Room Down the End of the Hall

Room Down the End of the Hall

Remus walked into Number 12, Grimmauld Place, and numbly shut the door behind him. This place had been his home for almost a year, and yet it felt almost as if he didn't know where he was. Nothing was familiar, although he knew everything of this place. His entire life had just been wrenched upside down and backwards, ripped inside out and hung out to dry, and yet nothing here had changed. It was just as it had been, before. It was remarkable, how the very core of his being was gone, nothing in the world would ever be the same, and yet, yet, this place was. This, of all places, should have changed. It was his cage for a year, Remus thought grimly.

He stepped forwards, towards the old, moth-eaten curtains, and reached out to touch one. It felt moldy, disgusting beneath his fingers. He recalled, in fits of anger, trying to stop him, as he screamed at the portraits, tried to tear at them with his fingers. She'll be happy now, I suppose, he thought. There are no traitors to the Noble House of Black, not anymore. He was unaware of the steady dampening of his cheeks, and if he had been aware, it was doubtful that he would have cared. There was no one here to seek comfort from anyway, not anymore.

He slipped down the stairs, down into the kitchen, and sat at the table. It was scarred, and worn, and there was a large burn mark down at the other end. He could see, not three places away, the large notch in the table where the bread knife had flown off of a plate Fred had been levitating, nearly impaling his hand. His hands, Remus thought, and grimaced. How I loved his hands.

It was too much. Remus leapt unsteadily to his feet, lurching forward, upending his chair.

He stumbled to a cabinet, and ripped it open. Gordon's, he thought, pulling it off the shelf and fumbling with the cap, here lie's my salvation. He grabbed the bottle by the neck and lifted it too his lips. He used to love this stuff, Remus winced at the taste the alcohol made as it burnt a hole in his chest. But no, that opening had been ripped hours earlier. Now it was just being numbed.

Remus was never a big drinker. Blame it on the werewolf; he could never stand to loose control. He hated not being able to think clearly. But now it was all he wanted. To numb his mind forever, because if he didn't think of it, it couldn't be real. He liked a drink, though. This stuff was his favorite. Some of the liquid slipped out of the corned of his mouth, dribbling down onto his robes. I think he started drinking it just because it was muggle stuff, and it pissed the hell out of his mum. But he kept up with it, and now I know why. The edges of Remus' vision were blurring. He could no longer make out the individual burns and scratches on the table.

Oh, god. Remus fell to his knees, and scrambled up again, using the counter as a crutch. He remembered the last time he was drunk in this kitchen. It hadn't been on alcohol, per say, but none the less he was not in a competent state of mind. It had been after one of Sirius' rants, he had screamed and thrown things and Remus had not moved from his place in the corner. It had been horrible, watching him destroy stuff like that, but he wasn't afraid of him, just for him. Because the destruction of his house was nothing to the destruction going on inside.

Finally, he had dropped to his knees, pulling at his hair, and, Remus could tell, trying to hold in the sobs. Remus had finally moved, and using his body, had tried to cover all of Sirius, and send every bit of comfort residing there into him. And oh, how Sirius had repaid him. It was right here, on this very table. And it had been the most mind-blowing experience of his life.

Remus staggered forward again, lurching from the counter back to the table. He searched frantically for the scratches he knew were there. He knew them, he had made them. And every time he needed a reason for loving Sirius, he came downstairs and found them. He needed them now, more than ever.

After Sirius had come back from Azkaban, nothing had been the same. After twelve years of the both of them being completely and utterly alone, neither could find what it took to be together again. 'It's been too long, and it's too little, too late' is what he said, Remus remembered, but not what he meant.

So neither had dared to touch, until that night. And touch they did. In fact, Remus remembered with relish as he took another mind-numbing drink from the bottle, he slammed into me so hard, so fast, and so desperately, I thought I was going to come apart. I had bruises on my hips from his hands for weeks, and he still had a scar on his chest from my nails. Not to mention what those nails did to the table.

Up the stairs and back into the foyer Remus went, leaving puddles of alcohol on the steps behind him, and he wasn't really sure where he was going. Just that he was going. Past the curtains, up more stairs, and into a room. His eyes took a second to focus. Harry's room. Back beside the veil, it had been all he could do to stop him from going through as well. If I had lost them both... Dampness splashed over the bed as he leaned over it. Gordon's or tears, he wasn't sure.

Remus used to have a dream, about the three of them all living together. Sirius and he, raising Harry, and it was such a happy dream. One of the only happy dreams he had had in a long while. Now he was sure it would be replaced by nightmares. But nothing compared to the ones Harry's going to have. Even drunk, Remus' heart still went out to him. I had him far longer the Harry ever did, and that's what's so unfair. Although, Sirius was so addictive that he was sure he could never have enough.

A door down the hall caught his eye. It was slightly open. Our room.

The big bed was as it always was, canopied in swaths of maroon velvet so deep it was nearly black, covered in a golden duvet, with miles of pillows against the headboard. On the dresser, a lone picture winked and waved at him. He knelt there, on the bed, and stared at it. His own face, and Sirius', looked back. Their picture selves winked, and waved, and once in a while the little Sirius would pick him up and twirl him round, kissing him.

The bottle was nearly empty now. Never taking his eyes off of the picture, he slipped his hands into his trousers, unbuttoning them, and pulling both them and his under shorts off. Slowly, tantalizingly slowly, he grasped himself, working his hand back and forth as his felt himself grow harder, his eyes still staring unblinkingly at the picture.

"Once more, love. Just once more."

He closed his eyes and pretended it wasn't his hand but Sirius', and when he wrapped his other arm around his waste, he pretended that was his too, and a soft breeze blew threw the open window and he could almost think of it as his warm breath on his neck, just before he came in to kiss it, and it felt like his heart would come apart, as he collapsed onto the bed in a shivering mass of sweat, vodka and tears. Curling himself around a pillow, he gasped for breath, inhaling the unique scent that was Sirius and the alcohol played its final card and he lapsed into a fitful, dreamless sleep.

And when he would wake up, hours and hours later, he would not remember any of it, he would wonder where Sirius was, why he was alone covered in his own sticky mess, and it would all rush back and he would curse himself for drinking the entire bottle, for there was none left to ease the pain now. He would sit on the edge of the bed and stare at the happy couple in the picture and mourn them, until Snape would quietly come to the door and tell him Dumbledore wanted him. And he would go, numbly, and nod at whatever Dumbledore was saying but take in none of it, his mind anxiously awaiting a time when he could go back and watch that picture, in the room all the way down the end of the hall, where his salvation lay.

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

For years and years to come, whenever you needed Remus, that's were you would find him. Harry joined him, every now and then, and when he did, he would bring the Gordon's. A few times, joint pain and alcohol conspired into fast, hard, painful, meaningless sex. The morning after, neither was ashamed, but both were aware that it wasn't what they needed. But, Remus thought, during one of those nights, if he closed his eyes just so and if Harry tilted his head back just like that, he almost looked like Sirius, and he would pretend that's who was pounding into him just then, just like always, just like it should have been. And, afterwards, when they curled up into each other's arms, Harry would close his eyes and pretend Sirius was holding him, because if there was one thing Gordon's was good for, it was making reality into what you wanted.

Eventually, Remus left, and Harry let him. Remus decided he wanted to travel, and see the world. Harry quite happily saw him off, because he figured if anyone deserved to be happy, it was him. But Harry cursed him steadily when he returned to the house afterwards, and was mortified to find that there was no longer a lonely picture sitting on the dresser next to the big canopied bed with the gold duvet in the room down the end of the hall.