"Come to My Arms, You Beamish Boy!", Sirius/Harry, NC-17

[traintracks]

Title: Come to My Arms, You Beamish Boy!
Author: traintracks
Pairing(s): Sirius/Harry, (Remus/Tonks, nothing explicit)
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: chan (15), godfather/godson, ticklishness
Summary: Remus decides to keep an eye on Sirius and Harry…and instead gets an eyeful.
Prompt: Sirius/Harry/(Remus). Christmas at Grimmauld Place by torino10154.
Words: 4,600
Author Note: This wouldn't be half the fic it is without the loving guidance and beta-help of both elrhiarhodan and sdkshelly. Thank you both so very much. <3 The title is from Lewis Carroll's poem, "Jabberwocky".

This is a repost of the first of two fics I wrote for hp_chan_slash this year.



I'm reasonably certain it first happened just before Harry left for his trial. Which is to say, I believe that to be the first time, but I can't be sure.

Things were tense in the house. Mad-Eye and I had been talking about the boy – about watching out for him – and just as importantly Sirius, because in his state of mind, he was liable to take off after Harry, to protect him and what have you, and get killed or sent back to Azkaban, one or the other, in the process.

So I agreed I would keep a diligent eye on both of them.

At first it wasn't so apparent. Harry was so angry with his friends; it was difficult to see past that. And Merlin knows I couldn't blame him. But then there were signs. Sirius invited the boy into the meetings. Sirius treated him like an adult, like one of the Order.

Like James.

I should have known from the feeling in my gut, and if not that, then the fire in his eye, the way his hands would linger after an embrace, the way the boy tilted his face up and their gazes would lock.

But there was business to attend to. There was this talk of Harry's expulsion, of the Dementors. Everything was under a grey pall, a hush. Voldemort's name sat aborted on everyone's lips. Harry and Sirius were the only ones who would say it.

That should have been clue enough. They'd found something in one another that they'd searched for in others for years.

They'd stay up late into the night. They'd sit at that kitchen table with the fire burning low. I'd leave for bed but turn and watch them from the hall. Sirius would always move closer when he thought it was safe, when no one was looking. His arm would stretch across the back of Harry's chair as they talked. His hands would be so ready to pull the boy close, his arms always open, and it never took much to propel Harry into them.

I thought I was supposed to protect them from the outside world, not protect them from each other.

I didn't tell anyone. I didn't talk to Moody or Shacklebolt or the Weasleys. Not even Nymphadora, maybe in part to keep her at a distance from me , although in hindsight that was probably a terrible decision for so many reasons. I told no one what I was witnessing, in part because I wasn't sure I was right about what that was and in part because…

I honestly don't know. Cowardice perhaps? Or maybe some part of me wanted to be their accomplice, wanted to protect them even though what I imagined they could do…had not yet done but could do… God…

Harry had just turned fifteen. And yet, he had always been Harry. He had always been The Boy Who Lived. The boy who lived all alone. The kid grew up in a closet for Merlin's sake. It had always been a point of guilt for me that I had heard his mother laugh, seen his father cast the perfect spell, and he never would.

I had watched Sirius fall in love with his father only to have his heart broken, the break made all the worse for adoring the woman who helped break it. I had watched my best friend, a man whose bravery knows no equal, sent to Azkaban for something he would kill anyone else in the world for doing. For betrayal.

If ever two people needed solace….

So I kept my mouth shut, and I watched them get closer to it every day, a sharp, hollow ache persistent under my skin, a migraine always close by.

I had tried talking to Sirius. I'd cornered him on a couple of occasions and asked what I thought were leading questions that he always seemed to evade with charm and half-truths: "Of course I love him, he's my godson." "I'd never hurt Harry." "I wouldn't endanger myself – that would only leave him with no one to look out for him."

And all the while we could have been talking about something else – about him remaining at Grimmauld place during the trial, about keeping the Dementors at bay.

But we weren't. And I think we both knew it.

Then the night came before Harry was to leave.

There'd been a curious distance between Harry and Sirius all day, and I'd begun to think I'd been imagining things. There were still the looks, but they didn't last as long, and they had to cross a roomful of space. There was no touching. They each retired early, almost unheard of for Sirius Black, and bloody hell but I should have known.

I found them in an abandoned study. Sirius had been so lax that there weren't even any magical protections up. Hell, the door wasn't even all the way shut. They were fevered. It was as if nothing else mattered. As if death was upon them.

I took a sick, meager comfort in the fact that at least their clothes were mainly still on – that there wasn't…dear God…penetration.

But Sirius had Harry backed up against a wall, and they were…moving.

I've since asked Tonks what the exact term for that act might be called and suffered her wide-eyed stare while she practically spat, "You mean frotting??" She'd proceeded to grill me on what precisely had brought the subject up, and I made up some story – God, I don't even know what, but something ridiculous. She didn't believe me, and I could tell I'd undone months of putting her off with the conversation, but…

Well, she'd answered my question.

They were frotting. Harry's leg had been wrapped around Sirius, and Sirius' hips had been going hard, his teeth at Harry's throat and Harry's mouth open on little whining groans.

I didn't stay for the finish.

I trudged to my dreary room and spent a sleepless night.

For all I know they slept together. From what I hear (I've had no firsthand knowledge despite several drunken opportunities), once Sirius comes, he grows his brain back again. I'm sure they could have spent the night in Sirius' bed with no one the wiser, all kinds of magicks thrown up around them.

I didn't see either of them again until it was time for Harry to leave. I had stayed shuttered up in my room going over owls. I'd already failed. No point in policing their actions any longer, I'd thought.

So I skipped breakfast, but I came down to see Harry off, and I watched them embrace for long, painful moments. I saw the fear and determination in Sirius' eyes and watched him fight the near physical need to follow the boy out of the house. Harry turned back at the doorframe, his soulful eyes full of longing.

"It'll be all right," Sirius told him, and then Harry had turned and gone.

…

Harry was, of course, acquitted of the charges, in large part due to Dumbledore's still-considerable sway over the Ministry. But he didn't make it back to number 12 Grimmauld Place before school started again.

To say things went back to normal would be a stretch. Whenever there were Order meetings, I got to see Sirius' fixation with Harry once more. I'd gotten over my anger at him, no longer seeing him as the thief of Harry's innocence and feeling too culpable myself to give my friend the proper mental dressing down that he probably still deserved. I'd begun to see him as the trapped and tortured man he was – that he'd been for so bloody long. His home was his Azkaban now. And the boy he loved – right or wrong or both – was out there fending for himself in a world that seemed designed to devour him whole and spit out his bones.

Still Sirius was a ruthless strategist and an exemplary wizard, and he was all business during meetings. It was only in those quiet moments alone or with me for company that I saw the added strain of worrying about (and missing) Harry.

"Have you heard from him?" I asked one day over spiked tea.

He shook his head. Neither one of us made any pretense that we were talking about anyone else. "I told him he could come to me, but…" He waved his hand. "He's worried they'll find me, drag me back to Azkaban…" He swallowed a large draught of his drink.

"He'll be okay," I said unhelpfully.

Sirius just stared down into his cup, turning it slowly.

It wasn't long after that evening that we heard the news. It came from Snape who showed up late to a meeting on a Saturday.

"Lines?" I repeated, once he'd spoken. "Engraved on his hand?"

"That is what I said, Mr. Lupin," Snape intoned.

Sirius exploded. "I'LL KILL HER!!!" He began pacing in short bursts, his hands hard through his hair.

Molly Weasley stepped into his path. "Sirius Black!" she shouted. "I'm as furious as you are, but no one is going to go off murdering anyone. Do you understand?"

Sirius stopped. He took a breath and nodded. Then he turned to me. "I'm going to help Harry. Don't try to stop me, Remus."

I grabbed his arm. "No, Sirius."

Shacklebolt joined me, silently placing his hand on Sirius' shoulder, ready to subdue him if need be.

"Get off me," Sirius seethed.

"This isn't the way," Shacklebolt said.

Alastor stepped in, too. "I'll get word to Dumbledore. Severus will keep watch."

"Severus !" Sirius spat the name out in disgust, but I took him by the shoulders and made him look at me.

"We'll all make sure he's all right. If you walk out that door, we can't protect you, too."

"I don't need your protection," he gritted out.

"Look," I said, scrambling for something, anything that would keep him in his skin. "We'll bring him here as soon as we can, all right? It's almost winter break." I softened my voice, seeing him weaken slightly. "We'll bring him home. All right?"

He stared at me, his jaw working. It was as if he was trying to see into my mind. I swallowed. "Use the floo tonight and check on him, all right? He'll be back here in three weeks. He's been hurt worse, Sirius."

I watched that sink in, his indigo eyes shifting between mine, James and Lily's deaths shimmering there in the light of unshed tears, the fact that Harry had already fought Voldemort, lost others, friends, just like Sirius had. He finally blinked, and then I felt his wiry shoulders sag in my hands. He turned away and dropped into a nearby chair, the butt of his palms pressed to his eyes.

The meeting continued on with Sirius only nodding his agreement here and there, his gaze haunted with the thing none of us could stop imagining: a petite lady in pink making our children bleed.

…


As if making up for whatever new abuse Harry was being made to suffer, Sirius nearly broke the bank with Christmas. I've never seen him do one smidgeon of what he did for that boy: three trees, one in the tapestry room (he'd had the tapestry removed to the basement), one in Harry's room, and one in the kitchen of all places; tinsel absolutely everywhere; red, green, silver, and gold candles; stockings; and gifts.

Gifts, gifts, GIFTS. Gifts to raise Merlin's beard on end.

Every time I came to the house, which was a couple of times a week if only to make sure that Sirius hadn't gone stir-crazy, there was something new that he'd purchased or conjured to please Harry Potter.

He'd been in contact over floo practically every-other-night against my better judgment. It did seem to have put him in much better spirits. Harry, too, from what I'd been able to hear. And I'd accidentally overheard a couple of whispered I-love-yous. Not the innocent kind either.

Sirius must have known that I knew. Maybe he simply didn't care. Or he was ashamed. Or something else entirely. Whatever, we didn't speak of it. Harry was just assumed. Harry was family, and it hardly mattered if he was godson or lover; he was revered, and that was all there was to it.

Still, I couldn't help but be wary on the day of his arrival. The others were already there, everyone but the Weasleys who were entertaining at the Burrow. Sirius was ecstatic. He had hardly touched a drink yet he was drunk. Some of my wariness died seeing him like that. It was like watching him come back to life.

And then Harry was there, walking in the door on a blustery wind, his Gryffindor scarf bright against the dark day, stamping his boots on the new welcome mat. I followed Sirius down the hall toward him and watched Sirius grab him up in a hard hug. A parchment wouldn't have fit between them. I'd never seen either one smile brighter. Or have so much to smile about.

There was one horrible moment when Sirius pulled back just the tiniest bit and stared at Harry's lips when I felt sure they were going to stick their tongues in each other's mouths right there in front of me. But I cleared my throat, and they broke apart, Harry blushing or flushed from the cold, I couldn't be sure.

"Take your scarf?" Sirius said, unwinding it already. "Your gloves," and he took those, too.

Harry laughed. "Anything else?"

I turned away before I could see Sirius leer. He pulled Harry by the hand through the hallway, talking a mile a minute about every little thing.

"Happy Christmas, Professor Lupin," Harry said, smiling at me as they passed.

"Happy Christmas, Harry," I replied. I shook my head bemusedly and followed in their joyful wake to the kitchen.

…

"What's the matter?" Tonks asked me, startling me out of an eggnog malaise.

"Hmm?"

Alastor laughed across the room at something Shackebolt said, his guffaw turning to a greasy wheeze. I felt bereft in that moment, as though all my well-built fences erected to keep Tonks safe from me were beyond stupid; they were becoming painful.

"Just tired," I lied. I turned my gaze from the other two across the room – the ones sitting on the floor near the blazing fire, surrounded by ripped wrapping paper and what I considered a marked glow.

The afternoon had been festive. Sirius had done so much to make Grimmauld Place more presentable, to put it in the spirit of the season, though it still sat like a dark secret on a street that would never know it existed. I had helped him deck the halls and start up some holiday music, and had watched him draw Harry from room to room, for the first time boastful of the very place that had become his second prison.

The doxies had been eliminated, and the ghosts had all been swept into the cellar. Even Kreacher was on his best behavior.

Everything had been rather lovely. Sirius and Harry had been nothing but decent and innocent unless you looked really hard. And I did. I made it a point to seek them out if ever they were to vanish off somewhere together. This only happened the once that I could tell, and what I found wasn't all that scandalous. It was Sirius tending to Harry's hand, holding it like a cherished thing and turning it this way and that, observing the scarring.

I found myself feeling guilty for intruding on the moment as Sirius brought the back of Harry's hand to his lips and whispered a kiss over it, "I'm sorry, lad."

I'd retreated back to the party, which had moved to the old tapestry room (Sirius wanted to rename it Holiday Hall.) where presents were to be unwrapped. Sirius and Harry had rejoined the party several minutes later in better spirits.

"Who wants to play Saint Nick?" Sirius had called, and then immediately answered, "I do! Everyone get a drink and take a seat and prepare to be merry."

Harry had received twice the presents of anyone else, but no one seemed to mind. Sirius watched him open his gifts like it was the first and last time. I'd never seen him so…happy.

Tonks was looking at me now in that way, the way that made me feel like someone actually longed for me, too, and I shook myself out of my reveries.

"How long are you in London?" I asked her. Her eyes had gone from iridescent green to deep, caring brown, and I found myself falling into them, the dimly-lit room around me fading. The music, now turned low and crooning slow songs, drifted over me like a lazy hand. I wanted her to say she was staying the night. I wanted to kiss her.

Before she could answer me, I felt Sirius' hand on my shoulder and looked up to see him smiling down on me. "Good night, Moony," he said. "Nymphadora," he added with a wink in her direction.

"Sod off, Black," she said, lifting her glass to him, her Firewhiskey amber in the light of the flames.

"Night," I said to him absently. It had been a long day with the party continuing from late morning and different Order members stopping by for drinks, for exchanging gifts, for a bit of warmth on a bitterly cold day.

Sirius squeezed my shoulder affectionately and then Disapparated. I sighed and watched Tonks swirl her drink.

"Think I'll turn in, too," Harry said, stretching conspicuously. I could hardly bring myself to care. My best friend was happy. Harry seemed happy. I wanted to be happy for them. I just wanted to be happy, too.

"Good night, Harry," Tonks said.

"Happy Christmas, you two," he replied and then left the room on the power of his two legs, lumosing his way down the corridor. Too young to Apparate. Egad.

You two, he'd said. I looked at Tonks, and she was smirking a little. I think I blushed. "Well?" I prodded. "How long are you here?"

She shrugged. "Depends on how bad it gets in the east."

"I didn't get to talk to Charlie last time. He's over that way again, right?"

"Mm," she nodded. "Says the Weres are angry and scared. What the Ministry's talking…God, you'd think we'd all be in Azkaban within the year."

"You're not a werewolf," I reminded her, my jaw tightening. "It's not you they want to put away."

"No," she admitted quietly. "But loving one changes everything." I swallowed, and she blinked her gaze away. "To answer your question, though, I think I'll be heading east in a few days. Or, you know, whenever Sirius gets his arse in gear."

"Sirius?" I said, aghast. "He hasn't told you he's leaving, has he?"

"He's worried about the situation. The Ministry has made mention of moving into the forest adjacent Hogwarts to set up a werewolf barrier. He doesn't like it. Not with what's going on with Umbridge. Not with Harry –"

I interrupted her, "So he's just going to leave Grimmauld Place without the Order's consent – without telling me -- and hare off to the mountains to bargain with werewolves? Is he mad?"

"You'd have to ask him," Tonks said, taking a sip of her drink and looking too…not nonplussed about the whole thing.

"Bloody right, I will," I found myself growling, overturning my chair as I stood. Without another word to Tonks, I Disapparated to my friend's room, my hands balled into fists, ready to threaten him with bodily harm if I had to in order to keep him safe.

I landed in the shadows just inside his bedroom door, and I had opened my mouth to shout at him about what an imbecile he was when what I'd Apparated in on stopped me in my tracks.

They were on the bed, sideways, like they'd landed abruptly, unready for sleep. Sirius was fully clothed except for his shirt gaping open, all those tattoos on display, but Harry was in pajama bottoms and nothing else. I recognized them as the very pajamas he had unwrapped earlier, and of course, they'd been from his godfather.

The fire was going strong in the hearth. Sirius straddled Harry's hips, smiling down on him. Harry sighed, stretching his arms over his head, his loose hands hanging off the side of the bed, and then Sirius ran his palms from the boy's wrists…slowly…down his forearms, over his elbows, down his triceps.

It was the most loving touch I'd ever watched one human being bestow upon another.

I shut my gaping mouth.

Sirius' hands descended into Harry's armpits, into the dark thatches of hair, and Harry collapsed in laughter – loud, spontaneous, joyful laughter.

"Ticklish?" Sirius asked him. I could see his thumbs moving still. I almost wanted to snort at what a teenager the man still was himself. Harry tossed and screeched beneath him, and Sirius stilled, relenting.

Harry caught his breath. "Yes," he answered. He looked up at Sirius. "But don't stop." He lifted his arms over his head again, trustingly. A gift. Sirius smiled, nothing lecherous about it, then he stroked up Harry's arms once more with gentle fingers – up the insides of his biceps where the skin is so sensitive, over scrawny elbows, up his forearms, then once more down, down, down, drifting over his armpits, fingers sifting through the hair. Again, laughter threatened, but Harry bit his lip and sighed, shivering instead, his back arching up, wanting Sirius' touch all the more.

I felt myself swallow, barely breathing. I felt utterly stuck, unable to Disapparate without a telling crack blistering the air with noise, yet horribly disgusted with myself for staying. But it was beautiful. Just beautiful. Awful. Unimaginably intimate. Sirius touched Harry's slender chest, his fingers raising the nipples into drastic points, Harry's breath coming hard, his eyes closing, back arching guilelessly for more.

And then…oh God…Sirius sat back and yanked the boy's bottoms down to his thighs. I watched, half-horror-struck, as Harry's cock bounced free, blushing and ready. Sirius leaned down over it, opened his mouth, and took it between his lips.

Harry gasped, and I tried hard not to. I pressed my lips so tightly together, I'm sure they were white, and I watched Sirius suck Harry's cock, head moving between strong, young thighs. Harry's hips moved in time with Sirius' descent. He brought his hands down, reaching, and tangled his fingers in his godfather's long hair. "Sssssssirius…" he whined.

Harry bucked, his brow furrowed, and then he groaned loudly as he came, holding Sirius' head in tight while the man swallowed and hummed.

I couldn't help it. I was hard.

I stuck to the shadows as Sirius pulled off and rose up over the boy – as he worked the pajama bottoms all the way off, Harry kicking at them to free his legs -- and then as Sirius hitched Harry's legs up and hastily unfastened his own trousers, almost unable to wait.

"Oh God, Sirius," Harry breathed, reaching for him, pulling him close, opening his thighs, welcoming it.

I didn't want to see this. Not because it was ugly to me or reprehensible. I don't think I could have believed that anymore if I'd tried with all my might. I couldn't see it as right, but I couldn't condemn it either. I was stuck in so many ways.

But no, I didn't want to see it because, right or wrong, it was none of my bloody business. Because there was a woman downstairs who I now knew I loved, and I would never want anyone seeing what I was seeing Harry and Sirius do with each other right then.

An idea occurred to me as Sirius got ready, as he pulled his cock free, huge and moist. They were breathing so hard – I had to take the chance. I withdrew my wand with my breath held, then I whispered, "Muffliato," as quietly as I could.

And then, just as Sirius mounted and began to breach the boy – just as Harry's mouth opened in a stunned 'O', registering, somehow, both fear and love in one breath, I Disapparated.

…

I did end up shouting at Sirius, it was just the next day instead. The guests had gone. The decorations were all wilting a little. We were in the kitchen, and I got him before he even sat down. Harry was there to hear it, and frankly, I was glad. I didn't care who heard me. The more the merrier. I'd been up half the night careening between feelings of joy for my friend's happiness, desire for my own, and rage that Sirius was thinking of being such a daft prick.

So before he could even fetch his tea, with Harry shuffling tiredly along behind him, I set in. I called him a selfish, impulsive plonker and a bloody idiot. I told him that leaving the house when he was still considered mortally dangerous was reckless and inconsiderate of everything the Order sought to do and had set in place, with his help, since its inception. I told him going into the mountains to hold meetings with werewolves without me was absolutely arrogant and, furthermore, infuriating. And then I told him that leaving would put Harry in danger, and if he did that, he'd never forgive himself and neither would I.

He just blinked at me across the kitchen table where we were faced off. Then Harry walked up behind him and took his hand. Sirius turned and looked down at the boy. He frowned. And then I think he understood, because he just looked back at me, Harry's hand gripped in his, and nodded solemnly.

"Good," I said, sighing. "Now Harry, if you ever think – if you ever have reason to believe he's turned into such a self-involved, stupid wanker ever again – if you suspect for one moment that he's out of this house, I want you to come to me. Floo me any time, day or night, and I'll take care of the tosser. You understand?"

A slow smile spread over Harry's face. "I'll do that, Professor Lupin," he said.

"'Self-involved, stupid wanker'?" Sirius groused.

"Yes!" Harry and I chorused at once.

"Bugger off the both of you," Sirius said, but he couldn't hide the self-deprecating smile that twitched his mustache, the affection he felt for each of us.

Harry took him by the arm then, adoration all over his face as Sirius looked down at him.

I cleared my throat and left the room, but not before I heard my friend say softly, "I love you," and then hear Harry return it.

As I came out at the top of the stairs, I found Tonks lurking in the hall.

"Hey," she said, biting her lip. Her hair was bright purple. I had the strange sensation that it was blushing.

I found myself smiling at her. "Hello," I said. I leaned against the wall opposite her.

"There's this pub" she began. "I'm going later, and you're coming with me. As my date. Remus, I've bloody had it with this hard-to-get, but-I'm-a-werewolf, but-I'm-so-bloody-OLD bollocks and I—"

I took a deep breath in, cupped her head in my hand, and pressed my lips to hers, shutting her up. She gasped, and I took my chances, deepening the kiss and wrapping a hand around her lower back.

"Remus…" she sighed when I drew back. And then she smiled, and her eyes turned blue.

And that, as they say, is that.

Comments

[pretty_panther]

Oh I love this! Wonderfully put together and it just has something so much more intimate about it because it is all from the point of view of Remus. Brilliant :3

[traintracks]

Thank you so very much for reading! :-D

[elrhiarhodan]

I really don't have enough words to express how much I love this. Seeing Harry and Sirius' relationship through Remus' eyes is so beautiful - and you've really given us tremendous insight into Remus himself.

Brava, bravura, bravissima!!!!!!

[traintracks.livejournal.com]

HUGS YOU! Thank you so much, bb!!! :-D

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is bizarrely sweet. And just such a different viewpoint on the S/H dynamic which is possible from having Remus as the first person narrator.

I want to cuddle them all (and am trying not to think about the fact that Sirius dies soon).

[traintracks.livejournal.com]

I tried to write it in such a way, with Remus jumping on Sirius at the end there and telling Harry to let him know if Sirius was out of the house, that his death could be subverted.

Thanks so much for reading!

[firethesound]

The sheer amount of emotion you’ve packed into this fic. I just. I can’t even. akjhdgfhd;kghsk

Harry was family, and it hardly mattered if he was godson or lover; he was revered, and that was all there was to it. This line is brilliant. It sums up their whole relationship. <3

I love the Remus/Tonks you’ve put in here too. I think this is the first thing I’ve ever read that’s written them believably, including the books. I love the idea of Tonks being the aggressor there, and the ending was just lovely.

[traintracks.livejournal.com]

Wow, what a huge compliment! I know Remus/Tonks is sort of not cool with a lot of people, and I totally get that. Personally, I'm still shocked Remus wasn't made completely gay in canon. It really seemed where his character was headed, and for me, Sirius/James and Sirius/Remus basically ARE canon, so... Well, I tried to make a Remus/Tonks that wouldn't make slashers want to vomit, and I really appreciate knowing that that worked for you!!

And thank you for pointing out your favorite line! I'd forgotten about it, and I really like it, too. ;-) :-)

[firethesound]

In my head, Sirius/Remus is canon. I'd always sort of written off Remus/Tonks as him being so devastated by Sirius's death that he just sort of fell into a relationship with her, because they never really fit to me otherwise.

[traintracks.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, this EXACTLY!!! The only reason I'm cool with it is that they brought Teddy Lupin into this world. And fuck yeah, Teddy Lupin. I could write that boy alllllll day. LOL.

[firethesound]

I'm okay with you writing more Teddy Lupin. :D