Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter and its characters are not mine.

Warning: Sexual content

Candlelight and Wintersweet

On the outskirts of a certain village, an old house stood alone in the winter night. Dark windows stared out at the snow-shrouded world like eye sockets. A dim firelight could be glimpsed behind a ground-floor window, and someone was moving about in the shadow—the only sign of life on this long, silent night.

Fire crackled and danced in the hearth; shadows fidgeted and stirred. The living-room was cosy and warm, but Harry was barely aware of it. He was alone in this lonely old house, and a piece of him was missing. It was lost in the woods, in the snow, in the dark where the one he loved roamed. At length he went to the window, lit a candle and placed it on the window-sill—to light the way for the one he loved.

On the other side of the cold glass, the winter garden was dead and buried under the snow. In the distance, trees were stripped naked of their foliage, their many limbs swaying in the wind, and their many fingers clawing for the frigid sky. Stars were frozen in the sky, their lights bright and hard as glass shards.

Looking within, he took a long, hard look at the reflection in the glass—the messy jet-black hair, the bright green eyes, the round glasses, the expressionless face. His reflection wore a loose jumper over tattered jeans. In the golden candlelight, his reflection looked like a ghost.

There was a knock on the window. Jolted out of his musing, he noticed a silhouette standing in the dark outside, and without hesitation he opened the window. A blast of cold air slapped his face, and there Sirius was, like an apparition in the winter-dead garden. A well-worn cloak concealed Sirius' figure, a figure he could easily picture in his head. In the guttering candlelight, Sirius looked cold and real and alive.

"Welcome home," Harry said as he leant out the window and touched Sirius' icy cheek, and he felt a little less alone. "Come inside."

There was a flicker in Sirius' eyes; perhaps it was the candlelight and nothing more. Like a man starved for affection, Sirius gripped Harry's wrist and nuzzled his hand. "You are cold," Sirius murmured, his words caught in Harry's palm.

Sirius' hand was clammy and cold as the dead, but Harry did not mind. "So are you. Come inside and warm me up."

A crooked smile playing about his lips, Sirius let go of Harry's hand. In the next moment he was gone; only the snow-lit night remained. With a pang Harry withdrew his arm and straightened up. Before he could shut the window, a pair of arms caught him from behind, and a certain someone pressed up against him. The smell of leather and fur enveloped him; it was the smell of home and the smell he hungered for.

"How's that?" Sirius said, his voice playful and low beside Harry's ear. "Warm enough for you?"

"Not yet." Leaning into Sirius' embrace, Harry watched the view outside the window. Nothing stirred in the night. There was a hush in the air, as though every sound and every secret in the world were deadened by the snow. "I'm just warming up."

With that Harry pulled away from Sirius, turned around, and leant into Sirius for a kiss. Barely a second had passed before Sirius returned the kiss and held him close, indulging him and indulging in him. Slipping his arms around Sirius, Harry clutched a fistful of Sirius' cloak, which was damp from melted snow. There was no need to ask where Sirius had been; there were only so many places he would go in his wandering.

When they drew apart, Sirius took Harry's hand in his, their fingers interlaced. His eyes, cloudy and grey, were fixed upon Harry with an intense look that was part hunger and part something else. "And now?"

Instead of answering, Harry tugged at Sirius' hand and led him to the sofa. The window slid shut with a dull thud, but he barely heard it. Firelight wavered and shadows swayed—and he had eyes only for Sirius, who sat down on the sofa with him and caught his lips in a kiss, a kiss that took away some of the chill in his bones.

Straddling Sirius' lap, Harry slipped a hand under Sirius' clothes and caressed his body, feeling the scars, the flesh, the bones. It was a sensation at once familiar and strange. He rested his hand over the spot where he thought Sirius' heart would be, but he could not quite tell if there was a heartbeat or not.

A pair of hands reached under his jumper and stroked his sides, making him shiver. Fingers slid under the waistband of his jeans and teased his naked skin. A voice murmured his name—Harry—just his name and nothing more. Those cool, winter sweet lips of Sirius' parted ever so slightly; unspoken words lingered in the air like a half-finished thought.

Embracing his impulse and instinct, Harry stood up and stripped himself bare—until there was nothing left for him to shed. His clothes puddled on the ground like cast-off shells, and his glasses gleamed dully on the table. Leaning back on the sofa, Sirius was gazing at him, into him, through him, taking in everything that he was and missing not a thing.

"Done warming up yet?" Sirius quipped, a hint of a smile in his voice.

Smiling wryly, Harry straddled Sirius and cradled the back of Sirius' head, his fingers entangled with hair that resembled Padfoot's fur. He sought Sirius' neck with his mouth, kissing, licking, biting; and Sirius did not make a sound. He felt Sirius pulling the cloak around him, enveloping him like the night.

Cool, calloused hands fondled him under the cloak; it was like coming home. Warmth returned little by little to his body, and with warmth came a pang of hunger. Lifting his head, he gazed into Sirius' eyes and saw the black dog lurking within. He saw something else as well—perhaps lust, perhaps love, perhaps possessiveness, perhaps a flicker of guilt. Ever so gently he cupped Sirius' chin, and his lips to Sirius' lips, he kissed and licked the guilt away.

When Sirius went down on him, Harry sprawled on the sofa and stared at the ceiling, panting and dazed. The voice that slipped out of his mouth did not sound like his voice, and the hand that was holding Sirius' head did not feel like his hand either. And yet his body could feel everything Sirius was doing to him. When he came, it was like falling.

Without a word Sirius moved away from Harry and got up, his dark hair unkempt and his clothes dishevelled. Framed by firelight, he looked younger somehow, and there was a glint in those eyes that were staring at Harry. Feeling butterflies in his stomach, Harry sat up on the sofa, and reaching out, he unbuttoned Sirius' flies and pulled down his trousers, for it was the most natural thing to do.

They cuddled up on the sofa afterwards, two lonely souls huddling together for warmth. Draped in Sirius' cloak, Harry nuzzled Sirius' neck while Sirius nuzzled his hair, as though neither of them could get enough of each other's scent. Harry pictured a large black dog nestling against him, his very own mythical Black Dog. He pictured the sharp teeth that were made for rending, and the long pink tongue lapping up tears and blood, and he was not afraid.

"Sirius?" Harry called out. Sirius murmured incoherence into his hair; it might have been yeah or ah or a sigh or something else entirely. "Are you warm?" he asked. A beat passed by before Sirius' arms tightened around him, and that was all the answer he needed.

Finis.