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Title: Skylight
Author: Evandar
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG
Genre: Romance
Pairings: Sirius/Remus
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and am making no profit from this story.
Summary: Remus has a ridiculous idea for their first house together. Sirius will move heaven and earth – but mostly finances – to make it happen for him.
Author's Notes: This was written for this year's![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
rs_games for prompt 54. It was a pinch hit, and it was incredibly hard to write - mostly because the flippancy of the prompt, while something I found hilarious, doesn't suit my writing style at all. I think you can tell I struggled? But I actually really like it, so there. The mods were very patient with me and my poor time management while trying to complete it, and many thanks go to my beta for her excellent butt-kicking abilities and her endless patience in regards to deadline-scraping submissions.
"In awe, I watched the waxing moon ride across the zenith of the heavens like an ambered chariot towards the ebony void of infinite space wherein the tethered belts of Jupiter and Mars hang, for ever festooned in their orbital majesty. And as I looked at all this I thought... I must put a roof on this toilet." - Les Dawson
The great arch of the Milky Way stretches out above them, blindingly bright and beautiful. Remus is a solid warmth by his side; his strong fingers are wrapped around Sirius’ own beneath the blankets. When Sirius glances over, he can see Remus’ eyes gleaming in the darkness, tracing the Perseid meteors as they flit between constellations.
On the other side of Remus, Sirius can see the looming shadow of their bedroom wall. Their view of the stars is framed by broken timbers – once the eaves of their new (ha!) home.
The house has, discounting the spectacular view of the sky, three things in its favour. The first: its remoteness. The nearest neighbours are miles away, on the other side of the loch. It’s the perfect spot for a werewolf to live, being that it’s completely separated from civilisation. The second thing: the land. There’s more than enough for them to become self-sufficient and to grow vegetables and keep chickens and whatever else it is that people do when they don’t want to travel thirty miles to a supermarket. The house came set in acres of rough, Scottish moorland; nice and private, with no chance of ramblers trespassing at the wrong time of the month and getting themselves eaten. The third, and perhaps, the most important thing is that the house is well within their meagre budget. The Galleon to Pound exchange rate is definitely in their favour…as is the fact that the house isn’t really a house anymore.
It has walls that are almost structurally sound and parts of a crumbling roof that means it’s very nearly watertight in some places. There’s a view of the wilderness worth dying for, and there’s a well in the garden that produces water that’s only slightly green, and that will probably clear up with enough time and effort and sterilising charms. But magic can’t fix everything. The roof, for a start, will take timber and actual manual labour to turn it into something resembling what it should be.
Sirius, used to Georgian town houses and country manors all gilded and immaculate, is half as much in love with the place as he is with Remus. It’s not, strictly speaking, habitable, but it’s perfect. It’s theirs.
And it’s frightening.
He never, ever expected that he’d be here. Before school, he’d known that one day he would inherit Grimmauld Place and then, eventually, the great heap of stone and magic that is the Black family seat. After being Sorted into Gryyffindor, that knowledge had faded first into uncertainty and then into absolute impossibility; Regulus would inherit and Sirius would…move in with James. A bachelor pad in London or Brighton; bright lights and booze and carefree days. That too faded. James paired off with Evans, and Sirius with Remus, and that dream too faded in favour of a brighter one. A domestic one. A life with Remus, raising chickens in the Scottish countryside, and fixing up a dreadful ruin until it becomes a home.
Home. It’s already more of a home than Grimmauld Place ever was, and it’s barely even a structure.
He shifts closer to Remus; moves so that his head is resting on Remus’s shoulder instead of on the floor, and looks back up at the stars. They’re lucky their first night is a clear one, and that they’ve moved in at the height of summer. It isn’t warm here by any stretch of the imagination – they’re far enough north that Sirius doesn’t think they’ll ever be warm again (although there’s a chance of seeing the Northern Lights when winter comes, if they don’t freeze to death first) – but with the two of them cuddled together like this it’s actually pretty cosy. The heating charms on the blankets help.
“Glass,” Remus murmurs. His voice is so sudden, so loud in the darkness, that it makes Sirius jump.
“Hmm?”
A silver streak flashes over Orion, slashing the constellation in two. Sirius thinks of the Galleons that were mysteriously transferred into his vault last night and wonders just how much roof they will buy, and if they’ll cover shoring up the walls as well. He’s been trying to think of positive, definite things ever since reading his bank statement instead of pondering the wild theory that his father might secretly approve of his life choices.
“I said glass,” Remus says. “We should have a glass roof. Or a skylight over the bed, or something.”
“Like an actual bed?” Sirius asks him.
Remus’ free hand slides through their nest of blankets and Sirius flinches from the pointed finger that jabs him in the ribs. There’s no claw – the moon is dark – but it’ll bruise all the same. “Yes, one of those,” Remus says, “positioned so we can still look up like this.”
Sirius considers it. He thinks about the inevitable racket the rain will make, and if glass is in any way cheaper than slate, and then he decides that it doesn’t matter because Remus wants it and it is a good idea and that the renovations are going to cost a small fortune anyway, so they might as well.
“Yeah,” he says. “It would be a shame not to do this again.”
They could, he thinks, always sleep outside on the nights that they want to stargaze, but the indoors will potentially have central heating at some point, and Sirius – contrary to his current situation – has never been fond of camping.
He can’t see Remus’ answering smile, but he can feel it. It’s heavy in the darkness and even warmer than the blankets. Sirius basks in the sensation of that smile, and he listens to Remus breathe as they stare out into infinity together.
He watches his father’s constellation most of all.
…
As it turns out, mysteriously donated Galleons do buy quite a lot of roof. They also buy enough stone to fix what parts of the walls need repairing, and some Muggle labourers to put them all in place.
Not that Sirius isn’t doing what he can – nor Remus, for that matter – but neither of them are trained builders (though Remus certainly impresses the lads by having the strength of one) and they only have the very faintest idea of what needs doing, really. As such, there’s been a lot more to do than they initially expected, and the semi-warmth of summer has long since passed into a rather dank and dismal autumn.
It rains, constantly, in their brand new corner of the world.
It’s raining on the day the last part of the roof arrives. Remus is off helping Evans with something wedding related that she apparently needs “a sensible opinion” for, so it’s up to Sirius to stand in the pissing rain with a grumpy bunch of workmen and a crane that’s slowly sinking into the mud-pit that renovations have made of their back garden. Not wanting to risk using magic, Sirius stands shivering under a tree. There’s water dripping from the ends of his hair and the tip of his nose, and he’s bundled up in one of Remus’ old jackets with about three layers of jumpers underneath.
He watches dubiously, clipboard in hand, as a huge pane of glass swings precariously over his house and the heads of the soggy workmen standing on the scaffolding. Prayers he doesn’t usually place much stock in are running through his head. Prayers that the ropes will hold; that the mud beneath the crane won’t suddenly give way and cause it to jerk; prayers that the bloody rain will end and that no Muggles will die in the crafting of his house. (He’s a Black, yes, but he’s not that sort of Black, thank you very much.)
He hasn’t told Remus how expensive his ridiculous idea for a giant skylight is. When Remus asked, he’s admitted they could afford it and told him not to worry – and he’d thanked the stars that he’d been trained in financial management as soon as he’d been old enough to understand what numbers were.
They can afford it. Just. This one, stupid sheet of glass. If it breaks, or – heaven forbid – squashes a Muggle, then they’ll be completely fucked (barring any further acts of unexpected parental generosity) and they’ll have to completely give up food in order to scrimp for a replacement.
The glass swings. A workman ducks. Sirius contemplates the possibility of dying of heart failure just from watching.
His lungs are aching from holding his breath by the time the glass finally, finally gets lowered into place, and there are black spots dancing in front of his eyes. A rough cheer goes up from the men on the roof, and Sirius slumps back against the tree trunk. It hurts to breathe, but the relief makes him laugh anyway.
…
He startles awake in the middle of the night. Remus’ nose is buried between his shoulder blades and his hand is splayed possessively over Sirius’ lower belly. Their legs are still tangled together, and Sirius’ body is still aching and empty, but that’s not what woke him up. It takes him a moment to clear his head of sleep and afterglow enough to figure out why he’s suddenly returned to consciousness.
It’s the quiet.
From the moment the skylight had been put in place, the room had been filled with the constant rattle of rain. It was better than the room actually being filled with rain, of course – Sirius could say that with confidence – but it was louder than he’d expected. Now, though.
He shifts onto his back, wincing as the sheets stick to his skin – that’s what he gets for falling asleep in the wet spot. Remus sighs against him, growls low in his sleep, and his fingers flex on Sirius’ stomach. Claws scrape over his tender skin, and Sirius opens his eyes to find their room flooded with light. The gibbous moon is peering down at them from a clear sky pricked out with stars.
Sirius blinks. He smiles and turns into Remus’ embrace, earning himself an approving, sleepy snuffle, but he keeps one eye on the heavens as they wheel overhead.
It was a ridiculous, extravagant idea, and he’s going to spend the rest of his life thanking Remus for having it.
Author: Evandar
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG
Genre: Romance
Pairings: Sirius/Remus
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and am making no profit from this story.
Summary: Remus has a ridiculous idea for their first house together. Sirius will move heaven and earth – but mostly finances – to make it happen for him.
Author's Notes: This was written for this year's
rs_games for prompt 54. It was a pinch hit, and it was incredibly hard to write - mostly because the flippancy of the prompt, while something I found hilarious, doesn't suit my writing style at all. I think you can tell I struggled? But I actually really like it, so there. The mods were very patient with me and my poor time management while trying to complete it, and many thanks go to my beta for her excellent butt-kicking abilities and her endless patience in regards to deadline-scraping submissions."In awe, I watched the waxing moon ride across the zenith of the heavens like an ambered chariot towards the ebony void of infinite space wherein the tethered belts of Jupiter and Mars hang, for ever festooned in their orbital majesty. And as I looked at all this I thought... I must put a roof on this toilet." - Les Dawson
The great arch of the Milky Way stretches out above them, blindingly bright and beautiful. Remus is a solid warmth by his side; his strong fingers are wrapped around Sirius’ own beneath the blankets. When Sirius glances over, he can see Remus’ eyes gleaming in the darkness, tracing the Perseid meteors as they flit between constellations.
On the other side of Remus, Sirius can see the looming shadow of their bedroom wall. Their view of the stars is framed by broken timbers – once the eaves of their new (ha!) home.
The house has, discounting the spectacular view of the sky, three things in its favour. The first: its remoteness. The nearest neighbours are miles away, on the other side of the loch. It’s the perfect spot for a werewolf to live, being that it’s completely separated from civilisation. The second thing: the land. There’s more than enough for them to become self-sufficient and to grow vegetables and keep chickens and whatever else it is that people do when they don’t want to travel thirty miles to a supermarket. The house came set in acres of rough, Scottish moorland; nice and private, with no chance of ramblers trespassing at the wrong time of the month and getting themselves eaten. The third, and perhaps, the most important thing is that the house is well within their meagre budget. The Galleon to Pound exchange rate is definitely in their favour…as is the fact that the house isn’t really a house anymore.
It has walls that are almost structurally sound and parts of a crumbling roof that means it’s very nearly watertight in some places. There’s a view of the wilderness worth dying for, and there’s a well in the garden that produces water that’s only slightly green, and that will probably clear up with enough time and effort and sterilising charms. But magic can’t fix everything. The roof, for a start, will take timber and actual manual labour to turn it into something resembling what it should be.
Sirius, used to Georgian town houses and country manors all gilded and immaculate, is half as much in love with the place as he is with Remus. It’s not, strictly speaking, habitable, but it’s perfect. It’s theirs.
And it’s frightening.
He never, ever expected that he’d be here. Before school, he’d known that one day he would inherit Grimmauld Place and then, eventually, the great heap of stone and magic that is the Black family seat. After being Sorted into Gryyffindor, that knowledge had faded first into uncertainty and then into absolute impossibility; Regulus would inherit and Sirius would…move in with James. A bachelor pad in London or Brighton; bright lights and booze and carefree days. That too faded. James paired off with Evans, and Sirius with Remus, and that dream too faded in favour of a brighter one. A domestic one. A life with Remus, raising chickens in the Scottish countryside, and fixing up a dreadful ruin until it becomes a home.
Home. It’s already more of a home than Grimmauld Place ever was, and it’s barely even a structure.
He shifts closer to Remus; moves so that his head is resting on Remus’s shoulder instead of on the floor, and looks back up at the stars. They’re lucky their first night is a clear one, and that they’ve moved in at the height of summer. It isn’t warm here by any stretch of the imagination – they’re far enough north that Sirius doesn’t think they’ll ever be warm again (although there’s a chance of seeing the Northern Lights when winter comes, if they don’t freeze to death first) – but with the two of them cuddled together like this it’s actually pretty cosy. The heating charms on the blankets help.
“Glass,” Remus murmurs. His voice is so sudden, so loud in the darkness, that it makes Sirius jump.
“Hmm?”
A silver streak flashes over Orion, slashing the constellation in two. Sirius thinks of the Galleons that were mysteriously transferred into his vault last night and wonders just how much roof they will buy, and if they’ll cover shoring up the walls as well. He’s been trying to think of positive, definite things ever since reading his bank statement instead of pondering the wild theory that his father might secretly approve of his life choices.
“I said glass,” Remus says. “We should have a glass roof. Or a skylight over the bed, or something.”
“Like an actual bed?” Sirius asks him.
Remus’ free hand slides through their nest of blankets and Sirius flinches from the pointed finger that jabs him in the ribs. There’s no claw – the moon is dark – but it’ll bruise all the same. “Yes, one of those,” Remus says, “positioned so we can still look up like this.”
Sirius considers it. He thinks about the inevitable racket the rain will make, and if glass is in any way cheaper than slate, and then he decides that it doesn’t matter because Remus wants it and it is a good idea and that the renovations are going to cost a small fortune anyway, so they might as well.
“Yeah,” he says. “It would be a shame not to do this again.”
They could, he thinks, always sleep outside on the nights that they want to stargaze, but the indoors will potentially have central heating at some point, and Sirius – contrary to his current situation – has never been fond of camping.
He can’t see Remus’ answering smile, but he can feel it. It’s heavy in the darkness and even warmer than the blankets. Sirius basks in the sensation of that smile, and he listens to Remus breathe as they stare out into infinity together.
He watches his father’s constellation most of all.
…
As it turns out, mysteriously donated Galleons do buy quite a lot of roof. They also buy enough stone to fix what parts of the walls need repairing, and some Muggle labourers to put them all in place.
Not that Sirius isn’t doing what he can – nor Remus, for that matter – but neither of them are trained builders (though Remus certainly impresses the lads by having the strength of one) and they only have the very faintest idea of what needs doing, really. As such, there’s been a lot more to do than they initially expected, and the semi-warmth of summer has long since passed into a rather dank and dismal autumn.
It rains, constantly, in their brand new corner of the world.
It’s raining on the day the last part of the roof arrives. Remus is off helping Evans with something wedding related that she apparently needs “a sensible opinion” for, so it’s up to Sirius to stand in the pissing rain with a grumpy bunch of workmen and a crane that’s slowly sinking into the mud-pit that renovations have made of their back garden. Not wanting to risk using magic, Sirius stands shivering under a tree. There’s water dripping from the ends of his hair and the tip of his nose, and he’s bundled up in one of Remus’ old jackets with about three layers of jumpers underneath.
He watches dubiously, clipboard in hand, as a huge pane of glass swings precariously over his house and the heads of the soggy workmen standing on the scaffolding. Prayers he doesn’t usually place much stock in are running through his head. Prayers that the ropes will hold; that the mud beneath the crane won’t suddenly give way and cause it to jerk; prayers that the bloody rain will end and that no Muggles will die in the crafting of his house. (He’s a Black, yes, but he’s not that sort of Black, thank you very much.)
He hasn’t told Remus how expensive his ridiculous idea for a giant skylight is. When Remus asked, he’s admitted they could afford it and told him not to worry – and he’d thanked the stars that he’d been trained in financial management as soon as he’d been old enough to understand what numbers were.
They can afford it. Just. This one, stupid sheet of glass. If it breaks, or – heaven forbid – squashes a Muggle, then they’ll be completely fucked (barring any further acts of unexpected parental generosity) and they’ll have to completely give up food in order to scrimp for a replacement.
The glass swings. A workman ducks. Sirius contemplates the possibility of dying of heart failure just from watching.
His lungs are aching from holding his breath by the time the glass finally, finally gets lowered into place, and there are black spots dancing in front of his eyes. A rough cheer goes up from the men on the roof, and Sirius slumps back against the tree trunk. It hurts to breathe, but the relief makes him laugh anyway.
…
He startles awake in the middle of the night. Remus’ nose is buried between his shoulder blades and his hand is splayed possessively over Sirius’ lower belly. Their legs are still tangled together, and Sirius’ body is still aching and empty, but that’s not what woke him up. It takes him a moment to clear his head of sleep and afterglow enough to figure out why he’s suddenly returned to consciousness.
It’s the quiet.
From the moment the skylight had been put in place, the room had been filled with the constant rattle of rain. It was better than the room actually being filled with rain, of course – Sirius could say that with confidence – but it was louder than he’d expected. Now, though.
He shifts onto his back, wincing as the sheets stick to his skin – that’s what he gets for falling asleep in the wet spot. Remus sighs against him, growls low in his sleep, and his fingers flex on Sirius’ stomach. Claws scrape over his tender skin, and Sirius opens his eyes to find their room flooded with light. The gibbous moon is peering down at them from a clear sky pricked out with stars.
Sirius blinks. He smiles and turns into Remus’ embrace, earning himself an approving, sleepy snuffle, but he keeps one eye on the heavens as they wheel overhead.
It was a ridiculous, extravagant idea, and he’s going to spend the rest of his life thanking Remus for having it.
