This story follows Certain Necessary Qualities in the Transfigured Hearts series and is set in the autumn of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Part One
"It's really not that difficult a concept, Moony," Sirius drawled from across the drawing room. "You just throw a pinch of Floo Powder in the damn fireplace, say, Tonks' Flat, and voila! There you are."
"Actually..." Remus replied without looking away from the fireplace he had, apparently, been staring vacantly into since Tonks' head had disappeared -- he drew his watch from his pocket -- eight minutes ago now. "You'd say, 115 Westbourne Park Terrance, Flat 10 as you tossed in the pinch of Floo Powder."
"My, my! Aren't we in a proper Prefect Lupin strop?"
Sirius' tone carried Remus back twenty years, and made him picture his mate's mocking expression that was deeply irritating, yet elicited no real ill-feeling, because that look belonged on Padfoot's aristocratic features.
And damn him if ninety-nine per-cent of the time he wasn't bloody right.
"When you get sarky about particulars," he said, "it can only mean it's your time of the month. Isn't that why you're mooning about, Moony?"
Drawing his legs up and propping his arms on them, Remus' fringe fell into his eyes as he dropped his head between his knees. "Why the hell did I say I'd go over there?"
"Swearing now? Tsk, tsk."
Sirius clucked his tongue, and Remus pictured him shaking his head as he pretended to work the Daily Prophet crossword -- though Remus knew he was really charming the articles to read as libellous stories about Minister Fudge, Dolores Umbridge, and every other Ministry official who offended him. Which was pretty much all of them.
"If I were to hazard a guess," Sirius said, "you agreed to go over because Tonks isn't a half-bad looking bird, and she opened the door wide for you get laid. Which you've still never done, have you?"
Massaging his temples, Remus said, "I meant it to be rhetorical question, not an open door for you to make me feel pathetic."
Parchment crinkled, and cushions rustled as Sirius sat up. Remus turned his head to see Sirius propped up on his elbows, long legs sprawled over the arm of the settee, without consideration for how old and expensive the furniture was. Not that that it wasn't most probably infested with Doxies, and mould, which devalued even the antiques of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.
"How long have you known me, Moony?" Sirius asked in that bored tone that made you feel like such a prat that you ignored his condescension and went along with his high and mighty act.
"Twenty-five years."
"I meant it to be a rhetorical question," Sirius mimicked. "But after twenty-five years, you really ought to know I always answer any question that comes my way."
"Because you love to hear yourself talk. Ow!"
Rubbing the crown of his head, he looked over his shoulder for the missile -- one of the biscuits Hagrid had baked for Sirius and sent by a rather disgruntled school owl -- and then at Sirius, who was looking at him with an arched eyebrow.
"Not the sort of talk that'll get you laid, Lupin."
"Fortunately for me, I'm not talking to you to get laid."
Sirius snorted, not at all unlike how he'd done that time, long ago, when Regulus had suggested to him that he might stop bullying Severus. "There's no sort of talking you could do to get laid by me, mate, I hope you know that."
"Thanks for the reassurance. It's been at the back of my mind, you know -- a fear, keeping me up at night, since you asked me to move in here with you."
"I hope you know as well," said Sirius loudly, as if Remus hadn't spoken, "that though Tonks is right saucy little minx when it comes to Snivellus or Dung or Mad-Eye--"
"Or you."
"--it's the nice blokes she fancies. So if you want her to shag you--"
"Tonks is your cousin," Remus interrupted. "Shouldn't you be telling me that if I lay a finger on her, you'll hex me to next week?"
"Her mum's my cousin," Sirius corrected. "I don't know Tonks from any other witch, and anyway, she's an Auror, and Mad-Eye's protégée, and can quite look after herself, I think." His heavy brows sloped sharply downward as he frowned. "Even if she can't walk through the front hall without falling over her own two feet."
"It's the umbrella stand that trips her up in the hall, not her feet."
"Ah, so he'll leap to defend the honour of his lady fair," said Sirius with a sly grin. "Keep it up, Moony! That's definitely the sort of talk that'll get you shagged if you want--
"I don't."
Sirius raised a an eyebrow.
In spite of his preference for keeping cool when Sirius was trying to wind him up, Remus looked away and quickly amended, "Not tonight, anyway."
"Oh, really?"
Remus sighed. Of course Sirius remained sceptical; it was doubtful whether he'd accept it if even if he were privy to the vivid and, undoubtedly, sexy, images that flashed in Remus' mind which, markedly, evoked no further corresponding physical response than a slight flush.
"That's the point," Remus said heavily. "It's 'my time of the month,' as you so juvenilely put it, and I'm simply not up to socialising."
"Is that what they're calling it these days?"
Remus rolled his eyes, but startled slightly when Sirius' feet thudded to the floor when he swung them off the arm of the settee to sit fully upright. From the corridor, Kreacher's perpetual muttering filtered in: Nasty great blood traitor feet, sullying Mistress' rugs.
"SHUT UP, YOU FILTHY GIT!" Sirius bellowed, whipping out his wand to shut -- and, presumably, imperturb -- the drawing room doors. His grey eyes flicked down to Remus, locking on him with an almost accusatory flash. "Why in bloody hell'd you say you'd go over, then?"
Sighing, Remus dropped his head between his knees again, and raked his fingers through his shaggy hair. Molly had been after him to let her trim it before she and Arthur had moved home. He ought to have let her.
"Because then Tonks would know I'm not up to socialising," he said.
"Ah...I see how it is." The floorboards creaked as Sirius stood, and his joints cracked as he stretched his arms over his head and popped his knuckles. "Can't stand to destroy the fair Auror's illusions about that virile image you project?"
He was mocking him again, but even so Remus shook his head.
The soles of Sirius' bare feet shuffled over the mouldy carpet as he crossed the room to Remus. "Tell you a secret, mate." Bending toward him, he said in a conspiratorial tone, "You've nothing to worry about. You've never projected a virile image."
"With friends like you, who needs Snivellus?" Remus muttered, gazing emptily into the dark, cold fireplace once again. "And I am quite aware, thank you very much, that I am hardly the specimen of manhood James was--"
"Or me!"
"--especially not the day before full moon. I can scarcely believe she'd look at me twice any other time of month. She'd have to be mad to tonight."
"Barking, as you haven't got the help of a great personality!"
It was true, of course, and Remus had always known it. Nonetheless, he'd hoped that when Tonks looked at him she saw more than a thin, peaky man whom hardship had aged before his time, and his heart ached to hear such a notion pronounced impossible. He opened his mouth to tell Sirius to go to hell but, remembering that Sirius had been there, for twelve years, and was likely somewhere close enough to it now, he said only, "Haven't you got a Hippogriff to feed?"
In his peripheral, he saw Sirius' mocking grin fall, his mouth hanging open, jaw slack. Remus knew that if he were to look at Sirius directly, he'd see all the bravado drained from his face as it dawned on him that he was the only one amused by his own talk. The grey eyes would be bent with guilt, darkened with self-recrimination. But Remus didn't look at him. Sirius knew on his own that he'd gone too far, and he felt remorse without Prefect Lupin throwing stones, as well.
"Listen, Moony," Sirius began, then paused to lower his long frame to the hearth rug beside Remus. "First off, you're not pathetic because you haven't got laid."
Remus snorted, and started to tell Padfoot he didn't have to bend over backward to make him feel better, but Sirius talked over him.
"Sadly overdue, definitely...but not pathetic."
"You really know how to make a bloke feel better."
"Second: I think you've got this all wrong."
Another pause, and Remus looked sidelong at him to see an almost anxious look of expectation on Sirius' gaunt features.
"You? Think?"
"I am the one who got the reputation of being a genius sat in detention whilst you were only known for being reasonably clever even though you studied your arse off in the library."
"I believe a bit of that studying my arse off in the library paid off when I figured out how to make the Marauder's Map work."
A look of envy crossed Sirius' features for just a second, then he gave a haughty huff and made to stand. "Fine. Don't hear what the genius thinks about your current dilemma. Especially when he's the one who cultivated a head-turning arse."
"Enlighten me, O genius," said Remus, with a deferential wave of his hand.
Grinning, Sirius turned to face him. "Right. So if you learnt anything at all from how the Marauders' full moon adventures made you feel, you'd know that this time of the month -- call me juvenile, Moony, I dare you -- is the last time you need to be antisocial."
He stopped and gave Remus a moment to digest that; and Remus couldn't deny Sirius did make a rather good case -- until he gave him a nudge toward the fireplace.
"So get you're your sorry studied-off arse over there and get laid, mate! Unwind. Say as little as possible. Feel like a sex god." His eyes flicked over him, and all his guilt couldn't stop a rakish half-grin from forming. "Well -- demigod, maybe."
"I'll show you who's demigod" Remus whipped out his wand. "Cauda canis cresco!"
"BLOODY BUGGERING HELL!" Sirius launched into the air, clutching at his posterior, as a bushy black dog's tail burst through the seat of his trousers.
Before Sirius get could get at his wand, Remus fired off another quick spell that changed Sirius' hands into great paws.
"Why you sodding--! Expelliarm--!"
"Vox latro!" Remus roared, and the last syllable of Sirius' desperate attempt at a wandless spell came out a dog's bark.
Though Sirius' eyes were still his own sharp grey ones, there was definitely a hint of the puppy-dog about them as he tried to speak again, only to produce a yip. Then he tried to glare, but when Remus crossed his arms smugly and smirked, Sirius rolled over on the rug, head thrown back to let out a series of barks that were not at all a far cry from his human laugh; a paw and his tail beat a fevered counterpoint on the floor as tears of mirth squeezed out.
"I'll give you your own voice back," said Remus cooly, "if you'll take back that bollocks about demigods."
Sirius nodded, and Remus undid the spells.
His barking laugh rang out as he pushed himself into a sitting position, leaning against the hearth.
"You, Moony," he panted, "are a veritable god among wizards."
"Thanks."
Remus conjured a dog biscuit and tossed it in the air -- and Sirius actually threw back his head and caught it in his mouth.
"Seriously, mate," he said, chewing.
"I can't believe you're eating that."
"Twelve years of Azkaban swill, mate, and another of rats. Dog biscuits are practically gourmet, and this is exactly what you should go over to Tonks'."
"Because I can conjure dog biscuits?"
"You look a hell of a lot better now than you did five minutes ago, but you're right, I have got a Hippogriff to feed, and you'll just get broody again about tomorrow night if you stay down here alone. But, if you distract yourself by showing off that impressive spellwork to a pretty pink-haired witch--"
"I'm not going to make her sprout a tail."
"No, but she'll make yours wag--ARF!"
This time, it was a yip more suited to a Chihuahua than Sirius' Animagus form. He looked at Remus and whined; although high-pitched and screechy, the sound was music to Remus' ears.
"I've a mind to leave you like that all night, to teach you a lesson."
Buckbeak, Sirius mouthed, though of course it came out as another yip.
"No, he won't much like it," said Remus. "Which ought to really drive the message home to you."
"ARF!" said Sirius, mouthing please.
Remus sighed. "Do you solemnly swear not to make any more innuendos?"
Hand over his heart, Sirius nodded vigorously, and barked for good measure.
Undoing the hex, Remus spoke before Sirius could. "Now, sansinnuendo: why should I go over to Tonks' tonight?"
"Cos she's sure to distract you pleasantly from your furry little problem, even if that doesn't involve you getting laid."
Suddenly curious, Remus asked, "Why are you so sure Tonks has that in mind?"
"Did she ask you to go over and do anything?"
"Nothing specific, no."
"Then why are you so bloody sure Tonks hasn't got that in mind?"
Holding his wand loosely between weary fingers, he leant back against a chair, resting his head on the seat cushion. "I just can't keep up tonight."
"That's a virgin talking," said Sirius. "You'd be surprised how little encouragement's needed to keep things up--" His hands shot up to shield his face when Remus raised his wand. "You can't punish me, Moony, when you set it up so brilliantly!"
Remus didn't lower his wand. "Do you have anything helpful to say, Padfoot, or shall I encourage you again to go feed Buckbeak?"
"I've got a serious point to make, yeah."
"I'd say you've been making Sirius points all night."
"This is why I use so much innuendo. To spare us from god-awful puns like that."
"How many times have you made that very same god-awful pun?"
"S'different when it's me punning on my own name." Sirius swatted Remus' wand. "Put that thing away so I can play the role of the rational best mate and get you out of this house and into that flat, where you belong."
As Remus pocketed his wand, he contemplated Sirius' line of thought. He was right about distraction being in order if he had a prayer of not brooding over his impending transformation. But did he really belong anywhere, least of all at Tonks', at a time like this?
Sirius' hand came to rest on his shoulder, and Remus turned to see the grey eyes as sincere as the night he'd vowed to learn Animagery so he wouldn't have to endure his transformations alone.
"If Tonks goes off of you because you're a tired old curmudgeon," he said, quietly, "then she's not worth it anyway. You'd do better to find out now than after you've fallen madly in love with her." His thick black brows knit heavily together as if a sudden thought had occurred. "You're not already, are you?"
"In love?"
"Yeah."
"Padfoot," said Remus tightly, "I've taken her out her once."
"And snogged in the street and quarrelled. Lots of people fall in love with less between them.
A laugh rose, but Remus forced himself not to give into it, because Sirius wasn't joking. In the case of their group of mates, it was certainly true. James had fallen in love with Lily from first sight and never wavered; Sirius was always madly in love with girls until he actually went out with them, only to promptly fall out of it; and Peter fell for any female who looked his way, even if it was to hex him.
Remus had always expected that he would fall somewhere in between his friends' extremes; but as his luck would have it, even though he'd fancied quite a lot of girls, and had gone out with a few, none of them had made him feel anything remotely like James' single-minded certainty that Lily was The One and Only For Him, or Sirius' head-over-heels passion, or, thank God, not whatever in Merlin's name it was Peter felt, so that theory had gone untested. From time to time he felt left out of the business which, for everyone else, it seemed, made the world go round. At other times, he thought that perhaps it was the one instance of fate being kind to him: keeping that door shut, lest his heart be swept out and away from him, along with everything else that had been taken from him.
"I'm pushing forty years old--"
"Thirty-five's not bloody pushing forty!"
"--and have never fallen in love," Remus continued. "I think I can be reasonably sure that if I ever do, it shall be for a good deal more than one date, a snog in the street, and a quarrel. And I'd hope to be fairly certain the young lady in question won't go off of me because I'm a tired old curmudgeon."
Sirius looked at him for a long time, as if he didn't believe him, then he said, shrugging, "You'd better see to it, then, cos believe you me, this place is depressing enough without a lovelorn werewolf moping about."
"I solemnly swear not to make the Nasty and Most Odious House of Black even more depressing by turning into a lovelorn werewolf."
"That sounds well and good, but lovelorn or not, you're still moping about and making this sodding house more depressing."
"I--"
The end of Sirius' wand jabbed Remus between two vertebrae, making him sit up straight. Then, magically prodded, his frame was unfolding and he was on his feet without willing himself to stand.
"You know, Padfoot, you've done an admirable job chasing rabbit trails tonight, but this isn't about falling in love and protecting my fragile heart."
"What's it about, then?"
Remus' watch and a few odd coins jangled in his trouser pockets as he shoved his hands into them and looked down at Sirius. "Ego. Pure, unadulterated male ego. Even you've got to admit you'd rather the vivacious young Auror you fancied didn't get to see you peaky and ill and not in the mood."
"Moony, Moony, Moony." Sirius screwed his eyes shut and rubbed the bridge of his nose as if he'd been stricken with a sudden headache. "This is why I'm the genius." He pushed himself up off the floor. "When life hands you lemons, you've got to make Firewhisky." Ignoring Remus' arched eyebrow, he went on, "Learn to work these furry little inconveniences to your advantage."
"How do you propose I do that?"
For a split second, Sirius wore a look that said he hadn't any proposal in mind, but then the uncertain look vanished. "Women love to play Healer. Tonks would probably get a kick out of morphing her hair to match the robes."
It was all Remus could do not to gawp and give Padfoot the satisfaction. Slowly -- and, he hoped, with maddening calm -- he said, "We're supposed to go from snogging in the street to role playing, are we?"
Sirius glared. "Get her to feed you grapes...rub your back...kiss it better...cuddle. She'll think you're in touch with your feminine side, and you'll never be able to shake her off."
"Hmm."
"Hmm?"
"I'm not sure that would spare you living with a lovelorn werewolf."
"Why the bloody hell not?"
Side-stepping Sirius and strolling casually toward the drawing room door, Remus said, "Remember when you made Belinda Peakes believe you were in touch with your feminine side?"
He looked over his shoulder to smirk, and was rewarded to see just the reaction he'd hoped for.
"You're looking a little green around the gills, Padfoot. Not ill at the memory of dear Belinda, are you?"
"Get the hell out of here, Moony," said Sirius, pulling himself together. "I mean it, the only thing you can do to be pathetic is to let this opportunity slip through your...Pedis lupos!"
Remus' wand clattered to the floor as his hand turned into a shaggy grey paw.
He glowered at Sirius, who grinned like a git. "Do you really think that's appropriate when the very reason we're having this little chat is because I dread being in this state tomorrow night?"
"Nope. But you know I get along with Appropriate about as well as I get along with Snivellus." He laughed loudly at his own joke, and Remus couldn't help but chuckle along. "Now, then, if I give you your hands back, will you promise to go straight over to Dora's domicile?"
"No."
"Then I--"
"I'll go straight over to Tonks' flat after I've changed into clothing slightly more befitting a god among wizards."
Sirius Howled. "Now there's talk that'll get you laid."
Remus gave him a look that killed Sirius' laughter.
"Not by me, of course."
A/N: Thank you for reading. I'd love to know what you think. As incentive, reviewers get their very own Remus, to prove what a God Among Wizards he is. ;)