A Sea Change

Chapter 7:

On their third morning at the repair shop, Sirius awoke to find a letter in the brass cup he’d set on a box beside their bed. He read it aloud for Gwen’s benefit, grinning at Harry’s cautious choice of words:

Dear Snuffles,

Hope you’re OK, and didn’t worry too much about that letter they found. I didn’t tell them anything, I know our friend who’s been to India told you about that. He also told me about your new friend; she sounds cool and I hope she’ll like me. And I’m really glad she likes you!

I wonder if I could see you somehow, soon. I have something I’m a bit worried about and I’d like to talk it over with you if possible. If you can think of a good time and place let me know: we don’t get a Hogsmeade weekend for another three weeks and I’d like it to be sooner than that.  Nothing dangerous or anything like that but it’s just something on my mind. Thanks.

Hope this works. I’ve never set fire to a letter before.   Love, H.

Sirius scribbled a reply:

Hello Lad,

Come down to the place where Vincent was staying, after your last class on Friday afternoon. Our friend who lives there won’t mind. Hum your tune, in case neither of us can see the other.   Love.    S.

He read the note to Gwen, laid it in the cup and set light to it, and watched the ashes disappear through the bottom of the cup. A moment later, they laughed as a scrap of parchment reappeared, with a scribble from Harry:

It works! COOL!

                                ***************************

“Lumos.” Harry pulled off the Invisibility Cloak and held up his wand for light as they looked around Hagrid’s crowded tool shed for a place to sit. Heaving a sackful of heavy, clanking metal objects—machine parts?— to one side, they managed to claim a few feet of dusty floor space, and sat side by side leaning against the wall. Sirius whispered a silencing charm and locked the door with more muttered words.

“Right, then, youngster, how can I help?”

Harry kept his eyes firmly fixed on his knees. “Well, it’s nothing dangerous, or anything like that; it’s just….” He took a deep breath, and plunged on: “How do you know if you’re gay or not? I mean anybody,” he added hurriedly. “How does  a...a person…um,  know. If they’re gay.”

“Do you think you might be gay?” Sirius began cautiously, immediately feeling out of his depth. “I thought there was a girl you liked a lot, last year. D’you still like her?”

“Oh yeah, I still like her. I even kissed her once, and she seems to like me too sometimes, and when I think about her, I get…you know, excited, I guess. And there are other girls I think about, pretty ones, I mean. But Sirius, last Monday, when we had our first Quidditch practice, there’s this boy, a seventh-year, who came over to me while we were changing, and he was all… well, excited, and he KISSED me, and I let him, Sirius, and I felt excited then, too, only scared. Then some other people came in, and we just got dressed and went back to the common room.”

He took up the corner of his new school robe and twisted it in his fingers. “But that same night, when we were going to bed and I watched Ron changing into pyjamas, it made me feel really—RON, Sirius! What would he think if he knew! I don’t dare even look at him.” Harry did look up then, his eyes huge in his thin face.

Sirius resisted the urge to hug him; this wouldn’t be the time, he thought wryly. Oh, Lord—he remembered being fifteen. The best—the worst—and then again the best year. He’d carried off the most brilliant thing he’d ever done: created Padfoot at fifteen. He’d done the stupidest thing he’d ever done: nearly got Snape killed; nearly made his best friend a murderer. But he’d been forgiven. And running through all that: awakening sexual turmoil. Well, it seemed that it was his fate to try to tell Harry about it.

Sirius sighed, gazing around the dimly-lit shed for inspiration. He should have been ready for this; weren’t all parents supposed to have the Talk with their children at some point?  He frowned ahead of him into the gloom, fixing his eyes on a Muggle farm implement whose function he couldn’t guess. It was rusty, with several rows of sharp points mounted on a frame—a wicked-looking thing. He knew Hagrid used to raise most of the school’s vegetables; this must be left over from the days when the school was more self-supporting. Now there was just the pumpkin patch and Hagrid’s personal kitchen garden, not big enough to require machinery like this.

Sirius shook his head, to bring himself back to the subject at hand.

He took a deep breath, and vowed to be as reassuring as he could. That would be the thing—to keep Harry from being scared. Let him know he was OK.

“You know, Harry, you may as well get used to that as a first reaction to anyone at all. It’s a powerful thing, sex. When it first comes on, it finds its way into every thought you have. Girls seem to handle it all better than we do, but it’s a force to be reckoned with, no question. Lots of wizards try to use that power, because that’s what it is, you know…. They go without any at all—totally celibate, you know—thinking to channel that energy to magical use. Never could see it, myself….”

He grinned as Harry’s mouth twitched, almost ready to see the fun in that remark. Not doing so badly…at least he’d nearly got a smile from the kid, there.

“When I was about your age, it all started for me too. I’m not particularly proud of this, but I don’t see any way I can deny it:  I wanted to shag anything that moved. I did my best to carry out that plan through the rest of my school days, and after. I think my first encounter was with a Muggle girl when I was at home for the summer after fourth year…then at school, a seventh-year Ravenclaw girl, then there was the Quidditch captain, male, nearly as you described the setting. Then, then things got complicated….”

Harry settled back, fascinated, to listen.

They weren’t speaking to him; hadn’t been since it happened. James, especially, was furious. It was on his account that Sirius had lost it, panicked, then went berserk, and this made James feel that he might be partly to blame for the whole incident. Unbearable.  Snape, alone for once, had been following them, at dusk, to try and find out what they were “up to,” as he sneeringly put it. Words had been exchanged, then hexes. James was hit, out cold, wouldn’t wake up, even with ‘Enervate.’  Sirius, white as a sheet, shaking James. Peter watching, frantic. Sirius, charging like a wild animal, lashing out with fists, hitting Snape with strength born of fury and panic, anywhere he could reach. “Right, Snape, you bastard, here’s what you do, you’re so anxious to spy on us, I’ll tell you exactly where we were going…”

And Snape had gone. Running.

So, when the unspeakable thing had been done, and James awoke just in time and saved the situation as best he could, he’d been the angriest.

Gryffindor House was in a frenzy of hushed speculation. There had been a Disciplinary Enquiry, top secret, which summoned Sirius, Peter, James, Remus, and that kid from Slytherin whose gang was always at odds with James and Sirius. Miraculously, nobody had been expelled, and parents had not been notified. Afterwards, they’d come back to the Common Room and beat Sirius into the floor. The fight had been a grim, silent one, witnessed by everyone in Gryffindor Common Room, reported by nobody. Peter, glancing nervously at James, biting his lip as he watched his world splitting up, but determined to back James with his feet and fists. James himself completely berserk, tears flying from his eyes, laying into Sirius as hard as he could, a whirlwind of anger.

 Potter&Co. had come to a parting of the ways; Sirius was OUT. None of the parties involved told anyone, so nobody knew why, but there it was: Sirius, Gryffindor’s most talented and enthusiastic fighter, unbelievably accepted his pariah status, stood with his hands at his sides, even lifted his face to the blows, letting James and Peter pound him. When he finally slid onto the floor, they left him there.  Remus stood by and watched, but didn’t interfere. Sirius did not go to the Hospital Wing with his wounds, afterwards.

After that, in the days that followed, things returned to near-normal, with Potter, Lupin and Pettigrew carrying on much as before, and Black almost invisible. He spent a lot of time outdoors, with or without permission. Twice he’d written notes, and left them tucked into Lupin’s books, but those notes went unanswered.

One afternoon, when Sirius’s right eye had reopened, but it, and the cheekbone below it, were still a garish, violent purplish-yellow, and his split lip had healed to the point that it didn’t hurt when he drank something hot, he sat beside the lake, hidden by a stand of bushes, doing his Dark Arts essay. The aches and stiffness from his beating were slowly lessening; the internal hurt and remorse were as strong as ever. He was doing his best to ignore it and get on with things. He hadn’t heard anyone approach; he jumped at the thump of Remus’s bookbag hitting the ground in front of him. Remus stood there quietly, his hazel eyes unreadable.

“It’s no use,” he said softly.

Sirius went pale. “No use. You mean, never…” he whispered. He’d begged, in his two notes, for forgiveness. Had promised to do anything Remus wanted him to do, to re-earn his trust. But, ‘no use’…. Right, then; he’d manage somehow. He’d leave school; he’d….

Remus shook his head impatiently and seemed distressed. He put out a hand, hesitated, and drew it back. “Pads, no, I didn’t mean that. I meant, it’s no use, I can’t stop being your friend. James and Peter want me to, but it’s not fair, is it.  I think I might have done the same thing, if I’d been that upset.” A lie, of course. Remus was never ‘that upset.’ But this sounded like—

Sirius’s voice rose to slightly above a whisper. “You mean you’ll give me another chance—You know I’m sorry; I’ll do anything, just tell me.”He sat frozen, waiting, his quill still in his hand, the ink drying unheeded.

Remus did reach out, then, and laid his hand gently over the bruised eye and cheekbone. “Sorry, about…this.” 

At the touch, Sirius drew a long, nearly steady breath. “It wasn’t you….”

“No, but James did it for me. Like you did—what you did—for him. Weird, isn’t it.”

 He felt Remus’s little finger slowly, gently stroking his cheek, below the bruise, and  thought he saw Remus’s eyes—could it be possible?—misting over with tears, as he knew his own were doing. Hardly daring to breathe, he kept his gaze fixed on Remus, who cleared his throat, sniffed, smiled and spoke.

“I’ve always thought it was incredible, how you didn’t mind having a friend who turns into a monster once a month.”

He paused, then smiled more broadly and went on:  “I reckon I should try and understand if my friend turns into a monster once in five years.”

And then he’d knelt beside Sirius and kissed him, gingerly, on his split lip.

Cautiously, but a bit more firmly, Sirius kissed him back.

Harry stopped him, stretching out his arm in front of Sirius as if to block physical progress. “Remus kissed you…”

“Yeah. And I kissed him. I’ll never forget it. I was so relieved to be his friend again, to have him even speak to me…Just then, I loved him more than anything in the world. And because we were fifteen, we were ecstatic, and terrified at the same time. We were too scared to talk to each other for the rest of the day. But it sort of gave us a precedent, you see: after that, we spent more time…most nights, really…we experimented… off and on with each other through the rest of our years at Hogwarts.”

Sirius paused, considering. ‘Experimented’ was a fairly mild word. It sounded awfully impersonal, though; there was nothing in it to give Harry any idea of the fun, the wild, secret joy of those times… the release of tension, the blessed contentment of falling asleep in the arms of someone you loved.

He glanced nervously at Harry to gauge his reaction. None, that he could see. Harry’s wand, still illuminating the room softly, had slipped sideways in the boy’s hand, away from Sirius, to throw Harry’s profiled face into silhouette; he was hunched forward, staring straight ahead into the gloom, his arms around his knees. Oh dear…. Sirius took a deep breath, picked up a stray sliver of wood off the floor and rolled it back and forth between his fingers as he tried to think what a model parent would do here.

Nothing came to him; oh well—back to the truth. He hoped Harry would still speak to him when this little chat was over.

“ There were girls, too—several for me, not so many for Remus. Eventually, though, when we left school, we both concentrated on women, and got a bit more settled with sort-of-steady girlfriends.” Well, that was true enough, and didn’t go into disturbing detail.  Maybe not so reassuring, though, to a kid who wondered if he might be gay.

“But you know, it mightn’t have been that way. That day by the lake, I felt that if Remus  wanted me, I’d stay with him forever. The most important thing in the world to me was regaining his trust and not losing that love. To be honest, I’d have been his DOG if he asked me to; I owed him….”

Harry stared at his godfather. “You mean, it’s a matter of choice?”

“No, I didn’t exactly mean that. I don’t think it is, for most people. I mean, I thought I was making a choice. We were fifteen. And we didn’t dare ask anybody what was going on.

“I think after the chaos you go through when it first comes on, most people settle on one or the other. All I meant was, you shouldn’t worry about fancying boys just yet. You’ll be able to sort it all out, eventually. Love, friendship, any strong emotion—hate, even—is going to translate into sex for a few years. Just relax as much as possible, don’t be scared, and if the opportunity arises, and you feel good about it, go for it. But only if you want to. I’d make a few rules, maybe, if I were you, just to keep yourself safe.”

Harry swallowed. “You’re not going to tell me to wait for marriage, or anything like that? I thought parents wanted their kids to stay away from sex…”

“Parents want their kids to be safe, and happy…. I’d look a right hypocrite if I tried to make you stick to anything like that. You can be safe enough, and still do a bit of experimenting. There are some books in the library I can recommend: not even in the restricted section. I expect they’re still there.”

Harry was silent for several moments; he straightened up and crossed his legs, leaning his back against the wall as he fidgeted with the corner of his robe. Sirius watched him, wary, ready for anything.

At last, Harry looked up, out of the corner of his eye, and regarded his godfather with the beginnings of a smile. “What sort of rules, d’you think?”

“Well. Maybe something like this: only with people you like. Or people you trust. Remember what I said about sex being power: it’s possible to use it as a way of controlling people, or punishing people, and I wouldn’t want you involved in anything like that.

“Keep it fair, too: stay with equals. I don’t want to think of you with an adult; that would scare me.

“Oh, and the common-sense ones you can probably figure out on your own: stay away from people your friends fancy. Life will be so much easier and you’ll avoid lots of fights.” Sirius paused. Those didn’t seem very adequate. He was no good at this. He ran his hand distractedly through his hair.

“I don’t know, Harry. I wish I could be more use here. I do know that sex played a big part in my behaving like a fool for a good portion of my life—but I’d probably do it all over again if I were your age. I don’t regret much of it. The worst times came when I was breaking one or the other of those rules I just mentioned. And I’ve managed to fall on my feet. I’m one of the luckiest people in the world. I have you, and the rest of our family, and a woman I love, and hope for a future.…”

At last he did reach out. He put his arm protectively around Harry’s thin shoulders and hugged him hard. “ Ah, kid—I wish I could tell you things that would save you from all the bad times and just give you the wonderful ones. I wish I could keep you from worrying about stuff like this. To be honest, I don’t care if you’re gay or not. I just want you to love someone, eventually, and have someone love you. As much as I do. And to have that happen, face it—you have to look.” He tightened his hold on Harry’s shoulders and planted a kiss on his temple. A firm, no-nonsense kiss, not to be mistaken for anything other than affection.

He felt Harry relax, felt him lean into the embrace and reach his arm around Sirius’s back. He couldn’t see Harry’s face, but he felt the slight movement of the boy’s cheek against his shoulder. He thought Harry might be smiling. He allowed himself a cautious sigh of relief.

“But you—Sirius, did you and my dad ever… NOT sleep together, I truly don’t want to know that, but—you made it up; he went back to being your friend, he must have, didn’t he?”

At last, Sirius grinned, his old wolfish grin that made Harry feel better, just seeing it. “Your dad was great: he never held a grudge. He was as glad as I was that Remus patched everything up. By the time term ended, things were just as they’d been before.”

Not quite, though, he reflected. One thing had been different: his own determination to protect, to be the guard-dog. To be worthy of his friends, trustworthy. He couldn’t explain to Harry, or to anyone, but his failure to do those things—protect, guard, trust—made him guilty, not of the crime he’d been arrested for, but still guilty. He’d doubted Remus, of all people; he’d as good as killed James. He’d failed at the very things he’d wanted most of all to do right. And wound up in Azkaban. He’d deserved it, in a way.

He held Harry tightly, pressed his lips to the boy’s hair. He stared over Harry’s head at the weird machine with the rows of rusted metal points. The world suddenly appeared to him to be full of dangers: to Harry; to Gwen, who wanted to be an unofficial Auror, for gods' sake, whether he agreed or not-- Another chance. Keeping them safe and happy was up to him.