Disclaimer: These characters belong to J.K. Rowling and various publishers and corporations.
Archive: Azkaban's Lair (if Nezad wants it!), all over LJ, and anywhere else that'll have it.
Summary: Another post-prank fic: not wildly original, but angsty fluff rather than angst.
Era: Marauder Days, Post-Prank
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Spoilers: The Harry Potter series!
Rating: PG-13
Notes:For S-Star and TrinityC, my first LJ friend.
Warnings: Lots of crying! My boys aren't macho.
Remus wasn't in his usual bed by the window, but in the little room off the infirmary reserved for serious cases.
That wasn't the only thing different this time. One, Remus had now been in the hospital wing for three days. Two, none of them had been allowed to see him, even James, until Sirius was summoned that morning. Three, Sirius wasn't carrying his usual offering of chocolate frogs for his friend. Four, far from rushing up to Remus's bed and flinging himself down beside him, Sirius was actually dragging his feet, counting his footsteps as they led him inexorably to his doom.
Twenty, twenty-one…
Madam Pomfrey came bustling out of her office. 'Mr. Black. Professor Dumbledore says you may miss morning lessons so you boys can sort your problems out.'
The 'may' felt like a command, not a privilege. Sirius nodded politely, but his heart sank. Sank, at the thought of missing lessons. God, that was bad. That was really bad.
Thirty-three, thirty-four…
He pushed open the door and peered round cautiously. Another difference: Remus wasn't in bed, but sitting on the floor by the fire, while two house-elves bustled round changing sheets and dusting. He was wrapped in a cherry-red blanket and sipping chocolate from a big white cup.
In any other circumstances, Sirius's heart would have skipped a rather happier beat. The firelight on Remus's hair, turning the gold to burnished red; his beautiful long fingers curled round the thick china; the traces of chocolate at the corners of his mouth, which he licked off delicately before he looked up and saw Sirius.
And then that smile, blazingly happy, unselfconsciously welcoming, those big eyes glowing with pleasure at the sight of his friend. 'Oh, Padfoot, here you are! I've missed you. Where have you all been?'
Oh, no, he doesn't know, he doesn't know. Sirius attempted to smile back, not very successfully. 'How are you?'
'I'm okay. I'm fine.'
'Nice room.'
Or rather, it would have been nice without the jumble of potion bottles and ointments on the small bedside table, with their aura of pain and discomfort that contrasted so strongly with the bright white sheets, the muted lamplight, the firelight dancing on Remus's pale skin.
Through the square dormer window, Sirius noticed that outside the first snowflakes of the year were just starting to fall from a grey, leaden sky. Normally, Sirius loved snow in any shape or form, but now he shivered in the not-quite-cosy sickroom and wondered whether he would ever be able to see a snowflake again without flinching.
A third house-elf came in, bearing a tray with another big white cup and saucer on it. 'Mr. Black, Madam Pomfrey is thinking you could do with a nice hot cup of cocoa.'
Sirius smiled, thanked her, took the cup and managed a sip of the thick liquid, which seemed to stick in his throat.
'It's good, Padfoot. Really sweet,' Remus encouraged him, taking another big gulp of his own chocolate.
'Yeah, right.' Sirius swallowed. 'Well. Aren't you going get back into bed?'
'No. Not right now. I've been lying there for days and days, and I want to get up.' He shifted over. 'Come and sit by the fire. It's bloody cold in here.'
'Snowing,' Sirius pointed out.
'I know. I saw.'
The house elves left discreetly, closing the door behind them.
There was a silence. Perhaps to Remus it was the companionable silence of two good friends sitting together by a fire drinking hot chocolate, but to Sirius it seemed to stretch out to eternity, waiting to be filled, and he knew it was up to him to fill it.
He noticed that Remus's arms were still bandaged, and there was a tiny scar just above his left eyebrow. God, it must have been bad. Normally, Madam Pomfrey charmed away scars with no trouble at all.
Okay, here goes, he thought, and took a deep breath. 'Remus, when you transformed… Do you know what happened?'
Remus examined his left hand with great care, paying especial attention to the nails. 'It was…bad, wasn't it? Dumbledore told me all about it. He said Snape got in somehow, and Prongs saved his life. But it's not as if I can remember anything. And I didn't know where you were.'
It sounded faintly accusing. Or at least, Sirius hoped it did, because he deserved accusing.
'Everything would have been fine if you'd been there, Padfoot. You could have chased Snape away, couldn't you?' Remus looked at his best friend with such trust and confidence that Sirius choked on the mouthful of hot chocolate he had finally managed to ingest.
Remus leaned over and thumped his back. 'God, Sirius, are you okay? You seem very jumpy. And shouldn't you be in Transfiguration right now?'
'ItwasmyfaultItoldSnape,' Sirius blurted out.
'What?'
'It was my fault. I told Snape where to find you,' Sirius repeated, looking fixedly out of the window at the snow falling thicker and faster now. He tried to calm himself by imagining the Quidditch pitch covered in snow: virgin white and cold and smooth and beautiful…
'I don't understand.' Remus put his cup down on the floor, and Sirius, looking at him out of the corner of his eye, noticed that his friend's hands were shaking. Well, no doubt his own hands were shaking too. Shit, his whole soul was shaking.
'It was meant to be a, a prank. You know how sneaky Snape is. Well, he's been creeping round us such a lot. He's noticed you going along to the Shrieking Shack. Seemed like a good idea to show him what he'd find there.'
Remus looked at Sirius blankly, his face wiped clean of all expression.
Sirius sighed. 'I told him exactly how to get to the Shack. But I didn't imagine he was really going to do it. And James and I were actually on our way to join you when we saw him at the Willow. Of course, we couldn't, once Dumbledore and everyone got involved.'
The fire was burning lower. Yet another house-elf came in, rekindled it, put the guard in front of it with a reproving look at Remus. 'Mr. Lupin, you must not be sitting almost in the fire! Not without floo powder.'
When the boys were on their own again, Sirius once more began to stare out of the window, not daring even to sneak a glance at his friend. His former friend, rather. He wasn't sure that Remus had taken in the implications of what he was saying. Remus was clever, very clever, even, but it must be hard to process that your best friend had nearly killed his virtual brother and put you in danger of execution. Sirius discounted any potential damage to Snape.
When Remus finally spoke, his voice wasn't quite steady. 'Look, Sirius, I still don't… I mean, did you actually tell Snape about me, or what? Was it some sort of dare?'
Sirius protested. 'I didn't tell him. Oh, look, it was a bit complicated, but it was his fault. And it certainly wasn't a dare. He didn't have to go there, you know.'
'Oh. Right.' Remus got up, shrugging off the red blanket, and went over to sit on the edge of the bed. 'I'm going to throw up.'
He reached for the bucket beside the bed, and within seconds Madam Pomfrey was by his side. The marauders often joked that she seemed to be attached to her patients by an invisible thread, able to sense any medical complications almost before they arose. Remus had remarked once that she could have taught Divination way better than Professor Regan.
She held Remus's head until he had finished retching, then wordlessly handed him a glass of what looked like fizzy water. Remus made a face, but drank it down in one gulp.
'Good boy,' said Madam Pomfrey, waving her wand over the bucket to empty and scrub it. She frowned slightly at Sirius. 'If you think this is going to be too much for him, please ring the bell for me. No need to make him even sicker.'
Sirius was sorely tempted. He could get up, leave the now stifling sickroom, go outside and make tracks in the new snow, prepare an arsenal of snowballs so he, James and Peter could attack the unwary Slytherins straight after school… But he remembered that he had, after all, been sorted into Gryffindor, which meant that somewhere deep inside he must have the courage to go through with this. Now. Without putting it off for another day, or week, or month, much as he'd have liked to.
Until a few days ago, it had never occurred to Sirius that friends didn't just…happen. It had taken James snarling at him that he would never speak to him again, and Peter, white and shaking, getting the courage from James to glower at Sirius in turn; but then, James had relented after twenty-four hours, and things were almost back to normal between them, and by definition between Sirius and Peter.
But he had never thought that he could lose Remus. Never. Even when Dumbledore had explained that he was not expelling Sirius mainly because Sirius had nowhere to go but the Potters', and he was not going to burden them; even when Professor McGonagall took him off the Quidditch team and oversaw the first of his twenty detentions; even just half an hour ago, when he dragged his feet toward Remus's room.
He felt suddenly cold, and moved closer to the fire again. He didn't want to think what it would mean, not having Remus. Even though much of this term had been him and James, friends and brothers forever, Sirius always knew that Remus was there, that he could glance at him across the classroom, hear his soft breathing at night from the bed next to his, that he could fantasise about -- But he stopped himself dead there. No. Not that route.
He forced himself to look up at Remus, who was still sitting on the bed, not moving. 'You okay, Moony?' It was a stupid question, and Sirius knew that, but somebody had to say something, and obviously Remus wasn't going to.
Remus didn't answer, and Sirius, to his horror, saw that his bottom lip was trembling uncontrollably, his fists clenched. Oh, shit, he wasn't going to cry, was he? Moony never cried, ever. Not even after the harshest of transformations, not even that time in first year when he'd mentioned, almost by the way, that his parents had died a few months before he started school, in a Muggle rail accident.
Sirius saw him struggle to try and regain control, but finally give up. He noticed, with some objective part of his mind, that even when Moony was crying his mouth still curved up slightly at the ends. That was, Sirius had always thought, what made Moony so especially good to look at, that mouth set in a gentle almost-smile, like a cat's. It may have had something to do with the wolf, he'd decided a while back.
He felt his own eyes filling in sympathy. Oh, bugger. He did cry rather more often than Moony did – well, so did most people – but he didn't want to start now. He concentrated fiercely on the fire, hoping it would dry his incipient tears before they overflowed.
'Why did you want to hurt me?' Remus asked. Or Sirius assumed that was what he asked, because the words came out choked and thick, as if they were hurting so badly that they might be better left unsaid altogether.
'I didn't want to hurt you. That would be the last thing I'd want.' Sirius's words were also a bit choked. 'Look, come back and sit by the fire. You're shivering.'
'I'm not shivering, I'm absolutely fine,' Remus spluttered. But he got up all the same, and knelt by the fire, as far from Sirius as he could while sharing the same space. Sirius clumsily draped the blanket round him again. Remus was wearing an infirmary issue pair of striped pyjamas and a towelling dressing gown, but he felt he should make a gesture.
And suddenly Remus was sobbing wildly, gulping for air, abandoning all pretence that he wasn't sitting there with tears and snot pouring down his face. 'I needed you, Padfoot,' he blurted out, almost incoherent. 'It doesn't matter if I say it now, cos everything's totally screwed up anyway, isn't it? I needed you so much. I needed you like… like I need air. And I don't know what I'm going to do.'
'Oh, Moony, for God's sake.' Sirius was also crying openly now. He reached across and put his arms round Remus in a clumsy hug. Remus buried his head in his friend's shoulder.
'I can't even think about it,' Remus wept. 'I really can't bear it.'
'Look, there's more to it than… What I told you.' Sirius had a sudden vivid glimpse of his bedroom at Grimmauld Place, his mother standing over him scolding him, the way she just wouldn't stop; the way it made him want to scream and scream back at her until his throat bled. The way no real light came through the windows, and the sunlight he wasn't allowed to train there, and the darkness thick on the panes. He didn't want to tell anybody anything about his summer, even Remus. Especially Remus. James had heard the edited highlights, and that was it.
'Listen, this summer. Why I left home. You're not to tell. Okay, I sort of told Snape about you. So if you did tell, but you won't, actually.'
Remus said nothing.
'It was after OWL results. And I did so well, and they just ignored it. And it was all getting to me, so I wrote you this letter. Probably, it was sort of…like I might write a story, or something. Not quite real. Because you'd sent me that brilliant owl saying it was so great we'd all got such good marks, except Peter, but he. Doesn't. Anyway.
'So I wrote you this letter. I probably wasn't going to send it. Okay, no way in hell was I going to send it.'
Sirius paused to wipe his nose on the sleeve of his robes. He still had one arm round Remus, and was grateful that he could avoid looking at him without having to make an effort to do so.
'Okay, it said. Stuff. Like how I felt about you. Not that you'd know. Because, well, perhaps all the things with Snivellus, when James was trying to impress Evans. Maybe I was trying to get your attention. Oh, well, that wasn't a great way to do it. I mean, you didn't even tell us off!'
Remus kept his head buried in Sirius's shoulder, and remained there motionless. Sirius could feel, though, the tension in his back, and soldiered on.
'Yeah, this letter. It was quite graphic. Not obscenely graphic, because I didn't want to put you off. If I sent it. But I did mention a few things I'd perhaps fantasise about doing to you. Quite innocent things, just like snogging or whatever. But you're not supposed to say things like that to other boys. Or think them.
'Anyway, you probably guessed that my mother got hold of it. I don't know how, because I wouldn't have sent it from home. She always checks my owls. Probably the house-elf sneaking about. And that would have been fine, really, because she called me into the drawing-room and told me off for writing a letter to any girl whose genealogy she didn't know by heart. Especially a letter like that. And then Regulus, who was sitting there sniggering at me, piped up, 'But Moony's a boy, isn't he, Sirius?' And then my mother completely lost it, and all hell broke loose. As you can imagine. And I left.'
Sirius paused, took a deep breath and counted to ten, then paused again until he was sure his voice would be reasonably level.
'She made me feel that everything I felt about you was… I mean, she said I was perverted and unnatural, and should go to Azkaban, and she said a lot of stuff in that vein. I don't want to… Well. So this term, I've been trying very hard to do things I should. Like hang round with James and ogle Evans and her mates. And pretend I am not noticing every fucking tiny thing you are doing all the time. Like I'm wired up to you or something. Because it's supposed to be wrong and – dirty, somehow, even if it feels right.'
And it had felt right, those nights up in his bedroom with the bedside lamp on, writing sheet after sheet of parchment. Moony, I love. I want to kiss you. I want. You are so beautiful, and your eyes. Kiss you all over, lick you until you are screaming for mercy, hold you, devour you, so close that we could crawl inside each other and stay there forever, so close that I can feel your blood pulsing through your veins, and I want you more than anything, and you make me feel, and I had better stop now, because you aren't here, and. God, Moony, what you do to me. You must let me know if you are feeling it too because.
Remus looked up, wiped his face with a very grubby hanky fished out from his dressing-gown pocket. Sirius saw with great relief that he was no longer crying. But he still looked sad and defeated, and Sirius felt so miserable it was all he could do not to start crying again himself.
'But if you – like me, why did you tell Snape how to get to the Shack?'
Sirius sighed, exasperated. 'It was because of my mother and that letter. You know, Regulus has obviously regaled all his little friends with the story of how his Gryffindor brother fled the family home. I'm sure everyone in Slytherin now knows I wrote to one of my mates that I fancied him. And of course Snape will take a lot of notice of anything he can use against us.
'Mind you,' he added, more cheerfully, 'my mother said she'd put a curse on him if he breathed a word, so he's in for it when he gets home. Because she always knows.'
Madam Pomfrey came in, carrying a tray of sandwiches. 'Mr. Black, Professor Dumbledore thought you should eat lunch up here as you two are still talking. He says you may be excused afternoon school as well today.'
She put the tray on the floor between the boys and went out, not quite closing the door.
Remus looked impressed. 'Gosh, he's letting you off a whole day's school? I'd have thought he'd expel you.' His face fell again, as if he'd suddenly realised that Sirius might indeed have been expelled, and this apology, or explanation, or whatever it was, was simply a final penance at Hogwarts imposed by the headmaster.
'No, he didn't expel me.'
Remus eyed the sandwiches with distaste. 'Chicken, are they?'
Sirius, who was feeling very hungry suddenly for no particular reason, nodded, his mouth full. He swallowed. 'C'mon, Moony, you must eat something. You're too thin.'
Remus shrugged, took a sandwich and nibbled at the crust. 'Sirius, I still don't get it. I mean, you say you wrote me this letter, but then you just think I'm your weapon to get at Snape. Like I'm not even a person.' His voice cracked momentarily, and he turned abruptly back to the fire and stared into the flames.
Sirius's appetite evaporated as fast as it had arrived, and he put down his second sandwich untasted. 'Look, Moony, here's the simplified version. Snape thinks you and I have got some sort of, of relationship. Snape implies we go to the Shrieking Shack to have it off. I tell Snape we will be there directly after dinner on a certain evening. Snape goes along and nearly gets eaten.'
Remus went even paler, if that were possible, and Sirius wished he could take back the last sentence.
'With me so far, Moony? Now, say you're Snape. Your deadly enemy, Sirius Black, tells you that if you go to a certain place at a certain time, you will see something that will get Sirius Black and Remus Lupin expelled. What's your immediate reaction?'
'That he's tricking me, of course. That he and his mates will ambush me and hex me,' Remus answered at once.
'Thank you, Moony. Full marks. Snape actually doing it and getting scared shitless wasn't even Plan B. That's the bit that really stopped me getting expelled, I think. Besides Dumbledore feeling sorry for the Potters. Even he agreed that it was stupid of Snape to take me up on it. Now, I thought Snivellus had a bit of brain, seeing as how he's doing about ten NEWTs, and you chose him to tutor you for your Potions OWL retake.'
The potions thing was also a sore spot, Sirius admitted to himself. He hated the thought of Remus in close proximity to Snape in the dungeons, the idea of Snape going through the intricacies of the Potions OWL with his, Sirius's, Remus three evenings a week. He and James had taken to going and picking Remus up from the Potions room, and every time, Sirius was hard put to keep his hand off his wand when he saw Remus smiling at Snape, being polite to him, seeming, sometimes, almost to like him. In fact, it had crossed his mind that Remus, being so chummy and all with bloody Snivellus, might even have told him his secret, that Snape might have known all along that Moony was a werewolf.
A few evenings before the full moon, Moony had been almost glowing with pleasure when Sirius and James came to fetch him. Sirius felt, fancifully, that his friend was actually illuminating the grim dungeon classroom with his beaming smile. Or rather, he blocked the thought, because it was wrong, it was wrong to look at Remus and imagine the many things he would like to be doing with Remus rather than watching him waste his time in the company of their least favourite Slytherin. So he felt put out, annoyed that Snape, however indirectly, had made Remus glow like that. And when Remus's smile faded to mere excitement, the room turned shadowy again, except for the fluorescent green liquid bubbling away in Remus's cauldron.
'I did it, Padfoot! Look, Prongs, it's a memory potion! It worked!'
Even Snape, Sirius noted, didn't quite have the heart to mention that the clumsiest First Year should be able to produce a passable memory potion. If Snape had spoiled Remus's pleasure by so much as the faintest smirk, Sirius could at least have had the pleasure of jinxing him. But he didn't, and somehow that was so much worse, to see the hated Snivellus having a part, any part, in making Remus so happy.
'It was really about Potions, then, was it?' Remus asked now. There was no guile in his voice, no edge of weariness. He genuinely wanted to know.
'A bit,' Sirius admitted.
Remus flared up. 'Right, Sirius, here's your simplified version. Firstly, I didn't choose Snape. Professor Goodwin chose him, because he doesn't have time to take extra lessons himself. And Snape is top in Potions NEWT classes, and he's being paid for teaching me. Secondly, I am polite to Snape because I have to work with him, and unlike you and James I think it's a bad idea to alienate somebody I have to see all the time. And thirdly, I hate and detest Potions, I loathe Snape, I don't want to redo the OWL, but my aunt and McGonagall have insisted. Okay?'
Sirius grinned. 'Okay. It seems a waste of time, I must say. What did you get, a D?'
'T. Didn't I tell you?'
'You're joking! I never heard of anyone really getting a T. Not even Peter. I thought you couldn't retake it if you did that badly.'
'You can't. Unless you have a crackpot aunt like mine, who makes the OWL board give you a special dispensation. You say your family were bad about your OWLs. Well, my aunt ignored all my Os and went on and on about that one fail, and how I was a werewolf and needed hundreds more qualifications than anyone else just so I could be educated and unemployed.' For a second, Remus looked as if he might start to cry again.
'I'm sorry,' said Sirius. 'I didn't realise. I mean, I know you don't like her much, but I didn't know it was that bad.'
'It's not that bad. She's just old and annoying.'
Outside, the snow had stopped, and the sun was breaking through the clouds, overwhelming the dim light in the sickroom with its lemon-sharp brightness. Sirius got up and went over to the window. 'Moony, come and see.'
The castle grounds, a long way below, were spread out like a map, now completely obliterated by the snow, untrodden as yet by any students. After school that afternoon, the carpet of white would be contaminated by hundreds of footsteps, diminished by an equal number of snowballs, but for the moment it lay pristine and sparkling.
The two boys stood side by side looking out, not speaking for a few moments, tawny head and black head close together.
'The thing is,' Sirius said quickly, before he regretted the impulse, 'that I couldn't bear the thought of Snape knowing how I feel about you. I know it makes it worse that I didn't think how much I could hurt you. And I honestly didn't believe he'd actually do it. But part of me wouldn't have minded at all if he'd died.'
'Next time, though, Padfoot, you must make plans to kill him yourself,' Remus said gently.
Sirius laughed.
'What?'
'You owe me one, Lupin.'
'How's that?'
'Thanks to me, there's no way Snape is going to agree to tutor you in Potions again.'
Remus laughed too, and then the two boys were giggling helplessly, Remus's head on Sirius's shoulder. Then, their arms were round each other, and their mouths met tentatively, and their lips grazed; after a while, they were kissing each other deeply, though a bit clumsily, and Sirius felt as if some atavistic hunger in his soul was finally on the point of satiation. He thought that Remus probably felt the same, because he was kissing him back without hesitation, which must surely mean that he'd been forgiven. Or if this wasn't forgiveness yet, it was sweet enough to keep him going until Remus granted him a final absolution.
End