Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to JKRowling. Originally posted to the Sirius Black/Remus Lupin Yahoo group. So, yes, my darlings, it is slash. SB/RL – the One True Way. You'll recognize J.K. Rowling's characters. Any unfamiliar people are my own creation. I started this fic in early 2003. "The Order of the Phoenix" arrived before I finished and I seriously considered abandoning it completely in light of the direction canon had taken. However, once I got over the initial shock of Sirius' death in OoP, I decided to finish it along its original story arc. So, it is not completely aligned with the new canon. The reason I started writing this fic was to see if I could write a Sirius who was against accepted fanfic Sirius. I wanted to try to portray him as someone who successfully hid his emotions about himself, his abusive father and unpleasant home-life behind a façade.

I don't know why I never got around to posting it on Whatever. Here it is. The original NC-17 parts have been modified.

Climbing and Soaring

Sixteen-year-old Remus Lupin fell in love the day Sirius Black scaled nine stories up the castle wall. He knew it in his bones. Remus knew it the moment Sirius glanced over and flashed him that grin, while clinging by his fingertips to the massive stone blocks of the ninth floor. Moony knew it, too.

It was all so simple. It made perfect sense on so many levels. At that instant, Remus felt that some giant, astral tuning fork had been struck and the discordant strings within his heart had tightened to play the proper chord. His perpetual sense of never having his emotional bearings disappeared as the internal compass of his soul calibrated to true north. He'd found his way home.

The day started like any other day. It was a perfect, cool autumn morning, with the sky curving overhead in an unbroken arc of blue topaz. The sixth year Gryffindors were on their way to their Care of Magical Creatures class, which they took with the Slytherins. The fifth years of each house were on their way to a shared Herbology class. Unfortunately, whenever the students of both houses intermingled on their passage to or from classes, trouble invariably erupted. Sometimes it was simple name-calling and posturing. Sometimes insults were exchanged and muttered challenges were thrown down and accepted, to be decided later in an agreed-upon location far away from the professors' notice. And sometimes the situation would spontaneously combust into fistfights or the hurling of hexes.

This day the rivalry between the two houses took an unexpected turn and gave birth to a new school legend.

No one could remember what set it off. One minute the students were leaving the building and wending their way to class. The next, there was a small knot of Slytherins and Gryffindors milling around each other, their voices energized with challenges and dares. Remus wasn't really paying attention until he heard Andrew Avery sneer, "Black, you're full of shit. You can't climb up those nine stories without magic and you sure as hell can't do it in 15 minutes."

Remus glanced at his raven-haired friend and recognized the placid, enigmatic expression on Sirius' face, a disguise that hid the mischievous, rapid-fire activity of his brain. He also noticed the familiar, slightly manic gleam in the blue-gray eyes. "How much money do you have on you?" Sirius asked Andrew in a deceptively mild tone.

Avery glared, his nostrils curling with dislike as if Sirius personified a particularly noxious odor. He then dug into the pockets of his robe. "Two galleons, three knuts."

"Fine. I bet you two galleons and three knuts that I can climb up to the roof of the ninth floor in fifteen minutes."

"Without using any magic!" Evan Rosier's voice chimed in.

"Agreed," Sirius said quietly.

Severus Snape stared disdainfully at Sirius. "When do you propose pulling this little stunt, Black?"

"We have time before class starts. Why not now?" Sirius said, with an almost disinterested glance at the imposing façade of the castle.

A chorus of voices broke out, the Slytherins scoffing and jeering, the Gryffindors supportive and cheering.

"This I've got to see-"

"You can do it, Sirius."

"If we're lucky, he'll fall and break his neck."

"If he falls, hopefully he'll land on a couple of you creeps."

Remus stood with his closest friends observing the other students. Lily Evans glanced nervously at James Potter and said in a low voice, "James, maybe you should stop him."

James just grinned at her, leaning lightly on his broom. He was planning to spend some time practicing a new Quidditch move in their free hour before lunch. Sirius was daring a feat that would add additional luster to the Marauders' myth, assuming he didn't kill himself in the process. It was shaping up to be a good day. "It's okay, Lil. He's been climbing the cliffs in Cornwall for years. He'll be fine. Just look at the stone. You can see there are all sorts of cracks and ledges to hang onto."

Lily shook her head, realizing her boyfriend was in full Marauder mode, prepared to aid and abet Sirius' latest risky challenge. She took out her wand, thinking about how quickly she could conjure up a huge pillow should Sirius lose his grip on the stone.

Peter Pettigrew also looked apprehensively at the looming wall. "But, James, look up. It's really smooth on the upper floors. What if he can't find anything to hold onto?"

"You can hold onto these, if you wouldn't mind," Sirius interjected, handing Peter his robes, shirt, school tie, and wand. "Thanks for your concern, but I know there will be handholds and toeholds up there. James, will you fly up afterwards and give me a lift down from the roof?"

"Sure." He added loudly so the entire crowd could hear. "And since Sirius won't use magic to help himself climb, none of you lot will use magic to interfere with him!"

Sirius stood a little apart from the crowd, eyeing the castle and planning his route. He was dressed in blue jeans, trainers and a white tee-shirt He looked good, from the crown of his shaggy head, down his well-toned back to the curves of his nicely firm ass. Remus couldn't help but notice that most of the girls in the group had moved so that their taller, male classmates did not block their view. He also realized that the group of students had increased in number as members of other years and houses had somehow materialized. The student telepathic network was evidently operating at peak efficiency. Allan Pierce, a Hufflepuff seventh-year, pulled out a watch. "I'll be the timer, alright?"

"Tell me when to start, Pierce," Sirius requested.

"On your mark…get set…GO!"

A roar rose from the crowd as Sirius sprinted up to the castle wall and leapt surprisingly high, one foot pushing off the wall to give him the additional lift he needed to grab onto a large fissure in the rocks. He hung for a second until his feet found two small toeholds, and then he was off, climbing as easily as a spider, all long legs and tanned, muscled arms. His path slanted upwards to the right until he came to the corner of the wall. The ragged edges of the stone were as good as a ladder and Sirius quickly climbed straight up until he was level with the third story. Then the stone smoothed out and the tall Gryffindor was forced to head back onto the flat surface of the building.

Remus glanced anxiously at the daunting height looming above Sirius' head. It didn't seem like there were many indentations or crevices for him to use, but he still made steady progress up the wall. Unfortunately, Sirius passed by Professor Clark's office just as the teacher was watering some plants on his windowsill. The astonished professor stuck his head out the window, craning to look up at the lithe figure scrabbling along the stone above him.

"Mr. Black! What the hell are you doing?"

"Climbing, Professor," came the laconic reply.

"Well, climb back down this instant!"

"That would be dangerous without a rope, sir."

Clark sputtered ineffectually for a moment, then shot back into his office like an extremely irate Jack-In-the-Box going in reverse. Within moments, the Professor burst onto the scene, glaring at the noisy students. Almost simultaneously he was joined by Headmaster Dumbledore and Professor Kettleburn, who had noticed a large crowd milling about where a large crowd shouldn't have been. Clark began fuming to Dumbledore. Remus' keen ears caught some of the stream of words pouring from between the Professor's rigid lips. Words like "bad example," "impressionable," "fall," and "death." He couldn't hear Dumbledore's response.

Sirius was well past the half-way point when Allan Pierce's voice boomed out, "Seven minutes!" His progress was noticeably slower now. Sirius didn't appear tired or in trouble; he just seemed to be taking greater care in selecting his perches. Remus watched as Sirius placed his left foot along a crack. He shifted his weight and moved his right foot, and suddenly the rock gave way and Sirius was left dangling by his fingertips. The crowd gasped and some of the girls screamed. Sirius didn't panic. Quickly and surely he found other spots to place his feet, and continued his assault up the castle face.

In fact, Sirius was so caught up in his activity, he had forgotten about the crowd below him. All that mattered to him was the challenge of the castle, looking up, plotting his course, planning his moves several steps ahead of where he actually was, as if this was more a mental puzzle than a physical one. He thirsted to test himself, to measure his skills and brains and instincts against the unexpected.

Sirius was answering a challenge within himself, and by doing so he declared his own freedom - freedom from the rules and strictures his parents used to stifle and bind him. They had selected a preordained path for his life and all their energies focused on forcing him to follow it. They didn't understand why he rebelled. They didn't understand him, no matter how much he tried to explain. Why wouldn't they listen? Why couldn't they simply hear him? But, none of that mattered now.

The sky was so brilliant. The sun caressed his back with a pleasing warmth. He smelled the dry mustiness coming off the stone, felt the grit beneath his fingers, and heard his own steady breathing and the scrape of his shoes finding purchase. He knew he would win this game, not just the bet. The bet had been nothing more than an excuse to set it all in motion. He was going to climb the castle. This was a moment so perfect he knew that he'd remember it for the rest of his life. For these few minutes, Sirius Black was purely happy.

"James, will you lend me your broom?" Remus asked. James willingly handed it over and Remus kicked off. He flew in a gentle, rising curve out toward the lake and then circling back to approach Sirius from the side. He kept well away, not wanting to be accused of interference and also not wanting to startle Sirius with his sudden appearance. But he had to see his friend's face. He suspected that those handsome features would be alight with a combination of mischief and happiness. And maybe that other expression, the one Remus privately thought of as his "Eureka" face, the one that bloomed across his olive skin and lit up his mesmerizing pale eyes. The eager, vibrant expression that indicated inspiration had struck and another knotty assignment was about to go down in defeat. Remus wanted to see that face, because he liked the way it made him catch his breath.

Sirius caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. It was Remus on James' broom, his eyes lit with a fierce, golden glow, watching with a combination of worry and some other emotion. Excitement? Enthusiasm? Desire? 'Desire? I wish.' Sirius thought. He flashed Remus his best smile as he expertly climbed the last few feet to the top of the wall. Hauling himself onto the roof, Sirius vaguely heard Pierce's voice yelling above the shouting crowd, "Fourteen minutes, thirty-eight seconds!"

Sirius stood still, shaking out his arms and allowing his breathing to slow back to normal. Remus landed next to him, hopping off the broom and grinning, all the while trying to ignore the pounding of his heart and the stirring of the wolf deep inside as Moony twitched, sensing he was near something he very much wanted.

Resolutely pushing Moony back into the recesses of his being, Remus declared, "That was brilliant, although Dumbledore is waiting for you, and so is some sort of detention, I'm sure."

"Well, it was bound to happen, Remus. I've wanted to do that for a long, long time."

Sirius stepped closer, his black hair a startling contrast to the azure sky. There was one more thing he wanted to do that would make any detention worthwhile.

Remus felt his body tingle at Sirius' proximity. He knew he was falling into those beautiful eyes, and he would spend his life swimming through their depths. He had to say something. He smiled and asked, "Do you always do whatever you want to do?"

Sirius considered for a moment. "Not always. But, I've wanted to do this for a long time, too."

He swiftly tilted his head and kissed Remus full on the lips. The werewolf's mouth dropped open in surprise. The broom clattered to the roof unnoticed. Remus pulled back, staring at his slightly taller friend. Then he grabbed at Sirius' shoulders, feeling the tee-shirt slightly damp with sweat and he eagerly sought Sirius' lips with a hungry, clumsy intensity that surprised them both. Remus felt strong arms wrap around him and pull him close.

"MR. BLACK! MR.LUPIN!" roared Dumbledore.

The boys sprang apart, startled, only to realize that the Headmaster was using a Sonorous charm to amplify his voice. "GET ON THAT BROOM AND COME DOWN HERE IMMEDIATELY!"

"Now we're in for it," Remus mumbled, scrambling to get the broom. He mounted it and, glancing over his shoulder, watched Sirius fling one long leg over the broom and scoot up close behind him. He was still smiling. "Let's go." They kicked off. Remus was acutely aware of Sirius' hands resting lightly on his waist. He briefly considered putting the broom through some sharp turns, just to make those long fingers tighten their grip on him, but he didn't think James would appreciate any potential broom abuse.

The crowd of students had almost disappeared. They could see their classmates far across the grounds gathering near Professor Kettleburn. Dumbledore regarded them expressionlessly. "Mr. Lupin, you are not in any trouble. You merely provided the transportation with which to return Mr. Black to the ground where he belongs. Mr. Black, you will come to my office after your Magical Creatures class. By then I will have decided what to do with you this time."

"Yes, sir."

"Off with you both!"

Remus couldn't concentrate on what Kettleburn was saying about the different varieties of kelpies. His eyes kept darting to look at Sirius. A thrill tingled through his innards as he realized that Sirius was distracted, too. Several times their eyes met, and they quickly looked away. Remus was sure that the whole class must be aware that something was going on, but no one seemed to notice.

The usually studious werewolf found himself daydreaming. He remembered the very moment Sirius entered his life…..

The first years milled about, waiting for Professor McGonagall to start the Sorting Ceremony. Remus stood stock-still, trying to hide his nervousness. What if all these people suddenly discovered his secret? His eyes closed tightly as he fought to smother the vision of hordes of black-robed students screaming at him, their faces twisted with revulsion, throwing things, punching him as he struggled to flee. A quiet voice suddenly murmured in his ear, warm breath ghosting against his cheek. "Don't worry. All you have to do is put the Sorting Hat on your head."

Remus glanced up at a tall, gangly, black-haired boy whose ears and nose were too big for his face and whose protruding Adam's apple bobbed under his skin like a trapped bird. But, what struck Remus momentarily dumb were the most unusual eyes he had ever seen. The irises were like flowers whose individual petals were either pale blue or gray, all mixed together, with thin veins of black radiating out from the pupils. A somewhat goofy, lopsided grin suddenly lit the angular face, putting Remus at ease. "If I can believe my sister," the boy continued, nodding his head towards a beautiful teen at the Ravenclaw table, "the Hat will have a conversation with you inside your head and then tell you what House you're in. And that's it."

Then, even as Remus opened his mouth to reply, Professor McGonagall's voice rang out, "Alcourt, Lewis." A chubby boy with wispy brown hair guardedly approached the stool. He timidly placed the Hat on his head. After only a few seconds, the Hat shouted out "Hufflepuff!" Lewis Alcourt scampered off to the cheering Hufflepuff table.

"Black, Sirius."

Remus watched as the skinny boy walked calmly and surely to the stool. His flowing black robe didn't hide the abrupt angles and sharp edges of his spindly form. Remus half expected to see the points of the boy's elbows scythe through his sleeves. Indeed, the robe made him look like some sort of overly tall, emaciated heron. By rights the boy should have tripped over his own big feet, or dropped the Hat from his over-large hands. But, he didn't. He moved with surprising grace, in spite of his ungainly appearance. And he seemed completely at ease, not at all nervous or self-conscious at being the center of attention. Right before he placed the Hat on his head, he grinned at another black-haired boy, who was nervously fidgeting at the edge of the throng of first years. After several long moments of silence, the Hat shouted out "Gryffindor!" and the coltish boy smoothly rose to his feet and joined his new housemates.

The Sorting moved quickly and, almost before he realized it, Remus was sitting on the stool. The Hat slipped over his face. 'I wonder if it knows,' Remus thought, and was startled to get a reply.

'Knows what? That you're a werewolf? Of course I know.' The Hat seemed inordinately amused by this.

Remus gulped. 'Please don't say anything.'

'Calm yourself, child. All I do is poke around and decide what house you'd best fit into. Whether you end up eating one of your housemates is not my concern. Where do you think you should go?'

'I think I'm studious enough for Ravenclaw.'

'Hmff! Wrong! You have a point, but that's not the house for you.'

Remus' stomach dropped. 'You're going to sort me into Slytherin, aren't you?'

'Wrong again! And, here I thought you were a smart boy!' The Hat chortled, but then its tone turned serious. 'Dark creature you may be, but I sense a purity in your heart and mind that would not thrive in Slytherin. Add that to the courage you have already shown, that one so young should deal so valiantly with the stigma of lycanthropy, and the only place I can put you is "Gryffindor!"

With a sigh of relief, Remus swept the Hat off and hurried to the Gryffindor table. He slid into a seat across from the tall, black-haired boy, who smiled at him, and extended his hand. "Hello, Remus Lupin. I'm Sirius Black." Remus found himself grinning back, and eagerly shook the proffered hand. A friendship was born.

And now, it looked like that firm friendship might blossom into something more.