A/N: It's been a while since I've been around here as an author. Here's the opening chapter/prologue to a Remus/Sirius fic I've been toying around with in my head for a while. Reviews, questions, and constructive criticism are always welcome.
Disclaimer: The characters and world belong to J.K. Rowling, I simply invent a new road for them to travel. In short, nothing belongs to me.
Year 5
Early January 1976
Remus was floating on top of a patch of fluffy blue-grey clouds. He couldn't feel any part of his body but he knew it was suspended in the air. It felt like riding a broom, only better because he had no fear of falling.
And then he plummeted to the ground faster than James could say, "Merlin's saggy balls."
"Hello there, Rem. How is Princess Moony feeling on this fantastic day?" Sirius was perched on the stool next to Remus's bed munching on a pastry. There were golden flakes all over his grey school sweater.
Remus glanced out his window, even though it hurt his neck to turn that far. The day, which Sirius had described as fantastic, was rather dull and dreary by Remus's standards. He couldn't see the sun behind the mountainous wall of clouds and he smelled heavy rain on its way.
"Just wonderful, Pads." He responded, wincing as he struggled rather valiantly to prop himself up on his forearms.
"Excellent! Your pops is waiting downstairs with tea and biscuits." Sirius had finished his pastry and stood up, dusting the flakes from his clothes.
"Right, just give me a minute, please."
Sirius crossed his arms and rolled his eyes as Remus's epic struggle against his own limbs continued, with the bed sheets now joining in to keep him pinned down. He was sweating by the time he'd thrown off the heavy quilt.
"Almost there." he panted, staring down at his newly exposed, pajama-clad legs.
"Do you want some he-"
"No. No, I've got it."
Sirius was trying not to laugh at his friend, he knew how touchy he got after transformations, but the sight of this was too much.
"I wish I had one of those muggle contraptions, those photography thingies, you look absolutely ridiculous." Sirius re-claimed his seat on the stool and smirked at Remus, who was currently lifting his left leg with both hands while trying to swing his body around. His foot, wool-sock and all, landed with a thud on the wooden floor.
"Wizards use cameras too, Sirius. Where do you think all those photos in the Daily Prophet come from?" Remus, now that he had an effective strategy, made quick work of his right leg.
"Yes, but muggle ones are cooler than ours. They've got all of those buttons, you know how I feel about good buttons, Moony."
"Uh, no. No, actually I don't think I've ever heard you profess any type of special affection for buttons." Remus had reached the most difficult part of the getting-out-of-bed process; standing. Normally, the lovely matron of Hogwarts, a Ms. Fairley, would help him hobble around for a few minutes after he woke up to loosen his stiff limbs. That is, if the transformation hadn't been too bad.
This time, however, Remus was left only with Sirius. And while his mate was a wonderful friend, pal, buddy, what-have-you, Padfoot left a lot to be desired in his bedside manner. After the initial offer of help, which Remus had stupidly (he now realized) turned down, Sirius just sat smirking, thoroughly enjoying the show.
"Oi! Boys, hurry it up, you've got to floo to Dumbledore's office in half an hour!"
Sirius raised his eyebrow, in all of it's slightly bushy glory, and kept his arms folded.
"Sirius."
"Yes, Moonykins?"
"Mind moving your ass over here and helping me out?"
Sirius leapt off of the stool, all galant energy, and turned, kneeling, in front of Remus.
"I know it hurts your pride, kid, but just hop on so your Dad doesn't have a heart attack worrying about the time. You and I both know it will take you ten minutes to get down the hall and another ten to get down the stairs."
Remus, tired and sore as he was, didn't even try to argue. He looped his arms around Sirius's shoulders and tumbled gracelessly off the bed and against his friend.
"Merlin, Remus, for someone so skinny you're always so fucking heavy."
"Maybe it's the extra weight of the deadly ravenous beast that lives inside of me." Remus placed his chin comfortably on Sirius's right shoulder as they began the trek down to the kitchen, where Mr. Lupin was waiting with more than just tea and biscuits.
Poor Mr. Lupin had been, in his eyes quite tragically, bullied by the three friends of Remus into helping them surprise his only child. The Lupin's spindly kitchen table was groaning, literally the wood was making odd noises, under the weight of pastries, chocolates, sausages, bacon, eggs, juice, and three awfully wrapped gifts. While Mr. Lupin knew the boys had his son's best interest at heart, and while he knew the surprise would cheer Remus up, he couldn't help but feel anxious having three boys so close to Remus after the transformation. Miraculously, Mr. Lupin admitted, there had been no scars on Remus's face or neck this month, and those on his hands had been small enough to conceal.
Mr. Lupin, James, and Peter heard Sirius's fanfare as he hopped off the last step and paraded into the kitchen.
"Dah dah da-da!" he cried with a flourish of his arm.
"Brill!" Remus exclaimed, still clinging to Sirius's back.
"Come on then, Sirius, let's get him to the chair."
Sirius ambled over and dumped Remus in the wooden chair at the head of the table and began pointing everything out to him.
"We had Penny whip up a few things for you, so over there we've got your usual breakfast fare. Then here we've got some delicious crumbles for you, I think those are apple. Next to 'em are those fancy turn-over pastries, I'm not sure what's in them, but they're great."
"No Padfoot, the crumbles are Blueberry-Pistachio. The turnovers are apple." James was reading off a list that had presumably come from his house-elf.
"Well what's the rest of 'em, then?" Sirius demanded.
"Not sure, can't read your writing." James shrugged.
"I'll have one of each, please." Remus said, beaming. Peter loaded his friend's plate with five different types of fruit-filled pastries.
"Bloody hell, look at the time! 20 minutes. Hurry up and drink that tea Remus, doctor sent it over for you earlier. Boys, would you mind running up and checking on Remus's trunk. We've got to get you into your uniform."
Peter grabbed a sausage off a tray as he and James raced up the stairs.
"Did you need any help, Mr. Lupin?" Sirius inquired, hands in his pockets.
"No, no, thank you, Sirius." Mr. Lupin was more than a bit paranoid about his son's scars. Remus sat demurely sipping tea, blueberry-pistachio crumble in one hand. Sirius smiled, nodded, and hurried up the stairs after the others.
Phase 2 (Operation Firewhisky) of their surprise was now in motion.
With Mr. Lupin's help Remus stripped off his pajamas and slipped into his school uniform. The buttons on his white shirt were a bit tricky for his tired fingers so his dad stepped closer and tucked each of the iridescent buds through their holes.
"Should be a good term, don't you think?" He asked his son.
"With O.W.L.S? I don't know about that."
"I'm sure you'll do great."
Mr. Lupin started tying the red and gold striped tie.
The two heard the thuds of Remus's trunk and the feet of the three boys as they came crashing down the stairs. Remus winced at the noise.
"All set, Mr. Lupin!" James cried. He and Peter began re-packing some of the food inside of a magically enlarged picnic basket lent by Mrs. Potter.
"Did you get my books?" Remus asked.
"Yes, all fifty-hundred of them." James answered, rolling his eyes.
"Fifty-hundred is not a real number, James." Remus smiled, picking up his Hogwarts sweater. His scarf, hat, and coat all hung neatly by the fireplace. Sirius gathered them up in his arms brought them over.
"Yeah, but you still had a lot of books, mate." Sirius added as he placed the knit cap on top of Remus's messy hair and wrapped the scarf around his friend's pale neck. Remus said nothing, he couldn't argue since his trunk was a traveling library, and folded the coat over his arm.
Mr. Lupin grabbed the tin of floo-powder, disguised as an old Christmas biscuit can, and waited near the fireplace as the other boys gathered the rest of their things. He stood, watching the four of them joke for a few moments; stuffing bits of food in each other's faces, Sirius snapping his scarf across Peter's butt, James slinging Remus over one shoulder and striding around the kitchen.
He tossed a handful of the powder into the flames. The whooshing sound caught the boys attention, and caused them all to line up in a somewhat orderly fashion, in front of the fireplace.
"Thanks Mr. Lupin!" James shouted gleefully, hopping straight into the sparkling green flame. "Dumbledore's Office!"
"Later, Mr. Lupin." Peter said with a wave and a nod before he too went the same way as James.
"In a bit, then." Sirius said to Remus, waving at the older man as he stepped into the still glowing fire.
Remus hugged his father tightly and was rewarded with several hearty and manly pats on the back.
"Have a good term, son." Mr. Lupin whispered before he gently nudged him towards the fireplace. Remus, needing no real motivation to rejoin his friends, nearly tumbled forward in his haste.
"Dumbledore's office!" He shouted, waving voraciously at his dad as he spun out of sight. The older Lupin smiled and waved as well, but Remus thought he seemed a bit sad.
The four boys arrived just in time for the first class of spring term. Professor McGonagall was waiting for them in Dumbledore's office, tapping her foot. The four would have preferred to be greeted by the white-bearded genius himself, but hadn't found themselves in a position to make demands. You see, when the headmaster agrees to let you pick up your lycanthropic friend and floo directly to his office, late no-less, on the first day back, one didn't argue with specifics.
"Mr. Potter, Mr. Black, Mr. Lupin, Arithmancy. Mr. Pettigrew, Care of Small Magical Creatures if you please. The house elves will stow your belongings."
"Did you have a lovely Christmas, Minnie? We left you a gift!" Sirius's eyes were dancing, two impish black pools.
"How good of you to remind me, Mr. Black. You have detention every night this week for that gift. Professor Slughorn would like help cleaning some of the old cauldrons to be used for first years."
Sirius scowled and his friends chuckled as they all filed out of the room.
"You're getting tedious, Black! A talking muggle-Santa doll is hardly original!" McGonagall cried after them. The other three only laughed louder.
"What an awful way to end the day: double Potions." Sirius flopped down on his bed and rubbed his eyes.
"It might have gone better, Padfoot if you hadn't dropped those lace-fly wings in Snivillus's cauldron just as Sluggie looked over." Peter said with a consoling pat on his friend's shin before he too dropped down onto his own bed.
"Details, Wormtail, details."
James snorted while undoing his tie, "Details they may be, but you earned yourself detention for another week."
"Yeah well what was I supposed to do, let him keep saying all that stupid shit about Remus? Somebody might have heard him."
"Maybe you should have thought about that before you invited him down to the Willow at the beginning of last term." Remus snapped as he flung his bag down on his bed. He sat down heavily and placed his head in his hands.
"Remus, I've said I'm sorry, mate-"
"Let's not start this again." James interrupted, drawing his arms across his chest and doing his very best to impersonate his own father.
"Prongs, why are you stood there looking like a twat?" Peter pipped up, unknowingly breaking the tension in the room.
Sirius and Remus guwaffed as James's face reddened and he dropped his arms.
"I was trying to be mature." James said in defense.
"Your voice sounded a bit daft." Peter said with a shrug as he popped a Berties Bott's bean into his mouth. He grimaced after he discovered it was earwax and not the new and highly anticipated muggle "popcorn" flavor.
"Oh, stuff it." James grumbled.
The boys lay on their beds in silence, everyone contemplating the horrific night Severus had nearly stumbled upon a fully transformed Remus, before they heard someone shout for Remus.
"Is that Lily?" James demanded, immediately sitting upright.
"REMUS!" the voice cried again.
"Uh, yeah. We've got prefects meeting." Remus scrambled to put his shoes back on and hurry out of the dorm before James could beg him to recite a poem for the girl, give her some horrible Christmas gift, or whatever else his emotionally stunted mind could come up with.
"Remus! Remus, wait, mate, I need you to-" James shouted as his friend slammed the door behind him.
"Prongs, after Lily hexed him before break for that ridiculous stunt you had him pull, he will not be doing you anymore favors." Sirius advised.
"Yeah, I guess you're right...but I really don't understand why she didn't like it." James shrugged his friend's hand off his shoulder and stumbled towards their bathroom.
"I mean, I thought it was brilliant. The lights, Moony's singing, the poem at the end."
Sirius ignored James and instead focused on stroking the very prickly mustache hairs of his upper lip.
"Do you think he's really still upset?" Padfoot demanded of the other two. Peter heaved both shoulders in his staple non-committal gesture, making it more than clear that he did not want to go on record as having an opinion on such a touchy Marauder event. James exhaled loudly.
"Stop sighing dramatically and answer me." Sirius snapped.
James regarded him carefully, his hazel eyes just the slightest bit magnified by the wire-rimmed glasses he wore.
"If he is, I think he has every right to be. You nearly got him kicked out."
"But I said I'm sorry. I've apologized." Sirius was tugging viciously at stray pieces of his hair and chewing his bottom lip.
"I know. I just don't think an apology is enough this time."
"Well what else am I supposed to do?" Sirius turned his oozing grey eyes on James.
"Fuck if I know. Talk to him, probably."
Sirius looked to Peter for his verdict. The blonde boy, who had been getting quite chunky over the last few months, nodded slightly.
This advice to "talk to him" had driven Sirius to his current spot. He had dug out the map from under James mattress ("Mate, could you keep it somewhere else? I'm worried you'll get, ya' know, on it next to all these mags.") and searched desperately for Remus and Lily's names. He had found them in a few moments (Prefects meetings were always in the eastern part of the castle, fifth floor, third corridor on the left) and set off, ignoring James's warnings to not do anything stupid. Even though Remus and Lily's names had disappeared once they entered the Prefect's meeting room, he had pranked that corridor enough times to reach it in his sleep.
So there he was, waiting anxiously, about twenty feet away from the meeting room, and growing hungrier by the second. He picked at the cuticles on his nails to the pass the time, but stopped once he ripped a hangnail too aggressively, causing it to bleed. That's how Remus and Lily found him too, sucking on his ring finger and cursing.
"Black." Lily said with a raised eyebrow.
"Hello Mrs. Potter." he chimed with a wink. Remus frowned at him and shook his head slightly. Faster than Sirius could blink, Lily had draw her wand and hexed his shoelaces so that they tied his arms behind his back.
"What did you say to me?" Lily growled, stepping forward.
"Um, no magic on students between classes, Ms. Evans?" Sirius gulped as the red-head pushed her wand into his neck. She snorted at him and walked away, briefly touching Remus on the shoulder and whispering something in his ear.
"What's crawled up her ass?" Sirius asked, wiggling out of the shoelaces, which had once more become lifeless with Lily's parting.
"Family things." Remus said vaguely, even waving his hand around in an ambiguous fashion. Was that a circle, an oval, a new type of inter-stellar orbit? Sirius wasn't sure. He handed Remus the left shoe and one of the shoelaces and leaned against the stone wall to re-lace the other. The two made quick work of the strings and Sirius held onto the wall while he slid his trainers back on. He was careful not to jostle Remus who he thought might still be sore from last night's transformation.
"What's the matter? Her Christmas dinner was ruined because the napkins didn't match her mother's china this year?"
Remus glared at him. "Really, Sirius?"
Sirius cocked his head to the side and looked at his friend expectantly. James wasn't aware of this, but Remus, through his friendship with Lily, had learned a great number of things about her that might have given his friend insight into the young woman he claimed to "love". He passed these tidbits on to Sirius, occasionally, if he thought it was something Sirius should relay to James, or if he simply needed to talk about it with someone else.
Last year, when Lily had first told Remus of the troubles with her older sister, Petunia, Remus had cautiously gone to Sirius for advice, hoping that his own relationship with his younger brother Regulus might shine some light on Lily's problems. Sirius had listened as Remus carefully constructed several complicated 'hypothetical' situations before he cut him off with his hand and simply said, "Look, Moony. Tell Red that her sister will never get over being a cunt, because that's all she is. So the lovely Lilykins can either take it, or leave it." Remus, while impressed his friend had figured out that it was Lily the two were discussing, had not shared that with Lily. He thought it would be more disheartening that anything else.
"Petunia's told Lily she can't come to the wedding in June because she thinks Lily will bring the "bad wizards" to kill the family."
"Are you shitting me?"
"And Petunia wants Lily to tell their mother she won't be coming to the wedding. She was apparently really cruel over the Holidays and now Lily doesn't know if it's even worth it to go."
"Evans definitely got all the intelligent genes in the family. Does Petunia really think she's friends with the "bad wizards"?"
Remus smiled at his friend briefly. "Look at you, employing your muggle studies knowledge. Genes."
Sirius and Remus stared out the window for a moment, enjoying the silence of the corridor and the starry sky on the other side of the glass pane. Sirius didn't really have any advice for Lily Evans, he honestly couldn't bring himself to care much about her life, not when he was preoccupied with his other friends. There had been a few threats on Potter Senior over the holidays, and Sirius knew James was struggling under the fear of his father's death. There had even been a particularly close call on Boxing Day, something he hadn't told Remus about yet. Remus, who was always so calm and stoic in Sirius's eyes, despite his own inner demons. All of the Marauders were, according to Sirius, a bit fucked. He maintained it was part of what held the group together.
He turned to look at the other boy, sweeping his eyes from the long dusty blonde hair flipping up at awkward angles as Remus swept his hands through it absentmindedly. His jumper was perfectly neat, his trousers were a bit loose, but Sirius could tell that Mr. Lupin had pressed them earlier that morning. Sirius was distracted from studying the battered and slightly discolored shoes of his friend as Remus yawned and stretched, revealing a small golden belt buckle and the tiniest patch of skin, sprinkled with hair the same color as the locks on his head. Sirius's stomach growled then, quite loudly, and Remus laughed, slapping him on the shoulder.
"Let's head down for dinner."
"Rem, wait a minute." Sirius tugged on the boy's elbow.
"What is it?"
"I wanted to talk to you about something."
"I figured as much when I saw you waiting out here. I thought you'd gone and forgotten it though, since you hadn't said anything yet." Remus crossed his arms and looked as his friend intently. Sirius closed his eyes and mustered up his courage.
"I just, I know that I need to, hold on." Sirius squeezed his eyes together as tightly as possible, causing Remus to smile a bit at the wrinkles that showed in the creases of his friend's eyelids.
"Go on." he implored.
"I know I've apologized for what happened with Snape."
"Sirius-" Remus began, dropping his arms.
"No, listen. I know I've apologized. And I know it's not enough, but I don't know what else to do and I'm sorry." Sirius opened his eyes and looked at Remus. He stepped closer, desperately hoping to make him see how sincere he was.
"Sometimes you, things, get weird between us, Remus and I know it's because of what I did. And if I could take it back I would. I really, really would. I need you to know that."
Remus nodded and looked down at his shoes. Blushing. He was blushing because he could feel Sirius's breath tickling his nose and he couldn't handle standing this close to his friend for this long. Sirius, for his part, was beginning to get desperate and felt like he wasn't getting through.
"Rem." he said again. Remus looked up carefully. Sirius could see the guarded look in his eyes and assumed, quite wrongly, that it was because he was doing a shit job at apologizing.
"I'm sorry." he whispered, so quietly and so desperately that no other apology ever uttered sounded quite so tragic. At least in his humble Black opinion.
Then, he impulsively placed his hands on either side of Remus's jaw and kissed each side of his face, in that horrible grey space that is neither lip nor cheek, but both and thus infinitely more difficult to understand.
"Sirius! Remus! I'm not climbing these fucking stairs. Get your arses down here. I want to eat." James's voice caused them both to jump and Remus rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly before he hurried down the stairs, not glancing back at Sirius.
"Where's the smelly dog?" James demanded as he and Peter flung their arms around his shoulders.
"I'm here, I'm here." Sirius said, panting. He wiggled in between James and Remus as the four made their way to the Great Hall.
"Hey, Moony. Did James tell you what we got you for Christmas yet?" Peter asked with a huge grin.
"Oh, no. I haven't even opened those gifts yet. What are they?"
The other three chortled.
"Those were duds. We wrapped some of Mrs. Potter's weirdo artwork and told your dad that was your gift." explained Peter.
"The real gift was stashed in your trunk." James added, jumping out of line to step in front of them and halt Remus.
"What did you put in there?" Remus asked skeptically. His mind was conjuring up images of dead animals, perhaps if he was lucky it would be alive still. The other three boys, now in a semicircle around him, were smiling happily. Remus began envisioning books instead, since their smiles didn't appear to be too sinister. He sighed happily at the idea of a new paperback to immerse himself in, seated on his favorite chair in front of the Gryffindor fireplace.
"We each nicked a bottle of Firewhiskey for you." Sirius whispered. They all looked at him with smirks and raised eyebrows. Remus wished desperately for a camera, to capture this moment when all three wore the exact same expression. He laughed and delivered the appropriate response:
"Brill."
Although, he would have preferred a new copy of The Lord of the Rings. Maybe Lily would have gotten it for him. The four continued to meander towards the Great Hall.
Thoughts of the bizarre kisses from Sirius were shoved away as the boys gorged on heavenly Hogwarts food and did their best at keeping James away from Lily throughout the meal (They were not, in fact, successful and James ended up with a giant tentacle for a nose until Remus stopped laughing long enough to reverse the spell).
Afterwards, they skipped the traditional post-holiday socializing in the common room and sprinted up the dorm stairs. The four dived onto Remus's bed as Sirius accio'd one of the bottles from the trunk.
"Well, gentlemen, a toast! To the new term, and to the Marauders!"
"Hurrah!" cheered Peter as Remus was forced to take the first gulp. The bottle was passed to Peter then James. Sirius took the last sip and as he sputtered (as they all had) Remus found his hand, of its own volition, wiping a drop of Firewhiskey from his friend's lip.
Maybe he hadn't pushed those thoughts as far away as originally believed.
I originally got my dates mixed up and wrote this as if it was their sixth year...it's all fixed now. If you spot any grammar or spelling mistakes, include them in a review. Those are my pet peeves but I can't catch them all the time! Thanks for reading.