Author's Notes: I am starting to get a big ego with all these reviews coming in so quickly! :-) I love it!!! (jumps up and down, scaring the cat) This story is now my main focus as I (rather abruptly) ended "Old and New Relations." I know I could have gone on and on but I wanted to bring it to a close so that the next adventures could have their own title(s) and summary(s). So…just including that comment because I know lots of people are reading both. :-)
Thanks to my four reviewers: Elkebaby, Mon2 (so glad you loved the Christmas chapter!), AffectedMangoO (Tabby gets put on the clock in this chapter!) and Meike.
And – because Elkebaby twisted my arm (ow!) I am posting Chapter 28 and Chapter 29 today. :-)
Chapter 28 A Picture is Worth…
Remus, Tabby and Cassius had a delicious brunch. Afterwards, Cassius spent a couple hours charming a hand for Tabby onto the clock in the kitchen, at Remus's request. Tabby muttered that it would only ever point to home so there wasn't a need but Remus commented that she did occasionally go to Hogwarts so there was a need after all.
That afternoon when he came for Christmas tea, Stevens brought a thick photo album. He told Cassius that talking to Remus about Hogwarts had gotten him nostalgic. Cassius was silent as Stevens pulled the album from his bag. Remus watched Stevens joke Cassius out of his silence when they went into the sitting room. Stevens had a knack for handling Cassius that Remus sometimes envied. Remus always took mental notes of how Stevens talked to Cassius. He tried to emulate Stevens the longer he and Cassius had been mated. Now, it seemed to Remus the stakes had been raised and he paid even closer attention.
"All right, we begin." Stevens had made Cassius sit in the middle of the couch with the photo album on his lap. Stevens was on one side and Remus the other. The photo was of Stevens, about age 16, and two other school boys. "I had forgotten how cute I was."
Cassius snorted.
"Who are the others?" Remus asked.
"That's Owen." Owen looked a bit like a pixie, he was small and slight with a heart shaped face, pale skin and jet black hair. His blue eyes were laughing. He was nothing like Remus had imagined him – as towering blond who looked like a cross between Stevens and Cassius. "That's Edgar Bones, you knew him, didn't you Remus?" Remus nodded, remembering him at Order meetings. He and his family had been killed by Death Eaters.
"And here we are after we won the Quidditch cup. When we beat Gryffindor, your final year, Remus." Stevens reached across and patted Remus' knee sympathetically.
"That was brilliant." Cassius grinned. The two Ravenclaws laughed, remembering their triumph. They'd had a young team, Stevens had been the captain, as a 5th year he'd been the oldest on the team. No one had expected them to beat the Gryffindor team, with James and Sirius on it, but they had.
"Lily and I thought there must have been some Ravenclaw house rule that the chasers all had to be 7 feet tall, blond and gorgeous." Remus said, remembering how mad James and Sirius had been when Lily and Remus had mentioned how attractive the Ravenclaw team was.
"We're only 6 foot 5." Cassius answered.
"7 feet would be cool though." Stevens rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "But the other things are all true. Except that Malison wasn't quite as gorgeous as Cassie and me."
"He wasn't quite as tall either."
"Ravenclaws and their obsession with details." Remus shook his head as he looked down at the picture. A young Cassius, hair all askew, was laughing at Owen who was dancing wildly on a table in the Ravenclaw common room along with Bones and a blond witch. It looked like it was quite a party. There were bottles of butterbeer scattered around and the room was full of students. Remus spotted Stevens raising his arms triumphantly, next to him a witch with curly light brown hair was holding the Quidditch cup. "Ah, Annemarie. Now she was lovely, our keeper. I think we snogged later that night." Stevens smiled. "Course, she dumped me for Owen the next week."
"She told me Owen was a better kisser." Cassius said with a sly smile.
"Humph. I'll have you know I have since improved my technique." Stevens laughed.
"No more teeth-clicking?" Cassius asked solemnly.
"No. Wanna have a go?" Stevens looked at Cassius seductively.
"Maybe later," Cassius laughed.
"Or we could just ask Clara," Remus suggested, more sharply than he would have liked.
Stevens laughed and turned back towards the album. "Look at this one, Remus, this was when we jinxed Binns so he couldn't go through the wall in the classroom. Damn NEWTS and OWLS, we were balmy from all the studying." Binns looked very angry and Owen looked very contrite although he would wink at the camera occasionally.
"Oh, you told me about that! You used a modified solidification spell." Remus looked at the picture. "We never thought about jinxing a professor."
"You didn't think big enough."
"It took ages for it to wear off. Almost until graduation." Cassius paused "Owen's eyes were so blue." Cassius's finger reached out to trace Owen's cheek. "We got detention for a week." Cassius laughed. "Although detention didn't seem like a punishment because we got to help Hagrid in the Forbidden Forest." He turned to Remus. "That was the only time we ever got detention."
Remus had noticed that whenever Cassius talked about school he often said 'we', Remus had always assumed 'we' was Stevens and Cassius. Now he knew that included Owen.
"Here's us studying." Stevens laughed as he pointed to a picture of Cassius and Stevens playing chess. They were both concentrating very hard. Remus laughed too. Ravenclaws were known for being studious but so far he had seen photos showing a much more fun-loving side of them than he'd ever suspected.
Stevens turned the page. "Here's Cassius when he was Head Boy." The picture showed Cassius and Owen, Owen was gesturing to the Head Boy badge on Cassius' robe and Cassius was pushing his hand away. The photo Owen, who barely came up to Cassius' shoulder, threw his arm around Cassius' neck, pulling him down and kissing him soundly on the cheek causing Cassius to flush. "Owen was so thrilled, you would have thought he'd got it. Sent me a howler to tell me the news."
"It turned Remus on when I told him I was Head Boy." Cassius winked at Remus, who blushed.
"Well, I couldn't help it! Head Boy. There's just something about it that seems…I don't know…sexy."
"If I had known that I would have told you on our first date not our seventh." Cassius leaned in to kiss Remus's cheek. "I still have the badge somewhere in the attic." Remus was speechless as all the blood in his body seemed to rush towards his groin. Cassius's voice was a seductive purr. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
"Now, stop it you two. I'm busy reminiscing, I don't want to be subjected to a snog-fest." Steven said, elbowing Cassius hard to get his attention. "This is a picnic, summer before your third year." Stevens pointed to the picture taken on the grounds of Hogwarts.
Remus had been jealous when he'd found out early in their dating that Cassius had lived at Hogwarts year-round. Cassius had always said it was because he needed extra lessons, which Remus had thought was because of Julius Malfoy's unrealistic expectations since Cassius was very bright. Cassius had had the run of the school, except for the restricted sections, and became a sort of nephew to everyone on staff. They still talked about him proudly in the staff room whenever he was in the Prophet. Remus had almost choked on his tea the first time it happened a few months ago.
"That's Tabby!" Cassius stared at the picture. "She's holding hands with Moody!"
"They were an item." Remus leaned closer to look at the picture. Dumbledore and McGonagall were in the picture also. Dumbledore and Cassius were attempting to fly a kite while the others watched from the blanket spread on the lakeshore.
"What? When? How do you know?" Cassius stared at Remus.
"I owled you about it a few weeks ago." Remus said. "Right after I found out from her sister."
"You owled me about it? I don't remember that." Cassius scowled.
"I remember getting that owl, I read it to you." Stevens said, "But I never noticed them in the picture before."
"They broke up a couple years after this picture was taken." Remus lowered his voice. "I'll tell you about it later, all right? I don't want Tabby to overhear us talking about it, it's still upsetting to her and she'll think it's odd if we put a silencing spell on the sitting room now"
"All right." Cassius whispered.
"I really should have put these in order. Here's one of us – this was after we won the cup my 7th year. Bloody match went on…how many hours?"
"Oh, I know this…I know this…21 hours 16 minutes. It was the 3rd longest match in Hogwarts history." Cassius said. Remus looked down at the picture. All three boys were still wearing their Quidditch robes and looked soaking wet. Stevens was asleep on his back on a bed. Owen, who was splattered with mud, was right next to him, his back pressed against Stevens's side. Cassius was on the other side of Owen and Owen was spooned around him. They were all sound asleep. "Owen was so tired he fell off his broom twice before he caught the snitch."
"Normally it didn't take him that long to catch it but it was raining, horrid conditions." Stevens said, shuddering with the memory. "Merlin – I still miss him. Sometimes something happens that I think 'Owen would get a laugh out of that' and I go to owl him or floo over and I realize he's gone." Stevens took a deep breath.
Cassius started to chew the fingers of his hand. Stevens tugged at Cassius' elbow causing him to drop his hand. Remus noticed Stevens took hold of Cassius' hand and started rubbing his thumb across the top of it.
There's you and your family." Stevens pointed to a picture of Cassius, his father, brother, Sirius, a stocky black haired man, obviously Sirius' father, and Regulus. Between Cassius and Regulus was a lovely, tall woman with silver blond hair, a long straight nose and grey eyes. She had her arms around with both boys and occasionally would kiss one of them.
"Who's that?" Remus asked, pointing at the woman.
"Aunt Black, that's Uncle Black." Cassius pointed to the two people in the picture that Remus wouldn't know. "It was taken right before I started Hogwarts." Remus looked at the picture. Sirius was scowling but the rest had nice smiles on their faces. Julius Malfoy smiled down at Cassius or over at Lucius, his hand resting lightly on his shoulder. "I liked Aunt Black, but the rest of the Blacks were prats."
"She looks so much like you." Remus said as he looked at Sirius' mother, he'd never met either of Sirius' parents.
"She was my father's sister, a Malfoy. All Malfoys look like that." Cassius said coldly.
"You're not a clone of him, you know. You look different." Stevens looked at Cassius. "Are you even looking at yourself in these pictures?" Cassius gave a short nod. "No, you're not. Look at them. Here. Look at this one. What color is your shirt?" There was a long pause.
"Blue. Why do you have all these pictures?" Cassius growled.
"They're all the pictures we took or ones you threw away. Owen and I kept them." Stevens smiled gently. "I figured we'd look at them sooner or later…or show them to Remus. I just never thought about it until now. There's a great one of you naked in the shower somewhere in here. Owen took it right before graduation."
"There is not!"
"Is too. Remus will like it. And here's…oh, you probably don't want to see that one, Remus." Stevens tried to flip the page quickly. "I should have taken that out."
"No, wait." Remus stopped him. "Why wouldn't I want to see it?" Stevens had was covering the photograph.
"It's Cassie and…What was his name?" Stevens moved his hand away from the picture.
"Monroe, we dated the end of my fifth year." Cassius muttered.
"A Hufflepuff, he was my year, wasn't he?" Cassius nodded. The picture showed Cassius and Monroe in the Quidditch locker room. Cassius was pressing Monroe up against a wall, kissing him, his hands buried in Monroe's black hair. As Remus looked at the picture, the photo-Cassius ripped open Monroe's robes, kissing down his neck. Monroe thrust his hips forward clutching at Cassius's shoulders.
Remus swallowed hard. "Who took that picture?" The photo-Cassius had just started unbuttoning Monroe's pants.
"One of Cassie's other boyfriends. Gave it to you when he dumped you, didn't he?" Stevens didn't seem to notice what the two boys were doing in the picture and turned the page. Remus desperately hoped his face wasn't bright red as he swallowed another wave of jealousy.
"Accused me of cheating." Cassius said dryly. "I hadn't thought we were exclusive."
"Here's moving day at Windy Corner. Owen lived here after school, Remus, until he died."
"He did?" Remus had never known that. He couldn't believe Cassius had never once mentioned Owen. He looked at the picture of Stevens and Owen levitating books and clothing around a room.
"He lived here…must have been four months?"
"Five." Cassius said quietly, his hand flexing on Remus's knee. Remus stroked over the long fingers reassuringly.
"His room was the one across from the library." Stevens said.
"Oh…" Remus thought about that…he used that room on full moons and Cassius didn't like to be in it, which was why it had been a surprise to come home and find him there a couple days ago. Remus had thought it was because of the transformations, but now…
"And here's another of us, this was taken a few days before Owen died." Remus looked at the picture, the three of them looked so happy.
"I should have been there." Cassius said hoarsely.
"We couldn't have known." Stevens answered softly. Remus noticed Stevens was still holding Cassius' other hand, his thumb still stroking back and forth. Stevens leaned in closer to Cassius. "He wouldn't want you to blame yourself. All right?" Cassius gave a short nod. They sat there in silence for a moment before Stevens turned the page.
"Here's another one from school. Remus is in it."
"Am I?" Remus was surprised, he hadn't socialized with many of the other students, the Marauders had kept to themselves.
"Here." The picture was of Owen, Annemarie and Cassius sitting by the lake but in the background, Remus could see himself and Sirius. They were laying under a tree, kissing, Sirius was on top of him. Cassius suddenly wrenched his hand free, shoved the album onto Stevens' lap and left the room.
"I'll be right back." Stevens said as he handed the album to Remus. "Look through it, if you want to." Stevens followed Cassius quickly out of the room. Remus couldn't stop himself and flipped back a few pages to the picture of Cassius and his boyfriend, Monroe. The photo-Cassius had Monroe on all fours and was pounding into him. Remus was momentarily shocked, he hadn't expected Cassius to be having sex at 16, he'd been so innocent himself at that age. He looked at the picture and swallowed a third wave of jealousy. 'Don't be silly,' he scolded himself, 'the picture is 14 years old, he's not with Monroe anymore. He's yours.' He looked at Cassius' face in the picture, it was beautiful but cold, even in the midst of passion. Remus was warmed by the thought that he had been given access behind the Malfoy mask.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen…
"I know there are a lot of pictures of Owen…"
"That's not…that's not why I left…I liked looking at Owen…even though…it still hurts." Cassius said slowly, pacing back and forth.
"All right, then…why did you leave?" Stevens asked calmly, massaging the feeling back into his numb hand.
"He was kissing Black." Cassius' hands clenched into fists. "I lost Owen and now…"
"You're not going to lose Remus. That was a long time ago."
"I know that!" Cassius shouted.
"You tell me you know, but you're still upset – and you have no reason to be." Stevens said. "He's not in love with him."
"And how do you know?" Cassius turned around angrily, his eyes were black.
"Because I asked him."
"You…you asked Remus?" Cassius felt his anger melt away.
"I did. And he said he wasn't in love with Black, not after what he did. Remus said he loves you now." Stevens looked at Cassius. "And my gran always said I had a knack for telling when people are lying, and he wasn't lying."
"Really?" Cassius looked at Stevens feeling hopeful.
"Really." Stevens said firmly. Cassius smiled at him. Stevens felt a wave of relief. Cassius was always so insecure, damn Julius Malfoy, Stevens thought. "I've heard him say he loves you a thousand times, at least."
"I know…I know he loves me."
"Well, then."
"He's just so wonderful…"
"And you deserve him. If you say you don't deserve him, I'll jinx you into next month, because that's bullshit, Cassius."
"All right."
"So…you're better now?" Behind him Stevens could hear a knock at the front door, he knew it must be Clara.
"Yeah."
"You're sure? Because I'm not leaving this kitchen unless I know our little chat made you feel better."
"I feel better, I swear." Cassius smiled.
"Good." Stevens hugged Cassius quickly. "Let's go see my girlfriend, then."