Fic: Corrigenda
Fic: Corrigenda
By minnow_53
Disclaimer: These characters belong to JK Rowling and various corporations.
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Era: AU (MWPP to post HBP)
Summary: Remus and Sirius set the record straight about the many errors in canon.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: HBP
Thanks: To astra_argentea for a quick beta.
Dedication: To cloudlessnights for the happy, and mushroom18 because I got Remus and Harry talking, and because the Pokemon action was inspired by her wonderful comic strips, here!
Soon to be crossposted to remusxsirius, two_boys and hp_whatif.
Corrigenda
Corrigenda: corrections to be made in a book. (Chambers Dictionary)
Introduction
After the latest Harry Potter book came out, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin decided it was time to set the record straight about certain elements of the story. As Remus said, ‘It may be more entertaining to read about how miserable our lives are, but it’s just a myth. I am a werewolf, yes, but that’s as far as the angst goes. Oh, and Sirius has been disowned by the Blacks, but it's hardly a problem, is it? Not to us.’
He also added, just by the way, ‘The werewolf that bit me was shot years ago, you know. Any other accounts are pure sensationalism.’
A few more facts, before I start: Sirius is not, as recorded, aged and emaciated after years in Azkaban. ‘I never went near the place. Well, once, on a boat trip.’ And, as he hastened to point out, he isn’t dead either. 'Do I look dead?'
'Don't answer him,' Remus warned me. 'He just wants you to tell him how gorgeous he is.'
Remus isn’t beautiful in the conventional sense, but he has a pleasant, open face. Contrary to rumours, he is not brain-damaged, catatonic or suffering from Alzheimer’s. Nor does he have grey hair - ‘I’m a wizard, damn it, woman!’ - or lines.
1. A Huge Canon Error
The Prank marks the start of one of the great love stories of the last century. Sadly, it has been greatly misrepresented in JK Rowling’s account of the life and times of Sirius Black and Remus Lupin.
What actually happened was as follows.
Severus Snape was a very, very bad boy. He used his Potions lessons to scribble new killing curses in his textbook, just for starters. He was also wildly jealous of Lily Evans, who merely had to flutter her eyelashes and Professor Slughorn fell, metaphorically, at her feet. When he found that Lily had got higher marks than him in the OWL, he jinxed her, and all her lovely red hair fell out.
‘I am going to hex you to hell and back, Snivellus,’ James snarled, his wand aloft.
‘Really? Sectumsempra!’ intoned Snape, enjoying the sight of Potter covered in blood. ‘You threaten me, Potter, I’ll kill you.’
Fortunately, the other Marauders were around to save James that time, but they were most indignant on his behalf.
Sadly, no charms could cure Lily’s baldness, and her hair was just starting to grow back in a red fuzz on the day of a fateful lesson that changed history.
Divination was Remus’s best subject, because he was possessed of the Inner Eye to a great degree. That morning, he gazed into his crystal ball, and heard a leering Snape saying to a shadowy figure in a black cloak, ‘You have to find and kill James and Lily Potter.’
He consulted his magic mirror: in its concave black surface he saw Snape standing over a white-bearded old man with a smoking wand.
Finally, in his Tarot spread, he saw the Hanged Man upside down.
Remus, being half wolf, had an instinct for evil that went way beyond ordinary intuition. He had sensed the wickedness in Snape the first time he sniffed him, just before their Sorting. Therefore, in his essay on these phenomena, he came to three conclusions:
1) Snivellus would cause James and Lily to die. Presumably they would have got together in the meantime, of course.
2) Snivellus would kill Dumbledore.
3) Snivellus wore disgusting underwear. The grey pants weren’t a one-off - if they ever came off, indeed. That was his clean pair!
Remus evolved a plan to stop him, but he couldn’t manage it on his own. He was a bit wary of approaching James, who was a hearty type: James didn’t like Snivellus, but he didn’t like Divination either, and would sneer at Remus. Peter was useless in serious matters. He slept with a pink and white striped plush Kneazle called Paddy, and owled his mother every day. He was, of course, also an obnoxious little oik, but James liked him, and who was Remus to argue with James Potter?
Instead, after a lot of hesitation, he told Sirius Black, who was also gifted in Divination, about the horrible things he’d seen.
Sirius had a lot of time for Remus, Remus had noticed. He hovered about him before and after lessons, and sometimes spent the whole lesson staring at him too. Remus thought it was because he’d never met a werewolf before.
Sirius took Remus very seriously indeed, though he got a bit emotional when Remus said, ‘I’m quite happy to sacrifice myself for the greater good. You send Snivellus along to the Shack at the next full moon, and leave the rest up to me.’
‘That is so noble of you, Moony,’ Sirius whispered, and clasped Remus’s hand in great friendship and admiration.
‘If I kill him, the worst that happens is a stiff letter from the Werewolf registry,’ said Remus. ‘I think.’
Sirius wiped away a tear. ‘Try not to eat him, though, won’t you? I hate to imagine…’
Remus laughed. ‘I don’t think even the wolf would eat him. Don’t worry. I’ll just mess him about a bit.’
Unfortunately, as has been accurately recorded, James saved Snivellus’s life at the last moment, but not before the wolf had clawed him.
Sirius used a Clotting spell to gather together Snape’s blood, which was spattered all over the Shack. He and Remus sneaked into the Potions dungeon and stole a little vial to put it in.
‘He’s trying to join the Death Eaters,’ Sirius said. ‘I know, because Reg told me. And he said that Snivellus’s father is a Muggle. Why don’t we send this blood to Voldemort for analysis, just as a joke? Let’s lose Snivellus the job he wants.’
‘And stop those horrible predictions coming true,’ Remus reminded him.
Remus enclosed a letter with the vial:
Dear Lord Voldemort,
Please note that this may be half and not pure blood. If Severus Snape ever tries to join your Death Eaters, I suggest you reject him on those grounds. You don’t want your killing machine to become a laughing-stock, do you?
Yours sincerely,
Remus Lupin.
He and Sirius managed to sneak into the Owlery and send the vial with Snape’s own owl, Thaddeus. ‘It seems a nice touch for him to condemn himself out of his own mouth, so to speak,’ said Remus. Sirius would have objected to the syntax, but he was too busy gazing at Remus with adoring eyes.
The mission to avenge Lily was therefore accomplished with the minimum of bloodshed. Severus Snape was turned down by the Death Eaters so many times that he finally gave up. A very different fate awaited him now…
2. How Remus and Sirius Really got Together
Remus noticed that after the Snape Incident, Sirius started staring at him even more in lessons. This wasn’t actually easy, as Sirius rarely stopped looking at Remus anyway, and soon he was getting no work done at all.
Professor McGonagall was quite cross about it. Sirius’s partner in Transfigurations was James, who had turned so many objects into other objects that there was no room on the desk: but Sirius had only managed to turn a quill into a rather miserable and almost featherless bird-type thing. McGonagall put it out of its misery with a brisk ‘Cabra Dabra’, the spell used to put animals humanely to sleep, and gave Sirius six after-school detentions for not concentrating.
Sirius didn’t just stare at Remus through lessons. At meals, he tried to sit as close to him as possible, and a couple of times absent-mindedly started cutting up his meat for him.
James howled with laughter, Peter following suit, and choked on his steak. ‘For goodness’ sake, Sirius! You’re not babysitting your cousin now! That’s Moony’s plate, you plonker.’
Remus thought it was kind of his friend, and made a point of thanking him. ‘That was sweet, Pads. It’s difficult sometimes to use a knife and fork when my hands are bandaged.’
‘They’re not bandaged at the moment,’ Peter pointed out.
‘Whatever.’ Remus shrugged. It really was very observant of Sirius to know exactly what size he liked his meat, though he got a bit annoyed when Sirius mashed his potatoes too: he preferred them in chunks.
At teatime, Sirius took to leaping up and across the common room the second the house-elves wheeled in the trolley of sandwiches, cakes and sometimes little pies. When the Gryffindors flocked over to get their tea, Sirius would look round rather agitatedly for Remus - which he didn’t need to do, because he always knew exactly where Remus was - and say, ‘Hoi, you lot. Leave some chocolate cake for Lupin. And he likes the smoked salmon sandwiches.’ Then, unable to wait for Remus to come and fight his own corner, he’d seize a plate and pile it high with goodies for his friend.
Remus wasn’t too fond of strawberry tarts with a slightly fishy taste from the sandwiches that had been crammed on top, but for some reason they tasted extra sweet when Sirius had collected them. He decided that Sirius looked quite handsome holding out the plate, his perfect face slightly flushed with the exertion of beating all the other Gryffindors to the tea trolley. He smiled with pleasure as Remus tried all the food and declared it to be good.
‘Only the best for you, Moony!’ Sirius declared, and he wasn’t joking. ‘Look, have some cake. I got you the biggest, gooiest slice.’ He cut a morsel off with the tiny silver fork and spoon provided, and fed it to Remus, who giggled at first.
‘Don’t be silly, Moony. Open up!’ Sirius urged.
Remus obeyed, and agreed that yes, the cake did taste specially good. Somehow, the subsequent piece, which he fed himself, wasn’t quite so delicious.
Besides softening Remus up with food, Sirius had even better ammunition to work with. Before his rift with his family, an obscure uncle had given him a wonderful object called a GameWizard, which had a tiny screen where you could magic up wonderful games. Sirius’s favourite one involved Japanese wizards who collected funny animals with different powers, then trained them to fight each other. Remus enjoyed watching Sirius play, especially when he was training the animals.
Sirius budged up on the sofa so Remus could also see the screen: they had to sit very close together, and Remus thought idly how comfortable it was to be close to Sirius, watching him move a level 30 Hippocampus around. He loved the way the little yellow creature occasionally squeaked, ‘Hippo’ as it went through its paces.
‘You have a go, Moony. Look, the controls are easy. Wand left is up, wand right is down…’
It took Remus a few minutes to get it right, but Sirius wasn’t cross when his Hippocampus suddenly lost all its powers. In fact, Sirius was rather flushed and his breathing irregular. Remus moved a bit nearer, and peered closely at his friend. ‘Are you all right, Sirius?’
Sirius groaned, and took Remus’s face in both hands, and kissed him on the lips. Remus was a bit shocked. He knew Sirius liked him, but he didn’t know he liked him that much. He thought that probably the kissing was something that best friends did. Perhaps Sirius did this to James too. How would he know? He hadn’t had any friends till he came to school.
It felt good. When Sirius didn’t stop, Remus thought he’d better open his mouth, because it was a bit uncomfortable otherwise; his face was getting wet, and he didn’t like to move away and wipe it with his nice, clean hanky. Besides, Sirius now had his arms around him and was holding him really tightly.
Opening his mouth was obviously the right thing to do, though Remus was a bit worried when Sirius made a weird, strangled sound, but before he could close it again, Sirius had started doing some rather interesting stuff with his tongue, which Remus responded to instinctively.
When they finally broke apart, Sirius’s breathing was very laboured indeed, and Remus was rather worried. ‘Are you okay? Do you need to see Madam Pomfrey?’
Sirius looked at him uncomprehendingly. ‘Course not. I’ve never felt better. I’ve been dying to do that for ages.’
Remus was a bit embarrassed. ‘Oh, right. The kissing - do you and James do that too?’
‘What are you talking about? Why would I kiss James?’
‘Oh. Why would you kiss me, then?’
Sirius shrugged. ‘Because I love you? That seems a good enough reason.’
Remus wasn’t quite sure what Sirius meant by ‘love’. He knew they were good friends, and he privately liked Sirius more than either James or Peter. He also liked to look at Sirius, though probably not as much as Sirius liked to look at him: well, he didn’t stare at him all the time.
‘I. Love. You.’ Sirius enunciated each word so clearly that Remus could see the full stops between them. ‘Like James loves Evans. I’m in love with you. I want to kiss you and sleep with you. In your bed,’ he added, anticipating Remus’s question. ‘In fact, let’s go up to your bed right now.’
Remus was pleased that Sirius loved him, though he couldn’t quite get his head round the James and Evans bit. He had a feeling he'd understand a bit better if they did go to bed. Come to think of it, he was pretty tired. Sirius, though, was looking what Mrs Lupin always called ‘bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.’ Remus privately thought that wasn’t a tactful way to describe a werewolf, but it was a good way to describe his friend. His eyes were certainly bright, with huge, black pupils, which got even huger later on, when he and Remus were up in the dorm together.
3. The Babysitters’ Club
Once Sirius and Remus were established as a couple - ‘Which didn’t take long, in spite of Moony being so incredibly thick,’ Sirius told me, fondly ruffling Remus’s hair - they started to do things together. Not just physical things, but day-to-day things.
Professor Dumbledore allowed students to spend evenings outside school as part of their Sixth Year Community Service work, so the two boys volunteered for babysitting Nymphadora Tonks. She was about two when Remus and Sirius got together, and a real handful.
They took the Floo to the Tonks’s one evening, when Ted and Adromeda were going to the opera.
‘It’s so kind of you to give up your Saturday night,’ Andromeda gushed, and Sirius smiled politely. As a Black, he wasn’t about to tell his cousin that Ted didn’t understand proper money, and tended to heap enough Galleons on them to keep them in chocolate and Butterbeer for weeks.
Remus and Sirius arranged it so little Nymphadora always went to sleep soon after her parents had Disapparated. Lily was generally considered the best in the year at Potions, so when Sirius complained of insomnia, she brewed him large supplies of Golden Dreams. He regularly slipped a teaspoon into Nymphadora’s bottle, and she nodded off on his shoulder before she’d even finished. Her hair went blue when her eyes were closed.
‘Put her in her cot,’ Remus said. ‘I want to watch television.’
Muggle-born Ted had a big colour set, and because Andromeda was a witch, he could get satellite and cable, even though they didn’t exist yet. Sirius turned to a porn channel, and he and Remus watched girls with big breasts for a moment.
‘Have a beer,’ Sirius said.
‘Should we?’ For someone who broke so many rules, Remus could be surprisingly anxious about breaking others. But when Sirius handed him a can of Stella he was quite happy to take a big gulp of it.
‘It tastes better in someone else’s mouth,’ Sirius mumbled after a while, tired of the girls on TV, who were all crowding round to stare out at him, pointing and pouting and trying to catch his eye. He pushed Remus down on the sofa and lay on top of him and kissed him. He was right: the beer tasted bitter on his tongue, but a bit sweet too.
The girls started to chatter excitedly, and Sirius leaned over and turned the set off. ‘You don’t want an audience, do you, Moony?’
‘No, Pads.’ He lay back and enjoyed the weight and feeling of Sirius kissing and rubbing against him. He thought it was far better than the pornography on television: he had nothing against half-naked women with big breasts, but when it came down to it he preferred half-naked Sirius: depending which half, of course.
‘I think I’ll take off my robes,’ he muttered. ‘It’s getting a bit hot in here.’
Sirius was way ahead of him, and had taken off his robes and most of what was underneath. ‘Try not to make too much noise. You’ll wake up the baby.’
Though Sirius was old enough to perform magic out of school, he didn’t want to risk a Muffliato spell when he was supposed to be looking after his second cousin, in case she screamed or cried or needed a glass of water, though if Lily had brewed the potion competently she should sleep through the night.
They kissed a bit more, and then Sirius stopped and listened for a minute, and said, ‘D’you think she’ll be able to hear us?’
Remus couldn’t have cared less. ‘No. Just get on with it Sirius, for goodness’ sake.’
They were in the middle of some exciting and interesting contortions when Sirius suddenly heard a whimper from behind the sofa, and leapt up, evoking loud protests from Remus.
‘Who is it?’ he growled, pulling out his wand, and a tiny figure pulled herself up on the arm of the sofa and pointed at him rather accusingly. ‘I want milk,’ she announced, and Sirius got up reluctantly, struggling back into his robes.
‘Put more Golden Dreams into it,’ Remus hissed.
‘I was going to,’ Sirius said.
He sat down and fed Nymphadora her drugged milk, and a few minutes later, the child was dancing round the sitting room singing a nonsensical song about a witch with two red buckets; she then dragged a bulging toy-box out from behind the sofa and strewed plastic tea-sets and plush kittens all over the floor.
Remus groaned. ‘Have you jinxed Lily recently or anything? Or did you give her caffeine by mistake?’
Sirius examined his vial of potion anxiously. ‘I dunno. It’s the same as the last lot, and that sent her to sleep. Not for long, though.’
‘Maybe she took too much and it had a kickback effect,’ Remus suggested.
Nymphadora finished emptying out her toy-box. ‘Remus. Play.’
‘Oh, ponies!’ Sirius brightened up, but tried to appear mature and cool when Remus glanced sideways at him. ‘Regulus used to love his ponies. He made me race them with him.’ His voice was defiant.
‘Did you like ponies too?’ Remus asked eagerly. He couldn’t believe it possible that the love of his life had actually played with the same toys.
Sirius gave him a hug, just to show solidarity. ‘Oh, yes! We had magic ponies, of course. They could wash themselves and comb their own manes. My mother was hopeless, and it was the ponies who taught me basic grooming. Before I learned magic, of course.’
Remus looked lovingly into his eyes. ‘Mine were magic too. Birthday Cake. Did you have Birthday Cake?’
‘Yes,’ whispered Sirius, his lips now touching Remus’s, his whole body drawn irresistibly to Remus's touch, though he tried valiantly to control himself. ‘And Growing Tail Pony. Did you have Growing Tail?’
‘Oh, yes, yes,’ breathed out Remus, and their lips were melded together by a force greater than either of them, and they kissed and kissed, tasting love and lust and the innocent world of ponies with tiny wands that could keep their manes wavy and knot-free.
Sirius pulled Remus to the ground and continued to kiss him horizontally. ‘I had Zippy Pony. You could take off his legs,’ he said, virtually speaking into Remus’s mouth.
Remus rolled over so Sirius was on top of him. ‘Didn’t have Zippy,’ he said, his words muffled, his hands under Sirius’ waistband.
Nymphadora threw her pink pony across the room. It neighed indignantly, but nobody heard it, because Nymphadora emitted a loud scream and pulled at Sirius’s robes. ‘Bad boys! You play with me now.’
‘Bloody hell,’ said Sirius, dazed, rolling off Remus and sitting on the floor. ‘I’d completely forgotten about you.’
‘Bugger,’ said Remus.
There was a loud crack, and Ted and Andromeda appeared in the middle of the room, having apparently decided to come home well before the end of the first act. Ted shrugged apologetically. ‘She was worried about Dora,’ he said. ‘Mothers. You know.’
Andromeda scooped up her daughter and hugged her. Nymphadora wriggled, and shouted ‘Bugger, bloody hell,’ stopping for just long enough to say, rather accusingly, ‘Sirius and Remus were kissing.’
‘Kissing you goodnight,’ Sirius improvised hastily. ‘But it wasn’t much use, was it?’
When they were back in the dorm, in Remus’s bed, Remus, who could hardly keep his eyes open, yawned and said, ‘Remind me why we babysit for your monstrous cousin again.’
‘Privacy,’ Sirius said. ‘And money,’ he added, but Remus was already asleep.
I hardly dared mention the latest in the Hogwarts saga, and when I did Remus started to laugh, and Sirius said resignedly, ‘Oh, Merlin, there he goes again. He thinks it’s hilarious. Just the thought of Nymphadora’s enough to set him off at the moment.’
Between gales of laughter, Remus said something that eventually turned out to be, ‘And Sirius is going to marry McGonagall.’
‘Rather more likely,’ Sirius said, which sobered Remus up.
‘Don’t be stupid. You’d fight like cat and dog.’
‘Oh, come on, lighten up. I wouldn’t dream of it, any more than you’d marry Dora. By the way,’ he added, looking at me rather accusingly, ‘my cousin hates being called Tonks. She says it makes her sound like a piano.’
4. Wizarding Wars I and II
Dumbledore and his cohorts managed to end the first war very early on with five or six handy H-bombs. Their magic enabled them to target the victims with pinpoint accuracy.
The bombs struck on a chilly autumn evening. After the initial deafening bang there was no sound at first, but then everyone could hear the dying screams of Voldemort, as each of his Horcruxes was ripped apart in the explosion. All his Death Eaters died in horrible agony before total silence fell again.
The damage was limited, of course, so that Muggles dismissed the fallout as pollution: but the wizarding world knew better
‘This was at the very beginning of Seventh Year,’ Remus said. ‘That’s why none of us got any NEWTs. But we did get honorary certificates later, when everything was over and the air was clear again. It took six months of intensive spells to clean the atmosphere.’
While the radiation was being dispersed, the survivors had to live in bunkers; the staff and pupils of Hogwarts were billeted in a shelter under the school. Because Voldemort was stopped before he did any real damage, there were more good guys than in the books.
‘Reg, for a start,’ Sirius told me. ‘Moony calls him the brother-in-law. He owns a chain of toyshops now. The dolls are rather dodgy. I think they bite. And Reg is actually married. To a girl. Well, a woman. We’re all getting older, aren’t we?’
‘Bit odd if we weren’t,’ Remus chipped in.
During the full moon, Remus had to stay in a specially constructed cage. ‘It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. By that time, everyone knew all about the Animagus thing, so I was allowed my friends in with me. You know, magic can do wonders. I’ve never, ever seen such a magnificent cage anywhere else, even in London Zoo.’
The bunker was enchanted to provide luxurious living conditions for all at Hogwarts: those outside the school were housed in their own shelters, of course.
Even for wizards, life underground could be stressful. Dumbledore and the teachers did their best, replicating the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall with some success, but even they couldn’t create a real world outside the windows charmed into the walls of the bunker.
Four months into the decontamination time, tempers were frayed. James Potter, the Head Boy, and Lily Evans, the Head Girl, were sitting at breakfast one morning, talking to each other in undertones. From a distance, they looked as if they were discussing whether or not to allow the First Years to draw on the walls of the caves.
Without warning, Lily got up and dumped her untouched bowl of cornflakes, complete with milk and sugar, on to James’s head, and marched out of the roughly-hewn room.
Remus and Sirius were holding hands under the table, as usual, when Severus Snape went past and sneered, ‘Oh, it’s the little perverts again, is it? I’d have thought being a werewolf would be bad enough, Lupin.’
‘You should be thanking him!’ Sirius said indignantly. ‘He saved your life. You could’ve been one of the Death Eaters that got nuked.’
‘No, I couldn’t,’ Snape retorted. ‘I was too young to join up anyway.’
‘Yeah, right. Which is why you sent them a letter just about every day begging to be let in.’
Remus clutched Sirius’s sleeve. ‘Leave it, Pads. He’s not worth arguing with.’
‘Don’t tell me what to do!’ Sirius snapped, pulling his sleeve away.
‘I won’t,’ Remus snapped back, deeply hurt and humiliated. ‘I won’t talk to you at all.’
For the rest of the day, Remus and Sirius kept well apart from each other, and Sirius didn’t look at Remus once during Bunker Transfiguration.
That night, Remus woke up in the Seventh Year Underground dorm, to find his curtains closed and his space in complete darkness. He was a bit afraid of the dark, though he’d never admit it to any of his friends: it was the result of his early years as a werewolf, when his mother put him in a shuttered room to recover, not realising that the deep shadows in the corners combined with the excruciating pain weren’t conducive to relaxation.
He lit his wand, and noticed at once that there was a big teddy-bear sitting by his pillow. It was a lovely bear, with glossy black fur, a blue bow and the most adorable smiling mouth.
‘Where did you come from, Teddy?’ Remus asked, softly, because the last thing he wanted was for his friends to hear him talking to a soft toy: sound echoed in the underground chambers with their hollow walls. He felt a guilty pang when he remembered how they’d all teased Peter about Paddy the Kneazle.
He stroked its fur tentatively, in case in was one of Snape’s tricks, and could have sworn he heard it purr, though he was sure bears didn’t purr. He blew out his wand and put his arms around the teddy, which was soft and warm and so comforting that he gave it a little kiss on its rather elegant brow. ‘I think I’ll call you Treacle Bear,’ he whispered.
To his horror, the bear seemed to stretch and grow, and its fur became skin, though some of it remained as silky hair, and within seconds Remus found himself clutching not a teddy but his close friend, Sirius Black.
He kicked him hard, glad it was dark enough to hide his blushes. ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’
Sirius, he knew, though he couldn’t see him, had a gleeful grin. ‘Hugging your teddy, Lupin?’
Remus kicked him again, close to tears. ‘What’s wrong with just being Padfoot? Honestly, Sirius.’
Sirius snorted. ‘Oh, yeah, and then I’d get shoved off. You weren’t talking to me, remember? You wouldn’t even tell me why you got so mad when I was defending you to Snape.’
‘I couldn’t,’ Remus remarked, in a reasonable tone of voice. ‘I wasn’t talking to you, was I?’
‘You are now,’ said Sirius. ‘You were even hugging me. Aren’t you going to ask how I did it?’
Remus could guess: it was obvious that he had asked James to Transfigure him, which meant that James had also arranged the teddy-bear on the bed. The thought was mildly embarrassing, and Remus didn’t want to entertain it. He just said, ‘Mmmph’ in a neutral voice.
‘It wasn’t Prongs,’ Sirius said: he always could read Remus’s mind. ‘I did it myself.’
‘Really?’ Remus was fascinated in spite of himself. ‘Well, how did you get on to my bed without my noticing?’
‘You were asleep. I was very discreet.’
Remus wanted to ask how he’d managed to make the ribbon, then realised that Sirius was still wearing it. It shone in the dark with an unearthly satin brilliance. Remus pulled one end of it to undo the bow, and it fluttered down on to the bed between them.
‘I can still be your teddy-bear,’ Sirius whispered, getting under the covers without being asked. ‘You can take me to bed and hug me and I’ll sleep with you every night.’
Remus found that he was more inclined to laugh than be angry, so he snuggled up to Sirius, and they kissed until the artificial dawn filled the room. Dumbledore could almost manage sunlight, but it simply didn’t have the same effect as the real thing.
‘So,’ I said, ‘there was no full-scale war. That means Lily and James are still alive, aren’t they?’
Remus and Sirius glanced at each other. ‘Oh, they’re alive,’ Sirius admitted. ‘But they’re not exactly together, are they?’
5. A Broken Marriage
Sirius is Head of Muggle Studies at Hogwarts, and Remus teaches Defence Against the Dark Arts, so technically they haven’t been separated for more than a day since they both left school in 1978.
‘I suppose the last time was when I had to take Harry to the seaside,’ Remus said.
Harry should have been escorted by his godfather, but that was the week of the Muggle Studies conference at Hogwarts, which Sirius couldn’t miss. Lily’s wedding was on the Wednesday, James had a heavy workload, and six year-old Harry had to be got somehow to his father’s house in Brighton.
Remus picked Harry up early in the morning. It was a beautiful June day, perfect for a wedding, even a second, rather rushed, wedding in a registry office, with Harry’s half-sister on the way.
Lily opened the door to Remus. She was pale, slightly green even. She hugged him. ‘Hello. It’s so kind of you to do this! We just couldn’t put it off any longer. But I don’t think I’ll actually manage to get married today, ’cause I’ve been throwing up every five minutes… I’ve made about a hundred different potions, and nothing helps.’ She looked round a bit wildly. ‘Harry? Oh, he was here a second ago…’
‘I’ll go and fetch him,’ Remus said.
Lily didn’t answer, but clapped her hand over her mouth and rushed to the bathroom.
Harry’s room was right at the top of the house. The door was open, and Harry was sitting on the bed, a half-packed case beside him, looking rather helpless. He was surrounded by toys: a train set ran on rails round the room, with a perfect miniature replica of the Hogwarts express, and you couldn’t see the bed for cards, Harry’s collection of tricks from Zonko’s and a virtual library of books.
‘Can’t decide what to take, Harry?’ Remus asked, perching beside him.
Harry shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter. I have tons of toys at Dad’s as well. I only take Freddy usually.’ He hugged a threadbare, formerly green frog to him.
‘We’ll leave him out, shall we? He can look after us on the journey.’ Remus waved his wand, and Harry’s clothes folded themselves neatly in the case, which clicked itself shut.
Remus shrank it and put it in his pocket. They went downstairs, but the house was deserted. ‘I don’t think you’ll have a chance to say goodbye to your Mum,’ Remus said. ‘She’s a bit sick today.’
‘She’s been sick for weeks,’ Harry said. ‘Rufus says she’ll feel better after the wedding.’
‘You get on okay with Rufus, don’t you?’ Remus said, aiming for a casual tone.
‘Yes, of course. He’s ace at mending things. When my broom broke, he put it together and got it to fly again.’
‘Well, you’ll be on a real broomstick today,’ Remus said. ‘You’ll have to hold on tight.’
He climbed on the broom and got Harry settled behind him. They rose swiftly into the cloudless sky. ‘It’s perhaps not the best day to go by broom. No cover. Well, the Muggles will probably think we’re a plane.’
‘What’s a plane?’
Remus explained.
‘Have you ever been on one?’
‘No. I’d like to try, but Sirius is terrified. He can’t see how something that size can stay in the sky without magic. Which is quite funny for the youngest Head of Muggle Studies ever, but we all have our quirks.’
‘Are you and Sirius married?’
The broom swooped down suddenly, and Remus spent a minute getting back on course. ‘No, Harry. Two boys can’t get married.’
‘Oh. Mum said to Rufus that if they were getting married you should too.’
‘That figures.’ Remus concentrated on steering over the patchwork fields and woods far below, and soon the shimmering blue sea came into view. Tiny figures bobbed in the water, and the sun shone down relentlessly.
Remus took a hand off the broom to wipe the sweat off his forehead. ‘Sirius and I have been together a long time, of course. Since Sixth Year. Quite a while before your Mum and Dad got together.’
That was probably a bit tactless, because Harry had never really known his mother and father together. They separated before his first birthday, and he’d grown up with two homes, two sets of parent figures and, as he'd implied, two rooms full of toys. Perhaps that wasn’t such a bad way to go, if you were used to it.
Harry didn’t notice anything wrong. ‘Mum always says that the best day of her life was meeting Dad, because then she had me.’
‘Well, that’s fair enough. We’re all glad she had you, Harry.’ And Remus was looking forward to the new baby as well: she wouldn’t be as close to any of them as James’s son, but she’d grow up with Harry, and no doubt he and Sirius would one day teach both of them at Hogwarts.
They landed in a street of narrow little houses, a cobbled street that wound and twisted its way through wizarding Brighton. Remus knocked on a yellow door, which was opened by a pretty young witch with red hair tied back in untidy bunches. Remus and Sirius were always amused by Liana: James had very consistent taste in women. She was even good at Potions.
‘Hi, Remus. Come in, Harry. We’ve redecorated your room, because your Dad says you’re a big boy now. It’s got Bludgers and Snitches…well, go and see.’
‘Oh, brilliant!’ squealed Harry, and rushed off to look, leaving Freddy Frog forgotten on the stairs.
Liana insisted that Remus stay for lunch and plied him with so much wine that he had great trouble steering his broomstick straight on the way back to Hogwarts, and ended up halfway to France before he realised he was flying in the wrong direction.
He didn’t get home until early evening. From his rooms, he could see the members of the Muggle Studies conference on the lawn, having drinks before dinner. Sirius was gesticulating wildly, holding forth to one of the Beauxbatons professors. The late afternoon light caught in his hair as he looked up at the window and waved at Remus, his already beautiful face transformed by a big smile.
Epilogue
‘So basically, that’s it,’ Remus told me. ‘Most of the books are pure fiction. You saw Dumbledore yourself, didn’t you? The ancient wizard in the wheelchair.’
Sirius said, ‘What really kills me is all the stuff about Snivellus as Potions master. You met Professor Merton.’
I had. She was a tall, rather snooty woman with a swan-like neck. ‘So what happened to Snape, then?’
Sirius laughed. ‘Well, he ran off to join the wizarding circus straight after school. When we finally left our bunker. He’s now better known as the Human Cannonball.’
Remus choked on his tea.
Sirius thumped him on the back. ‘He married the Bearded Lady,’ he added. ‘Fortunately, they don’t have any children.’
I left them arguing about whether or not any hypothetical Snape children would have beards. They were so absorbed that they didn’t even notice the door closing behind me.
End
By minnow_53
Disclaimer: These characters belong to JK Rowling and various corporations.
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Era: AU (MWPP to post HBP)
Summary: Remus and Sirius set the record straight about the many errors in canon.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: HBP
Thanks: To astra_argentea for a quick beta.
Dedication: To cloudlessnights for the happy, and mushroom18 because I got Remus and Harry talking, and because the Pokemon action was inspired by her wonderful comic strips, here!
Soon to be crossposted to remusxsirius, two_boys and hp_whatif.
Corrigenda
Corrigenda: corrections to be made in a book. (Chambers Dictionary)
Introduction
After the latest Harry Potter book came out, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin decided it was time to set the record straight about certain elements of the story. As Remus said, ‘It may be more entertaining to read about how miserable our lives are, but it’s just a myth. I am a werewolf, yes, but that’s as far as the angst goes. Oh, and Sirius has been disowned by the Blacks, but it's hardly a problem, is it? Not to us.’
He also added, just by the way, ‘The werewolf that bit me was shot years ago, you know. Any other accounts are pure sensationalism.’
A few more facts, before I start: Sirius is not, as recorded, aged and emaciated after years in Azkaban. ‘I never went near the place. Well, once, on a boat trip.’ And, as he hastened to point out, he isn’t dead either. 'Do I look dead?'
'Don't answer him,' Remus warned me. 'He just wants you to tell him how gorgeous he is.'
Remus isn’t beautiful in the conventional sense, but he has a pleasant, open face. Contrary to rumours, he is not brain-damaged, catatonic or suffering from Alzheimer’s. Nor does he have grey hair - ‘I’m a wizard, damn it, woman!’ - or lines.
1. A Huge Canon Error
The Prank marks the start of one of the great love stories of the last century. Sadly, it has been greatly misrepresented in JK Rowling’s account of the life and times of Sirius Black and Remus Lupin.
What actually happened was as follows.
Severus Snape was a very, very bad boy. He used his Potions lessons to scribble new killing curses in his textbook, just for starters. He was also wildly jealous of Lily Evans, who merely had to flutter her eyelashes and Professor Slughorn fell, metaphorically, at her feet. When he found that Lily had got higher marks than him in the OWL, he jinxed her, and all her lovely red hair fell out.
‘I am going to hex you to hell and back, Snivellus,’ James snarled, his wand aloft.
‘Really? Sectumsempra!’ intoned Snape, enjoying the sight of Potter covered in blood. ‘You threaten me, Potter, I’ll kill you.’
Fortunately, the other Marauders were around to save James that time, but they were most indignant on his behalf.
Sadly, no charms could cure Lily’s baldness, and her hair was just starting to grow back in a red fuzz on the day of a fateful lesson that changed history.
Divination was Remus’s best subject, because he was possessed of the Inner Eye to a great degree. That morning, he gazed into his crystal ball, and heard a leering Snape saying to a shadowy figure in a black cloak, ‘You have to find and kill James and Lily Potter.’
He consulted his magic mirror: in its concave black surface he saw Snape standing over a white-bearded old man with a smoking wand.
Finally, in his Tarot spread, he saw the Hanged Man upside down.
Remus, being half wolf, had an instinct for evil that went way beyond ordinary intuition. He had sensed the wickedness in Snape the first time he sniffed him, just before their Sorting. Therefore, in his essay on these phenomena, he came to three conclusions:
1) Snivellus would cause James and Lily to die. Presumably they would have got together in the meantime, of course.
2) Snivellus would kill Dumbledore.
3) Snivellus wore disgusting underwear. The grey pants weren’t a one-off - if they ever came off, indeed. That was his clean pair!
Remus evolved a plan to stop him, but he couldn’t manage it on his own. He was a bit wary of approaching James, who was a hearty type: James didn’t like Snivellus, but he didn’t like Divination either, and would sneer at Remus. Peter was useless in serious matters. He slept with a pink and white striped plush Kneazle called Paddy, and owled his mother every day. He was, of course, also an obnoxious little oik, but James liked him, and who was Remus to argue with James Potter?
Instead, after a lot of hesitation, he told Sirius Black, who was also gifted in Divination, about the horrible things he’d seen.
Sirius had a lot of time for Remus, Remus had noticed. He hovered about him before and after lessons, and sometimes spent the whole lesson staring at him too. Remus thought it was because he’d never met a werewolf before.
Sirius took Remus very seriously indeed, though he got a bit emotional when Remus said, ‘I’m quite happy to sacrifice myself for the greater good. You send Snivellus along to the Shack at the next full moon, and leave the rest up to me.’
‘That is so noble of you, Moony,’ Sirius whispered, and clasped Remus’s hand in great friendship and admiration.
‘If I kill him, the worst that happens is a stiff letter from the Werewolf registry,’ said Remus. ‘I think.’
Sirius wiped away a tear. ‘Try not to eat him, though, won’t you? I hate to imagine…’
Remus laughed. ‘I don’t think even the wolf would eat him. Don’t worry. I’ll just mess him about a bit.’
Unfortunately, as has been accurately recorded, James saved Snivellus’s life at the last moment, but not before the wolf had clawed him.
Sirius used a Clotting spell to gather together Snape’s blood, which was spattered all over the Shack. He and Remus sneaked into the Potions dungeon and stole a little vial to put it in.
‘He’s trying to join the Death Eaters,’ Sirius said. ‘I know, because Reg told me. And he said that Snivellus’s father is a Muggle. Why don’t we send this blood to Voldemort for analysis, just as a joke? Let’s lose Snivellus the job he wants.’
‘And stop those horrible predictions coming true,’ Remus reminded him.
Remus enclosed a letter with the vial:
Dear Lord Voldemort,
Please note that this may be half and not pure blood. If Severus Snape ever tries to join your Death Eaters, I suggest you reject him on those grounds. You don’t want your killing machine to become a laughing-stock, do you?
Yours sincerely,
Remus Lupin.
He and Sirius managed to sneak into the Owlery and send the vial with Snape’s own owl, Thaddeus. ‘It seems a nice touch for him to condemn himself out of his own mouth, so to speak,’ said Remus. Sirius would have objected to the syntax, but he was too busy gazing at Remus with adoring eyes.
The mission to avenge Lily was therefore accomplished with the minimum of bloodshed. Severus Snape was turned down by the Death Eaters so many times that he finally gave up. A very different fate awaited him now…
2. How Remus and Sirius Really got Together
Remus noticed that after the Snape Incident, Sirius started staring at him even more in lessons. This wasn’t actually easy, as Sirius rarely stopped looking at Remus anyway, and soon he was getting no work done at all.
Professor McGonagall was quite cross about it. Sirius’s partner in Transfigurations was James, who had turned so many objects into other objects that there was no room on the desk: but Sirius had only managed to turn a quill into a rather miserable and almost featherless bird-type thing. McGonagall put it out of its misery with a brisk ‘Cabra Dabra’, the spell used to put animals humanely to sleep, and gave Sirius six after-school detentions for not concentrating.
Sirius didn’t just stare at Remus through lessons. At meals, he tried to sit as close to him as possible, and a couple of times absent-mindedly started cutting up his meat for him.
James howled with laughter, Peter following suit, and choked on his steak. ‘For goodness’ sake, Sirius! You’re not babysitting your cousin now! That’s Moony’s plate, you plonker.’
Remus thought it was kind of his friend, and made a point of thanking him. ‘That was sweet, Pads. It’s difficult sometimes to use a knife and fork when my hands are bandaged.’
‘They’re not bandaged at the moment,’ Peter pointed out.
‘Whatever.’ Remus shrugged. It really was very observant of Sirius to know exactly what size he liked his meat, though he got a bit annoyed when Sirius mashed his potatoes too: he preferred them in chunks.
At teatime, Sirius took to leaping up and across the common room the second the house-elves wheeled in the trolley of sandwiches, cakes and sometimes little pies. When the Gryffindors flocked over to get their tea, Sirius would look round rather agitatedly for Remus - which he didn’t need to do, because he always knew exactly where Remus was - and say, ‘Hoi, you lot. Leave some chocolate cake for Lupin. And he likes the smoked salmon sandwiches.’ Then, unable to wait for Remus to come and fight his own corner, he’d seize a plate and pile it high with goodies for his friend.
Remus wasn’t too fond of strawberry tarts with a slightly fishy taste from the sandwiches that had been crammed on top, but for some reason they tasted extra sweet when Sirius had collected them. He decided that Sirius looked quite handsome holding out the plate, his perfect face slightly flushed with the exertion of beating all the other Gryffindors to the tea trolley. He smiled with pleasure as Remus tried all the food and declared it to be good.
‘Only the best for you, Moony!’ Sirius declared, and he wasn’t joking. ‘Look, have some cake. I got you the biggest, gooiest slice.’ He cut a morsel off with the tiny silver fork and spoon provided, and fed it to Remus, who giggled at first.
‘Don’t be silly, Moony. Open up!’ Sirius urged.
Remus obeyed, and agreed that yes, the cake did taste specially good. Somehow, the subsequent piece, which he fed himself, wasn’t quite so delicious.
Besides softening Remus up with food, Sirius had even better ammunition to work with. Before his rift with his family, an obscure uncle had given him a wonderful object called a GameWizard, which had a tiny screen where you could magic up wonderful games. Sirius’s favourite one involved Japanese wizards who collected funny animals with different powers, then trained them to fight each other. Remus enjoyed watching Sirius play, especially when he was training the animals.
Sirius budged up on the sofa so Remus could also see the screen: they had to sit very close together, and Remus thought idly how comfortable it was to be close to Sirius, watching him move a level 30 Hippocampus around. He loved the way the little yellow creature occasionally squeaked, ‘Hippo’ as it went through its paces.
‘You have a go, Moony. Look, the controls are easy. Wand left is up, wand right is down…’
It took Remus a few minutes to get it right, but Sirius wasn’t cross when his Hippocampus suddenly lost all its powers. In fact, Sirius was rather flushed and his breathing irregular. Remus moved a bit nearer, and peered closely at his friend. ‘Are you all right, Sirius?’
Sirius groaned, and took Remus’s face in both hands, and kissed him on the lips. Remus was a bit shocked. He knew Sirius liked him, but he didn’t know he liked him that much. He thought that probably the kissing was something that best friends did. Perhaps Sirius did this to James too. How would he know? He hadn’t had any friends till he came to school.
It felt good. When Sirius didn’t stop, Remus thought he’d better open his mouth, because it was a bit uncomfortable otherwise; his face was getting wet, and he didn’t like to move away and wipe it with his nice, clean hanky. Besides, Sirius now had his arms around him and was holding him really tightly.
Opening his mouth was obviously the right thing to do, though Remus was a bit worried when Sirius made a weird, strangled sound, but before he could close it again, Sirius had started doing some rather interesting stuff with his tongue, which Remus responded to instinctively.
When they finally broke apart, Sirius’s breathing was very laboured indeed, and Remus was rather worried. ‘Are you okay? Do you need to see Madam Pomfrey?’
Sirius looked at him uncomprehendingly. ‘Course not. I’ve never felt better. I’ve been dying to do that for ages.’
Remus was a bit embarrassed. ‘Oh, right. The kissing - do you and James do that too?’
‘What are you talking about? Why would I kiss James?’
‘Oh. Why would you kiss me, then?’
Sirius shrugged. ‘Because I love you? That seems a good enough reason.’
Remus wasn’t quite sure what Sirius meant by ‘love’. He knew they were good friends, and he privately liked Sirius more than either James or Peter. He also liked to look at Sirius, though probably not as much as Sirius liked to look at him: well, he didn’t stare at him all the time.
‘I. Love. You.’ Sirius enunciated each word so clearly that Remus could see the full stops between them. ‘Like James loves Evans. I’m in love with you. I want to kiss you and sleep with you. In your bed,’ he added, anticipating Remus’s question. ‘In fact, let’s go up to your bed right now.’
Remus was pleased that Sirius loved him, though he couldn’t quite get his head round the James and Evans bit. He had a feeling he'd understand a bit better if they did go to bed. Come to think of it, he was pretty tired. Sirius, though, was looking what Mrs Lupin always called ‘bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.’ Remus privately thought that wasn’t a tactful way to describe a werewolf, but it was a good way to describe his friend. His eyes were certainly bright, with huge, black pupils, which got even huger later on, when he and Remus were up in the dorm together.
3. The Babysitters’ Club
Once Sirius and Remus were established as a couple - ‘Which didn’t take long, in spite of Moony being so incredibly thick,’ Sirius told me, fondly ruffling Remus’s hair - they started to do things together. Not just physical things, but day-to-day things.
Professor Dumbledore allowed students to spend evenings outside school as part of their Sixth Year Community Service work, so the two boys volunteered for babysitting Nymphadora Tonks. She was about two when Remus and Sirius got together, and a real handful.
They took the Floo to the Tonks’s one evening, when Ted and Adromeda were going to the opera.
‘It’s so kind of you to give up your Saturday night,’ Andromeda gushed, and Sirius smiled politely. As a Black, he wasn’t about to tell his cousin that Ted didn’t understand proper money, and tended to heap enough Galleons on them to keep them in chocolate and Butterbeer for weeks.
Remus and Sirius arranged it so little Nymphadora always went to sleep soon after her parents had Disapparated. Lily was generally considered the best in the year at Potions, so when Sirius complained of insomnia, she brewed him large supplies of Golden Dreams. He regularly slipped a teaspoon into Nymphadora’s bottle, and she nodded off on his shoulder before she’d even finished. Her hair went blue when her eyes were closed.
‘Put her in her cot,’ Remus said. ‘I want to watch television.’
Muggle-born Ted had a big colour set, and because Andromeda was a witch, he could get satellite and cable, even though they didn’t exist yet. Sirius turned to a porn channel, and he and Remus watched girls with big breasts for a moment.
‘Have a beer,’ Sirius said.
‘Should we?’ For someone who broke so many rules, Remus could be surprisingly anxious about breaking others. But when Sirius handed him a can of Stella he was quite happy to take a big gulp of it.
‘It tastes better in someone else’s mouth,’ Sirius mumbled after a while, tired of the girls on TV, who were all crowding round to stare out at him, pointing and pouting and trying to catch his eye. He pushed Remus down on the sofa and lay on top of him and kissed him. He was right: the beer tasted bitter on his tongue, but a bit sweet too.
The girls started to chatter excitedly, and Sirius leaned over and turned the set off. ‘You don’t want an audience, do you, Moony?’
‘No, Pads.’ He lay back and enjoyed the weight and feeling of Sirius kissing and rubbing against him. He thought it was far better than the pornography on television: he had nothing against half-naked women with big breasts, but when it came down to it he preferred half-naked Sirius: depending which half, of course.
‘I think I’ll take off my robes,’ he muttered. ‘It’s getting a bit hot in here.’
Sirius was way ahead of him, and had taken off his robes and most of what was underneath. ‘Try not to make too much noise. You’ll wake up the baby.’
Though Sirius was old enough to perform magic out of school, he didn’t want to risk a Muffliato spell when he was supposed to be looking after his second cousin, in case she screamed or cried or needed a glass of water, though if Lily had brewed the potion competently she should sleep through the night.
They kissed a bit more, and then Sirius stopped and listened for a minute, and said, ‘D’you think she’ll be able to hear us?’
Remus couldn’t have cared less. ‘No. Just get on with it Sirius, for goodness’ sake.’
They were in the middle of some exciting and interesting contortions when Sirius suddenly heard a whimper from behind the sofa, and leapt up, evoking loud protests from Remus.
‘Who is it?’ he growled, pulling out his wand, and a tiny figure pulled herself up on the arm of the sofa and pointed at him rather accusingly. ‘I want milk,’ she announced, and Sirius got up reluctantly, struggling back into his robes.
‘Put more Golden Dreams into it,’ Remus hissed.
‘I was going to,’ Sirius said.
He sat down and fed Nymphadora her drugged milk, and a few minutes later, the child was dancing round the sitting room singing a nonsensical song about a witch with two red buckets; she then dragged a bulging toy-box out from behind the sofa and strewed plastic tea-sets and plush kittens all over the floor.
Remus groaned. ‘Have you jinxed Lily recently or anything? Or did you give her caffeine by mistake?’
Sirius examined his vial of potion anxiously. ‘I dunno. It’s the same as the last lot, and that sent her to sleep. Not for long, though.’
‘Maybe she took too much and it had a kickback effect,’ Remus suggested.
Nymphadora finished emptying out her toy-box. ‘Remus. Play.’
‘Oh, ponies!’ Sirius brightened up, but tried to appear mature and cool when Remus glanced sideways at him. ‘Regulus used to love his ponies. He made me race them with him.’ His voice was defiant.
‘Did you like ponies too?’ Remus asked eagerly. He couldn’t believe it possible that the love of his life had actually played with the same toys.
Sirius gave him a hug, just to show solidarity. ‘Oh, yes! We had magic ponies, of course. They could wash themselves and comb their own manes. My mother was hopeless, and it was the ponies who taught me basic grooming. Before I learned magic, of course.’
Remus looked lovingly into his eyes. ‘Mine were magic too. Birthday Cake. Did you have Birthday Cake?’
‘Yes,’ whispered Sirius, his lips now touching Remus’s, his whole body drawn irresistibly to Remus's touch, though he tried valiantly to control himself. ‘And Growing Tail Pony. Did you have Growing Tail?’
‘Oh, yes, yes,’ breathed out Remus, and their lips were melded together by a force greater than either of them, and they kissed and kissed, tasting love and lust and the innocent world of ponies with tiny wands that could keep their manes wavy and knot-free.
Sirius pulled Remus to the ground and continued to kiss him horizontally. ‘I had Zippy Pony. You could take off his legs,’ he said, virtually speaking into Remus’s mouth.
Remus rolled over so Sirius was on top of him. ‘Didn’t have Zippy,’ he said, his words muffled, his hands under Sirius’ waistband.
Nymphadora threw her pink pony across the room. It neighed indignantly, but nobody heard it, because Nymphadora emitted a loud scream and pulled at Sirius’s robes. ‘Bad boys! You play with me now.’
‘Bloody hell,’ said Sirius, dazed, rolling off Remus and sitting on the floor. ‘I’d completely forgotten about you.’
‘Bugger,’ said Remus.
There was a loud crack, and Ted and Andromeda appeared in the middle of the room, having apparently decided to come home well before the end of the first act. Ted shrugged apologetically. ‘She was worried about Dora,’ he said. ‘Mothers. You know.’
Andromeda scooped up her daughter and hugged her. Nymphadora wriggled, and shouted ‘Bugger, bloody hell,’ stopping for just long enough to say, rather accusingly, ‘Sirius and Remus were kissing.’
‘Kissing you goodnight,’ Sirius improvised hastily. ‘But it wasn’t much use, was it?’
When they were back in the dorm, in Remus’s bed, Remus, who could hardly keep his eyes open, yawned and said, ‘Remind me why we babysit for your monstrous cousin again.’
‘Privacy,’ Sirius said. ‘And money,’ he added, but Remus was already asleep.
I hardly dared mention the latest in the Hogwarts saga, and when I did Remus started to laugh, and Sirius said resignedly, ‘Oh, Merlin, there he goes again. He thinks it’s hilarious. Just the thought of Nymphadora’s enough to set him off at the moment.’
Between gales of laughter, Remus said something that eventually turned out to be, ‘And Sirius is going to marry McGonagall.’
‘Rather more likely,’ Sirius said, which sobered Remus up.
‘Don’t be stupid. You’d fight like cat and dog.’
‘Oh, come on, lighten up. I wouldn’t dream of it, any more than you’d marry Dora. By the way,’ he added, looking at me rather accusingly, ‘my cousin hates being called Tonks. She says it makes her sound like a piano.’
4. Wizarding Wars I and II
Dumbledore and his cohorts managed to end the first war very early on with five or six handy H-bombs. Their magic enabled them to target the victims with pinpoint accuracy.
The bombs struck on a chilly autumn evening. After the initial deafening bang there was no sound at first, but then everyone could hear the dying screams of Voldemort, as each of his Horcruxes was ripped apart in the explosion. All his Death Eaters died in horrible agony before total silence fell again.
The damage was limited, of course, so that Muggles dismissed the fallout as pollution: but the wizarding world knew better
‘This was at the very beginning of Seventh Year,’ Remus said. ‘That’s why none of us got any NEWTs. But we did get honorary certificates later, when everything was over and the air was clear again. It took six months of intensive spells to clean the atmosphere.’
While the radiation was being dispersed, the survivors had to live in bunkers; the staff and pupils of Hogwarts were billeted in a shelter under the school. Because Voldemort was stopped before he did any real damage, there were more good guys than in the books.
‘Reg, for a start,’ Sirius told me. ‘Moony calls him the brother-in-law. He owns a chain of toyshops now. The dolls are rather dodgy. I think they bite. And Reg is actually married. To a girl. Well, a woman. We’re all getting older, aren’t we?’
‘Bit odd if we weren’t,’ Remus chipped in.
During the full moon, Remus had to stay in a specially constructed cage. ‘It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. By that time, everyone knew all about the Animagus thing, so I was allowed my friends in with me. You know, magic can do wonders. I’ve never, ever seen such a magnificent cage anywhere else, even in London Zoo.’
The bunker was enchanted to provide luxurious living conditions for all at Hogwarts: those outside the school were housed in their own shelters, of course.
Even for wizards, life underground could be stressful. Dumbledore and the teachers did their best, replicating the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall with some success, but even they couldn’t create a real world outside the windows charmed into the walls of the bunker.
Four months into the decontamination time, tempers were frayed. James Potter, the Head Boy, and Lily Evans, the Head Girl, were sitting at breakfast one morning, talking to each other in undertones. From a distance, they looked as if they were discussing whether or not to allow the First Years to draw on the walls of the caves.
Without warning, Lily got up and dumped her untouched bowl of cornflakes, complete with milk and sugar, on to James’s head, and marched out of the roughly-hewn room.
Remus and Sirius were holding hands under the table, as usual, when Severus Snape went past and sneered, ‘Oh, it’s the little perverts again, is it? I’d have thought being a werewolf would be bad enough, Lupin.’
‘You should be thanking him!’ Sirius said indignantly. ‘He saved your life. You could’ve been one of the Death Eaters that got nuked.’
‘No, I couldn’t,’ Snape retorted. ‘I was too young to join up anyway.’
‘Yeah, right. Which is why you sent them a letter just about every day begging to be let in.’
Remus clutched Sirius’s sleeve. ‘Leave it, Pads. He’s not worth arguing with.’
‘Don’t tell me what to do!’ Sirius snapped, pulling his sleeve away.
‘I won’t,’ Remus snapped back, deeply hurt and humiliated. ‘I won’t talk to you at all.’
For the rest of the day, Remus and Sirius kept well apart from each other, and Sirius didn’t look at Remus once during Bunker Transfiguration.
That night, Remus woke up in the Seventh Year Underground dorm, to find his curtains closed and his space in complete darkness. He was a bit afraid of the dark, though he’d never admit it to any of his friends: it was the result of his early years as a werewolf, when his mother put him in a shuttered room to recover, not realising that the deep shadows in the corners combined with the excruciating pain weren’t conducive to relaxation.
He lit his wand, and noticed at once that there was a big teddy-bear sitting by his pillow. It was a lovely bear, with glossy black fur, a blue bow and the most adorable smiling mouth.
‘Where did you come from, Teddy?’ Remus asked, softly, because the last thing he wanted was for his friends to hear him talking to a soft toy: sound echoed in the underground chambers with their hollow walls. He felt a guilty pang when he remembered how they’d all teased Peter about Paddy the Kneazle.
He stroked its fur tentatively, in case in was one of Snape’s tricks, and could have sworn he heard it purr, though he was sure bears didn’t purr. He blew out his wand and put his arms around the teddy, which was soft and warm and so comforting that he gave it a little kiss on its rather elegant brow. ‘I think I’ll call you Treacle Bear,’ he whispered.
To his horror, the bear seemed to stretch and grow, and its fur became skin, though some of it remained as silky hair, and within seconds Remus found himself clutching not a teddy but his close friend, Sirius Black.
He kicked him hard, glad it was dark enough to hide his blushes. ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’
Sirius, he knew, though he couldn’t see him, had a gleeful grin. ‘Hugging your teddy, Lupin?’
Remus kicked him again, close to tears. ‘What’s wrong with just being Padfoot? Honestly, Sirius.’
Sirius snorted. ‘Oh, yeah, and then I’d get shoved off. You weren’t talking to me, remember? You wouldn’t even tell me why you got so mad when I was defending you to Snape.’
‘I couldn’t,’ Remus remarked, in a reasonable tone of voice. ‘I wasn’t talking to you, was I?’
‘You are now,’ said Sirius. ‘You were even hugging me. Aren’t you going to ask how I did it?’
Remus could guess: it was obvious that he had asked James to Transfigure him, which meant that James had also arranged the teddy-bear on the bed. The thought was mildly embarrassing, and Remus didn’t want to entertain it. He just said, ‘Mmmph’ in a neutral voice.
‘It wasn’t Prongs,’ Sirius said: he always could read Remus’s mind. ‘I did it myself.’
‘Really?’ Remus was fascinated in spite of himself. ‘Well, how did you get on to my bed without my noticing?’
‘You were asleep. I was very discreet.’
Remus wanted to ask how he’d managed to make the ribbon, then realised that Sirius was still wearing it. It shone in the dark with an unearthly satin brilliance. Remus pulled one end of it to undo the bow, and it fluttered down on to the bed between them.
‘I can still be your teddy-bear,’ Sirius whispered, getting under the covers without being asked. ‘You can take me to bed and hug me and I’ll sleep with you every night.’
Remus found that he was more inclined to laugh than be angry, so he snuggled up to Sirius, and they kissed until the artificial dawn filled the room. Dumbledore could almost manage sunlight, but it simply didn’t have the same effect as the real thing.
‘So,’ I said, ‘there was no full-scale war. That means Lily and James are still alive, aren’t they?’
Remus and Sirius glanced at each other. ‘Oh, they’re alive,’ Sirius admitted. ‘But they’re not exactly together, are they?’
5. A Broken Marriage
Sirius is Head of Muggle Studies at Hogwarts, and Remus teaches Defence Against the Dark Arts, so technically they haven’t been separated for more than a day since they both left school in 1978.
‘I suppose the last time was when I had to take Harry to the seaside,’ Remus said.
Harry should have been escorted by his godfather, but that was the week of the Muggle Studies conference at Hogwarts, which Sirius couldn’t miss. Lily’s wedding was on the Wednesday, James had a heavy workload, and six year-old Harry had to be got somehow to his father’s house in Brighton.
Remus picked Harry up early in the morning. It was a beautiful June day, perfect for a wedding, even a second, rather rushed, wedding in a registry office, with Harry’s half-sister on the way.
Lily opened the door to Remus. She was pale, slightly green even. She hugged him. ‘Hello. It’s so kind of you to do this! We just couldn’t put it off any longer. But I don’t think I’ll actually manage to get married today, ’cause I’ve been throwing up every five minutes… I’ve made about a hundred different potions, and nothing helps.’ She looked round a bit wildly. ‘Harry? Oh, he was here a second ago…’
‘I’ll go and fetch him,’ Remus said.
Lily didn’t answer, but clapped her hand over her mouth and rushed to the bathroom.
Harry’s room was right at the top of the house. The door was open, and Harry was sitting on the bed, a half-packed case beside him, looking rather helpless. He was surrounded by toys: a train set ran on rails round the room, with a perfect miniature replica of the Hogwarts express, and you couldn’t see the bed for cards, Harry’s collection of tricks from Zonko’s and a virtual library of books.
‘Can’t decide what to take, Harry?’ Remus asked, perching beside him.
Harry shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter. I have tons of toys at Dad’s as well. I only take Freddy usually.’ He hugged a threadbare, formerly green frog to him.
‘We’ll leave him out, shall we? He can look after us on the journey.’ Remus waved his wand, and Harry’s clothes folded themselves neatly in the case, which clicked itself shut.
Remus shrank it and put it in his pocket. They went downstairs, but the house was deserted. ‘I don’t think you’ll have a chance to say goodbye to your Mum,’ Remus said. ‘She’s a bit sick today.’
‘She’s been sick for weeks,’ Harry said. ‘Rufus says she’ll feel better after the wedding.’
‘You get on okay with Rufus, don’t you?’ Remus said, aiming for a casual tone.
‘Yes, of course. He’s ace at mending things. When my broom broke, he put it together and got it to fly again.’
‘Well, you’ll be on a real broomstick today,’ Remus said. ‘You’ll have to hold on tight.’
He climbed on the broom and got Harry settled behind him. They rose swiftly into the cloudless sky. ‘It’s perhaps not the best day to go by broom. No cover. Well, the Muggles will probably think we’re a plane.’
‘What’s a plane?’
Remus explained.
‘Have you ever been on one?’
‘No. I’d like to try, but Sirius is terrified. He can’t see how something that size can stay in the sky without magic. Which is quite funny for the youngest Head of Muggle Studies ever, but we all have our quirks.’
‘Are you and Sirius married?’
The broom swooped down suddenly, and Remus spent a minute getting back on course. ‘No, Harry. Two boys can’t get married.’
‘Oh. Mum said to Rufus that if they were getting married you should too.’
‘That figures.’ Remus concentrated on steering over the patchwork fields and woods far below, and soon the shimmering blue sea came into view. Tiny figures bobbed in the water, and the sun shone down relentlessly.
Remus took a hand off the broom to wipe the sweat off his forehead. ‘Sirius and I have been together a long time, of course. Since Sixth Year. Quite a while before your Mum and Dad got together.’
That was probably a bit tactless, because Harry had never really known his mother and father together. They separated before his first birthday, and he’d grown up with two homes, two sets of parent figures and, as he'd implied, two rooms full of toys. Perhaps that wasn’t such a bad way to go, if you were used to it.
Harry didn’t notice anything wrong. ‘Mum always says that the best day of her life was meeting Dad, because then she had me.’
‘Well, that’s fair enough. We’re all glad she had you, Harry.’ And Remus was looking forward to the new baby as well: she wouldn’t be as close to any of them as James’s son, but she’d grow up with Harry, and no doubt he and Sirius would one day teach both of them at Hogwarts.
They landed in a street of narrow little houses, a cobbled street that wound and twisted its way through wizarding Brighton. Remus knocked on a yellow door, which was opened by a pretty young witch with red hair tied back in untidy bunches. Remus and Sirius were always amused by Liana: James had very consistent taste in women. She was even good at Potions.
‘Hi, Remus. Come in, Harry. We’ve redecorated your room, because your Dad says you’re a big boy now. It’s got Bludgers and Snitches…well, go and see.’
‘Oh, brilliant!’ squealed Harry, and rushed off to look, leaving Freddy Frog forgotten on the stairs.
Liana insisted that Remus stay for lunch and plied him with so much wine that he had great trouble steering his broomstick straight on the way back to Hogwarts, and ended up halfway to France before he realised he was flying in the wrong direction.
He didn’t get home until early evening. From his rooms, he could see the members of the Muggle Studies conference on the lawn, having drinks before dinner. Sirius was gesticulating wildly, holding forth to one of the Beauxbatons professors. The late afternoon light caught in his hair as he looked up at the window and waved at Remus, his already beautiful face transformed by a big smile.
Epilogue
‘So basically, that’s it,’ Remus told me. ‘Most of the books are pure fiction. You saw Dumbledore yourself, didn’t you? The ancient wizard in the wheelchair.’
Sirius said, ‘What really kills me is all the stuff about Snivellus as Potions master. You met Professor Merton.’
I had. She was a tall, rather snooty woman with a swan-like neck. ‘So what happened to Snape, then?’
Sirius laughed. ‘Well, he ran off to join the wizarding circus straight after school. When we finally left our bunker. He’s now better known as the Human Cannonball.’
Remus choked on his tea.
Sirius thumped him on the back. ‘He married the Bearded Lady,’ he added. ‘Fortunately, they don’t have any children.’
I left them arguing about whether or not any hypothetical Snape children would have beards. They were so absorbed that they didn’t even notice the door closing behind me.
End