m e x i c a n . s t a n d o f f

Mexican Standoff
[by victoria p.]

Rating: PG

Summary: Mexican standoff : n : a situation in which no one can emerge as a clear winner

Spoilers: Major spoilers for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I mean it!

Notes: Thanks to Mousapelli for listening to me wibble. Written more for my own need for catharsis than anything else. I couldn't get the various conversations out of my head. Both AU and HBP-compliant.

Date: July 19, 2005

He was cold, and it was dark and the stone beneath his cheek felt oddly smooth. The stone in his cell had been rough enough to cause scrapes. His whole body tingled as if he'd been asleep for a very long time, and ached in places he'd forgotten he had.

When everything stopped hurting as much, he pushed himself onto his knees and then up onto his feet. He had two goals in mind, the same two goals he had had since Christmas -- protect Harry and love Remus. He would get his revenge on Wormtail if he could, but he had decided Harry and Remus were more important, and he thought James and Lily would agree.

He didn't know how long it had taken him to break free of the nothingness of the veil, and he was careful, as he made his way through the Department of Mysteries, not to be seen.

Once outside, it was pure joy to turn into Padfoot and run through the nighttime streets of London, barking at birds and people alike.

Number twelve, Grimmauld Place was still standing, unwelcoming as it had always been. Sirius transformed back into a man and as he reached for the doorknob, the door swung open.

Hermione stared at him for a long moment, and he stared back, unable to make his voice work.

Ron ambled down the hallway, taller than he'd been the last time Sirius had seen him, and older, too. Sirius wondered vaguely how long it had been.

"Hermione, what are you-- Oh. Oh shit. Harry. Harry!"

Harry appeared with a loud crack, wand drawn. "Ron? Hermione? What--" Only after checking that they were all right did he actually turn to see Sirius standing on the doorstep.

Sirius shivered; he wasn't sure what spell Harry had just cast on him, but Harry seemed stunned by the result.

"Sirius?" he asked, his voice rough with disbelief.

"Hello, Harry. Can I come in?"

They moved out of his way and he strode through the door, noting that things had changed in the time he'd been gone. The house had undergone a thorough cleaning; the furniture and clutter that had been there when he'd left that night to rescue Harry was gone.

"I like what you've done with the place," he said admiringly. "I think the sole improvement I'd make is a lit match to the curtains and let the whole thing go up in flames."

Ron and Hermione exchanged a startled glance, and Harry's lips quirked in a half-smile. "Professor Lupin said you'd say that. Actually, he said you'd want to use this." Harry reached into the back pocket of his jeans and held out small silver lighter. Sirius felt his chest tighten. He hadn't seen it in years.

"Your mother gave me that," he said. "Christmas, 1978."

"I know." Harry's smile was full now. "We were going to use it tonight."

Sirius grinned back. "You were going to set the old place on fire?"

"Just to watch it burn," Harry answered.

"So tell me, what's going on? You're all well? What's happening with the Order? Why isn't Remus here with you? He always did have a yen for fire."

They settled down on the old rug in the drawing room, and Harry, Ron and Hermione explained how just that past June, Harry had defeated Voldemort by destroying the horcruxes in which he'd kept pieces of his soul.

"Wait, you're telling me that Regulus actually didn't bollocks things up? That he helped--"

They nodded solemnly and continued the story, each taking turns to tell of their quest for the horcruxes, Snape's eventual heroism-- "No fucking way in hell!" he interrupted and they laughed -- and Voldemort's final defeat. While it was obvious there were things they weren't telling him, he figured he could get the whole story later. He had interrupted something, and he wanted to know what.

"We were going to set the house on fire tonight," Harry said. "Since it's Halloween. It seemed fitting."

Sirius bowed his head, remembering the blasted remains of the house in Godric's Hollow, James and Lily's bodies in the wreckage.

"The veil thins," Hermione murmured and Sirius looked at her sharply.

"What?"

"It's a Muggle superstition that the veil between life and death thins on All Hallow's Eve," she said.

"So that's why I was finally able to break through."

"Looks like it," Ron said, producing a bottle of firewhisky four glasses. After pouring out a drink for each of them, he said, "To the living." They drank.

Harry was next. "To the dead."

"And to those who've come back," Hermione finished, and they all drank again.

They looked at Sirius. "To you, for getting the job done," he said. "And surviving."

They drained their glasses and then Harry jumped up. "Let's commit arson and go home."

The fire was beautiful, everything Sirius had ever dreamt of when he was a teenager and again the year he was locked up inside the house. Magic kept it quiet, safe, but there was always the chance it would spiral out of control, and he loved riding that edge. He always had.

They took him home and fed him up, let him shower and shave and do all the things that one had no need of beyond the veil, but which suddenly required his attention now that he was back.

As he curled up on the sofa in their living room, he tried not to think of what Harry'd been through, what he'd been unable to protect him from. Instead he thought of Remus, and fell asleep dreaming of their reunion.

***

The house, when Sirius found it, was small but neat. There were lupines planted underneath the bow window, and a jaunty jack-o-lantern sitting on the front steps.

He took a deep breath and rang the bell, hoping he didn't look too ridiculous -- it had been a long time since he'd worn Muggle clothes, and he was no longer the good-looking young bloke he'd once been.

The door opened and all his clever speeches dried up when he saw Remus standing there, barefoot, wearing jeans with frayed hems and a t-shirt that had once been black, his hair nearly all grey.

His eyes widened in shock, and his voice was cold when he said, "Is this some sort of sick joke? Halloween is over."

Sirius forced himself to speak. "Remus, it's me."

"I don't believe you."

"It's really me," he insisted. "Ask me something only I would know."

Remus shook his head. "It's impossible."

"Nothing is impossible, Moony." Sirius grinned, but Remus's face remained carefully neutral.

"What are you doing here?"

"I've come back for you."

"I didn't ask you to." Remus's voice was flat. He pulled the door closed behind him and came out to stand on the steps.

"But you must have known I would." Sirius looked around. "Nice little house you've got here."

"The dead don't rise."

"When have I ever followed the rules?" He laughed, trying to hold onto the joy he'd felt on seeing Harry again, the anticipation he'd had for this meeting.

Remus laughed, too, and Sirius felt the tension in his shoulders ease somewhat. "True, true. But it's been a couple of years and--" He laid a hand on Sirius's arm. His left hand.

The ring finger of which bore a narrow gold band.

Sirius felt his stomach drop in the same nasty combination of shock and horror he'd felt when he'd figured out Peter was the traitor, in the few seconds when he'd realized he was going to die.

"You've gone and done something permanent," he said hoarsely.

"Well, you were dead." Remus looked at him, then looked off into the distance, using his hand to shield his eyes from the pale autumn sunshine. "That seemed pretty permanent to me."

"Remus." A plea.

"I thought you'd want me to be happy."

"I was dead, Remus. I didn't really care one way or the other." This time his laughter was edged with hysteria. No wonder the kids had avoided his questions.

"And now?" Remus sounded amused in spite of himself, a tone as familiar as breathing to Sirius.

"Now, I want you to be happy with me."

Remus reached out and cupped his cheek for one too-brief moment. "I'm happy you're back. Of course I am. You're my best friend, and I've missed you terribly." Sirius held his breath. "More than that, I can't give you."

"Remus, please--"

"I'm sorry, Sirius." And this time Remus did look him right in the eye. "I love my wife."

Sirius swallowed hard and dropped his gaze. "Who?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

Remus gave a soft huff of laughter. "Tonks."

"You--" Remus raised an eyebrow and Sirius rapidly revised what he was going to say, "are very lucky."

"Yes," Remus answered. "Yes, I am."

***

Tonks threw herself into Sirius's arms, crying, when she came home from work that night, and insisted Sirius stay for dinner, which Sirius did, even if the sight of Remus kissing Tonks ruined his appetite, and made him realize he didn't want to take up her offer of the couch. Harry's flat was good enough for now.

When he discovered that Remus worked from home, editing Defense Against the Dark Arts textbooks, he found reasons to drop by nearly every day, and they would spend hours talking and laughing. It felt good. It felt the way it should have after he escaped Azkaban, but before he was confined to Grimmauld Place.

Sometimes he would forget that Remus wasn't his any longer, but Remus was always gentle, always tactful, and Sirius thought he saw answering heat in his eyes despite the distance he set between them.

Tonks took his presence in her home, his monopolizing of her husband with a great deal of equanimity, and he wondered sometimes if Remus just hadn't told her, if there were some way she didn't know, because she didn't seem worried at all. She treated him with a mixture of affection and exasperation that reminded him of Lily, and sometimes he thought it would be enough, that he could be happy with as much of Remus as he was allowed and no more.

But there would always be something -- the inadvertent brush of Remus's hand against his when they were having dinner and Remus passed the salt, or the way Remus's brow furrowed in concentration and those long, ink-stained fingers tapped his thin, chapped lips when he was lost in thought -- that made Sirius realize he still wanted more.

When the full moon rolled around, he and Remus went to the Forbidden Forest and ran free for the night, and Sirius wished life were still as simple as it had been when they were sixteen. He liked to forget that their lives had never been simple, and that he had often been the cause of his own worst problems.

Remus clung to him after the change, and Sirius was sure he had no new scars, was positive Padfoot was better than the Wolfsbane, which had lately been unavailable anyway. Though he told himself he was going to learn to brew it. He had been decent at Potions, and if Snape were capable of it, certainly he was as well.

He Apparated them both back to the small house where Tonks was waiting, and helped her put her husband to bed.

The next full moon was the same, but in January, they found their way back into the shack and fell asleep. Sirius woke wrapped around Remus, and for a moment, he forgot that it wasn't his rightful place anymore. Remus muttered something in his sleep and curled closer, burrowing his face into Sirius's neck, and Sirius found it hard to breathe. He lay there listening to the wind rattling the old windows and the soft sound of their breathing.

The sharp crack of Apparition startled him and he looked up to see Tonks staring at them. Remus woke, smiling at him, confused for a moment, and then pulled away as Tonks moved toward the bed.

The cold air against his skin after Remus's warmth reminded Sirius of death, and he wasn't sure if coming back had been a blessing after all.

***

Sirius wondered if it wasn't just a little pathetic that the highlight of his week was his pint with Remus down the pub. He knew the others thought so -- well, maybe not Harry so much, but Kingsley and Bill and Hermione. Worst of all was Andromeda, introducing him to pretty young witches left and right and prattling on about how this was his second chance to settle down and start a family, when what he wanted was one scarred, grey and unfortunately married werewolf.

He finished his pint and was on his second when Remus sat down across from him.

"Where shall we go for the full moon this month?" he asked, licking foam from his upper lip. Muggles certainly had a magic all their own when it came to brewing, he thought. The wizarding world had never come up with something as good as Guinness.

Remus looked down at his pint, long fingers wrapped tightly around the glass.

"I will be in the shed in the backyard."

Sirius looked up, narrowing his eyes. "What?"

"I think it's best if you don't join me anymore for the full moon. In fact," he took a deep breath, "I think it's best if you stop coming round altogether. At least for a while."

Even though, after last month, Sirius had expected something like this, he still sputtered and choked. "She put you up to this, didn't she?"

"She?"

"Don't play coy with me, Remus. Your wife." Sirius hated it, hated the way he said the word, which he hated also, hated that it sounded like a curse when he said it, but it felt like a curse to him, like the Cruciatus, ripping him up from the inside. "You're doing this because of your wife."

"She did not." Remus's jaw clenched and Sirius felt a small tinge of triumph that he could still get under his skin.

"Look me in the eye and say it."

Remus stared at him. "Tonks did not ask me to ask you this."

Sirius believed him. "That's not what I meant and you know it."

"That's all you're getting."

It was nearly enough, though Sirius couldn't stop pushing. "You seem to be saying that a lot lately."

"You seem to be misunderstanding the nature of my marriage."

"James never--"

A muscle twitched in Remus's jaw, and there was a hint of anger in his voice. "I am not James."

"Believe me, I'm well aware of that."

"You and James were never--" Remus stopped, looked away and took a long sip of Guinness, and Sirius saw it. The old jealousy, the one thing Remus had never quite been sure of.

"Just because you wanted him doesn't mean I did," Sirius said finally. "And even if I had," which, except for five minutes after they'd won the Quidditch Cup in their sixth year, he hadn't, "I chose you." He repeated it softly, almost to himself. "I chose you."

Remus shook his head, and his laugh was low and bitter. "But not when it really counted. Never when it really counted." He stood and pulled money from his pocket. "And now I've chosen Tonks." He tossed the money on the table. "Don't come on Thursday night." And he walked out. Sirius knew better than to follow.

***

Sirius was having lunch when Tonks appeared at the door on Friday.

She looked tired, though her hair was bright pink and she was dressed for work. She sat down across from him, accepted a cup of tea gratefully, and without preamble said, "It's much better for him when you're there."

"I know."

"But you didn't come."

"I know when I'm not wanted, thanks."

"I'm--" she stopped and he was glad, because he didn't want to hear about how sorry she was. "I didn't interfere before, when you were--"

His laugh was bitter, mocking. "Do you really think you could have?" She flinched but he didn't stop. "It didn't take you long after, though, did it? My half of the bed was still warm when you--"

"And of course, I'm the one at fault there," she shot back. "I took advantage."

He laughed again. "Oh, no, I'm sure you had your work cut out for you. I wonder, was it, 'I'm too poor' or 'it's too dangerous,' or any of the half dozen other excuses he recycles like those damned old robes he gets from Goodwill?"

"You left him nothing," she said, voice rising.

He slammed his glass down onto the table. "A will made twenty years ago in the middle of a war, and you're going to hold that against me?"

"You thought he was a spy."

"And he thought I was a murderer."

She shook her head. "He doesn't hold it against you."

"I know he doesn't. And he's made his choice. I'm trying to respect that."

"He loves me."

"I don't doubt it."

"But you still think--" she stopped and turned away.

He hated himself a little for saying it, but he couldn't stop. "Yes. Easily. And we all know it. Oh, he would feel terrible--"

She caught her breath, and he could see she was forcing herself to remain calm. "You wouldn't?"

"What? Feel bad about it? I might. I've always liked you, after all. But," he shrugged, "I've lived with worse."

"Do you really think he would--" she began, but he cut her off.

"He wouldn't have told me to stop coming round if he was sure he wouldn't. And you wouldn't have made him tell me if you didn't think he would."

"I never-- I didn't--"

"You didn't have to ask," Sirius said scornfully. "But you meant for it to happen."

She stood. "This is getting us nowhere."

"There is nowhere for us to get, Nymphadora."

"We both love him," she said, "and want him to be happy."

Sirius laughed again, genuinely this time. "Moony understands you have to take happiness where you find it. Which he has done, and more power to him. I only wish it were with me." He stood as well. "He's not going to thank you for coming here."

"He doesn't need to know."

"Keeping secrets from your husband?" Sirius tsked. "That can't be good."

"I see this was pointless. You're as mad as the rest of the family."

And before he could respond to that, she was gone, leaving him with the taste of shame on his tongue.

end

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Additional note: I seem to have a thing about Harry torching Grimmauld Place. This is like the third story of mine I've put it in. My pyromania is showing again. *g*

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