![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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. :)
~*~
Sirius woke up from a dream about being trapped in a pool of darkness, struggling against it as sticky black pulled him in, suffocating him. The sheets were clammy with sweat and the wavering light of the fire had dimmed to bare embers, still too early in the morning for any light to be creeping around the curtain edges. He sat up in the bed and rubbed a damp hand over his face, couldn't even be embarrassed to feel it shaking. He knew something about bad dreams; Azkaban had been a brilliant teacher in that regard.
"If you're going to sleep in here when I'm gone, we should just get rid of the other bed. It would free up some space."
He managed to react with as much dignity as a person could when a disembodied voice spoke to them out of a dark room. He screamed, scrambling away from it and fell off the other side of the bed, landing heavily and somewhat painfully on the hardwood floor.
A head appeared over the side, too difficult to see in this gloom but now that his heart had slowed its brutal hammering in his ears, Sirius recognized the voice from before and the words came into focus in his head.
"Merlin, you scared the holy blue fuck out of me, Remus!" he exhaled, shifting up to lean on one elbow. The floor seemed like a good place to stay for the moment, until the bones in his back finished their howling complaint. The bed squeaked faintly as Remus slipped off of it and crouched on the floor next to him.
"I noticed." He was close enough now that Sirius noticed something else in the faint rush of his breath.
"You smell like you've been to the pub," Sirius raised an eyebrow, nearly tasting the alcohol in the air. "Or took a bath in a vat of beer. Are you drunk?"
"Maybe a little bit of," Remus said agreeably. He offered Sirius a hand up and he took it, pulling himself gingerly back onto the bed.
"And does he bring me a pint?" Sirius asked of no one at all, sprawling back on the pillows. "No, he does not. He comes back here rotten with drink and expects me just to inhale his fumes."
"No. I brought you something."
Sirius squinted, barely able to see him moving. He seemed to reach into his robes and pulled out a slender object, faint greenish light coming from it. A vial, he decided, some sort of potion that was certainly not beer or firewhiskey.
"It's a bit glowy for hemlock, isn't it?"
"It's not—" Remus took a breath, his voice trailing away. The small vial shifted, weaving in a graceful little movement between his fingers like another person might spin a knut, in and out through his knuckles. "It won't hurt you," he said finally. "It's a test of sorts."
"A test," Sirius repeated, slowly.
"Intrinsecus Manes. Almost sounds pretty doesn't it?" So softly, flick, flick, flick of the vial between his fingers. "It shows a person's soul. We would've used it sooner but it takes a decent amount of time to brew it not to mention that it's quite difficult to make—"
"Which means Snape made it for you," Sirius said flatly. "You're sure it won't kill me?"
Remus sighed irritably. "I'm well aware that you don't like the man; I daresay the feeling is mutual. Personal feelings on both your parts aside, Dumbledore trusts him and so does the rest of the Order. That said, if you do take the potion and drop dead, I'm sure that I'll notice and I'll extend your complaints to the creator!"
He was really shaking quite badly, Sirius saw with some concern. He reached out to lay his hand over Remus's and he flinched away, his hand tightening convulsively around the vial.
"You're supposed to give it to me, Remus," he said quietly. The only light in the room was from the faint embers on the hearth and the slender glass. He could see Remus's hand tighten around it and thought for a moment it might shatter in his grasp, leak glass and brilliant light and dark blood on the sheets. Then he relaxed and his hand fell open, the stoppered bottle in the middle of his palm.
"So I am."
It was warm to the touch, heat and light captured and forced into such a fragile prison. Sirius held it in his hand and studied it, watched tiny bubbles filter through luminous green. Fear was sour in the back of his mouth, refusing to be swallowed away.
"It's all right, Sirius," Soothing him, always, centring him but it wasn't Sirius who stank of drink and smoke, marks of false courage carrying him into the bed they'd been sharing. It seemed to him that Remus was the wraith, a shadowy face watching him palely through the gloomy darkness.
"What if I am a shade?" he asked abruptly.
"What if you are?"
"What if they're trying to…there's worse things than dying, you know. What if they use me to…" he couldn't say the word he wanted, half-gagging on it before settling on a weak substitute. "…to destroy you?"
The bed shifted as Remus moved, kneeling next to him. A hand slipped lazily into his hair, twining the long strands around slim fingers and he laughed, the sound of prickling up Sirius's spine as he was far more accustomed to hearing that sort of sound from his own throat. A wet mouth pressed against his ear in a mockery of a kiss as Remus whispered, "You always do."
It was enough to go on. The cork made a soft popping sound as he pulled it out, a mist of green steam rising from vial and it was courage as much as terror that made him choke down the ghastly thing, thick, foul taste like damp soil, like lakewater, worms, like the corpse dirt over a grave. It burned through him, raking fire-hot fingernails through his veins and he fell back on the bed, harsh convulsions tearing through him for a brief eternity.
He'd almost begun to believe Snape had poisoned him after all out of spite, and then the pain faded as quickly as it had come. Sirius pushed himself up on shaking arms, felt unearthly warmth with in him. Not so terrible then, almost pleasant, as warm as he'd been since he'd first set foot in Azkaban.
Remus made a soft sound behind him, pained and deep in his throat and he finally opened his eyes. Glittering light poured off him and hope was thick in his throat. His legs held him only with the greatest reluctance, Sirius staggering off the bed and towards the full-length mirror in the far corner of the room. He had to see, had to know and he looked in the mirror and saw…blackness. Fairy lights scattered over him with continents of blackness in between like holes were punched through it.
He didn't remember falling, only that Remus caught him, murmuring words into his hair that Sirius didn't hear.
Not real, not real, not, not, gibbering in his head, a high squeal of hysteria that looped around and around, oblivious to anything else. He could feel Remus shaking him, hands turned brutal and he couldn’t speak, could barely breathe. He let Remus hold him, hands cold against his flushed face as he stared blindly at his own reflection, the lights fading as the warmth slowly bled out of him.
It must have been hours later when he finally managed to move. Sunlight was edging the windows, long lines of it cutting across the floor.
"Will you still call me Sirius?" he whispered, his voice hoarse. He reached out blindly and a hand caught his strongly, squeezed it with warm fingers.
"Always." Softly, against his throat.
The day drifted by like any other, paying little mind to his shattered wanderings through the tiny flat.
Once, he went to the loo and caught sight of his reflection in the mirror, pale face surrounded by straggling hair. He stared at himself, his hands barely felt like his own as they picked up the razor that Remus shaved with, left trustingly at the back of the sink. With slow, careful strokes, he cut all his hair, clogging the razor and methodically picking it clean again until his scalp was showing pink and shiny through a thin scum of stubble. He left the hair where it was, as if a particularly hairy beast had spontaneously shed its winter coat in the middle of Remus's bathroom.
Remus didn't say a word when he came back out and the next morning, Sirius awoke to shaggy strands over his forehead and in his eyes again, Remus's hand wound through the tangled mass as he kissed him.
The razor was gone but he didn't mind. He didn't feel like cutting it again.
~*~
For all that he had been a professor once, Remus was often more of a slugabed than even Sirius was, dragging out of bed in the late noon hours with dark circles still under his eyes. Much as he appreciated having a lie-in, hunger was often a great motivator in driving Sirius from the bedroom and more than once he'd eaten Remus's breakfast plate along with his own before the afternoon ones took their place.
It was something new to him, Sirius supposed, wincing at the cold floor under his bare feet. Didn't recall Remus being a lazy sod in school, but he probably had his reasons for being tired. For one, he wasn't having a wank and a nap every afternoon on the sitting room sofa.
He yawned loudly and scratched at his chest, thinking longing thoughts towards breakfast only to find a person he was not expecting sitting precisely on the selfsame sofa of his masturbatory activities.
"Oh." Sirius said dumbly, blinking. He was abruptly aware that he was only wearing a pair of Remus's shorts and socks with large holes at the toes. Dumbledore only nodded at him politely, sipping tea from a cup that wasn't taken from Remus's cupboards.
"Did you want—I can wake up Remus," Sirius said, continuing on his theme of early morning stupidity. Or rather, nearly noontime stupidity, they'd both had rather a long lie-in today. Worry was knotting itself tightly into his stomach; they all had to know the truth by now. He wondered how much his continuing existence was riding on seeming as innocuous as possible through the next few moments.
"That won't be necessary," Dumbledore said, smiling warmly. "I only came to bring you more magazines. I do believe I missed your birthday." It made him relax a fraction; surely Dumbledore wouldn't have wasted money on a gift if he was only coming to kill him. He tried very hard not to think of condemned men and last meals. For all that he was well aware that he probably should die, he didn't want to do it right this moment, certainly not before breakfast.
"Ta, the other ones were wonderful." He stepped into the room hesitantly, standing behind the large armchair. "I didn't expect you to come visiting again."
A raised eyebrow. "Is there a reason I shouldn't?"
"You'd know better than I would," he countered, trying not to fidget like a first year. No that memory isn't real, none of them are real. "I took the potion already, I know the truth."
"I know. You seem to have accepted it rather quickly."
"Is there a point in not accepting it?" Sirius frowned.
"Yes," Another slow sip of tea, Dumbledore studying him over the half-moon rims of his glasses. "There is always the fact that it might not be true."
"Please, spare me that," Sirius said tiredly. "I get it enough from Remus. I drank the potion, I saw the damage. Can you possibly think I'm not a shade?"
"Tell me, is it easier to believe you aren't Sirius?" Dumbledore asked instead. "How much more difficult would it be to accept that you really are Sirius Black who spent a great portion of his life in Azkaban, with his soul constantly being torn at by dementors than it is to simply be a tool waiting to be used? Does it make your determination to kill Harry easier to accept?"
Red flashed in his vision and he fought at the urge to change, catching himself on the arm of the chair before he could fall. Rivulets of sweat were tickling down his back and sides, damp against his face, by the time he managed to stand upright again. Dumbledore merely poured another cup of tea for himself and into a fresh cup, nudging it across the table in Sirius's direction.
He ignored it. "Remus said he saw me die," he whispered.
"As did I. As did many other members of the Order. That is exactly what we believed. And yet, some months later, here you are and none of us can determine why. To murder Harry?" he shook his head, seemingly oblivious to the low growl that Sirius was fighting away. "No, that doesn't make sense to me. Voldemort has shown us time and again that he is determined to kill Harry himself."
Sirius was on his knees now fighting the change and the curl of nausea in his stomach. It was unnatural for an Animagus to reject their animal form, more so for it to be forced on him like this and resisting made every muscle in his body clench and spasm wretchedly.
"That's true," he finally manage to pant out. "But then it doesn't make sense! Why would he send me to attack H—him if he didn't want me to kill him?"
"A fair question. One might consider the possibility that it wasn't Voldemort at all who sent you to Hogwarts."
"It had to have been!" Sirius said impatiently. "No one else could possibly…"
"Make a shade," Dumbledore finished. "So you see, I believe it would be wise for us to continue researching every possibility."
"Remus said that you weren't looking for a counterspell."
Dumbledore gave him a surprisingly grim look. "It's true that there is no counterspell for shading aside from killing the shade itself, but we are still pursuing other avenues." Some measure of humour returned to his eyes. "It's possible that Remus has his own reasons for keeping that from you?"
"You mean because he's fucking me?" Blandly.
Dumbledore didn't so much as blink. "Because I can't help but believe you would pester him continually for information and if he lacked it, his wardrobe would take the brunt of your displeasure. He did mention something once about shoes…?" He let the sentence dangle and Sirius was annoyed to feel himself blush.
"There is another problem I wanted to mention." Dumbledore sighed heavily. "While I hardly want to encourage this line of thinking, it has come to my attention in the past months that concealing information from our friends has caused damage in the past. If," he stressed the word, "If you are a shade and Voldemort created you, if he dies then it would also destroy the spell that possibly binds him to you."
It effectively doused the warm glow he'd gotten from being called friend. "Meaning?"
"Meaning that if he dies, you would as well."
Well, yes, that would be a problem, though it would certainly answer the question of what he was.
"I have been endeavouring to be as honest with Harry as possible concerning the prophecies," Dumbledore continued, ignoring the hitch in Sirius's breathing. "But I believe that it would be far too cruel to ask him to make that choice. He blamed himself enough for your previous encounter with death. I can't ask him to take on this burden as well, and I won't.
"So why are you telling me this?" Surely it would be easier to just let him die or crumple to dust or whatever shades did when their master's died. There wasn't really a need to warn him. He wondered if Remus knew and that did hurt, thinking of Remus left alone once again. He'd said Sirius would leave him again with tired certainty and standing here in this chilly room with Dumbledore's eyes on him, Sirius gave a little wish to whomever might listened to damned wizards that he might prove that certainty wrong.
"Because I want to make sure you're going to be here for us if we need you, and I don't mean here in this flat." Baldly. "Suicide can't be an option, Sirius."
It almost made him laugh. Was the entire Order convinced that he was spending the days having razors snatched from his wrists? "No worries, there. I couldn't do it." Sirius said easily. "Remus bitches enough about the messes I make."
With a wave of his wand, the tea set, including Sirius's untouched cup, vanished and Dumbledore stood. He looked very much his age at that moment, several scores of years hanging heavy on him. He stepped closer, reaching out to touch Sirius's cheek like he was still a boy. "I don't think I ever fully appreciated the damage the dementors did to you," Dumbledore told him quietly. "In some ways, I believe Harry is older than you are."
Sirius flinched, his eyes watering from the effort not to change, "What's that suppose to—"
Dumbledore continued like he hadn't said a word. "I also never properly apologized for failing you like that."
"You didn’t mean to," Sirius looked away. Wasn't fair to blame Dumbledore for Azkaban, not when the entire wizarding world had failed him as well.
"And yet, even the best of intentions can have the most horrible of consequences," Dumbledore said heavily, letting his hand fall away.
It made him feel colder and Sirius crossed his arms over his bare chest. "Do you tell Remus these things?"
He smiled in a way that Sirius had never seen in him, almost bitter amusement. "I tell Remus a great deal where you are concerned. I doubt he hears a word of it."
"Yeah, well," Sirius didn't doubt that he was right, and also didn't bloody well care. "Thanks for stopping in. And for the magazines," he added, nodding at the paper sack on the table.
"Not at all. You should know that Harry misses you," Dumbledore said simply.
Unexpected as it was, Sirius swallowed a scream and fell again to his knees, breathing through the worst of the pain. "Why do you keep saying his name!" he choked out.
A gentle hand on his arm helped him back to his feet, the strength in it belying its frailer appearance. "As I told you, some time ago now. We should always use the true name of the things we fear."
He waited until Sirius had steadied himself against the back of the chair before nodding at him and stepping into the fireplace. By the time Sirius made his way to the kitchen, the breakfast plates had already been jostled aside by the ones for the afternoon. He scraped the morning ones into the rubbish bin and washed the dishes, leaving the others untouched until he heard Remus stirring down the hall.
~*~
end part 8
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. :)
~*~
Sirius woke up from a dream about being trapped in a pool of darkness, struggling against it as sticky black pulled him in, suffocating him. The sheets were clammy with sweat and the wavering light of the fire had dimmed to bare embers, still too early in the morning for any light to be creeping around the curtain edges. He sat up in the bed and rubbed a damp hand over his face, couldn't even be embarrassed to feel it shaking. He knew something about bad dreams; Azkaban had been a brilliant teacher in that regard.
"If you're going to sleep in here when I'm gone, we should just get rid of the other bed. It would free up some space."
He managed to react with as much dignity as a person could when a disembodied voice spoke to them out of a dark room. He screamed, scrambling away from it and fell off the other side of the bed, landing heavily and somewhat painfully on the hardwood floor.
A head appeared over the side, too difficult to see in this gloom but now that his heart had slowed its brutal hammering in his ears, Sirius recognized the voice from before and the words came into focus in his head.
"Merlin, you scared the holy blue fuck out of me, Remus!" he exhaled, shifting up to lean on one elbow. The floor seemed like a good place to stay for the moment, until the bones in his back finished their howling complaint. The bed squeaked faintly as Remus slipped off of it and crouched on the floor next to him.
"I noticed." He was close enough now that Sirius noticed something else in the faint rush of his breath.
"You smell like you've been to the pub," Sirius raised an eyebrow, nearly tasting the alcohol in the air. "Or took a bath in a vat of beer. Are you drunk?"
"Maybe a little bit of," Remus said agreeably. He offered Sirius a hand up and he took it, pulling himself gingerly back onto the bed.
"And does he bring me a pint?" Sirius asked of no one at all, sprawling back on the pillows. "No, he does not. He comes back here rotten with drink and expects me just to inhale his fumes."
"No. I brought you something."
Sirius squinted, barely able to see him moving. He seemed to reach into his robes and pulled out a slender object, faint greenish light coming from it. A vial, he decided, some sort of potion that was certainly not beer or firewhiskey.
"It's a bit glowy for hemlock, isn't it?"
"It's not—" Remus took a breath, his voice trailing away. The small vial shifted, weaving in a graceful little movement between his fingers like another person might spin a knut, in and out through his knuckles. "It won't hurt you," he said finally. "It's a test of sorts."
"A test," Sirius repeated, slowly.
"Intrinsecus Manes. Almost sounds pretty doesn't it?" So softly, flick, flick, flick of the vial between his fingers. "It shows a person's soul. We would've used it sooner but it takes a decent amount of time to brew it not to mention that it's quite difficult to make—"
"Which means Snape made it for you," Sirius said flatly. "You're sure it won't kill me?"
Remus sighed irritably. "I'm well aware that you don't like the man; I daresay the feeling is mutual. Personal feelings on both your parts aside, Dumbledore trusts him and so does the rest of the Order. That said, if you do take the potion and drop dead, I'm sure that I'll notice and I'll extend your complaints to the creator!"
He was really shaking quite badly, Sirius saw with some concern. He reached out to lay his hand over Remus's and he flinched away, his hand tightening convulsively around the vial.
"You're supposed to give it to me, Remus," he said quietly. The only light in the room was from the faint embers on the hearth and the slender glass. He could see Remus's hand tighten around it and thought for a moment it might shatter in his grasp, leak glass and brilliant light and dark blood on the sheets. Then he relaxed and his hand fell open, the stoppered bottle in the middle of his palm.
"So I am."
It was warm to the touch, heat and light captured and forced into such a fragile prison. Sirius held it in his hand and studied it, watched tiny bubbles filter through luminous green. Fear was sour in the back of his mouth, refusing to be swallowed away.
"It's all right, Sirius," Soothing him, always, centring him but it wasn't Sirius who stank of drink and smoke, marks of false courage carrying him into the bed they'd been sharing. It seemed to him that Remus was the wraith, a shadowy face watching him palely through the gloomy darkness.
"What if I am a shade?" he asked abruptly.
"What if you are?"
"What if they're trying to…there's worse things than dying, you know. What if they use me to…" he couldn't say the word he wanted, half-gagging on it before settling on a weak substitute. "…to destroy you?"
The bed shifted as Remus moved, kneeling next to him. A hand slipped lazily into his hair, twining the long strands around slim fingers and he laughed, the sound of prickling up Sirius's spine as he was far more accustomed to hearing that sort of sound from his own throat. A wet mouth pressed against his ear in a mockery of a kiss as Remus whispered, "You always do."
It was enough to go on. The cork made a soft popping sound as he pulled it out, a mist of green steam rising from vial and it was courage as much as terror that made him choke down the ghastly thing, thick, foul taste like damp soil, like lakewater, worms, like the corpse dirt over a grave. It burned through him, raking fire-hot fingernails through his veins and he fell back on the bed, harsh convulsions tearing through him for a brief eternity.
He'd almost begun to believe Snape had poisoned him after all out of spite, and then the pain faded as quickly as it had come. Sirius pushed himself up on shaking arms, felt unearthly warmth with in him. Not so terrible then, almost pleasant, as warm as he'd been since he'd first set foot in Azkaban.
Remus made a soft sound behind him, pained and deep in his throat and he finally opened his eyes. Glittering light poured off him and hope was thick in his throat. His legs held him only with the greatest reluctance, Sirius staggering off the bed and towards the full-length mirror in the far corner of the room. He had to see, had to know and he looked in the mirror and saw…blackness. Fairy lights scattered over him with continents of blackness in between like holes were punched through it.
He didn't remember falling, only that Remus caught him, murmuring words into his hair that Sirius didn't hear.
Not real, not real, not, not, gibbering in his head, a high squeal of hysteria that looped around and around, oblivious to anything else. He could feel Remus shaking him, hands turned brutal and he couldn’t speak, could barely breathe. He let Remus hold him, hands cold against his flushed face as he stared blindly at his own reflection, the lights fading as the warmth slowly bled out of him.
It must have been hours later when he finally managed to move. Sunlight was edging the windows, long lines of it cutting across the floor.
"Will you still call me Sirius?" he whispered, his voice hoarse. He reached out blindly and a hand caught his strongly, squeezed it with warm fingers.
"Always." Softly, against his throat.
The day drifted by like any other, paying little mind to his shattered wanderings through the tiny flat.
Once, he went to the loo and caught sight of his reflection in the mirror, pale face surrounded by straggling hair. He stared at himself, his hands barely felt like his own as they picked up the razor that Remus shaved with, left trustingly at the back of the sink. With slow, careful strokes, he cut all his hair, clogging the razor and methodically picking it clean again until his scalp was showing pink and shiny through a thin scum of stubble. He left the hair where it was, as if a particularly hairy beast had spontaneously shed its winter coat in the middle of Remus's bathroom.
Remus didn't say a word when he came back out and the next morning, Sirius awoke to shaggy strands over his forehead and in his eyes again, Remus's hand wound through the tangled mass as he kissed him.
The razor was gone but he didn't mind. He didn't feel like cutting it again.
~*~
For all that he had been a professor once, Remus was often more of a slugabed than even Sirius was, dragging out of bed in the late noon hours with dark circles still under his eyes. Much as he appreciated having a lie-in, hunger was often a great motivator in driving Sirius from the bedroom and more than once he'd eaten Remus's breakfast plate along with his own before the afternoon ones took their place.
It was something new to him, Sirius supposed, wincing at the cold floor under his bare feet. Didn't recall Remus being a lazy sod in school, but he probably had his reasons for being tired. For one, he wasn't having a wank and a nap every afternoon on the sitting room sofa.
He yawned loudly and scratched at his chest, thinking longing thoughts towards breakfast only to find a person he was not expecting sitting precisely on the selfsame sofa of his masturbatory activities.
"Oh." Sirius said dumbly, blinking. He was abruptly aware that he was only wearing a pair of Remus's shorts and socks with large holes at the toes. Dumbledore only nodded at him politely, sipping tea from a cup that wasn't taken from Remus's cupboards.
"Did you want—I can wake up Remus," Sirius said, continuing on his theme of early morning stupidity. Or rather, nearly noontime stupidity, they'd both had rather a long lie-in today. Worry was knotting itself tightly into his stomach; they all had to know the truth by now. He wondered how much his continuing existence was riding on seeming as innocuous as possible through the next few moments.
"That won't be necessary," Dumbledore said, smiling warmly. "I only came to bring you more magazines. I do believe I missed your birthday." It made him relax a fraction; surely Dumbledore wouldn't have wasted money on a gift if he was only coming to kill him. He tried very hard not to think of condemned men and last meals. For all that he was well aware that he probably should die, he didn't want to do it right this moment, certainly not before breakfast.
"Ta, the other ones were wonderful." He stepped into the room hesitantly, standing behind the large armchair. "I didn't expect you to come visiting again."
A raised eyebrow. "Is there a reason I shouldn't?"
"You'd know better than I would," he countered, trying not to fidget like a first year. No that memory isn't real, none of them are real. "I took the potion already, I know the truth."
"I know. You seem to have accepted it rather quickly."
"Is there a point in not accepting it?" Sirius frowned.
"Yes," Another slow sip of tea, Dumbledore studying him over the half-moon rims of his glasses. "There is always the fact that it might not be true."
"Please, spare me that," Sirius said tiredly. "I get it enough from Remus. I drank the potion, I saw the damage. Can you possibly think I'm not a shade?"
"Tell me, is it easier to believe you aren't Sirius?" Dumbledore asked instead. "How much more difficult would it be to accept that you really are Sirius Black who spent a great portion of his life in Azkaban, with his soul constantly being torn at by dementors than it is to simply be a tool waiting to be used? Does it make your determination to kill Harry easier to accept?"
Red flashed in his vision and he fought at the urge to change, catching himself on the arm of the chair before he could fall. Rivulets of sweat were tickling down his back and sides, damp against his face, by the time he managed to stand upright again. Dumbledore merely poured another cup of tea for himself and into a fresh cup, nudging it across the table in Sirius's direction.
He ignored it. "Remus said he saw me die," he whispered.
"As did I. As did many other members of the Order. That is exactly what we believed. And yet, some months later, here you are and none of us can determine why. To murder Harry?" he shook his head, seemingly oblivious to the low growl that Sirius was fighting away. "No, that doesn't make sense to me. Voldemort has shown us time and again that he is determined to kill Harry himself."
Sirius was on his knees now fighting the change and the curl of nausea in his stomach. It was unnatural for an Animagus to reject their animal form, more so for it to be forced on him like this and resisting made every muscle in his body clench and spasm wretchedly.
"That's true," he finally manage to pant out. "But then it doesn't make sense! Why would he send me to attack H—him if he didn't want me to kill him?"
"A fair question. One might consider the possibility that it wasn't Voldemort at all who sent you to Hogwarts."
"It had to have been!" Sirius said impatiently. "No one else could possibly…"
"Make a shade," Dumbledore finished. "So you see, I believe it would be wise for us to continue researching every possibility."
"Remus said that you weren't looking for a counterspell."
Dumbledore gave him a surprisingly grim look. "It's true that there is no counterspell for shading aside from killing the shade itself, but we are still pursuing other avenues." Some measure of humour returned to his eyes. "It's possible that Remus has his own reasons for keeping that from you?"
"You mean because he's fucking me?" Blandly.
Dumbledore didn't so much as blink. "Because I can't help but believe you would pester him continually for information and if he lacked it, his wardrobe would take the brunt of your displeasure. He did mention something once about shoes…?" He let the sentence dangle and Sirius was annoyed to feel himself blush.
"There is another problem I wanted to mention." Dumbledore sighed heavily. "While I hardly want to encourage this line of thinking, it has come to my attention in the past months that concealing information from our friends has caused damage in the past. If," he stressed the word, "If you are a shade and Voldemort created you, if he dies then it would also destroy the spell that possibly binds him to you."
It effectively doused the warm glow he'd gotten from being called friend. "Meaning?"
"Meaning that if he dies, you would as well."
Well, yes, that would be a problem, though it would certainly answer the question of what he was.
"I have been endeavouring to be as honest with Harry as possible concerning the prophecies," Dumbledore continued, ignoring the hitch in Sirius's breathing. "But I believe that it would be far too cruel to ask him to make that choice. He blamed himself enough for your previous encounter with death. I can't ask him to take on this burden as well, and I won't.
"So why are you telling me this?" Surely it would be easier to just let him die or crumple to dust or whatever shades did when their master's died. There wasn't really a need to warn him. He wondered if Remus knew and that did hurt, thinking of Remus left alone once again. He'd said Sirius would leave him again with tired certainty and standing here in this chilly room with Dumbledore's eyes on him, Sirius gave a little wish to whomever might listened to damned wizards that he might prove that certainty wrong.
"Because I want to make sure you're going to be here for us if we need you, and I don't mean here in this flat." Baldly. "Suicide can't be an option, Sirius."
It almost made him laugh. Was the entire Order convinced that he was spending the days having razors snatched from his wrists? "No worries, there. I couldn't do it." Sirius said easily. "Remus bitches enough about the messes I make."
With a wave of his wand, the tea set, including Sirius's untouched cup, vanished and Dumbledore stood. He looked very much his age at that moment, several scores of years hanging heavy on him. He stepped closer, reaching out to touch Sirius's cheek like he was still a boy. "I don't think I ever fully appreciated the damage the dementors did to you," Dumbledore told him quietly. "In some ways, I believe Harry is older than you are."
Sirius flinched, his eyes watering from the effort not to change, "What's that suppose to—"
Dumbledore continued like he hadn't said a word. "I also never properly apologized for failing you like that."
"You didn’t mean to," Sirius looked away. Wasn't fair to blame Dumbledore for Azkaban, not when the entire wizarding world had failed him as well.
"And yet, even the best of intentions can have the most horrible of consequences," Dumbledore said heavily, letting his hand fall away.
It made him feel colder and Sirius crossed his arms over his bare chest. "Do you tell Remus these things?"
He smiled in a way that Sirius had never seen in him, almost bitter amusement. "I tell Remus a great deal where you are concerned. I doubt he hears a word of it."
"Yeah, well," Sirius didn't doubt that he was right, and also didn't bloody well care. "Thanks for stopping in. And for the magazines," he added, nodding at the paper sack on the table.
"Not at all. You should know that Harry misses you," Dumbledore said simply.
Unexpected as it was, Sirius swallowed a scream and fell again to his knees, breathing through the worst of the pain. "Why do you keep saying his name!" he choked out.
A gentle hand on his arm helped him back to his feet, the strength in it belying its frailer appearance. "As I told you, some time ago now. We should always use the true name of the things we fear."
He waited until Sirius had steadied himself against the back of the chair before nodding at him and stepping into the fireplace. By the time Sirius made his way to the kitchen, the breakfast plates had already been jostled aside by the ones for the afternoon. He scraped the morning ones into the rubbish bin and washed the dishes, leaving the others untouched until he heard Remus stirring down the hall.
~*~
end part 8
