#that being said i think i will keep sketching with this brush .... ive posted a lot of colored sketches before but this came out so neat???? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

maraudererasmut · 5 years

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Black and White (Part XIX)

((Author’s Note: I AM SO SORRY THAT THIS TOOK SO LONG!! I hope the chapter makes up for the fact that it took such a long time to write/post it! I hope you guys like it!!))

Remus walked into Black and White carrying two coffee cups from work, his knuckles turning white from the tightness of his grip. He was terrified, to say the least. This would be his first time seeing Sirius since their evening at the cafe, and Remus wasn't entirely sure if his presence was desired.

"Uh… Sirius? M— Mr. Black? Are… are you here?"

Of course he was there. Sirius ran the gallery himself. If he wasn't there, the door wouldn't be unlocked. Remus felt stupid asking his question aloud, but the response he got put him at ease.

"Yeah, I'm here, Remus. I'll be right out."

Remus.

So they were still on a first name basis. That was a good sign.

It took a moment, but Sirius eventually emerged from his back office, looking rather worse for wear. His hair was left loose around his shoulders, dark inky tresses spilling over his unbuttoned collar. He looked tired; more tired than Remus felt. More tired than he had ever looked before.

"I… uh… I brought coffee…"

"What are you doing here, Remus?"

The tone of Sirius' voice didn't sound harsh or accusatory; it was filled with exhaustion and melancholy, but it wasn't rude, which was a surprise.

"Oh…" Remus glanced down at the paper cups in his hands, as if his reason for being at the gallery was obvious. "I… brought coffee," he repeated. "Cappuccino, skim milk, sprinkle of cinnamon?"

Remus watched as a slow smile bloomed across Sirius' face, lighting him up, finally revealing a hint of the gallery owner that Remus had come to know the past few weeks. Sirius walked towards Remus, straightening his posture and brushing hair out of his eyes.

"How'd you know?"

Remus shrugged, offering Sirius a friendly grin.

"A little birdy told me."

Sirius rolled his eyes and graciously accepted Remus' peace offering. The artist watched as Sirius' shoulders visibly relaxed with the first sip of coffee, a hint of colour returning to his sallow cheeks. Sirius turned his gaze towards a painting on the wall, both hands grasping the cup, as if to absorb its warmth and energy.

"Well… remind me to thank her later."

"I'm fairly certain I brought the coffee here," Remus said, mostly joking. He took a sip from his own cup of tea, letting the spicy warmth from the chai trickle down and heat him up from the inside.

Sirius remained focused on the painting before him.

"Thank you, Remus. Not… not just for the coffee… but for coming. Here. I… appreciate it."

"Okay, who are you and what have you done with Sirius Black?" Remus teased, attempting to lighten the sudden weight of the situation, trying to deter the looming darkness that threatened its way into their thoughts.

Sirius didn't answer for a moment. He stood and stared at the painting, one of Lily's pieces by the looks of it, before finally giving Remus a response.

"This… this is the real Sirius Black."

Remus tore his eyes away from mercurial pools of despair, so deep and turbulent, the artist could drown in them if he wasn't careful. He directed his attention to the same painting, the same blues and greys of Sirius' eyes popping out from the canvas.

"Well…" Remus muttered to the painting, twisting his cup around between his fingers. "Hello Sirius Black. I'm— I'm Remus Lupin."

Remus heard a sharp exhale of breath beside him— almost a laugh, but not quite. At least he could help bring some levity into their conversation.

"So…" Sirius began, before taking another sip of coffee. "How much did she tell you?"

Remus pondered the question, trying to find an appropriate way of answering it.

"She… uh… mentioned your brother. And… and you and James. She explained why you left the cafe the other day, why you seemed so upset…"

Sirius closed his eyes and furrowed his brow. When he opened them, there was a hint of pain still etched into his features.

"And where does that leave us?"

Remus turned to look at Sirius, unsure what exactly the man was asking him.

"Wh— what do you mean?"

"Are you… still interested in showing here? Did you still want to… to work with me?"

"Of course." Remus' response was immediate. There was no question in his mind: Black and White was the gallery that Remus wanted his first show to be in. He wanted Sirius to run it, curate it, put the event together. He wanted Lily and James to be there. This was the gallery for him. "Why wouldn't I?"

Sirius' eyes drifted down to his coffee cup, his shoulders folding in on themselves ever so slightly.

"You're not worried that the erratic drunk is going to ruin things for you? Cause you too much trouble?"

"I— what?" Remus took a step towards Sirius; he considered reaching out, taking hold of the man, showing a sign of affection, but he thought better of it. Instead, he simply looked at Sirius, his voice measured, his posture firm. "None of those thoughts ever crossed my mind. I— I want to show here because you're passionate. You have drive. You're confident… you're— you're a good gallerist."

You're annoying as all hell, but you know what you want from life and you aren't afraid to go for it. Someone like me could learn a lot from someone like you. You're fascinating. An enigma. And I need to figure you out…

"And you push me to do better. I'm producing better art now than I ever have before. You have a keen eye and you give good direction."

Remus waited for Sirius to respond, but the man simply stared ahead at the painting before him. The silence loomed over them as Remus watched the ghost of the man he thought he knew slowly fading into nothingness.

It was a few minutes before Sirius eventually spoke, his voice echoing eerily across the empty gallery.

"You don't have to lie to me to make me feel better."

His words were soaked in bitterness, his expression crestfallen. He never once tore his gaze away from the painting.

Remus took a gulp of tea, weighing his next words very carefully.

"I don't lie." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before continuing. "You don't know me very well yet, but that's something you should remember for the future. I don't lie." Another pause, another sip of tea. "I had enough of that growing up, I don't need it in my life."

The slightest hint of a smile passed over Sirius' face.

"You also had a shitty family?

"I'm an artist," Remus mused with a dark chuckle, "Do you know any that don't?"

Sirius' smile grew as he rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, one or two. But you make a valid point."

Remus brought his cup to his lips and tilted it back, draining the remaining contents and deliberating his words.

"So…" he began after a moment. "Where do we go from here?"

For the first time since the conversation started, Sirius shifted his focus, his eyes settling on Remus' frame silhouetted in the fading evening light.

"Where do you want it to go?"

Remus closed his eyes and pretended to take a sip from his drink, despite the fact that it was now empty. He needed time to think. Was Sirius talking about the gallery? Was Sirius asking about Remus' desire to show his art and work together in a professional setting? Or did the question go deeper than that?

Where did Remus want things to go?

"I…" Remus opened his eyes. He stared at Lily's painting, pretending not to see the way Sirius' gaze bore into him, pretending not to think about the swirling blues and greys, the perfection of colour, they way they shifted with each emotion. "I want to make sure that our show next month is your best one yet."

"Well then…" Sirius said softly, his voice relaxing, his tone sounding more and more familiar to Remus. "We'd better get to work. There's only a few weeks left…"

Remus turned to look at Sirius and felt his cheeks flush at the smile playing on the gallery owner's lips. The artist quickly looked down at the paper cup twisting between his fingers, trying not to read into the situation any more than necessary.

"I'd better get home then…" Remus told his cup, trying to keep his voice steady and desperately willing his cheeks to stop feeling so warm. "I still have two more pieces to paint…"

"Yes, well…" Sirius muttered. From the corner of his eye, Remus could see the gallery owner shifting his weight from foot to foot. "I'll be in touch. I'd love to see your progress if— if that's okay…?"

Since when did Sirius ask for things instead of demanding them?

"Sure, yeah… that sounds… good. I'll… see you around, Sirius."

Remus glanced up and smiled, immediately regretting his decision. The look on Sirius' face was tender, affectionate. Somehow, he looked even more handsome like this. Remus hated it.

The artist shoved his hand forward, offering it for a shake. Sirius hesitated before reaching out and grasping Remus' hand firmly. The two men had shaken hands a dozen times at this point; there was something frustratingly different about this one, and it lingered a beat too long.

Remus pulled his hand away and spun on his heels before Sirius could stop him.

"I'll see you around, Sirius!" He called over his shoulder before making a beeline to the door.

"Oh… okay… T— Thank you, Remus. For… for everything!"

Before he knew what was happening, Remus was outside in the crisp autumn air, trying not to think about the way Sirius' perfect lips wrapped so delicately around his name or how badly Remus wanted to find out what those lips tasted like.

What was wrong with him?

((Bonus: Here’s a sketch that I did in a limited palette of this scene. Yes, I know there are inaccuracies, it was a quick sketch and I didn’t read the chapter before drawing it. Oops! Anyway, here it is!))

**THIS DRAWING IS NOT CANON! IT IS DONE BY MARAUDERERASMUT, NOT REMUS!**

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oswald-privileges · 6 years

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Loudmouth

(I wrote some statement fic. It’s been a heck of a while since I wrote anything for fandom.)

Statement of Ulla Ness, regarding, um... a peculiar transformation. Original statement given March 14th, 1999. Audio recording by Christopher Peake, in an… unprofessional capacity. Statement begins.

I still don’t see why I had to come to you. I know you have an email address, so wouldn’t it have been easier to just scan the form and send it to me? Hell, I would have taken a physical copy sent to me in the post. It would have been slower, but it would have meant I could have stayed at home. But no. I asked, and you just gave me a lot of waffle about how you have ‘strict acquisition policies’, alongside directions that had been copied from google maps. Which I know, because I checked.

It’s not that I’m lazy, you understand, far from it. I used to have what I regarded as quite the active social life. But recently that’s become impossible for me to maintain, for a number of reasons. Which are also the reasons that I’ve come to talk to you.

I used to be quite a religious person. Still am, I suppose. I’m not entirely sure. I was a member of the congregation of Saint Mary’s, a small anglican church in a small, anglican village up in Lincolnshire. Not everybody there was particularly devout, but it wasn’t one of those places where it especially mattered. It was more about the sense of community we had. Catching up with each other after communion on Thursdays, singing in the choir, arranging cake sales or coffee mornings as fundraisers for whatever bit of the building had fallen off now. I’ve been attending since I was little, and more or less grew up with the congregation.

I miss it quite badly, if I’m being honest. I’ve always been the sort to need other people, but I didn’t realise quite how much losing them would affect me. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone and all that, I suppose.

It started with another fundraiser, a jumble sale this time. I had volunteered to help manage the event, so I was in charge of sorting through the items that people had brought in for us to sell. Like I said, not everyone there was strictly devout, and didn’t always take care with what they decided to donate. Some people seemed to use it as more of an excuse to toss legitimate junk in our direction and call it a good deed.

This was definitely the case with Mister Ashley. He attended purely because his mother was too old to walk by herself, and I rather think that she insisted that he stay with her throughout the service. It was definitely at her behest that he took part in any communal activities. She would always announce that he would be happy to run stalls or make tea or some other menial duty, while he sat by her side, stony-faced, and saying nothing at all.

The only time I remember him giving any sort of reaction was when when his mother announced that her Jamie would be happy to donate some of his shop’s excess stock for the jumble sale. I remember, he turned to her with the strangest look on his face. At the time, I thought it was one of badly suppressed outrage. I assumed that she had simply gone a bit too far in volunteering his services; Mister Ashley was a second hand book seller, and owned the Jabberwock Bookshop just off from Memorial Square. It can’t have been all that easy to turn a profit. Thinking back on it now, though, and I wonder if his expression was something sharper than just anger. If it could have been alarmed, almost panicked. But I believe that is likely be nothing more than hindsight colouring my memories. If he had had some way of knowing, had been frightened of something like that which came to pass, then… well. I cannot honestly say I ever truly liked James Ashley, but neither can I believe that he would be as cruel or as cowardly as to not have said or done anything.

As it was, he brought the books to the side room the next day, where I was going through the donations and sorting the sellable items from those things too broken, torn, stained, or just plain unusable. I had just set aside yet another jigsaw- this one with almost two thirds of the pieces obviously missing- when he knocked on the outer door. In spite of the heavy rain, he wasn’t wearing a coat, hat, or boots. He didn’t say a word to me when I opened it, just shouldered his way in, dropped a heavy cardboard box on the floor by the unsorted donations, and walked out again. He did this three more times, leaving the door swinging behind him, letting in strong gusts of wind and rain, and reinscribing a damp trail of rainwater on the carpeted floor. Then he was gone as abruptly as he had arrived.

Ashley had taken better care to protect the books from the rain than himself. The cardboard was soaked through, but the books inside had been wrapped in several layers of plastic sheeting. They were stacked upright, and had been fitted in without any attempt to force too many into a single space. They were all, without exception, worn, faded, and almost completely without interest. Paperback romances long since out of print, old text books, children’s encyclopedias. It was rather a relief, if I’m honest. I could just reach into the boxes, grab a book, give it a flick through, and place it on the “for sale” pile.

I was about halfway through the last box when my fingers brushed something that did not feel at all like paper. It was dense and yielding, and ever so slightly damp. I recoiled, shock and disgust crawling their prickling way up my arm. My fingers looked clean, but the ghost feeling of something sticky still clung to them.

My first thought that it was some nasty practical joke. That Ashley, stung by his mother’s willingness to give away his stock, had put something disgusting in there by way of relieving his feelings. But that would have been ridiculous- he was a grown man, for goodness sakes, not a slighted child. It was more likely that the plastic keeping the books wrapped up had slipped, and allowed the rain to seep in through the sides. That was the more likely explanation.

It seemed as though I was right when I looked into the box properly, and saw nothing there but more books. But when I reached in again, all I felt was rough, dry paper. Confused, I went through the contents more slowly, looking where I placed my hand and at the books I chose.

I didn’t feel it again until the fifth book I picked up, that same almost-damp feeling. It was broad and set in landscape, almost like a sketchbook. It was dense with pages all jammed together- dense and heavy. It flopped bonelessly in my hand, and I needed to support it from underneath before I could read the title.

Hymnal, it read. The gold letters gleamed wetly on the slick cover.

It appeared to be full of sheet music. No titles or lyrics, just scratched staves and notes that meandered up and down the lines as though drunk. The smell that rose from the pages as I turned them was odd and unpleasant. I wondered if the leather binding them hadn’t been properly cured. Those areas of page that weren’t covered in music were full of sketches, but so dense and overlapping that I couldn’t tell what they were supposed to be. And, I realised with an unpleasant start, the cover beneath my hands was warm, as though I was touching a live thing.

Suddenly, I’d had enough. I was sitting here, working myself up over an old, graffitied book for no good reason. I shut the thing hurriedly, and it snapped closed with a heavy slithering of pages. I caught the soft part of my forefinger on one of them, and a tiny bead of scarlet began to well from the wound. The stinging was welcome- it gave me something to focus on, mundane annoyance drowning out the confusion that had been threatening to become fear.

I dropped the book onto the discard pile. I couldn’t sell something like that, that much was obvious. Then I picked it up again, and dashed through the rain to the rubbish bins outside. I tossed it in, and followed it up with as much of the discard pile as I could bag up in one go, burying the thing underneath threadbare scarves, broken plastic dolls, and half used art supplies.

I felt a little better when it was done, but not much. Whatever those hymns were praising, I don’t think it was Our Lord.

The cut on my finger didn’t heal like it should. It stopped bleeding without any trouble, but the edges became raised, reddened and sensitive to the touch. I dabbed at it with antiseptic and did my best to put it out of my mind. I succeeded at first. I had plenty to keep me busy, both at church and at my workplace, and for a day or two, I completely forgot about it.

At least until it opened up again.

I don’t remember what caused it, or if anything caused it at all. Just that I was reaching for something, and there was the feeling of… unpeeling, almost, the cold feeling of fresh air on wet skin. I checked to see if the cut was bleeding again.

Instead of a cut, I found myself looking at a tiny, fully formed mouth.

The raised, reddened edges I had thought were a sign of infection had become minute lips. They were slightly parted, and behind them I could see the tiniest slivers of white. And behind that, a dark space where something wet shifted.

I didn’t look at it for long. Already I was reaching for the first aid kit, hastily covering the cut- the mouth- with a plaster. I was already convincing myself that what I’d just seen was some kind of infection I was too squeamish to look at, and that since I couldn’t feel any pain, I should probably go to the doctors, in case it was nerve damage or something. The impression of having seen a mouth rather than a cut was an unpleasant trick my mind had played on me, and one I didn’t feel like closely examining. I told myself I had imagined it.

I hadn’t, though. I could taste the soft fabric patch on the plaster.

I really did mean to go to the doctors. Mouth or no mouth, whatever was happening to the cut on my finger worried me. I even got as far as making an appointment. But the next day I went into work, and there was an accident involving a slippery patch of floor and a very, very sharp knife that I was carrying at the time. I ended up with a nasty slice parallel with the underside of my ribcage.

This time, it was obvious how quickly it stopped bleeding, how it was practically dry before I even changed the gauze once. How the scabs began to flake before I even touched them, leaving nothing but those raised, reddening edges around the cut itself.

I didn’t go to that doctor’s appointment. I don’t think it would have helped me if I had.

It took longer for the second cut to open, but when it did, I could stand in front of the mirror to properly see the flat, white, human teeth, and the tongue that moved behind them.

It didn’t feel alien. That’s what surprised me most. I was scared, of course I was scared, I was growing new bits, opening up in places that I shouldn’t- but that was just it. It was my body doing this, not some… weird infection or surgery. Whatever was happening, it felt like an extension of myself.

I could move them, I found. Not as consciously as I could my original mouth, the one in its proper position on my face, but sort of like moving a limb after it’s fallen asleep. It took concentration, like I was working through partial numbness. Like I needed to focus to wake them up.

I didn’t spend very long doing that, though. I would realise with a start that what I was doing wasn’t normal, it wasn’t sane. I would pull my shirt back down or re-plaster my finger with a feeling almost like shame. I wasn’t as scared as I should have been, and that in itself was somehow a lot more frightening.

I’m not clumsy. I can’t be, considering the sharp tools I have to handle at work. But I started to accumulate injuries. Innocuous things at first. Paper cuts from the prayer books during mass, scrapes from the edges of the metal benches at work. And then other things. Pushing down a door-handle would lay my palm open as though I’d been struck with a metal ruler. The pressure of my jacket across my shoulders would tear the skin. I woke in bed one morning to discover that the folded sheets around me had left cuts going from my hip to my collar bone.

Every single one of them bled, reddened, and opened.

The mouths started to become restless as their number grew. They tried to chew on the clothes I wore to cover them, and if I didn’t focus, they would let out soft, but audible moans or sighs. I tried to quiet them. I even tried feeding them, though I only did that once. It seemed to help, but the mangled sensation of swallowing with a throat that seemed to be lodged under my right kidney was so disorienting I couldn’t bring myself to do it again.

I hadn’t stopped going out altogether. I left the house less, certainly, but as uncertain and uncomfortable as my changing existence was, I didn’t want to give up the company of other people altogether. I get lonely easily.

So, one Friday, when when there was so little skin left under my clothes and gloves that no new mouths could easily form, I patched my face and neck with gauze, and went to take my place in the choir again.

Nobody really seemed to notice anything different about me. I had all the right stories lined up for when I was asked about what had happened to my face, but almost nobody did. A few condolences, a few jokes, and that was it. People apparently preferred to gossip about the death of Mrs Ashley, and how her James had stopped coming to church now, and how they had known his heart wasn’t in it all along.

It felt awful. There I was, standing in the middle of them, skin to skin almost, with the most fragile disguise imaginable hiding a secret that would ruin their perception of the world for good- and they were too wrapped up in their own smug assurance of their own piety to notice. I offered up a brief prayer for patience, but like all my prayers lately, I don’t think I was offering it to the God whose praises we’d all gathered to sing.

And when we raised our voices together for All Things Bright And Beautiful, and I opened my mouth to join in, and then opened my mouth again, and opened my mouth again, and opened my mouth again- I wasn’t singing praises to that God either.

I didn’t realise that the others had stopped at first. It wasn’t until I glanced to one side, and saw Julie Wright staring at me with her powerless mouth open and unmoving, that I realised I was singing in harmony with myself.

I broke off, suddenly embarrassed and frightened by the way that they were all looking at me. There was something like awe in their expressions, but there was something else there too. Something that shuddered and recoiled. I desperately tried to remember the words I’d been singing, if I had gotten them right. I had the horrible sense that I might have subverted something holy.

Adam Bromley was the one to break the silence.

“Well now. You never told us you were getting private training!”

And just like that, the spell was broken. The unexpressed disgust sank back beneath their faces, and the others took up the idea almost with relief. A beautiful voice, they told me, what trick did they teach me to make it resonate like that? I forced a smile and said something non-committal and when we took up the tune again, I was careful to sing only the words that were on the page in front of me.

My own relief was short-lived. When I got home, I found the skin I had left was being pulled apart by the restless movements of the mouths. Blood stained the underside of my shirt, and I couldn’t stop the moans and hissings any more than I could have controlled a spasm or a muscular tic.

I didn’t sleep that night, and called in sick to work the next day. I lay on the bed, and stared up at the ceiling, trying very hard not to move.

It wasn’t any use. My skin had become so fragile that even getting up and walking to the kitchen caused it to split, the blood barely having time to dry before the wound began to twitch and whisper. All my fascination was gone now, as were all my attempts to ignore what was happening. All I did was lie on the bed, and let myself slowly drown in my own body. I lived like that for a week.

When next Friday evening came, my entire body burst into song.

I writhed and moaned and hummed without will, without choice, throwing out snatches of hymn before discarding them as not what I wanted, not right. And for the first time, the indistinct murmurs and whispers grew louder, began to form words. Prayers that had been chewed out of shape, pleas for more, more mouths, more brothers and sisters, to come out of hiding and join the great curdling of flesh.

This went on for the entire night.

That was when I decided that I needed to do something. I’d let… whatever this was go on for too long, long beyond the point of saving myself. But I wanted to tell someone first. So I dragged myself to my computer, and searched as best I could. It’s difficult to type with only a confusion of tongues.

And that’s where you came in. You aren’t special. You were just the closest place that didn’t either ignore my emails, or reply with not so gentle suggestions that I see a psychologist.

I don’t think I’ll be leaving my home again, once I get back. I doubt I’ll even bother uncovering, although there’s no-one there to see me. For all that I wanted to let someone know, I don’t want to be seen.

The cupboard below the stairs locks from the inside. I can push the key out from underneath the crack in the door.

Whatever is happening to me, I won’t allow it come to fruition.

Post-statement follow-up: There wasn’t anyone under the stairs when I went to check. The lock on cupboard door was broken, and so was the one on the back door. Either Ms Ness was, um… successful in her attempts to… halt her transformation, and a housebreaker with some seriously questionable motives took what was- what was left of her. Or she wasn’t. And her resolve either waned or the situation was, um. Taken out of her hands. Or. Whatever she had instead of hands.

I wasn’t… going to record this. It’s not my job, strictly speaking, but I was reading some of the old statements, and this one just… sort of caught my eye. And I’ve seen the Archivist and some of the others do recordings, and it just looked so… I wanted to try it out. I’ll be taking the tape with me, though. None of the others need to know about this.

#The Magnus Archives #tma #the magnus institute #whoops its all OCs

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