Dividing the World

James Potter sighed. "Well, it's time for that detention. Coming, Peter?"

Peter Pettigrew pulled himself off his bed and stood by James. "It won't be so bad, Jamey," he said comfortingly. "We can talk."

"Right, we'll make a party of it. How 'bout you, Siri? Want to come liven things up for me and Peter?"

"No thanks," said Sirius Black. "I barely managed to get out of detention myself. I'm going to stick around and annoy Lupin."

"You are not."

The other three boys looked at the twelve-year-old werewolf in surprise.

"I mean," said Lupin with just a hint of embarrassment in his voice, "That I have to study. You can't annoy me - I have work to do."

Sirius grinned. James chuckled: he knew that grin all too well. Sirius loved a challenge. He silently wished Lupin luck and slung an arm around Peter.

"C'mon, Petey, let's go."

Sirius saw them down to the common room door and then returned to the dorm. Remus Lupin was precisely where he'd left him: at the common desk, studying.

"Whatcha got there?"

"Transfiguration homework."

"Oh, you can blow that off 'til the weekend. It's not due 'til Monday."

"Full moon on Friday," said Lupin softly. "I have to get my homework done before then, I won't be able to do it on the weekend."

He returned to his attention to his book and parchment.

Sirius flung himself backwards onto his bed, never taking his eyes off the other boy. It had been only a month since he'd found out - or, rather, been allowed to remember - that Remus Lupin was a werewolf. In that time he'd become a lot closer to the other boy, in part because the sort of activities that normally landed him in detention. Lupin had created a rough map to aid them in their late-night marauding, and the previous night had been one of series of test-runs that Lupin had insisted on. James and Peter, using only James' Invisibility Cloak, had been caught (though the Cloak, miraculously, had not been discovered); Sirius and Remus, using the map, had got away clean.

But it wasn't just Lupin's nascent abilities as a prankster that Sirius liked. He had a genuine fondness for the boy. He didn't feel sorry for him, but he did feel differently about Remus than he did about either James or Peter. He just couldn't put his finger on how.

"How long've you been studying?"

"You mean, since you last stopped talking to me?"

"Yep."

"About five minutes, I think."

"Good. That's long enough."

"Sirius, I need - "

Whatever Lupin needed - and it was probably "to study" - didn't get said, because Sirius launched himself off his bed, and in a single smooth move tackled the other boy, pulling him out of his chair and onto the floor.

They wrestled. Sirius loved wrestling - loved the contact, loved the challenge - and all of first year, he and James and wrestled constantly, often with Peter watching on wide-eyed. They'd started out the second year the same way, until the first time that Sirius had pinned James to the floor. James had suddenly shouted, "Gross! Your thing is all hard!"

Sirius had leapt up off his friend and yelled, "Liar!" Then he'd grabbed the nearest pillow and swung it at James, and the friendly tussle had gone from a wrestling match to a pillow fight. Neither he nor James had ever talked about it, but they didn't wrestle anymore, either. Sirius missed it.

But Lupin liked to wrestle, too, and he was good at it. He was small, yes, but fierce. Sirius could rarely pin him for long. And Remus always got very quiet as they rolled about the floor, never speaking; the only noise he made was the steady, workmanlike panting of his breath as he wriggled out of Sirius' grip and struggled to hold him down.

Sirius pinned him, holding the struggling boy's arms above his head, capturing one of his legs between his thighs, and bearing down on Remus with all his weight. He felt his own breathing steady out... then realized, unhappily, that his thing was hard again, and that Lupin had to be able to feel it. He waited for Lupin to yell at him the way James had, but the other boy merely regarded him quizzically.

"All right," said Remus. "You've won. Now what are you going to do?"

"Oh," said Sirius, who hadn't realized he'd won, and now didn't know what to do with his prize. "I haven't decided."

"I have."

With surprising speed, Lupin flipped them over, so that he was in precisely the same position that Sirius had been a moment before.

"Now I've won," he announced.

Sirius grinned up at him foolishly. He couldn't quite believe he'd been flipped so easily, but he was certain about what he could feel against his own thigh.

Lupin gave him another quizzical look, and Sirius was suddenly aware of the sound and feel of his own blood coursing through his veins.

"I want to show you something," said Lupin, and Sirius felt his heart start to pound. Was Remus going to let him see it?

Lupin stood up, looked down at his friend, and said, "Will you draw something for me?"

"What?" Sirius wasn't sure what he had been expecting to hear, but it hadn't been a request for the use of his artistic skills.

"Draw. As in pictures. Will you?"

Sirius picked himself up off the floor. "Yes. What would you like?"

"Anything is fine. How about the Quidditch pitch?"

"All right."

Remus cleared his homework from the desk and set up a fresh piece of parchment. "Be as accurate as you can."

Sirius sat at the common desk, and Lupin pulled up another chair close. He folded his arms on the desk, near where Sirius was working, and rested his chin on them, watching his friend draw.

Sirius was in fact a talented artist, though it wasn't something he wanted anyone to know. In fact, asked to draw something for anyone other than Lupin, and he probably would have done a rough sketch and nothing else. But it was Remus Lupin who asked, so he took his time and did as good a job as he could.

"You're very good," said Lupin appreciatively.

Sirius snorted. "I have to be. My mother says that" – and he imitated his mother's high-pitched voice – "'artistic ability is the sign of a well-bred gentleman'." He returned to his regular voice. "I had to have art lessons over the summer hols."

Lupin rolled his eyes. "You got off better than I did. I had to have dancing lessons. I had to learn the gavotte."

"What's that?"

"It's a stupid dance where you prance around and twirl about like a complete git. My mum said I'd dance it at my wedding. I told her I was planning to cut my legs off before then."

Sirius laughed. He made a few last finishing touches to the drawing and passed it to Lupin.

"This is perfect." Lupin performed the cartographic spells on the drawing that they used on their regular map. As the spells took hold, he turned to Sirius and said, "What's your favorite color?"

Sirius batted his eyelashes at the other boy. "Pink, because I'm such a girly-girl."

Lupin rolled his eyes. "Riiiiiiight." Then he tapped his wand to the newly-formed map and said, "Encodere! Password 'pink.'"

The map glowed, and then went blank. Remus passed it back to Sirius. "Why's it blank?"

"I've encrypted it. Place your wand on it and command it to open, but be sure not to say 'pink.'"

Sirius obeyed; the map stayed blank. "Nice," he said appreciatively, "it won't open without the password."

"We can make the password more obscure," said Lupin. "Colors, names, and numbers are all too easy to guess. But it gets better." He placed his wand to the parchment again. "Encodere insultere! Right," he said to Sirius when the ink stopped swirling, "try opening it without the password again."

"Open!" Sirius commanded. Remus giggled.

Instead of remaining blank, the map this time formed words.

Give it up, you stupid blighter. You're not smart enough to figure it out.

Sirius laughed. "So not only can you not get in without the password," he said, "But the map insults you, too. Bloody brilliant!"

"That's just basic insults. We can make up our own."

"Can we make them insult a specific person?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, say Snape gets his hands on the map. Could we make up insults just for him?"

"Yes," said the werewolf, "but I'd rather the map didn't somehow fall into Snape's hands."

"It won't, not if I can help it. Just to be on the safe side."

Lupin smiled. He slipped an arm around Sirius' waist. Sirius's breath hitched slightly; it was the first time that Lupin had hugged him first. He pulled the werewolf into a one-armed hug. "Jamey and Pete are going to love this," he said, smiling down at his smaller friend.

Lupin smiled back, then sighed. "And now I have to go back to my homework," he said. "I really do have to get all this done before Friday's moon."

"I wish there was some way we could make you better," said Sirius quietly.

"There's not, not really. My parents have spent loads of money looking for a cure. There isn't one. There's only -" He broke off.

"Onlywhat?"

"It's dangerous."

"Tell me anyway."

"No. Not yet."

Lupin spent the balance of the evening doing homework; Sirius spent it thinking up insults. By the time James and Peter returned from detention, Sirius had loaded quite a few insults into the map of the Quidditch pitch.

"You messy-haired, googly-eyed, beanpole," scrolled the map when James tried to open it without the password, "you're so thick, you're related to the bricks in the walls."

James gave a whoop of outraged delight and began chasing Sirius around the room. Tag quickly turned into a pillow fight, until Sirius was suddenly outnumbered when Peter entered the fray on James' side. Sirius retreated to the bathroom, but quickly returned with new artillery, and began squeezing gobs of toothpaste at his roommates.

James dived on him, and chased him into the bathroom.

"I hope that wasn't my toothpaste," said Lupin, who'd been watching the fight from the corner of his eye.

"It wasn't," breathed Peter, dropping into the chair next to Lupin's. "I think it was Jamey's."

Remus nodded, and returned to his essay. Loud giggles were began emanating from the bathroom; it sounded as though tickling had entered the repertoire of tactics.

Peter scooted a little closer, and said quietly, "You know, James is my best friend."

"That's nice," said Remus, still distracted by his studies.

"I mean it," said Peter. There was an insistent quality in his voice that made Remus look up at him. "James is my best friend," Peter said again, "but you can have Sirius."

Remus' eyes flickered toward the bathroom. It was large enough to accommodate a chase, and that sounded like what was happening now. "Um… aren't James and Sirius sort of each other's best friends?"

Lack of understanding clouded Peter's eyes; Remus might as well have been speaking in another language.

"James is my best friend," the blond boy repeated.

There was a mutual burst of laughter from the bathroom; then James and Sirius staggered out, each with an arm wrapped around the other's shoulders, the very picture of toothpaste-coated brotherhood. "I'll get my wand and clean us off," James said.

Peter still hadn't broken eye contact with Remus.

"All right," said Remus very quietly, "James is your best friend. I'll have Sirius."

The clouded look instantly cleared up, and Peter smiled broadly at him. Lupin returned the smile, quickly, then stood up.

"I'm done in," he said loudly. "I'm going to bed."

Sirius – clean now, but still smelling vaguely of mint – bounded over, and leapt onto Remus' bed, bouncing up and down on his knees. "Jamey spent all morning teasing me," he said, "saying it was stupid to sneak into your bed at night, since he wakes up before everybody else and sees where I am. So I'm not going to sneak anymore."

"All right," said Remus quietly, as Peter wandered over to talk to James.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm tired." He quickly switched into his pajamas. "Aren't you going to change for bed, Sirius?"

Sirius shrugged, and stripped down to his boxers. "All set."

"I'll never understand why you won't wear pajamas," muttered the werewolf, but he was grateful that Sirius was there. He glanced over to James' bed. His acute hearing picked up snatches of conversation –

"...and Remus do at night."

"Yeah, but they're nutters, Petey."

"You're right."

As Peter passed by Remus' bed on his way to his own, Remus suddenly shivered. "Close the curtains," he whispered to Sirius. Sirius waved his hand, and the bed curtains dropped into place. Remus snuggled up against his friend; Sirius' heart was still pounding from his friendly fight with James.

Neither Remus, still unnerved, nor Sirius, still exhilarated, had paid enough attention to notice that Sirius had worked controlled magic without using his wand.