tartanfics

Title: Ghost Flame
Fandom/Ship: HP, Sirius/Remus
Word Count: 550 words
Rating: G
Prompt: August 1st, 2009 at

dogdaysofsummer
Summary: Remus and Sirius make a pilgrimage to summers past. AU

Out beyond the end of the road, on the other side of the cemetery which has a clear line where the mowed grass ends and the scrub begins but no fence, the light is fading. Remus sits cross-legged in the flattened dead grass, which has come to look like straw spread on the ground. Sirius is lying on his back, somewhere on the path to sleep. They used to come here, long ago, when they were sixteen and Sirius had just come to live with James, and Remus and Peter would come to spend the summer. Mrs. Potter would pack them ham and roast beef sandwiches, and they’d traipse down the road, past the cemetery (which now houses James and Lily), into this field.

Remus is only twenty-three, but feels older. At the far end of the field, where the land dips and the trees are shorter, there is a thin trail of smoke rising from an unknown fire. Probably teenagers, camping or causing mischief or both, and Remus isn’t quite sure whether he envies them. He looks down past his denim-covered knee, find Sirius’s eyes closed, his eyelids a pale shadow. Here, and in the shadows around his neck, by his ears, on the other side of his nose, there are ghosts.

Neither is sure why they’ve come back here, a small and unconvincing pilgrimage to summers past. There should be a reason, something they are trying to accomplish or work out, but there isn’t. Just a wordless agreement, almost accidental.It all used to feel so grand. Remus, possibly the only one of them who really took note of this, used to pause and look at them all. They would be playing music as loud as it would go, and probably dancing around the room and singing along, Sirius, James, Peter, maybe Lily, and Remus would stop singing with his mouth still open, and marvel that this was his life.

He is no longer surprised by life.

August 1^st, 1982. Harry Potter has just turned two years old. He is safe (relatively) with the Dursleys, waiting while Sirius cleans up the mess the last few years have made. Sirius and Remus have seen each other sometimes, spoken hesitantly, touched tentatively (never with intention). To be perfectly honest, the war is over and life still sucks. Cleaning takes time, and there’s always more of a mess than you started with before you’re through.

There is no sound of birds, just a slight buzz of insects, a crackle and pop of the woods settling in for the night, of the campfires that they lit here seven years ago, which Remus still sees on the ground between his toes and Sirius’s knees. Sirius opens his eyes, reaches out a hand to Remus’s knee. “It hasn’t all gone wrong?” he says, maybe, maybe not a question.

Remus considers this, looks back to the ghost fire, finds it less ghostly as its warmth begins to reach him. He curls his palm around Sirius’s knuckles, fingers still splayed. “No. Not everything.” He weaves his fingers in.

The light from the ghost fire reaches Sirius’s eyes, and chases away the ghosts that lurk above his eyelids. The rest of his ghosts remains, but it’s a small step.

Sometimes, Remus still has room to be surprised.