(Insane House: Word - Ripple - (A very small wave)) (Amber's Attic: Orion Black) (Ballet Day - Write a fic inspired by Swan Lake/The Swan Princess) (Lyric Alley 25. But i hate changing )(Liza's Loves 36. Ballet Ruse - Write a swan lake AU) (Snek 13. Gold-ringed cat snake - (dialogue) "Freedom… what freedom?") (Lent: Only Male Characters) (Cards: Slapjack - write about someone slapping another person) (Scavenger Hunt: Write a Housemate's OTP (Wolfstar for Liza))

For Liza, for GGE, 2015 October.

Sirius doesn't want to get married. But his father doesn't care.

Sirius is the heir, he says. Sirius has a duty to the throne, to his people.

Sirius thinks the throne is bullshit and the people would probably be better off without it. He knows better than to say that to his father.

So when Orion sets up a ball for Sirius to find a proper spouse, Sirius says yes. Because he doesn't have another choice. He has a week. A week to dread the upcoming ball, the upcoming marriage.

…

He goes to James to rant about the ball, because he knows James is under the same pressure. James has fallen in love with a common woman, though, and has yet to tell his parents for fear of what they'll say. James is afraid of change.

James takes one look at his face and says, "Let's go hunting. While you still have your freedom."

"Freedom?" Sirius raises an eyebrow. "What freedom?"

James looks at him with sympathy. Sirius sighs. "Yeah, okay. Let's go hunting."

...

They put on their gear and ride out as the sun hangs low in the sky. It's not a normal time to start a hunt, but Sirius doesn't much care. He needs to take his mind off things, and he's always had great night vision. He doesn't expect to actually find anything.

But then he hears a rustle, and he dismounts his horse.

"What?" James whispers.

"Stay here," Sirius says. "It's probably nothing." He lifts his bow and moves toward the sound.

After a few steps through the brush, he steps into a clearing, lit by the moon. In the middle of the clearing is a wolf, writhing as though it's in pain, skin rippling like the surface of a pond disturbed by a pebble.

Sirius lifts his bow and takes aim, thinking at this point that it might be a mercy killing. But before he makes the decision to shoot, the rippling fur turns tan and pale, the limbs morph, and suddenly there is a human man curled up in a ball in the middle of the clearing, whimpering faintly.

"What the fuck?" Sirius says without thinking. The man's head snaps up. Amber eyes stare at him, glowing slightly in the faint light.

"Who are you?" the man asks.

"Who are you?" Sirius returns.

They stare at each other in silence for a moment before the man laughs slightly, and then sighs. "My name is Remus Lupin. And yes, I did just transform from wolf to human. I was cursed by a vindictive sorcerer when my father insulted him. Each day when the moon rises, I turn back to human. When the moon sinks below the horizon, I become a wolf once more."

He looks weary, as though he expects Sirius to doubt him despite the fact that Sirius just watched him transform. Instead, Sirius pulls his traveling cloak off his shoulders and steps forward to drape the gold embroidered fabric around the man's bare shoulders.

The man clutches the cloak like a lifeline. "Thank you," he says, his voice small.

Sirius smiles at him. "My name is Prince Sirius, of the Black Kingdom. I will help you break your curse."

But Remus shakes his head, laughing a small and bitter laugh. "You can't, I'm afraid. Only True Love can break the curse over me, and all those who roam these woods."

Sirius frowns. "How many of you are there?"

Amber eyes look up at him. "Hundreds, I think."

Sirius steps forward and kneels before him, looking him in the eye, heedless of the mud getting on the knees of his good hunting trousers.

"I will break this curse."

He sees hope and disbelief and doubt warring in Remus's eyes, but Sirius means it. He will introduce Remus to everyone in the kingdom if that's what it takes. Something indescribable draws him to this beautiful, cursed man.

"Thank you. It's a nice sentiment, but I have only a week left. After that, I will die."

It's at that moment that James apparently gets tired of waiting, and they can heard the sound of him dismounting.

"I must go," Remus says, and before Sirius can protest, Remus has disappeared and his cloak is fluttering to the ground.

James steps into the clearing to find Sirius kneeling in the dirt, staring at his own cloak lying on the forest floor.

"Sirius?"

Sirius can see the question in his eyes, but he just shrugs. "Let's go home, James."

…

Sirius can't stop thinking about Remus in the week leading up to the ball. He doesn't know what it was about the man, but he was scarred and beautiful and captivating and Sirius can't forget about him. He goes into the woods to search for him the two nights he can slip away, but he finds no trace.

That is, until an unfamiliar man walks into the ball with a man with familiar amber eyes at his side.

"Remus," Sirius greets him with joy. The man nods, simply. Sirius beams. He knows. This is the man he will marry. He will marry Remus and break his curse.

He announces his intentions to the ball at large. His parents look displeased. The man with Remus looks giddy. Remus smirks.

Sirius frowns. The expression looks wrong on his face.

"Remus?" he asks. Remus's face laughs, but it's not the laugh Sirius heard in the forest. It's dark and angry and it terrifies him.

"You aren't Remus," he says.

The grin on Remus's face grows. "No, I'm not. But you have already pledged yourself to me. It's too late. Your filthy wolf is dying."

Sirius slaps the man who wears Remus's face, to the gasps of the entire room. "Where is he? Where is he?"

The imposter laughs. "You will never find him in time."

Sirius knows the man will tell him nothing, and so he turns on his heel and he flees.

…

He swings bareback onto his horse and rides as fast as he can through the forest to where he first met Remus.

Please, he thinks. Please let him be there.

He pulls his horse to a stop in the clearing.

Remus is in the middle of the clearing, in the form of a man. He is completely still.

"No," Sirius says. "No. No! Remus, you can't be dead." He swings off his horse and falls to his knees beside the still figure. "You can't be dead," he says again. "Because I'm in love with you, and you need to live. You need to let me love you."

He presses a hand to Remus's chest, but it does not rise and fall.

He takes a deep breath and places his lips on Remus's to force air into his lungs.

But when his lips touch Remus's, the man shudders. And then his eyelids flicker open.

"Sirius?" he says weakly. "But… how?"

It is at that moment that the man who accompanied the imposter to the ball appears in the clearing.

"No!" he says. "You were dead; your time was up!"

"Not quite, Greyback," Remus says.

It is at that moment that a large group of naked men descends upon Greyback, dragging him off.

Sirius stares at the spot where he appeared in shock. "Er. What?"

Remus grins, and the sight is half feral, but without the darkness that the imposter had.

"That's my pack. Apparently when my curse broke, all of ours did. I don't suspect Greyback will return."

He turns to Sirius. "You broke the curse."

Sirius smiles sheepishly. "I guess I did."

"But… I thought you picked someone else."

Sirius rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. "I… may have thought he was you. Sorry."

Remus cuffs him in the back of the head, and then carefully sits up.

"Never do that again," he tells Sirius. Sirius grins.

"Only if you promise never to die on me again."

"Deal," Remus says with a smile.

And they lived happily ever after (after Sirius took the throne and promptly dissolved it and ceded his power to a democratically elected ruler of the people, infuriating every living member of his family).