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Title: Into the Night
Author: Evandar
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance/Angst
Pairing: Sirius/Harry
Warnings: Age difference, elopement
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: They have to leave because the only thing Sirius is guilty of is of loving Harry with all his being, and Harry is too selfish to tell him to stop. But leaving a life behind isn’t always a simple thing.
AN: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hp_crossgenfest. The title comes from the song Late Goodbye by Poets of the Fall. Lots of thanks to hand out for this little ficlet: thank you so much to S for beta-reading even though it was an atrociously bad time, and for R for the (many) caffeinated pep-talks. Thanks also to M, who told me to chill and write this instead of essays, and especially to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
digthewriter for such a beautiful prompt.
This is…this isn’t real.
He lets his fingers drift over familiar surfaces. The smooth mahogany of his bedside table – it had been Regulus’ once, and there was still a faint engraving of R+B on the inside of the top drawer – the carvings in the bed posts. It all feels too real and solid under his fingertips. Too real to be the dream it has to be. He squeezes his eyes shut and wonders if he’ll wake up when he opens them again; he doesn’t.
His things are strewn on the bed. Clothes, books, broom. Wizards, he’s learned, don’t travel light. Why bother deciding what to pack when there are charms that can make your every possession as light as a feather and small enough to fit in a wallet? But there are things he didn’t want; doesn’t need anymore. Things that are too damn heavy for any feather-light charm to counter.
The fucking Order of Merlin is going to stay under the bed where he’d tossed it the night after the ceremony. That’ll be a good start.
“Not finished yet?” Sirius asks, and Harry wonders how long he’s been standing there. He can picture it in his mind; doesn’t need to turn around to see the way Sirius is leaning against the doorway, watching with lidded eyes and a crooked smile as Harry dithers and dazes himself with the impossibility of freedom.
Sirius, of course, has run away before. Has kept running, in one way or another, for so long that the few scraps of possessions he truly has can be shoved into a rucksack without any sort of spellwork. But it would be cruel – and inaccurate – to think that that makes things easy for him, so Harry shoves the thought away and turns to glance over his shoulder instead.
Sirius is standing exactly as he thought he would be. He’s dressed in bike leathers and has his hair tied back, and it makes him look about a decade younger and startlingly like a Muggle – a deliberate choice on both counts. Muggle, because it’s easier to hide that way; younger, because Sirius is still twitchy about fucking his godson whenever no one is looking.
That, Harry reminds himself, is why they’re packing. Or, rather, why he is packing and why Sirius is packed.
One of the reasons, anyway.
“It’s harder than I thought it would be,” he says. “To leave things behind.”
Sirius shoves off the door frame. Boneless and graceful, and Harry secretly thinks that he has to practice moving like that. But Sirius’ expression is less confident than his walk, and that’s his usual tell.
“We don’t have to, you know,” he says, and he sits on a spare patch of coverlet next to seven years’ worth of Charms notes. They teeter worryingly as his weight dips the mattress and the top few pages slither off onto the floor, displaying wingardium leviosa in childish quillmanship and messy ink blots for all the world to see.
“Yeah,” Harry tells him. “We do.”
Because there’s no escape for either of them. Because Sirius is guilty of nothing more than loving Harry with his entire being, and Harry’s too selfish to tell him to stop. Because while the world knows that Sirius isn’t a Death Eater or a mass murderer, they also know that he’s Padfoot and whether he’ll admit it or not, Harry knows he lost a part of himself when that information went public. (It means Harry can’t take his ‘dog’ for a walk and let Sirius rest his head on his knee while he sits in pub gardens or café terraces; it means he can’t chase sticks or rats without more scrutiny on his mental state being splashed over the front page of the Prophet.)
And because Harry can never be just Harry, which is – endearingly – all Sirius has ever wanted him to be.
He holds Sirius’ gaze until he sighs and looks away, runs his fingers through his hair and messes up his ponytail. “Yeah, we do,” he agrees, and studies the notes he dislodged. “You can probably leave those behind,” he says.
“Yeah.”
It’s less of a dream now that Sirius is here. Not because he doesn’t dream of Sirius, because he frequently does, but because those dreams are more blurred and – ultimately – more wet. Now that Sirius is here, the detritus he’s gathered in eighteen years of living is in sharp, unbearable focus. It’s not just the notes he doesn’t need, it’s the crumpled chocolate frog cards that he collected because everyone else did. It’s the ‘POTTER STINKS’ badge that used to belong to Ron and the desiccated remains of broken quills.
“God, but I own a heap of shite,” he says, because it’s true and because Sirius snorts when he says it.
Eighteen years, and all he has to show for it is a bed full of tattered clothes, a fancy broom, text books (he still has Lockhart’s crap, for pity’s sake), and a stunning amount of junk. Eighteen years of stuff, and the only thing on his bed he actually wants to take with him when he leaves, is Sirius.
“Help?” he asks.
They fold his clothes the Muggle way. Harry likes the way it makes Sirius’ hands move. They put a few useful books in the bottom of his pack, and some basic healing potions are slipped into a vial case and wrapped in an old pair of Vernon’s socks, and Harry’s better clothes – the ones that sort-of fit the best – are placed on top.
“We’ll get you some new ones,” Sirius tells him. “Later.”
Harry shrugs. He likes wearing hand-me-downs. He’s used to it now. And when Dudley’s old things are too worn or too dated, he tends to steal Sirius’ clothes instead. It’s not something that matters to him.
“Okay,” he says, quiet. It’s wearing off, the rush, and he feels suddenly tired and unexpectedly old. A weight has been lifted off his shoulders – he’s left it on his bed for whoever comes investigating first to find – but he somehow feels heavier than ever before.
I thought freedom would be lighter.
His watch reads three a.m. as he saddles up behind Sirius and presses a kiss to the back of his neck before pulling the visor of his helmet down. The bike’s engine roars and thrums to life between his thighs, vibrating all the way up to his heart, and he slides his arms around Sirius’ waist.
Grimmauld Place, and all the history it holds, slowly vanishes behind its wards. They don’t turn back to watch it fade.
“To dream by night is to escape your life. To dream by day is to make it happen.” ― Stephen Richards
Author: Evandar
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance/Angst
Pairing: Sirius/Harry
Warnings: Age difference, elopement
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: They have to leave because the only thing Sirius is guilty of is of loving Harry with all his being, and Harry is too selfish to tell him to stop. But leaving a life behind isn’t always a simple thing.
AN: Written for
hp_crossgenfest. The title comes from the song Late Goodbye by Poets of the Fall. Lots of thanks to hand out for this little ficlet: thank you so much to S for beta-reading even though it was an atrociously bad time, and for R for the (many) caffeinated pep-talks. Thanks also to M, who told me to chill and write this instead of essays, and especially to digthewriter for such a beautiful prompt.This is…this isn’t real.
He lets his fingers drift over familiar surfaces. The smooth mahogany of his bedside table – it had been Regulus’ once, and there was still a faint engraving of R+B on the inside of the top drawer – the carvings in the bed posts. It all feels too real and solid under his fingertips. Too real to be the dream it has to be. He squeezes his eyes shut and wonders if he’ll wake up when he opens them again; he doesn’t.
His things are strewn on the bed. Clothes, books, broom. Wizards, he’s learned, don’t travel light. Why bother deciding what to pack when there are charms that can make your every possession as light as a feather and small enough to fit in a wallet? But there are things he didn’t want; doesn’t need anymore. Things that are too damn heavy for any feather-light charm to counter.
The fucking Order of Merlin is going to stay under the bed where he’d tossed it the night after the ceremony. That’ll be a good start.
“Not finished yet?” Sirius asks, and Harry wonders how long he’s been standing there. He can picture it in his mind; doesn’t need to turn around to see the way Sirius is leaning against the doorway, watching with lidded eyes and a crooked smile as Harry dithers and dazes himself with the impossibility of freedom.
Sirius, of course, has run away before. Has kept running, in one way or another, for so long that the few scraps of possessions he truly has can be shoved into a rucksack without any sort of spellwork. But it would be cruel – and inaccurate – to think that that makes things easy for him, so Harry shoves the thought away and turns to glance over his shoulder instead.
Sirius is standing exactly as he thought he would be. He’s dressed in bike leathers and has his hair tied back, and it makes him look about a decade younger and startlingly like a Muggle – a deliberate choice on both counts. Muggle, because it’s easier to hide that way; younger, because Sirius is still twitchy about fucking his godson whenever no one is looking.
That, Harry reminds himself, is why they’re packing. Or, rather, why he is packing and why Sirius is packed.
One of the reasons, anyway.
“It’s harder than I thought it would be,” he says. “To leave things behind.”
Sirius shoves off the door frame. Boneless and graceful, and Harry secretly thinks that he has to practice moving like that. But Sirius’ expression is less confident than his walk, and that’s his usual tell.
“We don’t have to, you know,” he says, and he sits on a spare patch of coverlet next to seven years’ worth of Charms notes. They teeter worryingly as his weight dips the mattress and the top few pages slither off onto the floor, displaying wingardium leviosa in childish quillmanship and messy ink blots for all the world to see.
“Yeah,” Harry tells him. “We do.”
Because there’s no escape for either of them. Because Sirius is guilty of nothing more than loving Harry with his entire being, and Harry’s too selfish to tell him to stop. Because while the world knows that Sirius isn’t a Death Eater or a mass murderer, they also know that he’s Padfoot and whether he’ll admit it or not, Harry knows he lost a part of himself when that information went public. (It means Harry can’t take his ‘dog’ for a walk and let Sirius rest his head on his knee while he sits in pub gardens or café terraces; it means he can’t chase sticks or rats without more scrutiny on his mental state being splashed over the front page of the Prophet.)
And because Harry can never be just Harry, which is – endearingly – all Sirius has ever wanted him to be.
He holds Sirius’ gaze until he sighs and looks away, runs his fingers through his hair and messes up his ponytail. “Yeah, we do,” he agrees, and studies the notes he dislodged. “You can probably leave those behind,” he says.
“Yeah.”
It’s less of a dream now that Sirius is here. Not because he doesn’t dream of Sirius, because he frequently does, but because those dreams are more blurred and – ultimately – more wet. Now that Sirius is here, the detritus he’s gathered in eighteen years of living is in sharp, unbearable focus. It’s not just the notes he doesn’t need, it’s the crumpled chocolate frog cards that he collected because everyone else did. It’s the ‘POTTER STINKS’ badge that used to belong to Ron and the desiccated remains of broken quills.
“God, but I own a heap of shite,” he says, because it’s true and because Sirius snorts when he says it.
Eighteen years, and all he has to show for it is a bed full of tattered clothes, a fancy broom, text books (he still has Lockhart’s crap, for pity’s sake), and a stunning amount of junk. Eighteen years of stuff, and the only thing on his bed he actually wants to take with him when he leaves, is Sirius.
“Help?” he asks.
They fold his clothes the Muggle way. Harry likes the way it makes Sirius’ hands move. They put a few useful books in the bottom of his pack, and some basic healing potions are slipped into a vial case and wrapped in an old pair of Vernon’s socks, and Harry’s better clothes – the ones that sort-of fit the best – are placed on top.
“We’ll get you some new ones,” Sirius tells him. “Later.”
Harry shrugs. He likes wearing hand-me-downs. He’s used to it now. And when Dudley’s old things are too worn or too dated, he tends to steal Sirius’ clothes instead. It’s not something that matters to him.
“Okay,” he says, quiet. It’s wearing off, the rush, and he feels suddenly tired and unexpectedly old. A weight has been lifted off his shoulders – he’s left it on his bed for whoever comes investigating first to find – but he somehow feels heavier than ever before.
I thought freedom would be lighter.
His watch reads three a.m. as he saddles up behind Sirius and presses a kiss to the back of his neck before pulling the visor of his helmet down. The bike’s engine roars and thrums to life between his thighs, vibrating all the way up to his heart, and he slides his arms around Sirius’ waist.
Grimmauld Place, and all the history it holds, slowly vanishes behind its wards. They don’t turn back to watch it fade.
“To dream by night is to escape your life. To dream by day is to make it happen.” ― Stephen Richards
