Chapter 51: Loose Lips
"Oh fuck."
Considering how often the words came out of Sirius's mouth lately, it was surprising that Remus took any notice of them at all. The boy looked over, a bland expression taking over his face, as Sirius cursed again.
"Fuck fuckity fuck."
"What is wrong with you?" Remus asked with a sigh.
"Harry is wrong with me!" he hissed and jabbed an angry finger down the corridor at the boy walking beside Hermione; neither had noticed the two Marauders, but they soon would. When they did Sirius would have to run, as had become his custom. Ever since witnessing his crush snog Alfie fucking Quintain in the Three Broomsticks, he had given up any shred of pride or pretence; he stopped pretending he had something to do or somewhere better to be and just fled the other boy's presence. It was humiliating, but being near him was worse.
As the pair drew closer, Sirius ducked behind the prefect as if Harry might somehow fail to notice him behind the thinner boy.
Remus groaned at his stupidity, which was nothing new, admittedly, but Sirius felt his panic was fully justified and was about to offer a defence of his behaviour when his friend grabbed him by the arm. "Here," Remus said and shoved him unceremoniously into the nearest classroom, closing the door behind him.
Sirius stumbled to a stop in the empty classroom, wondering why his friend felt the need to shove him quite so violently. He was all for anything that allowed him to escape the presence of Quintain's plaything, so all Remus had to do was open the door and tell him to hide; why bother pushing him in as if he might want to avoid this room as desperately as he did Harry?
Just as the thought crossed his mind, he heard it – the sharp 'click' of the lock. He strained his ears and managed to hear Remus casting a spell around the door. "Oi! Moony! What's the idea?"
"You're going to sit there until you sort out your problem," Harry called through the door.
"Dammit, I know what my problem is!"
"What is it?" Harry asked, his voice much quieter and much closer.
Sirius spun around.
Harry was there. In the room. With him.
"You're my problem," he said without meaning to.
"Yeah, I noticed. Well, I might be able to fix that," he said, pulled up his shirtsleeve and spoke at the leather cuff on his wrist. "Lily-flower." The boy blinked a bit stupidly and repeated the password again in a louder voice.
"You're still here," Sirius observed. "That's not going to fix my problem."
"JAMES!" Harry bellowed, pushing past Sirius to slap a hand hard against the door. "You absolute prat, stop stealing my stuff and pretending to be me! I am embarrassed to be your son! Let me out!"
"No, we're tired of Sirius and his moods. The door is charmed to unlock when one of you apologises," James called through the door.
"Fine, I'll apologise. I'm—." The words died on Sirius's tongue. "I'm—."
"Veritaserum won't let you offer a false apology," Remus told them, and Sirius was sure he heard the smug smile. "Try to sort your problems before it wears off. Peter will be furious if we upset his Hooper plans for nothing."
"This day cannot get any worse," Sirius groaned. Offering the door a savage kick, he stalked to the opposite end of the room and threw himself down on the floor, determined not to utter a word. He knew exactly what would come out if he spoke.
Harry must have realised what he was trying to do because he was shouting through the door, "You know, we can just sit here and refuse to speak to each other."
"Please," James scoffed. "Sirius can't keep his trap shut for five minutes. Half his detentions are because he can't keep from opening his gob!"
"Oi! I can hear you, you tosser!" Sirius called.
"Don't hear you denying it, mate. Don't think the potion will let you."
"Don't kill each other," Remus ordered. "We'll have the house-elves send food."
"Gits," Harry grumbled. "What are we going to do?"
"I'm going to sit here and pretend you're not in the room," Sirius said, turning his back on the boy.
A moment of silence passed during which Sirius thought for one hopeful moment that Harry would mimic his plan and remain silent. It was a good plan, one that would keep the tatters of his dignity around him and allow him to survive being so near Harry. Surely, the other boy saw the merit in it, too.
How wrong he was.
An empty ink bottle shattered to the left of his head. "I am tired of your moods and of you always hiding from me. Go fuck yourself," the boy shouted, anger turning his mouth as foul as Sirius's.
He could have kept his mouth shut. It wasn't a question he was forced to answer. It was just a sentence. Imperative; derogatory, but still just a sentence. There's was no reason to reply, except he couldn't let Harry have the last word. James was right, he couldn't keep from opening his stupid trap; he had to say something, and the moment he opened his mouth the potion had truth spilling from his lips: "Be thinking of you when I do it."
His mouth fell open as he gagged on the words, nausea churning in his stomach and his throat constricting after admitting such a terrible truth.
"You—" Harry stammered and flushed as deep a red as his tie. "You're serious, aren't you?"
"Every day of my life since you turned up." He meant it as a joking play on his name, but the Veritaserum would not even allow puns. It only permitted absolute honest admissions, and Sirius ended up divulging more of his late night fantasies than he had ever wanted anyone to know, especially the subject of those fantasies. "Merlin pants, why are you even here?"
"I was hit with a curse that activated my portkey and brought me back in time," Harry said. His face, unlike Sirius's, did not fall when the truth was spoken.
"Why won't you go home before you do any further damage?" he griped.
"Can't. We don't know exactly how it happened, and Dumbledore won't risk killing us based on a near-as-we-can-get guess about which curse brought us here."
"Git," Sirius mumbled. He didn't know who the slur was directed at, but in his present state of mind it was a word that applied truthfully to everyone in existence. He slumped against the wall, determined to remain silent. Enough humiliating truths had already spilled out of him, he really did not need to divulge any more, but Harry just wouldn't leave him alone.
"Do you really do… you know… to me?"
"Fuck, yes. Dream about you every night. Dammit. Stop asking me questions!" The boy's silence stretched out for far too long, and Sirius began to grow nervous without noise to fill his ears and head. Desperate to fill the quiet and to get back at him, he demanded, "Who do you dream about then?"
"You," Harry said simply.
"And what am I doing in these dreams?" He couldn't keep the satisfied smile from his face. Harry acted shocked and disturbed, but he was no better. The smile fell as Harry answered him.
"Shouting at me, abandoning me. All the same things you do during the day since you figured out who I am, so what difference does it really make if I'm awake or asleep?"
Abandon? Sirius had not abandoned him. He would protest that until the day he died. He was sick over what he had done; he couldn't look at Harry without remembering all the times he had thrown himself at him, without imagining himself as the old man from Harry's right time doing all the same things. It was disgusting. He was disgusting. How was it abandonment when he was protecting the boy from a pervert?
"It makes a big fucking difference to me," Sirius cried. "Why would you dream about that?"
"Because I got Sirius killed."
Sirius was halfway to slapping the boy on the head when he had answered. Hearing the truth, his gut wrenched. He ought to be used to the feeling by now, but this was somehow different. This was like a knife slowly twisting between his ribs, making his heart ache and stomach tighten. Harry wasn't lying or exaggerating. He was incapable of it. They boy's voice broke as he said it, said that Sirius was dead.
"I'm—" Sirius swallowed hard, forcing the question back into his mouth. He needed no confirmation to know that he was dead where Harry came from. It was truth. "How did it happen?"
Harry clenched his fists and eyes, trying to fight the potion, but he couldn't hold out against it any longer than Sirius could. In a ragged, pained whisper, he let loose a story more excruciating than Sirius could have dreamed; suspicion, lies, imprisonment and death. How could one life hold so much grief? All those strange turns Harry James Granger took made sense now; that haunted look; the night terrors; the rabbit heart.
"Kreacher lied, said that Sirius was out but he was upstairs the whole time," Harry's face contorted into a mockery of smile as he fought to keep from crying. "We found our way into the Ministry but it was a trap. The Death Eaters were waiting. Sirius came, but—"
"Yeah, I got that. He died."
Sirius paused, frowning.
That was wrong. He was Sirius. The same Sirius that died in Harry's tale. He opened his mouth to correct himself, but the potion refused to let the right words come, as if they were a lie.
"That is so weird," he muttered.
"What is?" Harry practically spat in anger, as if Sirius doubted him.
"I tried to say 'I died' but I can't." The frown deepened as he tried again. "No, it won't let me. You try. Say that I died at the Ministry."
"You—," Harry's mouth formed the words but the sound did not come. "You— He died."
Sirius stared at him, his frown slowly turning up at the edges as realisation dawned. "I didn't die. I'm not Sirius. Well, yes, I'm Sirius, but not your Sirius."
Harry offered a rather wet snort. "I could have told you that. My Sirius was great. You're a git."
"Not what you used to say," he sniffed indignantly. "And anyway, if you're dreaming of your Sirius, then you must've loved him. So therefore you must love me." His heart beat a little faster as he realised what he said, what the potion had allowed him to say. And suddenly he knew what he was dying to ask. He was afraid of the answer, but at least he would finally know. Closing his eyes as he took a steadying breath, he opened his mouth and let the question come. "Harry, do you fancy me?"
The reply came slowly. "I don't know."
His eyes flew open, and he glared at the boy opposite. "What kind of answer is that?"
"The truth, obviously," he shot back. "I can't say anything else right now."
"That's not an answer. Yes. No. A little. Those are answers."
"Well, I don't know. This makes no sense. None of it," he shot to his feet, hands still clenched into fists ready to take his confusion out on whatever was closest. "I like girls. They don't always like me back, and when they do it doesn't always go to plan. But the point is that I like girls. Now all of a sudden you're there laying on me and hanging all over me and I can't stop thinking of you when I ought to have a girl in my head. Why do you have to be all… you?"
"I can't change what I am." He felt insulted even as he smiled. Harry thought about him. "You like girls?"
"Yes!"
"But you like me."
"Yes," he groaned.
"But you don't fancy me."
"I don't know."
"Do you fancy Alfie fucking Quintain?"
"No," Harry said with absolute conviction.
"Then why the fuck are you snogging him?" Sirius demanded through clenched teeth. Even knowing he was a staple thought in the other boy's head did not dull the nausea brought on by Harry dating Quintain.
"I need him to like me so I can get information. He's not likely to help me if I'm shoving him off and breaking his jaw, now is he?"
"No," Sirius had to agree. "Not even he's that twisted."
"Why do you hate him so much?"
Sickness churned again as the truth was pulled from him. "He tried to molest my brother when we were kids."
Harry blinked at him for a painfully long moment. "I think that ought to have been part of your warning that he was dangerous, don't you?"
"If I could prove it, it would have been." He raked his hands through his hair, annoyed at having to talk about this when they were so close to getting to the crux of Harry's feelings for him.
"What happened?"
Sirius sighed and decided not to fight the truth, slumping against the wall for the cold support it offered as the story he never told anyone, not even James, poured from him. "It was summer before I started Hogwarts. I was late coming home from Andromeda's house. Alfie was already there. He always came over in those days, and after a year at school he wanted to tell me all about what to expect. I came in and saw Regulus red-faced and running from my room with his shirt in his hands, Alfie was just sitting there like nothing was wrong, but I could tell he was lying. Reg never told me what happened, was always too afraid of what other people thought, and our mother loved Alfie; he would never have said a word against him." He smiled ruefully, "I never much cared for what people had to say, so I broke his teeth. Took me five solid punches, and I nearly broke my hand doing it, but I thought it was worth it. Mother grounded me for the rest of the summer and Alfie never came over again. Damn shame. I wanted to break a few more things for him. But that was the moment I decided I would never be like Alfie no matter what mother wanted. I would do everything I could to be exactly opposite. Fat lot of good that did, since apparently I'm as bad as he is."
"You're not," Harry insisted, his anger vanished in the face of such an admission.
"Not what you said in the common room. I'm everything he is."
"No, you're not. I was just annoyed that you were ignoring me and trying to warn me off without a decent reason."
"You're right, though. I have dated half the school, never took their feelings seriously, broke their hearts and dumped them after a few weeks. I hurt people all the time with pranks just for a laugh. And, obviously, I'm handsome." He tried to smile but just couldn't manage it.
"That you are, but I don't think you're anything like Alfie. You were right; he does hurt people on purpose. You just do it by accident."
'Because that makes it so much better,' he commented darkly to himself, grinding his teeth a moment before turning to face the boy. "I just hate seeing you two together. You can't win against him. I broke his teeth trying to get back at him, but his parents just took him to a healer and he ended up with a better, brighter smile to trick people with. You can't use him. You'll just end up being used by him. He's too cunning. Please stay away from him."
Harry shook his head. "Can't do that. I need him."
"What for? What could he do for you that you can't find in someone else?"
"The Split-Apart."
"Soul mates?" Sirius questioned. "I didn't think Quintain even knew what a soul was."
"Don't start," Harry warned. "Not that old story. It's a curse. It's what we think sent us here, but it shouldn't have acted the way it did. I should have been torn limb from limb, but instead I'm here. I need to know why so that I can fix this. Alfie knows. He's made new spells, changed old ones; he can tell me what happened to make the spell drag me through time."
"Well, maybe the spell sent you to your soul mate, by which I mean me, obviously. Are you sure you don't fancy me?" he asked again with a smile he hadn't worn in weeks. "I am your split-apart, after all."
"Shut up. I don't know if I fancy you, and that story is rubbish. It's just a curse."
He sighed, more than a little disappointed Harry wouldn't even consider the idea of fancying him. "So, if you know what the curse is, Dumbledore can just—"
"He can't explain it. Neither can Morven."
"Well, fuck."
"Yeah."
"Do you like kissing him?"
"Alfie? Better than the last girl I kissed. But I don't like him, so no. I only get through it thinking he's someone else."
"Really?" Sirius grinned. "Who?"
"You, alright! I think of you." Harry pulled at his hair, scowling and cursing himself.
Sirius knew he shouldn't be smiling, knew he shouldn't be enjoying the other boy's torment quite so much, but he couldn't help it. "So to summarise: You like girls. And me. You think about me all the time, dream about me or your Sirius every night. You think of me when kissing another bloke. But you don't know if you fancy me."
"Oh, sod o—." The words died abruptly as Sirius took his mouth.
Sirius knew from seeing him with Alfie that Harry would be a good kisser, but he hadn't dreamed how good. He was used to pulling mews and moans from his partners with little effort, breaking from them and smirking as they struggled to keep their knees from falling out from under them or as their lips searched out his for more. Now he was the one groaning, knees weakening as Harry's tongue swept into his mouth. He tore himself away before he embarrassed himself.
"Fancy me now?"
"Still don't know," Harry gasped.
"I can do better," Sirius declared and dove in again, throwing everything he had at the boy, every trick he knew to make toes curl and to bring his partner to a near-orgasmic state. When he finally swallowed a moan, he broke away from Harry.
"Fancy me now?"
"Still don't know," Harry replied in a ragged whisper. "Are you just going to keep kissing me until you get the answer you want?"
"That's my plan."
"I think I might like this plan."
As their lips met and they fell into a tangle on the stone floor, neither heard the 'click' of the lock as it released. Neither would have cared even if they had heard it.