Remus
Desire is something that happens to other people. I never really understood what people meant when they said they fancied someone at school. I thought I did, but looking back I can see wasn't feeling what everybody else felt. Hardly surprising really: passion, like rage, are ruled by the wolf in me and I kept that part of me under tight control every moment I was with humans. It scared me then to even think what might happen if I let it loose.
Of course it had to happen sooner or later: I was an eighteen-year-old boy.
That day I had stopped to congratulate Cheryl on her mark in Charms and noticed Sirius sulking by himself. I had been tutoring Cheryl for months and was thrilled with her results, but declined her offer of a drink. I would be leaving Hogwarts forever all too soon and wanted to spend every moment of that time with my friends. Lately those friends had mostly turned out to be just Sirius, since James and Peter were always doing romantic and unspeakable things with their girlfriends, but I didn't mind. Sirius was never single for very long and I liked to take the opportunity to spend time with him whenever I could. Before they had all found out what I was I had thought the same of Sirius as pretty much everyone did; he was handsome and charming, fun to be around, but that was about it. After they learned my secret though I saw a whole other side to him, making me realise how James had managed to suffer his exuberance and talent for trouble for so long. James and Peter took a week or two to come to terms with what I was, the idea that their friend wasn't even human shaking their sense of reality, though they tried hard not to show it. On the other hand I don't think Sirius even realised it was something to adjust to. He treated me just the same as he always had, except now the last of the distance disappeared between us. He trusted me with his troubles just as I could now trust him and I came to see a serious side to Sirius Black, the side where all his fun-loving charm was stripped away to reveal the person underneath.
That person became my friend and when I saw his animagus form for the first time I remember feeling the rightness of it somehow. Because of Padfoot's form, he and my wolf form bonded in ways that were simply not possible across the huge gulf of species between the wolf and my other friends, though I never felt them to be less important to me. And yet in spite of all that I never thought of Sirius as anything more than one more of my friends. I didn't get jealous when he had girlfriends, though I missed his company a little and so decided to join his drinking quest that night even though I didn't really drink for fear of losing inhibitions I could ill afford to lose.
On the other hand it turned out I had been pretty accurate when I had called Sirius's plans to have a drink a mission: he seemed to be trying very hard to drink himself to death in one night, and though he seemed to enjoy it I could not say the same for the rest of the bar. He quizzed me mercilessly on my relationship with Cheryl no matter how many times I told him I was just her tutor, and then decided to be supportive, telling me over and over how happy he was for me, despite me reminding him every five seconds that I had no interest in Cheryl. We eventually got chucked out after one of the other patrons threatened to hex Sirius beyond all recognition if he dared sing one more bar of "Congratulations".
As I dragged him back to the castle via the Shrieking Shack tunnel he changed the repetition to tell me not to forget him and that he would miss me. I had never heard Sirius speak this way and it was kinda cute to see him so stripped of his brash exterior – if he hadn't got that one stuck on the loop.
Needless to say it came as something of a surprise to find his lips on mine as we stood outside the portrait hole, and even more of a surprise to find myself responding perfectly naturally to him. I reeled as he pulled away suddenly, disappearing through the portrait hole before I had even realised what had happened.
I think I stood there for a long time, long enough at least for James and Lily to bump into me as they groped each other along the hall. I think James asked if I was okay, but I've no idea how I replied, disappearing as fast as Sirius had and slipping upstairs to bed, though not to sleep. Who could sleep with such a thing to think about. A life's work of repression had been cracked: barely nicked really, but finally I could see through to what was really there. It must have been almost dawn when I could finally stop feeling Sirius's lips on mine and light was seeping past the curtains before I had decided how I felt about him in return.
Desire was not just something that happened to other people any more…
I decided that fate was a bitch, but an extremely funny bitch: not only a werewolf, but a gay werewolf! Someone was definitely pissing themselves laughing over this one, but I decided to join them and chuckled as I finally rolled over and fell asleep.
I guess in my own amusement I had not thought about how Sirius would feel. I had thought he would see the funny side too, and happily teased him about it when I finally woke up. I guess I was wrong, but I knew how to show him the fun side if not the funny side and I think he understood.