Moon's Pull

Moon's Pull

...Whatever's coming, there's no place else to go

While waiting for the moon to show...

On the night before December's full moon, Sirius was deceptively calm as he leaned against the splintering door jamb of the candle-lit library in Twelve Grimmauld Place, watching Remus watch the silver-white sphere brighten ominously in the gloomy twilight sky.

Remus stood uneasily at the dust-grimed window. The guttering streetlights struggled to shine through glass that seemed charmed to never come clean no matter how often one washed them; and he gazed up pensively at the waxing moon behind the cloud-filled London skyline. The flickering candlelight from within caught Remus' reflection in the dirty glass, casting shadows over his thin, pale lined face, making him look far older than his thirty-five years.

As Sirius tentatively approached him he felt the pull on him too--the pull of the moon singing through Remus' blood. It was a shimmering resonance he'd always felt since he knew him as a boy, that had never really left even after everything between them, and the thread reverberated again within him in response.

He stood beside Remus and he couldn't help but notice the very fine trembling in the lines of his long elegant hands; but he said nothing.

He said nothing because he couldn't; because they'd broken in Grimmauld Place these past several days and were unable to pull back together--

Since he'd Crucio'ed Snape and Remus intervened.

They tiptoed around each other these days, avoiding each other when possible. Simply sharing the air was unbearable, much less occupying the same space. One or the other, usually Remus, would leave, with a slight chill following in his wake. These were the days where Sirius sought company with Buckbeak, whose eyes were haughty and regal, but who at least didn't judge him.

Though sometimes, sitting with the other Order members at dinners or meetings, Sirius would raise his eyes and catch Remus staring at him, like a particularly vexing puzzle to be solved; Remus would quickly avert his eyes when Sirius noticed, but not before Sirius watched them widen with-- fear? disbelief? loathing?

Did it matter?

It was the same way he'd watched Sirius after the Prank.

Sirius hadn't felt so--so alone since Azkaban, even with Remus there standing right beside him.

Strangely, despite their tiptoeing and general avoidance of each other they still had sex--maybe because they were both simply in the habit of it. Even that had changed though, and that was the worst of it; whatever intimacy they'd managed before was gone now, reduced to the sexual equivalent of scratching an itch.

That only heightened the sense of total solitude Sirius felt when Remus came to him. It was the only time he ventured near, because he certainly did not allow Sirius to come to him now; and they did the most intimate of acts, Remus not even looking at him during the deed. The isolation grew with each cold and distant touch; when Remus shuddered and climaxed in him or against him; and when he got up and strode from the room immediately without saying a word. Sirius let him do it, but it hurt all the same; and only Firewhisky dulled the sting and washed out the bitter ashen taste from his mouth.

All in all, something had irrevocably broken within Remus, and Sirius knew he had caused it.

Even though Remus had forgiven him of much worse in the past, Sirius knew he had crossed a line, and was at a loss to find his way back.

Yet despite all that, he still was Sirius Black, impulsive and reckless, full speed ahead and damn the consequences, so he ventured speaking simply to break the willful void of silence Remus imposed around them.

"You all right, Moony?"

Startled, Remus turned and his eyes flew to Sirius' face, then just as quickly his face shuttered and grew remote. His lips quirked as he turned back to the window and spoke quietly, tonelessly, toward the sky, not to Sirius. "Full moon's tomorrow."

Sirius flinched as if slapped, because in those three words he heard all that it meant.

Rebuffed, he felt the same way he knew Remus did now, trapped and helpless in the moon's pull. However, unwilling to leave just yet, Sirius looked up at the moon through the grubby window with Remus, keenly aware of his breath huffing over dry chapped lips.

At times like this Sirius was never sure of where he ended and the dog began. Even Remus' scent changed subtly with the moon's pull. Notes of damp earth and cold air and the cloying sweetness of dead leaves and blood rose above the smells Sirius usually associated with him; those of tea and chocolate and soap, dust, old paper and a slight tang of musky male sweat.

The night smells sang to Padfoot, who bristled with anticipation within Sirius, even as the dog felt confused and uncertain about what had happened to make Moony refuse him so. At times like this the dog used to know what to do; generally unconcerned with this awkward dance of rebuilding tenuous trust, Padfoot usually sprang ahead, heedless of boundaries, knowing only Moony pain comfort. Though now even Padfoot hung back, afraid of offending the wolf, thereby leaving Sirius utterly bereft.

Sirius still needed to do something though, something to help, because at his core Padfoot couldn't bear to see his pack mate suffer; so he steeled himself, stepped forward and reached out his hand to touch his friend's shoulder.

Remus tensed though, and subtly distanced himself, and Sirius let his arm drop in resignation. Unable to say anything that could hope to cut through the quiet chill, chastised and hopeless and tail between his legs, all he could do now was take the hint and leave the room.

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December nights were unbearably long, Sirius knew from interminable memory, and spending them alone was always the worst. He lay on his bed fully dressed, on top of the covers. Arms crossed behind his head, eyes wide open, he did not even deign to sleep, though it was long after midnight; instead he studied the flowing cast of shadows on the walls. His senses honed from the long time he spent as Padfoot, he could almost feel Remus breathe as he moved restlessly in the room down the hall, through stone and wood and air and distance of wounded feelings.

As always these days, he had nothing to do but think (damn Snape for being right), and tonight he mulled over the pull that had not only held Remus within its clutches, but also had somehow captured him in its orbit as well.

When they'd been children at Hogwarts, even before he'd found out Remus was a werewolf, Sirius had been inexplicably drawn to the low thrum that pulsed below Remus' heartbeat before and after the full moon. It was something dark and primal that sang to him and resonated within his very soul, and the depth of it was terrifying for an eleven-year-old boy to feel--but he welcomed it as something bigger, more meaningful than he was. He'd been enthralled by it, and in the days before and after, as the lunar magic waxed and waned, he found himself trying to soothe it, tame it, and do something to ease the magic flow under Remus' skin that somehow managed to burrow under his own.

They'd played card games as children, Exploding Snap and Witch's Hearts, followed by long matches of wizarding chess, through those long dark nights of the soul, even before Remus told them of being a werewolf; because somehow Sirius sensed his friend's restlessness and couldn't help but share it. Then, past midnight, Sirius would sit up and read beside him in bed, legs nonchalantly crossed on top of the covers. He read aloud to Remus by wand light with the velvet bed curtains closed and an Imperturbable charm cast so as not to disturb James and Peter; the childish cadence of his voice rose and fell with the words from Quidditch Weekly or whichever Muggle book Remus had at hand, as Remus lay in bed and tried to rest. Often Sirius read himself to sleep, words stumbling into silence and head lolling against the headboard. He would wake up next to Remus some time later and not want to leave the slumbering warmth, for by now Remus did manage to fall asleep; but he crept off silently to his own bed at these times.

Once he and James and Peter had mastered the Animagus spell, Sirius spent the waxing and waning gibbous nights beside him as Padfoot, the black dog snuggled tightly against Remus' leg on the bed. Remus would splay his fingers through the thick ruff of his neck and scratch it lazily before drifting off, arm wrapped securely around the dog's body. It was companionable, and comforting, something Sirius never talked about but always secretly treasured.

In Azkaban, he had desperately tried to hide these small precious memories from the Dementors. And sadly, they'd been among the first happy memories to go--when the Dementors found and ripped the essence of those memories from him he had howled with his grief.

The months after the Shrieking Shack incident had been nothing less than torture for Sirius because Remus shut him out, and even Moony shut out Padfoot for a while, so all he could do in the waxing and waning nights was shake silently along in his own bed, feeling the blood pull and utterly helpless to soothe it. When they'd made up, it was only Padfoot that Remus allowed in for the longest time. He didn't understand until he was much older, until long after he'd accomplished the Animagus transformation and Padfoot ran monthly with the wolf; not until Azkaban really, just how much Remus came to dread, and paradoxically long for, the change.

In Azkaban Sirius still felt that hum with the moon, low in his belly and out to the tips of his fingers, through the starvation and deprivation and cold and near-madness of the forbidding place; and he found himself transforming to Padfoot and looking up longingly at the silver-white sphere through the narrow window-hole of his cell. He couldn't howl, and he couldn't run, so Padfoot shivered in the stone cell and stared at the sky and dreamed of chasing the wolf through moonlight-dappled forest.

Now the pull was as strong as ever. Even stronger perhaps; its sweet brilliance was magnified by the sour dark of Grimmauld Place and Remus' own proximity only feet away. Padfoot bristled within Sirius again, desperate to comfort his pack mate. Sirius glanced over at the night table with the half-full decanter of Firewhisky sitting on it and thought longingly about numbing the dog and himself the rest of the way to drunken oblivion, but his limbs felt too heavy to move.

He watched one of the shadows on the wall flow disturbingly like a Dementor, long tendrils brushing back the faint light from the room, and he remembered the moon memories he'd lost to Azkaban; the lost joy of running with the wolf through the Forbidden Forest, the missing comfort of long evenings as Padfoot, curled with Remus on the dormitory bed, the secret warmth he felt when he knew Moony was finally asleep--

"Have I ever been a friend, a person, to you? Am I even human to you or is my appeal all about the beast?"

Sirius squeezed his eyes shut against the plaintive echo.

Oh dear God...that's what Moony really thinks of me. No wonder he's felt used--

All the times he'd misjudged, mistrusted and sometimes simply mistreated his long-suffering friend, over twenty-five long years, came flooding back...

And I have used him all along.

Because casual callousness was what the Blacks did; and continued to do--

Oh fuck.

Yet he'd survived his own utter foolishness, time and again--if only because of Remus. He'd returned to Moony, and Moony had taken him back, forgiven him without reservation despite everything, over and over. Especially when he really didn't deserve it--

I can't do that anymore.

He couldn't bear to lose what little left he had with Remus now.

With that he leapt from the bed.

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Sirius didn't bother knocking on Remus' bedroom door, but simply whispered a quick "Alohomora" and barged in.

Remus was sitting up in bed, trying and failing to read a thick leather tome, eyes darting around restlessly. His glasses were perched bizarrely on his upper lip as he rubbed his forehead, and Sirius couldn't help but chuff with amusement. Some things never changed.

Remus looked up at him, an indecipherable expression flitting across his features. "What are you doing here?"

The words were neutral enough, but there was a tinge of irritation that Sirius chose to ignore.

"We're starting over," he announced.

"Sorry?" Remus lowered his book warily.

"You. Me. Moony. Padfoot. We're starting over." He stood by the edge of the bed and looked at him earnestly.

"What are you getting at--" Remus' face hardened.

"From the beginning, Remus. Isn't that where one always starts?" Sirius shook his head and rolled his eyes impatiently. Remus simply glared at him, then turned his gaze back to his book.

"Remus," Sirius said in a somewhat gentler tone; a tone that made Remus look up at him again.

But now with Remus' skeptical eyes on him, Sirius faltered; he alternately looked at the worn and scuffed oak floor to hide his face from Remus' appraising gaze, then flitted his eyes back to Remus' to gauge his friend's reaction as his voice softened further. "Remus, I fucked up. I've been bollocksing it all for the last twenty-five years, and I--can't afford to do it anymore. The Shrieking Shack, being Secret Keeper, shite, just last week with Snape--"

Remus visibly flinched, but Sirius didn't see it.

"I can't afford to lose anything else, Moony." Remus inhaled sharply at the endearment. "You and Harry are all I have left, and Harry's at Hogwarts, so it's really just you and me now and I can't bear you shutting me out like this."

He looked up again, to meet Remus' hard and questioning brown eyes, and it was the hardest thing he had ever done. "I'm sorry." He said, and paused awkwardly, the simple words sounding totally foreign to his ears. He forced himself to keep looking at Remus' face.

A brief look of utter shock flitted across Remus' wan features, but they didn't soften; although he tilted his head as if waiting for more.

The silence stretched out, growing louder to the point it was deafening, to the point that Sirius couldn't abide it; he spoke again, words halting. "Listen, Remus, it's too much to expect you to actually forgive me. But for what it's worth, I could never have asked for a better friend than you...ever. So that's why I want to start over." Sirius fell speechless with that, stunned that he'd just said and meant more than he'd ever thought possible for a Black.

Remus was stunned too, perfectly frozen, regarding him with an unreadable expression. The wait drew out again, measured in heartbeats, breaths, hope.

"Sirius, we can't continue doing this," Remus said finally, looking down at his lap.

Sirius' heart plunged, and he blinked. "We can't continue--?" he whispered.

"This. We--"

"Fuck, Remus!" Sirius exploded, exasperated by his friend's stubborn reticence. He raked his fingers frantically through long dark hair. "What the hell do you want from me?"

"You should go." Remus' voice was flinty in its dismissal.

"No." Sirius' voice took on a steely tone.

"Pardon me?" Remus' eyes narrowed. He back stiffened and he tensed slightly, ready to spring.

"No, Remus. I am NOT leaving. I'm staying. Until you tell me what you want." He sat down firmly on the bed and stubbornly folded his arms across his chest, staring at him with a challenging expression.

"I want you to leave. So geroff, you fucking prat!" Remus growled, swung his legs over and forcibly kicked Sirius off the bed.

Sirius landed on the floor on his arse with a hard thump. He was shocked into silence for a brief moment before-- "You buggering werewolf!" he yelled before pouncing on Remus in one swift fluid motion; straddling his thighs and pinning his shoulders to the mattress, the force of his attack left palm-shaped bruises in their wake. His hair hung down around their faces as he angrily shook Remus' shoulders. "What do you want, Remus?" he repeated harshly. "Tell me."

"I'm warning you, Sirius--" Remus hissed. With the nascent werewolf's strength, Remus violently thrust up and threw Sirius off-balance, sending him crashing to the floor again.

Remus' hand slid out to find his wand under his pillow as Sirius staggered to his feet, knowing that this was well beyond words now, and only wands would settle this. His magic was nowhere near what it had been since he'd left Azkaban--but if Remus wanted a fight, so be it. In the end, perhaps it was all Sirius had left to give.

With a wince, Sirius reached for his own wand in the pocket of his robes. "Or you'll do what, precisely?" he intoned icily, diction clipped, hiding his disquiet behind the epitome of incendiary Black arrogance.

Remus whipped his wand around and pointed it squarely at Sirius' chest.

"Everte statum!"

Sirius slammed through the open doorway, his left shoulder glancing off the wooden door jamb, and he smashed into the unyielding stone wall across with a sickening, bone-crunching thud. He slid down the wall, slumping to the floor, shaking his head and gasping for a second wind, ignoring the twinge of pain from his injured joint.

Remus leapt out of bed and stood just beyond the doorway, glowering over the crumpled figure. "We're not at Hogwarts anymore, Sirius," Remus snapped, hair flying around his pale face. "Colloportus!" Sirius looked up just as the door slammed shut with enough force to shake the brass hinges.

Incensed, Sirius pushed himself to his feet, the tip of his wand glowing white-hot with potential magic. "Confractostium!" he roared, and the oak door splintered into thousands of tiny wooden shards and exploded in the confines of the room.

Sirius lurched past the threshold, falling on one knee, his left arm hanging at a horrifying angle as Remus covered his face and twisted his body to protect himself from the flying splinters. Remus dove onto the bed, rolled to face Sirius and shouted "Petrificus!" Sirius froze in place.

"We can't just 'start over', Sirius, it doesn't work like that," Remus panted, sliding off and standing up. "There's too blasted much--"

"Finite," Sirius mumbled through unwilling lips. Then before Remus could react, he flicked his wand; Remus' feet shot out from under him and he fell to the floor, hard, legs twitching madly.

"It has always been about the friendship, Moony," Sirius answered hotly, making Remus wince at the use of the old endearment now. "Always. We would've given up on the Animagus spell otherwise."

Remus' eyes narrowed again. "And look what you gained from it," he shot back sarcastically. "Flabrorum!" A burst of freezing wind raged through the enclosed space of the small room, forcing Sirius back and extinguishing the low embers in the fireplace; the bedclothes blew around adding to the stormy chaos, a pillow just missing Sirius' head. But Sirius struggled through the fierce blast, gentling the howling wind to a light breeze with an impatient flick of his wand, and Remus' hand tightened on his wand as Sirius slowly advanced towards him. "Another way to use everything as you see fit. To use me."

"Do I look as if I'm using anything now, stuck in this hellhole?" His voice shook slightly. "Do you want me to tell you I've used you then, that I've taken advantage of you all this time? All right then, it's true, I have. I know it."

Remus looked utterly shocked at that. "We--we--" Legs still twitching horribly, Remus looked away. "Finite incantatem," he said under his breath; his legs stopped, but he panted with the exertion. "You do something colossally stupid, Sirius, and I'm always involved one way or another. You beg, I forgive you, we start again, and it repeats. It repeats, over and over and over." Voice raised, eyes flashing, he glared at Sirius again. "Nothing changes, you never learn, and I can't keep doing it anymore."

"Maybe I have changed and you just don't want to see it, Remus!" Sirius gesticulated with his dislocated arm and winced.

"I doubt that," Remus replied dryly.

"Yeah, because you're fucking Saint Remus on his bloody high horse!" Sirius retorted vehemently. Standing over him, he flicked his wand again and in one smooth motion bound Remus' wrists together with magical rope.

"Fuck, Sirius, untie me!" Remus snarled.

Sirius shook his head wildly. On a shout of "Wingardium leviosa!", he levitated Remus over the bed, then released him, slamming Remus down with such force that his body burst the mattress and snapped the wooden frame beneath. Sirius advanced closer, menacing, not even noticing the splinters from the shattered door driving into his bare feet or the down feathers from the mattress flying around his eyes like snow. "And guess what, my lycanthropic friend? You haven't changed either! Fucking calm, rational, 'nothing bothers me' Remus. A man unto himself, you are."

Remus wheezed, winded. "Maybe I wouldn't have to be--"

"I'm supposedly your mate, Remus--"

"--If you weren't such an arrogant, thoughtless arsewipe--"

"--And I never know where I stand with you! And you have never ever showed any inkling of what you want or need from me. Not once in twenty-five years!" Sirius finished, now kneeling by the broken bed, leaning over him and breathing heavily in Remus' face.

"You're supposedly the man who's good at reading people, Sirius," Remus spat. "You couldn't read Peter, and now you're saying you can't read me? Fucking brilliant you are!" Remus struggled briefly against the bindings, then relaxed, slowly working his way out of the coils unobtrusively so that Sirius wouldn't notice.

Sirius' eyes glittered in his white face. "Do you want to know why I suspected you of being the spy, Remus?" he said tiredly, pushing his wet fringe out of his eyes. "Not because you're a werewolf. Because you--you--you don't want to trust anyone. You act like you do, but you don't. You're covered in stone and locked so deep inside yourself that nothing gets in anymore, even your best friends. That hurts, Remus, and it wears thin, seeing you so--so--bloody alone like that."

Remus stopped and looked stricken for a long moment, staring at Sirius with wide, shocked eyes. Sirius relaxed his guard, believing he'd finally cracked that invisible shell--

Then, hands free of the ropes binding his wrists, Remus lashed out his wand at Sirius and blasted him squarely in the chest with a Stunning spell.

Sirius flew backwards with the jet of red light towards the fireplace, his head whacking the fireplace mantel, and he crumpled to the floor, stunned. In one smooth motion Remus leapt off the shattered bed and pinned Sirius against the cold hearth, wand pointed at Sirius' throat, eyes gleaming with unsuppressed fury. "I hate you," he panted. "I fucking HATE you, Sirius. I hate that you left, I hate that you came back. I hate everything you've done--" he squeezed his eyes shut briefly, and his voice wavered. "I hate what you've become, and I hate what I've become because of it." He fell silent, shaken, and Sirius instinctively knew Remus had said far too much than he'd wanted.

Both men breathed heavily from the exertion; the air crackled in the shambles of the room as stormy grey eyes locked with raging brown ones, and the cold tense silence hung suspended over them, waiting for an ending--or a beginning.

At last, Sirius broke the strain with a gulp of air. "Fine, Remus," he said wearily, brokenly, slowly shaking his head. "Here. Do anything you want to me. Anything you need. Use Cruciatus on me if you want. Go ahead, I won't stop you." He dropped his wand and it clattered to the floor; then he reached up, grasped Remus' wand and jammed it under his chin. "If you think I deserve it, do it. I won't retaliate. Cause me as much pain as I have you."

Taken aback, Remus stared down at him, chest heaving. Sirius stared back steadily, unflinching.

"I trust you, because I need you, and you're all I have. Trust me."

A litany of emotions flickered across Remus' face as he stared down at Sirius--confusion, anger, frustration, longing; Sirius ached at the brief look of outright despair on his friend's lined face as he weighed their past and their present. The moment stretched out, becoming unbearably long...finally, Remus blinked and slowly nodded his agreement, lowered his wand, released Sirius, stood up and backed away.

Sirius exhaled the breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Remus sighed and bent his head, shaking it slightly in disbelief. But when he looked at Sirius again, Remus had an expression of what might have been guarded hope. "All right, Padfoot. We start over," Remus said warily. Sirius relaxed at the use of the nickname. "What do you propose?"

Sirius sighed too and clambered to his feet slowly, now wincing at the prickling shoots of pain from the splinters lodged in his bare feet; the sharp ache announced itself in his torn shoulder. "For now? A drink, I think," he said, rubbing the back of his head with his uninjured hand. "Or an aspirin."

Remus backed up into the bed and sat down on the remains of the mattress gingerly. "In the bathroom cabinet."

"Accio aspirin," Sirius said at once, and the bottle came flying out of the bathroom and into his hand. He took two at once, without water, and handed the bottle to Remus, who did the same. There was silence for a while before Remus spoke again.

"It's going to take time, Sirius," he said softly. "I--I can't do this overnight."

"Time is one thing I have plenty of," Sirius replied with not even a trace of irony, and sat down beside him on the ruined bed.

"I suppose," Remus agreed, not unkindly. Then he looked at Sirius, eyes appraising his friend's battered form. "You dislocated your shoulder, Padfoot." he stated.

Sirius nodded, twisting his lips into a wry smile. "I believe it was when you sent me flying into the hallway there."

Remus grinned apologetically and gently pressed his hand against Sirius' injured shoulder. "Amoliere," he murmured, and the joint snapped back into place. Sirius moved his arm gingerly.

"Thanks mate," he said, then reached towards the headboard and picked up Remus' reading glasses where they'd fallen; both lenses had cracked at some point. "These didn't survive too well either, sorry," Sirius commented. "Reparo." The glasses repaired, he handed them to Remus and looked around. The bed they sat on was completely caved in, the bedside lamp shattered; downy feathers from the mattress had frozen to the ice coating the walls and furniture and the floor was generously carpeted with sharp, thorny splinters. "Merlin, we made a right mess of your room, Moony," he commented, then laughed with a short bark. "There's no way you can sleep here tonight."

Remus snorted, Summoned his dressing robe from the wardrobe (the door had been shorn off the hinges) and pocketed his glasses. "Your gift for stating the obvious never ceases to amaze me. I'll have to move to another room."

"You can stay with me," Sirius shrugged, wincing at the gesture; his shoulder was going to be tender for a while.

Remus rolled his eyes. "Stuff it, Sirius, I'm not in the mood--"

"Stuff it yourself, you know that's not what I meant," Sirius replied dismissively with an imperious wave of his hand. His voice softened and grew a bit wistful. "Remember when we were lads at Hogwarts?" Sirius watched him earnestly. "I used to read aloud to you nights like these before the full moon."

"You're joking," Remus commented, but despite the skeptical tone there was a hint of fond remembrance in his eyes.

Sirius shook his head. "Come on, bring your book, I'll read to you." He reached over Remus and plucked the book out from amongst the scattered feathers, peering at the dust jacket closely. "So what is your bedtime reading these days? Muggle books? Merlin, what is this? 'A Tale of Two Cities' by Charles Dickens? It looks like it'll put you under in no time."

They slowly made their way out of the ruined bedroom and down the hall to Sirius', both men limping slightly. Sirius lit the bedside lamp, pulled the rumpled bed covers down and let Remus climb in first; shaking his head with a funny half-smile, Remus slid over to make room as Sirius clambered in beside him. They sat side-by-side under the sheets and heavy quilt, not quite touching.

Sirius slid one arm around Remus' thin shoulders and leaned his cheek against his friend's shaggy greying hair. Sirius felt Remus tense, then slowly relax and sigh as he allowed himself to rest against him. Leaning companionably into each other's warmth, Sirius knew that Remus missed this too--this strange camaraderie that only they shared; one that defined, maybe even transcended their relationship, if he were given to such philosophical musings.

It was going to take time, he knew.

But maybe, just maybe this would be enough to salvage them once and for all.

Remus slid down in the bed and rolled onto his side, facing him with head on the pillow, eyes drooping. "Get on with it, Padfoot," he yawned. "Let your oh-so-mellifluous voice lull me to sleep."

"Pretentious words ill-become you, Moony." Sirius dropped his hand and ruffled Remus' hair affectionately. He might still end up going round the twist, but not today. With that thought, Sirius opened the book to the first page, and began to read aloud.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."

-April 17, 2005.