Fic: The Long Night for red_squared
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small_giftsTitle: The Long Night
Author/Artist:mustntgetmy
Recipient:red_squared
Rating: R
Contents or warnings (highlight to view): *Some soft core frottage, plus past, vague references to sex.*
Word count: 2,227
Summary: Remus and Sirius spend the Solstice together.
Notes: Happy holidays,red_squared! I hope you enjoy this fic!
They are there when the sky rolls over, gold shot through with pink on the western horizon, velvety blue-black above and to the east; they have to be there, otherwise who will set up the spells for the Solstice? James is at one of his parents’ famously interminable holiday parties, probably already falling asleep by the punch bowl, Peter is laid up with dragonpox, steam wafting out his nose every time he sneezes, and Lily is back home, eating latkes with applesauce at a friend’s Hanukkah party. So it is only Remus and Sirius out beneath the trees, working through the spell, the winter night’s silence descending, the glances between them quick and fleeting as the sun’s rays along the borders of the sky. It is December the twenty-first, the longest night of the year, and that means something to Sirius, so it means something to Remus now.
Among wizards Christmas has supplanted the importance the Solstice used to have; only the oldest pureblood families keep the old faith, and when they die out, as most will in a generation or two, so too will die the traditions of the Solstice. It makes Sirius melancholy to think of this ancient magic guttering and going dark, or maybe he’s only melancholy because the Solstice used to be the one time he could count on his family to feel like a proper family. His father was never too drunk or distant for the long night, his mother never so severe and withholding she’d deny him the chance to celebrate. He and Regulus would throw the first sparks together – long before Hogwarts and before they were legally allowed to use magic – and they would be silent that whole night, not a single ill word uttered.
If he has any nostalgia for Grimmauld Place, for the deep, grasping roots of his family tree, it is for this: the moment when perfect blackness suffused the sky from tip to tip and the magic caught and blossomed, their lampblack heads all bent against the cold, identical in the darkness, the four of them together, a family. Now he is almost lonely, for an instant, with just Remus there. He’d only left home last summer, and sometimes he still dreams himself into that house, quiet and empty and crusted with dust and cobwebs, and finds himself longing for people who never loved him. Blood binds; there’s no escaping it. But blood isn’t the only thing that makes a family, and when the night breaks along each horizon his hand finds Remus’s and he feels anything but lonely. Remus laces his fingers between Sirius’s and squeezes once for reassurance, and then again because the enchantments they’ve laid out have sparked and spread.
Light comes through the trees, small pinpricks and glows suspended just above the snow and between the sharp-scented pines. In shades of blue and red, but mostly white, the light pulses gently in orbs of different sizes and at slightly different heights: some the size of globes floating near shoulder height, and others small as peas, just skimming the frost-crystal skin of the snow. As they appear the lights begin to sway and glide, moving in graceful loops between trees and fallen branches, a kind of clockwork dance without music. It is an arresting, otherworldly sight, because it is, in fact, otherworldly: above, the stars in their varying brightness served as the map from which the spell was drawn. There are constellations down here now, just above the snow, and clusters – the Pleiades and the Hyades both – twinkling round in small swarms. The spell, with its accelerated motions of the cosmos laid upon the ground, is meant to represent the view from earth and so there is also a moon, gossamer white and the size of an orange slice, which Remus had threatened to eat just before they performed the spell. But now that the spell has taken effect he seems, for the first time, unpreoccupied by the sight of the moon amid the stars.
“Oh,” he says, his breath coming out as round as the sound, his eyes wide to take in all the light. Sirius watches his pink and delighted expression, his heart fluttering in his chest. It’s rare to elicit any sort of surprised sound from Remus; he would know as he has, lately, made a habit of trying. On his knees in a broom cupboard, bent over a desk in an empty classroom, pressed flush against each other between the bed sheets, and he has managed a host of blushes and bitten lips and maybe even a sigh or two, but only rarely noise. They’ve only been doing this – whatever this is – for a very short time, so Sirius is still unsure whether Remus is naturally quiet or if he’s just spectacularly bad at sex.
“I’ve been reading about this,” Remus says, startling Sirius from his heated thoughts and causing him to jump slightly and rearrange his expression.
“About – about the Solstice?”
“Yes,” Remus says, unaware or too tactful to point out that Sirius’s palm has started sweating. “I read that it used to be that everyone was invited to the Solstice. Muggles and Squibs and…half-breeds. It used to be about community: everyone together during the long night.”
Sirius, though not a pureblood supremacist by any means, allows himself a protestation: “It always meant more to wizards though. If you couldn’t feel magic – if you couldn’t feel the tug of it, there – well, if you couldn’t, wouldn’t you rather be in a pub or somewhere inside right now? It’s too bloody cold to be out without magic.”
Remus frowns, but Sirius knows that at least part of the reason he looked and sounded so startled when the spell started is that he can feel the underlying magic inherent to this particular night. It must feel like the full moon does to him, a pressure as inescapable as gravity, something that courses beneath the skin and finds its way into the veins alongside his blood. But where the full moon rends Remus from one body into another, the Solstice’s magic is as quiet and unobtrusive as snowfall: it opens, softly, a sense behind all other senses, bringing awareness to every breath and every trace of magic in the air. In their pockets their wands hum, low, like tuning forks and the air goes warm around them. Remus’s free hand hovers in the air just above his wand and Sirius clears his throat.
“‘Course we could still go to a pub if you’d prefer.”
“We could,” Remus agrees, but he tightens his hold on Sirius’s hand and leads him towards the lights instead.
They walk into the grove they set the spell in and the air goes from freezing to slightly warmed. It’s a strange sort of warm, almost like breath in that there is a living quality to it and that it doesn’t take away the full sting of the night’s chill. Sirius shivers, but pleasantly, like it’s Remus’s breath on him, and his mouth inches from his bare skin.
They wander into the heart of the spell, maneuvering themselves so that their sleeves don’t so much as brush the aura of an orb, and lift their heads to observe the stars above them. Sirius can name the constellations backwards and forwards and has been able to draw a star map from memory since he was five, but the sight of the sky on a clear winter’s night still steals his breath. There is a depth to the night sky no photograph or star map can convey, a sense that the world might tip end over end and he might fall and disappear within the folds of black and sparking light. As a boy he used to fret over this even as he marveled at it and though there’s no reason behind this feeling that he might be uprooted from the ground he clutches Remus’s hand more tightly all the same, and is pleased when Remus leans his head against his shoulder and slips both their hands into his pocket.
They stand there like that for some quiet stretch of time, snow falling down and the orbs dancing, before Sirius lifts his free hand and brushes it along the nearest passing orb. His fingers pass through it as though through air, but both he and Remus shiver at the sound it makes, like a crystal being struck, a note that is more vibration than noise. Remus trails his own hand through a cluster and the hairs on their arms go up and they smile as they turn to each other.
“You’re meant to pray when you touch them,” Sirius says, “so you can mediate on how magic moves through the world.”
“Really? I’d read you were supposed to do something else entirely,” Remus says, his voice dropping low with suggestion, “particularly if you’re celebrating with only one other person.”
He steps closer to Sirius, grinning in an implicating way, and puts a hand on his waist and the curve of his back, holding his lips just out of reach. Sirius swallows; for all the rumors of his prowess, he rarely feels certain of himself in moments like these, when clothes begin to be shucked and cheeks reddened. The only person he’s ever slept with is standing before him, and they only started two months ago at that. He kisses Remus because it’s clear that Remus wants to be kissed, but beyond that he keeps his hands at his side, unsure how to proceed. There’s a part of him that wants to protest, to draw attention to the orbs and the night sky, to the sacredness of this night. But then Remus smiles, and guides Sirius’s hand to the hem of his shirt, and at the sight of Remus bared to the waist, goose bumps rising between his scars, he thinks: oh, but you’re sacred too.
The orbs flicker, give off more warmth without either Remus or Sirius raising their wands, and Remus takes off Sirius’s clothes, piece by slow piece. Wherever the winter night leaves him cold Remus warms him with his mouth and hands, palm spanning the chill at his neck, warm tongue against his numb fingertips. They go slow, which they’ve never done with each other before, and it makes Sirius nervous at first because it’s all journey instead of a headlong rush to the destination, but soon it’s just like how making the Solstice spell together was: they knit themselves together, the both of them in the places they need each other to be.
Slow as they began there comes a moment that’s just the same as every other time they’ve been together, when urgency and need supersedes everything else: the fear of discovery, the fear of embarrassing himself, the fear of Remus finding him lacking. He can hardly stand how good it feels, barely notices when Remus pauses to gather lube into his palm (where did it even come from?), and moans without restraint when Remus’s hand goes between them. For all that he would love to lose control and rut himself to temporary blindness against Remus’s thigh, he lets Remus set the rhythm, which is fast, but not nearly fast enough. He whimpers, begs, is nipped into submission by a snap of Remus’s teeth beside his neck. He loves this, feeling himself going belly up, becoming pliant; only here, with Remus, can he let go of enough of himself to be this way.
Through his half-closed eyes he can see the orbs growing brighter, their orbits going faster. There are shivers running up and down his spine and he’s trembling as he watches them and, by some stroke of genius or simply a spasm, trails his hand through five or six passing by. The vibration of their sound, and the heady magic they emit – magic that he and Remus made together – causes Remus to buck hard against him, and moan his name.
The sound of his name, tattered round the edges, is too much, and Sirius comes, shaking.
Remus isn’t far behind. He moans his name again and gives him another little bite to the neck. They lean against each other, breathing against each other’s cheeks, the chill seeping back in, and the night sky and the orbs becoming clear again. Sirius closes his eyes, the way he’s always done at every Solstice, and traces the vein of magic flowing from him into the world, and from the world back into him. The winter air, the shimmering spell, the depth and weight of the longest night are all familiar wellsprings of magic to him. Only Remus, and his magic, restrained and yet wild, seem strange and out of place. But the strangeness is pleasant, like the warmed air of the spell is pleasant: Sirius is strange and out of place himself. And happy, so very happy, that Remus is here with him.
“Happy Solstice,” he tells him, hours later, a tender, companionable silence and a long night spent.
Remus smiles at him, cheeks as rosy as the coming dawn. He takes Sirius’s hand again and kisses him as the spell dies out, the last spark Sirius sees reflected in Remus’s eyes. “Happy Solstice, Padfoot,” Remus says, light of a brighter kind falling behind him through the trees, a whole new day ahead of them. “And good morning.”
Author/Artist:
mustntgetmyRecipient:
red_squaredRating: R
Contents or warnings (highlight to view): *Some soft core frottage, plus past, vague references to sex.*
Word count: 2,227
Summary: Remus and Sirius spend the Solstice together.
Notes: Happy holidays,
red_squared! I hope you enjoy this fic!They are there when the sky rolls over, gold shot through with pink on the western horizon, velvety blue-black above and to the east; they have to be there, otherwise who will set up the spells for the Solstice? James is at one of his parents’ famously interminable holiday parties, probably already falling asleep by the punch bowl, Peter is laid up with dragonpox, steam wafting out his nose every time he sneezes, and Lily is back home, eating latkes with applesauce at a friend’s Hanukkah party. So it is only Remus and Sirius out beneath the trees, working through the spell, the winter night’s silence descending, the glances between them quick and fleeting as the sun’s rays along the borders of the sky. It is December the twenty-first, the longest night of the year, and that means something to Sirius, so it means something to Remus now.
Among wizards Christmas has supplanted the importance the Solstice used to have; only the oldest pureblood families keep the old faith, and when they die out, as most will in a generation or two, so too will die the traditions of the Solstice. It makes Sirius melancholy to think of this ancient magic guttering and going dark, or maybe he’s only melancholy because the Solstice used to be the one time he could count on his family to feel like a proper family. His father was never too drunk or distant for the long night, his mother never so severe and withholding she’d deny him the chance to celebrate. He and Regulus would throw the first sparks together – long before Hogwarts and before they were legally allowed to use magic – and they would be silent that whole night, not a single ill word uttered.
If he has any nostalgia for Grimmauld Place, for the deep, grasping roots of his family tree, it is for this: the moment when perfect blackness suffused the sky from tip to tip and the magic caught and blossomed, their lampblack heads all bent against the cold, identical in the darkness, the four of them together, a family. Now he is almost lonely, for an instant, with just Remus there. He’d only left home last summer, and sometimes he still dreams himself into that house, quiet and empty and crusted with dust and cobwebs, and finds himself longing for people who never loved him. Blood binds; there’s no escaping it. But blood isn’t the only thing that makes a family, and when the night breaks along each horizon his hand finds Remus’s and he feels anything but lonely. Remus laces his fingers between Sirius’s and squeezes once for reassurance, and then again because the enchantments they’ve laid out have sparked and spread.
Light comes through the trees, small pinpricks and glows suspended just above the snow and between the sharp-scented pines. In shades of blue and red, but mostly white, the light pulses gently in orbs of different sizes and at slightly different heights: some the size of globes floating near shoulder height, and others small as peas, just skimming the frost-crystal skin of the snow. As they appear the lights begin to sway and glide, moving in graceful loops between trees and fallen branches, a kind of clockwork dance without music. It is an arresting, otherworldly sight, because it is, in fact, otherworldly: above, the stars in their varying brightness served as the map from which the spell was drawn. There are constellations down here now, just above the snow, and clusters – the Pleiades and the Hyades both – twinkling round in small swarms. The spell, with its accelerated motions of the cosmos laid upon the ground, is meant to represent the view from earth and so there is also a moon, gossamer white and the size of an orange slice, which Remus had threatened to eat just before they performed the spell. But now that the spell has taken effect he seems, for the first time, unpreoccupied by the sight of the moon amid the stars.
“Oh,” he says, his breath coming out as round as the sound, his eyes wide to take in all the light. Sirius watches his pink and delighted expression, his heart fluttering in his chest. It’s rare to elicit any sort of surprised sound from Remus; he would know as he has, lately, made a habit of trying. On his knees in a broom cupboard, bent over a desk in an empty classroom, pressed flush against each other between the bed sheets, and he has managed a host of blushes and bitten lips and maybe even a sigh or two, but only rarely noise. They’ve only been doing this – whatever this is – for a very short time, so Sirius is still unsure whether Remus is naturally quiet or if he’s just spectacularly bad at sex.
“I’ve been reading about this,” Remus says, startling Sirius from his heated thoughts and causing him to jump slightly and rearrange his expression.
“About – about the Solstice?”
“Yes,” Remus says, unaware or too tactful to point out that Sirius’s palm has started sweating. “I read that it used to be that everyone was invited to the Solstice. Muggles and Squibs and…half-breeds. It used to be about community: everyone together during the long night.”
Sirius, though not a pureblood supremacist by any means, allows himself a protestation: “It always meant more to wizards though. If you couldn’t feel magic – if you couldn’t feel the tug of it, there – well, if you couldn’t, wouldn’t you rather be in a pub or somewhere inside right now? It’s too bloody cold to be out without magic.”
Remus frowns, but Sirius knows that at least part of the reason he looked and sounded so startled when the spell started is that he can feel the underlying magic inherent to this particular night. It must feel like the full moon does to him, a pressure as inescapable as gravity, something that courses beneath the skin and finds its way into the veins alongside his blood. But where the full moon rends Remus from one body into another, the Solstice’s magic is as quiet and unobtrusive as snowfall: it opens, softly, a sense behind all other senses, bringing awareness to every breath and every trace of magic in the air. In their pockets their wands hum, low, like tuning forks and the air goes warm around them. Remus’s free hand hovers in the air just above his wand and Sirius clears his throat.
“‘Course we could still go to a pub if you’d prefer.”
“We could,” Remus agrees, but he tightens his hold on Sirius’s hand and leads him towards the lights instead.
They walk into the grove they set the spell in and the air goes from freezing to slightly warmed. It’s a strange sort of warm, almost like breath in that there is a living quality to it and that it doesn’t take away the full sting of the night’s chill. Sirius shivers, but pleasantly, like it’s Remus’s breath on him, and his mouth inches from his bare skin.
They wander into the heart of the spell, maneuvering themselves so that their sleeves don’t so much as brush the aura of an orb, and lift their heads to observe the stars above them. Sirius can name the constellations backwards and forwards and has been able to draw a star map from memory since he was five, but the sight of the sky on a clear winter’s night still steals his breath. There is a depth to the night sky no photograph or star map can convey, a sense that the world might tip end over end and he might fall and disappear within the folds of black and sparking light. As a boy he used to fret over this even as he marveled at it and though there’s no reason behind this feeling that he might be uprooted from the ground he clutches Remus’s hand more tightly all the same, and is pleased when Remus leans his head against his shoulder and slips both their hands into his pocket.
They stand there like that for some quiet stretch of time, snow falling down and the orbs dancing, before Sirius lifts his free hand and brushes it along the nearest passing orb. His fingers pass through it as though through air, but both he and Remus shiver at the sound it makes, like a crystal being struck, a note that is more vibration than noise. Remus trails his own hand through a cluster and the hairs on their arms go up and they smile as they turn to each other.
“You’re meant to pray when you touch them,” Sirius says, “so you can mediate on how magic moves through the world.”
“Really? I’d read you were supposed to do something else entirely,” Remus says, his voice dropping low with suggestion, “particularly if you’re celebrating with only one other person.”
He steps closer to Sirius, grinning in an implicating way, and puts a hand on his waist and the curve of his back, holding his lips just out of reach. Sirius swallows; for all the rumors of his prowess, he rarely feels certain of himself in moments like these, when clothes begin to be shucked and cheeks reddened. The only person he’s ever slept with is standing before him, and they only started two months ago at that. He kisses Remus because it’s clear that Remus wants to be kissed, but beyond that he keeps his hands at his side, unsure how to proceed. There’s a part of him that wants to protest, to draw attention to the orbs and the night sky, to the sacredness of this night. But then Remus smiles, and guides Sirius’s hand to the hem of his shirt, and at the sight of Remus bared to the waist, goose bumps rising between his scars, he thinks: oh, but you’re sacred too.
The orbs flicker, give off more warmth without either Remus or Sirius raising their wands, and Remus takes off Sirius’s clothes, piece by slow piece. Wherever the winter night leaves him cold Remus warms him with his mouth and hands, palm spanning the chill at his neck, warm tongue against his numb fingertips. They go slow, which they’ve never done with each other before, and it makes Sirius nervous at first because it’s all journey instead of a headlong rush to the destination, but soon it’s just like how making the Solstice spell together was: they knit themselves together, the both of them in the places they need each other to be.
Slow as they began there comes a moment that’s just the same as every other time they’ve been together, when urgency and need supersedes everything else: the fear of discovery, the fear of embarrassing himself, the fear of Remus finding him lacking. He can hardly stand how good it feels, barely notices when Remus pauses to gather lube into his palm (where did it even come from?), and moans without restraint when Remus’s hand goes between them. For all that he would love to lose control and rut himself to temporary blindness against Remus’s thigh, he lets Remus set the rhythm, which is fast, but not nearly fast enough. He whimpers, begs, is nipped into submission by a snap of Remus’s teeth beside his neck. He loves this, feeling himself going belly up, becoming pliant; only here, with Remus, can he let go of enough of himself to be this way.
Through his half-closed eyes he can see the orbs growing brighter, their orbits going faster. There are shivers running up and down his spine and he’s trembling as he watches them and, by some stroke of genius or simply a spasm, trails his hand through five or six passing by. The vibration of their sound, and the heady magic they emit – magic that he and Remus made together – causes Remus to buck hard against him, and moan his name.
The sound of his name, tattered round the edges, is too much, and Sirius comes, shaking.
Remus isn’t far behind. He moans his name again and gives him another little bite to the neck. They lean against each other, breathing against each other’s cheeks, the chill seeping back in, and the night sky and the orbs becoming clear again. Sirius closes his eyes, the way he’s always done at every Solstice, and traces the vein of magic flowing from him into the world, and from the world back into him. The winter air, the shimmering spell, the depth and weight of the longest night are all familiar wellsprings of magic to him. Only Remus, and his magic, restrained and yet wild, seem strange and out of place. But the strangeness is pleasant, like the warmed air of the spell is pleasant: Sirius is strange and out of place himself. And happy, so very happy, that Remus is here with him.
“Happy Solstice,” he tells him, hours later, a tender, companionable silence and a long night spent.
Remus smiles at him, cheeks as rosy as the coming dawn. He takes Sirius’s hand again and kisses him as the spell dies out, the last spark Sirius sees reflected in Remus’s eyes. “Happy Solstice, Padfoot,” Remus says, light of a brighter kind falling behind him through the trees, a whole new day ahead of them. “And good morning.”
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Date: 2017-12-01 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-01 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-01 09:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-01 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-01 11:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-02 12:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-02 12:52 am (UTC)I also liked how you made them able to feel the magic from the solstice. Very nice! :D
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Date: 2017-12-02 12:55 am (UTC)I also loved how you managed to combine such beauty with great lovemaking and some lovely character development. This bit was exquisitely bittersweet: It makes Sirius melancholy to think of this ancient magic guttering and going dark, or maybe he’s only melancholy because the Solstice used to be the one time he could count on his family to feel like a proper family. *sigh*
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Date: 2017-12-02 03:29 am (UTC)That's a perfect description of what it feels like to access something...magic. And your characterizations were so good! I loved Remus's surprise, and that it had become a project of Sirius's to get him to be surprised. I loved Sirius's internal awkwardness and uncertainty. I loved the way their sex became part of the magic. And the way you really paid homage to the power of the solstice, and acknowledged that it is a branch of knowledge that is being lost.
Beautiful work!
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Date: 2017-12-02 06:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-02 10:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-02 03:28 pm (UTC)I love the part about the Solstice being the only thing that makes Sirius feel any kind of nostalgia for Grimmauld Place in particular. Because it seems to work so well for both sides (the Black family being more likable, or at least silent, for the occasion; the way Sirius misses this special kind of magic despite everything), and because even from that short paragraph I already got such a clear picture of the whole thing in my mind and am almost feeling a bit nostalgic myself.
Everything about Remus and Sirius and the enchantments they're working with here is just beautiful. <3
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Date: 2017-12-02 04:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-02 09:04 pm (UTC)the moment when perfect blackness suffused the sky from tip to tip and the magic caught and blossomed,
&
But blood isn’t the only thing that makes a family
I bloody swooned!!!!
Amazing piece!
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Date: 2017-12-02 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-03 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-03 07:31 am (UTC)I absolutely loved how you incorporated the solstice within the story it added such an atmospheric tone while reading 100% good use of magic ;) i also looved the sweet moments between these two you have such rich and tender prose that makes your work just an absolute gift to read! Thank you for sharing this wonderful story ♡♡
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Date: 2017-12-04 04:26 pm (UTC)I loved how the solstice was the one thing that made Sirius miss his family, because it was the only time they really were his family.
Oh, but this:
It is December the twenty-first, the longest night of the year, and that means something to Sirius, so it means something to Remus now.
The fact that Remus decided it was important because it was important to Sirius is so so wonderful, and a great look inside his head in such a tiny little comment.
But you’ve managed to paint such a lovely image of the actual magic happening, in a way that makes it almost tangible, touchable, just through your words. I want to get to see this ritual. It’s lovely.
Oh, and poor Sirius, so nervous about being enough for Remus. I mean:
They’ve only been doing this – whatever this is – for a very short time, so Sirius is still unsure whether Remus is naturally quiet or if he’s just spectacularly bad at sex.
I kind of wanted to hug him, or have Remus hug him. It’s such a perfectly normal fear at that age, but you made him so sympathetic for it. Especially when coupled with this:
But then Remus smiles, and guides Sirius’s hand to the hem of his shirt, and at the sight of Remus bared to the waist, goose bumps rising between his scars, he thinks: oh, but you’re sacred too.
What a simply incredible line. I love how much love shone through this entire thing. From beginning to end, it may have been about a tradition, but every ounce of it was colored with love and warmth in the cold long night.
Wonderful wonderful story!
no subject
Date: 2017-12-05 01:43 am (UTC)The magical aspect to it is glorious and I love that little bit of tension between them at the start, and the way the magic is woven all through this. This, in particular, was beautiful:
Only Remus, and his magic, restrained and yet wild, seem strange and out of place. But the strangeness is pleasant, like the warmed air of the spell is pleasant: Sirius is strange and out of place himself. And happy, so very happy, that Remus is here with him.
Thanks again for this wonderful small gift!
AAAAAAAAHHHHH I REALLY WANT TO READ THIS but have promised myself I can only do so after I've sorted out my own entry!
I cheated and read the first couple of paragraphs and I love it so far! Especially this lovely image:
If he has any nostalgia for Grimmauld Place, for the deep, grasping roots of his family tree, it is for this: the moment when perfect blackness suffused the sky from tip to tip and the magic caught and blossomed, their lampblack heads all bent against the cold, identical in the darkness, the four of them together, a family.
I love the idea that Sirius has mixed feelings about his family and that it wasn't all bad all the time.
I now have extra incentive to get my own fic out the door and then I will be back to luxuriate in this :)
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU so much for my gift! Can't wait to come back and enjoy it properly!
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Date: 2017-12-07 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2017-12-19 11:21 am (UTC)