Fan Fiction ❯ Starfall, Moonset ❯ Not Enough ( Chapter 6 )

Disclaimer: Don't own them, if I did I wouldn't be a poor college student

Starfall, Moonset

Chapter Six:

Not Enough

By: Irish

Sirius was spending the day the way he always spent his day, lounging inside on the couch that was still doubling as Remus's bed, reading a book. He was getting bloody sick of reading, but Remus didn't have a whole lot of other options for entertainment. The muggle radio had fascinated him for several days… but it didn't talk back when he asked it questions, so now his days were spent following a patch of sun about the living room. Sometimes he popped into Padfoot to better enjoy the sun or to slip outside and get a little exercise, but even swimming in the pond was getting old, then again, it wasn't Azkaban, how bad could it be?

Today had been just like any other in this last week. Remus left before dawn to help a neighboring farmer take in his crops. It was harvesting season, and for once Remus had no problem finding muggle work, and muggle work paid the bills just as well as Wizarding jobs. Sirius had wakened much later and had fed the hippogriff, and mucked out its stall, promising a romp later that evening, then had taken a bath. After dressing in clothes three sizes too big and a decade out of style he ate the muffins and fruit Remus had lain out for his breakfast with a note detailing what farm he would be at, from what time until what time, any errands he had to run, and what time he would be home. Some times there were instructions on what leftovers he was to reheat for lunch and how he was to do it, or something he was to start for dinner. Sirius really didn't mind the detailed instructions; he knew it was Remus's way of showing affection, having all the details taken care of so Sirius didn't have to worry.

He wasn't expecting Remus home until after dark, in fact there had been a gentle request for Sirius to cook dinner, if he didn't mind terribly, in a postscript to today's note. Sirius had settled in for another long boring day, and a tense awkward evening, the routine that the two of them had so easily fallen into, dancing around the shards of their former lives.

He had started to doze off over the book, his head drooping, and his silhouette in relief on the floor when the door flew open with a bang.

"Bloody Hell Remus!"

"Sirius!" Remus stood in the doorway of the cottage, hands braced on either side, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath; he had obviously run some distance. "Sirius, dementors!"

Sirius froze, just plain froze, to the spot, fear rooting him. Remus bent double trying to catch his breath yet, and Sirius wondered vaguely how far the man had run.

"Wh-what do we do?" His brain was stuck in neutral.

"Shift…. to Padfoot…. I have… a place…." Remus wheezed striding to the couch and grabbing Sirius by the arm hauling him to the magic door. "Stable!" Remus threw open the door to the hippogriffs paddock. The animal jumped and skittered, rearing up.

"Buckbeak, behave, please, not now!" Sirius pleaded as Remus shoved the animal aside with out a thought, not noticing how close he came to loosing a limb, throwing open a hidden door in the floor.

"Take Buckbeak down, and change into Padfoot, hurry, they are coming!" Remus was literally shoving both of them into the dark hole. Both Sirius and Buckbeak balked, but Remus didn't let that stop him, a hand on Buckbeak's rump and one on Sirius back, shoving them relentlessly into the dark. Finally Sirius gathered some part of his mind and guided the hippogriff down the few short stairs into the cellar type area, before he shifted into Padfoot and crouched down, listening as Remus threw straw over the door and left the room.

Padfoot had almost no sense of time. All he knew that it was dark and he was scared, and that the hippogriff next to him was prancing and whining. He was waiting for the nice man, for Moony, to come release him from the prison like cellar. He couldn't help but whimper himself.

"I am not hiding Black. You have no documentation to search my private residence. I am asking you to leave at once." Remus said firmly to the three black robed figures in his living room, his wand in hand. One of the dementors raised a hand slowly, holding open a piece of parchment to ministry werewolf legislation 1283, section Q: All werewolves are subject to be searched at any time. Another piece of garbage that made him less than human. "Fine then, search away." Remus stepped back trying to look angry, while he trembled inside.

It took them fifteen minutes to search the main room, his bedroom, figure out it was a magic door, and search every room but the stable. When they opened the door on the stable, Remus's breath caught. Gods, let Sirius be silent and conscious, if he reacted too strongly to the dementors, and passed out… he would turn to human form, and then it would be all over.

"See, no Black, now kindly leave. There is nothing left to search."

Below his feet Padfoot trembled, trying desperately hard not to whine. Moony stood over him now, Moony would protect him. The nice gentle man wouldn't let him be hurt. Padfoot trembled, tail between his legs as his body started to go numb. They were there right over him…. he needed to stay conscious, needed to stay as Padfoot, so the bad things wouldn't find him…

When Remus was finally able to rush down to the cellar, he almost got killed by Buckbeak, who he pushed aside roughly, kneeling by the large prone form of Padfoot. His furry body jerked and trembled gray eyes rolled back in his head, half convulsing.

"Shite…." Remus muttered seeing the condition his friend was in. Sirius had done the best he could, but he was in a bad way. How had he lived through twelve years of this? Remus knelt and scooped the trembling dog into his arms, gripping his fur, as a comfort to himself as he carried the dog up to their bedroom, laying him on the bed, still twitching violently and whimpering.

"Shhh, Padfoot, they are gone now, come on." Remus whispered sitting on the bed beside the dog, stroking his thin fur with long slow strokes, trying to sooth the dog, relax him. His poor Padfoot. Both hands moved in long stroking motions down the canine's side, firm caressing touches that would, under other circumstances, have had Padfoot whining for more. They did manage to calm him some as Remus's strong hands continued to sooth over him. Remus sighed softly, when would this hell be over?

"I'm okay." Sirius voice crunched like wheels on gravel. The fur under Remus's caressing hand had turned to threadbare ware of the fabric of his robe. Remus's started so hard he almost leapt off the mattress, his own heart not yet calmed.

"Si, Gods! You scared me." Remus chuckled, but it was a near hysterical sound, his heart in his throat, pitching his voice higher.

"Sorry mate." Sirius mumbled through teeth that chattered violently, as if cold. Remus knew though that it was fear.

"Easy there Sirius, easy, they are gone now. Try and calm yourself." He scooted next to him again, stroking sable black locks from a clammy brow. "Let me get you some hot chocolate, you are quivering all over." Remus's voice was like water over smooth rock calm and cool, his feeling hands that searched lightly over Sirius's body for injury, fever or clamminess, were light and warm.

"No!" It came out a frantic gasp like a man breaching the surface of the water that would drown him, and taking his first breath. Sirius swallowed and tried again. "No… you are better for me then chocolate… you don't have any handy?" Sirius knew his memories were dodgy at best, but unless Remus had changed very drastically, he always kept a bar or three of chocolate in his night table.

"Yes… suck on it though, I don't trust you to swallow right now." Remus sighed reaching over and across Sirius prone form, still turned on his side, for a half eaten bar on the bedside table. He broke off a piece and held it to Sirius's lips, feeding it to him with competent fingers.

"Mother Hen much?" Sirius grumbled as he took the rectangular morsel, leaving it to melt in his mouth as instructed. "I'm just a bit shaken, I'm not bloody dying." Bad choice of words, and Sirius shuddered harder, he wasn't dead, but he could have been.

"All right." Remus shrugged setting the candy bar in Sirius's reach, sitting back and away from him a bit, letting him be 'independent'. The wizard reached for the bar with a hand that shook so bad it looked palsied, he fingered the bar weakly, unable to get a grip, or strength to break off the corner, he picked it up and dropped it several times before admitting defeat and leaving it lay.

"Fuck you for always being right Moony. Do you ever get tired of it?"

"Regularly. Its not like I glory in seeing you like this?" Remus's hand closed around Sirius's that twitched on the quilt like a live thing, and tucked it against Sirius's chest, fingers lingering to feel his pulse, which beat hard and fast against the thin, pale flesh. "Your heart is racing… Sirius…" Remus's tone had gone from mild, and detached professionalism, to serious concern. "Were you like this the entire time you were in Azkaban?"

"No… just since… since Buckbeak and I escaped, when Harry saved me… I… Merlin, its like this uncontrollable phobia… Moony, what the hell is wrong with me?" Sirius tensed trying to still the shivers that were still wracking him, and clench his jaw against trembling teeth.

"Nothing unexpected… just… well I suppose it's a panic attack of sorts." Remus offered him another bite of chocolate, which Sirius accepted with out protest. "I mean, generally panic attacks are defined as an uncontrollable, unreasonable attack of anxiety, leading to physical symptoms, because of an excessive amount of adrenalin. Though you have a very logical and proportional level of fear, but, same idea I think."

Like his description of autoerotic asphyxiation, the clinical definition of his circumstance eased Sirius somewhat; the known was somehow less frightening. Remus's encyclopedic knowledge pulling his arse from the fire once again. How many times had he and James relied on that knowledge and accepted it with out question?

"Right… thanks…" Sirius closed his eyes, trying to relax, the chocolate helping to some degree, as did the words for his current condition, easing him enough that his teeth stopped chattering and he was able to breath again. He felt Remus stroke back his hair, smoothing it with a heavy hand, slicking it back and away from his face, adjusting the pillow under his head so he was in a more natural position. Remus his caretaker. Really, Remus had been caretaker to all of them; they were only able to repay the favor once a month. Sirius sighed and concentrated on even breaths, and the warmth spreading from his mouth to the rest of his body from the spread of the chocolate through out his system. He would live through this, all of this. Someday his name would be cleared, and he and Harry would have a cottage in Hogsmead, and he would be an Auror again, and life would be like it should be… mostly. Someday, the Marauders would get back up with out being kicked down.

Remus watched as his tentative friend, once lover, found a calm even breath and stuck to it, his heart rate slowing. Taking his pulse had really just been a formality, with the moon waxing again; he could hear the man's thundering heartbeat like the gallop of hooves. Remus's own hands were trembling slightly, a panic of his own, an anger of his own, surging like the wolf inside him and howling for release. But holding on was all Remus had ever known, and so he held on, gripping the same downhill slope he had dug his nails into the day he heard the Potter's were dead, Sirius was in Azkaban, and he was being 'released from his duty to the ministry' as an Auror.

He remembered being a child, in his tiny bed in the tiny cabin at the edge of the sea on the edge of Ireland. He remembered the way she would hold him when he would wake in the night, screaming and thrashing in the throws of his own panic attacks, how she would hold him and sing softly, her strong hands smoothing down his arms and legs and chest in heavy petting strokes. He remembered the pressure of those caresses, how they had forced his muscles to relax, how the weight of the touch had reassured him. It was a sort of massage, he supposed. Molly Lupin had said she had done it to him to sooth him as a baby, as her mother had done for her and all her siblings.

He started at Sirius's shoulder, petting him the same way he had when the wizard had been Padfoot, long heavy strokes, allowing him to feel every knot of tensed muscle, the knobbiness of his elbow, the scant flesh over his ribs. Far too weighty a touch for a lover's caress, and Remus thought he might have hit on something here. It wasn't too intimate, just soothing, relaxing, as was evidence by Sirius's soft, Padfoot like chuff of contentment. Yes, this was working.

He took Sirius's bony arm between both hands and smoothed down along his arm, pressing firmly, popping the joints a little, which another sigh from Sirius, indicated he found pleasurable. The werewolf kept up the massaging caress on the arm until it was limp and lax, the trembling stopped by lack of muscle tone.

"What are you doing Remus?"

"Something my mother did to me. Call it the ancient art of half arsed Irish massage." Remus replied, not leaving room for Padfoot to be clever as he started in on a bony side.

"It feels damn good. Thank you."

Remus smiled slightly, "You are welcome Padfoot, as always."

The slow heavy strokes were wonderful, rubbing away Sirius's anxiety and fear, making him sleepy with the sudden loss of adrenalin. Feeling Remus manipulate his limbs, bending them, soothing the muscles, relaxing them, turning Sirius into a string-cut marionette to his pack-mates capable hands. He couldn't help but giggle slightly, when he felt Remus's hands cradling his head, rolling it gently, using the joint with out using any of Sirius muscles. It tickled oddly and immediately relieved the headache that had been starting to form in the absents of adrenalin, whatever Remmy was doing was definitely releasing some very calming endorphins.

"There, how do you feel now? Because it feel's like you're asleep to me." Remus's hands were now running twisting Sirius's hips gently, causing things to crackle in his back, like bursting bubbles of pain that suddenly eased a tension and compression he didn't even know he was feeling. He marveled a moment at Moony's strength to manipulate the dead weight of his body like that. Then again this was a man nearing forty who could still pick himself up off the ground after a full moon and tend his own injuries.

"Feels better then a-" He had been about to say 'tight whore' but thought his Moony might be a bit offended at that. "A cheering charm. Your mother taught you that?"

"Well the rubbing, like this…" He demonstrated again on Sirius's arm. "Apparently its used on infants mostly, but she was still doing it to me when was home for the summer before our seventh year, so… but the rest of that, I worked, for a short time with special needs wizarding children, we did a lot of that as physical therapy."

"Oh wonderful so you treated me like a retarded baby."

"And I am the cynical bastard? I think you need more chocolate." Remus sighed forcing a piece between Sirius's lips before the man could object, or speak at all for that matter. He moved to the edge of the bed, and stood smoothing out his muggle jeans, which he was starting to notice smelled like a barnyard, and the t-shirt that smelled rather strongly of sweat. "You nap. I have a field to finish harvesting."

"Wait, Rem…" Sirius rolled his head towards Remus, cracking an eye. "Are things really so bad, that you have to be a field hand for muggles?"

"Would I be doing it if they weren't? Listen my picture was all over the Prophet… I have been outed, in every possible meaning of the word. And if the Ministry was aware I was working at all, I would probably be shipped off to a werewolf retaining camp faster then you can say Quiditch. Or would have a fall down the stairs and land on a silver bullet, if you catch my drift. I do everything I can to make a living, short of whoring, and don't think there hasn't been times when that's been starting to look like a pretty good option." Remus sighed heavily running his hands through his silver streaked hair.

"Remus… I'm sorry for what has happened, all of it…." Sirius looked up at his friend with a soft sigh, steel and blue eyes full remorse for what could have been, and what had fallen by the wayside, dreams that were lost to reality.

"Si… don't be, this is none of your fault. There is only one… no make that two, living men that can be blamed for this… Tom Riddle and Peter Pettigrew. And everything else is our own poor choices and the substance of reality. You and I… we have been giving a second chance, we are the tattered remnants of the Marauders… and I plan to… well hell I don't know what. I've been kicked down, but I am not staying there. Neither should you. For good or ill, our fates are twined. I will see you this evening Sirius."

Sirius lay back, closing his eyes again. What had happened to their lives? Remus had once talked of woven fate… that the four Marauders were fate brothers. He had called it many things, relating it to many books, calling them The Fellowship, after the Lord or the Rings, a set of books by some muggle, but the books were popular even in the wizarding world, or Ka-tet, after some nutter American who was known for his horror. Ka-tet apparently meant Fate Mates or something along those lines. What happened when the fellowship was broken to betrayal. Only their Brodimir had not died in honor, he had not died at all. No, their betrayer, their Judas, was sitting at the right hand of… well… Sirius had run out of extended literary metaphors, but Judas, Bordimir, they were both one thing, the worst thing, oath breakers. And the lowest rings of hell were reserved for oath breakers and mutineers.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The thunder rolled. It was the wet season in England, if there could be said to be such. It was predawn and postnight, the light hovering in limbo, waiting for a cue that would never come on an over cast day like this. Remus had seen the sun down, and would see it rise again this morning. The moon was growing pregnant in the sky, clouds or no, Remus knew that by the ache in his bones that was more then just the rheumatism that was setting in. He was not restless, but sleep was still a fickle lover. He lay on the couch, as he had for the last month, wearing only a pair of jeans gone so soft they might as well have been pajamas. He felt too vulnerable these days to let Sirius catch him any less dressed then that.

The curtains were tied back, showing him the sky and countryside and the lightening that danced closer. Dawn would turn dark today, and with any luck lighten around noon. But neither he nor his Sirius had any luck, so it would pour the day long. Sirius had been quiet in the night, giving Remus no distraction from an endless parade of memories. Moments of utter humiliation, embarrassment and pain. Like when he had transformed in front of Harry, what he must have looked like… thank the Stars that he had yet to speak to the boy. He wasn't sure he could look him, or any of the others, in the eye again.

Hermione wrote him weekly. It surprised him at first, but after a thought, he realized that he shouldn't have been. It took him four weeks to respond, finally spurred into action when on the fourth week; no owl had brought him a letter from her. So he had written back, and kept to pleasantries, which took two hours to find and expand into a respectable length letter. Today a school owl would arrive from her, and he would read it, and smile that anyone thought of him fondly yet. And then he would agonize over what to tell her for two days, and finally send an owl back.

As if summoned, a bored looking screech owl rapped on his window, blinking at him, demanding breakfast with his body language. Remus went over to the window and lifted it, letting the raptor in, taking the letter from it carefully.

"I'm sorry, I don't have much to give you, will you take stale bread I had planned for the ducks? Oh don't look at me like that, they feed you at the school, I know they do." Remus found a full slice of the least stale bread he had set aside for the ducks, and gave it to the owl. "My thanks, truly, fly safe, storms coming." Remus sighed as the owl rolled his large eyes before taking off with his sub par tip.

"Ruddy owl." He muttered scratching his chest as he waved he filled his favorite mug with water and a tea bag, waving his wand over it in a circular flick to heat the water. It wasn't exactly high class, but this wasn't exactly the Queen's Palace, either. Stowing his wand and picking up the mug he padded out onto his porch, feeling the oncoming storm like a wet blanket on his shoulders. His hair, though too straight to frizz, started to stand on end. He didn't bother to adjust it, who was he trying to impress?

Leaning back against his little cottage, he hooked a thumb in the waist band of his jeans, sipping at his tea, liking the feel of the worn wood against his feet, which were starting to look a bit hobbitish as the full moon neared. The hair on his chest also felt thicker, not that that took much. Setting his tea on the porch rail he unfolded the letter, written on a plain parchment, in a neat, functional handwriting, no frills, no decorations, just words. It made Remus smile in a slow way. Hermione was so… unique, and had so obviously not fully hit puberty.

The letter was simple and sincere, if incredibly thorough, as though she was reporting to a teacher on sabbatical. He wondered if she harbored some hope that that was the case. It wasn't, he would never teach again, as much as he had loved it. He wouldn't let himself, even if the ministry would. She asked him several questions, and answered the handful he had asked her himself in his last letter. He was a bit more startled when he got to the end of the letter, where after signing off there was a very lengthy postscript, not directly asking if she could come to visit, but hedging around it. Yes, Hermione was very Unique.

He folded the parchment and envelope in half and stuck it in the back pocket of his jeans, the paper sharing a pocket with his wand. The rail for the weather stained porch was wide, and he hopped up onto it with the grace of a younger man, neither spilling his tea, nor blasting off his buttocks as Moody had oft predicted in his Auror days. He reclined back against a wooden post, his legs stretched before him and crossed at the ankle as thunder peeled overhead. He could smell the rain, and figured he had fifteen minutes before the clouds broke; maybe a half hour before the storm took hold.

It wasn't a window seat, per say, but it was a recessed window big enough for Remus so sit on, his hips narrow enough to fit on the ledge, as long as he crossed his legs at the ankles for balance. The window was open, the pane thrown wide, and the smell of rain and soil and wet wood greeted his nose, wet animals too. He liked the rain, or the snow, the wind, anything. Anything of nature that could turn from beautiful to murderous in an unseen moment. The difference between a wolf and a werewolf. He heard James's steps, though James thought he was being stealthy, and he lowered one leg to the ground. As expected, Jamie ran forward to play-shove him out the window. Remus didn't even blink.

"Good Quiddich, mate?"

"I can never scare you. Peter would have screamed like a girl." James pouted. Sirius would have screamed like a girl too, Remus knew. Sirius's voice was taking a particular long time to finish changing and even at seventeen, he squeaked like a clarinet, and screamed like a girl.

"Better luck next time." He clapped James on a sweaty shoulder. "Date with Lily?"

James nodded, pushing his glasses up on his nose. "I'm taking her in to Hogsmead, I've got a reservation at the Pegasus." He grinned wickedly, and Remus didn't bother to ask: A. how they were sneaking out to go on a date, and B. How he had managed to reservations at the posh-est restaurant in town.

"Better wash up then." Remus smiled, but it was a small smile, his Mona Lisa smile. He hoped Prongs would take the hint and bugger off. The moon tonight would be so close to full, that it would look that way. He wasn't exactly dangerous at this time, but he was certainly cranky.

"Oy, good plan. Careful sitting there though Remus, for s-e-r-i -o-u-s." It was an inside joke, an attempt to draw out more then that Mona Lisa quirk, to draw a rare, genuine grin. But Remus could not supply it, and made it up by clapping James on the shoulder again.

"Have fun tonight." He said, before turning back to look out the open window. Prongs said something else, some salutation, but it was lost to Remus as he watched the deep green grass of Hogwarts in spring.

If had known then what he knew now, he thought that he would have heard those words that James had said, that casual salutation. Because he wanted every word, every moment of James, and Lily, and that life. He wanted every detail, every sense of it, because those moments were all he had left. Sirius was back, out of Azkaban, and pardoned, at least to those who knew him, but Remus was the last of their fellowship, the last of their Ka-tet. The last of their kind. And he held their secrets, their treasures, the boyhood (and in Lily's case, girlhood) of the five of them safe, held it secret.

Another sip found his tea cold, and his arm wet, as the rain had started, gone unnoticed by the Traveler. Time slipped through his fingers and his mind like water, in a way that he barely noticed sometimes. His hand settled back in its original place, the rain drops running over the flesh of his arm, making it prick, and wetting down the moon-thickened hair there, over the back of his palm, and into his teacup.