A Constellation’s Just a Picture in the Sky (3/7)

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A CONSTELLATION'S JUST A PICTURE IN THE SKY

Summary: There’s a war on and all is not easy for the young members of the Order of the Phoenix, but Remus – nineteen, in love and sharing a flat with Sirius – is happier than he ever thought it possible to be. …Until one morning a knock at their door heralds an unexpected visitor from Sirius’ past, begging help with a desperate mission.


CHAPTER THREE

“They’ve brainwashed him somehow,” Sirius said.

He was pacing back and forth across the living room carpet, his steps tight and tense, his gaze fixed somewhere far beyond the walls of their flat. Regulus was asleep in the next room, behind a door that was locked and charmed with every protection they’d been able to think of, which for two members of the Order of the Phoenix meant quite a lot of spells indeed.

Remus, meanwhile, was slumped on the sofa in exhaustion, and watching Sirius pace frantically was only making it worse.

“I never knew him to be like that,” Sirius continued, his voice fast and feverish. “I’d be the first to say he was a weak-willed little idiot, going along with whatever would get him a pat on the head from Mummy and Daddy, but he’s not a coward. Voldemort must have brainwashed him into thinking the Order were the absolute, greatest evil, and would torture him to death or something if we ever got hold of him. Makes sense, right? Portray your enemy as inhuman, so your foot soldiers will have no compunctions about raising a weapon and killing them. Generals have been doing it in wars all through history –”

“Sirius, would you stop it, please,” Remus said. His eyes burned with exhaustion and his arms and legs felt like he’d been hit with a Heaviness Hex. He’d lost track of the hour and knew only that it was very, very late, and that Sirius was going to drive himself to collapse if he didn’t quit moving.

Sirius stopped in his tracks in the middle of the room and glanced over at Remus, baffled. “What?”

“Can you come sit down here, please, and can we focus on what we’re going to do about your brother? I think the history lesson can probably wait.”

Sirius blinked at him, then finally paced over to the sofa with the even, heavy steps of a sleepwalker. He sank slowly down next to Remus, still blinking in bafflement, as if he were just now realising his body was exhausted to the point that he could barely hold himself up.

“Oh,” Sirius said, looking surprised, once he’d landed fully on the sofa.

“Yeah,” Remus agreed, shaking his head at him. “Come here.”

He tugged Sirius towards him until their bodies met, shoulders and hips in warm contact. Sirius dropped his head onto Remus’ shoulder and Remus reached up a hand to rub through Sirius’ shaggy hair in that way Sirius loved. Another dog-like trait, one that ought to have seemed bizarre in an adult human, but one which Remus, in his smitten state, couldn’t find anything but endearing.

“Why is he here?” Sirius asked into Remus’ shoulder, his voice suddenly sounding very small. “I swear, the world made sense to me until yesterday. I don’t understand why he’s here.”

Remus had no answers. He wished he could fathom anything at all about Sirius’ brother, but some days he could barely even fathom Sirius. “For now I guess all we can do is believe him – cautiously believe him – and go on like that. I mean – it’s up to you. If he really does need your help, would you give it?”

Sirius shrugged against Remus’ side. “I don’t understand what he wants,” he mumbled. There was a plaintive note in his voice that Remus hadn’t heard in years, and it made him tremble, though he tried not to let Sirius feel it. He wasn’t used to a Sirius who sounded so lost. Immature and childish, yes, sometimes maddeningly so, but always brash, always passionate, always with at least twice as much confidence in himself as any normal person. Between the two of them, Remus wasn’t used to being the one who led the charge.

So he started with smaller, practical matters. “If he’s going to be staying with us for a bit, then,” Remus began, not sure exactly how to put this, “would you like me to pretend, er… I could sleep in a different room, while he’s here. Or something like that.”

Sirius jerked upright, wakeful again. “What are you saying?”

“I just…I don’t know how much he’s picked up already, but I don’t want to cause problems for you. I can pretend to be your friend you share a flat with. I don’t mind.”

“I would mind,” Sirius growled, swivelling to fix all the intensity of his grey-eyed gaze on Remus. “I’m not ashamed of you. Why would you think I’m ashamed of you?”

“I don’t!” Remus protested. “I just thought – I don’t know where pure-bloods stand, on – on things like this. If it would mean a lot of rude comments and ignorant bile, I’d just as soon save you that.”

Sirius laughed harshly. “Oh, pure-bloods don’t care about that. As long as you make a nice loveless marriage and produce suitable heirs, nobody cares who you bugger on the side.”

Remus blinked. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. The House of Black can be surprisingly open-minded about the least useful things. My family wanted heirs from me, and unstinting loyalty, but not much else. Nothing like happiness or anything.”

His voice was so bitter, Remus instinctively pulled him closer against his side.

“I want you to be happy, Padfoot, and nothing else,” he whispered into Sirius’ hair. “You know that, right?”

For the first time in that long, tense day, the first time since their impossibly long-ago sunny breakfast together in the kitchen, Remus heard a smile in Sirius’ voice. “Yeah, you nutter. Of course I know that. Same to you, you know.” Then his voice tightened and he added, “And if Regulus being here is going to make you doubt yourself, I’ll wake him up and throw him out on his ear right now. Just say the word.”

“No!” Remus said, horrified. “Where would he go? He’s got no one to look after him but us.”

“That’s true,” Sirius said, sounding alarmed at the thought. “That’s true, isn’t it? Oh, Merlin, why is he here!” he said again, and his body tensed as if he were about to leap up and start pacing again.

“Don’t think about it,” Remus pleaded. “Come on, there’s nothing we can do about him until tomorrow, anyway, so why don’t you try not to think anymore for tonight.”

He carded his hand again through Sirius’ hair and Sirius let out a heavy sigh, then pressed his nose, surprisingly cold, into the side of Remus’ throat. Remus yelped. Sirius chuckled, low and wicked, and did it again.

“I think it might help me calm down if I had someone to distract me from my thoughts,” Sirius murmured into Remus’ throat, his voice a low thrum.

Remus’ whole body shivered. “Yeah?” he managed. “What kind of distraction did you have in mind?”

Sirius Black, capable of swinging from frantic anguish to bleak despair to insatiable horniness in less time than it took other people to cast a Cheering Charm. After all this time, he still managed to catch Remus by surprise.

Sirius chuckled, and nipped at Remus’ throat.

“No biting,” Remus protested. He knew he was a low risk any time other than the full moon, but a low risk was still more than he was willing to chance. He’d told Sirius over and over not to bite him even in play, never to do anything that could possibly break either of their skin or draw blood, but Sirius never seemed to care when it was a matter of his own safety.

“Distract me with something better, then,” Sirius challenged, so Remus caught him by the shoulders and pressed him against the cushions that lined the back of the sofa, teasing him with the slide of his body against Sirius’, breathing kisses against his face and neck and then pulling away until Sirius growled and flipped them, pinning Remus down on the sofa, and neither of them thought about anything else for a while.

Later, though, once they’d finally made it to their bed and Sirius was drifting off to sleep with his face mashed against Remus’ shoulder, snuffling in that bizarre yet somehow endearing way of his, Remus murmured, “You’re not going to put yourself in danger for his sake, Padfoot, are you? Can you promise me you’re not going to take risks for his sake?”

In the quiet dark Sirius only shrugged against Remus’ shoulder, and gave no answer. Remus thought of how stricken Sirius had been of his brother’s sudden vulnerability. For all Sirius professed to detest his brother, if Regulus needed him, Remus doubted Sirius would be able to stop himself from being there. But how far would Sirius go for Regulus and his dangerous mission?

Remus slept uneasily.

(Continue to CHAPTER FOUR)