SOFT SUNLIGHT
Summary: Set in 1973, the Hogwarts' Marauders' third year, this multi-chaptered fiction develops and expands upon the framework of what we are told happens at this part of history… and what we aren't.
Warnings: Adult language, Homosexual relationship, Heterosexual relationship,
Main Pairing: Sirius/Remus
Other Characters: James, Peter, Lily/Severus, Andromeda, Bellatrix/Rudolphus, Lucius/Narcissa.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the twisted imagination and the ridiculously slow laptop I am typing this onto.
A/N: This was my first attempt at writing slash. It isn't amazing, but I am proud of it, and I would appreciate constructive criticism if it is truly helpful and not abusive.
Chapter 6: New Forms, New Discoveries, New Identities
The three who were not facing the eagle turned, and the four made a picture of shock that nearly made her laugh.
"You can talk?"
Peter was suitably impressed, and the others even more so.
"How exactly do we do that?"
The eagle turned to Sirius, who had spoken, and asked who would like to go first. The three would-be Animagi looked at each other, sizing up the choice.
***
"I will."
Peter walked forwards, and sat cross-legged beside the fire, next to the eagle's armchair. Anni picked up her wand in her beak, there was a blue shimmer in the air and she appeared, as a human, fully clothed and gracefully lying back in her chair, not a hair out of place.
"Are you sure you know what you want to be?"
Peter assured her he was.
"Think about your animal; how you will look, how you will move, how you will sound when you squeak, anything. Think strongly of that animal and nothing else."
She tapped him on the head with her wand, as though knighting him, and muttered a spell. For what seemed a long time the common room was frozen how it was- Anni murmuring half made up words and strings of nonsense, Peter thinking determinedly of rats and the others trying not to breathe.
There was a ragged flash of silver, and Peter disappeared. In his place was a rat, that lay, dazed, for a few minutes before getting up with difficulty, all the muscles wrong. Eventually he seemed to have got the hang of moving, and started exploring the world from a rat's perspective. Peter then seemed to want to be himself again, and sat next to Anni's foot, trying to be a human again.
"Close your eyes, everyone. The flash will blind us, and then he'll come back naked."
Anni pointed the wand at the rat before closing her own eyes and turning him back. The predicted flash of jagged silver came, and Peter came back, lying twisted on the rug, clothes in shreds around him and hair in his face. Without opening her eyes, Anni repaired his clothes, and he scrabbled into them.
***
"That was awesome. Someone else's turn now."
James chuckled and slid forwards onto the rug.
"I want to be a stag." he said decisively, and closed his eyes.
The same procedure followed, but the coarse flash of green cleared to a majestic stag, which tossed its head and stamped round the common room, making them all laugh.
But even stags get bored, and he went to Anni to be changed back. They closed their eyes, and when James had slid into his newly repaired clothes, Sirius leant forwards.
"I'm not sure what to be." There was a serious note in his voice none had heard before, and they were silent while he thought about it.
"I know." he said suddenly, and came to sit down. His flash, when it came, was a smooth red, sliding over him like mist, before clearing to show a black, shaggy but perfectly happy… dog.
***
"A dog?"
It came in four different tones, four different voices but at one time.
The dog – Sirius – bounded over towards Remus, checked himself, and walked rather more sedately towards all four of them, before turning.
"Woof," he said happily, and they all laughed; Sirius' laugh like barking but still with his voice in it. There was something far more human in his expression too, Anni noted, and stored this information away for careful consideration later.
After a long time, he padded over to Anni and laid his head in her lap, clearly asking to be changed back. They all closed their eyes, but the red misty flash, while blinding all the others, seemed to force Remus' eyes open. Sirius, unlike the other two, came back, as with Anni, sitting back on the floor, not a hair out of place but still completely naked. Remus saw this, and the red only just kept out of his cheeks as he realized how attractive Sirius was. He had known for a long time that he was bisexual, but had never realized how much he had fancied Sirius. Then Anni repaired the clothes surrounding Sirius, and he sat up and put them on, smoothly but slowly, apparently lost in thought. Then he looked over at Remus who, not expecting it, only just shut his eyes in time and didn't dare open them again until Sirius spoke.
"That's so cool! I suddenly knew so much stuff I never knew, about… myself."
Anni, suspecting but saying nothing, looked at her watch, charmed so it would work within the grounds, and brought the time, 2 a.m, to the others' attention.
***
Holding Sirius back, she got straight to the point.
"What was it Si? I know something changed, so it's no use denying it. I want to know."
"You don't need to know."
"Do you know?"
Startled by this question, Sirius decided to tell her.
"I…thought …suddenly…realized…how…tell…others…think...but…straight."
Sirius seemed to have lost what he was trying to say. Something clicked in Anni's mind, and she told Sirius her suspicions. Wearily he agreed, and she promised not to tell, slipping from the common room as silently as she had come. Sirius made his way upstairs, and, in response to James, answered that Anni had wanted to tell him something.
***
"Well, something should be done to celebrate such a momentous occasion." pronounced James, and was obviously waiting for a response, but none came. Peter was still extra shy after his outburst, and Remus and Sirius were wrapped up in their own feelings.
"How about new nicknames? I'll be Proud, you can be Paddy, you can be Worm and you can be Nightwolf. Cool, or cool?"
He looked round expectantly, and Remus stirred himself out of his thoughts.
"Tell you what, make me moonlight or something. Moonwolf, perhaps."
"Ok, Rem. You're Moonwolf, Si is –"
"Padfoot," interjected the proposed owner of this name.
"Ok, Padfoot, Pit is Worm-for-a-tail, and I'm Proud." They dispersed, and went to bed after this, but from then on they tried to call each other by these nicknames, which eventually turned into Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs.
****