Author's Note: Last Chapter! Last author's note and…. a rather sheepish apology. I realised as the reviews for the last chapter arrived that I did not label Alteration as slash. It… well, it is. Only very slight… but it's supposed to be there.

However, I know I should have told you so you could have fled in horror initially so, if anyone would like to read a non-slashy version I suppose I could write you one. I'd have to think about the ending because my entire aim in this fic was to get them together… but I would be more than willing to do so if you'd like that: sadly, my reviewers really do mean everything.

On that note I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed the last chapter, the last three chapters I should say. (I would thank you all personally but time is running out and my brother is going to kick me off any. moment. now. Just assume that you personally made my day because that's what happened) So there are just four individual messages:

Iniga - your reviews made me incredibly, stupidly happy and I meant to email you when I reached your profile and found you didn't ship anything but you have no email address…

Beady – which fics did you want finished? Give me some targets! Er… please.

Grimy Grunhilda Grunt – you review like me! …. Which is not something to be proud of but there we are.

And finally A Happy Little Bumble-bee who correctly identified the title, formly property of a certain Bill Shakespeare.

Thanks everyone for reading and I hope you enjoy the last chapter. Let me know if you don't.

Whoever had scheduled Divination in the morning deserved to be shot, Sirius thought moodily, trudging through the corridors towards Transfiguration. Or, alternately, subjected to two hours of Ammanon before any decent person was ready to be awake.

"You're late," McGonagall snapped as the three of them eventually ambled into her classroom. "And don't even think about telling me you got lost again: six years and that excuse has worn rather thin. Sit down boys. As I was saying-"

Sirius blocked out her voice. He was still angry which made it difficult to think, let alone concentrate on school work even in Transfiguration. He was also experiencing another emotion. One he had only ever felt on one other occasion: that terrible morning when Remus had opened his eyes, wincing with the pain that simple movement brought and asked quietly if Sirius could tell him what had happened the night before. Sirius Black was not equipped to deal with guilt.

"I hope I am not keeping you up, Mr Pettigrew."

Sirius looked up and discovered McGonagall two feet away from him; he smiled rather weakly. "Of course not, Professor."

Professor McGonagall's mouth went very thin. "I asked you a question," she prompted.

Mentally Sirius replayed the last couple of minutes and found she was correct. "Inflecte," he answered eventually. "The simple switching spell… That's right, isn't it?"

The creases round his teacher's mouth disappeared with surprise. "That is correct, Mr Pettigrew."

Next to him James stuck his hand in the air.

McGonagall turned to James. "Mr Potter?"

"With all due respect Professor: why would we ever want to switch ears with another person?"

McGonagall raised a thin eyebrow. "Firstly: because I told you to and I am your teacher. Secondly: because you may be examined on it and thirdly because at one stage in your life this may happen and you will be powerless to avert the situation." She flicked her wand and James' ears obediently changed place with Sirius'.

"And we always thought you had no sense of humour," James said, trying not to look disturbed that his ears were not his own any more and failing miserably.

"Expect the unexpected, Mr Potter," McGonagall said, smiling slightly. "Mr Pettigrew: if you would be so good as to restore Mr Potter's own ears to him again I'm sure he would appreciate it."

"Inflecte," Sirius said lazily: almost forgetting to be angry and guilty and confused. "Didn't we learn this spell in our first year, professor?"

"Indeed you did, Mr Pettigrew," McGonagall answered, walking back to the front of the class. "So, in light of this observation, can anyone tell me why we're learning how to switch ears?"

"Because it's always useful to go over what you've already learnt," Remus offered from the front.

"To help us with the exams," somebody else added.

McGonagall shook her head. "Something less abstract and bearing in mind we were talking about Metamorphmagi last lesson. Mr Black?"

There was a loud pause whilst Peter waited for Sirius to tell him the answer and Sirius waited for Peter to realise that was not going to happen.

"I… don't know," Peter admitted eventually.

Sirius put his hand in the air.

"Yes, Mr Pettigrew?"

"To disguise ourselves, Professor," Sirius answered smugly. "With someone else's nose, for example, a person looks completely different; new vocal chords and they sound different. The obvious advantage over a glamour or the Polyjuice Potion lying in its simplicity: a quick and easy spell that can be maintained over a long time with out any magical strain on the witch or wizard."

McGonagall looked even more surprised than before. "Yes... that's it… Precisely. Ten points to Gryffindor."

The lesson continued. Peter answered no more questions correctly and McGonagall had to snap twice at Remus for whispering the answers to him as Sirius sat at the back of the room trying to convince himself his revenge was justified.

Finally, glaring her finest glare of disapproval, McGonagall approached poor Peter who looked positively terrified. "I am going to assume that this is all some elaborate prank," she informed him, voice steely. "However, I warn you that it is not one that I find very amusing especially this close to your NEWTs."

"No Professor," Peter answered miserably.

She sighed and softened. "I apologise for suggesting that one day there would be questions you wouldn't be able to answer but this is taking it too far, Sirius. Do you feel ready to participate properly in my lesson?"

"Yes," Peter said, in what was apparently a statement but which was clearly tinged with a quiet kind of questioning hope.

"Thank you," McGonagall replied, almost kindly. "Now we've got that over with I suspect you can tell the class how to recognise if someone has cast a switching spell on a part of their body."

Closing his eyes and pushing down the wounded pride that still clamoured at him Sirius forced himself to reach for his quill. 'Magical edges,' he wrote.

"Magical edges," Peter repeated. "You can…er… see the glisten of magic around what ever should not normally be there."

"Thank you." McGonagall smiled. "Welcome back, Mr Black. I'll see you in detention on Wednesday."

A

Remus was not at lunch. Sirius excused himself and headed towards the dormitory where he found his friend ostensibly reading something very large and dusty.

Nervous suddenly, Sirius knocked on the door though he was already inside. Remus looked up, closed the book and waited.

"Sorry I'm so rubbish," Sirius said, wishing he were better at apologising.

Remus sighed slightly. "You're not rubbish."

"Well, sorry for being a prat then."

There was a pause then: "Likewise," Remus said, running his fingers through his hair. "I didn't mean to be so ridiculously melodramatic at breakfast… it just sort of happened."

"I probably deserved it," Sirius admitted, flopping down on the bed: almost bursting with relief.

Remus smiled. "You did but I usually manage to control myself better. I didn't mean to insinuate you were some kind of shallow… Casanova-"

Sirius laughed with surprise. "You meant that? I thought I was just imagining it."

"No… Sorry about that."

"S'alright… I am a bit."

There was silence in which both of them waited for the other to speak.

"I had an idea at breakfast," Remus said at last. "I was going to tell you but then I was too busy being angry at you and storming around breaking things."

Sirius looked up. "You broke things? Like what?"

"Nothing that I couldn't fix, don't worry. Anyway that's not the point; the point is that I think the reason we're having so much trouble reversing the spell is that we don't know what it was so I thought we could try getting it out of your memory. I would ask Peter as he seems to have access to your memory but he's going out tonight with Isabella, James and Lily so it'll have to be you."

Sirius nodded. "That sounds reasonable. How?"

"I'll tell you later once I've collected some stuff from Finel."

"Tell me now!" Sirius demanded, bouncing on his bed. "I hate mysteries!"

Remus laughed. "Come on: you'll be late for potions."

A

"I suppose you know what this is?"

"Pensieve," said Sirius promptly as Remus placed the dish gently down in front of him. "Well, it's not Pensieve yet but it will be soon. My esteemed father had one locked away in his study."

"Did you ever use it?"

"I wasn't allowed in."

"That wasn't what I asked," Remus said with a smile.

Sirius grinned back. "Only once and he caught me pretty quickly."

Remus settled himself back in his usual chair. "It's very easy," he explained. "Just touch your wand to your temple whilst concentrating on the memory you want to examine."

"No problem," Sirius said confidently. Then he paused, wand raised. "Just before I do this can you answer something for me?"

Remus shrugged. "I can try but I don't really know much more about it than you do."

"No, it's not to do with the Pensieve," Sirius said quickly. "Why did you want to ask Peter and not me?"

"Ah," Remus said. "I wondered when you would ask that." He started fiddling with his hair and Sirius had to resist the urge to get up and brush his hands away with quiet irritation. "The truth is… I'd rather you didn't go poking around in Peter's memory."

Sirius lowered the wand. "Why ever not?"

"There are some things that should stay private," Remus said sharply. "Peter has access to your memories so you must have access to his and why am I telling you this?"

"I don't know," Sirius agreed cheerfully, prodding the part of his memory that was Peter's. "Seems ridiculously foolish of you….temporary mind block perhaps and HOLY MERLIN!"

Remus grimaced. "And that would be what I didn't want you to know."

"You kissed Peter!" Sirius exclaimed, horrified.

"I know," Remus said irritably. "Unlike you I was actually there."

"Why?" Sirius demanded. "Why would you… why would he?! What the hell is going on?"

Remus scowled. "It was last year and Peter was getting worried about never having kissed anyone and wanted to know what it was like."

"So you offered yourself as a willing test subject?" Sirius asked, incredulously.

Remus coloured. "Well… not exactly, but sort of, yes. I wanted to see if kissing a boy was different from kissing a girl."

"Was it?" Sirius inquired, flippantly.

"No," Remus said, mildly. "I didn't fancy Peter either.

This sank in slowly.

"Either?" Sirius said slowly.

"Yes…Oddly enough that sounded a lot better inside my head," Remus admitted awkwardly.

"No kidding." Sirius stared at his friend for a while until he decided it was probably rude and looked back down on his bed where the Pensieve lay. "Ah yes… we were going to do this memory thing."

He touched his wand to his temple and withdrew a long strand of silvery light and dropped it gently into the pot.

"Right that should be-" Remus started but Sirius shook his head.

"I think I may have got the wrong one," he said rather lamely. "Sorry: give me a moment." He removed a second shining strand and deposited it into the pot.

"Alright. I think that was it: Are you coming as well?"

"Of course."

Sirius nodded and touched his nose to the surface of the Pensieve which started to swirl before sucking him inwards into a room that looked exactly like the one they had just left. A moment later Remus appeared beside him. He took a quick look around the dormitory then glared at Sirius. "Why are we in this memory?"

Sirius smiled weakly. "I suppose it was just on my mind. An accident that could happen to any…" he tailed off as Remus' glare became stronger. "Sorry," he finished in a small voice.

Behind them younger versions of Remus and Peter made their first stumbling steps into emotional maturity.

"Are you sure about this?" The seventeen-year-old version of Remus asked, nervously. Peter nodded.

Sirius shuffled his feet and looked away. "So Peter knows you're… you know…"

"Gay?" Remus offered helpfully at the same time as Sirius said:

"…Not attracted to girls."

"Yes."

"Oh."

The pause began longer and more awkward.

"Why'd you tell Peter and not me or James?" Sirius asked, slightly hurt but at the same time massively relieved that Remus hadn't talked to him about this.

Remus shrugged. "Well, you never asked."

Sirius started laughing. "Why would anyone ever do that?"

"James did."

"James did what?" said Sirius, feeling very stupid and wishing he hadn't accidentally brought them to this memory.

"Asked. A couple of months ago. I told Peter but James actually figured it out for himself."

Right

Remus started to smile. "Is this embarrassing you?"

"Hideously," Sirius admitted sheepishly. "Not that I mind the whole… 'no girls'… thing," he added quickly. "It's the 'I didn't notice' thing that's really annoying."

The smile became slightly less amused and merely kind. "I don't mind that you didn't know."

Sirius nodded. "No I know: it's almost not the point though… oh thank Merlin: this memory is over"

The scene faded quickly into the potions corridor. Snape had his wand against Sirius' throat.

"What no more banter?" the memory of Sirius drawled. "Do your worst Snivellus: I promise they won't interfere… but you know it's terribly bad form to not even insult my family lineage or my attitude first." James yelled something and Sirius shouted: "bloody look at me won't you."

The real Sirius made a face. "Is there any chance you didn't hear that?"

"You are ridiculous," Remus said with a smile. "You know that, right?"

Sirius sighed. "I was rather hoping it would never come up… Ok, here comes the curse. Sounded very long and complicated-"

"Inflecte!" Snape intoned, quickly. "Unus muto Unus; Corpus muto Corpus."

A rather breathless James ran round the corner, aimed far too far to the left and yelled: "Expelliarmus!"

"Inflecte!" Snape screamed in response, ducking James' second disarming spell, swinging around and engulfing Peter in his spell.

"He got me with a switching spell?!" Sirius bellowed, horrified and annoyed and relieved all at once. "That's first year magic! He can't do that!"

Remus started laughing. "No wonder we couldn't find the cure in the Restricted Section."

"That should be against the rules!" Sirius continued angrily. "The idea is that you do something terribly difficult and impressive to the other person. NOT A BLOODY SWITCHING SPELL!"

"If it makes you feel better," Remus said, managing to calm his laughter for a moment. "It's a slightly altered Switching Spell that we wouldn't have been able to do until about…. Fourth year."

Unfortunately, this merely made things worse and Sirius continued to splutter incoherently until Remus took hold of his arm and yanked him out of the Pensieve.

"I can't believe it was only a switching spell," Sirius muttered, collapsing back onto his bed. "A switching spell-"

"If you don't stop that I won't reverse the simple switching spell and you'll be stuck as Peter forever," Remus interrupted.

"Could do it myself," Sirius said sulkily.

"You can if you want to."

"Don't want to."

"Then stop complaining," Remus said, exasperatedly.

"Like complaining," Sirius explained, cheering up and reaching into the Pensieve with his wand to collect his abandoned memories. "Fun."

"As is talking like a three-year-old?"

Sirius shook his head. "No that gets boring really quickly."

Remus smiled. "Alright, well I better take this back to Finel before he notices it's gone."

Sirius looked up. "You stole it?"

"Borrowed it," Remus corrected. "I had every intention of returning it and now I am."

"You have such a dubious morality."

A grin. "Why thank you, Mr Padfoot." He checked the clock on the wall. "The others should be arriving back any moment now so if they get back here before me try not to shout 'A SWITCHING SPELL!" over and over again if you can possibly avoid it."

"Ah yes… Peter returns from his date with Isabella: super-bitch extraordinaire." A thought struck him as Remus reached the door. "I'm not going to have to keep going out with her once everything's back to normal, am I?"

"I shouldn't think so," Remus replied thoughtfully. "Peter was going to tell her who he was tonight."

"Of course," Sirius drawled. "Saint Wormtail would never lead a girl on."

"I advised him to tell her actually," Remus remarked mildly. "I'm sure Peter would have decided to do it later but I thought she'd be more likely to react positively if he tells her before she feels like she's been lied to." He leant against the door frame lightly. "So, in answer to your question, she'll either continue going out with him as he really is or break it off."

Sirius muttered something into his sheets.

"Sorry?" Remus asked.

"I said: Let's hope she's worth all this trouble," Sirius snapped.

Remus nodded. "I think she is."

"Meh," Sirius grunted. "Just go return that thingy before you're clapped in detention."

"Remember-"

"-No shouting," Sirius finished, smiling. "Yer I remember. Can't say I won't… but I'll try."

"For you: Anything."

"I'll remember that."

Remus disappeared round the door with a grin.

A

He had been himself again for slightly less than two days and the novelty had still not worn off. At least it had not worn off for Sirius; James and Remus had started to duck out of rooms quickly whenever he entered just in case Sirius wanted to show them some very advanced magic he had not been able to perform as Peter.

As for Peter himself, it turned out that Isabella had actually been rather relieved to find out he wasn't Sirius and that she could continue hating the real Sirius properly. Fortunately, Sirius himself was happy enough simply not to be Peter anymore that he didn't even really mind sitting next to her in Potions any more: something that probably annoyed her far more than anything he could have actually concocted himself as she and Peter had spent the last lesson throwing sad looks at each other across the classroom, much to James' amusement.

Today Sirius had changed into Padfoot and back again approximately twenty times just to prove he could still do it (neither Sirius nor Peter had dared change into their animagi forms whilst they were switched) answered lots of questions in Transfiguration and none in Divination before heading down to the statue of the one eyed witch and loping down to Hogsmeade where a large number of sugar quills were waiting for a new owner. Then some time between then and now he had paid a visit to Professor Finel and stolen his Pensieve once more.

It was still lying where he'd left it, on top of Remus' desk, as was the note which declared in his scrawl:

"To Remus,

Thank you.

Love Sirius."

The sugar quills had gone though and when he approached the table the top of the Pensieve was transparent: now looking more like an aerial photograph than a bowl of light. Sirius took a deep breath and, before he could change his mind, fell into the past. He must have made a sound as he landed in his memory next to Remus because, without taking his eyes away from the memory, Remus said: "I was wondering when you were going to join me."

"Now," Sirius explained, feeling foolish again. "About now."

Remus turned around from where he had been watching James gently inserting a salamander into the back of Sirius' robes. "This is very nice, Padfoot, but what exactly is it?"

"This is the summer after our fourth year exams," Sirius explained as the scene changed into their fifth year Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom in which a fifteen-year-old Sirius Black lent forward slyly, caught hold of Remus' hair and gave it a gentle tug and sat back innocently in his place before Remus could turn around.

"It was James," Sirius said helpfully in time with the memory of himself. He grinned at Remus as the younger version of the werewolf turned back to his work. "I like this memory, don't you?" he said happily as the fifteen-year-old Sirius leant forward again and pulled Remus' hair once more. This time, however, the other was prepared and swung around hexing Sirius quickly.

"I can't think why," the Remus standing next to Sirius said idly as the younger Sirius stuck his hand in the air.

"Remus just changed my hair into snakes, Professor. Can I go to the hospital wing?"

Professor Shrewsbury raised his eyes delicately and regarded the bristling mass of reptiles that had previously been Sirius' hair. "You may Mr Black," he decided eventually. "If, and only if, you can tell me honestly that you did not do something to deserve this punishment."

The younger Sirius put his hand down with a sigh and resumed doing his work.

"Ten points to Gryffindor, Mr Lupin, for a really excellent charm," Shrewsbury added lightly. "And another five for being the first person to silence Mr Black: a feat I had believed quite impossible until this moment."

The memory faded into another where the Marauders revealed their animagi shapes to Remus; into another where they sat by his bed after a particularly nasty transformation; into James shouting at Sirius for being a reckless bastard who never thought about anybody but himself and did he know that Snape could be dead by now?; into Remus just waiting silently whilst Sirius tried to apologise and walking away when he could not; into the last week and finally into Sirius simply sitting at his desk in their Defence classroom, ignoring Shrewsbury's lecture on… whatever it was he was lecturing about today and staring at something.

"What is this?" Remus asked quietly.

"I think," Sirius answered, slowly and wondering if what he was about to say would sound quite as stupid outside his head as it did inside it. "I think this one is me realising that I love you and rather wondering whether you might possibly consider loving me back since you don't actually like girls." He paused. "What do you think?"

"But you like girls," Remus pointed out.

Sirius tried a smile. "Believe me: you cannot be more surprised than I am." He ran his hands through his hair; realised Remus wasn't saying anything and started to fill the silence. "And I'm sorry that I'm ridiculous and annoying and that I'm not very nice to Snape all of the time-"

"You're never nice to Snape."

"I could be," Sirius said, feeling vague desperation welling up inside him and wishing he weren't in love with anyone because it had been much easier when Remus had just been his wry best friend who would probably help him if he whined enough. "I'll get better, I promise. Just… say something, I suppose. Anything. So I know if I have to drown myself before Prongs finds out or not."

"Erm," Remus said. "I don't know what to say. Don't drown yourself would be a good place to start, I suppose."

Sirius nodded. "OK that's good. Don't really know how to swim so I wasn't looking forward to that anyway."

"You wouldn't need to be able to swim," Remus pointed out calmly. "That's the idea and I'm getting distracted again. Don't drown yourself first and secondly, this is all my fault. Well, it's slightly James' fault too but I shouldn't have listened to him-"

It was as if Remus were talking another language. "Do you love me or not?" Sirius said breaking across Remus' stream of apparently unrelated information.

"What?" Remus said.

"Love," Sirius repeated. "Do you love me?"

"Oh. Yes, of course."

Sirius felt a ridiculous grin breaking across his face. "That's great…. So what's all this rot about James?"

Remus was smiling now, as well. "He told me not to tell you because, apparently, the constant assurance of his affection is what made Lily hate him for six years. I suggested it probably also had something to with him being a total berk but he said that you were a total berk and that I still liked you so that probably wasn't it. At the time this seemed quite logical."

"You took dating advice from James?"

"I said at the time… I'm beginning to suspect it wasn't such good advice after all."

"Git," Sirius said, happily. "Remind me to do something nasty to him once we get out of here."

"You can wait your turn," Remus informed him, smiling. "I definitely have priority on this."

Sirius sighed dramatically. "Alright. You can hex our friend first but only this once…" he tailed off sheepishly.

"What?"

"Well I was going to say "and only because I love you" but it sounds nauseating."

Remus laughed. "It is rather but I'll forgive you for it."

"Very much appreciated," Sirius said with a smile which quickly became nervous again. "So… this is probably the… kissing part, right?"

Remus raised an eyebrow. "How have you had so many girlfriends?"

"Don't know. Luck, probably," Sirius said, shrugging. "And good looks, of course."

"Of course."

"I'm not really very good with the whole charming-"

And presumably before he could work himself into a bigger hole Remus had wrapped his arms around Sirius neck and kissed him gently. It certainly not a perfect kiss: Remus was a lot taller than most of Sirius' previous girlfriends, and their noses collided at least once but, for a while, it was a perfect moment.

"Better than Peter?"

"Are you going to insist on bringing that up ever again?"

"Possibly."

"Well… try not to, please."

"I'll try."

"For you: anything."

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

- William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116