Poison Oak

Poison oak, some boyhood bravery.
When a telephone was a tin can on a string.
And I fell asleep with you still talking to me.
You said you were afraid to die.

They are on the train to Hogwarts when they first meet, an unlikely friendship if there ever was one. Street smart, pureblood, rich, handsome aristocrats just don't become friends with poor, shy, bookwormish werewolves, at least not in Remus Lupin's experience. But Sirius entrances him, for reasons as yet unknown to himself and his fragile twelve-year-old masculinity, and he takes as much of him as he can get, content to play shadow to the Potter and Black show. Around fourth year he realizes what is happening, and smothers it, desperate to have Sirius' friendship, if nothing else. The only person he tells is his diary, and it is content to keep his secrets. It knows nothing of love.

In Polaroids you were dressed in woman's clothes.
Were you made ashamed, why'd you lock them in a drawer?
I don't think that I ever loved you more,
Then when you turned away,
When you slammed the door,
When you stole the car,
And drove towards Mexico,
And you wrote back checks,
Just to fill your arm,
I was young enough, I still believed in war.

At the start of seventh year, Sirius finds the diary, reads it, flinches, and hides it back in the drawer. Remus catches him at it and feels his world start to come crashing down.

"Sirius, let me explain, I didn't mean to..." He trails off, knowing that not even his precious words can save him now.

"Didn't mean to what, Moony? Fall in love with me? You daft, stupid git, come here." And he grabs his Moony and kisses him breathless, leaving Remus to wonder if the world has ever known love like this before.

Let the poets cry themselves to sleep.
And all their tearful words will turn back into steam.

He is curled in Sirius' four poster in their dormitory, drowsy warmth circling his body, his head resting on Sirius' chest, rising and falling with every breath the other boy takes. He can hear someone down in the common room playing the haunting tune Greensleeves on a flute and he smiles deeply, for he has never known anything like this. For all their pretty words, even Remus' poets have failed him, for there is nothing, in any book, that can describe this feeling. Suddenly grey eyes flicker open and Sirius is kissing him, (hotsmoothohyes) and there is not a thing in the world that can compare to this, to him, to them, to this moment. The world revolves around them, now, and it is much too small to hold so great a love.

But me I'm a single cell,
On a serpents tongue,
There's a mighty field where a garden was,
And I'm glad you got away,
But I'm still stuck out here,
My clothes are soaking wet,
From your mother's tears.

Remus is in the middle of what used to be James and Lily's house, cradling James' broken, dead body in his arms, tears running down his face. He cannot breathe, or feel or see. There is a buzzing in his ears, a familiar melody he thinks he should know is playing at the back of his mind and he is thinking, Sirius did this. My Sirius. And he hates himself, hates himself so much, because he cannot help it. He loves him still.

And I never thought this life was possible.
You're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for.

He is innocent. That is all Remus can think as he watches Sirius amble into his tiny flat, brushing long, black, matted hair out of his eyes to look around. He takes in the shabby couch, bookshelves overflowing with fiction, and threadbare rug on the floor. Then his eyes wander onto Remus and stop.

"Oh, god, Moony, its been too long, so long. I didn't think I could take another day in Azkaban without yo.." But he is stopped by Remus, who is kissing the breath out of him, and Sirius knows he has, at last, come home. Love has brought him back.

The end of the paralyses,
I was a statuette,
Now I'm drunk as hell on a piano bench,
And when I press the keys,
It all gets reversed,
The sound of loneliness makes me happier.

It is four days after Sirius' death, and Remus is drunk. He wanders the empty halls of 12 Grimmauld place, half expecting to see Sirius everywhere he turns. He has tried so hard, these last few days, to block him from his mind, but everything he sees, every memory in his head reminds him of Sirius, and it is so damn hard not to simply break down and scream his anger to the sky. He stumbles into the drawing room, where a huge grand piano sits covered in dust, unloved, just like everything else in this house, including me, Remus thinks. He sits on the bench and presses the keys at random, the out of tune notes sound harsh and jarring in the absolute stillness. As if by their own accord, his fingers seek out the first notes of the haunting Greensleeves melody, and that is it. That is all he can take. The enormity of it hits him all at once. He will never see Sirius again, never hear his laughter, and never taste his skin. His bed will be empty, forever, and that is enough to break him. He slides down the bench, into a heap on the floor and sobs, feels the agony of it crushing down on him. His heart has broken into a million tiny pieces, and he will never be whole again. But through his tears and pain, and the unfounded anger at Sirius for laving him all alone, there is love. Love for the man who taught Remus how to truly live, who opened his mind, his eyes and his heart, oh yes, there is love. And maybe, just maybe, that is all he needs to get by.