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Three Things That Didn't Happen to Sirius Black's Teeth
by Hetre

i.

Sirius can't look at himself in the mirror for a week after he comes to Grimmauld Place. Remus cut his hair for him, so it wasn't tangled into his face and stuck in vicious knots against his neck, but, god. His teeth. Those black things in the mirror that he used to use while he was smiling. Sirius had gotten used to the way the rotten bits scraped against his lips when he chewed, but he hadn't seen them.

It's five days after the full moon when Remus comes to his door with a toothbrush.

Sirius scowls. "I'm not using that thing," he says. He knows he's being childish but he doesn't care.

Remus says, "They'll just get worse if you don't do anything about them.""Moony, what's worse Look at me." The inside of his mouth tastes like Azkaban, like the death and madness there.

"They could fall out of your mouth and roll across the floor." Remus doesn't sound like he's kidding.

"I'll deal with that when it happens."

"What if you deal with it now?" Remus puts toothpaste on the toothbrush, and places it in Sirius's hand. Sirius looks down at it. The smell makes him feel ill. This isn't at all like when they were in school together; Remus used to say no, I don't think that's a good idea, and Sirius used to persuade him that he did, in fact, think the idea was wonderful. Sirius brings the toothbrush closer to his face, and then stops.

It's going to hurt. Sirius tried to brush them the second day, stealing Remus's toothbrush and flinching at the way the toothpaste and bristles clawed at him, pulling off bits of his teeth and gums that he spat into the sink. He kept brushing, though, hoping if he scraped enough away he'd get down to something he recognized, but underneath the rotten bits were more rotten bits, until Sirius was spitting blood into the sink and he had to stop.

He says, "Moony, don't make me."

Remus says, "Sirius," in his high, squawking voice. He doesn't sound pitying or sympathetic or sad, but just like he's in sixth form again and standing over Sirius's bed with his arms crossed and a Gryffindor scarf wrapped high around his neck, his eyes narrowed, waiting. Remus, Sirius has found, has a particular gift for reminding Sirius of when he was sixteen, without making him think he is sixteen still.

He reaches out and tucks the toothbrush into the pocket of Remus's waistcoat, and then hooks his fingers in the pocket and pulls Remus forward and kisses him.

Sirius thinks he must taste like Dementors and age, and the thin, twisting corridors of Azkaban, and stale air, but Remus lets him move his lips for a few moments before pushing him away. Sirius says, "Let's go somewhere. Let's find a bed somewhere."

Remus shakes his head. Sirius says, "No, let's," and he's not trying to ruin anything, but Remus's hand is heavy on his neck and it's been a very long time since anyone touched him, a very long time since he has been touched by his friends. His tongue is probably as rotten as the rest of him; if he licked Remus anywhere he'd end up leaving stains. But he thinks, if he lay on his stomach and let Remus kiss the back of his neck, that he could, he could. Maybe.

Remus says, "My old friend." His hand is still on Sirius's neck, and for a moment it feels heavier. Remus takes the toothbrush out of his pocket, toothpaste leaving a white and blue smear on the fabric, and holds it out toward Sirius.

"I'll give you chocolate," Sirius says, "if you take that away. Or Kreacher's ears. Or my mother's portrait frame."

"You couldn't catch Kreacher, the state you're in."

"Give me sufficient motivation." Remus's hand on his neck, like he's a calf being held still for branding. He tries to speak without showing any teeth. "I could say please."

Remus smiles. He doesn't let go of Sirius's throat, but slides his hand around the back of Sirius's neck and tilts Sirius's head up. His fingers curl against Sirius's hairline, the new short hairs Remus gave him. Remus looks at him, and says, "Padfoot, please."

He lets Remus tip his head back farther, and opens his mouth. This isn't anything like school, where he'd give in to James and Remus would give in to him and Peter would give in to any of them. And it doesn't matter that he did the same yesterday, kissing Remus while Remus tried to clean dirt and dried blood from under his fingernails, or that he'll probably do it tomorrow when Remus wants him to floss. This is all he has left and it isn't anything like what he's used to, and he doesn't know what's under the decay in his mouth or if Remus will ever find it.

Maybe they'll stand there forever, Remus brushing and Sirius wincing and spitting brown and green into the washbasin, Remus's hand cradling the back of his head, until they're both too old to move and Sirius stops breathing, and then either stops thinking altogether or that time when he was clean and new comes back.

ii.

Remus says, "I've been reading up on magical dentistry."

Sirius doesn't want to know what Remus has been reading. He stands very still, and hopes that Remus will forget he is there.

Remus says, "It's really a fascinating subject." Sirius thinks he's a prat. The first two weeks of their first year, Remus spent more time in the library than the common room, because, he said, large-eyed, dazed, that "there are so *many* of them." Sirius followed him there one day to see what all the fuss was about, and hasn't yet got around to walking off.

He says, "I can't leave the house."

"I was planning to do it myself."

Sirius narrows his eyes. Remus has dust on the sides of his arms and in his hair. He looks like he's been attacked by the Black family library, which, Sirius supposes, he has been. "You've been reading?"

"Ah," Remus puts his hands into his pockets and looks down. "I have been, yes."

When, in second year, Sirius cornered him in the hallway and asked if he was a werewolf, the second thing Remus did was look down, with his hands in his trouser pockets. The first was to choke on his breath and look so, so scared. Sirius says, "All right, then."

Remus takes out his wand, and points it at Sirius's face. As Remus speaks, a thin blue cloud puffs out of the tip of his wand, and Sirius opens his mouth so the cloud can drift in.

It doesn't feel like anything for a moment. Sirius knows it worked, because it's Remus, but he also thinks that maybe his teeth are too far gone to ever be fixed. He runs his tongue over them, feeling the chipped-off, scrapey bits, and they warm his tongue. Sirius closes his eyes, and his teeth feel warmer against his cheeks and his lips.

Remus says, "Sirius?"

"I don't know. They're getting warmer."

"It's working, then."

It is working, Sirius thinks. His teeth are getting warmer, and they don't feel so weak anymore, not as much like if he bit into something hard they'd crumble in his mouth. He keeps his eyes closed, so he can feel it working better. His teeth get warmer and warmer until they're almost painfully warm, like tea that has sat a while but not long enough. They get warmer.

Sirius makes a noise, and opens his eyes. His teeth are making little fizzling sounds inside his mouth, like a fire crackling, or like bone healing itself.

"Padfoot?"

Sirius puts his fingers in his mouth, and they are scalded. His teeth keep getting hotter, and he has to crumple his tongue and try to push it back down his throat to keep it from getting burned on all sides. He thinks his teeth might be hot enough to glow, and they keep getting hotter, until he wants to dig them out with his nails because he thinks they'll either fry his gums or cause his head to melt off his neck. He turns into Padfoot and rubs the side of his face against the kitchen floor. His tongue is longer in this form, and there is more surface area to burn. Padfoot whines.

He can hear Remus saying something, and the burning feeling slowly stops becoming greater, and then slowly, slowly becomes less. Padfoot bats at his snout with his front paws, over and over. His teeth have cooled off but now they are itching.

Padfoot feels Remus's hand on his neck, scratching gently, moving the hairs there. Rather than biting him or clawing at his stomach Padfoot shakes the hand off and runs out of the room.

iii.

Sirius is standing in a corner of the kitchen, and he is pretending to be a ghost. In Azkaban, when the Dementors came, he would not move at all, and sometimes it didn't hurt as much as when he curled up or tried to run. He is thinking that if Remus came into the room, Remus could walk right through him and not know.

He moves his tongue inside his mouth. There is a thin, mossy film covering his teeth, and an ache in his jaws that he doesn't understand. When he was in prison, and then on the run, his teeth hurt because everything hurt. But now that he is feeding and taking care of himself and he thinks something may be wrong.

Remus comes in, and Sirius keeps very still. Remus is facing away from him, opening cupboards and removing a milk tin, a kettle, a strainer. Remus says, "Would you like tea, Sirius?"

Sirius says, "Yes, thanks." Remus takes out two cups.

He takes his tea with sugar because he's always taken it with sugar, though James says that it's unmanly and one time transfigured his motorbike into a pink spun sugar bicycle. In retaliation, Sirius cast a limonus hex, so that James's lips were puckered for weeks and he made faces at every mealtime.

He sips his tea, and his front teeth click against the china. Sirius feels something shift, slightly, in his mouth, and when he looks down there is a small blue-white bulb floating in his teacup. It is his front tooth.

Sirius stares at it. He pushes his other teeth with his tongue and they tilt at strange angles, until he has difficulty righting them. He feels a bit giddy. His mouth is falling apart, as neatly as if someone hexed him, or as if he swallowed one of Snivellus's potions. If it were a prank, it would be perfect.

He drinks the rest of his tea quickly, and holds the tooth under his tongue to keep from swallowing it.

Upstairs, in his room, Sirius takes the tooth out from under his tongue and looks at it. It looks worn away and unreal, and it is tinged green and blue, with strange brown spots and raw patches. It has no root, like a baby tooth, as if he were young and just starting to grow. He casts a glamour on his mouth so that the tooth still seems to be there, and then smiles at himself in the mirror.

Over the next few days, more teeth fall out. Now that he knows they are removable, Sirius finds he cannot stop prodding them. The back molars come out easily, and then Sirius begins to work his way forward.

One evening, before an Order meeting, Sirius sits quietly at the kitchen table and wiggles out three of them at once. He thinks it's great fun. It might be a bit of a problem, trying to put them back in again, but there's no use worrying about that now. He does not speak during the meeting, but instead sits with the weight of the teeth on his tongue, and wonders what James would say about this.

Snape is at the Order meeting. He is standing by the fireplace, next to Dumbledore and Molly Weasley, looking pale and greased like dough in a cake pan. He also looks tired. Sirius has a wonderful idea.

When it is Snape's turn to give his report, Sirius leans back in his chair, one foot stretched out and tilted to the side. Snape is speaking of Voldemort, of his plans and of his scaly, ugly face, and the way he kills people. Sirius can't be bothered. Snape looks over at him, and sneers, and keeps talking. It is an invitation. Sirius stands up and walks over to him.

He walks until he is an arm's reach away from Snape, and he smiles. He likes how Snape almost leans back as he gets closer. Snape stops talking, and Sirius hears a murmuring sound behind him, as if Molly Weasley were getting ready to ask just what is going on here.

Sirius thinks, for a moment, that James should be there. He thinks that if James's teeth fell out, James would do much better with them than Sirius is. He thinks that maybe Azkaban ruined even this, and now he is not enough to be the remainder of the both of them. But that's not true. Sirius was always the best. If James were here he'd say so.

Sirius narrows his eyes, purses his mouth like he's blowing Snape a kiss, and spits all his teeth outonto the front of Snape's robes.