We Three, Kings

~~*~~

Christmas Holidays, 1976-77

Landing on his knees in the Gryffindor common room, he flings his satchel free of his shoulder and scrambles toward the sixth year bathrooms. Running inside and locking it, he vomits into the sink, stomach muscles cramping as he tries to bring up everything so he won’t go through this again later in the day. I’m safe here. She can’t track me at Hogwarts. For the first time in his school life, he is grateful for the powerful magic woven through the very foundation stones of the school.

The nausea subsides as he breathes deeply through his nose, and for a moment, he concentrates on his reflection, on smoothing the anxiety out of his face. I haven’t run away. I haven’t. I just need something to bargain with. I’ll go back if she’s willing to talk. The enormity of what he’s done is only now beginning to catch up to him. There’s only Regulus left. I should have brought him with me. She’ll use him, now.

He can hear the portrait swinging open – it is amazing how far sound carries when Gryffindor Tower isn’t filled with chatter – and he quickly rinses his mouth and washes his face. Checking his watch, he can see the hand marked with his name pointing to ‘Eat! Or you’ll waste away to nothing’, but he really doesn’t have the appetite.

“That had better not be you in there, Weasley. I don’t care if you are in my own House; if I catch you in our bathroom again, I will take points.” He is just reaching for the door when he hears alohamora on the other side, and he dodges aside before it opens onto his face. “Padfoot!” Remus looks stunned to see him there.

“Hello, Moony. You were expecting Weasley, perhaps?”

Remus rolls his eyes. “His mother’s pregnant with twins, so he’s been made to stay at school for the holidays. Was driving her crazy, having prank wars with his brother. He’s been strolling up to use our toilets all holidays. I can’t fathom why. Caught him trying to remove one of the seats.”

“What for?”

“I don’t bloody know!” Remus says exasperatedly, and then he is peering at him concernedly.

To avoid that concerned look, he pushes past Remus and leads the way back to their dormitory. Remus knows why he was called home, but won’t bring the matter up until – unless – he himself does.

“Are you all right? You look very pale. Do you want to go and see Madam Pomfrey?”

“What time is it?”

“It’s pretty late in the evening.” Remus looks as though he is trying to think of a way to ask him if he is all right, without using the words ‘apart from your father being dead’. “You’re back early,” is what he settles for, as they enter their dormitory.

“Yes. There was some trouble at home.” He chooses his words carefully, hoping Remus won’t notice. “I might not be going back for a while.” She’ll let me be an Auror. She will. If only he didn’t feel like he is trying desperately to convince himself…

“I see,” Remus says slowly, to indicate that he doesn’t see at all. “You’re spending the holidays here, then? That sounds bloody miserable, Padfoot.”

“So it’s all right for you to spend the holidays here alone, but not for me to spend it here with you?”

“Only Christmas. I was planning to go to London for New Year’s, but if you’re going to be here - ”

“London? You never said anything to me about com- going to London for New Year’s.”

“There’s this bar in London just off Music Alley that plays amazing jazz. I’d stay longer if the full moon wasn’t right in the middle of the holiday, or if I could afford to, but I’d planned to go on New Year’s Eve. The owner – his name’s Alfred Noire and he’s lovely – is Wizarding, but anyone can get in, and it’s all Muggle music. So I wasn’t sure you’d have wanted to go – it’s not really the sort of thing you ever seemed interested in.”

Not the sort of thing I was ever really…Abruptly he realises that he can’t maintain this false levity anymore. Why am I wittering on about Muggle music when Father’s dead? And to his shame and horror, his studied expression crumples, and he is crying, and worst of all, Remus can see him, and all he can think is how grateful he is that it is only Remus and not James who sees him like this.

“I want to be an Auror, Moony.” He doesn’t know where that comes from. It certainly isn’t new information, as far as Remus is concerned. “I want to find the people who attacked my father because the Ministry won’t. My father, they killed him, because - ” his voice cracks, and he has to stop to breathe before he can go on. “Because he refused to join Malfoy and Lestrange and dedicate our house to Voldemort.” He collapses onto his bed.

“We’re all so sorry, Padfoot.” He stares down at his hands, which are shaking uncontrollably. Remus crouches next to the bed, so close that when he looks up, he can see his face under the shadow of his fringe. “If it makes you feel any better, you could take comfort from knowing he died defying Voldemort. That was a very brave thing to do.”

“But it wasn’t brave, Moony, it wasn’t. How can it be bravery when the only reason you didn’t agree to support Voldemort was to spite the Malfoys, and not because of all the awful things he does? Because that was why, Moony. That was why they tried to kill him – because when Malfoy and Wilkes came to our house, Mother and Father laughed at them until they left. He - ” Oh no.

He can’t stop crying, and now he is barely able to speak, and again he is grateful that it is Remus here and not James, but this time it is because James would probably make an inappropriate comment or joke that would make him laugh, and do nothing to mend the agonising tear that has materialised inside him. James would never pull his head down onto his shoulder, or wrap his arms around him, or rock him slowly in his arms as if he was a child, like Remus is doing now. For the first time in his life, it doesn’t matter that someone has seen through him, seen into the heart of the weakness and uncertainty he tries so hard to hide.

“Is it still brave if you do something good, but do it only for yourself?”

“He didn’t do it for himself, Padfoot. He did it for all of you – your mother, you and Regulus.”

“Was that any reason worth dying for? Death Eaters went after James’ uncle because he’d managed to get the Ministry to allow Muggles into Diagon Alley unaccompanied. They killed Amelia Bones’ mother and father because they refused to support a law allowing spells to be tested on Muggles. Compared to all of that, what did my father die for?” Everything my family stands for is so selfish and self-serving…I don’t know if I can be a part of that, anymore…

“Your father didn’t do anything wrong, Sirius.”

But he didn’t do anything right, either. There was so much more he could have used his power for. “I want to be an Auror,” he says again. It is a mantra now.

“You will be one, Padfoot. You’re the only person who got more OWLs than Prongs or I. They can’t refuse you.”

“They already have. Said my family was all dark magic. Said I’d be wasting my time.” It is as if a boil has been lanced, and all of the pain he’s kept inside is gushing out. “They’re not going to investigate Father’s death. That’ll probably be a waste of time, too, and they’ll be pleased. One less dark wizard to worry about. So the Aurors are happy, the other dark wizards are happy, but they’re both supposed to be on different sides, and where does that leave me?”

“It doesn’t make you a dark wizard, Padfoot. Sirius. For whatever reason your father was attacked, despite what the Department of Magical Law Enforcement may feel about anything, he didn’t deserve to die.” Remus removes one of his arms from his shoulders to wipe at the tear tracks on his face. “No one does. Your father wasn’t a bad person. His death and the Ministry’s refusal to investigate don’t make the life he lived worthless, and it doesn’t make him any less as a man. You can still love him, and honour his memory, but not want to be like him.”

His smile is watery when he forces it, but it is there. “Thanks, Moony.”

~~*~~

“Hullo Weasley, what are you doing in here?” William Weasley spins around in shock. Remus might have seen him sobbing and wailing, but as far as everybody else is concerned, he is still Sirius Black – in complete control of himself, and afraid of nothing. “I want to change for bed. That means you need to get out before I hex you. Or I could let Remus catch you, and you’ll lose points for our House, and then I’ll have to come after you and hex you for that, too.”

Weasley’s jaw is most of the way to the floor, but he rallies, “He’d take points off you for hexing me.”

Moony wouldn’t dare. “Then I’d have to find you and hex you again.” Brat. “What are you doing up here, anyway?”

Weasley’s freckly face splits almost in two with a grin. “Charlie dared me to send home a Hogwarts toilet seat for Christmas. But he said it wouldn’t count unless it was from the seventh year bogs.”

“This is the sixth year bathroom, you fool. You can’t be trusted to do anything correctly.” Why the seventh year bathroom? Aren’t they all the same? Maybe they’re not? I’ve not seen the seventh year bathroom… What’s so bloody special about their toilet seats? Weasley has his full attention, anyway. “Follow me.”

He stacks his nightshirt and face flannel on one of the towel racks, and yanks the door open. To see Remus standing directly in his path, shaking his head and admonishing, “Padfoot, Padfoot, Padfoot. No good can come of this.”

Of course Remus has heard every word inside if he’s been standing this close to the door. In truth, he’ll have been able to hear them from the other side of the dorm, and has probably only come this close to let Sirius know that he knows. Before he can open his mouth, Remus finishes, “You’ve got fifteen minutes. Any longer, and I’ll find McGonagall and tell her you’re back.” This is a far worse threat than House points. He isn’t ready to deal with McGonagall yet.

“Fifteen. I promise,” he whispers. Remus smiles and conceals himself in the shadows, so the first year won’t think he has his Prefect’s permission to break the rules. “Come on, Weasley!”

~~*~~

Mischief managed, he thinks as they make their way to the first year dormitory, prize in hand. In Weasley’s hand, at any rate. He certainly isn’t going to touch the thing.

“Sending it off home first thing tomorrow, is it?” He feels much better now, having diverted his other thoughts with this attempt at theft from the seventh years.

“Nah, I’m giving it to Errol to take home tonight. It’s got to make it in time for Christmas.” It occurs to him that it might even be Christmas Eve – he has entirely lost track of time.

“You’re going to make one owl carry a toilet seat all the way home? It’s going to arrive half dead! Where is home, anyway?”

“My family’s near Stoat’s Head.”

Why does that sound familiar? He must have been around four years old, but he remembers it clearly, because it was the first large family gathering they attended after Regulus was born. Regulus had just started toddling and speaking a few words. “Puppy!” he’d called after Sirius, until Mother admonished him, and told him he couldn’t refer to a senior by his pet name. It continues to annoy Regulus no end that Sirius can call him by his baby name, and Regulus can’t do the same. Was it a wedding?

“Stoat’s Head? Your mother wasn’t a Prewett was she? Molly Prewett?”

“No, she’s a Weasley,” William says earnestly. Sirius wonders if he is being made fun of, and then decides to let it go. “Some of my cousins are Prewetts, though.”

So we’re related – no wonder you’re not on the tapestry, with a surname like ‘Weasley’He tells himself he should talk to Weasley later on. There is a good chance he himself may not be on the tapestry much longer.

“Right, well if you’re off to the Owlery, you’re on your own. I’m going to bed.” What is the time, anyway?

“What’s this about the Owlery?” He recognises Remus’ voice, and doesn’t jump in fear as Weasley does. It is still a surprise to realise the other boy has tracked them so silently. “Weasley,” Remus says sternly, pretending he can’t see the toilet seat the shaking first year is hiding behind his scrawny frame. “You’re to go straight back to bed.” Weasley squeaks something that might be in the affirmative, and scarpers. Turning back to him, Remus enquires, “So?”

“What do you mean, so?”

“What are the seventh year toilets like? Is it worth slogging through sixth year revision, swotting for NEWTs and hanging about for another year?”

“You mean would the seventh year bathroom make up for finishing school since you’re a werewolf, I’m a dark wizard and neither of us will be admitted into the Auror Academy regardless of how hard we work next year?”

“I didn’t say it quite like that, but yes.”

He stretches, looking in the direction Weasley has gone and grins. “No, not really,” he admits anti-climatically, letting his face relax into its usual expression. “Right. I’m getting changed, and then I’m going to bed.” Remus is looking at him strangely. “What?”

“I just noticed it now. Did you know how much nicer you are when you’re not pretending you know everything?”

“I don’t pretend to know everything, Moony. I certainly don’t do it to be nicer.” He does it to stop others sensing his uncertainty. ‘Nice’ has never been a priority. Nausea rises inside him again, as Remus looks at him knowingly.

“No, I don’t mean kinder – although you are. I meant you look nicer, when you’re not sneering at everything.” Fear that Remus is going to realise that all his arrogance and self‑assurance is an act forces him to adopt his Impatient Face – one that he usually reserves for Regulus. What are you talking about, and what does it matter. They have reached the sixth year bathrooms, and are standing outside the entry. “Go on and get changed, then,” Remus says, giving up.

As he returns to the dorm, he hears Remus ask, “Do you want to come to London with me for New Year’s Eve?”

He doubts Mother will respond favourably to being asked for permission to go back to his hometown for a holiday. But he doesn’t think it should be too difficult getting permission to leave the school. There are any number of relatives he met at the funeral, who he hasn’t seen in years. Perhaps one of them will invite him to London for the New Year, given the right persuasion. Andromeda, maybe, he thinks as he hangs his formal robe up. “I do,” he replies, telling himself he’ll worry about permission later.

He is halfway to climbing into bed when Remus lays a hand on his wrist, arresting him. “The house elves wouldn’t have expected you back. Your sheets will be freezing. Do you want to sleep in my bed?”

“No, I’ll be fine.”

Remus looks annoyed, and goes back to his bed, muttering under his breath loudly enough for him to hear, “Why must you always be such a stubborn…” Tearing the sheets off his bed, Remus returns, spreading them out over Sirius. They smell of burned cotton, singed by one of the warming pans that the house elves never remember to remove in time.

The scent of smouldering cloth reminds him of the funeral.

“I’m the last of us, then,” Father’s brother, Alphard, said sadly. “Both Cepheus and Antares dead – it isn’t right. I can’t be the first of the three of us to be born, and the last to die.” He wonders if his uncle will give him permission to leave school for a day. He hardly ever saw him, growing up. For some reason, he then wonders whether he or Regulus will die first, and suddenly, the warmth from the sheets isn’t enough and he is shaking again.

If I’m going to be shivering anyway, there’s no point switching sheets. “Are you sure about this, Moony? I don’t want you to be cold.”

“I won’t be cold,” Remus says, before slipping under the sheets next to him. “Don’t look at me like that – you’ve done the same for me in the shack to keep me warm when I was cold.”

But it is different when Remus is the one offering kindness, with the expectation that he accept it. It is the same with the invitation to go to London – if Remus truly wants to spend New Year’s Eve with him, rather than just asking him out of pity, why didn’t he say anything before the holidays started? He or James or Peter were the ones who invited Remus to come away with them for the holidays so that he wouldn’t have to deal with his parents fighting over him. I never asked anybody for anything in my life. But was that because my family always provided me with whatever it was I required before I had to ask for it? He can’t be certain.

All he knows, with sudden clarity, is that nothing will ever be the same again, that he will have to learn to accept help from his friends and his equals if he truly leaves his family, because he will have nothing if he leaves the House of Black – no wealth, no name, no prestige…and no reputation – that’s why I’m leaving, isn’t it? Not a Black anymore, but it must mean something to be Sirius. To be me. I must be able to do something useful without their power and influence. He is shaking so hard, he can’t stop even though Remus is holding him close.

“It’s not just the cold, Moony,” he says as the lights are extinguished, and Remus tightens the circle of his arms.

“I’m not doing this just to keep you warm, Padfoot,” Remus replies.

~~*~~

Christmas Holidays, 1996-97

The potion is sending out ripples of darkness through the brilliant red, the roiling motion spreading the colour throughout, and soon, all of the liquid in the cauldron is a uniform deep, dark red. Lupin holds one of the phials he’s fetched from upstairs over the surface of the potion, waiting for the right moment.

“Can I try something?” he asks. The way Lupin reacts, anyone would think he’s tried to tip the potion up before it is done. “No, it’s just… I need to see if…” Before Lupin can react, he lets the blood that has collected in his hand – collected from a nick he’s just given himself – fall into the liquid.

“What are you - ” Lupin slaps his hand away, snarling “Are you insane? This could ruin everything!”

He lifts his wounded hand up to his lips and sucks at the cut. “But it hasn’t. See?” Glittering, white, diamond‑like brightness is breaking through the deep red. “It’s working.” He sighs. “It’s working because he never stopped hating me.”

“Sirius didn’t hate you,” Lupin lies.

“Didn’t he? He might not have told you about it, but he did. I threatened to kill him, once.”

“That doesn’t mean he - ”

“Oh, he did. It was blood from his phial Mother used to restore me. There’s a room full of blood upstairs, and he was the only one she could be certain hated me enough for the spell to catch.” Lupin is quiet again, watching the spots of light come to the surface and burst – like bubbles of air in boiling water. “Ever since I came back, I’ve been able to see some of his thoughts. Or feel some of his emotions, really. I don’t think he ever gave me much thought until he was made to live in this house again. I could feel his hatred, as if it were something I could reach out and touch – it felt that real.”

“Did you still hate him, too?”

“I did hate him, once. I don’t anymore. It only needs to go in one direction for the spell to work.”

“I know that, but if you don’t hate him anymore, why won’t you stay to see this out?”

“Oh please, Lupin. As if you want me here anyway. The moment he comes back, you’ll want to drag him off to a secluded corner, and I’ll only be in the way.”

Lupin smiles slightly, admitting, “That’s…only partially true.”

“You promised you wouldn’t give me away to anybody, and that includes him.” Lupin looks unconvinced. “I have my own reasons for not wanting to stay. I didn’t go into hiding with the fervent hope that my brother might need me someday. I do have a life of my own – Don’t look at me like that,” he yells, suddenly furious and unable to say why. “Sirius put being an Auror over his family twenty years ago – at least I came with you this far. I could have just told you to sod off.”

“You’re afraid he’ll tell you to sod off, and you don’t want to give him the opportunity.” The potion’s colour still fills the basement with a dull, red glow, so Lupin won’t be able to discern his blush, but there it is. “That’s it, isn’t it. You are so much like him, terrified of asking for help, pretending you don’t need anything because you’re afraid of being denied. Black, I honestly don’t know which of the two of you I pity more.”

“It won’t be the first time he tells me to sod off. I think it was the Easter holidays in my second year, when it became clear he was never coming back. He was even staying with the Potters rather than at school for the break. Stella Mira brought his letter to us, telling us he wanted to do more than further the glories of the House of Black, and Mother lost all reason. It didn’t matter that he’d always been her favourite before – she blasted him off the family tree, and then went through the house and blew up all his portraits, went through his room in the nursery and smashed everything. I got home from meeting with one of the other Houses – might have been the Notts, total waste of time, whoever it was – and found her in front of one of his pictures in the nursery, on the floor crying. I was in the portrait too, and I wouldn’t move aside to let her blast him.”

“The one we used? The one of him at the age of seven?”

“Yes. It was the only one left.” He saved that portrait when he left Grimmauld Place the last time. Taking it out this afternoon, and trying to coax the painted Sirius out so they could use the painting in this spell required convincing four-year-old painted Regulus that they meant his brother no harm. Portrait Regulus demanded to know who he was before fetching Portrait Sirius from wherever he was hiding.

When Portrait Sirius appeared as well, and called out “Father? Is that you?” Regulus wanted to cry. Until Portrait Regulus said, “That’s not father, stupid! It’s Uncle Cepheus!” And then he started to laugh, and couldn’t stop. I always hated it when people laughed at what I said, and I did it to myself. Which only made him laugh harder, and the look of sheer outrage on his younger self’s scowling, painted face hadn’t helped.

The entire cauldron is boiling with light now, chasing the last vestiges of deep red away. It’s working. We’ve done it.

“I should - ”

“You should stay,” Lupin says firmly, as though he means to stand in Regulus’ way. “You should, but I know better than to try and force a Black to accept pity or help he doesn’t want.” Lupin stops talking, mercifully. “One day, you really must put the mirror you stole to the purpose it was stolen for.”

“It’s already served that purpose,” he says, wanting nothing more than to be gone.

He walks up the stairs, toward the main door, telling himself he isn’t running. He’ll work it out. He will. And if he cares at all, he’ll try to contact me this time. The last time I tried to talk to him… he pushes the memory aside, unwilling to examine it or the emotions behind it.

Lupin is probably right – his older brother and he himself have always been too stubborn and proud to ask one other for anything. Opening the door, he can hear the church bell – We three, kings of Orient are – striking midnight. It must be – Bearing gifts we traverse afar – Christmas now. There are still carollers – Field and fountain, moor and mountain – making their way down the street – Following yonder star – approaching Number Twelve.

Letting the door swing slowly shut – O star of wonder, star of light – he makes his away across to the park to Apparate.

~~*~~

Christmas Holidays, 1995-96

Even with the potion, the transformation will leave his muscles cramping for most of the day. It is worth it, though, not to have to worry about breaking out of the room and hurting someone. Worth it to sleep next to Sirius, even if it is as a wolf, and not have to worry about what everybody else might think. It doesn’t matter that Sirius no longer transforms into the black dog. As long as the rest of the house guests think that the Grim is keeping him company during the full moon, they won’t question too closely why it is usually well after moonset that Sirius emerges from the room they share on full moon nights.

Sleeping in separate rooms – Sirius insists on it, because you never know when someone will come banging on your door to wake you up – is the first thing he will change about their living arrangements, if he has his way. He wants to be able to watch Sirius sleep more often. Human-shaped.

As a boy, Sirius looked so much better when he slept – sweeter, younger and more beautiful than awake – and it took him months to work out why. Sirius’s face when he was asleep was completely unguarded – unable to maintain the false pride and self-assurance he normally wore. Even now, at past thirty, he looks so heart-wrenchingly young as he sleeps. Moony slips off the bed and settles himself on the floor so he can see Sirius better, reluctant to wake him even though moonset will be soon.

Reluctant, because it is the last day of the holidays, they still haven’t heard anything from Dumbledore, and Sirius’ temper is becoming worse. After poring over all of the books on blood magic in the house – and there are so many of them – they researched the mental link between Harry and Voldemort. It became obvious very quickly that the blood link can’t be dismantled unless they have both Harry and Voldemort to work on. All that time wasted, reading up on those resurrection spells.

Instead, Sirius suggested there should be some way of blocking Harry’s mind from Voldemort’s. Remus knows Dumbledore is an expert in the field of soul and memory magic, and added that perhaps Dumbledore could teach Harry how to protect himself – if any protection is available, surely he will be the one to know. This will also give Harry the contact with the Headmaster he wants.

And for a full, glorious week, Sirius smiled and laughed and was happy. Christmas, even though it meant less to his pure-blood lover than it did to him, was wonderful. They had a solution, and Pigwidgeon – who nominally belongs to the Weasleys, but does everything Sirius asks anyway – carried their letter to the Headmaster before Christmas. And then they waited.

And now, one day before the children have to be returned to school, they continue to wait. When Sirius awakes, the peaceful expression he wears in his sleep will give way to the despair or fury that he seems to display more often and more openly of late. My black dog, was how Winston Churchill referred to his depressive condition, and Sirius – Remus’ own black dog – embodies depression and rage, especially when human.

“Remus?” Of the four of them, only Sirius referred to his wolf shape by both names. Sirius is the only person who understands that regardless of whether he is wolf-shaped or human-shaped, Remus wants all of the same things. Sirius rolls up into a sitting position on the bed, rubbing at his face. “Do you want to come up here?” Of course I do. He leaps up onto the bed, next to where Sirius is sitting, lying down and placing his head on Sirius’ lap to be stroked. He can sense Sirius grinning, and a moment later, Sirius is rubbing behind his ears.

“What were you doing on the floor? Did I kick you?” No. I wanted to see you. There is no way to tell Sirius that when he is wolf-shaped, and he tries to avoid licking Sirius’ face when he smells as strongly of alcohol as he does now. Besides which, his body is starting to tremble. Folding himself forward, Sirius drops a kiss between his eyes, and braces his arms around him as the moon sets, in all its excruciating slowness.

~~*~~

Soft knocking on the door brings him out of his doze.

“Who is it?” It is well after lunch, but he isn’t expecting anybody to bother him today. It is his turn to shepherd the children to school tomorrow, and he and Sirius have put it about that he needs to rest. Perhaps someone saw Sirius leave to forage breakfast for both of them and decided they required him immediately?

“It’s me. Sirius.” Opening the door as little as possible, Sirius slips into the room with a change of clothes, salves and breakfast.

“This is your house, Sirius. I’m your guest. You don’t have to knock for me.”

“I didn’t invite you over for tea, Remus. I invited you to live with me. You’re not quite the same kind of guest as the rest of the Order, and this is your room.” Putting his bundle down, Sirius walks over to him and kisses him. “How do you feel?”

“Much better now you’re back.” He winces, more from the taste of Sirius than from the pain of cramping limbs. He shifts his balance, turning towards the food Sirius has brought. It doesn’t matter that the tea Sirius is pouring is strong enough to make him more aware of the pain he is in. Breakfast first, then the world. “You never did, you know. Invite me to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“I must have,” Sirius replies absently, helping himself to toast. When he doesn’t say anything, Sirius turns back to him asking, “I never asked you?”

“I asked you the first time. You bough the flat with the money Alphard left you, but I was the one who did the asking.” He takes a sip of the tea. “The second time, when you came back to me, you moved back in when I asked you to.” Sirius is frowning, and pouring tea for himself. “And this time, you said you needed me to help you get past some of the defences and security wards and that it would only take a few days. Then I was helping you move your things in, you were helping me move my things in, and five months later, we’re still here. But you never asked me.” Sirius looks surprised, still. “I don’t know why you find it so difficult to believe. I’ve always been the one to do all the asking. The one to tell you what I want, to tell you that it’s you I want. You’ve always pretended you didn’t need anybody, and refused to ask anybody for anything.”

Instead of exploding as he expects, as he half hopes, Sirius sets his tea things on the bedside table, and calmly says, “I don’t ask for anything, Remus, but I’ve never denied you anything you asked of me. I thought that’s how you wanted it, and it’s been that way for so long.”

“It used to be all right. But everything’s changed now, Sirius. It’s not enough, anymore.”

“Not enough for what?”

“For me to know you want this.” Even as he says it, he is certain of what Sirius’ response will be. Every time he asked the question, Sirius gave him the same answer…

…and he doesn’t disappoint Remus this time either, as he says, “Of course I want this, you silly wolf, why else would I still be - ” here? Sirius’ smiling face changes, looks troubled. “That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t know if I’m here because of the Order, or because of Harry, or because I’m trapped here, or…”

“You almost never said whether or not you wanted me. Before. And whenever I asked, that was your reply. I knew that you’d never put up with anything you didn’t have to, and that if you stayed with me, it was because you wanted to. But here… you can’t leave, can you?”

Sirius appears to have lost all interest in breakfast, and looks so sad as he says, “I never thought about how this must be affecting you. You should never have doubted how I felt for you.”

“I know, but – ”

“I meant I should never have given you cause to doubt how I felt for you,” Sirius murmurs softly. “This is the first time I’m staying here with someone whose happiness depends on mine…” Sirius smiles hesitantly, brushing Remus’ face and throat with one hand. “I’ll just have to - ”

“Sirius! Are you awake yet?” It is Molly Weasley. You’ll just have to…what? Sirius rolls his eyes at the door.

“We’ll just pretend we can’t hear her,” he says, shifting closer to Sirius. For a moment, it is almost as if they are back at school, hiding whenever someone tried to find them, regardless of what they might want. Lying still and pressed against one another, trying not to breathe, the feeling is achingly familiar.

“Sirius! There’s a letter for you. From Dumbledore.” The timing really can’t be worse. He laughs weakly against Sirius’ chest.

“I could - ”

“You should go.”

“Remus, after everything I just said - ”

“I believe you Sirius. I do. You shouldn’t stay just to make a point.”

“It’s one worth making. I don’t want you to be unhappy.” Sirius insists, his fingers stroking gently along his face. “You can’t just stay with me out of - ”

“Sirius Black!”

I can’t just stay with you out of…what? But Sirius has lost the thread of the conversation and is roaring, “I CAN HEAR YOU, MOLLY!” at the door. Turning back to Remus, he lowers his voice to a whisper, “We’ll have to talk about this later,” he says, and Remus wants to curse, because as much as he wants Sirius to stay with him, or at the least finish his sentences, if Dumbledore has finally replied to their letter, Sirius needs to go now.

He settles tiredly back against the bed. “I’ll wait here, then,” he says softly as he picks up his tea. Smiling apologetically, Sirius pulls his robe and hair into a semblance of order as he goes out to deal with Molly.

“This just arrived for you from Dumbledore,” she says perfectly civilly, but her eyes, her facial expression, her entire demeanour accuse Sirius of sloth.

“Thank you, Molly.” Sirius shuts the door, but he can still hear them outside.

“The Professor’s waiting for you in the kitchen.”

Dumbledore’s arrived? It’s about bloody time. He hears Sirius snap the seal on the letter, and say, after reading it, “Molly, can you ask Harry to join me in the kitchen?” and then both of them are stalking off in different directions.

He smiles as he sips his tea. Everything will be all right. He is certain of it.

~~*~~

Sirius enters the room after knocking politely. Why does he look so angry? What’s happened? “What’s happened? You’ve been gone for so long, I thought…”

Sirius laughs bitterly, and tells him. How Harry will get lessons in Occlumency to protect himself, but it will be Snape who teaches him, not Dumbledore. How Snape derided Sirius’ godson in Sirius’ house, as well as Sirius himself, and Sirius tried to curse him, but Harry put himself between them both.

“Why did he do that, instead of just letting me hex the greasy bastard? You told me after your year in Hogwarts that Harry never cared for Snape. Why would he stop me, then?”

He stares at Sirius in disbelief. “It wasn’t Snape that Harry was trying to protect, Sirius.”

“There wasn’t anybody el– me? You must be out of your mind. I don’t need anybody’s help when it comes to - ”

“Snape’s not the boy you fought in school, Sirius! There have been significant advances in hexes and curses in the twelve years you were away, you won’t know the counter‑spells, and he could have hurt you badly.”

“You think I can’t do it without James backing me up, don’t you. James wouldn’t have got in the way, and tried to stop the fight, he would have trusted me to win it.”

“It doesn’t matter whether you could have won, or not. Harry isn’t James, and James didn’t have everything to lose when you fought Snape at school. If James had lost you, he’d have mourned, but he’d still have had his parents, or his wife, or his son, or his career or something to go on with. You can’t be angry with Harry for not wanting to take the same risks, Sirius.” He is angry with Sirius for not seeing that other people care about him, love him, want to keep him safe. “You mean everything to Harry, you’re the only one who loves him unconditionally, you’re the only thing next to family he has left, if he loses you… He loves you, Sirius.”

“Are we still talking about Harry,” Sirius asks shrewdly, “or about you?”

“How can I protect you and keep you safe if you pick fights with other people behind my back?” Sirius scowls, and Remus ignores cramping muscles to sit up, grab his arm, and yank him into the bed. Kissing Sirius’ throat, he says, “At least let me teach you the hexes you don’t know.”

“What for? I’m hardly likely to be allowed to leave the house to help fight anytime soon.”

Licking over Sirius’ Adam’s apple, he continues, “I’d feel much better, knowing your magic was up-to-date.”

Sirius snorts softly. “My magic must have gone to rot if you feel you have to goad me, guilt me and seduce me to get me to do what you want.” He looks in horror at the expression he knows he will find on Sirius’ face. Fight or flight. “Tell me, Professor Lupin, did you use all three methods to motivate your students when you taught at Hogwarts?”

“No,” he says hoarsely, hoping that if he can make Sirius laugh, he can avoid another fight. “I only ever used sex to motivate my students.” Sirius merely raises his eyebrows at him. “Flitwick recommended it, actually.”

Sirius resolutely refuses to laugh. “It’s not just your students, is it? It’s me, too, to distract me when you don’t want me to do something, or as a reward when you do want me to do something. I’ll do anything you ask, Remus, but you have to ask.”

Sirius is trying to push him off and sit up, and Remus wrestles him down onto the bed, determined to be heard out, even if he has to sit on the other man. “I’m not using sex to manipulate you, you idiot, I use it to show you I love you.”

“You’re lying.” Of all the responses he anticipated, this one isn’t even in the top fifty. Sirius is fighting him, struggling to get free, but there are spells he can use if he truly means to push past Remus, and until he does, Remus will use his superior strength to keep him there.

“I am not - ”

“Don’t you dare deny it.”

“Please let me finish.” Sirius is glaring at him – it is soul destroying to have that much anger directed at him from someone he loves – but Sirius is also silent, andwaits for him to speak. “I love you, and I don’t understand why you won’t believe me. I stay in this awful house because of you. I spend all of my spare hours with you. If it were up to me, we wouldn’t be sleeping in separate rooms.” If it were up to me, we wouldn’t be living here at all. “That’s all that keeps me here. The fact that you need me.”

“I don’t need you.”

“Sirius - ”

“I don’t. I don’t need your help, I don’t need you to teach me stupid spells, I don’t need your pity, and I don’t need you. If that’s all that’s keeping you here, than you should go, Remus, because I will only ever make you unhappy.”

As hurtful as these words are, he is grateful that they at least are not spoken in anger. “Don’t you want me to stay?”

Sirius won’t meet his eyes, and his heart falls. “Yes, but… Only if you want to, Remus.” It is a faint whisper, but he has always been able to hear Sirius, no matter how softly he speaks.

And he realises that Sirius is just as uncertain about him as he is about Sirius. That Sirius is nervous – if he’s absolved Remus from staying out of pity, why would he stay here one moment longer?

“I do,” he says solemnly, and they both laugh uneasily. “I love you. I’m not staying out of pity, or guilt, or…I don’t know what else is going on in that head of yours, but one thing you’re going to need to get through it is that I’m here because I want to be.”

“It felt like you were making yourself stay. Like you didn’t want to be here.” He’s not sure what to say to that. “Especially when we had sex. It felt like you were only doing it because you thought you had to.”

“That’s not true!”

“Then why won’t you kiss me?” It is a broken, miserable whisper. Oh, Sirius. Anything short of the truth will result in another explosion, and Remus is tired, but he chooses his words carefully, and tries to explain to Sirius, who is shaking underneath him.

“It isn’t the smell. It’s the taste, and the association …”

The smell is something Remus associates with poverty, and despair – both of them things he’s dealt with nearly all of his adult life, and both of them feelings he is able to protect himself from. The taste, on the other hand… The taste of firewhisky inside someone’s mouth is something Remus associates with all of the partners – male and female, every single bloody one – that he wasted his time with before he discovered Sirius. Drunken, unfulfilling encounters that he partly blames on teenage hormones and partly on the Curse wanting to mark its territory and distribute its seed as widely as possible.

Even the ones he slept with after they took Sirius from him – after he let them take Sirius from him – had that in the common with the ones before. He associated that taste with desperation, and lust. Since Sirius has been confined to the house, whenever they kiss – and Sirius almost never initiates that anymore – he can feel that familiar surge of self-loathing rise in him. His Sirius, who has always tasted of himself – natural, unpolluted and clean – is not someone he wants to link, even mentally, with those emotions.

“I can’t kiss you when you taste like that,” he finishes, “Not you. The rest of them all needed to be drunk to want me. You were the only one who never did. The only one who wanted me because of who I was, and not because you were drunk and I was convenient. It never bothered me with you before, but now, when you’re stuck here, and when you taste like that… Sirius, I can’t.”

Sirius stares at him, sounding dreamlike as he says, “Let me go, Remus.” He moves off Sirius immediately, not sure whether Sirius means ‘Get off me’ or ‘Find someone else’. Before he can ask, Sirius has Apparated from him.

When did this all become so difficult? Someone once said you never appreciated anything you didn’t have to work for, which fits all too well with how much he loves Sirius. At the same time, he can’t live with this uncertainty forever. Maybe I should just leave, if he can’t bear this either.

But leaving will mean going back to the flat in the square, and for him, if things with Sirius end forever, there are far more painful memories associated with that tiny flat than Grimmauld Place in all its Gothic glory. He has also hurt Sirius badly, never realising how easy it is to do, when the other man hides everything behind that self‑assured smile. Making himself get out of the bed, he reaches for a more presentable outer robe, and leaves his room to search for Sirius.

~~*~~

He can’t have left the house. Unless he lied about the wards. But my Sirius never used to lie to me – concealed things, yes, but never lied. Perhaps Sirius has started to lie to him, and this is just another sign of their deteriorating relationship, he thinks exhaustedly. He has exhuastedly dragged himself through all of the dark corridors of this house, perversly leaving checking Sirius’ room until last. Because if he isn’t in there, he thinks as he stands outside the room, then he really has left me.

Courage, Lupin, he tells himself and lets himself in.

The lights in the room are low, but he is inside it alone. He’s gone. It’s over. The despair is overwhelming – coming on the heels of what he thought was a reconciliation – and for a moment, he can’t think. When he is able to again, his first thought is for what he will tell the rest of the Order, and what he will tell Harry.

His second thought is that there is light shining from under another door. One that leads to the bathroom linked to this room. Sirius. It doesn’t occur to him to knock or ask permission before he removes this last barrier, and steps inside.

“Sirius?”

Sirius looks up in surprise, arrested in the act of winding a towel around his lower body. He recalls momentarily that Sirius hates people walking in on him, but that thought is chased out his mind as he stares. Sirius’ skin is wet and gleaming, and he smells of soda and mint and glycerine and more importantly, of Sirius. He realises his mouth is open in shock and surprise, and closes it. All of this, done for me, and I thought you’d left me forever.

He walks over to Sirius before the other man can Apparate away, or say anything else, and gently backs him into the wall and kisses him. “I’m sorry if I scared you,” Sirius whispers against his mouth, “but when you told me why,” Sirius pulls away for a moment to trace the outline of his lips with a finger, “I defy anyone else to wait one heartbeat longer than I did to remedy the situation.”

He kisses Sirius again, and when Sirius’ tongue slips past his lips and touches his own, all he can taste on it is sweet Sirius, exactly as it should be. “I meant it when I said I’d do anything you asked, Remus. Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

“I tried to, but…” It upset you so much… “I had no right,” he confesses.

“You had every right,” Sirius says, kissing him again, “You have every right.” Those eyes are on him again, the steel grey softening into silver and smoke, and he can’t speak, swallowing the spit in his mouth and gazing back at Sirius. “If I have to choose between drinking myself unconscious, and you kissing me senseless, I know which one I’ll choose every single time, but let me choose. There isn’t much I’ll put before you.”

Sirius is already well on the way to making him want to stay, not just in this house, but with his arms around him forever. Joining their mouths again, he is reacquainting himself with the way Sirius shivers when he bites his lip – ah, there – and the way the inside of the other man’s mouth tastes when he licks the inside of it over and over and ­– I could do this forever…missed it so much, should have said something sooner…

No longer content simply to accept what Sirius offers, he lets the towel falls away as he lifts Sirius into his arms and back to the bedroom. Sirius breaks the kiss, saying, “When you’re with me… You keep me sane, Remus. Until you found me again, I was just a dog trying to kill a rat. Barely remembered I was Sirius Black, didn’t recognise my face or my name in the posters they put up, barely remembered who Sirius Black was. Until you found me.”

Setting Sirius down again, he leans forward and kisses Sirius’ smiling mouth, licking at the corners of the smile, trying to map the curve of his lover’s lips with his tongue. “Remus,” Sirius says with some difficulty, around the way his mouth is being licked, “Isn’t it better for you to stay because it’s what we both want than out of responsibility or guilt?” Remus drops his head onto Sirius’ shoulder, unwilling to say anything when Sirius is speaking to him so lovingly, choosing instead to nuzzle Sirius’ throat. “Please say something, Remus.”

“You should probably shut the door,” he says, laughing softly as Sirius’ expression turns to horror.

“All hells!” Sirius throws him off, reaching for a night shirt at the same time and something painful presses into his back as he lands on the bed.

Reaching under himself, he pulls the shapes out. “What is - ” He recognises the mirrors instantly. “What are these for?”

“I found them after I finished with Snape. I wanted to give one to Harry, so he can tell me if Snape’s a problem. It’s the only safe way to communicate.”

“Molly is going to have your bollocks for this,” he laughs, setting the mirrors aside. He realises that Sirius forgot about both the mirrors and the wide open door, and that this is the first time in months – perhaps in fourteen years – that Sirius is focussed on him, to the point where he forgets about other things. This is a thousand times more arousing than anything anybody else has done for or to him.

“I’ll tell Harry not to tell her. Interfering witch.” Sirius grins and pulls the nightshirt over his head. “Planned to wrap it tonight. If Molly thinks it’s a Christmas present, we might be able to get it past her and into the school.” Standing, Sirius crosses to the door, and is about to shut it, when he hesitates and turns back to him, asking, “Do you want to stay here, tonight?”

Of course I do. “Give me a minute.”

He returns to his own room, shuts it and locks it from the inside, and then Apparates back to Sirius, who shuts the door and comes and sits on the bed. He leaps up onto the bed, next to where Sirius is sitting, lying down and placing his head on Sirius’ lap to be stroked. He can sense Sirius grinning, and a moment later, Sirius is rubbing behind his ears. “If I had you to myself,” Sirius whispers, “I’d have wrapped my legs around you and ridden you to bed, rather than letting you carry me like that.”

“You’ll have me to yourself when I get back tomorrow,” he says, having to really concentrate on what he is saying when Sirius touches him like that. “You can do that and more, if you like,” he manages, before Sirius’ fingers twist and pinch and make him whine high in his throat, wordlessly begging for more.

Sirius is the only one who knows that he loves having this done nearly as much when he’s human-shaped as he does when he’s wolf-shaped. Sirius is the only one who has done this for him without making a ‘Whatever works for you, Christ you’re strange’ face. Sirius is the only one who knows how good this feels.

“I should think so. After they all go, after Arthur and Molly return to The Burrow, we’re celebrating our anniversary properly.” Sirius settles back onto the bed, and draws Remus back with him, his fingers still rubbing idly. “Once you get back here tomorrow, Lupin, you’re mine.”

He extinguishes the lights, and snuggles into Sirius, feeling the other man pressed against his right side, from head to heel. Sirius’ fingers run from behind his ear, down his neck, along his chest, down one arm and intertwine with his own fingers, settling against his hip and keeping him close. “Not just when I get back tomorrow, Black. I’ve been yours for years.”

It doesn’t matter that they’re both too tired to do anything more than curl into one another’s arms and sleep. He will take this intimacy, this closeness that Sirius has offered him, over anything else he could initiate with Sirius that the other man will tolerate passively. Sirius’ lips brush against his shoulder, and he can feel Sirius’ nose pressing against his throat.

“I love you,” Sirius whispers.

“I love you, too,” he whispers back. It is the first time in over fifteen years that he has had a chance to say that.

~~*~~

Christmas Holidays, 1976

He is roused from his half awake doze by banging on the door and yelling outside. Remus still has his arms wrapped around him from the previous night. Oh…nooo, that’s not where your hand was last night… “They want to know if you’re up yet,” Remus whispers into his ear, stroking his knuckles gently over Sirius’ night shirt directly above his groin and rousing him down there too, asking. “What would you like me to tell them?”

“Sirius Black! Remus Lupin! It is nearly noon! Get out of there this instant and tell me if you want breakfast or lunch, or you’ll have neither!”

“In a minute, uncle!”

“And stop calling me that! It makes me feel old!”

“Must you both yell?” Remus asks, kissing his throat and moving down to his chest.

“Yes,” he insists, shivering under Remus’ efforts. Turning to the door again, he roars back, “You are old!”

There is laughter from further down the hall, heard over the muttered, “Right, that is it.” More stamping and banging, and then Alphard is outside the door to their room again. “Boys, if I don’t get a proper answer out of you before I count to ten, I am coming in there.”

Sirius grins, preparing to call his uncle’s bluff, but the threat alarms Remus who is scrambling to cover both of them properly and wrapping his arms around them protectively.

“We’ll be downstairs in half an hour, Mr Black. Whatever you’re having for breakfast or lunch would be lovely.” Remus’ hand is over his mouth and he licks at the other boy’s palm, causing Remus to curse and pull away. His uncle clearly wasn’t expecting a polite response, and seems to be lost for words.

“All right… Well, Marius and I are having breakfast, so if the two of you could - ”

“You hypocrite!” he yells at his uncle. “The two of you only just got up now too, didn’t you?”

There is an explosive noise outside the door, as though Alphard is choking on his own exasperation. “The day is almost half gone, Sirius. There are only two days of holiday left, and we still need to buy your new robes.” He outgrew his old ones before the summer, and the new ones Mother had made are all black and silver. He wants something blue.

“We’ll be down shortly, then,” he concedes – more to get rid of his uncle than anything else – because Remus is trying to see what he hides under his nightshirt, and he needs all his wits about him to put a stop to it.

“Good. See that you are,” Alphard sighs and he can hear his uncle walking back to the stairs.

“I didn’t say we’d be down shortly. I said half an hour,” Remus smiles, reaching down. He catches Remus’ hands as Remus rolls on top of him, trapping his hips between his knees and squeezing. This is new and unfamiliar territory. “What can I do to you in half an hour, I wonder?”

“You tell me,” he says, smiling up at Remus as the other boy pulls his hands out of his grip, and bends forward to kiss him. This is more familiar, but only because it is almost all they’ve spent their time doing since New Year’s Eve.

It was the day before Christmas Eve, when he arrived back at Hogwarts. Stella Mira, his black eagle owl, arrived on Christmas Day, and he sent her off to this Uncle Alphard of his, asking if he and Remus could stay with him in London for New Year’s Eve, and also if Alphard could give him permission to leave the school. The day before New Year’s Eve, Alphard showed up at Hogwarts and apologised to him for his delay. “I’m sorry I wasn’t in Britain for Christmas – I’d have invited you to spend it with me. I can make it up to you for New Year’s, though.”

Remus was amazed to find out that he knew the Alfred Noire who owned the music club on the corner of Circe Square and Music Alley, and then cursed his own stupidity, for not realising that Alfred Noire was Sirius’ uncle, Alphard Black. Alphard seemed far too easy going and interested in Muggles to be a Black. He thought that might be why his parents had never spoken about him much. Then he and Remus were introduced to Marius – Alphard’s friend – at Hogsmeade, before the four of them portkeyed to the flat the two of them shared. The flat was across the square from the nightclub they owned. And after his first visit to the nightclub, he realised why his uncle rarely visited them.

“It’s not because of Marius. Not entirely. That wouldn’t have bothered the rest of them, as long as nobody else knew about it. Cassie even met him once – was nothing but courteous and polite. No, what really did the damage was the fact that even though I married Persephone Malfoy and gave her two daughters, her third daughter was not mine. Narcissa’s father was a Malfoy too. But Cassie and Persephone have never gotten along well – Cassie had intended to name you Andromeda, if you were a girl, and after Persephone stole the name for her second daughter, Cassie went to some trouble to ensure you and Regulus would be boys. The fact that Persephone had cuckolded me – although to be fair, it wasn’t something that ever worried me – damaged the House of Black’s prestige, and I don’t think Cassie has ever forgiven me for letting it happen.”

“Father mentioned it, when I said I didn’t want to marry Narcissa. He and Mother used it to stir up the Malfoys. He said he’d permit Narcissa’s engagement to Lucius Malfoy in exchange for them conceding ground to us in Council. The Malfoys agreed, votes were exchanged and the contract was signed. The next day, Mother had someone spread the rumour that Narcissa was illegitimate and not a real pure-blood, either.”

Alphard grinned wickedly. “That sounds like the Cassie we all know and love. The prize is always poisoned.”

“If I’d stayed betrothed to Narcissa… If I hadn’t… The Malfoy’s couldn’t have… Father would still …” And he was crying all over again, with Alphard trying to soothe him, telling him that these were battles that the families had been fighting for generations, and none of it was his fault.

The overriding thought in his mind was that if he’d left the betrothal alone, his parents would never have tried to put one over the Malfoys and Father would be alive now. That lasted until New Year’s Eve, when Alphard and Marius brought he and Remus to the club – called ‘The Hydra’, presumably after Alphard. He felt completely disoriented, wearing odd Muggle clothing for the first time in his life, his sight and hearing confounded by the music and the lights. It was terrifying, being in an environment so alien he couldn’t even bluff his way through it, but Alphard told him he’d seen Remus around the club during the summer, and to let the other boy look after him.

The idea behind ‘clubs’ confused him, when Alphard tried to explain it. Why would people come to such a place in order to meet someone to marry? Why can’t their parents arrange a match for them, he asked Alphard and his uncle turned red and ran away. Marius was the one to explain that what people went to clubs to do did not always lead to marriage. But that doesn’t mean they can’t have fun trying, he added cryptically, grinning after Alphard.

In addition, people who came to this club weren’t able to marry – at least, not marry the people they came to the club to meet – and in fact, this club was one of the few places in the city where it was safe for them even to meet, and be together. Oh, he said, when the pieces finally fell into place, because it’s not possible for two men to marry one another. And immediately on the heels of that thought was, I thought you said you’d seen Remus in here before? Which apparently was Marius’ cue to turn red and run away.

Now all he associates the betrothal contract with is the fact that if he were betrothed to Narcissa still, he wouldn’t have let Remus pull him into his lap and kiss him in the club. At the time, it was just one more strange, new thing in a night that had been full of strangeness and newness.

But it felt so good, straddling Remus’ legs, with Remus’ arms around him and his hands cradling the back of his head, stroking through his hair, pulling him forward and angling his face so Remus could get to him better. He wanted to make Remus feel as good as he did, opened his mouth to lick at Remus’ lips the way Remus was lapping at his, when suddenly, Remus’ tongue plunged past his lips and teeth, and his mouth was bitten and licked inside and out, and he was dizzy from lack of air, but wanted it to never stop.

Now, every time their mouths meet, he feels warmth bubbling up from his belly, surging upwards toward his brain, filling his thoughts with heat. No longer strange, but right. No longer new, but familiar. Despite that, he can’t think for all the heat in his brain when Remus tilts his head back against the pillows and seals his mouth over his own, as though he intends to devour him whole. There are fingers stroking his throat, fluttering against his collarbone, undoing his nightshirt, and he has to reach a hand out to push them away. “Nnn…Remus, don’t…” The fingers withdraw immediately, moving back to his head and tangling in his hair.

“It’s okay, Sirius. Relax,” Remus says, even though Remus himself is anything but relaxed, tense and hard and rubbing against Sirius’ side. Whenever he can remember to relax, everything is fine. He can concentrate on the way Remus rotates his crotch against his hip, which makes his cock twitch even though nothing is touching it. On the way Remus holds his head between his hands, as though it is something fragile and precious. On the way Remus licks his nipples through the thin cotton of his nightshirt, which for some reason makes the head of his aching cock wetter and wetter.

When he relaxes, he can forget that all of this is being done to him for the first time, and that all too soon, the hands will move away from his head and start tugging urgently at the hem of his nightshirt again. “All right, Sirius?” Remus’ breath is coming in short, panting puffs now, and he can feel them warm against his ear.

“All right,” he lies softly, trying not to show the fear he feels. “I – Oh hells.” Something inside him snaps. There is no better word for it than that. “All hells,” he curses again. Something is trying to tear out of his bones, set fire to his blood, and peel his muscles apart.

“Sirius, what’s wrong?”

“Get Alphard, please,” and get out, now. He is in so much pain, yet his overwhelming concern is that Remus shouldn’t see him throw up. Remus doesn’t even stop to collect a robe – just runs to the door in his pyjama bottoms and yells for Mr Black to hurry, Sirius is thrashing, Sirius is screaming, Sirius is in pain, come here now and help him.

“He’s coming, Sirius, lie back.” Remus tries to put a hand on his forehead to stroke his face, and then snaps it away as though he’s burned it. “Christ!”

“Sirius?”

It is his uncle and Marius, both with their wands out, approaching him. Make Remus go, make him wait outside, I’m going to… It is too late. Alphard is just turning to ask Marius to check the wards on the flat, and for Remus to check the locks on all the doors and windows, just as something wrenches free inside him, as if someone is trying to yank his spine out through his mouth, and then he is vomiting all over the bed.

~~*~~

The pain is gone as suddenly as it started, and despite his protests, Sirius is made to spend the rest of the day in bed, drinking endless cups of tea – each weaker than the last – while Remus sits at his bedside and strokes his arm repeatedly. “I don’t like seeing you in pain,” Remus says, as Sirius forces himself to drink another cup of tea – if you can call something that’s mostly hot water and milk, which may perhaps have seen a tea leaf before it left the kitchen, tea. “I like it less when I can’t do anything about it.”

Despite all the social etiquette that was covered as part of his upbringing, he can’t think of the appropriate response to such a declaration.

Later that evening, when Remus starts to kiss him again, Sirius doesn’t try to stop him when his hands lift his nightshirt up to his waist, baring him from his hips down. He keeps his hands away from Remus’ head as the older boy bends over his cock. He hides his alarm when he realises that Remus is going to take his cock into his mouth and instead of pushing him away, he lies back and clenches his fingers in the bed sheets. Will he want me to do the same for him? The warm air Remus breathes out over his penis, before he takes the head into his mouth and clamps his lips just under the head, sets heat boiling in his stomach again. It spreads out faster than it did this morning, setting fire to his spine, and igniting his brain, and he is thrashing again, his head whipping from side to side on the pillows.

I should relax, he tells himself, but the thought is far away, and surreal, and patently ridiculous. How can he relax when one of his best friends is licking the head of his cock, and then sucking on the rest of it, and then rolling his balls between his fingers? His entire body is strung tighter than a harp string, and when Remus’ fingers move to his arsehole, his entire body lifts off the bed, and his cock is spurting wet, warm and white, all over his belly and thighs.

The heat that was building up inside him vanishes in an instant, shooting out of his body along with his seed, and his hips spasm up again and again until Remus places an arm just below his navel and holds him down; holds him down to kiss all over his flaccid cock, and to lick at the white on his stomach and thighs, and the sweat forming in the creases where his legs join his body.

Remus comes back up to kiss him, and he wants to pull away – he knows all too well what that mouth has just done – but when Remus kisses him, and he tastes himself on the other boy’s tongue, he can feel the heat building in him again. Despite his tiredness, despite the fact that this is the most the two of them have done together since New Year’s Eve, he knows they are not done yet. He shivers, and Remus draws the covers up around both of them, kissing his throat and the side of his neck, whispering things to him that make his spent cock jump like a salmon under the sheets.

Intertwining the fingers of their right hands under the sheet, Remus guides them past the waistband of his pyjamas. How can stroking his cock make mine twitch like that, Sirius wonders, as his fingers are left to continue their stroking alone, and Remus moves his own further down between his legs. Remus’ whispers become groans, and he is thrusting up into Sirius’ hand, and when he shouts, Sirius’ fingers come away wet and sticky. He hides his shock when Remus brings Sirius’ fingers up to his mouth, and asks him to taste them, and he does as Remus says, because for all he knows, this is what two boys do to please one another.

Without being asked, he pushes the sheet aside and keeps the fear off his face as he lowers his face over Remus’ cock. He even manages to smile at Remus before he leans forward to clean Remus as Remus cleaned him. Remus whispers all the way through it how beautiful he is, how perfect he is, how wonderful it feels when he moves his tongue there like – oh – that, and then the whispers give way to a frantic, high‑pitched whining sound.

As they adjust their clothes, Remus holds him closely, kisses him, and tells him to sleep soundly. Wrapped in the tangled sprawl of their limbs, Sirius realises he will have to say something eventually, that he has a thousand questions for one or both of Alphard and Marius, that he can’t hide his ignorance forever, and that he is balancing on a treacherously thin wire between Remus’ desire and his own inexperience.

~~*~~

The next day, they go ahead with their plan of shopping for new clothes, for no other reason than to spite whoever tried to hurt him. He and Remus look for ready-made robes in Music Alley, the side lane that links Circe Square with Diagon Alley. Since he needs the clothes for tomorrow, he has to ignore his mother’s voice in his head, insisting in an outraged voice that you don’t know who could have tried the things on before you. When you buy clothing, you have it fitted to yourself.

He is undoing the dark blue robe he has tried on, when the curtains to the change room flex, and Remus walks in. Startled, he instinctively pulls the garment around him and flinches at the hurt that flashes on Remus’ face before the other boy suppresses it. It doesn’t matter that Remus has seen more of him than this already. Stupid curtain. Why aren’t you a door I can lock?

“Sorry. I thought you were done. They’re ready to put your order together.” Taking him in from head to toe, Remus smiles, and says, “You look lovely. Dark blue suits you.” He knows now that the heat he feels spreading through him when he is near Remus, or when Remus touches him, is nothing more than his skin flushing and burning red. He can feel the blush start at his stomach and burn its way up to his throat, along his cheeks.

“You said the same thing about the silver shirt I was wearing on New Year’s Eve.”

“Did I? Probably said it just to get into your trousers.” He laughs and turns back to his reflection, watches the glass as Remus approaches him from behind, wraps his arms around his waist and kisses his throat, licking the ripples in his throat as he giggles. “I think I prefer you in trousers, to this,” he says, running his fingers along the fabric of the robe.

“I don’t. They feel wrong. Touch me in all the wrong ways.” They are staring into each other’s eyes in the reflection.

As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Remus laughs huskily against his ear, and rubs his groin against his arse. “Whereas in this, I can get to you faster and touch you in all the right ways,” Remus murmurs, his trailing fingers pushing past the robe and reaching for him. All the while, Remus’ other arm grips his hips, and moves his rear in a slow, erotic, grinding circle against Remus’ hardening cock.

Oh, that’s… That’s… Remus, you have to stop, right now…

“We can’t do this in here, Remus.” We can’t do this until I’ve had a chance to talk to Alphard… It is a while before Remus releases him, and even then, he rests his forehead on his shoulder, breathing rasping and shallow.

“You’re right,” he says, avoiding Sirius’ gaze in the reflection. “You get changed, and then we should head back to the flat. Marius was expecting us back an hour ago.”

“Wait,” he says, grabbing the belt loop of Remus’ trousers and yanking the other boy toward him. Remus shouldn’t think that he doesn’t want him, and if he has to choose between his fear and Remus’ hurt, he knows which he would rather soothe. Winding his hands through Remus’ hair, he pulls the other boy’s head down to be kissed. This is the first time he has initiated the kiss, and pushing past Remus’ lips, he strokes his tongue along Remus’ own, hearing Remus make that soft, whining sound in his throat again.

Within a heartbeat, he is shoved back against the wall of the change room, his head rebounding off the wall with a solid smack, and Remus is pushing against him. “Sirius, if you wanted me to go, this is the worst thing you could possibly have done, you wretched tease.” Remus is panting, planting damp, licking kisses on his eyebrows, his nose, his cheeks, his ears, along his jaw, and down his throat, one hand reaching for the fastenings of his robe, snapping the catches loose. He doesn’t understand what Remus has just said, and tries to catch the other boy’s hands and keep them from tearing his clothes away.

“Remus, you have to - ” His words are cut off as Remus kisses him hard, as though he is trying to kiss him through the wall. His head smacks against the wall again, and he whimpers in pain. Both his mouth and the back of his head will be bruised tomorrow. If they aren’t bruised by this afternoon. He tries to draw a breath in high alarm as Remus reaches for the catches at his waist, but can’t breathe with Remus’ mouth over his own. No, no, no, take your hand away from there, you can’t do that here. His robe falls away, and he is naked in the change room of a respectable clothing shop with his – what? Friend? Boyfriend? – mashing him against the wall, and every time he parts his lips to speak, his mouth is filled with the other boy’s tongue.

“Tell me, Sirius, did the others like it when you teased them like this?” What others? What are you talking about? “I’m afraid it really doesn’t do anything for me,” and suddenly he can’t think because icy, cold fear is cutting through the heat of Remus’ ministrations. Remus is stronger than he is, and Remus might not mean to hurt him, but Remus won’t listen to him either, and his wand is on the other side of the room in his other robe. Let me go, he pleads in his head, but it is no good, because Remus can’t read his mind, and Sirius is still too stubborn to say the words aloud.

“Remus, we can’t do this in here, anybody could walk in,” he says, trying to stay quiet and control his rising panic, only barely managing to keep his expression calm.

“Anybody could have walked in when you kissed me just now,” Remus grins, and tickles him gently by stroking his fingers along his sides. “Relax, Sirius, this won’t take long.”

As Remus removes his hands from Sirius to undo his own clothing, he shoves Remus away, hard. “We can’t, Remus, not in here.” Gasping for air, he pulls the robe he wore when they entered the shop around him. The hurt on Remus’ face is a hundred, thousand, million times worse than it was before. “I’m sorry, but there are some things I need to tell you...”

“Let me guess. You’ve decided you don’t like boys any more?”

“No, that’s not - ”

“Or is it me you don’t like?” He isn’t sure what to say, and doesn’t want any attempt he makes to comfort Remus to be misconstrued as teasing – whatever that is – again. The silence stretches out, and Remus gets up, saying, “I’ll wait for you outside.” He wishes Remus wouldn’t look at him like that. “You let me know when you make up your mind what you want, Sirius.”

You, he thinks brokenly, it’s you I want, but Remus is leaving, and the curtain flutters shut behind him.

He has just finished fastening his robe, and is starting to gather all his things, when he hears someone say, “– must be empty, I’m sure I saw someone come out of it.”

For pity’s sake, we can’t have been caught already. Weaselling out of a thousand pranks hasn’t been for nothing. At least he is fully dressed. He checks his features in the mirror. Calm. Assured. Whoever you are, you’re about to barge in on me, and I will be displeased. The curtain snaps apart again, and it is as though he is looking into another reflection, wearing the same silver and black robes he is, as well as the same arrogantly bored expression.

“Is there someone in there?” another voice asks from far away.

“Just my younger brother, Barty,” the reflection says coolly. Younger brother? With a start, he realises that the figure in front of him is Regulus, older and taller. Still, Regulus is the younger of the two of them, and as the senior, he refuses to acknowledge his brother until Regulus says something first.

“You can’t just stare at one another forever, Sirius,” Barty laughs. “He’s your older brother now. You have to acknowledge him first.”

As much as the pure-blood hierarchies and social rituals disgust him, he is more familiar with them than he is with whatever it is Remus wants from him, and he no longer has to work at maintaining outward calm. He might not know how two boys are supposed to pleasure one another, but he knows with absolute certainty that Blacks are superior to Crouches, and that Barty has spoken out of turn.

“Barty, were you given permission to speak on my behalf, when I wasn’t looking?” Regulus asks, with calm menace.

“I - ”

“Wait on the other side of the shop. Better still, wait in the sweet shop in Diagon Alley, if you can’t be trusted to know when to speak.” Barty shoots a furious look at both of them before leaving. Regulus has not broken eye contact with him for a second. His lips curve into a lazy smile. “Nothing to say, little brother?”

“Who did this to you?” he demands, finally given the opening he needs, even though it is far from courteous. He is staring at his baby brother – staring up at his baby brother – who is now taller than he is. Someone took you and stretched you and aged you and hurt you and I know who it was. All hells, I know who did this to you.

“Mother had to.” No. I did this to you. I should have taken you with me. “We didn’t know what had happened to you, couldn’t trace you. Cowering behind the protection spells at Hogwarts, were you? Where have you been?”

“That’s none of your business.” It is too quick, too defensive, but he can’t think properly. He finds it difficult to believe that five minutes ago, his biggest concern was being found naked in a public change room with another boy kissing him. Now…

“Isn’t it? I’m your older brother, now. You belong to the House of Black, and you really should do as I say, instead of making me cross.”

“I don’t belong to the House of Black.” He is determined to control this conversation. “I asked Mother for something, and she told me it was out of the question, to never ask her again. If she wants me to come back so badly, then she has to give me something in return for doing what she wants.” Regulus raises an eyebrow, his face remaining otherwise smooth. “You don’t have to stay with her either, baby cat. She only wants to use you. She’s already using you, look at what she’s done to you.”

“Don’t call me that,” his brother snaps, face losing its lazy hauteur for a moment. “I don’t care what you think you know. It only looks like she’s using me because I’m not selfish like you, and want to do this for our family. What sort of Gryffindor are you anyway, to run like a coward as soon as things get difficult? You’re pathetic.” Regulus looks two or three years older than Sirius is – Seventeen. She’ll have made him seventeen so he can vote at Council – but he still sounds like a furious twelve-year-old underneath all the false social graces. “I could make you come back. You wouldn’t like it if I did.”

Regulus has his wand out, has it pointed at his chest. I’m not pathetic. I’m not a coward. He fights down panic – it has become second nature, of late – and forces himself to smile. “As if you could,” he scoffs, “Put that thing away, and - ”

“You can’t intimidate or bluff me. I learned all those tricks too. I know you’re only fifteen and can’t do magic outside of school. Do you want to draw your wand, and pretend you could fight back if you wanted to?”

He can hear Father’s voice in his head. Never draw your wand, unless you mean to use it. He was brought up never to use it to pose, or threaten or cajole – only for when magic was intended. He was six when he learned that lesson. Regulus was three, and will not remember. Has someone taught him since then? Does his brother really mean to hex him, or is he bluffing?

“Do as I say, Sirius. I’ll give you one more chance to admit defeat.”

His hand is on his wand in an instant and he pulls it free of his robes, holding it in front of him unflinchingly. “Are you sure I can’t do magic, Regulus? If you and Mother couldn’t track me, what chance does the Ministry have?” He lets himself smile, slow and threatening until his lips are peeled back and he is showing teeth. Believe me. Back down now. “Mother won’t be pleased if she hears we fought in public, baby cat.” There are terrified noises coming from the workbench to his left, but all of his attention is on his younger brother. He thinks he can hear the shop bell jangle as the door opens, too, but he can’t afford to look away for a second.

“Mother isn’t going to hear about anything I don’t want her to, puppy.” His fingers clench around his wand at the nickname. “You’re not of age yet, whereas I am, so - ”

“What a coincidence. So am I.” He wonders how far from the store Remus walked before he realised Sirius wasn’t following, and came back to investigate. Remus draws his wand as he places himself between the two of them, shielding him with his body. “Come try it, Black. You might be of age too, but I’ve four years of spell work you lack.”

“Move out of the way, Mudblood,” Regulus orders. Sirius disguises his shock – both of them were brought up with strict instructions not to swear in public.

“What will you do if I don’t?” Remus asks pleasantly, almost conversationally, but his fingers clench around his wand, too, turning his pink knuckles pale yellow.

Will he attack? He is sure Regulus would have left him alone before Remus returned – Mother was always very strict on maintaining the unity of the House of Black in public, and if Regulus begins a duel between the two of them, she’ll be severely displeased. With Remus between them, however… Regulus could attack Remus first, and then say the hex missed and hit me instead...

Regulus clenches his jaw and appears to reach a decision, swinging his wand arm wide.

“You, boy, why are you harassing my nephew?” Alphard has come looking for them, and reaches for Regulus from behind, spinning him around to face him.

“Tell him to move out of the way, then, and I’ll - ” Regulus’ wand arm falls, as he sees who he’s addressing. “Here, I’m your nephew too.”

“So you are.” Alphard is looking from him to Regulus and back again. “I’ve spent a little time getting to know Sirius better. Perhaps you’ll come back to my place for tea, and answer some of my questions so I can do the same with you.” It is more of an order than an invitation. As the younger Black, Regulus can’t tell him no. His brother hesitates, moderating his features once more, and then he is following Alphard out of the store without a second glance at either Sirius or Remus. Alphard in turn doesn’t bother to check whether Regulus is following or not – both of them are Black enough to know the proper way to behave in public.

Aware of where he is, that this is still a public place, he turns to the shopkeeper, who is watching them with horrified eyes from behind her workbench. He’s not sure whether or not he has any right to the Black name anymore, but if Alphard can still act like one in public with such spectacular results, he can do the same.

Addressing the shopkeeper lazily, as though he wasn’t seconds away from being hexed to within an inch of himself, as though nothing, in fact, has happened, he says, “So that’ll be four in dark blue, four in dark red, and I’ll need some plain black ones for Hogwarts. We can wait over there, while you get those together. Will you be long?”

The look on the shopkeeper’s face tells him she’ll fly to get his order together if it will get him out of her shop faster.

~~*~~

“He’s swallowed an aging potion. It’ll permit him to attend meetings, and makes him Cassie’s heir. Without you at home, she wouldn’t have been able to transfer the wards from you to him, so she took more drastic steps. That’s what happened yesterday morning. I had my suspicions, but I didn’t think even Cassie would go that far.”

“Why did it hurt so much? It was only a ward.”

He and Alphard are sitting in the parlour of the flat, finishing the rest of the tea and scones. Marius and Remus are listening to one of the former’s music boxes in the kitchen, while they make dinner. Alphard was unwilling to have this conversation in front of either of them, and the music disguises their words. Marius insists that it has more to do with Alphard’s unwillingness to help cook.

“Not just a ward, pup. It’s a very powerful, dark spell. The keys were inscribed into your bones, within the hour of your birth. I was there. We all were. Watched as Antares brought this tiny, squalling, brilliant red thing into the nursery parlour at Grimmauld Place, and introduced all of us to you. He was so proud – you were the first boy to be born into the ruling line in quite a few generations. And then you were brought into the room just off the study, while Aunt Mia – that’d be your grandmother, Cassie’s mother – took some of your blood, cast the spells that tied you to Grimmauld Place and spell-carved the ward’s runes onto your living bones.

“When Regulus swallowed the aging draft, all of that magic snapped out of you and into him. You won’t experience pain like that again. Not while Regulus lives. And it would have hurt him more, poor kid. He so desperately wants to do something about Antares’ murder. I’m sure he thinks he’s doing the right thing.” Alphard sighs. “That aside, you’re still a Black and nothing – not your brother’s aging, not your running away, not even being blasted off the tapestry – will change that.”

Seeing Regulus aged like that… She’s called my bluff. She doesn’t need me anymore. Not when she has Regulus, her favourite, to do as she says. He wonders if he’s been taken off the tapestry yet. Does that mean I’m free to do whatever I want now? He’s not sure about this. Regulus seemed determined to make him come home.

“That’s why you wouldn’t say this in front of Remus? Or even Marius?”

“See, you can be bright when you want.”

Only about some things. Which brings him to… “Can I ask you about something else?” Is it his imagination, or is Alphard looking wary?

“Yes…”

“About Remus?”

“Ah, damn. I knew this was where that was leading. You had to leave it till last, didn’t you? Let me believe I was going to be able to get away with packing you back off to school with an instructive book, and then BAM, like a bludger out of nowhere, when I least expected it.” Alphard notices the blush that is starting across his face again, because he swirls his tea, grins and challenges, “Go on, then. What is it you wanted to know?”

“We’re both boys.”

“Well done.” When he says nothing else, Alphard finishes his tea and says, “That wasn’t a question.”

“You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?”

“Should I? I thought I’d managed to get out of this years ago when Persephone said she’d tell Bella and Andy what they needed to know, and that I was to stay out of it.”

“You could tell me how you and Mar - ”

Alphard shudders. “You don’t want to know about that. It would give you nightmares. Anyway, we’ve been together for nearly forty years. We’re both old. I’m sure they’ve changed how gay men have sex at least twice since we got together.”

“Alphard!”

His uncle bursts out laughing. “Sorry, pup, but you should see the look on your face.”

“Oh yes? Where’s this instructive book, then?” Sobering, Alphard sets his tea things down. “You fake. There isn’t an instructive book, is there?”

“The best advice I can give you is this. If you trust Remus, then whatever it is he wants, whatever it is you want, as long as it’s something that pleases you both, do it.”

“That’s all?”

“I should clarify - that doesn’t make what you do together legal, it doesn’t mean you can discuss it without getting some funny looks and it doesn’t mean other people won’t judge you or spread gossip if they know. But this isn’t about other people. This is about the two of you, and what you do is your business, as long as you keep it your business. Find what feels good, and then do it as hard as you can.”

“Does this include frolicking with goats?”

“As long as all of you enjoy it, I said,” Alphard says, flinging a scone at his head. “But it’s quite difficult to tell with goats. Or so I’ve been told.”

“What if I don’t know what I want?” he asks hesitantly.

“I know you were taught to hide your fear, to never show uncertainty, and to never admit to ignorance. I’d bet my nightclub that at some stage in your upbringing, you’ve come across the expression, ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong, so long as you’re certain’. Don’t deny it,” he says, as Sirius opens his mouth to protest. “Because I was brought up like that. So were Cepheus, Antares, Regulus, and generations of stubborn Blacks before you.”

“I wasn’t going to deny it.”

“Remus was your friend first, wasn’t he? He’s not going to hurt you.” Alphard sighs and stretches. “I could get you an instructive book, I suppose. But relationships are about more than just sex, puppy. These are things you need to talk through, and learn together. And a book isn’t going to tell you what makes you feel good, or what you’re comfortable with, and that is much more important than simply knowing how to have sex. Forget about sex, or even knowing what you want, for the moment... You know you want him, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes.” He doesn’t even need to think about it, and Alphard grins at his immediate, unthinking response.

“Then just ask him to teach you.”

“He might laugh at me, if I say I don’t know anything.”

“He might. Are you going to let that stop you? The worst that can happen is he might burst a stomach wall laughing at your ignorance, and then he’ll probably spend the rest of the night remedying it.” Picking up both of their tea things and standing up, Alphard ruffles Sirius’ hair, saying, “Wish I was fifteen again.”

“Are you both done already? Dinner’s still a while away. Can I put those away for you, Mr Black?”

“Stop calling me that, Remus.” Sirius stands too, and turns around, seeing Remus standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Remus looks as though he is glowing with the light from the kitchen behind him, painting red-gold into his sandy hair, and sparking the green in his eyes. “I’ll just finish helping Marius with dinner,” Alphard says, before wandering past Remus and into the kitchen.

“I could have used your bloody help two hours ago,” Marius calls from the kitchen, before Alphard shuts the door firmly behind him.

Remus stays where he is, but he hasn’t taken his eyes off him. The green in them glows palely in the half-light cast by the waning moon outside. “Dinner won’t be ready for another hour. I thought you should know,” Remus says softly, before turning to go.

He reaches a decision, and sprints after Remus, saying, “Remus, wait, please listen to me.”

Remus shoves his hand away, and turns, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Sirius, I don’t know what you get out of this, but I don’t like it when you start something you don’t intend to fin- ”

“I don’t know how to finish it,” he says. The words just fall out, and he can’t control them because his self-assurance is in tatters, and his confidence is failing fast. “I hardly even know how to start it. Remus, I’m not entirely convinced I even know what ‘it’ is, and not just because we’re both boys. I’ve never – You’re the first person I’ve - ” He is telling Remus all of it, holding nothing back. Pouring out all of his fears and insecurities, and his uncertainty and ignorance about all things sexual.

“You complete idiot,” Remus says, still not uncrossing his arms, or moving any closer. “I thought it might be your first time with a boy, but the things you did, the way you touched me… You seemed to know exactly what you were doing.”

“I’m good at seeming to know what I’m doing,” he says, moving closer to Remus. “Moony, you scared me. And it was all my fault, I could see you getting angry, or hurt, but I was afraid of what you might want from me, or that I wouldn’t be able to do it right, and…”

“You’re good at everything at you do, Padfoot,” Remus says, holding his arms out to him. The use of his nickname calms him and reminds him that they are friends, before everything else. He’s seen me cry, seen me throw up and today he had to protect me from my baby brother, and he hasn’t laughed at me yet. “Why wouldn’t you be good at this, too?”

“Don’t know. Never tried.”

“I know that, now. I still find it hard to believe. Prongs had me convinced you’d had half the school.”

What? “Don’t you think I would have said something if it’d been true?”

“Well, we thought you might not want it getting around and ruining your image. Prongs was certain it was the shy, hard-to-get act that had half the school trying to get into your trousers. Not that you ever wear trousers, but still.”

“What act?”

“Oh…” Remus can see he is getting annoyed, and leans down to kiss him. Absurdly, he thinks that on one level, it was good to see Regulus – he knows he’ll be as tall or taller than Remus when he finishes growing. “Little things. Like the way you never walked around the dorm or the quidditch change rooms half dressed.”

“Bothered Prongs, did it?”

“Fuck Prongs, Sirius, it bothered me. Always going into the bathroom fully dressed and coming out the same way. And you were the only one of us who locked the door from the inside, you uptight, precious, little thing, so I couldn’t even ‘accidentally’ walk in on you. I could never decide which I’d like less – having you caper about the dorm half-naked and driving me crazy, or not getting even a hint about what you took so much trouble to hide under those shapeless, stodgy robes.”

“I’d have shown you anytime you asked, Moony,” he grins. It isn’t strictly true – if Remus asked him before, he’d have screamed and run a mile, but now…

“Not good enough,” Remus says, pulling him closer and kissing him softly again. “I want you in nothing but tee-shirts and trousers from now on.”

“Do you really want the rest of the school to see me dressed like that, or do you want to be the only one who knows what I look like dressed like that?” And his reward is to be kissed again.

“The only one,” Remus replies, after catching his breath. “The first one,” he says, smiling against Sirius’ lips. “Am I that?”

“No, I forgot to mention that in between now and my engagement to Narcissa breaking up in August, I slept with half the school. I thought I’d try to get through the second half before Easter, and I’m starting with you.”

And they can’t kiss anymore, because they’re laughing too hard. The giggling subsides, and Remus tenderly strokes his hair away from his face, and they can’t seem to stop staring at one another.

“I’m glad you’re starting with me,” Remus says, altering the inflection of Sirius’ words. “But if you’ve never done anything with anybody before… How can I know you want this?”

“Of course I want this, Remus,” he says, straining up to kiss the other boy. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

~~*~~

Christmas 1996

He spent the entire night talking only about Sirius, and his memories of him, and never asked Regulus what plans of his he was interrupting. So much like my Sirius, would he have stayed if he knew I pitied him? It is Christmas now, and he can hear carollers making their way along the street – Following yonder star – as the main door closes slowly – O star of wonder, star of light – behind Regulus. Surely the other man has somewhere to be? Someone to be with? The guilt at not making – star with royal beauty bright – more of an effort to convince to Regulus to stay is dissipating.

All of a sudden, he doesn’t care anymore. None of it matters, because the liquid is burning searing, lightning white, accompanied by scorching heat, and the only star, the only man in the world who has ever mattered to him, is rising naked from the steaming liquid like Venus Anadyomene. But a thousand times more beautiful, and a million times more precious. My scorching one. My Sirius.

Holding the dark blue robe out, Remus Lupin smiles, and walks towards him.