Lupin!Love update, the "I should be shot for this" version!
It's been ages since I've produced written worship of Professor Lupin, and with the upcoming movie, I was suddenly struck by my muses--and their two by four. So naturally, I had to write something utterly and completely inappropriate and very cracked out.
The problem with teaching someone with a deeply vindictive personality Occlumency was the inevitable problem of his using it to evil ends.
Combining the fact that Snape had a deep and dreadful loathing of the Marauders, James' recent revelation that he was a jolly homophobe and Sirius' recent revelation that he was mad over Remus (made simultaneously by Peter, who was then thoroughly thumped by all involved), nothing good could have possibly come of it.
The fact that Snape had a very deep, dark, secretive penchant for reading terrible Wizarding romance novels did nothing to improve the situation.
The entire situation boiled over when Sirius not only revealed Snape's impressive collection of bodice-rippers, but had decided to regale the entire Great Hall with select passages, focusing mainly on lush breasts. Snape, furious, had decided that death was too good for young Sirius Black, and stalked back to Slytherin dungeons, determined to fashion some sort of fitting punishment for Sirius' antics.
Genius had come to him in the wee hours of morning, and he'd woken up his entire year cackling before being beaten down with pillows, tossed from every corner of the room.
-----
After Remus' last session of remedial Potions (ever), he walked calmly into the Gryffindor common room and up the spiral staircase to the seventh year boys' room. There, he very calmly took off all of his clothing, and crawled purring into James Potter's bed, where he proceeded to rub himself against James' fully-clothed side like an enormous cat.
James, struck dumb and very put out by Remus' unusually friendly behavior, managed only to gape, and squeak in a less than masculine way as Remus purred warmly and licked his neck.
Peter, who was across the room, released a sound not unlike a choking bovine, and rubbed his eyes before reassessing the situation. Realizing that Remus Lupin was, actually, still curled up against James Potter and now had somehow managed to put his hands down James' trousers, Peter blushed furiously and said, "Sirius is going to kill you," in a very low, doomed voice.
James, whose trousers were really very nearly public domain, made an abrupt, squawking noise and grabbed Remus' wrist, jerking it out of his pants and staring at his friend as if he'd suddenly sprouted wings--or molesting men.
"What are you doing?" he asked, horrified.
Remus' cheeks pinked, and an extraordinarily dirty smile stole across his face as he arched his spine. James found himself biting back a gasp and reevaluating his opinion on the wicked vice of the Greeks for half a beat before he shook himself, and demanded again, "Remus, what the hell are you doing?"
Remus batted his lashes at him, and murmured, "Oh, James, I'm sorry. I should have known you'd want to be the aggressor." He flung himself dramatically across James' bed, throwing one white forearm across his face in exaggerated meekness, and somehow blushed on cue, saying in a tremulous voice, "Do what you will with me."
Peter whimpered from across the room. "Oh, James. Sirius is going to kill you so much."
James growled, and dropped Remus' wrist as if it were a hot coal, staring in horrified awe at his friend, still splayed like a burlesque figure across his sheets. Stupidly enough, the only things that would cross his mind was how very lovely Remus' thighs were and how his entire life was flashing before his eyes in anticipation of Sirius' reaction.
Remus peeked from underneath his forearm, with a slightly impatient lilt to a ridiculous affected, almost-girlishly high voice, he asked, "Is there anything wrong -- "
Sirius threw open the dormitory door, robes flapping, beaming and saying, "Remus!"
" -- Master?" Remus finished innocently.
Peter hit the deck.
-----
Four hours later, Sirius was still in a full body bind, courtesy of a very ruffled Professor McGonagall, who had heard the bloodcurdling shrieking and sounds of splintering furniture and James Potter's girlish screaming and come running.
They were still in the seventh year boys' room. This was due partially to the fact that Sirius was going through a slightly plump stage, one which he raged would wear off as soon as he was allowed to play Quidditch again and no one wanted to carry him to McGonagall's office. There were also the additional concerns that Peter was still busy trembling underneath his own bed, and the fact that Remus refused to unglue himself from James' side or put on some trousers.
Professor McGonagall was valiantly attempting to look any and everywhere in the room except for at Remus Lupin. James was still choking, and trying to inch away from Remus, who simply crept along the end of the bed with him, making deeply satisfied purring noises and nuzzling his cheek into James' chest. Sirius, from his vantage point in the far corner of the room, near one of the three piles of wreckage that had once been two beds and a desk and radiated hatred, and attempted to kill James with his mind. Peter was utterly silent, and felt the less anybody noticed him the better.
"Can someone please explain this situation to me?" McGonagall finally asked.
"James is my master," Remus said matter-of-factly, with a completely terrifying smile on his face. "I'm his pleasure-slave." He clung a little closer to James and beamed even more, adding, "Sometimes, he's rough, but it's only out of love, right, Master?"
James felt a strange tightening around his neck, similar to vice-like fingers, and found himself casting a wary glance at Sirius.
McGonagall stared for a long minute before she pushed her glasses higher up on her nose and said, "I was not at all aware that Mister Potter was entertaining the notion of human bondage -- "
Remus only giggled at that, pushing up closer to James and dropping one of his hands into James' lap, which was rapidly removed and shoved as far as Remus' arm would let it go while James turned eight colors of red not previously known in nature. The tightening around his neck grew more pronounced--he really hoped it was just psychological.
"I'm not!" James yelped, and Remus pouted fiercely at that. "I mean--I don't! I don't know what happened either, Professor! He just--came to the room and took off all of his clothes and started rubbing himself…"
James trailed off, turning a strange, whiteish color, which Remus found particularly distressing, and therefore began to massage James' thighs the way a concerned, conscientious pleasure-slave did when they saw their master in any sort of discomfort.
"For God's sake, Mister Lupin!" Professor McGonagall cried, red to the roots of her hair. "Will you please stop molesting Mister Potter and put on some trousers?"
Suddenly, James felt as if he could breathe again, and the same instinct as before had him looking over to where Sirius was glaring at him furiously, entire body trembling, as if attempting to break the full-body bind by will alone. James was becoming increasingly concerned he'd succeed, and then no amount of girlish screaming would save him.
Remus scowled, throwing himself all over James' side again and saying, "Professor, I couldn't possibly! I must be prepared to bow to my master's whims at all times!"
"I whim that you'd put some pants on!" James choked out, prying Remus off of his side as he began to feel faint again.
At first, Remus began to pout again--and James was beginning to find that expression on his friend's face unnaturally attractive--but all of a sudden brightened, and fairyed off to slip into some pants before flittering back. He leaned into James' side to whisper, "Kinky."
James made a faint, distressed "wah" into the ether and Professor McGonagall asked, "Mister Pettigrew, you will crawl out from underneath that bed immediately. If it's safe harbor you seek then it's hardly the place, given Mister Black's penchant for breaking the furniture in this room as if it were twigs." Peter did so, and shuffled across the room to stand next to Professor McGonagall, hazarding worried glanced to where Sirius was still laying still on the ground.
The deputy headmistress took a deep breath and asked, "While not privy to Mister Lupin's most intimate moods, I'm assuming that this is a new turn of events, Mister Potter?"
James looked on the verge of very confused tears, and nodded. Remus played with his hair.
Professor McGonagall went on to ask, "Mister Lupin, before you found yourself back…in this condition -- "
"At the whim of my master," Remus corrected pleasantly. "It's a lovely lifestyle decision."
McGonagall looked at a loss for words for a moment, and then plowed forward bravely, "Yes, right. Before you returned to this room, where exactly were you? And who with?"
Remus made a face at that. "I was with that awful, terrible Snape!" he said quickly. "In the Potions dungeon working on an Effervescence Elixir." He turned to beam up at James. "I very much dislike that nasty, oily man," he said, "aren't you very pleased that I've changed from my fence-sitting ways?"
James was torn between a deep, meaningful rush of pride and pure terror.
Professor McGonagall only sighed tiredly, and murmured, "Ah. I see." She looked to where Sirius was flat on his back on the floor, and said, "Mister Black, should I release you from that bind, understand that I'm doing so with the understanding that you will not break anything else in this room nor use an Unforgivable on Mister Potter or try to kill him with your bare hands. Is that clear?" She flicked her wand, and Sirius' mouth unfroze just enough for him to shout:
"James, you rotten, filthy, disgusting slut! I'll have you shot! And drawn and quartered! He's not even a girl and you can't leave well enough alone! I'll--I'll--!"
Remus glared at Sirius, which ended the boy's litany of verbal abuse abruptly. "Sirius, do be quiet! I think if anyone in this room is rotten and filthy, it's you! Saying terrible things about James, honestly!"
Sirius fell silent, and McGonagall thought she saw him die a little--on the inside.
She cleared her throat, and said, "Also, Mister Black, do try to avoid attempting to lick or otherwise take advantage of Mister Lupin's less-than-clothed state--"
Remus made a horrified expression.
"--When you recover."
There was a long silence, which Sirius finally broke by muttering, "How does everyone know?"
Peter smiled at Professor McGonagall weakly. "He's just a little emotional."
"'A little emotional' my arse, Pettigrew!" Sirius growled, momentarily diverted from his elaborate plans to kill James via Chinese Water Torture and leeches or with his mind. "You told the entire bloody school! I'll string you up next to Potter!"
"It's really not very fair to take this entire situation out on me," Peter said feelingly.
"Excuse me," James said urgently, struggling with Remus who was trying very determinedly to put his head in James' lap.
McGonagall nodded, refocused. Seven years of disciplining the Marauders had taught her the only thing more hazardous than their pranks were the effects of pranks on the Marauders.
-----
Snape, once confronted, had sullenly released Remus from the earlier suggestions, and was then hastily whisked away to an undisclosed location somewhere on the Hogwarts grounds for his own safety. Sirius, too distracted alternating between his attempts on James' life and recreating the Marauders Map from pure memory failed spectacularly at both.
Remus, after he'd blinked three times and looked down at himself, and realized that he'd been pasted to James' side, had turned a mortified shade of gray, and disappeared somewhere into Gryffindor tower and utterly refused to be found. He was therefore useless to Sirius' efforts in locating and erasing Snape, or in avenging Remus' virtue by strangling James.
-----
In the end, Sirius had been forced to use his masculine wiles on one of the Ravenclaw prefects in order to obtain the password to the prefects' bathroom, as he'd scoured every last inch of the castle and Remus was nowhere to be found. He hoped very much she wasn't too disappointed; after arranging to meet her behind the Quidditch shed later that evening he'd went on and sent Peter, who was so frightened of him at that point he went happily.
Sirius found the painting, murmured "Safety Word," and was whisked into the steam-filled room.
He narrowed his eyes, trying to see through the thick fog, and asked loudly, "Remus?"
After a long silence, there was the sound of water splashing, and Remus called back, "Go away. I'm trying to drown myself."
Sirius frowned, and felt his way carefully across the room. He'd been in there twice before, once to put dungbombs in the sinks, the other time to steal Remus' trousers and plant them in Lily's bed as a birthday present to himself. The moving Wizard's photos of James' face afterward had nursed him through some of the more difficult times in his life.
When his toe hit the scalloped edge of the enormous tub, Sirius stopped and crouched down, staring intently into the thick, white steam until the blurry edges and tan-colored fuzz resolved into Remus' sulking form, only his head above water.
"You're not generally prone to fits of melodrama," he said reasonably. Sirius looked around, and seeing no one else around, he pulled off his shoes and socks. Rolling up his pant legs, he dipped his feet into the water, sitting on the edge of the tub and staring at the vague, Remus-shaped blur through all the mist.
Remus said flatly, "I'm generally not prone to putting my hand down James' trousers and prancing about like some Sultan's pleasure boy, either."
Sirius felt a flare of jealousy again, tempered very poorly by the image of Lily looming over James, shouting at the top of her lungs about how could he and why did he take such advantage of poor Remus and oh, sure, of course he "hadn't liked it."
"That wasn't really you, though," Sirius argued, and added secretly that if it were, then Sirius really would kill James with his mind. "That was just Snape, being an arse and terrifying."
There were more splashing noises, and Remus mourned, "I don't think I'll ever be clean again."
"I could help," Sirius said hopefully. "Maybe I could give you a sponge bath."
Remus' breath hitched. "That's not very funny, Sirius."
Subdued, and slightly hurt by the disapproving tone in Remus' voice, Sirius said very quickly, "Sorry. I know you don't fancy me."
It was suddenly very still in the bathroom, and then very loud and riotous as Remus padded from the distant side of the pool until he was right between Sirius' loosely opened knees, staring at Sirius hard enough to burn holes in his head. Remus was wet and red, glistening with water, hair slicked down and dark-brown, pasted in wisps to his face. Sirius made a faint, hamstrung noise.
"What do you mean by that, Sirius?" Remus asked quietly.
Sirius blinked, having a lot of trouble stringing together a proper sentence when he could see a fairly descriptive outline of Remus' particular assents through the pale turquoise water. So he opened and closed his mouth once or twice before he managed, "I meant that I'm sorry. I'll stop. I know you don't fancy me, and I'll stop trying to throw myself at--"
"You fancy me?" Remus asked, incredulous and high-pitched, genuinely surprised.
Sirius stared at Remus--his face, this time.
"You didn't know that?" he demanded.
Remus looked faint--though that may have just been from the bath.
"Everybody knew that!" Sirius shouted, waving his arms expressively.
"I didn't!" Remus shouted back, sounding annoyed. "Why didn't you say anything to me?"
"Because everybody knows I fancy you!" Sirius bellowed, lightheaded. He was going to kill Remus--and then he'd strip him down and lick every inch of his body, that's what he'd do. "Peter told the entire Great Hall! McGonagall knows! Filch knows! Snape obviously knows! Dumbledore stopped me in the hall last week to ask if I had the proper supplies should you come round!"
Remus opened his mouth to argue but shut his jaw with a snap. He watched Sirius intently for a moment, and opened his mouth again, as if to launch into one of his disgustingly well-reasoned and mostly meaningless--since Sirius didn't take advice which advised contrary to his intentions, ever--diatribes. Then, he muttered, "Oh, sod it," under his breath and grabbed Sirius by his poorly-knotted tie and dragged him into the water.
-----
Two weeks later, when Severus Snape was finally released from protection, he wandered around jumping at the slightest sound, terrified that Sirius would leap out of every shadow and from every corner to dismember him.
By nightfall, when nothing had happened, he headed to his bed, exhausted.
He woke up the next morning tied to the tallest of the three Quidditch hoops, naked save for a very skimpy pair of red, women's panties, which upon appraisal was decided to be property of one Lucius Malfoy (who was indignant that they'd been stolen) and an extremely unflattering faux leather bustier.
Three hours later, when the teachers had finally stopped laughing long enough get him down, Remus and Sirius were still fast asleep, curled into one another, completely unawares.
THE END. I'M VERY SORRY.
The original inspiration for this comes from a totally hilarious Star Wars story found here called Lost in Translation, but the antics are all my own.
All verbal abuse will be accepted with good-nature, as I have utterly and totally earned it.
The problem with teaching someone with a deeply vindictive personality Occlumency was the inevitable problem of his using it to evil ends.
Combining the fact that Snape had a deep and dreadful loathing of the Marauders, James' recent revelation that he was a jolly homophobe and Sirius' recent revelation that he was mad over Remus (made simultaneously by Peter, who was then thoroughly thumped by all involved), nothing good could have possibly come of it.
The fact that Snape had a very deep, dark, secretive penchant for reading terrible Wizarding romance novels did nothing to improve the situation.
The entire situation boiled over when Sirius not only revealed Snape's impressive collection of bodice-rippers, but had decided to regale the entire Great Hall with select passages, focusing mainly on lush breasts. Snape, furious, had decided that death was too good for young Sirius Black, and stalked back to Slytherin dungeons, determined to fashion some sort of fitting punishment for Sirius' antics.
Genius had come to him in the wee hours of morning, and he'd woken up his entire year cackling before being beaten down with pillows, tossed from every corner of the room.
-----
After Remus' last session of remedial Potions (ever), he walked calmly into the Gryffindor common room and up the spiral staircase to the seventh year boys' room. There, he very calmly took off all of his clothing, and crawled purring into James Potter's bed, where he proceeded to rub himself against James' fully-clothed side like an enormous cat.
James, struck dumb and very put out by Remus' unusually friendly behavior, managed only to gape, and squeak in a less than masculine way as Remus purred warmly and licked his neck.
Peter, who was across the room, released a sound not unlike a choking bovine, and rubbed his eyes before reassessing the situation. Realizing that Remus Lupin was, actually, still curled up against James Potter and now had somehow managed to put his hands down James' trousers, Peter blushed furiously and said, "Sirius is going to kill you," in a very low, doomed voice.
James, whose trousers were really very nearly public domain, made an abrupt, squawking noise and grabbed Remus' wrist, jerking it out of his pants and staring at his friend as if he'd suddenly sprouted wings--or molesting men.
"What are you doing?" he asked, horrified.
Remus' cheeks pinked, and an extraordinarily dirty smile stole across his face as he arched his spine. James found himself biting back a gasp and reevaluating his opinion on the wicked vice of the Greeks for half a beat before he shook himself, and demanded again, "Remus, what the hell are you doing?"
Remus batted his lashes at him, and murmured, "Oh, James, I'm sorry. I should have known you'd want to be the aggressor." He flung himself dramatically across James' bed, throwing one white forearm across his face in exaggerated meekness, and somehow blushed on cue, saying in a tremulous voice, "Do what you will with me."
Peter whimpered from across the room. "Oh, James. Sirius is going to kill you so much."
James growled, and dropped Remus' wrist as if it were a hot coal, staring in horrified awe at his friend, still splayed like a burlesque figure across his sheets. Stupidly enough, the only things that would cross his mind was how very lovely Remus' thighs were and how his entire life was flashing before his eyes in anticipation of Sirius' reaction.
Remus peeked from underneath his forearm, with a slightly impatient lilt to a ridiculous affected, almost-girlishly high voice, he asked, "Is there anything wrong -- "
Sirius threw open the dormitory door, robes flapping, beaming and saying, "Remus!"
" -- Master?" Remus finished innocently.
Peter hit the deck.
-----
Four hours later, Sirius was still in a full body bind, courtesy of a very ruffled Professor McGonagall, who had heard the bloodcurdling shrieking and sounds of splintering furniture and James Potter's girlish screaming and come running.
They were still in the seventh year boys' room. This was due partially to the fact that Sirius was going through a slightly plump stage, one which he raged would wear off as soon as he was allowed to play Quidditch again and no one wanted to carry him to McGonagall's office. There were also the additional concerns that Peter was still busy trembling underneath his own bed, and the fact that Remus refused to unglue himself from James' side or put on some trousers.
Professor McGonagall was valiantly attempting to look any and everywhere in the room except for at Remus Lupin. James was still choking, and trying to inch away from Remus, who simply crept along the end of the bed with him, making deeply satisfied purring noises and nuzzling his cheek into James' chest. Sirius, from his vantage point in the far corner of the room, near one of the three piles of wreckage that had once been two beds and a desk and radiated hatred, and attempted to kill James with his mind. Peter was utterly silent, and felt the less anybody noticed him the better.
"Can someone please explain this situation to me?" McGonagall finally asked.
"James is my master," Remus said matter-of-factly, with a completely terrifying smile on his face. "I'm his pleasure-slave." He clung a little closer to James and beamed even more, adding, "Sometimes, he's rough, but it's only out of love, right, Master?"
James felt a strange tightening around his neck, similar to vice-like fingers, and found himself casting a wary glance at Sirius.
McGonagall stared for a long minute before she pushed her glasses higher up on her nose and said, "I was not at all aware that Mister Potter was entertaining the notion of human bondage -- "
Remus only giggled at that, pushing up closer to James and dropping one of his hands into James' lap, which was rapidly removed and shoved as far as Remus' arm would let it go while James turned eight colors of red not previously known in nature. The tightening around his neck grew more pronounced--he really hoped it was just psychological.
"I'm not!" James yelped, and Remus pouted fiercely at that. "I mean--I don't! I don't know what happened either, Professor! He just--came to the room and took off all of his clothes and started rubbing himself…"
James trailed off, turning a strange, whiteish color, which Remus found particularly distressing, and therefore began to massage James' thighs the way a concerned, conscientious pleasure-slave did when they saw their master in any sort of discomfort.
"For God's sake, Mister Lupin!" Professor McGonagall cried, red to the roots of her hair. "Will you please stop molesting Mister Potter and put on some trousers?"
Suddenly, James felt as if he could breathe again, and the same instinct as before had him looking over to where Sirius was glaring at him furiously, entire body trembling, as if attempting to break the full-body bind by will alone. James was becoming increasingly concerned he'd succeed, and then no amount of girlish screaming would save him.
Remus scowled, throwing himself all over James' side again and saying, "Professor, I couldn't possibly! I must be prepared to bow to my master's whims at all times!"
"I whim that you'd put some pants on!" James choked out, prying Remus off of his side as he began to feel faint again.
At first, Remus began to pout again--and James was beginning to find that expression on his friend's face unnaturally attractive--but all of a sudden brightened, and fairyed off to slip into some pants before flittering back. He leaned into James' side to whisper, "Kinky."
James made a faint, distressed "wah" into the ether and Professor McGonagall asked, "Mister Pettigrew, you will crawl out from underneath that bed immediately. If it's safe harbor you seek then it's hardly the place, given Mister Black's penchant for breaking the furniture in this room as if it were twigs." Peter did so, and shuffled across the room to stand next to Professor McGonagall, hazarding worried glanced to where Sirius was still laying still on the ground.
The deputy headmistress took a deep breath and asked, "While not privy to Mister Lupin's most intimate moods, I'm assuming that this is a new turn of events, Mister Potter?"
James looked on the verge of very confused tears, and nodded. Remus played with his hair.
Professor McGonagall went on to ask, "Mister Lupin, before you found yourself back…in this condition -- "
"At the whim of my master," Remus corrected pleasantly. "It's a lovely lifestyle decision."
McGonagall looked at a loss for words for a moment, and then plowed forward bravely, "Yes, right. Before you returned to this room, where exactly were you? And who with?"
Remus made a face at that. "I was with that awful, terrible Snape!" he said quickly. "In the Potions dungeon working on an Effervescence Elixir." He turned to beam up at James. "I very much dislike that nasty, oily man," he said, "aren't you very pleased that I've changed from my fence-sitting ways?"
James was torn between a deep, meaningful rush of pride and pure terror.
Professor McGonagall only sighed tiredly, and murmured, "Ah. I see." She looked to where Sirius was flat on his back on the floor, and said, "Mister Black, should I release you from that bind, understand that I'm doing so with the understanding that you will not break anything else in this room nor use an Unforgivable on Mister Potter or try to kill him with your bare hands. Is that clear?" She flicked her wand, and Sirius' mouth unfroze just enough for him to shout:
"James, you rotten, filthy, disgusting slut! I'll have you shot! And drawn and quartered! He's not even a girl and you can't leave well enough alone! I'll--I'll--!"
Remus glared at Sirius, which ended the boy's litany of verbal abuse abruptly. "Sirius, do be quiet! I think if anyone in this room is rotten and filthy, it's you! Saying terrible things about James, honestly!"
Sirius fell silent, and McGonagall thought she saw him die a little--on the inside.
She cleared her throat, and said, "Also, Mister Black, do try to avoid attempting to lick or otherwise take advantage of Mister Lupin's less-than-clothed state--"
Remus made a horrified expression.
"--When you recover."
There was a long silence, which Sirius finally broke by muttering, "How does everyone know?"
Peter smiled at Professor McGonagall weakly. "He's just a little emotional."
"'A little emotional' my arse, Pettigrew!" Sirius growled, momentarily diverted from his elaborate plans to kill James via Chinese Water Torture and leeches or with his mind. "You told the entire bloody school! I'll string you up next to Potter!"
"It's really not very fair to take this entire situation out on me," Peter said feelingly.
"Excuse me," James said urgently, struggling with Remus who was trying very determinedly to put his head in James' lap.
McGonagall nodded, refocused. Seven years of disciplining the Marauders had taught her the only thing more hazardous than their pranks were the effects of pranks on the Marauders.
-----
Snape, once confronted, had sullenly released Remus from the earlier suggestions, and was then hastily whisked away to an undisclosed location somewhere on the Hogwarts grounds for his own safety. Sirius, too distracted alternating between his attempts on James' life and recreating the Marauders Map from pure memory failed spectacularly at both.
Remus, after he'd blinked three times and looked down at himself, and realized that he'd been pasted to James' side, had turned a mortified shade of gray, and disappeared somewhere into Gryffindor tower and utterly refused to be found. He was therefore useless to Sirius' efforts in locating and erasing Snape, or in avenging Remus' virtue by strangling James.
-----
In the end, Sirius had been forced to use his masculine wiles on one of the Ravenclaw prefects in order to obtain the password to the prefects' bathroom, as he'd scoured every last inch of the castle and Remus was nowhere to be found. He hoped very much she wasn't too disappointed; after arranging to meet her behind the Quidditch shed later that evening he'd went on and sent Peter, who was so frightened of him at that point he went happily.
Sirius found the painting, murmured "Safety Word," and was whisked into the steam-filled room.
He narrowed his eyes, trying to see through the thick fog, and asked loudly, "Remus?"
After a long silence, there was the sound of water splashing, and Remus called back, "Go away. I'm trying to drown myself."
Sirius frowned, and felt his way carefully across the room. He'd been in there twice before, once to put dungbombs in the sinks, the other time to steal Remus' trousers and plant them in Lily's bed as a birthday present to himself. The moving Wizard's photos of James' face afterward had nursed him through some of the more difficult times in his life.
When his toe hit the scalloped edge of the enormous tub, Sirius stopped and crouched down, staring intently into the thick, white steam until the blurry edges and tan-colored fuzz resolved into Remus' sulking form, only his head above water.
"You're not generally prone to fits of melodrama," he said reasonably. Sirius looked around, and seeing no one else around, he pulled off his shoes and socks. Rolling up his pant legs, he dipped his feet into the water, sitting on the edge of the tub and staring at the vague, Remus-shaped blur through all the mist.
Remus said flatly, "I'm generally not prone to putting my hand down James' trousers and prancing about like some Sultan's pleasure boy, either."
Sirius felt a flare of jealousy again, tempered very poorly by the image of Lily looming over James, shouting at the top of her lungs about how could he and why did he take such advantage of poor Remus and oh, sure, of course he "hadn't liked it."
"That wasn't really you, though," Sirius argued, and added secretly that if it were, then Sirius really would kill James with his mind. "That was just Snape, being an arse and terrifying."
There were more splashing noises, and Remus mourned, "I don't think I'll ever be clean again."
"I could help," Sirius said hopefully. "Maybe I could give you a sponge bath."
Remus' breath hitched. "That's not very funny, Sirius."
Subdued, and slightly hurt by the disapproving tone in Remus' voice, Sirius said very quickly, "Sorry. I know you don't fancy me."
It was suddenly very still in the bathroom, and then very loud and riotous as Remus padded from the distant side of the pool until he was right between Sirius' loosely opened knees, staring at Sirius hard enough to burn holes in his head. Remus was wet and red, glistening with water, hair slicked down and dark-brown, pasted in wisps to his face. Sirius made a faint, hamstrung noise.
"What do you mean by that, Sirius?" Remus asked quietly.
Sirius blinked, having a lot of trouble stringing together a proper sentence when he could see a fairly descriptive outline of Remus' particular assents through the pale turquoise water. So he opened and closed his mouth once or twice before he managed, "I meant that I'm sorry. I'll stop. I know you don't fancy me, and I'll stop trying to throw myself at--"
"You fancy me?" Remus asked, incredulous and high-pitched, genuinely surprised.
Sirius stared at Remus--his face, this time.
"You didn't know that?" he demanded.
Remus looked faint--though that may have just been from the bath.
"Everybody knew that!" Sirius shouted, waving his arms expressively.
"I didn't!" Remus shouted back, sounding annoyed. "Why didn't you say anything to me?"
"Because everybody knows I fancy you!" Sirius bellowed, lightheaded. He was going to kill Remus--and then he'd strip him down and lick every inch of his body, that's what he'd do. "Peter told the entire Great Hall! McGonagall knows! Filch knows! Snape obviously knows! Dumbledore stopped me in the hall last week to ask if I had the proper supplies should you come round!"
Remus opened his mouth to argue but shut his jaw with a snap. He watched Sirius intently for a moment, and opened his mouth again, as if to launch into one of his disgustingly well-reasoned and mostly meaningless--since Sirius didn't take advice which advised contrary to his intentions, ever--diatribes. Then, he muttered, "Oh, sod it," under his breath and grabbed Sirius by his poorly-knotted tie and dragged him into the water.
-----
Two weeks later, when Severus Snape was finally released from protection, he wandered around jumping at the slightest sound, terrified that Sirius would leap out of every shadow and from every corner to dismember him.
By nightfall, when nothing had happened, he headed to his bed, exhausted.
He woke up the next morning tied to the tallest of the three Quidditch hoops, naked save for a very skimpy pair of red, women's panties, which upon appraisal was decided to be property of one Lucius Malfoy (who was indignant that they'd been stolen) and an extremely unflattering faux leather bustier.
Three hours later, when the teachers had finally stopped laughing long enough get him down, Remus and Sirius were still fast asleep, curled into one another, completely unawares.
THE END. I'M VERY SORRY.
The original inspiration for this comes from a totally hilarious Star Wars story found here called Lost in Translation, but the antics are all my own.
All verbal abuse will be accepted with good-nature, as I have utterly and totally earned it.