A Grain of Truth in Every Rumour

Pairing: Remus Lupin / Sirius Black

Rating: "NC-17" for language and descriptive sexual content

Dedication:To Siobhán Rose, for helping my bunnies to burrow.

DISCLAIMER: This story is fictional – that's F-I-C-T-I-O-N. It never happened, and is not real. It is the product of my own imagination. It contains descriptions of male slash (that's male/male homosexual relations). If you do not like this type of content, or if you find homosexuality or its practice offensive, please click the "Back" button or close your Internet browser NOW, and do not read any further. All characters and copyrights are owned by J.K Rowling and Warner Brothers™ (AOL Time Warner), but this story is owned by me and is all my own work.

January was Remus Lupin's least favourite month. Relentless, pounding rain, frost everywhere, the height of winter. The Shrieking Shack was always at its worst in January. It made the few days around the full moon even more unbearable. Well, it was never good, he was usually poorly after each time, but it was always worse in the winter. He looked out of the window in the Gryffindor common room and grimaced at the moon glowing brightly in the night sky. At least its wane was getting more and more noticeable now. He would be alright again soon. But as the chills started through his gaunt body, he turned and headed back to his favourite sofa next to the fire, not being alright. Curling up into a tight ball on the sofa, blanket sodden with sweat pulled around him, Remus shivered, his every move causing fresh bouts of pain through his wasting muscles. 'Maybe I caught a chill the other day in the Shack' he thought glumly. 'Or maybe it just gets worse as you get older'.

"Are you alright, Remus?" a friendly voice enquired. "You don't look so good."

"I'm okay. Just a bit under the weather, you know," he replied, "probably caught the 'flu or something." But he wasn't 'just a bit under the weather'. Remus was ill.

Still, it was a good party, he supposed, opening his Advanced Arithmancy textbook and adjusting his reading spectacles. One of Sirius's more stupid ideas. He'd been getting more and more out of hand these days. Pulling pranks left, right and centre, each one more risky than the last. This one had seen him skive off McGonagall's Transfiguration test and go shopping in Hogsmeade, in broad daylight in the middle of the school day. Still, at least he'd brought back enough butterbeer to sink a navy, masses of sweets, and was periodically letting off items from a large box of Dr. Filibuster's No-Heat, Wet-Start Fireworks. Normally Remus would have tried to stop him, but feeling like he was today, he just couldn't muster the energy to.

"Oi! Moony!" Remus jumped, and looked up to see Sirius's grinning face above his own. "Have you seen Wormtail or Prongs lately?"

"No," he replied. "Wormtail's in the library again. Ever since he got that restricted pass for Defence Against the Dark Arts he's practically moved in there! And I think Prongs went off somewhere with Lily about half an hour ago."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Sirius said, his face losing its grin and finding a frown instead. "He's always with Lily somewhere! Breakfast – meeting Lily! Lunch – meeting Lily! Evening – nowhere to be seen, 'cos he's with Lily!" he snorted bitterly.

"Come on, Padfoot, you –" but before Remus could finish his sentence, a second year came running into the common room and shouted

"Hey, everyone! Filch's found that Snape bloke from Slytherin 'round the corner from the One Eyed Witch in the body lock of doom!", followed by loud cheering and laughter from around the room, and the sound of at least twenty people running out, probably to gawp at Serevus before Madame Pomfrey saw to him. Sirius started giggling softly, but Remus caught his eyes and gave his friend a look.

"What?" asked Sirius, far too innocently.

"He caught you, didn't he? Sneaking back in?"

"So what? Merlin, Moony! Someone's being a wet blanket tonight, aren't they?"

Remus shook his head forlornly and sighed.

"Knock it off, Padfoot. You know what time of the month it is." He had tried to have words with Sirius over his behaviour. After all, Professor Dumbledore had made him a Prefect in the hope that he could bestow some control and authority over James, Sirius and Peter and he felt at least he ought to try. After all, Dumbledore had put trust in him when nobody else would, letting him into the school and even making provisions for his condition. But he'd had to give up with Sirius, he really had. Remus sighed again and drew his blanket tighter around him, continuing to shiver and sweat and shiver some more.

Gradually, the excitement of the party died down and in small groups the Gryffindors went up to bed, leaving the two friends alone in the common room, sitting by the roaring fire.

"Are you sure you haven't seen Prongs at all?" Sirius questioned.

"I told you, I haven't seen him all night" Remus answered irritably. At that, Sirius reached into his pocket and pulled out a bottle of firewhisky.

"Well, I'll just have to drink this on my own then," he proclaimed, unscrewing the cap and taking a large swig from the bottle of golden-brown liquid. Grimacing at the way the liqueur burned at his throat, he lit a cigarette.

"What's that, Padfoot?"

"What's it look like?" came Sirius's sarcastic reply as he took another swig.

"Well, some would say it was a rubber chicken, Padders, but it looks awfully like firewhisky to me," said Remus, closing his abandoned Arithmancy book and removing his glasses.

"Then you'd be corrrr-ect!" Sirius giggled. "Fancy a little nightcap?"

"No, I certainly do not!" Remus shouted.

"Suit yourself!"

"But Sirius, you can't! It's all very well for seventh years of age to be smoking, as long as it's not around anyone else, but firewhisky? You know that alcohol is forbidden in the school, Padfoot. D'you wanna get caught? Merlin! D'you want to get fucking expelled!"

"Maybe I do!" shouted Sirius, taking the biggest swig from his bottle yet. "Anywhere's got to be better than here! Exams! Homework! The same old people, day in, day out! And the rumours! Oh, Merlin, the rumours!" Remus turned to face Sirius head on.

"You can't seriously mean that?" he spoke softly, trying to soothe the raging Sirius. "You'd actually prefer to spend the rest of your days in Grimmauld Place, with no qualifications, no job prospects, spending the rest of your days locked up in London with your mother?"

"Don't you dare talk about my bloody mother" Sirius bellowed, Remus physically wincing at the sound of his friend's voice. "Don't you dare even mention her! You know how I feel about that bigoted bitch!"

"I know, Padders, I know."

"Really? Have you ever stayed under the same roof as mother dearest for longer than twenty four hours?"

"No, I haven't. But I do know that you must be bloody miserable if you think that home is better than here. And rumours, Padfoot! You know never to listen to stupid rumours!"

"You know what they say, though. 'There's always a grain of truth in every rumour.'" "Oh, come on, Padders! You know they're nothing but gossip padded out with lies? Talk to me, Padfoot, please talk to me," he pleaded.

"Why?" Sirius asked. "Are you asking me as a friend, or a Prefect?"

"Both," Remus replied dejectedly.

"I thought as much!" Sirius snorted.

"Y'know, Moony," he said haughtily, "sometimes I think that that Prefect's badge has gone right to your bloody head, I really do."

"I never chose to be a Prefect, Padfoot." Remus spoke quietly, almost subdued.

"No, but you didn't have to accept it either."

"Yes I did. I couldn't do that to Dumbledore. I couldn't throw an honour like Prefectship back in his face, not after everything he's done for me."

"Like what?" spat Sirius, angrily. "He locks you up in that fucking hut in the cold every month. He gives you no alternative other than to tear yourself apart each transformation! Look at you! Covered with scars and slashes. Cutting yourself to shreds every full moon. You're a mess, you know that? A fucking mess! And you're thankful for it?"

"Well, at least I'm not constantly preening myself every five minutes, can't bear to prise myself from a mirror each time I pass one!" Remus shouted. "Always playing with my hair and pretty locks, always trying to pull as many of the bimbo trophy girls as humanly possible… the list is endless, Sirius! You're pompous, you know that? Fucking pompous!"

"Pompous, eh? Hah! Well at least I'm not made to suffer for being different."

"Be that as it may, Padfoot, at least I don't make other people suffer, just for the Hell of it!"

"Oh, yeah? Then how?" demanded Sirius. "How do I make people suffer?"

"Well, you're always tormenting Snivellus. Why can't you leave him alone for five minutes?" said Remus.

"You feel sorry for that…joke? Hah!" snorted Sirius. "And anyway, why don't you stop us?"

"I'd like to see you try and stop the two ugly sisters in full bitch mode" Remus snapped. "It's not easy trying to put a veto on Team Padfoot And Prongs!"

"Well, at least I can admit that I'm a complete and utter fucking bastard to the greasy cretin, unlike some people!"

"Oh, big man, Padfoot! And you think you've got it bad! At least they don't say you're a bloody freak behind your back" Remus shouted, growing livid, determined to make the arrogant fool in front of him see that he wasn't the only one with problems in this world.

"At least they don't drag the Noble and Most Ancient Name of Black through the mud and the gutter because of you!" yelled back Sirius, volume rising and rising, pure anger threatening to make him explode into thousands of sharp pieces of shrapnel.

"Hah!" Remus exclaimed, screaming now. "At least they don't say you're a monster!"

"At least they don't say that you're gay!"

"At least they don't say you're a fucking half-breed mongrel!"

"At least they're wrong about you!"

Remus was struck dumb, left sporting the kind of facial expression which one would usually adopt if someone struck one's face with a large, wet, slimy salmon. Could it be true? Sirius? Sirius Black, the idol of so many a schoolgirl's eye, this supposed serial womaniser, was gay?

"W-w-what did you just say?" he stuttered, barely audibly.

"Nothing. Nothing at all. I didn't say anything! You must be hearing things! Hahaha!" quipped Sirius, adding a highly embellished and blatantly false laugh for emphasis.

"Sirius? Did you just say what I thought you just said?"

"What? How absurd! Hearing voices, Moony, really! That's never a good thing, haha."

"Padfoot, that isn't funny. That's not the sort of thing you say for a laugh."

"Anyway," said a near tearful Sirius, "look at the time!" He exaggerated a yawn. "I really ought to be going to bed now, I think!" he said, moving towards the boys' staircase.

"Not so fast, Padfoot. I think we really better talk about this, don't you?"

"About you hearing voices in your head? I don't think so!" And with that, Sirius fled from the common room towards their dormitory. Remus tried to catch up with his friend, but in his malaised state he could not even get close. He got up to the dormitory as fast as he could, but by the time he arrived, panting, at Sirius's bed, Sirius's curtains were drawn tightly around, shielding him from further questions. This meant, at least to Sirius, that the matter was firmly closed. It was a worried and dishevelled Remus who lay down on his bed, fully clothed and his own curtains drawn, and tried, unsuccessfully, to fall asleep. Far too worried about his friend, he pulled his blanket tightly around himself, curled up into a ball, and continued to cold sweat through the long, lonely night.

Long after the dawn broke, lie ins were woken from as the students of Gryffindor House rose, dressed and headed down for breakfast the next morning. All except two seventh years, for whom fried eggs and bacon were quite far down their list of priorities. It was Remus who rose first, unable to pretend to himself that he was resting any longer as James called out

"Moony! Padfoot! Breakfast!"

"Not for me, thanks. Still, you know, not feeling right." He was, actually, feeling much better physically, but his troubled mind had seen no rest that night and had done nothing but dwell on a particular conversation for several hours.

"Okay then," James replied, knowing not to push Remus's stomach if it was a bad recovery period. James left the dormitory, seeming to leave it empty except for Remus and Sirius. Remus stretched, clambered out of his bed, and walked over to the tightly drawn curtain next to his bed.

"Padfoot?" he called gently at the partition sealing Sirius away from his own bed space. "Are you okay?" There was no answer. "Padfoot?" he tried again. This time there was a noise, almost a grunt, from within. Remus guessed that it was not meant to convey a very gentlemanly expression of greeting.

"Padfoot, please come out. We can talk about this," tried the lanky boy.

"Piss off, Moony!" came the reply.

"Padfoot? Padfoot! Open these curtains now!" demanded Remus.

"I told you, piss off!"

"Right, that's it!" the taller boy shouted at the curtain. "Either you open this curtain right now, or I'll tell everyone in this room why you're hiding away like this!"

"Merlin, not in front of everyone!" Sirius yelled, yanking the curtains back with a sudden whoosh!. Remus saw that his friend had also not had a very restful night, being still dressed, hair unkempt and eyes damp.

"Don't worry, Padfoot, there's no-one here but me." But he was wrong.

"What?"

"Sorry, but it was the only way I could think of to get you to open up." Remus said gently, crossing the threshold and sitting on the bed next to Sirius.

"I think we need to have a little chat, don't you" he said.

"Do we?"

"Well, I think you do, at least. Look, I'm sorry about last night."

"Me too. I shouldn't have shouted at you, mate." Said Sirius, his head hung low.

"So…"

"Look. We were both angry. Things were said, yeah?"

"Uh-huh," Remus agreed. "Things were said. But do you want some advice?"

"Depends."

"Well, my dad always used to tell me that the last step in coming to terms with something and accepting it is to tell somebody, right?"

"Yeah?" sniffed Sirius.

"So, if you're ready, have you got something to tell me?" Sirius's eyes began to moisten again, and tiny teardrops began to trickle from the corners of his eyes.

"I–I guess so…"

"Whenever you're ready, Padders," he whispered.

"Er, well…" Sirius started, a fresh bout of tears flowing down his cheeks. Remus gave a small nod of his head. "About what I said last night. It's… it's true. Well, not the part about the schizophrenia, obviously, but the other thing, it's true."

"And doesn't that make you feel ten times better?" asked Remus.

"About a thousand times, but…"

"But what?"

"But I've…" he began, but choked with the onset of more tears.

Remus placed his long arms around his friend and drew him into a hug. This was the final straw, causing the floodgates to open as his friend clung onto him, almost for dear life itself.

"Oh, Merlin! I've never felt so alone!" wailed Sirius, pride blown away out of the window as he clutched onto Remus's chest and sobbed openly. He felt safe in the arms of his old friend – a safeness to cry and scream and shout and bare his very soul that he'd never felt with anyone before in all of his seventeen years, not even James, his supposed best friend. 'But he's always away with sodding Lily now', he thought gloomily. 'Although, Remus didn't run a mile when he found out about me…' Yes, he felt safe, and maybe even protected with Remus, leaning against his manly chest and arms, feeling strong muscles slightly wasted after his "time of the month"… 'No, Sirius,' he scolded himself. 'He's a friend. A good friend at that. Stop thinking about him that way!'

Remus gave a small chuckle.

"Well, if it's a friendly ear and shoulder you want, I'm always here for you. You know that. And if it's a man you need, well…" he chuckled again, "you know what they say!"

"What? What do they say?"

"One in ten, Padfoot. One in ten."

"Eh?" Remus sighed.

"Do I have to spell it out for you?" He looked at Sirius's blank, confused expression. "Evidently I do! They say, Padders, that one in every ten people is gay."

"Oh. But how will I know? There may not be anyone like… like me in Hogwarts!"

"Oh, I dunno. Sheer statistics are on your side…"

"But they may not be. They could be miles away!"

"Or they could be closer than you think," Remus spoke softly, his eyes for the first time since the previous night growing steadily moist. In barely a shaky whisper, he added, "Sometimes you have to look beyond what you see to find the things that you seek, but sometimes you have to take things at face value…" he trailed off.

"What d'you –" began Sirius, looking up at the lankier boy, catching his eyes as he did so. "You… you mean…" Sirius gasped. With more than slight nervous hesitance, Remus nodded his head knowingly, and began to grin.

And all of a sudden, it felt right. Sirius slowly leaned his head towards his friend's, his eyes clamped tightly shut. He didn't know whether Remus would reciprocate or not – after all, he only admitted that he was gay, he never said whether he fancied him or not. He was frightened that Remus wouldn't want to… do stuff with him, and was about to back out of the situation when he felt Remus's soft lips meet with his own.

"Open your eyes, Pads, it's a lot easier. Plus you look a bit deranged at the moment," said the lankier boy, almost disinterestedly. Sirius complied, and this time Remus leaned in as well, and their lips met and their tongues met and for Sirius this was a dream come true. He wasn't just kissing one of his bimbo followers as a cover story – he was kissing another boy, for the first time ever. What was more, he was kissing Remus!

Sirius took the returned kiss as an invitation to take things further, and started grappling with Remus's clothes – his tie, shirt, shoes, socks and trousers – and throwing them onto the floor, while seconds later, Remus had helped his own clothes to join them. They climbed up fully onto the bed, facing each other; Sirius sporting a favourite pair of blue and green boxer shorts, Remus instead donning a pair of plain red briefs.

"Why don't we start small, eh, Padfoot?" Remus spoke softly, seeing the nervousness in his partner's eyes, "and see where it leads us?"

"Works okay for me!" said Sirius, as he took charge and leaned in for another kiss. He decided that he liked kissing Remus, and he was going to have a lot more of it now, thank you very much!

"Mmm! Somebody likes that!" grinned Remus as his friend pulled off again.

"Maybe," he said sheepishly, "sweet, light, woody, and with a hint of chocolate frog. But I wanna see what else is on the menu!" And with that, he reached down and yanked Remus's briefs off and threw them on the floor with the rest of their clothes.

"Ooh, impatient, aren't we?" Remus joked.

"Maybe…"

"And that looks a bit uncomfortable," Remus laughed, looking down at Sirius's crotch. "Let's see if we can do something about that, shall we? There." he said, pulling off Sirius's boxer shorts, freeing the rampant erection. "Better?"

"Just a bit."

They kissed again, hands wandering and pawing at each other like dogs in heat, when Sirius found something… interesting.

"Merlin, you really are a big, bad wolf, aren't you, Moony!" he exclaimed, taking his friend in his hands and moving his hands up and down slowly.

"We'll have less about the 'bad' if you don't mind, Padfoot!"

"Mmm," he moaned, as Remus went exploring and found… Snuffles.

"Good?"

"Oh, yes…". Remus gave a little chuckle.

"You haven't felt anything yet, dear boy!" And with that, he moved down the bed and positioned his head between Sirius's legs. He took the shorter boy's erection in hands and slowly began to lick around the sensitive head. The sharp intake of breath on Sirius's part told Remus that he should continue his administrations.

"Oh, oh wow! You certainly know how to use your tongue, don't you?"

"Well, Padders, I've had lots of practice, having to lick my wounds every month. And I do seem to be rather clumsy and scratch myself in a lot of… interesting places!"

"So it would appear, Moony!" Sirius gasped.

Sirius found himself incapable of moving for a few moments, his mind filled only with the wondrous pleasure that Remus's mouth was providing his throbbing penis. He was getting close to the point of no return. 'No,' he thought, 'I don't want to… to go too far just yet. Not when he's done so much to me and I've given so little.' He reached down and pulled Remus's head off him.

"What's wrong?" the thinner boy asked.

"Nothing," Sirius panted. "Nearly… there… I… want…want…you… er…" and with that, he hunched up his legs, laying them over Remus's shoulders.

"Are… are you sure, love?"

"I've never been surer in my life."

"It… it may hurt, you know."

"It can't. Not if it's you…"

"But…"

"Will you just shut up and get on with it!" Sirius snapped. "I just want you, you know, in me."

"Really?"

"Really really. Please…" Sirius pleaded. 'I just want to be as close to you as possible', he added in his mind. 'Right here, right now. Take me, Remus, please, just…take me…'

With that, Remus sat up on his haunches, spat into his palm a few times, and rubbed the saliva over Sirius's back entrance. 'Disgusting, yes,' he thought, 'but it's the only lubricant I have'. He slowly inserted a finger to the knuckle, his eyes constantly on Sirius's in case he should so much as blink with pain. Instead of the scream he had dreaded, Remus heard moaning, and so began to move the finger out and back in. Sensing that this was alright, he replaced his one finger with two. Again, Sirius clearly verbalised his approval of the situation. At this point, Remus decided to go for the big guns. He removed his fingers, and gently began to push his erection against Sirius's hole. He had just pushed the head past the muscular opening when a sharp intake of breath from Sirius stopped him.

"Is that hurting, Pad?"

"N-no!" whispered a grimacing Sirius.

"It is. I'm pulling out if –"

"No!" shouted Sirius hungrily, sitting forward to stop him. Suddenly, his movement caused Remus's penis to ram right inside him up to its hilt. He screamed, in near blinding agony. Remus tried to apologise, to ask if his friend was alright, but could only emit a low, guttural moan as the sudden movement gripped the entirety of his length.

"Don't move!" shouted Sirius.

"Oh, Merlin, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry!"

"It's okay, Moony, it really is. Just gotta get… used…to…" he gasped. For the next few minutes, the pair kissed and waited and waited and kissed. Finally, Sirius said softly, "It's okay now. You can move, if… if you still want to…"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. It hurt like hell, but the pain's gone now. It sorta feels… nice."

"If you're sure…"

"Damn it, Remus Lupin. Get on with it!" And at that, Remus gently began to move himself back and fore, in long, slow strokes. Over and over again. Hearing Sirius sigh, he moaned. He'd never felt this good ever before. His own efforts, and even Sirius's hand, didn't even come close to rivalling the new sensations he felt pulsing through his body. He lent forward, and continued to buck his hips as he kissed his partner, the pair of them moaning and gasping, not even bothering to try and keep quiet in the dormitory they believed to be empty.

"Nice," he panted.

"No. Better" Sirius replied. Remus reached out and took a hold of Sirius's neglected erection, stroking it up and down in time to the movements of his hips. Their cries and moans echoed across the room, both boys completely absorbed in each others' bodies, primal instincts overriding any shred of common sense either boy would have been capable of thinking. But all good things must come to an end, and, much sooner that he would have liked, Sirius whimpered.

"Oh, Merlin, Remus, I'm gonna… I'm gonna…" and gave a small cry as he erupted over his belly and Remus's hand. Feeling the onset of Sirius's orgasm was just too much for Remus, giving a mighty bellow as he emptied himself inside his friend, until he had no more of his love to give him. Letting out a final moan, the lanky lad pulled himself out of Sirius, panting contently as Sirius purred with spent pleasure.

"Well, that was… interesting! I've never done that before!" laughed Remus. Giving a big sigh, he tried to roll off his new "best friend" and found that he, er, couldn't.

"Er, Padders, could you move your leg a bit?"

"I thought that was your arm!"

"Er, no." he said.

"Oh, whoops! How'd it get there?" asked Sirius with a grin almost rivalling Remus's on a fantastic day.

"I'm not altogether sure. I think it was between you shouting 'Yippee!' and moaning 'Oh, Merlin, this is fabulously Divine!'"

"Oh dear! I didn't realise I was that flexible!" giggled Sirius.

"Well, you know what they say about the canine genus…"

"Ooh, you naughty beast! No wonder I was squealing!"

This time, Remus successfully managed to untangle himself from the mess of limbs, without pressing into any of Sirius's… sensitive areas.

"Oh dear. We did make a bit of a mess, didn't we?" he said to a giggling Sirius. In the vague distance there was the sounds of chatter in the school hallways. Sirius jumped, the sounds bringing him down from Cloud Nine to, well, about Cloud Four or Five. He began to grow frightened. What if someone came into the dormitory and found him and Remus… in a bit of a compromising position? He rolled himself over and snuggled up to his friend – no, lover! – and Remus wrapped his arms around him.

"What's the matter? Are you alright?" enquired Remus, worried about his new-found mate.

"It's nothing. Just that…" Sirius trailed off.

"What?"

"Well, people are finishing breakfast now and starting to amble back upstairs," said Sirius, as the corridor chatter began to gradually crescendo. "What if people see us like… like this? I mean, there's no way we can, er, sort ourselves out in time, is there? Not without making it look a bit obvious we were…"

"Up to mischief?" Remus offered. Sirius nodded. "Shh," soothed the taller boy, gently stroking his companion's wavy locks. "It doesn't matter."

"But they'll come in and se us and… and they'll…" Sirius began to sob, fresh tears welling up in his eyes and trying to cut paths down his sweat-covered cheeks.

"And they'll what?" cooed Remus, his hands still stroking Sirius's hair and head. "So what! Let them come! Let them see us for who we are!"

Sirius snuggled his head against Remus's hairy, solid chest.

"But people'd talk," he said meekly.

"And? They talk already."

"But –"

"Shh. Go to sleep – you must be exhausted. I know I am!" Remus gave a small giggle.

"Yeah!" Sirius said. He leaned his head up to Remus's and was rewarded with a soft kiss on his lips.

"Just remember that you – like me – are exactly the same person that you were before all of this happened. I promise."

"I suppose so."

"No, there's no suppose about it. You are the same Sirius. Just that people will know a bit more about you, that's all."

"Yeah," Sirius yawned. "Goodnight, Remus."

"Er, that's Good Morning, Sirius!"

"Whatever!" And with that, Sirius fell into the first peaceful sleep he had enjoyed in the last few months.

Remus yawned himself, and looked down over his sleeping lover. He reached down and pulled the bed sheets to cover him up.

"Oh, Sirius, I want this moment to last forever," he whispered to the boy snuggled up to him. "But I lied to you not five minutes ago. I made you a promise that I cannot keep. I am not the same Remus that I was before all this happened. I am Remus Lupin, in love with Sirius Black!" He sighed, waves of sleepiness threatening to take over him as well. The sounds from the corridors looked as if they were now coming from the Gryffindor common room, and he wasn't unconvinced that he could hear footsteps on the dormitory stairs.

"I don't know what exactly is going to happen in the next few minutes, my love," he whispered into Sirius's ear, "but I do know one thing for sure. I swear that I'll be right beside you to protect you." He shut his eyes and let the sleep take over his weary body and mind. "And I always will be."

And unseen, from the shadows, a dark figure crept silently towards the dormitory door. He was hungry and late for breakfast, and he had some priceless news to announce in the common room on his way downstairs.

After all, there is always a grain of truth in every rumour…