Part One of Three

[loony4lupin]

Title: i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
Team: Team MWPP
Rating: R, flirting with NC-17
Warnings: AU, like really AU (Remus never went to Hogwarts because of his condition). Boy sex, language, violence/gore, slash, het references, and alcohol consumption. Basically all that comes with teenage boy.
Summary: A story, in which Sirius Black falls in love, gets drunk, performs illegal spells and reads poetry.
Prompt: LIBRA-You may be waiting for something or someone. And the whole process has left you frustrated and anxious. But if you get a quarter of what you're hoping for, you'll be happy. And you will, soon get at least that.
Genre(s): Romance that morphed into AU
Credits: My two beta's, M and S (which will now be dubbed Mulder and Scully!) are truly wonderful human beings. Scully nursed me through writing it and Mulder convinced me that it was worthy. Thank you! Also, I don't own the poetry that is used in this piece. The title comes from another e.e. cummings poem.

 

 

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Part Two

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Sirius Black sagged in Godric's Hallows's summer heat. It melted everything inside of him into a big puddle of mischief and sweat and naughty thoughts; a puddle o'boy, and Sirius didn't like being liquid.

"James, this heat is melting my soul." He whined pathetically and wanted to clutch at his chest, but it took too much energy. "It's tormenting my soul."

He looked up from watching sweat collect on his palm to see his best friend sleeping, rather than listening to him. Bastard. Sirius took a last, withering glare at his glass of water, once cool and refreshing, but now it was just a slanderous illusion of chill. His tee shirt stuck to him, dark grey with sweat and his trouser clung to his thighs.

Right, fucking painful.

Suddenly, the sticky heat wanted him to move. It compelled him to escape the street's blaring sun, into a shop that wouldn't kick him out on sight. It begged him, and his liquid insides agreed. They desperately wanted to be solid again; it was more fun that way.

Which, Sirius smiled, ruled out the pub at the end of the street because of the Drunken Incident In Which Sirius Discovered and Announced He Was Queer. Fond memories, disturbing and incredibly blurred, but most certainly fond. It also ruled out the ice cream parlor because James had no manners, and had accidentally exploded half the shop the summer after third year. The record store was out too, but Sirius took full blame for that (who knew they didn't cater to trannies?) and sadly, the classy unmentionables shop for obvious reasons, but also due to the fact that Sirius had been caught, pants around his ankles, with the owners' son last summer. James had rescued him from certain death in a very valiant, albeit destructive way. Simply because they owned an unmentionables shop did not mean they were necessarily open-minded.

It left Sirius with little choice but to brave the book shop because he was not going anywhere near the birds' clothing place, mostly because of the sales woman, who started stalking and molesting him two years ago, and still wouldn't take no for an answer. And the yarn shop was off limits; he was gay, not a raging queen. Although to be fair, Sirius had once tried to knit a pair of pants, and James had deemed him an arse bandit, and although he was technically right, James was a snarky cunt who needed to be punished.

The ugly heat did not leave him completely when he stepped inside the book shop, but a cool breeze greeted him with the ringing of the bell above the door. Sirius sighed in relief. The shop was bursting with books. Overfilled shelves had vertical books topped by horizontal ones and the shelves, themselves, reached up to the high vaulted ceilings. Sirius stepped farther into the cool shop, only to send a stack of books, one of millions of piles that hadn't made it onto the shelves, careening across the floor.

"Bugger." He scrambled to pick up the books, which seemed to have multiplied when they hit the floor, but stopped when he noticed that the spine of the book in his hand had the word 'Faulkner' in solid silver letters. Sirius still took Muggle Studies, and if he wasn't mistaken, Faulkner was definitely a Muggle.

He was in a Muggle book shop, which shouldn't have surprised him because the shops on the street were mixed. The strictly wizard shops were charmed so that Muggles couldn't see them, but there were some shops that catered to both Muggles and wizards. Those shops usually had a room in the back for wizarding merchandise with a charm to disguise it from Muggles. But Sirius knew nothing of Muggle literature, they didn't get to that until seventh year.

"Excuse me, sir, may I help you find something?"

Sirius snapped his head up at the sound of the voice, polite yet gravelly and intimate. The lovely voice belonged to the shop clerk.

The gorgeous shop clerk.

"Umm, no. Sorry, I just walked in and" The brown haired boy couldn't have been more than a few years older than him, if that, but something about him looked older. Sirius stared. He couldn't help himself. The boy nodded and began to pick up the books Sirius had knocked over. Sirius helped, if only to prolong his staring.

The sun beating down through the windows picked up the subtle red highlights in the shop keeper's light brown hair. He had black, plastic rimmed glasses, but Sirius couldn't make out the colour of his eyes. The clerk was busy picking up the heavy, and rather dusty, books. He handled them gently though, as if they were prized possessions.

Sirius peered at the book he was placing onto the stack. 'Keats' was inscribed on the spine, and it looked a bit worse for wear. Sirius tired to suppress his shudder for Muggle poetry and searched for something to say.

"Terribly hot outside." Sirius felt his cheeks burn, but Merlin did this boy shatter him.

The clerk hummed and started off. Sirius quickly categorized his full lips, small smattering of freckles on his pale cheeks and sharp jaw line before the boy turned and disappeared between the stacks. Sirius was still crouched, as he watched the boy's corduroy clad hips walk away. He was swift; not elegant, but certainly graceful. Sirius stood to see the broad, yet thin- almost bony, shoulders between the shelves.

Sirius' fingers tingled and his mouth was dry, as the sweat cooled on his skin. He set the last book, which he had forgotten he was holding, on the reassembled pile and walked between the shelves. The floorboards, bare and worn, creaked beneath his feet. Sirius ran his fingers unconsciously over the spines, silky and textured. He wondered if the beautiful clerk would feel similar beneath his handshis tongue.

Sirius shivered at the thought.

He was amazed at the sheer volume of books in the shop. How Muggles found so much to write about was beyond him. Sirius strolled, as casually as possible, through the aisles of books. The smell of the shop wasn't musty or damp like most of the books shops Sirius had been in, not that he had frequented many. He snorted with laughter. The Hogwarts' library and Flourish and Blotts hardly made him an expert in the smell of libraries and book stores, but this book shop had a distinctive smell.

It smelled like ink and parchment, but then, that was a given. When Sirius breathed in deeply, he could smell hazelnut and vanilla with a touch of bitter, dark chocolate. The smell was soothing, and put an easy smile on his face.

Sirius made his way to the back of the shop where a small teller bench was located. The clerk was nowhere in sight, and Sirius greedily took in the rest of the shop. There was a door behind the counter, with an ancient teller machine on the top of a thick marble slab. Two stacks of books were also on the counter, the pile nearest to Sirius looked like much of the rest of the shop, but the second stack, which was almost obscured by the teller machine, looked very nondescript. Sirius took a quick look around again before moving toward the second pile of books. They were all without spine or cover lettering, and Sirius opened the book on the top of the pile.

It was a potions book. An advanced potions book.

Sirius quickly flipped open the other books on the counter. They were all books Sirius had seen and used before in his own advanced classes at Hogwarts. Charms, Transfiguration, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Care of Magical Creatures, Herbology, Astronomy and a small Divination reference book. Sirius had never seen the beautiful shop clerk around Hogwarts, and he would have remembered. It wasn't that the clerk had classic, aristocratic beauty that Sirius could find in the mirror in the morning if he looked hard enough. The shop clerk was stunning in a different way, delicate but strikingly male. There was something mysterious about the boy, something that made Sirius want to do outlandish things.

Sirius wondered if the clerk read in bed, glasses low on his nose, bedside light playing over his features with the sound of skin rubbing against turning pages.

"Those aren't for sale." Sirius blinked up at the voice. The clerk was stiff, a panicked look on his face and his eyes were wide.

Gold. His eyes were gold.

Sirius nodded, captivated by the boy's eyes. They seemed to swirl with gold and amber, and Sirius had a significant image of waking up to them. He broke the eye contact with a flush and looked down, the clerk's hand was in his trouser pocket, his arm tense, and Sirius, were he a wagering bloke, would bet the boy had his hand wrapped tightly around a wand.

"No need to Obliviate me, mate." Relief seeped into the clerk's posture and he looked much shorter than his true height, which actually made him a couple inches taller than Sirius. The boy moved to the counter and started to restack the books Sirius had scattered in his curiosity.

The dark brown, woven vest complimented the clerk's enticing eyes. Sirius' gaze followed the long arms covered in an Oxford shirt, the sleeves pulled all the way down to the wrists even in the overbearing heat outside. The cuffs were pressed, but frayed and worn.

Sirius heard himself moan aloud when his eyes focused on the boy's hands, but he hardly cared.

The boy's hands were marred by scars. Some were faded, white and smooth. Others looked deep. There were several long scars that ran the length of the boy's hand, disappearing beneath the cuff of his sleeve. There were tiny scars too, and bright red ones that were angry and raised. They covered the tops of his hands, from his wrist to the tips of his fingers. He had spindly, bony hands, yet they made Sirius' mouth water. Sirius longed to see the palms. Were they calloused? Did they have more of the delicious mystery scars? Were they sensitive? Sirius' fingers twitched with longing to touch them.

"Uh, may I help you?"

Sirius was pulled out of his hand gazing--beautiful, yummy, please-lick-me-all-over hand gazing, and flushed at the boy's own rosy cheeks. The boy's eyes wouldn't meet his, and Sirius felt his own blush burn its way up his neck at the boy's pink-stained cheeks. The blush made his freckles stand out, Sirius noticed.

"Oh, well, um." Sirius looked for something to say. He really wasn't ready to leave yet. "You're taking a lot of subjects." Well done, Sirius, that was really fucking sexy. Sirius almost hung his head in shame. The boy looked up quickly, and Sirius felt naked beneath the weight of the golden-eyed scrutiny. Sirius cursed silently. Thinking words like 'naked' would not help his prick, which was already at half mast due to the visual hand molesting of moments earlier.

"I don't attend school, so I have a lot of time to study." He broke the gaze, but Sirius didn't stop staring as his mind tried to wrap around the boy's sentence. Not go to Hogwarts? Sirius ventured a moment to think about having to spend his life at the childhood home he had recently vacated

Slander. Fucking slander.

Sirius opened his mouth to express thoughts like 'why?' and 'you're delicious,' and 'do you actually like your family enough to survive?' and 'can I lick your fingers?' but restrained himself, barely. The boy would probably not appreciate any of Sirius' thoughts being expressed aloud. Not many did. Sirius gave a quick thought to Mrs. Potter and Professor McGonagall, and then closed his mouth.

The boy arched his brow, and Sirius' spleen burst into an Irish jig. It was a very sexy eyebrow.

"Can I help you find something?"

Sirius blushed again. He probably hadn't blushed this much since since before he had come out of the closet, and kept getting stiffies whenever Gideon Prewett spoke to him during fourth year. But, Sirius found himself not minding being reduced to a blushing school boy because the clerk's mouth was curling upward into a half smile.

Sirius' kidneys joined his spleen in vigorous jiggery.

"Um, yes!" Sirius searched his brain for something to say, but was distracted when the boy pushed his glasses up with his lickable fingers, and the twinkling gold eyes danced back at him from behind the contrasting frames. Sirius felt his own charm shout at him from beneath his dancing organs. They weren't a part of suave-Sirius. They were the ringleaders of the nervous, flushing and weak-kneed Sirius. His charm was fighting to break through all the jiggery.

"I was wondering if you had any suggestions for books-um, Muggle ones." Well, it was not exactly swoon-worthy, but it could have been worse. Plus, the boy had the most charming face of contemplation; which was not to be confused with James' face of constipation, which he swears is contemplation. Sirius smiled at the thought and vaguely wondered where he had left his best friend in the first place.

"Well, what sort of novels do you enjoy?"

Bugger. The boy was looking at him expectantly. "Fiction ones." He stalled and the boy behind the counter's half-smile slid into a smirk.

"Any particular genre or author?" The boy nibbled on his bottom lip and Sirius' mind went blank. His liver joined the jiggery with his kidneys and spleen, and he whimpered a bit. The boy had startling white teeth, and they were worrying his plump bottom lip. Sirius was torn between wanted to be the lip, bitten by those dashing canines or those teeth, ravishing the pink and very tasty-looking lip. What exactly did the boy taste like? Sirius licked his own lips in envy.

"Sir? Sir?" Sirius snapped out of his daze, and checked his mouth for drool, as he certainly was blushing again.

"Sirius. It's Sirius."

"Oh." The boy's smirk widened into a full blown grin, and all of Sirius' organs joined the very cheery, Irish river dancing jiggery that was going on inside him. The boy was the most enticing person he'd ever met and Sirius was smitten.

"Well, Sirius."

He rather liked the way the boy said his name.

"What kind of author or genre do you fancy?"

The boy's smile was terribly contagious, and Sirius felt himself grinning, very goon-like, back at the vest clad clerk.

"Being the pureblood bastards my family was," Sirius winked and enjoyed watching the grin widen on the boy's face, his eyes wrinkling at the corners beneath the striking frames. "I'm terribly uninformed."

The boy nodded with gravity, and Sirius leaned against the counter. The boy didn't shift back, only cocked his head, and Sirius wondered if jumping over the counter and snogging the daylights out of the golden-eyed boy would be too forward.

"What sort do you fancy?" Sirius attempted a handsome leer, but feared he only looked goofier. He could hardly bring himself to care though. Except, the boy blushed and broke eye contact with Sirius before he stepped away from the counter, suddenly looking shy and reserved. Nothing like he had a few moments ago when he and Sirius had been flirting. They had been flirting right? Sirius frowned. It felt like someone had stolen his sweets, raised the drinking age, and told him he was now banished to Slytherin House (slimy gits).

"Oi, Southpaw! I've been looking all over creation for you, ya fuckin' twat." James' voice rang out in the otherwise quiet shop, and Sirius watched in horror as the relaxed, playful expression on the boy's face disappeared and was replaced with a disgustingly blank look. Sirius felt like nothing more than a customer.

"Bloody books, disgusting." James reached the counter and tossed an arm around Sirius' shoulder. "I got kicked out of all the stores again while I was looking for you. Never thought of the book shop. Desperate for the cool air, mate?"

Sirius barely nodded as the boy behind the shop counter nodded curtly and turned to disappear through the door. Sirius' organs were not doing any sort of jiggery anymore. In fact, they felt as if they might never dance again. Why had the boy clammed up so quickly? Why hadn't he ever asked for the boy's name? Why was James Potter his friend?

"Can't believe you left me, Southpaw. I'm as red as a lobster. But I had a dream and it has given me a grand thought." James turned him around and began to walk Sirius towards the shop door. Sirius was devastated.

"I think if we change the end charm, we'll be bang on the mark. I'll owl Petey to see what he thinks, not that it matters because I am GENIUS!" The bell clanged above him and James, the ultimate bastard, led him out the wonderfully cool, tasty-smelling, and beautiful-boy-holding shop and into the horrid heat of the high street.

Sirius vowed to kill James as soon as he figured out what to do about the golden boy. Sirius had never wanted to read Muggle literature more in his entire life. He would be back.