Interlude: Sirius Black
(fourth year, 1975)
Remus has got no right to react the way he does, really, when he and Alice catch Sirius and Marlene going at it in a broom closet. He'd been expecting Remus to admonish him, act disappointed in him, maybe express some confusion or concern about Sirius's life choices and what exactly possessed him to start having sex, and with Marlene, of all people.
The confusion is on point—Remus furrows his eyebrows and is totally speechless for about a minute of Alice's rambling as the gears in his brain turn it over—but the rest of Remus's reaction is totally unexpected. His face is bright red when he turns on his heel and starts marching back down the corridor the way he came. If Sirius didn't know better, he'd think Remus was angry.
"Remus? Remus!"
He feels shitty for completely ditching Marlene in order to go after Remus instead of staying and supporting her through what's bound to be an unpleasant conversation with Alice. But honestly—and he feels shitty about this, too, but not enough to stop himself—his relationship with Remus is more important to him than his relationship with Marlene. If Remus is upset with Sirius's life choices, then Sirius's top priority is to figure out a way to make that right with him.
He catches up to Remus and says in a low voice, "In here."
Remus allows Sirius to drag him into an empty classroom and close the door. "How long?"
"Since—since January. Since Bellatrix."
"I can't even believe I'm asking you this, but do you love her?"
"What? No, Remus." Why does he feel like he owes Remus an apology? It's his sex life—his business. "It's—too recent for that. I don't know her well enough."
"Well, then, that's even worse," Remus snaps. "I thought—but what do I know? It's not like we've ever talked about how far we'd be willing to go if we got girlfriends."
"She's not my girlfriend," says Sirius with a dry laugh.
"Oh, she's not your girlfriend? That's why you were shagging her in a broom cupboard?"
"I can't stop," he whispers. "I can't, Remus. If I knew how, I would have ended it the second it started."
A shadow crosses over Remus's face. "Why? Are you really so horny all the time that you can't—"
"It's not that. It's… it's everything. It's the only way I know how to make the rest of it go away. I just—I need something, and I shouldn't be doing it—I hate myself for so many reasons for doing it—but for a few minutes, when it happens, it makes the rest of the bullshit go away. Do you have something else you can give me that will do the same thing, Remus? Because I don't think you do, and if you don't…"
And Remus—Sirius doesn't understand it, but Remus looks like Sirius has just slapped him. "Fine," he says eventually, and he leaves, and Sirius—Sirius lets him.
After that, they avoid directly talking about Marlene at all unless James or Peter brings her up, in which case Sirius gives one-word answers and pointedly keeps his gaze directed away from Remus until he's able to change the subject. Sirius is totally blindsided, therefore, when two weeks later, he's alone with Remus in the dormitory, and Remus brings it up.
"Is it worth it?"
Sirius looks up from his Divination essay and furrows his eyebrows. Remus doesn't explain, but Sirius knows exactly what he's asking about. "Honestly? No," he says. "It's not worth the guilt I have to carry around every minute of every day. I just—can't stop. Why are you asking, anyway?"
"You're my best mate. If this is going to be a part of your life from now on, I may as well stop dodging it and just accept it."
He sounds so resigned that Sirius feels another pang of guilt—not that that's anything new. "I'll figure it out," he mutters. "It's not going to go on like this forever."
"Yeah," says Remus, and Sirius thinks that's going to be the end of it until Remus adds, "What… I mean, when you and Marlene are together… what's that like?"
He sounds like he's trying awfully hard to sound casual, and Sirius feels a rush of gratitude. Maybe Remus really is trying to come to terms with it for the sake of their friendship—setting aside his own personal feelings so that he can act to Sirius like everything's normal and the threat of Azkaban isn't hanging over Sirius's head.
But then he looks up, and the look on Remus's face isn't anywhere near casual. This isn't anything like James teasing Sirius about porn or snarking about how gross it all sounds. This is… Remus's cheeks are flushed—actually, his whole face and neck and ears are all flushed—and his jaw is hanging just a little bit loose, not so much that his mouth forms an O but enough that he looks flustered.
"You really want to know?" Sirius asks him. His voice comes out all low and husky.
Remus's jaw snaps closed, but the blush remains. In that same voice that's trying too hard to be casual, he says, "What, don't you feel like you can talk to me about it?"
Sirius really does consider calling Remus out on his bullshit—telling him he knows Remus's not giving him his real reason and demanding it before he gives Remus anything to go on—but… he doesn't think he's ever seen Remus look at him this way, like he's—way outside his comfort zone, but not uncomfortable, not in a bad way. If anything, Remus looks almost—sort of—enthralled.
It's not that Remus's never open with Sirius—he's only touchy-feely after full moons, and he trips over his words when he tells Sirius what he means to him, but he's never been anything but honest with Sirius about his emotions. But—Sirius has never seen this side of Remus before, bewitched and enraptured and totally… exposed, offering up something so sensitive and personal that's all for Sirius to see. It thrills Sirius, and he doesn't want to risk one damn word that might break the spell and send Remus retreating back into that head he lives in all day.
"Well, it's… sex is really…"
Sirius's voice comes out all crackled and phlegmy, and he clears his throat and thinks hard about what words to choose. How to find a balance—to give Remus what he's clearly craving without going too far and driving him away—?
"At first, it was fast," he says now, starting over. His voice still sounds weirdly sultry. "I don't think I lasted more than a minute the first time. I had no idea what I was doing—didn't even realize until the third or fourth time that she hadn't… you know. But—the more you do it, the longer you can last, and—I did things right on accident enough times that I started learning what's good and what that looks like on her. See, she likes it slow—when you build up intensity and then back off, not entirely, but enough to frustrate her. She likes that. It makes it better for her at the end."
"And you?" Remus's voice has dropped, too, in both volume and pitch. "What do you like?"
He thinks on this for a moment. "Ears," he says decisively. "It tastes really bad when you're the one doing it to her, but the other way around—hot breath and a little tongue—feels incredible, Remus."
Remus bites his lip.
"And fingers—sucking on her fingers. It gets real sloppy real fast, but—that's kind of hot, too. Her skin is so tangy, and once her fingers are drenched, it makes it slicker when she…"
He doesn't finish the thought—doesn't want to cross that line—but from the looks of it, Remus's plenty preoccupied filling in the details himself. His breath hitches. So does Sirius's.
"Have you ever pictured what it would be like, Remus? Having a soft girl underneath you?"
"No," breathes Remus. "Not ever."
"But—you are now?"
"I'm…"
"Who are you picturing?"
"I—"
xx
(seventh year, 1978)
Look, it's not like Sirius is completely oblivious. But he's incredibly close to James and Peter, too, and they're like brothers to him, so isn't Remus as well? Sure, Remus only shares a bed with Sirius in the Hospital Wing when they're sleeping off full moons the next day, and they like to scandalize Slughorn when Sirius gets Remus into Slug Club parties by bringing him as Sirius's date, and Sirius has never been able to shake the betrayed way Remus looked at him when Remus first found out about Sirius and Marlene—but that doesn't mean there's anything suspect going on between the two of them.
Sirius has a uniquely different bond with each of the Marauders, and this is just what his bond with Remus happens to look like. Remus is protective over him—doesn't want to see Sirius make any stupid decisions—and he's not afraid to be sensitive with the people he cares about. Sirius can even explain away the time Remus asked him what sex is like: obviously, Remus was just projecting what Sirius was telling him onto his fantasies about whichever girl at Hogwarts he thought was hottest.
The only thing his reasoning doesn't explain is the way Sirius's gut drops every time he replays that conversation in his head. But it can't mean anything, can it? Emmeline was always the one Sirius was interested in, and then Marlene after her, and any weird signals he may have felt about Remus were—and are—irrelevant, incidental.
But then Remus goes and gets himself poisoned.
They're in the Great Hall at breakfast when it happens. At first, Sirius assumes that Remus's pumpkin juice has just gone down the wrong pipe when James cracks that joke about Filch and Pince—but Remus doesn't stop coughing, doesn't appear to be breathing at all. He clutches his throat and gags, and Sirius—
"You okay, Lupe?"
Remus doesn't answer. James starts thumping him on the back, and he still—
They've attracted the attention of the girls, who are sitting a little ways down the Gryffindor table. "I don't think he's breathing," says Peter fervently as Lily rushes over, whips out her wand, and starts muttering under her breath. Nothing she casts seems to resolve the problem. Remus is turning blue in the face, and Sirius—and Sirius—
"We've got to get him to Madam Pomfrey. Quickly! Come on!"
James jumps to his feet and tries to help Remus up, but the second Remus starts to rise, he stumbles and falls with a sickening crunch to the ground. "Help me levitate him," says James, making eye contact with Sirius, who—
For a fleeting moment, it occurs to Sirius that it feels like he can't breathe, either. He could kick himself for thinking such stupid bloody thoughts when Remus is on the floor and not moving.
They get Remus in the air and take off at a sprint for the Hospital Wing, Remus's body trailing behind them as they go; Peter and the girls follow closely behind. Pomfrey looks totally startled when they burst into the wing, all talking over each other trying to explain what's happened, until she snaps, "Enough!" and they all fall quiet. "My first guess is that this is a poisoning. It would be hard to tell what poison without further testing, but fortunately, I have…"
She darts into the back room; Sirius can hear her rummaging around in there before she emerges with what looks like a fist-sized stone. Pomfrey rams it into Remus's mouth and starts pumping his chest, pausing every thirty pumps or so to pinch his nose and breathe into his mouth.
The next two minutes drag on and on and on. Remus was unconscious for a few minutes before they were able to get him to Pomfrey, and it took another minute at least for her to locate the bezoar. If Remus doesn't make it—Sirius doesn't know how he's going to survive if Remus doesn't make it.
And then—Remus gives a great cough and starts hacking up blood.
Sirius isn't sure whether he can relax or not. Surely it's not normal for the patient to spit blood after the bezoar has worked. Is it?
"All of you need to wait outside," says Pomfrey. "I'll call you back in if he stabilizes."
If he stabilizes? But that makes it sound like Remus…
It's a Saturday, so none of them has to get to class, not that Sirius thinks he could manage to go if it were a school day. Most of the girls duck out after the first hour, making those who remain promise to let them know as soon as there's an update. And then it's just the boys and Lily left. Sirius has got his wristwatch on, and he watches the minute hand go around… and around…
Finally, after nearly three hours of waiting, Pomfrey pokes her head out into the corridor and says, "He's going to be all right. He's awake, if you want to come in and be with him."
They all traipse inside. Sirius is the first to reach Remus's bedside. He doesn't even think about what he's doing as he kisses Remus's head firmly a couple of times, then presses his forehead to Remus's, muttering, "Don't you ever give me a scare like that ever again. Don't you dare."
"Hello to you too," says Remus hoarsely. He twists away from Sirius to cough into his shoulder.
"Whoever poisoned him was smart about it," says Pomfrey, sounding disapproving. "It wouldn't have been in anything he ate, not that it would have been easy for his attacker to manage to poison only the food that would reach Remus and no one else this morning. It was slow-acting, and it diffused in through his skin, so it could have been in anything he touched in the last twelve hours or so."
"But he's going to be okay?" says Peter.
"He's going to make a full recovery," confirms Pomfrey, "but I'm keeping him on bedrest and observation for the next few days. I'll give you all a few minutes to see him, but then it's one guest per patient for the rest of his stay, you hear me?"
Again, Sirius doesn't have to think—he's already climbing under the covers and pressing himself against Remus's side. "I'm staying first. You can kick me out when it's the next person's turn in a couple of hours."
Nobody dares argue. A few short moments later, Sirius and Remus are alone.
That's when Sirius's brain catches up to him. This is fine, he tells himself. Under the circumstances, this is even normal. One of his best mates in the world just almost died, and he's allowed to have an outsized reaction to that—to want to keep Remus as close to himself as he can in the aftermath. If Peter and James and the others don't feel as protective or relieved or terrified for Remus, well, they must just not love Remus like Sirius does.
Shit.
That's when he realizes—nobody loves Remus like Sirius does.
He can feel his breathing speeding up. His pulse is thundering in his ears. Remus seems to sense it too because he twists in bed so that they're face to face; he reaches for Sirius's hand and maneuvers it until Sirius's arm is wrapped loosely around Remus's waist.
"It's okay," says Remus. "I'm okay. You don't need to be worried anymore."
And Sirius feels like an arsehole for having a crisis over anything other than Remus nearly dying, but it's too much too fast, and he can't—he can't—
After Marlene, Sirius couldn't even imagine giving all of himself to another person like that, but what if he already has? What if he did years ago and just never knew? What if a part of Sirius has been waiting all this time for his and Remus's chance to—?
And what does that mean for him, anyway? Sirius isn't gay; he's just—confused. He's just really, really confused.
"Nothing has to change, right?" he says shallowly to Remus. "We can just stay here? We're safe?"
Remus looks confused, at least until Sirius closes his eyes—he can't bear to look any longer. "Yeah, of course we're safe," whispers Remus. He sounds confused, too, and he should: Sirius isn't making any sense.
He should go—he should run—but he can't. Instead, he feels the heat of Remus's waist bleeding through his robes onto Sirius's palm, and he tries to steady his breathing, even though he can't, even though Remus is all he can breathe or smell or want or need or imagine—
When Sirius finally opens his eyes again, Remus looks—sad. He looks sad.
"You look sad."
"You look like you're panicking," says Remus. "Padfoot—"
"Why are you so sad?" Sirius asks entirely against his will. He doesn't want to know the answer, but he needs it as much as he needs Remus to stay alive.
Remus tears his eyes away from Sirius's. "Because I almost died before I could—before we could—and the worst part is, I know we never will. I'm going to be two hundred years old on my deathbed, wishing that we could have…"
A day ago, Sirius would have found a way to dismiss this, but that was before—
"You don't know that," he tells Remus, his heart leaping up into his throat.
Remus's eyes fix themselves right back into place. "What are you saying?"
"I… don't know."
"I swear to god, Sirius, if you're not sure about this—"
"I'm not sure about anything," Sirius whispers, and then he scoots down to bury his face in Remus's chest and drown there.
xx
(1979)
He manages to get by without thinking about it. Most days, he even pulls off spending hours in Remus's company without questioning what it means when their gazes linger a little too long, when the light brings out the shine in Remus's hair just right, when it's the full moon. Remus has got Wolfsbane Potion now to get him through his transformations, but he still comes over to Sirius's flat for each one, if only so that Padfoot can sidle up beside Moony on the mattress and feel Moony's body rise and fall as he breathes.
He's pretty sure Remus knows, and that terrifies him, because there's absolutely no way Sirius is attracted to men. He just can't be. And if Remus knows the way Sirius feels about him, and Sirius knows he knows and allows it to go on—it's going to end with Remus getting hurt and Sirius being the arsehole again, just like with Marlene, just like with Emmeline, just like with every other person he ever tried to love right.
He thinks he does love Remus right—but only as long as they don't talk about it, only if it stays exactly as it is. The second Sirius disrupts this delicate balance is the second he loses Remus for good, and he doesn't know what he's going to do if he loses Remus, not after—so they don't talk about it. Sirius won't.
Until the night Lily and James get married.
In their defense, everyone at the wedding gets pretty drunk, not just the two of them. Sirius is already somewhat smashed by the time he gives his best man speech, and then he and Remus both have another couple of shots before they have to relinquish the venue. They're probably too wasted to Apparate without Splinching themselves, so Lily, rolling her eyes and talking to them like they're five years old, Side-Alongs them back to Sirius's flat, the one Remus is supposed to move into to replace Lily, who used to share it with Sirius. They land in the spare room where Remus usually sleeps when he visits.
"Are you two going to be all right here on your own?" she asks. Her lips are pursed, but her eyes are twinkling. "If you need me to keep you company until you sober up a little—"
"We're good," Sirius slurs. "We won't do anything stupid. Go enjoy your married bliss."
Lily shakes her head and smiles. After she Disapparates, he locks the bedroom door. He has to go over and do it by hand when he can't seem to aim his wand properly at the handle.
"Pads," Remus points out, lolling back onto Sirius's mattress, "there's no point. There's nobody else here but us."
A shiver runs down Sirius's spine. "Don't wanna be interrupted," he insists, bounding over to the bed and flopping onto it. Predictably, he misses and ends up crushing Remus's arm underneath his back.
"Interrupted from what? By who? Shouldn't you be in your own room, anyway?" asks Remus as Sirius shifts over and unpins Remus's arm from underneath him.
"We could move. Mine does have the bigger bed," Sirius reflects.
"So, what, you want to share?"
Sirius shushes him loudly. "Too much talking. Not enough…"
And then—what do you know—their gazes linger a little too long, and the light brings out the shine in Remus's hair just right, and Sirius thinks, maybe he could show Remus that he loves him right, maybe just once, maybe just here, while he's drunk enough to see possibilities where there aren't any, because Sirius can't be gay, but he's loved Remus as long as he's known how to love anyone that way, and he wants things. He wants them, and he's so tired of not getting to have any of the things he wants, not with Em and not with Marlene and now—
All things considered, it's not a very good kiss. They can't quite aim properly, and Remus's breath is stale and sour in Sirius's face, and Sirius embarrassingly slobbers all over Remus's face—but it's everything he could possibly have hoped it would be.
It's everything, and it's enough, and Sirius won't remember much from this night, but he'll remember telling himself not to fall asleep, not to let it end, not to snap out of this dream, because he already knows he can't let it last, not longer than tonight.
In the morning, he wakes before Remus. He takes a long second to study his everything—his enough—where he's strewn in bed wearing nothing but the blankets wrapped around his waist, and then Sirius unlocks the door and steals back into his own bed, where he can ponder and muse and hate himself in peace.
They don't talk about it. Remus drags his feet on moving his things over from his old flat with James, and when he informs Sirius a week later that he's accepted an offer to move in with Benjy Fenwick instead, Sirius tells himself it's for the best: that they need to get away from each other before Sirius can wreck anything else.
Why does he always have to sabotage himself? Why can't he just have things?
Their whole Gryffindor cohort finds out, of course. Sirius tells James and Lily, and Remus tells Mary, and before long, Sirius is moving in with Lockhart and fielding awkward questions from Emmeline during the day shift at Scrivenshaft's about whether he wants Remus to be his boyfriend. Of course he wants Remus to be his boyfriend. Who wouldn't? If Sirius had any say in any of this—
He likes women. He's always liked women, and that hasn't changed just because Remus makes his stomach feel funny.
xx
(1980)
The thing is, just because Sirius likes women doesn't mean he can't like men, too, does it? When it occurs to him, it sounds like such a simple solution to his problems—but he's not ready to accept it, not yet. He just needs more time to come to grips with it—to be sure—because he's already mangled this thing enough, and if he's going to pick up the pieces, he has to be sure. He owes Remus that much.
So he stays away, getting there, getting—and he's almost ready to come clean when Snape joins the Order and ruins absolutely everything with the news that there's a spy among their ranks.
The thing is, he doesn't suspect Remus at first. At first, Sirius tries to play it cool, like all of this is fine, like he hasn't done this whole thing out of order: fallen in love, denied it, gotten laid, and finally admitted it. He starts trying to get closer to Remus, inviting him out to lunch and offering to visit on full moons like he used to. He can't exactly have Remus over to Sirius's flat to transform, not with Lockhart living there, but Benjy knows what Remus is and would give them space to be together for it, wouldn't he?
Only—Remus keeps dodging Sirius's invitations, won't look him in the face, and Sirius can't help but notice that Remus has been acting this way ever since Snape's revelation.
Snape says the spy was blackmailed into compliance, and Sirius can't help but remember that they never caught the person who poisoned Remus.
"But this is Moony we're talking about," Peter protests when Sirius runs his theory by him. "Say they did poison him to try to get to him. Who's to say that one thing the Death Eaters did to him on one day would be enough to sway him? I don't believe for a second that Remus could give in to the Dark side that easily."
"That's why I wanted to talk to you and Prongs," says Sirius earnestly. "Moony and I have been on the outs for months now—I don't know what's going on with him or if he's been acting suspicious. Has he?"
"Has he what?"
"Been acting suspicious?"
"I…" Peter hesitates. "I haven't been looking at him closely like that, but… maybe he's seemed a little off. I don't know. I thought he might just be upset about the news and—well—maybe also avoiding you."
"He was definitely acting weird during the last meeting," says Sirius, "but I always see him acting weird nowadays, and I've always been assuming it was just because he doesn't know how to be around me anymore. What if it's something else? What if it's…?"
"I'll keep an eye on him for you," Peter says. "But you should keep in mind if you talk to him—or talk to anyone, really—that any one of us could be lying about everything to us."
Sirius sighs. Everyone's faith in each other is going to completely disintegrate, isn't it?
xx
(1981)
When he gets home the day after Marlene dies, he's startled to find Remus sitting inside the living room chatting with Lockhart. "Look who dropped by!" declares Lockhart, beaming, obviously thinking that Sirius is in for a treat: in all fairness, it's not like Sirius has ever confided otherwise in Lockhart.
"We don't have to talk long if you don't want to," says Remus, looking ashen. "I just… I wanted to say I'm sorry, that's all."
How dare you, Sirius wants to tell him. Marlene died because there's a spy in the Order who gave away her identity, and Sirius would bet anything that that spy is Remus. He's been avoiding Sirius all this time because he knows Sirius is onto him, and that Remus would try to cover his arse now by apologizing just makes Sirius sick. He's sick with rage and guilt and all of it, and Remus needs to leave this flat now if he doesn't want Sirius to make a scene.
Instead, Sirius just says, "Thanks." He thinks his voice betrays how he feels, but he doesn't care.
They stare at each other for a long moment, and then Remus says, "Well, I'd better get home. Benjy will get worried if I'm not home when he gets there."
It's not until Remus is gone that the full weight of Sirius's suspicions start to crumple in on him. It feels like yesterday that he and Remus were on the precipice of becoming something, and now—Sirius flashes back to visiting Remus in the Hospital Wing after his poisoning, realizing what he realized, all because he thought he'd almost lost Remus and didn't want to regret losing any time he could have with him. Was it all a setup? Did Remus know right there in the Hospital Wing that he was about to succumb to the Death Eaters' manipulations? Did he know then that someday he'd sell Marlene out?
"I was very sorry to hear about Marlene," Lockhart is saying, and Sirius snaps back to reality. "I remember her well from our Hogwarts days! I know how charming and how—"
"No," says Sirius.
"Pardon me?"
"No. We're not doing this. You didn't know her, and you sure as hell don't know what it's like to love her."
"But—"
"I'll be in my room," says Sirius, and he gets the hell out of that room before he says something he regrets.