Remus/Sirius | All Good Things
Title: All Good Things - Chapter One
Author: oops_pig
Disclaimer: I obviously do not own these characters.
Pairing: Remus Lupin/Sirius Black, More to come
Rating: PG-13 for now
Summary: AU, in which the Mauraders are at Hogwarts at the same time as Harry and his gang. Harry and James are brothers, instead of father and son. NOT a time-travel fic.
Sirius is quickly falling in love with Remus, and soon everyone realises it but Remus.
Author's Notes: Thanks to jenskyies for the beta. Any mistakes hereafter are all mine, because I'm too eager to post.
I could think of a million ways
You proved you weren't the one for me
To live inside of your shades of grey
And never mind the sunshine that I'll find
James Potter was sitting slumped down in his seat, his head resting on the window with an uncharacteristically glum look on his face. His best friend Sirius Black leaned his own face in and snapped his fingers sharply, "Oi! What's with you?" he asked cheerfully.
James just grunted in reply, without looking over, his eyes flicking quickly over the passing trees.
The boys were sitting in the farthest carriage of the Hogwarts express, being whisked away to their fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
"Moony," Sirius groaned, slumping down next to his other best friend, Remus, "There's something the matter with James."
"Maybe he's sick of you bugging him already". Remus didn’t even remove his head from the book it was buried in.
"That's not very nice, Remus," Sirius replied, sticking his tongue out and almost getting it into Remus' ear, "There really is something wrong."
Remus peered over at James, who was sitting opposite him and hadn't even looked over, despite the fact that his name had been mentioned more than once. He studied him with a puzzled look on his face, "You know Sirius, I think you might be right."
Sirius grinned, and jumped to his feet, crowing "Aha! Told you!". Normally he and James were bouncing off the walls during these trips, and didn't really stop for the rest of the year. In fact, Remus thought to himself, these trips were nothing to the last few days of the school year.
"What do we do?" Sirius almost sat in Remus' lap in his haste to sit down, "He won't stay like this, right?"
Remus shook his head, and went to bury it back into his book, "I'm sure he'll be fine."
Sirius pouted, and pushed his head into the book that Remus was reading, "But Moony," he whined.
Remus sighed, and placed his bookmark into the spine of his book, closing it on the tailend of his breath. Standing up, he crossed the small compartment and sat down next to James, glaring at Sirius and muttering "Don't see why I'm the one who has to fix everything." James looked over at Remus, as his friend seated himself, a blank look on his face. Sirius pushed his head over Remus' shoulder, breathing heavily in his ear.
"What's wrong, Prongs?" Sirius asked again, grinning madly.
James glared at him.
Remus, pushing Sirius' face away with the palm of his hand, fixed a look pointedly on James. "You know that we're here if you need to talk to us about anything," His friends weren't usually ones for overt displays of emotion, or talking, but sometimes Remus thought he needed to push, "That's what friends are for, and we're your friends."
"Know that," James said grumpily, turning his head back to the window.
"Well," prompted Remus, "Do you want to?"
Sirius’ smirk was threatening to take over his face, only this time he had moved to dance from foot to foot in front of them.
James sighed and let his eyes wander quickly from friend to friend, "It'll affect all of us," he told them.
Sirius, getting more and more impatient by the second, jumped when the fourth member of their group of friends, Peter, said the first words he'd said in a while, as he'd had his mouth full of Bertie Bott's All Flavour Beans. "Look," he pointed out the window spraying them all with a fine mist of what smelt like coconut flavoured beans, "We're almost there."
Sirius leaned down and pointed his finger into James' face, "Don't think we've finished this, buddy!"
Remus got up, slipped his robes on over his jeans and made sure his newly received Prefect's badge was fastened straight, before waving goodbye to his friends, after electing promises from them all to save him a seat at the feast. He ducked out of the carriage and made his way to the front to perform his beginning-of-year duties, praying to Merlin, and his mother's Muggle God that Sirius and James didn't manage to kill each other before he got back. They had taken to wrestling again, something Remus had thought they had grown out of at the end of second year, but Sirius had even attempted it with Remus at the beginning of the trip. His friend had almost bowled him over on the platform hugging him in greeting, which was rather surprising since he and Sirius didn't have the touchy-feely relationship he and James had. In fact, Remus didn't really have a touchy-feely relationship with anyone.
On his journey to the front of the train, Remus popped his head into the many compartments in the carriages of the train. He loved his new badge, and was going to take his responsibilities as serious as possible, and he had vowed, as soon as he opened the envelope, that that would include keeping his friends in line as best he could.
As he walked into the third carriage from the front, he found Lily Evans, fellow Gryffindor and a prefect also, standing in the door of a compartment that had a lot of hollering coming out of it. Remus stuck his head around the door and grinned at what he saw. He could have been staring at his own friends (when James wasn't sulking, of course). Hermione Granger had her head stuck in a book and was pointedly ignoring all her friends, her bushy brown hair all that was visible from behind the pages. Ron Weasley had his head stuck under the seat with a pale, nervous looking boy whom Remus didn't know dancing beside him, twitching his hands together. A boy who looked exactly like James, apart from not having lost the childlike look to his face, was sitting in the corner, smirking at the goings on around him. Lily had her hands on her hips and was glaring into the room.
"What's going on, Lils?" he asked quietly, so as not to startle her, in case she didn't know he was behind her.
She turned around and gave him a teeny smile, "This boy seems to have lost his toad."
The nervous looking boy that Remus didn't know was hopping from foot to foot now and turned to give them a sad stare, "I can't have lost Trevor! Granny'll kill me!"
Remus sighed. The train was starting to slow as Remus dropped to his knees and peered under the seat too, muttering 'Lumos' and lighting the tip of his wand. Trevor stared out at them from the very back corner, and Ron Weasley squirmed right under and yelled a very muffled, "Gotcha!"
Remus stood up, brushed off his robes and grinned at Lily, "All fixed!"
*~*~*~*~*
Remus propelled himself back onto his bed after two hours of dealing with first-years, only to land on something hard and boney and awfully human-like. As he sat up, Sirius' grinning head popped up from under his covers. Remus sighed, and moved over so that Sirius could get out of his bed, "I'm not even going to bother asking why you were under there," Remus told him.
Sirius pouted a little and shook his hair out of his eyes, "I was waiting for you! James is still sulking, and Peter and I can't snap him out of it!"
Remus looked over at James' bed. The curtains were drawn over the bed, hiding James from view. He stood up creakily, feeling older than he was, considering it was less than two weeks until the next full moon, and made his way over to his friend’s bed, Peter and Sirius, both following on his heels. "James," he called cautiously.
"Fuck off," they heard, muffled and far-away, almost as if he had his head stuffed under a pillow.
Sirius let out a loud huff of air, and turned and stalked back to sit on the edge of Remus' bed.
Remus pulled the curtain apart and glared at James. "What is your problem?" he exploded, "You have no right to sulk like this, unless you want to tell us what is going on!" Remus didn't often get angry, but when he did he got really angry. Usually it was at Sirius, but sometimes the others caught a flicker of his rage.
James pulled away the pillow, which had been hiding his head. He emerged with his hair more tousled than usual, and Remus wanted very much to laugh at him. He had an extremely sullen look on his face, the same he had had all through dinner. Everyone thought he would have snapped out of it by now, but whatever was bugging him was bugging him a lot.
Peter reached over and poked him in the side, hard but not unkindly, asking "What's wrong James?".
James sighed, "S'my brother.".
"Something's wrong with Harry?" Sirius asked, getting back up and pacing the room quickly to sit next to (practically on) James.
James shook his head and batted Sirius away., "Nothing is wrong with him. Nothing except my mother wasn't impressed by the amount of times he got called into Dumbledore's office last year. She said it was all my fault and that I'm not to be a bad influence this year. So no more pranking and no more detentions. I have to be good!" He threw himself back onto the bed at this point, just as Sirius cracked up laughing.
James shot him a look that would have killed him, had it been possible. Sirius fell back onto the bed next to James and announced, "S'all right. We'll just blame it on the Weasley twins. We'll keep out of mischief all year that way!"
Remus rolled his eyes and walked away, back to his bed, where he began pulling pajamas out of his trunk and removing his robes, "How about the two of you just don't do anything that will get you into trouble?" he asked, knowing that the two of them would immediately dismiss that idea, thus making his life no better than usual. As Remus slipped into his Sirius-mussed covers, he was bowled over by two lanky, dark-haired friends. Landing skewed on his back with an 'oof' he gasped, trying to get air into his now-burning and oxygen deprived lungs.
*~*~*~*~*
Sirius Black could easily say that the thing he loved the most about Remus was his smile. He supposed it was because his friend was so serious, and the infrequent times he did smile it was a little like the sun coming out from behind clouds. It shot straight out to the sides of his face, horizontally, as opposed to stretching the face upwards like most people. Remus' face made a perfect circle when he smiled, and lit up those hazel eyes that had Sirius so entranced.
There was something special about Remus, something that drew Sirius to him. They were supposed to be mates, but there was a world of difference between his and Remus' relationship and the one he had with James. And that was different again from what he had with Peter.
Sirius loved girls. He did. He could categorically say that girls were the best thing on the face of the earth. He loved breasts, and thighs, and hips and soft, soft lily-white skin. But, no matter how much he tried, he couldn't find what he was looking for. He was having a lot of fun looking, of course, but there was something missing from everything he chased. And everything he got. He wanted (although he'd sooner hex you green before admitting to it) what James had. Well, okay, not exactly what James had. What James wanted. His best friend had been nothing but single-mindedly ruthless in his pursuit of Lily Evans since she was partnered with him halfway through first year. Okay, so she hated him, but one thing Sirius knew about James was when he wanted something he didn't stop until he'd gotten it. For example, and this was a good one, when they'd found out that Remus was a werewolf (Sirius can't believe people don't realize. Once you know, its pretty obvious!), James wanted to do something to help him, so they could be there for their friend when he went through the unimaginable pain once a month. It had taken over a year for anyone to think of anything, and when they finally did, no one thought it would be possible. But they had done it. They had managed to turn themselves into animagus.
They hadn't told him, and Sirius knew that they were going to have to soon. Remus was starting to get slightly suspicious, and it was lucky that he and James had had so much time to practice together over the holidays. Peter had gotten it surprisingly fast; they'd all thought he was hopeless at transfiguration, but he'd picked it up much more quickly than Sirius, and even James who was the best in class. Sirius thought that Peter's problem was that he was too scared of McGonnagal. Sirius' problem was probably that he wasn't scared enough of her. He and James had practiced and practiced and they finally had it, just in time for the beginning of the new term. Sirius was incredibly proud of his animagus form, and he hoped Remus wasn't going to be too mad at them for doing what they had done. If he was Remus he would have been happy rather than angry, but one could never tell with him sometimes.
The seediest thing Sirius had ever done was probably the time he had that threesome. Okay, yes, so he was only fifteen and if he actually told someone they probably wouldn't have believed him, but it was true. That was why he'd never tell anyone, not ever. Especially not about the fact that it was not two girls he had the threesome with (although if he ever did tell anyone, that's what he'd tell them). He was at one of the Black familiy’s infamous parties over the summer; as much as he tried to miss them, sometimes it didn't work. Besides, they kind of intrigued him, the appalling things the wealthy did when they were together. He hated most of them. But sometimes there were people that he had no idea why they had come, as it was obvious they had no place there.
He also thought it was funny what money did to women. That, he assumed at the time, is why the girl was there. She was with Lucius Malfoy. Sirius vaguely remembered him from first year. His mother had wanted the two of them to be best friends, for Lucius to be his mentor, someone for him to look up to. And then he ruined all her plans by being placed in Gryffindor.
The girl ended up talking to another guy who didn't really look like he belonged, like seeking like, and that was how Sirius approached the two of them. Told them his wing was a much cooler place to be, seeming much older than his fifteen years. And it kind of progressed from there. Sirius still isn't sure how, but he thinks the two bottles of fire-whisky he consumed might have had something to do with it.
The thing is (and this is the part he finds hard to admit, even to himself) is that as much as he enjoyed getting to fuck a girl all night - he always enjoys that - the part he enjoyed the most about the whole thing was the guy, whose name he never even found out. He loved the hardness under his fingertips, the way he gripped Sirius' hips as he thrust into his hand, the way a cock feels completely different under your hands when its not your own, and especially how powerful you feel when you know better than any girl how another male likes to be touched. That is why he can never tell his friends. Not about that.
Truth was, all the girls he could get wouldn't fix the fact that Sirius, although he'd never admit it to anyone in the world, ever, was a little bit in love with his friend Remus. He wasn't gay, of course not. He just thought that sometimes he might have enjoyed the feel of Remus' rough, scarred face between his hands and under his lips. That was all. Girls weren't rough enough, that was it. And he could talk to Remus. That was important, or so the many girls in his life told him. He could never think of a word to say to any of them besides 'want a shag?', but he could talk to Remus for hours. Also, he liked taking care of Remus when he was sick - bringing him food, and collecting his homework. It didn't make him gay though. Not at all. The only cock he loved was his. Girls were his thing.
He was almost sure of it.
*~*~*~*~*
Remus got tackled outside the potions dungeon on the second day of classes, a giant mass of limbs and dark hair. He seriously thought that Sirius got more and more boisterous every single year. It was almost like having a giant puppy around, sometimes. James stood behind him, looking stately and almost regal, and Peter was just visible from behind James, poking his nose around his friends side.
Sirius wrapped his arms around Remus' neck and hugged him from behind, "Moony, we have a present for you."
Remus frowned, looking at his three friends, "A present? It's not my birthday, though."
James grinned, "It's a first-moon-back-at-school present."
Remus' frown deepened, "It's two weeks away."
Sirius shrugged and breathed heavily down the back of Remus' robes where he was still clinging to his friend, "We figure it might take that long for you to stop being mad at us."
"Mad at you?" Remus narrowed his eyes, twisting to see Sirius better.
Sirius let go and slung his arm around James' neck. James grinned down at Remus, "Absolutely. You're always mad at us Remus. It's your way of telling us how much you love us!"
Remus rolled his eyes, "Yes, that's it James. Every time I give you a detention, it’s because I love you."
Peter laughed from behind James, "You haven't given us a detention."
"Not yet," Remus replied darkly, "Sounds like I'm about to though."
Sirius slapped him on the back as Professor Slughorn limped around the corner and winked at Remus . He had no idea why; the man hated him. Mostly because he was absolutely hopeless at potions. And that was on a good day. Lily had tried to explain the theory to him one night in the common room, but had ended up fed up with James sending her sappy looks and Sirius flicking balls of rolled up paper at her with his wand. He was going to fail his O.W.L. no matter what he did anyway, so what did it matter?
"So when do I get my present?" Remus asked as they filed into the classroom.
Sirius shot a glance at James and shrugged, "Tonight?" he asked, "We can use that room on the fourth floor, by the statue of Helga the Horrific." He was speaking over Remus' head to James, who Remus caught nodding out of the corner of his eye.
They all took their seats at the usual desks, and Sirius turned to James, "Did you see that girl your brother was sitting with at breakfast? Indian chick with the really long hair? What a fox!"
James grinned, and Remus turned away as the talk once again turned to girls. That was one thing he and his friends didn't have in common. Remus just didn't understand it. He was fifteen, and he knew that girls were supposed to be constantly on his mind, but truth be told he just couldn't muster up the enthusiasm for it. Maybe that meant there was something wrong with him; Sirius sure loved to torture him mercilessly for it, but he just didn't mind.
He tuned back into the conversation just to hear Sirius exclaim, "Fucking ace arse!" and he rolled his eyes.
Actually, if Remus thought about it, he really didn't have that much in common with his friends. Sometimes it was a wonder they even hung out at all.
*~*~*~*~*
Harry was sitting in Sirius' seat next to James at the table in the Great Hall at lunchtime. James had a murderous look on his face, and Remus was incredibly scared that James was going to blow. Somehow, Harry always seemed to get on James' nerves. Sirius liked him; said the kid reminded him of how he was when he was twelve. Remus didn't like that at all. Sirius had always, and would always be a trouble child. At twelve, Sirius had been an absolute terror. It was never a good sign that Sirius thought someone was going to be like him. That meant the whole school was in for trouble.
Remus had started Hogwarts knowing he was going to be completely different to the other kids. He'd never had friends when he attended the local Comprehensive school, and he hadn't expected to have any when he started Hogwarts. And then he'd been placed in a bedroom with three other boys his own age, who had seemed to thrive on being different. Except maybe Peter, but he seemed perfectly happy being a hang-around kid. Sirius prided himself on being different. He'd grown up in a family he hated, being something he didn't want to be, and even though he swore black and blue his mother was going to disown him the night they'd all met, he hadn't really seemed to mind. He was perfectly happy being different to what was expected of him, and Remus supposed that was why they had become friends as quickly as they had. It also could have been Sirius jumping into his bed the very first night of school and talking to him about anything and everything until three o'clock in the morning. It had been somewhat of a tradition since, for Sirius to spend the night with Remus whenever he had a problem, or when he couldn't sleep. It had been two nights and so far it hadn't happened yet this year.
Remus wondered what their surprise was. Last time Sirius had planned a surprise, James had ended up with a nasty rash in a very unfortunate place, and Peter hadn't stopped laughing for two hours. So it was fair enough that when Sirius Black uttered Remus and Surprise in the same sentence, Remus got scared. He was probably reflecting on it too much, but still. His friends were slightly scary sometimes.
Remus' attention was caught by raised voices on the other side of the table. Sirius was leaning on the back of James' chair, smirking down at Harry, whose face was gradually turning redder.
"It wasn't my fault," he was exclaiming fervently.
James scowled, and pushed his glasses up higher on his nose, "That's exactly what mum's going to say. And you know what the next words out of her mouth will be? 'It was all your fault, James!'"
"But, seriously, it wasn't my fault!" Harry insisted, "Malfoy set us up. I told Dumbledore that!"
Sirius rolled his eyes, "You know, if you're going to blame someone else, at least do it properly."
"But I'm not lying," Harry insisted, looking up at Sirius.
Ron, who was listening to the conversation from beside Remus, as if he was watching a tennis match, said through a mouthful of carrots, "He's not lying, Black. Malfoy really did set us up."
James crossed his arms over his chest, "Well, if Dumbledore won't believe you, then neither will mum. And you've still got detention. So it'll still all come back to me."
"Howler tomorrow, old boy," Sirius slapped James on the back and grabbed a sausage off his plate, "Too bad." He winked at Remus as he turned to leave, "See ya tonight, Moony. Don't be late!"
Lily looked at Remus from over her newspaper, "What's happening tonight, Remus?" she asked, "What is Sirius talking about? I don't want to know, do I?"
"I don't even know," he told her, "Something about a surprise for me."
James pushed away from the table and grinned, tousling his hair with his fingers, "Don't be late."
Remus rolled his eyes, and turned to Harry, "What did you do to get detention anyway?"
"Someone let off some dungbombs in the second floor girls’ bathroom," Ron said miserably, "And McGonagall caught us coming out of there yesterday, and assumed it was us."
Lily narrowed her eyes, "What were you doing in the girls’ bathroom, anyway? And a haunted bathroom at that!"
"It was Hermione's idea!" Harry said, "We needed some peace and she suggested there."
"Peace for what?" Remus asked.
Ron's eyes looked at Harry guiltily, "Just to get away from stupid first years, s'all."
Lily harumphed and got up in a sweep of bright red hair, "Honestly don't see what James sees in her," Harry muttered under his breath, as Remus stood up after her.
Meeting Lily in the hallway, Remus pulled her aside and whispered into her hair, "Someone needs to check out what those boys are doing in there."
She nodded, smiled at him, and departed for her next lesson of the day.
Peter spotted him down the hall, where he was standing in line for class and bellowed, "Moony! Don't be late!"
Author: oops_pig
Disclaimer: I obviously do not own these characters.
Pairing: Remus Lupin/Sirius Black, More to come
Rating: PG-13 for now
Summary: AU, in which the Mauraders are at Hogwarts at the same time as Harry and his gang. Harry and James are brothers, instead of father and son. NOT a time-travel fic.
Sirius is quickly falling in love with Remus, and soon everyone realises it but Remus.
Author's Notes: Thanks to jenskyies for the beta. Any mistakes hereafter are all mine, because I'm too eager to post.
I could think of a million ways
You proved you weren't the one for me
To live inside of your shades of grey
And never mind the sunshine that I'll find
James Potter was sitting slumped down in his seat, his head resting on the window with an uncharacteristically glum look on his face. His best friend Sirius Black leaned his own face in and snapped his fingers sharply, "Oi! What's with you?" he asked cheerfully.
James just grunted in reply, without looking over, his eyes flicking quickly over the passing trees.
The boys were sitting in the farthest carriage of the Hogwarts express, being whisked away to their fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
"Moony," Sirius groaned, slumping down next to his other best friend, Remus, "There's something the matter with James."
"Maybe he's sick of you bugging him already". Remus didn’t even remove his head from the book it was buried in.
"That's not very nice, Remus," Sirius replied, sticking his tongue out and almost getting it into Remus' ear, "There really is something wrong."
Remus peered over at James, who was sitting opposite him and hadn't even looked over, despite the fact that his name had been mentioned more than once. He studied him with a puzzled look on his face, "You know Sirius, I think you might be right."
Sirius grinned, and jumped to his feet, crowing "Aha! Told you!". Normally he and James were bouncing off the walls during these trips, and didn't really stop for the rest of the year. In fact, Remus thought to himself, these trips were nothing to the last few days of the school year.
"What do we do?" Sirius almost sat in Remus' lap in his haste to sit down, "He won't stay like this, right?"
Remus shook his head, and went to bury it back into his book, "I'm sure he'll be fine."
Sirius pouted, and pushed his head into the book that Remus was reading, "But Moony," he whined.
Remus sighed, and placed his bookmark into the spine of his book, closing it on the tailend of his breath. Standing up, he crossed the small compartment and sat down next to James, glaring at Sirius and muttering "Don't see why I'm the one who has to fix everything." James looked over at Remus, as his friend seated himself, a blank look on his face. Sirius pushed his head over Remus' shoulder, breathing heavily in his ear.
"What's wrong, Prongs?" Sirius asked again, grinning madly.
James glared at him.
Remus, pushing Sirius' face away with the palm of his hand, fixed a look pointedly on James. "You know that we're here if you need to talk to us about anything," His friends weren't usually ones for overt displays of emotion, or talking, but sometimes Remus thought he needed to push, "That's what friends are for, and we're your friends."
"Know that," James said grumpily, turning his head back to the window.
"Well," prompted Remus, "Do you want to?"
Sirius’ smirk was threatening to take over his face, only this time he had moved to dance from foot to foot in front of them.
James sighed and let his eyes wander quickly from friend to friend, "It'll affect all of us," he told them.
Sirius, getting more and more impatient by the second, jumped when the fourth member of their group of friends, Peter, said the first words he'd said in a while, as he'd had his mouth full of Bertie Bott's All Flavour Beans. "Look," he pointed out the window spraying them all with a fine mist of what smelt like coconut flavoured beans, "We're almost there."
Sirius leaned down and pointed his finger into James' face, "Don't think we've finished this, buddy!"
Remus got up, slipped his robes on over his jeans and made sure his newly received Prefect's badge was fastened straight, before waving goodbye to his friends, after electing promises from them all to save him a seat at the feast. He ducked out of the carriage and made his way to the front to perform his beginning-of-year duties, praying to Merlin, and his mother's Muggle God that Sirius and James didn't manage to kill each other before he got back. They had taken to wrestling again, something Remus had thought they had grown out of at the end of second year, but Sirius had even attempted it with Remus at the beginning of the trip. His friend had almost bowled him over on the platform hugging him in greeting, which was rather surprising since he and Sirius didn't have the touchy-feely relationship he and James had. In fact, Remus didn't really have a touchy-feely relationship with anyone.
On his journey to the front of the train, Remus popped his head into the many compartments in the carriages of the train. He loved his new badge, and was going to take his responsibilities as serious as possible, and he had vowed, as soon as he opened the envelope, that that would include keeping his friends in line as best he could.
As he walked into the third carriage from the front, he found Lily Evans, fellow Gryffindor and a prefect also, standing in the door of a compartment that had a lot of hollering coming out of it. Remus stuck his head around the door and grinned at what he saw. He could have been staring at his own friends (when James wasn't sulking, of course). Hermione Granger had her head stuck in a book and was pointedly ignoring all her friends, her bushy brown hair all that was visible from behind the pages. Ron Weasley had his head stuck under the seat with a pale, nervous looking boy whom Remus didn't know dancing beside him, twitching his hands together. A boy who looked exactly like James, apart from not having lost the childlike look to his face, was sitting in the corner, smirking at the goings on around him. Lily had her hands on her hips and was glaring into the room.
"What's going on, Lils?" he asked quietly, so as not to startle her, in case she didn't know he was behind her.
She turned around and gave him a teeny smile, "This boy seems to have lost his toad."
The nervous looking boy that Remus didn't know was hopping from foot to foot now and turned to give them a sad stare, "I can't have lost Trevor! Granny'll kill me!"
Remus sighed. The train was starting to slow as Remus dropped to his knees and peered under the seat too, muttering 'Lumos' and lighting the tip of his wand. Trevor stared out at them from the very back corner, and Ron Weasley squirmed right under and yelled a very muffled, "Gotcha!"
Remus stood up, brushed off his robes and grinned at Lily, "All fixed!"
*~*~*~*~*
Remus propelled himself back onto his bed after two hours of dealing with first-years, only to land on something hard and boney and awfully human-like. As he sat up, Sirius' grinning head popped up from under his covers. Remus sighed, and moved over so that Sirius could get out of his bed, "I'm not even going to bother asking why you were under there," Remus told him.
Sirius pouted a little and shook his hair out of his eyes, "I was waiting for you! James is still sulking, and Peter and I can't snap him out of it!"
Remus looked over at James' bed. The curtains were drawn over the bed, hiding James from view. He stood up creakily, feeling older than he was, considering it was less than two weeks until the next full moon, and made his way over to his friend’s bed, Peter and Sirius, both following on his heels. "James," he called cautiously.
"Fuck off," they heard, muffled and far-away, almost as if he had his head stuffed under a pillow.
Sirius let out a loud huff of air, and turned and stalked back to sit on the edge of Remus' bed.
Remus pulled the curtain apart and glared at James. "What is your problem?" he exploded, "You have no right to sulk like this, unless you want to tell us what is going on!" Remus didn't often get angry, but when he did he got really angry. Usually it was at Sirius, but sometimes the others caught a flicker of his rage.
James pulled away the pillow, which had been hiding his head. He emerged with his hair more tousled than usual, and Remus wanted very much to laugh at him. He had an extremely sullen look on his face, the same he had had all through dinner. Everyone thought he would have snapped out of it by now, but whatever was bugging him was bugging him a lot.
Peter reached over and poked him in the side, hard but not unkindly, asking "What's wrong James?".
James sighed, "S'my brother.".
"Something's wrong with Harry?" Sirius asked, getting back up and pacing the room quickly to sit next to (practically on) James.
James shook his head and batted Sirius away., "Nothing is wrong with him. Nothing except my mother wasn't impressed by the amount of times he got called into Dumbledore's office last year. She said it was all my fault and that I'm not to be a bad influence this year. So no more pranking and no more detentions. I have to be good!" He threw himself back onto the bed at this point, just as Sirius cracked up laughing.
James shot him a look that would have killed him, had it been possible. Sirius fell back onto the bed next to James and announced, "S'all right. We'll just blame it on the Weasley twins. We'll keep out of mischief all year that way!"
Remus rolled his eyes and walked away, back to his bed, where he began pulling pajamas out of his trunk and removing his robes, "How about the two of you just don't do anything that will get you into trouble?" he asked, knowing that the two of them would immediately dismiss that idea, thus making his life no better than usual. As Remus slipped into his Sirius-mussed covers, he was bowled over by two lanky, dark-haired friends. Landing skewed on his back with an 'oof' he gasped, trying to get air into his now-burning and oxygen deprived lungs.
*~*~*~*~*
Sirius Black could easily say that the thing he loved the most about Remus was his smile. He supposed it was because his friend was so serious, and the infrequent times he did smile it was a little like the sun coming out from behind clouds. It shot straight out to the sides of his face, horizontally, as opposed to stretching the face upwards like most people. Remus' face made a perfect circle when he smiled, and lit up those hazel eyes that had Sirius so entranced.
There was something special about Remus, something that drew Sirius to him. They were supposed to be mates, but there was a world of difference between his and Remus' relationship and the one he had with James. And that was different again from what he had with Peter.
Sirius loved girls. He did. He could categorically say that girls were the best thing on the face of the earth. He loved breasts, and thighs, and hips and soft, soft lily-white skin. But, no matter how much he tried, he couldn't find what he was looking for. He was having a lot of fun looking, of course, but there was something missing from everything he chased. And everything he got. He wanted (although he'd sooner hex you green before admitting to it) what James had. Well, okay, not exactly what James had. What James wanted. His best friend had been nothing but single-mindedly ruthless in his pursuit of Lily Evans since she was partnered with him halfway through first year. Okay, so she hated him, but one thing Sirius knew about James was when he wanted something he didn't stop until he'd gotten it. For example, and this was a good one, when they'd found out that Remus was a werewolf (Sirius can't believe people don't realize. Once you know, its pretty obvious!), James wanted to do something to help him, so they could be there for their friend when he went through the unimaginable pain once a month. It had taken over a year for anyone to think of anything, and when they finally did, no one thought it would be possible. But they had done it. They had managed to turn themselves into animagus.
They hadn't told him, and Sirius knew that they were going to have to soon. Remus was starting to get slightly suspicious, and it was lucky that he and James had had so much time to practice together over the holidays. Peter had gotten it surprisingly fast; they'd all thought he was hopeless at transfiguration, but he'd picked it up much more quickly than Sirius, and even James who was the best in class. Sirius thought that Peter's problem was that he was too scared of McGonnagal. Sirius' problem was probably that he wasn't scared enough of her. He and James had practiced and practiced and they finally had it, just in time for the beginning of the new term. Sirius was incredibly proud of his animagus form, and he hoped Remus wasn't going to be too mad at them for doing what they had done. If he was Remus he would have been happy rather than angry, but one could never tell with him sometimes.
The seediest thing Sirius had ever done was probably the time he had that threesome. Okay, yes, so he was only fifteen and if he actually told someone they probably wouldn't have believed him, but it was true. That was why he'd never tell anyone, not ever. Especially not about the fact that it was not two girls he had the threesome with (although if he ever did tell anyone, that's what he'd tell them). He was at one of the Black familiy’s infamous parties over the summer; as much as he tried to miss them, sometimes it didn't work. Besides, they kind of intrigued him, the appalling things the wealthy did when they were together. He hated most of them. But sometimes there were people that he had no idea why they had come, as it was obvious they had no place there.
He also thought it was funny what money did to women. That, he assumed at the time, is why the girl was there. She was with Lucius Malfoy. Sirius vaguely remembered him from first year. His mother had wanted the two of them to be best friends, for Lucius to be his mentor, someone for him to look up to. And then he ruined all her plans by being placed in Gryffindor.
The girl ended up talking to another guy who didn't really look like he belonged, like seeking like, and that was how Sirius approached the two of them. Told them his wing was a much cooler place to be, seeming much older than his fifteen years. And it kind of progressed from there. Sirius still isn't sure how, but he thinks the two bottles of fire-whisky he consumed might have had something to do with it.
The thing is (and this is the part he finds hard to admit, even to himself) is that as much as he enjoyed getting to fuck a girl all night - he always enjoys that - the part he enjoyed the most about the whole thing was the guy, whose name he never even found out. He loved the hardness under his fingertips, the way he gripped Sirius' hips as he thrust into his hand, the way a cock feels completely different under your hands when its not your own, and especially how powerful you feel when you know better than any girl how another male likes to be touched. That is why he can never tell his friends. Not about that.
Truth was, all the girls he could get wouldn't fix the fact that Sirius, although he'd never admit it to anyone in the world, ever, was a little bit in love with his friend Remus. He wasn't gay, of course not. He just thought that sometimes he might have enjoyed the feel of Remus' rough, scarred face between his hands and under his lips. That was all. Girls weren't rough enough, that was it. And he could talk to Remus. That was important, or so the many girls in his life told him. He could never think of a word to say to any of them besides 'want a shag?', but he could talk to Remus for hours. Also, he liked taking care of Remus when he was sick - bringing him food, and collecting his homework. It didn't make him gay though. Not at all. The only cock he loved was his. Girls were his thing.
He was almost sure of it.
*~*~*~*~*
Remus got tackled outside the potions dungeon on the second day of classes, a giant mass of limbs and dark hair. He seriously thought that Sirius got more and more boisterous every single year. It was almost like having a giant puppy around, sometimes. James stood behind him, looking stately and almost regal, and Peter was just visible from behind James, poking his nose around his friends side.
Sirius wrapped his arms around Remus' neck and hugged him from behind, "Moony, we have a present for you."
Remus frowned, looking at his three friends, "A present? It's not my birthday, though."
James grinned, "It's a first-moon-back-at-school present."
Remus' frown deepened, "It's two weeks away."
Sirius shrugged and breathed heavily down the back of Remus' robes where he was still clinging to his friend, "We figure it might take that long for you to stop being mad at us."
"Mad at you?" Remus narrowed his eyes, twisting to see Sirius better.
Sirius let go and slung his arm around James' neck. James grinned down at Remus, "Absolutely. You're always mad at us Remus. It's your way of telling us how much you love us!"
Remus rolled his eyes, "Yes, that's it James. Every time I give you a detention, it’s because I love you."
Peter laughed from behind James, "You haven't given us a detention."
"Not yet," Remus replied darkly, "Sounds like I'm about to though."
Sirius slapped him on the back as Professor Slughorn limped around the corner and winked at Remus . He had no idea why; the man hated him. Mostly because he was absolutely hopeless at potions. And that was on a good day. Lily had tried to explain the theory to him one night in the common room, but had ended up fed up with James sending her sappy looks and Sirius flicking balls of rolled up paper at her with his wand. He was going to fail his O.W.L. no matter what he did anyway, so what did it matter?
"So when do I get my present?" Remus asked as they filed into the classroom.
Sirius shot a glance at James and shrugged, "Tonight?" he asked, "We can use that room on the fourth floor, by the statue of Helga the Horrific." He was speaking over Remus' head to James, who Remus caught nodding out of the corner of his eye.
They all took their seats at the usual desks, and Sirius turned to James, "Did you see that girl your brother was sitting with at breakfast? Indian chick with the really long hair? What a fox!"
James grinned, and Remus turned away as the talk once again turned to girls. That was one thing he and his friends didn't have in common. Remus just didn't understand it. He was fifteen, and he knew that girls were supposed to be constantly on his mind, but truth be told he just couldn't muster up the enthusiasm for it. Maybe that meant there was something wrong with him; Sirius sure loved to torture him mercilessly for it, but he just didn't mind.
He tuned back into the conversation just to hear Sirius exclaim, "Fucking ace arse!" and he rolled his eyes.
Actually, if Remus thought about it, he really didn't have that much in common with his friends. Sometimes it was a wonder they even hung out at all.
*~*~*~*~*
Harry was sitting in Sirius' seat next to James at the table in the Great Hall at lunchtime. James had a murderous look on his face, and Remus was incredibly scared that James was going to blow. Somehow, Harry always seemed to get on James' nerves. Sirius liked him; said the kid reminded him of how he was when he was twelve. Remus didn't like that at all. Sirius had always, and would always be a trouble child. At twelve, Sirius had been an absolute terror. It was never a good sign that Sirius thought someone was going to be like him. That meant the whole school was in for trouble.
Remus had started Hogwarts knowing he was going to be completely different to the other kids. He'd never had friends when he attended the local Comprehensive school, and he hadn't expected to have any when he started Hogwarts. And then he'd been placed in a bedroom with three other boys his own age, who had seemed to thrive on being different. Except maybe Peter, but he seemed perfectly happy being a hang-around kid. Sirius prided himself on being different. He'd grown up in a family he hated, being something he didn't want to be, and even though he swore black and blue his mother was going to disown him the night they'd all met, he hadn't really seemed to mind. He was perfectly happy being different to what was expected of him, and Remus supposed that was why they had become friends as quickly as they had. It also could have been Sirius jumping into his bed the very first night of school and talking to him about anything and everything until three o'clock in the morning. It had been somewhat of a tradition since, for Sirius to spend the night with Remus whenever he had a problem, or when he couldn't sleep. It had been two nights and so far it hadn't happened yet this year.
Remus wondered what their surprise was. Last time Sirius had planned a surprise, James had ended up with a nasty rash in a very unfortunate place, and Peter hadn't stopped laughing for two hours. So it was fair enough that when Sirius Black uttered Remus and Surprise in the same sentence, Remus got scared. He was probably reflecting on it too much, but still. His friends were slightly scary sometimes.
Remus' attention was caught by raised voices on the other side of the table. Sirius was leaning on the back of James' chair, smirking down at Harry, whose face was gradually turning redder.
"It wasn't my fault," he was exclaiming fervently.
James scowled, and pushed his glasses up higher on his nose, "That's exactly what mum's going to say. And you know what the next words out of her mouth will be? 'It was all your fault, James!'"
"But, seriously, it wasn't my fault!" Harry insisted, "Malfoy set us up. I told Dumbledore that!"
Sirius rolled his eyes, "You know, if you're going to blame someone else, at least do it properly."
"But I'm not lying," Harry insisted, looking up at Sirius.
Ron, who was listening to the conversation from beside Remus, as if he was watching a tennis match, said through a mouthful of carrots, "He's not lying, Black. Malfoy really did set us up."
James crossed his arms over his chest, "Well, if Dumbledore won't believe you, then neither will mum. And you've still got detention. So it'll still all come back to me."
"Howler tomorrow, old boy," Sirius slapped James on the back and grabbed a sausage off his plate, "Too bad." He winked at Remus as he turned to leave, "See ya tonight, Moony. Don't be late!"
Lily looked at Remus from over her newspaper, "What's happening tonight, Remus?" she asked, "What is Sirius talking about? I don't want to know, do I?"
"I don't even know," he told her, "Something about a surprise for me."
James pushed away from the table and grinned, tousling his hair with his fingers, "Don't be late."
Remus rolled his eyes, and turned to Harry, "What did you do to get detention anyway?"
"Someone let off some dungbombs in the second floor girls’ bathroom," Ron said miserably, "And McGonagall caught us coming out of there yesterday, and assumed it was us."
Lily narrowed her eyes, "What were you doing in the girls’ bathroom, anyway? And a haunted bathroom at that!"
"It was Hermione's idea!" Harry said, "We needed some peace and she suggested there."
"Peace for what?" Remus asked.
Ron's eyes looked at Harry guiltily, "Just to get away from stupid first years, s'all."
Lily harumphed and got up in a sweep of bright red hair, "Honestly don't see what James sees in her," Harry muttered under his breath, as Remus stood up after her.
Meeting Lily in the hallway, Remus pulled her aside and whispered into her hair, "Someone needs to check out what those boys are doing in there."
She nodded, smiled at him, and departed for her next lesson of the day.
Peter spotted him down the hall, where he was standing in line for class and bellowed, "Moony! Don't be late!"