This is Hope

---

It's just sex, Peter had said, nothing more than two bodies working together, struggling and grunting and praying for release.

Sirius fleetingly thinks Peter's an idiot when his hips are rocking hard against the body above him, and he wonders if Peter's ever felt the pounding need and desire and lust that surges through him, from the very tips of his fingers all the way down his spine and to his toes. He wonders if sex with Remus would make Peter feel the same way, would make him arch his back and groan his name and move faster, harder. And then a wave of jealousy washes over him at the thought of Remus with anyone but him, so he pushes the thought aside and concentrates on the feel of Remus' hips rubbing down against his own, eliciting sparks and shock of red hot pleasure.

Remus' arms are thinner than his own, but there's strength there, oh there's so much hidden strength, and sometimes Remus breaks things if he isn't careful and then looks confused, as though for a moment he's forgotten the strength of the wolf beneath the surface, but Sirius knows that Remus never forgets. He's not sure he even forgets now, when his mouth is latched to his neck, his teeth and lips and tongue hot and sharp, marking him.

James was momentarily shocked when Sirius first began to talk of Remus in more than just shoulders bumping on the way to class, more than just flashed grins and shared notes and thought out pranks, more than just a familiar face to laugh with when they'd pulled off something spectacular or be scolded by when their plans had fallen flat. Sirius isn't sure when his feelings changed, when he tried to start imagining Remus without his clothes on, perhaps in the shower or spread out on the blankets covering his bed, though a part of him insists it was always there. He was scared at first, though he'd never admit it, because Remus wasn't soft curves and full breasts and warm wetness, he was hard muscles and a broader frame, and he was hot and hard and oh, so thick and heavy and perfect in his hand, against his hip...

The thought jars Sirius back to earth and he turns his head to the side with a rather violent jerk when Remus' hips hit rightthere, right where he needed them to hit, and he's surprised to find his back is arched up off the bed and the moan that's ringing in his ears is his own. Remus makes a noise deep in his throat and pushes his hips down again, and the world sways dangerously, making Sirius' heart pound in his chest, and he realises that if it were to burst open he'd die a happy man.

There are teeth at his throat and then there are teeth in his throat, and he hisses as Remus bites, harder than usual, and he can suddenly smell the coppery, metallic scent of blood and he's sure for a moment there he's going to pass out, but he doesn't because Remus' mouth is working against the bite now, and pleasure is spiraling through him and he'd be damned if he were to miss it all.

Hips are pressing harder against his and he closes his eyes and rocks back, breathing quick and hard and heavy, and it's not just two bodies working together, not just two people struggling and grunting and praying for release, it's two people getting as close as they can, until limbs tangle and mouths meet and it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. It's the whispered words and the gasps that pierce the steady sound of the sheets rustling and the soft squeaks of the bedsprings, it's the silent declarations of love that explode behind Sirius' eyelids with each touch of Remus' body against his, and it's that tense moment right before the world goes white and everything around him explodes where all the world comes down to just Remus.

That is what sex is.

---

His mother told him that pain was the feeling that hit when you realised you were disinherited, when you realised your status in society had plummeted and you no longer had to carry arm loads of invitations to balls and galas into the house from the impressive and inordinate mailbox that was plastered to the front of Grimmauld Place. She said that pain was when you realised you were no longer strong, and that pain was only for the street urchins and the mudbloods to feel. Blacks didn't feel pain, Blacks didn't lose their place in society. Sirius' jaw ached for a week when he reminded her she wasn't always a Black, and he still has a gash along his cheek where her ring tore through the flesh.

James offered to heal it, but Sirius didn't want to give in to her. He wasn't going to take the time to heal the cut, as though it somehow ached at night when the draft slipped under the dormitory door and curled around his bed. Because it didn't. Sirius had never been sure what real pain was, not when he was younger. Jumping from a tree and breaking an arm was pain that was quickly healed, a backhand to the face when he swore at his brother was pain that stung but soon tingled off into nothingness. None of it held any significance. They were quick instances of pain and forgotten the next time Sirius' attention was caught by something else, as it so often was. Meaningless.

But now Remus won't talk to him, and he turns his back to him when he even so much as glances at him, and this, this hurts. This is more lasting than his mother's ring, more lasting than Regulus' fist, this is a deep, permeating hurt that swirls with the guilt in the pit of his stomach and makes him want to rush to the toilets and be sick.

It hurts when Snape's eyes flash and narrow at Remus, and although the fucking bastard was nearly driven insane by fear he acts now as though he's above the wolf and above the other boy, dangling his secret over his head with each glare and knock of shoulders. If he were to tell Remus would be kicked out of school, and somehow Sirius is certain that it wouldn't make the dizzying guilt in his body any easier to manage.

Remus closes his curtains on his bed quickly each evening, usually bathed in darkness before the others are even changed out of their day clothes. Before one of them would slip from their open bed and join the other, and James turned the other cheek and if Peter knew he certainly didn't say anything. Now Sirius lies on his back in a bed that feels too large, too open, too cold, too lonely, and he wonders if Remus ever wakes up with tears still damp on his face the way he does. Not talking to Remus, not feeling his comforting weight in an embrace, not feeling his heated skin and hard arousal when they're together... Feeling the sick, hot guilt he feels everyday when he remembers what he did, seeing the dark circles around Remus' eyes and watching the way he flinches even when Sirius' name is mention...

That is what pain is.

---

James said that betrayal was helping the other team to win in quidditch, was being nice to Snape and was holding the doors open for Slytherin girls. Betrayal to him was fleeting and unimportant, it was a momentary flash of anger and then it was worked out amicably, and he went back to cuffing Sirius 'round the ears and messing up Peter's hair and snatching Remus' books from his startled hands. Betrayal was something liquid and flowing, leaving as soon as it came, and even after Sirius fucked it all up, it was something fixable.

Sirius, as he chokes down the bile in his throat, realises that the only time James knew true betrayal was when it killed him. James lies on his back, his glasses askew and one arm flung above his head, wand still gripped firmly in his hand. His other arm is underneath a bit of plaster and dust and what looks like a broken chair leg but could be a piece of wood from the railing along the stairs that led up to the second floor. James is motionless, his blue eyes wide, one eye strangely magnified by his glasses while the other is not, and Sirius feels like dying. He fixes James' glasses and reaches for his shoulders, shaking him hard. He shouts for him to wake up, tells him to stop fucking around, they have to go make sure his wife and son are okay too, but James was always stubborn and he is now, mutely refusing to answer. Sirius gets angry and has to remind himself not to shake too hard, because then he could hurt him, and he needs his friend.

Leaving James to collect his thoughts he stands and pushes past the debris from where the ceiling over the living room collapsed. The air is thick with dust and plaster and there's magic pulsing through the air, washing over him and creeping into his veins, and Sirius irritably wishes James would stop kidding around and help him clear this mess up. The top three stairs are missing so Sirius has to jump to reach the top floor, and it gives a lurch beneath his feet and threatens to fall below to join its brethren downstairs, but he's already moving to where the second floor miraculousy is still solid, and in his haste has nearly trips over Lily.

She's in a heap on the floor, as though her legs had given way and her eyes are open as well, staring in the direction of the crib. There's wailing, a mournful sound of loss and terror, but Sirius can barely hear it over the ringing in his ears. He and Lily never got along as well as she and Remus did, so he's convinced she's in on this joke, is following James' instructions and is trying her hardest to give Sirius a heart attack. He gently shakes her, swallowing back sickness again, but she won't stir, only stares in the direction of the heartaching sobbing, and though Sirius wants to shake Lily again the walls shudder and he's unsure if his mind is lurching or if the ruins themselves are. He's acutely aware of the sobbing and he turns and there's little Harry, in the corner of the crib with a gash across his forehead and blood pouring down into his eyes and down his face. He has the blanket Lily's mother knit for him tight in his hands and he's howling into it, turning all the little lambs a vibrant red colour.

Sirius scoops the boy up and takes the blanket, gently wiping the blood away, and he's angry because Lily should stop following James' directions and take care of her son, but she won't get up. Harry is comforted somewhat by the feel of familiar arms around him, and when he opens his eyes they're dark and green and wide, and he looks like his world has shattered.

The jump to the stairs is dangerous with a baby in hand, but Sirius steadies himself and manages to hold onto Harry. The stairs themselves shake and he realises they're going to give at any moment, so he hurries downstairs and into the cold October night, Harry in tow, his face still flushed from the blood that won't seem to clean off. His motorcycle is tipped over on the front lawn where he dumped it, and he debates how to fly with a child in his arms, but there's a crack of apparation and Hagrid's there.

The next few minutes are numb and a blur, and Harry is somehow in Hagrid's arms, even though he wanted to hold onto him, because James is going to be up any minute, and he'll want his son. Hagrid's hand is strong on his shoulder and his accent particularly thick with what Sirius recognises as pain, but he shrugs it off and tells him to make himself useful and wake James up. He leaves the motorcyle with him, because he needs to find Peter, needs to know why this is all happening, and it's in that minute that his world sways sideways and he nearly topples over, because James isn't pretending, James is dead and Peter has revealed their location and now they're gone forever and that...

That is what betrayal is.

---

Remus once wryly commented that Sirius knew no fear, that to him fear was just another thing that rolled off his back and landed with a splash in a puddle of shrugged off instances that Sirius was so adept at forgetting.

Sirius knows Remus is wrong when he apparates into their house and finds him asleep, and he can't bring himself to wake him up. What would he tell him? They're best friends were dead and it was all his fault? Fear pounds through his veins when he kisses Remus' forehead and hears him whisper his name in sleep, and it's fear that pushes him out the door and lands him in Muggle London, where he knows Peter's flat is. Fear that Remus may be next, and he can't let that happen. He's already let James and Lily di-

There's something off when Peter is in the street and he's shouting something, something about James and Lily, and all he knows is he's going to kill him, right there, right in broad daylight. The night has been stripped off sometime in his haste to right his terrible wrong, and although the world bustles around him the blanket of darkness is still thick over his head, and he can't even speak enough to get the words out to flash the light and end Peter's life. Peter has something in his sleeve and it takes Sirius a full minute to realise it's his wand, and fear errupts in his stomach and bursts through his body, because he doesn't have enough time to say the words before the world explodes and people are screaming and Sirius is there, wand out stretched, mouth open, and he's laughing like he's gone mad.

Peter's got away. The rat is gone, slithering off into the bowels of the city where he can escape death at the end of Sirius' wand, and Remus isn't safe and there are people everywhere. Magic is thick and tangy in the air, though different than the magic at Godric's Hollow, and there are cracks of apparation and Sirius laughs and laughs, his chest aching as he does, his eyes clenched shut, and he thinks he really has gone mad. The world is frightfully tilted and there are hands dragging him up and years later, while he's in his cell, he still laughs when he thinks about it. Madness.

Madness is imprinted in every single block of cold stone in his cell. Madness is sticky and thrives here, on the most heavily protected ward that magic can manage, and the madness is tinged with fear that Remus never thought Sirius could experience. In the freezing cold of the dementor's wake, in the way his skin bursts with cold so deep it's hot and scalding, and he belatedly realises it's so warm because he's clawed at his skin to let loose the hot blood, to stop the cold. Remus doesn't see the way he's sick after every encounter with the dementors, doesn't hear the screaming in his ears that may be from the people on the street on that first day of November or may be from his own raw throat, doesn't see James' blank eyes and Lily's limp body and the blood that covered Harry's face. He doesn't understand the terror pumping through him with each noise outside his cell that could bring them to him, doesn't understand the way the knife felt when it slid across his wrist and ripped open skin, doesn't understand the loss of the will to live. But Sirius does.

That is what fear is.

---

Determination is something Sirius thought himself familiar with. It was in the way he leaned forward on his broom during matches to slam the bat into the bludger, it was in the way he took his time and wrote essays rather than a sentence or two on his tests, it was in the way he lived and breathed and worked, always striving for more, to be the best to be at the top.

He understands he's determined as Padfoot limps through the deep brush along the edge of the road, paw torn open from glass on the street neither he nor Sirius had seen in his haste to reach Remus' house. Their house. He understands this as he pauses to nose through an over turned rubbish can that carries the enticing smell of meat, and although the human in him feels his stomach turn, Padfoot eats quickly and is satisfied as he limps again, on his way to the small house where he knows Remus will be. He can smell his scent still, after all these years, as sharp and appealing as it always was, and both Padfoot and Sirius pray it's stayed the same.

There's an abandoned cottage on the side of the road, ramshackled and dilapitated, and Padfoot bumps the door open and limps in side, favouring his left front paw. In an instant man has taken the dog's place, and with his good hand he reaches for the jar that's on the mantle of the fireplace in the rundown living room. There's floo in there that Dumbledore or quite possibly a disgruntled Snape has left for him, and as he holds the fine grains in his hand he remembers he hasn't used floo powder in over a decade. Convinced he's going to floo himself right into the Ministry he steps to the fireplace and tosses the powder inside, managing to choke out Remus' address - their address - through the cloud of emerald colour smoke that bursts to life in the empty fireplace. His head spins and he feels as though he's tumbling head over heels before he does, collapsing into a heap on the floor of another dark living room, though this room, this room smells of Remus and smells of pain and saddness and just a touch of hope.

He coughs, loud and hard from the soot in collected in his throat and there's noise from upstairs, and when Sirius looks up there's a dark shape hurrying down the stairs and into the living room, until they both freeze, Remus wearing an old tee shirt of Sirius' and a threadbare pair of pyjama bottoms, and Sirius, dirty and bleeding and covered in ash and mud and then one moves first, cautiously. There are arms around Sirius and his arms are around an equally thin and worn frame, and it's as Sirius clings and closes his eyes and shudders he vows to never let go again.

That is what determination is.

---

Hope is for dreamers, James once quipped, reading from a book of slightly disturbing poems for Lily's benefit that made the rest of them roll their eyes. Hope was something Sirius always had beneath the surface, buried away somewhere, kept locked up and hidden from anyone else. Hope of getting out of Remus returning his feelings, hope of getting out of Grimmauld Place, hope of Remus forgiving him, hope of James and Lily waking up, hope of escaping, and hope of starting his life over again.

So much has transpired since the day James read Lily poetry in the middle of the Gryffindor common room. Lives have started and lives have ended, tragedy after tragedy has knocked them over time and time again, but there is hope in an uncertain world. Sirius still has trouble remembering things and sometimes Remus has to gently remind him of what has happened and that they're not all right but they're getting there. He was gone for three months when he fell through the veil that day in the ministry but it felt like three lifetimes, and sometimes when he catches sight of himself in the mirror he's shocked to still see a man under forty.

Remus nearly broke that day, losing him again like that, but there's always hope, even in the war torn battlefields and in the dark stench of death. There's hope in small green eyes when a boy's parents lie dead before him, and there's hope in situations where you're certain have squeezed the last bit of sanity from your mind. Sirius still gets angry with the way the world works sometimes, but when he wakes up and Remus' head is tucked beneath his chin and Remus' hand is warm against his back, he remembers how to be happy. There are so many blank periods in his life, so many times where the world may have come to a crashing halt and he wouldn't have noticed, but now life is vibrant and vivid around his eyes, and he takes the time to appreciate the worn rugs and cracked walls of the house, because being alive and being in love is more important than the decorations his mother used to insist, is more important than ornate and dark gothic beauty. Waking up each day and knowing you'll at least survive the morning is breath taking, and holding onto the belief that he's back for good, that he never has to leave the warm security of Remus' arms is enough to keep him going through the day. This desire to live and to experience again is what keeps him going, is what makes him feel alive again. This is stability and love and a second- third, chance.

This is what hope is.