DISCLAIMER: i own nothing. jk rowling owns everything. any language used in this fic is not meant to offend anyone so please don't hate on me.
BLACKBIRD:
Remus was on the grass, asleep. James was watching him carefully, however, he seemed to be calm now. Sirius was tugging at innocent strands of grass with gradually building anger, and confusion, and, dare he to ever admit it, fear. He was terrified. What had that been? And would the outcome have been the same had they not searched him out? Remus hadn't been breathing, not effectively, not normally. Would he have remembered how without them?
They were out of their depth, James and he. Of course they were when they hadn't the first clue what had brought on that – sweet Merlin, what had that been?
"Prongs, what the fuck was that?" Sirius asked, his hushed tone belying that he had every desperate expectation of James to answer all of his questions without fail.
"I'm not sure, Padfoot. Actually, I've no idea. None at all," James' soft voice shook with emotion. "I was scared, Sirius. Fuck, I was terrified.
"Are we enough to handle this, Padfoot? Can we get him through this?"
"We have to be."
They both looked over to where Remus lay, still as a statue, in the shade of their birch tree. He gave not a hint of the desperate struggle for air that he had been wrapped up in mere hours ago. James and Sirius had agreed not to move him, what with the difficulty of carrying a five foot eleven male through the castle without attracting the attention of many curious eyes, and the added and sincere likelihood of their throwing in their backs. It certainly wasn't as if either of them was prepared to use magic on their friend, not in his current state. It had also been silently agreed that none of this would come to the attention of any professor, not yet, at least.
"I don't think he's been sleeping properly; look at those bags under his eyes. He looks as if someone has socked him one, right on the pecker," James observed. Sirius nodded, remaining silent under the weight of his thoughts. "Where did it all come undone, Padfoot?"
"When Remus decided he no longer trusted us, is my guess," Sirius huffed with little true ire. He was far too concerned to be hurt by the silence Remus had been treating them all to.
Somewhere beyond the lake, nearer the castle, the carefree sounds of many a student could be heard. It was but a dim murmur to the ears of these two marauders, whom weren't far likely to have noticed in any case.
Why would Remus have reason not to trust them, after everything the three of them had done for him? Granted, Peter would never be the first on anyone's list for a confidant, but had Sirius and James not both proved their worth?
They had accepted Remus without question, had convinced Peter he could do the same, had found an illegal but bloody brilliant way to ease Remus through that once a month event. They loved him, dearly. From the anal retentive way he organised his sock drawer, to the perfect line of his Perfect Prefect spine, from his curious fancy for handing assignments in on time, to his feigned ignorance to any and all Marauder pranks, and from his penchant for raw steaks right down to the mischievous curve of his lips when he found and solved the flaw in their latest scheme.
What could be so terrible, next to the heavily laden list of things Remus had already lived through, that he would beat his knuckles red raw, that he would lose interest in food that his once hearty appetite couldn't normally fail to remind him about, that he would forget that he finally had friends he could trust with anything?
That question left them silent. So silent that it was a surprise when James eventually spoke, the timid murmur grounding Sirius immediately and bringing him hurling back to their present condition.
"Sirius –," James faltered after the hurdle that stood as his first word in more than a minute. Sirius looked from Remus' calm face to James' uncertain one, and nearly forgot his own breath with the turmoil he was witnessing in those hazel windows. His right eyebrow rose to kiss his hairline as he awaited whatever thought looked fit to burst from James – whether said boy wanted it to or not.
"Sirius, I've been thinking. These weeks have been odd. No, they've been uncomfortable, and quiet, and a little unnerving. Remus has never found himself in the least bit flustered over a girl before and, while he's a pretty fantastic secret keeper, surely one of us, at least, would have noticed some far off look in his eyes, some single instance where he forgot to hide his giddiness or lost his train of thought because a certain someone had distracted his eye, had stolen his attention. We would have seen it, somewhere, if Remus had found himself a girl, no matter who that girl was. He can't fool us forever, can he? That simply isn't the Moony I know and love, is it?"
"What is your point, James? Are you asking me whether I still think he was dumped by his nasty snake of a witch?"
"I guess. No. Well, I mean, what if there was girl, right. There was a girl and everything, except that Remus perhaps didn't fancy her all that terribly much and he didn't awfully feel like being with her – in that way. And that girl, that girl was deceptively and surprisingly strong for a girl, and Remus was weakened by the approaching full and not on his best form. And that girl thought herself something of a minx, and a someone who always gets what they want, and what she wanted happened to be our dear Moony." Here James paused, somewhat out of breath, somewhat frightened to continue. Even the twisting of his long, Quidditch calloused fingers stopped momentarily.
Sirius simply stared at him, mildly amused and mildly frightened himself as he couldn't fathom in the least where James was heading and that was a rare occurrence in itself, let alone that James was acting unnaturally nervous for someone so usually and happily pigheaded. With no assistance offered, and keenly aware of how oblivious Sirius currently was to his train of thought thus far, James continued in a panicked whisper. "I'm just wondering, maybe that girl perhaps, and Remus was having none of it, and the girl was really quite incredibly strong for a girl and gave him little if no choice in the matter whatsoever and, oh fuck, Sirius, but he really did smell like sex when he came back that night!"
"Prongs, m'boy, you know I adore you, yes?" James, panting heavily, nodded meekly without meeting Sirius' eyes. "But, mate, I haven't the foggiest spell what you are getting at here. Perhaps you could try saying it, you know, upfront and all. Quit beating around the gooseberry bush and spit it out, my good man. Honestly, I'm certain I've never heard you so unsure of yourself once before in my life. It's incredibly unsettling, even amongst this whole mess."
James, panting only slightly less heavily, sighed even as the tips of his ears turned red.
"I think I'm only going to make this all the more unsettling for you, mate. I don't even know if it's possible. I've never heard of something like this. I mean: you hear it about young witches, in the Prophet, once every so often. And, I guess there was that muggle, the man from Cumbria. I mean, a bloody muggle who made it into the Prophet, because, bless their souls, they were hopeless at catching the nasty bugger themselves, of course. He was evil, must have been wrong in the head. What he did was so cruel. But a man? How would it work, I wonder? Or perhaps I don't care to wonder how that could work. Some things are best left unknown –"
"Oh, for Merlin's soggy sock, spit it out, James!" Sirius half shouted, catching himself in time to not disturb Remus. James jumped all the same, and had the good grace to look sheepish for a brief moment before the darkness and confusion settled in once more behind his glasses.
"Please don't bite my head off, Paddy, please? All I'm suggesting is that maybe this abnormally athletic girl," a look from Sirius had James speedily cutting this latest spiel short.
"Perhaps Remus was forced to have sex with her against his will."
Sirius simply looked at him, numb and slowly being engulfed in a blanket of emptiness.
"On account of his being poorly before the full," James blundered on, heady in his anxiety, "and this girl possessing muscles that ought not to belong on the female body, and maybe she slipped him a potion which made him submissive? There is always the Confundus charm to consider, of course –" James would have continued had Sirius not kindly taken pity on him and removed his ability to make sound using the wand now held tight within his grasp, shaking just slightly.
James, for his part, continued for a few seconds before noticing the peculiar silence. Slowly it dawned on him, as he eyed the death grip Sirius' wand was wrapped within, and he appropriately closed his mouth.
They looked at each other, neither moving more than what was required to breathe adequately, each wishing the other could find some absolute contradiction to this unthinkable impossibility. The issue both were finding, however, was that no matter how insensible and incoherent James' vocal thoughts had been, and even despite how unimaginable the idea was, there were, indeed, ways, wicked and undesirable as they were, for sexual events to transpire in that fashion.
While both knew of the dangers that presented to girls who walked alone at nighttime, as parents and teachers rightfully reminded their young charges, neither had ever even considered such an evil thing actually happening, in real circumstances and not some batty old witches' tale, before now. Certainly, that it may have happened to someone they knew, without then adding that this person happened to be not a distant acquaintance but their best friend, was simply incomprehensible.
It left them quite speechless.
It left them quite unaware that the other body beneath their tree was awakening.
It left them quite unprepared for the sudden chase said body was now taking to.
It left them quite unresponsive for several seconds before they could acknowledge the fading figure dancing desperately along the water's edge, further and further from the shade of their birch tree.
"Ah."
"Fuck."