Very Manly Discussions
If ever there was a pointless emotion, it was nervousness.
All that useless jittering, twitchy movement was a waste of energy and on the emotional scale it was just recycled aspects of other annoying feelings, like anticipation and paranoia.
You imagine the worst possible outcome of your situation, convince yourself it is inevitably going to happen, sooner or later, then you worry about it until something does happen and then it isn't usually anywhere near as bad as you were expecting it to be.
Yes. Nervousness is an extremely girly, extremely annoying overreaction of an emotion!
And it was the only way to describe how a certain Sirius Black was feeling at this particular moment in time.
The Easter holiday officially started that morning, and most students had gone home the day before to spend two weeks eating chocolate and getting fat with their families. Sirius was obviously not going to be doing that, though it might have been a preferable alternative to standing about feeling awkward.
He knew Remus would be staying, because the next full moon fell the last Friday before school restarted, and the werewolf always preferred to use the Shrieking Shack over his parents tiny basement when he had the option.
So Sirius had decided, with a significant amount of pressure from Professor Knox, that this was the perfect time to resolve the matter. She was right, of course.
If Remus really did forgive him then they had two weeks to get comfortable with one another again, and when James and Peter returned they could fall back into the usual dynamic. The school's gossip-mongers, having been plied with chocolate goodness for a fortnight, would have forgotten all about the incident and moved back to the usual banter of who was shagging whom this week.
And if Remus didn't forgive him… Well. That didn't bare thinking about, really. He'd drop out, go back to his charming family and spend eternity as a glorified house elf. Or, probably the better option, he could throw himself off the astronomy tower now. The results were pretty similar - they both ended in him being brainless and broken. Did it really matter how?
But Knox had assured him it wouldn't come to that.
And more surprisingly, he believed her.
That woman had been his lifeline for the past two weeks. Both literally and figuratively. She had brought him food, collected his homework and explained his absence to the other teachers. She let him sleep in her empty classroom, transfiguring a few desks into a passable bed and apologising profusely for not being more proficient in the subject.
She had been so… motherly. So completely unlike his own mother.
Maybe that's what broke him. To have someone actually take care of him, not just in a physical sense. Someone to care about him.
And he had completely broken down. In the most emasculate way possible. He had sunk to the floor, and drawn his knees as near as possible to his chest, and he had sobbed. Actually cried, long and hard.
And she had sat quietly and listened, let him get it out of his system. And when he had finally regained enough composure to stop weeping and babbling like a first-year Hufflepuff girl, she had knelt beside him and put her hand on his shoulder reassuringly.
' Now,' she had said, in an odd mix of both gently and firmly, ' What are you going to do about it?'
He hadn't answered. Hadn't known. And she had left the subject alone for a few more days. Then Remus had wandered past in the middle of the night. And Sirius had hidden under a desk rather than face him. And the guilt only grew as Remus had spoken.
' He doesn't have to be sorry, you know. He doesn't have to avoid me. I'm not mad. I just… miss him.'
So she had asked him again, and this time she didn't accept a mumbled 'don't know'. She had pressed him and coaxed him, without even once sounding threatening or impatient.
So here he was.
Standing in the middle of the fifth-year boys dormitory, staring at Remus Lupin and feeling ridiculously girly and nervous. Remus looked thoroughly startled. But who could blame him, when a friend who hadn't talked to him in two weeks had suddenly burst into the dorm and practically yelled a string of decidedly incoherent sentences at him in such a high pitch some dogs would struggle to understand.
After a long moment, or perhaps a very short one, Remus said quietly, ' What?'
Sirius sank to the floor. His legs couldn't hold him anymore. Remus hadn't shouted at him, or told him to get out. That was as good a start as any. He took a steadying breath before he went on, more slowly.
' I know you probably never want to see me again, but I had to say I'm sorry…'
' Pads…'
' I was an idiot, and I wasn't thinking and, I am so sorry, I didn't mean for anything to happen…'
' Padfoot…'
' But the slimy, boat-nosed Slytherin bastard was prying and watching you all the time and nagging me about it and… and I thought it wouldn't hurt to let him get beaten to a bloody pulp by a tree…'
' Sirius…'
' That'd be pretty funny, you've got to admit… And I didn't think he'd actually get it, the stupid git, or I'd never have…'
' SIRUS!'
' Sorry.'
' Please stop apologising,' Remus said, pleadingly.
Sirius opened his mouth to respond, realised he would only have repeated 'sorry', and closed it again.
The silence stretched out between them once again and it made Sirius feel, if it were possible, even more uncomfortable. He could feel something tickling behind his ear, and realised he had been knotting his fingers in his hair unconsciously. He forced his hand down to his lap, then trapped it between his knees for good measure.
He watched Remus closely. The werewolf wasn't looking at him, but staring at his own hands. His face was blank, unreadable.
Being quiet for prolonged periods of time had never been one of Sirius' strong points, and he inevitably broke the silence. When he spoke, he winced at how desperate he actually sounded.
' Please don't make me fill in those thought bubbles.'
Remus finally looked up and, rather surprisingly, gave Sirius a small smile.
' No,' he said, gravely. ' They'd be vulgar.'
And with that rather weak attempt at humour, they both understood that this was going to work out fine. It'd be okay. They'd be alright.
Sirius laughed harder than the pathetic joke warranted. He had never felt so relieved in his sixteen-year life. These people, the Marauders, were his family. And he had wanted nothing more than to be able to sit with them again, pulling pranks with James and laughing at Peter and having Remus correct his grammar. Especially having Remus correct his grammar. And his spelling, and his mispronunciation.
His mind shut down under that wave of sudden calm, and he actually muttered, ' I've been illiterate without you.'
If the brown-eyed boy heard him, he ignored it. Instead, he smiled a bit wider, if still a little uncertainly.
' Does this mean you're coming to live back here, instead of wherever you've been hiding?'
' Yeah… If you'll have me. If you want me back.'
Remus put on a thoughtful face, and tapped his chin with his finger. In a fraction of a second, Sirius wanted to hit him and hug him in equal measure. The former for joking and delaying when Sirius desperately need to hear an answer and the latter for trying so hard to make things as normal as possible.
' I think I can manage,' He said, finally, smiling. Then he added more seriously, ' I really do. Want you back.'
' Thank God,' Sirius said quietly, letting out the breath he hadn't noticed he was holding. ' Any more late night talks with Professors and my reputation would be ruined.'
Remus gave him a strange look, like he had misheard, and then slowly mouthed, ' Late night talks…?'
' Err,' He said.
Great start, you pillock. All those beating you've had for not speaking eloquently enough and you can't even defend your own honour without stuttering, His brain chided, sounding horrifically like his Mother.
' Yeah,' he continued aloud. ' Very manly discussions, about… Quidditch and… Rock and Roll and… Sex! Yes, sex!'
' Are you sure you still have a reputation at all after that abysmal attempt at a sentence, Pads?'
' I don't know, I've repressed it already. I suggest you do the same, and we can forget this whole traumatic experience.'
' Done,' he said, standing and smiling properly now. ' Don't know about you, but I'm famished.'
' Repression is hungry work. Trust me, I'd know.'
' Well, hurry it along a bit,' the werewolf grinned. ' It's creepy how girly you're being.'
Sirius tried to look indignant, but didn't quite pull it off, so he shrugged instead and said, ' Yeah. But I am justifiably pretty. And you love it.'
' Would you allow me the honour of accompanying you to lunch, my lady?' Remus said, offering up his elbow in a very gentlemanly fashion.
' Gladly,' Sirius replied, taking said elbow as daintily as possible, and mimicing a courtsey.
They made their way down to the Great Hall, and Sirius had to consciously force down the sudden and overwhelming urge he had to skip with joy. Actually skip. It wouldn't have been a very becoming image.
They sat down together, and it was as though nothing had ever happened. They talked and laughed as they ate, and Sirius tried very hard to ignore a certain small, blond Professor who was beaming proudly at him from the head table.
Oh My God! I woke up this morning with about 25 notifications about this story! Wow!
So, firstly, Thank you so much to everybody who had reviewed, or added this story to their Favourites or Story alerts. Thank you, It means a lot that people are actually reading this!
Secondly, you people are the reason I updated today. I was going to leave it until tomorrow, but then I got all those messages and I felt really guilty. So here you are, and my searing conscience is salved.
And I am glad I got such good feedback about my take on this 'incident'. I just didn't see Remus getting angry about it. I mean, we've only ever seen him get really, properly mad once in the books, and it was at himself.
Once again, Thank you for reading! Reviews always make my day. Danke Shern!
