James's lips were hard and cold and there for less than a second before Remus jerked back, away, because what the fuck?
"Prongs! What-" A cold hard mouth and a hand fisted into his shirt cut him off, and he pushed himself away again, scrambling to his feet as James's teeth caught his bottom lip. "James!"
"He fucked Lily" Remus frowned, mouthing moving soundlessly for a moment in confusion at the grave, determined look in his friends face.
"What? Lily? Who? What?" he stammered, eyes wide as he stared down at boy - man, really. Their last year, and they'd grown from the boys they had been in first year: scared but cocky, eager to learn but naïve about the world around them.
"Sirius" It took Remus a moment - and, looking back, it was very much like the moment you miss a step going downstairs, that moment balancing on air as your heart convulses before you fall into cold, hard, painful reality - to understand. To take in the disgust and contempt and bitterness encompassing that one snarled word. To hear what James was telling him.
"S... Sirius..." he swallowed, hard, his face screwing up because no. No. Sirius loved him, it was the one thing, with all the shite of his life-to-be pressing down on him in his final year of safety - the one thing he was sure of. The one thing he knew.
"Sirius fucking Black. He fucked Lily while we were all at Hogsmeade. He fucking fucked her" James hissed, his chest shuddering as he rose to his feet, something predatory in his stance that Remus was too in shock to notice.
"But... no, he... I mean... James, this isn't... it isn't funny" he hedged, desperately, scrambling in his mind to find a reason James would be saying this. A prank, a joke, a misunderstanding, anything.
"Remus. He slept with her" James was staring at him, and his face was too close; too close to his own, but he couldn't... he couldn't...
It hit him like a body binding hex; with the heat and anger and pain of crucio, and all the comfort of a boiling brew. Because James wasn't lying. He wasn't smiling, his face was a mask of blank rage and Sirius had slept with Lily.
Remus Lupin has lived through one werewolf attack, one hundred and fifty-four full moons, six and a half years at Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry, prejudice, patched robes, seven black eyes, and three months of brittle, aching silence with one of the only people on this earth he thought he could trust before the stand-off hurt too too much to ignore.
But even that, even the silence and longing and heartbreak that had followed The Prank in fifth year - at least that, as agonising as it had been, at least he had understood. He knew why Sirius had done it, knew it wasn't about him, it never had been, had always been about Snape. He hadn't liked the logic, but had known why.
But this?
James is kissing him again - if it can be called kissing -, his fingers strong against the back of Remus's neck, and his breath loud and hitching. And then Remus is kissing back, because holy fuck what does it matter? What does anything matter any more?
Afterwards... well, he doesn't really want to think afterwards.
Sirius knows. Even before he has chance to open his mouth - for what he wasn't sure - Sirius knows, and Remus can't bring himself to meet his eye. Instead he hides; hides far away, deep into the castle, in corners he barely knew existed. He avoids reflective surfaces.
They lost map last term, but he doesn't need to know that to know no-one will come looking for him. He doesn't want them to, doesn't want anyone to ever look for him again. Ever look at him again. Because who knows what they'll see? He thought he knew; knew who he was, what others saw when they looked at him, but now... Well.
If he can't face even face his own reflection in a sodding suit of armour, how can he expect himself to face Sirius?