Everyone Remus Lupin Ever Slept With, 1960-1981
Blatant rip off from Tracy Emin's tent. I enjoyed writing this, I think it may be my favourite work of mine (saying that, the works I like most of mine tend to be the ones with the least reviews, wonder what that says about my taste!)
Don't worry, I haven't turned Remus into a slag, and this is very much SLASH. Leave now if that's not 'for you'.
Felix, 1 September 1971
Feather-like touches tickled Remus' feet. Remus stretched tiredly, looking over at his cat. "Hogwarts today, Felix. I'm so excited, I might even make a human friend, though I don't know what I'd do without you, I'd get lonely." Six months later, Felix was dead, yet Remus couldn't be happier.
Peter Pettigrew, 3rd September 1974
Waking up that morning was not a pleasant experience. There was far too much alcohol still in Remus' bloodstream from the 'first day' party, pounding through his body so insistently that it felt as if he was bearing the weight of two people. Feeling the common room couch instead of his comfy bed beneath him, Remus had sighed, opening his eyes wearily.
At this point, Remus realised that he was bearing the weight of two people. With a hearty push, Peter rolled off the werewolf, emitting a loud grunt. Two hangover potions and a charms lesson later, all was forgotten.
Moony, from 30 April 1966 onwards
Every single night they shared a bed. Every night they would curl up together, knees curling tightly into the chest as Remus tried to fall asleep, his partner balefully crying for more meat, more play, more fun.
And some nights, Remus would humour him. Take him down to the kitchens, ask for as much raw meat as possible. Go into the forbidden forest, run around the trees until his lungs burned and his limbs froze. Sit in the common room and put charms on the staircases, so in the morning all the students would emerge with clothes that would be better placed in a dressing up box, with curls in their hair and charmed smiles on their faces.
But it would never be enough, and eventually the man and the wolf would have to climb back into bed, the wolf still balefully begging for more meat, more play, more fun.
Helena Hannigan, 18th March 1976 - 30th April 1976
Remus wasn't gay. That was official. Were you to ask anyone in the Gryffindor common room whether Remus Lupin was gay, they would most likely crack a lame joke about the word 'gay' in the 'happy' sense, before firmly asserting that Remus Lupin was definitely as straight as a wand.
If you were to ask Sirius Black if Remus was gay, he'd make a lame joke about boomerangs before, once again, asserting that Remus was as straight as his Aunt Gemima.
So it was natural that Remus did the same things that typical Heterosexual men did, such as sleep with women. Which is how Remus found himself here, sleeping with a woman.
She was rather plain, and made far too much noise during sex, but she was alright, really. She slept quietly, inoffensively. And when Remus frowned sadly during sex, or muttered a man's name at the wrong time, she just smiled an inoffensive smile and kissed him on the cheek, willing to ignore all his problems, all his fears, and just let him in, let him be a part of her and feel human and straight and normal for those few, sweet minutes of his inhuman, bent, abnormal life.
Elizabeth Lupin, until 29 April 1966
Remus wished he had been old enough to truly remember what his mother looked like before her life was ruined, but too much time had passed, and her happy face was blurred behind a mask of the disappointed, frightened, defeated woman that he'd faced every day since.
Though time may have robbed him of a memory of her face pre-wolf, he could still remember the days they would lie together on his parent's large bed, the ceiling charmed like the Great Hall so they could gaze at the stars together until the tiny dots blurred into one and the sandman became impossible to ignore.
Her light, melodic voice would sing sleepy songs of sheep and moons and rivers, whilst her long, graceful arm would wrap itself around his shoulders, surrounding him in the irreplaceable love of a mother. And as she whispered her typical goodnight message, 'I wish the stars for you, my darling', Remus would feel safe. Truly invincible, for someone loved him.
Remus wished he had been a been just a little older, so he could remember the words she would sing, or truly remember how she smiled, how her face relaxed as she slipped into a slumber, dreaming of their practically perfect life.
Yet those fickle, major details had long since sunk into the abyss, and after Remus ceased to be truly human, the irreplaceable love of a mother was replaced with the insurmountable, guilty fear of a woman living with a monster for a son.
Unnamed 18 year old, 15 August 1976
For the first five years of Hogwarts, Remus hated where he lived during the summers. He and his mother lived in a relatively beautiful town, in the North West of England, which would have been perfect were it not for the large amount of distance between there and London, where the three other Marauders all resided. He wished they could move, leave the tiny town, to move closer to the capital, so he would be easier to see his friends during the summer.
However, occasionally Remus relished the distance between them, particularly in the summer after 'The Prank'. The distance made forgetting about it so much easier, and soon enough he was discovering more about himself than he ever needed to know.
He didn't often frequent discotheques; the music was never to his taste, and the scents and sights just made him feel dizzy. Yet, as he slipped into the local club, he forgot about everything the second a pair of long, strong arms slipped around his waist.
At first, he was affronted; the arms were most definitely the arms of a man, and, as established during his relationship with Helena, he was most definitely straight. However, it was rude to just push someone away, and it didn't feel oh so bad, so Remus kept dancing, muscles relaxing as long, toned arms span him around.
The man was hardly ugly - in fact, in many ways, he was rather attractive, with large brown eyes and an angular face. So, after forty minutes of dancing, when he began pulling Remus towards the toilets, the werewolf put up no resistance, and as he dragged a scarred hand down that hard, flat chest, down to the trousers that contained far, far, more than they should, Remus decided he was wrong.
He definitely wasn't straight.
Lily Potter, 1 December 1979
It was two days after Remus had returned from a Werewolf mission, a little beat up and very, very tired. There a Death Eater attack the day he returned, but no matter how hard he tried to get his strength up, he knew that this time, there was no way he would be fit enough to fight alongside his friends.
And so, as James and Sirius walked out of the door of the Potter's small flat at 5pm, Remus and a slightly ill Lily sat down together, two small bundles of nerves on the large sofa.
They tried to get on with their usual patterns during the night. Remus cooked, Lily cleaned, they ate and watched television. Yet, as the hours trickled on and they stayed alone in the small, poky flat, the worry removed all of their facades, and by 11pm the television was off, and the lack of contact had driven them both to near madness.
This was life when a partner was in the Order, they both knew it. They knew their own partners had suffered the same order on more than one occasion, and before the war was over there would be at least one more sleepless night. They both knew that, sooner or later, two men would appear at the door, whining about messy death eaters and tiny scratches.
But somehow, none of this reassured either of them in the slightest.
They'd slept together out of fear. Fear for the unknown, fear of the fact it was 3 in the morning at their respective partners still weren't home. When that first tear rolled down Lily's cheek, she had leant into Remus' embrace, and within fifteen minutes, their eyelids began to droop, and waiting up for a pair that may never arrive became far too much to bear.
And the next morning, when he was awoken by a rough voice exclaiming "you're bloody lucky you're gay, else you'd be dead" and another yelling about how redheads shouldn't be left alone with pretty people, Remus smiled, relieved that normality had been restored, at least for a while.
Christopher Miles, 4 December 1976 - 16 February 1977
It wasn't love, but it wasn't lust either.
From the very first October day that the tall, blond, broad Christopher walked into Remus' life, with an all knowing smile and understanding eyes, Remus had known it would never be love. The Ravenclaw boy was a firm friend, a warm hand during the cold, lonely winter nights, another soul to share a few precious moments with, but Remus knew it would never amount to anything more.
That didn't mean it wasn't nice, though.
He was different from the unnamed man over the summer; he had a personality, likes, dislikes, a family... So when they inevitably tumbled into a Hogwarts four poster, there wasn't the same sense of thrill as there had been that summer, yet the familiarity, the sense of belonging with which they held one another during and after, made it all so worthwhile.
And after three months, they told their friends. They stopped hiding the hand holding, the caring glances, the intimate smiles, and though they were hardly explicit with their relationship, it was no longer a dirty little secret, swept under the rug.
From then on, when Remus went off on his nightly journey to the Room of Requirement to enjoy some carnal relations, he no longer needed to make poor excuses for his absence from his own bed, nor craft elaborate tales for interested individuals. He simply walked out with a secretive smile, always looking forwards, missing James' exhasperated sigh and Sirius' furious demeanor.
And each night, when they would climb into bed with one another, barely a sound would pass between them. In a life full of laughter, this was the one sombre moment, the one quiet task he had to complete, and often it took all Remus' mind to stop a short, sharp burst of laughter from perforating the room, from ruining the atmosphere.
The relationship didn't slow down, it slammed on the breaks. Though it had been impossible to ignore how Sirius had distanced himself from Remus, the werewolf couldn't work out why the pureblood's sharp tones and sullen stares were directed at him. Yet, two days after Valentines, when James had pointed it out, in no uncertain terms, everything became impossibly clear, and less than 30 minutes later, Remus climbed into his own, decidedly empty bed for the first night in weeks, resolving to talk to Sirius as soon as the sun rose.
James Potter, 25 November 1975
"Remus?" James whispered, poking his head through the curtains. "Are you awake?" Remus nodded, rolling over to view the moon shadows that fell over James' face. "Can I..." James paused, looking at the bed nervously before backing away slightly. "You know what, its not important..."
"James, its four in the morning, if it wasn't important you wouldn't be here." Remus reasoned, casting a quick 'lumos' charm so he could see his friend better. "Have you been crying?"
"I don't know what to do..." The boy muttered, running his hands through his hair and backing away slightly, before a wiry hand wrapped round his forearm, pulling him into the bed and closing the curtains behind him. Remus sat back, covers tucked into his waist, as he waited patiently for James to speak.
The bespeckled boy sat quietly for a moment, before it all poured out. All his worries and fears and do you know how hard it is to be rejected every single day and what if Voldemort attacks my parents and how am I going to live if Sirius or Peter or you die and every other single thought that had been running loops around his mind for months, the small little things that built up into a mountain, and soon enough tears were pouring down his face once more. Remus leant over, wrapping a long arm around his lightly shaking shoulders.
There were no words, Remus couldn't pretend he had the answers. He didn't know if Lily would ever accept his friend, nor whether Voldemort would ever manage to kill one of the marauders. He didn't know why James' childhood dog had died, nor why he was cursed with lycanthropy. Yet he knew James didn't really want answers, nor had he expected to find them when he climbed out of his own bed in search for comfort. For now, his presence seemed to be enough to soothe his friend, and soon enough the shivers stopped, the colour began to return to James' face and he relaxed onto the bed, shuffling under the covers.
"Remus? Please don't tell Sirius about this." James muttered, pulling the thick blanket up to his chin as he looked across at Remus pleadingly, desperate for the affirmative answer.
Because the truth of the matter was, though James was far closer to Sirius than Remus, the pureblood didn't understand the gravity of the world they lived in. He didn't understand that James worried about all of them, or that every time Lily said 'no', another little chunk of James died. He was a friend to laugh with, a friend to smile with, but it wasn't until just over a year later that Sirius learnt that everything didn't have to be a joke.
Sirius would react to this the same way he reacted to everything else; with a grin, a joke and a rugby tackle. A grin, a joke and a rugby tackle in response to his best friend's greatest fears.
So Remus never said a word.
Sirius Black, 25 February 1977 onwards
To say their relationship had started passionately was an understatement.
After James' "Sirius bloody loves you, you daft git" speech, and a night's worth of planning, Remus had it all worked out.
He was going to be spontaneous.
In his mind, 'spontaneous' involved a fantastic, off the cuff speech, followed by Sirius swooning and proclaiming Remus to be the most romantic man in the world. In reality, the fear that came with the spontaneity meant that Remus simply tried to mutter a few words, before giving up entirely and throwing himself upon a half asleep Sirius, and kissing his brains out until he most definitely wasn't half asleep. And when he had finally pulled away, looking at the pureblood expectantly, Sirius had laughed until he saw the slightly worried look on Remus' face, at which point he pulled the werewolf down beside him, kissing him passionately once more, and they had laughed together.
And during their first night together a week later, that first, fantastically awkward, sensual night, they had laughed. They laughed about everything, the absurdity of the situation, the fact they were both so damned shy around each other, the fact that this was all so intense and passionate and neither of them had a clue what to do. And the laughter made everything far easier, because this was Sirius, and with Sirius being sombre wasn't an option. This felt far more natural - the light laughter between the kisses, the wandering hands being slapped away playfully made it so much more fun.
Yet when Remus became the first man to ever be inside Sirius, to feel the all-consuming heat of the perfect body, everything was silent, if only for a second. Muscles buzzing, Remus leant over, stroking Sirius' face as he waited for the boy to relax.
"I think this is the part where you move." Sirius teased gently, legs winding around Remus' body to drag him ever deeper. Remus had never felt more normal, more human in his life. And the laughter returned, as Remus smattered kisses across his lover's form, drawing his hand down the toned chest before Sirius bit a nipple playfully.
Minutes later, when breaths turned to pants and whispers turned to shouts, as fingers threaded themselves through hair and hips pushed upwards, Remus felt something far, far more than lust pulse through his system for the first time in years. Seconds later, they were silent once more, before Sirius pushed Remus' tired body off with a laugh and curled around him, knees into chest. His toes drew patterns on Remus' soles, until the two of them fell asleep, content and sated in one another's arms.
And three weeks later, when Sirius had crawled into his bed with nothing more than a tired yawn and a goodnight kiss, Remus truly realised that this wasn't just a roll in the sack for either of them. And for the first time since those starry nights oh so long ago, Remus felt invincible.
Somebody loved him.
BOOM. I hope you all enjoyed it. Hop over to my profile page, I have 4 more new stories up/about to be put up! (don't I just spoil you?)
'Everyone Remus Lupin Ever Slept With, 1960-1981'
'Why Bets From J Potter Should Be Politely Refused'
'Sirius Black + Marauders Map = Trouble'
'Right Under Your Nose' (House MD fic)