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keelywolfeDo Wizards Dream of Magical Sheep?
by Keelywolfe
Fandom: Harry Potter
Remus/Sirius
NC-17
Spoilers for all the books, up to HBP.
Summary: Set during HBP. Dead is dead, unless you're a wizard. Then things can get...complicated.
Notes: Slight modifications in time and space may have been made, altering this from the books. But if you can't tell, it's already an AU, so hey, make of that what you will.
Warnings: Hey, this is sort of dark. If you don't like dark stuff? Please dial a different number. :)
*with apologies to the writer of 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'. Haven't read it? You should, it was the basis for the movie 'Bladerunner'.
~~*~~
It seemed particularly useless to be back in London only a day after his long trek across the country. He wasn't entirely sure what part of London they were in, only that Remus's flat was minorly less shabby than Grimmauld place, the wallpaper not quite peeling away from the dampish walls. Heavy curtains were on every window and they resisted his attempts to pull them back. It left the flat in a gloomy sort of darkness that scoffed at attempts to brighten the rooms with lamps.
Only two bedrooms, one of which was an office that someone had seen fit to equip with a camp bed like the one he'd slept on in Dumbledore's office. The loo was worse, just about the size and shape of a postage stamp. He supposed it might be interesting to be able to shower while sitting on the toilet and it was certainly a step up from finding a convenient piece of shrubbery.
But he certainly understood why Remus had chosen to stay with him at Grimmauld place.
The others hadn't stayed very long, Tonks, Minerva, and Dumbledore. For some reason, Snape had chosen to remain at the school with the students. Really, Sirius couldn't imagine why the ugly git had decided not to join them, unless he already knew the others wouldn't be staying long enough to add any torment to his confinement. They had only stayed to accompany him on the trip and to cast a few additional spells on him now that he was here that still itched on his skin, shivery feel of something crawling over him.
He did wonder how they'd gotten authorization for a portkey, though, without explaining what it was for. Seemed the Ministry was getting a bit lax. He wished he'd known that before he'd walked to Scotland.
Remus was in the kitchen, making tea in the Muggle fashion. It seemed a strange thing, but perhaps he wasn't allowed to do magic around Sirius. Could even be the wards didn't allow it. Certainly no one had told Sirius their limits.
Leaning against the entryway, Sirius watched him add a small plate of biscuits to the tray. He shook his head; setting up a tray for tea, complete with a dish of sugar cubes and a small milk pitcher when he knew full well that Sirius took his tea plain. Plainly, Remus had gone barmy in the last few months.
Off to the side, there was a plate of sandwiches with the crusts still attached, another testament to Remus's probable insanity.
At least the kitchen was large enough for two people. Possibly just one and a half but neither he nor Remus would make more than half a bite for a dragon. He tried not to see the startled wariness in Remus's look when he stepped in next to him.
"Here, let me help." He took the butter knife from Remus's lax hand and added a fair dollop of mustard to the pathetic amount already on the bread. Remus stepped back and let him, rescuing the tea pot just as it started to whistle.
"I didn't think you liked to cook," Remus offered, slowly.
"Hunger makes chefs of us all," Sirius told him airily, "Though I wouldn't call ham and swiss on rye cooking, exactly." He tossed the butter knife aside in frustration, yellowish specks of mustard dotting the ancient, if serviceable, countertop. "That's useless, where do you keep your other knives?"
There were several likely looking drawers. One revealed towels, one of which Sirius snagged and tossed on the mustard-smeared counter. Another was full of basic tableware and the last refused to open, remaining stubbornly closed.
"This one's stuck," Sirius frowned, yanking on it hard enough that the handle groaned.
"Let me." Remus reached around him and pulled it open easily, extracting just the sort of knife Sirius had been looking for. He handed it over with a small shrug. "It just seemed wise to keep the...ah…sharper utensils away from you right now."
Sirius gave him a sour smile, turning back to the sandwiches. "Suppose they're afraid of me attacking you now."
"I've never been afraid of you, Sirius." Quietly, too close behind him.
"Then who—" Sirius blinked with dawning awareness, carefully cutting the crusts from the bread before adding his sandwiches to the tray. He didn't suppose he could blame them; after a barely-remembered attack on his…his godson, his mind supplied, helpfully skirting the name, there was no telling what else he might do, willingly or no. He kept his voice low and subdued as he said, "I suppose there is that."
He looked over his shoulder. Remus was standing so close they were almost nose to nose. "I think for today I can keep from slitting my wrists long enough to finish this, though, if that's all right?"
It earned him a wry smile. "Of course."
Tea was awkward, if nibbling at sandwiches with an old friend who thought you'd been dead and were now sort of, well, evil could be called anything as milky as awkward.
Remus seemed quite intent on stirring his tea to death, adding cube after cube of sugar and staring into the syrupy depths as if studying a peculiar new branch of divination. The tea was lukewarm by the time Sirius worked up the nerve to ask what had been bothering him since he'd woken in Dumbledore's office that afternoon.
"What's been happening with Voldemort? I mean, who…who else is dead?" he stumbled over the question, gulping down the last dregs of cooling tea in his cup before splashing it full again.
"I can't say." Remus didn't look at him.
"What do you mean you can't…can you at least tell me what's been happening since I got myself dead? Or how about telling me HOW I got dead?" Hysteria was a thin squeal in the back of his head because it had been Dumbledore who'd told him, Dumbledore who couldn't possibly have been wrong about it and yet, somehow he was, had to be because Sirius was here and alive and eating sandwiches made with old, rubbery cheese.
"I'm not allowed to tell you anything about the war," Remus set his cup on its saucer, spreading his hands apologetically. "If there is some link between you and Voldemort, we can't afford to let him in on our plans. As for how you died," he stopped, pressing a hand to his forehead in a gesture Sirius recognized as one he'd made all too often himself. Despair.
"It was very difficult for all of us when you died, Sirius," Remus's voice was a low whisper, eyes still hidden by his upraised hand. "There was no real violence in it, no blood. You were simply gone."
"The killing curse." Sirius murmured, remembering James and Lily, their bodies untouched and cold, their eyes empty.
"Worse than that," Remus said hoarsely. "And Harry took it very—"
The rush of blood in his ears blocked out his words, a wash of hot, crimson rage that swept away reason into a snarl already rising deep from within. It vanished into hot pain just as quickly, his own voice yelping out and it wondered dimly if that had been aloud or just in his head as he sank into blackness.
He came back to himself lying on the floor, his sweaty cheek pressed against the icy wooden panels. Carefully, Sirius pushed up until he could manage to sit. There was a blanket over his legs and he drew it up, huddling under it like a child, shaking with cold that felt like it was biting deeper into his bones with every passing moment.
He flinched as Remus appeared in front of him, crouching down. There was a cup in his hands, fresh steam rising. "Here. You'll feel better."
His fingers felt too large and numb, but Sirius managed to take a sip. It was minty and sweet, some potion he didn't recognize and the last shivery cold inside him eased.
Remus watched him with calm eyes, his hands hanging loosely between his knees. "I'm sorry, that spell was a touch more forceful than needed. I'm afraid you took me a little off-guard." It won't happen again, unspoken and taut between them.
"Why are you doing this?" Sirius asked abruptly, setting the empty cup aside. "Why are you bothering? All you lot think….again…that I'm on the other side. Why are you risking yourself, letting me stay here?"
Remus stood, picking up the cup and setting it on the table. "I'm not letting you stay. We're essentially imprisoning you."
"Ta for the reminder," Sirius muttered. "But why you? You're no Auror, Remus."
"I was the only one who would," Remus said quietly. "And I couldn't let you go to the dungeon. Not after Azkaban."
His laugh was ugly to his own ears, a sharp bark that held no humour. "Appreciate that."
"No, I don't think you do. My lack of faith cost you twelve years already. Even if I'm wrong now, well," Remus shrugged, gathering the remnants of their tea onto the tray. "Perhaps I deserve what it would get me."
"So instead of letting me be jailed, you're going to be my jailer?"
Remus gave him a small smile, carrying the tray to the kitchen before calling back to him, "I suppose it doesn't make much sense. But then, the dungeon doesn't have indoor plumbing."
True enough.
~~*~~
When he woke the next morning and shuffled into the kitchen, Remus was gone. There was a covered plate on the table, bangers and mash that were still hot, and a piece of parchment tucked under the edge, his name written in Remus's cramped handwriting.
Sirius,
I'll be gone for a day or so,
doing some work for the Order.
Your meals will be taken care of,
you needn't worry about that.
Please, feel free to help yourself to
anything in the house.
I'll return as soon as I can.
Remus
He poked at the food disinterestedly. Alone for the next day or so, then, unless someone else decided to drop by to keep him company and he had his doubts that would happen.
Even though the clock pointed to nearly noon, the little light creeping around the shades didn't make the room seem any less dismally dark. Sirius went about the small flat and turned on every light in it, noting with little interest that Remus had electricity. It made him wonder again exactly where in London they were; had to be a Muggle building of some sort.
Wandering back into the kitchen, he opened the fridge and peered at the meagre contents with no small dismay. If this was what Remus considered taking care of the meals, he must be living on sandwiches and wrinkled little potatoes with hairs poking out of them. He did find some eggs in the door that seemed fresh enough and decided they'd make a decent addition to breakfast.
Only the stove didn't seem to agree. He toyed with the handles, trying to get a flame, any flame, with no success. A peek inside showed him that the pilot wasn't lit and there wasn't a whiff of gas.
Lovely. That meant the Order had decided cooking his own meals would be a hazard to the wizarding community. At least there was a bottle of milk in there next to the eggs, and a quick survey of the cupboards found him a few boxes of Muggle-style cereal.
It was a step up from birds and rats, anyway.
The plate of food was still warm and he resigned himself to eat it now as it was the last hot food he could expect for the next few days. He left the dirty dishes in the sink and inspected the flat a little closer.
Remus didn't have a telly, only an elderly radio that only picked up two stations, both of them of the easy listening variety. Books, he had, overflowing shelves of them in the sitting room and trailing into both bedrooms. There was even a small shelf above the toilet.
None on spellcasting and large holes in the library finished that particular mystery. No magic, no reading about magic. No newspapers.
No company.
At least on his last incarceration he'd had a fellow exile and as poor as Buckbeak had been at conversation, he'd been alive. He wondered where Buckbeak was now, hoped he was still safe and perhaps free. At least one of them should be.
Sirius tried reading a bit, some Muggle book about werewolves and it was amusing enough, reading the nonsense bits. It was a wonder Muggles could survive at all, thinking the way they did. Silver bullets, indeed. The book couldn't quite hold his interest, the darkened room and dull crooning of the radio conspiring to put him to sleep. More than once, he jerked his head up as it drifted down to his chest until he finally surrendered, curling up on Remus's lumpy sofa and napping away the afternoon.
When he woke, the clock declared it evening and, he wandered into the kitchen for a glass of water, not wanting to waste his milk on mere drinking. There on the table, another plate was waiting for him. Three veg and a pork chop, laid out with ruler-straight precision. No knife.
Lovely, he was on some sort of meals-on-brooms programme. They probably thought he was some barmy old wizard with three teeth and a bladder problem.
He'd been a beggar long enough now to know better than to be a chooser, and ate every bit of it, even though carrots weren't his favourite and peas rated up with rats. The bone he wrapped up and saved, just in case Padfoot needed to work off some frustrations.
Sirius had a feeling he might.
The small pile of dishes were washed and set aside to drain, not out of a particular desire for tidiness but just in case his next meal would require them. After that, the bit of light around the curtains had dimmed enough to excuse going to bed, and he did, changing into the single pair of pyjamas he found in the small bundle of his clothes that were stowed beneath his bed, and he slept soundly on the thin mattress.
And that was how he spent the first day.
The second day he spent wanking.
He did it in his room at first, just after he woke up. Neatly and quietly, like he was back at school and three other boys were sleeping nearby. No reason not to, after all. He'd woken up to it and it seemed a shame to waste it. At Azkaban, he'd been too sick and exhausted to think much about it and life on the run hadn't left him much time for it. At Grimmauld Place there was always Kreacher to think of; even when he'd been alone there he'd never been alone.
Came in his own hand, gasping just a little and it was good the way a wank should be. Relaxing. He took the time to wash his hands in the loo before he went to check the status of the kitchen. This morning was the fried eggs he'd craved the day before and a small mountain of bacon. A little greasy but still warm and he ate every bit.
The second time was in the shower. Listening to the old pipes groan like a ghoul was trapped in them, the water tainted with rust and boiling hot. He ducked his head under the stream of hot water and jerked himself hard, hands soap-slippery and water pouring over him like lava, and this was better, something he needed.
Afterward, he leaned against the tiles, their coolness brutal against his nearly-scalded skin and he stayed there until the hot water ran out, chased away by the icy needles of wetness.
He was sitting on the old sofa the third time, and surely he couldn't be the only person who'd had a wank on it. Old as it was, it might have once sat in Dumbledore's childhood home, although the thought of him sprawled on it with his trousers down to his ankles was enough to give him a pause.
Not enough of one to stop him, a tattered copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover on one knee. It wasn't particularly satisfying but it did help him fall asleep, trousers barely fastened and a dirty towel on the floor next to him.
The last time he did it on Remus's bed.
Wasn't his fault, really. Remus hadn't locked the door and it was a nice bed, big and comfy with hanging curtains that reminded him of Hogwarts. He did have the decency to pull back the coverlet but when he came, he let it spatter on the sheets, not particularly caring that Remus would be able to smell it when he came back. Better'n the bastard deserved, living in a flat with a crap radio and the dirtiest book older than both of them together.
Wasn't like there was anyone to stop him. No one to stop him, no one would walk in on him. It would serve Remus right to come home to dirty sheets, wouldn't it.
But he washed the dishes before he went to sleep, in his own bed.
Four times in one day was decent for a man his age, he decided, even one that hadn't spent the better years of his life having his soul shredded by dementors.
It didn't help him sleep this time.
By the third day, he'd decided he was going insane.
Seemed like if anyone should know, it would be him. He'd brushed past madness more times than he'd cared to count. His entire childhood at Grimmauld place seemed like prep for a few decades of making macaroni art at St. Mungo's. Azkaban had been the worst, sticky tar-black coldness eating away at his sanity, echoing thoughts of his innocence letting him cling by his fingernails.
Innocence. A lost comfort, that.
The night before, he'd had a dream, of being a dog and Harry trapped beneath him, blood bubbling from his torn throat as he tried to scream.
He'd woken screaming himself, his sheets soaked through with sweat.
Unable to fall asleep, even though the clocks informed him it was barely past three, he'd crept into Remus's room, noting the locks lining the jamb that he hadn't seen before. A neat dozen, Muggle-style and magic, all of them unlocked. But then, it wasn't other people that Remus usually needed to keep out.
Almost turned himself into Padfoot, practically a reflex to night time terrors, and then recalled the blood, the terror in…in his godson's eyes and curled up instead as a human, breathing in Remus's scent on the pillow with his pitiful excuse of a sense of smell and tried to remember that he wasn't the only person left in the world.
When he woke the next morning, the barest gleam of sunlight creeping in from around the shades, he nearly didn't bother getting up.
His breakfast plate was already on the table, cheery and warm. He could smell it was porridge, probably with a small pitcher of cream with flecks of cinnamon floating in it and a dish of sugar.
He walked past it and into the front hall, stared at the plain brown door that led outside. The entire world was on the other side of it, going on with their lives. All those in the Order, his…his godson and the boy's friends. They'd be in class, he thought, unless it was Saturday, and he realized he had no idea what the day was. Days weren't for him, sensible little boxes on calendars that told a person what they should do on that day. Days or nights, time didn't matter except for bowls of porridge against chops.
There was another door in the hallway. Opening it revealed a small collection of coats and boots, set together in an orderly way. Sirius stared at them, tweed and rubbers and an umbrella in the corner and then he stepped inside, pulling the door shut behind him. Curled into a ball on the floor and stared at the darkness around him.
He spent the entire day in a closet or maybe it was longer than that. He was already in a prison, and he suddenly felt the need for it to be tighter, closer, the darkness strangling him. He sat in the dark, hands over his ears as he slowly rocked, banging his head against the wooden wall behind him, heard the dull echo of it in his skull.
~*~
end part 2
by Keelywolfe
Fandom: Harry Potter
Remus/Sirius
NC-17
Spoilers for all the books, up to HBP.
Summary: Set during HBP. Dead is dead, unless you're a wizard. Then things can get...complicated.
Notes: Slight modifications in time and space may have been made, altering this from the books. But if you can't tell, it's already an AU, so hey, make of that what you will.
Warnings: Hey, this is sort of dark. If you don't like dark stuff? Please dial a different number. :)
*with apologies to the writer of 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'. Haven't read it? You should, it was the basis for the movie 'Bladerunner'.
~~*~~
It seemed particularly useless to be back in London only a day after his long trek across the country. He wasn't entirely sure what part of London they were in, only that Remus's flat was minorly less shabby than Grimmauld place, the wallpaper not quite peeling away from the dampish walls. Heavy curtains were on every window and they resisted his attempts to pull them back. It left the flat in a gloomy sort of darkness that scoffed at attempts to brighten the rooms with lamps.
Only two bedrooms, one of which was an office that someone had seen fit to equip with a camp bed like the one he'd slept on in Dumbledore's office. The loo was worse, just about the size and shape of a postage stamp. He supposed it might be interesting to be able to shower while sitting on the toilet and it was certainly a step up from finding a convenient piece of shrubbery.
But he certainly understood why Remus had chosen to stay with him at Grimmauld place.
The others hadn't stayed very long, Tonks, Minerva, and Dumbledore. For some reason, Snape had chosen to remain at the school with the students. Really, Sirius couldn't imagine why the ugly git had decided not to join them, unless he already knew the others wouldn't be staying long enough to add any torment to his confinement. They had only stayed to accompany him on the trip and to cast a few additional spells on him now that he was here that still itched on his skin, shivery feel of something crawling over him.
He did wonder how they'd gotten authorization for a portkey, though, without explaining what it was for. Seemed the Ministry was getting a bit lax. He wished he'd known that before he'd walked to Scotland.
Remus was in the kitchen, making tea in the Muggle fashion. It seemed a strange thing, but perhaps he wasn't allowed to do magic around Sirius. Could even be the wards didn't allow it. Certainly no one had told Sirius their limits.
Leaning against the entryway, Sirius watched him add a small plate of biscuits to the tray. He shook his head; setting up a tray for tea, complete with a dish of sugar cubes and a small milk pitcher when he knew full well that Sirius took his tea plain. Plainly, Remus had gone barmy in the last few months.
Off to the side, there was a plate of sandwiches with the crusts still attached, another testament to Remus's probable insanity.
At least the kitchen was large enough for two people. Possibly just one and a half but neither he nor Remus would make more than half a bite for a dragon. He tried not to see the startled wariness in Remus's look when he stepped in next to him.
"Here, let me help." He took the butter knife from Remus's lax hand and added a fair dollop of mustard to the pathetic amount already on the bread. Remus stepped back and let him, rescuing the tea pot just as it started to whistle.
"I didn't think you liked to cook," Remus offered, slowly.
"Hunger makes chefs of us all," Sirius told him airily, "Though I wouldn't call ham and swiss on rye cooking, exactly." He tossed the butter knife aside in frustration, yellowish specks of mustard dotting the ancient, if serviceable, countertop. "That's useless, where do you keep your other knives?"
There were several likely looking drawers. One revealed towels, one of which Sirius snagged and tossed on the mustard-smeared counter. Another was full of basic tableware and the last refused to open, remaining stubbornly closed.
"This one's stuck," Sirius frowned, yanking on it hard enough that the handle groaned.
"Let me." Remus reached around him and pulled it open easily, extracting just the sort of knife Sirius had been looking for. He handed it over with a small shrug. "It just seemed wise to keep the...ah…sharper utensils away from you right now."
Sirius gave him a sour smile, turning back to the sandwiches. "Suppose they're afraid of me attacking you now."
"I've never been afraid of you, Sirius." Quietly, too close behind him.
"Then who—" Sirius blinked with dawning awareness, carefully cutting the crusts from the bread before adding his sandwiches to the tray. He didn't suppose he could blame them; after a barely-remembered attack on his…his godson, his mind supplied, helpfully skirting the name, there was no telling what else he might do, willingly or no. He kept his voice low and subdued as he said, "I suppose there is that."
He looked over his shoulder. Remus was standing so close they were almost nose to nose. "I think for today I can keep from slitting my wrists long enough to finish this, though, if that's all right?"
It earned him a wry smile. "Of course."
Tea was awkward, if nibbling at sandwiches with an old friend who thought you'd been dead and were now sort of, well, evil could be called anything as milky as awkward.
Remus seemed quite intent on stirring his tea to death, adding cube after cube of sugar and staring into the syrupy depths as if studying a peculiar new branch of divination. The tea was lukewarm by the time Sirius worked up the nerve to ask what had been bothering him since he'd woken in Dumbledore's office that afternoon.
"What's been happening with Voldemort? I mean, who…who else is dead?" he stumbled over the question, gulping down the last dregs of cooling tea in his cup before splashing it full again.
"I can't say." Remus didn't look at him.
"What do you mean you can't…can you at least tell me what's been happening since I got myself dead? Or how about telling me HOW I got dead?" Hysteria was a thin squeal in the back of his head because it had been Dumbledore who'd told him, Dumbledore who couldn't possibly have been wrong about it and yet, somehow he was, had to be because Sirius was here and alive and eating sandwiches made with old, rubbery cheese.
"I'm not allowed to tell you anything about the war," Remus set his cup on its saucer, spreading his hands apologetically. "If there is some link between you and Voldemort, we can't afford to let him in on our plans. As for how you died," he stopped, pressing a hand to his forehead in a gesture Sirius recognized as one he'd made all too often himself. Despair.
"It was very difficult for all of us when you died, Sirius," Remus's voice was a low whisper, eyes still hidden by his upraised hand. "There was no real violence in it, no blood. You were simply gone."
"The killing curse." Sirius murmured, remembering James and Lily, their bodies untouched and cold, their eyes empty.
"Worse than that," Remus said hoarsely. "And Harry took it very—"
The rush of blood in his ears blocked out his words, a wash of hot, crimson rage that swept away reason into a snarl already rising deep from within. It vanished into hot pain just as quickly, his own voice yelping out and it wondered dimly if that had been aloud or just in his head as he sank into blackness.
He came back to himself lying on the floor, his sweaty cheek pressed against the icy wooden panels. Carefully, Sirius pushed up until he could manage to sit. There was a blanket over his legs and he drew it up, huddling under it like a child, shaking with cold that felt like it was biting deeper into his bones with every passing moment.
He flinched as Remus appeared in front of him, crouching down. There was a cup in his hands, fresh steam rising. "Here. You'll feel better."
His fingers felt too large and numb, but Sirius managed to take a sip. It was minty and sweet, some potion he didn't recognize and the last shivery cold inside him eased.
Remus watched him with calm eyes, his hands hanging loosely between his knees. "I'm sorry, that spell was a touch more forceful than needed. I'm afraid you took me a little off-guard." It won't happen again, unspoken and taut between them.
"Why are you doing this?" Sirius asked abruptly, setting the empty cup aside. "Why are you bothering? All you lot think….again…that I'm on the other side. Why are you risking yourself, letting me stay here?"
Remus stood, picking up the cup and setting it on the table. "I'm not letting you stay. We're essentially imprisoning you."
"Ta for the reminder," Sirius muttered. "But why you? You're no Auror, Remus."
"I was the only one who would," Remus said quietly. "And I couldn't let you go to the dungeon. Not after Azkaban."
His laugh was ugly to his own ears, a sharp bark that held no humour. "Appreciate that."
"No, I don't think you do. My lack of faith cost you twelve years already. Even if I'm wrong now, well," Remus shrugged, gathering the remnants of their tea onto the tray. "Perhaps I deserve what it would get me."
"So instead of letting me be jailed, you're going to be my jailer?"
Remus gave him a small smile, carrying the tray to the kitchen before calling back to him, "I suppose it doesn't make much sense. But then, the dungeon doesn't have indoor plumbing."
True enough.
~~*~~
When he woke the next morning and shuffled into the kitchen, Remus was gone. There was a covered plate on the table, bangers and mash that were still hot, and a piece of parchment tucked under the edge, his name written in Remus's cramped handwriting.
Sirius,
I'll be gone for a day or so,
doing some work for the Order.
Your meals will be taken care of,
you needn't worry about that.
Please, feel free to help yourself to
anything in the house.
I'll return as soon as I can.
Remus
He poked at the food disinterestedly. Alone for the next day or so, then, unless someone else decided to drop by to keep him company and he had his doubts that would happen.
Even though the clock pointed to nearly noon, the little light creeping around the shades didn't make the room seem any less dismally dark. Sirius went about the small flat and turned on every light in it, noting with little interest that Remus had electricity. It made him wonder again exactly where in London they were; had to be a Muggle building of some sort.
Wandering back into the kitchen, he opened the fridge and peered at the meagre contents with no small dismay. If this was what Remus considered taking care of the meals, he must be living on sandwiches and wrinkled little potatoes with hairs poking out of them. He did find some eggs in the door that seemed fresh enough and decided they'd make a decent addition to breakfast.
Only the stove didn't seem to agree. He toyed with the handles, trying to get a flame, any flame, with no success. A peek inside showed him that the pilot wasn't lit and there wasn't a whiff of gas.
Lovely. That meant the Order had decided cooking his own meals would be a hazard to the wizarding community. At least there was a bottle of milk in there next to the eggs, and a quick survey of the cupboards found him a few boxes of Muggle-style cereal.
It was a step up from birds and rats, anyway.
The plate of food was still warm and he resigned himself to eat it now as it was the last hot food he could expect for the next few days. He left the dirty dishes in the sink and inspected the flat a little closer.
Remus didn't have a telly, only an elderly radio that only picked up two stations, both of them of the easy listening variety. Books, he had, overflowing shelves of them in the sitting room and trailing into both bedrooms. There was even a small shelf above the toilet.
None on spellcasting and large holes in the library finished that particular mystery. No magic, no reading about magic. No newspapers.
No company.
At least on his last incarceration he'd had a fellow exile and as poor as Buckbeak had been at conversation, he'd been alive. He wondered where Buckbeak was now, hoped he was still safe and perhaps free. At least one of them should be.
Sirius tried reading a bit, some Muggle book about werewolves and it was amusing enough, reading the nonsense bits. It was a wonder Muggles could survive at all, thinking the way they did. Silver bullets, indeed. The book couldn't quite hold his interest, the darkened room and dull crooning of the radio conspiring to put him to sleep. More than once, he jerked his head up as it drifted down to his chest until he finally surrendered, curling up on Remus's lumpy sofa and napping away the afternoon.
When he woke, the clock declared it evening and, he wandered into the kitchen for a glass of water, not wanting to waste his milk on mere drinking. There on the table, another plate was waiting for him. Three veg and a pork chop, laid out with ruler-straight precision. No knife.
Lovely, he was on some sort of meals-on-brooms programme. They probably thought he was some barmy old wizard with three teeth and a bladder problem.
He'd been a beggar long enough now to know better than to be a chooser, and ate every bit of it, even though carrots weren't his favourite and peas rated up with rats. The bone he wrapped up and saved, just in case Padfoot needed to work off some frustrations.
Sirius had a feeling he might.
The small pile of dishes were washed and set aside to drain, not out of a particular desire for tidiness but just in case his next meal would require them. After that, the bit of light around the curtains had dimmed enough to excuse going to bed, and he did, changing into the single pair of pyjamas he found in the small bundle of his clothes that were stowed beneath his bed, and he slept soundly on the thin mattress.
And that was how he spent the first day.
The second day he spent wanking.
He did it in his room at first, just after he woke up. Neatly and quietly, like he was back at school and three other boys were sleeping nearby. No reason not to, after all. He'd woken up to it and it seemed a shame to waste it. At Azkaban, he'd been too sick and exhausted to think much about it and life on the run hadn't left him much time for it. At Grimmauld Place there was always Kreacher to think of; even when he'd been alone there he'd never been alone.
Came in his own hand, gasping just a little and it was good the way a wank should be. Relaxing. He took the time to wash his hands in the loo before he went to check the status of the kitchen. This morning was the fried eggs he'd craved the day before and a small mountain of bacon. A little greasy but still warm and he ate every bit.
The second time was in the shower. Listening to the old pipes groan like a ghoul was trapped in them, the water tainted with rust and boiling hot. He ducked his head under the stream of hot water and jerked himself hard, hands soap-slippery and water pouring over him like lava, and this was better, something he needed.
Afterward, he leaned against the tiles, their coolness brutal against his nearly-scalded skin and he stayed there until the hot water ran out, chased away by the icy needles of wetness.
He was sitting on the old sofa the third time, and surely he couldn't be the only person who'd had a wank on it. Old as it was, it might have once sat in Dumbledore's childhood home, although the thought of him sprawled on it with his trousers down to his ankles was enough to give him a pause.
Not enough of one to stop him, a tattered copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover on one knee. It wasn't particularly satisfying but it did help him fall asleep, trousers barely fastened and a dirty towel on the floor next to him.
The last time he did it on Remus's bed.
Wasn't his fault, really. Remus hadn't locked the door and it was a nice bed, big and comfy with hanging curtains that reminded him of Hogwarts. He did have the decency to pull back the coverlet but when he came, he let it spatter on the sheets, not particularly caring that Remus would be able to smell it when he came back. Better'n the bastard deserved, living in a flat with a crap radio and the dirtiest book older than both of them together.
Wasn't like there was anyone to stop him. No one to stop him, no one would walk in on him. It would serve Remus right to come home to dirty sheets, wouldn't it.
But he washed the dishes before he went to sleep, in his own bed.
Four times in one day was decent for a man his age, he decided, even one that hadn't spent the better years of his life having his soul shredded by dementors.
It didn't help him sleep this time.
By the third day, he'd decided he was going insane.
Seemed like if anyone should know, it would be him. He'd brushed past madness more times than he'd cared to count. His entire childhood at Grimmauld place seemed like prep for a few decades of making macaroni art at St. Mungo's. Azkaban had been the worst, sticky tar-black coldness eating away at his sanity, echoing thoughts of his innocence letting him cling by his fingernails.
Innocence. A lost comfort, that.
The night before, he'd had a dream, of being a dog and Harry trapped beneath him, blood bubbling from his torn throat as he tried to scream.
He'd woken screaming himself, his sheets soaked through with sweat.
Unable to fall asleep, even though the clocks informed him it was barely past three, he'd crept into Remus's room, noting the locks lining the jamb that he hadn't seen before. A neat dozen, Muggle-style and magic, all of them unlocked. But then, it wasn't other people that Remus usually needed to keep out.
Almost turned himself into Padfoot, practically a reflex to night time terrors, and then recalled the blood, the terror in…in his godson's eyes and curled up instead as a human, breathing in Remus's scent on the pillow with his pitiful excuse of a sense of smell and tried to remember that he wasn't the only person left in the world.
When he woke the next morning, the barest gleam of sunlight creeping in from around the shades, he nearly didn't bother getting up.
His breakfast plate was already on the table, cheery and warm. He could smell it was porridge, probably with a small pitcher of cream with flecks of cinnamon floating in it and a dish of sugar.
He walked past it and into the front hall, stared at the plain brown door that led outside. The entire world was on the other side of it, going on with their lives. All those in the Order, his…his godson and the boy's friends. They'd be in class, he thought, unless it was Saturday, and he realized he had no idea what the day was. Days weren't for him, sensible little boxes on calendars that told a person what they should do on that day. Days or nights, time didn't matter except for bowls of porridge against chops.
There was another door in the hallway. Opening it revealed a small collection of coats and boots, set together in an orderly way. Sirius stared at them, tweed and rubbers and an umbrella in the corner and then he stepped inside, pulling the door shut behind him. Curled into a ball on the floor and stared at the darkness around him.
He spent the entire day in a closet or maybe it was longer than that. He was already in a prison, and he suddenly felt the need for it to be tighter, closer, the darkness strangling him. He sat in the dark, hands over his ears as he slowly rocked, banging his head against the wooden wall behind him, heard the dull echo of it in his skull.
~*~
end part 2
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 03:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 02:22 am (UTC)And using the Philip K. Dick title is brilliant!
no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 03:22 pm (UTC)As much as I enjoyed his book, and title, every time I see his name I feel like snickering like a twelve year old. Phil Dick, it sounds like it should be a dirty pun. *G*
no subject
Date: 2006-01-19 03:57 am (UTC)Poor guy - think of all the teasing he took as a child.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 02:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 04:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-19 01:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 05:48 pm (UTC)Can't wait to read the next installment...
no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 01:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-19 01:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-19 01:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-19 05:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-19 01:26 pm (UTC)