Fic Post -- Umbra Nihili , THE END -- Adult.

Title: Umbra Nihili
Author: Cluegirl
Rating: NC17.
Pairing: Sirius/Harry
Disclaimer: All characters are the sole intellectual property of JKRowling. No infringement is intended, nor shall any profit be made from my having borrowed them for a few weeks.
Warnings: None to speak of, beyond the face that one of the pairing is, well, dead. Oh, and if you're under the legal age of consent in your home state or country? Do us both a favour and do NOT read this. It'll still be here when you're 18, and that way neither of us has to go to jail. kthx.
Author's Notes: This fic was done with three very dear friends in mind: nimori, amanuensis1, and waccawheels, the Trinity of Sirriness. I hope you all enjoy this, Ladies. Oh, and for those who wonder about the title, it means, (more or less) Shadow of Nothing.
Betae: spiderine for Britpicking and Sirius-check above and beyond the call of duty, and jenna_thorn for her Fine-Toothed-Comb of Comma Eradication. Many thanks, my dears, many many thanks indeed!
Feedback: Yes please!
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13




"And you're not to come in," Harry says, voice low and urgent in the amphitheatre's echoing gloom. "Not until I call you, no matter what you hear -- or smell," he adds with a glance at Remus. "It's very important. You have to promise."

"Somehow I don't think that's what Dumbledore had in mind when he sent us in here with you, Harry," Weasley says, fidgeting on the bottommost step. "And I think if he knew you'd meant to come back to the Department of Mysteries tonight, I sincerely doubt he'd have allowed-"

Remus lays a hand on Weasley's arm and shakes his head once. "Charles," he says, "Leave be."

Charles, is it? I scowl and move behind Harry's reflection possessively.

"But Remus, this is mad!" He waves his hand at the dais, and the hulking stone they've all been doing their best not to look at since they first walked into the room. The one I've been taking particular care to keep in sight. "That Veil killed Sirius Black! Nobody really knows exactly what it can do, or where it goes -- and you want to leave Harry and the mirror of Erised in here alone with it?"

"No, I don't want to," Remus says, holding Harry's gaze, as though by that alone he can forestall the building snit we can all see the kid working up to. "I want to stay in here and see exactly what he's going to try and do. I want him to explain it all to me first, to show me his research notes, quote his sources, and give me some kind of reassurance that tonight isn't going to become a new feature in my nightmares."

Hell, I'd rather like that myself. But I've been watching Harry closely this last few days, and I've seen the gears whirling behind his sudden stillnesses, his flickering glances at whatever mirror I'm haunting, his constant patting of his right front pocket, making sure his Talking mirror is still there and whole. He can hardly explain what he's doing -- he doesn't know himself.

But I promised him trust, and by Godric, trust he shall have, even if it kills me.

Again.

Harry, of course, only looks away from Remus' patient stare and bites his lip.

"But then again, I'm used to not getting what I want," Remus sighs after a moment. "And if I have to do this on faith, at least I know that Harry's the last person in the world who will be reckless around that Veil. It's already cost him too much."

"And that's good enough for you?" Weasley asks in patent disbelief. Harry's scowl could burn through stone, but Weasley seems completely oblivious to it, focused entirely on swaying Remus around to back up his intervention.

And Moony, the best of us all at calling (and beating) the odds, gives a sober nod. "Yes, Charles, I do." He lets the ginge sputter for a moment, then cocks his head in a measuring gaze. "Why isn't it enough for you?"

"Well, because I have questions-"

"Fine," Harry bites out, slinging his bag to the floor and bracing his hands on his hips, every inch of him vibrating with dare. "Go ahead -- ask me a question then!"

And Merlin, but it's a laugh to watch Weasley struggle for it. Even Moony has trouble keeping his lips from twitching. "What's- what are you planning?" Weasley manages at last.

Harry boosts his chin. "An experiment."

"What kind of an experiment?"

That gets an eyeroll. "The kind where you need an arch and a mirror and a bit of sodding privacy, obviously!"

I have the luxury of snickering openly when Weasley goes all pink at that. Moony has to make do with a cough, and Harry a smirk. "Well… What've you got in the bag then?" He challenges, as if to make up the coup.

"Charles."

"No, it's all right," Harry growls, dropping to his knees and undoing the flap. "Go ahead and search it if you're really so sure I'm going to betray you!"

"Harry," Remus says.

"Hey now, I never said-" Charlie sputters.

Harry rolls right on over both of them. "But I have to say, I think this is a pretty way to treat someone who's meant to be your ally, isn't it? Would you act like this if you were here with Snape?" And at least they've the grace to look abashed. "I mean sure, he's older than me, but I'm not a Death Eater, am I? And I did swear all the same oaths as you did. Do you think I was lying?"

"That's not what I-" says Weasley.

Remus takes hold of his arm as if he's prying the shovel out of the idiot's hands. "No, Harry, nobody thought you were lying."

"Yeah, it's just-" Weasley goes on digging.

"Do you want us to keep a lookout on both doors, or do you mind if we wait together?" Remus makes his point at last, as much by the pressure of his fingers digging into Weasley's arm as by the tone of his voice. I never worked out exactly how Remus Lupin could make a polite tone of voice into such an inexorable command, but even I'd never managed to stand up to it. I suppose it must be a werewolf thing.

"It doesn't matter," Harry accepts the not-apology with more grace than I think I might have done. "You'll know it if I need you, I promise."

"We'll be ready when you call then," Remus promises and turning, starts up the steps. "Charles?"

Weasley hesitates, scowling over Harry's shoulder at the hulking arch and whispering veil. For a moment I think he might make another grab for the shovel, but then he stops to take a look at Harry's face. I can't say what it is he sees there -- a lack of fear or the proper respect, determination or resourcefulness, blind hope or well-earned confidence, or maybe just that scar peeking out from under his fringe like living proof that the kid's luck comes through. Harry only stands there and waits, while for my part, I wonder if I could resolve the stand-off with a quick hex, and would it be worth Harry's ire to watch that freckled git's face go all over spotty.

"Charlie." Remus uses the Voice again and Weasley breaks the tableau with a shiver.

"Yeah, all right Harry," he says, and follows his would-be lover up to the door, "But if you need us-"

"I'll call," Harry says. "I Promise."

Then the door snicks shut, and sends the full stop echoes skittering.

---

Put a man on the edge of a precipice -- wind in his face, heart in his mouth, and toes at the edge, nudging pebbles out into gravity's grip -- and you can learn a lot about him.

Most will look down, fascination or fear shocking them still as they stare the abyss in the face and can't look away. Maybe i's their death they're staring at in all that empty space between their toes and the sudden stop at the end of the drop. Or maybe their minds are transfixed by something more abstract, measuring distances, calculating odds or rate of decent, but either way it's the same -- for that edge-on moment, down is the only direction that exists for them.

Others, like Snape, look around behind them, preferring to put the drop at their backs rather than take the risk that an enemy will put them over it without them knowing. People like that are rather likely to jump off themselves -- either to spite anyone who might be thinking of pushing them, or else by accident when they startle at a passing shadow.

And then there's men like me. Put me on the edge of a cliff, and I can't keep my eyes off the horizon. It's not that I don't see the fall, or don't understand just what a long way down it really is, or what landing would do to me. It's not that I'm unaware of the vulnerability of my position -- I, who have been pushed to my doom on no less than two very memorable occasions, have become rather sensitive to that kind of peril, thank you.

It's just that the sky is so very large from here, and so close, in a way, that one almost thinks one could offer God a fag and a pint, and that the old man would laugh and stand his round. And there's miles and miles of possibility stretching out beyond the six-or-so feet of earth below me, where my death might or might not be lurking. Miles, leagues of ground where a man could walk or a grim could run, or a broom could fly for days. And when the world spreads out before me like that, how can I possibly believe I'm not to taste of it?

Then laugh at the drop, spit once over the edge, then turn around and walk away. And that's the kind of man I am, I suppose.

I know I'm on the precipice tonight. I know it in the Veil Chorus's endless, idiot question, stirring about my face like the wind from below. I know it in the calm that spreads through my bones like a drug as I watch Harry pull the Mirror of Erised out of his satchel, set it to face the Veil, and then enlarge it until the two frames balance like menhirs across the length of the dais. I know it in the gritty chill of the Arch's ancient stones under my fingers as I face into the rustling Veil and just… look. There's a horizon here, I can feel it. My whole Self yearns toward it like a compass needle seeking North. I only want for Harry to show me which way my Pole lies.

Because he knows -- that much is certain. He might not know what, exactly, he's doing here, but there's something in him that's attuned to the Way of Things. I can tell that in how he sets his talking mirror at right angles to the Arch and Erised, but then moves it three times before he's satisfied with its placement. I can tell it in the way he looks for a long moment at his wand before placing it and the satchel on one of the benches. He's feeling his way, just as I did when this thing between he and I began -- no guide but his instincts, no guardian but his heart. As if there could ever be a better.

I spit through the Veil, then turn my back on it. Harry's just there when I turn, staring as I did, at the blowing tatters, listening to the Chorus, peering at the unseen horizon as the conjunctions begin to line up. Death looms before him, dreams behind him, faith cracked and battered, but whole at his right hand. I place its mended reflection -- my own desperate hope -- in the remaining quarter, and it feels right, right, right as Harry's image blossoms across it.

There's power here -- more ritual than spell, and more instinct than either -- the elegance of it, the simplicity and symmetry takes my breath away. Three mirrors like a cauldron of glass, and the Veil like twisting steam above it. This is what Magic was once; form and symbol and will and want pressing potential into fact and laughing in the face of logic. Power, rising like flame from the sum of simple, primal connections, reflections, selections -- spinning gold from straw, building a fortress from nothing more than snow and song and the power of a Name. The Name of a thing, which, like the reflection of a thing, is not quite the thing itself…

Harry glances at me -- just a flicker of green beneath his glasses, but I understand the summons. I fancy, as I go to his side, that I can sense Voldemort, entranced and distracted by the mirror-faced doppleganger behind Harry's determined stare. That thought would have panicked me once -- did panic me last week, in fact -- but now it's just like the cliff's edge, and he's no more than a dark smudge of possibility below. A lurking shadow of maybe, but maybe not. Because if Harry doesn't know what he's doing, and if I don't know what he's doing, how likely can it be that Voldemort will? How likely can it be that he'll spare one glance from exactly the sight Harry wants him to see shining out of that mirrored, vulnerable face? How likely is it that Erised's known all along what it meant to do?

Whatever does happen, one thing's certain -- it'll be interesting.

I move behind Harry, place myself between him and Erised's chilly face. I wind my arms about his warm, slender reflection, and complete the company of seen and unseen in the glassy enclosure. Arch and Mirror, Talker and Reflection, Godfather, Godson, and Spirit Unholy.

Halle-fucking-lujah

"Sirius," Harry says, and his reflection leans back into my embrace. "I'm still a virgin, did you know that?" He laughs, a dry little sound, and slides his robe off his shoulders. "I figure you probably do. I figure that's probably why you would never do anything with me beyond… well, you know."

It isn't why -- not really. I shake my head, but he doesn't wait for my reply. "I've been reading your book. The one you gave me last summer, remember? There's a lot more in it than legilimency, but I guess you probably know that too." He toes off his trainers, kicks them out of the circle, and tosses his socks after. "There's a whole chapter on blood -- how to use it, how to weigh it, how to get power out of it -- I figured it was pretty dark stuff, but then I thought, with him still out there, I had better look into it anyway, you know?"

I know. Dear Merlin, I wish I didn't know, but I do. He shrugs off my hold and begins unbuttoning his shirt while I try and resist the urge to shiver. I fix my eyes on the line of his throat as the shirt comes away, the graceful arch of his shoulders, the winging scapulae, and the spine, like hidden gems beneath his velvety skin. I can see gooseflesh rise as he continues.

"It took me awhile to puzzle it out on my own," he says. " I couldn't very well let Hermione read that bit to me, could I? Anyway, I know I didn't understand a lot of it, but I did get one thing; it said that blood, offered freely, was a very powerful thing. And virgin blood was the most powerful of all."

"No," I say, grabbing his reflection by the shoulders. I give him a shake then tug him back into a fierce hug. "You're no damned sacrifice, Harry! I won't have it -- not for me!"

He doesn't respond. Maybe he doesn't hear, though the talking mirrors hold us both between them. His hands move over my arms in a brief, reassuring caress before he thumbs open the snap of his trousers and tugs them down over his narrow hips. I close my eyes, bury my nose in his hair and breathe him in for strength. The precipice seems quite different to me, now that I realize I'm not the only one standing on the edge.

Harry gives a sigh, and his hands slip off mine, drift downward to caress his chest, his belly, to trail his seeker-quick fingers through the downy, dark thatch that's just beginning to spring up beneath his belly. I see his cock give a twitch as he grazes it with his thumb, and I don't know what he's doing, but maybe I'm beginning to get the idea.

"I've been hearing those voices in my head for so long," Harry says, nodding at the Veil, and the unseen Chorus behind it. "Always this question, over and over, for months since you died." He strokes deliberately along his cock, and shudders his arse against my own very interested member. "I've had the shadow of my dearest wish inside my head since school began as well. And I've had you -- almost had you, I mean -- for long enough to know for sure what I want."

He's fully hard now, and so am I. I slide my palms over his chest and belly, as low as I can reach while still holding him firm against me, nudging my erection between the softness of his arsecheeks, and searching my soul for any ghost of my previous reticence. I'm somehow not surprised that I can't find a trace of it.

And even less surprised that Harry seems to know that too. "What do I want…" he sighs. "I want to give you my virgin blood. I want to give you life, and I know you want to take it from me." He pushes out of my hold, leaves me trembling with want, and burning with the loss of him as he drops to his knees to search through his robe's pockets. "I think it's time we both took what we want," he says palming a small bottle of oil.

Some inexorable gravity draws me away from his kneeling reflection. It wheels me about to face into Erised's steaming chill just as Harry -- the real Harry -- turns around himself, raises his green, green eyes to mine, and steps up close to the glass. "It's time now, Sirius," he says, laying his palm flat against Erised's pane, just over my heart. "Please."

And suddenly it's right. What was always wrong before, the idea that had always made the fabric of my dead self shiver with dread, now makes me hard and hot and hungry as my beautiful Harry kneels up against the glass, pours the oil down between his spread cleft, and reaches back to press his fingers in.

I know what I'm doing.

I'm kneeling down behind him/ his reflection/ him, only him, and I'm kissing the velvet at the base of his spine so that he shivers and arches back against my lips. I'm trailing my own fingers through the oil that drips from his bollocks, and I'm pulling his hand away to replace it with mine. I'm curling one hand around his eager, scarlet cock, oiling its length with long, firm strokes while inside him, my fingers press and roll, stretch and flex, and mercilessly tease his swelling prostate.

Harry comes suddenly, with a wailing cry of protest. I hold him through the spasms, stilling my fingers within his gripping, silken arse, but not removing them as he sobs out his release.

"Sirius," he gasps, just the faintest shadow of childish petulance in his voice. "That's not- Why did you-"

"Shhhh," I tell him, leaning close to press the words to his ear. "I know what I'm doing."

"But I want you!"

"Hush," I remind him, bringing my fingers, slick and dripping with his virgin seed, to the barrier pane. He looks up, wide eyed as I begin tracing the Arch's shape across the mirror's face. Can't leave a place when here isn't any door, after all. I see the understanding spark in his eyes, and then he reaches down, trailing his fingers through the come he spilled across the floor, and raising it to follow mine. I slow, let him catch up, then share a gasp with him at the spark that buzzes between us when his finger rests opposite mine. Magic. Oh yeah.

Our strokes line up after that, limning the form of each stone in wet translucence, tracing the faint, shadowy markings, drawing in everything except for the Veil that hangs within it.

My other hand is not still in the meantime. I keep on sliding my fingers into him, long smooth strokes to keep his flesh easy, to gentle the passage that's never known my -- or any other -- touch. I can feel his virgin blood in the pulse that clamps, close and silken-tight around me. It surges around my knuckles as though I stroked his beating heart, and he gasps and shivers with every inward press. Sweat gathers between his shoulderblades like fragrant, smooth-polished diamonds -- so beautiful I can't bear to lick them off.

Harry is hard again by the time we've drawn the last stone. He presses his forehead to the glass, lets fall his finger from the final smudge, and pants out my name, dark eyed and nearly delirious with want. And sweet Merlin's arse, but I want him no less.

"Please," he begs, arching back against my fingers, shivering so hard I can feel it inside him. "Sirius, please."

Yes.

I slick myself along his cleft, gathering up the last of the oil before I curl my fingers -- all four inside him now -- into a path for my cock to follow. He grunts as I press inward, flinches when my fingers slip suddenly out, leaving gripping the head, and oh Merlin but it's hard not to come right then. I'm reeling in that satin heat, and just hearing the whine in his breath is nearly too much for me. I have to hold still, fingers hooked desperately over Harry's hips, thumbs pressing hard into the twin dimples that frame his sacrum.

He looks up at my stillness, and his unguarded gaze meets mine, locking fast across Erised's come-stained face. Can I see the Dark Lord's ghostly thoughtself in those eyes? Can I glimpse him, curled like a strangling python, around a boy who's no more than a figment of wishful desire? Is he in there, so fascinated with his own reflection in his Not-Harry's face that he could possibly be missing this? Doesn't he know what's about to happen?

"Sirius." No trace of pleading in Harry's voice now -- this is command, plain and simple. "Move," he says. "Now."

I drive into him all at once, split his virgin arse wide around my length, and echo his yelp. There's a sting, a shock, a spark as his blood completes the sum, fills this glassy cauldron to overflowing. Then I can't hold still, can't wait for it not to hurt him, can't be gentle. His blood and mine force me forward, drive me in and in and in again, roll his still-slick cock through my fist in time with each grunt, each gasp, each sizzle of chain lightning that leaps along my spine as I trust into his boiling, silken magic.

And then I'm there -- the threshold, the precipice -- so close I can smell forever over the spunk and sweat and frost ozone and sex and sex and sex. And I know I know I know exactly what I'm doing. I'm leaning in, close and tight to the trembling back of the boy beneath me, smearing those diamond beads across my chest as I growl in his ear. "Say my name!"

He does -- shouts it loud as he comes, pulling my orgasm, my breath, my soul out of me with the rippling force. The cauldron boils over with a scream. It can't contain the sweat, the seed, the blood, the need, and him and me and that helpless, hapless not-quite-ghost trapped in the mirror inside his head. Erised flexes, bows out wildly, twisting the world like the bright-polished side of Horseface's tea kettle -- pregnant with unspeakable force. I reel against the straining, smoking-hot barrier, drive myself deep one last time so I can slap my palm over Harry's head. So I can smash my hand into the center of the door we've made, and shout the password.

"HARRY!"

Glass flies everywhere, spinning and howling like a zephyr with razor teeth. The boy in my arms is twisting, writhing, gasping and gloriously real. He arches hard, convulsively away from me -- his spine twisting, his mouth stretched wide to the flying glass-storm in a silent scream, and all I can do is hold on, cover his pale body with my own, and wait for the end.

Harry gives another great twist, and silvery light bursts like lightning from his eyes, his mouth, his scar -- it screams, that light, in a voice I refuse to recognize as the shards of Erised sweep it up, catch it close, slice it fine and thin and helpless in the air above us.

Can a thought die? Can a nightmare be smashed like glass and sucked through a gaping stone mouth to Oblivion? And would that mass of sound and fury shred the Veil to dust as it passed through? Would it make the ancient stones shiver and groan, as though straining to swallow such a force? And would the massive blocks topple inward in the stunned silence that followed, their mortar pouring out like grave dust between them as they crashed to the floor?

Fuck if I know.

Because Harry -- my own Harry -- is clinging to me, shaking and moaning as his "Siriusiriusirius" fills my ears and heart so full I can't make myself care two shits about all the rest.

"Harry," I say, smoothing the sweat and blood from his forehead. "Harry."

His green eyes are open, fever-bright, but focused on my face, and though he's shaking and pale and limp as a wrung flannel, he's here, and he's aware, and he's real. And so am I. And I'm stroking him, and I'm kissing his cheeks, his nose, his jaw and his throat, and it's really HIM -- really my Harry, and not his reflection, and I have never, in all my life or death, felt so fucking perfect.

"Hi Sirius," Harry says presently, carding his fingers into my hair and using that grip to pull me back a little. "All right there?"

I bark a laugh, and nuzzle a salty kiss to the inside of his wrist. "You," I tell him in a thick, tight voice, "are bloody well mental."

"You'd be the one to know," he breathes a laugh, blinking fast.

"What possessed you to try that, anyway?" I ask him.

And then he smiles. "You," he says, as if it's the stupidest question he's ever heard.

I can hear, I suddenly realize, that Moony and Weasley are calling from the other side of the door. Their fists make dull thuds on the thick oak, and I don't suppose they're going to wait much longer before they come charging to the rescue.

Then there'll be questions and doubts and worries and horrors while the Order scrambles to discover what trade was made between me and Harry and the veil and the slice of Voldemort that went screaming through it. And then there'll be tears and shouting and not-quite-understanding, while Moony and Weasley and Harry and me sort out where all of us fit in relation to each others.

But after all that's done, and we all step back from the cliff again, I think there'll be something there that wasn't before -- something fetched back from that far-off horizon of possibility we glimpsed today. A hope, a plan, even something as fragile and simple as a dream for the future. Something too big to fit between an arch of fallen stone or a mirror's twisted, empty frame. Something golden. Something ours.

But for right now, tangled with my Harry, naked and sweaty against gritty floor, it only seems fair to indulge in a slow, sweet, reverent kiss. The kind of kiss we should have had from the very beginning, if the world were anything like fair.


THE END