Fic: The Lullaby of Nifflish Erumpents
Title: The Lullaby of Nifflish Erumpents
Author: sheafrotherdon
Rating: PG-13 (for language)
Pairing: R/S
Disclaimer: JKR owns the pups, I merely play with them
X-Posted to: two_boys, remusxsirius and shacking_up
Summary: Sirius Black is a Boy With Ideas. Remus Lupin is the target of his cunning plan. James merely loses his underpants.
A/N: Feedback is, as ever, loved, adored, and fed tidbits from my Thanksgiving table.
The day Remus Lupin discovered Sirius Black reading a large Muggle Studies textbook was the day he felt sure he would see - should he look out the window -- nifflers flying out of an erumpent’s behind.
“Merlin on a crumpet,” he said, crossing the common room toward the couch on which Sirius lounged.
“Hot and buttered crusty wizards?” asked Sirius, looking up from under his lashes. “My, my, you know just how to turn me into trembling putty.”
Remus cuffed him none too gently about the head before sitting down on the small square of couch not covered by the sprawl of Sirius’s limbs. “Muggle Studies?” He nodded toward the book. “Can the seven Quintapeds of the Apocalypse be far behind?”
“Cutting, cutting,” said Sirius, shaking his head sadly. “Just because I don’t join you in the ritual snogging of parchment doesn’t mean I’m not interested in the written word.”
Remus sighed. “It was just the one time. And I was sniffing the new parchment smell.”
Sirius looked at him with pity. “We all have our kinks, Remus. There’s no need to be ashamed.”
Remus searched for a suitable reply and, finding none, settled for a thoroughly scathing look. “Any particular reason you’re reading my book?” he asked.
Sirius sat up and thrust the text into Remus’ hands. “Look at this brilliance,” he said in the familiar tones of a Boy With Ideas.
Remus warily glanced at the full color illustration on the open page. His jaw worked uselessly. “Huh?” he offered at last.
“It’s a trampoline,” explained Sirius, as if speaking a foreign language to a particularly obtuse child.
“I know what it is,” Remus replied.
“It’s for bouncing,” continued Sirius, as if he hadn’t heard. “You know how I love to bounce.”
“Yes . . . “ Remus chewed thoughtfully on his bottom lip, recalling the many hexes, jinxes, and charms to which he’d been witness as Sirius pursued the elusive goal of perfection in bouncing. “Just one of your many troubling traits.”
Sirius looked affronted. “Troubling?” He shook his head as if to clear a nasty vision. “Bouncing is an ancient and noble sport.”
“Oh well, that explains it.”
“Practiced among the best boy-wizards in the world, an outlet for their limitless and exuberant energy.”
“Quite.”
“A mark of superior physical strength and cunning mind.”
“Indeed.”
“A marriage of movement and giddy-giddy-gumdropness . . . “
“That’s definitely not a word.”
“. . . GUMdropness,” repeated Sirius, with force, “with benefits for the lungs, the muscles, and containing the cure for scurvy, rickets, and dropsy if I’m not very much mistaken.”
Remus arched an eyebrow. “Scandalous outbreak of rickets around here,” he mused. “Good thing you’re on the case.”
“I’m sure Pomfrey will give me some kind of award,” Sirius replied, blithely.
“So . . .” Remus tapped the page with his finger. “Leaving aside the question of why you would ever crack open a Muggle Studies book in the first place . . . “
“James dared me.”
James’ dares usually involved something a little more exotic than textbooks - flames and ornamental cabbages, for example, or an Austrian folk-dancing costume and three neon green shoelaces. Remus shuddered at the memory of a particularly complex dare that had ended with four drenched and naked Marauders dripping sheepishly on Professor McGonagall’s rug while she attempted to break the charm on a mango that was sporting six legs and an antenna. Remus looked again at the book in his hands. “Dared you?”
Sirius nodded. “Dared me to find something in this book we could use heighten our already unparalleled reputation for brilliance and invention.” He gave a cheerful grin. “There are bonus points if we almost kill ourselves laughing.”
“But how on earth are you going to . . . “
His question was answered as James jumped down the last few steps from the dormitory. “I think we could transfigure . . . “ Spotting Remus he stopped short and stuffed something that looked suspiciously like a pair of underpants into his pocket. “ ’lo Remus.”
Remus arched an eyebrow. “You’re planning to transfigure your underwear into a trampoline?”
“They’re stretchy,” offered Sirius, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“I just hope they’re clean,” said Remus as James passed, ducking the blow the latter aimed squarely at his head.
It was at that moment that Peter burst from the portrait-hole, great loops of rope in his arms. “Will this work?” he asked eagerly, almost tripping in his haste.
Remus looked at James.
“There are lace things,” James said, gesturing vaguely toward the illustration on Remus’s lap. “Holding the bouncy part to the other bits.”
“And we’re going to steal pokers to make the standy-uppy not-bouncing stuff,” put in Sirius.
“I see you’re already fluent in the technical speak of Muggles,” said Remus, dryly.
“Don’t you just love the way language is so flexible?” asked Sirius, fingers fluttering up Remus’s side to make the other laugh before his hand was smacked away.
“So you’re in?” asked James, eagerly.
“Oh no. No no no, absolutely not.” Remus pushed the book back into Sirius’s hands.
“Awww come on Moony, it’ll be fun.”
“It’s going to be brilliant!”
“We’ll live in legend.”
Remus eyed his three friends one by one. “Time to eat, isn’t it?” he suggested, employing the one sure-fire tactic that could derail Marauder-think.
James leapt up from the spot he’d claimed on the arm of a chair. “Treacle tart,” he said, reverently.
Peter dropped the rope and dashed to the portrait hole. “I’ll run ahead, save us a space!”
“Yar!” This from Sirius.
Remus eyed his boyfriend as he was pulled up off the couch. “Yar?”
“Pirates,” shrugged Sirius.
So that explained that.
~*~
It was three and a half weeks before Remus heard anything more, a particularly dull Sunday afternoon shattering into pieces as Peter burst into the dorm, face cherry-red from exertion. “They did it, they did it!” he crowed, before sinking to the floor in exhaustion. Against the laws of biology and physics, he seemed to have run all the way from wherever he’d been to where he was now.
Remus looked up from his trunk where, if anyone asked, he was looking for errant chocolate frogs and definitely not arranging his balled up socks in color order. “Did what?”
“The trampoline! It’s done!”
“Please tell me Sirius is wearing trousers.”
“Under his robes?” Peter looked baffled. “Of course. Why wouldn’t he?”
Remus decided it probably wasn’t the best time to inflict Sirius’s theory of “Why Air Around the Goolies Is A Good Thing for Wizarding Kind,” and merely stood. “Lead on,” he said with grim fascination, hauling Peter back to his feet.
It took fifteen minutes to walk to the marginally secluded area of the grounds where the trampoline stood. The concealment charm around it was inexpertly cast, and the culprits had forgotten their silencing spells altogether. Shouts of “WOO!” and “YAAR!” drifted up from the edge of the forbidden forest, where the air was rippling with something Remus could only describe as atmospheric fury. Concentrating his mind on a memory of the illustration in his textbook, Remus watched as the charm faded to reveal two of four Marauders bouncing like nitwits.
“Remus!” yelled Sirius with delight, stocking feet akimbo as he gestured mid-air with both his arms and legs. “Isn’t. It. Brilliant?”
James whooped as he leapt past Sirius’s beaming face. “Bloody. Triumph!” he shouted, glasses threatening to fly into the bushes with every bounce. “We’re. Fucking. Geniuses!”
Remus shook his head, smiling. With a quick wave of his wand he wove a silencing spell into the concealment charm, and tightened the entire framework of protection with two jinxes to warn if anyone else should approach. “You’re the most deranged things I’ve ever seen,” he said, cheerfully.
“Aren’t we?” gasped Sirius, trying to bounce onto his hands and failing miserably. He skidded over the side of the trampoline and thudded to the ground. “Yar!” he said, sitting up, face smeared with dirt and a satisfied grin.
“You’re quite the rapscallion,” said Remus walking over and bending to offer him a hand.
“Can’t be,” said Sirius, standing. “I took that medicine Pomfrey gave me as soon as the rash showed up.”
James appeared at the edge of the trampoline above them, panting in a gloriously happy fashion. “You want a turn?” He gestured over his shoulder.
“Definitely not,” said Remus. “Quite happy to continue my tedious but mutually beneficial relationship with solid ground.”
James bent to flick two fingers against Remus’s temple. “You lousy stick-in-the-mud,” he said, but there was no malice in his smile as he turned away. “Oy, Wormtail, haul your lazy arse up here.”
Sirius smiled with satisfaction at Remus’s soft laughter, threading their fingers together. “You sure you don’t want to try?” he asked, tugging gently.
“No.” Remus shook his head, decisive. “I’d just make a fool of myself.”
“That’s kind of the point.”
“I’m still trying to get the stains out of my jumper from the last damn-fool thing you persuaded me to do.”
Sirius grinned. “But wasn’t it fun?”
That smile, thought Remus, ought to be illegal for the way it made his fingertips itch. He reached over to brush a speck of dirt from Sirius’s nose, smiling as the latter went momentarily cross-eyed. “Let me watch, Padfoot. I’d rather.”
“Hmpf.” Sirius squeezed his hand and brushed his lips over Remus’s cheek, heart swelling with pride at the blush that spread there in response. “I will see you bounce, Master Lupin. I will, mark my words.”
And he was gone, pulling himself up onto the canvas with a fluid motion that left Remus dry-mouthed, before deliberately bouncing himself into Wormtail and forcing the shorter boy onto his side, yelping with laughter.
~*~
It was an easy thing to steal James’ invisibility cloak after the boisterous afternoon that followed.
“Not s’tired,” Sirius had yawned over dinner, dropping potatoes in his lap as he missed his mouth.
“Nope.” James had his eyes closed, his head propped on one hand. “Wide awake. Mischief to . . . “ A yawn. “Although perhaps bed . . . wouldn’t . . . “
Peter merely contributed wet snores, face down in a plate of mushy peas.
Despite the continuing protestations of Padfoot and Prongs (Wormtail never really gaining consciousness again) it was not much past 10’oclock when they gave up the fight against sleep and began to fracture the peace of their dorm with whiffles and snores. By that point it was no challenge at all for Remus to wrap himself in the cloak, pass through the castle and steal through the grounds, his mind bent on a mental image of the trampoline. Eventually safe within the protection of the concealment charm, Remus dropped the cloak, toed off his shoes, and scrambled onto the canvas. The fabric gave slightly under his feet, and the urge to laugh bubbled gently in his stomach. “I am not thinking about James’ underpants,” he whispered, chuckling against his better judgment. “I am not thinking about James’ underpants.”
After reaching the center of the trampoline, Remus gave an experimental hop, clearing the canvas by six inches or so before dropping back down. Encouraged, he put a little more force into bounce number two. He couldn’t help the small hiccough of laughter that accompanied bounce three, or the sense of exhilaration that grew jump by jump. By bounce number nineteen Remus Lupin (of the Self-Controlled Lupins) was laughing like a maniac, bouncing harder and higher with each attempt, arms flapping wildly about his head without so much as a passing relationship to the concept of grace.
“Fraud,” said a voice.
Remus shrieked and turned, peering into the darkness.
“Girlie screamer,” said Sirius, illuminating himself with his wand. “Charlatan.”
Remus grinned hopelessly, letting his bounces fade one by one until he could walk to the edge of the trampoline and sit, legs swinging. “Guilty,” he panted.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist,” said Sirius, smug.
“How’d you know I sneaked out?”
“Wasn’t asleep.”
He snorted. “Your impersonation was world class.”
Sirius shrugged. “I keep telling you, the only way to be sure I’m asleep is to be in bed with me, Moony.”
Remus ducked his head, smiling, cheeks already flushed from the jumping. “Mmmhmm.”
Sirius decided then and there that this was his favorite incarnation of Remus Lupin to date, pink-cheeked and breathless, undone by the suggestion of something he wanted but couldn’t quite yet take for himself. “I made this for you, you know,” he said, sticking his wand in the ground and hauling himself up on the trampoline to sit close.
“What?” Remus blinked. “This?”
“The dare was just convenient. I’d been looking for weeks for something to make you smile.” He trailed a finger along the line of Remus’s jaw. “Wanted to hear you laugh.”
“I laugh.”
“Yes, but it’s all so terribly polite, isn’t it?” Sirius tilted his head. “I wanted a belly-laugh, a rip-roaring guffaw that would bloom up from your toes. I wanted you to forget that people were watching and just laugh.”
Something inside Remus gave an awkward but pleasurable little squirm. “Padfoot,” he said, surprised.
Sirius shrugged. “It’s purely selfish. Anything less is an affront to my skills as a prankster and dipshit of the first water.” He smirked. “If you laughed until you peed, that’d be especially satisfying.”
Remus laughed softly. “Disgusting” he said, leaning forward to brush his lips across Sirius’s, and “thank you,” meaning everything. He was entirely unsure if he’d ever be able to make himself understood again given the way his mind was emptying of thought at the touch of Sirius’s hand against his thigh.
Grey eyes flashed. “You’re welcome.” Sirius was making up his mind to lean in and claim a more thorough kiss when Remus did the work for him, mouth parting on a gentle sigh, tongue dancing experimentally against his lips. With a small, low sound of pleasure, Sirius kissed back, tongue and teeth nudging playfully until he drew from Remus the particular little whimper that sent a thrill up his spine. He drew back, breath coming in short bursts as he pressed a slow kiss below Remus’s ear. “You should jump,” he whispered at last. “While you have the trampoline all to yourself.”
“Don’t want to jump by myself,” said Remus, voice half-breaking on the edge of something warm as Sirius tugged on an earlobe.
“I’ve seen you flail,” teased Sirius. “I could be seriously injured if we play this as a team sport.”
Remus made the most delightful noise. “Dear God,” he said, covering his mouth with his hand. “I think I just chortled.”
“I am a fucking genius!” yelled Sirius, scrambling to his feet, spreading his arms to the heavens. “I pull chortles from the lips of men!”
Remus laughed, joining him near the middle of the canvas. “Ridiculous,” he said, beginning to bounce.
Sirius could only grin. “You should talk,” he said, bouncing in counterpoint, gesturing toward the whiplash of limbs that was the gymnastic style of Remus Lupin. “It’s like you’re honestly . . . trying . . . to kill . . . me . . . “ He yelped as he was hit in the head by a deranged hand. “Remus!”
But Remus was laughing too hard to care, throwing himself about the canvas with what could only be termed wild abandon. “Fantastic!” he gasped. “Brilliant!”
“Sport. Of champions,” yelled Sirius.
“Of wizards!”
“Geniuses!”
“Lords!”
“Ladies!”
“Great. Big. DOGS.”
Sirius disassembled at that, losing all rhythm and slumping to a gurgling halt. “You’re mad!” he laughed, delightedly.
Remus forced himself to slow before launching toward his boyfriend, grabbing him by the waist and sending them both sprawling across the canvas. They skidded to an unwholesome and unattractive halt. “Oh God, that’s gonna burn,” said Remus, still laughing weakly.
Sirius lifted his head to study their tangle of limbs. “We’re fucked,” he murmured, happily. “Can’t begin to work out what’s yours and mine.”
Remus wriggled enough to tuck himself under Sirius’s chin, head pillowed on his shoulder. “Thank you,” he smiled. “This was . . . “
Sirius shifted, and the tangle of limbs became a fit of sorts, two warm bodies curled into one another in perfect contentment. “No, this is,” he finished, bringing a hand to rest against Remus’s hair.
“Sirius?” Remus’s voice was small now as he caught his breath, contented.
“Hmmmm?”
“You just . . . you see things I don’t,” came the cautious reply. “You get the bits of me I never understand.” Remus traced patterns with one finger against Sirius’s shirt. “Thank you.”
Sirius felt his chest tighten with something that made the back of his eyes smart, and pressed a kiss to the tousled head nestled so close to his. “Nothing to it,” he said, mangling a yawn with a laugh. “Completely simple. I’m a fucking genius. Keep up, Moony, keep up.”
“I mean to,” said Remus, thoughtfully. “And to find out other things.”
“Things?” hummed Sirius, already mostly asleep, worn down by the exertions of more bouncing in a day already full.
Remus nuzzled close. “To be sure you’re really asleep tonight for one," he smiled.
His only answer came in the form of a soft, whiffling snore.
Author: sheafrotherdon
Rating: PG-13 (for language)
Pairing: R/S
Disclaimer: JKR owns the pups, I merely play with them
X-Posted to: two_boys, remusxsirius and shacking_up
Summary: Sirius Black is a Boy With Ideas. Remus Lupin is the target of his cunning plan. James merely loses his underpants.
A/N: Feedback is, as ever, loved, adored, and fed tidbits from my Thanksgiving table.
The day Remus Lupin discovered Sirius Black reading a large Muggle Studies textbook was the day he felt sure he would see - should he look out the window -- nifflers flying out of an erumpent’s behind.
“Merlin on a crumpet,” he said, crossing the common room toward the couch on which Sirius lounged.
“Hot and buttered crusty wizards?” asked Sirius, looking up from under his lashes. “My, my, you know just how to turn me into trembling putty.”
Remus cuffed him none too gently about the head before sitting down on the small square of couch not covered by the sprawl of Sirius’s limbs. “Muggle Studies?” He nodded toward the book. “Can the seven Quintapeds of the Apocalypse be far behind?”
“Cutting, cutting,” said Sirius, shaking his head sadly. “Just because I don’t join you in the ritual snogging of parchment doesn’t mean I’m not interested in the written word.”
Remus sighed. “It was just the one time. And I was sniffing the new parchment smell.”
Sirius looked at him with pity. “We all have our kinks, Remus. There’s no need to be ashamed.”
Remus searched for a suitable reply and, finding none, settled for a thoroughly scathing look. “Any particular reason you’re reading my book?” he asked.
Sirius sat up and thrust the text into Remus’ hands. “Look at this brilliance,” he said in the familiar tones of a Boy With Ideas.
Remus warily glanced at the full color illustration on the open page. His jaw worked uselessly. “Huh?” he offered at last.
“It’s a trampoline,” explained Sirius, as if speaking a foreign language to a particularly obtuse child.
“I know what it is,” Remus replied.
“It’s for bouncing,” continued Sirius, as if he hadn’t heard. “You know how I love to bounce.”
“Yes . . . “ Remus chewed thoughtfully on his bottom lip, recalling the many hexes, jinxes, and charms to which he’d been witness as Sirius pursued the elusive goal of perfection in bouncing. “Just one of your many troubling traits.”
Sirius looked affronted. “Troubling?” He shook his head as if to clear a nasty vision. “Bouncing is an ancient and noble sport.”
“Oh well, that explains it.”
“Practiced among the best boy-wizards in the world, an outlet for their limitless and exuberant energy.”
“Quite.”
“A mark of superior physical strength and cunning mind.”
“Indeed.”
“A marriage of movement and giddy-giddy-gumdropness . . . “
“That’s definitely not a word.”
“. . . GUMdropness,” repeated Sirius, with force, “with benefits for the lungs, the muscles, and containing the cure for scurvy, rickets, and dropsy if I’m not very much mistaken.”
Remus arched an eyebrow. “Scandalous outbreak of rickets around here,” he mused. “Good thing you’re on the case.”
“I’m sure Pomfrey will give me some kind of award,” Sirius replied, blithely.
“So . . .” Remus tapped the page with his finger. “Leaving aside the question of why you would ever crack open a Muggle Studies book in the first place . . . “
“James dared me.”
James’ dares usually involved something a little more exotic than textbooks - flames and ornamental cabbages, for example, or an Austrian folk-dancing costume and three neon green shoelaces. Remus shuddered at the memory of a particularly complex dare that had ended with four drenched and naked Marauders dripping sheepishly on Professor McGonagall’s rug while she attempted to break the charm on a mango that was sporting six legs and an antenna. Remus looked again at the book in his hands. “Dared you?”
Sirius nodded. “Dared me to find something in this book we could use heighten our already unparalleled reputation for brilliance and invention.” He gave a cheerful grin. “There are bonus points if we almost kill ourselves laughing.”
“But how on earth are you going to . . . “
His question was answered as James jumped down the last few steps from the dormitory. “I think we could transfigure . . . “ Spotting Remus he stopped short and stuffed something that looked suspiciously like a pair of underpants into his pocket. “ ’lo Remus.”
Remus arched an eyebrow. “You’re planning to transfigure your underwear into a trampoline?”
“They’re stretchy,” offered Sirius, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“I just hope they’re clean,” said Remus as James passed, ducking the blow the latter aimed squarely at his head.
It was at that moment that Peter burst from the portrait-hole, great loops of rope in his arms. “Will this work?” he asked eagerly, almost tripping in his haste.
Remus looked at James.
“There are lace things,” James said, gesturing vaguely toward the illustration on Remus’s lap. “Holding the bouncy part to the other bits.”
“And we’re going to steal pokers to make the standy-uppy not-bouncing stuff,” put in Sirius.
“I see you’re already fluent in the technical speak of Muggles,” said Remus, dryly.
“Don’t you just love the way language is so flexible?” asked Sirius, fingers fluttering up Remus’s side to make the other laugh before his hand was smacked away.
“So you’re in?” asked James, eagerly.
“Oh no. No no no, absolutely not.” Remus pushed the book back into Sirius’s hands.
“Awww come on Moony, it’ll be fun.”
“It’s going to be brilliant!”
“We’ll live in legend.”
Remus eyed his three friends one by one. “Time to eat, isn’t it?” he suggested, employing the one sure-fire tactic that could derail Marauder-think.
James leapt up from the spot he’d claimed on the arm of a chair. “Treacle tart,” he said, reverently.
Peter dropped the rope and dashed to the portrait hole. “I’ll run ahead, save us a space!”
“Yar!” This from Sirius.
Remus eyed his boyfriend as he was pulled up off the couch. “Yar?”
“Pirates,” shrugged Sirius.
So that explained that.
~*~
It was three and a half weeks before Remus heard anything more, a particularly dull Sunday afternoon shattering into pieces as Peter burst into the dorm, face cherry-red from exertion. “They did it, they did it!” he crowed, before sinking to the floor in exhaustion. Against the laws of biology and physics, he seemed to have run all the way from wherever he’d been to where he was now.
Remus looked up from his trunk where, if anyone asked, he was looking for errant chocolate frogs and definitely not arranging his balled up socks in color order. “Did what?”
“The trampoline! It’s done!”
“Please tell me Sirius is wearing trousers.”
“Under his robes?” Peter looked baffled. “Of course. Why wouldn’t he?”
Remus decided it probably wasn’t the best time to inflict Sirius’s theory of “Why Air Around the Goolies Is A Good Thing for Wizarding Kind,” and merely stood. “Lead on,” he said with grim fascination, hauling Peter back to his feet.
It took fifteen minutes to walk to the marginally secluded area of the grounds where the trampoline stood. The concealment charm around it was inexpertly cast, and the culprits had forgotten their silencing spells altogether. Shouts of “WOO!” and “YAAR!” drifted up from the edge of the forbidden forest, where the air was rippling with something Remus could only describe as atmospheric fury. Concentrating his mind on a memory of the illustration in his textbook, Remus watched as the charm faded to reveal two of four Marauders bouncing like nitwits.
“Remus!” yelled Sirius with delight, stocking feet akimbo as he gestured mid-air with both his arms and legs. “Isn’t. It. Brilliant?”
James whooped as he leapt past Sirius’s beaming face. “Bloody. Triumph!” he shouted, glasses threatening to fly into the bushes with every bounce. “We’re. Fucking. Geniuses!”
Remus shook his head, smiling. With a quick wave of his wand he wove a silencing spell into the concealment charm, and tightened the entire framework of protection with two jinxes to warn if anyone else should approach. “You’re the most deranged things I’ve ever seen,” he said, cheerfully.
“Aren’t we?” gasped Sirius, trying to bounce onto his hands and failing miserably. He skidded over the side of the trampoline and thudded to the ground. “Yar!” he said, sitting up, face smeared with dirt and a satisfied grin.
“You’re quite the rapscallion,” said Remus walking over and bending to offer him a hand.
“Can’t be,” said Sirius, standing. “I took that medicine Pomfrey gave me as soon as the rash showed up.”
James appeared at the edge of the trampoline above them, panting in a gloriously happy fashion. “You want a turn?” He gestured over his shoulder.
“Definitely not,” said Remus. “Quite happy to continue my tedious but mutually beneficial relationship with solid ground.”
James bent to flick two fingers against Remus’s temple. “You lousy stick-in-the-mud,” he said, but there was no malice in his smile as he turned away. “Oy, Wormtail, haul your lazy arse up here.”
Sirius smiled with satisfaction at Remus’s soft laughter, threading their fingers together. “You sure you don’t want to try?” he asked, tugging gently.
“No.” Remus shook his head, decisive. “I’d just make a fool of myself.”
“That’s kind of the point.”
“I’m still trying to get the stains out of my jumper from the last damn-fool thing you persuaded me to do.”
Sirius grinned. “But wasn’t it fun?”
That smile, thought Remus, ought to be illegal for the way it made his fingertips itch. He reached over to brush a speck of dirt from Sirius’s nose, smiling as the latter went momentarily cross-eyed. “Let me watch, Padfoot. I’d rather.”
“Hmpf.” Sirius squeezed his hand and brushed his lips over Remus’s cheek, heart swelling with pride at the blush that spread there in response. “I will see you bounce, Master Lupin. I will, mark my words.”
And he was gone, pulling himself up onto the canvas with a fluid motion that left Remus dry-mouthed, before deliberately bouncing himself into Wormtail and forcing the shorter boy onto his side, yelping with laughter.
~*~
It was an easy thing to steal James’ invisibility cloak after the boisterous afternoon that followed.
“Not s’tired,” Sirius had yawned over dinner, dropping potatoes in his lap as he missed his mouth.
“Nope.” James had his eyes closed, his head propped on one hand. “Wide awake. Mischief to . . . “ A yawn. “Although perhaps bed . . . wouldn’t . . . “
Peter merely contributed wet snores, face down in a plate of mushy peas.
Despite the continuing protestations of Padfoot and Prongs (Wormtail never really gaining consciousness again) it was not much past 10’oclock when they gave up the fight against sleep and began to fracture the peace of their dorm with whiffles and snores. By that point it was no challenge at all for Remus to wrap himself in the cloak, pass through the castle and steal through the grounds, his mind bent on a mental image of the trampoline. Eventually safe within the protection of the concealment charm, Remus dropped the cloak, toed off his shoes, and scrambled onto the canvas. The fabric gave slightly under his feet, and the urge to laugh bubbled gently in his stomach. “I am not thinking about James’ underpants,” he whispered, chuckling against his better judgment. “I am not thinking about James’ underpants.”
After reaching the center of the trampoline, Remus gave an experimental hop, clearing the canvas by six inches or so before dropping back down. Encouraged, he put a little more force into bounce number two. He couldn’t help the small hiccough of laughter that accompanied bounce three, or the sense of exhilaration that grew jump by jump. By bounce number nineteen Remus Lupin (of the Self-Controlled Lupins) was laughing like a maniac, bouncing harder and higher with each attempt, arms flapping wildly about his head without so much as a passing relationship to the concept of grace.
“Fraud,” said a voice.
Remus shrieked and turned, peering into the darkness.
“Girlie screamer,” said Sirius, illuminating himself with his wand. “Charlatan.”
Remus grinned hopelessly, letting his bounces fade one by one until he could walk to the edge of the trampoline and sit, legs swinging. “Guilty,” he panted.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist,” said Sirius, smug.
“How’d you know I sneaked out?”
“Wasn’t asleep.”
He snorted. “Your impersonation was world class.”
Sirius shrugged. “I keep telling you, the only way to be sure I’m asleep is to be in bed with me, Moony.”
Remus ducked his head, smiling, cheeks already flushed from the jumping. “Mmmhmm.”
Sirius decided then and there that this was his favorite incarnation of Remus Lupin to date, pink-cheeked and breathless, undone by the suggestion of something he wanted but couldn’t quite yet take for himself. “I made this for you, you know,” he said, sticking his wand in the ground and hauling himself up on the trampoline to sit close.
“What?” Remus blinked. “This?”
“The dare was just convenient. I’d been looking for weeks for something to make you smile.” He trailed a finger along the line of Remus’s jaw. “Wanted to hear you laugh.”
“I laugh.”
“Yes, but it’s all so terribly polite, isn’t it?” Sirius tilted his head. “I wanted a belly-laugh, a rip-roaring guffaw that would bloom up from your toes. I wanted you to forget that people were watching and just laugh.”
Something inside Remus gave an awkward but pleasurable little squirm. “Padfoot,” he said, surprised.
Sirius shrugged. “It’s purely selfish. Anything less is an affront to my skills as a prankster and dipshit of the first water.” He smirked. “If you laughed until you peed, that’d be especially satisfying.”
Remus laughed softly. “Disgusting” he said, leaning forward to brush his lips across Sirius’s, and “thank you,” meaning everything. He was entirely unsure if he’d ever be able to make himself understood again given the way his mind was emptying of thought at the touch of Sirius’s hand against his thigh.
Grey eyes flashed. “You’re welcome.” Sirius was making up his mind to lean in and claim a more thorough kiss when Remus did the work for him, mouth parting on a gentle sigh, tongue dancing experimentally against his lips. With a small, low sound of pleasure, Sirius kissed back, tongue and teeth nudging playfully until he drew from Remus the particular little whimper that sent a thrill up his spine. He drew back, breath coming in short bursts as he pressed a slow kiss below Remus’s ear. “You should jump,” he whispered at last. “While you have the trampoline all to yourself.”
“Don’t want to jump by myself,” said Remus, voice half-breaking on the edge of something warm as Sirius tugged on an earlobe.
“I’ve seen you flail,” teased Sirius. “I could be seriously injured if we play this as a team sport.”
Remus made the most delightful noise. “Dear God,” he said, covering his mouth with his hand. “I think I just chortled.”
“I am a fucking genius!” yelled Sirius, scrambling to his feet, spreading his arms to the heavens. “I pull chortles from the lips of men!”
Remus laughed, joining him near the middle of the canvas. “Ridiculous,” he said, beginning to bounce.
Sirius could only grin. “You should talk,” he said, bouncing in counterpoint, gesturing toward the whiplash of limbs that was the gymnastic style of Remus Lupin. “It’s like you’re honestly . . . trying . . . to kill . . . me . . . “ He yelped as he was hit in the head by a deranged hand. “Remus!”
But Remus was laughing too hard to care, throwing himself about the canvas with what could only be termed wild abandon. “Fantastic!” he gasped. “Brilliant!”
“Sport. Of champions,” yelled Sirius.
“Of wizards!”
“Geniuses!”
“Lords!”
“Ladies!”
“Great. Big. DOGS.”
Sirius disassembled at that, losing all rhythm and slumping to a gurgling halt. “You’re mad!” he laughed, delightedly.
Remus forced himself to slow before launching toward his boyfriend, grabbing him by the waist and sending them both sprawling across the canvas. They skidded to an unwholesome and unattractive halt. “Oh God, that’s gonna burn,” said Remus, still laughing weakly.
Sirius lifted his head to study their tangle of limbs. “We’re fucked,” he murmured, happily. “Can’t begin to work out what’s yours and mine.”
Remus wriggled enough to tuck himself under Sirius’s chin, head pillowed on his shoulder. “Thank you,” he smiled. “This was . . . “
Sirius shifted, and the tangle of limbs became a fit of sorts, two warm bodies curled into one another in perfect contentment. “No, this is,” he finished, bringing a hand to rest against Remus’s hair.
“Sirius?” Remus’s voice was small now as he caught his breath, contented.
“Hmmmm?”
“You just . . . you see things I don’t,” came the cautious reply. “You get the bits of me I never understand.” Remus traced patterns with one finger against Sirius’s shirt. “Thank you.”
Sirius felt his chest tighten with something that made the back of his eyes smart, and pressed a kiss to the tousled head nestled so close to his. “Nothing to it,” he said, mangling a yawn with a laugh. “Completely simple. I’m a fucking genius. Keep up, Moony, keep up.”
“I mean to,” said Remus, thoughtfully. “And to find out other things.”
“Things?” hummed Sirius, already mostly asleep, worn down by the exertions of more bouncing in a day already full.
Remus nuzzled close. “To be sure you’re really asleep tonight for one," he smiled.
His only answer came in the form of a soft, whiffling snore.