Sexed-Up Dossiers, Ltd.

Abort! Abort!

Tue, 24 Jan 2006 13:49:21 GMT

Okay, for the second time, I've decided this blog isn't working. Cruise on over to my blogspot one, and see what's going on.

Faith-Based Rant

Fri, 09 Dec 2005 17:14:44 GMT

Continuing on after my Blogspot Narnia-based entry.

I am sick and tired of being the persecuted Left's whipping boy. I am sick and tired of being accused by wounded ex-Catholics of complicity in everything the Church has ever done, from the Spanish Inquisition to making them feel bad for not helping their mothers enough. I am sick and tired of it being perfectly okay for Polly Toynbee to talk about "that particular kind of guilt that only Christians know how to inflict" in a mainstream paper, when if somebody makes a comment that could POSSIBLY be read as disparaging towards Jews or Muslims or Blacks or gays or disabled people, they get THOUSANDS of angry letters about it. I'm sick and tired of my holidays of either being opportunities for Jerry Falwell and Anne Coulter to spill ignorant hateful bile on the one hand or for the ACLU to tell me that it's not okay for me to celebrate my religion on the other hand. I'm sick and tired of Christian children going to school in December and learning all about Hanukkah and Eid and being told that Christmas is about snowmen and the spirit of giving. I'm sick and tired of being made to feel bad for the fact that in the name of my God, some pretty horrible people did some pretty horrible things hundreds of years before I was born. I'm sick and tired of being told that because I believe Christianity is true, I must be some sort of horrible bigot who wants to convert Jews and Muslims by force. I'm sick and tired of it being automatically assumed that I must believe in an anti-poor and anti-environmental political agenda that anyone who's actually bothered to read the Bible will tell you would have made Jesus puke.

I'm sick and tired of going to Church and being told that because I like to call God "Father" and "Him," I must be betraying the feminist movement and want to take away the vote and make women be obedient little housewives who aren't allowed to talk in Church. I'm sick and tired of being told that because I want to keep the original words of hymns, I'm some sort of bossy elitist who doesn't care about the feelings of lesbians, gays, women, Blacks, and Hispanics. I'm sick and tired of being treated as though my belief in theological rigour and the necessity of backing up a doctrinal position are some sort of quaint relic.

I'm sick and tired of people equating "God" with "The Church," in the "I don't like Pastor Jim, so God must not be real" sense. I'm sick and tired of Catholics walking out of a service after Communion, as if the only reason for going to church was to get the magic wafer that keeps you out of hell, rather than to experience God in community in a way you can't on your own, and to enjoy fellowship with your Brothers and Sisters in Christ. I'm sick and tired of church music being dumbed down and electrical. I'm sick and tired of young people not knowing the words to hymns, if they're any more complex than "you are awesome, Father God."

I'm sick and tired of people lumping the Anglican and Episcopal churches together with the Catholic and/or Fundamentalist Churches - you don't like the Pope/Jerry Falwell, so I'm a bad person???? Yeah, there was a guy called Henry VIII, and HE didn't like the Pope either (for a crappy reason, but still), and there were a bunch of guys like Martin Luther who ALSO didn't like the Pope, and that's where PEOPLE LIKE ME COME FROM.

I'm sick and tired of the historical atrocities of everyone who WASN'T Christian being magically erased, while modern Christians are supposed to collectively bear 1500 years' worth of guilt. I'm sick and tired of the Christian Right playing the persecuted victim oppressed by secular fundamentalism, and I'm sick of secular fundamentalists who dress themselves up in the First Amendment to hide an ignorant and knee-jerk hatred of religion.

I'm sick and tired of academics treating the very concept of religious faith as some sort of backwards redneck joke, as though there WEREN'T 2000 years of rigorous scholarship on the topic, as though St. Augustine and C.S. Lewis and Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther had just been mass delusions. As though the great educational institutions of Europe and America HADN'T been founded by Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Congregationalists, Scottish Presbyterians, and Non-Conformists of various stripes, and as if they HADN'T studied Physics, Astronomy, Philosophy, History, Literature, Politics, and Economics while being believing Christians.

I'm sick and tired of being told by drugged-out Neo-pagans that everything I believe is a rip-off of what they believe, and then their being unable to defend their beliefs in anything resembling Apologetics or Philosophy ("what do we know and how do we know it?" being a good starting point).

I'm sick and tired of scientists acting as though they were on a holy mission to disprove religion, and religious wackos acting as though the idea of evolution was some sort of threat to God's existence, as though it weren't PERFECTLY CLEAR TO ANY RATIONAL HUMAN BEING that Science and Religion are asking FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT QUESTIONS about the nature of the universe - that Science asks "how" and Religion asks "why."

I'm sick and tired of hanging out with well-educated and left-leaning people and feeling as though my faith is a time bomb that will make them hate me when they find out about it, as though the very fact of my believing that some things are true and some things aren't makes me a prejudiced bitch, as though I were some sort of bizarre freak among the liberal intelligentsia, when it's been PERFECTLY CLEAR to me my whole LIFE that the more I learn about Philosophy, Psychology, Literature, Politics, and History the more clear it becomes that Christianity is true, and the more I learn about Christianity, the more clear it is to me that Christ's words are a radical political force that should shake the war-mongering, comfortable, wealthy powerful class to its core.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

The Arena of the Unwell

Mon, 05 Dec 2005 03:00:34 GMT

Double-post from Blogspot - all the gruesome details of the weekend!

Hurrah!! Margaret and Catherine were out till 3:30 on Saturday night!! Par-TYYYYY!!!!!!!

Well.

Not exactly.

It all started on Thursday afternoon, with the INCREDIBLY AMBITIOUS Religious Ed class. I was listening to Revels on Wednesday night, thinking, "oh, wouldn't it be fun to teach them something about old Christmas traditions?" and ended up planning a lesson in which I would teach them a Wassailing song and move them around the room to different pictures with Advent and Christmas symbols on them and have them wassail the pictures before handing out treats (Christmas cards) in exchange for correct information about the pictures.

Well, the entire class was having a bad day, with lots of snarkiness and tattling, and so they didn't exactly want to pay attention to learn the song, especially since they'd all completely zoned out and hadn't heard my introduction about what Wassailing was. I ended up re-starting the lesson, once I realised the information hadn't penetrated, and there was a terrifying moment where I thought I'd lost them completely and was going to have to rethink the whole thing and maybe even send them off to their desks to do busywork instead of the fun activity.

But I managed to pull it out and we actually ended up having fun; however, it was stressful and bad, and I'd spent my free period AND my lunch period putting together the pictures, so I was stressed out beyond belief ALREADY.

And it got worse after school, because Friday was my last day and I wanted to bring in a cake. They're learning about Instructions in Literacy, so I was thinking it would be fun to read instructions for making a cake, and then produce the cake out of the supply closet.

Apparently, this country has something against cake mix. I wasn't ABOUT to make a cake from scratch, especially since our fridge has been broken for a week, so all our eggs and milk and butter have gone off (and our diet has consisted almost entirely of cheap takeaway and water - I don't want to THINK about what vitamin deficiencies I'm courting, but my lifestyle is becoming frighteningly similar to Seth and Tom's.) but I searched high and low in three off-licences, CostCutter, Marks and Spencer, Tesco (YES, I went into TESCO) and the Sainsbury's in Dalston, and there was NO CAKE MIX TO BE FOUND.

So I thought, "okay, I'll just buy a pre-made cake and some icing, and they can ice their own at their tables, and that will be FUN." ... NO ICING. ANYWHERE. There was all the CUSTARD and BRANDY BUTTER I could have hoped for, but NO ICING.

So I just said, "SCREW IT," and bought a chocolate roll with vanilla swirls, and trudged back to the Dalston train station, missing the train by thirty seconds.

I then spent the next twenty minutes listening to perky announcements informing me that the 17.59 train to Stratford was delayed by five ... then six ... then seven minutes, and that "Silverlink apologises" for the delay.

Given that it was about thirty degrees out, pitch black, and with gale-force winds blowing, I did not really give a damn what Silverlink apologised for, especially in that perky pre-recorded voice.

The train eventually did arrive, and I made it home and COLLAPSED. Waking up on Friday, my first thought was that anybody who tried to talk to me before I'd had a hot shower and some orange juice was going to die, my second thought was that the only orange juice we had had been sitting out for a week and a half, and my third thought was that I wish I'd inherited my father's sinuses instead of my mother's, because I thought my head was going to explode. Three painkillers, two decongestants, and a swig of warm-and-probably-alcoholic-by-this-point orange juice, I was on my way to work, thinking that vegetables were actually a GOOD life choice, and I should probably have had some this last week, considering that I was pulling nineteen-hour days and being exposed to cold and windy weather.

Around 3:00 on Friday, I started feeling floaty and woozy, but was so caught up in saying good-bye to the kids and managing the manic good-bye party (that ended up being combined with one of the kids' birthday parties when their parents descended unannounced on the classroom with two cakes, candles, decorations, a camera, and a minimal command of the English language) that I couldn't really pay attention. I cleaned up, packed up, walked home with my good-bye card full of kid-art and my potted plant (what IS IT with the British obsession with leafy potted plants???), took a hot shower, and collapsed into bed, thinking something along the lines of "oh, shiiiiit ..."

The flatmate came home at 7:30, shouted "congratulations on finishing Block Practice!! Let me take you to dinner!!" and was met with incoherant groans from the darkened room populated by the Snot Monster from the Planet Flu.

We did not go to dinner that night. I did not eat dinner that night. My throat was so sore and my glands so swollen that I could barely manage to eat three spoonfuls of the soup I sent the flatmate out to get at Tesco's at midnight when I woke momentarily from my bizarre floaty dreamworld. (Incidentally, the flatmate claims that the population of Tesco's at midnight on a Friday is an interesting sociological Freak Parade.) My forehead was freezing, I was sweating constantly, I alternated between being boiling hot and feeling as though I'd been dipped in ice water, and every muscle and joint in my body felt as though it would fall off if it were touched.

I slept on and off for about eighteen hours, waking sporadically throughout Saturday morning to deliver various messages to the flatmate, such as "take the fucking books back to the Hackney library before they come after us with search dogs" and "get me some decongestant from the chemist's that's specifically for colds, because this Benadryl Allergy stuff is shit" and "eat all my chocolate because you've earned it because you're wonderful and your mum was right when she said you would have been a good nurse" and "I don't deserve you" and "what would I do without you" and "I really don't think I'm making it to that Christmas slash bash in Buckinghamshire, but you're free to go without me" and "holy shit, somebody have mercy and kill me, please."

So I blame my 11:30 decision to go to the Christmas slash bash in Buckinghamshire ENTIRELY on the fact that I was high as a kite on paracetemol and had been drinking half-frozen orange juice that I'd stored in the freezer all morning.

Buckinghamshire is gorgeous, and J'hanna (the hostess) has just bought a lovely little semi-detached all by herself, which means that she has a READING ROOM, and the house looks out over an apple orchard, and is five minutes' walk from the Midgham train station, which is an easy connection from Reading, (though the bloke at the information desk at Paddington gave us a very odd look when we asked when the next train to Midgham was, before saying "are you sure? NOBODY goes to Midgham.") so the trip was actually very easy.

Unlike the Halloween party, this slash bash did NOT get stuck on an endless loop of "oh, did you read that story? Yeah, she wrote the other one, and it was a crossover, based on her Christmas challenge last year, of course you remember, and her LJ said this and that..." and on and on about shows I haven't seen and authors I haven't read. Instead, the conversation went on about our lives, politics, slash, new scientific research on whether people with a certain gene are more inclined to be religious than people without, London markets, whether you could take a Christmas tree on the tube, David Hewlitt being naked in movies I hadn't heard about but now want to see, Queer as Folk UK versus Queer as Folk US, CHOCOLATE, the delicious mince pies J'hanna had made, whether you'd get hot chocolate tea or sludge if you dropped a truffle into a cup of tea, Midsummer parties, roasting a side of beef on a spit on a London sidewalk, and various other things.

I actually sat pretty much all day - on the train and at the party - so I congratulated myself for being gentle with my recovering-from-illness self while also managing to enjoy my weekend, and I gave myself an extra pat on the back for working the Christian Science Act (when I will myself into feeling better very quickly, so as not to miss something fun) yet again.

Except that as we got off the train in London on the way back, I suddenly felt VERY VERY VERY ILL, and started shaking uncontrollably. According to Catherine, I went GREY, and my heart rate went up to about 112 beats per minute (my normal resting rate is around 70) and I was unable to draw a breath because my glands were so swollen and I was shaking so hard. I went FREEZING COLD and began sweating again, and was experiencing a certain amount of vertigo, so I sat down on the nearest bench trying to get it together to go home.

Catherine eventually convinced me that I'd freaked her out enough that we should go to the hospital, which, conveniently, was two blocks away, and which, conveniently, I knew my way around, having worked there two years ago.

"You sound like you have mono," Catherine said. "You haven't had a fever, and you have all these extra non-flu symptoms, and the last time you had mono, your body freaked out completely and you got HIVES, for God's sake."

"NOBODY gets HIVES with mono," I said, "and yet ... I do."

"Yeah, we're going to the hospital," she replied.

So we checked in with the nurse who does triage, and she basically thought I was making it all up, and had never even heard of mono, and I had to convince her that I would feel a lot better about the whole "I wasn't able to breathe and my heart rate is very very high and yet I don't have a fever and this is weird and bad and kind of scary" thing if I were able to see a doctor. I spent my childhood being told that I was making up my symptoms to get attention and to stay home from school (and a lot of the time I *was*), so I have trouble now knowing when I'm being an alarmist and when it's actually genuine, but I think this warranted some late-night attention (if only to comfort the person who would have to deal with any emergencies that occurred if it went unattended, and who is already traumatised and jumpy from having nursed her dying mother last year).

We waited about three hours to see a doctor, and all the while I'm staring glazy-eyed at the television over the security station, which shows, in this order:

1. Football, in which people wearing short sleeves and short trousers are running around in the rain and bashing into each other at high speeds. Doesn't exactly help my low body temperature or muscle and joint aches.

2. Horrendous 1970's Lee Marvin film with a lot of raw meat and people trying to avoid being killed my combine harvesters driven by homicidal maniacs. Freaks me out and does nothing for my delicate and almost shut-down digestive system.

3. Boxing. See above on football, only more so. When the thought of your sheets touching your skin makes your skin hurt, it's not fun to watch two people beating the crap out of each other for twenty minutes straight.

I finally get to see a doctor around 2:00 a.m., who was very nice and sympathetic (and named Wilson, though he unfortunately did not look like Dr. Wilson on "House") and who said, "yeah, you've either got a really bad case of flu or else it's glandular fever (thanks to him, I found out that that's what they call mono in this country) or it's something else - there's nothing we can do for you now; go home and gargle with salt water and aspirin and alternate paracetemol and ibuprofen, and go see your GP on Monday."

And then we had the hour and a half of "Getting From Paddington To Hackney After The Tube Closes." The flatmate had given me her coat and scarf (her application for sainthood is in the post) and so she was FREEZING, so we walked as fast as we could with my being ill and dizzy and tripped-out on painkillers and her shivering and my trying to wrap myself around her so as to provide the maximum amount of coverage while still being able to walk.

We were almost at the bus stop when a spaced-out blond boy comes up to us and says, "heeey, do you know if there are any nightclubs around here that are still open??"

We just looked at him and said, "NO."

Night buses on weekends are horrible places to be when you're sick. Especially when they go through Piccadilly and you get to see all the fashionable happy people at their trendy parties when you're in sixteen layers of wool and want to go home and die.

We got off the bus at St. Paul's - unfortunately the wrong SIDE of St. Paul's, so we had to circle around the entire cathedral to get to Cheapside where the 242 bus stops, and Catherine decided that this was the time to stop and poetically admire the beauty of the cathedral against the not-quite-black starlit sky. Oh, and my ankle gave out about six times during the walk.

While we were waiting for the 242 bus (once we got to the bus stop, I basically stood behind Catherine and wrapped all available limbs around her in an attempt to make up for her having no coat, which probably caused many passersby to make entirely incorrect assumptions about the status of our relationship) we were passed by two N8 buses, three taxicabs that didn't stop when Catherine hailed them, two N25 buses, and two boys running for the N25 bus who swore violently when they didn't make it in time. We also got to listen to the bells of St. Paul's tolling 3 o'clock. I'm sure that under different circumstances, I would have appreciated that.

I fell into bed around 4:00 having had a hot shower, gargled with salt water, doped up on paracetomol, turned the heat up to maximum, and wrapped myself in about six layers of fleece and goose down.

I woke up at 2:30 p.m., and am currently operating at about 95%. I was actually able to eat food today!!! So since Friday afternoon, I've lost an inch off my waist, slept for 29 hours out of 55, and gone through an entire box of cold and flu medication.

I also wrapped seven Christmas presents, and watched two episodes of The West Wing. I'm skipping my lecture tomorrow, so as to do all the paperwork I was planning to do over the weekend, because I have a tutorial on Tuesday that's the final review of my Block Practice and I need to be prepared.

Here's hoping I don't relapse again.

Furniture sucks - try religion.

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 19:39:29 GMT

Attempting to attach shelf to wall. Problems with this include uncooperative screwdrivers that keep slipping out of the groove, screws that insist on launching themselves across the room whenever I come near them, holes that require my sticking an EYELINER PENCIl through them to mark the space on the wall I should screw because they're too small for a normal pencil, a wall that appears to have a LAYER OF BEDROCK in it and cannot be penetrated by ANYTHING, and neighbours who do not own an electric drill.

So I started checking out all my friends' LJs, and morganmuffle had a list of random thoughts that included some Advent-y stuff, and I've been listening to my CD of carols from Trinity College Cambridge, so I thought I'd put up a list of the Top Ten Best Advent And Christmas Songs Ever. Add your own.

1. "Wake, Awake," in any of its myriad translations.

2. "Once in Royal David's City" with the ORIGINAL WORDS.

3. The Sussex Mummers' Carol.

4. "Angels from the Realms of Glory," for sentimental Emma-Willard-based reasons.

5. Similarly, "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming."

6. "O Come, All Ye Faithful." Yes, it's a chestnut, but it has the DAVID WILLCOCKS DESCANT, which is always tons of fun to sing when you're sandwiched between your sisters and covered with wax at the midnight service on Christmas Eve. Also, the December chapter of Anais' "Doctor Jackson's Diary" is based on it, and December is one of her better chapters, what with homicidal raccoons, pink flamingoes, Smack-My-Bitch-Up Santa, and English Civil War muskets. (To join in the Christmas cheer, go here)

7. "Wondrous Love." Especially as performed by Jean Ritchie and the Revels.

8. "Silent Night." Another chestnut that's earned its place. It's surprising how many times you can hear this and not be sick of it.

9. "O Come, O Come Emmanuel." The auditory cue that Advent's here.

10. "The Lord of the Dance" or "My Dancing Day."

And how come "anticipatory" isn't one of the choices LJ gives you for your mood?

Fic: Full Moon, Chapter 2 (Autumn) (NC-17)

Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:51:54 GMT

SEPTEMBER

Remus had studiously avoided sitting with Sirius on the Hogwarts Express; the motorcycle was not allowed to accompany him to school, though nobody doubted he’d find a way to get it there within the month.

But not sitting with Sirius meant not sitting with James or Peter; he’d been hoping they’d rally to his side and agree that Sirius had been absolutely horrid and they would stick by him, but no such luck had been his. They’d all tossed themselves into the compartment together, legs and arms and bags and robes and owls all falling over each other, and Remus doubted whether “where’s Moony?” had even come up. He’d ended up in a compartment with Reginald Finsbury of Ravenclaw, and been subjected to a thirty-minute lecture on the various uses of deadly nightshade, followed by an extended debate between Reginald and an earnest-looking girl with freckles and pigtails about whether the laws affecting the appointment of the Minister of Magic should be made more democratic. Remus considered himself among the school’s most intellectually curious students, and even he was bored.

It provided the most hospitable environment for sulking.

He was halfway through a really good one, which involved him and an extremely pretty girl going off together while Sirius had to stay home and tend to his enchanted boils, when there was a knock on the window of his compartment.

“Moony?”

James’ face peered in, and Remus was ridiculously delighted to see it; the glasses, the hazel eyes, the untidy hair, the quick grin.

Making his excuses to Reginald, he jumped up and joined Potter in the hallway.

"James, it’s been ages, I’ve –“

“Moony, what’s happened?”

He suddenly wanted to confess.

“It’s nothing. Sirius has been being … Sirius … and he got a bit on my wrong side, that’s all.”

“Well, if that’s it, then there’s no reason you can’t make up. Come on.”

Remus pulled his arm out of James’ grip, and slouched back against the wall.

“I’m not talking to him.”

James sighed.

“Give him a punch in the nose, and be done with it, would you? This is ridiculous.”

Remus looked up and down the hall of the carriage. Every compartment was filled with shrieking, chattering students, every rack filled with luggage and owl cages, every hallway filled with prefects and bored students trying to find their friends. He wanted to talk to James, and had the sudden sense that James would understand – James, who was looking at him with perplexed concern over his glasses, whose freckled face and light hazel eyes had none of the snapping recklessness of Sirius’. James, who with the Marauders’ Map in one hand and a book in the other, struck the balance between Sirius’ wildness and Remus’ responsibility. Sober, reflective, daring, sharp, intelligent James, who would be his confidante, who was safe and adventurous at the same time, who would study with him and listen to him and explore with him and be his friend and save him from Sirius.

But not now. Not in the lurching train carriage, not without thinking of what words he needed. Not without realising that this would change everything, that confessing how Sirius had wounded him meant confessing everything. Not without taking one last look at Sirius, without saying good-bye to everything Sirius had been – in his reality and his imagination. Not without resigning himself to leaving Sirius behind, to burying that hope and that longing and that love. Not now. Not here. Not quite yet.

“There’s something I need to tell you when we get to school, Prongs. Can you meet me in the North Tower after dinner?”

James looked confused, but he nodded, said, “sure – whatever you want, Moony,” gave Remus’ shoulder a squeeze, and walked back to his compartment.

* * *

Remus had been waiting in the Tower for about twenty minutes before James arrived, swinging his feet up through the trap door and settling down with his back against the curving wall.

“Sorry I’m late, Moony, I got involved in a very long fight with Professor McGonogall about whether the Regulation of Magical Creatures Act of 1945 applied to Animagi or not.”

“It does.”

"It doesn’t! The wording is very clear that it applies only to magical creatures that are one hundred percent creatures –“

“That’s actually ambiguous; you’re basing your opinion on a strictly literal reading of the Wizard Protection And Dangerous Animal Control bill of 1938, in which the words ‘creature’ and ‘animal’ were used interchangeably, but if you’re looking simply at how it’s been enforced, it’s a question of –“

“You wouldn’t care to bet on it, would you?” James was smiling.

"Oh, not you too …”

“Moony, this is a question of purely intellectual curiosity, unlike the tests of skill to which you put Sirius over the summer.”

“How did you –“

“We’ll agree to have the answer verified by two Professors; we’ll briefly present our cases, and let them decide. I think they’ll be thrilled that I’m putting my brain to productive use for once, and unlike your bets with Sirius, there’s a chance – minimal though it may be – that you might actually win.”

“I’ll have to think about it,” Remus said, but he was smiling back.

“Now, what is it you wanted to tell me?”

The Tower was old, and round, and empty – there were windows at even intervals, and a vaulted wooden roof. Only the sky was visible, silver-edged clouds that flirted with the moon, and a few cold-looking stars that blinked with different brightnesses.

This is your friend. James is your friend. He was all right with your being a werewolf, for fuck’s sake … do you remember what he did for you then?

James was looking at him with curious expectation.

Are you going to be a coward the rest of your life? Is Sirius right, that you can’t do anything for yourself?

Remus took a deep breath.

“James, Sirius and I had a fight because he wanted me to write love poetry to a girl in Ravenclaw as a penalty for losing a bet and I got upset because I said it was like Cyrano de Bergerac and it wasn’t fair and then he said that I was just a hanger-on who couldn’t deal with you and he having girlfriends and that you had adventures you left me out of last year but the real reason I was so upset is because I didn’t want Sirius to go out with girls from Ravenclaw I wanted him to go out with me.”

There was a long pause. James’ expression didn’t change, except his eyes retreated away from Remus’ a bit, and his mouth grew a little thinner.

“Say something,” Remus muttered after a minute.

“What on earth is Cyrano de Bergerac?” James whispered.

“James!”

“Why Sirius?”

Remus shrugged.

“How long?”

“Since fourth year.”

“Does he know?”

“I hope not.”

“I think he probably does, Moony.”

Remus was sitting with his back to the wall, his knees pulled up to his chest. He let his head fall between them; he could feel his ears burning.

“I was wondering what was wrong with him last year. I chalked it up to things being bad at home, but he … he picked a lot of fights, and he seemed … out of sorts a lot. And he would go all contrary whenever you showed up.”

Remus still didn’t lift his head up, but some wild hope flared in him – if Sirius had known – and had still – all that distance – if he had known …

But he crushed it, mercilessly, even as it rose; the memory of Sirius with his arm around some twittering girl, of Sirius standing by his window and slicing his heart out, was still too close, too real.

“Do me a favour, Moony, talk to him. Like normal, all right?”

Remus nodded, head still down, one side of his mouth turned up because James’ life was too simple for him to know that nothing would ever be normal again.

* * *

"Ten knuts says you didn’t.”

“And if I can prove it?”

“Then you can make me do whatever you like.”

Sirius tossed a letter in Remus’ lap, and he had to concede that the wording of it definitely made it sound as though Sirius had, indeed, made a complete physical conquest of Calendula Jones.

Sirius was standing by the window of the dormitory, shirtless, lean chest and stomach curving up from black jeans and the silver belt buckle with the Animagus symbol on it, dog collar cutting the line at his throat, fingers delicately clutching a cigarette. He waved the smoke out the window.

“Why don’t you just go outside? There’s a balcony right there.”

“Because then I wouldn’t be able to make fun of you as easily. Stop changing the subject.”

“What’ll you have me do?” Remus murmured.

“Kiss Sarah Fletcher.”

“You’re insane.”

“Those were your terms. Whatever I want. I want you to kiss Sarah Fletcher, and I want you to do it where I can see you.”

“You’re a nutter.”

“Those were your terms.”

“Barmy, crackers, and utterly round the twist you are.”

"Were those your terms or weren’t they??”

Sirius stood above him now, cigarette burning in his outstretched hand.

“Yes.”

* * *

Remus had to admit Sirius hadn’t chosen a difficult target; Sarah Fletcher would kiss anything that bought her a butterbeer, and would have done a lot more if Remus hadn’t suddenly remembered an urgent prior engagement and run out of The Three Broomsticks. The blurry crowd of faces swam together as he neared the door, but Sirius – smirking, dark-haired, lounging, Sirius – caught his eye and raised his beer at him as he left.

* * *

“Let me tattoo you.”

“Uh-uh. Never. No. You’re crazy.”

Remus raised his book like a shield.

“Not permanently, you nutter, just a little Death Eater mark in ink – let a few Professors see it –“

“Not a fucking chance!”

Remus got the edge of his book in the chin as Sirius dove at him and tried to grab his left wrist. He swatted at Sirius with the book, and soon found himself pinned against the couch, his best – former best friend’s thighs gripping his hips.

“I AM NOT LETTING YOU TOUCH ME.”

“I’m touching you right now –“ Sirius swept his index finger across the tip of Remus’ nose. “And now –“ he flicked a wisp of hair off Remus’ forehead. “And now –“ he tugged at the back of Remus’ neck.

“Stop it!!”

“What are you going to do about it, hmm? You lost another one, Moony, and we forgot to set terms. You’re not a werewolf now, you’re just a skinny, pathetic sixteen-year-old boy who can’t even stand up to his friends. Hmm? What are you going to do?”

Remus shoved at Sirius, but the dark-haired boy was stronger; it was like pushing at a wall. He felt his body pressed against the back of the couch, Sirius moving closer, relentlessly – there was an odd expression in his eyes, an unusual twist to the side of his mouth; it reminded Remus of Bellatrix.

“I could fucking kill you if I wanted to.”

“Sirius, this isn’t funny!!”

“It’s not supposed to be. Say yes.”

"Sirius! Stop it!!”

“SAY YES.”

“I’M NOT LETTING YOU DO IT!”

“YES, YOU FUCKING WELL ARE!!”

“GET OFF ME!!” Remus was choking, he was going to die, Sirius was going to kill him, he was all cold and icy, what was wrong with him, what was …

“SIRIUS ALEXANDER BLACK!!”

James was standing in the doorway with his hands on his hips, his eyes blazing.

“Get off him.”

His voice was chilly and firm, and it didn’t shake. Sirius turned to look.

“I said, get off him.”

With a casual drag on his cigarette, Sirius slid away from Remus, who took a deep, gasping breath, and tried in vain to settle his glasses and his book nonchalantly back in place and look as though nothing had happened.

“Apart from being a fellow living creature and supposedly one of your best friends, the boy you just did a very good impression of attempted murder on is, in fact, a prefect at this school, and you are not.”

“Fuck both of you,” Sirius snarled.

“Not that you’d have the stamina, but I’m certain Remus and I have both received more appealing offers,” James said without changing his expression. “However, I think, given the circumstances, Master Lupin here would be well entitled to inflict upon you the punishment of his choice. Don’t you agree, Moony?”

Remus looked from one of them to the other – Sirius standing in the middle of the rug, turned halfway towards the fire, the orange and red dancing off his bare chest, cigarette still clutched in his fingers, and James, in impeccable robes, cold-eyed and stern and solid in the doorway.

The punishment of my choice.

James raised an eyebrow at him.

No. Not like this. Not with James giving me permission. It shouldn’t be like this.

“I think my never speaking to him again will be punishment enough,” he whispered, and tried to keep his dignity intact as he left the room.

“You know what your problem is, Prongs?” Sirius said, turning on James, cigarette raised in one hand for emphasis. “Your problem is that Lily Evans is such a goody two-shoes, and she has you following her around like a house elf.”

“You’re going to land yourself in trouble if you keep up like this,” James said, and turned to follow Remus, a piece of paper fluttering from one hand.

* * *

He found Remus – thanks to the Marauders’ Map – huddled in the North Tower, his robe serving as an impromptu handkerchief for the embarrassing tears that he couldn’t seem to stop.

“It’s all right,” James managed awkwardly.

“No, it isn’t!” Remus had to cut off and swallow a gulping sob. “He could have bloody well killed me back there, and I don’t think either of us really knew what he was doing or could have stopped him.”

“Sirius has a lot of problems –“

“Yeah, right, his problems being that he’s rich and gorgeous and pure-blooded and not a werewolf and dating girls –“

“Calendula Jones cut him loose; that might be why he’s –“

“- and his entire bloody family has ended up working for You-Know-Who, so this might just be when that particular trait starts to show up!”

“That’s not fair – you know he’d do anything to be rid of –“

“Whose side are you on?” Remus was standing now, pacing, and James looked up at him. He’d half-wondered, when he walked into the Common Room, whether Sirius and Remus were fighting or making out – Sirius’ bare shoulders had been covered in sweat, and Remus had lost his glasses, and there was a moment when James had stopped short with the abandoned beauty of the line, before he realised his friend was in danger, real danger –

“I’m on yours, Moony.”

Remus made an odd, disbelieving noise, like a hiccup.

“And I’m on his,” James continued, sternly. “That’s what being your friend is about.”

"He tried to kill me, he did!!” Remus screamed.

“He thinks he’s losing you,” James said quietly.

“WHAT?”

“He told me. We snuck in a bottle of firewhiskey and got sloshed beyond belief last year, and he got maudlin and confessional and he told me you think he’s stupid and childish and he’s going to lose you, and that we’re the only good thing that’s ever happened to him, and –“ James shrugged. “That’s why I keep telling you to talk to him. Not to give up on him.”

“I’m bloody well in love with him, if you hadn’t noticed!” Remus shouted. “Nothing, nothing, nothing is ever going to be the same again, because I’m in love with him, and he’s not with me, and he’s insane and possibly criminal, and you can’t just pretend this isn’t happening while you’re off somewhere in Safe Happy Heterosexual Lily Evans World!!”

He kicked the wall of the tower, then turned around and tried to punch James, but James caught his somewhat off-balance swing, and tossed him back against the wall.

“Simmer down.”

“Where’s a full moon when you need one?” Remus murmured dangerously, not breaking contact with James’ eyes.

“That isn’t funny.”

“Wasn’t supposed to be. I’ll be in the dormitory.”

He pulled free of James’ grip, and threw himself down the trap door.

OCTOBER

Gryffindor had beaten Slytherin at Quidditch, and Remus had stiffly congratulated Sirius, gotten a cup of tea and an apple from the kitchen elves, and retired to an afternoon on his bed with a book, when James appeared.

Without a greeting or preface, he held up two sealed envelopes. Remus peered at them curiously.

“I gave our position papers to Professors Piddly-Stink and Roonwit, both of whom were soundly impressed with our intellectual zeal, and they have delivered their decisions.”

What with one thing and another, Remus had almost entirely forgotten that he and James had placed a bet on whether an obscure clause of the Regulation of Magical Creatures Act of 1945 applied to Animagi or not.

“Well?”

James idly ran one fingernail across the seal to Professor Roonwit’s answer.

“First, what if it’s a tie?”

“We ask Professor Dumbledore to break it.”

There was another long pause.

"We never made terms,” James said.

Remus hardly looked up from his book.

“So? Name ‘em.”

“If I’m right, you have to do a Polyjuice Potion and take all my detentions for me next week.”

“Where the hell am I supposed to find those ingredients in a week?”

“I have a few sources.”

“Mmm, Monsieur Prongs hasn’t entirely gone goody-goody, has he?”

“And if I’m wrong?” James asked, slinging his long body out across his bed, one foot jiggling idly. “What then?”

Remus didn’t look up from his book. He took a bite out of his apple, and chewed for a moment.

“You come to bed with me,” he said, and flipped the page.

There was a moment’s silence, and then James whispered, “what?”

“You heard me. Those are my terms, and a bet is a bet. Open them up.”

James slowly sat up and slid his finger under the seal of the first envelope. He read quietly to himself for a while, until Remus put down his book and sat up, watching him.

“Professor Piddly-Stink is of the opinion that the wording of the Act does mean that it applies to part-time creatures such as Animagi,” James said. Remus stopped breathing for a moment. He noticed that James’ fingers were shaking a bit as he reached for Professor Roonwit’s envelope. Its seal was much fancier than the other one; all purple and silver, the seal of the Ambassador to the Centaurs, Unicorns, and Thestrals – once you held the office once, the seal and the title were yours for life. Roonwit preferred to be addressed as Professor by his students, though –

Remus forced his train of thought back to the paper James was unfolding, and scanning, and reading.

“… Professor Roonwit … agrees.”

“Come to bed.”

“Remus –“

“Now.”

“Moony, it’s not –“

“Yes it is.”

It was getting dark outside; the moon was almost full. The dormitory was empty except for the two of them, lit only by a few spare candles spitting in hurricane glasses on the bedstands. One side of James’ oval-shaped face was in darkness; the other one was tanned and hazel-eyed and smooth, with half a full mouth and half a straight nose and half a head of messy black hair.

“Please –“

“Come to bed with me. It’s fragmenting, and you know it, Prongs. Peter’s nowhere to be seen, unless it’s skulking around in corners watching us. Sirius and I are twisting around and pulling away from each other, and you want to marry Lily Evans.”

“You and Sirius haven’t even touched – it’s as it’s always – ”

“Isn’t,” Remus whispered, crossing the floor and leaning on James’ bed, hands on the bedposts, torso forward, making a point. “The spirit side is shifting; watery and transparent, but it is a third of who we are. We have tried to deny it, tried to make it all the Animagus and the controlling human pulling the strings, but there is a subtlety to the mind that changes who we are, and Sirius and I have become as lovers just by the power of one of us imagining it. That is a border to be crossed just as much as the touch.”

“Moony, this is going a bit far –“

“You’re being pushed off by yourself, into a world of solitary achievement and family life. Who are your friends when you have a wife? Second best, if not less. We’re falling to pieces, James; your childhood.”

“Remus –“

James bent down over the letters; Remus tried to pretend he didn’t know his friend was crying.

"And you have tried to believe it isn’t happening, that it’s just an adolescent temper tantrum, not that I would die for Sirius, and he is fighting for his very soul and his very self, and you are beginning to look to your future as something that relates to your present and not liking what you see. And all of us are trying to pretend that Peter is still one of us, that he has not faded into obscurity and memory. That the Marauders still live. It’s a lie, James, and the truth terrifies you. Come to bed with me, and we are bound to each other, and you are bound through me to Sirius, and he to you. Come to bed with me, and for a wild moment, I am first for you. Come to bed with me, and something may yet be saved. Or declare this nothing but a childish bet, remember that you are too old and too serious – all of a sudden – to have time for it, turn on your heel, and go off to a future with Lily Evans. And never know.” He paused, gazing steadily at the back of his friend’s neck, where the hair ended against smooth tanned skin. “Come to bed with me, James.”

With a sob, James raised his wand towards the door, murmured “Impervius,” and then trailed the wand in Remus’ hair and whispered “Silencius” as half a dozen locks sprang up across the door. Remus’ breath caught, and he climbed onto the bed and half-fell into James’ arms, their lips meeting – warm, soft, utterly unexpected.

* * *

There was a simplicity to sex with James that surprised Remus. He’d expected awkward fumblings, a sort of self-conscious grasping after what they were losing, but James’ body took to his with fluidity and ease.

“Moony,” James murmured into that first kiss, as he slid Remus’ lips apart and flickered his own tongue between them. “I love you.”

Remus curled against him and settled into kissing – if he’d been with Sirius, he’d be tearing at the other boy’s clothes and desperately running his hands over every inch of his skin, but kissing, with James, satisfied for now. With Sirius, I must catch him before he changes or runs away, but you are here, you are staying. With you, there is time. With you, I can kiss you at my leisure.

“Love you too,” Remus sighed, and raised his hand to the hair falling over James’ temple, smoothing it back in place, curiously hearing the sigh James gave against his own mouth, letting it slide over his body like warm water, not like the electric shock that Sirius making that sound would give him.

It is right and natural and good, Remus somehow thought.

There was a brief struggle as James tried to push Remus onto his back; the hazel-eyed boy eventually won, but lost his spectacles in the tussle. And he is beautiful; I can see that without partiality or passion. He is clear-skinned and his mouth is full and smooth, his body long and lithe from years of playing Quidditch. The boy in my bed is beautiful, and I have neither won nor lost.

James’ hand slid down the outside of Remus’ thigh – no curving hip, no stocking, just the smooth line of a boy’s leg, and the same uniform trousers he was wearing himself.

Some part of James’ mind was running over facts – this is cheating on Lily, this is cheating on Lily, this is one of your best friends, you don’t do this with boys – but the rest of him was standing by in astonishment at how normal it seemed, how intimate and luxurious it was to be kissing his way down Remus’ neck, flickering his tongue over Remus’ collarbone, smiling into Remus’ skin as he pulled open the buttons on his shirt. Wondering if Remus has ever done this before.

He thought not, as his hand slid between Remus’ legs, and the boy’s pale and slender body jerked with surprise. It is you and not Sirius, he told himself silently, and grinned slyly, burying his mouth in the soft curve of Remus’ stomach to hide it.

"James …”

James gently took Remus’ wrists, holding his arms at his sides, nuzzling at his stomach, teasingly kissing and licking the sensitive skin just below his navel.

And then that warm, flickering tongue was … somewhere else … it was oh James, my James … Remus’ arms struggled and his hands curled into fists, clutching at James’ wrists.

"Don’t leave us …” he murmured.

James released one of Remus’ hands and stroked up his stomach and chest instead, his hand coming to rest at Remus’ throat. The brown-haired boy bent his head, raised his hand to grip James’, to twine their fingers together, as he kissed the palm of his friend’s hand, kissed each fingertip, kissed the pale underside of his wrist, and finally, with a choking cry, fell back on the red-and-gold blankets, his eyes closed, his mouth open, as if in pain.

* * *

In the stillness that followed, James crept slowly up Remus’ body to settle on top of him. And he couldn’t tell if he imagined it, but in that shifting darkness, he thought he saw a pair of gleaming yellow eyes just past the window, and thought he heard something snarl.

NOVEMBER

Not love, because it isn’t always, but the tangling of souls.

It was almost curfew, and they were very tired and a little drunk (James had come through with the firewhiskey again) and James had his head in Lily’s lap, and Remus was considering him. It was true, there had been a certain comradeship to the two of them since that – that – bloody miraculous – night in the dormitories, and it seemed to Remus that Sirius was easier to endure than he had been. He was almost looking forward to visiting Potter over the holidays, even though he knew Sirius would be there and he couldn’t get away from him.

“What’s wrong with you?” Lily asked after a while. When there was no response other than a gentle snore from James, she said, “Hullo? Lupin? Paging Master Lupin …”

“What? Oh – me – sorry – right – what?”

“I asked what was wrong.”

“Is there something wrong?” Remus asked.

“You’re smiling. That’s not normal.”

“I’ve just thought of a bet.”

Lily had some idea of the tradition, though none of the details, except for one regrettable incident last year when James had been subjected to an ill-thought-out penalty and had to walk around for three days with a horse’s face.

“And it makes you smile.”

“It does.”

“A second ago you looked about to cry.”

“Yes, well, it’s complicated.”

Lily shrugged and stretched.

"About time for me to be off. Shall I wake the lummox or simply deposit him on the floor as I stand?”

“Wake him; his head may not be particularly clever but it is rather pretty.”

The red-haired girl considered this and gently leaned over to kiss James’ slightly open mouth.

“Wake up, love, it’s curfew,” she whispered, and Remus leaned back in his chair, watching. There was a slight squishing of his insides, but less than there had been before. He knew now. He knew. It was sealed.

“Oh, and Remus has a new bet,” she said, as she kissed James again at the door to the stairway to the Girls’ Dormitory. “Promise you’ll stay … normal … would you? My parents are coming to visit this weekend, and it’s odd enough for them that you’re a wizard to begin with, so if you ended up at all equine … well …”

James nodded, and kissed her one more time, and then turned back towards Remus, who still sat in the red armchair with its back to the fire, staring at James where he stood in front of the door.

“You’ve got a new bet?” James asked in a weary voice.

“Yes.”

“Dare I ask what it is?”

Remus looked up. James noticed that his face looked long and thin and sketched in hard lines.

"The one bet I’m certain to win. And the only one I’ve wanted to lose.”

* * *

The moon is cold in winter, when death is made of ice and the nights are long. The moon is cold because she loves the warm nights when the fertile, sighing world draws close and desires her, but she is forced to wander the empty, frozen skies, to brush her silver kiss over a sixteen-year-old boy and make him a monster. She watches him prowl the empty shadows, where in the summer the leaves would hide him, watches his grey fur slink among the black and white of the world she illuminates, and she feels herself turn to ice, feels herself turn cold and dead and stab him.

* * *

It is the first time he’s spoken to Sirius in weeks.

So he doesn’t actually speak to him.

He sends a paper crane across the Potions classroom, and watches it alight on Sirius’ shoulder. There is a perfect, unspoiled delight in watching the way Sirius’ neck curves, the way his finger comes up and the crane hops onto it. And there is a delight to finding out that the joy of watching Sirius is undiminished. That something doesn’t die. He flicks his wand and turns the paper crane yellow, like Pandora’s, and smiles.

We need to talk. R.J.L.

Sirius frowns and rips a piece of paper from his notebook.

So talk. S.A.B.

Remus catches the crane and turns it over, writing on its flip side.

Did you meet with McGonogall last year regarding career prospects? R.

The crane veers off course this time due to a breeze made by a passing Calendula Jones as she goes to fetch a Barking Bean from the cabinet, and makes a crash landing in Sirius’ pile of parchments. The Professor looks up, muttering, but Sirius makes a big show out of rustling through his parchments, and Remus hurriedly adds the waiting draught of magnolia juice, a bit too fast, so his potion turns green, screams loudly, and explodes.

So he doesn’t get the reply crane from Sirius until next period, when it lands on his hand as he’s taking notes in Defence Against the Dark Arts.

Yes. Of course. What’s it to you? S.

He smiles, turns the crane over, writes his reply, and sends it off.

Care to make it interesting?

* * *

It was dark by the time Sirius found him in the common room.

“What are you on about?” Sirius asked, with no preface, as he lit a cigarette and leaned out the window.

"I thought that if we were never going to speak to each other again, we should at least have one more bet, for old time’s sake.”

Sirius turned a look on him that was a mixture of contempt and pure hatred.

“Really original, Moony. What is it?”

“On your future.”

Sirius rolled his eyes and took a long drag on the cigarette.

“I’ve got a very drunk Sarah Fletcher waiting for me in the North Tower, so unless this is important …” He strode halfway across the common room, but Remus stopped him, one hand held up, a few inches away from Sirius’ chest.

“I want to bet on your future.”

“So you said. What of it?”

“That you’ll end up joining You-Know-Who. By the end of the war everyone says is coming.”

Sirius looked as if he’d been slapped. Remus expected Sirius to hit him, to shove him against the wall by his throat, to claw at his face. But he stood unmoving, rooted to where he stood in front of the fire. Remus watched the reflections of the flames shoot up and down Sirius’ body. They used to burn us at the stake.

“You … bastard,” Sirius whispered finally.

"Are you in?”

“This is what you wanted to tell me? That you think I’m …”

“How did you get here?” Remus asked.

“Well, Moony, when a shrieking harpie and a treacherous bastard love each other very much …” Sirius began in a sing-song voice.

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t think I do,” Sirius said. “How did I get to be your friend? How did I get to be at Hogwarts? How did I get here, in a cosmic sense?”

“Well, you ended up my friend because you very foolishly thought I could help you with your Defence Against the Dark Arts homework. You ended up at Hogwarts because you come from the Most Ancient And Noble And Bloody Tiresome House Of Black, and you ended up here on earth because God in his wisdom or the fates in theirs or nature in hers decreed that it be so. But what I meant is how did you end up in Gryffindor?”

There was a long silence while Sirius smoked, staring at the fire, before he threw the tip of his cigarette into the flames and watched it turn black and shrivel into ashes that flew up the chimney into the cold winter air.

“Because I knew you, Moony,” Sirius said, and his voice was strangely tight.

“What?”

“You just said you don’t remember meeting me before that day in first year when I asked for help with Defence, right?”

“Yeah – you were this skinny little kid who sat next to me and who never talked, and we both failed that assignment miserably.”

“We’d met before.”

“When?”

“On the train.” Sirius was suddenly very quiet. “I was scared to death, you don’t know what I’d been told about Hogwarts. All these horror stories of ‘it’s all politics, boy, get in there early with the powerful ones and you’ll make your mark yet’ and all about how I should make myself the favourite of all the older boys from good families – and all about beatings and hangings and thumbscrews, not that I didn’t get enough of the beatings at home, but … at least that was the devil I knew.”

Remus began to feel oddly ill.

“And I ended up in a compartment with you, and you gave me a chocolate frog and said your name was Remus and I said I had a brother named Regulus and that was sort of the same. And then I thought well, that was an awfully stupid thing to say, and then you told me that Remus was the name of a Muggle who’d apparently founded a city and he’d had a brother named Romulus, and that was sort of the same, and then you gave me another chocolate frog, and I started think … maybe I’d like it here. And then Potter stopped by, and …”

Sirius’ face flickered in and out of shadow.

“My whole family had been in Slytherin. It was taken for granted I would be too. But do you remember that year there had been an accident in the headmaster’s office, and the Sorting Hat had gotten a Reversal charm put on it, so you and James were sorted before I was?”

Remus remembered that vaguely – he was near the middle of the alphabet, so it hadn’t mattered much to him.

He was standing closer to Sirius now, and Sirius was talking quietly.

"You were put in Gryffindor. I asked to go with you, and the hat was so shocked it nearly fell off my head – it said never in twelve generations had a Black … questioned his place …”

Sirius looked up, cheeks flushed from the fire. Remus was kissing him before he knew what he was doing, and Sirius was growling and pushing Remus backwards until he was pressed up against the side of the fireplace, Sirius’ mouth prying his open and sliding his tongue between Remus’ lips.

Remus made a noise halfway between a pant and a moan, and Sirius responded by gripping his hips and dragging them into contact with his own, tugging his shirt out of his trousers, running his hands up Remus’ stomach. The skin was soft and firm and warm, and he could feel the muscles fluttering underneath it.

“Don’t you ever say that again …”

“Sirius –“

“Don’t you ever.”

“Sirius –“

Sirius was crying and kissing him and pressing him against the hot stone, moving his hips sinuously against Remus’ – he could feel his erection through two pairs of trousers – and they were half-fighting as Sirius clawed at Remus’ neck and groaned, “I’m on your side and I hate you and …”

Remus pushed Sirius away; he was halfway to crying himself, could feel the hot prickliness in his chest and he screwed up his face to stop it.

“I hate you!” he screamed. “Because you have fucking everything and you’re mean because you can be, and you always always win, and you – and you –“

He lunged at Sirius, grabbed a fistful of his hair, and ended up astride him on the couch. They stared at each other.

“Remus is fighting,” Sirius said quietly, dangerously.

“I hate you!!” He gave a tug on the hair, and Sirius’ mouth opened, exquisitely. His eyes never left Remus’.

“Remus never fought before. Remus never broke rules before.”

Sirius pressed his hips upwards, between Remus’ legs, and Remus forced them back down.

“Sirius makes Remus do a lot of things he’s never done before. So does James.”

"Shut up!!”

“It goes both ways, doesn’t it, Moony? The tangling of souls?” He reached up and pressed his mouth on the other boy’s, hard, twisting so that he was on top and Remus was on his back on the red leather sofa, one hand pinned behind his back, the other still clutching at Sirius’ dark hair.

“Be joined to me, Remus, tangle with me. Come on, twist us together, we can never ever ever break it, Remus …” he was deftly stripping the boy as he growled the words into his shoulder, pulling open the buttons of Remus’ shirt as Remus twisted and writhed underneath him, trailing fierce kisses that burned down Remus’ chest, sliding one hand between them as they lay naked and firelit on the sofa –

"Impervius –“

“Silencius –“

“Oh GOD …”

Sirius entered him expertly, smoothly, surely, and Remus grabbed his shoulderblades, slick with sweat from the fire, and threw his head back, letting Sirius slide teeth down his neck, his whole body convulsing with every thrust of Sirius’ hips, oh God at last – his own hand tangling with Sirius’ between their bodies –

When he came, he gripped Sirius’ fingers so hard he thought they’d break.

DECEMBER

“It isn’t blood, Sirius.”

“No, it’s fire.”

Remus opened his mouth for the kiss.

“I love you, Moony.”

“Yes. I love you too.” He paused. “Will it be enough?”

“On one side, blood and temptation. On the other, choice, and the flames. We’ll see.”

“We will.”

“If I stay on your side?”

“I’ll stay in your bed.”

“If I do join him?”

“Then I win,” Remus said. “And I get to kill you.”

Sirius paused for a moment.

“If you can find me.”

Fic: Full Moon, Ch. 1 (Summer) (PG)

Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:28:57 GMT

An old story, posted here for the first time.

Pairing: SB/RL, JP/RL.

Summary: Remus wants Sirius, James wants to think about his future, and Sirius wants to make bets on it all. Includes angst, gay werewolves, barely-legal sex, and Sirius swears a lot.

Disclaimer: Characters have wandered from J.K. Rowling's head into mine and taken up residence. However, they are legally still occupants of the address that created them, and so I cannot take credit for their presence at this one.

Slight change from canon – I give Remus and James the credit for the Animagus charm, not Sirius and James, as Rowling does.

* * *

FULL MOON, CHAPTER ONE

SUMMER

JUNE

As bets go, it was innocent.

And James had rather good odds.

He’d spent the entire year with his head in his books, ignoring Quidditch, pranks, and Lily Evans, living in mortal fear of failing his O.W.L.s and being sent to live in disgrace as a Muggle Hoover Salesman, whatever that was.

But he wasn’t about to let Sirius Black bet on it.

“The answer is no!” James shouted. “No, nein, never, ever, definitely not, and you can bugger off while you’re at it. I’ve had enough of your amateur bookmaking experiments! ‘Potter, bet you you can’t make an Animagus charm! Potter, ten galleons says you haven’t the guts to drink it!’ Three years and a jolly fierce stomachache later –“

“But you have to admit, he honourably paid up,” Remus put in.

“It was covered in dog slobber, but yes, he did. Thank you.”

He slammed his book shut, and stood up.

“Come on, Prongs, it’s just a joke.”

“Everything’s a bloody joke to you, Black.”

The black-haired boy was blocking the door from the Gryffindor common room, slouching against one side of it with his arm raised against the other. James resented how tweedy Sirius made him feel. He brandished a book at him to compensate for it.

“Now pardon me, some of us actually plan to study for our exams, and we can’t do that if you’re going to set up a Bookmaking And Pestering Shop in the common room.”

“Ooh, what are we studying?” Sirius cooed, reaching one finger out to stroke the bindings of James’ books. “Potions … of looove – Charms … of looove – Defence Against the Dark Arts –“

“- of Sirius Black. Now let me through.”

It was difficult sometimes to remember that Sirius was supposed to be one of his best friends. Sirius had always been petulant and unpredictable, and James relied on that, actually, when it was directed at other people. But he’d always felt immune from the temper of Sirius Black, taken in hand and put on some sort of Very Important Wizard list that got him off. It made you feel special to be on the list of People Sirius Black Didn’t Hate.

But this year had been different. Perhaps it was some bizarre side effect of the Animagus charm, but Sirius had turned his snarl on James more times than he could count. With a sort of false, sneering friendliness, Sirius would goad James into screaming at him and then sit back and watch the results.

Remus, meanwhile, had just gone quiet and fidgety. He was upset about exams, definitely – but he’d retreated into some dark center place where James couldn’t reach, and didn’t say much.

James would talk to him about it after exams, he decided. Until then, he could think of nothing.

“Honestly, Potter,” Sirius continued, still lounging against the door and flicking a silver cigarette lighter open and closed with one thumb and forefinger, “you’re not going to fail, but it wouldn’t be interesting if we didn’t have something riding on it!”

“I’ve got a bit of a something riding on it; it’s called my future, though I wouldn’t expect Sirius ‘Instant Gratification’ Black to understand anything about that.”

Sirius went a bit paler at this, and James saw his jaw tense.

"Right. You wouldn’t,” Sirius said quietly, and moved aside.

Remus Lupin looked up from his book as James stalked towards the dormitories.

“Honestly, Pads, you went a bit tough on him. He’s got a lot to think about.”

Sirius strode casually over and tossed himself on the couch next to Remus.

“Scratch between my ears,” he asked, letting his head fall into Remus’ lap, which made the book fall to the floor with a thud. Remus sighed and rubbed his fingertips into the top of Sirius’ head.

“That’s better,” Sirius said. “By the way, was this supposed to happen? The – the aftereffects?”

“By Merlin, Sirius is actually inquiring after how something works. Shall I alert the Prophet?”

“All right, but it’s my body in question here, so –“

“Well, the charm doesn’t so much add something new to you as mix up what’s already there; it makes the animal portion stronger, as well as the bit that controls it. There are a lot of technical terms –“

“Which you’re certain I wouldn’t understand –“

“Do you want me to explain this or not?”

“Go ahead.”

Remus sighed. Sirius’ head in his lap made it difficult to concentrate.

"All right. I’ll try not to get too tangled up. Imagine you’ve got three jars of water. The animal jar, the spirit jar, and the human jar. Some Muggle named Freud had a base idea of this; the Ministry’s been very busy discrediting his ideas. He split the animal jar into two pieces, though – put our pleasure-seeking and our follow-the-pack instincts in two categories, and then set everything else as the judge between them. Close – too close for the Ministry’s comfort – but not quite right.”

“Get on with it, would you?”

“Right. The animal jar is the Animagus; it controls your basic instincts – food, sleep, sex, competition. The way you go about each of these gives a clue as to what your Animagus match is. If the animal jar gets out of control, you can find yourself transformed into the physical expression of your Animagus – that’s what happens when a werewolf bites; you’re infected with their Animagus, and your own human immune system doesn’t know how to fight it.”

He shouldn’t be so wildly attracted to Sirius’ troublemaking. He shouldn’t be so wildly attracted to Sirius – for one thing, he’s a boy.

“All right, I think I’m with you.”

But he is wildly attracted to Sirius; something jumps in his stomach when he so much as breathes near him. Rich, spoilt, self-centred, sneering, bored, unimpressed, worldweary, miraculous Sirius. He’s vaguely disappointed in himself for it; there appears to be an old maiden aunt in his head clucking and shaking her head over his unfortunate choice.

“Excellent. The spirit jar is the Incorporus. Everything intellectual and emotional – it’s your reason, your logic, your intuition, your emotions, your spiritual powers, your magical abilities. Wizards are born with this part of their psyche unusually strong; it’s sort of like a mutation. It’s very very recessive, which is how families that have only produced Muggles for thousands of years can suddenly find themselves with a witch on their hands. But that means all witches and wizards have this mutation, so if they breed with each other, they can be pretty certain of getting a child with their powers.”

“So Squibs – “

“Well, there are two options. There are some even more recessive genes in the sequence that if combined properly can override the wizard mutation, or somewhere along the line, a baby got born on the wrong side of the sheets.”

"Got it.”

He’s only interested in things that have to do with himself. He wasn’t there when James and I were poring over books we’d stolen from the Restricted Section, when we were theorising other ways in which the psyche could be manipulated, when we were figuring out what would happen if you substituted rainwater or frost for early morning dew. He’s only interested because now it’s personal. And I don’t care; I’ll give him the lecture anyway, I’ll share this with him because it interests me and I want him to know it.

And because it lets me show off that I may not be the one and only Sirius Black, but I can do something.

“The physical expression of the spiritual jar is very wispy. Completely ineffectual for operating in the world. You could swirl around and think a lot, but not much else. Sort of like ghosts can’t handle the afterlife – people who have gone spiritual can’t handle the physical side of this life. There aren’t very many these days, but in Medieval times, it was pretty frequent. You’d get some incredibly lofty witch communing with the universe and feeling the ebb and flow of life, and suddenly – poof.”

“And the human jar?” Sirius asked.

"The human jar is sort of the mediator. It juggles the animal and spiritual jars. Its physical expression is this odd body of ours – large brain, no natural defences, so it would seem to align with the spiritual side, but still needing to eat, sleep –“

“Fuck,” Sirius added, tossing the syllable with a bit of a sneer. Something jolted in Remus’ insides.

“Yes, thank you – eat, sleep, mate – which would seem to align it with the animal jar. But it’s even a little more complicated than that – all our animal needs have been given a spiritual tinge by our brains – food has been tied up with life, death, and resurrection; sleep has been given dreams; sex has been given – well, not just love, because it isn’t, always, but the tangling of souls.”

Sirius was quiet.

“What the Animagus charm does is strengthen the animal and the human jars. It’s very delicate, thank you, and James and I put years into it. The animal jar is strengthened enough to give itself physical expression, but the human jar is strengthened enough to give it control. You’re sort of dangling yourself over the edge and then pulling yourself back.”

“I see,” Sirius said.

“So that’s why you’re able to sort of – feel the physicality of the animal even when you’re in your balanced physical form.”

Sirius shifted his head in Remus’ lap. Remus barely managed to stop his fingers from stroking Sirius’ neck, by his hairline.

“I see.”

"It’s a miracle we didn’t kill ourselves, so a few bugs in the system shouldn’t bother you.”

“It’s not the bugs, it’s the fleas.”

Remus wiped his fingers on his trousers.

“Ew. I so didn’t need to know that, Pads.”

“I’m taking something for it, but it itches. And I can still feel where my tail should be. I keep trying to wag it.”

“Oh, is that what you were doing with that girl from Ravenclaw last Saturday? I thought that was you trying to dance.”

Sirius sat up, suddenly lofty again, swung his feet onto the table, and commenced picking at his fingernails.

“Ha, look children, Uncle Moony’s funny.”

“Piss off, would you, if you’re going to be stroppy? I’ve got exams. And so have you.”

Sirius stood up, tall and lanky and sketched like charcoal in black and white – black jeans, black jacket, black hair, black leather collar, black eyes, breathtakingly white skin – and pushed a lock of hair off his forehead. Remus tried not to watch. Tried not to skip a breath. Tried not to hate the Ravenclaw girl. Tried unsuccessfully.

“The whole school knows he’s gone soppy over Evans – all I’m asking is that if he fails any of his OWLs he confirms it for them at dinner. That’s all.”

“Considering that you offered to do a striptease at the first Quidditch match of next year if he won, I’m amazed he didn’t take your terms.”

“Honestly.”

Remus glanced up.

Agree to leave your collar on, and I’ll take them.

There was a moment when Sirius stared at him and he worried he’d said it out loud.

JULY

It is warm and the air is damp, and it slides the wrong way through Remus’ hair and makes him shiver. Something inside him growls and pricks up its ears. This is the wild time, the hot summer moon shifting between shadows of clouds ahead, and somewhere in this forest there are three pairs of eyes prowling with him.

He is their master; they have become what they are to follow him. The animal comes from within, and the gracious stag, the scampering nervous rat, and the lithe sinuous canine all bear a certain resemblance to the schoolboy, but Remus … Remus is what he is not by nature but by infection, and no one would recognise the slim, pale, bookish boy in this yellow-eyed creature, this untamable beast, this fur-matted, slinking animal with fangs and claws.

Summer is hot and there are no borders to this world; winter divides dark from light, heat from cold, inside from outside, and you can see between trees in the forest. Summer nights are shorter, but there is a scent of wildness about them that makes Remus’ nose prick up even when the moon is waning, that makes him sniff and howl.

And there are no classes, no schedules, no exams, to divide the days and to order them.

He has spent the day lying in his room and watching the trees shift outside the window.

He wants to risk everything. Wants to die gloriously.

He throws his head back and howls – from the glittering eyes in the forest comes an answering scream, and then the stag is rearing on its back legs and tossing its horns about and the rat has bared its fangs and is laughing.

AUGUST

He waits for Sirius by the window, waits for the silent shining motorcycle to appear through the clouds and take him away.

His parents wonder why he is so tired in the morning; they don’t see him at midnight, perched on the windowsill, leaning out into the starlight and the cool mist coming off the moors, perched and ready to fly. They don’t see him careening over farms and villages – the whole world is his now – and sucking that clear air into his lungs as they expand. They don’t see his fingers clutching the slim hips of Sirius Black in front of him, the way the whole world opens up and he is flying.

Remus whispers, “bet you can’t do a figure eight around those two churches,” and he can feel Sirius grinning as he kicks the motorcycle into a higher gear and dives towards the earth. Cheek pressing into Sirius’ back, and the ground is hurtling towards them now, the sleepy town is careening upwards. Sirius straightens out and pulls the motorcycle around one steeple – oh Merlin I’m going to be sick – but Remus tosses his head back and lets the wind run through his hair as the high street streaks by and the other church approaches. Sirius banks to the left and the motorcycle is half sideways as he turns it back to the right and takes the loop, and then another, a victory lap, and Remus can feel his friend’s ribcage expand and contract as he wraps his arms around it and pleads with the fates never to make him go home.

* * *

Sirius leaves the note under Remus’ alarm clock. Remus had fallen into bed, looking vaguely ill, as soon as they returned, and Sirius stood and watched him for a while, hands jammed into his pockets, shoulders slightly hunched forward, one foot pawing a bit at the floor.

Finally, he’d tossed his keys in the air and caught them, watching the moonlight strike them and turn them silver, scribbled the note, shoved it under the clock, and flown off, inexplicably annoyed.

Moony,

I believe you officially lost a bet last night. There will be penalties. I expect, no later than next week, a 20-line ode addressed “To Padfoot.” You may mention your subject’s winning good looks, his irresistible manner with the witches of Ravenclaw, his superior flying ability, and his brilliance at understanding the complexity of Animagus charms.

ta,

Mr. S. Black, O.B.G.F. (Order of Bloody Good Flyers), 1st Class

* * *

Remus delivered the poem on time. It even rhymed. He was particularly proud of the way he’d switched from tetrameter to pentameter when discussing Sirius’ ability to pilot a motorcycle. He thought it reflected the experience of flying, in an elegant and subtle manner. The word “Milton-esque” sprang to mind a few times; Sirius had no idea Muggles even had literature, but Remus prided himself on a working knowledge of the greats. Beowulf was a favourite of his. Frankenstein was not.

That night, they flew north, over mountains and lakes that hid between them, where Remus could see the moon blurry and reflected in the water. The moon, crescent-shaped and harmless, but lurking behind clouds and biding its time, waiting for him.

“Can you skim the water without falling in?”

“What’ll you give me if I can?” Sirius mumbled, already starting to circle over the lake.

“I’ll send a Howler to Bellatrix.”

“And if I can’t? What terrible vengeance will you exact?”

He was flying low now; Remus had to look up to see the tops of the mountains.

“Let’s see, what would …” he grinned. “When we get back to school, every time you see Severus Snape in the hallways, you must fall to your knees and recite ‘My Love Is Like A Red, Red Rose’ at the top of your lungs.”

“Recite what?”

“Bit of Muggle poetry.”

“Never heard of it.”

“You’ve got three weeks to learn it, haven’t you?”

* * *

To: Bellatrix Black
Third Bedroom
By the window
Extremely Creepy House
Grimmauld Place
London

Remus chewed on his quill.

STOP MAKING SO MUCH TROUBLE FOR YOUR COUSIN; HE DESERVES …

No, that didn’t work.

IF YOU HAD A HEART TO RIP OUT, I WOULD LOVE TO …

Howlers weren’t really his style, that was the problem. He didn’t go in for shrieking invective. That was Sirius’ department – after James and Remus had stolen his broomstick and enchanted it to sing rude versions of Christmas carols whenever it heard the headmaster’s voice, they’d had to sit on him with heavy coats to shut him up.

With a nod, he set quill to parchment again.

FOR VERILY I TELL YOU, JUDGEMENT WILL NOT DELAY FOREVER!! TO THE EVIL AND CORRUPT, I SAY, BEHOLD, MY VENGEANCE IS SWIFT AND MY ANGER IS GREAT!! ALL FLESH SHALL COWER BEFORE ME!!

He managed to work in the phrases “whore of Babylon,” and “harpies that feed their black souls with the blood of the innocent” before he was satisfied with it.

The next week, he found himself painting “Sirius Black Is The Champion Of Everything” on a banner, which he would be hanging off of Gryffindor Tower after curfew the first night back at Hogwarts, and explaining to his mother where one of her sheets had gotten to.

The week after, he was composing love poetry to Calendula Jones of Ravenclaw, and signing Sirius’ name to it, feeling especially disgruntled over the fact that Sirius hadn’t gotten his “Remus de Bergerac” jokes.

“You have no poetry in your soul; she’s not going to be convinced.”

“There are some people who appreciate my artistic side, Moony. People who aren’t jealous.”

“I am not jealous, it’s just that it’s my artistic side.”

“You agreed fair and square, and you knew the terms.”

“Nobody could have done that loop-the-loop three times in a row; it was really unfair. You must have bewitched the cycle.”

Sirius was standing by Remus’ window; his pale skin looked paler and more luminous in the moonlight, and he was leaning all his weight on one leg, the other one angled out from his hips. He was absolutely beautiful, absolutely unbeatable, absolutely unattainable, and absolutely infuriating.

“So now I’m a cheater, as well. Let’s face it, Moony, you just can’t bear the thought that I might go off and have fun and leave you behind. You’ve always been jealous of James and me, and the girls just make it worse, don’t they?”

“Stop it, Sirius.”

“You can’t imagine having a girlfriend, so you’ve got to do all you can to stop us from it, haven’t you? All that ‘James, study with me,’ ‘James, our O.W.L.s are coming up, it’s so important,’ you just couldn’t handle him wanting to run off with Lily, and now you’re doing the same to me. Because you’re too terrified and pathetic to have a life of your own, you’ve got to stop us, haven’t you?”

“Sirius, you’re going –“

The black-haired boy wasn’t listening; he’d started pacing around the room like some caged thing. Remus began to worry he’d start transforming and be unable to control it. He didn’t want to be alone in a room with an angry Padfoot; he might be domesticated but he still had teeth.

“You’ve always been a little hanger-on, and last year was the worst. ‘Oooh, look, I’m Remus Lupin the prefect, now my friends have got to listen to me,’ well, you know what? James and I had adventures you didn’t know about. We left you out on purpose because you were being such an insufferable little prat …”

“Stop it!!”

“And I’ve been making special trips out to see you because I felt guilty about that –“

“Well, don’t do me any favours,” Remus muttered through clenched teeth. If I could change at will, I would tear your throat open.

"And this is the thanks I get. Lovely, Moony, really lovely.”

“Take your fucking poem and get out of my house.”

“You know what? I won’t even bother. I don’t need you; Calendula liked me just fine last year, and she doesn’t need any sodding poetry to make her like me still.”

“Fine.” Remus turned back towards his bed, seeing through blurry eyes the memory of Sirius lying across it and laughing, Sirius and James jumping up and down on it when he got his Prefect’s badge last year, Sirius who used to be his friend.

He heard the motorcycle start off, and felt the breeze from its wake over the back of his neck, and he shivered involuntarily because Sirius had said, you can’t imagine having a girlfriend, and Remus knew it was true, and wondered if Sirius did.

Pyromania and Pilgrims.

Sun, 27 Nov 2005 23:11:23 GMT

Pictures of Bonfire Night are now up on the Blogspot Blog, as are pictures of the move from Princeton, narrated as a Mummer's Play.

And now, for your amusement, a list of topics covered during the Great Expat And Englishmen Thanksgiving Dinner yesterday afternoon.

1. The flatmate's sexuality (inadvertently).

2. The fact that the table was arranged with the White People at one end and the oppressed people (Irish and Indian) at the other, leading to a protracted discussion of why they had all the natural resources (i.e. cranberry sauce) and were passing them to us without complaint.

3. Smallpox, imperialism, and commerialism.

4. Musical theatre (briefly).

5. Possibility of turning the novel Grace wrote when she was 11 into a musical.

6. Threats of grievous bodily harm to whomever turned the novel Grace wrote when she was 11 into a musical.

7. Public transport.

8. Slash (briefly).

9. Slash involving giant earthworms (even more briefly).

10. Reading slash involving giant earthworms while on public transport.

11. Why the oppressed people had all the salt.

12. Expanding the "oppressed people" category to include women and gay people - in other words, everyone except Josh.

13. Why the box the turkey came in was labeled "Human Head."

14. The fact that of all the days of the year for the fridge to break, this was probably the worst.

15. The fact that the fridge had broken.

16. Chocolate.

17. The possibility of getting the caretaker in to fix the fridge without making him believe we wanted to have mad passionate monkey sex with him.

18. The possibility of getting the downstairs neighbour to store our turkey and milk in his fridge, and possibly allowing us to have mad passionate monkey sex with him.

19. The lack of religious significance in the celebration of Thanksgiving.

20. The validity of "eat a fuckload of food" as the basis for a national holiday and as a religious experience.

Meanwhile, the little bastards at school have given me another nasty cold. Send porn and tea.

I should be working ...

Tue, 22 Nov 2005 23:54:06 GMT

But instead, I'm filling out this book meme from bironic .

Here's how it works:

Bold those you've read.

Italicize those you haven't finished/have only read excerpts.

Underline those you own.

And then add a few of your own.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. 1984, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corellis Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Susskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnights Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 1/2, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaids Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. Georges Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick OBrian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlottes Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophies World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Gross-mith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews
201. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
202. The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
203. The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan
204. The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan
205. Fires of Heaven, Robert Jordan
206. Lord of Chaos, Robert Jordan
207. Winters Heart, Robert Jordan
208. A Crown of Swords, Robert Jordan
209. Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan
210. A Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan
211. As Nature Made Him, John Colapinto
212. Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
213. The Married Man, Edmund White
214. Winters Tale, Mark Helprin
215. The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault
216. Cry to Heaven, Anne Rice
217. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, John Boswell
218. Equus, Peter Shaffer
219. The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten
220. Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
221. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn
222. The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice
223. Anthem, Ayn Rand
224. The Bridge To Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
225. Tartuffe, Moliere
226. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
227. The Crucible, Arthur Miller
228. The Trial, Franz Kafka
229. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
230. Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles
231. Death Be Not Proud, John Gunther
232. A Dolls House, Henrik Ibsen
233. Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen
234. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
235. A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry
236. ALIVE!, Piers Paul Read
237. Grapefruit, Yoko Ono
238. Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde
240. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
241. Chronicles of Thomas Convenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson
242. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
242. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
243. Summerland, Michael Chabon
244. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
245. Candide, Voltaire
246. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald Dahl
247. Ringworld, Larry Niven
248. The King Must Die, Mary Renault
249. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
250. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’Engle
251. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
252. The House Of The Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
253. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
254. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
255. The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson
256. Chocolate Fever, Robert Kimmel Smith
257. Xanth: The Quest for Magic, Piers Anthony
258. The Lost Princess of Oz, L. Frank Baum
259. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
260. Lost In A Good Book, Jasper Fforde
261. Well Of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde
261. Life Of Pi, Yann Martel
263. The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver
264. A Yellow Raft In Blue Water, Michael Dorris
265. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
267. Where The Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
268. Griffin & Sabine, Nick Bantock
269. Witch of Blackbird Pond, Elizabeth George Speare
270. Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, Robert C. O’Brien
271. Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt
272. The Cay, Theodore Taylor
273. From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
274. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
275. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
276. The Kitchen Gods Wife, Amy Tan
277. The Bone Setters Daughter, Amy Tan
278. Relic, Duglas Preston & Lincolon Child
279. Wicked, Gregory Maguire
280. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
281. Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry
282. The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum
283. Haunted, Judith St. George
284. Singularity, William Sleator
285. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
286. Different Seasons, Stephen King
287. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
288. About a Boy, Nick Hornby
289. The Bookmans Wake, John Dunning
290. The Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns
291. Illusions, Richard Bach
292. Magics Pawn, Mercedes Lackey
293. Magics Promise, Mercedes Lackey
294. Magics Price, Mercedes Lackey
295. The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav
296. Spirits of Flux and Anchor, Jack L. Chalker
297. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
298. The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, Brenda Love
299. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
300. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
301. The Cider House Rules, John Irving
302. Enders Game, Orson Scott Card
303. Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland
304. The Lions Game, Nelson Demille
305. The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars, Stephen Brust
306. Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh
307. Foucaults Pendulum, Umberto Eco
308. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
309. Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk
310. Camber of Culdi, Kathryn Kurtz
311. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
312. War and Rememberance, Herman Wouk
313. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
314. The Giver, Lois Lowry
315. The Telling, Ursula Le Guin
316. Xenogenesis (or Liliths Brood), Octavia Butler
317. A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold
318. The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
319. The Aeneid, Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil)
320. Hanta Yo, Ruth Beebe Hill
321. The Princess Bride, S. Morganstern (or William Goldman)
322. Beowulf, Anonymous
323. The Sparrow, Maria Doria Russell
324. Deerskin, Robin McKinley
325. Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey
326. Passage, Connie Willis
327. Otherland, Tad Williams
328. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
329. Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
330. Beloved, Toni Morrison
331. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christs Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore
332. The mysterious disappearance of Leon, I mean Noel, Ellen Raskin
333. Summer Sisters, Judy Blume
334. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
335. The Island on Bird Street, URI Orlev
336. Midnight in the Dollhouse, Marjorie Filley Stover
337. The Miracle Worker, William Gibson
338. The Genesis Code, John Case
339. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevensen
341. Phantom, Susan Kay
342. The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, Anne Rice
343. Anno Dracula, Kim Newman
344: The Dresden Files: Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
345: Tokyo Suckerpunch, Issac Adamson
346: The Winter of Magics Return, Pamela Service
347: The Oddkins, Dean R. Koontz
348. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
349. The Last Goodbye, Raymond Chandler
350. At Swim, Two Boys, Jaime ONeill
351. Othello, by William Shakespeare
352. The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
353. The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats
354. Sati, Christopher Pike
355. The Inferno, Dante
356. The Apology, Plato
357. The Small Rain, Madeline L’Engle
358. The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Richard E Cytowick
359. 5 Novels, Daniel Pinkwater
360. The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Juliet Marillier
361. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
362. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
363. Our Town, Thorton Wilder
364. Green Grass Running Water, Thomas King
335. The Interpreter, Suzanne Glass
336. The Moors Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie
337. The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson
338. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster
339. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
340. The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
341. Pages for You, Sylvia Brownrigg
342. The Changeover, Margaret Mahy
343. Howls Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
344. Angels and Demons, Dan Brown
345. Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo
346. Shosha, Isaac Bashevis Singer
347. Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck
348. The Diving-bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
349. The Lunatic at Large by J. Storer Clouston
350. Time for Bed by David Baddiel
351. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
352. Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre
353. The Bloody Sun by Marion Zimmer Bradley
354. Sewer, Gas, and Eletric by Matt Ruff
355. Jhereg by Steven Brust
356. So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane
357. Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
358. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte
359. Road-side Dog, Czeslaw Milosz
360. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
361. Neuromancer, William Gibson
362. The Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
363. A Canticle for Liebowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr
364. The Mask of Apollo, Mary Renault
365. The Gunslinger, Stephen King
366. Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
367. Childhoods End, Arthur C. Clarke
368. A Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
369. Ivanhoe, Walter Scott
370. The God Boy, Ian Cross
371. The Beekeepers Apprentice, Laurie R. King
372. Finn Family Moomintroll, Tove Jansson
373. Misery, Stephen King
374. Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters
375. Hood, Emma Donoghue
376. The Land of Spices, Kate O’Brien
377. The Diary of Anne Frank
378. Regeneration, Pat Barker
379. Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
380. Dreaming in Cuban, Cristina Garcia
381. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
382. The View from Saturday, E.L. Konigsburg
383. Dealing with Dragons, Patricia Wrede
384. Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss
385. A Severed Wasp - Madeleine LEngle
386. Here Be Dragons - Sharon Kay Penman
387. The Mabinogion (Ancient Welsh Tales) - translated by Lady Charlotte E. Guest
388. The DaVinci Code - Dan Brown
389. Desire of the Everlasting Hills - Thomas Cahill
390. The Cloister Walk - Kathleen Norris
391. The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien
392. I Know This Much Is True, Wally Lamb
393. Choke, Chuck Palahniuk
394. Enders Shadow, Orson Scott Card
395. The Memory of Earth, Orson Scott Card
396. The Iron Tower, Dennis L. McKiernen
397. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
398. A Ring of Endless Light, Madeline L’Engle
399. Lords of Discipline, Pat Conroy
400. Hyperion, Dan Simmons
401. If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, Jon McGregor
402. The Bridge, Iain Banks
403. How to Be Good, Nick Hornby
404. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields
405. A Map of the World, Jane Hamilton
406. Eragon, Christopher Paolini
407. A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket
408. I'm a Stranger Here Myself, Bill Bryson
409. Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
410. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling
411. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling
412. Fatal Voyage, Kathy Reichs
413. Set in Darkness, Ian Rankin
414. Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby
415. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Helen Fielding
416. Speaking With The Angel, ed. Nick Hornby
417. Lady Chatterley's Lover, DH Lawrence
418. The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer
419. Die Blechtrommel, Gunter Grass
420. Justine, Marquis de Sade
421. The Kreutzer Sonata, Leo Tolstoy
422. The Lily Theater, Lulu Wang
423. The Piano Teacher, Elfriede Jelinek
424. An Equal Music, Vikram Seth
425. Die Leiden des jungen Werther, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
426. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
427. Siddhartha, Herman Hesse
428. The Emperor of Scent, Chandler Burr
429. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Dai Sijie
430. Harriet the Spy, Louise Fitzhugh
431. Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
432. Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins
433. Empire Falls, Richard Russo
434. White Teeth, Zadie Smith
435. Hotel New Hampshire, John Irving
436. Books of Blood, Clive Barker
437. Narnia-series, C.S. Lewis
438. Amber-series, Roger Zelazny
439. Dværgen fra Normandiet, Lars Henrik Olsen
440. Seven Gothic Tales, Karen Blixen
441. Farewell My Concubine, Lillian Lee
442. Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathan Lethem
443. Girl in Landscape, Jonathan Lethem
444. Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes
445. Father of Frankenstein, Christopher Bram
446. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuin

447. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith

448. The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis

449. In The Absence of Men, Philippe Besson

450. Strong Poison, Dorothy L. Sayers

451. Have His Carcase, Dorothy L. Sayers

452. Gaudy Night, Dorothy L. Sayers

453. Busman's Honeymoon, Dorothy L. Sayers

454. The Uses of Enchantmeny, Bruno Bettelheim

455. Tom's Midnight Garden, Philippa Pearce

456. The Little Bookroom, Eleanor Farjeon

457. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Rebecca Wells

458. The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst

Ficlet: Scars

Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:36:13 GMT

This owes its existence to copperbadge 's longfic "Cartographer's Craft," in which a sixteen-year-old version of Sirius Black emerges from the Marauders' Map and proceeds to, among other things, embark on an affair with Harry.

I tried fitting both Ron and Draco in instead of Sirius, but it wasn't happening.

****
There are three scars on the boy's body. One is jagged, a zigzagged flash of light over one arched eyebrow. Sirius tracs one calloused fingertip over it, and Harry winces.

"Sorry."

"No - it's - I don't mind."

The second is also magical - the lines of scar tissue have smooth edges that tell of enchanted origins and enchanted cures. The ornate script -<i> I will not tell lies </i>- is on the palm of Harry's hand. It lies hidden, pressed against the smooth milky skin of Sirius' hip.

The third is long and pink, because the cut was deep. It runs along the inside of Harry's arm, running up Sirius' waist to his ribs.
He lifts Harry's arm and kisses this last mark gently, because the edges are coarse and there are no signs of stitches.

The Postman Always Rings Twice

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 16:32:08 GMT

... alternative subject heading, "The Postman Cometh."

At 8:00 this morning, the postman dropped by (he did, in fact, ring twice) with a parcel of Christmas gifties to me and the flatmate, from

bironic , who now officially rocks.

However, this charming little domestic incident would have been much better, all told, if I hadn't been naked at the time.

And the bizarre reverse-time internal muzak system is getting kicked up again; it's almost Advent, so of course I have Holy Week hymns stuck in my head, while the minute I start abstaining from sweets and getting ashes smeared on my forehead I'll start to have Christmas carols running through my mind. It never fails.

Meanwhile, the full moon was something ridiculous like three nights ago, and I still haven't written my drabble for

catilinarian . Though I do have an idea. Why is it that my drabbles always seem to involve Draco Malfoy getting tied to a bed and whipped?

Isn't it iconic?

Wed, 16 Nov 2005 23:56:41 GMT

Update to the ikonostasis.

Sometime in the next few weeks, I'll get around to posting some older fics here, but I've got Block Practice and then eight people are descending on my house for the Expat Thanksgiving Dinner a week from Saturday (hurrah for face time with sister!!), so it may take a while.

In the meantime, prayers and sacrifices and well wishes of all kinds are requested, because I'm being observed at a lesson tomorrow, by no fewer than two people, each of whom will then proceed to rip me to shreds. And a lot of it is dependant on the capricious and unpredictable behaviour of a marauding horde of five-year-olds.

And while you're at it, go see "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang." For it is good.

A brief howl at the Spooks universe.

Fri, 11 Nov 2005 16:44:04 GMT

THEY KILLED ADAM.

They KILLED ADAM.

In the words of Aristotle,"wtf????"

Sat, 05 Nov 2005 00:56:14 GMT

So my initial warning is "read it if you want to have your guts ripped out with a spoon," but that's not exactly the biggest inducement I've ever seen. So just consider that parts of this come from a pretty dark place.

UNTIL MORNING
Rating: PG-13 for violence and suggested sexuality.

Spoilers: HBP.

Summary: A/U. The blast at Godric’s Hollow did not destroy Voldemort’s body – the Order is leading a rebel insurgency, and has captured Azkaban, where Sirius Black protests his innocence and tries to continue his work.

Disclaimer: Characters have infiltrated my brain from the work of J.K. Rowling, and I am not profiting from their use.

Author's Note: "He is all states and all Princes I" is John Donne; "I saw eternity the other night" is Henry Vaughan, and "if there were no such thing as light there would be no creatures with eyes" is C.S. Lewis.

***

“But I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch,
And love is not a victory march;
It is a cold and it is a broken Hallelujah.”
~ Leonard Cohen

I.

“I am afraid,” said the grey-bearded man solemnly, folding his hands on top of the rickety table, “that the celebrations of last night were perhaps a bit premature.”

On his right, a slender man who looked older than he was rubbed his forehead with the base of his palm and sighed.

There were two other men at the table – a skeletal scarred man with a hood over his head and eyes that didn’t quite match, and a dark man with a deep frown who was leaning his chair back against the wall, arms folded across his chest.

“The enemy,” the bearded man continued, “is not defeated.”

The scarred man cracked his knuckles.

“The explosion last night at Godric’s Hollow damaged him, but talk of his destruction was sheer speculation, and he has regained control over key territories, including the Ministry. The celebrations last night, however, did prove useful in some regard, though tragic in others. First, they showed us that our public support is, in fact, as broad as we supposed, though there are some elements who I’m sure simply enjoy being on the winning side and will not stay with us through significant danger. Secondly, and quite coincidentally, the presence of large numbers of our comrades in the streets when the enemy returned meant that we were able to put up a fight and capture some key territory, including, I am pleased to say, Azkaban. The bad news, however …”

He bowed his head slightly and continued.

“The enemy has retaliated with a massive wave of arrests and executions.”

There was silence, punctuated only by the sound of the slender sandy-haired man cleaning his glasses, which squeaked a bit.

“About a hundred of our people are missing. Mostly wizards, but a few centaurs have been arrested or killed, and some key owls are gone as well. I have spies out searching for survivors, but –“

The sandy-haired man put his glasses back on and walked restlessly to the window. Outside, a row of dented metal rubbish bins hunched awkwardly on the curb, and a ginger-haired cat stalked around them, her tail flicking impudently against their sides as she walked.

“Dumbledore,” he said suddenly.

The bearded man looked up.

“What happened last night?”

“Remus –“

The man turned from the window.

“I know what happened, but – why was there an explosion at all? And why didn’t it kill him? And where’s the boy?”

“The boy is safe.”

“I deserve more than that. Of all people.”

Dumbledore pressed his fingertips against his forehead. Remus felt a brief pang – he looked so old, of a sudden – but he bit his lip and turned back to the window. Don’t – you haven’t the luxury – not right now. Not right now.

“Last night, Voldemort entered the Potter’s residence at Godric’s Hollow with the intention of killing whomever he found there. He had been made aware of a prophesy that might have referred to the boy, claiming only he could destroy Voldemort, and he intended to put a stop to this.”

Remus couldn’t stop the sudden image – James and Lily at the kitchen table he’d sat at only three days ago, Lily spoon-feeding the baby, the hallway behind them and Voldemort slipping unheard into the darkness, watching them from the corner, knowing they were going to die …

“He killed James almost immediately, as James had blocked his way to Lily and Harry.”

James, who he knew so well, knew every shade of his voice in the ordinary way you know someone after ten years, James, screaming for Lily’s life and pushing her out of the way as he stood up to Voldemort …

“Did he suffer?”

“No.”

Remus turned back to the window.

“Voldemort then cast a killing curse at the child – we think he wanted to make Lily watch before he killed her – but Lily seems to have developed a protective charm and used it on Harry. Half of it backfired onto Voldemort, and half into Lily – we don’t know whether it was because of her close physical proximity to the – to the target, because she was the origin of the spell, or because the spell could sense a protective spirit in the area. Alastor, I would like you to go over to Godric’s Hollow and see if you can find any clues as to what she was working on. Take Kingsley with you for backup.”

The scarred man and the dark man nodded without speaking.

“From what we can tell, Voldemort was badly wounded by the spell, and the boy himself received a scar from the force of it – this was supposed to be Voldemort’s crowning glory, so undoubtedly he put more of himself into it than into an ordinary kill. He managed to get off another killing curse towards Lily and then apparated – the place is soaked in residual magic; there are some very dark spells clinging to the air that I haven’t had the time to investigate further, but I am afraid –“

“I’ll look into it, Albus,” Alastor Moody said in a low, creaking voice.

“Thank you.” Dumbledore cleared his throat. “This brings me, I am afraid –“

“Excuse me,” Remus murmured and shuffled towards the door. “I need –“

“Stay. Listen,” Dumbledore said, quietly, and Remus turned without a word and slid into his seat, his forehead resting on one hand.

“Voldemort was able to discover the hiding place of the Potter family because he had been fed information from the Potters’ secret-keeper, Sirius Black. Sirius himself appeared at Godric’s Hollow shortly after the explosion and begged for custody of the boy, but Hagrid stuck to his orders and delivered the boy safely to his relatives, where he is being watched by some friends of our cause. Having failed to obtain the boy, Sirius went about destroying other allies of his old friends’ circle – Peter Pettigrew, I am afraid …”
Remus blinked against the sudden memory of Sirius, seventeen, lounging against the side of the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room, smoking, and sneering, “you’re just too much of a baby, Pettigrew,” before stomping off to sneak out to Hogsmeade for a beer.

Remus and Peter had fallen asleep together on the red leather couch that night, Peter’s soft choirboy curls in Remus’ lap, a bit of saliva slipping out of the side of his mouth onto Remus’ thigh as they slept in a pile of mutual helpless adoration of Sirius. Though Remus doubted Peter’s adoration was of quite the same nature as his own.

“We have it on reliable sources that he was heading for your house, Remus, when we apprehended him.”

Remus could only nod.

I would have killed him, if I could have borne it.

“Black is now in Azkaban, and Voldemort’s whereabouts are unknown, but he remains alive and he remains embodied.”

II.

Whenever I close my eyes, I see him at the window.

Different windows – stained glass and lead-paned, half-hiding his sixteen-year-old face behind mottled blues and scarlets, casting the illumination of a phoenix across his cheekbone. Or a crooked window half-open on some piss-smelling London alleyway as he leans down and tosses the keys down to where I stand on the stoop worn smooth by centuries of footsteps. I wonder if perhaps it’s because I spend sixteen hours a day staring hypnotised at the small patch of light in the stone here that I’m so transfixed by Remus at windows, as if holding the image could bring me to that watery border between freedom and confinement.

Does it bother you that I talk of him?

It’s only that it’s impossible to think of anything else. I can’t work here. I am absolutely useless in terms of earthly power, but my mind – so far and thank God – is still mine. And in that mind is habited the pale sloping figure of a man I once thought I loved, that mind so corrupted by inaction and cut off from the work that would make it useful, that mind can still hold the fantasy and dreaming that encircles lovers in bed – he is all states, and all Princes I, nothing else is – and so I have lost nothing that matters by being here, nothing that a prince in exile has not lost. The essence of the thing still lives.

And yet –

I am so adamant on that because I admit I do doubt. There are two people in the world who know the truth behind my pathetic sort of innocence, because one of them is guilty and one of them is you. I didn’t tell him, dearest boy, I didn’t tell him. I should have. I would have been spared the knowing that he – if he is still alive, and I can’t think but that he is – sits alone at night and believes that he shared his bed with a traitor. He would have been spared the hours in which he wonders, and I know he does, what part he had in making me so. There was nothing I could do, at the end, to save him from losing James and Lily, but I might have saved him from losing me.
But that particular torture is rested on the supposition that he is wholely innocent, and when the torturers here have done their work well, when it is dark and cold and I have not eaten, and I begin to fall into a sorry and maudlin self-pity, I do doubt that.

To be honest, I don’t know if Peter had the brains.

Have you done the task I charged you to do? Let me know when you are safe.

Remember that light shines in darkness.

Sirius

Sirius,

I received your last letter rather late, I’m afraid. The bribe money is getting thin, and there was an arrest along the line. I’m sure you don’t want to hear about it, suffice to say it was horrid in that sick, inevitable way that things are horrid these days.

Your account of the dementors’ work frightened me. You know what sort they are, their deceptions are not unfamiliar, you are an educated man and a strong-willed one, and yet you already begin to fall prey to them.

I don’t often speak of this, for reasons I know you understand, but do not doubt Remus. I have not heard his name spoken in that capacity, and while I do not claim to fully know everything that is done around here, I think I should know that, for your association to the Potters was well known, and mine to you, of course.

I hope I may be taken aside by a friend and filled with beer before I descend to becoming one of those middle-aged men who moans about his happy schooldays without ceasing, but you must remember it properly. You must remember that night just before Christmas your last year when we snuck into the edge of the Forbidden Forest (you had been there many times but I was younger and not as brave), and you gave me a sip of your firewhiskey (burning in the cold – I have never forgot it) and we watched the unicorns. They dipped their long necks down to nudge aside the snow and feed on the winter mosses that live close to the warm places below the leaves, and they glowed like phosphorus in the stark frozen night.

You must remember that.

And you must remember whatever it is of Remus that has borne you through mistrust before. You do not – I believe, though I know little of it – you do not love a man as long as you have without being given something to cling to.

As for the task.

I haven’t yet, Sirius, because I can’t. I need to know everything is set. The second part of the plan doesn’t matter, but the first part has to be perfect.

I just can’t yet. You don’t understand.

Regulus

Regulus,

Thank God for Glimfeather; I see him at my window and I know the world outside this cell has not vanished completely. You must tell me how the war is getting on – as much as you can, that is; I understand the circumstances in which you live.

I watch the waxing of the moon, and I think of him. It is the only way I know time has passed.

Sirius

Dear Brother,

I have sent word through a long chain of spies to inform Dumbledore of my plans, but I do not know whether the message has reached him. And I do not know whether he would return my letter, or whether it might be too dangerous.

There were raids on some of our safehouses last night; they have closed down an underground newspaper and publicly executed six men thought to be responsible for it. Their wives and children have been brought into service – slavery – here; I have made some overtures towards some of the more intelligent women, and I think one of them may trust me. I will need two people, at least.

He has made the women his whores; he feeds them charms that take their minds away and they become vacant slaves to do his bidding.

The children cry at night and their mothers sing to them with frozen smiles and do not sleep. Alice Longbottom has refused the charm and called him a tyrant and a murderer to his face, and she screams for her husband at night and the baby wails unattended in his crib. I do not know how long it will be until he breaks her.

Regulus

My brother,

I pray daily that your message reaches Dumbledore; just before I was – taken away – he confided to me that he was beginning to believe you had brought your loyalties around to your new master. “I choose spies carefully,” he told me, “and I will trust him until I have absolute proof I should not.” But he didn’t meet my eye, and he plucked at his beard as he said it. And if he should send in another to do the task you are charged with, that will needlessly endanger another life, which are so rare these days.

So Frank Longbottom is dead. He was several years ahead of me at Hogwarts – I think you might have overlapped for a year or two – and I remember him as a boring and studious pupil. This transformed itself into the most unflinching and courageous service to the cause that I ever saw, and I admit I thought of him when they dragged me in here. He always thought me rather flighty and untrustworthy – he was a prefect when I was experimenting with breaking rules and flouting authority for the sake of a laugh – and I was ashamed to have disappointed him.

I do remember the unicorns. I stood with you at my right hand and Remus at my left, and the neck of the firewhiskey bottle dug gently at my fingers through the soft fur-lined leather of my gloves. I had been obsessed with pleasure; the illicit pursuit of drink and gambling and ill-advised sex. I disdained, with the luxury of the wealthy, the bourgeois and puritanical beliefs of duty and usefulness. A pursuit was worthwhile if it was pleasurable – if it brought your heart slamming into your ribs and made your blood burn with fire. I sought out warm opium dens and the beds of strangers – begging, seducing, and buying my way from pleasure to pleasure. At sixteen, I found myself leaning against a shopfront in Knockturn Alley, my legs braced against the uneven pavement, a beautiful boy with ten of my galleons in his pocket standing between my thighs.

And then Remus brought us out to the forest that night to see the unicorns, with the delight of a boy seeing a thing of true beauty, and all my pleasures seemed as hollow enchantments.

I tell you this because I must tell someone, and I truly believe I will never see another human being in my life. They will not let me out of here alive; if the enemy is victorious, I will take my own life before entering his service. It amounts to the same thing; at least, at my own hand, I will have been the master of my own fate.

Say you love me, and I may yet live in hope.

Sirius.

Sirius,

I would clasp your hand and swear devotion to you, slit my palm and yours with my dagger and remind you that our blood is bound together.

For God’s sake, man, where is your fight? The dementors are hell’s own agents; they speak lies and slander. You are stronger than they. You must be stronger than they, though you have only your own soul at your disposal and they have all the powers of darkness.

When you were born, you passed through the veil and a bit of its touch of death still clings to you – you are mortal, you decay, you die, and one day the veil will have its own back and swallow you alive. In that sense, our lives are but rented from the fabric of the veil, and we are its slaves, being made of it. But whatever it is of you that lived before will pass through unharmed; the veil cannot touch that – it can only seek to smother it with the slime of this life – and nor can its agents, though they smell of its chill and its dankness.

And even in the bleakest view, you are not alone, because we all bear the mark of the veil on us, we are all born through it and bear its curse on our heads. We may all be damned, but we are damned together.

Now bring yourself up like a man and fight, brother, for I have news of ill fortune which you must endure.

Last night, I was taken to dine with the Dark Lord, and presented him with a gift; our mother’s locket, of which she was so proud, because it bore the mark of Slytherin on its face.

He smiled – do you know how wretched a sight it is to see the genuine, pleased, delighted smile of a man planning evil – and said, “why, Regulus, this will do nicely.”

“It has been in my family for generations,” I told him, to impress upon him the importance of the gift.

“But of course it has,” he said, and then, “you and I are more alike than I knew,” as one fingertip caressed the mark of Slytherin.

After dinner, he dressed in front of a flattering mirror that spoke lies of his greatness and promised him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them – he dressed in a velvet tunic and leather trousers, boots to his knees, a sword in his belt, and a cape across one shoulder – and his eyes glowed red in a face that used to be handsome, and with a voice slick as oil, he told me “as the gift is yours, so shall the triumph of it be yours also.”

I followed him to the dungeons, and he had his slaves bring Alice Longbottom to him. When she wouldn’t come without her child, they dashed him to pieces before her eyes. I heard her screaming from the other end of the dungeons, and all the women – poor witless babbling fools – joined in and clawed at their hair, and tore at the bars of their cells. The Dark Lord strode to his great hall, where Narcissa stands at the right of his throne and fawns on him and Bellatrix stands on the left and says nothing because she knows it is she and not her sister that has captured the Dark Lord’s eye. Lucius has encouraged his wife to take to the Dark Lord’s bed, as it would bring him the payment for her.

I have always wondered how I would aquit myself if I were brought to die at the hands of my enemies. I think he expected her to squeal like a trapped pig, but the poor woman was beyond grief.

He had sweets and wine brought, and ate lavishly while she stood before him, saying nothing. The horrors that must have been in her mind, watching the half-smile on his face as he watched her and knowing that there were no appeals she could make to his mercy, nothing she could do but wait and pray it would not last long.

His mistake was killing her child. She would have humiliated herself for their pleasure if she thought it could have saved the baby, but he had taken from her everything but her own life, and she knew that was beyond her saving. Narcissa urged him to ask her to dance for them, and Bellatrix (after he had asked her three times) said only, “the vermin gives me no pleasure; kill her and be done.”

The Dark Lord stood and walked towards her, and her eyes darted to each of us in turn; my guts twisted as they lit on me, and I could not at the least give her the comfort of knowing she had an ally in that terrible room without giving away everything.

“Wait,” Bellatrix said, and strode forward to meet him, taking his hand and running her blood-coloured mouth over its flesh. “Give her the locket to wear.”

Bellatrix and Lucius and Rodolphus and the hordes of flattering slaves laughed, and Bellatrix took his thumb in her mouth and laughed darker and lower than all of them, before sliding the locket into the Dark Lord’s hand and returning to her husband.

The actual murder was quick, and almost neat, and Alice gave a little gasp before crumpling on the floor, oddly peaceful.

The Dark Lord then leaned over her and held his wand to the locket, whispered words I couldn’t hear, and then the most hideous – oh God, Sirius, the screaming of a man tearing his soul to pieces, a man whose soul is already twisted and sore and aching – a light burned from his heart and his wand and a shape I couldn’t recognise seemed to pull itself into being between the wand and the locket, before disappearing completely, as the Dark Lord fell to the ground, panting and pale – but triumphant.

Tomorrow, we shall hide it, he says. “You shall come,” he told me, “for the pure blood of the house of Black and the pure blood of the house of Riddle are two strands of the same cord, and there must be blood if I am to complete what we have begun.” He then raised my arm in his gloved hand and gazed as though enraptured at the blue rivers of my veins below the skin.

I will write more tomorrow; in the meantime, warn Glimfeather to be careful where he goes, for I have heard rumours that the Dark Lord’s spies are seeking our messengers, and they have many desperate widows in their custody who have nothing left to fight for.
And again I tell you I love you. Do you not believe me? You are my brother, my only comrade, my only hope. It is for your freedom I fight.

Regulus

Dearest boy,

It is not that I do not know they lie. It is that their lies – as are all the best lies – are grounded in horrible truth.

I have been selfish. My whole life, I have thought of nothing so much as myself; those few who have been so unfortunate as to love me have had various storms of anger and recrimination borne on them for no reason other than my own ill humour and lack of self-discipline. I remember one night in Gryffindor Common Room, when James and Remus were blamed for everything from my miserable OWL results to my response to alcohol, and they stood before me and bore it. And I despise myself for the arrogance I prided myself on, for the times I picked on those weaker than myself to prove I could, for the times I was short-tempered or impatient with Remus or with you (you were always younger and weaker, and I ensured you knew it) or with Peter. Especially with Peter. If I had been kinder to him – if I had been kinder to Severus – is all evil my doing? Is all evil the result of my thinking only of my status and my momentary pleasure?
It has all been such an empty waste, and I did not know it.

They begin with what is true, and they twist it, however they can, to drive the knife home. They tell me that because I have been selfish I have never truly loved. They tell me that because I have been careless all my loves have endured me only for the fear of my temper. They tell me that each moment of my happiness was a moment that belonged to some other man who is gone forever – and they tell me all this in my own voice.

I have wept until my eyes ached for Alice and her son. It is only luck that kept that from being Lily and Harry’s fate; much as I wept for Lily, I thank God she was spared imprisonment and the dishonour of being the captive woman of the Dark Lord. And Harry – he may be in hell, but he is alive, and there is hope for him. There is hope that he may yet be raised by Remus, that he may yet live in a world that is free from this evil.

Keep me informed of all news. I live for it. The attacks of the enemy grow stronger each day; there are times when I am relieved to give into their ministrations. When it is as the loss of a burden to deny all that I have ever believed. When the world as they would have me see it, the world of anger and hatred and cold, the world in which I am a hollow shell of a miserable man, is more home than any other.

Fight for me.

Sirius

My brother,

Glimfeather is dead. I don’t know any details. You hear them go by in the night, and in the morning one of you is gone.

I have Imperiused a small mouse and sent him to live near your cell. I want to cut my tongue out when I think of what I have done, but these are desperate times.

It is almost done. He has been cunning, more cunning than I believed, but I am no longer afraid. There is a clearness that comes before death; the fear of the thing is worse than the thing itself.

The shrine was already assembled when we entered it. Dumbledore was right; he has been planning such a thing for years. It is in a cave; I cannot tell you where. I know you understand. We approached the cave under a full moon; I could see it clearly, and I thought of those nights – not so very long ago – when you would come to my room in your other form and I would bury my hands in your fur and climb onto your back. Your feet were strong and sure, and I talked gently to you because I knew you could understand, and we rode together through the strange blue colours of the night as the moon shifted above us – harvest to paschal and back again, death and life in an endless ring of light. “I saw eternity the other night … all calm as it was bright/and round beneath it, time, in hours, days, years/driven by the spheres/like a great shadow whirled...”

I cannot tell you of the traps and precautions he has set up to guard the locket, though I will tell you that it is made easier for you if your blood is pure and of the lineage of Salazar Slytherin. I remember his glance as he gripped my wrist in his hand and raised my arm to slit it with his knife; I shall always remember it. It is a hollow courtesy, though, for any rescue attempt is certain to be fatal (unless you have two people – one of whom is an immensely powerful Wizard and the other of whom is either underage or Non-Magical). I have noticed that those who practice the Dark Arts give each other many privileges of status while constantly planning each other’s downfalls.

My Slytherin blood has bought me a privilege that will aid in the death of Slytherin’s most faithful servant.

At the end of the traps, there is a poison. It takes your life slowly, so he may think of your suffering for longer, but it does give you a chance to escape.

This may be my last letter to you. I will endeavour to destroy the locket – I have a cheap replacement that Mother used to leave in her jewelry box while putting the real one behind magical protection – but if I do not, it will be safe with Kreacher. He can do nothing on his own, and you are my next of kin.

Hold fast, brother.

Regulus

Regulus,

I know I may be writing to ghosts, but you are all I have.

Let me know if you are alive. Let me know if the locket is safe.

The demons grow stronger by the day; I try to bring Remus’ face to mind, to recall the touch of his hand, and I cannot. They are taking him as they have taken you.

Sirius

Our mother did not love us, did she? Her protestations of love were always for her own sake rather than for ours.

Is that why I have turned to this side? Why I have followed Dumbledore and bound my blood with a half-breed werewolf? Spite for the unfeeling harpy who bore me?

Where are you, brother, in this silent darkness?

Sirius

Is there any difference? Any reason why I should have preferred one side of the fight to the other? Does each side believe they are good and are following as best they know? Can we truly ever say that one side is good – or even, imperfect but better than the other?

Does evil, in its heart, know itself to be evil, or is what we call good and evil simply a false paradigm imposed on top of endless and meaningless battle?

If you were here, you would tell me that the only reason we can conceive of good and evil at all is because they exist – that no figment of mankind’s imagination has ever produced meaning where there is none. That if there were no such thing as light, we would have no eyes, and if there were no such thing as goodness, we would have no conscience. No conception not only of what is good and what is evil but of the idea that good and evil might exist.

But you are not here.

Sirius.

What happens to an Imperius curse when the man who has cast it is dead? The mouse has moved from the east wall to the south, and ventures out at night to collect straw and I give him threads from my sleeves to build his nest with.

Sirius.

III.

Remus Lupin
Twelve Grimmauld Place
Waiting by the fire
Into eternity
London

My love,

You don’t know how dark the night is here, or how quickly it comes on.

The prison stands above a rocky cliff, and I can hear the waves breaking and receding below me. Over the years, they will wear away at the base of the mountain, and this dark palace will crash into the sea. And on its stones will grow new beings, green and slimy and with the beginnings of life in them, and around its ruins new deposits of sand will build up, and perhaps one day the pile of remnants and fresh growth will emerge from the waves, and men will map and explore it.

It comforts me today to think of impermanence. To remember that all things now present will one day pass away, and that the earth is each minute shifting – dying and resurrecting, giving life and taking it. It is comforting because I can believe that the troubles of today are but the troubles of today, that all things pass away. That one day the veil will be ripped from top to bottom and the world as we know it fall into fire and flame. And so what is my life next to that? What is this war next to that?

The earth cares little that the small and wretched creatures love each other.

She cares little that we have touched, that we have lain side by side in the embracing night and heard all her glories in a single sigh. There are Horcruxes that are made by taking life and Horcruxes made by creating it – in those midnights when we lay together and made a joined and beating life in the air between us, there is a deep and holy enchantment there, and it is lasting.

And that is the only part of my soul that will ever be worth saving; the part that you carry.

You must understand. What they tell me is true – the thing deserves to die. Not for what you think I have done, which I have not, I swear on your body Remus, I have not done it. But for what it is, what it inescapably and wretchedly is. I don’t understand how you could ever have loved this man, and yet I count it my only blessing in a terrible life that you did.

And so that is why it doesn’t matter, what I am about to do. Because all I am destroying is the darkness, the anger, the blood, the filth.

The holy thing of me is yours, is in you and will live, will live as long as you live, as long as you ever once did truly love me.

By the time you read this – by the time the long and untrustworthy network of owls risking their lives and mice bearing Unspeakable curses brings my words before your sober and gorgeous eyes – there will be nothing left to do.

Except to know that I loved you, in whatever broken way I could.

And to know I love you still.

There is something that lives until morning.

Sirius.

"You know what I'm about to do is illegal, right ...?"

Fri, 28 Oct 2005 10:59:35 GMT

There's a discussion going on over at kabal42 's LJ on new anti-obscenity laws being proposed in the US and UK that are really damn scary (for example, equating S&M with bestiality). Go check it out.

Anyone who's seen the movie "Quills" will be able to give testimony to the immense power of the erotic written word. This stuff is powerful, dark, and affects people in a deep and profound way. It makes us think differently, look at people differently, analyse relationships differently - like all good art, well-written erotica changes our viewpoint and makes us think about questions of the human condition. It's not a benign art form; it's alive and it's powerful. And it SHOULD be; art SHOULD affect people and change people and make them think in new ways.

And some people are so scared of that power that they're trying to just legislate it away, as if by making it illegal they'd be able to make that part of the human psyche disappear.

Now, I believe that there's a lot of harmful and manipulative pornography in our culture today, and that it gives people warped views of the human body and human desire. Most of that stuff is in Playboy, where the body and is reduced to a plasticine version of its real self, and a woman's desires are reduced to "ohhh, harder!" and where human relationships are reduced to "ooh, you're a sexy stranger, let's have sex right now!"

The content isn't the issue - it's how the subject is treated. You can have a BDSM story in which a person is treated in a manipulative way for the cheap kicks of a selfish and loutish audience, or you can have a BDSM story in which the relationship points to something profound and deep about the human condition, about desire and control and freedom and love. The tying-up bit is morally neutral - it's whether you use it for cheap thrills or for literature that matters.

The people who are trying to outlaw this sort of thing are convinced that they can turn everybody into shiny sanitised robots with the signing of a bill. That it's much healthier to pretend these desires don't exist than to allow people to explore it and come to some sort of (hopefully) healthy, complex understanding of their own sexual psyche. It's the same with everything; these are the people who believe that if we don't give our kids books with sex or violence in them, our kids won't ever get the idea that sex or violence exist. They exist, and it's irresponsible not to give people the tools (stories, songs, images, philosophy) to deal with them.

By the way, if BDSM practice is illegal in the UK, why does Harmony on Tottenham Court Road sell whips and handcuffs and leashes and so on?

Yeah, I'm a Christian and a leftist and a slasher and an American living in London, so I'm concerned on a number of fronts ...

Confessions of St. Maddy

Thu, 27 Oct 2005 23:04:38 GMT

I have to admit to a horrible fondness for those "don't rely on anyone else to entertain you" adverts for Blockbuster, mostly because the Cheeky Girls are like some horrid late-90's train wreck, though the one with the mariachi band is probably my favourite.

And the flatmate and I just got the third season of The West Wing for 12 quid in a charity shop. Like ANY work is getting done for the next MONTH.

And I'm halfway through a RL/SB that is refusing to move at anything above glacier speed.

Fortunately/Unfortunately

Sun, 23 Oct 2005 01:31:26 GMT

My sister has a constant theme on her blog of ordering her life according to the old schoolyard game "Fortunately/Unfortunately." It goes like this:

FORTUNATELY they showed "A Very Social Secretary" on terrestrial the other night, so I could watch it!!

UNFORTUNATELY, the bloke who played Alastair didn't look at ALL like Alastair in real life.

FORTUNATELY, the slashiness between him and Robert Lindsay's Tony Blair was IMMENSE, including a scene where Alastair has been hiding in the pool while Blair meets with Blunkett, and then Alastair emerges, half-naked and DRIPPING WET, and slyly asks, "is he gone?" This is followed by a scene in which Alastair sits poolside, insolently sucking on cherries, and tells the PM, "you're a posh boy, Tony, and the voters like a bit of rough."

UNFORTUNATELY, "Waking the Dead" and "Jericho" are on at the SAME TIME tomorrow night (I think Jericho will win out, despite its being ITV).

FORTUNATELY, I bought cake and organic double cream at M&S today.

UNFORTUNATELY, the London Theatre Club is out of its specially priced tickets to see Richard E. Grant in previews of "Otherwise Engaged" next week.

FORTUNATELY, they said to call back after 10 on Monday to see if they'd managed to get some more.

UNFORTUNATELY, I really should go to bed now ...

Ikonostatis

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 18:47:27 GMT

There's some new stuff hung on the ikonostatis. Pirate at will.

Ugh, have nasty cold. Send food and tea.

Remus wants to howl at the moon ...

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 17:28:11 GMT

Pairing: RL/SB. Rating: PG-13. Summary: A few pages torn from Remus' notebook during his seventh year at Hogwarts.

Not LJ-cut because that would lose the formatting. Sorry.

Notebook

by Magdalen-Rose

Pairing: SB/RL

Rating: PG-13

Summary: A few pages torn from Remus Lupin's notebook his seventh year at Hogwarts.

Spoilers: none

Disclaimer: I do not own the copyright to the characters and am not profiting from my use of them.

PROPERTY OF REMUS LUPIN

RETURN IF LOST

GRYFFINDOR TOWER

Remus Lupin.

Remus J. Lupin

R.J. Lupin

Mr. R.J. Lupin

Remus Black.

R.J.L. Black

Remus Lupin-Black

Professor R.J. Lupin-Black

Remus and Sirius Lupin-Black

******

3 December

THINGS I HAVE TO DO TONIGHT:

Charms homework

Get potion prescription refilled

Find sources for lit essay

Do laundry

If time – map North tower!

MUGGLE NOVEL VS. WIZARDING NOVEL

Nineteenth century

- Muggle novel expanded to mainstream, replacing poetry

- Often political in nature

- Wizarding novel more emphasis on magic/metaphysics (Muggle poetry similar, esp. 17^th cent.)

- Male-dominated authorship (both Mug. and Wiz.)

Essay: 2 rolls of parchment, due Wednesday next: To what extent is literature important in a society based on technical skills such as magic? Is there a difference in the role of literature in the Wizarding and Muggle worlds?

- thesis for Part II. – Muggle novels = escapism, not as necessary in world where we have access to magic?

******

Last night was incredible. – S.

Go away.

Twice, Mr. Lupin. Twice.

I can do better.

Slut.

Go away.

My slut.

You’re offending my notebook’s virgin ears.

Your notebook’s the only thing about you that remains even remotely virgin, Moony.

I should have left you tied up – you’re less trouble that way.

ß Rolls over and begs.

You’re bothering me.

******

- Late nineteenth-century – “gothic” novel, elements of horror and exploration of human nature, including “magic,” such as vampires and “science-fiction” creatures.

- Period of iconoclasm in wizarding world – novels regarded as frivolous and unrealistic, greater demand for technical skills and link of education directly to employability. “Fantasy” derided as old-fashioned – brief attempt to link Muggle and Wizarding sciences.

******

Did you get #5 in Potions?

Yes. The mandrakes were immature.

Sexy and brilliant.

Go AWAY.

No.

Go away.

No.

Yes.

No.

Yes.

No.

Yes.

I’m going to recite poetry for you now.

I wish you wouldn’t.

One two three four five, once I caught a fish alive.

Six seven eight nine ten, then I let him go again.

James says that we’re kidnapping you tonight before you can lock yourself in the library. James wants to map the North tower and I want to have my way with you.

I’m trying to concentrate.

She’s talking about something called Frankinstein, which sounds like a horrible type of sugary drink.

******

CHRISTMAS GIFTS

Mum: Wisdom For Witches Who Do Too Much, by Henrietta Von Keenle.

Dad: Quidditch tickets.

James: Gryffindor scarf.

Peter: A History of Battle and Warfare in Wizarding, by Harcourt Whisp.

Grandma:

Grandpa:

Sirius: ~~The Complete English Poetry of John Donne~~.

REMEMBER PREFECT MEETING TOMORROW!!!!

******

Did Sirius tell you the plan? – J.

Yes, but I’ve got an essay!!

Sod that! Come play.

This is my only free night this week.

Remus wants to howl at the moon, not sit on his bed with a book.

Remus HAS WORK TO DO.

******

Grandma: Earrings.

Sirius: ~~Black velvet jacket~~.

******

- Fantasy extended as a genre throughout 20^th century, including children’s literature.

- Wizard novels still considered to be for children, though the increase in Wizard-Muggle marriages has led to many wizards reading Muggle literature. What are the ramification of this on Wizarding culture? If there are ramifications, does this suggest the cultural importance of literature?

******

Sirius: ~~Book on motorcycles?~~

******

I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I

Did, till we loved? were we not weaned till then?

But sucked on _______ pleasures, childishly?

Or snorted we in the seven sleepers den?

T'was so; But this, all pleasures ________ be.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desir'd, and got, t'was but a dream of thee.

- John Donne, pretty good Muggle poet.

** Learn more about Muggle religion – he seems to have been fairly keen on it. **

******

He is my earth.

My star.

The darkness before my dawn.

******

***WHOMP****

You again.

Of course. We’re discussing the modern Muggle novel. At great length. And I think Cornelia Finsbury just used the word “onomotapeia.” A lad’s got to stay awake.

I’ll keep you awake.

Oh Moony …

Ssshhh.

Do you have any idea what I want to do to you right now?

I could make an educated guess, based on past experience.

My gorgeous delicious sexy rumpled brilliant Moony …

James is staring at you.

Come out with us tonight – I’ll smuggle you in some food and you can work through dinner and then we can go Marauding …

… why do I keep letting myself get talked into this?

Hurrah!

I swear, if we end up dead or transfigured …

I wonder what your Animagus would be, if you had one.

My Patronus is a lion.

… I want to wrap myself in your arms and die there.

Oh God –

The first time I had you, I thought the world was going to end.

Sirius –

Scared out of my mind and unable to resist you – wondering if you’d think I was a total incompetent – whether all the pretense would be ripped away and I’d be exposed for the lovesick fool I was –

You were perfect.

Where do you want to go tonight?

Let’s go to the Astronomy tower. I’ll push you against the wall by the eastern window and trace the path of the moon on your skin.

You would make love to the moon now.

Translated by white shoulders and black hair. Yes.

******

In anima et sanguine.

******

The walls of Jericho.

Sun, 16 Oct 2005 22:21:50 GMT

So catilinarian and I watched the premiere of "Jerico" on ITV tonight. A few thoughts:

1. Robert Lindsey has gotten sexier with age, but it might just be that he has better hair now than in the 70's.

2. "You drive your constables too hard." Ooh - er - vicar ...

3. There's DEFINITE slashy potential between Jericho and his young eager constable Caldecott.

4. They managed to cram rape, bigamy, racism, class, family loyalty, financial scandals, and about 17 different love affairs into two hours, without it feeling too forced. That's new for ITV, who can't usually do a higher-than-average-emotional-level CHOCOLATE ADVERT without it feeling too forced.

5. They might, however, want to make the case a little easier to follow next time. You got the sense that they were throwing in blind leads just for the sake of having blind leads, not because they helped you form theories of the case.

6. Why don't men dress like that any more? Scarf ... hat ... waistcoat ... yeahhh ...

In other Robert Lindsey/slashy news tonight ...

They're re-showing "A Very Social Secretary" on Thursday night, this time on Channel 4!!! Terrestrial!! Starring Robert Lindsey as Tony Blair, which is just a bizarre weird meeting of my FPS and RPS worlds ...

And "Bremner Bird and Fortune" tonight featured a ballroom dancing competition between TonynCherie and SarahnGordon, with Alastair and Peter as the judges - and it ended with TONY DANCING WITH ALASTAIR AND FIGHTING OVER WHO WAS GOING TO LEAD.

Which is actually a scene I *WROTE* two years ago, so I should really sue for copyright infringement.

Only my version was sexier.

My first block practice starts tomorrow, by the way. I'm with Year 1 ... oh God ...

Rinse, repeat.

Sun, 16 Oct 2005 14:45:38 GMT

I've decided to resurrect my LJ experiment, despite my parallel management of a blogspot blog, because I can't post most of my fanfic on blogspot because my mum reads it.

So we're going to start again over here.

Saved
By Magdalen-Rose

Pairing: SB/DM
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Sirius tries to rescue Draco. Or does he?

Sirius looked down at the boy tied to his bed, the delicate wrists flexing in brown leather strips wrapped in knots around the old wooden bedposts.

“You’re not worth it,” he muttered, placing the half-ashed cigarette between his lips and dragging his fingers to his belt.

The boy’s eyes were wide, pleading, his cock arched hard over a firm slender stomach.

“Your whole family’s not fucking worth it,” Sirius added, sliding one knee onto the bed and stroking calloused fingers down the boy’s neck. He whimpered and writhed, and Sirius’ breath caught on the smoke in his throat. The boy’s mouth was slightly open, and Sirius bent down to kiss it, gently, I am trying to save you.

The boy’s teeth closed against the kiss, and he whispered in a haughty whisper as Sirius lowered his body on top of his, “you are my family.”

Road Closed

Sat, 07 May 2005 04:33:11 GMT

Maddy's blog is now over here.