(no subject)
RULED BY THE MOON
Chapter 8
Title: Ruled by the Moon
Author: Me, nellie_darlin
Disclaimer: Not mine. Jo's.
Pairing/Characters: Remus/Sirius (unrequited so far!)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Genre: Everything! Tis Lupin's Life!
A/N: Many millions of thanks to lyras for the beta-ing, and her endless patience with my vacillating and sometimes shocking writing habits. Feedback is adored.
Summary: Being an account of the life of Remus J Lupin, Esquire, from his first day at Hogwarts to his last on this earth. In many chapters. Also starring Sirius Black, James Potter, Peter Pettigrew, and the various inhabitants of Hogwarts and the wizarding world.
Teaser: Breakfast was late on Boxing Day, allowing the students - and probably the teachers too - to sleep off the debauches of the night before.
Chapter 8
Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs
Breakfast was late on Boxing Day, allowing the students - and probably the teachers too - to sleep off the debauches of the night before. Remus Lupin, however, whose debauches had been strictly limited, but whose mental trauma far exceeded anybody else’s, woke early. He was surprisingly calm for someone who had been forced to listen to his friend having sex, but he decided that this was because he had gone out the other side of pain and hysteria and into a realm only previously seen by mountain-climbers. His body seemed to have shut down from the shock. Remus was rather relieved.
Equilibrium was fleeting, however, due to Sirius’s disconcerting habit not only of not knocking when entering the bathroom, but also his ability to get past Remus’s locking spells even when half asleep. When Sirius stumbled into the bathroom that Boxing Day morning, clad only in his boxers and sporting a garish love bite on his neck, Remus heartily wished he’d risked the freezing run to the prefects’ bathroom.
“Sirius!” he exclaimed, drawing his legs up and fervently begging his body not to betray him.
“Calm down, Moony,” Sirius said coolly, “it’s not like I’ve never seen your cock before.”
Remus nearly dropped his book into the bathwater. It was really rather foolish of Sirius to expect him to be calm right now, he thought, all things considered, especially since Sirius had got out his cock and was pissing loudly into the loo. His eyes tightly shut, he grated, “Sirius, we aren’t all exhibitionists like you, you know.”
“More’s the pity.”
Remus’s brain squeaked. “Are you advocating a nudist Hogwarts?” he asked, more calmly than he felt.
“Don’t be silly, Moony. Can you imagine McGonagall naked? Dumbledore? Snape?” Sirius shuddered theatrically and flushed the toilet. “No, I’m just advocating a bit more specific nudity.”
Remus sighed. “All the girls, I suppose? James would have a heart attack.”
“Or drown in his own drool,” Sirius added, and Remus couldn’t stop a smile. He knew he shouldn’t feel that flare of happiness when Sirius joked with him about James, but that irrational niggle of jealousy at the strength of the Black-Potter bond had never faded. If anything, as Sirius and James grew closer (“You’re like the brother I never had.” “What about Regulus?” “Doesn’t count.”) it had grown in proportion. Any reaffirmation of Sirius and Remus’s bond, infinitely weaker than James and Sirius’s, never failed to bring a pinkish tinge to Remus’s cheeks and a glow to his heart.
“Can I open my eyes now?” Remus asked gruffly.
“I never asked you to shut them.” For his sanity’s sake, Remus was relieved to see Sirius had pulled on a t-shirt. “I don’t see why you care, anyway,” Sirius continued. “It’s not like you’ve anything to worry about.”
Remus choked. “You what?”
Sirius, his face smeared with shaving foam, turned a wide-eyed, ever-so-innocent expression on Remus, who rolled his eyes. “I’m only saying,” Sirius said, reasonably, “that cock-wise, you’ve got nothing to worry about. You’re bigger than James, after all.”
“Such praise!” Remus murmured, resorting to sarcasm to cover his confusion.
“I think I’m a bit bigger than you, though,” Sirius said, grimacing at the mirror and starting to shave.
“How lucky it was,” Remus mused, trying desperately to distract himself from thoughts of Sirius’s cock, “that when all the brains were bred out of the Black family, the looks - and mega-cocks, of course - remained.”
“Oh, ha ha,” Sirius retorted, but he was grinning. “Can I have that bath when you’re done?”
Remus shrugged. “If you want.”
“You haven’t wanked in it, have you?”
Was Sirius deliberately trying to send him round the twist? “Can you talk about anything other than cocks, Sirius?” he asked mildly.
Sirius pretended to think about this for a moment, then he grinned an expansive, wicked grin. “Nope, don’t think so. Why, does it bother you?”
“Not at all,” Remus lied. “Not one jot.”
~*~
Many turmoil-filled hours later, Remus was smoking a well-earned cigarette out of the dormitory window, alone except for the wheeling, circling, ever-present vultures that were his thoughts. He hadn’t missed the smouldering, stark, feverishly sexual looks that had flashed between Sirius and Cleo that afternoon, so personal and laden with meaning that he had felt like a voyeur. He also hadn’t missed Sirius stroking Cleo, kissing her, whispering in her ear with a hint of defiance, almost aggression. More worryingly, he hadn’t missed the speculative looks Peter had given him when Sirius and Cleo had returned from a “walk”, or when Sirius had bent down and kissed the nape of Cleo’s neck, or when Sirius had idly stroked Cleo’s brown hair and Cleo had looked up at him with affectionate tolerance; these times when Remus had felt as if his insides were rotting and his brain boiling from longing. Peter suspected something, and Remus had been careful from then on, careful to maintain a calm exterior and to let no hint of his feelings appear on his face. It was hard, but it worked. Peter appeared satisfied, and Remus himself started to feel better. He could live with this, he realised, and in time it would fade.
When Oliver Lewis smiled at him, he let himself smile back.
“Filthy habit, that.”
Remus started. He had been so deep in thought that he hadn’t heard Sirius come in, or even realised that evening was closing in. “Yeah, I know,” he said apologetically. “But I like it anyway.”
“Tut tut,” Sirius drawled, his smile slightly mocking. Remus pursed his lips in displeasure: Sirius was in a mood. This wasn’t good. “Give’s one,” Sirius said, slinging himself into the window seat.
Remus chucked him the packet, saying nothing. Sirius tucked one between his lips and leant forward. Remus lit the cigarette for him, focusing on the small, flickering flame of the cheap Muggle lighter so as to avoid Sirius’s dark grey, stormy eyes, so close and so veiled, or his mouth, only one movement, one second away.
“Where’s James?” Remus’s tone was neutral, unconfrontational, but it wasn’t good enough.
Sirius took a drag on the cigarette, his eyes narrowed with irritation. “We’re not joined at the hip, you know,” he said.
“Sorry,” said Remus, “it was just a question.”
Sirius shrugged and avoided Remus’s eyes. Eventually, he said, “He’ll be along soon. He and Peter had … something to do.”
“Something … Evans-like?” Remus prodded, trying to inject some humour into the rapidly deteriorating situation.
“When did you get so nosy?” It was said as a joke, but Remus knew it wasn’t really.
“Fine,” Remus snapped. He finished his cigarette and stubbed it out violently. “God forbid that I should take an interest in what my friends are doing…” Sickened, dizzy with the intensity of Sirius’s closeness and the virulent miasma of his bad mood, he needed to get away. Maybe if he found Oliver, took him up on the offer he’d made the night before, maybe then he could escape from the snares Sirius had cast around him. But even as he stumbled to the door, he knew it was a vain hope, because Sirius was speaking and his steps were slowing and he was caught again, caught by the sincerity of Sirius’s apology.
“Remus, wait - I didn’t mean - Look, Remus, I’m sorry. I’m just a bit on edge at the moment. I - I needed someone to talk to. Can I - I mean… Remus, sit down.”
Oh, he was clever. The apology was pitched perfectly, mollifying Remus and flattering him with the offer of a secret, a heart-to-heart, a promotion again to the position of confidant, elevated above James, because that was the insinuation, wasn’t it? The suggestion that Remus was the one Sirius could talk to, even more than James. And that was what Remus craved. He sometimes wondered if Sirius knew what he was doing, wondered if he was actually as manipulative as his cousins Bellatrix and Narcissa. But then Sirius smiled at him, that tentative, vulnerable smile, and Remus forgot all that, because he wasn’t like that, Sirius was never like that. He could be cruel and careless and prone to filthy moods, but he was real and when he said something, he meant it, and someone as silly as Sirius was (when he was in a good mood, at least) could never be manipulative. Someone who smiled like that, whose eyes burned with sincerity and, deep down, someone who needed to be loved and reassured - someone like that was true and was worth any hardship.
And so Remus sat down, his hands shaking as he lit another cigarette.
“So,” he said, exhaling. “Why are you ‘on edge at the moment’?”
“Lots of reasons,” Sirius said. There was a pause, then, explosively, “I’m worried about Regulus.” Remus said nothing, just smoked his cigarette and waited for Sirius to continue. “I think he’s getting in with a bad crowd.”
“I didn’t know you cared.”
“I didn’t either,” Sirius said, refusing to be baited by Remus’s sardonic tone and the hard quirk of his mouth. “It’s just… I mean, he’s an idiot, but he’s not Bella, he’s not evil, you know? He’s just weak and easily led. He always believes everything he’s told - he’s a bit dim, really. I could always scare him shitless, just by telling him there was a monster in the cupboard or under his bed, or hiding round corners and jumping out at him.” Sirius’s eyes slipped out of focus, and Remus wondered what aspect of his childhood was haunting his friend now. “It’s - I - But he’s spending time with the Slytherins. The real Slytherins. You know, the Lestranges, Avery, Macnair… and Bella.”
“But they’re a joke, surely?” Remus said, uncomfortably. “I mean, they go around talking about blood and purity and swearing vengeance on Dumbledore, but no one takes them seriously. They’re just teenagers playing at being adults, getting off on the whole secret society thing. It’s all rather ridiculous.”
“Andromeda says Bella went Muggle-hunting last week with Lucius Malfoy and the Lestranges.”
Remus went cold. “You’re joking.”
Sirius shook his head, grimly. “There’ve been other attacks, apparently. They were before the end of term, so Reg can’t have been involved. Andromeda thinks Malfoy was, though. And Malfoy is staying at our house this Christmas.” Remus noticed that the hand holding his cigarette was shaking. When Sirius tried to stub it out, he left a streak of ash across the windowsill. And it was that, combined with the crack in Sirius’s voice and the pleading look in Sirius’s eyes, which swept away the last of Remus’s resentment, to be replaced with a powerful compulsion to hug Sirius, to comfort him and protect him and maybe have his own worries soothed at the same time. But hugging other boys, unless you were Sirius Black (and thus above such petty restrictions) or wanted to be known far and wide as a shirt-lifter, was Not Done. Remus would not be hugging Sirius today. He smoked his cigarette in silence.
“You’ve heard of this “Lord Voldemort”, I suppose?” Sirius asked, eventually.
Remus frowned. “Of course. Why?”
“He’s behind the attacks, Andromeda says. Malfoy’s been linked to him, but his father’s got the Ministry in his pocket and they’re not doing a thing. Ted is furious, apparently.”
“I didn’t realise it was so serious.”
“Me neither. I heard Bella mention him once or twice, but I assumed it was all part of the mumbo-jumbo secret-society stuff. And I think my mother said something once about ‘that Lord Voldemort having the right idea’. I always thought he was just another supremacist nut-case. Now I think it’s more serious than that, and now my brother’s getting involved.”
“You turned out all right,” Remus said helplessly. “Maybe he will too.”
“We can only hope. Somehow I doubt it.” Sirius gave a shaky smile. “Sorry, mate. I didn’t want this to get so intense.”
“It’s OK,” Remus said. “I don’t mind.”
“It’s just - ” Sirius swallowed, “- it’s just, I’m scared. People are dying, Remus, and they’re not telling us. Voldemort has been growing for six years, and everyone has underestimated him. And now he’s killing people.”
“But Dumbledore’s here,” Remus said, sounding surer than he felt. “Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald. Surely he can defeat this Lord Voldemort.”
Sirius nodded, picking at a loose thread in his trousers. “S’pose,” he said. And then he looked up at Remus, his eyes wide and frightened, and Remus remembered that they were only sixteen and that Sirius was young, so young, and he saw his hand reach out and take Sirius’s and grip it tight, and he didn’t know if he was comforting Sirius or himself.
“It’ll be all right,” he whispered. “It’ll be fine, Sirius. Dumbledore will stop him. I know he will. And Regulus - well, Regulus will be fine too. He’s different from your cousins.”
“S’pose,” Sirius said again, and Remus gave his hand a squeeze.
A moment later, Sirius coughed nervously. “You can let my hand go, you know.”
Remus jumped back. “Sorry, sorry. I was - I was thinking.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, thinking.”
“Right.”
And suddenly they couldn’t meet each other’s eyes.
“Well.”
“Well. Well, thanks.”
“No problem. Any time.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
“I’ll just be - erm -”
“Yeah, me too -”
And then the door banged open and James fell in, shouting, “Sirius! It works! He can do it!” with Peter following, shouting shrilly, “I can do it, Sirius! I can do it! But guess what - I’m a fucking rat!”
~*~
It was half an hour later, and Remus was trying to make sense of what his friends had just told him.
“So,” he said, struggling, “let me get this straight. You have risked death, disfigurement and basically eternal damnation, just to keep me company when I turn into a flesh-eating monster once a month.”
“Yep,” Sirius said. His earlier black mood had disappeared entirely, along with the winter darkness when James and Peter had come in and switched on the lights, thrilling with their news; disappeared to be swiftly replaced by an excitement that could not be restrained, and kept bursting out in odd little skips and bouncings. Next to him, James was twitching even more than usual, and his glasses kept sliding down his nose. Peter was pink and bouncy, although he kept having moments of devastating depression when he remembered what his animagus form was.
“Right,” Remus said. He knew he was staring, and he knew he wasn’t making much sense, but he had an odd Alice-in-Wonderland type feeling, as if the whole world had tipped upside down and probably inside out as well. “Erm - why?”
“I don’t know if you remember,” Sirius said, “but you once said that the reason you attack yourself is because there’s nothing else to attack. So we did a bit of research, and found out that while werewolves attack humans, they don’t attack animals. In fact, they are often calmed by the presence of other animals.”
Remus felt like his brain had been dipped in treacle. “You - you did research?”
“I said so, didn’t I? Anyway, we wondered if there was a way to Transfigure ourselves into animals, you know, to keep you company during the moons. And Petey found a book on Animagi.”
“Animagi,” Remus echoed. “You mean the spell that is completely and utterly illegal without a million Ministry sanctions?”
“Yes.”
“The one that can go horribly wrong and leave you … with, I dunno, half a goat on your head?”
“Yes.”
“The one that is incredibly difficult for adult wizards, let alone three sixteen year olds.”
“Yes!”
“And you did it for me?” he managed, his eyes bright.
“Yes!”
“Fuck.” Remus was suddenly blinking a lot, and his throat was oddly constricted. He felt that choking vine of emotion growing in his chest again, putting out tendrils and curling around his windpipe so he couldn’t breathe. His vision blurring, he pressed his hand to his mouth to keep in the hysteria that bubbled in his chest. He knew he should be happy, and he was, oh he was, because this was unbelievable and amazing and the kindest, most brilliant thing that anyone had ever done for him, ever, but he was shaking because of the risk and the horrifying possibilities and the incongruity of this excitement following the serious conversation he’d had with Sirius only half an hour ago.
But I don’t deserve it, he thought, over and over again, I don’t deserve it, it’s not right, I don’t deserve it, I don’t.
James, looking worried, put his hand on Remus’s shoulder. “You all right, old man?” he said. On his other side, Sirius was frowning, and his hand hovered for a moment before settling on Remus’s other shoulder.
“Yup. Just - just give me a minute.” Still fighting that bubbling, coiling, choking vine of hysteria, Remus was impressed that he managed to say even that much. Head bowed, the blood thrumming in his ears, he struggled to take deep, even breaths. He felt like he was drowning, buried alive under the weight of … well, everything. Every little thing that had built up over the days and the years, the expectations and the disappointments and the failures and successes and sacrifices and resentments that made up his friendship with Sirius, James and Peter, crowned now by this startling, crazy revelation that had knocked him sideways.
“Right,” he said, eventually, when his throat cleared and he could speak again, although he still felt like he was in Wonderland - a magical, undreamed-off place that nonetheless was dark and confusing and terrifying in its relentless mislogic. “Why - why don’t you show me?”
So they showed him exactly what they had done for him. And although he squeezed his eyes tight shut when they actually transformed, clutched with fear, when he saw them, a slow warmth crept over him, bringing a flush to his pale cheeks and making his eyes bright and wide as a child’s at the circus. There was Sirius the dog, big and black and boisterous, James the stag, steady and majestic, and Peter the rat, small and nervous and dwarfed by his companions. Remus smiled, smiled his crooked, raw smile from behind his fringe, and complimented them on their ingenuity. At that, the big dog came to him and nuzzled into his side, whuffing gently, and it was so like Sirius that Remus laughed aloud. And when Sirius transformed back, he was beaming, proud and brimming with delight.
Remus found it hard to get to sleep that night. He couldn’t shake a horrible feeling of guilt, bowing under the weight of his lies, and he tossed and turned for what seemed like hours while he wrestled with the problem.
The clock had just struck two when he heard soft footsteps outside his curtains. Sirius, from the sounds of it, probably going to the loo, or maybe to James’s bed to continue their far too graphic discussion of Sirius’s sex life. He was surprised when the curtains were drawn back and Sirius slipped inside, whispering, “Knock knock, Moony!”
“Sirius?”
“Who else?”
Remus shrugged. Sirius had grown out of their midnight chats when he’d shaken off his homesickness, although every so often he’d need someone to talk to. Even then, he went to James nine times out of ten. Remus had long since accepted that.
“Let me in, then?”
Remus made space, shivering when Sirius curled up behind him, far too close for comfort.
“So, you’re happy?” Sirius asked, when they were settled.
“More than happy,” Remus replied. “It’s - it’s amazing, Sirius. I don’t deserve it, though.”
“Don’t be stupid, Moony. You deserve to be happy more than anyone of us.”
Remus smiled wryly, and said nothing, but it wasn’t that he had nothing to say, only that he had no idea how to express the tumult of emotions Sirius’s words awoke in him.
“There,” Sirius whispered, and his breath was ticklish against Remus’s ear. “Let’s have none of this rubbish about not deserving it. Besides, it was fun.” And Remus could feel Sirius’s grin, and he had to shut his eyes against the dizziness and the thousand hot thoughts, the indecencies and wild fantasies that were awoken by Sirius and Sirius’s smell and warmth and long, lithe body pressed against his. A crazy impulse ran away with his common sense just then, and a burning need to tell consumed him. Sirius and James and Peter had done this amazing, terrible thing for him, and he was lying to them.
“You don’t understand,” he whispered, grateful for the cloak of darkness. “I don’t deserve it, because I’ve been lying to you.”
“What, are you not a werewolf after all?” Sirius asked patiently.
“No, no,” Remus said, wretchedly. “I am still a - a - that. There’s something else. I was - I dunno, it just was never the right time to tell, and it’s just not fair, not fair when you’ve done this for me, you should know, even though you’ll hate me afterwards, but I can’t stand lying any more, and I just have to tell because then we’re even and I won’t owe you anything, and - it’s unfair otherwise, and -”
“Moony,” Sirius said, “Moony, shut up. You don’t owe us anything. If it makes you feel better, pretend that we just did it because we could. It’s got nothing to do with you, and all to do with our own superlative wizarding skills -”
“Sirius! You don’t understand! I’m gay!”
“And really, it makes no difference to me - what did you say?”
“I'm gay, Sirius,” Remus whispered, shamefaced.
There was a dead, withering silence, in which Remus managed to go from healthy, purging confession to wanting to die in a record five seconds. How had he ever thought this was a good idea? How had he ever thought that, more pressingly, when Sirius was in his bed?
He heard Sirius swallow, and he broke into a cold sweat. Panicked, he said, “I’m sorry, Sirius, I should have told you, I -”
“Shut up, Moony.”
“- And you’re really, really going to hate me now -”
“Tell me something,” Sirius said then, slowly and deliberately. “And try and tell me in short, clear sentences.” Something in his tone pierced the fog of panic in Remus’s brain, and his babbling stopped abruptly, like a tap switched off. “Good. Now, tell me why liking cock is so much worse than actually liking cock.”
“Erm - what?”
“I mean, if I’m fine with the fact you’re a ravening monster once a month, and, what’s more, am prepared to risk life and limb to turn into an animal and join you while you are said monster, why on earth would it matter to me that you like boys not girls?”
Remus’s mouth opened and closed a few times as he struggled to say something, anything, because this was unreal, this couldn’t be happening, and he surely had gone mad, hadn’t he? “Erm, no?” he said.
“Well, it doesn’t matter at all, and I can’t see why you’d think it would.”
“Oh.”
Silence fell again. Remus’s stomach had turned to ice, because Sirius’s tone was so cold, so hard, and although Sirius said he didn’t mind, he wasn’t happy either. A particularly large icicle was gouging its way through Remus’s belly, and another was in his heart, and he curled up in misery, his knees drawn to his chest.
“How long?” Sirius asked, then.
“A year or so,” Remus whispered, eyes clamped shut.
“Right.”
Another silence, agonising, and then a rush of cold air bathed Remus’s back as Sirius climbed out of his bed.
“Sirius, what -”
“I’m tired, and so are you,” Sirius said briskly. “Time for bed. See you in the morning, Moony.”
And he was gone.
next
Prologue | one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight
Chapter 8
Title: Ruled by the Moon
Author: Me, nellie_darlin
Disclaimer: Not mine. Jo's.
Pairing/Characters: Remus/Sirius (unrequited so far!)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Genre: Everything! Tis Lupin's Life!
A/N: Many millions of thanks to lyras for the beta-ing, and her endless patience with my vacillating and sometimes shocking writing habits. Feedback is adored.
Summary: Being an account of the life of Remus J Lupin, Esquire, from his first day at Hogwarts to his last on this earth. In many chapters. Also starring Sirius Black, James Potter, Peter Pettigrew, and the various inhabitants of Hogwarts and the wizarding world.
Teaser: Breakfast was late on Boxing Day, allowing the students - and probably the teachers too - to sleep off the debauches of the night before.
Chapter 8
Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs
Breakfast was late on Boxing Day, allowing the students - and probably the teachers too - to sleep off the debauches of the night before. Remus Lupin, however, whose debauches had been strictly limited, but whose mental trauma far exceeded anybody else’s, woke early. He was surprisingly calm for someone who had been forced to listen to his friend having sex, but he decided that this was because he had gone out the other side of pain and hysteria and into a realm only previously seen by mountain-climbers. His body seemed to have shut down from the shock. Remus was rather relieved.
Equilibrium was fleeting, however, due to Sirius’s disconcerting habit not only of not knocking when entering the bathroom, but also his ability to get past Remus’s locking spells even when half asleep. When Sirius stumbled into the bathroom that Boxing Day morning, clad only in his boxers and sporting a garish love bite on his neck, Remus heartily wished he’d risked the freezing run to the prefects’ bathroom.
“Sirius!” he exclaimed, drawing his legs up and fervently begging his body not to betray him.
“Calm down, Moony,” Sirius said coolly, “it’s not like I’ve never seen your cock before.”
Remus nearly dropped his book into the bathwater. It was really rather foolish of Sirius to expect him to be calm right now, he thought, all things considered, especially since Sirius had got out his cock and was pissing loudly into the loo. His eyes tightly shut, he grated, “Sirius, we aren’t all exhibitionists like you, you know.”
“More’s the pity.”
Remus’s brain squeaked. “Are you advocating a nudist Hogwarts?” he asked, more calmly than he felt.
“Don’t be silly, Moony. Can you imagine McGonagall naked? Dumbledore? Snape?” Sirius shuddered theatrically and flushed the toilet. “No, I’m just advocating a bit more specific nudity.”
Remus sighed. “All the girls, I suppose? James would have a heart attack.”
“Or drown in his own drool,” Sirius added, and Remus couldn’t stop a smile. He knew he shouldn’t feel that flare of happiness when Sirius joked with him about James, but that irrational niggle of jealousy at the strength of the Black-Potter bond had never faded. If anything, as Sirius and James grew closer (“You’re like the brother I never had.” “What about Regulus?” “Doesn’t count.”) it had grown in proportion. Any reaffirmation of Sirius and Remus’s bond, infinitely weaker than James and Sirius’s, never failed to bring a pinkish tinge to Remus’s cheeks and a glow to his heart.
“Can I open my eyes now?” Remus asked gruffly.
“I never asked you to shut them.” For his sanity’s sake, Remus was relieved to see Sirius had pulled on a t-shirt. “I don’t see why you care, anyway,” Sirius continued. “It’s not like you’ve anything to worry about.”
Remus choked. “You what?”
Sirius, his face smeared with shaving foam, turned a wide-eyed, ever-so-innocent expression on Remus, who rolled his eyes. “I’m only saying,” Sirius said, reasonably, “that cock-wise, you’ve got nothing to worry about. You’re bigger than James, after all.”
“Such praise!” Remus murmured, resorting to sarcasm to cover his confusion.
“I think I’m a bit bigger than you, though,” Sirius said, grimacing at the mirror and starting to shave.
“How lucky it was,” Remus mused, trying desperately to distract himself from thoughts of Sirius’s cock, “that when all the brains were bred out of the Black family, the looks - and mega-cocks, of course - remained.”
“Oh, ha ha,” Sirius retorted, but he was grinning. “Can I have that bath when you’re done?”
Remus shrugged. “If you want.”
“You haven’t wanked in it, have you?”
Was Sirius deliberately trying to send him round the twist? “Can you talk about anything other than cocks, Sirius?” he asked mildly.
Sirius pretended to think about this for a moment, then he grinned an expansive, wicked grin. “Nope, don’t think so. Why, does it bother you?”
“Not at all,” Remus lied. “Not one jot.”
~*~
Many turmoil-filled hours later, Remus was smoking a well-earned cigarette out of the dormitory window, alone except for the wheeling, circling, ever-present vultures that were his thoughts. He hadn’t missed the smouldering, stark, feverishly sexual looks that had flashed between Sirius and Cleo that afternoon, so personal and laden with meaning that he had felt like a voyeur. He also hadn’t missed Sirius stroking Cleo, kissing her, whispering in her ear with a hint of defiance, almost aggression. More worryingly, he hadn’t missed the speculative looks Peter had given him when Sirius and Cleo had returned from a “walk”, or when Sirius had bent down and kissed the nape of Cleo’s neck, or when Sirius had idly stroked Cleo’s brown hair and Cleo had looked up at him with affectionate tolerance; these times when Remus had felt as if his insides were rotting and his brain boiling from longing. Peter suspected something, and Remus had been careful from then on, careful to maintain a calm exterior and to let no hint of his feelings appear on his face. It was hard, but it worked. Peter appeared satisfied, and Remus himself started to feel better. He could live with this, he realised, and in time it would fade.
When Oliver Lewis smiled at him, he let himself smile back.
“Filthy habit, that.”
Remus started. He had been so deep in thought that he hadn’t heard Sirius come in, or even realised that evening was closing in. “Yeah, I know,” he said apologetically. “But I like it anyway.”
“Tut tut,” Sirius drawled, his smile slightly mocking. Remus pursed his lips in displeasure: Sirius was in a mood. This wasn’t good. “Give’s one,” Sirius said, slinging himself into the window seat.
Remus chucked him the packet, saying nothing. Sirius tucked one between his lips and leant forward. Remus lit the cigarette for him, focusing on the small, flickering flame of the cheap Muggle lighter so as to avoid Sirius’s dark grey, stormy eyes, so close and so veiled, or his mouth, only one movement, one second away.
“Where’s James?” Remus’s tone was neutral, unconfrontational, but it wasn’t good enough.
Sirius took a drag on the cigarette, his eyes narrowed with irritation. “We’re not joined at the hip, you know,” he said.
“Sorry,” said Remus, “it was just a question.”
Sirius shrugged and avoided Remus’s eyes. Eventually, he said, “He’ll be along soon. He and Peter had … something to do.”
“Something … Evans-like?” Remus prodded, trying to inject some humour into the rapidly deteriorating situation.
“When did you get so nosy?” It was said as a joke, but Remus knew it wasn’t really.
“Fine,” Remus snapped. He finished his cigarette and stubbed it out violently. “God forbid that I should take an interest in what my friends are doing…” Sickened, dizzy with the intensity of Sirius’s closeness and the virulent miasma of his bad mood, he needed to get away. Maybe if he found Oliver, took him up on the offer he’d made the night before, maybe then he could escape from the snares Sirius had cast around him. But even as he stumbled to the door, he knew it was a vain hope, because Sirius was speaking and his steps were slowing and he was caught again, caught by the sincerity of Sirius’s apology.
“Remus, wait - I didn’t mean - Look, Remus, I’m sorry. I’m just a bit on edge at the moment. I - I needed someone to talk to. Can I - I mean… Remus, sit down.”
Oh, he was clever. The apology was pitched perfectly, mollifying Remus and flattering him with the offer of a secret, a heart-to-heart, a promotion again to the position of confidant, elevated above James, because that was the insinuation, wasn’t it? The suggestion that Remus was the one Sirius could talk to, even more than James. And that was what Remus craved. He sometimes wondered if Sirius knew what he was doing, wondered if he was actually as manipulative as his cousins Bellatrix and Narcissa. But then Sirius smiled at him, that tentative, vulnerable smile, and Remus forgot all that, because he wasn’t like that, Sirius was never like that. He could be cruel and careless and prone to filthy moods, but he was real and when he said something, he meant it, and someone as silly as Sirius was (when he was in a good mood, at least) could never be manipulative. Someone who smiled like that, whose eyes burned with sincerity and, deep down, someone who needed to be loved and reassured - someone like that was true and was worth any hardship.
And so Remus sat down, his hands shaking as he lit another cigarette.
“So,” he said, exhaling. “Why are you ‘on edge at the moment’?”
“Lots of reasons,” Sirius said. There was a pause, then, explosively, “I’m worried about Regulus.” Remus said nothing, just smoked his cigarette and waited for Sirius to continue. “I think he’s getting in with a bad crowd.”
“I didn’t know you cared.”
“I didn’t either,” Sirius said, refusing to be baited by Remus’s sardonic tone and the hard quirk of his mouth. “It’s just… I mean, he’s an idiot, but he’s not Bella, he’s not evil, you know? He’s just weak and easily led. He always believes everything he’s told - he’s a bit dim, really. I could always scare him shitless, just by telling him there was a monster in the cupboard or under his bed, or hiding round corners and jumping out at him.” Sirius’s eyes slipped out of focus, and Remus wondered what aspect of his childhood was haunting his friend now. “It’s - I - But he’s spending time with the Slytherins. The real Slytherins. You know, the Lestranges, Avery, Macnair… and Bella.”
“But they’re a joke, surely?” Remus said, uncomfortably. “I mean, they go around talking about blood and purity and swearing vengeance on Dumbledore, but no one takes them seriously. They’re just teenagers playing at being adults, getting off on the whole secret society thing. It’s all rather ridiculous.”
“Andromeda says Bella went Muggle-hunting last week with Lucius Malfoy and the Lestranges.”
Remus went cold. “You’re joking.”
Sirius shook his head, grimly. “There’ve been other attacks, apparently. They were before the end of term, so Reg can’t have been involved. Andromeda thinks Malfoy was, though. And Malfoy is staying at our house this Christmas.” Remus noticed that the hand holding his cigarette was shaking. When Sirius tried to stub it out, he left a streak of ash across the windowsill. And it was that, combined with the crack in Sirius’s voice and the pleading look in Sirius’s eyes, which swept away the last of Remus’s resentment, to be replaced with a powerful compulsion to hug Sirius, to comfort him and protect him and maybe have his own worries soothed at the same time. But hugging other boys, unless you were Sirius Black (and thus above such petty restrictions) or wanted to be known far and wide as a shirt-lifter, was Not Done. Remus would not be hugging Sirius today. He smoked his cigarette in silence.
“You’ve heard of this “Lord Voldemort”, I suppose?” Sirius asked, eventually.
Remus frowned. “Of course. Why?”
“He’s behind the attacks, Andromeda says. Malfoy’s been linked to him, but his father’s got the Ministry in his pocket and they’re not doing a thing. Ted is furious, apparently.”
“I didn’t realise it was so serious.”
“Me neither. I heard Bella mention him once or twice, but I assumed it was all part of the mumbo-jumbo secret-society stuff. And I think my mother said something once about ‘that Lord Voldemort having the right idea’. I always thought he was just another supremacist nut-case. Now I think it’s more serious than that, and now my brother’s getting involved.”
“You turned out all right,” Remus said helplessly. “Maybe he will too.”
“We can only hope. Somehow I doubt it.” Sirius gave a shaky smile. “Sorry, mate. I didn’t want this to get so intense.”
“It’s OK,” Remus said. “I don’t mind.”
“It’s just - ” Sirius swallowed, “- it’s just, I’m scared. People are dying, Remus, and they’re not telling us. Voldemort has been growing for six years, and everyone has underestimated him. And now he’s killing people.”
“But Dumbledore’s here,” Remus said, sounding surer than he felt. “Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald. Surely he can defeat this Lord Voldemort.”
Sirius nodded, picking at a loose thread in his trousers. “S’pose,” he said. And then he looked up at Remus, his eyes wide and frightened, and Remus remembered that they were only sixteen and that Sirius was young, so young, and he saw his hand reach out and take Sirius’s and grip it tight, and he didn’t know if he was comforting Sirius or himself.
“It’ll be all right,” he whispered. “It’ll be fine, Sirius. Dumbledore will stop him. I know he will. And Regulus - well, Regulus will be fine too. He’s different from your cousins.”
“S’pose,” Sirius said again, and Remus gave his hand a squeeze.
A moment later, Sirius coughed nervously. “You can let my hand go, you know.”
Remus jumped back. “Sorry, sorry. I was - I was thinking.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, thinking.”
“Right.”
And suddenly they couldn’t meet each other’s eyes.
“Well.”
“Well. Well, thanks.”
“No problem. Any time.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
“I’ll just be - erm -”
“Yeah, me too -”
And then the door banged open and James fell in, shouting, “Sirius! It works! He can do it!” with Peter following, shouting shrilly, “I can do it, Sirius! I can do it! But guess what - I’m a fucking rat!”
~*~
It was half an hour later, and Remus was trying to make sense of what his friends had just told him.
“So,” he said, struggling, “let me get this straight. You have risked death, disfigurement and basically eternal damnation, just to keep me company when I turn into a flesh-eating monster once a month.”
“Yep,” Sirius said. His earlier black mood had disappeared entirely, along with the winter darkness when James and Peter had come in and switched on the lights, thrilling with their news; disappeared to be swiftly replaced by an excitement that could not be restrained, and kept bursting out in odd little skips and bouncings. Next to him, James was twitching even more than usual, and his glasses kept sliding down his nose. Peter was pink and bouncy, although he kept having moments of devastating depression when he remembered what his animagus form was.
“Right,” Remus said. He knew he was staring, and he knew he wasn’t making much sense, but he had an odd Alice-in-Wonderland type feeling, as if the whole world had tipped upside down and probably inside out as well. “Erm - why?”
“I don’t know if you remember,” Sirius said, “but you once said that the reason you attack yourself is because there’s nothing else to attack. So we did a bit of research, and found out that while werewolves attack humans, they don’t attack animals. In fact, they are often calmed by the presence of other animals.”
Remus felt like his brain had been dipped in treacle. “You - you did research?”
“I said so, didn’t I? Anyway, we wondered if there was a way to Transfigure ourselves into animals, you know, to keep you company during the moons. And Petey found a book on Animagi.”
“Animagi,” Remus echoed. “You mean the spell that is completely and utterly illegal without a million Ministry sanctions?”
“Yes.”
“The one that can go horribly wrong and leave you … with, I dunno, half a goat on your head?”
“Yes.”
“The one that is incredibly difficult for adult wizards, let alone three sixteen year olds.”
“Yes!”
“And you did it for me?” he managed, his eyes bright.
“Yes!”
“Fuck.” Remus was suddenly blinking a lot, and his throat was oddly constricted. He felt that choking vine of emotion growing in his chest again, putting out tendrils and curling around his windpipe so he couldn’t breathe. His vision blurring, he pressed his hand to his mouth to keep in the hysteria that bubbled in his chest. He knew he should be happy, and he was, oh he was, because this was unbelievable and amazing and the kindest, most brilliant thing that anyone had ever done for him, ever, but he was shaking because of the risk and the horrifying possibilities and the incongruity of this excitement following the serious conversation he’d had with Sirius only half an hour ago.
But I don’t deserve it, he thought, over and over again, I don’t deserve it, it’s not right, I don’t deserve it, I don’t.
James, looking worried, put his hand on Remus’s shoulder. “You all right, old man?” he said. On his other side, Sirius was frowning, and his hand hovered for a moment before settling on Remus’s other shoulder.
“Yup. Just - just give me a minute.” Still fighting that bubbling, coiling, choking vine of hysteria, Remus was impressed that he managed to say even that much. Head bowed, the blood thrumming in his ears, he struggled to take deep, even breaths. He felt like he was drowning, buried alive under the weight of … well, everything. Every little thing that had built up over the days and the years, the expectations and the disappointments and the failures and successes and sacrifices and resentments that made up his friendship with Sirius, James and Peter, crowned now by this startling, crazy revelation that had knocked him sideways.
“Right,” he said, eventually, when his throat cleared and he could speak again, although he still felt like he was in Wonderland - a magical, undreamed-off place that nonetheless was dark and confusing and terrifying in its relentless mislogic. “Why - why don’t you show me?”
So they showed him exactly what they had done for him. And although he squeezed his eyes tight shut when they actually transformed, clutched with fear, when he saw them, a slow warmth crept over him, bringing a flush to his pale cheeks and making his eyes bright and wide as a child’s at the circus. There was Sirius the dog, big and black and boisterous, James the stag, steady and majestic, and Peter the rat, small and nervous and dwarfed by his companions. Remus smiled, smiled his crooked, raw smile from behind his fringe, and complimented them on their ingenuity. At that, the big dog came to him and nuzzled into his side, whuffing gently, and it was so like Sirius that Remus laughed aloud. And when Sirius transformed back, he was beaming, proud and brimming with delight.
Remus found it hard to get to sleep that night. He couldn’t shake a horrible feeling of guilt, bowing under the weight of his lies, and he tossed and turned for what seemed like hours while he wrestled with the problem.
The clock had just struck two when he heard soft footsteps outside his curtains. Sirius, from the sounds of it, probably going to the loo, or maybe to James’s bed to continue their far too graphic discussion of Sirius’s sex life. He was surprised when the curtains were drawn back and Sirius slipped inside, whispering, “Knock knock, Moony!”
“Sirius?”
“Who else?”
Remus shrugged. Sirius had grown out of their midnight chats when he’d shaken off his homesickness, although every so often he’d need someone to talk to. Even then, he went to James nine times out of ten. Remus had long since accepted that.
“Let me in, then?”
Remus made space, shivering when Sirius curled up behind him, far too close for comfort.
“So, you’re happy?” Sirius asked, when they were settled.
“More than happy,” Remus replied. “It’s - it’s amazing, Sirius. I don’t deserve it, though.”
“Don’t be stupid, Moony. You deserve to be happy more than anyone of us.”
Remus smiled wryly, and said nothing, but it wasn’t that he had nothing to say, only that he had no idea how to express the tumult of emotions Sirius’s words awoke in him.
“There,” Sirius whispered, and his breath was ticklish against Remus’s ear. “Let’s have none of this rubbish about not deserving it. Besides, it was fun.” And Remus could feel Sirius’s grin, and he had to shut his eyes against the dizziness and the thousand hot thoughts, the indecencies and wild fantasies that were awoken by Sirius and Sirius’s smell and warmth and long, lithe body pressed against his. A crazy impulse ran away with his common sense just then, and a burning need to tell consumed him. Sirius and James and Peter had done this amazing, terrible thing for him, and he was lying to them.
“You don’t understand,” he whispered, grateful for the cloak of darkness. “I don’t deserve it, because I’ve been lying to you.”
“What, are you not a werewolf after all?” Sirius asked patiently.
“No, no,” Remus said, wretchedly. “I am still a - a - that. There’s something else. I was - I dunno, it just was never the right time to tell, and it’s just not fair, not fair when you’ve done this for me, you should know, even though you’ll hate me afterwards, but I can’t stand lying any more, and I just have to tell because then we’re even and I won’t owe you anything, and - it’s unfair otherwise, and -”
“Moony,” Sirius said, “Moony, shut up. You don’t owe us anything. If it makes you feel better, pretend that we just did it because we could. It’s got nothing to do with you, and all to do with our own superlative wizarding skills -”
“Sirius! You don’t understand! I’m gay!”
“And really, it makes no difference to me - what did you say?”
“I'm gay, Sirius,” Remus whispered, shamefaced.
There was a dead, withering silence, in which Remus managed to go from healthy, purging confession to wanting to die in a record five seconds. How had he ever thought this was a good idea? How had he ever thought that, more pressingly, when Sirius was in his bed?
He heard Sirius swallow, and he broke into a cold sweat. Panicked, he said, “I’m sorry, Sirius, I should have told you, I -”
“Shut up, Moony.”
“- And you’re really, really going to hate me now -”
“Tell me something,” Sirius said then, slowly and deliberately. “And try and tell me in short, clear sentences.” Something in his tone pierced the fog of panic in Remus’s brain, and his babbling stopped abruptly, like a tap switched off. “Good. Now, tell me why liking cock is so much worse than actually liking cock.”
“Erm - what?”
“I mean, if I’m fine with the fact you’re a ravening monster once a month, and, what’s more, am prepared to risk life and limb to turn into an animal and join you while you are said monster, why on earth would it matter to me that you like boys not girls?”
Remus’s mouth opened and closed a few times as he struggled to say something, anything, because this was unreal, this couldn’t be happening, and he surely had gone mad, hadn’t he? “Erm, no?” he said.
“Well, it doesn’t matter at all, and I can’t see why you’d think it would.”
“Oh.”
Silence fell again. Remus’s stomach had turned to ice, because Sirius’s tone was so cold, so hard, and although Sirius said he didn’t mind, he wasn’t happy either. A particularly large icicle was gouging its way through Remus’s belly, and another was in his heart, and he curled up in misery, his knees drawn to his chest.
“How long?” Sirius asked, then.
“A year or so,” Remus whispered, eyes clamped shut.
“Right.”
Another silence, agonising, and then a rush of cold air bathed Remus’s back as Sirius climbed out of his bed.
“Sirius, what -”
“I’m tired, and so are you,” Sirius said briskly. “Time for bed. See you in the morning, Moony.”
And he was gone.
next
Prologue | one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight