Red Runs the Day

Red Runs the Day

Morning comes like most others, a barely detectable flood of decidedly male scents wafting amid the beds in wait for Remus Lupin and the rest, so that when he takes his first conscious breath of the day, he knows precisely what it is he's waking to, whether he wants to or not. Some mornings are special, he knows. Some, like those pristine days after Halloween or Christmas, start with spice, a mellow reminder of pumpkin and melted chocolate from the bedsides of his dorm mates, and often with a nip of mint, just out of reach. On those days he wakes with the tip of his tongue poised on the underside of his bottom lip, and breathes deeply. Tomorrow, he knows already, will be such a morning.

Today, though, he wakes to the familiar, outdoor clothes like wet dog dropped carelessly on the floor by each bed, touches of overbearing cologne and musky deodorant doing little to mask the smell of sleep-sweat as it bunches up along necks, between arms and sides, in the creases where legs meet torsos, around hairy, wedged balls. As with a pack, Remus stirs into a lair of masculinity coiled thick between sheets, barely recognizing his own contribution out of habit, but doubly aware instead of the sentiments he senses in the air. Anticipation, lustful energy from the beds of James and Kingsley, lackadaisical leisure from Sirius's mess of blankets and form, simple contentment from Frank's. And Peter, he notes, wrinkling his nose slightly, has wet the bed again, and apparently slept in it this time. He debates waking him and decides instead to shut his eyes and lie still; perhaps if he doesn't move the day won't, either.

But valiant though his effort, morning turns from smell to sound, and the creak of vacated bunks, the shuffling and yawning and fumbling with glasses, slippers soon bids him concede. He draws his blanket down far enough to peek at the windowsill and watches the sun slink persistently across the span of stone. Something shifts inside him and he's not sure it's from hunger.

Around him sounds turn from natural to forced, spoken word in all its biting familiarity breaking through his last begging claim for complacency; a rising, jocular buzz of male on male, laughing, joking, dressing. Remus's gaze sweeps over the scene even as his fingers tug comforter over his nose again; James getting help with his tie, debating the merits of hair kept unkempt to varying degrees, Frank asking for a final couplet to his - Remus remembers - woebegone sonnet (Sirius supplying a rhyme in poor taste and getting a pillow dashed at him, laughingly), Peter hastily gathering up his sheets amid teasing. The sounds and scents rip so painfully from boy to man here, in this morning melee of hormones and strength, Remus can hardly remind himself they're only students, after all, on their way to class, not war.

A thump on his bed jolts him to a more pronounced, tense level of awareness, startled eyes turning cautiously to the intrusion.

"Up and at it, Moony!" And with a flash of teeth Sirius is gone, pillow still in hand, off to flog any other unfortunate sleepers awake. Remus remembers to breathe and pulls himself into a sit, knees bunched up to chest under the folds of his heavy blanket. Only when a careful assessment of the situation finds most of the stronger scents pouring out the door for breakfast does he turn under his sheets and offer slightly chilled feet to the mercy of the floor - cold this morning, as he fumbles for his slippers. Rising in simple white flannel, he stretches half-heartedly and glances out the window once more, finding frost laying siege to the castle from the wimpled earth below. He crosses the dorm room with careful footfalls, not wanting to disturb the space between bed and toilet, floor now silent and uneasy in the post-skirmish disarray of new clothes and carelessness. As he washes he looks up to see Peter in the showers with a hand curled limply around his member. The soiled sheets lie in a sopping pile beside him. Their eyes meet eventually, Peter's beady and defensive. Remus looks away and goes to dress.

Briefly, Remus wonders if he should take care with what he wears today, wonders if it will matter if he wears his best shirt, a soft thing of cotton white, with strings to do up at the top, or simply the next in his stack of simple greys and browns and worn out reds. In a moment, he knows, he'll grow angry with himself for worrying over this, and tugs on a warm maroon and simple black trousers. He whips his robe on overtop with a sharp burst of energy birthed of ingrown frustration; the material snaps hard against his bedside table before falling subdued about him. He stands for a moment longer, testing the agitation in his fingers and quelling it in deep breaths before attempting to do up his tie.

He goes down to breakfast alone, meeting no one on the way and not even trying to find interest enough to reply to the cheery portrait voices wishing him all the day's best. His usual seat is occupied, so he sits at the fringe of the group and butters a bun in a feeble attempt at routine amid the flurry of reds and pinks and whites that, charmed and overly doused with pervasive, artificial scents, are already beginning to make him nauseous, nose wrinkling uselessly against the onslaught of perfumed hearts.

Already, too, the wooing has vocalized, "Be Mine!" an imperative from confident upper years, timid and innocent only at the other end of the long benches, where hearts and chocolate aren't lobbed like cannonballs from table to table, but passed hand to hand with soft smiles and tentative murmurs of "HappyValentine'sDay" - one word on the lips of nervous boys with sweaty hands. Poised with knife in hand, Remus watches the scene play out with the first to third years, all filled with more fear than lust, and seriously considers finishing off his meal with them.

The first chapter in the day's most anticipated charade turns his attention back to his year, though, and he abandons his bun to watch James leap from his seat to plant a foot on the table, press both hands over his chest, and sing "My heart cries out for thee, Lily oh Lily mine!" as Evans, flanked by two girls now all in a titter at his antics, passes along the opposite side of the bench. She rolls her eyes at him and hastens to the end of Gryffindor table, threatening to give him detention if he doesn't put his foot down, but Remus notes a slight flush in her cheeks as she sits, and muses that maybe, just maybe, this will be James's year.

James seems to note it too, and beams. "I'll take detention with you any day, Lily mine!" he calls back, and sits with the air of a returned conqueror to a round of enthused applause.

The final volley of breakfast hearts is launched, and, with a careless laugh, Sirius adds the last to his pile of what looks like over twenty fluttering cards. Flattening the magic out of them with a heavy hand, he pockets the wad and stands. James follows with a "Coming, Remus?" and Remus pushes his plate aside, telling himself he wasn't really hungry anyway.

First class is Herbology, and it comes as no surprise that the subject is how to get the best out of even Muggle flowers for this special day. Their professor, benign though a little daft, hands them bottles of Insta-Grow and packets of seeds and gets the group to partner up. Remus's packet has a picture of red flowers rising swiftly like monsters to bare their soft-petal-teeth at him, only to recede and sprout anew. He sets the envelope facedown on the workbench before him and smoothes his hands against the hardwood surface, searching for calm and finding instead only the deep-set groves of B-is-T's and A-heart-M in the ageing grain. He pauses, splaying his fingers to reveal the crude turns of blade in the wood, before drawing his hands into his lap, gaze fixed on the smudged window-panes at the far end of the greenhouse in wait.

Frank and Alice are working side-by-side, he folding gentle hands over hers at every opportunity, she squeezing back in playful admonition every time he does. Professor Oakley warns then in passing not to lose any more buds, or she'll dock marks, but the sternness of her speech is lost when she catches Frank tucking blossoms into Alice's hair, and smiles instead. James, not to be outdone, catches Lily by the waist and leans forward, a flower caught fast within his grin as he tries to beg a kiss but can manage little more than a garbled hiss similar to that of a snake. Lily shrieks, and smacks him in reproach, but when the professor breaks the two of them up the flower James dropped from mouth to desk in order to explain himself mysteriously disappears. With a wink, James returns to his workstation beside Sirius, and Lily, flustered, turns back to her own.

The professor then comes to a stop before Remus, eyebrow raised, and suggests he work with Malfada Hopkirk, an awkward girl at best, but also without partner. Remus accepts wordlessly and spends the rest of the class trying to keep her from choking on roses. He's surprised to find himself annoyed when, in their efforts to pat the soil down, her fingers instinctively withdraw from his. He knows it's not as if she knows what he is, but her apparent apprehension around males of any kind hardly reassures him on this day of all days regardless.

As a rule, Remus knows women to be decent people. He knows they have a proclivity for the overdramatic at times, but knowing the men he does, doesn't find female histrionics incomparable to the grunting, often violent temperament of the other half. He knows his mother was a woman, and Madame Pomfrey still is, and so he associates a measure of worry and compassion with their nature, always a plus. He also knows they taste nice, though the various artificial scents and makeup are a bit cloying at times, and he knows them to have morning-stink like any man, albeit softer, so is certain they're fairly real. He would consider dating one for keeps, he decided some time ago, if the law were more lenient.

Not this one, though, he tells himself with a sourness of thought he's saved up specially for days like this one, as she soon spills manure over his robes and nearly punches him in the groin in her haste to wipe him clean. He's a little sharper than he means to sound when he tells her to let him be, he's fine, and tears, of all things, spring to her eyes. With a heavy sigh he brushes himself off, manages a quick spell for the odor, and finds patience enough to lead her through each phase of development, even being kind enough to prune the plants when they threaten to ensnare her. At the end of class she squeaks out a "Happy Valentine's Day", but he only nods, packed up and out the door the moment the hour strikes.

At first, History of Magic doesn't waver from its stubborn chronology, touching on the separation of classes among Old-Age Goblins, a topic Remus thinks safe from the day until some bright-eyed girl in the first row asks if there were ever marriages between ranks, and Binns decides to explain, in detail, the tragic saga of one Grimluck the Gallant and Gerstine the Gory. Remus slumps a little in his seat, twirling his quill idly as Professor Binns wedges tidbits of pertinent detail between winding tangents that lead most of the students to find sagas of their own by making eyes at their neighbours and rubbing hands, ankles together under the desks. Two Hufflepuffs in a corner appear to be sucking life essences from each other; Peter's watching them intently. James slides from seat to seat with little interest in being inconspicuous; as he nears Lily she hisses at him to grow up, but doesn't move away.

Sirius, sitting beside him, leans back and threads his fingers behind his head. "I'm bored." Remus looks up, and waits. Sure enough, after a moment's deliberation, Sirius stands, gathers his books, and makes to leave with a gesture for "Lavatory" that Binns barely acknowledges with a nod. At the door, Sirius glances back, impatient and demanding, and Remus carefully tucks his books away, ducking out under the same pretense. Binns continues to talk without pause.

The hallway is empty, a maw of space Remus feels awkward filling even as Sirius starts for Gryffindor Tower. His footfalls on echoing stone seem to betray him with every step from class, and he wonders, passing monolithic statues and suits of armour that don't look entirely devoid of life, how common a sight this is for the walls, the tapestries, the eyes he still thinks follows him everywhere sometimes, to see two boys dribbling out of class, one with intent in his swaggering, humming stride, the other just meeting motion with motion, trying not to get left behind.

At a sharp turn into dim, musty shadows Remus stops short, nostrils flaring as he finds himself alone. "Sirius?" He turns slowly, knowing this hunt far too well; Padfoot has never quite accepted Moony as Alpha-male, and in the corners of humanity, places where Remus has not yet learned to plant himself and cry man-howl at the necks of others, Sirius has sought unconscious revenge all these years, laying claim where Remus cannot.

The sweat-scent pricks in Remus's nose before any sound of approach clatters to his ears, and his books, papers flutter from fingers as hands on his shoulders press him needful, hungry, feeding against the uneven scrub of unpolished quarry walls. Teeth graze at his neck; Remus's eyes shutter to the rise of his pounding chest, palm curled futilely in thick Black mass of hair. "Sirius..." He shudders, thought choked away with the press of thigh to groin.

There are no words, he remembers, body wedged into secret crevice with a panting murmur of magic over his shoulder - not his voice, he registers, before eyes fall shut and body eases towards acquiescence -, no words nor language he can recall that might grant him strength to say, even just once, just today, please, please can we find a bed?

Hands like raking pillows run rampant, rough through his hair as he's pushed to the ground, and he wonders, as he often has, if this is why Sirius bothers at all, if he wants merely to be strong and dominating in ways he can't attempt with the frailer sex, lest they break or, heaven forbid, cry. Remus knows the biting sting of salt that springs at times when he's caught off guard, fumbling for a hold to the rhythms of harshness; there are moments when he wonders what's missing, between the liquid fire in his eyes and the helpless clenching of his hands on anything that will stay put. If there's a completion to be found in the muted concourse of tears streaked down flushed, tensing skin, he decides, his own cheeks raw and dry, it's just one more thing he's been denied.

Their hitched breathing sounds peculiar to him when weighed against the heavy, lumbering contours of their surroundings; he vaguely understands there is supposed to be a line crossed in acts such as theirs, so that world leaks away without notice, leaving them with nothing but each other and the moment, but he finds he can't draw his attention to the present. He is sure without attempting it that no good would come from focusing on the hands gripping too hard at his legs, or from the crushing, biting graze of lips over skin spun tender by scores of full moons - not that this is unwanted, not technically, not since Remus wants nothing more than to have a role in his social group, regardless of its implications.

No, this is lust, or something even cruder; this is need, a primitive language speaking volumes in the days when they are human, and true communication falls flat. Because the Wolf understands, and the Dog has learned, but when sun rises and bone rejoins and Wolf becomes Man, and Dog - bitter for the loss - accepts his first form too, there is more than pain and weariness in the air; there is distance, a bewildering intangibility that infuriates Sirius because he knows, Remus is sure, he knows what it's looks like on the other side. Sometimes, when pushed to his release, Remus even suspects Sirius can feel the proximity of clear intent; on those days Remus thinks Sirius might press deep enough to reach the Wolf after all.

And so Remus accepts that Sirius doesn't look him in the eye during these acts; he accepts the face tucked panting to his shoulder or watching something absently in the distance, and he's long since stopped looking at Sirius either. If there is beauty to be found in the act - a difficult goal from the start, since Sirius sees such things only in prelude, dropping gold like iron pyrite in the aftermath - it can be found only in what Remus chooses to watch, to fixate on in the meantime.

Around the time Sirius comes, Remus is thinking to himself that the gargoyle across from them has a lopsided nose. He asks Sirius about it when they don their civility again (to varying degrees) and is met by a disinterested silence. The hunt now over, Sirius walks away with little pause, snapping his cloak up in haste as he walks off.

Remus, hands in plundered pockets, leans against a pillar and takes final note of the statue before crouching to pick up his own robe and noting a small thing, pink and limping across the stone. One of the cards from Sirius's pocket, he decides, catching it between thumb and forefinger and studying it with interest. It is unsigned, perfectly blank; either made by a witch favouring extreme anonymity or a poor girl who has little to no talent at Charms. Glancing up, Remus finds Sirius too far ahead even to consider trying to catch up. With a long look at the heart's hazy, shimmering perimeter, Remus folds and tucks it away with a self-satisfied pat. He makes his way back to Gryffindor Tower at leisure.

Even the password hasn't escaped the day, and after muttering "I love you" to the rather self-contented Fat Lady, who purrs a greeting in kind, Remus enters his dorm with distaste rank in his palate. There are streamers everywhere, and hearts and arrows, and one fool even decided to dust off mistletoe for the occasion.

Hands clench, heart staying whole to his surprise, in spite of the tightness in his chest and the promise of impending implosion. Remus decides he's allergic, and holds his breath as he crosses to the stairs, which are thankfully unscathed.

Sirius is already in the showers, no doubt scrubbing himself clean of whatever essence Remus might have left; Remus can hear the pipes whine from their seventh-year room, which is indeed still in as much of a mess as it had been in earlier. Again he sidesteps as many of the fabric and paper casualties littering the ground as possible, and pauses at the edge of the washrooms only to strip and find a towel.

Inside, Sirius is standing under a steaming spray, head tipped back, mouth open, neck truly exposed, so vulnerable. His shoulders are relaxed, fingers loose at his sides, but though Remus's teeth and nails hold a gnawing curiosity to catch Sirius in turn, there is something so utterly private about his expression and demeanour that Remus can't bring himself to interfere.

He stands under a nearby spray, closes his eyes, and lets the hot sting try to bleed away all the concrete things within him. Being generous and understanding, when Sirius beckons him closer with a casual flick of word and soap and he responds, feeling, to his devastation, cohesion of form returning with his movements, he doesn't loath the water for not taking him down the drain too. Instead, when he kneels to the cool, tile floor before Sirius, finding the surface disappointingly, though not surprisingly, unyielding, he resigns himself to the thought that neither Man nor Beast was meant to melt away, and sucks like a professional, because there's little else to do.

And when liquid assets have been exchanged on both ends they return to their respective showers. Sirius says "Pass the soap" and Remus does, and other than that they don't speak. They dress in silence, hefting the robes carefully around themselves, as if requiring a moment's repose to shift back to their prior roles. Then habit overcomes, and Sirius is all dangerous smiles and swagger again. Remus tucks a stray wet lock behind his ear and watches Sirius dance haphazardly across the clothes-strewn floor to rush out the door.

"Time to eat, Moony!" is all he calls out as he leaves, and in the wake of the door shuddering closed, Remus picks a slower path through the piles, hands held out for a balance he's sure he can't maintain. Twelve hours to go.

Lunch is another grand affair, and this time the steady dribble of fluttering Valentines from table to table is almost indiscernible under the pinks and purples of the ceiling stratosphere, a cloudy mass looped and framed with hovering sheaths of dark red ribbon and candles. Remus schools himself not to look up and manages to eat most of the meal in front of him. He does not touch the wobbly red heart-shaped desserts.

"I tell you, Padfoot" - and James is so intent here, bowing his head a little towards Sirius as if to let him in on a grand secret, eyebrows furrowing for effect - "there is absolutely no way she can turn me down after what I've got planned for tonight. Absolutely no way."

Sirius snorts, stretching for what must be nearing the tenth time in his seat. His eyes and hands are itching for another distraction already. "Yeah, well it better be good. Last chance for a six-time failure like yourself."

James chuckles, spanning fingers as if to break open the air in front of him, diluting doubts with a simple swish and flick. "Practice rounds, my strong but stupid friend, practice rounds. But this! This will be perfect."

"Yeah?" Leaning across the table, elbows propped, Sirius smirks careless interest. "So what've you got planned then, big shot?"

"It'll be grand, let me assure you. See, first I pick her up from the girls' dorm and give her the necessities, of course - a whole flippin' bouqet, mind you. She'll love it! And then a bag of Humming Heart candies--"

"Cheating!"

James's is a face full of excuses and smiles. "Hey, I'm not saying she won't feel all warm and fuzzy anyway, what with being in my presence is all, but a little feel-good charm can't hurt just in case."

Sirius shakes his head, his grin a sloppy thing. "Yeah, all right, so at least she can pretend she's having fun. Then what?"

A withered look, as from master to apprentice, meets his impatience. "Then I take her to a brilliant Valentine's concert care of the Headless Heros and out for a drink or three, at which point she'll finally realize she's madly in love with me-"

Sirius guffaws loudly, looking near tears with amusement. "What, after only three?"

"The drinks don't matter!" James hisses, flushed without realizing it. "Okay, she'll realize it before we get to the bar, that better?"

"How do you know she likes the Heros?"

"Anyone with good taste likes the Heros," he sniffs airily, "and since I wouldn't fall in love with someone who didn't have good taste, she'll like them too."

"That's the stupidest logic I've ever heard!" Sirius wheezes through his laughter, buckled half over the table with hands wrapped tight about his sides. Just as he's about to fall off the bench, James juts out his chin and flashes a tight, daring smile of his own.

"What's this now, dating critique from a mate who hasn't had anything more than flipping one-night-stands in, what, three years?"

And Remus pauses in mashing the jelly blob on his plate to a pulp. None of this was really the dessert's fault, after all. He takes a tentative sip, the mass being better equated to liquid than otherwise by now - and muses at the time frame James has so easily laid down, a span of days, weeks, months and years he has avoided contemplating as much as possible.

It began, he remembers, in an act of thanks, Sirius spread out beside him on his bed as they spoke of the Wolf and its new pack, at a time and a year when freedom had never been more likely for Remus, when his limitations seemed to blur around the edges and he'd begun to wonder if there were room enough after all, in the space between laughter and friends and magic, to mete out a real life. And he remembered being drowsy, a Wolf weariness finally comfortable in the morning after, and smiling against the sheets, and saying that he certainly didn't know if he could ever thank Sirius properly for all the hard work and dedication that had gone into their achievements.

And there had been Sirius, looking puppy-content sprawled on his back, hands coiled easily in the pillow and sheets, saying "Nah, Moony, don't worry about it. This is what friends do, you know?"

When Sirius later drew them flush together, laying splayed hand at Remus's tailbone and pressing firmly through fabric against him, under a premise forgotten the moment it was issued, Remus idly considered that this, on the other hand, might not be something all friends did. Not that he minded much, then and there, being wanted and held, especially when curiosity bade him explore why Sirius, hard and broad and so very overpoweringly male in his nostrils, along his skin, against his trousers, aroused him more than, say, the soft curve of Alison Cartleby's hip under his hand, or the delicate line of her lips, a look like porcelain just barely warmed over.

And when Sirius kissed him - a strong thing, thick and dizzying - he kissed back with a fervency drawn out by the realization that even the Law, the only crushing human force in his life before that day, did not condemn this for him.

He remembers this clearly, the moment held in constant tug-of-war between regret and fondness, but has no recollection whatsoever of when warmth waxed into habit, and habit into duty, a mechanical unification at best, more so after sixth-year built dams and damnations within him. Floodgates laid boundaries Remus had almost forgotten existed, in the interim of absolute contentment he now looks back to with a sort of bewildered, deer-in-the-headlights "when was that?" and an even less certain "Oh yes, I remember" before tucking hair behind his ears and looking away.

"Romance is for idiots anyway," Sirius laughs, batting a hand through the air and stretching. "Buying loyalty and sex with flowers and chocolates is still buying loyalty and sex. And why buy what can be got for free? Least I'm honest. Tell 'im, Moony."

Remus glances up, half startled by the words. "Tell him what, exactly? That you're honest or that romance is high-class prostitution?"

Sirius laughs at that - "Exactly!" - but James is shaking his head, looking more than a little angry already.

"It is not! Bloody hell, Sirius, you're an idiot. Love's not prostitution! Tell him, Remus."

And Remus blinks, wondering if he's supposed to say that Sirius is an idiot or that love is a many-splendoured thing, but in the end decides he's done enough damage as it is, and turns back to his jelly soup. Sirius and James are already too distracted by each other to notice his silence.

"Stupid love-sick sod!"

"Callous wanker!"

"John!"

"Peckerhead!"

"...Was that supposed to be an insult?"

James rolled his eyes and threw up his hands. "I give! You're hopeless."

And a moment of near complacency shifts over them as they test out their return to an ordinary lunch, only to be sharply distracted at the last by a small, unassuming voice.

"It might be free when the girls are easy," Peter offers tentatively from James's left, "but maybe it's okay to have to buy it when the girl's as tough as Evans?"

"Auuuuugh!" James cries out in a final burst of frustration, dropping his fork to thump Peter on the head and then shouting a fraction too loudly: "Lily Evans is not a whore!!"

A wave of Gryffindor heads turns to stare down the table. Lily, her face an expression of utter incredulity, is among them.

"Well, you're not!" James hastily calls down to her, flushing all the more. "Good to know, isn't it?"

Lily's still staring at him even after the others turn back to their meals. James, breathing deeply, thumps Peter once more for good measure before trying to finish his lunch. Peter yelps, clutching his head, but goes quiet.

"Five galleons says you fail," Sirius murmurs overtop his fork, quirking a grin.

Under his breath, James mutters, "You're on," and flicks a glob of jelly at his face.

With both rise and fall of midday conflict concluded, Remus judges it safe to leave his mess of red, like blood spread too thin, and rises to ready for afternoon class. Instinct bids him duck a last-minute lunchtime gaggle of fluttering pink hearts overhead, and he turns with a slight nod to the group.

"Hey, Remus, what's that in your pocket?"

Remus glances back to find James nodding curiously at the right side of his robe. He looks down to see the upper curve of Sirius's forgotten card peeking out from the rim, and moves to shove it down. "Oh, nothing."

"You sure?" James winks. "Or do you have a Valentine you're not telling us about, eh?"

Sirius looks up at this, eyes darting first to the pocket, and then to Remus. "What's this now?"

"Remus," James says triumphantly, "has gotten himself a nice pink heart and forgotten to show us."

"Really, it's nothing," Remus insists, a rising panic in his voice.

"Oh, come now, I think we'll be the judge of that. Whatsay, Sirius?"

And Sirius, with more of a nod than a smile, knocks Remus's hand away and darts his own in to extract the bright pink heart. There is something a little off about the furrow of Sirius's brows, Remus notes, and finds, amid the anxiety - will he recognize it as his own, will he think I stole? -, that he's almost pleased, too, to see worry there for once.

"Blank," Sirius announces, and Remus breathes, thankful here at last for Sirius's negligence, and James makes an appreciative sound.

"Looks like our Remus here has himself a secret admirer, wouldn't you say?"

"Mm, maybe. Any idea who, Moony?"

And Sirius is watching him again, carefully, though Remus refuses to meet his gaze, and suddenly something bids Remus keep quiet, keep secret against this question. There's an exhilarating feel of smugness in his chest and at his abdomen, to see jealousy might be an emotional response still permitted in their relationship. At least from Sirius's side. As to himself, after Sirius first spent the night with another, a girl, there had only been a look of irritation and the huff of "don't be like that" that almost made Remus feel he should have been sorry for being so awkward and confused. But such had always been the beloved hypocrisy of Sirius Black. Regardless, for a fleeting moment there is nothing more empowering than the realization that he's caused Sirius to feel something - anything - and by doing little more than picking up a forgotten card, and Remus lets all other sentiments slip away to savour this one vengeance while it lasts. It almost, he muses, makes the day worthwhile.

He tries to remember how long it's been since Sirius last took an interest in watching his face, but decides it's best not to quantify such things, and holds out a hand for the heart instead.

James smiles, making to rise himself. "I think Remus is keeping secrets from us, mates. I think he's got himself a secret date for Hogsmeade tonight, don't you, Remus?"

Remus shrugs, finding it hard to contain a smile of his own when Sirius exhales loudly and follows suit in standing.

"Time for class, just about?"

"Since when've you ever remembered when a class starts, Sirius?" James laughs, thought of Remus's secret admirer already slipping fast from the air, leaving Remus with room enough to breathe and time enough to ruminate over how much had been made of so little, unsure now that he had truly been amused by Sirius's unspoken possessiveness, and not angered.

It isn't until they get into Transfiguration and take their seats that he realizes Sirius hasn't given the heart back. But Remus's subsequent frown is fractional at best as he studies the bend of Sirius's head to task, the hard slopes of his profile and the fall of his messy black hair. By the time he turns back to his work, he's more upset such tension had been wrought by a card not even meant for him than he is that Sirius is obviously too petty to let him have even one Valentine, innocuous at best, on this day of all days.

He contents himself with the knowledge that at least he isn't carrying stolen property any more, and the class passes with ease, McGonagall a force too steady to be broached by the flippancy of the day. Remus breathes easier here, and has all but forgotten the grisly reds and pinks until, in leaving, she lays a bit of chocolate at each of their desks. And even then that's all right, because holiday candy is still tasty regardless of intent.

But in Potions, a double period and the last class of the day, there is A Scene. It starts with an exit.

Professor Beadley, a scowling, inadequate man of Slytherin proportions and tendencies, finds the supply of dragon scales in the classroom stores covered in fire-mites, and leaves in a hurried march to acquire a newer batch, exceedingly irritated to have his lesson delayed. Already their cauldrons are burning hot with water and ashwinder eggs. At the door, he threatens fearful vengeance on any and all who dare disrupt the sanctity of the dungeons in his absence, and the moment he leaves, of course, the students erupt into chatter.

"Pub crawl tonight, eh Sirius?"

"You know it, Kingsley! I'm going to drink you under the table!"

Kingsley laughs. "How about we find ourselves some nice birds before we're that far gone, eh mate?"

"But of course!" And Sirius winks, mentioning then that there's a party in one of the cottages near the outskirts of Hogsmeade, and that they'll surely be able to pick up there. Kingsley looks thrilled, and asks how long they're allowed to stay out.

"Our passes expire at two. Then the profs send out the thestrals." Sirius grins with his teeth. "So don't be thestral-chow."

Remus sits quietly at his desk, rereading the instructions for the salve they're to concoct. He is one of very few who haven't forgotten there's bound to be a quiz at the end of class. Severus Snape, on the opposite side of the room, is also deep in study.

So, of course, the moment James leaves the Marauders' bench to approach Lily, who is engaged in mild conversation as she scans her notes, Sirius decides he's bored and that anyone deep in study shouldn't be.

Remus's heart sinks as he looks up to find Sirius standing with a palm flat on Severus's book, impeding his reading. He's bent over, grinning dangerously, and Remus notes - with no surprise - none of the other Slytherins seem to care. He stands, unsure what can be done.

"Whatcha doing here all alone, eh, Snivellus?"

At the words a few other Gryffindors look up, eyes keen for a fight. Seven long years rife with this sort of behaviour has led them to sense when a good piece of action is rapidly approaching. Many turn in their seats to watch. Something sloshes uneasily in Remus as he moves to intercede.

"If you enjoy having an outer layer of skin," Severus snarls, "I would highly suggest you not fuck with me, Black."

Remus stops short, eyes wide with foreboding. There is something acrid in Severus's tone, something deeper, stronger in his words than usual. Sirius, of course, hasn't noticed.

"Ah, but, see, that's your whole problem, now isn't is, Snivellus?" Sirius is smiling daggers, his hard hands easy here, as they gesture at leisure across the expanse of the classroom. "No one in their right mind would ever want to fuck you."

Severus sneers, pulling his text out from under Sirius's hand and standing. "At least I'm not a man-slut like you."

The audience is riveted, quills poised, eyes glued to the drama. Something tells Remus that now, now, for the love of anything is the time to act before it all gets out of hand, but he finds he can't bring himself to intercede quite yet, the word 'slut', for him, a long-time subject of contemplation, and he has yet to decide his verdict on that score, even after belabouring the issue for almost as long as it has been an issue.

"What was that?" Sirius hisses, catching Severus hard by the collar. "I don't think I quite heard you, Snivellus."

"'Man-slut,'" Severus clarifies, eyes smoldering, and with a knot in his stomach Remus realizes he's waited too late to intervene.

Everyone sees the punch before they register the sound, and it's with a sharply inhaled breath that they watch Severus fall back when loosed, a flurry of black pushed hard against a desk and stumbling then to floor. Sirius has his wand drawn the moment his hands are rid of the Slytherin, and before Severus can right himself he falls again, this time to Impendo.

"Sirius, stop this now!" Remus hears himself saying at last, relieved that he's finally found it in him to step in, but Sirius only glances back, beaming.

"In a minute!"

And in the lull of Sirius turning to his audience, Severus leaps to his feet and aims a blow at the back of Sirius's head. Not being a fool in this regard, however, with eyes hard on Remus and an unspoken "you know better than to get between us" that Remus feels heavy in his chest, Sirius catches Severus hard by the wrist, and twists the arm about before turning to him, pressing against his back.

Severus cries out in murderous rage, and Sirius opens his mouth to lash cold wit at him before freezing, brow drawn and gaze heavy on the arm he's caught.

Remus's own breath catches as he sees the sleeve has fallen away from Severus's pallid skin, revealing an angry red welt along the perimeter of black skull, black snake, black Mark.

And Sirius hisses, and lets go in disgust, eyes now burning with the recent turning of his brother to this rising, fearful cult, and now, with a grave countenance, Remus realizes everything's gone too far this time.

"So that's it," Sirius says, and there's no amusement in his soft voice, only loathing. "You're one of them, you sick son of a bitch. You're fucking wed to him for life. Send him a fucking Valentine, did you? Blood-red, care of a Muggle, right? God, you Slytherins make me want to hurl."

At the last point the rest of the Slytherins finally turn their interest to proceedings, more than one noting the Mark with indifference but finding Sirius's words cause for ire. The battleground grows thick, and once more Remus finds it almost impossible to draw the line between students and soldiers, when alliances have been growing like weeds across their vistas of presumed childhood and innocence. He turns to rally Lily to his cause, but finds her missing; James is gone too, and he knows he's on his own.

"That's enough!" Remus says again, sharply, as one of them tries to pull a wand, and a score of Gryffindors rise to answer the challenge. "If Beadley finds we've gone and started a House war none of us will ever get out of detention!"

If nothing else, the threat of missing Valentine's Day on account of punishment hits home, and most lower their wands, although still standing. Severus, however, cannot be bought by this threat. Face contorting with fury, he pulls his wand and aims it at Sirius's chest, so that both are poised to duel.

"I'm going to get you expelled so fast you won't even have time to pack!" Sirius snarls, anger still rising. Remus is sorry for him, just then, and surprised at himself for wanting to hold him against thoughts of mother and brother which are no doubt pouring through his mind at full force, but quickly reminds himself that Sirius started this fight, and is winning it, too.

"Do that," Severus smiles coldly, tightly. "Just remember that when I go, I won't be going alone."

And Remus freezes, flushed numb in his hands and face with the realization that it's true, that the moment Severus leaves the school he's under no pressure to keep the sixth-year Incident a secret, which means that not only will Remus and Sirius face expulsion, but Dumbledore will also be in serious trouble.

Severus glances at Remus and nods, expression smug and disdainful. "Yes, you understand, don't you?"

Remus does. Remus sees a strength of will and of focus that wasn't there before, and he knows Severus sees it too. Severus must be on top of the world now, the burn on the arm, though likely painful, giving him a sense of power he's wanted for years. Remus wonders if there's anything Severus isn't capable of doing now, knowing that he can't be expelled for what he does lest three others, at the very least, suffer with him. A chill runs unsettled along Remus's bones, the shivering suspicion that, in the end, this is all his own fault for daring to be here at all. His head is swimming in a flood of fear he's thought long since overcome or repressed, and through it Remus can just barely see understanding dawn in Sirius's eyes, and hear the whisper of "Someone get Beadley!" from somewhere behind him. There's only one course of action left.

"No," Remus says, his throat thick like cotton, hands shaking just under notice. "Nobody leave. Nothing happened here. No one saw anything. Everyone... everyone just go back to your seats."

The milling mass of students - even the Slytherins, for once -, confused and caught in standing, sitting reposes alike, take a moment to digest this bewildering request, wondering why Remus Lupin would speak to protect Severus Snape from threat of punishment. Eventually, though, they obey. Some look away in disappointment, expecting more from this skirmish; others, who have seen the Mark, are worried, biting lips to silence perplexity in the hope that if Remus says to forget it, there's likely nothing wrong.

Remus hates making liars of them and himself, but he lets it slide, a necessary evil, when most all obey under the premise of his honest interpretation. He seeks instead to stand between the two final, warring men. "Drop them," he says quietly, his back to Severus.

Sirius and Remus regard each other face-to-face, eye to eye, for the first time in weeks. There is a heart-stop, a moment when Remus looks into him and finds reason to fear that maybe, just maybe, Sirius has anger enough still to sacrifice them all for one last attack, before the wand falters and then is lowered.

And Remus breathes slightly before turning to Severus, almost pleased with himself until his intervention is cut short by a guttural snarl and a pair of hands shoving Remus back to stumble against Sirius, who, in his flailing, upturns a cauldron of scalding hot water and ashwinder, a dangerous mix right here, right now. Momentarily a shriek of pain rises up from a startled student at the bench behind the pandemonium, and Remus surprises himself by thinking "Fool!" as he glances to see the Slytherin girl responsible for the sound writhing in pain.

Bloody hell, he thinks, and wants to yell at her for not leaving her seat the moment Sirius got anywhere near Severus, because, really, any idiot should know better than to be nearby, and then he wants to yell at himself for even thinking to yell at this girl in pain, and doesn't understand where all this anger is coming from, even as he shoves Sirius aside and moves to bat the scalding cauldron off her lap, tearing roughly at her outer robe because she seems to be in no state to realize what needs doing.

"Take it off!" he shouts, because it really was a lot of water, and he knows it must hurt but all he can think is how much more it's going to hurt if she lets more of it seep to her skin, and it's then - of course, because isn't that always the way? - it's then that Beadley returns.

"Mister Lupin, what in the name of blazes are you doing?"

Bloody hell, he thinks again.

"I'm dying!" the Slytherin sobs, because indeed her hands and neck are growing violently red and the ashwinder doesn't seem quite finished burning her yet, on top of the water still set thick in her robes and clothes.

"Potion spilled!" Remus bites out, as the girl finally starts helping him, hastily removing her outer robe. The rest of the class, in typical fashion, just watches with slack-jawed expressions. "Professor, help!"

Beadley's eyes narrow as he sets down the jar he was looking for and withdraws his wand, looking doubly annoyed now to find yet another interruption thwarting his class.
"Stand aside," he says sharply, gesturing to Remus, who complies immediately. "Aquam in corpe ad infinitum reducto!"

Remus pales in that first moment, with the words still fresh in his ears, thinking his professor has certainly just magicked out all the fluid inside her body instead of from on it. Only barely does he hold himself from seizure or heart attack until he can see the spell working, shriveling her clothes a little, ending the smoke and otherwise just leaving her whimpering now, and maybe with a more dehydrated layer of skin than usual, from the look of it. Breathing shaky relief, Remus decides his Latin needs improving.

"Someone lend her their robe and escort her to the infirmary," Beadley snaps, and no sooner can Remus take off his and hand it to her, the wretched girl has turned to the Potions Master, whining:

"Black did it! Black tried to burn me to death!"

No sooner than it's said Remus heart seizes again and he glances back only in time to watch Sirius, his face turning red in indignation, protest. The air is thick with tension from among the remaining students, who've final had sense enough to sit down, and Remus notes worriedly that Snape has brushed himself off, put away his wand, and returned to his studying, as if utterly uninvolved.

"Hey! It was an accident! I was shoved!"

"Indeed, Mr. Black," Beadley says with a sneer. "And who, may I ask, pushed you?"

And already Remus can see Sirius's teeth come together to form an "S-". Oh you idiot, you utter idiot, Remus thinks, wondering for what's been far too many times already how he could let a man like this manipulate him so. He wonders, too, if he'll ever have power enough to turn the tables.

"I did," he cuts in evenly, one look at Sirius, still shaking in his rage, telling Remus he can't trust Sirius not to make an issue about the Mark if given half the chance. "This is my fault."

Beadley regards him with the sort of interest a cat looses upon a mouse. "Oh, really."

"Yes, Professor. I'm sorry for the trouble I've caused."

Drawing up his robes, Beadley approaches until he's over Remus, looming mere inches away with a cold glare. "Tell me, Mister Lupin: how am I to pass someone's work when he's managed to burn another student during a lesson about salves?"

A fit of weariness overtakes Remus. This day won't be over soon enough. "I don't know, Professor."

"Mm. Precisely." Beadley leers menacingly over him for a moment longer, then turns sharply, collects his jar, and marches to the front of the class, calling back: "Pack up your books and sit quietly through the lesson. You will complete it tonight, after dinner, to my satisfaction."

There was a time when Remus, still bloated on the carefree promises of friendship and loyalty and kindness, would have expected Sirius to stand up and protest, calling the treatment unfair and then demanding a share in the punishment. In first year, perhaps, this would have happened. Now Remus knows better to expect such things, but the rage is still there regardless when he takes his seat, stacks his bag and waits for something, anything to come from the careless creature beside him. But Sirius has no words for him, it seems; can't be bothered to turn from his continued conversation with Kingsley even long enough to say "thank you for saving my arse".

Remus bunches his robe in angry fistfuls under the desk, staring at the desktop with a look he hopes will burn through it eventually; working his jaw in silence, he envisions all the things he'd like to say and do but won't because he's the calm one, the moderate one. But, oh, how he wishes he weren't.

"Sirius," he'd say if he could, turning and backhanding the man in question across the skull. "If you don't get your head out of your arse and your hand out of your pants I'll shove one up further and pull the other off entirely, so help me Merlin, you overbearing, unthinking moron."

Of course, threats like that would roll completely over Sirius's head, as would the smack, seeing as both were fairly normal behaviour from his family, when he was last living with them.

Remus tries again.

"Sirius," he'd say if he could, "I'd rather lick up a mess of vomit than ever have you touch me again, you inconsiderate cock-sucker."

But of course that isn't true, because there is still a measure of want, or perhaps need, in everything they do, and Sirius isn't that inconsiderate a cock-sucker, after all. He just forgets to return the favour most of the time, and that's a very different matter.

So Remus, finding it very hard to form insults about a situation he's accepted almost willingly for quite a while, decides to go with something simple.

"Sirius," he'd say, turning mildly to meet the boy's curious, upturned glance. "You're full of shit."

And Sirius would think about this and reply: "Well, when you put it that way..."

Remus's thoughts are cut off by the sound of Sirius sniggering, as James and Lily finally decide to return from the backroom where talking must certainly have ensued. Beadley turns to them with a keen sneer, his lips already itching to speak words enough to dock points from Gryffindor, but Lily, albeit a little flustered, already has an excuse for the absence. She holds up a jar and smiles.

"See, Professor? I told you there was a clean sample of dragon scales in back. I got James to help because he was tall enough to get it down."

Beadley, eyebrow raised dubiously, takes the jar and peers inside; the reluctant grunt tells Remus Lily must indeed have found one. The professor leers suspiciously at both Lily and James for a moment longer, but both have long since acquired the looks necessary to pass any lie detector's test. Remus muses that they are, indeed, more alike than he'd thought. Beadley finally turns in grudging satisfaction, ordering them to their seats, and, parting, James saunters with smug-faced leisure back to his seat beside Peter.

"So," he asks in languid disinterest, as Peter and Sirius lean in and stare at him. He inspects his fingernails before turning a careless smile to Sirius. "Anything good happen while we were gone?"

And Sirius slams his palm upon the table, shaking his head in laughing incredulity. "You didn't!"

The sound startles Remus and he looks up to watch an ecstatic grin build on James's face.

"I did!"

More laughter ensues, followed by an awkward chuckle on Peter's part, as he tries desperately to keep up, even though the conversation is now over, James having imparted everything important in a few mere gestures.

Because somewhere in the thick of this wretched Potions class James, proving to the surprise of all that he can indeed choose her over a rousing bout of tomfoolery, has asked Lily Evans to join him that evening on a date. And somewhere in the ruckus of snarling and shouting and just before the spilling of potions - none of which James was party to - Lily Evans has said yes.

As class pours out at the end, all soldier-faces come undone in the excitement of students rushing about to prepare for evenings of adolescent adventure, and the Marauder's talk of nothing else - Sirius teasing James for his plans of flowers, chocolate, a concert and drinking, and James mocking Sirius's plans to pick up some floozy for a night of debauched, heartless sex (mildly, bitterly Remus wonders what the thrill of going elsewhere for it is when heartless can be found between them as well, and isn't that, if it's all Remus is allowed to give and take from him, enough?). At one point Sirius asks Peter if he even got a Valentine this year, and Remus watches the smallest of them fight the urge to shout out "Yes", because they all know the only package for him was from his mother, and making mention of that would hardly be doing himself any favours.

Watching this, Remus feels cheapened, even envious; no mother-pity arrived for him today, leaving him with a sum total of one card, stolen but now returned. And if either Sirius or James still remembers it, both seem too caught up in their own planned adventures to press for more details or embarrassment. Remus tucks a bit of hair behind his ear and watches as his shoes scrape the smooth-stone floor on their way back to Gryffindor Tower.

The morning and noon disarray of the boys' seventh year dorm has lessened in their absence, Remus discovers. As he plods mindless path to his bed to set down schoolbooks and ready for supper, most all of their year spreads out like a pestilence. The first round of couples are going to dine in Hogsmeade and so, while those like Sirius and James and Remus crash for a bit before suppertime approaches, the rest rush about, scampering into and out of the shower room, nearly strangling themselves with hasty ties and some even attempting to burst their belts by fastening them too tight, sucking in a breath they hope far too optimistically to be able to hold throughout the night. Others overdose on cologne and from his bed Remus watches with a bewildered sort of interest, seeing the havoc and the teasing, knowing the pervading scent of fear and anticipation in his nostrils, and telling himself that this, the beginning, the moments not meant to be seen during the stages of courtship and pleasure, this is Valentine's. This is love in all its strange but valid forms. This is normal.

He glances then to Sirius, who is sitting at the edge of his bed hurling laughing taunts at the boys struggling to look just right. Most are hurled right back at him, and he laughs all the harder, poised like a greyhound with hand on spread knee, leaning in towards the center of the room just enough to make evident the inward arch of his back, the full, sharp cut of his jaw and the way his hair, thick and sweet-smelling of sweat, lays reckless about his ears and neck, just to his shoulders. Remus remembers how much Sirius has endured from family and remembers, too, how proud that up-thrust chin made him, just for the fact that it was still there, always there, even after family let Sirius down and he became, for all intents and purposes, alone, a one-man army. Remus remembers the taste of that jaw, too, and as he watches all of this and more in what he's sure are still-frames spread too thin, he starts to tell himself it's not so bad, not all the time, this matter of being in love. Sometimes he can almost put a hand to it and hold it.

Sometimes it almost doesn't hurt.

To Remus's great chagrin, life, at some point, winks into a faster shutter-pace, and still-frames merge to moving picture once again, as boys-turned-men stand ready for final approval, a slap on the back and the words "go get her, tiger" shoving card-carrying, flower toting, stiff-backed prospects out the door. And the rest laugh too hard to stay standing when all the nervous young lovers have gone. Pools are quickly made up, chances ascertained, money collected. Supper awaits at last and the veteran troop swaggers down to eat. Those who have little place in this cycle are silent, rodents and monsters alike.

The meal passes with little conversation worthy of note; merely the light-hearted chattering of males testing out their favourite dirty ditties and drinking songs so all might have them ready on their lips later, when beer and good times will fall easy and beyond the notice of professors for once. Remus finds his hunger lacking again and toys with a bit of chocolate pudding until the group rises excitedly and makes to return to the dorm.

The routine this time is more laid-back this time, and as Remus gathers his Potions materials in brooding silence, the air around him is thick with singing, joking, towel snapping at exposed ankles, and other signs that this is something truly tribal, a rain-dance warm up for the main event, the heightening of adrenalin for the carousing and smooth-talking to follow. Within half an hour they're all making final adjustments to their costumes for the evening, and Remus can't help but stare. James looks almost regal in his robes, and Frank would be hard-put to look more handsome than he is. A true romantic, Remus decides, noting his gentle smile fits the outfit well. Peter's tie is thin and slightly twisted, his cloak a plain thing doing nothing for his stooping form, but even he looks almost decent enough to get picked up for a pity fuck. And Sirius.

Sirius's hair, still damp and loose about his shoulders, just brushes over the loose collar of a silk black shirt, falling easy over his hard, lean body. He carries his cloak in the crook of an arm, pants of dark leather and high boots completing the outfit. There is nothing of red or pink or even white about him here; even the whites of his eyes are forgotten in the sharpness of pupil-black.

Remus tries to remember a day when Sirius dressed up for him, but there is only the stripping away of clothes and pretenses and often even civility to recall, a constant reminder of down, down, down they as they have always gone without fail, rising singly after every time, staggering their returns to the real world, spacing out their reclamation of decency.

"You look nice," he says evenly, not affixing his gaze on any one of them as he speaks but getting the sneaking suspicion Sirius knows who he's really talking to anyway.

"We know," James says in good cheer as he saunters to bureau to get the last, crucial details for his date. Frank and Kingsley grin thanks and tell Remus to sneak out and join them when he can. Sirius, it seems, cannot let his words be, compliment or otherwise.

"Try not to shag a prof while we're gone, eh, Moony?" he says with a disarming smile. Remus knows better than to meet the look straight on, and once more he's reminded that appearances, as knee-wavering and heart-rending as they might be, can always be deceiving. He remembers the wake-up call, the shower and sex, the potions class that almost went horribly wrong, the things he'd wanted to but failed to say, the silence between them thereafter. And now this, of all things, was to break the lapse?

"Oh, I don't know," Remus returns, remembering rage, remembering words are far better tools than wands in this, the tentative testing of new emotional ground on carpet worn straight to stone. He picks at his robe and pretends what he'll say will make any difference at all. "It might be nice to be with someone experienced for once."

And that sharpens the space between them drastically, he notes, a beeline, wand-path, green arc crackle of sudden tension and attention, pushing innocuously through the lines of bystanders - oblivious and caught up in their own details at present. Remus looks up with indifference, finding hard black eyes now careful upon him even as Sirius turns casually to James. The caution across from him makes Remus want to smile, but he fights it, knowing all effect will be lost if he does.

"Do you think anyone will notice this spot?" Peter frets between their unspoken unease, smoothing down the front of his shirt. No one looks to him, or even speaks to placate, because all are sudden riveted by the piercing shriek of one James Harry Potter - the first and last time such a high-pitched sound will be torn from his throat.

"They're gone!"

"What's gone?"

"All of it!!"

"All of what?"

"EVERYTHING!!!"

And the good old boys of Gryffindor, seventh form, can only stand and stare as James sinks to his knees, hands fisting in his hair as he continues a low, agonized keen in front of a shelf almost entirely bare. "The tickets are gone! The flowers! The Humming Hearts! My BLOODY PASS IS GONE!"

"Merlin and Christ," Kingsley curses, coming to lay a hand at one of James's shoulders. "Rough trip, mate."

Sirius claps a hand on James's other shoulder, peering at the shelf. "Not everything." He draws out a single rose from the back. James looks up and sniffles unenthusiastically.

"A single rose isn't going to get me anywhere."

"Well, it's a start, isn't it?" Sirius presses the stem into James's hand, a gesture replete with kindness so startling Remus is left confused and wanting and then, after a moment's thought, guilty.

"Um," he says, and the sound isn't quite distinctive enough yet to merit anyone's attention, but when he draws his pass out of a pocket, heads turn. "It doesn't look like I'll really be needing mine tonight."

When Sirius's smile looks a mite too triumphant at that, holding secrets Remus now wishes he understood, Remus falters, all the more perplexed, but the pass is plucked from his hand with a wink and he can't object now. "Hey, yeah! Moony's got the idea. See, all's not lost yet."

A few of the others clap Remus soundly on the back, all warmer, more pleased expressions of appreciation - way to take one for the team, mate, we'll come back for you later and smuggle a pass, promise - and he tries to grin in return, finding only a slight nod in him instead. James takes the pass with care, as if almost afraid he's going to break it, but after a moment's further calculation, kisses it suddenly, clutching it fast in both hands - flower still wedged into the tight palm of the one - and leaps to his feet with a euphoric cry.

"Still hope!" And with a frantic look at the clock he scruffs up his hair once more and tears for the door.

"James, where're you going, man?" Sirius laughs. "It's not seven yet!"

"I know, but I've got to be on time now! Can't make mistakes!"

"But you know girls; they're never ready on time. She'll be fifteen minutes late at the least!"

James glances back at him with a wide-eyed look, face flush with anxiety. "Exactly!" He leaves in a hasty flourish, gold robes snapping sharply behind him.

There is a short but contented lull that follows, as the rest study the bare shelf in thought or the door in amusement. At last Sirius cracks his usual, sloppy smile. "Is it just me or is James going a little balmy what with all this heart business?"

Kingsley looks about and then leans in, his face of daring, mocking conspiracy. "Or maybe he's finally learned something about women, do you think?"

"Perish the thought!" Sirius cries out, mockingly, but they don't, and laughter ensues.

With an uneasy look at the time, Remus realizes he's going to be late for detention if he doesn't hurry. He murmurs something of a passing "bye-have-fun" as he makes for the door, and a few absent waves return the gesture before what remains of Gryffindor's seventh-year men set about gathering their own necessities and making ready to terrorize the world, woo the women into a night of carousing, and drink beer illicitly, all under the premise of a holiday about love.

As he's leaving someone asks the others who stole all James's plans from him and why. He shuts the door before even the first response arises, and the answer lies muffled in the heavy wood behind him as he puts aside all thoughts of the fun his friends will be having and tries instead to remember the basic ingredients of the potion he'll now be brewing. Again the hallways are fairly bare as he trudges through them, and the portraits, now tired from a day of greetings, sit in easy repose, some even sleeping. Remus doesn't pay them much heed; hand instead curling in his pocket, now bare of the card he'd had earlier, as he passes the spot where Sirius caught him earlier that day. The hallways start to feel too big again, and a chill draft makes him shiver in spite of himself.

When he arrives in Potions, Beadley's looking rather sour, but Remus can find no evident cause, nor reason to seek a deeper understanding of his miserable teacher's ire. He makes the salve in silence, save for when Beadley randomly starts drilling him about all manner of things, and though he feels ready to fall over with weariness at the end, he feels the quiz left him with no need for complaint, and is just grateful to be excused.

"I should think," Beadley declares at the door, "that a Prefect such as yourself will now have learned his lesson most explicitly, am I correct? Do not disrupt my class again."

"Yes, Professor." Remus speaks mildly as he gathers his books and materials, head bowed on the return trip to his dorm. It's just ten now, the walls awash in sleepy shades. All the portraits have put their little painted candles out; only some few of the vigilant struggling to keep their eyes open against the dull of night, rest and monotony. Hard across the stones the darkness sinks, the whole of the hallways lazy with emptiness; no mystery here save quiet.

In this space and silence Remus sometimes sees a flicker, a rustle, and thinks of Marauder mayhem spent in shadows such as these, the cloak a silky ripple at best, time and adventure wearing away all the shrouded fears, suspicious superstitious things, that haunted them as they walked the halls in twos or threes at eleven nearing twelve.

Ghosts too are known to make best use of their time in these lulls, but Remus is glad they aren't right now. On the way down to the Shack in fifth year, his body already wrought passing-close to the insubstantial, akin on surface sometimes to the transparency of death, a game of nine-pin with a dead man's head intercepted him midways. He froze in place, feeling the grin as it formed from the swish of chill that darted through him. And Madam Pomfrey scolded the motley crew of spirits, saying that yes, Mr. Lupin was quite pale enough already, thank you very much, and they just laughed and laughed without end, drawing ready for another round as Remus finally lurched into motion again, the approaching sunset dictating his movements to his benefit for once.

And here, though his face is long and his eyes wilted, creased in pensive melancholy, and he all alone to wander the corridors to his room, he cannot be called sad or dejected, because there is a sense of peace in the stillness now, not uneasy, as it often finds him. There is comfort to be had in this sterility, a safety Remus can be content with, telling himself he's better off in these castle walls anyway, and let the partying, the thrills be had by greater, purer men.

Anger waning with the pass of wretched day, Remus reminds himself that this is home, his only means of finding place and purpose in the world. When he leaves he will have none of this certainty, and live a life of set caste and stature, so now, against the throb of hurt heaving still inside his chest, he tells himself he's grateful to be here at all, and thankful for what he has. He holds these lines in steady mantra on his lips and breath as he whispers, "I love you," to the portrait-smile and enters commons to the flicker of candle and fire, and the approach of none.

Because, he finds, he is alone even here. All gone, all out on passes for the night, no man woman boy girl left behind. Remus exhales monster-sigh as he falls upon large, enveloping sofa and splays his books upon the table before him, a base and comfort even now, when he knows word alone is not enough to help him find what key humanity he needs to become real here, in the comings and goings of man.

Time passes, day falls. Remus reminds himself to be relieved the day is over but can't quite find the line, and saddened, too, that one wretched day should fall so easily into another. He sets down his idle reading and stands, stretches. No doubt the rescue-mission promises were forgotten in the third pint or fourth, and Remus shouldn't be too upset, because it isn't really their fault. He gathers his papers together, hugs them close, and turns from fireside to mount the stairwell to room and bed and abandon, if he can.

The door pushes open easily to a sprawl of lair-litter, fresh from the evening's rituals. Remus sidesteps the mounds and plods weary to bed. Setting down his armfuls on the nightstand, he turns with a sigh to de-robe, undress, fall apart until made to pause, sleeves half in, half out, staring at his bedspread.

Upon it lie a smattering of chocolates and a card of muted pink, bereft of magic-flutter in its entirety, crumpled and then smoothed out and now lying in wait. It's a tired thing, the sort that has been passed around and pocketed for hours, squashed in fist and righted again with fingertips, finger-pads. Padfoot.

But Remus, even for a moment, does not let himself pretend this is a gift, although it is oh so tempting to envision Sirius Black watching, waiting throughout the day, hand fingering the outline of a card he's too afraid, too unsure to give - afraid of what, Remus can't decide, but oh, how tempting a thought it is anyway to imagine Sirius ever in the throes of love, smitten and awkward and gentle above all.

Remus likes to think he knows better than that. He picks the card up tentatively, half expecting it to burst in flame on touch and burn him more than thought of it already has, and turns it to find, indeed, no name. He sighs and crouches at the edge of his bed, holding the paper thing useless in his hands. He supposes he should be thankful, should take it as some grudging sign of respect that Sirius has let him have this, the card none other knows was never Remus's to begin with, the "proof" (for all its weight in his mind) that Remus has options, can go elsewhere for companionship and perhaps even love, can sneak off to some secret rendezvous because, yes, Sirius, in all his generosity, his own pockets stuffed to bursting with these hearty-beasts, doesn't care.

And therein is the place where Remus falls. It hurts that he did not fall for a smitten Sirius but fell for this, a Sirius who will let him be; both of course are torn from him when he turns from card to chocolate and is seized with sinking revelation.

Three Humming Hearts litter his bedspread, a sampling, dark red foil glinting with jagged ends of the feigned exhilaration they lend at first taste, rich and loving but ever unreal. A "Yes I did it" harder and more harmful than the words themselves, proof that Sirius had every reason to look victorious when plucking pass from Remus's hand to give to James, poor James, with a date and nothing but a flower to woo her with on this, his last chance at schoolboy V-Day. Sirius, the schemer, the man with risk to others running always at the ready for whatever end he might well desire. At this Remus passes hand before eyes and falters; at this the strength he's found throughout the day, his triumphs and his dignified defeats, fall limp and worthless all around.

Was it all a scheme, he wonders, to keep him tucked away, alone? He remembers lunch, and shrugging because it made him feel strong, to see anger, envy glint in Sirius's eye at James's suggestion - such a minor, passing thing - that a Valentine's encounter might take place that night in Hogsmeade. How glad he'd been to see he could still draw feeling from Sirius, but how foolish he felt now, to have lost an evening for the sake of a look. How frustrated, too. Lessons learned, indeed.

Was Sirius really so small, then, so petty about this, about him, to go to such lengths to keep him away from Hogsmeade, away from a potential admirer who never existed? Remus clenches de-clawed hands about the wrappers, holding candy tight in his fingers. Sirius, with his loves aplenty, with his bold and careless claims of rutting, shagging that will ensue and likely already has at parties tonight, and with not heart enough to grant Remus even paper-permission to stroll through happy streets at the fall of night and rise of romance. Protection, he wonders, like these chocolates in his hands - here moony pretend you're having fun inside while I'm out cheating why don't you there's a good lad - from Sirius's callousness, or simply spite and punishment - the card in his other hand, speaking: here you might as well keep this because it's all you're ever getting from anyone but me.

He holds the two, heart and candy, a scale in worried balance, in wait - for anything, he doesn't care - eyes shut tight, chest heavy. He inhales slowly, curling thought of past days, years from the tendrils of air. He remembers kneeling, hands bunched firm at ribs, squeezing, pressing, saying please, please just sleep, a desperate lullaby to Wolf awakening, hungry, raging, please just sleep or kill me now. He remembers morning, bright and harsh and bitter at the edges, drawn tight and terse by almost-actions, nearly-deeds, eyes Severe in the Headmaster's office later on - "There's been a bit of an Incident." And mouth cotton dry, without words for the look of indifference from Sirius - "Yeah, well it didn't, and I won't again, so don't pitch a fit; no sense dwelling." And in it the unspoken, that after all these years, all the Marauder hurt and anger at the Ministry for everything, just everything, it's finally struck Sirius that, yes, a monster is amusement for those who live recklessly, and the Wolf domesticated to one Pack, a tool.

He remembers hurting for days after, a dull, helpless sort of tremor in his stomach that sex, as it happens in its normal time and place without pause, does little to assuage. He remembers Sirius starting to look elsewhere during the acts; he remembers looking elsewhere, too, for beauty and truth, and finding only faults, ceiling cracks, broken promises and dreams, lopsided gargoyle accoutrements.

Because it's all he has left, he learns that year, half-truths perfect for half-breeds. He learns not to be angry at the others, because fault, he knows, lies in himself, for being what he is, for straying too far that fateful day, for lingering in forest glade at the crux of dark, with mother calling for him to come back, come home. It's his fault for forgetting the way. It's his fault for not being quite so human any more.

Dorm door falls open eventually; the laughter pouring in with drunken, babbling men-turned-boys-for-bedtime pulls invading light and life from the corners of Remus's breathing, thinking. He listens for identities, finding in this first wave only the mildest of romancers, back early with their dates no doubt kissed and sent to bed already. These few are the gentlemen of Gryffindor seventh-year, Remus notes, feeling in himself a wave of sudden exhaustion. He nods passing, weary greeting to Frank, who smiles all aglow with love, true love, as he readies for bed.

Remus opens a drawer on his nightstand and only barely keeps himself from whipping both candy and card to the very back with all his strength. He's long since been ready for this game, this half-life, these half-hopes to be over and done with, and now more than ever he just wants to sleep - "And what a funny werewolf you are," his mother has said with a fretful laugh these last two summers, "Hating mornings." His robes, still half-on, fall the rest of the way with tired ease when urged, and Remus bows his head while listening to the adventures told light from lovers' lips around him - tall tales, gags, horror stories, sagas. Frank climbed a tree to bring back Alice's hat when it blew away, even though a wand would have worked just as well. He fell on his descent, and rolled to save the hat, to the incredulous laughter of many. But as Alice held him all night and kissed his cuts and babied him to health, Frank had the greatest smile in the end.

And Kingsley found himself a lovely set of twins, and Sirius had been getting to know a fine looking bird when they'd left, and Peter threw up and passed out, sickly and shivering on a chair because all the beds in the cottage were being used. And James struck gold.

"I've been thinking!" Frank mimicks in punctuated gasps, for James, it seems, had still been breathless when he'd reached Lily at appointed time and place. "That I've been a rotten sot, making all these plans on my own. So you know what? To hell with them, Lily, my love!" - and here Chris Creevey, ill-fitting the part of Lily Evans, starts into a swoon that is surely more drama than truth - "Tonight we'll do whatever you want! Anything, my love! I'll buy you the world!"

And Chris laughs, pushing a little at James and snatching up the "rose", little more than a quill here, peering at Frank with batting, pretty eyes as he sniffs it, trying not to sneeze. "Why James, you darling, you. I'll take it."

Then boys turned actors fall like abandoned puppets to their fits of laughter, and if there is any more to the story Remus knows he isn't going to get any of it. But he has had enough already, he decides, slipping beneath his covers as the others, straining to get back their breath, claim Sirius "Genius!" for disposing of all the doomed plans, the Humming Hearts, the Heros (an acquired taste at best), the drinking all memory of the night away.

Remus curls tighter under the covers, stomach and toes clenching unpleasantly. He shuts his eyes against the idle chatter, boyhood, manhood reinforcement of conquests, the swift abandoning of all failures. So human. No doubt James will thank Sirius most enthusiastically for helping him win the girl of his dreams at last, although there is likely to be some haggling over getting his pocket-change back, on account of the bet. No doubt he'll be man of the hour, day, and likely week for his quick thinking. How good a friend, they'll say, how daring and supportive.

All this and more, while Remus will sit, and sleep, and rise anew each day, to the trying task of counting the hours, minutes, moments between morning, noon-fuck and night, the half-hearted struggle to reclaim some sense of inner peace as he lives to the time of those around him. In this, at last, he knows all too well what Sirius surely pretends he doesn't: that the Wolf is a tool, a game, a distraction, and that Remus is a man possessed, owned because all know no monster can ever be free, even around those who feign equality. He belongs to Sirius - loves him, but merely belongs - and this is all he can hope for, ever. This is where gratitude must lie. So says the world. So says the Ministry, and the triumph in Sirius's smile when last he saw him. So says the snarl-claw breathing behind his muted human lips. So says this Day in passing before sleep, dreamless, carries Remus without fail to a morning sweet in scent alone, and the promise that he'll have to live it all again, just under a year from now.