Chanson d'Hiver

Sirius hadn’t thought much of the seating arrangements when they’d first arrived at the pub. He was kicking himself for that now, internally berating himself for not planning ahead, for not ensuring that James and Lily and Regulus were not trapped awkwardly at the other end of the crowded table.

If he was being honest, he hadn’t even expected Regulus to show up after his performance that afternoon. Sirius knew his brother—he was observant nearly to a fault, cunning, and astute enough to notice that something was going on between Lily and James.

Sirius’s eyes had nearly popped out of his head when Regulus prowled in, outfitted entirely in black, from his boots to the fitted turtleneck sweater he wore under his long coat. His expression was cold, lethal, and he floated elegantly over to the table without so much as looking at James. It was a far cry from the afternoon’s delighted laughter—so carefree that Sirius swore he hadn’t heard anything like that from his little brother since they were children.

For his part, Sirius was a bit vexed by this Lily Evans. Not only had he listened to his best mate moon over this bird for what felt like eternity, but she could never be bothered to spare him more than a cursory glance. And now here she was, leaning over the table to emphasize her cleavage and giving James seductive looks from behind her curtain of hair. Sirius had narrowed his eyes then, watching Regulus grow colder and colder—a sure sign of inner turmoil.

It wasn’t until Sirius was in the middle of singing “Somebody to Love” that he realized his subconscious could’ve done a better job of selecting a song that wouldn’t make it feel like he was the bloody soundtrack to the tension emanating from Regulus, James, and Lily’s corner of the table. He gripped the microphone tightly, trying to relax, remembering that Remus was there.

Sirius’s eyes lifted to where Remus was leaned back against the booth, arms crossed, long legs stretched in front of him and crossed over at the ankles, and an expression on his face that made Sirius want to drop the mic and straddle Remus, right in front of the entire pub. His face heated, and he pulled his gaze from Remus momentarily.  

As his song was ending, he watched James push back from the table and walk outside, dragging a hand through his hair. Barty and Evan eagerly took the microphone from Sirius as “Pour Some Sugar on Me” started—Sirius cringed internally at their poor song choice and made his way over to where Remus stood beaming and ready to enfold him in a hug.

“That was brilliant, you know,” Remus said into Sirius’s hair. “I didn’t know you could sing like that.”

Sirius pulled away, and Remus looked awestruck, which caused Sirius’s cheeks to flush. He had been trying to impress Moony, of course, but something about the way Remus was smiling at him and lacing their fingers together made Sirius feel suddenly bashful.

Remus sat back down at the edge of the booth, tugging Sirius onto his lap. He wrapped his arms around Sirius’s waist, making him shiver. Sirius looked over at Regulus, noting that he was now alone at the other end of the table—where the hell had Lily gone?

Regulus stood, neatly drained his glass, and placed it on the edge of the table. His eyes met Sirius’s for only a moment, but it was enough for Sirius to catch the pain that was hidden there. Regulus strode purposefully across the pub’s floor and to the door, which he shoved open as he stepped into the swirling wind.

It wasn’t long after that that Lily had come back into the pub, biting her lip and looking nervously over at Sirius before sliding in beside her girlfriends. Sirius couldn’t entirely catch what was being said, but Remus’s hands tightening against him told him that they’d both caught the same phrase: “kissed James”.

Regulus had walked out moments before Lily came back inside.

Oh. Oh, no.

Sirius leaned his head back against Remus, closing his eyes and groaning. Regulus must have seen whatever happened, and Sirius—he could just kill James, kill all three of them, really. Why now? Why did Lily bloody Evans choose now to be interested in James? Why did James go for Regulus? Why did his little brother finally decide not to hate James Potter? Apparently there was something in the air here that made James Potter seem too appealing for his own good.

*****

The next morning, Sirius woke up to an urgent knocking on his door. Mumbling about early morning wake up calls and praying to God that Remus wasn’t one of those blasted morning people (too tired to really investigate what it meant that he was already wondering about Remus’s sleep habits and how they would affect his own life), he rolled out of bed and slid into his robe and slippers. He shuffled over to the door, scrubbing a hand over his face as he tugged open the door.

James.

“I need to talk to you,” James said, pushing his way into Sirius’s suite.

Sirius pulled his head back, raising a sarcastic brow.

“Well, good morning to you, too,” he said.

James turned to look at him, expression frantic and eyes on fire.

“Sirius, I need your help,” James said.

“Okay, Prongs, okay, just—just give me a minute, yeah?” Sirius scuffed his way over to the little kitchenette and got the kettle on to boil.

James sat on the edge of the sofa, leg jiggling at an impressive rate while he waited. Sirius brought over two mugs of English Breakfast and set one on the table in front of James, who ignored it.

“Sirius, last night—” James began.

Sirius held up his hand. “I already know, you kissed Lily.”

“Well, yes, but—”

“What are you playing at, anyway?” Sirius began, angrier than he realized. “Normally I’d, I don’t know, congratulate you after you’ve been pining over her for so long, but this is my brother we’re talking about here. Reggie’s… fragile, and you slept with him, and—”

“He told you about that?” James asked incredulously.

“You just did,” Sirius said, watching James over the top of his mug as he sipped and let that information sink in.

“Oh fuck,” James said. “I don’t know if he’d’ve wanted you to know…”

James put his head in his hands, leaning over onto his knees and clutching at his hair as he rocked slightly back and forth.

The sight of it was pitiful enough that Sirius’s love for his best friend won out for the moment.

“James, he told me,” Sirius said gently. “He told me the night it happened. I—I don’t know what you did, but I think he really fancies you. I think, I think he saw you and Lily together.”

James’s face drained of color.

“I thought he must have,” James said. “I tried to talk to him last night, and he basically told me to fuck off.”

“Can you blame him?” Sirius raised a brow again. “You sleep with him and then you turn around and snog Lily; how is he supposed to feel? Reggie doesn’t adapt to change well—neither of us ever have. He needs consistency to feel secure. Honestly, I was shocked when you were able to win him over so quickly. He’s not… he just… he doesn’t open up to people that way.”

Sirius felt his stomach drop as this realization settled into his bones. His brother was surely hurting now—he had opened up entirely to someone, and he had been burned. It would be very, very hard for Regulus to come back from that, constant thing that he was.

“Sirius, it wasn’t like that at all,” James said, eyes bright. “I knew he must have seen. She came outside after me, said she just wanted to try something, and she kissed me. I—well I mean, I’d been wondering about that for ages, hadn’t I? So my immediate reaction was to kiss her back, but then I heard the door open and shut and I pulled away and… and…” he trailed off.

Sirius knew what James was processing—that Regulus must have come out and seen them kissing, that him leaving was the sound that had broken the two of them apart.

“So what happened then?” Sirius prodded.

“I asked her why she suddenly wanted to acknowledge my existence, and she said it was because I hadn’t hit on her.”

Sirius blinked.

“I know,” James continued, nodding vigorously, seeming happy that Sirius wasn’t on the defensive for the moment. “So then she said that seeing me in a different environment, one where I seemed more authentic and less annoyingly flirtatious, made her curious.”

“That’s it?” Sirius narrowed his eyes.

“Yes?” James squeaked out, rather unhelpfully. “She said she ‘wanted to see if it took’ or something.”

“And did it?” Sirius prompted.

“Sirius, how could you even ask me that?”

“Very easily, James. This whole sodding thing is a mess,” Sirius raked his hand through his tangled hair, sipping too much tea too quickly and burning his throat in the process. He winced.

“It didn’t,” James said firmly. “It didn’t, because for some reason once I processed what was happening, all I could think about was your brother.”

James was looking at Sirius with those intense eyes—his expression was tortured, burning, and Sirius’s heart broke. He never wanted to see James look like that, not ever, and he was determined to do his part to help.

“Did you tell Reg this when you tried to talk to him?”

“Sirius, he didn’t let me say much of anything. He basically pushed me out of his room—I’m frankly surprised he even let me come in at all—and he was… he was really angry. How do I fix this, Padfoot?”

Sirius sighed.

“Let me try to talk to him.”

*****

And that was how, after a quick shower, Sirius was heading towards the lodge’s enormous fireplace, hoping to find his brother there. Regulus was practically sitting in the fireplace, reading a book. When he noticed Sirius approach, he looked up warily.

Sirius knew that Regulus was direct—blunt, almost to the point of rudeness, sometimes—and that he would appreciate the same from Sirius rather than him sugarcoating anything.

“I think you should talk to James.”

“Oh, no, not you too,” Regulus drawled, rolling his eyes.

“What?” Sirius was caught off guard—who else had?

“He tried to talk to me last night and I told him to piss off, Sirius. It’s all fine,” Regulus said brusquely, not looking up from his book. “If he wants to be with Lyla, he can. James is entitled to snog whomever he’d like.”

“You saw, then?”

“I did.”

“And you’re… you’re all right with this?” Sirius said slowly.

“Certainly. As I said, he’s perfectly at liberty to be with her if he chooses to do so.”

“But… you just slept with him…”

“It’s called a hook up, Sirius,” Regulus snapped over the top of his book. “Don’t be so old-fashioned.”

“Reg, you seem upset,” Sirius said.

“If I do, it’s only because you’re bothering me while I am clearly trying to do something else,” Regulus said. “Reading is a rather solitary activity, and I can’t do that while you’re trying to play hero for James Potter.”

“Hero?” Sirius sputtered indignantly. “Listen, you little shit, I’m just trying to make sure that you’re okay!”

Regulus stared at him for a beat, then slammed his book shut and stalked off towards the hallway.

“Reg—Reggie, wait!” Sirius caught up to him, grabbing his arm.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” Regulus turned to face Sirius, his eyes glistening with tears. “I don’t need to be coddled. It was my mistake, that’s it. I shouldn’t have trusted him—I should have trusted my initial hesitance, and I didn’t. That’s my fault, and I can assure you that it will not happen again,” he snarled.

Regulus shoved past Sirius and to his room, slamming the door and leaving Sirius standing there in shock.

*****

Sirius was exactly where he didn’t want to be—in the middle.

He paced back and forth in his suite, pondering the whole mess. He didn’t have the heart to tell James that his chances with Regulus were likely over. It was very hard to imagine any scenario in which Regulus opened up enough to hear James out, let alone accept any sort of apology.

In spite of Regulus’s insistence that he was fine, the tears in his eyes betrayed him (as did his intentional reference to Lily as “Lyla”—Reggie was hardly the type to get someone’s name wrong). Sirius knew his brother, knew what it looked like when Regulus shut down. He had seen it often enough throughout their lives, the way the shutters slid down over his eyes like steel doors barricading his emotions.

Sirius groaned, running a hand over his face. How was he supposed to fix this?

A knock at his door had him throwing his head back towards the ceiling, the pencil he’d slipped through the top half of his hair to keep it out of his face bobbing and threatening to fall to the floor.

Not more bad news, please, he thought.

“Remus,” he said, his face breaking into a massive smile in spite of his angst moments before.

Remus stood in the doorframe, taking up a good bit of it, scarf looped jauntily. He held up a paper bag in one hand, two takeaway cups in the other.

“Thought you could use some sustenance,” Remus said. His mouth twitched into a smile at the corners, but his eyes were serious.

“Please!” Sirius said, tugging Remus inside by the front of his coat.

“I expect you’ve had a bit of a day already,” Remus said, pulling out the chocolate croissants and passing one to Sirius. “I figured this was a safe bet,” he added, holding up his own.

“Always,” Sirius smiled, taking a bite. He took a cautious sip from the cup and his eyes widened. “Coffee?”

“I realized I wasn’t sure what you preferred in the mornings, or—” he checked his watch, “—early afternoon. I ordered what I would take, but figured you’d appreciate the sweetened version. Is it okay?” Remus’s eyebrows crinkled with anxiety.

“I don’t usually drink coffee, but it’s perfect,” Sirius said hurriedly. “Sweet was the better option. So… how did you know I had a rough morning?”

“I hadn’t seen you yet today, but I did see James at breakfast this morning,” Remus looked at Sirius out of the corner of his eyes. “He, uh, seemed a bit on edge.”

Sirius bit his lip.

“Yes, I expect he did,” he sighed, fiddling with the hem of his white t-shirt. “I got a bit sharp with him earlier.”

“Sirius, James told me what happened with Lily last night,” Remus said, reaching out to press a hand to Sirius’s bare forearm. “He—I don’t think he meant for any of this to happen.”

“I know that,” Sirius said, lifting his gaze to Remus. “I tried to talk to Reggie, but he wouldn’t hear a word of it.”

“I don’t know that it’s your job to play liaison, sweetheart,” Remus said, rubbing his thumb over Sirius’s forearm.

“I know that, Moony, just… it’s my brother and my best friend, and that wretched girl ruined everything.”

“Lily,” Remus said pointedly, “is actually cataclysmically apologetic about the entire thing. She’s talking about leaving early.”

“Good,” Sirius muttered.

“I spoke to her while I was in line getting your coffee, you little posh knob,” Remus said.

Sirius looked up quickly and could see the twinkle in Remus’s eyes.

“She had no idea James might have been interested in anyone else,” Remus said.

“I suppose she couldn’t have,” Sirius conceded.

“No, not if James didn’t tell her—and you can’t blame him for that, either,” Remus said firmly.

Sirius’s heart leapt a bit at Remus’s defense of James. The two had become such fast friends, and it made Sirius happy to see that Remus was so swift to rush to James’s defense, to smooth out any misunderstanding between James and Sirius.

“I know it’s a tough place to be,” Remus said. “I’m here for you. It will all be okay.”

Sirius swallowed against the emotion in his throat. He wasn’t used to being taken care of, or of having anyone look at him with anything like tenderness. Remus was sweet and kind and thoughtful, and Sirius could barely stand the thought of being away from him. Somehow they had become so much to one another so quickly.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Remus asked, eyes full of concern.

Sirius’s stomach flipped at the term of endearment. He cleared his throat sharply.

“I’m not used to being taken care of,” he confessed.

“Sirius, it is a privilege to take care of you,” Remus said, a fierce sincerity blazing in his eyes.

“Don’t be silly,” Sirius scoffed, trying for a half smile.

“I’m not,” Remus said. “I want to be with you, Sirius. I want to know you, to know how you take your coffee, to take care of you, to have this be more than some two-week-fling.”

Sirius’s heart was pounding. He wanted those things too, and it scared the shit out of him.

“I don’t know how to be with someone, really,” Sirius admitted. “My—my family’s mental. I don’t really—I’ve never—I haven’t even been in a proper relationship before.”

“Do you want this?” Remus asked, gripping Sirius’s hand. “Do you want to be with me?”

“Yes,” Sirius rasped hoarsely. “More than anything.”

Remus’s answering smile illuminated Sirius’s soul.

“Then we will figure it out as we go. I’ve fallen hard for you, Sirius Black, and I will be whatever you need.”

“Just be you, Moony,” Sirius said thickly. He hadn’t realized he’d been crying until Remus reached out to wipe away his tears with the pads of his thumbs.

Remus left his hands framing Sirius’s face, grey eyes looking into hazel, and then they were kissing. Remus tasted like coffee and chocolate and hope, and he wound his hand into Sirius’s hair, the other running down Sirius’s bare arm and sliding over his waist.

Sirius slid off Remus’s coat, tugging the scarf off without breaking the kiss, without standing from the chairs near the little table where they’d been sitting. Remus pulled Sirius closer to him, so that Sirius’s legs were tucked between Remus’s, and he tugged softly on Sirius’s hair to tilt his head back. Remus worked his way down the column of Sirius’s throat, paying extra attention to the area beneath his ear that made him shiver under Remus’s kisses.

Sirius pressed a hand to Remus’s chest, stopping him for a moment.

“Fuck, Moony,” Sirius gasped.

Remus quirked his mouth into a half smile, looking very self-satisfied, like the cat that got the bloody canary. Sirius’s face blazed.

“All right there?” Remus asked, still smiling.

Sirius slid his tongue over his bottom lip, catching the corner of it in between his teeth.

“Yes, more than all right, actually,” he admitted. He smiled and shook his head, unable to believe that this was really happening.

Remus tugged Sirius into his lap, and they spent quite a bit of time exploring the taste of each other slowly, lazily, as if they had all the time in the world—because they did.

*****

It was expected that Sirius and Regulus spend the final dinner of their trip with their parents, unfortunately. He was still wired from the coffee that Remus had brought, and it was making him anxious. Walburga Black always made Sirius anxious, but tonight’s dinner felt inexplicably ominous. Sirius dressed for dinner (jacket, cufflinks, the works) and prayed that he didn’t run into Remus or James whilst dressed up like a penguin. He worked to maintain a particular aesthetic, and a maroon velvet dinner jacket was decidedly not on par with leather jackets and Docs. He added some cologne and adjusted his tie before heading to his parents’ (considerably grander) suite.

“Sirius, come here a moment, please,” his mother’s clipped voice called from the sitting room.

Sighing, squaring his shoulders, and lifting his chin, he walked into the next room.

“Good evening, Mother,” he said stiffly.

“Come over here and greet me properly,” Walburga Black said.

He walked over and quickly pecked her on the cheek she offered, stepping back to see what she wanted.

Walburga Black was beautiful—he had heard it his entire life. That both of his parents were beautiful people and that they had produced beautiful children. They all had the same thick, lustrous black hair and grey-green eyes and pouting mouths that turned down just slightly at the ends (Sirius joked that it was because they were all miserable, which wasn’t entirely untrue). Her skin was still soft and mostly unlined—as long as Sirius could remember, she had stayed out of the sun and slathered her face with an army of expensive skincare products. Walburga had instilled similar habits into her sons.

Regardless of her features, Walburga Black was the most hideous person that Sirius had ever seen. Like a decaying house, the rot from within tarnished the outside, and a coat of paint wasn’t enough to repair the damage inside.

For his entire life, he had stood in front of Walburga Black, shoulder to shoulder with his brother, falling under her scrutiny as she picked apart everything that he did. She was abusive, and Orion just allowed it to happen.

Walburga Black wasn’t physically abusive; she would never do anything as gauche as that. Hitting was low class, she often said. Her method was more sinister in that it happened without others even realizing it. She was purely psychological; she damaged with words as if they were knives, wielded for maximum impact. She didn’t aim to wound, she aimed to kill: soul, spirit, individuality, joy.

She sat in the plush chair, back not touching it as she even relaxed with proper posture, and her steely eyes searched Sirius’s own as if she were reading his mind. It took everything in him not to fidget.

“Bellatrix’s fiancé was at the pub last night,” she said briskly.

Sirius hated these games. He dearly wanted to ask, “So what?” but knew that that wouldn’t end well.

“Oh?” he schooled his expression into something neutral.

“He had a very interesting story to tell.”

Sirius clasped his hands behind his back, clenching his knuckles together.

“He seemed to think that you were there, Sirius.”

Sirius swallowed, neither confirming nor denying this.

“He said that you were there, Sirius, and that you were hanging all over ‘some bloke’ and parading about, singing karaoke, of all things. How absolutely vulgar.”

Walburga narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing her eldest son.

Sirius was fucking furious. He clenched his teeth together, a muscle working in his jaw. So Rodolphus had seen him last night and decided to tattle to Walburga? Fucking spy. The only positive here was that Regulus was not mentioned—perhaps Rodolphus came after Regulus left?

“Well?” Walburga prompted.

“Why didn’t he say hello?” Sirius said sardonically.

Walburga looked as if she had been slapped, her eyes wide and mouth agape.

“Sirius Orion Black, I insist that you tell me that this is not true!” she raised her voice.

“I was raised not to lie, Mother.”

“You know better than to interact with people outside of our circles,” she chided. “You are the heir to the Black family fortune, Sirius, you are meant to display proper comportment befitting said heir at all times.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Sirius said, unable to help himself.

“Straddling anyone in public is unacceptable, and especially another male,” Walburga said coldly, eyes flashing.

“I wasn’t straddling anyone,” Sirius said, jutting out his chin.

“I will not have some poof inheriting the fortune and leading the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black to ruination,” Walburga said. “I knew I should have kept you closer for the duration of this trip.”

 Sirius shook his head slightly, his nostrils flaring as he kept his mouth pressed tightly shut.

“I refuse to settle for the life that you think I should lead,” Sirius said.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” Walburga stood, getting dangerously close to Sirius’s face.

“I am an adult. I am not a puppet you can manipulate to do your bidding. I am going to live the life that I choose,” Sirius said. He was shaking.

It was time to live his own life. He had Uncle Alphard’s gold stashed away, and it was enough. He had the café, and he could do it.

“What?” Walburga asked, her voice low and lethal.

“I’m emancipating myself. I don’t need to do a damn thing you tell me to do, and I’m through here.”

Walburga laughed wildly, bitterly. “You’re giving up an entire fortune for some poor wretch you met two weeks ago? Hardly.”

“It’s nothing to do with him and everything to do with me—with having a choice about how I live my own life. We’re through here. Goodbye.”

Sirius turned on his heel and walked out of the suite and away from his parents forever.

*****

He didn’t realize where he was going until he ended up at Reggie’s room. He let himself in, his eyes narrowing in focus around the edges as if he were looking through binoculars. Sirius was shaking, unable to feel his limbs. He felt nauseated.

“—rius!” a voice cut into the ringing in his ears.

Suddenly he was sitting on Regulus’s couch, and Regulus was looking at him with a frantic expression. Sirius gasped for breath, processing what was happening.

“’m all right,” he said hoarsely.

“Sirius, what on earth happened?” Regulus asked, his eyes still wide with concern.

“Panic attack,” he said, clenching his hands and willing the adrenaline away. “Just—talk to me.”

“Talk to you? What about? Oh… I was just getting ready to go to dinner, are you not coming?”

Sirius noticed that his vision was less black, he was able to fully take in Regulus’s deep green dinner jacket with black lapels, the black tie offset by the crisp white of his pintucked shirt.

Sirius laughed darkly.

“No, I’m not going to dinner,” he said.

“Sirius, what happened? Is it Remus?” Regulus asked. “Is it…?” he trailed off, leaving James’s name unsaid.

“I told the old bag to piss off,” Sirius said.

“You what.”

“Apparently Bellatrix’s sneaky fiancé spotted us at the pub last night. There was no mention of you, of course, but our mother found out about Remus and essentially told me to stop seeing him, that I need to behave in a way that represents our family well… and I told her that I was leaving. I want to live my life for me, Regulus, not for anyone else.”

Regulus stilled, barely breathing as he stared at Sirius.

As he had walked away from his mother, the thoughts that propelled him towards Regulus were not of Remus or Sirius, but of Regulus himself. Regulus, curled up in the hollow space between his wall and bed, crying and hiding from their mother, who was not against pulling hair or invoking fear in her children even as they were barely out of toddlerhood. Regulus, who would be expected to step in for Sirius.

“Reggie…” Sirius began.

Regulus closed his eyes, exhaling slowly, heavily, through his nose.

“Reg, you could come with me. Leave it all behind.”

“I can’t,” Regulus said.

“Regulus, we don’t need them—we have Uncle Alphard’s money, we can use that.”

“Oh, the money he left you exclusively?” Regulus said bitterly.

“Reg—I—I think, I mean, you were a child when he passed. I was only a bit older, but I think he always assumed we’d take care of each other with it,” Sirius’s heart was breaking.

“Sirius, leave it.”

“Reggie…”

“I don’t want to,” Regulus said coldly, and there it was again—the coldness in his eyes, steely in a way that was not unlike their mother.

Sirius recoiled.

“That changes things, then,” he nodded, and he stood and left the room without looking back at his brother.

*****

Sirius lay himself down in a blanket of white, arms tucked behind his head, staring up at the night sky. He was barely aware of the snow that fell down around him, melting as it hit the tip of his nose, his chin, his eyelashes.

The crunch of tentative footsteps had him tensing until he caught the familiar scent of Remus, who slid down beside him.

“I walked away from my family today,” Sirius said softly, not looking away from the stars.

“What happened?” Remus asked.

“My mother told me that my cousin’s ruddy fiancé saw us together at the pub last night. She insisted I behave in a way befitting the heir of our family fortune, and I told her to get bent.”

Remus was quiet for a moment. Then—

“What prompted it all?”

“I don’t know—I think it was the coffee,” Sirius said, trying to keep his voice steady. “Made me all rash and jittery.”

Remus was quiet for a moment, and then Sirius turned his head to make eye contact with Remus.  The two of them burst into laughter, letting it fade into soft chuckles as Sirius brought his hand down and laced his fingers through Remus’s.

“We can do it, love,” Sirius said, the term rolling easily off of his tongue. “We can be together.”

Remus beamed at him.

“It wasn’t so hard to walk away, really. I just need a reason,” Sirius said, snuggling closer to Remus as they looked up at the snowflakes and stars. They stayed in the cold, holding hands and  making plans for the future, two figures against a blanket of snow.