Enter My Labyrinth

Sprawled across the couch while watching one of his two best friends busy at work, Harry asked lightly, “You brought everything you need, Hermione?”

“Of course she did, Harry,” Ron cut in before Hermione could respond. “She’s Hermione, she’s always prepared.”

“Ah, yes. How reassuring to know that Hogwarts’s best and brightest are spending their summer holiday watching Muggle children’s films,” Remus said dryly, glancing at the television screen.

Hermione looked up, offended. “There’s nothing wrong with that, Prof—er, Remus. Sir. No one can read all the time.”

“Yeah, you’d go blind,” Ron put in.

“No, Ron, that’s if you do something else all the time,” Sirius called from the kitchen, eavesdropping. Ron blushed as red as his hair and murmured something about wishing Sirius would disappear off the face of the earth, while Harry and Hermione had a good laugh at his expense.

“Sirius, behave yourself,” Remus called back, walking into the kitchen and disappearing from the children’s view. “We do have guests here…”

“And lighten up,” they heard Sirius reply good-naturedly. “You aren’t their teacher right now, you’re all on holiday.”

“Sirius Black, if you—”

Remus’s voice trailed off and the kitchen grew suspiciously silent. Ron turned to Harry and snickered, as if to say, ‘Your godfather and his boyfriend are snogging in the kitchen!’, and Hermione’s face turned a lovely shade of crimson, as if to say, ‘And his boyfriend also happens to be our favorite professor!’

Harry, in turn, shrugged and smiled faintly, as if to say, ‘Yeh, but they’re both happier now than they’ve ever been in their entire lives, so leave them to it.’ But instead he coughed deliberately, and the distinct sound of two people jumping apart came to them from the other room.

“Well, you’d best be going, right?” Sirius said.

“Right. Just to the book shop to pick up a few items Dumbledore has sent me.” Remus peeked into the room where the three children lounged as they waited for the video to rewind. Hermione had brought a Muggle VCR with her for the day, as she and Ron were visiting Harry at Remus’s (and Sirius’s) flat; she had also brought a film that she claimed they ‘simply had to see!’ “Have fun?” Remus suggested. “And keep Sirius in line, don’t let him set anything on fire…”

“So we should fix our own lunch?” Ron laughed.

“If you had any idea about how terrible Sirius’s cooking is, you’d be fixing your own lunch anyway,” Harry murmured, provoking snickers from his redheaded friend.

“Harry’s got the right idea. I’ll be back soon,” Remus said, smiling fondly and picking up his wand. “Good-bye.”

“Bye, Remus.” “Bye.” “Bye, Prof—Remus!”

Laughing at Hermione’s inability to refer to him as anything other than ‘Professor,’ Remus waved and returned to the kitchen. Sirius had cast a drying spell on the dishes and had left them on the counter, and now secreted his boyfriend to the side of the kitchen, kissing him hastily.

“Sirius!” Remus laughed, gasping for breath between ravishing kisses. “I’ll only be gone a few hours.”

“Right. These should be enough to hold me over til you get back,” Sirius replied, undeterred from his apparent goal of kissing Remus a thousand times before letting him out the door.

“The children are in the next room,” Remus pointed out, trying another tactic, although his better sense was beginning to tell him he should simply submit to the kisses, as they were immensely enjoyable anyway.

“And they’ve never kissed anyone before? I bet you Ron and Hermione have done—”

A gasp. “Sirius, those are my students! They’re like our – our – our godchildren! All three of them! And—”

“Be quiet and let me kiss you, honestly!”

“This isn’t fair, Sirius.”

“You’re right, it’s not. I’d like to do a lot more than kiss you. But this’ll have to do for now.”

Remus laughed and finally kissed him back, throwing his arms around Sirius’s neck and surrendering to being ravished. After a long moment of what could only be classified as snogging, Sirius finally relented, tangling his fingers in Remus’s soft brown hair. “I wish we could just live together in one body, forever, so we’d never be apart,” he whispered, struck for a moment by sentimentality.

“I can’t live within you,” Remus murmured, laughing but kissing him softly for the tender suggestion.

“Why not?” Sirius asked, pretending to be hurt.

“Because your hair is too long. It looks good on you, but it would never look right on me.” Remus touched the aforementioned hair, grinning. “Besides, I rather like looking at you. And if we were one body instead of two, I’d never get to…” He leaned closer, whispering unmentionable suggestions into Sirius’s ear.

“You understand that now I have to keep you as my prisoner and thoroughly ravish you for the rest of the day, right?” Sirius whispered weakly, looking the perfect cross between hopeful and horny.

“No, sorry, love. I will be back soon, though. I promise.” Remus placed a final, brief kiss on his lover’s lips, then opened the door. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” Sirius replied, watching as Remus shut the door behind him and left. Smiling rather wistfully, he cast a simple locking spell on the door, then joined the teenagers in the living room.

They greeted him with knowing smiles, nearly smirking at him in their conspiratorial glee. ‘We know what you’ve been doing,’ their expressions seemed to say, and finally Sirius gave in and blushed proudly. “What?” he asked innocently, and they only shook their heads and continued smiling, as any decent sixteen-year-old would do.

Harry simply laughed and turned the conversation to Hermione, asking, “So what is this film you’re so keen on us seeing?”

“It’s called Labyrinth,” she said brightly from her seat on the floor. Ron and Harry were sprawled across the couch, watching their friend as she knelt by the television, having hooked up her VCR. “It’s a children’s film made in 1986—”

“A children’s film?” Ron repeated skeptically.

“But it’s not really for children, it’s got a great appeal for teenagers and anyone who appreciates a sort of fantasy story. And the two leading characters are very, very, very cute, especially the man. Plus it’s simply fun to watch. It has what’s called a sort of cult following—”

“A cult?” Ron cut in again, this time suspiciously.

“Yeh, like The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” Harry put in helpfully. “Right?”

“We used to love that film!” Sirius exclaimed. “‘It’s just a jump to the left,’” he quoted.

“‘And then a step to the ri-ii-ii-ight!’” the three teenagers immediately chorused, earning an excited shout from Sirius.

“You like Rocky Horror too?” he gasped.

“We adore it. Hermione got us into that, too,” Harry admitted. “Now all of Gryffindor Tower is dying to go to the Midnight Madness.”

“Who would’ve thought Hermione would be into all these cult classics?” Sirius asked, rather impressed. “You give a rather – well…”

“Brainy impression?” Hermione suggested, grinning. “Come on. Girls just want to have fun, after all.” The VCR whirred at her, and she turned her attention to it. “Oh, good, it’s ready.” She pushed PLAY and jumped up, taking a seat between the two boys on the couch.

Sirius wandered into the kitchen for a glass of water and discovered that the dishes were through drying themselves, figuring that the three children would either enjoy the film or would become bored and seek other entertainment. He heard the music playing through what he guessed were the opening titles, reminding him very much of his days growing up half-Muggle.

As he absent-mindedly placed the glasses in the cupboards, he heard a rather familiar voice begin singing on the film. He couldn’t make out all the words, but it sounded rather like…well, he couldn’t place it, but it was familiar. Then a girl’s voice spoke on the film; then he distinctly heard Ron say, “Wow, ’Mione, she is hot!”

“Ron!” she sighed, exasperated.

“Well, she is good-looking,” Harry said, coming to Ron’s defense.

“That’s all you boys think about, honestly.”

Sirius shook his head and smiled. He loved hearing their extraordinarily normal conversations, loved knowing that his godson felt welcome enough to not only spend the summer with him, but to bring his friends over as well. Harry would have had every reason to avoid him – Sirius hadn’t been officially cleared of Peter’s crime yet, but had taken up residence with Remus at Dumbledore’s suggestion. And, of course, there was the nature of his, er, intimate relationship with the children’s favorite professor… But Harry, and Ron and Hermione as well, had accepted them both with open minds and arms. It made Sirius wonder if there were any better children anywhere on the face of the earth.

But eventually fond musings turned to boredom, and when boredom got the best of Sirius, he wandered back into the living room to find Harry, Ron, and Hermione enthralled by the video. “How is it?” Sirius asked, only to receive a fierce shushing from both Hermione and Ron. Taking that answer to mean, ‘It’s the best damn thing I’ve ever seen!’, Sirius decided that he ought to watch it as well, and plopped down into the nearest armchair.

A pretty young thing with dark hair was standing in a dark bedroom, looking into an empty crib. The doors flew open, the music swelled, and in a flash of 80’s special effects, an extraordinarily dashing villain entered the room.

Hermione could not suppress her melodramatic, swooning sigh, which earned a dirty look from both Ron and Harry and a cough that sounded suspiciously like, “Hypocrite!” – but they all were drowned out by Sirius’s shout of, “Bloody hell! That’s David Bowie!”

“You know him?” Harry asked, surprised.

“Know him? He’s only the greatest singer to ever have walked the face of the earth!”

“You’re going to miss the movie!” Hermione whined.

Ron paid her no mind and asked, “So what did he sing?”

“Oh, gods, everything! He was Ziggy Stardust, and then he was the Thin White Duke, and – and he sang ‘Starman,’ ‘Changes,’ ‘Rebel Rebel,’ ‘Diamond Dogs’…” Sirius actually sighed, much as Hermione had done when Bowie’s character had made his first appearance on the screen, which Hermione had now irritably paused. “When did he start doing films?” Sirius asked eagerly.

“Er…I’m not sure. I know this was made in 1986, but he’d done others before this,” Hermione said. “Do you – er – fancy him?”

“Fancy him? Yeah, me and every other person in school with us during those years,” Sirius laughed. “We all bloody adored the man. We thought he was so hot—”

“You do too?!” Hermione squealed.

“Yeh! What, do you?”

“Of course!” She jumped off of the couch and onto the arm of the chair Sirius was on, where Harry and Ron were horrified to see both of them grinning and giggling like…well…schoolgirls. “He’s so good-looking, and that voice, ooh…”

“And he was so wild! He’s always been such a rebel, that’s half of the appeal! Have you seen photographs of the Ziggy Stardust days?”

“In that body stocking at his concerts? Yes!”

“And when he did the thing with Mick Ronson’s guitar!” And whatever the ‘thing’ was, the mention of it prompted a multitude of excited squealing giggles from both Hermione and Sirius.

Harry turned to Ron, wide-eyed. “Ron, are you frightened yet?”

“Harry, I’ve been frightened all along.” Ron cleared his throat. “Er – do you think we could have the David Bowie Fan Club meeting later, and just finish the film now?"

“Oh, right,” Hermione said, still giggling. Full of the energy of a teenage crush, she leapt off of the chair and to the VCR again, rewinding the film to Bowie’s dramatic entrance.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in a Bowie-induced trance, with Hermione and Sirius staring at the screen and giggling whenever Bowie appeared, and Harry and Ron trying to focus on the film (which actually was entertaining) while ignoring the Bowie devotees around them.

When the movie finished, Sirius was the first to comment upon it. “What a fool! Turning down Jareth!”

“I know! Any sane person would have stayed with him!” Hermione agreed.

“But Sarah couldn’t stay. He was evil. What kind of a man steals babies, anyway?” Harry asked, pointing out the obvious.

Hermione glanced at him as though he had suggested they buy Christmas presents for Professor Snape. “Harry, are you mad? He wasn’t evil! He was just lonely.”

“I think your opinion is biased,” Ron snorted.

“What about Remus?” Harry asked, playfully trying a different tactic. “What would he say if he saw you swooning over Jareth like that?”

“First of all, Remus was as big a fan as any of us,” Sirius said authoritatively, and then a funny look crossed his face. “And second…actually, that’s an interesting thought…”

“Oh, that movie was incredible!” Hermione shrieked, giggling. Ron and Harry just shook their heads and sighed.

“Hello? Sirius?”

Remus’s voice seemed to echo in the flat, although he knew it was too small to really bounce off the walls. Oddly, the flat seemed to be empty. He knew he was later returning than he’d expected, but he didn’t think that Sirius and the children would have been gone.

Perhaps Sirius was merely returning them safely to their houses – but then, why hadn’t they each taken the Floo network home, or used a Portkey? Remus pondered this as he locked the door behind him and laid his packages down on the table. It had just begun to grow dark outside, so the flat was quite dim. He lifted his wand to give some light to the room when he suddenly heard the click of sharp shoes on the floor, and he paused.

“Hello?” he asked again.

“‘How you turn my world, you precious thing,’” a throaty, somehow familiar voice sang from beyond the door. “‘You starve and near exhaust me…’”

“Sirius, is that you? What on earth are you doing?” Laughing, Remus laid down his wand and stepped forward, then gasped as he realized that the man in front of him was not Sirius at all.

In his very own living room, he stood face to face with an absolute stranger – long blond hair exploded over a thin, angular face, attached to a similarly thin and angular body. And that body, dear gods, was incredible: this stranger wore a black tunic over what appeared to be leggings and knee-high, sharp-heeled boots. Black gloves and a black cape shot with thread like silver stars completed the outfit, and on the striking face, silver eye shadow and oddly flared eyebrows completed the ensemble.

But, although attractive, he was still a stranger in Remus’s house; so Remus quickly backed up and reached for his wand, demanding, “Who are you?”

“Don’t you know me?” the familiar voice asked, unafraid even though he was at wandpoint.

Remus lowered his wand slightly, taking a closer look. That nose – and the shape of those lips – and that voice…

Oh, dear gods.

Remus actually screamed.

“SIRIUS! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOURSELF?!”

“Don’t you like it? Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you.”

“What are you talking about?” Remus demanded, dropping his wand again. “I never asked you to do any of this!”

“Come on, Remus – you know you want me.”

Oh, that bravado – it was definitely Sirius, underneath the hair, the makeup, and the clothes. “Sirius, you are out of your bleeding mind,” he said very sternly. Then his resolve broke, and he whined, “And what have you done to your beautiful hair?”

“Blond. Goblin Kings always have blond hair.”

“It looks like you doused it in peroxide, and then drank twelve glasses of Pepper-Up potion. You’re bloody mad,” Remus snapped.

“Don’t defy me, Remus, or I’ll throw you into the Bog of Eternal Stench,” Sirius ordered, his voice deep and his face glowering. His eyes, however, were still friendly—

His eyes! Remus stared, moving a step closer to get a better look at his lover’s formerly silvery grey eyes. “Your eyes…” he murmured weakly, noticing them. “What have you done?”

Sirius winked at him, displaying one hazel eye and one pale blue one, with pupils of different sizes even in the dark of their apartment. “Do you like it? It’s yours. But it’s not a gift for a man who takes care of a class of screaming children.”

A class of screaming children? “Sirius – love – are you feeling well? Because you’re not making any sense at all…”

“I don’t have to. I’m the Goblin King.”

“The Goblin King?! What on earth are you talking about?!” Remus shouted, exasperated.

Instead of answering, Sirius said in a sing-song voice, “I know something you don’t know…”

“That’s not fair!” he cried.

Sirius merely grinned. “You say that so often, I wonder what your basis for comparison is.”

“My basis for comparison is the fact that you’ve gone absolutely mad.” Saying this, Remus began to wonder if perhaps he should contact St. Mungo’s. Then he added as an afterthought, “You know, this reminds me of when old Mad Eye Moody first started to crack up, back in the days during the war.”

“And you remind me of the babe,” Sirius replied triumphantly.

“Er – what babe?” Remus asked, still as confused as ever.

“The babe with the power,” he replied matter-of-factly.

“What power?!” Remus exclaimed, his temper uncharacteristically short.

“The power of voodoo.”

“Who do?”

“You do!”

“ARGH!” Remus growled, clapping his hands to his face in frustration. “Do bloody what?!”

Sirius only grinned wider than ever. “Remind me of the babe.”

Alright, he’d had enough of this apparent identity crisis and these meaningless conversations. Whether he simply had to lecture some sense into his boyfriend, or he actually had to contact St. Mungo’s for some medical advice, he was going to take charge of this increasingly silly situation. “Sirius, listen to me. You. Are. Mad. Stop these pointless conversations, change your eyes and hair back to what they were, put on your normal clothes, and – er—” Remus glanced down just below Sirius’s waistline pointedly. “Take the sock out of those tights.”

Sirius’s grin only grew impossibly larger. “That’s not a sock.”

Remus’s eyes widened. ‘Bloody hell. Even if he is mad, I’ll be keeping him and those tights around…’ But instead of voicing these thoughts, he said, “Fine, then. But be reasonable.”

“Don’t defy me, Remus. No, wait, I said that already. Er…” Sirius seemed to pause to think for a moment, quirking up one odd eyebrow and smiling, giving an altogether far-too-sexy-for-his-own-good air. Then he deepened his voice just noticeably, and announced eerily, “Remus, beware. I have been generous up until now, but I can be cruel.”

Remus had recognized this as a game by now, and though it was rather entertaining to look at Sirius in his outrageous getup, the ridiculous circles they were talking in was driving him mad. He had no idea what had come over his lover. “Generous?” Remus repeated, thinking of how Sirius was slowly driving him mad as well. “What have you done that’s been generous?”

“Everything!” Sirius shouted, and began pacing; but instead of sounding angry, he seemed pleased with himself, rather like he was reciting some sort of speech. “Everything that you wanted, I have done. You asked that the dishes be put away, I did them. You kissed me good-bye. I kissed you back. I have reordered the linen closet, I have turned the bathroom upside down, and I have done it all for you. Isn’t that generous?”

“Sirius – I never asked you to clean the flat. You did that on your own. And you’ve only done it once, anyway, and that was in 1979. You never clean anything. Ever,” Remus sensibly pointed out.

Seeming not to hear him, Sirius went on, “Look at what I’m offering you. Your dreams.” He winked at Remus and ceased pacing to gesture to his irresistible, tights-clad body. “I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything you want. Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave.”

Slave? Perhaps Sirius hadn’t gone so mad after all…having Sirius as his slave, especially with those tights, was sounding better and better with every passing second. “Well…well, alright. What do I have to do?”

“…Beats me.” Sirius finally seemed to revert to his own personality and shrugged. “Enter my Labyrinth?”

A brief pause ensued as Remus tried to figure out this final, baffling remark. At last he guessed, “Er – is that a sexual metaphor?”

An odd look crossed Sirius’s face, and then he burst into laughter. “Enter my Labyrinth? Honestly, Remus, that’s the film Hermione made us watch! Labyrinth! A sexual metaphor - have you gone mad?”

“Mad?” Remus spluttered. “Have I gone mad? Sirius Black! I’m not the one dying my hair blond and changing my eyes and quoting stupid Muggle film lines and wearing those bloody tights!”

Those odd eyebrows quirked upwards again as Sirius purred, “So you’re suggesting that I should be out of the tights?”

“Absolutely,” Remus responded immediately. “Come on, Your Royal Goblin Kingliness. To the bedroom.”

“Hmm…I could get used to that…King Sirius…”

“Don’t. I like you better as just plain Sirius. And I like you better with your eyes and your hair. Er…how long does the blond last, anyway?”

“Oh, Remus, it’s only forever.”

“WHAT?!”

“Gotcha…”