Ch. 10: Of Fury and Flies

I hope you enjoy this chapter, and thanks again to everyone who's left feedback for this fic; your support means a lot to me :D

With this chapter, I have caught up on FFN to where the story is at on AO3. This means that, from now on, updates will take longer than a day. However, I update as soon as I finish writing a chapter, and I try to be as fast as my schedule allows. I hope you don't mind the delays too much, and that you'll keep following!

Thanks for reading!

Sirius could hear the whispers.

They flitted through the air like irritating flies someone had accidently allowed to enter, and they hummed and buzzed and darted about, disturbing the peace of the usually laid-back potions classroom where Sirius and his friends sat, awaiting the start of class.

Sirius shot a glare at the table to the left of him, where some particularly nosy Slytherins were craning their necks to catch a glimpse of Remus, who was seated diagonally across from Sirius and next to James.

Quite like flies indeed, he decided.

As the whispers grew, and as some particularly bold specimens began to point over in their direction, Sirius thought, anger building up within him, that he would rather like to swat them.

In his defense, the anger wasn't on his behalf – It was on Remus'.

These intrusive, good-for-nothing bastards were murmuring and whispering about his best friend, and Sirius was about two-point-five seconds away from hexing the lot of them. He probably wouldn't have held out this long, save for the fact that he had been given strict orders from James to not react, or retaliate, or do any of the other perfectly reasonable things he felt like doing.

And quite honestly, usually even that wouldn't have done anything to stop him… except Remus had given him that look when he'd shown signs of protest – that infuriating look where he was all pleading and quiet and long-suffering – and Sirius had never been able to resist when he looked like that. Especially not when, only the night before, he'd seen Remus' features twisted in a radically different expression – one with eyes closed tight against waves of pain, and a forehead dotted in beads of sweat, and a mouth twisted in an ugly, blood-stained grimace.

That was really the only reason he was holding his tongue – why, all through breakfast that morning, and through their Charms lesson after that, and through the past ten minutes they'd spent sitting in this dungeon, waiting for Professor Slughorn to turn up, he had resisted the ever-growing urge to jump on top of the nearest table and shout, "OI! So what he's got scars – he still looks better that all you lot combined, you ugly, pig-faced bastards! Learn to mind your own damned business, and PISS OFF!"

But his patience, which tended to be strained on the best of days, was rapidly waning.

And it probably didn't help that he was angry at Remus, too.

Angry at him for lying to them.

For showing up after a week with a piss-poor excuse and a shredded face.

For talking, like a bloody fool, instead of telling them he couldn't.

For coughing up blood and refusing to go to the Hospital Wing.

For trying to act like this wasn't a big deal.

For terrifying Sirius.

Sirius was angry because Remus was just sitting there, like he had the whole morning, eyes dutifully trained on his desk as he pretended the world was devoid of flies. As he pretended the tossers around him weren't pointing, and staring, and clutching on to rumors like they were lifelines; rumors about what gave him the scar, how he'd gotten it, if he had others. As he refused to do anything to make them stop.

And Sirius was angry because, even when he wanted to be mad with Remus, even when he wanted to rage and yell and scream in his face – he could still be silenced by a look from him.

He was angry because he couldn't be angry with Remus – couldn't bring himself to be.

And it pissed him off.

So with all this anger pooling inside him, and with no healthy way to vent, he supposed it was only a matter of time before he snapped – an event which would likely end with someone getting a fist to the face. Preferably Snivellus.

As Sirius sat, stewing and refusing to engage in James' and Peter's debate over Quidditch teams – which Remus couldn't be a part of because he had been expressly banned from speaking, and which Sirius refused to be a part of because he had been petulantly giving all three of his dormmates the silent treatment (James, for telling him not to inflict bodily harm on their classmates; Remus, for reasons already addressed; and Peter, because if he wasn't talking to two of them, he might as well not talk to any) – Slughorn finally entered the room, a splendid seventeen minutes late.

"So sorry I'm late," he called out as he entered, and Sirius rolled his eyes.

"Was just returning an owl to Barnabus Cuffe… you may soon be familiar with the name; he was just made junior editor of the Daily Prophet… yes, I foresaw a great future for that boy when he was a student of mine, and I daresay no one would contradict me now!"

Slughorn's rambles were doing little to halt the class' chatter, and Sirius couldn't help but wish they were in Transfiguration – McGonagall wouldn't stand for this, he was sure.

But no, they had Slughorn instead, and he didn't seem at all interested in shutting down the conversations that were making Remus inspect the desk like the grain of the wood was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen as the red flush coating his cheeks spread down to his neck.

He might have spoken up, interrupted Slughorn's story, said something that almost certainly would have wound him up in detention… except Evans beat him to it.

She was, admittedly, far more sensible about it than he would have been – she merely raised her hand, effectively cutting off Slughorn's story, and, when he called on her, said – as if she hadn't interrupted him at all – "Professor, does that cauldron up front there contain Swelling Solution?" And because she was one of Slughorn's chosen few, he just smiled, undisturbed, uttered a pleased, "Why, it is indeed, Miss Evans! Very well done," and awarded ten points to Gryffindor.

While normally, this would have irritated Sirius – would have sent him off on a mild tirade about Slughorn's blatant favoritism, and Evan's apparent need to show off – there was something about the way she did it, some unspoken implication in how she steadfastly did not look over at their table, how she'd raised her voice just loud enough to startle the class into attention, that made him realize she'd done it for Remus. Done it to shut the flies up.

To be quite frank, he'd never really liked Evans. Couldn't understand James' obsession with her; never really saw the appeal. She was friends with Snivellus, for Merlin's sake – was sitting with him right now! – and that didn't exactly do wonders for his faith in her judgment.

But, when he realized what she'd done to help his friend just now – and when he thought about how she hadn't batted an eye at Remus when she greeted him that morning, or how, at breakfast, she'd fixed one of her icy glares (so often trained on James) on Marlene McKinnon when she'd tried to ask Remus about the scar, until the girl had fidgeted uncomfortably and changed the subject – he felt a warm surge of affection for the red-head.

And when he noticed the faint smile on Remus' face – the first one he'd seen all morning – that warmth spread just a tad more. Perhaps James had a point, after all.

In any case, Evans had achieved what Sirius had been desperate for, and it was on with the lesson as Slughorn began describing the properties of swelling solution. By the time he had dismissed them to collect their ingredients and begin preparation, the flies with their short attention spans had moved past the topic of Remus and onto that of preserving their grades.

At least… most of them had.

But as Snivellus passed their table on his way to grab some extra puffer-fish eyes, he made sure to quickly hover over their workspace and sneer, just loud enough for the four of them to hear it, "Too bad Slughorn isn't teaching us any potions to heal scars – seems like some of us could benefit from that."

In an instant, any of the warmth Sirius had felt was dead on the dungeon floor. So what Evans wasn't a complete prat when it came to Remus; that didn't redeem her choice in friends – not when said friend had just made Remus go uncomfortably still where he sat.

And as the warmth fell away, back came the anger that soaked his every pore, and the rapid influx was enough for him to finally snap.

Sirius had pinned Snivellus' head to the desk before he could register the movement. With a tightening of his fingers on the snake's neck, he snarled, "And too bad Slughorn isn't teaching us any potions to make greasy gits like you keep their overlarge noses out of other peoples' business! Seems like some of us could benefit from THAT!"

Several things happened at once; Slughorn began to protest loudly from the front of the classroom ("Now wait just a minute, Mr. Black, this is quite uncalled for –"), Evans shot out of her seat and began attempting to yank Snivellus out of Sirius' grasp ("What the hell, Black?!"), James cursed and tried to aid Evans, while also berating Sirius ("Sirius, this isn't helping; what did I tell you!"), and Peter stood to the side, looking on anxiously.

But it was Remus who stopped him.

With a strength Sirius would never have believed the boy possessed, and which he was still having some trouble coming fully to terms with, Remus had stood and yanked Sirius' hand away from where it clutched. Snivellus reeled back, falling firmly onto the floor (and Sirius mildly noticed Evans spared a disgusted glance at his prone figure and made no move to help him up), while Sirius himself staggered back a few steps from the force of the motion.

With a stormy gaze fixated on Sirius, the amber-eyed Gryffindor merely said, "Enough." His voice was quiet, perhaps a little rougher than normal from the abuse to his vocal cords, but it was firm nevertheless. And it left no room for argument.

With his piece uttered, Remus merely sat down, and resumed work on his potion as if nothing had happened.

There was stunned silence, before the flies began to buzz again, their attention caught once more.

Slughorn, who had been utterly useless for the whole event, sputtered back into action now.

"Mr. Black, what explanation can you possibly have for your actions?!"

Snivellus, who had stood up once more, glared at him, but it was the unspoken message Remus' stance sent him that made him say, "No reason, Professor."

"Well, I'm afraid I must give you detention – two weeks' worth, I should say. Now, er – Mr. Snape, do you need to go to the Hospital Wing?"

Snivellus didn't answer, just sneered at Sirius once more before spinning around and stalking back to his seat.

"Very well then," said Slughorn, who seemed quite flustered by the whole situation. "I suppose – back to work!"

Sirius sat back down, tried to ignore the whispers, and felt acutely that he was no longer the one ignoring his friends – it was quite the other way around.

Pushing it out of his head, he searched around for something else to focus on – and his attention caught once more on Evans. The Gryffindor, he saw, had returned to her seat by Snivellus… but didn't seem intent on staying there. In fact, she was engaged in what appeared to be a rather heated argument with the greaseball – an argument in which most of the whisper-shouts were coming from her – as she simultaneously packed up her cauldron and all her ingredients. With a face almost as red as her hair and one final scathing look, she hefted up her belongings and flounced across the room to plop them unceremoniously on the table where the other female Gryffindor second-years sat – the table which just so happened to be the one directly in front of Sirius & Co.

Her friends hastened to make room for her and bring an empty chair around, and soon Evans was back to work in her new location. Slughorn, as well as most of the class (other than Remus, who kept his head firmly down and his scars firmly in shadow), had watched this little transfer, but seemed at yet another loss as to how to deal with it. His solution seemed to be simply not to, and with an almost comically helpless gesture, he sank back down behind his own desk.

It wasn't until the class had settled back down into some semblance of focus that Evans turned around to face them.

Without sparing a glance for James, Sirius, or Peter, she gently nudged Remus' shoulder, her face simultaneously gentle and fierce, and quietly told him, "I heard what Severus said to you. He was way out of line; I'm sorry."

For about the first time since they'd sat down, Remus lifted his head from the fascinating desk. He turned enough in his seat to look Evans in the eyes, and his face was impassive, neutral, cool; but there was something lingering beneath it Sirius could barely make out. It looked vaguely like pride, but might also have been fondness, and could have passed for resignation as well.

"Why apologize? You didn't say it; and besides, he's not wrong." Remus' voice was as quiet as Evans' had been. It was steady, and blunt, and contained not an ounce of self-pity. It also, Sirius was surprised to note, sounded like a challenge. It was that aspect of it, that barely-there hint of steel, that kept Sirius from jumping to protest what Remus had said, or the fact that he had strained his voice at all. Instead he sat, rather stunned, and waited on Evans' reply.

She narrowed her eyes just the tiniest bit. It wasn't, as far as he could judge, out of anger, or irritation, or any of the other emotions that drove her to glare at James. It wasn't even really a glare. It was… an assessment; a calculation.

And then Evans was darting forward to place a light kiss on Remus' cheek, right below his eye and directly on top of his scar.

Sirius barely heard James' splutter of indignation; he was far too busy listening to the white noise roaring through his head as something twisted in his gut.

It lasted a second, and then Evans was pulling back, a cheeky glint in her green eyes to challenge the surprise in Remus' amber ones. For an instant that felt like an hour, they looked at each other, and something passed between them then that Sirius couldn't begin to understand.

"You deserved an apology, and he wasn't going to give you one, so I did. And he is wrong. I think you look dashing." Her fierceness had returned, full-force, for the first part of her declaration, but by the end the cheek was back, and her mouth was caught good-naturedly between a smile and a smirk.

And then the steel he had detected in Remus flooded away completely, and there was a warmth in him that Evans mirrored back.

"Is that so?" Remus replied, his voice dripping with dryness. "Dashing, am I?"

"Quite," said the red-head with another smile.
And once more the frivolity faded away, and Remus looked at her with a sincerity that made the crowded, noisy classroom feel entirely separate from the two in their intimate bubble. "Thanks, Lily."

His voice was genuine, and soft, and the two of them were acting as though James and Peter and Sirius weren't even there and Sirius felt sick.

Evans smiled, and turned away, and then Remus went straight back to working on his potion.

The whole thing had lasted maybe a minute, and had been so unobtrusive that even Evans' tablemates weren't asking questions. It hadn't been showy, it wasn't like the kiss had been particularly romantic, or had been anything other than entirely platonic, but… still.

Could Remus…could he like Evans?

But no – no, that was impossible, and Sirius knew that. James liked Evans, and Remus' behavior had never indicated he felt anything but friendship to the ginger. Even James himself, who was now protesting the injustice of the entire interaction to their table – quietly, as Sirius was sure he knew Evans wouldn't be too pleased to overhear him – didn't appear in any way envious of Remus, or angry, or even suspicious. He was light-heartedly claiming Remus had betrayed him, but no heat lingered behind the words whatsoever, and Remus didn't appear bothered in the least by the accusations. Mostly, his three friends just seemed relieved that they'd moved past the whole mess with Snivellus.

So with a shake of his head, Sirius refocused on his potion, determined not to think about it anymore. (And if part of him registered that maybe, he had been just a tiny, microscopic bit jealous of Evans… well, nobody needed to know.)

Instead, he sank back down into the bitter irritation he'd been feeling for his friends all morning, and continued to petulantly ignore them (or be ignored by them; he really couldn't tell which) for the rest of the class.

It wasn't until they were exiting the classroom that he got over his irritation, for the first time that day.

Slughorn had stopped Sirius to say he'd send a note with the details of his detention, and when Sirius turned around and walked into the hallway, he found Remus waiting for him, alone.

The confusion must have shown on his face, because Remus pulled out a pad of parchment and wrote, angled so Sirius could read it, I told James and Pete to go ahead.

"Oh," was all Sirius was able to manage.

There was a beat of silence, and he tried to think of what he could say.
Remus beat him to it.

Are you going to keep being an idiot?

Sirius almost snapped.

He almost let his lip curl into a snarl, almost shouted at Remus that he wasn't the one being the idiot, thank you very much.

Almost yelled that he wasn't the one lying to his mates, or acting like Evans was his best friend.

He almost did.

But then he looked at Remus' face.

There was some deep anxiety there – some fierce terror, hidden behind a raised eyebrow and set jaw.

And Sirius felt the guilt hit him like a hex.

He searched for the anger that had filled him just moments before, and found it completely gone.

Because, while part of Sirius still wanted to be angry with Remus, a larger part of him – the part that wasn't petty and terrible – had finally woken up and realized that, right now, Remus needed him to be on his side.

He had come back to school after a week away, and during that week he had almost died.

Died.

And now he had new scars, and everyone was staring at him and whispering behind his back, and he could barely talk or he'd start coughing up blood, and who cared what had actually attacked him when he was looking at Sirius like he was terrified he was going to abandon him.

Which was ridiculous, and could never truly happen. But apparently Remus didn't seem to think so, and that was Sirius' fault.

There was a lot Sirius could have said – and a lot he probably should have made Remus know – but he looked his friend in the eye, and they came to an understanding of their own.
"I'm sorry," Sirius said, and he meant it. "I was a git."

And then he was hugging Remus, gently, because he had seen how stiffly Remus was walking and knew those scars couldn't be the only part of him that was a little worse for the wear, and Remus was hugging him back.

"I'm sorry too." And Sirius didn't have to ask what for. Remus' voice was rough again, but Sirius couldn't bring himself to scold him for talking.

And then they let go, and there was more that needed to be said, but it could wait, and they hurried to catch up with James and Peter and made it to their next class just in time.

And if Remus wanted to lie to them about what was really going on, that was fine, Sirius decided; he could tell them he was attacked by a pygmy puff, and it wouldn't make a difference.

Because sooner, not later, Sirius was going to find out what the truth was.

And then he'd do whatever was within his power to make sure Remus never worried Sirius would abandon him again.

So there it is!
The subtext is strong with this one - mostly because Sirius is a transparent idiot.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this chapter; there are parts of it I really like; but something about it is just bothering me a bit. But I worked on it a while and figured this was as good as it was going to get, short of me taking a long break to gain some perspective, which is probably less efficient than just posting as-is so I can move on.
So that's what I did.
I hope you guys still enjoyed it, in any case, and hope that you'll leave a review and let me know!
Thanks again for reading!