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FIC: A Picture is Worth 1,000 Lies- Ch.3
Disclaimer: The world in this story and most of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling. My additional characters and I are just visiting. The line, “Herbivores are stupid,” comes from Cub Scout by Moon.
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Lies
Chapter Three: Propositions
July 1995
Remus slowly drew the tip of his wand across the shelf trying to reveal any possible security spells that might prevent him from removing a book from the shelf. He repeated the process for the next shelf down. Hermione’s recent arrival in the house gave him added incentive to check the library for hidden dangers.
“You should’ve told me you were coming up here,” said Sirius from the doorway.
“You were talking with Arthur about his car; I didn’t want to interrupt,” Remus replied without taking his attention off his task.
“This isn’t a particularly safe room to be in,” Sirius said darkly.
“I know. I’m staying away from the shelves behind the desk. Some rather nasty spells on those books,” Remus said as he settled cross-legged on the floor in order to check the lowest shelves.
“Be careful of that copy of Poisons for all Requirements. The pages are poisonous; you need gloves to handle it.”
Remus marked the purple book with a glowing “X.” “Any others in this section that I should mark as dangerous?” he asked.
“I’ll read all the titles later and try to remember,” Sirius said as he sprawled in a green leather club chair. He silently watched Remus work until Remus stood to begin the next section.
“Molly had better get used to living with you in a hurry,” Sirius said angrily, “because if she can’t, she’s leaving, not you.”
“What are you on about? Molly and I are getting along fine.”
“She jumped a foot when you came into the kitchen.”
“I startled her.”
“And I heard her tell you that she doesn’t want you here for the full moon.”
“No, you heard her ask me if it’s true that I won’t be here for the full moon. I assured her that I won’t be.”
“I want you to stay here. Snape can make himself useful and make you some of that potion.”
“With it or without it, I’m not staying here with the children. Wolfsbane Potion makes me safer, but I still don’t want to risk it.” Remus gave up on his project. He no longer had sufficient concentration to do it safely. “And see it from Arthur and Molly’s point of view,” Remus said as he settled into the other club chair. “It was only a year ago that I almost killed one of their children. That they’re willing to live under the same roof as I am, that they’re willing to have their children live under that same roof, it proves that they see me as a person first and a werewolf second. But even if I were willing to stay here for the full moon—which I’m not—it would be too big a risk to ask of the Weasleys.”
“Will you stay here for the moons after the kids go back to school?”
“Nowhere I’d rather be,” Remus said with a smile. “But I can’t promise that I’ll be here every month. Dumbledore said that he might have some travelling for me to do soon.”
Sirius had been picking at a crease in the leather under his fingers. He now looked down at the crease rather than at Remus. “When are you leaving?” It took Remus a moment to realize that Sirius was talking about the upcoming full moon.
“The full moon’s next Tuesday. I’ll leave early that afternoon, I suppose. Why?”
Sirius shrugged. “Just something you said last week. I thought you might want to get out of here a day or two sooner.”
“Trying to get rid of me, Padfoot?”
“Of course not!” Sirius exclaimed as he looked up sharply, afraid that he’d offended his friend. He relaxed when he saw that Remus was grinning.
“What did I say last week?” Remus asked as he slouched down a bit more in the chair and rested his chin on the heel of his hand.
“That, um—” Sirius seemed to find the arm of chair fascinating again. “That you always pick up guys between first quarter and full.
“Oh, that.” Remus unfolded his hand to mask half of his face. If he had had a tendency to blush, he knew that he would have been blushing now. “You must think I’m a right horny bastard.”
“Actually, given the timing of it, I figured that the wolf was the horny bastard,” Sirius replied as he looked up with a small smile.
“Um-hmm,” Remus admitted with a nod. He straightened up and sighed. “But I don’t let him indulge as often as I used to.”
“Why not? You aren’t sick, are you, Moony?”
Remus shook his head and smiled reassuringly at his worried friend. He realized that one or more of the Muggle newspapers or magazines he’d brought home for Sirius must have had an article about AIDS. “I probably should be, given my past history, but I’m not. Sometimes I wonder if I’m just not human enough to catch it.” He chose not to tell Sirius that up until three years ago, he’d been so willing to die that he’d shunned safe sex practices.
Sirius grinned in relief. “So why don’t you indulge as often anymore?” He enjoyed being able to tease his friend again.
“Can we change the subject, please?”
“I just find it rather amusing that my quiet friend Remus, the prefect, the ‘good boy,’ has probably had more sexual partners than he can count, whereas I acquired a heartbreaker reputation while having had so few sexual partners that I could count them on one hand.”
“I thought your hand was your sexual partner.”
Sirius threw his head back with a groan. “Don’t remind me. It’s been so long since I’ve had sex that I could almost give you a go.”
“Gee, thanks. I’m so flattered.”
Sirius’s head snapped forward so quickly that it made Remus wince with sympathy pain. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded,” Sirius said quickly.
“Yes you did, but it’s O.K.”
* * * * *
Remus tended to be a light sleeper. During his first month at Hogwarts, the quiet sounds of his sleeping dorm mates had kept him from sleeping through the night. Then during the holidays, he’d discovered that he couldn’t sleep due to their absence. He’d come to rely upon the sounds of their breath and rustling sheets to reassure him that he was not alone.
Now he slept where he could hear Sirius. Sirius had not wanted any of the bedrooms he associated with his family, so he had chosen a little used guest bedroom. One of its advantages was a small adjoining room intended to be a bedroom for a servant accompanying the guest. Sirius had shown the adjoining room to Remus saying, “When the house starts to fill up, I’ll move in here and let Buckbeak have my room,” but Remus had immediately claimed the small room for himself.
Sirius had had a few nightmares during the week he’d spent at Remus’s home before returning to Grimmauld Place, and Remus had thought it likely that the return to Sirius’s childhood home could only make the problem worse. Unfortunately, he was right.
When nightmares had awoken Remus years ago in Gryffindor tower, it had been Sirius who had made awkward and unsure attempts to offer reassurance. Knowing what he did now about Sirius’s childhood, Remus doubted that either of Sirius’s parents had ever filled the role of defender against demons and monsters of the night. And yet, even without their example, Sirius had tried to fulfil that role for Remus. Remus wanted to be nearby in order to fill that role for Sirius now.
Remus awoke at the sound of claws clicking on the floor. When his partially open door swung open and two bright eyes peeked around the edge of the door, Remus smiled in welcome.
“Can’t sleep?”
Padfoot came closer and nudged Remus’s hand in answer. Remus stroked the dog’s head and ran his fingers through the thick fur of his ruff. Padfoot settled back on his haunches and rested his head on the bed within easy reach of Remus’s hand. Remus continued to stroke the silky fur. He didn’t bother to speak; he didn’t want Sirius to feel that he had to transform back before he felt ready. He wondered if Sirius had transformed just after he awoke, or if he had done it in his sleep. He knew from the first nightmare he’d witnessed that the latter was a possibility.
Padfoot sighed contentedly—if a dog’s huff can be called a sigh— and then lay down on the small oval rug beside Remus’s bed. The rug was thin and didn’t provide much cushioning against the hard floor.
Remus sat up and patted the foot of his bed. “You can sleep up here if you’d rather. You can keep my feet warm.” Padfoot immediately jumped up on the bed as if he’d just been waiting for the invitation.
Remus lay back down and curled up in an attempt to get comfortable despite losing the lower third of the bed. Given that they were experiencing an unusually hot summer, a foot warmer was the last thing Remus needed. But despite the prodigious heat coming from his large canine friend and the loss of space in the bed, Remus knew he’d sleep better knowing that he’d done what he could to help Sirius sleep peacefully.
Padfoot’s yawn was all the thanks he needed.
August 1995
Sirius awoke at dawn. During his two years on the run, it hadn’t been safe to sleep soundly during daylight hours. It hadn’t been safe to sleep soundly at any time, but at least at night, he could trust his dark fur to provide camouflage in the surrounding darkness. When the sky lightened, he needed to awaken. Two years of rising with the sun had so thoroughly conditioned him that the habit continued even now.
Remus was still sound asleep. He lay curled on his side, his chest and belly against Sirius’s back with one arm thrown around Sirius’s stomach as if to protect him against the nightmares that had sent him into Remus’s bedroom during the night. Or, more likely, he lay that way because it was the only way two tall men could comfortably fit in his narrow bed.
“I need to stop acting like a child and coming in here,” Sirius thought, but he knew that resolution was doomed to failure. When the night filled with dementors and with the corpses of friends and strangers blaming him for their deaths, only Remus could make him feel safe and loved again. “O.K., a more realistic resolution then. Next time, I ask Remus to come in my room. The bed’s bigger.”
Sirius rolled onto his back—slowly, careful not to wake Remus. He smiled at his sleeping friend; he felt immensely grateful that Remus didn’t seem to mind these intrusions. Remus shifted his head down onto Sirius’s shoulder and drew his arm back to rest his palm on the flat of Sirius’s abdomen. Sirius couldn’t help but grin. “At least if he wakes up at this moment, he won’t be shocked to discover himself cuddling a bloke.”
As if on cue, Remus began to stroke the line of hair on Sirius’s belly with a feather-light touch. The rhythm of his breathing was still regular and unchanged, so Sirius knew he had not truly awoken, but he was barely asleep. Remus’s fingers curled and combed across Sirius’s belly. Sirius felt his eyes close. He was enjoying the feel of Remus’s touch far too much, but it was just so long—far too long—since anyone had touched him like he was someone worthy of love, or even just worthy of desire.
Remus’s fingers brushed just under the waistband of Sirius’s pyjama bottoms and stopped moving. Sirius took a shaky breath. He had to end this now; he had to wake Remus up. Whoever Remus was dreaming he was, he wasn’t. If this went any further, they’d both be embarrassed when Remus truly awoke. But he didn’t need to wake him. Remus tipped his head up and looked at Sirius with wide eyes.
“Good morning.” Sirius tried to smile as if he were completely composed and not at all affected by what had just been happening. He could see by the look of panic in Remus’s eyes that he hadn’t quite succeeded. Remus pulled his hand away as if Sirius’s skin had scalded him and simultaneously backed into the wall.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t really awake, and I’d never—I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything,” Sirius said. The word “yet” was in his mind. “I’m sorry that I woke you, and that I invaded your bed again. I’ll get out of here so you can go back to sleep.” Sirius got out of bed as he spoke. He needed to get his desperate desire to be touched as far away from Remus and his long, strong hands as quickly as possible.
When Remus finally came down for breakfast several hours later, the kitchen was blissfully empty. Molly had already fed her brood and set them to work cleaning. Sirius took a break from the war against the house to keep Remus company. Sirius made Remus a cup of hot chocolate while Remus made some toast. Sirius found it amusing that Remus still detested porridge as much as he ever had. While Remus ate the toast and read the Daily Prophet, Sirius tried to work on the previous day’s crossword puzzle, but he couldn’t keep his attention on the page. He found himself watching Remus instead.
Despite what he had almost desired to happen that morning, Sirius knew he wasn’t gay. He dated girls when he was younger. He hadn’t been sneaking peaks at blokes in the shower like Remus had. Well, a few times, but that had been more admiring than desiring.
He was just—lonely—and horny—and lonely. But the fact that he had considered it, even fleetingly, caused him to contemplate the fact that Remus was gay—and to contemplate Remus. He knew what attracted men to women and women to men. It was the difference, the “otherness.” Softness and curves attracted angles and hard muscles; angles and hard muscles attracted softness and curves, right? So what did one man see in another?
Remus held the cup cradled in his hands. As he brought it to his mouth, he closed his eyes to better focus on the scent and taste alone. He was smiling as he lowered the cup from mouth. He licked a trace of chocolate off his upper lip.
“Oh.”
“What did you say, Padfoot?”
“Nothing.”
September 1995
Remus delayed opening his eyes as the pain shifted from the sharp agonies of the transformation itself to the pervasive ache that always followed. Padfoot’s warm breath was on his face as the dog nudged Remus with his muzzle and whimpered in sympathy and in inquiry. Remus wanted to reassure his friend that he was alright, that he had survived yet another transformation into wolf and back again, but every small muscle needed for speech simply hurt too much to make the effort just yet.
A warm, wet, sandpapery tongue began to stroke across Remus’s cheek again and again. Remus could remember clawing at his muzzle as he changed this morning, and he surmised that Padfoot was bathing his wounds the way instinct dictated. Remus could taste blood as well. Near the end, he’d accidentally bitten his tongue while trying not to scream. Remus swallowed with effort, savouring the rich coppery taste, and shuddered when he realized how much he enjoyed it. Even tamed by the Wolfsbane Potion, the wolf was still there.
“Stop, Padfoot. Don’t.” Remus twisted away from the dog who was not a dog. Sirius shifted back into himself as he settled back a few feet away.
“I’m sorry,” Sirius said quietly. His eyes were shadowed in concern. “I’ve always—Did I hurt you?”
Remus shook his head as he carefully sat up. Sirius made an abortive move to offer a hand in assistance, but seemed to have second thoughts since his canine attempt to help had been rebuffed. Remus saw the movement and extended an arm to his friend.
“Could you help me up and to my bed?” he asked.
They’d spent the night in their rooms and were now in the larger room, Sirius’s room. Sirius immediately jumped to his feet and started to lead Remus toward his own bed as it was closer.
“I don’t want to get blood on your sheets,” Remus protested, but he allowed Sirius to help him up onto the bed anyway.
“You only have a few scratches, and whether you bleed on my sheets or yours, I’m the one who will be washing them tomorrow—unless I get that lazy Kreacher to actually do something useful.” Sirius opened the lower door of the bedside cabinet and removed a box he’d filled with bandages and healing potions and salves. “You barely need any patching up. You didn’t hurt yourself until you were changing back.”
“It’s a whole different experience with the Wolfsbane Potion, isn’t it?” Remus said as he turned his head to allow Sirius to attend to the clawmarks on the side of his face.
“You seemed to be in more pain when you changed back,” Sirius said.
“It seems that way, but I don’t think it’s true. The wolf used to get the worst of it, but it caught him by surprise every time. Now I’m still me and I know what’s coming, so—I’ve read that fear of pain makes pain worse.”
“You don’t need to take the potion, you know. Not when you’re here with me.” Sirius finished dabbing salve on a bite on Remus’s hand and simply held his hand loosely when he was done.
“We’re in a populated area, Padfoot. If I were to get away from you—”
“You won’t.”
“The transformation into a wolf seems easier, if that makes you feel better. I can’t feel that it’s going to happen until it starts. Remember how achy and miserable I used to be all day leading up to the full moon? Now I’m so drugged up that it almost catches me by surprise.” Remus nearly scowled as he remembered when it had taken him by surprise. He’d taken six doses of Wolfsbane Potion that week, enough for the numbing effects to take hold, but missed the last dose, leaving him dangerous.
Sirius was staring down at Remus’s hand within his own. “You don’t need me anymore.”
“Of course I do.”
Sirius shook his head. “No, with the potion, you don’t need me. You were happy just to curl up and lay on the rug.” He smiled slightly. “I was just an annoying puppy getting on your nerves.”
“Padfoot—” Remus waited for Sirius to look up at him. “Do you remember what you said the first time you showed me your transformation?” Sirius frowned and then shook his head. “You said, ‘Now you don’t have to be alone anymore.’ That’s what you promised me. I’m holding you to that promise.”
Sirius smiled, relieved that he still a role to play in his friend’s life. “Being alone sucks, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” Remus admitted. He hoped Sirius wasn’t about to fall into the familiar pattern of self-recrimination that he so often fell into when he thought of Remus’s years of being alone. Fortunately, Sirius’s thoughts were already moving in another direction.
“Are you hungry? ‘Cause I’m starving.” Sirius jumped to his feet and headed for the bedroom door. “How about some eggs?”
“And that leftover ham from the other night.”
“Carnivore!” Sirius called out as headed down the stairs.
Remus smiled at the familiar epithet—even if it used to be James and Peter who directed it at him and Sirius both. He nearly laughed as he remembered saying in all honesty about Prongs, “Herbivores are stupid.”
He suddenly found himself unable to breathe as his still recovering muscles spasmed with pain. “Wait, wait, wait, easy, breathe, getting better.” The pain slowly flowed away and left him with a fresh sheen of sweat on his body. Remus thought ruefully that even pain could serve a purpose. It had certainly proved useful this morning by wiping away any vestiges of the aroused feelings he’d fought against all night.
He’d hoped that the Wolfsbane Potion would give him enough control over his instincts that Padfoot would be as safe from Moony’s sexual advances as Sirius was from Remus’s. It had worked, but it had been a struggle all night. Padfoot’s scent, a mix of canine and Sirius’s scent was just so—right. When Padfoot had initiated a playful wrestling match, it had very nearly turned into something else altogether. Remus had barely been able to reign himself in. He’d had to growl and snap at Padfoot to discourage him from trying again.
It didn’t help that Remus couldn’t remember the last time he’d had sex. The wolf’s desire to mate had been denied too long. Remus realized that if he wanted to spend any more full moons with Padfoot, he’d need to take a page from his pre-Wolfsbane Potion days. Next month, he’d be certain to indulge his sexual desires in the days leading up to the full moon.
October 1995
Sirius tried to lose himself in the repetitious movements of currying Buckbeak. Unfortunately, it was too repetitious, too easy. It occupied his hands but not his mind. Downstairs, Remus was changing into Muggle clothes and getting ready to go out. Going out to get laid. He hadn’t said so. He didn’t need to.
He wasn’t going anywhere for Dumbledore. He’d just got back from a five-day trip. He was changing into Muggle clothes—nice Muggle clothes—brown trousers tight enough to hint at the well-shaped arse beneath, but not so tight that as to seem strange on a bloke with greying hair, and a button-down shirt the colour of honey. When he occasionally wore Muggle clothes around the house, it tended to be shapeless moth-eaten sweaters and frayed trousers or jeans that had seen better days.
Much to his embarrassment—“I sounded like a bloody girl”—Sirius had protested against Remus’s leaving. “But you just got back, Moony.”
“I won’t stay out all night, Padfoot,” Remus had promised, “but I do need to go.”
“He needs to go,” Sirius told the hippogriff. “He needs a good shag. How about you, Buckbeak? You haven’t had a shag since we met. How long will you be able to stand it before you get desperate enough to break out of here?”
Sirius threw the currying brushes in a corner and stalked over to the window seat that overlooked the street. He’d sat up here for hours yesterday watching for Remus’s return; now he watched as Remus walked away.
“Sorry, Buckbeak,” Sirius said without taking his eyes off his friend’s back, “but you’re a wanted hippogriff, you know. We can’t let you out for a shag. Maybe we could smuggle a nice lady hippogriff in for you. Or would you prefer another bloke?”
Sirius looked up at the gibbous moon. “Fuck you, too.”
Padfoot was curled up on the foot of Remus’s bed when Remus returned home hours later. He thumped his tail in greeting at the sight of his friend, but as Remus came fully into the room, his scent came in too. Padfoot growled. The scent of another man’s sweat was on Remus.
Padfoot jumped off the bed and returned to his own room. Sirius changed back so he wouldn’t have to smell the traces of the scent that lingered in the room from Remus passing through.
His dreams were troubled that night, but he didn’t go into Remus’s room. His dreams were full of Remus being pawed and fucked by various men: a heavy Muggle who dripped sweat, Alex Vraci who kept whispering in Remus’s ear how much he despised him, Lucius Malfoy who screwed Remus while Narcissa and Bellatrix looked on and laughed, and numerous faceless others.
* * * * *
“Your move, Sirius,” Remus gently reminded his friend. It was rare for Sirius to take so long to choose his next move in chess. At least it was when he played against Remus. Sirius had always been the better chess player of the two, and he usually knew his next move as soon as Remus made his.
“Sorry. Queen’s knight to Queen’s bishop six.” Sirius returned to staring into the kitchen fire while Remus contemplated the board. “I was just wondering something.”
“What’s that? King’s bishop to Queen’s five.”
“You told me that Vraci had to get drunk the first couple of times you—”
“I’d rather not talk about that.”
“—but I was wondering about after the first couple of times. If he only needed to get drunk the first couple—”
“Sirius, drop it.”
“Queen, take the queen.” Sirius watched as the black queen beheaded her white counterpart. “Check. I’ll tell you how to wriggle out of check if you answer my question.”
Rather than submit to the extortion, Remus knocked over his king to admit defeat. Then he took a closer look at the expression on Sirius’s face. He wasn’t teasing. He wasn’t asking out of amusement at Remus’s embarrassment. He was just staring at the fire sadly because Remus wouldn’t talk to him.
“All right. As I said, the first couple of times, he was nervous as hell. After that, I thought he was starting to enjoy himself. Obviously, he just got better at pretending to enjoy himself.”
“Pretending?” Now Sirius looked amused. “Girls can pretend to enjoy it, Moony. Guys can’t fake it. Either they’re there,” he gestured vaguely at his crotch, “or they’re not.”
Remus laughed in spite of himself. “Oh, he was there. Not the first time, but after that, yes. Let me put it this way. Think about the best sex you’ve ever had, then think of having a lonely wank. Either way, you’re there, as you put it, but one was much more enjoyable than the other. If Alex had rated his sexual experiences, I’m sure that I’d have come in far below wanking off, but that wasn’t the impression I had at the time.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Moony. I’m sure you’re much better than a lonely wank.”
Remus smiled and leaned back in his chair. He regarded Sirius in a way that Sirius was tempted to describe as predatory. “With the right partner, I’m much, much better. If I’m going to do something, I believe in learning to do it well.”
November 1995
Dinner was unusually quiet. Remus’s returns to Grimmauld Place usually led to several days of almost non-stop conversation. Sirius would ask about Remus’s trips and the contacts he’d made, he’d want to discuss items he’d read in the newspapers or magazines, he’d tell Remus about the progress he’d made in searching the dark arts books in the library for anything useful, he’d talk about Harry, he’d reminisce about James. It would take several days until Sirius had talked enough to make up for the silent days when his only companions were a hippogriff, a mad house elf, and the portrait of his mother. Only then would Sirius suddenly fall silent and appreciate quiet companionship. And then Remus would need to leave again.
This time was different. Since Remus’s return four days ago, Sirius had made only half-hearted and strained efforts at conversation. At first, Remus had blamed it on the date, Halloween. But four days had passed, Sirius didn’t seem overly depressed—no more than he normally was in this house—and things were still awkward between them. Even the silences didn’t seem to have the comfortable familiarity that the two old friends could often share. Every time Remus looked at Sirius, he caught him staring at him. Stranger yet was the way Sirius would quickly look away as if embarrassed to be caught staring.
Remus looked up from his dinner now and saw Sirius staring again, a crease between his brows as if he were trying to solve a puzzle or make a decision. Sirius immediately looked down at his dinner. Remus was uncomfortably reminded of the handful of times he’d seen Sirius after they cut him off from contact with James. Sirius had stared at him the same way, trying to figure if Remus had really betrayed them, and if he had, why.
“I need a drink,” Sirius announced as he abruptly shoved his plate away and stood up. “You want one?”
“No, thank you.”
Sirius took a bottle of firewhiskey out of a cupboard and poured a generous drink for himself. Remus wondered for a moment if Sirius was using the firewhiskey as a crutch to get through the days when he was here alone, but then he caught sight of the label. It was the same bottle they’d opened the night after they moved in. He himself had torn a corner off the label that night.
“I’m going out tonight,” Remus said. He suspected that Sirius wouldn’t want him to leave.
“I thought you might be.” Sirius drank half of the glass in one swallow. “Halfway between first quarter and full, right? Peter was right; you are predictable.”
The accusation stung; it was accurate, but it stung. Remus considered explaining the reason behind the timing, but doing so would require telling Sirius how much difficulty he was having keeping the wolf off Padfoot.
“Excuse me; I think I’ll go change.” As Remus left the kitchen, he heard Sirius refilling his glass.
Remus was just buttoning his shirt when he sensed Sirius in the doorway behind him.
“You don’t have to go out, you know.”
“I won’t be out too late,” Remus replied. Sirius’s nightmares were less frequent, but Remus still wanted to be here as many nights as possible. He’d simply have to choose someone who was looking for a brief encounter so he could return soon.
“You could stay here—with me.”
“I know I just got back a few days ago,” Remus said as he turned around at last, “and I’m sorry to leave you again, but—”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Sirius stood in the doorway, blocking Remus from leaving easily. Remus noticed the empty whiskey glass still in Sirius’s hand. Sirius smiled nervously.
“I’m your type, right? At least, I used to be.”
This had to be a joke—a very poor joke. “Not quite, Padfoot. My ‘type’ is gay.”
“Well, Alex Vraci learned to like it. I’m sure I could too.”
“Alex.” Remus’s eyes went straight to the whiskey glass in Sirius’s hand. “Not again.” Remus could live with the idea that he’d had sex with a man who had to get drunk in order to bear being with him, but he couldn’t bear the idea of that happening with Sirius. Sirius would loathe what they did. Sirius would come to loathe him.
“No, Sirius. Don’t ask—”
Sirius came closer, and Remus tried to retreat, but after just one step, the bed was already pressing against his legs.
“They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but I’m not an ordinary dog,” Sirius said as he slid his free hand up Remus’s arm. “And our teachers all said that I was a fast learner.”
“I remember,” Remus said. Sirius’s eyes were warier than they had once been, but they were still as startlingly blue. The hair was still the same glossy black that Remus had always wanted to twist between his fingers. His scent—he was so close now, and his scent was all around Remus—Remus knew just how Sirius’s skin would taste from his scent alone. Did Sirius close his eyes when he made love, or would Remus be able to see those blue eyes while— He could smell the firewhiskey on Sirius’s breath.
Remus pulled away just as Sirius tried to kiss him. “No! We’re not doing this. I’m not doing this. Not with you.”
Remus half expected Sirius to argue with him. Sirius had always been able to talk Remus into anything, but Sirius merely stared at Remus for a moment before he turned and walked out of the room. Remus heard him climbing the stairs to Buckbeak’s room.
His human side felt guilty. The hurt of rejection had clearly been written on Sirius’s face. His lupine side was furious. He’d wanted Sirius for so long, and to come so close to having him, and then not—
Sirius was still upstairs when Remus left the house. Remus could feel him watching from the upstairs window.
If Remus were prone to exaggeration, he’d say that it had been the single most unsatisfying fuck of his entire life. But as he wasn’t prone to exaggeration, he’d merely place it within his three worst sexual experiences—and that was considering the four women he’d slept with in his life. The man was fine; it wasn’t his fault. He was a bit more effeminate than Remus usually liked, but beggars can’t be choosers, especially when they are in a hurry to get home to someone else. But Remus knew that tonight’s partner could have been the best-looking and most-talented lover in the world, and the experience still would have been awful.
He wanted Sirius.
Sirius, who had drawn him out of his self-imposed isolation as a boy. Sirius, who had sat beside Remus while his friends told him that they knew his secret. Sirius, who spent countless hours sitting at the foot of Remus’s bed in the hospital wing in order to keep him company. Sirius, whose animagus form was the dog whom Moony had always loved most of all his packmates. Sirius, who had still spent the full moons with him and then tended his wounds even after he’d been given ample reason not to trust Remus anymore. Sirius, who had come back from hell and made the world right again. Sirius, who trusted Remus enough to welcome him into his bed to keep the nightmares at bay.
How could Remus betray that trust now? Sirius was lonely and vulnerable. Having sex with him now would be taking advantage of Sirius’s vulnerability to satisfy his own desires. Sirius would hate him later; he’d hate himself now.
Remus was surprised to see the flickering light of a fire illuminating the drawing room. It was a room Sirius usually avoided.
“Sirius?” Remus drew near the open door.
“HE’S DRUNK!” Mrs. Black shouted. Remus realized too late that the curtain had been pulled open, whether by Kreacher or by Sirius he did not know. “That ill-begotten abomination of my flesh is as drunk as a common Muggle derelict!”
“Shut up, you old hag!” Sirius roared from the drawing room.
“Those cases of port were purchased the year you were born! We thought you’d grow up proud of your heritage! We thought you’d marry a witch deserving of our family! That port was the start of an appropriate wine cellar for—”
“Then they’re mine, aren’t they?” Sirius yelled as he strode into the corridor, one bottle clutched in his hand. “And I’m welcome to a bottle or two if I want it, aren’t I?” With his free hand, he tugged at the curtain in an attempt to cover his mother’s portrait. Remus silently assisted.
They succeeded in covering her as she began a keening wail that vaguely sounded like, “Why, oh why,” over and over again.
“Bloody bitch,” Sirius muttered. He glared at Remus for a moment and stalked back into the drawing room. Remus followed quietly and watched as Sirius sprawled in a chair he’d positioned directly in front of the tapestry celebrating his family tree. Remus closed the door behind himself and then cast a silencing spell upon it to block Mrs. Black’s wailing.
“Here we all are, Remus,” Sirius said as he gestured toward the tapestry with the bottle. “So who do you want? ‘Fraid your choices are limited. Most of us are dead, and I doubt ghosts make good lovers. Cold showers, that’s what they are. Here he is,” Sirius said as bolted out of the chair and pointed to a name near the bottom edge. “Al’xander Vraci. Dead. 1982.”
Remus drew near despite his instincts to flee as far away as possible. He couldn’t leave. Sirius was hurting. He couldn’t leave.
Sirius fixed Remus with a searching look. “Why not me, Remus? You used to want me, right? They hand-picked Vraci for you because Peter knew you wanted me.” Sirius looked again at the tapestry and touched another name. “Regulus. 1980.” Sirius’s face softened as he gazed at his brother’s name. Remus stepped closer to put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. Sirius’s face hardened into anger again as he looked back at Remus. “1980. The year before Vol’mort decided to give you a Death Eater lover. What if he’d still been alive? He looked even more like me than Alex did. That’s who he would have chosen, isn’t it? Yeah, he would. So tell me, Moony, my friend, would you have shagged my brother?”
Remus didn’t know what was the “correct” answer to appease Sirius in this moment, but he did know what the honest answer was. After he realized that he’d been set up with Alex, he’d considered this hypothetical question. He didn’t think he would have been fooled by Regulus; he knew him too well not to be suspicious.
“No.”
“Liar.”
Remus shook his head. “No, I knew him too well.”
Sirius snorted. “Only screw strangers, is that it?” He held up the bottle of port as if making a toast. “To Remus Lupin. He buggered my cousin, he would’ve buggered my brother, but he won’t touch me.” Sirius lowered the bottle but did not drink. “Go to bed, Remus. I’m staying down here tonight.”
* * * * *
When two people both wish to avoid the other, they can manage to do so, even when confined within the same house. They couldn’t avoid each other indefinitely, however, for several members of the Order planned to meet with them that afternoon. Sirius spent as much time feeding and currying Buckbeak as he could before heading down to the kitchen. There were only two empty seats at the table when he walked in. One was beside Remus, of course. Everyone knew to leave that seat for him; Sirius always sat beside Remus. Sirius took the other empty seat.
Snape looked at Sirius in surprise as Sirius sat beside him. Then Snape stared at Remus, questions and speculation in his eyes. Remus looked away from both of them and gave his full attention to the matter being discussed by Emmeline Vance and Arthur Weasley.
Professor Dumbledore arrived just moments after Sirius sat down. “I’m afraid I can’t stay long,” Dumbledore said as sat beside Remus and accepted a cup of tea from Molly. “Minerva is having tea with that woman to prevent her from noticing that Severus and I are not at school, but I don’t wish to tax Minerva’s patience by staying away too long.”
Those who had news to share did so as efficiently as they could each manage. A brief discussion took place over the possible ramifications of the recent leadership change in the French Ministère de la Magie. Arthur promised to handle scheduling the next fortnight’s surveillance for the Department of Mysteries.
“Which brings us to the last item,” Dumbledore said as he consulted his pocket watch. “Elphias needs to travel to Germany and Austria to meet with his contacts there, and I feel he should have a bodyguard with him. He wants to leave as soon as possible, and you’ll be gone two to three weeks.”
“Even if I pretend to be following up on a sighting of Sirius, I couldn’t be gone that long without raising suspicions,” Kingsley Shacklebolt said.
“I’ll go,” Remus said. “I can leave in a few days.”
“That’s a long time for you to be gone,” Tonks said immediately.
“The full moon is the night after tomorrow. I’ll leave just after and be back before the next.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said as she glanced worriedly at Sirius and then looked at Remus again. “You just got back, didn’t you?”
“He can go,” Sirius said. “I don’t need a minder.”
“That’s settled then,” Dumbledore said as he shut his pocket watch with a snap. “Good luck with your trip,” he said as he glanced toward Elphias Doge and Remus.
People began to drift out of the kitchen in ones and twos. They knew better than to all flood out of the unseen house at the same moment. Doge and Remus remained at the kitchen table to discuss the logistics of their trip. Sirius wanted to leave the room—but he wanted something to eat more. He had avoided the kitchen throughout lunchtime, and the one biscuit he’d eaten during the meeting had merely reminded him how hungry he was.
“I’ll check in on you in a few days and see what you need,” Tonks promised Sirius as she gave his arm a squeeze and left with Shacklebolt.
Sirius nodded and gave her a cheerful smile he didn’t feel. He was so focused on assembling a sandwich and eavesdropping on Remus that he overlooked the fact that Snape had lingered behind. It wasn’t until Doge said his good-byes that he realized Snape was still in the room.
“Do I sense problems within your little pack, Lupin?” Snape asked. Sirius gritted his teeth and felt his grip on the carving knife tighten. “What’s wrong? Did you finally make a pass at Black and get turned down?”
“Shouldn’t you be getting back to Hogwarts?” Remus asked lightly.
“It’s Sunday. Even teachers get an occasional day off. You should remember that. You weren’t a teacher long, but—”
“Out!” Sirius whirled around to face Snape and gestured toward the door with the knife. It was Snape’s fault that Remus wasn’t a teacher anymore, and Sirius couldn’t stand by while Snape rubbed it in his friend’s face. Snape made a gesture of surrender with his hands and moved toward the door. He paused just before going out, and Sirius braced for Snape’s parting shot.
“I’ll never understand why Dumbledore entrusted the students to a homosexual werewolf,” Snape sneered. Sirius only made one stride toward the Slytherin before he felt his body stiffen with the Body-bind Curse and crash to the floor. Snape looked down on him and smiled smugly; he hadn’t lifted a finger. “You should leave him that way, Lupin. You might actually get somewhere with him.”
“Sorry I had to do that,” Remus said just after Snape left. He released the spell with a flick of his wand. “But I couldn’t let you kill him.”
“I wouldn’t have killed him. Hurt him, perhaps,” Sirius said as Remus helped him back to his feet. Remus looked pointedly at the knife in Sirius’s hand, and Sirius put it back on the cutting board with a sheepish smile. “Forgot I was holding it.”
“Would you at least try not to lose your temper around him? You know that’s what he wants.”
“I can’t just stand by and let him insult you, Moony.”
Remus’s back stiffened as he took a deep breath. Sirius realized that he’d somehow made the situation worse instead of better.
“Insult me,” Remus repeated. He fixed Sirius with a glare that caused Sirius to look down. “He called me ‘a homosexual werewolf.’ Which word was the insult, Sirius? I know you don’t think the word ‘werewolf” is an insult, so it must be the word ‘homosexual.’ That’s why I won’t have sex with you.”
* * * * *
A constant battle between human and lupine waged within the mind of every werewolf. The full moon should have given the lupine side dominance, but the Wolfsbane Potion tipped the balance of power back to the human. Barely. The pain of the transformation, even when dulled by the potion, left Remus unable to think clearly for a few moments. Instinct, not thought, drove him back onto his feet. The black dog was already by his side, his head lowered submissively. The wolf sniffed the dog, recognizing him as his packmate. The human within the wolf was grateful that Sirius wanted to spend the night of the full moon with him despite their disagreement.
Padfoot not only allowed the wolf to smell him, but he responded in similar fashion. Sirius had once explained that some of his canine behaviour was instinctive, and some was done deliberately to appease the wolf. Which category this fell into, Remus had never asked.
A moment later, the question was moot, and Remus’s ability to wonder was crumbling. Padfoot’s behaviour had shifted from polite to overtly sexual. He was licking under the wolf’s tail, the way male canines had seduced their mates for millennia. The pleasant sensations caught Remus by surprise, and by the time he remembered that he should be objecting, intellect was subsiding under instinct.
The instinct to mate is a powerful drive, but even so, the Wolfsbane Potion should have left Remus with enough control to resist. He would have been able to resist if his human side didn’t want Sirius even more than the wolf did. Desire versus reason. Reason didn’t stand a chance.
The wolf wanted to mate. He wanted the black dog. But he would not submit to being mounted. Padfoot soon found the tables turned.
* * * * *
Remus sat up and leaned back against the foot of the bed. Padfoot lay several feet away, head between his fore paws, pale eyes watching Remus warily. When Remus looked at him, Padfoot thumped his tail—once—and whimpered.
“Are you still speaking to me?” Remus asked.
Sirius transformed back and sat up. “I should be asking you that.”
“True.” Remus grabbed hold of the bed to climb to his feet. “So, what do you have to say for yourself?”
“Ow.”
Remus wanted to be angry; he deserved to be angry. He’d made a reasoned and logical choice. He’d told Sirius that he wasn’t willing to have sex with him. Rather than accept that decision, Sirius had taken advantage of his weakness. Sirius had incited the wolf to mate. Padfoot had always controlled the wolf when Remus could not. Padfoot taking control of the wolf away from Remus was a betrayal.
But watching Sirius wince in discomfort as he climbed to his feet and walked to the bed, Remus couldn’t sustain his anger.
“You’re an idiot, you know that?”
Sirius nodded and carefully sat on the edge of the bed beside Remus. “I hurt, Moony.” He rested his head on Remus’s shoulder, and Remus wrapped an arm around his back.
“Of course you do. Anal sex and canines are not an ideal combination.”
“Too big. I could have hurt you; I’m sorry. I’m glad you didn’t let me.”
Remus stared down at his friend’s black hair. Sirius wasn’t even sorry for the right reason. Remus growled in exasperation as he stormed into his own room. He slammed the door shut and secured it with several spells to keep Sirius out.
—Written January 2004
Chapter Four: Understandings
Chapter Three: Propositions
July 1995
Remus slowly drew the tip of his wand across the shelf trying to reveal any possible security spells that might prevent him from removing a book from the shelf. He repeated the process for the next shelf down. Hermione’s recent arrival in the house gave him added incentive to check the library for hidden dangers.
“You should’ve told me you were coming up here,” said Sirius from the doorway.
“You were talking with Arthur about his car; I didn’t want to interrupt,” Remus replied without taking his attention off his task.
“This isn’t a particularly safe room to be in,” Sirius said darkly.
“I know. I’m staying away from the shelves behind the desk. Some rather nasty spells on those books,” Remus said as he settled cross-legged on the floor in order to check the lowest shelves.
“Be careful of that copy of Poisons for all Requirements. The pages are poisonous; you need gloves to handle it.”
Remus marked the purple book with a glowing “X.” “Any others in this section that I should mark as dangerous?” he asked.
“I’ll read all the titles later and try to remember,” Sirius said as he sprawled in a green leather club chair. He silently watched Remus work until Remus stood to begin the next section.
“Molly had better get used to living with you in a hurry,” Sirius said angrily, “because if she can’t, she’s leaving, not you.”
“What are you on about? Molly and I are getting along fine.”
“She jumped a foot when you came into the kitchen.”
“I startled her.”
“And I heard her tell you that she doesn’t want you here for the full moon.”
“No, you heard her ask me if it’s true that I won’t be here for the full moon. I assured her that I won’t be.”
“I want you to stay here. Snape can make himself useful and make you some of that potion.”
“With it or without it, I’m not staying here with the children. Wolfsbane Potion makes me safer, but I still don’t want to risk it.” Remus gave up on his project. He no longer had sufficient concentration to do it safely. “And see it from Arthur and Molly’s point of view,” Remus said as he settled into the other club chair. “It was only a year ago that I almost killed one of their children. That they’re willing to live under the same roof as I am, that they’re willing to have their children live under that same roof, it proves that they see me as a person first and a werewolf second. But even if I were willing to stay here for the full moon—which I’m not—it would be too big a risk to ask of the Weasleys.”
“Will you stay here for the moons after the kids go back to school?”
“Nowhere I’d rather be,” Remus said with a smile. “But I can’t promise that I’ll be here every month. Dumbledore said that he might have some travelling for me to do soon.”
Sirius had been picking at a crease in the leather under his fingers. He now looked down at the crease rather than at Remus. “When are you leaving?” It took Remus a moment to realize that Sirius was talking about the upcoming full moon.
“The full moon’s next Tuesday. I’ll leave early that afternoon, I suppose. Why?”
Sirius shrugged. “Just something you said last week. I thought you might want to get out of here a day or two sooner.”
“Trying to get rid of me, Padfoot?”
“Of course not!” Sirius exclaimed as he looked up sharply, afraid that he’d offended his friend. He relaxed when he saw that Remus was grinning.
“What did I say last week?” Remus asked as he slouched down a bit more in the chair and rested his chin on the heel of his hand.
“That, um—” Sirius seemed to find the arm of chair fascinating again. “That you always pick up guys between first quarter and full.
“Oh, that.” Remus unfolded his hand to mask half of his face. If he had had a tendency to blush, he knew that he would have been blushing now. “You must think I’m a right horny bastard.”
“Actually, given the timing of it, I figured that the wolf was the horny bastard,” Sirius replied as he looked up with a small smile.
“Um-hmm,” Remus admitted with a nod. He straightened up and sighed. “But I don’t let him indulge as often as I used to.”
“Why not? You aren’t sick, are you, Moony?”
Remus shook his head and smiled reassuringly at his worried friend. He realized that one or more of the Muggle newspapers or magazines he’d brought home for Sirius must have had an article about AIDS. “I probably should be, given my past history, but I’m not. Sometimes I wonder if I’m just not human enough to catch it.” He chose not to tell Sirius that up until three years ago, he’d been so willing to die that he’d shunned safe sex practices.
Sirius grinned in relief. “So why don’t you indulge as often anymore?” He enjoyed being able to tease his friend again.
“Can we change the subject, please?”
“I just find it rather amusing that my quiet friend Remus, the prefect, the ‘good boy,’ has probably had more sexual partners than he can count, whereas I acquired a heartbreaker reputation while having had so few sexual partners that I could count them on one hand.”
“I thought your hand was your sexual partner.”
Sirius threw his head back with a groan. “Don’t remind me. It’s been so long since I’ve had sex that I could almost give you a go.”
“Gee, thanks. I’m so flattered.”
Sirius’s head snapped forward so quickly that it made Remus wince with sympathy pain. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded,” Sirius said quickly.
“Yes you did, but it’s O.K.”
Remus tended to be a light sleeper. During his first month at Hogwarts, the quiet sounds of his sleeping dorm mates had kept him from sleeping through the night. Then during the holidays, he’d discovered that he couldn’t sleep due to their absence. He’d come to rely upon the sounds of their breath and rustling sheets to reassure him that he was not alone.
Now he slept where he could hear Sirius. Sirius had not wanted any of the bedrooms he associated with his family, so he had chosen a little used guest bedroom. One of its advantages was a small adjoining room intended to be a bedroom for a servant accompanying the guest. Sirius had shown the adjoining room to Remus saying, “When the house starts to fill up, I’ll move in here and let Buckbeak have my room,” but Remus had immediately claimed the small room for himself.
Sirius had had a few nightmares during the week he’d spent at Remus’s home before returning to Grimmauld Place, and Remus had thought it likely that the return to Sirius’s childhood home could only make the problem worse. Unfortunately, he was right.
When nightmares had awoken Remus years ago in Gryffindor tower, it had been Sirius who had made awkward and unsure attempts to offer reassurance. Knowing what he did now about Sirius’s childhood, Remus doubted that either of Sirius’s parents had ever filled the role of defender against demons and monsters of the night. And yet, even without their example, Sirius had tried to fulfil that role for Remus. Remus wanted to be nearby in order to fill that role for Sirius now.
Remus awoke at the sound of claws clicking on the floor. When his partially open door swung open and two bright eyes peeked around the edge of the door, Remus smiled in welcome.
“Can’t sleep?”
Padfoot came closer and nudged Remus’s hand in answer. Remus stroked the dog’s head and ran his fingers through the thick fur of his ruff. Padfoot settled back on his haunches and rested his head on the bed within easy reach of Remus’s hand. Remus continued to stroke the silky fur. He didn’t bother to speak; he didn’t want Sirius to feel that he had to transform back before he felt ready. He wondered if Sirius had transformed just after he awoke, or if he had done it in his sleep. He knew from the first nightmare he’d witnessed that the latter was a possibility.
Padfoot sighed contentedly—if a dog’s huff can be called a sigh— and then lay down on the small oval rug beside Remus’s bed. The rug was thin and didn’t provide much cushioning against the hard floor.
Remus sat up and patted the foot of his bed. “You can sleep up here if you’d rather. You can keep my feet warm.” Padfoot immediately jumped up on the bed as if he’d just been waiting for the invitation.
Remus lay back down and curled up in an attempt to get comfortable despite losing the lower third of the bed. Given that they were experiencing an unusually hot summer, a foot warmer was the last thing Remus needed. But despite the prodigious heat coming from his large canine friend and the loss of space in the bed, Remus knew he’d sleep better knowing that he’d done what he could to help Sirius sleep peacefully.
Padfoot’s yawn was all the thanks he needed.
August 1995
Sirius awoke at dawn. During his two years on the run, it hadn’t been safe to sleep soundly during daylight hours. It hadn’t been safe to sleep soundly at any time, but at least at night, he could trust his dark fur to provide camouflage in the surrounding darkness. When the sky lightened, he needed to awaken. Two years of rising with the sun had so thoroughly conditioned him that the habit continued even now.
Remus was still sound asleep. He lay curled on his side, his chest and belly against Sirius’s back with one arm thrown around Sirius’s stomach as if to protect him against the nightmares that had sent him into Remus’s bedroom during the night. Or, more likely, he lay that way because it was the only way two tall men could comfortably fit in his narrow bed.
“I need to stop acting like a child and coming in here,” Sirius thought, but he knew that resolution was doomed to failure. When the night filled with dementors and with the corpses of friends and strangers blaming him for their deaths, only Remus could make him feel safe and loved again. “O.K., a more realistic resolution then. Next time, I ask Remus to come in my room. The bed’s bigger.”
Sirius rolled onto his back—slowly, careful not to wake Remus. He smiled at his sleeping friend; he felt immensely grateful that Remus didn’t seem to mind these intrusions. Remus shifted his head down onto Sirius’s shoulder and drew his arm back to rest his palm on the flat of Sirius’s abdomen. Sirius couldn’t help but grin. “At least if he wakes up at this moment, he won’t be shocked to discover himself cuddling a bloke.”
As if on cue, Remus began to stroke the line of hair on Sirius’s belly with a feather-light touch. The rhythm of his breathing was still regular and unchanged, so Sirius knew he had not truly awoken, but he was barely asleep. Remus’s fingers curled and combed across Sirius’s belly. Sirius felt his eyes close. He was enjoying the feel of Remus’s touch far too much, but it was just so long—far too long—since anyone had touched him like he was someone worthy of love, or even just worthy of desire.
Remus’s fingers brushed just under the waistband of Sirius’s pyjama bottoms and stopped moving. Sirius took a shaky breath. He had to end this now; he had to wake Remus up. Whoever Remus was dreaming he was, he wasn’t. If this went any further, they’d both be embarrassed when Remus truly awoke. But he didn’t need to wake him. Remus tipped his head up and looked at Sirius with wide eyes.
“Good morning.” Sirius tried to smile as if he were completely composed and not at all affected by what had just been happening. He could see by the look of panic in Remus’s eyes that he hadn’t quite succeeded. Remus pulled his hand away as if Sirius’s skin had scalded him and simultaneously backed into the wall.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t really awake, and I’d never—I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything,” Sirius said. The word “yet” was in his mind. “I’m sorry that I woke you, and that I invaded your bed again. I’ll get out of here so you can go back to sleep.” Sirius got out of bed as he spoke. He needed to get his desperate desire to be touched as far away from Remus and his long, strong hands as quickly as possible.
When Remus finally came down for breakfast several hours later, the kitchen was blissfully empty. Molly had already fed her brood and set them to work cleaning. Sirius took a break from the war against the house to keep Remus company. Sirius made Remus a cup of hot chocolate while Remus made some toast. Sirius found it amusing that Remus still detested porridge as much as he ever had. While Remus ate the toast and read the Daily Prophet, Sirius tried to work on the previous day’s crossword puzzle, but he couldn’t keep his attention on the page. He found himself watching Remus instead.
Despite what he had almost desired to happen that morning, Sirius knew he wasn’t gay. He dated girls when he was younger. He hadn’t been sneaking peaks at blokes in the shower like Remus had. Well, a few times, but that had been more admiring than desiring.
He was just—lonely—and horny—and lonely. But the fact that he had considered it, even fleetingly, caused him to contemplate the fact that Remus was gay—and to contemplate Remus. He knew what attracted men to women and women to men. It was the difference, the “otherness.” Softness and curves attracted angles and hard muscles; angles and hard muscles attracted softness and curves, right? So what did one man see in another?
Remus held the cup cradled in his hands. As he brought it to his mouth, he closed his eyes to better focus on the scent and taste alone. He was smiling as he lowered the cup from mouth. He licked a trace of chocolate off his upper lip.
“Oh.”
“What did you say, Padfoot?”
“Nothing.”
September 1995
Remus delayed opening his eyes as the pain shifted from the sharp agonies of the transformation itself to the pervasive ache that always followed. Padfoot’s warm breath was on his face as the dog nudged Remus with his muzzle and whimpered in sympathy and in inquiry. Remus wanted to reassure his friend that he was alright, that he had survived yet another transformation into wolf and back again, but every small muscle needed for speech simply hurt too much to make the effort just yet.
A warm, wet, sandpapery tongue began to stroke across Remus’s cheek again and again. Remus could remember clawing at his muzzle as he changed this morning, and he surmised that Padfoot was bathing his wounds the way instinct dictated. Remus could taste blood as well. Near the end, he’d accidentally bitten his tongue while trying not to scream. Remus swallowed with effort, savouring the rich coppery taste, and shuddered when he realized how much he enjoyed it. Even tamed by the Wolfsbane Potion, the wolf was still there.
“Stop, Padfoot. Don’t.” Remus twisted away from the dog who was not a dog. Sirius shifted back into himself as he settled back a few feet away.
“I’m sorry,” Sirius said quietly. His eyes were shadowed in concern. “I’ve always—Did I hurt you?”
Remus shook his head as he carefully sat up. Sirius made an abortive move to offer a hand in assistance, but seemed to have second thoughts since his canine attempt to help had been rebuffed. Remus saw the movement and extended an arm to his friend.
“Could you help me up and to my bed?” he asked.
They’d spent the night in their rooms and were now in the larger room, Sirius’s room. Sirius immediately jumped to his feet and started to lead Remus toward his own bed as it was closer.
“I don’t want to get blood on your sheets,” Remus protested, but he allowed Sirius to help him up onto the bed anyway.
“You only have a few scratches, and whether you bleed on my sheets or yours, I’m the one who will be washing them tomorrow—unless I get that lazy Kreacher to actually do something useful.” Sirius opened the lower door of the bedside cabinet and removed a box he’d filled with bandages and healing potions and salves. “You barely need any patching up. You didn’t hurt yourself until you were changing back.”
“It’s a whole different experience with the Wolfsbane Potion, isn’t it?” Remus said as he turned his head to allow Sirius to attend to the clawmarks on the side of his face.
“You seemed to be in more pain when you changed back,” Sirius said.
“It seems that way, but I don’t think it’s true. The wolf used to get the worst of it, but it caught him by surprise every time. Now I’m still me and I know what’s coming, so—I’ve read that fear of pain makes pain worse.”
“You don’t need to take the potion, you know. Not when you’re here with me.” Sirius finished dabbing salve on a bite on Remus’s hand and simply held his hand loosely when he was done.
“We’re in a populated area, Padfoot. If I were to get away from you—”
“You won’t.”
“The transformation into a wolf seems easier, if that makes you feel better. I can’t feel that it’s going to happen until it starts. Remember how achy and miserable I used to be all day leading up to the full moon? Now I’m so drugged up that it almost catches me by surprise.” Remus nearly scowled as he remembered when it had taken him by surprise. He’d taken six doses of Wolfsbane Potion that week, enough for the numbing effects to take hold, but missed the last dose, leaving him dangerous.
Sirius was staring down at Remus’s hand within his own. “You don’t need me anymore.”
“Of course I do.”
Sirius shook his head. “No, with the potion, you don’t need me. You were happy just to curl up and lay on the rug.” He smiled slightly. “I was just an annoying puppy getting on your nerves.”
“Padfoot—” Remus waited for Sirius to look up at him. “Do you remember what you said the first time you showed me your transformation?” Sirius frowned and then shook his head. “You said, ‘Now you don’t have to be alone anymore.’ That’s what you promised me. I’m holding you to that promise.”
Sirius smiled, relieved that he still a role to play in his friend’s life. “Being alone sucks, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” Remus admitted. He hoped Sirius wasn’t about to fall into the familiar pattern of self-recrimination that he so often fell into when he thought of Remus’s years of being alone. Fortunately, Sirius’s thoughts were already moving in another direction.
“Are you hungry? ‘Cause I’m starving.” Sirius jumped to his feet and headed for the bedroom door. “How about some eggs?”
“And that leftover ham from the other night.”
“Carnivore!” Sirius called out as headed down the stairs.
Remus smiled at the familiar epithet—even if it used to be James and Peter who directed it at him and Sirius both. He nearly laughed as he remembered saying in all honesty about Prongs, “Herbivores are stupid.”
He suddenly found himself unable to breathe as his still recovering muscles spasmed with pain. “Wait, wait, wait, easy, breathe, getting better.” The pain slowly flowed away and left him with a fresh sheen of sweat on his body. Remus thought ruefully that even pain could serve a purpose. It had certainly proved useful this morning by wiping away any vestiges of the aroused feelings he’d fought against all night.
He’d hoped that the Wolfsbane Potion would give him enough control over his instincts that Padfoot would be as safe from Moony’s sexual advances as Sirius was from Remus’s. It had worked, but it had been a struggle all night. Padfoot’s scent, a mix of canine and Sirius’s scent was just so—right. When Padfoot had initiated a playful wrestling match, it had very nearly turned into something else altogether. Remus had barely been able to reign himself in. He’d had to growl and snap at Padfoot to discourage him from trying again.
It didn’t help that Remus couldn’t remember the last time he’d had sex. The wolf’s desire to mate had been denied too long. Remus realized that if he wanted to spend any more full moons with Padfoot, he’d need to take a page from his pre-Wolfsbane Potion days. Next month, he’d be certain to indulge his sexual desires in the days leading up to the full moon.
October 1995
Sirius tried to lose himself in the repetitious movements of currying Buckbeak. Unfortunately, it was too repetitious, too easy. It occupied his hands but not his mind. Downstairs, Remus was changing into Muggle clothes and getting ready to go out. Going out to get laid. He hadn’t said so. He didn’t need to.
He wasn’t going anywhere for Dumbledore. He’d just got back from a five-day trip. He was changing into Muggle clothes—nice Muggle clothes—brown trousers tight enough to hint at the well-shaped arse beneath, but not so tight that as to seem strange on a bloke with greying hair, and a button-down shirt the colour of honey. When he occasionally wore Muggle clothes around the house, it tended to be shapeless moth-eaten sweaters and frayed trousers or jeans that had seen better days.
Much to his embarrassment—“I sounded like a bloody girl”—Sirius had protested against Remus’s leaving. “But you just got back, Moony.”
“I won’t stay out all night, Padfoot,” Remus had promised, “but I do need to go.”
“He needs to go,” Sirius told the hippogriff. “He needs a good shag. How about you, Buckbeak? You haven’t had a shag since we met. How long will you be able to stand it before you get desperate enough to break out of here?”
Sirius threw the currying brushes in a corner and stalked over to the window seat that overlooked the street. He’d sat up here for hours yesterday watching for Remus’s return; now he watched as Remus walked away.
“Sorry, Buckbeak,” Sirius said without taking his eyes off his friend’s back, “but you’re a wanted hippogriff, you know. We can’t let you out for a shag. Maybe we could smuggle a nice lady hippogriff in for you. Or would you prefer another bloke?”
Sirius looked up at the gibbous moon. “Fuck you, too.”
Padfoot was curled up on the foot of Remus’s bed when Remus returned home hours later. He thumped his tail in greeting at the sight of his friend, but as Remus came fully into the room, his scent came in too. Padfoot growled. The scent of another man’s sweat was on Remus.
Padfoot jumped off the bed and returned to his own room. Sirius changed back so he wouldn’t have to smell the traces of the scent that lingered in the room from Remus passing through.
His dreams were troubled that night, but he didn’t go into Remus’s room. His dreams were full of Remus being pawed and fucked by various men: a heavy Muggle who dripped sweat, Alex Vraci who kept whispering in Remus’s ear how much he despised him, Lucius Malfoy who screwed Remus while Narcissa and Bellatrix looked on and laughed, and numerous faceless others.
“Your move, Sirius,” Remus gently reminded his friend. It was rare for Sirius to take so long to choose his next move in chess. At least it was when he played against Remus. Sirius had always been the better chess player of the two, and he usually knew his next move as soon as Remus made his.
“Sorry. Queen’s knight to Queen’s bishop six.” Sirius returned to staring into the kitchen fire while Remus contemplated the board. “I was just wondering something.”
“What’s that? King’s bishop to Queen’s five.”
“You told me that Vraci had to get drunk the first couple of times you—”
“I’d rather not talk about that.”
“—but I was wondering about after the first couple of times. If he only needed to get drunk the first couple—”
“Sirius, drop it.”
“Queen, take the queen.” Sirius watched as the black queen beheaded her white counterpart. “Check. I’ll tell you how to wriggle out of check if you answer my question.”
Rather than submit to the extortion, Remus knocked over his king to admit defeat. Then he took a closer look at the expression on Sirius’s face. He wasn’t teasing. He wasn’t asking out of amusement at Remus’s embarrassment. He was just staring at the fire sadly because Remus wouldn’t talk to him.
“All right. As I said, the first couple of times, he was nervous as hell. After that, I thought he was starting to enjoy himself. Obviously, he just got better at pretending to enjoy himself.”
“Pretending?” Now Sirius looked amused. “Girls can pretend to enjoy it, Moony. Guys can’t fake it. Either they’re there,” he gestured vaguely at his crotch, “or they’re not.”
Remus laughed in spite of himself. “Oh, he was there. Not the first time, but after that, yes. Let me put it this way. Think about the best sex you’ve ever had, then think of having a lonely wank. Either way, you’re there, as you put it, but one was much more enjoyable than the other. If Alex had rated his sexual experiences, I’m sure that I’d have come in far below wanking off, but that wasn’t the impression I had at the time.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Moony. I’m sure you’re much better than a lonely wank.”
Remus smiled and leaned back in his chair. He regarded Sirius in a way that Sirius was tempted to describe as predatory. “With the right partner, I’m much, much better. If I’m going to do something, I believe in learning to do it well.”
November 1995
Dinner was unusually quiet. Remus’s returns to Grimmauld Place usually led to several days of almost non-stop conversation. Sirius would ask about Remus’s trips and the contacts he’d made, he’d want to discuss items he’d read in the newspapers or magazines, he’d tell Remus about the progress he’d made in searching the dark arts books in the library for anything useful, he’d talk about Harry, he’d reminisce about James. It would take several days until Sirius had talked enough to make up for the silent days when his only companions were a hippogriff, a mad house elf, and the portrait of his mother. Only then would Sirius suddenly fall silent and appreciate quiet companionship. And then Remus would need to leave again.
This time was different. Since Remus’s return four days ago, Sirius had made only half-hearted and strained efforts at conversation. At first, Remus had blamed it on the date, Halloween. But four days had passed, Sirius didn’t seem overly depressed—no more than he normally was in this house—and things were still awkward between them. Even the silences didn’t seem to have the comfortable familiarity that the two old friends could often share. Every time Remus looked at Sirius, he caught him staring at him. Stranger yet was the way Sirius would quickly look away as if embarrassed to be caught staring.
Remus looked up from his dinner now and saw Sirius staring again, a crease between his brows as if he were trying to solve a puzzle or make a decision. Sirius immediately looked down at his dinner. Remus was uncomfortably reminded of the handful of times he’d seen Sirius after they cut him off from contact with James. Sirius had stared at him the same way, trying to figure if Remus had really betrayed them, and if he had, why.
“I need a drink,” Sirius announced as he abruptly shoved his plate away and stood up. “You want one?”
“No, thank you.”
Sirius took a bottle of firewhiskey out of a cupboard and poured a generous drink for himself. Remus wondered for a moment if Sirius was using the firewhiskey as a crutch to get through the days when he was here alone, but then he caught sight of the label. It was the same bottle they’d opened the night after they moved in. He himself had torn a corner off the label that night.
“I’m going out tonight,” Remus said. He suspected that Sirius wouldn’t want him to leave.
“I thought you might be.” Sirius drank half of the glass in one swallow. “Halfway between first quarter and full, right? Peter was right; you are predictable.”
The accusation stung; it was accurate, but it stung. Remus considered explaining the reason behind the timing, but doing so would require telling Sirius how much difficulty he was having keeping the wolf off Padfoot.
“Excuse me; I think I’ll go change.” As Remus left the kitchen, he heard Sirius refilling his glass.
Remus was just buttoning his shirt when he sensed Sirius in the doorway behind him.
“You don’t have to go out, you know.”
“I won’t be out too late,” Remus replied. Sirius’s nightmares were less frequent, but Remus still wanted to be here as many nights as possible. He’d simply have to choose someone who was looking for a brief encounter so he could return soon.
“You could stay here—with me.”
“I know I just got back a few days ago,” Remus said as he turned around at last, “and I’m sorry to leave you again, but—”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Sirius stood in the doorway, blocking Remus from leaving easily. Remus noticed the empty whiskey glass still in Sirius’s hand. Sirius smiled nervously.
“I’m your type, right? At least, I used to be.”
This had to be a joke—a very poor joke. “Not quite, Padfoot. My ‘type’ is gay.”
“Well, Alex Vraci learned to like it. I’m sure I could too.”
“Alex.” Remus’s eyes went straight to the whiskey glass in Sirius’s hand. “Not again.” Remus could live with the idea that he’d had sex with a man who had to get drunk in order to bear being with him, but he couldn’t bear the idea of that happening with Sirius. Sirius would loathe what they did. Sirius would come to loathe him.
“No, Sirius. Don’t ask—”
Sirius came closer, and Remus tried to retreat, but after just one step, the bed was already pressing against his legs.
“They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but I’m not an ordinary dog,” Sirius said as he slid his free hand up Remus’s arm. “And our teachers all said that I was a fast learner.”
“I remember,” Remus said. Sirius’s eyes were warier than they had once been, but they were still as startlingly blue. The hair was still the same glossy black that Remus had always wanted to twist between his fingers. His scent—he was so close now, and his scent was all around Remus—Remus knew just how Sirius’s skin would taste from his scent alone. Did Sirius close his eyes when he made love, or would Remus be able to see those blue eyes while— He could smell the firewhiskey on Sirius’s breath.
Remus pulled away just as Sirius tried to kiss him. “No! We’re not doing this. I’m not doing this. Not with you.”
Remus half expected Sirius to argue with him. Sirius had always been able to talk Remus into anything, but Sirius merely stared at Remus for a moment before he turned and walked out of the room. Remus heard him climbing the stairs to Buckbeak’s room.
His human side felt guilty. The hurt of rejection had clearly been written on Sirius’s face. His lupine side was furious. He’d wanted Sirius for so long, and to come so close to having him, and then not—
Sirius was still upstairs when Remus left the house. Remus could feel him watching from the upstairs window.
If Remus were prone to exaggeration, he’d say that it had been the single most unsatisfying fuck of his entire life. But as he wasn’t prone to exaggeration, he’d merely place it within his three worst sexual experiences—and that was considering the four women he’d slept with in his life. The man was fine; it wasn’t his fault. He was a bit more effeminate than Remus usually liked, but beggars can’t be choosers, especially when they are in a hurry to get home to someone else. But Remus knew that tonight’s partner could have been the best-looking and most-talented lover in the world, and the experience still would have been awful.
He wanted Sirius.
Sirius, who had drawn him out of his self-imposed isolation as a boy. Sirius, who had sat beside Remus while his friends told him that they knew his secret. Sirius, who spent countless hours sitting at the foot of Remus’s bed in the hospital wing in order to keep him company. Sirius, whose animagus form was the dog whom Moony had always loved most of all his packmates. Sirius, who had still spent the full moons with him and then tended his wounds even after he’d been given ample reason not to trust Remus anymore. Sirius, who had come back from hell and made the world right again. Sirius, who trusted Remus enough to welcome him into his bed to keep the nightmares at bay.
How could Remus betray that trust now? Sirius was lonely and vulnerable. Having sex with him now would be taking advantage of Sirius’s vulnerability to satisfy his own desires. Sirius would hate him later; he’d hate himself now.
Remus was surprised to see the flickering light of a fire illuminating the drawing room. It was a room Sirius usually avoided.
“Sirius?” Remus drew near the open door.
“HE’S DRUNK!” Mrs. Black shouted. Remus realized too late that the curtain had been pulled open, whether by Kreacher or by Sirius he did not know. “That ill-begotten abomination of my flesh is as drunk as a common Muggle derelict!”
“Shut up, you old hag!” Sirius roared from the drawing room.
“Those cases of port were purchased the year you were born! We thought you’d grow up proud of your heritage! We thought you’d marry a witch deserving of our family! That port was the start of an appropriate wine cellar for—”
“Then they’re mine, aren’t they?” Sirius yelled as he strode into the corridor, one bottle clutched in his hand. “And I’m welcome to a bottle or two if I want it, aren’t I?” With his free hand, he tugged at the curtain in an attempt to cover his mother’s portrait. Remus silently assisted.
They succeeded in covering her as she began a keening wail that vaguely sounded like, “Why, oh why,” over and over again.
“Bloody bitch,” Sirius muttered. He glared at Remus for a moment and stalked back into the drawing room. Remus followed quietly and watched as Sirius sprawled in a chair he’d positioned directly in front of the tapestry celebrating his family tree. Remus closed the door behind himself and then cast a silencing spell upon it to block Mrs. Black’s wailing.
“Here we all are, Remus,” Sirius said as he gestured toward the tapestry with the bottle. “So who do you want? ‘Fraid your choices are limited. Most of us are dead, and I doubt ghosts make good lovers. Cold showers, that’s what they are. Here he is,” Sirius said as bolted out of the chair and pointed to a name near the bottom edge. “Al’xander Vraci. Dead. 1982.”
Remus drew near despite his instincts to flee as far away as possible. He couldn’t leave. Sirius was hurting. He couldn’t leave.
Sirius fixed Remus with a searching look. “Why not me, Remus? You used to want me, right? They hand-picked Vraci for you because Peter knew you wanted me.” Sirius looked again at the tapestry and touched another name. “Regulus. 1980.” Sirius’s face softened as he gazed at his brother’s name. Remus stepped closer to put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. Sirius’s face hardened into anger again as he looked back at Remus. “1980. The year before Vol’mort decided to give you a Death Eater lover. What if he’d still been alive? He looked even more like me than Alex did. That’s who he would have chosen, isn’t it? Yeah, he would. So tell me, Moony, my friend, would you have shagged my brother?”
Remus didn’t know what was the “correct” answer to appease Sirius in this moment, but he did know what the honest answer was. After he realized that he’d been set up with Alex, he’d considered this hypothetical question. He didn’t think he would have been fooled by Regulus; he knew him too well not to be suspicious.
“No.”
“Liar.”
Remus shook his head. “No, I knew him too well.”
Sirius snorted. “Only screw strangers, is that it?” He held up the bottle of port as if making a toast. “To Remus Lupin. He buggered my cousin, he would’ve buggered my brother, but he won’t touch me.” Sirius lowered the bottle but did not drink. “Go to bed, Remus. I’m staying down here tonight.”
When two people both wish to avoid the other, they can manage to do so, even when confined within the same house. They couldn’t avoid each other indefinitely, however, for several members of the Order planned to meet with them that afternoon. Sirius spent as much time feeding and currying Buckbeak as he could before heading down to the kitchen. There were only two empty seats at the table when he walked in. One was beside Remus, of course. Everyone knew to leave that seat for him; Sirius always sat beside Remus. Sirius took the other empty seat.
Snape looked at Sirius in surprise as Sirius sat beside him. Then Snape stared at Remus, questions and speculation in his eyes. Remus looked away from both of them and gave his full attention to the matter being discussed by Emmeline Vance and Arthur Weasley.
Professor Dumbledore arrived just moments after Sirius sat down. “I’m afraid I can’t stay long,” Dumbledore said as sat beside Remus and accepted a cup of tea from Molly. “Minerva is having tea with that woman to prevent her from noticing that Severus and I are not at school, but I don’t wish to tax Minerva’s patience by staying away too long.”
Those who had news to share did so as efficiently as they could each manage. A brief discussion took place over the possible ramifications of the recent leadership change in the French Ministère de la Magie. Arthur promised to handle scheduling the next fortnight’s surveillance for the Department of Mysteries.
“Which brings us to the last item,” Dumbledore said as he consulted his pocket watch. “Elphias needs to travel to Germany and Austria to meet with his contacts there, and I feel he should have a bodyguard with him. He wants to leave as soon as possible, and you’ll be gone two to three weeks.”
“Even if I pretend to be following up on a sighting of Sirius, I couldn’t be gone that long without raising suspicions,” Kingsley Shacklebolt said.
“I’ll go,” Remus said. “I can leave in a few days.”
“That’s a long time for you to be gone,” Tonks said immediately.
“The full moon is the night after tomorrow. I’ll leave just after and be back before the next.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said as she glanced worriedly at Sirius and then looked at Remus again. “You just got back, didn’t you?”
“He can go,” Sirius said. “I don’t need a minder.”
“That’s settled then,” Dumbledore said as he shut his pocket watch with a snap. “Good luck with your trip,” he said as he glanced toward Elphias Doge and Remus.
People began to drift out of the kitchen in ones and twos. They knew better than to all flood out of the unseen house at the same moment. Doge and Remus remained at the kitchen table to discuss the logistics of their trip. Sirius wanted to leave the room—but he wanted something to eat more. He had avoided the kitchen throughout lunchtime, and the one biscuit he’d eaten during the meeting had merely reminded him how hungry he was.
“I’ll check in on you in a few days and see what you need,” Tonks promised Sirius as she gave his arm a squeeze and left with Shacklebolt.
Sirius nodded and gave her a cheerful smile he didn’t feel. He was so focused on assembling a sandwich and eavesdropping on Remus that he overlooked the fact that Snape had lingered behind. It wasn’t until Doge said his good-byes that he realized Snape was still in the room.
“Do I sense problems within your little pack, Lupin?” Snape asked. Sirius gritted his teeth and felt his grip on the carving knife tighten. “What’s wrong? Did you finally make a pass at Black and get turned down?”
“Shouldn’t you be getting back to Hogwarts?” Remus asked lightly.
“It’s Sunday. Even teachers get an occasional day off. You should remember that. You weren’t a teacher long, but—”
“Out!” Sirius whirled around to face Snape and gestured toward the door with the knife. It was Snape’s fault that Remus wasn’t a teacher anymore, and Sirius couldn’t stand by while Snape rubbed it in his friend’s face. Snape made a gesture of surrender with his hands and moved toward the door. He paused just before going out, and Sirius braced for Snape’s parting shot.
“I’ll never understand why Dumbledore entrusted the students to a homosexual werewolf,” Snape sneered. Sirius only made one stride toward the Slytherin before he felt his body stiffen with the Body-bind Curse and crash to the floor. Snape looked down on him and smiled smugly; he hadn’t lifted a finger. “You should leave him that way, Lupin. You might actually get somewhere with him.”
“Sorry I had to do that,” Remus said just after Snape left. He released the spell with a flick of his wand. “But I couldn’t let you kill him.”
“I wouldn’t have killed him. Hurt him, perhaps,” Sirius said as Remus helped him back to his feet. Remus looked pointedly at the knife in Sirius’s hand, and Sirius put it back on the cutting board with a sheepish smile. “Forgot I was holding it.”
“Would you at least try not to lose your temper around him? You know that’s what he wants.”
“I can’t just stand by and let him insult you, Moony.”
Remus’s back stiffened as he took a deep breath. Sirius realized that he’d somehow made the situation worse instead of better.
“Insult me,” Remus repeated. He fixed Sirius with a glare that caused Sirius to look down. “He called me ‘a homosexual werewolf.’ Which word was the insult, Sirius? I know you don’t think the word ‘werewolf” is an insult, so it must be the word ‘homosexual.’ That’s why I won’t have sex with you.”
A constant battle between human and lupine waged within the mind of every werewolf. The full moon should have given the lupine side dominance, but the Wolfsbane Potion tipped the balance of power back to the human. Barely. The pain of the transformation, even when dulled by the potion, left Remus unable to think clearly for a few moments. Instinct, not thought, drove him back onto his feet. The black dog was already by his side, his head lowered submissively. The wolf sniffed the dog, recognizing him as his packmate. The human within the wolf was grateful that Sirius wanted to spend the night of the full moon with him despite their disagreement.
Padfoot not only allowed the wolf to smell him, but he responded in similar fashion. Sirius had once explained that some of his canine behaviour was instinctive, and some was done deliberately to appease the wolf. Which category this fell into, Remus had never asked.
A moment later, the question was moot, and Remus’s ability to wonder was crumbling. Padfoot’s behaviour had shifted from polite to overtly sexual. He was licking under the wolf’s tail, the way male canines had seduced their mates for millennia. The pleasant sensations caught Remus by surprise, and by the time he remembered that he should be objecting, intellect was subsiding under instinct.
The instinct to mate is a powerful drive, but even so, the Wolfsbane Potion should have left Remus with enough control to resist. He would have been able to resist if his human side didn’t want Sirius even more than the wolf did. Desire versus reason. Reason didn’t stand a chance.
The wolf wanted to mate. He wanted the black dog. But he would not submit to being mounted. Padfoot soon found the tables turned.
Remus sat up and leaned back against the foot of the bed. Padfoot lay several feet away, head between his fore paws, pale eyes watching Remus warily. When Remus looked at him, Padfoot thumped his tail—once—and whimpered.
“Are you still speaking to me?” Remus asked.
Sirius transformed back and sat up. “I should be asking you that.”
“True.” Remus grabbed hold of the bed to climb to his feet. “So, what do you have to say for yourself?”
“Ow.”
Remus wanted to be angry; he deserved to be angry. He’d made a reasoned and logical choice. He’d told Sirius that he wasn’t willing to have sex with him. Rather than accept that decision, Sirius had taken advantage of his weakness. Sirius had incited the wolf to mate. Padfoot had always controlled the wolf when Remus could not. Padfoot taking control of the wolf away from Remus was a betrayal.
But watching Sirius wince in discomfort as he climbed to his feet and walked to the bed, Remus couldn’t sustain his anger.
“You’re an idiot, you know that?”
Sirius nodded and carefully sat on the edge of the bed beside Remus. “I hurt, Moony.” He rested his head on Remus’s shoulder, and Remus wrapped an arm around his back.
“Of course you do. Anal sex and canines are not an ideal combination.”
“Too big. I could have hurt you; I’m sorry. I’m glad you didn’t let me.”
Remus stared down at his friend’s black hair. Sirius wasn’t even sorry for the right reason. Remus growled in exasperation as he stormed into his own room. He slammed the door shut and secured it with several spells to keep Sirius out.
—Written January 2004
Chapter Four: Understandings