Fic: Rites of Passage
Rites of Passage
By Minnow
Disclaimer: These characters belong to JK Rowling and various corporations.
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Era: MWPP
Rating: R
Summary: Easter holidays at the Pettigrews’. First time fic.
Thanks: Preliminary beta by flu-ridden astra_argentea. Get well soon! :)
Note: This is an absolutely straightforward short story. With sex! :)
Thanks to all of you who commented. Cross-posted on remusxsirius and marauders_slash.
Rites of Passage
It’s a Monday, the day after a full moon, a day of rain beating against the common room windows and so cold that Remus can’t move from the fireside. He sits shivering with a blanket round him, his eyelids drooping from the direct heat, from exhaustion and his dogged refusal to give in and go to bed as Madam Pomfrey has instructed.
Sirius has skived off Potions to come and find his friend and cheer him up, and Remus is falling asleep in earnest when he feels a soft mouth covering his. His eyes shoot open, and after a moment he starts to kiss back.
Some time later, his face slightly reddened by the fire, Sirius mutters ‘Sorry,’ not looking at Remus. ‘I just, you were just… Pretty,’ he finishes lamely, and rather insultingly, Remus feels. But he takes it as a compliment, the way it was intended, with a polite ‘Thank you’ that may or may not be an adequate response.
Sirius takes a deep breath, as if for courage. ‘I really like you,’ he says, his grey eyes earnest, his pupils dilated. ‘I mean...a lot. I’d really like to do that again sometime.’
Remus can’t be sure how much Sirius really means it; or even that he isn’t actually dreaming. In fact, he's so tired that Sirius’s words fade into his dream: words like love, and want, which surely Sirius can’t really have said.
Two weeks go by, and they’re all at Peter’s for a few days of the Easter holidays, and nothing is resolved. Nothing is happening, really. Oh, yes, the occasional, very occasional brush of hand on hand, and then the hands immediately snatched away, as though they’d been scalded. Feelings hover, new and strange and burning. Remus agonises. What do they do now? Sometimes, he almost wishes this thing hadn’t started to blaze between them.
The Pettigrews are purebloods, not well-connected like the Blacks, not liberal like the Potters. The house is shabby and its voice seems to gasp greedily for more, for gold, for space, for a wand to wave away the dust accumulating in corners and on stairs. Not that the visitors particularly notice, because they’re teenagers and more interested in the contents of the larder and what’s for lunch. They've spent the morning messing about by the river half a mile down the road, until they get bored and hungry, and come back to practise Quidditch in the small back garden.
James and Peter play; Remus and Sirius stay on the ground, sprawled on their stomachs, unconsciously leaning towards each other. The two boys flying above them on their broomsticks don’t notice. Peter’s a poor flier, and the more he tries to impress James, the clumsier he becomes.
Peter’s mother doesn’t care as much about lunch as her guests do. She’s ensconced in the front parlour, chain-smoking and gazing into her crystal ball. She tells their fortunes - fame for Sirius, a beautiful wife for Remus - then loses interest in them, though she offers to read the Tarot for James after her afternoon nap. ‘You have a lucky face, dear,’ she says in her slightly wheedling, gipsy’s voice.
‘What’s to eat, Mum?’ Peter asks, with a similarly wheedling tone, Remus notes.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Cheese, I think. Your father finished off the bread this morning.’
‘If you give me some gold, I can go to the shop.’
‘In my bag. Get me some fags while you’re there, will you? Now run along, and leave me alone.’
Once they’ve stuffed themselves on baked beans and chocolate, there’s nothing much to do. Remus surreptitiously watches Sirius beat James at chess. Of all the things he - likes - about Sirius, he finds his hands particularly striking, those graceful, aristocratic hands evolved from generations of wealth, of house-elves doing all the work.
Peter sits and watches James, without the same hunger. Remus does not realise how much he resembles the wolf when he can’t tear his eyes away from Sirius.
Peter’s room is quite big but crammed with furniture like the front parlour his mother monopolises. There’s a bed he’ll be sharing with James - James has no choice, because it’s Peter’s house and that’s what he wants - an oversized wardrobe, two armchairs with purple and white striped covers, and a rather rickety table that doubles as a desk. The window overlooks the back garden, the broomsticks flung carelessly down on the ground earlier, the neat lawn that contrasts strikingly with the interior of the house. Peter’s father is the gardener, and quite obsessive. He’ll be angry with Peter later for crash-landing in one of the immaculate flowerbeds and crushing a few of the first irises.
Remus and Sirius are also sharing a bed, in the smaller but less crowded spare bedroom down the hall, next to the bathroom. Remus isn’t sure how he’s going to feel about getting into a bed with Sirius. Part of him is longing for the night, and part of him wants to push it away forever.
He’s worried about physical things. He hasn’t a clue whether they’re going to do anything, and if so what. Sometimes he wants to put his arms round Sirius’s neck and bury his head in Sirius’s shoulder, but he doesn’t know if Sirius would be offended or not. His body’s feeling things he isn’t sure about either, but he can’t tell if that’s because of Sirius or just normal hormones. He’s rather messed up at the moment. It’s only two weeks, after all, but it’s been too long, it’s taking too long, and he’s afraid they may never get there. He’s also afraid he’ll be relieved if they don’t.
Peter’s mother calls querulously for her son. ‘Did you get my fags?’
Sighing, Peter gets up from his chair, goes to tend to his mother. The others follow, clumping noisily down the stairs, hoping there might be some cake or biscuits for tea.
There don’t seem to be any books in the house, beyond a few tattered guides to divination and astrology with startlingly lurid covers, which count as nothing to read as far as Remus is concerned. He needs something to focus on, though, so he picks up an ancient book on palmistry and flicks through it.
He jumps at the sudden weight of Sirius’s hand on his shoulder. ‘Are you going to read my palm, Moony?’ He holds his other hand up towards Remus, who takes it and then just stands there for a minute, clutching Sirius’s hand and feeling foolish and flustered. Sirius stares down at the floor, suddenly as embarrassed as Remus.
‘Oi, you two!’ James, joking, raising his eyebrows suggestively. Remus has no idea how much he knows; not that there’s much to know, really. Maybe Sirius has told James that they kissed; but of course there isn’t a thing to tell James about anyway.
Though it’s light in the evenings now, Mrs Pettigrew has already closed the heavy velvet curtains in the parlour and lit a couple of lamps. The room reeks of cigarettes. The smoke is beginning to make Remus’s eyes run.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ Sirius says. It’s unusual for him to be so rude. He’s so polite that his manners sometimes seem incongruous in a young, impulsive schoolboy, even if he was brought up in the Black family; and Remus thinks he’s often a bit overwhelmed by having cut himself loose from them. As he speaks, he wrests his hand away from Remus’s. Remus starts, because he’d forgotten Sirius was still holding it. It just seems like a normal thing, nothing special. Just like something they could do all the time.
In the kitchen, with the back door open on to the garden and sunlight spilling in through the windows, all four boys feel happier, and Peter gives a silly little giggle, which could be relief or nerves or anything really.
‘So, what’s for tea, Wormtail?’ James asks. Peter, looking a bit worried, says, ‘The stuff we bought earlier.’
‘I think we ate all that,’ Sirius says. ‘Didn’t someone mention biscuits?’
Peter opens the china biscuit-barrel and looks inside hopefully, but of course there’s nothing there.
‘If we were allowed to do magic out of school we could make a cake,’ Sirius says.
There’s a long silence. James goes out into the garden, though the back door, and Peter follows him. Remus decides he’s rarely been so bored in his life, and feels sorry for Peter with his absent-minded mother who won’t provide food. She’s forgotten to read James’s cards as well. He wishes he were at home, with his own room, and plenty to eat, and lots of books. Then he thinks of sharing the spare bed with Sirius and takes his wish back. Then he changes his mind, but it doesn’t make any difference anyway. Wishes don’t come true.
At half past five, Peter’s father arrives home, Apparating to the front hall. He works at the Ministry, some lowly job investigating magical creatures. Remus is wary of him, because he knows he could turn nasty if he finds out one of his son’s friends is a werewolf. Remus doesn’t quite know what to make of Mr Pettigrew. In his experience, fathers are quite distant, but Mr Pettigrew has a big, false smile, and when he comes to the kitchen to say hello, he talks to them jovially and rather slowly, as if they were small children.
‘Well, had a good day, chaps?’ he booms, thumping Sirius on the back.
‘Er, yes, thank you,’ says Sirius.
Peter’s father goes to the door, calls his son over, sees the mess in the flowerbed. ‘What the hell have you been up to?’ He grabs Peter by the arm. His face changes instantly from jolly to thunderous, and he cuffs Peter round the ear before seeming to remember that Peter’s friends are watching, wide-eyed and surprised. James and Remus are shocked; Sirius, who has many years’ experience of an abusive family, probably considers the scene a bit tame.
Another silence, then Mr Pettigrew clears his throat and says, ‘Well. Dinner. Petey, do you lot want to go down and fetch some fish and chips?’
That hits the right note at least. Peter grabs the proffered gold, and they troop off back to the village: just a parade of shops, really. This isn’t London, or even Hogsmeade. Remus has rarely had fish and chips, a Muggle treat that’s finally penetrated wizarding territories. He hopes that Mrs Pettigrew will continue to sit in her parlour, absorbed in a variety of possible and impossible futures, so they can have fish and chips every day.
They all eat together in a dim room behind the kitchen with only one minuscule, high window. Muggles eat fish and chips straight out of the paper, but Mrs Pettigrew has roused herself enough to provide plates, knives and forks for everyone. They sit so close together round the small table that Sirius’s leg is pressed against Remus’s. He glances at Remus from time to time, but doesn’t move his leg. Remus doesn’t mind, but wishes he could stop thinking about the night to come and just enjoy his dinner. The food’s brilliant, even if the room smells suspiciously musty, probably a dead mouse trapped under a floorboard or behind a skirting.
It’s getting dark now, and Mrs Pettigrew goes round the house drawing the rest of the curtains. The back door is closed and locked. She does the washing-up with her wand - she’s surprisingly good at it - and the boys put the plates and cutlery away.
They go upstairs far earlier than they would have at school. Of course, at school there’s homework and Quidditch practice and pranks to plan and kitchen raids. Remus is already hungry again. He’d give a lot for a Hogwarts kitchen raid.
Up in Peter’s room again, they all sprawl on Peter’s bed and play snap: ordinary snap, not exploding. That’s boring too, and after a few games Peter yawns and announces that he’s too tired to stay up any longer.
They take it in turns to use the bathroom, and by nine the four of them are in their various rooms, getting ready for bed.
Remus turns his back on Sirius to strip off his jeans and teeshirt. He isn’t exactly self-conscious about his body, and anyway Sirius has seen him undressing hundreds of times. Just tonight he feels awkward. The last time they were alone, really alone, was two weeks ago, when the kiss happened. Remus wonders if Sirius still thinks he loves him, or whether that admission was fuelled by bravura and panic and the growing rift with his family.
Once he’s modestly struggled into his pyjama bottoms, Remus glances sidelong at Sirius and thinks that yes, he could feel something like love for Sirius too. Sirius is beautiful, one of the rare boys to have bypassed the gawky phases of puberty and adolescence. He makes Remus feel too thin and too pale and utterly graceless.
‘Which side, Moony?’
‘What?’
‘Which side d’you want to sleep on?’
‘Oh. I don’t mind. Either.’
‘Well, I’d like to be on the right. ’Cause it’s by the window.’ Having fairly secured the more desirable place, Sirius gets into bed and pulls the bedclothes round his shoulders, turning away from his friend. Remus is both relieved and disappointed. Are they just going to fall asleep then?
Remus slides under the covers too. The sheets are nylon, clinging and static, completely unlike the linen sheets at Hogwarts; vile, green, clammy sheets that feel as if they haven’t been properly dried before being put on the bed. Remus isn’t sure he wants their first time - if there’s going to be a first time - to be between such horrible sheets.
Sirius rolls round to face him. He seems very close. Frighteningly close.
‘These sheets are awful, aren’t they?’ Remus babbles.
‘Yeah. You wouldn’t want to use a faulty cleaning charm on that colour, would you?’
What does that mean? Does it mean anything at all? Remus is having a bit of trouble breathing now, even though Sirius hasn’t moved any closer. But Sirius is smiling, which has always had a strange effect on Remus, even long before the kiss.
He’s also shifted his leg a bit, so it’s touching Remus’s as it did beneath the dinner table. With only a very thin layer of cotton between them, it’s having an unfortunate effect. Or maybe not unfortunate. It’s time, it really is.
Remus, who’s normally not that talkative, can’t keep his mouth shut. ‘I don’t know - are we going to do anything? What are we going to do?’ As soon as the words tumble out, in a voice rendered shrill with sheer terror, Remus wishes them unsaid. He bites his tongue hard enough to draw blood.
But Sirius is contemplating him gravely, the smile gone. ‘Well, I’ve been thinking about it. Two guys. I suppose it’s the same as wanking. Only you’re doing it to someone else.’
Remus gulps. His fantasies about Sirius, and there have been many, are never quite so basic. He hasn’t imagined that an ordinary, everyday teenage activity could have more than an academic bearing on adult sex: sex being adult by definition, of course. He feels obscurely disappointed. ‘Well, you mean, if I like doing something to myself - I would do it to, uh, someone else and they’d like it too?’
‘I suppose. That seems quite a good place to begin, don’t you think?’
‘I don’t know. I never thought… I just assumed it would be different.’
‘Oh, it’ll feel different,’ Sirius assures him.
‘How d’you know?’
‘Well, of course it will. Someone else doing it to you, and all. When someone else does it it’s not wanking, it’s a hand-job.’
Remus considers the semantics for a moment.
‘But what about the cleaning charms?’
‘Moony, you idiot, that was just a joke.’
‘Yeah, but it will be a problem. Peter’s mum…’
‘Let’s not worry about her. Come here.’
He’s suddenly holding Remus very close, and Remus’s arms snake around his neck. They lie there for a minute, heartbeat against heartbeat, and Remus is instantly hard again at the contact. Their lips meet for a second kiss, and this time it’s different, confident rather than tentative, finding rather than seeking. Remus is astounded to discover that all the time they haven’t been doing anything the distance between them has nevertheless been closing steadily.
And soon there’s no distance, no green sheets, no shabby house with its shabby family; just a deep rising and falling again, as they move together, with enthusiasm rather than finesse; but that’s all they need anyway.
‘Oh, shit, we could really do with a silencing charm here,’ Sirius says shakily moments later, moments that feel like eons in the boys’ lives between before and after.
They lie there for a while listening. ‘I hope Peter’s parents didn’t hear,’ Remus says, gnawing at his bottom lip. ‘Specially not with the sheets.’
‘Shut up about the bloody sheets. I’d be more worried that Prongs and Peter heard us, actually. Seeing as this house has very thin walls. Pity. I’d like to do it again, but - ’
This time, Remus makes the move towards him, and soon they’re gasping on the bed, limbs entwined, mouths greedily devouring, like children let loose in a sweetshop, only this is so, so much better, like all the good things in the world rolled into one. No need to worry about the sheets after all, he reflects idly as he comes back down to earth again, because they’ve got untucked and are hanging off the bed, with most of the other bedclothes.
‘Don’t start fretting about the mattress now, Moony,’ Sirius mumbles, his lips right against Remus’s ear.
‘I’m not,’ Remus says, more loudly than he’s intended, which makes Sirius giggle for some reason and sets him off too.
‘Padfoot, please, someone really will be in here in a minute to tell us to shut up,’ Remus says eventually, poking Sirius in the ribs; not hard, just to get his attention.
A long time later, exhaustion overcomes them; two naked boys, limbs tangled together, lying on a bed that has been so comprehensively wrecked that even Remus doesn’t contemplate trying to put it back in order before they finally fall asleep in each other’s arms.
Remus wakes up in the bright sunshine of late morning. He fumbles for his watch and looks at it in horror. ‘Oh, no, it’s nearly midday!’
They untangle themselves, pull on their clothes. ‘Better do something about the bed,’ Remus suggests.
Sirius, who has never made a bed in his life, isn’t much help, but eventually they manage to drag the bedclothes across reasonably enough. ‘Just don’t even look for stains anywhere,’ Sirius warns. He leans over and presses his lips against Remus’s in a soft, almost unbearably sweet kiss.
Downstairs, the house is empty; they don’t brave Mrs. Pettigrew in her parlour, just peep though the door to check the other two aren’t there. She’s absorbed in a spread of runes and doesn’t even hear them. Obviously, Peter and James have gone out without them. After all, if yesterday, with all four of them, was not exactly exciting, James will have been ready to curl up and die with boredom hours ago. He’ll probably have wanted to get out immediately after breakfast, if there was any breakfast. He and Peter will have walked down to the river to have another session on their broomsticks.
‘C’mon, this place gives me the creeps,’ Sirius shudders. ‘Let’s go and find them.’ He takes Remus by the hand and pulls him out through the front door.
It’s a beautiful day still, warm and spring-like, but there’s already a chilly wind blowing up from the mountains. Remus and Sirius follow the path toward the river; as they get closer, they drop each other’s hands.
James and Peter are messing about on the riverbank with mud and stones, generally getting very wet and dirty. Building dams isn’t exactly a teenage activity; it would be more suited to ten year-olds, but if there isn’t anything else to do it can be hugely absorbing.
Remus’s heart sinks when James glances up, unsmiling, and then continues to build up the barrier: it’s pretty high, so he and Peter must have been working on the dam for some time. Peter doesn’t look at them at all. In fact, he goes bright red when Sirius says cheerfully, ‘Hello! Why didn’t you wake us?’
James doesn’t say anything at first; he smooths off the sides of the dam carefully, then looks directly at them both. ‘Peter and I went in to get you. But you were fast asleep, so we left it.’ He turns back to his mud and stones, in that dismissive James Potter way Remus knows so well, which means ‘This subject is closed unless I choose to reopen it.’ He’s never used that voice with any of his best friends before, and it stings.
All Remus wants, what he really wants, is for this thing between Sirius and him to be a secret. A secret that nobody else can share, because it’s theirs and it’s personal.
As that’s obviously no longer an option, Remus would prefer the incident blown wide open. He wants James to scowl at Sirius and shout, ‘What the hell d’you think you’re up to? Do you realise how freaked out Wormtail is?’ Naturally, James isn’t going to be pleased, but if he never faces it, how can he ever accept it? And when James has stopped glaring at them, Remus would like to put his arms round Sirius and tell James that they’re together now. Things have changed, and they can’t go back to how they were before.
It’s the words left unsaid that unsettle Remus. They’re never going to talk about it, but he knows the image of him and Sirius on that ruined bed will stay with James and Peter for a long time. Probably, James will crack and discuss it exhaustively with his best friend, Sirius, at some point. It will become their secret too. Remus isn’t sure how much he’ll be able to bear that.
The wind’s blowing harder now, the elusive spring sun obscured by rain clouds wafting in from the east. The day has already lost its charm for Remus anyway. He imagines Mrs Pettigrew with her crystal ball, predicting weddings and funerals and other rites of passage. Standing on the riverbank, shivering because he’s wearing nothing over the jeans and teeshirt he wore the day before, he thinks how much he hates the Pettigrews and their ugly, dirty house, and James and Peter, and even, for a second, Sirius as well. But then he glances at Sirius, who’s looking as miserable as Remus feels, and realises that James has got to him too. He takes Sirius’s hand and squeezes it, and doesn’t let go, not caring in the slightest if he’s offending the other boys. Sirius squeezes Remus’s hand back, and for a moment they stand there together, united against the world.
End
By Minnow
Disclaimer: These characters belong to JK Rowling and various corporations.
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Era: MWPP
Rating: R
Summary: Easter holidays at the Pettigrews’. First time fic.
Thanks: Preliminary beta by flu-ridden astra_argentea. Get well soon! :)
Note: This is an absolutely straightforward short story. With sex! :)
Thanks to all of you who commented. Cross-posted on remusxsirius and marauders_slash.
Rites of Passage
It’s a Monday, the day after a full moon, a day of rain beating against the common room windows and so cold that Remus can’t move from the fireside. He sits shivering with a blanket round him, his eyelids drooping from the direct heat, from exhaustion and his dogged refusal to give in and go to bed as Madam Pomfrey has instructed.
Sirius has skived off Potions to come and find his friend and cheer him up, and Remus is falling asleep in earnest when he feels a soft mouth covering his. His eyes shoot open, and after a moment he starts to kiss back.
Some time later, his face slightly reddened by the fire, Sirius mutters ‘Sorry,’ not looking at Remus. ‘I just, you were just… Pretty,’ he finishes lamely, and rather insultingly, Remus feels. But he takes it as a compliment, the way it was intended, with a polite ‘Thank you’ that may or may not be an adequate response.
Sirius takes a deep breath, as if for courage. ‘I really like you,’ he says, his grey eyes earnest, his pupils dilated. ‘I mean...a lot. I’d really like to do that again sometime.’
Remus can’t be sure how much Sirius really means it; or even that he isn’t actually dreaming. In fact, he's so tired that Sirius’s words fade into his dream: words like love, and want, which surely Sirius can’t really have said.
Two weeks go by, and they’re all at Peter’s for a few days of the Easter holidays, and nothing is resolved. Nothing is happening, really. Oh, yes, the occasional, very occasional brush of hand on hand, and then the hands immediately snatched away, as though they’d been scalded. Feelings hover, new and strange and burning. Remus agonises. What do they do now? Sometimes, he almost wishes this thing hadn’t started to blaze between them.
The Pettigrews are purebloods, not well-connected like the Blacks, not liberal like the Potters. The house is shabby and its voice seems to gasp greedily for more, for gold, for space, for a wand to wave away the dust accumulating in corners and on stairs. Not that the visitors particularly notice, because they’re teenagers and more interested in the contents of the larder and what’s for lunch. They've spent the morning messing about by the river half a mile down the road, until they get bored and hungry, and come back to practise Quidditch in the small back garden.
James and Peter play; Remus and Sirius stay on the ground, sprawled on their stomachs, unconsciously leaning towards each other. The two boys flying above them on their broomsticks don’t notice. Peter’s a poor flier, and the more he tries to impress James, the clumsier he becomes.
Peter’s mother doesn’t care as much about lunch as her guests do. She’s ensconced in the front parlour, chain-smoking and gazing into her crystal ball. She tells their fortunes - fame for Sirius, a beautiful wife for Remus - then loses interest in them, though she offers to read the Tarot for James after her afternoon nap. ‘You have a lucky face, dear,’ she says in her slightly wheedling, gipsy’s voice.
‘What’s to eat, Mum?’ Peter asks, with a similarly wheedling tone, Remus notes.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Cheese, I think. Your father finished off the bread this morning.’
‘If you give me some gold, I can go to the shop.’
‘In my bag. Get me some fags while you’re there, will you? Now run along, and leave me alone.’
Once they’ve stuffed themselves on baked beans and chocolate, there’s nothing much to do. Remus surreptitiously watches Sirius beat James at chess. Of all the things he - likes - about Sirius, he finds his hands particularly striking, those graceful, aristocratic hands evolved from generations of wealth, of house-elves doing all the work.
Peter sits and watches James, without the same hunger. Remus does not realise how much he resembles the wolf when he can’t tear his eyes away from Sirius.
Peter’s room is quite big but crammed with furniture like the front parlour his mother monopolises. There’s a bed he’ll be sharing with James - James has no choice, because it’s Peter’s house and that’s what he wants - an oversized wardrobe, two armchairs with purple and white striped covers, and a rather rickety table that doubles as a desk. The window overlooks the back garden, the broomsticks flung carelessly down on the ground earlier, the neat lawn that contrasts strikingly with the interior of the house. Peter’s father is the gardener, and quite obsessive. He’ll be angry with Peter later for crash-landing in one of the immaculate flowerbeds and crushing a few of the first irises.
Remus and Sirius are also sharing a bed, in the smaller but less crowded spare bedroom down the hall, next to the bathroom. Remus isn’t sure how he’s going to feel about getting into a bed with Sirius. Part of him is longing for the night, and part of him wants to push it away forever.
He’s worried about physical things. He hasn’t a clue whether they’re going to do anything, and if so what. Sometimes he wants to put his arms round Sirius’s neck and bury his head in Sirius’s shoulder, but he doesn’t know if Sirius would be offended or not. His body’s feeling things he isn’t sure about either, but he can’t tell if that’s because of Sirius or just normal hormones. He’s rather messed up at the moment. It’s only two weeks, after all, but it’s been too long, it’s taking too long, and he’s afraid they may never get there. He’s also afraid he’ll be relieved if they don’t.
Peter’s mother calls querulously for her son. ‘Did you get my fags?’
Sighing, Peter gets up from his chair, goes to tend to his mother. The others follow, clumping noisily down the stairs, hoping there might be some cake or biscuits for tea.
There don’t seem to be any books in the house, beyond a few tattered guides to divination and astrology with startlingly lurid covers, which count as nothing to read as far as Remus is concerned. He needs something to focus on, though, so he picks up an ancient book on palmistry and flicks through it.
He jumps at the sudden weight of Sirius’s hand on his shoulder. ‘Are you going to read my palm, Moony?’ He holds his other hand up towards Remus, who takes it and then just stands there for a minute, clutching Sirius’s hand and feeling foolish and flustered. Sirius stares down at the floor, suddenly as embarrassed as Remus.
‘Oi, you two!’ James, joking, raising his eyebrows suggestively. Remus has no idea how much he knows; not that there’s much to know, really. Maybe Sirius has told James that they kissed; but of course there isn’t a thing to tell James about anyway.
Though it’s light in the evenings now, Mrs Pettigrew has already closed the heavy velvet curtains in the parlour and lit a couple of lamps. The room reeks of cigarettes. The smoke is beginning to make Remus’s eyes run.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ Sirius says. It’s unusual for him to be so rude. He’s so polite that his manners sometimes seem incongruous in a young, impulsive schoolboy, even if he was brought up in the Black family; and Remus thinks he’s often a bit overwhelmed by having cut himself loose from them. As he speaks, he wrests his hand away from Remus’s. Remus starts, because he’d forgotten Sirius was still holding it. It just seems like a normal thing, nothing special. Just like something they could do all the time.
In the kitchen, with the back door open on to the garden and sunlight spilling in through the windows, all four boys feel happier, and Peter gives a silly little giggle, which could be relief or nerves or anything really.
‘So, what’s for tea, Wormtail?’ James asks. Peter, looking a bit worried, says, ‘The stuff we bought earlier.’
‘I think we ate all that,’ Sirius says. ‘Didn’t someone mention biscuits?’
Peter opens the china biscuit-barrel and looks inside hopefully, but of course there’s nothing there.
‘If we were allowed to do magic out of school we could make a cake,’ Sirius says.
There’s a long silence. James goes out into the garden, though the back door, and Peter follows him. Remus decides he’s rarely been so bored in his life, and feels sorry for Peter with his absent-minded mother who won’t provide food. She’s forgotten to read James’s cards as well. He wishes he were at home, with his own room, and plenty to eat, and lots of books. Then he thinks of sharing the spare bed with Sirius and takes his wish back. Then he changes his mind, but it doesn’t make any difference anyway. Wishes don’t come true.
At half past five, Peter’s father arrives home, Apparating to the front hall. He works at the Ministry, some lowly job investigating magical creatures. Remus is wary of him, because he knows he could turn nasty if he finds out one of his son’s friends is a werewolf. Remus doesn’t quite know what to make of Mr Pettigrew. In his experience, fathers are quite distant, but Mr Pettigrew has a big, false smile, and when he comes to the kitchen to say hello, he talks to them jovially and rather slowly, as if they were small children.
‘Well, had a good day, chaps?’ he booms, thumping Sirius on the back.
‘Er, yes, thank you,’ says Sirius.
Peter’s father goes to the door, calls his son over, sees the mess in the flowerbed. ‘What the hell have you been up to?’ He grabs Peter by the arm. His face changes instantly from jolly to thunderous, and he cuffs Peter round the ear before seeming to remember that Peter’s friends are watching, wide-eyed and surprised. James and Remus are shocked; Sirius, who has many years’ experience of an abusive family, probably considers the scene a bit tame.
Another silence, then Mr Pettigrew clears his throat and says, ‘Well. Dinner. Petey, do you lot want to go down and fetch some fish and chips?’
That hits the right note at least. Peter grabs the proffered gold, and they troop off back to the village: just a parade of shops, really. This isn’t London, or even Hogsmeade. Remus has rarely had fish and chips, a Muggle treat that’s finally penetrated wizarding territories. He hopes that Mrs Pettigrew will continue to sit in her parlour, absorbed in a variety of possible and impossible futures, so they can have fish and chips every day.
They all eat together in a dim room behind the kitchen with only one minuscule, high window. Muggles eat fish and chips straight out of the paper, but Mrs Pettigrew has roused herself enough to provide plates, knives and forks for everyone. They sit so close together round the small table that Sirius’s leg is pressed against Remus’s. He glances at Remus from time to time, but doesn’t move his leg. Remus doesn’t mind, but wishes he could stop thinking about the night to come and just enjoy his dinner. The food’s brilliant, even if the room smells suspiciously musty, probably a dead mouse trapped under a floorboard or behind a skirting.
It’s getting dark now, and Mrs Pettigrew goes round the house drawing the rest of the curtains. The back door is closed and locked. She does the washing-up with her wand - she’s surprisingly good at it - and the boys put the plates and cutlery away.
They go upstairs far earlier than they would have at school. Of course, at school there’s homework and Quidditch practice and pranks to plan and kitchen raids. Remus is already hungry again. He’d give a lot for a Hogwarts kitchen raid.
Up in Peter’s room again, they all sprawl on Peter’s bed and play snap: ordinary snap, not exploding. That’s boring too, and after a few games Peter yawns and announces that he’s too tired to stay up any longer.
They take it in turns to use the bathroom, and by nine the four of them are in their various rooms, getting ready for bed.
Remus turns his back on Sirius to strip off his jeans and teeshirt. He isn’t exactly self-conscious about his body, and anyway Sirius has seen him undressing hundreds of times. Just tonight he feels awkward. The last time they were alone, really alone, was two weeks ago, when the kiss happened. Remus wonders if Sirius still thinks he loves him, or whether that admission was fuelled by bravura and panic and the growing rift with his family.
Once he’s modestly struggled into his pyjama bottoms, Remus glances sidelong at Sirius and thinks that yes, he could feel something like love for Sirius too. Sirius is beautiful, one of the rare boys to have bypassed the gawky phases of puberty and adolescence. He makes Remus feel too thin and too pale and utterly graceless.
‘Which side, Moony?’
‘What?’
‘Which side d’you want to sleep on?’
‘Oh. I don’t mind. Either.’
‘Well, I’d like to be on the right. ’Cause it’s by the window.’ Having fairly secured the more desirable place, Sirius gets into bed and pulls the bedclothes round his shoulders, turning away from his friend. Remus is both relieved and disappointed. Are they just going to fall asleep then?
Remus slides under the covers too. The sheets are nylon, clinging and static, completely unlike the linen sheets at Hogwarts; vile, green, clammy sheets that feel as if they haven’t been properly dried before being put on the bed. Remus isn’t sure he wants their first time - if there’s going to be a first time - to be between such horrible sheets.
Sirius rolls round to face him. He seems very close. Frighteningly close.
‘These sheets are awful, aren’t they?’ Remus babbles.
‘Yeah. You wouldn’t want to use a faulty cleaning charm on that colour, would you?’
What does that mean? Does it mean anything at all? Remus is having a bit of trouble breathing now, even though Sirius hasn’t moved any closer. But Sirius is smiling, which has always had a strange effect on Remus, even long before the kiss.
He’s also shifted his leg a bit, so it’s touching Remus’s as it did beneath the dinner table. With only a very thin layer of cotton between them, it’s having an unfortunate effect. Or maybe not unfortunate. It’s time, it really is.
Remus, who’s normally not that talkative, can’t keep his mouth shut. ‘I don’t know - are we going to do anything? What are we going to do?’ As soon as the words tumble out, in a voice rendered shrill with sheer terror, Remus wishes them unsaid. He bites his tongue hard enough to draw blood.
But Sirius is contemplating him gravely, the smile gone. ‘Well, I’ve been thinking about it. Two guys. I suppose it’s the same as wanking. Only you’re doing it to someone else.’
Remus gulps. His fantasies about Sirius, and there have been many, are never quite so basic. He hasn’t imagined that an ordinary, everyday teenage activity could have more than an academic bearing on adult sex: sex being adult by definition, of course. He feels obscurely disappointed. ‘Well, you mean, if I like doing something to myself - I would do it to, uh, someone else and they’d like it too?’
‘I suppose. That seems quite a good place to begin, don’t you think?’
‘I don’t know. I never thought… I just assumed it would be different.’
‘Oh, it’ll feel different,’ Sirius assures him.
‘How d’you know?’
‘Well, of course it will. Someone else doing it to you, and all. When someone else does it it’s not wanking, it’s a hand-job.’
Remus considers the semantics for a moment.
‘But what about the cleaning charms?’
‘Moony, you idiot, that was just a joke.’
‘Yeah, but it will be a problem. Peter’s mum…’
‘Let’s not worry about her. Come here.’
He’s suddenly holding Remus very close, and Remus’s arms snake around his neck. They lie there for a minute, heartbeat against heartbeat, and Remus is instantly hard again at the contact. Their lips meet for a second kiss, and this time it’s different, confident rather than tentative, finding rather than seeking. Remus is astounded to discover that all the time they haven’t been doing anything the distance between them has nevertheless been closing steadily.
And soon there’s no distance, no green sheets, no shabby house with its shabby family; just a deep rising and falling again, as they move together, with enthusiasm rather than finesse; but that’s all they need anyway.
‘Oh, shit, we could really do with a silencing charm here,’ Sirius says shakily moments later, moments that feel like eons in the boys’ lives between before and after.
They lie there for a while listening. ‘I hope Peter’s parents didn’t hear,’ Remus says, gnawing at his bottom lip. ‘Specially not with the sheets.’
‘Shut up about the bloody sheets. I’d be more worried that Prongs and Peter heard us, actually. Seeing as this house has very thin walls. Pity. I’d like to do it again, but - ’
This time, Remus makes the move towards him, and soon they’re gasping on the bed, limbs entwined, mouths greedily devouring, like children let loose in a sweetshop, only this is so, so much better, like all the good things in the world rolled into one. No need to worry about the sheets after all, he reflects idly as he comes back down to earth again, because they’ve got untucked and are hanging off the bed, with most of the other bedclothes.
‘Don’t start fretting about the mattress now, Moony,’ Sirius mumbles, his lips right against Remus’s ear.
‘I’m not,’ Remus says, more loudly than he’s intended, which makes Sirius giggle for some reason and sets him off too.
‘Padfoot, please, someone really will be in here in a minute to tell us to shut up,’ Remus says eventually, poking Sirius in the ribs; not hard, just to get his attention.
A long time later, exhaustion overcomes them; two naked boys, limbs tangled together, lying on a bed that has been so comprehensively wrecked that even Remus doesn’t contemplate trying to put it back in order before they finally fall asleep in each other’s arms.
Remus wakes up in the bright sunshine of late morning. He fumbles for his watch and looks at it in horror. ‘Oh, no, it’s nearly midday!’
They untangle themselves, pull on their clothes. ‘Better do something about the bed,’ Remus suggests.
Sirius, who has never made a bed in his life, isn’t much help, but eventually they manage to drag the bedclothes across reasonably enough. ‘Just don’t even look for stains anywhere,’ Sirius warns. He leans over and presses his lips against Remus’s in a soft, almost unbearably sweet kiss.
Downstairs, the house is empty; they don’t brave Mrs. Pettigrew in her parlour, just peep though the door to check the other two aren’t there. She’s absorbed in a spread of runes and doesn’t even hear them. Obviously, Peter and James have gone out without them. After all, if yesterday, with all four of them, was not exactly exciting, James will have been ready to curl up and die with boredom hours ago. He’ll probably have wanted to get out immediately after breakfast, if there was any breakfast. He and Peter will have walked down to the river to have another session on their broomsticks.
‘C’mon, this place gives me the creeps,’ Sirius shudders. ‘Let’s go and find them.’ He takes Remus by the hand and pulls him out through the front door.
It’s a beautiful day still, warm and spring-like, but there’s already a chilly wind blowing up from the mountains. Remus and Sirius follow the path toward the river; as they get closer, they drop each other’s hands.
James and Peter are messing about on the riverbank with mud and stones, generally getting very wet and dirty. Building dams isn’t exactly a teenage activity; it would be more suited to ten year-olds, but if there isn’t anything else to do it can be hugely absorbing.
Remus’s heart sinks when James glances up, unsmiling, and then continues to build up the barrier: it’s pretty high, so he and Peter must have been working on the dam for some time. Peter doesn’t look at them at all. In fact, he goes bright red when Sirius says cheerfully, ‘Hello! Why didn’t you wake us?’
James doesn’t say anything at first; he smooths off the sides of the dam carefully, then looks directly at them both. ‘Peter and I went in to get you. But you were fast asleep, so we left it.’ He turns back to his mud and stones, in that dismissive James Potter way Remus knows so well, which means ‘This subject is closed unless I choose to reopen it.’ He’s never used that voice with any of his best friends before, and it stings.
All Remus wants, what he really wants, is for this thing between Sirius and him to be a secret. A secret that nobody else can share, because it’s theirs and it’s personal.
As that’s obviously no longer an option, Remus would prefer the incident blown wide open. He wants James to scowl at Sirius and shout, ‘What the hell d’you think you’re up to? Do you realise how freaked out Wormtail is?’ Naturally, James isn’t going to be pleased, but if he never faces it, how can he ever accept it? And when James has stopped glaring at them, Remus would like to put his arms round Sirius and tell James that they’re together now. Things have changed, and they can’t go back to how they were before.
It’s the words left unsaid that unsettle Remus. They’re never going to talk about it, but he knows the image of him and Sirius on that ruined bed will stay with James and Peter for a long time. Probably, James will crack and discuss it exhaustively with his best friend, Sirius, at some point. It will become their secret too. Remus isn’t sure how much he’ll be able to bear that.
The wind’s blowing harder now, the elusive spring sun obscured by rain clouds wafting in from the east. The day has already lost its charm for Remus anyway. He imagines Mrs Pettigrew with her crystal ball, predicting weddings and funerals and other rites of passage. Standing on the riverbank, shivering because he’s wearing nothing over the jeans and teeshirt he wore the day before, he thinks how much he hates the Pettigrews and their ugly, dirty house, and James and Peter, and even, for a second, Sirius as well. But then he glances at Sirius, who’s looking as miserable as Remus feels, and realises that James has got to him too. He takes Sirius’s hand and squeezes it, and doesn’t let go, not caring in the slightest if he’s offending the other boys. Sirius squeezes Remus’s hand back, and for a moment they stand there together, united against the world.
End