully strong, blowing grit and sand into Remus’ eyes.
Sirius, he wanted to shout, like the heroine of some romance novel. Like he could just cry out a name and call the person to him.
He would have done it, too, if he’d thought it would work. Anything to have reason right at that moment to think about the present and not the past.
He walked and walked, his throat tight and raw. The driving wind stung his face. When, when, would he be able to hear James and Lily’s names spoken without this descent into overwrought emotion? When would he learn to lock it away?
Remus struggled to the top of another bluff, barely able to see for the whipping wind stinging his eyes and scouring his face, then he stumbled as he walked straight into someone.
In all those empty miles of hill and coastline, he walked into the solid wall of another human being, and strong hands rose to clasp his shoulders and catch him from falling.
“Remus,” said a low, dark, richly rolling voice, a voice Remus wanted to lose himself in, dive inside and never surface again.
I called him, Remus thought wildly. I did it. I thought it and he came.
“I don’t care,” he said out loud. “Forget everything I said. I don’t care.” He leaned in hard against Sirius and pressed his lips to his.
Sirius stiffened, startled, then he gasped in a breath against Remus’ lips and kissed him back.
Sirius’ hands were at Remus’ hips now, warm and solid, grounding him. Telling him that he was alive, and here, and now.
“Where have you been?” Sirius breathed, when they could speak again.
“I was out walking.”
“No. I mean all these years.”
Without waiting for an answer, Sirius pressed his lips to Remus’ again, hungry and searching, and Remus gave himself over to being wholly the focus of someone so passionately present.
They stayed like that, desperately entwined, bodies pressed close together, lips joined, hands searching, for what seemed an age, and yet it was still far too soon when Sirius pulled back and said, “I’ve got to go.”
Remus protested against his lips.
“I really do have to go. But I’ll come to you tomorrow night. If you want me to, I’ll come to you.”
“I want you to,” Remus said without hesitation. No more thinking too much. No more denying himself what he wished he had. He wanted this.
Sirius’ smile was sad and hopeful and a little bit secret, too. He disentangled himself, but kept hold of Remus’ hand. “All right,” he said. “I’ll be there.”
“Where do you live?” Remus asked impulsively. “Let me walk you home.”
Sirius shook his head. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He released Remus’ hand, but not before he’d lifted it and brushed his lips across Remus’ fingers. Something deep in Remus’ chest swooped with desire and desperate joy.
“Sirius–”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Sirius’ lips quirked once again, and he turned and headed away, inland over the hills. The sky was growing light, dawn already coming. This near the solstice, the nights were far too short.
Once again, Remus watched Sirius walk away from him, but this time it was with a fierce joy beating in his chest.
Sirius would come to him the next night. Sirius – beautiful, wild, unexpectedly tender Sirius – shared his feelings, as impossible as that seemed.
To think he’d almost let this slip away, almost turned Sirius away and not even tried.
But he was trying now.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
(continue to Chapter Five)
Summary:
On the cliff top where the fearsome Lord Black once stalked, an outcast man meets a big black dog, and things are not as they seem.
Or: The Remus/Sirius gothic romance AU.
CHAPTER FOUR
Remus woke to find bright sunshine streaming through the window. Finally a day of perfect weather, just when he wouldn’t have minded rain and stormy gusts to match his chaotic thoughts.
Had that really happened, had he sat there on that windy beach with a beautiful stranger? Had he kissed that stranger? And then just walked away?
All that day and all that night, Sirius failed to turn up anywhere.
Well. Remus knew it was his own fault.
Determinedly, he threw himself into the daily routine of his new work life. His mornings were spent in the museum, helping Molly with whatever needed to be done there; the afternoons were for his caretaking rounds, what Molly’s children had started calling his “listening to the stones” time, because indeed much of his work involved standing still and silent with his wand out, paying attention to the slightest variations in the magic that ran deep in the abbey’s walls and the earth around it.
The children wandered in and out of view, easy and at home around the abbey ruin, as Remus went about his tasks all the rest of that week.
Bill, the oldest, was usually out with his friends from the village – Muggle children, to Remus’ impressed surprise, meaning the Weasleys were clearly a family who did more than just talk the talk of Muggle tolerance – but the rest of the children could be found popping in and out of the museum where their mother worked.
Charlie, who’d just finished his first year at Hogwarts, talked incessantly about magical creatures. Remus loaned the boy an old book about rare dragon species, and thereafter suspected he’d accidentally gained himself a friend and worshipful admirer for life.
Percy could usually be found with his nose in a book, while the twins Fred and George made mischief of one kind of another, three-year-old Ginny generally close behind. And there was Ron, the youngest boy, one year older than Ginny. It hadn’t escaped Remus’ notice that Ron was almost exactly the same age as Harry was now. In fact, he could easily imagine the two boys as friends.
Well, who knew, perhaps Harry was an entirely different child now, but when Remus had last seen him, at the age of a year and a bit, Harry had been such an easy-going and happy child, always laughing, quick to befriend anyone he met. James used to joke that Harry would soon know more people than his parents did.
Fifteen months old, Harry had been when Remus last saw him. He was born in July of one year, and orphaned in October of the next.
Remus had last seen Harry at the funeral, on a wretched, drizzling November day in Godric’s Hollow. Dumbledore had been there – as all the Order of the Phoenix had been – and he’d taken Remus aside afterwards and put a hand on his arm. He’d done Remus the courtesy, at least, of not asking how he was doing. Spared him the burden of lying and saying he was fine.
But he’d brought up the question of Harry.
“There’s Lily’s sister as well, of course,” Dumbledore had said, “but Lily and James made you Harry’s godfather and I don’t imagine it’s a decision they took lightly. If you would like to take custody, legally speaking your path is clear.”
Remus had felt his throat constricting. He’d let Harry’s parents die. What kind of fool would let him even hold the baby, much less take sole responsibility for his wellbeing? He could barely even look at the boy without being crippled with fear of what might happen if he went any closer.
“Harry should go to family,” Remus had said, then fled the gathering at the soonest acceptable moment.
He hadn’t even tried to sleep the night after the funeral, but had walked through the rain for hours, remembering the desperate fear and loneliness of being packed off to relatives he hardly knew. How lucky he would have been if his parents had named a dear friend as his guardian instead.
But surely, he’d told himself over and over, it would be different for Harry. He was only a baby; he was young enough that he would learn to love his aunt and uncle as if they were his own parents. The best thing for him would be for Remus to stay far away.
Remus had left the next day and not set foot back in the country since, until the guilt of his cowardly running away brought him back here to England to try to make a life at the fringes of wizarding society. But even so, even living here, it was his still responsibility to keep the people he cared about safe the only way he knew how – by keeping his distance.
Lost in these thoughts as he watched the Weasley children play late on Friday afternoon of his first week at Grimmauld Abbey, Remus was startled when a voice behind him said, “You must be Remus!”
He turned from where he’d been leaning against the outside wall of the museum to see a man coming towards him, approaching the abbey roughly from the direction of the village. Red-haired and jovial, this could only be Arthur Weasley, Molly’s husband and the father of the motley crew playing on the grass.
“Yes,” Remus said. “And you must be Arthur.”
Arthur grinned, pleased, and stuck out his hand. “The very one. Pleased to meet you at last – Molly and the kids talk about you constantly, you know. Sorry, meant to make it up here to say hello before this, but work’s been a bit mad.”
“Pleased to meet you, too,” Remus said, shaking his hand. He liked Arthur instantly, despite himself, and had to hold himself back from the impulse to make friends with him. “You work for the Ministry, is that right?”
“Yup,” Arthur said. “Not as exciting as it sounds. Well, not that it sounds exciting at all, I suppose. But it’s nice, stable work. Molly’s the one with the adventurous career. And you! I’ve been dying to meet the man Dumbledore picked for this job. He wouldn’t have just anyone, you know.”
Remus wasn’t quite sure what to do with that statement. “Oh, well – I suppose I happened to be on hand and at loose ends at the moment, and he figured I would do.”
Arthur shook his head. “All right, you’re modest, I get it. Perhaps you could give me a tour around here sometime, though? I mean, the magic tour, not the one for Muggles. Really explain what’s gone on here and what you do to contain it? Bill tells me you showed him some kind of impressive Revealing charm – ‘wicked cool’ were the words used, I believe.”
Remus found himself completely disarmed by Arthur’s enthusiasm. “I – yes, of course. I’d be glad to.”
“And we’ll have to have you over for dinner one of these days. The kids would love that.”
“Oh, of course…” Remus said, vaguely. So far he’d been able to dodge Molly’s dinner invitations, but he wasn’t sure what he’d do if they both started asking.
“Anyway, I’m just here to collect Molly and the kids.” He frowned at Remus. “You’ll be all right, up here alone over the weekend? You’re welcome to drop by our place in the village any time.”
Molly would work a half-day on Saturday, just in case any tourists turned up unscheduled, but other than that she would be off-duty for the weekend. Technically, Remus would be off-duty as well, but it didn’t seem right to leave off his caretaking duties. Defensive magic wasn’t something that obeyed business hours, so Remus felt he should do his rounds at the weekends as well.
“I’ll be fine,” Remus assured Arthur Weasley. “You needn’t worry about me.”
Remus’ weekend was quiet. He took his time making his rounds of the grounds, watched the view of the sea from the ruined stones of the abbey, took long walks and tried to tire himself beyond the point of thinking.
About Harry.
About the people he’d lost.
About the bittersweetness of missed chances.
About Sirius, perhaps?
Sunday night was the full moon, and that night even more than others, Remus knew he would go outside and walk and walk. He always found it hard to sleep on a full moon night, with the memories it brought.
He watched the sun set and the moon rise, from a seat in one of the stone arches of the abbey’s exterior wall. Just as the sun was swallowed by the curve of the horizon, Remus thought he heard a dog howl, as if in pain, somewhere not far off. He supressed a shiver, thinking of werewolves undergoing the painful transformation that made them lose their human minds.
When the moon was fully up, Remus set out walking, across the hills, roughly following the jagged edge of the coast. Once he could have sworn he saw Sirius up ahead, his outline unmistakable, cloak flying out behind him.
But when Remus reached the spot where he thought he had seen him, high atop one of the cliffs, no one was there.
He could have sworn, too, that the figure had looked back and seen him, then walked away. But surely that was only his fanciful imagination, the full moon making him more maudlin even than usual.
The thought of seeing Sirius was fraught with dangerous temptations; the thought of not seeing Sirius was laced with sadness. But the thought of seeing Sirius see him but turn away… That was nearly unbearable.
The next morning, with the sun shining again, surrounded by the joyful company of Molly and her children, Remus told himself that the sight had indeed been only his imagination.
The black dog was back again, barking with delight as the children chased him through the high grass. He came up to Remus once, too, nudged his head up under Remus’ palm, and Remus skritched him behind the ears. The dog tilted his head up and gave Remus a soulful look, for all the world as if he were saying, See? See how nice things can be?
Remus decided he should probably spend a bit more time around people, if he was now ascribing human emotions to dogs.
And in fact it was only a week later, the next Sunday, that Remus finally ran out of excuses and succumbed to Molly’s dinner invitation.
The Weasley home – a large, rambling house at the edge of the village that they’d dubbed the Burrow – was just as cosy as Remus had imagined. Ginny proudly brought him an armful of the Cat named Cat, Ron showed him his Chocolate Frog Card collection, and Charlie pulled Remus into the back garden and asked him half a dozen questions about gnomes.
Molly finally laughingly dragged Remus’ hands free from the children’s eager grasp, saying they would never get round to dinner if everyone had to have a turn at Remus’ attention.
She smiled at him over the twins’ heads, and he could tell she was pleased at how well he and the children got along.
The thought made him deeply uncomfortable, but he didn’t know how to extract himself back out of this family that seemed already halfway to adopting him as an honorary member.
Of all the things Remus least wanted to talk about, Harry Potter came up in conversation over dinner.
Molly had said something about the abbey, and Arthur had said something about Lord Black, and somehow they’d arrived at Harry.
“That poor boy,” Molly said, just as she had done on the day when Remus had first met her. “Saved our world, but lost his parents in the process. And he was just a wee thing at the time, a year or so old.”
“Fifteen months,” Remus said, before he knew what he was doing.
Heads swivelled towards him, Molly’s and Arthur’s and those of any of the children who were paying attention to the adults’ conversation.
There was a long beat of silence.
“You knew them,” Molly breathed, eyes gone shocked and round. “His parents, I mean. The Potters.”
“Yes,” said Remus. “We were at school together.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Molly said. “And here all this time I’ve been saying such thoughtless things. Remus, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s quite all right,” Remus said, wishing he could will it so just by saying it.
With a last wide-eyed sympathetic glance at him, Molly quickly changed the subject, steering the boys onto something about the Quidditch team they all followed.
Later, though, after pudding was finished and the children had run off to play, Remus found himself alone with Molly in the kitchen, sitting opposite her at the long table.
“Remus…” she said, hesitant. “I don’t want to pry, but if you ever want to talk about, er, what came up in conversation before… I would be glad to listen. I don’t mean to presume, but it seems as though perhaps you don’t have many people you can talk to.”
Remus studied the wood grain beneath his hands where they rested on the table. He was resigned to this, now. He would end up telling all of his secrets sooner or later. Perhaps it was even better this way. It might make it easier when he inevitably had to explain to Molly why they could only be colleagues, not friends.
“Harry’s parents were my closest friends at school,” he said. “And after we finished school, as well. When they heard Lord Black was targeting them, they asked me to be their Secret Keeper, but for various reasons, I backed out. And in the time between when I should have done it, and when they would have found someone else–”
He couldn’t say it.
“That’s when they were killed,” Molly said, her voice very soft.
Remus nodded, and blinked at the ceiling.
Molly reached across the table and rested her hand on his, startling Remus with her touch.
“That’s a terrible burden for anyone to bear,” she said, voice still terribly gentle. “I could tell you it’s not your fault, but I know saying it wouldn’t change how you feel. I’m so sorry. I’ll certainly do a better job of thinking before I speak, now that I know.”
“You needn’t – Don’t think you have to–”
“They were your best friends,” Molly said. “And you probably hear their names tossed around all the time as if they were only a footnote to history. Of course I’ll make a point to think before I talk about them.”
Remus nodded. His throat was still treacherously tight.
“Do you ever see their son?” Molly asked quietly.
“No. I’m not the right person to look after him.”
Molly just squeezed his hand.
They sat a few moments longer in silence, then Molly said, “Remus, it’s been such a pleasure to have you here this evening. But if you’d like to head back to your own place now, I’ll make your excuses to the children, and I won’t be offended in the least.”
“Molly–” Remus said. How could he express his gratitude, his guilt?
“I understand,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Remus. Get home safely.”
Remus did not go home.
He climbed the hill from the village, gave the hulking black outline of the abbey a wide berth and kept walking, along the cliffs, following the ragged line of the coast. The sun was just setting. The moon, at its waning quarter, wouldn’t rise for hours. The wind off the sea was painfully strong, blowing grit and sand into Remus’ eyes.
Sirius, he wanted to shout, like the heroine of some romance novel. Like he could just cry out a name and call the person to him.
He would have done it, too, if he’d thought it would work. Anything to have reason right at that moment to think about the present and not the past.
He walked and walked, his throat tight and raw. The driving wind stung his face. When, when, would he be able to hear James and Lily’s names spoken without this descent into overwrought emotion? When would he learn to lock it away?
Remus struggled to the top of another bluff, barely able to see for the whipping wind stinging his eyes and scouring his face, then he stumbled as he walked straight into someone.
In all those empty miles of hill and coastline, he walked into the solid wall of another human being, and strong hands rose to clasp his shoulders and catch him from falling.
“Remus,” said a low, dark, richly rolling voice, a voice Remus wanted to lose himself in, dive inside and never surface again.
I called him, Remus thought wildly. I did it. I thought it and he came.
“I don’t care,” he said out loud. “Forget everything I said. I don’t care.” He leaned in hard against Sirius and pressed his lips to his.
Sirius stiffened, startled, then he gasped in a breath against Remus’ lips and kissed him back.
Sirius’ hands were at Remus’ hips now, warm and solid, grounding him. Telling him that he was alive, and here, and now.
“Where have you been?” Sirius breathed, when they could speak again.
“I was out walking.”
“No. I mean all these years.”
Without waiting for an answer, Sirius pressed his lips to Remus’ again, hungry and searching, and Remus gave himself over to being wholly the focus of someone so passionately present.
They stayed like that, desperately entwined, bodies pressed close together, lips joined, hands searching, for what seemed an age, and yet it was still far too soon when Sirius pulled back and said, “I’ve got to go.”
Remus protested against his lips.
“I really do have to go. But I’ll come to you tomorrow night. If you want me to, I’ll come to you.”
“I want you to,” Remus said without hesitation. No more thinking too much. No more denying himself what he wished he had. He wanted this.
Sirius’ smile was sad and hopeful and a little bit secret, too. He disentangled himself, but kept hold of Remus’ hand. “All right,” he said. “I’ll be there.”
“Where do you live?” Remus asked impulsively. “Let me walk you home.”
Sirius shook his head. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He released Remus’ hand, but not before he’d lifted it and brushed his lips across Remus’ fingers. Something deep in Remus’ chest swooped with desire and desperate joy.
“Sirius–”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Sirius’ lips quirked once again, and he turned and headed away, inland over the hills. The sky was growing light, dawn already coming. This near the solstice, the nights were far too short.
Once again, Remus watched Sirius walk away from him, but this time it was with a fierce joy beating in his chest.
Sirius would come to him the next night. Sirius – beautiful, wild, unexpectedly tender Sirius – shared his feelings, as impossible as that seemed.
To think he’d almost let this slip away, almost turned Sirius away and not even tried.
But he was trying now.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
(continue to Chapter Five)
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Date: 2014-08-06 01:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-06 01:47 pm (UTC)