AN: I apologize for the extreme delay of this last chapter. A combination of being busy, lazy, and having writers block kept me from finishing with any due speed. But now it's up, so enjoy the final chapter of the story!

..Chapter 6: The Confession..

When the two boys burst into the empty Gryffindor dorm, Sirius was practically dragging Remus whose legs limply trod along well behind the rest of his body. Sirius' bed, littered with crumpled laundry, sat closest to the door, so Remus collapsed upon it right away. A guttural groan clawed its way out of his chest.

"Shit, Moony," Sirius muttered repentantly, his cheeks flushing with the guilt rising within him. "Shit." He continued swearing in the back of his throat as he removed Remus' shoes and conjured a jet of clean water into the empty glass on the bedside table. "Tell me what to do, Moony. What do you need?"

Remus weakly grappled at the water glass, and at length successfully brought it to his lips. "I'll be fine—"

"Like hell you will!" Sirius bellowed indignantly. "You can barely walk, you can barely think, and nobody can vomit on the Fat Lady and still convince me he's fine!"

"If you'd let me finish," hoarsely retorted Remus, "I was going to say I'll be fine if I just lie here a while. I overexerted myself is all. You know."

Sirius stood silently gazing at the other boy. "Fine," he said abruptly as if his pride had been somehow hurt by this denial of his care. He tossed his tie onto the bed to the left, James's, and began unfastening his dress robes. They pinched the skin around his neck and squeezed his slim belly in farther than it was meant to go; he welcomed their removal. Carelessly he balled them up in his arms and cast them onto James's bed as well, upon which he next cast himself, now clad comfortably in his roomy undershirt and trousers.

"You want out of those robes?" he offered, having weighed the potential uneasiness of the statement against how immensely uncomfortable Remus must be in those pinching, squeezing dress robes.

"No. They're warm."

"You cold?"

"Freezing." And indeed, Remus' teeth were chattering.

"Do you think a butterbeer would help? I think James has a few stowed in his trunk I could warm up for you…" Sirius dove hastily to the end of James's bed and cracked open the trunk. "Here, he has textbooks, textbooks, socks, textbooks— ew, a half-eaten Cauldron Cake, probably from the train ride here— the flying carpet I gave him for Christmas (so glad he's getting good use out of it), socks, more socks, a Quaffle, more bloody socks! I swear that freak owns a million pairs of socks…"

As Sirius shuffled in James's trunk, Remus heard something crinkling beneath his head. He reached beneath his pillow and extracted a piece of parchment with an unfinished letter scrawled on it in what was unmistakably Sirius' handwriting. The letter was addressed to someone named "Orion." Genuinely meaning no harm and erroneously thinking that it was addressed to Sirius' estranged father, Remus blearily skimmed the letter and, among the scratches and squiggles marking out words, phrases, and whole paragraphs, he made out:

"Dear Orion,

You knew this would happen sooner or later when we agreed to this in the first place. Don't feel like you did anything, because we both knew it would end before long. It was only a matter of who ended it first. I still promise not to tell anyone about you if you don't tell anyone about me. It was nice while it lasted but I just can't do this anymore."

Meanwhile, Sirius had seen Remus' eyes gliding over the familiar letter. He was frozen where he sat on his knees, every muscle in his body tense, as the magnitude of his friend's discovery registered in his mind. But what use is there in stopping him now? he asked himself in defeat. I was going to tell him anyway.

Remus' face flushed. This was most certainly not directed to Mr. Black. Was this what Remus was suspecting? His cheeks grew hotter and hotter and he shot a nervous glance at Sirius, who stared back with wide-eyed terror.

He knows, thought Sirius. He knows and now he hates me.

They sat silently for eons, neither knowing what to say. Several times Remus attempted an apology, but created nothing but a series of "err"s and "uhm"s; just as many times Sirius attempted an explanation, and created exactly the same.

"Remus," came the quiet disruption to that miserable silence at last. Sirius' nerves burned his eyes; his fear darkened his vision. He seemed to be viewing the scene distantly through a remote pair of eyes.

And abruptly, the confession poured forth in a rapid, mortified fervor: "Remus, I'm gay. I'm a poof, a queer, a bender, a nancy-boy, whatever. And that letter… I've been… been shagging him—Orion Burke—but I've… had enough of it. I'm through with it. I don't want to shag him anymore, Remus, because I want— because… I love you."

Too frightened that he would be met with a look of disgust, he kept his eyes anywhere other than Remus' face.

"Oh." Remus could not think what to say. He knew he ought to say more. "Oh" was hardly a satisfactory response to such a candid confession.

"It's okay if you hate me," Sirius whispered self-pitiably.

"Hate you? I could never hate you." The absoluteness of the statement was comforting. "I just never thought of it that way."

"Of what?"

"Of you." He smiled weakly. "I wouldn't think I'd be your, er, your type."

Sirius sat solemnly gazing downward. "So you're not angry?"

"Angry? What, that you, er, fancy me? Of course not. Flattered."

A tremendous portion of the tension in the room ebbed away. The atmosphere of the utmost sincerity reassured Sirius that he would not lose his friend over this, and that his secret would remain safely between them.

"But you don't… feel the same." It was an assertion rather than a question.

"Well…"

Sirius' insides gave a jolt. "'Well?' 'Well' as in not 'no, absolutely not, oh my god that's disgusting, get away from me before I catch the gay?'"

"'Well' as in 'I never thought in a million years that you'd have "the gay" in the first place,' but…"

"'But?' 'But' as in 'Oh Padfoot, I've been pining away for you ever since I was a lad and now I can finally tell you how I feel?'"

Remus chuckled sheepishly. "Er… something like that."

"What the hell! You can't be serious!" Instantaneously hundreds of different emotions had burst with resounding triumph inside Sirius' head. Was he really hearing what he had heard? Was Remus not only not repulsed by the confession but actually reciprocating it?

Although much of the color he had lost from feeling ill had returned to Remus' cheeks, it had fled once again from anxiety. "Well, not exactly. More like 'but' as in 'I had been noticing lately how you're…'"

"Gorgeous? Irresistible? A living Adonis?"

"Or an arrogant twat."

"No, really, what were you going to say?"

"Well… How you're…" he hesitated and then, as if reluctant, admitted, "…perfect. Except for being an arrogant twat of course."

This was unreal. "So, wait, you actually fancy me too? Really?"

Remus seemed to consider this for a moment. "Yes. Really. But…"

"Shit, not another 'but.'"

"What's all this about Orion Burke?"

And suddenly the brief euphoria of a newly requited love disintegrated into the unpleasant foreboding of the explanation to come. Nevertheless, the absolute openness of the preceding conversation led Sirius to an absolutely open confession. He had been concealing it for far too long. "Look, I don't even remember how it happened. We got to talking one day, I guess—that time I got detention with McGonagall for Transfiguring Snape's quill into a doxy, Burke was there getting help with a Transfiguration essay—and anyway we were talking and he sort of implied that he was, er, gay but he never really said it, and he asked me to meet him that night and so I did and I expected we were just going to talk and shit but he—he started kissing me, and what else was I supposed to do? So we shagged and I thought it would just be that one time, but he sent me a letter next day asking if I'd like to, er, make it a regular thing and I dunno. It just seemed like a great idea. I don't love him at all, never have; I just… he was the only guy at Hogwarts I knew of and I… you know."

Silence permeated the air between the two boys. Remus wondered if his mind was still clouded and ill, because he sensed the unexpected jealousy creeping through his veins and mercilessly squeezing his heart.

"I don't know why I just told you all that," Sirius admitted quietly. "You probably didn't want to know."

"It's alright. It's none of my business. I don't care." This claim came a little too quickly and a little too nonchalantly to be believed. Again guilt overcame Sirius, for he could visibly see the jealousy raging behind Remus' amber eyes.

Sirius swung his legs over the side of James's bed and buried his face in his hands. "It's your fault you know," he muttered.

"My fault?"

"Yeah. I mean I never— Before you I never thought of myself… like that."

Remus laughed nervously. "Before you met me, you were eleven."

He looked up. "Do you think I'm… I dunno… a bit of a slag?"

Remus' eyes widened. "Why would I? You were only, er, with the one bloke."

"But I don't care about him. I don't just not care about him, I don't give a shit about him. He's just a quick shag. He's nice and all that, but I just don't care. If I weren't fucking him, we could be friends."

"You can't be friends with someone you're shagging?"

Sirius did not respond. He pondered this question and its possible implications. "I dunno."

"Do you think…" Remus' voice cracked, "maybe we ought to try?"

—————————

James and Peter staggered up the staircase and into the Gryffindor boys' dormitory with their ties askew, their shoes untied, and their shirts on inside out. All the windows were thrown open, and through each one flooded the crisp autumn breeze and the sweet scent of morning dew. The muted light of daybreak dappled the three empty beds alongside the one with its curtains drawn. James's hand was clasped around a drained bottle of firewhiskey. Each boy collapsed onto his own bed.

"I can't believe Moony and Padfoot missed that party last night," sighed Peter with a mixture of exhaustion and elation. "I wonder where they got off to."

"I can't believe you won the fucking dance party competition contest thing," James slurred drunkenly. "Fucking mad, that's what it is. Completely mad. Totally bleedin' mad. I mean, honestly, who would've thought a Gryffindor who wasn't me would've won? Especially a Gryffindor who was you. Honestly. Bleedin' mad."

"Would you shut it, Prongs?" came Sirius' raspy voice from the one occupied bed as a balled-up sock soared over the top of the curtains in the general direction of James's face. "I swear, when you're pissed you never shut your gob…"

"Oi, Paddy!" James called, still strewn languidly across his own bed. "You missed a hell of a party last night celebrating Peter's come-from-behind victory at the ball. If you hadn't've turned in so bloody early you could've gotten as pissed as me and Peter, but no, ickle Paddyfeets had to go to beddy-bye…"

"Prongs, you really oughtn't to get so drunk in public. You always make a right arse of yourself," muttered Remus as a second sock flew out from within the same bed curtains.

Had either James or Peter been the least bit sober that morning, they might have been curious as to why both of their friends' voices came from the same bed. This inquiry would have been fueled by the preponderance of discarded clothing littering the floor around this bed, or the vague recognition of the two pairs of bare feet peeking out from the bottom of the curtains. However, in the absence of any prying questions, the two boys were left peacefully in their bed, running their fingers tenderly through the other's soft, damp hair.

...The End..

AN: That's the end! I hope you all found the ending to be satisfactory. If you enjoyed this fic, you may like another one I wrote recently with the same pairing but with way more angst. It's a pretty short one-shot called "The Little House Just Outside Hogsmeade." Check it out. :)