In the Quiet Places

IN THE QUIET PLACES


Remus is the gentle one in the sunlight. He putters around the house, helping the children empty drawers and rifle through dusty chests. Old photographs touch a soft spot; sometimes after a day's work Remus produces a sheaf of pictures from a patched pocket: yellowed snapshots curling at the edges and stiff daguerrotypes of people with thin, cold faces and the same rich black hair and eyes, fingers gripping the folds of their robes with quiet arrogance.

"They're still your family," he pleads meekly. "Won't you keep the pictures at least?" Under his fingers, the Lords of the House of Black sneer at his misplaced pity and leave to snicker behind their frames.

Sirius only accepts his carefully collected hoards long enough to turn and throw them into the nearest fireplace. " I know you don't have a real family of your own now, but believe me, you don't want mine," he says tightly, over a resigned sigh. He's spent the past thirty-odd years fending off the outside world, and inside world isn't quite to his liking either.

"You're my family," Remus replies, tipping his head away from the sudden acridity of burning silver. His voice is so full of absolute conviction that Sirius has to smile.

When night falls, something else happens. He waits patiently, as a wolf will, regarding his friend with lupine eyes over the dinner table. While the twins turn their spoons into catapults and the Moody slams the table, spattering everyone with gravy, Remus pushes his overfilled plate away and falls to doodling on the tablecloth, watching over banked fires. Sirius wonders if his friend's eyes are really shining in the dark, or whether it's a trick of the dodgy light in the kitchen.

Unthinkingly, Remus draws the feathertip of his quill down his throat, and smiles when Sirius has to look away.

He bides his time, absently counting the tapestries they've torn off the walls that day, or the number of boggarts they've expelled, or the times he's turned to catch Sirius observing him from the depths of a musty armchair with hungry avidity. The last thought is too much for him, and he breaks from it to find he's drawn whorls and angles and oak leaves crisscrossing Molly's tablecloth. Years ago, he remembers his scraped hands smelling of warm sap and spice after every full moon.

He doesn't need the moon to have that smell on his hands today.

When the meal's - finally - over, everyone rises to file out of the room and back into their own lives. Sirius lingers, talking to Harry animatedly. Remus catches the words "Snitch" and "James" and "Quidditch Pitch", and listens in for the tail-end of the conversation.

"Your father was always sneaking off by himself to practise. Well, not by himself; sometimes he'd wake me up too, and we'd tumble out of bed at the crack of dawn and creep down to the playing field. I think he was afraid that if he got the slightest bit out of shape, Lily'd stop liking him." Sirius grins reminiscently, absently flicking a fallen strand of hair out of his eyes. It's a small shadow of the beautiful boy who used to pause in front of the trophy cases to preen at his reflection.

Remus remembers those mornings, waking up to find both beds empty and feeling a cold shiver of jealousy in the pit of his stomach, hastily suppressed. There was always a struggle over whether to follow them out to the pitch or not; more often he ended up buried in a book at breakfast to hide his face when they barreled into the Great Hall, windblown and laughing, complete unto themselves.

Remus finds he's snapped his quill at the memory, and hurriedly stuffs the bent feather into a sleeve pocket.

When Remus politely declines Molly's proffered cup of tea, Sirius finally glances in his direction. He grins in sly amusement, and bids Harry goodnight. They wait until the children have clattered up the stairs, wait until the floorboards overhead creak with exaggerated tiptoes, before assaulting each other.

Remus grasps Sirius by the collar and hauls him over the table, suddenly strong. He sucks and nips at Sirius' mouth, an impossible vacuum, leaving him gasping, before dipping hastily to lick up the line of his jaw. He grips Sirius' long, neglected hair and winds it roughly around both fists, leaving his neck open and tender for the taking. The wolf in him whimpers in hungry pleasure at the beating jugular just beyond the line of his teeth.

Sirius chokes out a laugh, always startled and breathless no matter how many times this has happened before. He cradles Remus' graying head in his thin fingers, the gentler one of the two now. He tugs Remus upward to get at his mouth, his kiss a little sloppy and off the mark in their urgency. He's more careful when he slides his tongue between Remus' lips; his teeth are very sharp.

In spite of his care, there's a little blood on the corner of his mouth when he pulls back. Remus darts forward boldly to lick it off with a pleased growl. Overhead, something thuds against the floorboards.

They break off, panting, foreheads propped against each other. It could be the twins, about to sneak down the kitchen for a clandestine snack, or Harry, throwing another temper tantrum. Sirius is still perched precariously on the table, one leg bent awkwardly under him and the other crooked around Remus' hip. They listen tensely for another sound to follow the first one.

During the wait Sirius gets impatient and nibbles at Remus' forehead just above his left eyebrow. There's a scar there, from the time Pettigrew escaped them in front of the Forbidden Forest, and Sirius had to transform to keep the werewolf from attacking Ron. When he licks the scar his mouth fills with the warmth of musk and sweat. He'd rather have another part of Remus in his mouth, something far darker and duskier.

Remus gentles him with a hand inside his robes, over his chest. He tips his head to the side of the man before him, pulls the rim of an ear between his teeth to tug at it. "Let's move this upstairs," he whispers huskily. Sirius nods, then in turn nuzzles the crook of Remus' neck in further affirmation.

They make their way as quietly as possible under the stairs, flushed and wishing for invisibility. Sirius thinks that even if they did have James' cloak, they would have burnt the air around them. He feels hot and swollen, heavy and sore under his robes, stumbling clumsily up the stairs and past his mother's sleeping portrait. Remus leads him urgently, their hands seeming glued together in the corridor, as they vanish upstairs to Sirius' quarters, leaving the scent of dust and musk. Of oak leaves and moonlight in the hallway.

Just before they close the door behind them, Sirius wonders whether everyone really believes he spends all his time here brooding with Buckbeak. It makes him momentarily uneasy, the possibility that his godson and his friends might have an inkling of what really goes on up here. Then Remus, feral and starving, leaps for him again.

For Sirius, just as ravenous, the outside world no longer exists.