Sirius was lying on his bed in their dorm and listening absentmindedly to James' blabbering about the awesomeness that was Lily Evans and her knickers. His own thoughts were on his boyfriend, Remus, and on their own awesome last night and on something that had happened during the said last night.
Contrary to what the whole school seemed to believe, of two of them, Remus was the one with more experience and definitely the one with more sex drive. Sirius, out of self preservation, had never asked him where and with whom he had got his experience before their relationship and Remus had never offered to tell – Sirius knew himself and how jealous he could get if the person was still in the Hogwarts, and it would just end with hexes and Remus being pissed off and disappointed with him.
Also, the fact that Remus always grew rather uncomfortable and embarrassed whenever the topic steered close to his past shags helped. Remus had been nothing but an attentive and faithful boyfriend since the two of them had got together, and there were no signs that he was pining after anyone else.
So Sirius had decided to ignore any doubts he had in his mind and random bursts of jealousy and focus on enjoying the fruits of those past trysts which had shaped Remus such an amazing partner in bed.
Like last night, which had been amazing.
It had been pretty much a normal night for them, for a pre-full moon week, a lazy Friday night spent in Sirius' bed behind closed curtains. Sirius had never wrapped his mind around why it happened, but Remus had a tendency to get a little… rough before the full. Hornier. Not that he minded, of course, usually it just meant a bit of holding him down and some hickeys he had to hide the next day and really, Sirius had nothing against that.
He rather enjoyed it, actually.
James was still going on about the Evans and how he had got laid last night (which wasn't new, so Sirius didn't see what the deal was) and Sirius closed his eyes and tuned him out. He had more pressing matters on his hands.
Or, rather, on his shoulder. He raised his hand and touched the place where Remus had bitten him, rather hard, last night, and winced. He hoped the bloody thing wouldn't get inflamed.
"I think it's her time of the month, you know?" James had got up and was leering at him suggestively from next to Sirius' bed, putting on his Quidditch gear.
"She's on her periods? I've never heard about that making girls horny." Sirius pulled a face. "Gross. I wouldn't want my dick bloody."
"I know where you are sticking your dick regularly, bloody is nothing compared to that", James shot back, although he did look a little disgusted at Sirius' words. "But no, I didn't meant that! I meant, you know, the other time of the month, when girls can't get enough of sex."
Sirius blinked. "What other time? Human girls don't go into heat, you plonker, even I know that and I am gay."
"You think you know that, but I swear, Lily does. It's unbelievable." James had an ugly dreamy look on his face.
"I'll be sure to let Lily know you think she is a bitch", said Sirius, even though the remark wasn't worth the Quaffle he got in his face for that.
The rest of the Saturday went rather fast. Sirius had gone with James to fly, and then when they had come inside had gone to bother Remus in the library until it was time for the dinner. Sirius had almost forgotten his bruised shoulder – it helped that after flying with James, he felt like his whole body was bruised – until he sat down for the dinner.
Apparently it was the birthday of their Muggle studies' professor, and the House Elves had done their best to provide them with a little more fanciful dinner than usually. Sirius was already reaching out to take a good looking medium-raw steak, when he stopped and something lurched in his stomach.
"Are you okay?" asked Remus, who was sitting next to him, and Sirius quickly nodded and reassured him, before reaching for the plate which had well done steaks.
Remus seemed to believe him, and went back to arguing politely with Lily about the changes in Prefects' patrol schedules and Sirius was left staring at his own plate, with his stomach growling but appetite lost.
Everyone knew that Sirius hated to eat anything bloody, or raw. It was an endless source of mirth for James - "you are such a poodle, Pads, only well cooked gourmet food it is, eh?". He liked meat, but only well done, preferring it hard and stringy to red and juicy. In first year he had even vomited once when his meat hadn't been cooked enough.
His shoulder, where Remus had bit him last night so hard while in the heat of the moment that he had broken the skin, was throbbing with dull pain, and Sirius felt nauseous.
Plate with medium-raw steaks, almost dripping with blood still, looked more delicious to Sirius than anything had ever before.
"Pads? Are you really okay?" Remus asked him quietly and Sirius shook off himself from his moody mind and smiled at him.
"Never better, Moony. Just not that hungry."
Remus didn't look convinced and shot him a worried glance before returning to his own meal.
Sirius composed himself. He was probably overthinking this. If he suddenly liked his steaks little juicier, it didn't have to mean that he was suddenly turning into a werewolf, too. Regular, normal humans liked bloody steaks too (even if Sirius had always loudly declared it a sign of hidden vampirism). Like Peter, who preferred medium but didn't mind either if it was rawer than that, or Lily, whose steak right now looked like it had barely been cooked.
Besides, Sirius thought with relief, Remus himself, the confirmed werewolf, didn't even like steaks. So what he was doing, really, getting so worked up on this one little thing? Probably he was just over-worrying so much about the bite that the stress was starting to get to him.
After dinner Remus had to leave for Prefect duties and Lily had a meeting with Slug Club. James hadn't been allowed to accompany Lily since the time he had used the meeting for breaking into Slughorn's private potion storage. Lily had found out about it, got rather mad and banned James from joining again.
Which meant that Sirius and James were spending the evening in the dorm, lazily drawing the second version of the Marauder's Map.
"Where's Peter?" Sirius asked.
"Vanished after the dinner. There's something fishy going on with him. Have you noticed how much he is sneaking away from us lately?"
Sirius shrugged. To be honest, he hadn't noticed and he didn't much care, either. He watched as James tapped his wand on the parchment over and over again, muttering various enchantments that they had had for their first map too. The school was over in half a year, and soon they wouldn't need it, but James had been adamant about creating a second version of the map after they had lost the first one and never found it again.
Sirius let his mind wander as James worked. He had pretty much pushed away the worries of the bite after dinner. From what Remus had told him about the weeks after his bite, he had concluded that he was in no danger of joining Moony as anything else than Padfoot for the next full moon, or for any after it. He still felt nauseous, but really, it could be just a stomach bug, which would also explain why his appetite had screwed up at the dinner.
Sirius looked at Remus' empty bed and grinned a little. He would show Remus the bruise and tell how he had panicked, and they'd have a good laugh about it.
Not today, maybe, but maybe next week. Or after full. When he was certain and there wasn't chance that Remus would overreact.
Something small glinted on the floor in the center of their dorm. Bored, Sirius rose up and went to check it out. Earring, he thought, not something that any of us would have so must be Lily's, and he reached out to take it, but when his fingers touched the silvery little ring it burned and he yelped.
James was instantly beside him, wand in the hand. "What's it?"
Sirius looked at his fingers. The tips of his index finger and thumb were the shade of nasty dark red and itched. He looked at James and saw James staring at his fingers.
Then James looked at the earring on the floor and hesitated only little before moved to grab it.
"Don't touch it, you-!", Sirius started, but stopped as James, without flinching, took the earring in his hand.
"Huh. Interesting", James said and looked at Sirius with contemplating expression.
Sirius rose and marched to his bed and flopped down on it. He avoided looking at James, mind reeling, a little voice in the back of his mind shouting at him with glee, "I told you so!"
"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" James asked him with feigned calm. "Because, call me a fool, but in this dorm it's not usually you who gets burnt fingers from silver."
Sirius drew a shaky breath and kept his eyes on the ceiling. "Remus bit me."
He heard how James carefully walked over to his own bed and sat down there. "Care to repeat that? When? We were all there the last full, you were very much Padfoot then. And you seemed alright when we left."
"It didn't happen like that. It was last night, things got little heated and, well, he didn't mean to, he usually doesn't, I don't think he even realized it, but… yeah."
James was quiet for so long that finally Sirius was forced to look at him. "I was salivating over raw steaks on dinner, Prongs", he said miserably and James blanched.
"Fuck", he swore with feeling. "You need to talk to Moony."
"He is going to hate himself, think it's all his fault."
"Then we need to pound some sense into his head. It was an accident, stupid mistake, whatever. And we don't even know yet if it's transferable like that. But you can't just hide it, in case it's serious, and hope nothing happens."
Sirius nodded numbly. "I'll.. I'll go find him."
Sirius searched for Remus for an hour, before he came back to the dorm to find him there, lying on his bed and reading.
"Hey", Sirius said weakly and Remus looked up at him with worrying frown.
"Hi", Remus said and sat up, "James said that you needed to talk to me about something."
"Yeah", Sirius said and walked over to sit next to Remus. "Moony, it's- fuck, promise me you are not going to overreact, okay?"
"Well, saying things like that really help make me calm and not overreact, you know", Remus said lightly and raised his hand to Sirius' black, to gently and slowly draw circles to calm him. "Just out with it?"
Sirius didn't know where he would start to explain. So he drew a breath and started to take his robe off. "I'll just show you."
"You haven't grown breasts, have you?"
Sirius snorted and shook his head. He pulled his shirt off and winced when the fabric hit his shoulder. He heard how Remus drew quick breath and felt how the body next to him tensed.
There was an awkward moment, when Sirius didn't know where to watch, and Remus next to him was staring at his bruise.
"I did that", Remus finally said. "Didn't I? Last night?"
Sirius nodded. He sneaked a look at the bruise and was little surprised how small and... normal looking bruise it actually was. Just a little more than his regular hickeys.
He still remembered how his fingertips had had drops of blood on them, though, when he had touched it last night after Remus had fallen asleep.
"I- I am sorry… I didn't mean to-", Remus sounded ashamed, "I have Pomfrey's salve here, let me, it looks like it's hurting… Fuck, where is it..."
Sirius watched as Remus rummaged around his drawer for the potion. He gathered his courage. "Moony… Do you know if it spreads…? You know… When it's not a full moon and..." He swallowed and blinked rapidly. He couldn't even say it.
Remus turned around and shook his head. "No! Don't worry about that, you can't catch lycanthropy if I bite you as a human. I bit my dad once when I was a kid, just after I was turned and I had trouble handling my temper, and he was okay." Remus still looked rather pale. "I'm so sorry though, I didn't realize I had hurt you, you should have said something."
Sirius stared at Remus. He was starting to feel hopeful, but still… "You are sure? Because I touched silver earlier, and it burned my skin."
He looked at his fingertips, which were now back to looking normal. Remus hurried next to him and took his hands to himself and looked over them.
"Where?" Remus asked.
"Just fingertips, they were red and itched… Looks like gone now, though."
Remus relaxed. "Maybe… maybe a little bit of it got through? It doesn't certainly look like how my skin would react to silver. Remember when you guys tested on the second year what would happen if you dropped a silver sickle on me?"
Sirius winced.
"Yeah. So, I think I am still the only dark creature around", Remus reassured him. "But I promise you, I will be more careful… It's bad enough that I hurt you."
Sirius finally felt able to smile a little. He shrugged and smiled wickedly at Remus. "I'll need to get a muzzle for you, you randy wolf."
Remus laughed shakily. "I'll miss kissing you", he said with feigned sorrow.
"Just kissing me?"
"I didn't say kissing which parts."
So Sirius had to make him show which parts he would miss kissing, and Remus showed eagerly, and it was good for everyone involved that this time, there were no teeth included.
The next morning at the breakfast James offered Lily her earring back. "You dropped it in our dorm the last time you were there", he said and winked.
Lily snorted and then took a look at earring. She frowned. "That's pretty, but it's not mine. I don't wear silver, it gives me a nasty rash."
"Should have known, only the best for my woman", James said. "Only gold and diamonds. You are certainly not cheap, Lils. But whose is it then? Peter, have you pulled and not told us?"
"Yes", Peter said calmly. As everyone stared at him he raised his eyebrows and looked back at them defensively. "Don't expect any juicy details. You lot seem to think we are some oversharing club, but I don't want to tell you about my sex life."
"I didn't know you had a sex life!" James wailed. "I am proud of you, so proud, little Peter all grown up!"
"Oversharing club? Just what have you been telling your friends, Potter, hmm?"
As their friends started to bicker, Sirius felt like there was something, something in his subconscious, trying to piece some puzzle together...
He had his epiphany when he looked over at Remus who was staring at the silver earring, then at Lily. Sirius' eyes widened and he felt in shock – how he hadn't realized this earlier, it made perfect sense, of course – when Remus looked at him, saw Sirius' expression and rushed to lean closer to whisper to Sirius' ear: "Fifth year. I'm with you, it doesn't matter, it was never serious, it never mattered, okay?"
Sirius stamped out quickly the flare of jealousy and possessiveness and grinned at Remus. "You randy, randy wolf", he chuckled to Remus, "You are so going to get that muzzle for Christmas."
Author's Notes: Thank you for reading and hope you enjoyed! :)