(no subject)
Title: We're All Mad Here
Author: Nyxty
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Remus stays with Sirius over the summer holiday and proves that when everything goes wrong, a lot can go right too.
Chapter: 2/4
Word count: 3, 324
Disclaimer: Not mine!!
Prologue
Chapter 1: A Plan Backfires
This is what he wanted. This is one of the reasons, one of the two reasons, he wanted Remus to stay with him.
Remus is sitting on his bed, his own bed conjured from thin air, reading the dusty tomes he has acquired from the Black Family Library of Death and Doom, and Sirius is lying stomach down in the middle of the floor writing his first summer letter to James.
It almost feels like Hogwarts.
In this house he hates, he now has this little piece of his real home.
And it’s perfect.
It’s what he wanted. One of the two reasons.
Sirius really doesn’t know what to write to James. Usually this is the letter of whining and bitching and complaining about his mum, his father, his brother, his life. But he’s happy. He’s really happy. And he doesn’t want to write about that either.
He looks around his room, fishing for random things he hasn’t already told James a thousand times before. His eyes land on his trunk, then on Remus and his lips curl into a soft smile Sirius can sometimes produce when he’s not paying attention. Another turn of his head and he sees one of his bike posters.
They’re not lies. But they’re not the whole truth either. And maybe he still should have taken them down.
Sirius scowls and picks his quill up.
Sir Prongsalot of Nonsense,
Next time you come up with a plan and don’t include me and then we fight and then you cave (hilarious) and then Moony is sent to live with me, please, please (don’t consider two pleases to be begging) remind me to send a notice to one of the many house elves to clean my room! Moony’s getting the wrong idea about me.
Sirius stops and buries his face into the crook of his elbow. The nervous feelings of saying so much and too much and not enough escaping as laughter.
He regains his composure and signs the bottom with a squiggly S.B.
Rising from the floor, Sirius grabs this letter and looks at Remus. “Tired, Moony?”
Remus finishes his gigantic yawn and nods.
“Well,” says Sirius, quickly tying his letter to his post owl. “Drowsiness is the leading side effect from reading too much about…”
“Muggle World Leaders of the 1600s and Their Possible Involvement with Radical Muggle-Supporters in the Ministry of Magic and Why Those Muggle-Supporters Should Be Decapitated. With Graphics.”
“Riveting.”
Remus laughs. “Well, I suppose it’s no…” He reaches under Sirius’s bed. “Biker’s Weekly.”
“Hey!” Sirius stops half-way to taking his shirt off. “Don’t touch my wank mag!” He ditches the shirt and tosses it in the corner of his room he uses as a hamper. “You know how pistons and axles get me going.”
Remus drops the magazine. “Sirius, you can’t possibly look less like a biker.”
Sirius, after giving Remus a face full of shock (and a couple of fingers), grabs his wand and takes position.
“What are you doing?”
Sirius doesn’t take his eyes off his door. Wand hand moving in circles and swishes and flicks. His lips whispering those familiar foreign words.
When he’s done, he places his wand on his dresser and shrugs. “Wards.” He crawls over Remus, over the two inch space between the two beds, and flops down.
“Afraid Regulus is going to have a nightmare and run to his big brother’s open arms?” Remus laughs shaky and unconvinced about his own teasing question.
“He’s the least of our worries.” Sirius stares at Remus without blinking, masking his breathing. He tips his chin down because he knows that only helps to make him look more sinister. Also, when he does that, the shorter pieces of his hair falls over his eyes and, not that he’s bragging, but he looks pretty sexy like that.
He can’t hold it for long. Remus’s face is just too deliciously unnerved. “I’m joking,” he bursts, collapsing onto Remus’s bed.
Remus smacks him across the crown of his head. “Then why the wards?”
Sirius shifts onto his back. Now he can look up at Remus but still lay on Remus’s much move comfortable bed. “Ever hear of privacy?”
Remus leans closer to him. “Ever hear of mental hospital?”
“Moony! The Blacks founded one! Then populated it.”
“Interesting.” Remus moves so that he’s lying down. Now Sirius is face to face with him, and suddenly the bed is a lot more comfortable. “I’m sleepy.”
Sirius loves Nighttime Moony. Nighttime Moony uses words like Sleepy and PJs and smacks his lips a lot.
In Sirius’s mind, he sees someone just like himself but so much braver than he is, which is a feat. It’s a Sirius that maybe doesn’t care about Remus’s feelings, or maybe cares more about his own desires, or maybe doesn’t care about anything. And that boy, in Sirius’s imagination, leans forward and kisses Remus with a soft, gentle, goodnight my love kind of kiss.
But that’s the Sirius in his head. They real Sirius smiles and says “See you tomorrow, Moony.” And rolls over onto his own bed.
There’s a loud banging that Sirius thought was inside his head, but on further consideration he realizes that it’s definitely outside his head and maybe he should wake up and investigate it.
He groans and makes a whole lot of aching morning noises and gets out of bed. This time he’s considerate and doesn’t climb over the Remus Lupin one bed over.
It takes him five pulls on his doorknob to realize he put his wards up, and a couple of swishes later he tries the knob again.
Regulus continues to knock until Sirius’s door is all the way open.
“What?” barks Sirius. Regulus’s overall awake appearance is only aggravating Sirius more. Bloody morning person.
“Mother wants you down for breakfast.”
“What?” says Sirius, face dropping in disbelief.
“Mother told me to tell you that she wants you down for breakfast and I said to her that I think-”
Sirius slams the door closed. “This is unbelievable!”
“Mwhmmatmmat?” asks Remus.
Sirius moans and drags his feet back to his bed. “I don’t want to have breakfast with the father, the son, and the holy bitch!” He flops face down onto his mattress.
The bed next to Sirius’s creaks. “Nothing like blasphemy in the morning.”
“I got it!” Sirius sits up quickly, electrocuted to full awakness by a thousand ideas. “We just won’t go down. She can’t make us. Yes she can. Yes she can.” He crumples back across the bed.
“Is there a problem?” asks Remus, leaning over and inspecting Sirius’s face.
“My mum wants me, us, to come down for breakfast.”
Remus nods. “And they’re serving scrambled eggs? I know how you prefer the dippy kind.”
“I prefer,” says Sirius, rolling over to face Remus. “To not go down there at all.”
“Oh.” Remus nods again. “You don’t eat with them?”
“I don’t look at them if I don’t have to.” Sirius watches a frown threaten to form across Remus’s face. Remus knows, they all know, how his home life is. But, Sirius didn’t consider how different it would look to actually experience it. And he doesn’t want Remus to have to experience anything like that ever.
Remus scooches on to Sirius’s bed and sprawls out next to him. “I know tonight when I’m being made into some king of bad tasting Shepherd's pie for your family to enjoy that I’m going to look down from heaven and regret saying this, but, how bad can it be?”
It’s a table made when the table was the star. When houses were stuffed with family members and friends of the family and dignitaries and important people and people who thought they were important. And they all always ate together. It takes up an entire room and was probably the cause behind a whole forest being magically uprooted and transfigured.
At one end, the west end, Sirius’s mother sits at the head, flanked by Regulus and Sirius’s father.
At the other end, way down at the other end, is Sirius at the head, with Remus to his left. He has his hand gripping Remus’s armrest for too many different reasons, and he’s only half-amused by the way Remus has to keep sucking his cheeks in to stifle his laughter every time he glances down at the remainder of the Black family.
There’s no need to point it out, but the whole scene is quite humorous.
“Dippy eggs,” whispers Sirius, grinning at Remus.
“What was that son?” screams Mrs. Black.
“God, the old bat can’t even hear Regulus and he’s sitting so close his food’s probably flavored with her spit.”
“Sirius?” Mrs. Black screams. “What did you say?”
Sirius freezes. “She called me son?”
“That’s what you are,” whispers Remus.
“Well I don’t need a reminder!” He clears his throat. “I said dippy eggs,” he screams. “I like dippy eggs!”
“Yes,” says, shouts, Mrs. Black. “Yes. I know you prefer dippy eggs. Please have all the dippy eggs you like. Enjoy.”
Sirius drops his fork, “They’re poisoned.”
“Can I say something?” shouts Regulus. “I would like to point out that they are not called dippy eggs. They’re over easy. Can we please not refer to them as dippy eggs because that sounds ridiculous.”
“Just eat that toast,” Sirius says to Remus. “The toast should be fine. NO BUTTER!”
“What?” shouts Mrs. Black. “You need more butter?”
“No,” Sirius screams back at her. “It’s too early in the morning to consider suicide.”
Mrs. Black laughs. Sirius hates to admit that she laughs like him, or he laughs like her. Head throw all the way back, hands clutching her chest, eyes closed. “I’m not trying to kill you. We always have your first breakfast together.”
Sirius stares across the mile long table at the blur that is his mother. “She’s lost her fucking mind.” Then he adds, in a scream, “No we don’t!”
Now Sirius’s father laughs. He has a much more reserved, down to business laugh. It’s probably how Regulus laughs, Sirius thinks; if Regulus laughs which is highly unlikely. Mr. Black stops laughing, makes a delighted moaning sound, and then shouts “Actually, Sirius, there is a reason we called you down here.” He picks up his wand and twirls it.
Sirius turns to Remus. “Moony, there’s something I have to tell you, before we die.”
Mr. Black brings his wand down, using a whispered spell to cut a slice of his breakfast steak.
“Nevermind,” Sirius says, moving away from Remus.
“Somehow,” begins Mr. Black. “You’ve managed to wheedle us into letting your friend stay over.” He also says friend like it’s a decapitating disease. “This does not change the way you conduct yourself in this house. You are still not allowed to leave without our permission. You are not allowed to use the floo unless under supervision. Since we were not prepared to have an extra mouth to feed, after this breakfast, you will have to share whatever provisions the elves usually provide you. That’ll be for the remainder of the summer, so you best not waste a morsel because when you are out, you are out. We don’t want to hear anything you have to say, unless you’re finally prepared to act like a proper Black. Do not wander around the house-”
“Dad!” hisses Regulus.
Mr. Black rolls his eyes. “And do not go into Regulus’s room. Do you have anything to say?”
“Yes,” shouts Sirius. He can’t meet Remus’s eye. He can see that Remus has that tiny wrinkle across his forehead which means he’s upset and Sirius can’t deal with that now. “I’m prepared to bargain for wandering. I wanted to take my friend on a tour of the house. He’s…interested in our history.” That’ll work, he thinks.
“Well,” says Mrs. Black, visibly brightening, even from a distance. Any chance to convert someone into a Black Family fan is a good one. “If he’s interested in us. I don’t see why a tour-”
“Mum!” hisses Regulus.
“They’re not going into your room! What do you think, Orion?”
Mr. Black is silent for a moment. Then he nods. “That’ll be fine. You may leave the table.” And there’s no need to wonder who he’s talking to.
“I did poison the syrup,” Mrs. Black adds.
Remus and Sirius leave never feeling luckier that they weren’t in the mood for pancakes this morning.
Sirius keeps walking, leading Remus away from the dining room and back up to his bedroom. “Well,” he says, closing his door behind them. “That was my family.”
“Sirius…” Remus takes a step closer to Sirius, wrinkled brow deeply etched across his forehead. “Is…they really make you do all that?”
The little devil on Sirius’s shoulder is telling him to use Remus’s obvious concern to his devious advantage.
He doesn’t listen to it.
“Moony,” he says, waving his hand in dismissal. “I’m-” He’s not going to lie. He’s not fine with it. “The last thing I ever want to do is interact with any of them anyway. And they’re actually being lenient this summer, must be old age.”
Remus tips his head to the side, but doesn’t say anything which Sirius is grateful for.
A barn owl sweeps in through Sirius’s open window and lands on the footboard of his bed. Remus gets there first and unties the scroll of parchment around the owl’s leg. “Dearest Sirius. Moony’s seen your soiled panties on the floor before plenty of times. What else you got?” Remus looks up from the letter. “Soiled panties?”
Sirius laughs and grabs James’s note from Remus’s hands. “How about that tour?”
“Yes,” says Remus. “I am so very interested in your family’s history.” He rolls his eyes and beams white teeth at Sirius.
After three floors and a basement, magically enlarged corridors, bedroom after bedroom, a potions lab that would have made Slughorn weep, the dead elf heads, and five toilets, Sirius and Remus find themselves standing shoulder to shoulder outside of Regulus’s room.
“What do you possibly think he’s got in there?”
“Something he shouldn’t have,” says Remus. He leans closer to the door. “Is he in?”
“Nah,” says Sirius. “He was down in the sitting room, remember? Giving mummy and daddy all the details of his sorry ass life at school.” Sirius usually never cares about Regulus and his pretend secrets. But his family has gotten on his last nerve these one and half days he’s been home and he wants so badly to push their buttons.
He takes his wand out. He looks at Remus. “We are Marauders.”
Remus’s eyes widen. “We’re not stupid though. Put that away before you hurt yourself!”
“Oh, Moony.” Sirius points his wand at Regulus’s door. “He probably just doesn’t want us to see his soiled panties. Alohomora!” The door creaks open. “One charm? Amateur.”
Sirius toes the door open a little more and takes Remus’s hand. There’s a bed, and green things, and no secret nuclear weapon, and nothing at all close to being incriminating or fascinating.
The alarm sounds three steps into the room.
And somewhere downstairs, Regulus Black screams obscenities that make his parents proud.
Sirius and Remus look at each other, nod once, and run like wild men from the room.
In his mind, Sirius quickly maps out every nook and cranny of his house. Secret passageways, hidden hallways, rooms that shouldn’t be there, rooms that really aren’t there, crawl spaces, closets, pantries. “This way,” he says, pulling Remus with him. They run down the staircase and swing onto the second floor. Sirius is alive with adrenaline. He’s having more fun than he ever remembers having in between these walls. His fingers sweat and burn around Remus’s wrist.
Halfway down the hall, Regulus comes barreling around the other side. “You,” he screams. “You. You.”
“Aw,” says Sirius, pressing his free hand against his banging heart. “You’re starting to learn your alphabet.”
Regulus lets out a guttural yell and propels forward.
They dodge him.
Remus looks up at Sirius with the best face of confusion he’s ever produced to date. “Why didn’t he just hex us?” A blue light flies past Remus’s face. “There he goes.”
Grabbing Remus’s hand again, Sirius leads him in a run down the hall, up another flight of stairs, and into the first door he meets.
The room they enter smells like must and powder and is filled with decadent furnishings.
“Oh, God. Mum’s room,” whispers Sirius. “I took a wrong turn somewhere.” The last time Sirius was in this room, he was a baby. Two years old, maybe three, old enough to have the memory. It was a bad storm, and Sirius wasn’t scared at all, until he thought he saw a face outside his window when the lightening struck. His mother welcomed him in to her bed with a warmth she’s lost as the years past.
There’s a crash outside the door and Sirius is pulled back with a shaky jolt to why they are standing in this room in the first place. They hear Regulus’s screechy voice telling someone that they’re up here somewhere.
Sirius and Remus scramble across the room and squeeze into Mrs. Black’s dresser.
“Well,” whispers Remus. “This is a lovely little mess. Your fault of course.”
“My fault,” Sirius exhales. Every sound makes his breath hitch and he’s finding it hard to hold any oxygen in his lungs.
“I didn’t want to go in Regulus’s room!
Sirius moves closer to Remus and grabs his face. “OK! I’m sorry. Keep your voice down.”
Through the thick wood of the dresser and the heavy material of the robes surrounding them, Sirius can hear the muffled creaking of his mother’s door being opened.
“Check the wardrobe, Regulus.”
Sirius and Remus cling to each other, move forward so that they’re merging together. Sirius’s arms twist around Remus’s body, and when Remus exhales, Sirius inhales his breath. Sirius can feel every bead of sweat falling down his spine in time with every loud step Regulus takes towards the dresser. His muscles are quivering to stay still. He doesn’t want to think about what’s going to happen to them when the door opens.
The door opens.
Sirius’s skin flares with electric nerves. He pushes his body flush against Remus’s and feels him trembling too. Waiting for disaster as a string of light tickles the top of their heads.
“Ew.” Regulus’s voice is clear and close, but not louder than Sirius’s heartbeat. “Mum panties are in here.”
“Do you see them?”
“Uh...” Sirius feels the robes around him move hesitantly like a soft breeze has past through them. He wants to look at Remus, he wants to move, he wants to laugh. But he holds his breath and freezes. “I am not touching this stuff,” whispers Regulus. Then he shouts “No!”
“Get out of there then! We’ve probably lost them!”
The dresser door slams shut, and two sets of feet leave the room in quick steps.
Sirius lets out his held breath into Remus’s hair. “Lazy arse.”
They start shaking with laughter. Nervous laughter that is all air and no sound. Sirius wants to scream. He feels wiled up and wired with shaky relief.
Remus and Sirius pull back from each other. They bump foreheads. They bump noses. They lock eyes. Glowing and merry eyes. Sirius’s excuse has finally come again.
He leans forward, but Remus’s hands shoot up from his waist and hold his face back.
Sirius feels panic, dread, and embarrassment curl around his stomach.
“We are not,” whispers Remus. “Going to make this another random moment in the life of Remus Lupin and Sirius Black that I will dwell on for years to come. When we’re done, there will be a discussion.” Remus loosens his hold on Sirius’s face, leans forward and kisses him with a hard, demanding, sixteen year old boy kind of kiss.
Sirius hopes they aren’t done for a while.
Author: Nyxty
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Remus stays with Sirius over the summer holiday and proves that when everything goes wrong, a lot can go right too.
Chapter: 2/4
Word count: 3, 324
Disclaimer: Not mine!!
Prologue
Chapter 1: A Plan Backfires
This is what he wanted. This is one of the reasons, one of the two reasons, he wanted Remus to stay with him.
Remus is sitting on his bed, his own bed conjured from thin air, reading the dusty tomes he has acquired from the Black Family Library of Death and Doom, and Sirius is lying stomach down in the middle of the floor writing his first summer letter to James.
It almost feels like Hogwarts.
In this house he hates, he now has this little piece of his real home.
And it’s perfect.
It’s what he wanted. One of the two reasons.
Sirius really doesn’t know what to write to James. Usually this is the letter of whining and bitching and complaining about his mum, his father, his brother, his life. But he’s happy. He’s really happy. And he doesn’t want to write about that either.
He looks around his room, fishing for random things he hasn’t already told James a thousand times before. His eyes land on his trunk, then on Remus and his lips curl into a soft smile Sirius can sometimes produce when he’s not paying attention. Another turn of his head and he sees one of his bike posters.
They’re not lies. But they’re not the whole truth either. And maybe he still should have taken them down.
Sirius scowls and picks his quill up.
Sir Prongsalot of Nonsense,
Next time you come up with a plan and don’t include me and then we fight and then you cave (hilarious) and then Moony is sent to live with me, please, please (don’t consider two pleases to be begging) remind me to send a notice to one of the many house elves to clean my room! Moony’s getting the wrong idea about me.
Sirius stops and buries his face into the crook of his elbow. The nervous feelings of saying so much and too much and not enough escaping as laughter.
He regains his composure and signs the bottom with a squiggly S.B.
Rising from the floor, Sirius grabs this letter and looks at Remus. “Tired, Moony?”
Remus finishes his gigantic yawn and nods.
“Well,” says Sirius, quickly tying his letter to his post owl. “Drowsiness is the leading side effect from reading too much about…”
“Muggle World Leaders of the 1600s and Their Possible Involvement with Radical Muggle-Supporters in the Ministry of Magic and Why Those Muggle-Supporters Should Be Decapitated. With Graphics.”
“Riveting.”
Remus laughs. “Well, I suppose it’s no…” He reaches under Sirius’s bed. “Biker’s Weekly.”
“Hey!” Sirius stops half-way to taking his shirt off. “Don’t touch my wank mag!” He ditches the shirt and tosses it in the corner of his room he uses as a hamper. “You know how pistons and axles get me going.”
Remus drops the magazine. “Sirius, you can’t possibly look less like a biker.”
Sirius, after giving Remus a face full of shock (and a couple of fingers), grabs his wand and takes position.
“What are you doing?”
Sirius doesn’t take his eyes off his door. Wand hand moving in circles and swishes and flicks. His lips whispering those familiar foreign words.
When he’s done, he places his wand on his dresser and shrugs. “Wards.” He crawls over Remus, over the two inch space between the two beds, and flops down.
“Afraid Regulus is going to have a nightmare and run to his big brother’s open arms?” Remus laughs shaky and unconvinced about his own teasing question.
“He’s the least of our worries.” Sirius stares at Remus without blinking, masking his breathing. He tips his chin down because he knows that only helps to make him look more sinister. Also, when he does that, the shorter pieces of his hair falls over his eyes and, not that he’s bragging, but he looks pretty sexy like that.
He can’t hold it for long. Remus’s face is just too deliciously unnerved. “I’m joking,” he bursts, collapsing onto Remus’s bed.
Remus smacks him across the crown of his head. “Then why the wards?”
Sirius shifts onto his back. Now he can look up at Remus but still lay on Remus’s much move comfortable bed. “Ever hear of privacy?”
Remus leans closer to him. “Ever hear of mental hospital?”
“Moony! The Blacks founded one! Then populated it.”
“Interesting.” Remus moves so that he’s lying down. Now Sirius is face to face with him, and suddenly the bed is a lot more comfortable. “I’m sleepy.”
Sirius loves Nighttime Moony. Nighttime Moony uses words like Sleepy and PJs and smacks his lips a lot.
In Sirius’s mind, he sees someone just like himself but so much braver than he is, which is a feat. It’s a Sirius that maybe doesn’t care about Remus’s feelings, or maybe cares more about his own desires, or maybe doesn’t care about anything. And that boy, in Sirius’s imagination, leans forward and kisses Remus with a soft, gentle, goodnight my love kind of kiss.
But that’s the Sirius in his head. They real Sirius smiles and says “See you tomorrow, Moony.” And rolls over onto his own bed.
There’s a loud banging that Sirius thought was inside his head, but on further consideration he realizes that it’s definitely outside his head and maybe he should wake up and investigate it.
He groans and makes a whole lot of aching morning noises and gets out of bed. This time he’s considerate and doesn’t climb over the Remus Lupin one bed over.
It takes him five pulls on his doorknob to realize he put his wards up, and a couple of swishes later he tries the knob again.
Regulus continues to knock until Sirius’s door is all the way open.
“What?” barks Sirius. Regulus’s overall awake appearance is only aggravating Sirius more. Bloody morning person.
“Mother wants you down for breakfast.”
“What?” says Sirius, face dropping in disbelief.
“Mother told me to tell you that she wants you down for breakfast and I said to her that I think-”
Sirius slams the door closed. “This is unbelievable!”
“Mwhmmatmmat?” asks Remus.
Sirius moans and drags his feet back to his bed. “I don’t want to have breakfast with the father, the son, and the holy bitch!” He flops face down onto his mattress.
The bed next to Sirius’s creaks. “Nothing like blasphemy in the morning.”
“I got it!” Sirius sits up quickly, electrocuted to full awakness by a thousand ideas. “We just won’t go down. She can’t make us. Yes she can. Yes she can.” He crumples back across the bed.
“Is there a problem?” asks Remus, leaning over and inspecting Sirius’s face.
“My mum wants me, us, to come down for breakfast.”
Remus nods. “And they’re serving scrambled eggs? I know how you prefer the dippy kind.”
“I prefer,” says Sirius, rolling over to face Remus. “To not go down there at all.”
“Oh.” Remus nods again. “You don’t eat with them?”
“I don’t look at them if I don’t have to.” Sirius watches a frown threaten to form across Remus’s face. Remus knows, they all know, how his home life is. But, Sirius didn’t consider how different it would look to actually experience it. And he doesn’t want Remus to have to experience anything like that ever.
Remus scooches on to Sirius’s bed and sprawls out next to him. “I know tonight when I’m being made into some king of bad tasting Shepherd's pie for your family to enjoy that I’m going to look down from heaven and regret saying this, but, how bad can it be?”
It’s a table made when the table was the star. When houses were stuffed with family members and friends of the family and dignitaries and important people and people who thought they were important. And they all always ate together. It takes up an entire room and was probably the cause behind a whole forest being magically uprooted and transfigured.
At one end, the west end, Sirius’s mother sits at the head, flanked by Regulus and Sirius’s father.
At the other end, way down at the other end, is Sirius at the head, with Remus to his left. He has his hand gripping Remus’s armrest for too many different reasons, and he’s only half-amused by the way Remus has to keep sucking his cheeks in to stifle his laughter every time he glances down at the remainder of the Black family.
There’s no need to point it out, but the whole scene is quite humorous.
“Dippy eggs,” whispers Sirius, grinning at Remus.
“What was that son?” screams Mrs. Black.
“God, the old bat can’t even hear Regulus and he’s sitting so close his food’s probably flavored with her spit.”
“Sirius?” Mrs. Black screams. “What did you say?”
Sirius freezes. “She called me son?”
“That’s what you are,” whispers Remus.
“Well I don’t need a reminder!” He clears his throat. “I said dippy eggs,” he screams. “I like dippy eggs!”
“Yes,” says, shouts, Mrs. Black. “Yes. I know you prefer dippy eggs. Please have all the dippy eggs you like. Enjoy.”
Sirius drops his fork, “They’re poisoned.”
“Can I say something?” shouts Regulus. “I would like to point out that they are not called dippy eggs. They’re over easy. Can we please not refer to them as dippy eggs because that sounds ridiculous.”
“Just eat that toast,” Sirius says to Remus. “The toast should be fine. NO BUTTER!”
“What?” shouts Mrs. Black. “You need more butter?”
“No,” Sirius screams back at her. “It’s too early in the morning to consider suicide.”
Mrs. Black laughs. Sirius hates to admit that she laughs like him, or he laughs like her. Head throw all the way back, hands clutching her chest, eyes closed. “I’m not trying to kill you. We always have your first breakfast together.”
Sirius stares across the mile long table at the blur that is his mother. “She’s lost her fucking mind.” Then he adds, in a scream, “No we don’t!”
Now Sirius’s father laughs. He has a much more reserved, down to business laugh. It’s probably how Regulus laughs, Sirius thinks; if Regulus laughs which is highly unlikely. Mr. Black stops laughing, makes a delighted moaning sound, and then shouts “Actually, Sirius, there is a reason we called you down here.” He picks up his wand and twirls it.
Sirius turns to Remus. “Moony, there’s something I have to tell you, before we die.”
Mr. Black brings his wand down, using a whispered spell to cut a slice of his breakfast steak.
“Nevermind,” Sirius says, moving away from Remus.
“Somehow,” begins Mr. Black. “You’ve managed to wheedle us into letting your friend stay over.” He also says friend like it’s a decapitating disease. “This does not change the way you conduct yourself in this house. You are still not allowed to leave without our permission. You are not allowed to use the floo unless under supervision. Since we were not prepared to have an extra mouth to feed, after this breakfast, you will have to share whatever provisions the elves usually provide you. That’ll be for the remainder of the summer, so you best not waste a morsel because when you are out, you are out. We don’t want to hear anything you have to say, unless you’re finally prepared to act like a proper Black. Do not wander around the house-”
“Dad!” hisses Regulus.
Mr. Black rolls his eyes. “And do not go into Regulus’s room. Do you have anything to say?”
“Yes,” shouts Sirius. He can’t meet Remus’s eye. He can see that Remus has that tiny wrinkle across his forehead which means he’s upset and Sirius can’t deal with that now. “I’m prepared to bargain for wandering. I wanted to take my friend on a tour of the house. He’s…interested in our history.” That’ll work, he thinks.
“Well,” says Mrs. Black, visibly brightening, even from a distance. Any chance to convert someone into a Black Family fan is a good one. “If he’s interested in us. I don’t see why a tour-”
“Mum!” hisses Regulus.
“They’re not going into your room! What do you think, Orion?”
Mr. Black is silent for a moment. Then he nods. “That’ll be fine. You may leave the table.” And there’s no need to wonder who he’s talking to.
“I did poison the syrup,” Mrs. Black adds.
Remus and Sirius leave never feeling luckier that they weren’t in the mood for pancakes this morning.
Sirius keeps walking, leading Remus away from the dining room and back up to his bedroom. “Well,” he says, closing his door behind them. “That was my family.”
“Sirius…” Remus takes a step closer to Sirius, wrinkled brow deeply etched across his forehead. “Is…they really make you do all that?”
The little devil on Sirius’s shoulder is telling him to use Remus’s obvious concern to his devious advantage.
He doesn’t listen to it.
“Moony,” he says, waving his hand in dismissal. “I’m-” He’s not going to lie. He’s not fine with it. “The last thing I ever want to do is interact with any of them anyway. And they’re actually being lenient this summer, must be old age.”
Remus tips his head to the side, but doesn’t say anything which Sirius is grateful for.
A barn owl sweeps in through Sirius’s open window and lands on the footboard of his bed. Remus gets there first and unties the scroll of parchment around the owl’s leg. “Dearest Sirius. Moony’s seen your soiled panties on the floor before plenty of times. What else you got?” Remus looks up from the letter. “Soiled panties?”
Sirius laughs and grabs James’s note from Remus’s hands. “How about that tour?”
“Yes,” says Remus. “I am so very interested in your family’s history.” He rolls his eyes and beams white teeth at Sirius.
After three floors and a basement, magically enlarged corridors, bedroom after bedroom, a potions lab that would have made Slughorn weep, the dead elf heads, and five toilets, Sirius and Remus find themselves standing shoulder to shoulder outside of Regulus’s room.
“What do you possibly think he’s got in there?”
“Something he shouldn’t have,” says Remus. He leans closer to the door. “Is he in?”
“Nah,” says Sirius. “He was down in the sitting room, remember? Giving mummy and daddy all the details of his sorry ass life at school.” Sirius usually never cares about Regulus and his pretend secrets. But his family has gotten on his last nerve these one and half days he’s been home and he wants so badly to push their buttons.
He takes his wand out. He looks at Remus. “We are Marauders.”
Remus’s eyes widen. “We’re not stupid though. Put that away before you hurt yourself!”
“Oh, Moony.” Sirius points his wand at Regulus’s door. “He probably just doesn’t want us to see his soiled panties. Alohomora!” The door creaks open. “One charm? Amateur.”
Sirius toes the door open a little more and takes Remus’s hand. There’s a bed, and green things, and no secret nuclear weapon, and nothing at all close to being incriminating or fascinating.
The alarm sounds three steps into the room.
And somewhere downstairs, Regulus Black screams obscenities that make his parents proud.
Sirius and Remus look at each other, nod once, and run like wild men from the room.
In his mind, Sirius quickly maps out every nook and cranny of his house. Secret passageways, hidden hallways, rooms that shouldn’t be there, rooms that really aren’t there, crawl spaces, closets, pantries. “This way,” he says, pulling Remus with him. They run down the staircase and swing onto the second floor. Sirius is alive with adrenaline. He’s having more fun than he ever remembers having in between these walls. His fingers sweat and burn around Remus’s wrist.
Halfway down the hall, Regulus comes barreling around the other side. “You,” he screams. “You. You.”
“Aw,” says Sirius, pressing his free hand against his banging heart. “You’re starting to learn your alphabet.”
Regulus lets out a guttural yell and propels forward.
They dodge him.
Remus looks up at Sirius with the best face of confusion he’s ever produced to date. “Why didn’t he just hex us?” A blue light flies past Remus’s face. “There he goes.”
Grabbing Remus’s hand again, Sirius leads him in a run down the hall, up another flight of stairs, and into the first door he meets.
The room they enter smells like must and powder and is filled with decadent furnishings.
“Oh, God. Mum’s room,” whispers Sirius. “I took a wrong turn somewhere.” The last time Sirius was in this room, he was a baby. Two years old, maybe three, old enough to have the memory. It was a bad storm, and Sirius wasn’t scared at all, until he thought he saw a face outside his window when the lightening struck. His mother welcomed him in to her bed with a warmth she’s lost as the years past.
There’s a crash outside the door and Sirius is pulled back with a shaky jolt to why they are standing in this room in the first place. They hear Regulus’s screechy voice telling someone that they’re up here somewhere.
Sirius and Remus scramble across the room and squeeze into Mrs. Black’s dresser.
“Well,” whispers Remus. “This is a lovely little mess. Your fault of course.”
“My fault,” Sirius exhales. Every sound makes his breath hitch and he’s finding it hard to hold any oxygen in his lungs.
“I didn’t want to go in Regulus’s room!
Sirius moves closer to Remus and grabs his face. “OK! I’m sorry. Keep your voice down.”
Through the thick wood of the dresser and the heavy material of the robes surrounding them, Sirius can hear the muffled creaking of his mother’s door being opened.
“Check the wardrobe, Regulus.”
Sirius and Remus cling to each other, move forward so that they’re merging together. Sirius’s arms twist around Remus’s body, and when Remus exhales, Sirius inhales his breath. Sirius can feel every bead of sweat falling down his spine in time with every loud step Regulus takes towards the dresser. His muscles are quivering to stay still. He doesn’t want to think about what’s going to happen to them when the door opens.
The door opens.
Sirius’s skin flares with electric nerves. He pushes his body flush against Remus’s and feels him trembling too. Waiting for disaster as a string of light tickles the top of their heads.
“Ew.” Regulus’s voice is clear and close, but not louder than Sirius’s heartbeat. “Mum panties are in here.”
“Do you see them?”
“Uh...” Sirius feels the robes around him move hesitantly like a soft breeze has past through them. He wants to look at Remus, he wants to move, he wants to laugh. But he holds his breath and freezes. “I am not touching this stuff,” whispers Regulus. Then he shouts “No!”
“Get out of there then! We’ve probably lost them!”
The dresser door slams shut, and two sets of feet leave the room in quick steps.
Sirius lets out his held breath into Remus’s hair. “Lazy arse.”
They start shaking with laughter. Nervous laughter that is all air and no sound. Sirius wants to scream. He feels wiled up and wired with shaky relief.
Remus and Sirius pull back from each other. They bump foreheads. They bump noses. They lock eyes. Glowing and merry eyes. Sirius’s excuse has finally come again.
He leans forward, but Remus’s hands shoot up from his waist and hold his face back.
Sirius feels panic, dread, and embarrassment curl around his stomach.
“We are not,” whispers Remus. “Going to make this another random moment in the life of Remus Lupin and Sirius Black that I will dwell on for years to come. When we’re done, there will be a discussion.” Remus loosens his hold on Sirius’s face, leans forward and kisses him with a hard, demanding, sixteen year old boy kind of kiss.
Sirius hopes they aren’t done for a while.