Firelight

Once upon a December night, the silhouette of two figures, huddled close, had adorned the proud walls of the Gryffindor common room. Whispered vows were promised to remain unbroken, witnessed solely by the dying, sputtering fire. Neither boy noticed, for they were too lost in the other, in the novelty and the promise of tomorrow, next year, forever.

A thin hand, pale and trembling in the half-light, reached upward to feather ghostly touches on an equally pale, but foreign, cheek, caress enforced by more whispery tones. Moving lips were silenced, smothered by another pair, different, new, but oh-so-right.

I've known this forever / where have you been all this time? / never stop, always mine, beyond tonight, beyond always

The waning moon was compensated for with the brightest star, and both shimmered in harmonious balance. The otherwise opaque night sky was illuminated by one ethereal light that shone from two sources.

The fire ceased to suffer, for it could no longer bear the thought of such powerful, empty vows. At last, the final spark fell silent, and the flames were dead.

&.

Dead. Sirius was dead to him, but his memory was not. Remus could immerse himself in life and study, and forget about the beautiful boy locked up and mutilated by his own memories. He could not, however, forget about the wonderful days and hauntingly perfect nights, about first the camaraderie and then the lust and then the love. He could not forget about feathery kisses and quick, skilled hands, solemn eyes and wicked mouth. The substance of dreams, then, and now, of hellish, distorted nightmare.

Remus could not remember the soaring joy and the bright sunshine of his younger years, but he could picture the worry and pain and fear of the metaphorical yesterday. He knew the forced, self-imposed calm before the impending storm as well as he knew the map of the night sky, with one star missing.

His heart felt the absence of that star keenly, but his mind would not acknowledge the void. It was not something he could outsmart, or outrun, or overpower. The intangibility of the missing piece frustrated his brain until it chose to ignore the emptiness. The fringes of his mind sewed themselves flawlessly and seamlessly together, excluding the memory and the sense of loss.

Remus, for all intents and purposes, should not have still felt lost and empty, but he was alternatively jittery and overwhelmed, and he could not place why.

&.

Why have you kept yourself from me for so long? Why did you not follow me, as you promised so many years ago?

The dog wondered this, and the wolf strained to answer, but found a chain clamped around his muzzle and could not utter a sound. The worn, fatigued dog whimpered and whined, but only received a detached, scholarly hand on his shoulders. It did little to comfort his fears. It did everything to vanquish his hopes.

For almost two moons, the dog found he could not shed his cumbersome canine form. Somewhere, in the recesses of his feral mind, he knew that he had once possessed such ability, but he needed the encouragement that only the wolf could give him.

It was the wolf's voice, but not his tone, that spoke to the dog, day after day, gently but coldly offering encouragement. This was the wolf's master, and the dog knew that he couldn't bear the memory of the dog, and of the man that the dog once was.

Gradually, however, the dog coaxed his battered body into that man. Sirius, curled up on the rug in front of a flickering fire, remembered a time, many years ago, when Remus had promised him the stars, and he, in turn, had foolishly offered forever. He remembered whispered vows and heated passion, and knew that forever is only as long as one allows it to be. He thought he and Remus would allow it forever, once.