#They have the Black surname because Sirius is holding on to his little brother. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gleamglows · 3 years

Note

How about Sirius finding out the reader has a crush on him...and gives her her first kiss? 😘

cigarettes and firewhisky

pairing: sirius/reader

word count: 2.4k

summary: amortentia is no fun to make when you’re partnered up with the person you know it’s going to end up smelling like.

content: fluff, me being bad at writing slughorn, very brief mention of sirius’s family issues, confessions in an empty classroom, kissing but nothing spicy (edit: rereading this i realized i made the reader pretty gender neutral! no pronouns or anything like that :)

you know i had to pull the amortentia trope. this was a cute request, thank you so much! also thank you to my anons who sent in what they thought sirius smelled like, you guys were a lot of help! (except the person who suggested that sirius smells like wet dog. you know who you are.)

This was the worst thing that could possibly happen to you. Surely some higher power was laughing at you from above, taunting you and your dreadful luck.

Your heart was beating a million miles a minute. How on earth did you end up being paired up with Sirius Black of all people?! And - even worse - making the worst potion ever concocted?!

If you weren’t in public you’re sure you’d be letting out a crazed laugh out of pure mania.

So far you’ve been able to dodge all of his attempts at conversation, quickly sending him off to find another ingredient as soon as he got too chatty. You’d hardly made any eye contact at all, and any time he handed you something you were careful not to have his fingertips even slightly graze your own.

In truth, you’ve had an enormous crush on Sirius Black since third year, and it had only gotten worse as the years went by. This meant that by now, you had become a bit of an expert at avoiding him at all costs.

But now it was all ruined. Years of hard work spiraling down the drain all because of fucking Amortentia.

Why couldn’t it have been a simple calming draught? Or a shrinking solution? Hell, you would’ve even preferred to make Slughorn his lunch!

And it’s not as if you can sabotage the potion, either! That would mean Sirius’s grade suffering too. You just couldn’t bring yourself to do it.

There was no way out but to lie about what the potion smells of if he asks. Simple! That way no one finds out - more importantly, that way Sirius doesn’t find out - about your silly little crush. Foolproof. Genius. Inspired-!

“Do you like me?”

“What?!” You jolt as panic overtakes you, snapping your head up to meet Sirius’s eyes.

“Do you like me?” he repeats, smiling slightly. “I can’t help but feel like you hate me, seeing as you haven’t looked at me or talked to me at all.”

Internally, you breathe out a sigh of relief, glad you had misinterpreted the question.

“No! I-” Your voice is much too high, you stop to clear your throat. “I do! I do like you, I um... Sorry! I promise I don’t hate you, I guess I’m just... shy.” You finish your blabbering by looking away, pretending to inspect the fire below your cauldron.

When you raise your gaze again Sirius is still looking at you - observing you as if you’re an interesting puzzle that he can’t quite figure out.

“Um!” you quickly turn your attention to the potion, hoping he does the same. “Nearly done, right? Here.” You hold out the wooden spoon for him to take. “Five more clockwise stirs.”

He looks at the spoon but then folds his hands behind his back. “You do it,” he offers instead.

You purse your lips but nod anyway, bringing the wood up to the cauldron’s opening. The pearlescent liquid shifts under the spoon as it touches the surface, and once it’s fully submerged you take a deep breath and start stirring.

One... Two... Three... Four...

As soon as you finish the fifth stir your nose is assaulted by a suffocating aroma of cigarettes and firewhisky. You quickly step back, coughing and tossing the spoon on the table, but the scent follows you.

That doesn’t smell very appealing! Had you done something wrong? You could have sworn you’d followed the recipe exactly!

But then suddenly the scent changes, rapidly becoming much more welcoming. Cigarettes and firewhisky quickly turns into the undertone to something different... Cinnamon shampoo? But also... cologne, and... You could also catch the faint whiff of a brand new leather jacket.

“I think...” you start, eyes trained on the potion that now has delicate tendrils of steam coming off its surface. “I think we did it.” You laugh a bit in astonishment, proud of the fact that you’d managed to make such an advanced potion.

When you turn your head Sirius is looking at you again, in that infuriating way with his gorgeous eyes and stupid grin. You desperately want to look away but just can’t bring yourself to do so.

“How can you tell?” he asks quietly, and you suddenly feel everything else in the room slip away until it’s just him in front of you.

“I... It-”

“What’s it smell like?”

His low voice puts you in such a trance that for a moment you think you’re about to tell him the truth, but you quickly remember what you’d decided on earlier. Lie.

“Ban-” Bananas? No! “Bal-” Balloons? What would that even mean?! “Bu... bblegum. Bubblegum.” You finally land on, and then give a minuscule wince.

Bubblegum?! Although, you suppose it’s better than balloons...

“Bubblegum?” Sirius repeats, brows furrowed.

“Yep! And is that...? Oh! Firewood!” you continue, pulling lies out of thin air. Sirius’s furrowed brows fade away, and an amused smile starts to form on his features instead.

“And, um... And sun cream! Huh, weird.”

“Bubblegum, firewood, and sun cream?” Sirius lists, as if needing clarification from you.

“Well, I-”

“And look what we have here!” Professor Slughorn’s booming voice is suddenly feet away from the two of you, standing right beside your cauldron. “I do believe we have our first finished brew of Amortentia! Although I can’t say I’m surprised, Mr. Black,” Slughorn beams, giving Sirius a knowing look.

Sirius just shuffles awkwardly.

If Slughorn notices Sirius’s discomfort, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he continues, “You know, your father was an exceptional potion maker. Very talented indeed, and you and your brother seem to be following in his footsteps! Although I must say, young Regulus has been a bit unfocused lately, he-”

“Uh, professor?” you speak up when Sirius flinches at his brother’s name.

Slughorn blinks and then looks at you as if he’s just noticed you were there. “Oh- Yes?”

“So... The potion? Did we do it right?”

“Oh, yes, yes, of course! Full marks!” He waves you off, as if you were being silly for even asking. “And ten points for each of you!” he adds for good measure before strolling off, most likely to go torment some other student with a famous surname.

After that, Sirius doesn’t much seem to be up for talking anymore. He focuses all his attention on cleaning up your station, closing up jars of rose petals and pearl dust. You follow his lead, albeit a bit sluggishly.

A few minutes ago you would’ve been okay with Sirius’s silence - happy, even, if it meant you didn’t have to deal with your little crush. But now you would give anything to have him cheerful and smiling again - even if he looked at you with those annoyingly pretty eyes.

Once class is over you’re quick to duck out of the room, desperately wanting to leave Slughorn and Amortentia and the smell of cigarettes and firewhisky behind you.

It’s all over now, everything went according to plan and you can finally go back to doing what you do best. Secretly pining after Sirius Black from a distance.

It’s safe. It’s what you’re good at.

You’re just about ready to forget about this day entirely when you hear a familiar voice calling your name.

...Maybe you were hearing things.

You speed up your steps but then he calls your name again and you’re forced to slow down, waiting for him to catch up. When he does he gives you another winning smile and your heart does a flip.

“Hey, listen,” he starts, and you listen intently. “Sorry about uh... Just... Thanks.”

You’re a bit taken aback. You’re not sure what you were expecting, but it certainly wasn’t a ‘thank you’.

“I... For what?” you ask, genuinely perplexed, but trying not to sound rude.

“Getting Slughorn to leave,” he clarifies with a grin. “He’s always been the same... I’ve been dealing with that for seven years now.”

There’s laughter in his voice but you can tell it’s a bit frayed at the edges. He’s clearly trying - and failing - to play it off as no big deal.

“Sorry,” you offer lamely. “That doesn’t sound fun.”

It really doesn’t.

You don’t know much about Sirius’s family, but you know enough to understand that he probably doesn’t like to be constantly reminded of them. Sharing their last name and seeing his brother in the halls was probably more than enough.

“It’s fine. And, I didn’t just want to thank you,” he says quickly, realizing that the conversation had gotten gloomy.

“Oh?” you voice with a bit of a nervous smile.

“I wanted to ask what it smelled like. The Amortentia.”

There goes your heart again. A million miles a minute.

“What do you mean?” you ask, laughing a bit. “I told you. Bubblegum and um...”

Shoot! What were the other two?!

“Firewood and sun cream?” Sirius prompts, and you nod frantically.

“Yep! That was it!” you’re quick to blurt out. Unconsciously, you pick up your pace, now traveling at a slight speed walk.

Sirius keeps up easily. “But you’re lying,” he accuses, pointing a finger at you, and you swear you start to sweat. “You started coughing when you finished stirring. What did you smell then?”

“I-! Well-! The bubblegum was very pungent, and I-”

“And it looked to me like you were just naming anything that came to your head. Were you about to say balloons at one point?”

��You know, I don’t appreciate being interrogated like this, and quite frankly I- woah!”

You suddenly find that you’re being pulled somewhere by the elbow, and only when you hear a door close behind you do you realize that Sirius has dragged you into an empty classroom. You don’t even have time to take in your surroundings, because Sirius is asking you again:

“So what did you smell?”

You consider lying again, but he’s staring at you with his big, pretty eyes, just waiting for you to tell the truth and all of a sudden you really, really want to.

You thought - you really thought - that you would be content to just go back to crushing on him from a safe distance, but then the Amortentia had happened and he had looked at you different. He was looking at you differently even now - eyes glittering, listening attentively for your answer. And suddenly pining from a distance doesn’t seem so appealing.

You groan in frustration, bringing both of your hands up to cover your face. You just can’t believe what this boy is doing to you.

“It’s so stupid,” you admit, feeling your cheeks head up beneath your palms.

“It’s not,” he assures you, gently wrapping both his hands around each of your wrists, silently asking you to stop covering your face.

You shake you head. “It is, and if you’re asking then you already know.”

“So humor me.”

You abruptly drop your hands to look up at him and, woah - had he always been that close? He’d definitely gotten a bit closer since you’d closed your eyes.

You let out a shaky breath. “Cigarette smoke... Firewhisky...” you trail off. You mean to keep going, but decide to wait for Sirius’s initial reaction first.

Sirius blinks. “Gross,” he says after a beat, and it startles a laugh out of you.

“Yeah, a bit. I thought we messed it up, but then... Um, it changed.”

You search his features for any signs of discomfort, but find none. In fact, Sirius seems to be basking in every word you tell him.

So you keep going, very quietly, “Cologne and...” Without thinking you bring a hand up to rest delicately on his shoulder. “Leather and... Cinnamon...”

You hand moves of it’s own volition, resting on the junction of Sirius’s shoulder and neck and you stare dazedly at it for a moment. You blink and then realize what you’re doing.

You pull your hand away as if you’ve been burned. “Sorry, I-”

But then Sirius is leaning forward fast and - Merlin, was he about to kiss you?!

You panic for a moment, knowing you have to think quick. Your hand darts up again, this time landing on his collarbone, putting your palm flat up against him and pressing firmly, willing him to stop.

He gets the message and quickly pulls back. “I’m sorry-”

“No!” you blurt out so fast that it sounds more like a squeak. “No, no, it’s not that I don’t... I mean I want to, I do I just...” You screw your eyes shut. “I’ve never kissed anyone.”

“Fuck,” Sirius lets out a laugh.

Your heart sinks as you open your eyes. Was he laughing at you?

“Sorry, I’m not laughing at you,” he clarifies quick, as if reading your mind. “For a second I thought the Amortentia was a big coincidence and you didn’t like me at all.” he smiles, and you realize his laugh was a laugh of relief.

“No! I-!” You groan again and lean against the closed door. Was it confession day or something?! “No, I’ve... I’ve liked you since third year.”

“What about first and second?” he fires back quick, grinning stupidly.

You don’t miss a beat. “I was scared of you, then. You were too loud.”

He barks out a laugh and you suddenly feel the urge to look away, feeling as if you’re intruding. And then you remember you’re not. It’s just you and Sirius here. So many times you’d seen that laugh from a distance, across a crowded Great Hall but now it was just for you.

Sirius speaks up once his laughter dies down. “Look, you don’t have to-”

“No, I want to-”

“I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable-”

“You haven’t! I just-”

“We can just go to class-”

“Sirius!” you say sharply, and he looks at you with wide eyes. “Kiss me. Please,” you say with a laugh, wanting him to shut up already.

He grins and then wastes no time in leaning forward, taking your face in his hands and pressing his lips to yours. You smell it again - cinnamon shampoo, cologne, new leather, and - very faintly - cigarettes and firewhisky.

You melt into the kiss, bringing you hands up to rest at the nape of his neck, idly playing with the strands of hair you find. It’s awkward at first, but you try your best to relax into it, following Sirius’s lead and just doing whatever comes naturally.

He pulls away and you slowly blink your eyes back open, willing yourself out of the trance Sirius’s lips had just put you in.

“Fast learner,” he whispers, smiling, and you laugh.

“We should get to class...” you suggest halfheartedly, not stepping away or making any move to leave.

“Yeah,” Sirius agrees, tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear. “Probably...”

You both look at each other for a few beats, but then you each break into a smile.

And he kisses you again.

taglist <3 // @isxfisticated @l-adysansa @tomshollandz

#requests #sirius black fluff #sirius black x reader #sirius black

358 notes · View notes

warriorswand · 4 years

Text

A drabble in the explanation of what happened when Lily Evans was there for Remus Lupin while no one else was (alternatively, a Very Important marauders PSA)

When Remus Lupin looks down into the achingly familar face of Harry Potter and tells him of the time Lily Evans had been there for him when no one else was, he doesn’t remember the third month of his first year at Hogwarts, when his heart had threatened to beat out of his chest the moment he realized he couldn’t lie to his (first ever) friends about what they had so correctly guessed regarding his monthly absences and injuries. Nor does he remember the snowy January of his fourth year when he had shakily, nervously, anxiously, drunkenly confessed that while he certainly liked girls quite a lot (Mary Macdonald had given him his first snog 3 months prior after all), he also definitely liked boys just as much (one boy in particular if he was honest — he wasn’t, not yet anyways).

The other marauders, his idiot marauders, bloody ADORED Remus John Lupin (he never understood why) and didn't give a DAMN about his condition or who he wanted to date. James-do-you-want-to-kiss-me-as-practice-for-blokes-moony-no-it-isn’t-going-to-be-weird-I’m-delightful-at-snogging-I’m-trying-to-hELP-Potter, Sirius-fuck-fuck-FUCK-he’s-beautiful-he’s-everything-shut-UP-prongs-I-love-him-I-love him-will-he-ever-love-me-Black, and Peter-no-don’t-practice-with-James-I-need-practice-snogging-too-we-could-learn-with-each-other-and-STOP-LAUGHING-PRONGS-Pettigrew spent a month with mandrake leaves pressed to the roof of their mouths so that their best friend, their Moony, wouldn’t have to face his greatest horror alone ever again. These boys, these brilliant wizards, these masters of the map, figured out his “furry little problem”, his deepest secrets, the things he always believed he had to hate, had to deny, and they DIDN’T CARE, they didn’t blink, they didn’t flinch.

(James Potter was the first person to ever know, to ever hear werewolf, and step forward and seize him in a hug without fear, without hesitation, and Remus Lupin never, EVER, forgot and sometimes, years later, when he is alone and the moon has made his bones ache he remembers and he closes his eyes and tries to hold himself as tightly as James Potter’s uncompromising friendship had. It isn’t the same, nothing is the same, and oh how he mourns his lost boys)

However. They’re young, so achingly young, and so often drunk on the invulnerability and impermanence of youth. And in that drunkenness, there was that one time. That horrible time. That one, horrible time in fifth year. When Sirius, his Sirius, who had always understood, who couldn’t have done this to him, not Sirius no, does the unthinkable.

Sirius Black loses his temper (he’s always had such a temper, he says it’s the curse of his surname; Remus knows it’s the pain of his parents hatred) and in his anger and rage and while he’s looking to make someone else hurt more than he is, he plays a prank. Just a prank. Just a prank without thinking for even a moment that sometimes, sometimes Sirius Black’s actions can have consequences he doesn’t expect, and “it’s just fucking Snivellus what do you care Prongs? Prongs? OY WHERE ARE YOU GOING? JAMES?” and Remus’s body is tearing itself apart at the moon’s command, he’s no longer himself, and then suddenly there’s a boy (a horrible, oily boy) and then another (a horribly familar one) and the last thing Remus Lupin is aware of is trying to hurt them, kill them, take them both, and the voice of a friend rising above his own snarls, “it’s not your fault! don’t blame yourself, this isn’t your fault Remus!”. When Remus wakes, his secret is no longer his secret and Snape knows, Snape knows, bloody fucking SNAPE KNOWS. And he’s FURIOUS. He’s livid, he’s broken, he can’t breath and the world is ending and “how could you! HOW COULD YOU?! how could you do this to ME?” Sirius, his Sirius, the boy he was almost sure felt the same way he did, one of his best friends, the one he trusted with the most fragile pieces of his heart, used an affliction Remus hated and loathed and suffered endlessly from in a callous attempt to best a schoolboy rival with no regard, no thought, for how it would hurt him, Remus, most of all.

(Sirius Black never did learn to think before he jumped, and when he dies, high on exhilaration, drunk on the act of actually doing something, he briefly remembers the reckless joy of his youth, because, just for a moment, he is laughing with James beside him, throwing curses and exchanging one-liners — but wait. No. No, no. Not James. Sirius isn’t with James. Harry, he’s with Harry. Until suddenly he isn’t. And Remus Lupin doesn’t scream when Sirius disappears behind the veil, as he holds James’s son back from the same fate. He doesn’t scream. His remembers. A thousand fragments of a million memories. Little flashes slipping, slipping, slipping away just like Sirius through the veil. A handsome face. A barking laugh. Lingering glances in the Great Hall. Months of steadfast and earnest apology and “I don’t expect for you to ever be able to forgive me, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t, but I’ll still be here. Always. I solemnly swear.” A cocky, confident, black-haired man who always somehow seemed eternal. The second one to leave Remus Lupin’s life forever.)

And Remus is SHATTERED and he can’t even LOOK at Sirius, but, then, almost as painful, in a very different way, is James. James, who hasn’t met Sirius’s eyes since he bolted from him to save two lives, James who considers it the height of dishonor to betray ones friends, James who hollered for Remus not to blame himself even as he took the brunt of Remus’s claws when he attacked, will not leave Sirius as Remus has. James wouldn’t abandon Sirius (even though “it’s JUSTIFIED, he deserves IT” but even as Remus screams it he already knows that James agrees and still won’t walk away). Because for James, Sirius is his closest mate, his family, his brother in every sense of the word, and “Moony, please, Moony I know but he needs me, he needs me just as bad.” But Remus, Remus is so hurt, so lost, so fucking alone he couldn’t understand and could only see a second betrayal, this time by his first real friend, “how could you choose him? after this? instead of me?” and James begged “I’m not choosing him Moony please, please, he knows how wrong he was, I’m trying to fix it —“ “It isn’t yours to fix James! You don’t understand, you can’t understand, I was a fool to think you ever could” “Moony, I do, I do understand—” “NO, no, you DON’T or you WOULDN’T—“ “he needs us more than ever —“ “I needed you more than ever and I won’t make that mistake again!” “Moony, no, please, MOONY! OY! Please come back, Moony, PLEASE!” But Remus couldn’t come back, he couldn’t forgive, not this, this betrayal went too deep and it’s consequences were far too harmful.

(And really, it isn’t until James Potter is long dead and Remus Lupin is watching Harry Potter choose to spare the life of the man who ripped James away from them all that he truly understands the particular brand of loyalty James Potter had shown Sirius Black during those awful dark days)

Remus walked away from them, walked away from them all, not even attempting to convince Peter to join him. Peter, who was chalkwhite and pale and shaking from this fight, this fight that was destroying them, his favorite people torn apart, his preferred family splitting at the seams, was being eaten alive with guilt, guilt over Remus’s pain, guilt over thinking it had been rather funny when Sirius had told him exactly a half-hour before he’d told James, and guilt over his relief at being largely ignored in this moment. See, even if Remus had asked him to go, Peter would have stayed with James and Sirius. He wasn’t really expected to say anything in this fight to end all fights, and that was just fine by him, Peter was too afraid of Remus's anger (because of all of them he was the sweetest but he was also the most fearful, and he had never fully mastered James and Sirius’s ability to completely forget Remus’s affliction) and he was not at all willing to risk ending up alone if he chose wrong. So, Peter stuck with James. He stuck with James and tried to help alleviate his most favorite friend of the weight and responsibility of trying to reconnect them. And, with that, for the first time since boarding the Hogwarts Express in first year, Remus Lupin is alone. Refusing to reconcile with his best friends, burning with betrayal, and carrying a cracking, aching heart in his chest, he has no one at all.

(Peter loved Remus, he really did, he loved them all, honest, but he loved James most and he suspected the others knew, and hell, he was sure Pads and Moony loved James most too because why wouldn’t they? Who wouldn’t choose James? James with his easy smile and effortless popularity and hazel eyes that crinkled just so when he threw his head back and laughed. James who could make anyone feel special, who made Peter feel special when no one else ever had. Peter didn’t choose Sirius over Remus, no, he chose James. And Peter Pettigrew chooses James Potter only once more in his life — when he takes his artificial silver hand away from James’s son’s neck and turns it on his own because Harry Potter, oh Harry Potter, looks so much like the boy he loved most all those years ago)

It was just days after the incident and just hours after that last horrible fight with the others, when, with his head heavy in his hands on a bench in the shadowy corner of the courtyard, still sore from the moon, he felt a small, warm hand drop onto his shoulder and lifted his eyes to see flaming red hair and soft green eyes and that kind smile that was so quintessentially Lily Evans. And as his eyes fill with tears, she sits next to him, and, merlin he is so much taller than she is, but she pulls his head down onto her shoulder so he can feel small and protected and safe from the brutal cruelty of Sirius’s mistake. And she doesn't ask questions (but she knows all about Remus's condition, she figured it out ages ago, those marauders really were horrid liars for lads who considered themselves so bloody stealthy) and she had overheard whispers between James, Sirius, and Peter when she certainly had NOT been watching James Potter mussing up his stupid black hair.

(And she certainly hadn’t been worried over what had caused the deep bags under his normally brilliant hazel eyes, she’d never seen him so deflated, so serious, so grown-up, and where was the boy she’d always been sort-of mates with, the one who taught her to play gobstones back in second year, who was so cocky and unshakable, who could even make McGonagall crack a smile in the midst of reprimanding him, and she didn’t like this desperately sad James Potter, she missed awful jokes and horrible pick-up lines more than she ever could have imagined she would and DAMN was James Potter under her skin)

Even though she didn't know the details of what happened, she knew something had. She knew that it had to have been Something Terrible in order to come between those four and when Remus's breath was finally evening out, his shoulders ceasing to shake, he began talking. And talking and talking. Once he started, he didn't stop, didn't even realize that when he mentioned his "furry little problem" Lily Evans didn’t so much as flinch. He unleashed everything, all his pain and heartache and bitter rage, onto his fellow prefect. A girl he’d been mates with for years, who he couldn't believe he hadn't thought of, because if anyone could maybe understand what it was like to be fucking terrified of a blood-deep label it would be her, “a half-breed werewolf and a dirty mudblood what a pair we make, aye Remus?” And it was Lily who accepted his anger at the others, who didn't push him to get over it or talk to them again. It was Lily who late one night, unbeknownst to Remus, cornered Sirius in the common room and, without judgement or anger, helped him too, helped him push his shame aside and “Sirius you need to go to him — no listen — prove to him you regret it and show him you’re sorry, he doesn’t hate you, not really.”

So, it was weeks and weeks later, after a teary reunion and four repaired relationships, that Remus had just managed to stop laughing at Lily’s spirited re-enactment of James drunkenly getting his head stuck in the bannister railing at the last Gryffindor house party. And, just as the Fat Lady’s portrait comes into view with the completion of their rounds for the night, he glances down at the flushed, grinning face of Lily Evans and (feeling oddly sentimental, unusually emotional, and unendingly grateful) softly murmurs to her that he had always wanted a sister yet he hadn’t realized that she would have red hair and a massive crush on his best mate. Even as she shrieked and laughed in (quite forced) outrage, aiming a kick at his shins, she also reached out and squeezed his hand quite tightly, not dropping it as they strolled into the common room to greet their friends. Lily Evans was there for Remus Lupin at a time when no one else was, at a time when he was far too fragile for anyone else to be, because no one can care for you better than a sister.

(Lily Evans knew how to be a sister even after hers decided to hate her but never imagined that she could find a brother in the form of Remus Lupin, a brother who would love and accept her the way her sister never could. And when James and Lily Potter died, Remus Lupin mourned both his truest friend and only sibling. Years later, back on the Hogwarts Express, he hands chocolate to a shaken and embarrassed thirteen-year-old boy with James’s face and Lily’s eyes and wonders if Harry Potter would ever know that he hadn’t always been Professor Lupin, he had first been Uncle Moony)

122 notes · View notes

draqcnheartstrinq · 5 years

Text

Hate That I Want You (Part 1)

Sirius Black x Pure-blood!Slytherin!Reader

Summary: At first it’s hate, then it’s confusion. It grows into a healthy amount of curiosity until it turns into hate once more. But not towards each other, more towards the idea of wanting what you’ve tried to avoid all your life.

Words: 2k

Note: This series is a little experiment, let me know if you like it because I’ve got no clue if this is anything good or not XD

HTIWY Masterpost | Part 2

Seeing you walk into the Great Hall talking to Frank Longbottom every so often was a sight Sirius was never able to understand or get used to. He tried to many times but he always had the feeling something was completely going over his head. Sometimes he thought he had it all figured out, but only seconds later nothing would make sense anymore.

You, a Slytherin pure-blood with family known for their love towards the Dark Arts, talking to a guy like Frank, a Gryffindor known for his hate towards that same branch of magic.

The two of you weren’t supposed to be friends, but yet you were. And it bothered Sirius to no end.

He watched you leave each other’s sides, both with a smile and a wave, towards your own table every single time.

That’s when Sirius just had to ask the question on that one Tuesday morning. Frank hadn’t even had the time to properly settle himself on a seat before the words were leaving Sirius’ mouth.

“How do you know her and why are you friends?”

The way he had said it wasn’t very tactical either. It sounded more like an insult than a question.

A few heads turned towards the Gryffindor table, some of the Gryffindors themselves looked up and raised their eyebrows in shock. Never had Sirius ever before raised his voice towards one of his friends in public, let alone sweet Frank who nobody seemed to have a grudge with.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had a problem with that”, Frank answered just as shocked as everyone else was. An annoyed look started to grow on the boy’s features as well though.

“I wouldn’t say we’re friends but I definitely haven’t got anything against her if that’s what you mean.”

James and Remus shared a confused look before the latter decided to speak up, still with a piece of scrambled egg stuffed between his lips.

“What’s wrong Padfoot? Woke up on the wrong side of the bed?”

Peter chuckled at that and decided the boys would handle it themselves, no need to get caught up in this rather unusual conversation. Normally Sirius didn’t make a fuss about things like that, people others hung out with, who you knew or why you knew them. Maybe it just wasn’t his best day, one of those days where everything just gets on your nerves.

It wasn’t that kind of day though. Sirius had woken up from an amazing night’s sleep, he had a nice shower, hummed a song on his way over to the Great Hall and sat down with a big grin on his face. The food smelled and was delicious like always, but for some reason seeing Longbottom walk in here with you right next to him left a weird taste in his mouth.

He shook his head, realising how aggressively he had just asked what was meant to be a simple question.

“Sorry Longbottom, it wasn’t meant like that. I was just curious and… kind of confused. Just… Never mind.”

Sirius’ gaze traveled to the other side of the hall, landing on your figure peacefully chatting away with some of your housemates. How much he disliked you wasn’t a secret to anyone, probably everyone in Hogwarts had to know by now and it wouldn’t surprise him if the teachers felt something was up too.

Your last name was like a threat to him, it didn’t promise any good and it left people terrified. Just your surname was enough of a reason for him to loathe you.

But the feelings were mutual. You didn’t want anything to do with him either, you never have ever since you knew about each other’s backgrounds. Both your families would get along so well, and that’s exactly why you avoided the crap out of each other.

No, you didn’t like the way your family handled things, you didn’t share their hate towards “Mudbloods”, you didn’t want to be married off against your own will to a guy you barely knew as soon as you turned 18. You hated the way others looked at you funny when you passed through the halls just because of the name you inherited.

And most of all you hated to be a pure-blood Slytherin, because “oh Merlin we’ve got another Dark Lord worshipper on our hands!”

That’s what the average person thought of you. And you hated every single bit about it.

You were proud to be a Slytherin, it defined you, it made you realise who you actually were meant to be. But being a pure-blood on top of that? That was too much.

Sirius’ stare hadn’t left you for a solid twenty seconds. That’s when the others started to take notice and follow his eyes towards your direction. They looked at Sirius in confusion once again.

“You having a hard time there, mate?”, James called out, “You’re almost burning a hole through her head.”

“Good”, Sirius simply answered breaking his line of sight to concentrate on his food again.

A few minutes went by. James, Remus and Peter got into a conversation with Marleen and Alice who came in a bit later. Lily wasn’t feeling well that day, which made James pout a little before he regained his usual smile and energy.

Sirius though, he sat in silence as did Frank, for the same reason at that.

You were still on their minds. Sirius was still silently hating you, while Frank was trying to come up with words to defend you. He felt like he had to, because never had you wronged him in any shape or form. You were just another student he got along with.

“She’s not like her family”, Frank eventually whispered to no one in particular. Of course Sirius was the only one to hear. They looked up at each other, holding the silence for a moment.

“I’m sure she isn’t to you, Frank, you’re just another pure-blood she can befriend.”

“Then why would she dislike you?”

“Because I disliked her first.”

Frank sighed in frustration, soft but still very much irritated by Sirius’ stubbornness.

“She doesn’t fall into that stigma at all!” he whisper-yelled. “She was just unfortunate to be born into a family that close-minded.”

“Then I guess it’s a total coincidence that she’s a Slytherin as well as a pure-blood? I’m sorry, Longbottom, but I don’t believe in that much coincidence but if you want to be that naive than I’m not stopping you.”

The conversation was getting heated by now, everyone could feel it. Marleen elbowed Remus and nodded towards the pair’s direction, taking everyone’s attention away from their small talk towards the two boys.

Maybe Frank should’ve shut up by then, maybe anything he said would drive Sirius even more towards pure anger but he didn’t want to keep his mouth shut. This had to be said.

“May I remind you that your brother, Regulus, is in the exact same situation as (Y/N) is?”

Sirius’ face went red, his mouth opening and closing a few times. Thoughts ran through his head, images of his brother with green robes and snake badges running around the Hogwarts Grounds.

My brother is nothing like her. He would never lower to her level.

“Don’t you dare compare my brother to her”, he finally growled towards Frank in a rather loud tone, a finger pointing towards the boy’s chest.

With those words Sirius stood up in a fury, walking towards the large heavy doors at the end of the hall. The whole room went quiet, the occasional whisper from a gossiping student ripping through the tense air.

When he disappeared out of sight his friends all shook their heads and rolled their eyes, because when would Sirius ever understand?

And when more than half of the students in the Great Hall all turned their heads your way, you couldn’t help but think that whole argument started because of you.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Leaving your usual study place in the library, clutching many books to your chest, you were on your way back towards the Slyhterin common room. Your friends were probably already waiting for you to leave for a nice day at Hogsmeade. The thought of wasting their time made you walk a little faster than you normally would, which was a big mistake on your part.

Turning the next corner you felt yourself collide with another body. Your books tumbled to the floor and the other person let a big huff of air escape from their lungs.

You didn’t need this right now.

As you found your footing and steadied your body the other student groaned in frustration.

“Watch where you’re going, (Y/L/N).”

You recognised the voice and kept staring at the floor for another second or two. All the different curse words ran through your head as you finally looked up at who you just bumped into.

Sirius Black. You really didn’t need this right now.

“I could say the same to you, Black. I guess I’m just the more polite one out of the two of us.”

You bend down, placing your knees on the floor to gather your books and get on your way, but Sirius wouldn’t have any of it.

His nose flared and his eyes narrowed in on you, like nothing could be more repulsive than having to talk to you right now. But you didn’t let it get to you, if he wanted to he could just leave right now, he wouldn’t have to look your way a second longer. He didn’t though and that was enough reason to believe he was just trying to get on your nerves.

He did that a lot and he succeeded every single time.

“I’m not the one having to pick up my books right now, am I?”

“Doesn’t that just prove my point even more? You’re not being the gentleman everyone is making you out to be”, you countered as you stood up and smoothed one hand over your skirt.

The frustration on his face was priceless, a right amount of wanting to say something and not being able to say anything.

You smiled his way making sure you looked as innocent as a newborn puppy, or at least trying to, because a cheeky grin was threatening to part your lips.

As you wanted to pass him he tightly took your free wrist and held it in front of both your faces. Of course, you should have known he wouldn’t let this slip.

To be honest, his hold on your arm hurt as his fingers tightened every few seconds but giving in wasn’t an option, it was never an option when talking to Sirius.

“Let me go, Black.” The words sounded threatening in both your ears and even you were momentarily shocked at the tone they held.

“Don’t get into my way ever again”, he whispered, trying not to attract any attention. “Or I’ll make sure you won’t ever even look my way.”

“Are you threatening me? Has Sirius Black really stooped that low?”

“It’s a warning not a threat and I hope you have understood because next time I won’t be so nice about it.”

He threw your arm against your chest, leaving you dumbfounded in the middle of the hallway as he went on to wherever he wanted to go, as if nothing had even happened. You even heard him greeting someone else with his stupidly charming voice like he always did, not a second glance was given your way.

Slowly you started to get back to what you were supposed to do, but much more distressed than before. Your small steps echoed through the building every so often and a stinging pain in your wrist captured your attention.

Turning the inside of your arm towards your face you saw tiny, crescent shaped, red scratches scattered across the skin. Sirius’ nails had left their mark on your body just like his words had left the umpteenth mark in your heart.

You really hated your last name. It was like a threat, it didn’t promise any good and it left people terrified.

You being the most terrified of them all.

Taglist:

@iamthepenguinwhosearseisonfire @wangmangagavroche @songforhema

324 notes · View notes

cosmic-neptunes · 3 years

Text

wattpad

Wolfstar Oneshot

"leave me alone Sirius!"

"Baby, I've told you this before, I don’t care if your a werewolf ill still love you, that isn’t going to change" Sirius was in tears as he tired to pull Remus in for a hug, attempting to comfort him.

Remus pushed him away and said, "you're making a mistake Sirius, look at me I’m a bloody monster!"

"Moonpie, i-"

"Stop calling me that Sirius!" Remus pushed his boyfriend out of the way and stormed out of the boy's dorm room.

Sirius knew better than to follow him, he just needed time to cool off. But the things he said still hurt. After all these years, why now? He thought he proved loyal to Remus, that he'll be there no matter what.

Sirius sat on the bed trying to dry up his tears as James came in looking a bit confused. he walked over and said, "what's with you and moony?"

Sirius shook his head, they had a lot of arguments like this, every full moon, but it never got this bad, normally Remus would give in and let Sirius hold the taller boy. whispering comforting words to him until he fell asleep.

James comforted his friend and said "don’t worry pads, its almost full moon, he's just hormonal, Lily is the same way around her time of the month"

Sirius chuckled and said "yeah, I know. it just hurts. I thought he trusted me not leaving him, I mean we've been dating since second year, it been four years, I reckon he would think I’m loyal"

James looked at his best mate and said “Pads, what if your relationship with moony needed a break?”

Pads looked at him and looked back down, a fresh stream of tears running down his face.

James picked Sirius heads up using this thumb to wipe away his tears and said "hey, don’t cry pads, I don’t like to see you cry, you're like my brother, baby brother"

Sirius smiled and leaned into James, as much as James was straight he was completely open with cuddling Sirius when Remus wasn't around, which Remus was ok with might they add. James comforted Sirius until he fell asleep. James got up, tucked Sirius to bed and went back to go find Lily.

Sirius woke up and looked out the window, Sirius jumped out of bed and snatched James's invisibility cloak and ran outside. James and Lily were in the Gryffindor common room snogging, when Sirius ran thought James questioned him and all he would say was "full moon"

When he made it to the forbidden forest he turned into Padfoot and ran in looking for Remus, finding his sent and following the trail. When he made it he saw Remus curled into a little ball crying, he turned back and walked towards him. its eyes were yellow and his fangs were longer and sharper than normal.

At the peak of full moon he transformed, Sirius turned into Padfoot and kept an eye on him. Remus slashed at Padfoot when he got to close, he never meant to hurt him but this time he did, a small yelp came from Padfoot as he stumbled back turning human at the same time. Remus stood there and then ran off. Padfoot chased after him, limping until he lost consciousness. he woke up in the hospital wing with Remus the next bed over.

James was sitting next to him and said: "pads you're awake, how are you feeling?"

"im fine, how's Moons? is he ok?" Sirius had stood up and hissed in pain

James nodded his head, reassuring that he's fine. He sat back down and put his hand to his ribs had stung. poppy came in and told him to rest. after a while Remus had woken up, He always made a quick recovery since he dealt with this every month. He got up and walked over to Sirius who was pale and weak. Remus looked at him and walked out without saying anything.

It had been about a week since full moon, Sirius was still recovering so he took it easy, but Remus had been avoiding him this whole time until potions.

He called him over and said "Sirius, I’m sorry"

He looked at his boyfriend and said "uh- what?"

Remus's eyes were filled with tears as he took off the ring Sirius had to given him when they first started dating and said "this is it, Sirius, im sorry. Tell the marauders, too. I’m leaving them as well"

Sirius looked at the ring and said "moonpie, what are you talking about, no, we can fix this"

Remus shook his head and said "Stop calling me that Sirius, this already hurts"

With tears running down both of their faces Remus left the class and left Sirius standing there alone, holding the ring the once belonged to the person he fancied the most. James walked up to him and said "what ha- oh Sirius, I’m so sorry"

Sirius hugged James and started sobbing, Professor Slughorn let them sit out in the corridor until he stopped crying.

it had been around four weeks since the two broke up and it took a toll on everyone. They were used to having the two together at all times, wheres one there must be the other, but them being in the same room now was rare.

Sirius was tense, it was almost full moon, and he wanted to be there for Remus. When Remus got up so did he, Remus was carrying a bag full of his belongings with him.

Sirius followed him and said "hey Lupin"

Sirius heard his own voice, he had never called Remus, lupin, even back in first year he would call him Remus.

Remus was shocked he wasn't used to hearing his voice. "go away Black"

Remus felt just as bad calling Sirius, black. Using surnames meant they weren't even friends anymore. he had regretted breaking up with his lover. his voice hang thought his head. The sound of his voice brought back memories, sweet memories. Sirius whispering sweet and not so sweet things to him.

he was pulled back to reality when Sirius spun him around and said "no, Lupin I don’t know why we broke up, but if its because you're afraid of waking up one day and ill be gone. Then I want to let you know that, that will never happen. Lupin, it broke my heart when you said we were done. I love you and you know it, you know I would never leave you because you mean the world to me. What is a world without a moon, I need my little moonpie back, the one that smells of cinnamon and chocolate, and loves to cuddle and eat chocolate while sitting next to the fire recalling old memories, that's the Remus I know, and I love that Remus. I don’t care if you have lycanthropy I’m still going to love you"

Remus stood there quietly until Sirius pulled him in for a hug, Remus hugged him back and started to cry, Sirius ran his fingers thought Remus's sandy curls and whispered sweet things to him.

Remus looked up and said, "why do you stick around huh?"

Sirius smiled and said "because I love you, and before you ask I always will stick around"

"thank you for never giving up on me, " Remus said quietly

Sirius pulled away from the hug and said "of course love, here i have something for you,"

Remus looked confused and said, "what is it pads?"

Sirius looked at him and said "I was gonna give this to you before we broke up. I hope this will prove that ill be right by your side forever"

"w-wait, what?"

Sirius got down on one knee and pulled out a small red velvet box and said: "Remus lupin, your the best thing that has ever happend to me, and I love you with all my heart, so will you make me the happiest wizard on earth and marry me?"

Remus was frozen in time with tears running down his face and his hands brought up to his face and said with a shaky voice "y-yes, yes ill marry you!"

Sirius got up and slipped two rings on. The one he had on before and the new engagement ring, and kissed him. A long and passionate kiss to seal their new engagement.

Remus pulled away, so their foreheads were touching and said "I bloody hate you so much"

Sirius smiled "I love you to moonpie"

#wolfstar #angsty

1 note · View note

siriuslysnuffles · 6 years

Text

The Mistake

i decided to write the one i said @inakindofdaydream would kill me for. i would say enjoy, but...read and find out. this is almost 3k words, and i cried.

also, if you like snape, this is probably not for you.

(January 1978)

The week had held so much potential, yet perhaps that potential was never meant to be fulfilled. Really they both should have known better than to believe that something could go right for this long. Was it really a surprise that this all story began with a love story gone to ruins.

It started on the Friday of the week that they came back from the winter holidays. James believed they had been progressing in their relationship, he even believed that maybe she loved him. He had been a fool.

He should have expected it though, but perhaps love really does make you blind. He was halfway there anyways.

Teasing kisses had been exchanged that morning, like any other, as they made their way to Potions. His hand in hers as Sirius made jokes about how they were joined at the hips. He couldn’t help but grin at him, however, as his eyes shifted to his cariad who was chatting away with Remus.

Pulling away his hand, he moved it to her waist, pulling her in closer. He caught her eye and grinned before giving her a quick kiss on the cheeks, accidentally moving her pointed hat in the process.

She giggled before adjusting it accordingly. “Just because you hate wearing yours doesn’t mean you should mess with mine.”

“But it gets in the way of your lovely hair,” he teased, drawing circles on her waist (or the robes over her waist).

Biting on her bottom lip, she said, “Shut it, Potter.” She paused in her walk, letting the other two walk ahead of them. Glancing back, Sirius sent a wink at them before following after Remus.

Disentangling herself from him, she laughed and said, “You’re an idiot, you prat. Did you know that?”

He walked closer to her, causing her to walk backwards until her back hit the wall. “You remind me at least once a week.” His licked his lips briefly, drawing Lily’s attention to them.

Her voice was playful but her eyes gave away her desire, “Who else would remind you?” She stood on her toes, placing her hand behind his neck, playing with the baby hairs there. “I’m doing you a favour really, otherwise you would have to find another way to ride that broomstick of yours.”

James threw his head back. Lily loved watching him laugh, it never failed to draw a smile to her face. “I think you’re more worried that I wouldn’t be able to snog you.” He wrapped a hand around her waist, letting the other one cradle her face.

Her eyes were shining as she resisted laughing, “Oh, of course, that’s obviously why I’m with you.”

He glanced over his shoulder, before leaning down to kiss her. “Knew it,” he mumbled as he pulled her tightly against him. His fingers digging into her cheek softly, eliciting a soft whimper from his girlfriend.

“Always knew the Mudblood was a slag.” They pulled away at the voice of Atreus Avery. “Tell me, Potter, have you shagged her yet?”

“James, don’t do something stupid,” she whispered urgently as she felt him tense up. He made no reply as he turned around, his hand reaching for hers.

“I’m sorry, Avery, did you say something?” His voice challenged the boy to say anything before glancing at his three other companions, Severus Snape, Thomas Flint and Marcus Mulciber. “I suggest you save your comments for your little Death Eater parties, maybe you’ll find someone there who actually cares.”

“Let’s go,” Lily said, glaring at Slytherins while also avoiding Snape’s gaze. Snape who was looking at them both with anger in his eyes. “I don’t want to be late.” She pulled James along, her hand tight in his as they ignored the comments shouted at them.

“Bloody purist,” James mumbled as he took his seat next to Lily’s, earning him a look from Sirius and Remus.

Lily placed a supportive hand on his arm, “Ignore them. They just want to get a rise out of you.”

“I don’t know how you do it, Cariad.” He turned to her, “Must be because you’re just so amazing.”

She blushed, “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

Sirius laughed, “I think the saying is nowhere, Lil.”

She winked at him teasingly before kissing James’ cheek, “I’ll go get our supplies.”

That night, three animagi and a werewolf had snuck out to the kitchen to celebrate their last term at Hogwarts.

“What do you think it’ll be like after Hogwarts?” Peter asked as he spooned ice-cream into his mouth. “Do you think it’ll be the same?”

“Prongsie here,” Sirius began winking at James and gently nudging him, “Will obviously marry our favourite redhead and have many black-haired, green-eyed children and name me godfather to all.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Padfoot,” Remus admonished, “I’m sure some of them will be have Lily’s red hair.”

James laughed before a lovestruck smile graced his face, “She’s great. Absolutely amazing.”

The other three exchanged a look. “So have you told her you’re hopelessly in love with her yet?” Sirius asked, a knowing grin spreading across his face.

“Not yet, I’ll do it soon. Her birthday’s coming up. I’m sure I’ll get the courage to do so before then. I mean, it’s Lily. It needs to be special.”

Sirius laughed, “That’s what you said about asking her to be your girlfriend, and need I remind you that I was the one who had to hear from Lily for most of October about how you were such an idiot and if you were no longer interested in her because you wouldn’t kiss her.”

“Tosser,” James blushed, tossing a crisp at him.

“I’m a bit tired, I think I’ll head out.” Remus said an hour later.

Peter stood up, rubbing his eyes. “I’ll go with you. I’m a bit knackered too.”

Remus eyed them, “Are you two staying?”

James looked at Sirius who shrugged nonchalantly. “Yeah, just for a bit.” He grabbed something from behind him and tossed it to Remus, “Take the cloak.”

“All right, be careful,” he said before following behind Peter.

Another hour passed before James and Sirius decided to call it a night and left the house-elves to themselves, declining their many offers of food to take with.

They had barely left the kitchen when they ran into Regulus Black and Severus Snape.

Sirius glared at his brother, yet James could tell that part of him wanted to talk to him, wanted to take him away from the influences of the other Slytherins, but James knew it was too late. He could see the way Sirius’ jaw tensed and the fearful look on Regulus’ face. The last thing James needed was to handle another fight between the two brothers or for Snape to have another thing to hold over Sirius.

“Let’s go, Padfoot,” James said, placing a hand on Sirius’ shoulder. James really had had every intention of taking Sirius and walking away, too bad that Snape never knew when to mind his own business.

Snape sneered, “Where are you going, Potter?”

“I have better things to do, Snape. You know, place to go, people to see.” James smirked as he turned around, briefly glancing at Sirius whose eyes remain fixated on his brother. “I suppose you wouldn’t know how that feels.”

Snape glared at him as James turned around, pulling Sirius away. “Frankly, you’re just not worth my time,” James called over his shoulder as Sirius let out a barklike laugh, muttering something to James that made a smirk appear on his face.

But Snape was done being ridiculed by the likes of Potter and Black, especially in front of the younger Black brother.

He was tired of watching Lily prance about with the arrogant prat like his trophy, like she was his. She wasn’t Potter’s, she was Severus’, she would always be Severus’. And he hated her for it.

So he did the one thing he’d been longing to do since they returned from the holidays, he raised his wand against James Potter. Against the one who had turned Lily against him.

The hex hit his back, stopping the laughter from the two arrogant Gryffindors. Snape’s lips curled as they turned to face him. Fire burned in Potter’s eyes, and Snape felt pleasure in the anger that emitted from the other boy, felt pleasure in knowing he hadn’t changed, that Lily couldn’t really love the toerag who had found pleasure in ruining his life. No, Potter just had her fooled, but all Severus had to do was show Lily who Potter really was.

He felt Regulus shift uneasily as his brother glared at him, blaming him for Severus’ action before turning to Severus himself.

“Scared, Potter,” he taunted them.

James scowled at him, raising his wand. “A lot of talk for someone who doesn’t say shite when Lily’s around.”

“What does Evans have to do with anything?” Snape snarled out, forcing himself to call her by her surname as he aimed a spell at Potter. He could hear Black patronising Regulus.

“I think we both know, Lily has everything to do with this.” He blocked the spell. “Tell me, Snape, did Lily ever realise you fancied her? Do your Death Eater friends realise you have feelings for a Muggle-born?” James’ eyes darkened as he looked at Snape. “You never deserved her friendship, you know? Lily’s too kind for someone like you, you only ever hurt her.”

Snape aimed another spell at him, that James once again managed to block. “You think you deserve Lily Evans, Potter? You’ll never really know her.” His nostrils flared. “You don’t deserve her.”

“No one deserves Lily, she isn’t a thing you deserve, Snape.” A muscle in his jaw twitched, “You’re pathetic.”

James became momentarily distracted as his eyes shifted to Sirius who was looking at his brother’s left arm in horror. James was in the process of turning when he felt a spell cut across the skin at his side.

James’ hand instantly went to his side where blood began soaking through his robes. He heard as Sirius pushed his brother against the wall before stalking past James and grabbing Snape and proceeding to forcefully shove him against the wall. James could already imagine Sirius’ grey eyes flashing.

“Padfoot, let’s go.” James gritted his teeth. Sirius pulled his wand at Snape, petrifying him with a spell. “Watch yourself,” he said menacingly, letting him fall to the ground before aiming another spell at his face.

“Let’s get you to Poppy, James.” He watched as he eyed his mate’s injury.

“Do me a favour, Sirius,” James said once they were near the Hospital Wing. “Don’t tell Lily.”

It was Saturday when Lily had the misfortune of running into Snape while she was in the library studying with her best friend, April Eliot.

“Lily,” April whispered to her, avoiding the wrath of Madam Pince who would snap at anyone who so much as dropped a quill in the library. “Snape is staring at you.”

“I don’t care,” Lily said, ignoring the look the other girl was sending her. “He’s walking over here.”

Lily groaned. “I thought I made things clear in fifth and sixth-year.” She bit her lip pensively before Snape had managed to approach her.

“Lily,” he called to her.

“What do you want, Severus?” She didn’t waste her time in looking at him but continued in flipping the page. “I thought I made it clear that I want nothing to do with you.”

“It’s important.”

She rolled her eyes, finally looking up at him and noticing a purple bruise on his face. She contemplated it for a moment, agreeing solely out of curiosity. “Fine, but make it quick. I’m meeting James in a bit.” She knew she shouldn’t have mentioned her boyfriend, but part of her felt particularly vindictive whenever she saw him; she hated feeling this way.

She followed him outside the library, keeping her distance. “What did you want?” A frown graced her lips, “Surprised you’re not trying to hide me. Aren’t you scared your little Death Eater pals will see us together and get the wrong idea? Wouldn’t want them to think you’re being civil to a Mudblood, now would we?”

“I apologised for that,” he protested.

Lily let out a bitter laugh. “Oh, yes, a half-hearted apology where and when no one else could see you, how inconvenient for you.” Her eyes met his, “Let’s be honest, Severus, your pride would have never been able to take that hit.”

Snape sneered, “What about Potter’s pride?”

Lily glowered at him, “James,” her voice softened slightly at his name, it disgusted Snape. “Can apologise when he’s wrong. I find it a very enduring trait.”

“He’s not who you think he is, Lily.” His words came out quickly, “He’s an arrogant prat, and he’s deceiving you.”

She drew in a deep breath, “He grew up. People change. Sometime for the better.” She looked at him sadly, “Sometimes for the worst.”

“He hasn’t changed.” His voice was final. “He still hexes me, you know. Where do you think I got the bruise. He’s always going to be the arrogant toerag, Lily. I just don’t want him making a fool out of you. He’s hiding more from you than you think.”

With that he walked away, knowing the seed of doubt had been placed.

They worked quiet as James sorted out the next month’s patrol schedule, and Lily worked out the past week’s point deductions, making sure the prefects weren’t being too hard or lenient in order to favour their houses.

Lily resisted laughing as she got to the pile filled out by James, who made the comments extra amusing when he knew it was Lily’s turn to oversee points. Indeed, the first one listed was ten points deducted from a sixth-year Ravenclaw who “couldn’t pick a better place to try and shag his girlfriend.” She let out a small snort which was eerie in the silence of the evening, something that didn’t go unnoticed by James.

“You’re quiet tonight, Lil,” his eyes looked her over. “Is something bothering you?”

She almost denied it before Snape’s word replayed in her. “Are you keeping secrets from me, James?”

He looked at her, shocked. “I–Everyone has secrets, Lily. Secrets aren’t necessarily a bad thing.”

Lily didn’t know whether she would have rather had him lie to her about having secrets or not. “What are you hiding?” She felt an anxiety that she had been denying all evening overwhelm her. “What is it?”

His eyes gave away his indecisiveness, but he seemed to come to a decision. “I can’t tell you that.”

“Do you still hex Severus? He said you did.” Her voice was coming out in small pants, “Did you?”

He stood up from his seat, his eyebrows knitting in confusion. “The better question is: do you believe him?”

Her eyes scanned his, taking in the boy she had grown to love. Part of her knew the truth, she thought, but the other part was scared. “I don’t know.”

Disappointment clouded his eyes followed by anger, hurt, and betrayal. “You don’t know whether you trust me?”

“No, I–” she was lost, “I don’t know.” She had already trusted one person beyond reason, put all her faith in him and in the end been let down. “Just tell me the truth, James.”

She saw his jaw clench, his eyes that were usually playful and loving darkened. “The truth is that we shouldn’t be together if you don’t trust me.”

She felt a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. “The truth is that you’re always going to believe him over me, aren’t you, Lily?” She had no answer as her lips parted softly, nothing coming out.

“I’m never going to be good enough, am I?”

“James, don’t,” her eyes began tearing up. “I–”

“What’s the point in being with someone who you can’t count on to trust you. I can be second to many people, Lily, but not to you. I can’t come second to you when,” his voice broke, “when it comes down to it you’ll always take his side, always see him as the defenceless boy you knew.”

A tear rolled down his face that was quickly wiped away. “Just so you know, I didn’t hex him.” He pulled up the Muggle jumper he had on up, touching the spot where a scar lied. “He hexed me.”

Grabbing the patrol schedule he had been working on he said, “I think we’re done. With us.” He turned around, not letting her see the tears that had begun rolling down his face, “Good-bye, Evans.”

She sat there for awhile, not letting the breakup sink in until it was too late to run after him. Tears streamed down her face, her green eyes rimmed with red. What have I done, she thought.

“James,” Sirius said as he watched his friend in a similar position. His hazel eyes surrounded by red, his hair more frazzled than usual. “You love her, and she loves you. I know it. Merlin, I barely believe in love, and I know you two have it.”

James scoffed as Peter and Remus exchanged worried glances. “I can’t love her, Padfoot, because how do you love someone you barely know? And she can’t love me; you can’t love someone you don’t trust.”

Literally, writing the last few parts made me cry. Also to clarify, it was Sirius who hexed Snape and gave him the bruise. James only used shield spells during this one. Also writing Severus was so weird, like can I not? But it was partially from his perspective so writing Snape for all his actions would have been weird.

Also I’m sorry, but keep an eye on the timeline if you’re screaming at me.

And I guess I’m sorry for the ending? Poor James.

#jily #lily evans #james potter #siriuslywriting #jily oneshot #oneshot #canon compliant #insecure!james #insecure!lily #couple: jily #complicated jily #friends: marauders #friends: marauders plus lily #headboy!james #headgirl!lily #fww oneshot #canon compliant oneshot #friends: prongsfoot #27 days of james potter '18

40 notes · View notes

nevillelongsbottom · 6 years

Text

for: @siriusprotectionsquad sirius and ships event honesty, or the art of living when everything around you has fallen apart pairing: sirius black x percy weasley wc: 2659

Twelve Grimmauld Place is a fucking shithole, so Sirius stays instead at The Burrow: there are no more Potters to turn to, but the Weasleys are similarly kind-mannered, and within a matter of days he’s moved into Percy’s room, taking up a duvet on the floor.

Percy’s room is terrifyingly immaculate, as if it’s never belonged to someone with a childhood: it’s made mostly up of various bookcases, dusted and kept in alphabetical order of author surname like a library, and even his wardrobe is simply a collection of identical pressed shirts of varying inoffensive colours and perfectly-hung smart trousers, his Weasley jumpers folded up and in neat piles in baskets at the bottom. Sirius has never known Percy, but his room is intimidating; he’s sharing with a neat freak, someone who appears to have about as much personality as the clean slate of table that makes up his desk, furnished with a neat pile of seventh year textbooks, a quill, and some folded-up letters from the Ministry.

“Where is he?” Sirius asks when he goes to fetch himself a cup of tea; the kitchen is busy, because it’s one in the afternoon and everyone is clamouring for something to eat, and it’s almost a pick and mix of who to ask.

“Trekking around the forests with Charlie,” Ginny replies, taking the helm of the question. “They’ll be back soon, I’m sure. Percy’ll complain that the trees are ruining his trousers, or something like that.” She passes a sugar cube to Sirius, who watches it dissolve in the warmth of his Earl Grey; he takes it back upstairs, and almost feels bad about staining the table.

But it gives it personality.

Percy returns late afternoon, and he’s not what Sirius was expecting at all. His ironed clothes aren’t so ironed on him, rumpled like he’s been wearing them a few days too many, and his hair has grown out of its neat cut and is on its way to becoming a mullet of curls; he walks strangely, like he’s forgotten how to put one foot in front of the other without conscious thought, and his eyes are glazed over, unresponsive to the new mess that Sirius has added to his room. He almost misses Sirius at all on his way to sit down at his desk, only noticing because the chair is already occupied.

Percy looks at him. “No-one told me you were here.”

Sirius sets down his mug. It feels like a declaration. “Well, I am.”

Percy says nothing, and simply takes a seat on the end of his bed. He looks as if he’s never had spirit; Sirius knows the feeling.

Sirius runs out of tears to cry on the day of Fred’s funeral; Remus’s is that same morning, a small service that seems to pass by like a whisper in the wind, and he finds himself leaving Fred’s early. He can’t watch them all cry because he thinks that’s just too much in one day, and takes a stubborn seat on someone’s memorial bench, lighting a cigarette with a bright yellow Muggle lighter. He has a bar of chocolate tucked in his pocket, and yet somehow, it feels inappropriate.

He says nothing when Percy takes a seat next to him, eyes red as the prick of blood and his cheeks stained with floods of tears, his breath still hitching when he reaches for more. Percy says little to him, seeming to exist in his own bubble of thought, so of all people, Sirius is surprised that it’s him Percy is here with. He has a family, and friends, and Sirius falls into neither of those categories, just a fringe figure on the edge of Percy’s life.

Sirius holds out the bar of chocolate; Percy stares blankly.

“It’s not gonna lift all your worries or bring him back, but it’s something, alright?”

At this, Percy accepts the bar, fumbling for a moment to tear it open; the wrapper reads Dairy Milk, something he’s never had before. It tastes sugar-sweet, but it’s nice, and he finds himself several squares deep before he’s aware of what’s happening. Sirius grins.

“What’d I say?”

Percy smiles, and it’s the closest Sirius has ever seen to one that’s real.

He steals a piece, just because he can’t help it, and Percy rests his head on Sirius’s shoulder in the moments in which he starts to cry again, feeling the rise and fall of Sirius’s breath, comfortably irregular. “Will this feeling ever go away?”

“No,” Sirius says, wordlessly scourgifying Percy’s half-muddy brogues, wet with summer showers. “Because people never do.”

Percy and Charlie make near-daily walks through the forests behind their house, and, despite Percy always returning with scuffed knees and torn trousers, he makes no characteristic complaints on the state of them, simply fixing them up with magic each night until Sirius offers him a pair of jeans for the job. They’re a tad on the large side, because Percy is thin and tired-looking, but Sirius is used to taking things in with housekeeping spells and sorts him out.

“Haven’t you seen all of the forest by now?” he asks, pinching in the waist. Percy shifts.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “I like it. I like - the way that it’s quiet out there, and that you can forget what goes on at home and forget that there’s ever been something outside of the forest.” He sighs. “And I missed Charlie.”

“You mind if I come with you?” Sirius asks, trying to retain his laughter at how odd it looks: Percy, the style connoisseur, wearing black jeans stabbed with multicoloured pins and still adorned with loose thread from when they had been decorated with patches.

“No. I’d like it,” he says.

They don’t do much exciting hiking, tracing well-worn paths with bent-back trees, but Percy isn’t wrong: it’s like being somewhere else, in a world separate from the rest, and there’s a wonderful bliss to it. The only noise is the crunch of their footfalls, the shift of the tree branches in the wind, the birds singing sweetly back and forth.

Sirius has never been one for nature or quiet or reflectiveness, but suddenly he finds himself quite okay with it. He feels better almost automatically, and even Percy seems to have allowed a gentle sprinkling of his personality back through, lightly snipping at Charlie for having apparently poorly packed their sandwiches in the way that brothers do, with an easy chemistry.

“Here you go,” Percy says, passing Sirius his tuna sandwich. “We brought some mini rolls, but you can have those after.”

“What do you think I am, five?” Sirius scoffs. “I can eat my lunch in order.”

“I think you’re Sirius Black, and that you’ve been studiously avoiding eating your vegetables all week, so I thought that I ought to make sure you ate your main course this time,” Percy replies, letting through a well-meaning smirk that Sirius is surprised to find his heart flutters at. He’s not seen Percy like this, the whole time he’s been here, and it’s nice: he’s still there, still human, still playful. “And, need I remind you, no chocolate roll for you until I see those sandwiches eaten.”

“I’m older than you,” Sirius points out stubbornly, but eats the whole sandwich anyway as Charlie snickers. “There’s no mayo in this.”

“Dragons don’t like mayonnaise,” Charlie responds immediately.

“He’s not a dragon,” Percy points out. “He’s a person - though, I’ll admit, the smoking does bring to mind dragons.”

Sirius is definitely more pleased when they bring out the chocolate mini rolls, sharing a small tray of them. He battles hands with Percy as they reach for one, more playful than he’s felt in a long time, and they compromise on sharing the last one, though Sirius takes a slightly too large bite of it and receives a withering look for it.

The world crashes back down when he takes his first steps back out of the forest, though when he looks back, Percy is still pushing through the branches, and when he looks up at Sirius, he glows.

“Hey. Hey, shh, I’ve got you.”

It takes Percy what feels like an eternity to realise where he is: that he’s in his bedroom, wrapped in his duvet, and not in the middle of Hogwarts as it crashes down around him, that he’s not holding Fred’s dead body, that his dreams are just nightmares and Sirius Black is here, holding him, not screaming under a crucio that never ends. Here, in this moment, he’s okay, and Sirius’s hands are warm around his shoulders, and Fred is dead, but that’s okay because he’s not really; Percy can hear him in George’s laugh, or Bill’s, or Charlie’s, or anyone’s.

“It was just a dream,” Sirius is saying, reassuring, and Percy nods, suddenly aware that he’s sweating and that his hair is plastered to his forehead and that he must look a state. “Do you want me to go get you some water?”

“I’ll come with you,” Percy mumbles, but he can’t stop himself from wrapping his arms around Sirius first, holding tight to his warmth, listening to the beat of his heart. He misses people. He feels like he doesn’t know anyone anymore, but this, this is so close that he feels like suddenly he’s not so alone, that maybe there’s someone he can know still.

Sirius pours him a cold glass of water, and fetches Percy another set of pajamas as he showers. He knows the nightmares. He knows the fear.

The colour has returned to Percy’s face when he steps back out. He looks somehow even smaller than usual, wearing thin cotton pajamas and with his curly hair flat with damp and combed back. There’s something peculiar about Percy, a wiseness, something about him that seems old, like a fifty-year-old man in a twenty-year-old’s body, but suddenly he looks like what he is: lost, a seventeen-year-old who didn’t know what to do with himself and is suddenly too many years older and equally as lost.

He falls asleep on the sofa with a cup of tea, and Sirius lets him be. If anyone deserves that sleep, he thinks it’s Percy.

Sirius has been living in Percy’s bedroom for a flash-forward four months when Percy tells him that he’s going to move out. With Oliver Wood, Puddlemere’s Keeper; Sirius is beginning to think that he’s having a surrealist’s dream, but when he pinches himself it hurts, and when he thinks of his room without Percy it hurts worse. He’s developed an everyday, and he’s about to lose it.

“I’m sorry,” Percy says. Sirius is not quite sure how to feel, or what to say. He’s never been good at this.

“Don’t be,” he replies. He could come up with a proceeding witty comment, but they somehow all die on his tongue, because four months have both sped by and been a lifetime, but regardless, he finds it bizarrely difficult to remember what life felt like without Percy Weasley and his half-ordered room and without the sound of his asthmatic snores and without the way Sirius can just feel him in the room. It’s stupid. Sirius decides he’s thinking too hard, and yet - he can’t shake these thoughts, or these feelings.

Percy packs his bags two months later, once the finances have gone through and he’s found his place, a nice flat in a nice neighbourhood in a nice borough. He talks incessantly about it to his family, but never mentions it to Sirius.

He’s sorry he has to go, but he knows that he’s feeling too much. He can’t handle or hope to understand these feelings, and he wants instead to push them away.

But he tells Sirius how he feels now, a daily exchange born out of post-war worry that takes place cross-legged on Percy’s bed over cups of tea. Sirius has accidentally expanded a hole in a pair of jeans by tugging at it over these sessions; they couldn’t make eye contact while discussing their emotions if they wanted to. Percy can’t, in general.

“You can’t just say feelings,” Sirius says. “There are a lot of feelings out there. Describe them.”

Percy’s mind stammers over the words and grasps for them, racks itself for simple adjectives in which to summarise the swelling in his chest. It finds words he doesn’t want - words he can’t understand, either.

“I want to be honest,” he says.

“Aren’t we always?”

“Not when it’s scary.”

“Are you scared of being honest right now?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I’m scared of how you’re going to react.”

“Be honest with me.”

“I want to kiss you.”

Sirius’s breath audibly shudders. Percy looks up, but Sirius avoids his eyes. “I’m too old for you.” He knows it’s fucking bull, and Percy knows it’s fucking bull, and his heart is racing and he wants nothing more than to kiss Percy right back, bury his fists in Percy’s summer hair and push him into the mattress and never let go, because there’s nothing else left for him now but this.

So he does.

Percy moves out before Sirius wakes up.

Sirius moves out, too, eventually. He kicks dust around in Percy’s room, but everything in it is just a reminder of him, a reminder of his careful smile and that he used to sneak Ron’s chocolate pudding up to share for supper and the way he had looked on their last night together, as if, even if it was simply just for those moments, everything in him had clicked.

He doesn’t move back into Grimmauld Place; instead, he finds a cramped Diagon Alley flat above a dingy and loud pub and takes a job in a newly opening shop. He reads somewhere in the newspaper that Percy is dating Oliver.

He knows that this is good and right, that Percy is dating someone his age, someone that can make him happy. But he tears the page out and makes a paper aeroplane with it instead, and he wants to burn it but instead puts it in a drawer somewhere, one he doesn’t go into very often.

Life goes on.

Percy never forgets a date; he remembers, immaculately, when important events happened, and on precisely what day. He knows, therefore, when it’s been five years. He’s not with Oliver, anymore; he’s not even in London anymore, having left the country for a teaching job in Ilvermorny, Massachusetts. He spends his weekends wandering, with a picnic basket filled with tuna sandwiches and chocolate rolls that the students swear are intended for two people.

“Do you have a secret boyfriend, sir?” a mouthy third year Thunderbird asks him during a lesson. He taps his fingers against the solid oak of his desk.

“No,” he says. “I’m just waiting on someone.”

Five years. Percy thinks he’s waited long enough. He takes the week off school well in advance and organises work to be done in his absence that he knows will never be started, let alone completed, and cites a family meetup. He calls it a “bash”, to try and fit in, and the word feels strange on his English tongue; his students laugh, and he joins them. His laugh touches his eyes; in fact, it lights them up. He’s told to have fun.

On the five year anniversary, he knocks on Sirius’s door. He has a speech planned, because he’s Percy Weasley and he knows no other way, and it leaves his perfectly organised mind as Sirius looks at him, because he’s been waiting for this look for five years, craving it like nicotine.

“Can I be honest?” he asks. Sirius chokes on his answer, and instead nods, his eyes slowly welling. Percy has never seen him cry. “I can’t wait another second for this.”

Neither of them truly initiates the kiss, because they both do, without hesitation.

And they belong.

#i write shit #hp #sirius black #percy weasley #sirius x percy #percy x sirius #hprarepairnet #rarepair #hp rarepair #fanfic #fic #siriusprotectionsquad #userleochampagne #azkabqn #azkabcn

7 notes · View notes

cheshiresense · 7 years

Text

What if: Regulus survived his horcrux hunt, turned himself in, served out his sentence, left for America, and then doesn't hear from his home country again until years later when a snowy owl finds him at Ilvermorny?

Regulus likes Ilvermorny. It’s a castle too of course but constructed of beach-white stone and elegant palatial towers instead of the bulkier grey masonry of Hogwarts, and even at the height of winter, the weather never gets quite as dreary as the Scottish highlands are capable of. Hogwarts had its own charm, he knows, bright lights and enchantments to breathe warmth and life into the place, but if Regulus ever felt any kind of wonder or fondness for his alma mater, it’s long since been overshadowed by the powerplays and prejudice that ran rampant through all his years there.

Here in Ilvermorny, nobody gives a damn what his bloodline is, whether he’s a pureblood or a Black or even a former Death Eater. Well, they care a little bit, but not in the way Gryffindors or Order members or Slytherins or fellow purebloods back in Britain would.

Back at the beginning, after he served his five-year sentence in Azkaban for assorted crimes committed during his two years of service under Voldemort, he couldn’t leave the country fast enough, malnourished and weak and wanting nothing more than to get away from both the Light faction who looked at him like he was scum as well as the Dark faction who muttered amongst themselves about his cowardice and his betrayal to their cause, especially since – only a year after Regulus turned himself in – news of the Dark Lord’s demise spread like wildfire, even to the darkest, filthiest corners of Azkaban. Regulus witnessed himself as Death Eater after Death Eater was marched past his cell and shoved into empty ones of their own.

They spat vitriolic insults at him as soon as they saw him, and none of them appreciated the fact that Regulus received a ‘lighter’ sentence due to his voluntary admission of guilt. Not to mention turning himself in before the war ended and the Light side gained the power to come down hard on anything and anyone remotely connected to the Dark.

Not that it helped even after his prison sentence ended. Aurors still shadowed him more often than not, Light witches and wizards viewed him with superior disdain, and more than one former Death Eater or Dark supporter were no doubt already planning an AK at his back the first opportunity they got. Regulus simply couldn’t live like that. Oh, he probably could’ve holed himself up in Grimmauld Place or some other Black property, but who was to say Sirius wouldn’t hunt him down and reap further payment of his own? Regulus didn’t have anything to do with the Dark Lord setting his sights on the Potter family, but he knew his own brother well enough to realize there would be little difference to Sirius. Slytherin meant Dark, Dark meant evil, and evil didn’t change.

So Regulus left. Visited his parents’ graves briefly, put his affairs in order, withdrew every last bit of gold that hadn’t gone towards the fine he’d had to pay along with five years of his life, and picked a place as far away from Britain as logically possible. America felt almost far enough, and so to the United States he went after rushing an international portkey through. The authorities were still suspicious of him, but Regulus had paid for his mistakes, he wasn’t doing anything illegal, and if nothing else, he was Lord Black, and prison or no, that still carried some weight in pureblood circles, Light or Dark.

He spent the two months after that living out of a tiny room above a bookshop owned by a stern old squib, alternating between trying to decide how much his status as a former convict would work against him if he tried to look for a job and drinking himself into oblivion in an attempt to drown out the rotted corpses and rattling breaths of inferi and dementors in his nightmares.

He was probably luckier than he deserved when a fight between a group of aurors and their runaway target confronted each other on the street right outside. The resulting spell damage destroyed a part of the bookshop, and Regulus – in a fit of charitable insanity – offered to fix it for her. And then, just so he won’t have to do it again, he adds a few runes to the building, and by the time a team from MACUSA came by to sort out the rubble, the bookshop was the only place that looked as good as new. Two weeks later, when the shop selling potions two doors down exploded in a spectacular fashion due to a brewing mishap that thankfully didn’t kill anyone but did start a fire that damaged all the buildings around it, Miriam’s bookshop remained pristine and entirely unsinged.

So of course, people noticed. His neighbours, for one, started enquiring about him, and they even offered to pay him for his services if he could do the same for their homes and establishments. And in Regulus’ opinion, you can never have too much money, and it wasn’t even that much out of his way, so he agreed.

A week after he warded every building on his block, a man came by the bookshop, caught Regulus coming in through the door, and promptly introduced himself as Agilbert Fontaine, the headmaster of Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He’d heard – from a friend of a friend – about a wizard talented with runes, and it just so happened that there was an opening at his school.

The rest was history. Regulus had never taught anyone in his life and was all set to refuse, but – as he’d soon learned – Fontaine was not a man willing to give up on any goal he’d set his sights on, and that included the teaching position he had to fill before the term began in September.

Regulus told him that he was British. Fontaine raised an eyebrow as if to say yes, I figured that out myself, thank you.

So Regulus told him he might as well have just graduated because he’d been in jail for the past five years and only left Hogwarts less than two years before that. He told him he’d been a Death Eater.

Fontaine proceeded to whip out a file with all of Regulus’ records and credentials – that he’d gotten from a friend of a friend, of course – and assured him he already knew and didn’t care. Well he did care, but mostly only about the bit on Regulus’ final exam scores. All NEWTs, straight O’s, a glowing recommendation from both his Runes professor and the examiner because Regulus invented a whole new ward just for his exam, and apparently, Ilvermorny could use someone like that on the roster.

“You’re that Black, aren’t you?” Fontaine had said afterwards, studying Regulus thoughtfully. “The one who turned himself in? Yeah, we heard about that. Anyone with any sense kept an ear on that war, and word has it you were the only one who walked away from that crazy dark lord. It made papers for a while. So it’s fine. I can respect a man who can own up to his mistakes, and you’ve been here three months and done nothing but help out a bunch of strangers practically for free – I heard from a friend of a friend.”

Regulus really wanted to know what kind of friends Fontaine had but he felt it wasn’t his place to ask. He would’ve needed to hand over the files that the American wizard already had on him anyway if he’d applied for the post.

Still, Regulus tried to refuse. Fontaine didn’t care. He came back every day to nag until Regulus finally gave in, because it was so annoying. It helped that Fontaine wasn’t at all like Dumbledore. The American was manipulative and dogged in his pursuit, but he lacked the puppet-master air that Dumbledore always tried to hide behind twinkly eyes and wise-man persona.

Also, between the nosy arsehole’s visits and his warding jobs around the neighbourhood, he had no time to drink himself into a stupor anymore.

Ilvermorny was different from the beginning. The students were perhaps the most disarming, or rather, how they interacted. They were separated into four Houses as well, just like Hogwarts’ students, but while there was rivalry and typical teenage arguments and petty falling-outs, nobody hurt or humiliated each other because of their blood status or surname or even House. The term muggleborn didn’t even exist in their vocabulary.

The staff itself was welcoming enough, some friendlier than others, and if they knew Regulus was a former Death Eater, none of them mentioned it. They didn’t seem particularly prejudiced, nor did they treat him differently when they heard his last name. There was even a muggle – a no-maj – teaching No-Maj Studies. Regulus had no idea how to react to that when he first realized, so he didn’t react at all. His mother’s more… painful lessons certainly came in handy more than once. He’d never talked to a muggle in his entire life, and suddenly, he was expected to work beside one.

But eventually, he adapted. The years passed, Regulus learned more about American customs and way of life, their jargon and beliefs, and even though he was planning on teaching for perhaps a year or two, he ended up staying. No thanks to Fontaine of course, who kept piling work on him whenever Regulus thought about bringing up the termination of his teaching contract with the blasted man. But he also gained favourite students and even friendly acquaintances amongst the professors, and somewhere along the way, Regulus stopped wanting to leave.

He found peace here, sometime between lessons and grading and grabbing a round of drinks with a few of his friends who’ve seen the ugly mark on his arm but don’t hold it against him.

Nine years down the road, Regulus is still at Ilvermorny, currently sitting on his usual perch on one of the tower roofs, waiting for the first light of dawn. He’s always been an early riser, and once he found out how beautiful the sunrises are in these mountains, it’s become tradition to come up here and enjoy a few hours alone with the brightening sky.

And that’s where the owl finds him. It appears on the pale orange horizon, a dot at first, then a vaguely bird-like shape, then finally Regulus makes out the powerful curve of its wings and the snow white feathers with black markings on its front.

He thinks, at first, that it’s carrying post for one of the students, or even one of the other professors, but the owl circles once around the castle, banks down, and heads straight towards him.

Reflexively, Regulus extends an arm, barely feeling its claws through the sleeve of his robes as it lands with a hoot. A letter is attached to its leg, and Regulus sees his name on the envelope, written in black ink, the penmanship more chicken scratch than anything Regulus has seen in years.

There’s nothing that indicates what it might contain, and yet, something about the thick parchment makes him tense in a way he hasn’t been since he made a new life for himself in Ilvermorny. Nobody sends him mail unless it’s school- or ministry-related. His home is here now – Fontaine even allows him to stay over the summer – and his friends all have other means to contact him that are quicker than owl-post.

Slowly, he detaches it from the owl, who – job done for the moment – hops off his arm and onto the roof, clearly awaiting a reply. For a minute, Regulus debates setting the letter on fire and never reading it. Then he decides that that response is definitely too dramatic, and his paranoia is probably getting the better of him again.

He runs a thumb along the sealed edge of the envelope before slipping it into his robes and returning his attention to the surrounding mountain range.

Maybe it really is just paranoia. But his instincts tell him that he’s not going to like the contents, and he’s not about to ruin his morning routine by opening it now. There’s plenty of time for that later.

#hp series #regulus black #myscrap #professor regulus verse

383 notes · View notes

drarryismyoteap-blog · 7 years

Text

Sirius didn't expect it to happen so soon. He didn't expect it to happen at all. He hated himself. Why was he so bloody stupid?! Thinking that he could actually go through his Gryffindor school years smoothly, without problems. He. Was. Bloody. Wrong. His name was blasted off the Black family tree, despite the pleas of Regulus and Narcissa. Not even the letter that Andromeda Tonks wrote to the household begging for her not to do it worked. Bellatrix, engaged to disgusting Rodulphus, was said to smirk in pride when Sirius's own freaking mother did it. The act of permenantly making Sirius an outcast. Sirius Black, is no longer part of his family. Even if he hated it, rebelled against it, fought against their traditions, he never expected it to come down so harshly to this. Sirius, mad with grief, ripped off his Gryffindor tie, cheeks stained with tears, his concerned younger brother pounding the portrait of the Fat Lady, attempting to get into the Gryffindor Common Room. Sirius blocked out Regulus's panicked voice, and he just lay in bed, crying. His sobs were muffled with a pillow as he just lay in bed crying. What surname will he use now? He can't just be known as Sirius. What was the reaction of his other family members? Graduation day is a week away, what name will he use? Did he really deserve this? A million questions ran through his mind. He must have fallen asleep as Remus was shaking Sirius, gently saying, "Siri, it's time for dinner." Surrounding him was James without his usual playful grin and Peter who was looking at the ground, not meeting Sirius gaze with confidence anymore. Sirius pushed off Remus's hand and turned to the other side of his bed. "I'm not hungry." He murmured. "Padfoot, please." Sirius automatically knew it was James. Sirius half-heartingly shook his head. He just wanted to be swallowed by the shadows, and die. After a few more useless prodding, Peter and James sighed and they got up to leave. They knew Sirius still needed time to recover. "How about I bring dinner up to you?" Remus said, lowering himself down to Sirius's eye level. There was something inside Remus's voice that Sirius just couldn't place and an odd glint sparkled in his amber eyes. "Fine." Sirius gave in, causing Remus to break out in a cute little laugh that caused Sirius's right side of his lip to twitch up. Half an hour later, Remus came up, holding a few dishes and a few others are floating with a hovering charm. Sirius's mouth involuntarily watered at the sight. There was Turkey covered in cherry gravy, pineapple rice, mango peach smoothie and there was even Treakle Tart covered in strawberry and chocolate sauce. A cube of red cheese (made by Red Cows in England) also lay near the Treakle Tart. His boyfriend smirked, "Dig in." Sirius must have been hungrier than he thought because he devoured the dishes, with Remus watching at the end of the bed. Soon, he reached the last part of the meal. The red cheese cube. He bit into it, only to find something weird inside. He took that weird part out, and there was a piece of paper. Heart pounding, Sirius slowly unwrapped the note. It said, "Do you want to be my husband or is this too cheesy for you?" Sirius screamed of joy as he covered his mouth with his hand. He grabbed Remus's neck and hugged him tightly. Sirius was crying again. Merlin, he's such a baby. Crying all day, but he didn't care. This is the happiest/saddest day of his life, it's weird and confusing, but great. "I guess this is a yes?" Remus patted Sirius's silky hair. Sirius nodded with new found enthusiasm. Remus said, "Sorry about having no ring, I just planned it today. Afterall, by Ministry of Magic you'll have no surname. Don't worry about underage marriage and all that. Rule #1783 of..." Sirius tried to pay attention to the speech of his new husband. But he couldn't. He just looked at his beautiful Remus and kissed his pink lips. Perfect. GRADUATION DAY Sirius smiled at Remus. Nobody, not even his friends, knowed that Remus proposed to him. Afterall, Sirius was only at the Gryffindor Dorm for the past week With only Remus. Doing... stuff. He sat down, grinning at a James who were doing a secret Thumbs Up and Peter who waved at him. They all shared a barely concealed laugh. The day before the Graduation Ceremony, Sirius got out of the Gryffindor Dorm to spend time with a happy Peter and James. They planned to shoot fireworks when Sirius's name was called (although the two boys didn't know why). They also planned to make a speech at the end of the Graduation Ceremony. "Sikhil Plarte!" Professor Dumbledore called out. A Racenclaw boy scrambled up to the stage. Sirius chewed his lips nervously. He was next. He planned to reveal his engagement when his name was called out. What happen if the reactions weren't good? But it was too late to change anything. "Next up, is Sirius Lupin!...?" Proffesor Dumbledore squinted at his name, as if it was another prank, but it wasn't. Fireworks exploded into the air, and all the students cheered for Sirius who was grinning wildly on stage. "Are you serious?" Proffesor Mcgonagall paced up the stage asking, but when she saw Sirius about to open his mouth to make the pun, she switched, "Is this true?" Sirius nodded with happiness. Proffesor Dumbledore held out his right hand smiling at Professor Mcgonagall. She grumbled and fished out from her pockets 10 galleons and gave it to him. Remus climbed on stage and kissed Sirius to confirm that yes, they were engaged. James, Peter, Lily and Marlene congratulated them. A few girls in the audience grumbled as they wanted to have Sirius and a few homophobic boys booed and threw things at the snogging couple. Sirius didn't care. He had Remus. And besides, they were already hexed fiercly by James and Lily, with Peter and Marlene helping to hide the breathing bodies. Sirius and Remus gasped for air as they break off their kiss. Headmaster went on stage and used a Sonerus charm, he boomed, "Students! Calm down! The Graduation Ceremony will continue on!" After 10 minutes of patting the husbands on their backs, everybody settled down. "Lastly, Zyna Morich!" A Slytherin girl shook hands with Professor Dumbledore and collected her certificate. It's the last day of Hogwarts. Teachers are attempting not to cry. "Let's lighten the mood, shall we?" Remus hollered to break the silence. The marauders +Lily went up on stage. Filch tried to get out his seat to catch the "rascals" but to no avail. He was glued to his seat. James hollered cheerfully, "Hello friends, teachers, Headmasters, enemies and people I have no idea who they are!" A ripple of laughter broke out. "Well, I'd like to tell you that after 7 years of Hogwarts, Lily is finally my girlfriend!" A certain Slytherin (*cough* Snivellus *cough*) booed and jeered. "One surprising thing is that we became friends with the Slytherins! It may have or have not happen because Proffesor Mcgonagall promised to reward Gryffindor 75 points for interhouse unity!" The Slytherins and Gryffindors laughed as an outraged Professor Mcgonagall struggled to get out of her seat. "We were also known to be, Quote by Professor Sparrow, 'The most horrible students she ever met'. Whoop!" Hollered Peter. Sirius took over and looked at Filch. "Hey Filch! You made our days at Hogwarts fun and exciting because we keep on running away from you! So we decided to give you this." Remus walked over to a grumbling Filch and gave him a cute baby cat. Filch's face became red and Remus thought he said "Mrs. Norris". Lily winked and smiled sweetly, "Bye peeps! We may or may not have caused the explosion in the Great Hall that had everybody to say things in rhyme for three days!" And the 5 disapparated away (Headmaster had removen the barrier as parents wanted to watch the students) cackling with glee. Everybody sat in shock as they processed Lily's words. Then, they became furious and tried to follow them but they were stuck to their chairs. It took two hours to undo the complicated spell which includes reversing a potion effect on the chairs (Professor Slughorn and Mcgonagall was mildly impressed). THE END

0 notes