What Happens If You Add a T to "Eroica"?

A flash of light impacted with a thud and then the flicker and tingle of magic, and he fell backwards. The flutter of the thin curtains felt like gentle kisses against his arms; he heard Bella's triumphant scream; and suddenly it occurred to him to feel surprise. His cousin had never once before bested him in a duel...

But suddenly these considerations were less than important. He saw, as if from a distance, Harry struggling in Moony's arms, and then the world spiraled and melded with the twisting fabric of the veil and he fell. And fell. There seemed to be no end, no bottom to the void; but he was a Gryffindor, and told himself through the haze of confusion that he felt no fear. Spirals, grey and black and the colors of the world all melded together...and then there was an end.

Sirius landed in a pile of horse dung.

Damn it...

He picked himself up. Where the hell am I? Looking at his surroundings, however, did not help. He was in the middle of a grassy field, where...horses grazed? On a hill a few meters away, sat an expansive manor house, in front of which were parked several carriages. Oh, Merlin, I am so not in Kansas anymore...

There didn't seem to be another option, really. His wand was gone, lost in that unbelievably strange vortex of the veil, he was in what appeared to be the early nineteenth century, and he was covered in horse shit. He picked himself up, shook off what he could of the manure, and strode, with as much dignity as he could muster, towards the house. Twelve years in Azkaban had detracted from that a bit, he supposed, but really, who could blame him? Voracious malevolent creatures who fed on human souls weren't the greatest of company.

As he approached the building, faint strains of music wafted from a window, and Sirius halted for a moment. It was a piano, played as tenderly as a piece of veal, and it was...the closest thing to perfection Sirius had heard or seen since that terrible Halloween fourteen years ago. He had to get closer...it was...too beautiful for words to describe. He jumped up to try and see into the window, caught a glimpse of a messy mop of shaggy brown hair, jumped again, and landed in a heap in a large and very thorny rosebush.

Oh, ow, oh Merlin, damn it...that hurt. Sirius struggled to sit up, and realized that his clothing was caught on the thorns. He jerked, but the fabric wouldn't give way, and, after twisting for a moment, Sirius realized that he was only making the situation worse.

Gryffindor...he reminded himself, then threw dignity to the dogs and screamed.

"Somebody help me!"

The music played on.

"Help! Please!"

The music stopped.

"Can you hear me? Help! I'm trap--"

With a delightfully ringing chord, the piano sang once again.

Sirius screamed until he was hoarse, but though the music stopped and started in bursts, no one came to his aid. A few hours later, his voice totally gone, so he decided to simply stop and listen to the music. A few moments later, it stopped. And it didn't start up again.

A few minutes later, a shaggy-headed figure wandered along Sirius's train of sight, and he began screaming with renewed force, his voice cracking and crumbling, but still managing to make sound, if only very faintly. The figure did not turn, but instead, stared up at the trees. Sirius stopped, his throat burning like a pizza oven, and suddenly, the man turned to look in his direction. His eyes widened for a moment, and then he rushed to the bush in which Sirius lay tangled like a ball of yarn that was equally tangled.

"You look trapped," the man said as he approached Sirius's side. "May I help you?" Sirius just nodded. Good thing he had learned German for that class trip his sixth year, he reflected, especially since conjugating German verbs had helped keep him sane in Azkaban. Since the memory of that psychotic German professor was hardly a happy one, the dementors hadn't taken his knowledge of the tongue.

"You smell of horse dung," the man added. "Who are you, anyway?"

"I'm Sirius Black," Sirius managed to rasp.

"What?" the man said.

"I'm Sirius Black," he replied a little louder.

"What?"

"I'M SIRIUS BLACK! THAT IS MY NAME! CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?"

"No," the man replied, "I can't hear you. I'm deaf, you see."

There was no winning, was there?

"I'm Ludwig van Beethoven," the man continued. "I am a famous composer. And you are very handsome," he added, consideringly. "You look rather like me."

Sirius, who would much preferred to have said that Beethoven looked like him, couldn't help but agree with the handsome part. Ludwig--he hoped the composer didn't mind him calling him that--was indeed quite striking, and he felt his heart pound as the composer helped him into the house.

"You will need to take off that clothing," Beethoven continued. "It is not fit for the stables. It is covered in horse poo." He was right, Sirius reflected; the clothing smelled worse than a bag of meat left to rot in the sunlight until it explodes and gets little flecks of rotting meat all over the place.

"Why don't you take off all your clothes, in fact?" Beethoven continued. "You are very handsome." Sirius, never one to pass up a compliment, complied. He stood naked before the striking composer.

"Is this good?" Sirius asked, trying to sound suave.

"What?" Beethoven asked.

"IS THIS--no, wait, you can't hear me."

"No, I can't," Beethoven agreed. "You will have to write it down."

He held out a small slate to Sirius, who took it carefully. Calling up what he could of his German, he wrote carefully on it. Ludwig took it back and read it.

"Tiger this four beer?"

"Erm..." Sirius snatched the slate back away from Beethoven, and scribbled for a moment as frantically as a squirrel running maniacally around during mating season.

"Is this good?" Beethoven read. "Yes, it is," he agreed, giving Sirius a smug, possessive look.

Sirius took the slate back, and wrote again.

"Let's have sex now," Beethoven read. "Ok."

Well, maybe Sirius's German wasn't quite as good as he remembered. But hell, why would he complain?

The two men fell into each others arms, and Sirius could feel the tickle of Ludwig's strange hair on his shoulders like a million small biting ants that weren't actually biting him. They kissed passionately for a long time, all tongues and teeth and lips. In a flash of heat and passion, they fell to the bed. Beethoven had climbed on top of Sirius, possessive, and Sirius was wild with longing for him, when suddenly Beethoven stopped.

"Damn it," he said, "sodomy is illegal."

"Damn," Sirius concurred.

"What?" Beethoven asked. "Oh, never mind. We'll have to stop. I know! I shall send you passionate letters full of unrequited longing every day. That should solve things."

"Wait a second," Sirius said, his mind still hazy with sex, "are blow jobs illegal too?"

"What?" Beethoven asked. "You'll have to write it down."

Sirius grabbed the slate, wrote quickly, and then handed it back to Beethoven.

"What is a washing machine?" he asked, looking puzzled. "Oh well. Never mind. Unrequited love letters are much more musical and poetic than blow jobs."

* * *

My angel, my all, my very self - Only a few words today and at that in pencil (yours) - I shan't be certain of my rooms here until tomorrow - what an unnecessary waste of time is all this - Why this deep sorrow when necessity speaks - can our love endure without sacrifices, by not demanding everything from one another; can you alter the fact that you are not wholly mine, I not wholly yours - Oh God, look at nature in all her beauty and calm your heart with that which must be - Love demands all and rightly so - thus it is for me with you, for you with me - But you forget so easily that I must live for me and for you; if we were wholly united you would feel this pain as little as I do.

With eternalest devotion, my immortal beloved,

~Ludwig van Beethoven.