Fic: With No Fallacy for Breayshorty
Dec. 6th, 2011 02:19 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
deathjunke.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
small_giftsTitle: With No Fallacy
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
deathjunke
Recipient:bearshorty
Rating: PG13 for Kissyfacing
Highlight for Warnings: *naughty words and lack of p0rnZ *
Word Count:3525
Summary: You cant lie to yourself there are no illusions, no fallacies, only the truth.
Author's notes:
Well. I did my best with this one. Hopefully it isn't too angst for you,bearshorty. I'm the conductor and foreman of the angst train so trying to make this not angst was a challenge!
I was trying to go with the theme of redemption or truth because really that's what A Snowflake Fell (And It Felt Like a Kiss) sounded like to me.
Teddy pressed his palms against the cool wood, leaned over and pressed his forehead to the cold glass of the mirror. Nose to nose to his reflection Teddy frowned, it wasn’t natural. He was already sixteen and had absolutely no idea what he really looked like.
People said he looked like his mother or his father but the truth was he altered his appearance to look like the pictures he'd seen of them over the years. His face was just a imitation of the faces he'd seen in photos since he was old enough to understand who they were.
The rest of his body was determined by his mood or the situation he was in. Everyone told him that his mother could change her appearance however she wanted at will but Teddy didn't know how to do that. His features were always changing. He was forever in transition even when he was completely still.
Ted locked eyes with his reflection and saw the color of his reflections eyes and hair shift rapidly from turquoise, to yellow, to orange, to cyan, to red, to brown, to green, to pink, to gray and finally settling on puce. With an irritated huff that warmed the glass he lifted a hand and fingered his puce bangs.
"Oh, come on! You can't be serious!"
"You're right I'm not." His reflection quipped.
Ted gasped; this mirror was the only one in the house that never spoke. He had assumed it was a muggle mirror but apparently that assumption was wrong. The reflection in the mirror changed. Where another Teddy had been standing was a tall amazingly beautiful brunette. The figure was androgynous with a pale pointed face, large gray eyes and an amused smirk.
"Hold on a sec," The figure in the mirror turned and stretched up on his toes to reach for one of the books sitting on the bookshelves reflected into the background. It snagged a small brown book that Teddy realized had never even been on the shelf in the first place. The handsome young man —was it really a man? The long lashes and long curly hair was really throwing Teddy off— pressed the book against the glass and suddenly the surface of the mirror rippled and shimmered the book was slowly pushed into existence.
The reflection smiled and waved before shimmering out of existence and Teddy approached the book carefully. Uncle Harry and Ginny and always stressed that sometimes books were dangerous but this thin little leather bound didn’t seem like anything harmful. In fact it looked like on of the Pensive Diaries that they sold at Flourish and Blotts.
Ted gingerly wrapped his thin fingers around the journal and lifted it. IT was light the leather soft and worn in certain areas by fingers and time. The front of the book was embossed in the bottom left corner Sirius.
Was it the very same Sirius that Harry spoke fondly of? Sirius Black ,Harry's godfather. A man who was so loyal, so brave and so damaged that even Harry's stories of him were laced with guilt and sadness. Maybe this was something he should give to Harry?
Teddy Peeled back the front cover, the leather crackled with age and dust spread into the air.
'I know there are things you want to say that you just can't, not to me or anyone else. You do stupid things when you get too wound up so in the interest of not getting expelled I got you this. Use it.
Just remove your memory like in a pensive and place it on a page of the book. It will copy the memory and let you see it in its truest form. In this Journal you cant lie to yourself there are no illusions, no fallacies, only the truth of the situation.
-Remus'
Ted smirked at the message in a tiny and rather messy scrawl. The ink was smeared in suck a way that it was easy to tell that Remus Lupin had been left handed.
“Just one… Just one memory,” Teddy murmured s he pressed his finger on one of the seemingly blank pages. The sensation wasn’t too far off from a port key, the colors of the room swirled around him and his stomach was tied in knots with the sudden spiraling fall.
Just as abruptly as it began it had ended and it was over and Teddy was standing awkwardly in the middle of a large Dorm room. It was obviously a Gryffindor dorm room; the comforters and curtains were all bright red. The carpet was a soft champagne color that mated the sheets and complimented the cherry wood furniture. The room was obviously occupied, clothes, brooms, toys, schoolbooks and everything else he and the other boys in his dorm had. Sure some of his things were a bit different but everything was easily recognizable.
There was a lull for a moment, everything was still and silent.
The door slammed open and in came a pair of boys laughing and pushing at each other as they tromped through the door. They were young, just into their teens and grinning stupidly.
The taller boy had light brown hair, hooded golden eyes and a crooked smile. There were three thin scars across his face but they were so faded that it was easy to see that they were years old.
"Fucking brilliant!" The second boy was a brunet; his black hair was so dark that it gleamed blue in the light. His skin was milk pale and his large gray cat like eyes were nearly forced closed by the stretch of his shameless grin. The boy let out a breathy chuckle and spun on his heel as soon as the door closed. "Remus! Did you see her face!?"
Teddy's eyes couldn’t leave the image of his young father. He was so young… younger than teddy was now and not at all what Teddy had ever expected to see.
"Nah, I missed it, I was too focused on the spell." Remus admitted with a careless shrug of his shoulder and a wry grin.
"You," Sirius reached up and cupped Remus' tanned scarred face between his palms and stood on his toes to come closer. They were barely a hare's breath awy from each other, their foreheads pressed together and their lips hovering just this side of far enough. "You are an impossibly devious genius and they should sing praise to you name."
Remus' face and neck flamed but his eyes never wavered and he never pulled away, "Don’t you think that's a bit extreme for a few simple hair care spells?"
Sirius broke eye contact first, he looked down and smiled wide so that his eyes crinkled in the corners once more. "You washed, conditioned and put rollers in Gideon' hair with out him noticing. If you're— if that's not extraordinary I don’t know what is."
The whisper was so low that Teddy had to strain to hear it and once he did he felt like a horrible intruder. This was a private moment, a sacred thing that he was watching. They hadn’t moved hadn't touched beyond hands and foreheads but it seemed more intimate, more profound than sex and Teddy just had to turn away.
Ted spun on his heel and came face to face with another memory. The men he saw sitting at the large mahogany kitchen table were old, battle worn and so very tired. The bitter tang of despair hung heavy like smog in the air as they sat besides one another a bottle of something amber and pungent between them.
"Moony— Remus, Remus…" The man who was obviously and yet unbelievably Sirius Black lay slumped on the table one arm crooked under his head and the other was thrown haphazardly across the tabletop. His eyes, once so full of mischief and life were dulled and rimmed in shadows. His face was still pale, but no longer luminescent and his smile was sarcastic and pained as opposed to merry and joyous.
"Don’t you think you've had enough?" Remus muttered as he poured another round of the stuff in the bottle. His eyes were still golden, "You'll end up dead at this rate."
There was a low, earthy chuckle and a muttered, "I wish I was dead."
Remus' face was red— almost purple— instantly, with a sharp thrust of his arm the glasses and bottle went crashing to the floor shattering and sloshing onto the tiled floor. "You've got some fucking nerve."
Once again Teddy could barely look away from the father he'd ever known. He'd never heard stories like this. The way everyone told it you couldn’t get more patient, kind and mellow than Remus Lupin. Yet here he was standing over this clearly unwell man with his fist balled up at his sides as if he was stopping himself from punching the man, his face screwed up in a monstrous snarl his lips thin and pulled back over excessively sharp and surprisingly inhumane teeth.
Remus slapped his hand down on the table. The wood where his hand landed splintered upward and the table creaked and shuddered under so much force.
"Moony, watch it," Sirius grumbled and pulled his free arm up over his head. "You cant afford to buy a new table and my accounts are frozen."
"Fuck you."
"We can do that too, I mean it's been a while… but I'm up for that."
"You're drunk." There was no question or accusation only the cold hard fact of the matter.
"Don't I wish," The sound of Sirius hoarse drawl, nothing like the graveled, cultured and playful tones of his youth had been ripped away long ago.
"I thought you wished you were dead?"
"I have more than one wish, Remus, my love." Sirius lifted his head from his arms and batted his lashes and gave Remus a cruel smirk. He knew, he knew that once, long ago, he'd been handsome, charming, flirtatious and irrepressible.
The table legs buckled and creaked as more pressure was applied by Remus' anger driven strength. "Why?"
"Why have I got more than one wish?" Sirius gave a loose shrug and drew Remus into his haunting gaze. When they were looking into each other's eyes Sirius slowly answered, "because —and you always said it best Moony, I'm a spoiled self centered ass."
"Don’t be obtuse."
"Fine, fine. I'm tired. Tired of trying, tired of being locked away in this house. I swore that I'd never come back and here I am. I'll die here you know."
"No, you wont." It was more of a plea than anything else
"It feels like it and sometimes I don’t think it would be that bad."
Teddy felt his heart ache and yearn and burn for the man he never met. Sirius Black had to be hurting more than any one ever would really know. The pain in his voice and movement and tone were all palpable but it was easy to see that no one would ever be able to reach beyond that outer shell of despair to get to the harshest and cruelest despondent center of himself.
"I'd miss you…" Remus whispered as he lifted his hand from the table and reached forward, tangling his fingers into all that dark shaggy almost matted hair. "Harry would miss you."
"But you'd move on. You did it once before, you can do it again." A simple fact.
"What about Harry? How is it fair to him?"
"Nothing's fair to that poor boy. Any chance I had to take care of him, to take him away from petunia and her pet whales went up in smoke when Peter got away."
"I'm sorry," Remus' face crumpled, the fury leaving being replaced with guilt, sorrow and self loathing, all visible and plain as day on his face. "I'm sorry I swear."
"Sorry doesn’t fix everything… you told me that yourself." Sirius placed his hand over Remus' and closed his eyes, "now shut the fuck up." Slowly Sirius tilted his head up and parted his lips clearly expecting a kiss.
Remus obeyed the unspoken command and bent down to lay his lips gently over Sirius'.
Teddy's breath caught in his chest and he winced at the sight of his father kissing Sirius Black. It wasn’t so much that Sirius was a man, that didn’t matter, but how broken, tormented and clearly fragile the man was that was the problem. It almost seemed like he was taking advantage even though Sirius had requested the kiss.
Teddy pressed his lips together and sighed deeply. This wasn’t the man he had ever imagined. This want the man he knew from bedtime stories and pictures. There wasn’t much time to contemplate the man named Remus Lupin before the scenery changed.
It was a place he'd been to before, it looked different but had the familiar energy. There were several tables covered in crisp white tablecloths and dozens of chairs and a large crystal chandelier that hovered in the center of the room. That's when it dawned on him. This was grandma's restaurant before the war, before it had been blown up and rebuilt. Teddy looked around surprised at how different it all looked, the walls were a deep sage and the carpets were sharp iron black.
There were only two tables being used. At the table closest to the kitchen there was a little girl. The girl looked barely ten years old. Her hair was long and fell down her back in blue-black waves of curls. Her face was heart shaped, her lips were a lovely pink bow her nose was slightly upturned and her eyes were large luminous and dark brown. She rolled silverware with a distinct disinterest and chatted with the man to her left. The man was tall, sturdy. He didn’t look old despite his gray-flecked brown hair. His brown eyes and a wide bright smile were the same as the girl's. It was clear that they were related, probably father and daughter.
Six tables away from the father and daughter Sirius sat with a woman. Sirius was young —if Teddy had to guess he's say early twenties— and healthy and just a bit stressed. Sirius, the woman he sat with and the little girl all looked like a bizarre mirror image of each other. They were related, they had to be.
Teddy frowned as he watched them, gasping as he finally realized who was in the room. It was amazing what time changed. There was his grandmother in full living color looking young and beautiful in so very, very young. She was pale and awkward in her muggle sweater dress and heels. That could only mean the man and his daughter were the grandfather he had never met and his mother.
Ted watched the child he knew would one day become his mother roll utensils and chatter away about some band or another she wanted to see before she and her father gathered the tubs of wrapped forks and carried the back into the kitchen.
Once they were gone Teddy had nothing to do but listen to the conversation between his grandmother and his… His what? His father's best friend? lover? —what ever.
"Sirius, are you certain?" The young woman asked imploringly, "Is this what you want?"
"It is. This has been coming for a long time Andy. You knew it just like I did." Sirius took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. "I'm not going back. Father's dead, Mother's lost it and Regulus is Missing in action. This hasn't got anything to do with me anymore. "
"But you are the heir. You are the one that will carry on the family name."
"No, I'm really not."
"How can you say such a thing?" She snapped, "You've got responsibilities, there is still hope for you. You can go home Sirius! Its wonderful! You've been given a second chance. Besides once you have a child you wont have to worry so much, everyone will see it as duty done and then you can steer the Blacks how ever you please."
"There will be no children and there will be no 'steering the Blacks'. I want nothing to do with them." Sirius looked her in the eyes and spoke slowly and deliberately, "I'm a bloody pouf, a fag, queerer than a wingless snitch. I've been with Remus since we kids and I wont knock up some poor girl with the right connections or bloodlines. If nothing else I am faithful"
Andromeda shook her head as if trying to shake off the words she heard. "This is just a phase Sirius, just a phase!" She pleased reaching across the table to grasp the handsome young man's hands. "You don’t love him, how can you? How can you love a werewolf A monster?"
"Don’t fucking touch me, Andromeda." Sirius yanked his hands away and abruptly stood up. "I expected better from you. I thought that by now you'd learn that all of the family's bullshit was just that."
Ted wrapped his arms around himself… It was too much. He didn’t want so see this anymore.
And suddenly he was in the middle of a forest. In a clearing lined with trees and shrubs. The field was carpeted with long brown winter grass and night bloom flowers. Teddy inhaled the bittersweet scent of the closing flowers. And watched as the sky shifted from the purple-back-blue blanket to a pink-orange-mauve mist as the sun crept up into the sky.
In the light he could see the two figures nested in the grass. One was massive grey and feral— a werewolf in its full glory, the other animal was somewhat smaller. It was a dog, a dog with thick shaggy fur and clear gray eyes that tracked the wolf as it whined and writhed in the sunlight.
The wolf thrashed and rolled on to its back. There were several painful sounding cracks as its bones broke one by one and reformed and grew. The thick grey fur fell away in clumps giving way to scarred tan skin. The pained howls became wet gurgles, which morphed into the chilling screams of a boy. In the end all that was left was a teenager, a boy who looked just shy of seventeen and utterly exhausted lying besides a massive dog in the middle of the forest.
Teddy watched in horror, grateful that he was spared the torture of lycanthropy. Teddy shivered, wanting to just reach out to the boy, and tell him he wasn’t alone . Teddy took a step forward and froze on the spot when the dog stood up.
The transmutation was flawless. Sirius had moved seamlessly from dog to man on an instant and crouched besides his friend.
"M-Moony…" Sirius stumbled over the name, feeling insecure and out of place. "Moony you alright?"
"Yeah, Padfoot. 'm alright." came Remus' exhausted and raw groan.
"Good, Good. …Moony…"
"Yeah, babe?"
"I did something stupid… And I'm sorry." Sirius bowed his head so low that his forehead was pressed against Remus' collarbone. "I'm so very, very sorry."
"'Sorry's doesn’t fix anything, Sirius" Remus grumbled s he threaded his fingers through that thick blue-black hair.
"I know…. I know. It'll never be enough."
"That's alright."
"No its not." Sirius insisted his shoulders trembling, the shame he felt deep within him wouldn’t allow him to lift his head.
"Sirius, don’t you know, you're enough… you'll always be enough.
"You don’t know what I've done."
"No. but I know you…"
The two boys kissed, gently, tenderly and pressed closer to one another. It didn’t matter to them that they were both naked as they day they were born and in the middle of no where but it mattered to Teddy who once again, felt like the interloper and decided to excuse himself from the memory.
Instead of turning around Teddy walked forward into the trees until he came across a small pond. Slowly, Teddy crouched down and slipped a hand into the water and braced himself on a rock before he peered into the clear water. There, Teddy came face to face with a reflection he had never seen before wearing his clothes.
The boy looking up at him had a heart shaped face, large golden eyes, pink bow shaped lips, thick curly dark brown hair and a butterscotch skin tone with a light dusting of freckles. The reflection winked and suddenly Teddy was flying through the air and memories quick and nauseating before he lands back in the old room the little leather bound book in his hands.
Teddy braced himself taking a few deep breaths to steady himself before he stood up and walked back to the vanity.
"You look very handsome!" the mirror complimented, "I've no idea why would always try and hide you've got a lovely face. So like the last boy."
"Um… " Teddy lifted the Diary and remembered ' there are no illusions, no fallacies, only the truth ' and nipped his bottom lip before looking the mirror. "Thankyou," he muttered and peered at his refection for the first time.
Author:
deathjunkeRecipient:
bearshortyRating: PG13 for Kissyfacing
Highlight for Warnings: *naughty words and lack of p0rnZ *
Word Count:3525
Summary: You cant lie to yourself there are no illusions, no fallacies, only the truth.
Author's notes:
Well. I did my best with this one. Hopefully it isn't too angst for you,
bearshorty. I'm the conductor and foreman of the angst train so trying to make this not angst was a challenge! I was trying to go with the theme of redemption or truth because really that's what A Snowflake Fell (And It Felt Like a Kiss) sounded like to me.
Teddy pressed his palms against the cool wood, leaned over and pressed his forehead to the cold glass of the mirror. Nose to nose to his reflection Teddy frowned, it wasn’t natural. He was already sixteen and had absolutely no idea what he really looked like.
People said he looked like his mother or his father but the truth was he altered his appearance to look like the pictures he'd seen of them over the years. His face was just a imitation of the faces he'd seen in photos since he was old enough to understand who they were.
The rest of his body was determined by his mood or the situation he was in. Everyone told him that his mother could change her appearance however she wanted at will but Teddy didn't know how to do that. His features were always changing. He was forever in transition even when he was completely still.
Ted locked eyes with his reflection and saw the color of his reflections eyes and hair shift rapidly from turquoise, to yellow, to orange, to cyan, to red, to brown, to green, to pink, to gray and finally settling on puce. With an irritated huff that warmed the glass he lifted a hand and fingered his puce bangs.
"Oh, come on! You can't be serious!"
"You're right I'm not." His reflection quipped.
Ted gasped; this mirror was the only one in the house that never spoke. He had assumed it was a muggle mirror but apparently that assumption was wrong. The reflection in the mirror changed. Where another Teddy had been standing was a tall amazingly beautiful brunette. The figure was androgynous with a pale pointed face, large gray eyes and an amused smirk.
"Hold on a sec," The figure in the mirror turned and stretched up on his toes to reach for one of the books sitting on the bookshelves reflected into the background. It snagged a small brown book that Teddy realized had never even been on the shelf in the first place. The handsome young man —was it really a man? The long lashes and long curly hair was really throwing Teddy off— pressed the book against the glass and suddenly the surface of the mirror rippled and shimmered the book was slowly pushed into existence.
The reflection smiled and waved before shimmering out of existence and Teddy approached the book carefully. Uncle Harry and Ginny and always stressed that sometimes books were dangerous but this thin little leather bound didn’t seem like anything harmful. In fact it looked like on of the Pensive Diaries that they sold at Flourish and Blotts.
Ted gingerly wrapped his thin fingers around the journal and lifted it. IT was light the leather soft and worn in certain areas by fingers and time. The front of the book was embossed in the bottom left corner Sirius.
Was it the very same Sirius that Harry spoke fondly of? Sirius Black ,Harry's godfather. A man who was so loyal, so brave and so damaged that even Harry's stories of him were laced with guilt and sadness. Maybe this was something he should give to Harry?
Teddy Peeled back the front cover, the leather crackled with age and dust spread into the air.
'I know there are things you want to say that you just can't, not to me or anyone else. You do stupid things when you get too wound up so in the interest of not getting expelled I got you this. Use it.
Just remove your memory like in a pensive and place it on a page of the book. It will copy the memory and let you see it in its truest form. In this Journal you cant lie to yourself there are no illusions, no fallacies, only the truth of the situation.
-Remus'
Ted smirked at the message in a tiny and rather messy scrawl. The ink was smeared in suck a way that it was easy to tell that Remus Lupin had been left handed.
“Just one… Just one memory,” Teddy murmured s he pressed his finger on one of the seemingly blank pages. The sensation wasn’t too far off from a port key, the colors of the room swirled around him and his stomach was tied in knots with the sudden spiraling fall.
Just as abruptly as it began it had ended and it was over and Teddy was standing awkwardly in the middle of a large Dorm room. It was obviously a Gryffindor dorm room; the comforters and curtains were all bright red. The carpet was a soft champagne color that mated the sheets and complimented the cherry wood furniture. The room was obviously occupied, clothes, brooms, toys, schoolbooks and everything else he and the other boys in his dorm had. Sure some of his things were a bit different but everything was easily recognizable.
There was a lull for a moment, everything was still and silent.
The door slammed open and in came a pair of boys laughing and pushing at each other as they tromped through the door. They were young, just into their teens and grinning stupidly.
The taller boy had light brown hair, hooded golden eyes and a crooked smile. There were three thin scars across his face but they were so faded that it was easy to see that they were years old.
"Fucking brilliant!" The second boy was a brunet; his black hair was so dark that it gleamed blue in the light. His skin was milk pale and his large gray cat like eyes were nearly forced closed by the stretch of his shameless grin. The boy let out a breathy chuckle and spun on his heel as soon as the door closed. "Remus! Did you see her face!?"
Teddy's eyes couldn’t leave the image of his young father. He was so young… younger than teddy was now and not at all what Teddy had ever expected to see.
"Nah, I missed it, I was too focused on the spell." Remus admitted with a careless shrug of his shoulder and a wry grin.
"You," Sirius reached up and cupped Remus' tanned scarred face between his palms and stood on his toes to come closer. They were barely a hare's breath awy from each other, their foreheads pressed together and their lips hovering just this side of far enough. "You are an impossibly devious genius and they should sing praise to you name."
Remus' face and neck flamed but his eyes never wavered and he never pulled away, "Don’t you think that's a bit extreme for a few simple hair care spells?"
Sirius broke eye contact first, he looked down and smiled wide so that his eyes crinkled in the corners once more. "You washed, conditioned and put rollers in Gideon' hair with out him noticing. If you're— if that's not extraordinary I don’t know what is."
The whisper was so low that Teddy had to strain to hear it and once he did he felt like a horrible intruder. This was a private moment, a sacred thing that he was watching. They hadn’t moved hadn't touched beyond hands and foreheads but it seemed more intimate, more profound than sex and Teddy just had to turn away.
Ted spun on his heel and came face to face with another memory. The men he saw sitting at the large mahogany kitchen table were old, battle worn and so very tired. The bitter tang of despair hung heavy like smog in the air as they sat besides one another a bottle of something amber and pungent between them.
"Moony— Remus, Remus…" The man who was obviously and yet unbelievably Sirius Black lay slumped on the table one arm crooked under his head and the other was thrown haphazardly across the tabletop. His eyes, once so full of mischief and life were dulled and rimmed in shadows. His face was still pale, but no longer luminescent and his smile was sarcastic and pained as opposed to merry and joyous.
"Don’t you think you've had enough?" Remus muttered as he poured another round of the stuff in the bottle. His eyes were still golden, "You'll end up dead at this rate."
There was a low, earthy chuckle and a muttered, "I wish I was dead."
Remus' face was red— almost purple— instantly, with a sharp thrust of his arm the glasses and bottle went crashing to the floor shattering and sloshing onto the tiled floor. "You've got some fucking nerve."
Once again Teddy could barely look away from the father he'd ever known. He'd never heard stories like this. The way everyone told it you couldn’t get more patient, kind and mellow than Remus Lupin. Yet here he was standing over this clearly unwell man with his fist balled up at his sides as if he was stopping himself from punching the man, his face screwed up in a monstrous snarl his lips thin and pulled back over excessively sharp and surprisingly inhumane teeth.
Remus slapped his hand down on the table. The wood where his hand landed splintered upward and the table creaked and shuddered under so much force.
"Moony, watch it," Sirius grumbled and pulled his free arm up over his head. "You cant afford to buy a new table and my accounts are frozen."
"Fuck you."
"We can do that too, I mean it's been a while… but I'm up for that."
"You're drunk." There was no question or accusation only the cold hard fact of the matter.
"Don't I wish," The sound of Sirius hoarse drawl, nothing like the graveled, cultured and playful tones of his youth had been ripped away long ago.
"I thought you wished you were dead?"
"I have more than one wish, Remus, my love." Sirius lifted his head from his arms and batted his lashes and gave Remus a cruel smirk. He knew, he knew that once, long ago, he'd been handsome, charming, flirtatious and irrepressible.
The table legs buckled and creaked as more pressure was applied by Remus' anger driven strength. "Why?"
"Why have I got more than one wish?" Sirius gave a loose shrug and drew Remus into his haunting gaze. When they were looking into each other's eyes Sirius slowly answered, "because —and you always said it best Moony, I'm a spoiled self centered ass."
"Don’t be obtuse."
"Fine, fine. I'm tired. Tired of trying, tired of being locked away in this house. I swore that I'd never come back and here I am. I'll die here you know."
"No, you wont." It was more of a plea than anything else
"It feels like it and sometimes I don’t think it would be that bad."
Teddy felt his heart ache and yearn and burn for the man he never met. Sirius Black had to be hurting more than any one ever would really know. The pain in his voice and movement and tone were all palpable but it was easy to see that no one would ever be able to reach beyond that outer shell of despair to get to the harshest and cruelest despondent center of himself.
"I'd miss you…" Remus whispered as he lifted his hand from the table and reached forward, tangling his fingers into all that dark shaggy almost matted hair. "Harry would miss you."
"But you'd move on. You did it once before, you can do it again." A simple fact.
"What about Harry? How is it fair to him?"
"Nothing's fair to that poor boy. Any chance I had to take care of him, to take him away from petunia and her pet whales went up in smoke when Peter got away."
"I'm sorry," Remus' face crumpled, the fury leaving being replaced with guilt, sorrow and self loathing, all visible and plain as day on his face. "I'm sorry I swear."
"Sorry doesn’t fix everything… you told me that yourself." Sirius placed his hand over Remus' and closed his eyes, "now shut the fuck up." Slowly Sirius tilted his head up and parted his lips clearly expecting a kiss.
Remus obeyed the unspoken command and bent down to lay his lips gently over Sirius'.
Teddy's breath caught in his chest and he winced at the sight of his father kissing Sirius Black. It wasn’t so much that Sirius was a man, that didn’t matter, but how broken, tormented and clearly fragile the man was that was the problem. It almost seemed like he was taking advantage even though Sirius had requested the kiss.
Teddy pressed his lips together and sighed deeply. This wasn’t the man he had ever imagined. This want the man he knew from bedtime stories and pictures. There wasn’t much time to contemplate the man named Remus Lupin before the scenery changed.
It was a place he'd been to before, it looked different but had the familiar energy. There were several tables covered in crisp white tablecloths and dozens of chairs and a large crystal chandelier that hovered in the center of the room. That's when it dawned on him. This was grandma's restaurant before the war, before it had been blown up and rebuilt. Teddy looked around surprised at how different it all looked, the walls were a deep sage and the carpets were sharp iron black.
There were only two tables being used. At the table closest to the kitchen there was a little girl. The girl looked barely ten years old. Her hair was long and fell down her back in blue-black waves of curls. Her face was heart shaped, her lips were a lovely pink bow her nose was slightly upturned and her eyes were large luminous and dark brown. She rolled silverware with a distinct disinterest and chatted with the man to her left. The man was tall, sturdy. He didn’t look old despite his gray-flecked brown hair. His brown eyes and a wide bright smile were the same as the girl's. It was clear that they were related, probably father and daughter.
Six tables away from the father and daughter Sirius sat with a woman. Sirius was young —if Teddy had to guess he's say early twenties— and healthy and just a bit stressed. Sirius, the woman he sat with and the little girl all looked like a bizarre mirror image of each other. They were related, they had to be.
Teddy frowned as he watched them, gasping as he finally realized who was in the room. It was amazing what time changed. There was his grandmother in full living color looking young and beautiful in so very, very young. She was pale and awkward in her muggle sweater dress and heels. That could only mean the man and his daughter were the grandfather he had never met and his mother.
Ted watched the child he knew would one day become his mother roll utensils and chatter away about some band or another she wanted to see before she and her father gathered the tubs of wrapped forks and carried the back into the kitchen.
Once they were gone Teddy had nothing to do but listen to the conversation between his grandmother and his… His what? His father's best friend? lover? —what ever.
"Sirius, are you certain?" The young woman asked imploringly, "Is this what you want?"
"It is. This has been coming for a long time Andy. You knew it just like I did." Sirius took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. "I'm not going back. Father's dead, Mother's lost it and Regulus is Missing in action. This hasn't got anything to do with me anymore. "
"But you are the heir. You are the one that will carry on the family name."
"No, I'm really not."
"How can you say such a thing?" She snapped, "You've got responsibilities, there is still hope for you. You can go home Sirius! Its wonderful! You've been given a second chance. Besides once you have a child you wont have to worry so much, everyone will see it as duty done and then you can steer the Blacks how ever you please."
"There will be no children and there will be no 'steering the Blacks'. I want nothing to do with them." Sirius looked her in the eyes and spoke slowly and deliberately, "I'm a bloody pouf, a fag, queerer than a wingless snitch. I've been with Remus since we kids and I wont knock up some poor girl with the right connections or bloodlines. If nothing else I am faithful"
Andromeda shook her head as if trying to shake off the words she heard. "This is just a phase Sirius, just a phase!" She pleased reaching across the table to grasp the handsome young man's hands. "You don’t love him, how can you? How can you love a werewolf A monster?"
"Don’t fucking touch me, Andromeda." Sirius yanked his hands away and abruptly stood up. "I expected better from you. I thought that by now you'd learn that all of the family's bullshit was just that."
Ted wrapped his arms around himself… It was too much. He didn’t want so see this anymore.
And suddenly he was in the middle of a forest. In a clearing lined with trees and shrubs. The field was carpeted with long brown winter grass and night bloom flowers. Teddy inhaled the bittersweet scent of the closing flowers. And watched as the sky shifted from the purple-back-blue blanket to a pink-orange-mauve mist as the sun crept up into the sky.
In the light he could see the two figures nested in the grass. One was massive grey and feral— a werewolf in its full glory, the other animal was somewhat smaller. It was a dog, a dog with thick shaggy fur and clear gray eyes that tracked the wolf as it whined and writhed in the sunlight.
The wolf thrashed and rolled on to its back. There were several painful sounding cracks as its bones broke one by one and reformed and grew. The thick grey fur fell away in clumps giving way to scarred tan skin. The pained howls became wet gurgles, which morphed into the chilling screams of a boy. In the end all that was left was a teenager, a boy who looked just shy of seventeen and utterly exhausted lying besides a massive dog in the middle of the forest.
Teddy watched in horror, grateful that he was spared the torture of lycanthropy. Teddy shivered, wanting to just reach out to the boy, and tell him he wasn’t alone . Teddy took a step forward and froze on the spot when the dog stood up.
The transmutation was flawless. Sirius had moved seamlessly from dog to man on an instant and crouched besides his friend.
"M-Moony…" Sirius stumbled over the name, feeling insecure and out of place. "Moony you alright?"
"Yeah, Padfoot. 'm alright." came Remus' exhausted and raw groan.
"Good, Good. …Moony…"
"Yeah, babe?"
"I did something stupid… And I'm sorry." Sirius bowed his head so low that his forehead was pressed against Remus' collarbone. "I'm so very, very sorry."
"'Sorry's doesn’t fix anything, Sirius" Remus grumbled s he threaded his fingers through that thick blue-black hair.
"I know…. I know. It'll never be enough."
"That's alright."
"No its not." Sirius insisted his shoulders trembling, the shame he felt deep within him wouldn’t allow him to lift his head.
"Sirius, don’t you know, you're enough… you'll always be enough.
"You don’t know what I've done."
"No. but I know you…"
The two boys kissed, gently, tenderly and pressed closer to one another. It didn’t matter to them that they were both naked as they day they were born and in the middle of no where but it mattered to Teddy who once again, felt like the interloper and decided to excuse himself from the memory.
Instead of turning around Teddy walked forward into the trees until he came across a small pond. Slowly, Teddy crouched down and slipped a hand into the water and braced himself on a rock before he peered into the clear water. There, Teddy came face to face with a reflection he had never seen before wearing his clothes.
The boy looking up at him had a heart shaped face, large golden eyes, pink bow shaped lips, thick curly dark brown hair and a butterscotch skin tone with a light dusting of freckles. The reflection winked and suddenly Teddy was flying through the air and memories quick and nauseating before he lands back in the old room the little leather bound book in his hands.
Teddy braced himself taking a few deep breaths to steady himself before he stood up and walked back to the vanity.
"You look very handsome!" the mirror complimented, "I've no idea why would always try and hide you've got a lovely face. So like the last boy."
"Um… " Teddy lifted the Diary and remembered ' there are no illusions, no fallacies, only the truth ' and nipped his bottom lip before looking the mirror. "Thankyou," he muttered and peered at his refection for the first time.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-12-16 06:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-16 07:44 pm (UTC)It seemed like one of those things that would be difficult to determine when your appearance keeps unconsciously changing
no subject
Date: 2011-12-16 09:28 pm (UTC)This was a bit heartbreaking, though - albeit in a good way. The bit between Andromeda and Sirius (and the horrid things she said about Remus) about killed me, but it made other things a thousand times more clear. I'd always imagined that Andromeda knew the truth.
And this bit was especially beautiful. Teddy felt his heart ache and yearn and burn for the man he never met. Sirius Black had to be hurting more than any one ever would really know. The pain in his voice and movement and tone were all palpable but it was easy to see that no one would ever be able to reach beyond that outer shell of despair to get to the harshest and cruelest despondent center of himself.
This whole thing was really lovely.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-16 11:51 pm (UTC)It is like you reached into my head and wrote a story that hit so many of my buttons.
When I came to Andromeda and Sirius scene I couldn't even believe it - in my head canon, Sirius comes out to Andromeda when he was around 19, after his father dies, and she does not react well (which she comes to regret later) so having you actually write that was amazing!
And there are so many and varied scenes with Remus and Sirius - from the mushy school days and after the prank and Grimmauld Place. Which was probably my favorite part. I love the stories set at that time, and I really liked how angry Remus was at was Sirius was saying. And their entire conversation and reaction to each other and that fragile kiss. Teddy's reaction at seeing his father there - really seeing him to be a real human being and not just this constructed image - was wonderful.
Which is why I think he could see his real face - he finally actually understood his parents and Sirius and now could perhaps let go of idealized images too. It is a great concept - of Teddy not being able to really see who he is - a teenagery thing too.
Today, I just got finished grading all the papers for the semester and it was a very stressful day to turn all the grades in, so finding this story just for me was the best thing ever!
I'm going to go read it again and savor it some more. Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2011-12-17 12:21 am (UTC)I find that most people think meteamorphmagus, awesome!!! and all i can ever think is, ummm ...yeah, but what do they really look like? Then i decided because Teddy had Black blood and he's totally the love child Remus and Sirius could never have he should look like Sirius, hence this fic! :D
Thank you again, and i'm gladyou like this fic :)
I think all my best things come out for smallgifts ;)
no subject
Date: 2011-12-17 12:27 am (UTC)I'm glad you liked it! I wasn't sure if you would, you wrote nothing too angsty in your sign up and i tried to tone it down (no one died so i consider that a Win). I'm very pleased you enjoyed the variety. I didnt want to go straight into the Severus incident because its so over done so I just skipped through time ^^
2nd, we share head canon. Andromeda strike me as one of the "oh my man's the exception" racist. Don't ask me why but she just does... It might be her arrogance.
Well i'm glad i could make your day enjoyable and i'm also very happy that you like the fic. :0)
no subject
Date: 2011-12-17 03:18 pm (UTC)Thanks for the small windows into the past. It was lovely to see all of them through Teddy's eyes.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-17 10:47 pm (UTC)I love Teddy's sort of vulnerable character here, and how learning some of the truths of his parents pasts helped him recognize himself. His powerful empathy with Sirius and fascination with his father are very plausible and so profound.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-18 07:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-18 07:15 am (UTC)Personally, i think Sirius was/is such an integral part to the man Remus turned out to be. I believe that our friends rally do shape us just as much, if not more than our parents do .
no subject
Date: 2011-12-20 02:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-30 03:27 am (UTC)I'm glad you liked the story :)