A Tale of Two Men

TITLE: A Tale of Two Men

Author: Lady Sirius

Pairing: SB/SS

RATING: NC17

FEEDBACK: darklove_zorg@yahoo.com

DISCLAIMER: Of course all rights belong to JK Rowling - I would claim Sirius if I could (but alas this is not meant to be!)

OOTP SPOILERS: Yes there are a few references, so don't read if you don't want to know.

DEDICATION: To my glorious, talented and wondrous inspiration - Gary Oldman


Chapter Fifteen

Remembrance of Things Past


"Lovoks oks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind."
William Shakespeare


Sirius Black slowly came to consciousness, his head throbbing nastily from the crack it had received. He put one hand up, felt what promised to be a good-sized bump, and swore aloud. He sat up cautiously, looking about him carefully, but he couldn't see a by thy thing - everything was dark and eerily silent. What the hell was going on here?

His first thought was for Severus - where was he and had something happened to him as well? "Severus!" he cried out into the darkness. "Severus!" But there was no response.

He put out his arms, met with emptiness, got down on all fours and slowly felt his way along the floor. Years of imprisonment had taught him something about knowing one's environment before venturing into unknown territory, and among other things Sirius had a keen sense of survival. He hadn't gone far before before he encountered an obstacle - a wall of some sorts, by the feel of it. He moved his hand along it slowly, standing as he did so. The texture was smooth and featureless, nothing to give him any indication of where he might be.

Cautiously feeling his way, he stepped into the blackness, only to be met by another wall only a few steps from the first. It must be a passageway of some sort - but where did it lead, and why? Having little choice, he decided to follow this route, see where it led, and try to make some sense out of what was happening to him.

The passage was not a straight one, it turned this way and that with no apparent rhyme nor reason. Sirius found the utter blackness reminiscent of his cell in Azkaban, but pushed the unpleasant thought away - he knew that wherever he was, it wasn't in that hellhole, for that place had an atmosphere, anch,nch, that was uniquely its own - once experienced it was not forgotten - and this was not that place.

Up ahead now, he thought he could detect some colour, a light of some sort, moved slowly toward it. Every once in a while, he called out Severus' name, waited in the darkness for a reply before moving on. Closer and closer he came to the light - a flickering beam which projected itself across the path he was on. As he neared it, it reminded him of the light emitted from a muggle moprojprojector, except that there was no screen to throw the magic images upon.

He had almost reached the beam now when, as if he had triggered it with some unknowing step, the area before him lit up, and he could see people there, still unmoving figures in some sort of frozen tableau, a moment caught in time - and as he watched, the tableau came to life -

A tall man stood there, his stance ramrod straight belying the casual smoking jacket which he wore. His back was turned to Sirius, and he appeared to be berating an unseen person on the other side of him. The scene was a richly furnished study, hung with expensive tapestries and festooned with collector's paintings - more of a museum than a home, and it was with a start that Sirius recognized his ancestral home - #12 Grimmauld Place. The man was none other than his father, and he then realized that the slumped figure standing before him was himself, at about the age of eleven.

"...I hesitate to even call you a Black, you are such a disgrace to the name!" his father shouted angrily, the patrician veins in his head lividly standing out against his pale deathlike skin. "To be placed in any other house than Slytherin is totally unheard of, but Gryffindor? Unthinkable!"

Sirius watched helplessly as this shadow of his former self stood there quietly, accepting these bse being administered by his father, not making any sort of a reply. He clenched his fists in rage, made a move toward them, but the images suddenly disappeared, as if extinguished, and when he walked toward where they had been, he encountered only blank wall.

His eyes adjusting to the darkness around him, he moved on, shaken by what he had just seen, and wondering what it all meant, and most of all, where the bloody hell was he? The hallway he traversed sometimes turned at right angles, sometimes ran straight for long distances before seeming to wind back on itself. And then up ahead he saw another light...

This time he was a little better prepared, half expecting to see more of his horrible family, but that was not the case - he found himself looking into Hogwarts, into the Shrieking Shack. He was a few years older now, as were his companions. There was Remmy (Sirius snickered, remembering all the times he'd been punched for calling his werewolf friend by that name), there Peter (the miserable traitor) and there was James Potter himself. Moving as close as he couSiriSirius listened as James teased the young Sirius Black.

"I think that Snivellus likes you," he was taunting the beautiful young man who reclined negligently on some pushed together wooden crates, one muscular leg crossed over the other. Sirius scowled at him, averting his face, his handsome profile so regal and disdainful.

"Leave him alone," Lupin gently scolded (ah, the ever faithful Lupin), and Peter merely laughed behind his handfraifraid of laughing too loudly lest he be heard.

James approached Sirius, his high spirits undaunted, pursed his lips and made kissy noises at him, until the infuriated boy took a blind swing at him. Potter was prepared, and deftly sidestepped the punch, landing Sirius on the floor in a tangled heap. Remus flew to his aid, dropping down to his side, and holding out his hand to help him up. Sotto voce he whispered, "Don't worry, love, he's just trying to get your goat. Act as if it doesn't bother you and he'll drop it," before placing a small kiss surreptitiously on Sirius' earlobe.

Were they ever really that young, Sirius wondered, but when he would have reached out and touched them, they too were gone, and darkness reigned once again.

"What the hell is going on here?" Sirius raged, raising his fists impotently into the air. Who was doing this to him, and why?

Determined to discover the reality behind what was happening, Sirius continued to follow the flickering lights as they appeared - each one setting the stage for a different tableau - here was the ugly scene he had had with his father when he was sixteen, when he had decided that enough was enough, and he had left home for good, sheltering with the Potters when school wasn't in session, until he was able to get a place of his own - here the scene by the Whomping Willow, the encounter between Padfoot and Severus Snape. It felt funny to be watching his life in little snippets, like the trailer to some strange film. He was pretty sure that this one wouldn't be up for any awards, though. At one point he had tried to turn around and return from the point at which he had started, but found that once he had passed a particular memory, that the corridor became inaccessible behind him.

He watched in wonder as he held the tiny Harry Potter for the first time, surrounded by his doting parents and closest friends. "Sirius," James was saying, laying one hand on his friend's shoulder, "Lily and I have discussed this, and we would like you to be Harry's godfather." Sirius remembered the way that his whole heart had swelled when he heard those words - he had never felt prouder, and quickly covered up his emotional state by pressing the tiny baby cheek against his, and silently vowing to himself to always protect the little red-haired child in his arms.

Sirius groaned aloud at the sight - fine job he had done of that! Gotten himself hauled off to Azkaban without a trial or any sort of due process, imprisoned for twelve agonizing years while in the meantime poor Harry was forced to live with those awful Dursleys, unloved and disregarded, not to mention being the object of repeated attempts by Lord Voldemort to end his life. Sirius had been forced to stay hidden during the Tri-Wizard Tournament when Harry had a near fatal encounter with Voldemort again and could have really benefitted from his aid. And it was his restlessness at being holed up at Grimmauld Place that had placed Harry in his latest danger. Some godfather he was! Perhaps Harry would have been better off in Lupin's caanyoanyone else's but his! But no, he didn't really mean that, he loved Harry more than anything, and he wouldn't trade being his godfather for the world.

Forging fiercely ahead, he found himself making a second sharp angle, and there in front of him lay another tableau - and he froze in his tracks at the sight. A shaggy, bearded scarecrow bundled in rags hugged his thin legs ,alone in the darkness that was his cell, the small room that had become his life. His pain was great, his agony almost palpable, but his will to survive was stronger than these, and only the force of his incredible mind kept him from submitting to the insanity which had overtaken so many others in that place. He kept himself focused on the things he would do when he was released from this hellhole (for he had believed that for a time, knowing that he was indeed innocent of any wrongdoing), and later when he began to dream of escaping - most of his thoughts centered about Harry, and the things they would do together, the things he would teach him, about life and love and about his late parents who loved him so well. He concentrated on memories of the Marauders, and the incredible friendship which they had shared (except that in these memories, the place that once held Peter Pettigrew was a blank spot from which nothing could be gleaned) - the pranks they had pulled, the people they had loved and lost in the vortex of their coming to manhood. And he even thought at times about Snape - the incident between them which had never been spoken of to anyone, much less one another, but which dug its own small burrow into his memories from which it refused to be dislodged. He thought of these things and more - of life at Hogwarts (but never at Grimmauld Place), of life with the Potters - and he held these memories close to his heart. He used them as an anchor, a safe harbour, and within the safety of these thoughts he entrusted the personality that was Sirius Black for safekeeping, far away from the torments of the Dementors.

Sirius shuddered at the image, a fierce pain shooting through his soul as he saw it brought to life once again, and he was afraid to move forward, afraid of what he might see or hear, but as suddenly as it had appeared, the vision melted away into utter blackness, and he breathed a sigh of relief that it hadn't lasted any longer than it had, and he resumed his journey down the dark corridor into the unknown.

He knew that he had no choice but to go on, and he was hoping that an answer would soon be forthcoming, an explanation as well as a reason for what he was going through. And an end to it. He was concerned about Severus - was he being tormented in the same way, was he all right, where was he? There were no answers in the darkness around him and he took a swing at one of the walls as he passed by it in an attempt to assuage his frustration, but only succeeded in bruising his knuckles

Straight ahead the path took him, and he saw the now familiar glow which signaled the start of another memory. He braced himself for what might come, considering the subject of the last one, and was therefore pleasantly surprised when he saw a vision of himself lying comfortably together with Snape in the bed which they had often shared in the potions master's apartments. They were naked beneath the sheets, and apparently had just finished some serious lovemaking, as evidenced by the rumpled condition of the room, the bed - the assorted toys scattered about them - and their loveswept hair. But they didn't seem to mind – they were talking and laughing together in a blissful postcoital moment - talking of books and music, of history and philosophy, of everything and nothing, of cabbages and kings...

Sirius smiled, warmed at the sight of his lover, reliving the moment - one of many such - and his heart ached at the estrangement which now lay between them. He missed Severus, missed him terribly, and he wanted to hold him and be held by him again, to feel his gentle touch, hear his gentle laugh (something most people were not privy to, and never suspected him capable of). Unbidden, Malfoy's stinging words came back to him, and somehow they were not as painful as they had been, superseded by the pain of missing his lover. Perhaps he had overreacted to what he had heard, but then wasn't that something he'd been doing his entire life? Acting first, thinking afterwards? An irresponsible overgrown child, that's what he was - everyone's golden boy (except his parents'), loved and petted and spoiled, but never taken seriously, having no purpose and no aim. Even now, his position at Hogwarts was an illusory thing and served no useful purpose - he could not honestly claim that anyone he taught learned anything from him. He was merely a placeholder, taking up valuable space in the scheme of things, rather than contributing anything substantial.

Not that he wasn't a brilliant and talented wizard - of course he knew that he was. But he had never bothered to apply himself toward any purpose, accepting short term gratification over long-range plans - never worrying about tomorrow - never planning any further ahead than he had to. Everything had always come easily to him, requiring little effort on his part, and what hadn't wasn't worth thinking about. But now, for the first time, he wanted to have a real future, to be the person he was always capable of being, a good role model for his godson and for any future children he may have. That was what had gotten him in trouble during his enforced stay at #12 Grimmauld Place - he had wanted to do something, to be useful, but he couldn't accept the idea that the only way that he could do something was to do nothing - and as a result had jeopardized them all. And nearly died.

Severus understood - Severus knew how he felt. The potions master encouraged him, praised him, saw him as something more than a pretty face, knew the potential in him and tried to bring it out. Severus Snape seemed to know him better than anyone else ever had, even better than Remus, or James. He hadn't meant to hurt him the night that Padfoot had sought out Moony for their midnight romp - and certainly what the miscreant Weasley twins had wrought was not of his own doing nor desire - but would he ever get the chance to explain that to Severus?

Sirius decided to move on, try to get to the end of this, see it through. But something was seriously wrong now. The corridor was starting to violently shake, and he felt himself being caught in its upheaval. It was if the world were reconfiguring itself, and he felt himself begin to fall as the world seemed to melt about him....

When he opened his eyes once more, he found himself in a large, well-furnished bedroom which he did not recognize. Everything in the room bespoke quality - the kind that is attained through having a great deal of money - but Sirius found himself inexplicably shivering, as if there were no warmth in this place. It was then that he spotted the boy - a young lad sitting before a dark oak desk, diligently writing on a piece of foolscap before him, his pink tongue darting from between his pale lips in concentration as he worked. He had long dark hair which hung about his face, but he paid it no heed. His eyes were dark and serious, more adult-looking than a young lad of his age should possess.

A knock on the door. Sirius had no time to hide, when an older woman entered the room, obviously one of the staff, and it was then that he realized that apparently he could not be seen by either of them. Unlike before, where he was a spectator of his own memories, watching from the outside, here he was in the middle of things, albeit a ghostly observer of events. The woman approached the boy, curtseyed stiffly but more from necessity of formality than anything else. In her eyes Sirius could see affection and kindness for the child, which had to be repressed, but why?

"Master Severus," the woman spoke, and it was with a start that Sirius realized that he was seeing his lover as a child (something he had never quite considered the possibility of, although of course he knew it had to have happened), "your father has directed me to tell you that you are not to come down for dinner, and that he will inspect all of your work and approve it before you retire for the night."

The young boy made no reply, merely nodded, and the housemaid went on her way. Sirius watched as the boy struggled to control his disappointment, a great tear welling up in one eye, but he sternly willed it not to fall, raised his chin, compressing his thin lips firmly, and it was if he seemed to possess all of the emotion of a marble statue as he continued to write.

This scene quickly faded, and Sirius felt himself falling once more. This time when he opened his eyes, it was to a montage of kaleidoscoping events - Severus receiving his letter of acceptance to Hogwarts, his father's warnings not to disgrace the Snape name any more than he could help, his first days at the school - nervous and alone and friendless - his diligence in his classes, the hard work he pored into everything he chose to do - and finally his run-ins with the infamous Hogwarts quarter - the Marauders. For the first time Sirius saw their encounters through someone else's eyes, and he didn't like what he saw. No wonder that Severus had despised him for so long. realreally couldn't blame him for that, especially for the time when they had turned him upside down, exposing him to the entire school as an object of pity and ridicule. What utter prats they had been!

And now here he was in another bedroom - Sirius believed it to be one in Slytherin Hall itself - and there he saw Severus, probably in his seventh year, lying across the rumpled bed, while a tall blonde man stood at the foot of the bed, putting the finishing touches to his ensemble and admiring himself in a small mirror which was hidden at the end of one sleeve of his dark coat.

"I think you will make an excellent Death-Eater, Severus," the man was saying.

"Thank you, Lucius, I will do my best," Severus replied. His face showed no emotion, but Sirius knew him well enough to know that he was seethng inside - he surmised his agitation had to do with the marked lack of affection being shown him by this temperamental lover.

Lucius turned, blew Snape an airkiss, and turned to leave. As an afterthought, he turned back, and for a moment Snape stirred eagerly on the bed. "Just one thing more," Malfoy added, "keep an eye on those idiot Gryffindors, the ones that seem to think they were invented to be petted and admired by everyone - you know, the ones known as the Marauders. They could be trouble, idiots though they are." And then he was gone, and the image had faded once again....


... and then he found himself in what he recognized as the tent which he had shared with Snape at Loch Ness. Snape was peacefully asleep, alone, in their bed. As Sirius watched, he rolled over, reached out and, touching nothing, opened his eyes. Then he rose from the bed, looking a touch grumpy, and made his way from the tent, in the same direction which Sirius knew he himself had taken that same night, only to pause at the sight of the dog and the wolf romping together in the moonlight. Sirius could feel Severus' pain as he watched them, and he realized what his thoughtlessness had cost his lover, and he wished he could make amends. Why was love so bloody painful?

He wished he could just go up to him and tell him how very sorry he was for the way he had acted, but he knew that none of this was real, although what it really was, he couldn't say. Why did he never listen to Lupin, who was always full of such sage advice? He wouldn't find himself in such predicaments, if he did.

Once again, he felt as if he were freefalling, helplessly spiraling into.... what? What would he see this time? And when would it all end? When he felt cessation of motion, he opened his eyes....

.....and discovered that he was lying atop Snape's bed, completely bound with ropes that held him in place so that he could not move his limbs. And sitting beside the bed in an overstuffed armchair, immobile and impassive, gravely watching him, was none other than Severus Snape himself.

Sirius wd fod for a moment, to see what moment in time was to be re-enacted for his benefit now, when the realization came to him that this was real - he really WAS lying bound on the bed, and his missing lover really WAS right there, observing him.

"Severus, you're here!" Sirius managed to strangle out. "Are you all right? I was so worried about you! Do you have any idea of what is going on here...." And then he looked a little more closely, and he saw that the potions master's eyes seemed to be tinged with red, and were more than a little swollen.

And suddenly Sirius knew, without being told, what had happened to him. He cursed his slowness, this should have occurred to him earlier, but the bump on the head had temporarily addled his brains. Now he was thinking more clearly, and his thoughts all ran along the same line - Severus Snape was one of the finest legilemens ever. He had deliberately taken Sirius on his little trip down memory lane, not to hurt him, but to comprehend him. That is why the memory of Azkaban had ended so abruptly, because he wasn't looking to cause Sirius pain, merely attempting to understand him. And the memories that belonged to Snape? It was with no surprise that Sirius recognized the pensieve on the bedside table.

"You have no idea of how angry I was with you," Snape began softly, his voice barely rising above a whisper, as if his reserves of energy had all been drained. "When I saw you there with...with... well, with those obnoxious Weasley twins.... Touching you, pleasing you...."

"But I didn't know, it wasn't my fault," Sirius pleaded with him, his dark eyes expressive.

"I know that now, but I didn't then. I was so hurt that I wanted to hurt you as much as I could, to make you feel something of what I felt... And then when you came running in here, looking for me, I was waiting..."

"And you cold-cocked me," Sirius supplied, feeling the bump on his head ache again.

"Yes, and for that I am not proud. I'm sorry if I hurt you, but I wasn't thinking very clearly." Snape sighed, shifted his position in the chair and, as an afterthought, muttered the words that caused the ropes to disappear from about Sirius. Sirius sat up slowly, rubbing at his wrists where the rope had chafed, and at his aching head.

"I had the most diabolical plans for you," Snape continued, "I thought of torturing you unmercifully, with ropes and whips and chains, and any other foul device I could think of, to take you as the slut I thought you were, to use you for my amusement and to discard you when I was through. To show you that nobody does that to Severus Snape and gets away with it."

"Why didn't you, then?"

Snape leaned back into the depths of his chair, shuddered. "Because I found that I couldn't do it to you, I just couldn't, no matter what I thought you had done. So I probed your mind instead, tried to see what makes you tick, to try to understand."

"And did you see?"

Snape nodded quietly. "I think so."

Sirius swung his long legs over the edge of the bed, slowly stood, as if to make sure they would bear his weight. "What now?" he asked simply.

"Now?" Severus repeated.

"Yes, now," Sirius echoed. "What do we do now?"

Severus sighed, rose from the chair, and made his way quickly to the door, before turning back to Sirius once again. "Now I have to think," and before Sirius could reply, Snape was gone.

Sirius sat heavily upon the bed, closed his eyes, and sighed, wishing there was some way to ease this great pain in his heart.