FIC: Fifteen - Part Two
Mar. 18th, 2006 10:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mysidSirius awoke to the uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched. He listened carefully before opening his eyes—no sound betrayed the location of his watcher. He dared to look around, but no one seemed to be in the room. The feeling persisted. Then he looked more carefully at the pair of upholstered chairs near the window. The seat of one was depressed as if an invisible person were sitting there.
“Hello, Sirius,” Sirius said to the chair. “Don’t sit on upholstered furniture when you’re using the cloak. It gives you away.”
The teenager pulled back the hood of the cloak and became a disembodied head. “Well, Paddy, James says that you claim you’re me.”
“Almost right,” Sirius said as he sat up in bed and rearranged his pillows against the headboard. “I claim I’m your counterpart from another reality.”
“Yeah, that’s what he said. You don’t look like me, you know.”
“I used to. Twelve years in Azkaban has a way of destroying one’s looks.”
“Azkaban? What the fuck did you do?”
Sirius laughed. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. I was framed. With any luck—and my advice—it won’t happen to you.”
“OK, what were you framed for?”
“Killing Peter, for one thing.”
The teenager bolted upright from his slouch, his hands pushing the invisibility cloak open as he gripped the arms of the chair. “Someone’s going to kill Peter? Who? When?”
Sirius shook his head with a wry smile. “Relax. He’s safe. It’s a long story. Let’s wait until James is with us so I can explain it to you both.” Sirius thought it only right that James should hear his warnings as well. Two of his mistakes, mistrusting Remus and then trusting Peter to be the Secret Keeper, were as much James’s mistakes as they were his own.
“He’s still asleep,” the teenager said. He turned his face back to the window and pulled the curtains open to peek outside.
“It’ll sink in soon enough.”
“What will?”
“That you can relax; that you’re safe here. You won’t have to go back. The Potters will make certain of that.”
“Maybe. My mother’s accustomed to getting her way.”
“I know. She has a lot in common with my mother, remember?”
The teenager looked sharply at the older man, still deciding whether or not he believed him.
Sirius smiled. “Should I transform for you too?”
“No thanks. If James says you can turn into a dog, you can turn into a dog. I’ll go see if he’s awake.”
After the teenager left, Sirius took advantage of the brief privacy to get out of bed and put his clothes back on. Despite young Sirius’s refusal of the offer, Sirius still thought that a demonstration might help convince his counterpart that he was who he said he was. He finished dressing, and with a grin, jumped back onto the bed in canine form. He didn’t have long to wait before the two black-haired teenagers returned.
“Hello, Paddy.” James sat on the bed and began to pet the dog. “I hope you aren’t shedding. Mum will go spare if you cover everything with dog hair.
Sirius frowned as he stared down at the dog. “I’ve only looked in the mirror a couple times when I’m a dog,” he admitted. Sirius suddenly transformed as well, and began trying to identify ‘himself’ by scent. The older Padfoot jumped down onto the floor to greet the other dog properly.
“Dogs are so weird,” James said as he watched the two large black dogs sniff each other. He knew that trust had been achieved when the second dog began wagging his tail like the first.
Sirius transformed back and sat in the chair that his younger counterpart had occupied earlier. “Ready to hear the three biggest mistakes of my life and how to avoid them?” he asked the remaining dog. The younger Sirius transformed back as well and joined James in sitting on the bed.
Sirius didn’t tell them all the details—he didn’t tell them about Harry and the prediction, or that James and his family had needed to go into hiding to escape Voldemort—but he did tell them that on his world, Peter had become a spy for Voldemort and that no one had suspected him. He also told them that when they began to suspect a spy among them, they had wrongly suspected Remus. Sirius admitted that although Peter had been the traitor on his own world and on some of the others he’d visited, it did not guarantee that their Peter would follow that path.
“Of course not,” they agreed. “Our Peter would never do that.”
But the seed of doubt was planted. Sirius felt confident that they would never place the lives of James and his family into Peter’s hands. Nor would they be fooled if Peter began to subtly frame Remus in order to protect himself. In the future, if evidence suggested that one of their number was a spy, they would know whom to suspect.
The third mistake, the one that was imminent on this world, was Sirius’s alone.
“You told him?” James demanded. “Snape? Of all people, Snape?”
“I didn’t mean to; it wasn’t deliberate. He was just being his infuriating self, and he kept pushing all the right buttons to make me more and more angry, and then he—it doesn’t matter. It just came out, and there was no way to bring the words back. I hoped he wouldn’t believe me, that he wouldn’t go, but he did.”
“Bloody hell,” the younger Sirius muttered as he punched a fist into mattress beside him and stared down at his lap. Sirius knew then that the teenager could imagine himself doing the same. “What happened?” he asked without looking at either of them.
“On my world, James went into the tunnel and got Snape out in time. He saw Remus, but somehow, Dumbledore swore Snape to secrecy. But I don’t think Remus has ever fully trusted me since. I have to live with that every day. On another world I went to, Remus died. Either he tore himself to bits in frustration after two humans got away, or the Ministry executed him for being a dangerous creature. I didn’t ask which. Both almost happened on my world.”
“Bloody, bloody, hell.” The younger Sirius looked up at his older counterpart again. “Exactly where and when did this happen?”
Sirius shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. If you avoid him on the day I bollocksed things up, it might happen another day. The only way to prevent this is to call a truce in the war against Snape, even if it is a unilateral one. Both of you leave him alone, and—eventually—he’ll leave you alone.”
“No, he won’t,” James said.
“He will. Trust me, I’ve known that infuriating snake a lot longer than either of you.”
“Sirius may have to call a truce with that slimy Slytherin, but I don’t,” James said.
“Of course you do,” Sirius said. “You two are a pair. Snape’s accustomed to thinking of you that way. If either one of you keeps on at him, he’ll see it as both of you doing so, and sooner or later he’ll go after Sirius and push him too far.”
James sighed resignedly. He’d call a truce, but he wasn’t happy about it.
“And if possibly saving the life of your friend Remus isn’t an important enough reason to call a truce—”
“I never said that,” James said quickly.
“—there will be fringe benefits to calling a truce. For example, Lily Evans will never go out with you unless you call a truce.”
James caught the implication and began to smile. “You mean that if we do call a truce, she will go out with me?”
“She might.”
“You’re so pathetic,” the teenaged Sirius said as he shoved his friend’s shoulder.
“No, not pathetic, just in love,” James said with a smile. “So, Paddy, any more hard won advice for us?”
“I think that covers my three biggest mistakes. The small mistakes, you’re on your own, Sirius.”
“Will I do anything right?” the younger Sirius asked. He said with a smile and slight laugh, as if merely joking, but Sirius could see worry in the teenager’s eyes.
Sirius nodded, smiling reassuringly. “You’ve already started. You said something right to the Sorting Hat to get put in Gryffindor. You’ve realized that all the shit our parents taught us was—shit. You became friends with James and Remus—and maybe your Peter will turn out better than mine, but I won’t count on it. And when you fall in love, you’ll choose very, very well.”
“Who?” James asked with a grin. “Do I know her?”
Young Sirius suddenly looked very nervous. He shook his head at the older man to forestall any possible answer. “I’d rather find out when it happens.”
“Of course.” Sirius knew that if his counterpart was truly a match for himself, he had begun to realize his sexual preference by this point—and be troubled by it, at least at first.
“Prongs, would you mind if –uh—Sirius—and I talk alone for awhile?” the teenaged Sirius asked.
“No problem,” James said as he stood and stretched. “I’m starving anyway. Would it be all right if I invited Remus over for breakfast so he can meet you?” he asked the older man.
Sirius nodded. “I suppose that—yes, it’s fine.” He mentally scolded himself for getting nervous at the prospect of seeing the teenage Remus.
“Great.” He paused at the door. “Gives a whole new meaning to talking to oneself, doesn’t it?”
“Go away, Prongs,” the other teenager said exasperatedly. He followed James to the door, watched to see that he was headed toward the kitchen, and then closed the bedroom door for privacy. “This is a bit embarrassing,” he said without turning around again, “but I’ve been wanting to talk to someone about this, and I don’t dare discuss it even with James—”
“But you think I might have gone through the same thing at your age.”
“Exactly.” Sirius returned to side of the bed and stared down at his bare feet.
“Let me guess,” Sirius said in an attempt to make it easier for the teenager. “While James is busy noticing the charms of Miss Evans and the other members of the fairer sex, you’ve been noticing—well, the broad-shouldered sex.”
The teenager nodded. “So, is this just some weird phase—I’ve heard some people get curious and then straighten out—or am I doomed to be some perverted poof?”
“Getting curious and then straightening out—sounds like a pearl of Black Family wisdom,” Sirius said with a laugh. “I can’t tell you what your future holds, Sirius. I can tell you about me, and you can draw your own conclusions about yourself. First of all, I’m not perverted,”—the teenager looked up hopefully—“but I am a poof.”
“Oh fuck,” the teenager muttered as he dropped his head again. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
“It’s not the end of the world. First of all, my friends were fine with it when I eventually told them, so yours probably will be too.”
“Really?” the teenager asked as he looked toward the door James had left by. “James won’t feel weird around me?”
“My James said something like, ‘Really? O.K. Do you think Ravenclaw can beat Slytherin this Saturday?’”
The teenager laughed. “You’re kidding.”
“Yes," Sirius admitted. "James felt a little awkward, but only briefly. Once he was convinced that I wasn’t interested in him, he relaxed about it. And in case you are at all interested in James, forget it. My James was straight, and yours seems to be too.”
“Yeah, Lily-obsessed this one is.”
There were so many appropriate responses he could make—that his James had been equally obsessed, that Lily was worthy of a little obsession, that Sirius would come to love her almost as much as he loved James, that someday Sirius would fall madly in love with an infant with Lily’s eyes and James’s hair. Sirius said none of this; he merely smiled.
“The second reason that this isn’t the end of the world,” Sirius continued, “the sex is great.”
“Yeah—well—that’s kind of the point of sex,” the teenager said with a sheepish smile, “but—doesn’t it—it seems like it might—”
“Hurt?”
The younger Sirius nodded.
“If you’re nervous or tense, then, yes, anal sex can be uncomfortable. Let me give you one piece of advice. Wait until you want to do it so badly that you can’t stand the idea of not doing it. Then you’ll be ready.” Sirius couldn’t resist grinning as he added, “And you’ll discover what the Turks say is true: once a man’s been buggered, he’ll never go back to women again. In the meantime, you and whomever you date will find that there are so many other ways to please each other.” Sirius suspected that he had a lovesick smile as he imagined stroking and kissing Remus and hearing Remus’s incoherent sounds of pleasure.
“Oh, a second piece of advice,” he continued. “Buy some lubricant designed for sex. Saliva will do when you’re desperate, but these are better.” As he spoke, he went to the desk and quickly scribbled down the names of two favourites. He handed the parchment to the teenager. The younger Sirius seemed to be blushing as he took it, but perhaps it was a trick of the filtered sunlight. “The first one you can find in any Muggle chemist’s, near the condoms usually. The second has a scent that my lover and I like, but you’ll have to find a more specialized shop.
“Which brings me to the third reason why this isn’t the end of the world—my lover, my boyfriend, whatever you want to call him. If I weren’t gay, we wouldn’t have fallen in love, and—and I just can’t imagine—” But he could imagine his life without Remus’s love. The dark days of mistrust would never be forgotten. “My life is empty without him. He’s amazing. He’s far better than I deserve, but every time I’ve bollocksed things up, he’s given me another chance. And it just kills me that I’m here now instead of with him after I promised that I’d never leave him alone again. He needs me, and I need him.”
The younger Sirius was watching his older counterpart’s eyes. “You love him,” the teenager said in surprise.
“Of course I do.” Sirius felt a bit confused by the boy’s reaction. “Why? Did you think two men couldn’t fall in love? Did you think it had to be just about sex?”
“No—maybe. I guess that I just didn’t think I’d ever fall in love. It’s not like I’ve had exemplary role models in that department. But if you could, maybe I can.”
Sirius understood now. The years of being loved, by James’s parents while he lived with them, by James and Lily, and most of all, by Remus both in the past and in the present, had undone some of the damage that his childhood had inflicted on his spirit and soul. This boy had not yet felt love, so he didn’t know if he could love.
“There are good role models are out there, Sirius—the Potters, for example. Your leaving your parents' house and coming here was probably just in time. And when—and if—you fall in love with the same person I did, it’ll fall into place. You’ll know what love is when you see how he looks at you. And you’ll try to be a better person because—” Sirius had to laugh, “—he really knows how to make you feel like shit when you screw up.”
“I hope I meet him.”
Sirius merely smiled. To say, “You will,” future tense, would be misleading. To say, “You already have,” might be a bit too direct. Sirius would have to discover for himself that one of his friends could become the love of his life.
* * * * *
As he headed for the kitchen, part of Sirius was glad that James had thought to invite Remus for breakfast. He hated to miss any opportunity to spend time with Remus—any Remus. But another part of Sirius almost wished James hadn’t invited him. Sirius was a bit afraid that after seeing the wreck he might become, Remus would have serious reservations about getting involved with Sirius. Before going downstairs, he spent an inordinate amount of time in front of the bathroom mirror trying to salvage what he could of his looks. He felt almost as nervous as he had on their first official “date” years ago. When he realized he was doing this to impress a fifteen year old boy, he suddenly felt very much like a dirty old man.
When Sirius entered the kitchen, Remus was asking James why he hadn’t invited Peter. “My fault, I’m afraid,” Sirius said. “It’s nothing against your Peter, but on my world, Peter and I don’t get along any more. I think James was just trying to accommodate me.”
“That’s too bad,” Remus said. “I’d hate to think that something might come between us someday.”
Of all of them, it would worry Remus the most. Peter, James, and Sirius were the only friends he had, and he probably believed that they were the only friends he was ever likely to have. Sirius felt that he should say something reassuring, but with Remus staring at him, he couldn’t think of anything reassuring to say. James was saying something like, “We won’t let anything come between us,” but Sirius was barely listening. This Remus was almost a child, but his eyes were much older. These were the eyes of his lover staring at him.
Sirius dropped his gaze and smiled sheepishly. “I know I look a wreck, but I’ve been through a lot lately.”
“Your eyes are different,” Remus said. Then he murmured, “Sorry. Never mind.”
“Do you really think so?” Mary asked cheerfully as she placed platters of food on the table. “It was the first thing that struck me as the same—the same shade of grey-blue. Eat while it’s hot, everyone. Henry, would you get the juice, please.”
Sirius chose the seat beside Remus. “What did you mean?” he asked quietly.
“I didn’t mean to say—” Remus began to protest, but after looking at Sirius’s honestly curious face he explained, “Your eyes seem sad.”
Sirius looked across the table and saw that James and the other Sirius were listening closely. Sirius smiled at the boy who so closely resembled the best friend he’d lost years ago. “There are people I miss very much.”
Mary had taken her own seat in time to hear what Sirius said. “The people you miss—do you have a family on your world?” she asked.
“We shouldn’t pry,” Henry pointed out. “I doubt that Sirius—our Sirius— would appreciate it if we know too much about his future love life.”
“I’m just wondering if Sirius has a family waiting for him. I won’t ask who he married,” she countered.
Sirius realized that Remus had become very still beside him. If Remus was already attracted to the teenage Sirius—and after watching them at lunch yesterday, Sirius thought that probable—the question of whether or not their visitor was married had to be rather important to him. The teenaged Sirius seemed just as tense. His wide eyes begged his counterpart not to answer. To satisfy them both, Sirius decided to give a partial answer to Mary’s question. “I’m not married, not legally, but I do live with someone, and we love each other very much.” Remus glanced at him quickly and then looked at his plate again.
James was laughing as he threw an arm around the shoulders of his blushing friend. “You’ve done it now. As soon as you leave, Mum’s going to give poor Sirius a whole big lecture on why being married is better than just shacking up together.”
The teenage Sirius smiled but looked down in an embarrassed way.
“Go right ahead,” Sirius said to Mary. “After the conversation we had this morning, I think Sirius might like hearing about marriage from people who actually married for love and not for any of the twisted and mercenary reasons our family usually marries for.”
“Do you have any children?” Remus asked in a deliberately calm tone. Sirius was the only one at the table who suspected that Remus was indirectly trying to determine the sex of the person he lived with. Children would probably indicate that he was with a woman.
“No, but I have a godson.” He looked at James with a broad smile. “Guess whose kid he is, Prongs.” James’s eyes widened in realization, and Remus began to laugh. “He’s a hell of a Quidditch player too.” James was just starting to smile proudly when Sirius added, “It’s too bad he’s in Slytherin; Gryffindor really could’ve used him.”
“What?” James gasped in shock.
Remus and both Siriuses laughed. “You’re so easy, James,” the older Sirius said.
* * * * *
Sirius had no difficulty getting into the Ministry of Magic for a second day in a row. Getting near the Department of Mysteries proved slightly more difficult, but by waiting until lunchtime and by approaching the Department as a dog, he finally managed to reach the ampitheatre and the veil. He silently wished his new young friends good luck before he stepped through the archway again.
—Written May and November 2004
My other two Veil of Possibilites stories:
Without Moony
The Scent of a Mate
“Hello, Sirius,” Sirius said to the chair. “Don’t sit on upholstered furniture when you’re using the cloak. It gives you away.”
The teenager pulled back the hood of the cloak and became a disembodied head. “Well, Paddy, James says that you claim you’re me.”
“Almost right,” Sirius said as he sat up in bed and rearranged his pillows against the headboard. “I claim I’m your counterpart from another reality.”
“Yeah, that’s what he said. You don’t look like me, you know.”
“I used to. Twelve years in Azkaban has a way of destroying one’s looks.”
“Azkaban? What the fuck did you do?”
Sirius laughed. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. I was framed. With any luck—and my advice—it won’t happen to you.”
“OK, what were you framed for?”
“Killing Peter, for one thing.”
The teenager bolted upright from his slouch, his hands pushing the invisibility cloak open as he gripped the arms of the chair. “Someone’s going to kill Peter? Who? When?”
Sirius shook his head with a wry smile. “Relax. He’s safe. It’s a long story. Let’s wait until James is with us so I can explain it to you both.” Sirius thought it only right that James should hear his warnings as well. Two of his mistakes, mistrusting Remus and then trusting Peter to be the Secret Keeper, were as much James’s mistakes as they were his own.
“He’s still asleep,” the teenager said. He turned his face back to the window and pulled the curtains open to peek outside.
“It’ll sink in soon enough.”
“What will?”
“That you can relax; that you’re safe here. You won’t have to go back. The Potters will make certain of that.”
“Maybe. My mother’s accustomed to getting her way.”
“I know. She has a lot in common with my mother, remember?”
The teenager looked sharply at the older man, still deciding whether or not he believed him.
Sirius smiled. “Should I transform for you too?”
“No thanks. If James says you can turn into a dog, you can turn into a dog. I’ll go see if he’s awake.”
After the teenager left, Sirius took advantage of the brief privacy to get out of bed and put his clothes back on. Despite young Sirius’s refusal of the offer, Sirius still thought that a demonstration might help convince his counterpart that he was who he said he was. He finished dressing, and with a grin, jumped back onto the bed in canine form. He didn’t have long to wait before the two black-haired teenagers returned.
“Hello, Paddy.” James sat on the bed and began to pet the dog. “I hope you aren’t shedding. Mum will go spare if you cover everything with dog hair.
Sirius frowned as he stared down at the dog. “I’ve only looked in the mirror a couple times when I’m a dog,” he admitted. Sirius suddenly transformed as well, and began trying to identify ‘himself’ by scent. The older Padfoot jumped down onto the floor to greet the other dog properly.
“Dogs are so weird,” James said as he watched the two large black dogs sniff each other. He knew that trust had been achieved when the second dog began wagging his tail like the first.
Sirius transformed back and sat in the chair that his younger counterpart had occupied earlier. “Ready to hear the three biggest mistakes of my life and how to avoid them?” he asked the remaining dog. The younger Sirius transformed back as well and joined James in sitting on the bed.
Sirius didn’t tell them all the details—he didn’t tell them about Harry and the prediction, or that James and his family had needed to go into hiding to escape Voldemort—but he did tell them that on his world, Peter had become a spy for Voldemort and that no one had suspected him. He also told them that when they began to suspect a spy among them, they had wrongly suspected Remus. Sirius admitted that although Peter had been the traitor on his own world and on some of the others he’d visited, it did not guarantee that their Peter would follow that path.
“Of course not,” they agreed. “Our Peter would never do that.”
But the seed of doubt was planted. Sirius felt confident that they would never place the lives of James and his family into Peter’s hands. Nor would they be fooled if Peter began to subtly frame Remus in order to protect himself. In the future, if evidence suggested that one of their number was a spy, they would know whom to suspect.
The third mistake, the one that was imminent on this world, was Sirius’s alone.
“You told him?” James demanded. “Snape? Of all people, Snape?”
“I didn’t mean to; it wasn’t deliberate. He was just being his infuriating self, and he kept pushing all the right buttons to make me more and more angry, and then he—it doesn’t matter. It just came out, and there was no way to bring the words back. I hoped he wouldn’t believe me, that he wouldn’t go, but he did.”
“Bloody hell,” the younger Sirius muttered as he punched a fist into mattress beside him and stared down at his lap. Sirius knew then that the teenager could imagine himself doing the same. “What happened?” he asked without looking at either of them.
“On my world, James went into the tunnel and got Snape out in time. He saw Remus, but somehow, Dumbledore swore Snape to secrecy. But I don’t think Remus has ever fully trusted me since. I have to live with that every day. On another world I went to, Remus died. Either he tore himself to bits in frustration after two humans got away, or the Ministry executed him for being a dangerous creature. I didn’t ask which. Both almost happened on my world.”
“Bloody, bloody, hell.” The younger Sirius looked up at his older counterpart again. “Exactly where and when did this happen?”
Sirius shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. If you avoid him on the day I bollocksed things up, it might happen another day. The only way to prevent this is to call a truce in the war against Snape, even if it is a unilateral one. Both of you leave him alone, and—eventually—he’ll leave you alone.”
“No, he won’t,” James said.
“He will. Trust me, I’ve known that infuriating snake a lot longer than either of you.”
“Sirius may have to call a truce with that slimy Slytherin, but I don’t,” James said.
“Of course you do,” Sirius said. “You two are a pair. Snape’s accustomed to thinking of you that way. If either one of you keeps on at him, he’ll see it as both of you doing so, and sooner or later he’ll go after Sirius and push him too far.”
James sighed resignedly. He’d call a truce, but he wasn’t happy about it.
“And if possibly saving the life of your friend Remus isn’t an important enough reason to call a truce—”
“I never said that,” James said quickly.
“—there will be fringe benefits to calling a truce. For example, Lily Evans will never go out with you unless you call a truce.”
James caught the implication and began to smile. “You mean that if we do call a truce, she will go out with me?”
“She might.”
“You’re so pathetic,” the teenaged Sirius said as he shoved his friend’s shoulder.
“No, not pathetic, just in love,” James said with a smile. “So, Paddy, any more hard won advice for us?”
“I think that covers my three biggest mistakes. The small mistakes, you’re on your own, Sirius.”
“Will I do anything right?” the younger Sirius asked. He said with a smile and slight laugh, as if merely joking, but Sirius could see worry in the teenager’s eyes.
Sirius nodded, smiling reassuringly. “You’ve already started. You said something right to the Sorting Hat to get put in Gryffindor. You’ve realized that all the shit our parents taught us was—shit. You became friends with James and Remus—and maybe your Peter will turn out better than mine, but I won’t count on it. And when you fall in love, you’ll choose very, very well.”
“Who?” James asked with a grin. “Do I know her?”
Young Sirius suddenly looked very nervous. He shook his head at the older man to forestall any possible answer. “I’d rather find out when it happens.”
“Of course.” Sirius knew that if his counterpart was truly a match for himself, he had begun to realize his sexual preference by this point—and be troubled by it, at least at first.
“Prongs, would you mind if –uh—Sirius—and I talk alone for awhile?” the teenaged Sirius asked.
“No problem,” James said as he stood and stretched. “I’m starving anyway. Would it be all right if I invited Remus over for breakfast so he can meet you?” he asked the older man.
Sirius nodded. “I suppose that—yes, it’s fine.” He mentally scolded himself for getting nervous at the prospect of seeing the teenage Remus.
“Great.” He paused at the door. “Gives a whole new meaning to talking to oneself, doesn’t it?”
“Go away, Prongs,” the other teenager said exasperatedly. He followed James to the door, watched to see that he was headed toward the kitchen, and then closed the bedroom door for privacy. “This is a bit embarrassing,” he said without turning around again, “but I’ve been wanting to talk to someone about this, and I don’t dare discuss it even with James—”
“But you think I might have gone through the same thing at your age.”
“Exactly.” Sirius returned to side of the bed and stared down at his bare feet.
“Let me guess,” Sirius said in an attempt to make it easier for the teenager. “While James is busy noticing the charms of Miss Evans and the other members of the fairer sex, you’ve been noticing—well, the broad-shouldered sex.”
The teenager nodded. “So, is this just some weird phase—I’ve heard some people get curious and then straighten out—or am I doomed to be some perverted poof?”
“Getting curious and then straightening out—sounds like a pearl of Black Family wisdom,” Sirius said with a laugh. “I can’t tell you what your future holds, Sirius. I can tell you about me, and you can draw your own conclusions about yourself. First of all, I’m not perverted,”—the teenager looked up hopefully—“but I am a poof.”
“Oh fuck,” the teenager muttered as he dropped his head again. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
“It’s not the end of the world. First of all, my friends were fine with it when I eventually told them, so yours probably will be too.”
“Really?” the teenager asked as he looked toward the door James had left by. “James won’t feel weird around me?”
“My James said something like, ‘Really? O.K. Do you think Ravenclaw can beat Slytherin this Saturday?’”
The teenager laughed. “You’re kidding.”
“Yes," Sirius admitted. "James felt a little awkward, but only briefly. Once he was convinced that I wasn’t interested in him, he relaxed about it. And in case you are at all interested in James, forget it. My James was straight, and yours seems to be too.”
“Yeah, Lily-obsessed this one is.”
There were so many appropriate responses he could make—that his James had been equally obsessed, that Lily was worthy of a little obsession, that Sirius would come to love her almost as much as he loved James, that someday Sirius would fall madly in love with an infant with Lily’s eyes and James’s hair. Sirius said none of this; he merely smiled.
“The second reason that this isn’t the end of the world,” Sirius continued, “the sex is great.”
“Yeah—well—that’s kind of the point of sex,” the teenager said with a sheepish smile, “but—doesn’t it—it seems like it might—”
“Hurt?”
The younger Sirius nodded.
“If you’re nervous or tense, then, yes, anal sex can be uncomfortable. Let me give you one piece of advice. Wait until you want to do it so badly that you can’t stand the idea of not doing it. Then you’ll be ready.” Sirius couldn’t resist grinning as he added, “And you’ll discover what the Turks say is true: once a man’s been buggered, he’ll never go back to women again. In the meantime, you and whomever you date will find that there are so many other ways to please each other.” Sirius suspected that he had a lovesick smile as he imagined stroking and kissing Remus and hearing Remus’s incoherent sounds of pleasure.
“Oh, a second piece of advice,” he continued. “Buy some lubricant designed for sex. Saliva will do when you’re desperate, but these are better.” As he spoke, he went to the desk and quickly scribbled down the names of two favourites. He handed the parchment to the teenager. The younger Sirius seemed to be blushing as he took it, but perhaps it was a trick of the filtered sunlight. “The first one you can find in any Muggle chemist’s, near the condoms usually. The second has a scent that my lover and I like, but you’ll have to find a more specialized shop.
“Which brings me to the third reason why this isn’t the end of the world—my lover, my boyfriend, whatever you want to call him. If I weren’t gay, we wouldn’t have fallen in love, and—and I just can’t imagine—” But he could imagine his life without Remus’s love. The dark days of mistrust would never be forgotten. “My life is empty without him. He’s amazing. He’s far better than I deserve, but every time I’ve bollocksed things up, he’s given me another chance. And it just kills me that I’m here now instead of with him after I promised that I’d never leave him alone again. He needs me, and I need him.”
The younger Sirius was watching his older counterpart’s eyes. “You love him,” the teenager said in surprise.
“Of course I do.” Sirius felt a bit confused by the boy’s reaction. “Why? Did you think two men couldn’t fall in love? Did you think it had to be just about sex?”
“No—maybe. I guess that I just didn’t think I’d ever fall in love. It’s not like I’ve had exemplary role models in that department. But if you could, maybe I can.”
Sirius understood now. The years of being loved, by James’s parents while he lived with them, by James and Lily, and most of all, by Remus both in the past and in the present, had undone some of the damage that his childhood had inflicted on his spirit and soul. This boy had not yet felt love, so he didn’t know if he could love.
“There are good role models are out there, Sirius—the Potters, for example. Your leaving your parents' house and coming here was probably just in time. And when—and if—you fall in love with the same person I did, it’ll fall into place. You’ll know what love is when you see how he looks at you. And you’ll try to be a better person because—” Sirius had to laugh, “—he really knows how to make you feel like shit when you screw up.”
“I hope I meet him.”
Sirius merely smiled. To say, “You will,” future tense, would be misleading. To say, “You already have,” might be a bit too direct. Sirius would have to discover for himself that one of his friends could become the love of his life.
As he headed for the kitchen, part of Sirius was glad that James had thought to invite Remus for breakfast. He hated to miss any opportunity to spend time with Remus—any Remus. But another part of Sirius almost wished James hadn’t invited him. Sirius was a bit afraid that after seeing the wreck he might become, Remus would have serious reservations about getting involved with Sirius. Before going downstairs, he spent an inordinate amount of time in front of the bathroom mirror trying to salvage what he could of his looks. He felt almost as nervous as he had on their first official “date” years ago. When he realized he was doing this to impress a fifteen year old boy, he suddenly felt very much like a dirty old man.
When Sirius entered the kitchen, Remus was asking James why he hadn’t invited Peter. “My fault, I’m afraid,” Sirius said. “It’s nothing against your Peter, but on my world, Peter and I don’t get along any more. I think James was just trying to accommodate me.”
“That’s too bad,” Remus said. “I’d hate to think that something might come between us someday.”
Of all of them, it would worry Remus the most. Peter, James, and Sirius were the only friends he had, and he probably believed that they were the only friends he was ever likely to have. Sirius felt that he should say something reassuring, but with Remus staring at him, he couldn’t think of anything reassuring to say. James was saying something like, “We won’t let anything come between us,” but Sirius was barely listening. This Remus was almost a child, but his eyes were much older. These were the eyes of his lover staring at him.
Sirius dropped his gaze and smiled sheepishly. “I know I look a wreck, but I’ve been through a lot lately.”
“Your eyes are different,” Remus said. Then he murmured, “Sorry. Never mind.”
“Do you really think so?” Mary asked cheerfully as she placed platters of food on the table. “It was the first thing that struck me as the same—the same shade of grey-blue. Eat while it’s hot, everyone. Henry, would you get the juice, please.”
Sirius chose the seat beside Remus. “What did you mean?” he asked quietly.
“I didn’t mean to say—” Remus began to protest, but after looking at Sirius’s honestly curious face he explained, “Your eyes seem sad.”
Sirius looked across the table and saw that James and the other Sirius were listening closely. Sirius smiled at the boy who so closely resembled the best friend he’d lost years ago. “There are people I miss very much.”
Mary had taken her own seat in time to hear what Sirius said. “The people you miss—do you have a family on your world?” she asked.
“We shouldn’t pry,” Henry pointed out. “I doubt that Sirius—our Sirius— would appreciate it if we know too much about his future love life.”
“I’m just wondering if Sirius has a family waiting for him. I won’t ask who he married,” she countered.
Sirius realized that Remus had become very still beside him. If Remus was already attracted to the teenage Sirius—and after watching them at lunch yesterday, Sirius thought that probable—the question of whether or not their visitor was married had to be rather important to him. The teenaged Sirius seemed just as tense. His wide eyes begged his counterpart not to answer. To satisfy them both, Sirius decided to give a partial answer to Mary’s question. “I’m not married, not legally, but I do live with someone, and we love each other very much.” Remus glanced at him quickly and then looked at his plate again.
James was laughing as he threw an arm around the shoulders of his blushing friend. “You’ve done it now. As soon as you leave, Mum’s going to give poor Sirius a whole big lecture on why being married is better than just shacking up together.”
The teenage Sirius smiled but looked down in an embarrassed way.
“Go right ahead,” Sirius said to Mary. “After the conversation we had this morning, I think Sirius might like hearing about marriage from people who actually married for love and not for any of the twisted and mercenary reasons our family usually marries for.”
“Do you have any children?” Remus asked in a deliberately calm tone. Sirius was the only one at the table who suspected that Remus was indirectly trying to determine the sex of the person he lived with. Children would probably indicate that he was with a woman.
“No, but I have a godson.” He looked at James with a broad smile. “Guess whose kid he is, Prongs.” James’s eyes widened in realization, and Remus began to laugh. “He’s a hell of a Quidditch player too.” James was just starting to smile proudly when Sirius added, “It’s too bad he’s in Slytherin; Gryffindor really could’ve used him.”
“What?” James gasped in shock.
Remus and both Siriuses laughed. “You’re so easy, James,” the older Sirius said.
Sirius had no difficulty getting into the Ministry of Magic for a second day in a row. Getting near the Department of Mysteries proved slightly more difficult, but by waiting until lunchtime and by approaching the Department as a dog, he finally managed to reach the ampitheatre and the veil. He silently wished his new young friends good luck before he stepped through the archway again.
—Written May and November 2004
My other two Veil of Possibilites stories:
Without Moony
The Scent of a Mate
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 04:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-09 05:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-14 04:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-14 02:41 pm (UTC)It's funny that you should mention a sequel. I wrote a scene for one just a couple of days ago, but then inspiration failed me. It's just as well; I should work on the sequel to "Scent of a Mate" instead.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-16 02:47 am (UTC):-)
Em
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Date: 2006-09-17 01:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-20 12:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-21 01:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-30 06:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-30 01:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-09 10:43 pm (UTC)Hell, I'd've loved to know how it'd go on for the young MWPP here. I do love your Sirius saying that maybe Peter's not going to turn out that way; maybe they'll include him more and be closer to him, thanks to Sirius' advise.
I just really like this.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-11 09:46 pm (UTC)Thanks for reading and commenting!
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Date: 2009-05-29 05:33 am (UTC)someone commented asking for a sequel and I second that request!! a sequel would be LOVE!!!
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Date: 2009-05-29 02:51 pm (UTC)Although I did write and post something HP related yesterday, so...