Disclaimer: No, no, and no.

Warning:This is slash. If you are reading this, you should know that by now. If not, get out. Why do I even bother? ˆshakes headˆ

Twisted Hearts and Anguished Howls

Chapter 4; Absent Confessions

Remus and Sirius sat perched on short wooden stools in Hogwarts' kitchens, munching on éclairs and pasties, house-elves milling around the vast room at their feet. Remus was listening to Sirius' animated account of the Marauders' detention, the staged rapture on the werewolfs' face dwindling as it was replaced by exhaustion and boredom.

"And then you know what the old hag made us do? She made us spell-check a bunch of first-years' essays. 124 feet of bloody parchment, Moony! The old hag!"

Remus raised his eyebrows at Sirius' name-calling of their Transfiguration teacher, but said nothing. The golden-eyed boy watched his friend cram another monstrous bite of chocolate éclair in his mouth before continuing thickly.

"I fod' cwed hafta do cha wholeskol cha way che was carawing on."

"Uh-uh." Remus raised his eyebrows at Sirius, eyes widening as Sirius proceeded to inform Remus about the classrooms that Padfoot, Prongs, and Wormtail had been forced to clean, resorting to call Professor McGonagall by such names that will not be mentioned here, for delicacys' sake.

They continued in much the same manner for another half hour until Sirius rose from his stool, dusting off his hands on his trouser legs, and announced that they'd better get back to the common room, "Before that old hag has any more reason to stick us in detention for another hundred thousand years."

Remus consented, and the two Marauders proceeded to make the long walk through changing staircases and hidden passages back to the dorm. They were walking in silence past an empty stretch of corridor, which was hung with tapestries that depicted violent scenes of fighting trolls, gnomes and dragons. Remus kept chancing demure glances at Sirius, who kept looking ahead, seemingly oblivious, until-

"Something you want to ask me, Moony?"

Remus cleared his throat loudly.

"Err- well, its just that…uh… well, Padfoot, didn't you say Prongs was looking for me?"

Sirius looked at Remus curiously.

"Yes, he did, as a matter of fact. I was kind of wondering why. D'you want to tell me?"

"Uh, it was uh… nothing. Just that I'd sort of, ah- been thinking about trying out for Gryffindor Chaser, that's all." Remus searched his friends' face to see if Sirius had bought it. Apparently he had. Sirius' face was a mix of disbelief and elatement, until a wave of pride washed over his features and he beamed at Remus.

"That's bloody wonderful, Moony! Why didn't you tell me before?"

"I just kind of thought you might-you know-tease me. I've never done anything of this sort before, so I didn't really know what to expect from you. Prongs is teaching me to fly better. That's' most likely what he wanted to talk to me about."

Thank Merlin I'm a werewolf, for once. I suppose all that lying has finally paid off.

Sirius continued to beam at Remus, and clapped a hand on his back, exclaiming,

"Why the hell would you think that, Moony? I think It's great your trying out, one more Marauder on the team would be awesome! Soon we might just have all four! Of course, Wormtail would never be really likely to…" Sirius trailed off, looking slightly crestfallen. But the next second, a radiant smile took up his features once more as he continued to grin at Remus.

"But it's not like Wormtail would likely make a difference, is it, Moony? Well, I think it's wonderful, just awesome. And with old Prongsy as a teacher, you can't go wrong!"

They walked the rest of the way back to the common room, the oppressive dark silence filled by Sirius' happy chatter about Quidditch maneuvers and brooms. Remus felt a wriggling in his stomach he recognized as guilt, and fear. He would just have to talk to James privately about all this, and soon.

Merlin knows there are things to straighten out anyways.

And with these feelings swirling in his mind, Remus and Sirius clambered through the portrait hole to the sight of a sleeping Peter Pettigrew slumped down in an armchair before the dying fire, an enormous Charms book cracked open on his lap. Sirius rolled his eyes at Remus as they inched their way past their friend and climbed the winding stair to their dormitory. Remus opened the oak-paneled door in anticipation, only to feel relief, mixed with slight disappointment, when the sight of James, lying fully clothed on his bed, greeted him. The glowing, broken moonlight streaming in from the mullioned windows fell on James' pale face, reflecting off his glasses and shining on his jet-black hair, just slightly more tousled than usual, and Remus turned to Sirius, pressing a finger to his lips in warning, as he strode over to James' bedside and removed the black-haired boys' glasses and laid them on James' nightstand. Sighing mournfully, Remus said goodnight to Sirius, who by now had crossed the room to his own four-poster and was in the process of removing his shirt. Remus changed into his pajamas, blew out the candle, and looked out the window for a moment at the luminous moon. A mere sliver of the once full-to-bursting silver orb was now left dangling by its string of stars. Remus shivered in both repulsion and awe. The moon held so many things for him…

Best not to think about that, you know. Just be as human as possible.

Snuggling into his scarlet bedclothes, the auburn-haired boy chanced one last glance at the moon before snapping shut his velvet bed-hangings. Closing his eyes and attempting to sleep, Remus felt oddly empty and morose. Apathetic, almost. He didn't sleep for hours.

James' P.O.V.

God, what am I doing? Why can't I stop thinking about it? Its' not normal, Potter. You know that. Not normal. Not right. Think of Quiddtch. Cobbing, blagging, bludgers, broomsticks. Wronski fient, Quaffles, long goal. Long goal, long goal… LILY! You're in love with Lily. You love Lily. Lily Evans, You have for years. Ever since you first saw her. Lily, with the hair like brown fire and eyes like emeralds. Lily. Lily, Lily, Lily. Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily. Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Moony- GOD NO! You don't. You can't. You don't. You can't. You don't. You can't. You don't. You just can't-

James continued this internal battle for several minutes until he resorted to repeating the desperate mantra, until his thoughts finally forced him to logic, a rare occurrence in the noble and proud mind of James Potter.

You know what happened, Potter.

"But what if it was more than what it seemed?" his brain echoed back.

'Well it wasn't' he replied firmly. There's no way--- it just didn't happen that way. It couldn't have.

James stared up at the canopy of his four-poster before continuing his analysis of the time spent with Remus in the hospital wing.

I went in. I sat by his bed for a bit, I fell asleep. Moony woke me up, and I fell out of my chair.

James scowled good-naturedly up at the scarlet velvet.

Then we talked about my dream of Lily, and Moony was teasing me- James fought to keep images of a naked Remus, tying him down and licking chocolate from his Adams apple- And then, we talked-no, I talked about the transformation, asked him how it was… he told me, I said sorry for the Marauders not being there, he said it was alright but I could tell, he was lying… so I looked at him and told him he should never have to be alone again, and he wouldn't. Or at least I think I said that. And then…

All other thoughts left James' mind, and he gasped as the memory came flooding back to him; laying on Remus' hospital bed and telling him it would be okay, and the brief moment that he had stared into Remus' golden-grey eyes, how lost he had felt, how suffocated he was. Like he was drowning. But at the same time he felt whole and right, like he wasn't really drowning, just passing to something bigger and better than ever before, a place where it didn't matter if Lily wouldn't go out with him, for all his years of trying; a place where it didn't matter how good he was at Quidditch, because there were more important things than putting a Quaffle through a hoop or catching a Snitch. A place where he mattered, him, James Potter, not Prongs the noble stag, not Potter-the-Quidditch-Prodigy, legendary Chaser of Gryffindor House, not Mr. Potter, brilliant student with O's in all classes, not Prongs the Marauder, the marvelous mischief-maker. Just James Potter, behind the tousled hair, wind-ruffled and otherwise, behind the never-ceasing advances at Lily Evans, behind the seemingly endless supply of ideas for pranks and jinxes, there was another James, who did have feelings, and who did care. And, wondering about all these things was how an exhausted and confused James Potter was found a short while later by his friends, glasses removed by the object of his dreams, while that object, a person in sensible reality, was settling down and trying to achieve the sleep James' had, even if it was troubled. And the object of James Potters' dreams was thinking the very same thoughts about James that night that the bespectacled, black-haired boy was thinking about him.

A/N: Now, everyone, repeat after me: Aaawwwww!