My Favourite Word

His name is sacred to me. The very phonetics of it make me smile, make me feel whole. For so many years, twelve that felt like twelve eternities, I thought I'd never smile again. I forbade myself ever to say his name... and now I seem to whisper it a million times a day. Of course, his name makes me think of the dog star, and stars make me think of the moon, and the wretched moon makes me think of pain... but still, his name manages to sound beautiful to me, sometimes to the extent that I can almost taste it on my lips when I murmur it in the dead of night, its flavours all mingling together to make something tendersweethotspicydelicious that I crave just as much as I craved his touch when they took him from me. Believing that the owner of the other half of your soul is a cold-blooded murderer does cool passion a little, I'll admit, but nothing can completely extinguish the flame. I thought of him in that Azkaban cell, and I often wished he'd escape just so I could try to convince him to make love to me one last time before he killed me.

Anyway... his name. I think it's the first syllable that clinches it. It makes me smile. Even when smiling is the very last thing on my to-do list, his name makes me smile. I can't help it. Sometimes I don't even get past the 'Si-' when I start to say it, because I get lost in my own little world of happy memories. Smiling makes me remember our time together at school. We were always smiling back then. Everything was perfect -- that's what love does to you. Love glosses over the slightly annoying habits of your partner, like the fact he always forgets to lock the garage after he puts his motorbike away, and the fact he tends to moult all over the furniture, and the fact he spoils Harry rotten, spending all our money in the process and not noticing how embarrassed the poor boy looks when he's presented with yet another gift. I try to be annoyed with him sometimes, but I can't. He makes me too happy, and when I'm happy he's happy, and when he's happy, I get treated to one of those illuminating smiles that make my life worthwhile...

But I digress. I was talking about his name. Of course, when I pull myself together enough to continue, the 'Si-' is followed by the similar sound of 'ri'. It's the 'ee' sound that triggers all this involuntary smiling, you know; it pulls my lips back a fraction, which in turn makes my eyes crinkle slightly, fitting like jigsaw pieces into the little creases that are just starting to appear at the corners. They're laughter lines, like the ones by my mouth. I know people worry about wrinkles, but I embrace them -- they're a lot more welcome than the frown lines I was certain I'd have. When I look in the mirror, the sight of my own face reminds me all the things that contributed to my smiles.

My memories often make me sad, but I try to focus on all the fantastic things I did with my best friends, and I save my tears for my pillow at night. That's what he does. There's nothing more comforting than crying with someone you love, someone who understands what you've been through and feels the same way. I'm tempted to stress that he's had it much harder than I, but he doesn't like it when I do that. He says I had it worse, because I had to live for twelve years under the impression that my lover had betrayed everything I thought we both believed in and loved. At least he knew he was innocent, he says. I don't know what to say about that. Knowing you're innocent when you're incarcerated in Azkaban doesn't seem like that good a thing to me. He was trapped in there, but I could walk in the forests when I wanted. I could feel the sun beating its golden rays down on my skin, or make the first marks on the pristine blanket of freshly-fallen snow. I could talk to whomever I wanted. I was free. I was hated, but at least I was free.

I think about Harry's parents a lot. I remember the way Lily's hair glinted in the sunshine, the way it shone like blazing coals and stood out radiantly against her pretty face, and the part-horrified, part-exasperated, and part-amused look on that face when a certain someone dyed her hair green while she was sleeping. I remember the way James' glasses were always slipping down his nose, and how he finally got so annoyed with them he fixed them to his face with a charm that, unfortunately, proved to be semi-permanent, and had to be removed by the combined efforts of Madam Pomfrey and Professor Dumbledore. I remember the way Lily and I always disapproved of the other two and their juvenile plots and schemes, until their obvious excitement became infectious, and all four of us ended up rolling on the floor in a mass of tangled hugs and hysterical giggles.

My own face is of little importance to me, though, when I see his. One look from those dark blue eyes, and I just melt into a little puddle of loveyou and takemenow and youarebeautiful. He raises his dark eyebrows at my reaction to his presence, sometimes both, but more often one, in a crooked and completely endearing expression of mock-inquisitiveness. He knows what I want from him... He says my name as he opens his arms, then I find myself folded into the tightest, warmest hug I could ever have wished for. He whispers, "I love you, I love you," over and over into my hair, interspersed with little breathy renditions of my name, so quiet and intimate they make me squirm with the anticipation of what may come next. I wonder if he likes my name as much as I like his? I keep meaning to ask him, but for now... well, it's something that I feel is just mine, something that seems so incredibly personal even in its triviality. Maybe I'll tell him one day. Maybe, one day, I'll explain how I live for the concept of being made to smile not once, but twice every time I say his name.

The smiles are wonderful, of course, but my favourite part of his name is the 'us'. 'Us' is quite possibly the most breathtakingly beautiful word in the English language, after love. 'Us' connotes a feeling of belonging, a sense of friendship... and, yes, love. The motion of my lips, too, when I say the final third of his name... the way I have to pucker them and push them forward slightly as if waiting for a kiss... I just adore that, because I know now he'll always be there to grant me that kiss when I call his name. The same syllable finishes my name off as well, so when we're standing together in that safe embrace, wherever it is... the kitchen, the garden, school, Molly's house, the street, the supermarket, wherever... when we stand there, feet to feet, hips to hips, nose to nose, his hands at my waist and mine tugging lightly at the long hair at the nape of his neck, and say each other's name, we have to kiss. It's like a preordained ritual every time it happens.

"Sirius," I breathe, at the same time as he whispers, "Remus." We smile, and I feel that familiar deep tug of devotion inside me as our lips meet, slick and warm from the nervous licks we moisten them with, still tentative after so many years together. But all hesitation is blown away as he drags my hips forwards and I pull his face so close we can barely breathe...

...then we hurry off to the nearest empty room to articulate our love through the smiles and kisses that make up our favourite words.

~END~