A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews! I am so sorry thatI kind of quitted on this fic almost five (!) years ago. I think I just got distracted with other things in life and just never continued writing this, for which I now feel so stupid. And needless to say, both you and I probably have forgotten about this story long time ago, but now I'm going to finish this, anyway. It's a promise ;)

Chapter 11: Kissing and Running

'I think we're better now', Remus said, staring at his Potion's homework.

'Who?'

'Me and Sarah. We've been talking a lot.' He frowned. 'Or not exactly. Maybe that's why it's going better now. We haven't been talking that much.'

'Good', I said. 'Or, good for you that you're better. I… are you done with that dusty book?'

It was February and I hadn't interrupted Remus and Sarah doing anything quite private, anymore. In fact, I had decided that it was better to avoid Sarah, and try to stay away from Remus when he was with her. It wasn't my fault that I couldn't stand her. Something about her was annoying me too hard, and even though I couldn't find out what it actually was, I couldn't help myself from wanting to punch her everytime I saw her.

'How's Susie?' Remus asked. He sounded a bit tense, probably being worried about his homework.

'Alive.'

'Padfoot.'

'Alive and healthy, I guess. You know that I don't see her that often.'

'You still shagging her?'

I flinched. 'Are you sick? You sound a bit like James when Lily's mad at him. Thanks to Merlin that it's not happening so often,anymore.'

'I'm alright', he said quickly. 'I just… sorry. You don't speak so much about her and I get curious.'

'Well, I've got no one else, have I? You have Jones to shag, but I've got no one. And sometimes I just got tired with doing it myself…'

'Okay', he interrupted me. I felt surprisingly good seeing that he had blushed. 'I got it. So you're seeing Susie, then?'

'I've seen her a few times after Christmas, for a nice shag in the greenhouse. If you prefer to call that seeing someone, just go ahead.'

Remus looked worried. 'I'm not really trying to mock you, you know - '

'Got it. You just thought I should go to find a proper girlfriend.'

'I didn't say that.'

'But you don't like me shagging her.'

He stared at me. 'You don't sound like you were in love with her.'

'You don't sound like you were in love with Jones.'

'It's not that simple.'

'Sure. For you. And for me it is, apparently, since I can't have sex with my friend without being in love with her.'

He opened his mouth and then shut it again. I stared at him and took my books. We were sitting in the almost empty common room, but James was probably upstairs and he was surely far better company than Remus right now.

'Sorry', he said when I was already standing in the doorway. 'Sirius. Turn around.'

I did. He looked lost, and, well, who could imagine punching Remus Lupin when he's looking lost? The boy's far too good at it.

Far too good, indeed.

'I don't want to piss you off', he said quietly as if he had been trying not to let the third-graders playing Wizard Chess in a corner hear what he was talking. 'You do whatever you want with Susie. I can't understand why it's bothering me, but, well, it's not my business.'

I shrugged. He looked miserable and it was almost funny.

'Really. I won't let you leave if you're mad.'

I rose my eyebrows. 'Is that so? And how do you think you'll stop me?'

He looked confused. 'Sirius, I'm really sorry - '

'Okay, stop it', I interrupted him. 'I'm not mad. And you don't have to like Susie. So I don't need to like Jones, either.'

'Don't you like Sarah?' he asked. 'I wondered about it sometimes, but then I always thought I was just overreacting.'

'No, I don't like her', I said with a sigh. 'I kind of used to, but maybe I've got enough of her already. Thanks to Merlin, she's not my girlfriend. Shouldn't you do your homework?'

He glanced at the book that was lying on the table. I could hear him turning back to look at me, but by then I was already half-way to our dormitory, and he didn't follow.

*

'Well, what's wrong?'

I stared at James. His potion was turning blue even though it ought to be purple, but for some reason I didn't bother to mark him about that. Purple or blue, who cares. Besides, Slughorn never bothered to come see what we had made, except when there had been an explosion at first. He always seemed to end up standing next to Lily and admiring her potion, and, well, I couldn't really blame him for skipping as for Lily.

'What do you mean?' I said and added a few straws of frog grass to my potion. It turned pink. 'Nothing's wrong, except the fact that Snivellys has apparently forgotten to wash his hair. Again.'

'Remus didn't eat breakfast and you aren't talking to him', James said calmly. 'Besides, you just mentioned Snivellus' hair. Something's bugging you, and apparently something's bugging Remus, too, and I'd like to know what and why.'

'I can't say anything about Remus.' I threw a quick glance at his back to the desk in front of us. He had leaned above the desk and his brown hair was almost long enough to cover his ears. His back looked quite tense, like he had totally focused on making the potion. Well, that was probably exactly what he was doing, anyway.

'That's one more reason', James said, 'you not being to able to say anything about Remus. That's not natural.'

'What?'

'Shut up, Pads. I don't know why, but you two seem to have your own world. It's not like it's bothering me, I've got Lily, but it's the truth. Are you fighting?'

'No.'

'Well, what's it, then? You've realized that you fancy Jones?'

'Merlin, no', I bursted. 'James, shut up. Your potion's turning green.'

'Yours is red. What were you doing? Putting all the weed there?'

'Somebody was disturbing me.'

He made a face at me. 'If you don't really know what's wrong, figure it out. You're far too annoying when you're like this.'

'Well, you're free to run to Lily.'

'Pads.'

'I've got a headache. See you later.'

I stood up. James sighed and I heard Slughorn saying something that sounded like 'Mr. Black, what the hell do you think you're doing?' but well, I honestly didn't, and it wasn't his business, anyway. I didn't glance at Remus but could still see him staring at me when I stepped to the door and closed it behind me.

The corridors were all empty. It was sheer luck that I happened to remember which lesson Susie used to have when I had potions, and one should never waste his luck. I had waited for the lesson to end about fifteen minutes until the door opened. She was the third to come out and even though she looked quite surprised, she didn't say anything until we reached one of the secret passages.

'Sirius', she said then, short of breath. 'What're you doing?'

'Don't talk, please', I asked as kindly as I could.

She rolled her eyes but let my fingers go under her shirt. Her skin was amazingly warm and by kissing her I could forget quite many things.

*

I remembered the full moon when it was already dark. When I entered the dormitory James was looking for his coat, barely bothering to glance at me.

'Has he gone?'

'Thirty minutes ago', James said bluntly. 'I don't remember when I've seen him so absent. He wouldn't look me into eyes.'

I swallowed. 'But he's okay, isn't he?'

'Well, what do you think?' James stood up, holding the coat. I could see his knuckles going whiter when he squeezed the collar. 'He's going to transform in few hours and he doesn't even know if his friends are going to be there. You know, if you hadn't come, me and Pete couldn't have done it, either. It would have been too dangerous. And now he has to wait there alone and he's probably sure that no one's coming.'

'I came', I said weakly.

'James, drop it', Peter's voice called from the bathroom.

'I don't want to intervene', James kept on. 'If you want to fight, just fight. But you can't pay it back by letting him stay alone in full moon.'

'I'm not paying anything back. I simply forgot. I'm sorry, I wasn't here when he left and I totally forgot…'

'Drop it, Prongs, please', Peter said.

James nodded slowly but it didn't make me feel any better. 'Right. We've got to go, anyway.'

I inhaled deep. James and Peter turned to door and I tried to follow them keeping pangs of guilt out of my mind, but it was almost impossible. An hour later, when we sat outside Shrieking Shag and tried to listen when he had transformed and we were able to go inside, I felt even worse.

There was one thing in my life: my friends. I had run away from home, Regulus wouldn't talk to me and Andromeda was the only relative left who would even look at me without turning away. I didn't tend to think about it too much or talk about it, but sometimes I still woke up with the familiar panic about who I was and what the hell I was doing here and where my whole had disappeared. It didn't really help to know that I could never have stayed with them. However, I had to have something, and now I had my friends.

There was one rule: don't hurt Remus. Nobody had said it aloud but it was still there. Sitting there and listening Remus cry and shout when he transformed I couldn't understand anything else but those few words: don't hurt Remus.

'It's the time', James said, when the shack had gone almost silent.

I was happy to say good bye to my own mind and turn into a dog, whose world was usually so much simpler and happier than mine. Except this time. For the whole night we run in the forest with the wolf, but I couldn't focus on scents or running and sniffing and everything else I usually found so exciting that it was hard to think about anything else. When we finally got back to the house I was almost happy to turn back into a human and fall asleep on the floor.

*

Someone was squeezing my shoulder. I didn't want to wake up, it was surely too early to even think about waking up, I wasn't even hungry and besides, my head was aching like hell.

'Padfoot?'

Oh, shit, it was Moony. I could have hit him if he had been James or Peter.

'Sirius? Madame's Pomfrey is going to come eventually. You've got to wake up.'

Madame Pomfrey? I had a headache but that wasn't a reason to go to Hospital Wing, and I didn't remember making my hands explode or getting my head crashed by a Bludger or anything else.

Except the fact that we weren't in Hospital Wing. I was lying on quite hard and cold wooden floor and Remus' voice was cracking.

'I'm sorry', I muttered trying to open my eyes.

He stared at me. His face was pale and there was a new wound going across his left cheek, but otherwise he seemed to be doing fine. I would have wanted to hit my head against something hard when I realized what had happened last evening and how I had forgotten about the full moon. And now he was just sitting on the floor next to me even though he had his quite comfortable bed waiting for him next to the wall.

'I'm sorry', I repeated, 'sorry, sorry, sorry. I wasn't planning to forget, it just happened. I would never leave you alone in full moon, never, even though you were the most annoying prat in the whole world.'

'Thanks a lot', he said and didn't sound mad, thanks to Merlin or anyone else who happened to listen. 'Are you alright? I almost couldn't make you wake up.'

'I'm fine', I said. 'Just a bit exhausted. But you look pale. Is everything fine?'

He stared at me. 'You're mumbling, Sirius. I'm not angry. You can stop regretting.'

'I'm so fucking sorry I did it. James almost killed me already, you don't need to be so forgiving.'

'I trust James. He's probably mocked you enough.'

'You look pale.'

'I'm always pale', he claimed. He had a blanket wrapped around his body but he still looked like he was cold. Without thinking I started to rub his arms and he looked away but didn't stop me. I could hear his heart beating.

After a moment I stopped. He turned to glance at me and I tried to catch my breath.

Don't hurt Remus.

He stared at me without even blinking. His eyes were sharp and intense and almost frightening and there was something in them, maybe sorrow or worrying or maybe something else, I couldn't really figure out. For some reason I couldn't remember anyone looking at me like that before. I stopped rubbing his arms and instead wrapped my own arms around him, just so that he wouldn't look like he was so cold.

'Pads,' Remus muttered with a tone that I couldn't interpret.

'Shut up, you're shivering,' I whispered back at him, somehow absent-mindedly.

And then he said nothing. After a moment I realized that what I was doing was pretty much hugging him, and that he was somehow leaning against me, and that he breathed quite heavily and hold me back. I had a faint feeling that I didn't know what was happening anymore, but I really didn't care, and Remus' skin didn't feel that cold anymore, and mine didn't, either, and all in all I just felt really good.

*

Madame Pomfrey kept him in Hospital Wing the whole day, but when we went to Great Hall for the dinner, he was already sitting at Gryffindor Table. James sat next to him with Lily and patted him on the shoulder. I sat opposite to him and couldn't help noticing that Sarah wasn't there.

A few hours later I was lying on my bed watching the ceiling. James had gone for a Quidditch practice and Peter and Lily were playing Wizard Chess in the common room, and Remus was probably taking a shower, because I could hear the noise coming from the bathroom. I felt weird and restless and wondered if I had to go to find Susie, but I didn't really know if that had helped.

'Oh.'

I shut one of my eyes and stared at Remus, who had just walked out of the bathroom. His hair was wet and the straws were clinging to his face and neck.

'Hi', I said. 'James is playing Quidditch and Pete's trying to prove that he can beat Lily in Wizard Chess.'

'Poor boy', Remus said. 'What're you doing?'

'Watching the ceiling.' I sighed and shook my head. 'I don't know really. I guess I'm wondering that.'

'What?' He walked across the room, stopped in front of the wardrobe and then seemed to realize that he was already wearing jeans and T-shirt, since he started walking again and ended up sitting on my bed.

'I feel weird', I said trying to keep every possible thought away from my head. It was surprisingly hard, even though I was usually rather brilliant at it.

Remus looked like his head had been exploding with all the thoughts. 'What kind of weird?'

I stared at him. 'Dunno. Maybe good.'

'What?'

'Good kind of weird. Maybe.'

I sighed and got up so that I was sitting on the bed next to him. He was staring through the window.

'I don't want my mind to get messed up', he said finally, his quiet, low voice cracking a bit. 'Really. I don't understand anything anymore and I just want to get my head clear.'

'Sorry.'

'It's not your fault.'

I shook my head and leaned forward, closing my eyes and rubbing them like it had been that easy to escape the weariness. I didn't have time to think before I heard him taking a deep breath and then his nose was pushing against my face. My eyes flew open and he was staring straight back at me, his blue eyes wide open. He looked terrified but didn't blink. I couldn't, either. I stared at his eyes and tasted his breaths as he came a bit closer, just an inch so that my mouth collided with his.

I stopped both breathing and thinking.

He pressed his mouth carefully against mine. I had to close my eyes as I tried to find a way to let it happen, but I felt just enormously awkward and clumsy as I tried to kiss him back.

He pressed his forehead against mine when our mouths broke apart, and for a moment I felt his breaths on my face. Then he moved back and I opened my eyes to see him leaning his face against his hands.

'Remus?' My mind was hoarse and cracking.

He shook his head, stood up and rushed to the downstairs before I had time to say anything else.