FIC: The Missing Picture
Title: The Missing Picture
Rating: PG
Prompt Set: Remus/Sirius 100.3
Prompt: 003 Picture
Word Count: 1900
Genre: Romance
Summary: How Gilderoy Lockhart helped Sirius Black and Remus Lupin become a couple.
Warnings: Slash and a bit of mild bad language.
Notes: Unbeta’d. Inspired by a comment made by Stuart at blacklupin.org Also written for the 100quills prompts challenge.
Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognise.
Sirius walked into his bedroom for the third time; he was determined to establish the perfect place to stick up his latest acquisition.
In the summer after his first year at Hogwarts he had stuck up the Gryffindor banner he had waved at the final Quidditch match of the year. His mother had turned a rather violent shade of red when she had seen it, but permanent sticking charms were permanent for a reason, and there was nothing she could do to remove it.
The following year he had added to those banners, but he hadn’t got the reaction he had been expecting. Walburga had glared at the banners for several seconds before turning away and steadfastly refusing to look at that particular wall again.
By the time of the summer between third and fourth year, Sirius had decided that new tactics were required in order to annoy his mother. Sneaking out into muggle London had given him a whole host of opportunities, until he had finally settled on the scantily clad posters of muggle girls. His mother’s reaction had been predictable to say the least, but no amount of spells could remove them from his wall.
Now he was determined to learn from past mistakes and his latest decoration for the wall was sure to send his mother right off the deep end, if only he knew where to display it.
“For the love of Merlin, Sirius, would you just put it on the damn wall!” James exclaimed after Sirius had left the room and re-entered it for the fourth time.
“It needs to be somewhere she’ll see it,” Sirius reminded him.
“And somewhere you can’t,” James added. “What would you want a picture of that ponce in your room for?”
Sirius turned away to look at another wall, hoping that James hadn’t caught his blush.
Unfortunately, James, who was remarkably unobservant most of the time, had. “You’re not actually a fan of that idiot, are you?” he asked. “My dad says that most of that book he wrote is a load of rubbish.”
Sirius shrugged. “Never read it,” he said in an offhand manner.
James seemed to relax a little, though he was still giving him a somewhat suspicious look. “What about the inside door of the wardrobe,” he suggested.
“She won’t see it in there,” Sirius pointed out. “Kreacher would, but I can’t guarantee that he’d tell her.”
“Remember not to do a permanent sticking charm on this one, too,” James reminded him.
“Got it covered,” Sirius told him, holding out his hand and revealing the muggle drawing pins.
“What are they?” James asked, leaning forward and poking one a little to see if it did anything.
“Muggles use them to put things up on the walls,” Sirius explained smugly.
“But won’t they leave holes in the wall if you take them out?”
“Yeah.”
“So, even if the picture isn’t up, the holes in the wall will be there to show where it was?”
“Yeah.”
James grinned. “Bloody brilliant. You can take it down whenever you’re bringing a girl back, otherwise she might get the wrong idea about you.”
Sirius coughed loudly as he continued to contemplate the room. He hadn’t exactly come out to his best friend yet, mainly because of his less than tactful comments and jokes about homosexuality. The only person he had come out to was Remus, who he’d known would accept his sexuality in much the same way as Sirius had accepted his Lycanthropy.
Eventually, Sirius had chosen where to put the picture and had pinned it to the wall next to the door. His mother wouldn’t see it when she came into to the room, but she couldn’t fail to miss it as she was leaving.
“Perfect,” he declared, standing back to admire his work.
“I still say you should have put it inside the wardrobe,” James muttered. “It’s enough to give a bloke the creeps, having that ponce leering at you all the time.”
Sirius rolled his eyes. “He’s not leering, he’s just smiling at the camera.”
James snorted in disbelief. “And what the hell is he supposed to be wearing?”
“A bathing suit,” Sirius replied.
“It looks more like a hanky. It’s obscene.”
James continued to poke fun at the picture of Gilderoy Lockhart for another hour, until finally he left to go home.
Sirius wondered how long it would be before his mother had cause to come up to his room and see the picture, and gleefully contemplated her reaction.
Two days and an invasion of imps later, Walburga arrived in Sirius’s room in one of her usual tempers.
Sirius listened silently as she shouted her disapproval, his eyes drifting to the picture repeatedly, waiting for her to turn round and see it.
Finally, she was done and turning to leave the room.
Sirius waited for the explosion.
And waited.
And waited some more.
He wondered if maybe the shock had killed her. She was staring at the picture for an awfully long time.
Sirius wished that he could see her face, but she wasn’t turning round. In fact, she wasn’t moving at all.
Then Walburga made a noise that sounded like a mouse screaming and quickly left the room.
“Well, that was disappointing,” Sirius commented to the closed door.
He waited nearly an hour for his mother to come back and speak to - yell at - him about the picture, but she didn’t return at all.
Deciding that this was a bit of a let down, he scribbled a note to Remus, inviting him to visit the following day whilst his mother was taking Regulus shopping for new robes.
Remus arrived via the floo network right on schedule, and Sirius quickly hurried him upstairs to his bedroom, and out of the sight of tattletale house elves.
Sirius wondered if Remus would say anything about the picture of Lockhart, but he did no more than give it a cursory glance as Sirius told him about his mother’s reaction to it.
“So, that’s the sort of bloke you like, is it?” Remus asked.
Sirius shrugged. “Dunno. He looks all right, but from what I’ve heard he’s a bit of an idiot.”
“He is?”
Sirius nodded.
“So, you like intelligent blokes?”
“I guess.” Sirius frowned as he stretched out on his bed and tossed several Every Flavour Beans up into the air, trying to catch them in his mouth. “Maybe not super smart, but someone I can talk to without getting bored.”
“Lockhart’s had a lot of adventures,” Remus pointed out. “According to his interviews he plans on writing books about all of them. That’s not boring, is it?”
Sirius shrugged. He had actually tried to read Gilderoy Lockhart’s debut novel to see what all the fuss was about. When he had made it halfway down the second page, and learned nothing more than which colour robes were most fashionable in Ireland - emerald green, as if anyone cared - he had given up and found something else to read instead.
“I suppose he is quite handsome,” Remus commented. “Young, too, especially for what he’s achieved.”
Sirius laughed. “The perfect coiffure.”
Remus laughed along with him. Both boys knew just how long Sirius spent fussing over his hair in the mornings.
“So, what else would you look for in a bloke?” Remus asked.
Sirius screwed up his nose in concentration. “Well, like I said, definitely someone I can talk to and have fun with.”
Remus nodded.
“Got to be willing to suffer an unequal sharing of the bathroom,” Sirius added with a grin.
“Goes without saying,” Remus agreed. “What else?”
“Someone smart.”
“You already said that.”
“Oh. Then he’d have to be… er…” Sirius flushed and rubbed at his nose.
“What?” Remus prompted.
“Well, he’d have to be prepared to put up with a lot of crap from me, wouldn’t he?”
Remus grinned. “What is it the muggles say? You’re high maintenance?”
Sirius grinned back. “Yeah, that sounds right. High maintenance.”
Remus grabbed the box of beans from Sirius and dug his hand inside, trying to pick out one that looked slightly less dubious than the rest.
“Do you think I’m asking too much?” Sirius asked curiously. “I mean, who’d put up with all my issues on a daily basis?”
Remus was quiet for a long time and Sirius began to feel slightly uncomfortable.
“I would,” Remus finally said, in a voice that was barely more than a whisper.
Sirius snorted. “You’re a mate, you have to put up with it. But a…”
“Boyfriend?” Remus supplied, causing Sirius to screw up his nose again in distaste.
“Yeah, well, someone like that… they wouldn’t want to put up with it.”
“I would,” Remus repeated, a little louder and more firmly.
Sirius was about to point out to him again that it was different, but something in Remus’s face gave him cause to pause.
“Not that I’m your type,” Remus hurriedly continued. “But if I can put up with it, I’m sure someone else out there could, too.”
“Not my type?” Sirius echoed.
“Yeah, I know,” Remus assured him. “I was just saying.”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Sirius interrupted. “I… you mean you’re… are you?”
“I don’t know,” Remus replied. “I’m not sure. I never really thought about it until you confided in me last term. Now…”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Erm.”
Remus sighed. “Yeah.”
“So…”
“Um.”
“You want to… er…”
Remus nodded.
Sirius sat up and moved closer. “I missed a couple of things off my list of requirements,” he whispered.
“You did?” Remus breathed.
“Hmm,” Sirius murmured as he leaned in. “I forgot he has to be a marauder.”
“I’m a marauder,” Remus whispered back with a grin.
“You are indeed,” Sirius replied. “He also has to get real furry once a month. Think you’re up to the job?”
Remus nodded and closed the space between them.
“I think I have a couple of requirements of my own,” Remus commented a few minutes later.
“Yeah?”
“More of these, every day from now on,” teased Remus, pressing his lips to Sirius’s once more. Sirius didn’t need to say anything for Remus to know that he was more than agreeable to that condition.
“What else?” Sirius asked after they had pulled apart.
“Huh?”
Sirius grinned at Remus’s speechlessness. “You said requirements, what else?”
“Oh, yeah.” Remus shook his head and smiled. “I don’t really like the idea of Gilderoy Lockhart leering at us when we’re doing this.”
“You want me to get rid of the picture?”
“Would you mind?”
“Consider it done,” Sirius declared, jumping up from the bed and pulling the picture down from the wall, tossing it into the bin. “Better?”
Remus nodded, and Sirius dived back onto the bed with a grin. The loss of the picture was hardly a sacrifice, not if he had Remus in exchange.
-o-xXx-o-
“Kreacher has done well?” the house elf asked.
“You say this was in the bin?” Walburga asked as she looked at the picture that had previously graced the wall of Sirius’s room.
“Master Sirius had thrown it away,” Kreacher confirmed.
“Then he won’t miss it,” Walburga said with a smile.
A tap of the wand framed the picture and a flick and a swish levitated it to the dressing table in her boudoir… where Orion wouldn’t see it.
She blew a kiss at the photograph and Gilderoy Lockhart smiled back seductively from the beach.
--
Link to my Prompts Table
Rating: PG
Prompt Set: Remus/Sirius 100.3
Prompt: 003 Picture
Word Count: 1900
Genre: Romance
Summary: How Gilderoy Lockhart helped Sirius Black and Remus Lupin become a couple.
Warnings: Slash and a bit of mild bad language.
Notes: Unbeta’d. Inspired by a comment made by Stuart at blacklupin.org Also written for the 100quills prompts challenge.
Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognise.
Sirius walked into his bedroom for the third time; he was determined to establish the perfect place to stick up his latest acquisition.
In the summer after his first year at Hogwarts he had stuck up the Gryffindor banner he had waved at the final Quidditch match of the year. His mother had turned a rather violent shade of red when she had seen it, but permanent sticking charms were permanent for a reason, and there was nothing she could do to remove it.
The following year he had added to those banners, but he hadn’t got the reaction he had been expecting. Walburga had glared at the banners for several seconds before turning away and steadfastly refusing to look at that particular wall again.
By the time of the summer between third and fourth year, Sirius had decided that new tactics were required in order to annoy his mother. Sneaking out into muggle London had given him a whole host of opportunities, until he had finally settled on the scantily clad posters of muggle girls. His mother’s reaction had been predictable to say the least, but no amount of spells could remove them from his wall.
Now he was determined to learn from past mistakes and his latest decoration for the wall was sure to send his mother right off the deep end, if only he knew where to display it.
“For the love of Merlin, Sirius, would you just put it on the damn wall!” James exclaimed after Sirius had left the room and re-entered it for the fourth time.
“It needs to be somewhere she’ll see it,” Sirius reminded him.
“And somewhere you can’t,” James added. “What would you want a picture of that ponce in your room for?”
Sirius turned away to look at another wall, hoping that James hadn’t caught his blush.
Unfortunately, James, who was remarkably unobservant most of the time, had. “You’re not actually a fan of that idiot, are you?” he asked. “My dad says that most of that book he wrote is a load of rubbish.”
Sirius shrugged. “Never read it,” he said in an offhand manner.
James seemed to relax a little, though he was still giving him a somewhat suspicious look. “What about the inside door of the wardrobe,” he suggested.
“She won’t see it in there,” Sirius pointed out. “Kreacher would, but I can’t guarantee that he’d tell her.”
“Remember not to do a permanent sticking charm on this one, too,” James reminded him.
“Got it covered,” Sirius told him, holding out his hand and revealing the muggle drawing pins.
“What are they?” James asked, leaning forward and poking one a little to see if it did anything.
“Muggles use them to put things up on the walls,” Sirius explained smugly.
“But won’t they leave holes in the wall if you take them out?”
“Yeah.”
“So, even if the picture isn’t up, the holes in the wall will be there to show where it was?”
“Yeah.”
James grinned. “Bloody brilliant. You can take it down whenever you’re bringing a girl back, otherwise she might get the wrong idea about you.”
Sirius coughed loudly as he continued to contemplate the room. He hadn’t exactly come out to his best friend yet, mainly because of his less than tactful comments and jokes about homosexuality. The only person he had come out to was Remus, who he’d known would accept his sexuality in much the same way as Sirius had accepted his Lycanthropy.
Eventually, Sirius had chosen where to put the picture and had pinned it to the wall next to the door. His mother wouldn’t see it when she came into to the room, but she couldn’t fail to miss it as she was leaving.
“Perfect,” he declared, standing back to admire his work.
“I still say you should have put it inside the wardrobe,” James muttered. “It’s enough to give a bloke the creeps, having that ponce leering at you all the time.”
Sirius rolled his eyes. “He’s not leering, he’s just smiling at the camera.”
James snorted in disbelief. “And what the hell is he supposed to be wearing?”
“A bathing suit,” Sirius replied.
“It looks more like a hanky. It’s obscene.”
James continued to poke fun at the picture of Gilderoy Lockhart for another hour, until finally he left to go home.
Sirius wondered how long it would be before his mother had cause to come up to his room and see the picture, and gleefully contemplated her reaction.
Two days and an invasion of imps later, Walburga arrived in Sirius’s room in one of her usual tempers.
Sirius listened silently as she shouted her disapproval, his eyes drifting to the picture repeatedly, waiting for her to turn round and see it.
Finally, she was done and turning to leave the room.
Sirius waited for the explosion.
And waited.
And waited some more.
He wondered if maybe the shock had killed her. She was staring at the picture for an awfully long time.
Sirius wished that he could see her face, but she wasn’t turning round. In fact, she wasn’t moving at all.
Then Walburga made a noise that sounded like a mouse screaming and quickly left the room.
“Well, that was disappointing,” Sirius commented to the closed door.
He waited nearly an hour for his mother to come back and speak to - yell at - him about the picture, but she didn’t return at all.
Deciding that this was a bit of a let down, he scribbled a note to Remus, inviting him to visit the following day whilst his mother was taking Regulus shopping for new robes.
Remus arrived via the floo network right on schedule, and Sirius quickly hurried him upstairs to his bedroom, and out of the sight of tattletale house elves.
Sirius wondered if Remus would say anything about the picture of Lockhart, but he did no more than give it a cursory glance as Sirius told him about his mother’s reaction to it.
“So, that’s the sort of bloke you like, is it?” Remus asked.
Sirius shrugged. “Dunno. He looks all right, but from what I’ve heard he’s a bit of an idiot.”
“He is?”
Sirius nodded.
“So, you like intelligent blokes?”
“I guess.” Sirius frowned as he stretched out on his bed and tossed several Every Flavour Beans up into the air, trying to catch them in his mouth. “Maybe not super smart, but someone I can talk to without getting bored.”
“Lockhart’s had a lot of adventures,” Remus pointed out. “According to his interviews he plans on writing books about all of them. That’s not boring, is it?”
Sirius shrugged. He had actually tried to read Gilderoy Lockhart’s debut novel to see what all the fuss was about. When he had made it halfway down the second page, and learned nothing more than which colour robes were most fashionable in Ireland - emerald green, as if anyone cared - he had given up and found something else to read instead.
“I suppose he is quite handsome,” Remus commented. “Young, too, especially for what he’s achieved.”
Sirius laughed. “The perfect coiffure.”
Remus laughed along with him. Both boys knew just how long Sirius spent fussing over his hair in the mornings.
“So, what else would you look for in a bloke?” Remus asked.
Sirius screwed up his nose in concentration. “Well, like I said, definitely someone I can talk to and have fun with.”
Remus nodded.
“Got to be willing to suffer an unequal sharing of the bathroom,” Sirius added with a grin.
“Goes without saying,” Remus agreed. “What else?”
“Someone smart.”
“You already said that.”
“Oh. Then he’d have to be… er…” Sirius flushed and rubbed at his nose.
“What?” Remus prompted.
“Well, he’d have to be prepared to put up with a lot of crap from me, wouldn’t he?”
Remus grinned. “What is it the muggles say? You’re high maintenance?”
Sirius grinned back. “Yeah, that sounds right. High maintenance.”
Remus grabbed the box of beans from Sirius and dug his hand inside, trying to pick out one that looked slightly less dubious than the rest.
“Do you think I’m asking too much?” Sirius asked curiously. “I mean, who’d put up with all my issues on a daily basis?”
Remus was quiet for a long time and Sirius began to feel slightly uncomfortable.
“I would,” Remus finally said, in a voice that was barely more than a whisper.
Sirius snorted. “You’re a mate, you have to put up with it. But a…”
“Boyfriend?” Remus supplied, causing Sirius to screw up his nose again in distaste.
“Yeah, well, someone like that… they wouldn’t want to put up with it.”
“I would,” Remus repeated, a little louder and more firmly.
Sirius was about to point out to him again that it was different, but something in Remus’s face gave him cause to pause.
“Not that I’m your type,” Remus hurriedly continued. “But if I can put up with it, I’m sure someone else out there could, too.”
“Not my type?” Sirius echoed.
“Yeah, I know,” Remus assured him. “I was just saying.”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Sirius interrupted. “I… you mean you’re… are you?”
“I don’t know,” Remus replied. “I’m not sure. I never really thought about it until you confided in me last term. Now…”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Erm.”
Remus sighed. “Yeah.”
“So…”
“Um.”
“You want to… er…”
Remus nodded.
Sirius sat up and moved closer. “I missed a couple of things off my list of requirements,” he whispered.
“You did?” Remus breathed.
“Hmm,” Sirius murmured as he leaned in. “I forgot he has to be a marauder.”
“I’m a marauder,” Remus whispered back with a grin.
“You are indeed,” Sirius replied. “He also has to get real furry once a month. Think you’re up to the job?”
Remus nodded and closed the space between them.
“I think I have a couple of requirements of my own,” Remus commented a few minutes later.
“Yeah?”
“More of these, every day from now on,” teased Remus, pressing his lips to Sirius’s once more. Sirius didn’t need to say anything for Remus to know that he was more than agreeable to that condition.
“What else?” Sirius asked after they had pulled apart.
“Huh?”
Sirius grinned at Remus’s speechlessness. “You said requirements, what else?”
“Oh, yeah.” Remus shook his head and smiled. “I don’t really like the idea of Gilderoy Lockhart leering at us when we’re doing this.”
“You want me to get rid of the picture?”
“Would you mind?”
“Consider it done,” Sirius declared, jumping up from the bed and pulling the picture down from the wall, tossing it into the bin. “Better?”
Remus nodded, and Sirius dived back onto the bed with a grin. The loss of the picture was hardly a sacrifice, not if he had Remus in exchange.
-o-xXx-o-
“Kreacher has done well?” the house elf asked.
“You say this was in the bin?” Walburga asked as she looked at the picture that had previously graced the wall of Sirius’s room.
“Master Sirius had thrown it away,” Kreacher confirmed.
“Then he won’t miss it,” Walburga said with a smile.
A tap of the wand framed the picture and a flick and a swish levitated it to the dressing table in her boudoir… where Orion wouldn’t see it.
She blew a kiss at the photograph and Gilderoy Lockhart smiled back seductively from the beach.
--
Link to my Prompts Table