(Midnight)

Peter managed to flop like a pile of rags on his bed before Sirius and James noticed his late arrival. Someone lit a lamp, Sirius, and there was the susurrus of shuffling bed covers and feet against the floor.

‘Peter,’ James started, pushing on his glasses, ‘what happened?’

‘Where’s Remus?’ Sirius added. ‘Did he explode in a yellow shower?’

On his back, Peter craned his head to Sirius, on his left. ‘He’s using the loo, I imagine.’

Sirius’s brow bent in unasked questions. James read the situation carefully.

‘You—you broke Snape’s spell?’

‘How’d you do it so well? Grr, sorry.’

Peter said nothing. He rolled over on his side, tossed covers over his head, and grabbed the pillow. ‘I’m very tired. Goodnight.’

But he lay awake for a long while after this short conference, listening, waiting, replaying what had happened in the Potions room. On his way to the common room, he imagined his friends’ reactions when he told them the story of what he’d done. Their rewards of praise would be overwhelming. To think that he had accomplished something the rest of them hadn’t! He’d defeated Snape single-handed!

As soon as he entered through the portrait hole, he found a sleepy Remus the only one still in the common room. He pointed his wand, mumbled a counter-curse, and the whole notion of praise dissolved. What had he done, really, that those three Gryffindors wouldn’t do for him? Any of them could take on Snape, any of them! The only reason they hadn’t was lack of interest. James and Sirius considered this rivalry with Severus Snape a game. To Remus, it was a psychological expression of masculine aggression, necessary during adolescence. Yet to Peter, Snape was the source of rage and self-hatred. Snape’s reputation for making up his own spells, rumoured to be violent and horrendous, and his renowned interest in the Dark Arts, played with Peter’s vision of the inaccessible villain. Peter had laughed with Sirius and James whenever a duel resulted in Snape’s utter humiliation, because laughter was what his friends expected. Truth was, Snape’s reflexive hexes were far more captivating than the boring curses James and Sirius came up with. And if Snape no longer fought back, and Sirius and James knew it had been Peter’s doing that demolished this long-standing feud, what would they think of him?

No, no, that won’t do, Peter mused, catching himself still awake after an hour had passed. No, it was better that roles stayed the same, that he not be accused of usurping the demagogue status of James and Peter. It was only if things stayed the same that he would stay the most comfortable. There were benefits to his position, to being the one nobody really notices.

Sirius and James tried to stay awake to hail Remus’s triumphant return to the world where trousers came off, but it proved too difficult. Sirius heard James’s breath turn even and deep, and Peter had gone immeasurably silent, a small little hump beneath the covers. Sirius blinked at the ceiling, listening to the rain and the air through his nose mix and make peaceful monody. Then, sick of it, he kicked himself from bed and trolled down the steps.

He heard voices and stopped, concealed around the last circular turn of the staircase. Waiting, he soon recognised Moony and Lily. The latter had evidently just arrived, while Remus had continued waiting for slumber long after Peter had dissolved the curse.

‘What’s wrong, Evans?’ Remus observed her as she knotted a housecoat and rubbed an eye.

‘Insomnia,’ she sat by the hearth, ‘what else? I’ve had it since I was a child.’

‘That’s not much of an excuse. You’re a witch now, aren’t you? You undoubtedly know a dozen spells and a hundred sleeping draughts.’

‘Yes, but so many of them have curious side effects I’d rather not deal with. What are you doing up? You’ve been here ages.’

Remus’s mouth turned upward at the corner. The content cat Feliciano stretched a paw. A log in the fire shifted in a spray of orange glitter. The clock swung away three seconds. Lily pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped long arms around her shins.

‘Avoiding Sirius, are you?’ she finally decided to ask.

Remus set back his head. ‘You’re very observant.’

‘He doesn’t make much of an effort to hide his like of you. A bit like James doesn’t hide his like for me.’

‘A bit like.’

‘If you don’t want to talk about it, Remus, I’d understand.’

‘No . . . No, talk about it. I want to hear your thoughts. I want to hear someone else’s thoughts. I’m so tired of my own.’

Lily sighed and prepared all the things she’d wanted to say to Remus on the subject. She felt liberated and relieved to speak the things held in for so long. ‘Well, for starters, Sirius has been this way about you for years, and you don’t seem to care. You should’ve seen the look on his face when the two of you were down here earlier, working on some assignment. He adores you, Remus.’

‘Maybe he does.’

‘You’re everything in his world, really. James is his best friend, but you’re the one he tells his heart to. That isn’t likely to change, is it?’

‘Lily, why won’t you give James a chance?’ Remus, already knowing the answer, waited intently for a response. She seemed to understand a connection between his question and their topic.

‘Because I think he’s arrogant. He doesn’t obey his conscience, only his ego. He’s too used to getting what he wants round here. It’s been that way ever since we started school, since the first evening. I knew what kind of boy he’d be, just as soon as the Hat sorted him into Gryffindor.’ Then Lily comprehended the comparison Remus had set into play. ‘Oh, I see. A bit like Sirius.’

‘A bit like,’ repeated Remus. ‘Everything with Sirius is doomed to live but briefly. Every thought he has, every feeling, it doesn’t last long with him, then he’s on to the next thing. It’s always the next thing with him.’

‘And you don’t want that to happen to you. How do you know it would?’

Remus huffed and arched his eyes, as if the answer was obvious. ‘I’m not flamboyant, Evans. I’m methodical. In Sirius’s eyes, doesn’t that translate to “I’m boring”?’

‘No,’ Lily said rapidly, shaking her downy red head. ‘No, that’s just not possible. The three of them respect you, Remus, Sirius and Peter and James. You’re their backbone. Without you, I’m sure they would’ve been expelled by now. You smile because you know it’s true, they would’ve been. But I understand the part about not wanting to ruin your friendship with them, particularly Sirius.’

‘He’s not someone I’d like to cross. He knows too much about me.’ Remus toyed with the grimness of this statement by smiling slightly. He unwound from the chair, setting the sleepy cat back to the warm cushion, where it curled up again. He stood with Lily Evans before the fire, and wondered, with the faintest pricks of hope, what the future would bring.

‘You’re a very graceful creature, Lily,’ he said, ‘and I revere you all the more for not giving in to James. Unless you happen to like him, of course.’

A short-lived grin brought pink to her cheeks. ‘I do like him, to be honest. He is smart, good-looking, funny, ridiculously brave. But I can’t give in just yet. Not until he learns a thing or two on his own.’

‘You could teach him,’ said Remus. ‘In your capable hands, James Potter would be malleable as clay.’

‘And you could mellow Sirius,’ she retorted, thoughtful. ‘He’s from an ancient line of pure-bloods, Remus,’ but Remus had nodded at this, ‘yet ever since he was put in Gryffindor, family ties have been snapping left and right. It’s nothing against your character, Remus, but I must say that, in lieu of Sirius’s troubles, his affection for you cannot be an easy thing. Doesn’t it mean a little more that he’s willing to love you anyway, in spite of the obstacles?’

She stopped when Remus cowed beneath the insights. Touching his shoulder, she squeezed, said her soft goodnight, and vanished up the staircase.

Remus said only a mumbled goodnight to the cat. He turned for the dormitory. Sirius stood there. A moment passed, Remus experiencing the epitome of embarrassment, hands and heart tingling. The sensation vanished, replaced, as usual, by pity. Remus, disinterested in forcing placations down Sirius’s throat, merely waited. Sirius blinked consecutively. His eyes burned with tiredness and sorrow. The exchange of words between Lily and Remus thrashed about in his troubled mind, biting and clawing as they made their wretched rounds. The words that hurt the most were the words that were true. He was spoiled. His family had been sporting marvellous disaffection since the Sorting five years ago. They would disown him, possibly even try and kill him, for taking the love of his friends over the status of the Blacks. Terrors unspoken caused bleak, fearful threats should his family ever find out how he felt about Remus Lupin.

‘She’s right,’ Sirius discovered his voice almost on accident, ‘my family hates me. And it isn’t painless. But it has its benefits. You, James, Peter, you’re my family now.’ Without certainty that Remus was listening, Sirius crossed his arms and tried putting crooked, unfinished phrases into coherent speech. ‘It hurts a lot to become isolated from the familiar, and then willingly throwing oneself into the unfamiliar. I don’t know what I’m doing. Just trying to make it up as I go along. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry if I did. It’s just— Remus, it’s not going to stop just because you want it to. That’s not the way it happens. You’re a part of me. You’re in my breath. You’re everywhere I go.’ His pause was incongruent and strange. ‘Please stop me from talking.’ Sirius shut up for a second, watching Remus plaintively. Remus made no indication that he wanted Sirius to stop. Renewing his efforts, Sirius continued.

‘I know I’m spoiled and used to getting what I want, and I would give back everything my family ever gave me if it meant I had finally suffered enough to be good and worthy in your eyes. But I can’t do that. You see? That’s impossible, impossible. For now, you’ll have to accept the fact that being near you makes me want to be a better person. Oh I know I’m not perfect. I know I don’t have James’s strength or Peter’s diligence, or your ability to say exactly the right thing to someone who’s hurting. But I’m trying. A long time ago, I knew I’d have to try and be someone worthy enough to be your friend.

‘You’re so untouchable that Snape has never put a jinx on you, hasn’t even dared to, until today! And it was meant for me, we all know it! You just got in the way. And I wanted to kill Snape for it. He has no right to put a hex on you. How Peter managed to get the counter-curse I don’t know, damn his diligence—and bless it, too. Snape had better watch himself tomorrow, and all the days following. If he does something to you again I really will find a way to bring immeasurable pain to him, consequences be damned. No one hurts you and lives.

‘And, in conclusion, please don’t point out how many times I’ve rhymed during this speech, nor the insane number of times I’ve openly violated you with my licentious stare, nor should you mention the exact amount of tears that have fallen from my eyes. Thank you. Good bloody night.’

Sirius hadn’t anticipated being swung back from the staircase by a strong grip at his elbow. Remus tossed him brutally into a chair. It tilted back but Sirius was able to keep it from tipping over completely. He grabbed the rests and waited for a reprimand. Remus was panting through his nostrils, a fierce wolf about to strike. Sirius’s insides quivered. He thought sickness wasn’t far behind. He tried to recall all the silly things he’d said, all the nonsense, all the sentiments, and soon his eyes were plugged again with tears. He kept his head forward, hair hiding his face from Remus.

Remus stopped pacing, his thoughts collected. He returned to Sirius. Thick sheaves of black hair trembled with Sirius’s faint shudders.

‘You never rhymed once,’ Remus began in an odd place, ‘but it took you nearly twenty minutes to say everything.’

Sirius bit on his lips for a moment. ‘I was trying really, really hard.’

‘Seven times, at least,’ continued Remus, answering the questions Sirius had not wanted thrown in his face. ‘Most of which came when you were talking about Snape’s binding charm. It is suggestive, I suppose.’

‘Yes,’ Sirius murmured. He rubbed sweaty palms against the armrests. His insides continued their strange game of leaping frog, heart over stomach, stomach over heart.

‘And five.’

Five? Sirius struggled to remember what he’d said— Five what? Then he recalled. Five tears. Felt like more. ‘Oh, right.’

Remus paced again. ‘I don’t know what you expect from me, Sirius.’

‘Nothing. Are you interrogating me? That’s hardly fair. I’ve just spilled my guts and now you’re interrogating me? Bad form, very bad form!’ Sirius grunted when he was flung out of the chair. It took his knees a second to lock, and he almost toppled over. Remus braced him. Sirius was allowed the privilege of looking at Remus for an extended second. The allegorical hills and storms in their relationship receded, and far before them was a vast, timeless universe.

Sirius admitted defeat with a sigh. ‘What’s it going to take, Remus, for you to trust me?’

‘I do trust you,’ came the quiet reply. ‘Wouldn’t be friends with you if I didn’t. And, as you devised from your clever means of overhearing, I like you.’

Sirius’s head snapped up. ‘You do? So the spoiled child thing, you not wanting to give in, that’s—’

The thought was revoked. In its place a passionate inspiration. Remus’s forehead touched his, their noses bumped, their lips a whisper apart. The softness was undeniable. Sirius left tension behind, his soul swelling. Remus’s tender hands lessened the void between them. The simple dreams he’d coaxed and nursed for four years were suddenly materialising. Giddy, surprised, Sirius found himself avoiding the kiss so yearned for and pulling back.

‘I don’t want you to think I’m a cosseted sod, Moony. You don’t have to do this. It could change everything.’

Remus danced his gaze into Sirius’s solemn grey eyes. Between Sirius and him swayed an unbreakable weave of love. Remus had always felt it. He had done all he could not to add to it, not to give Sirius a strand of false hope. ‘I’ve never kissed anyone before,’ it was a terrible thing to say, yet what he continued with was worse, ‘well, there was a girl at school once, I kissed her, much in the same way I kiss my mother goodbye. Not hardly the way I want to kiss you. From what I understand, and correct me if I’m wrong, as you likely know a great deal more than I do about this, but I think . . . Sirius, isn’t everything expected to change?’

Allowing silence to declare his joy, Sirius looped his arms around Remus’s neck, feeling gentle, urging tugs at his waist, and melded into the cloth and heat of his desire.

Sirius drew away after a moment to savour the taste against his tongue, the salt on his lips. Remus was in him now, and now there was no return. ‘Someday soon, probably not tonight, I’ll be exceptionally pleased that Peter managed to unbind your trousers. Do you suppose we’ll ever learn from him how he did it?’

‘No, but just be grateful. Likely it’s just his diligence again. He does work hard.’

‘You’re spoiling the mood, all this talk of Peter. Don’t let’s test the strength of my jealousy. All the same, please remind me in the morning, when I’m staring at you unabashed, to thank him properly, if I’m not first asked. In fact, I mean to thank him zealously. I really must stop with this bad rhyming. It could mean many sorry love notes passed to you, of course under nom du plume, so if Snape discovers it, our antics will not resume. Dammit. I must be tired.’ To keep from further poetry, Sirius said one simple word, flattening himself against Remus as though for a final time before separating for the night. ‘Bed?’

He felt the nod against his shoulder. As they divided, Sirius playfully unhooked Remus’s belt. To his relief, it gave way. After the struggle that morning, it seemed a miracle. All the same, Sirius meant his threats, and Snape would have to learn to leave Remus J Lupin alone.

Remus slipped the belt off and wrapped it around his hand. ‘I can’t wait to get these clothes off. Think I’ll go to Hogsmeade and get some new trousers. I’m tossing these in the rubbish. Want to go with me?’

‘You mean,’ Sirius watched Remus wistfully, ‘like a-a social outing? A date?’

Nodding, Remus squeezed Sirius’s fingers, then led the way up the narrow, winding staircase. Sirius held his breath for a moment, enjoying the view of Remus ahead of him, and left another rhyme lingering in the night.

‘The next Hogsmeade weekend will be Halloween. A date, I can’t believe we’re going on a date. Remus, you bring me dreams; you are my fate. Dammit! Sorry.’

-x-

End.

Thank you for reading!