Fic: Further Sound
Dec. 24th, 2020 12:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
paulamcgThe reveals are up on another fest in this crazy year when I've joined in all kinds of fests and written almost exclusively for fests. Even though I've worked on stories about Sirius-loving Remus since 2003 and focused more on other characters and pairings only this year, this is the first time I've participated in the Wolfstar Games. Here's the collection, and I suppose I can say I'm proud all the teams have won and my team, Team Sound, in particular, is the winner, while this is my humble contribution.
My protagonist is hardly at his most lovable in the situation depicted here and the events that have taken place just before. But there is a hopeful ending, and with this posting I'm wishing everyone merry and peaceful holidays and New Year's filled with hope after this long hard year.
Title: Further Sound
Author:paulamcg
Pairing: Sirius/Remus, James/Lily
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5800
Summary: In the March of his sixth year at Hogwarts, Sirius struggles to renew the intimate connection once started in soothing whispers. Remus has a very good reason not to hear him.
Notes: This was written for the Wolfstar Games 2020. Thank you,liseuse, for the beta, once again!
Read here on AO3.
or right here:
Further Sound
“Listen!” James leaves his regular spot on the couch by the fireplace, hurrying to walk over as soon as Sirius has entered through the portrait hole.
Sirius can't help grinning while drawing in a deep breath of additional relief. Not only has he just found out that his Moony is now well enough to have been allowed to leave the hospital wing. His true brother is finally talking to him again.
“I've heard.” Despite his panting after all the rushing through corridors and up to the Gryffindor Tower, he manages to even continue, “Went to ask about him..." That's what he's done every day. "And Pomfrey told me. Is he here in the...?”
As James shifts closer to the staircase leading to their dorm, Sirius gets a better view of the common room and, in vain hope of spotting Moony's face, he scans the crowd of students. They pretend to focus on their homework, but keep throwing curious glances at the two of them. Every Gryffindor must be happy to witness how this famous pair of friends reach reconciliation after the schism that's lasted for a full week.
“Remus is in his bed.” James meets Sirius's eyes with a cold stare. “And you are not going up there.”
"What do you...?"
"What do you expect – after what you've done! It's your fault he..." James has lowered his voice, remembering that they have an audience. "Was battered by the Willow. If you want to play dangerous pranks on Snape, and not just on Snape... If you play with the safety of one of our gang, don't expect us to talk to you! I'm doing this now only because Remus has the right not to see you."
"You can't mean he's said..."
Now James sighs deeply through gritted teeth. "I guess we must let you come into the dorm for the night. But don't you dare bother him!"
"Pomfrey didn't let me... after the first day. I've waited for him to get out so that I can tell him again how..."
"He doesn't want to hear you. He's heard enough. He asked Pomfrey not to let you in."
Sirius wakes up in darkness. The nightmares go on – his, and Moony's.
He hates himself for dwelling on his own misery: on being left alone, with the fear that he'll never escape how he was distorted where he was born and raised and violated. The evil will is still breathing in him, real. It's not his, not his fault. Or is it?
So as to banish any threatening images of those whose fault it is, Sirius keeps his eyes open. Reaching out a hand to brush against the velvet bedhanging, he tries to feel – if he can't see – the warm scarlet colour.
The stench of hurt and death instilled in the poison-coloured drapes, and the cold burn of the silver serpent twisting around his wrist... They still return to smother him in his dreams.
Perhaps it's because he isn't strong enough. The Sorting Hat and James gave him a chance to leave all that behind. He got a new brother to help him become a proper Gryffindor. He found a whole new family in the Marauders, and these mates never doubted the strength of his rebellion against the bloodpurist buggers – while he struggled to forget what had been done to him. Only Remus gave him faith in the slow, painstaking work in turning any evil in the two of them into good. He's dared admit what's wrong with him and why only gradually, haltingly, incompletely, and only because Remus needs him to change.
Remus needed the Animagi, and Sirius was brilliant enough to realise that Animagus transformation could be based on the magic of needs. And only Sirius was able to respond to Remus's need by becoming more like him, the dog for him. Still, that's not been enough.
Only Remus insisted on comforting him, back at the beginning of their fifth year. Everyone must have noticed some signs of... abuse in him, even though he managed to act cheerful, didn't he? In that prison of a noble house they always made sure not to inflict any bruises or wounds on his face, but it must have shown that he hadn't seen sunlight or eaten much. And embarrassing as it was, he felt so exhausted that he couldn't control himself, couldn't stop bursts of rage or sudden bouts of sullenness, and after the welcoming feast, in their dorm, he spit it out. Yes, something was wrong, the holidays had been fucking torture. But he didn't want to talk about it. He was here and not going back, and now he wanted to be left in peace.
He must have fallen asleep, and been woken up by a nightmare, and moaned or sobbed. That's when Remus came and settled in this bed beside him and started asking – and, amazingly enough, knew to stop asking – what they'd done to him. Remus tried to touch him, to stroke his arm, and he freaked out, pushed the hand away.
But Remus stayed, and the warmth and the sound of his breath against Sirius's temple were bearable, then better, pleasant. And the darkness was penetrated by such whispering which he found soothing. At first he couldn't focus on what Remus was saying, but it was no questions, and he caught himself savouring the gentle voice and finally listening to a story about a half-human creature's predicament. No, it was about something as ridiculous as rabbits fighting for freedom, a bedtime story. There was a hope for a happy end, but some crazy sorrow, too, in the tale, and perhaps it wasn't from the storybook any longer.
"Together..." Remus was saying ever more softly, "we can heal when we admit we're hurting. Admit what we need. Perhaps you three learn to transform and you can be with me when I do. But the pain is more bearable when I just... hold you close to me in my mind. It also helps if someone touches me... just before, or after. When I was little, my parents... I've been so fortunate." He drew in a shuddering breath, and Sirius was afraid he'd say something about less tender parents, but no, he was self-centred or sensitive enough to go on about himself. "If someone strokes my skin, I feel more secure in the value... in getting this body back after the... torment." The last word was almost fully muffled.
It was breathed out against Sirius's hair, and while he managed to stay lying on his back without flinching, he felt tears run down his temples. They cried together, for the two of them.
For the next six months Sirius worked ever harder to become what Remus needed. And at the same full moon when he finally learnt to turn into Padfoot the dog, Remus became his Moony.
Only Sirius was able – both at once and almost a full year afterwards – to reach a conscious memory of the surprising bliss shared by the two canines as soon as they first met. And of trying to press his furry body against the wolf's even after the convulsions had started. Of then licking the wound on Remus's left arm.
That was the single wound Remus had inflicted on himself that night, before he finally, for the first time, got company in the Shack. Soon after the moonrise Sirius had suddenly succeeded in transforming, and unlike Peter, who'd done it a month earlier but kept changing back, the dog persisted and coerced James into lifting the bolt and unsealing the door from the tunnel, where the three of them had been listening to Remus's agony and struggling to complete their magic.
Now that Sirius had made it, there was no trace of hesitance in him. His new, unsullied body turned him into the wizard he had been meant to become, free and bold. The thrill of this made him act without any further thought. He knew that stopping to consider – let alone consult the others, or explain, or let them praise his achievement – was pointless, because his brilliant mind solved any problem instantly. As his animal form was perfect, he'd tame the wolf, exceeding all their expectations... Even fulfilling secret wishes, as he realised when his snout touched the wolf's and when they wrestled, and finally snuggled.
But when Remus spoke, and there was amazement but hardly any of his typical post-moon hoarseness in his voice – "Dogs don't have grey eyes," he said – Sirius felt he needed to change back so as to welcome the human body his Moony had regained. Sirius had seen the wolf through his human eyes, with his human mind almost intact, just free from the fear of touch.
"It's not fair..." he blurted out as soon as he lifted his lips from the side of the wound – because he'd turned back into a boy – or perhaps into a man, in fact – too easily, gracefully, without any pain.
His Moony was still trembling like in an echo of the violent metamorphoses, but there was a smile on his pale face. "You... the dog... It's beautiful. Did James and...?" He must have guessed the answer.
They shared the understanding that this time it had been the two of them, and something unique and intimate had been started between them. But once back in his tainted body – no matter how handsome he knew it was – Sirius couldn't make himself touch Remus's bare skin, or even look at his full nakedness.
He took off his cloak and spread it over Remus. This time, of course, he'd left the quilt in the tunnel. Since the autumn he'd come to cover Remus with it and to keep him company after the moonset when bloody Pomfrey delayed, enjoying her beauty sleep. He'd always stayed sitting aside, wary of making Remus's mauled body hurt any more. Now, after hesitating, he dared lie down next to Remus and even press cautiously against him, sensing the shivers through the fabric. In this new closeness he launched into his ritual of distracting Remus's mind from any lingering pain.
"Okay, let's see what the sunrise looks like today. It's brilliant..." It was a brilliant idea of Sirius's to take off the top planks from the windows. "There's a reddish light in the sky. No, don't look. I'll tell you. It's... crimson, I know you call this hue crimson. And some streaks of cloud all painted orange. The clouds are going to be orange again when we sneak out tomorrow at sunset or maybe even tonight..."
But Sirius had the surprising suspicion that Remus was not desperately focused on any soothing tone and evocative images Sirius had learnt to imitate so as to treat him with them in turn. His Moony, huddled against him, with cold feet between his legs, inched ever closer and breathed out a blissful sigh.
That night, nearly a year ago now, was the beginning of a new personal project for Sirius – one to which he was to be as devoted as to the Marauders' shared efforts of creating an extraordinary map. He would unlearn his fear and become the lover, too, for his Moony. In October he set a goal not too different from his true brother's. By their last summer holidays he'd achieve what was normal to want: snogging and... yes, shagging, too.
He's made gradual progress, and his Moony's been tender and patient. And now that he's seventeen and Uncle Alphard... is dead – and they're all as good as dead to him – he'll get the old bugger's house sold, and he'll buy a flat and be on his own, free, not dependent on James and his mum and dad either, and perhaps he'll offer to share the flat with... He's not quite thought that through yet, and now in any case...
Now he's ruined it all. No, it's not his fault; it's that bloody idiot's, Snivellus's...
If only Snivellus hadn't been spying on them! Or if the idiot had comprehended that the recurring timing of their escapades referred to werewolves! Any wizard with some brains would have concluded that when Sirius revealed how to follow Remus, the werewolf had to be someone else because he wouldn't expose a Marauder. And why did Snivellus go into the tunnel earlier than Sirius advised him to – so that he recognised Remus, who was just half...
Sirius feels sick when thinking about that, also about how he explained it all to Remus in the hospital wing on the following day, right after his detention. That must have sounded awful. He didn't mean...
A brief moan sounds from the neighbouring bed as if responding to the thoughts which, at last, have dared approach how Remus must feel now. While Sirius has stayed hopelessly awake, his Moony's at least been able to sleep this long.
Since the autumn of fifth year Sirius knows that when a nightmare jerks Remus awake, the cry of anguish is immediately stifled. After the night when they both wept – something too embarrassing for either of them to ever mention afterwards – Sirius soon got used to sneaking into Remus's bed whenever he found himself having woken up to hear his repressed sobbing, and staying there – with no desire to touch him, though – and trying his best to talk in a soothing, reassuring way until Remus drifted off again.
Sirius copied the consolation Remus had offered – also by first asking about the nightmares. As Remus refused to describe them, they remained for Sirius to imagine, and he couldn't help painting in his mind any horrifying pictures that could have risen from Remus subconscious: awful scenes of a five-year-old being savaged by a beast, and of turning into one himself, all alone, locked in... Or of having come to meet the dog in the tunnel and when helpless, half-transformed, seeing a victim approach!
Seeking to banish the images, Sirius has changed into his dog shape, but it's no use. His mind remains, only complemented by the more accurate hearing. His Moony's whimpering and ragged breathing are clear and compelling in his canine ears. He curls up into a ball and buries his snout under a paw, but he's already registered the oddly enticing odour of Remus's sweat – a scent he realises he's missed – but now mixed with a nauseating stench of healer's potions. He's transformed, of course, also because he wants to sense his Moony's presence. He needs to... and perhaps Moony needs him to be there to share this darkest hour.
And it must be just Sirius's human form that Moony can't stand. All through the past week Sirius planned how to approach him, contemplated a tentative touch on a knee, or on a shoulder, even a kiss on the temple. But Remus backed off when he entered the dorm, and even covered his ears in order not to hear as much as his greeting. It was hardly a relief to see that James's anger had not made him come up with the restraining order all by himself.
In this darkness – somehow deeper than what he's ever felt trapped in – even the supple, strong, furry body is inhabited by hesitance. Not the old fear he learnt as a child, no... That one is insignificant, compared with his Moony's. The fear of not only pain, but of not being in control, having lost your human mind, of harming someone, killing or worse, and by doing that, not only having your secret exposed, but losing all humanity for ever.
Sirius has not dared stop to think about that – to see the extent of what his mistake could have led to – and he doesn't now. Padfoot the dog has shifted to crouch on the bed and now jumps down, steps over and pokes his snout between Remus's bedhangings. The alluring and unsettling smells as well as the sounds of breathing are stronger, and Pads senses that his Moony's lying down facing him, perhaps with hands pressed over mouth.
Pads lifts his front paws onto the bed and lets out a soft whine at first, so as not to startle his Moony too much. But he's immediately also reached out his snout, and now his tongue touches Moony's fingers – and not the skin on the back of his hand, but something disgusting, a bandage soaked in... not blood, but foul-tasting dittany.
They've both cringed, and Remus has breathed out a word. "No," or, "Go," or just an oh?
Pads ventures to leap onto the foot of the bed, and to lay this gift of a body down where he can feel Remus's legs under the covers. Making no further sound, Remus pulls his legs up, perhaps shifting to a foetal position but at least not turning around. Pads inches closer so as to press against his feet.
And the feet, hitting hard against his muzzle and breast, kick him away.
Just as Remus didn't give in back when they were fifteen, Sirius is not going to. He's determined to curl up here on the foot of Remus's bed every day at least for a while when James and Peter are in class.
The hurt on his snout, chest and pride did make him withdraw on an impulse, to rush back behind his bedhangings and stay there, seething and miserable until he deemed it wasn't too early to get up in order to make it to breakfast before anyone else. But he's partly happy to have guessed correctly that Remus has orders to still convalesce on bedrest and not to descend from the Gryffindor Tower for a few days.
Now the hangings have been pulled aside, and there's a patch of sunlight where Remus, in half-sitting position, is resting his back and head against his pillows, also those his friends have brought from their beds. No, Pads doesn't lower his snout towards the one on the floor where he saw Remus push it, explaining to Peter that it smelled of cigarettes and... Of dog, of Sirius? Remus didn't spell that out, didn't want to even mention him.
Sirius keeps staring at his Moony's face. He's happy he sneaked a peek at it in this lighting, having opened the door a crack before transforming and entering, coming across Peter, who didn't stop him. Perhaps Peter wants Remus to forgive him, so that James will agree to do it, too, and they can be the Marauders again. Peter hates changes, and while he could take this chance to go back to being Remus's closest friend, as he was until fourth year, he seems skittish, uncomfortable, talks only about homework – perhaps because the Willow Incident has reminded him of how dangerous Remus can be. But who cares about Peter!
Pads is with his Moony again, and while an unfortunate defect in the dog's vision has inflicted red-green colour blindness on him, he retains the image in which the scarlet velvet enhances the healthy hue on the cheeks – and they look as unblemished as before the Incident. Because of the vital secrecy, both Remus's parents and Pomfrey have always taken care of treating any wounds on his face first and with the strongest magic, so as to prevent permanent scarring. To Sirius's relief that has worked this time, too, although Remus's whole body was battered and broken after he must have been so terrified when transforming that he not only bit and clawed himself but threw himself against anything hard in the Shack, perhaps to punish himself... No, how could even Pads claim to know how the wolf felt that night. Sirius is the one who deserved being punished, instead of being told how Pomfrey managed to save not only Remus's life but the beauty of his face, too.
The left hand, which rests on the coverlet next to a thick book, is still bandaged. And when Pads shifts his gaze back to the face, the eyes are still closed. Remus keeps completely ignoring his Pads. Perhaps he even hates how Sirius is the one who knows what it means to him whether he's able to use that hand for making art – and how on their private strolls in the woods he's taught Sirius, too, to see the world around them like a painting, to notice beauty in light as well as in unexpected places, and to identify magical and mundane plants, and birds both by plumage and by their songs and calls.
Pads moves cautiously closer to Remus's legs, trying his best to stay patient and not to aim at touching that hand yet. But this time there's no reaction when Remus must feel the pressure of the weight against his foot. Only after a while does he open his eyes, and they focus on the book as he turns its pages and, using the wand in his right hand, guides the book to hover in front of his face.
Sirius must be grateful that Peter takes up the topic, whispering, "Did he not... pat the dog?"
He's found it hard to appreciate the act of mercy that Peter's joined him by the common room fireplace and offered to show him the homework from the classes he's missed. Having fallen asleep on Remus's bed and woken up to see him settled on the windowsill, his usual perch but surely uncomfortable for a convalescent, Sirius now regrets leaving the dorm, and has kept watching James, who sits on the staircase with an arm around Lily. Those two have mysteriously become a couple. According to the gossip, Lily asked James for a date as soon as he was declared a hero on the morning after the Incident. James's dream has finally come true, and he's not celebrating it with his brother, not even boasting about it.
Sirius replies to Peter with a question. "Did he tell you he doesn't want it near him? Did he tell you why?"
"He's just said something like... It's turned into an omen of..."
Of death. Barely managing to keep his voice low, Sirius hisses, "It's you who said I looked like the Grim."
The bloody rat! Envious of his Animagus form, and jealous even, Wormy's always tried to get between him and Moony.
Perhaps Sirius and Remus both sleep better in daylight. This is the only thing they manage to share, and Sirius is going to stick to this, no matter how much he's always hated staying still. Yesterday, too, Pads got to see sunshine caress Moony's face, and this Sunday afternoon is the perfect time for listening together to the rhythm of rain on the windowpane. Pads is dozing off, reconciled with the lack of response as he's snuggled against a calf – when he hears the door open.
"I told you to leave him alone." James's tone sounds affected and alerts Sirius for a hidden message. "If you don't change..."
Sirius transforms at once, before even looking at James, who's stopped on the threshold. Awkward, he settles to sit with his back against the footboard and with arms around knees. Remus has not moved or opened his eyes.
"I'm sure he'll change his ways." Lily's peeking around the doorframe. "May I come in?"
"You don't need that one's permission. Remus seems to be asleep, and he'll be just happy if you wake him up with music. His dad used to..." James turns his eyes back to Sirius, frowning.
As if Sirius didn't know a lot more about how Moony's dad's composed songs and tried to teach his son to play the lute and... Perhaps he should get up and leave before James tells him to. But uncharacteristically irresolute, he watches Lily step in, carrying a guitar. His gaze is drawn to the joined hands.
James is squeezing her hand too hard, as if not completely aware of what it is... what a treasure dreamt of for years. He keeps scowling at Sirius... who can't help now reliving the moment of rushing into the hospital wing straight from his detention, of getting the first glimpse of the mauled face, and of seeing James shed tears while shouting at Sirius and barely reacting to how Lily, inexplicably there, was hugging him.
Now James gestures with a thumb over his shoulder. Get out, he means, but won't deign to say.
But Lily walks him over to his bed and makes him sit down beside her. "You will..." Instead of asking James to let Sirius stay, she looks across at him, speaking directly to him now. "You will change your ways, won't you, Sirius?"
"Yes. You must see I've already become more..." He can't resist grinning. "Serious."
She's called him Sirius, not Black, just as he's stopped thinking of her as Evans, since October, when the Marauders impressed her with one of those pranks Remus named responsible rebellion – with painting equality slogans in Gryffindor red on the walls of the corridor leading to the Slytherin dorms. Discussing that with him and Remus, she also expressed her admiration for how he'd rejected the bloodpurist family's ways and money. That was before he accepted the will – but the old bugger was a rebel, too, after all.
"You are what you are," she says, grinning back, flicking her glowing mane behind her shoulder and starting to finger the strings.
"You don't..." James starts. You don't know how evil he is? You don't know what he's done?
She can't possibly know. James can't have told her. He's promised to stick to the story which bloody Dumbledore fabricated so as to avoid responsibility for allowing a dangerous creature in as a student, and which Remus and Sirius have to be grateful for. She believes that Sirius just lured both Snape and Remus into going too close to the Whomping Willow. Silly – as if Remus could have been beaten by the tree almost to... while Snivellus, thanks to heroic James, escaped after only one branch slashed him!
Lily's now singing, with those amazing emerald eyes locked with James's, "I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are."
Sirius glances at Remus's serene face, at the closed lids. Focusing on Lily again, he feels more relaxed but still doesn't change his pose.
Perhaps James has reached his goal because she's seen him gradually mature – and also because for once, due to his concern for Remus and anger at Sirius, he stopped irritating and harassing her with his attention-seeking and advances. She's taken him unawares, and quite as incredible is that she doesn't want him to leave the Marauders or even his brotherhood with Sirius behind. She must want to finally be true friends with all of them, to become one of the Marauders.
As he catches himself tapping the rhythm against his knee, Sirius ventures also to whistle along the tune. Thanks to the awful piano lessons with... He wants to forget them, but can't forget he's been told he mustn't use his faulty voice for singing.
“You should hear the band’s recording," Lily says, looking across, but not at Sirius. "Such harmonies! Some harmonies we can begin to learn.”
Sirius follows her gaze and sees the smile he's missed, and his Moony's sleepy eyes brightening.
"Let's practise!" She restarts the song. "It's getting to the point where I'm no fun any more."
And as she repeats the line, Remus joins in, haltingly but eagerly. Sirius's verbal memory is brilliant enough, and he knows the next line. If only he could sing it, too!
Lily sings, "I am sorry."
Sirius reaches to place a hand on his Moony's ankle, remembering how he first learnt to stroke the bare feet, trying to warm them up. And Moony accepts this touch.
Lily could be thanked or blamed for also this familiar, casual proximity that Sirius unexpectedly finds himself sharing with James and Remus under the invisibility cloak. While since Monday, on three days now, they've all walked to classes and meals together, these two have kept their distances, and Sirius has been unable to think of any words he could ask them to hear. Only the phrases in the song Lily's been teaching to them have echoed in the corridors, and these words repeat in his mind now that she's ordered her new closest friends to join her in Hogsmeade, where she claims to have a surprise waiting.
You are what you are/ You make it hard/ Remember what we've said and done and felt about each other/ Oh, babe have mercy...
They've grown too big or perhaps too much apart to be comfortable when hiding together under the cloak, even though Wormtail's scurried ahead of the three of them. Remus walks in the middle, and Sirius can't help wondering whether only one of them, and which one is – or if they both are – trying to avoid rubbing an arm against the other's. By the time they reach the statue of the hunchbacked witch, he just can't stand it.
After they've descended to the tunnel, it reminds Sirius of another one, and of the new imagined nightmare, which he believes torments Remus every night and day. Suddenly he feels perhaps more deeply sorry for his Moony than he's managed before.
All this makes Sirius shift into the shape he once hoped would be the perfect gift and enough to save Remus. And he hurries to lick the hand before thinking too much about it could stop him from doing it.
His tongue senses the new scars, and he bolts and rushes towards Honeydukes.
They've needed to huddle under the cloak again in order to pass through the shop, but Pads hasn't transformed back. Outside, in the cool, luminous March evening, he feels ever more restless, and unwilling to walk with the others to meet Lily behind the Hog's Head. Perhaps there's no special surprise at all, and she's only tried to get the Marauders back to their harmony by tempting them to defy the school rules together. And it has not worked.
But now there's a familiar caress on his neck, something that's certainly not an involuntary touch. The ruffling of his fur he's already thought he'll never feel again! He twists to rub his head against the hand, then licks it again, and lets out the whine with which he's always asked the wolf to follow.
He's foolhardy enough to rush away once more – to the opposite direction, towards... The Shrieking Shack. That can't be a good idea. When, having turned aside from the road, he's hidden by a thicket, he changes.
Having lifted his hands from the ground, from the sad sepia-coloured blanket of last year's leaves, Sirius buries the hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. Perhaps... he should admit to himself that he's got so fond of dressing like a Muggle whenever possible because he hates being the wizard he is. But is there any escape in any attire or in either of his forms? Is there any way forward for him and his Moony, or even back to what the Marauders used to be? He pulls out a packet of cigarettes and the silver lighter he bought – like the jacket, too – after New Year's, when he'd sorted the will issue at Gringotts.
Can Remus be his Moony any longer, or has he ever been? That must have been Sirius's first fatal mistake: regarding him as his Moony, his to save.
When Snivellus startled him by whispering that he knew it was that night again... James blames him for not thinking before acting, but he does think, he thinks too much, and is it his fault that others don't – that someone can be such a bloody idiot as Snape! No... But he did not think that he could have talked to the other Marauders and looked for a way for them to save their Moony's secret together. He had to rush and try to do it by himself before explaining anything to the others.
And he was unable to apologise properly in the morning after, because he couldn't bear thinking about what it all meant to Moony. He must have sounded awfully uncaring in his relief that Moony would recover and hadn't hurt anyone but himself, and that their secrets were safe. Now that perhaps he could finally find a way to express his understanding that he had endangered a lot more than their secrets... And how he'd hurt Moony more seriously than hardly anyone ever had... Now Moony won't hear him.
Breathing in bitter smoke, Sirius leans against a trunk and stares up at the bare branches. With Moony, perhaps, he'd notice barely visible buds. Yes, maybe there is a promise of spring, a hope... Moony has now patted Padfoot once, and Sirius must take the next step.
A flock of birds rise from the thicket and fly up so as to settle, chirping, on the high branches above him. And when Sirius lowers his gaze again, Remus is standing right there, at only a yard's distance, having followed him to the woods. He looks winter-pale, and thin, and cold in his robes, without a cloak. At least he's wearing shoes, while his going barefoot would be an early sign of spring. Is he frowning, and how did he find Sirius? Due to the unpleasant smell.
But when Sirius drops the half-smoked cigarette, Remus bends to retrieve it, and takes a drag. And turns to walk away, in the approximate direction they came from but without leaving the woods. Does he want to make it clear that what he dislikes is not the smell of cigarettes but Sirius himself?
Their shared silence is filled with incessant, now intensifying chirrup calls by the flock above Sirius. He remembers the name of these common birds, of course. Sparrow.
How can you catch a sparrow? Yes, he's a bold Gryffindor and he dares sing it aloud, in his hoarse voice. "How can you catch the sparrow?"
The birds fly away, to another tree, closer to Remus, who now stops.
"Chur-chur-r-r-it-it-it-it!" That's his Moony imitating an aggressive male's trilled version of the sparrows' usual call.
Last spring he started teaching these vocalisations to Sirius, who now knows to answer softly with the appeasement call used by birds of a mated pair. "Quee!"
And Sirius walks towards his Moony's lopsided smile.
They make their way to the alley behind the Hog's Head side by side, not quite touching, not quite finding yet their own words for apologising and forgiving.
Sirius first merely whistles the melody while Remus is singing, "I am crying/ That does not mean I don't love you I do that's forever/ Yes and for always ... / Are you still listening?/ Please be gone I'm tired of you," and then guiding him, too, to sing what Lily has taught them, "What have you got to lose?/ Can I tell it like it is?/ Listen to me baby/ It's my heart that's suffering it's dying/ And that's what I have to lose..."
Notes: The song Lily teaches to the Marauders is Suite: Judy Blue Eyes. It was written by Stephen Stills and performed by Crosby, Stills & Nash.
My protagonist is hardly at his most lovable in the situation depicted here and the events that have taken place just before. But there is a hopeful ending, and with this posting I'm wishing everyone merry and peaceful holidays and New Year's filled with hope after this long hard year.
Title: Further Sound
Author:
paulamcgPairing: Sirius/Remus, James/Lily
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5800
Summary: In the March of his sixth year at Hogwarts, Sirius struggles to renew the intimate connection once started in soothing whispers. Remus has a very good reason not to hear him.
Notes: This was written for the Wolfstar Games 2020. Thank you,
liseuse, for the beta, once again!Read here on AO3.
or right here:
Further Sound
“Listen!” James leaves his regular spot on the couch by the fireplace, hurrying to walk over as soon as Sirius has entered through the portrait hole.
Sirius can't help grinning while drawing in a deep breath of additional relief. Not only has he just found out that his Moony is now well enough to have been allowed to leave the hospital wing. His true brother is finally talking to him again.
“I've heard.” Despite his panting after all the rushing through corridors and up to the Gryffindor Tower, he manages to even continue, “Went to ask about him..." That's what he's done every day. "And Pomfrey told me. Is he here in the...?”
As James shifts closer to the staircase leading to their dorm, Sirius gets a better view of the common room and, in vain hope of spotting Moony's face, he scans the crowd of students. They pretend to focus on their homework, but keep throwing curious glances at the two of them. Every Gryffindor must be happy to witness how this famous pair of friends reach reconciliation after the schism that's lasted for a full week.
“Remus is in his bed.” James meets Sirius's eyes with a cold stare. “And you are not going up there.”
"What do you...?"
"What do you expect – after what you've done! It's your fault he..." James has lowered his voice, remembering that they have an audience. "Was battered by the Willow. If you want to play dangerous pranks on Snape, and not just on Snape... If you play with the safety of one of our gang, don't expect us to talk to you! I'm doing this now only because Remus has the right not to see you."
"You can't mean he's said..."
Now James sighs deeply through gritted teeth. "I guess we must let you come into the dorm for the night. But don't you dare bother him!"
"Pomfrey didn't let me... after the first day. I've waited for him to get out so that I can tell him again how..."
"He doesn't want to hear you. He's heard enough. He asked Pomfrey not to let you in."
Sirius wakes up in darkness. The nightmares go on – his, and Moony's.
He hates himself for dwelling on his own misery: on being left alone, with the fear that he'll never escape how he was distorted where he was born and raised and violated. The evil will is still breathing in him, real. It's not his, not his fault. Or is it?
So as to banish any threatening images of those whose fault it is, Sirius keeps his eyes open. Reaching out a hand to brush against the velvet bedhanging, he tries to feel – if he can't see – the warm scarlet colour.
The stench of hurt and death instilled in the poison-coloured drapes, and the cold burn of the silver serpent twisting around his wrist... They still return to smother him in his dreams.
Perhaps it's because he isn't strong enough. The Sorting Hat and James gave him a chance to leave all that behind. He got a new brother to help him become a proper Gryffindor. He found a whole new family in the Marauders, and these mates never doubted the strength of his rebellion against the bloodpurist buggers – while he struggled to forget what had been done to him. Only Remus gave him faith in the slow, painstaking work in turning any evil in the two of them into good. He's dared admit what's wrong with him and why only gradually, haltingly, incompletely, and only because Remus needs him to change.
Remus needed the Animagi, and Sirius was brilliant enough to realise that Animagus transformation could be based on the magic of needs. And only Sirius was able to respond to Remus's need by becoming more like him, the dog for him. Still, that's not been enough.
Only Remus insisted on comforting him, back at the beginning of their fifth year. Everyone must have noticed some signs of... abuse in him, even though he managed to act cheerful, didn't he? In that prison of a noble house they always made sure not to inflict any bruises or wounds on his face, but it must have shown that he hadn't seen sunlight or eaten much. And embarrassing as it was, he felt so exhausted that he couldn't control himself, couldn't stop bursts of rage or sudden bouts of sullenness, and after the welcoming feast, in their dorm, he spit it out. Yes, something was wrong, the holidays had been fucking torture. But he didn't want to talk about it. He was here and not going back, and now he wanted to be left in peace.
He must have fallen asleep, and been woken up by a nightmare, and moaned or sobbed. That's when Remus came and settled in this bed beside him and started asking – and, amazingly enough, knew to stop asking – what they'd done to him. Remus tried to touch him, to stroke his arm, and he freaked out, pushed the hand away.
But Remus stayed, and the warmth and the sound of his breath against Sirius's temple were bearable, then better, pleasant. And the darkness was penetrated by such whispering which he found soothing. At first he couldn't focus on what Remus was saying, but it was no questions, and he caught himself savouring the gentle voice and finally listening to a story about a half-human creature's predicament. No, it was about something as ridiculous as rabbits fighting for freedom, a bedtime story. There was a hope for a happy end, but some crazy sorrow, too, in the tale, and perhaps it wasn't from the storybook any longer.
"Together..." Remus was saying ever more softly, "we can heal when we admit we're hurting. Admit what we need. Perhaps you three learn to transform and you can be with me when I do. But the pain is more bearable when I just... hold you close to me in my mind. It also helps if someone touches me... just before, or after. When I was little, my parents... I've been so fortunate." He drew in a shuddering breath, and Sirius was afraid he'd say something about less tender parents, but no, he was self-centred or sensitive enough to go on about himself. "If someone strokes my skin, I feel more secure in the value... in getting this body back after the... torment." The last word was almost fully muffled.
It was breathed out against Sirius's hair, and while he managed to stay lying on his back without flinching, he felt tears run down his temples. They cried together, for the two of them.
For the next six months Sirius worked ever harder to become what Remus needed. And at the same full moon when he finally learnt to turn into Padfoot the dog, Remus became his Moony.
Only Sirius was able – both at once and almost a full year afterwards – to reach a conscious memory of the surprising bliss shared by the two canines as soon as they first met. And of trying to press his furry body against the wolf's even after the convulsions had started. Of then licking the wound on Remus's left arm.
That was the single wound Remus had inflicted on himself that night, before he finally, for the first time, got company in the Shack. Soon after the moonrise Sirius had suddenly succeeded in transforming, and unlike Peter, who'd done it a month earlier but kept changing back, the dog persisted and coerced James into lifting the bolt and unsealing the door from the tunnel, where the three of them had been listening to Remus's agony and struggling to complete their magic.
Now that Sirius had made it, there was no trace of hesitance in him. His new, unsullied body turned him into the wizard he had been meant to become, free and bold. The thrill of this made him act without any further thought. He knew that stopping to consider – let alone consult the others, or explain, or let them praise his achievement – was pointless, because his brilliant mind solved any problem instantly. As his animal form was perfect, he'd tame the wolf, exceeding all their expectations... Even fulfilling secret wishes, as he realised when his snout touched the wolf's and when they wrestled, and finally snuggled.
But when Remus spoke, and there was amazement but hardly any of his typical post-moon hoarseness in his voice – "Dogs don't have grey eyes," he said – Sirius felt he needed to change back so as to welcome the human body his Moony had regained. Sirius had seen the wolf through his human eyes, with his human mind almost intact, just free from the fear of touch.
"It's not fair..." he blurted out as soon as he lifted his lips from the side of the wound – because he'd turned back into a boy – or perhaps into a man, in fact – too easily, gracefully, without any pain.
His Moony was still trembling like in an echo of the violent metamorphoses, but there was a smile on his pale face. "You... the dog... It's beautiful. Did James and...?" He must have guessed the answer.
They shared the understanding that this time it had been the two of them, and something unique and intimate had been started between them. But once back in his tainted body – no matter how handsome he knew it was – Sirius couldn't make himself touch Remus's bare skin, or even look at his full nakedness.
He took off his cloak and spread it over Remus. This time, of course, he'd left the quilt in the tunnel. Since the autumn he'd come to cover Remus with it and to keep him company after the moonset when bloody Pomfrey delayed, enjoying her beauty sleep. He'd always stayed sitting aside, wary of making Remus's mauled body hurt any more. Now, after hesitating, he dared lie down next to Remus and even press cautiously against him, sensing the shivers through the fabric. In this new closeness he launched into his ritual of distracting Remus's mind from any lingering pain.
"Okay, let's see what the sunrise looks like today. It's brilliant..." It was a brilliant idea of Sirius's to take off the top planks from the windows. "There's a reddish light in the sky. No, don't look. I'll tell you. It's... crimson, I know you call this hue crimson. And some streaks of cloud all painted orange. The clouds are going to be orange again when we sneak out tomorrow at sunset or maybe even tonight..."
But Sirius had the surprising suspicion that Remus was not desperately focused on any soothing tone and evocative images Sirius had learnt to imitate so as to treat him with them in turn. His Moony, huddled against him, with cold feet between his legs, inched ever closer and breathed out a blissful sigh.
That night, nearly a year ago now, was the beginning of a new personal project for Sirius – one to which he was to be as devoted as to the Marauders' shared efforts of creating an extraordinary map. He would unlearn his fear and become the lover, too, for his Moony. In October he set a goal not too different from his true brother's. By their last summer holidays he'd achieve what was normal to want: snogging and... yes, shagging, too.
He's made gradual progress, and his Moony's been tender and patient. And now that he's seventeen and Uncle Alphard... is dead – and they're all as good as dead to him – he'll get the old bugger's house sold, and he'll buy a flat and be on his own, free, not dependent on James and his mum and dad either, and perhaps he'll offer to share the flat with... He's not quite thought that through yet, and now in any case...
Now he's ruined it all. No, it's not his fault; it's that bloody idiot's, Snivellus's...
If only Snivellus hadn't been spying on them! Or if the idiot had comprehended that the recurring timing of their escapades referred to werewolves! Any wizard with some brains would have concluded that when Sirius revealed how to follow Remus, the werewolf had to be someone else because he wouldn't expose a Marauder. And why did Snivellus go into the tunnel earlier than Sirius advised him to – so that he recognised Remus, who was just half...
Sirius feels sick when thinking about that, also about how he explained it all to Remus in the hospital wing on the following day, right after his detention. That must have sounded awful. He didn't mean...
A brief moan sounds from the neighbouring bed as if responding to the thoughts which, at last, have dared approach how Remus must feel now. While Sirius has stayed hopelessly awake, his Moony's at least been able to sleep this long.
Since the autumn of fifth year Sirius knows that when a nightmare jerks Remus awake, the cry of anguish is immediately stifled. After the night when they both wept – something too embarrassing for either of them to ever mention afterwards – Sirius soon got used to sneaking into Remus's bed whenever he found himself having woken up to hear his repressed sobbing, and staying there – with no desire to touch him, though – and trying his best to talk in a soothing, reassuring way until Remus drifted off again.
Sirius copied the consolation Remus had offered – also by first asking about the nightmares. As Remus refused to describe them, they remained for Sirius to imagine, and he couldn't help painting in his mind any horrifying pictures that could have risen from Remus subconscious: awful scenes of a five-year-old being savaged by a beast, and of turning into one himself, all alone, locked in... Or of having come to meet the dog in the tunnel and when helpless, half-transformed, seeing a victim approach!
Seeking to banish the images, Sirius has changed into his dog shape, but it's no use. His mind remains, only complemented by the more accurate hearing. His Moony's whimpering and ragged breathing are clear and compelling in his canine ears. He curls up into a ball and buries his snout under a paw, but he's already registered the oddly enticing odour of Remus's sweat – a scent he realises he's missed – but now mixed with a nauseating stench of healer's potions. He's transformed, of course, also because he wants to sense his Moony's presence. He needs to... and perhaps Moony needs him to be there to share this darkest hour.
And it must be just Sirius's human form that Moony can't stand. All through the past week Sirius planned how to approach him, contemplated a tentative touch on a knee, or on a shoulder, even a kiss on the temple. But Remus backed off when he entered the dorm, and even covered his ears in order not to hear as much as his greeting. It was hardly a relief to see that James's anger had not made him come up with the restraining order all by himself.
In this darkness – somehow deeper than what he's ever felt trapped in – even the supple, strong, furry body is inhabited by hesitance. Not the old fear he learnt as a child, no... That one is insignificant, compared with his Moony's. The fear of not only pain, but of not being in control, having lost your human mind, of harming someone, killing or worse, and by doing that, not only having your secret exposed, but losing all humanity for ever.
Sirius has not dared stop to think about that – to see the extent of what his mistake could have led to – and he doesn't now. Padfoot the dog has shifted to crouch on the bed and now jumps down, steps over and pokes his snout between Remus's bedhangings. The alluring and unsettling smells as well as the sounds of breathing are stronger, and Pads senses that his Moony's lying down facing him, perhaps with hands pressed over mouth.
Pads lifts his front paws onto the bed and lets out a soft whine at first, so as not to startle his Moony too much. But he's immediately also reached out his snout, and now his tongue touches Moony's fingers – and not the skin on the back of his hand, but something disgusting, a bandage soaked in... not blood, but foul-tasting dittany.
They've both cringed, and Remus has breathed out a word. "No," or, "Go," or just an oh?
Pads ventures to leap onto the foot of the bed, and to lay this gift of a body down where he can feel Remus's legs under the covers. Making no further sound, Remus pulls his legs up, perhaps shifting to a foetal position but at least not turning around. Pads inches closer so as to press against his feet.
And the feet, hitting hard against his muzzle and breast, kick him away.
Just as Remus didn't give in back when they were fifteen, Sirius is not going to. He's determined to curl up here on the foot of Remus's bed every day at least for a while when James and Peter are in class.
The hurt on his snout, chest and pride did make him withdraw on an impulse, to rush back behind his bedhangings and stay there, seething and miserable until he deemed it wasn't too early to get up in order to make it to breakfast before anyone else. But he's partly happy to have guessed correctly that Remus has orders to still convalesce on bedrest and not to descend from the Gryffindor Tower for a few days.
Now the hangings have been pulled aside, and there's a patch of sunlight where Remus, in half-sitting position, is resting his back and head against his pillows, also those his friends have brought from their beds. No, Pads doesn't lower his snout towards the one on the floor where he saw Remus push it, explaining to Peter that it smelled of cigarettes and... Of dog, of Sirius? Remus didn't spell that out, didn't want to even mention him.
Sirius keeps staring at his Moony's face. He's happy he sneaked a peek at it in this lighting, having opened the door a crack before transforming and entering, coming across Peter, who didn't stop him. Perhaps Peter wants Remus to forgive him, so that James will agree to do it, too, and they can be the Marauders again. Peter hates changes, and while he could take this chance to go back to being Remus's closest friend, as he was until fourth year, he seems skittish, uncomfortable, talks only about homework – perhaps because the Willow Incident has reminded him of how dangerous Remus can be. But who cares about Peter!
Pads is with his Moony again, and while an unfortunate defect in the dog's vision has inflicted red-green colour blindness on him, he retains the image in which the scarlet velvet enhances the healthy hue on the cheeks – and they look as unblemished as before the Incident. Because of the vital secrecy, both Remus's parents and Pomfrey have always taken care of treating any wounds on his face first and with the strongest magic, so as to prevent permanent scarring. To Sirius's relief that has worked this time, too, although Remus's whole body was battered and broken after he must have been so terrified when transforming that he not only bit and clawed himself but threw himself against anything hard in the Shack, perhaps to punish himself... No, how could even Pads claim to know how the wolf felt that night. Sirius is the one who deserved being punished, instead of being told how Pomfrey managed to save not only Remus's life but the beauty of his face, too.
The left hand, which rests on the coverlet next to a thick book, is still bandaged. And when Pads shifts his gaze back to the face, the eyes are still closed. Remus keeps completely ignoring his Pads. Perhaps he even hates how Sirius is the one who knows what it means to him whether he's able to use that hand for making art – and how on their private strolls in the woods he's taught Sirius, too, to see the world around them like a painting, to notice beauty in light as well as in unexpected places, and to identify magical and mundane plants, and birds both by plumage and by their songs and calls.
Pads moves cautiously closer to Remus's legs, trying his best to stay patient and not to aim at touching that hand yet. But this time there's no reaction when Remus must feel the pressure of the weight against his foot. Only after a while does he open his eyes, and they focus on the book as he turns its pages and, using the wand in his right hand, guides the book to hover in front of his face.
Sirius must be grateful that Peter takes up the topic, whispering, "Did he not... pat the dog?"
He's found it hard to appreciate the act of mercy that Peter's joined him by the common room fireplace and offered to show him the homework from the classes he's missed. Having fallen asleep on Remus's bed and woken up to see him settled on the windowsill, his usual perch but surely uncomfortable for a convalescent, Sirius now regrets leaving the dorm, and has kept watching James, who sits on the staircase with an arm around Lily. Those two have mysteriously become a couple. According to the gossip, Lily asked James for a date as soon as he was declared a hero on the morning after the Incident. James's dream has finally come true, and he's not celebrating it with his brother, not even boasting about it.
Sirius replies to Peter with a question. "Did he tell you he doesn't want it near him? Did he tell you why?"
"He's just said something like... It's turned into an omen of..."
Of death. Barely managing to keep his voice low, Sirius hisses, "It's you who said I looked like the Grim."
The bloody rat! Envious of his Animagus form, and jealous even, Wormy's always tried to get between him and Moony.
Perhaps Sirius and Remus both sleep better in daylight. This is the only thing they manage to share, and Sirius is going to stick to this, no matter how much he's always hated staying still. Yesterday, too, Pads got to see sunshine caress Moony's face, and this Sunday afternoon is the perfect time for listening together to the rhythm of rain on the windowpane. Pads is dozing off, reconciled with the lack of response as he's snuggled against a calf – when he hears the door open.
"I told you to leave him alone." James's tone sounds affected and alerts Sirius for a hidden message. "If you don't change..."
Sirius transforms at once, before even looking at James, who's stopped on the threshold. Awkward, he settles to sit with his back against the footboard and with arms around knees. Remus has not moved or opened his eyes.
"I'm sure he'll change his ways." Lily's peeking around the doorframe. "May I come in?"
"You don't need that one's permission. Remus seems to be asleep, and he'll be just happy if you wake him up with music. His dad used to..." James turns his eyes back to Sirius, frowning.
As if Sirius didn't know a lot more about how Moony's dad's composed songs and tried to teach his son to play the lute and... Perhaps he should get up and leave before James tells him to. But uncharacteristically irresolute, he watches Lily step in, carrying a guitar. His gaze is drawn to the joined hands.
James is squeezing her hand too hard, as if not completely aware of what it is... what a treasure dreamt of for years. He keeps scowling at Sirius... who can't help now reliving the moment of rushing into the hospital wing straight from his detention, of getting the first glimpse of the mauled face, and of seeing James shed tears while shouting at Sirius and barely reacting to how Lily, inexplicably there, was hugging him.
Now James gestures with a thumb over his shoulder. Get out, he means, but won't deign to say.
But Lily walks him over to his bed and makes him sit down beside her. "You will..." Instead of asking James to let Sirius stay, she looks across at him, speaking directly to him now. "You will change your ways, won't you, Sirius?"
"Yes. You must see I've already become more..." He can't resist grinning. "Serious."
She's called him Sirius, not Black, just as he's stopped thinking of her as Evans, since October, when the Marauders impressed her with one of those pranks Remus named responsible rebellion – with painting equality slogans in Gryffindor red on the walls of the corridor leading to the Slytherin dorms. Discussing that with him and Remus, she also expressed her admiration for how he'd rejected the bloodpurist family's ways and money. That was before he accepted the will – but the old bugger was a rebel, too, after all.
"You are what you are," she says, grinning back, flicking her glowing mane behind her shoulder and starting to finger the strings.
"You don't..." James starts. You don't know how evil he is? You don't know what he's done?
She can't possibly know. James can't have told her. He's promised to stick to the story which bloody Dumbledore fabricated so as to avoid responsibility for allowing a dangerous creature in as a student, and which Remus and Sirius have to be grateful for. She believes that Sirius just lured both Snape and Remus into going too close to the Whomping Willow. Silly – as if Remus could have been beaten by the tree almost to... while Snivellus, thanks to heroic James, escaped after only one branch slashed him!
Lily's now singing, with those amazing emerald eyes locked with James's, "I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are."
Sirius glances at Remus's serene face, at the closed lids. Focusing on Lily again, he feels more relaxed but still doesn't change his pose.
Perhaps James has reached his goal because she's seen him gradually mature – and also because for once, due to his concern for Remus and anger at Sirius, he stopped irritating and harassing her with his attention-seeking and advances. She's taken him unawares, and quite as incredible is that she doesn't want him to leave the Marauders or even his brotherhood with Sirius behind. She must want to finally be true friends with all of them, to become one of the Marauders.
As he catches himself tapping the rhythm against his knee, Sirius ventures also to whistle along the tune. Thanks to the awful piano lessons with... He wants to forget them, but can't forget he's been told he mustn't use his faulty voice for singing.
“You should hear the band’s recording," Lily says, looking across, but not at Sirius. "Such harmonies! Some harmonies we can begin to learn.”
Sirius follows her gaze and sees the smile he's missed, and his Moony's sleepy eyes brightening.
"Let's practise!" She restarts the song. "It's getting to the point where I'm no fun any more."
And as she repeats the line, Remus joins in, haltingly but eagerly. Sirius's verbal memory is brilliant enough, and he knows the next line. If only he could sing it, too!
Lily sings, "I am sorry."
Sirius reaches to place a hand on his Moony's ankle, remembering how he first learnt to stroke the bare feet, trying to warm them up. And Moony accepts this touch.
Lily could be thanked or blamed for also this familiar, casual proximity that Sirius unexpectedly finds himself sharing with James and Remus under the invisibility cloak. While since Monday, on three days now, they've all walked to classes and meals together, these two have kept their distances, and Sirius has been unable to think of any words he could ask them to hear. Only the phrases in the song Lily's been teaching to them have echoed in the corridors, and these words repeat in his mind now that she's ordered her new closest friends to join her in Hogsmeade, where she claims to have a surprise waiting.
You are what you are/ You make it hard/ Remember what we've said and done and felt about each other/ Oh, babe have mercy...
They've grown too big or perhaps too much apart to be comfortable when hiding together under the cloak, even though Wormtail's scurried ahead of the three of them. Remus walks in the middle, and Sirius can't help wondering whether only one of them, and which one is – or if they both are – trying to avoid rubbing an arm against the other's. By the time they reach the statue of the hunchbacked witch, he just can't stand it.
After they've descended to the tunnel, it reminds Sirius of another one, and of the new imagined nightmare, which he believes torments Remus every night and day. Suddenly he feels perhaps more deeply sorry for his Moony than he's managed before.
All this makes Sirius shift into the shape he once hoped would be the perfect gift and enough to save Remus. And he hurries to lick the hand before thinking too much about it could stop him from doing it.
His tongue senses the new scars, and he bolts and rushes towards Honeydukes.
They've needed to huddle under the cloak again in order to pass through the shop, but Pads hasn't transformed back. Outside, in the cool, luminous March evening, he feels ever more restless, and unwilling to walk with the others to meet Lily behind the Hog's Head. Perhaps there's no special surprise at all, and she's only tried to get the Marauders back to their harmony by tempting them to defy the school rules together. And it has not worked.
But now there's a familiar caress on his neck, something that's certainly not an involuntary touch. The ruffling of his fur he's already thought he'll never feel again! He twists to rub his head against the hand, then licks it again, and lets out the whine with which he's always asked the wolf to follow.
He's foolhardy enough to rush away once more – to the opposite direction, towards... The Shrieking Shack. That can't be a good idea. When, having turned aside from the road, he's hidden by a thicket, he changes.
Having lifted his hands from the ground, from the sad sepia-coloured blanket of last year's leaves, Sirius buries the hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. Perhaps... he should admit to himself that he's got so fond of dressing like a Muggle whenever possible because he hates being the wizard he is. But is there any escape in any attire or in either of his forms? Is there any way forward for him and his Moony, or even back to what the Marauders used to be? He pulls out a packet of cigarettes and the silver lighter he bought – like the jacket, too – after New Year's, when he'd sorted the will issue at Gringotts.
Can Remus be his Moony any longer, or has he ever been? That must have been Sirius's first fatal mistake: regarding him as his Moony, his to save.
When Snivellus startled him by whispering that he knew it was that night again... James blames him for not thinking before acting, but he does think, he thinks too much, and is it his fault that others don't – that someone can be such a bloody idiot as Snape! No... But he did not think that he could have talked to the other Marauders and looked for a way for them to save their Moony's secret together. He had to rush and try to do it by himself before explaining anything to the others.
And he was unable to apologise properly in the morning after, because he couldn't bear thinking about what it all meant to Moony. He must have sounded awfully uncaring in his relief that Moony would recover and hadn't hurt anyone but himself, and that their secrets were safe. Now that perhaps he could finally find a way to express his understanding that he had endangered a lot more than their secrets... And how he'd hurt Moony more seriously than hardly anyone ever had... Now Moony won't hear him.
Breathing in bitter smoke, Sirius leans against a trunk and stares up at the bare branches. With Moony, perhaps, he'd notice barely visible buds. Yes, maybe there is a promise of spring, a hope... Moony has now patted Padfoot once, and Sirius must take the next step.
A flock of birds rise from the thicket and fly up so as to settle, chirping, on the high branches above him. And when Sirius lowers his gaze again, Remus is standing right there, at only a yard's distance, having followed him to the woods. He looks winter-pale, and thin, and cold in his robes, without a cloak. At least he's wearing shoes, while his going barefoot would be an early sign of spring. Is he frowning, and how did he find Sirius? Due to the unpleasant smell.
But when Sirius drops the half-smoked cigarette, Remus bends to retrieve it, and takes a drag. And turns to walk away, in the approximate direction they came from but without leaving the woods. Does he want to make it clear that what he dislikes is not the smell of cigarettes but Sirius himself?
Their shared silence is filled with incessant, now intensifying chirrup calls by the flock above Sirius. He remembers the name of these common birds, of course. Sparrow.
How can you catch a sparrow? Yes, he's a bold Gryffindor and he dares sing it aloud, in his hoarse voice. "How can you catch the sparrow?"
The birds fly away, to another tree, closer to Remus, who now stops.
"Chur-chur-r-r-it-it-it-it!" That's his Moony imitating an aggressive male's trilled version of the sparrows' usual call.
Last spring he started teaching these vocalisations to Sirius, who now knows to answer softly with the appeasement call used by birds of a mated pair. "Quee!"
And Sirius walks towards his Moony's lopsided smile.
They make their way to the alley behind the Hog's Head side by side, not quite touching, not quite finding yet their own words for apologising and forgiving.
Sirius first merely whistles the melody while Remus is singing, "I am crying/ That does not mean I don't love you I do that's forever/ Yes and for always ... / Are you still listening?/ Please be gone I'm tired of you," and then guiding him, too, to sing what Lily has taught them, "What have you got to lose?/ Can I tell it like it is?/ Listen to me baby/ It's my heart that's suffering it's dying/ And that's what I have to lose..."
Notes: The song Lily teaches to the Marauders is Suite: Judy Blue Eyes. It was written by Stephen Stills and performed by Crosby, Stills & Nash.
