b i t t e r s w e e t . t r i u m p h

Bittersweet Triumph
(Tramps Like Us Remix)
[by victoria p.]

Rating: R-ish

Summary: Remus loved that motorbike almost as much as Sirius did.

Spoilers: The big one for OotP

Notes: Thanks to Jen, Dot, Meg and Pete'n'Melissa. Thanks to Sullen Siren for the beta, and Laura and Pru for assuring me the ending was okay.

Written for the Remix/Redux II, based on Triumph of the Last Marauder by Mousapelli

Date: May 12, 2004

Sirius's excitement was always contagious, and his enthusiasm over his new motorbike was no exception. When he decided to charm it to fly, James, Remus, Peter and, to a lesser but still important degree, Lily, were all involved, whether or not they wanted to be.

Sirius said the 1968 Triumph Bonneville was classic, though Lily laughed and called it old. It didn't matter. Sirius loved that bike almost as much as he loved James, and, though neither of them would ever say it out loud, more than he loved Remus.

Remus supposed he should have been jealous of it ("her," Sirius would insist), but he loved it ("her") almost as much as Sirius did, and she purred for him, as well.

Sirius marked her, the way he marked everything he touched -- he carved a dog howling at a crescent moon on the engine cover, Because you make me howl, Moony.

And he had, right then and there, on his knees on the cement floor of the garage with Sirius's cock in his mouth, Sirius's hands in his hair, and Sirius leaning against the bike as if it were part of him.

Even when things went bad, when they'd stopped talking, except to yell, and stopped fucking, except with other people, there would be nights Sirius would walk into the flat they shared, grab the keys and say, Let's go.

And they'd ride for hours, chasing the moon across the sky, laughing with the stars. Up there, they could forget that their world was coming apart, that James and Lily were being hunted, that friends and family members were dying, that they couldn't trust anyone anymore, not each other, not themselves.

Flying was freedom from all that, so Remus clung tightly, closed his eyes and wished for better things.

***

When Dumbledore gave him the news, Remus nodded, as if the fact that Sirius, of all people, had been the traitor was no surprise at all. In truth, the only thing more surprising was that his knees didn't buckle, and his life didn't end.

Dumbledore hovered, but Remus waved him away. He wouldn't -- couldn't -- break down in front of the old man.

When Hagrid came by a few days later with Sirius's motorbike, Remus told him to put it in the garage.

He'd loved the bike almost as much as Sirius had, loved the freedom and power it represented, even when it stayed on the ground. He took it out that night, and every night for weeks after, on desperate prowls through the seedier side of London. He drank heavily, had sex with strangers, and barely escaped arrest for public brawling and disorderly behavior no fewer than eight times.

So when he wrapped the bike around a tree and spent a few days in a Muggle hospital with three cracked ribs and a concussion, it wasn't actually a surprise.

No one bothered to check up on him. No doubt they all assumed he'd been in on it somehow, that he'd lived with Sirius, and therefore must have known what he'd been up to. Remus hadn't confided in anyone about their personal troubles, and if Sirius had, he'd taken the information to Azkaban with him.

That was fine with Remus. He didn't want their charity, their pity, their knowing looks.

When he got out of hospital, he picked the bike up from the Muggle police. It was, like everything else in his life, wrecked, and he hadn't the money to fix it.

He tried not to remember the hours of research they'd put into making the motorbike fly. He tried to forget the gleam of triumph in Sirius's eyes when they figured it out, Sirius's deep, infectious laughter when they finally got the bike off the ground and spent hours speeding about in the air, wild and free even from the laws of gravity.

He'd believed a lie, and let himself wallow in it for almost ten years. Waking up to the truth was brutal, and reminded him that any sense of freedom he'd felt as Sirius's friend, in Sirius's arms, on the back of his motorbike, was false.

With clipped words and concise, angry stabs of his wand, he removed the enchantments from the Triumph and, in desperate need of rent and food money, sold it to a local mechanic for a few quid.

He never looked back.

***

After a year of teaching him, Remus had stopped being amazed at how much Harry resembled James, because Harry was himself, and not really much like James at all.

What he hadn't counted on, hadn't been prepared for, was how much Harry resembled Sirius, in his anger, his constant questioning of everything, his capacity to care and his willingness to do anything for those he cared about.

Watching them together sometimes made his chest ache.

When Harry was back in school, Sirius liked to sit in the kitchen (the only warm room in Grimmauld Place), drink firewhisky, and reminisce. He was still recovering his memories, still separating the good things that actually happened from his dementor-twisted recollections, and he and Remus spent many nights talking and laughing about their adventures on that old motorbike. Remus didn't have the heart to tell him what he'd done to it.

When Sirius asked, Remus just shook his head.

I sold it. I needed the money. I'm sorry.

From that point, the conversation usually took one of two turns -- angry (You had the key, Remus. You could have accessed my Gringotts account. You didn't have to live like a refugee.), or regretful shading into abject misery (If I had only trusted you instead of Peter. I'm so, so sorry.).

On days when Sirius had begun drinking at noon, the first often followed the second, and there would be angry sex, Sirius bending him over the kitchen table and sliding inside him with barely enough preparation, Remus bucking his hips back, hands pulling furiously at his cock until they both came, and then collapsed, anger spent, down to the floor.

Sex was like flying, and with the situation he was in, Remus couldn't blame Sirius for wanting those few moments of freedom, when the whole world disappeared beneath the white hot surge of pleasure. It was one of the few things Remus could give him, and he gave it without reservation. Several times a day, sometimes, and wore the bruises willingly, a physical reminder that it wasn't a dream, hadn't been a lie, that Sirius was his again, and he, Sirius's.

In the spring, Remus found himself scanning ads in the Muggle papers, looking for used motorbikes.

***

Sirius fell in a long, slow arc, gracefully, the way he did everything. The look of surprise on his face was almost comical.

Remus felt his carefully mended heart break again as he held Harry back from following.

***

Later, when Harry asked to look through Sirius's things, Remus shrugged helplessly and said yes. There wasn't much left at Grimmauld Place, and the few things he'd saved himself, for sentimental value only, were dusty and deteriorating, mementoes he now wished he'd kept in better condition.

They rummaged through his old school trunk, and the few boxes he'd packed on leaving the flat he and Sirius had shared, and Harry made a small pile of things to take with him.

On top of the pile was the owner's manual to a 1968 Triumph Bonneville, Cardinal Red.

Remus raised an eyebrow, but said nothing in the face of Harry's determined expression. The boy deserved some freedom, and if dreaming of his dead godfather's long-lost motorbike would provide it, Remus was certainly not going to stand in his way.

***

When Remus arrived at number four, Privet Drive, the Dursleys were loading themselves into their car. Vernon Dursley's face grew very red, and Dudley hid in the backseat. Petunia sniffed and looked away; he remembered James teasing him and Sirius about having to dance with her at the wedding. She hadn't come, and Remus wondered, all these years later, if she'd ever regretted it.

He nodded as they pulled away, and held up a hand to shield his eyes from the bright August sunlight.

Harry stood inside the dim garage, and next to him --

Remus caught his breath. "Harry?"

"Remus." It was the first time Harry had ever called him by his first name. He strolled out onto the driveway, sounding for all the world like his father -- no, like a man instead of a boy. "Isn't she a beauty?"

Remus found it hard to speak past the tightness in his throat and chest.

"Yes, Harry. She is."

"Come and take a look."

"She's very impressive," Remus said as he examined the Triumph, slowly walking around her, occasionally reaching out to brush his hand across the seat, the rims, the handlebars, all of it gleaming proudly, even in the poorly lit garage. "She looks just like Sirius's old bike," he continued. "His was red of course, but still..." The resemblance was striking.

"The body of this one was red before we stripped it," Harry said after a long pause.

Remus smiled wistfully. "They did only make two colors." Sirius had wanted Gryffindor red, of course, though it wasn't anything close to the same shade.

He brushed his fingers over the engine cover, then his brow furrowed as he rubbed the cover more deliberately. It couldn't be--

"What's this?" he asked a little more abruptly than intended.

"There were some scratches there too deep to strip off," Harry said, brow furrowing in confusion. "Why?"

"It's silly," Remus let his hand fall away from the Triumph and shrugged his shoulders, feeling foolish. "Sirius was too clever to put his name on a clearly illegal motorbike, but he did have something engraved on it for identification. Right there." He let his fingers brush over the scratches again.

"What was it?" Harry asked, reaching over to finger the scratches himself.

"It was rather abstract," Remus said softly; he stared at the bike, remembering that day in the garage, the way Sirius draped himself across it, rode it as if it were the other half of himself, "but it was supposed to be a stylized dog howling at the moon."

Harry was silent for a long time, and Remus could see him processing that, though he couldn't tell what conclusion he'd come to.

Finally, he said, "Well, the parts were very damaged."

"No doubt. I--Sirius's motorbike--" he stopped. He'd never told anyone. And really, anything could have caused deep scratches in the cover. Even if something had been purposely etched onto it, there was no way to tell now. Though it was certainly possible the top set of scratches formed a crescent moon. He rubbed at them once more, closing his eyes against the memories.

He swallowed again. "I helped him enchant it, you know. Along with your parents. I may still have the notes somewhere." His mouth quirked in a half-grin. He had nothing to give Harry, really, except friendship and memories of Sirius and his parents. And this. "We could work on it together," he offered hesitantly.

"I'd like that," Harry said. His hand lingered on the engine cover and his eyes were brighter than they'd been in a long time. Remus remembered how much he liked to fly, and how good at it he was. He grinned, then, and Remus felt himself grin back. "Wanna go for a ride?"

end

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