Dreaming is Free
Author: shaggydogstail
Title: Dreaming Is Free
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Remus/Sirius, Sirius/Stubby
Summary: Remus finds some incriminating evidence in Sirius' old schoolbooks. He could be sensitive about it, and spare Sirius' feelings. Or he could use it to torment Sirius mercilessly...
Disclaimer: Not mine, no profit.
Remus found them in a locked box, wrapped in a blanket, beneath a loose floorboard, behind a solid mahogany dresser, in a locked room, at the end of the corridor on the third floor; the one that even Kreacher didn't dare venture down unless he absolutely couldn't avoid it.
No, of course Sirius wasn't hiding anything.
Remus carried the box downstairs, holding it rather gingerly since he'd already received a Stinging Hex on his wrist when he first picked it up. He snuck a quick peek around the kitchen door--good, no sign of Sirius. He was probably feeding Buckbeak. He set the box down on the kitchen table, pulled out his wand, and set to work.
Just as Remus suspected, the box was protected by a number of spells and jinxes, in a bizarre and brilliant combination that left no doubt that Sirius had wanted to make absolutely sure that no-one including, or perhaps especially, Remus would find out what was inside. It occurred to Remus that if Sirius was guarding his secret this closely, perhaps he ought to respect it. On the other hand, if Sirius really didn't want him to look inside the box, all he had to do was ask and Remus would have happily acquiesced to his wishes. By making things so hard, Sirius had made it a challenge, and resisting difficult, dangerous and possibly completely pointless challenges was simply not the Gryffindor Way. Sirius knew that as well as anyone, so he only had himself to blame, Remus reasoned as he cracked the lock open with the combined force of a good Freezing Charm and the spare corkscrew.
He was surprised, and perhaps a little disappointed, to find that the box was full of books. Closer inspection revealed that they were, in fact, Sirius' old school books. Remus leafed through a few of them with a puzzled frown on his face: why on Earth was Sirius hiding a pile of boring old text books?
Then it hit him: 'Ah,' said Remus to himself. 'Of course.' It wasn't enough that the books were hidden--they were hiding something themselves. Remus picked up his wand, a triumphant, and ever so slightly evil, smile playing around his lips. 'Aperio!'
Remus watched in fascination as Sirius' trademark scrawl began to appear on the pages in front of him. His smile grew a little more pronounced, and a lot more evil, and finally developed into a full-on chuckle. Oh, yes, he was going to have a lot of fun with this.
~*~
Remus waited until tea-time to strike. Sirius was always a lot more relaxed when he'd just stuffed his face with tea and coconut cake, and it would be a lot easier to catch him off-guard.
'Did I tell you I was speaking to McGonagall the other day?' he asked casually as Sirius polished off the last of the Battenburg. Sirius just shook his head and frowned, so Remus continued. 'She mentioned that Harry's Transfiguration marks haven't been all she'd hoped this year.'
'Well, what can she expect?' asked Sirius once he'd forced down his mouthful of cake. 'Boy's got enough on his mind without worrying about how to turn plant pots into platypuses. He's bright enough, he'll do OK.'
Remus ignored him. 'We had quite an interesting discussion, actually, about the decline in the quality of academic textbooks over the past decade.'
'Ah, the cut and thrust of academia,' said Sirius. 'How do you cope with the excitement of it all?'
'So I was thinking,' Remus ploughed on regardless, 'that maybe we should give Harry some of your old school books.'
Sirius nearly choked on a mouthful of tea.
'I'd have gladly passed on my own, of course,' Remus continued breezily, 'only I sold most of them after I left school myself. Besides, yours are probably in better condition: it's not as though you really needed to refer to standard texts much by fifth year.'
'Well, of course, I'd be happy to help Harry,' said Sirius, obviously struggling to keep his composure. 'Unfortunately, I've no idea where any of my old books are.'
'Funny you should mention that,' said Remus, pulling the box full of Sirius' schoolbooks out from it's hiding place under the table. 'You'll never guess what I stumbled across this morning.'
Sirius paled. 'Where did you find that?'
'Oh, just lying around.' Remus shrugged. 'Oh, look,' he said, pulling books out of the box. 'Theories of Transubstantial Transfiguration, Intermediate Transfiguration, A Guide To Advanced Transfiguration, and The Old Switcheroo: Practical Applications for Transfiguration. Well, these should keep Harry plenty busy for the time being, I should think. I'll just wrap them up for him, shall I?'
'No!' said Sirius sharply. 'I mean...I can't send Harry a load of old books. I'll, um, I'll buy him some new ones.'
'But some of these are out of print,' said Remus. 'And, as I say, the later editions just aren't up to scratch. You want Harry to have the best, don't you?'
'Yes, of course,' said Sirius irritably. 'But, um, those books are rather large, aren't they? I don't think we should be sending owls out with such heavy loads.'
Remus frowned and looked contemplative. Oh, this was even better. 'No, you're right, it wouldn't be fair on the owls,' he agreed. 'Good job Severus is due at the meeting tomorrow night: we can ask him to take them back to Hogwarts.'
'You are not giving my books to Snivellus!' Sirius shouted, sitting up very straight in his chair. Remus cast him a glance of mild bemusement. 'He, um, might tamper with them,' Sirius added lamely.
'Oh, come now, Padfoot, don't you think you're being a bit paranoid?' said Remus, leaning back in his chair and leafing through Sirius' copy of Intermediate Transfiguration, 'I'm sure Severus has far better things to do with his time than mess around with your old school books.'
Sirius just grunted and shot Remus a very dirty look.
'I, on the other hand, have ample time to waste,' continued Remus, looking up at Sirius with a malicious grin. 'I also have a much better knowledge of which Concealment Charms you prefer to use...and how to lift them.'
'Moony...'
'As I recall, you used to scribble all over your school books--a very anti-social habit, by the way, Padfoot, nothing short of vandalism--but it occurred to me that Harry might find your notes helpful. Now McGonagall mentioned that he didn't seem to have a very good grasp of Calvino's Laws of Animate Transfiguration, so I thought...Ah, yes, here it is.' Remus made a great show of finding the correct page and peering at it intently. 'There seem to be some sort of runic symbols in the margin, I didn't realise...oh, my mistake, those aren't runes: they're love hearts.'
'I hate you,' said Sirius. 'I hate you so much.'
'Oh, wait, there's some writing here as well.' Remus struggled not to burst out laughing as he read aloud, 'I luv SB, SB is sexy...you know, Padfoot, if I didn't know you so well I'd think you were terribly narcissistic.'
Sirius didn't respond, preferring to sit in stony silence with his arms folded across his chest, looking furious. Remus wondered how much more provocation it would take to make Sirius absolutely explode. Well, only one way to find out.
'Stubby rocks, I love Stubby Boardman,' he continued as he flicked through the pages. 'Stubby--'
'--right, that's enough,' shouted Sirius, leaping from his seat and making a lunge for Remus. Remus had been expecting this, though, and deftly jumped out of his way, retreating around the kitchen table and holding the book out of Sirius' grasp.
'Sirius 4 Stubby,' said Remus, climbing onto the table as Sirius reached for his wand. 'Sirius Boardman, Stubby Black, Mr and Mr Boardman-Black.'
'You made that one up!' growled Sirius as his summoning spell made the book fly out of Remus' hands. He did look through it quickly just to check though.
'There's no need to be so embarrassed,' said Remus as he picked his way through the tea things to get back down off the table. 'Lots of people have hideously embarrassing teenage crushes on rock stars.' He tried to pat Sirius' reassuringly on the shoulder, but the gesture was somewhat marred by the way he dissolved into fits of schoolboyish sniggering towards the end of the sentence.
'I have never had an embarrassing crush on anybody,' insisted Sirius loftily. 'Merely proper respect and admiration for a talented musician. It's scarcely my fault if you don't appreciate culture, Moony.'
'You used to snog his posters.'
'I did no such thing!'
'I caught you doing it.'
'I told you, I just tripped and fell against the wall!'
'And your lips just so happened to land on a picture of Stubby's face?' Remus quirked an eyebrow. 'And it was pure chance that your hand accidentally slipped inside your robes as you muttered, 'oh, Stubby,' which is a common enough exclamation when one falls over.'
'I hate you,' Sirius repeated. He sat back down in his seat, gathering all the old schoolbooks back in front of him and glowering mutinously at Remus.
Remus cocked his head to one side and looked at Sirius carefully: Sirius' chin was jutting out and he was frowning. His eyes were narrow, which was never a good sign. Remus thought Sirius' temper-tantrums were amusing--well, the more trivial ones were at least--but his sulks were rather tiresome. Remus took a couple of tentative steps around the table, then threw caution to the winds and parked himself in Sirius' lap, ignoring the way Sirius flinched away from him in annoyance.
'You know, I used to get terribly jealous of Stubby Boardman,' he confessed, leaning into Sirius and stroking his hair gently.
Remus could feels Sirius relax at little at that, and he looked back to face Remus again. 'Yeah, well, that's only natural. Not every man can hope to be a musical legend.'
'I don't mean that,' said Remus. 'It was more...well, you were pretty obsessed with him, Pads. It was like you were in love with him or something.'
'I was.'
Remus must have looked as incredulous as he felt, because Sirius laughed softly and continued. 'Not like I love you, stupid, but...he meant a lot to me. Being stuck here...' Sirius looked around the kitchen and suppressed a shudder. 'That last summer, before I ran away...you remember my parents wouldn't let me out at all then, or even send any letters. But I still had my music and listening to the Hobgoblins made me feel a bit less...alone, I suppose. Does that sound stupid?'
'No,' said Remus, and he kissed Sirius on the forehead. 'I'm glad you had something to make it bearable. I used to worry about you, you know.'
'Well, you needn't've,' said Sirius, not quite as casually as he probably hoped. 'Anyway, you of all people ought to be grateful to Stubby Boardman for helping me get in touch with my inner poofter.'
Remus laughed. 'I think you might just have worked that one out by yourself, Padfoot.'
'Probably.' Sirius grinned. 'Still, embarrassing adolescent scribbles notwithstanding, I don't actually regret any of it. It was fun. And there are a lot worse ways to get used to the idea of being gay than daydreaming about snogging a good-looking singer.'
'I can see that,' mused Remus. 'Although it wasn't just a fantasy for you, was it? I was at that concert in Hogsmeade, remember, and I don't think any of us will forget the spectacle of you trying to stick your tongue down Stubby Boardman's throat.'
Sirius didn't answer; he just smiled a wistful, nostalgic smile, with the same faint air of self-satisfaction that he'd worn for about six months after that gig.
'And James seemed pretty sure that you got more than an autograph when you went backstage at the Minster Lovell Festival,' Remus continued.
'Hm,' said Sirius, looking almost ridiculously smug by now. 'Wouldn't you like to know?'
Despite himself, Remus found he did want to know, actually. In fact, the subject aroused his curiosity far more than he'd have liked to admit. 'Tell me,' he whispered.
'Moony, a gentleman does not kiss and tell,' teased Sirius.
'Lucky for me you're no gentleman,' said Remus, running his hand down Sirius' chest and towards his crotch.
It was just a game, nothing more, so he was startled and a little hurt when Sirius caught hold of his wrist and moved it away. 'I mean it, Moony, I'm not telling you.'
'Why not?'
'Because it's none of your business.'
'Oh, it's like that is it?' Remus drew back huffily, crossing his arms over his chest. 'Your sex life is none of my business.'
'If by "my sex life" you mean "my entire sexual history" then, no, it isn't,' said Sirius, looking Remus straight in the eye. He didn't sound angry, but he spoke firmly. Remus squirmed a little and tried to avoid Sirius' gaze--he suspected he was being unreasonable, but couldn't help feeling rather aggrieved at Sirius shutting him out so thoroughly.
'Fine,' he replied at last. 'You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to.' Remus hoped his words didn't sound as petulant to Sirius as they did to himself.
'No, I don't,' agreed Sirius. 'And you don't have to put up with me cross-examining you about every other bloke you snogged while I was in Azkaban.'
'I don't think I'd like that,' said Remus quietly.
'No, and I don't want to know,' said Sirius. 'It doesn't matter, Moony, it doesn't affect us.' He reached out and cupped Remus' cheek with his palm, forcing Remus to face him. 'I'm with you now: isn't that more important?' Sirius craned his neck just enough to kiss Remus, offering reassurance with a brush of dry lips.
Remus felt his mood softening. 'Yes, of course,' he murmured, wrapping his arms around Sirius' neck and kissing him back. 'Although I might be tempted to suggest that you don't exactly have many other choices.'
'You might--if you were fishing for compliments.' Sirius smiled and hugged Remus closer. 'I really don't want anyone but you: in the highly unlikely event of Stubby Boardman himself turning up on the doorstep begging for a shag, I promise I'll tell him I'm very happy with my boyfriend and send him on his way.'
'Yeah?'
'Absolutely,' said Sirius. 'Well, I might see if I could talk you into a threesome...'
Remus snorted. 'That's my Padfoot. Dirty dog.'
Sirius grinned. 'Certainly am. In the meantime, how do you feel about a twosome?'
'That,' said Remus as he set to work unfastening Sirius' robes, 'is the most sensible thing you've said all afternoon.'
~*~
Two weeks later Sirius stumbled downstairs into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and bad-tempered. Remus had left at ridiculous o'clock that morning, off on another of Dumbledore's hiding-to-nothing expeditions, and Sirius had been more asleep than awake when he'd kissed him goodbye. He cast his eyes around the room, wondering where Kreacher might be lurking--perhaps hexing the little bastard would cheer him up a bit.
The kitchen was, apparently, free of malevolent house elves, but the tattered old box that had housed Sirius' old school books had reappeared in the middle of the table. Curiosity piqued, Sirius made a bee-line across the room and opened it at once.
Inside the box was a single volume that, when Sirius ripped off the paper wrapping, turned out to be a copy of Mandrake Heartbroken: The Rise and Fall of the Hobgoblins. The blurb on the back of the book said the biography had been timed to coincide with the release of a Hobgoblins tribute album by the Weird Sisters and Stubby Boardman's fortieth birthday. Sirius shook himself in a bid to banish the sensation of suddenly feeling very, very old, and sat down at the table before opened the book. There was an inscription on the fly-leaf.
Dear Padfoot,
Proof, if any were needed, that I am not so ignorant of matters of great cultural import as you like to pretend. Enjoy your trip down Memory Lane.
Love,
Moony.
PS - No wanking over the photos. I'll know.
Don't ask how I'll know. I just will.
Sirius picked up the book and headed back upstairs, whistling. Remus would not know.
And even if he did, serve him right for putting ideas into Sirius' head.
Title: Dreaming Is Free
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Remus/Sirius, Sirius/Stubby
Summary: Remus finds some incriminating evidence in Sirius' old schoolbooks. He could be sensitive about it, and spare Sirius' feelings. Or he could use it to torment Sirius mercilessly...
Disclaimer: Not mine, no profit.
Remus found them in a locked box, wrapped in a blanket, beneath a loose floorboard, behind a solid mahogany dresser, in a locked room, at the end of the corridor on the third floor; the one that even Kreacher didn't dare venture down unless he absolutely couldn't avoid it.
No, of course Sirius wasn't hiding anything.
Remus carried the box downstairs, holding it rather gingerly since he'd already received a Stinging Hex on his wrist when he first picked it up. He snuck a quick peek around the kitchen door--good, no sign of Sirius. He was probably feeding Buckbeak. He set the box down on the kitchen table, pulled out his wand, and set to work.
Just as Remus suspected, the box was protected by a number of spells and jinxes, in a bizarre and brilliant combination that left no doubt that Sirius had wanted to make absolutely sure that no-one including, or perhaps especially, Remus would find out what was inside. It occurred to Remus that if Sirius was guarding his secret this closely, perhaps he ought to respect it. On the other hand, if Sirius really didn't want him to look inside the box, all he had to do was ask and Remus would have happily acquiesced to his wishes. By making things so hard, Sirius had made it a challenge, and resisting difficult, dangerous and possibly completely pointless challenges was simply not the Gryffindor Way. Sirius knew that as well as anyone, so he only had himself to blame, Remus reasoned as he cracked the lock open with the combined force of a good Freezing Charm and the spare corkscrew.
He was surprised, and perhaps a little disappointed, to find that the box was full of books. Closer inspection revealed that they were, in fact, Sirius' old school books. Remus leafed through a few of them with a puzzled frown on his face: why on Earth was Sirius hiding a pile of boring old text books?
Then it hit him: 'Ah,' said Remus to himself. 'Of course.' It wasn't enough that the books were hidden--they were hiding something themselves. Remus picked up his wand, a triumphant, and ever so slightly evil, smile playing around his lips. 'Aperio!'
Remus watched in fascination as Sirius' trademark scrawl began to appear on the pages in front of him. His smile grew a little more pronounced, and a lot more evil, and finally developed into a full-on chuckle. Oh, yes, he was going to have a lot of fun with this.
~*~
Remus waited until tea-time to strike. Sirius was always a lot more relaxed when he'd just stuffed his face with tea and coconut cake, and it would be a lot easier to catch him off-guard.
'Did I tell you I was speaking to McGonagall the other day?' he asked casually as Sirius polished off the last of the Battenburg. Sirius just shook his head and frowned, so Remus continued. 'She mentioned that Harry's Transfiguration marks haven't been all she'd hoped this year.'
'Well, what can she expect?' asked Sirius once he'd forced down his mouthful of cake. 'Boy's got enough on his mind without worrying about how to turn plant pots into platypuses. He's bright enough, he'll do OK.'
Remus ignored him. 'We had quite an interesting discussion, actually, about the decline in the quality of academic textbooks over the past decade.'
'Ah, the cut and thrust of academia,' said Sirius. 'How do you cope with the excitement of it all?'
'So I was thinking,' Remus ploughed on regardless, 'that maybe we should give Harry some of your old school books.'
Sirius nearly choked on a mouthful of tea.
'I'd have gladly passed on my own, of course,' Remus continued breezily, 'only I sold most of them after I left school myself. Besides, yours are probably in better condition: it's not as though you really needed to refer to standard texts much by fifth year.'
'Well, of course, I'd be happy to help Harry,' said Sirius, obviously struggling to keep his composure. 'Unfortunately, I've no idea where any of my old books are.'
'Funny you should mention that,' said Remus, pulling the box full of Sirius' schoolbooks out from it's hiding place under the table. 'You'll never guess what I stumbled across this morning.'
Sirius paled. 'Where did you find that?'
'Oh, just lying around.' Remus shrugged. 'Oh, look,' he said, pulling books out of the box. 'Theories of Transubstantial Transfiguration, Intermediate Transfiguration, A Guide To Advanced Transfiguration, and The Old Switcheroo: Practical Applications for Transfiguration. Well, these should keep Harry plenty busy for the time being, I should think. I'll just wrap them up for him, shall I?'
'No!' said Sirius sharply. 'I mean...I can't send Harry a load of old books. I'll, um, I'll buy him some new ones.'
'But some of these are out of print,' said Remus. 'And, as I say, the later editions just aren't up to scratch. You want Harry to have the best, don't you?'
'Yes, of course,' said Sirius irritably. 'But, um, those books are rather large, aren't they? I don't think we should be sending owls out with such heavy loads.'
Remus frowned and looked contemplative. Oh, this was even better. 'No, you're right, it wouldn't be fair on the owls,' he agreed. 'Good job Severus is due at the meeting tomorrow night: we can ask him to take them back to Hogwarts.'
'You are not giving my books to Snivellus!' Sirius shouted, sitting up very straight in his chair. Remus cast him a glance of mild bemusement. 'He, um, might tamper with them,' Sirius added lamely.
'Oh, come now, Padfoot, don't you think you're being a bit paranoid?' said Remus, leaning back in his chair and leafing through Sirius' copy of Intermediate Transfiguration, 'I'm sure Severus has far better things to do with his time than mess around with your old school books.'
Sirius just grunted and shot Remus a very dirty look.
'I, on the other hand, have ample time to waste,' continued Remus, looking up at Sirius with a malicious grin. 'I also have a much better knowledge of which Concealment Charms you prefer to use...and how to lift them.'
'Moony...'
'As I recall, you used to scribble all over your school books--a very anti-social habit, by the way, Padfoot, nothing short of vandalism--but it occurred to me that Harry might find your notes helpful. Now McGonagall mentioned that he didn't seem to have a very good grasp of Calvino's Laws of Animate Transfiguration, so I thought...Ah, yes, here it is.' Remus made a great show of finding the correct page and peering at it intently. 'There seem to be some sort of runic symbols in the margin, I didn't realise...oh, my mistake, those aren't runes: they're love hearts.'
'I hate you,' said Sirius. 'I hate you so much.'
'Oh, wait, there's some writing here as well.' Remus struggled not to burst out laughing as he read aloud, 'I luv SB, SB is sexy...you know, Padfoot, if I didn't know you so well I'd think you were terribly narcissistic.'
Sirius didn't respond, preferring to sit in stony silence with his arms folded across his chest, looking furious. Remus wondered how much more provocation it would take to make Sirius absolutely explode. Well, only one way to find out.
'Stubby rocks, I love Stubby Boardman,' he continued as he flicked through the pages. 'Stubby--'
'--right, that's enough,' shouted Sirius, leaping from his seat and making a lunge for Remus. Remus had been expecting this, though, and deftly jumped out of his way, retreating around the kitchen table and holding the book out of Sirius' grasp.
'Sirius 4 Stubby,' said Remus, climbing onto the table as Sirius reached for his wand. 'Sirius Boardman, Stubby Black, Mr and Mr Boardman-Black.'
'You made that one up!' growled Sirius as his summoning spell made the book fly out of Remus' hands. He did look through it quickly just to check though.
'There's no need to be so embarrassed,' said Remus as he picked his way through the tea things to get back down off the table. 'Lots of people have hideously embarrassing teenage crushes on rock stars.' He tried to pat Sirius' reassuringly on the shoulder, but the gesture was somewhat marred by the way he dissolved into fits of schoolboyish sniggering towards the end of the sentence.
'I have never had an embarrassing crush on anybody,' insisted Sirius loftily. 'Merely proper respect and admiration for a talented musician. It's scarcely my fault if you don't appreciate culture, Moony.'
'You used to snog his posters.'
'I did no such thing!'
'I caught you doing it.'
'I told you, I just tripped and fell against the wall!'
'And your lips just so happened to land on a picture of Stubby's face?' Remus quirked an eyebrow. 'And it was pure chance that your hand accidentally slipped inside your robes as you muttered, 'oh, Stubby,' which is a common enough exclamation when one falls over.'
'I hate you,' Sirius repeated. He sat back down in his seat, gathering all the old schoolbooks back in front of him and glowering mutinously at Remus.
Remus cocked his head to one side and looked at Sirius carefully: Sirius' chin was jutting out and he was frowning. His eyes were narrow, which was never a good sign. Remus thought Sirius' temper-tantrums were amusing--well, the more trivial ones were at least--but his sulks were rather tiresome. Remus took a couple of tentative steps around the table, then threw caution to the winds and parked himself in Sirius' lap, ignoring the way Sirius flinched away from him in annoyance.
'You know, I used to get terribly jealous of Stubby Boardman,' he confessed, leaning into Sirius and stroking his hair gently.
Remus could feels Sirius relax at little at that, and he looked back to face Remus again. 'Yeah, well, that's only natural. Not every man can hope to be a musical legend.'
'I don't mean that,' said Remus. 'It was more...well, you were pretty obsessed with him, Pads. It was like you were in love with him or something.'
'I was.'
Remus must have looked as incredulous as he felt, because Sirius laughed softly and continued. 'Not like I love you, stupid, but...he meant a lot to me. Being stuck here...' Sirius looked around the kitchen and suppressed a shudder. 'That last summer, before I ran away...you remember my parents wouldn't let me out at all then, or even send any letters. But I still had my music and listening to the Hobgoblins made me feel a bit less...alone, I suppose. Does that sound stupid?'
'No,' said Remus, and he kissed Sirius on the forehead. 'I'm glad you had something to make it bearable. I used to worry about you, you know.'
'Well, you needn't've,' said Sirius, not quite as casually as he probably hoped. 'Anyway, you of all people ought to be grateful to Stubby Boardman for helping me get in touch with my inner poofter.'
Remus laughed. 'I think you might just have worked that one out by yourself, Padfoot.'
'Probably.' Sirius grinned. 'Still, embarrassing adolescent scribbles notwithstanding, I don't actually regret any of it. It was fun. And there are a lot worse ways to get used to the idea of being gay than daydreaming about snogging a good-looking singer.'
'I can see that,' mused Remus. 'Although it wasn't just a fantasy for you, was it? I was at that concert in Hogsmeade, remember, and I don't think any of us will forget the spectacle of you trying to stick your tongue down Stubby Boardman's throat.'
Sirius didn't answer; he just smiled a wistful, nostalgic smile, with the same faint air of self-satisfaction that he'd worn for about six months after that gig.
'And James seemed pretty sure that you got more than an autograph when you went backstage at the Minster Lovell Festival,' Remus continued.
'Hm,' said Sirius, looking almost ridiculously smug by now. 'Wouldn't you like to know?'
Despite himself, Remus found he did want to know, actually. In fact, the subject aroused his curiosity far more than he'd have liked to admit. 'Tell me,' he whispered.
'Moony, a gentleman does not kiss and tell,' teased Sirius.
'Lucky for me you're no gentleman,' said Remus, running his hand down Sirius' chest and towards his crotch.
It was just a game, nothing more, so he was startled and a little hurt when Sirius caught hold of his wrist and moved it away. 'I mean it, Moony, I'm not telling you.'
'Why not?'
'Because it's none of your business.'
'Oh, it's like that is it?' Remus drew back huffily, crossing his arms over his chest. 'Your sex life is none of my business.'
'If by "my sex life" you mean "my entire sexual history" then, no, it isn't,' said Sirius, looking Remus straight in the eye. He didn't sound angry, but he spoke firmly. Remus squirmed a little and tried to avoid Sirius' gaze--he suspected he was being unreasonable, but couldn't help feeling rather aggrieved at Sirius shutting him out so thoroughly.
'Fine,' he replied at last. 'You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to.' Remus hoped his words didn't sound as petulant to Sirius as they did to himself.
'No, I don't,' agreed Sirius. 'And you don't have to put up with me cross-examining you about every other bloke you snogged while I was in Azkaban.'
'I don't think I'd like that,' said Remus quietly.
'No, and I don't want to know,' said Sirius. 'It doesn't matter, Moony, it doesn't affect us.' He reached out and cupped Remus' cheek with his palm, forcing Remus to face him. 'I'm with you now: isn't that more important?' Sirius craned his neck just enough to kiss Remus, offering reassurance with a brush of dry lips.
Remus felt his mood softening. 'Yes, of course,' he murmured, wrapping his arms around Sirius' neck and kissing him back. 'Although I might be tempted to suggest that you don't exactly have many other choices.'
'You might--if you were fishing for compliments.' Sirius smiled and hugged Remus closer. 'I really don't want anyone but you: in the highly unlikely event of Stubby Boardman himself turning up on the doorstep begging for a shag, I promise I'll tell him I'm very happy with my boyfriend and send him on his way.'
'Yeah?'
'Absolutely,' said Sirius. 'Well, I might see if I could talk you into a threesome...'
Remus snorted. 'That's my Padfoot. Dirty dog.'
Sirius grinned. 'Certainly am. In the meantime, how do you feel about a twosome?'
'That,' said Remus as he set to work unfastening Sirius' robes, 'is the most sensible thing you've said all afternoon.'
~*~
Two weeks later Sirius stumbled downstairs into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and bad-tempered. Remus had left at ridiculous o'clock that morning, off on another of Dumbledore's hiding-to-nothing expeditions, and Sirius had been more asleep than awake when he'd kissed him goodbye. He cast his eyes around the room, wondering where Kreacher might be lurking--perhaps hexing the little bastard would cheer him up a bit.
The kitchen was, apparently, free of malevolent house elves, but the tattered old box that had housed Sirius' old school books had reappeared in the middle of the table. Curiosity piqued, Sirius made a bee-line across the room and opened it at once.
Inside the box was a single volume that, when Sirius ripped off the paper wrapping, turned out to be a copy of Mandrake Heartbroken: The Rise and Fall of the Hobgoblins. The blurb on the back of the book said the biography had been timed to coincide with the release of a Hobgoblins tribute album by the Weird Sisters and Stubby Boardman's fortieth birthday. Sirius shook himself in a bid to banish the sensation of suddenly feeling very, very old, and sat down at the table before opened the book. There was an inscription on the fly-leaf.
Dear Padfoot,
Proof, if any were needed, that I am not so ignorant of matters of great cultural import as you like to pretend. Enjoy your trip down Memory Lane.
Love,
Moony.
PS - No wanking over the photos. I'll know.
Don't ask how I'll know. I just will.
Sirius picked up the book and headed back upstairs, whistling. Remus would not know.
And even if he did, serve him right for putting ideas into Sirius' head.