Fic: If I Never (Remus/Bellatrix)
Title: If I Never
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Remus/Bellatrix, a hint of Sirius/Bellatrix
Notes: For teawithvoldy's Crimson Green. ‘Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath’ is from Keats’ Bright Star. And yes, the tomato stuff is true.
Summary: Remus never takes dares.
Let every eye negotiate for itself
And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
Against whose charms faith melteth in blood.
- Shakespeare
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. It wasn’t supposed to happen at all, but Remus knows that’s still no excuse for him daring to - god forbid - want someone, to put himself ahead of everyone else and not care.
She’s Sirius’s cousin, for Circe’s sake. That alone ought to have warned him off, ought to have sent him running in the opposite direction. The Blacks are dangerous. Everyone knows that. Dangerous to trust, dangerous to lie to, even more dangerous to want. And Remus knows, somehow, that it’s dangerous to let Bellatrix Black know that he wants her because what she would do with that knowledge - how she would use it - scares him.
But he does. Want her. So badly, sometimes, that he can’t sleep, all because of those lips and hair and pretty white skin so perfect he doubts she’s ever had a blemish in her life. It’s humiliating, really, because the shadow on her forearm and the already half-mad glint in her eyes hint at things beyond his understanding, things far more important than restless nights and waking up in tangled sheets that stink of sweat and things the house-elves are far too discreet to mention when they take up the laundry.
But god, she’s got such a pretty smile.
It’s hard to keep secrets like these, the kind that make themselves noticeable, especially when sharing a room with three other boys. James has a habit of waking up in the middle of the night and asking groggily - Moony - you alright? What’s that noise? - with Remus trying to catch his breath, saying that he’s fine, sorry for waking him up, but he’s fine, it was just a dream. And James grunts and disappears under his blankets, leaving Remus alone with nothing but the image of hair spilling like ink over white shoulders, the confusing curve of hip and breast that is so different from his own body.
Looking at her is looking at the sun exploding.
You couldn’t call Bellatrix pretty, because she isn’t; she’s beautiful, achingly beautiful, so intimidatingly perfect that even sullen, cold Severus Snape sneaks wistful looks at her. It’s relieving, at least, to know that he’s not the only one yearning for something so unattainable.
What’s truly horrible is that she wouldn't give him a second glance even if he was pureblood and a Slytherin, that he knows he hasn't got a chance with her. Not for lack of trying, of course; Christmas of fourth year attests to that, the year he found her the perfect gift but couldn’t afford to buy her anything other than a small, nondescript green plant, an unremarkable thing the shopkeeper thrust into his hands with a whisper that the French called it the ‘apple of love’ and the Germans ‘the apple of paradise.’ It hadn’t looked anything like an apple and if Remus had had half a mind, he’d’ve asked the shopkeeper what the British called it. But he hadn’t, and he bought it and left it anonymously for Bellatrix and went to sleep that night dreaming of a Black Christmas.
The next morning, all the Slytherins were laughing over the fucking tomato plant some idiot had left Bellatrix Black the night before.
He’d been nearly sick with humiliation, even though no one - he hoped - knew it had been him. He tried taking a truly nasty potion made from stinging nettles to forget the miserable self-pity knawing on his insides, but it didn’t work, so he wrote poetry instead - still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, and so live ever - like in the old Muggle films his mother used to show him, odd black-and-white parodies of men and women dying for love rather than living a life without.
Muggles don't know the first thing about love. They dream and romanticise it, sing songs and write books about it but wizards know how to use it, they exploit it as a form of tangible energy. Love is the most effective protective shield yet discovered and the most thorough method of destruction to date.
Love is such a valuable weapon that they even assign optional essays on its meaning for all the seventh years. James is the only one who does it, scribbling paragraph after paragraph of sprawling, jumbled nonsense, his hazel eyes alight with emotion that only unrequited love can bring. Remus doesn’t even try to read over his shoulder, because he knows James like the back of his own hand; James believes that love is the eclipsing of all but one person, until only one thing in the universe is lucid - love is written all over James’ face, imbedded in his eyes, dripping from the words that fall from his lips and the ink that curves and trembles underneath his quill.
Sirius lounges by the fireplace and makes disparaging remarks about silly romantic flights of fancy, how they ought to just get rid of Magical Theory, no one learns anything anyway and to hell with homework, there are Slytherins about to torment. The firelight plays across the fine bones of his face and Remus remembers why he’s never seen any pictures of Sirius’s family.
Remus doesn’t know what love is, and he thinks that he’ll probably choke to death on his own coldness and passivity before he ever finds out, but he does know that lust has nothing to do with forever and always and till death do us part. Lust is far more fleeting, he knows that; it’s nothing more than a quick wank in the bathroom between lessons, nothing more lasting than last night’s dream or this month’s copy of PlayWizard.
It’s nothing but another secret. And a badly-kept one at that, too, because there are days when Remus needs to tell someone, because it's something too big to keep inside of himself. Peter swears that he won’t say anything and yet Remus knows that he shouldn’t have told him, because Peter is a firm believer in taking chances. Because Peter’s curiosity in could-bes and what-ifs is bound to get Remus in trouble one of these days, and god only knows what Sirius would do if he ever found out.
But Sirius is too clever for his own good, who early-on filled them with stories all designed to warn them off Bellatrix, incoherent rants about bewitched house-elves and rampaging manticores, hexes whispered from around corners and waking up one day to find his you-know-what turned into an oh-my-god. Sirius may not like his family and he may not be like them, but he’s the most fiercely protective person that Remus has ever known and the curve of his voice when he says the name Bellatrix makes his message clear: stay away. Remus does. And somehow, in the process of pretending not to have hormones or Bellatrix's entire body mapped in his head, he somehow manages to make James think that he’s queer and even more, in love with Severus Snape.
For Circe’s sake. Of all the absurdity ever to come charging out of James' mouth, it had to be this. But he’s got better luck with Snape than he’s got with Bellatrix, who knows how good-looking she is and is all the more dangerous for it, and knows the effect she has on unwary seventeen year-old boys. It’s bad enough having Ancient Runes with her, an hour-and-a-half of staring at the gap of smooth skin between her stockings and the hem of her skirt, trying not to watch when her skirt rides too high on those perfect legs that the younger boys always wolf-whistle at.
If he’s lucky, she doesn’t notice when he stares but when she does catch him, the way her lips curl in a sneer always leaves his mouth dry and his fingers clutching at the edges of his desk, a strange sort of excitement fluttering in his belly as her half-lidded eyes slide down him to linger on frayed cuffs and tattered trousers, the pimple on his chin. He knows what she sees because it’s what he sees everyday in the mirror; a boy who is too pale, too tall, too quiet, too thin. Remus thinks that he’s too much of everything but mostly, he’s too much of not enough. He’s horrible with girls, he always will be and he knows it. It’s not that they don’t like him; in fact, he’s usually told - with an affectionate pat on the hand - that he’s much more bearable than the rest of the male population. That he’s so nice and thoughtful and helpful, and it’s obvious that he’s the mature one. So responsible, and such a good role model for the other students.
He finds himself unbearable.
It’s just that girls don’t notice him, at least not in the way they notice Sirius and James, who are insufferable and arrogant and sometimes cruel but have that certain something that Remus doesn’t have. And will never. He can’t quite understand it himself, but he’s gotten so used to being left in the background that it's become quite comfortable out of the spotlight. He likes to think that he’s better off for it. Cold showers are much simpler than having to deal with a living, breathing, temperamental teenage girl.
But sometimes it’s hard to remember the benefits of his right hand, especially on Thursday nights from nine to twelve when he has rounds with Bellatrix. He’s so busy remembering to breathe, so lost in the empty echo of her footsteps and the geometry of his heartbeat that it’s easy to forget that the glimmer on her forearm stands for so much more than simple pureblood supremacy.
There is a moment, an almost moment when he trips over a missing step in the staircase, accidentally pushing her against the wall and for one paralysing moment the entire length of her body is pressed against his. In that moment he’s breathing her breath, so close to her that he can see the glint of laughter in her silver eyes, can almost hear the unspoken I dare you that dances along the curve of her lips.
Her bare leg slides against his and he catches his breath, caught between a dream and reality, and almost misses the flicker of frustration on her face when she pushes him away. Sorry, he whispers, and it’s the most inconsequential thing he’s ever said.
She lifts her shoulder in a half-shrug and already, the moment has faded.
Remus never takes dares.
He follows her up the rest of the staircase, body aching with all the possibility that just passed. She turns only once to look at him, the cruel twist of her lips hurting more than he would have ever thought possible. They walk in silence to the library and the soft click when she unlocks the door reminds him of the bitterly sharp edge of her voice whenever she says Lupin.
He knows that she would prefer not to acknowledge his existence at all beyond rudimentary monosyllables, but she’s full of a glacial politeness, a cold, perpetual barrier of silent superiority that comes with being the epitome of pureblooded perfection, complete with arrogant, lazy smiles that make him feel like nothing but shoddy Irish trash. And he is. For Circe’s sake, he even walks shoddily - he slouches and sticks his hands in his pockets and always forgets to pick up his feet, even though his mother harangues him for it.
When Bellatrix walks all he can see is the slow swing of her hips, the flutter of hair again her collarbone and dots of light that seem to slide along the corners of her lips, the hollow at the base of her throat he’d like to kiss, the delicate bones of her wrist, the curve of her shoulder he wants to trace with his tongue.
He wants her to want him. And god, he wants her to like him, to turn around and notice him and realize that he’s following her, he always has.
This isn’t my fault. Something inside of him uncoils and he exhales, leaning against the wall for support. Bellatrix tilts her head and looks at him, and he can almost make himself believe that she’s been waiting for him all along. He can see his reflection in her eyes, the pale moonlight that catches the curve of her mouth, the high arch of her brow, her heavily-lidded silver eyes that meet his in a parody of desire as he pulls her to him to steal the breath from her half-parted lips.
And for one moment, the barrier between mind and body is gone.
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Remus/Bellatrix, a hint of Sirius/Bellatrix
Notes: For teawithvoldy's Crimson Green. ‘Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath’ is from Keats’ Bright Star. And yes, the tomato stuff is true.
Summary: Remus never takes dares.
Let every eye negotiate for itself
And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
Against whose charms faith melteth in blood.
- Shakespeare
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. It wasn’t supposed to happen at all, but Remus knows that’s still no excuse for him daring to - god forbid - want someone, to put himself ahead of everyone else and not care.
She’s Sirius’s cousin, for Circe’s sake. That alone ought to have warned him off, ought to have sent him running in the opposite direction. The Blacks are dangerous. Everyone knows that. Dangerous to trust, dangerous to lie to, even more dangerous to want. And Remus knows, somehow, that it’s dangerous to let Bellatrix Black know that he wants her because what she would do with that knowledge - how she would use it - scares him.
But he does. Want her. So badly, sometimes, that he can’t sleep, all because of those lips and hair and pretty white skin so perfect he doubts she’s ever had a blemish in her life. It’s humiliating, really, because the shadow on her forearm and the already half-mad glint in her eyes hint at things beyond his understanding, things far more important than restless nights and waking up in tangled sheets that stink of sweat and things the house-elves are far too discreet to mention when they take up the laundry.
But god, she’s got such a pretty smile.
It’s hard to keep secrets like these, the kind that make themselves noticeable, especially when sharing a room with three other boys. James has a habit of waking up in the middle of the night and asking groggily - Moony - you alright? What’s that noise? - with Remus trying to catch his breath, saying that he’s fine, sorry for waking him up, but he’s fine, it was just a dream. And James grunts and disappears under his blankets, leaving Remus alone with nothing but the image of hair spilling like ink over white shoulders, the confusing curve of hip and breast that is so different from his own body.
Looking at her is looking at the sun exploding.
You couldn’t call Bellatrix pretty, because she isn’t; she’s beautiful, achingly beautiful, so intimidatingly perfect that even sullen, cold Severus Snape sneaks wistful looks at her. It’s relieving, at least, to know that he’s not the only one yearning for something so unattainable.
What’s truly horrible is that she wouldn't give him a second glance even if he was pureblood and a Slytherin, that he knows he hasn't got a chance with her. Not for lack of trying, of course; Christmas of fourth year attests to that, the year he found her the perfect gift but couldn’t afford to buy her anything other than a small, nondescript green plant, an unremarkable thing the shopkeeper thrust into his hands with a whisper that the French called it the ‘apple of love’ and the Germans ‘the apple of paradise.’ It hadn’t looked anything like an apple and if Remus had had half a mind, he’d’ve asked the shopkeeper what the British called it. But he hadn’t, and he bought it and left it anonymously for Bellatrix and went to sleep that night dreaming of a Black Christmas.
The next morning, all the Slytherins were laughing over the fucking tomato plant some idiot had left Bellatrix Black the night before.
He’d been nearly sick with humiliation, even though no one - he hoped - knew it had been him. He tried taking a truly nasty potion made from stinging nettles to forget the miserable self-pity knawing on his insides, but it didn’t work, so he wrote poetry instead - still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, and so live ever - like in the old Muggle films his mother used to show him, odd black-and-white parodies of men and women dying for love rather than living a life without.
Muggles don't know the first thing about love. They dream and romanticise it, sing songs and write books about it but wizards know how to use it, they exploit it as a form of tangible energy. Love is the most effective protective shield yet discovered and the most thorough method of destruction to date.
Love is such a valuable weapon that they even assign optional essays on its meaning for all the seventh years. James is the only one who does it, scribbling paragraph after paragraph of sprawling, jumbled nonsense, his hazel eyes alight with emotion that only unrequited love can bring. Remus doesn’t even try to read over his shoulder, because he knows James like the back of his own hand; James believes that love is the eclipsing of all but one person, until only one thing in the universe is lucid - love is written all over James’ face, imbedded in his eyes, dripping from the words that fall from his lips and the ink that curves and trembles underneath his quill.
Sirius lounges by the fireplace and makes disparaging remarks about silly romantic flights of fancy, how they ought to just get rid of Magical Theory, no one learns anything anyway and to hell with homework, there are Slytherins about to torment. The firelight plays across the fine bones of his face and Remus remembers why he’s never seen any pictures of Sirius’s family.
Remus doesn’t know what love is, and he thinks that he’ll probably choke to death on his own coldness and passivity before he ever finds out, but he does know that lust has nothing to do with forever and always and till death do us part. Lust is far more fleeting, he knows that; it’s nothing more than a quick wank in the bathroom between lessons, nothing more lasting than last night’s dream or this month’s copy of PlayWizard.
It’s nothing but another secret. And a badly-kept one at that, too, because there are days when Remus needs to tell someone, because it's something too big to keep inside of himself. Peter swears that he won’t say anything and yet Remus knows that he shouldn’t have told him, because Peter is a firm believer in taking chances. Because Peter’s curiosity in could-bes and what-ifs is bound to get Remus in trouble one of these days, and god only knows what Sirius would do if he ever found out.
But Sirius is too clever for his own good, who early-on filled them with stories all designed to warn them off Bellatrix, incoherent rants about bewitched house-elves and rampaging manticores, hexes whispered from around corners and waking up one day to find his you-know-what turned into an oh-my-god. Sirius may not like his family and he may not be like them, but he’s the most fiercely protective person that Remus has ever known and the curve of his voice when he says the name Bellatrix makes his message clear: stay away. Remus does. And somehow, in the process of pretending not to have hormones or Bellatrix's entire body mapped in his head, he somehow manages to make James think that he’s queer and even more, in love with Severus Snape.
For Circe’s sake. Of all the absurdity ever to come charging out of James' mouth, it had to be this. But he’s got better luck with Snape than he’s got with Bellatrix, who knows how good-looking she is and is all the more dangerous for it, and knows the effect she has on unwary seventeen year-old boys. It’s bad enough having Ancient Runes with her, an hour-and-a-half of staring at the gap of smooth skin between her stockings and the hem of her skirt, trying not to watch when her skirt rides too high on those perfect legs that the younger boys always wolf-whistle at.
If he’s lucky, she doesn’t notice when he stares but when she does catch him, the way her lips curl in a sneer always leaves his mouth dry and his fingers clutching at the edges of his desk, a strange sort of excitement fluttering in his belly as her half-lidded eyes slide down him to linger on frayed cuffs and tattered trousers, the pimple on his chin. He knows what she sees because it’s what he sees everyday in the mirror; a boy who is too pale, too tall, too quiet, too thin. Remus thinks that he’s too much of everything but mostly, he’s too much of not enough. He’s horrible with girls, he always will be and he knows it. It’s not that they don’t like him; in fact, he’s usually told - with an affectionate pat on the hand - that he’s much more bearable than the rest of the male population. That he’s so nice and thoughtful and helpful, and it’s obvious that he’s the mature one. So responsible, and such a good role model for the other students.
He finds himself unbearable.
It’s just that girls don’t notice him, at least not in the way they notice Sirius and James, who are insufferable and arrogant and sometimes cruel but have that certain something that Remus doesn’t have. And will never. He can’t quite understand it himself, but he’s gotten so used to being left in the background that it's become quite comfortable out of the spotlight. He likes to think that he’s better off for it. Cold showers are much simpler than having to deal with a living, breathing, temperamental teenage girl.
But sometimes it’s hard to remember the benefits of his right hand, especially on Thursday nights from nine to twelve when he has rounds with Bellatrix. He’s so busy remembering to breathe, so lost in the empty echo of her footsteps and the geometry of his heartbeat that it’s easy to forget that the glimmer on her forearm stands for so much more than simple pureblood supremacy.
There is a moment, an almost moment when he trips over a missing step in the staircase, accidentally pushing her against the wall and for one paralysing moment the entire length of her body is pressed against his. In that moment he’s breathing her breath, so close to her that he can see the glint of laughter in her silver eyes, can almost hear the unspoken I dare you that dances along the curve of her lips.
Her bare leg slides against his and he catches his breath, caught between a dream and reality, and almost misses the flicker of frustration on her face when she pushes him away. Sorry, he whispers, and it’s the most inconsequential thing he’s ever said.
She lifts her shoulder in a half-shrug and already, the moment has faded.
Remus never takes dares.
He follows her up the rest of the staircase, body aching with all the possibility that just passed. She turns only once to look at him, the cruel twist of her lips hurting more than he would have ever thought possible. They walk in silence to the library and the soft click when she unlocks the door reminds him of the bitterly sharp edge of her voice whenever she says Lupin.
He knows that she would prefer not to acknowledge his existence at all beyond rudimentary monosyllables, but she’s full of a glacial politeness, a cold, perpetual barrier of silent superiority that comes with being the epitome of pureblooded perfection, complete with arrogant, lazy smiles that make him feel like nothing but shoddy Irish trash. And he is. For Circe’s sake, he even walks shoddily - he slouches and sticks his hands in his pockets and always forgets to pick up his feet, even though his mother harangues him for it.
When Bellatrix walks all he can see is the slow swing of her hips, the flutter of hair again her collarbone and dots of light that seem to slide along the corners of her lips, the hollow at the base of her throat he’d like to kiss, the delicate bones of her wrist, the curve of her shoulder he wants to trace with his tongue.
He wants her to want him. And god, he wants her to like him, to turn around and notice him and realize that he’s following her, he always has.
This isn’t my fault. Something inside of him uncoils and he exhales, leaning against the wall for support. Bellatrix tilts her head and looks at him, and he can almost make himself believe that she’s been waiting for him all along. He can see his reflection in her eyes, the pale moonlight that catches the curve of her mouth, the high arch of her brow, her heavily-lidded silver eyes that meet his in a parody of desire as he pulls her to him to steal the breath from her half-parted lips.
And for one moment, the barrier between mind and body is gone.