The Remus Realization

Remus's bed was creaking horribly, worse than when he was thrashing about in a nightmare stage, well worse than I had ever heard it creak before. If he didn't stop soon I would have to call out the I-need-enough-sleep-to-study-tomorrow excuse to wake him up and tell him to stop.

"Arghhgagh!" I heard from Remus's direction

"Remus? Is everything okay?" I asked, worried now about my friend.

"Just don't come over here" He said, a little muffled. I could tell he was biting his pillow, a habit he had developed when he was having a nightmare.

"You sure? If it's a nightmare, you can just sleep in my bed." I offered.

"NO!" He yelled. This was odd because Remus never turned down an offer to sleep in my bed, something that I never really thought about asking but possibly had more implications that were obvious. No, Sirius don't think about that now.

"Remus, what's wrong? You've had nightmares before and this doesn't sound like one of those." I said concerned.

"It's nothing; it's just, ummm ARAGHHRRAGGAAA! Trust me, I can handle it!" he said panting. As, he flailed about on the bed he passed through a beam of moonlight and I could see that his features were more animal like. Not by much but his nose and mouth were elongated and I could tell his ears were definitely pointy.

"Remus, did you take you're potion?" I asked suddenly more afraid for my friend than for me.

"No" he whimpered.

"You're supposed to take it every month 7 days before the full moon!" I hissed, suddenly aware of the racket we were making. "Come on, we have to get you down to see Madam Pomfrey.

"But Sirius, I don't know if I can-" WHAM! An outrageous force connected with my chest, knocking the air out of him. "No, I don't want to do this, sto-arghghghargh" Remus screamed, grasping for my throat with now clawed fingers.

"Remus, stop, stop!" I shouted, reaching for my wand, trying in vain to protect myself from my estranged friend. Getting killed by my boyfri- no, no not that. My friend. At least it was a grand way to die, I would always be remembered as I am now, not in 30 years when I've possibly settled down and given up on pranking. Ugh, don't think that. What am I even thinking now? Why the hell am I not stopping him? Oh, look at him, so desperate for some relief, I have to save him.

"I'm so sorry Remus-"

"STUPIFY!" Shouted a voice from across the room.

"James, I had it under control!" I spat at him, more annoyed that he had interfered with a chance to comfort Remus, than him keeping me from a daring rescue.

"Yeah, looks like it Padfoot. You probably would have been dead if Wormtail here hadn't gone and gotten me from the common room." He said, knowing that I really was thankful for the help.

"Whatever, I've got it from here." Grabbing James' invisibility cloak in one hand as I carried Remus over the other shoulder, I stormed out of the dormitory and started the walk through the castle to the Hospital Wing. Clambering down the stairs after me though was James.

"Wait, Sirius. You realize we need to watch him more carefully now that he's getting more comfortable with other students" James whispered to me in the common room.

"Yes, I know. At least we could trust Lilly to keep the secret, but if any of those Slytherins find out, well. Trust me James; I know what it's like to have to hide things from people." I said to him, knowing that he knew the problems I've been having at home. "Well, g'night Prongs." I chuckled to him.

"G'night Padfoot, Moony" He said with a nod in Remus' direction. As I adjusted Remus on my shoulder I could feel that he was starting to stir.

"ARGHARGH NO SIRIUS!" Screamed Remus.

"Shhh, it's okay, I'm here, I'm fine." I whispered.

"I thought," he paused "I thought I had killed you" He said looking at me with huge sorrowful eyes. I could get lost in those eyes forever if I had to.

"Oh, no, I'm still alive as you can see." I said as I placed his hand over my heart to feel my heartbeat. "You just forgot to take you're potion tonight. James and I sorted it out. You may have some bruising on your knees. Peeves almost saw me on the way downstairs and I kind of dropped you in the One Eyed
Witch passageway to hide." I explained.

"It's okay Sirius. Look I'm really sorry, I am so stupid. I can't believe that I forgot the potion, wait. Where are we?" He asked just noticing his surroundings.

"Oh, Madam Pomfrey didn't want you going back to the dormitory tonight but I told her I wasn't going to leave you down here on your own so she showed me a private room with two beds next to each other saying I needed to sleep too, I said that was fine so she left and said I could look after you and she didn't need to check in on you or anything so we just needed to be out of the room and up in our common rooms by tomorrow morning." I said very fast because I realized his hand was still on my chest and I was suddenly aware of the intimacy of the situation. "Umm, I'm really glad… you are uh, okay and, erm just remember to take your uh, potion tomorrow night. Okay?" I said confused as what to do now.

"Sirius?" He asked weakly.

"Uh, yeah?" I mumbled.

"Can you sleep in the bed with me? I'm still really scared" He said, and I could tell by the look in his eyes that this was true.

"Come on Moony, you're not usually this frightened. What's wrong?" I asked, slightly teasing, because that's what I do.

"Well I don't usually attack my best friend" He said.

"Oh yeah, okay then, sure" I said pushing him over to one side of the bed and pulling the sheets over myself.

Come on get a grip, you've done this before, you've comforted him loads of times, why is this different? Umm maybe because he usually doesn't feel as guilty as this and maybe it's because he's now snuggling up against me. Oh come on, you always wake up with him piled on top of you. Yeah but this is different, he's still awake. At least that's what I thought without looking at him. Quickly I glanced up at his face. Oh, okay he's still awake. Oh god he's looking at me with those big eyes, those beautiful eyes of his. And now his hair is all messed up from the snuggling and it's falling in his eyes and dear god, why is he getting closer, what. All I felt was pressure, but it was a good pressure, a warm tingling that started in my lips and flowed through my body making me feel like I was only aware of him. Every place where he touched me radiated heat and warmth and just goodness. I don't know who started it but there we were kissing. We kissed for a while and I liked it, but I kind of needed to breathe, but I didn't want to stop. I really didn't have to think about it for that long because he actually broke it apart.

Gasping I muttered "Good, that was…good"

"Yeah, yeah." Remus said in a dreamlike state.

Rising to meet his mouth I kissed him again. More passionately this time and I even snuck a little tongue in there. I started to pull myself up to his position on the bed because I had gotten on it a little lower than him. This made it easier to kiss him so he didn't have to bend down as much but as I was doing this I somehow caught my leg on a bundle of sheets at the end of the bed and fell off taking Remus with me. Lying on the ground, in an abandoned hospital room with Remus on top of me I realized I liked him more than I thought before.

"I think-I really like you Sirius." He blurted out. Winded by the fall.

"Yeah, me too" I said thankful that he said it before me.

I strained my neck to reach his mouth again with mine and kissed him lightly on his flushed lips.

"Thanks" he said, blushing.

"Come on, we have to get up, this is killing my back" I groaned.

He knew that I meant you're welcome. Remus always knew what I meant. And I loved him for that. I loved him for a lot of things, and that was one of them. I even loved him for some things that I didn't know I loved him for yet. Even his nagging to study had a certain sweetness to it, like he really did care how well I did in school. Slowly we told others that we were dating and they accepted it, I think some of them had actually been waiting for it to happen. I don't really know, James won't tell me.