Summary – Gillyweed is the second most sought after contraband at Hogwarts, and the hardest to obtain. And Lily has reason to believe that Sirius is the school's most successful dealer, and Remus his unfortunate client. She enlists James' help to find out what's going on. Wolfstar oneshot, possible twoshot
The Gillyweed Conspiracy
Firewhiskey is the most sought after contraband among the sixth and seventh year Hogwarts students, and it is by far the easiest to obtain. If you're lucky, and James Potter often is, you can get it out of the kitchens. The elves are remarkably easy to please, and James, no matter how Slytherin it sounds, doesn't mind making other people happy as long as he's getting something out of it for himself.
His mother was a Black and a Slytherin, after all, and James is not ashamed of his parentage.
Firewhiskey is usually James' drug of choice. He likes the way it scalds his throat and leaves his stomach warm. And unlike Peter, James can hold his liquor. Peter, on the other hand, is usually breathing fire by his second drink, an entertaining but somewhat hazardous set back of the popular beverage.
Remus will drink Firewhiskey too, when it's available, but due to his 'furry little problem' the drink hardly affects him. In fact, there's not very many illicit brews that can lift Moony out of his stoicism. James has yet to discover just what will achieve that.
Sirius does not drink.
James thinks this is because it reminds him of his family, but Sirius claims it is for his health. Sirius is something of a free thinker amid the clamor and conformity of Hogwarts and the rest of the Wizarding World, and James salutes him for it.
However, this does not mean that Sirius is without his faults. In fact, Sirius's drug of choice is the second most sought after contraband among their year mates, and one of the hardest to get ahold of.
Gillyweed.
It's not only useful for giving a person the ability to breathe underwater like a fish, although most would agree that that is the most professional use of the plant. It can also be smoked, and the accompanying high leaves most of the upper years clamoring after it.
This is not why Sirius likes it. Sirius likes Gillyweed because he can get it for free and sell it for a price, and this comes in handy when you've been inconveniently disowned, and therefore fall short when it comes to having an allowance. Selling Gillyweed leaves Sirius with a few extra Galleons in his pocket, and for a man in his position, anything helps.
The first time Remus takes Sirius's elbow after Potions and asks for a private word, James thinks nothing of it. Remus has been avoiding Sirius all year with remarkable indifference, and James wonders if the time has finally come for them to reconcile. He hopes so, because it's been difficult maintaining separate friendships.
He doesn't see them again until dinner, where he finds them seated in the Great Hall. Sirius looks considerably more cheerful now than he did before his disappearance. Remus appears just as stoic as ever. He's sitting next to Sirius, which wouldn't have been unusual before, but is now.
The two have barely said a word to each other since the incident fifth year with Snape, and while this appears to be the end of their feud, James can't help but feel a bit put out. Sirius is his best friend, after all, and it was a little nice, not having to share him with anyone but Peter, who was rather low maintenance anyway.
However, James finds he had nothing to worry about when Remus continues to studiously ignore the boy at his side. And the interesting part is that Sirius still appears to be over the moon, completely unaffected by the way Remus has been blatantly snubbing him.
Any other day in close proximity to Remus would have found Sirius moaning piteously and trying to capture the other's attention. James is not the only one to notice this inconsistency. When he looks away from his friends, he finds that Lily Evans staring in their direction with an intense look on her face.
After dinner, she corners him. "Something is going on with Black and Lupin," she says, green eyes flashing.
James backs away from her. "I don't know anything about it."
"Do you think it has anything to do with the…" She glances around before leaning closer. "Gillyweed?"
James is flabbergasted. He never would have thought that Sirius would take advantage of his former friend by selling him Gillyweed. "I – do you think so?"
Lily nods emphatically. "That has to be it. Lupin didn't say a word to him during dinner, so they couldn't have made up."
James can't help but agree with her, but they can't do anything without proof. And so he and Lily make a plan to watch the two more carefully now, and to meet up once a week to discuss their findings. It's harder than James would have thought.
Remus continues to ignore Sirius in the common room and during classes, and while he has taken to sitting next to the other boy at dinner, he never addresses him directly. Other than the new seating arrangement, nothing about Remus's behavior suggests a change.
But Sirius's does.
He no longer casts longing glances across rooms at Remus, and he no longer whines and moans either. The topic of conversion between Sirius and James never features Remus anymore. That's the only thing James has to report.
"Marlene saw them talking on the Quidditch Pitch," Lily announces with her usual flourish, to start the meeting off. "She told me Black was there alone, sitting on the stands. Lupin walked over and Black stood up and looked like he was either reaching for him or about to hand him something, but that's when the Hufflepuffs got there to practice, and they both scattered after that."
"Alone or together?" James asks.
"She didn't say," the redhead admits.
Alice pipes up from her books. "I'm friends with one of the Ravenclaw prefects, and she said she saw them last night stepping out of one of the broom cupboards during her patrol."
"Broom cupboard?" James chokes.
"It sounds like the perfect cover for a drug deal," Lily affirms.
James sighs and puts his head in his hands. He wonders if they shouldn't just ask them outright and get this whole thing over with.
Sirius Black is well aware that his mental health will probably never be quite up to par. It comes with the family. But he does what he can. And if the end result is that he comes off as a little bit of a health nut, so be it.
So Sirius drinks his tea with Gillywater infused tea leaves, uses his meditation stone, keeps crystals in his pocket, and he tries not to dwell on anything stressful for longer than it takes to gulp down his tea.
The exception is Remus.
It's his fault, he knows it's his fault, but he thinks by this point he's apologized enough. He misses Remus, and not just because he wants someone to do his homework for him – no, Sirius just misses his friend.
When Remus crooks a hand around his elbow one day after Potions class, Sirius is shocked, more so than anyone. Remus hasn't said a word to him since what Sirius was calling 'The Incident' in his head, and it was already nearly Christmas of their sixth year.
Remus directs him to an unused corner of the dungeons, folds his arms across his chest, and glares. Sirius doesn't cower, but he certainly doesn't stand tall either.
"I'm sorry," he blurts out, and Remus just worries his lip with his teeth and continues to look at him.
But Sirius – Sirius can deal with angry. Angry is so much better than coldly indifferent, and now that there's a glimmer of feeling on Remus's usually impassive face, he feels something akin to hope.
"Can we just be friends, Moony, please?" he begs, trying to put all of his remorse into his words.
Remus raises a single eyebrow, like he's enjoying making Sirius squirm. "You want to be just friends?" he asks, like he's not sure what Sirius means.
It's more than Sirius had dared to hope for, but now his head is filled with late night excursions and early mornings before everyone's woken up curled up in Remus's bed instead of his own and he whimpers out a "gods no."
Judging from the way Remus's narrow lipped mouth is twitching, Sirius knows he chose the right answer. In the end, he offers Sirius the thin, tiny smile that he usually reserves for reluctant amusement over pranks gone wrong.
Sirius takes the opportunity to pull Remus down for a shaky, relieved kiss, and the other boy leans against him.
"I'm still mad at you," he says when Sirius breaks the kiss.
"Okay," Sirius whispers.
Remus pulls away from him and frowns severely. "We're not friends. We're not dating. I'm not suddenly going to start talking to you."
Sirius doesn't let the words hurt him. "Is that subject to change?" he asks, a little aggressively, and when Remus's mouth twitches again, Sirius knows he has a chance, an honest to gods chance.
"I think you might be able to persuade me." Sirius wants to dance for joy, but Remus's eyes are still serious. "As long as you understand what you did wrong."
Sirius nods rapidly. Obviously trying to feed Snape to a hungry werewolf was not his best or brightest idea. There would be no repeats of The Incident.
Remus gives him a considering look and starts to turn, but Sirius decides to take a chance. He grabs Remus by the tie and drags him into another kiss, in earnest this time.
Remus doesn't try to stop him, merely pulls him closer. The kiss is aggressive and messy and Sirius is sure he'll be leaving with bruises on his wrist where Remus's hand has curled around him, but he doesn't care.
They don't emerge until dinner time.
Sirius is ecstatic when Remus sits next to him at dinner. Remus has always been remarkably clingy after sex and time and the lack of a proper relationship does not appear to have changed that. They're sitting thigh to thigh and when Remus starts to poke at his food a little unhappily, Sirius grabs his hand and holds it tight underneath the table.
The only indication that Remus is indeed aware of this is the way his mouth quirks and how he stops pushing food around his plate to start putting it in his mouth and Sirius can't keep the shit-eating grin off of his face.
Neither of them notice Lily down the table a ways or James to the side of them, both with expressions of suspicion and concern. They don't notice the way Lily corners James after dinner either.
It's a few weeks later when they find themselves alone in their dorm for the first time that Remus actually makes a move to acknowledge Sirius's presence. Peter has gone down the stairs to get a snack from the kitchens and James has snuck into the prefect's bath to relax after a brutal Quidditch practice.
Sirius has only just collapsed in bed, just as tired as James and still in his uniform, when Remus falls on top of him in a boneless heap. He presses his nose into the crook of Sirius's sweaty neck and Sirius reaches up to pet his hair.
"Hey Moony," he says softly.
"I miss you on the full moons," Remus mumbles and Sirius's arms come up to wrap around him.
"Is that an invitation?"
Remus huffs. "Maybe. But it doesn't…it doesn't mean anything, so don't go getting ideas."
Sirius grins into his hair. "Yeah, okay," he says. "I'll be there."
They lay there in silence for a few minutes and then Remus shifts so that they're side by side and looking at each other. "I think somethings going on with James and Lily," he says seriously.
Sirius stretches out his long limbs and peals of his sweaty shirt. "Why's that?"
"They've been meeting in the library," Remus tells him. "James hates the library."
"But he likes Evans," Sirius points out.
Remus chews his bottom lip. "Are you still selling Gillyweed?"
Sirius looks up in surprise. "Yeah. You don't want some, do you? Because if you do, you can have it. I won't take you're mon–"
"It's not that." Remus interrupts. "I heard Lily and Alice talking. Something about the Gillyweed Conspiracy. I thought you might have heard of it?"
Sirius rolls off the bed and strips out his pants, too, before rummaging around his trunk for some clean clothes. "I haven't heard anything. I'll ask around though, if you want." He glances up at Remus with a clean shirt in his hands. The other boy is eying his naked form with a calculating expression and Sirius grins at him and tosses the shirt aside.
When Sirius doesn't stick around the next morning to lounge in bed with Remus, the werewolf is impressively moody. He snaps at Peter and he glares at James and when he finds Sirius out at the Quidditch Pitch, he doesn't quite know what he's going to say.
Sirius, however, lurches to his feet, and hands Remus an incredibly large box of Chocolate Cauldrons. Before Remus can accept the gift or get any words out, the Hufflepuff Quidditch team descends on them. Sirius snags Remus's hand and when they're far enough away, Remus hugs him hard enough to knock his breath away.
"I love you," Sirius says earnestly and Remus stares at him. "I know," he says, before Remus can speak. "We're not dating and we're not friends and you're still mad at me. But you can't be all that mad if you still want to fuck me, and let's face it, we were always better lovers than friends."
Remus lets out a breathless laugh and tries to pretend there aren't tears pooling in his eyes. "I just…I need more time."
Sirius doesn't look too crushed. He just extends the box of chocolates and kisses Remus on the cheek. "I'll see you at dinner."
Their crawling out of the broom cupboard the same night, and while Sirius is flushed with embarrassment to be caught sneaking out of it by the Ravenclaw prefect, Remus just gives the girl a remarkably unimpressed look before stalking off in the opposite direction.
It's Christmas break by the time they finally figure it out, what The Gillyweed Conspiracy is all about. It's quite by accident that Remus overheard James, Lily, and Alice in the library, and he's both bewildered and amused when he runs back up to the Gryffindor tower.
Without a thought, he throws himself down next to Sirius on the couch in the common room. "I figured it out," he says breathlessly.
Sirius blinks owlishly. "Are we talking now?"
Remus blinks back. Then he pushes Sirius back into the pillows and gives him a long kiss. Sirius touches his lips in surprise and stares up at Remus. "Boyfriends?" he asks in a small voice, and Remus nips at Sirius's bottom lip. "Yeah," he agrees. "But Padfoot, I figured it out. The Gillyweed Conspiracy. What James and Lily are up to."
Sirius sits up straight. "Let's hear it then."
In the end, Sirius was both insulted that his friends would think so low of him, and ridiculously amused that they hadn't guessed what was really going on. He pushed Remus away from him. "We're not telling them," he said. "We are so not telling them. If they come to me with any rumors about what just happened, I'm going to deny it."
"Aren't you tired of sneaking around?"
Sirius shrugs. "No. It was actually kind of fun trying to sneak alone time with you." He grins. "Kind of a turn on."
Remus huffs a laugh. "So, we're not friends then?"
"Absolutely not."
Review and let me know what you think! Should I continue it, show James and Lily's reactions when they find out they're wrong?