Fic: The Drumming Story for mezzopianoforte
Title: The Drumming Story
Author: rosemaryandrue
Recipient: mezzopianoforte
Rating: PG, for an odd swear or two. Sheer fluff, this one
Highlight for Warnings: *None, unless you're prone to developing sympathetic twitches *drums fingers against chair arm* *
Word Count: 2959
Summary: There's a drumming sound inside my head / That starts when you're around... In which Sirius just can't stop tapping.
Author's notes: Thank you to the ever lovely penhaligonblue who betaed this for me on Christmas Eve, because she is just that awesome. Thank you for providing such a fab prompt, mezzopianoforte. This was a delight to write.
Tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap-tap. Tappity-tappity-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tappity-tap. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tappity. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Sirius couldn't stop himself, even when he noticed Remus' shoulders slowly growing more and more tense beside him. The desks in here gave out a lovely oaken echo under his fingertips, and it was just too tempting.
Tap-tap. Tap-tappity-tappity. Tap.
“Will you stop that?” Remus whispered.
Sirius stopped at once. He sent Remus a look which was supposed to suggest that only his utmost and sincerest respect for a certain hard-working prefect could possibly have persuaded him to abandon a pastime which was giving him more joy and fulfilment than any lesson had provided him since the beginning of time.
“And don't make faces at me,” Remus added and turned back to his work, starting to scribble at frantic speed to keep up with McGonagall's lecture. Sirius, who knew all this from the animagus work they had done years ago, just jotted down the key points, using the neat, copperplate hand that drove McGonagall batty (Why is it, Mr Black, that the only orderly thing in your nature is your penmanship? No, Mr Black, you are not naturally perverse, now do be quiet.)
He went back to eyeing Remus, studying the curve of Remus' ear where it showed through his hair. It was a nice ear, Sirius thought gleefully, a sort of long, lean I am not to be corrupted with your reckless and immature schemes but with a long bumpy lobe which added slyly, But let me amend your idiotic scheme so it actually works and I might be persuaded to join you.
His pen began to twitch in his fingers, but Sirius stilled it, with a huge effort. Remus' hair sat on top of his ear in a hilarious, jutting curl, sticking out in a way that demanded to be tugged. But pulling anyone's hair in lessons was Not Allowed, according to a unanimous vote of the seventeenth of November, 1973, in response to one Miss L. Evans and her formal declaration of war upon the terms of 'Leave my hair alone or I will see you expelled, all of you, if it's the last thing I do, I swear.'
His foot began to tap, beating out, Re-mus Lu-pin, Re-mus Lu-pin, tap-tap, tap-tap. Then he realised what he was doing, and, to put Remus off the scent, added a rattle of other beats, Tappity-tap-tappity-tappity-tap-tap.
“The gentleman who is tapping his foot will stop immediately,” said McGongall, without turning away from the board. “Or he will find his feet permanently transfigured into door-knockers.”
Peter had done that to him temporarily once, back in third year when they first started researching animagi and Sirius had been too excited to ever sit still. It had been a uniquely graceless two days, especially after he got banned from flying in the halls, so he stilled his feet immediately. Once was enough.
He couldn't quite stop twitching, though.
Beside him, Remus' scribble sped up to a blotched mess of loops and squiggles. Then, he paused to tear a strip off the bottom of his page, moving so slowly and carefully that the parting paper made not a sound. Sirius watched his fingers moving, fascinated by their length and precise movements, the bitten nails and knobbly knuckles all moving with a contained grace. He wondered how they would feel-
His shoulders started to bounce and he looked back at his own notes hastily.
Twitch-twitch, twitch-twitch.
The strip of parchment fluttered up the side of his desk, landing on his page with a little huffy shrug of its paper wings. Then it flopped down and Sirius squinted at Remus' scrawl to read, Have you been hexed? Jitterbug jinx?
Touched to the heart, Sirius printed, NO!!!! and flicked it back.
He heard Remus' little sigh of exasperation, but he was behind with his own notes now. Focussing for a few moments, he noted down keywords and a quick diagram.
Remus' note was on the move again, this time towards James. It bumped the back of his head and James reached up to grab it, still writing.
“Question, Mr Potter?” McGonagall asked without turning around.
“Is that zygomorphic with a z or an x, professor?” James asked smoothly.
A minute later the note came spearing back to Sirius. He grabbed it out of mid-air. Below his answer, Remus had sprawled, Prongs, he's lying. He keeps twitching. What have you been up to? Then James had written, in a schoolhand almost as neat as Sirius' Pads, you freaky pervert, control yourself!
Remus was discreetly craning to see, so Sirius hurriedly rolled the note up and ate it. Some friend James was. Where was the acknowledgement of his stoic and manly suffering? Piqued, he caught up with his notes again and then settled to charming a pink stripe up the back of James' head, hair by hair, not in the least put off by the sudden fit of coughing from a certain red-haired prefect behind him.
#
Once the lesson was over, he bolted for open space, drumming his way downstairs, sides of his hands hard and sharp on the bannisters until the stairs below him bucked and sent him soaring to the next landing. He landed on his feet, to a smattering of applause, and bowed generously before dashing to catch up with his friends.
“You were right,” Peter said to Remus as Sirius shoved between them, elbowing them both in greeting (though the elbow on Peter's side was much more jabbing). “He's completely lost his mind.”
“Left it in your mum's bed,” Sirius said automatically.
They both ignored him, although Remus said, “It's going to be like third year all over again.”
“He almost died in third year,” Peter said glumly.
“How can you die of drumming?” Evans demanded, catching up with them. “Did he forget to eat?”
“No,” Peter said, removing Sirius' fist from his collar. “I almost killed him. Don't you remember the drumming, Evans? The endless, never-ending drumming.”
“Tautology,” Sirius crowed and rapped it out on the top of Peter's head - tap, tap-tap-tap.
“I remember him being sent out of half his lessons,” Lily said, “and the Prewetts tying him to his chair in the common room.”
“He drummed in his sleep,” Peter said. “We put him in a full body-bind and he clacked his teeth together. Never again. This time, I'll kill him first.”
“I had a lot on my mind,” Sirius said. “It's a hard time in a man's life.”
“What, because your voice was the last to break?” Peter asked, ducking away.
Sirius ignored that foul calumny to flick at Remus' earlobe. Flick-flick, flick-flick.
Remus put his hand over Sirius', stilling him, and said, “Stop that.”
Sirius did, trying with all his might to walk sensibly, even though the warmth of Remus' hand made him want to dance and bounce along the hall. Things were getting out of control.
It was all Remus' fault, he was sure (because if he couldn't blame Remus, he had to blame himself and he'd already failed to meet too many expectations to spawn yet another impulse beyond his control). It had started so small, just a little shiver and twitch when he sat too close to Remus or brushed against him in the corridors, a jolt on contact which sent his pulse scrambling and his heart jumping. So he had started to study Remus, wondering, what's this, then? The more he had looked, the worse it got, until the very sight of Remus had the hairs standing up on his arm and his pulse beating out: Touch him, touch him.
It had taken him months to realise what this thing was. His friends were - well, they were his brothers and his comrades in arms and his co-conspirators and he felt things for them he wasn't going to put into words, things Blacks weren't meant to feel for those who weren't of the blood, but that was different. He could ramble out every thought flitting across his mind to James, could put Peter in a headlock just for existing and not mind when Peter hit back, but neither of them made him shiver and fidget like Remus did,
All that had fallen out of his mouth one night last summer, and James, on the other side of the tent, had propped himself up on one elbow and said incredulously, “You fancy him.”
“I do not!” Sirius had retorted immediately and it hadn't been until James sat on his back and knocked his head against the ground a few times, that it had really dawned on him and he'd stuttered, “Oh, fuck, I do. How the hell did that happen, Prongs?”
Of course, the problem was that Remus didn't know. And he knew Remus, knew him too well, and he was horribly, mortally afraid of Remus' tendency to give his friends anything they wanted. So Remus couldn't know, couldn't be allowed to notice, unless it was clear that he wanted something too; had wanted it even without noticing that Sirius was, well, twitching at him.
So no flirting allowed. No innuendo-heavy remarks. No accidental groping, no drooling (even as Padfoot), no filching of Remus' chewed up quills (“That's it, Wormtail. Strip him so we can find out where he's been hiding his boobs.”).
But he could drum. And, as time passed, it just got worse. Now even the thought of Remus could get him thrumming his fingers against the surface, or ringing out different beats with the nearest bit of cutlery or glass.
Remus took his fork out of his hand without looking, cutting his rendition of Jingle Bells in half. “Cutlery is for eating with, Sirius.”
“I'm freeing it from the cruel confines of destiny,” Sirius said and Remus gave him another worried look.
“Are you feeling okay?”
“Never better,” Sirius said gloomily and began to shovel steak and kidney pie into his mouth.
Remus shuffled a little in his seat and muttered, “You're worrying me. You're acting very strangely.”
Sirius sighed and began to steal glasses from everyone sitting around them. He grabbed a couple of spoons as well, from girls too busy dieting to ever eat pudding, silly fools. As soon as he swallowed his last mouthful of pie, he let loose: spoons rattling down a row of glasses, fork against jug, two singing raps on an upturned bowl, rhythms building and crossing in a glorious cacophony. He thought he might call it Love Song in Glass and China or Symphony for Soup Tureen.
Then, mid-stroke, his spoons stuck to the jug and his fork glued itself to Peter's glass. He looked across the table to see Lily Evans glowering at him down the length of her wand. “Just stop,” she growled.
Experimentally, he lifted his fork and tapped the attached glass against the table top. Lily stuck the dishes to the table, and then, a few seconds later, his hands to the stilled forks. Not long after that, he found himself glued to his chair and the chair permanently fused to the floor of the hall. The girl had a certain lack of tolerance.
By the time he had been amputated from his meal, it was mid-evening. He plodded upstairs, tapping out a funeral march on the wall as he went along. In the common room, however, he discovered that Peter had saved him a chair and that Remus had filched two pieces of cake for him. Happier, he gripped his wand in his right hand, stole Kingsley Shacklebolt's for his left and started on the table. Coloured sparks and unintended hexes began to fly wildly as the beat grew faster and wilder, adding drama to the rhythm. The odd shriek in the background was merely the rest of the band, bound to his beat like a house elf was bound to its house.
A hand fell on his shoulder, and Remus said firmly, “Enough.”
Sirius dropped the wands and threw himself back into the chair with a groan.
Into the sudden silence, James said loudly, “So, Moony, caught anyone under the mistletoe yet?”
Sirius bolted upright, as Remus went still beside him and said, voice tight, “No, actually.”
“What no hanky-panky?” James asked, grinning as Sirius tried to convey through sheer body language that he was a foul and loathsome traitor who deserved to be boiled alive in a tub full of carnivorous eels. James knew who had been stealing all the mistletoe from the corridors Remus frequented.
“No,” Remus said.
“So who would you like to get under the mistletoe?” James demanded, leering.
“I don't actually care for mistletoe,” Remus said, in his politest and therefore most hostile tone.
“Sirius does,” James said. “Everyone wants to get him under the mistletoe.”
Sirius tried to use his eyebrows to signal, death, destruction and itching powder in your underwear.
“Even some of the blokes,” James added cheerily and Sirius went cold.
Remus' face went unreadable. “I wouldn't know anything about that.”
“Of course, he hasn't actually had as much as snog in a broom closet for months. Must be sav-”
At that point, Sirius lost all control, and launched himself across the table. His fists made a rather nice rhythm against James' skull, especially with the stress relief of James giving as good as he got.
By the time the fight was over, Remus had vanished.
#
Worried that Remus had somehow guessed, Sirius waited for him in the common room after everyone else had gone to bed. He amused himself by rattling a forgotten chocolate frog card along the bottom of the picture frames, at least until the little figure of Morgana began to glare at him, conveying in one glare his unspeakable immaturity.
Remus finally reappeared well after midnight. Sirius waited for him to get almost across the common room before he pounced.
Remus went down onto the sofa with a yelp, limbs flailing. Sirius took shameful advantage of the moment to press close, breathing in the grubby smell of ink and sweat and chocolate digestives that was Moony, before he had to roll off, or risk discovery. Kneeling beside the sofa, he planted one arm on Remus' stomach to stop him escaping and began to tap on Remus' hip. Kiss-me, Moon-y.
Remus stared at him, then put an arm over his eyes before demanding, “What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” Sirius said, grinning at him just because he was Moony. “I'm a fine specimen of manhood.”
“Whose behaviour is getting steadily crazier by the day.”
“It's in the blood,” Sirius said and did his Mad-Aunt-Cassie-who-lived-in-the-attic impression. Remus snorted at the first cackle and took his arm away from his eyes.
“You buggered off,” Sirius told him. “I played In the Deep Midwinter on James' skull.”
“Good for you,” Remus said. “I didn't like the conversation.”
“Are you snogging someone then?” Sirius asked, more sharply than he liked.
“No. Prongs just likes interfering in people's love lives.”
“Oh, I know,” Sirius said.
“Don't see why he can't get a shag of his own,” Remus muttered.
“Evans still hexes him if he gets within three feet.”
Remus snickered and relaxed back into the sofa. Sirius drummed up from his hip to his shoulder, a slow, contented beat. Behind them, the low fire flickered. The room was warm and shadowy, and through the window, he could see snow falling, a pale dance against the darkness.
“This problem of yours,” Remus said at last, voice very casual. “It has something to do with me, doesn't it?”
“It has nothing to do with you!” Sirius snapped, surging to his feet in dismay. “Nothing! It's my problem! Not yours!”
“Oh,” Remus said, and sat up, shoulders curling forwards. “I- I didn't think it would bother you. I mean, the other thing, the furry thing, that was fine. I thought-”
Sirius stared down at him, baffled. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”
“And then James started going on about it earlier, about boys fancying you, and you get twitchy every time I'm near you and Padfoot hasn't chewed any of my shoes in months, so I suppose it must be a problem.” He looked up, something a little hot and furious in his eyes. “And fuck you if it is. You should know I'd never do anything that you-”
“Shut up,” Sirius said, his knees folding up under him. He sagged down beside the sofa, head spinning. “Shut up for a moment.”
“You shut up,” Remus snapped. “You're the one with the problem.” He started to get up.
Sirius tackled him back down into the sofa. Still not entirely sure, he reached out and tapped his fingertips very gently against Remus' thigh. Tap-tap, tap-tap.
Remus twitched. And then he blushed.
“Why did you think I'd been drumming?” Sirius demanded.
“Uh,” Remus said. Then he shook his head, as if to clear it and grabbed Sirius by the collar, dragging him close. A breath away, he said, “I thought you'd gone crazy.”
“Crazy about-” Sirius started, smirking, but Remus cut him off with a kiss.
Later, much later, with Remus' warm and eager hands roaming under his robes and with his lips swollen from kissing, Sirius suddenly realised that he had absolutely no urge to drum at all. He had better things to do with his hands.
Author: rosemaryandrue
Recipient: mezzopianoforte
Rating: PG, for an odd swear or two. Sheer fluff, this one
Highlight for Warnings: *None, unless you're prone to developing sympathetic twitches *drums fingers against chair arm* *
Word Count: 2959
Summary: There's a drumming sound inside my head / That starts when you're around... In which Sirius just can't stop tapping.
Author's notes: Thank you to the ever lovely penhaligonblue who betaed this for me on Christmas Eve, because she is just that awesome. Thank you for providing such a fab prompt, mezzopianoforte. This was a delight to write.
Tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap-tap. Tappity-tappity-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tappity-tap. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tappity. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Sirius couldn't stop himself, even when he noticed Remus' shoulders slowly growing more and more tense beside him. The desks in here gave out a lovely oaken echo under his fingertips, and it was just too tempting.
Tap-tap. Tap-tappity-tappity. Tap.
“Will you stop that?” Remus whispered.
Sirius stopped at once. He sent Remus a look which was supposed to suggest that only his utmost and sincerest respect for a certain hard-working prefect could possibly have persuaded him to abandon a pastime which was giving him more joy and fulfilment than any lesson had provided him since the beginning of time.
“And don't make faces at me,” Remus added and turned back to his work, starting to scribble at frantic speed to keep up with McGonagall's lecture. Sirius, who knew all this from the animagus work they had done years ago, just jotted down the key points, using the neat, copperplate hand that drove McGonagall batty (Why is it, Mr Black, that the only orderly thing in your nature is your penmanship? No, Mr Black, you are not naturally perverse, now do be quiet.)
He went back to eyeing Remus, studying the curve of Remus' ear where it showed through his hair. It was a nice ear, Sirius thought gleefully, a sort of long, lean I am not to be corrupted with your reckless and immature schemes but with a long bumpy lobe which added slyly, But let me amend your idiotic scheme so it actually works and I might be persuaded to join you.
His pen began to twitch in his fingers, but Sirius stilled it, with a huge effort. Remus' hair sat on top of his ear in a hilarious, jutting curl, sticking out in a way that demanded to be tugged. But pulling anyone's hair in lessons was Not Allowed, according to a unanimous vote of the seventeenth of November, 1973, in response to one Miss L. Evans and her formal declaration of war upon the terms of 'Leave my hair alone or I will see you expelled, all of you, if it's the last thing I do, I swear.'
His foot began to tap, beating out, Re-mus Lu-pin, Re-mus Lu-pin, tap-tap, tap-tap. Then he realised what he was doing, and, to put Remus off the scent, added a rattle of other beats, Tappity-tap-tappity-tappity-tap-tap.
“The gentleman who is tapping his foot will stop immediately,” said McGongall, without turning away from the board. “Or he will find his feet permanently transfigured into door-knockers.”
Peter had done that to him temporarily once, back in third year when they first started researching animagi and Sirius had been too excited to ever sit still. It had been a uniquely graceless two days, especially after he got banned from flying in the halls, so he stilled his feet immediately. Once was enough.
He couldn't quite stop twitching, though.
Beside him, Remus' scribble sped up to a blotched mess of loops and squiggles. Then, he paused to tear a strip off the bottom of his page, moving so slowly and carefully that the parting paper made not a sound. Sirius watched his fingers moving, fascinated by their length and precise movements, the bitten nails and knobbly knuckles all moving with a contained grace. He wondered how they would feel-
His shoulders started to bounce and he looked back at his own notes hastily.
Twitch-twitch, twitch-twitch.
The strip of parchment fluttered up the side of his desk, landing on his page with a little huffy shrug of its paper wings. Then it flopped down and Sirius squinted at Remus' scrawl to read, Have you been hexed? Jitterbug jinx?
Touched to the heart, Sirius printed, NO!!!! and flicked it back.
He heard Remus' little sigh of exasperation, but he was behind with his own notes now. Focussing for a few moments, he noted down keywords and a quick diagram.
Remus' note was on the move again, this time towards James. It bumped the back of his head and James reached up to grab it, still writing.
“Question, Mr Potter?” McGonagall asked without turning around.
“Is that zygomorphic with a z or an x, professor?” James asked smoothly.
A minute later the note came spearing back to Sirius. He grabbed it out of mid-air. Below his answer, Remus had sprawled, Prongs, he's lying. He keeps twitching. What have you been up to? Then James had written, in a schoolhand almost as neat as Sirius' Pads, you freaky pervert, control yourself!
Remus was discreetly craning to see, so Sirius hurriedly rolled the note up and ate it. Some friend James was. Where was the acknowledgement of his stoic and manly suffering? Piqued, he caught up with his notes again and then settled to charming a pink stripe up the back of James' head, hair by hair, not in the least put off by the sudden fit of coughing from a certain red-haired prefect behind him.
#
Once the lesson was over, he bolted for open space, drumming his way downstairs, sides of his hands hard and sharp on the bannisters until the stairs below him bucked and sent him soaring to the next landing. He landed on his feet, to a smattering of applause, and bowed generously before dashing to catch up with his friends.
“You were right,” Peter said to Remus as Sirius shoved between them, elbowing them both in greeting (though the elbow on Peter's side was much more jabbing). “He's completely lost his mind.”
“Left it in your mum's bed,” Sirius said automatically.
They both ignored him, although Remus said, “It's going to be like third year all over again.”
“He almost died in third year,” Peter said glumly.
“How can you die of drumming?” Evans demanded, catching up with them. “Did he forget to eat?”
“No,” Peter said, removing Sirius' fist from his collar. “I almost killed him. Don't you remember the drumming, Evans? The endless, never-ending drumming.”
“Tautology,” Sirius crowed and rapped it out on the top of Peter's head - tap, tap-tap-tap.
“I remember him being sent out of half his lessons,” Lily said, “and the Prewetts tying him to his chair in the common room.”
“He drummed in his sleep,” Peter said. “We put him in a full body-bind and he clacked his teeth together. Never again. This time, I'll kill him first.”
“I had a lot on my mind,” Sirius said. “It's a hard time in a man's life.”
“What, because your voice was the last to break?” Peter asked, ducking away.
Sirius ignored that foul calumny to flick at Remus' earlobe. Flick-flick, flick-flick.
Remus put his hand over Sirius', stilling him, and said, “Stop that.”
Sirius did, trying with all his might to walk sensibly, even though the warmth of Remus' hand made him want to dance and bounce along the hall. Things were getting out of control.
It was all Remus' fault, he was sure (because if he couldn't blame Remus, he had to blame himself and he'd already failed to meet too many expectations to spawn yet another impulse beyond his control). It had started so small, just a little shiver and twitch when he sat too close to Remus or brushed against him in the corridors, a jolt on contact which sent his pulse scrambling and his heart jumping. So he had started to study Remus, wondering, what's this, then? The more he had looked, the worse it got, until the very sight of Remus had the hairs standing up on his arm and his pulse beating out: Touch him, touch him.
It had taken him months to realise what this thing was. His friends were - well, they were his brothers and his comrades in arms and his co-conspirators and he felt things for them he wasn't going to put into words, things Blacks weren't meant to feel for those who weren't of the blood, but that was different. He could ramble out every thought flitting across his mind to James, could put Peter in a headlock just for existing and not mind when Peter hit back, but neither of them made him shiver and fidget like Remus did,
All that had fallen out of his mouth one night last summer, and James, on the other side of the tent, had propped himself up on one elbow and said incredulously, “You fancy him.”
“I do not!” Sirius had retorted immediately and it hadn't been until James sat on his back and knocked his head against the ground a few times, that it had really dawned on him and he'd stuttered, “Oh, fuck, I do. How the hell did that happen, Prongs?”
Of course, the problem was that Remus didn't know. And he knew Remus, knew him too well, and he was horribly, mortally afraid of Remus' tendency to give his friends anything they wanted. So Remus couldn't know, couldn't be allowed to notice, unless it was clear that he wanted something too; had wanted it even without noticing that Sirius was, well, twitching at him.
So no flirting allowed. No innuendo-heavy remarks. No accidental groping, no drooling (even as Padfoot), no filching of Remus' chewed up quills (“That's it, Wormtail. Strip him so we can find out where he's been hiding his boobs.”).
But he could drum. And, as time passed, it just got worse. Now even the thought of Remus could get him thrumming his fingers against the surface, or ringing out different beats with the nearest bit of cutlery or glass.
Remus took his fork out of his hand without looking, cutting his rendition of Jingle Bells in half. “Cutlery is for eating with, Sirius.”
“I'm freeing it from the cruel confines of destiny,” Sirius said and Remus gave him another worried look.
“Are you feeling okay?”
“Never better,” Sirius said gloomily and began to shovel steak and kidney pie into his mouth.
Remus shuffled a little in his seat and muttered, “You're worrying me. You're acting very strangely.”
Sirius sighed and began to steal glasses from everyone sitting around them. He grabbed a couple of spoons as well, from girls too busy dieting to ever eat pudding, silly fools. As soon as he swallowed his last mouthful of pie, he let loose: spoons rattling down a row of glasses, fork against jug, two singing raps on an upturned bowl, rhythms building and crossing in a glorious cacophony. He thought he might call it Love Song in Glass and China or Symphony for Soup Tureen.
Then, mid-stroke, his spoons stuck to the jug and his fork glued itself to Peter's glass. He looked across the table to see Lily Evans glowering at him down the length of her wand. “Just stop,” she growled.
Experimentally, he lifted his fork and tapped the attached glass against the table top. Lily stuck the dishes to the table, and then, a few seconds later, his hands to the stilled forks. Not long after that, he found himself glued to his chair and the chair permanently fused to the floor of the hall. The girl had a certain lack of tolerance.
By the time he had been amputated from his meal, it was mid-evening. He plodded upstairs, tapping out a funeral march on the wall as he went along. In the common room, however, he discovered that Peter had saved him a chair and that Remus had filched two pieces of cake for him. Happier, he gripped his wand in his right hand, stole Kingsley Shacklebolt's for his left and started on the table. Coloured sparks and unintended hexes began to fly wildly as the beat grew faster and wilder, adding drama to the rhythm. The odd shriek in the background was merely the rest of the band, bound to his beat like a house elf was bound to its house.
A hand fell on his shoulder, and Remus said firmly, “Enough.”
Sirius dropped the wands and threw himself back into the chair with a groan.
Into the sudden silence, James said loudly, “So, Moony, caught anyone under the mistletoe yet?”
Sirius bolted upright, as Remus went still beside him and said, voice tight, “No, actually.”
“What no hanky-panky?” James asked, grinning as Sirius tried to convey through sheer body language that he was a foul and loathsome traitor who deserved to be boiled alive in a tub full of carnivorous eels. James knew who had been stealing all the mistletoe from the corridors Remus frequented.
“No,” Remus said.
“So who would you like to get under the mistletoe?” James demanded, leering.
“I don't actually care for mistletoe,” Remus said, in his politest and therefore most hostile tone.
“Sirius does,” James said. “Everyone wants to get him under the mistletoe.”
Sirius tried to use his eyebrows to signal, death, destruction and itching powder in your underwear.
“Even some of the blokes,” James added cheerily and Sirius went cold.
Remus' face went unreadable. “I wouldn't know anything about that.”
“Of course, he hasn't actually had as much as snog in a broom closet for months. Must be sav-”
At that point, Sirius lost all control, and launched himself across the table. His fists made a rather nice rhythm against James' skull, especially with the stress relief of James giving as good as he got.
By the time the fight was over, Remus had vanished.
#
Worried that Remus had somehow guessed, Sirius waited for him in the common room after everyone else had gone to bed. He amused himself by rattling a forgotten chocolate frog card along the bottom of the picture frames, at least until the little figure of Morgana began to glare at him, conveying in one glare his unspeakable immaturity.
Remus finally reappeared well after midnight. Sirius waited for him to get almost across the common room before he pounced.
Remus went down onto the sofa with a yelp, limbs flailing. Sirius took shameful advantage of the moment to press close, breathing in the grubby smell of ink and sweat and chocolate digestives that was Moony, before he had to roll off, or risk discovery. Kneeling beside the sofa, he planted one arm on Remus' stomach to stop him escaping and began to tap on Remus' hip. Kiss-me, Moon-y.
Remus stared at him, then put an arm over his eyes before demanding, “What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” Sirius said, grinning at him just because he was Moony. “I'm a fine specimen of manhood.”
“Whose behaviour is getting steadily crazier by the day.”
“It's in the blood,” Sirius said and did his Mad-Aunt-Cassie-who-lived-in-the-attic impression. Remus snorted at the first cackle and took his arm away from his eyes.
“You buggered off,” Sirius told him. “I played In the Deep Midwinter on James' skull.”
“Good for you,” Remus said. “I didn't like the conversation.”
“Are you snogging someone then?” Sirius asked, more sharply than he liked.
“No. Prongs just likes interfering in people's love lives.”
“Oh, I know,” Sirius said.
“Don't see why he can't get a shag of his own,” Remus muttered.
“Evans still hexes him if he gets within three feet.”
Remus snickered and relaxed back into the sofa. Sirius drummed up from his hip to his shoulder, a slow, contented beat. Behind them, the low fire flickered. The room was warm and shadowy, and through the window, he could see snow falling, a pale dance against the darkness.
“This problem of yours,” Remus said at last, voice very casual. “It has something to do with me, doesn't it?”
“It has nothing to do with you!” Sirius snapped, surging to his feet in dismay. “Nothing! It's my problem! Not yours!”
“Oh,” Remus said, and sat up, shoulders curling forwards. “I- I didn't think it would bother you. I mean, the other thing, the furry thing, that was fine. I thought-”
Sirius stared down at him, baffled. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”
“And then James started going on about it earlier, about boys fancying you, and you get twitchy every time I'm near you and Padfoot hasn't chewed any of my shoes in months, so I suppose it must be a problem.” He looked up, something a little hot and furious in his eyes. “And fuck you if it is. You should know I'd never do anything that you-”
“Shut up,” Sirius said, his knees folding up under him. He sagged down beside the sofa, head spinning. “Shut up for a moment.”
“You shut up,” Remus snapped. “You're the one with the problem.” He started to get up.
Sirius tackled him back down into the sofa. Still not entirely sure, he reached out and tapped his fingertips very gently against Remus' thigh. Tap-tap, tap-tap.
Remus twitched. And then he blushed.
“Why did you think I'd been drumming?” Sirius demanded.
“Uh,” Remus said. Then he shook his head, as if to clear it and grabbed Sirius by the collar, dragging him close. A breath away, he said, “I thought you'd gone crazy.”
“Crazy about-” Sirius started, smirking, but Remus cut him off with a kiss.
Later, much later, with Remus' warm and eager hands roaming under his robes and with his lips swollen from kissing, Sirius suddenly realised that he had absolutely no urge to drum at all. He had better things to do with his hands.