Snapshots: Wedding Vows

[toujours_nigel]

“Do you, James Potter, take Lily Evans as your bride, to have and hold...” The Muggle priest is boring, he’s got a bit of white cloth sticking out of his collar. The church, however, is lovely, Gothic structure, massive pillars. Lily looks beautiful, he knows Alice laced her into the far-too-exposing white robes with a little bit of a love spell so that every man in the church desires her just a bit—not that she needs it, if he’s entirely honest. James is radiant with happiness, positively glowing. Lily’s sister has been avoiding them all morning, behaving as though magic is a communicable disease, but Sirius has seen lust disguised as despise far too many times to not realise that she wants James. Remus is hovering near the Evanses, ready and eager to help; he feels it is his duty to present a somewhat ‘normal’ aspect of wizardry to them.   

 

“I do.” Well, that’s that, they’re married. Lovely! Now for the ‘real’ ceremony, the bonding. This should be fun, really amusing. He half-wishes Lucius were here, he needs an accomplice to stop him from doing something suicidal and isn’t sure James will be quite capable at the moment.

 

He waits till all the guests have left the church; then, in a sudden bout of reckless savagery, decides upon the priest, who is on the verge of slipping out as well. “Pastor, oy, Pastor,” he yells, neither knowing nor caring whether that’s the right appellation. The priest does turn, a bit stunned at being yelled for by a nineteen year-old in a trench coat.

 

“Forgive me father, for I have sinned,” he’s pretty sure the bloke’s a Catholic, but really, as he’s not even a Christian, what does it matter?

 

“My son, I’m afraid this is a bit irregular,” the priest stammers. He’s quite young, Sirius realises, not above twenty-nine years of age, black hair, blue eyes, why are the eyes always, always the wrong shade?

 

“I know, Father,” he remembers Orion for a moment, dark and forbidding, then the other man he thought a father, handsome face worn with grief, dead a few months after his beloved wife. “I know, but I’m about to commit a most heinous crime.”

 

“About to? Well, then don’t commit it, that’s all.” He reaches out, suddenly jovial, as though to clap him on the shoulder, then stops, somehow scared by the wild look in the boy’s grey eyes.

 

“No, I think I will if it’s all the same to you,” he growls and, with the sudden agility that Death-Eaters have already learnt to watch out for, he clutches the other’s shoulders and pushes his mouth down on the slightly bearded lips.

 

The priest is struggling, but it’s no use. He has been so hungry, so long, and now he will never get what he wants, ever. This man is about the right height and build and his hair is unruly and windswept and he does not care, not anymore, not after he has forced himself to do this.

 

He pulls away, smirking. Really, what would all the good people who are hearing Dumbledore explain exactly what a bonding is (as though they haven’t known it all their lives, as though it isn’t being said for the Mudblood’s family) think if they saw this, if they ever knew what this really is.

 

“What...what are you doing?” Poor man, poor poor Muggle, doesn’t know what’s going on, so very sad!

 

“You want those two to stay married?” He nods, clearly terrified. “Well, so do I. Call this my wedding-gift, ’kay?” He pushes the priest to the floor, slightly sickened by the whole thing, but what else can he possibly do, what else can he do... and James will never know what he meant, what this costs.

 

He has ripped off the priest’s cassock and now is pulling the bloke’s trousers off. He thinks he might vomit, this is disgusting, how the hell is he supposed to do this? But he closes his eyes and leans in, pressing against the other mans lips, because if you snog someone it’s not rape, Bella told him that, ages ago, before he’d even hit puberty.

 

“Have you ever done this before?” Of course he hasn’t, of course not, man’s not a pervert like him, doesn’t want a cock rammed up his arse, decent, sensible, celibate young man.  “I’m really sorry,” he mutters, wishing he weren’t doing this, wishing he didn’t have this stranger spread-eagled beneath him on the cold stone floor, wishing, but what good has it ever done him to wish for anything?

 

He pushes in, ignoring the strangled yell from the other man, ignoring the blood around his cock, ignoring the pain he knows the man is feeling (probably worse than he did, he’s twenty years older than Sirius had been, muscles are a lot tighter).

 

He closes a hand around the priests erection (well, it’s really not an erection yet) and pulls, jerking him off desperately. He knows now why Bella always came back for more, it wasn’t the sex, it wasn’t the pleasure, it was the sense of power that comes from torturing someone without telling them what they have done to deserve it.

 

It’s working, he can feel it, every bit of Black blood in him screaming at the outrageous rape, the terrible loss, the broken bonds, but the Gryffindor in him wins and somehow, even with the poor Muggle who hadn’t deserved it lying half-dead around his cock, he feels happy.

 

He pulls out, zips his jeans, slips into his coat. Then turns to the priest, making sure he’s unconscious before siphoning up the blood, using a few healing spells and putting his clothes into some semblance of order. It’s what Lucius used to do for him. He taps him gently on the shoulder with his wand, shoving it out of sight as the man comes to.

 

“What happened?”

 

“I’m not very sure, Father.” His voice is that of a mildly concerned stranger. “I was smoking outside the church and  I thought I heard a noise. You were lying here...so I tried to bring you back to full consciousness.” He crouches down, presses the back of his hand to the man’s forehead. “Do you often faint?”

 

“I’m not sure...” Of course he’s not, Sirius may be good at Defence, but he hasn’t had much practise at Memory Charms. “But I’m alright now. Thank you, my son. It was good of you to help me.”

 

He nods, shrugs, walks out, saunters to the orchard where the bonding is being held. The ceremony is over. As he arrives, the guests begin to come out. Lily, he can see, is talking to her parents. James hurtles out, nearly knocking him down.

 

“Easy there, mate! I know you’re happy, but that’s no reason to pretend I’m a Bludger and you a Beater, is it?” The light tone in his voice is meant for anyone who may happen to overhear, not for James.

 

Who raises pained hazel eyes to his and whispers in a tone that wrenches his heart, “What did you do? I could feel something changing, what did you do, Sirius?”

 

“Raped the priest,” he answers, without pretext or explanation, because James will need neither. Smart enough to figure it out, even if he isn’t feeling the gut-wrenching emptiness already.

 

“But...but why?” Not ‘what?’, not ‘how could you?’, ‘why?’. The question it hurts most to answer.

 

“Because you love her, not me. Consider it my wedding-gift.”