Never Again

DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Harry Potter, or any of the characters mentioned in this story, unless stated otherwise. Rated for possible sexual content, violence and language. Reader discretion is advised. Any similarities to real life are purely coincidence and I will not be held responsible! Thanks!

WARNING: WILL CONTAIN SLASH (male on male) and MATURE THEMES (sex, swearing, violence, etc) and AU-ness!! Ye be warned; seriously, this is VERY mature people. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

Author's Note: So here we are, already at chapter four… Wow. I honestly can't tell you how weird this feels… I never expected this to be as popular as it's become. In fact, I rather thought I would get like maybe three reviewers who were really willing to stick through until the end of this. XD Just goes to show eh? Speaking of which, this should be probably about three or four more chapters long (after this one) then it'll get that happy ending I've been promising everyone. Until then, hold onto your hats, 'cause things are going to start changing fast now! 'I just wanna tell you that I had enough…' Cheers!

PS. – In response to the lovely kayakun, who anonymously reviewed last chapter: yes, you could say I've done research. My father was abusive, so I've witnessed it relatively first-hand, not to mention the aftermath of coping with that, seeing the various stages my mom went through when my parents finally split. I've also asked my mom a lot about her experiences, and all that has gone into this fic (:

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He had been a fool; he knew he had. Bruises and broken promises were all that Remus had left now as he stared at his reflection in his bathroom mirror. He didn't know who he was anymore. He didn't care to either, for that matter. One year, two weeks and six days he had been with Michael. Eleven or so months of fear and terror and self-loathing were behind him and he was smart enough to know that if he kept on as he was, he could look forward to even more. He needed to get out. There was no more time to dance around the ugly thoughts and uncomfortable truths. No more time to pretend he wasn't another fucking statistic. It was do or die.

He turned away from the mirror and looked down at his right arm. The dark bruises that would have matched perfectly to the shape of Michael's fingers were fading slowly, the latest in his collection. It was as though his skin had given up, just as his spirit had, too tired of resisting, of thinking that maybe it would stop. It would never stop. Remus knew that now.

He pulled his shirt off, flinching at the yellowing marks across his torso. He couldn't even remember receiving half of them… It was like he was seeing them through another person's eyes, or as though he were seeing them for the first time. Now that he'd admitted it to himself, the proof that his boyfriend was abusing him scared him. Which was foolish, really; if he was going to fear anything, he should fear the blond-haired man who would be coming home expecting dinner cooked to his specifications on the table and a meek, doting and adoring boyfriend to do with as he saw fit.

But Remus was done. His spirit had been stomped on, his morals bent and twisted into ones he no longer recognized, and he'd lied so often to his friends he wondered if he could even still call them such, but his will was of iron. He couldn't take another second of this life. He would not let his own naïveté and belief that his lover could change sentence him to a drawn out death. Remus was leaving.

He walked purposefully into the bedroom, barely registering the flutter of the curtains in the breeze or the thunder that rumbled across the sky. After a few minutes of searching, he pulled his small overnight bag from the deepest recesses of the closet. He almost smiled as his hand reunited with his wand after months apart – the muscles in his face felt stiff. He hadn't smiled in weeks.

He packed methodically, without thinking. Shirts, pants, shoes, toiletries, filling his tiny overnight bag and then another, larger, duffel bag with everything he owned, and as he packed, a weight he'd never noticed before seemed to lift. It was like the branches of a tree, after the coming of spring, lifting back toward the warm sun after being weighted down almost to the point of breaking by ice and snow from the winter.

Once his packing was finished, Remus pulled a sheet of parchment out of the second kitchen drawer, quickly scrawling a note before folding it and propping it against the vase of dying flowers Michael had given him a week ago after beating him to the point of unconsciousness. He levitated his bags up before catching them, slinging the lighter of the two over his shoulder, casting a last look around the kitchen/living room. So many memories…and even more regrets. Sighing, trying futilely to blink back the tears that sprang to his eyes, the lycan gripped his wand tighter and Disapparated with the sound of a bullet erupting from a gun. And in a sense it had. He was gone, free, and his depart was the death of his life as he'd known it.

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Lily looked confusedly at James and Sirius as the doorbell chimed. It was late evening, closing in on seven o'clock, and the redhead was hard-pressed as to who could possibly be calling on them. Especially when James and Sirius looked blankly back at her, just as nonplussed as she felt. Peter was out on assignment for the Order and anyone else would have owled before dropping by… She rose slowly and then jumped as a fist hammered on the door.

James was on his feet in an instant, wand drawn, fearing the worst. Lily took another step toward the door but Sirius reached out and held her gently back by the arm. The messy-haired man strode quickly to the door and, keeping his wand upright just in case, opened the door an inch. Sirius was right behind him and the other Animagus' presence calmed James immeasurably.

"Where is he?" growled a vaguely familiar voice. James almost dropped his wand in shock.

"Michael?" he asked, opening the door wider as Padfoot growled almost inaudibly behind him.

"Who else would it be?" the blond snarled. "Where is he?"

"Who?"

"He means Remus," Sirius said, now lounging against the doorframe to the sitting room, outwardly relaxed and uncaring, inwardly tensed, ready to spring. Michael nodded once, not looking at Sirius.

"I don't know," replied James, confusion furrowing his brow. "Why?" Michael held out a sheet of parchment to him and James took it, recognizing his longtime friend's writing immediately.

Michael,

No doubt you'll have realized I'm not at home. And I don't ever plan to be there again, either. My key is on top of the mail. You can look for me, but you won't find me. This whole hocus pocus thing will make it impossible if you try.

You can't get me back, and I don't want you. Find someone else who likes being a human punching bag.

I was never yours,

Remus

Sirius, who was reading over James' shoulder, had to bite back a smile. Inside, however, his innards were dancing the conga and he felt light as a feather suddenly.

"Well," said James slowly, and Sirius could tell that he too was trying to contain his pleasure at the letter, "it looks as though he's gone off somewhere. Sorry."

"James what the bloody hell is happening?" Lily asked, her expression half terrified, half exasperated. He passed her the letter and she read speedily. Then she looked up, eyes narrowing dangerously as she glared at Michael. Both of the wizards assembled stepped back, glee lighting their eyes as Lily stepped forward. She was noticeably shorter than Michael but the fury that rolled off of her in black waves was enough to intimidate anyone who knew her; that and the fact her knuckles were white from clutching her wand so hard. Remus' note crumpled before falling to the floor.

"This is going to be hilarious," Sirius murmured from the corner of his mouth to James, who let the corner of his own mouth quirk up.

"So where is he?" Michael demanded, still woefully ignorant of the turn of events. He looked from a smug James to the grinning Sirius and then finally to Lily, who was still glaring daggers at him.

She parried his question with one of her own, speaking through numb lips and gritted teeth. "What's this Remus mentions about 'human punching bags'? Because I really hope, for your sake, it's not referencing what I think it's referencing."

Michael's own gaze narrowed now as he took in Lily and her savage fury. "Where. Is. He?" he said in a deadly soft voice as Lily stepped forward into his personal space. Bigger he may have been, but Lily was armed with righteous anger and a wand to channel her immense magical power; her eyes were fearless and loathing.

"I don't know," the redhead replied just as smoothly, her voice like chilled velvet. "But as long as it's a good long ways away from you, I don't care." Michael's face contorted and his arm twitched as though he would like nothing more to backhand Lily across the little entryway in which they were all crammed.

"Do it," Sirius goaded, still smiling. "I fucking dare you. Hit her, we all know that's how you get your rocks off you sick son of a bitch. Give me an excuse to beat the shit out of you like you deserve."

"Fuck you," Michael snarled. "I want my fucking boyfriend back and I don't care if I have to torture it out of you, I'm going to find him. He's mine."

Sirius' smirk widened but his eyes, those dark eyes the exact shade of the clouds blanketing the sky from which thunder rumbled, were flat and emotionless. "Remus was never yours and you can try to torture me all you like. I don't know where he is and neither do James or Lily; and are you really so fucking full of yourself that you think we'd tell you if we did?"

Michael growled and the sound was menacing, but none of the assembled magic folk moved an inch nor betrayed anything but cloying disapproval. Sensing a lost cause, the blond spun on his heel and wrenched the front door (which had fallen shut) open again, stepping onto the front stoop and turning back. "I swear to God, if I find out you knew where he was and didn't tell me…" He let the threat dangle but Sirius just snorted.

"Yeah, yeah, we know. You'll torture us. Or try anyway. Get the fuck out." And with those parting words, he pulled the door from Michael's limp grasp and slammed it in his face.

"You shouldn't have said that stuff to him," James said quietly as they all started breathing again.

"Yes he should," said Lily sternly, shrugging off the hand he'd placed on her shoulder before Sirius could respond. Clearly she was still irritated that Michael had come by and she hadn't gotten the opportunity to vent her rage at him with a few well-aimed hexes.

"I agree, the bastard had it coming," James said equably, pulling Lily closer by the waist. "But what if he does find Remus before we do? I doubt those comments will have helped his temper any."

The fight went out of Lily and she sagged against her fiancé. Wordlessly, three sets of eyes found the note their friend had written where it lay mangled and almost entirely forgotten on the spotless floor. Thunder rumbled directly overhead and lightning flickered from outside as the rain burst in pebble-sized drops from the sky at last.

XXX

The knock was soft, almost drowned out by the tattoo of rain against the roof of the cozy little cottage-house, but almost instantly, James was on his feet and toward the front door. He opened it, fully intending to give Michael a piece of his mind for coming back, but then he registered what he was seeing and his heart leapt into his throat, rendering him speechless.

There, on his front stoop, stood a rain-soaked Remus, looking entirely forlorn, holding a bag in each hand. "Hey Prongs, d'you mind if I crash here for a few days?" It was like deja vu as the memory of a much younger but equally as wet Sirius stood on the front step to his parents' house half a decade before, speaking those exact same words.

"Of course," he managed to say through numb lips, stepping back robotically to let his soaked friend in the door. The bespectacled Animagus had never seen the lycan so completely defeated. There was a shadow of a bruise under one of Remus' eyes and a fresher mark, probably the aftermath of a well-delivered backhanded slap, on the lower corner of his jaw. "Jesus fucking Christ, Remus," he breathed, absently waving his wand so that the shivering werewolf's clothes were warm and toasty.

"Who is it James?" asked Sirius, rounding the corner from the sitting room and coming up short. Remus, who couldn't stand the look of shocked horror on James' face, turned to Sirius, watching a plethora of emotions flickering over those too-handsome features; shock, pain, anger, pity, horror, more pain, finally settling on determination. "He did this to you." It wasn't a question, but Remus felt the need to answer it as though it had been.

"Yes," he whispered, hating the tears that welled up in his eyes.

Sirius saw red. His mind pulsed angrily with his rage, and the brunette was hardly aware of what he was doing as he stepped angrily into his shoes.

"Where're you going?" Remus asked, surprise flitting over his own face.

"I'm going to go and murder that…that…" His anger, pure and carnal and hot in his mouth, rendered him incoherent as he struggled to finish his sentence. James' arms were instantly around Sirius' middle, holding him back from the door as he struggled toward it. "You're my best mate, Prongs, but I swear to fucking Merlin, if you don't let me go, you're going to regret it," he snarled through clenched teeth.

"No!" Remus said, dropping the bags he still held, moving forward to assist James in restraining their friend. Sirius' head snapped back as if the lycanthrope had hit him.

"What?" he growled. "You're going to defend him after what he's fucking done to you? Are you fucking kidding me, Remus?"

Remus merely shook his head, placing a hand on Sirius' chest. The touch seemed to act like a sedative; Sirius stopped struggling. "No," he replied quietly. "I'm not defending him. But it's… You mean too much to me Padfoot. I don't want you to get hurt," the Animagus snorted derisively, "or get in trouble for my sake. It's not worth it to me."

Sirius hung his head and James cautiously released him, moving away to stand by Lily, who had appeared at the sound of the commotion. "You're right, Mooney," he whispered through the taste of his black anger. It was still scalding in his mouth, and his brain was still firing on adrenaline, but he managed to reign himself in. Remus was right; however much he wanted to (and he wanted to more than almost anything at the moment), it wouldn't be worth the cost of squashing that piece of shit.

The Animagus took a deep, shuddering breath, and then pulled Remus forward, into his arms. "I never do these things right, I should be the one comforting you," he murmured, and Remus gave the approximation of a half-smile. "Are you okay?" Sirius asked, releasing him and holding him at arms length. Every mark on the already-scarred flesh was another drop of venom into his heart, and every tear that streaked down Remus' cheeks was another death sentence for the blond-haired fucker who'd caused them.

"I've been better," Remus replied. "And worse."

"Come in, come in," Lily said, coming forward and taking one of Remus' cold hands in both of her own. "Have you eaten? We have loads of leftovers, here, sit and I'll knock something up." Lily flicked the kitchen light on and all but forced Remus into a chair as James and Sirius pulled out seats for themselves.

"Really, Lily, you don't have to go to any trouble just for me," Remus said weakly. The redhead rolled her eyes at him to cover the frown of aggravation at the way the lycan had said 'just for me'.

"It's no trouble, honest. Tea?" Remus nodded.

Once the lycan had a plate heaped high with food and a steaming mug of pekoe before him, Lily took up the last seat at the tiny table and three sets of eyes looked at him expectantly. Remus sighed and toyed with his fork. He wasn't really even hungry, but he hadn't wanted to be rude. "So I guess you all know why I'm here," he murmured, unable to meet their eyes.

Sirius reached out and took his hand. "We saw your note, Moonshine." Remus glanced up, confusion thick on his face. "Michael came by earlier, looking for you." The Animagus flinched at the terror that leached away all of his friend's colour.

"He what?" Remus whispered shakily.

"No worries, luv, Lily practically ran him out of here," Sirius replied lightly, trying to change the look of pure fear on Remus' face. The lycan, however, went impossibly paler.

"Don't listen to him," Lily said soothingly. "Nothing happened, everyone is fine." She cast Sirius a reproving glare, which only seemed to bounce off harmlessly. "He won't find you."

Remus didn't know what to say. For once, his vocabulary was woefully too small, his mouth unable to form words, so instead, he picked up his fork and put a mouthful of food into his mouth. It could have been anything; he couldn't taste it. His throat stuck as he swallowed and immediately put another forkful of food into his mouth, chewing mechanically.

Sirius cast James a pleading look and the bespectacled Animagus sighed inaudibly, rose gracefully and murmured into Lily's ear. She followed him out of the room, sending one last anxious glance over her shoulder at Remus before James tugged her out of sight up the stairs.

"Mooney?" Remus put his fork down, and reached for his teacup, his eyes raising, looking startled to find himself alone with the handsome youth. "Remus… I… What happened?"

The lycan's smile was as false as the dusty vase of flowers Sirius kept on his flat's coffee table. "I doubt you want to hear it all, Padfoot," he replied softly.

The Animagus felt his temper flare. Remus was always doing this; pushing him away, not allowing access to his thoughts or feelings, never letting Sirius in when all he wanted was to know him, really and truly. He wanted to know how Remus thought, what made him tick, just as Remus knew him, inside and out, but the lycanthrope was constantly putting up barriers, keeping him out. "You're wrong," she said softly, trying to control the tone of his voice.

Remus leaned back, not bothering with the pretense of eating anymore. "What do you want from me?" he asked moodily. "Do you want to know what it's like to wonder if the next thing you're going to say is going to earn you an insult? Or whether it warrants being punched in the face?"

Sirius felt stung, stunned, stupefied. Because he did know what that felt like… His hand slid from atop Remus' on the table, falling to his thigh and clenching. "I do Mooney, don't you see? I do know what that's like! Feeling like no matter what you do, it's not going to be good enough; no matter how much you try to follow someone's order, they still find fault with you! I've been there, damn it!"

Remus bit his lower lip. He felt selfish, like a spoiled child that had been denied some luxury and who'd just realized there were orphans halfway around the world starving to death. Embarrassment coloured his cheeks and he leaned forward, clasping Sirius' clenched fist. "I'm sorry Sirius," he murmured. "Truly."

The Animagus, who was staring at their joined hands, shook his head. "Don't be sorry Remus…you don't have to be sorry. Just…I want to help you. I want to be here for you, because I know what it's like to feel like no one gives a shit. But I do. I give a shit."

Remus had to smile a little bit at that and Sirius was beyond overjoyed to see it. "I know Pads…and I'm s-"

"No. Don't you dare apologize anymore Mooney. You have nothing to be sorry for…Merlin knows that anyone, including me, would have been just as surly as you…probably even more so." Remus smile widened and it felt funny, once again, to smile.

"Alright then Padfoot. What would you like to know, really?"

Sirius' first unclenched and he weaved his fingers into Remus'. By no means was it the first time they had held hands such, but for some reason Remus felt a blush creeping up his face, making his skin prickle with heat. "Let's sit in the sitting room," Padfoot finally suggested, standing, not bothering to release Remus' hand.

The lycan nodded and followed, trying to shut up the sound of a particularly loud voice in his head; a voice that sounded suspiciously like a former blonde-haired boyfriend.

'What the hell are you doing? Holding his hand like he's your boyfriend or something… As if. Why would someone like him ever want to be with you? You're old, and ugly, and damaged… We both know it; stop pretending he'll see past all that. Fuck, he probably just wants in your pants anyway.' "Remus?" Amber eyes met silver and Remus realized he had sat down next to Sirius on the squashy loveseat that James loved so much he refused to get rid of it (which Lily compensated for by throwing a cover over the harvest gold velour). "You okay?" Remus nodded, half-smiling as Sirius squeezed his hand.

"So," he said, inhaling a long deep breath and letting it out with a whoosh. "What do you want to know?"

Sirius' teeth found his lower lip and he chewed it as he thought. "How long?" he said finally. "How long since…?"

"Since what? Since he decided to vent his rage with a few well-aimed blows, you mean?" Sirius' mouth turned into a thin little line as the white-hot anger licked up his insides again and his head bobbed once in affirmation. Remus looked down, fiddling with a loose thread in the couch throw. "You remember that day in the summer…when you came over and it was really hot?" Another nod. "That…that was the first time."

The Animagus could feel his face whiten, felt every vein and artery slowly leaching colour from his visage. His lips were numb and felt awkward as they tried to form the words. "You…you mean, it was because-"

Remus squeezed his hand, looking almost alarmed. "No, Padfoot, no… You didn't do anything! If it's anyone's fault it's mine… Michael thought…thinks, that we…that we are…well sleeping together. Even though I told him we're not."

The lycan stiffened as Sirius drew him into his arms, one tiny part of his brain revolting against the intimate contact, tensed with fear, ready to bolt. "Oh Mooney," Sirius sighed softly against his ear, and Remus tentatively slid his own arms around the very solid, very warm shape of his best friend, forcing himself to relax.

He breathed deep the scent of Padfoot: his expensively mouthwatering cologne, the hint of dog (it really was unavoidable), his shampoo, his soap, and his freshly laundered clothes and emotion welled up inside him. Hot tears spilled from his eyes as his tentative hug turned to a ferocious grip; he was clinging to Sirius as though his life were dependant on it as rage and grief and shame poured liquid from his eyes and soaked Sirius' shirt.

Sirius felt like he was drowning as the sobs wracked Remus' too-thin body, his long-fingered hands clenching fistfuls of shirt. He didn't know how to soothe people – he'd never had to. Always in their relationships, it was Remus soothing him, Remus being the rock that tethered him, and with the reversal of roles came the confusion of what to do, what to say. He blinked back the moisture in his own eyes, lifting a hand to comb uncertainly through Remus' hair. "Shh…" he murmured awkwardly. "It's going to be okay Mooney…everything's going to be fine."

Remus shook his head, burying his face into the crook between Sirius' neck and shoulder. Gasping for breath as tears scalded down his cheeks from his scratchy eyes, he held tighter, needing to feel something real, something solid and real, in his life. "I can't do it anymore," he choked out. "I can't, I can't…"

"Shh," Sirius repeated, pressing Remus closer to his body, running his fingers through prematurely graying, sandy hair. "It's okay Remus…I promise, everything's okay."

"I don't know how to live without him," Remus whispered, the pain in his heart manifesting itself as a physical ache. "I can't do it Padfoot… I want…I just want… I just wish I were dead."

The words were like a knife through Sirius' heart, twisting painfully and he crushed the other young man to him now, angry and defiant. "Don't say that," he hissed. "Don't you dare say that, you hear me? You can do this Remus; you can get through this…I know you can. You're strong and beautiful and smart and…and goddamn it, I love you."

To Sirius' horror, Remus began sobbing even harder. "Oh fuck, I'm sorry Remus, I didn't mean to say that, it just slipped out… You know me; I don't think things through before I say them and then I make myself look like an arse… Oh Mooney, look, don't cry, just – just pretend I never said that, okay? It was stupid and irrational and now I've put my foot in my fucking mouth again and I didn't mean to upset you, you know that, I-"

He broke off as Remus' mouth found his, wet eyelashes caressing the tops of his aristocratic cheekbones. It was a chaste kiss, merely a pressing of one soft, dry pair of lips to another, but it still knocked the breath from the Animagus' lungs and make his head spin with a giddy sense of euphoria. "Sirius," Remus whispered, still sniffling slightly. "You're rambling."

"Sorry," Padfoot breathed. Like a light bursting into action in a dark room, they simultaneously realized they were sitting practically on top of one another and that they still held the other and pulled back in the next heartbeat.

A tense silence that was rife with unasked questions hung between them as Remus dried his eyes on the hem of his cardigan and Sirius, flushed a handsome shade of pink, studied his hands. "Did…" Remus said, his voice sounding loud in the silence. "Did," he repeated at a whisper, "did you mean it?"

Sirius looked up, his grey eyes shining and gorgeously heart-stopping as always. "Of course I did."

Remus blushed himself, but soldiered on. He had to know… "I mean…did you mean it like…?" Sirius opened his mouth to speak, but when no sound came out, simply nodded.

"Yeah…"

Inexplicably, tears welled again in the lycanthrope's eyes, even as that snide, condescending voice in his head whispered, 'He lied to you before, what makes you think he's not lying now? Who the hell could love you? You're ugly, and scarred…broken… You aren't worthy of love.' "I…"

Sirius shook his head, taking Remus' hand in his again. "We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to…" The desperate plea in the darker haired young man's voice hardened Remus' heart slightly as the little voice in his head gloated.

The Animagus felt like a fool. Remus wasn't ready for this kind of thing…who the hell would be with an ex like Michael? Stupid, stupid, stupid… He cursed himself for not just keeping his mouth shut. Remus needed him as a friend, and nothing more right now, what the hell was he doing telling him he loved him like some bloody woman? Good Godric…he just didn't know when to keep his big fat mouth shut.

"Alright," said Remus at last, and softened slightly as Sirius gave a tentative smile. "Do…do you still want to hear everything?"

Padfoot nodded and made a show of getting comfortable. "Yes. I want to know everything, Mooney."

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