Love and Regret
Two boys were crossing the grounds from Hogsmead, debating in heated tones. The first boy was slightly lanky with tousled brown hair and dark brown eyes; he wore fine grey robes that dropped to his ankles. The second boy was slightly smaller, but had muscles that were slightly well toned. He had rusty brown hair, and warm brown eyes; he wore plain black robes that were rather run-down and were at least an inch to short.
"Aw, come on, Remus! You didn't have to do that to the poor kid."
"James," Remus stated, "I didn't do anything to him. I was honest with him, which is ten million times better than lying to him about—"
"He's pathetic, Remus. He hasn't left Myrtle's bathroom for going on sixteen hours."
"It's not my fault he has no spine. And why is he in the girl's bathroom?" Remus grumbled sourly.
"At least he has a heart, Remus! Gods your pathetic, Remus. You don't even understand why this upsets me." James glared at Remus with contempt.
"Why are you glaring at me like that, James? What did I do?"
"What do you mean, 'What did I do?' It's quite obvious what you did."
Remus grabbed James' shoulder, spun him around, and stopped him. "Well obviously I don't, so please enlighten me."
"You broke his heart, Remus. Anyone could have told you that."
"I did not."
"Did so."
"How could I have broken his heart? He's been turned down by half the school, and gone out with the other half for about a week apiece."
"Because you're the only one he ever really took seriously!" James bellowed.
They stared at each other in heated silence for a moment before Remus finally spoke. "Truly?"
"It took you this long to figure out I wasn't kidding?"
"Well…" Remus' voice trailed off. "Yes," he rejoined. "It took me that long."
"That's sick." James continued walking.
"Wait!" Remus shouted. "Wait! James, please! I didn't know! I didn't…" Remus would have caught up, but now he had broken down entirely. He fell to his knees, sobbing pitifully.
"Oh, please, Remus. Grow up. Get up off the floor and pull yourself together." James offered a hand and pulled Remus to his feet. "But if you actually do like him, you're gonna have to make like the bird and sing."
"I can't sing!" Remus all but howled.
"Remus! Of all the people who would—it's an expression!"
There was a pause. "Oh," Remus sniffed.
"So you do like him then?"
"Err… yes." Remus calculated James facial expression.
"You know that entirely disgraces your entire argument."
"I am aware of this, James."
"Just checking." There was another pause before James added, "You didn't think he was serious, did you."
"No, I did not actually think that the infamous Sirius Black, terminator of the hopes and dreams of the student body, was actually interested in anything I had to offer. Something in me simply found it unviable that he could sincerely ask anyone on a date with any reverence towards that person at all."
"I wonder if you could give me a more wordy response. Please tell me you put more kindly to him."
"It would not be honest of me to do so."
James sighed. "You ruined his self esteem."
"He'll bounce back. He always does."
"True," James said thoughtfully. "However, I'm not sure he'll actually like you afterwards."
"At all?"
"Let me rephrase—like you, like you."
Remus blinked his eyes slowly. "I think I can handle that."
James arched one eyebrow at him, "I don't."
"I don't care what you think!" Remus snapped at him.
"Apparently," James said patronizingly.
"What do you mean 'apparent—'" James thrust Remus through the door to Myrtles bathroom. Remus hadn't even realized where they were going. The door clicked shut behind him.
In the bathroom with alone with Sirius, Remus suddenly felt very small. He couldn't see Sirius, but he could hear the heavy breathing indicating an uneasy mood. Remus marveled at the fact that he could tell Sirius' mood just by his breathing. Remus turned to exit the way he had come when a troubled voice said quietly, "Mooney?"
He froze, and by the will of some outside force, turned around again and said, "Yes, Padfoot?"
"I heard you come in," Sirius stated almost silently.
Damn, that boy has bat ears, Remus thought. "Yes. Yes, I did come in."
There was a pause in which, under any other circumstances, Sirius Black would at least be trying very hard not to laugh.
"Yes, that's what I meant." Okay, Sirius was trying not to laugh.
"Err." Remus was unsure what to say.
"Did you have something to say Remus? Or perhaps you just wanted to yell at me some more?" Sirius' tongue was sharp, and any degree of laughter was gone from it.
Remus cringed. His face twitched as if he had just been smacked. For one immeasurable moment all of his body stopped, down to the last cell. He remained silent.
"So you don't want to own up to it now, huh?" Sirius snapped.
Remus' shaking knees gave in, and he fell back against the wall purposefully cracking his head against it, which did not give the desired effects. Sirius almost moved to see if he was okay, but caught himself.
Remus' whole body was shaking with silent sobs, and he cursed James for shoving him in here. He didn't want to remember what he said.
"Are you mute or unconscious?" Sirius growled, shoving himself up off the ground around the corner and walking until he was directly in front of Remus, whose head was resting on his arms which were crossed on top of his knees. "You're laughing at me, Mooney?" Sirius demanded.
"No," Remus managed, but only barely.
"Did you honestly hit your head that hard?"
"No." Remus was shaking more violently now.
"Then get up and face me like the man you should at least pretend to be."
Remus stood up and stared Sirius in the face with eyes full of tears, but he was still incapable of speech. His entire body was racked with involuntary shudders.
"Do you expect me to feel sorry for you, Remus?"
"No." His voice shook.
"Then what are you doing here? Mocking me?"
Long pause. "No, Sirius, I wouldn't."
"How can you say that? It's a blatant lie!" Sirius bellowed.
And, without really deciding to do so, Remus responded, "I know."
It wasn't clear-cut who was more surprised by his words.
Sirius spluttered for a few moments. "Just like that?"
Remus nodded.
"That's nice."
Remus continued staring at him.
"You know what?" Sirius asked, leaning dangerously close to Remus. It made Remus' head swirl, the sweet sent of Sirius' breath going to his head.
With his face less than an inch from Remus', Sirius whispered, "I think I forgive you." And he left Remus standing there, unsatisfied.
James was leaning against the wall when Sirius came out. "Did you hurt him?" he demanded.
"No, I took control of the situation," Sirius replied, looking distractedly around the floor. He started towards the stairs towards the seventh floor and the Gryffindor tower.
"How so?" James queried distrustfully.
"How do you think I did?" Sirius falsely shrieked.
"Sirius," James started.
"Oh, please, Prongs. What could I possibly have done?"
"Exactly what I heard you do."
"You were listening?"
"Of course I was. What did you expect me to do? I would have stepped in if I needed to. However, though I can speculate at your body language, I cannot be sure. Yours is too variable."
"So you think I crippled him?"
"No, but you still haven't caught on to how impressionable he is, Sirius. And I'm not just saying this. It really is a problem. If you didn't just shrug everything off, it wouldn't be so much of a problem. Now show me exactly what happened."
"Show you! Would you like me to demonstrate?"
"No, but I'm sure Dumbledore would let us use his pensive."
"Tell me you're joking." They stopped in unison.
"I'm not."
Sirius searched his eyes for something, and apparently found it for he sighed. "Let's get going then."
Remus stared into the distance for a while before Moaning Myrtle came up to him and started having a conversation with him. At first he didn't realize they were talking, but then she came uncomfortably close to him, and he clumsily devised a way to get out of it and all but ran to the common room.
"Remus," Peter exclaimed when he came in.
"What, Peter?" Remus gasped sourly.
"Where's James?"
It took Remus a moment to register why he was asking. "He's—probably wherever Sirius is."
"Oh. Will you help me with transfiguration?"
"Sure, Peter," Remus sighed, pulling the quill and parchment out of Peter's hand and immediately started to edit his paper, muttering half to himself the whole time.
"No Peter, the spell doesn't turn the buttons to galleons, it turns them to crisps… it's than, not then… Peter, your name isn't even on this…this sentence needs rewritten… McGonagall hates bad grammar, Peter…" It went on like that for almost an hour before James and Sirius reentered the common room. Remus didn't notice until Peter announced to one of his questions, "Sirius, you're out of the bathroom."
"Yes," Sirius replied, "that I am."
Remus quickly decided to let it all go. "Do you want me to edit yours as well?" he asked, flicking the quill across the paper to fix a spelling error.
"Please," James asked.
"I don't have one," Sirius snapped.
"Then I'll dictate. James, go get your paper, I'll have a look see." It was so well practiced, that there was nothing unnatural about the tone he held or the fact that he could multitask so well.
Sirius and James disappeared into there room. Peter seemed to have forgotten that Sirius should be angry with Remus. "How bad is it, Remus?"
"You'll need a knew sheet of parchment, Peter…"
"Sure." Peter disappeared up the stairs.
"Remus," a tentative first year started.
"Hand it here, I'll get to it in just a moment." The little boy nodded, put his paper in the offered hand and then disappeared. Within a few minutes, Remus was holding at least twenty papers from various students he would, under no other circumstances, know the names of. He was soon surrounded by a small crowd of people between the ages of eleven and eighteen.
When Peter reemerged Remus handed him his paper and moved on to the next one in the pile. With considerably less work he finished that one, still muttering just loud enough for the whole group to hear. It took him an hour to go through all the papers he'd agreed to grade and hand them back. Then a paper was placed in his hand followed by at least ten others and he graded James', then the other thirteen, all the while dictating to Sirius while making verbal and written corrections to the papers. When it was all said in done, he was the last marauder up and it was about three in the morning.
"I'll finish in the morning," He assured the frightened children. "It's only Saturday."
They seemed to accept that, and retreated to their separate dormitories. But Remus wasn't going to his. He'd wake the other three marauders, and besides, he still had three papers to write by Monday. He wasn't sure how he'd gotten so far behind; it was probably because of this sort of thing.
It took him about and hour to write each paper. He fell asleep while going back and correcting things in the first one on the couch in front of the fire.
I t was around eight o'clock when a footstep on the stairs awoke him. He immediately sat up and continued editing his paper, which was surprisingly simple, before whoever it was could get to the bottom of the stairs and see him asleep. It was a first year who had gone to bed sometime around ten. How Remus knew this, he did not know.
"Would you edit my paper real quick, Remus?"
"Sure Kelly," he set down his papers and took hers, and made the corrections quickly, narrating everything he did for her benefit. By the time he was done, three other people were up and wanted his opinion on their papers. When the other marauders got up, around ten, they had to disentangle Remus from the crowd so he would remember to eat.
On the way down to the great hall, Sirius told Remus unnecessarily, "You didn't come to bed last night."
"It was three by the time I finally had to tell the children to go to bed, and I didn't want to wake you guys up."
"How much sleep did you get, Remus?" James asked.
It was Lily who answered. "He was probably up for three hours, writing the three papers due on Monday after that, and most likely fell asleep while editing the first one. I also know that Kelly got up around eight in the morning. I'm willing to bet he got less than two hours of sleep last night."
Remus stared at the red head for a moment before nodding. "That is actually entirely accurate."
"Remus!" James sighed.
"You apparently don't realize how often he does that. Usually, he just tiptoes to your dorm around six o'clock in the morning."
"Please tell me you're joking, Lilly."
"Not at all. Right Remus?"
"Yes… I forget sometimes that you're up as long as I am."
"I wasn't last night. I got my papers done while you were at Hogsmead yesterday."
"I should have stayed here," Remus sighed.
"Wouldn't have been a bad idea."
Remus groaned.
By three, Lily told the majority of the house that Remus needed to finish his own homework and that she would edit their papers if they needed edited so badly. The traffic of the Gryffindors' redirected towards her, and Remus was left in peace for an hour until he finished revising his own paper and continued grading the other kids. By eight, everyone was heading to bed. Remus pulled out a book and proceeded to read by the fire.
At ten, Sirius grabbed Remus by the ear and dragged him to bed. "Oh, no you don't, Sparky. Time for you to go to bed."
Remus hastily took a shower and went to bed, as he sat on the bed and pulled back the covers, a hand raised his chin and the lips of Sirius Black met his own and he was pressed back against the bed gently. By the time the kiss was over he was somehow tucked into the bed.
"Goodnight, dearest."
"Goodnight, Padfoot." Remus almost immediately fell asleep.