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keelywolfeDo Wizards Dream of Magical Sheep?
by Keelywolfe
Fandom: Harry Potter
Remus/Sirius
NC-17 (I'm starting to earn the rating with this one. ;)
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. :)
~*~
The rest of the day was typical, books and tea in the sitting room, Remus's eyes fastened firmly to whatever book he'd thought appropriate after a mid-morning shag over the kitchen table.
Not that he was quite ignoring Sirius, oh, no. When Sirius had finally wandered in after his shower, dressed from ankle to neck and still in bare feet, he'd flung himself down on the sofa across from Remus's chair, rather forgetting that there had been a serious lack in the lubrication department not an hour before. His startled yelp of pain hadn't made Remus look away from his textual hiding place but his lips had thinned to a white line, his cheeks faintly red.
He also didn't volunteer any healing spells, not so much as a tube of ointment but that was all right. Remus did have at least one spare pair of shoes left and Sirius had already decided he was sacrificing them to the Gods of Poor After-Shagging Manners.
Sirius woke the next morning to voices, muffled through the walls with only the tone of urgency making a path through. Since this was sort of his home too, as he was living here, and no one had seen fit to lock him into his room, he decided to join the debate. He slipped from his bed and wandered into the sitting room to find Dumbledore sitting there with Remus, the battered tea service on the table set for three.
He hovered in the doorway, every muscle within him clenched with fear, remembering what Remus told him the day before. He wouldn't, he wouldn't, please, he really couldn't do it, couldn't.
Dumbledore only offered him a cheery smile, the gravity of their last meeting like a clouded memory. "Hello, Sirius, you're looking well today."
In comparison to what, Sirius couldn't say. His hair was hanging uncombed and his robe falling open over his pyjamas, exposing his unbuttoned shirt. Easier not to reply to that, sitting gingerly in the only spare seat left. Remus pushed a teacup in his direction, steam pouring off it. Sirius didn't touch it.
"I suppose you've got some news then," Sirius said abruptly, his voice still raspy with sleep. He supposed it was rude of him but niceties seemed useless here with his arse still aching and shelves of books pushing in behind him to absorb every word.
"It is possible that I merely stopped by to visit with old friends," Dumbledore said.
His voice wasn't even mildly chiding yet Sirius flushed anyway, roughly picking up his cup and sloshing scalding tea over his fingers. He sucked his burning fingers clean, abruptly aware that Remus and Dumbledore were both dressed and tidily groomed, and for the first time in it seemed ages, he felt the urge to be a dog, nestled safely in a form where eating out of a dish was the best manners that could be expected. If he hadn't been more than a little afraid the others would seriously misconstrue the action, he might have done it.
Then Dumbledore lifted his cup to sip at it and all thought of manners winged out of his head. Sirius stared at the blackened flesh in horror. "Good god, what happened to your arm?"
"I'm afraid I can't tell you that," Dumbledore said mildly, a gentle smile easing it further.
"Right, right," Sirius mumbled, tossing back the rest of his tea. It was still too hot, the burn made his eyes water but Remus didn't say a word, only refilled the cup. There was only silence and the faint clink of china against saucers, Dumbledore visibly enjoying his tea without a hint of awkwardness. That was the way of the man, though, Sirius thought, with a hint of something like fondness. Unfazed and unruffled by even the strangest of circumstances.
Whatever manners still remained in him allowed Sirius to wait until the second cup of tea had gone the way of the first before he finally spoke again. "Look I know you lot can't tell me what's going on with the war, I do understand that," He ignored the faint snort from Remus. "But I was sort of wondering, whatever happened to Kreacher? He had just as much information about the Order as I did, and--"
He broke off at Dumbledore's faintly apologetic expression, "I'm sorry—"
"No, no, that's fine." He frowned a little, snagging a lemon biscuit from the plate and prying the pieces apart so he could eat the cream-filling first. He slanted a glance at Remus as he licked it away, which was summarily ignored. "Only, I'm not sure what we can talk about then."
Dumbledore smiled. "I suppose that in lieu of an awkward silence, I could offer you the present that I brought."
It was a paper sack with a small stack of the latest Quidditch magazines. The Wasps were on the cover of the topmost one, wizards that he didn't recognize waving their broomsticks and arms energetically.
"Thank you," he said, and meant it, his fingers already itching to page through something that wasn't older than his grandfather.
"You're quite welcome," Dumbledore said, getting to his feet. "I do wish I could stay longer, but I'm afraid a great many things have my attention at the moment,"
"Thank you for stopping in," Remus said quietly, the first words he'd spoken since Sirius had stepped into the room.
Dumbledore nodded, his eyes serious. "At your discretion, Remus," he said briskly, no hint of gentleness to those words. He gave Sirius a nod before he stepped into the fireplace, vanishing up the chimney in a whirl of robes.
Sirius spent the day with sprawled on the floor with slick magazine pages, shining golden pictures of sunlight and snitches and young, eager faces of players he'd never heard about. Savoured each page like it was a pensieve that he could step into and live himself. He went through every one greedily like a child rifling through his presents on Christmas day until each one had been read, again and again, and only then did he finally looked at Remus, watching him with a quilt on his lap and cold tea at his side.
Bone-deep exhaustion lined his face, older than Remus had any right to be and Sirius was not a patient man, certainly not here with anxiety an ever-present itch under his skin and shadow-memories haunting his sleep.
"You going to talk to me at all today, or should I just call myself a bad dog and go stand in the corner?" Sirius rolled over to ask it of the ceiling, staring at the lamp until dark orbs glowed in his vision.
There was a soft creak, Remus shifting in his chair before he spoke. "They aren't looking for a counterspell, Sirius."
His voice was barely audible. Sirius raised his head to look at him, disbelieving, betrayed, they couldn't just leave him here to rot away with the wallpaper. Remus didn't look at him, his eyes focused resolutely on the braided rug at the hearth.
"Why?" Sirius whispered. He wanted to shout it, scream it, he'd done his penance, every sin he'd ever committed had been paid for in spades, payment taken with the rotting hands and breath of dementors.
Remus flinched as if he had shouted, blinking rapidly and staring at the rug as if reading his words from it. "Because they don't believe there is one."
"But—but that's ridiculous!" Sirius sputtered, "There has to be a counterspell." Horror was swelling in the pit of his stomach, a blackened ball of pain. The magazine in his hands tore in half, muffled complaints from the 'special interview section!' unheeded. "They—they think I've joined him, is that it? They think I wanted to—"
"No, they don't." Again, barely able to be heard. Remus was so pale as to be sickly and for the first time since he'd arrived here, Sirius noticed Remus's wand, tucked loosely into his sleeve. "I know it feels like you've been forgotten here but I assure you that isn't true. We've considered every hex and jinx in existence, looked at every possibility and everything has pointed at the same conclusion."
"And that is?"
Remus still wouldn't look at him, the pages of the book in his lap fanned out, wavering under the soft brush of air from his breath. "All of it leads to you being a shade."
It shouldn't be possible to hear words like that and remain upright, Sirius thought dimly, crumpled shreds of glossy paper falling from his clenched fingers into his lap like so much confetti, a mockery of celebration.
"That's not possible," Sirius whispered. "That—that isn't—"
He stared at his own hands, long, too-thin fingers roped with thin scars. Watched them tremble. His hands, not a shade's, it couldn't be.
"Sirius died," Remus continued flatly. "I watched him die."
"Yes, yes, I died," he babbled, scrambling to his feet, only there was nowhere to go, just standing there with his hands hanging uselessly. "And it takes a fragment of a soul to make a shade, how the bloody hell could Voldemort get a hold of that, eh? You don't fucking well leave one of those in your pocket at the laundry!"
"We don't know."
"See there, you don't even know! I can't be a shade!" His hoarse whisper was a shadow of the screams clawing at his throat. "I'm real, Remus, I'm right here."
"Yes, you are. We don't know for certain—"
"But you think it." Remus kept his eyes on the floor and didn't answer. "You really believe it." Weakly. "If I'm a shade then…I'm not real. Not really Sirius."
"Yes." Softly, brutal honesty.
"And you think Voldemort…you think he…" Sirius swallowed hard and managed to say, gruffly. "You think he summoned…me."
"Summoning a shade is nasty business and difficult, the histories on it tell us that," Remus tipped his head back, resting it on the back of the chair. "I doubt there's another wizard who could do it, aside from Dumbledore and he—"
"He would never do something as evil as that," Sirius agreed numbly. He started laughing, shrill to his own ears. "Then why am I even here? Why didn't you just kill me when I asked you to? My god, I'm…I'm…"
"A dark creature?" Remus said harshly. Sirius flinched as Remus met his eyes, not wanting to see what would be in them. Not wanting to see his own eyes reflected in them.
"I'm a lie!" he choked out, gasping with bitter laughter. "I'm a defilement of nature!" He thought he tasted blood, his throat raw with hilarity that scraped its way out of him and exploded into the air, as much a travesty of humour as he was of living. "I'm standing here, raping every memory of…of Sirius that you ever had and all you can call me is a dark creature?"
Hands grabbed him by the shirt and shook him roughly, Remus's face pressed close to his own. "It's still speculation, Sirius, that's all!"
"No," he yanked away, staggering and falling to the floor. "Don't call me that. I'm not Sirius, I'm a plaything of Vold-"
"Stop it!" Remus shouted, raising his voice for the first time. "We don't know, even Dumbledore doesn't know. Doesn't the fact that you're still here tell you something?" Remus pleaded.
"It tells me that sentiment is keeping me breathing when I should be feeding maggots by now," Raggedly. "Just kill me, Remus. I'm unnatural and foul, just the thought of what I might be-- " It was too hideous to bear, not human, not living, just a thing that breathed, an Inferius with stolen memories.
"You listen to me," Remus's face was white and pinched with anger. He fell to his knees next to Sirius and held him up by his shoulders, shaking him so that his head wobbled painfully on his neck. "They didn't want me to tell you, but I thought you deserved the truth. We think, we wonder, we speculate. It’s nothing but bollocks, Sirius, we don't have any certainty just yet."
"And when you have it?" Sirius asked softly, tipping his head to the side. The laughter was still there, dancing inside him, tearing at the fraying edges of his sanity. "What will you do then, Remus? Hide me away from them? Keep me hidden in broom cupboards or beneath your bed so you can take me out and fuck me whenever you feel the urge."
The first slap hurt, jerking his head to the side. The second was worse, Remus's mouth on his and he tasted his own blood in Remus's mouth, let him push him back on the hard floor, barely warmed by the fire. When Remus stripped him, slowly, with hands that trembled, Sirius moved in whatever way helped him, languid as if through water. Spreading his legs and arching into every touch of tongue and teeth, biting his lip to catch any sound as Remus licked him everywhere he could reach. Too-hot mouth around his cock, sucking him in until all he could do was close his eyes, sifting his fingers through greying hair as he came.
He was still panting when Remus slipped over him, swollen lips against his own and the taste of himself against his tongue. His lashes were still quivering against his cheeks, and Sirius would have let him do anything, anything just then so long as he didn't leave. At the first thrust inside him, his soft cry was caught in Remus's mouth, breathing into his friend like something real.
~*~
end part 5
by Keelywolfe
Fandom: Harry Potter
Remus/Sirius
NC-17 (I'm starting to earn the rating with this one. ;)
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. :)
~*~
The rest of the day was typical, books and tea in the sitting room, Remus's eyes fastened firmly to whatever book he'd thought appropriate after a mid-morning shag over the kitchen table.
Not that he was quite ignoring Sirius, oh, no. When Sirius had finally wandered in after his shower, dressed from ankle to neck and still in bare feet, he'd flung himself down on the sofa across from Remus's chair, rather forgetting that there had been a serious lack in the lubrication department not an hour before. His startled yelp of pain hadn't made Remus look away from his textual hiding place but his lips had thinned to a white line, his cheeks faintly red.
He also didn't volunteer any healing spells, not so much as a tube of ointment but that was all right. Remus did have at least one spare pair of shoes left and Sirius had already decided he was sacrificing them to the Gods of Poor After-Shagging Manners.
Sirius woke the next morning to voices, muffled through the walls with only the tone of urgency making a path through. Since this was sort of his home too, as he was living here, and no one had seen fit to lock him into his room, he decided to join the debate. He slipped from his bed and wandered into the sitting room to find Dumbledore sitting there with Remus, the battered tea service on the table set for three.
He hovered in the doorway, every muscle within him clenched with fear, remembering what Remus told him the day before. He wouldn't, he wouldn't, please, he really couldn't do it, couldn't.
Dumbledore only offered him a cheery smile, the gravity of their last meeting like a clouded memory. "Hello, Sirius, you're looking well today."
In comparison to what, Sirius couldn't say. His hair was hanging uncombed and his robe falling open over his pyjamas, exposing his unbuttoned shirt. Easier not to reply to that, sitting gingerly in the only spare seat left. Remus pushed a teacup in his direction, steam pouring off it. Sirius didn't touch it.
"I suppose you've got some news then," Sirius said abruptly, his voice still raspy with sleep. He supposed it was rude of him but niceties seemed useless here with his arse still aching and shelves of books pushing in behind him to absorb every word.
"It is possible that I merely stopped by to visit with old friends," Dumbledore said.
His voice wasn't even mildly chiding yet Sirius flushed anyway, roughly picking up his cup and sloshing scalding tea over his fingers. He sucked his burning fingers clean, abruptly aware that Remus and Dumbledore were both dressed and tidily groomed, and for the first time in it seemed ages, he felt the urge to be a dog, nestled safely in a form where eating out of a dish was the best manners that could be expected. If he hadn't been more than a little afraid the others would seriously misconstrue the action, he might have done it.
Then Dumbledore lifted his cup to sip at it and all thought of manners winged out of his head. Sirius stared at the blackened flesh in horror. "Good god, what happened to your arm?"
"I'm afraid I can't tell you that," Dumbledore said mildly, a gentle smile easing it further.
"Right, right," Sirius mumbled, tossing back the rest of his tea. It was still too hot, the burn made his eyes water but Remus didn't say a word, only refilled the cup. There was only silence and the faint clink of china against saucers, Dumbledore visibly enjoying his tea without a hint of awkwardness. That was the way of the man, though, Sirius thought, with a hint of something like fondness. Unfazed and unruffled by even the strangest of circumstances.
Whatever manners still remained in him allowed Sirius to wait until the second cup of tea had gone the way of the first before he finally spoke again. "Look I know you lot can't tell me what's going on with the war, I do understand that," He ignored the faint snort from Remus. "But I was sort of wondering, whatever happened to Kreacher? He had just as much information about the Order as I did, and--"
He broke off at Dumbledore's faintly apologetic expression, "I'm sorry—"
"No, no, that's fine." He frowned a little, snagging a lemon biscuit from the plate and prying the pieces apart so he could eat the cream-filling first. He slanted a glance at Remus as he licked it away, which was summarily ignored. "Only, I'm not sure what we can talk about then."
Dumbledore smiled. "I suppose that in lieu of an awkward silence, I could offer you the present that I brought."
It was a paper sack with a small stack of the latest Quidditch magazines. The Wasps were on the cover of the topmost one, wizards that he didn't recognize waving their broomsticks and arms energetically.
"Thank you," he said, and meant it, his fingers already itching to page through something that wasn't older than his grandfather.
"You're quite welcome," Dumbledore said, getting to his feet. "I do wish I could stay longer, but I'm afraid a great many things have my attention at the moment,"
"Thank you for stopping in," Remus said quietly, the first words he'd spoken since Sirius had stepped into the room.
Dumbledore nodded, his eyes serious. "At your discretion, Remus," he said briskly, no hint of gentleness to those words. He gave Sirius a nod before he stepped into the fireplace, vanishing up the chimney in a whirl of robes.
Sirius spent the day with sprawled on the floor with slick magazine pages, shining golden pictures of sunlight and snitches and young, eager faces of players he'd never heard about. Savoured each page like it was a pensieve that he could step into and live himself. He went through every one greedily like a child rifling through his presents on Christmas day until each one had been read, again and again, and only then did he finally looked at Remus, watching him with a quilt on his lap and cold tea at his side.
Bone-deep exhaustion lined his face, older than Remus had any right to be and Sirius was not a patient man, certainly not here with anxiety an ever-present itch under his skin and shadow-memories haunting his sleep.
"You going to talk to me at all today, or should I just call myself a bad dog and go stand in the corner?" Sirius rolled over to ask it of the ceiling, staring at the lamp until dark orbs glowed in his vision.
There was a soft creak, Remus shifting in his chair before he spoke. "They aren't looking for a counterspell, Sirius."
His voice was barely audible. Sirius raised his head to look at him, disbelieving, betrayed, they couldn't just leave him here to rot away with the wallpaper. Remus didn't look at him, his eyes focused resolutely on the braided rug at the hearth.
"Why?" Sirius whispered. He wanted to shout it, scream it, he'd done his penance, every sin he'd ever committed had been paid for in spades, payment taken with the rotting hands and breath of dementors.
Remus flinched as if he had shouted, blinking rapidly and staring at the rug as if reading his words from it. "Because they don't believe there is one."
"But—but that's ridiculous!" Sirius sputtered, "There has to be a counterspell." Horror was swelling in the pit of his stomach, a blackened ball of pain. The magazine in his hands tore in half, muffled complaints from the 'special interview section!' unheeded. "They—they think I've joined him, is that it? They think I wanted to—"
"No, they don't." Again, barely able to be heard. Remus was so pale as to be sickly and for the first time since he'd arrived here, Sirius noticed Remus's wand, tucked loosely into his sleeve. "I know it feels like you've been forgotten here but I assure you that isn't true. We've considered every hex and jinx in existence, looked at every possibility and everything has pointed at the same conclusion."
"And that is?"
Remus still wouldn't look at him, the pages of the book in his lap fanned out, wavering under the soft brush of air from his breath. "All of it leads to you being a shade."
It shouldn't be possible to hear words like that and remain upright, Sirius thought dimly, crumpled shreds of glossy paper falling from his clenched fingers into his lap like so much confetti, a mockery of celebration.
"That's not possible," Sirius whispered. "That—that isn't—"
He stared at his own hands, long, too-thin fingers roped with thin scars. Watched them tremble. His hands, not a shade's, it couldn't be.
"Sirius died," Remus continued flatly. "I watched him die."
"Yes, yes, I died," he babbled, scrambling to his feet, only there was nowhere to go, just standing there with his hands hanging uselessly. "And it takes a fragment of a soul to make a shade, how the bloody hell could Voldemort get a hold of that, eh? You don't fucking well leave one of those in your pocket at the laundry!"
"We don't know."
"See there, you don't even know! I can't be a shade!" His hoarse whisper was a shadow of the screams clawing at his throat. "I'm real, Remus, I'm right here."
"Yes, you are. We don't know for certain—"
"But you think it." Remus kept his eyes on the floor and didn't answer. "You really believe it." Weakly. "If I'm a shade then…I'm not real. Not really Sirius."
"Yes." Softly, brutal honesty.
"And you think Voldemort…you think he…" Sirius swallowed hard and managed to say, gruffly. "You think he summoned…me."
"Summoning a shade is nasty business and difficult, the histories on it tell us that," Remus tipped his head back, resting it on the back of the chair. "I doubt there's another wizard who could do it, aside from Dumbledore and he—"
"He would never do something as evil as that," Sirius agreed numbly. He started laughing, shrill to his own ears. "Then why am I even here? Why didn't you just kill me when I asked you to? My god, I'm…I'm…"
"A dark creature?" Remus said harshly. Sirius flinched as Remus met his eyes, not wanting to see what would be in them. Not wanting to see his own eyes reflected in them.
"I'm a lie!" he choked out, gasping with bitter laughter. "I'm a defilement of nature!" He thought he tasted blood, his throat raw with hilarity that scraped its way out of him and exploded into the air, as much a travesty of humour as he was of living. "I'm standing here, raping every memory of…of Sirius that you ever had and all you can call me is a dark creature?"
Hands grabbed him by the shirt and shook him roughly, Remus's face pressed close to his own. "It's still speculation, Sirius, that's all!"
"No," he yanked away, staggering and falling to the floor. "Don't call me that. I'm not Sirius, I'm a plaything of Vold-"
"Stop it!" Remus shouted, raising his voice for the first time. "We don't know, even Dumbledore doesn't know. Doesn't the fact that you're still here tell you something?" Remus pleaded.
"It tells me that sentiment is keeping me breathing when I should be feeding maggots by now," Raggedly. "Just kill me, Remus. I'm unnatural and foul, just the thought of what I might be-- " It was too hideous to bear, not human, not living, just a thing that breathed, an Inferius with stolen memories.
"You listen to me," Remus's face was white and pinched with anger. He fell to his knees next to Sirius and held him up by his shoulders, shaking him so that his head wobbled painfully on his neck. "They didn't want me to tell you, but I thought you deserved the truth. We think, we wonder, we speculate. It’s nothing but bollocks, Sirius, we don't have any certainty just yet."
"And when you have it?" Sirius asked softly, tipping his head to the side. The laughter was still there, dancing inside him, tearing at the fraying edges of his sanity. "What will you do then, Remus? Hide me away from them? Keep me hidden in broom cupboards or beneath your bed so you can take me out and fuck me whenever you feel the urge."
The first slap hurt, jerking his head to the side. The second was worse, Remus's mouth on his and he tasted his own blood in Remus's mouth, let him push him back on the hard floor, barely warmed by the fire. When Remus stripped him, slowly, with hands that trembled, Sirius moved in whatever way helped him, languid as if through water. Spreading his legs and arching into every touch of tongue and teeth, biting his lip to catch any sound as Remus licked him everywhere he could reach. Too-hot mouth around his cock, sucking him in until all he could do was close his eyes, sifting his fingers through greying hair as he came.
He was still panting when Remus slipped over him, swollen lips against his own and the taste of himself against his tongue. His lashes were still quivering against his cheeks, and Sirius would have let him do anything, anything just then so long as he didn't leave. At the first thrust inside him, his soft cry was caught in Remus's mouth, breathing into his friend like something real.
~*~
end part 5
