(no subject)
Long time no write.
To remedy that, I have joined my first fic challenge. Whee!
30_kisses
Obviously, my pairing is Sirius/Remus. LIKE IT WOULD BE ANYTHING ELSE.
And so for your perusal I submit my first fic written for a challenge, YAY.
I'm not sure I'm happy with it, entirely; the boys are 11, so really it's gen with foreshadowing, and...well, they both seem rather old for their age, I think. Which...well, they've both had lives that have forced them to grow up fast, haven't they? So that doesn't bother me too much, but Sirius might be a bit too vulnerable. But oh well, things are hard for my baby. SO YEAH. Don't be TOO harsh?
Holy Palmer's Kiss (HP; R/S; 2,175 words; G.)
There are many things that a Black simply Does Not Do.
A Black does not betray a weakness of any sort. He does not let a drop of emotion show on his cold face except in intimate company. He may want, but he does not need. Not ever.
Most importantly, he does not curl into a ball so tight that his muscles lock into place and sob, not even with the curtains drawn around his bed and a slap-dash Silencing charm that may or may not work cast on his general area. No. Tears are a foreign entity, as disgustingly shameful as a romp with the pigs or…well, association with mudbloods.
It is probably a good thing, then, that Sirius is no longer a Black. (Well, isn’t going to be soon enough. Just because he hasn’t gotten a Howler in the two months since the terrifying, wrong Sorting doesn’t mean that they’ll- she’ll- forgive him, want him anymore. He’s been compromised, his loyalties split down the spectrum between red and green, his purity called into question; and he hasn’t gotten any normal letters, either.) The only good thing about this whole debacle- well, besides James, who at least has acceptable blood and is dead funny on top of it, and Peter, who is sycophantic enough to make him feel a bit normal, and Remus, who hasn’t once looked at him strangely or with reproof for behavior that even he knows is often horrible- is the fact that if he’s not a Black, he can bloody well cry about it if he wants to.
Not that he wants to. He wants the dungeon, and the green and silver scarf, and the letters from home, and the life he was supposed to have. Expected to have. But he is used to wanting, though no one would believe that the Heir of Black has ever had a whim go unanswered. He can endure it; wanting to stop crying in the face of an inability to do so is a trifle if it is anything at all.
Even that thought brings up another hitching sob. It’s all a trifle, innit, stupid and pointless and nothing matters and why can’t she send him one letter, one bloody letter? Insults and anger would be better than icy silence, she’s his mother, isn’t she, she’s always angry and he’s used to it because that’s what mothers do and they’re supposed to send letters…
For a moment he thinks the rustling is his own movement against his dampened blankets, but then he realizes that he’s completely immobile in his anguish and it can’t have been. After a heartbeat, one that is hard against his ribs, the curtains separating him from the world open just enough to reveal the big hands and timid face of Remus Lupin beyond.
They stare at each other silently for a moment, Remus contrite and Sirius’s swollen eyes wild, before Remus clears his throat. “Your, your silencing charm,” he says, almost as softly as if he has one on his own throat, “I don’t think it’s working. At least, I think you have a silencing charm on, the air is sort of thick like paste and I read that that can happen when you haven’t gotten it just right-“ he lapses into silence as Sirius scrambles to sit upright and dashes a hand over his eyes because hitting them will obviously make them look normal-
“Go away,” he growls, hoping that the garbled sound imparted by the thickness in his throat makes him sound intimidating rather than ridiculous.
Remus nods shortly, and the curtain drops back into place with velvet heaviness. Still, somehow- perhaps because of the magical intuition inherent in the blood that makes the Black family wizarding royalty, perhaps only because he knows that Remus is right about the silencing charm and hasn’t heard any footsteps- Sirius can sense that the other boy is still standing mournful-eyed and stock-still on the other side.
“Go away,” he says again, this time not a growl but a petulant whine.
“It’s just,” comes the nervous voice, muffled by the combined effects of heavy fabric and ineffective charm, “that I’ve been practicing that one a bit, it’s actually quite interesting as charms go, and I think I’ve got it enough to show you. If you’d like.”
There is silence from both quarters for the space of a few breaths, and then an exasperated sigh from beyond the divide. “This is silly,” Remus observes, sounding suddenly more like a competent adult than a nervous boy, and the curtains are swept aside again. Sirius is briefly surprised by his stubbornness, before he remembers snide comments made over the dinner table at home about the pig-headedness of Gryffindors.
Things are gearing up for another painful moment of silence when Sirius decides that he can’t take anything like that and opens his mouth to say something, nevermind that he doesn’t have any clue as to what he’s going to say; at the exact same moment, Remus swishes and flicks with his wand, saying the incantation with a strange little downbeat at the end that Sirius hadn’t used and undoubtedly overlooked when he checked his charms text for the spell. Sirius, with the magical intuition that is the legacy and birthright of even Gryffindor Blacks, feels the spell take hold and the air go soft and silent. His mouth hovers open dumbly as Remus drops the curtain back into place, his face disappearing from view and the sound of his breathing cutting off beyond the wall of the Silence charm.
Sirius has time for one shaky breath, two, before the wall breaks again as Remus’s head comes back through the curtain with startling speed. Sirius makes a choking noise and falls back against his pillows, staring at the strange, pale figure that keeps awkwardly forcing its way into his life.
“You were about to say something,” Remus explains. Though annoyance has become such a habitual expression that Sirius can no longer feel it on his face, it’s the look he must be wearing now, because the other boy’s face and ears go suddenly red, the colour dark and violent and unattractive against his milky-pale skin.
“Yeah,” Sirius agrees, trying to summon his best Snotty Heir and, he is aware, largely failing and landing on Tired And Crabby Infant instead. “Going to tell you to go the bloody hell away again, wasn’t I.”
“Err. Right, then. Sorry,” Remus says, all the volume suddenly gone out of his voice; apparently it has transferred itself into his blush, because whereas before he was the colour of a rather nasty sunburn, now he resembles more closely a ripe strawberry. A giggle, just on the sane edge of hysterical, bubbles up in Sirius’s throat. Perhaps it is this that causes him to reach out and grab the other boy’s wrist as it attempts to pull down the curtain once again- he’s never sure, afterward.
“Look, just. Thanks.” Sirius isn’t used to thanking people, and it shows; his tone, still scratchy from the sobbing, is more truculent than grateful. But he figures he’d better at least try- after all, if Remus has kept James from finding out that he’s been crying- Oh, Merlin’s knickers. “Look, you won’t-“ he begins, truculent making the necessary jump to desperate.
“Tell? No.” Though the answer comes quickly, Remus’s voice is slow, thoughtful, the words coming as if pulled from his chest. “Of course not. We all have our- secrets.”
It occurs to Sirius briefly that this is an awfully mature sentiment coming from an eleven-year-old, but he flicks the thought- as troubling and unwelcome as a stone in the shoe- away. Instead, he pounces on the chance to ask a question, to pry, fishing after an intimacy that he doesn’t realize he’s craving after the silence from home. “What’s yours, then?”
Several expressions flit across Remus’s face before it shuts down into the polite mask that Sirius has gotten used to seeing in the month since school started. There’s panic there, and amusement, resignation. “Nothing too interesting, really,” comes the softy reply.
“Look, Lupin,” Sirius says, frowning even though it makes his head ache, “You just shoved in on me- yeah. Tell me something or we’ll never be even and I’ll probably have to beat you soundly to make up for it.”
Remus throws up his hands in the universal gesture of surrender. “All right! I guess no one can hear, anyway, if my charms are worth anything. Um. Can I sit down?” He gestures to the edge of the bed with a hand that is startlingly large on his small frame.
“Um hmm,” Sirius nods, scooting over to make room. Remus sits almost daintily, pulling his feet up under himself and crossing them in front. Sirius stares at him expectantly, suddenly eager.
“I, um, I…like to do my homework weeks before it’s due? I don’t know, I don’t have any secrets.”
“You just said that everyone does.”
“Well, I didn’t mean-“
“Come on!”
A pause, a deep breath rattling that small frame. “My mother taught me several spells a long time before school started. The silencing spell is one of them. It’s very illegal, especially since she had me practice for hours. There, is that all right?”
Sirius rolls his eyes even as he stifles a yawn. “That’s nothing, I’ve been practicing things for ages. Not that anyone would dare say anything my family does is illegal, my mother would-“ The reminder of his mother makes both his expression and his thoughts go dark again. He tries to ignore the way Remus’s face darkens in sympathy.
“Miss her?” comes the question.
“No!” Sirius shouts, not even bothering to be grateful for the charm that keeps the other boys from waking. “No,” he repeats, because if you say a lie enough times it will become the truth, or so he’s been taught to believe.
“It’s all right,” Remus starts. Sirius cuts him off.
“No, it’s not. I’m a bloody Gryffindor, right? What use have we got for family, or tradition, or, or-“ there’s nothing else to say, really. What right does he have to miss home when he’s failed his family so completely?
“Well, I miss my mum,” Remus murmurs, thick browns tilting down. “I think it’s all right.” He stifles his own yawn now, and though he’s obviously trying to stay upright, even detached, his shoulderblades are slowly relaxing themselves against Sirius’s pillows.
There’s a long silence during which both boys swallow the sounds of the sleepiness. Sirius thinks that he should probably tell Remus to leave again, if he hasn’t got any good secrets to tell, but somehow the idea of the dark, empty expanse of the space between his bedcurtains scares him the way that the nightmares of cobras swallowing him whole that the snake carvings on his bedposts inspired scared him when he was very little. His instinct then- thwarted, always, by locks on his parents’ door or Kreacher’s interception or, worst, the admonishment of his mother to “be a man,”- was to crawl into bed with father and mother and find safety in a shared bed. He doesn’t want to send Remus away.
He doesn’t study that desire too closely.
“I just wish she’d write,” he says finally, ignoring the plaintive sound of his voice because the silence is killing him. Heavy silence everywhere, in unsent letters and messed up charms.
“She will,” Remus assures him, and though he knows that she won’t really, he’s reassured. It’s strange and beautiful that Remus doesn’t understand what he’s done to his family, how he’s shamed them, what a miserable thing he has become. He puts out a hand in a wordless gesture of gratitude, letting it fall to the bed in front of him as the feeling of well-being sweeps through him. Another yawn, and his eyes are shutting of their own accord.
Remus looks at him for a long time, expression partly bemused and partly sad. “Secrets,” he whispers to himself, his child’s voice belying his adult eyes, once he’s sure that Sirius has, as abruptly as he seems to do everything else, fallen asleep. But for all his grown-up intuitions, Remus is a boy of eleven and it is well past two-o’clock; his limbs are heavy and so are his eyelids, and before he can work up the willpower to return to his own bed to clutch at his secrets alone, he too is slipping deep into the drowning sea of slumber.
Despite all expectations to the contrary, it is Remus who is the restless sleeper of the two, and sometime during the wee hours his flailing presses his large right hand to the place where Sirius’s hand is still flung out toward him. They sleep like that, palm to palm- holy palmer’s kiss- all through breakfast, and the shouting and griping and laughing of their roommates cannot penetrate their shelter to wake them until, sometime near lunch, the spell wears off and the world seems, somehow, much less secretive.
To remedy that, I have joined my first fic challenge. Whee!
30_kisses
Obviously, my pairing is Sirius/Remus. LIKE IT WOULD BE ANYTHING ELSE.
And so for your perusal I submit my first fic written for a challenge, YAY.
I'm not sure I'm happy with it, entirely; the boys are 11, so really it's gen with foreshadowing, and...well, they both seem rather old for their age, I think. Which...well, they've both had lives that have forced them to grow up fast, haven't they? So that doesn't bother me too much, but Sirius might be a bit too vulnerable. But oh well, things are hard for my baby. SO YEAH. Don't be TOO harsh?
Holy Palmer's Kiss (HP; R/S; 2,175 words; G.)
There are many things that a Black simply Does Not Do.
A Black does not betray a weakness of any sort. He does not let a drop of emotion show on his cold face except in intimate company. He may want, but he does not need. Not ever.
Most importantly, he does not curl into a ball so tight that his muscles lock into place and sob, not even with the curtains drawn around his bed and a slap-dash Silencing charm that may or may not work cast on his general area. No. Tears are a foreign entity, as disgustingly shameful as a romp with the pigs or…well, association with mudbloods.
It is probably a good thing, then, that Sirius is no longer a Black. (Well, isn’t going to be soon enough. Just because he hasn’t gotten a Howler in the two months since the terrifying, wrong Sorting doesn’t mean that they’ll- she’ll- forgive him, want him anymore. He’s been compromised, his loyalties split down the spectrum between red and green, his purity called into question; and he hasn’t gotten any normal letters, either.) The only good thing about this whole debacle- well, besides James, who at least has acceptable blood and is dead funny on top of it, and Peter, who is sycophantic enough to make him feel a bit normal, and Remus, who hasn’t once looked at him strangely or with reproof for behavior that even he knows is often horrible- is the fact that if he’s not a Black, he can bloody well cry about it if he wants to.
Not that he wants to. He wants the dungeon, and the green and silver scarf, and the letters from home, and the life he was supposed to have. Expected to have. But he is used to wanting, though no one would believe that the Heir of Black has ever had a whim go unanswered. He can endure it; wanting to stop crying in the face of an inability to do so is a trifle if it is anything at all.
Even that thought brings up another hitching sob. It’s all a trifle, innit, stupid and pointless and nothing matters and why can’t she send him one letter, one bloody letter? Insults and anger would be better than icy silence, she’s his mother, isn’t she, she’s always angry and he’s used to it because that’s what mothers do and they’re supposed to send letters…
For a moment he thinks the rustling is his own movement against his dampened blankets, but then he realizes that he’s completely immobile in his anguish and it can’t have been. After a heartbeat, one that is hard against his ribs, the curtains separating him from the world open just enough to reveal the big hands and timid face of Remus Lupin beyond.
They stare at each other silently for a moment, Remus contrite and Sirius’s swollen eyes wild, before Remus clears his throat. “Your, your silencing charm,” he says, almost as softly as if he has one on his own throat, “I don’t think it’s working. At least, I think you have a silencing charm on, the air is sort of thick like paste and I read that that can happen when you haven’t gotten it just right-“ he lapses into silence as Sirius scrambles to sit upright and dashes a hand over his eyes because hitting them will obviously make them look normal-
“Go away,” he growls, hoping that the garbled sound imparted by the thickness in his throat makes him sound intimidating rather than ridiculous.
Remus nods shortly, and the curtain drops back into place with velvet heaviness. Still, somehow- perhaps because of the magical intuition inherent in the blood that makes the Black family wizarding royalty, perhaps only because he knows that Remus is right about the silencing charm and hasn’t heard any footsteps- Sirius can sense that the other boy is still standing mournful-eyed and stock-still on the other side.
“Go away,” he says again, this time not a growl but a petulant whine.
“It’s just,” comes the nervous voice, muffled by the combined effects of heavy fabric and ineffective charm, “that I’ve been practicing that one a bit, it’s actually quite interesting as charms go, and I think I’ve got it enough to show you. If you’d like.”
There is silence from both quarters for the space of a few breaths, and then an exasperated sigh from beyond the divide. “This is silly,” Remus observes, sounding suddenly more like a competent adult than a nervous boy, and the curtains are swept aside again. Sirius is briefly surprised by his stubbornness, before he remembers snide comments made over the dinner table at home about the pig-headedness of Gryffindors.
Things are gearing up for another painful moment of silence when Sirius decides that he can’t take anything like that and opens his mouth to say something, nevermind that he doesn’t have any clue as to what he’s going to say; at the exact same moment, Remus swishes and flicks with his wand, saying the incantation with a strange little downbeat at the end that Sirius hadn’t used and undoubtedly overlooked when he checked his charms text for the spell. Sirius, with the magical intuition that is the legacy and birthright of even Gryffindor Blacks, feels the spell take hold and the air go soft and silent. His mouth hovers open dumbly as Remus drops the curtain back into place, his face disappearing from view and the sound of his breathing cutting off beyond the wall of the Silence charm.
Sirius has time for one shaky breath, two, before the wall breaks again as Remus’s head comes back through the curtain with startling speed. Sirius makes a choking noise and falls back against his pillows, staring at the strange, pale figure that keeps awkwardly forcing its way into his life.
“You were about to say something,” Remus explains. Though annoyance has become such a habitual expression that Sirius can no longer feel it on his face, it’s the look he must be wearing now, because the other boy’s face and ears go suddenly red, the colour dark and violent and unattractive against his milky-pale skin.
“Yeah,” Sirius agrees, trying to summon his best Snotty Heir and, he is aware, largely failing and landing on Tired And Crabby Infant instead. “Going to tell you to go the bloody hell away again, wasn’t I.”
“Err. Right, then. Sorry,” Remus says, all the volume suddenly gone out of his voice; apparently it has transferred itself into his blush, because whereas before he was the colour of a rather nasty sunburn, now he resembles more closely a ripe strawberry. A giggle, just on the sane edge of hysterical, bubbles up in Sirius’s throat. Perhaps it is this that causes him to reach out and grab the other boy’s wrist as it attempts to pull down the curtain once again- he’s never sure, afterward.
“Look, just. Thanks.” Sirius isn’t used to thanking people, and it shows; his tone, still scratchy from the sobbing, is more truculent than grateful. But he figures he’d better at least try- after all, if Remus has kept James from finding out that he’s been crying- Oh, Merlin’s knickers. “Look, you won’t-“ he begins, truculent making the necessary jump to desperate.
“Tell? No.” Though the answer comes quickly, Remus’s voice is slow, thoughtful, the words coming as if pulled from his chest. “Of course not. We all have our- secrets.”
It occurs to Sirius briefly that this is an awfully mature sentiment coming from an eleven-year-old, but he flicks the thought- as troubling and unwelcome as a stone in the shoe- away. Instead, he pounces on the chance to ask a question, to pry, fishing after an intimacy that he doesn’t realize he’s craving after the silence from home. “What’s yours, then?”
Several expressions flit across Remus’s face before it shuts down into the polite mask that Sirius has gotten used to seeing in the month since school started. There’s panic there, and amusement, resignation. “Nothing too interesting, really,” comes the softy reply.
“Look, Lupin,” Sirius says, frowning even though it makes his head ache, “You just shoved in on me- yeah. Tell me something or we’ll never be even and I’ll probably have to beat you soundly to make up for it.”
Remus throws up his hands in the universal gesture of surrender. “All right! I guess no one can hear, anyway, if my charms are worth anything. Um. Can I sit down?” He gestures to the edge of the bed with a hand that is startlingly large on his small frame.
“Um hmm,” Sirius nods, scooting over to make room. Remus sits almost daintily, pulling his feet up under himself and crossing them in front. Sirius stares at him expectantly, suddenly eager.
“I, um, I…like to do my homework weeks before it’s due? I don’t know, I don’t have any secrets.”
“You just said that everyone does.”
“Well, I didn’t mean-“
“Come on!”
A pause, a deep breath rattling that small frame. “My mother taught me several spells a long time before school started. The silencing spell is one of them. It’s very illegal, especially since she had me practice for hours. There, is that all right?”
Sirius rolls his eyes even as he stifles a yawn. “That’s nothing, I’ve been practicing things for ages. Not that anyone would dare say anything my family does is illegal, my mother would-“ The reminder of his mother makes both his expression and his thoughts go dark again. He tries to ignore the way Remus’s face darkens in sympathy.
“Miss her?” comes the question.
“No!” Sirius shouts, not even bothering to be grateful for the charm that keeps the other boys from waking. “No,” he repeats, because if you say a lie enough times it will become the truth, or so he’s been taught to believe.
“It’s all right,” Remus starts. Sirius cuts him off.
“No, it’s not. I’m a bloody Gryffindor, right? What use have we got for family, or tradition, or, or-“ there’s nothing else to say, really. What right does he have to miss home when he’s failed his family so completely?
“Well, I miss my mum,” Remus murmurs, thick browns tilting down. “I think it’s all right.” He stifles his own yawn now, and though he’s obviously trying to stay upright, even detached, his shoulderblades are slowly relaxing themselves against Sirius’s pillows.
There’s a long silence during which both boys swallow the sounds of the sleepiness. Sirius thinks that he should probably tell Remus to leave again, if he hasn’t got any good secrets to tell, but somehow the idea of the dark, empty expanse of the space between his bedcurtains scares him the way that the nightmares of cobras swallowing him whole that the snake carvings on his bedposts inspired scared him when he was very little. His instinct then- thwarted, always, by locks on his parents’ door or Kreacher’s interception or, worst, the admonishment of his mother to “be a man,”- was to crawl into bed with father and mother and find safety in a shared bed. He doesn’t want to send Remus away.
He doesn’t study that desire too closely.
“I just wish she’d write,” he says finally, ignoring the plaintive sound of his voice because the silence is killing him. Heavy silence everywhere, in unsent letters and messed up charms.
“She will,” Remus assures him, and though he knows that she won’t really, he’s reassured. It’s strange and beautiful that Remus doesn’t understand what he’s done to his family, how he’s shamed them, what a miserable thing he has become. He puts out a hand in a wordless gesture of gratitude, letting it fall to the bed in front of him as the feeling of well-being sweeps through him. Another yawn, and his eyes are shutting of their own accord.
Remus looks at him for a long time, expression partly bemused and partly sad. “Secrets,” he whispers to himself, his child’s voice belying his adult eyes, once he’s sure that Sirius has, as abruptly as he seems to do everything else, fallen asleep. But for all his grown-up intuitions, Remus is a boy of eleven and it is well past two-o’clock; his limbs are heavy and so are his eyelids, and before he can work up the willpower to return to his own bed to clutch at his secrets alone, he too is slipping deep into the drowning sea of slumber.
Despite all expectations to the contrary, it is Remus who is the restless sleeper of the two, and sometime during the wee hours his flailing presses his large right hand to the place where Sirius’s hand is still flung out toward him. They sleep like that, palm to palm- holy palmer’s kiss- all through breakfast, and the shouting and griping and laughing of their roommates cannot penetrate their shelter to wake them until, sometime near lunch, the spell wears off and the world seems, somehow, much less secretive.