A/N: OMG! I'm all speedy! You TOTALLY weren't expecting another chapter til at least November, were you? :D GOTCHA! Anyway, enjoy :)

Chapter 10: Always a Silver Lining

To say Remus was uncomfortable getting ready for his date that Sunday afternoon with Sirius in the room would be an understatement of epic proportions. The discomfort caused by his crush on his canine friend was only half the problem, too. The worse bit was that Sirius seemed to have some sort of deep-rooted disapproval of his choice in dates and it was starting to make Remus defensive. Part of him was glad Sirius couldn't voice his opinions, though. It wasn't every day the shy, gay, poor werewolf got asked out by the most popular boy in school, so he'd decided to resolutely not care about Sirius' disapproval and that he wouldn't listen even if Sirius could talk. Still, he found himself defending his actions automatically against Sirius' dog death-glare as he fidgeted furiously at his outfit trying to make it look as effortless as possible while still looking nice.

"He's handsome!"

Sirius glared. He's not that handsome.

"And nice! He's a sweet guy!"

Sirius glared. He's probably the shallowest pretty-boy to ever date half of Hogwarts.

"And it's not anything serious!"

Sirius glared, this time with a quirk of his lips that could have been a small laugh at an inward pun he'd just made. I don't think anything is serious with Lockhart. Once he's gotten whatever it is he's trying to get, he'll be completely done with you.

"And, honestly, Pads, how many chances do you think I'll even have with guys, let alone guys like Gilderoy!"

Sirius' glare intensified. You will only need one chance when I am out of this stupid dog body and ask you out and we get married and you never have to be lonely again. And I'm at least twice as good-looking as him.

"And!" started Remus, his voice a bit higher with his desperate attempts to defend his date, "AND he's smart! I'm smart! We're both smart! We're smart together!"

This time Sirius rolled his eyes, his meaning plain. Though the Ravenclaw had earned his place in his house with a passable amount of cleverness, no fool would actually believe that his glowing grades were works of his own genius. Apart from them being generally attractive or entertaining people, Lockhart's love interests were, without fail, brilliant—or at the very least gifted in whichever of his classes were having essays or tests soon.

"Oh… just shut up…" muttered Remus at last, a twitch of real annoyance on his face. "Now… stay. Entertain yourself until James or Peter gets back. Can't have you following me around and embarrassing me." And, with that, the door slammed resolutely shut in Sirius' face.

He hadn't been miserably bored and alone for five minutes when James walked in the room, shouting something down the stairs behind him as he came, finishing whatever conversation he'd just walked away from. He was laughing to himself about something the other person had said and it took him a few seconds to notice Sirius, giving the dog plenty of time to put on his best puppy dog eyes.

When James noticed the dog, he raised his eyes skeptically at the pathetic expression. He gave the dog an appraising look, knowing exactly what he wanted, and, after staring him down for a minute or so, relented with a sigh, marching back over to the door and holding it open for Sirius. "Alright. Off with you then. Go stalk Remus or whatever it is you do."

Sirius wasted no times with gratitude, and quickly broke into a jog in an attempt to catch up with and locate the couple.

Sirius found them quickly once he got to the village, discerning the scent of love potion and sickeningly sweet cologne intermingling with the fainter but distinctly Remus smell of chocolate and dusty books with ease. It led him, predictably, into Madame Puddifoot's. The dog rolled his eyes. He walked in casually, as he was well acquainted with Puddifoot herself, both in human and dog form. Following the scent further, only stopping for a minute to be pet by the young, floral-clad owner, Sirius came quietly into the back room. He supposed it must be where Gilderoy always took male companions, not wanting to be so blatant about his sexuality for fear of damaging his reputation. Sirius was glad Remus wasn't going to be outed under the influence of love potion. It would be undignified and not at all okay with Remus once he realized precisely what happened.

Sirius almost gagged when he saw the pair itself—or, more specifically, just Lockhart. Remus was sitting somewhat awkwardly on one side of the booth while Gilderoy, holding himself casually but elegantly, lounged about on the other side. While Remus was dressed in a particularly nice sweater and some pants that didn't have Sirius' fur all over them, Lockhart practically matched the tacky pink upholstery covering his cushy seat. Sirius supposed he would've looked nice, if exceedingly cheesy and flamboyant, in his little embroidered gold cape and matching gold shirt, had he not been surrounded on every side by the same pattern in an even gaudier color. The effect was nauseating.

Sirius looked on with disgust, tempted to but in and third wheel as blatantly and awkwardly as possible, but decided the best he could do was lay low in the background, out of both of their sights. If Lockhart did something not down with Sirius, he was at the right level to put him in line. One sharp bite to the crotch—perfectly eye level to Sirius at the moment—would put that slut in his place… Perhaps Sirius was a little jealous after all…

"Sugar?" asked Lockhard cordially, flashing the gorgeous smile that Sirius couldn't help thinking was getting a bit over-used. Remus didn't appear to mind, and Sirius bit back a deep, territorial grown as he saw Remus' stiff poise weaken slightly at the sight, rather like a little girl with a crush.

"Please," was all he said, with a quick, nervous smile, and Sirius was glad to hear his voice holding up well, not yet giving up it's dignity by turning into a simper.

Gilderoy took the dainty little silverware in his hand and scooped the aforementioned sweetener into the other boy's floral teacup. As he stirred it in for Remus, who seemed to have no intentions of initiating movement of any sort, he picked up where he seemed to have just left off in the conversation.

"So, Remus, you were just telling me about your interests—?"

"Ah, yes," said Remus, smiling nervously. "Well, you probably know I like to read…"

"Me and anyone who's ever been in the library," laughed Gilderoy. "I'm surprised they don't just wheel in your bed and curtain off a little room for you, you practically live there already."

Remus laughed. It was true. "Yeah… and, um, I like classes and whatnot. I'm rubbish at potions, but like most of the rest. I even like History of Magic, believe it or not," he said, suddenly fearing that he'd said too much—that Lockhart would think him an unbearable nerd if he kept that up.

"Really?" said Lockhart with fake surprise. Sirius caught on instantly. He was an expert at using Remus for his brains and work ethic and ultimately his tolerance for all things dull, so it was easy to pick up on Lockhart's strategy. "You know, I have an essay in that class due Wednesday and I can't, for the life of me, understand a bloody word the old ghost's said on the topic. Hey," he said, and Sirius recognized it as the part where the trickster pretended to have just had a sudden idea that, of course, had been formed in their mind from the beginning. "if you really like it so much, perhaps you could help me. I could sneak you into the dorm and we could have a, uh, late night study session." Sirius saw Remus swoon ever-so-slightly at the implications of the suggestion and he knew that Lockhart saw it too because his grin twitched even broader for a fraction of a second. He had won.

"Of course! What's… What's the topic?"

Sirius watched in silence as the conversation continued, Remus playing right into the palm of Lockhart's stupid, beautiful hand, and wondered inwardly if Lockhart was the sort of person to actually put out for someone like Remus just for a good grade and some new publicity. He didn't doubt it. At all. The thought of it made him want to act on his previous plan of crotch-biting, but Remus, however dazed and misled, seemed to be having fun as he sipped his tea and stirred it every now and again with the spoon Lockhart had used, laughing at all his counterpart's jokes and essentially letting him lead the conversation, so Sirius stayed put and stayed quiet.

Then it happened.

It dawned on Sirius a split second before it took effect on Remus himself. The silverware dropped with a little tinkling noise and Sirius' fear was confirmed by the angry, red mark appearing on Remus' right hand where he had previously twirled the utensil. Sirius barely had time to register the confused and then panicked look pass over Lockhart's face just as Remus started convulsing before he tore back into the main part of the building, and navigated quickly to the familiar kitchen without a minute to lose. He felt like such an idiot. Remus had the excuse of being under the influence of a potion clouding the instincts that helped him avoid this, but Sirius had just been distracted by his own jealousy. It was all his fault.

Pushing thoughts of guilt to the back of his mind and ignoring Puddifoot's loud noises of surprise, Sirius made a B-line for the desired cabinet, looking for the strongest firewhisky in the dainty little teashop. He knew Puddifoot would have it, if not as a menu item, then as her own, personal vice. Sirius knew it was a bit of a long shot, but he had seen Remus' silver poisoning before and knew that the only way to stall it effectually until they could reach the hospital wing was to get whatever had introduced the poison into his system out as fast as possible. Though Remus' immune system steadfastly refused to expel silver, or, indeed, most things (probably from years of getting used to waking up after full moons with raw, diseased animal meat still working its way through his digestive tract), the one thing Sirius knew Remus to be completely incapable of ingesting without serious problems was strong alcohol.

He recognized a bottle at the far left, a personal favorite, and made off with it as fast as he could. By the time he got back, Remus was in a cold sweat, dry-heaving violently but failing to rid himself of the deadly metal. Lockhart was pressed against the wall in shock, making odd little noises of repulsion and confusion and watching as other clients came in to investigate and stood there, equally perplexed. Pushing roughly past a man who seemed to be trying the spell-equivalent to the Heimlich Maneuver, Sirius shoved the bottle insistently into Remus' trembling hands. The werewolf looked in surprise at his friend, but caught on quickly and, after a few fumbles of his wrecked right hand, pulled out the cork with his left.

The effect of the burning liquid now dribbling in equal parts down his throat and down his carefully planned outfit in combination with the poison from the tea was practically instantaneous. Remus turned away from the disgusted and worried faces with barely a second to spare before he puked all over Puddifoot's precious décor. Sirius vaguely noted the improvement it provided, effectively blocking from sight the dancing cupids that had been embroidered upon the victimized throw pillow, but quickly returned his focus to Remus.

The crowd started clearing out and Lockhart began assuring them that he had it under control (as he had the whole time). One dashing smile later, it even looked as though the fools believed him. Sirius was disgusted again, and felt briefly as though his own puke would soon join Remus' in the redecorating of the furniture.

"So," he said turning back to Remus and apparently failing to notice his continued condition, "um, this doesn't change anything, right? You'll still be writing—I mean helping my write that essay, yeah?" Sirius caught the slip up. One look at Remus told him that, though he was exhausted and still looked close to fainting or puking again, the shock had snapped him out of the little trance and he had caught the very same error. Really, it was a rooky mistake.

"I… no. No, I don't think that would be appropriate. We are both prefects, after all, and I'm not… not in you're class… so… I may not have the proper… proper understanding of the material…" said Remus, with a weak but very present smirk at the end. It had taken him a lot of obvious effort to say, but he had still completely blindsided the Ravenclaw. People rarely said no to the most charming smile in the school.

Just then, as the crowd diminished, Puddifoot herself finally managed to push her way into the room to investigate the trouble firsthand. "Oh dear," she cried repeatedly in her flowery little voice.

"Hospital… wing… now…" breather Remus, no longer acknowledging the presence of his thoroughly stunned date.

"Right," agreed Puddifoot, looking so utterly astonished at the state of her usually calm little café that Sirius thought it a miracle the delicate woman had yet to faint. She hastily grabbed onto Remus' arm with surprising force. Remus had a mere instant to understand the action and grab wildly at Sirius before the trio were squeezed quickly through the tight tube of space and popped back into existence right outside the gates of Hogwarts, which lay open for the Hogsmead Weekend. Sirius felt a pain and a trickle of something wet that meant his wound had been opened again, but he ignored it for the time being. "Got it from here?" Remus nodded weakly, though he didn't look it, and with another 'pop,' the woman had returned to her establishment to do damage control.

"I can't believe… you spied on… my date," said Remus through labored breath, already walking up the path toward the castle, which seemed farther than ever before. Sirius couldn't decipher the tone through the wheezes, but he assumed, as he trotted to catch up, hiding the limp as best he could, that it was angry and not humorous. This hardly mattered an instant later, however, because, as they made their laborious steps toward the ever-distant building, Remus quickly went from staggering under his own weight to leaning on the towering dog for support to lowering his whole body onto the willing dog. Sirius almost whimpered in pain, but knew that that would prompt Remus to try and fail to support his own weight again, so he held it back.

Remus passed out near the greenhouses. to Sirius' great relief, Professor Sprout was on her way to that very spot and happened to cross their path not too much farther along in their slow journey. She made a noise of shock and then wasted no time in liftin the boy into the air with her wand. As an after thought, she applied the same spell to Sirius, and let both of them hover along beside one another a few feet in front of her as she backtracked toward the castle at a hurried pace.

Sirius passed out just as he felt, rather than saw, himself float into the warm, shady interior of the castle. His last conscious thought was that Remus would be fine. Hogwarts would take care of them both.

A/N: haha… Get it now? The titles a pun! A pun, see? Cause of the silver teaspoon? Yeah, I know. I suck at naming stuff. Shut up. ANYWHO, I certainly hope you enjoyed this little sideplot. I've always wanted to write something with Lockhart, and now I have. Yay for me. ALSO yay for me, TWO UPDATES IN TWO DAYS! WOOHOO! :D Yeah, I know, it's really exciting. So, I hope you LOVED it and I hope you TELL ME just HOW MUCH you LOVED it in the AWESOME REVIEWS I just know you are ALL GOING TO SEND ME! *hint hint*

XOXOX