Gazing
by Myka
Chapter 14 – 'the first prank'
Pairing: Sirius/Remus
beta: Amber
---
James hadn't set a specific date to when he would tell Remus about Sirius's feelings if Sirius failed in doing it first. So Sirius wasn't too worried as long as he could control himself enough not to drive James insane with his own insanity. He developed a good breathing strategy that he went through every time before he would see Remus, and so far it was working. That, and he had other things to worry about, like planning Remus's prank to get him 'initiated' into their now apparent gang. Said gang confused Sirius a little and he had to have some words with James about that.
"Since when do we have a gang?" Sirius asked James one day in Divination while Remus was in his Muggle Studies class.
James glanced at him briefly before answering. "Since it was the only thing I could come up with after one second of brainstorming," he said with a small grin. "Besides," he added. "I've always wanted a gang."
Sirius hit his head against the desk and groaned.
"Something the matter, Mr. Black?" the professor asked when she saw him.
Sirius just waved his hand around in the air randomly, "Everything is perfect, except that my life is over," he moaned helplessly.
"Well, I'm sure Mr. Potter can help you with that," the professor said and walked away, continuing the class.
Sirius heard James snicker under his breath and mutter something that sounded like, "I think Sirius would prefer if Mr. Lupin helped him with that."
Sirius gave James a warning glance and slammed his head against the desk again.
After dinner Sirius took the opportunity to escape with Remus while James was conveniently distracted by Lily Evans. Once they were sitting down, Sirius grabbed the first book he saw and opened it in the pretense of studying. He slid his chair as close to Remus's as he dared and leaned in close.
Remus watched intently as Sirius did all these little things and smiled slowly. "Are we doing some planning?" he asked.
"Planning?" Sirius repeated somewhat startled. Remus blinked at him.
"Oh, yes! Planning. For the prank. Yes. Planning," he added nervously.
"Sirius, are you all right?" Remus asked with concern. "You look" – he licked his lips as he searched for the word – "preoccupied."
Sirius met Remus's eyes, saw his tongue run across his lips, and subconsciously imitated the action. Remus blinked again, and Sirius suddenly stopped himself, noticing how he was a good three inches closer to Remus's face than he had been before. He swallowed hard and retreated as his heart skipped a beat. "I'm fine," he lied, pretending to look at the book again.
Remus released a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. "Planning?" he asked tentatively when he couldn't think of anything else to say.
"Yes!" Sirius said a little too loudly and got a warning glare from the librarian.
Remus laughed softly and it drew Sirius in like a beacon. For the second time in the last five minutes Sirius found himself leaning towards Remus, specifically towards Remus's lips. Sirius had the sudden realization that he had every intention to kiss Remus, right here, right now, in front of everyone, and he didn't care. He was so close that he could feel Remus's breath on his face. Now he just had to close that final inch and-
Someone cleared their throat rather on purpose and rather loudly behind them. Remus reacted first, pulling away from Sirius so fast that his chair made an audible whine from the movement. Sirius glanced at the source of the interruption and met with the librarian's eyes that clearly screamed: 'What the heck do you think you are doing?' Sirius half glared, half pouted at her. He tried to look at the book again and noticed Remus was staring intently down at his lap, his face a flushed red.
Sirius bit his lip and decided it would be best to not try anything else for now. The library really wasn't the best place for this. Besides, the moment was lost thanks to the glaring eyes of the librarian. Remus was still staring down at his lap, his face still flushed, so Sirius deliberately started suggesting prank ideas. Remus went along with him, and even started suggesting some of his own.
"I know! I know!" Sirius said with excitement a few minutes later, quickly glancing towards the direction of the librarian, who had thankfully missed his outburst. "A few months ago," he started telling Remus as he lowered his voice, "me and James made this weird kind of candy ball that if thrown in water it would dissolve and look like worms."
"Is it poisonous?" Remus asked.
"No, of course not."
Remus pursed his lips in thought. "So you want to put this candy thing in someone's drink?" he asked even if he knew the answer.
"Not someone," Sirius said. "A Slytherin's drink, preferably Snivellus."
Remus remembered the skinny dark-haired boy, the one whose hair Sirius had turned a bright bubblegum pink, and remembered his horrendous encounter with Lucius Malfoy because of it. He felt queasy as the memory surfaced, could almost feel the ghost of the bruise on his face. "So you want to put the candy thing in his drink?" Remus asked.
"No." Sirius grinned. "You are going to put it in his drink," he said as he put an arm over Remus's shoulders. "It wouldn't be much of an initiation if you didn't do the prank."
Remus gulped. He wasn't too keen on the idea of actually doing a prank. Any prank. On anybody, for that matter. But he also knew that there was no way he was not doing it. There was no way he was risking alienating himself from James and Sirius, even if he knew they would never do that to him if he said no to doing the prank. He just wasn't going to risk it.
---
They decided not to tell James. Sirius showed Remus the little blue ball, no bigger than the nail on his little finger, with the potion and put it in his pocket for when the time came. The next day they sat at breakfast. James was in an unusually good mood, all due to the fact that he had managed to sit beside Lily, who was in an apparent foul mood because James was sitting beside her.
Sirius and Remus sat beside him. Sirius munched on his toast with delight at the same time as he picked random bits of food, "Have you tried this?" he asked Remus, whose usual answer was 'no', and Sirius would put the bit on Remus's plate. Remus would try the new food with wariness since he highly doubted Sirius's palette, but so far so good.
Snickering suddenly caught Remus's attention and he looked up to see Severus Snape, Lucius Malfoy, and a few others whose names Remus didn't know, sitting at the Slytherin table right in front of him. The idea struck Remus almost instantly, and without even giving his brain or ethics a chance to protest he tugged at Sirius's sleeve. "Give me the potion," he hissed under his breath. Sirius blinked and without asking any questions searched through his pocket and extracted the small blue ball and placed it on Remus's open palm. Remus rested the ball between his index and middle fingers, looking at it intently, then looked beyond it to where Snape was sitting. Remus heard Lucius Malfoy's laughter then, greedy and egotistical, and Remus felt something nasty rise in him, remembered Lucius's fist as it hit his face. Remus moved with that memory, changed his line of vision slightly and with force and intent flicked the little ball high in the air where it landed swiftly in Lucius Malfoy's glass of water.
Remus felt Sirius gripping his shoulder excitedly as they both waited for what came next. They didn't have to wait long. Lucius took a sip of his water and instantly saw the fake snakes coiling in it. His eyes went wide with disgust and he threw the glass aside, which fell mostly on Snape, and spat the rest, which sprayed the rest of the Slytherins at the table. All this as he screamed frantically, and rather like a crazy person. This was followed by some scrambling and more yelling from Lucius's part about 'worms in the water', and his Slytherin gang confidently telling him that there was nothing in his water. It was such a scene that soon most of the Great Hall was laughing or staring at them.
Remus heard Sirius's hearty laughter in his ear and he smiled at the same time as he tried to keep himself as inconspicuous as possible as the source of the chaos. James's head popped in between them, a wide grin on his face. "Well done, boys," he said with a degree of pride as he patted Sirius and Remus in the back.
It took McGonagall and three other professors, as well as Lucius and the other Slytherins to be escorted out, before things calmed down. The remainder of breakfast was spent leisurely with Sirius still trying to feed Remus new foods as James mused about the brilliantness of the prank. Remus smiled through it all. Feeling like he belonged. Feeling at long last that he was home.
---
The rest of the month was spent in relative bliss and passed all too quickly. Sirius still hadn't gotten the nerve to tell Remus how he felt, but at least he had it under control enough that James wasn't threatening to tell Remus himself. But Sirius knew that that wouldn't last for long, because everyday he resisted, the urge became stronger and stronger to do something. The pain in his heart sharper. Soon, just being by Remus's side, seeing his smile, soon that wouldn't be enough.
"Want to do the homework in the common room tonight?" he asked Remus, as he always did after class had ended and they were on their way to drop their book bags in the dormitory.
"I can't," Remus answered and Sirius's face fell. Remus noticed and quickly leaned towards Sirius and lowered his voice. "Tonight's a full moon remember?"
"Oh, right," Sirius said and nodded.
After dinner Remus hung out with Sirius and James until it was time to leave, about half an hour before sundown. "So," Remus drawled slowly, not sure what to say since it was the first time he ever did this.
"We'll come visit you in the morning," James said, sparing Remus from the awkwardness of the moment. Sirius didn't add anything, apparently lost in his own world. James smacked him on the back of the head with a parchment. "Hey! Remus is leaving. Say goodbye, you twit."
Sirius blinked and looked up towards Remus and mustered a soft "bye" that cause Remus's face to look a tad sadder as he waved and left.
"Well done," James said sarcastically, and Sirius groaned as he ran his hands down his face and swore under his breath. "I'm not much of an expert," James continued, "but I think you're doing it wrong."
Sirius swore again, then jumped from his chair as if suddenly burned. "Let me borrow the cloak," he asked James, who just nodded, and Sirius ran up the spiral staircase two steps at a time. He managed to catch up with Remus just as he was stepping onto the Hogwarts grounds with Pomfrey and followed silently.
"I can go from here," Remus said to Pomfrey when the tree became visible. She seemed a little hesitant, but let him go and started on her way back.
Remus continued on his way to the tree by himself as Sirius followed silently. Sirius itched with indecision. Should he or shouldn't he talk to Remus? He didn't exactly leave the Gryffindor common room with a plan, just a really strong urge to follow Remus and remove the frown he had caused. Remus got to the tree and made it stop, and that's when Sirius made up his mind and walked up to him, let the invisibility cloak fall to the ground, and grabbed Remus's upper arm before he disappeared under the tree.
Remus yelped in surprise, and Sirius placed a hand over his mouth before the sound was audible enough for Pomfrey to hear if she was still in hearing range. "Sirius!" Remus said when Sirius removed the hand. "What are you doing here? It's dangerous!"
"I still got a good twenty minutes," Sirius said with a half smile that didn't seem to help Remus's worry.
Remus met Sirius's eyes. "I," he started to say as he bit his lip. He seemed to change his mind about his words, and took a deep yet soft breath. "I got to go, Sirius," he said almost sadly.
A small lump formed in Sirius throat, and he suddenly remembered when he saw Remus lying bleeding and broken on the floor of the Shrieking Shack. Remembered when Remus told him it hurt every time he transformed. Without thinking about it Sirius moved, his hands suddenly on Remus's neck, slowly touching upwards until they cupped his face. Remus stared at him, speechless, with his brown, suddenly fathomless eyes.
James's voice rang in his head: "I don't care if you tell him, or dump him, or just randomly grab his face and kiss him." And Sirius thought yes, yes, yes, and before Remus could react, before he could say anything, Sirius closed the space between them and kissed him right there in front of the Whomping Willow, ten minutes before sunset.