"Padfoot, I will have you killed. Please do not make me. It will put such a black mark on my record," James says, shoving Padfoot off his bed, where he had been rubbing himself vigorously against James's jumper. Padfoot scrambles to land on his feet then nips at the tender back of James's knee.
"Stop it! No biting, we've discussed this."
"No, we've discussed biting when I do it. You never said anything about Padfoot biting you," Sirius says from the spot on the floor where Padfoot had just been.
"I think it might be implied. Hello, you've drooled on my underpants again. Bad dog," says Peter, carefully extracting the offending garments with the tip of his wand and placing them in a pile, as though they might be a bad influence on the rest of his pants.
"Well, maybe you should stop storing food in your drawers when there's a dog about. Ever consider that?" Sirius suggests.
"Oh I'm sorry, but that's the only place in this room safe from thieving hands. Or so I thought."
"Pete, no one wants to eat day-old chips out of your y-fronts," James says, fussing with his hair in the mirror. His hair retaliates by lying down momentarily, then springing up at odd angles when he least expects it. "Yarrghh!" James screams, rubbing his head furiously, mostly out of spite.
"Lay off mate, you'll be bald before you're thirty," Sirius says exasperatedly.
"It won't matter," says James, giving his hair one last cursory scrub, "I plan to be dead by then. My tombstone will read, 'James Potter: Man's Man, Marauder, Shagged by Lily Evans So Hard He Died'."
"Or what about 'James Potter: Girly Man, Enormous Wanker, Punched in the Jaw So Hard His Head Fell Off'?" Lily says, leaning against the doorframe.
"Great Scott, Evans!" Sirius shouts.
"Lily!" James squeaks at the same moment, his face going splotchy and pink.
"Hello, love. I see you're ready to go? I need to buy a new quill on the way, since someone snapped mine in half."
"But you were doing that thing, the thing with your hair in your eyes. You can't hold a man responsible!" James vehemently objects.
"I'm sure," she says absently. "Shall we?" Lily takes him by the hand.
"Just a moment! And what exactly are your intentions towards my daughter?" Sirius says.
Lily smiles sweetly and replies, "Apparently I'm going kill him, although there is some disagreement as to the method."
"In that case, I approve. But young man, I want you home by seven, are we clear?" Sirius says, straightening James's collar maternally.
"Yes, mummy dearest. And I'll meet you there," says James, putting his arm around Lily's waist.
"Meet him where?" Lily asks.
"In my bed, for a sensuous and thorough bout of incest," Sirius supplies. James glares at him and Lily rolls her eyes. "What? The woman asked. Are you ashamed of our forbidden love, Potter?"
James sighs. "You just can't not embarrass me, can you? It's like tic. See you later then."
The second the door is closed, Sirius turns to Peter and says "If I am ever that pathetic, please, have me put down."
"Aye," Peter replies with a solemn salute. He is folding his pants and neatly stacking them in his drawer.
Sirius sighs pointedly.
"Alright, that's it, the excitement is too much. Will he fold the blue ones next or the faded-purpley ones? Such suspense. My feeble heart can't bear it. I think I'll go poke Moony for a while," he says, glancing surreptitiously in the mirror. His hair is perfect, because it is always perfect, but he ruffles it self-consciously before heading for the door.
"Have fun. Don't get eaten!" Peter calls after him. A variety of inappropriate responses flash through Sirius's head, but in light of the "Not Making Our Friends Implode with Surprise and Horror" clause that he and Remus have enacted regarding all things Them, he refrains.
Remus looks down at the table. Just there, on the already worn edge, are eight perfect crescent-shapes dug into the age-softened wood. He is confident that there are two more thumbnail-sized marks underneath, but he doesn't bother to check. He sighs and sits on his hands. There is a book lying open in front of him, something about Goblins and galleons, but even Remus admits it is a prop. All he is concerned about at the moment is surviving the next three hours without breaking anything (at least anything expensive.)
Suddenly, he gets an acute sense of Sirius. It's a warm tingle on the delicate blue tips of each nerve and a hum in the air. He's in the library. He's there, on the blurred periphery of Remus's senses, and he's getting closer. Remus waits. His cheeks feel hot. His spine feels cold.
"Oy, Moony. How goes the studying?"
Remus looks up at him, his fingernails digging into the hardwood chair. It's a relief, because Sirius is Padfoot, and Padfoot is something that even Moony likes. Unfortunately, the nearness of Sirius the boy cancels all that out.
"I'm not studying," he says, sounding almost as calm as he intended.
"Oh, silly me. I just assumed, what with the Giant Book of Academic Death you have there. But alas, you know what they say about assuming."
"I am trying to study. I am not studying," Remus repeats. His brain is on fire. His blood is boiling. He's going to die, and it's only four o'clock.
"Then what are you doing, some secret werewolf ritual? Is that sacrificial goat blood on your trousers?" Sirius smiles, cheeky and cool. Remus flinches.
"Something like that," Remus says, deep and gruff in the back of his throat. Sirius looks at him suspiciously. He's leaning close, his hand on the back of Remus's chair.
Remus gets up, slowly, with the utmost control. He carefully slides his chair beneath the table. He throws himself on top of Sirius.
"Alright, then," Sirius says as his back slams into A Brief Analysis of the Economic Consequences of Goblin Uprisings in the Late 17th Century. Remus bites Sirius's lip, and his throat, and his collarbone, and every other bit of skin he can get at – hard. His fingernails dig into Sirius's arms. He's completely out of control, which is what makes him let go and take two painful steps back.
"Wait, what's this please? Is this my punishment for breaking your belt-buckle the other day?" Sirius says. He sits up, looking flushed and dishevelled.
"No, it's just. I can't right now. I'm all insane and you're – you smell nice, damn it."
"Erm… I'm sorry?" Sirius says, sounding baffled.
"I just don't think this is a good idea today. Besides, Pomfrey will be looking for me soon. And you might want to button your collar, there's going to be a bruise there," Remus says indicating the already darkening bite mark on Sirius's neck.
"Wait, you're turned on and hyper aggressive, and this is a problem? I'm sorry, it seems we have very different definitions of—"
Remus puts his hand over Sirius's mouth.
"Stop talking! Don't make it worse. Look, I know this is a bit of a blow to your fragile ego, but I could hurt you, you know. And we're in a library, for Merlin's sake."
"Bfrree ree fuud rrroee ffoofsfiied!" Sirius huffs against Remus's palm. Remus retracts his hand a little warily, wiping it on his trousers, and Sirius repeats, "But we could go outside and—"
"Sirius!" Remus whispers loudly, praying to god that Madame Pince has been struck deaf and dumb and is not craning her long, vulture-neck to catch every word. "That's beside the point! Now, will you please get out of here before I—" But the rest of his sentence is obscured by Sirius's mouth, which is melded against Remus's own and held in place by Sirius's hand firmly at the nape of his neck.
Remus struggles valiantly for roughly three seconds before letting out a noise of deflation and giving in.
"Now, how's that?" Sirius says, leaning back so that he is partially illuminated by the green-hooded reading lamp beside them. The light slices his face in half, like a film-noire villain, which Remus thinks is ironic considering that he will be the real monster in a few hours.
"That's alright, I guess," Remus breathes quietly against his face.
Sirius gives him a slow, mischievous smile. "I have an idea. You'll like it," he says with disturbing smile. "What if…" He begins, shifting from between Remus and the table, "You sit down and I help you unwind." He pulls the chair out and pushes Remus into it, a little forcefully.
Remus's blood pressure spikes. He thinks he should object to this, but he can't think clearly, and all he feels is the moon and all he hears is his own heartbeat, quicker than normal. Sirius winks at him again and Remus makes a squawking noise and stares helplessly. Without a word, Sirius kneels in front of him and slides his palms up Remus's thighs.
"Now, should I tie your hands behind your back or do you think you could not, you know, rip out my hair?"
Remus glares at him and makes a production of tucking his hands behind his back.
"Now, don't make a sound," says Sirius the Wolf-Whisperer.
"If we get caught—" Remus says, but his voice is strained.
"We're not going to get caught. Unless I'm so spectacular that you can't control your passionate cries of—"
"Alright, alright, get to business," Remus says, his voice a little desperate sounding.
Sirius grins up at him like the cat that's got the canary and, for once, does as he's told.
"Where the fuck have you been?" Sirius whispers as loudly as he can before it is no longer whispering. He lets the cigarette he is smoking drop and he stamps it out furiously, leaving it sad and crushed among the four other butts already scattered at his feet.
James looks chastised for all of two seconds before smiling like an idiot and saying, louder than he probably should, "Just getting the old wand waxed, eh wot wot?" He winks and looks annoyingly proud of himself.
"Can't you do that without Lily?" Peter asks, quickly stepping back to avoid James's fist.
"Children! That's enough. We have a large, snarly Moony to attend to and I won't have the two of you fighting like the schoolgirls you are," Sirius whispers exasperatedly.
James sighs and ceases trying to find Peter's face with his fist in the dark. "Right, right. Well, come on then," James says. A second later, a large, majestic stag stands in his place, looking confident and disgustingly calm. The next moment, Peter has disappeared and a plump, fluffy rat scampers up the stag's leg, looking alert and on edge.
Sirius shuts his eyes and feels around for the place at the back of his brain that makes his limbs melt and reform. It's not unpleasant, actually, just odd. He sometimes feels guilty that the transforming, and the being transformed, is fun for the three of them. It doesn't seem fair that they spend a night romping around the forest, happy as clams, but for Remus it's torture. Even as Moony.
There is a shift in Sirius's mind, and these complicated, human feelings of sympathy and guilt fade into the background. Padfoot takes a deep breath. The air smells like adventure.
Remus unbuttons his shirt and folds it carefully, making sure to smooth out the wrinkles and creases. He places it gently on the windowsill. His socks are already folded and stacked neatly. They have matching holes in the toes and look rather droopy and forlorn. Next, he slips off his trousers, which practically remove themselves because he's not wearing a belt and they're a little too big. They fit a few months ago, which would worry him slightly, except that he has already reached his maximum number of Things to Worry About for the day, so weight loss will just have to wait its turn until tomorrow. He folds his trousers and places them atop his shirt. Finally, when he knows he can't wait any longer, he takes off his pants. When he was young, he blatantly refused to take them off, which resulted in a lot of destroyed underthings in the name of dignity. As he's gotten older though, Remus has realised that pants cannot dignify that which is not dignified.
Becoming a werewolf is many things, dignified not being among them.
He can feel it already. It's in the hairs on the back of his neck that stand on end and the slight dizziness of his blood being tugged at like the tides.
Then, suddenly, it hits him like a burst of cold air.
Sharp, sharp sharp, it pulls at his skin, the moonlight tugs on his tendons, tearing them like tissue paper. He looks down at his knees and with a sickening crack they break and bend the wrong way. He screams, but the sound is feral and it doesn't make it hurt any less.
His fingers stretch, forming claws that tear through his fingernails, and he hugs his hands tight against his body, crushing them to stop the throbbing, but only succeeds in cutting his chest. A second later, it doesn't matter, because his ribs pop and snap, expanding and pulling apart, ripping his skin and covering his torso in gashes of red that are the next moment covered in fur and thick animal skin.
He screams again, but this time it is a howl. No matter how many times it happens, hearing such a vicious sound coming out of his own mouth (though it is only his mouth for another minute or so) always makes his blood run cold and a chill run up his (the wolf's) spine.
And then, and then, and then, there's a crash of boards and he jerks around, already feeling the boy in his head being devoured by the wolf (this hurting more than the breaking bones.) Relief rushes over him like cool water, and a big, black puppy launches itself at him, licking his already-healing wounds and biting affectionately at his snout. A stag walks forward slowly with infinite grace and bow its head in submission.
The wolf growls and snaps, but not maliciously. He stands, large paws thumping softly against the dusty wooden floor. His new, steely muscles stretch and pull deliciously, and the night is young.
Slats of sunlight paint the floor, illuminating claw marks in the wood. Sirius rolls onto his side, grumbling softly as a stray chair-leg digs into his hipbone painfully. Propping himself on one elbow, he scans the room for signs of life. A few feet away, lying on the floor at awkward angles is Remus, thin and bruised, his body curled inwards on itself. He is still asleep, and Sirius is grateful for that, because it means he can see the damage without Remus seeing him.
He hates it, judging the new cuts and scrapes, guessing which ones will fade and which will linger on Remus's skin forever. It makes him feel weak and cowardly, and he is terrified that Remus knows it. No matter how he schools his expression, he suspects that his shock registers in his eyes and in the hard tensing of his mouth.
But today Remus is still sleeping soundly and untroubled. Sirius doesn't want to wake him, because the moment he is conscious it will hurt, and they both know it, even if Remus smiles and laughs and refuses to let Sirius help him to his feet. It's a good thing, too, because Remus's shoulder has a gash in it that makes Sirius's knees wobble. It's thick and red and angry, and werewolf healing abilities aside, it will never truly disappear. A few inches above it, on the soft, pale skin of Remus's neck, there is a different kind of scar – a faded, white mark, jagged and slightly raised. Sirius touches it sometimes, letting his fingertips trace the rises and falls of flesh until Remus shies away. He says he can still feel it sometimes when the moon is swollen and bright, but Sirius suspects that he can always feel it, all the time, when he lets himself.
Sirius kneels and runs his dirty fingers through Remus's hair, smiling as little splinters of wood tumble out and a cloud of dust rises from his head like a halo. Remus is naked, but for some reason it isn't an issue really, even though under normal circumstances the sight (or suggestion, or fleeting thought) of Remus in anything short of a floor-length parka is enough to turn Sirius on faster than the speed of magic. But now, here, in the cold light of morning, it just makes Sirius want to curl around him on the floor and squeeze him half to death.
And where are James and Peter, by the way? Sirius looks around again, and upon noticing a freshly broken stair, remembers Prongs climbing to the second floor with great, lumbering hooves. Wormtail, Sirius is certain, would have trailed along, relying on the stag to provide a barrier between him and the two canines.
Remus stirs, first by pressing into Sirius's fingertips, then with a groan and a sigh, his face contorting with discomfort even before his eyes are open.
"Moooony," Sirius whispers. He never knew he had it in him to be gentle of all things, and protective, but apparently he does, because he feels like his entire being is focused on how to make Remus better right this second. Tomorrow isn't soon enough, tonight isn't soon enough, because Remus is in pain now and that's all that counts.
Remus squints up at him, his arm twitching as though he were planning to move but thought better of it when his motion split the cut on his shoulder. "Shit," he mutters.
"Yeah, bit of a scratch you've got there. That'll be a beauty, that will," Sirius says lightly, hoping his voice doesn't give away how much this bothers him.
He remembers when he was small, he fell out of a tree once. A branch caught him in the back of the thigh on his way down, and though the earth was springy and damp, his left arm broke like toy. He screamed so loudly it hurt his ears, and waited for someone to come find him. After a while, he stopped screaming.
When he limped into the house, he found his mother waiting for him in a long, green dress, her hair pulled back into a slick knot and a heavy strand of emeralds around her delicate throat. She was beautiful, with the same grey eyes that Sirius sees in the mirror. The same grey that makes him avoid looking Regulus in the face when he hexes him. Sirius remembers how badly he wanted her to pick him up and just make it better, even though the seeds of hate were already in him then. His father walked in wearing dress-robes, dapper and sharp-looking, a proper Englishman, and he glanced first at Sirius and then at his mother. Without being asked, she told him Sirius had been naughty and got hurt, and the two of them strode out of the room, off to some party or ceremony.
He was probably no more than six, but he still hates thinking about it, because he hates admitting, even to himself, that he once wanted them like that, so desperately and with such naïve need. Sometimes, not always, he thinks about how that need when he is with Remus, and it doesn't make him shiver. Only sometimes.
When he looks at Remus, all crumpled and pale, he feels just as weak. Sirius's own body was banged up from the outside, the tree and the ground and his mother's withering glare and his father's indifferent eyes, and it was still such pain that he feels it in his bones. What Remus goes through though is another matter entirely. He used to think that it was beyond pain, but he realised later that this was too convenient. It was just beyond imagination. There's a difference.
"I would help you up, but maybe you shouldn't move until Pomfrey gets here. She'll come looking for you soon, right?"
Normally, Remus hobbles into the Hospital Wing around five or six while the rest of them slink back to the dormitory, camouflaged by the early breakfast crowd. It's at least eight though, and while Remus isn't as banged up as Sirius has seen him in the past, the gash on his shoulder (and his chest, it seems) won't allow for much movement.
"She – yeah. You lot should probably be getting on, don't want to get caught with your trousers around your ankles. Literally," he says, and smiles, though there is a twinge of discomfort in his face.
Something inside Sirius lurches. "Don't be stupid, I'm not leaving you to bleed to death, silly twat," Sirius says, irrationally annoyed at the suggestion.
"Well, what are you going to say, 'Oh, hello Pomfrey, don't mind me, I'm just making sure my werewolf boyfriend – yes, I know he's a werewolf, and I'm animagus, fancy that – doesn't ooze all over the floorboards'?"
"Your what now?"
Remus stares at him blankly.
"You called me your boyfriend. Isn't that lovely? Should we make each other promise bracelets and I'll take you home to meet the family?" Sirius says, feeling, for the first time that morning, happy at the thought of explaining Remus to his mother.
"Oh, do be quiet," Remus says, scrambling to sit up.
"No, honestly, it'll be grand. 'Oh mum, nice to see you! Just been a bit busy, what with besmirching the family name and ruining your life. Right, well anyway, I'm a poufter, and this here is my bum-boy. He eats people!'"
Remus laughs, then cringes a little.
"Ok, ok, enough. Are you going to be alright by yourself? You're looking awfully peaky this morning."
"Really, I'm fine. I'll just lie here and moan for a while and the Madame will be along soon."
Sirius looks at him sceptically. "Well, I hate to think of you moaning if I'm not the cause of it."
"I'll be thinking of you?" Remus ventures.
Sirius smiles, and presses his lips to Remus's forehead, and when Remus arches against him a little it makes his heart leap into his throat.
"Where are James and Peter?" Remus asks, glancing around for the first time, his cheeks red with the thought of being seen naked with a Sirius plastered to his face.
"They're in that corner over there, under the Cloak, watching us," Sirius says calmly.
"I hate you, you mutt," Remus mutters, letting Sirius help him into a more comfortable position.
"I hate you, too," Sirius says affectionately, tousling Remus's hair before going to look for their comrades.
At the top of the stairs, he sees James's limp, sleeping form sprawled across a throw rug with Peter lying a few feet away. They snore in unison like a respiratory symphony. Sirius takes a running leap and tackles them both with spread arms. He's not sure why he does this, in hindsight, but he feels edgy and restless, and since he can't tackle Remus for fear of tearing his skin in half like an overstuffed toy, he settles for the next best thing.
"AAAGGHH!" James shouts, wiggling futilely in Sirius's grasp.
"RRFFGHHMMK!?" Peter contributes, slapping feebly at Sirius's shoulder.
"You two are a coupl'a lazy wankers. Get up already, the day's a wasting."
"It's Sunday, you poncy arse. Get off'a me!" James yells, kicking Sirius in the head, which takes significant effort and contortion on his part.
"Aggannk!" Peter adds.
"Enough lip outta you, Potter. Our friend Moony is downstairs practically bleeding to death while you lot are up here getting your beauty sleep."
James sits up suddenly, throwing Sirius off of him.
"What'dya mean bleeding? Is he alright? Should we—"
"He's fine, he's just got a cut like the Great Wall of China on his shoulder. And chest. And sort of his back," Sirius says, trying to simultaneously talk about it and think about something else.
"Shit," Peter breathes.
"That's what he said."
"What time is it anyway?" James asks, looking around for his trainers.
"Late. Later than usual. Pomfrey will be by soon, we should get out of here," Sirius says begrudgingly.
They shuffle back to the castle without much conversation, cramped and hunched over under the Cloak. James and Peter collapse into bed the minute they are within falling-distance, and it's difficult to tell which of them is asleep faster.
Sirius lies on his bed with the curtains drawn, wondering how soon he can go and see Remus without appearing anxious and pathetic.
Spring; Nineteen seventy-six.
Sirius lunges awkwardly around Pomfrey's plump frame and darts into the large, sunny room. It shouldn't be sunny. It should be dark and fuzzy, reflective of the way the inside of Sirius's head feels right about now. How dare the world go on looking so cheerful? Behind him, he hears Pomfrey sigh and walk out.
One, two, three, four solid, manful strides across the hospital wing. The curtains around the bed sway slightly. Sirius raises his arm to push them aside and freezes. One, two, three, four heartbeats of paralyzed fear.
It's always frightening, seeing Remus the morning after the night before. When they were young and Sirius didn't know what happened to his friend every month, he feared the unknown. When he learned Remus's secret, he started to fear the truth, instead. It's hard to tell which of these fears is worse. Either way, the only thing worse than seeing Remus like this is not seeing him like this.
But today he's not sure he can do it. He's not afraid of the cuts on Remus's face or the bruises on his arms so much as the look in his eyes. Sirius's outstretched fingers tremble.
The curtain bursts open.
"Well?" Says Remus, who is barely visible in the fluffy cloud of bedding.
Sirius opens his mouth, but he knows that no words will issue forth. He's been trying since sunrise to work out what he needs to say, to do to make things – well, not right, because he's pretty sure that ship's sailed – better. Tolerable. Liveable.
"I — sorry," Sirius says. It sounds pathetic and half-arsed. The only aspect of talking Sirius has ever had a problem with is how to stop doing it, so this sudden, crushing verbal impotence is unnerving. Apparently, this is what it feels like to not know what to say. He thinks of James babbling on about Lily, and how he once told him to man up and just talk to her, for Christ's sake. James had whined that he didn't know how to talk to her, and Sirius had laughed. He thinks he might owe James an apology and possibly a gift of some sort.
"Well, sorry for what? Sirius, please quit looking at me like that and tell me what's happened. I've been stuck in here all morning and getting information from Pomfrey is like trying to milk a blast-ended skrewt – not on."
"Ughk," Sirius breathes, and sits down in the chair beside Remus's bed, half by accident.
"What? Is everyone alright?" Remus says this with the utmost composure, but Sirius can see the fear in him, lurking just below his too-pale skin.
"Yeah! No, everyone's… fine," Sirius says hesitantly. He wants to lie, to close his eyes and lie and lie and lie, but he can't. "Snape knows." It's like ripping off a bandage, quick but still painful, no matter what your mother tells you (not that Sirius's mother told him anything about bandages, except how to make other people need them.)
Remus sucks in a big gulp of air and lets his head fall back against the massive pillow. "How?"
"He… He sort of got into the Shack." Oh god, what has he done? Has anyone in the history of the universe ever been so inconceivably idiotic, ever? How does he manage to walk around and breathe at the same time without falling over and drooling on himself?
"How?"
Sirius closes his eyes tightly and takes a deep breath. "I told him how. I know! I am so, so stupid, and I didn't think, because I never think! I don't! He just – he made me really angry Moony, and I thought it'd get him smacked around by the Willow atworst. I never thought it'd – that you'd—" he runs out of words like a garden hose petering dry. He wants to crawl under the bed and die, painfully.
"Alright. And he's – is he ok?"
"He's Snape. I guess it depends on your definition of "ok". He's a snivelling, greasy prat, same as before."
"But not the kind that turns into a giant wolf once a month?"
"No, not – are you making a joke, Remus Lupin?"
Remus slides his eyes towards Sirius. "I don't think that was a joke, technically. More like humorous phrasing."
Sirius can feel his eyes grow wide and his mouth fall open. "I – You? You should be furious! You should still be yelling at me when we graduate. You – you should hit me, at least!"
In one smooth motion, Remus sits up and punches Sirius in the side of the head, hard enough to make his ear ring. There is a stunned silence.
"You hit me!" Sirius cries, clutching his ear delicately and sounding only half as gob-smacked as he feels.
"You told me to."
"Yeah, but you're supposed to be all mature and diffident about it. You're not supposed to actually, literally hit me. That's not how this is supposed to go! And you aren't sorry, are you?"
"Now I'm supposed to be the one who's sorry?"
"That's not what I meant."
"Are you saying you didn't deserve it?" Remus asks mildly.
"Well, no, I did, but you just – you're Moony, you don't punch people."
"Apparently, I do," Remus says, a small smile quirking the corner of his mouth.
Sirius's stomach feels like it's floating, and he knows, he just knows, that somehow, despite all manner of logic to the contrary, they will all be ok. It's almost enough to make him forget about the throbbing in his ear, but Remus is a lot stronger than you'd think, and he has a mean right-hook.
"That hurt, you know," Sirius says quietly.
"Good. I – good. I'm glad." Remus sounds oddly resigned, like a parent dealing out punishment.
"I'm sorry. I am," Sirius repeats.
Remus looks up at him, his eyes warm and sensible. He stares at Sirius's face, and Sirius does his best not to flinch, even though he feels like making a run for it, for some reason.
"I know," Remus says quietly.
Sirius spends the rest of the day in the Hospital Wing, and when James and Peter stop by, neither of them will talk to him until Remus assures them it's ok. When curfew rolls around, he doesn't even have to beg or fake a deadly illness for Pomfrey to let him stay, she just bustles in with dinner for Remus and the tray has an extra goblet and two sandwiches instead of one. Sirius falls asleep in the chair, collapsed over on the bed, and when he wakes up in the morning, Remus's hand is tangled in his hair, but he finds he doesn't mind.
"Ow bloody ow," Remus whines, grateful for the early hour and the empty room.
If he lies perfectly still with his left wrist flexed and his head tilted to the side and doesn't breathe often, it's not so bad, really. It doesn't feel good by any stretch, but he's had worse. Aside from one fairly impressive chunk of flesh that he seems to have misplaced, the rest of his body is relatively unscathed. The odd bruise is already starting to heal, and aside from a few broken fingers (that Madame Pomfrey bandaged so tightly he can't feel his entire hand) there's very little collateral damage.
He takes a deep breath and lets it out with a high-pitched groaning sound. This helps for some reason.
"Mister Black, I assure you, there is nothing to be concerned about!" Pomfrey's voice cries from somewhere in the vicinity.
A loud, bustling sound emanates from behind the curtain, and Remus sits up a little against his pillow. It's large, larger than Remus's torso, and it smells like lemons.
"Well, if there's nothing wrong, then I'll just pop my head in and—"
Pomfrey lets out a strangled cry of frustration, and there is even more bustling, and then the sound of feet pelting towards Remus's bed.
"Hello, old chap!" Sirius says, popping his head through the curtains.
"Wotcher, Padfoot. How are our other furry friends? Sorry I didn't get a chance to talk to them this morning, what with the profuse bleeding and all."
"They're fine. Lazy bastards though, the both of them. They've been asleep since about six seconds after we got back. Did you sleep?" He asks, sitting down carefully on the edge of the bed. His hand rests casually on Remus's thigh, but the tenseness of Sirius's fingers suggests that he is very conscious of this placement.
"A little," Remus lies. When he tries to sleep, his head can't maintain the required fifty-three degree angle needed to keep his shoulder from hurting, which resulted in jerking awake several times (and the jerking didn't feel great, either.)
"Good. I'm sure all that snarling and being terrifying can really take it out of you. Look, if you want to rest I can—"
"No, you don't have to leave," Remus says quickly, instantly forgetting the positives of a nice, empty room.
"Good, 'cause I wasn't planning to. I was just going to offer to be quiet," Sirius says, smiling. It lights up the bloody room, his smile. It's like a spotlight that shines only for you, except that it has that effect on everyone, which is why Remus privately relishes the fact that it really is for him, "exclusively."