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st_aurafinaTitle: Scatter My Winter Dreams
Recipient: #48, Tabitha Wiggle, aka![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shaggydogstail
Request: I'd like to hear about Sirius' adventures when he 'flew South' at the end of PoA - where did he go, how did he manage? I'm thinking North Africa would be interesting, especially Morocco or Tunisia, but you could also go with South America, Bali, Indonesia...somewhere hot and not at all like England.
Pairing: Sirius /Kingsley, Sirius/Remus
Rating: R
Word count: 6,300
Summary: Sirius has escaped the Dementor's kiss – is he able to leave Azkaban behind?
Notes: Title is from Khalil Gibran's The Madman. Thanks tolilacsigil and youngest_one for beta reading. Written for the 2007 ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
reversathon, here. This was written pre-Deathly Hallows, so there are no spoilers here.
Scatter My Winter Dreams
Sirius pressed his cheek against Buckbeak's neck – although it was summer, the air was thin and held little heat at night, this far north. Hunched inside his cloak, Sirius drew his legs up, and berated himself for not planning better. Remus, by far the better strategist, would have cached away at least a change of clothes and a spare wand. Remus wouldn't be on the run with nothing but the clothes on his back. And a hippogriff between his legs. Sirius snorted, ruffling the feathered crest pressed flat on Buckbeak's sleek head. It was not the company he had expected to be keeping tonight, and for that he was glad.
Penzance, Cornwall, UK
Sirius greeted the dawn sitting on the stone fence bordering the Potter's seaside cottage, an old wand of James' tucked into his robes, eating pineapple from a dusty tin with a plastic fork. Buckbeak, newly-Disillusioned, stooped for fish in the shallows, sending confused gulls screaming into the air. Sirius laughed, spreading his toes in the sand. He had forgotten how good that felt; he hadn't been here since before Harry had been born. The pineapple was suddenly sour in his mouth, and he flung the rest of it onto the sand. For those outside Azkaban, there had been twelve years to mourn. For Sirius, the loss was still new.
It was meant to be just a brief visit. The cottage was probably forgotten by the Ministry, but Wormtail knew it, and therefore so did Voldemort. Somehow, though, the day crept away, surrounded by familiar, battered furniture and naff holiday bric-a-brac – all Harry's now. The sagging settee still had long strands of red hair caught in the fading green pile and a sandshoe trapped between two of the cushions. Sirius slept there, sending clouds of dust aloft whenever he moved, until he was surrounded by the stale beery smell of old beach parties. He dreamed of James and Lily, not the disjointed, accusatory dreams of Azkaban, but a gentle, soundless string of half-remembered moments: his friends in the sun, sleeping on a grassy tussock, James' hand resting on the swell of Lily's belly.
Sirius woke with a start, his breath hanging in the air before him. Was that a rattling breath he heard? A scrabbling at the window-pane? He didn't wait to find out. With a mighty bellow to Buckbeak, he plunged out of the cottage, wand ready, into a sea of fog that played across his face in cold streamers. For a moment there was no sound; the waves breaking on the shore were silenced by the enveloping mist, then with a clacking burr, the warm bulk of Buckbeak's body pushed sleepily against him. Sirius flung his arm across the hippogriff's shoulders and hoisted himself aboard, drumming his heels against the feathered flanks. Buckbeak, chattering angrily to himself, leapt skywards, bearing them both away from the coast.
Tangier, Morocco
They flew at night, and slept during the day, over the Channel and southward, darting along the coast of Portugal like migrating swallows. Sirius told himself over and over that nothing followed in their wake, and by the time Buckbeak crossed the strait, the shimmering heat had worked deep enough into Sirius' joints that he almost believed it. On African soil, squinting into the sun, it seemed impossible that he had ever been in a place as cold as Azkaban.
Living atop the Muggle slums of Tangier was like perching on an angry ants' nest: the tightly clustered buildings buzzed and whirred with activity at all hours, save when the sun was highest in the sky. On the roof of the ambitiously-named Café Laliberté, a lean-to of iron sheeting shone incandescent in the sun, nestled between a black-market satellite dish and a string of laundry. In the afternoon, it was far too hot for Sirius to even touch his home, let alone shelter in it, so he sat cross-legged in the meagre shade of the satellite dish. In front of him, a surly sea-eagle regarded him warily. Sirius proffered a sardine from the open tin in his hand with a reassuring gesture.
"They're best quality, my friend." To demonstrate, Sirius swallowed one whole and smacked his lips. "Take this to Remus Lupin, and make him accept it, even if he doesn't want it. You can have the rest of these sardines now, and another tin on your return." He bit into another while the bird clicked its beak appraisingly. Sirius chewed and swallowed with relish. "I'd make a swift decision, if I were you, or they'll all be gone."
The eagle fixed him with a mercenary gaze, then thrust out one leg imperiously. Sirius attached the letter, then swiftly moved his fingers away from the flashing beak as the eagle demolished the remaining sardines. When the tin was scraped clean, the eagle flung itself skyward, effortlessly avoiding the tangled snarls of cables that dangled between every building.
When he could no longer see the eagle in the sky, Sirius gathered up a battered cardboard box of dishes. Buckbeak gave an enquiring whistle from where he lay warming his belly on the sun-soaked roof, distorting the lengthening shadows under the shimmering Disillusionment spell.
"That's right – dinner time for me. And nothing for you. I know you're stuffed to the gills with monkey." Sirius shouldered the box filled with mended crockery. Reparo cost him nothing to cast, but gave him plenty to barter with Rashid, the café owner downstairs from whom Sirius had arranged to rent the roof-space and trade food in return for repairing broken plates. Between rowdy café customers and Rashid's two small children, smashed crockery had kept Sirius well fed and comfortably housed for some weeks. He scrambled nimbly down the rusted ladder to the road below. As he made his way along the alley to the kitchen door, he wondered what Remus would make of the communication. Sirius couldn’t remember the last time he wrote a letter, but it was the safest way to make contact, and he found unexpected satisfaction in the way it forced him to order his thoughts. Remus had always been the letter-writer of the group, diligently sending messages through each summer holiday, which Sirius rarely answered. He wondered what had happened to all those letters - bundled together neatly by Kreacher, no doubt, growing yellow and crumbly in a desk drawer in Grimmauld Place.
It was too quiet in the alley. The café, normally thrumming with custom in the late afternoon, lay silent. When he realised that even the monkeys had stopped their incessant chatter, Sirius put down the box and drew his wand, creeping along the walls, pressed flat against the flaking plaster. The walls were cold and damp with condensation, and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Peering around the open door, he found Rashid in the centre of the kitchen, huddled over an animal lying prone in the centre of the tiled floor. Rashid looked up at Sirius' approach, his face grey, his smile banished.
"Someone has cursed this house." Rashid gestured at the dead dog. "I do not know what I have done to deserve this desecration."
Sirius crouched over the corpse splayed on the floor, poked one of the rigid limbs with his wand. He had become so accustomed to the raucous clamour of the café that the silence was ringing in his ears, and he suddenly wished for Remus - or someone - to stand at his back. There was a grainy black residue on the dog’s coat. He squinted at it – fleas. Whatever had killed the dog had also killed all the fleas. That could only be something magical, something malevolent. Shadows danced at the edge of his vision, and he felt the temperature plummet. His stomach fell too: he had brought this to Rashid's house. He had to make it right again. He stood up straight, and brushed the dust from his knees.
"Rashid, where is Lalla? The children?"
"I have sent her to fetch the Imam. She has the children with her." Rashid seemed dazed as he absently rubbed the gooseflesh on his arms. "I will have to close the café: this kitchen is unclean."
Sirius hauled the man to his feet. "Go after your wife, see that your family is safe. I will take care of this." He pushed Rashid towards the door, then closed it securely. He took a moment to seal all the doors and draw the blinds, not wanting to draw the attention of nosy neighbours, or the aristocratic Caliphs who policed magic in Islamic countries.
It was a good half-hour of spell-casting to clean and ward the café – all reassuring, solid household charms. He didn't know what exactly had killed the dog – that was Remus' field of expertise – but he knew well enough that dark things feared cleanliness. The carcass he charred into ash, which he Scourgified away. When every shadow had been investigated, and every point of entry protected, he slipped a borrowed djellaba over his head and pulled up the hood. He locked the café up, carefully returning the key to its usual hiding place behind a rusted pipe, and slipped into the rabbit warren of streets that led to the Petit Medina.
Magic, in the Arab world, was an academic pursuit, blossoming up from Islam's golden age of science, studied and debated in lofty minarets by solemn men and women of books. The Petit Medina of Tangier was a tiny magical city within a city, bordered by high tiled walls and accessed through a curtain of water spilling down from an octagonal font. Hermione would very much like it here, Sirius thought, as he wove between towering bookshelves filled with scrolls and weighty tomes, his face hidden by the cowl of the djellaba.
Tucked inside his sleeve was a tobacco tin filled with Floo powder – one of the scavenged treasures from the Potters' cottage in Penzance. All cities governed by the Caliphate of Magic had a public library of magical works, and each of these libraries had a functioning Floo available for public use – a legacy of the nomadic tribes who had many powerful magicians, but few chimneys. Sirius waited until there was nobody nearby, then cast a handful of green power into the ornately tiled fireplace.
"Minerva McGonagall's office." Sirius spoke softly but clearly, his face close to the flames, and prayed that the language of the Floo was universal. To his relief, the powder burned clean and bright, in a single steady sheet of flame that showed the Head of Gryffindor taking tea by the fireplace in her office. When Sirius thrust his head into the flames, she gave a shriek, and dropped her cup into her saucer with a rattle, then stood up and locked her door.
"Mr Black, I must assume that you do not understand the meaning of the word 'inconspicuous'."
"I apologise for the intrusion, Professor. It's a matter of some urgency: something has followed me to Tangier, and I believe that it threatens the safety of the Muggles I've been living with." The words tumbled out in a rush, so he could check behind him again.
Minerva was on her feet in an instant. "I'll go to the Headmaster immediately. Someone will be sent. Sirius, you need to move on, now. There's a rumour that the Ministry is monitoring long-distance Floos." She gestured with one hand, and the fire that surrounded Sirius' head abruptly sputtered back into orange flames.
There was a small crowd clustered around the doors of the Café Laliberté, and to Sirius' relief, the neighbourhood monkeys had resumed their chorus of hoots and shrieks. He didn't wish to attract the attention of the crowd – which included several policemen – so he clambered onto a roof a few doors down, and picked his way across to his lean-to. Buckbeak was awake, and leaning over the edge of the building, watching with interest as people scurried in and out of the café.
"Get over here, sticky-beak. We have to get going." Sirius stuffed his few belongings into a canvas bag, and lashed it around Buckbeak's neck. Before he climbed onto the hippogriff, he shrugged his way out of the djellaba, and folding it roughly, reached to lay it over the top rung of the ladder. At the top of the ladder was a small parcel wrapped in a blue and white cloth. Sirius picked it up – warm bread and spiced meat wrapped up securely and tied with string. There was a note, of careful capitals and precarious English, in Rashid’s hand.
"My friend, I know from the first time we meet that you are hiding and that you are to move along in time. I do not know how you helped me, but I am thanking you for it. I will not have to stop my café. I have a brother, he is hiding like you, and always believes worst of himself. I want to say to you what I say to him. You have a good face, and you are a good neighbour. Let people make trust with you. Let the past be behind you. I thank you and wish you well."
Sirius folded the letter up, and pressed his lips together hard, busying himself packing the parcel safely into his bag. When he was certain that he could trust his voice, he wriggled up onto the hippogriff's back.
"It's time to move on, you old feather-duster." He leaned forward, and rested one hand on the bag, as Buckbeak's mighty shoulders began to work and dust swirled up around them.
Cairo, Egypt
Every child with a half-decent magical education knew that Egypt was all about vast pyramids and spectacular, deadly curses. Sirius was therefore surprised, soaring through Cairo’s night sky, to see a towering metropolis: glass-sided sky-scrapers and snaking rivers of well-lit but slow moving Muggle traffic. Buckbeak circled in lazy loops, while Sirius sought somewhere to land safely and discreetly.
Somewhere turned out to be a sprawling cemetery, with crumbling stone tombs and no electric light. From the roof of a crumbling mausoleum, Sirius could see the place was teeming with people. He could smell it too: the ripe, sour smell of too many people living in close proximity with no facilities. He untied his bag from Buckbeak's neck, and scratched under the creature's beak.
"Do you want to go hunting? Find somewhere with clean water if you're going to fish: you might have to go a fair way out, from the smell of it." Buckbeak nipped affectionately at Sirius' ear, and took to the air again. Sirius slung his bag across his shoulder, and climbed down into the heaving mass of people.
It was called the Arafa, the City of the Dead, and it was filled with people who were as good as dead to the rest of the world. There were Muggles and Wizards living cheek-by-jowl, but none that would report Sirius, even if they did recognise him. He vanished easily here, or so he thought, until one morning when he woke up to an angry sea-eagle pecking him about the face.
"I think you owe him a tin of sardines." It was a man's voice, deep and slow. Sirius erupted from his blankets with his wand in his hand, but the man, tall and black with a shaven head, leaned casually against Buckbeak's side with his arms crossed. Sirius kept him covered with the wand while he gave the eagle a swift kick and pulled on his shoes one-handed.
"Useless bloody watchdog you make, Buckbeak."
"Don't blame the hippogriff – Hagrid sent me with a brace of ferrets." The man grimaced. Buckbeak whickered softly, and snaked his head around to push lovingly against the man's elbow. The man wrinkled his nose in distaste. "They don't do much for the breath, I'm afraid."
"You're from the Order, then?" Sirius peered closer at the man's face; it was vaguely familiar. "I remember you – you were a fat little firstie the year I finished. Shingleford, Shettleback, something like that." He gave the eagle another shove with his foot, and it gave his boot a vicious swipe. "So, what did you grow up to be, other than insufferably smug?"
The man smiled – it was a predatory grin. "I’m an Auror. Actually, I’m the Auror who is supposed to be hunting you down. And it's Shacklebolt. Kingsley Shacklebolt." Sirius' expression must have been suitably agog, because Kingsley smiled wide enough to show all of his teeth.
Kingsley wanted to talk Order business, but Sirius had work to do, trades to make, and an eagle to pay. With the Auror at his side, Sirius wended his way through haphazard market stalls. At one, he traded a transistor radio with a mended case for a pair of spectacles, both lenses cracked. Once repaired, the glasses went to a short-sighted man in exchange for three tins of Portuguese sardines. One tin went to the surly eagle as payment, and another he traded for two discs of bread cooked on a heated headstone and a glassful of murky black coffee. Armed with breakfast, he clambered to the top of the crypt he had claimed as his own, to eat and to hear Shacklebolt's report. At ground level, people swarmed back and forth, a bobbing sea of heads bearing buckets and baskets.
He was pleased to hear that Rashid and his family were safe and untroubled by any further disturbances, although Kingsley had been unable to determine what exactly had been lurking around the café.
"You did a remarkable job of cleaning it up, there wasn't any evidence to follow." Kingsley eschewed the proffered sardine sandwich, but after Sirius had finished, he produced a packet of Peppermint Toads to share. "If it's a Dementor, it's a persistent one: nobody's ever heard of one moving so far south. Lupin says that it's possible, though. They can bear grudges down generations."
Sirius forced his voice to sound casual. "How is Remus? We didn't have a lot of time to talk the last time I saw him." The further away that night slipped, the more awkward restarting a conversation was becoming. There had been, as yet, no reply to his letter.
Kingsley narrowed his eyes. "He's fine. He's working." He didn't offer anything further. Sirius nodded. It was fair enough that Shacklebolt was wary; for all of the man's professional life, Sirius had been considered a cohort of Voldemort. Minds don't change overnight. He wondered if Kingsley was really here to determine whether Sirius could be trusted by the Order. He tried not to bridle at that thought. Rashid was right – he had to work to build trust again.
Shacklebolt said he had come to Cairo to investigate if Sirius was being followed, and if so, by what. Sirius thought the best place to start was by talking to the people who lived here. Casting for rumours was hard work, even with translation spells – the Arafa was a city of a thousand languages. A group of refugees from the Sudan told them the cemetery was haunted by a creeping stone hand that strangled unfaithful men in the night. A blind man with two teeth swore that the ghost of his second wife rose up under the full moon to tear her hair and berate him for marrying her sister. A swarm of children identified an old woman as a witch, and indeed she was a Witch, but quite well-intentioned. Inside her crypt, she poured them tea from a battered samovar into glasses stuffed with mint.
"Stay here. Let the stories come to you." She settled back into her armchair, made from fruit-crates covered with a carpet, her needle flashing in and out of a mountain of mending on her lap.
In a city of gravestones, stories of monsters were the bread and butter of life.
"It was a demon, with eyes of flame."
"I felt like ants were crawling up and down my back."
"No matter where you are standing, the eyes are looking straight at you."
"A glowing ball of light, floating over the tombs."
"It killed my goat. And all of our neighbour's chickens." The girl was seventeen or so, with a sleepy baby in a sling on her hip, and she lived close to an abandoned quarry at the southern end of the cemetery. She led them to an empty coop. The rusted wire had been torn, hanging like shredded curtains. "In the morning, there was nothing but feathers."
The population was thinner here, as though people felt an aversion to settling in that corner. Sirius couldn’t blame them: mosquitoes and gnats hovered lazily in the humid air, and the hollow of the quarry was filled with brackish water choked with algae and filthy garbage. Sirius and Kingsley set up watch along the slimy waterline, beside a slag pile of gravel chips. Once the sun had set, the cemetery transformed into a landscape of flickering fires and the faint, bobbing light of torches, a strangely gentle contrast to the glaring sea of colour reflecting from the glass towers of downtown Cairo.
Close to midnight, a rain of pebbles and dust made Sirius dowse the light of their small fire. Harsh dragging footsteps were moving over the mountains of gravel towards the quarry lake. Kingsley and Sirius moved quietly to the edge of the rubble and waited. Crickets sang. A mosquito drifted past Sirius' face but he ignored it. There was a coppery tang in the air.
Kingsley pressed his mouth close to Sirius' ear. "This isn't quite how you described it."
"This isn't how it was." Sirius couldn't stop himself grinning. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet, ready to leap. "But I think it's something we should see to, nonetheless."
In silhouette, on the crest of the hill, it had a vaguely human shape, a crouched form walking with a stilted gait. When Kingsley set his wand ablaze with clean white light, what Sirius had thought were hunched shoulders resolved into the long curved neck of an enormous ibis, its scything beak dripping red. It screamed in the light, stretching up on long, backwards-bending legs; it was much taller than a man, and at the end of the sparsely feathered wings were curved claws. With wings outstretched, and bloody beak gaping, it leapt for the source of the light.
Time sectioned and slowed, as it does in a battle. Sirius laughed as he moved between buffeting wings and slicing claws, as the familiar hexes and spells bubbled forward in his mind. This was familiar and exhilarating, this was a thing he loved. He and Shacklebolt worked well together, anticipating each other's moves, providing a distraction to allow the other to ready the next spell. It was over too soon. The light-sensitive creature become friable in the presence of flame. With a good punch it crumbled to ash and burned feathers under Sirius’ hands.
Kingsley fastidiously brushed the sooty flakes from his robes. "Where did the blood come from?"
Still breathing hard, Sirius scrambled to the top of the rubble. A man lay in the gravel, his arms stretched out behind him. Several deep puncture wounds on the man's chest oozed sluggishly. Sirius pressed two fingers to the man's throat; there was a pulse, faint but steady. "He's still alive."
Kingsley hooked his arms under the man's shoulders. "Take his feet. We have to get out of here – every Caliph in the City will have seen that battle. You weren't exactly discreet with that fireball."
Sirius picked up the man’s feet, delighted that Kingsley was suddenly a co-conspirator, and grinned widely. "Too hot for you, was it?"
Kingsley rolled his eyes, and kept walking nimbly backwards. "Oh, please. Next you'll be telling me it's size that matters."
The man's family was already looking for him and the news of his disappearance was spreading through the cemetery like a wave. As the man was carried off to a Muggle hospital, Sirius and Kingsley were suddenly local champions – people slapped them on the back and shook their hands. As the crowd pressed closer, Kingsley took Sirius by the shoulder to speak in his ear. "We need to make ourselves scarce." Sirius nodded, and made placating gestures to the people trying to ply him with food. He nudged Kingsley towards an arched gateway out of the cemetery, and they slipped away into the shadows.
Sirius took them to the bath house, and badgered Kingsley into paying. They sat hidden under towels, swathed in steam, the first of the early morning bathers. Neither of them spoke and the silence, punctuated only by hissing steam, was blissful. When they moved from the steam room to the bath, they sat facing each other in opposite corners.
"That wasn't the creature that killed the dog in Morocco." Kingsley’s eyes were closed.
Sirius sunk into the water up to his chin, let the warmth soak into the knots in his muscles. "I know. Fun though, wasn't it? I need to do a bit more of that. I'm aching like an old woman."
Kingsley opened his eyes and shook his head. "I think they're right – you are mad."
Sirius snorted. "Never listen to them. Isn't that the first thing Moody teaches you lot?" Looking through the steam at Kingsley, Sirius felt something unfurl low in his spine. He stood up, and loomed over the man, waist-deep in water. "What else do they say about me?"
"That you never lost a duel. Or a drinking contest." Kingsley leaned his head back against the tiles and stared back lazily through half closed eyes.
Sirius leaned down, one arm on either side of Kingsley's body. "That's true. What else do they say about me?" He could hear the sounds of the city stirring as dawn approached. His skin tingled, like it was waking up too. He put one hand on Kingsley's chest. Under his palm he felt the man's heartbeat accelerate.
Kingsley tilted his head and watched him for moment. "Nothing that I wouldn't rather find out myself." Then he hooked a foot around Sirius' ankle, pulling him down onto his chest.
It was more like wrestling, this embrace. After so long without intimacy, Sirius was overwhelmed with need, and his hands were clumsy and urgent on Kingsley's body. More than once, Kingsley hissed as Sirius grazed his teeth against sensitive skin, or bumped hard against his nose. Finally, Kingsley pushed Sirius away, and stepped out of the bath.
Sirius stood in the middle of the water, startled. "I'm sorry – did I hurt you?"
Kingsley dried himself off with a towel, and threw one to Sirius. "No. But I'm not going to do this in the middle of a public bath house."
Sirius clambered out of the bath, gave his limbs a perfunctory rub with the towel and gathered his robes. "Do you have a better place in mind?"
Kingsley slipped his arms into his shirt. "Yes. Wonderful Muggle invention – a hotel." He reached out, dragged Sirius closer to him, and Apparated.
Sirius felt thick carpet under his feet, then Kingsley's hand was snarled in his hair, and their mouths were joined, and he was being walked backwards till he fell into a soft bed. He shut his eyes and let Kingsley guide his limbs. This was trust: no wariness, no need to control, no anger and no guilt. When he came, Kingsley's hand on his cock, it was like falling into the sun.
Afterwards, Kingsley dropped off to sleep like a stone. Propped up on an elbow beside him, Sirius watched, a little startled at how young Kingsley suddenly looked. He flopped back down onto the pillows. It was easy to forget how much time had passed since he and James had emerged from Hogwarts as bright young things eager and willing to save the world, trailing Moony and Wormtail behind them. The ache of that loss flared inside him, and with sudden, desperate loneliness he wished for Remus, to ease the loss by talking and laughing and remembering. He tugged the blankets up over himself and the sleeping Kingsley – the wretched air-conditioning was raising goose bumps on his skin. Trust Muggles to mess up a simple thing like cooling the air. He let his eyes drift closed: tomorrow, he'd Floo Remus, and talk to him face to face, give Moony no chance to avoid talking to him.
It was the gasping rattle that woke him. He was curled against Kingsley's body, and the two of them were shivering. He drew a breath, and choked on fog. The room was icy, and the rattle was coming from his own throat. Misty tendrils were all around him, creeping into his nose and his mouth, trailing across his throat. Kingsley was swathed in the stuff; Sirius could hear him labouring to draw breath. He reflexively breathed in and choked, then rolled out of the bed, gagging. A lacy white blanket of fog was settling onto the bed, as though someone had thrown a new sheet over the two of them as they slept. Sirius scrabbled for his wand, it was tangled up in his robe on the floor. What spell? What spell? His mind raced through possibilities and came up blank. He pointed his wand at the shawl of fog curled lovingly around Kingsley's head, gathered the memory of standing free and bathed in sunlight, and drew a deep breath.
"Expecto Patronum!"
He didn't doubt for a moment that he could still cast a Patronus; and so the spell leapt from his wand and onto the cloud of mist, tearing and shredding at it with an open, savage mouth. Once the filmy tendrils were torn away from Kingsley's head, the man's eyes' opened and he flung himself from the bed, reaching for his wand which he had, more sensibly than Sirius, tucked under his pillow.
"What? What was it?" Kingsley's expression was grey, and his lips were tinged with purple. He rested his hands on his thighs, trying to catch his breath.
Sirius poked his wand tip at the remaining pieces of the creature. It had fallen to the ground in gauzy strings of gelatinous material. "I have no idea. It's dead now, though.
"Did it follow you from Azkaban? Is this the thing that killed the dog?" Kingsley's voice was hoarse.
Sirius shrugged. "It could have been. It was doing its best to smother us both." He ran his fingers through his hair. "Remus would know."
"I'll ask him, when I get back to England. " Kingsley turned in a circle – the whole room was covered in stringy white goo. "This is possibly the most revolting thing I've ever seen. And I've seen where your house-elf sleeps."
Sirius picked up a gooey string on the end of his wand. "It should Scourgify away. Don’t worry, Kingsley, no need to make the housemaids of Cairo faint over your exploits." Privately, he couldn't wait to tell Remus he had been thinking of him just before he spunked the whole room; at least, if he could still share that kind of joke with Moony.
There was an anxious scrabbling at the window, and they both jumped. "That will be your hippogriff," said Kingsley and drew the curtain. A large area just outside the window shimmered and winked as the Disillusioned hippogriff batted at the window like an overgrown canary.
As it turned out, the windows were fixed shut. Bloody Muggles, thought Sirius, as he traipsed up the service stairs to the roof. His comfortable old boots were back at the bath house, so Kingsley had loaned him a pair of socks and some Muggle shoes which pinched and squeaked. He imagined them squeaking as they fell away into the ocean, and grinned. It was good to be on the move again.
On the roof, Buckbeak bowled Sirius to the ground, squawking and clicking in agitation.
"Where will you go now?" Kingsley leaned in the access doorway as Sirius soothed Buckbeak's ruffled feathers and fed him a complimentary hotel mint.
"Somewhere really, really warm. Somewhere tropical." Sirius gave Buckbeak an enthusiastic thump on the neck: the helpful creature had snatched up Sirius' canvas bag from the crypt. Sirius threaded the strap around the hippogriff's neck and fastened it securely. He turned to shake hands with Kingsley, but the man pulled him into a hug.
"Take care of yourself, Sirius. And stay out of my way – next time I might be on official business."
Sirius climbed up onto Buckbeak's back. He turned to look at Kingsley, and Buckbeak pawed eagerly at the concrete roof. "Can you tell people at home that I said hello? The people that you can tell, of course."
Kingsley nodded and gave him a wave. Sirius crouched low on Buckbeak's neck and they were away again.
Jasri, Bali, Indonesia
The sun was warm against his closed eyelids. The ingenious folding chair was really very comfortable. Sirius dozed with his feet buried in sun-warmed sand. Somewhere behind him on the beach, Buckbeak was wreaking invisible havoc on the monkeys.
"And it had a lacy texture?" In the chair beside him, Remus was turning pages in a huge book.
"Hm? Lacy, yeah." Sirius was beginning to think that Remus hadn't really grasped the idea of getting away from it all.
"I think it was a Reverie, a sort of lesser cousin to the Lethifold. – they're believed to be extinct. How marvellous."
Sirius snorted. "Wasn't so marvellous when it was trying to throttle me." He pushed his feet further into the sand. "Lethifold, yeah? Explains why the Patronus tore it to shreds then." He peered sideways at the next chair; Remus was flipping backward and forwards in the book, using fronds from a palm leaf as bookmarks. A large gash on Remus' forehead had been neatly stitched, and the skin around it was marbled yellow-green. Sirius sat up in his chair, took the book and threw it onto the sand. When Remus reached out in protest, Sirius took his hand and shook it gently.
"Look at us, Moony! When did we become raddled old veterans?"
Remus pulled his hand back. "We're the ones who survived. It's not easy to be a survivor." He pushed himself out of his chair, and limped over to pick up his book.
Sirius rested his arms on his knees, and looked out at the fishing boats bobbing on the sea. "I never imagined that we'd be the ones who made it through."
Remus sat down, propped the book open, and found the page he was reading. "You always were extremely enthusiastic about putting your own life at risk." He put a finger to his tongue and slid it across a page. Sirius watched him, and suddenly wanted to pin Remus to the sand, and bite him. Instead, he swung his legs sideways on the chair, and leaned forward with his arms around his knees, the better to watch Remus' face as he read.
"Ah, here. A Reverie has an empathic appetite; it flourishes in an environment filled with longing and nostalgia. They were most commonly found in museums and attics. I wonder if they've formed a colony at Azkaban? It would be a perfect environment." Remus' mouth pressed closed in a line; he wouldn't meet Sirius' eyes.
Sirius flinched and tightened his grip on his knees to stop himself shaking Remus by the shoulders. They were both good people. They had to rebuild trust. With his chin on his knees, he thought about why Remus might be goading him. He stole another glance at the man sitting next to him. When he caught Remus doing the same thing, he threw himself backwards in his chair and laughed until he was breathless.
"You want us to fight? Remus, you maniac, is that why you're being such a bastard?"
Remus looked nonplussed and a little guilty. "I do not. And I am not."
Sirius stood up, and pulled Remus to his feet too. "We survived. James and Lily didn't. It's not our fault, and we don't need to punish each other for it." He gathered Remus into his arms, and kissed him, curling his hand on the back of Remus' neck, ruffling the hair on the nape. "I'm not going to waste any more time blaming myself." He kissed him again, mouth open, and felt Remus relax in his arms. "And we're not going to fight over it, either."
Remus smoothed his hair down with a confused expression then raised his hand to Sirius' mouth. Sirius kissed the fingertips one by one.
"Exactly when did you become so very sage, Padfoot?" Remus raised an eyebrow, and Sirius stretched up to kiss it down again.
"Travel broadens the mind, Moony. I've done a lot of travel lately." He pulled Remus towards his cabin. "In fact, I think I'd quite like to lie down for a little while."
Further up on the beach, Buckbeak settled into the sand for a nap. The monkeys, ever-optimistic, returned to their shrieking and chatter.
Recipient: #48, Tabitha Wiggle, aka
shaggydogstailRequest: I'd like to hear about Sirius' adventures when he 'flew South' at the end of PoA - where did he go, how did he manage? I'm thinking North Africa would be interesting, especially Morocco or Tunisia, but you could also go with South America, Bali, Indonesia...somewhere hot and not at all like England.
Pairing: Sirius /Kingsley, Sirius/Remus
Rating: R
Word count: 6,300
Summary: Sirius has escaped the Dementor's kiss – is he able to leave Azkaban behind?
Notes: Title is from Khalil Gibran's The Madman. Thanks to
lilacsigil and youngest_one for beta reading. Written for the 2007 reversathon, here. This was written pre-Deathly Hallows, so there are no spoilers here. Scatter My Winter Dreams
Sirius pressed his cheek against Buckbeak's neck – although it was summer, the air was thin and held little heat at night, this far north. Hunched inside his cloak, Sirius drew his legs up, and berated himself for not planning better. Remus, by far the better strategist, would have cached away at least a change of clothes and a spare wand. Remus wouldn't be on the run with nothing but the clothes on his back. And a hippogriff between his legs. Sirius snorted, ruffling the feathered crest pressed flat on Buckbeak's sleek head. It was not the company he had expected to be keeping tonight, and for that he was glad.
Penzance, Cornwall, UK
Sirius greeted the dawn sitting on the stone fence bordering the Potter's seaside cottage, an old wand of James' tucked into his robes, eating pineapple from a dusty tin with a plastic fork. Buckbeak, newly-Disillusioned, stooped for fish in the shallows, sending confused gulls screaming into the air. Sirius laughed, spreading his toes in the sand. He had forgotten how good that felt; he hadn't been here since before Harry had been born. The pineapple was suddenly sour in his mouth, and he flung the rest of it onto the sand. For those outside Azkaban, there had been twelve years to mourn. For Sirius, the loss was still new.
It was meant to be just a brief visit. The cottage was probably forgotten by the Ministry, but Wormtail knew it, and therefore so did Voldemort. Somehow, though, the day crept away, surrounded by familiar, battered furniture and naff holiday bric-a-brac – all Harry's now. The sagging settee still had long strands of red hair caught in the fading green pile and a sandshoe trapped between two of the cushions. Sirius slept there, sending clouds of dust aloft whenever he moved, until he was surrounded by the stale beery smell of old beach parties. He dreamed of James and Lily, not the disjointed, accusatory dreams of Azkaban, but a gentle, soundless string of half-remembered moments: his friends in the sun, sleeping on a grassy tussock, James' hand resting on the swell of Lily's belly.
Sirius woke with a start, his breath hanging in the air before him. Was that a rattling breath he heard? A scrabbling at the window-pane? He didn't wait to find out. With a mighty bellow to Buckbeak, he plunged out of the cottage, wand ready, into a sea of fog that played across his face in cold streamers. For a moment there was no sound; the waves breaking on the shore were silenced by the enveloping mist, then with a clacking burr, the warm bulk of Buckbeak's body pushed sleepily against him. Sirius flung his arm across the hippogriff's shoulders and hoisted himself aboard, drumming his heels against the feathered flanks. Buckbeak, chattering angrily to himself, leapt skywards, bearing them both away from the coast.
Tangier, Morocco
They flew at night, and slept during the day, over the Channel and southward, darting along the coast of Portugal like migrating swallows. Sirius told himself over and over that nothing followed in their wake, and by the time Buckbeak crossed the strait, the shimmering heat had worked deep enough into Sirius' joints that he almost believed it. On African soil, squinting into the sun, it seemed impossible that he had ever been in a place as cold as Azkaban.
Living atop the Muggle slums of Tangier was like perching on an angry ants' nest: the tightly clustered buildings buzzed and whirred with activity at all hours, save when the sun was highest in the sky. On the roof of the ambitiously-named Café Laliberté, a lean-to of iron sheeting shone incandescent in the sun, nestled between a black-market satellite dish and a string of laundry. In the afternoon, it was far too hot for Sirius to even touch his home, let alone shelter in it, so he sat cross-legged in the meagre shade of the satellite dish. In front of him, a surly sea-eagle regarded him warily. Sirius proffered a sardine from the open tin in his hand with a reassuring gesture.
"They're best quality, my friend." To demonstrate, Sirius swallowed one whole and smacked his lips. "Take this to Remus Lupin, and make him accept it, even if he doesn't want it. You can have the rest of these sardines now, and another tin on your return." He bit into another while the bird clicked its beak appraisingly. Sirius chewed and swallowed with relish. "I'd make a swift decision, if I were you, or they'll all be gone."
The eagle fixed him with a mercenary gaze, then thrust out one leg imperiously. Sirius attached the letter, then swiftly moved his fingers away from the flashing beak as the eagle demolished the remaining sardines. When the tin was scraped clean, the eagle flung itself skyward, effortlessly avoiding the tangled snarls of cables that dangled between every building.
When he could no longer see the eagle in the sky, Sirius gathered up a battered cardboard box of dishes. Buckbeak gave an enquiring whistle from where he lay warming his belly on the sun-soaked roof, distorting the lengthening shadows under the shimmering Disillusionment spell.
"That's right – dinner time for me. And nothing for you. I know you're stuffed to the gills with monkey." Sirius shouldered the box filled with mended crockery. Reparo cost him nothing to cast, but gave him plenty to barter with Rashid, the café owner downstairs from whom Sirius had arranged to rent the roof-space and trade food in return for repairing broken plates. Between rowdy café customers and Rashid's two small children, smashed crockery had kept Sirius well fed and comfortably housed for some weeks. He scrambled nimbly down the rusted ladder to the road below. As he made his way along the alley to the kitchen door, he wondered what Remus would make of the communication. Sirius couldn’t remember the last time he wrote a letter, but it was the safest way to make contact, and he found unexpected satisfaction in the way it forced him to order his thoughts. Remus had always been the letter-writer of the group, diligently sending messages through each summer holiday, which Sirius rarely answered. He wondered what had happened to all those letters - bundled together neatly by Kreacher, no doubt, growing yellow and crumbly in a desk drawer in Grimmauld Place.
It was too quiet in the alley. The café, normally thrumming with custom in the late afternoon, lay silent. When he realised that even the monkeys had stopped their incessant chatter, Sirius put down the box and drew his wand, creeping along the walls, pressed flat against the flaking plaster. The walls were cold and damp with condensation, and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Peering around the open door, he found Rashid in the centre of the kitchen, huddled over an animal lying prone in the centre of the tiled floor. Rashid looked up at Sirius' approach, his face grey, his smile banished.
"Someone has cursed this house." Rashid gestured at the dead dog. "I do not know what I have done to deserve this desecration."
Sirius crouched over the corpse splayed on the floor, poked one of the rigid limbs with his wand. He had become so accustomed to the raucous clamour of the café that the silence was ringing in his ears, and he suddenly wished for Remus - or someone - to stand at his back. There was a grainy black residue on the dog’s coat. He squinted at it – fleas. Whatever had killed the dog had also killed all the fleas. That could only be something magical, something malevolent. Shadows danced at the edge of his vision, and he felt the temperature plummet. His stomach fell too: he had brought this to Rashid's house. He had to make it right again. He stood up straight, and brushed the dust from his knees.
"Rashid, where is Lalla? The children?"
"I have sent her to fetch the Imam. She has the children with her." Rashid seemed dazed as he absently rubbed the gooseflesh on his arms. "I will have to close the café: this kitchen is unclean."
Sirius hauled the man to his feet. "Go after your wife, see that your family is safe. I will take care of this." He pushed Rashid towards the door, then closed it securely. He took a moment to seal all the doors and draw the blinds, not wanting to draw the attention of nosy neighbours, or the aristocratic Caliphs who policed magic in Islamic countries.
It was a good half-hour of spell-casting to clean and ward the café – all reassuring, solid household charms. He didn't know what exactly had killed the dog – that was Remus' field of expertise – but he knew well enough that dark things feared cleanliness. The carcass he charred into ash, which he Scourgified away. When every shadow had been investigated, and every point of entry protected, he slipped a borrowed djellaba over his head and pulled up the hood. He locked the café up, carefully returning the key to its usual hiding place behind a rusted pipe, and slipped into the rabbit warren of streets that led to the Petit Medina.
Magic, in the Arab world, was an academic pursuit, blossoming up from Islam's golden age of science, studied and debated in lofty minarets by solemn men and women of books. The Petit Medina of Tangier was a tiny magical city within a city, bordered by high tiled walls and accessed through a curtain of water spilling down from an octagonal font. Hermione would very much like it here, Sirius thought, as he wove between towering bookshelves filled with scrolls and weighty tomes, his face hidden by the cowl of the djellaba.
Tucked inside his sleeve was a tobacco tin filled with Floo powder – one of the scavenged treasures from the Potters' cottage in Penzance. All cities governed by the Caliphate of Magic had a public library of magical works, and each of these libraries had a functioning Floo available for public use – a legacy of the nomadic tribes who had many powerful magicians, but few chimneys. Sirius waited until there was nobody nearby, then cast a handful of green power into the ornately tiled fireplace.
"Minerva McGonagall's office." Sirius spoke softly but clearly, his face close to the flames, and prayed that the language of the Floo was universal. To his relief, the powder burned clean and bright, in a single steady sheet of flame that showed the Head of Gryffindor taking tea by the fireplace in her office. When Sirius thrust his head into the flames, she gave a shriek, and dropped her cup into her saucer with a rattle, then stood up and locked her door.
"Mr Black, I must assume that you do not understand the meaning of the word 'inconspicuous'."
"I apologise for the intrusion, Professor. It's a matter of some urgency: something has followed me to Tangier, and I believe that it threatens the safety of the Muggles I've been living with." The words tumbled out in a rush, so he could check behind him again.
Minerva was on her feet in an instant. "I'll go to the Headmaster immediately. Someone will be sent. Sirius, you need to move on, now. There's a rumour that the Ministry is monitoring long-distance Floos." She gestured with one hand, and the fire that surrounded Sirius' head abruptly sputtered back into orange flames.
There was a small crowd clustered around the doors of the Café Laliberté, and to Sirius' relief, the neighbourhood monkeys had resumed their chorus of hoots and shrieks. He didn't wish to attract the attention of the crowd – which included several policemen – so he clambered onto a roof a few doors down, and picked his way across to his lean-to. Buckbeak was awake, and leaning over the edge of the building, watching with interest as people scurried in and out of the café.
"Get over here, sticky-beak. We have to get going." Sirius stuffed his few belongings into a canvas bag, and lashed it around Buckbeak's neck. Before he climbed onto the hippogriff, he shrugged his way out of the djellaba, and folding it roughly, reached to lay it over the top rung of the ladder. At the top of the ladder was a small parcel wrapped in a blue and white cloth. Sirius picked it up – warm bread and spiced meat wrapped up securely and tied with string. There was a note, of careful capitals and precarious English, in Rashid’s hand.
"My friend, I know from the first time we meet that you are hiding and that you are to move along in time. I do not know how you helped me, but I am thanking you for it. I will not have to stop my café. I have a brother, he is hiding like you, and always believes worst of himself. I want to say to you what I say to him. You have a good face, and you are a good neighbour. Let people make trust with you. Let the past be behind you. I thank you and wish you well."
Sirius folded the letter up, and pressed his lips together hard, busying himself packing the parcel safely into his bag. When he was certain that he could trust his voice, he wriggled up onto the hippogriff's back.
"It's time to move on, you old feather-duster." He leaned forward, and rested one hand on the bag, as Buckbeak's mighty shoulders began to work and dust swirled up around them.
Cairo, Egypt
Every child with a half-decent magical education knew that Egypt was all about vast pyramids and spectacular, deadly curses. Sirius was therefore surprised, soaring through Cairo’s night sky, to see a towering metropolis: glass-sided sky-scrapers and snaking rivers of well-lit but slow moving Muggle traffic. Buckbeak circled in lazy loops, while Sirius sought somewhere to land safely and discreetly.
Somewhere turned out to be a sprawling cemetery, with crumbling stone tombs and no electric light. From the roof of a crumbling mausoleum, Sirius could see the place was teeming with people. He could smell it too: the ripe, sour smell of too many people living in close proximity with no facilities. He untied his bag from Buckbeak's neck, and scratched under the creature's beak.
"Do you want to go hunting? Find somewhere with clean water if you're going to fish: you might have to go a fair way out, from the smell of it." Buckbeak nipped affectionately at Sirius' ear, and took to the air again. Sirius slung his bag across his shoulder, and climbed down into the heaving mass of people.
It was called the Arafa, the City of the Dead, and it was filled with people who were as good as dead to the rest of the world. There were Muggles and Wizards living cheek-by-jowl, but none that would report Sirius, even if they did recognise him. He vanished easily here, or so he thought, until one morning when he woke up to an angry sea-eagle pecking him about the face.
"I think you owe him a tin of sardines." It was a man's voice, deep and slow. Sirius erupted from his blankets with his wand in his hand, but the man, tall and black with a shaven head, leaned casually against Buckbeak's side with his arms crossed. Sirius kept him covered with the wand while he gave the eagle a swift kick and pulled on his shoes one-handed.
"Useless bloody watchdog you make, Buckbeak."
"Don't blame the hippogriff – Hagrid sent me with a brace of ferrets." The man grimaced. Buckbeak whickered softly, and snaked his head around to push lovingly against the man's elbow. The man wrinkled his nose in distaste. "They don't do much for the breath, I'm afraid."
"You're from the Order, then?" Sirius peered closer at the man's face; it was vaguely familiar. "I remember you – you were a fat little firstie the year I finished. Shingleford, Shettleback, something like that." He gave the eagle another shove with his foot, and it gave his boot a vicious swipe. "So, what did you grow up to be, other than insufferably smug?"
The man smiled – it was a predatory grin. "I’m an Auror. Actually, I’m the Auror who is supposed to be hunting you down. And it's Shacklebolt. Kingsley Shacklebolt." Sirius' expression must have been suitably agog, because Kingsley smiled wide enough to show all of his teeth.
Kingsley wanted to talk Order business, but Sirius had work to do, trades to make, and an eagle to pay. With the Auror at his side, Sirius wended his way through haphazard market stalls. At one, he traded a transistor radio with a mended case for a pair of spectacles, both lenses cracked. Once repaired, the glasses went to a short-sighted man in exchange for three tins of Portuguese sardines. One tin went to the surly eagle as payment, and another he traded for two discs of bread cooked on a heated headstone and a glassful of murky black coffee. Armed with breakfast, he clambered to the top of the crypt he had claimed as his own, to eat and to hear Shacklebolt's report. At ground level, people swarmed back and forth, a bobbing sea of heads bearing buckets and baskets.
He was pleased to hear that Rashid and his family were safe and untroubled by any further disturbances, although Kingsley had been unable to determine what exactly had been lurking around the café.
"You did a remarkable job of cleaning it up, there wasn't any evidence to follow." Kingsley eschewed the proffered sardine sandwich, but after Sirius had finished, he produced a packet of Peppermint Toads to share. "If it's a Dementor, it's a persistent one: nobody's ever heard of one moving so far south. Lupin says that it's possible, though. They can bear grudges down generations."
Sirius forced his voice to sound casual. "How is Remus? We didn't have a lot of time to talk the last time I saw him." The further away that night slipped, the more awkward restarting a conversation was becoming. There had been, as yet, no reply to his letter.
Kingsley narrowed his eyes. "He's fine. He's working." He didn't offer anything further. Sirius nodded. It was fair enough that Shacklebolt was wary; for all of the man's professional life, Sirius had been considered a cohort of Voldemort. Minds don't change overnight. He wondered if Kingsley was really here to determine whether Sirius could be trusted by the Order. He tried not to bridle at that thought. Rashid was right – he had to work to build trust again.
Shacklebolt said he had come to Cairo to investigate if Sirius was being followed, and if so, by what. Sirius thought the best place to start was by talking to the people who lived here. Casting for rumours was hard work, even with translation spells – the Arafa was a city of a thousand languages. A group of refugees from the Sudan told them the cemetery was haunted by a creeping stone hand that strangled unfaithful men in the night. A blind man with two teeth swore that the ghost of his second wife rose up under the full moon to tear her hair and berate him for marrying her sister. A swarm of children identified an old woman as a witch, and indeed she was a Witch, but quite well-intentioned. Inside her crypt, she poured them tea from a battered samovar into glasses stuffed with mint.
"Stay here. Let the stories come to you." She settled back into her armchair, made from fruit-crates covered with a carpet, her needle flashing in and out of a mountain of mending on her lap.
In a city of gravestones, stories of monsters were the bread and butter of life.
"It was a demon, with eyes of flame."
"I felt like ants were crawling up and down my back."
"No matter where you are standing, the eyes are looking straight at you."
"A glowing ball of light, floating over the tombs."
"It killed my goat. And all of our neighbour's chickens." The girl was seventeen or so, with a sleepy baby in a sling on her hip, and she lived close to an abandoned quarry at the southern end of the cemetery. She led them to an empty coop. The rusted wire had been torn, hanging like shredded curtains. "In the morning, there was nothing but feathers."
The population was thinner here, as though people felt an aversion to settling in that corner. Sirius couldn’t blame them: mosquitoes and gnats hovered lazily in the humid air, and the hollow of the quarry was filled with brackish water choked with algae and filthy garbage. Sirius and Kingsley set up watch along the slimy waterline, beside a slag pile of gravel chips. Once the sun had set, the cemetery transformed into a landscape of flickering fires and the faint, bobbing light of torches, a strangely gentle contrast to the glaring sea of colour reflecting from the glass towers of downtown Cairo.
Close to midnight, a rain of pebbles and dust made Sirius dowse the light of their small fire. Harsh dragging footsteps were moving over the mountains of gravel towards the quarry lake. Kingsley and Sirius moved quietly to the edge of the rubble and waited. Crickets sang. A mosquito drifted past Sirius' face but he ignored it. There was a coppery tang in the air.
Kingsley pressed his mouth close to Sirius' ear. "This isn't quite how you described it."
"This isn't how it was." Sirius couldn't stop himself grinning. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet, ready to leap. "But I think it's something we should see to, nonetheless."
In silhouette, on the crest of the hill, it had a vaguely human shape, a crouched form walking with a stilted gait. When Kingsley set his wand ablaze with clean white light, what Sirius had thought were hunched shoulders resolved into the long curved neck of an enormous ibis, its scything beak dripping red. It screamed in the light, stretching up on long, backwards-bending legs; it was much taller than a man, and at the end of the sparsely feathered wings were curved claws. With wings outstretched, and bloody beak gaping, it leapt for the source of the light.
Time sectioned and slowed, as it does in a battle. Sirius laughed as he moved between buffeting wings and slicing claws, as the familiar hexes and spells bubbled forward in his mind. This was familiar and exhilarating, this was a thing he loved. He and Shacklebolt worked well together, anticipating each other's moves, providing a distraction to allow the other to ready the next spell. It was over too soon. The light-sensitive creature become friable in the presence of flame. With a good punch it crumbled to ash and burned feathers under Sirius’ hands.
Kingsley fastidiously brushed the sooty flakes from his robes. "Where did the blood come from?"
Still breathing hard, Sirius scrambled to the top of the rubble. A man lay in the gravel, his arms stretched out behind him. Several deep puncture wounds on the man's chest oozed sluggishly. Sirius pressed two fingers to the man's throat; there was a pulse, faint but steady. "He's still alive."
Kingsley hooked his arms under the man's shoulders. "Take his feet. We have to get out of here – every Caliph in the City will have seen that battle. You weren't exactly discreet with that fireball."
Sirius picked up the man’s feet, delighted that Kingsley was suddenly a co-conspirator, and grinned widely. "Too hot for you, was it?"
Kingsley rolled his eyes, and kept walking nimbly backwards. "Oh, please. Next you'll be telling me it's size that matters."
The man's family was already looking for him and the news of his disappearance was spreading through the cemetery like a wave. As the man was carried off to a Muggle hospital, Sirius and Kingsley were suddenly local champions – people slapped them on the back and shook their hands. As the crowd pressed closer, Kingsley took Sirius by the shoulder to speak in his ear. "We need to make ourselves scarce." Sirius nodded, and made placating gestures to the people trying to ply him with food. He nudged Kingsley towards an arched gateway out of the cemetery, and they slipped away into the shadows.
Sirius took them to the bath house, and badgered Kingsley into paying. They sat hidden under towels, swathed in steam, the first of the early morning bathers. Neither of them spoke and the silence, punctuated only by hissing steam, was blissful. When they moved from the steam room to the bath, they sat facing each other in opposite corners.
"That wasn't the creature that killed the dog in Morocco." Kingsley’s eyes were closed.
Sirius sunk into the water up to his chin, let the warmth soak into the knots in his muscles. "I know. Fun though, wasn't it? I need to do a bit more of that. I'm aching like an old woman."
Kingsley opened his eyes and shook his head. "I think they're right – you are mad."
Sirius snorted. "Never listen to them. Isn't that the first thing Moody teaches you lot?" Looking through the steam at Kingsley, Sirius felt something unfurl low in his spine. He stood up, and loomed over the man, waist-deep in water. "What else do they say about me?"
"That you never lost a duel. Or a drinking contest." Kingsley leaned his head back against the tiles and stared back lazily through half closed eyes.
Sirius leaned down, one arm on either side of Kingsley's body. "That's true. What else do they say about me?" He could hear the sounds of the city stirring as dawn approached. His skin tingled, like it was waking up too. He put one hand on Kingsley's chest. Under his palm he felt the man's heartbeat accelerate.
Kingsley tilted his head and watched him for moment. "Nothing that I wouldn't rather find out myself." Then he hooked a foot around Sirius' ankle, pulling him down onto his chest.
It was more like wrestling, this embrace. After so long without intimacy, Sirius was overwhelmed with need, and his hands were clumsy and urgent on Kingsley's body. More than once, Kingsley hissed as Sirius grazed his teeth against sensitive skin, or bumped hard against his nose. Finally, Kingsley pushed Sirius away, and stepped out of the bath.
Sirius stood in the middle of the water, startled. "I'm sorry – did I hurt you?"
Kingsley dried himself off with a towel, and threw one to Sirius. "No. But I'm not going to do this in the middle of a public bath house."
Sirius clambered out of the bath, gave his limbs a perfunctory rub with the towel and gathered his robes. "Do you have a better place in mind?"
Kingsley slipped his arms into his shirt. "Yes. Wonderful Muggle invention – a hotel." He reached out, dragged Sirius closer to him, and Apparated.
Sirius felt thick carpet under his feet, then Kingsley's hand was snarled in his hair, and their mouths were joined, and he was being walked backwards till he fell into a soft bed. He shut his eyes and let Kingsley guide his limbs. This was trust: no wariness, no need to control, no anger and no guilt. When he came, Kingsley's hand on his cock, it was like falling into the sun.
Afterwards, Kingsley dropped off to sleep like a stone. Propped up on an elbow beside him, Sirius watched, a little startled at how young Kingsley suddenly looked. He flopped back down onto the pillows. It was easy to forget how much time had passed since he and James had emerged from Hogwarts as bright young things eager and willing to save the world, trailing Moony and Wormtail behind them. The ache of that loss flared inside him, and with sudden, desperate loneliness he wished for Remus, to ease the loss by talking and laughing and remembering. He tugged the blankets up over himself and the sleeping Kingsley – the wretched air-conditioning was raising goose bumps on his skin. Trust Muggles to mess up a simple thing like cooling the air. He let his eyes drift closed: tomorrow, he'd Floo Remus, and talk to him face to face, give Moony no chance to avoid talking to him.
It was the gasping rattle that woke him. He was curled against Kingsley's body, and the two of them were shivering. He drew a breath, and choked on fog. The room was icy, and the rattle was coming from his own throat. Misty tendrils were all around him, creeping into his nose and his mouth, trailing across his throat. Kingsley was swathed in the stuff; Sirius could hear him labouring to draw breath. He reflexively breathed in and choked, then rolled out of the bed, gagging. A lacy white blanket of fog was settling onto the bed, as though someone had thrown a new sheet over the two of them as they slept. Sirius scrabbled for his wand, it was tangled up in his robe on the floor. What spell? What spell? His mind raced through possibilities and came up blank. He pointed his wand at the shawl of fog curled lovingly around Kingsley's head, gathered the memory of standing free and bathed in sunlight, and drew a deep breath.
"Expecto Patronum!"
He didn't doubt for a moment that he could still cast a Patronus; and so the spell leapt from his wand and onto the cloud of mist, tearing and shredding at it with an open, savage mouth. Once the filmy tendrils were torn away from Kingsley's head, the man's eyes' opened and he flung himself from the bed, reaching for his wand which he had, more sensibly than Sirius, tucked under his pillow.
"What? What was it?" Kingsley's expression was grey, and his lips were tinged with purple. He rested his hands on his thighs, trying to catch his breath.
Sirius poked his wand tip at the remaining pieces of the creature. It had fallen to the ground in gauzy strings of gelatinous material. "I have no idea. It's dead now, though.
"Did it follow you from Azkaban? Is this the thing that killed the dog?" Kingsley's voice was hoarse.
Sirius shrugged. "It could have been. It was doing its best to smother us both." He ran his fingers through his hair. "Remus would know."
"I'll ask him, when I get back to England. " Kingsley turned in a circle – the whole room was covered in stringy white goo. "This is possibly the most revolting thing I've ever seen. And I've seen where your house-elf sleeps."
Sirius picked up a gooey string on the end of his wand. "It should Scourgify away. Don’t worry, Kingsley, no need to make the housemaids of Cairo faint over your exploits." Privately, he couldn't wait to tell Remus he had been thinking of him just before he spunked the whole room; at least, if he could still share that kind of joke with Moony.
There was an anxious scrabbling at the window, and they both jumped. "That will be your hippogriff," said Kingsley and drew the curtain. A large area just outside the window shimmered and winked as the Disillusioned hippogriff batted at the window like an overgrown canary.
As it turned out, the windows were fixed shut. Bloody Muggles, thought Sirius, as he traipsed up the service stairs to the roof. His comfortable old boots were back at the bath house, so Kingsley had loaned him a pair of socks and some Muggle shoes which pinched and squeaked. He imagined them squeaking as they fell away into the ocean, and grinned. It was good to be on the move again.
On the roof, Buckbeak bowled Sirius to the ground, squawking and clicking in agitation.
"Where will you go now?" Kingsley leaned in the access doorway as Sirius soothed Buckbeak's ruffled feathers and fed him a complimentary hotel mint.
"Somewhere really, really warm. Somewhere tropical." Sirius gave Buckbeak an enthusiastic thump on the neck: the helpful creature had snatched up Sirius' canvas bag from the crypt. Sirius threaded the strap around the hippogriff's neck and fastened it securely. He turned to shake hands with Kingsley, but the man pulled him into a hug.
"Take care of yourself, Sirius. And stay out of my way – next time I might be on official business."
Sirius climbed up onto Buckbeak's back. He turned to look at Kingsley, and Buckbeak pawed eagerly at the concrete roof. "Can you tell people at home that I said hello? The people that you can tell, of course."
Kingsley nodded and gave him a wave. Sirius crouched low on Buckbeak's neck and they were away again.
Jasri, Bali, Indonesia
The sun was warm against his closed eyelids. The ingenious folding chair was really very comfortable. Sirius dozed with his feet buried in sun-warmed sand. Somewhere behind him on the beach, Buckbeak was wreaking invisible havoc on the monkeys.
"And it had a lacy texture?" In the chair beside him, Remus was turning pages in a huge book.
"Hm? Lacy, yeah." Sirius was beginning to think that Remus hadn't really grasped the idea of getting away from it all.
"I think it was a Reverie, a sort of lesser cousin to the Lethifold. – they're believed to be extinct. How marvellous."
Sirius snorted. "Wasn't so marvellous when it was trying to throttle me." He pushed his feet further into the sand. "Lethifold, yeah? Explains why the Patronus tore it to shreds then." He peered sideways at the next chair; Remus was flipping backward and forwards in the book, using fronds from a palm leaf as bookmarks. A large gash on Remus' forehead had been neatly stitched, and the skin around it was marbled yellow-green. Sirius sat up in his chair, took the book and threw it onto the sand. When Remus reached out in protest, Sirius took his hand and shook it gently.
"Look at us, Moony! When did we become raddled old veterans?"
Remus pulled his hand back. "We're the ones who survived. It's not easy to be a survivor." He pushed himself out of his chair, and limped over to pick up his book.
Sirius rested his arms on his knees, and looked out at the fishing boats bobbing on the sea. "I never imagined that we'd be the ones who made it through."
Remus sat down, propped the book open, and found the page he was reading. "You always were extremely enthusiastic about putting your own life at risk." He put a finger to his tongue and slid it across a page. Sirius watched him, and suddenly wanted to pin Remus to the sand, and bite him. Instead, he swung his legs sideways on the chair, and leaned forward with his arms around his knees, the better to watch Remus' face as he read.
"Ah, here. A Reverie has an empathic appetite; it flourishes in an environment filled with longing and nostalgia. They were most commonly found in museums and attics. I wonder if they've formed a colony at Azkaban? It would be a perfect environment." Remus' mouth pressed closed in a line; he wouldn't meet Sirius' eyes.
Sirius flinched and tightened his grip on his knees to stop himself shaking Remus by the shoulders. They were both good people. They had to rebuild trust. With his chin on his knees, he thought about why Remus might be goading him. He stole another glance at the man sitting next to him. When he caught Remus doing the same thing, he threw himself backwards in his chair and laughed until he was breathless.
"You want us to fight? Remus, you maniac, is that why you're being such a bastard?"
Remus looked nonplussed and a little guilty. "I do not. And I am not."
Sirius stood up, and pulled Remus to his feet too. "We survived. James and Lily didn't. It's not our fault, and we don't need to punish each other for it." He gathered Remus into his arms, and kissed him, curling his hand on the back of Remus' neck, ruffling the hair on the nape. "I'm not going to waste any more time blaming myself." He kissed him again, mouth open, and felt Remus relax in his arms. "And we're not going to fight over it, either."
Remus smoothed his hair down with a confused expression then raised his hand to Sirius' mouth. Sirius kissed the fingertips one by one.
"Exactly when did you become so very sage, Padfoot?" Remus raised an eyebrow, and Sirius stretched up to kiss it down again.
"Travel broadens the mind, Moony. I've done a lot of travel lately." He pulled Remus towards his cabin. "In fact, I think I'd quite like to lie down for a little while."
Further up on the beach, Buckbeak settled into the sand for a nap. The monkeys, ever-optimistic, returned to their shrieking and chatter.