On a Windswept Cliff (8/9)
Aug. 11th, 2014 07:20 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 EIGHT
All that next week, in every spare moment, Remus combed the countryside around the abbey. Sirius had said he lived nearby, so the process of elimination was in Remus’ favour. If he searched long enough, he would find him.
A series of summer thunderstorms kicked up, each night wilder than the last, but still Remus searched most of each night, coming back drenched to the skin because even the best Impervius Charm couldn’t keep out rain like that for long.
Each morning he fell into bed as dawn lightened the sky, telling himself fiercely that the night’s search, though fruitless, had brought him one day closer to finding Sirius again.
Remus was not going to let him slip away without a fight. That was one thing he’d finally learned.
One night he even surrendered to the temptation and transformed into his Animagus form, in the hope that the wolf might scent out some trace of Sirius in dog form (Sirius was the black dog, that still seemed so strange) but the rain had washed everything away.
It was a wild night, the wildest by far, and Remus was far over the hills, struggling through lashing rain that stung his eyes and obscured his vision, growing desperate, starting to believe he would have to send his answer to Dumbledore’s offer before he found Sirius, maybe even leave before he found Sirius. But he couldn’t accept that. He couldn’t let that happen.
Cresting another hill, struggling against the wind, Remus peered into the next valley and saw a little nondescript cottage, not unlike the place where Remus himself was living, framed by trees that at the moment were no more than dark outlines tossed in the wind.
But the instant Remus saw it, he knew. Maybe it was some residual wolf sense, but he knew Sirius was there.
For a moment, he just stood at the top of the hill and stared at the little house, heedless of the wind lashing rain into his eyes.
Sirius was there.
Remus flung himself down the hill, ran to the cottage and banged at the door. “Sirius!” he cried. “Sirius, are you there?”
There was nothing but the pounding of rain in his face, the whipping of tree branches above his head.
Remus leaned his forehead against the wooden door.
“Sirius,” he murmured. “You’re here, aren’t you?” Then, louder, “Sirius, I found you, I came all the way here, so please, open the door!”
He thought nothing would happen.
Then the lock clicked open, the door swung inwards, and Sirius was standing there, surveying Remus, his face expressionless.
“Remus,” he said.
“Sirius,” Remus gasped in surprise. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to throw himself at the muddy ground and turn cartwheels, he wanted to pull Sirius to him and kiss him breathless. Instead he said, “Hi.”
Sirius looked at Remus, from his streaming hair to his sodden clothes.
“I think you’d better come in,” he said.
He stepped back to let Remus pass, then closed the door behind him.
As Remus dripped quietly onto the threadbare rug that covered the wooden boards of the little hallway, Sirius raised his wand.
Remus supposed he ought to spring into defensive position – he’d just barged into the home of a man who hadn’t wanted to be found, and that man was now pointing a wand at him – but he simply stood and waited, and Sirius cast a flawless drying charm over him.
“Come inside,” Sirius said, and pointed the way into a diminutive living room.
The whole place was spartan, not in the least fitting for a man as passionate and dramatic as Remus knew Sirius to be. It was tidy and bare and hardly even looked as though someone lived there.
They perched at opposite ends of a worn sofa that had aged to a nondescript greyish colour.
“You want to know who I am,” Sirius said, his voice wretched.
Remus glanced over at him in surprise. It was the first emotion he’d shown. “No – I mean, yes, that too, but mostly I just wanted to find you. You ran away.”
“I deceived you,” Sirius said. “You don’t care about that?”
“What, about being an Animagus, or whatever you are? I’m an unregistered Animagus too, you saw that.”
“I’m not an Animagus. I am Lord Black.”
Remus was on his feet with his wand in his hand before he’d even consciously registered Sirius’ words.
“Not that Lord Black, you daft idiot,” Sirius said, still hunched over on his side of the sofa with his elbows on his knees. “He’s gone for good this time. I made sure of that. No, I mean I’m his last descendant, current Lord of the Black Family line, though I wish to Merlin I weren’t.”
Very slowly, Remus put his wand away and sat down. “So when you said your family were from around here, you weren’t joking around.”
Sirius laughed mirthlessly. “Direct descendants of the legend himself. So, when old Evil Thing rose again, we weren’t just supporters; we used to have dear old Great-Granddad round for supper.”
Remus tried to picture that, and failed. But his heart ached for young Sirius, trapped in a family at the right hand of Lord Black. Then he thought back to Sirius’ words.
“Wait,” he said. “What do you mean you made sure he was gone for good?”
Sirius poked his toe at the scuffed floorboards. “When I was sixteen,” he said, “I managed to get away from Durmstrang and make contact with Dumbledore. The whole family were supporters of old Lord Thing – my younger brother even became a Death Eater later, after I left, but he got in too deep and they killed him in the end. But my point is, I knew some things. Family secrets. There were… oh, it’s too long a story, but basically old Thingy had hidden bits of his soul in different places and they all had to be destroyed, if he was ever going to be mortal again. And I knew where they were, or at least I had some pretty good guesses, based on what I knew about the family, and about the abbey.”
A large number of pieces were falling into place very rapidly in Remus’ mind.
Dumbledore’s other, separate mission, the one the rest of the Order never quite knew the details of. His mysterious contact in Eastern Europe. His disappearances to unknown locations for days on end.
“That was you,” Remus said, stunned. “What Dumbledore was working on all that time, to bring down Lord Black for good, he was doing it with you.”
“Yes,” Sirius said, not sounding particularly happy about it. “That was me.”
“But – you’re the hero of the wizarding world! How could you possibly think I would think badly of you for that?”
“I’m not a hero!” Sirius burst out. “I was only trying to undo the damage my family had done, and even so, look how many people died before I was able to get it finished!”
“No,” Remus said. “No, listen to me. I fought in that war. I lost my two best friends to that war. And I’d do it all over again, because there was no other choice. I couldn’t stand by and watch Lord Black destroy the world I loved. And you’re the reason he could finally be defeated. I can’t imagine how anyone could hold any part of that against you. And if they did, they wouldn’t be worth your time.”
Sirius was gazing at Remus with wonder. “You really mean that.”
“Of course I mean it! Sirius. For Merlin’s sake.”
Remus hesitated – Sirius looked so far away, and so determined to stay there – but finally he reached out a hand across the sofa.
Sirius hesitated too, then reached across and took it.
“You don’t know everything about me either,” Remus said quietly. “My friends who died – that was because of me. I was supposed to be their Secret Keeper, but I let them down. And my parents…” His voice grew more wretched as he went on. “I told you they died in an accident, but that’s not quite the truth. They were killed by a werewolf. And it was my fault.”
Sirius stared at him. “What d’you mean, it was your fault? How could it be your fault?”
Remus tried to retrieve his hand from Sirius’, not wanting to see or feel Sirius’ reaction when he heard this, but Sirius held fast.
“Remus,” Sirius said again, more gently. “How was it your fault?”
Staring at the floor, keeping his voice resolutely level, Remus said, “I was a little kid with big notions about my own cleverness, and I was always fascinated by Dark creatures. I got this idea in my head that I was going to try to summon a werewolf. I was eight, almost nine. And it worked. It was the full moon, and I did a complicated spell that drew a werewolf to me, and it got into my bedroom and tried to attack me. But my parents came and fought it off, and it killed them.”
He heard Sirius suck in a sharp breath. “Remus, I’m–” he began.
“So you see, people who get too close to me get destroyed!” Remus fairly shouted. “It’s dangerous. I’m dangerous. You can’t get too close to me, because bad things happen to people who do. It’s like I’m under some kind of curse.”
Sirius was still refusing to relinquish Remus’ hand. “A curse?” he demanded. “Seriously, you’ve been going around all this time thinking you’re cursed? Take it from someone who knows what it’s like to live under an evil curse. You’re not cursed. I am.”
“You are?” Remus asked, startled out of himself for the moment.
“Uh, yeah, the whole dog thing? Or did you miss that?”
Sirius looked so put out at Remus’ lack of attention to the details of his situation that Remus felt a breath of mad laughter rising in his throat, despite it all. “No, I mean yes, I did notice,” he said. “What do you mean it’s a curse?”
“Old family thing,” Sirius said, shifting restlessly beside him. “A witch whose family Lord Black destroyed, back the first time around, cursed the Blacks so the first-born son of each generation would always be a dog by day and a human only at night. Guess she picked that because it’s the same form Lord Black sometimes took, except we don’t get to choose when it happens. And I’ve tried every possible thing to reverse it, and believe me, nothing works. I’m never a man during the day, Remus. Only from sundown to sunup. You don’t want that,” he added softly.
“Yes, I do,” Remus said. He’d never been more sure of anything in his life. If beautiful, passionate Sirius still wanted Remus, despite everything… “I absolutely do.”
Sirius looked hard at him. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I want to be with you, and some old family curse doesn’t change that. Except, truly Sirius, you don’t want to be with me. It only ever ends badly.”
“Oh, for Merlin’s sake, Remus, you’re not cursed! You may have had horrible luck and awful things happen to you, I believe that, and I’m sorry for it, but you’re not a danger to anyone. Besides, listen, you couldn’t harm me if you tried. That’s part of the curse, I’m bound to the abbey. I have to stay near it at least part of each year, but if I do that, I’m actually pretty invincible. There’s some kind of old magic in the abbey stones that I don’t really understand, but it seems to keep me safe. And I’m already cursed for life. How much worse do you really think you could make things for me?”
Remus sat for a bit and took that in, feeling Sirius’ hand warm in his. Could it be that he had found a person he could dare to love?
“So, what are you saying, then?” he asked in turn.
“I’m saying I want to be with you,” Sirius said, his expression going suddenly shy and sweet.
Remus’ heart fluttered in his chest.
“I can’t quite see why you’d want me,” Sirius murmured. “But if you do…”
“I do.”
“And I like that you’re a wolf,” Sirius mumbled, again sounding almost shy.
Remus stiffened instinctively. “I’m not a wolf. I’m an Animagus.”
“I like that you’re a wolf Animagus, all right? It’ll be less lonely.”
Remus sat there, stunned.
Because that was true, wasn’t it? The Animagus form that caused him such shame was, for Sirius, simply a similarity that brought them a little closer together.
More seriously, Sirius added, “Because I’ll always be under this curse. We’ll never, I don’t know, go on picnics together. Or do any of those normal daytime things that people do. Whatever those things are.”
He looked so sad that Remus said, “I know. And I’m sorry, for your sake. But Sirius, I don’t mind.”
Sirius looked at him with such disbelieving hope, it nearly broke Remus’ heart.
“Come here,” he said, tugging Sirius towards him. Sirius came willingly now, tucking himself against Remus’ chest as Remus rested his chin against that sleek, beautiful hair. Remus sighed so deeply it seemed to come from every part of him.
Sirius turned to press a kiss into Remus’ collarbone, and Remus gasped at the heat that shot through him from that tiny point of contact. He pulled Sirius up closer so he could kiss him properly, getting lost in the warmth of Sirius’ lips and the fire that sparked through him at every touch of Sirius’ hands.
“Wait,” Remus said, a while later, surfacing from where he’d been kissing his way down Sirius’ throat. “But how did you attend school, if you turned into a dog every single day? Didn’t that make it a bit difficult to go to class?”
Sirius scowled, pressing his lips against Remus’ temple so Remus would know he was frowning. “You’d be surprised how little that stood out, compared to some of the types you get at Durmstrang.” He shifted lower, pressing his mouth more insistently against Remus’ skin. “Also, hey, so you’re an unregistered Animagus. What’s that about?”
“James and I learned how to do it together, while we were still at school,” Remus said, feeling a fond smile tug at his lips. “Just as a lark, you know, to see if we could. But it proved useful later, when we were in the Order of the Phoenix.”
Sirius nodded against his neck, clearly familiar with the Order.
“But there’s no excuse for being unregistered, now that I’m living back in England again. I’ll need to take care of that soon, before–”
Oh. He hadn’t told Sirius about the job offer yet.
“Sirius…”
“Hmm?”
“Do you have to stay here? I mean, you said you have to be near the abbey part of the year, but the rest of the time, could you go where you liked?”
“Sure, in theory. But I haven’t got anywhere else to go.”
Oh, it hurt to hear him say that, though he said it without even a hint of self-pity.
“Come to Hogsmeade with me,” Remus burst out. “Would you?”
Sirius shifted, like he was trying to see Remus’ face, though the room had grown too dim. “Why Hogsmeade?”
“I’ve been offered a teaching position at Hogwarts. It’s – oh, it’s a dream job, Sirius, I can’t imagine anything I’d rather do, but–” He took a breath, steeled himself in preparation for saying something so huge. “I don’t want to go there without you.”
“All right,” Sirius said. “Let’s go to Hogsmeade. I hear it’s nice.”
“Really? Just like that?”
“Remus.” Sirius snaked an arm tighter around him. “Where else exactly do you think I’d rather be?”
Remus thought his chest might actually burst from joy, and he turned his attention to conveying that feeling with the intensity of his lips on Sirius’.
“So,” he gasped a few moments later, surfacing for air. “This time, you think you could see your way to letting me spend the night at your place?”
Sirius chuckled against his lips, a sound that thrilled all the way through Remus’ body. “You know, I think I might do.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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 EIGHT
All that next week, in every spare moment, Remus combed the countryside around the abbey. Sirius had said he lived nearby, so the process of elimination was in Remus’ favour. If he searched long enough, he would find him.
A series of summer thunderstorms kicked up, each night wilder than the last, but still Remus searched most of each night, coming back drenched to the skin because even the best Impervius Charm couldn’t keep out rain like that for long.
Each morning he fell into bed as dawn lightened the sky, telling himself fiercely that the night’s search, though fruitless, had brought him one day closer to finding Sirius again.
Remus was not going to let him slip away without a fight. That was one thing he’d finally learned.
One night he even surrendered to the temptation and transformed into his Animagus form, in the hope that the wolf might scent out some trace of Sirius in dog form (Sirius was the black dog, that still seemed so strange) but the rain had washed everything away.
It was a wild night, the wildest by far, and Remus was far over the hills, struggling through lashing rain that stung his eyes and obscured his vision, growing desperate, starting to believe he would have to send his answer to Dumbledore’s offer before he found Sirius, maybe even leave before he found Sirius. But he couldn’t accept that. He couldn’t let that happen.
Cresting another hill, struggling against the wind, Remus peered into the next valley and saw a little nondescript cottage, not unlike the place where Remus himself was living, framed by trees that at the moment were no more than dark outlines tossed in the wind.
But the instant Remus saw it, he knew. Maybe it was some residual wolf sense, but he knew Sirius was there.
For a moment, he just stood at the top of the hill and stared at the little house, heedless of the wind lashing rain into his eyes.
Sirius was there.
Remus flung himself down the hill, ran to the cottage and banged at the door. “Sirius!” he cried. “Sirius, are you there?”
There was nothing but the pounding of rain in his face, the whipping of tree branches above his head.
Remus leaned his forehead against the wooden door.
“Sirius,” he murmured. “You’re here, aren’t you?” Then, louder, “Sirius, I found you, I came all the way here, so please, open the door!”
He thought nothing would happen.
Then the lock clicked open, the door swung inwards, and Sirius was standing there, surveying Remus, his face expressionless.
“Remus,” he said.
“Sirius,” Remus gasped in surprise. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to throw himself at the muddy ground and turn cartwheels, he wanted to pull Sirius to him and kiss him breathless. Instead he said, “Hi.”
Sirius looked at Remus, from his streaming hair to his sodden clothes.
“I think you’d better come in,” he said.
He stepped back to let Remus pass, then closed the door behind him.
As Remus dripped quietly onto the threadbare rug that covered the wooden boards of the little hallway, Sirius raised his wand.
Remus supposed he ought to spring into defensive position – he’d just barged into the home of a man who hadn’t wanted to be found, and that man was now pointing a wand at him – but he simply stood and waited, and Sirius cast a flawless drying charm over him.
“Come inside,” Sirius said, and pointed the way into a diminutive living room.
The whole place was spartan, not in the least fitting for a man as passionate and dramatic as Remus knew Sirius to be. It was tidy and bare and hardly even looked as though someone lived there.
They perched at opposite ends of a worn sofa that had aged to a nondescript greyish colour.
“You want to know who I am,” Sirius said, his voice wretched.
Remus glanced over at him in surprise. It was the first emotion he’d shown. “No – I mean, yes, that too, but mostly I just wanted to find you. You ran away.”
“I deceived you,” Sirius said. “You don’t care about that?”
“What, about being an Animagus, or whatever you are? I’m an unregistered Animagus too, you saw that.”
“I’m not an Animagus. I am Lord Black.”
Remus was on his feet with his wand in his hand before he’d even consciously registered Sirius’ words.
“Not that Lord Black, you daft idiot,” Sirius said, still hunched over on his side of the sofa with his elbows on his knees. “He’s gone for good this time. I made sure of that. No, I mean I’m his last descendant, current Lord of the Black Family line, though I wish to Merlin I weren’t.”
Very slowly, Remus put his wand away and sat down. “So when you said your family were from around here, you weren’t joking around.”
Sirius laughed mirthlessly. “Direct descendants of the legend himself. So, when old Evil Thing rose again, we weren’t just supporters; we used to have dear old Great-Granddad round for supper.”
Remus tried to picture that, and failed. But his heart ached for young Sirius, trapped in a family at the right hand of Lord Black. Then he thought back to Sirius’ words.
“Wait,” he said. “What do you mean you made sure he was gone for good?”
Sirius poked his toe at the scuffed floorboards. “When I was sixteen,” he said, “I managed to get away from Durmstrang and make contact with Dumbledore. The whole family were supporters of old Lord Thing – my younger brother even became a Death Eater later, after I left, but he got in too deep and they killed him in the end. But my point is, I knew some things. Family secrets. There were… oh, it’s too long a story, but basically old Thingy had hidden bits of his soul in different places and they all had to be destroyed, if he was ever going to be mortal again. And I knew where they were, or at least I had some pretty good guesses, based on what I knew about the family, and about the abbey.”
A large number of pieces were falling into place very rapidly in Remus’ mind.
Dumbledore’s other, separate mission, the one the rest of the Order never quite knew the details of. His mysterious contact in Eastern Europe. His disappearances to unknown locations for days on end.
“That was you,” Remus said, stunned. “What Dumbledore was working on all that time, to bring down Lord Black for good, he was doing it with you.”
“Yes,” Sirius said, not sounding particularly happy about it. “That was me.”
“But – you’re the hero of the wizarding world! How could you possibly think I would think badly of you for that?”
“I’m not a hero!” Sirius burst out. “I was only trying to undo the damage my family had done, and even so, look how many people died before I was able to get it finished!”
“No,” Remus said. “No, listen to me. I fought in that war. I lost my two best friends to that war. And I’d do it all over again, because there was no other choice. I couldn’t stand by and watch Lord Black destroy the world I loved. And you’re the reason he could finally be defeated. I can’t imagine how anyone could hold any part of that against you. And if they did, they wouldn’t be worth your time.”
Sirius was gazing at Remus with wonder. “You really mean that.”
“Of course I mean it! Sirius. For Merlin’s sake.”
Remus hesitated – Sirius looked so far away, and so determined to stay there – but finally he reached out a hand across the sofa.
Sirius hesitated too, then reached across and took it.
“You don’t know everything about me either,” Remus said quietly. “My friends who died – that was because of me. I was supposed to be their Secret Keeper, but I let them down. And my parents…” His voice grew more wretched as he went on. “I told you they died in an accident, but that’s not quite the truth. They were killed by a werewolf. And it was my fault.”
Sirius stared at him. “What d’you mean, it was your fault? How could it be your fault?”
Remus tried to retrieve his hand from Sirius’, not wanting to see or feel Sirius’ reaction when he heard this, but Sirius held fast.
“Remus,” Sirius said again, more gently. “How was it your fault?”
Staring at the floor, keeping his voice resolutely level, Remus said, “I was a little kid with big notions about my own cleverness, and I was always fascinated by Dark creatures. I got this idea in my head that I was going to try to summon a werewolf. I was eight, almost nine. And it worked. It was the full moon, and I did a complicated spell that drew a werewolf to me, and it got into my bedroom and tried to attack me. But my parents came and fought it off, and it killed them.”
He heard Sirius suck in a sharp breath. “Remus, I’m–” he began.
“So you see, people who get too close to me get destroyed!” Remus fairly shouted. “It’s dangerous. I’m dangerous. You can’t get too close to me, because bad things happen to people who do. It’s like I’m under some kind of curse.”
Sirius was still refusing to relinquish Remus’ hand. “A curse?” he demanded. “Seriously, you’ve been going around all this time thinking you’re cursed? Take it from someone who knows what it’s like to live under an evil curse. You’re not cursed. I am.”
“You are?” Remus asked, startled out of himself for the moment.
“Uh, yeah, the whole dog thing? Or did you miss that?”
Sirius looked so put out at Remus’ lack of attention to the details of his situation that Remus felt a breath of mad laughter rising in his throat, despite it all. “No, I mean yes, I did notice,” he said. “What do you mean it’s a curse?”
“Old family thing,” Sirius said, shifting restlessly beside him. “A witch whose family Lord Black destroyed, back the first time around, cursed the Blacks so the first-born son of each generation would always be a dog by day and a human only at night. Guess she picked that because it’s the same form Lord Black sometimes took, except we don’t get to choose when it happens. And I’ve tried every possible thing to reverse it, and believe me, nothing works. I’m never a man during the day, Remus. Only from sundown to sunup. You don’t want that,” he added softly.
“Yes, I do,” Remus said. He’d never been more sure of anything in his life. If beautiful, passionate Sirius still wanted Remus, despite everything… “I absolutely do.”
Sirius looked hard at him. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I want to be with you, and some old family curse doesn’t change that. Except, truly Sirius, you don’t want to be with me. It only ever ends badly.”
“Oh, for Merlin’s sake, Remus, you’re not cursed! You may have had horrible luck and awful things happen to you, I believe that, and I’m sorry for it, but you’re not a danger to anyone. Besides, listen, you couldn’t harm me if you tried. That’s part of the curse, I’m bound to the abbey. I have to stay near it at least part of each year, but if I do that, I’m actually pretty invincible. There’s some kind of old magic in the abbey stones that I don’t really understand, but it seems to keep me safe. And I’m already cursed for life. How much worse do you really think you could make things for me?”
Remus sat for a bit and took that in, feeling Sirius’ hand warm in his. Could it be that he had found a person he could dare to love?
“So, what are you saying, then?” he asked in turn.
“I’m saying I want to be with you,” Sirius said, his expression going suddenly shy and sweet.
Remus’ heart fluttered in his chest.
“I can’t quite see why you’d want me,” Sirius murmured. “But if you do…”
“I do.”
“And I like that you’re a wolf,” Sirius mumbled, again sounding almost shy.
Remus stiffened instinctively. “I’m not a wolf. I’m an Animagus.”
“I like that you’re a wolf Animagus, all right? It’ll be less lonely.”
Remus sat there, stunned.
Because that was true, wasn’t it? The Animagus form that caused him such shame was, for Sirius, simply a similarity that brought them a little closer together.
More seriously, Sirius added, “Because I’ll always be under this curse. We’ll never, I don’t know, go on picnics together. Or do any of those normal daytime things that people do. Whatever those things are.”
He looked so sad that Remus said, “I know. And I’m sorry, for your sake. But Sirius, I don’t mind.”
Sirius looked at him with such disbelieving hope, it nearly broke Remus’ heart.
“Come here,” he said, tugging Sirius towards him. Sirius came willingly now, tucking himself against Remus’ chest as Remus rested his chin against that sleek, beautiful hair. Remus sighed so deeply it seemed to come from every part of him.
Sirius turned to press a kiss into Remus’ collarbone, and Remus gasped at the heat that shot through him from that tiny point of contact. He pulled Sirius up closer so he could kiss him properly, getting lost in the warmth of Sirius’ lips and the fire that sparked through him at every touch of Sirius’ hands.
“Wait,” Remus said, a while later, surfacing from where he’d been kissing his way down Sirius’ throat. “But how did you attend school, if you turned into a dog every single day? Didn’t that make it a bit difficult to go to class?”
Sirius scowled, pressing his lips against Remus’ temple so Remus would know he was frowning. “You’d be surprised how little that stood out, compared to some of the types you get at Durmstrang.” He shifted lower, pressing his mouth more insistently against Remus’ skin. “Also, hey, so you’re an unregistered Animagus. What’s that about?”
“James and I learned how to do it together, while we were still at school,” Remus said, feeling a fond smile tug at his lips. “Just as a lark, you know, to see if we could. But it proved useful later, when we were in the Order of the Phoenix.”
Sirius nodded against his neck, clearly familiar with the Order.
“But there’s no excuse for being unregistered, now that I’m living back in England again. I’ll need to take care of that soon, before–”
Oh. He hadn’t told Sirius about the job offer yet.
“Sirius…”
“Hmm?”
“Do you have to stay here? I mean, you said you have to be near the abbey part of the year, but the rest of the time, could you go where you liked?”
“Sure, in theory. But I haven’t got anywhere else to go.”
Oh, it hurt to hear him say that, though he said it without even a hint of self-pity.
“Come to Hogsmeade with me,” Remus burst out. “Would you?”
Sirius shifted, like he was trying to see Remus’ face, though the room had grown too dim. “Why Hogsmeade?”
“I’ve been offered a teaching position at Hogwarts. It’s – oh, it’s a dream job, Sirius, I can’t imagine anything I’d rather do, but–” He took a breath, steeled himself in preparation for saying something so huge. “I don’t want to go there without you.”
“All right,” Sirius said. “Let’s go to Hogsmeade. I hear it’s nice.”
“Really? Just like that?”
“Remus.” Sirius snaked an arm tighter around him. “Where else exactly do you think I’d rather be?”
Remus thought his chest might actually burst from joy, and he turned his attention to conveying that feeling with the intensity of his lips on Sirius’.
“So,” he gasped a few moments later, surfacing for air. “This time, you think you could see your way to letting me spend the night at your place?”
Sirius chuckled against his lips, a sound that thrilled all the way through Remus’ body. “You know, I think I might do.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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Date: 2014-08-12 04:57 am (UTC)You do such a fantastic job weaving humor in, even through some of the tensest scenes. I loved "Not that Lord Black, you daft idiot!" and Sirius being put out that Remus wasn't paying attention to the turning-into-a-dog thing, and Remus's sudden curiosity about how Sirius had been able to go to school with, you know, a tail.
I wonder if we're going to see the Weasleys again in the final chapter? How is Molly going to react to this news? ;)
no subject
Date: 2014-08-12 06:49 pm (UTC)Yes, the secrets come out, and you were right about them all!