In the Rose Garden

In the Rose Garden

Someone is crying.

I hear it off in the distance, just somewhere through the large doorway and off in the rose garden. It is more of a wail then a sob, something more of great regret and loss then of pain. The sound is trying to be smothered, dried out, held back by whoever is making it, which results in a strange choking echo after every outcry. Yet I can still hear it, familiar and haunting. I could almost recognize it.

Perhaps somebody died, I rumor to myself. If that is the case then, I do not want to investigate the person. I will find out soon enough who died and how and when. I will see the person in the morning and they will explain it at the breakfast table, where only deaf ears will listen to it. If it does not help our cause, our leader, then it is automatically not worth heeding. My family has always thought that way--most of my family, that is.

I move to turn around, to silently creep back into the large house under the guise of a moonless night when something stops me. A realization strikes me and suddenly I do recognize the crying. It is a sound I haven't heard in over eight years, and belongs to a face I have not laid eyes upon in almost three. This startles me and I cannot help but wonder, Why is he here? Why now?

Immediately, as if under great strife, I turn upon my heel and move quietly towards the doorway. Night hides all outside, casting only faint shadows upon the ground. The torches illuminating the hallway have flickered out at the point of the door. They give me no aid in seeing where he is. All I can tell is that the crying, still pervasive as ever, is coming from the rose garden, and that is where I will head.

I step out unto the darkened stone path. It winds its way blindly in front of me, into the foliage of the large garden. Shrubs, trees, and flowers are all around me, dark and green and mysterious. He is hiding in them somewhere, covered by their soft leaves, fresh spring blooms, and enchanting scent. He is probably sitting on the ground, his knees hugging his chest, with one hand veiling his eyes and tears from the midnight sky, and the other wrapped protectively around his legs, hitching them closer, closer.

That was his usual position when he would cry when we were younger, when we were still brothers. Alone in the attic he would sob at night, quietly at first so that no one would hear him, but as his crying fit increased in length, it would increase in volume, until finally--finally just before it seem imperative that someone would need to be sent to quiet him, he would stop. And all would be silent again. The house would remain sleeping and no one would think twice of it in the morning, had they noticed. Two brothers would emerge from the stairs, slightly groggy, slightly sleep-deprived, but with their normal, cold countenance to each other, so unlike the feelings shared the night before.

I grimace as I remember. What once were happy childhood memories for me have become black, tainted. The outside world interfered and ruined us, ruined all we shared together. Friends, brothers, more.

I continue to walk quietly down the path. I see the top of the fountain coming into view. The shapely white marble is surrounded by similar marble benches, and large green bushes, spectacularly dotted with pink, red, and white roses. The path leads into the circlet, but I do not follow it anymore. I sense he is in there, and I do not want him to see me--not yet. It has been too many years to just wander in upon him.

The path forks just before it enters past the bushes, and I take the other fork, leading me around instead of in. I walk softly, peering through the brambles until I see a figure crouching on the ground. There, I stop and peer. Torches lighting the area throw abstract, isosceles shadows over the figure, but even through them I can see his beautiful strands of black hair gently falling from their tie and cascading over his round face. Tear tracks trail from bright obsidian eyes, reflecting the soft orange light.

The scene makes me smile. "Sirius," I whispered silently to myself, his name a hiss on my lips. "You're home."

Even my own ears cannot hear the words, yet they do seem to awaken another. A form rises besides that of my brother's. It is more slender then his, with shorter, lighter hair and sharper features. His back is turned towards me, but as he lifts a hand to my brother's face, his head turns, letting his hair catch the light.

It is the color of autumn, of brown, red, and honey. It is such a lovely color that I can almost understand why my brother lets this man touch his cheek in such a way. A familiar, intimate caress, used to wipe away the tears.

Sirius smiles softly, slowly, his eyes crinkling in the deepest form of love and admiration. This look makes me gasp, my stomach tying itself into knots and hot bile rises to the back of my throat. I do not dare suspect that they are lovers. I do not dare to even think it. The thought alone makes me feel sick.

Yet then I remember. I recall the very few glimpses I got of Sirius at school. He was always surrounded by three male friends, and then a girl later joined their group. The girl--pretty, redheaded--was the girlfriend to the Potter boy. He and my brother were great friends and great troublemakers. It was he whom Sirius went to live with three years ago. Then there was a pudgy boy, Pettigrew. Why the name stood out to me so, I could not think, but he was also a friend of my brother. That was not he sitting by the stone bench, soothing my brother's tears away. It had to be the last one, the shy boy. He was a good student, always polite, quite beautiful in his own respect, and always covered with inexplicable scars. I could just not remember his name.

"Remus."

Yes, that was it, only I did not think of it. Sirius had spoken aloud, his voice sticky from crying and sweet with love. Remus--it was his name--still kept his hand in place, thumb tenderly brushing away the old and new tears that trickled down out of my brother's eyes. He shushes Sirius in a compassionate tone, before taking his head in his hands and drawing Sirius closer to him, finally letting my brother's head rest comfortably on his chest. I kneel down to watch them, intently gazing at their every movement, the love that was being displayed so quietly.

Sirius is still trying to speak; murmuring apologizes, interrupted by the occasional shaky breath or half-sob. Remus pets his head consolingly, and rubs small circles on his back. He tells Sirius that there is no need to explain, that he understands.

"No!" my brother cries, sitting up, staring Remus in the eye. I cannot see his face at this point, but I know there is a look of determination, of pleading. It is the same expression Sirius gets every time he feels the need to justify his actions. Remus waits quietly for Sirius to continue. "I thought maybe this time it'd be different. Maybe this time they'd accept it, Moony." He sniffles before continuing in a shaky voice. "How could I have been so stupid..."

Sirius drops off. He cannot continue any longer without weeping. Remus goes back to petting his head, stroking the long strands of ebony. More tendrils fall out of the tie, but neither seem to worry, or to notice. Remus' voice is then heard in the silence.

"You're not stupid, Siri," he whispers, a hand cradling my brother's head against his chest. "You tried. You didn't know how they'd react, and I appreciate you doing that. I appreciate all that you put yourself through on my--our account."

My brother whimpers and struggles against Remus' chest to shake his head. "No. Don't say that. I can't believe I let them treat you like that. I can't believe I expected them to be civil. I knew how they treated me. What was the point of coming here? I should have never expected them to accept us." He continues speaking, but the words had become muffled by the robes Remus wears. It sounds like a string of "I'm sorry"s, all begging forgiveness for whatever indiscretion my family has caused him.

I suddenly feel a great hatred towards Sirius. He acts as though our family--his family--is evil and vile. He comforts himself by carrying on a forbidden relationship, forbidden by tradition and nature. I cannot, for one second, identify how I could have ever loved such a malignant spirit. But then the odium in me dies away. I remember that he is my brother and detesting him is in the same way that he detests the entire family. I remember that I love him with so much more then my being possesses. Instead, my strong feelings turn against the same obstacle to which they've always been pressed.

I concentrate on the man holding my brother so lovingly and I curse him. I curse him a thousand times over for taking away the most important person in my life, for contaminating my memories of him, for obliterating any future I could spend with him. I stare at Remus, with his slender physique, soft words and touches, and autumn hair, and wish for his complete suffering and pain. It would not be enough for him to die, for death is quick and finite, and if I have learned nothing I have come to know that punishment should always be enduring and absolute.

The mark on my arm is proof of this. My own smothered feelings are proof of this.

I turn my gaze sharply back to Sirius, my eyes boring into him flesh through the twigs and branches of the rose bush. He doesn't know of my presence, and he won't during the length of the night. For a moment, I allow my brain and heart to wander back. For a minute, I loose myself, and all I can think, feel, know is the stream of thoughts going through my head.

It should be in my arms in which you seek your solace, brother. It should on my robes on which your heavily pained tears fall, my heart that breaks for your sadness. It should be for me that you show your vulnerability. It should be me who places soft caresses on your cheek and me who feels your own warm lips on mine in return.

It should be as it has always been, as it always was.

It should be you who loves your brother so devotedly, so obsessively that even family teachings and traditions cannot hinder those feelings. And it should be me who chooses to turn away from you, who leaves you for another's love and succor.

I glance down at the mark on my arm again and think of my leader, of my master. "Well, I have left you, Sirius," I whisper to myself and to the night encompassing me. "You are no longer the only love in my life."

~ Fin ~