Fic: Every Chance, James/Sirius NC-17
Title: Every Chance
Pairing: James/Sirius
Rating: Hard R, possibly NC-17
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Warnings: Fisting. Agnst. Loose POV.
Summary: In Azkaban, Sirius tries not to remember James...
Thanks to summerborn and onewavebreaks for the beta. All errors and awkwardness are the result of my ignoring them.
"Sirius, take James up to your bedroom to play?" Mrs. Black said offhandedly as she poured Mrs. Potter some tea. "Or out into the garden."
"Let's go up to my room," Sirius said to the tousled-haired boy he'd only just met. "Regulus can't bother us there, the little baby."
"I'm not a baby!" Regulus shouted, toddling after them and falling backward when Sirius slammed the bedroom door shut in his face. "Let me in! Let me in!" Regulus cried, banging on the locked door with his fists. After a few minutes, he gave up and settled into a pout with his back to the hallway wall. He took his toy wand out of his pocket and shook it angrily whilst he waited for Sirius to re-emerge.
"Do you have any brothers or sisters?" Sirius asked James, digging his wizard trading cards out from under the bed.
"No. It's just me." James grabbed the card collection and started thumbing through it.
"You're lucky," Sirius said. "Little brothers are wankers."
James stopped looking at the cards and stared, wide-eyed, at Sirius. "You said a swear."
"I swear all the time," Sirius boasted. "Mum washes my mouth out with soap and everything, but I still swear. It's her who'll be sorry when I'm poisoned to death," He added defiantly. "What's your mum do when you're naughty?"
"Nothing." James shrugged. "Mum never gets cross with me. If she did, I could outrun her. I'm the fastest runner ever."
"She can't run fast, anyway," Sirius said. "She's old, isn't she? Is she a hundred?"
"No, ninety-seven." James turned one of the cards upside-down to read a caption. "Dad's a hundred."
"That's old, isn't it?"
"Not for wizards."
"It's old for parents."
James tossed the cards back to Sirius. "I've got all these."
"Have you got this one? It's the best." Sirius lifted up the card he'd been holding back, his most treasured possession. "Salazar Slytherin."
James squinted at the card Sirius held in his hand. "I can't see it all the way over there. Mum says I need specs."
"Here. Don't bend it." Sirius handed him the card. "What's your favourite colour?"
"Blue," James said casually as he scrutinised Slytherin's miniature portrait. "What's yours?"
"Black."
"Well," James scoffed. "That's pretty obvious."
"So?" Sirius was digging through his desk drawer for something else clever to show James. He knew he had a very neat cockroach he'd found dead in the pantry. It was almost as big as his thumb. There was also that nasty thing the cat had spit up.
"So," James said, flipping the card over and scanning the back. "Pick a colour you like, not just what everyone expects."
Sirius gave up on finding the cockroach. "Look at this," he said, trading the card for the hairball.
James made a face. "Where'd this come from?"
"Out of the cat."
"Really? That's cool," James held it reverently.
"Right then," said Sirius. "I have a new favourite colour. It's blue. Black is my second favourite."
"You can't pick blue," James objected. "That's mine."
"You own it?"
"No, but you just picked it because it was mine."
"Red, then."
"That's a girl colour," James blurted out.
"No, it isn't." Sirius suddenly felt very defensive.
"Yes, it is," said James, like a teacher giving a lesson. "Red, pink, and yellow are for girls."
Sirius racked his brain. "Purple."
"That's positively a girl colour," James laughed.
Sirius frowned. "I don't want to be your friend." He snatched back the hairball. "I don't like you anymore. You make things difficult."
"Oh, all right," James said. "You can have blue."
***
A Dementor swept past Sirius's cell door in Azkaban. He shivered in the dusty darkness. Something had them agitated; he could tell. Sirius gnawed on his breakfast and did his best to shake the memory of James out of his brain. Sirius had learned that the best way to avoid reliving his every worse moment was not to remember anything at all. It only worked so long.
He couldn't remember if the first time he met James had been a pleasant memory or not. He imagined it had once been happy but now, after everything that had happened, it had become nothing more than the mild beginning of a very bad nightmare.
The only recollection Sirius had left that still made him happy was the thought of Peter dead in a mishmash of Muggle corpses. It made his heart ache every time that he thought about it. It was his only comfort and he could feel the Dementors taking it away from him. He was determined to hold on to it, though, so he shifted his thoughts. 'I didn't even succeed in killing him myself,' he brooded. 'He just managed to blow himself up, the incompetent arse.' That was a good thought because there was no joy in it.
Some memories came back to Sirius at night, as he fell asleep. Dreams, almost, they glittered like the water of a lake at sundown -- glowing before it fades to black.
***
The summer afternoon that Sirius moved into James's house was very hot. He and James were sweating as they heaved his enormous trunk up the four flights of stairs to James's attic.
"Can't we just use a charm?" Sirius huffed as James pulled the chest up onto a small landing. He looked past James to find yet another flight of stairs.
"No magic outside of Hogwarts," James said. "You know that."
"Since when do you give a toss about the rules?"
"Mum's not been well. No need for us to add to her misery," James said breathlessly. He ran a hand through his dishevelled hair before grabbing the trunk by the handle on his side and charging up the stairs with renewed vigour, banging the large leather chest along behind himself. "Why's your trunk so heavy, anyway?" He shouted over the racket. "Honestly, you own more robes than anyone else I know."
"I like looking nice," Sirius said as he grabbed the second handle and stumbled up after James. "Just because you dress as if your mum picked out all of your clothes..."
"My mum does pick out all of my clothes," James interrupted.
"That's what I'm saying."
When they finally reached the attic, Sirius shoved the trunk into a corner, exhaled an exaggerated sigh of relief, and collapsed onto the bed pulling James down along with him. He planted a kiss on James's neck, enjoying the slick feel of his sweaty skin. It reminded him of getting off with James right after a Quidditch match before heading for the showers.
"Padfoot," James protested. "It's too hot for this sort of thing."
"Never too hot," Sirius growled. He reached up to stroke James's hair. "Why'd you put me in the attic, anyway? It must be the hottest room in the house."
"Come on, it's fun. Besides, my parents never come up here."
"Ah! So I have you all to myself." Sirius smiled wickedly. "No chance they'll catch me ravishing their precious little boy."
"Yeah." James sat there staring at him; an anxious look flickered in his eyes for one brief second. "They have no idea what sort of pervert they've invited to live here." With that, they began to laugh and tumbled around in the bed, half-wrestling, half-snogging. Clear, bright sunlight shone in through a tiny crescent-shaped window. James, sitting on top of him, glowed. Sirius thought it was going to be a glorious summer.
And it was.
James and his family lived in a country cottage situated in a valley that seemed a million miles from London and number twelve Grimmauld Place. They spent their afternoons practicing Quidditch in the garden or tromping through the surrounding hills, smoking cigarettes.
At the top of the highest hill, James would always point out his house. Everything was green upon green, the neighbouring cottages splashing white here and there like the crests of waves. And above it and them, a flat blue sky the colour of cornflowers.
One day, they got caught in a sudden summer storm. They just laughed and ran home as fast as they could, leaving little puddles of water in their wake as they charged straight up to the attic. Drenched, they stripped off their wet clothes, the room growing more humid with every layer they discarded. They lay like that on Sirius's bed, damp and pressed together.
"I want you so badly," Sirius whispered. "Every moment. Every chance. I need you, Prongs. Understand?"
"Yeah, yeah," James laughed softly. "I understand, Padfoot. You're a sad sod."
"But handsome," Sirius insisted.
"Too handsome," James sighed and pressed his lips against Sirius's damp shoulder.
Sirius was there when the owl arrived announcing that James was Head Boy. His parents had almost literally swelled with pride. James's mother, at least, seemed to grow more robust and round after hearing the news.
Some small part of Sirius resented James for the letter. He wished for something similar to throw in his parents' faces, some honour, some achievement that would prove to them that he was good person despite being a bad son. He wondered what, if anything, would have made a difference to them.
That evening, James and Sirius went to celebrate at the lone dance club in the nearby village. Sirius pulled off his shirt and danced violently until he was covered in a slick layer of sweat, his fringe plastered in little spikes across his forehead. Outside, in the buzz and flicker of a neon sign, he kissed James with abandon, flushed and enthused by the music and the crowd.
"Don't let the Muggles see you do that," James said, stiffening and looking around.
"I'm not scared of Muggles," Sirius said with a smile, his white teeth flashing strangely in the reddish light.
"Yeah," James said, stepping back. "But the last thing my parents need is trouble with the neighbours, what with Mum sick and all."
When he moved, James slipped out of the garish pool of light cast by the neon sign and disappeared into the darkness. It seemed to Sirius that from that point on, James was always pulling away from him.
***
In Azkaban, there was tea once a day. Bread in the morning, soup at night, and lukewarm tea in the afternoon. Other than that, all they ever had to drink was water and, once every Christmas, rum. Sirius imagined the rum was not a kindness, but a reminder that outside things like holidays were still going on whilst they rotted in their cells, forgotten by the world.
So it was quite a surprise when he began getting milk. It wasn't just delivered with the tea, but in the morning with his bread, too. At night, there was heartier soup. 'They're fattening us up,' thought Sirius. 'Whatever for? Maybe the Ministry has decided to feed us to the giants as a peace offering.' He giggled madly at that until he choked and gagged, spitting out all of his tea.
***
"And where are you and Miss Evans off to this evening?" Remus asked whilst James patted far too much aftershave onto his freshly shaved cheeks.
"Official Head Girl and Boy stuff, mate," James said with a wink.
"Ohh," Remus and Peter mocked simultaneously.
Their laughter echoed off the tiled walls of the Gryffindor bathroom as Sirius banged in from the dormitory. As he stood in the doorway, he took a moment to survey the scene. James was wearing his regular school robes but they were freshly pressed. His hair was carefully combed flat and he had just shaved which was something he still only had to do every two or three days and then usually only after several scathing looks from McGonagall.
"Oi, Prongs," Sirius said suspiciously. "Why are you getting so dressed up just to sneak into Hogsmeade and watch the locals play Quidditch?"
"Oh, I meant to tell you," James said, running a comb through his hair again for good measure. "Evans and I are going to the library tonight to study."
"Is that what they're calling it these days?" Remus smirked.
"I thought she preferred Snivellus to help her with her 'studying'," Peter teased.
James shot him a dark look. "Well, now she prefers me."
Sirius looked shocked. "What, Prongs? We've planned this for weeks. You've got money riding on the match."
"Lily just asked me earlier this evening at the Slug Club." James turned to face Sirius. "What was I supposed to say?"
"No."
"Go on with Peter and Remus." James was smiling but his voice was placating. "I'll trust you to collect my winnings."
"I don't want to go now." Sirius sniffed. "Everything's ruined."
Peter and Remus stiffened and James cast them an embarrassed look.
"Don't be a child, Sirius," James insisted, the smile fading from his face. "Go on."
"Peter and I are going, one way or another," Remus said resolutely.
Peter didn't look so sure but he nodded anyway.
Sirius ignored them and looked urgently at James. "You can study with her anytime."
"Merlin's beard, Sirius! I see you every minute of every day." James was almost shouting. "Give me some space, will you?"
Remus and Peter looked even more uncomfortable. "I'm going to go change out of my school robes," Remus said, heading for the door. "Come on, Peter."
Peter looked as if he'd rather stay and watch James and Sirius's row, but he turned and followed Remus obediently.
Once they were alone, James glared angrily at Sirius.
"Must you always embarrass yourself?" James asked in exasperation.
Sirius, who could never quite succeed in untangling anger from ardour, shoved James back against the small porcelain sink and kissed him, the strong odour of aftershave stinging his eyes and burning the insides of his nostrils.
When the kiss finally broke, James breathed heavily. "Lily and I," He panted. "We're together."
"So?" Sirius said, unbuttoning James's robe. He slipped his hand inside, sliding it up and down over the thin cotton fabric of James shirt, feeling the firm flesh and hard nipples beneath.
James sighed, almost as annoyed as he was aroused. "So maybe we shouldn't," He said, removing Sirius's hand.
"What's one got to do with the other?" Sirius said, ignoring James's rebuff and leaning in to kiss him again.
"Padfoot." James struggled to extricate himself from Sirius.
"Come on," Sirius pleaded. "It's been weeks."
James, giving up, grabbed Sirius's hair and, gripping tightly, kissed him fiercely.
"Once more and no more," James mumbled as he lifted Sirius's robes and tore at the fastenings of his trousers. Sirius pulled his robes the rest of the way off and his shirt soon followed. Before long, he stood naked to the waist with his trousers down to his knees and his cock in James's hands. James grabbed the bar of soap from the soap dish, still wet from washing his face and slid it from one hand to the other before tossing it back in the sink. With slick palms, James stroked Sirius with deliberate speed. They shifted positions until the backs of Sirius's thighs were pressed against the coldness of the sink.
James eyed the bathroom door nervously. It hadn't even occurred to Sirius that someone might blunder in, but the thought only briefly worried him. Remus would come through for them on that account. They told Remus nothing but he seemed to know all.
"Turn around," James said gently.
James wasted no time in sliding one soapy finger inside Sirius, who moaned with pleasure and relief. Sirius felt the same peaceful contentment he always felt when James took him. It made him feel safe. He needed that intimacy and stability. It felt as if it were the only thing that gave him reason to not run away.
Sirius started to whimper as James added a second finger, but was soon pleading for a third.
"Go on," Sirius grunted. "Do it. The whole thing."
James let out a huff of air and kissed the back of Sirius neck. Sirius could see James's face in the mirror; their eyes locked in the reflection.
James decided soap was not enough as he slipped his fingers out and grabbed his wand from his pocket. He mumbled some charms that sent shivers up Sirius's spine and then laid his wand down on the edge of the sink. James pushed against the back of Sirius's neck, urging him to bend further over. Sirius bent as low as he could, the top of his chest pressed against the sink, his face buried in his arms and his legs spread wide.
When everything was slick and well lubricated, James slowly started over, one finger, then a second. His every movement methodical. He got the fourth in without much difficulty, just a bit more twisting of his hand. He pulled out and pursing his fingers together into a beak-like shape, he pressed in with all five. Sirius felt the intrusion as small at first but rapidly widening. He gasped and a flash of panic made him clench.
"Relax, Padfoot," James whispered.
Sirius took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly as he pushed out, suddenly allowing James easy entry.
"Merlin," James cried, twisting his hand around whilst Sirius panted and groaned. He stretched his fingers as wide apart as he could before clenching them as much as possible into a fist. "Why won't you let me go?" James said forcefully before starting a slow, thorough fucking. He thrust his fist into Sirius, timidly at first, but soon brutally.
Sirius gasped and pushed back, undeterred. The harder James pushed, the more Sirius pleaded with both words and attitude.
"You look so desperate," James moaned. "So sexy. So hot. I can't stand it when you're like this, Padfoot." James shoved his fist in so hard Sirius had to bite his bottom lip to keep from screaming, but he couldn't prevent a moan from escaping between his sealed lips. It burnt and hurt and felt unbelievably pleasurable. When James's fingers bumped over his prostate, it sent jolts of pleasure through his body that made him jerk and twitch like a man electrocuted.
"Please, James. Please!" Sirius cried over and over, his words growing incoherent as he came without touching his cock.
Sirius stayed hunched over the sink, breathing heavily as James washed up in the next sink over. Finally, Sirius turned around and pulled up his trousers. Tears had left cold streaks down his burning cheeks. James straightened his glasses and did his best to smooth down his wild, dishevelled hair. His forehead was beaded with sweat. Sirius reached toward James's cock and found it hard beneath his robes.
"No," James said, pushing Sirius's hand away.
"Please," Sirius whispered in a dried out voice, never lifting his eyes to look at James. "Please," He said again with no idea what he was pleading for.
James stared into the mirror. "Sirius, I love you," He said. "But it's not enough."
***
Sirius paced his cell in the dark Azkaban night. He could only ever sleep fitfully in that place. Sirius longed for the warm contentment that he had felt every night that summer, when he had had James tucked up next to him. Nights at Azkaban were freezing and noisy, full of howling wind and the terrified screams of his fellow prisoners in the throes of nightmares.
The first week after he arrived, Sirius didn't sleep at all. He had been exhausted from fighting and suffering from the pain of an untended, fresh wound from an Auror's hex, but still he did not sleep. He spent that first week staring at the blood on the gash, watching as it slowly turned from red to rusty black.
***
James's mother died before he finished up at Hogwarts and his father didn't last much longer. Everyone said the loneliness was what had killed him.
At Mr. Potter's funeral, Sirius felt worse than he had at his own father's. He had been like a second son to the Potters and he, too, had thought of them as family. Sirius remembered James's dad fondly, a kind and ancient wizard whose eyes had twinkled brightly from behind thick spectacles. It was a common phenomenon among older wizards, eye twinkling. All that magic accumulating over the years tended to spill out through the eyes. Sirius couldn't imagine that his father's eyes would have ever done that, even if he had managed to live past fifty. He couldn't imagine any Black, really, looking so pleasant and carefree. He tried to remember if it had ever occurred in any of his older kin when Sirius suddenly realized that no one in his family had ever lived long enough for him to find out.
Whilst Sirius mulled this over, James sat on the sofa, his hands entwined in Lily's. Sirius watched them from across the room. They both looked pale, surrounded on all sides by sombre figures in dark robes. It was as if they were two small, white flowers overwhelmed by long shadows in late afternoon.
Tired of all the gloomy attentions, James let go of Lily's hand and stood up. "I'm going out to the garden with Sirius," He told her, grabbing a somewhat startled Sirius, on his way out the double glass doors.
"Don't let him make you smoke," Lily called after them.
"Right," James called back. However, the moment they were alone together in the garden, he turned to Sirius and mumbled, "Gimme a fag, will you? For the love of Godric."
"What?" Sirius exclaimed with mock alarm. "You're letting me make you smoke?"
"Don't mind Lily," James said, pulling a cigarette out of a packet he found in Sirius's robes and lighting it quickly with the tip of his wand. He inhaled deeply and blew out the smoke with a sigh. He cast a nervous glance at the house and then started walking further away and out of sight behind a hedge of rhododendrons.
"I make you smoke?" Sirius asked petulantly, lighting his own.
"It's just this Muggle thing called 'peer pressure' that Lily's always going on about," James said, visibly relaxing as they left the stress of public grieving behind.
"'Peer pressure'?"
"It's Muggle magic," James explained. "They can't do proper magic so it's done some other way using 'sokology', no 'psychic-cology'. I don't really know. It must be related to Divination."
"Psychology, mate," Sirius said, savouring the slight nicotine buzz that was rushing to his head.
"Yeah, that's it," James said, impressed. "How did you know that?"
"You're not the only one who dates Muggles," Sirius said, thinking about a particularly clingy blonde who had had many annoying theories about something he'd called Sirius's oedipal complex.
They smoked in silence for a few minutes until James, talking quickly, said, "Actually, I wanted to talk to you. Sirius, I wanted you to be the first to know before we announce it officially."
Sirius knew what James was going to say. He'd known it was coming for a long time.
"Lily and I... We're getting married," James said.
"Yeah." Sirius stood stock-still.
"Don't be..." James paused, looking uncomfortable.
"Don't be what?" Sirius burst out angrily. "Don't be fucking put out. Don't be fucking difficult? What the hell do you not want me not to be?"
"Please, Sirius," James said. "I couldn't bear to lose you as a friend."
"Argh!" Sirius screamed in frustration and put the cigarette out on his own arm, gasping at the pain of it.
"Oh, for Merlin's sake, Sirius," James shouted, flicking his wand to heal Sirius's arm instantly. "You're so fucking dramatic sometimes." James tossed his own cigarette to the ground and extinguished it angrily with his foot. "This is my father's funeral, you selfish arse."
"I'm fucked," Sirius cried. "I'm well and truly fucked." He buried his face in his hands.
"Sirius, come on," James said in his familiar placating voice. "What we had was fun, but it's not the basis for a family. Please, try to understand."
"Family above all else," Sirius parroted. It was a phrase he'd heard often growing up.
"Not every family comes out like yours," James said.
"What have I got?" Sirius asked. "I've no family at all. Your parents..." He broke off. Taking a deep breath, he began again. "You were my only family and now you're... you're abandoning me."
James shook his head. "Padfoot, I'll never abandon you. You're like a brother to me. You'll be best man at my wedding. We'll all be best friends, you, Lily, and me. You'll see." James smiled widely. "You could always start your own family, too, you know."
Sirius never thought he could have hated James more than he did at that exact moment.
***
A faint knocking on the cell wall resolved itself into a code Sirius had long ago learned without really trying. "Kill yourself already, Sirius. Your pacing is keeping me awake."
When they'd brought in his cousin, Bellatrix, Sirius had heard her screaming in the courtyard and had recognized her voice. Sirius rushed to get a look at her through his tiny cell window and a group of nearby Dementors yanked the joy out of him so quickly it snapped.
"What?" he'd actually shouted aloud, clenching his head. "Do you think I'm happy to see her?"
But he had been happy to see her, happy to see her in Azkaban, happy to see her suffer. It seemed strange that even vindictive happiness was delicious to them. They swallowed it up as hungrily as any other kind of joy. They were half-starved in Azkaban, the Dementors. That's what people didn't always understand. They loved the decay and despair, but happiness was their bread and butter and it ran out fast in that cold, windy place.
Sirius crawled toward the wall he shared with Bella's cell. He started knocking as well using a pattern of short and long taps. "I can't help it, Bella," he drummed in code. "It's your husband. He's letting the Dementors fuck him up the arse again. I get so frightened for him. He does seem to enjoy it though. Are you sure he's not bent?"
"You're not amusing in the least, cousin," Bellatrix tapped back. "I have important news. I'll tell it to you but you must pass it along to Rodolphus."
Sirius was never sure how much consciousness the Dementors had but they seemed to be creatures of pure instinct and have an insatiable hunger for pain. It had taken some pretty sadistic forethought to sandwich him in a cell between Bellatrix and Rodolphus. Neither could communicate with the other but both could vex him enough merely with their knocking until he passed their messages along. When they had nothing to say to each other or were just generally bored, they often killed time by tormenting Sirius with inane threats about what their Dark Lord would do once he was back in power. In Sirius's mind, it was the height of irony that the only two people alive who thought he was innocent of James and Lily's murders were his dreadful prison neighbours.
"I'm not your errand boy," Sirius tapped quickly.
"There's chocolate in it for you."
'It must be important news indeed,' thought Sirius. Bellatrix obviously thought there was no time to fight about it if she was resorting to bribery so quickly. Bellatrix still got packages from the outside, primarily from Narcissa. Sirius was surprised that Malfoy let his wife do anything that might cast a suspicious eye on him, but Blacks always put blood before marriage and were famously stubborn. Malfoy probably had no power to stop his wife from showing kindness to her sister. Letters and packages were allowed in Azkaban, but chocolate was strictly forbidden. Narcissa was apparently quite good at smuggling it in, hiding it with enchantments in the toe of a warm sock or buried within a stack of fashion magazines. Blacks were also famously crafty.
"Show me the chocolate first," Sirius tapped out slowly, slightly disbelieving.
A small, waxy chunk of candy appeared through a tiny chink in the wall. Sirius reached for it hungrily, but it disappeared immediately.
"What's the message?" Sirius knocked in as petulant a manner as possible.
"The Minister for Magic is coming."
***
"Kevin? Really?" James said sceptically. "Muggles have the oddest names."
"How about Gary?" Lily suggested, flipping through a book of baby names.
"Come on, that's a joke name... Right?" James looked slightly ill.
"All right," Lily sighed in defeat. "You pick the names and I'll shoot them down."
"Er," James thought hard for a moment. "Hortense."
"Bang," Lily said cocking her finger and thumb like a pistol.
"Hullo? James?" Sirius shouted, letting himself in the front door.
"Oi, Sirius," James called out. "We're in here."
Sirius walked from the small foyer into the lounge where Lily, her stomach large and round, was ensconced on the sofa. "What are you doing?" Sirius asked.
James was pacing the room. "Thinking up names," He said, reaching over to slap Sirius on the back in greeting.
"Names?" Sirius said in confusion. "For what? Oh, yeah. The baby," Sirius said in a flat voice. He sat down on the closest chair and stretched his long legs.
"What do you think?" James asked, sitting down opposite him.
"Dunno," Sirius said. "Longinus is all right."
"Bang, bang, bang, BANG!" exclaimed Lily, never lifting her eyes off the book.
"Why's your wife making exploding noises?" Sirius asked James, quite seriously.
"Long story," sighed James. "What's up?"
Sirius paused for a moment. "It's official," He said solemnly.
Lily looked up nervously.
"It's you or the Longbottoms," Sirius continued. "Albus says it's you."
"Why?" Lily asked, her voice rising slightly.
Sirius looked at her. "Just a hunch he has, but you know Albus's hunches..."
Lily placed a hand protectively on the top of her swollen belly.
James broke the silence that followed. "What's next then?"
"The Longbottoms have already gone underground," Sirius said, turning his attention to James. "Frank got his mother to act as Secret Keeper."
"Oh..." James paused before adding, "You."
"Are you sure?" Sirius asked.
"You," James repeated.
Sirius stared at him intently. "Lily has family..."
"No," Lily interrupted. "It would be out of the question even if they weren't Muggles."
"So it has to be Sirius," James said. "Right, Lily?"
"Er..." Lily looked nervously back and forth between James and Sirius.
"Lily," James said sharply.
Lily settled her gaze on Sirius. "Yes. Of course. Sirius should be our Secret Keeper," She said quietly. Sirius could see in her eyes and in the purse of her lips what she wasn't saying. 'Don't let us down.'
***
"Augh!"
Sirius woke from his nightmare and reached instinctively for the chocolate he had stashed under his mat. 'No,' he decided. 'It's better to save it.' He pulled his hand back and rubbed his temples. No light shone through the window of his cell, which meant that it was still a few hours before dawn. He sighed and stared up at the rusty pipes that ran along the ceiling, all of them crusted with needle-like stalactites of lime scale. If Bellatrix had been right, the Minister for Magic would arrive in the morning. Narcissa must have smuggled the information to her in the packages that she sent.
Sirius had delivered her message to Rodolphus and received nothing but a brusque acknowledgement for his troubles. He'd managed to doze off after that but was awake again with nothing to do but brood until sunrise
***
The day of the baptism was cool and sunny. Afterward, Sirius was standing in front of the church when Remus approached him. "Are they going into hiding?" Remus asked, stopping next to Sirius and squinting up at the doorway of the church. There, James and Lily were standing and chatting with the smiling vicar who held the squirming baby Harry in his arms.
"Soon," Sirius said, not looking at Remus, but watching the infant wave his fists in the air. Harry was dressed in a long white dress. His dark hair, thick for a baby, was still wet from his christening. The ceremony had been dull and the church stuffy and crowded. Sirius was relieved that it was over. Now to just get through the cake and tea and the constant cooing over the baby.
"I assume you're their Secret Keeper," Remus whispered.
"That'd be the obvious assumption," Sirius said thoughtfully.
"About that..." Remus hesitated.
"What, Moony?" Remus's nervousness had been bugging him all morning. Remus had tried to approach him several times and Sirius was tired of the hedging. "Spit it out!"
Remus's face showed some misgivings but he spoke plainly. "You're not still angry with James, you know, on some level? Or Lily?"
"Why should I be?" Sirius felt heat climbing the nape of his neck.
"I know James disappointed you at one time."
"You know that, do you?" Sirius snapped gruffly.
"I suspected," Remus said quickly. "I don't know. I just wouldn't want your resentment toward Lily to..." The words rushed out of his mouth before he abruptly stopped.
"You have no idea what the hell you're talking about," Sirius said sternly.
"I'm sorry." Remus shifted uncomfortably.
"Have you spoken to James about your concerns?" Sirius asked in the same gruff tone of voice.
"No," Remus responded honestly, uneasy but not cowed.
"If there were some reason to distrust me, wouldn't he know better than anyone else?" Sirius asked. "If he trusts me, why shouldn't you?"
Remus smiled ruefully. "James has a blind spot when it comes to you."
Sirius turned on him, enraged. "What about you?"
"What?" Remus looked surprised.
"Where do you go every month?" Sirius spit out accusingly.
Remus's eyes grew wide. "You know perfectly well."
"The shack? Is that the only place?" Sirius's voice was cold. "It seems awfully damn convenient."
"Padfoot, I'd never --" Remus stared at him in disbelief. "I'm sorry I said anything."
"Just keep your opinions to yourself," Sirius said as he walked away. His face changed suddenly into a joyful grin as he waved at James who was cheerfully beckoning him over.
Sirius left Remus looking stunned and bounded towards the church door to stand with James and the baby.
"Hold him, will you?" James asked, proffering Harry's small, bundled form toward his friend. "For the photos." Flashbulbs, magical and mundane, were popping off all around them.
"I held him in the church," Sirius said, glancing distastefully at the mewling, happy baby boy who smiled up at him with a mouth full of drool. "These are designer robes. All I need is for them to get covered in baby spew."
"Come on," James said, gently bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet the way people did whenever they held a baby in their arms. "It'll make Lily feel better."
Sirius looked over at Lily who was a little ways away talking to her sour looking relatives. She turned to frown at Sirius who looked away quickly. "You know I hate children," He said to James. "Why'd you do this?"
"You don't hate children," James said, smiling nervously and waving at Lily. "You're jealous of them, which, frankly, mate, is just sad."
Sirius ignored that comment and changed the subject. "Look," He said in an undertone. "I have something important to tell you. It's about the Fidelius..." James turned to look at him gravely. "I have an idea," Sirius continued. "I'll explain everything but you mustn't tell anyone, understand? You especially can't tell Moony."
"You can't think," James said in shock.
"Just don't."
***
Cornelius Fudge tried to conduct himself in a dignified manner as he inspected the prison, but his efforts were constantly undermined by his nervousness. He was twirling his lime-green bowler hat anxiously and it had a tendency to fly out of his hands every time a prisoner or Dementor startled him in some way. By the time he reached Sirius's cell, he'd settled on folding and unfolding his morning paper and keeping his hat firmly shoved down low on his head. He was surrounded by a gaggle of assistants and shadowed by a small contingent of Dementors.
"May I have that paper? If you're done?" Sirius said after Fudge finished peering in through the bars of his cell door and asking a few rudimentary questions which Sirius had answered politely if somewhat gruffly, his voice was rusty and unused. Something had caught Sirius's eye in the flashing black and white flourish of newsprint. Something that caused a strange, long forgotten sensation to stir inside his chest.
"Er. I don't see why not," Fudge said uncertainly. "Here you go." He handed the paper over, immediately jerking his hand away when Sirius grabbed the other end. Fudge hemmed awkwardly, wondering exactly how to bid goodbye to someone condemned to spend the rest of his life in prison. Finally, Fudge opted for saying nothing at all and moved forward. Sirius could hear his voice echoing down the dim, damp corridor. "Who next, then? What? Another Lestrange. Bellatrix Lestrange. Oh my, maybe we've seen enough."
Once he was alone, Sirius scanned the front page of the Daily Prophet. The letters swam a bit on the page. He hadn't seen a newspaper in years. There was a strange disorienting feeling of normality to holding one in his hands. He stared at the cheerful, waving family that beamed out from the large front-page photo. Yes, that was Arthur and Molly, of course, and that had to be their brood. Then, he saw what had first caught his eye. It was small, but so monumental in significance that it seemed to take up the whole page. There was one person in the picture who shouldn't be there. He pressed his nose against the newsprint to be sure.
It was him. No doubt about it.
"Headed to Hogwarts," Sirius mumbled aloud. He read the caption again. 'Best friend of Harry Potter'. "Hogwarts," Sirius repeated. He flipped rapidly through the pages of the newspaper before coming to a sudden stop. His heart caught in his throat. There was a photo of Harry along with the continuation of the article. Sirius stared, disbelieving at the picture. It was James. Well, he looked exactly like James, anyway. The boy in the photo blinked and swallowed and his every slight movement reminded Sirius of James. Sirius ran a finger along the child's grey cheek. The eyes were disconcerting. The picture was black and white so Sirius couldn't see their colour, but he knew the look in them, apprehensive, concerned. Conscientious. Yes, he knew whose eyes they were, but otherwise, it was James entirely. He felt his heart ache with the memory of James in his arms. Then Sirius did something quite unheard of in Azkaban. He smiled.
Instantly, a dozen Dementors were on him. Insane laughter was one thing and that happened all the time, but a smile, a true, sane, happy smile was quite another. They spun around him so fast they looked like nothing more than a grubby miasma. Sirius willed himself not to panic. They weren't psychic -- they just sensed the joy. They couldn't know his plan. It was the first time he'd had a plan since arriving at Azkaban. He had something now, didn't he? A purpose. It wasn't even that dramatic, it was just something to do, damn it. He smiled again.
A Dementor swirled up in front of him. He stared straight at it and let loose one loud, harsh laugh. If Dementors had faces, this Dementor would have looked shocked. It was clearly taken aback. There was an eerie screech followed by a chorus of shrieks as more Dementors floated into his cell. He tossed the paper to the ground, put his hands over his ears, lowered his head and thought of nothing. Eventually, they floated away and faded into the mist. He went to his mat and lied down. Pulling out his chocolate, he slipped it into his mouth and sucked it, feeling a warm contentment roll over him. He smiled slightly. James gave him this. James gave him this... this... Well, it was a second chance, wasn't it? A great, big, wonderful second chance.
The next morning dawned on Sirius's empty prison cell.
Pairing: James/Sirius
Rating: Hard R, possibly NC-17
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Warnings: Fisting. Agnst. Loose POV.
Summary: In Azkaban, Sirius tries not to remember James...
Thanks to summerborn and onewavebreaks for the beta. All errors and awkwardness are the result of my ignoring them.
"Sirius, take James up to your bedroom to play?" Mrs. Black said offhandedly as she poured Mrs. Potter some tea. "Or out into the garden."
"Let's go up to my room," Sirius said to the tousled-haired boy he'd only just met. "Regulus can't bother us there, the little baby."
"I'm not a baby!" Regulus shouted, toddling after them and falling backward when Sirius slammed the bedroom door shut in his face. "Let me in! Let me in!" Regulus cried, banging on the locked door with his fists. After a few minutes, he gave up and settled into a pout with his back to the hallway wall. He took his toy wand out of his pocket and shook it angrily whilst he waited for Sirius to re-emerge.
"Do you have any brothers or sisters?" Sirius asked James, digging his wizard trading cards out from under the bed.
"No. It's just me." James grabbed the card collection and started thumbing through it.
"You're lucky," Sirius said. "Little brothers are wankers."
James stopped looking at the cards and stared, wide-eyed, at Sirius. "You said a swear."
"I swear all the time," Sirius boasted. "Mum washes my mouth out with soap and everything, but I still swear. It's her who'll be sorry when I'm poisoned to death," He added defiantly. "What's your mum do when you're naughty?"
"Nothing." James shrugged. "Mum never gets cross with me. If she did, I could outrun her. I'm the fastest runner ever."
"She can't run fast, anyway," Sirius said. "She's old, isn't she? Is she a hundred?"
"No, ninety-seven." James turned one of the cards upside-down to read a caption. "Dad's a hundred."
"That's old, isn't it?"
"Not for wizards."
"It's old for parents."
James tossed the cards back to Sirius. "I've got all these."
"Have you got this one? It's the best." Sirius lifted up the card he'd been holding back, his most treasured possession. "Salazar Slytherin."
James squinted at the card Sirius held in his hand. "I can't see it all the way over there. Mum says I need specs."
"Here. Don't bend it." Sirius handed him the card. "What's your favourite colour?"
"Blue," James said casually as he scrutinised Slytherin's miniature portrait. "What's yours?"
"Black."
"Well," James scoffed. "That's pretty obvious."
"So?" Sirius was digging through his desk drawer for something else clever to show James. He knew he had a very neat cockroach he'd found dead in the pantry. It was almost as big as his thumb. There was also that nasty thing the cat had spit up.
"So," James said, flipping the card over and scanning the back. "Pick a colour you like, not just what everyone expects."
Sirius gave up on finding the cockroach. "Look at this," he said, trading the card for the hairball.
James made a face. "Where'd this come from?"
"Out of the cat."
"Really? That's cool," James held it reverently.
"Right then," said Sirius. "I have a new favourite colour. It's blue. Black is my second favourite."
"You can't pick blue," James objected. "That's mine."
"You own it?"
"No, but you just picked it because it was mine."
"Red, then."
"That's a girl colour," James blurted out.
"No, it isn't." Sirius suddenly felt very defensive.
"Yes, it is," said James, like a teacher giving a lesson. "Red, pink, and yellow are for girls."
Sirius racked his brain. "Purple."
"That's positively a girl colour," James laughed.
Sirius frowned. "I don't want to be your friend." He snatched back the hairball. "I don't like you anymore. You make things difficult."
"Oh, all right," James said. "You can have blue."
***
A Dementor swept past Sirius's cell door in Azkaban. He shivered in the dusty darkness. Something had them agitated; he could tell. Sirius gnawed on his breakfast and did his best to shake the memory of James out of his brain. Sirius had learned that the best way to avoid reliving his every worse moment was not to remember anything at all. It only worked so long.
He couldn't remember if the first time he met James had been a pleasant memory or not. He imagined it had once been happy but now, after everything that had happened, it had become nothing more than the mild beginning of a very bad nightmare.
The only recollection Sirius had left that still made him happy was the thought of Peter dead in a mishmash of Muggle corpses. It made his heart ache every time that he thought about it. It was his only comfort and he could feel the Dementors taking it away from him. He was determined to hold on to it, though, so he shifted his thoughts. 'I didn't even succeed in killing him myself,' he brooded. 'He just managed to blow himself up, the incompetent arse.' That was a good thought because there was no joy in it.
Some memories came back to Sirius at night, as he fell asleep. Dreams, almost, they glittered like the water of a lake at sundown -- glowing before it fades to black.
***
The summer afternoon that Sirius moved into James's house was very hot. He and James were sweating as they heaved his enormous trunk up the four flights of stairs to James's attic.
"Can't we just use a charm?" Sirius huffed as James pulled the chest up onto a small landing. He looked past James to find yet another flight of stairs.
"No magic outside of Hogwarts," James said. "You know that."
"Since when do you give a toss about the rules?"
"Mum's not been well. No need for us to add to her misery," James said breathlessly. He ran a hand through his dishevelled hair before grabbing the trunk by the handle on his side and charging up the stairs with renewed vigour, banging the large leather chest along behind himself. "Why's your trunk so heavy, anyway?" He shouted over the racket. "Honestly, you own more robes than anyone else I know."
"I like looking nice," Sirius said as he grabbed the second handle and stumbled up after James. "Just because you dress as if your mum picked out all of your clothes..."
"My mum does pick out all of my clothes," James interrupted.
"That's what I'm saying."
When they finally reached the attic, Sirius shoved the trunk into a corner, exhaled an exaggerated sigh of relief, and collapsed onto the bed pulling James down along with him. He planted a kiss on James's neck, enjoying the slick feel of his sweaty skin. It reminded him of getting off with James right after a Quidditch match before heading for the showers.
"Padfoot," James protested. "It's too hot for this sort of thing."
"Never too hot," Sirius growled. He reached up to stroke James's hair. "Why'd you put me in the attic, anyway? It must be the hottest room in the house."
"Come on, it's fun. Besides, my parents never come up here."
"Ah! So I have you all to myself." Sirius smiled wickedly. "No chance they'll catch me ravishing their precious little boy."
"Yeah." James sat there staring at him; an anxious look flickered in his eyes for one brief second. "They have no idea what sort of pervert they've invited to live here." With that, they began to laugh and tumbled around in the bed, half-wrestling, half-snogging. Clear, bright sunlight shone in through a tiny crescent-shaped window. James, sitting on top of him, glowed. Sirius thought it was going to be a glorious summer.
And it was.
James and his family lived in a country cottage situated in a valley that seemed a million miles from London and number twelve Grimmauld Place. They spent their afternoons practicing Quidditch in the garden or tromping through the surrounding hills, smoking cigarettes.
At the top of the highest hill, James would always point out his house. Everything was green upon green, the neighbouring cottages splashing white here and there like the crests of waves. And above it and them, a flat blue sky the colour of cornflowers.
One day, they got caught in a sudden summer storm. They just laughed and ran home as fast as they could, leaving little puddles of water in their wake as they charged straight up to the attic. Drenched, they stripped off their wet clothes, the room growing more humid with every layer they discarded. They lay like that on Sirius's bed, damp and pressed together.
"I want you so badly," Sirius whispered. "Every moment. Every chance. I need you, Prongs. Understand?"
"Yeah, yeah," James laughed softly. "I understand, Padfoot. You're a sad sod."
"But handsome," Sirius insisted.
"Too handsome," James sighed and pressed his lips against Sirius's damp shoulder.
Sirius was there when the owl arrived announcing that James was Head Boy. His parents had almost literally swelled with pride. James's mother, at least, seemed to grow more robust and round after hearing the news.
Some small part of Sirius resented James for the letter. He wished for something similar to throw in his parents' faces, some honour, some achievement that would prove to them that he was good person despite being a bad son. He wondered what, if anything, would have made a difference to them.
That evening, James and Sirius went to celebrate at the lone dance club in the nearby village. Sirius pulled off his shirt and danced violently until he was covered in a slick layer of sweat, his fringe plastered in little spikes across his forehead. Outside, in the buzz and flicker of a neon sign, he kissed James with abandon, flushed and enthused by the music and the crowd.
"Don't let the Muggles see you do that," James said, stiffening and looking around.
"I'm not scared of Muggles," Sirius said with a smile, his white teeth flashing strangely in the reddish light.
"Yeah," James said, stepping back. "But the last thing my parents need is trouble with the neighbours, what with Mum sick and all."
When he moved, James slipped out of the garish pool of light cast by the neon sign and disappeared into the darkness. It seemed to Sirius that from that point on, James was always pulling away from him.
***
In Azkaban, there was tea once a day. Bread in the morning, soup at night, and lukewarm tea in the afternoon. Other than that, all they ever had to drink was water and, once every Christmas, rum. Sirius imagined the rum was not a kindness, but a reminder that outside things like holidays were still going on whilst they rotted in their cells, forgotten by the world.
So it was quite a surprise when he began getting milk. It wasn't just delivered with the tea, but in the morning with his bread, too. At night, there was heartier soup. 'They're fattening us up,' thought Sirius. 'Whatever for? Maybe the Ministry has decided to feed us to the giants as a peace offering.' He giggled madly at that until he choked and gagged, spitting out all of his tea.
***
"And where are you and Miss Evans off to this evening?" Remus asked whilst James patted far too much aftershave onto his freshly shaved cheeks.
"Official Head Girl and Boy stuff, mate," James said with a wink.
"Ohh," Remus and Peter mocked simultaneously.
Their laughter echoed off the tiled walls of the Gryffindor bathroom as Sirius banged in from the dormitory. As he stood in the doorway, he took a moment to survey the scene. James was wearing his regular school robes but they were freshly pressed. His hair was carefully combed flat and he had just shaved which was something he still only had to do every two or three days and then usually only after several scathing looks from McGonagall.
"Oi, Prongs," Sirius said suspiciously. "Why are you getting so dressed up just to sneak into Hogsmeade and watch the locals play Quidditch?"
"Oh, I meant to tell you," James said, running a comb through his hair again for good measure. "Evans and I are going to the library tonight to study."
"Is that what they're calling it these days?" Remus smirked.
"I thought she preferred Snivellus to help her with her 'studying'," Peter teased.
James shot him a dark look. "Well, now she prefers me."
Sirius looked shocked. "What, Prongs? We've planned this for weeks. You've got money riding on the match."
"Lily just asked me earlier this evening at the Slug Club." James turned to face Sirius. "What was I supposed to say?"
"No."
"Go on with Peter and Remus." James was smiling but his voice was placating. "I'll trust you to collect my winnings."
"I don't want to go now." Sirius sniffed. "Everything's ruined."
Peter and Remus stiffened and James cast them an embarrassed look.
"Don't be a child, Sirius," James insisted, the smile fading from his face. "Go on."
"Peter and I are going, one way or another," Remus said resolutely.
Peter didn't look so sure but he nodded anyway.
Sirius ignored them and looked urgently at James. "You can study with her anytime."
"Merlin's beard, Sirius! I see you every minute of every day." James was almost shouting. "Give me some space, will you?"
Remus and Peter looked even more uncomfortable. "I'm going to go change out of my school robes," Remus said, heading for the door. "Come on, Peter."
Peter looked as if he'd rather stay and watch James and Sirius's row, but he turned and followed Remus obediently.
Once they were alone, James glared angrily at Sirius.
"Must you always embarrass yourself?" James asked in exasperation.
Sirius, who could never quite succeed in untangling anger from ardour, shoved James back against the small porcelain sink and kissed him, the strong odour of aftershave stinging his eyes and burning the insides of his nostrils.
When the kiss finally broke, James breathed heavily. "Lily and I," He panted. "We're together."
"So?" Sirius said, unbuttoning James's robe. He slipped his hand inside, sliding it up and down over the thin cotton fabric of James shirt, feeling the firm flesh and hard nipples beneath.
James sighed, almost as annoyed as he was aroused. "So maybe we shouldn't," He said, removing Sirius's hand.
"What's one got to do with the other?" Sirius said, ignoring James's rebuff and leaning in to kiss him again.
"Padfoot." James struggled to extricate himself from Sirius.
"Come on," Sirius pleaded. "It's been weeks."
James, giving up, grabbed Sirius's hair and, gripping tightly, kissed him fiercely.
"Once more and no more," James mumbled as he lifted Sirius's robes and tore at the fastenings of his trousers. Sirius pulled his robes the rest of the way off and his shirt soon followed. Before long, he stood naked to the waist with his trousers down to his knees and his cock in James's hands. James grabbed the bar of soap from the soap dish, still wet from washing his face and slid it from one hand to the other before tossing it back in the sink. With slick palms, James stroked Sirius with deliberate speed. They shifted positions until the backs of Sirius's thighs were pressed against the coldness of the sink.
James eyed the bathroom door nervously. It hadn't even occurred to Sirius that someone might blunder in, but the thought only briefly worried him. Remus would come through for them on that account. They told Remus nothing but he seemed to know all.
"Turn around," James said gently.
James wasted no time in sliding one soapy finger inside Sirius, who moaned with pleasure and relief. Sirius felt the same peaceful contentment he always felt when James took him. It made him feel safe. He needed that intimacy and stability. It felt as if it were the only thing that gave him reason to not run away.
Sirius started to whimper as James added a second finger, but was soon pleading for a third.
"Go on," Sirius grunted. "Do it. The whole thing."
James let out a huff of air and kissed the back of Sirius neck. Sirius could see James's face in the mirror; their eyes locked in the reflection.
James decided soap was not enough as he slipped his fingers out and grabbed his wand from his pocket. He mumbled some charms that sent shivers up Sirius's spine and then laid his wand down on the edge of the sink. James pushed against the back of Sirius's neck, urging him to bend further over. Sirius bent as low as he could, the top of his chest pressed against the sink, his face buried in his arms and his legs spread wide.
When everything was slick and well lubricated, James slowly started over, one finger, then a second. His every movement methodical. He got the fourth in without much difficulty, just a bit more twisting of his hand. He pulled out and pursing his fingers together into a beak-like shape, he pressed in with all five. Sirius felt the intrusion as small at first but rapidly widening. He gasped and a flash of panic made him clench.
"Relax, Padfoot," James whispered.
Sirius took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly as he pushed out, suddenly allowing James easy entry.
"Merlin," James cried, twisting his hand around whilst Sirius panted and groaned. He stretched his fingers as wide apart as he could before clenching them as much as possible into a fist. "Why won't you let me go?" James said forcefully before starting a slow, thorough fucking. He thrust his fist into Sirius, timidly at first, but soon brutally.
Sirius gasped and pushed back, undeterred. The harder James pushed, the more Sirius pleaded with both words and attitude.
"You look so desperate," James moaned. "So sexy. So hot. I can't stand it when you're like this, Padfoot." James shoved his fist in so hard Sirius had to bite his bottom lip to keep from screaming, but he couldn't prevent a moan from escaping between his sealed lips. It burnt and hurt and felt unbelievably pleasurable. When James's fingers bumped over his prostate, it sent jolts of pleasure through his body that made him jerk and twitch like a man electrocuted.
"Please, James. Please!" Sirius cried over and over, his words growing incoherent as he came without touching his cock.
Sirius stayed hunched over the sink, breathing heavily as James washed up in the next sink over. Finally, Sirius turned around and pulled up his trousers. Tears had left cold streaks down his burning cheeks. James straightened his glasses and did his best to smooth down his wild, dishevelled hair. His forehead was beaded with sweat. Sirius reached toward James's cock and found it hard beneath his robes.
"No," James said, pushing Sirius's hand away.
"Please," Sirius whispered in a dried out voice, never lifting his eyes to look at James. "Please," He said again with no idea what he was pleading for.
James stared into the mirror. "Sirius, I love you," He said. "But it's not enough."
***
Sirius paced his cell in the dark Azkaban night. He could only ever sleep fitfully in that place. Sirius longed for the warm contentment that he had felt every night that summer, when he had had James tucked up next to him. Nights at Azkaban were freezing and noisy, full of howling wind and the terrified screams of his fellow prisoners in the throes of nightmares.
The first week after he arrived, Sirius didn't sleep at all. He had been exhausted from fighting and suffering from the pain of an untended, fresh wound from an Auror's hex, but still he did not sleep. He spent that first week staring at the blood on the gash, watching as it slowly turned from red to rusty black.
***
James's mother died before he finished up at Hogwarts and his father didn't last much longer. Everyone said the loneliness was what had killed him.
At Mr. Potter's funeral, Sirius felt worse than he had at his own father's. He had been like a second son to the Potters and he, too, had thought of them as family. Sirius remembered James's dad fondly, a kind and ancient wizard whose eyes had twinkled brightly from behind thick spectacles. It was a common phenomenon among older wizards, eye twinkling. All that magic accumulating over the years tended to spill out through the eyes. Sirius couldn't imagine that his father's eyes would have ever done that, even if he had managed to live past fifty. He couldn't imagine any Black, really, looking so pleasant and carefree. He tried to remember if it had ever occurred in any of his older kin when Sirius suddenly realized that no one in his family had ever lived long enough for him to find out.
Whilst Sirius mulled this over, James sat on the sofa, his hands entwined in Lily's. Sirius watched them from across the room. They both looked pale, surrounded on all sides by sombre figures in dark robes. It was as if they were two small, white flowers overwhelmed by long shadows in late afternoon.
Tired of all the gloomy attentions, James let go of Lily's hand and stood up. "I'm going out to the garden with Sirius," He told her, grabbing a somewhat startled Sirius, on his way out the double glass doors.
"Don't let him make you smoke," Lily called after them.
"Right," James called back. However, the moment they were alone together in the garden, he turned to Sirius and mumbled, "Gimme a fag, will you? For the love of Godric."
"What?" Sirius exclaimed with mock alarm. "You're letting me make you smoke?"
"Don't mind Lily," James said, pulling a cigarette out of a packet he found in Sirius's robes and lighting it quickly with the tip of his wand. He inhaled deeply and blew out the smoke with a sigh. He cast a nervous glance at the house and then started walking further away and out of sight behind a hedge of rhododendrons.
"I make you smoke?" Sirius asked petulantly, lighting his own.
"It's just this Muggle thing called 'peer pressure' that Lily's always going on about," James said, visibly relaxing as they left the stress of public grieving behind.
"'Peer pressure'?"
"It's Muggle magic," James explained. "They can't do proper magic so it's done some other way using 'sokology', no 'psychic-cology'. I don't really know. It must be related to Divination."
"Psychology, mate," Sirius said, savouring the slight nicotine buzz that was rushing to his head.
"Yeah, that's it," James said, impressed. "How did you know that?"
"You're not the only one who dates Muggles," Sirius said, thinking about a particularly clingy blonde who had had many annoying theories about something he'd called Sirius's oedipal complex.
They smoked in silence for a few minutes until James, talking quickly, said, "Actually, I wanted to talk to you. Sirius, I wanted you to be the first to know before we announce it officially."
Sirius knew what James was going to say. He'd known it was coming for a long time.
"Lily and I... We're getting married," James said.
"Yeah." Sirius stood stock-still.
"Don't be..." James paused, looking uncomfortable.
"Don't be what?" Sirius burst out angrily. "Don't be fucking put out. Don't be fucking difficult? What the hell do you not want me not to be?"
"Please, Sirius," James said. "I couldn't bear to lose you as a friend."
"Argh!" Sirius screamed in frustration and put the cigarette out on his own arm, gasping at the pain of it.
"Oh, for Merlin's sake, Sirius," James shouted, flicking his wand to heal Sirius's arm instantly. "You're so fucking dramatic sometimes." James tossed his own cigarette to the ground and extinguished it angrily with his foot. "This is my father's funeral, you selfish arse."
"I'm fucked," Sirius cried. "I'm well and truly fucked." He buried his face in his hands.
"Sirius, come on," James said in his familiar placating voice. "What we had was fun, but it's not the basis for a family. Please, try to understand."
"Family above all else," Sirius parroted. It was a phrase he'd heard often growing up.
"Not every family comes out like yours," James said.
"What have I got?" Sirius asked. "I've no family at all. Your parents..." He broke off. Taking a deep breath, he began again. "You were my only family and now you're... you're abandoning me."
James shook his head. "Padfoot, I'll never abandon you. You're like a brother to me. You'll be best man at my wedding. We'll all be best friends, you, Lily, and me. You'll see." James smiled widely. "You could always start your own family, too, you know."
Sirius never thought he could have hated James more than he did at that exact moment.
***
A faint knocking on the cell wall resolved itself into a code Sirius had long ago learned without really trying. "Kill yourself already, Sirius. Your pacing is keeping me awake."
When they'd brought in his cousin, Bellatrix, Sirius had heard her screaming in the courtyard and had recognized her voice. Sirius rushed to get a look at her through his tiny cell window and a group of nearby Dementors yanked the joy out of him so quickly it snapped.
"What?" he'd actually shouted aloud, clenching his head. "Do you think I'm happy to see her?"
But he had been happy to see her, happy to see her in Azkaban, happy to see her suffer. It seemed strange that even vindictive happiness was delicious to them. They swallowed it up as hungrily as any other kind of joy. They were half-starved in Azkaban, the Dementors. That's what people didn't always understand. They loved the decay and despair, but happiness was their bread and butter and it ran out fast in that cold, windy place.
Sirius crawled toward the wall he shared with Bella's cell. He started knocking as well using a pattern of short and long taps. "I can't help it, Bella," he drummed in code. "It's your husband. He's letting the Dementors fuck him up the arse again. I get so frightened for him. He does seem to enjoy it though. Are you sure he's not bent?"
"You're not amusing in the least, cousin," Bellatrix tapped back. "I have important news. I'll tell it to you but you must pass it along to Rodolphus."
Sirius was never sure how much consciousness the Dementors had but they seemed to be creatures of pure instinct and have an insatiable hunger for pain. It had taken some pretty sadistic forethought to sandwich him in a cell between Bellatrix and Rodolphus. Neither could communicate with the other but both could vex him enough merely with their knocking until he passed their messages along. When they had nothing to say to each other or were just generally bored, they often killed time by tormenting Sirius with inane threats about what their Dark Lord would do once he was back in power. In Sirius's mind, it was the height of irony that the only two people alive who thought he was innocent of James and Lily's murders were his dreadful prison neighbours.
"I'm not your errand boy," Sirius tapped quickly.
"There's chocolate in it for you."
'It must be important news indeed,' thought Sirius. Bellatrix obviously thought there was no time to fight about it if she was resorting to bribery so quickly. Bellatrix still got packages from the outside, primarily from Narcissa. Sirius was surprised that Malfoy let his wife do anything that might cast a suspicious eye on him, but Blacks always put blood before marriage and were famously stubborn. Malfoy probably had no power to stop his wife from showing kindness to her sister. Letters and packages were allowed in Azkaban, but chocolate was strictly forbidden. Narcissa was apparently quite good at smuggling it in, hiding it with enchantments in the toe of a warm sock or buried within a stack of fashion magazines. Blacks were also famously crafty.
"Show me the chocolate first," Sirius tapped out slowly, slightly disbelieving.
A small, waxy chunk of candy appeared through a tiny chink in the wall. Sirius reached for it hungrily, but it disappeared immediately.
"What's the message?" Sirius knocked in as petulant a manner as possible.
"The Minister for Magic is coming."
***
"Kevin? Really?" James said sceptically. "Muggles have the oddest names."
"How about Gary?" Lily suggested, flipping through a book of baby names.
"Come on, that's a joke name... Right?" James looked slightly ill.
"All right," Lily sighed in defeat. "You pick the names and I'll shoot them down."
"Er," James thought hard for a moment. "Hortense."
"Bang," Lily said cocking her finger and thumb like a pistol.
"Hullo? James?" Sirius shouted, letting himself in the front door.
"Oi, Sirius," James called out. "We're in here."
Sirius walked from the small foyer into the lounge where Lily, her stomach large and round, was ensconced on the sofa. "What are you doing?" Sirius asked.
James was pacing the room. "Thinking up names," He said, reaching over to slap Sirius on the back in greeting.
"Names?" Sirius said in confusion. "For what? Oh, yeah. The baby," Sirius said in a flat voice. He sat down on the closest chair and stretched his long legs.
"What do you think?" James asked, sitting down opposite him.
"Dunno," Sirius said. "Longinus is all right."
"Bang, bang, bang, BANG!" exclaimed Lily, never lifting her eyes off the book.
"Why's your wife making exploding noises?" Sirius asked James, quite seriously.
"Long story," sighed James. "What's up?"
Sirius paused for a moment. "It's official," He said solemnly.
Lily looked up nervously.
"It's you or the Longbottoms," Sirius continued. "Albus says it's you."
"Why?" Lily asked, her voice rising slightly.
Sirius looked at her. "Just a hunch he has, but you know Albus's hunches..."
Lily placed a hand protectively on the top of her swollen belly.
James broke the silence that followed. "What's next then?"
"The Longbottoms have already gone underground," Sirius said, turning his attention to James. "Frank got his mother to act as Secret Keeper."
"Oh..." James paused before adding, "You."
"Are you sure?" Sirius asked.
"You," James repeated.
Sirius stared at him intently. "Lily has family..."
"No," Lily interrupted. "It would be out of the question even if they weren't Muggles."
"So it has to be Sirius," James said. "Right, Lily?"
"Er..." Lily looked nervously back and forth between James and Sirius.
"Lily," James said sharply.
Lily settled her gaze on Sirius. "Yes. Of course. Sirius should be our Secret Keeper," She said quietly. Sirius could see in her eyes and in the purse of her lips what she wasn't saying. 'Don't let us down.'
***
"Augh!"
Sirius woke from his nightmare and reached instinctively for the chocolate he had stashed under his mat. 'No,' he decided. 'It's better to save it.' He pulled his hand back and rubbed his temples. No light shone through the window of his cell, which meant that it was still a few hours before dawn. He sighed and stared up at the rusty pipes that ran along the ceiling, all of them crusted with needle-like stalactites of lime scale. If Bellatrix had been right, the Minister for Magic would arrive in the morning. Narcissa must have smuggled the information to her in the packages that she sent.
Sirius had delivered her message to Rodolphus and received nothing but a brusque acknowledgement for his troubles. He'd managed to doze off after that but was awake again with nothing to do but brood until sunrise
***
The day of the baptism was cool and sunny. Afterward, Sirius was standing in front of the church when Remus approached him. "Are they going into hiding?" Remus asked, stopping next to Sirius and squinting up at the doorway of the church. There, James and Lily were standing and chatting with the smiling vicar who held the squirming baby Harry in his arms.
"Soon," Sirius said, not looking at Remus, but watching the infant wave his fists in the air. Harry was dressed in a long white dress. His dark hair, thick for a baby, was still wet from his christening. The ceremony had been dull and the church stuffy and crowded. Sirius was relieved that it was over. Now to just get through the cake and tea and the constant cooing over the baby.
"I assume you're their Secret Keeper," Remus whispered.
"That'd be the obvious assumption," Sirius said thoughtfully.
"About that..." Remus hesitated.
"What, Moony?" Remus's nervousness had been bugging him all morning. Remus had tried to approach him several times and Sirius was tired of the hedging. "Spit it out!"
Remus's face showed some misgivings but he spoke plainly. "You're not still angry with James, you know, on some level? Or Lily?"
"Why should I be?" Sirius felt heat climbing the nape of his neck.
"I know James disappointed you at one time."
"You know that, do you?" Sirius snapped gruffly.
"I suspected," Remus said quickly. "I don't know. I just wouldn't want your resentment toward Lily to..." The words rushed out of his mouth before he abruptly stopped.
"You have no idea what the hell you're talking about," Sirius said sternly.
"I'm sorry." Remus shifted uncomfortably.
"Have you spoken to James about your concerns?" Sirius asked in the same gruff tone of voice.
"No," Remus responded honestly, uneasy but not cowed.
"If there were some reason to distrust me, wouldn't he know better than anyone else?" Sirius asked. "If he trusts me, why shouldn't you?"
Remus smiled ruefully. "James has a blind spot when it comes to you."
Sirius turned on him, enraged. "What about you?"
"What?" Remus looked surprised.
"Where do you go every month?" Sirius spit out accusingly.
Remus's eyes grew wide. "You know perfectly well."
"The shack? Is that the only place?" Sirius's voice was cold. "It seems awfully damn convenient."
"Padfoot, I'd never --" Remus stared at him in disbelief. "I'm sorry I said anything."
"Just keep your opinions to yourself," Sirius said as he walked away. His face changed suddenly into a joyful grin as he waved at James who was cheerfully beckoning him over.
Sirius left Remus looking stunned and bounded towards the church door to stand with James and the baby.
"Hold him, will you?" James asked, proffering Harry's small, bundled form toward his friend. "For the photos." Flashbulbs, magical and mundane, were popping off all around them.
"I held him in the church," Sirius said, glancing distastefully at the mewling, happy baby boy who smiled up at him with a mouth full of drool. "These are designer robes. All I need is for them to get covered in baby spew."
"Come on," James said, gently bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet the way people did whenever they held a baby in their arms. "It'll make Lily feel better."
Sirius looked over at Lily who was a little ways away talking to her sour looking relatives. She turned to frown at Sirius who looked away quickly. "You know I hate children," He said to James. "Why'd you do this?"
"You don't hate children," James said, smiling nervously and waving at Lily. "You're jealous of them, which, frankly, mate, is just sad."
Sirius ignored that comment and changed the subject. "Look," He said in an undertone. "I have something important to tell you. It's about the Fidelius..." James turned to look at him gravely. "I have an idea," Sirius continued. "I'll explain everything but you mustn't tell anyone, understand? You especially can't tell Moony."
"You can't think," James said in shock.
"Just don't."
***
Cornelius Fudge tried to conduct himself in a dignified manner as he inspected the prison, but his efforts were constantly undermined by his nervousness. He was twirling his lime-green bowler hat anxiously and it had a tendency to fly out of his hands every time a prisoner or Dementor startled him in some way. By the time he reached Sirius's cell, he'd settled on folding and unfolding his morning paper and keeping his hat firmly shoved down low on his head. He was surrounded by a gaggle of assistants and shadowed by a small contingent of Dementors.
"May I have that paper? If you're done?" Sirius said after Fudge finished peering in through the bars of his cell door and asking a few rudimentary questions which Sirius had answered politely if somewhat gruffly, his voice was rusty and unused. Something had caught Sirius's eye in the flashing black and white flourish of newsprint. Something that caused a strange, long forgotten sensation to stir inside his chest.
"Er. I don't see why not," Fudge said uncertainly. "Here you go." He handed the paper over, immediately jerking his hand away when Sirius grabbed the other end. Fudge hemmed awkwardly, wondering exactly how to bid goodbye to someone condemned to spend the rest of his life in prison. Finally, Fudge opted for saying nothing at all and moved forward. Sirius could hear his voice echoing down the dim, damp corridor. "Who next, then? What? Another Lestrange. Bellatrix Lestrange. Oh my, maybe we've seen enough."
Once he was alone, Sirius scanned the front page of the Daily Prophet. The letters swam a bit on the page. He hadn't seen a newspaper in years. There was a strange disorienting feeling of normality to holding one in his hands. He stared at the cheerful, waving family that beamed out from the large front-page photo. Yes, that was Arthur and Molly, of course, and that had to be their brood. Then, he saw what had first caught his eye. It was small, but so monumental in significance that it seemed to take up the whole page. There was one person in the picture who shouldn't be there. He pressed his nose against the newsprint to be sure.
It was him. No doubt about it.
"Headed to Hogwarts," Sirius mumbled aloud. He read the caption again. 'Best friend of Harry Potter'. "Hogwarts," Sirius repeated. He flipped rapidly through the pages of the newspaper before coming to a sudden stop. His heart caught in his throat. There was a photo of Harry along with the continuation of the article. Sirius stared, disbelieving at the picture. It was James. Well, he looked exactly like James, anyway. The boy in the photo blinked and swallowed and his every slight movement reminded Sirius of James. Sirius ran a finger along the child's grey cheek. The eyes were disconcerting. The picture was black and white so Sirius couldn't see their colour, but he knew the look in them, apprehensive, concerned. Conscientious. Yes, he knew whose eyes they were, but otherwise, it was James entirely. He felt his heart ache with the memory of James in his arms. Then Sirius did something quite unheard of in Azkaban. He smiled.
Instantly, a dozen Dementors were on him. Insane laughter was one thing and that happened all the time, but a smile, a true, sane, happy smile was quite another. They spun around him so fast they looked like nothing more than a grubby miasma. Sirius willed himself not to panic. They weren't psychic -- they just sensed the joy. They couldn't know his plan. It was the first time he'd had a plan since arriving at Azkaban. He had something now, didn't he? A purpose. It wasn't even that dramatic, it was just something to do, damn it. He smiled again.
A Dementor swirled up in front of him. He stared straight at it and let loose one loud, harsh laugh. If Dementors had faces, this Dementor would have looked shocked. It was clearly taken aback. There was an eerie screech followed by a chorus of shrieks as more Dementors floated into his cell. He tossed the paper to the ground, put his hands over his ears, lowered his head and thought of nothing. Eventually, they floated away and faded into the mist. He went to his mat and lied down. Pulling out his chocolate, he slipped it into his mouth and sucked it, feeling a warm contentment roll over him. He smiled slightly. James gave him this. James gave him this... this... Well, it was a second chance, wasn't it? A great, big, wonderful second chance.
The next morning dawned on Sirius's empty prison cell.