Harry Potter 1. I

**A/N:** Here is me, turning my hand to multi-chapter fics.

**Thank Yous:** A few are in order here. One to **lilsteves **who offered immeasurable help in Chapter III; another to **scnaggie** who somewhat inspired me in Chapter IX; and a huge glomping thank you to **all of you wonderful people** who have reviewed. I will create enough Horcruxes so that you can all have a little piece of my soul. You know you own it anyway.

**Warnings:** Slash ... duh. And, as this is set during OotP, i guess, at 15, Harry is underage. If this doesn't sound simply irresistable to you slowly back away.

**Because Sirius and Harry don't understand what this is between them, because it's inevitable and necessary, but mostly because Sirius isn't always sorry for falling for his best friend's son.**

**I Wish I Was Sorry – Chapter I**

I wonder what you would say if you knew what I was doing right now. Would you scream at me? You'd probably hit me. Maybe you'd hit me again.

God, who am I kidding? You'd beat the living shit out of me. You were my best friend I know exactly how you'd react. I can picture the way your face would contort with rage, the way your eyes would burn with hate. And what about Lily? If she knew she'd probably cry.

You'd both think me a monster; surely I can't be the boy you adopted as a brother, the man who stood beside you on your wedding day. The friend you made godfather to your first and only child.

Because right now, I'm fucking Harry. Harry. Your son.

And God, I wish I could say I'm sorry. I wish I could sincerely repent this. I wish I could say this was a stupid mistake, something that shouldn't have happened, preferably as a result of copious amounts of alcohol. Fuck, I'd even go with this is the first time and it'll never happen again.

But the thing is, I don't regret this and I've been stone-cold sober every time this has happened and this sure as hell isn't the first time, and I hope to God it won't be the last. And perhaps the worst thing, the thing that makes this whole tragic mess unforgivable, is that I'm not sorry.

But maybe I should explain myself a little better; maybe I should tell you the whole story. I don't want you to think I'm a sick pervert that's just using your son for a quick fuck. No, it's nothing like that.

So, the beginning. I guess it all started in June, after the disastrous and horrific Triwizard Tournament, the night Voldemort came back to power. Dumbledore immediately reinstated the Order of the Phoenix and I was quick to offer him number twelve, Grimmauld Place as headquarters. You know how much I hated that house, James, and I thought I'd seen the back of it at sixteen.

Then in early August Harry left those wretched Muggles and came to stay at Headquarters. Everyone says he looks like you and I wonder he doesn't tire of hearing he has his mother's eyes. I can't dispute that, he does, it really is quite astonishing; sometimes I'll be speaking to him and could swear it's you talking back. But somehow he is completely different to you, he is entirely himself.

Little things that perhaps I shouldn't notice: like the way his eyes half-close in lazy contentment when he sits quietly at the kitchen table listening to everyone talking around him; like the way a slight frown on concentration creases his forehead when he reads the Daily Prophet; like the way he smiles softly when he looks up and catches me watching him from across the room; like the way he gasps my name when I kiss the hollow of his throat; like the way he bites his bottom lip when my hand slips between his thighs.

At first I tried to convince myself that I was worried about him. He was different when he came back from the graveyard. Haunted, disturbed even. And who could blame him for being like that? Seeing that Diggory kid die and witnessing Voldemort's return, it would be enough to send any grown wizard mad. But my God, he's brave. He manages to take most of it in his stride, only occasionally lapses into a desperate panic. You'd be proud of him.

So I told myself that I was keeping a fatherly eye on him, that I wanted to protect him and what I was feeling was natural, like how a parent feels. But when I caught myself staring at him and imagining pinning him to the kitchen table, bruising his lips with kisses, pushing my hands beneath his clothes, making him beg for more, fucking him senseless, I knew I was screwed.

I tried to distance myself from him. I tried to stop it from happening, James, I really did. But I guess that isn't much consolation given that I caved in anyway. I would hide out in Buckbeak's room, hoping everyone would presume I was in one of my infamous moods, a Black family trait, hoping I could be left alone. But he would always find me.

He'd quietly slip into the room and sit beside me on the floor, our backs against the wall. Sometimes we would talk, mostly about you, and sometimes we would sit in silence, there being too many things that needed to be said. Sometimes he curled up beside me and rested his head on my lap and I would gently stroke my fingers through his hair. I don't think he knew what was going on between us – hell, I don't think even I did – all we knew was that we simply had to be close to each other. It felt natural and necessary and inevitable. It felt like drowning.

**Porro...**


	2. II

**I Wish I Was Sorry - Chapter II**

The first night it happened he had been having nightmares again. I knew it must happen frequently because I had heard him pacing up and down the hall in the dead of night, unable to sleep. On those nights I would hear him pause outside my door and I wondered whether he was debating to come in. But he never did and I was always too much of a coward to go to him.

That night, the night it first started for real, I heard him pacing again and the floorboard outside my room groaned as he paused, probably fighting an internal battle. Then the door creaked open and he was under the sheets and under my skin before I even realised what was happening. We just lay there for a few seconds; I think he had surprised himself by crawling into his godfather's bed and my heart was pounding so fast I felt sick.

Then he gave a muffled little sob and with a plummeting stomach I realised he was crying. Before I could stop myself, I had reached out and pulled him to my chest. He buried his face against my neck and I rubbed his back hoping I came across as a comforting parental figure. I prayed to God he couldn't feel my erection. He lifted his head slightly and with a raspy voice wet with tears he whispered, 'I'm scared.' And somehow we both knew he wasn't talking about the nightmares.

I had to fight back to urge to whisper _Me too_.

He lifted his head completely and rested it on the pillow and we just stared at each other for the longest time until my eyes were burning and I thought my heart would burst and it was almost a relief to close my eyes when my mouth covered his.

He made a funny little noise, somewhere between a squeak and a groan, and I drew back after only the briefest touching of our lips. I was about to mutter a hasty apology – even though I was far from sorry – when his hand crept up to my neck and his face was inches from mine, his head slightly tilted. So I kissed him again.

His mouth was soft and I was gentle with him, carefully putting just enough pressure on his lips with my tongue until they parted and I slipped inside. I softly explored his mouth and after a moment he began to kiss me back, tentative little flicks with his inexperienced tongue. My fingers ran down his back, skimming the unfamiliar contours of an adolescent body, and then softly slipped beneath his pyjama top, stroking over his flat stomach and up to his chest. I tried desperately not to think how wrong it was to have my hands up my godson's shirt. I tried particularly hard not to think how wrong it was to have my tongue in your son's mouth.

He was breathing heavily now, his chest rising and falling rapidly beneath my hands and with a jolt I realised the hardness pressed against my thigh was actually his erection. I carefully rolled us so that I was on top of him, kneeling between his legs. I pulled back, finally breaking the kiss, and hungrily drank in the sight of him: hair ruffled, lips swollen and eyes half-closed in what I hoped was pleasure.

I then bent my head to his neck and softly kissed him while I began to unbutton his pyjama shirt. I started off gentle but soon I was biting and sucking his collarbone, knowing I'd leave bruises that would be purple in the morning, and was fairly ripping his shirt from him. It was hard to stop myself from just yanking down his pants and slamming into him, hard and fast.

It had been too long since I had been with someone. I want you to understand that, James. Twelve years in Azkaban never did anything for anybody's sex life. But I'm giving you the wrong impression again. I didn't start this just because I needed to get laid. I want you to understand that too.

So I forced myself to slow down. I pulled away for a few moments, trying to compose myself, and then leant back down to tenderly kiss his mouth again. I felt his hands at my waist, eagerly pushing up my shirt and I had to smile at his boldness. I helped him to pull the shirt up and then I tugged it over my head and discarded it on the floor beside the bed. He reached up and ran his hands over my chest making me shiver; I again couldn't quite suppress a smile at the look of mild wonderment on his face.

My own pyjamas were uncomfortably tight across my groin and it looked like he was in no better state, so I reached down and ran a finger across his waistband before sliding both his pyjamas and underwear down over his hips and thighs. I groaned at the sight of him and had an irrepressible need to feel the warm weight of him against my palm.

I managed to pull off the remainder of my own clothes, by then panting heavily, my erection throbbing almost painfully. I wanted him, the whole of him, so badly. I delicately ran my fingers from the tip to the base of his own erection and tried to steady my violently shaking hand as I looked up to his face.

His look of sheer terror made my head spin.

I abruptly stopped the movement of my hand and tried to swallow the lump in my throat. 'Do you want to stop?' I swear to God, James, I asked if he wanted to stop but he just shook his head, his eyes wide, and attempted a shaky smile. I returned it gently then kissed him as I began to stroke him again; I made sure to keep my hand soft and was relieved when I heard him sigh and he kissed me back with more confidence.

My hand cupped him and I paused to remember the spell, mumbling the incantation against his lips, and I felt my fingers suddenly slick and cool. I trailed my hand further between his legs and he murmured as I ran my fingers over him, wanting to make sure he was properly prepared. I knew it was his first time.

I held my breath as I slowly pushed a finger inside him and, like I expected, he hissed sharply and whimpered. I kissed his throat and hushed him as I pushed another finger inside. His hands flew to my shoulders and his bitten-down nails sunk hard into my skin as I added a third and final finger. I gingerly moved them around, trying to stretch him without hurting him too much but his eyes were tightly shut and his face scrunched up and I wasn't sure what he was feeling.

After a few minutes, deciding he was a ready as he'd ever be, I pulled my fingers out and then positioned myself. He yelled when I carefully drove into him and it suddenly occurred to me that I should have cast a Silencing Charm, but it was too late then. When I was completely buried in him I paused and waited for him to try and relax. He was so tight and his damp heat was enveloping me and he looked so beautiful, I found it hard not to come right there and then.

After a few moments he nodded, a quick jerk of his head, and I pulled almost the whole way out of him. He sobbed when I pushed back inside. It took a while but after several more thrusts he had stopped whimpering and made subtle little groans every time I moved inside him. He was quiet during the whole thing really, particularly compared to me; I couldn't help moaning when I felt his slippery heat sliding over me and as I jerked my hips faster I couldn't stop his name tumbling from my lips.

I brought my hand back to his erection and began to rub it, rolling my thumb over the tip as I felt my release drawing closer. He suddenly gave a little gasp and came against my palm, biting down on his bottom lip and digging his nails into my back. I was seconds behind him; groaning loudly, I came hard, spilling my heat deep inside him.

I collapsed on top of him breathing heavily, then he shuffled slightly and I pulled out of him, muttering 'Scourigfy' before rolling off. It was only then that I dared to look at him. His cheeks were tear-stained and he had half-sat up, drawing his legs to his chest as he sobbed softly. I tried not to look at the small smear of blood on his thighs.

I knew I should have said something, I should have held him, I should have told him I loved him. But I couldn't bring myself to do any of this and instead I turned and lay on my side, my back to him, hating myself. After a few minutes his quiet sobs reduced to the occasional sniff and I heard the rustle of sheets as he lay back down. I wanted so much to turn to him but for some reason I couldn't.

I jumped when I felt him curl up against my back but when his slender arm crept around my waist I laced our fingers together and squeezed his hand. He fell asleep quickly but I lay awake long afterwards, listening to his shallow breathing and feeling my heart break.

**Porro...**


	3. III

**I Wish I Was Sorry - Chapter III**

I was the first to wake the next morning. Our fingers were still entwined and he still had his chest pressed against my back. I wondered whether I should wake him up – had anyone found us like that there wasn't a hope in hell we could have explained it away. But then he had shifted and my eyes flew shut, feigning sleep. I don't know when I became such a coward. You'd be disappointed in me, James – I'm a Marauder who lost his nerve.

He shuffled behind me and untangled our arms, then I heard him stand up and pull his clothes back on. I could tell he was trying to be very quiet. I heard him tiptoe across the room before he silently slipped out the door.

That morning, the morning after, we sat at opposite ends of the kitchen table during breakfast. I don't think we planned it like that – the table was pretty much full by the time I had plucked up the courage to come downstairs – but I won't pretend I wasn't grateful to see an empty seat beside Remus and not Harry.

It was hard, trying to eat something when I felt inexplicably sick and trying to keep track of the conversation with Remus when all I could think about was the way it felt moving inside Harry, and how he had groaned when I touched him, and the way fear had flashed in his eyes, and how warm it had been with him curled up beside me all night.

After breakfast Molly had insisted we all continued waging war against the house in the form of attempting to clean it. Everyone trooped from the kitchen in defiant determination of clearing the drawing room but Harry hung back and I found I too was making no particular effort to leave quickly. When we were alone it suddenly became incredibly awkward and the silence was suffocating. I couldn't think of a thing to say – shit, what on earth are you supposed to say the morning after you've taken your godson's virginity?

I looked up at him; he was standing by the door, nervously twisting the cuff of the too-big shirt he was wearing and looking down at the floor. The sight made my knees weak – whether from guilt that I had done this to him or from the fact that he looked so heartbreakingly innocent I suddenly had the urge to slam him against the wall and fuck him all over again, I didn't want to think about.

'Harry,' I whispered and his head snapped up, his eyes as round and wide as they had been last night. I made a step towards him and to my horror he flinched, seemed to draw in on himself. I whispered his name again and I couldn't stop the desperation from leaking into my voice.

This time he tentatively stepped towards me and after a moment of what seemed to be indecision he walked the whole way over and I folded him into my arms. His shoulders were shaking and I desperately hoped he wasn't crying. He looked up at me, a mixture of confusion and something like fear plain on his face. I bent my head and kissed him; a soft brushing of our lips that sent shivers up my spine.

There was a sudden crashing from upstairs and he jumped away, looking guilty. My eyes travelled down his face to his neck where the collar of his shirt was askew revealing several purple bruises staining his throat.

'You want to hide those. People will see.' I said this matter-of-factly and as though it was perfectly normal to be telling my godson to hide love bites I myself had inflicted during sex. I straightened his collar and fastened his top button while he just stared up at me. I smiled at him and he returned it faintly, then I kissed his forehead before pulling him by the hand out of the room. He clutched my hand tightly the whole way up the stairs and we broke apart just as we entered we drawing room.

That night I wasn't entirely sure if he would come or not but when, twenty minutes after I heard the last person retire to bed, the floorboard creaked familiarly and he slipped into the room I wasn't really surprised. It seemed almost natural. He crawled between the sheets without saying a word and after a few minutes I was on top of him again and our mouths were crashing. I think he was crying, even then, beforehand; I was sure I heard him sob several times but I could scarcely hear it over what sounded like the roar of water but what I think was my heart, ringing in my ears.

Afterwards, he cried again. And again I turned away from him and again he curled up behind me. And again I held his hand as I listened to him sleeping.

The next morning was worse than the one before. Once more, I was the first to wake and after ten minutes of lying and waiting it became apparent he wasn't going to wake anytime soon. I turned over to face him and for a while I just watched him sleep. He really is beautiful.

I remember when he was a baby and I'd come over to your place. I was mesmerised by the sheer peace he radiated when he was sleeping and I was sure I could have spent hours just sitting and watching. But somehow I have trouble relating that baby to the boy who now sleeps beside me each night.

I watched him for a few moments before I gently shook his shoulder and he slowly opened his eyes. A look of shock registered on his face which soon gave way to a sleepy smile but I couldn't help but notice the under-lying sense of panic. I guess it didn't help that I had a morning erection that was probably pressed up against his own groin. We lay for a while before he began to shift and he wriggled free of my arms and again dressed quietly before slipping from the room without saying a word.

**Porro...**


	4. IV

**I Wish I Was Sorry - Chapter IV**

That day we barely spoke to each other and when we did it was about something trivial, something everyday normal. It was absurd that I could ask him to please pass the jam in a steady voice when all I could see when I looked at him was the way he had closed his eyes and turned his head to the side as I had fucked him and dug my fingers into his hips. I knew we needed to talk – we couldn't continue pretending as if everything was fine, as if nothing was wrong. But deep down I was terrified of confrontation, I didn't want to look into his eyes and see that he didn't want this, that he wanted to stop. I don't think I could have stopped.

Three sounds had become familiar to me: the creak of a floorboard, the squeak of a door, the rustle of sheets. Three sounds that filled me simultaneously with trepidation and excitement. Three sounds that made me hard. When he climbed into my bed that night I was on top of him far too soon but I thought that the sounds of his gasping and my moaning might drown out the voice in my head that kept demanding I talk to him. Our clothes were pulled off by my importunate hands and my fingers were inside him, twisting and stretching, and we hadn't said a word to each other.

I pulled my hand away and brought his thighs up around my waist, pressing closer to him. That's when he gave a broken little gasp and I stopped to look at him, really look at him. His arms were lying motionless by his sides, palms flat against the bed, and his head was turned to the side, his eyes fixed unblinking on the wall as his teeth pressed hard into his bottom lip. My stomach plummeted – so the confrontation was finally here.

'Harry, look at me,' I murmured. 'Look at me.' Slowly he turned his head and looked up and I could see he was biting his lip to prevent tears from spilling. 'Harry, tell me what's wrong.' It was such a ridiculous thing to say, we both knew what was wrong – I was about to fuck him and afterwards he'd cry and I'd turn away from him and tomorrow we would pretend it hadn't happened and then it would start all over again.

'It hurts.' I wasn't expecting an answer and for a moment I was too surprised to reply. 'Here,' he whispered and surprised me further by taking my hand and pressing it to his chest. I could feel his heart beating rapidly against my palm. 'It hurts so much.' His voice cracked and the tears he had been fighting spilled down his cheeks. My throat was suddenly tight and I didn't know what to say; I could feel my heart beating, throbbing, aching in time with his.

His legs tightened around my waist and I saw him clench the sheets in his fist. His eyes closed again and he whispered, 'Make it go away, Sirius.' He sounded so young and I was cruelly reminded I was on the brink of fucking a child but I buried the thought and gripped his thighs as I pushed inside him. He whimpered and I saw his jaw tighten and I paused, buried deep in him.

'Don't stop.' It was a ragged breath but it was all that I needed. I began to thrust in and out, going as slow as I could bear and I could hear him murmuring under his breath. His hands came up from the bed to curl around my neck and I kissed his throat as my hips shoved faster and harder. He was whispering, half to himself I think, a constant chant through gritted teeth. 'Don't stop don't stop don't stop.'

I snaked a hand between us and cupped him as his fingers tangled in my hair and I bit and sucked his neck fervently. He was sobbing by now, a desperate choking noise between his words and his hips were raising to thrust into my hand as he gasped and murmured. And suddenly with a strangled cry he was coming, spilling over my palm and tightening around me. I groaned his name and sunk my teeth into his shoulder as I released inside him.

We lay panting, me still inside him and his legs still clamped around my waist. He was still murmuring 'Don't stop' breathless and disjointed. I raised my head from his neck and kissed his mouth to stop his words. I carefully pushed his legs from my waist and pulled out of him, causing him to shudder. I lay down on my back, catching my breath and he wriggled closer. His arm snaked across my waist and he rested his head on my chest; I slid my arm down his back and slowly traced patterns over his warm skin.

He fell asleep quickly, his breathing soft against my chest but I remained awake, staring up at the ceiling in the dark, knowing that there was still much more that had to be said between us.

**Porro...**


	5. V

**I Wish I Was Sorry - Chapter V**

Harry was like liquor – destructive, dangerous, addictive. Each time I kissed him I sank a little deeper; each time I touched him I gripped a little tighter; each time I pushed inside him I fell a little harder. Time was becoming blurred – was it three nights or four? – and I could remember only a haze of noise, dark, heat interjected with the sharp contrast of abstract memories, details like vivid snapshots laced through a faded album: the spill of dark hair on my white sheets; the sharp angle of a hip arching beneath my touch; the soft hiss of an intake of uneven breath.

He was under my skin, burrowing down into bone, until my blood flowed with his heat and my heart beat with his name, pounding _Harry Harry Harry_. It was ridiculous, James - it would have been laughable if it hadn't made me want to break into sobs. An absurd ratio of the time we had been intimate to how my heart was swelling painfully. Fuck James, when did I become so maudlin?

Is this what it was like with Lily? No, I shouldn't compare me and Harry to you and Lily. I can't. He's your _fucking son_.

And that's what should haunt me, that's what should make me stop. But I've become terribly skilled at pushing away persistent problems. It's how I manage to ignore Harry's widened eyes and promise myself we'll talk later. It's how I manage to convince myself it is normal to look at my godson across the breakfast table and remember the feel of his cock in my hand. Was it two nights or three? Surely it was fifty, a hundred, infinite.

It was the third (second? fourth? countless?) morning and with his gasps of 'Don't stop' still echoing in my ears I let him once more slip wordlessly from my room. I heard him sneak down the hall back to his room then I heard him whisper 'It hurts' as though he was still lay beside me. I buried my face in the pillow - it still smelt like him - and choked out dry sobs as I murmured 'I know, I know,' and cursed myself for the inability to say it when he needed to hear it.

The day had no meaning. It was nothing more than a stretch of hours spent murdering time until I could lose myself in the crook of his neck, the hollow of the small of his back, the heat between his legs. I stared at him and wondered if he was thinking of me in the same way. When he was playing chess with Ron was he remembering the feel of my mouth on his throat? When he was discussing schoolwork with Hermione was he thinking about my fingers trailing the inside of his thigh? Could he remember the exact feel of me pushing inside him and filling him whole?

I was a madman possessed and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't stop myself thinking like that. I tried James, I tried so hard, just like I tired to stop this all from happening but I failed at that too and before I knew it I found myself breathless and hard just from catching sight of him. I don't know how I got away with it.

I sat waiting for him that night, twisting the bed sheet between my fingers and breathing unsteadily, head spinning with anticipation. If I had stopped to think properly I probably would have been embarrassed by my state of desperation but I had abandoned proper thinking the moment I had pressed my mouth to his. Maybe the minutes were crawling by twice as slow but I knew that it was long past the usual time for the floorboard to creak and I was suddenly filled with a cold dread. It had never occurred to me what I would do if he didn't come to me one night but I found my answer when I realised I was padding down the hall towards his room.

Pausing outside his door I asked myself what I expected to do. He shared a room with Ron, I couldn't very well pin him to his bed right there. Would I drag him to my room? Would I coax him? Would I _force_ him? Maybe I would just leave him be. I creaked open the door and a sliver of light from the dimly lit hall fell across his empty bed.

Unsure whether to feel relieved or worried I made my way downstairs, hoping my inkling was right. I found him in the kitchen, sitting at the table with his hands pressed beneath his thighs and an untouched glass of water before him. Quietly, carefully – you'd be surprised how easily fifteen year old boys startle – I stepped into the room, pressing the door shut and coming to stand behind him. A gentle hand to his shoulder and he half turned his head, one corner of his mouth curving in a smile.

'Hey,' I murmured, suddenly feeling unprotected away from the small confines of my bed. He leant his head back against my stomach and closed his eyes, sighing softly as he wriggled his hands out from beneath his legs, bringing one up to brush against my own resting on his shoulder. I bent down then and pressed small kisses to the side of his neck and he sighed again, this time with a shudder that I could feel running the length of his spine.

Neither of us knew quite how it happened but we found ourselves in a sudden tangle of arms, his fingers in my hair, my hands beneath his shirt stroking his back and our open mouths bumping clumsily, tongues swiping haphazardly as I pressed him back against the table, noting that I didn't recall him standing up.

'Sirius,' he gasped, his tongue half in my mouth, and I was certain my name had never sounded so good. I had a leg pushed between his, my knee rubbing against him and I whispered nonsense to him as my mouth attacked his neck. I could feel his hand pressing my head down, encouraging my teeth and tongue across his throat and I bit him rather harshly wanting to taste all of him.

That was my last coherent thought – of wanting to devour him whole – before I suddenly found myself on my knees before him, my hands tugging at the waistband of his pyjama bottoms.

'Wha- What are you doing?' I couldn't decide if he sounded more scared or excited.

'Shhh,' I soothed, stroking a thumb over his hip, dazed by his sheer innocence. 'It's okay.' I had managed to pull his pants and underwear down to his knees and was panting from our heady proximity. I pressed a kiss to the inside of his thigh and he suddenly moaned 'Oh God' as I think it hit him what I was about to do.

His knees were trembling and I slid my hands around the back of his thighs, stroked them up to rest at the small of his back, one more kiss to the crease of the top of his thigh and then I took him into my mouth. He gasped and one hand flew to my head, fisting my hair, as the other gripped the edge of the table, knuckles turning white. Running my tongue up and down his hard cock I could hear loud groaning but couldn't distinguish if it was emitting from my own throat or his. Maybe it was both of us.

His hips were beginning to jerk up and I eagerly swallowed convulsively around him wanting more and more, wanting all he could give. My hands were roaming all over him and he was panting heavily, his legs shaking dangerously and his fingers twisted in my hair as his moans began to sound once more like my name. I quickly slid one hand down to my waist and inside my own pants, wrapping my fingers around my aching cock and stroking myself in time with my flickering tongue and the thrust of Harry's hips. He gasped a fusion of moaning and cursing as he came and I swallowed all of him, salty and warm and strangely comforting, and a moment later I was spilling over my own fingers and whispering his name.

Arms wrapped around his waist, I pressed my face to his stomach and closed my eyes as I felt his abdomen rising and falling with his rapid breathing. After a few moments I raised my head and helped him to pull his pants back up then got to my feet. We kissed and I knew he must have been able to taste himself on my tongue and then we went upstairs to my bedroom where we slept in a tangle of limbs and hair and bed sheets.

**Porro...**


	6. VI

**I Wish I Was Sorry - Chapter VI**

His fingers curled at the nape of my neck; my hand resting on the gentle curve just below the small of his back; his head lay on my pillow with his face pressed to my shoulder; my leg thrown over both of his, pushing our bare hips together. This is how we slept.

At least, that was how Harry slept while I lay awake following the rise and fall of his chest against my own. I found it insanely hard to fall asleep, couldn't close my eyes for the fear of him slipping away. His breathing was soft and his lips were slightly parted against my collarbone and I still had the faint taste of him in my mouth and my whole body was _aching_ for him. My fingers were slowly stroking back and forth over his warm skin and I was thinking I might just manage to drift into sleep tonight when I heard it: a disjointed mumbling that was rapidly forming coherent words as Harry twisted out of my arms and gradually got tangled in the sheets.

'Not Cedric... Don't kill Cedric…'

_Oh Christ_.

'Dad… Help me, Dad…'

At that moment, I hated you, James. I hated you for leaving us both: for leaving Harry without a father; for leaving me without a best friend. I hated you for being gone and leaving me to pick up the pieces. I hated you for making me Harry's godfather, for leaving me to watch him grow up, for trusting me to protect him. And in the next breath I hated myself - I was supposed to look after him and I ended up fucking him.

There was a constant stream of words tumbling from his mouth now as he fisted the sheet and he kept begging you, James. _Help me, help me, help me._ He shouted for Lily once and that's when my heart lurched and I seized his shoulder.

'Harry, wake up.' I shook him quite forcefully. 'Wake up.'

His eyes suddenly flew open and he was panting, his cheeks wet. He stared at me for a moment, incomprehension burning in his eyes and then he began to sob.

'Oh, Harry.' I gathered him to my chest and then pulled him on top of me, his legs falling either side of my hips as he tucked his head under my chin. I gently stroked his back and whispered to him; I could feel his tears damp against my throat. Soon the crying subsided and he was making little snuffling noises as I smoothed his hair from his face and kissed his forehead.

And then he whispered something, the words so soft he might not have actually spoken at all.

'Don't leave me, Sirius.'

_Oh, Harry_.

'I'm not going anywhere,' I murmured and suddenly found my throat was tight. How was it that he could have such power over me? His hands were clutching at my neck and I felt his knees tightening around my thighs and he was pressing his chest down against me.

'I don't want to lose you, too.' His voice was urgent and he was pressing harder against me, trying to burrow deeper because he didn't understand he was already too far under my skin. And then he was murmuring again, a broken whisper lost in my neck, repeating two words in a haunting mantra. 'Help me.'

I didn't know what to do. This was supposed to be your job, James. You were supposed to be the one to comfort him when he had nightmares, the one to hold him when he couldn't sleep, the one to promise you'd always be there for him. Because you would know what to say, you would know how to reassure him, you would know how to show him fatherly love. All I could do was mutter nonsense words that didn't mean anything, stroke my hands through his hair and over his back and show him a perverse love that would destroy him.

_Help me._ I needed him to stop because the desperate tone of his voice was making me dizzy and the desperate feel of him rubbing against me was making me hard and the desperate flutter of words against my neck was breaking my heart.

_Help me._ But there was only one way I knew how to replace the constant spinning of thoughts with a white-hot blindness and I really didn't think that's what he needed right now.

_Help me._ Yet his warm breath ghosted over my throat and I suddenly found my hips jerking up, seeking a friction that would bring oblivion.

_Help me._ And he was pushing his hips back against mine, disregarding rhythm or timing and just thrusting senselessly in a spill of urgency, fear, need. I rolled us over, our legs tangling as I shoved down against him, and his hands frantically scrabbled at my shoulders.

I couldn't stop myself. It didn't matter that we needed to talk, it didn't matter that I hadn't put up a Silencing Charm, it didn't matter that neither of us could breathe and that his fingers were digging into my skin hard enough to draw blood. All that mattered was that we kept rocking our hips together, that he kept making those soft noises in the back of his throat, that I kept running and didn't let it catch up to me.

The corners of my vision were turning to fuzzy darkness and I suddenly felt like crying because it had never once been like this with anyone else. No one else had ever made me feel like my head was going to explode or that my lungs were going to collapse or that my heart was going to stop. I suddenly realised that I couldn't help him because I needed him to help me. My hand was wrapped around both of our cocks and a strangled sob escaped from my lips.

'Can you feel it, too?' he suddenly whispered. I looked up to his face and was startled by the dark green abyss of his eyes and had to stop myself from looking away when I saw so much reflected there. I saw Lily and I saw you and then I saw myself – lost, hopeless, desperate. He sounded scared and all I could do was nod because that's when I realised that we couldn't fight this.

My hand was flying between us and he bit his bottom lip as a muffled groan got caught in his throat and then he was thrusting up into my palm and spilling over my fingers. My own orgasm hit me with a brutal force and I could see only stars as I forgot how to breathe and feverishly clutched at his hips. I collapsed onto him and neither of us spoke as we lay gasping and, in Harry's case, quietly whimpering.

I pushed his fringe out of his eyes and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to his neck and whispered to him but I don't know what I said because all I can remember is the pounding voice in my head that started out sounding like Harry but changed to resemble myself and in the end I didn't know who it belonged to.

_Help me, help me, help me._

**Porro...**


	7. VII

**A/N:** The whole time i was writing this all i could think of was the scene in OotP in the train station and the heartbreaking way Gary delivers the line 'It feels like it did before'. Gah, i want him.

**I Wish I Was Sorry - Chapter VII**

There was a war coming, James. Just like last time.

Do you remember what it was like? How everywhere there was the subtle murmur of calamity to come; how everyone whispered of the shadow settling over; how eager we were to join the fighting, to stand up for ourselves, to play the good guys. We were kids, not understanding that it wasn't about super heroes and villains, we were kids who didn't know what we were getting ourselves into.

I remember the buzz of excitement that throbbed in my veins and how I craved to join the battles that were beginning to smother our world. I remember how we had got drunk some nights and let our over shrill laughter mask the frightened little boys hiding beneath. But mostly I remember a recklessness, a sense of urgency to do something and a carelessness if I made it through the next day. We were kids and we were fools.

There was a war coming and somehow I didn't feel the same. I would sit in Order meetings and feel a sudden tightness grip my chest and a coldness chill my spine. It was a while before I actually realised it was fear.

I was scared, James, and I didn't know who to turn to. You weren't there to reassure me with bold stories of how we would defeat Voldemort single-handedly or tell me that we would get through it simply because we were _Sirius Black and James Potter_ and we could do anything.

And in the middle of all this there was Harry. Harry, who was tearing my heart in two without knowing, who had me feeling sick with terror something would happen to him, who crept into my room at night and whispered frantic words against my neck as I slid inside him. The mounting war was adding to our desperation and though we never spoke about it, it was clear in the way we clung to each other and the way we both silently wished for the night to become endless that we were afraid. The under-lying sense of panic meant that we kissed, touched, fucked harder and faster and with a need so great I was sure it would destroy us.

There was something pulling at us, something neither of us could begin to understand, and all we knew was how to hold each other as we stumbled through a sensation that felt strangely like falling. I wanted to ask Harry if he felt it too but I think I was afraid of the answer. Besides, I was sure I could see my hopelessness reflected in the way he set his jaw as he thrust up against me and the way his mouth shaped around silent words as he trembled and spilled between us and the way our eyes locked when I was buried in him and for a moment neither of us could breathe.

When he sneaked into my room the next night I was already sat awake, my head reeling from the earlier Order meeting, and when he crawled across the bed I pulled him into my lap. His legs circled around my waist and his arms around my neck as I pressed my face to the curve of his shoulder and tried to muffle my sobs. He's so young, James, and the things I hear in meetings. They turn my blood cold and I always have to swallow the lump in my throat. I didn't want this for him; this what a parent feels, isn't it, how you would have felt? It's just that I don't know how to show him fatherly love; I can't tell when I cross the line between hugging him like a godfather and kissing him like a lover.

I felt his hand tangle in my hair and he gently tugged my head back and pressed our mouths together.

_Help me. Help you. Help us._

Our hands were all over each other and it seemed to say _It's alright_, we reassured each other with trembling fingers and curling tongues and when he began to wriggle out of his underwear my hands fell to my waist and fumbled with my own boxers. Perhaps you think that it was all about sex, that I only saw our time together as a chance to fuck him, but it is more than that, James. So much more. So much more that I can't begin to explain it and it's too vast to contemplate, too vast to try and understand.

We were both naked and I lay back against the pillows, needing him to stay on top of me, straddling me, because I thought his weight would help keep me grounded. He leaned forward slightly and braced his hands on my shoulders as I pressed my hand between his legs and pushed one finger against him, into him. I had one hand gripping his hip, trying to keep him still as he pushed back against my other hand, which was carefully preparing him. He was whimpering and thrusting down against me by the time I deemed him ready and I pulled my fingers from him and grabbed both of his hips.

Slowly, slowly, I eased him down onto my cock and he hissed through his teeth as I arched up into him. We paused, panting, and just stared at each other for what could have been seconds or hours but it didn't matter because I was inside him and for one blind moment we were both complete again. Then he pulled up slightly and pushed back down and we both groaned at the slippery heat of our touching skin. He began a careful rhythm - pulling up, pushing down, pulling up – and I held his hips with shaking hands as my own hips began to thrust up to meet him pushing down.

His mouth managed to find mine and our movements sped up, becoming almost frantic as we rocked against each other in a choking exigency. He was moaning and cursing under his breath and my fingers somehow found themselves wrapped around his cock as the coiling tension in my stomach began to spin out of control. I bucked up as he slammed his hips down and then we were coming together, strangled cries and clutching hands, and for that one burning second we forgot how broken we were.

He fell down onto me, his whole body shaking as he panted against my neck. Gently raising his hips, he shifted slightly so I could pull out of him and we rolled to lie side by side. I cupped his face and kissed his mouth, his cheeks, his eyes, his scar and he sighed a shuddering breath as his limbs curled around me, entwining us together. I pulled the sheets all the way up over our heads and in the dark confines, tangled with Harry, our sweat-soaked skin pressed together, it was easy to pretend that it actually was alright.

**Porro...**


	8. VIII

**This Chapter is in honour of Deathly Hallows. May it be everything we hoped for.**

**I Wish I Was Sorry - Chapter VIII**

Our time was becoming divided, splitting like fissures in rocks, starting as nothing more than a minute fracture then spreading to become a fathomless chasm, and soon it was easy to believe I was living two separate lives: the day and the night.

The day was a time of everyone: the Order, the Weasleys, the children. A time when masks were worn and we all pretended not to know the secrets that the others kept, when we could let frail laughter smooth over the worry and fear and contempt, when I tried to hide the hopelessness eating away at me and tried to disguise the need in my face when I looked at Harry.

And then the night. The night was made just for me and Harry, Harry and me, just _us_. We laid ourselves bare, opened ourselves to each other and there was nothing left between us but the naked bones of truth, unmarred and undisguised by layers of pretence and lies. We didn't always need words and sometimes there weren't any that we could think of so instead we showed each other how dependent we were with the shaking thrust of our bodies moving together. At night we put away the masks and stopped the charade and for that one moment we could be ourselves and not worry about the consequences.

But sometimes it got mixed up and the time spilled into one and I couldn't remember how I was supposed to act. Sometimes I found myself with my hand stroking his thigh beneath the kitchen table or with my fingers trailing down the length of his back when nobody could see. Sometimes I caught that needy look in his eyes and I recklessly dragged him to an empty room and we slammed against the wall, our mouths clashing and our hips jerking.

It was dangerous, I know that, James. Sometimes I feel sick thinking about how risky it is, how easy it would be for someone to stumble in and catch us, but somehow that doesn't matter when his hands are clutching my shoulders and I'm murmuring promises against his jaw. It was like being a teenager again, except it wasn't so much about lust-driven groping; it was more about the frantic rocking of our bodies that said we needed each other as we tried to satisfy the devouring hunger inside us.

We were in the drawing room, finishing off the last of the clearing while Molly and the kids got started on the parlour. I think everyone presumed it was good for us to spend time together, something about bonding as godfather and godson. Christ, if they knew. His arm kept accidentally brushing against me and I could hear him breathing softly, could almost feel him. It was odd but we didn't talk. I think we found it a little awkward, not knowing what to do when there wasn't the shadowed darkness of night and bed sheets to mute the sharp edges of our raw emotion.

His elbow bumped against me and just like that I was hard. I told you, James, just like being fifteen again. It was insane, there was no reason for this to be happening so intensely yet it was impossible to ignore and I suddenly realised my fingers were pressed against the small of his back.

'Harry.'

'Hmm?' I could tell by the way his murmur trembled in his throat that he was trying to stay calm even though we were both crashing out of control again.

'_Harry_.'

He turned his head and he must have seen the unadulterated desperation in my face because his eyes burned bright and almost silently he simply said, 'Oh', but the sound was swallowed by my mouth clamping down over his and chased away by our tongues thrusting together. I had his chest pushed against the wall and his head twisted awkwardly so our mouths could still bump together. I was already rubbing up against his arse and I snaked a hand around his waist, down between his legs and felt that he was just as needy as I was.

His fingers were already fumbling with his zipper and I found my own hand impatiently yanking my trousers down over my thighs. He had managed to push his underwear to his knees and that was all the undressing we could manage as my hand eagerly grabbed his arse and then I pushed my spit-slicked fingers into him. My wand was over the other side of the room and there was no time to stop for any lubrication spells. He moaned loudly and I remembered we also needed a Silencing Charm but I couldn't even contemplate stopping to do that so instead I pushed my mouth to his ear and tried to hush him.

'Shh, we have to keep quiet. Keep quiet for me, Harry.'

He responded with a muffled groan and bit down hard on his lip as I kissed the side of his neck and moved my fingers inside him. He jerked his hips backwards, whining impatiently and I quickly pulled my fingers away and carefully pushed my cock into him. He made a high keening noise and reached a hand behind him to tangle in my hair as I began to rock into him, slamming him into the wall with each thrust. I was gasping against his throat and the corner of my mouth twitched in a smile when my hand wrapped around his cock and he tried to simultaneously thrust into the tight circle of my fingers and push back against my jerking hips.

There was a part of me that was getting off on the thought of how risky it was. We could be discovered any second and even though that thought should have made me stop it only served to send my hips slamming harder and my fingers stroking faster. I could maybe blame the weeks of being cooped up on making me crave any form of excitement or risk but if I was honest with myself it was strangely erotic to see Harry trying to stifle his cries as I fucked him. I knew I would feel guilty for it later but right then all I cared about was the rush of adrenalin in my stomach and the tight heat around my cock.

I pushed into him harder and rougher and he became incapable of keeping quiet, groaning and cursing loudly, and I had to clamp a hand over his mouth. He gave a strangled moan against my palm and then he was coming, fast and hot over my fingers with his head thrown back against my shoulder. His body tightened around me and pulled me over the edge and I fell into orgasm clutching his hips and crushing him to the wall.

His knees buckled and I had to support him as I pulled out and turned him around; he leaned heavily against me and panted erratically with his forehead resting on my shoulder. I managed to get us both properly dressed again and there was a moment of breathless calm before guilt set in and I made a vow to never get time confused again.

**Porro...**


	9. IX

**I Wish I Was Sorry - Chapter IX**

The cotton of the bed sheets was cool beneath my sweating palms and smooth against my cheek as I lay very still, eyes closed, mind closed, trying to ignore the insistent gnawing in the pit of my stomach. I was nothing short of an absolute wreck and hard as I tried to disregard all thought of it, the only thing clouding my mind was the image of Harry choking back guttural whines, Harry gasping for breath with his head on my shoulder and his fists in my shirtfront, Harry stumbling wordlessly from the drawing room with messy hair and a red smudge on the side of his neck.

I was stifled by guilt, James. And rightly so. I was angry with myself – for taking advantage, for losing control, for thinking and acting selfishly. When I'd had Harry pressed up against the wall, when I'd had my hips rocking into him, when I'd had my hand frantically stroking him nothing had mattered, nothing had connected to make logical thought, nothing had screamed out for us – _me_ – to stop. But now, lying in the dark hours later in a bed that felt unfeasibly empty and just _too big_, I was wretchedly blessed with the ability of thinking clearly, which really meant that my conscience was hollering loud enough to make me listen.

Although I tried to pretend I wasn't, I was counting the minutes and I knew with a sickening certainty that it had been far too long since headquarters had fallen into the silence that comes with the last person in the household retiring to bed and that Harry wasn't curled up beside me yet. Just when the mounting unease was beginning to swell up through my stomach and expand in my chest the door creaked and my heart leapt.

He hesitated by the doorframe and I strained my eyes to discern his figure in the dark; he carefully made his way to the bed and after a pause he slipped in beside me. He was moving with timid, measured actions and I could sense an uncertainty as he shuffled closer to me. Not that I could blame him. He probably half expected me to pounce and begin ripping his clothes from his trembling frame. My conscience was hissing that I only had myself to blame – of course he was startled by my practically jumping him earlier but I wanted him to understand.

I wanted him to know how easily I was gripped by an intense craving, all of it for him; I wanted him to know how I physically _ached_ for him, a burning throbbing yearning pain that spread from my chest; I wanted him to know how my mind became an incoherent fog and how all I knew was _want, need, take_.

My arm curled around his waist and as he pressed against my chest I sought his eyes and tried to begin piecing together an apology, a reason, a confession. My tongue felt useless and heavy and my mouth had difficulty shaping around the right words as my voice stuttered and halted.

"I'm sorry … I shouldn't … we … before …"

I realised I was shaking my head and my lips curled around half-formed words as my hands pressed into the small of his back and suddenly, inexplicably, there was a fluttering in my stomach as it swiftly became glaringly obvious what I wanted to say to him. I felt as though we were poised on the cusp of something – something vast and terrifying and heart-stoppingly dangerous – and as we teetered precariously I hopelessly groped for the words that were dancing just out of reach at the back of my throat. I couldn't fathom how to show him the swelling in my heart; I couldn't comprehend how he would be able to understand the heat coursing through my body.

I couldn't for the life of me think how to tell this beautiful, broken boy, who had your face and Lily's eyes, that I loved him.

I pressed my face to his neck and choked over unthinkable words that I couldn't bring myself to say and instead stumbled into whispering _I'm sorry_ in a desperate reiteration against his warm skin. I was sorry for breaking him like this and for losing myself and for letting us tumble out of control and for things I wasn't even sure of yet but I knew would inevitably come to pass.

His fingers were twisted in my hair and he was murmuring a reply that at first I couldn't hear. His lips brushed my temple and slowly I made out his words; open-mouthed kisses against my cheek and we were chanting together; and then he was whispering the words into my mouth and chasing away my own with his tongue. He was still mouthing reassurances as we kissed and I could hear him mumbling around our curling tongues.

_It's okay, it's okay, it's okay._

I was vaguely aware of his hand trailing down my neck and then chest but it wasn't until his fingers dipped below my navel that I gasped sharply. Our mouths broke apart, a trail of our shared saliva briefly connecting us for a moment, and his wide eyes feverishly searched my face as though seeking some sort of permission. I nodded distractedly, aware that my eyes were already half-closed and my mouth was a round O.

He bowed his head and I was sure there was a faint blush creeping across his cheeks as his fingers slid down my stomach and into my boxers. With his free hand he carefully tugged the garment down while the other stroked over my hipbone and I kicked the underwear from my feet. He inhaled a shaky breathe, biting his bottom lip and then his fingers closed firmly around my cock

"_Fuck, Harry_."

I bit back a loud groan as he began sliding his hand up and down and I could hear him panting heavily. There was a look of utter concentration on his face and I knew that he was trying to please me by reciprocating what he had learnt by touching himself, his experience coming from pleasure by his own hand.

I was gasping and beginning to thrust up into his palm and simply the thought of _Harry's hand_ on _my cock_ was enough to push me to the brink of orgasm. There was a constant stream of cursing and moaning slipping from my mouth and I would have been mortified by the wanton things I hissed if I hadn't been too far gone to care. His thumb rubbed over the tip of my throbbing erection and I arched into the touch, swearing obscenely.

"Oh God, oh yes, fuck Harry, oh fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck_."

He seemed to falter slightly as I rocked into his fist and I quickly wrapped my fingers around his as I whispered encouragement. I looked down between us and the sight of our hands moving together, fingers entwined, tipped me over the edge and I came crying Harry's name and spilling into his palm.

He wiped his hand on my discarded underwear and looked up at me from beneath his fringe, smiling a little self-consciously. I kissed him and he pressed up against me, his cock nudging against my thigh, hard and weeping and begging for attention. I pushed him onto his back and brought him to orgasm with curving lips and a flickering tongue and one finger pressing up inside him.

We curled our bodies together and as he buried his face against the hollow of my throat I almost managed to forget about waves of guilt and broken apologies. Yet I fell asleep thinking of falling over brinks of dark voids and words burning tongues to cinders and stumbling into the irrevocable unknown.

**Porro...**


	10. X

**I Wish I Was Sorry - Chapter X**

Time was slipping away from us; I sometimes fancied I could see the grains of sand sliding through the hourglass bulbs, counting away our time grain by grain. The second hand of the grandfather clock in the upstairs hallway seemed absurdly loud as it moved at a pace much faster than normal and behind it followed the minutes, the hours drawn in fluid arcs of circles that ate away at the remaining summer days to the insistent tune of tick tock tick tock. My breath had actually caught when I realised it, but there was scarcely days enough left to count a week before the end of the summer, the end of this distorted reality that at once could just as easily be one of my dreams as one of my nightmares. Ultimately, the end of _us_.

I suspect you'd laugh at me, a derisive noise of scorn, for being so blind and not foreseeing things that were undeniably inevitable and rather incredibly obvious. That is, I suppose you'd laugh at me if you didn't want to rip me limb from limb for taking your little boy this way. I do briefly wonder if I ever thought, during the moments of tangled sweat-dampened sheets or in the stretches of the blank hours of daylight, about what would happen when he went back to Hogwarts. I suppose I must have known it – whatever _it_ was; sex, fascination, obsession, _love_? - couldn't have lasted but it still felt like a punch to the gut when I thought that I would have to give this up, this intoxicating underworld of slick flesh and slanted mouths. At least, I would have to stumble on until I next got to see him, but how long away would that be? I've already lived for too long counting down to an unknowable goal.

I knew he was starting to despair too. I knew from the queer way a hush would slowly fall when he crawled into my bed and we spent what felt like hours just lying there, steady breaths and unspoken words, in a haze of careful touching that wasn't quite touching, more a still press of fingers against his back and a brush of lips to my neck. I knew from the way his hands twitched feverishly at the small of my back and the way his thighs clamped around my waist and the way his broken moans trembled against my mouth when I kissed his throat. And then there was the way desperation leaked from his lips and had him hissing obscene words as his eyes burned. One night, as he lay curled around my back with his fingers digging into my stomach, he suddenly whispered, 'I want to fuck you.' The words sounded absolutely filthy coming from his child's mouth but they still lit a trail of fire in the pit of my stomach and all I could do was nod and try to remember how to breathe. His hands shook the whole time and he kept losing the rhythm of his uneven thrusts, but when he looked down at me and his gasping mouth quirked in a smile I found it hard to make anything else matter.

The days – which had always seemed to drag on, taunting me with what I was not allowed to touch before the fall of darkness – were also fitting away at a sickening speed, until I almost wished the minutes would linger, regardless of the burning limbo they promised. I would have been happy being able to just watch Harry, my eyes tracking him from across the room or flashing him seemingly innocent looks that were laced with dangerous hunger; I would have been happy to have only the moments when he sat next to me at dinner and clutched my hand under the table, his palm clammy, or the times when he slumped against my arm and pressed his cheek to my shoulder and nobody ever thought to question the affectionate gesture of a godson. But even those moments were quickly running out and I would have given anything to have them back again.

Do you remember how we used to think the world would wait for us? How we used to think time would slow down and be at our command? And why was that? Because we were indestructible, because we were brave and fierce and Gryffindors? Because we were _young_? We were wrong, James. So wrong. But then, maybe you've already figured that out. I guess you know damn well the world is in sympathy with no one, especially those foolish enough to think they can rule it. And it doesn't change; age means nothing to a timeless world and fear even less. I was scared – scared that it would be an unbearable stretch before I would see him again, scared that he would go back to Hogwarts and forget _this_, scared he didn't need me like I needed him.

There was the flurry of the last days of summer, the sweet-tasting crush of sunlight days drawing into warm dusks that brought moths to the blackening windows, and then the discreet transition to a cold bite carried on the night and late dawns that spoke of September and school. The house – stupid, dark, suffocating house – was bustling with those last minute frenzies that are customary to the last day of the holidays and in the disarray of spell books and broomsticks and kids I could not find a moment to be alone with Harry. I knew that it would inevitably come later, later under sly darkness and thorough Silencing Charms, but I feared that somehow some unnameable iniquity would prevent that one last crash of mouths and limbs and hearts, the heart-tearing _goodbye_ that I was concurrently loathing with a twisted stomach and racing towards with an aching chest.

The world doesn't wait and perhaps for once I was grateful, a bittersweet feeling tinged with panic, and it was the rush of children and washing and last suppers and bed and then all too soon after far too long it was quiet and I was waiting. The house settled with low murmurs of creaking and I lay still on cold sheets, trying to swallow my crashing heart down from my throat and to cease the trembling in my fingers. I could have lain there for hours and I wouldn't have known, I had no sense of time; seconds could be days and the seasons may have tumbled full circle without my knowledge I was so lost in the web of all that the summer had been. But then, perhaps it was wrong to think of this alongside the sweet days of summer, perhaps we should have found each other in the dead frost of winter with nude trees scraping the window pane instead of the soft brush of leaves setting the background whispers to our joint chorus of gasps and cries. We were dark creatures moving together in the complicated shadows of the damned and our moments of deceit and trickery had no place in the soft heat of summer.

And then, amid the almost silent whisperings of the old house, the sharp creak of the door shot across the room and clenched around my lungs. It was like a slap across the face and suddenly it could have been that first night, that night when it all started for real and everything began to crash out of control, when the soft turn of the door handle had us pivoting on a life-shattering moment that neither of us could ever have guessed and what was once an innocent groan of hinges was now a dirty betrayal of lewdness. The gentle press of feet against worn floorboards and I was sitting up, I was ready for him; it seemed cruel that I had finally come to realise what we were, had sorted through the tangled strings of frayed hearts, when there was no time left for us. The rustle of sheets and he was _there_, pressed up against me with hopeless fingers in my hair and desperate legs tangled with mine.

'Harry.'

And then there was nothing else that could be put into words. Really, James, what on earth was I supposed to say? _I'll miss you_. _You're tearing me apart_. _I'm dying_. _I love you_. I pulled him down and he pushed hard against me as though to rip through my flesh and curl into my soul, though surely he had already done that, and there were no audible farewells, nothing as blunt and stinging as a spoken _Goodbye_ because it would have ripped us both in half, and there was nothing I could do but kiss him and kiss him as I fell and fell and fell.

It is strange how a mass of complication, of things too dark and too twisted to name, can be compressed into a handful of memories to hold like crumpled photographs in a tight fist. Confusion and awkwardness became the image of Harry's head resting in my lap as we were silent in Buckbeak's room, early summer at the smudged windows; fear and longing was that first creak of the door and the damp press of novice lips; hunger and abandon became my mouth wrapped around his cock and his knuckles white against the kitchen table; hurt and aching, his sobs as we rocked together; desperation and turmoil, my mouth pressed between his thighs and the pressure of my tongue, his hands in my hair; and love, love became the lost moment of pushing inside him and breathless eyes wide. This was what I could see, vivid colour and burningly beautiful, behind my eyelids as I touched him.

He guided one of my hands to the front of his pyjama bottoms and pulled the other one behind him, pressing it to the top of his thigh just below the swell of his arse. His breath was rough as his open mouth gasped at my cheek and he rubbed my hand against himself through his pyjamas.

'Need you,' he choked. 'Need you inside me… Need you.' Panting, I nodded and began to push at his pants as his hands fumbled with my boxers. He arched his slick body and rubbed against me, hands sliding against the back of my neck and teeth nipping along my jaw. My fingers found their way between his legs in a familiar push of slickness and tightness and his voice broke as he moaned my name once, twice. I was suddenly overcome with a thought of how different things could have been, really should have been. What if you were still here? How would things be then, James? I know how they would be: you would be here for him now; you would be the one taking him to King's Cross tomorrow morning; you would be the one to think about him and worry about him and love him. But instead – instead, it was me: me who was with him, shaking and thrusting; me who thought about him with a racing pulse and clammy hands; me who worried about him because war wasn't just on the horizon, it was banging at the door with iron fists; me who loved him and couldn't find the words to tell him. And then it was me who was kissing his open mouth and me who had my fingers sliding inside him and me who was groaning his name as I rubbed my cock against his thigh.

Again, I felt that fleeting white-hot flicker of hatred for you and I couldn't stop myself from cursing you for leaving us both. But then he was pushing my hand away and curling damp fingers around my cock and guiding me inside him and as I pushed into that tight heat I could think of nothing but _JesusFuckingChristHarry_. He choked over my name again and whined low in the back of his throat and it was this moment that always tore me apart, the moment when I wanted to die, because with Lily's eyes widening and your mouth gasping and Harry's face breaking all I could see was your little boy and I hated myself. And that is where I stop and think…

I wonder what you would say if you knew what I was doing right now. I wonder if you'd hit me (I know you'd beat the living shit out of me) and I wonder if you would scream at me (I know your face would contort with rage and your eyes burn with hate) and I wonder about Lily (I know she would cry, tears of anger and despair). But now, as I'm slowly pulling out of Harry, your son, and carefully pushing back inside, it's difficult to think about the raw betrayal and how I was your brother and how I stood beside you on your wedding day. It's particularly difficult to think about how you made me godfather to your first and only child or how wrong it is to have my tongue in your son's mouth, my hand around my godson's cock. I can't think about how wrong it is because it feels so good, so right, and he hooks one leg around my back and clings to me and he is so achingly perfect I can't breathe.

He gasps wantonly and his stuttering breath hitches when I thrust deeply into him and pause, pressing messy half-kisses to the corner of his mouth. He bucks his hips and twists fingers in my hair and then we're both whining and thrusting together, as though it's possible to become one person, and our moans and cries are not human, barely even animal, they are raw screaming emotion that can't be restricted by prim, proper words and must instead break in a slurred spill. And he's sobbing, choking and suffocating and _sobbing_, clinging to my shoulders and arching his back to try and drag me closer and I bury my face against his neck and I realise my cheeks are wet with tears and I sob once, harsh and rough, because he's killing me, his nails digging into my back and his hand pulling my hair and his hips crashing against mine, it's all tearing me apart, ripping at my chest and stabbing my heart.

He yells and suddenly his body goes taut, he claws at my back and I'm sure he's drawing blood, and he comes, untouched, snapping and unravelling with a strained moan. I keep moving, unevenly, and I fuck him clumsily through it all, through the white-hot crush of breathless pleasure and I whisper urgently to him, nonsense and encouragement and, slipping out, things I wasn't supposed to tell him, things with an unthinkable order of _You_ and _I_ and _Love_. His head falls back against the pillows and his hand slides limply to the small of my back and there is the slight pressure of his fingers against my arse and with such a simple touch I'm coming, so hard, and I can't move, I can only shake violently, buried deep inside him and cry out once, a drawn-out note of a lost heart.

I fall down onto him and we're both panting obscenely and trembling alarmingly. I move to pull out of him but he suddenly shakes his head and pushes his hand hard against the back of my thigh.

'Stay in me,' he whispers and his voice is hoarse. I rest my head on his shoulder and close my eyes; my fingers gently stroke over his collarbone and chest and he curves his hand around the base of my neck. And then there's a lump in my throat, restricting my breathing and making it hard for my heart to beat, because what I want more than anything right now is to stay like this forever, to be able to fall into oblivion with Harry right beside me. But I know that I can't have that, I know that I'm going to end up with a broken heart, I know that I'm going to destroy him, I know that we're going to get hurt and there will be no happy ending for us. And I want you to know, James, that in this whole disaster, that is the _only_ thing I am sorry for.

**Peractio**

**A/N:** It has been a pleasure writing this. **Thank you for reading**, i hope you enjoyed. Maybe there is cause for a companion fic from Harry's POV... Thank you once more.


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