Bitter and Sweet and Something Else

Sometimes it was hard to stop thinking about him. Sometimes it was impossible. Sometimes just hearing someone say his name was enough to make my stomach tighten and my imagination go off on a very inappropriate tangent. I found myself running into doorways and posts and suits of armour more often than I usually did because I was so distracted.

The fact that I was widely regarded as a buffoon was fabulous cover, but my great lack of physical coordination in his presence was starting to draw too much attention. Not many people would have noticed a difference in where and when I tripped over myself or smiled when there didn't seem to be any reason to, but James wasn't just anybody.

I think the phrase goes 'kick one and the other says ouch' and between James and me it wasn't an exaggeration. I think he realized something odd was going on when I did; that day at breakfast when he looked at me with such intense bewilderment and watched me grinning like a fool and walking off in a stupor without so much as a word of explanation.

Naturally none of this occurred to me until after he'd cornered me and demanded answers. He did it after the Halloween feast, when I was tired and stuffed with wonderful food. I couldn't have raised my guard if a dragon had walked into the great hall to sneeze in my hair and he knew it, the crafty bastard.

Remus and Peter had left the feast a little early so they could study and I was lazily watching them go, admiring what the candlelight did to Moony's fair skin when James shoved up next to me on the bench and nearly knocked me off it.

What are you planning, Padfoot?

I blinked at him and asked him what in the blue blazes he was talking about, but he just repeated the question. I thought he might be pulling my leg, trying to throw me off like he sometimes did, and I laughed and called him out on it, but he just elbowed me in the ribs and said I'm being serious.

So am I. Have been since I was born I joked, but he just gave me a look. I knew then that he wasn't going to let me obliterate the conversation with bad one-liners and avoidance tactics like I usually did when I got the feeling that I wasn't going to like what we were talking about. I was getting that feeling right then, strong as a hex to the head.

You've got something up your sleeve and I'm not going to let you even try it. He looked very severe. Almost like a teacher. I stared at him.

What are you talking about? I'm not planning anything.

Don't do it, Sirius. I'm surprised you would even think it.

Sod off mate. What are you babbling about?

Moony, you prat!

I twitched so badly that I sent a fork flying.

What about Moony? I knew how badly I was failing to sound nonchalant, and he gave a withering look.

I can't believe you.

I'm not planning anything, I swear!

You're a terrible liar.

Yeah, well, I would be if I was lying, but I'm not.

There was a strong silence.

How could you even think about another prank on Moony after what happened in fifth with Snape? Are you a masochist or something? Want him to be that mad at you again?

I gaped, jaw open, just like a fish. No matter how comfortable and sated I'd been a moment before, this accusation made me very, very angry.

I would never-- you think I enjoyed being hated by him? You think I'm so thick that I'd risk him never talking to me again? You think I liked feeling like everything inside of me was shredded up when he looked at me? You've got something wrong with your head if you think I would ever do anything like that to him again!

My absolute indignation must have convinced him, because he went an embarrassed pink and got angry right back at me.

Well how was I supposed to know what you were thinking grinning like that every time Moony came around? And how you've been staring off into the distance like you're scheming something and muttering in your sleep all the time!

I tried to interrupt him right then to find out exactly what I'd been muttering, but he poked me in the chest with a finger.

You're damn distracted! I saw you looking at Remus right before you knocked over that line of Hufflepuff second years. And right before you fell down those stairs. So if you aren't planning on pranking him, what the hell are you doing?

I like to think that if I hadn't been so full of treacle tart I'd have been able to come up with a good lie. Any lie, even, but my mind failed me completely and went utterly blank. I just stared at the crumbs on my plate and felt my face grow incredibly, incriminatingly red.

Kick one and the other says ouch.

It only took James a moment to realize exactly what was going on. He let out a long, low breath and I could see him out of the corner of my eye, checking around us to make sure no one was listening.

Shit, Sirius. You fancy him, don't you?

To hear someone say it, even someone I trusted completely, even though he said it so quietly; it nearly made me panic right then and there.

If you tell anyone I'll hunt you down and--

Relax Sirius, I won't tell anyone else. Promise on my honour as Prongs.

Embarrassment and relief made me put my head in my arms, my elbows against the table. My heart was still pounding with the terror of discovery and my face was still hot to the touch, but the reassuring tone of James' voice was something to hear.

I remember the jumble of scenarios that went through my head, half-exaggerated visions of how life might be like now that someone knew, now that my secret was divided instead of whole and heavy within me. Even through the fading edges of my dread the load felt lighter and I felt a little less alone, as stupidly soft as that sounds. James gave me a comforting nudge, and if I believed in the gods I would have thanked them on bended knee for the kind of brother I had in him.

I think I might tell Moony though. I think he should--

I tackled him, knocked him right off the bench. We wrestled on the floor, knocking benches over and flailing into the people still eating. James couldn't even defend himself properly because he was laughing so hard. I got him into a headlock and let him go only when he'd sworn on vital parts of his anatomy that he wouldn't breathe a word to anyone.

Bloody gods. Bloody James.

But he kept is word, at least as far as I knew.

I wondered for a long time if he was really okay with it. I mean really okay with it, not just successfully suppressing the urge to wretch when he saw me and run away. I kept having to remind myself that it would have been obvious if he was weird about it; James' heart was always on his sleeve, visible from a great distance, at night, in the fog, like a bloody great neon beacon.

I knew that about him better than anyone, but I had to ask him anyways, had to hear in his own voice that he wasn't disgusted with me. When I finally did, he just squinted at me very seriously from behind his specs and gave me a long speech about his 'interesting' cousin Laurence and how love is love is love, and that if I ever fretted about it in his presence again he would pull my shorts right over my head and hex them to shrink slowly over several hours.

So, I knew that he was alright with it, but as soon as I really thought about it, I realized that most everyone else I knew would probably think I was lecherous and twisted; some kind of nasty, pervy boy-fancier just because I happened to want to jump the bones of someone with the same parts as me.

The truth was that I hadn't ever really found anyone that affected me like Remus. I wasn't gay, not really; I didn't find myself attracted to anyone male except for him, and even that was just... gravity. Magnetism.

My interest in women ended with the idea that I was expected to spend my adult life with one. I'd dated a few and even gotten semi-serious, but in the end none of them had ever made me feel happy. That and the fact that-- without exception-- females did little more than nag me and take offence at my lack of dashing qualities. That just turned me right off them, like a whiff of bad cheese.

I just really didn't want to be with anyone.

Except Remus.

The idea of trying to explain that kind of ambiguously fixed sexuality to someone like my mother was about as pleasant as the notion of getting your teeth pulled with rusty tongs out through your nose. It was easy enough to imagine the screeching and the shouting and the yelling and all the fainting and the melodrama and the hateful, hateful words and the numerous disownments and blood curses, one after the other.

The fact that she had given birth to me didn't earn her any points in my book, and over the years I'd gradually begun to truly hate her. The more I thought of how some day she might find out that I loved a man, the more I realized that she would and never did care about me, not as her son, not as her child, and that nothing I ever did would make me welcome in her house. By now I'd been deemed beyond all hope in her eyes, and it was an unexpected comfort to realize that I just didn't care anymore.

I remember wondering, though, if I could manage the same apathy with everyone else. I wondered what Lily and Peter would think, my uncle Alphard and what family I had that didn't repulse me. I wondered if Remus would ever make eye contact with me again if he knew. I wondered how long I could stand living with my head in the proverbial meat grinder and still survive school. I wondered, more than anything, if this madness of mine, this ridiculous confusion, would ever stop.

Over the course of the next few weeks of that year I was too occupied with trying to behave around Remus to even think about it. For all the effort I put into trying to ignore my angst and wildly improbable flights of fancy, I might as well have sold off my IQ one point at a time for a knut each and gotten rich.

I turned into a moron. A complete and utter imbecile.

The deterioration of my ability to walk in a straight line with Remus around was apparently only the beginning. It became impossible to think; impossible to form sentences or remember words because all of my attention was taken up by him. Consumed by him. Devoured. Destroyed. Banished. Scattered and flung to the far corners of the bloody earth. It was like living in the shadow of the wall of China and not looking at it-- Ever.

Trying not to linger around him, trying not to touch him accidentally at every opportunity, trying not to read over his shoulder just to feel his body heat; it was a feat of will that I failed at repeatedly. I had it so bad that I felt occasional pangs of jealousy for his clothes simply because they could feel his skin and I could not; I wanted to be that close to him.

I wasn't even being a nuisance anymore; Teachers pulled me aside after classes to try to find out what was wrong with me. Once I was so out of it that I didn't notice that transfiguration was over and that everyone had already left. McGonagall came over to ask me why I hadn't shoved my way to the front of the queue at the door like usual and scared the shat out of me so badly when she touched my shoulder that I jumped three feet and fell out of my desk sideways. She threatened to drag me to the hospital wing herself if I didn't stop acting like a zombie, but I escaped her by promising that I would eat more food with iron in it, or something.

After that I knew I had to wake up or I'd just walk out a window by mistake and plummet to my death without ever figuring out where I'd taken the wrong turn. I did everything I could to pay attention to what was going on around me, to be aware of where I was putting my feet and where I was heading. I even tried studying, but that was a huge flop until Remus started helping me. I tried to lie and say that I wasn't actually doing that bad in my classes; I'd always been able to pull something off in a pinch, but I couldn't put him off the idea of tutoring me.

At first I was scared shitless that I would do something entirely idiotic, like confess something, but I hadn't reckoned on James, Peter or Lily making themselves present nearly every night so it wouldn't have to be just me and Remus. With someone else there, I could do what we'd always done and goof off while concentrating just a little. That, instead of having to use every ounce of focus trying to suppress the infatuation coming off of me in waves and accomplishing absolutely nothing all night.

Whether everyone showed up at James' request or just meandered over I'll never know, but as long as they were there I didn't care.

It turned into a kind of nightly spectacle in the common room, and our little study group grew a little every day until there were connected clumps of us spread out all over the chairs and sofas in front of the fire, shouting questions and answers back and forth and laughing at how geeky we were all being.

It was really... nice to be able to be around Remus and not have to feel terrified of how I might act. I could finally relax, calm myself down and unwind for the first time in months. And it was just fantastic to hear him read, to see how happy it made him to teach someone, and I freely admit that I asked for more help than I really needed just so I could hear that tone of voice he uses when he's explaining something.

Two weeks of this worked wonders on me; by the middle of December I wasn't feeling as if my mind was in the midst of a dust devil of its own making. I could be alone with Remus without having a panic attack and lamely excusing myself to run off to a privy somewhere to bang my head against the sink in an effort to think only pure thoughts. James wasn't watching me as closely and didn't seem to be worrying much about letting me walk anywhere on my own.

I didn't realize how resoundingly lost I'd been until one night by the fire a week and a half before the winter holidays: It was to be another study night, and the lot of us were gathered about the fire trying to define the so-called 'morphic properties' of an everyday object of our choice for Charms. Lily had chosen a music box and Remus had a huge and elaborately inlaid tome in his hand-- both of which would be ridiculously complicated-- while James stared vacantly at his broom and Peter contemplated a towel. I'd chosen my bedroom slippers, but instead of trying to solve the assignment by gazing at the things, I'd stuck one hand in each to make puppets and was acting out a rather complicated play with only two characters.

They were all trying to ignore me, but I could see mouths twitching, exaggerated disapproving frowns that were obviously faked, and could hear someone every so often choke on a laugh and try to pass it off as cough. They lost it completely when I sent one of the slippers flying into the fire in a fit of dramatic gesticulation at the climax of the plot and they all fell about laughing, getting vigorously shushed by other study groups in the common room.

I hadn't found it that amusing, seeing as I'd just lost half of my homework, but by the way Peter had to wipe his streaming eyes on his towel and James had to save Lily's music box when she fell over sideways on the couch, it had been hysterical.

Remus just sat back in his chair, smiling at me in a way I hadn't seen for weeks, the firelight warming his skin and his hair and his eyes, outlining him in gold. God-- I couldn't have looked away even if I'd wanted to.

There you are, was all he said.

I blinked, looked round to see everyone nodding, and gave them all a rather dull witted reply of, Wot?

You've been a vegetable for months Sirius, Lily said, still giggling and wiping her eyes on the sleeve of James' robes.

A turnip, even.

More like a lumpy great potato.

We were worried about you.

But you seem to be back to yourself now, so that's alright then, isn't it?

If you call normal behaviour acting like a spastic moron and chucking your slippers in the fire.

Is that what those were? I thought they were badly knitted hats.

I glared at each of them in turn.

I have not been a turnip. Or a potato. And the incineration of my slipper is not a cause for celebration.

But they all just laughed.

It struck me then that it had been a long time since we'd all laughed like that, all of us together. And it was the first time that I'd ever made Lily laugh enough to cry. For all the weeks that I'd had a nagging sense that she'd purposely stolen my best mate, I had nothing but good will for her at that one moment, watching her re-enact my slipper mishap with more grace than any male could have managed.

The Marauders would only ever be the four of us boys, but Lily added something to the mix that had been lacking before... other than the fact that James lit up like a bonfire whenever she was around and moped like a soggy mop when she wasn't.

Lily...

She always had a strong personality, a sharp mind, and a wilful tongue, but she was also fiercely feminine like no other girl I'd ever met. I remember thinking that if I was going to lose James to some tart, it had better be a real tart. Not one of these flowery females that wanted to have poetry spouted in their ears and chocolates on holidays; Lily was the kind of girl that could curl her hair on her wand and take you down with a leg-locker curse at the same time.

I don't think anyone with any less fire in them would have been able to protect their child from the Avada Kadavra; the sheer force of her affection must have been something exceptional for her to leave such a mark. I'm sorry that Harry never got to know her, not just as his mother, but as one hell of a woman.

I know she didn't think much of me at first; In fact, I remember her calling me 'the quintessential male pig' early in our acquaintance, loudly and in company, and nothing seemed to change her mind for a long time. James' word that I was perfectly civil was useless, not just because he was wrong but because as far as she was concerned he was completely under the spell of my terrible influence, Remus was simply too polite to say anything negative about me, and Peter was bullied into never speaking a word against Big Bad Black.

All that was bullocks of course, but she was never fooled by my attempts to either terrorize her or win her over with a charm that I've never possessed; There had never been any pretences between us, and I think ultimately it was that fact that finally allowed us to get along.

When I brought store-bought bunt cake with fake bits of fruit in it to holiday celebrations as my contribution to the meal, she knew perfectly well that I couldn't think of anything better, and I never thought any less of her for never eating any of it. When she asked me to be Harry's godfather, it wasn't because she wanted her son to get any kind of valuable education from me on life and the way of things; it was because she knew that I would do anything to be there whenever he needed me for anything. Bodily, stubbornly, physically present, in person, as his guardian and father's friend.

I don't have to say how much it tore at me that I failed to do this more often than I succeeded, but I will anyway: I've been a shitty godfather. I've been a mess for a long, long time and even after I got out of Azkaban, I was hardly allowed to be there like I said I would.

One thing that always amazes me is how easily Harry forgave me for that.

Circumstances don't seem like an adequate excuse, but he was just so happy with the fact that I existed. That look on his face when I asked him if he wanted to live with me-- like I'd just handed him a hot fudge Sunday with sprinkles-- is a look I'll always treasure. It's enough to summon a bloody fantastic patronus.

I like to think that James would've appreciated how much I tried, how much I really did want to be a decent guardian for his only child. I like to think that, but the best of intentions just isn't enough, not when the person you're trying to protect and care for is hated by the most powerful dark wizard to live in hundreds of years.

Now that I can look back on it, now that I have the terrible gift of hindsight, I wonder how any of it-- my life, Harry's life, Remus' life-- would have possibly turned out any different. I wonder if I could have changed anything, if all that shit that we went through was somehow necessary.

If I hadn't switched with Peter as secret keeper, would James and Lily have lived? Would their death have been simply postponed? Would that prophecy have been made? Would it have been Harry that fulfilled it? Would Peter have been loyal to us, to his friends? Would the mercy of fate have given Remus a better life?

Once you start to doubt, you can't stop. Once you begin to wish, there simply isn't an end. I wanted so much for Harry. I wanted him to experience how much his parents loved him, wanted him to never feel the pain of losing a father or the sting of a mother's rejection like I had. I wanted for him to never know the kind of hardship he'd already faced by the time I escaped from Azkaban and made my way to him.

It's hard to reconcile all the terrible things in life with the good you get in fits and bursts. Sometimes it just isn't fucking fair. You get too much of the blood and the grief and the despair and you become terribly, horribly numb. Or you get so much wonder and happiness all at once that you can barely handle it and you have to live through the instant it inevitably slips from your grasp. My own life has flipped, slid, from one extreme to the other. I keep a list of the best and worst moments.

The latter is endless because in that hell, in that pit of anguish and torment and suffering, in that cell with its walls and bars, you live every horrible moment, every pain, every shame, every feeling of guilt and grief and disgrace over again, and again and again, ceaselessly. Relentlessly. Incessantly. Perpetually and eternally. Every time you do, another terrible moment is created, another memory black as wretch is left in your mind for you to recall for the rest of your life, such as it is in that place.

Those twelve years are a hole in my life, a hollow, an abyss. It crushed me, destroyed me. Physically, mentally, utterly. I was far more than mad by the end of it, lost in a permanent fever dream. I'm surprised that I didn't get Harry killed. Or Remus, or Hermione, or Ron. But that night at Hogwarts saved me, gave me enough to hold on to, gave me a reason to keep living and fighting. My motives had started as simple vengeance, but they grew into so much more. Harry made me remember the vows I'd forgotten, the duty I might still fulfil and the Godson I stood to gain. Remus reminded me that happiness was still something real, that I had a chance to feel it again.

It took me a very long time to recover from Azkaban. As it is, I'll never be rid of it, of some of the things it's left stamped in me. The claustrophobia won't ever go away, nor will the nightmares, but the gift of not being in that cell, of being capable of remembering the contentment I'd once had is something beautiful; the best of my life is as bright as the worst is black, and there was nothing more brilliant than the second half of our seventh year...

I'd meant to get to this more directly, but my mind is not exactly a linear creature...

It was about a week after that night that I'd made Lily laugh, that I'd finally realized how much I was being distracted by Remus; it was that day, that weekend, the last Hogsmeade visit before Christmas, that led to the third best moment of my life. Unfortunately it came after a long, exasperating day that nearly made me hiss and spit with irritation, with an anxious week tacked onto the end of it to boot.

It started with Remus not wanting to go to Hogsmeade at all, and he and James and I getting into a row about it. Moony didn't have any gold to spend on anything, and he knew that we knew, and he knew that we never minded paying his share, but he positively, absolutely hates that fact. He's hardly a proud bastard, but when it comes to 'taking charity' as he calls it, he's the proudest bastard of all. He'd rather starve than have us cover for the cost of his salad, rather walk a hundred miles than share a broom.

I tried to get James to just leave him be, let him stay behind if he wanted to, even if he was being a prat, but James was adamant. Totally, unbelievably immovable. I've never seen him that stubborn, and if I'd been thinking I would have wondered what he was up to. I didn't of course, so we just butted heads and got sore about it, while Remus was angry with both us for fighting at all and for trying to order him around. Peter just laughed himself stupid about the whole thing and irked us even further.

In the end we went to Hogsmeade in a miserable huff, trailing metaphorical rain clouds behind us all the way. We sniped and bitched about where to go and what to do, and finally James decided that we were going to go in search of some café that he'd heard about at the far side of the village. It would have been fine if it hadn't taken us an hour to find the bloody place, or if the sun hadn't already been dipping low, making the air so frigid and still that it hurt to breathe deeply, or if it hadn't been so bright and clear that we were all snow blinded and kept stepping on each other's frozen feet, or if any of us had thought to bring mitts and scarves, or if I'd just never gotten out of bed.

I was actually to the point of wishing that James had just knocked me out and left me lying on the common room floor when we finally stumbled through the door of 'Floe's Coffee Stop and Snack Emporium'. Not only was it dim, dank, and wholly dull in all respects, it had the ugliest décor I'd ever seen and smelled like wet dirt and burnt fish. I saw Remus wrinkle his nose in disgust and felt sorry for him; his sense of smell is rather sensitive. James had the audacity to squint through the greasy air and say How lovely like he meant it before striding off to the farthest back corner, away from the door and any fresh air. Reluctantly we all filed into the seats next to him. Even Peter wasn't amused.

I'd thought that whatever fiasco I was to have that day would have been over, but it only got worse; the waitress ignored half of what any of us said and seemed to be greatly entertained when we had to repeat ourselves several times. When it arrived, the coffee tasted like it had some kind of old meat in it and the muffins were so dry that they crumbled if you touched them and disintegrated altogether when you tried to pick them up. All of this and Remus was still irritated with us and James was still acting like this was a grand idea.

When I asked him, sarcastically, whether he was proud of the choices he'd made so far, he leaned against the table with a great deal of gravity and said that he was. Now that we were well out of the sight or earshot of any other Hogwarts students, he could get down to the reason why he'd dragged us all out here in the first place.

Then he looked at me--looked at me-- and if I'd realized what it meant, I would have knocked him out. Right then and there, I would have hit him and dragged him away so he couldn't say anything... but I didn't.

Then he looked at Remus the same way, with so much significance and meaning. Remus looked very confused for a moment, but as James kept staring at him something changed. His brown eyes suddenly filled with panic; a frantic terror that was so misplaced that I thought I was seeing things.

No, he hissed, you son of a bitch, you said you wouldn't breathe a word--

I'm sick of you two, James spat, fiercely, and I didn't realize that he was talking about me until he glanced my way. Remus tried to speak again, but he cut him off. And I'm sick of your martyr shit. I can't stand it anymore. You don't say a thing about it but I know you. I know what you do to yourself over this.

Lost, I looked to Peter, but he was as baffled as I, and obviously as apprehensive. That was the moment that my gut twisted and I felt slightly sick. Something very serious was going on; Moony and Prongs never talked to each other like this, not in that tone of voice.

Remus was wide eyed, glaring at James, his cheeks colouring with a furious, blotchy pink that I'd rarely seen, but he was still plainly frightened out of his wits.

You don't know anything.

He whispered it, through his teeth, like he didn't dare move his mouth. He wouldn't look at me, wouldn't acknowledge my presence, wouldn't tell me what the bloody fuck was going on. Anxiety was aggravating me.

Look, if this concerns me, then--

Shut up, James snapped, and just listen.

I fell silent, stung, and looked to Remus again, but his eyes were on the dirty table top. James sighed, once, angrily. Then he spoke, abruptly, bluntly, with no subtlety or sensitivity.

You're both going to listen to me. I'm going to break my word, and I'm sorry for that, but I'm not going to sit around with my thumbs up my arse while you two are miserable and oblivious. It's shit. I hate watching it and I won't do it anymore.

He looked between us then, between me and Remus, and something like distressed pity came through in his face.

You are so fucking in love with each other, he said, exasperated. Don't you dare try to deny it. You both told me so. You weren't lying. He stood up, leaning forward on his hands against the table, eyes still going from me to Remus and back again.

And I'm not lying.

He straightened, walked around the table, grabbed Peter by the back of his robes and pulled him, spluttering in surprise, out of the café. I was suddenly alone with Remus... and I still had no idea exactly what was going on. Everything was misted over, blurry somehow, stifling logic and thought. The only thing clear to me was the absolute dread in the pit of my stomach, the anxiety thick in my veins.

This was the edge of something deep, something more profound and important than I could understand. I was leaning over the mouth of an abyss, and something reckless in me stirred; if he wouldn't jump, I would.

He wasn't lying.

I heard my own voice, but I wasn't sure what I was trying to say. I wasn't sure if I wanted Remus to answer me. He didn't, not for a long while.

No he wasn't.

Then--

No.

What?

Siruis, no. I'm sorry.

He got up and left, just walked out of the café, his face dangerously hard.

Thoughts like thick molasses sloshed in my head, numbed by shock and trying to catch up to everything. Then one revelation at a time clicked into place like rusty cog wheels until my mind was spinning and there was a rushing, roaring sound all around me. The fog between my ears cleared and the torrent of emotion made my heart race and my eyes sting.

Somehow the strongest feeling of the millions raging through my veins was indignation at being left there, sitting by myself in that thrice damned café with the tab on my head.

I tossed some coins onto the table and ran outside, just catching sight of Remus' back as he walked hurriedly down the street. His shoulders stiffened when I called his name, and for moment I thought he would just keep going, but he turned.

The way he looked at me was so reminiscent of those long months he spent seething against me that I skidded to a halt in the snow six feet away. I wanted to ask him how he could just walk away like that, how he could just brush aside everything he'd heard, but the words died in my mouth at that flicker of something feral in his eyes.

I don't know what you were expecting he said, and something withered inside me.

You said that he wasn't lying, that means you--

Yes, he snapped, I do. But I can't do anything about it.

What the hell do you mean by that?

I mean that I can't.

I stared at him. This was Remus looking at me like I was a child. This was Remus chiding me for something foolish; Remus with all his doors closed, all his walls up and hidden behind every layer he possessed. It was unbearable.

I asked him why.

Because I can't.

Why? I said it again, forcefully.

Sirius.

It was a warning, but I ignored it. I have a right to know.

And I have a right to tell you nothing. James should have kept his mouth shut.

Yes, but he bloody didn't, did he? Now I know --

No. I can't.

Remus--

I can't!

If you don't start using new words in five seconds I swear I'll knock you over!

Then knock me over and give me an excuse to knock you back if that's what it takes to get you to drop it! He was unsettled; his cool demeanour had broken and he was standing as taught as a bowstring, his jaw clenched.

Just leave it well enough alone.

No.

I would have been levelled flat by his gaze if I hadn't already been extremely irritated. Consequences were beyond me. A belligerent stubbornness the likes of which I've never felt welled up in me, and completely took over my mouth.

I won't just leave it. I want to be with you.

You're asking for nothing but trouble and pain.

Good. I want it.

He made a frustrated noise, something akin to a growl and made angry gestures with his hands, like he wanted to choke me.

Sirius, I am a werewolf--

Since when have I ever cared?

It doesn't matter whether you care or not. Other people do.

Sod other people!

Maybe you have that luxury, but these people decide whether I have the right to exist. I will not provoke them.

His voice had gotten very tight, and very quiet. I knew exactly what kind of trouble that meant, but I couldn't help myself; my voice was rising.

Right, by letting yourself be with me?

By being with anyone.

By being fucking happy for once?

Who said that you could make me happy?

His eyes cut into me like a whip. I deflated, sagged, stung to the core. I felt like I'd swallowed cold salt water.

You said he wasn't lying. My voice was weak, plaintive. He made another frustrated noise, ran a hand over his face, left his palm over his mouth when he spoke, muffling the words.

This isn't that simple.

I threw my hands up and gave a choked laugh.

Why the fuck not?

Because nothing ever is.

That's not an answer.

Then what would you have me say?

His hand dropped from his mouth, fell heavily to his side. We were still six feet apart, ankle deep in snow with our breath hanging in the frigid air. I could see strands of his hair frozen into little spikes. There were snowflakes in his eyelashes and on his cheeks, melting and gleaming. Something about the light changed his eyes, made them deeper, richer...

You would never think-- he's not handsome, not really. But I wondered then, suddenly, if I would ever find anyone else so attractive... and I knew, on a level so deep it felt like the bottom of my spine, that somehow I never would. I would never know another human being that drove me to such distraction, to such contentment and to such frustration. I would never see anyone else as I saw him then, in that light, in that moment.

I moved forward, right up to him, the sounds of ice crunching under my boots sharp in the muffled stillness until I could see his pulse at his throat, until I could feel the mist of his breath freezing against my own neck. Until we were inches apart.

He went absolutely still.

Proximity wasn't the trouble; we'd been physically closer before. We'd hugged and punched each other, we'd wrestled and touched in perfect innocence, but now...

I could feel the heat of him through all the thick layers of clothing, and it was all I could do not to conjure thoughts of what it would be like to be together, to cross that line. We'd never faced each other like this, not with that knowledge, not with that anticipation in me strangling every coherent thought in my mind and threatening to take over me completely.

The moment stretched too long, but I couldn't think of how to break it, how I could walk away or how I could deny the powerful and consuming urge to kiss him. I studied him, took in every detail, watched as he tried to think of what words could possibly undo this, what he could possibly say that could take back what James had said and what neither of us had denied.

I saw the subtle instant when logic failed him, that second when he realized that words couldn't do him any good when we were this close; He closed his eyes, and I could see him fighting with himself. I shuddered when every heavy breath of his touched my skin, ruffled my hair.

I touched his face, lifted his chin; met his gaze with mine, though my fingers were shaking and numb. His hands, as frozen as my own, tangled angrily in the front of my robes, caught on my tie, twisted against my collar-- and he was kissing me; fiercely, hungrily, desperately and awkwardly.

Fuck, but he tasted fantastic! Like honey and peppermint and something else that made me light headed. And I'd never been kissed like that before; Like a dam had burst, like a flash flood, like he'd opened himself to me completely, just for a handful of seconds; like he wanted me to feel everything he'd been keeping hidden, like he wanted me to breath him in entirely. He didn't really know how to kiss, but nothing could have mattered less; I was filling with an incredible elation, a profound relief and a sense that this was exactly where I was meant to be; Against him, holding him to me, his mouth over mine.

And then he pulled away from me and I was left panting, blurry eyed, clinging to his sleeves when he took a faltering step backward. He was staring at his shoes, struggling to get a hold of his rapid breathing. I remember tugging on his shirt, blindly trying to pull him back to me, but he shook his head, mumbling quietly to himself. I couldn't make it out, couldn't hear him properly. He looked up at me, gold-brown eyes wide and serious. I could see ice in his dark eyelashes.

I'm going to kill him.

I stared at him, still bewildered by the bubble of joyous, blissful emotions that was steadily rising within me and threatening to make me implode, shrouding my thoughts in something vaguely warm and blurred.

James, he said quietly, I'm going to bloody kill him and you bloody well better help me.

I blinked twice, and then started to laugh. I was shivering with reaction from the taste of him, was still light-headed and decidedly disoriented-- was in fact bordering on hysterically giddy. I laughed until my eyes were streaming and salt was freezing on my cheeks.

When I could breathe again, I told him that I would jolly well hand him the weapon to do it, and Remus laughed with me, dissolving quickly into a fit of giggling, his voice bright and sharp and just a touch out of control. By the time it faded we were both trembling in earnest and the cold was only half the cause.

I remember the moment of undecided intensity that followed, that brief pause where everything went so unbelievably still and we did nothing but look each other in the eyes... and then his gaze slid from mine, his smile fading, and I saw the fear, the barely restrained panic return, watched it sweep across his face.

But I didn't want him to be afraid. Not of me, not of this, not of what was happening. I felt... protectiveness for him then, a great wave of it, hot and powerful, like the moment I first saw hope in his face; It was the moment when we were both twelve and we knew exactly what he was and I wanted nothing more than to fold him in my arms and keep the world and the wolf at bay. It was that all over again, but so much stronger.

That... pit, that emotional cliff was still there, was still looming. I could still feel it, deep and terrifyingly wondrous, and wanted nothing more than to go leaping off the edge and be done with it, wanted to grab him and kiss him and show him what I was feeling, make him realize...but then I remembered that this was Remus. I realized that I couldn't just go jumping into the figurative blue. I could never expect to drag him after me.

My hands tightened on his cuffs. It was so hard to suppress the urge to draw him toward me again, to put a hand against his chest and just pull... but I knew that I couldn't. I took a deep breath, felt my lungs burn in the frigid air, and stepped backward from that yawning edge-- that awful, tempting choice-- and dropped that judgment right out of my own hands.

This is up to you, I said, and felt the words thicken on my tongue. This is completely up to you.

He shook his head, slowly, looking aggrieved and sick, the fierce anger and the abrupt mirth both gone; he looked so worn, and so scared.

Sirius, I have to--

Think about it. I know. Just...

I pulled him to me, then, unable to help it for all the mulish will that I knew I had in spades, my fingers curling into his sleeves, and I pressed his forehead to mine, feeling his frozen hair against my skin.

I wasn't lying.

My voice went rough, but only a little.

I wasn't.

He made a sound, something smothered and a little desperate.

I know, was all he said. He gripped the front of my shirt with one hand, fingers tightening into a fist... and then, with a strength that I couldn't have summoned, he let go, and pushed me gently away.

Those last words echoing round the inside of my head, we parted, although... I don't remember how. He just went one way, farther up the street I guess, and I went the other, wandering towards Hogwarts in a stupor. All I could think of was the way the taste of him was slowly fading from my tongue.