I, Sirius

TITLE: I, Sirius


AUTHOR: Lady Sirius

PAIRING: RL/SB

RATING: NC17

FEEDBACK: shelley_runyon@yahoo.com


DISCLAIMER: Of course all rights to Harry Potter belong to JK Rowling

- I only wish that Sirius and Remus were mine, other than in my heart!


DEDICATION: To my glorious, talented, wondrous and everlastingly sexy
inspiration - Gary Oldman - and to all those fans whose enthusiasm and kind words keep me going!




I, Sirius
Reflections of the Brightest Star

Chapter XII - Of Conundrums and Relativity

I looked up conundrum the other day in the dictionary. Not because I wished to find a definition for it - I do know what it means. It's like a riddle. Or a complicated situation. No, I didn't look it up because I didn't know how to use it, obviously I did and do, but because I happened to use it in conversation with Remus and damned if he didn't start laughing his head off. At me. And don't even tell me you were laughing with me, not at me, Mr. Lupin, that is a nebulous distinction at best. Oh yes, I only call you Mr. Lupin when I'm pissy, that's right. But it wasn't funny. I mean, I'd never heard the word pronounced before, not aloud, and so I called it as I saw it. Pardon me for not pronouncing it to your satisfaction. I'm not Miriam fucking Webster, you know. For those who are wondering how I assaulted my husband's so sensitive ears, I'll tell you - I merely pronounced it with the accent on the first syllable. CON-in- drum, rather than con-UN-drum. Ex-CUSE me for living.

Don't tell me I'm cute when I'm mad. I don't want to hear it.

Flatterer.

Back to more serious matters. Sirius matters, even.

It's funny to consider how things can hang upon such slender threads, do you know what I mean? The way that life is balanced, the way things happen, the way you often can't see what is right before your eyes, either because you don't want to, or because it blends into the woodwork, into the fabric of everything else. And even when you wonder about something, you don't stop and probe what it really means - until it's too late.

Peter blended into our woodwork, pretty well, but we didn't really realize it at the time. We were too busy being - ourselves, I guess. Living our own lives, and allowing Peter to share in them, not bothering to question why he was our friend, for who ever really stops to ask themselves that very often? Friendship just is. And we were the four Marauders, after all, we were virtually a unit - we lived and breathed and ate and slept the concept of our friendship on a daily basis. Perhaps I'm oversimplifying things. Perhaps at one time he really was our friend, and my feelings are now coloured by later events, by an overwhelming hatred for him which even now threatens to erupt. I know I shouldn't think about him, but it's impossible to think about those days without doing so, he was woven into the fabric too tightly to disengage.

When did they approach him? Who approached him? Who saw something in him that could be utilized, manipulated for bad? Was it always there, this potential for evil, and we were too young and naive to see it? Or were we possibly set up from the very beginning?

I know, I know, Remus, these are exercises in futility. It's like jumping on one of those little wheels that they have for hamsters - I've seen them in the pet shops - you run around and around and around, and you get nowhere, and finally you simply jump off again and wonder what the use of it all was. I just can't help but wonder, were there signs we missed, that had we seen them, we could have plucked him from our midst, thrown off the viper at our collective bosom, and that even now James and Lily would be alive?

Or was it already too late?

He wasn't at their wedding, which took place the summer after we left Hogwarts. Looking back, I can see he was fading from our lives already during our seventh year, but I think James and I were too... distracted.... to notice - James with Lily, and me with Remus. Not excusing us, just saying. They became engaged that year, and we celebrated their engagement, the four of us, at the Shack, with firewhiskey and laughter - I think Lily would have killed us if she'd known. Some things are meant to be withheld, you know? Not from you, of course not, love, that's not what I mean. I tell you everything, I always have. Yes, you do know better, don't you?

It was a glorious wedding, well attended, by wizards and muggles alike. James and Lily were already living together by then, as were Remus and I - we were living in the flat I got with the money Uncle Alphard sent to me after I ran away from home, both of us considered blights on the Black family tree. It wasn't hard to talk Remus into moving in with me, I'll tell you the details of all that later, first the wedding.

Lily had warned us to be on our best behaviour - and by us I mean me, of course, for when is Remus ever not on his best behaviour? I solemnly promised that I would indeed behave, for after all James had made me best man - quite an honour indeed. Remus was a little hesitant about the two of us going together, because he wasn't sure how either side of the family would take our being together, you know how people were back then, actually the way some people still are. But I wouldn't have it any other way, and when it seemed we had reached something of an impasse - he suggesting perhaps I should take the maid of honour, just for appearance's sake - Lily stepped in between us and told him that our love was beautiful, as beautiful as hers and James, and she wouldn't have it any other way. She said, and I quote, "If people don't understand, or don't want to understand, then fuck them!"

Yes, she really said that. Shocking, isn't it? When ordinarily butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, nor foul words cross her dainty lips. You see, there was a great deal of that girl that people didn't see - she was no hothouse flower, no fluttering female - she was one of the strongest women I ever knew. I think, given time, she would have been a lot like Minerva. Except nicer. She really was an extraordinary woman, she and James, they were the ideal couple.....

Give me a moment, please.....

So we went together, Remus and I - he was indeed my date. And we all sat together at what Lily called the bridal table - a muggle tradition, she told me, which translates to the bride and groom and their best friends and their dates and their parents all put on display in front of everyone else. Not that I minded that, necessarily, I've always been a bit of a show-off. No, the word is not diva, Remus, thank you. I have to give Lily's mother credit for not fainting when we were presented to her. Lily's sister - a pasty faced skinny little thing with a walrus for a husband - lucky for him I had no inkling of his future behaviour toward my godson or I would have saved us all a great deal of trouble and hexed him to the moon right then and there - knew, of course, which of us were witches and wizards, and she always looked on the verge of fainting in case we do something to embarrass her or the family in front of her tons of fun. So, just to annoy her, I kept using my finger to make invisible marks in the air, as if I were doing some sort of a spell, and giving her significant looks. She didn't know the difference, of course, wouldn't know a real spell from a hole in the ground, perhaps she thought I had placed wards about ourselves, I don't know, but she surely kept her distance from Remus and I, and that's all I cared about.

I'll say one thing for them, the muggles do know how to drink. And the food wasn't bad either. And after they've had a few, they actually become quite amusing, and are given to performing strange dance rituals, such as the one that they called hokey pokey - something about shaking things and putting them in and out - although after a certain point in the evening, my memories grow a bit dim, so my account of these things depends on Remus for accuracy. Which is to say that I got gloriously and completely drunk on my arse - I danced with Lily, danced with her mum, even took James out on the floor, although he pushed me away, laughing, and told me to stick with Remus - which I did, of course. He and I were inseparable, and I took every opportunity I could to kiss him while we were on the dance floor, even if he pretended to be embarrassed about it. Oh yes, you did, mister, don't give me that innocent look, but I knew better, you were secretly egging me on with your voice, and with your body..... I know you too well to think otherwise.

We were walking back from the reception, afterwards, basically because we needed some air, I think, and I needed to clear my head, when I proceeded to become violently ill and spewed forth the contents of my stomach all over the road. Remus never complained, nor told me I told you so - he simply held my hair back for me (yes, it wasn't the first time he'd ever done that), waited til I was done, then apparated us home, cleaned me up and put me to bed. Yes, I do mean us, don't I? We hadn't slept apart in years at that time, and never would. At least, not until....

At any rate, Peter wasn't there. He never responded to the invitation, didn't even send a gift. Nothing. If only we'd known....
One bright spot, at least Lily hadn't invited Snape. That friendship had ended long before.

In the words of the King of Siam - Remus and I watched him once, in a muggle musical, what was it called? Oh yes, the King and I. He said to the governess, "Tis a puzzlement...."

Tis a puzzlement indeed.

Oh, I did say I'd mention Hagrid, didn't I? Well, it has to wait. I do need to get back to what I was talking about in a more chronological order. Merlin, I'm still on my first year at Hogwarts, aren't I? Ah well, I'll get there, I'll get there, just be patient.