Somnolence, or Four Nights on Both Sides of the First War

Notes: - Inspired, in part, by Split Seven Ways' Come Home Tonight.

- I took some creative liberties and rewrote Narcissa's coloring (hair, eyes) as dark – Basically I was quite convinced she had black hair, like all of the other Blacks (and Sirius), and then there was a niggling feeling that J.K introduced her as blonde in CoS, and I went to check, and ah. But she has dark coloring here. Hope nobody minds.

- Sirius' crescent moon tattoo first makes its appearance in I Return to Zero, Theme 2: Inked.

- Formatting error, story deleted and replaced - a quick apology to those on my alert list for the alert spam.

On the first night, so unhelpfully unremarkable, she is lured by the waiting, endless and constant and always, into a state of restive fury, that she curls her fingers tightly into her palm, placed over her swollen stomach, two rocks like she is playing the game of rock, paper, scissors the way she has seen mudblood children do in her trips to Diagon Alley.

Paper, mummy, she imagines the child inside her to sing, small webbed fingers spread apart as he swims weightlessly towards the warmth of her fists. Paper, white as the snow prince she already knows she is carrying, hair and eyes as light as his father's. Paper, to swallow the mottled angry red of her rocks, and to negate the atrous of her own hair and eyes and name.

She is angry, suddenly, with this boy who is yet to be, and she relaxes her fingers until they are lying limp, still on the crest of her tummy, but secretive now, refusing to give away her hand lest the son in her bests her yet again.

3.27am, and the Manor is quiet but for her quiet breaths, and the crackle of flames she can easily tame. Out of sight, she digs fingers into the upholstery of the armchair, and tells herself to master her unrest, as befitting of a Black, and the wife of Lucius Malfoy.

The tender white on the underside of the cut logs flash at her from within the fireplace, and she watches the fire inch towards them, unrepentant in the fuliginous path of soot it has already left in its wake.

Fuck, frustrated and low and an oath, and Remus gauges it is one for violence. He swallows, but lowers his paperback, the leaves of the pages whispering against the worn fabric of the couch, and crosses the room.

Sirius is already looking at him, sable eyes steady but apprehensive, and Remus thinks it is his book that must have warned him, the rustling eaves murmuring caution that only Sirius can hear. He is thankful that their bedroom is small, and the floors lined with books and strewn with parchment and stained with fresh motorcycle oil, such that he has an excuse to keep his gaze firmly upon them, and not look into Sirius' eyes, luminous like he has stolen all the dim light in the room, and then am returning them to Remus through the scorch and burn of his stare.

"You've hurt yourself again."

He settles at the edge of their bed, gingerly, he thinks, and immediately thinks how odd the expression is, and of the unsettling spiciness of ginger tea, to help ease female problems of the month, and which Lily has decided to be equally effective in countering his own monthly issues.

Sirius does not flinch from his presence, and he realizes, belatedly and in between thoughts of aurulent depths lapping against the ceramic of his tea mug, that he has been waiting for him to.

"It is just a small prick," Sirius mutters, holding his finger up against the light.

So says the pincushion, Remus opens his mouth to tease, but closes it again, smiling vaguely at a corner of their blanket, tangled in between Sirius' ankles, instead.

He glances away, after a heartbeat.

"I have 4 more months to get it right."

The words are a declaration, and Sirius' tone is strong with conviction, and in them, Remus knows, is a decision made for the night.

He still does not look back, gazes out their window instead, and the haematic crescent moon takes his measure silently, and is displeased, flaring briefly as it hangs in suspension, between sky and ground.

Sirius pushes the small scraps of velveteen into his hand, and surprised, his eyes drop to the small fabric face, one button eye winking crookedly below two tufted antlers, clumsily attached to the head. He looks up, and Sirius is staring at him, a hard but kind perse.

On the first night, he swallows the stone in his throat and takes what is offered, and they pretend, together, that they have no words, and no accusations to make.

So he lays Pronglet aside, and catches Sirius' wrist instead, and draws the wounded finger, smarting with the copper of blood and mistimed threading, into his mouth, and sucks. Sirius jerks, but as brown eyes lift to steadily meet grey, they darken into ebony, lidded.

Light sweeps of tongue across uneven calluses, pushing down at intervals to exert pressure, and Remus is rewarded with a throaty groan, the timbre of Sirius' pleasure reaching deep into his gut as he grazes the side of the finger with teeth and heat.

He falls, forward, unresisting to the pull and tug of Sirius' impatient hands, and a mouth descends, and he will not close his eyes, not on this night, even as lust and want weighs his limbs, making him slow, his movements languid as they wander downwards, mapping Sirius through the cotton of his sweats, dragging across the eager head, making Sirius gasp wetly into his mouth.

The night is warm, and his skin is quickly glazed a sticky sheen, and they both lose clothes in a tangle of limbs and kissing and touching. Time passes in bruised patches of incarnadine, white light that explodes and blends with the scarlet swimming behind Remus' eyes, and is lost to him, as he is lost in, and to, Sirius. And then Sirius, flat on his back, lifts a leg and hooks it over Remus' shoulder, his eyes half-lucid as they silently offer Remus the chance to decline, now. Remus stares back, and pulls Sirius' other leg upwards to meet the one already resting on his shoulder, and leans forward, closing his eyes briefly as Sirius' mouth floats over his lids, a breath, and two, and words they don't have. They move together, fighting to anchor each other, and to force aground, erasing the invisible circles of protection they have begun to each drawn around themselves, dividing yours and mine and no longer ours, in the months following the Order's inevitable acknowledgment of espionage and disloyalty within the ranks.

Remus moans as Sirius' toes trace the line of his spine, and he melds their bodies closer, battle scar over battle scar, seeking to bleed under skins and share breaths, and Sirius throws his head back, graphite-black strands of hair fan across the pillow, twined around fingers that pull and yank, as lips and teeth seek the arc and curve of a neck offered. Sirius' low howl reverberates in the spaces between them, but their eyes are fixed stars, unblinking on each other's face even as somnolence descends like gravity, like love spilled, hotly and furiously, marking, marking -

mine, mine, and I will not relinquish.

The second night Death visits, and although She is kind, She takes something else, something not willingly given.

They are cloistered underground, in the muggle subway, backs up against grimy concrete walls, but it could be worse, Sirius thinks, for they could be prone on the tracks, having fallen over in a blur of scarlet light and unintelligible language, curses shouted and can only make sense in the riddle and rhyme of the roar of fighting. He is certain Frank has survived the fall, and the incantation hitting him squarely in the face, and he knows, with the cold clarity of a soldier, that Frank cannot be retrieved right now, that cavalry cannot be sacrificed to rescue one of their fallen, who would after all survive this fight, but only if they do.

He gulps in a breath, greedily, and has no time to contemplate its significance.

James leans heavily against him, wand clutched close, his face ashen and eyes darting over the station, counting both allies and enemies alike, and only the tightening of his jaw tells Sirius he does not like their odds.

From the corner of his eye he sees Fabian Prewett, mouth set in a determined line, inch closer towards the drop in the platform, and towards Frank, a cut above his right eye glowering in the dim light, vermilion blood that surely obstructs his vision. Next to Sirius, James opens his mouth to hiss caution, but he is interrupted by the whir of a body flying past them, slamming straight into Fabian, and tackling him to the ground. Green and emerald crackle in the empty space where both men had previously stood, kicking up dust and drowning out Mad Eye's furious admonishment of fool as he rolls himself quickly upright to deflect the blows that would soon descend. Exchanging a grim smile with his best friend, Sirius hurls himself out from behind the wall, firing curses and jinxes as James scampers towards Fabian and Mad Eye, forming a triangle as they stagger backwards to find some form of cover.

The fighting, previously lulled as both sides hide from each other and from Her, erupts once again.

Death-Eaters emerge from their hiding places and are met by Order members, and Sirius, half a mind on Prongs and another half on the war surging all around him, feels Remus' fingers still in his hair, pulling hard enough to make pain pleasurable, and tries to move fast enough, react quick enough.

Minutes pass like hours, and in between, he sees Kingsley forgo his wand in favor of punching an incoming Death-Eater in the face - in between, he barks out a laugh at the fight raw in Kingsley's eyes, and brings his own knee up into one Death-Eater's stomach even as he ducks out of a stunning spell sent his way by another. His blood sings in his ears, and he wants to roar, and he wonders if this is insanity, and then he sees Regulus, and knows that it can only be.

The Death-Eater is stringing Order members up by their ankles, levicorpus, Sirius thinks, a hysterical laugh bubbling wetly in his throat. It could have been Snivellus in that mask - and he would not be surprised, even if, with James, he will hide it from Lily - but Sirius knows it is his baby brother. Regulus, who is obsessed with flight - say, Sirius, wouldn't it be nice if we had wings like the Greek-mithoogly - mythology, and Icarus, Reg - right, Icarus, and fly away from here, and not have to listen to Mother and Father ever ever ever? - and who had taught Sirius levicorpus, after building street cred with his new Slytherin keepers, and Sirius, who had returned to school that September and immediately taught it to James and Remus and Peter.

He had wanted to be the one flying closer to the sun, to turn the temptation of punishment and melted wings away from Reg and onto himself, but he had wanted many things in his life, and they don't come to pass.

For a moment Sirius wants to yell at the foolhardiness of his sibling, at his use of levicorpus in a fight like this because this is not a game Reg, but the moment passes, and the Death-Eater looks up, and sees him, and they both pause, a heartbeat a second, ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum.

Then he sees the other Death-Eater, hidden behind a post and firing a spell straight at James' turned back, and he breaks the eye contact, and dives straight into the path, knocking James away, before hitting a wall himself. It comes down around him in a whine and boom, and it is dark, and he sees no more.

She waits the entire length of the second night, and has a hag, and an elf, for company.

Walburga Black arrives at twilight, a floating head marooned in lazy flickering flame, and the house-elf is sent to convey her desire to speak with Narcissa. She closes her eyes against the reedy whispers of Mistress, you have a guest, murmured against the wood of her closed bedroom door, and drifting in under the threshold. Narcissa lingers, pulling the silken robe closer to herself, feeling the fabric pool like water in hidden crevices over the skin, settling tepidly in the hollow between her breasts, irresistible and somnolent.

She leaves her hair, spun and heavy in glistening ocher, loose around her shoulders, defiant.

Walburga regards her with thin disapproval, gaze flickering over unbound hair and unkempt dress, and Narcissa moves to stand beside a window, eyes cut towards the burning horizon.

"It is 6 in the evening, Narcissa", as though she is an erring child and not the mistress of this Manor.

"I am aware," she returns, still intent on the smolder of cardinal and aubergine in the skies, like ripe plums crushed underfoot, leaving the juice to stain messily.

Walburga makes a sound, of indignation or its equivalent, but Narcissa does not care, and pays it no mind.

She waits, and thinks of her husband's hands on her last night, gentle on her stomach, before she guided him into bed, her love angry and desperate and soft after a night of frightened waiting. She thinks of the mottled purple she has left on Lucius' pale skin last night; the scrape of her nails high inside of his thigh, the mark of her teeth where neck meets shoulder, making him shudder beneath her.

"I wish it to be communicated to Lucius that I am pleased with his commendation for Regulus."

She turns from the window sharply, but Walburga is still speaking about Regulus, and Lucius, and Regulus allowed to participate in their attack on a muggle train station tonight, on the back of Lucius' good word before the Dark Lord.

Narcissa folds a hand over her stomach, and her child kicks merrily in response, and suddenly, she wants to be sick over this mother who feels no love for her remaining son.

Walburga misreads her look of distress, and sneers, the sharp twist of her mouth cruel and knowing.

"Do you not have faith in our Master?"

She thinks of Lucius, gazing up at her as she straddles his hips, his hand reaching upwards to tangle gentle fingers in her hair, brushing it away from where it hangs, black rivulets down to her waist, and his thumb ghosting over her wet lip, removing all evidence of her distress.

"No, Aunt, I trust in the Dark Lord."

She leaves the room, and leans against the door when it closes behind her, and thinks of that which is right, and pure, and the fight for them. She thinks of a world without mudbloods, a world Lucius is building for the snow prince she is carrying for him.

That night, Lucius does not return.

It is four in the morning, and he is slumped on the floor, Lily's head in his lap as she curls inwards towards her stomach, when word finally arrives.

It is Fabian's patronus that glides through the window of Godric's Hollow, and Fabian's voice, no laughter in it, that tells Remus that Sirius is in St. Mungo's, and that James is on the way back -

Green light flares in the fireplace before the silvery lemur can finish speaking, and James is there helping him to his feet, pulling the still drowsing Lily off of him, and he has no time to be afraid - to take fright at James' broken spectacles, at the blood covering the front of his robes - before he is in the fireplace, calling out St. Mungo's hoarsely, and making promises to whoever who would listen that that that he'll trade his books, his chocolates, anything for Sirius' safety -

that they'll no longer fight -

that he'll make this, make them, work.

And then soot and the celadon-hued magic of floo powder whooshes up and around him, and he is on his way.

On the third night, just after the clock strikes twelve, he comes home to her, bruised and battered and bleeding, and it is not from the fight with the Order members.

She has waited a day for his return – a day in which she passes wide-eyed and tearless, but vicious, throwing plates at the house elves that are beholden to serve their mistress meals. Her pride prevents her from turning to her sister, but after sixteen hours of silence, she crumbles.

Bellatrix's response is laughter, and a reassurance of don't worry sister, the Master will be kind, even if Lucius has been most careless in his management of affairs.

Lucius has survived the Order, but the knowledge does not calm her, and fear settles heavily in her stomach, and soon, she hates the sensation of expectation, and the act of expecting.

He apparates into the sitting room ten minutes after midnight, and the timing is so dramatic that for a second, she questions if he is real, and not the product of her feverish hoping. Then he staggers, and throws out a hand to stable himself, his proud mien intact still in his erect back, and burning dimly in his eyes.

She makes no cry – she is not that kind of wife – but hurries towards him, and he allows himself to fall into her arms, his breaths shallow against her neck, but he is here, he is here.

Two Death-Eaters died in the fight, and another three taken by the Order, amongst them Montague, and Flint. The Dark Lord's anger had been terrible to bear, and Lucius had bore the brunt of it, for he had been left in command of the attack.

Crucio, and hurt, and her husband is returned to her bleeding and scarred, an obedient soldier.

Dimly, she summarizes that Regulus, the baby of her Black family, must be safe.

In the dead of the third night, she wonders if she cares.

On the fourth night, he is waiting in a plaza in Diagon Alley, nursing a cup of cold coffee, and does not see her approach until it is too late, but it does not matter, because she had not known she would choose to speak with him anyway.

He should not be out and about barely two days after surviving the Death-Eater scrimmage, and Remus nearly refuses his company, because it is like gloating in Death's face, and Remus is not as good at recklessness as the man he loves. But Sirius is tense and silent, and his eyes are that shade of sharp argent, and he fingers the tattoo on his wrist as he asks to walk Remus to work. The crescent moon winks at Remus as Sirius rubs at it absently, and it is hard for him to swallow, and he looks up into Sirius' face, and says yes.

He traces the crescent after he pulls gloves onto Sirius' hands, the other man watching him bemusedly, and silent, as though uncomprehending of the need for warmth. He leaves his thumb over the inked moon, directly over Sirius' pulse, and thinks it is Sirius who needs protecting now, and that it will be him who provides him with it. Sirius stares at him for minutes, in the doorway of their apartment, and then turns his own hand over, palm facing upwards, and laces his fingers through Remus', and they leave home.

The weight of Sirius' gloved hand in his teaches Remus patience, and he waits for Sirius to speak of the night in the subway station, all the way to the bookstore.

Sirius doesn't, and Remus realizes he isn't surprised.

She sees him first, head tilted up to gaze blindly at the burning sun, long hair pulled up in a half-ponytail, and the bandage across one cheek that turns gazes away. She expects he is to be thought beautiful, and watches the other men and women as they watch him. He wears his Muggle clothes with careless grace, white shirt that is tugged upwards as he leans back, revealing an expanse of skin, and black boots pulled over dark jeans.

She stands in the awning, and watches his bruised cheek caution admiring glances, now, in this terrible time.

She thinks of a mottling of sage and saffron across pale skin, tired and discolored. She thinks of a low hiss as she presses her wand tenderly to them, thinks of a man trying to be brave in the crisp coldness of the morning.

She is angry, and she supposes, later, that is why she leaves the shelter of the shop, and walks across to the bright plaza square.

She ignores the gazes lingering on her skin, as appreciative as they have been on his.

"Cousin."

He bolts back up on the bench, curses himself for not reacting the second the shadow falls across his path, and hears Mad-Eye's crackle of "Constant Vigilance!" unhelpfully in his head.

She smiles at him, a mocking, predatory smile as his hand flies to the back of his jeans pocket.

Two outs in a day, Mad-Eye would be so proud.

"You don't think I am about to attack you, do you?"

Her head is tilted at an angle, and she is studying him as though she thinks him dim. He takes her in for the first time, and continues to glare at her grimly in response, because damn if she thinks he will believe her pregnancy would stop her from attacking.

She catches his downwards flickering gaze, and rolls her eyes, a facial expression that sits comfortably on her haughty face.

"I don't mean in my situation."

He continues to glare, but after a minute has passed in which she doesn't move but to gaze away, and in which no Death Eaters surge out to surround him, he moves to the corner of the bench, and lowers his wand. His fingers do not relax their grip.

She looks at the sitting room he has just cleared, and raises an eyebrow, dismissing his act of courtesy in an imperious sniff.

He shrugs, as though to say your fucking funeral, and resists the urge to smirk, because he knows pregnant women, and he knows of swollen ankles and standing around.

"Still in love with little Malfoy, I see," he says another minute of silence.

"Still in love with your little werewolf?"

He smiles, all teeth and false friendliness, and leans back on the bench.

"There is nothing small about him, Cissy."

"Likewise, and don't call me that."

She returns his grin with an insincere one of her own, and he snorts, and opens his mouth again to ask what the hell she wants with him, but she interrupts him.

"I see you have been in the thick of the fight."

Her voice is hard, and he thinks here we are finally.

"Yes - two cracked ribs, a fractured cheekbone, and some internal lacerations - I do think I have dear Lucius to thank for some of them, Cissy."

He is still lounging on the bench, one leg folded casually over the knee, his smile challenging.

She thinks she would like to hurt him, as he has hurt her, and hers.

"And I expect you would like me to apologize for them?"

"Sure, you could have a go - or send another representative from the Black family - Regulus would do just as nicely, too."

The sun has begun to set, and both their faces are awash in tangerine blood, the porcelain alabaster of their skin that gives in meekly to hues brighter than themselves. She does not know why, but she moves to sit beside him, now when the air is charged and she is certain he would harm her, for Regulus, if he could.

She is quiet, and he watches as she folds her hands carefully over her stomach, and then he has to look away.

There does not seem like there is anything more to say, after that.

He leaves the bookstore a little after sunset, clutching a copy of Kerouac for Sirius - a letter of quiet acceptance of his troubles, and an offer to remain his clueless Cassidy regardless.

An inside joke, and he hurries, because he wants to see Sirius smile.

Old Mr. Cade calls out a farewell behind him, and Remus waves, and decides to hold on to his hopes for a happily ever after a little longer today.

" How far along are you?"

She startles, and looks up. They have been quiet for the last few minutes, and she did not think he would be the first to speak again.

He is looking at her with something as close to begrudging kindness as they can come to, and she realizes it disconcerts her, because she does not want to be beholden to it.

"Seven months," she replies, stiffly.

He nods, once, and looks away again, as uncomfortable as she is.

She gets up to leave then, because she imagines she sees the top of a blonde head making its way towards her, and a hand warm in hers.

He does not stop her as she walks away, but she stops four steps later, and turns partly to look at him again.

"It is a war we are in, cousin," she says finally, and he knows exactly what she means.

"Don't call me that," he calls out belatedly, but she does not as much as pause.

He finds Sirius waiting, as he said he would, in the open plaza, a frown on his face.

It is a frown that disappears when Sirius sees him, and when he nears, he is pulled into a hug, and Sirius does smile, and it is exactly as he has imagined.

When he asks the reason for his hearty greeting, Sirius tells him they are in a war, and leaves him to puzzle over the words.

They leave, hand in hand as Sirius side-apparates them, and Diagon Alley disappears.

The End