Distance Chapter 1: Smoke, a harry potter fanfic

Author NotesWarning, if you do not like slash, don't read. Simple. I will not respond to flames, so don't even try and goad. Now on to the story!

The smoke hung dead in the air as people shouted with joy, shifting around the dancing bodies in never ending spirals. It's potent smell chocking, but in the darkened bar, no one cared enough to notice that one minor detail. It obscured the view in heavy clouds of gray, bringing tears to your eyes if you stared to long.

It was the smoke that was bringing tears to Sirius eyes, nothing else.

Yes, it was the smoke. Not the images at so many bodies moving, falling, bleeding, dyin—

"Just the smoke," he told himself, nursing a pint, "just the smoke." There was no other reason why he should be tearing up anyway, he thought, the war was over. Over. After so many years of fighting, yelling, hoping for a day of peace. There will be no more pain, no more thinking that maybe, maybe we were wrong. Maybe he wasn't the traito--

The war was over.

For any other reason for tears to come to his eyes, that would be it. Tears of joy. Not tears of sadness. Not the fact that his best friend and his wife could die and that less then twelve hours ago he was living in a reality worse then any nightmare he could ever dream. Voldemort was gone, dead. He godson was alive, his lover was rottin--

It was the smoke that was causing the moisture in Sirius' eyes. That's it. In fact, he was going to leave the bar, get some fresh air, clear his mind.

Slamming his empty cup on the table and leaving some money with it, he left the clouds of smoke and dancing people behind and walked out into the crisp November air. The moonlight running across the pavement dared him to look up, dared him to remember. He didn't want to. He didn't want to look up and see the moon. Didn't want to see the moon in her glory as she pulled the magic from the young, the old, making them hers. Always her. A mistress in the black night, dressed in deceiving light. But he shouldn't feel the pull, shouldn't feel anything like that. He was safe from her. Still, he wasn't going to look up at the sky.

Walking a few paces before finally slumping down on the curve, Sirius rubbed at his eyes. "Irritated that's all," he whispered to the silent night, then rubbed his face in frustration. Sirius could almost feel the tendrils of light pushing his face up wards, as he set his jaw until he winced from the strain.

He didn't want to look up and see his former lover shuddering in pain as the beast tried to get loose, tried to leave his cage. Didn't want to think of how the wounds would go untreated afterwards, how the dirt and the grim of the prison would settle into the skin, infecting him with stench of the dead, the screams of the insane.

Didn't want to acknowledge that he, Sirius, put him there.

Didn't want to know that if the he would feel the pull as before, or just see the moon. If he would see(hearsmellfeel) the woods and the rush, chasing, running, jumping on your mate, competing, laughing--

He also didn't want to know if the cold mistress would erase those moments, those feelings, with something a lot like guilt, shame, doubt, and worst of all, the images of Remus being taken away, being abused. His expression as he was manhandled, at his trial. He was looking down, eyes never leaving the ground at his feet, the feet that people were spitting on. His strong, unbreakable Remus could not look up in hope anymore. They had done the impossible, what the wolf, and the ministry and even his cold mistress couldn't do. The marauders had done what everyone thought was impossible yet again.

They had broken Remus J. Lupin.

And Sirius had helped the most, even before everything happened. He had broken him little by little with every passing moment he didn't trust him, that he wasn't there at a transformation. And now, with the wind howling in his ear, he looked up at the white moon, stark against the back drop of blackness.

It was love that was making Sirius cry.