Northern Sky

[starfishstar]

NORTHERN SKY

Summary: On a cold night on a mountain in Iceland, Remus takes Sirius to a place neither of them has been before.

Characters: Sirius, Remus

Words: 6,600

Notes: Inspired by RS Games prompt #41:

“Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass,
Be not afraid of my body.”
~ Walt Whitman

And yes, this fic is 100% inspired by my own experiences watching the northern lights in Iceland. (Though my experiences have contained 100% less kissing Remus, unfortunately.)

Thanks so much to shaggydogstail for betareading!

Read here below or on AO3.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~


“We’re going on an outing tonight,” Remus said. “Dress warmly, okay?”

Sirius looked up to see him in the doorway. They were staying in a fisher’s cottage, loaned to them for their visit by local wizarding villagers who were the Order’s contacts here, and Remus stood perfectly framed by the open door. He was gazing at Sirius intently, with an expression Sirius couldn’t quite read.

Sirius knew he hadn’t been the best of company on this mission. James wouldn’t have stood for his mood; he would have teased and badgered and irked Sirius until he snapped out of it. But this time James was back in London, with other Order duties, and Dumbledore had sent Sirius and Remus together instead. Remus didn’t have James’ affectionate impatience. He saw Sirius’ ill humour and met it with gentleness, which only left Sirius confused.

“One of the wizards is going to show me a spot where – well, I’ll let it be a surprise,” Remus went on. “But if you’re in Iceland in autumn, this is something you’ve got to see.”

Sirius made a sceptical face. Even in the single day they’d spent here so far, Sirius had learnt that “Iceland in autumn” was even colder than the phrase suggested, especially when the wind came whipping along the high, narrow walls of the fjord. The place was beyond beautiful, but it didn’t exactly inspire Sirius to want to spend the night-time hours out of doors.

“Dress warmly,” Remus repeated. “I’ll be back in a bit.” Then he ducked back out the door and closed it behind him.

Sirius flopped down onto one of the cottage’s two narrow beds. He’d been a git since they’d arrived here, he knew that. He’d held it together when they were meeting with their local contacts, of course, but he could feel himself being surly and uncommunicative the rest of the time and he couldn’t seem to stop it. So why was Remus being nice to him?

Sirius flung himself back up from the bed and went to rummage through his overnight bag for woollen layers. Remus was being nicer to him than he deserved, and if Remus wanted to show him some pretty sight in a remote part of a freezing fjord, the least Sirius could do was go along with it.

Remus returned soon after, red-cheeked and looking pleased with himself. He was wearing his thickest cloak and had something rolled up under his arm.

“Ready?” he asked.

Sirius slung his winter cloak over the rest of the warm clothes he’d put on and tucked his wand into an inner pocket.

“We can Apparate to where we’re going, but it’s probably better if we do it from the edge of town,” Remus went on, as he held open the door.

Sirius nodded. The village was an interesting mix of wizards and Muggle fishermen, like nothing Sirius had ever seen before. It was hard to believe the Muggle half of the population truly never noticed all the magic happening in their midst, but everyone on both sides did a good job of pretending.

Side by side, they walked to the edge of the settlement, past a last few open-sided shacks used for drying fish, to where the dirt road petered out into a narrow footpath.

They were silent as they walked. Sirius kept expecting some comment from Remus, a leading remark like James might make about what a snit Sirius had been in lately. But it never came, and eventually Sirius settled into the peacefulness of their silence. Being around Remus felt easy, even though Sirius didn’t see him quite as often these days. All four of them still met up a lot, of course, but nothing could equal the way they’d lived constantly on top of each other, at school, before they’d got their own flats and become so busy with the Order. Sirius missed this, just being around Remus to no particular purpose.

“Take my hand,” Remus said.

“I – what?” Sirius asked, thrown off by the suddenness of Remus’ words in the silence.

“So I can Side-Along Apparate you there, I mean,” Remus added quickly. He sounded almost…ruffled? But Remus didn’t get ruffled.

“Oh, right.”

“The place we’re going’s quite a bit further up the mountain,” Remus rushed on. “It would take an hour or two to walk to, but Sigurjón, you know, the chief wizard, showed me the spot so I’d be able to Apparate us there.”

There was a quarter moon rising in the northeast, and its faint light rendered Remus as a sketch made up of lighter and darker greys. It was a waning moon, whittling away from last week’s full, which meant Remus had almost three weeks before he had to face the full moon again. Sirius noticed these things automatically, after so many years as Remus’ friend.

“Right, yeah,” Sirius said. “Right.” Feeling tongue-tied, he stuck out his hand and Remus took it, his palm cool against Sirius’. Remus squeezed tight, then Sirius felt the familiar yank of Apparition behind his navel, and opened his eyes in a different place.

They were on top of the mountain that loomed above the fishing village, forming one wall of the narrow fjord. Before them, the mountain fell away in sharp ridges and contours, an immovable bulk that looked as though it must have existed since the beginning of the world. The village was visible below them as a few small, warm lights shining out from the windows of houses. And above their heads, the night sky was one flawless expanse, the stars crystal clear against the deep black of the night.

Sirius gasped at the beauty of it. Then he realised he was still holding Remus’ hand, and carefully let go. He felt his earlier grumpiness falling away as he stood staring up at the stars, and was chagrined to think how much he’d complained, inside his own head, about Iceland and its cold. It was worth any weather for a sight like this.

“It’s beautiful,” Sirius whispered. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many stars.” The Milky Way was visible too, a stark band of brightness spilling across the sky. This wasn’t a sight Sirius ever got to see back in London. Even at Hogwarts, there had always been the lights of the school dimming the effect of the sky above.

“It is,” Remus agreed, his voice quiet, almost reverential. Sirius turned and saw that Remus had his head tilted back, gazing up into the night. “But this isn’t even what I brought you up here to show you.”

Sirius waited; sometimes with Remus you had to wait, but all things revealed themselves eventually.

Remus brought his gaze back down to Earth and looked at Sirius. In the dimness of the quarter moon, he was little more than an outline: his nose, the hollows of his eyes, a faint suggestion of eyebrows.

“Have you ever seen the northern lights?” Remus asked. “In a proper, dark place with a clear view?”

Sirius shook his head. Technically, he’d seen the northern lights a couple of times, as a faint green haze above the horizon or behind clouds. It hadn’t been nearly as impressive as people always said, but Sirius was willing to concede maybe he just hadn’t had the full experience.

“They’re incredible,” Remus said. “Like the greatest magic imaginable. I saw the northern lights a few times as a child, and it stayed with me.”

His voice went distant at that. Sirius knew Remus had travelled a lot as a child, with his parents as they searched in vain for a cure for his lycanthropy, but it wasn’t something he often talked about. Sirius wondered where he’d seen the northern lights, if he’d been to Iceland before, or Norway, or maybe even Alaska. But he didn’t ask, because Remus hadn’t offered up those memories to share.

“Anyway,” Remus said. “The aurora forecast for tonight is unusually good. The witches and wizards here have spells that predict when the northern lights will be visible and how strongly, and there’s supposed to be a burst of activity a little while from now. We might have a bit of a wait until then. Is that all right?”

Sirius nodded, then realised Remus might not have seen the gesture in the dark and said, “Yeah, of course.”

“It can get really raw up here when the wind’s blowing,” Remus said. “But if we find a bit of shelter…” Sirius saw Remus’ shadowed outline peering around, then Remus made a satisfied “Ah” sound. He led Sirius a little to their left, and what had been only a vague outline of dark against dark resolved itself into a small rocky outcropping. It was just high enough that if they both squatted down, which they now did, they were out of the wind entirely.

Remus unrolled the thing he’d been carrying under his arm, which proved to be a thick woollen blanket, and spread it on the ground in the lee of the outcropping.

“Lying down gives the best view of the sky,” Remus said, sounding faintly apologetic. “But the ground gets too cold if you don’t have something under you. So if you don’t mind lying on this for a while…”

They settled down onto the blanket, shuffling about until they’d each found a comfortable position for lying and looking up. Even behind their windbreak, it was cold. Remus murmured a warming charm that took away the worst bite of the chill, but it was still unmistakably a wintry night. Sirius rubbed his hands together, then shoved each hand into the opposite sleeve of his robes. Once they’d both concluded the myriad little movements of settling in, silence fell.

Lying side by side like this, Sirius was intensely aware of Remus’ body beside him, mere inches away.

When had that changed? When had it become a big deal to lie next to Remus on a blanket in the dark? Back at Hogwarts, all four of them had been forever tumbling over each other like a bunch of puppies. Sirius couldn’t count the number of times they’d fallen asleep in a big, messy pile on the floor after late night hours of planning their next adventure, with Peter’s feet in Sirius’ face and Remus’ sharp knees at his back and James snoring by his ear.

But they weren’t boys who roomed together at school anymore. They had lives and flats and always so much work to do for the Order, and Sirius missed this. He missed the ease of Remus lying next to him.

To force his mind back to something simpler, Sirius looked up at the sky above him. But that was a mistake, because there was his star, Sirius the Dog Star, and all the constellations that spoke of the family he was running so hard to escape. By awful instinct, Sirius found himself scanning the sky for his brother’s star, too. Even though he knew its constellation, Leo, wouldn’t be visible this time of year until the predawn hours, his eyes couldn’t help searching for the star that gave his brother his name.

Regulus. That idiotic fool. Sirius felt his throat tighten.

He pushed those thoughts away. He’d spent enough time grumpy lately, no need for more of it. “So, what am I looking for, when I’m looking for the northern lights?” he asked Remus. In the dimness, he could just make out that Remus was looking up from where they lay, shifting his head this way and that as he scanned the sky.

Remus’ voice was eager. “You might see bands or curtains of green light – if we’re lucky maybe other colours too, purple or pink, but green is the most common. Or it might be faint, almost white, and you could almost mistake the aurora for clouds except for the way it moves. People talk about the lights dancing, which sounds like a cliché, but it’s hard to think of another way to describe it, this band of light undulating, pulsing, expanding to fill the whole sky…”

The excitement in Remus’ voice grew as he talked, and Sirius watched his profile. It fascinated him to think there were whole facets of Remus’ personality he didn’t know about, even after all these years – like this secret, passionate love for the northern lights.

Remus, though, broke off and laughed ruefully at himself. “Am I boring you?”

“Never!” Sirius protested.

Remus laughed again, this time a warmer chuckle. “Let’s see if you still say that after I’ve talked your ear off about it for half the night.”

Sirius grinned into the darkness. He would like that, actually, if Remus enthused at him for hours about the northern lights. Remus was generally so good at spooling out a line of wry banter while keeping his own emotions on a careful, even keel. Sometimes it was nice to see him get fired up about something.

They lapsed back into a comfortable silence, both looking up at the sky. Sirius pulled the neck of his robes up higher against the cold, over his nose. He felt his chest rise and fall with his breath and pictured Remus doing the same, both of them breathing in tandem, the air they exhaled spiralling up into the stillness of the night.

Then Remus surprised him by doing the one thing Remus usually didn’t do: he asked Sirius to talk about his feelings.

“Sirius?” he began, sounding hesitant.

Sirius pulled the fabric of his robe back down from over his mouth. “…Yeah?”

He heard Remus swallow. “It was Regulus there, wasn’t it? Last week.”

There’d been a battle – no, a skirmish. It had been so minor, it hardly deserved to be called a battle. But amidst the chaos and the shouting and the lights of spells going in every direction, there’d been one figure Sirius could never, never, never fail to recognise, even behind a Death Eater’s mask.

Regulus.

Regulus, his baby brother, pointing a wand at Sirius’ friends and shouting words twisted with hate.

It had been bound to happen eventually, of course. It was surprising it hadn’t happened before. That they should meet in battle was inevitable, because Regulus and Sirius had chosen their respective sides long ago – before they knew what they were choosing, really. If James hadn’t befriended Sirius on the Hogwarts Express, if that little seed of discontent with his family’s ways that already nestled in Sirius’ chest hadn’t sprung to life and blossomed in the presence of his friends – if so many incremental changes hadn’t nudged him away from his family’s bigotry, would Sirius now be fighting side by side with his brother?

And yet it tore out his heart to see Regulus there, behind his mask of hate, on the wrong side of this war.

Remus went on quietly, “I don’t think I would have recognised him myself. But I saw the way you looked at him...” He paused, then continued even more softly. “I’m sorry, Sirius.”

Sirius tried to say something, and found he couldn’t. All the grief, all the rage he’d been shoving down deep since that skirmish, now it came roiling up and constricted his throat.

Finally he managed to choke out, “He’s an idiot. He was always an idiot. It’s stupid, I shouldn’t care anymore.”

Remus reached out through the dark and found Sirius’ hand, and squeezed it hard. “It doesn’t matter what you should,” he said fiercely. “If you feel it, then it’s real.”

Sirius blinked, surprised that Remus cared so strongly about something Sirius had believed was his to bear alone. It eased the tightness in his throat a little, somehow. He squeezed Remus’ hand in return.

And Remus went on not saying anything, not expecting anything of Sirius, just holding onto his hand with such sympathy, that finally Sirius steeled himself to speak.

“I hate him,” he said. “I hate that he’s such a fool to believe all that shit without questioning it. …But I also hate that I couldn’t stop it. I’m his brother, I should have been able to stop them getting their claws into him.”

Remus said nothing to that, like he knew there was nothing that could be said. It was shit, was what it was, and empty reassurances that it wasn’t Sirius’ fault wouldn’t make it any better.

“I don’t know what went wrong, that I got out and he didn’t,” Sirius admitted very softly. That was the crux of it, wasn’t it? Why had the world tipped the scales of his life just enough to land him on a path that led to friends and the Order and this driving need to fight for what was just – and why hadn’t it done the same for Regulus?

Just as quietly, Remus said, “Or you could ask what went right, that you, at least, were able to leave that behind.” There was a small hesitation, then he said, “I can’t imagine what it would be like if I’d never met you, Sirius.”

Suddenly Sirius was acutely aware that he was still holding Remus’ hand. They were lying in the dark on top of a mountain with no one else around, and here Sirius was, cradling Remus’ hand in his.

Remus seemed to realise the same, because he said hurriedly, “I didn’t mean to detract from what you said, though. I know it doesn’t make it better, somebody telling you to look on the brighter side of something so awful.” And he let go of Sirius’ hand, carefully, much the way Sirius had done before. Like he had to focus hard to do it in a way that was totally normal and not at all weird.

“No, I know you didn’t mean it like that,” Sirius said, fumbling for words. “Thank you – for saying that, I mean. Same to you, you know,” he concluded awkwardly.

Because what if he hadn’t been Sorted into Gryffindor? What if he’d never met Remus? A life without James in it: that, Sirius couldn’t even conceive of. James was too deeply woven into his bones to imagine it. But a life without Remus… He could picture it, hazily, and he didn’t like the image it made.

A wave of gratitude swept over Sirius, a profound joy that his life was exactly as it was, even with all the terrible and hard and heartbreaking parts of it. There was nowhere, nowhere, he would rather be than right here, on this mountain with Remus. That crest of feeling swelled, crashing over him until he could barely breathe. Then it ebbed gently away, leaving him gaping silently into the dark.

Sirius was wondering how he could begin to express this in words, when Remus breathed, “Oh.”

Sirius looked at Remus, then looked at the sky.

A band of green stretched along the horizon, like a long curtain made up of little strips of light that were all shifting gently up and down, so the entire band seemed to dance. As Sirius looked, the shape changed, no longer horizontal but curving like a great question mark up towards the zenith of the sky.

“Oh,” Sirius echoed. “Oh.”

The arc of green light grew brighter and brighter, expanding until it covered a great swath of the sky and hung there above them, breathtaking in its beauty and strangeness. It changed and changed again, sometimes condensing down to a narrow strip of light and sometimes growing so wide that Sirius had to swivel his head back and forth on the blanket to see all of it.

Sirius was trying to marshal his thoughts to express how extraordinary the sight was, trying to find a way to tell Remus that yes, absolutely yes, he’d been right that this was worth any cold or inconvenience. Trying to find the words to thank Remus for bringing him here –

– when the brightness above them faded away to one corner of the sky, then all at once a bolt of green shot out across the entire span of the sky, from horizon to horizon, vibrant strands of light twisting and spiralling and twining around each other. And then for one heady moment, the entire twisting rope of light went not green but unmistakably purple.

Beside Sirius, Remus was laughing with delight – no, he was giggling. Remus was giggling helplessly with joy at that magnificent swirl of purple light. And Sirius forgot everything, forgot words, simply flung himself at Remus and wrapped his arms around him in a clumsy, exuberant hug.

Remus stiffened in surprise for the barest moment, but then his arms came up and he hugged Sirius back, both of them laughing with wonder at the sky and the night and the colours that looked impossible but were so marvellously real.

The purple was gone now, but a great band of green still spanned the sky, gyrating to some unfathomable rhythm of its own. It sent out tendrils, then retreated, then swelled once more to fill the night.

Even as Sirius watched in awe, he was aware, more with every passing second, that he still had his arms wrapped tightly around Remus, and Remus wasn’t making any move to pull away. Indeed, Remus’ arms were just as firmly around him.

Sirius slid one hand out from under Remus’ shoulder and down his side until it came to rest on the curve of Remus’ ribs. His touch was insulated from Remus’ skin by the many layers of clothing between them, yet even so the gesture felt as intimate as a kiss. Sirius let his hand float there, barely touching, giving Remus every opportunity to laugh and shift away.

But Remus did neither of those things. He gave a sharp inhale of breath, then went utterly still once again.

Sirius’ gaze had been fixed on the sensational sight of his own daring hand, but now he chanced a glance at Remus’ face. He needed to know if his touch was unwelcome, because he would pull away and apologise if it was. He would try to explain that it had been a passing fancy, a bit of silliness, a harmless impulse stirred up by the beauty of the night…

Remus’ eyes were closed, Sirius could see that by the faint light. In profile, in pale moonlight, Remus was breathtaking. His face was all angles and shadows, every one of them so achingly familiar that Sirius couldn’t seem to stop looking. His palm still rested lightly against Remus’ ribs, and the way his own heart was racing felt nothing like a passing fancy.

Remus’ eyes fluttered open. “Sirius,” he breathed. There was a rustling in the dark as he shifted one hand free from their embrace and brought it up to trace along the length of Sirius’ jaw. Sirius had to close his eyes as the touch seared through him.

His hands scrabbled helplessly in the darkness, wanting to touch Remus in return but stymied by the heavy folds of his winter cloak. At last he found the front of the cloak, then the hem of Remus’ shirt. He slid one hand beneath, until his palm rested on Remus’ ribs again, but this time with nothing separating skin from skin.

Remus sucked in a breath and his whole body jolted at the touch.

“Cold?” Sirius asked, his eyes snapping open. He remembered belatedly that he hadn’t been wearing gloves all this time and his skin must feel shockingly chilled.

But Remus said firmly, “No.” He arched into Sirius’ touch, his chest rising to meet it, and the hand that cupped Sirius’ jaw slid lower, tracing tantalisingly over the pulse point in his throat, then exploring his collarbone with gentle, wondering fingers. The collar of Sirius’ cloak prevented his hands from moving further, but Remus slipped one finger beneath the fabric, just grazing Sirius’ skin.

It was Sirius’ turn to gasp at the sensation. That light brush of a single finger sparked through his whole body, fizzing through him with the expanding force of a powerful spell. He felt it in his toes and in his fingers, in the way his head jerked forwards, his entire body yearning towards the spot where Remus touched him.

“Remus,” Sirius gasped. His hand on Remus’ chest moved of its own accord, tracing down, up, across, revelling in the heat of Remus’ body, the smooth skin of his belly, the individual delicate ridges of his ribs. The muscles of Remus’ stomach twitched and contracted as Sirius’ hand swept across them. Remus’ breath came fast and hard as Sirius lingered over his breastbone, entranced by the rapid rise and fall of his chest, dumbfounded by this most simple and necessary motion, the whoosh of breathing that said Remus was alive.

Forgetting the layers of clothing that separated them, Sirius bent down and tried to press a kiss to the very centre of Remus’ breastbone, but all he got was woollen fabric scraping his lips. Sirius huffed out a laugh at himself, and turned his head to press his cheek against Remus’ chest instead. His hand still rested beneath Remus’ shirt, against his skin, and he could feel the pulse of Remus’ heart.

Oh, Merlin, he could feel the beat of Remus’ heart.

Remus’ hand found its way again to Sirius’ face, caressing his cheek, tracing the curve of his lips. Sirius caught one finger between his lips and tugged, very gently, and in reply he felt the swell of Remus’ chest beneath him as Remus gasped. The sound sent fire racing through Sirius. Every atom of his body was awake and aflame.

Sirius released Remus’ finger from his mouth, and immediately Remus’ hands were moving again, like they were impatient to touch everywhere. He was far more deft than Sirius had been, and in moments he’d found the fastenings of Sirius’ cloak. Sirius now deeply regretted the heavy woollen jumper he was wearing under his cloak – even though it was Remus who had said, dress warmly. But all those practical layers Sirius had put on at the start of the evening were now very much in the way.

Remus’ hands skated across the wool of Sirius’ jumper. Sirius was leaning half over him, one elbow propping him up while the other hand still rested on the warmth of Remus’ chest. Remus’ hands moved to circle Sirius’ torso, slid beneath his jumper and the shirt below it, and pressed hard into Sirius’ back, urging him downwards, to close the last bit of space between their bodies.

Slowly, trying not to drop his full weight all at once, Sirius lowered himself down until he was pressed fully against Remus. Torso to torso, hips to hips. Heat pooled low in Sirius’ body. He was hard, yes, and he wasn’t sure if it was entirely all right to be thinking about that, when the person lying under him was his old childhood friend. But it was difficult to think about anything else.

Remus arched again, pressing his hips up as his hands pulled Sirius fiercely down.

Sirius swallowed. Yes, Remus was unmistakably just as turned on as he was. The awareness of it sent fire exploding through Sirius’ veins. He couldn’t feel his fingers and the top of his head seemed likely to fly off into space.

“I want –” he gasped, and he didn’t even know the end to that sentence.

I want – every second of my life to be this exquisite.

I want – to touch everywhere.

I want – you.

Remus’ hands on Sirius’ back caressed higher, urging him closer. One hand found its way to Sirius’ neck, guiding his head down to meet Remus beneath him.

Their lips met.

Warmth, softness, irresistible pressure, the urgent seeking of Remus’ lips against his own. Remus pulled away to gasp in a breath, then pressed close again. All the fire in Sirius’ body condensed into that one point, the firing of nerves where Remus’ mouth pressed against his.

Remus craned his head up. His lips travelled across Sirius’ jaw and sought out the pulse point in his throat, bringing warmth and a hint of wetness to the sensitive skin there. The sensation exploded through Sirius and without meaning to he bucked hard against Remus, pinning him to the blanket and the hard ground.

“Sorry. Sorry!” he gasped.

“Don’t be sorry,” Remus breathed. The exhalation of his words whispered against Sirius’ throat and Sirius shivered helplessly. Remus’ hand clenched at the back of his neck. “Sirius…”

Sirius turned his head and caught Remus in another fierce kiss, lips seeking lips, tongue venturing out and finding Remus’ tongue there to meet it. Their lips explored, searched, pressed together, until there was nothing in the world but Remus’ mouth on his.

Panting, Remus pulled away to catch his breath. He framed Sirius’ face with both hands, fingers warm at his temples and palms cradling his jaw, and gazed up at him in the dimness.

“Sirius,” he said, very seriously but with a trace of a wondering laugh in his words, “what are we doing?”

“Hrm,” Sirius said, likewise struggling to breathe normally again. “Dunno about you, but as far as I can tell I seem to be snogging you.”

“No, but I mean…” Remus’ voice trailed away helplessly, and his hands pressed gently into Sirius’ temples, reminding him in every moment that Remus was here, Remus was touching him. “You can’t possibly want…”

“I do,” Sirius said with all his determination. “I absolutely do want.”

Now Remus did laugh, an affectionate sound that made Sirius go molten inside. “You didn’t even let me finish my sentence. Do you mean you want –”

“Everything,” Sirius said. “You.”

Remus shivered beneath him, a shudder that ran the whole length of his body and reverberated into Sirius, too, at every point where they touched: Remus’ hands on his face. Remus’ chest pressed tightly against his. Remus’ legs that were tangled up with his own. “But you don’t – I mean, you never –”

That was fair, the question behind those words. They’d known each other all these years. Why hadn’t he ever tried to snog Remus in some broom closet at Hogwarts, or after a late night carousing with James and Lily and Peter? Remus had been there all along, hadn’t he? But it had taken no longer having Remus around every day for Sirius to realise how much he wanted that back.

To Remus, all he could say was, “I do, though. I really, really do.”

Very softly, his voice faint despite how closely entwined they lay, Remus said, “I do, too.”

There was such quiet, fervent desire in those words. Sirius stared down at Remus, trying to make out his expression in the darkness. But Remus turned his head to the side, as though he could hide his feelings by pressing his face into the rough wool of the blanket.

Had Remus – all along – ?

It was clear he didn’t want Sirius to ask. So Sirius wouldn’t ask.

Instead, he slipped free of the hands that still cradled his face and bent his head once again to Remus’ face, which was still turned away from him. This time he didn’t go for a kiss, though he could happily have kissed Remus all night. He only traced his lips lightly over Remus’ skin, sketching the curve of his cheek and the swoop of his jaw. Then he found Remus’ ear and whispered into it, “I want you.”

Remus shuddered, and his hands clasped convulsively against the back of Sirius’ neck. “Do you mean that?” he asked. Sirius heard the effort it took him to keep his voice steady.

Sirius swept his lips back across Remus’ cheek and kissed him beneath one of his eyes, for no reason but that he hadn’t kissed there yet and he wanted to kiss Remus everywhere. “Yes,” he whispered into Remus’ skin. “I mean it, so much. I’ll show you how much when we get back to the cottage. I’d show you right here, if it weren’t too cold out for tearing off all our clothes.”

Remus snorted softly against Sirius’ chin. His face was no longer turned away. “It’s not like you’ve ever needed much of an excuse to tear your clothes off.”

That was true. He and James had gone through such a prolonged phase of daring each other to skinny-dip in the Hogwarts lake that eventually nobody in the Gryffindor common room had even bothered to look up from their books anymore when word went round that tonight Black was daring Potter to sneak out and jump in the lake yet again.

“What about your clothes, though?” Sirius asked. He was feeling bold, with Remus’ face mere inches from his own and Remus’ body warm beneath him. He dropped his voice low and whispered into the skin of Remus’ temple, “What kind of excuse would you need?”

Their faces were so close, he felt it when Remus swallowed.

“I would need…the right company,” Remus said huskily. “I don’t think just anyone would do.”

Sirius dropped his head lower, so his lips met Remus’ throat. “What about me?” he asked, grazing his lips over Remus’ skin. “Would I do?”

The way Remus shuddered was delightful. “Yeah. You’ll do.” His voice came out hoarse.

Sirius pressed an experimental kiss to Remus’ Adam’s apple, fascinated by the contrast of its lovely angular prominence to the smoothness of Remus’ throat. How had he lived until now without discovering the sexiness of Remus’ Adam’s apple?

Remus laughed in protest and gave him a gentle shove, two fingers lightly pushing Sirius’ face aside. “Ahh, that tickles! What are you doing?”

“Trying everywhere,” Sirius said solemnly. He felt drunk on this, the nearness of Remus, the intoxication of touching. There was a list unfurling in his mind of all the places he wanted to touch Remus, and it was ever-expanding.

Remus laughed again, and this time it sounded fond and tinged with something like amazement. Suddenly Sirius wanted to know all of Remus’ laughs, too, and learn how to provoke every one of them.

“Come here,” Remus said, his voice still warm with laughter. He tugged at Sirius’ shoulders, urging him down onto the blanket beside him so they could lie side by side once again.

Sirius rolled off of Remus and landed with a thump, then draped one arm across Remus’ chest and squeezed in close to him. His nose was nearly touching Remus’ neck. It seemed to Sirius a very good place to be.

Remus, too, wrapped his arms tightly around Sirius. He didn’t move or speak, though, so Sirius lay still as well. He could eagerly dive back into the delirious depths of kissing Remus, but he was equally happy to lie there warm in his embrace. Remus’ arms around him in the dark and the warm scent of his skin in Sirius’ nose, that alone was glorious.

Remus let out a breath. He hesitated, then spoke into the crown of Sirius’ hair. “This is,” he said. He paused, then started again. “This is amazing and strange and I want all of this, but can we – catch our breath for a bit? Or I suppose I mean, can I?”

Sirius gave Remus a squeeze and said into the curve of his neck, “‘Course.” Remus sounded happy but overwhelmed, and he didn’t want Remus to be overwhelmed. Joyful, yes, and delighted, and maybe even dazzled. But not uncomfortable or uncertain.

Remus squeezed him back. “I just need a little time to catch up,” he murmured. “I wasn’t expecting this, at all. And I think my brain is still somewhere back in England, trying to figure out where I’ve gone off to without it.” He laughed softly into Sirius’ hair. “Can we maybe just stay like this for a bit? This is nice.”

“This is extremely nice,” Sirius agreed. The night was bitingly cold, but Remus was warm under Sirius’ arm and in the hot pulse of his throat where Sirius’ cheek rested. “Let’s stay out here forever.”

Remus laughed again. “No, not forever. We’ve got to go back down to the village sometime, haven’t we?” Then the laughter faded into earnestness, and Sirius heard the thread of desire beneath it, and in Remus’ next words. “Because I absolutely want to do all those things you’re imagining, when we get back to the cottage. Believe that.”

Sirius pressed a kiss to the side of Remus’ throat, to show him he agreed completely. Then he tucked his head in against Remus’ shoulder, to show him that lying here like this was perfect, too. Sirius’ gaze turned again to the sky, and he sucked in a breath of surprise.

“Look!” he whispered, and he felt Remus look up.

The northern lights were still unspooling overhead. Sirius hadn’t forgotten they were there, exactly, but he hadn’t expected them to still be going so strong, after he’d spent so long completely absorbed in Remus.

The colours had faded to a faint greenish white, but in place of their former brightness they’d expanded, covering nearly all the sky in long, thin wisps. Patterns emerged, too: a band of light would appear, twisting in eerie silence. It would wink out of sight, then pulse back into being in the same place, again and again, until eventually that band faded away and Sirius’ eyes were drawn to some other part of the sky with other threads of light.

“I could watch this all night,” Sirius murmured. He was just as convinced of this as he’d earlier been certain that he couldn’t possibly wait even a moment more to be back in the snug little borrowed cottage with Remus.

Luckily, Sirius thought with a smug smile, the Nordic night was long enough for both: lying here next to Remus, basking in the glow of the northern lights overhead and even more in the delight that Remus took in them. And then, when they’d had their fill of the night and its beauty and holding one another close in the darkness beneath it, they would return to the cottage in the village, to warmth and privacy, and – well. Who could say what might happen next.

“You don’t mind?” Remus murmured back. “If we stay out here a bit longer, I mean. You’re not cold? Or bored?”

Sirius gave an affronted snort. “Bored? Not likely.”

To prove his point, he leaned in and placed a string of precise kisses down the length of Remus’ throat. Remus shivered, and laughed, and pulled Sirius’ face to him for another kiss, full on the mouth and bursting with heat.

“Never bored,” Sirius mumbled against Remus’ lips, lost in an intensity of feeling and barely aware of what he was saying. “With the northern lights, and you. Not possible.”

Remus chuckled, that fond and indulgent laugh that sizzled through Sirius’ body and warmed his limbs despite the cold. “All right. Then let’s stay out here a while longer, and watch the lights for as long as they keep going. And then, when we go back…” Remus’ voice dropped to a low, throaty register Sirius had never heard from him, which turned the warmth in Sirius’ body into fire. “When we get back, I solemnly swear I’ll make it up to you for bringing you out here in the cold.”

It was Sirius’ turn to shiver in anticipation. He pressed another kiss to the corner of Remus’ mouth, then dropped down beside him again. He tucked his head in against Remus’ shoulder, and one of Remus’ hands came around to thread through Sirius’ hair. He felt his hair ruffle as Remus placed a whisper of a kiss at his temple.

Content that there was nowhere in the world he would rather be than on this cold, beautiful mountain with Remus’ arms wrapped tight around him like a promise, Sirius turned his gaze to the sky and watched the northern lights dance.


~ The End ~

.