AN: Wow, how'd this chapter get so long? Sirius is a bastard, isn't he? But he's only treating people the way he is used to being treated. And it only gets worse in this chapter. I hadn't intended for it to be quite this bad, but somewhere around Care of Magical Creatures it got out of my control. Will Remus ever learn to stick up for himself? You'll just have to read to find out! Oh, and you only get one guess as to who the redhead they're talking about is. ^_- And Snape, Malfoy, and Crabbe and Goyle Sr. are in this chapter too.
"Felt the best that I could feel
Censored every memory
Give me yours so I can feed mine
Anywhere but far away
Can't be what you meant to say
I won't miss you in the meantime
All jokes aside
You should decide
If it pleases or pains you"
~ Condenser, Finger Eleven
Sirius stared down at his porridge as if it held all the answers in the world. And if it did, he really wished that he could see then, because at that moment his life as a mess.
For the up-teenth time since he'd sat down his eyes scanned the Gryffandor table. And then, after not finding what he was looking for, the rest of the Great Hall. 'What are you doing?' he wailed silently to himself. 'He's not here, and he isn't going to be here! You've probably traumatized him for life!'
Sirius methodically moved his bowl of porridge out of the way and started rhythmically pounding his head on the table.
"I'd stop that if I were you, Sirius. You might kill the few brain cells you have left," James said cheerfully as he and Peter sat down next to Sirius. He muttered something that sounded vaguely like 'sod off.'
"What's wrong with you?" Peter asked. "You've been acting strange: you lost a fight with Lupin, you spent all day yesterday reading some dusty old book, and you were up before dawn this morning. It's creepy."
"I've had a lot on my mind," Sirius mumbled, resuming the scrying of his breakfast. James laughed at him.
"What, you having girl trouble or something? Cause, you know, I think that pretty redhead in Ravenclaw likes you." Sirius' head whipped around so fast he popped vertebrae all down his back. He stared at James, eyes wide. 'girl trouble'? He had girl trouble all right. The trouble was, he was beginning to realize that he didn't want anything to do with them, ever.
He knew the girl James was talking about, and she was really pretty, but she paled in comparison with a small tousle-haired figure with haunted gold eyes. ' Who still isn't here,' he noted absently, taking another glance around the room before he realized what he was doing.
If his head didn't already hurt he'd have started banging it against the table again. Instead, he shook his head.
"No. No girl trouble. Life trouble, maybe, but it has very little to do with girls." he said, and then smiled, a bit of his normal cheer returning. "Besides, I thought you like her." James coughed and studied his breakfast intently and the conversation ended there.
The food was quickly devoured (at least by the other Gryffandors, Sirius really didn't have the stomach for it this morning) and they made there way to their first class. Transfiguration. James and Peter protested this; 'Sirius, we're going to be early!' But he didn't pay them much attention.
Upon reaching the classroom, they found that they weren't the first to arrive. A lone figure sat in the far corner, bent over some book or another, reading.
"Wow," Peter said sarcastically. "Look who decided to show up." Remus didn't move to look at them, only the tensing of his shoulders showed that he had heard him. "I said…!" Peter started loudly but was cut off as Sirius grabbed the back of his robe and hauled him to the opposite side of the classroom. James followed them, frowning.
"Sirius, why are we sitting over here? Have you suddenly decided that you don't like throwing parchment airplanes at the loon's head anymore?" Sirius opened his mouth to retort, but Peter beat him to it.
"A-ha! You're scared of him! He beat you up and now you're afraid of him!" Sirius bristled.
"I am not!" 'Scared of what he does to me, maybe, but not of him.' He thought to himself. James and Peter just stared at him. He grabbed his bag and stalked back over to the other side of the room, taking the seat directly behind Remus. He leaned forward on the table and glared at the back of the other boy's head.
"I'm not afraid of you," he said, as if the other boy had been the one to accuse him. Remus slowly turned around and met his eyes, a very strange look on his face, half way between confusion and anger.
"Aren't you?" he asked quietly. Sirius wanted to make him explain his cryptic question, but James and Peter had caught up to him and sat down so he kept quiet.
The lesson went by rather smoothly. Professor McGonagall was wrapping up her explanation about Animagi. It was a terribly fascinating subject and Sirius had actually paid attention to most of lessons. But not today.
Today he was too busy staring at the boy in front of him. Or pretending not to stare when the other boy glanced back at him over his shoulder. The events of that morning kept replaying over and over again in his mind. That kiss… he grinned foolishly. He had been Remus' first kiss. That was something the other boy would remember for the rest of his life, something he couldn't ignore. But… his grin faded. As wonderful as it had been, it hadn't been what he'd wanted. It had been a payment, a bribe, so that he would keep quiet about… His mind still detoured around that particular thought, things were complicated enough without having to think about that. 'If someone had taken my first kiss like that I'd be furious,' he thought dejectedly. And then paused, he had kissed someone before… hadn't he? He racked his brain. He'd thought about it a lot…but…
He let his head fall to the table with a loud bang. "Idiot!" he muttered fiercely.
"Mister Black!" Professor McGonagall said sharply. He looked up at her quickly, plastering a look of innocent confusion on his face.
"Yes Professor?" he said, managing to make his voice as innocent as his expression.
"I will only give you one warning. If I find you falling asleep in my class again it will be twenty points from Gryffandor and a detention, is that clear?"
"Yes Professor," he said, flashing a charming smile. She glared at him disapprovingly as the bell rang and students began to leave for their next class.
Care of Magical Creatures wasn't nearly as interesting. Professor Kettleburn was making them study unicorns, so all the boys got to stand around doing nothing wail the girls Ooh-ed and Ah-ed over them. It was quite boring and it left a lot of time for Sirius to think, even if he didn't really want to. And Remus wasn't in that class, so he couldn't distract himself by staring at him again.
Yes, he had still been Remus' first kiss, but he'd been Sirius' first kiss too, so that evened it out, didn't it? He really should have thought of that this morning, but thinking before taking action had never been a strong suet for him. And, oh, that kiss had been worth it.
That soul burning, intoxicating kiss…he wanted to feel that again so badly.
Wait… if, since it had both been their first kiss, it had even out, then Remus still owed him something. His face slowly broke into a grin that would have made a yeti shiver. He would get what was owed to him.
As soon as class was over he ran inside. Not waiting for James or Peter in his haste to get to their room. He would have made it in record time too, if he'd been watching where he was going. He wasn't, so he ran into the boy who had just walked into the corridor and they both went crashing to the floor.
"Oh, sor…" But his words died on his lips as he saw who it was. "Oh…it you. Not sorry then." Serverus Snape glared up at him from his position on the floor. The Slytherin stood up and brushed himself off.
Sirius toyed with the idea of beating the annoying bastard senseless, but figured he'd let James do it later. Those two were always vying for the top marks in potions. Add to that house rivalry, Quidditch and personal dislike and you had an all out war.
"Something wrong Serverus?" a cool voice drawled. Sirius turned to look through the door Snape had just come out of. And there stood Lucius Malfoy and his two ever present, hulking shadows Crabbe and Goyale.
Sirius was suddenly very aware of the fact that James and Peter weren't with him, and that the five of them were alone in the corridor.
"Nothing much," Snape replied, a smirk plastered to his narrow face. "Just some mudblood filth getting in my way." Sirius restrained himself from hitting the smug bastard, but just barely. It wasn't like he had chosen to be muggle-born.
The other three boys stepped out of the doorway. Both Malfoy and Snape were grinning like cats who had caught the canary and Crabbe and Goyal had started to crack their oversized knuckles.
Sirius, deciding that discretion truly was the better part of valor, took off like a bat out of hell in the opposite direction.
He didn't stop to see if he was being pursued, knowing from long practice that he was much faster than any of the Slytherins. But he still took a few jogs through secret passages that he was pretty sure they didn't know about, just to be safe.
He didn't stop till he'd reached the Gryffandor common room and, after taking a quick look around and not finding whatever it was he was looking for, proceeded to take the steps up to the dorm two at a time.
As he walked into their room, something nagged at the back of his mind. He had been going to do something, but that encounter with Snape had rattled his brain. But memory returned to him when his eyes landed on the lone occupant of the room.
"A-ha!" he cried triumphantly, causing Remus to drop the books he'd been getting out of his trunk. He looked up at Sirius with a guarded, wary expression.
"What?" The boy nearly snarled.
"Ah-ah," Sirius said, shaking a finger at him. "I would be nicer to me if I were you," he said mockingly. Remus stood and crossed his arms, still looking rather cross.
"What do you want, Sirius?"
"You still owe me." Remus took a step back looking shocked and a bit afraid.
"N-no I don't!" Sirius ignored him, and reached out and grabbed him by the shoulders.
"Hold still," he muttered as he leaned forward. But Remus brought his hands between them and shoved him away, hard. Sirius stumbled back several steps looking completely shocked. How dare he, he owed him.
Sirius dove at him and grabbed on tight. He mashed his mouth against the other boy's as his hand fisted in the hair at the nape of his neck, holding him still. They stood there like that for a split second, Remus too shocked to move and Sirius trying to figure out why this didn't feel anything like what had happened this morning.
But the taboo quickly broke and Sirius felt it as Remus pulled back his lips in a snarl before the other boy reached up and grabbed him by the shoulders. In one quick movement Remus shoved him back to arms length, spun him around and threw him, hard, into the nearest wall. He barely had time to blink before Remus was upon him again. He felt a hand on his throat and, for a second, he thought that Remus was going to choke him. But instead his hand pushed up, forcing Sirius' head so far back that not only did he have to arch his neck back, but he had to arch the upper part of his chest as well.
He had time for a vague 'what the hell is he doing?' before sharp teeth closed down on his windpipe. Sirius froze, and it finally hit him. The boy he'd been teasing for the past two years, the shy, quiet bookworm who happened to have his teeth latched, dangerously, onto his throat, was a werewolf. A savage, bloodthirsty creature who had no qualms about ripping peoples throats out with their teeth.
And, even with the situation he was in, he couldn't help finding that that added bit of danger only made Remus more enticing. He went slack under Remus' grip, no longer afraid.
The other boy pulled back as fast as he had pounced, staring at him with wide, horrified eyes before bolting from the room. And Sirius, for the third time in as many days, just stood there and watched him leave.
"Hn, werewolves, go figure," he said, laughing to himself as he headed out of their room to see if there was any lunch left in the Great Hall.
Neither of then noticed when a head of unruly black hair broke out from the red curtains of a bed and stared after them with wide, bespectacled eyes.
AN part 2: Dun-dun-dun! A cliffhanger, how evil of me! ^_^ Sirius is one sick puppy, isn't he? An explanation about the neck biting. It's a wolf thing. When two wolves fight and one wants to show that they submit, they role on their back and expose their throat and the other wolf will lightly bite them. Or they can bite them there and force them to submit. It's basically a dominance issue. Remus doesn't like being touched on the back of the neck for sort of the same reason. That and it's where a wolf bites before, umm... ::cough:: mounting its intended mate.
