3.

Slide and rustle of fabric and the sound of ragged breathing. Taste of flesh - salt and sweet and sharp – the feathery, silken touch of hair sliding through grasping fingers and the warm touch of breath on skin and the mind-altering heat of shared desire. Sirius glittering darkly in the moonlight, too beautiful to be real, sparkling on his pillow like a handful of carelessly thrown jewels, moonstones and diamonds and jet.

But he is real. His heart is beating and his blood is flowing and his pale skin fairly rises to meet the greedy hands and lips and tongue that chart its surface. He is real, burning like a fever-dream without, burning like a brand within, burning, burning, a veritable conflagration of passion and everything that's for the heart's lifting that Remus has ever learned.

Sirius is the fire in which Remus burns.

Half an hour earlier, Remus had Apparated into the small cottage Sirius purchased for himself when he'd received a generous bequest from his uncle Alphard at seventeen. They had arranged in advance to meet there and go on to James Potter's place for dinner afterward, and Sirius, having arrived first, must have made himself some tea and sat down on the couch in the living room to do the crossword in the Prophet while he waited for Remus. There had been a cup of cold tea on the side table beside him, and the pages of the newspaper had littered the sofa cushions all around him.

Just lately, Sirius has not been bothering to read the news in the paper at all. He usually demolishes the pages in his haste to pass them by unread and get directly to the puzzle.

But the combination of a quiet household and Sirius' own fatigue must have overcome him as he'd waited, because when Remus had come in, Sirius had been fast asleep on the couch, his quill still held loosely in one curled hand.

Remus had noted, with some dismay, the dark smudges under Sirius' closed eyes as he'd slept, and the new sharpness about the angular planes of his face. None of them are looking very good these days. Sirius too has been pushing well past his limits for the Order, and has been half out of his mind with worry for James just lately as well. The strain has marked his face; even in sleep Remus can see it.

Remus had told himself that he really ought to let Sirius rest. He'd thought about making a Floo call to James and Lily to let them know that he and Sirius would not be joining them for dinner after all from the fire in one of the upstairs bedrooms (these days, no one changes arranged plans for meeting, even for purely social occasions, without informing all concerned parties at once – it is too easy to jump to dreadful conclusions).

Remus had told himself that Sirius was tired and needed his rest and it would not be a kindness to wake him up. But Remus was tired and shaken himself and had been struggling to stave off the wave of black depression that had been threatening to overtake him ever since he spent an indefinable stretch of time inside a dying man's thoughts – and he really hadn't wanted to let Sirius sleep.

No. He'd wanted to touch Sirius; he'd wanted to kiss him, he'd wanted to caress and taste and please and everything else, he had wanted all that over and over, he'd wanted to revel in Sirius, he'd wanted to touch him until he could get so drunk on loving Sirius that all the horrible despair he had begun to feel could be pushed back and forgotten, at least for a few hours.

Remus had not been able to let Sirius sleep. He'd needed him too much.

But he hadn't touched his sleeping companion. Not then.

Sirius and Remus have been lovers for five years, ever since a strange moonlit night in a dell by the Forbidden Forest, only five years back but now a world away. When Sirius bought his little house, only a few months after that night, actually, he'd told Remus that he'd looked for one with two bedrooms, so that Remus could choose one that would always be open to him; that would always be there for him to use whenever he wanted, that would be his. When Remus had rather stiffly informed Sirius that although he appreciated the gesture, he could probably keep a roof over his own head without any help, Sirius had lost his temper and called Remus a "bloody stiff-necked fussbudget" and several other insulting things as well, and had raved "I knew you'd take it like that!"

"Moony, you thick pillock," Sirius had gone on. "You know I can't stand living alone! I can barely tolerate eating breakfast alone. You'd be doing me a favor, you pig-headed sod. Why do you think I got the extra bedroom? It's so you know there aren't any strings!"

Remus had smiled at that, and stopped being angry with him.

So when Remus and Sirius had left school that year, Remus had unofficially moved in with Sirius. They'd both maintained a sort of ongoing fiction that Remus didn't live there, not really, that he was only staying in the spare room off and on as a guest, and that had worked for them fairly well. They'd had one rather explosive disagreement when Remus had discovered, about a year after they'd moved in, that Sirius had secretly put Remus' name on the deed to the house as co-owner. There had been some infuriated shouting, and some passing ripples in their sex life, but Sirius had stubbornly refused to change the deed, and now Remus supposes that it really is his cottage, as much as it is Sirius'.

And the extra bedroom generally goes untenanted, more often than not. Sirius hates sleeping alone almost as much as he hates living alone.

But, as Remus had stood over Sirius, conked out on the couch with a half completed crossword puzzle in his lap, he had not touched Sirius. Though Sirius prefers to fall asleep with Remus in his arms and his great hunger for physical contact assuaged, Remus has learned, early on, that Sirius does not like to be touched himself when he is sleeping. He always awakens startled and disoriented and ready to fight, with a clearly dangerous glint in his eyes, if you touch him while he is asleep.

Remus has never known why this should be, although he has formed some suspicions, over the years. But he has decided, long ago, that it is probably one of those things that are better left alone.

So Remus had leaned down over Sirius a bit, and called him instead.

"Sirius?" he'd called softly. "Sirius, wake up."

After a bit more calling, Sirius had opened a pair of bleary eyes and focused, with some difficulty, on Remus.

"Hullo, Moony," he'd said groggily. "When did you get in and why-?"

"Sshhh," Remus had whispered and swiftly bent to kiss Sirius hungrily. He hadn't stopped until he'd felt his own lungs beginning to burn with the need for air, and until he'd been able to hear Sirius' heartbeat starting to pound and flutter.

Remus had had his hands in Sirius' hair (cut shorter than Remus likes it, just now) and his mouth on Sirius' throat and when Sirius had said "Aren't we going over to James' and Lily's-" Remus had interrupted him with another demanding kiss and didn't let him talk again for several moments.

Then Remus had managed to break away for a moment and had raised himself from his crouched position above the couch and had taken one of Sirius' hands and tugged until Sirius too had stood up, amidst the crackle of discarded leaves of newsprint. Remus had not been able to stop touching him; had not been able to touch him enough.

"No talking," Remus had said in a guttural tone of voice, roughened and deepened by lust and need. "I don't want you to talk and I don't want you to think and I don't want to either. Come with me."

And Sirius, to whom the tricky pathways of passion are never all that mysterious, had instantly known enough not to question Remus any further, and he'd kissed him back once and then allowed his friend to lead him wherever he would and do with him whatever he liked. Sirius has always had that rare knack of yielding to his lover's desires as easily and gracefully as he seeks his own. He has always been heartily bored by the issues of power that sex can sometimes raise and is as comfortable being the object of love as he is being the lover.

Remus had only forced himself to stop temporarily anyway. He hadn't wanted to bury himself in loving Sirius on a rickety sofa with a mussed-up newspaper as a coverlet. He'd wanted to burn the entire night and all its dismal memories away in Sirius' flesh, he'd wanted to hear the way Sirius always laughed when he came, he'd wanted to please his partner so much that he screamed. He'd wanted to do all that, and more, in a bed.

And he'd wanted to let James and Lily know they'd be two guests shy at dinner as soon as possible, before he'd forgotten everything he knew in the fire he was planning to build, very shortly.

Sirius is the fire in which Remus burns.

Sirius is the one luxury in Remus' life that he clings to and grasps greedily to his heart; he has always been more than Remus would ever have hoped for or even imagined having. His skin glows and glistens under Remus' hands now and he abandons himself to all that Remus does with such wild and untrammeled eroticism that the very sight of him in the throes of orgasm is enough to send Remus there too.

Remus' body lifts itself past his ability to control and for a short time, for a single precious breath of space, Remus does not care, Remus does not feel any need to fight for the control that he has needed to survive for most of his life. He need not defend his borders now and he does not; that familiar spiraling, almost shocking gale of pleasure takes him and wrenches him and he runs with it, following its path up and out until he is consumed utterly and all he is spills as easily out of him as magical sparks spilled from their hands the first time Sirius ever came to him like this.

Over the past year, they have often been tired and unhappy and afraid and although they used to spontaneously levitate in this familiar moment when all the delight they feel can no longer be contained within the physical confines of their bodies, for some months now, that has not happened. The lack has been only a mild sorrow to them, in this time when so much else is so wrong, and they have had an unspoken mutual agreement not to mention this one disappointment aloud. But now, at least for this one time, it happens again. Remus can feel himself lightening and lifting, he can feel the clutching fingers of gravity miss their grip on him and he and his much-loved Sirius are rising again, floating in midair in their combined ecstasy. Remus can hear the music of Sirius laughing as they rise and he reflects, momentarily, that Sirius is the only adult he knows who can laugh the way a child does, glad and unaffected and so infectiously alive

Later, as they are twined together in their bed like newborn cubs and are slowly falling into sated slumber, Remus lays his head on Sirius' chest and listens to all the life inside him, listens to his heart beating, its pulse steady and strong. He thinks of another heartbeat he has measured, earlier in this night, and he tightens his arms around Sirius possessively. He guards the precious rhythm he hears jealously, long after Sirius sleeps, long into the night.

4.

Just before dawn that morning, in that darkest of hours, Sirius is awake again and after a time, Remus, who has slept badly and had horrible dreams, begins to feel the weight of Sirius' gaze on him.

"What's wrong?" Sirius finally asks him, softly. "Moony, can't you tell me what's wrong?"

Remus thinks of all the many, many things that are wrong, and of all the dreadful things he has come to know as he has met with many casualties of war in the psychic space beyond the flesh that he has learned to create, and he thinks of the way he'd measured the last moments of Evan Rosier's life by a few fading heartbeats as he'd bid the young man a final farewell. He thinks of how, as he'd listened to Sirius' great heart beating earlier in the night, he'd been terrified by how real the possibility suddenly seemed to him, the possibility that one day – one day soon – it might be Sirius to whom he would have to bid such a long good-bye. One day it might be Sirius' heart he would hear, slowly coming to a stop. Remus simply cannot tell Sirius what is wrong; he cannot distill the whole of it into mere words.

Six years back, Sirius once promised that there would never be a time, ever, when he would not answer Remus' questions. But Remus has made no such promise. He will not give these terrible fears shape and weight by confessing them aloud.

He keeps his eyes shut and pretends to be asleep and lets Sirius' questions pass him by, unanswered.

5.

The two of them awaken late that day, after such a broken night's sleep, and, in a reversal of the way things usually go, it is Sirius who rises first, while Remus sleeps in for another hour or so.

Sirius decides that perhaps a traditional monstrous English breakfast, served in bed, will help to cheer Moony up a bit. About a year after he had run away from home, when he'd first bought this cottage, he had told himself that it was ludicrous for a full-grown wizard to have no idea whatsoever how to go about feeding himself without a troop of house-elves on stand-by, and he'd doggedly set himself the task of learning how to cook. He has often been a bit surprised since at how easily the small skill has come to him, though it has never become something he has had much interest in.

He himself usually cannot tolerate more than a cup of tea and a scone or some such for breakfast; he never has had much appetite for several hours after he first wakes up. But Remus, he has learned over the course of many years of living together as roommates - first at school and later in this cottage - is almost always hungry, night or day. Sirius supposes this is probably a function of the vast amounts of energy that Remus periodically expends in transformation. He can eat more than James and Sirius and even Peter put together, but his wiry body has always remained lean, and always just a touch too thin by Sirius' reckoning.

Just lately, Sirius has noticed, Remus has become even thinner than usual, although there has been little change in his enormous appetite. He has become gaunt about the face as well, there is always a sort of shadow in his eyes now, and the first small snaps of grey have threaded their way into the soft brown of his hair.

Remus will not tell Sirius what it is he does for the Order. He says he must not. He often goes on mysterious 'missions' that he says he cannot discuss, is gone who knows where for hours at a time and comes back worn to nothing and shaking with fatigue and so troubled that Sirius thinks his own heart will break. Sirius doesn't know what Remus does for the Order, but he does know that whatever it is, it is killing him.

Sirius wishes he could tell Remus that he must stop – that he must stop doing whatever it is that is leaching all the life out of him, bit by bit. Sirius would like to forbid it. But he can't. He cannot ask Remus to stop doing his part in the war that has sucked them all up and is now chewing them to bits, not while he too is slowly using himself up in the same struggle.

And now he has a new venture to undertake, the most dangerous one yet. He has not yet discussed his plans with Remus, and in fact, he and James had been planning to talk to both of their closest friends, Remus and Peter, about it only last night. They had been meaning to talk over dinner about the Fidelius Charm that Dumbledore has said is James' and Lily's best hope.

But this plan had been sweetly undone when Remus had come home fairly vibrating with need last night, and although Sirius regrets being forced now to broach the subject of the Charm to Remus without James' support, he does not regret the many hours of the night he has spent attempting to be all that Remus could wish instead. He never regrets any time spent in making Remus' tiniest whim flesh. The quality of Sirius' sexuality is never strained; he is generous almost to a fault. He may cast curses with the same easy facility as the darkest of wizards, but he was born to love.

Of course, Sirius is not a fool; he knows that Remus is not likely to take to the idea of the Charm at all well. It is complex and difficult and undertaking the role of the Secret Keeper will be the most dangerous thing Sirius has ever done in a lifetime of careless courting of assorted dangers. So Sirius prepares a veritable feast for Remus' breakfast, both to cheer his weary friend up a bit, and, he hopes, to help soften the news Sirius plans to give him, very soon.

As he bustles about the kitchen, wand in hand, setting pots to boiling and bacon to frying, he imagines James will have decided to handle discussing the matter with Peter himself, while Sirius handles Remus, and he silently wishes his best friend good luck in the task. For James' sake, he hopes Peter will be easier to deal with than he expects Remus to be.

After about an hour has passed, Sirius has his huge consolation offering of food prepared, and loads a tray with his feast, ready to haul all up the stairs. He himself has never had less appetite in his life. The appealing fragrances of tea steeping and butter melting on warm crumpets and bacon and tomatoes mingling waft upward from the tray and turn Sirius' nervous stomach a bit, as he climbs the stairs to where Remus sleeps.

Once inside their bedroom, Sirius sets the breakfast tray down on the bureau for a moment and goes to Remus' side and gently smoothes some of the mussed hair off of his brow. In five years of loving and living together, both men have learned much about one another's smallest habits and preferences. While Remus knows it is best to awaken Sirius through calling, Sirius has learned that Remus most prefers to wake to gentle caresses. His eyes drift open now and he rewards Sirius with a small, pleased smile, open and untroubled.

"It's half noon, Moony," Sirius tells him. "I hated to wake you but I thought you might be hungry. I've brought a spot of breakfast, if you're interested."

Remus smiles again and sniffs the air as he rubs some of the sleep out of his eyes. He pulls himself into a sitting position, back propped against the headboard.

"I am always interested in breakfast, Paddy," he says sleepily. "Breakfast is a fascinating subject." He stops and eyes the heavily laden tray on the bureau in a rather predatory way, nostrils dilating. "It smells wonderful. What all have you got there?"

"Oh, a few dribs and drabs. I was going to take it to grandma's house until I ran across you, Mr. Wolf. Let's examine the evidence, shall we? Stay there, you can have it in bed."

Sirius brings the tray over to Remus and sets it before him, then goes around to his side of the bed and curls up on it, knees bent slightly under him and head propped on one hand.

"Pour me a cup of tea, would you, mate?" he asks. "There's an extra cup by the teapot."

Remus pours the tea while he peeks under the lids of dishes and takes note of the large variety of foods Sirius has brought him. It is a typical Sirius-prepared meal; delicious and far too rich and completely irresistible and much too much. Remus smiles as he thinks of all the ways that Sirius, now twenty-two, still goes overboard exactly as he did when he was only twelve. Remus passes him the warm cup.

"Tea?" he asks, grinning. "Is that all you're having? There's still that long trip through the forest to grandma's, you know."

"Ta," Sirius says as he takes the cup and sips a bit. "Well, Moony, I may not go. I seem to have misplaced my picnic basket somewhere. Besides, you know I'm not all that hungry if I cook. More for you. Try the eggs, I put a dash of parsley and some cardamom in them this time."

"So, you're just going to sit there and watch me make a glutton out of myself, then, are you?" Remus asks lightly, taking a bit of scrambled egg on his fork.

Sirius smiles lasciviously and waves an indolent hand. "I enjoy watching you eat," he says. "You're voracious - insatiable. It's almost unbearably sexy. Spread some of that marmalade on your crumpet, why don't you? I like the way you do that."

Remus sets his knife and fork down on the tray decisively and leans over and kisses Sirius, hard, on his mouth.

"Leading me astray, are you, you wicked thing?" he asks, chuckling, when he is done and as he picks his fork back up. "Crumpets, indeed. You are a depraved and vulgar-mouthed guttersnipe and I hope your grandma never finds out just what a disappointing Little Red Riding Hood you really are. It'd break the poor old girl's heart. The eggs are delicious, by the way."

"Ah, success," Sirius answers, laughing, and he settles back against his pillow and watches with interest as Remus steadily makes his way through the enormous amount of food Sirius has put before him. He sips at his tea and enjoys the delicate way Remus grips his cutlery, the neatness of his small hands and the precise manner in which they move. He stares hard enough to make Remus blush a little, every now and then, and he wonders which god he should thank for allowing him this small and exquisite pleasure, that even after five years, he can still cause Remus to blush.

In time, Remus can eat no more and he settles back against his pillows and the headboard, considerably lightened breakfast tray still atop him, and sighs with content.

"Good heavens," he says to Sirius. "I think you may have killed me. I'm as stuffed as a tick. That can't be healthy."

Sirius springs up and takes Remus' tray away. "Oh, you'll burn it all off in no time. You always do – you're like a bottomless pit."

He sets the tray back on the bureau, pours them both another cup of tea, and brings the cups back to the bed. He hands Remus his, and then sits down again in the bed they share, sitting cross-legged on the sheets, watching as Remus takes another sip.

"I …" he starts to say, and then stops, wondering how he can begin to tell Remus all the things that he is positive Remus will not want to hear. "Remus, I want to talk to you."

Remus smiles. "I might have known this much breakfast indicated some further agenda on your part, Paddy. And you've been on pins and needles throughout the whole process, too, though you've done a good job of hiding it."

Sirius starts to speak, then stops. Remus laughs, despite himself.

"Go on, just spill it. How bad can it be? I'm as properly anesthetized by vast quantities of food as humanly possible. Nothing is going too upset me too much, at this stage."

"We'll see…" Sirius mutters to himself and looks into Remus' eyes for a moment, searching them. "You know that James and Lily have had three run-ins with Voldemort so far already, yes?"

All of Remus' playful relaxation and posture of logy contentment vanish in an instant, Sirius can see it. They have both been frightened sick for their friend and his family over the past year, and Sirius can watch the line of thought in Remus' mind unfold, illustrated with perfect clarity on his face: if Sirius felt he had to broach this subject only after lulling Remus with breakfast feasts and doting indulgence, then worse news yet must surely be in the offing. Sirius can see Remus' eyes and lips narrowing as he tries to brace himself for whatever Sirius intends to tell him.

"That kind of luck won't last indefinitely," Sirius goes on. "And Voldemort will never stop."

Remus takes a gulp of his tea and scowls. "All because of some vague bloody prophecy!" he snaps. "As if any sane wizard in the world believes in such nonsense. As if Voldemort, or anyone else, had ever even heard the whole of the beastly thing!"

"But Voldemort is just the sort of superstitious, splinter-brained wanker who does put stock in such things," Sirius says. "And he's bloody-minded enough to think that he can alter the course of destiny with a few little adjustments here and there. He'll never give this up until…until baby Harry is dead. He'll walk through anyone to make that happen…and…and…"

Sirius stops for a second or two, afraid, momentarily, even to go on saying such terrible things.

"And James and Lily…" Remus finishes for him, however unwillingly. "James and Lily can't expect to defy him successfully forever, can they?"

"They're on borrowed time as it is," Sirius admits, equally unwillingly.

Remus swallows and Sirius can see his throat working. Then he squares himself in the bed and looks directly into Sirius' eyes.

"All right, Sirius," he says. "All right. Tell me what the plan is. You and James have been working something out, haven't you? What is it?"

"It's not just us," Sirius puts in quickly. "Dumbledore is the one who came up with the idea in the first-"

"Oh, for God's sake, can't you please stop equivocating and just out with it? You're scaring me to death. Just tell me!"

"All right, then. We think … Dumbledore thinks…we plan to cast a Fidelius Charm."

There is a sudden silence in the pleasant, sunny bedroom in the wake of these words, a silence so profound and so weighted with dread that it almost seems to crush all the air and light out of the space around them. Remus stares at Sirius dumbly, and Sirius can watch as all the color washes out of Remus' face. He can almost see Remus mentally running through the specifics of this Charm, calculating the odds, deducing which roles will fall to which wizards – what part James will take, what part Lily will take … what part Sirius will take.

"Oh … no, Sirius," Remus whispers, throat constricted. "No, no, no. You can't."

"Look, Remus - even Dumbledore says-"

"I don't care what he says!" Remus interrupts, voice rising. "It's easy enough for him to pass out the advice, it's not his life – but you, of all people – you ought to understand the problem – remember what they did to Regulus!"

Sirius' expression hardens at this mention of Regulus, his younger brother, murdered by Voldemort's agents a little over a year ago - in spite of the last-ditch efforts Sirius had made to help him. It is a lasting source of bitterness.

"I always remember Regulus," he reminds Remus, voice soft and keenly edged.

But Remus doesn't care that he's stomping past one of Sirius' most inflexible boundaries just now. "Good," he says. "I'm glad you do. Because if you do this thing-"

"This 'thing' has nothing at all to do with Regulus or anyone else! It's about Harry and Lily and stopping-"

"No, by God, it is not! It's about James! And it's about you! If you-"

"What the hell else can we do? How much longer will it be before their luck runs out? How much longer can they keep running? Keep hiding? How many times can they come face to face with Voldemort himself and hope to beat him again? We have to do something, Remus. We have to."

"Fine. Do something. Do anything. But not this."

Remus throws his legs to the side of the bed in his agitation and abruptly stands up.

"Not this Charm, Sirius. You especially must not-"

Sirius rises to his feet too, and begins to pace to and fro beside the bed. "Then what charm? Which spell? What can we do? Remus – this is the only way we can-"

Remus strides around to where Sirius is and halts him in mid-step as he puts his hands on Sirius' shoulders and grasps him tightly, as though he's afraid that Sirius will somehow slip away.

"Stop. Just stop. Listen to me. You - especially you, Sirius – you must not be their Secret Keeper."

Sirius eyes narrow and he resists a sudden impulse to shake Remus' hands off him. "How do you know I will be? What, exactly, makes you so certain of it?"

Remus, unexpectedly, suddenly brays harsh laughter and pulls his hands away without any impetus from Sirius.

"Are you mad?" he asks Sirius, still laughing. "Have you lost your mind? Is there anyone in the entire wizarding world who won't be able to guess who James Potter's Secret Keeper must be? How do I know? The whole bloody world will know, the moment you cast that Charm!"

Sirius finds that, oddly, he is actually a bit amused to hear this response. Trust Remus Lupin to pick out the one genuine flaw in a plan even Albus Dumbledore believes to be otherwise viable. Sirius shakes his head and shrugs.

"That can't be helped," he says. "The Fidelius is their best hope and we have to try it. And someone does have to be the Secret Keeper, you know that. We needn't advertise that we're attempting it, after all."

Remus shakes his head now. "How long do you think it will take Voldemort to figure it out? The moment James and Lily are suddenly untraceable, he'll know. And how long after that will it be before every Death Eater in Europe will be dropping everything to join in the hunt for you?"

"But I'll be in hiding. They'll have to find me before-"

"A week. Two at most. No longer than that."

"That might be an overly pessimistic estimate, Remus," Sirius objects. "I think I can hide a little bit better than that."

In spite of his distress at how badly this conversation is going, Sirius finds that there is a slightly familiar and almost comfortable aspect to it. This is the way they have always worked together, he and Remus. They've always bounced this or that idea back and forth between their two disparate intellects, tweaking, shaping, honing in on fine details that either one of them, alone, might have missed. Remus sees what he overlooks. He makes the connections that Remus doesn't catch. In a way, it will be a benefit to filter this plan through Remus. It already has been.

"All right, then, make it three weeks," Remus is saying. "Make it a month. The point is, they already have us outnumbered ten to one. They have the numbers to put out a net so tight you'll be pinned down completely in very little time. And once that happens…"

"That may not happen, though – not for a while – and even if-"

"And once that happens," Remus goes on as though he hasn't even heard Sirius' objections. "They'll spend however many lives it takes to capture you alive. Alive, Sirius – you understand? Because you'll have the secret and nothing will matter more to the Dark Lord than digging it out of you, one way or another. Eventually you'll be brought directly to Voldemort and then … and then he and those who serve him will go to work on you."

Sirius looks into Remus' eyes, always so tired, so full of shadows in recent days.

"Are you so afraid I'll tell him, then?" he asks Remus softly.

A dreadful cracked smile crosses Remus' face and he suddenly crumples into a sitting position on the bed, as though his legs will no longer hold him upright.

"No, you brave, daft, naïve bloody fool," he answers. "I'm afraid you won't."

The two of them stare at one another for a long while, and yet another moment of oppressive silence further drains all the comfort of the pleasant surroundings away as they both try to frame the right words to continue to discuss the unthinkable.

"Remus…" Sirius finally begins. "Remus…it's James. I just can't stand aside and do nothing while he-"

"Please, Sirius," Remus interrupts. "Please. Don't do this."

"What, then?" Sirius answers helplessly. "It's the only way. Even Dumbledore thinks that-"

"Albus Dumbledore! I told you, I don't care what he thinks! He won't be the one groveling under a Crucio in some filthy dungeon somewhere! If he's so set on this Charm, let him be the Secret Keeper!"

Sirius turns away from the bed where Remus is sitting and paces toward the window. He can see through the panes how lovely an afternoon it has turned out to be.

"He offered, I understand," Sirius says to the window. He does not wish to repeat to Remus all that James has told him about Dumbledore - not while looking him in the face. "James said he did offer to do that. But James turned him down."

"Why?" Remus asks. "How could James possibly wish this suicidal task on you? He loves you almost as much as I do."

"Almost as much?" Sirius asks gently.

"No one in this world loves you the way I do, Sirius. Not even James. This is not a matter for debate. Why did he say no to Albus?"

"Because I told him to. I told him he could."

Remus covers his own face with his hands as he nods jerkily. "Of course. Of course you did. I should have guessed. May I ask why?" he asks, voice muffled in his hands.

"Albus is… sometimes he …he worries so much about the forest that he can't see that it's made up of trees. Do you know what I mean? For him, there's only the one priority - the fate of our world and all its people. But sometimes he forgets that people are individuals. And that some things are worth more than the whole world and everything in it combined. He's the best hope we have against Voldemort and I'd trust him to lead us all until the very end – but I don't dare trust him with the James and Lily's lives."

"But it's James' decision to trust or not, isn't it?"

"Yes. Yes it is, but …there's something else too. A reason why James has begun to believe that … Albus' judgment may be clouded. You know there's a spy in the Order; we've all known that for nearly a year. Someone close enough to be leaking information about the Potters' movements to Voldemort?"

Remus takes his hands away from his face and glances at Sirius sharply. All he can see is Sirius' back, silhouetted darkly in the light from the window. "Yes?" he asks.

"Albus thinks it's me," Sirius says quietly.

Remus is utterly dumbfounded by this news and he cannot think how to answer for a shocked moment.

"You? He believes that you are the one who..?" he finally manages. "But that's absurd. Impossible. How could he possibly…are you sure? How do you know this?"

Sirius finds that he can turn back toward Remus, and, in fact, needs to see his face just now. He moves a few steps closer to where Remus is sitting.

"James," Sirius answers. "James told me. Not that I hadn't sensed there was something wrong there – have done for some time. I just didn't know what it was. When he and Dumbledore first discussed the Fidelius Charm, James did think of me first for the Secret Keeper, and said so. But Dumbledore said no, said that he'd do it, rather than have James choose me. And then he told him why."

"James never believed him, though?" Remus whispers. "James could never think that you would betray-"

"No, no, of course not. James knows it's not true, but … when you think about it, Moony…" Sirius pauses for a moment, a dark, ugly smile twisting his fine features.

"When you think about it, I'm not actually that bad a suspect," Sirius goes on, in a brittle, quietly savage voice. "My brother was a Death Eater, for one thing, and you know Dumbledore felt it was too great a risk to try to help him leave Voldemort's service, even when I asked him to. That alone isn't exactly the sort of thing that would inspire much confidence, don't you think? And then there's my mother and my father and loads of other relations too, openly sympathetic to Voldemort, the whole lot of them. And then there are the hundreds of generations of Dark Wizards and assorted other maniacs on the old family tree, aren't there? There's that bad old Black blood behind everything, isn't there? Always behind everything. Everything I say and everything I do – always just – just out of sight – but always there – always-"

"Sirius," Remus breaks in, rising swiftly to his feet and closing the distance between himself and Sirius. He takes Sirius' hands gently into his. "Sirius, stop. Stop cutting yourself up. No one believes those things."

"Well, no, actually, quite a few people do. Certainly Albus Dumbledore does," Sirius points out with a bitter bark of laughter. "I ask you! If the most powerful and perceptive wizard in the world can't trust me, who can?"

"I can, Paddy," Remus says firmly. "James can. Lily and Harry can. Peter can. The people who really know you - the ones that love you – we'd trust you with our lives and our hearts and everything in the world we hold dear as well. You don't have to die for a friend to prove you're not an evil man!"

"Oh, Moony," Sirius murmurs hopelessly. "Don't you understand? It's not so I can die. It's so James can live."

"Sirius. Sirius…" Remus repeats brokenly. "Don't I have any claim here? Don't you realize what will happen to you if you do this thing? You do, don't you? You have to a damn good idea – you've seen Voldemort's handiwork. Doesn't what I want have any bearing at all? Don't you love me too?"

Sirius strokes Remus' scarred, familiar cheek as though it was the finest, most delicate china, and puts his arms loosely around his love's neck. "I do love you. I've always loved you, right from the time when we were both little and you would cry in your sleep and I used to wonder how such a nice, quiet boy could ever have such bad dreams," Sirius says. "You know how much I love you. But you can't ask me to choose between …"

Sirius stops talking because he can't go on.

"Between James and me," Remus finishes for him. He holds Sirius' hands a touch more firmly and bores into his eyes with the intensity of his own gaze. "It's not fair of me to force such a choice on you, Sirius, I do understand that. But I don't care if it's right, or if it's selfish, or if it makes you think less of me in the end. I want you to live. And I don't care, really, what it costs or who it might harm – as long as you live on. I love this world we live in only because you're in it. Everything I ever knew about love or joy or the way the human soul should be I learned from you. Please, Sirius. I do ask you. If you love me, don't do this."

Sirius, in all his years of loving Remus Lupin, never thought there'd ever be a time when Remus would ask something of him that he could not gladly give. His heart is breaking and his eyes are burning and he suddenly understands, much to his surprise, that standing tears are what is scalding them. He rarely ever cries.

"I do love you, Moony," he answers thickly. "More than the moon and the stars and all the mystery and magic in the whole night sky. But … but you must understand. I…I love James too."

Remus nods slowly, dreamily, like a man in a nightmare, and takes a stumbling step back.

"I do understand," he says after a painful pause. "I do. I'm your lover, but James is your brother; I'm your night and he's your day, isn't that right? You love us both, and there's no way of saying which of us is more dear to you. But you loved him first."

Sirius' unexpected tears overflow his eyes and trace burning paths down his face as he nods – yes – in answer. He cannot lie to Remus. He swore, six years earlier, that he'd never lie to Remus again.

"Can you forgive me?" he asks, so softly that Remus hears him more with his heart than with his ears.

Remus stares up at him for a time, as though he is trying to memorize every smallest contour and subtle angle of his face. Then he pulls Sirius against him and holds him tight against his own breast and strokes Sirius' hair with one hand and when he answers, he is murmuring into the skin of Sirius' throat, face and mouth pressed hard against him.

"Forgive you?" Remus' muffled voice asks. "What for? For not being able to divide your own devoted heart? For being who you are? Do you really think I could ever hold any of that against you? It's why I love you the way I do."

They hold one another in this way for an incalculable moment, and when they break apart, Sirius sees, again to his surprise, that Remus' eyes are wet too. Sirius seldom cries, but Remus never does. Sirius' heart twists inside him anew to be the cause of these tears, as rare as phoenix eggs.

Remus breaks away from Sirius and walks toward the window himself, staring out at the pretty day beyond the glass as he makes a visible effort to collect himself, dashing the never-seen tears from his eyes impatiently and then drumming his neat, square-tipped fingernails against the window sill – thinking, Sirius can see. Weighing some scant variety of choices, perhaps, and all of them bad. Sirius waits, watching him carefully.

"Very well, Paddy." Remus says at last. His voice is even and carefully controlled. It's his Fortress Moony voice. Sirius knows it very well. "All right. I won't continue to ask you for what you can't give. Perhaps it was wrong of me to expect you to…ah …never mind, that's done."

Remus turns away from the window and the day beyond it and looks back at Sirius. Sirius could almost recoil before the hard, terrible determination he sees in Remus' eyes.

"I am, however, going to ask you to make me a promise that you can keep. When you're captured, when the Death Eaters do get hold of you-"

"Remus," Sirius interrupts. "Remus, that is not a fait accompli just yet. The fortunes of war do take unexpected turns. I might surprise you."

"This isn't a war, Sirius." Remus snaps. "We're well past that point, and you know it. It's not a war, it's a fucking massacre. And you're next. Listen to me. Once they have you, you can expect-"

"I think I know what I can expect," Sirius interrupts.

"No - you don't. You only have an idea. Listen to me. They'll try the Imperius first. That won't work on you; of course, you've been able to resist that one effectively since you were only fifteen or so. They'll want to try a few of the other curses before they move on to the Cruciatus - using the Cruciatus is tricky; the subject's mind can break. Yours won't, I'd estimate, but they won't know that, at first, so they'll want to use some of their real experts for that curse - there are a couple of perfect sadists among them who've made it an art form. But you're strong, and you've learned a few things about managing pain from me, over the years-"

Sirius has been staring at Remus through this detailed catalogue of Death Eater interrogation techniques in increasing shock. He now interrupts through numbed lips. "Remus …Moony…how …how can you know all this?"

"Never mind how I know," Remus answers impatiently. "Just believe that I do know When none of the magic they'll try works, they'll begin to work on you direct, with their hands, with …with instruments – McNair's their technician, he's developed a few clever little devices. They'll work on your body and your mind. They'll be looking for an opening, some way to break you down. They won't be operating blind, either; there will be people who know you among them."

"Remus, where did you-"

"Be quiet! Listen to me. The Death Eaters are us, Sirius. They're the people we grew up with, the people who've known us all our lives. Your cousin, Lucius Malfoy. Your boyhood enemy, or so I suspect, Severus Snape. Your cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange. And they'll know how to get to you, what to do to-"

"Remus. Please - please don't go on. How do you know?"

"I know!" Remus shouts, voice like a whipcrack. "Listen to me, Sirius. I know. It'll be long and …and …degrading and brutal and you'll be glad when it's over and there won't be much left of you when they're done, whether you ever talk or not. But it doesn't have to be that way."

Sirius doesn't want to listen to another word. Not one more. Because if Remus knows these things – if he knows these names and these methods and how it's going to be as well as he seems to – then he must… he must somehow …

Remus is still talking, going on relentlessly, even though Sirius has begged him to stop. "It doesn't have to be that way, not for you. There's a way you can stop it all before it even begins. There's a curse, a special curse I'm going to teach you. They call it the Nihiliatus. They'll never expect you to know it, it's a Death Eater secret. You can-"

"No!" Sirius cries, and comes very, very close to clapping his hands over his ears. "No, no, no! Stop. Not another word! You - you don't know any Death Eater secrets! You can't! Because if you did …"

"Be quiet, Sirius!" Remus interrupts again. "How I know doesn't matter! I want you to promise me you'll learn what I'm going to teach you now. I want you to promise me you'll use it when the time comes. I can't ask you to live – not if it'll cost you more than you can give. But if you must die – if that's really the way it has to be – then I can at least ask you to die clean. Without pain. I do have that much claim on you; I do have that much right. I can't even bear the thought of you dying in inches, one blood-soaked moment at a time." Remus' voice trembles as he says this last, and his face looks grey and sick.

"I can ask that you won't subject yourself to that, and I do ask it," he finishes.

Sirius tries to wrap his mind around the stunning idea that Remus – clever, kind, patient Remus, who is the best person Sirius has ever known – that it is Remus who has been the spy all along. He meets a blank mental wall of impenetrable incomprehensibility and he feels as if the very foundations of his world are quaking. How is it possible? How can it be?

He cannot form any answer; cannot speak at all. He can only gaze at Remus, who has suddenly become a stranger before his very eyes.

"Do you love me, Sirius?" Remus is asking, no hint of compromise in his voice or in his face at all.

Sirius is sometimes as cruelly trapped in his own great capacity to love as he is empowered by it. He can no more close his own heart than he can unhear all the awful things his love has just revealed to him. Though he'd give the world if only he could. Of course he loves Remus. He loves him with every pulse of his blood. He cannot not love him.

He nods dumbly to Remus, eyes huge in his white face.

"Then you'll listen and learn," Remus says in response. "Listen. The incantation is 'Nihilium'. You needn't speak it clearly aloud, but you must hear it clearly, up here." Remus taps his own brow. "'Nihilium'. Repeat that back once, all right?"

"No…" Sirius manages to push out through his newly obstructed throat. "No, I won't."

"Yes, you must. Attend. Repeat after me – 'Nihilium'."

Sirius is hit by a wave of dizziness as he hears these words, and an old memory that he does not even consciously recall makes him feel faint, makes his skin go cold, and oddly, makes him feel as though he is suddenly very small. He sways a bit and braces his hand against the bed-post to keep his balance.

"No. No. Please stop, Remus. Please."

"I'd stop if I could, Sirius. I would. But you must learn this. Go on, just say it once. Please, let me hear it once. If you love me."

Sirius is trapped. Remus, who loves him far beyond the telling of it and who may know him better than anyone else has ever done, knows just how to close all the roads Sirius has. He is not the only person in Sirius' life who has ever guessed that love is the one force on earth that can control him, but he is the one person who can wield this weapon the most effectively. He has not left Sirius a choice.

"'Nihilium'," Sirius repeats, voice cracking. "God damn you. 'Nihilium'."

"Good," Remus says. He's crying again, Sirius can see. Sirius doubts he even knows it. Or that he would care or stop his horrifying lesson if he did. "That's good. Now, the focus is a state of mind. You won't need a wand. Pain is the wand. Understand? Pain is the wand. What's the greatest physical pain you've ever felt? Think. Think and remember."

Sirius can't halt the vivid sense memory that springs, full-blown, into his mind under Remus' unrelenting tutelage. When he had been six, he'd come down with a case of Erumpent Pox, a highly communicable and very dangerous magical infection. He'd had to be isolated, to protect Regulus and others in the household from contracting the illness, and he'd been so feverish that all of his memories of the event have a strange, hot, glassy quality to them. His throat had burned as though he'd been living on an exclusive diet of acid and broken glass, and his head had throbbed as though it was going to burst, and every inch of his skin had been covered in the burning, insanely itchy greenish pox. He'd had to have padded mitts charmed onto his hands, to stop him from tearing at his own skin. Sirius remembers this childhood illness now, sixteen years later - how it was, being so small and alone and burning up with fever and not understanding and thinking he'd go mad if he didn't stop itching soon and sincerely wishing he was dead. He doesn't want to remember it, but he does.

Remus has been watching his face, watching these vivid memories rampage across Sirius' features. "You have a memory, then?" he asks. "Yes. I see you do. That's your focus – that's your wand. The recollection of the pain, of how you thought death would have been infinitely easier. A perfect sense memory. Can you create that?"

"Yes," says Sirius roughly, after a sullen pause. "Oh, yes, I can do that. Like it or not. Are you satisfied yet?"

"No," Remus answers, still oblivious to the tears that are staining his cheeks. "No, I'm sorry, not yet. There are the hand movements. You must learn those. You focus your mind on the sense memory. You allow pain to be your mental fulcrum and you make the invocation – clearly – in your mind's ear, if not aloud. 'Nihilium'. And then you point, Sirius. There's a standard order, a ritualized set of gestures. You can use your fingers if your hands are bound. Watch me."

"No. I don't want to watch. I don't want to see. Please don't ask me to do this."

Remus won't listen. Perhaps he can't. "Watch," he repeats, not allowing for argument. He points to his right temple, then to his chest, and then he forks his index and middle fingers and jabs them toward his eyes. "You see? Like this…" he repeats the series of movements again, precisely. "You have the order? Head, chest, eyes. Show me once."

"Remus, I don't want to do this. I won't do it. Stop asking me."

"Sirius, do you love me? Show me the sequence."

"Fuck," Sirius snarls and his hands move along the path that Remus has shown him. "Head," he snarls again, pointing. "Chest," his long fingers point toward his heart. "Eyes," he growls, and forks his fingers perfectly, getting the perfect degree of viciousness into the gesture on the very first attempt. Sirius has always been a quick study, whether he wants to be or not. He has an instinctive understanding of the way the components of new spells must fit together, the directions in which the various streams of imagination ought to flow.

"Good," Remus comments, because he also has innate talents of his own. He is a born teacher, regardless of how abominable his subject might be. "That's good. You have it. Head, chest, eyes. Brain, heart, soul. This curse stops them all, instantly and painlessly. It's a variant of the Killing Curse, I've been told, and I think that must be right. Brain, heart, soul. You understand?"

"But who told you, Remus? Who told you how to cast this foul thing?"

Remus sighs, weary and miserable. It's plain why Sirius asks this question; clear enough what he must think. "Does it really matter?" he asks. "You can see how it would work? You believe that you could do it?"

Sirius nods, sharply, abruptly. "Oh, yes," he growls. "Head, chest, eyes. Brain, heart, soul. It'll work. Why wouldn't it? It even has a kind of malignant elegance to it, simple as it is. I could do it easily enough. Now are you satisfied?"

Remus almost smiles, though the warmth from it doesn't quite reach his wet eyes. Sirius is a talented wizard, one of the very best Remus has ever known. It's always more rewarding to teach an apt pupil, however bitter the lesson. "Are you sure? You're positive you could do it?"

"YES, for love of God, yes! I'm sure. All right? Is it enough for you yet?"

"Almost," Remus answers. "It's almost enough. Only one more thing. Will you promise me that you will do it? When the time comes, when there's no other choice, will you promise me – on your honor – that you won't wait around? You'll remember what you've learned today? You'll perform this curse?"

Sirius looks again into Remus' eyes, sees the unconscious tears and all the horror in them and the hard, stony light that fills them. He sees clearly how truly terrible love can also be.

"For the last time, Remus," he whispers. "Don't say these things to me. Don't ask this of me."

"But I do ask it. Promise me, Sirius. "

"No. I won't."

"Yes. Please. Please, Sirius, say that you'll do it."

"No. I won't say that."

"Do you love me?"

Sirius feels as though he cannot breathe. He feels as though the very walls of his heart are caving in, strangling him. "Ahh – ahhh - GOD," he groans, voice choked. "Stop it. Don't. Stop."

"No. I can't," Remus answers, and he brings his face so close to Sirius' that Sirius can see all the drawn, tense lines in it. He could make a map of them, if he chose. Remus takes hold of Sirius' face, closes his hands around his white cheeks gently, but still firmly enough that Sirius is unable to look away. He reaches up and kisses Sirius once, on his forehead.

"Sirius," he says. "Paddy. Do you love me?"

Remus has Sirius neatly boxed in. His nature is what it is. How well Remus knows it.

"Yes," Sirius finally answers, and the words are so raw they sound as if they might crack open and bleed. But how else can he answer? What other answer is there? "Yes, I love you. Always."

"Then promise me. Won't you promise me, Sirius?"

Remus adds a gentle, final kiss to his argument, just one more kiss to finish the job of tipping the scales. Sirius permits him to do it. He is not the sort of man who has the ability to turn away from love, no matter how it may consume him.

Another moment passes, the last. Everything they have ever been together is on one side of this silent moment, and everything they will be waits on the other. The line of division is only a single moment of silence – only a fragile absence of sound.

"All right," Sirius answers in the end, defeated. "I promise."