November 25th, 1977: Remus Lupin
Considering that he almost died three weeks ago, Remus thinks that he's done a remarkably good job of not freaking out imagining who could have been the one to poison him. His immediate thought is Snape, especially since Snape has always been top of the class in Potions and whatever poison they used was sophisticated—enough so that just consuming a bezoar wasn't enough to neutralize its effects, although it did get Remus breathing again. Still, Snape has always had it in for James or even Sirius much more than Remus, and it's not like they had any kind of recent altercation that Snape would want to get back at him for.
Barring Snape, Lily and Belby are the best in the year at Potions, but Lily obviously didn't do it, and Remus can't think of a reason why Belby would have wanted to kill the werewolf who allowed Belby to experiment on him in order to make the Wolfsbane Potion. Belby offered up front to give him a week's supply of the potion every month so that Remus remains in control during his transformations—why would he then turn around and want Remus dead? It doesn't make any sense.
Then, of course, there's Regulus Black, Sirius's brother, who Sirius thinks joined up with the Death Eaters two summers ago. If word somehow got back to Regulus that Remus was a member of the Order…
It's not like there haven't been rumors about what happened at the ambush, rumors that place the blame on Remus along with the other Marauders. They're already suspicious that Regulus and others still in school are in the outer circles of the Death Eaters' organization; what if Regulus or someone else decided that the rumors were true and decided to start with Remus?
"Whoa. Earth to Moony."
Remus resurfaces from his thoughts back to where he, Sirius, and Peter are supposed to be practicing for Defense together. "I'm listening. Sorry. I'm just…"
"Hey," says Peter, "if somebody nearly murdered me a few weeks ago, I wouldn't be able to think about anything else."
Remus purses his lips and doesn't answer. If he's being entirely honest, not all of his thoughts have been on the poisoning—
—plenty of them have also been on Sirius, or more specifically, the absolute nothing that has been happening between Remus and Sirius.
True to his word, Sirius hasn't tried to take Remus or anybody else on any dates since he and Marlene split up. But he's back in Remus's life, talking and laughing and clapping Remus on the shoulder, and Remus thinks he's going to go out of his mind by the time it turns into anything.
If it turns into anything, he reminds himself. After all, Sirius is still working out how he feels, whatever that means, and there's no guarantee that he'll decide he's interested in Remus romantically.
He feels like he's overanalyzing every move Sirius makes. Every time Sirius touches him—even the most innocuous brushes—Remus gets chills. He lies awake in their dormitory at night picking out the sound of Sirius's breathing from amidst James's and Peter's snores, wondering if Sirius can't sleep, either. Every time they make eye contact, or Sirius tells him a joke, or they end up alone together in a corner of the common room, Remus thinks he's going crazy trying to figure out whether Sirius is feeling the same sense of anticipation that he is. Is his hand brushing against Remus's knee under the table incidental or deliberate? Does Sirius even notice what he's doing to Remus?
Remus doesn't know whether it helps or hurts things that he can't ever seem to get Sirius alone with him. I hope you're using your space to work through things, Sirius, he thinks. At least that way one of the two of them is figuring things out, because Remus sure as hell isn't.
It gets so bad that he pulls Mary aside after dinner to talk about it as he walks to the Hospital Wing, ready to take his last dose of Wolfsbane Potion in preparation for tonight's full moon. "I mean, I freakin'… he said he didn't understand how he felt about me, and I told him I didn't want to start counting down to when we were going to get together if it wasn't going to happen, and he told me to 'start counting.' What does that even mean, if he's not sure of it?"
"Rem, as Marlene's best friend, I'm contractually obligated not to support the idea of you and Sirius getting together so soon, but off the record?"
"What?" he says warily.
Mary grins. "It's really nice to see you happy, that's all."
"I'm not happy. I'm losing my damn mind, Mare."
"Fine. But you're in the beginning stages where everything is new and unexpected. It's just like, you've been through a lot of stress, and I'm really happy to see you invested in something so—something with so much potential to be good for you."
"Oh, I'm still under a lot of stress. Someone tried to kill me three weeks ago, remember?"
"Yeah, I remember," says Mary somberly. "Just—talk to Sirius, yeah? You'll feel better if you straighten out what to expect from him."
He doesn't particularly want to take her advice, but he thinks he might have to as he's curled up as the wolf in the Hospital Wing, stretching out on his cot behind a shield of curtains hiding him from the rest of the world. And then—speak of the devil—Sirius pulls back the hangings and comes to sit at the foot of Moony's bed.
"I thought you might get bored all alone in here with nothing to do," he says, holding up a large hardcover book, "so I brought something to read to you. I hope you like Muggle romance novels because that's all the girls had when I asked them. It was that or textbooks."
Moony does not like Muggle romance novels, but it means so much to him that Sirius bothered to bring him something to read that he doesn't mind, not at all. Sirius gets comfortable leaning back against the wall, and Moony is unsure of where to come to rest—at the foot of the bed, or up near Sirius's hip? But then Sirius reaches over and starts stroking Moony's fur—literally petting him—so Moony gives a contented purr and snuggles up.
Sirius has been reading for about half an hour when Madam Pomfrey comes by and threatens to kick him out for the night. "But he's not even sick!" says Sirius, scowling. "He'll get bored in here with no one to keep him company and nothing to do."
"My other patients need their rest, Mister Black," says Pomfrey, but then she gives him a reproachful look and says, "You have twenty minutes. Then you're done."
"Understood," says Sirius. He makes a face at Moony when she pulls the curtains shut again. Moony would laugh if he could, but he can't, so he gathers his courage and climbs into Sirius's lap.
"Oh, is that all you want? You just want to be petted? Well, I can do that," says Sirius, scratching behind Moony's ears and along his back.
There are so many things Moony wishes he could say to Sirius, but he can't right now, obviously, and couldn't even write them down or anything instead while he's in this form. He tries to content himself just with Sirius's pets, but twenty minutes pass much too soon, and then he's alone again.
He doesn't sleep much that night.
The next day is Saturday. Before the attempt on Remus's life, Saturdays usually meant writing essays and cramming in the library with Alice all day with a few short breaks for meals, but nowadays, Remus is practically fending off Gryffindors who want to spend time with him. This particular day, he and Alice are joined by Peter, Emmeline, and Lily and nearly get themselves kicked out of the library for not keeping their voices down.
Honestly, it makes Remus feel a little guilty to have so much attention on him all of the time. Yes, he went through something terrifying, but he's hardly the only Gryffindor who's having a hard time coping, and he doesn't see anybody rallying behind Emmeline in her depression or behind Marlene, who has been visibly struggling with her breakup with Sirius.
He doesn't get Sirius alone again until three days later, when Sirius catches up with Remus after dinner in the common room. "Hey, I never got to thank you for coming by the Hospital Wing last week," says Remus offhandedly. "It is pretty boring to be Moony all night when you're on Wolfsbane. Not that it's not an improvement over the alternative, but…"
"No problem. I kind of figured."
Sirius smiles, and Remus smiles back. Suddenly, he has an overpowering wish that he and Sirius were alone together in the dormitory, not here in the common room surrounded by people on all sides.
"I'm not making you uncomfortable, am I?" Sirius asks suddenly. "You look a little jumpy. Honestly, you look a little jumpy every time I walk into a room these days."
"Sorry," says Remus uneasily.
"No, no, if anything, it's my fault. I know I kind of left you hanging."
"I just—I don't know what the rules are," Remus admits. "Or what's going to happen. If anything is going to happen."
Sirius lets out a breath and gives a quick look around the common room. "Muffliato," he says, and then he pauses for so long that Remus is starting to wonder whether Sirius is going to speak at all. "I don't know what the rules are, either. Hell, Moony, I don't want to make you feel like I'm holding all the cards, because I just don't know."
"At least you know what's going on in your head," says Remus dully. "All I get is what you tell me, and you haven't said anything."
"That's fair. I've just been—I've been working through it, you know? I'd be lying if I said I didn't still love Marlene, and I'd also be lying if I said it doesn't freak me out that you're, you know, a bloke."
"So you're definitely straight, then."
"I didn't say that," says Sirius, and Remus's chest feels a little lighter. "The way I feel about you is a lot like the way I feel about her, minus all the time and the guilt and the misunderstandings she and I had. It's just—I wish I could do things with you, but I also wish you had female anatomy, if that makes any sense. I guess you can't know how it would go until you try it, right? But I told Marlene I would wait, and, well, it's only been three weeks."
"And when it's been a month? Two months? Three? What happens then?"
Sirius gives him an appraising sort of look. "Then, we try stuff out and see what happens—I mean, assuming you're still into it."
Remus is still into it. Remus is very much still into it. "And in the meantime?"
"Let's just—not spread it around, okay? Give me a month. Not that I think Marlene will be over it in a month, but—you've got to rip off the bandage at some point, but not yet."
"Yeah, I can do that. Although—Mary kind of already knows everything that's going on."
"Mary? And you trusted her with that information?"
Remus scowls. "I know she can be a pretty bad gossip, but she's not always like that. She's known that I'm gay for almost a year now, and she hasn't told anybody yet."
"So you're definitely gay, then?"
This is at the top of the list of Conversations he Doesn't Want To Have with Sirius, but he figures it's fair enough that Sirius wants to know. "I thought I was straight, but now I think I was just—assuming I was straight because that was the default. But I don't know. It's not like I notice hot guys everywhere. It's just you."
"Just me, huh?" says Sirius, but he's smiling.
Shit. That part wasn't really supposed to come out (no pun intended). "Don't go getting cocky on me, Padfoot," he says.
Sirius laughs. "Never," he promises, and his eyes are twinkling.